A/N: Ottra in this chappie for those who wish to know. :D I think I'll bump up the rating to K-plus…

After an afternoon of hanging around helping at Otto and Wing's room, where the decorations still apparently hadn't run out yet, Laura returned to her shared room and collapsed onto her bed exhausted. Which was when she realized she hadn't actually gotten any studying done for their test the next day. She groaned and rolled over, smushing her face into her pillow.

And that was why a certain pony-tailed blonde decided that it was the perfect time to attempt to cheer her roommate up.

"What's wrong Laura?" She bounced over, high on Holiday Spirit.

"I'm tired, so shove off Shel. I didn't even study," the Scottie mumbled into her pillow. Then she rolled over to face the wall. "G'night."

"But it's not even lock-down yet!" Shelby protested a millisecond before there was an audible click from the door as lock-down began until 6am the next morning. "Ok, never mind that. But still. You should be up coding or decoding or doing whatever! Not being all bah-hum-buggy!"

"I'm just tired," Laura replied and pulled the covers over herself.

Shelby huffed and resumed stringing Christmas lights all over the room so that even when the lights were turned off everything was illuminated by the tiny multi-colored blinking lights filled with that gas she'd forgotten the name of.

After a while she could hear the rhythmic deep breaths from Laura's side of the room, which was occasionally accompanied with little contented sighs that made Shelby wonder whether her roommate was dreaming about a certain non-red-eyed albino.

And a little later (like about 4 to 5 hours), though to her Shelby Standard Christmas Décor the room still wasn't completely up to uh, standard, she stopped; let go of the shiny glass bauble she'd been sleepily trying and failing to hang up; and dropped down onto her bed, asleep as soon as she'd gotten her hair out of her hair-tie, removed her shoes, slipped a fabric eyeshade over her head and settled down under the blanket.

Meanwhile the glass bauble hit the floor silently and didn't break.

Maybe there was some Christmas magic in the air after all...

Laura sat in her Logistics and Operations classroom - which was the last class of the day, dutifully completing the test, she noticed that several (okay, many) of her classmates were pretty jittery. She pushed it aside as pre-winter-break excitement and filled in her last answer.

Then after a while of watching the rest of the students scribbling in random answers to the questions on the sheets of paper, the sound of-

MWAH, MWAAAAAH, MWAH!

Everyone scrambled up from their desks, threw their backpacks over their shoulders and tossed the test papers in the general direction of the teacher's desk, attempting to squeeze out of the classroom door all at once.

Paper, of course, being paper, didn't really make it to the intended target and scattered around the classroom. Only the select few who weren't so caught up by the excitement, (like our dear Scottie friend over here), bothered to stay behind to help Mr. Rictor pick up the tests.

"Thanks children," Mr. Rictor said, breathing heavily after bending down to pick up a couple of test papers. He stood by his desk and watched Laura and a couple of the others pick up the rest.

Children. Not that it was technically wrong, since they were (sort of), but still – it sounded just a bit strange.

Laura walked out of the classroom and was just entering Accommodation Block 7 after handing the sheaf of test papers she'd collected to Mr. Rictor, only to be confronted by the sight of a huge hole in the middle of the atrium.

Well….

It wasn't exactly a hole in a sense.

Not really.

Really, it was just a large area that all the students were giving a wide berth.

Except for the aforementioned non-red-eyed albino, who was lounging quite happily on a couch directly in the center of the empty area.

Laura, confused, moved forward into the block and made to walk towards Otto. Halfway there, she was tackled by a blonde.

"Don't go there," Shelby hissed into her ear as she gripped Laura's arm and swiftly dragged the half-walking-half-stumbling girl to another couch on one end of the accommodation block, where one would have a perfect view of Otto if they sat on a particular spot of the couch.

Laura sat down on the couch rubbing her arm where she was certain a bruise would show up the next day. "Why?"

"Because," the American explained rather impatiently, "I want to see how long it took before someone walks up to the dude. I feel bad for whichever poor and ignorant soul does though…"

"Why? Did Otto do that whole not bathing for a month experiment thing again?"

"What- no! Besides you would have smelt it if he had. We had brekkie this morning together – remember? And you know, the morning before that… plus you guys spend so much time together in the labs you would have smelt him already- wait. Eww. That's disgusting. Never mind." Shelby's face screwed up in disgust for a second then it cleared and she looked at Laura. "Didn't you see it?"

"See what?" Laura said, instantly looking all around the accommodation block just in case a supremely evil psychopathic homicidal AI was holding Otto captive on that couch and would kill anybody who stepped near him.

Shelby sighed. "The mistletoe. You know, the thing directly above the albino's head?"

Laura blinked. Then looked above Otto's head to the high ceiling, where there was, indeed, a teensy little sprig of something greenish.

"So?" she asked innocently. There wasn't a trace of fakery in it.

Shelby grabbed her friend and roommate by the shoulders and shook her. "Are you serious girl?! I mean, I know you don't celebrate Christmas and all but this?! This! How do you not know about the mistletoe?"

"Well, you if you could just tell me," Laura said testily, removing herself from Shelby's grasp.

"Right. Whichever two people stand beneath the mistletoe have to kiss. It's tradition. Oh wait a sec… That's perfect for you, Brand! Come on, let's go get you under that plant with Malpense!" Without letting Laura reply, Shelby pulled Laura to her feet and toward the couch.

Laura dug in her heels and managed to stop the blonde. "What makes you think I want to kiss Otto? We're just friends!"

"Tell that to your subconscious Brand. It's been blurting out secrets to me since our first year here." Shelby said. The two of them were standing a couple of meters away from the imaginary circle of Otto's.

Laura's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You drugged me?"

"No of course not! Nothing like that. You talk in your sleep…!"

"Wha- oh. I thought that habit went away when I- never mind. Anyway. No matter what my subconscious 'says', me and Otto are just friends."

Shelby put her hands on her friend's shoulders and looked her in the eye. "Look. You're right!"

Laura looked at her friend warily. Her roommate never gave up that easily.

Shelby grinned. "At least you are now. After this kiss you'll be more than that!" Then she straightened up and fairly beamed.

Laura crossed her arms. "Look Shelby. I appreciate you trying to be the matchmaker and all, but I do not need you to set me up with Otto."

That said, she turned on her heel and stalked back to their shared room, trying to convince herself that it was true.

…

That mistletoe would do a better job than Shelby at playing matchmaker, anyway.

Not that she needed one.

Or at least that's what she would keep telling herself.

Still…

Otto was just sitting there…

Under the mistletoe…

No.

No.

She and Otto were just friends.

Just friends.

And she believed it.

Sort of.

A/N: I realize this chapter probably has waaaaay too many italicizing. [shrug] Next chapter update soon! (I know I'm going pretty fast with this but I want the final and fourth chapter to be up by Tuesday, so.)