Wow. I'm already up to Chapter 15 on this thing, and quite a few of you have managed to stick with me for all of the chapters! I've got some dedicational one-shots to do for you all. But first, a nice rundown of thanks to those who cared to review. They include…

Plushiemon, Silver Shadowbreeze, Starhunter, Forgive and Forget, Fernclaw, Devianta, Hordak's Pupil, JH24, EmoGwynddoniaeth2, Thunderstorm101, tsubasahope, MutantLover09, OMFG-Roach, Dante Inferno, sciencefreak330, Adrian Winter, LookingGlass, Invader Johnny, PunkMichPhantom, General Blackout, effegee, pearl84

One-shot by choice. Dedication to Devianta for reviewing almost every single chapter!

15. Shakes

A date, one shake… love was in the air.

He brought the shake over to the table, setting it down in the middle and smiling widely. He had waited a long time for today. He felt tingly inside, scared, happy… too many feelings to count at one time. It was chocolate, her favorite. He wanted to make an impression that could last a lifetime, and everybody knew that it was first dates that were most important in a relationship.

Jack Fenton squeezed into the booth right across from Madeline Jules, who smiled and began to take out the straw. "Looks like that little game over at Baxter's party seemed to do wonders, Jack," she laughed, sticking the straw in. "I can't remember the last time someone remembered that my favorite flavor for anything was chocolate."

Jack stuck in his own straw, taking a sip. "Well, I am one for chocolate…"

"…and fudge," she finished.

He laughed. "So what did you think of that symposium about ghosts, Maddie?"

She brushed a hair out of her face. Jack stared at her dreamily. She had the most gorgeous hair. It was so strawberry blonde. Her eyes sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight as she spoke with a sort of passion in her tone. "I thought it was quite nice," she told him, taking a sip herself. "Although I must say, trying to build a ghost portal could be a lot of dangerous work. I wonder how long it took them to build it."

Jack took out a pamphlet and flipped through it. "It says in here that it took a year and a half to build," he read. He glanced up, eyes shining. "You know, Maddie… if we built a portal smaller than that, it could take us a quarter of the time! With your brains, Vlad's building skills, and my provision of snacks, we can get that baby done in no time at all!"

"But, Jack, that could take four months," the female scientist objected, taking another sip of the chocolate shake. "By then, we might lose interest in it!"

Jack frowned. "Don't damper the prospect of science, Maddie! We can do it!"

She smiled, putting her hand on top of his. "And that's what I love about you, Jack. You're always so optimistic, humorous… I think that's why I'm drawn to you more than Vlad."

He blinked. This was unexpected.

Maddie looked down. "I shouldn't have said that."

There was silence for around three minutes before Jack finally went digging into his pocket and pulled out a small container. He opened it up and smiled. "Fenton fudge?"

Maddie laughed. "Why not?" She took a piece out of the box and ate it, her face lighting up like a Christmas tree. "Wow! Did you make this yourself?"

"It's my mother's recipe," Jack admitted, taking out two pieces and eating them, followed by a sip of chocolate shake. "She sent it to me from home."

The duo both leaned in for another sip of the shake. For a moment, their eyes interlocked. Maddie couldn't pull herself away from Jack's sky blue eyes. They were so longing for her, so wanting, and yet… and yet they seemed so willing to give her what she wanted most: love. Pure unadulterated love.

"So, when do you want to start?"

She blinked out of her gaze and looked at the older male, confused. "Start?"

"Building the portal!" he replied excitedly. "I'm sure we can get it done by Thanksgiving if we begin working on it tomorrow!"

Maddie took out her notes from the symposium and looked at them carefully. "Well, first we're going to have to work on your math," she joked, jabbing the paper with her index fingers. "These calculations that you gave to Professor Caine still aren't right." She glanced at it. "I wonder if he was half asleep when he checked your homework…"

Jack snorted. "He's always asleep when he checks our papers, Maddie."

"True," she admitted. She watched Jack finish the shake. "Kind of how I met you in the first place."

The older man shrugged. "First a math tutor, now my girlfriend. What more can be said?"

She sighed. "I'll check over them tonight. In the meantime, you can go ask Vlad if he wants to give us his help in this project."

"You make it sound like it's a bad thing," Jack observed.

Maddie scoffed. "Have you seen the way he flirts with me? Sometimes, I wonder if he's in his right mind. I don't know, Jack. I just hope he stops by the time our wedding rolls around."

The burly man waved it aside. He knew his best friend was a good man and get over his infatuation soon enough. Besides, Jack had already asked Maddie to be his girlfriend. Surely Vlad had realized this. Not that he had noticed the resentful glares he shot at the male when he had his arms wrapped around the woman he loved. Then again, Jack was almost that oblivious to his unpopular ways with other students.

That would be better left unsaid.

Maddie slid out from the booth and stood up, kissing Jack on the cheek. "Well, I'd better get going."

"I'll drive," Jack offered, jingling his car keys.

She smiled. "Thanks for everything, Jack. I really had a fun time tonight. I'll look over this stuff when I get home, and you can tell Masters what's going on with this."

"That way, we can make sure nothing goes wrong!" Jack replied happily.

The woman nodded. "There's always a possibility, though."

"Please!" the Fenton man chided. "With you, me, and V-Man working this one together, what could possibly go wrong?!"

Um, everything? Wow. A date fan fictional one-shot. And it isn't even SamxDanny. Time to move out of the comfort zone, huh? Hey, please review. Sure, it's fluff, but I wanted to do this. Thanks for reading!