A/N Don't own Hairspray, not making money off this. Just enjoying expanding an already awesome universe with my brain juice. I'd like to personally thank the new followers and the two reviewers I've had thusfar. I honestly didn't expect a single one, so I already feel like I've hit the jackpot. :) Okay, so this next piece is very seaweed and penny heavy but this world still revolves around Trink. To be honest, when I write there are very few details I know in advance, so the story writes itself. Hope you guys enjoy. Oh, and one last thing, the page breaks always disappear, sorry about that!

/./

December 25

"Penny? Pennnnny…." a soft voice cooed. Penny snorted and rolled over, blinking her eyes rapidly. Inez smiled at her and Penny jumped. Inez laughed and then Penny joined her.

"I thought you'd be Seaweed?"

"You hoped I'd be Seaweed!" Inez chuckled. "He and mom are waiting in the dining room. Mom said we gotta have breakfast before we can open our gifts."

"Hmmm… I'd rather just sleep through breakfast."

"She ain't gonna let you, and you know it! It's too cold to have water thrown on you."

"Fine," Penny grunted. She rolled out of bed, got dressed and met everyone in the dining room. "Mornin' Ms. Maybelle, Inez," her eyes drifted over to Seaweed. "Seaweed? I'm not sure if it's possible but you look about as pale as me!"

"What?" he asked, not really paying attention. Penny frowned. She took her usual seat beside him, but he seemed so distant. What if he was getting bored with her? She could never go back home. Everyone had disowned her, not that she wanted to go back. Tracy and Link were expecting a baby. It would be awkward to stay here if he broke up with her. She imagined him bringing home another woman. A shiver took her from deep inside.

"You okay?" Maybelle asked, and Penny nodded. Her eyes drifted over to Seaweed. Penny leaned over and whispered in his ear.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah," he said quickly. It was cold in the dining room but Seaweed was sweating profusely. She tried to take his hand under the table. For the first time ever, he withdrew it from her. It was covered in sweat. He wiped it on his pajama bottoms. Penny frowned, panic filling her chest.

"I'm not really hungry, Ms. Maybelle," she lied. She stood up from the table. Before Maybelle could protest, Seaweed jumped up quickly.

"Me neither. I'm going to go for a ride, and Penny you should come," he said. Penny looked at Maybelle. She had a sly smile on her face. Would she be happy to be rid of Penny? Penny had been living in her care for four years. She frowned.

"Go get dressed now, it's cold outside!" Maybelle said.

"Meet me at the car," Seaweed said dryly. He turned away from her. Penny fought the tears that sprang up. If he were so foolish as to throw away the best thing that ever happened to him, then so be it. Penny would live on the corner in a box, or worse; she would live at Tracy's and Link would resent her.

Penny took her time getting dressed. Her eyes drifted forlornly around the room as she finished. Heavy fists pounded impatiently on her door. Penny answered just as Seaweed was raising his fist again. She gasped. Seaweed's face adopted an apologetic look for a moment but then it was gone.

"Come on," he said. Penny shoved her hands into her pockets and followed. Seaweed usually opened her door when they went somewhere, but this time he didn't. He slid into the driver's seat and cranked the car. They pulled out of their comfortable and familiar northside neighborhood and began driving south further and further into whiter neighborhoods. He doesn't even consider me good enough to be kicked out into his own neighborhood. He must think I'm like a cat, that I'll beg for scraps at his door! Penny lamented. The homes in the area were nice, but she wasn't exactly a brand new baby. You couldn't drop a penniless checkerboard chick off at someone's house and expect much mercy. Penny played with the ends of her scarf. She chanced an occasional look at Seaweed. He constantly removed one hand or the other from the steering wheel and dried it on his pant legs.

The homes out the window were becoming slightly shabbier but were still all far more delightful than any she had ever lived in. The car began to roll to a stop in front of a little blue house with white trim. It had a white wrap around porch and a giant oak tree in the front yard. Seaweed put the car into park and he turned to face Penny.

"Penny-"

"Are you breaking up with me?"

"What?"

"Don't think I haven't noticed your behavior as of late. You've been all sweaty and… and gone! And you won't hold my hand and- what are you smiling about?" she grumped as Seaweed's face broke into a virtual sunbeam.

"Baby, I'm not here to dump you. You're my girl," he said taking her hands in his.

"Oh thank God!" she said, flinging herself across the car into his arms. "I thought you were trying to get rid of me!"

"Are you crazy? I risk my life every time I kiss you in public. You're a lady worth fighting for."

"You really mean that, don't you?" she asked, pulling away and staring into his eyes.

"Yeah, Penny. Everything I do, it's always for you, girl!"

"What was that look your mama gave me then?"

"It killed her to keep the secret, but I'm here to give you your Christmas present!" he said, spinning her around in the seat. She leaned her back against his chest and he pointed out the passenger window.

"Did you get me a job as a maid for these people or something?" she asked. Seaweed burst into laughter.

"Naw, baby! That's your house."

"My house?"

"Yeah," he said, his voice softening. Penny spun around in the seat and stared quizzically at him. "Baby, that's your house that can't nobody ever make you leave. You get to say who comes and goes. Forever and ever as long as you want to be there, it is yours."

"Just… mine?"

"Well, upon a condition, really. I'd like you to share that house with me. Penny Pingleton, I want you to be my wedded wife… Penny?" he asked, but Penny had fainted where she sat. Penny woke to Seaweed stroking her face gently.

"Did I just hallucinate?", she asked. He sat up and pulled her into a seated position.

"Don't pass out on me again," he chuckled, delighted that he still had such an effect on her even after all of the time they'd spent together.

"That's our house. I meant to get you a ring, but…" he looked down at his hands.

"It isn't your fault," she said, understanding what he was going to say. It was common for him to become sad now and then. Penny's outlet was anger. Seaweed was so good at keeping her in check and balancing out her tendency to lash out.

"I was so scared I was losing you. I thought I was losing my only family today."

"Girl you know these peepers are only focused on the prize," he said, leaning in for a kiss. "Now come on and let's go look at our house!"

"I can't wait to call Tracy!" Penny exclaimed.

"Wait, sweetie, about that…" Seaweed said, but Penny had already bolted from the car towards her new home.

/./

Penny sat in her kitchen staring out the window. The grass in the backyard was luscious and green, interspersed with patches of gold. She loved monitoring the slowly shifting patches of sun and shadow through the day. There wasn't much for her to do after work until Seaweed came home. He was the most industrious man she'd ever met. And there was definitely a difference between industrious and always working. Her father had always been working. He was never home, which had driven her mother to insane lengths to desperately keep her only daughter home. What Mrs. Pingleton had never figured out was that if you let something free, it would come back if it was meant to. Her father, though sure to be flitting to different flowers when he was out of town, always came back home. Penny thought that he did it because he felt obligated, not because he ever really loved either of them. And now Penny's mother was home, forever alone, forsaking her only daughter and accepting a travelling salesman husband whenever he would happen to arrive home. That would never be Penny's life. It was true Seaweed never stopped working, but it was because he had so much energy and because he loved doing what he did.

Penny sipped her iced tea, her blue eyes raising to the sky. What she could see of it foretold a storm was on its way. Penny frowned and absent-mindedly rubbed her fingers up and down the side of her glass. Life had been the most perfect dream for the past couple of weeks. She and Seaweed had completely moved in and were almost finished unpacking all of their things. Tracy and Link had come out of hiding a couple of days before, and both of the happy couples planned on celebrating their newfound happiness with dinner at the home of the soon to be marrieds Mr. and Mrs. Seaweed Stubbs.

The gentle whisper of paper passing through the slot of the front door attracted Penny's attention. She walked over to the door and stooped down. She scooped up the stack of letters in one hand. Most of the mail they had been receiving belonged to the previous owners. Penny assumed most of this would, too. Her eyes drifted down to the letter on top. The name Bernard Stubbs was written into the receiving line. Penny knew Seaweed's given name was Bernard, but nobody called him that. Only she, his mother and his sister, and other relatives knew the name. Her eyes drifted to the top left hand corner. Penny dropped her drink. The glass shattered on the floor. Her right hand flew up to her mouth as she tried to stifle the growing scream coming out of her mouth. The letter was from the United States government. Seaweed had been drafted.

"Something's wrong," Link said when he walked through the front door of his apartment and saw the look on his wife's face. Tracy could only nod sadly as her husband stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. She cried softly. Link tried his hardest to be patient, but the anxiety of the situation was quickly overcoming him. He took a step back from her and lifted her chin with his finger. "Lil' darlin'," he said. Tracy wiped her eyes with the back of her hands.

"It's Seaweed!" she bawled, but couldn't manage anything else. Link jumped into action. He grabbed their coats from the rack and wrapped his arm around his wife.

"We're going over there right now, okay?" he asked, and his wife nodded, sobbing all the way. The drive to Penny and Seaweed's house was stressful. Link hated his wife to ever be upset and there was absolutely nothing he could do short of getting her into the arms of her best friend to fix it.

When they finally arrived at Penny and Seaweed's home, Tracy ran from the car and Penny ran from the house. The women embraced each other in the front yard, both crying loudly. Link's stomach turned. He was beyond disturbed.

"Please, one of you, you've got to tell me what's going on!" Link pleaded as he approached the women.

"Seaweed… he's been drafted," Penny managed to make out before her hands covered her mouth again. Link frowned, wrapping his arms around the women and guiding them inside out of the cold. The tea was still on the floor where it had been dropped. Most of it had dried, but the glass was still in the perfect landing spray. Link set about to cleaning it up, and the women took seats on the couch talking in a mourning garble that Link couldn't understand. He caught the occasionally sobbed word here and there, but for the most part, he couldn't get the jist of the women's conversation.

Link spied the envelope on the countertop. The letter had not been opened so much as it had been ripped out in one swift action. Link read the letter. The words in it made sense, but they seemed surreal. This couldn't be happening to his friend. It happened to his neighbors, his corworkers, regular guys on the street, but his new best friend? Link frowned. And if it happened to him… if it happened to his friend Seaweed who mascaraed as this "Bernard Stubbs" then it could happen to an unlucky duck like Lincoln "Link" Larkin.

Link set the letter down. He prepared hot tea for the girls and placed it on the coffee table. He sat in a chair beside the couch and waited. His mind swam with forlorn thoughts as he stared blankly across the room. The shadows indoors shifted. The sky opened up and lightning crackled. The deluge of rain pounded the roof and ran off the porch in loud static splatters. No one heard the front door open. No one heard the soft complaints of a man soaked to the bone trying to remove his socks and shoes. No one heard him shuffle from the front door to the front room, and frankly, Seaweed had barely heard them, the sobbing having long before quieted into whimpers. Seaweed's heart sank into his stomach when he walked into his living room and saw three distraught faces staring back. It was the first time he ever lost his ability to smile. His brow wrinkled, and moments later, Penny had thrown her arms around his neck. He leaned down into her embrace as she sobbed. Moments later, Tracy's arms had encircled them both, and then Link stood awkwardly before the threesome, his head bowed solemnly.

"My mother?" he choked out. "Inez?" Penny tried frantically to speak to him, but the words meant nothing. Seaweed's eyes lifted to Link's.

"You got a letter today. You've been drafted." The words felt like peanut butter stuck to the roof of Link's mouth. Seaweed felt his knees try to buckle, but he had to stand in place or the girls would have fallen with them. This was a big deal. Serving his country, a country that hadn't recognized his rights for most of his life, was a sore enough subject. Serving his country in a war that he was unlikely to return home to had paled him.

"I've got-I need to…" he uttered, and as though she could read his thoughts, Penny pulled Seaweed to the couch and sat beside him, unwilling to let him go. Tracy sat on the loveseat across from them, and Link squeezed in beside her. As the moments passed, Link felt more and more like he and Tracy should leave, but the way it was coming down outside, they would never be able to see too far in front of the car anyway. Link felt like he was about to burst when Seaweed finally piped up. "Well, I'm gonna make us all some dinner!" he said in the most chipper and definitive way. Link and the women stared at him as though he had grown another head.

"Seaweed, are you okay?" Penny asked, suddenly able to find words that weren't choked with salted tears.

"As good as I can be! Look here, girl. If I gotta go, then I'ma go. But I ain't gonna spend my last little time with my favorite people crying about something I can't change." He grinned broadly. It was a bizarre juxtaposition to the hallow-eyed, pale faces in the room. He walked to his kitchen and started busily preparing dinner for the foursome humming the words to one of his favorite songs. Tracy looked at Link with uncertainty. He read her expression and then kissed her on the lips. He got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen with his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

"Y'need some help?" he asked. Seaweed turned around and smiled brightly. Link felt as though he had been punched in the stomach.

"Yeah, cracker boy! Why don't you crunch up those crackers for me? I'm makin' us all a meatloaf. Shouldn't take too long to bake," he said, placing the crackers, a bowl and a rolling pin in front of Link. Link layered the crackers on the tabled and rolled over them repeatedly. If this was how his friend wanted to deal with his problem, who was he to stop him? Moping around wasn't going to change the fact that Seaweed was going whether they wanted him to or not. Sad faces and hungry stomachs wouldn't keep him from dying in a foreign land. Link began singing along with the song his friend was humming, and before long the two were harmonizing and singing like they usually did when they were together. They peeled potatoes and added spices to the cracker crumbs and mixed ingredients and set the meatloaf in the oven and the potatoes on to boil. Link stopped singing and Seaweed's face went slack when Penny stormed into the room.

"Great that you can be so cheerful and sing like it's Christmas! I didn't know you wanted to leave me. I didn't know you wanted to die."

"Penny?"

"I love you, Bernard Stubbs. And you're leaving. You're going away. And I might never see you again, and this is what you do. You spend your time singing in the kitchen."

"Penny, I-," he began, but she shook her head angrily and ran from the room. He could hear her feet running up the stairs, and he flinched when he heard a door slam. Seaweed sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Tracy looked from one man to another.

"Penny! I'm coming!" she said, chasing after her friend.

"Maybe you should go after her, Seaweed." Link said.

"What good is talking to her when she's mad at me."

"Don't you get it? She isn't mad at you. She's mad this is happening to you and that you're not as freaked out as she is."

"Of course I am, probably more. But I never have been one to let life keep me down. Just because I have to leave doesn't mean I'm gone yet."

"I think she needs to hear that," Link said. Seaweed nodded in agreement. He walked upstairs and found Tracy begging Penny to let her in. He put his hands on her shoulders and flicked his eyes toward the stairs. Tracy nodded in understanding and walked downstairs. Link was waiting for her there.

"Penny?"

"There is nothing you can say to make me open this door." Seaweed thought for a moment and then began to sing.

"Wise men say, only fools rush in, but I can't help falling in love with you."

"That's not fair."

"Shall I stay? Would it be a sin? I can't help falling in love with you." Penny opened the door. Her eyes were red rimmed, her cheeks were puffy and her nose was red.

"No fair," she reiterated. Seaweed wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead.

"You said there was nothing I could say…"

"Yeah, and then you sang our song."

"I love you Penny, don't you get it?" he asked, stepping back from her. He searched her eyes and she frowned deeply. "I don't want to be without you! I've always opposed this war, you know that. I barely stand for this country the way they treat me and my people like human shields. But baby, there ain't much I can do. I can't be no draft dodger. There ain't no honor in that. And you know what? You're getting ahead of yourself. I still have to go through a physical and testing and you never know, something might not be good enough for them. They might think I'm too black, even!" he said, grinning broadly. Penny chuckled. "There you go. That's my girl. That's the beautiful smile I fell in love with. Oh yes… the moment I met you Penny Pingleton, I knew my life would never be the same."

"You've never said that before."

"I know," he said, rubbing her arms with his hands. "I want to make sure I have a chance to say everything I need to."

"Oh Seaweed," she said, looking away to weep. Seaweed placed his finger underneath her chin and lifted it so their eyes would meet.

"Penny, if you don't know or remember anything else about me, know that I love you. I loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you. I loved it when you asked if you, too, could 'check it out,'" he said, raising his voice several octaves in a silly manner to imitate her voice.

"I don't sound like that!"

"No, I can't impersonate you. You're one of a kind. You're my soul mate."

"I love you Bernard."

"I am positively enamored by you, Penny," he said. He rubbed his nose against hers and she laughed, breaking away and rubbing her nose with the palm of her hand. Seaweed leaned down and brushed his lips against Penny's. She started to giggle and he pulled back and looked at her with a cocked eyebrow.

"You need to shave. You tickled me!" she said. Seaweed grinned. He allowed his hands to slide down her sides and then he began tickling her ribs.

"No! No!" she shrieked, laughing all the way. Seaweed began to laugh, too. She broke free and ran to the other side of the room. Seaweed chased her. Penny fell onto their bed and rolled over landing on the other side. She started to run for the door. Seaweed lept on top of the bed and jumped from it landing behind Penny. He reached out and grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She fell backward and he caught her, but then he lost his balance and fell to the floor. The pair was laughing so hard neither of them could breathe. Once Penny had caught her breath, Seaweed was at it again, tickling her until she turned bright red with tears rolling down her face. Seaweed released her and fell backward. His sides hurt from laughing so hard. Penny was banging her fist on the floor as she laughed. As the moments passed and the panting slowed, Seaweed stood up in one fluid motion and reached down to help Penny stand.

"C'mon, girl!" he said licking his lips. "Let's go downstairs and finish making dinner." He extended his hand and she took it. They happily took the stairs hand in hand. Seaweed leaned over and kissed Penny's temple before they walked into the kitchen. There was no trace of Link or Tracy. The table had been set and a single taper candle flickered in the middle. Green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy and meatloaf all waited on the stove. Seaweed walked Penny to her chair. He clicked off all the burners and proceeded to fix them each a plate.

/./

Hm... wonder what happens next?