Anya felt awful. She didn't feel like Mature Anya at all. She felt like Mean Anya, and Anya Who Is Not a Good Friend.

If it weren't for Becky encouraging her and stopping her from turning her head every 15 minutes, Anya was sure she would have given up this ridiculous facade long ago. She could barely stand it with how tense her shoulders had become, and how sick to her stomach she felt.

She barely managed to tough it out through the day, and when she got home that night, she passed out from the exhausting of keeping her own impulses in check. She hated having to keep this under control. What was she thinking, pretending like this?

She sent a text to her closest friend:

Becky, I can't do this! I feel awful! Can we abort mission?

She did not have to wait long for the reply.

No you can't! You are so close! Don't you want him to give you attention?

Anya sighed and rested her phone on her chest. Guilt swirled in her stomach, once again making her feel sick. For the first time in a long time, she wasn't looking forward to going to school tomorrow. Anya groaned and buried her face in Agent Penguin.

Loud and Yor noticed Anya's strange behaviour of course, but they did have a strange daughter, and sometimes there are just somethings that you get used to when a teenage daughter lives under one's roof.

Despite her grumblings, Anya did manage to go to school the next day, and carefully avoided Damian all morning after Becky scolded Anya for wanting to give up too early.

But for the sake of the mission and Plan B, Anya was prepared to pull through somehow. So it was at lunch, when something unexpected happened.

Anya and Becky had been eating their lunch as normal - Anya had the omurice, and Becky had the beef stir fry - when suddenly a towering shadow stood over them.

Anya looked up and saw Bill. She recognised him from the other class in her year, since he still wore those same square glasses when he was a kid, and (unbelievably) he was even buffer than he was when they were six years old.

Bill Watkins was - how do the kids say it? - stacked.

She had to hand it to him, after the dodgeball fiasco, he had done reasonably well at Eden. He had dominated all the team sports, and even the individual competitions, and managed average grades in his classes. Like Damian, he had also managed to become an Imperial Scholar years before anyone else in their cohort, although his accolades and achievements were based on sports rather than academics. Even so, being in different classes meant that Anya and Becky rarely ran into Bill, and so they just rarely had a chance to interact at all.

Becky narrowed her eyes at him while Anya stared, vaguely disinterested, but neither had a chance to say anything before Bill spoke:

"Anya Forger, will you go on a date with me?"

Time stopped.

"What," Anya choked out.

"What?!" said Becky.

"WHAT?" shouted Damian from across the cafeteria.

Anya regained her composure and regarded Bill gently. He seemed to be genuine, not just because of his flushed face, but because his thoughts only rang with nervousness at that moment in time.

Anya took a thoughtful slurp of her juice. One on hand, this could be exactly what she needed for her and Becky's mission. And she knew intimately that Damian got jealous easily, so she wondered if Bill would rile him up.

But on the other hand, it was Bill. She barely knew the guy, and what if he took her somewhere fancy where she didn't fit in at all? How much did he even know about her?

The moment stretched a little too long, and Bill clearly noticed that his time with Anya was almost up. He could feel Damian's dagger stare piercing him from afar, but he didn't want to lose this chance.

"There's the new Spy Wars movie at the cinema. We could go on Friday?"

Anya couldn't respond quickly enough: "You get the tickets, I'll get the snacks. Fair?" She almost moved her hand to shake his, like she saw in Spy Wars when he makes a truce, but Becky grabbed Anya's wrist beneath the table to stop her. (She had seen this before).

Bill nodded, clearly relieved, and even managed a nervous smile. "Sounds like a plan, I'll meet you there at seven."

"Okay, cool. Bye!" Anya waved at him as he walked away, his hulking form still towering over the other students as he passed them.

As Anya went back to eating her lunch, she realised that the cafeteria was eerily quiet. She slowly turned to see a sea of faces gawking at her with open mouths. (A boy in the far back corner with golden eyes had dropped his jaw so low that a piece of bread flopped flaccidly out of his mouth, landing with a wet smack on the plate below.)

"Becky," she said carefully. "Why is everyone staring at us?"

"They're staring at you, darling," Becky said coolly, but she was secretly impressed with Anya. Not only is she doing perfectly on "Mission: Ignore Damian", but she had managed to snag a date as well! Becky's eyes glistened with the tears of a proud mama. Anya was already growing up!