How it really started…

Valentine's Day was supposed to be a romantic holiday. How could it not be with all the chocolates and hearts and candies and cupid and candle lit dinners for two…

Yah, that's the thing, it's a holiday for two, and if there isn't a two to your one, the day just kind of sucks. That is if you even acknowledge it.

This year the school activities committee decided that a Valentine's Day dance was in order, you know because Homecoming turned out so…messy…and then there was the Winter Social fiasco…

Any way

The Valentine's Day dance was supposed to make up for all the hostile take over events. After all, Valentine's Day was supposed to be about the antithesis of hostile takeovers.

And just like there was supposed to be a Homecoming and Winter Social king and queen; it was decided that there would be a Valentine's Day king and queen. A perfect couple sort of thing, you know all lovey dovey stuff.

The committee decided that there needed to be a strict set of criteria for the nominees for this illustrious position. The candidates had to be:

1. Nominated by their peers

2. The embodiment of a set of certain qualities: kind, giving, selfless, attractive to a certain percentage of the opposite sex

3. And just to throw in a tad bit of teenage controversy, their kiss had to score above a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10; 1 being the worst and 10 being knock you into the next world of a neighboring dimension good. Of course when Principle Powers saw this she insisted that the only permissible evidence of this would be the testimony of a previous incident. She was not about to have a kissing booth in her school.

The dance was announced after the students returned from the holiday break, and the criteria for king and queen were listed. Nominations would be taken on the Feb 3rd, and voting would begin on the 10th.

Warren of course paid as much attention to the dance announcements and the king and queen nominations as he did to the newest volume of Vorgon Poetry; that is to say he avoided the subject like the plague.

At least he would have had a group of freshmen not insisted on incessantly chattering about it at lunch and whenever they managed to corner him outside of school. It was getting to the point where he was seriously contemplating begging for detention during lunch hour just to get away from the complete horror of all the love sick teenage behavior.

But unfortunately for him, he wasn't as blackened and charred on the inside as he wanted everyone to believe, and a certain red head knew it. She also knew that if she asked a certain way he would endure the torture that was commonly referred to as lunch hour.

As it happened the week of the dance almost all charm for the idea had fled the little group of friends. Will and Layla had broken up on the mutual decision that they were way better as friends than as a couple. Zack and Magenta were off again. Ethan was currently in a dateless rut and Warren, well Warren could have cared less about the stupid holiday. Except for the chocolate, he was actually rather fond of the chocolate, but he was keeping that to himself.

So it was by unanimous consensus that they would boycott the dance and spend that particular Friday night like they had spent countless others since homecoming…at the Lantern, waiting for Warren to get off shift, and then catching the latest movie at the Cineplex, you know, NORMAL teenage stuff.

That was until February 3rd.

There was a table in the school cafeteria, a table that was once unofficially reserved for one student and one student only. Now five other students decided they were brave enough to sit there too. Warren continued to sit there, but if you were to ask him why, if he actually deigned to answer instead of BBQing you, he would tell you it was his OCD that refused to allow him to pick another table, NOT that he actually didn't mind the five freshman's presence.

But that's beside the point.

Layla, Magenta, Zack and Ethan were already seated and discussing the more innocuous points of their Hero History quiz when Will hurriedly rushed in and sat down.

"We have a problem." He said in nervous excitement.

"What?" Layla asked concerned for her friend.

"Someone nominated me for the Valentine's Day dance king." Will said.

""What?" Magenta asked.

"Who would do that?" Ethan asked.

"Don't know, but because I was nominated," Will said trailing off.

"Dude that sucks." Zack said.

"That means you have to go." Layla said dejectedly realizing that their Friday night plans were now shot. Then she blinked as a new thought came to mind and she smiled a rather devious smile.

"Anyone want to explain why the hippy is impersonating a villain with a new world domination plan?" Warren asked flatly.

The Freshmen Five all jumped. None of them were sure they would ever get used to the pyro's stealthiness.

"No idea why." Magenta was the first to recover. "But Will was nominated for king."

"Sucks to be you." Warren said as he opened his book.

"And he's gone." Will commented.

"So how is this a problem?" Ethan asked.

"Because it means we have to go to the dance." Will said.

"No," Magenta corrected him, "It means you have to go to the dance."

"You guys wouldn't leave me hanging?" Will plead, "Would you?"

"No we wouldn't but that's not the issue." Layla said as she glanced at each of them and received a reluctant and grudging confirmation that they would all show; except for Warren who was studiously ignoring them in favor of his new book.

"Then what is the issue?" Zack asked.

Magenta's eyes went wide as she finally got it. "Seriously?" She half laughed as she asked Layla to confirm her suspicion.

"The nominees have to have their kiss rated." Layla said.

There was a moment of silence as the gang processed the predicament. Then they all burst out laughing; well Ethan, Zack and Magenta did. Layla just smiled and Warren continued to ignore them.

"Guys it's not funny." Will whined. "There are only two people eligible to judge my kiss. One is in jail, and I highly doubt she would be willing to give an accurate score…"

"And the other hasn't kissed anyone else." Magenta finished for him.

"Why does it matter anyway?" Layla asked as she scowled at her friend.

"Because my parents are going to find out." Will said.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Zack asked.

"Dude, you know how my dad is." Will said, "You know if I got nominated and didn't win he'd never leave it alone."

"And then he'd blame it all on Coach Boomer." Zack said with a smile.

"See you do understand." Will said.

"Why wouldn't you win?" Ethan asked.

"Because there isn't a big enough pool of kiss raters who's opinions aren't skewed." Magenta said.

Both Will and Layla frowned at her.

"What do you mean by that?" Layla asked.

"Just what I said." Magenta said in her 'well duh' voice. "Gwen, or should I say Sue, is so wrapped up in her revenge mode that she would give him a 1 just to spite him. And you have only ever kissed Will so you have no basis for a competent comparison for rating."

"So you see my problem." Will said, finally relieved that someone understood the full depth of the problem.

"As I said," Layla said indignantly, "Why does it matter?"

"So now the question is;" Will said, "How do we fix the problem?"

"According to the rules you aren't aloud to solicit kisses to bolster your score." Magenta said, completely ignoring her friend.

"Exactly," Will said, "So how do we fix this?"

Magenta thought for a minute. The longer she thought the sharper the evil glint in her eyes became. She refrained from letting an evil smirk twist her lips; not wanting to give away her plan.

"No one ever said that the raters couldn't increase their experience pool." She said, employing a will of steel to not let her face get the better of her.

This comment earned her looks of confusion and incredulity from all but one of the table's occupants.

"What are you trying to say?" Layla asked cautiously.

"You could kiss someone else." Magenta said, hoping that Will would pick up on her train of thought. And just to help his thoughts jump on that train, she not so subtly kicked him as hard as she could under the table and very subtly directed his attention to the resident flame thrower.

Will's eyes got very large when he caught her point.

"I'm NOT going to go around kissing random boys just so I can give Will a reasonable rating." Layla said in a vehement strangled whisper/shout.

"Relax." Will said, "You don't have to go around kissing random boys. I wouldn't want you to do that not for this. Maybe if my life depended on it…"

Layla gave him a very formidable imitation of Warren's patent pending death glare.

"Really, I think one guy would do." Magenta said, this time she did smirk.

"Oh really." Layla said, not liking the direction the conversation had turned. "And who do you suggest?" sarcasm was dripping from her tone.

Will gave a minute shrug. "Why not Warren?"

Magenta smiled triumphantly. Everyone else's eyes bulged, and were of the same mind on the decision to commit him to a mental institution.

"What?" Warren asked thoroughly lost. He of course had not been paying conscious attention to the conversation. But hearing his name had nabbed his attention.

"Nothing Warren." Layla said, "They're just being stupid. Go back to your book."

Warren narrowed his eyes and passed an evaluating glance over each of the table's occupants. Seeing the astonished and horrified looks on Ethan and Zack's faces combined with the manic grin on Will's and the satisfied smirk that graced Magenta's; he shrugged, shook his head at their antics and did as Layla suggested. He was not giving in to an order, it was a suggestion, one that he would have done anyway had she not said anything…

Before he could refocus his full attention on the wonders of String Theory (yes the physics paradigm, not a knitting theory book, geesh, hot athletic guys can have a brain too you know…) Will quickly spoke up.

"You and Layla need to kiss." He stated as if he were commenting on the weather.

Warren closed his eyes for half a second, "Excuse me?" he asked not totally sure he had heard what he thought he heard.

"So that she can have something to compare Will's kisses to when she rates him for King." Magenta explained, also as if she were commenting on the rather boring weather.

The had quickly figured out that when they spoke all rushed and excited like yippy little Chihuahuas (as Warren described most teenaged conversations) that he would ignore them and refuse to take part in their conversation, no matter how interesting it got. He would also leave the table sooner.

Layla found herself inexplicably excited at the prospect of kissing the reclusive pyro. But she was never going to admit that. Never mind that the first thought that had entered her mind when Will brought up the dilemma was that she now had a perfect excuse to try and talk said pyro into going to the dance with her. No, she had to keep up the appearance of being completely offended about being treated as a prize in a carnival game.

"I am not kissing Warren." She said emphatically.

Warren was about to emphatically refuse to kiss Layla. But he was a boy. And boys do have egos, whether they want to admit that or not. "Why not?" he asked, managing to not sound too offended at her quick and adamant refusal to the proposal.

"Why not?" Layla asked now hyper sensitive to the fact that everyone's attention was riveted on her. "Why not?...Because…because you're my friend." She said her voice shakey and higher in octave than she wanted. "Not only are you my friend, but you're my ex-boyfriend's best friend. I'm not going to kiss you." Now thoroughly uncomfortable and no better reason for her refusal she quickly gathered her things and left the lunchroom.

This was met with raised eyebrows the table round.

Warren, not sure if he should be offended or not, and not having any inkling of how a normal teen would handle this particular interaction, just shrugged off the antics of the five freshmen and returned to his book.

"And we lost him again." Will said.

"That went well, wouldn't you say?" Magenta said.

"Could have been better." Will answered.

"So, dude." Zack said, "you really want them to kiss?"

"Zack my man," Will said trying to sound sagely, "I may not be the smartest person in the world…" this earned a highly amused snort and half choke from Magenta, which got a glare from him. "But one thing I did manage to figure out relatively quickly, was that those two are made for each other."

"Sole mates." Magenta added, "If you believe in that sort of thing."

"How do you figure that?" Ethan finally contributed to the conversation, "We've only been on the no fry list for a few months."

"Some times these things are just obvious." Will said still trying to sound like the wise old man at the top of the highest mountain in Shangri-La.

His comment was met with eye roles and the conversation turned to safer and more mundane things until the bell rang.

February 4th passed innocuously, as though the conversation at lunch on the 3rd had never happened. Though those who were paying attention would have noted Layla's increased agitation.

The 5th brought on a hushed conversation in the girls locker room just before 'Save the Citizen'.

"Do you really think that I can't give a proper rating with out kissing someone else?" Layla asked. She had been stewing over the conversation for a full day and a half now.

"Not only do you desperately need to gain some more experience in the area; but if you kiss Warren the rating will have that much more weight to it." Magenta explained deviously.

"Why would kissing Warren add weight to my rating?" Layla asked.

"Because," Magenta said as if it should be obvious. "Half the school still thinks they're arch enemies, and the other half understands that they are by some strange miracle, best friends."

"Still don't understand why that makes a difference." Layla said while changing her socks.

"A guys best friend, or arch enemy is like the ultimate thing to be compared to." Magenta tried to explain. "Like if we compared you to Marry Sue, no one would care, because Marry Sue is just some random girl that no one knows or likes. But if we compared you to me, that would get some thought and comments, because people know us, they know our relationship as best friends. And for some twisted reason that makes all the difference in the world."

"So even if Will only has one person to rate his kiss, if I kissed Warren and the whole school knew, and knew that I was comparing them, that would mean…" Layla said.

"That would be the equivalent to 100 girls rating Wills kiss." Magenta finished as she pulled on her gym shoes.

"Why can't I just say I kissed Warren and not really do it." Layla said.

Magenta looked at her in that sad condescending way, "One, because no one here would believe you unless they saw it. Two, how can you seriously not want to kiss him? I mean, if I knew he wouldn't flay me alive if I tried, I would totally go for it; they guy is hot, and not I'm not talking about his core temperature."

"But he's my friend." Layla said as they made their way to the gym doors. "I don't want anything weird between us."

"There's nothing weird between you and Will." Magenta pointed out.

"That's because we've known each other since kindergarten." Layla said.

"Seriously Layla," Magenta said, "What are you afraid of? You know he'd never hurt you."

Layla pursed her lips and continued to give the matter more thought through the rest of the day.

Most days Will was about as dense as his father. But some days, he knew when not to press an issue. And that is why the boy's locker room was devoid of the Layla/Warren kiss scenario topic.

Layla finally came to the decision that her friend was right. She did need something to compare Will's kiss to. And though she didn't quite subscribe to the best friend comparison theory that Magenta was spouting the other day; she figured if anyone was going to be completely honest with her it would be Warren. She was half convinced the guy didn't really know how to lie…how's that for going against stereotypes?

It was Thursday, voting would be closed tomorrow. She needed to figure out what to do, and she needed to figure it out sooner than later.

And she spent the whole day debating the point. She was so worked up about it that when she told her mother that she was going for a walk that evening after dinner, she had no destination in mind. She wandered for a while contemplating the predicament, and somehow found herself standing outside a quaint little restaurant. She looked into the front window to see her favorite busboy cleaning off the tables, and she realized that she had been out for longer than she had thought; it was apparently close to closing time.

She went in anyway. The bell over the door jingled as she entered, catching Ming's attention. Ming was ready to kick out the person who was unable to read that they were closed, but smiled instead. Those who worked at the Paper Lantern were generally not given to gambling; but there was a fairly lucrative pool going on how long it would take for the petit redhead standing in the doorway and their resident flamethrower to get together.

So Ming smiled her knowing smile and gestured for the young woman to sit wherever she wanted. Layla returned the smile and made her way to her usual booth.

"You know the kitchen is closed, I don't think there's much of a point of ordering anything." Warren said.

"Oh, I know." Layla said, "I was just stopping by to see you."

Warren arched one eyebrow. "You went out for a walk and completely lost track of time and where you were, you got scared and want me to walk you home."

"If you insist." Layla agreed, he snorted and shook his head. He was correct on all accounts. Though at his jokingly pointing out that she was scared to walk home by herself, horrible scenarios played through her head about what could have happened, as she had wandered not paying any mind to her surroundings and the fading light. Yup, she was scared. And she was glad that he would notice and do something about it without making her feel like an idiot.

She didn't have to wait long. And soon they were walking toward her house, their arms linked. It was actually more of him tolerating her clinging to his arm like it was the last hope of a drowning victim than the simple show of affection between to familiar parties.

He was her silent guardian. He didn't say anything as she blathered on about anything and everything, except of course what was really bothering her. It really wasn't a long way to her house and by the time they reached it, she had run out of things to mindlessly gab about.

As they reached the steps to her front porch, he finally broke his silence. "So what is really bothering you?" he asked.

"Why would something be bothering me?" She asked in her 'You just hit the nail on the head but I'm not going to admit that' voice.

He just looked at her, not unlike he did the first time she had blathered endlessly about Will.

And then she thought, well the game is up, rather than try hopelessly to find the words to explain the situation…she went for it.

Of course she had to do a rather impressive impersonation of a ballerina and stand on her tippy most tiptoes. And the only reason she was able to pull him the rest of the way was because she had the element of surprise on her side.

But she did it.

She kissed him.

It was a quick kiss, just their lips acquainting themselves, nothing passionate or investigative or even lingering; just a quick smooch of the lips. Something she and Will had done on several occasions in their brief one week of dating.

He said nothing. Which might have been ascribed to his astonishment at her audacity. But could also be ascribed to his ability to connect the dots (he had always excelled at those). Regardless, he waited patiently and expectantly with one eyebrow raised while she figured out what she wanted to figure out.

Layla had returned to her flat footed position standing in front of him trying desperately to keep her mind focused on the experimental aspect of the encounter and less on the panicky 'Oh my gosh, what did I just do?...I just kissed my friend, I just kissed my best friend and ex-boyfriend's best friend…I just kissed Warren…PANIC…' . Really that would get her nowhere.

While kissing both young men were pleasant experiences, there were definite difference. But for some reason her mind was telling her that she didn't have a big enough sample pool to adequately compare the two. So she looked him in the eye and said; "Would you mind terribly if we try that again?"

Warren couldn't help but be amused, and so did not object to the understood scientific exploration.

It was never disclosed exactly how many kisses were added to the sample pool, what kind of kisses and the length of time of engagement. The knowledge was left to the two participants in the experiment; both of which seemed to be completely satisfied with the outcome of the experiment.

Even though neither Layla nor Warren spoke of the incident…ever…it was quite obvious to Magenta that something had happened. It was actually hard not to comprehend when she saw the Cheshire grin that refused to leave Layla's countenance that Friday at school, and the entire weekend. And the complete and total lack of any resistance of any kind on Warren's part when Layla said they were going to attend the dance…together…as friends of course.

But it remained a mystery to everyone else, including Will himself, how it was that the reason he lost the title of Valentine's Day Dance King, was insufficient rating on his kiss. Especially because he had watched Layla place her confidential rating slip in the box the last day that votes were being taken. But he and the rest of the school determined that, since of course Layla had never kissed anyone else, that there simply was not enough convincible evidence to give a 'non biased' rating.

So it was that the Freshmen Five, with the help of Principal Powers, spent the rest of February trying to convince The Commander that Coach Boomer had not kept his son from obtaining a position that should rightfully be his.

At this point the narrator suspects that The Commander didn't really pay attention to what the honor or position was in this instance…

But that is really how it all started…