The weekend had finally come at the end of yet another exhausting week, and lina and Zel decided on the movies. Lina had let Zel choose the movie.

She wished she hadn't.

Lina watched Pierce Brosnen execute his famous phrase, rolled her eyes and munched on some popcorn. She hadn't seen the first six...five...eight.. how many of the damn things were there? Bond movies, but she hoped they had gotten worse after time. She certainly was praying now that the fanatics hadnít been hooked by this kind of plot.

Why the hell did I let myself get hooked into this, anyway? It sucks! Lina looked over at Zelgadis, who didn't seem to have a problem with it. She sighed. If we were renting this, it would be one of those flicks that you're apparently supposed to turn the sound off and watch the...scenery. She sighed. Zel and his weird tastes. I don't see what's so great about this guy in the first place. Pretty? Hah! Even Xellos could out-pretty him! Admittedly, Xellos looked almost as pretty as Zel, but that was beside the point. The point is, this movie sucks. How old is this guy? Thirty? I has wrinkles! This is supposed to be sexy? And my god... what was up with Harrison ford getting sexiest man of the year? He's...he's...old! Forty, at the least. Lina was obviously not watching the movie. When her mind started turning to things like People magazine, she was bored. Lina couldn't care less about popular celebrities or styles, so when she had reached those it was pretty clear she'd gone through all the alternatives.

She snorted. "Of course." She said in a not quite whisper, "Of course. He gets the brand new bubble thingie that could have no purpose whatsoever that I could see, but it's the EXACT thing he needs when he gets up in the Himalayas, or whatever. Mountains anyway." She sipped her drink. Well, not so much sip, as gulped it down.

Lina wanted to be perfectly clear on this. Maybe then the movie might make sense, and therefore may have a chance at being worth watching.

"And the guy just invented it, right? Ahead of time. Without knowing that he'd be in the himalayas. Mountains. Whatever. Right?"

"Right," Zelgadis replied, trying not to notice her. She always did this. Tragic romances had her in tears for the majority of the movie. In Titanic, for example, she was crying the second the iceberg hit. In the comedies, she laughed her ass off, making sure to bring over an authority or two who would politely ask her leave. She would cheerfully tell them to shove it and continue laughing. Except for the bad ones. Then she would make snide remarks. But they were just snide little asides that actually made the thing more funny.

Action movies, where the plot was supposed to be the sex and the fighting, made her into the most sarcastic bitch he'd ever met.

"So, this just happens, by pure accident, to be just the thing he needs for this one time, am I correct?"

Zelgadis sighed. "Yes." He had forgotten a while ago why he ever took her to movies in the first place.

"And he never gets stuck with the snow stuff while he needs something in the desert? Or has a special, compressed thingie of water in the middle of a lake?"

"No." Zelgadis tried to ignore her and concentrate on the movie.

"Right. One hell of a lucky guy, isn't he?"

"Yes."

They watches the movie for a while. Well, Zelgadis watched the movie, Lina picked at the weave of the cloth seats and ate her raisinettes.

"Oh, come ON,"

Zelgadis sighed. "What is it THIS time?"

"That!" Lina pointed to the bonds-eye-view through x-ray glasses at the bar. In other words, the imaginative camera angles of women in underwear with guns tucked into the elastic waistbands. And other places. "There is no way that would happen."

"What, the x-ray vision?"

"No stupid, although the vision wouldn't show the underwear at all, just the bones and the guns, but... say, what if one of those girls is pregnant?"

Zelgadis didn't even try to follow her train of thought. "Come again?"

"What if one of them is pregnant? He could mutate one of their kids. I thought he was supposed to be the good guy?"

Zelgadis sighed. It was the kind of sigh you get from a husband who comes home and finds out his wife bought yet another pair of shoes, this one in coral pink instead of blush pink. "What do you want him to do, Lina? Give out lead aprons to all the women in there?"

"That's not my point. My point was, in the first place, that the girls have all those guns tucked in their underwear. Number one, in dresses that tiny, skimpy, and practically painted on, they're so tight, how the hell are they going to reach them? I mean, half of 'em have the guns in the top of their pantyhose." Lina snorted. "They're gonna have to hike their dress up around their ears to get at 'em. Oops, never mind. Some of them seem to be doing quite a good job of that already. Jeez, and bond is certainly giving the audience a god view. Considerate of him." Zelgadis ignored that remark.

"Anyway, my second point is, how the hell are the girls supposed to hide the damn things under those dresses? I mean, I can't manage to hide my driver's license in my bra without it showing, much less a hand gun!" She snorted derisively. Zelgadis decided she snorted way too much. "This is completely screwed up."

Zelgadis contemplated doing what was going through his mind at the moment to his best friend, confidante, trusted companion and all around wonderful and loved person. No, it wasn't worth the jail time.

Besides, the movie theatre would never get the bloodstains out of the carpet.

"Oh, and now They're suddenly in bed. What is this, the third time? With separate women each time?"

"I think itís the second."

"Name one woman he meets that he doesn't screw. This does not include the extras."

"The lady that tried to escape in the balloon."

"I'm sure he found a way while they were falling."

"Lina..."

"Seriously! Ewwww, what do people see in him? Oh yeah, I wanna see him naked from the waist up, whoo boy. He looks like he glued a carpet to his chest--"

"Lina!" Zelgadis hissed, turning to her. "Would you let me watch the movie??"

Lina started and winced. "Sorry, sorry. I'll let you suspend your disbelief now..."

"Thank you." Zelgadis turned back to the picture.

"Suspend by the neck..."

"Lina!!"

* * *

Almost directly between the school and Lina and Zel's apartment, a public park sweeped across about a mile of lakeside beach. The trees were old and tall, their warm brown limbs reaching out to cover the mossy ground below with a cool, friendly shade. What sun seeped in looked like falls of gold trickling between the branches, giving everything under it an ethereal, fairy-like feel. Most of the park had been left without anything more than trails put in by the owners, leaving the wilderness lookalike untouched.

Just off one of the main dirt roads there was a certain, perfect spot, where the trees swept back from a steep slope overlooking the lake. The angle was titled just so, pointed away from any of the buildings on the opposite shore so they dissapeared in the trees of the opposing park. No one was usually inclined to go outhere, however-- the road was bumpy, and there were really no other trails that lead to it. There was no romantic bench to sit and watch the water, and the sunrise was barely out of sight behind the treeline to the left. There was no classic perfection to this space, it simply made its own.

Two forms sat in the dirt, not speaking and not needing to. Though both were rather short, the redhead on the left came only to her friend's chin. She leaned back, the cascade of red falling loose about her shoulders and giving her a mythological look, as though she were not quite of this world. She turned and laughed, breaking the silence with her lilting giggle, before climbing onto a nearby tree limb and hanging from her knees. She sputtered as the branch's leaves suddenly fly into her face with the wind, spitting out the offending greenery and looking rather put out.

Her friend sighed, grinning, and ran a hand through his soft waves of crystal blue hair. He leaned against the tree she hung from, handing her the ice cream carton and a spoon. She grinned and attacked.

Zelgadis smiled as he watched Lina tear into her small tub of ice cream. Lina never went out for ice cream-- not the normal way. There was no way that a couple of students living in the apartment they did could possibly afford enough shop ice cream to even come close to sating Lina's appetite. So instead, the two would commonly buy a tub of whatever flavor caught their fancy and retire somewhere quiet to eat, and in Lina's case, inhale.

Lina suddenly slumped from the branch and hit the ground, holding her head and groaning.

"Ice cream headache?"

"Ice cream headache."

Lina ignored Zelgadis' teasing laughter and clutched her throbbing head until the pain ebbed. She pouted at Zel, her lip stuck out and her eyes wide and filled with tears. "How could you? After all I do for you, and when I'm in pain, all you do is ridicule me. I am unloved." She brought the back of her hand to her forehead and pretended to faint. Zelgadis just laughed louder, making her pout more.

Far away from everything, this was their spot, where only they ever went. Far away from the sounds of life, they didn't have to worry about work here, they didn't have to try to keep up the hectic pace that their lives ran at. Lina especially made sure that every time she went here, she had every scrap of work she could finished, so she never, ever had anything hanging over her head here. Her paper finally finished and turned in, she had worked late at the bookstore she was employed at to get ahead in her schedule and gain this day off. No tests were coming up any time soon, and all her homework was finished and tucked away in her backpack. She sighed and lay in the soft moss, letting the plush greenery cushion her head as she closed her eyes.

Heaven.

Too bad it eventually had to end. Lina sighed as she looked at her watch. She had to be up early for the chem lab tomorrow. Ah well. Such was her life.

At least she had these moments in between the endless work.

At least she had Zel. She paused and sighed, shaking her head to clear it after her last, very disappointing thought.

Sort of...