Fiona's teeth sank into her lower lip as she furrowed her brow, pencil tapping on the edge of her notebook. Her calculus homework was absolutely killing her this year, and here she was, thinking that repeating the class was going to help her get a better grade this time around. Finally, she gave up and circled one of the answers, deciding that she had a one-in-four chance of getting it right, and that was better than giving herself a headache over one question. She'd have to get Eli to persuade Clare to help her out later or something; the girl was a wizard where math was concerned.

Her focus was broken by the distinct singing of glasses filling the air, and she glanced up, a smile already forming on her lips. Imogen was hard at work at her turntables, concentrating on catching the right glass as it spun by her before the rest of her bandmates jumped in with their instruments and Zig began to sing the opening for their newest song.

She closed her book softly and tucked it away in her bag before leaning back in her seat to watch them, deciding that being the girlfriend of a band member had its perks. Fiona was the only non-band member who actually showed up to any of the rehearsals, since Tori and Marisol had Power Squad whenever the band was practicing, and Maya and Adam didn't ask any friends to come watch. At first she had been concerned that Imogen wouldn't like it, but after it became clear that she wanted it to be a regular thing - only if Imogen wanted it to be - her girlfriend had been over the moon, beaming and declaring that she had the best girlfriend around.

Watching Imogen play the glasses (was that even the right way to describe it?) and the tambourine, not to mention sing, was amusing in ways too different to describe. Sometimes Fiona would find herself zeroed in on Imogen and Imogen alone, and she would miss the entire rest of what WhisperHug was doing, only realizing this after their song had ended and they asked her how it sounded that she had no idea what was going on. She was just so full of energy and put everything she had into playing background instruments that no one else would have even thought to take seriously, and while her voice wasn't the greatest there was no denying that she tried her hardest.

Band practice that day was a short one, and when Mo called it quits Imogen skipped over to Fiona, leaning down to kiss her. "Hi! Did you like it?"

"I always do, don't I?" She reached up to tug lightly on the short tie that was part of Imogen's outfit today, and Imogen rolled her eyes. With a backward look towards her bandmates, she nudged Fiona's crossed leg off of her other one and then sat in her lap, looping her arms around her neck.

"Hi," she said softly, twirling a curl around her index finger.

Fiona smirked and locked her fingers behind Imogen's back. "I think you said that already."

"Well, I'm saying it again, so shut up," Imogen countered, pressing her face into the space where Fiona's neck and shoulder met, inhaling the expensive-smelling perfume she no doubt had imported from Paris or somewhere equally as exotic. When she heard Fiona mutter something about her being heavy, she opened her mouth and bit down just hard enough to make Fiona squeak. "You were saying?"

"Are you part vampire, Imogen? I swear, you have the sharpest teeth," Fiona grumbled, shifting Imogen in her lap so that she could reach up to touch her neck as if she expected there to be actual blood. Imogen pushed her hand away.

"So, I was thinking. We haven't really gone anywhere since we started dating, and I know we agreed to take things slow - "

"Which we've been doing a terrible job of," Fiona deadpanned, and Imogen glared. Fiona shrugged her shoulders, looking not at all sorry.

"Anyhow, I know we agreed to take things slow, but I was wondering if I could take you out on a date tomorrow night?"

Fiona cocked her head to the side, and for the briefest of minutes Imogen held her breath, worried that she was going to say no. "I thought you'd never ask, Imogen Moreno," Fiona announced, and Imogen grinned in response, leaning in to kiss her.

—

This was ridiculous, really. She was just going on a date with a girl who had been her girlfriend for a couple of weeks now, and her best friend for longer than that. She really shouldn't have been having a swarm of butterflies living behind her ribcage, or pre-date jitters that were making her go back to her closet and switch outfits every three seconds because it wasn't like Imogen hadn't already seen everything she owned. It wasn't like Imogen hadn't already seen her at her worst, her best, and everywhere in between, so getting nervous over something as trivial as a date was just silly.

Holly J would have told her that nerves were a good thing, that they meant that she had strong feelings for Imogen and they hadn't settled into a boring routine yet (she hoped they wouldn't be able to this early on. That would be horrific). Still, she couldn't help but feel dumb as she tried to switch out her dress for a more casual pair of jeans and a top. Just then the buzzer went off, and she groaned, looking between the jeans she still had on the bed and the front door, and she finally just made a run for it.

Flinging the door open, she grabbed Imogen's wrist and tugged her in. "I'll be ready in a sec, I promise!" she called over her shoulder, rushing back around the couch and into her room, closing the door behind her and leaving a stunned Imogen staring after her.

When she exited her room a minute later, her purse over her arm, Imogen was sitting on her couch and checking her Twitter on her phone. "You could've told me this was going to be that kind of first date," she joked, tucking her phone away and standing up to greet Fiona with a kiss.

Fiona rolled her eyes. "Dream on, Moreno. I am a classy lady, and classy ladies do not put out on the first date. Or the second, or third, or fourth, so you have a lot of waiting ahead of you."

Imogen narrowed her eyes playfully and put a hand to her heart. "Ouch!" Both of them knew they weren't going to be ready for that for a long time (or, rather, they both knew Imogen wasn't going to be ready for that, considering Fiona's past record with Charlie) so the teasing was all light-hearted.

"So, do you want to tell me where we're going?" she asked as she held the door open, and Imogen just shook her head.

"You'll find out when we get there!"

—

"You brought me to the aquarium?"

Imogen's face fell, and she dropped Fiona's hand, scuffing the toe of her Converse against the pavement. "You don't like it."

Fiona shook her head, eyes trained on the building in front of them. "No! No, it's not that at all. I just - you remembered?" Back when the two of them had first become friends, Fiona had mentioned how she had never been to an aquarium but she had always wanted to. She thought she was too old to go now, since she was nearly eighteen, and Imogen had just hummed in response then, but clearly she had just been storing the information away.

Imogen smiled shyly, red tingeing the tips of her ears. "Well, yeah. I remember everything you say. So…you do like it?" Fiona fixed Imogen with a soft gaze, nodding.

"Yeah, I really do. Come here." Imogen complied immediately, standing up on her tiptoes to reach Fiona's lips as Fiona gently touched her chin. When they broke apart Imogen leaned back in for another kiss, but Fiona shook her head. "Come on, we have an aquarium to see! Oh, did you know that they have this really cool exhibit where you can go through this tunnel and see the shark lagoon?"

Imogen's face paled. "Shark lagoon?"

She hadn't realized that there would be sharks.

—

"Immy, I'm sorry, if I had known you'd cry I wouldn't have made you go through the shark lagoon," Fiona apologized for the fourth time since leaving the aquarium. Imogen waved her off, still clutching to Fiona's arm for dear life. Her girlfriend was going to have some lovely crescent-shaped bruises in the morning.

"No, no, it's perfectly fine! You had a good time, right? So I had a good time! A great time!" Her voice sounded higher than usual to even herself, and she shuddered as she remembered turning to say something to Fiona only to be face-to-face with a giant shark that was just chilling on the other side of the glass. Anyone would burst into tears when faced with that, she was sure, even if they hadn't been traumatized by watching Jaws as a child.

Fiona just frowned and hugged her closer to her side, kissing the top of her head. "I really am sorry," she said softly, but dropped the subject after that. "So, dinner next? If you still wanted to?"

Imogen nodded, drawing herself up to full-height again and regaining her excitement for the night. No amount of exposure to sharks could ruin her first date with her girlfriend, that was for sure. "Yes! There's a really good Chinese place near here, according to the reviews online, so I was thinking we could check that out?"

"Of course. I'm paying, though," Fiona cut in, before she could say anything else. "Seriously, it's the least I can do after you drove us here and paid for the aquarium. Okay? Just let me have this?" Imogen wasn't about to debate her on the point that her family currently had no money, because, um, that was a mood-killer if anything, so she just nodded.

"I think it's this way, according to my phone." She pointed to their left. "It should take us about five minutes to walk there."

Fifteen minutes later they still hadn't found the place, and Imogen was ninety-five percent sure they were lost as hell. She wasn't about to let Fiona know that, though, because then the date would be a total bust and she didn't want that to happen. "Um, it's probably just around the corner, here!" she said, fake-cheerful, and Fiona gave her a look.

"Imogen, are we lost?" She drew to a stop and held onto Imogen's arm so that she'd stop, too, and Imogen sighed.

"I think so," she admitted. "I'm sorry. I just really wanted this to be a perfect night out for us and between me crying at the aquarium us having to leave early and now us getting lost and not getting dinner, I didn't do a very good job, did I?" She was nearly on the verge of tears again, frustrated.

Fiona sighed and opened her arms, enveloping her in a hug. "Come on, it's not that bad. At least we're with each other, right? I mean, it could be worse. You could be with Mo and I could be with Marisol." Imogen giggled against her shoulder, and she took it as a good sign. "But hey, we can always look back at this later and think of it as a funny story to tell people. 'Oh, well, our first date was a disaster, but somehow we decided it wasn't a bad omen and we stayed together.'"

Imogen sniffled, wrapping her arms around Fiona's waist to stop her from pulling away. "Can we just stay like this a little longer?"

"Of course. Then we can find the car and go back to the loft and have a nice boring end to the night there. How does that sound?"

"Sounds great," Imogen murmured, not even caring that they were in the middle of the sidewalk of a sketchy backstreet on the most disastrous date she had ever been on, because at least Fiona was there.