"Do you think I'm pretty?"

"Objection, your honour. Councilor Hopper's vanity and questions encompassing that vanity are hardly relevant to her case."

Judge Mayfield looked at El Hopper, the prosecutor for the case. "Sustained. Councilor, please make your questions pertinent to your case."

"I am your honour. I'm trying to establish that Mr. Wheeler's misogynistic attitude towards young women will lead to his eventual sexual assault conviction."

"Obbbbbbjection!" Councilor Sinclair practically screamed. "Did the prosecutor just try and convict the defendant during her cross-examination? Could you please direct the Councilor to change her line of questioning?"

"Sustained." Judge Mayfield said, "Councilor Hopper, could you please rephrase your question?"

El Hopper huffed, but the gave the judge her sweetest smile. Mike Wheeler thought it was the ugliest most sarcastic thing he'd ever seen.

"Of course your honour. Mr. Wheeler, outside of this courtroom, would you find me attractive? Or judge Mayfield for that matter. Well your lawyer already knows you do. What about the women on the jury, or in the courtroom. Do you find them all pretty too?"

El had her hands on her hips, her expression deadly. She started tapping her foot with impatience.

Mike Wheeler cleared his throat. "I used to find you pretty. But you put your hair in that stupid Mickey Mouse bun thing that makes you look like a stuck up bitch, and then you attack me because I said I thought Max was pretty… which was just a compliment, I know her and Lucas are going out. And you've had that bug up your ass since ever this morning.

"So no. Councilor Hopper, today you are not pretty. Your heart is ugly and you can't keep your personal feelings outside of the courtroom." Max Mayfield started pounding the gavel. Snickers could be heard from the jury box.

"Ok. Class" Mr. Clarke's civics class was now completely disrupted. His star students had some personal issues that had crept their way into the mock trial, and they needed to work those out before they continued with the historical case they were working on. He sighed.

"Let's take a recess, no pun intended, and come back to this after lunch."

XXXXX

Max found El crying in the bathroom mirror. She was viciously yanking out the elastics that held her hair in that 'stupid Mickey Mouse' hairstyle Just reliving the words Mike had yelled at her made her cry even harder.

"M-Mike thinks I'm ugly. He used to think I was pretty."

"I just talked to Lucas, Mike is really upset. You know he didn't mean the things he said. He thinks you are mad at him for saying… for saying that I was pretty."

"He had no right to say that!"

Max frowned, "he had no right to say I was pretty? El, he knows how Lucas and I feel about each other. I think he was saying that for Lucas. Some weird guy thing or something, I don't know."

"Some stupid guy thing." El was angry again.

"Maybe, but I know for a fact that Mike thinks you are the prettiest girl in the world. Now he thinks you hate him after what you said during the trial role playing."

"I was trying to be a tough professional prosecutor. That's why I put my hair up and wore these glasses and this skirt."

"But you let your hurt feelings work their way into your questions. Lucas tried to get you back on track… and it almost worked until Mike let his feelings work his way into his answers."

XXXXX

Because of repair work being done on lockers in one of the school hallways, several kids ended up sharing lockers. The teachers at the school had all agreed that the locker partners should not be assigned but instead let the students pick their own locker partner.

Naturally Lucas and Max and paired up. Dustin and Will had, and of course Mike and El had. That hadn't come as a surprise to anybody in the entire school. Everyone knew how much in love they were. Nobody really knew what they had gone through that had drawn them together and kept them so close. So when word of their mock trial confrontation made it around the school, all students kept a wide berth around them.

Mike was trying to hurry at his locker before El got there. He really didn't want to talk to her for the rest of the day. Tomorrow, who knew, but not for today.

He felt a presence beside him, took a quick glance at El standing there looking down, her hair was down and it was obvious that she'd been crying. He felt bad. He never wanted to see her cry… and he never wanted to be the person who'd made her cry. He felt like shit.

But he was still mad at her. He tried to ignore her when she said in a quiet, "you're not going to talk to me again are you?"

Mike reached into the locker and pulled out a stack of folded notes. He handed them to El.

She looked puzzled an took the top one, unfolded it and read. Do you think I'm pretty? She looked at the next one, it said the same thing, in different handwriting.

"Who are these from?" She said, her voice accusatory.

"There's almost a hundred there. So probably from every girl in the school. Making fun of me. Making fun of you. I was going to hide them so you didn't see them. You don't deserve that."

El's face softened. "It's because they think you're cute. Every girl in the school wants to know if Mike Wheeler thinks she's pretty."

"But they know I'm yours El, it's not fair to either of us."

"You're mine?" Her eyes grew wide and glistened with tears.

"I am. Um, forever too. If I made you doubt my promise to you… . I'm sorry about earlier… You know I didn't mean it right? I was just mad." Mike sighed.

"I was being bitchy. I took advantage of our relationship, I know you'd never say anything nasty to me… so I pushed you as hard as I could. I'm the one that's sorry…. have you heard the knew rumour?"

"That we broke up? Yeah, I guess that accounts for all the notes I got."

El looked at him with her big brown eyes, "so… still pretty?"

"Yeah. Pretty… really pretty El." He leaned forward and gave her a soft kiss.

"Then I rest my case." She smiled through her tears.