+Once Biana had explained everything to Dex (and had finished crying), the strawberry blond haired boy was fuming. He paced in front of her, making gestures and started to speak but inevitably closing his mouth with an annoyed huff and going back to just being mad. Miserably, Biana sat in a chair at the table in the back room of Slurps N' Burps, her head propped on her hand, elbow to the wooden surface, eyes following the eldest Dizznee's movements dreadingly. Her eyes felt red and puffy, her stomach like it was buried into the earth beneath her. After a few minutes, when she couldn't take the silence anymore, she said, "I know you're mad at me. I should've listened, and I didn't, but-"

With rigid fingers bent into the shape of claws, Dex raised his hands next to his head in frustration, "I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at him." His words were edged and cold, so much that they made her flinch a little, even though they weren't directed towards her.

"Sophie and Fitz warned me," she reminded him, wishing she could go back in time somehow, though she wasn't sure what she would do. Would she go back to save Keefe? Or would she go back to save herself? "They warned me that he was a spy and I still stayed with him, even though all the evidence-"

"SCREW THE EVIDENCE!" Dex roared, slamming his hand down on the table in front of her, the sound echoing in her ears as he continued in an angry tone that was clearly an encasing for something much bigger than she was seeing, something that was able to slip through the cracks every now and then, just a little, "It wasn't your fault. You put your trust in him when no one else did. You were the one brave enough to give him a second chance even though he hurt you the most out of everyone!"

"But doesn't that make me the idiot-" Biana tried to put in a word as she looked up him in a mixture of wonder and astoundment, eyes wide.

"Being a good person doesn't make you an idiot, it makes you a better person than the rest of us," argued Dex passionately, his eyes never leaving hers for a syllable.

Exhausted, Biana averted her eyes and changed the subject, "What's weird is that I didn't intentionally light leap here... I just sort of... light leaped away. Nowhere in particular."

Dex's eyebrows furrowed and he frowned, calmly asking, "Then how did you end up at Slurps' N' Burps? Are you sure you didn't mean to come here out of everywhere else in the world?"

Shrugging, she replied, her head swirling with confused thoughts, clouding her vision like a thick fog "I can't explain it either, but I'm positive that it happened."

"This is weird," Dex started pacing again, faster than before, less tiresomely, "I've never heard of anything like this happening before... Do you think it could mean anything?"

"I'm not sure, but why don't we research it?" Biana proposed, though she had never thought she would ever suggest research for anything. Oh gnome, she was turning into Fitz!

Dex nodded in response, and walked out without another word, but she knew what he meant, and followed him. He shouted to his dad that he was leaving before leading her through the streets of Mysterium. Not wanting to lose him, she gripped the fabric of Dex's sleeve as she was towed along the path he blazed for them, and she could've sworn his ears turned red with a smile flicking at the corners of his lips. It was cute.

Biana was still holding his sleeve when they arrived at his beautiful house, and didn't realize it until they were halfway to the library when the triplets started tackling them with hugs like flies beelining to fly tape, her hand falling away to reciprocate the gesture. "Hi, guys!" She smiled cheerfully as the triplets rotated who they were hugging when, "How're you?"

"Good!" The three trouble makers chorused in unison in their typical child like manner.

"We didn't know you were coming!" Bex gasped enthusiastically.

"What a good surprise!" Lex gushed as he hugged her tightly.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Demanded Rex.

"It was kind of a split decision," Dex explained, "We need to do some research."

"What kind of research?" Bex wiggled her eyebrows goofily.

"What's it for?" Rex asked, continuing the interrogation.

"Can we help?" Lex pleaded, using his big innocent eyes.

"Just a little research on light leaping," Biana answered, trying to be as vague as possible, smiling apologetically down at the bright shining faces- and Rex's somewhat glowering one. "That's all. Just some research for fun, and I'm sorry, Lex, but Dex and I need to do this on our own."

"Research? For Fun?" Rex crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes, looking between her and Dex, "Are you two lying?"

"No, actually-" she started but Bex cut her off eagerly.

"ARE YOU DATING?!"

Yikes. This kid was waaaay too bent on romantic relationships when really she should be focusing on building strong friendships that will last forever. Though, to be fair, Biana was the same way at her age. Luckily, she had become a more refined and sophisticated lady, keeping her ships to herself while she quietly manipulated situations to try to get them together. A much classier and more successful way indeed.

Biana's bright red face was nowhere near as red as Dex's, who looked like he could die on the spot of embarrassment. "N-no! We're not dating," Dex confirmed, his facial features twitching in and out of a frown as he glanced at her occasionally, "now scram before I tell mom who raided the pantry for Prattles this morning before breakfast!"

Fear flashed across the triplet's faces- in unison like before- and they dashed past them down the hall, running into Rex's room, closing the door behind them hurriedly. Dex sighed, and began to apologize, but she stopped him.

"No, it's okay, I was just like that at their age. I've notoriously solidified Alvar's relationships, as well as broken them up."

"What about Fitz?"

"He's had a case of Sophie fever since she came to the lost cities," Biana laughed a little, "plus he probably couldn't've tell you what romance is until recently. It's clear that Sophie's the only one for him."

Dex cracked a smile, "Well they are number ones after all."

"And rightfully so."

They were perfect, Sophie and Fitz, the way they came together, fell together, fit together. They were like two puzzle pieces, separate from the rest of the puzzle, found under the couch three years after you put it together, still attached. In short they were perfect, it was perfect, and she couldn't help but wonder what that felt like.

She was now starting to see that she and Keefe hadn't been perfect after all, even though they were number ones, even though they were suppose to be. Dex was her number 23rd, yet this, what they were doing now, how they interacted with one another, wasn't suppose to be perfect, but -to her at least- it felt perfect. Maybe that was what was really important after all.

They continued walking down the hall to the library in silence until she reflected, "You know... I don't think I answered my Matchmakers application truthfully."

Dex seemed to be completely taken by surprise from the amount of stuttering at the beginning, "Wh-what? Why would you say that?"

"I don't know, I was totally obsessed with Keefe at the time, my answers might've been skewed," she thoughtfully reflected, which it was probably too soon for, since she just found out her whole relationship was a lie, her boyfriend never loving her in the first place, but the break had been quick and sharp. Oh, it had hurt, no doubt, but Keefe's words had been so harsh, so cold... that she didn't feel sorry for herself. Dex had convinced her that she wasn't an idiot, so she had already buzzed through two of the four main stages of a break up, and was stuck in the third- the weirdest one. The stage between regret and acceptance: contemplation, reflection, basic philosophy, whatever you would like to call it, it's all the same.

"Maybe," Dex shrugged, looking ahead as they walked, "I mean, if yours was skewed by Keefe then mine was skewed by Sophie."

"I wonder who would've been on my list if I hadn't been so biased."

"I don't know, I kind of like the girls on my list, I don't want to take the chance of any of them not being on there," he glanced at her briefly before looking ahead again.

"You like someone!" Biana gasped brightly, eyes shining.

"N-n-no! Of course not! I'm just saying that I got a list of nice girls, that's all," swore Dex, who was red faced again. She didn't believe him.

"Uh-huh, sure, okay," she giggled, "I got you, I won't tell." Playfully, she winked at him and he flipped out a little.

"No, no, no! I don't! I swear!"

She rolled her eyes, "Whatever you say. I'll leave you alone about it..." It took her a few seconds for her to think of a new conversation topic, "So wait, how does your mom not know the triplets ate Prattles before breakfast?"

"Oh, she does," he laughed, the stiff tension leaving his body as he opened the door for her, "I told her this morning, but they don't know that, but they'll find out soon enough."

"So when they get ratted out..." Biana's lips curled into a knowing smile.

"They'll come rampaging through the house to try and find me," confirmed Dex.

"Should we barricade the door, or...?"

"How good are you at telekinesis?"

"Good enough," she laughed.

With that, they closed the door and set to work at finding books about light leaping. They made a plan to each check the L section together, but Biana would check one side while Dex would check the other. While they were looking, Biana couldn't help but glancing up at Dex through the human public library like shelf. She could only see through a small window through all the books, but she watched the lines of his forehead crinkle and relax as he searched, how his nose twitched occasionally as he thought, how fingertips slid down the spines of some books, how he bit his lip, how his eyes narrowed at what must be tiny text- Okay, in all honesty, Biana wasn't really paying attention to finding the books on light leaping, but she did find a couple with passages in it.

His voice broke her from her thoughts, "You done looking?"

It took a few seconds for her brain to comprehend what he said, but eventually she answered yes, and they sat down in arm chairs next to one another, the pile of the books they had discovered on a small side table in between them. It was time for Biana to finally focus.

She slumped in the armchair and held her book up so the cover and pages blocked her view of his freckled face. As she read the pages intently, she couldn't help but peek over the edge to look at him every now and then... for some reason.

Biana didn't get an answer to her question until the second book- well, the one she came here to find the answer to anyways. It was in fine print, a small detail that could easily be overlooked. It read:

"When you light leap without a destination, you arrive at the exact location of the person who holds your heart."

Person who holds your heart?! But that would mean- Biana felt her face redden. She liked Dex? But she was just with Keefe and that would- She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her temples. Her head was still a little dizzy from the argument with Keefe, she really didn't feel like thinking about romance or relationships right now- for the first ever probably, and closed the book, setting it aside, Dex's eyes following her movements.

With a forced smile, she stood up and brushed off her skirt, "Let's take a break and go play with the triplets, all these books are giving me a headache."

She didn't tell him she found an answer, but he nodded and stood up with her. As they walked side by side, she watched him a little, sometimes letting herself fall a few steps behind so she could marvel at this new realization. Did she really love Dex all along?

---

After Biana had left for dinner, Dex went back to the library to clean up the books that had been forgotten after tiring games of chase the triplets. He began to pick them up, but stopped at the second one, the one Biana had been reading. Curiously, he opened it up and flipped through a few pages. One tiny header caught his eye, and he scanned the paragraph, almost dropping the books he was holding at the content. He couldn't believe his eyes and read it over and over again. Tears of joy and relief fell from his eyes and he smiled. She loved him. She really and truly loved him.

---

Merry Christmas, this is 2232 words (excluding this memo)!