"Valentine's Day," The Middleman, PG-13

Title: Valentine’s Day
Author: edna_blackadder
Rating: PG-13: implications, very non-graphic violence, one naughty word
Pairings: Wendy Watson/Tyler Ford, the Middleman/Lacey Thornfield, the Middleman/OFC
Word Count: 4,948
Disclaimer: The Middleman was created by Javier Grillo-Marxuach. No money is being made from this, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Wendy is looking forward to a quiet, video-game-carnage-filled Valentine’s Day with Tyler, but Middlelife isn’t that simple.
Author’s Note: This fic is definitely out of season, but since the graphic novel is going to make it totally AU, I figured I’d better finish it. Thanks to sarcasticsra for the beta.


Middleman HQ
February 14th, 9:30 A.M.

To say Wendy was dreading this would be an understatement. “Hey, boss.”

“No problem, Dubbie, I’ll see you tomorrow,” the Middleman answered with a polite but dismissive wave.

“Er, what?”

“You were about to ask me to please hold down the fort just this once so that you and Tyler can spend Valentine’s Day together. It’s no problem; I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You’re just agreeing? No lecture on how exotic problems don’t recognize commercialized holidays?”

“Not this time. It’s no problem; I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Wendy narrowed her eyes. “This isn’t like you.”

The Middleman smiled. “I assure you that I am not being possessed by any sort of extraterrestrial, supernatural, mechanical or other sort of exotic powers.”

“Really.”

“I can verify that,” Ida interrupted. “I checked as soon as he nodded agreeably at the surveillance feed.”

“Ida! You should have said something before—”

“Both of you! Whatever surveillance feed that was, it will be very much off tonight, okay?”

“Of course, Dubbie. Er—have a nice time.”

“Will do. Thanks, boss.”

“It’s—”

“No problem; you’ll see me tomorrow. I get it.”

Wow, Wendy thought as she left headquarters. That was way, way too easy. Nevertheless, she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not when she had about 20 minutes to get home and wrap a rather oversized present.

The illegal sublet Wendy shares with her equally adorable artist roommate Lacey
9:50 A.M.

“Dub-Dub, look! Tyler sent you chocolates.”

Already halfway up the stairs, Wendy stopped and turned around. “No he didn’t.”

“Yes he did. Come look.” Lacey was holding up a beautiful heart-shaped box. “There’s a note, too: ‘Thinking of you.’ No signature, but who else could it be?”

Wendy grinned. “Pretty much anybody but Tyler. Those chocolates are for you, Lacey.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, for one thing, Tyler hates traditional Valentine’s Day every bit as much as I do. For another, he’s bringing my gift over in person in”—Wendy checked her watch— “eight minutes, so I really need to wrap his, and finally, those are vegan chocolates. All yours, Lace.”

Ordinarily, the lack of a signature would have set off alarm bells in Wendy’s head, but she was about 99% sure she knew where the chocolates had come from. She was pretty sure Lacey knew, too. Wendy reached under her bed, feeling around for a large painting vividly depicting herself and Tyler holding hands and fighting off hordes of zombies. Hurriedly she began to wrap it, only to be interrupted by the doorbell.

“That’s Tyler,” she called down to Lacey. “Could you stall him for me? I just need a few more minutes.”

“No problem, Dub-Dub,” she heard Lacey answer. “Hi, Tyler.”

“Hey, Lacey. Let me guess: Wendy’s upstairs doing last-minute rush-job wrapping.”

“Got it in one. You must be psychic.”

“Nope. I’m just no better, I’m afraid.” Wendy looked up and saw that he was holding something that looked equally hurriedly wrapped. “Are those vegan chocolates?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. They just arrived this morning. Want to try one?”

“Think I’ll pass, thanks.” Wendy smiled, imagining Tyler’s not-quite-successfully-concealed wary expression. She finished taping the last corner, stuck a suitably ominous black bow on top, and ran downstairs to greet her boyfriend with a kiss.

“Happy commercialized holiday of pink and red doom,” she said, grinning in a way that she knew was hopelessly reminiscent of every stupidly happy person who had ever inspired her to hate the day in the first place. Wendy cupped Tyler’s neck and felt herself flush as his arms wrapped around her back. She leaned in to kiss him again, but they were interrupted by a sudden, loud thud.

Tyler groaned, his lips barely an inch apart from hers. “That didn’t sound good.”

“No it did not.” Wendy reluctantly tore herself away from Tyler. “Oh no.” Lacey was lying on the floor, completely still, holding a rapidly melting chocolate in one of her hands. “Oh no. Lacey?” Wendy bent down over her friend’s prone form and frantically began to pat her face. “Lacey! Lacey, wake up!”

“It’s okay.” She felt Tyler’s comforting hand on her arm, and noticed that his other hand was at the base of Lacey’s neck. “She’s breathing. She has a pulse.” He paused, then asked, “Has she ever fainted before?”

“Only during her performances.” Wendy shook her head sadly. “I shouldn’t have let her eat those. The note didn’t have a signature; that should’ve told me something. I just thought….well, this is going to sound weird, but I thought they were from my boss. He’s...well, he’s kind of in love with her, but it’s complicated, and it just seemed like the kind of thing he’d do. Obviously I was wrong. I’m so sorry, Tyler, but—”

Tyler cut her off with a brief but tender kiss. “Lacey’s life is more important than any commercialized holiday of pink and red doom. If there’s anything I can do—”

“Stay here and watch over her. Call me if she comes to, or if anything happens. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She kissed him lightly, then added, “By the way, never let it be said that you’re not the best boyfriend ever.”

Middleman HQ
10:20 A.M.

“Awww, the cute boy get called back to Fatboy? Or did you two just smoke too much happy leaf to get to the good stuff?”

“Where’s our boss, Ida?”

“The Middleman is indisposed.”

Ida’s eighteen billionth stoner comment hadn’t really fazed her, but that got Wendy’s attention. “He’s what?”

“He is indisposed.”

“Indisposed how?”

“Simply indisposed. Get back to your date, toker.”

“Are you saying he gave me the day off because he doesn’t want me around for some reason?”

“What I’m saying is that if you don’t—”

“Ida, what is going on here—Dubbie? Shouldn’t you be away, basking in the warm glow of your love for Tyler?”

“My date’s off, boss. Lacey ate some anonymously-sent chocolate and went all catatonic. And why are you supposedly indisposed? You do know that when you use a vague term meant to stop people asking questions it just makes them more curious, right?” She paused, noticing that the Middleman’s face had gone very white. “Boss?”

“You said Lacey ate some chocolate, sent to her anonymously, and—”

“And went all catatonic, yeah. She’s breathing, but she just fell down, unconscious. I know I shouldn’t have let her eat them, but...oh god this is awkward. I thought they were from you.”

“Dubbie—you were right. I did send Lacey a box of cruelty-free vegan chocolates, anonymously. But I certainly didn’t booby trap them.”

“Then what could’ve—” Wendy was cut off by the sound of the Middleman’s Middlewatch beeping. “Um, how are you being contacted on the Middlewatch which only we have when Ida and I are both standing right here, not contacting you?”

The Middleman wasn’t listening. “Rosemary?” he asked, as if hardly daring to believe it.

“Who else, lover?”

“Lover? Rosemary? Who are you talking to, boss?”

“Found a new sidekick, lover? A new me? I knew you would. But I don’t mind her. I know you have to train new Middlemen, and your dedication to your duty always has been your most attractive quality. But when I found out you were thinking of another woman on our special day, I couldn’t abide that.”

“What have you done to Lacey, Rosemary?”

“Yeah, who are you and what have you done to my best friend?”

“I have been faithful, lover, and believe me, it’s not for lack of opportunity. All those brilliant young men you’ve shipped off to Greenland...they couldn’t wait to serve me, in every way, but I put my foot down every time.”

“Even evil has standards,” Wendy muttered. “Wait, evil? And you’re—boss, is she your other woman?”

“Not bad for a neophyte. Wendy, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. What’ve you done to Lacey?”

“Lacey? Oh, you mean Test Subject 1A. Harmless experiment. Oh, some might say it’s worse than death, but it’s really quite harmless. It was Eleanor’s idea, actually.”

“Eleanor Draper? The girl who used her physics genius to try to take out a sorority?”

“The one and only, also my new apprentice. Did you hear that, lover? The student has become the teacher.”

“We’ll just see about that, Rosemary!”

“Yes, I suspect we will. You’ve got some splainin’ to do, lover.”

The connection went dead. “‘You’ve got some splainin’ to do’? Did you two bond over being stuck in the ’50s?”

The Middleman paused. “It wasn’t like that, Dubbie.”

“What was it like, then? Did you—” Wendy was interrupted by her cell phone, announcing a call from Tyler. “Uh-oh. Hang on. Hello?”

“Wendy? Uh, Lacey came to, all right.”

“Oh thank god. Is she okay?”

“Has she ever displayed the kind of superhuman martial arts abilities you generally need a lot of CGI for?”

“Uh, no. What happened?”

“She knocked me out.”

“Lacey knocked you out?”

“Yeah, and apparently she did the same to Noser. He’s still out cold. Just after you left, she stood up, stared at me for a minute and then threw a plate at me.”

“She threw a plate at you?”

“Yeah. I ducked, and I tried to talk her down, but her eyes were all out of focus and I don’t think she heard a thing I said. Then she jumped about five feet in the air, glided over to me and karate-chopped me in the back of the head.”

“And then left the building and took out Noser when he tried to stop her, or maybe just because he said hi. Think I get the picture. Are you okay?”

“I’ll live. I’m guessing the chances of you getting back tonight are officially nil?”

“Pretty much. I’m sorry, Tyler, I—”

“I’d be a pretty crappy boyfriend, and a major narcissist, if I thought you deliberately arranged to turn your best friend into a godless killing machine just to get out of a date with me. Anyway, I’ve got to go. Manservant Neville’s helicopter is outside. Fatboy’s got access to everything and I thought maybe he could help.”

Wendy covered her phone’s mouthpiece with her hand, mouthed the word “shit,” and then said, “Uh, thanks. I think my boss and I have this one covered, but I’ll call you if—”

“This particular pilot doesn’t like to be kept waiting. I’ll be in touch. Oh, and Dubster?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

“Love you too, Tyler Ford.” Wendy snapped her phone shut, then said, “This just went from bad to worse. Lacey went all superhuman violent and Tyler called Manservant Neville.”

“Manservant Neville of Fatboy Industries?”

“The very same. He recently hired Tyler to be his right-hand man, and now he’s helping us track down Lacey and your evil ex-girlfriend. Speaking of which, how are we going about that, exactly?”

The Middleman opened his mouth to answer, but Ida beat him to it. “The raven-haired bitch is at a factory in the remote northern tundra of Greenland. Just give me a minute and I’ll have an address.”

“Okay, great. What’s happening to Lacey?”

The Middleman looked pained. “If I had to guess, Dubbie, I’d say that Rosemary and Eleanor dosed her with a drug to jam her brain and control her body remotely. If she was performing feats beyond human capabilities, I’m afraid it’s the only rational explanation.”

“Rational. Right. So they’ve basically turned her into a human robot? And when you said we’ll see about that, and she said she suspects we will, what did that mean?”

“If I know Rosemary, she’ll have programmed Lacey to come to her, taking out any obstacles that stand in her way with pure brute force of which no man or beast would ordinarily be capable—”

“And she’s in Greenland? Then Lacey must be on her way to the airport. We’ve got to stop her!” Wendy grabbed her gun and made for the door, and then seeing that the Middleman wasn’t following her, asked, “Um, why aren’t you moving, exactly?”

“Dubbie, as long as she’s in this state, Lacey could kill us both. We can’t go after her until we’ve got an antidote for that drug.”

“And in order to get one?”

“We’ll need to head over to your apartment and bring back those chocolates for testing.” He paused, then said, “I’m so sorry, Dubbie. I had no idea—”

“That your evil ex-girlfriend would turn your sweet romantic gesture into an opportunity to turn my best friend into a human robot? I didn’t see that one coming either.”

“All the same, Dubbie, I—”

“Let’s just go so we can find Lacey, okay?”

“All right.”

Wendy led the way out to the smartcar, ignoring Ida’s imprecations against herself, Lacey and Rosemary. Once they were settled inside, she began, “Boss, I know this can’t be easy for you and all, but...you’ve got to tell me about this Rosemary. Who is she, what happened between you, what she’s capable of, what nefarious things she would do to keep Lacey away from you—”

The Middleman bit his lip, then said heavily, “Rosemary was my first Middleman-in-training, a charming, beautiful woman with a penchant for blowing things up. She fought by my side for six glorious months, and I was in love with her almost from the moment we met. We had our first Code 86 on Valentine’s Day, seven years ago.”

“And now she’s crazy and evil and turning Lacey into a human robot? This does not compute.”

“Well, there were signs, but you know how love is. It blinds you. Did I know, in my heart of hearts, that perhaps Rosemary derived a bit too much pleasure from destroying buildings that just happened to be in her way? I suppose I must have, but—”

“She was good in bed. I get it.”

“When it finally became apparent to me that Rosemary wanted to be a Middleman not to protect the world, but to dominate it, I fired her. Not without a fight, of course, but it wasn’t much of a fight. She let me win. She let me throw her out, and that’s how I knew that in spite of what she was, she did love me. And I’ve never been able to put aside the hope, however faint, that—”

“That there was still a spark of goodness in her, yeah. I’m not seeing it, young Skywalker. This woman is the reason you don’t want to be with Lacey? What can she possibly have that Lacey doesn’t, other than insanity and villainy and a sidekick who inhabited your body and tried to bitchslap me to death?”

The Middleman sighed. “It’s not Rosemary as she is now. Perhaps it’s not even Rosemary as she ever was. It’s the memory of Rosemary as I believed her to be. I still love her, even knowing as I do now that she may have never truly existed. So you see, Dubbie, Lacey’s not—”

“Not the only woman you love. Well, that’s really sad, boss. And one more thing. If mourning for your evil lost love Rosemary is why you let me take the day off without argument, and why Ida tried to tell me you were indisposed, then why did you send the chocolates to Lacey? Why get her hopes up like that?” When he didn’t immediately answer, Wendy asked hesitantly, “Boss?”

His voice cracking slightly, he asked, “Did she like them, then?”

Softening, Wendy reached out and placed a hand on his arm. “I think she did, boss.”

“Well...good.”

“Yep. And hey look, we’re here...as is the entire army of Fatboy, apparently.”

The illegal sublet Wendy shares with her equally adorable artist roommate Lacey
11:30 A.M.

Wendy had intended her last statement as hyperbole, but it didn’t seem too far off. When she pulled the grate open, she and the Middleman were greeted by a swarm of suits, all holding guns. “Sorry, ma’am, this place is quarantined.”

“Uh, first of all, I live here, and secondly...ma’am? Really?”

“This place is quarantined, ma’am, I’m sorry.”

“Tyler!” Wendy shouted hopefully.

To her immense relief, Tyler heard her and hurried out to the hallway. “It’s all right, guys. She’s my girlfriend, and the missing girl’s roommate. And he’s her boss.” Then, turning to Wendy, he added, “So I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”

“Let me guess: the bad news is that those chocolates Lacey ate were dosed with something that would turn her into a remote-controlled human robot?”

“And the good news is that Fatboy’s labs analyzed them and came up with an antidote right away. So all we’ve got to do is find Lacey, which shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Suspicious, Wendy asked, “Why not?”

“Give me just one second.” Tyler turned on the TV, and every news channel’s top story was footage of a catatonic but very mobile and violent Lacey forcing her way through airport security and onto a plane, which was set on course for Greenland.

“Wonderful. So I guess I’m going to Greenland.”

“You?” asked the Middleman. “You mean we, Dubbie, don’t you?”

“The Middlejet only has room for one, and I am not taking another trip in the cancersub.”

“Fatboy’s jets are very fast, Miss Watson, and very spacious,” a very familiar British accent interrupted. Manservant Neville turned around. “Mr. Ford and I can take you there ourselves.”

“That’s very kind of you, Manservant Neville, but our company can arrange its own accomodations—” the Middleman started, but Manservant Neville shook his head.

“I can have a jet here in thirty seconds flat. Just tell me where you think Miss Thornfield is headed, and we’ll have you on her tail in no time.”

Wendy wasn’t at all sure she trusted Manservant Neville. Ever since her foray into the parallel universe, she’d wondered about his true intentions. He was good there, so was he evil here? It made sense, but the palindrome didn’t line up perfectly. The parallel version of Lacey was still good, and the parallel Middleman hadn’t been completely evil, so that was hardly conclusive evidence. And she was sure that she trusted Tyler. She was also sure that she did not want to re-enter the cancersub, or get stuck in another objectifying white bikini. “Okay.” Then she called Ida on the Middlewatch. “Ida, did you get an address for Rosemary’s factory of evil?”

“Only about an hour ago. I told you I just needed a minute. How was your weed break?”

“Lovely. Where is it?”

Ida rattled off something in Danish. Wendy groaned. “Uh, could you spell that?”

Fatboy Industries private jet
1:00 P.M.

“I can’t help noticing that this is unbearably awkward.” Wendy was sitting next to the Middleman, across from Tyler and Manservant Neville, in a very luxurious private jet on a fast track to Greenland. None of them had said a word since take-off.

“Perhaps we can all do something to pass the time,” suggested Manservant Neville. “Anyone for shaboomi?”

Rosemary’s factory of evil in the remote northern tundra of Greenland
Four shaboomi-filled hours later

“Give it up, Rosemary!” the Middleman shouted into the night, as he, Wendy, Tyler and Manservant Neville aimed various large and powerful ray guns at the steel door. Wendy kicked it for good measure and the door collapsed, revealing a tall, pale woman with long black hair, deep blue eyes and a full mouth, which was twisted into a...twisted smile. Overall, Rosemary gave the impression of someone who might have been beautiful if only she weren’t so evil. Standing at her side was Eleanor Draper.

“Oh, hi, Wendy!” said Eleanor brightly. “Did the Omegas turn you out on the street, like the cold-hearted bitches they are?”

“Pot, kettle, black,” Wendy shot back, holding her gun steady. “I should’ve zapped you when I had the chance.” Then she noticed Lacey, lying motionless on a table.

Rosemary appeared to have followed her gaze. “Ah, yes, Test Subject 1A is a highly intriguing specimen. I never did see you with a blonde, lover, but I suppose people do change. And I can certainly see where the vegan angle would appeal to your pathological desire to save this sorry excuse for a world.”

“Rosemary...perhaps we can talk about this,” the Middleman started, but Rosemary shook her head.

“I don’t think so, lover. Now I’d highly recommend you all drop your weapons...and in your case, your pants, if you’re so inclined—”

“Great Caesar’s ghost, Rosemary, I—”

Rosemary wasn’t listening. She stuck two fingers in mouth and blew. An ear-splitting whistle issued from her mouth, followed by the sound of stampeding feet.

“Gee, she’s getting more attractive by the second, boss,” Wendy muttered, covering her ears.

“Not now, Dubbie!”

The bodies attached to the stampeding feet stampeded into the room, and Wendy groaned as she saw that they formed a veritable army of unassuming-bookworms-turned-deadly-killers, all very heavily armed. Then Eleanor pushed a button, and Lacey climbed off the table and lay down on the floor, directly in the path of the inevitable impending brawl.

“All right,” said Rosemary sharply. “Lover...lover’s new sidekick...and whoever the hell you two are, I’d highly suggest dropping your weapons if you don’t want Miss Test Subject getting hurt.”

Wendy glanced at the Middleman, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Tyler glancing at Manservant Neville. The Middleman, however, was not looking back at her. “There’s just one thing I want to know, Rosemary. What is the point of all this? If you were jealous of Lacey—”

Rosemary grinned. “Jealous of her, lover? Oh no. Well”—she paused, considering—“perhaps a little, but really I just felt like it was time we settled this, once and for all. You were thinking of her on our day, so I decided that the statute of limitations must have ended. We’ve purposefully ignored each other for far too long, and now it’s time for me to take you out for good. Using her as bait was just pure spite, with the added bonus of giving Eleanor a chance to test her invention. My plan was—”

“Sheer elegance in its simplicity,” the Middleman and Wendy finished for her.

“That’s right,” said Rosemary. “Now drop your weapons, all of you, unless you want really want your vegan sweetheart to be trampled to death by my minions.”

The Middleman placed his gun at his feet, then turned to Wendy, Tyler and Manservant Neville. “I’m afraid she’s quite serious.” Wendy nodded, mouthed an “I’m sorry” to Tyler, and dropped her own gun. Tyler nodded and followed suit. So did Manservant Neville, but Wendy noticed that as he bent down, he retrieved a small capsule from inside his shoe. Which he then proceeded to throw directly at Rosemary, Eleanor and their minions. The capsule exploded, and all of them froze.

“I’m afraid the effects will only last for about one minute. Move Miss Thornfield’s body, now.”

“How come a CEO carries trance gas capsules in his shoe?”

“The same reason a temp worker carries a ray gun, I expect. Actually, I usually employ it during board meetings. Those Ivy League suits all say the same things and it’s much more efficient to just inform them that they’ve already said them.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Wendy admitted. She rushed over to Lacey, closely followed by Tyler and the Middleman. Between them they carried her out of harm’s way, but all too soon they heard Rosemary coughing irritably.

“That was low, Mr. Whoever-The-Hell-You-Are,” she said viciously, advancing on Manservant Neville. “You will pay—”

“I don’t think so, Rosemary,” the Middleman interrupted, stepping between them. “This is our epic showdown, remember.”

“I always did hate it when you came after me with my own logic,” she said petulantly. “Very well, then.” She kicked out, and soon they were embroiled in what did look like a frighteningly epic showdown. Wendy realized with a jolt that as a former Middleman-in-training, Rosemary must have been trained by Sensei Ping, too. Then she noticed Eleanor, who was reaching for her machine’s controls.

“I don’t think so, bitch.” Wendy tackled her with more force than strictly necessary, careful to keep her arms out of biting range. Without the benefit of the Middleman’s muscle memory, though, Eleanor proved a much less vicious opponent this time around, and Wendy dispatched her easily. She turned her attention to Rosemary’s horde of minions, and to her astonishment she saw that Tyler and Manservant Neville had already taken out half of them. There wasn’t time to consider her musician boyfriend’s newly acquired deadly fighting skills, however, so she jumped into the fray to assist them. Against the three of them, Rosemary’s nerds-turned-killer-minions didn’t stand a chance. When the dust cleared, only the Middleman and Rosemary were still fighting.

“You can’t win, Rosemary!” the Middleman shouted as he ducked, narrowly avoiding a high kick to the head. “There are four of us and only one of you. Surrender now, and try for some remorse!”

“Remorse? Ha!” Rosemary threw her head back and laughed, and in so doing she completely failed to duck when the Middleman came back at her with a high kick of his own. She crumpled, unconscious, on the cold steel floor.

For a few moments, no one spoke. Then Tyler broke the silence, shaking his head. “Hasn’t she ever read a comic book? Or failing that, Harry Potter?”

“Apparently not,” said Wendy gratefully, grasping at the straw and trying to process everything that had just happened. Then she remembered that Lacey was still in her catatonic, remote-controlled, apparently-very-lethal state. “Uh, guys? The antidote?”

“Here you are, Miss Watson,” said Manservant Neville, handing her a syringe that looked disturbingly like many of the ones she had seen Ida use at HQ. Wendy nodded, then hesitantly approached the Middleman.

“You do the honors, boss,” she said quietly, pressing the syringe into his hand.

He shook his head. “Dubbie...I shouldn’t.”

“Why not?” Wendy folded her arms. “You can’t possibly still feel anything for Rosemary after that. What reason can you possibly have not to go to Lacey right now and tell her how you feel? Granted, you’ll have a tough time not explaining to her how you and I work for an organization too secret to know and save the world on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, but—” Wendy broke off, realizing who else was in the room. Slowly, she turned around to face Tyler. “Yeah, about that—”

“It’s all right,” Tyler said hurriedly. “I mean, as you can probably tell, I haven’t been completely honest about my job either. And now that I know you save the world, I’m pretty sure the only sane reaction I could possibly have is to love you even more.”

Wendy grinned, and she raced across the room to hug him. “Love you too. And I want to hear all about your job later tonight, preferably in between rounds of Gut Wrencher III.” She paused, glancing at Manservant Neville. “If that’s all right with your boss, I mean.”

Manservant Neville nodded. “I think Miss Watson has proven she can be trusted.”

Tyler smiled. “Thanks, boss.”

“No problem. Now, perhaps someone ought to attend to Miss Thornfield, so we can get out of here?”

“Like I said, your move, boss.”

The Middleman paused. “Are you sure, Dubbie?”

“Very sure. Now hurry up and bring my best friend back to the land of the living.”

Slowly, the Middleman approached Lacey’s prone form. He injected the serum into her neck, and she instantly sprang back to life.

Lacey blinked, then sat up. “You save the world?” she asked, smiling ear-to-ear. “Why didn’t you say?!” Then she clasped her arms around the Middleman’s neck and pulled him into a kiss.

Several moments passed, and just as Wendy’s feeling of happiness for the two of them started to turn into contact embarrassment, Lacey pulled away, presumably to breathe. Panting, the Middleman asked her, “How were you able to hear that?”

“I’ve been aware of everything, this whole time,” said Lacey. “I was just powerless to stop it. I’m gonna have a hard time explaining this one to the pacifist community.”

The illegal sublet Wendy shares with her equally adorable artist roommate Lacey
February 15th, 5:10 P.M.

After Manservant Neville had dropped Wendy, Tyler, Lacey and the Middleman off at the now-unquarantined illegal sublet, Wendy had stopped only to pick up her hastily wrapped gift before she and Tyler left for his place. Stumbling back home much, much later, she was greeted by Lacey, who looked dazed and, more importantly, ecstatic. Wendy grinned—she knew that look.

“Wow, you two just skipped right to the sex, huh.”

“It was amazing,” Lacey said dreamily. “It was like a love-nado.”

“A tornado made of love? Too much information. But seriously”—Wendy wrapped an arm around Lacey—“I’m so, so happy for you guys.”

Lacey returned the one-armed hug, then said, “And I’m happy for you, too. Tyler’s right, you know. The only sane reaction to finding out you save the world for a living is to love you even more. And speaking of Tyler, how was your night?”

Wendy grinned. “Why don’t I play the CD he made of tender love songs about us fighting zombies while I tell you all about it?”