This fic is dedicated to a very special woman in my life. Meg, I can't write poetry to save my life, so this is how I decided to express myself. With all my love, I want to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day. Enjoy the fic. With All my Love By Cav "Aeka! Watch what you're doing!" Sasami barked at her sister as she saw the pot starting to overflow. Aeka meanwhile was scrambling to get the pot off the stove before any more damage was done. Picking up the pot, she realized one small mistake. "Too hot!" she yelled out as she threw the pot across the kitchen, sending it crashing into the fridge and spilling the contents all over the floor. Meanwhile, watching the whole comical display, Ryoko burst into laughter at the princess's misfortune. "Smooth move, your highness." Letting out a bit of a snarl, Aeka turned her head away from her rival and walked towards the counter to get some paper towels. "At least I'm doing something for Lord Tenchi, unlike you who won't even respect his customs and traditions." Staring at her puzzled, Ryoko looked down at the brownish liquid on the floor, trying to figure out what Aeka had meant. "Traditions?" "You... you mean you don't even know... eep!" Aeka let out a startled cry as she realized her mistake. "Know what?" Ryoko asked with a mischievous look, turning her head towards Sasami and flashing her a smile. "Sorry, Aeka. You should've kept quiet," Sasami said as Aeka let out a frustrated sigh and started to mumble to herself for her mistake. "Tomorrow is Valentine's Day." "Valentine's Day?" Ryoko inquired curiously. "Uh huh!" Sasami answered enthusiastically. "It's an Earth tradition, although they celebrate it differently in Japan than other countries. You can make chocolates and other candy and food for your male friends and colleagues. And if you want, you can confess your love to someone too. Then on White Day, the men give gifts back to the women who gave them gifts on Valentine's Day and can reply to any confessions of love." Teleporting behind Aeka, Ryoko put her hands on the princess's shoulders and whispered into her ear. "I wonder if her highness is giving Tenchi something out of honor or... could it be love?" she asked in a playful tone. Aeka replied by swatting the demon away from her. Looking towards the younger princess with a smile, Sasami answered for her. "She's planning to confess her love," she let out with a sigh. "How could you tell her that?!" Aeka barked at her sister. "Oh come now princess. There's nothing to be worried about... except complete and utter rejection." "Hmmph." Collecting her pride again, Aeka finally found a retort. "Well it'll certainly speak volumes of your so called affections for him when you don't even bother to make anything. Meanwhile, come White Day, Tenchi will be confessing his love to yours truly! OH HO HO HO HO" Getting extremely aggravated, Ryoko glared at the violet-tressed princess. "Tenchi would never confess anything to you!" "Is that so?" Aeka asked with a grin on her face. "Well how will he ever confess anything to you when you aren't even trying?" "I don't need this," Ryoko said with contempt as she made her way out of the kitchen. Posing triumphantly, Aeka turned to Sasami. "Let's get back to work!" she proclaimed enthusiastically. Sasami sighed. "Well you know what they say... eighth time's a charm..." "Looking for something?" came the inquiring voice of the petite scientist. Ryoko stopped in mid-air and turned to face her mother. "What makes you think that?" Ryoko replied. Smiling a bit, Washu answered her "Well... you just did have a squabble with Aeka. I'm willing to bet you want to one up her on this Valentine's Day thing. Am I right?" Lowering her head, Ryoko responded with an annoyed tone of voice, "What's it going to cost me?" "Oh... nothing much..." Washu said in an easy-going voice. Just..." "Just what?" "Just... call me "MOM"!" the petite scientist said as her eyes sparkled with amusement. Grumbling to herself, Ryoko knew her mother had her. "All right... mom," she said, quite disgusted at having to lower herself to this. Without warning, Washu shoved a piece of candy in Ryoko's mouth and forced her to swallow it. "What the hell was that?!" Ryoko roared at her mother. "Oh... I just disabled the part of your taste buds that prevents you from having to detect totally disgusting and somewhat poisoness foods." "YOU WHAT?!" "Well... Ryo-Ohki found out what you were planning and is currently in hiding for the next day or so. Thus, you have to act as your own taste tester." Ryoko turned absolutely white. She didn't even bother to notice her mother leaving. "Just enter the lab, turn left, go down three doors, and you'll find the kitchen. Make sure to clean up when you're done Little Ryoko." Ryoko thought to herself, holding a spoonful of "chocolate" a few inches from her mouth. Citing a Shinto prayer that Tenchi had taught her, she brought the spoon to her mouth and tasted the contents. It was then that she realized the problem: the "chocolate" had apparently melted her tongue. Sighing to herself she felt her healing system kick in and replace it. she thought to herself with a small pitiful laugh. "Might not be a good idea to give Tenchi that batch, " she said as she dumped the pot into the "bio-hazard" container that Washu had left for her. "Here we go again..." Staring at the screen, Washu shook her head in disappointment. Her apparent act of charity towards Ryoko was actually part of her latest experiment; testing to see if someone completely incapable of cooking anything edible can learn to cook in a single day under extreme circumstances. The dollar signs flashed by her as she began to think of the marketability of such a guide to cooking! Finally something she could sell on this planet. Of course, this assumed that Ryoko had any chance of learning how to cook sometime today, which wasn't very likely at the current rate. "Don't you understand what it means by a pinch of salt?!" she hollered at the screen... If at first you don't succeed, try try again. If twenty attempts later you're still not succeeding, it's time to give up. That was pretty much how Ryoko felt right about now. she thought to herself. Worst of all, it was only a few hours until Valentine’s Day. Looking down at the mold that she was using to make the chocolates, she admired the fact she at least did a good job on that end. Walking towards the stove, she looked at her twenty-first attempt at trying to make edible chocolate. "Here goes nothing," she said to nobody in particular. Dipping the spoon in, Ryoko brought the spoon up to her mouth and slowly, while praying for her mortality, tasted the contents. "It’s actually good!" she triumphantly proclaimed as she realized that it wasn’t actually that bad. Picking up the pot, she carried it over to the counter and set it down on a hot plate. Pouring some of the chocolate into the mold for a test run, she was pleased to see it actually was working. "Alright time to turn off the stove," she said, still with the proud tone of voice f inding it’s way into her speech. As she reached the stove, she didn’t even have time to react as an explosion threw her across the room and knocked her unconscious... Opening her eyes slowly, Ryoko looked around to realize she was in the medical center of Washu’s lab. "Good, you’re finally awake," she somehow heard through the ringing in her head. "Ow," she let out rather weakly. "Oh quit milking it. You’re tougher than that." Washu typed a few keys on her holo-computer and finished checking up on her daughter’s current state. "What..." "What happened you ask? Well, basically, it seems that the combination of the "hazardous" material you were making, along with the fact you were pushing that stove to the limit, topped off with a small mistake I made when I constructed the stove... and it was a very small mistake!" Washu said defensively. "Get to the point!" Ryoko yelped. "Well... the stove exploded." "WHAT?!" "Mmm hmmm. You’ve been out for the last day or so. And I’m sorry to say there wasn’t much salvageable from the explosion, although I did finish this one," she said as she held in her hand a very sad looking chocolate figurine that was supposed to look like Ryoko. "Almost a day?! What time is it?!" Ryoko screeched. "It’s eleven fifty-eight and thirty nine seconds at night on February fourteenth..." "Oh no!" the cyan-haired woman exclaimed as she hopped out of the bed. "Give me that," she barked at her mother, then quickly flew towards the exit to the lab. "Young fools in love..." Washu thought to herself. Teleporting into Tenchi’s room, Ryoko head sank as she saw Tenchi’s sleeping form in his bed. The horrible truth set into her. Looking over towards Tenchi’s desk, she saw the various boxes of candy that must’ve come from the other girls. There was an extremely tasty looking batch of cookies that were from Sasami. Sitting next to it was a box of heart-shaped caramel-filled chocolates from Mihoshi, which had to be store bought. Sitting next to that, was a platter of small chocolate lollipops in the face of Aeka... "She beat me," the saddened girl whispered. Placing the chocolate figurine that was supposed to be her down on the desk, she looked at the card Aeka had given alongside her present. With shaking hands, she read the words and then quickly dropped the card back onto the desk. Aeka had done exactly as she said she would. With a quick teleport over to Tenchi’s bedside, Ryoko looked down at the boy. Tears began to form in her eyes. "I... I wanted to finally show you my love too..." she whispered. Her words were filled with sadness. The tears fell down and splashed against his face. "All I wanted was for one chance to show you... show you how much I love you..." Turning around, she started to leave. "I’m sorry you won’t... you won’t get to see how I feel..." White Day; it had finally come. An entire month had passed. It was the most agonizing month Ryoko could remember in her entire five thousand years of existence. A very slow and very torturous wait for Tenchi to tell Aeka he loved her. That’s what was going to happen. She just knew it. How could he possibly even know Ryoko’s feelings? After all, how would Tenchi ever know she loved him when Aeka was the only one to confess her feelings? And Ryoko had tried. For the last month she had tried to work up the courage to tell him, to try to make things right. The words just didn’t come though. "Aeka! Ryoko! Could you come in here?" Tenchi yelled out. Ryoko thought to herself.