Warning: There will be some references to illegal drug use and underage drinking.  The former because I'm writing in the 70s and I want to stay true to the time period.  The latter because how the underage drinking occurs is not unbelievable.

A/N: If you remember it from the movie, I don't own it.  

When Kat arrived in the cafe parking lot, she saw a few cars and a donkey laying down with a wagon attached to him.  Kat went to the odd site and couldn't resist patting the donkey on the head.

"Hey, little guy, what are you doing here?" she asked, in a sweet voice she reserved for animals.  "You so cute."

Kat rubbed the donkey's neck and smelled a stink that could only come from the donkey.

"You stinky but you cute," Kat said smiling.  "Tell you what, I'll bring you a snack from the cafe."

The donkey nodded its head and brayed happily as Kat walked inside the cafe.  It was a small place with yellow wallpaper and South American artwork on the walls.  A black board with white chalking on it was right behind the glass display case filled with treats and a register on top with a yellow floor to match.  The cafe was filled with wooden chairs and tables.  A stage with a microphone was on the right side of the area and the place smelled of burning incense.  Kat saw Once-ler in the same white long sleeve shirt, grey sweater vest, striped pants of regular and light grey, matching grey boots and the grey fedora with a black stripe he wore at the diner.  Kat saw Once-ler's guitar case near him as he waved at her from a nearby table that she made her way to.

"Glad you could make it," Once-ler said, looking her up and down and blushing like mad.  "You look amazing!"

Kat giggled and flipped her hair, feeling a blush coming on herself.

"Thanks, so do you!" Kat replied, taking the seat opposite of Once-ler.

"What, this old thing?" Once-ler said nonchalantly.  "It's the same thing I wore at the diner."

"Well, it still looks good," Kat said.

"Thank you!" Once-ler said excitedly.

"I'm glad you were able to find the place," Kat said, smiling.  "I was worried you'd get lost."

Once-ler held his head up high and put a hand to his heart.

"Me, lost?" Once-ler said in an overly dramatic voice.  "My head is a built in map, always knowing which way to go!"

Kat couldn't help but laugh.

"Even if my directions sucked?" Kat asked.

"Don't put yourself down like that, your directions didn't suck!" Once-ler said, the smile disappearing from his face and looking at Kat like he wanted to restore her confidence.

"Really?" Kat asked suspiciously.  "I wrote those down hastily and I had to get back to work."

"All right, I had to ask one person," Once-ler admitted.  "But only one!"

Kat laughed.

"You know, it's funny, you have not changed one bit," Kat observed.

Once-ler immediately perked up.

"You really think so?" he asked.

"Yeah, you're still the same little boy who built those houses of our future married life," Kat said smiling fondly as she relived the memory in her head.

"No, we built them together, remember?" Once-ler said, holding a finger up.  "You would always talk about how I was going to be a rock star, you were going to be an actress and we were going to have eight kids."

"Yeah, I turned myself into quite the baby machine," Kat said regretfully while Once-ler put his feet on the table and rocked his chair back and forth.  "And you might want to be careful with those chairs."

"Would you relax?  I'm always careful," Once-ler said with the same goofy smile.  "And you were more than just a wife and mother, you were a starlet with her own money and a huge following."

"Okay, if you say so," Kat said uneasily.  "Yeah, but I still felt I had to be a wife and mother."

"You don't want to get married and have kids anymore?" Once-ler asked concerned as he stopped rocking his chair.

"What I want is to become a famous writer who relies on no one," Kat said with passion, taking a glance at the menu.  "And to have the Equal Rights Amendment ratified in this state.  Why, do you still want to get married and have kids?"

Here was the moment of truth.  If Once-ler said yes, Kat would have to call this whole thing off.  Kat felt her breath shorten and her heart pounding in her chest, just like when she saw him in the diner.  Once-ler took his feet off the table and sat up straight, looking Kat in the eye like he was wondering what he should say next.

"Well.." he hesitantly began.  "I'm a future business man, I don't have time for love!" Once-ler exclaimed, putting his feet back on the table and, once again, rocking his chair back and forth.  "And I don't know about the ERA act but I know you'll make a terrific writer!"

Kat smiled at both Once-ler's encouragement and that she didn't have to worry about a relationship.  Though she did wonder if, as a future business man, he still had time for lust.  If the answer was no, she and Once-ler could still be friends.  She'd ask later.

"You really think so, Once?" Kat asked, using the old nickname she had for him when they were children.

"Sure, you're so creative, like when you--," Once-ler was interrupted when his chair tipped all the way over on its back, causing him to scream and the entire cafe to look in their direction.

"Once-ler!" Kat yelled, getting up from her seat.

Once-ler quickly got up and put the seat back.

"It's all right, I'm okay," he said as he got back in his seat.

Kat breathed a sigh of relief.

"I was going to say that you have a creative mind, like when you pretended to be a sprite and I was the lost explorer who won your heart," Once-ler finished with a smile.

"You weren't lacking in creativity either," Kat told Once-ler encouragingly.  "I remember it was your idea to make the wine we found under your mother's loose floorboard into the cure to save your people."

"And then I threw up on her shoes," Once-ler said, shuddering at the memory.

"No, that was me," Kat said, rubbing her right arm.  "I remember because my mom made me clean them the next day after an incredibly harsh lecture about not touching things if I don't know what they are, especially if said things are found in a suspicious location.  Guess she really wanted the moral to stick."

"You got off easy," Once-ler said with an awkward smile.  "My mom had me cook breakfast for everyone and clean the whole house, even though I had a massive hangover."

Kat nervously pulled a napkin out of the holder and fiddled with it.

"I'm sure your head hurt like hell but you didn't have to do as much as I did," Once-ler reassured her.

"Actually," Kat said, figuring out how best to put this.  "I didn't have a hangover."

Once-ler's eyes widened and his mouth fell open.

"You didn't have a hangover?" he asked shocked.

"I was surprised, too," Kat explained.  "My mom told me that she gave me plenty of water the night before so I wouldn't get one."

Once-ler laughed.

"So, even though you were in trouble, your mom still took care of you," Once-ler said happily.

While Once-ler's treated him like dirt she wanted to scrap off of her shoes.

At that point, the waiter, Ryan, arrived at their table.  Kat had never been so grateful for an interruption in her life.

"Hey, Kat, didn't realize you were on a date," Ryan said, glancing up from his notepad.

Kat and Once-ler were blushing like mad.

"It's not a date," Kat insisted.

Once-ler's face fell.

"Hey, I'm just making an observation.  No need to get offended," Ryan defended, holding his notepad to him like a shield.  "I know you want a mocha but what does your friend want?"

"I'll take a hot chocolate with extra marshmallows," Once-ler ordered.

"So, Kat, you want a side of 'oregano?'" Ryan asked as he wrote Once-ler's order down.

"No thanks, I got plenty back at home," Kat answered.

"'Oregano?'" Once-ler asked, perking up.  "You have 'oregano' here?"

"Yeah, you want some?" Ryan asked absentmindedly.

"Sure, I'm running low anyway," Once-ler said before Kat could speak.

"So, one mocha, one hot chocolate with extra marshmallows and a side of 'oregano?'"

"Yeah, that's right."

"I'll get your orders in a minute," Ryan said and left.

"Once, when Ryan says our orders come with oregano, he's not talking about the kind you cook with," Kat explained.

"He's talking about the special kind that can get you arrested if the cops find out you have it, I know," Once-ler said, waving his hand.

"Wait a minute, you use it too?" Kat asked, not believing what she was hearing.

"Of course I-," Once-ler began, his eyes narrowing as he realized what Kat meant.  "No, Kat, I lived a sheltered childhood where my mom drank 'grape juice' every morning and everyone made sure that I would never find out that baby's don't come from stork eggs."

Kat's face flushed.

"You have an innocent round face, it's very misleading," Kat defended.  "So, how is your family?"

"Bret and Chet still live at my old house, along with Aunt Grizelda, my mom and Uncle Ubb," Once-ler said.  "Aunt Grizelda works as a night club security bouncer.  Mom washes people's hair at salons and spends what she can on lottery tickets.  Uncle Ubb's mail-order bride took a citizenship test and divorced him as soon as she passed."

Kat laughed.  Things hadn't changed much over at the Once-ler house.

"What happened to your dad?"

"He divorced my mom and travels across the country.  He sends me letters and souvenirs from his journey," Once-ler said, looking depressed and then quickly perked up.  "Enough about my family, how's yours doing?"

"My parents are also divorced," Kat explained, taking a quick glance at the menu.  "My mom's taking pictures in California and getting them published.  My dad works as a wine sales rep and he and I have no contact whatsoever, which really isn't all that different from when he was here.  Billy's been divorced three times and is working on his fourth one right now.  Last and most definitely least, Tanya's unhappily married to her high school sweetheart with a kid."

"Wouldn't her high school sweetheart be Josh, that guy you had a crush on?" Once-ler asked.

Kat buried her face in her hands.

"Don't remind me," Kat said.

Once-ler perked up.

"So, you don't like that guy anymore?" Once-ler said, trying to disguise the hope in his voice and failing miserably.

"Can we please just not talk about it?" Kat asked.

This only made Once-ler even more curious.

"Why, what happened?" Once-ler asked.

"What about that girl you liked, Patricia?" Kat asked, desperately wanting a change in subject.

"She's history," Once-ler quicky said.

"Really?" Kat asked with a smirk.  "Did something happened that you're not telling me about?"

"It's nothing," Once-ler said, his face turning red.

"Well, I'm not telling you what happened with Josh until you tell me what happened with Patricia," Kat said, standing her ground.

At that point, Ryan came back with their orders.

"One hot chocolate," Ryan said as he put a mug of steaming hot chocolate with marshmallows floating at the top in front of Once-ler.  "One mocha."  Ryan put a mug of the mocha latte with whip cream in front of Kat.  "And one side of 'oregano.'"  Ryan gave Once-ler a ziploc bag of crushed up green powder.  "Remember, if the cops find you with that, you didn't get it from me."

"Got it," Once-ler said, opening his guitar case.

"You play guitar?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah, what about it?" Once-ler said as he was putting his stash away.

"I thought you'd want to play it here like how Kat reads her stories here," Ryan said and then left.

As soon as Once-ler put his stash away, he immediately sat up straight and looked into Kat's eyes.

"You read your stories here?!" Once-ler exclaimed.

"Yeah, I keep hoping some big publisher's going to be in the audience," Kat said, stirring her mocha while Once-ler took a drink from his hot chocolate.  "So far, all I got was one guy who said he'd publish my work for certain 'favors,' but all he got for his trouble was my wine in his face.  I'm sure you're making much more progress with your invention.  Oh, and you've got a chocolate mustache above your upper lip."

Once-ler took a napkin from the napkin holder and used it to wipe his upper lip.

"It's still there," Kat said, pointing to where the chocolate was while Once-ler wiped it off.  "You got it off."

"You mean my thneed?!" Once-ler asked excitedly while taking his pink scarf off.

"So, I'm guessing you're talking about a new kind of scarf."

"Not just a scarf," Once-ler said in a salesmen's pitch while shaking his head and holding the thneed out for Kat to see.  "It's also a sweater!"  The pink scarf changed into a sweater right in front of Kat's eyes.  "It's a swimsuit!  It's a dress!  It's a-!"

"All right, I get the point," Kat said, in awe of the product.  "It's the clothes version of the food dispenser from Star Trek."

"That's one way of putting it," Once-ler said, looking like he wasn't sure what to think about Kat's comment.

"Well, I'd like to buy it," Kat said, smiling.

"Really?!"

"Yeah, it looks really cool," Kat said while getting a notepad and pen from her purse.  "Here's my number so you can call me when you've made me one."

Kat wrote her number down and handed it to Once-ler who just stared at it.

"So, how much do I owe you?" Kat asked.

Once-ler kept staring at the number in his hands like Kat just wrote him a check for a million dollars.

"Once, you still there?" Kat asked.

Once-ler snapped out of his daze and quickly pocketed Kat's number.

"I'll let you know when the thneed is ready," Once-ler said, trying to be all business while drumming his fingers on the table and tapping his foot under it.

"If you have some pent up excitement, why don't you get on stage and perform?" Kat suggested.

"You really want me to perform?" Once-ler asked.

"Yeah, I haven't heard you play since I was a kid," Kat said.  "Go out there and give it your all."

A/N: I got the sprite idea from BloodRoseRed's Nature Girl fanfic.  Anyway, I hope I'm doing well with the chemistry between Once-ler and Kat.  Be sure to tell me what you think whether it's praise or constructive criticism.