"I'm glad we both dumped that jerk," Courtney admitted to Gwen. Her head was resting in the goth's lap. "Duncan was pretty bad for our health."

"I don't know, our fight over him just brought us closer together." Gwen shrugged and started to play with Courtney's hair. "You were super mad at me though."

Courtney laughed. It was such a musical sound to Gwen and she couldn't help but laugh too. Courtney finally replied, "That's just me, you know that."

There was a comfortable silence as the pair just stared up at the starry sky. Gwen shifted against the tree her back was against; her position was uncomfortable, but she didn't want to have to make Courtney move. She had a fear in the back of her mind that Courtney would be able to hear how fast her heart was beating if Courtney left from her position on the ground.

Courtney, on the other hand, was quite at peace with being able to be close to Gwen and nothing was awkward. Everything just seemed to be dream-like, how often would she get a chance to just relax with a beautiful girl like Gwen? She felt Gwen shift against her and raised her head. "Sorry, are you uncomfortable?"

Gwen shook her head, "No, I'm fine. You can lay back down, Courtney."

Courtney stayed in her sitting position, however. She was searching Gwen's face. Right away, she noticed Gwen's face was creased with worry. It was adorable how easily Courtney could tell that Gwen was nervous. For a long time, the CIT was aware that the two had feelings for each other, but she never wanted to compromise the strong friendship they had. It seemed Gwen had never realized how Courtney had felt.

Gwen started to blush as the brunette in front of her just continued to stare. She wasn't sure if she should say something or just let Courtney sort her thoughts out. Before she could come to a decision, Courtney smiled, making Gwen's heart melt.

Carefully, Courtney put her hand on the other girl's leg. "You know you can tell me anything, right?" She reassured the goth. "We're best friends."

Gwen's glanced down at the hand on her leg and just as quickly looked back up. "Yeah, of course I know that." Right away, she added, "A-and you can tell me anything too, Court." She offered a nervous smile. Why was she being so awkward?

Courtney beamed at that. She paused and thought again before she asked her friend, "What if something I- or you- said were to make things weird between us?"

Gwen frowned and shook her head. "Nothing could make things weird between us. We're past all that crap, Courtney. I'd probably still keep you as my best friend if you murdered my mother."

The duo giggled at Gwen's ridiculous statement. After they quieted down, they gazed into each other's eyes. All that they could hear was the wind whistling through the tree branches above them and the bugs that only made their debut at nighttime. As peaceful as their surroundings were, there was a war going on in both of their minds.

Anxiety slowly creeped into Courtney. She wasn't a stranger to nerves, but she certainly wasn't use to them. She could debate in front of an audience of hundreds, yet the small thought that had been circulating in her mind was making her hands shake. She gripped onto Gwen to help steady herself. Courtney could tell her. She knew Gwen had feelings for her too. It was obvious. So why couldn't she just close the gap between the two?

For the first time, it occurred to Gwen that the girl she had been harboring feelings for since the beginning of the show they had met on, may also have the same feelings. She saw Courtney bite her lip and look back up to the stars. Why would the CIT be so nervous right now when they were just two friends hanging out in her backyard? Maybe, Gwen had shrugged off obvious signs. Maybe, Courtney had been going through the exact situation she had been going through.

Of course, it wasn't the exact same situation. Gwen had felt shy and confused the entire time, while Courtney had been confident about herself and the interest the girls had towards one another.

"Gwen-"

"Court-"

They looked at each other and burst out laughing. The best friends' habit of speaking at the same time didn't seem to fail them even at the most intimate of times.

"You can say whatever you wanted to say first," Courtney offered.

The goth shook her head. "No, it's fine. It wouldn't be anywhere near as important as what you're going to say I'm sure," She reassured both herself and Courtney, unaware that they were going to say just about the same thing.

The CIT nodded, "Right, OK." She avoided looking at Gwen, but took her friend's hand in her own. "Nothing I say will make things weird?"

"I already said we're best friends forever. We're like Katie and Sadie, but less annoying." She smiled, even though Courtney never looked up to see it.

"I- I think I'm in love with you," she finally spit it out. After she said it, she realized how ironic it was for her, a girl who never seemed to shut up, had trouble saying her words.

Courtney slowly looked up to Gwen. Gwen was blushing and her mouth was agape, but her face was unreadable. Courtney tried recovering, "I- I mean, like, it's not that strong or anything if that's weird, I just figured you deserved to know. I'm, uhm, I'm sorry." A stream of words spilled from her mouth as she tried to fix the damage she thought she had caused.

A thousand thoughts were racing through Gwen's mind, but the two most important ones were: "Oh thank God" and "She's in love with me?!"

"Wait, Courtney. Hold on a second." Gwen grinned and held Courtney's hand tighter, surprising her. "I love you too!"

"What?" Her recent doubts came to a crashing halt.

Gwen was ecstatic. "I'm in love with you too; I just thought that it was one-sided and I was afraid I was gonna screw everything up."

Courtney let herself fall back down as she breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought so."

The other girl frowned. "You thought what?"

Courtney smiled and gazed up at the stars as she told her about how she had had feelings for Gwen for a long time and how she had also been aware of Gwen's feelings towards her for a long time. "Just when it came to the moment, I started to doubt everything. I've never been that scared before."

Gwen rolled her eyes, but was smiling nonetheless. "It means you're a normal person, you idiot." There was a pause before Gwen asked, "Wait, did I scare you even more than green jelly scares you?"

Courtney looked over at her new-found love and thought before she said, "No, not that much. But it was pretty darn close."

The comfortable silence came back again as the two basked in their thoughts. Gwen's heart was still racing, but now she was giddy with happiness. She hugged her knees and tried to contain herself from squealing because Courtney was right there. She could wait until tomorrow when she went home to scream into her pillow.

Courtney's heart was beating a lot harder than it was at the beginning of the evening. She was feeling quite similarly to Gwen and couldn't seem to wipe the grin off her face. Courtney's hand found its way to Gwen's again and they stared up at the stars. To the brunette, the stars looked different now. Before they were far away and hard-to-reach, but now she realized they were everywhere. They were sparkling and happy. There wasn't another place that she would rather be at that moment.

Gwen couldn't focus on one thing. Everything in her field of vision was beautiful. She itched to get her pencils and draw everything around her, from the diamonds in the sky to the leaves moving restlessly above them to the beautiful girl that she could almost call hers. Almost.

"So what do we do now?" Gwen asked.

"What do you mean?" Courtney turned back to the goth and slowly rubbed her hand with her thumb.

"A-are we dating now?" She couldn't think of another way to ask.

Courtney snorted. "We'd have to go on a date to be dating, you idiot," she mocked Gwen playfully. "The correct question is, 'Do you want to be my girlfriend?'"

"Well, do you?"

"I thought you'd never ask!" Courtney got up from the ground and threw her arms around Gwen, knocking her over. "Of course, I want to be your girlfriend!"

The couple was closer now than they had been ever. Courtney was pretty much straddling Gwen and their faces were so close that their noses were touching.

Again, there was a pause before anyone advanced. A small spark of motivation prompted Gwen to, for once, make the first move as she lifted her head up just a few inches to press her lips against Courtney's. It was soft and long and filled with passion. Neither of them wanted to leave this moment. There was never a time that things would be more perfect for the two.

Courtney forced herself to pull away after a long time. She stared dreamily at the angel below her.

"I love you, Gwen."

"I love you too, Courtney."

Aww. That was cute. I wrote this as payment to my friend who is going to be drawing some of my OCs for me. She's really awesome and I wish I had a way to share her work, but I'm not allowed to read it.

I hope, all in all, you enjoyed the story. Please review and tell me all the good stuff and the bad stuff. Thank you for reading.