It's five-thirty in the Hatimbi hut. Mafala, the church's unofficial cultural expert, is reading over the Song of Galactica. Arnold watches anxiously. Mafala isn't smiling.

When he speaks, his voice is grim. "'Humanity has to shove the Cylons of sin out of the airlock of their lives before the Cylons take over. For they seem human, but are not, and if you kill them they just download into a new body anyway because they're always around you and they could look like anybody, so constant vigilance!'"

He sighs. "I would suggest, prophet, that there be no verses talking of killing. We, your faithful, know you mean a metaphor—but others might read this and be confused, thinking that certain people are not human and should be killed. Perhaps this is not the greatest revelation God can give to a war-torn country?"

Tightness forms in Arnold's chest: he hates disappointing Mafala. "God's…having an off day," he mutters.

"Not every revelation can be perfect," Nabulungi says. Arnold's heart skips a beat. It's still amazing when someone stands up for him. "You'll have a better one next time." With a dizzying smile, she squeezes his hand.

He squeezes back, then he sighs. Kevin will use this as yet another reason why he shouldn't be so close to Nabulungi. And maybe he's right. It always gets so hard to think with her around...

"Perhaps..." Nabulungi says, looking thoughtful. "Is there nothing of peace in the Song of Galactica, Elder Cunningham?"

"Well, sure, later in the sea—um, verses, but those got a little weird for a sci-fi...song. I never liked them much."

"But peace happened?"

Arnold shrugs. "Yeah, between the Cylons and Galacticans." He realizes what he just said. "Oh my God! The Cylons aren't sin. They're another people who exploded some planets and did some bad things. And how does God want us to respond to that?"

Mafala says, "Forgiveness." Nabulungi kisses Arnold quickly on the lips before sitting in front of her typewriter.

There's a knock at the door. Outside is Gotswana, looking troubled. "It's about the results of your latest test, Mafala," the doctor says quietly. "Can we step outside?"

"Oh, no," Arnold whispers as Mafala steps outside and closes the door. "No, not him, this can't be—"

Nabulungi growls softly in frustration. "Finally!" she hisses. "I told him to come at four-thirty, not five-thirty."

"Huh?"

She grabs Arnold by the shoulders, whips his glasses off and kisses him passionately. He begins to resist—what about her dad?—but then her tongue flickers over his lips and he forgets why he's resisting. A moment later, they share their first open-mouthed kiss.

His pulse is so loud that for an instant he thinks it's thunder. His hands feel her springy hair and the smooth, slightly damp skin of the back of her neck.

She whispers, "I love you," into his mouth—oh, God, he feels like he can fly.

He pants, "I know," back.

Then she breaks the kiss completely, her brows tight with worry. "Don't you—I thought—"

ARNOLD, YOU IDIOT!

"It means I love you, too!" Words spill out of him, growing louder and louder. "It's from Star Wars! WHEN HAN'S ABOUT TO BE FROZEN—"

Nabulungi begins kissing his neck; Arnold thanks God that his natural sloppiness leads to his tie constantly being loose. Suddenly, Star Wars isn't important. He pulls her close, until every part of them is touching, and kisses her ear and jawline. She giggles breathily; the sound sends sparks whirling through his bloodstream. So many places to touch, parts of her to explore, sounds to hear her make...

He whispers in her ear, "We have time for...?" He can't say what he wants—"Respectful young men don't talk about it, Arnold," he hears his father say—heck, he's not even sure what he wants, so licks her earlobe instead of finishing his thought.

She pants, her breath stroking his cheek like warm fingers. "Don't know," she mumbles thickly.

He kisses her cheekbone between each word he slurs out. "More time when we're married."

Her lips find his as she murmurs, "Mmhmm." Her tongue begins to slip into his mouth. Suddenly, she steps away, her swollen lips parted, her eyes wide. "Married?" she repeats.

Mafala jerks the door open. Seeing the two of them, he glowers. Nabulungi glances at her father, then continues staring at Arnold, as if her father's anger doesn't matter. She probably doesn't have, "And if either of you lay a hand on her...I will give you my AIDS!" playing in her head.

Arnold blurts out, "THERE WAS SOMETHING IN MY EYE!" He winces—he hadn't meant to be so loud. "Uh, thank you, Naruto," he says, taking his glasses from her and putting them on. "I mean, Nabulungi."

Mafala throws back his head and laughs. Arnold starts in surprise. Nabulungi finally looks at her father.

Mafala grins at his daughter. "That was clever, dearest," he says fondly. "You might've gone over more of the details with Gotswana, though. He read my test results off of what was clearly a blank piece of paper."

Nabulungi's jaw muscles bulge for an instant. Then she moves to her father and throws her arms around him in a tight hug. "Baba," she coos. "You know how much I love and respect you. But I needed some time alone with Elder Cunningham to talk."

"Ah, yes—talk," Mafala says. His gaze meets Arnold's. Arnold blushes and stares at his shoes. "And you deceived me," Mafala continues, his voice grave.

"The Book of Arnold allows a child to disobey a parent—" Nabulungi begins.

Arnold is forced to interrupt. "Um, 'obey thy father and mother unless they're being jerks' is really more for the big things, like your dad beating your mom and stuff."

"Oh? It is?" Nabulungi glances at him with a surprise that Arnold suddenly doubts. "Whoops! Oh well. I suppose God needs to rewrite that part."

Mafala kisses his daughter on the forehead. "I was young once too, my dove. I know those aches and urges. But, if you need to talk with Elder Cunningham privately, you can keep the door open next time."

For a moment, Nabulungi doesn't say anything. Then she brightly says, "Yes, Baba!" and kisses his cheek. She turns to Arnold, and stares deeply into his eyes, a thoughtful look on her face.

Xander from Buffy says, "Bringing up marriage after two seconds of making out. Smooth move."

Anya adds, "That's something a strangely literal ex-vengeance demon would do, not a prophet—or someone normal."

Arnold wishes he could stop thinking for one second. He steps toward Nabalungi. "I—"

"It's late," Mafala interrupts. "Time for you to be getting back, prophet."

"That's a good idea," Nabulungi seconds. Arnold's heart stops. She doesn't want to marry him. Why would she?

"To think," she adds quickly, reaching out to him and touching his cheek. Arnold gasps in relief. "We'll talk tomorrow?"

"Yes." He kisses her knuckles; the gesture feels hopelessly childish now that he's gotten a taste of something more. "Until the morrow, nîn meleth."

Nabulungi giggles, which makes Arnold feel better. No matter what happens, they have this.

Arnold leaves, his thoughts whirling. He hadn't known he was thinking about marriage until he said it. He doesn't know the first thing about getting married in a foreign country. What if he can't do it? They could get married in Salt Lake City—but Nabulungi hasn't mentioned going there ever since she learned that Salt Lake City was a metaphor.

"A marriage proposed in a fit of lust is no true proposal," his father sneers. Arnold frowns, but the more he thinks about it, the more he agrees. The walk to the mission gives him a long time to think up all the reasons against marrying Nabulungi right now.

He enters the mission, gives a distracted wave to the ex-Mormons, then heads to his room. As he opens the door, he hears a crinkling of paper that sounds vaguely familiar. He opens the door to find Kevin lying on his bed and reading from the Book of Arnold. Kevin did all the p-day chores he refuses to let Arnold do: the room is swept and dusted, their laundry is done and put away (an impressive task since they have to do their laundry by hand), Arnold's bed is extra straightened.

"How'd it go?" Kevin grins brightly, though not as whitely now that he's drinking coffee regularly.

"Pretty good." Arnold is taking off his shoes when he remembers where he heard that crinkling sound before. "Were you reading something?"

Kevin glances at the Book of Arnold. "Of course!" There's something a bit off about Kevin's grin.

"Huh." Arnold considers staying silent—but even as he considers this, he's talking. "It's just I've had to hide a lot of comics, and whenever I stuffed 'em under the mattress they'd make that sound that I heard coming in, which isn't the sound of pages turning, 'cuz that sounds completely different, and it really hurts that you're hiding something from me."

Glowering, Kevin digs under the mattress, grabs the magazine, tosses it at Arnold, then rolls onto his side to face away from him.

Arnold gawps at the title. "This is Vogue. Why are you reading a girl's fashion magazine?"

"Take a look at the pictures," Kevin grumbles.

They're of beautiful women wearing the latest secular fashions, which means a lot of skin. Arnold suddenly remembers his conversation with Kevin earlier today; his conversation with Nabulungi had pushed it out of his mind. This is as close as an ex-Mormon could get to porn.

Both Kevin touching himself—Eww! and Kevin touching himself—Hot! blare in Arnold's mind. He ignores both reactions. What's important is that Kevin would never do anything like this if he weren't desperate.

"It didn't work," Kevin whispers.

"What didn't?"

"The pictures. Those women. I couldn't feel anything."

Rob is going to be over the moon. Arnold opens his mouth. Kevin interrupts with, "Before you say it..." and pulls a magazine from beneath his pillow. Arnold picks it up: it's Men's Health. There's an ad or two with a shirtless guy selling exercise equipment.

"Nothing," Kevin says dismally. "Nothing, nothing, nothing." He sighs heavily.

The last time Kevin sounded this lost was after a nightmare the day General Butt-Fucking Naked approached the Church of Arnold wanting to join. Arnold isn't sure that the trauma of being forced to accept the man who shoved a book up your rectum as a new brother in Christ compares with not having a sex-drive, but apparently they're in the same league for Kevin. That's all he needs to know.

Like he did after the nightmare, he gets into bed with Kevin and hugs him from behind. Kevin stiffens—he always hates that first contact—then, wiry muscle by wiry muscle, he relaxes. Arnold tries to ignore how his pulse speeds up.

Kevin laughs a broken little laugh. "I'm supposed to get married. Even if I'm not a Mormon, my parents could be proud of that. A wife, a family...Jack could still look up to his big brother..."

Slowly, Arnold gets it. Kev can't be the world's greatest Mormon anymore. He doesn't want to fall any farther.

Arnold runs his fingers through Kevin's hair. "We'll figure something out. Pictures don't work for everybody."

Arnold's heart beats faster to hear the hope in Kevin's, "They don't?"

"Sometimes people in magazines look too perfect. You should look at real people. There's Sister Kimbay, Sister Ameya, E—and others. You could probably flirt your way into a free blanket from Sister Ameya," he teases.

Kevin chuckles. "Think I'll keep to rule 77 for now. 'Do not flirt,'" he clarifies, figuring, quite rightly, that Arnold has no idea what rule 77 is.

"If you want to break it, feel free. Your own prophet broke it, after all."

A non-committal grunt is Kevin's reply.

They fall into a comfortable silence. As his friend breathes against him, Arnold suddenly imagines himself saying, "Well, there is one way to figure out if you're gay or not, pal..."

Arnold purses his lips to make sure this doesn't come out of his mouth. This isn't like his crush on Han Solo or Captain Mal or Captain Jack, who are on the other side of a TV screen, or the guys at school who never knew Arnold existed. Nabulungi is in love with him and Kevin is his best friend: that's more than he deserves. He'll die before he does anything to change it.

He squeezes Kevin's hand and goes to get his Kindle. He hears himself telling Nabulungi, "So, sometimes I have more-than-friendly feelings for my best friend. You're still cool marrying me, right?" She would shake her head, tears in her eyes, because she loves him and he's hurt her. Or maybe she would be disgusted with him. Or, oh God, she'd tell Kevin about Arnold's feelings...

Heavenly Father, what am I going to do?

God doesn't answer. Middle Earth does; Arnold reads The Two Towers and sinks into a comfortingly different world, escaping his troubles for a while.