Dick's eyelids were starting to feel heavy as he sat surrounded by heat from the fire and from the small body tucked next to him. His chin dropped forward to rest on the top of Mac's head, and he slept fitfully, dreaming of telling her how much she meant to him. Dream-Mac just suppressed a laugh and walked away into the skinny-armed embrace of a faceless guy in the distance. He twitched awake, and then resolutely kept his tired eyes open and tugged Mac just a little bit closer.

He let his hand wander to where her hair fell near her elbow and played with the ends gingerly. At that moment, like an alarm telling him he'd overstepped his bounds, Mac's cell phone rang and broke the peaceful quiet of the music and the waves. She shot upright, rubbing at her eyes with one hand, the other automatically reaching out in search of her phone. Dick found it behind her on the blanket, and handed it to her.

"Hello?" she said, her throaty, sleep-filled voice sounding hopelessly sexy to Dick. "Hey, girlfriend," she said with a smile, which quickly fell from her face at the reply she got. "It is?" she asked. "Yeah, hold on." She turned to Dick, looking nervous for some reason. "It's for you."

He took the phone from her with a questioning look. "Hello?"

"Hey, man, it's Wallace."

Dick's confusion grew. "Hey…" he said.

"Mac told me you're waiting to hear on a grade—for macro, right?"

"Yeah…" Dick said, looking at Mac for assistance, but she just shifted to her knees and watched him carefully.

"For Brooks' class?"

"Yeah," Dick said, feeling impatience join in with his confusion.

"Well I'm over by the econ building now, and the grades are posted."

Dick's heart stopped in his chest for a minute.

"Are you serious?" he said. Mac's nails were digging into his arm.

"Yeah, you want to give me your ID number and I'll tell you what you got?"

For a short second Dick balked at the idea of Wallace being the first to know whether or not he would be failing out of college. They weren't exactly BFFs. But he had to know.

"Yeah, it's 847-07-342."

Wallace repeated the numbers slowly as he checked the list. Mac was staring at Dick with huge, hopeful eyes, and he quickly stood up to get away from them, unable to think about how they would look if he failed.

"Found it," Wallace said. Dick squeezed his eyes shut.

"Make sure it's mine before you tell me," he said.

Wallace read the number back to him and Dick said shakily, "Yeah, that's it, what does it say? You can just say 'sorry' if I didn't pass, I don't need to know the grade."

"That won't be necessary," Wallace said.

Dick tried to ask for clarification but just made a strangled noise instead.

Wallace told him his grade.

Dick managed a "Thanks" and hung up.

He turned around to face Mac.

He was frozen for a moment and then a huge, nearly painful grin split across his face.

"You did it?" she said breathlessly.

"A-minus," he said, in the same slightly disbelieving tone of voice.

Her shriek broke the trance he was in and she ran at him, arms open. He met her halfway and grabbed her up in his arms, crushing her to him and lifting her off the ground, and suddenly everything everything everything was right with the world.

Her fingers were clutching at his back and her feet were dangling a foot off the ground, and she was telling him she knew he could do it, and when he pulled back to see her, her pride in him—in him—was written all over her face.

And then he was kissing her. He was kissing her, the way he should have been every day for who knows how long, fiercely and urgently, hoping with everything in him that she wouldn't push him away. His heart felt like it was going to pound out of his chest when, after a few seconds, he felt her move her mouth slowly against his and bring her fingers up to twist in his hair. Her lips were salty from the sea spray and sweet from the chocolate, and since two of Dick's favorite things were the ocean and sugar, he took it as a sign.

He loosened his grip on her, just enough so that she slid down his front. His fingers fell to her hips and a groan fell from his lips.

Dick totally got it now, why Logan was so hung-up on his first kiss with Veronica. Dick had never in his life felt what he was feeling at this moment, kissing Mac on the beach outside their house. It was nothing like his first kiss with Madison (ninth grade—Logan's house—awkward, clumsy) or with Gia (Enbom's birthday party—the Grand—not as awkward, just as clumsy).

But now Mac was jerking herself away and staring at him with pink cheeks and wide eyes. He felt the ground rush back up at him. Mac blinked once, then three times in quick succession. He grabbed her hand to keep her close, his mouth open as he tried to find the right words to say.

"Don't," she said softly, regretfully. The word hit him in the chest like a mallet.

"Why not?" he asked hoarsely, his breath coming in harsh pants. She turned her head away, her eyes darting wildly around the beach. He squeezed her hand and regained her attention.

"Why did you do that?" she whispered, sounding pained.

"You know why," he said, his voice lower and rougher than normal. He took a slow step forward. "Look, I know I'm an ass, but we're great together, Mackie."

"You're not an ass," she said.

"Then what is it?" he asked.

Mac took a step back and her hand slipped out of his. She looked down at the sand. "You're not…choosing me, you're settling for me."

"Dude, I'm a Casablancas. I don't settle for anything." His voice got a little softer with his next question. "Why would you think that?"

"Because, Dick, I've seen the girls you date," she said, her eyes never leaving his feet and the flush on her cheeks spreading to her neck. She sighed. "This isn't you really liking me for me—this is you not seeing any other girls since I moved in here."

"Did you ever think about why I haven't seen any other girls? Ever since we started hanging out, I haven't cared about any of them. I just—" He set his jaw and pushed a puff of air out of his nose. "I just care about you."

"So you're saying if Melinda had wanted to get back together with you, you wouldn't have done it?" Mac challenged.

"Melinda did want to get back together with me," Dick said. "She basically came over because she wanted to hook up, but then she was jealous as hell when she saw you and me together, and she tried to get me back."

"But, you didn't…?"

"No, I didn't," Dick said firmly.

She frowned and, looking confused, turned and headed back into the house.

"Mac," Dick said quietly, causing her to pause for just a second. Dick walked over and turned her around by her shoulders, then stepped in close to her, shutting his eyes and pressing his forehead into her hairline. When she didn't move away, but instead made a soft sound—half-sigh, half-whimper—he shuttered his eyelids and ghosted his lips across hers, making her mouth chase his. They teased each other for a few more seconds, his thumbs running over her collarbone and her fingers creeping up the line of buttons on his shirt. Finally, Dick gave in and, with a tilt of his head, kissed her deeply.

Mac had lost track of time as soon as Dick first kissed her. She was consumed by the feel of his blunt fingertips tracing over her cheekbones and the way he breathed out her name next to her ear. When she gathered the presence of mind to step away for the second time, she had no idea how long they'd been standing there. She looked down at her bare feet then back up at him.

"I'm still not sure this is such a good idea," she said carefully. It hurt her to say the words, but if this was just a passing fancy to Dick, she'd be saving herself a lot of hurt later on.

She knew herself well enough to know that she needed him, and if they crashed and burned….

Dick frowned down at her, looking a little wounded. "Well, let's use some of that math you like so much." He grabbed her hand and led her inside and into the dining room, where he picked up his calculator. "Okay," he said. "You know we get along like a house on fire."

"Yeah," Mac stammered, "but…fire."

"Exactly," he said, undeterred, punching random numbers on the calculator.

"Last week I slapped you!"

"And you know I think you're awesome and funny and nice?" Dick continued as though he hadn't heard her, still jabbing at buttons.

"Well, yeah…" Mac said, biting her bottom lip to keep it from curving.

"You're clearly a miracle-worker, because I, Dick Casablancas, just got an A-minus on a final," he said.

She shook her head. "You did that, not me," she said.

"You say things like that," Dick said, pointedly adding more numbers to the equation. Mac couldn't keep the left side of her mouth from curling up into a smile.

"Okay," he said. "And you know I think you're insanely hot?"

She ducked her head bashfully and jerked her head once, even as she saw in the wall mirror that the redness on her neck had spread to her chest and turned splotchy. When she looked back up at Dick, she was stunned to see nervousness on his face. He inched closer to her and said quietly, "You know I'd do anything for you."

The simple sentence hit Mac like a paralytic in her blood stream. She stared up at him, completely still except for her chest, which was racked by her unsteady breathing. Finally she regained her faculties enough to murmur, "I know."

He looked at her with unabashed want in his eyes, and his upper body swayed toward her, seemingly of its own accord. Then he blinked and his expression cleared, and he appeared to remember where he had been going with the calculator thing.

"Okay then," Dick said, putting in the final data. "Times that by 100…hmmm, better make it 1000. And would you look at that," he said, holding the calculator up for her to see. "That equals, you should be my girlfriend."

He was staring at her, openly and earnestly. Mac stared right back.

"Dick," she began, before she realized she had no idea how to respond to such a declaration. After several seconds of silence, his hopeful smile faltered and he nodded slowly.

"Okay," he said, and picked up his keys as he headed for the door.

This snapped her out of her stupor and in an instant she had darted around him. He stared at her, a frown set on his face. She reached out a tentative hand to his shoulder, then stood on her tiptoes to brush her lips against his. She pulled back, smiled, and kissed him again.

Dick's fingers were in her hair a half-second before his keys hit the floor with an echoing clank. His nails scraped along her scalp, and Mac struggled to keep her knees from buckling. As it was she let out a cry that surprised the both of them. Dick arched his head backward, checking for a problem, and Mac smiled sheepishly. Dick chuckled before diving in to kiss her again, more sweetly than Mac would have guessed he knew how to.

Some time after that, their mutual not-so-sweet natures started to take over and Mac let out a moan as Dick pressed her against the island in the kitchen. He smiled against her mouth and lifted her by the waist until she was sitting on the island and he was leaning into the cradle of her hips. Mac giggled and held him tighter.

"Damn, Mackie," Dick said a moment later when he broke away to take in a deep, ragged breath. He grinned at her and she gave him her biggest smile in return.

"Well," she said. "This changes the landscape a bit, doesn't it?"

"Changes how?" Dick asked. "You're not going to move out, are you?"

"No," Mac said. "I'll figure out how to handle my parents. The fact that they even got me out of here last time was a little ridiculous," she muttered, while Dick nodded his agreement. "But what I meant was, things are different now."

"Captain Obvious, is that you?" Dick said.

Mac pinched him and he chuckled. "Actually, what I was going to say was, things are different, so we have to make sure nothing is different."

"Oh, Sergeant Obtuse, I thought you were my friend Obvious."

"Clarification: Just because of whatever this is—"

"You being my girlfriend," Dick said.

"Right. Just because of that, it doesn't mean we're not going to stay in our own rooms at night, and we're going to treat this like a normal relationship, even though, you know, it's not. We should probably go on dates and stuff, too."

"Sounds good to me," Dick said. He raised an eyebrow. "You gonna put out after these dates?"

"Well, obviously, that depends on where you take me," Mac said with a 'duh' look.

They both laughed, heady with this new twist. Dick's grin softened to a smile with such affection in it that once again Mac couldn't find her voice to speak. Instead she wound her fingers into his surprisingly soft hair and dragged him to her for another kiss.

Next Chapter: The Burdens We Bear

A/N: Ta daaaaa…..well, here is a chapter I know many of you were anticipating. This one gave me a lot of trouble, and because it's such a pivotal chapter I had a hard time deciding when it was finally done. Anyway, I hope it didn't disappoint.

I want to say 'good eye' to Poisoned Princess, who pointed out that as a vegan Mac probably wouldn't have eaten s'mores in the last chapter. Also, I hope nobody thinks it too unrealistic for Dick to get an A-minus on a final…I figured that if he really were putting in the time and the effort, he deserved a high grade. It also might just be because I love him.

There are two more short chapters after this, which will likely be posted on the same day at some point this week, possibly even this weekend. And then my friends, we've reached the end. Except for maybe the Oddtakes.