Greetings, friends! I apologize for the long wait between chapters. Now that the story is complete, I meant to post every time we got to the bottom of the first page of hits for POTO, but the Internet went down at my house, so I'm having to post from work, and I kept forgetting to bring my jump drive with me to the office. Here is the next segment for you. I hope you are continuing to enjoy.

"It's not real," I said. "It's just a book. It's completely and totally fiction! Madame Welsh said so. I asked her. That guy made everything up. It's just a book. She's going to make us read it next year in French IV. But it's no more real than Where the Red Fern Grows from fifth grade or The Great Gatsby from freshman year."

He nodded. "That's most popular view."

"You disagree."

He shrugged.

"You still think it's us?"

He stared at me a long time. "You don't?"

"I don't know." And then, all the sudden, I was talking, talking, talking. "I don't know because it's not all exactly the same. I think some of it is the same because you made it the same on purpose. I mean, look. We're hiding out below the stage. As if the basement wasn't enough, now we're under the stage. And you dressed up as the Red Death. That didn't happen by accident. You asked to take me to that dance. That didn't happen by accident either—"

"It may have been an accident that you said yes," he told me with a strange, sad smile.

It was true. I didn't mean to say yes... But I wasn't letting him side track me. I went through my lists in my head. "You took me to that place and sang with me that time. And you took my by surprise, too. You didn't ask, Erik. You just grabbed me and took me. You're the one doing all of it."

His eyes lit up and he gave me this creepy-ass smirk.

"What the hell are you looking at me like that for?"

"You just called me 'Erik' without thinking about it, Christine."

I almost called him 'asshole', then. "Gah! Alex! That only proves you've made me freaked out enough to mix the names up. It doesn't prove it's real, it only proves you've done all the same things. Face it. You even spied on me with Ryan on the roof!"

His eyes widened at the accusation, and the candlelight reflected in them and made them glow more brightly. I wished for a second I hadn't said roof because maybe it wasn't him, and maybe he hadn't known.

"But Christine, I did not tell you to go out on the roof in the first place. Or up the in rafters." I got chills. He knew about the guitar room for sure then! "I didn't tell you to wear a white domino to the dance. I almost told you to wear a black one, and then I decided to wait and see what happened, to test the theory. You and he had your colors reference, but you both wore hooded cloaks. And yes, I sang with you, but do you recall why and how? You were so timid and unsure of yourself suddenly, even though you used to be so good before. I didn't cause that to happen, did I? That seemed to have been going on before I talked to you at all, no?"

What could I say? It was true.

"Really, Christine. It can't be coincidence that Ryan is considering joining the navy, can it?"

How the hell did he know that? "Actually, it can be. Mr. Babik has on his wall this quote about coincidence from Isaac Asimov that—"

"And you even noticed the bit about my mother. I hadn't even considered that, but you…" He gave me a meaningful look.

How did he know about that?

I tried to cover my surprise. "So what about your mom?" and "Lots of people don't get along with their moms, you know."

He didn't argue with me, which bugged me even more than the thought that he'd found out about my lists and apparently read them.

"Okay, so some of the same stuff happened. But you're not doing anything different," I told him. "You're doing the exact same things even though they obviously didn't work last time." Had I suddenly decided I believed in last time? "It's like you actually want it to happen again."

If things ended the same way, I'd be with Ryan and Alex would be dead. I wondered how. The only funeral I can remember was for my grandmother's older sister. I don't know anyone my age who died. I don't like thinking about it. I wondered who would go to Alex's funeral and couldn't really imagine anyone there except myself. And his mom, I guess. She'd be all done up in the loveliest matching shades of black. I'd be trying really hard not to think of driving home from the art museum singing with Alex in his stupid old beat-up car. I wondered what would happen to the Beast if Alex died. No doubt Alex's mother would sell her for scrap in a heart-beat, even though she was still so obviously capable of getting from A to B. I could cry just thinking about it. I could just cry. But I didn't want Alex to see that. I didn't want Alex to think he'd gotten to me.

Besides, before things could end that badly, a bunch of other really bad shit had to happen, first.

"So, since I'm here a day early, does that mean we don't have to do the end of the book?"

He sighed heavily. "I don't know how it could possibly turn out any different. It was foolish of me to think that it might. Who would ever think that you would choose—"

"Choose? It's not my choice. You're the one who's—"

"Oh, but Erik gives Christine a choice, recall?"

"Some choice!" I snorted.

"A good point," he conceded. "Not much of a choice at all. And that is why one could hardly expect a different ending." He seemed to fade away at the end. Not just his voice, but all of him. I wouldn't have even been surprised if he'd disappeared and I'd woke up from a really vivid dream.

But I didn't wake up. So I had to stay there and think about it.

Erik gave Christine a choice—marry me or the place explodes killing you, me, all those other people above and those two guys in the next room. It wasn't to avoid her own death that she made a different choice; she proved that when she tried to beat her brains out of her head against the wall. I decided one thing for absolute certain right then. There was absolutely no way I was going to hurt myself to get out of anything, no matter what. Nothing could be so bad that it was unfixable. I wondered if Alex could be convinced of that, too. In the meantime, I would probably agree to almost anything if someone's life were at stake.

"Well, you know, for a supposed genius it was a really poorly thought-out idea, though." Alex looked up like he was at least mildly interested in continuing the conversation. "I mean, to kidnap her like that. How could someone as brilliant as he was supposed to have been come up with something as utterly dumb as 'that'll make her agree to marry me'?"

Alex sighed again more heavily than before. "You're right." He looked deflated. "It was a very bad idea. I guess he couldn't think of anything else. It's not like he had any practice or anything. 'One makes what rendez-vous one can' right?"

It wasn't like Alex had had any practice either. Of course, you'd think he could think up a better place to get ideas than from some old book, wouldn't you? Or maybe not. I remembered the class's comments on Romeo and Juliet, the The Great Gastby, on Cyrano. None of those turned out particularly well, and yet it seemed people were still doing the same old crap today.

But Christine did agree to stay. It was Erik who screwed up, if marriage to Christine was what he wanted. She'd agreed to it. I wondered why he let her go. Maybe he thought she was crying because she didn't want to be there rather than crying for him. Of course, by the time he repeats the story to the Persian he seemed to understand. Maybe it's just another one of those stupid flaws because the author didn't think it through.

So, suppose I agreed to whatever Alex wanted me to to do. Would he then reverse my choice, send me away and… But even if so, what choice did I have?

I looked around. "Alex, tell me you don't have a grasshopper and a scorpion down here somewhere."

He didn't answer, so I asked again. He shrugged. "I don't have the grasshopper and the scorpion down here tonight, Christine. Why do you ask? What would you do with a grasshopper and a scorpion, Christine?"

"I guess I'd turn the scorpion."

The left side of his mouth twitched into a pathetic attempt at a smile. "Really, Christine? So sure are you? Without even hearing the choice first?"

"It doesn't matter what the choice is if people's lives are at stake. Then again, I guess they aren't, are they? I mean, you can't get barrels of gunpowder like that these days."

"No, you can't," he said softly. His right hand fidgeted with his left cuff. He examined it closely and wouldn't look at me.

Okay, people, for a faster next chapter, blow me away with reviews, okay? I know it's the end of summer and the start of school and all, so I'm not taking the lack of response to last chapter personally, but I'd TOTALLY love to hear what are you thinking at this point. Impressions? Predictions? Hopes/wishes?

And for those of you who HAVE recently commented, especially those who asked that I post the two different endings, I will absolutely do so. The trouble is, in fixing the ending to make it make sense, I irrevocably changed the original ending so it's not in tact as it once was. I'll post the official new ending, then I'll separately post how it would have been different with any specific lines I may still have. Unless I get inspired to re-write it again. And to whomever suggested they could be Alex/Christine fan fiction in the future, by all means, GO FOR IT. I'd love to read it! I may even post Alex/Christine deleted scenes and newly thought up scenes in the future after this story is ended.