(Disclaimer: This is the second to last chapter. This is actually the last real chapter. The last one is a journal, if I didn't tell you that.)

Popping the Question (Finally)

"Rin--"

'Hmm?' Rinoa felt so dizzy. Everything was so dark.

"Ri--Can you he--Rinoa?"

Who was talking? She was so hungry. She was so scared.

"Rinoa, can you hear me?"

She opened her eyes. Her vision was blurred at first, but then she could clearly see.. Squall! She sat up quickly when she saw him, and hugged his neck. He quickly returned the embrace. "I was so scared something horrible happened to you."

"But something horrible did happen!" She was ecstatic. She tried getting up, but felt too weak to. Squall pushed her back onto the bed. She looked around. She was in the infirmary. "How did I get here?"

"You fainted, remember? Selphie said you must've escaped from Chief's house. Why were you there in the first place?"

"I didn't stay there, I really was missing," she explained. "The people at the Memorial. They experimented with me, they stuck needles in me. I'm so hungry. I haven't had food in days, and I really missed you--"

Squall leaned forward and kissed her deeply. He pulled back after a few moments, and smiled. "That shut you up."

She wanted to laugh, but bit her lip. "You don't care to listen to me?"

He took a strand of her hair into his fingers and played with it. "Of course I want to listen, but not right now. You need rest."

She yawned, and nodded. "Yeah, I suppose I am sleepy."

"In a few hours," Squall said, "you need to get some food in your stomach."

Before he could even finish his sentence, Rinoa had fallen back to sleep. Squall smiled, and rubbed her arm lightly to soothe her before kissing her on the lips softly and leaving.

Selphie was peering through the window at the back of the infirmary room, which could be seen through at the end of the Quad. She was sitting on Zell's shoulders because she was too short to reach the window otherwise.

"See anything?" Zell asked.

Selphie giggled. "They were smooching."

Zell scoffed. "I mean does Rinoa look okay?"

Selphie nodded. "Squall saw her for a few minutes, and then she fell back asleep."

Zell pulled her off of his shoulders. "That's good enough for me."

Selphie walked away from him. "I wanna go see her. I won't wake her up, though."

Zell shouted after her "Wait, I got something I need to--"

She interuppted him "Oh, that's right, you never told me what you were gonna say." She walked back to him. "There's something I need to do too."

"Well," he started, "you see, at first we seemed like just friends--"

Selphie just kept walking closer.

"--and allies when we fought together on the SeeD mission, and of course, we've known each other our whole lives--"

She got within inches of his face.

"--so what I was gonna ask was if you want to go--"

Before he could finish the sentence, Selphie pressed him back against the Quad wall and kissed him for a few long moments. She pulled back. Her face was red, but definetly not as red as Zell's was. He turned the other way and hid his face in his hands. "Wow" was all he could manage to say.

Selphie giggled. "I've been wanting to do that for the longest time," she said while shuffling her feet along the ground. "I've had a crush on you since the orphange, and then we were separated, and I went to Trabia. I was so sad, but made some friends, but then when I moved here and saw you--"

"You thought you'd have a chance with me?"

She looked at the ground and swung her arms behind her back. "Yeah. Dumb thought, huh?"

He laughed. "Are you kidding me? I've been thinking the same thing this whole time!"

Selphie squeeled. "Really?!"

He nodded excitedly. "Yeah! I always thought you had a crush on Irvine, cause I knew he had a huge crush on you!"

"Well," she started, "I did, but he seemed to have a crush on all the other girls, too, so I just gave up on him."

Zell took Selphie's hands into his. "This is so great! I can't believe this is actually happening!" He hugged her tightly, and she quickly returned the hug. She looked into his eyes.

"So, what were you saying?"

He cleared his throat. "Selphie, will you.. go out with me?"

She lightly pushed him against the wall again and kissed him. He smiled when she pulled away. "Is that a good answer?"

He smiled. "Works for me." He wrapped his arms around her waist, and she wrapped her arms around him, and they kissed again, but this time, more deeply, and out of love, not just something out of friendship, for sure.

There was the clicking sound of a camera shutter. "Caught ya! I knew it would happen eventually. About time, Chicken-Wuss."

They both pulled away and saw Seifer with a menacing smile on his face and a camera in his hand. Zell held up a picture of Seifer and Fujjin kissing. "You're not presenting that to the paper just yet, Seifer Almasy."

Seifer's smile faded. "Whoa, whoa, we're even, right?"

Zell laughed. "Yeah, sure." And Seifer left. Selphie looked to him. "Where did you get that picture?"

Zell smiled proudly. "I made it in Computer Graphics class. With Seifer around, always expect the unexpected."

Selphie giggled, the noticed the lights flickering inside. "The ball must be ending. We should be heading off to bed."

Zell dropped his hands from her waist. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Say," Selphie started, "why don't you come over to my dorm room for a while? Of course, you can't stay. That would be bad if the Commitee found us."

Zell smiled. "Sure, I can stay a while." And they both walked back into the Garden as the lights were shutting down, hand in hand.

(Aww, isn't it so sweet ;.;! It's also reallly short)