A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing. I can't believe that it's over (actually, I can but that's besides the point). This story was my baby for a while and I've never spent so much time on one fic (conception and writing). More Author's Notes to come.

Now, on to the big romantic finish.

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Anna POV

Mark laughed. "I can't believe you know Trisha McCullen. I think the entire school had a crush on her."

I shrugged and looked up at his smiling face. I'd spotted Ryan sitting at one of the other bars so I was definitely glad for the distraction. "She was my RA in freshman year so it's not like we were best friends."

"I heard she now lives in Maine and has, like, three kids."

I smirked and rested my back against the bar. "Which is not exactly surprising –the three kids, that is– there used to be a line of guys waiting to take their turn every single night."

"No, I didn't need to hear that about the love of my high school life."

I burst into laughter. "You're so silly," I said, hitting him playfully. "But I'm not surprised you're from Allentown –it just explains why I like you."

And I wasn't kidding –he was really cool. Other than being easy on the eyes, he was fun to be around. Ever since we learned that we grew up about 45 minutes apart, we hadn't run out of things to talk about.

"Well, I would have liked you if you hadn't attended Columbia," he joked.

"Aww," I said, patting his shoulder. "Big Ten envy? Don't feel too bad. Even with your Penn State education, you still managed to land an okay job. I think that's an achievement. In fact---"

"Gosh, could you guys just stop this? You're putting Nick and Marissa to sleep," Summer said.

I looked over at them and saw they were lost in their own world, whispering and doing whatever the hell somewhat newly-weds did. I turned back to Summer. "Just say that you're jealous you didn't go to an East Coast college and we'll change the subject."

"Whatever, Anna," she said, wrapping her arm around Mark's. "You've totally stolen my date and I should have known better than to bring him around you. It's bad enough that I have to share him with his real date."

I laughed. The truth was, if my head wasn't all muddled with Ryan, Mark would have been a guy I wouldn't have minded ending up with. "Speaking of which," I said, looking around the room, "where is she?"

Mark shrugged. "She claims she needed to 'powder her nose,' but I suspect she's taking a look around the place. She's always wanted to be invited to the Cohen's New Year's Eve party."

Summer rested her head on his shoulder and fake-yawned. "Gosh, I'm so bored, Anna."

"Aww, your personal jester isn't around to entertain you? Speaking of which...," I said, looking over her shoulder.

Before she could even turn around to see what I was talking about, Seth said, "Well, well, now, isn't this cozy?"

Summer's face hardened and still holding on to Mark, she turned sideways and looked at him from the corner of her eye. "What's it to you?"

Seth grabbed her shoulder and jerked her around, causing her to disentangle from Mark who saw his cue and split.

Marissa and Nick gave Seth the thumbs-up from behind Summer, then followed suit.

Blocked in by both of them, I decided to stay put. Besides, seeing that it was a slow night, I pretty much welcomed the drama.

"Summer, what the hell are you doing here with him?"

"Whatever the hell I want. The last I heard, I only answered to myself."

Her logic sounded about right.

"Whatever, Summer. How could you do that, knowing how you feel about me? I am sick of all this shit!"

She tapped his head with her forefinger. "Get this into your thick skull, Cohen, I feel nothing for you."

He folded his arms. "So, you're just going to stand there and say that you don't love me? As in L-O-V-E me? And that you wouldn't care if I, say, for example, went back to New York?"

She looked at me suspiciously but I immediately averted my eyes. Damn, Seth was trying to get me in trouble. What happened to the promise he made to never tell her what I'd done?

She looked back at him with a little less confidence and said, "How many times am I going to tell you that you can go to Monaco for all I care?"

He tapped his foot. "Oh, really? Then why did Anna tell me something different?"

"WHAT?" Her eyes grew to twice their size and she lunged at me. Luckily, Seth grabbed her before she could choke me to death. "Anna, I can't believe you fucking told him!" she said, struggling to break from his grip. "You're dead!"

"Calm down," Seth said to her.

I attempted to get the hell out of there but they were still in my way and I was a little scared that if in my attempt to escape, I moved closer to her, she'd pull out a lock of my hair.

Seth finally let her go when she calmed down. "You," she said, looking at me and nodding , "I'm going to deal with you later, you can count on that. And you," she turned back to Seth, "I guess I now know why were you suddenly talking about how you weren't going to leave if I didn't want you to."

"So you admit it."

She shrugged. "What? Am I supposed to lie now? My ex-good friend gave you the info, right? I guess it must be true."

"And you're not going to ask me to stay?" She shook her head defiantly. He nodded and paced a little. "I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you that my old boss called and says that there's an opening for a position I've always wanted." Summer's body visibly stiffened. "And," he continued, "he says that if I'm interested, the job is mine. And I'll be getting paid significantly better than I used to be."

"So what?" she scoffed. "A few extra dollars doesn't mean much in Manhattan. And it's cold and dreary and the people are ugly and rude and still, you want to go back there?" she spat.

"Not if you don't want me to."

"Well," she said, looking away from him, "I don't need that kind of responsibility. Besides, it sounds like you've already made up your mind..." she started to walk away.

He stopped her, pulled her close to him then cupped her face. He held her so carefully and tenderly, like she was the most precious thing he'd ever held, that it awoke the butterflies in my tummy.

"Summer, you honestly think I want to leave you?"

She pulled his hands off her face and looked away. "You're the one who just got his dream job," she whispered. The pout she was sporting made her look about six years old.

"But you've got the power to make me stay. Just one word from you..." His voice quivered.

She shook her head. "No, I'm not going to have that kind of effect on anybody's life."

"Really?" he asked, staring into her eyes. "I'm not just anybody, Summer. Besides, that ship has sailed because you are my life. Do you honestly think that a job is more important to me than you? Why can't you ask me to stay?"

"No reason."

"Summer, why? You want to me stay. I know it, you know it, and Anna knows it. Why can't you just say it?"

She shook her head and folded her arms.

"Summer, why? Just tell me."

"Because..."

"Because, why?"

"Because, I guess I'm a little scared," she whispered, looking down and fiddling with a seam on her dress. They had begun to speak so softly that I had to move closer to hear them. Sure, I was intruding on their privacy but I didn't exactly ask them to do it in front of me.

"Scared of what?"

"I don't know."

"That I don't love you?" he asked, pulling her closer so that their bodies were aligned. "Because you know you're the only person I really know how to love."

In a different universe, hearing that might have stung, but sitting there, watching them, all I felt was elation.

"Really?"

I couldn't stop myself from giggling a little. Big mouth Summer had been reduced to one-word dumb questions.

"Really," he said, brushing her hair from her face. "If I didn't love you, would I do this?" he asked, kissing the corner of the right side of her mouth, then the left, then her cheek and after kissing some other parts of her face, his lips settled on hers. The kiss looked soft and sensual and entire thing was the definition of 'sweet' as they caressed each other with their lips and hands and everything was going great till Summer decided to turn all Jenna Jameson and reach for his shirt button.

As happy as I was for them, I didn't need to see them get down like that so I coughed loudly.

Seth unstuck his lips from hers then glanced at me and laughed. Then he looked back at Summer who was still in his arms and said, "See? You totally want me. How can you deny that?"

She frowned and disentangled herself from him. "Drop dead, Cohen," she said, walking away.

Seth stood laughing for a few seconds before she ran back and grabbed his arm. "Come, you idiot, let's get out of here."

---&&&&&---

"Hey," I said, walking up to Ryan. "How's it going?" I sat next to him, put my purse next to me and asked the bartender for an Amaretto Sour. "What do you think of the party? Pretty mellow for one of these things, don't you think?"

He shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I haven't been to one of them in a while."

I nodded and sipped my drink. What the hell was wrong with me? I could no longer lie to myself that my deciding to spend Christmas in California had nothing to do with him. Hell, even my brother, his wife and their newborn were at my mother's.

The truth was I just wanted to be with him. Even though we hadn't had the easiest year, even the worst of the times we spent together was preferable to the emptiness I felt when he wasn't around.

I'd tried my best to get over him but it just wasn't happening. It was hard to order a simple pizza without wishing I could watch him take off all the pineapple pieces or even to hear his voice just before I went to sleep. I just wanted him back and seeing what happened with Seth and Summer only strengthened my resolve. Someone who would think of my father at the oddest of times wasn't someone I was going to let go of so easily.

"I'm sure you're glad for the weather, huh?" I said, not knowing what else I could say. The whole trying to beg him to get back with me thing wasn't as easy as I had thought. My brain wasn't complying so I couldn't even think of the right thing to say.

When he didn't respond, I repeated myself.

"I heard you, Anna," he said, watching the jazz band play.

"So, I'm sure you must be happy to be away from New York right now."

He spun around to look at me. "Anna, it's almost midnight. Is there nowhere else you should be?"

I shook my head. "Nowhere else I'd rather be."

He pursed his lips and looked away.

Fuck. He wasn't going to make it easy. "I waited for your call."

"Excuse me?"

"Ryan, I waited for your call."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"When you moved here. I thought you'd call me when things settled. But I definitely thought you'd call me at Thanksgiving."

"Why would you think that?"

He had that edge in his voice that only showed up when he was trying to subdue his anger. What the hell had I done to him? There I was, my heart beating at a thousand miles an hour and he was getting mad. I wanted to give up and just walk away but I didn't want to deal with the emptiness any longer.

"I stayed by the phone and waited, you know? By the time I got back to New York, I was sure that my Voice Mail had stopped working till a telemarketer left a message about a credit card he wanted me to sign up for. Then, of course, I couldn't pretend when all the calls from my mother kept coming through. I really wish you'd called me, Ryan."

"Why would I have wanted to do that?"

"So that I could have told you how sorry I am."

"Again with the sorry..."

"No, let me finish. I don't think that everything that happened is my fault. I mean, I know you don't talk a lot and you're used to bottling up your feelings but you need to talk to me. If you want this to work out, you need to talk to me, Ryan. It's great to have you do all these sweet things to show how much you care but sometimes I wonder if I really know you. I mean, really know you and not just the part you let everyone see."

He grunted something I didn't understand.

"What?" I asked.

He looked away. "Nothing. I'm listening."

"Ryan, will you please look at me?" He didn't react so I touched his arm. "Ryan, please?"

Reluctantly, he did.

His eyes staring into mine made it even more difficult. I wished I could tell him to look away but I knew I'd just end up sounding psycho. "But I apologize for my part in it. I understand that I might have held back and that for whatever reason, I wasn't perceptive and didn't see what was so obvious and I now know that I really shouldn't have felt so guilty about breaking up with Seth. I actually don't know how I could have changed that but now I know that I should have at least tried. Or, at least, have been sensitive to your feelings and not gone on about it all the time. I'm really sorry about that. But I understand all that now and I was just wondering..."

"Wondering what, Anna?"

"I just wanted to know if you missed me too."

He glanced at me then sipped his drink, his face not revealing a thing.

"Ryan, I definitely missed you and it's not that I need you back in my life, or maybe I do, but it's that I want you in my life. I know that now."

"Wow, it took you over a year to figure that out? Congratulations." He wasn't even trying to hide his irritation.

"Ryan... I'm really sorry. Why are you so mad?"

"I'm mad because I came to this party to have a good time. And this, doesn't qualify. We broke up, it's over, I'm over it, okay? So let's not do this."

"Ryan, please, don't say that. It's going to be different now, I'm different now, I promise."

"Are you sure? Are you sure you want to say that? Are you trying to say that you're going to finally tell me about...?"

"About what? Ryan, what?"

"Forget it."

"Please, Ryan, this is what I'm talking about. You have to tell me what's on your mind."

He didn't say anything for a few moments then put his glass on the bar and said, "When you decided to show up at my birthday party, why didn't you tell me?"

I had a feeling that wasn't what he'd wanted to ask but I answered anyway. "Ryan, that was so long ago. I just wasn't sure I'd be welcome."

"Yeah? And what the hell gave you that idea? I made it clear that I wanted you there."

"Ryan, why are we fighting about something that happened so long ago? Let's leave all that stuff in the past, I'm here, now, sitting next to you, telling you that I regret all the mistakes I made because they kept me from you."

"Remember what you said about not reliving the past and how getting back with me would be doing just that?"

"I was stupid." He was like a fucking elephant, couldn't he forget anything?

"Are you sure? Because you seemed quite certain that day."

"Ryan, I was wrong. But now I know better. I'm sure now."

"Really? You were sure then, and now you claim you were wrong. How do I know that next week you aren't going to tell me that all this was a mistake?"

"Because," I said, touching my chest, "I feel it here."

"Why does that sound oddly familiar?" he asked sarcastically.

I sighed. "Are you saying that you won't give us another chance?"

He didn't respond. Instead, he tapped his glass on the bar, gesturing to the bartender for a refill. I got on my feet– there was only so much begging a person could do. I'd put it all on the line, telling him how I felt but he'd rejected me anyway. Gosh, how I wished I could turn back time and right all the mistakes I had made, or used just one of the chances I'd squandered. My heart sank as I realized I'd become the proverbial 'Boy who cried wolf'. I'd blindly blown so many chances that he no longer believed me. I told myself I wasn't going to cry. I reminded myself that even though things hadn't turned out the way I'd hoped, I'd still made the right decision by donating Alex's ring to Goodwill. Having it around just wasn't good for my psyche. I slowly turned to him and said, "I guess I'm going to have to take that as a 'yes'."

I attempted to walk away quickly but my feet had turned to lead. I even lingered for a few seconds, hoping he'd stop me but he didn't. I'd managed three steps when I felt his slightly wet hand on mine.

I turned around. "What?" I said, before I noticed that I'd forgotten my purse. Just my fucking luck- I couldn't even make a cool exit, not that I even had one shred of my pride intact. I reached for it when he grabbed my hand.

"No, Anna, that wasn't a 'yes'."

"What?" I hoped I said. I couldn't even hear myself.

He ran his hand down my bare arm and stood up. I felt myself slide on the bar stool – my legs had begun to play games with me.

He shook his head. "Anna, that isn't a yes."

"Then what is it?"

"Anna, we wasted another year," he reminded me.

"I know, and I'm sorry."

He moved closer and brushed my cheek. "Stop apologizing."

"But I really am sorry about what happened."

"I know. And I'm sorry for ever making you feel like I was shutting you out. I really wasn't."

I looked at his lips and decided that I loved them even when they had a slight hint of pink. "Ryan, I really care about you. Like really, really care."

My cheek tingled as ran his fingers across it. "I know that, I've always known that. But I didn't think you did."

I smiled. He was right. I never really understood what we were.

"And I feel the same way," he added.

"You do?"

"Yes, even if you're weird at times."

I laughed. "No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are, but I wouldn't want you any other way."

"Yeah?"

He looked directly into my eyes, making my head swim in a sea of blue. "Anna, even the things about you that make me want to bang my head against the wall, I love, because they make you, you."

"Really?" Shit, I'd been struck with Summer's one dumb-word virus.

"Of course. Do you think I haven't been going crazy not waking up to this face?" he asked, holding my chin.

Then he stepped back.

"What, Ryan?" Shit, was there something in my nose?

"Anna, we're going to have to talk, I mean, really talk." He picked up my hand. "Fuck our careers and all that bullshit. If we can't make this work, something that's so natural and right, how can we make sense of anything else? We are fucking twenty-six for chrissakes! We need to sort this all out, once and for all."

"I know that. But does that mean we're making up now?"

He smiled. "If you want to."

"If I want to? What do you think my entire speech was about?"

He laughed. "You're nuts. It's one of the many things I love about you," he said, moving closer to kiss me.

Just before our noses touched, I suddenly remembered something. "Seth," escaped my lips.

"Seth? Did you just say 'Seth'? What the fuck, Anna?"

I giggled. "Ryan, it's nothing like that. You look like you're about to kill me." I let my head fall back and kept laughing.

"What is it about, then?" He definitely didn't find the humor.

"It's just that Seth has this thing with When Harry Met Sally. He'll never admit it, but every time he goes to Blockbuster, it somehow manages to come home with him."

"The one with the fake orgasm?"

I frowned. "Yeah, that's the part you'd remember."

He chuckled.

Shit. God, to see him laugh again. And with me. Why the hell did I push him away?

"I still don't understand."

"Harry and Sally broke up but after not seeing each other for a while, they made up at a New Year's Eve party."

"Just like us."

"Yeah, and Meg Ryan was blonde..." Hey, it wasn't a comparison I would have hated.

"But come on, I don't look like that dude."

"Thank God." I said, caressing his face. "But, do you want to spend the rest of your life being called Harry? I certainly don't want to be called Sally." And sure, Seth and Summer had just gotten back together a few hours earlier, but Seth was the kind of person who would love to call himself Harry.

"I thin--"

He was interrupted by the MC telling us that we had ten seconds till midnight.

"So, what you're saying is we can't make up tonight?" he shouted above the chorus of people counting down.

Eight... Seven...

I grinned, shaking my head vehemently.

He moved closer and leaned into me. I stared back into his eyes.

Five... Four...

"We can't make up tonight, huh?"

I shook my head and put my arms around his neck. "No."

I smelled the rum on his breath. He tilted his head to the left. "So we can't..."

I stopped his words with my lips. As he moved his lips against mine, showing me how much he missed me, and how much he needed me, I parted my lips wider so I could get the entire taste of him. As we kissed slowly and gently, I realized for the first time that I really did love him. And not like Alex or Seth or any of the other guys I'd ever wasted my time with. This was entirely different; it was real.

When he withdrew, I knew I wanted more, but it felt great knowing that I could have him any freaking time I wanted – it was not like he was going to be in LA for much longer, anyway.

For the first time, I noticed confetti falling on us.

"Happy New Year," I said, jumping on him. He grabbed and lifted me, then brought me down for a few swift kisses.

I sat back on the stool, clapping and laughing, staring up as the confetti grazed my face. I needed to savor the moment for as long as I could.

When I looked back at him, his hand was stretched out to me.

"What, Ryan?"

"I'm asking you to dance," he said very seriously.

I laughed. He reminded me of one of those English gentlemen in a Masterpiece Theatre production.

"What? You're asking me to dance?" I asked animatedly.

He nodded.

"What? What's happening to you, Ryan?"

"It's a new year, right?"

I nodded.

"It's time to try new things."

With that, I leapt on him and felt myself melt in his arms.

THE END

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A/N2: Thanks to all the reviewers. Around the middle of this story, I went through a lot of self doubt thinking that nobody was reading and I was just wasting my time, which upset me a bit as I really enjoyed writing this. So thanks to all the wonderful readers at FanForums (kutu, Holden, Jules, Sick and Twisted and others) who let me know that they were reading. I also want to thank elzed for pretty much reviewing every chapter. After a while, I could at least count on you to read it. : ) Thanks to benzbabidoll, Beth, Shouldbeblonde and others. And of course to all the other fanfiction writers at fanforums and LJ who don't read this, but still provided words of encouragement. Thanks. It was nice to be reminded of the reasons one writes.

Secondly, I would like to apologize to all the people who read Undeniably Fated recently. Why? Because I said that Ryan and Marissa were soul mates. Lord, now I want to barf. Of course, I needed that to move Chapter 4 but still... dang. My excuse is, it is kinda canon.

Thirdly, I apologize to the people who read this hoping to read Seth/Summer. My initial outline was purely Seth/Summer, which was one of the reasons I didn't write this soon after the first. It just happens that I am not really a Seth/Summer kind of girl. Then I decided to make Anna/Ryan a subplot but damn, by the 3rd chapter, they took over the story and there was nothing I could do about it. I hope you're not too disappointed.