Black Knight 03, yeah, things are kinda winding down now...which makes me rather sad, too. :( Nothing else in the works right now, but who knows? bojanglesbiscuit, the restaurant makes a whole lot more sense than the song, which only made me wonder where the 'biscuit' came in. :D Anyway, so glad you liked the Dragon King's palace! Thank you, PaLM TRee 101, I hope you like this chapter as much! Whichever, Jay: 'Faith' is closest to who I am, but 'Kiamn' is closest to my name, so it's easier to remember to sign. ;) Feel free to use either one! Lara783, I can't tell you how glad I am to hear someone knew that song...not to mention how delighted I am to know you loved the kiss description. Never having written one before, I was more than a little nervous about how it'd come across. :D Whew! Well, they're back, swim6516, and I hope you like what happens next...even if it is close to the finish. MP...I don't even know what to say...except Thank you. And Thank you. Ziny, next chapter's up! Hope you like it! You have awesome timing, bfk1122, as I'm just about finished writing this little ditty. So you've gotten almost all the story in one big bite (which is, personally, my favorite way to read stuff ;D). Anyway, thank you and I hope you do manage to find and read the original fairy tales. MU, best of luck on the history homework...and I hope you didn't have to wait too long to read this! :)
Chapter 22: In One NightSomething was ringing.
Something very loud and very close. Something that sounded an awful lot like a telephone.
Telephone?
Lizzie's eyes shot open, winced closed again at the bright sunlight beaming through the window. But she'd seen enough in that brief glimpse to know where she was. Home. Her cheeks felt stiff under the pressure of her smile, and she reached up to touch them. Stiff and gritty and just the littlest bit sticky. What on earth...?
The phone was still ringing. Grumbling, she slitted raw, gummy eyes open just enough to make out the handset on her night table. Rubbing her eyes with one hand, she reached for the phone with the other, thumbed the talk button, mumbled, "'Lo?"
The voice on the other end roared into her ears: "Lizzie McGuire, you have a lot of explaining to do!"
Pulling the phone a safe distance away, Lizzie cleared her throat and asked, "Miranda?"
"Of course it's me! Do you know anyone else who sounds like me?"
Lizzie chuffed a laugh. "Funny you should ask—"
But apparently the question was rhetorical. "I'm calling about Gordo," Miranda interrupted.
What? "Gordo?" Her eyes were almost as sticky as her cheeks. Geez, if she didn't know better, she'd say she'd been—
"Yes. He IMed me last night about that fight you had."
—crying. "Bloody hell," Lizzie breathed, eyes blinking open for good this time, bleary or no. Had all those days in the bubble universe occurred in just one night in her own reality? Gingerly, she sat up, looked around. Sure enough, there were the fairy tale books on her desk. And she was still wearing the jeans and van Gogh t-shirt she'd worn the day of the Fight. And she was on top of her covers, where she'd cried herself to sleep—apparently—last night. "Unbelievable," she said.
"Isn't that just what I've been saying?" Miranda demanded. "I cannot believe you fought with Gordo. I mean, you've been behaving like a first class witch lately, but you never fight with Gordo, not like that. Lizzie McGuire, you have got to patch things up with that boy."
"Done, Miranda," Lizzie replied, thinking only to get her friend to stop shouting at her. Damn, Miranda got shrill when she was angry.
"What? How could you have apologized already?" Crap. That sucking at keeping secrets thing again. "It's only nine o'clock in the morning—" Lizzie's eyes flicked to her clock; 9:06, actually, "—and Gordo didn't IM me until three. He can't even be awake yet!"
"No," Lizzie conceded, rubbing her eyes again. She needed to wash her face. Bad. "Must've been my dream. I think I dreamed I explained things to Gordo." Which wasn't precisely untrue.
"Did your explanation make any sense? 'Cuz you're gonna need some good reasons for what you said, chica, not to mention for how you've been behaving lately. I was all prepared to be patient, let you work things out on your own, but that fight with Gordo put me square in the middle. Best Friend Rule #12: A best friend doesn't let her other best friends destroy their friendship without intervening."
"I thought that was #26."
"#26 is 'Friends don't let friends drive drunk.'" Of course. "Now, did that dream-explanation make sense?"
"A lot of sense, actually." Maybe she wouldn't have to tell Miranda just yet?
A pause, then, "Well?"
No such luck. But perhaps telling Miranda now would make saying the words to Gordo a little easier when the time came. Drawing a deep breath, Lizzie exhaled, "I'm in love with Gordo."
There was a long, long silence on the other end. And then there was a scream. "Ack!" Lizzie winced, pulling the phone from her ear again.
Miranda, still shouting, was easy to understand even at a distance. "Lizzie!!" she exclaimed. "Holy guacamole! I can't believe you finally figured it out!"
The phone came back. "'Finally figured it out'?" Lizzie repeated. "What?"
"Of course." The roll of Miranda's eyes was clearly audible in her voice. "I've known that forever. I just can't believe I didn't guess that was why you were behaving so strangely lately."
"You've known forever?" Lizzie echoed again. "How could you've known? I didn't even know! Gordo didn't know!" Secret-keeping, McGuire. "I-I mean, in the dream," she stammered, "in the dream, he didn't know."
"Well, of course he didn't know." Another roll of Miranda's eyes. "Even in a dream, if Gordo knew, he would have asked you out already."
"What?" She must still be half-asleep, because Miranda wasn't making any sense this morning.
"Lizzie, pay attention because I'm only going to say this once: David Gordon has been in love with you, Elizabeth McGuire, since seventh grade."
This time, Lizzie couldn't even manage a what?! It was impossible. Gordo could not have been in love with her for—she did a quick count—almost five years without her knowing it. He could not.
Miranda, evidently blissfully unaware of Lizzie's shock, was still talking. "Now, let me see if I can guess how it went. You were in love with Gordo, but didn't know it, so when you found out about that workshop thing, you were, first, jealous that Am knew he'd applied and you didn't. Then you were scared because it seemed as though he was going to rocket into the future and leave you behind. Then you were worried because if he left you behind, he might find someone else to take your place. But since you didn't know why you were feeling all this, you just felt angry and upset all the time instead."
Damn, she was good. "What is that? Best Friend Rule #2?"
"'Always give Miranda awesome Christmas presents'?"
Lizzie laughed. "Well, I was gonna say, 'Know your best friend so well you can explain their thoughts to them.'"
"That isn't a rule, chica," Miranda laughed back, "that's being a best friend."
Of course it was. Smiling in spite of the sudden blurring of her eyes, Lizzie sighed, "Man, I missed you."
Miranda huffed, "Well, next time try to know when you're in love with someone, okay? Then, I won't have to leave you alone while you're freaking out."
That wasn't quite what she'd meant, but Lizzie grinned, offered gamely, "There won't be a next time."
It was a wink Lizzie could hear in her friend's words this time: "I know." Then, more seriously, "Just make sure you tell him, chica."
"I will." I have. Sorta.
"Good. Well, since my job is done, and I have to meet Jon at church in half an hour, I'll leave you to ponder my wisdom. Good luck telling Gordo the truth, Lizzie."
"Thanks, Miranda. Bye." Miranda returned with an adios, and Lizzie thumbed the phone off, staring at her closet door.
There were so many things swimming in her head, she didn't even know where to begin fishing them out. Jaws cracking with a yawn, Lizzie scrubbed a hand over her face. Shower, she thought. Everything'll make sense when I've showered. If nothing else, she'd at least feel ready to tackle her muddled mind after showering. Scrambling out of her clothes, she swung her robe on and padded eagerly for the bathroom.
A blissful forty-five minutes later, Lizzie emerged from the bathroom, clean, far more awake, but no less confused.
"I'm home," she said to her reflection as she raked a comb through her hair. (Her hair! Her own, normal-amount, manageable hair!) "I'm home from a bubble universe." The Lizzie in the mirror wrinkled her nose. "Assuming it really was a bubble universe and not a dream." But even as she said it, she was shaking her head. Not even in her subconscious was she creative enough to have dreamed such detail as they'd encountered. Besides, she didn't even know most of those fairy tales. How could she have dreamed about them?
"So," she sighed, rolling her wet hair back into a towel, "definitely not a dream, then. But how can I only have been gone one night?" One long night, granted, as it couldn't have been much later than nine o'clock when she'd cried herself to sleep. Still.... "I feel as though at least a week's passed. Maybe two." She shrugged, rummaged through her closet. "To me, I guess a week has passed. Talk about your jet-lag."
All in all, though, that wasn't really a bad thing. She'd done a lot of learning in those days in the bubble universe, and now she had the opportunity to patch things up, as Miranda had put it, while her friends were still relatively in charity with her. How long had it been in her reality since she'd started acting weird? Slipping into a pair of dark brown corduroy pants and a short-sleeved turquoise sweater, she counted back. "Five days." She huffed, pulled the towel from her hair. "Only five days. Amazing."
But it wasn't only five days. Not really. She'd spent those five days all but isolated from her friends. And after one two-week-long night in a bubble universe, she almost felt she knew the fairy tale people better than she knew her friends. "Great job, McGuire," she mumbled to herself as she hung up the towel and pulled her hair dryer from under the sink. "Really great job."
She'd witnessed the Brothers' rescue of Lily, Evarado and Nadie's wedded bliss, the Black Snake's mysticism. She'd watched Loyde and Aurelia grapple to come to terms with one another, Arevhat face her past, Zev and Judith reunite. She didn't know anything of her friends' lives these past few days. Probably nothing too earth-shattering had happened, but she hadn't been there to find out. She'd been awful.
In the bathroom mirror, her hair was falling into place under brush and hair dryer. Meeting her own brown eyes, she frowned. "So fix it, McGuire," she told herself firmly. "It's not as though they've all decided to ignore you forever and ever. Now that you know how awful you've been, fix it."
And the first step in that direction was Gordo.
What was she going to do about Gordo? If they'd really been in a bubble universe, if Gordo had actually been with her there, then he knew she was in love with him. She'd seen that realization growing in his eyes just before she'd touched the glass and rocketed back home.
But if he hadn't really been there? What was she going to do? Geez, she didn't know if she could stand to go through the whole kiss-and-tell debacle all over again. And she'd have to. Apologizing for the Fight included explaining the Fight...and her behavior of the past five days. Besides, she'd already covered this ground: Gordo deserved to know she was in love with him.
No matter what, the coming conversation was not going to be easy. Or comfortable. Not when she didn't know how Gordo was going to react to knowing she loved him.
Of course, if Miranda could be believed, Gordo had been in love with her since seventh grade. Which boded very well indeed for the conversation. Lizzie just wasn't sure whether Miranda really could be believed. She'd been right about Lizzie's feelings—even before Lizzie knew—but that didn't necessarily mean she was right about Gordo. After all, Miranda hadn't given any reasons for why she thought what she did. Maybe she'd just drawn the wrong conclusions about a few considerate Gordo-glances. He did those a lot. Especially around Miranda and her.
If only she could be objective enough to evaluate Gordo's behavior herself! But he'd been her best friend for so long that she was used to him showing her the same sort of kindness and attention he usually reserved for the girls he dated.
And that was another thing! If he'd really been in love with her for five years, how come he'd dated other women in all that time? Am Smith was by no means the only girl he'd gone out with since freshman year.
Turning off the hair dryer, Lizzie shoved it under the sink and yanked her brush through her hair. "Argh," she growled. "There's just no way to know!" Her stomach growled fierce agreement, then rumbled, as though to say there were more important things in life than obsessing over her love life. Things like hunger. And ending hunger. "Right," she chuckled, putting her hairbrush away. "Food."
And food definitely sounded good. Especially as she didn't have to eat anything even remotely like bread and cheese. Although a toasted bagel and cream cheese wouldn't go amiss. Not at all.
Shoving her feet into a pair of fuzzy socks, she skidded down the stairs and into the kitchen, where the smell of coffee hung in the air and a note waited for her on the counter. Picking it up, Lizzie recognized her mother's handwriting, read:
Lizzie, sweetheart, coffee's waiting in the pot whenever you get up. Matt's over at the middle school for an emergency meeting of the school paper, and your father and I have gone for an early bike ride. I'm not sure how long we'll be, with the weather as lovely as it is, but enjoy the peace and quiet while you can. Love you and see you later! - Mom
Amazing she hadn't noticed said peace and quiet until just now, but the house really was too still for the rest of her family to be wandering around. Not that she minded. On the contrary, with all the stuff muffling her brain, she needed all the peace and quiet she could get. And coffee, she reminded herself, fetching a mug. If coffee and quiet—and food, her stomach insisted—didn't help her sort herself out, nothing would.
But by the time Lizzie had finished a bagel with cream cheese, a cluster of grapes, some chicken salad, a cookie, and her cup of coffee, all she'd managed to sort out was that she probably ought to proofread her science paper one more time, she loved toasted almonds, and that Tudgeman might require serious hypnosis to finally pay Am the right kind of attention.
Heaving a heavy sigh, she looked down into her empty coffee cup and shook her head. "This is hopeless," she muttered. As if in agreement, the squares of lemon sunlight on the dining room floor flickered then dimmed to shadow, leaving Lizzie shivering, inhaling deep breaths of the sweet, brown sugar scent of drying coffee. Suddenly, she couldn't bear to be inside anymore. After pouring herself another cup of coffee, Lizzie headed for the back yard, where she could hear a faint April wind rustling through new leaves, drawing a low, silvery murmur from the wind chime hanging from the tree's branches.
Just as she opened the back door, though, the sun beamed from behind a cloud, blinding her. Squinting, she stepped out on the deck, closed the door, and eased her eyes open. The light felt wonderful, sliding brilliant and warm to prick a faint, welcome ache at the back of her eyes. Most people wore sunglasses in such bright sunlight, but it almost never bothered Lizzie; besides, after spending every day of almost two bubble universe weeks outside, the sun almost felt like home.
Smiling softly, peace of mind much restored, Lizzie opened her eyes completely, swept a glance over the back yard, and with a jolt, met the blue-grey eyes of her best friend.
"Gordo!" she exclaimed, nearly dropping her coffee cup. "W-what are you doing here?" Stupid! she winced, Don't make him feel welcome or anything, McGuire! "I-I mean," she amended, "I thought you'd be sleeping. From what I heard, you had a pretty late night last night."
From where he sat at the top of the deck stairs, Gordo grinned. "Miranda called you, huh?" he guessed.
"Yeah," she admitted, her answering smile slightly sheepish. "Apparently she felt it her duty to yell me back into shape."
"Of course," he replied, rolling his eyes. "I should've guessed she'd do that."
Lizzie managed a laugh in response, but couldn't think of anything to say. All she could really do was look at him. He seemed so strange with his hair shorter, wearing jeans, flip-flops, and a grey t-shirt instead of standard bubble universe gear. Strange, but so beautiful. She'd always known he was cute, even handsome, but he'd also been just Gordo, and she'd accepted those things without thinking too much about them.
But now, she couldn't help looking at the broad, spare expanse of his back beneath the t-shirt, the corded muscle of his forearms, the square elegance of his hands. His hair made her fingers itch to touch it, burrow deep amid the curls, perhaps to hold his head still while she carefully measured the length of his eyelashes. And his eyebrows—she traced the smooth, eloquent curve of them with her eyes, her gaze lingering over the faint, unshaven shadow on his cheeks, lean beneath the mature etch of the bone. No, the Gordo she saw now might be cute or handsome, but more than that, he was beautiful, a delight, a balm, even as her stomach flipped nervously beneath her ribs, well aware of all the questions lying between them.
She didn't even know where to begin asking them.
So, instead, she dragged her eyes from detailing his every feature and dropped them into her coffee cup. Coffee! "D-do you want some coffee?" she asked, abruptly realizing she was still standing in front of the back door, as though she expected him to leave any minute. Not exactly what a genial hostess would do, let alone a best friend. "It's fresh-brewed. Well, relatively fresh-brewed...my mom brewed it before she and my dad left to go biking, which might have been only a little while ago or it might have been an hour or so ago, but that's not so long and I think the coffee still counts as fresh-brewed...or relatively...and, anyway, if you're sleepy, it's just the thing."
Dammit. She was babbling. Shut-up, McGuire!
Fortunately, Gordo didn't seem to notice. Or rather, he probably had noticed, only was too nice to laugh at her and make her feel even more ridiculous than she already did. Instead, he merely shook his head, answered, "Nah, I'm okay. I may have gone to sleep late last night, but I feel like I've been asleep for days." His eyes met hers with startling directness. "Or something," he drawled, one corner of his mouth quirking up.
There could be no doubt what he meant by that; Lizzie gulped a throat-searing mouthful of hot coffee, even though, judging by the way her hands had started to shake, it was obvious she'd had too much caffeine already.
"C'mon, Liz," Gordo urged, holding her gaze as he patted the patch of deck beside him. "Sit down and let's talk."
Just what I wanted, Lizzie thought sarcastically. Nevertheless, she shuffled over to sit down next to him.
"Let's talk, huh?" she snorted. "We have so much to talk about it's not even funny, Gordo. As Miranda so kindly informed me this morning, there's the Fight to resolve, and my behavior to explain, and I owe you an apology, and we should probably talk about the-the b-bubble universe—" Despite herself, she felt a little apprehensive saying that: what if she'd misread him? But he only nodded, eyes bright as he slowly slipped the coffee mug from her hands, raising it for a sip before setting it on the deck somewhere behind them. "Right," she continued, "the bubble universe and the stuff we learned and what happened after I-I-I—" She just could not say it.
Gordo, on the other hand, didn't seem to have that problem. "Kissed me?" he asked easily. Nodding, he agreed, "Yes, there is all that to talk about, Liz. Just one thing, though, before we get started?"
"Hmm?" she asked, mouth dry as her fingers knotted in her lap. Where'd he put her coffee cup again?
"Just this, Liz."
And this time, he kissed her.
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end of chapter 22