Once again, I apologize for posting so late. RL interfered with a vengeance—one day without power, therefore without computer, and two (count them! two!) Thanksgiving dinners to work around. Add that to a very difficult chapter to write, and it's a miracle I'm only a week late. ;) To make everything clear, this is the last chapter, but I will be posting an epilogue in another two weeks, so that'll actually be the last of the story. Now, on to the thank yous!

Jay, another chapter of the same length for ya...and I'm so glad you liked the last one. Thank you, bojanglesbiscuit, and I'm sorry it wasn't a "soon" update, but I hope the wait is worth it. :) I'm honored, PaLM TRee 101, and I hope you find this chapter just as realistic as the last. ::crossing fingers:: Black Knight 03, this isn't quite the ending-ending, but it's close enough that I hope you like it. ;) Hermione781—wow! Thank you so, so much for taking the time to give me such a long and detailed review! I don't quite have the room here to go point-by-point, but let me say that I'm so glad you found this little ditty (that I've struggled and swore over :D) worth delving into, ignoring your homework for, analyzing, and exclaiming over. I hope you do read the stuff on my website...and, please, feel free to email me on it. I promise I won't bite. ;) JuliansGIrl, I think the trick with research is to do most of it on stuff you like. Then, when you have to do a little on stuff you don't care about, it's not quite as painful. Of course, that's not always possible...and in that instance, I grumble and complain and take frequent breaks. :D Thank you so much, Betsy, and I hope the epilogue will do as well as a sequel! Aw, Ziny, I'm so glad...I know that's one of the primary reasons I write: if I can't live my dreams, at least I can make them as real as possible (complete with dialogue!). Right back at ya, swim6516, and I don't think I'll ruin anything by saying there's more kissing coming up. ;) Not quite the ending, MysteriouslyUnique, but I hope you feel the same way when the ending does come. :)

Chapter 23: Ghost Dancing for 300

It could almost be another dream, the world a mist around her and she, falling, adrift in a deepening well of sensation. Gordo's mouth brushed hers once, twice, and clung, shaping to hers with all command and most exquisite tenderness. Her strength and her soul and her heart fled with her breath, stolen into him until all that remained was the hollow beat of her blood and the sunlight passing into her, through her—she merely brittle, brilliant crystal.

And then, another breath, the tide flowing back, his essence drawing deep into her lungs, his truth flooding her mouth. Beneath the feel of his chill fingers on her cheek, one thumb angled to her chin, beneath the warm sweep of his hand from her shoulder to her elbow, grip firm but so gentle—beneath it all, she could hear his heart as surely as he'd spoken the words.

He loved her, was in love with her.

As though he'd found the sweetness of that revelation in her mouth, Gordo drew away. For a long moment, Lizzie just sat there, lightheaded, forehead resting on Gordo's, her nose brushing his as she tried to shuffle her mind into order again. Her heart was pounding, and so, she realized, was his, beating hard and rapid against her hand, fisted in his shirt. Her other hand, she saw through slitted eyes, lay on his knee, careless and easy as though it belonged there.

This was so peculiar. Beyond peculiar, really. She'd just slipped into that kiss as though she'd been designed for nothing else. Which despite late discoveries of love, not to mention the long history of friendship, was still a little on the freaky side.

For all that, it had been a helluva kiss. The best kiss she'd ever had, actually.

Beneath her hand, Gordo's chest rumbled, his breath puffing against her lips in a laugh. "Thank you," he said, and Lizzie jerked away, eyes wide. Bloody hell, did I say that out loud? "Yes," Gordo replied, laughing again at her dropped jaw. "The question was pretty obvious, Liz," he explained. "Remember I've known you all my life?"

Oh. Right. Lizzie blinked. Then shivered as the hand cupping her elbow slid slowly down her forearm, brushing a thumb over the inside of her wrist before his fingers found hers. "Thank you," he repeated, "and let me say I quite agree. But I always knew kissing you would be better than kissing anyone else."

"Oh?" Lizzie rasped. Clearing her throat she tried again, "'Always'?"

He grinned. "Well, for as long as I've been in love with you."

"Five years." It was more a statement than a question, and she could've kicked herself the instant the words slipped out. Miranda might well have been wrong, after all—in which case, she'd just made a complete fool of herself.

But Gordo only nodded, eyebrows peaking as he said, "Yeah. How'd you know that?"

"Miranda told me. This morning, after I told her, after I said, uh—" How was it, after everything, the words were so difficult to speak? C'mon, McGuire, he said them. Just spit it out. "After I told her I was in love with you."

His eyes were incandescent, vibrantly blue-grey. "You can't know," he said, voice so low she almost couldn't hear him, "how long I've dreamed of hearing you say that."

Oy. The way he looked at her... She licked suddenly dry lips. He must never have looked at her like that before—she definitely would have noticed. Now, what had he said again? "Uh," she swallowed, scrambling to remember. Oh. Yeah. "No," she agreed. "But, uh, you can't know how little I expected to ever hear you say it back."

He laughed, but his eyes gleamed sympathy. "Shows how much you know," he teased. "I said it first."

"Ha!" she scoffed, glaring in mock-outrage. "You did not!"

"Did so!" he insisted through a grin. "Just now. Didn't you hear me?"

"Of course I heard you! But that was after I kissed you."

"So?"

"So, that kiss was as good as a declaration. Which means, I told you first."

Gordo hmphed. "A kiss is not a declaration."

It was all Lizzie could do not to laugh at the condescending tilt of his eyebrow. "I see. So, if I hadn't kissed you, you would have told me you loved me today anyway?"

For a moment, Gordo said nothing. Then, with a regal sniff, he drawled, "Clearly, we shall simply have to agree to disagree on this issue."

The laugh burst through. "Clearly." Still smiling, she said, "We'll probably still be disagreeing when we're eighty."

Abruptly, all humor was gone from his face. His voice low, husky, he whispered, "Oh, I hope so." And there was that look again, turning her mouth to dust.

Obviously, my capacity for speech is going to suffer, she thought, striving vainly to summon something like regret. Oh, well. She shrugged. She didn't have to talk all the time. After all, some wicked voice snickered, there are certainly other ways to communicate.Immediately, she could feel a blush sweeping to the tips of her ears.

And judging by the puzzled line over Gordo's nose, he'd noticed. "What are you thinking about?" he asked. Oh, yeah. He'd noticed.

Lifting a hand to cool her hot cheek, Lizzie shook her head. "Just, um, just about talking."

Gordo's nod was a shade on the suspicious side, but he merely said, "Yeah. That's right. I guess we do need to talk. That's what I came here for, after all." With a wink, he amended, "Some of what I came here for, anyway." Squeezing her hand, "Where do you want to begin?"

Begin? Nowhere. Now that things were going so well, the last thing she wanted to do was be serious. But they did need to talk. "The beginning's probably the best place," she sighed. "And I think the beginning is my...weird...behavior. Um, lately." He nodded, squeezed her hand again, and after drawing a deep breath, Lizzie began.

It was not in the least comfortable to bare the last few days to him. Not when doing so required her to dwell on her anger and fear and worry and jealousy—not exactly her best traits, to say the least. But his eyes spoke concern and understanding and even regret. They did not condemn, even if they also did not approve, and only once did they flash angry.

"I hate it when you do that," he interrupted, voice flat and hard as his expression.

Lizzie blinked in surprise. "Do what?" she asked slowly.

"What you just did. Saying how you're not as smart as I am, how if I go to a different college I'll find someone better than you." He shook his head. "Don't you understand? There is no one better than you." A smile pricked the edge of his mouth. "I could search the whole world over—hell, I could even search the bubble universe—and I still wouldn't find someone better than you. I haven't been in love with you for five years on a whim, Liz. It's not like I didn't have better things to do. It's not like I'm blind. You aren't perfect. Okay. I get that. But as far as I can see, you're perfect for me. And that's not going to change. Ever."

Lizzie couldn't speak. Again. Only this time, her mouth worked fine: the words simply wouldn't come.

A problem Gordo was not having. "Do you remember," he asked, "that first night we spent with the brothers? We were filling waterskins at the stream, and you thought I got angry?" She nodded. "I said I wasn't angry, but...well, I lied." At the shocked drop of her jaw, he gave a rueful smile and explained, "I was angry. Not about the Fight, which you thought, but I was definitely angry. You'd just finished telling me how nice it was that in the bubble universe we were equally ignorant. That we had to work together to figure things out, instead of me knowing more than you. That you didn't mind when I knew more than you, but it was nice occasionally when I didn't." He sighed. "I hate it when you do that. When you compare yourself to me and find yourself lacking. I don't know if you'll ever stop doing that, but please, Liz, please just trust me, trust that I wouldn't be in love with you if you were really inferior to me." He brushed a finger to her cheek. "Okay?"

She was nodding long before she succeeded in mustering words. "Okay. I'm sorry. I—"

The finger moved to her lips. "Don't apologize. I just needed to tell you that. I don't want you thinking you're not good enough. If you do, I'm obviously falling down on my job as your best friend. Or your boyfriend, for that matter." He paused, shot a sharp glance at her. "I am gonna be your boyfriend, right?"

She couldn't help laughing at the grin lurking in his eyes. "I should hope so!"

He gave an exaggerated sigh of relief. "Thought for a moment I might have to beg."

Now why hadn't she thought of that? Hmm. Before she could tell him she'd changed her mind, he spoke again. "Now that's settled," he asserted, eyes a little wild, "I, uh, believe you were in the middle of explaining the past few days when I interrupted? I'm done now, though, so feel free to continue."

Sneaky. Sending him a look she hoped clearly expressed her intent to follow up on that begging thing, she did just as he asked. "There isn't much more to say, really," she shrugged. "Except that I didn't tell you what I was thinking not because I didn't want to, but because I couldn't. It wasn't until halfway through our time in the bubble universe that I even understood what I was thinking."

His eyebrows jumped in surprise. "When was that?"

"When I was with the mother of the Sun." Lizzie nodded, "Yeah, quite a shocker, believe me. She as much as told me I was in love with you and that was why I had been behaving so oddly lately. It was one of those things I was supposed to learn before we could go home."

"One of those things?" he asked, still transparently startled. "There was more than one?"

Crap. "Gordo," she groaned, lifting her hands to her face—including the one Gordo still held. "I suck at keeping secrets. Why do I suck at keeping secrets?"

He chuckled, tugging her hand down to unveil one eye. "Why would you want to keep this secret, Liz?" He was smiling, but there was a touch of worry in the lines of his mouth.

She dropped both hands away. "I don't know. It's just...awkward, telling you this stuff. Even though I know it shouldn't be." And a great way to start a relationship this is, McGuire! Oy. She was being ridiculous. Drawing a deep breath, "Okay. If I tell you the stuff I learned in the bubble universe, will you tell me what you learned?"

Raising his free hand, he swore, "I promise."

"Okay. Good. Maybe I won't feel so nervous telling you, then. It's just, we don't talk about this stuff, you know? At least, we never used to...and it's just, you know, a little—"

"Weird," he finished for her, his smile easy now. "Yeah, and for good reason, Liz. I hate hearing you talk about other guys. And it's impossible to be objective whenever we objectively discuss stuff like attraction and dating and true love."

Which they'd spoken about several times in the bubble universe...fairly objectively, as far as Lizzie could remember. Why was that?

Her confusion must have been obvious, for Gordo said, "You have no idea how completely unobjective I really was when we talked about that stuff in the bubble universe. I was sarcastic, remember, and silly and sometimes even a little rude?" She thought about it for a moment, then nodded: he'd certainly been all those things. "That stuff was just a screen of sorts that allowed me to say exactly how I felt. Guys most certainly do find you attractive, and I absolutely will not tell any of them to ask you out. I really do believe a person can know true love in high school—middle school, in my case—and I have every intention of living my future next to you, day in and day out. I wasn't objective by any stretch of the imagination."

Wow. What on earth could she say to that? She wasn't about to ask if he'd just proposed marriage—that was moving just a little too fast, thank you very much. After swallowing several times, regaining control of her tongue again, Lizzie squeezed his hand tight and said, simply, "In the mother of the Sun's palace I figured out that I was in love with you. I also learned that I needed to tell you, but I tried for a while to ignore that part. Then I met Zev. He told me about how he'd fallen in love with Judith but never would have known she loved him back if she hadn't kissed him. He said I needed to tell you, even though I was scared, because you're my best friend and I owed you the truth." She smiled. "I don't think it was just the learning of those things that got us home. I think I had to put them into practice too."

He grinned back. "Which you certainly did."

Her ears were going red again; she could feel it. Trying not to look as embarrassed as she felt, she asked a hurried, "Now what about you? What did you learn?"

But Gordo ignored the question, grin warping into a knowing smirk as he continued, "Which I'm definitely glad you did."

The flush swept her cheekbones, down her neck. Probably down to my toes. If only she had a pillow handy. Instead she had to settle for a glare and slapping her free hand against his shoulder...a free hand he immediately captured. "Gordo," she grumped, attempting to tug her hand from his grip. "C'mon. You promised to tell me what you learned."

"So I did," he agreed equably, eyes bright and laughing.

Lizzie waited a moment, then demanded, "And?"

"And," he drawled, eyes dropping to their joined hands, "so I will." He glanced up, then, and Lizzie was startled to find his laughter all but disappeared, the merest flicker in the depths of suddenly serious eyes. Before she could ask if anything was wrong, he'd lowered his gaze again and spoken, voice very soft. "I've been waiting for you to fall in love with me for a long time. I'd decided when I was twelve—or maybe thirteen?—that I wouldn't tell you how I felt. Instead, I'd just wait, you know, for you to come to your senses. Only, what I didn't realize—didn't know—was that there's only so long you can wait for someone before you have to go on with your life."

Lizzie's fingers tightened reflexively on Gordo's; surely he wasn't saying what it sounded like he was saying... He didn't answer, didn't even raise his eyes. Instead, he simply kept talking. "In the past year or so, without even knowing it, I'd started living more than I was waiting. Which isn't to say that I'd stopped hoping you'd love me back—I don't think I even knew how to do that—but I'd started looking to my future without expecting to find you in it. The media workshop, college, my career—you weren't in the picture. Only, I didn't know it. At least, I didn't know it until that conversation you and I had about the turtle and the crane."

Her breath caught, snagged, then ripped loose, audibly ragged. This time he looked up, eyes very grey on hers. "If you're the turtle, I'm the crane." There was a question somewhere in his words, and Lizzie answered it with a nod. Yes, he was without doubt the Love of her Life. "But the crane leaves the turtle, and suddenly, as I was thinking about the parallels, I realized that, without even knowing it, I was slowly leaving you." She shook her head, barely aware of Gordo mirroring the movement. "You see, I'd set myself up to make a choice—you or my life. But that's a choice I never want to make—never wanted to make.

"Waiting for you to love me," a smile strained his mouth, "that was fine for the thirteen-year-old. But for an older me, waiting wasn't going to work. I'd been coming to that realization over the weeks we spent traveling in the bubble universe, and suddenly it crashed in on me. If you were ever to share my future with me, if I was ever to not make that choice, I'd have to tell you how I felt and deal with your reaction." His hand withdrew from hers, rose to cup her cheek. "You might never be able to love me back, but at least then I could get on with my life knowing how you felt. At least then I'd know I hadn't just left you behind." His lips brushed her forehead. Still leaning close, he whispered, "That's what I learned, Lizzie. Only," his laugh chuffed against her lips, "I was still too much in shock to act on it before we left. I guess it was enough that I learned it at all."

Opening her eyes, Lizzie pulled away from Gordo just enough for him to see her smile. "If the learning was anywhere near as painful as hearing the retelling," she said, "then I'd have to agree."

The hand on her cheek slid into her hair, drawing her to meet a short, soft apology of a kiss. "I didn't mean it to be painful," he said.

Lizzie, struggling now even to remember what painful meant, merely shook her head. "I'm just glad we had the chance to learn what we did, no matter what we had to experience to do it. Can you imagine what might have happened had we not been sucked into the bubble universe?"

Gordo winced. "It wouldn't have been pretty, that's for sure. In the normal course of things, it might've been a long time before we figured everything out, and by then, we might not even have been speaking anymore."

Lizzie couldn't quite suppress a shudder. "Still, for all that, I wonder why we got to go to the bubble universe. I mean, we're not the only people in the world who've had romantic problems and stuff. Why did we get to go, when others have to work things out here...or don't even manage to work things out at all?"

"I haven't the vaguest idea, Liz," Gordo shrugged. "In fact, I think we'd have better luck trying to guess whether the bubble universe moon is made of green cheese."

And considering there were a hundred other things a fairy tale moon might be, that was no easy task. Smiling, Lizzie said, "Well, whatever the reason, I'm glad we got to go."

"Me, too," Gordo whispered just before his mouth met hers.

She so hadn't been kidding when she'd thought herself designed for this. Kissing Gordo was bliss. What was the point of ever kissing anyone else? No other kiss could be as warm, as honest, as sweet, nor could it be as tender or gentle or certain, and there was no way anyone else could just draw her self out of—

A scream of earsplitting volume jolted her out of thoughts and kiss alike. Heart pounding in panic, Lizzie threw herself against Gordo's chest before realizing the scream was utterly human.

Assuming you count Matt as human, that is, she amended.

Behind them on the lawn, fists raised to the sky, knelt her brother, face twisted in ecstatic jubilation. "At last!" he was shouting, "at last I have prevailed!"

Swallowing her heart back into her chest, Lizzie glared, rasped, "What the hell are you talking about, freakazoid?"

"The pool!" Matt exulted, flopping backward into the grass.

"You don't have a pool, Matt." It was Gordo who spoke this time, voice just as hoarse as hers.

"Not a swimming pool!" her brother scoffed, thrashing his arms and legs as he laughed. "The pool! The one that's up to three hundred dollars!" He went off into another fit of hysterical laughter, rolling over and over, back and forth. "The pool," he said, jumping to his feet, "that everyone has been contributing to for five years, trying to guess the date you two would finally figure it out."

Lizzie looked at Gordo, saw the same realization in his eyes. "A betting pool?" Gordo asked, although of course they both knew the answer already. "On when your sister and I would start dating?"

"Yes!" Matt cried. "And today was my last day for this school year!" He turned a wobbly handspring. "Wait until I tell Lanny! It worked! Hahaha, it worked!"

She was almost afraid to ask, but, "What worked?"

But Matt was turning more handsprings, shouting, "Who said prayers don't get answered!"

"Matt! Are you saying you prayed we'd come to our senses today?"

Gordo seemed to have more luck getting through to the little weasel, because Matt stopped jumping and turned to face them, shrugging. "Not exactly prayed, no. Lanny and I designed a Lizzie-and-Gordo-Get-Together dance based on the Native American ghost dance." Explanation given, Matt gave another shriek of, "Three hundred dollars!" and ran into the house.

For a long moment, Lizzie and Gordo merely stared at one another. Then Gordo said, very quietly, "You don't suppose—"

"No!" Lizzie said emphatically. Again, "No, absolutely not." No way was their trip to the bubble universe caused by—

"Even so," Gordo asserted, "I think I'm gonna have to make your brother my best man."

"Wha—" His mouth cut her off, and after a token struggle Lizzie relaxed into the kiss.

There were far more important things in life than annoying little brothers, after all.

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end of chapter 23

Chapter Notes: I don't, of course, own the ghost dance, but it is real and you can find some general info on its origins and even a little detail on the actual dance here: religiousmovements (dot) lib (dot) virginia (dot) edu (slash) nrms (slash) ghostdance (dot) h t m I'll leave the Lanny and Matt adaptation to your imaginations. ;)