Author's Note: Here's the long overdue next chapter. I apologize for the long wait but I had to clear my thoughts in my head and wrap my mind around an ending. I have it all worked out now, so just bear with me through the process. Don't forget to let me know what you think!

Chapter Ten: Go

Kelly wasn't sure what exactly had become of Ray that night. The only thing she did know was that he wound up in the hospital with no certain time as to when he would be out. As for Sunshine, well, despite what he had said to her in the bathroom that night, he was still together with Christi. If anything, he was even more terrified of Gerry. And Christi was...well, she was...there really weren't words to describe what Christi was...though Kelly could come up with more than a few choice ones.

The next few weeks went by in a kind of blur. The boys kept winning, Sunshine kept growing as the school hero, and Christi stayed right by his side as his little 'queen'.They were T.C.Williams's golden couple. Meanwhile, Kelly had spent most of her time trying to avoid the golden couple. She spent the rest of her time with Cecile trying to firgure out a way for her to let Rev know how she felt about him without getting him beaten to a pulp.

As far as her emotional status, it was, in a word, unstable. The fear that she had felt that night was one that she never wished to feel again. The helplessness of it all. The hopelessness. It hadn't mattered how she had tried to get away, Ray had been too strong. She had always thought of herself as a fairly tough, independent kind of girl, but in less than ten minutes, Ray had taken all of that away from her. She tried to hide her depression, going about her day to day as though she were all right. But it was getting harder to pretend that everything was fine. She flinched every time anyone came near her and she was so jumpy as of late. She found herself wishing day in and day out that she could just get over it. Sunshine had gotten to her before anything had happened, so she should have gotten over it by now, but she hadn't.

Then one day, it struck her like an epiphany. It wasn't the attack that she couldn't get over. It was Sunshine. She had been putting her feelings for him in a bottle and locking them away for so long, that they had started to gnaw away at her insides. She was losing who she was because she was hiding how she felt, which was not the sort of thing that she did. She didn't know what she was going to do, but she knew that she had to figure it out soon because this was going to kill her.

It took nearly a month and a half before Kelly started to even vaguely feel like her old self. Slowly but surely though, she started to smile more and laugh more and she had even stopped wincing whenever someone touched her. By the week of homecoming, she was practically good as new.

The Wednesday before the homecoming game and dance, Cecile and Kelly were walking home after school, locked arm in arm.

"Are you goin' to the dance?" Kelly asked without looking up from her feet.

"Yeah." Cecile nodded.

Kelly smiled, "With Rev?"

Even though she wasn't looking at her, Kelly knew that Cecile's cheeks had flushed to the color of an apple. "We're not going together," Cecile stated, "but we are meeting each other there."

"Will you dance with him?"

"If he asks me."

"He will."

"He might not."

"Rev isn't the kind of guy who'll let a bunch of closed minded fools intimidate him."

"You're right."

"I know." Kelly quipped, "I'm happy for you, by the way."

"I know you are." Cecile smiled, "Are you goin'?"

Kelly's smile faltered, "I don't know..."

"Come on, Kel. You gotta come. It won't be any fun without you and you know I'll be miserable if you're not there."

"Guilt trip!" Kelly laughed.

"Exactly! See, you have to come now otherwise it gives me cause to blame you for any of my future unhappiness."

"That doesn't seem fair."

"I'm sorry. Did I miss the bulletin that said life was supposed to be fair?" Cecile chimed.

"Okay. All right. I'll go!" Kelly practically yelled.

"Yay!" Cecile said, literally hopping up and down.

"You're mean." Kelly pouted, but she was fighting off a smile.

"And you love me!" Cecile said, grabbing Kelly by the chin and planting a big kiss on her cheek. They walked the rest of the way home with Cecile going into detail about the dress that she had bought specifically for the dance and Kelly assuring her over and over that she was sure that Rev would like it. She had to tell her that she was sure Rev would like her in anything that she wore.

The next day, Kelly hung around after school and watched from the bleachers as the guys practiced. They were looking so good. Sunshine really knew how to take command of a situation. She hadn't thought it possible, but every time she saw him play, he seemed to have improved in some way or another. When Gerry and Julius got together on that field, they were a force to reckoned with. Hell, Kelly knew that they were a force to be reckoned with off the field, as well. Kelly found herself smiling for no particular reason as she watched the Titans, her boys, execute play after play with an excellence most teams only ever strive for and never achieved.

Practice ended and after the pandemonium of helmet smashing, chest banging, and butt smacking had subsided the boys broke up and started to trot to the showers. Sunshine was halfway off the field when he spotted a familiar solitary form sitting in the bleachers. He glanced around him to see if Gerry was anywhere nearby and, not seeing him, made his way over to where Kelly sat.

"Well, hidy there, Sunshine." Kelly smiled as he moved to sit down beside her.

"How you doin', Kel?" he asked.

"Peachy keen, jellybean." she replied.

"Sounds good."

"Doesn't it, though?"she said, "You guys looked really great out there. They'll never know what hit 'em come Friday night."

"Yeah, I think we're pretty much gonna cream 'em." Sunshine grinned.

"Aren't we sure of ourselves?"

"Nah, just honest."

"Oh, is that right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I guess it's no large feet for the golden by quarterback."

"Yes, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you. Autograph? Mine?"

"Don't let that head get too big. Your hair'll look funny."

The conversation was strained and felt forced between them and both of them knew it. There was too much there. Too much that needed to be said and hadn't been. There were really no words that would ever be enough for them. They had reached a point where they were beyond any stone or turn that conversation could have helped guide them through. With all that sitting between them, they just stared at each other in silence for what felt like forever until Kelly finally said, "God, I feel like I haven't seen you in forever."

Sunshine nodded, his eyebrows drawing together. Something Kelly knew he did when he was feeling something that he didn't want to say. "I know what you mean." he said in a voice that sounded like he had something stuck in the back of his throat.

Kelly looked up at him, her eyes wide and her chin quivering. "Sunshine?" she said.

"Yeah?" Sunshine asked, unable to tear his eyes from her gorgeous face. He wanted to remember exactly how she looked at that moment. Her nose and cheeks had turned red from the cold and she had pulled her jacket tightly around her. Strands of her hair had come loose from her ponytail and were dancing in the breeze around her face and neck, one strand sticking to her moist lips.

"I...I miss you." She said so softly, he almost hadn't heard her.

He had never known Kelly to let her guard down and expose herself. She had never seemed more vulnerable than in that moment...or more beautiful. "I miss you, too."

Her eyes lit up, brighter than he'd seen them in a long time. "You do?"

Sunshine couldn't speak, so he just nodded. Without breaking the trance of their eye contact, her reached up and with one finger he pulled the strand of strawberry hair away from her mouth, dragging the tip across her cheek as he did so. Once it was out of the way, he wasn't able to stop himself from caressing the side of her face with the back of his hand. After doing that about five times, his hand slid around to cradle her neck just below her jaw line.

Kelly couldn't speak, couldn't think. She couldn't remember when their faces had gotten so close. All she knew was that Sunshine's lips were a mere breath away from her own and it felt as though he were drawing her to him. Her eyes slid closed as she braced herself for what was about to happen.

The moment, however, was broken by the sound of someone clearing their throat rather noisily. Sunshine and Kelly both looked over to see Christi standing at the bottom of the bleachers with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Sunshine, darling?" she called, her voice higher than usual. It was that phony high pitched tone that people use when they're trying to pretend that they're sweet and innocent when they're really big fat whores.

"Comin'." Sunshine called down to her.

Kelly's gaze dropped to her feet as she choked back a sob.

Sunshine turned back to her, "I have to..."

"It's okay." Kelly said looking up with a shaky smile on her face, but she looked near to tears. "Go." She said, her pretty eyes glistening.

"Kelly, I..."

"Sunshine." Kelly cut him off, her eyes closing as she shook her head slowly, begging him not to continue, "Go."

Sunshine stared at her for one more moment before standing rather abruptly and trotting down the bleachers. Kelly opened her eyes when she knew he was away from her, watching him meet Christi at the bottom of the bleachers. Christi was glaring up at her, but in all honesty, Kelly couldn't have cared less at the moment. She watched Sunshine walk away with Christi practically attached to his side and thought she might throw up. Her stomach churned and twisted at the image, but it was worse than it had ever been before. T.C.Williams's golden couple and Kelly would've like nothing more than to push half of that couple over a very tall cliff.

She took a minute to regain her composure before leaping off the bleachers and making her way home where she would more than likely crawl under tha covers and hide from the world. Cecile would drag her to that damn dance tomorrow night where she would be forced to watch Christi drag Sunshine around like some kind of trophy, so tonight she felt that she had earned the right to become a social recluse.