I'm BACK! Geez guys, sorry the last chapter sucked, I didn't really know where I wanted to go with it except for the ending. Well, that and plus the fact that my mind was kinda on vacation. Which was amazing, by the way, though entirely too short. So yeah, I hope this chapter is less random, though I must confess my thoughts do have a tendency to slant in that direction. Ellie is a bit raw and out of character here, but then again doesn't every girl get just a little worked up over a boy at least once in her life? Especially if the boy in question happens to be Craig Manning? Oh, love does make one do crazy things... So here we go, the (grand?) finale(!) is upon us! It is here that I must offer my deepest thanks to each and every person who read and reviewed...though such thanks might be aimed more to the people who reviewed than those who just read. No offense, it's just getting reviews is positively splendid! (hint, hint) Thanks a ton you guys!

Disclaimer: Doesn't belong to me.

And away we go!

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It was then that I saw it.

I mean really saw it, saw the breathtaking flash of what privileged few had been allowed to glimpse. I had thought that maybe, just maybe I had seen it once before, that day in his garage when he asked what I thought about him dropping everything and taking this chance, but now I can see that I had clearly been mistaken. Here and now, with this raw emotion lain so plainly upon the table before me, I know that whatever I had been exposed to back then had still been carefully cloaked to hide what he was allowing me to see tonight.

Because here it was, the unfortified, stripped and vulnerable side of Craig Manning he kept so deeply and securely buried underneath all of his charming bravado. This was the side he had reluctantly revealed to Joey to explain the bruises, the side that he had unleashed upon Ashley when he gave her a ring and asked her to marry him, the side that he had pleaded with to Manny when she went to that clinic so many years ago. These people, plus probably his mother and Angie, had seen this side of him, and now he was letting me see it too.

Maybe it was naïve of me to feel, I don't know...honored that he was letting his guard down like this for me, but I still felt it in any case. I was spellbound in a distorted sort of way, and in the intimacy of the situation I could not manage to make my mouth shape words, or my brain formulate sentences. Even if I was a fully-functioning girl, I didn't have any idea of how to respond, it was so much more than a simple yes or no answer. Thus his words hung heavily in the air, disturbed by no sound except for maybe the violent drumming of my heart, which, by the way, was beating its way painfully out of my pale chest. He must have felt encouraged by my silence (the thumping evidentially inaudible to him), because after a few hushed moments passed between us, he started up again, his tone having gained momentum.

"It would be so awesome if you stayed here Ellie. I mean, I've already talked to my manager, and my label, and they have all kinds of hook-ups with the magazines who review us. They could probably snag you an amazing internship out here, better than any kind of journalistic experience you could get back at home. And you could still go to school here too. God man, it would be a such a great oppor-"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I couldn't believe that even...

"Stop." I interrupted, unable to keep the telltale quiver from my voice, "Just stop it Craig. Stop throwing out all these perfectly logical reasons, stop telling me about internships and schools and opportunities. Sure they make sense, and sure they sound tantalizing, but we both know that they wouldn't be what I was really staying for. That little tidbit has been in the back of your mind since the minute you decided to ask me to stay here. You know that, you know so much more than you let on, but still you go on pretending you don't and it hurts. God Craig, do you have any idea how bad that fucking hurts?"

"Ellie-" but I wouldn't let him answer. I had been waiting too long to let all this out.

"No. Just shut up, please just shut up for once and listen to me. You know that there is more behind this ridiculous little dance we have been doing, or if there isn't then at least must know that I think there is. You are perfectly aware of the fact that all those things, those "opportunities" that you already mentioned are only excuses, excuses that will have nothing to do with whether or not I make the choice to stay here. You know there is just one thing you have to say to me and I won't leave, and you haven't even hinted at it yet."

"Please Ellie. Please stay." He implored of me, ignoring my request with his eyes so open and honest that my own began to flood with unshed tears. I fought them back though, and continued.

"But why! Why the hell do you want me to stay Craig? So that we can jam together? So that you can have someone to come home to and talk with after you finish fucking half the city? So that I can be your mother and your sister and your best friend? Well that's not what I want and you fucking know it. You've known it for so long, and yet for some sadistical reason you have just kept dragging me along like a pathetic puppy dog. And everyone knows why I've let you. It's been painfully obvious for some time how I feel about you, and it's also been pretty obvious that my feelings don't mean shit to you. I can't do it anymore Craig, I really can't."

His eyes dropped from my gaze and studied the water intensely, "I'm sorry for all that I've put you through Ellie. I really and truly am."

And with that I couldn't stop them, couldn't keep the torrent of burning tears which had been prickling at my eyes for so long now back any longer, and I burst into sobs. Wrapping my arms around my practically naked body in a defensive posture, I began to shake violently as the cries wracked through me, still imploring of him for what I knew he couldn't, or wouldn't, do.

"I don't want to hear "I'm sorry" from you Craig! You told me you were sorry back at the wedding gig, and it wasn't what I wanted to hear then and it still isn't now! If you can't say what it is that I want to hear then there is no reason for me to stay, and if you don't mean it then there is no reason for you to say it!"

"Elle..." He pleaded with the water's surface rather than my actual face, my broken condition clearly too much for him to deal with.

"Well," I said, wiping in vain furiously at the waterworks still pouring in full force from my eyes and trying my best (though unsuccessfully) to steady my voice, "I guess I have my answer then, don't I? Enjoy Vancouver Craig, it's been nice visiting you."

Shoulders still heaving, I turned to leave. I turned my back the pool and turned my back on Craig Manning, once and for all. It fucking hurt like hell.

"You really know how to make a guy squirm, don't ya Nash?" he called out in an attempt that was failing miserably as a lighthearted remark meant to lessen the tense atmosphere. It sunk into me and deeply and cruelly as a knife, but somehow I kept on walking.

"Nash?"

I reached the pool steps.

"Ellie?"

I was out of the water.

"Stay for me. For us."

And this did its job to stop me. My back remained turned, but my heart pounding treacherously with a hope I dared not myself believe. He continued.

"Stay for us because I know I love you and I think you love me. Stay because I know I have been an idiot and I know that I need you here with me to keep me from being one. More than that, I just need you. Not as a friend, not as a mother, but as something more. Something that I have been trying for so long to tell myself I didn't want or I didn't need, but now, with all these things I know, I know I was wrong. I love you Elle, please stay."

I couldn't help it. I knew I should spin around and run to him, crying tears of happiness against his bare chest and swearing between gasping sobs to never again leave his side, but to do so would just ruin the very "Craig and Ellie-ness" of the moment. I mean, come on, Ellie Fucking Nash anyone? So instead I kept my back turned and held my tongue, made him squirm with my belated response while silent tears of a new sort continued to stream down my cheeks, until at last I cocked an eyebrow into the darkness facing away from him and said with a sneer...

"You think I love you? God Manning, were you listening to a word I said?"

Marco hates flying, especially alone, but I think he understood why the seat next to him was empty that morning.

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Sorry about the abrupt ending, I'm just no good at writing love scenes. I will have to let you use your own imaginations as to what followed that night. Dream up whatever you please, just so long as it involves these two living happily ever after...