Chapter Eighteen - Where We Left Off.

'I'm at Stan's, I'm staying with him tonight. Love you x'

Right before sending the text message off to her mother, Wendy read over it once more, smiling at the feelings that the words evoked within her. Hitting the 'send' button, the teenage girl sighed happily and placed her phone on the bedside table.

Settling back into the silence, Wendy gazed around the empty room.

After cuddling with her and comforting her for five minutes or so, Stan had ducked out to the bathroom to clean himself up. Wendy was sitting in his king-single bed, propped up by a couple of pillows against the bed head and fiddling with the sheets between her fingers. As she continued to look around, the smile remained firmly planted on her face.

A lot about Stan's bedroom was still exactly as how Wendy remembered it. The only differences she could see was the lack of Terrance and Phillip posters hanging off the wall and the fact that he seemed to keep his space a lot tidier than what he used to. Well, tidy enough apart from the pile of clothing scattered on the floor.

Glimpsing down, Wendy allowed a giggle to escape her and covered her face as it turned bright red. She still couldn't believe what she and Stan had just done. But, of course, she couldn't be happier.

Looking over herself, her face remained a faint shade of pink. While she had fished up her panties from the floor, Wendy was still sitting topless in the bed. Just as she considered leaning over and clawing for her jacket that was quite a stretch away, she suddenly jumped slightly at the sound of the door clicking open.

The butterflies in her stomach soared into backflips at the sight of Stan standing in the doorway.

The teenage boy had fetched a clean pair of briefs and a singlet from the laundry. As he quietly shut the door behind him, Stan turned back and gazed at Wendy. Her lame attempt to pull the sheet up to her chest made him smirk cheekily at her. Giggling a bit more, Wendy smirked back as Stan bent down and picked his t-shirt up from the floor, tossing it to her. Catching the oversized piece of clothing and pulling it over her head, Wendy breathed in the familiar scent of Stan that was woven into the fabric.

Pulling her hair out of the back of it, Wendy smiled sweetly at him, "Thanks."

Smiling back, Stan leant down again and picked up his beanie. As he placed it on the back of his head, he shot a soft expression of concern at the beautiful girl opposite him, "You good?"

His voice sent a shiver up her spine, "Yeah. You?"

Rather than answering, Stan took a couple of quick steps across the room and knelt next to Wendy on his bed. Pushing a strand of her black hair behind her ear, he cupped her face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers in a tender, innocent kiss. Man, he couldn't believe that he had actually passed up the opportunity to kiss her again for three whole weeks.

Fluttering her eyes open as he parted from her, Wendy blushed, "What was that for?"

As much as Stan wanted to just keep smiling at her and hugging her and kissing her, he soon sighed as a sense of reality dawned on his dream world, "Just in case we still can't work this out for some reason and I never get to kiss you again."

Matching his reluctant sigh, Wendy frowned as she nervously looked down into her lap. Stan was right – despite everything that had just occurred between the two of them, did it all necessarily mean that they were back together now? The question was a difficult one that drummed in the front of her mind.

She knew what she wanted. It was obvious, wasn't it? She wanted Stan back, especially after just losing her virginity to him. She wasn't happy without him. But, when considering all that they had been through together, Wendy was also certain that unless absolutely everything got laid out on the table, they weren't going to be able to have a fresh start.

With this thought nagging at her, Wendy took a deep breath as she gently took Stan's hands in hers and glanced up at him, "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything," he answered, rubbing the back of her left hand with his thumb.

Wendy raised a sarcastic eyebrow at his willingness, "Are you sure about that?"

Laughing at her, Stan nodded his head. Surely nothing either of them had already said could be beaten for shock value by now, "What is it?"

In the next moment, the playfulness fell from Wendy's face. She tentatively licked her lips. She didn't exactly want to have to ask Stan what she was about to. But she knew she couldn't move forward with him again unless she did.

"Okay, look, I'm not upset or angry, 'cause I know I don't have the right to be," she began uneasily, "But… okay, so, the condom that's missing from that packet, I just wanna' know who – "

"Whoa, wait, what?" Stan sharply cut in. Scanning Wendy's face, his brow collapsed at the slight hurt that was registered on it, until all of a sudden, his eyes widened as he gasped in realisation, "Oh, shit, no. No, Kenny took that."

In a split second, Wendy felt her feelings of dejection explode with relief, "He did?"

"Yes," Stan exclaimed with a smile. He took one hand away from Wendy's and moved it to her knee, giving it a gentle squeeze "Last Sunday, he came back here after we finished playing hockey. We were just hanging out and then he basically got a freakin' booty call from some girl he met at a party the night before. He helped himself, ditched me, and left to go do it."

The grin was far too bright to hide from Wendy's face, "So, you've never – "

" – Well, I have now," he teased sweetly. He felt his heart race at the look of reprieve that graced her face, "So, what do we do now?"

All Wendy wanted was to answer immediately and then dive at him all over again. It was already unbelievably perfect to know that Stan had been her first, but now to hear that despite her suspicions, she had actually been his first, too? It was all that Wendy had ever wanted.

"Stan, I can't not be with you," she confessed with a laugh and a shrug of her shoulders. But, just like Stan, reality was shining its unwelcome light on Wendy, too, "But, I do get what you mean about finishing school and going to college and being separated again."

As the two locked their devoted vision, an unwilling sadness filled their eyes. Neither of them had ever been happier in their entire lives than they had been that evening. Even after all the years of knowing one another, it wasn't until that exact moment of total and complete togetherness that Stan and Wendy felt like they now truly knew each other inside and out. And they didn't want to trade that feeling back for anything else in the world. But still, the question had to be asked – if they got back together, would it last forever?

Blowing out a soft groan, Stan let go of Wendy and adjusted himself on the bed, crossing his legs and slumping his face down in his hand, "Well, it's not like either of us are getting over each other any time soon."

"But I wouldn't ever want to risk hurting you again, Stan," Wendy immediately argued, "Like, accidentally or otherwise."

Scoffing at this thought, Stan brushed it off as he shot Wendy a supportive smirk, "Trust me, nothing could ever tip me over the edge that badly again."

Wendy chuckled, "Yeah, tell me about it."

Thinking about this and gazing down at the burns on his arm, Stan allowed Wendy's agreeing statement to drift harmlessly across his mind. As her words echoed within him, though, a sudden lightbulb flashed on behind his eyes.

"Wait, that's it," he murmured, snapping his neck back up to stare at Wendy.

"What's it?"

Excitedly leaning forward, Stan adjusted his blue and red cap on the back of his head, "Okay, so, you've hit rock bottom before, right?"

With her expression falling into a confused frown, Wendy laughed awkwardly, "Uh, way to put it so nicely."

"Well, no, what I mean is," Stan re-started, gathering his thoughts, "Okay, so when I was seeing my counsellor and stuff, I was the absolute most miserable I have ever been – "

"Is this supposed to be making things better?"

" – but, because of all that, I was able to learn not to fall back into that trap if I ever got hurt again."

Curiously watching on as he tried to explain himself, Wendy felt the hair on her arms tingle as Stan's blue orbs implored her and he beamed affectionately at her.

"I've learned that in life, people are going to leave and things are going to change, and I have to be able to accept that and move on and be okay. And I know I can do that now – a thousand times better than what I did when we were fifteen."

A small smile turned up in the corner of Wendy's lips as she finally began to understand what Stan was eluding to, "You have to appreciate what you have and be happy while you have it," she spoke. The pure positively flowing between the two of them made Wendy's face burn up with anticipation all over again. She had a feeling she knew where this was all leading, "So… if we were to get back together, but then we broke up down the line for whatever reason…"

"… We'd meet someone else, we'd move on, and we'd be okay."

Hugging his shirt close to her body, Wendy chewed down slightly on her bottom lip as she waited for Stan to speak again. Before he did, he raised an inviting eyebrow at her.

"Okay?"

By this point, Wendy was sitting cross-legged, too, directly opposite him. However, the one simple word that Stan had breathed into the room almost made her faint in nothing but overwhelming ecstasy. Shyly swaying to one side, she shot her vision down to the bedspread and giggled in disbelief.

After two years of missing him, and three weeks of fighting for him, Wendy finally had her boyfriend back.

"Okay."

Before the sentiment even completely left her lips, Wendy gasped and burst into blissful laughter as Stan instantly dove at her. Tackling her around the waist, he lay her out horizontally across the bed, looking down from above her.

The mere appearance of her angelic face made Stan totally forget about every single negative and hurtful thought and feeling he had experienced about Wendy over the last three weeks. Anything that he had tried to convince himself of suddenly wasn't important anymore. Because no matter how much he attempted to deny it, Wendy belonged with him. As his girlfriend.

Stroking her cheek, he smiled, and then leant down and kissed her with all the adoration and love that his heart could muster. With her legs dangling over the edge of the bed, Wendy reached up and took the left side of his face with her hand. Tingling waves of electricity coursed through their veins as they both grinned happily into each other's kiss. It was utterly convincing now, to both of them, this was the absolute only way things between them could ever be.

As their night continued on, and carried into the early morning, it soon became very obvious that two years of silence and separation certainly left them with a lot to catch up on. The only time that any quiet filled the bedroom was when they were kissing each other, but aside from that, Stan and Wendy were talking each other's ears off well beyond either of their expectations.

By some certain point in their late night re-acquaintance, Stan found himself sitting up horizontally across the bed with his back leant against the wall that it was pushed beside. Wendy was lying down the bed the correct way up with her head in his lap. She held his hand while his other one fiddled with the hem of his shirt that was still comfortably covering her.

Running his hand over her stomach, Stan smiled down at her, continuing on with their conversation, "So, did it hurt?"

Looking down the length of her torso and spying her belly button piercing that Stan was now playing with, Wendy smirked, "A little, not too much."

"When did you get it?"

"When I was sixteen," she answered, "My dad made me wait till then, and they made me pay for it myself."

Narrowing his teasing eyes at her, Stan licked his lips, "It's pretty sexy."

Scoffing with a surprised laugh, Wendy jokingly slapped his hand away, quickly igniting playful fight between the two of them. Each time Stan managed to escape Wendy's grasp, he temptingly swung his hands over her head until she was finally able to grab a good hold of one of them. Pulling down hard on his left wrist, his arm turned up, suddenly sending Wendy into a bleak silence.

The laughter disappeared from Stan's throat, as well, as he soon realised what she had spotted. Sighing to himself, he awkwardly scratched the back of his neck, trying to avoid the abrupt despair in Wendy's eyes as she examined the burns that marked his forearm.

Succumbing to the quiet for a second or two, Stan soon cleared his throat, "Do you wanna', like… talk about it?"

Gazing up at him curiously, Wendy frowned, "Isn't that what I'm supposed to be asking you?"

"I've done enough talking to last me a lifetime, trust me," he countered with a chuckle, "But, just like, if there's anything you feel you need to know…"

Mulling over his offer, Wendy felt her chest deflate. She was sort of scared. She obviously knew that Stan had been hurt while she was gone, hurt badly enough to seriously hurt himself. And that detail alone was heart-breaking enough. Did she really want to hear anything more? As she carefully ran her index finger over one of the burns, she shuddered at the rough and raised texture of his skin.

Wendy wasn't sure if she could do this. But even so, she took in a deep, brave breath.

"When?"

Locking his eyes with hers as she looked up at him, Stan wriggled free of the grip Wendy had on his arm. Instead, he took her hand, entwining their fingers together and holding them against her chest.

"Like… five days after you left," he pondered, "It was two weeks after you were gone that Kyle found out. And then it only happened once more after that."

Trying to push through the hurt she felt squeezing at her heart, Wendy bit down on her lip, "So, who knows about it?"

Stan heaved his shoulders in a small shrug, "The guys all know what happened and what I did but only Kyle and Kenny know the full story. He was there when Kyle got a bit overwhelming, which was a relief."

"You don't try and, like, hide it?"

Emitting a slight chuckle to try and ease her nerves, Stan smirked at her, "I'm not going to be confined to long sleeves for the rest of my life, Wendy."

Slowly nodding her head, Wendy then paused for a short moment. Attempting to properly form her next question in her mind, the teenage girl soon anxiously gulped, "And… how did you – "

" – When you leave a cigarette lighter lit for a long time, the top of it gets, like, super hot, and then you just kinda'… yeah."

Huffing out a heavy breath as she tried to wrap her head around the whole situation, Wendy forced an uneasy snigger, "No wonder Kyle hates me."

"He'll get over it," Stan offered lamely, stroking her hair, "Wendy, it's not your fault."

"I know," she shot back, "I know, but still. I just need you to know how sorry I am, for everything, I – "

"No, stop," he insisted, staring directly into her beautiful brown orbs, "I forgive you. For everything."

Wendy's feelings of relief were only confirmed as Stan affectionately squeezed her hand before continuing right along, "Besides, I'm sorry for everything I said to you the other day. I didn't mean any of it, I haven't wasted anything on you."

Shaking her head at all the apologies being thrown left and right, Wendy rolled slightly onto her side in Stan's lap and hugged him around his hips, "Let's just drop everything and call it all a clean slate, okay?"

Hugging her back just as tightly, Stan leant over and pecked her on the top of her head, echoing a quick 'okay' as she readjusted herself against his legs.

"So, do you and Kyle ever talk about it much, or…?"

Stan simply shrugged his shoulders, "Nah, not really. I mean, I know he's there if I need him, and he knows how much I appreciate everything he's done."

Wendy smiled at each of the sweet words that left Stan's lips. No matter how many awful and harsh judgments Kyle may have cast down upon her over the last three weeks, she couldn't deny how grateful she felt to know that there had been somebody sticking by Stan's side to look after him for her while she was gone.

"Have you ever told him that before?"

Looking down at her, Stan held in a laugh, "Not in words as gay as that."

Wendy scrunched up her face at him and shook her head, "Well, maybe he deserves to hear it sometime."

As her eyes pierced his, Stan allowed Wendy's suggestion to sink through him, causing him to furrow his brow in deeper thought.

If there was one thing Stan knew for certain, it was that he was in for one extremely unpleasant conversation with Kyle once he discovered his re-built relationship with Wendy. He didn't want his best friend to feel like everything that they had been through together over the past two years had all been for nothing. Because it hadn't – Stan had learnt things about himself that he never would have even thought about if it hadn't been for Kyle. So, keeping this thought in mind, maybe Wendy was right. Maybe Kyle was due some genuine thanks and appreciation from Stan.

Pushing the notion to the back of his mind for now, Stan glanced back down at Wendy. As difficult as the conversation may have been, it definitely felt good for him to be able to get some of the more trying moments from the past couple of years off his chest. But in saying that, Wendy wasn't the only one who had some questions that she hoped to be answered.

"So… what about your stuff?"

Looking back up at him, an instant frown fell into Wendy's expression at the underlying subject matter of Stan's question, "What about it?"

"Have you been thinking about it a lot?" Stan carefully went on, "Is that why you've been so upset lately?"

"Not exactly…"

The trailed off tone in Wendy's voice matched the sick feeling that was quickly beginning to bubble in her stomach. If there was one thing she hated the most in the entire world, it was talking about Griffin.

"Well, I couldn't blame you," Stan continued, "I mean, the thought of someone doing to you what that asshole tried to do to you – "

"I know," Wendy rapidly spoke, stopping him, "But he didn't. Honestly, once the initial shock of the whole thing wore off, the part that sucked the most was knowing deep down all along that he was a jerk and he that treated me horribly. I just thought that having any other boyfriend would help me move on from the one I really wanted."

Stan's heart skipped a beat as an overwhelming smile crossed his face, "Well, there's no reason to worry about any of it anymore, is there?"

Groaning out a guilty sigh, Wendy awkwardly scratched the top of her head, "Except that… guys from Malibu have been messaging me online asking me for naked photos… that's why I've been so upset lately."

As quickly as the grin had stamped its place on his lips, Stan's elated expression dropped along with his heart into his guts, "Wendy," he soothed her, stroking her long black locks, "How did they even find you? Isn't your account private, or whatever?"

Twiddling her thumbs, Wendy sighed, "Clearly not as private as it should be."

"Okay, well then you need to delete it," Stan advised firmly. Without even waiting for her to reply, the teenage boy gently nudged his girlfriend out of his lap and climbed off the bed. Picking up her phone, he also grabbed his off his desk across the room.

"I can't just delete it," Wendy argued.

"Look, just deactivate it, let it expire after thirty days, and then make a new one. And we'll make sure it has all the right privacy settings this time."

Re-joining her on the bed, Stan tossed her phone to her as she sat up and caught it, "I'll even do the same with mine."

As sweet as all his encouragement was, Wendy wasn't sure if what she was going through was all worth so much trouble, "Stan, I dunno' – "

"Wendy, I'm just trying to keep you safe," he spoke tenderly, glimpsing at her with pleading eyes, "Please, baby?"

Watching him reach out and grab her knee, Wendy felt butterflies erupt in her tummy at his touch. Rolling her eyes at him teasingly, she sighed again. How could she possibly even say 'no' after how adoringly he had asked her?

Nodding her head in agreement, the two smiled at each other while Wendy precisely followed all of Stan's movements. Logging into the settings on their mobiles, the young couple both deactivated their online accounts before removing the application from their phone. And surprisingly enough to Wendy, it actually made her feel like a weight had instantly been lifted from her shoulders. Why hadn't she thought about something so simple so much sooner?

"Thanks," she spoke softly to Stan.

Flicking his affectionate vision up to her for a split second, Stan's eyes soon darted back to his phone as a wide grin crossed his features, "Aw, shit, hang on. You gotta' see this."

Tilting her head at him curiously, Wendy giggled, "What is it?"

Another couple of short seconds passed by before Stan froze. Wendy swore she could almost see the faint hairs stand up on his arm as his grin radiated even more warmth. Finally passing his phone to her, Wendy frowned, keeping her eyes locked to his until they eventually drifted down to the small screen before her.

And immediately, the dark haired girl sensed the same blissful emotion over take her.

"Oh my God."

Wendy's twinkling vision sent goosebumps throughout her entire body as she beamed at the photo of her and Stan saved on his phone. It was from the night at Bebe's house two summers ago. Stan and Wendy were sat together in the same wooden deck chair. A couple of their other friends could be seen in the background, but the main focus of the photo was the teenage girl nuzzled close to her boyfriend with a huge smile on her face as he was kissing her on the cheek.

Wendy felt her face flush red, "Is this the last picture of us that was taken before I moved?"

Wordlessly, Stan nodded his head.

Matching his devoted appearance, Wendy could only grin in goofy disbelief, "Wow."

"It was the only one I kept," the teenager boy gently confessed.

"How long were you gonna' keep it for?"

"I changed my mind a lot," he answered with a chuckle, "But I think the final plan was to wait until a year after school had finished. If you still hadn't contacted me, I would have deleted it."

Unable to tear her eyes away from the pure happiness that lay on both of their fifteen year old faces in the picture, Wendy felt her heart pitter-patter with glee in her chest. Her mind was suddenly abuzz with all the other events that had taken place that night. The photo had been captured only about half an hour before the two of them had been left alone in Bebe's swimming pool. That was the one most prominent moment that Wendy had not been able to forget during the entire time that she spent in Malibu.

"God, can you imagine what might have happened if Bebe hadn't come outside and called us out of the pool that night?"

The abrupt turn in conversation made Stan's thoughts come to a sharp halt. The memory was one that was all too clear in his mind. Stan remembered how heated things had quickly gotten between he and Wendy. He remembered the moment when she had pulled at the drawer string of his shorts and asked him what she had been brave enough to ask.

But most of all, he remembered the severe panic that the whole situation had made him feel.

Glancing down at the sheets of the bed, Stan huffed out a heavy breath, biting down on his tongue, "Yeah… except, I wasn't going to."

Eventually looking up from the phone, Wendy's brow was furrowed in deep bewilderment, "Um… you mean you weren't going to…"

Listening to her trail off slightly, Stan looked to her supportively, "I wasn't going to have sex with you. Not at that time, and not in that circumstance," he paused, gathering his reasons before he went on, "I mean, we're still pretty young now, right? Wendy, we were only fifteen, and it was such a heat of the moment thing… I wasn't going to do anything that you might have regretted later."

Allowing each of his words to settle into her mind, Wendy slowly felt all of her uncertainty morph to insane gratitude. It made her soul simply soar. Even way back then, even when she hadn't been expecting it – Stan had still gone out of his way to keep her comfortable and safe.

As her heart slowed back to its regular pace, Wendy quickly gestured back to Stan's phone that was still in her hand, "Can you send this to me?"

Revelling in her irresistible ecstasy, Stan cocked a sarcastic eyebrow at her, "Only on one condition."

"What?" Wendy asked with a laugh, watching as the joking expression on his face increased.

"Can I finally have your new number?"

Folding her arms against her chest, Wendy instantly expelled some more laughter in an attempt to cover her underlying guilt. With a shake of her head, she threw her own phone to Stan so they could both enter their own numbers into each other's device.

Licking her lips, another memory suddenly appeared to the teenage girl, "You know, I called you once."

Shooting her a frown, Stan opened his mouth to reply, "What? When?"

"Mmm," Wendy pondered, "Like, the second week of school going back after summer?"

"That recently?"

Wendy nodded her head, "I was super close to coming clean and telling me parents everything about Griffin and the picture of me and…" she stopped momentarily, sighing, "But a huge part of me really wanted to try and talk to you about it first."

Stan sensed a small sadness consume him at the thought of how helpless Wendy must have felt, "Well, sucks I didn't answer the phone."

"Uh, actually," Wendy mused, chewing down on her bottom lip, "You did answer. You said 'hello', I freaked out, you said 'hello' again, and then I hung up."

Stan's eyes had instantly widened, "You should have said something to me."

"You would have only hung up on me."

"No I wouldn't have."

Watching her knowing vision narrow at him, Stan groaned in defeat, "Okay, maybe I would have. But not if you rang me, like, all upset and crying and miserable. If you had managed to explain everything, I would've flown down there and kicked his ass."

Giggling to herself, Wendy shook her head, "Oh, stop."

"No," Stan sniped back, "I'm serious. I would have stolen my dad's credit card, booked the first flight to California, picked you up and brought you back home."

The stern tone in his voice and even more serious expression on his face made Wendy's heart stop. She scanned his outward appearance for any trace of a joke or exaggeration, but when all she could sense was the most believable sincerity she had ever bared witness to, she truly felt her chest swell in pure joy. God, she was the luckiest girl in the entire world.

All it took after that was a small, cheeky smile to upturn in the corner of Stan's lips before Wendy matched his grin and leapt at him from her place on the bed.

Tackling him down so they were across the bed again, Wendy lay on top of him, pushing aside the messed up locks of his black hair.

She smiled through dazzling eyes, "I don't deserve you."

Stan shook his head, "Don't be dumb."

Instantly thwarting the sweet moment, Wendy scoffed teasingly as she cackled out loud and attempted to slap her boyfriend across the arm. But, of course, Stan was far too quick for her as he grabbed onto her and flipped her off him, swapping their positions as he settled above her again.

Watching her struggle and laugh and pant in a beautiful mess beneath him, Stan's heart fluttered as he locked eyes with her again. As he gazed down at her silently, simply soaking in her stunning presence, Wendy soon felt her laughter disappear.

There was a short second of mere admiration between the two of them until Stan sensed himself weaken as he took Wendy's lips against his again. The teenage girl's blood pumped vigorously through her veins at the sensation of her boyfriend's touch. She brought her hands to his cheeks, pulling him in closer towards her. The shirt he had given her had rode up her small frame quite a lot by now as Stan was able to tenderly caress her exposed thigh right below where her panties ended. Right as he deepened their passionate kiss, just before things could become too hot and heavy all over again, both teenagers jumped in surprise at the sound of the grandfather clock down the hall chiming out loud twice.

Parting from her, Stan turned towards his bedroom door and then glimpsed at the digital clock on his bedside table to find that it was, in fact, now two in the morning. It only felt like five minutes ago where Wendy had stormed into his house and the two had fought before making up in ways that only two people truly in love could.

Glancing back at her, he quickly pecked her lips once more, "Should we go to sleep?"

Reluctant to answer, Wendy soon nodded her head. If she couldn't stay awake kissing Stan for the rest of the night, then surely falling asleep beside him was the next best option.

Taking her by the hand, Stan pulled her up before jumping up from the bed to switch off the light. Wendy crawled under the covers, shuffling over to the left side of the king-single bed to make room for her boyfriend.

"You know, even if we hadn't gotten back together, I still would have stayed here and hugged you all night one last time."

Turning off the light with a smile, Stan walked across the dark room, hung his blue and red hat over the bedpost and then climbed in next to Wendy, "Good," he spoke, stretching his arm out towards her, "I wouldn't have wanted you to leave."

Falling into his embrace, Wendy leant her head against Stan's chest, "Really?"

"Exchange virginities and then boot you out?" he laughed into the darkness, "That's not really my style, Wendy."

Echoing his gentle chuckle, Wendy moved herself closer to Stan. She took her arm as far across his torso as she could reach, sensing herself tingle in happiness as he wrapped his arm around her tighter and pulled her closer.

For a moment, she simply lay there. Silently, stilly, and thoughtlessly. She poured all of her concentration into the sound of his heart gently beating against her ear. She had almost forgotten how incredible these moments felt.

Wendy just hoped that everything would stay the same from now on.

"Do you, like… judge me, or see me differently now?"

The sound of her bizarre question resonating into the room made Stan frown, "What do you mean?"

"Just because of… the things I did and the picture I took and stuff."

His answer was immediate, "No. No, of course not. Everyone makes mistakes."

A wave of relief washed over her amongst the silence. After a second or two, Wendy finally closed her eyes. She could already tell that this was going to be one of the best sleeps she would have in a very, very long time. Perhaps even the best in two whole years.

But even so, the raven haired beauty knew no matter how deep a slumber she fell in, and no matter how blissfully sweet her dreams were that night – none of it would compare to the perfection of waking up in Stan's bed with her boyfriend beside her later that morning.

"I love you, Stanley."

Squeezing her back just as snugly as she was holding him, Stan craned his neck downward and firmly kissed her on the crown of her head. Nothing would ever compete with the amazing feeling of having her back.

"I love you so much."

Aw, how cute right?

What did everybody think here? I would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter :)

Aaaaaand also, just in case anybody's wondering... just because Stan and Wendy are back together and all happy and stuff now, doesn't mean the end of this story is anywhere in sight! There is still much, much more to happen yet ;) So what does everyone think about that? What else could possibly occur from here?!

Thank you for your reviews and sharing your thoughts, I truly appreciate it :)

Till next time guys,

Reneyyyyyyyyy x