(This isn't quite the end. I am just posting this because I am having my wisdom teeth cut out tomorrow and am stressing majorly. SO it may be the last post for a few days.)

The banging on Mrs. Higgins's door awoke the entire household. The butler answered the door out of breath, followed by the head mistress. They had both been awake and both had been in a hall closet as to not be discovered. The last thing they had expected was a knock that early in the morning interrupting their rendezvous. As he opened the door, he was shocked to see Mrs. Higgins's arrogant and boisterous son standing on the stoop and carrying a dead ivy plant.

"Professor Higgins?" the Butler looked stunned.

"Of course. Where is my mother?"

The head mistress stepped forward "Your mother has retired for the evening."

"Well, wake her then. It's a matter of extreme importance." He snapped his fingers.

They needed not to wake her; she came rushing down the stairs, tying her night robes, convinced something was terribly amiss. "What's all this? Is everything quite alright? It's four in the morning!"

"I need Eliza!" Henry crossed his arms like a child who had lost his favorite toy.

Mrs. Higgins snickered. "Yes dear, I already knew that."

Higgins did not catch his mother's snide remark for at that moment Eliza had rushed down the stairs in her robe, hair disheveled, looking baffled. At that moment Higgins pointed an accusatory finger in her direction.

"You!"

"Me?" she responded in a sleepy daze.

"Come with me."

She started to turn around to head back up the stairs to dress, but he interrupted her. "NOW!"

She sighed, exchanged a glance with Mrs. Higgins and followed him into the garden. Eliza stood in the doorway momentarily as he paced back and forth frantically before admitting the truth.

"I want you to come home." He said finally.

Eliza walked towards him angrily, "What?"

He sighed, "I need your help. No one knows what they are doing. Mrs. Pearce can only organise the household staff, Pickering keeps disappearing to play cards with his friends at the home office. I can't find anything, my students are incompetent, and my plant died." He dropped the plant on the table in front of her.

Eliza briefly touched the dead leaves before speaking "What sort of string do you think you have me tied to that you can pull me around in such a manner? You can't just walk in here and demand I come home each and every time you need me and then throw me out the second you no longer want me. I finally am happy. Please leave me be, leave me be or I'll…"

"You'll what?" Higgins asked bewildered.

With desperation, Eliza angrily shoved the flower pot into the floor. The porcelain broke into pieces and soil went everywhere. It gave a satisfying crack, effectively silencing the two. Higgins looked stunned, but not before he noticed that she had cut her finger. He sighed and took a handkerchief from his pocket to wrap her cut.

He walked towards her and took her hand in his and pressed her finger to stop the bleeding, chuckling. "You shrew, must you always throw things at me?"

She was still agitated with him, but had calmed herself considerably. She looked directly into his laughing eyes. "You twist me around. You make me angrier than I have ever been in my entire life. Let me be. I could kill you, you brute, for all your kindness."

Eliza continued to talk. Perhaps it was the way she stood before him as though dressed for the conjugal bed. Maybe it was the moonlight that reflected across the room, but Henry Higgins would never again be able to explain what happened next, though he would claim in following years that in desperation he ran out of alternatives to quiet her. So he did the only thing he knew would work with an irrational female.

He kissed her.

Towering over her as he held her bleeding hand, while she protested his treatment of her, they both paused momentarily. He leaned towards her slowly. Eliza stopped in mid-sentence and exhaled and closed her eyes, allowing him permission to press his lips against hers, softly at first. Then, as if the sensation was more pleasurable then either of them had expected, they deepened their kiss. She threw her arms around his neck and he pulled her closer to him, realizing he very much enjoyed the feeling of her body so close to his, more than he would like to admit.

It was over in an instant. He released his hold on her and stepped back, coming to grips with the realisation that he had crossed the line. Eliza stared at him speechless and nervously pulled her dressing gown tighter around her nightdress. A moment passed before Henry spoke again.

"If I had known all along that was all it took to shut you up, I would have done it months ago."

Eliza rolled her eyes. "What am I to come back for?" she whispered

He looked confused.

"All the reasons you gave me for making me leave will still be present tomorrow. And in your inconsistency, suppose you decide you don't need me any longer. Must I return here?"

Higgins paced in frustration. He hadn't anticipated on renegotiating his relationship with her tonight, but as he looked at her he realised that she would not budge until she received some sort of satisfaction in regards to her station. But she had the distinction of being the only female he had never been able to manipulate.

No she wasn't like the others at all.

"You could stay here and work for me, but that's a damn inconvenience."

She smirked. "Well I wouldn't want to inconvenience you, sir. But it appears that's all I do."

He rubbed his temples. "Damn it. I'm not the marrying sort. You might be, but I've no patience for anyone. I like my life neatly compartmentalised. You're demanding and you require far too much attention and petting. If I wanted that, I'd buy a cat."

Eliza stepped towards him. "And what about your arrogance and your temper? Do you think it is easy for any of the rest of the world to listen to you?"

Higgins stopped pacing and glared at her for a moment, then continued his walking waltz around the room. To busy herself Eliza began picking up the shards of porcelain that still remained in the floor.

"For your information, sir, I never mentioned marriage. That was entirely your doing." She pointed out with a smile in her voice

He watched her delicately pick up the mess and he began to feel uneasy. He was compelled to tell her how he was feeling; that he was confused, how he both missed her and dreaded the inconvenience of having her in his life, how he couldn't find anything around the house without her. But something stopped him. It was the same emotion that prevented him from running to her the day she had returned to Wimpole Street. He expected she was already well aware of all these things as she seemed to know him better than anyone. Henry Higgins never made of spectacle of himself for any woman.

"Well then, I don't see any way around it then."

Eliza stopped. "Around what?"

"Marriage." He replied.

She dropped all the porcelain she had progressed in picking up. "Don't you tease me."

"Oh Tosh! I don't tease. I hate that word. It's vulgar and crude."

She cautiously walked towards him.

He continued, "I suppose I'm saying we must get married"

"I can't marry you!"

"And why not?" he asked, almost insulted

"Because…." But she found herself unable to give him a reason.

"I…."

"Yes?" she whispered

"I need you." His pride took a massive blow, but he spoke the truth, finally saying what he had known somehow all along.

Eliza exhaled and took his hand.

"So you'll come home and help me? I have a visiting dignitary scheduled at my house in less than 5 hours and no clue where to find my dialect notebook. I can't remember the last time I used it."

Eliza smiled and he looked stunned as she placed her hand inside the side pocket of his coat. Within a second she pulled out the brown leather notebook to which he referred.

"How did you…"

"It's where you placed it the night we met, right after you had taken down my words."

Higgins quickly opened the book and ascertained from his scribbles in Bell's visible speech the very conversation to which she referred. He scanned it, and then looked upon her tender face smiling up at him. He started to feel some sort of emotion show on his face and he attempted to cover it quickly. But Eliza saw it in his eyes as he masked it with annoyance.

"I can't believe such foul utterances came from such fine lips."

Those fine lips curved into a smile and he relented, pulling her close to him and allowing himself to place his arms around her small frame. Sunlight filled the room as day began to break. Had either of them looked up, they would have noticed Mrs. Higgins standing in the doorway, hands clasped together and her mouth in a broad smile. She had swung by in that second to make sure everything was in order, and had stumbled upon this rare moment of tenderness from her son. The irony was very clear, and she was sure in his literary expertise Henry could have appreciated it; He had turned Eliza into a princess, but Eliza in turn had turned him into a prince. Well, as much as a prince as he would ever be anyhow. She turned around quickly, leaving the two young lovers in their sweet embrace.