Author's Notes: Thank you all for the wonderful feedback. I had a lot of fun writing this story, and I'm glad to see others have enjoyed reading it. I had so much fun playing with Ramone, I think I need to find another story where I can use him.

And a final thanks to Ghetto Outlaw for his magic ending improving skills.

Now on to the conclusion, which is more like an epilogue, but hopefully a satisfactory ending to this odd little story.

Chapter 5

"This thing called love, I must get round to it"

The next month passed swiftly, as the preparations for the wedding went forward in full force. Mendoza had agreed to be Diego's best man, even if Victoria had been irritated with how much food he'd eaten the week after the engagement, though she acknowledged it was her own fault for making the offer in the first place. His father was happy that his son now seemed to be looking forward to the wedding instead of fighting it but frustrated that the speed of the ceremony meant he couldn't invite every member of the family to come celebrate it. Diego couldn't resist pointing out his father was the one who'd set the date to begin with.

Diego could even deal with the general teasing that it took the alcalde getting him drunk to confess his feelings for Victoria and his father to keep him from retracting that confession. Apparently, that duel with Thackery had been responsible for a lot of people thinking he had more than platonic feelings for Victoria, feelings he was too afraid to admit until that very strange day. He didn't mind the teasing or the speculation at all, because it emphasized the difference between him and Zorro, while still allowing him to openly show his feelings for her. In the end all he wanted was to be married to Victoria without unnecessary danger; everything else was unimportant.

He hadn't had to ride as Zorro much either, and the first time he did he'd made it a point to politely congratulate Victoria on her engagement. Aside from Ramone, he didn't particularly want anyone else thinking that he was nursing a grudge against either Victoria or his unmasked self. The alcalde had apparently decided to test Zorro's resolve with rigged scales in the marketplace (which was easily handled), followed by trying to discover the location of the cave by hiring a famed Indian tracker, Gray Wing. The latter challenge he'd managed more by luck and the honor of Gray Wing, whose disgust with the alcalde caused him to walk away from the job.

By the time it was over, Zorro had actually managed to resist cutting a Z in Ramone's clothes but not into his desk. After all, the man deserved something to remember not to misbehave; besides, the desk could use a good refinishing. For the rest of the month Ramone was rather subdued, not going out of his way to do anything particularly malicious other than making more than a few snide comments about the forthcoming nuptials, which Diego ignored with a bland smile.

The only other incident of note had been a bit of trouble caused by some American gambler named Bishop who when caught cheating at cards tried to shoot the man who accused him. However, between Victoria's new manager (a wiry and wily old seaman who'd come to Los Angeles to live with his married daughter but found himself more at home at the tavern than a farm) and Zorro's intervention shortly afterwards, Bishop decided Los Angeles wasn't the place for him and left without making further trouble.

The last week before the wedding was quiet for Zorro but harrowing for Diego as all the final preparations were made. So much of his life was spent anticipating disaster, he had a hard time believing that this was going to end well. He hardly saw his bride to be as she seemed to have one difficulty after another with her wedding gown and packing up her possessions, while his father had him running errand after ridiculous errand that kept him from even offering his help with the moving. And every night that week, he'd wake up from nightmares where Victoria kept finding different and more humiliating ways to refuse to marry him. One of the worst involved her reading out a long list of men she'd be willing to marry before him, including Mendoza, Dr. Wayne, and even Luis Ramone.

But the wedding day dawned brightly with everything finally in place, and sooner than he thought possible, he and Victoria were bound together in holy matrimony. She had never looked more beautiful, and he had never been happier than when the padre pronounced them husband and wife.

The celebration at the tavern was in full swing when Ramone finally decided to pay his respects to the bride and groom. Diego had noticed him glowering around the edges of the wedding and the party afterwards. Before the wedding, he'd even wondered whether the man was going to show up at all, but he should have known that the alcalde wouldn't be able to resist attending the biggest social event in the pueblo.

"Alcalde," Victoria said in a syrupy sweet voice, "we're so glad you were able to attend. After all, without you, I might never have discovered Diego loved me or realized that I loved him."

"Yes," Diego said with a grin. "Without your kind interference this day would never have been possible. I don't know how to express my gratitude to you."

Ramone had a forced smile. "You could express it in your newspaper."

"When it doesn't interfere with the publication of the truth," Diego said, evenly, "I certainly will."

"And I wish you all the happiness that two such different tempers is likely to bring," Ramone said with thinly veiled contempt.

"Gracias," Diego replied, pretending he didn't understand the underlying meaning. "I believe we complement one another perfectly." He looked down at Victoria with an adoring smile. "She's so passionate..."

"And he's so patient," Victoria added, looking up at Diego just as warmly. "A wonderful quality in a husband." She glanced back at the alcalde. "I'm so grateful to you, that I hope someday you get the happiness that you deserve."

Diego was impressed that she could say the last with all apparent sincerity. Over the last month, he'd discovered she was quite the actress. As the alcalde left them with a nauseated expression on his face, they both tried not to laugh.

~Z~Z~Z~

To the two of them it seemed forever before they were able to slip away from the festivities to return to the hacienda for some much desired solitude. Victoria laughed as Diego insisted on carrying her through the house to the room that was now their own. Once the door was firmly shut behind them, Diego let her down. For a moment they simply looked at each other. Then, Diego reached down to gently cup Victoria's cheek in his hand, his fingers sliding into her hair.

"It's hard to believe this is actually real," he whispered. "That we're married."

Victoria smiled and reached up to tug at the ends of his tie. "Oh, it's real. I'm sure of that. After all a priest wouldn't lie about such things," she said with a teasing smile, as she pulled the loosened tie from his neck and let it drop to the floor.

"No, I'm sure he wouldn't," Diego said, tracing a line from her neck to her shoulder with his other hand. "But a month ago I wouldn't have believed that this was possible."

"I know," Victoria said with a smile. "You were very outspoken and positive about it— except for returning my kiss. That didn't seem very much like denial at all."

"Well, I am only human, after all," Diego said. "And Dr. Wayne's potion was a bit intoxicating."

"I don't think it was the potion," she said, kissing his neck. "Not much at any rate."

"No," he murmured, knowing how much he'd wanted to kiss her before that day. "I don't think it was either."

As he let his hands slide into Victoria's hair, Diego had a sudden realization. "You know, I never did figure out what Dr. Wayne put into that potion."

"I'm sure you will," Victoria said before pulling him into a passionate kiss. At length their lips parted. She slowly opened her eyes, looked up into his, and smiled. "Just not tonight."

The End

End Notes:

I hope you all enjoyed this relatively light-hearted story. Well, as light-hearted as I can manage. But I'm all for happy endings.

This all started with me wanting to find some way for Diego to end up drinking the love potion with Victoria instead of the alcalde. But the main difficulty was how to manage it. I actually spent a lot of time trying to figure how I could get Diego to drink the wine meant for Zorro but failing, especially since I found Victoria's behavior as repulsive as De Soto's and I'd really prefer for her not to be behaving so badly. However, once I thought of moving this back to season 2 and letting Ramone be the villain and be the one responsible for the potion fiasco, everything fell into place.

After all, I think the single most ridiculous part of "Love Potion No. 9" (since it leads to all the other sheer awfulness) is De Soto's plan to give Zorro wine laced with fear as if it is the most predictable thing in the world for Zorro to have a drink with Victoria at the tavern after rescuing her (in fact the only reason it was even possible was because of Victoria's equally vile scheme to give Zorro love potion). Hence, I have Ramone decide it's much better to try to turn his enemies against each other by doping the drinks of Diego and Victoria instead, and I have him briefly consider the original episode's plan before abandoning it as completely ridiculous.

I must admit that I also found the idea that Dr. Wayne's potions were nothing but colored water annoying (especially given Victoria's previous complete lack of attraction to De Soto in any way whatsoever; I might have bought it with Ramone as she seemed to find his eviller twin charming). Wayne might have been a crackpot, but most of his inventions showed genuine creativity rather than sheer con-artistry.

Thus, I thought he might have used ingredients that would have the reputation to create strength or love or whatever. So I gave the love potion a little kick, though it didn't create love out of nothing and seemed to act a little more like a truth potion than a love potion. I figured that since Victoria and Diego were genuinely in love they wouldn't get all googly-eyed or call each other fruity names, and also since Victoria is a much smaller person than Diego that it might effect her a little more strongly, making it easier for her to admit to hidden feelings.

I'm not quite sure why they started arguing since they usually don't in my stories, but that's the way it came out. I also didn't plan the conversation between Zorro and Victoria in the tavern to go the way it did either. This was one story in which the characters seemed to take on a life of their own and mostly didn't react the way I originally thought they would.

I also had a hard time deciding where and when to end the story. However, as is pretty obvious from my ridiculously complicated work in progress Love Has No Rhyme and No Reason, I love to think about how certain changes would effect other episodes, I couldn't resist making passing reference to the next two episodes after "Sanctuary" ("The Chase and "Broken Heart, Broken Mask") and ending with the day they married. I apologize for not describing the wedding in detail, but I must admit wedding scenes tend to bore me. All that matters to me is that the characters are married in the end.

Also, I know this is the second time I've used Diego's fighting a duel with Thackery in "He Who Lives by the Sword" as reason for people to suspect his feelings for Victoria are not strictly platonic, but honestly, that didn't seem like much of a stretch. And since he "lost" that fight, it also didn't seem like it would make people suspect he was Zorro.

Now that I've been my usual long-winded self at the end, I would like to say I'm grateful for all the feedback I've gotten on this story. It's been lovely and utterly unexpected. And I hope you'll let me know if you enjoyed the conclusion. Thank you all.