I LIVE!

God, I did hate this part. I hate plot chapters with every fiber of my being, because they are annoying to write yet necessary for the story. GRR. D

Well, hopefully Part Five will go faster, assuming I can find the time this coming week. Last week was completely out of the window, and I got next to no work done on anything! It was uncool. But here you go:

Rapunzel was asleep on top of her library book. Again.

Honestly, Alison didn't know why this surprised her. The girl worked herself to the bone every day– it was no wonder she was always so exhausted. At least she didn't drool on the pages, or the librarians would probably throw them out.

With a little sigh, somewhat reluctant to wake the young woman– who, in almost everything she did, including sleeping, still managed to look cute– Alison nonetheless nudged her friend's shoulder. Rapunzel jolted awake, her eyes flying open as she shot upright. It was almost impossible for her to wake up normally, but at least she was fairly quiet about it, or the librarians would definitely throw them out.

"You fell asleep on your book again," Alison whispered.

Rapunzel sighed, running a slight hand through her hair. A few months ago, she'd decided that she was finally tired of her albeit beautiful six-foot-long hair and had had Alison cut almost all of it off, shearing it just below chin-level. As well, in the two years since her eighteenth birthday, her hair had gotten a few shades darker, and the brown lowlights– accents before– had grown more predominant. All in all, Alison mused, the look was a good one. As well, it had had the effect of aging Rapunzel about a good three years. Long-haired and blonde, she had looked like a teenager, no older than sixteen or seventeen (there were a few times– amusing to Alison, annoying to Rapunzel– that she'd been mistaken for a high school student); now, she looked like a young woman.

"So, you doing anything tonight?" Alison asked.

"You mean besides studying?" Rapunzel answered sardonically. Alison grinned somewhat sheepishly.

"Well, Eugene and I are supposed to be hanging out, though that's not really a guarantee," Rapunzel continued, and Alison didn't fail to notice the slightly bitter note in her friend's voice.

"Has he been gone a lot lately?"

"Yes," Rapunzel sighed. "And to be honest, it's starting to annoy me."

"Guys are annoying," Alison said wisely. "It's in their nature. The good ones make up for it, though, and I'd be willing to call Eugene one of the good ones."

Rapunzel nodded, though the smile she gave was small. She was lucky to have such a supportive friend, she mused. It was a strong contrast to her mother, who, upon Rapunzel telling her about Eugene, had promptly assured her daughter that men were all "good-for-nothings who will leave you as soon as you look at them cross-eyed," and that as long as Rapunzel lived under her roof, she wouldn't be dating anyone else anymore. So Rapunzel had moved out that very day, taking refuge at Alison's house. She had felt horrible about freeloading off of the Carraways, but Alison's mother, who could be very formidable when she wanted to be, had insisted on her staying there for the rest of the school year and the summer.

And despite her mother's promises, Rapunzel and Eugene had been happily dating for almost two years with no end in sight. They were perfectly happy together, something that Rapunzel couldn't help pointing out in her infrequent calls to her mother. It was spiteful, she knew, and childish, but on this point, she couldn't help but want to try to prove her mother wrong. Not when her mother seemed so determined to spoil one of the best things that had ever happened to Rapunzel. But despite her convictions, she couldn't help but wonder, on the times when Eugene had had to cancel a date, just how wrong or right her mother might be.

Rapunzel was suddenly aware that Alison had been talking to her. The redhead waved her hand in front of Rapunzel's face, waking her friend from her reverie. "Rapunzel, have you heard a word I just said?" she asked exasperatedly.

"Yes. You were…well, no, I didn't," Rapunzel admitted sheepishly. "Sorry, I was just thinking."

"I said that if you were so fussed about it, just talk to him. He's a good guy, Rapunzel. He'll listen."

That was high praise coming from Alison, who had previously regarded any and every guy who had ever tried anything funny with either of the two of them with the same amount of disdain she normally reserved for particularly gross bugs. After seeing her friend's heart get broken badly two times already, Alison was loath to repeat the process. But Eugene was different. No other guy would have gone to such lengths on a first date to make a girl feel so special and happy. He had certainly gone above and beyond the call of duty.

"Yeah," Rapunzel agreed softly, absently brushing her short brown hair out of her face. She didn't know why she was working herself up about it. Alison was right– Eugene was a good guy. No, he was better than good, he was wonderful, and Rapunzel couldn't ask for more. Besides, she was sure there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of his absences. This was a trivial issue, not worth getting worked up over.

But that thought didn't help the knot slowly twisting itself in her stomach.

Rapunzel tiredly turned the key in the lock to the door of Eugene's apartment. It was ridiculous how exhausted she was. As she stepped over the threshold and dropped her bag and jacket in the small living room, she looked around for Pascal, who, due to the rules in the college dorms, couldn't live with Rapunzel and therefore was Eugene's only permanent roommate. Rapunzel wasn't really sure how well the arrangement would work out at first, since Pascal's tongue seemed to have an unusually strong attraction to Eugene's ear, but the two seemed to have come to a grudging truce– at the very least, Eugene didn't complain about the "frog" as much as he used to.

Once she'd searched every room– and there weren't that many– with no success, Rapunzel cast her gaze into the kitchen with a little smirk growing across her face. When she couldn't find Pascal, it was almost a guarantee that he was probably in the kitchen. Her eyes roamed from appliance to appliance, looking for a telltale little movement that would give the chameleon's position away…

There. By the cookie jar– no big surprise there. Rapunzel bounded over and pounced on the chameleon, who let out a rasping squeak of dismay as he vainly tried to escape.

"Gotcha!" she cried triumphantly, gathering the little green reptile in her hands. He sulkily sat down, grumpy at conceding defeat once again.

"That's me 24, you zero," she recited, grinning victoriously. "You're going to have to step up your game, Pascal." She placed him on her shoulder as she exited the room, heading instead for the bedroom, where she'd left the book she'd been reading.

It was only a few hours later when Eugene opened the door to his apartment, but it was already getting dark outside. Unfortunately, nature didn't seem to have gotten the memo that winter was over, since sunset was still no later than six o'clock. It was one of the things Eugene didn't like about that time period between October and March– the sun set so early.

He dropped his bag on the couch, next to Rapunzel's, he noted, which told him that his girlfriend was home. Out of habit he kept look out for her frog– chameleon, he reminded himself– as it seemed to like to greet him in…well, a less than pleasant way. But he knew that she wasn't allowed to have pets in the dorms, and she certainly couldn't leave him at her mother's house (not after she'd left so spectacularly), and it would have broken her heart to give him up, and she'd asked so nicely…well, not even he could stand up against those big green eyes, not when she looked at him like that.

He poked his head inside the one bedroom to find Rapunzel asleep, curled up a little on the covers with a book held loosely in her hand. The fr– chameleon was nestled inside her cupped other hand.

He smiled at the sight, reminded of why, exactly, he loved this girl. Despite her stubbornness and occasional temper, she was an endearingly cute and sweet person who almost never failed to make people like her, most of the time without even realizing it. Teresa had taken an immediate liking to her, so much so that she had offered Rapunzel her and John's spot in the apartment when they moved out after their wedding. Rapunzel's embarrassment at the thought of living with a guy had been very entertaining.

He was about to wake her up, but decided against it. She'd been working so hard lately that most of the time, she was half-asleep on her feet. Besides, he wanted to surprise her. Using his natural ability in stealth, he quietly closed the door most of the way and turned back to the kitchen, satisfied that the frog wouldn't bother him.

It was the smell that woke Rapunzel. There was a very good reason why she cooked for Eugene and herself, and it was the same as the reason why she had cooked for her and her mother. Which is why she was surprised when she could smell something more than vaguely delicious being crafted in the kitchen.

Running a hand through her hair – it never got tangled anymore, one of the advantages of short hair, she mused – she yawned and plodded over to the kitchen, where, to her surprise, she found Eugene cooking. To her further astonishment, Pascal was sitting on the counter nearby, and was conspicuously not bugging him.

"So, did I get dropped into a parallel universe while I was asleep, or what?" she quipped. "Because you're cooking, and it actually smells good."

He looked over his shoulder at her. "Hey, a guy can learn," he protested. "And for your information, it's very good."

She smirked. "We'll see about that." Walking over, her bare feet faintly tapping against the linoleum floor, she leaned against the counter. "So, remind me why you're cooking?"

"I thought I'd surprise you."

"Oh, I'm surprised, all right. Now let's just hope that your food tastes as good as you say it does."

Rapunzel found, to her further surprise, that it actually wasn't that bad. He was no Julia Child, but she wasn't running out of the room, ready to hurl, which– having tasted his earliest attempts at cooking– was a marked improvement.

"So, is there any other reason behind this unexpectedly good dinner besides wanting to surprise me?" Rapunzel asked. "Usually when someone does this, it's because they want to sweeten the other up before dropping some kind of bombshell."

"No reason, I thought I'd do something nice for you. Consider it me trying to make up for last Saturday."

Rapunzel looked down at her food to hide the small scowl that had flashed across her face, but he still noticed it. "Hey, I'm really sorry about that, Rapunzel," he said. "There was no way to avoid it."

"No, it's fine, Eugene," she said with a little sigh. "It's just…the whole skipping out on dates deal is starting to get a little old."

"Rapunzel, I'm sorry," he repeated, a note of mixed pleading and exasperation in his voice. "I'm not trying to leave you hanging, these things just sort of…come up."

"Can't you just cancel them instead, once in a while?" she asked, beginning to get frustrated. He started to say something, but stopped.

"I see. Well, far from me to get in the way of your busy social life," she shot pointedly. "I won't bring it up again." She got up, her food still half-eaten, stalked over to the couch to grab her bag and jacket, and then tramped over to the door.

"What are you doing?" he asked, getting up as well.

"Going back to the dorms," she answered angrily as she shoved on her shoes. "There's nothing left to discuss." With that, she almost ripped the door open and left, shutting it with a bang.

Eugene sighed and fell back into his chair, running his fingers through his hair. He noticed the frog sitting next to his plate, staring at him balefully.

"Well, what are you looking at?" he snapped.

In answer, Pascal leapt up onto his shoulder and, before he could do anything about it, shot his tongue into Eugene's ear, then scampered back to the table as he yelled in shock. Ruefully rubbing his ear, Eugene glared at the chameleon, who gave him a beady-eyed glare in return, then growled a little and scurried off.

Alison looked up in surprise as the door to her dorm room opened and a seething-mad Rapunzel stomped in.

"Do I want to know?" she asked simply.

"No," Rapunzel said, her voice laced with venom, having fumed the whole bus ride back to the college.

Alison pursed her lips, but let the issue be. She knew Rapunzel well enough to know that when she got angry like this, it was probably more dangerous to try to talk to her than to just leave her alone, so she turned back to her work, but not without a stab of worry for the stability of Rapunzel and Eugene's relationship.

So there you go, folks! I hope I'm not getting to OOC in this story. Part Five is the last bit, and it's going to be rather short. I'm considering tacking on an epilogue-y part as well, but nothing concrete.

I am in love with The Keltiad. It's a series of science-fiction/fantasy books by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison (they're published under Patricia Kennealy), the wife of the late Jim Morrison of The Doors. (Although they were only married in a hand-fasting ceremony, so the legality of the marriage is questionable. But I digress.) Basically, she's taken Celtic mythology and stuck it into a fantastic sci-fi/fantasy setting, so that's my three great literary loves right there. Right now, I'm reading The Hawk's Gray Feather, which is the first in the Tales of Arthur trilogy, which is based off of the Arthurian legends (i.e. King Arthur, Camelot, et al). You all should read these books! They are very good! The first in the series is The Copper Crown (though chronilogically, Tales of Arthur comes before Copper Crown, which is part of the Tales of Aeron trilogy).

Not much to say this time. Except: REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW. Reviews = love.

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!

Cheers,

~RAH