I know, horribly long delay-age in updates. I honestly completely forgot about this fanfic, but I have remembered it now, so chapter three is here! Yay!

(If that made no sense, sorry; I'm extremely tired right now...)

With a shudder, the bus started up, sending clouds of blackened smoke pouring out of the exhaust pipe outside. The kids' hearts skipped a beat at the sudden outburst, seeing as they'd not been expecting it in the least bit, but as soon as the shock wore off (only a moment later), the conversations resumed.

"Could this be any slower?" Cartman whined.

Stan wanted so badly to smack him upside the head, but he refrained.

"Shut up, fatass," he settled for. "Your whining and complaining won't make things go any faster."

"I know that..." Cartman muttered.

Token turned to Stan. "Wonder why she chose me? I can't sing worth a crap."

"Neither can I," Stan replied. "I proved that much on the last choir trip. Personally, I hope there are going to be more kids going on this trip, than just us."

"Yeah, so no one has to hear your gay voice," Cartman retorted.

Stan bit his lip; he wanted this trip to have at least somewhat of a semblance of peace, and he didn't want to break his own rule about not bitching Cartman out for everything.

But Lord, was it hard not to...

"How many kids was it last year, like twenty?" Kenny asked, trying to diffuse the situation.

"Yeah, something like that," Stan replied. "Though, last year, we had Kyle with us... Wonder if he's alright?"

"He'll be okay," Kenny replied. "I think."

They all laughed at that.

Stan kept looking over at Cartman, a constant perplexed look on his face. He had been determined not to ask him this question, but it came pouring out of him then, nonetheless: "Hey, Cartman, why the hell are you even going on this trip?"

Cartman turned. "What ever do you mean?"

"I mean, fatass," Stan replied, "you hated it last year. Why spend your parents' hard-earned money on something you know you're going to hate. And for that matter, where the hell did your parents come up with that kind of money in the first place?"

"First of all," Cartman replied, "it's Hawaii. Why the hell wouldn't I want to go? Second of all, my mom had a bit of money stored up from some rich uncle who died and left us some shit. I think she took it out of there; she said it would be a good 'educational experience' for me, or some hippie shit like that."

Stan sighed; he would rather have had Cartman not come at all, but at least his parents had approved of it. He shuddered to think of what they would have done to him, had he gone without them knowing.

Then he remembered how much Cartman had his parents wrapped around his chubby fingers. So probably not much trouble at all... he thought bitterly.

The bus lurched again, then slowly chugged out of the school grounds, headed for the highway.

"Where are we flying out of?" Token asked.

"Denver International," replied Miss Stevens. "I was able to get the cheapest rate out there, because of us flying in a group."

"But there's only six of us," Stan pointed out.

"True, but another school from around the Denver area agreed to fly with us, so that we could get the discounted group rate."

Stan shrugged. "Makes sense, I guess..."

A few minutes later, they were on the highway, headed towards their destination.

About An Hour Later

The school bus pulled up into the parking lot of the airport, trying to maneuver into a parking spot that would actually allow them enough room to disembark and get out into the lot. Unfortunately, they had picked a busy day to leave, and thus everyone else was trying to get the hell out of Denver at the same time, as well.

It was a bit annoying.

Directing everyone efficiently, Miss Stevens told everyone to help with getting the luggage out of the back of the bus. This sped the process up considerably, and within fifteen minutes, everyone was on their way to the terminal.

---

With only twenty minutes to spare before their flight began boarding, the two groups made it to their terminal.

Kenny and Kelly sank into adjoining chairs, hands held tightly together. They'd been like that from the very beginning, though they'd told some of the more inquisitive members of the other group that they were merely following the Buddy System.

No need to give them too much information.

"Oh my God, my feet are killing me..." Kelly moaned.

Kenny agreed silently, using his free hand to rub the soles of his rapidly-deteriorating shoes.

"Only twenty minutes to spare," Stan muttered. "It probably would have been shorter if-" here, he shot a venomous glare at Cartman- "someone hadn't have been caught with a switchblade hidden in his pant leg."

"Hey, hey!" Cartman said defensively. "I already told you, I forgot it was in there."

No one believed him. No one even tried to, not even the members of the other group. Stan and Token had taken the precautions of warning them beforehand about Cartman's antics, so they were well prepared for them.

"Anyways," Stan continued, pointedly turning away from Cartman, "I wonder what Hawaii is going to be like...?"

"Hopefully without the bad Jabba the Hutt impersonator," Kelly replied.

Kenny, Cartman, and Stan laughed at the memory. (Author's Note: If you don't get the reference, go back and watch the "Rainforest Schmainforest" episode. You'll see what I'm talking about.)

"I heard it was beautiful," Wendy piped up, looking directly at Stan when she said it. Stan blushed, but looked over at Wendy anyways.

"Don't say it..." Cartman muttered. "Don't say it..."

"Not as beautiful as you," Stan barely whispered.

Wendy heard him, nonetheless, and blushed to her roots; Cartman made mock gagging noises and turned away, pretending to vomit copiously, This earned him a hidden middle finger from Kenny, and an almost silent giggle from Kelly at Kenny's reaction.

Almost before they could even get rested back up again, the attendant came on the intercom: "Now boarding for flight 1185 to Honolulu, Hawaii. First wave, come on!"

"That's us!" Kelly said excitedly, standing up and pulling Kenny with her. Kenny sighed slightly, wanting to stay sitting down some more, but nevertheless willingly followed her.

Soon, they were all at the gate, in their usual pairs: Stan and Wendy, Kelly and Kenny, Token and Cartman (both begrudgingly paired with each other), and the other group's kids paired up in their own miniature cliques.

They soon got to their seats, and sat down where their tickets indicated. Kenny turned to say something to Kelly, but stopped, surprised.

"Stan?" he asked. "Why are you sitting there?"

"This is my seat," Stan replied, showing him his ticket.

"Dammit!" Kenny muttered, and Stan immediately knew why. He looked over at the next row back, saw Kelly and Wendy sitting together.

"Hold on a second," Stan said, ducking out of sight. A moment later, Kelly appeared and sat next to Kenny, smiling radiantly. Immediately, Kenny cheered up, and they were soon once again in deep conversation.

"That was really nice of you," Wendy said, smiling at Stan. "Letting them sit together like that..."

Stan could feel a hot shade of red creeping over his face. "Well.. it wasn't exactly totally unselfish of me..."

Wendy smiled, and leaned into Stan, nestling her head on his shoulder. Stan waited for the inevitable bile rising to his throat, but when it didn't come, he relaxed and returned the gesture.

And there they sat, completely at peace with each other, So at peace, in fact, they didn't even notice when the plane took off, soaring high into the sky and the vast world beyond it.

Yeah, that wasn't too hard, I know. But hopefully, next edit won't take me almost a year to post. In the meantime, enjoy!