I believe you all to be far too kind in your reviews and I've spent the past twenty minutes sitting here blushing at my computer. But once again I thank you with a grateful flourish…

Now to business –

You're going to kill me – and this time for real real. I ended it at a truly atrocious part again but at least be thankful that we're progressing. I really wasn't expecting to get so tied up in this fanfiction madness and my desire to get chapters out is now vastly depleting my output of things that I should actually be doing. I really had planned on continuing a bit further in this chapter but I didn't have enough time and once I got to the point where I ended it I thought "what the hell – let's drive everybody bonkers just for fun." Terribly sorry, but I'll make up for it next time. Just… you know – don't get too hopeful about the shenanigans our girls are going to get into on this night. Call me an old-fashioned homosexual but I don't believe that every couple jumps into bed together on the first night, and besides I haven't quite decided just how far I'm going to let everyone see into their bedroom. I was a fanfic virgin and I'm also an adult romance virgin, though ah – I'm not unwilling to cash in under the right circumstances. But whatever that will entail will follow in a later chapter.

Unfortunately though I have no idea when I'll have time to write on this again, but rest assured – it will be coming. I've now caught the Fanfic Fever on top of my Minx ailment and will continue to be sick with both until this story is at least satisfied, and I have not a clue when that will be either. I have LOTS of plans though, and now knowing there are others who are just as hungry for all things Minx-flavored my mind is buzzing on overload.

So once again I apologize for the cliffhanger but you'll soon see that I'm an avid fan of the punch-to-the-gut ending – it makes the buildup all the more exciting for all us sufferers of the Minx virus.

Tell Me Now

"What… what is that?" Marissa whispered, all the blood rushing to her face until even her ears felt hot. Her vision spiraled for a moment around the image of Bianca standing there with something in her hands, something that was sending the tinkling music of the song – her song – into the crisp late-evening air. "Is that… Forevermore?"

Bianca smiled timidly and crossed the porch while Marissa's eyes followed her, unblinking hazel orbs never leaving the brunette's face as she rejoined her on the couch. "Yeah it is," she told the redhead quietly, careful to avoid eye contact. "You know – after everything that you've been through recently and especially after all that mess with Ricky I just thought that it would be nice for you to be able to hear it whenever you needed. And – I don't know – I found this music box in an antique store and I just thought that I'd get it for you, and then I managed to track down a guy who could put your song in it for me. I mean – when you were singing this in the closet it really did make me feel so much better, and I just thought that since you shared it with me that I'd… I don't know… try to say thanks I guess. For everything."

As she finished she sucked in a loud breath before she could stop it, having almost run out of air completely as she'd rambled nervously on, never quite finding the courage to look any higher than Marissa's collarbone. Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god…

"I… that's… ahem… it's…" Marissa tried repeatedly to articulate properly but her tongue had partially quit working on her and so she sat there with her mouth hanging open again as she sputtered incoherently.

"There's really no obligation to use it or anything…" Bianca immediately backtracked, briefly losing the ability to rationalize Marissa's reaction in her overwrought apprehension. Bianca had no idea whether that dumbfounded expression on her face was there because she was simply surprised at receiving a gift or whether it meant that she was trying to find something polite to say about a present she obviously thought was stuffed full of overenthusiastic cheese. "And you might not even like antique stuff like this… it's no big deal if you don't…"

"Bianca could you shut up for just a second please?" Marissa cut in abruptly, her temporary stutter completely absent. Bianca's gaze snapped involuntarily upward as she fell jarringly silent, all the wind rushing from her lungs with a near-painful whoosh as the sparkling eyes of her friend found hers and locked them there.

She found me a music box with my dad's song inside, the redhead's mind raced, finally able to wrap itself around coherence once Bianca's voice quit bombarding her. She found me a music box with my dad's song inside… "You… you had this made for me?" she asked, her voice a raspy croak as she swallowed down the torrent of feelings that threatened to burst out of everywhere.

"Well… yeah in a way I guess I did," Bianca admitted sheepishly, replacing the ceramic top carefully as the song finally ran out. "It wasn't really any big deal…"

"Not a big deal?" Marissa asked disbelievingly, reaching forward and holding the music box as well as Bianca's slightly shaking hands in hers. "Bianca this is… this is by far the most incredible gift that anyone has ever gotten me," she told her breathlessly, staring in wide-eyed wonder at the angel she saw sitting in front of her. "This is just… it's so immeasurably thoughtful … I can't – I can't even talk right now Bee."

"You don't have to say anything," Bianca assured her kindly. "I just wanted you to have it."

"Exactly…" Marissa breathed, feeling her head nod in disbelief but not really aware of it. "You just wanted me to have it because you knew what it would mean to me… because you know me." Bianca smiled weakly in response, the cherry blush creeping back to her cheeks and Marissa watched it come in the white glow of the moon, her stomach jumping up into her chest or her heart falling down into her toes – she had no idea which. All she felt was the red-hot blast of uncontrolled euphoria as it exploded everywhere inside her body and suddenly every moment she'd ever spent with Bianca flashed through her head like a swirling slideshow, every time that they'd been together without realizing that they were together.

Oh my god she's in love with me too – she has to be. She's not dealing with fear of Ricky – she's dealing with fear of me. She's pulling back every time I touch her – and I've touched her more often than usual because I've wanted to be nearer to her. Why have I run from this? Where in the world could possibly be safer than wherever Bianca is? She cares about me and… and she sees me. And she's now giving me this… this…

"Bianca…" Marissa breathed her name, the sudden swell of tears robbing her of her voice, and Bianca leaned in closer and the redhead gasped slightly as she gently squeezed her hands.

Oh my god what in the world is she thinking right now? Bianca screamed inside her head while forcing her face to stay calm as she tried to comfort her friend who had so unexpectedly begun crying. Her right hand intuitively untangled itself from Marissa's fingers and lifted to her face, gently brushing her thumb across her glorious cheekbones to catch the tears before they fell. She felt Marissa shiver, the slight pulse igniting her fingertips and she felt the shockwave jump into her own body and course down her spine. Their eyes locked together, mere inches between them, each woman momentarily losing herself to the infinite tunnels of the other's eyes, each woman seeing so clearly all the way to its end.

As Bianca's hand started to fall away Marissa took it once again inside her own, their palms pressing together the raging heat that instantly sprung up between them and both were hyper-aware of it. "Bianca – please tell me the truth now," Marissa finally emboldened herself to say, and Bianca's eyelids flickered madly.

"Wha – what do you mean?" she asked almost inaudibly, and Marissa was positive that she heard the terrified catch in her voice.

"What you've needed to talk to me about… what you're trying to say with this incredible music box. Tell me the truth now Bianca – I need to hear you say it." She's scared of this – and of course she is. After everything she's been through, after all the times she's had her heart shattered by idiots who really knew nothing about what they were giving up, of course that's why she's still playing dumb. But she knows – she can feel it just as strongly as I can. All she needs now is to say it out loud… and oh my god I can't wait to hear it…

"You need to hear me say… what?" Bianca breathed, her chest heaving with the effort of speaking and trying not to pass out. What I'm trying to say with the music box? She's figured it out… she's put two and two together. The music box, my jumpiness around her – she was bound to figure it out! She can read me like a freaking book and now I'm backed into a corner… but isn't this what I needed to happen? Isn't that why you decided to give it to her in the first place? To see how she would react…?

Tell me that you're in love with me, Marissa pleaded silently with the brunette as she gazed imploringly into the shining chocolate pools of her eyes. "Whatever you want to say Bianca," she whispered aloud. "I want to hear whatever you want to say."

Bianca forced a painful breath, her chest so constricted with paralyzing terror that every lungful felt like it was competing against tight leather straps. Here it is… moment of truth. Just charge forward and let the chips fall…

But that look… that glimmer in those beautiful eyes that have been staring at me since the moment I sat down… Is that a – pleading look? Could that possibly be – hope in her magical gaze?

"Marissa…" Bianca began quietly, her voice gravelly with overexposed emotion, but despite her sudden upswing in possible confidence she still couldn't think of the right words to say. None of the English she knew would come close to describing it properly and so she was left to stare silently at her friend for a long moment, after which the redhead smiled gently.

That's how she's supposed to say my name, Marissa thought euphorically as fireworks went off in her chest at the sound of her name falling so ardently from Bianca's incredible mouth. She as good as admitted it right there. She's in love with me. "Bianca this isn't a gift that you give to someone who you just want to be friends with," she encouraged her softly. "This – this is a gift that you give to someone who you love deeply. This is a gesture filled with so much love that I can't even comprehend it. So tell me what you're trying to tell me because I've really already heard what you're saying."

"I do love you deeply Riss – you have to know that," Bianca admitted quickly, glad to finally finish a sentence and she charged on before her voice went MIA again. "I love you so so much and so I can't – I can't lose you. I don't want things to change if it means that sometime down the line it could go wrong and you'll be out of my life. I have to keep you around Marissa – for my own sanity."

"But you do want things to change?" Marissa questioned her, holding her breath for the answer and trying desperately to hear clearly over her thumping heart in her ears as she watched the last shadows of her friend's stone-solid resolve crack and fall away. Bianca merely looked at her, tears sparkling at the corners of her eyes and Marissa didn't even try to stop herself from reaching up and wiping them away, leaving her hand to graze her cheek tenderly. "Please tell me that you want things to change Bianca. Please tell me that."

And this time Marissa really was pleading with her friend, her head shaking from side to side in her angst and Bianca coughed aloud, the sharp gasp causing her to lose all of her oxygen at once. "You… you want it to…?"

"Bianca I think I've been a blind fool," Marissa told her, realizing instantly that she was going to have to talk first. "I've been sitting here all night trying to figure out… this," she gestured emphatically between them as she scooted closer across the couch and brought their hands back together, their fingers reflexively entwining so tightly that their knuckles turned white against one another. "I've been sitting here looking at you and feeling like for the first time I've finally taken the veil off my head so that I can see you properly. It's literally like I've been walking around with it covering my eyes for months and I've only just now plucked up the courage to rip it off. I've blinded myself behind that veil Bianca – for some reason I just couldn't see it. But tonight…" she trailed off, rendered silent at the magnificence of the brunette's happy tears streaming down her face. She forced her hands to pull away from Bianca's so that she could cup her glowing face in them, sliding closer in the process until their noses were barely inches apart. "Tell me now Bianca," she whispered, the feeling of her warm breath across her cheek making Bianca tremble. "Tell me please."

"I… I need… I need you to let go of me Riss," Bianca managed to stammer breathlessly, her eyes fluttering wildly at the drunken intoxication of Marissa's hands on her face, the heat waves that blazed onto her cheeks shivering over her entire body like fever chills as she fought through the dense dreamy cloud in her brain. If she doesn't back up then I'm not going to be able to do anything except sit here…

But Marissa shook her head. "I'm not going to let go of you Bee. I'm right here and I don't want to let go."

It only took a quarter of a second for the redhead's words to sink into Bianca's consciousness, finally bursting inside her understanding with a swift kick to the wall she'd built up so high around her heart, sending it crashing into nonexistence as the feeling of Marissa's returned love flooded through the open gate and Bianca did the only thing she knew she had to do as words were obviously not going to cut it – she erased the final inches that stood between them and crashed their lips together with a delicate force that rocked them both to the core, all the air stolen from two sets of lungs as their love finally began its dance.