Note: Thank you so much for reading. I'm sorry I posted a whole bunch at the end but my internet is limited. I hope you enjoyed the story. Please, please, please review!

Once we were back on shore, the whole ordeal sort of turned into an unofficial press conference... without the press. People were drilling us with questions, asking for autographs, everything under the sun. We were just trying to weather through them so we could figure out what we were going to do. Gavin and I stayed side by side the whole time, trying not to get carried away by fans. Gavin was in the middle of signing something when this girl came up and shoved him. "Are you with her now?" she demanded.

I spun around, a little worried about how this was going to play out. Gavin seemed at a loss for words, so I jumped in. "Well, I mean...we never actually said..."

"I kissed you," he cut in.

The girl scoffed at me. "He did more than that with me. First night. Every night." Gavin stared at her, I stared at Gavin, and she just looked between both of us, smug. "Every night," she repeated, hoping to drive the stake deeper. Unfortunately for her, there was no stake to drive. None of this was phasing me, which was actually kind of surprising.

Coolly, Gavin told her, "Extenuating circumstances prevented such relations. I made a temporary exception because of those circumstances." He looked down at me and raised an eyebrow. "Temporary," he repeated. I could feel the blush rushing into my cheeks as the other girl let out an angry screech and ran off. "Bye, whatever your name is!" he called after her. There was another distant scream of anger, and I laughed a little.

I looked up at him and asked, "Extenuating circumstances?"

"Well, Chelsea," he accentuated my name, given his last comment to the other girl, and he brought one of my hands up to his lips. "Falling in love with you made me a little more concerned with how you felt about it all. Believe me, it wasn't in the plan."

I nodded. "So, I was just going to be one of your screw 'em and leave 'em girls."

"I'm not going to lie. That was my initial idea."

"What changed your mind?"

"Honestly...Elenore," he admitted.

"How?" I asked stiffly.

"The look on your face when I admitted to fucking her. The look on your face as you left. Hell, the look on your face when you came in! Do you know you tear-stain easily?" I rolled my eyes and tried to reclaim my hand, but he held tight. "I hurt you. I realized then that I had hurt you, and it scared the bloody piss out of me when I realized that I felt bad about it. I didn't just want to get in your pants anymore."

"That sounds...chivalrous and typical, disgusting guy all at the same time," I said. He smiled. I had to return it. "What did you want?"

"I wanted to be the one who tells you everything will be alright when you're sad. I wanted to be the one always there to get you tea and aspirin when you drink to much." I grinned. "I wanted to be the one you felt like you could tell anything to...like Simon."

"Is that why you kept asking if I'd do something we were doing with Simon?" He nodded. I smiled softly and shook my head. "Are you just saying all this to get in my pants?"

"No. I already know I've got you. Why would I keep trying?"

"Oh, that's nice," I laughed, pulling backwards a little.

He followed, laughing a little too, but he grew serious. "I wanted to be your best friend, your lover...your everything."

"You already were my everything, Gavin," I sighed. "I just couldn't admit it yet."

"Oh? Why is that?"

"I was scared. I knew what kind of guy you were, and I didn't want to get caught up in that. I cannot claim that I loved you from 'are you a lesbian too', but it wasn't too long after that."

He laughed and leaned his head against mine. "So," he murmured, "now that we've gotten past all our stupid fears, what are we going to do about it?"

I sighed and looked around at all of our shipmates. Simon was necking with the girl that had rescued him from the water. Kevin, Carl, and Marianne were all talking with what appeared to be Marianne's father. Dave was surrounded by fangirls, and I rather hoped they would just run off with him. Angus was surrounded by people too, and he seemed pleasantly surprised that they were there. Quentin was talking to a woman that I assumed was Marianne's mother because she looked a little like Quentin. Harold and John were talking, obviously not knowing what to do about the fans that trailed them everywhere. Mark was surrounded by women, and he wasn't saying a word. Bob seemed to be having a very deep conversation with someone similarly bearded. Felicity was with Margaret. They were all happy. After a little bit of searching, I finally found the Count. He was drying his hair with a towel, and when he removed it, our eyes met. He smiled widely and gave me a salute. I smiled back warmly.

Finally, I leaned back to look Gavin in the eyes. "First, I am going to give all of our friends my address. Then, we are going back to my house and cleaning off the meters of dust that have no doubt collected on all of my belongings while I've been away. And then, we are going to listen to rock and roll, and we are going to fix this damn temporary exception thing. Sound like a plan?"

"That sounds like a very good plan," he replied, placing a soft kiss on my lips.

I sighed happily and gently pulled away. I looked around at everyone, all together for what would probably be the last time, and said, "Groovy."