A/N: So, I'm going to get this all out of the way first, so it's not at the end of the chapter or mucking up the epilogue, which I'll be posting tomorrow evening.

This is the last chapter. It's been crazy writing this, and I never expected how much fun it would be. I'm just sorry I didn't update more often, but that's the hazard of having a life outside of writing. So thank you to all of those who've persevered and kept reading and reviewing :) You're all awesome, and I give each and every one of my readers a virtual cookie.

And now that all the sappy things are over with, it's time to get down to business. As long as this is, there just wasn't enough time to fit in several of the plot points that I originally intended to, most of which involving the less major characters. The relationship between Newkirk and Matt, for example, has a rather extensive backstory that I never had a chance to write into LTC. So, if any of you express your interest, I'd be more than happy to write a few drabbles that address this and other delicious plot points. I'd post those on "A Bit of Tailoring", the story specifically for little ficlets, which you can find on my bio page. Add me to your Author/Story Alerts! **Also, Drop your thoughts on this in the review box or via PM. I won't write the stuff if no one shows interest.**

Lastly, I'm sorry for the ridiculously long A/N. But now, enjoy the last chapter and be looking for the epilogue tomorrow! Enjoy :)

It's happened so suddenly that at first, I don't quite realize what's happened.

But then I blink green lights from my eyes and let out a yell.

Alek won.

His reaction is so different from mine that I wonder for a moment if I missed something. He rips his face mask off and collapses onto the ground, pale as a sheet except for the rings of darkness that underline his closed eyes. I nearly jump out from the line of spectators surrounding the piste, certain that something awful has happened. But then his eyes open and, though they are wide and haunted, he smiles.

Gasping breaths shake his body, like he's torn between sobbing and laughing. Newkirk separates himself from Coach Wrathbone's side and barrels up to the piste. He nearly lifts Alek on the ground in helping him stand, and then smothers him in a massive hug. His hands shake with excitement as he helps unclip Alek from the scoring system, and then hugs him again.

I watch with a wide grin, itching to join the pair. I'll get my chance to congratulate him, I know, but it will never be enough.

The roar of the crowd drums into my ears so loudly that I can't think.

I prefer it that way.

Alek pries Newkirk off of him to shake hands with Aaron Mitchell. Only the slightly shocked grimace clinging to his lips betrays the boy's disappointment, but then he peels it away in favor of a genuine smile. He and Alek exchange a few words over their clasped hands, and the behemoth gives Alek a clap on the shoulder before turning away to be detached from the system.

One of the student volunteers perches just behind the judge with a large blue ribbon in one hand, a red and a white in the other. He's tall and rail-thin, and though I don't know his name, I think we have a class together. His attempt to hide his pleasure at his classmate's victory lacks conviction, and he keeps passing grins to another volunteer.

The third place fencer, a twelfth year from Ealing, hops up onto the piste next to Alek and Aaron. And although he doesn't get a trophy or to stand on a pedestal, Nathan claimed a respectable fourth place, edging out Matt by a single point. I can't begin to put into words the sense of rightness I felt when Nathan beat him, after he told me what Matt did to him last year.

According to Newkirk, who heard it through Rachel, Nathan has been training non-stop this season, and I can tell. He's been improving constantly, and I think I could guess what's driven him. Vindictiveness can be a strong motivator.

The crowd quiets significantly in order to hear Malone's voice announcing the winners, only to swell again as he finishes.

Several minutes later, as the gym begins to empty, the din finally subsides. Alek can't manage to keep away from the crowd that stumbles over itself to shake his hand. Eventually he resigns himself to the task of accepting their congratulations, but seizes a momentary lapse to escape to the locker rooms and shower.

When he disappears, it feels like I've been released from a spell and have the ability to move again. With nothing else to do, I help the custodians stack up chairs and collect trash from the bleachers.

"Thank you," offers one of them when I dump an armload of candy wrappers and nacho containers in the waste bin. His Scottish accent is three times as thick at mine, I can tell from just two words. The stitching on his uniform reads "Max", and the lines in his face read that he spends a lot of time smiling. "But there's no need."

"It's no problem, really," I reply. "I'm waiting on my–on my friend."

"Well, then, I appreciate the help."

With a nod, he turns away to scour a different section of the bleachers and, finding nothing, retreats to the supply closet for a dust mop.

I've just tossed the last of the trash when the locker room door opens and spits Alek out. He's wearing a nice set of clothes, khaki pants and a dark blue button-up shirt with black dress shoes I haven't seen in months. His hair, buzzed to a quarter inch again, glistens with water that makes it look darker than it's usual red-brown. I let him search the room for a few moments before lifting my arm and waving it over my head. "Over here!"

His eyes light on me and he waves back, breaking into a fast walk toward me. His duffel bag, full because he's packed a number of his belongings into it, bounces against his thigh with every step.

When he reaches me, our hands find each other and I lead him a few rows up into the bleachers. I sit, letting one shoulder rest against the brick wall, and he sits down exactly next to me so that our legs are touching. He lays the duffel by his feet.

For a while, neither of us can speak. Silence holds onto us as tight as our hands, clasped together in the valley between our legs. So instead, we watch as the gym is restored to normal. All the chairs are stacked and hidden away, the scoring system taken down, the mats rolled and lined up against the wall, and every sign that today happened stripped off. All that's left are a smooth concrete floor, red brick walls, scratched green and gray bleachers, and two teenagers who know things with never be the same, even if it looks like nothing has changed.

"This is stupid," I say suddenly, trying not to let my voice crack.

Alek blinks, taken aback. "I beg your pardon?"

I meet his eyes, painfully green and earnest. "It's stupid to waste our time like this. Alek–you're leaving, and I don't want to sit here denying it because that won't make it any less real! We have to make it count."

"Well... what do you want to talk about?" His eyes flit back and forth between mine, searching.

"I don't know."

He swallows. "Then tell me what you're going to do after this," he says softly.

The words knock my breath out of place for a moment and send goosebumps prickling up my arms. They're so simple and straightforward that my thoughts are sent spinning. My mouth opens and hangs there for several seconds before any words of my own find their way out.

"I'll keep moving," I tell him honestly. "I'll go to school on Monday and sit next to an empty seat at lunch, turn in our biology project alone, and try to act like I'm okay. I'll lie and say I had no idea who you were when everyone talks about Malone's article, and then I'll stop listening to what they say because every word will be a reminder that you're gone."

Alek's face crumbles as I say it, but I know I have to. His head falls onto my shoulder, and I feel the wetness of tears through my t-shirt. He brings our joined hand up to his chest and curls around them, and I lean my head on his, wrapping my other arm around him and doing some sniffling of my own.

"Deryn," he says, voice muffled. "I'm scared."

I stroke the back of his head in response, feeling the dampness of his cropped hair in my fingers. "You have every reason to be. But know that no matter wherever you go or whatever you do, I'll always be thinking of you and cheering you on, even though you won't be able to hear me."

He nods into my shoulder and lets out one more sob before sitting back up straight and wiping the tears from his eyes. "Thank you. I needed to hear that."

"Anytime," I say wryly.

A look crosses Alek's face, and then he pulls his hand out of mine and reaches down for his duffel bag. He hefts it onto his lap and slides open the zipper, then plunges his arm in and shifts some of the contents around before he finds what he's looking for.

I look on with interest, fisting my hand to keep in the warmth Alek's palm left behind. It's gotten colder in the gym without the body heat of so many people crammed inside.

Carefully, Alek withdraws his hand from the bag. Trailing from his hand is the first place ribbon the judge handed him when he was declared the winner. He looks down at it, then back up at me. "You should have this. To remember me by."

"Alek, I couldn't forget you if I tried," I say, the hair on my arms prickling with surprise.

His fingers trace the gaudy blue fabric, folded and looped around itself in the classic ribbon style. "You know, I really thought I needed this. I thought that maybe winning the tournament would make it easier to face tomorrow, like if I won this, then I'd have a chance of surviving everything else."

He pauses, breath hitching.

"But I was wrong." His fingers clench around the ribbon, crinkling one of the tails. "None of this did anything for me but make it harder to leave. And sitting here, with you, is the hardest thing I've ever done. I'd rather face an assassin than tell you goodbye, but I can't. I'm here, right now, and that one word is burning my tongue and turning my insides out and even through all of that I know that it's what I have to do. And it's because of you, Deryn."

He takes one of my hands in both of his, and through the ribbon I can feel his shaking. I just stare down at them, not trusting myself to speak. And when Alek continues, it pulls my gaze up into his eyes. "You've taught me that it doesn't matter what's easy. I have to keep fighting, no matter how much I want to give up. Because I can win, even when it feels like everything is lost."

My mouth opens and closes, but tears choke off any words that might have come out. Alek presses the ribbon into my hands before pulling away. My fingers curl around it, suddenly cold. "Alek, I don't know what to say to that."

He scoots closer, intensity clouding his eyes. "Just promise that you'll remember me. I have to know that all the time I've spent here hasn't gone to waste, that you won't all just go back to being what you were when I leave."

I transfer the ribbon to my other hand and then settle it between myself and the wall. Without looking at him, I speak: "How could you even think that? Can't you see everything you've done, how different it all is now? We can never go back to the way it was before; it's simply not possible."

From the corner of my eye, I see him relax visibly. "I've just felt so insignificant for my entire life–like I didn't even really exist. I could disappear and no one would miss me."

Something in his voice brings my eyes back to him. "Then this is your chance. You can make a huge difference, not just for us but for your entire country!"

He takes a deep breath, and I reach around to the back of my neck, fingers rubbing against my scar as I untie the knot of black cord that rests on it. When it comes loose, I hold the necklace up for Alek to see. The ceiling lights reflect off the dull metal only barely. "Just don't forget any of us while your doing it."

Alek's eyes widen. "Deryn, I can't take–"

"It's a reminder," I interrupt, gaze fixed on the charm as it sways slowly, "that good things can come from even the worst tragedies." I swallow and reach around his neck, tying the cord in the back. The metal scrap rests on his collar bone, just off center, and I straighten it without thinking. "You just have to be able to leave the past behind, even if you can never forget it. But I don't think we're supposed to; it's what makes us who we are, Alek. Just don't let it control who you will be."

I realize with a start that I'm talking to myself more than I am to him.

"Thank you," he says, but his voice is shattered. His eyes are rimmed with desolation, and he looks like he's going to attempt to say something else when the clearing of a throat fills the now-quiet gym.

We look up and see that Count Volger has appeared in the doorway. He gives Alek a nod.

"That's my cue, I guess."

My lungs collapse and I gasp for a breath. "Not yet, please. Two more minutes." My hands lock in the dark blue fabric of his shirt.

He wraps his arms around my shoulders and lays his forehead against mine. "I'm so sorry, Deryn. I don't want to go. This is the last time we'll see each other."

I nod, but the need to scream is almost unbearable.

"We won't be able to contact one another. It would be too dangerous, for both of us. I still have more enemies than I can count."

"Then this really is goodbye," I admit, furiously blinking tears from my eyes. I have to get a clear look at the face I may never see again.

"It is," he agrees.

I press my lips against his, pulling him close and kissing him with the force of all my desperation. His hands find my back and neck, one fisting in my shirt and the other tracing a path along my scar. I squeeze my eyes shut, savoring every moment.

He tastes like salt and loss.

The first thing either of us do when we separate is sniffle and wipe away our tears. "I'm going to miss you," I tell him.

"I'll miss you, too. And I'll never forget." He closes one hand around his necklace. It's made from nothing but a scrap of metal from a car and a piece of cord, but from how tenderly he holds it, one could mistake it for gold.

Alek stands, gripping his duffel bag tightly. "Goodbye, Deryn."

I push off the bleachers and hug him one last time. "Goodbye," I say into his shirt, breathing in the scent of him for just another moment before reality pulls us apart and he's making a miserable march down the steps and across the gym to where his men are waiting.

A look back at me and a broken wave are all that's left, and then he's gone. Just like that.

It's happened so suddenly that at first, I don't quite realize what's happened.

Now I can no longer blink the tears from my eyes as a sob crawls its way out of my throat. My hand finds the wall and I lower myself back down, trying to breathe.

But this time there's no roar of a crowd so loud I can't think, and no trophy to display in the school hallway. Because this time, there is no winner.

Something underneath my leg scrapes against the seat. I reach down and as my hand closes around it, it's all I can do to hold myself together. I pull it out and its blurry image swims across my vision.

I wrap my arms around myself, clutching the lying first place ribbon to my chest.