A/N: No, this story is not dead! This chapter just took a ridiculously long time – so long, even I started getting impatient. Doubtless, I have been working very hard on the plot outline, it just took me a while to get around to writing the actual words. But I've had a very busy couple of weeks, and now school is over, so it should move a little quicker now!

I hope you enjoy this chapter! Please R&R!

It's eerie to go through life as a fiancee, especially the first few days, living as one did before. Somehow her routine should change, she thinks. But it doesn't. She's not a fiancee running laps around the basketball court, but another girl running.

It started to rain while the girls were changing out for gym, and by the time the Kankers had finished ogling themselves in the mirrors and filed out, it was a full-out thunderstorm. As student assistant, Nazz was at a quandary. She had to choose the indoor game? None of them were cool. Not for a fiancee.

With the coach taking a call in her office, the class was sluggish and uninspired. Nothing new. It was an act, of course, and no one was worse at hiding it than May Kanker. She sat frog-legged on top of her books, staring at her sisters like they would move if she believed hard enough. She swatted blonde flyaways out of her eyes and tapped her fingers on the floor and finally, raised her hand. "Teacher's Assistant, I got a suggestion!"

Nazz looked up from her ring in a daze. "Oh, yes, anything," she said. It occurred to her too late that May was probably going to take another shot at her spitting contest idea.

May fell forward onto her knees and gathered up the messy pile of her books. Cautiously noting the wandering glances of the other girls, she scurried to Nazz's side and whispered, "I think that we should . . . um, give you this." She poked Nazz in the ribs with a very thick, very neat white binder.

"Oh, May, that's not a game."

"Double-D gave it to me, after he took it from Marie," May said. "And she stole it from that little guy Dutch."

His name is Jimmy. Sarah would have pummeled May straight through the gymnasium floor. But Nazz was not Sarah, and she could only picture her wedding planner – the one whose monogram was engraved on the binder's spine.

"I asked Double-D what I was s'posed to do with it, but then Marie got started kissin' him, so I thought, it has your name on it, and –"

Compelled by bridal reflex, Nazz ripped the binder out of May's hands. James Kenneth Jacobs, read the cover in thick cursive, Couture Wedding Planner. Client: Nazz von Bartonschmear. Nazz laughed and started thumbing through the pages. There were already pictures upon pictures of dresses and cakes and even a few place setting diagrams. Jimmy was a wonderful little piece of work.

"Also, a spittin' contest's a great rainy day game."

Nazz looked up. "May, did you look at this at all?"

May shrugged. "Hell, I don't know what any of those big words on the cover mean. Why bother tryin' to read the rest of it when you can barely read the title?" She sighed. "I coulda asked Double-D, but dumb old Marie . . . "

"Quit sucking up to the cheerleaders, May! It won't get you nowhere!" Lee shouted.

Oh, the gym class. Nazz hastily shut the binder and tucked it under her arm. "Okay, girls, are you ready? Today's a great day to spit!" she said, catching the attention of exactly three people. "Three laps around the basketball court to start! Let's go-go-go!"

Lee rolled her eyes but pushed herself to her feet. She cracked her neck and knuckles and, with a farewell wave of her middle finger, started padding her lazy way around the gym. The other girls slowly followed their tallest classmate's lead, all except for one.

"Come on, May," Nazz said.

May didn't budge. She stood with hands behind her back and an expectant half-smile. When Nazz tilted her head imperatively, she tilted hers the other way, indicating the crook of Nazz's left arm.

Nazz nodded. "Thank you, May."

With that, May giggled and grinned. "Not a problem, Nazz!" she yelled as she started off.

Nazz reluctantly put down Jimmy's binder, making sure to hide it securely behind her backpack as she eyed Marie. She and Lee were already somehow on either side of their blondest sister, asking her questions and sticking their legs in front of hers and practicing for the spitting contest that was apparently going to happen. How lovely. Nazz had never felt empathy for a Kanker before. She could see now just how much they delighted in their own vitriolic company.

Maybe she was projecting her own happiness. Maybe it was only temporary, but there was something genuine about their wicked smiles.

Changing out was called early when Marie slipped on her own loogie and got sent to the nurse.

Nazz was bestowed a mop and bucket and told to wipe up all of the saliva before the bell rang. The coach had not blamed Nazz for the incident – it was her duty as a teacher's assistant – which made it even stranger that May offered to stay behind and help.

"I'll carry the bucket around for you, Nazz!" she said. Her arms wobbled as she made her attempt to lift it in one hand.

Nazz smiled at her curiously. She didn't object.

With her free hand, May reached into the pocket of her gym shorts. "D'you know where Marie fell? It was over there, wasn't it?"

Nazz nodded as she swung the mop back and forth. She had a sudden urge to whistle in time.

"She left cool skid marks!" said May, pulling a disposable camera out of her pocket. "I'm gonna show her and she's gonna be so proud of herself." She dropped the bucket and scurried over to where she'd pointed. A quick series of flashes went off in the corner of Nazz's eye. "Neat pictures! You wanna see?"

"No, I'm good."

The room was silent for a few moments. May hesitated. Eventually, she ran back to Nazz and grabbed the bucket again. "Y'know, Marie might be so embarrassed that she'll wax off my eyebrows while I'm sleepin' tonight." She laughed. "Remember when I went bald-faced freshman year? That was funny. My face was real cold, though."

Nazz wished she did remember. "Is that why Double D made that hair tonic?" she said after a moment.

May grunted as she tried to lift the bucket. "Yeah, I had a moustache for a month!" she said with a giggle.

"You're happy today, aren't you?"

May slipped and slid across the floor, ending up uncomfortably close to Nazz. "Why wouldn't I? I'm gettin' married!"

Nazz froze. She turned to the homelier blonde. "You?"

May didn't say anything. She just looked up at Nazz with lambish, tepid blue eyes.

"Married, like Rolf-married?"

May hummed decisively and, after a moment, shrugged and said, "I dunno. I could be." She raised her hands as if in self-defense.

Nazz stood for a moment, just long enough to get over her false shock. As she moved on to the next square foot of floorboards, she watched May. The Kanker girl's business was through, but she remained, aimless, in the middle of the gymnasium, biting her cheek and looking at her hands. She was lost.

She feared Rolf. She feared being asked to marry him because she was a Kanker; she would be obligated to accept, even though she was in love with another boy.

Nazz still could not believe she was feeling sympathy for a Kanker. But there's a first time for everything, and today, a bride-to-be propped her mop against the wall and lent a comforting arm to May. She glanced at the wedding binder nestled in her other arm and said, "May, can I tell you something?"

By the end of the day, everyone knew. Thanks in no small part to May and her big mouth, Nazz was inundated by so many congratulations that she sometimes couldn't remember what for quickly enough. Even Sarah managed to crack a smile, and she had by far been the most excited. Nazz was glowing when she got on the bus, the parade following closely behind her. She was being loved from every direction.

She took her usual seat in the very back, and everyone filed in after her, crowding the last two seats. Questions they'd been unable to ask in class were thrown at her: "How did it happen?" "You two? I had no idea!" "You're certain this is what you want?" Nazz could only grin and giggle in response, so wonderfully overwhelmed was she by the attention.

The only kid to stay completely quiet and questionless was Ed. His head poked up awkwardly between May and Edd, and he looked like a kindergartner with no clue how he got on the high school bus. Nazz grinned as she watched him. She could imagine her own child being just like him, for the first years of his life at least. It almost sounded like he was asking for Daddy when he finally spoke. "Hey, where's Rolf?"

Nazz thought little of it. Rolf had brought the goat to school, so he was walking home. Kevin wasn't on the bus, either, because of his bike.

"Well, there's his goat," said Sarah, her finger pressed against the glass.

Nazz turned her head suddenly to see the white mass writhing next to the bike rack – Victor, soaking wet and trying in vain to free himself. As the school disappeared behind them, she could hear his bleats.

She stood with a grand gesture. "Stop the bus!" she said.

The kids screamed in delight as the bus lurched and sent them all tumbling backwards. And then they were silent.

"I am going to do a favor," said Nazz proudly, with a dramatic tear in her eye, "for my fiancee!"

The bus broke out in applause as she heroically leapt into the pouring rain.

By the time she reached the bike rack, her jacket was ten pounds heavier and her sight was impaired by dripping mascara. Victor thrashed against the rope, the translucent water from his beard flying like bullets into Nazz's face. He bit and kicked at her as she stubbed her fingers against the metal to rip away his leash – damn the Urban Rangers and their stereotypical knot-tying skills!

She coughed when Victor bleated in her face – inaudible against the rain but very potent. "I'm going to bring you back to your person!" she shouted as she took out her roller skates and wrestled them over his hooves.

Finally, the goat was free and his legs were restrained. Nazz bolted down the sidewalk, hanging on to what seemed the very inch of her life, gasping and sputtering through the falling water as she pulled Victor behind her. She reached his barnhouse with bite marks, split ends, and crushed toes, and she didn't care at all. She was doing this for Rolf. This would certainly be wedded bliss – coming home beaten and ragged from work and leaping into the comforting arms of one's spouse. The loving toil seemed over until Victor took the leash in his mouth and rolled away. Nazz weakly started off to catch him, but then she heard the voices.

"Kevin is not angry, then?"

"What? I'm pissed." Kevin's voice was loud enough for Nazz to follow. She walked around to the other side of the barn and pressed her ear against the wall just in time to hear, "You know I love her." She rolled her eyes.

"But you do not yell. You do not cry. You are angry with Nazz-girl, not with Rolf."

"I never said that. You're a backstabbing son-of-a-bitch."

"...of a shepherd," Rolf corrected quietly. Nazz giggled to herself.

"But I'm not gonna yell at you as long as you keep doing –" Kevin was cut off sharply. It wasn't like him to think better of it during an impassioned rant, so he'd either been tranquilized or had gotten his mouth covered . . .

Nazz moved in closer to the wall, straining to hear what she could over the rain and the distant thunder. She stood in suspense for seconds, and when the first sound to come was the wet pop of two pairs of lips separating, her heart sank.

"Rolf sees no better time to say this," said Rolf in a booming and nearly inaudible whisper. "I love you, Kevin."

A/N: Aaaaand cliffhanger.

I hope you liked it! More is coming soon, I promise I promise, I PROMISE.