Final chapter! We all know how I said this little diddy would end in March. Well, that didn't happen, so now it's ending in April/May. I know that for sure because, well, this is the final chapter and I'm writing it in April, and it will probably be posted in May. It only makes sense.

Longer comments in the bottom A/N, like always.

For a moment, neither did anything. Cosette looked to the boy, whose appearances were striking in the midday light, her heart beating rapidly against her ribcage. The pounding was fierce, like a hammer being slammed into her ribs like drumsticks.

Of course, he was gorgeous. Dark hair and sparkly eyes, the same ones she saw on that night, except they were illuminated with moonlight and hiding behind a mask. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his dark jeans that fit to his legs perfect.

Wasn't it criminal to look that good?

"Oh my god," is all Cosette could manage, completely stunned.

Ew, had her palms always been that sweating?

Prince tossed his head back and laugh. But he seemed nervous; his leg jiggled, he blinked a lot.

Once, Christine had told her those were the universal habits a boy did when he was nervous. She also said that all boys were absolutely adorable when nervous.

If Prince was just adorable when nervous, Cosette couldn't wait to see the effect confidence had on him.

"Hey, Cosette."

Cosette blinked.

Oh, right. Her parents had made sure her seventh grade spring picture was blown up and made into an directional stand in the doorway, telling her name and the oh-so special occasion. Prince had known who she was the entire time. It was something that seemed so weird to realize now, when they'd been through letters and keeping secrecy.

He had all this time to step up and show himself to her. Knowing that he didn't made her nervous; was he worried about him not being good enough for her? Or did he not want to own up to the night they spent together?

"Hello, Prince," Cosette greeted, forcing the words from her mouth. It was hard to make herself do basic commands through the slew of her thoughts, speeding around in her head as a whirlwind. It made her head pound.

But even through the fog and slew, she could still make out how incredibly stupid she sounded. Once again, it showed that he had the upper hand.

"Most people call me Eric," he stated, moving his hands from his pockets to clench them at his sides. Cosette slightly cocked her head; this boy was full of nervous traits. It was, in a word, endearing.

"Um, nice name." She gave a slight giggle before deciding she sounded like a complete idiot and sat down on the nearest concrete bench.

Eric took a minute to linger in his spot near a rose bush before gingerly sitting down on the same bench, making sure to keep a fairly good amount of distance between them.

Cosette frowned at this, but didn't comment.

Neither began to speak. Cosette focused all her attention on the sparkling bits of in the gravel that moved beneath her doodled on shoes.

I wonder what Lizzy would do in this situation, she thought, her foot giving a limp kick. But that was a stupid thing to wonder, because there were always going to be a mile long list of things that Elizabeth would jump on doing that Cosette would die than fathom.

Somewhere between riding Tower of Terror and attending a mosh pit, there was having a specialty for flirting with boys on that list.

Fortunately, Eric didn't seem to be doing any better. Cosette knew that it was mean to feel so relieved that someone was as nervous as she, but it made her feel less alone.

And she thought writing a letter had been tough.

"Maybe the mystery made this a lot more...adrenaline rushed," Eric finally spoke, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. She didn't see why; it was eighty-five with a pleasant breeze.

"That's what my mom said," Cosette told him wryly. "She used to tell me about these stories about how she and my dad met, and it was always some whacked out version of Romeo and Juliet."

This perked Eric's interest, his head turning toward her. She had his full attention. "That's so weird, my dad used to tell me about those kind of stories between his friends when they were in -"

" - high school?" Cosette finished, sounding astonished.

"Yeah."

"Oh my gawd, your Hunter's kid!" Cosette squealed in realization, jumping from the bench.

Eric followed suit, although he didn't see it as that much of a big deal. "Oh my god, I am!" he shouted in agreement. Then he paused. "Wait, why is that a big deal."

Cosette gaped. "Are you telling me that you don't know our parents totally hooked up when they were younger?" she gasped. Her hands went up in the air. "Then he, like, totally helped with the entire Romeo and Juliet scam!"

Eric looked at her for a long time until he finally just blinked at her. "I am so confused."

Ugh, boys.

Eric ended up getting dragged to a coffee shop/book store place on the corner of West Side Avenue. Cosette must have come here a lot, because she knew what to order without looking at the menu, and recited three of the employees names without once sparing a single glance at their name tags.

Cosette led him to a small table in the back, gesturing for him to sit in the chair opposite of hers.

Dumbly, Eric had gotten intimidated by all the choices and simply ordered plain coffee, which he hated. But, since it was his own fault, he said nothing.

"So, basically, before Hunter met Dana - and by before, I mean like 10 years before - they had a thing for a couple months," Cosette began, taking casual sips of her bubble tea every few words. "Then, two years later, Mom and Grand-Pops moved to Mission Creek for career reasons and boom - Mom meets Dad, love at first sight, instant Romeo and Juliet magic."

Eric let his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. "Quite the storytelling skills you have there."

Cosette smiled around her straw. "For your sake, I'll take that as a compliment."

Eric tried to take a sip of his coffee without cringing. He failed, the hot, black liquid sliding down his throat uncomfortably.

"I only met Hunter once," Cosette added, crushing her bit straw end between her thumb and forefinger. "I think it was at a party or something - for a birthday. maybe...?"

"Christmas, about eight years ago."

At his sullen tone, she looked up, frowning. "Yeah, sounds about right?"

"My dad asked me to go to that party," Eric began without making any eye contact. "It was the last Christmas I ever spent with my mom."

His words cut to Cosette's core like frozen daggers.

Vaguely, she recalled a time her parents left her and Johnathan with the teenage daughter of their next door neighbors - the only babysitter they ever had. She remembered her mom's flowery perfume and the black dress she wore, matching her father's dark suit and navy blue tie almost perfectly.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry." The words fell off her tongue and she immediately felt guilty, because they didn't seem like enough.

Fortunately, if Eric was offended to her lack of proper condolences, he didn't show it. "It's okay, it's been the truth for eight years, what's another day talking about it going to do to me?"

Cosette went back to chewing on her straw as he continued to speak.

"December was the month they officially diagnosed her with leukemia, it was a rare type, so I didn't get to see her much," Eric continued quietly. "She was always in the hospital for chemo therapy, and Dad was working on his farewell album - a goodbye for all the fans that loved his music so much.

"One day, the doctor said she was better - that she could handle crowds and people. I think he felt bad for her, for being locked up in the hospital around the holidays, so he let her come home for a week or two, as long as she followed his instructions.

"So she went to the party; I'm not really sure what they did there, but Mom was immediately pegged the designated driver because one of the doctor's rules was no alcohol. She seemed pretty bummed about it, but did so none the less. Everything was fine; they came home that night, tipped the girl who had watched me, then tucked me in and wished me goodnight.

"It was after New Years that things went bad." Eric gulped. The table shook with slight vibrations from his bouncing knee. "Different doctors each time we visited; they kept telling us the treatments...her body wasn't responding well, and that a transplant would be too dangerous by then."

He stopped, going dangerously quiet.

Cosette finally detatched her teeth from the tortured straw in her clutches, staring at the indents and the overhead light reflecting her slobber. She could count on one hand how many times she'd ever been made speechless, and this was now one of them.

She considered herself fairly good with words - she consoled Elizabeth and herself through their first period; she cleaned up the skinned knees of the cute little boys down the street; thought of herself as a person you'd turn to for a laugh.

But Eric has probably looked for and found several people for that in the past eight years. Anything she could say to him now would probably slide right off him. It made her feel unfathomably guilty, even though she had no real reason for doing so.

It was probably the same way she felt fear when she found out she had an evil great uncle - who had reported dead five years ago and was currently sitting in a urn locked in a vault in a special lab in Antarctica - or that his son was marrying her principal's niece: an adamant overwhelming emotion that showed up out of nowhere, consuming her in the moment, from head to toe.

Cosette hated it, and took to glaring at her slobbery straw to help get some of her pent-up anger out.

"But, my dad and I have been doing pretty good, considering we're still here." Eric's voice picked up again, low and soft. It almost faded in with the buzz of the lights; Cosette nearly felt peaceful just listening to it. Every part of him was...intoxicating, for lack of a better word. "We thought of moving a lot, but Mom loved travelling, and it seemed wrong to leave where's she buried, you know?"

Cosette nodded with as much sympathy as she could muster, but felt like a jackass. Because no, she didn't know what it felt like with having to deal with that, or having someone dead in your family that was a good guy.

"She sounds cool," Cosette thought to say, smiling gently. "I've always wondered it would be like to travel the world. Was it something she thought about a lot?"

"Oh yeah," Eric answered with happy nod, his face lighting up for the first time in minutes. "She had all this bulletin boards plastered on the walls of their bedrooms, a million maps tacked up with a bunch of different places pinned, some she'd already been to."

"Where'd she go? Before she settled down?"

"A lot of places - mostly Australia and Maine, because she knew people there. If there was anything my mom liked more than travelling, it was knowing people."

"That must have been exciting," Cosette commented.

Eric nodded, his eyes still averted from hers. "Yeah, but I never saw her actually do it; once I was born, Mom decided it was time to settle down."

There was nothing to say this, Cosette thought, finishing off her drink and staring into the empty depths of her cup. Trying to deny it was for him would seem disrespectful to her motherly duties, and agreeing would seem like she agreed with Dana giving up her dreams.

So instead she said nothing. The two remained sitting there, basking in their private silent as the cafe buzzed with life and people around them.

"It was just...odd. There's no other way to explain it."

"Sure there is." Elizabeth's face remained fix with a total state of calm as Cosette began to sink deeper into her crisis mode. "It was probably just nerves. It was the first time you were meeting face to face, right? That's totally justified grounds to be nervous on.

"Yeah," Cosette agreed, but her voice was hollow - she was bit of a perfectionist, and her entire couple of hours with Eric had felt crooked. Even their goodbye was awkward.

And we never said if we'd see each other again, Cosette reminded herself bitterly.

Suffice to say, the hangout hadn't put her in the best of moods.

Despite having the least amount of practice in the field mine of boys, Elizabeth appeared to be taking this a lot better than Cosette was, which was good, because at the moment she was dying for a voice of reason.

"Listen, maybe you two are those people that need a little bit of pushing in the right direction," she soothed, braiding her hair with nimble fingers. She reached on her desk for a pony hold, securing the hair do in place. "Johnny and I will accompany you to the movies and it will all be awesome sauce."

"Johnny and I?" Cosette echoed, a smirk playing at the edge of her mouth.

"Oh, bug off you insensitive booger," Elizabeth deflected, taking her friend's teasing with grace. "If your allowed your awkward romances, then I'm allowed mine."

Cosette shrugged. Her brother wasn't the worst person in the world, and something had to be said if he was wise enough to pick Elizabeth as his taste in girls. So they weren't a horrible thing to picture.

"It's just...I pictured things going so much more differently, you know?" Cosette said, twirling her pony tail in her hands thoughtfully. "Like, we would meet and it would be like in the movies. Our eyes would lock, there would be an intense moment of passion where we just took each other in, and then we would go skipping off in the sunset."

"Movie stars are liars, babe."

"Well, duh, I know that now."

But still, the meeting could have gone worse. Eric hadn't laughed at her or walked away in disgust. He looked at her almost as if she were more. More than what he dreamed of, more than what he drew in the pictures. It was breathtaking to have someone look at her in that way - to know she was capable of making someone feel that kind of emotion toward her.

It was also insanely overwhelming, because Cosette was only used to the sliver of attention her parents' statuses achieved for her; and wasn't for her, but the entire family, so that hardly even counted.

"What if it's all awkward again?" Cosette thought aloud quietly.

Elizabeth shrugged on Cosette's laptop screen, looking unfazed by the weight of her scheme. "Then I, as your best friend and loyal sidekick, will step in and slap you both until you're not acting like total nerds."

March 15th 2036

Eric was nervous, to say the least. This would only be his second time going out with Cosette, and it slightly unnerved him. Although, he felt better once she sent a text saying that her friend had turned it into a double date, which meant that there would be people, and that it would be slightly less awkward than before.

She just left out the crucial part about her brother being her friend's date.

"I swear, he's harmless," Cosette assured once they met up outside the theater; her friend - Elizabeth, the blonde with big eyes introduced herself to be - had chosen the moving - some new sci-fi romance that was supposed to be all the rage this year.

Eric eyed the boy that towered over the petite blonde critically. In total honesty, he could see all the similarities between Cosette and her brother. They both had dimples and dark hair, deep eyes that held no answers, only questions.

But he wouldn't put it past the other boy to somewhat protective - which prepared him for the bombarding of question that flew his way as the girls went to grab the candy and tickets.

"So, you're the famous Prince?" Johnathan questioned carefully.

"I wouldn't say famous," Eric dismissed, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

"Yeah, well, the way my sister talks about you, you might as well be."

Under the compliment, Eric flushed. It was weird to think that Cosette swooned over him as hard as he did her.

He continued to think about this as the girls came barreling back, arms full of nearly every treat imaginable. The boys stepped forward and released them of most of their load.

"The movie's only gonna be two hours long," Johnathan huffed as they stepped into the theater. "This is enough candy to feed an army!"

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, already tearing into a bag of Twizzlers. "Oh, Johnny, don't be so naive. They never start the movies on time anymore; the previews always take forever!"

"Hey, I like previews," Cosette chimed in. "They're informative."

While that wouldn't be the word he used, Eric definitely didn't have anything bad to say about previews. If anything he like going to the movies to see what else would come out soon.

Eric flashed her a smile and Cosette returned it shyly before hiding behind a ginormous pack of Junior Mints. When the herd found their seats, Eric dug into his Sour Patch Kids and turned his head forward.

The movie was horrible. If anything, it was just a glorified parody of the Hunger Games except set in modern day New York and the two leads were lesbians.

Elizabeth and Johnathan seemed to love it, which she was pretty sure they were only saying because they made out and ate candy throughout the entire movie.

"So much for a fun double date, right?" Eric snorted, and when she glanced at him, his disdain was obviously directed toward the movie, which made it a little easier for her to breathe.

Cosette gave an uneasy smile. "Yeah, we might as well go with two bunnies next time with how much they were going at it."

He laughed, tossing his head back. "Totally."

Elizabeth and Johnathan walked in front of them, a decent amount of distance between the two pairs.

Cosette pursed her lips, staring at their fading backs. She didn't hate them for leaving her alone with him; but she'd like them better if they'd stayed.

"I've never been on a date before." Before she could make the words disappear, they slipped into the open, hanging between them.

Unsure, Eric slowed. "Really? I would've thought someone like you would've had plenty of dating experience?"

Cosette looked at him sideways, curious. "Oh, yeah? Why is that?"

"I don't know, you just seem like that type of girl," Eric answered with a shrug. "Smart, fun, pretty, amazing - you cover all the bases for an ideal girlfriend."

She blushed as red as fresh roses under the sincerity of his words.

Biting her lip, Cosette continued to walk with Eric the entire way home, both spitting complaints about that horrible sci-fi back and forth.

When they get home, Johnathan rushed up the stairs, not even bothering to greet their parents as he made an eager escape to his room.

Cosette, on the other hand, took in her mother's excited face and her dad nonchalantly flipping through his newest science catalog, even though she saw him do so last night.

"So? How were the movies with Elizabeth and Johnathan?" Christine eagerly asked.

Cosette stuffed her hands in her pockets. It was possible she had excluded Eric from her explanation of her plans, and wrongly fueled her mom's hopes for her to meet a hunk at the movies.

Chase looked up, mid-flip of the page. "Yes, darling, how did it go?" he asked, eyebrows raised. Cosette internally rolled her eyes, her dad forever a skeptic.

Despite this, Cosette smiled, leaning against the door, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

"I met a boy."

And that concludes the Forbidden Love trilogy!

Despite what you may think, this is not a cliffhanger - not really. Because you guys already know that they like each other and they went on a date. And the title is literally Begin Again, which means a romance is going to begin again. I think I did good, for being horrible with endings.

On to other news, I know I have not been active on Fanfic that much, but I am pretty frequent over on my Wattpad, chokingcrayons, if any of you are interested in what I've been doing. I promise I am writing, I'll never stop writing, but it's just been pretty slow, and I've hit a bit of a emotional block right now, so I'm sorry if I seem to have disappeared - I promise I haven't.

Since summer is coming up, I do plan to be out with more one-shots and new stories, with updates on all my currently unfinished multi-chapters. The newest one I believe you can look forward to is a crossover I'm trying to finish the first chapter of as you read this. I don't want to give too much away, but it will be a Mighty Med and Lab Rats one, and it will be a three-shot.

Along the lines of other story-related news, I am also working on the next chapter of Different Summers, along with a Cloud 9 one-shot and a Austin & Ally one-shot. Both I hope to have out in June, but no promises.

As for finally finishing up BA, I have to say I will miss having this story a work in progress, but I will not miss writing it, if that makes any sense. I loved knowing that I was working on it with such an incredible person and that I had awesome readers waiting for a new chapter, but I think it's time for their story to come to an ending with us, there's nothing else for me to write about with them.

Please leave all your comments and thoughts on this final chapter in a review, and if you have any questions on our experience with writing the FL trilogy, or any of my future works, PM me at any time!