Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize!

A/N: Once again, thank you for reading and reviewing! This chapter takes place in present time.

Paul looked up from the latest letter from Lizzy--in which she had told him that she would be home soon, and to therefore expect a call from her--when the weight on his bed suddenly shifted. Clarabella had gotten up from her spot, probably tired of watching him reading through his mail. He knew it was most likely rude, so he tucked the piece of paper into his jeans pocket and glanced over at his girlfriend. Clara stood in front of his bulletin board, studying the collection of drawings that were displayed there and on the surrounding wall. Some were pencil drawings, others done with charcoal, oil pastels or paint.

Clara smirked, tucking a strand of loose, blond hair behind her ear. She turned on her heel to face her boyfriend. "Paul, I didn't know you were an artist. I'm impressed."

"Thanks, but I'm not the artist responsible," he chuckled. "Those weren't done by me."

"Oh…then who?"

"Lizzy."

Clara resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"She's been drawing since I've known her," he said. "She's really good."

"So I see," Clara answered. "Is there anything this girl can't do?" She laughed somewhat, but there was an edge to her tone. Clara had told herself that she didn't have any reason to be jealous of Lizzy, but it was kind of hard to convince herself of that fact when her boyfriend kept mentioning her every now and then.

Paul shrugged her question off, and watched as Clara came across a picture sitting on his desk. She picked it up and held it in the air toward him. "Is this her?"

He nodded. "That picture's about two years old now." It had been taken on one of their many beach adventures. The photo was a close-up shot of Lizzy, showing just her head and most of her shoulders, with the water in the background. Clara scrutinized it, finding that she had been right to feel slightly jealous. To her utter dismay, she saw that Lizzy was, in fact, quite pretty. She would simply have to take Paul's word for it and believe that nothing beyond friendship had gone on between them. Although his word was pretty hard to believe sometimes when he brought up his supposed 'best friend'.

She placed the picture on the desk where it belonged, and joined her boyfriend on his bed. He was sitting with his back against the wall, his legs dangling over the side. Clarabella climbed into his lap and sat there, smiling up at him. He returned the grin, wrapping an arm around her waist as his lips pressed against hers. He deepened their kiss, his fingers running softly through her hair. She broke the kiss for a brief moment to smile at him again, giggling, "Paulie…"

Paul pulled himself away from her, taken aback by the term of endearment she'd used. The surprised--or whatever emotion was on his face at that time, she wasn't exactly sure--expression he displayed registered in Clara's mind and she stopped.

"What is it?"

He shook his head hoping she'd let it go, and averted his gaze. "Nothing." he lied. But Clara wasn't entirely satisfied with that answer. That look still lingered on her boyfriend's face, and she knew something was up. He was a terrible liar. She figured it was something she'd said, but all she had done was call him by a nickname. There wasn't any harm in that, was there? She forced him to turn his gaze back to her, using her hand to push his chin up.

"What did I say wrong?" she asked, both concerned and quite puzzled.

He tried brush it off. "Don't worry about it." Paul wondered why this had struck such a chord in him.

"Tell me."

He sighed. "You called me 'Paulie'."

Clarabella tilted her head to the side, giving him an equally lopsided grin. "Is that all? What, do you not like it?"

He hated the nickname, it was true. But for some weird reason unknown to even himself, Paul tolerated being called 'Paulie' by only two people on this planet. One of them being his mother. The other was Lizzy. He had always scolded his best friend for calling him that, but the truth of the matter was, he didn't really care. She'd been calling him 'Paulie' ever since they were kids, and he could only put up with it coming from Lizzy's mouth because when she addressed him as such, it sounded…well, cute. For lack of a better word. When she'd shouted this nickname through the halls after school, her blue eyes were always bright and wide with excitement, and he guessed, to him, it had made her that much more…adorable.

"Paul?" Clara asked for about the fifth time, finally snapping her fingers in front of her boyfriend's face. He had yet to respond to her latest inquiry; he'd kind of gone off into a trance-like state, like his mind had wandered away.

"Huh? Yeah?" he asked, blinking.

"I won't call you 'Paulie' again, if you hate it that much."

"I'd appreciate that."

"Deal," she replied, grinning once more. "Now, where were we?" Her lips found his again, drawing him into another heated kiss. They shared it for a few moments before she leaned back to lay on the bed, dragging him down with her by the front of his T-shirt. Paul, although startled, complied and continued kissing Clara. He felt her arms encircle his waist, bringing him closer. Then, she started tugging at the end of his T-shirt in an effort to remove it. With red flags suddenly going up in his mind despite the desire he felt in living in the moment, Paul quickly pushed Clara's hands away.

"Clara…" Paul said, his breathing uneven, "Stop."

Clara, who was clearly upset at being denied, paused and disengaged from their kiss.

"What did I do this time?" she questioned. "I thought--"

Paul cut her off. "Listen, it just…wouldn't be right."

"It seemed pretty all right to you a moment ago." she pointed out.

"We've only been dating for a few weeks. Don't you think this would be rushing things a bit?" He moved to sit beside her, and she sat up, still visibly disappointed.

"You're so old-fashioned, Paul." she laughed. This surprised him, that she was mocking him for trying to take things slow, and not rushing into this.

"What's so wrong with that?"

She shook her head, answering sarcastically, "Nothing."

"Okay, then."

"Want to watch a movie?" Clara asked, changing subjects. She hopped off the bed without awaiting her boyfriend's reply and knelt on the floor in front of Paul's extensive movie collection. Paul didn't answer anyway; he watched Clara skimming through his numerous VHS tapes and ran a hand through his hair, sighing. He hated to think about what would've happened if he hadn't stopped himself and Clara, and if part of him would've felt guilty afterward.

Lizzy couldn't believe she and her parents were supposed to leave Liverpool tomorrow. She knew she would miss it, and that the goodbye would most likely be filled with tears, but she didn't want to dwell on that too much right now. She was sitting on the couch in the living room of Brian's house with her newfound Liverpudlian…friends. Lizzy guessed that they could be considered friends. After all, for the past few days, she'd been a little more than friendly with Brian. She had been hanging out with Brian, Stu and Pam for a couple hours now, and only had about another half hour until she was due back at her grandmother's house for their last dinner together before she and her parents departed in the morning.

"So, have ya enjoyed yer stay in Liverpool?" Stu asked. Lizzy--whose fingers were intertwined with Brian's as he sat beside her on the couch--looked up at the older boy and grinned.

"Of course," she said. Then, she heaved a sigh. "I really am going to miss it."

"You could always come back sometime, ya know," Brian pointed out, trailing a finger from his free hand down the side of Lizzy's cheek, pushing away a couple strands of her dark hair from her face. She blushed slightly, partially from the sound of his accent and the sensation of his fingers ghosting along her cheek. "'S not like we're kickin' ya out or anything." Lizzy tried not to laugh at the irony of that statement.

"I would love to come back. Maybe I can study abroad here in college."

A silence settled among them, until Pam abruptly exclaimed, "You won't forget about us, will ya Lizzy?" Lizzy laughed. Sometimes, Pam's personality matched Penny's, the drummer from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. She was almost always upbeat and hyper--although, looking back on it now, maybe it had been the drugs that had made Penny that way…

"No, I won't," she responded, smirking as Brian placed his arm around her shoulders, hugging her tighter to him. "I'll get your addresses before I leave and write to you guys when I get the chance. Sound good?"

Pam nodded. "Bri, me 'n Stu are gonna raid yer kitchen." she decided, since she hadn't eaten any lunch. She wanted to drag Stu with her to give Lizzy and Brian some time to themselves, because she knew Lizzy had to say her goodbyes. As soon as the two of them disappeared into the other room, Brian cupped Lizzy's face in his hands and his lips collided with hers. The kiss became more intense, and Lizzy went along with it, even though she was shocked at how quickly things were progressing. Then again, she'd seen a taste of how different the culture was here in comparison to the States when they had gone to the Cavern Club.

Lizzy had been fairly compliant…that is, until Brian started to feel her up. As wonderful as it did feel, she knew it would be very, very wrong to take their relationship--or whatever it was; she wasn't positive if what they had could be considered an actual relationship--to another level. She grabbed Brian's hand, which had been rubbing circles in the inside of her thigh, and held it in her own. Then, she broke their kiss.

"We shouldn't," she urged. "I'm leaving tomorrow." It wouldn't be smart of them to do something like this, especially since she had only known Brian for a little over a week. Besides, what they had wasn't really anything; sure, Lizzy liked Brian, but she didn't love him. She understood what his intentions were, and she had a good enough head on her shoulders to know that she wanted her first time to happen because of love, not just some random, summer fling. She wasn't that kind of girl, and she wasn't going to let Brian take advantage of her.

"All the more reason to," Brian replied, giving her another soft, lingering kiss. "C'mon, Lizzy, why can't we 'ave a little fun before ya go?"

"Really, Brian, I don't want to," Lizzy was trying to be as polite as possible, but Brian wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer. He went in for a kiss once more, and carefully placed her so she was lying on the couch. Lizzy quickly pushed against his chest, trying everything to avoid his lips crashing into hers. "I said no."

"What's yer problem?" he asked, a hint of anger lacing his once-gorgeous accent. She shoved her hands into his chest again, pissed off.

"I told you to stop. Why can't you listen?"

"Lizzy--"

"No, Brian. Get off me. Now, or I'll kick you. I'm not kidding."

"Mate, what the 'ell's the matter with ya?" Stu unexpectedly demanded, stalking over to his friend. Pam stood in the doorway of the living room, wide-eyed. Stu had heard the argument while he and Pam were returning to the living room, and had therefore picked up his pace before Brian could do something stupid. Brian scrambled off Lizzy, and received a hard smack in the back of his head, courtesy of Stu. "Ya can't just force yerself on 'er. She said no."

Lizzy got off the couch, throwing a short glare at Brian. She'd lost all respect for him, and regretted ever wasting her thoughts and feelings on that boy. In the end, he'd only been after one thing.

"Thanks." she told Stu.

"You want me to walk ya to yer grandmother's?" he inquired. She nodded.

"Sure."

Lizzy said goodbye to Pam, and wrote down her (as well as Stu's) address on a piece of paper in her sketchbook before leaving with Stu. She didn't say goodbye to Brian, and she didn't want to write to him, either.

She and Stu walked side-by-side to Martha's house, shivering a bit from the chilly air. They ambled along in silence until Stu finally spoke.

"Sorry 'bout Brian, Lizzy. He doesn't think before he acts."

"It's okay. I'm just glad you intervened when you did," she stated as they arrived at Martha Feeny's house. "Thank you for showing me around. I had a good time here." She hugged him, and he returned it.

"See ya 'round."

She laughed. "Yeah." And with that, she retreated into her grandmother's house for dinner. Tomorrow, she would be leaving Liverpool behind.

A/N: I know it's not that spectacular…but it's an update. Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, guys. School's crazy right now, with only a month or so left until my semester ends. I'll try to post more when I can! I haven't given up on it, so don't worry! Please review! It's very much appreciated.