-Chapter 5-

She held up her dimensional scissors and snipped a neat line in front of her, tearing open a blue portal as she did so. She looked with determination at the swirling center of the portal, then jumped through.

It was like opening a door, really—instead of going through some long tunnel like Earth TV shows depicted, you just stepped from one dimension into another. It was a lot simpler than what most of Earth seemed to think.

She took a glance at the scissors and before the portal could close behind her, she made a final decision and forced herself to throw them back through the portal—a sign to herself that she was officially done with Earth...and it hurt beyond words.

She gasped as she woke, shooting upright and looking around to make sure she wasn't on Mewni just yet. Her dimensional scissors rested on her desk, very clearly unused. She was still on Earth, still in the Diaz's house, and most importantly, not on Mewni. Time was ticking though, and it was eating away at her. Her dream would become reality soon...but right now, her dream was just that.

She sighed and flopped back down on her bed, lazily slinging an arm over her eyes.

She immediately regretted her actions when Marco's face—with the mysterious smile that had adorned it not long ago—appeared on her eyelids. She flung her arm all the way over the side of the bed and opened her eyes, this time wondering if it was okay to so much as blink.

Why he was haunting her, she didn't know. She had to leave him behind anyway, she shouldn't have even cared for that kiss. But, life happened, and she did care very deeply for it. Love was...well, a rather strong word. She dared not even venture into such uncharted territories. She liked him far beyond friends...but that was it, at least for now.

No WAIT! She could not allow this to get any more serious. She would not allow this to get any more serious. There was no "for now". If she got that much more romantically attached to him, she wouldn't be able to leave Earth. She was due to be married—she had to be married. It was...it was for the good of her people. She had to keep that in mind; Mewni and this marriage came before Earth and Marco. As much as it put a damper on her spirits, that was reality at its finest. Heh. No. That was emotional torture at its finest.

A lone tear slid hopelessly down her cheek. To lov- To like another even after she was married would be horrible... And she would just be leaving without a real goodbye to Marco and his family. No last hugs or...in Marco's case, kisses. Earth had books about everything, why couldn't it have a book about stopping romance? But then that wouldn't be fair to Marco. NO! MARCO DIDN'T MAT-

...She couldn't bring herself to finish that last thought because to her at least, he did matter. If she was suffering because of what was to come—because of what she would be leaving behind—then he mattered far beyond her own understanding. But why? Why did he have to matter so much to her? Why did she have to like anyone on Earth, let alone him? This was all stupi-

...Again she couldn't finish the thought. That was like saying Marco was stupid and...he wasn't. He was sweet, caring, intelligent, and she couldn't get that smile out of her head to save her life. And unfortunately every image of that smile came with the image of that kiss, of her lips pressed against his and the both of them enjoying every second of it. Every time she thought back to that kiss—well, two kisses actually—she wanted to relive that moment. The fear, the confusion, the dance, the feeling of her heart about to jump out of her chest, and finally him displaying such devotion to her through a kiss. The only thing that really killed the mood of those thoughts was the "devotion" part. What would become of him after she left? Would he think he wasn't good enough for her? Because he was in just about every way possible. Still...would he know that?

If things were different on Mewni she would probably choose him to be her partner. She would be happy that way. They could get married. They could start a family together. On Earth she would be considered too young to start a family, but on Mewni she was expected to bear a child as soon as she could. In other words, she and her new husband would be expected to...to begin trying for a baby...almost immediately after marriage. It wasn't so much a matter of conceiving that was the problem, it was keeping the baby alive. Mewnian babies were very weak in the womb and the first few months after birth. She could easily go through ten miscarriages or stillborns before finally birthing a baby strong enough to survive the next few months. After that the baby would grow up healthy, like her.

Any other thought she had after that was broken by the muffled sound of something rustling downstairs. Her first thought was that Ludo had somehow slipped past anyone's detection and crept into the house. It had been some time since his last attempt to steal her wand... On the other hand it could be one of the Diaz's. They did live here after all, and from time to time one of them got up to get a midnight snack—COUGH Mr. Diaz—but just in case it was Ludo, she decided it was best to check things out for herself.

She grabbed her wand and yawned as she slowly made her way downstairs. The further she got, the less it sounded like little monster feet. It also didn't sound like COUGH Mr. Diaz either though.

She did see the fridge light on, which in her eyes was enough to confirm her suspicions that either someone was up getting something to eat or Ludo was just hungry and whimsically decided to try human food. Seriously though...the last thing she needed to be even thinking about was Ludo and his minions. Life was getting hard enough as it was.

Shockingly, as she reached the kitchen, Mr. Diaz was nowhere in sight. His presence had been replaced by...Marco. Of all people, it had to be Marco... She was already too restless to sleep, he'd been on her mind way too much since he kissed her, and to top it all off they had the whole house to themselves...in the middle of the night...alone...just the two of them.

And apparently he heard her footsteps. He closed the refrigerator door with a small soda can in hand and looked at her. His expression was blank, like he wasn't really thinking anything in particular. Even upon seeing her his expression didn't change. The smile he once wore was gone, and part of her was grateful for that because it would just lead her to think back to the kiss they shared—yes, shared, because although she had initially been caught by surprise, twice she had returned his kiss. That alone could've led him to believe she had the same feelings for him as the ones he very clearly had for her. And...she wasn't entirely sure she did have those feelings. Not to say that it wasn't an experience she enjoyed and wanted, but it was one she shouldn't have allowed. She had every chance in the world to stop him but instead made it worse. She only contributed to something very wrong. Now Marco would suffer because of it...

To her, tension hung in the air, but judging from his still-void expression, there was absolutely no tension to him. After what had happened, she figured even he would be a little bit nervous.

"Star," he said, almost as though he hadn't been expecting her to hear all the noise he'd been making not moments ago.

"Marco," she replied, attempting a similar tone.

"I didn't know you were up."

Normally if someone was trying to start a conversation it was a bit of an icebreaker, but since he didn't feel the same atmosphere she was feeling, it really did nothing to help.

"Yeah, I...I heard someone downstairs and thought I'd check it out."

"Sorry. I couldn't sleep and got thirsty. But, since you're up, there's sort of something I've been meaning to talk to you about..."

She resisted the urge to bite her lip and nodded instead.

He moved over to the couch in the living room and motioned for her to follow, which she did despite how irrationally nervous she felt. They'd already kissed—twice—and that was a pretty intimate thing, even on Earth! And Earth took some things that were meant to be intimate rather lightly, like it was just nothing... On Mewni a kiss was bold and symbolized passion for one another to extremes. It didn't necessarily have to mean love, but it usually did and as such was usually reserved for someone very special. On Earth, pretty much every unmarried couple and sometimes even friends kissed at least once and then broke up the next week. It was a matter she'd had a hard time understanding—and admittedly she still didn't understand why Earth treated such things as kisses and even sex so loosely—when she first came here.

Once she had sat down beside him—not realizing how much distance she'd put between them—he cleared his throat and scooted closer to her. It only served to make her more nervous because now he could so close he could touch her...

"So, Star, about earlier... I, um, I-I... Well how do you feel about...what happened?" he asked, for some reason avoiding the word 'kiss' despite him having initiated it in the first place.

She took a deep breath. "Honestly, I'm not sure what to think... It was unexpected."

He frowned. "Was it...nice...?"

At this point both of them were looking at the ground and refused to make eye contact. At least this way she felt more comfortable being near him.

"I-I guess so. I've never kissed anyone before so, that was kind of my first time." Well, she hadn't consciously kissed anyone before.

"Did you maybe ever consider me as...well...um, your type?"

"My type of what?"

"You know, a boyfriend? Romance and all that? More than just a friend? The kind of guy you might one day maybe want to date...?"

"Oh. That type," she mumbled—which had really been what they were doing the whole time. It seemed like Marco was finally starting to feel nervous too. "I ummmm..."

He stopped her. "Look, I completely understand if you don't think of me that way. I get that you might've gotten caught up in the moment. It's just, I've been in the friend zone for so long and wanted to get out. But now I'm starting to second guess the way I tried... I just don't want this to ruin our friendship, it means everything to me."

She felt him looking at her this time, pleading with her to give him not a yes or no, but her honest answer. The simple fact that he wanted her honesty, her comfort, her happiness, even at the expense of his own desires, did not help suppress any feelings she may or may not have had for him. At very least he wanted her friendship and...right now even that wasn't a good idea. But she had a choice and it wasn't like she had all the time in the world to decide. She was either with him or she wasn't—it was simple but also difficult. On one hand, what did he do to not deserve a chance? On the other hand, she was engaged and would be married in a month. It seemed like an obvious choice but she only had a month left here. She had just one month left to have a chance to ever be with him. Why pass it up? She wouldn't have this opportunity again anyway...

Marco put a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay if you don't want—"

But she absolutely refused to let him finish that sentence, to let him say that he might not be good enough for her or even to let him think that.

She grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him to her lips, forming a highly effective muzzle. These kisses would be the last they ever shared...

A/N

Well everyone, thanks to an AWESOME virus on my computer that gradually gets worse as the days move on, a couple of things you should know:

-I can no longer do review replies because it won't open both the reviews tab and the documents tab at the same time.

-It takes FOREVER to load any PMs you send so I only rarely check those.

-I am still able to read every single review you write.

-I still love you all!

-I really hope this chapter was...satisfactory, at the very least. I feel like I may have made Marco a little TOO bold last chapter, like he just expected Star to be hid girlfriend right then and there without giving any thought into what he was doing. So I tried to make up for it in this chapter. I also wanted to show Star's growing concern with these sudden complications threatening to mess up her plan.

-If this chapter sucked, please tell me!