My French is super dodgy so apologies, but voila la finite. I think.

I'm going to answer reviews at the end of the chapter, but thankyou so much for reading this. I can't express how much it means to me.

"Where are you taking me?" she giggled, trying to pull his hands away from her eyes as he pulled her eagerly, puppylike, along the grassy earth. Of course, she didn't really want him to take his hands away; didn't really want him to tell her where they were going. It was going to a surprise. She was ever so excited.

"Just wait and see."

They stumbled onwards for a while, laughter and the occasional inconsequential misstep punctuating the cool air of early spring. It had been three months since Sid's accident, and they were happy enough, okay enough. He was pretty much completely well now, and she had been getting the mental health help she needed. Nothing was perfect and Cassie was beginning to understand that it never would be. But it was close enough. Close enough for now.

"Okay. We're here." Gently, he removed his hands from her eyes, and she opened them to see - well, nothing special. Fairly high up, but it wasn't a particularly impressive hill. She looked around her dispassionately, then turned back to him with a teasingly cynical tone in her voice.

"Impressive, Sidney."

He looked rather sheepish. "Well, I know it's not much. But I wanted to, like, take you up a hill. Or something. And I went on Wikipedia and it said this was the highest point in Albany." He raised his hands to read smudged, blue writing. "The highest natural point in Albany is a USGS benchmark near the - er, the Loudo-something Reservoir - off Birch Hill Road, at 378 feet open bracket 115 metres close bracket above sea level." She couldn't help but laugh.

"Why'd you want to take me up a hill?"

"I dunno. To be like, motivational and that?"

"Right." And then, the hint of teasing entered her voice again. "So, do we have a motivational speech to go with this highly motivational location?" At this statement, he assumed an expression scarily akin to 'very proud of myself'.

"Well, actually, right, I do. Kind of. I have this sort of suggestion." She raised an eyebrow, but couldn't resist giggling again. "I was remembering what you said about us not belonging anywhere, you know?" He obviously wanted assent at this, so she nodded, although the memory of that incident - and the emotions that had provoked it - caused a pang in her chest. "And I thought, well, you don't want to, like, settle where you don't belong. So we could not settle anywhere. Just go everywhere. All over America. Get little jobs. Just be teenagers forever, and go clubbing, but actually rent flats and stuff and go lots of places instead of shitty dumpy Albany."

"Albany's not shitty and dumpy."

"No, but like, the place we're staying is."

Again, she had to laugh at that. "Yeah." Pause. "How is travelling going to sort out the fact that our relationship is shitty?"

"Well, we're free souls, and all, aren't we?"

"Sid - " But she didn't know quite what she was going to say, so she broke off. His point wasn't particularly good but that didn't change the fact that she couldn't think of a retort, so she just attempted to raise her eyebrows meaningfully, but that didn't really work. "Sid - " And again she was broken off, but not by herself this time. He had kissed her, very softly, and that made her smile.

"Trust me this once, alright, Cass? 'Cause I'm not as dumb as everyone always thinks. And if it doesn't work you can bugger off and run away like you always do, but for now, I thought maybe we could just... run away together. Okay?"

Run away together. Had he (or anyone else) ever said something that beautiful to her? "Okay," she agreed, breath gone a little for some reason, and somehow her hand found his. That was right. That was good. Their hands, like they themselves, always found their way to one another in the ends. Twin souls, perhaps. Perfectly complementary. They were right for each other, she realised in that moment, and the thought comforted her.

"So that's why I brought you here. So you could be high up and look out, and like, see lots. And just think that everything you can see, well, we're gonna see more, you and me. We're gonna see everything, just because we can. So it may not look like much but it's sort of beautiful when you think about it. In like, an abstract way."

"Yeah," she said, and looked at it again, with those fresh eyes that he had given to her, and she saw then all the beauty there was in it.

"Wow, Sid. It's lovely."

Maybe the ending was sickly sweet for you, but honestly, I gave them such a rough ride in this story that I just wanted a happy little epilogue. If you'd rather I'd left it bleak, you can pretend it finished about three Microsoft Word pages into the last chapter... ! I also wanted to link it to Pure and this supplies the travelling part if not the... well... rest.

So that's the end of that story but it won't be the end of me, hopefully. I intend to write. Lots.

Thankyou all so much for your support, it's been really lovely to have. And I guess from now on I'll have to reply to reviews personally if I'm lucky enough to get them? I don't know.

mynameislizzie - oh, my gosh, thankyou so much, that was so lovely to hear. So I've done my thing. Now you can have the happy ending ;)

Cuthbert72 - I guess I've already replied to your review via PM, but again, thankyou. As always your observations about Sid and Cassie are so thoughtful and yes, I have to agree. It is sort of horrible that a near-fatality was what it took, but I'm a sort of horrible person.

oldandgray - ... maybe not? I don't know. I'm not the person to ask. Thankyou for your support, anyway!

cassielove - thankyou so much and I hope you enjoy the rest of the story, too!