I can still remember the first time we kissed.

We were just barely done with the mess that is the teenage years, I believe. It was during October, in England.

She was looking for a friend of her mother's that probably didn't exist, and I was looking for the old lady that my father had said delivered me; she was looking for someone that had probably never existed, and I was on a snipe hunt for a woman all too likely to be long dead. Two young adults on a wild goose chase; we both found something we never expected to find.

It was raining, as it is prone to do in England in the fall. It wasn't any sort of sprinkling, though. This was droplets that fell like bullets, except they splashed apart just when you thought you were going to die. This was a heavy rain that my grandparents liked to tell me half-jokingly to go out with soap and take a shower in.

I ended up mentioning, as we were sitting on my friend John's screened-in front porch, listening as the water-bullets fell, how my mother had told me once, when I was very, very small, that this hard, drenching rain was God's way of cleansing all the evil from the world, like He was trying to frighten the demons away with the threat of another worldwide flood. She looked at me the way she usually did whenever I opened my mouth to speak; surprise, wonder, and finally understanding; ending, in this case, with a mischevious curiosity.

The next sound I heard was the old porch door slam as she ran, crazily, desperately, into the bucketing rain, and jumped into the path of the wrath of the Almighty with a mighty leap.

And she laughed.

And, like the fool I am, I followed her. I ran, sliding over the wet grass over to the sidewalk, where she was standing, still in her pink minidress and magenta bow that, for some reason, she still wore, still looked adorable in. Rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet like a five-year-old, she gave me a shy, coy grin.

That was the moment I completely screwed myself over, by the way. If you're wondering. The exact moment that I fell completely head-over-heels for my younger brother's girlfriend, and by virtue doomed all three of us to several years of misery before it was all figured out, can be found, described right here in this account as I watched her bat her deep blue eyes at me and giggle, softly.

For the reasons described directly above, I smiled, probably looking like a mental patient with a bad concussion on a lethal dose of nitrous oxide, but it was for all intents and purposes a smile. I smirked my way over to her side, and made a ridiculously-overdone bow, reaching for her hand and eying her from a much lower angle than I was used to.

She laughed; I thought, or hoped, that she was blushing, but it was difficult to tell. She took my hand.

And we danced together. In the pouring rain, with our hair getting in our eyes and every article of clothing drenched, we twirled and spun each other, shuffling awkwardly until we found a match in our rhythmn, and then swaying, dipping, and spinning with reckless abandon. We were both laughing from the energy that is offset whenever a barrier of non-communication is broken. We were high off of our own lack of inhibitions, drunk on the forgotten beauty of the world, and the mysticism of things not created by human hands.

As our energy was spent, so seemed to be the graceful young woman's body heat; she clung to my shirt with an offhand remark of "You're warm; your brother's never warm."

I stood with her holding onto my chest like I was a teddy bear, and I made the best, or worst, decision of my life.

Slowly, slowly, as not to shatter this incredibly beautiful, unbelievably fragile moment, I streched my arms around her, holding her waist and embracing her back as she made serious attempts to disappear into my already-flimsy shirt. For some reason, we were still dancing together; swaying back and forth in the rain that showed no sign of letting up, the only light that of the streetlamp down the block.

For some reason, which I cannot explain at the moment, I realized that she was carefully pulling her head off of my shoulder, in almost the same manner as I had attempted to further our embrace; she was doing it as slowly as she could, so that she could look me in the eyes, but not break any other contact.

And she seemed to be trying to figure something out. She was searching my face for... Something. Reassurance. Or encouragement. I don't know.

But I did what I could; offering a small smile, that I think was trying to simltaneously reassure her that this wasn't going to go anywhere, and say that it was all right if it did go somewhere (which I most definitely wanted it to, but I didn't want her to know that.)

Somehow, it worked. I've been wonderful at nonverbal communication for a long, long time; it's a gift. But this has to be the most triumphant example.

Because as soon as she saw that smile, her entire body relaxed in my arms, and with her eyelids half-closed, she lifted herself up to her toes and she kissed me.

I was left in shock.

Unbelievable, isn't it, that my brain would decide to short-circuit at such a critical moment? She pulled away, her eyes widening at what she had just done, her mouth opening for an apology as the rest of her face did the most heart-wrenching imitation of a kicked kitten I had ever seen.

That apology never left her mouth.

I tilted myself downward, my eyes closing almost involuntarily as I kissed her this time, as gently and as easily and as wonderfully as she had me.

I can imagine, at this point, some old woman walking down the streets with a battered umbrella, seeing two teenagers, or young adults, however old we were, kissing urgently in the rain, and thinking we were crazy- and I can definitely see her logic. But she didn't know the half of it.

The oddest thing wasn't that we were liplocked on a cracked sidewalk in London completely oblivious to the rain, and it wasn't that a near-grown young lady was still wearing a mini-dress befitting of a twelve-year-old.

It was that this was the resourceful, intelligent, brave, kind, witty, seven-kinds-of-beautiful girl who had been pining after my brother since we were ten. It was that we had been friends for years, with no feelings of this kind going on at all (not reciprocated, at least).

It was that somehow, through a miracle or some providential glitch in the workings of the Universe, I was holding onto the slim, strong body of my old neighbor, running my hands through her hair, and feeling her working her fingers through mine as well, with every pent-up feeling I'd had since I'd even noticed the girl coursing through my body, and even though she was still technically my brother's, when we broke apart, I saw in her eyes.

She was in this with me, just as deeply as I was with her.

I had never, ever allowed myself to fall in love with someone who might actually feel with the same depth I did. I wasn't ready to risk it. But God, I how I had hoped she would be the one.

I saw her nervous grin, one that spoke volumes; saying simultaneously "I care about you way, way too much", "I'm scared", "What if someone finds out", and, probably the most important, "I trust you".

The words "I trust you" are funny things; they can mean more than "I love you" if you mean them in just the right way.

I'd like to think she meant them in that way.

I kissed her forehead, laying my cheek over her sleek black hair, and rubbing her back softly.

Translation:

"I care just as deeply, and if this comes back at us, at least I'm just as invested as you are"

"I can't believe we're doing this"

"I can only wish that this had happened sooner"

And, most importantly,

"It'll all be okay, because I trust you, too".

Wow.

Just... Wow.

I wrote the rough draft of this, about 1,300 words, in just under an hour and a half. At one in the morning. At my grandmother's house. While my younger brother was watching "Across the Universe" in the other room. (My musical inspiration was "Something".)

I can't believe I'm publishing this, but yeah. This is yet another Ferbella semi-drabble, in case you hadn't figured it out yet. From Ferb's POV. I don't know why it's in italics. It just didn't look right without them. I think it's a flashback, and it may correlate to my "Chains Of Fate" spinoff chapter. (If you haven't read the story, and you liked my story We're All We've Got, read it; it's a thousand times better than mine, and I just hope my spinoff chappie lives up to Phoenix's great name.) Okay, random plug over. But really, I think it does somehow come from the same place, that of hope in a ruined world, proof that love can exist in the most hopeless situations. And... Sappy romantic crap like that. You know.

I'm currently in the process of re-writing WAWG. So, yeah. Just wanted to let y'all know.

Reviews are love, constructive criticism makes me happier than food (and I haven't eaten anything but sunflower seeds in, like, a day and a half), pairing flames make me laugh. So, anything's good. Just HIT THE BUTTON OR I WILL DIE.

Hugs and stab wounds,

SunsetOfDoom