This is the final chapter of Countdown to Regionals.

Before I do anything else, I want to sincerely thank everyone who has ever read this story, and to especially thank the people who have left me reviews. This was the first time that I've ever attempted a project of this size, and also the first time that I've ever finished a novel and been happy with the results. And as cheesy as it sounds, I really couldn't have done it without the encouragement that you all have given me – and I especially couldn't have done it without my amazing beta, Tuuzmorado, who has been absolutely wonderful to work with. I couldn't have asked for a better beta or a better friend.

(Okay, the cheesy, sentimental stuff is done.)

I have several other stories that I'm working on right now. My first order of business is to complete all of my unfinished stories. After that, I have a few different projects in mind, so I'm not sure what I'll post next. The one thing that I can guarantee is that I intend to write a lot over the next few months, so there should be new stories posted soon.

Monday morning, Sam and Blaine got to school early for a Glee rehearsal. Sam glanced up just as Blaine was pulling into the parking lot. "Okay, I looked up the Cheerio website," Sam said, waving Blaine's phone for emphasis, which Sam had been using to surf the Internet the whole way here. "Sue resigned from the competition. And guess what?"

"What?" Blaine asked, a grin already forming on his face.

"She's claiming that the whole team competed while hypnotized," Sam said.

Blaine glanced over at Sam, raising his eyebrows in disbelief. "Seriously?"

Sam nodded. "I'm totally serious, dude," he said. "She said that- Wait, let me read it to you." He looked down at the phone, scrolling through the article until he found the part that he wanted. "Okay, Sue said that – and these are her exact words – 'Unbeknownst to me, one of my cheerleaders had decided to use the slicked-down hair on his ridiculously-shiny head to hypnotize the rest of my cheerleading squad. As he is a strangely-charming munchkin, and the mental state of my Cheerios made them easily-susceptible to suggestions, it was easy for him to convince my Cheerios that they were secretly the Avengers, or whatever nerdy superhero thing that the kids are into these days.' She goes on for like three more pages." Sam looked back up at Blaine. "Point is, she claimed that you hypnotized the entire Cheerio squad into thinking that they had superpowers so that they'd perform better."

By now, the car was parked, and Blaine had turned in his seat to stare at Sam. His mouth opened, then closed, like he couldn't even find the words. It took all of Sam's willpower not to burst out laughing at the completely stupefied look on Blaine's face.

Well, Sam mostly kept himself from laughing. He might have giggled a little bit, though.

"Does she seriously think that people will believe that?" Blaine finally asked.

"Don't know," Sam said with a shrug. "They did take the trophy away from her and gave it to some team from Indiana, though, so I guess it worked. And don't worry about the fact that she basically blamed you for this," Sam added, knowing that Blaine would probably ask about that next. "Apparently there's nothing in the rules that says that you can't hypnotize your Cheerios, so I guess that could be an actual strategy. Sue just claimed that she felt like that wasn't fair, and that she wouldn't feel right about accepting the win now that she knows the truth."

Blaine thought about that for a minute, then relaxed, even started to laugh. "I should have figured that she'd still end up blaming me for this," he said with a chuckle. "What do you want to bet that she'll find some way to attack me at least three more times before we graduate?"

"No deal," Sam said immediately. "You know that it's going to happen." He glanced back down at the article, and snorted. "'Strangely-charming munchkin.' That is the most perfect description of you that I have ever heard."

"Hey!" Blaine protested. "That's not true."

Sam raised his eyebrows at him. "No?" he asked. "What if I said 'strangely-charming and attractive munchkin'? Does that make it better."

Blaine grinned. "I guess I'll take what I can get," he said, then leaned forward to give Sam a quick kiss. Which was something that they'd been doing a lot since Saturday, and Sam got the feeling that they weren't going to slow down any time soon.

Kissing Blaine had pretty much become Sam's favorite thing in the world.

After a couple of seconds, Blaine pulled away. "We should probably get inside if we want to be on time for Glee."

Sam was kind of tempted to say forget it, they could be late. But instead, he nodded. "Yeah," he said, and glanced toward the school.

He'd already done a pretty good job of coming out when he'd kissed Blaine on stage Saturday. And with Bobby out of power, he didn't have any reason to be nervous about that. He didn't think that anyone else would give him a hard time about it.

But he still kind of was. Maybe just a little.

Blaine must have picked up on that, because he reached over and put his hand on Sam's knee, giving it a little squeeze. "Hey," he said. "You okay?"

Sam turned back toward Blaine and nodded once, determined. "Yeah, I'm good," he said. And he would be.

"If you're sure," Blaine said with a smile. He lifted his hand to the side of Sam's face, running his fingers though Sam's hair in a way that felt completely awesome. Blaine leaned closer, and so did Sam, thinking that Blaine was moving in for another kiss, which Sam would totally be cool with.

Instead, Blaine smiled and said, "I love you."

Sam stopped, his face just inches away from Blaine's. "What?"

Blaine's smile widened. "You told me to wait until I was sure that I meant it, remember?" he said. "Well, I did. And I do." He tilted his head slightly and gave a little shrug. "I could have said it a while ago, but I got the feeling that you'd be happier if I waited until we were really, actually dating. But I mean it."

Sam relaxed and grinned back. "I love you, too, dude," he said.

Both of them moved forward for another kiss. And they would have gotten one, too, if something hadn't slammed against the car window, making both of them flinch so badly that their heads almost banged together.

Sam turned around quickly, and saw Kitty standing outside his window. She smirked, and slammed her hand against the window a second time. Blaine rolled down the window, and she leaned against the side of the car, looking way too pleased with herself. "Sorry to interrupt your little love fest, but I figured I'd better rip you apart from each other before you fused together at the lips."

"Hey, we weren't kissing that much!" Sam protested.

Kitty raised one eyebrow. "Yeah, but you two were the ones who snuck away from Mr. Schue's wedding on Saturday to go make out in an empty classroom. I decided to cut you off before you got started."

Sam grimaced and ducked his head. Okay, that had happened. And Kurt had been the one to find them, which would have been really awkward even if Kurt hadn't winked and congratulated them before walking away. But Sam had waited three weeks to be able to kiss Blaine again, so he figured that it was entirely justified.

Plus, it wasn't like they'd ditched the wedding right away. They'd waited until after the toast to Mr. and Mrs. Schue, at least. And in their defense, they'd thought that they wouldn't get caught.

"Okay, okay, we're coming," Blaine said, unbuckling his seatbelt and climbing out of the car. Sam sighed but did the same, since he figured that Kitty wasn't going to leave them alone any time soon.

They told Kitty about Sue's story while they walked toward the school, and she seemed just as amused by it as Sam was. (Also, she totally agreed with him about the "strangely-charming munchkin" thing.) Sam held open the door for the two of them, and they all walked into the school, heading for the choir room. They didn't make it more than three steps before Tina ran over to them.

"I was just at Figgins' office," she said, going up next to Blaine and taking his hand (and pushing Kitty out of the way in the process). "They just got done punishing Bobby."

"And?" Sam asked.

Tina grinned. "One week suspension, and he's been kicked off the soccer team permanently," she said. "They threatened to expel him if he gets into any more trouble. And anyone from the soccer team who helped him out has to serve a week of detention to make up for it."

Blaine frowned. "How do they even know who helped Bobby and who didn't?"

"Apparently Craig started naming names," Tina said with a shrug. "Including his own. I guess he wanted to avoid getting into worse trouble."

Kitty frowned, sticking one hand on her hip. "You know, Ryder was right," she said. "That doesn't seem like much of a punishment, considering everything that he did."

Blaine started to answer, but Sam beat him to it. "No, this is good," he said.

Honestly, when he thought back on everything that Bobby had done, he still got pissed off. And part of him did kind of want to go get some other form of revenge, make Bobby pay for everything that he'd done.

But, well, what was the point of thinking about that? Bobby had been punished, and he wasn't going to do anything to Sam again. And Sam figured that if he focused on all of the bad stuff, all it'd do is make him bitter and unhappy. So he wanted to focus on the good stuff and forget that Bobby had even existed.

He took Blaine's hand and smiled. "So, what do you want to bet that Mr. Schue is already calling this meeting to talk about what we're going to do for Nationals?"

Kitty snorted. "Please, that man in obsessed. He probably spent his honeymoon thinking about which songs he wants us to sing."

"Even though we're not going to actually decide our set list until less than a week before the competition," Tina added.

"Still," Blaine said, "I'm looking forward to seeing what the theme is this week."

"Me, too," Sam agreed.

Kitty shrugged, flicking her ponytail over her shoulder. "Okay, I guess I am, too."

"Same," Tina said.

Sam grinned around at all of his friends. Now that he thought about it, he really was excited to get back to normal club assignments, and to prepare for Nationals, even though it was so far away. After all the craziness of the last few weeks, getting back to normal was exactly what he wanted.

Except that he and Blaine were together now. Really, truly, officially together, and everyone knew it. So things were better than normal.

The four of them glanced at each other, all of them grinning just as much as Sam was. Then they stepped into the choir room and went to go take their seats.