She was crying, she knew, as she said it, because he was kneeling in front of her and he was looking at her like that and he loved her he loved her he loved her so unconditionally, and always did even when she pushed him away; even when he thought that she would never love him back and wasn't that what real love was in the end, admiring the constellations while thinking that the stars would never comprehend that you existed?

He loved her so deeply she didn't know what to do with herself, but suddenly all she wanted was to love him back.

He was right, there was no telling how much time they had left; and wasn't that the thing that should motivate her more to do what she wanted? Because she knew, she knew too well from watching Stiles die in front of her- she was in too deep, too, despite never having really been with him. It didn't matter if they kept toeing the line between friends and lovers forever- when it came to Stiles, there was no line, there was no way to describe what he meant to her anymore.

What was kissing or sex or relationship statuses in the grand scheme of things? Compared to thrilling light touches and significant glances and tight hugs that felt like coming home and constant support that had persisted through years and years? There was no taking that away.

And Lydia acknowledged to herself right now, that she really didn't want to.

His head lifted, golden eyes meeting green. His throat worked a few times. "Can I kiss you?" His voice was tentative.

Her voice was barely there but her heart leapt with anticipation. "Yes."

His eyes brightened. He rose and she leaned down and their noses bumped a little awkwardly but in the end they got it right, lips meeting softly in the middle.

She removed a hand from his hair to place it on his jaw, stroking his cheekbone with her thumb, and she felt the tremor that shook through him, but his hands stayed in their place on her knees.

His kiss was almost too careful, too deliberate, like he was still trying to push unspoken reassurances into it. And she kissed right back with some reassurances of her own. It was sweet, meaningful, and felt like an entire conversation so that when they broke away, there were no further words needed.

He settled back on his heels as they stared at each other, breathing heavily.

"What now?" he asked hesitantly.

She shrugged, not really caring as her hand slid slowly off his jaw. She was done being afraid, and as long as he was looking at her like that, she thought she might never be.

He swallowed, and she saw his gaze dart down and back up before quite suddenly, he was standing up, looking flustered. "Maybe… you know what, you're probably tired from your presentation, I should come back tomorrow."

She felt disappointed, but if that was what he wanted, to take it slow, then she understood. She'd certainly put him through enough already. She hugged the couch pillow to her chest. "Okay."

He nodded fast, ran a hand quickly through his hair, nodded again as if deciding on something. He was three steps to the door when he stopped, whipped around, asked almost timidly: "Can I kiss you again?"

Lydia, laughing, barely had time to nod before his lips were crushed against hers again. She snagged his collar and wrenched him closer. Somehow during the course of the kiss he had made his way onto the couch seat next to her, leaning into her but hands meekly placed on the couch cushion on either side of her.

She broke away just enough to say, "Touch me," and it seemed that was all he needed to hear; those hands were carefully un-tucking her blouse from her skirt as he mouthed wetly at her neck.

She arched her body into him, closing her eyes to the sensation of his large, warm hands sliding under the material of her shirt, splaying hotly on her skin. How many times had she fantasized about his hands? About how his tongue would feel brushing against her skin? How soft his hair would feel when she ran her fingers through it?

In the midst of a Stiles-induced haze, she decided she wanted more.

She pushed him back, and he followed her lead, falling back onto the couch behind him, leaving Lydia on her hands and knees on top of him straddling his torso. His eyes looked almost glazed, lips wet and flushed red, hair sticking up every which way.

She liked it. A lot.

"I hate this shirt," she said conversationally, picking at the top button and brushing against his collarbone. His fingers, still on her waist under her blouse, twitched. "Not because it's plaid."

"Then why," he managed to get out.

She leaned in, so close that her lips were brushing against his ear. "Because it's still on you." And then because she was there, she bit his earlobe gently.

He groaned. "Fuck- Lyds- are you sure-?"

She hummed her assent, licking a path up his neck to his jaw.

His voice was ragged. "Shouldn't we- I don't know, go on a date or something before we start taking cl-" She interrupted him by rolling her hips casually over his (payback, frankly), and could have sworn his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he made a choking sound.

She smirked. "I think we're way past that, don't you?" He didn't even respond, and she began unbuttoning his shirt. When she got to the bottom, he lifted himself off the couch to help her take it off of him but curse him and his penchant for layering, because he still had a white tee. Still, at least she'd unveiled his arms, which were just as nicely toned as she remembered.

Now sitting up supported by one hand, he was back to kissing her, but she was determined. Her hands reached under the edge of the shirt and tugged up. He leaned back only to let her peel it off before he was immediately chasing her lips again. She'd fantasized about this too, dragging her fingernails down his toned stomach and hearing the little hitch in his breath in between kisses.

Then his hands were tentatively pulling at her shirt too, fingering the material as a question. She answered it by breaking away to lift her blouse off, tossing it behind the couch.

Their eye contact held for a moment more before his eyes drifted down to her chest. She didn't even wait for him to finish drinking her in before she said, plainly but rather more breathlessly than she had intended, "I want you. Right now."

His eyes immediately came back to her face, but he didn't say anything.

A shred of uncertainty nudged at her. "Unless you don't-"

He cut her off with a searing kiss, hands coming up to cup her breasts, thumbs idly stroking circles that drove her up the wall in the best way possible. "Are you insane," he breathed into her mouth. "Where?"

She barely got out, "my bedroom," because she honestly didn't want to have sex on the couch (this time anyway), when his hands lowered to the backs of her thighs, flexing a few times to get a good grip, and then he was standing up, picking her clean off the couch too.

Hmm. He was stronger than he looked.

He staggered immediately, forever cursed with balance issues; Lydia wrapped her legs around his waist and he righted himself.

He was impressively graceful after that. He hardly bumped her into anything as they navigated, but then again he'd been here so many times he probably knew the way by heart. They barely made it to Lydia's bedroom door before he was slamming her against the hallway wall, kisses sloppy and perfect. She winded her arms around his neck, rutting against him, trying to encourage him to go into the room because she wanted him so desperately and her body was waking up and realizing wait she had never had him before and at the moment it was all she wanted.

He didn't move, taking his time, and she rolled against him hard, finally getting a reaction.

"This isn't going to last if you keep doing stuff like that," he groaned, taking a moment to simply rest his forehead against hers.

A smile curled on her lips and she let one of her legs drop down to support her weight. "Then get down to business."

He took her words in a slightly different way than intended. "I can do that," he breathed, nodding rapidly. One of his hands immediately slid up her thigh, under her skirt that had bunched up around her waist, and she had barely a moment to realize oh god before his long fingers pushed her underwear aside and brushed her.

They both made some unintelligible sounds at the contact; Lydia could feel the rough pads of each of his fingers and she was burning up so much that it was almost painful. He seemed to take a moment to collect himself before those fingers dipped into her. Her head tipped to hit the wall, delirious.

He sighed a little, puff of air hitting her cheek. "God, Lydia, you're so…" Lydia was prepared for any number of words after that- wet or hot or tight or whatever he was going to say. What she was not prepared for was what he actually said, what he sighed wonderingly into her ear, "…beautiful." And her heart skipped a beat.

At least he couldn't hear it this time.

Stiles' forehead rested against hers, eyes closed as if in prayer, as he purposefully pumped his fingers, the rhythm pushing her against the wall with every unhurried stroke.

It felt incredible; Stiles with one hand tightly bracing her at the waist, the other knuckles-deep in her, warm and long and dimly she registered some incredibly obscene sounds. But after a bit of this hot smolder she hissed in frustration, feeling like what she wanted was just out of her grasp at his pace. She pulled the leg that was still hiked up on his waist a little higher, searching for the right angle. "Could you be any slower?"

"Challenge accepted," and his mischievous voice was unusually deep as he slowed impossibly more, and she was honestly going to smack him but then those long fingers were curling to hit a new spot that nearly made her eyes roll back, one hand yanking at his hair and the other grasping fruitlessly for purchase on the wall.

But, somewhat incoherently she was able to think to herself, she didn't want it to end like that; she wanted him inside her.

She told him as much.

And she'd never seen him move so fast; seconds later they were collapsing on her bed.

He was out of breath on top of her, balanced on his hands and knees, and then his hand came up and he sucked his fingers almost absentmindedly, not breaking eye contact.

That was it. "Now," she inarticulately managed, and it took a minute and a fair bit of fumbling, but they were finally fully unclothed and still slowly, languidly kissing, Lydia now straddling him, urgency disappeared but a slow, deep burning sensation taking over instead.

But before anything could happen, he stopped her. "Wait."

She paused.

His hand reached up, behind her head, and she had no idea what he was doing. Until he carefully pulled the pins from her bun, one by one, his gaze boring intensely into hers not once even looking away. She felt strangely more breathless by this action than any of the sexier ones before it, felt more stripped bare by his expression than by the fact that she was naked.

Her long hair tumbled away from the nape of her neck, falling into her peripheral vision, and he dropped those pins- she heard them tumble onto the floor for them to find later. Automatically, she reared her head back to shake her hair out, and when she focused her attention back down at him, he was smiling almost peacefully.

"There," he said. "Now it's perfect."

It was.

But it was more, too. She'd had sex countless times, but there was more than pleasure welling up in her, there was contentment of the emotional kind. And she felt, skin to skin with Stiles Stilinski, like she finally knew what making love meant.

At some point, he rolled them over and she let him set her gently into the sheets, and his movement wasn't fast or urgent; no, it was slow and deliberate, arm braced beside her head shaking with the effort of keeping it that way while he lowered his face into the crook of her neck, breathed her in; and it was causing a different kind of burn in her, her toes curling around the sheets.

He paused to lift a hand to hook her leg onto his hip and- oh. Suddenly the burn had a purpose, and she was hurtling towards her peak.

And at the end of that road, he was pressing a kiss to her cheekbone and then all he said, simply, was, "Lydia," like her name was the beginning and end of everything, and all she could do was respond in kind.

And after all that, it was kind of perfect too; and Lydia, drunk with happiness, thought this was it, this was the best sex she'd ever have because it was more than sex.

(The second time was better.)

They lay tangled in the sheets silently for a long while, turned on their sides facing each other, legs intertwined; his arm was thrown over her shoulders and at some point he'd pulled the blanket over them, too.

She snuggled into him, fitting her head into the crook of his neck where it always fit so perfectly when they hugged, and his chin rested lightly on the top of her head.

Out of nowhere, he said, "So. That was fun." She could hear the smile pulling at his lips.

She closed her eyes and snuggled closer.

"I can't believe I had sex with Lydia Martin," he grinned, sounding overly awe-struck.

"Shut up." But she thought about it, the progression of their relationship, and mused, "We did everything backwards."

"Um, you did maybe, I certainly did not," He replied dreamily into her hair. "I met you, got a crush on you, fell in love with you, took you to a dance, kissed you, and then we had sex on your extremely comfy bed."

"There were years between all those events."

"Yeah, but the point is they happened in order," Stiles retorted, poking her in the shoulder. She rolled her eyes. They were silent for a while more.

"Will you be my girlfriend?" he blurted suddenly.

She opened one eye, bemused. He actually looked expectant. "I thought that was a given," she said dryly.

He let out a breath and his beam was bright, adorably lopsided, cheekbones poking out. "So can I call you my girlfriend in public."

"Only if I get to call you my boyfriend," Lydia replied, trying to sound offhand and failing, blushing even as she said it because she could sit straight-faced through the most filthy dirty talk but when it came to normal couple-y things she couldn't help but get flustered.

"Oh my god, say that again."

She rolled her eyes. "You're my boyfriend." And yet, the words sent a small thrill to her own chest as well.

"Aaah." His hand beneath the covers rubbed tenderly at the small of her back before pressing her closer, and he closed his eyes as the words washed over him, grin widening. "That's how I'm going to introduce myself from now on. Hello my name is Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin's boyfriend. May I take your fucking order?"

Lydia giggled a bit into his shoulder, feeling ridiculously happy, and impulsively raised her head to kiss him.

His lips readily met hers, and she felt like she was home right here.

His stomach growled.

"Oh my god," he muttered into her mouth before pulling away. "I can't believe this."

She laughed. "Are you hungry?"

His eyes darkened and she was rather puzzled as to why until he spoke. "That depends. Dessert first?" His voice was mischievous, velvety.

Her insides flip-flopped at the thought of his dark head nestled between her thighs, but there was time for that. "No," she said firmly. "Real food first." Now that she thought about it, she was quite hungry, too. She hadn't exactly been eating well getting prepared for her presentation for the last few days.

He accepted that with a single blink. "Okay."

"I want blueberry waffles." The words tumbled out of her mouth before she had even thought about them. There was barely a pause before he answered.

"It's dinnertime and you want sugary stuff?"

She shrugged, relieved he hadn't made a comment. "Well, I guess we are having dessert first, then. In a sense."

He laughed. "Oh, you're funny, Lydia Martin. Fine!" Quite abruptly, he was sitting up in bed and she was mesmerized by the dimples in his shoulders. "Waffles it is."

As it turned out, they had blueberry pancakes ("Lydia, you can't make waffles without a waffle iron."). Lydia had insisted adamantly to help him cook, and now here they were, eating at Lydia' little kitchen table in their shabbiest clothes.

His hair was messy; he wore only his white tee from earlier and gray sweatpants slung low on his hips (When they had been cooking Lydia silently counted her blessings every time he turned around, because… his ass. Ahem.). In other words he looked like sex on a stick.

Also like the most adorable man to have ever existed, she noted as he drowned his pancakes in syrup. She wondered briefly how such a dichotomy was possible.

Meanwhile he was grinning at her, taking in her appearance with darkened eyes. She'd put on his flannel that he'd left on the couch, and it was long enough to cover her to mid-thigh. She wanted to say she'd done it out of a sense of irony but that wasn't really true.

The real reason was simple. It smelled like Stiles.

She suddenly realized his maple syrup was overflowing in the plate. "Stiles, I think that's enough syrup."

He looked down and started, fumbling the bottle upright and nearly tipping it completely over in the process before handing it slowly to her. She accepted it with exaggerated carefulness.

He smiled softly at her act of teasing. And then, out of the blue: "Why blueberry waffles, by the way?"

She took her time looking up. He was watching her warily. Like maybe he already had a pretty good guess.

She looked back at her plate, stabbing a piece of pancake with her fork. "Just because."

They both knew that wasn't true. But it was still an answer- and he knew how to read her better than anyone, so she wasn't surprised that he understood exactly.

His hand snaked out to rest on hers that was resting on the table, and it was a comforting weight. "We're going to buy you a waffle iron later," he promised, and just like that, any tension that had mounted had disappeared.

So they ate, and it was just like any other time they did something together because that was how they had always been.

Except it was a little different- like how Stiles tried to sneak a strawberry from her plate, and she smacked his hand away and popped the strawberry in her own mouth, and he leaned forward and kissed her hard but it turned out to be a ploy to taste the strawberry. But Lydia didn't mind.

She didn't mind that they ended up talking - talking about Lydia's presentation, and Stiles' job hunt, and then arguing over mindless, inane things- like whether plaid was, in fact, objectively fashionable (Lydia maintained it wasn't) and then over whether orange and blue were actually a good combination (it was a draw). Their conversations were like it was any normal day. But it wasn't- it was better.

They were washing dishes, Stiles forearms-deep in soapy water and Lydia slowly swiping plates with a dishtowel, when Lydia was struck with the desire to go outside into the evening because she'd been cooped up in here far too long with her work, and there was no one she'd rather venture out with but him. "Let's go somewhere," she suggested suddenly.

He froze, arms pausing in their scrubbing. "Like a date? You're asking me on a date is that correct or am I just reaching?"

She laughed because yes, she supposed she was, and she was remembering something the other Stiles had told her a lifetime ago; and it was the first time, markedly, that she was thinking of him without a pang in her stomach. "Unless you take issue with that."

He resumed scrubbing a little faster now, voice almost nonchalant. "I literally can't think of anything better than a date with Lydia Martin."

"What about the Mets?" One of her eyebrows quirked up.

He sighed in an over exaggerated way as he handed her the last dish. "You got me there." She hit him in the arm with the dish towel.

"Ouch," he yelped, rubbing his arm. "Okay, I'm sorry. Going on a date with you has been like, my biggest dream since grade three. Actually, more like grade four, because my biggest dream in grade three was marrying you but then I became a realist. Kind of. Oh god that's creepy isn't it? That's definitely creepy. I-"

"I already knew that," Lydia said with amusement, because he hadn't exactly been subtle in the earlier years of knowing each other. He sighed in relief, dried his hands and leaned in to kiss her, lips lingering.

"Girl of my dreams," he murmured, tugging her close. "Literally. No idea how I got so lucky."

She had to wonder- Why did he always assume she was anything less than crazy about him? She was going to have to work on correcting these notions.

"Same," she replied.

He looked at her, pulling away in surprise.

She felt a little self-conscious so she tugged at his arm. "Let's go."

The moment was quickly forgotten, to her relief. "Where to?"

"Wherever." She hadn't actually thought that far.

He looked like he was thinking it over. "But we already ate."

"I didn't say dinner," she pointed out. She didn't even want fancy dinner right now. She wanted something normal, something domestic, something well within the realm of possibility because she'd seen too much of things that were otherwise.

He acknowledged that. "Okay. Dealer's choice?"

It was bizarre, but they ended up going to the grocery store. She soon found out that he reverted back to an attention-deficient child in such a place.

They'd changed clothes, obviously- Lydia into a cute puff-sleeved red dress and hair in a loose braid, and Stiles into a Henley and jeans, although his hair was still sticking up from where Lydia had run her hands through it. She didn't tell him though, because she liked looking at her handiwork.

They held hands as they roamed through the aisles, and it wasn't like they hadn't held hands before, but now it was different. Because now everyone who glanced over them and labeled them a couple weren't wrong. Now they were a couple.

The thought made Lydia absurdly happy.

Presently, Stiles was tapping away one-handed on his phone, brow furrowed.

"Who are you talking to?" Lydia asked, bumping her shoulder into his arm and swinging the basket with every step.

He finished typing and sent the text, shoving the phone into his back pocket. "Scott. I'm telling him how my first date with you is to a grocery store."

She bit her lip at his indecipherable tone of voice. "Stiles, it was too late for dinner and I needed groceries, but we can go-"

He cut her off. "It's perfect." He was grinning like a loon so Lydia felt better about it. Suddenly he was craning his neck over their shoulders. "Oooh Lydia, look there's Lunchables on sale, can we get Lunchables?"

"Stiles, we're adults who can both cook and those things are full of preservatives and have hardly any nutritional value. We are not getting Lunchables."

"Lydiaaaa…" he whined, tugging at her hand, and suddenly his attention was diverted. "Oh my god, Fruit Roll Ups."

Eventually Lydia cracked and tossed the Dunkaroos he'd been eyeing at the time into the basket. He immediately insisted on holding the groceries.

"I am perfectly capable of-"

"I want to, though," and he melted her completely with that tone of voice, so she handed the basket off without another comment and when he straightened she pecked a lingering kiss to his cheek so he was blushing faintly when he was back at full height.

They wandered through dairy and the bakery, picking up milk and eggs and bread and other necessities. Stiles got a little distracted in the seafood department, entranced by the crabs in the tank for a full minute before Lydia tugged his arm forward

At the check-out Stiles snagged a two packages of Reese cups, winking at her as he tossed them on the conveyor belt. She didn't say a thing. She wanted a Reese cup.

"Hi there," intoned the cashier, a middle-aged woman, "how are you?"

"Good, thanks," Lydia started to say, but Stiles cut in. "Excellent. This is my girlfriend, Lydia Martin. Isn't she beautiful?"

Lydia covered her mouth to hold back a giggle. The people behind them in line were staring quizzically at Stiles. The cashier seemed unfazed, even breaking out into an indulgent smile.

"She is."

"Practically a goddess," Stiles agreed with a nod.

Lydia elbowed him, feeling a slight flush blossoming on her cheeks as she fished through her purse for her wallet. "My boyfriend isn't so bad either."

"He's not," the cashier agreed sagely. The line behind them tittered- Lydia heard a girl whisper "He's so cute," to her friend, but thought it would probably spoil the mood if she fixed her with a murderous glare so instead opted to pay for the groceries in record time.

They hadn't gotten more than halfway across the parking lot before Stiles threw his hands up dramatically. "Lydia, I totally forgot. We have to buy you a waffle iron."

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly, tugging him forward by the hand. She just wanted to get back in the Jeep with him and kiss him over the console and watch his profile as they drove around aimlessly and put her hand over his like a sappy teenager. "We'll buy it some other time."

He fell into step with her reluctantly, now sounding like he was in pure anguish. "This is important," he whined. "How am I supposed to make you waffles tomorrow?"

Lydia paused and he froze up, too. He'd just voice an assumption that Lydia had already unconsciously been thinking- that Stiles would stay the night. Was that jumping in too soon?

She shook herself immediately. Not soon enough, more like. Meanwhile he was already stuttering.

"I- I mean, what I mean by that is-"

"We'll have French toast," Lydia said smoothly, nodding to the grocery bag in his hand. He stared at her for a moment before breaking into a gentle grin and relaxed visibly as they stopped next to the Jeep.

"I love you," he said, and the words were unassuming, but stated as fact. His eyes were earnest and open like always, the truth of it shining from them, and although Lydia had already known, happiness swelled in her chest at hearing them again.

"Same," she said, echoing herself from earlier in the evening.

She saw him sifting those words over in his head, trying to decipher if it was a sassy or true comment. She saw the moment he stopped trying. Because she knew that to him, hearing it out loud didn't matter.

Instead he merely smiled brighter, sharp cheekbones casting prominent shadows on his face, and turned to open the back of the Jeep and toss the grocery bags inside.

As his back was turned, she realized maybe he never even expected to hear it from her. And in the end that was what made her say it, this murmured clarification:

"I do love you," and the words tumbled from her mouth so easily; she'd expected that she'd have to force them, not because they were untrue but because they made her oh so vulnerable. But, it wasn't the case at all. They fell from her lips like they'd been hovering in her throat since the day he blundered into her life.

He whipped around very fast at that, accidentally dropping one of the heavier bags with a dull clunk sound, but neither really cared at this moment. He blinked once,

twice,

thrice. Ran a hand over his mouth. Said nothing. They were left staring at each other with bated breath.

Stiles Stilinski was at a loss for words.

She saw when he finally registered it; registered that she was standing in front of him and not taking it back or trivializing it and that it was true and had been true for a very long time, and his tawny eyes glassed over with emotion.

She expected a kiss when he finally closed the small distance between them, but instead it was a hug; the same hug they had always shared, the constant throughout the years. He opened his arms silently and she knew this familiar dance so she stepped into it and rested her body against his warm, solid chest.

He rested his chin on the top of her head; her head fit comfortably in the crook between his shoulder and jaw. One hand of his in her hair tucked her closer, and the other rested on the small of her back; and one of hers was sandwiched between them and the other around his back.

He still didn't say a damn thing. His breath was steady in his chest but she could feel a shudder rippling in his body. She nestled closer into him.

"If I knew this would get you to shut up, I would have said it a long time ago," she whispered into his shoulder, trying not to sound too teary-eyed herself.

She heard him sniff a little into her hair. "Lydia, for the love of god, let me enjoy the moment."

It was more touching than a hug as defined was really supposed to be.

But then again, Lydia thought as she turned her nose into his throat and smiled into his shirt, that was how it had always been for them. Everything was amplified and yet calmed. What she felt for him was so overwhelming and yet the most comfortable thing she'd ever experienced.

And when he finally pulled away and they fell into each other's eyes all over again, Lydia silently noted that Stiles, too, looked absolutely beautiful when he cried.

Tears falling openly on both sides, he pressed his lips to hers with a smile still on his face, cradling her face with both hands and Lydia clutching desperately to the collar of his shirt, and they kissed while eclipsed in the dying light of a grocery store parking lot. And by now their lips had met so many times but Lydia could swear that each and every one was something new, something better than the last, and this one was perhaps the best.

It was that feeling- what was that feeling that Allison had described, so long ago? Of not being able to breathe until she was with Scott? And then, exasperated when Lydia with all her great intelligence failed to understand: You've had boyfriends. To which Lydia had replied shortly, None like that. Never like that. Except she'd been mistaken, hadn't she?

Stiles Stilinski had been in her life all along.

-x-

-x-

-x-

A/N:Phew. That was fun. The story is over, but I'll always be around writing fics and crying about things! feel free to message me on my tumblr at arrowcave . I love talking to you all, I don't care if its about witched or teen wolf in general or a prompt or any of my fandoms or even if it's just to say hi. :)

This fic has been a hell of a journey for me. Still can't believe I wrote 80k in under three months ( now if only I could apply some of that dedication/inspiration to my original stories… sigh, such is the way of life…), while in school this entire time. Of course, I think this good luck is majorly due to the support I got writing it. So much gratitude to the readers, the people who favourited or followed or just checked in every once in a while.

And while I really appreciate seeing the hit count increasing and things like that, really I can never be sure if anyone's actually reading it unless I get tangible feedback. And that's why reviews, comments, messages have been so important to this story's completion. Man, you guys inspire me. I am not kidding when I say this story probably would not have been finished without you. So to everyone who ever took the time to do that and will do that in the future, thank you. And a particularly special thank you to the people who have been on this journey with me virtually the whole time; you know who you are. ;)

In closing: One last time, no matter if you're reading this five seconds after I posted or five years from now, I ask if you'd like to leave a comment. In any case, I'm touched that you got through 80k to see it through til the end. I sincerely hope you enjoyed the story.