Thanks very much for all the support everyone has shown! As promised, last chapter.

That being said… it's insanely wordy. And fluffy. It's fluffy too. I wanted it to be Dillon who had this conversation with Ziggy... but Flynn had other ideas. It's his fault, not mine. :)

"Ziggy…" Flynn intoned as he sat down in the fluffy armchair and crossed his legs. "Would you like to explain what exactly is going on?"

Ziggy looked at him with obvious confusion. He raised an eyebrow quizzically.

"Um… I'm sorry I haven't been calling you as frequently? But that was at your own request if you remember."

It was Friday. By order of Dr. K, a substitute had been summoned and Ziggy was up in his room trying to stay awake out of spite when really all he wanted to do was sleep. Flynn had beeped him, telling him he was coming over. Five minutes later, he was outside his door, looking as annoyed and determined as he had in the old days when she'd spent an hour making a smoothy he never got to taste.

Flynn rolled his eyes. "I'm talking," he intoned, his accent making words nearly incomprehensible. "About you and Dr. K getting hitched."

Ziggy's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He gaped at Flynn in obvious amazement.

"What the? No… wait, who told you that?"

"You mean it's not true?" Flynn asked suspiciously.

"No! I mean, well yes I did tell her… I… well, how do you know about this anyway?!" Ziggy was backpedaling and frontpedaling and every other kind of peddling at the moment. He simply couldn't see how Flynn- FLYNN of all people, had found out about his supposedly private conversation.

"Well… it's quite easy actually." Fynn said, a small twinkle to his eye. "Ya see… Dr. K called Summer, who of course told Dillon who of course, mentioned it to Scott, who told Gem who told Gemma who told me," he smirked. "And just in case you are reaching for some wee bit of hope, you can be sure that Tenaya has found out by now too."

"Dr. K called Summer!?" Ziggy put his hands to his head and pulled at his hair. "AHH!" he tried to scream. His voice cracked and he ended up whispering it. Stupid idiotic bronchial tubes or… well whatever Dr. K had said was the problem.

Flynn rolled his eyes, used to the antics of 'their little green friend.' "Stop with the dramatics already. You know if you're marrying her, than you would have had to tell us anyway."

Ziggy moaned and lowered his head to his knees without ever letting go of his hair. "I'm not marrying her!" he bemoaned.

Flynn looked astounded. "Wha… you mean, it was just a rumor…?"

"No!" Ziggy looked up. "I asked her. You know Dr. K… she has to think the whole thing out and probably research the scientific imbalances, weigh possible outcomes and whatever other sciency terms you can think of that would prevent her from giving a complete and definite answer," he said all this very quickly then gasped for breath at the end. "I'm doomed."

Thankfully this was Flynn, who was currently experiencing the first buds of a relationship at the moment and was feeling sympathetic to his cause. Had it been Scott, he would have just gotten laughed at. But Flynn liked Gemma. And Gemma was not your typical average girl. Like Dr. K, she was completely brilliant and in the emotional department she was… well, not lacking so much as… well, he wasn't sure what it was.

Flynn looked at Ziggy carefully. "Well now…" he said slowly. "Buck up Man. It's not like all is lost. She didn't say no."

Ziggy laughed. "That's what I thought," he said miserably. "But… she didn't say anything at all about it yesterday… and if she finds out that everyone knows about it and thinks she says yes… she'll freak out, you know she will. She'll say 'no' for real and then it really will all be over."

Flynn rubbed his chin. "Aye, you have a point," he agreed. No doubt about it, that was exactly what she would do.

It face, it may have been what she'd already decided to do… since he was fairly sure the boom twins had called her this morning to wish her their congratulations. Not that he was going to tell Ziggy that.

"What a disaster…" Ziggy said quietly, sitting upright. "I just wanted to be with her."

"You already are with her," Flynn pointed out.

"No," Ziggy rolled his eyes. "Well yeah… but… with her. Like… together. Officially. Forever. An excuse to tell her I love her and get away with it."

Flynn suddenly had an inkling about what may have been going on. He looked sidely at Ziggy.

"Wait… you haven't told Dr. K you love her?" Even when its so obvious?

Ziggy looked at him as though he were crazy. "Um… well no. Every time I tell her I like her she brushes me off. Can you imagine what she'd do if I said that instead? She'd hate me forever."

"You don't have very much confidence in yourself do you?" Flynn asked. He honestly thought Ziggy had done better with this sort of thing after everything they'd gone through.

Ziggy sighed. "I don't want to loose her," he admitted quietly. "And… I annoy her so easily."

"She likes it when you annoy her Ziggy," Flynn said, realizing how completely weird this conversation was, especially for two grown men. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "And doncha remember all those horrible chick flicks that Summer made us watch? Girls want ta be told that you love them. It's like… confirmation or something."

Ziggy glared at him. "Dr. K," he said indignantly. "Is not like Summer… or the girls from the movies. She's special."

Flynn pinched the bridge of his nose. The man was daft.

"If ya truly believe that she'll hate you for telling her and will immediately hate you for even suggesting it than ya have no business marrying to begin with."

Instead of looking stunned or hurt by his remark Ziggy simply nodded, drawing his knees to his chest. "I know," he said quietly.

They sat in silence for a moment before Ziggy finally admitted, "I don't really think she'd hate me."

"No, a'course not."

"I mean, there is the possibility that she might not feel the same."

"I think that's rather unlikely at this point."

"Or maybe she'd tell me that love is just a stream of electrons that flows to our brains and clouds our judgment or whatever it was she told us when we were watching that one chick flick-"

"It's Dr. K, Ziggy. She was raised to always look at the scientific explanation, not the heart's."

"I still kinda thought it might work out… I mean, I'm not exactly normal either…"

"I… I don' think I'd better comment on that…"

"So now what?!" Ziggy burst out, who had clearly not been listening to any of the Scotsman's commentary.

Flynn rolled his eyes again. "Ziggy… you're making this too complicated. You love her. She loves you. It's been that way for years. Jus' talk to her. If there's something you wanna talk about, bring it up."

"I tried that. I brought up this whole marriage thing… and look how it's going! I mean, I wasn't even going to say anything…. I didn't even have a ring or anything like that, although I do know a little about them. When I was with Fresno Bob he had this fascination with diamonds and he used to have this ruby dealer-"

"Ziggy," Flynn interrupted his blabbing. Honestly, this was why he preferred the solid, quiet company of his father. "Be a man."

Ziggy stopped his tirade abruptly. "Oh right," he said sarcastically. "Because it took you how long to get together with Gemma?"

"Are you really willing to wait as long as I did?" The conversation was going nowhere. Flynn stood up and threw his coat over his shoulders. He paused in the doorway. "I'll tell everyone to settle down until you work it out."

Ziggy looked as though he wanted to say something but instead just nodded resolutely. Flynn shook his head slightly.

"Good luck Zig. Oh… and get well soon.. You always were too rouchy when it came ta be'n in bed."

"Thanks? I think…" and then, right as the door closed… "Wait… what's rouchy mean?"

*Rouchy is sort of an old dutch word… which for some reason I can always imagine Flynn saying. It's pronounced [Rew-che] and basically means antsy.

"That is why I want you all to draw diagrams of the vascular and nonvascular plants which are described to you on page 243 of the required text. Please list the four divisions of gymnosperms as well and their different functions on the back of your assignment. Class dismissed."

The students looked at her with mournful eyes, as they always did when she gave them homework on weekends… which she always did. Ziggy was usually lenient, but that had less to do with generosity and more to do with the fact he liked having the weekends off from grading papers.

Dr. K placed a hand to her forehead as the 11th grade honors biology students ran out the door. She hadn't been thinking clearly all day. Somehow the phone call she'd received that morning had ruined everything.

Gem and Gemma had just got back from patrolling the borders of a nearby colony. They'd called her this morning, and before she could even utter 'hello' had chanted out their congratulations on her marriage proposal, saying adorable cutesy sentences like, "We always knew-" "-that you had a crush-" "-on him!"

When she'd finally gotten them to relay the information back, she'd been mortified. How had this gotten out exactly? Had Ziggy told everyone? That idiot. That utterly stupid idiot! To think she had trusted him… well there was no way, NO WAY that she could ever agree to it now!

Dr. K rubbed her temples. If there was one thing potentially worse than trying to figure out how to tell Ziggy that she felt as though she'd been injected with the oxytocin, it was the thought of everyone knowing it.

'I just need to avoid him for now…' she thought as she walked to the elevator and rode upstairs. 'I just need to regain my thoughts and my dignity and wait for this thing to die down…'

That was when she walked off the elevator and right into him.

"Ouff!"

"Ouch!"

"Uh… hi…" Ziggy said cheerfully. He looked like a mess. He had a bedhead, his nose from red from blowing it so often and he sounded as though he was holding his nose when he talked.

Dr. K stared at him.

There was nothing special about him at all. Nothing whatsoever! He had told everyone that she accepted his proposal when she hadn't, he had not told her that he loved her first so she wouldn't have to tell him, he had failed to stay in his bedroom all day as she had suggested (well... commanded) and at this moment, she couldn't recall why she had ever found him to be handsome!

"Dr. K?" he asked hoarsely. He was looking at her with an uneasy expression. "Um… you're scaring me."

Dr. K stepped out of the elevator. She continued to stare at him even as he slowly backed away.

"Okay, okay… what did I do now?" Ziggy asked looking worried. "Seriously… because whatever it is, I'm really sorry!"

'He's a moron,' she thought fiercely. But even as he stood there, looking beat and tired… he was her moron. That even though he was the polar opposite of a handsome, perfect prince charming, he was perfect for her. Because anyone who could wait around for five years for a girl who wouldn't admit that she liked him, would only allow him to kiss her on occasion and always listened to her practice her thirty minute science lectures on him when he had no idea what she was saying was a prince charming. It only stood to reason.

"Gem and Gemma called me this morning to wish me congratulations on my engagement," she said quietly, the anger slowly fading away. Ziggy's eyes widened.

"What?! No way! Flynn never said-"

"Flynn was here?" she asked in monotone, causing him to wince. "FLYNN was here when you were supposed to be RECOVERING?"

"Yeah… um… about that-"

"And I suppose you were talking about our upcoming marriage as well?"

"NO! Well yes, I told him that-"

"Whatever you told him," Dr. K said, her eyes boring holes into his. "I sincerely hope it was that I had accepted."

"It was!" Pause. "WHAT?"

Dr. K smiled. Ziggy looked at her as though she were completely mad. But there was a slow smile building, a smile that seemed like it was lit from within, burning outward.

"Really K?" he asked softly. "I mean, really? Are you sure you're not… I dunno, joking?"

"I'm perfectly serious," she looked up at him and saw he was completely astounded. She couldn't help but smile widely. He abruptly reached out and hugged her, holding her close. He was shaking slightly. Then, just as abruptly, he stepped back and grabbed her shoulders, looking into her eyes.

"Why?" he demanded. "Why would you agree? I mean, I haven't even told you I love you yet!"

And there it was. The opportunity. The window. Dr. K swallowed.

"You need to ask," she said finally, her heart in her throat.

Ziggy blinked at her. Slowly it dawned on him, and the knowing look returned to his eyes. He grinned.

"K… do you love me?"

She thought she had been prepared for this question, she thought she could be brave. Instead she winced and squeezed her eyes shut.

Words! Come!

After a moment, Ziggy slowly let go of her shoulders. "It's okay," he said with a sad smile. "I understand."

And he did. Of course he did. But that wasn't good enough. What was it she had told him before? Success is measured by results, not intentions.

"Yes," she said softly. Then she looked up determinedly, straight into his eyes. "Yes. I do love you."

His eyes widened. He swallowed hard. He took her hands and threaded their fingers together. He seemed at a loss of words. Dr. K smiled.

"Ranger green… I'm not exactly the most traditional girl when it comes to these processes but… I believe at this moment we should be kissing."

Ziggy turned an interesting shade of red and grinned sheepishly. "Uh… yeah, and I really want to… but I kinda have bronchitis, and you're germaphobic, remember?"

Dr. stood on her tiptoes and kissed him in reply. He didn't protest. Thankfully he simply bent his head and put his hand behind her neck, kissing her back. His lips were cracked and disgusting. She didn't care.

When they finally broke apart Ziggy asked, "Hey K… how do you feel about eloping?"

Dr. K grinned. Yes, mentally unstable or not, she belonged with him.

"We'll wait until Sunday night. By then you might be able to breathe again."

He put his arm around her and then walked to the end of the hallway, to his office, and shut the door.

The End

Thank you all for reading my insanely corny story. (And yes, it definitely is a corny corny fluff-bomb story!) XD

As promised, I will be revising my mistakes. But I start school tomorrow so it'll be slow coming. Thanks everyone!