The final chapter. Holy crap on a rice cracker.

When Ming returned after putting her first aid box back in her bedroom, she kindly offered to wash Po's shirt and mend the tears. Po accepted said offer, albeit quietly, and in twenty minutes the green shirt was as good as new. Po then thanked Ming, bade her goodbye, and left the house.

He walked down the porch steps, passed his two fathers who were in the middle of a 'quiet' conversation. Shifu was absent, seemingly having left after tiring of the parents' banter.

"Who was she talking about?" Mr. Ping was asking. "Who is this other girl?"

"Beats me." Qiang replied. "Maybe Po has a secret crush and Ming found out about it. Do you know any women back in the Valley that Po likes to hang out with?"

"I don't think so." The goose said. "There was a young woman called Song that Po met a year and a half ago... but I don't see why Ming could mean her."

"What about Master Tigress and Viper?" Qiang asked. "They're both girls. Maybe Po has developed feelings for one of them!"

"Perhaps..." Mr. Ping stroked his beak in thought. "I've seen Po hanging out with Tigress a lot lately..."
Po walked swiftly past them before they even noticed that he was there.

He walked through the village, which had mostly returned to normal after the bandit incident, passed Monkey and Mantis who were relaying the tale of their exploits within the Temple of Heroes to a very excited group of children, little Su amongst them. He reached the clearing, where he found Viper and Crane admiring a patch of beautiful white flowers. Po smirked a little when he saw that while Viper was marvelling at the spotted petals, Crane was silently marvelling at the snake looking at them.

"Hey, guys." Crane and Viper looked up as the panda approached. "Uhhh... have you guys seen Tigress?"

"Don't know." Viper replied. "We haven't seen her since this morning. Master Shifu may know."
"Yeah, he should be meditating by the small pond." Crane added.

"Don't forget the celebratory dinner tonight!" Viper called as Po ventured into the forest. Sure enough, when he reached the pond Shifu was standing in the middle of the tiny pond, perfectly balanced on his staff.

"Hey, Master Shifu." Po said.

"Yes, Po?" Shifu asked without looking at him.

"Sorry to bother you, but have you seen Tigress?"

"I suppose you need to tell her about the dinner tonight." Shifu replied. "I don't think she knows about it yet. She should be by the pond."

"This pond?"

"No, the larger one about twenty minute's walk from here. In that direction." Shifu pointed. "Be quick. The dinner begins in two hours."

"Oh, okay. Thanks, Master." Po saluted and walked off.

As Po walked, he wrung his paws, and bit the inside of his cheek as many thoughts ran through his head. Some he immediately dismissed as ridiculous. Some he cringed just by thinking about them. The rest he hoped wouldn't lead to humiliation and the destruction of an awesome friendship.

Ming meant Tigress, I know she did. I mean, why else did I get so angry when that big dumb lizard Lidong threatened her? Why else did I freak out when Tigress nearly drowned in the water chamber? Oh man, why didn't I see this before? I'm so stupid- stop! Cut that out! You're the Dragon Warrior for pete's sake! Just find her, talk to her, see if Ming was right about you liking her. If so, then find out if she likes you back... no biggy! Unless of course, things between us get so awkward that we can't even sleep on opposite sides of the student barracks any more and-

"Ugh!"

Po's thoughts were cut off when he heard a gasp of pain up ahead.

"Tigress?"

When she didn't answer, Po started running.

"Tigress?!"

Oh gods, what if Lidong came back for another rematch? I have to help her, I have to-

He burst through a pair of bushes, tripped over an exposed root and tumbled head over heels into the small clearing, startling the striped feline sitting against the thick trunk of a tree.

"Po?!" She exclaimed.

"Tigress, are you okay?" Po jumped to his feet. He looked around for any sign of a giant crocodile, but saw none.

"I'm okay, Po." She replied, unsure whether or not she should be annoyed.

"I heard you gasp. You sounded like you were in pain."

"Oh, er... it's nothing!" Tigress said quickly.

Po suddenly spotted the bottle in her left paw before she could hide it.

"What's that?" He asked before noticing that her right paw was oddly shaking, and Tigress was speaking through clenched teeth.

"It's nothing, I told you." Tigress said. Her eyes were narrowed in pain.

Before she could react, Po grabbed the bottle from her paw. He lifted the neck to his nose, and smelled the alcohol.

"Tigress, what is this?" He demanded.

Tigress set her jaw and looked away, clutching her paw.

Po was about to raise his voice when he remembered the other day when he had scolded her for training herself to harshly, and how badly she reacted to it. He sealed his lips, decided on another approach. Slowly, he sat down beside her next to the tree.

"Tigress, are you hurt?" He asked gently.

"Po, it's nothing." She said again.

"Tigress, you look like you're in a lot of pain." Po replied. "Let me see."

"I'm fine."

"Tigress..." Po sighed. "There's nothing wrong with other people looking out for you. It doesn't make you weak. Let me take a look."

Tigress's eyes flickered in his direction as Po held out a paw.

"Po..."

"Tigress, I'm your friend. Friends help each other. Please let me help you."

For a moment, Tigress didn't move. And then, slowly, hesitantly, she turned back round, and held out her right paw, palm up. Po gently took her paw into his own, looked down, and gaped at the bloody red streaks cutting through her palm and fingers.

"Oh my gods... Tigress, what did this?" He struggled to stay calm.

"I grabbed the rope of the meteor hammer Lidong was swinging at me." Tigress muttered. Po was too focused on her paw to look at her expression. "Stupid thing to do."

"Dang, this looks painful." He whispered. As he looked, he realised that her palm was soaked in alcohol.

"Yes, I was disinfecting it." Tigress said. "It hurts like hell, but it was necessary."

"You know..." Po said slowly, and pulled out his napkin. "You shouldn't just splash it on like this. You can't guarantee that you will cover the whole area in one shot. And one shot by itself is bad enough."

"What do you propose then?" Tigress asked.

"Hang on a sec..." Po grabbed the bottle and poured a little onto the napkin. "This might hurt just a little... try to stay still..."

Tigress gasped as Po gently dabbed at the parts of the rope burns that she had missed. She tried not to cry out as the stinging alcohol seemingly set fire to her already burned paws.

"Why are you going so fast?" She asked after a while.

"So the old sting will dull you to the new." Po replied without looking up. "Trust me, it's better this way. I learned this during my earlier years of falling down stairs."

Tigress merely nodded, and realised that as Po continued to dab, the pain started to become more bearable. The panda really knew what he was doing.

Once he was done, he stuffed the napkin back in his pocket.

"There, that should do it." Po replied. "Darn, I just remembered... Ming's run out of bandages."

"It's okay, I can wait a few days." Tigress replied. She sucked in air though her nose as her rope burns continued to sting. "Until then, I'll just have to-"

R-r-r-riiip!

Tigress whirled round.

She blinked and the blood rushed to her cheeks as Po wrapped his shirt sleeve round her paw. He proceeded to rip off the other one, tear it into smaller strips of green fabric, and wrap each one around her fingers. Though he tied each one tightly, his thick fingers were so nimble, so gentle, that Tigress did not feel an ounce of pain.

"There." Po grinned, his work complete. "Is that better?"

"Uh..." Tigress was lost for words. "Yes. Thank you."

"You can get it treated properly once Ming's made some new bandages."

"Okay."

Then their eyes locked.

Po stared into Tigress's bright golden eyes with their amber cores, and realised for the first time that they were utterly beautiful to behold. Out of his peripheral vision, he took in the other features of her face. The elegant black markings around her eyes that resembled eyeliner, meaning that she would never need the real thing. Her left ear flicking at the slight rustle of a leaf that fell from they tree they were sitting under. Her fur bright as fire. Her stripes black as night. Her dark lips, strongly constrasted against the white of her chin, curled slightly into a small grateful smile.

An hour ago, he had thought that his interest in her was merely because she was so utterly awesome, his favorite of the Furious Five purely because she was the bravest, the boldest, the strongest.

But now he knew better.

"Tigress..." He began but hesitated, unsure how to proceed. "Tigress... I..."

"Oh my gosh..." Tigress's eyes widened as she suddenly spotted something over his shoulder.

Po stopped talking and followed her gaze.

As they had been talking, Po had failed to notice until now that the sun had fully set, and the small clearing was now alive with glowing fireflies. They floated in the air like tiny spectral spirits.

"Woah..." Po suddenly realised where they were. "I brought Ming here last night for our date. Isn't it great?"

"Yes..." Tigress replied quietly, transfixed by the miniscule but wonderful creatures that lit the small clearing. "Speaking of which, have you set up your next date with her yet?"

"Uhhh..." Po hesitated when he saw her badly concealed expression. "Nah. It's not going to happen."

The second he finished the sentence, Po saw pleasant surprise flash across her face.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Tigress said, and Po could tell that she meant it. "What went wrong?"

"Nothing." Po replied. He suddenly realised that he was still holding her injured paw, and let it go. "She said it's because she didn't want to get in the way."

Tigress raised her eyebrows.

"What do you think she meant by that?" She asked.

At that moment, Po seriously considered telling her right there, right now. He actually opened his mouth... and quickly shut it again.

No, now wasn't the time.

He and Ming had only broken up nearly two hours ago. Tigress was injured. It had only been less than a day since the fiasco with Zanshi and the Sword of Heroes. It was too soon.

"No idea." He replied. "Hey, Tigress, I forgot to tell you, the celebratory dinner starts in a little bit. Whaddya say we head back?"

"Sure, why not?" Tigress smiled and got to her feet. "Need a hand?"

"I really, really need to take up fasting." Po sighed as he grabbed Tigress's uninjured paw and let her pull him up.

Po and Tigress returned to the village to find that they had already finished setting up the tables in a circular arrangement in the middle of the clearing. Most of the village population was already seated, a ring of black and white in the clearing, save for the green, gold and brown where Viper, Mantis and Monkey were all seated together.

"Hey, guys!" Mantis called when he saw them approach. "Come sit here, we're almost about to start!"

"Hiya." Po grinned and waved.

"Po, what happened to your sleeves?" Viper asked.

Po's cheeks reddened and his eyes flickered to Tigress's paw. His eyes flickered upwards, and he felt a jolt of surprise when he saw that Tigress was also slightly blushing.

"Are my dads still cooking?" He asked, in an attempt to change topic.

"Yep."

"Okay, I'll go and give them a hand. Tigress, are you coming?"

"No thank you, I'll stay here." The feline replied.

Po nodded and walked off. Tigress sat down on one of the six empty chairs next to her friends.

"What did you do to your paw?" Monkey asked when he noticed.

"I got scratched during my battle with Lidong." Tigress replied casually. "Nothing serious. Where's Crane?"

"Oh, he's helping Qiang and Mr Ping with the cooking." Viper said.

"Really? I didn't know he was a chef."

"He isn't, but he promised me vegetable stir fry." The snake smiled happily.

Tigress fought the urge to roll her eyes, and turned her gaze to the other partakers. She smiled and chuckled when she saw young Su sitting in between her parents, looking much happier than her usual self as she cleaned her dented lucky coin with her napkin. Tigress's eyes moved on after a couple of minutes and fell on Ming, who was sitting on the far side of the other members of the Five.

Ming suddenly looked in her direction, and for a moment their eyes met. They stared at each other for a while before Tigress managed to look away and determinedly focus her attention on the empty plate in front of her. For the five minutes that followed, Tigress struggled to understand why her heart had leaped when Po had told her the unfortunate news. She was so deep in her thoughts that she didn't register Master Shifu's presence when he appeared and sat down.

Sooner than expected, Po, Qiang, Mr. Ping and Crane arrived with carts full of delicacies, much to the delight of the participants. Every dish imaginable had been made for this occasion. After all, a repeat of the catastrophe which destroyed their old home had been averted, so they had every reason to celebrate to the fullest.

Po and his two parents went on to lay every single bowl down on the ring of tables, while Crane headed straight for his friends. He set down a steaming bowl of stir fry in front of a beaming Viper before sitting down.

Po grabbed several more bowls and a handful of chopsticks from a cart and walked over to Shifu and the Five.

"Here's your chopsticks." He said as he set them them in front of each of his friends.

All except Tigress.

"I'm not discriminating against you or anything like that." Po said when he noticed her expression. "You can't handle chopsticks with your paw in that condition."

With that, he set down several bowls in front of her and moved on. At once, Tigress could see that they were all handheld food: rice balls, biscuits, almond cookies (she smacked Monkey's hand when he reached for one), and in the middle, a large bowl of big, bright red juicy apples.

Tigress fought against a smile as she picked up an apple and bit into it.

It was just as ripe and juicy as the apple Po had given her two years ago.

She heard a slight creek as Po sat down next to her, having finally finished handing out the dishes.

"What do you think?" He asked, grinning like a little kid. "Great spread, huh?"

"Yes." Tigress agreed. She looked down at the bowls of specifically chosen food the panda had given her. "Thank you for thinking about me."

"You're welcome. What are friends for?"

He put an arm around her and gave her a one sided hug before reaching for the nearest bowl of bean buns.

As Tigress allowed herself a small chuckle and looked down at the bitten apple she held in her wrapped paw, she didn't notice that Ming had been watching the brief exchange between her and Po.

The panda gazed at her for a while before she looked away with a grin.

She wouldn't regret her decision.

Well, that's the end of my first feature-length fan fiction, which will most certainly not be the last. Once I've added some more oneshots to 'Moments of Time', I will begin work on a brand new story which will be my biggest creative writing project yet!

Keep an eye out for an upcoming story called 'Abode of Snow'.

But until then, review, review, review!