This is it. The Last Chapter. I'm not going to lie, I got emotional writing this. I finished it in a free period at school and had to hold back tears all through history class. Everyone probably thinks I'm mad now. But it's THE LAST CHAPTER. T_T

Sunday 25th December, 3:43 AM - The back seat of Tony's car.

My life is perfect. I don't mean 'oh my God something awesome just happened' perfect, I mean actually perfect. Even when I wake up tomorrow and the day after and the day after that and the novelty finally wears off, it'll still be perfect.

That's not to say something awesome didn't just happen. Because it totally did. And it was called The Gakuen High Official Christmas Party.

Yeah, it's not actually on Christmas Day, because then no-one'd be allowed to come, would they? We have it on Christmas Eve instead so people have a hope in hell of getting out of 'family time' for long enough to come. Apparently no-one told the faculty that the twenty-fourth is the important bit in continental Europe. But my parents have never been mean enough to stop us from going. I might disagree with them sometimes but when push comes to shove, they're not total psychopaths.

The party started at eight o'clock and finished at ten (though Tony's hosting the after-party all night) so I had an agreement that he'd swing by Francis's and my place at seven thirty to drive us there. I offered to pick Lizzie up, but since she has a car and I don't we decided it'd probably be more practical to just meet outside the school hall. So after I'd thrown pretty much my entire wardrobe on my bedroom floor in search of something to wear and finally settled on black jeans and a waistcoat - which was dressy enough to be special but not uncomfortable or anything - Tony was parked on my driveway beeping his horn and Ludwig was shouting that we were going to be late. (Ludwig's never understood that you're supposed to be late for parties).

We weren't late. The doors to the hall opened just as we arrived, and I met Lizzie on the grass outside as Francis, Tony and Ludwig went in. She was standing on her own next to the carpark and... well, she looked utterly beautiful. She was wearing a short dress with long sleeves in a really deep green, like holly, with sparkly eyeshadow and her hair up in this French braid thing that was actually kind of gorgeous despite how much I love Lizzie's hair when it's down. "H-hi," I managed, momentarily speechless. "You look... really good."

She looked up with a start, saw me, and smiled. "Thanks. You don't look so bad yourself. Since when did you own a waistcoat?"

"Since Ludwig grew out of it."

"Gteting hand-me-downs from your little brother," she grinned. "Nice."

I held my arm out. "Do you want to go inside or not?"

"Love to. It's freezing out here." She linked her arm through mine and together we joined the stream of students filtering in through the front door.

My first thought when I stepped into the hall was that the Gakuen Gazette should start a Christmas Party planner hall of fame and Bella Peeters should be in it. She had seriously outdone herself with this. There was no actual snow this year, but she'd made up for it with artfully arranged smoke machines and tiny snowflake-shaped sequins that floated around reflecting the coloured lights that flashed and danced on every flat surface. The walls and ceiling had been covered in holly, cotton wool snow and plastic icicles. And - get this - there was an actual ice sculpture in the centre of the hall. Well, 'sculpture' might be a bit of an exaggeration. I was sure I'd heard Bella say that it was going to be a Christmas tree, and I could sort of see that if I squinted - it was vaguely cone-shaped, at least - but it was more like a giant chunk of ice with holes gouged in it for fruit punch and snacks. But still. It was awesome.

"Ooh, look," said Lizzie, pointing across the hall. "Alfred's back!" It was true; there was Alfred F. Jones, grinning from ear to ear despite the bandages, leaning against the wall and talking animatedly to Matthew Williams. "Oh, and Natalya must not've ended up going with anyone after all." She pulled a face. Natalya was by the refreshments ice sculpture, looking like an avenging angel with a slinky white dress and a glare fixed on her brother Ivan, who was dancing with a worried-looking Toris. But I was more interested in Kiku, who seemed to have asked Mei to the dance (finally!), and the two of them were holding hands and smiling awkwardly at each other. It was painfully adorable.

"Your inner gossip columnist is showing," I teased.

"Well I have to have something to write about next year, don't I?" She poked her tongue out at me and then, before I had a chance to reply, she was tugging me away from the door and into the crowd of dancing students. "This is my favourite song," she laughed. "I can't believe Bella actually put it on the playlist."

"Bella's pretty good like that. Hey, do you think we should start a Hall of Fame for-"

"I can't hear you!" she shouted over the singing and the laughing and the music booming from the speakers.

"I said, should we start a... never mind."

Because not even the Gazette was as important as how happy she looked, smiling and moving to the music with her eyeshadow sparkling in the lights, and all thoughts of journalism were wiped from my mind as she put her arms around my neck and I put my hands on her hips and, just like that, we were dancing.

I'll let you in on a secret: I've never danced with a girl before. Well, I've danced, of course, and often with girls in the general vicinity, but there's a difference between dancing with girls and Dancing With A Girl. I always thought it looked difficult, remembering where to put your hands and trying not to step on her feet, but it wasn't. It was really nice, actually. It helped that it wasn't so much dancing as randomly jumping about and moving almost regardless of what came booming out of the speakers, but still. It's been a long time since I've had that much fun. And there was Lizzie, spinning and laughing and shining brightly enough to be our own personal disco ball.

Everyone was thoroughly sweaty and out of breath by the time the music slowed down. Rock songs and dance pop transitioned seamlessly into slower ballads and a good percentage of the crashing bodies left the dancefloor to go and investigate the self-cooling refreshments table, causing it to go from mosh pit to ballroom. But I wasn't done yet and neither was Lizzie, so we stayed and made the most of our newfound elbow room. This wasn't just Dancing With A Girl, either; this was Slow Dancing With A Girl, and I nailed it. Seriously, it looks like I missed my calling. Maybe I should've joined the contemporary dance club after all.

"Gil," said Lizzie, breaking me out of my hypothetical musings. "You've got that look on your face again."

"What look?"

"Your I'm-thinking-about-something-stupid look. And could you stop stepping on my toe?"

"Sorry." So that was her toe? I thought it was a piece of litter or something. I was about to try to explain myself when she looked up at me, and it took my breath away. She was all flushed pink from dancing and her eye make-up was smudged, but somehow that only made her even more beautiful as she smiled one of those smiles I don't think I'll ever get over with her hair falling out of its plait and sparkling with snowflake sequins that had managed to get themselves tangled up in there.

She was perfect.

"Hey Lizzie," I said quietly.

"Yeah?"

I took a hand off her waist and pointed my finger towards the ceiling. "Mistletoe."

And then I kissed her.

Okay, so I might have lied about the mistletoe. But she was warm and soft and beautiful and she tasted like that sort of lip gloss that's supposed to taste like fruit but doesn't really taste like fruit, and everything about her just seemed to fit perfectly into place against me as though somehow nature knew that it was always going to end up like this, with me and her standing here on the dancefloor all crumpled and out of breath, still swaying slightly to the music, kissing amongst the smoke machines and the disco lights and all the falling sequins.

Honestly, what else is there to say after that? The music picked back up again after a while and we danced some more, then around half past nine we took a break and I got some punch from the ice sculpture thing (which was beginning to melt a little from all the body heat we were generating) while Lizzie went to fix her make-up and dig some sequins out of her hair. I was starting to find them in the cuffs and collar of my shirt and down the front of my waistcoat, but everyone was looking like a tired, sweaty version of David Bowie now anyway so I didn't really care. Francis and Tony came up to fangirl at me as I waited, which made me kind of proud, actually, then Lizzie came back and we sat by the ice sculpture and watched all the other students dance as we caught our breath.

To tell you the truth, I was walking on air. I barely noticed the time passing; it took me completely by surprise when some teachers came to turf us out of the hall and Tony announced that it was time for the after-party.

It's a well-known fact at Gakuen High that while there may be some amazing party-throwers among us, Tony is the best of them. Maybe it's because of his house (which is massive and has a swimming pool and everything) or his parents (who pretty much just let him do whatever he wants), but parties at Tony's place are always fantastic. This one was no exception. Matthias was DJ'ing so the music was kind of weird (and not even in English half the time) but great to dance to, and now we were off school property we were free to break underage drinking laws to our hearts' content. I was careful not to overdo it, though; I want to remember tonight as clearly as possible. For the rest of my life, if I can. I want to remember dancing like a madman to some Scandinavian party song with Lizzie's hair, now completely free from its plait, whipping me in the face in time with the music. I want to remember Alfred being thrown in the pool and having to be rescued, Francis (who isn't going to remember a thing tomorrow) announcing an impromptu game of Seven Minutes in Heaven - which seems to be his favourite - and dragging a not-so-violently protesting Arthur into the cupboard, Yong-Soo climbing onto the roof with a stereo and blasting music all across the garden. Can you say 'best night of my life'? Because I can.

And then Ludwig was tapping me on the shoulder and telling me that it was half past three in the morning and we should leave now if we were going to get enough sleep to avoid being zombies on Christmas Day, and Lizzie swore and said she lost track of time, and could she come with us because she'd left her car in the school carpark. Tony offered to give us a lift home. I'm not sure if he strictly should be driving - Tony acts the same drunk or sober so it can be hard to tell - but our houses aren't that far away anyway and his car is really cool.

And now here I am, sitting in the back seat and trying to comprehend how these last few weeks can have ended up so well. I didn't master my emotional inertia and I'm still kind of an irresponsible moron, but I damn well saved the Gakuen Gazette and earned the hell out of that place at the Christmas party. And best of all, I got Lizzie. She's half-asleep now; she drifted sideways about thirty seconds after we pulled out of Tony's driveway and now she's breathing softly with her head in my lap. Above everything, I got her.

I have to stop writing now. We've reached Lizzie's house and it looks like I'm going to have to carry her inside. Her parents are going to love that. No walking her up to the door hand in hand and kissing her goodnight, just "Hi, sorry to wake you up. Here's your unconscious daughter back. Merry Christmas." But nothing about this was ever perfect, so maybe this was really the only way for it to end. We have the whole winter holidays to work on it. No laughing friends. No publication deadlines or sleepless nights or passive-aggressive sexual tension. Only four whole weeks together and a New Year belonging only to us.

Hey, that'd make an awesome headline.

IT'S OVER.

WHAT AM I EVEN SUPPOSED TO DO WITH MY LIFE NOW.

If it makes it any better, I've pretty much planned out Gil and Lizzie's entire future together in my head so I might foresee some Indefinite Articles universe oneshots in the future. I can't even tell you how much I loved writing this. My love affair with Prussia continues...

But for now, thank you so much for reading this all the way through. You are amazing and you should go to the kitchen and get yourself a biscuit or something right now. It's on me. All I ask in return is a review telling me what you thought of it all!

Until next time, hasta la pasta~