A/N: Thank you so much for your kind reviews and favorites and...everything else! This is the third and final oneshot of the series. I imagine the Cahill mansion with communal bathrooms, like the ones at schools and public places, but way fancier and prettier. Post-first series. Also, I'm sorry it took so long! This piece, especially Amy's bit, is very close to my heart.

Also: there is one instance of slightly strong language in this chapter.

I do not own The 39 Clues series.

iii. sing your melody

Ian:

"Amy is in love with you," Sinead told him as they sorted the files from the weekly family meeting.

Slightly taken aback, Ian tried to speak, to say something–anything, "Er, no, she's not–" That was all he could think of?

"She is," she insisted, barely glancing up as she began packing up her bag.

"She's not," Ian insisted. "I heard you ask her–just last week."

Papers clutched haphazardly from her hand, Sinead froze and stared across the table at him in what Ian thought might possibly be disbelief. "Natalie's right," she told him slowly, "you really don't have much common sense."

"Sinead…" he began.

"You're sure you're a Lucian?" she squinted at him as if he were a buggy invention of hers. "I mean, besides the whole eavesdropping thing, I'm surprised your Lucian card hasn't been revoked."

"Sinead…" he said firmly.

"Fine, fine," she resumed packing her bag. "Amy's not telling the truth, to you, to me, to anyone. Maybe she hasn't admitted it to herself. But she loves you–you can see it when you two are in the same room. She has this look on her face, and it's certainly not because of me."

"So any time a girl says something, I should take it to mean the opposite?" Ian asked warily. "That's the moral of the story?"

Sinead took a short breath and rolled her eyes. "Definitely not. Listen to her. Listen to everyone," she slung her bag purposefully onto her shoulder and made her way toward the door. "Just remember your Lucian upbringing.

"But you said–" he tried to call after her.

"Trust me," Sinead sighed as she rounds the corner, auburn hair whipping as she disappeared. "That's the moral of the story."

"Sinead, wait!" Ian Kabra did not run, or sprint, or anything of the sort, no, he speed-walked out of the room and down the hall to try to catch her. Finally catching up with her and his breath, he forced out a breathy, "What do I do?"

Sinead paused, thinking. "Flirt with me," she said with a scheming grin.

"Pardon?"

"Flirt. With. Me," she enunciated. "In front of Amy at the New Year's Eve party."

"Jealousy," Ian nodded slowly, the bare bones of a plan forming as he spoke. "I have an idea."

Sinead:

Sinead Starling was awful at flirting, but Amy didn't need to know that.

Coy smile, body at an angle, sparkling eyes, pretty laugh–check. It felt mechanical, but only she would know. Hopefully.

Ian murmured something to her and she forced a giggle. A giggle–Sinead Starling did not giggle. She was doing this for Amy, she reminded herself several times. Amy and Ian.

The party itself was spectacular, though. White and gold balloons drifted above the attendees and shiny confetti sparkled on the floor. Jonah was having fun deejaying, tossing more confetti and streamers onto the dance floor when the crowd thickened, and Ned and Ted had been dancing with Reagan and Madison Holt for the past few hours. It was twenty-five minutes to midnight, she realized, as she checked her watch. Finally.

A quick glance to her left revealed that Amy was still sitting by the drink table, pointedly looking away from their display. That would not do at all.

Sinead giggled, louder this time, and though it sounded disgustingly fake, it did the trick. Amy looked over, and Sinead planted a large kiss on Ian's cheek.

Gross.

Sinead glanced to her left again hopefully, a smile spreading across her face as she saw an empty chair by the punch bowl.

Amy:

This wasn't the way she had planned to spend her New Year's Eve–crying her eyes out in the last stall of the girls' bathroom in the Cahill mansion while everyone else was having a great time downstairs.

No, she reminded herself as she slowly unlocked the stall door and leaned against the cold marble sink. Not crying.

She wasn't crying. She'd held her tears all evening until she absolutely couldn't take it any more and had to excuse herself. Splashing water on her face helped a little, both to calm herself down and to hide the tears that she wasn't crying. (She wasn't.)

There was absolutely nothing at all to cry over.

And then she almost had to laugh despite the tears that were finally escaping because the thought was so absurd. Amy Cahill crying over a boy? She had never thought of herself as the sort of girl who did that. Those girls were always the ones in the romance novels she had leafed through once or twice during her excursions to the bookstore. The girls in books had always been a world apart from Amy.

After all, they didn't ever have to worry about the most precious serum in history falling into the wrong hands or crazy family members who wanted to kill them. The girls in the fluffy romance novels had absolutely nothing to worry about, except maybe their boyfriends or their soulmates or whatever they wanted to call them not loving them back or being a sparkly vampire or something. (Though to be fair, Amy would be a bit concerned if her nonexistent boyfriend sparkled.)

She shook her head slightly and scrunched her eyes closed, a futile attempt to clear it from those strange, unwanted thoughts, and tried to distract herself by staring into the mirror as she had seen Natalie do so many times.

Again, she had to bite back a nervous laugh. Where was this Amy coming from? She didn't recognize the the girl who actually cared about boys and how she looked and whether or not he would notice how puffy and red her eyes were when she finally returned (if she ever returned) to the party. She was thoroughly tempted to stay up here until everyone left.

Footsteps suddenly sounded in the hall and Amy, out of habit, retreated to the far stall and locked the door. The click of the lock seemed to echo off the hard tile walls and the slick marble countertops. "Amy?" she heard as the door to the bathroom opened.

Ian. Not exactly the person she wanted to see right now. Quite the opposite, actually. She clambered gingerly onto the toilet seat, arms outstretched in front of her and palms against the cold stall door, balancing as best she could in her party dress and shoes.

Maybe he hadn't seen her.

"Amy," he repeated.

She sucked her breath in silently, hoping for...she didn't know exactly what. That he'd go away? She knew it was a foolish hope. Kabras–Ian–never gave up.

"I know you're in here," he continued, pausing for a fraction of a second. "Sinead told me."

Damn.

"This is the girls' bathroom," she said quietly, trying to keep her voice from wavering.

"I am aware of that," he replied stiffly. "I'd hoped you wouldn't have taken up residence in the men's room." Amy tried to suppress a giggle as she imagined what Ian currently looked like, standing stiffly in the center of the girls' bathroom.

"Why are you here?" Amy asked.

Silence. For a moment, one hopeful moment, she thought he'd perhaps left.

"Why are you?" he countered.

More silence. "I don't know," she told him after a while. "I...um, feel sick."

"You're a terrible liar, Amy."

She sighed, "I know." The silence remained.

Glancing through a crack between the door and the wall of the stall, she saw that Ian was still standing rigidly by the entrance. Fine then. He could spend all night in the girls' bathroom for all she cared, but she wouldn't come out. She resigned herself to counting the tiles along the wall of the room.

One, two, three...maybe he'd leave soon...ten, eleven, twelve... Amy had previously taken no interest whatsoever in the wall tiles chosen for this bathroom, but upon closer inspection, they seemed to be decorated with interweaving flower designs. Or maybe they were rocket ships. She wasn't exactly sure. ...thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two...now should she count the half-tiles?

"Perhaps–" Ian coughed after a few minutes, "Er, perhaps we ought to go back down. It is nearly midnight, after all. Do you really want to spend the night in the ladies' room?"

"Yes," Amy replied shortly.

"Amy..."

"Please don't," her voice wavered against her will.

The bathroom door banged open then shut, and all was silent.

She breathed a sigh of relief and all but ran out of the stall to the sink, where she began splashing water on on her heated forehead and cheeks. It had gotten warm in the stall because, she assumed, of the heating vent directly next to it.

The cool water helped settle her nerves and racing thoughts a little and she pressed a soft towel to her face, glad that she had turned down Natalie's offer of a makeover earlier that evening. The tears would have smudged it anyway, she reminded herself.

Amy leaned against the cold tiled wall and shut her eyes, thankful that the night would soon be over. Steady chanting rose from beneath her feet and grew to a loud roar as the Cahills downstairs welcomed the new year with air horns and candy and a spectacularly off-key rendition of "Auld Lang Syne."

Happy New Year, Amy. She was glad to be alone for the beginning of a new year.

"Happy New Year, Amy." Or not.

Ian Kabra leaned against the wall opposite her, mimicking her position. His smirk just seemed to set the whole picture off, as if he just weren't Ian without it. He wasn't, of course.

"Really?" she asked, cheeks flushing and irritation crawling through her veins.

"I see I've ruffled your feathers," he replied.

"Ruffled my - what?"

"Isn't that what one would say in a situation like this?"

"You could always use the word 'annoy,'" she told him, unable to hold back a laugh despite her wish for her face to remain emotionless, or angry if anything.

"Hm. How plebeian."

"Plebeian?" Amy said. "Really? Because 'ruffling feath-'" she shook her head quickly. They could debate that point another time. "Never mind. It's not important. Why are you here?"

"Because." He sauntered across the room, closer... closer. She could feel his breath on her skin, heated. "Because..." The words flowed out of his mouth, smooth and molten.

Amy's breath caught in her throat and she was sure her cheeks were a fiery red. Still, her stare met his.

"Sinead asked me to come get you," he finally finished.

Amy stared. There was a funny feeling growing in her chest that made it especially difficult to breathe. Was it...disappointment? ...jealousy?

They were silent again. Her watch's ticking echoed rudely off the tiled walls and both pairs of eyes darted anywhere but where they really wanted to look.

"I apologize," he said, startling her. "For scaring you and for what happened earlier."

Ian Kabra apologizing? There had to be some sort of trick.

"Really," he told her. The door slammed shut and his shoes clacked down the hallway (it really happened, she made sure of it this time). But still...

Before she could lose her nerve, she pulled open the door and called after him. "Wait." Not loud enough. He didn't turn around. She ran down the hallway to the top of the steps. "Ian, wait!"

He finally turned around, halfway down the stairs, and stared, amber eyes...unreadable. "Yes?"

"Will it always be about Sinead?"

"Do you want it to be?"

"I-" Amy hesitated, "I don't know-" She scrunched her nose and focused her eyes decidedly on the dark curving banister of the staircase where...oh. Ian's hand was resting there. And there they were, all the thoughts of how his fingers felt between hers, long and slender, his thumb brushing across the palm of her hand, just by her wrist, the sensation coming back to her. She shivered.

He stepped up to meet her.

"What do you want, Amy?" Ian murmured. "Tell me. It's been..."

They were nearly equal in height at that moment - Amy on the top step and Ian on the next. And almost close enough to...

She tried to dismiss the thought, but Ian must have been thinking the same thing because before she could process the pang in her chest, his mouth was on hers, warm and caressing. It wasn't at all frantic and passionate and desperate like how they always ended up in her daydreams (not that she often drifted there) or cool and detached like his usual demeanor; it was more...sweet, if that was even possible with Ian. Yes, she decided, as they remained on the empty stairway–warm, sweet, hopeful. His hands ran along her sides softly, and she allowed herself, for once, to stop over-thinking. She brought her hands up to his neck, gently tugging him closer, and her body seemed to instinctively press against his.

Happy New Year, Amy.

Thank you for reading.

-TimeTravel6