Epilogue

The last day of the school year was upon the students of South Park High. It was bittersweet – yes, they'd finally finished junior year and were soon to be seniors in the graduating class of 2018, but with every summer break came not seeing friends every day, families moving away, and relationships changing forever.

Small clumps of friends littered the parking lot, baking in the late June sun. People were last-minute signing yearbooks, taking selfies, and crying and hugging each other. At the back of the parking lot, near the lamppost that Butters had infamously crashed into the first day his parents let him drive to school, Wendy Testaburger, Bebe Stevens, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick stood, watching the spectacle unfold in front of them with nostalgic smiles on their faces.

Kenny lit a cigarette and took a drag before offering it to Bebe. She grinned and seized it between her middle and index fingers.

"Why thank you, assistant manager," she teased, placing it between her lips and marking the white paper with her pale pink lipstick.

The blond rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. "I still can't believe he gave me that promotion."

Bebe passed the cigarette back to Kenny and Kyle rolled his eyes. "Seriously? You're not allowed to smoke on school property. You're going to get us all in trouble."

Wendy nudged him with his shoulder, a polite way of telling him that he was being a buzzkill. He took the hint and gave his friends an apologetic look.

"As if they'd bust their only two students doing something smart this summer," Bebe sighed, smoothing back her frizzy hair with both hands and securing it with a velvet scrunchie. "Like, two weeks at Yale doing some pre-college program? What person in South Park has ever even been to Yale?"

"I'd rather be in the Bahamas," Wendy sighed wistfully. "You're so lucky your parents booked you that cruise."

"They felt bad after the whole…Trent thing."

A moment of tension passed between the group. It was common knowledge around school that Bebe had just wrapped up her trial against Trent, landing him prison time and a hefty fine. They were relieved that he was once again behind bars and unable to harm anyone else, but they worried about their lives once he was free. Every night, Bebe was unable to stop herself from thinking about it in slow motion, shuffling through the events of the night like a photo album in her head.

"You'll keep in touch, right?" Kenny asked Bebe, surprisingly earnest.

Wendy gave Bebe a knowing look, trying to suppress her smile. Bebe gave her best friend a subtle wink.

"Of course."

She shuffled closer to Kenny, who threw a strong arm around her shoulders. Bebe beamed as he pressed his lips against the faint scar on her forehead.

Their display of affection gained the confused stares of half the parking lot. Bebe and Kenny weren't together by any means – in fact, they had yet to go on even a second date – but after their shared prom night and the Trent Boyett debacle, they had an air of comfort and familiarity with each other that made others think that they were.

Before Wendy could get a jab in about PDA, Stan suddenly approached, wringing a baseball cap between his hands.

"Hey."

Wendy and Kyle blanched at the sight of him, letting go of each other's hands, unable to meet Stan's eye. None of them had spoken since prom night.

"Can I talk to you?" He asked Wendy.

Bebe opened her mouth to speak, but Wendy answered before she could. "Yeah."

Wendy and Stan wandered over to his car, unable to ignore the entire student body gawking in their direction. He put his cap back on to hide his face. It took everything in him to make eye contact with Wendy, who was anxiously picking at her cuticles while her imagination ran wild with what Stan was about to say.

"Look…I haven't forgiven you yet. I'm just saying that first."

She nodded. "I didn't…don't expect you to."

Stan licked his lips, trying to carefully word what he was about to say. "What I want to say is…well, I just hope we can still be friends. Not right now, but in the future. I don't want us to turn into a bad cliché of exes that hate each other."

Wendy was so relieved she almost cried. "Thank God. Stan, I would love to be friends with you."

He almost smiled.

"Do you think…" she began, staring at Kyle while Kenny ruffled his red hair, "You could ever be close with Kyle again?"

Stan didn't answer. Together, they watched Bebe playfully reprimand Kenny for giving Kyle a hard time. Wendy tried to picture Stan standing with them as their friend, everything in the past behind them. It was a pleasant thought.

Finally, he sighed. "Yeah. I think so. With time. It's going to take a lot of time."

Wendy reached forward and grabbed his hand, giving it a squeeze. "Thank you. I mean it."

Stan squeezed back and let go. "I've got to go, but I'll see you around."

"Of course."

Stan climbed into his truck and drove off out of the parking lot, leaving the high school and Wendy and Kyle far behind him. If anyone was going to need the summer to think things through and heal, it was Stan.

Wendy made her way back over to her friends and gave them the strongest smile she could muster. Bebe hugged her best friend. She knew just by looking at her that she needed it. Wendy gripped Bebe for dear life, feeling sudden emotion choking her throat, threatening to make her cry.

"Wendy," Kyle said, rubbing her back. "Are you okay?"

She nodded, sniffing and pulling herself together so she didn't have a breakdown in the parking lot on the last day of school.

"I'm fine. I swear. I'll be fine, I just need a minute." Quickly, she wiped underneath her eyes and flashed them a look of forced happiness.

Kyle frowned. "C'mon. Let's go sit in my car. We can talk about it."

Wendy and Kyle left Bebe and Kenny behind, waving goodbye as they climbed into the Broflovski SUV.

And then there were two. Kenny and Bebe leaned against the hood of her red Volkswagen, watching as the crowd began to thin and cars steadily left their spaces. They sat and watched in contemplative silence, the soft breeze throwing their hair back. Bebe turned to him.

"Did Lola tell you?" She asked, her chest tight.

He looked down at her, confused. "Tell me what?"

Bebe sank her teeth into her lip before she spoke. "About…me and Clyde."

"Oh. I mean, I knew you guys slept together, if that's what you're talking about."

The blonde decided that if she was going to have a relationship with Kenny that meant something, she would have to lay everything out on the table and be completely honest with him from then on out.

"He gave me the clap. I don't have it anymore, but I did. And part of the reason why I ended things with you was because somehow Lola found out and was blackmailing me so she could go to prom with you."

Kenny's hand moved to his mouth and Bebe saw his eyes crinkle with a hidden smile.

"Why are you smiling?" She asked, tugging on his arm, revealing his smug grin.

He put up his hands in mock defense. "I'm sorry, but…when I told you Lola got drunk and spilled everything, I meant it." He took a deep breath, trying not to laugh. "Lola was the one who gave the clap to Kevin. She got it from some guy at a party."

"Wait. You knew?"

He shrugged. "It's whatever. People get STDs. It's a part of life. No one's going to judge you for that. If they do, then they're shitty people anyway."

Bebe expected to feel embarrassed or ashamed, but she only felt angry at Lola for taking precious time away from her and making her feel like a stray cat backed into a dark alley. Before she could plan exactly how she was going to murder Lola and get away with it, her phone vibrated in her back pocket. Bebe sighed when she pulled it out.

"Ugh. My mom wants me home soon."

Kenny opened the car door for Bebe. "Why?"

She rolled her eyes. "She's turned into a helicopter parent after everything that happened at prom."

He thought it must have been nice to have a mom who cared so much.

Bebe plopped into her seat and started her car, feeling the swaths of cold air that washed over her skin from the AC. Kenny closed the door for her and leaned down into the open window.

"Hey."

Bebe giggled anxiously, wondering where this intense side of Kenny was coming from. He was awfully close to her face. "Hi?"

"Let's go on another date. Soon."

She felt blush flood her face and chest. "Oh. Okay. Yeah."

He smiled.

"Good."

Kenny walked away to his beat-up Chevy, resisting his urge to pump his fist in the air in victory.

In Kyle's car, Wendy had calmed down, and had a fistful of McDonald's drive-thru napkins soaked in tears in her sweaty palm. Kyle had his hands on the steering wheel, knuckles white, hating nothing more than seeing her upset.

"Are you going to be okay?" He asked gently, relinquishing his grasp on the wheel to brush a chunk of her ink-black hair behind her ear.

She sniffled and nodded. "Yeah. It's just weird and tough. I'm sorry for being so dramatic."

He sighed and rubbed her cheek with his thumb. "You're not being dramatic. At all."

She wiped her tears away one last time, shoving her clump of damp napkins into a cupholder. Pulling down the sun visor, she sank at the sight of her bloated, red face.

"Kyle?" She asked. "Are we ever going to just be…I don't know, normal?"

He tried to smile but it didn't work.

"Normal is stupid and subjective. Don't strive for normal, Wendy."

She turned to him from the passenger seat, meeting his green eyes. They stared at each other like that for a long time, taking in every feature of each other's faces, before Wendy finally broke into a smirk.

"You know what? You're right. Normal is stupid."

With that, they drove off into the afternoon sun, hopeful about what the summer would bring.

Question and Answer

Q from nowthatsveryphucked: Where did Cartman go? I don't think I see him anywhere in this fanfiction, or even mentioned at all.

A: Good question! In early drafts of this story, Cartman was a main character. However, I struggled a LOT with writing his character and when writing those versions, I actually started to hate trying to keep my fanfiction Cartman true to cartoon Cartman. Hating something about what you're writing is a sure way to never finish it! So, I decided to scrap him from the plot and replace what he did in earlier drafts with other characters' actions like those of Clyde, Red, Kenny, etc.

(Also, I do mention why Cartman isn't there in the author notes of Chapter Ten!) He was actually supposed to be featured in Chapter Ten as he came back from military school for the holidays, but even then, I couldn't figure out how to include him and it felt redundant at that point to introduce another character who would have absolutely no effect on the plot. However, he MAY (serious MAYBE) included in the sequel if you missed him. Don't depend on it, though.

Q from Smarvin: What were your favorite and least favorite parts to write?

A: It's hard to pick! I think the scenes with Wendy and Bebe as BFFs were really fun. I also loved the fights between Bebe and her parents, which were pretty much word for word the kind of fights I had with mine at that age. Early on, writing Kyle and Wendy was fun, but as their relationship got more and more angsty I sort of dreaded those parts. My least favorite parts were probably scenes with Stan (although I loved writing his meltdown) and the filler parts. A lot of the stuff involving the musical was filler, a lot of the stuff at the Bijou was filler…I guess with a story this long there's bound to be a lot of that.

Q from Smarvin: What gave you the idea to do this fic in the first place?

A: Short answer, a lot of things. Long answer, I came up with this story when I was really young and way more into SP than I am now. I love 'coming-of-age,' light-hearted and funny stories that still have substance to them and there aren't a lot of those for SP, probably because the show is a ridiculous comedy cartoon.

Someone close to me way back got chlamydia (not the same as gonorrhea, I know) and I was so shocked that at a high school age, kids could get STDs, which is something that I'd never even thought about. STDs seemed like something only prostitutes had to worry about. Fun fact, the original title of this fic was Muffin Tops & The Clap, because the STD used to take way more precedence. Then, a friend told me about how her nudes got leaked, revenge porn started coming up in the news…I've also dated my fair share of closeted gay men. Such is life.

This story actually originated from an idea I had when I was 12 or 13 about a party that all the kids threw one weekend. The plot was loosely similar in that Kyle and Wendy went behind Stan's back, and Kenny and Bebe were also a thing. As I got older, the plot expanded, and things ballooned. It took me a long time to figure out how I was going to end this. I actually didn't have the ending figured out until Chapter 4 or 5 was posted!

Q from Smarvin: What other South Park fanfics would you recommend?

A: If I'm being honest, I don't read much fanfiction. I really barely have time to write it! There are a few that I love that have sadly been deleted, but Nothing That I Wouldn't Try by scarlettshazam is an amazing Kenny/Bebe and Clyde/Craig story. Negative by rensrenegade is a really sad but beautifully written Kenny/Bebe oneshot. November 3rd, 2014, 11:45pm by Draikinator is a really cool, unique fic with an awesome twist ending.

Q from Smarvin: Any plans for more South Park writing beyond the sequel?

A: Unfortunately, no. This is a fandom I'm no longer involved in and don't keep up with any more. I will say that maybe a few years down the line I'll come up with another idea for a fic, but at this point in time, I want to focus on other stories. I do have a lot of love for South Park still but don't really count it as one of my interests.

Q from Call Me Sami: What made you a Kyle/Wendy shipper?

A: I just have always thought they would be cute together. Whenever Kyle has a crush on girls on the show it's always so sweet, and Wendy always seemed to be mothering Stan and too smart for him, so…same as anyone, I guess! They just make sense together.

Q from Call Me Sami: What gave you the idea to put Kenny and Bebe together?

Q from specialreview4u: Why did you choose Bebe to be with Kenny?

A: The boob thing. Honestly. Kenny's obsession with boobs and Bebe being the first girl to get boobs led me to think that they would one day have awkward teen crushes on each other. The more I got to building Bebe for this story, the more I realized how much I loved her and Kenny together. I also have a weak spot for the popular, misunderstood cheerleader type and boy from the wrong side of the tracks trope, which is (hopefully) going to get touched on way more in the sequel than it was in Muffin Tops.

Thank you guys so, so, so, MUCH for this wonderful opportunity to share my stupid little idea with you all. I hope you enjoyed it half as much as I did. I'll see you next time in the sequel, Tramp Stamp, coming sometime in 2019!