Author's note: Here you go! Last chapter! I hope you like it! I will try to make it fluff-o-rama, yet good! Please review!

Disclaimer: Same old, same old! The lyrics at the beginning of this chapter are by Smash Mouth and the song later in it is by Stevie Nicks.

Reconsider Me: Part Four

When you had to go

I hated the thought

I only wish the night was twice as long

My heart cries out—more, baby!

I love you so much

I wish that there was more of you to touch

I can't get enough of you baby!

By late afternoon, Rosalie thought she felt sturdy enough to walk into the kitchen and forage for a bagel. Dewey was at band practice, and the apartment felt strangely empty as she walked through. She ran out of steam in the living room, so she sat down on the couch, then realized that the couch was no longer a couch at all, but had transformed into Dewey's bed. She sighed and laid back. For a hide-a-bed, it wasn't bad.

An hour later, Dewey walked into the apartment with his usual bluster, then stopped short as he strode into the living room and saw Roz curled up on the end of his bed. She was wearing a rather worn pink bathrobe, her hair had gone from "piecy" to just plain rumpled, and her glasses were sliding off the end of her nose, but he couldn't help but smile as she rolled over and let out a sleepy sigh.

He was distracted by a loud growl from his stomach, and he obeyed its call and went into the kitchen. When he returned, accompanied by a handful of chips, Roz was stirring.

"Hey there, Sleepy Jean," he said, then almost killed himself as he realized that he had just quoted the Monkees.

"Oh, hi, Dewey," Rosalie yawned, sitting up straight, then jumping as she looked around and realized where she was. "Wow, I'm sorry, I'm on your bed, I—"

"Hey, no problem." Feeling brave, he sat down next to her. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah, I… wait, what time is it?"

Dewey consulted the clock on the wall. "Um, almost seven."

"Ooh! I've gotta watch The Bachelor!" she cried, her illness momentarily forgotten in the reality TV frenzy.

"O…kay. I'll watch too!" Dewey said, not wanting to leave his cozy spot.

To his surprise, he became rather absorbed in the show. "Now which one is that again?"

"That's Kelly. She's evil, and last week she made out with Jim in the hot tub!"

"What about her?"

"That's Hilary. She's a Las Vegas casino worker, and she says that she's already sure that she loves Jim, but I think she's just trying to get an edge on everyone else!"

By the end of the hour, Dewey felt intimately acquainted with the cast of the show and genuinely concerned that the rakish millionaire would choose the wrong girl. Rather than giving up his spot, he suggested clicking around the channels to see if anything good was on. Rosalie settled on a showing of a movie version of the play The Importance of Being Earnest. Once he saw the period costumes and heard the snooty accents, Dewey was sure that he was in for a snooze-fest, but as the movie continued, he started getting interested. The plot was about two friends who both pretended to be a fictional guy named Earnest and used the alter ego to woo two separate girls.

The story actually reminded Dewey of his own situation—he had pretended to be Ned Schneebly and had sort of wooed Roz, right? He became more and more anxious as the girls in the movie freaked out when the true identities of their men were discovered.

"Um, what do you think? Would you forgive them?" Dewey asked in what he hoped was a casual tone, sadly watching as the movie girls snubbed the deceivers.

"Me? Oh, definitely!" Rosalie exclaimed. Dewey perked up until he heard her next words. "I mean, really, Rupert Everett and Colin Firth are so handsome, how could I NOT?"

"Oh." Dewey slumped over and turned his attention back to the screen.

Dewey sighed with relief when the movie ended happily. Just as he began to turn toward Roz, he felt her head fall against his shoulder. His heart leapt. Had the movie made her realize that he deserved her forgiveness and/or love? He tilted his chin down to study her expression and realized… that she was asleep. He sighed, then decided to make the most of this opportunity. He reached up to stroke her hair and let his fingers slide down her smooth face. Taking advantage of the fact that her head was below his for once, he rested his chin on top of her head and sighed contentedly. If only she was doing this on purpose…

He was startled out of this blissful and agonizing state by the sound of the doorbell. He jumped, but neither his sudden movement nor the sound woke Roz, so he gently laid her back on the couch and went to the door himself.

Whoever was waiting rang the doorbell again. "I'm comin, I'm comin', hold your horses, punk!" Dewey bellowed. He swung the door open to reveal a pseudo-rock, self-absorbed fashion victim—no, not any of his underage band members. It was Spider!

"Hey, bro, how's it hangin'?" Spider asked in a clearly rhetorical and rather ghetto fashion. "Where's Rosalie?"

"Um, on the couch," Dewey answered, too stunned to come up with a good one-liner.

"Is she ready?"

"Ready… for… what?" Dewey asked, trying to think of some good reason that this jerk would be on Roz's porch, but finding none.

"Ready for a mind-blowing evening!" Spider said with a head tilt and a seductive smirk.

"Huh?"

"We had a date tonight, man! What's the deal?"

For one horrific and baffled moment, Dewey thought that he had somehow become very drunk and made a date with Spider. Then, in an even worse moment, he realized that Roz, possibly sober, really had!

"Well, uh, she's sick. She's actually sort of passed out on the couch. I guess she forgot all about it. Um, actually, I just remembered, she told me earlier that she thinks you're a total pansy and didn't want to go out with you at all. She's probably faking the whole 'sick' thing so she can let you down easy," Dewey babbled, gathering steam as he went on.

"What?" The startled cry didn't come from Spider—it came from behind him. He wheeled around and saw Roz standing in the kitchen with an expression of mixed shock and anger.

"Dewey, what is wrong with you? I didn't say any of that! I really am sick, as evidenced by my lethargic behavior and unnatural congestion, and I am so offended that you would try to… to… sabotage me like that! What's going on?"

"Rosalie! Babe!" Spider

"Hi," she said weakly. Then she turned back to Dewey. "Explain yourself, now!"

Dewey had never been chewed out with such an excellent vocabulary before. "I… I… I'm sorry! I don't know what I was thinking."

"I don't either! I mean, why would you do that?" She clearly refused to let the topic go.

"It's not important," Dewey replied lamely.

"Yes it is! Yes-it-is, and I want to know!"

"BECAUSE I LIKE YOU! I DON'T WANT YOU DATING THIS LOSER BECAUSE I LIKE YOU AND I'M TOTALLY JEALOUS!" Dewey shouted.

"Whoa…" Spider exclaimed in Keanu Reeves fashion.

"You… like me?" she repeated blankly.

"YES! I think you're adorable and I love staying with you and I, I, love your miniskirts and I even like Stevie Nicks because you do!"

Rosalie stood frozen like a deer in the headlights, then turned and fled from the kitchen, slamming her bedroom door and locking it with an audible click.

"Hey! What about our date?" Spider cried. "Dude, such bad karma here!" he said sadly. He turned as though shaking the dust of the apartment off of his feet and slumped away, letting the door fall closed behind him.

Dewey stood in the aftermath of the two slammed doors, feeling like a total idiot. He took a deep breath and decided to try to salvage the situation a little. He walked over to Roz's door and knocked humbly.

"Roz? Can I come in?"

No answer.

"Come on, please?"

Still nothing.

"It's not like I committed murder! I just like you, is that a crime?" Dewey got into the rant mode that he usually reserved for discussing "The Man." "Show some mercy! Have pity on me, baby!" He burst into song. "Ple-e-e-ease, ba-beh!"

"ALL RIGHT!" The door flew open.

"Roz, I'm sorry I lied to that freak. But can't you give me a chance?"

"Dewey, I have given you chances to prove that you're not a total bum, but you never take them! You lied about being a substitute, you liked about actually wanting to hang out with me for fun that time you took me to the bar, and now you're using me for a place to stay! Why should I believe anything you say?"

"Look, I know I'm a loser, but right now I'm an honest loser! I'm mooching off you, but that doesn't mean I don't like you! I mean, I'm going crazy, you're all I think about, and—"

"Enough." She put her hand up in his face. "I don't want to hear any of this. I'm not prepared for this, I didn't expect it and I can think of a million reasons this wouldn't work out, I mean, for Pete's sake, you sleep until noon and being in a band isn't a very stable professon, and—"

"Roz!" It was his turn to interrupt. "Stop trying to act like you care about all that! I know you now. You're a rock chick at heart, I just know it, and you feel this too." He grabbed her hands. She didn't pull them back, and he took a step closer. She stood still, and, gathering up all his courage, he leaned forward and kissed her. For one precious moment she leaned closer to him, squeezing his hands and returning the kiss with an ardor that sent shivers down his spine, but then she pulled back, shaking her head.

"No, I don't want to do this."

"That's not what it felt like a minute ago!"

"I don't! I want you out of here."

"What?"

"I want you to leave. By tomorrow. If not sooner." She had reverted back to strict principal mode, and she retreated to her room again, locking the door and leaving a shell-shocked Dewey behind.

Rosalie spent the next week in an unhappy daze, her emotions swinging from sad to angry to thoughtful in a moment's notice, but always settling back down to lonely when she entered her silent apartment. She had been furious when she heard Dewey lying to Spider and ruining her chance of going on what seemed like a fun date and a well-deserved break from her sensible image. As time went by, though, she found herself thinking less and less about that disappointment and realizing that when she threw Dewey out, she may have thrown out an even better chance to try out a new part of herself. After all, her so-called "wild" side only came out around him, at least lately.

She remembered coming home to his joyous chaos, the way he had helped her pick clothes and taken care of her when she was sick and even watched The Bachelor with her. She was already letting him stay in her house. Why would he need to act like he liked her? It wasn't like when he was trying to convince her to let him take the kids places. She was really beginning to regret her reaction to his confession.

Now she sat at her desk, buried under mounds of paperwork, but instead of working, she was resting her head on her arms, recalling Dewey's dramatic pleas and thinking of what she would say if she had the chance to change things. She was torn between reassuring herself that she had made the wise decision to turn him down (after all, everything she had said was true!) and admitting to herself that she missed him and that she was happier with him around. All 200-plus pounds of him, lazy, loud, and zealous as he was. But what could she do about it now? She didn't even have the number of his new apartment, and would he even forgive her? What if he hated her now? What if he was conning her again?

She had just spiraled off into another turmoil of indecision when her secretary ran into the office. "Miss Mullins! There's a… disturbance on the front lawn!"

She quickly sat up. "What?"

"The man who was here pretending to be a teacher and all of those kids in his band are on the front lawn! With… instruments and amplifiers and all these things that are probably against the fire code or the noise pollution laws… please, come out here!"

Roz's heart started pounding. "O…kay, sure! I'll take care of it right away!" she said, trying to sound composed. She rushed down the hall and out onto the front steps of the school, where pretty much all the students and faculty had gathered.

"ROZ!" Dewey's amplified voice cried. He was holding his guitar and standing in front of a mic stand, and as the secretary had said, the rest of School of Rock was assembled behind him. As though her name were a signal, the band began playing. After a few bars of music, Dewey began to sing, of all things, a Stevie Nicks tune.

Baby how much closer could we be
I swear you've become a part of me
You are with me everywhere I go I
f you feel it, I already know
Everything I say to you is true
I don't want to tell you what to do

But if I were you I would take the love I'm giving to you
Oh if I were you
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

If I were you I would trust in me like I trusted in you
Oh, if I were you
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

Dewey was singing his heart out, his eyes never leaving Rosalie, who was torn between being delighted, amused, and mortified.

I know what you're dreaming when you sleep
You have secrets I will always keep
And in every morning when we arise
I see my reflection in your eyes

Every boy must learn to be a man
Maybe you can help me, yes you can!

Rosalie laughed at his alteration of the original lyrics, but he remained straight-faced and intense.

But if I were you I would take the love I'm giving to you
Oh if I were you
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

If I were you I would trust in me like I trusted in you
Oh, if I were you
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

Well, I believe that love is a living thing
Born into our destinies
From a single moment of inspiration
And as it grows it changes your life forever!

But if I were you I would take the love I'm giving to you
Oh if I were you
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

If I were you I would trust in me like I trusted in you
Oh, if I were you
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

The captive audience burst into applause as the song ended, and the band members grinned. Well, all except for Dewey, who was staring at Rosalie with a burning gaze. The rest of the band played a reprise of the song, but Dewey didn't sing or play.

"Roz! What do you say?" he yelled into the microphone. Every eye focused on the dismayed principal, who just stared back.

"I'm asking you again! What do you say? Will you give me a chance?" The music intensified.

"YES!"

It took Rosalie a minute to realize that it was her own voice.

"WHOO!" That was definitely Dewey, who dropped his guitar unceremoniously onto the ground and leapt up the stairs, pressing through the crowd of astonished kids and teachers until he reached Rosalie.

"Do you mean it?" he asked excitedly. The rest of the crowd seemed to hold their breath in anticipation of her answer, so she quickly grabbed Dewey's hand and pulled him through the school doors and out of sight.

"Yes!" she whispered as soon as they escaped the crowd.

"What?"

"Yes!" she repeated.

"Huh?"

"YES!" She threw her arms around him.

"I heard you the first time, I just wanted to make you say it some more," he gloated.

She gasped in annoyance, but before she could say anything, he pulled her closer and kissed her. This time she didn't pull away.

In fact, they barely noticed when the school doors opened and the students began making their way back to class. They didn't hear the teacher's scandalized whispers or the kids' alarmed cries at seeing "old people" kissing, and Dewey didn't even hear Freddy and Zack's exclamations of "Way to go, man!" as they passed by.

Rosalie knew she would have a lot to explain to some angry parents, but for once, she didn't care. She was a wild rock chick, after all, and not afraid of anything

Or at least that's how she felt when Dewey was around her.

For once, she was sure—all the risks were worth it!