The End, Part I
Mark (11 hours later)

I wake up to an unfamiliar cell phone alarm clock going off at some ungodly hour. In bed beside me someone moves, and the alarm stops ringing. In the dark, I reach for her and pull Cameron back towards me.

She doesn't resist, but she says, "I have to go home. I can't wear the same clothes to work two days in a row." Her voice is sleepy in the best possible way—not tired, but dreamy and content.

"You can wear one of my shirts," I say. "Roll up the sleeves."

She doesn't answer, but she seems to settle back in. I hold on to her, afraid that if I let her go I will wake up again to find that it has all been a dream, that none of it has happened at all.

Of course, I didn't take to Elise's house the day before. I took her to dinner; we talked for hours. Then I took her home, where we slowly undressed each other, and in my bed she pressed her slender body against mine and told me again that she loved me. And in the morning, I awoke to her alarm clock, and there I lay, and here I lie, with the only woman in the world beside me.

She sighs. She says, "I really should go."

She runs a finger along my temple, down towards my chin. So I kiss her and she kisses me back at length. But then, since she is Cameron, and so responsible, and she must go home to change her clothes, she pulls away and taps my lips three times with her finger. She crawls out of bed and starts getting dressed.

I stretch and yawn and allow myself to close my eyes and lie there for just a few minutes. It's very early. Then I sit up. "I'll drive you back," I tell her.

Cameron, who is buttoning her shirt, pauses to smile at me. And all I want for the rest of my life is for her to smile at me. Then a powerful melancholy hits me. Because the beginning is just a sad as the end if it's the beginning of something that's going to end eventually. And I have to be sure. I just have to be sure. I say, "Cameron."

"Hmmm," she says, but continues dresses.

"You'd better marry me this time," I say. She stops dead and looks at me. I say, "I'm not saying we have to march up the JP tomorrow or anything. I'm just saying, if you're not planning on it eventually you'd better warn me now."

Cameron smiles again. She says, "I'm planning on it."

- - - - - -

The End, Part II
Cameron (3 months later)

From the bathroom, where I'm curling my hair, I'm listening closely for any signs of life inside the bedroom. I hear papers shuffling, and finally I hear Mark's voice. "Oh God," he groans. "What have you done?"

"You asked me," I reply. Taking a last look at my reflection, I turn off the curling iron and enter the bedroom.

Mark is sitting cross-legged on the bed looking intently through a thick stack of papers in front of him. It's his manuscript, the one that he asked me to edit, and which I just gave back to him. He says, almost accusingly, "You destroyed it."

"I did not," I reply. "I just offered my extremely helpful and someone lengthy commentary. And I did it for free, too. You should be grateful. Most people have to pay for that kind of stuff."

"I am grateful. I'm just also in shock," he says, still shuffling through the papers, still having not once looked up at me.

"Do I look pretty?" I ask.

He looks at me now, at first with the manuscript still in his hands. Then he puts it down, sets it completely aside, and gets this look on his face like he does sometimes. He stands up and grabs my hand and drags me over to the bed.

"Sit down," he says, sitting me down. And then: "Stay there." With that, he disappears out of the bedroom. I sit on the bed and wait for him to return, bemused and curious.

When he comes back, he kneels in front of me and quite earnestly takes my hands. "Camry," he says, "you have to marry me. Say you will."

It's not exactly surprising, but I'm surprised at him asking me now, when I'm late for my Maggie's baby shower, practically on my way out the door. Playfully, not suspiciously, I tell him, "I'm sure there are better editors out there, if that's what you're after. Probably prettier ones."

"There are no prettier girls," he says. He indicates the manuscript. "I said that somewhere in the fifth chapter, if you noticed."

Which does surprise me, on all accounts. "What? It's not even about me. It's a western. It's historical fiction."

"Of course it's about you. It'll always be about you. I've just learned subtlety, is all."

Now I'm the one leafing through the manuscript, looking for chapter five, and Mark says, "You haven't answered me yet. Look."

I look. He has a ring, but not just any ring. The ring I sent back to him five years ago.

"Oh my God," I say. "Oh my God. You're kidding me."

He laughs and shakes his head. "Nope. I kept it all these years. Which is actually kind of embarrassing. And also kind of cheap of me to offer it to you now, when I could afford way better, if you think about it."

I lean down and kiss him, and he slips the ring onto my hand. "That's a yes, then," he says.

"It's a million yeses," I reply. "But I'm also late."

"Come on," Mark says, standing up and pulling me up after him. "Come on, I'll drive you."

- - - - -

A/N: Apologies for the long delay for only a very short epilogue. I honestly could not figure out how to finish this thing off. Then the Battlestar Galactica finale ate my brain. Then I still could not think of how to finish this. But anyway, there it finally is.

Thanks all for your wonderful reviews without. So now all you have to do is review one more time and let me know what you think/thought about the last little bit here or the whole shebang or whatever.

You can also, if you like, tell me how you feel about modernized Catherine Moorland being a science fiction geek, because I'm totally considering going there, although I'm not certain yet how it would all work out.

Love to everyone. Keep a sharp eye for long-delayed updates to "Stage Effects" or perhaps something Northanger Abbey-themed.

~Non-damsel