A/N: It was pretty cruel of me to leave you one chapter away from the end, so I'm posting this from an Internet cafe in Galway! Enjoy the end and don't forget to review! (I'll have to catch up on my reading when I get back to the good old U.S. of A. in a week or so!)

Feeling nervous but excited, Cody entered Miss Tutweiller's room after school. Bailey and Reina were sitting on opposite sides to the room, Reina looking sullen, Bailey bored. Cody recognized a few other students, including London, who was filing her nails with the intense concentration of a doctor performing surgery, and his brother, who was occupied trying to discreetly flick a paper football out of the open porthole.

"Miss Tutweiller, I need to speak with Miss Pickett."

Miss Tutweiller smiled tiredly at her favorite student. "Cody, Bailey is in detention. You can talk to her when she's no longer being detained."

"I know. I sent her to detention." Cody said. "It's detention for my class."

"Well if you didn't want her in detention, then why did you give her detention?" Miss Tutweiller asked pointedly.

"I just need to speak with her." Cody reiterated.

Miss Tutweiller threw up her hands. "All right. Bailey, just go." she said. "Nobody respects the sanctity of detention anymore."

Zack looked up as Bailey crossed the room and left with Cody. "Is it just me, or is 'detention' starting to not sound like a word anymore?"

Cody stifled a smile, shooting a surreptitious look at Bailey as they walked down the corridors side-by-side.

"Can I ask where you're taking me, Mr. Martin?" Bailey asked. It looked like she was having a hard time keeping a straight face as well.

"Bails, I'm not taking you anywhere." he confessed with a grin. "I just busted you out of detention."

"My hero." she fake-swooned with a roll of her eyes. "Although it would have meant more if you hadn't sent me there in the first place."

Cody spread his hands. "Come on, I had to. The entire class was watching. And you did participate in what can only be described as a food fight."

"I know." Bailey looked at her feet. "Fine. But Reina started it." She ran a hand through her now-clean hair. "I'm just glad Queen Tut gave us time to go shower before detention. All that soup cannot have been good for my hair."

"I don't know, I thought you looked pretty good as a redhead." Cody joked, earning a swat from Bailey.

They came to her cabin and she fumbled in her pocket for the keys before letting them both in.

"So... London's in detention." Bailey said, explaining her roommate's absence unnecessarily, since Cody had just seen her in Miss Tutweiller's room. She flopped down on her bed, while Cody perched on London's. "Cody, about earlier... I'm sorry Reina broke up with you. I didn't mean to ruin things for you." She twisted her fingers together, a guilty look on her face.

"Hey..." Cody said. "It wasn't your fault." Not directly, anyway. "Reina's just crazy."

Oddly, this seemed to make Bailey feel worse. "Yeah, I know." she chuckled. "Imagine, you and me. Crazy."

Cody's heart leapt into his throat. "That's not what I said." He put his elbows on his knees, leaning into the space between the beds.

Bailey was blushing again, trying hard not to meet his eyes. "Oh."

Cody swallowed hard. He and Bailey were finally alone together, they were both single, she was looking at him from under her eyelashes... If there was ever a time to man up and be straight with her about his feelings, this was it. But just as he opened his mouth to speak she began to talk.

"Cody, I..." She stood up suddenly, restlessly walking to the other side of the room.

Cody stood as well, desperate to confess his feelings before he lost his nerve again. But she seemed like she had something important to say, and he couldn't exactly cut her off... "Yes?"

She started playing with her hair absently. "You'll think I'm crazy."

"No, I won't." Cody shook his head, taking a small step toward her. "You can tell me anything, remember?"

"There you go, being all sweet and thoughtful again..." Bailey muttered with a rueful smile. She took a deep breath and straightened up, still not meeting his gaze. "Okay... I think..." she broke off, placing a hand on her forehead, and started again. "Cody, I think I might be having feelings for you."

Cody's eyes widened. Did she really say what he'd thought she just said? A feeling of ecstatic exhilaration began to well up inside of him. "Bailey-"

She held up a hand to stop him. "At first I thought I just didn't like Reina, but... I realized what I really hated was her being with you. And then, in class earlier, when she dared me to deny that I wanted to be more than your friend..." She bit her bottom lip between her teeth and risked a glance at him. "I... just couldn't."

With every word she said, Cody's heart swelled a little bigger. "Bailey, I-"

"I know it's crazy, and random, and I don't want things to be awkward between us, because you're one of my best friends." she continued quickly. "It's just that, when I think about you kissing her..." She shut her eyes tightly. "I can't stand it, Cody. I can't stand it when I think about you kissing any girl... besides... me."

"Bailey..." Cody breathed, sensing that she was finally finished with her confession. He felt incredible, overcome with joy, and at the same time, touched. It obviously took a lot of guts for her to come out and tell him this- he could hear the fear in her voice that she was ruining their friendship by saying it. Even now she was standing with her eyes squeezed shut, her muscles tensed, almost as if she was preparing for a physical assault and not just an emotional rejection.

Didn't she know that he would never hurt her?

After the leap of faith she'd just made, he owed her nothing less than complete honesty. "Bailey. I never wanted Reina." he told her in a low, sincere voice. "It was always, always you." Her eyes were still closed when he rested one hand on her cheek, gently thumbing her hair back before touching his lips to hers. The kiss was brief and chaste, but Cody had never experienced anything so amazing.

Bailey was shaking when they separated; Cody thought he might be too. Her eyelids fluttered open and he suddenly found himself staring into her warm brown eyes. "Really?" she whispered, the beginnings of a smile touching her lips.

"Since I've known you." he confessed quietly.

She shook her head, confusion clouding her gaze. "But... this whole time? While I was mooning over Holden? That must have been..."

Cody snorted softly, mostly at himself, for putting himself through the entire Holden ordeal. "I wanted you to be happy, Bails."

"Cody..." He watched in shock as her eyes grew shiny. "That's the most..." For some reason he was entirely unprepared when she brought her hands to his shoulders and kissed him impulsively, the crackling electricity of their first kiss intensified into real heat.

Her lips were soft but insistent against his, and he let his instinct take over, their mouths moving together naturally. He felt her teeth scrape his bottom lip, and a shiver escaped down his spine, prompting him to wrap his arms around her waist, obeying that intense need to get closer... Bailey made a noise that was halfway between sigh and moan, and Cody couldn't help but smile against her mouth, pressing a series of short kisses against her lips and cheek.

"Wow..." Bailey breathed, looking at him through half-lidded eyes. She leaned her forehead against his and confessed with a tiny smile, "I've wanted to know what that would feel like since the other day at the pool... I was so sure you were going to kiss me then."

"I was." Cody admitted. "We got interrupted before I could."

"I know, I was surprised by how disappointed I was." she smiled ruefully. "It just never occurred to me what kissing you would feel like... I was so stupid." Bailey closed her eyes. "Holden kissed me last night." she told him. "And all I could think about was how there was no sparks, no electricity when he did. You didn't even have to touch me for me to feel it with you." She opened her eyes and smiled shyly. "That's why I broke up with him. Even though I knew you were with Reina, I couldn't be with the wrong guy for another second."

Cody huffed a laugh. "I was only with Reina because I wasn't brave enough to say no to her... at least, until she started insulting you. And I only kissed her because I saw you kissing Holden, and I was jealous beyond words." It felt amazing to tell her all this, to get the feelings he had hidden for so long out in the open, and to see her smile because she liked what she heard.

"I was so jealous of Reina!" Bailey returned. She grinned guiltily. "I know it was wrong, but it felt so good to egg her in the face earlier!"

"As a teacher, I shouldn't take sides." Cody said, before lowering his voice playfully. "But she had it coming."

"For disrespecting kitchen utensils?" Bailey teased.

"No." Cody planted a kiss on her jaw. "For disrespecting my girlfriend."

"She was your girlfriend." Bailey reminded him, with a delighted smile at what he was actually implying.

"Not anymore."

"That's right," Bailey said, looping her arms possessively around his neck in a way Cody took to mean yes, I will be your girlfriend. "Not anymore."