And... my latest chapter is finally up! I apologize for the delay, and thanks so much to everyone for their lovely feedback and encouragement. This instalment will be a two-parter, the second on its way as fast as I can write it.

October 2013

Knock, knock, knock.

Knock, knock, knock.

Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.

Ted, out of breath, opened the door to his apartment.

"Mom! Clint!" he said, shocked to see them standing before him. And slightly embarrassed, as he looked down at himself wearing nothing but his boxers. "Wh-what're you guys doing here?"

"Your mother and I thought we'd visit," Clint said, his guitar as always strapped to his torso, wandering past Ted into the apartment, his mother following suit.

"Um, this is kind of a bad time..." Ted began, his eyes darting up towards the bedroom. "How about you guys go to the coffee shop downstairs and I'll meet you there in 15 minutes?"

"Don't be silly, sweetheart," his mother said, as she and her husband sat down on the couch, cutting right to the chase. "I wanted to hear about this new girlfriend of yours—I've been curious about her since you mentioned her in our last conversation."

Ted hadn't had the chance to talk to his mom all summer. She and Clint had gone on a three-month-long yoga road trip across the Midwest, and every retreat had a "no cell phones" policy. So he finally got a chance to tell her about Tracy when she called him up a few weeks earlier upon their return. She said she was looking forward to meeting his new girlfriend. He just wasn't expecting his mom and stepdad to show up at his doorstep unexpectedly.

"A call would've been nice..." Ted began, wrapping his arms around himself.

His mother gave him a pointed look. "Theodore, just go upstairs, the both of you get dressed, and bring her down so I can meet her." She smiled knowingly.

Ted blushed; there was no point in denying it. "Um, sure. We'll be right down."

He sprinted up the stairs and bolted into the bedroom, breathless, shutting the door behind him.

"Wow, someone's eager to get to Round 3," teased Tracy from the bed. "Guess you got rid of whoever was at the door?"

"Not exactly," said Ted, frantically looking around for his jeans. "Um, my mother and stepfather are here, so we have to get dressed. Fast. My mom knows we were up here having sex."

His lovely, spazzy girlfriend bolted upright. "What?!" she said, practically falling off the bed in her haste to get up. "Crap. Where the damn hell is my underwear?"

"And here I thought you would be the one to calm me down," Ted joked while on his hands and knees, finding his pants under the bed. "A-ha!" he called out successfully.

"You sure she knew we were having sex?" Tracy asked, grabbing her bra from the bedpost and slipping it on.

"Yeah," Ted said sheepishly. "She gave me the same knowing look she used to when I was a teenager, when I'd come out of my room after masturbating. So she knows." Ted shuddered at the memory; she always knew. Always.

"I'm not surprised," she said. "You can't hide your I-just-had-sex face well. You need to be more discreet, babe."

"Discretion," Ted said with a laugh, walking over to his dresser and grabbing a t-shirt. "I was in my boxers. Why else would I be in just my underwear at 1 in the afternoon?"

Tracy put her head in her hands. "Crap, crap, crap," Tracy muttered, then went to rifle around Ted's closet where she kept a few dresses, for something to wear. "This is so not the first impression I wanted to make!"

Ted smiled; she really was adorable when she was nervous. But he knew this was a big deal for her. Lord knows he'd be a basket case whenever the time came for him to meet her parents. Especially if they showed up at her door unexpectedly while they were having sex. He'd probably just panic and try to escape from her bedroom window.

"Hey," he said gently, walking over to her and wrapping his arms around her from behind. "My mom's going to adore you, so you don't need to worry about that. As for the sex thing, she doesn't judge. Believe me, I actually fear she and Clint'll give us sex advice once we get down there." He paused. "God, I hope they don't."

Tracy laughed despite herself, and leaned back into his chest. "It's just, ugh, why did we have to be playing some kinky game I read about in Cosmo, of all things, when they rang? I don't normally even read Cosmo! Couldn't we have been playing a tame, family-friendly board game in the living room, or doing today's crossword puzzle?"

Ted chuckled and kissed the back of her head. "I promise, I won't mention Cosmo if you won't. Come on: let's get down there."

They finished getting dressed, Ted successfully getting Tracy flustered by jokingly trying to initiate a quickie, and each took a deep breath before opening the door.

"By the way," Ted whispered as they walked down the stairs. "I apologize in advance for Clint."

Tracy gave him a confused look. "What—" she began, before both his mom and Clint stood up and looked at them when they made it to the foot of the stairs.

"Mom, Clint, this is Tracy," Ted said, a proud tone to his voice, putting a comforting hand on the small of Tracy's back. "Tracy, this is Clint... and this is my mom, Virginia."

"It's really nice to meet you, Clint... and Virginia," said Tracy, reaching out to shake Clint's hand, then his mom's.

"Come, sit!" said Virginia happily, grabbing both of Tracy's hands and pulling her towards the couch. "I am thrilled to meet you! I have so much I want to ask."

"Um, sure," said Tracy as the three of them sat down. "I'm an open book. Except for that period between 2001 and 2003; that goes with me to the grave!"

Ted shook his head, chuckling under his breath. Always with the jokes, he thought.

"Okay, I'll go to the kitchen and make us some drinks," said Ted. "Mom, Clint: green tea for you both? Trace: coffee?"

They all nodded, and Ted looked over at Tracy, waiting to see if she'd give him a "Get me outta here!" face. But she seemed comfortable as she spoke softly with his mom and Clint, her usual friendly nature and genuine interest in others taking over, and she seemed in her element, her nervousness from earlier gone. Or, at least she was hiding it fairly well, he deduced.

He began brewing a pot of coffee and boiling some water, leaning against the kitchen counter as he waited, listening to the voices in the living room, Tracy's exuberant laugh popping up every once in a while. He couldn't exactly hear what they were saying, but he was sure his mom was sharing a few anecdotes about his childhood, most of them likely embarrassing. He didn't mind; he didn't want to keep anything from her. Not the time he got trapped under a fake boulder at the mall, nor the fact that his best friend as a kid was a balloon, nor the fact that he wet the bet until he was 10. He wanted her to know everything about him, good, bad, embarrassing, whatever. Ted figured it meant that she'd know him 100%.

A few minutes later, Ted began pouring everyone's drinks into mugs when his mom walked into the kitchen.

"Hi sweetheart," she told him. "I thought I'd help you bring the drinks out."

"Thanks, mom," Ted said as he tore open the tea bags and dropped them into the water. "How's it going out there?"

"It's going lovely!" she said. "Tracy and Clint were talking music these last couple of minutes, and she just excitedly ran upstairs to get her guitar."

Sure enough, they heard the plucking of a few guitar strings before Tracy and Clint both began belting out some Joni Mitchell.

"And the seasons, they go round and round. And the painted ponies go up and down..." they sang in unison.

Ted and Virginia both chuckled. "So, Tracy seems like a nice girl."

"But?" Ted asked cautiously. His mother had never really liked any of his girlfriends, always nitpicking about something. Too tall, too short; too pretty, not pretty enough; not ambitious, too career-oriented... Ted had felt at times that he could never win when it came to the type of girl he'd bring home, which is why he usually kept his romantic relationships to himself. Which was easy, given that his mother lived a number of states away. But with Tracy, he wanted his mom to get to know her, to like her; he wasn't seeking her approval in the slightest, but would love to have it nonetheless.

"There are no buts, Theodore," she said defensively. "She's sweet and polite and has the same... unusual... sense of humor as you. And she genuinely seems to love you, at least that's what I gathered while speaking to her. What more could a mother hope for her son?"

Ted smiled. "Thanks, mom," Ted said gratefully. "That means a lot."

There was a comfortable silence as Ted walked over to the fridge to grab some milk (whole for everyone, almond for Tracy) but then felt his mom's eyes on him as he poured.

"So, things are serious between the two of you?" she finally asked him.

"Well," Ted said shyly. "We've only been seeing each other barely five months..."

"But it's serious," she confirmed. "She keeps her guitar here, she speaks very fondly of you, and I see you have two kinds of milk in your refrigerator..." Ted looked down at the container of almond milk in his hand that he had just poured into Tracy's mug.

"Yes, it's serious," Ted admitted. "I love her." It really was as simple as that.

"Are you going to marry her?" she asked him bluntly.

"Moooom!" Ted hissed, peering out at the living room, hoping Tracy didn't hear that. Realistically, she didn't hear a thing, as she was still singing and strumming along with Clint.

"Well?"

Ted sighed. "God willing, I would love nothing more than to marry her, if she'll have me," he said truthfully. "But we're not thinking or talking about that right now; we're just... taking things as they come. Can we leave it at that?"

His mom smiled. "That's all I needed to hear," she said, grabbing two mugs from the counter and exiting the kitchen. Ted grabbed the other two and followed her out.

In the living room, Tracy put down her guitar and took her coffee from Ted's hands, her dancing eyes looking up into his, thanking him. He sat down next to her, as Clint began talking about their summer yoga retreat but tuned his words out, as he reflected on his exchange with his mother earlier.

Marriage. Of course, settling down had been on his brain for the past eight years. Not many came close to being the one: Robin, maybe, but it wasn't in the cards for them. Victoria, there had been a chance, once upon a time. Then there was Stella, of course. But with Tracy...

Tracy, Ted thought happily. When he first met her, he knew she was a possibility. More than a possibility; from the moment she spoke to him, and charmed him completely, he felt what he was sure Klaus had spoken to him about on that same train platform a year earlier.

Lebenslanger schicksalsschatz, he had called it. A euphoric rush that coursed through one's entire body, head to toe, inside and out. And when Klaus had asked him if he'd ever felt that way about someone, he thought he may have; Victoria had been on his mind at that particular moment. But now, he could say with absolute certainty that Tracy fell in that category.

Ted's eyes quickly darted down at her, as she smiled and nodded her head at Clint's words, asking him and his mom a question about yoga, an activity she had been meaning to try. Yes, he thought. Five months earlier, Tracy was a pretty good possibility. But now, as he's gotten to know her—at her best and at her worst—and love her completely and unconditionally, he could truly say that Tracy was going to be his wife one day.

He wasn't clairvoyant in any sense, and he would still pray to any god out there that she'd say "yes" the moment he'd ask, but he knew that there was a bright future ahead for them. Heck, if he could ask her right now, he would. But they had all the time in the world, he knew. When the moment was right, and he'd pick out the perfect ring and the perfect spot, nothing in the world could stop him.

They continued chatting for a good hour, empty mugs sitting on the coffee table, and Virginia continuously asked Tracy more questions about her life, family, work, hobbies... This was more interest than she'd ever had in any of his girlfriends, but the fact that he confirmed that she may be her future daughter-in-law, well, it meant that she'd want to get to know her as much as humanly possible.

Ted's stomach grumbled and, after checking his watch and seeing it was 2:30, he realized that he and Tracy had skipped lunch.

"Hey, guys," he spoke up. "I'm actually kind of hungry; should we continue this downstairs? There's this great Chinese restaurant. My treat!"

"That's a lovely idea," said his mom. "But since meeting Tracy today is a cause for celebration, Clint and I will be buying lunch."

Ted had no reason to fight her on it, and Tracy thanked them both for the kind gesture.

"Good idea, babe," she whispered to him as they all stood up, clutching her stomach dramatically. "I thought I was going to keel over from hunger."

Ted laughed and squeezed her shoulder affectionately. They all grabbed their things, and he held open the door for everyone, his mom and Clint walking out into the hallway and disappearing around the corner. Tracy started to walk out, head down and hands rifling through her purse, but Ted reached out his arm to block her way.

"Hey," he said softly.

She looked up at him. "Hey, back," she responded with a smile.

"So, that wasn't too painful," he acknowledged.

Tracy laughed softly. "Not at all painful," she admitted. "They're real nice. And your mom only asked one question about our sex life, so I guess we can count it as a successful meeting."

"More than successful," he confirmed, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her close for a kiss. "She loved you, no surprise there."

"Well, I'm pretty loveable," she teased, giving him a quick peck and then pulling away. "C'mon, let's go eat." She grabbed his hand and pulled him out into the hallway, Ted shutting the door behind him, and they ran down the corridor.