Hey guys! Here is yet another one-shot from me. This one is something I've been tossing around for a while now, but it's only now that I've actually decided to do it. The idea for this came from when my brother was going on about an episode of How I Met Your Mother and I just had this idea of 'how would it go if Dan and Zoe sat down with their young kids and told them how they met?' and this is the result. Just a quick note, the passages that are in italics are from when Dan and Zoe were still teens.
"Dad!"
As soon as Dan walked through the door, a small body collided with his legs and he laughed, falling onto his back as he smiled down at the little boy. He had a mop of auburn hair that desperately needed a haircut. Dan, hugging the boy tightly, sat up.
The boy wriggled free and Dan let him go, watching as he shook red hair out of his eyes. "Help me up, Harvey?"
Harvey shook his head. "No. You're not that old, Dad. Stop being lazy."
Dan grunted as he got up. "You sound like your mother."
Harvey grinned. "That's because Mum told me to say if you told me to do something you're perfectly capable of doing yourself."
Dan got up, putting Harvey over his shoulder as he walked down the hallway. Harvey squealed and beat his fists against his father's back, but the nine-year-old's had little effect on the thirty-four-year-old.
"Figured you were home, from all the screaming." Zoe said from the kitchen as Dan walked into the living room, depositing Harvey on the couch.
"I was not screaming." Harvey said.
"Daddy!" The five-year-old sitting on the couch cried, climbing over the back of the couch and excitedly flinging herself at Dan, her blonde hair flying behind her. Dan grinned and swung her around before setting her down and kissing the top of her blonde head. "Hello, princess. And what did you do today, Lils?"
"Mummy and I went shopping with Auntie Keri today." She replied proudly. "Look, Auntie Keri even bought me a necklace."
She showed him the necklace she was wearing – it was a delicate chain with a teardrop-shaped pendant with 'Lily' engraved into the metal.
"It's pretty." Dan told her. "But Auntie Keri should spend more money on practical things instead of useless little things, though."
Zoe flung the nearest item she could find at her husband – it turned out to be a wooden spoon, which bounced off his broad back. Dan turned slowly to look at her, a smile playing on his mouth. "What the hell was –"
Zoe aimed another spoon at him. "Watch your language and watch what you say about my sister."
Dan held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay! Relax."
"Hey, Lily." Harvey said, leaning over the back of the couch. "Do you remember what happened last time Dad got on Mum's bad side?"
Lily erupted into giggles. "Yeah, Mummy beat him up and gave him a com . . . con . . ."
"Concussion." Harvey told her.
"Yeah, one of those!" Lily said, laughing. Dan smiled at his two children, looking for the resemblance in Zoe. Although they both had the obvious resemblances – Harvey had inherited Zoe's auburn hair while Lily had gotten her big green eyes. Lily had apparently inherited Zoe's ability to be quick to trust people, as well as her brains, while Harvey had inherited her unswerving loyalty, but he'd also inherited Dan's temper and tendency to use his fists to solve his problems instead of his voice, which had gotten him into several fights at school.
"Dad, look! I got a ten out of ten on my spelling test!" Harvey cried, pulling Dan to the coffee table. Lily clambered over the couch, sitting on the opposite side of Dan to Harvey.
"Good job, Harv." Dan said, ruffling Harvey's hair.
"Dan." Zoe said, moving to lean on the back of the couch. "Lily has something to ask you."
Dan turned his attention to his daughter, who asked, "How did you and Mummy meet?"
Dan dipped his head back so he was staring straight into Zoe's eyes. "And why am I telling this story?"
"Because you have a knack for telling stories." Zoe told him.
"Even though I'm the unimaginative one." Dan said.
Zoe shook her head. "Because you'll tell it better."
Dan sighed and looked from Harvey to Lily, both looking at him expectantly. He got up and sat on the coffee table, facing them, while Zoe walked around the couch and sat beside Lily.
"Okay, kids." Dan started. "You know Mum's tattoo?"
"The one with the weird letters and numbers?" Harvey asked.
"The one that glows?" Lily piped up.
Dan nodded. "That's the one. Well, it's not a tattoo, exactly. It's like an ID card on her arm – it tells us who she is."
"But that's not right." Harvey said, confused. "Mum's name is Zoe. Not V.9.5.Z . . . O.E."
Dan nodded. "You know the people Mum and I work for? MI9?"
Both children nodded, unsure of where he was going with this.
"Well, I started with Uncle Tom and Auntie Neisha when I was sixteen." Dan said. "Our first mission ever was to intercept a truck holding a secret weapon. When we opened up the truck, we were expecting some weapon of mass destruction, but instead we found your mum."
"Hang on, hang on." Harvey said. "You found Mum in the back of a truck?"
Dan nodded and Harvey grinned. "That's cool."
"But at first he didn't trust me." Zoe said.
"Why?" Lily asked.
"Because my whole life, I'd been raised and trained by the enemy. He had every right not to trust me." Zoe said.
"So what happened?" Harvey asked.
"She saved Grandpa's life." Dan said. "And then she became part of our team."
"Then what happened?" Lily asked.
Dan's eyes met Zoe's, holding her gaze. "I fell in love with her."
Lily grinned, but Harvey made a gagging noise, which caused Zoe to grin.
Dan watched as Zoe trained – he loved watching the graceful way she moved, the way her bright green eyes lit up with delight when she knew she did something right.
He grinned as she flipped herself backwards, expecting her to land easily on her feet, but she'd flipped too close to the punching bag and her foot caught on it, sending her flying across the room.
"Zoe!" Dan shouted, jumping out of his hiding spot and scrambling towards her. Zoe seemed unharmed – she was already sitting up, leaning on one hand and lifting her other to her temple as she groaned.
"Hey, are you okay?" Dan asked, wrapping his arm around her waist and helping her sit up. Zoe sighed, pushing auburn hair out of her eyes. "I – yeah. Just clumsy, I guess."
Dan grinned down at her. "Since when are you clumsy?"
"Since now." Zoe replied, getting up. She looked at him, watching her with an almost curious blue gaze. "How long have you been here, by the way?"
"A while." Dan replied, shrugging.
"Dan." Zoe said, smiling.
"So are you still thinking of leaving to go find your sisters?" Dan asked, changing subject. A smile was playing on his mouth and he talked lightly about this because he knew she wouldn't leave them – this was Zoe they were talking about.
"No." Zoe said, sitting down so she was facing him. "I've made a decision."
"And?" Dan asked.
Zoe took a deep breath. "I'm going."
The change in Dan's facial expression was almost comical. "What?"
"I'm going to go find my sisters, Dan. I can't just . . . know about them but not know them. I need to do this."
"When . . . when do you leave?" Dan asked. It suddenly felt as though she were ripping his heart from his chest – it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to breathe.
"Tomorrow." Zoe said quietly. "I was . . . I was going to just leave. Without saying goodbye but . . . I can't do that. Not with you."
"And why am I so special?" Dan asked. Despite the fact that he knew that in a month or two, he was going to become incredibly bitter towards her – that's what always happened when anyone left him – in that moment, he loved her more than anything he'd ever known and he wanted to know what made him so special that it granted him the goodbye that the others didn't get.
Zoe looked nervous and she took a deep breath. "You get a goodbye because I love you."
That was the last thing Dan expected her to say. You didn't announce that you were leaving to travel the world and then tell someone that you loved them. You just – you don't do that.
But Zoe just had.
Dan didn't even think about it – he would have talked himself out of it if he had. He pulled Zoe towards him and kissed her, wrapping his strong arms around her petite waist. Zoe gasped into his kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him harder.
When they broke apart, Dan rested his forehead against Zoe's, both of them breathing heavily.
"You know this doesn't change anything." Zoe said quietly.
Dan nodded, brushing her hair away from her face. "I know, I just . . . I needed to feel that. At least once. We'll talk about us when you get back, because now you have a definite reason to come back."
Zoe nodded and pressed her lips together. She really badly wanted to kiss him again, but she didn't know whether that would be a good idea. Finally, she decided to hell with thinking things through. She didn't know how long it was going to be until she saw him again.
She grabbed his face and kissed him roughly, feeling his mouth press gently against her own with such an intensity that she felt it right down to her very core.
Even eighteen years later, neither Dan nor Zoe are entirely sure how it happened – who was the instigator, whose clothes came off first – but all they really knew was that, somehow, one minute they were lying there, kissing and the next, all Zoe could concentrate on was the sensations vibrating through her whole body and Dan's mouth and Dan's touch and Dan's eyes as he watched her with this look that told her that he absolutely adored her and he thought she was an absolute goddess.
And afterwards, as they both lay together, their bodies still intertwined, with Zoe's head on Dan's bare chest and her auburn hair splayed out across his sun-browned, wet skin, Zoe couldn't help but force back tears because she was sore and she was sweaty and she was feeling things that, according to KORPS and SKUL, she wasn't supposed to be feeling, but she was completely and perfectly happy for the first time in her life and soon, she was going to have to give it all up. And the worst part of the whole thing was that she was barely even worried for her own heartbreak – although she knew she would start to feel that the moment she left his side – she was more concerned for Dan. How was it fair that he would suffer? He would spend months, possibly years, wondering what he did to drive her away, to make her so desperate to leave him, even after what they'd just done, but in truth, it had nothing to do with him. She couldn't explain it – she just knew that she had to go off in search of her sisters and she had to do it alone. If she'd been religious, she would have said she was being called by God, but Zoe wasn't religious. She didn't believe. She just knew, in her heart, that she couldn't take him with her. She had to leave him behind. As much as it killed her, that was what she had to do.
And even before Dan opened his eyes, with only a thin blanket covering his body, he knew that she was gone. He felt her absence as pain in his chest, as if she'd ripped his heart out of his chest while he'd been sleeping. The only evidence that she'd even been there at all was the bruise-like marks she'd left on his skin and the note, weighed down by a necklace, tucked under his arm. Pulling himself into sitting position, Dan picked up the note and necklace, dropping the necklace into his lap as he read the note. It simply said, 'I love you. I wish I could stay. Zoe.'
Blinking tears out of his eyes, Dan turned his attention to the necklace. He held it up, examining it in the green-coloured light. The chain was made of gold and it glittered in the light. He recognised it as the one he'd bought her and she'd worn constantly since – it had a single metal golden wing dangling from it, just like an angel's. Dan swallowed thickly as a teardrop fell off his eyelash, trickling down his cheek.
He looked up as he heard footsteps, hurriedly grabbing his shirt and pulling it on as the door opened, revealing Aneisha standing in the doorway. Her brown eyes surveyed scene in front of her – Dan, looking seconds away from breaking down with a blanket covering his bottom half. His hair was dishevelled and was sticking up all over the place, as if he'd just rolled out of someone else's bed.
"What the hell – where's Zoe?" She asked, everything around her clicking into place when she noticed Dan's jeans thrown haphazardly in the corner, paired with his hair and the blanket discreetly covering his bottom half.
Dan's jaw tightened. "She left, Neish. She's gone . . . to go find her sisters."
Apart from Aneisha's sharp intake of breath, she showed no sign of being affected by the news of her best friend's departure. Instead she turned her attention to the necklace in Dan's hands. "What, um . . . What happened between you two last night?"
"No." Dan said quietly.
"No?"
Dan looked up at her. "I'm not . . . I'm not playing therapist with you. I know that all you want to do is fix me, but this . . . this is something that you can't fix."
"You're not broken, Dan." Aneisha said quietly.
"Yeah? I have to disagree with you on that one." Dan replied.
Aneisha sighed, but she left, the door closing gently behind her. Only when he was sure that she was gone, Dan allowed the tears to come as he broke down, bearing the hickeys on his skin like battle scars.
Meanwhile, on a plane to Greece, a teenage girl bearing similar wounds was experiencing something similar. More than anything, she wanted to return to the blonde, to kiss him until his tears dried because he had to have awoken to find her not there by now. Unlike Dan, who had a necklace to remind him of what they'd shared, Zoe had nothing except the marks his mouth had left on her to remind her that their night of love and compassion and sensations had actually happened, instead of being some extremely vivid dream.
She desperately wanted to break down and cry, but she couldn't exactly do that in a crowded plane. So instead, she curled up and went to sleep.
"What happened next in the story, Dad?" Harvey asked eagerly. They were sitting at the kitchen table, eating spaghetti, while Dan continued to tell the story. With a smile, Zoe noticed that Dan was glorifying the action bits for Harvey, since there wasn't nearly as much of them as she knew Harvey would have liked. She didn't mind – it was keeping him interested. Zoe also noticed that for once, Lily wasn't complaining about the vegetables Zoe had sneaked into the meal – she was so absorbed in the story that she hardly noticed them. Why hadn't she gotten Dan to tell them stories earlier?
As Dan finished telling the part of the story where they'd broken themselves out of the Helberg, his blue eyes flickered over to Zoe. Just as always, she knew exactly what he was asking; Tell them about Mastermind?
Zoe nodded and mouthed, 'Don't use his name.'
Dan nodded. He hadn't been using names anyway. He'd been referring to The Grand Master as Old Man and The Crime Minister as Cat Lady. Then as Dan launched into the part of the story where Zoe had chased after Alexis von Hades and he told her about Mastermind, Zoe found out what Dan's name for The Mastermind was – Idiot Box. Despite Zoe's uneasiness over how her children would react when Dan told them what Alexis von Hades had told her all those years ago, the name made Zoe laugh along with Harvey and Lily.
"And then, Assassin Man told Mum, 'He called you," Dan said, pausing for effect, "daughter."
Dan stopped his story so that both his children had time to absorb what they'd just heard. Finally, Harvey spoke. "But . . . but she can't be! Idiot Box is evil and Mum is . . . Mum!"
It a lot harder to take him seriously when he was referring to Mastermind as 'Idiot Box' but Zoe did her best to maintain her poker face as Harvey turned to her and asked, "You're not evil, are you, Mum?"
"Of course not." Zoe told him fondly, reaching over and brushing his hair out of his eyes. Harvey relaxed and turned back to Dan. "So what happened next?"
"I found out about Auntie Kloe." Zoe said.
Lily smiled, while Harvey rolled his eyes. "That's boring! I wanna hear about Dad kicking some enemy agents' ars –" Harvey broke off at Zoe's sharp look. "Butt. I wanna hear about Dad kicking some enemy agent butt."
Zoe turned to Dan. "It's your fault he knows words like that."
"Mine? I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're referring –"
"Dad!" Lily and Harvey whined together. "What happened next?"
Dan grinned fondly at his children. "Next your mother got herself kidnapped."
And immediately, he had both the five-year-old and the nine-year-old's undivided attention, enthralling them with his tale of how he, Auntie Neisha, Uncle Tom, Grandpa and Grandma saved Mum from Cat Lady, Idiot Box and Mad Scientist. Harvey looked awed as Zoe watched Dan describe how he'd flipped himself off of walls and jumping off things. Zoe knew, that in different circumstances, Dan would have had a ball that day at Sternum, jumping over railings, clearing anything in his path easily. She knew that if Dan hadn't had to fear for her life that day, he would have had the time of his life that day. She recalled something he'd once told her, "KORPS may like to imitate hell when they design the interiors for their bases, but as soon as I get the chance, I want to run through them flat-out and see how far I get before I drop."
When Dan had finished glorifying Zoe's rescue, Lily looked eagerly between her parents. "What happened after that? Happily ever after like on Beauty and the Beast?"
Dan and Zoe shared a look and when Zoe spoke, her voice was flat. "No, it wasn't like that, Lily."
"So what happened?" Harvey asked. His voice was small. Even though he was only nine, he was sensitive to people's emotions – he knew that whatever had happened after Sternum was burned to the ground, it hadn't been happy for either of his parents.
"I left." Zoe said flatly.
Dan bit back a groan as Keri started chattering happily about clothes – he really didn't want to hear Keri's voice. Most of the time, the similarities she shared with Zoe and the differences were so stark that it hurt him. It had been months since Zoe left, a month since Keri had been removed from her body against her will and then put back again, a month since Stella was re-instated as the head of M.I.9, a month since they'd arrested the Crime Minister.
In other words, it was a month since KORPS were defeated.
Dan knew he should've been celebrating with his friends – the first thing Stella did after being re-instated was change the rule that forbid agents from dating each other and she and Frank had been sickeningly in love since. Well, Dan wasn't sure about the others, but he found it sickening. Maybe that was because he was supposed to be so tightly wound around Zoe's finger that Tom would have to pull him off himself to play Blade Quest with him. Speaking of Tom, someone else who had decided to stop hiding their feelings for each other were Tom and Aneisha. As happy as Dan was for his friends, that meant he was stuck on what Keri called 'Forever Alone Island,' where she talk excessively about shoes and clothes and One Direction.
Finally, Dan reached breaking point.
"Keri!" He shouted. "Seriously, will you just shut up?!"
Keri rolled her eyes. "You don't have to be an arse about it."
"Just leave him, Keri." Aneisha said, walking up. "He's Dan. He's complicated."
Keri rolled her eyes again. "It's not that complicated. It's not even that complicated to spell. Z. O. E. Zoe. That's what he's upset about, isn't it?"
"Keri!" Aneisha scolded as Dan got up and stormed out of the room. As the doors slammed shut behind him, Aneisha shook her head at Keri, who just looked up at her friend innocently. "What did I do?"
Aneisha put her head in her hands. When she wanted to, Keri could be really insensitive.
Dan groaned, squeezing his eyes shut as he raked his fingers through his hair, his fingernails scraping against his scalp. The slight pain that the action earned him offered little relief from the painful thudding of his heart against his ribcage – each beat of his heart seemed to take more effort than he possessed. It was a similar sensation to the way he'd felt when Zoe had first left, the same feeling of wishing that his heart would just stop beating, if it meant that the pain would stop.
"Dan?"
Dan opened his eyes and turned at the sound of Frank's voice. "Aren't you meant to be making out with Stella in a corner somewhere?"
Frank's expression didn't change. His eyes remained sympathetic as he said, "I take it that was something to do with Zoe?"
Dan sighed, sinking into a chair. "I thought . . . I thought I was over her, I really did. But . . . When Keri mentioned her, I just . . . Everything just –" He broke off and ducked his head, his fingers dragging through his hair as Frank pulled up a chair and sat down beside him. Dan swallowed thickly and raised his head, tears sparkling in his blue eyes. "How do I make it stop?"
"You can't." Frank said regretfully. He wished he could tell him how to make the heartbreak stop, how to make the hurt stop, but he couldn't. "It isn't something that you can stop. You just learn to live with it."
"Is that what you did?" Dan asked. "You learned to live with it?"
"Stella never left." Frank said. "I always saw her from time to time. Even after we broke up."
"I thought . . . I thought after –" Catching himself, Dan broke off and Frank narrowed his eyes. "After what?"
Dan looked guilty and he looked away as Frank asked, "After what, Dan?"
Dan pressed his lips together and said nervously, "The night before Zoe left, we kind of . . . slept together."
Dan half-expected Frank to throw him three metres up into the air, but instead he just sat back. "I was wondering how long it was going to take you to actually say it."
Dan stared at him. "You knew?"
Frank grinned. "Course I knew. Aneisha came out and told us she'd just found you half-naked in the training room." Then his grin faded. "Love like yours and Zoe's, Dan, you usually don't find until you're about thirty. But somehow you and Zoe have found yours in your teens."
"What do you mean by that?" Dan asked.
"Love like that doesn't just die." Frank said. "It's the kind of love you fight for, die for."
Dan smiled ruefully. "And that's just my luck, isn't it?"
"It's also the type of love that's never one-sided."
Zoe bit back tears as she listened to Dan continue on with the story. She bit her lip as Dan described a more family-friendly version of him waking up the morning after to find her gone. Eventually, it reached a point where she couldn't take it anymore. Covering her mouth with her hands, she walked out, leaving her husband and children staring after her.
"What's wrong with Mummy?" Lily asked, her voice small and scared. She'd never seen her mother wear that expression before.
Dan turned to look at Lily, his blue eyes sad. "Your Mum doesn't like hearing that story. It makes her sad." He got up from his seat. "Stay here, kids. I'll be back in a minute."
"Yes, Dad." Lily and Harvey chorused as Dan walked out, following Zoe into the bedroom. She looked up as he leaned on the doorframe, his blue eyes full of concern.
"Sorry." Zoe mumbled, brushing her tears away. "I'll be back out in a minute."
Dan sighed. "I can wait until later to tell them the rest of the story, if you want."
Zoe swallowed as Dan sat beside her on the bed. "No, it's okay. I just . . . I wish you'd stopped after Sternum. They're nine and five, Dan. They don't need to know that they're own mother left because she got scared."
Dan wrapped his arm around her shoulders and she rested her head on his shoulder. "I don't even know how I did it. I don't even remember it that clearly. I just remember it being hell. Just a blur of pain."
Dan kissed her head. "I know. I know."
Dan grinned as he tore off the wrapping paper, revealing a skateboard. He flipped it over and on the bottom, it said, 'Daniel Morgan. 19.'
Dan looked up at Keri, his grin widening. "Thanks, Keri."
Keri beamed back at him. "Don't worry about it. Happy nineteenth, Dan."
Dan smiled at her and got up. "I've gotta get some air. I'll be right back."
His friends nodded as he walked outside onto the balcony, closing the door behind him. He placed his hands on the rails and looked up at the night sky, closing his eyes.
Dan heard a thump behind him and he turned, his eyes flying open as he gripped the railing. Although it was dark, Dan could still see – see the bright auburn hair, the slim figure, the delicate features.
"Zoe." Dan breathed as all his emotions from the last three years crashed into him all at once – all the hurt, all the anger, all the bitterness, all the longing, all the wondering. Finally, he settled on the bitterness.
"What are you doing here?"
"Happy birthday." Zoe told him, throwing him an envelope. Dan easily caught it and pulled out the card inside. Immediately, a necklace fell into his palm. It was golden and had a single golden angel wing dangling from it.
He looked up at Zoe. "So?"
"I came back to see if you still love me." Zoe started.
"I don't." Dan hissed.
"Then why was that under your pillow?" Zoe asked gently. "If you don't love me anymore, you would have thrown it away. Or sold it. Somehow, after three years, you managed to stay in love with me."
"Exactly. Three years, Zoe. Three years. After . . . after what happened the night before you left, I thought . . . I thought it would be a few months. Not a few years."
"I didn't mean to stay away this long, I just . . . things got complicated."
"Complicated? Zoe, I have been living in my own personal hell for the past three years and all you've got to say is that things got complicated?"
"Dan, I –"
"No, you can just –" Dan never finished his sentence because Zoe moved forward and pushed up on her toes, pressing her mouth against his. At first all Dan did was stand there, but then, almost against his will, he wrapped one arm around her waist and moved his mouth against hers.
When they broke apart, Zoe was staring up at him with green eyes sparkling with happiness. Dan noticed that the pain that he'd learned to live with since he'd woken up to find her gone had vanished, leaving only a swirling happiness in its wake.
"Zoe – " Dan started.
"Just tell me you love me and kiss me again." Zoe said.
"I love you." Dan breathed and then his lips were on her's again, his arms pulling her as close as he could get her. Zoe smiled into his kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck as she kissed him.
"Dan, what is – Oh. My. God."
Dan and Zoe pulled apart to see Keri standing in the doorway, her mouth agape. She and Zoe stared at each other for a long while until Keri stuck her head back inside and yelled, "Neish! Tom! Get out here!"
"What is going on . . . Zoe!" Aneisha cried, rocketing over to the redhead who'd been absent for three years. Laughing, Zoe embraced her friend.
The next morning, Dan woke up when the sun, shining through his bedroom window, hit his face and started to warm his skin. Dan slowly woke up properly and turned over, his eyes catching the auburn hair splayed out across the pillow. He smiled, brushing his hand across her cheek, pushing her hair away from her face. Last night had been too passionate and had happened too fast for him to really take in her appearance, but now, while she was asleep beside him, he really took in how much she'd matured in the past three years. He noticed that she was like a fine wine, the older she got, the more attractive she became.
Dan's eyes travelled down her neck, a small smile tugging at his mouth when he noticed the bruise-like marks on the pale skin of her lower neck and throat.
"If you don't stop staring at me, I'm going to have to kiss you." Zoe mumbled.
"That wouldn't be so bad." Dan told her. Zoe opened her eyes and smiled at him, rolling so she was straddling his hips as she rested her forehead against his. Dan pushed her hair out of her face as he kissed her, his mouth crushing against hers.
"I love you." Zoe whispered, raking her fingers through his hair.
Dan took her face in his hands, his blue eyes staring at her with an intensity that made her heart beat faster. "If you ever want to leave again, you're taking me with you, okay? I'm never letting you go again."
"You know my nineteenth birthday was the best birthday I ever had?" Dan asked.
Zoe shook her head. "I don't think you've ever told me that." Sighing, she wiped her eyes again, laughing humourlessly. "Eighteen years. Eighteen years and I still can't stand to hear what I did."
"You wanted to find your family." Dan said. "No one could exactly blame you for it."
"No, but you could blame me for the way I did it." Zoe replied. "I didn't say goodbye to anybody – to Tom, to Aneisha, to Frank, to anyone. You're the only one I said goodbye to and that goodbye involved stolen virginity."
"You hardly stole it." Dan said.
Zoe sighed, shaking her head. "I shouldn't have stayed away as long as I did."
"Daddy?"
Both Dan and Zoe looked up to see Lily and Harvey standing in the doorway, their little faces the picture of concern. Looking at them both, Zoe felt all her regrets from her past fade away. Between them and Dan, they represented everything that she'd always wanted but thought she could never have. They represented love and family and hope and everything else that was good in the world.
"What's wrong, Mum?" Harvey asked.
"The story." Zoe said quietly.
"It's okay. We don't have to hear the rest of it." Harvey replied.
"Thank you." Zoe said. "I love you two so much."
Lily and Harvey moved towards her – Lily climbed into her lap and wrapped her little arms around Zoe's neck while Harvey curled up beside her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Zoe laughed, hugging them both as best as she could while Dan watched, smiling. He realised that even if he lost MI9, even if he was fired . . . again, it wouldn't matter as much to him as once would have because he had these three to keep him sane – his little princess, his little warrior and his queen who had loved him through the thick and the thin, the ups and the downs. The one who had stuck by his side no matter what. And he knew he wouldn't leave her until his breath was forced out of his lungs.
So what'd you think? I'm actually really proud of this piece, especially the flashback scenes. It's the first time I've written anything with flashbacks like this, so I really hope I've nailed it right on the head.