Come Back To Me

Still own nothing.

This is the final chapter, and it's a long one. That wasn't the plan, but it kind of wrote itself. It's sweet and happy and devoid of any of the super sad stuff from the previous 3 chapters. Also, a disclaimer: I know not everyone is a Zoey fan, but in this story, they just kind of work. So go with it... So enjoy the fluffy goodness and please let me know what you thought in the reviews. I am loving all the comments so far.

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Her bare feet were cold against the wood floor.

Juliette stood in front of the large mirror and stared at the image before her. Gone was the child who lived in the dirt, gone was the girl who was on top of the world and expected it all, gone was the young woman who allowed herself to be manipulated by Howie V. In her place was a woman who had taken a journey, hit rock bottom, and managed to survive. A woman who could stand on her own two feet, treat people with dignity and still be successful.

It was the person that, deep in her soul, Juliette had always wanted to be. The best version of herself.

As she looked at her reflection she ran her hands down the soft fabric of her dress as it cascaded over her curves. She smiled as she moved her hands over her stomach, thinking of everything the future could be.

Taking a deep calming breath, she walked over to the mahogany dresser nearby and picked up the string of pearls. She ran her fingers over the silky beads, fighting the memories that threatened to come to her mind. She had given them to her mother for her birthday only weeks before her death. Truth be told, she hadn't put any thought into the present. She just sent Emily out to pick something up.

"Wish you were here, Mama," she whispered with regret, as she struggled with the clasp.

Determined to not let that thought dampen the day, she took one more look in the mirror and smiled. Pulling a white flower from the vase on the dresser, she placed it amidst the blonde waves framing her face.

She had never been more ready for ... or more certain about ... anything in her life.

The lyrics just weren't quite right, and Juliette was afraid writer's block might be setting in. Looking around the label's writing room for inspiration, her eyes locked on him leaning against the doorway. She hadn't heard him walk up, but she couldn't contain the smile on her face when Avery's eyes met hers.

"Hey! When did you guys get back?" she asked, setting her notepad aside, curling her legs up underneath her.

"Bus just pulled in." He sat on the other end of the sofa, but turned to face her.

She could tell he was exhausted from the three-week stretch of the band's tour of the midwest, but he was still just as handsome as he had been the first time they met. "How were the shows?" She wouldn't admit to anyone how much she had missed him this time. Not even herself.

"Pretty good," he said, a laugh playing on the words. "There was just one minor issue in Minneapolis when Zoey almost threw up on stage."

Juliette gasped, eyes getting wide. "Oh no! I thought she was past the mourning sickness?"

"Apparently not entirely. She got off stage just in time, then walked it off and got right back in front of the mic. She's a trooper," he noted, shaking his head with seeming amazement.

"That is impressive. I applaud the girl ... for that and the fact that she's 5 months pregnant still walking around in stilettos. I haven't put on a high heel in months. I may not ever again, quite frankly. I like this new found freedom."

They laughed as he moved slightly closer to her. "It's working for you."

She blushed a bit under his stare. In the six months she'd been back in Nashville, they'd become even closer friends, much like they had been right before they started dating. She'd been staying under the radar, having quietly signed a deal with Highway 65. He'd been touring arenas with the band, but they spent a good bit of the time he was home together. And she had become close friends with his bandmates.

Time seemed to freeze as he leaned in slowly, seemingly gauging her reaction as he moved closer. She knew she should turn, but for months all she had wanted, dreamed about, was to feel his lips against hers again. So for a moment, she gave in and let herself just be in the moment as he kissed her.

The touch of his fingertips against her cheek pulled her back to reality.

She backed away, placing a hand on his chest. "Avery, wait."

He looked both disappointed and apologetic as he backed away. He knew he had crossed a line that she was not prepared for.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, looking away from him. "It's just my counselor said it's not a good idea to get involved in a relationship in the first year of sobriety. And ... as much as I want to finish that kiss right now, I need to stick with my plan."

When her eyes moved back up to his, she saw the care and understanding there, and it reminded her of the reason she fell in love with him in the first place. "I know. I'm sorry. I just lost my mind for a minute."

She shook her head. "Don't apologize. I wanted it as badly as you did." She took a deep breath. "Look, think both know where this is going. We can't start over, but we can start something new. I just have to ... have this year for me. After that, I'm all yours."

"A year, huh?" He ran a hand over his chin and looked at her thoughtfully. "Okay, so that means that the Grammys will be a year, right?"

"Yes," she said slowly, unsure of his train of thought.

"So, will you be my date to the Grammys?"

She laughed as he wiggled his eyebrows at her. "You want to go public that fast?"

"The public knows you've been working with us. We had the song you co-wrote on the album. We could easily walk the carpet together and no one be the wiser. Plus, you said Rayna wants to use that week to announce your deal," he reminded her.

Rolling her eyes, she smiled comfortably back at him. "Fine. I'll be your date."

She looked up at the sound of a knock on the door. The door opened, allowing even more bright sunshine into the room. Glenn stuck his head inside tenatively, a smile on his face.

"You about ready?"

She took a deep breath and turned around to face her manager. "Yeah, I am."

It had taken a while to repair their relationship after she got back to Nashville. Rayna and Avery made them go to dinner one night to see if they could make it work again. Her request for forgiveness had been met with a smile, and immediately their partnership had returned.

The man just looked at her for a minute, and she could tell that he was struggling for words. "My God, Juliette. You look beautiful," he said, finally, so many emotions filling his eyes.

Juliette sighed and grinned at him. "Glenn, don't start crying. Then you'll make me cry and I just did my makeup."

"Sorry." He walked over to her, pulling her into a hug. "I can't believe you are getting married. It seems like just yesterday I saw you at that fair. Now you are this beautiful mature woman who has her life together and who is marrying the man of her dreams."

She pulled back out of the hug and met the older man's stare. "Glenn, I couldn't have done it without you. You are the closest thing I've had to a father ... to a parent. Thank you."

He kissed her gently on her forehead and held out his arm to her. "Come on, let's get you married."

It was surreal to Juliette to be back on this carpet, with so many major players wandering around, reuniting with old friends or making the next big deal. She hadn't been a part of this world for so long, it had become foreign to her. The last time she had been a part of it, she was just a shell of who she really was, a Barbie doll of Howie Vs making. Her nerves were slightly on edge, but she felt she was hiding it well from everyone around her.

Almost everyone.

"You okay?" she shivered slightly as she felt his hand pressed slightly against her back and his breath against her ear. To the photographers snapping pictures in front of them, it was nothing more than a friendly touch. But to them it held so much more promise of what was coming now that she had marked a year of sobriety.

Looking up at him she smiled. "Yeah. I am. Now."

They continued to pose with Zoey and Gunnar, but Juliette knew there were whispers. No one had forgotten last year. She wasn't stupid. She knew the questions were coming and the media would be all over it by the end of the night. But she also knew she could handle it. The past year had been about finding herself and being comfortable in her own skin. She could answer the questions honestly and without shame.

After finishing the photo line, Glenn herded all four of them to the media line. First up was a familiar face.

"Hey guys!" Ryan Seacrest said, typically huge smile on his face. "There's four of you tonight ... which is unusual for a trio. Juliette, welcome back to the red carpet!"

She smiled genuinely. "Thank you."

Ryan looked down the line and gestured to the tall woman standing next to Juliette. "And by the looks of things, it could by five by the end of the night!" They all laughed as Gunnar affectionately rubbed Zoey's belly. "Any day now, right?"

"Well, we've got a few more weeks, but I'm ready for it," Gunnar said playfully.

Zoey raised her eyebrows at him. "You are?!" Everyone laughed as Gunnar slumped a little bit at his wife's chiding.

"Of course, you three won best new artist last year," Ryan continued his questioning at Avery. "This year you've got four nominations. That's got to feel fantastic."

"Yeah, this year has been a roller coaster and we are just excited to get to celebrate it tonight with each other," he said, looking at his bandmates before his eyes moved to the tiny blonde beside him "and with friends."

Ryan nodded and turned to Juliette. She knew what was coming and she was prepared. There was no way around it. "Now, obviously there is an elephant in the room. Juliette, how are you doing?"

"I'm great, Ryan," she said, smiling graciously. "Thank you for asking."

"We know you've kept a really low profile this past year, so what is it like for you to come back on this night and on this carpet considering everything that happened last year?"

"It's surreal, but it's been really good so far." She looked over at Avery for a second. "I'm here with friends that I trust and care about and there is no pressure for me tonight. I'm just here to have a good time and cheer these guys on. I can sit back and relax."

"That's great!" Ryan continued. "Are we going to get any new music from you anytime soon? Of course the announcement came out today that you are joining this great band on Rayna Jaymes' Highway 65 label."

A big smile made it's way to her face. "I have been working on some new stuff for the past six months or so. Got quite a few songs written, so I'm hoping to get back into the studio shortly." She pointed at Avery. "This guy's going to produce the album, so it should be a fun project."

"That sounds great! I can't wait to play something from the album! You all have a fun night tonight!"

Glenn led her from the beautiful villa down the path to the secluded beach where the wedding was set up. It was simple. Their friends, the twenty or so people who were closest to them in the world, were scattered about in the sand on pristine white blankets.

Little Della, in her white princess dress, walked in front of them. Juliette and everyone else who was watching laughed as the child took handfuls of the peach flower petals and threw them up in the air, rather than down onto the make shift aisle. The result was petals blowing through the air like pastel snow. Juliette loved it. Eventually, the girl ran out of petals, frowned and ran over to her mother and father's blanket with a pout on her face.

From his seat on the blanket next to Rayna and her girls, Deacon played a soft tune on his guitar, the melody floating through the wind as the soundtrack to her walk to her future.

Finally, her eyes looked up and met his. Avery was standing under a bamboo arch that was topped with strips of white silk fabric blowing lightly in the coastal breeze off the clear turquoise water behind. Despite everything, she still couldn't help but think that this was a dream. Girls like her didn't get guys like him. Not for forever. And yet, the certainty in his eyes, the clarity on his face reassured her with no words spoken.

She couldn't hold back the huge smile on her face that mirrored the expression he wore. It hit her at that moment. This is what absolute peace really is, she thought to herself as he reached out his hand to her and they turned to face the minister.

She bounced six-month-old Della Grace on her hip in time to the music coming from the stage. The child was bound to be a musician, already clapping in time to the drums. Juliette looked down at the stunning girl with the big brown eyes and smiled.

Looking up, she caught Avery's gaze as he watched her holding Gunnar and Zoey's little girl and an emotion that she couldn't quite place appeared in his eyes, before he turned back to the audience. The crowd cheered as the song came to an end, and a stage hand brought out four stools as the three bandmates adjusted their microphones then sat on the stools.

"It's a good night to be at the Opry, am I right?" Zoey said as the trio sat down.

"We wanted to slow things down just a little bit," Avery nodded, as he did the same. "And we thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce you guys to a new song that should be hitting radio soon for a friend and labelmate of ours. She hasn't been here in a while, so please welcome her back, Miss Juliette Barnes."

Juliette handed little Della over Rayna, grabbed a mic and walked out on to the hallowed stage. She couldn't help but remember the last time she played there. Her induction. The fact that things went so wrong so soon after that scared her. She was afraid to go back to the place where she had made her troubles worse.

But it didn't matter. It had been two years. People had forgotten, moved on, accepted her crash and burn as an opportunity for redemption. As the flashbulbs went off and the crowd cheered, she couldn't help the emotion that threatened to overcome her. But she looked across the stage at Avery, making eye contact that reassured her that she could do it.

She took a seat on the stool between Zoey and Avery and addressed the crowd. "Thanks, y'all! It's been a while since I've been here. Thanks for welcoming me back." She looked over at her fellow singers. "Thanks for letting me crash the party up here, guys."

"When, these three asked me to join them on stage tonight to debut my new single, I was hesitant. Who wouldn't be, having to follow them, right? But after some convincing, I decided that there was no better way to sing this song than with them. They helped me out on the record so I hope you like it."

Avery played the first chord of the ballad, a brutallly honest song she had written on her own about redemption and the power of being true to oneself. As she sang the poingnant lyrics, backed by her friends, she knew people would know that it was autobiographical. She wasn't sure about what response would be, but everyone - Avery, Rayna, Glenn - knew that it had to be the first single. She didn't fight them on it.

Singing the last note acapella, the silence in the room was deafening, until a roar from the crowd took its place. People got it and had accepted her back with open arms. She looked over at Avery and could tell that he knew she was fighting to keep her composure, tears beginning to fall.

She waved to the crowd, on its feet. "Thank you so much, y'all!" she managed to choke out. Avery reached out a hand to help her off her the stool. She wasn't quite sure how it happened, but she found herself wrapped in his arms, his fingers wiping the tears from her face. Momentarily, they forgot where they were as he leaned into kiss her gently. While it wasn't a particularly intense kiss, it left little doubt to the public watching that the rumors they'd heard about the two were true.

She laughed as she backed out of his grasp and waved again as she walked off stage.

"So much for keeping things quiet about you two," Rayna whispered with a grin, Della now sleeping on her chest.

All Juliette could do was shrug and smile at her mentor.

"Now, Avery and Juliette have written their own vows for the occasion. Avery..."

At the minister's urging, the couple faced each other, hands grasped tightly together. At that moment it was as if everyone else disappeared. It was just the two of them.

"Juliette, it's been said that love is a friendship set to music. I think that is especially true for us. We've weathered so many storms and had so many ups and downs along the way, and despite it all ... at our core is the true friendship that we unexpectedly found when we bumped into each other that night at the Opry." Juliette giggled slightly at the memory and she vaguely heard her guests laughing as well. "I am so grateful that you chose me to be your forever friend. You are the love of my life and I feel so blessed to be able to say that. And I will keep saying until the day my last breath leaves my body. I love you so much."

Unable to stop a few small tears from falling down her cheeks, she took a moment to compose herself. The feeling of her groom's fingers wiping them away gave her strength to say the words she'd practiced the night before.

"Avery. Someone told me a long time ago that all they wanted was to find the one person in this world who made them the best version of themselves. He was so right. It just takes some of us longer than others to achieve that." She worked steady her voice, with little success. "I know I'm not perfect. Far from it. More than once you were there when I needed saving. You picked me up and convinced me that I could be the best version of me. I don't know if I'm quite there yet, but I know with you beside me that I can continue to work toward that. You somehow made this girl who didn't believe love even existed open up her heart to the possibility. I love you more than I thought I ever could love someone."

As her words disappeared on the wind, he leaned his forehead against hers and pressed a gentle kiss to her nose, and she saw tears in his eyes too. For a moment they just stood in that place and time and nothing else in the world mattered.

Just hours after her triumphant return to the Opry, Juliette found herself backstage, Avery pulling her by the hand.

"I cannot believe you left your phone in the dressing room!" she said as they walked down the dark hall backstage at the Opry. "You're just lucky the janitor was still here."

He nodded, not really paying attention. "Uh huh."

"Are you even listening to me?" Juliette was tired and emotionally exhausted from her appearance earlier that night. All she wanted to so was go home to the house they bought two months earlier, maybe have a bubble bath then get in bed. She couldn't figure out why her typically completely together boyfriend was acting like this.

Suddenly he moved in front of her and held up a hand. "Stop right there."

She halted with a start and raised an eyebrow at his strange behavior. "What?"

"Where are we?" he asked as he looked deep into her eyes.

Her eyebrows crinkled as she looked around at the paneled walls of the long corridor. "Avery, what ..? You are not making any sense and you're acting weird."

He shook his head. "Humor me. Think about it. Where are you standing right this second?"

She couldn't help but roll her eyes. "I'm ... backstage in a hallway at the Opry ... where I've been a hundred times before?"

"Yes, but this spot in particular?" He pointed to the hardwood flooring beneath their feet, as if that was the key to this quiz he was posing on her at 1 in the morning. "Think about it."

For a moment she was silent and he could see her brain working overtime. It took her a few minutes, but he saw the moment where the lightbulb came on and her eyes widened. "This is where you ran in to me ... at the Watty White tribute."

"Well, some might say you ran into me, but ..."

She smacked him in the shoulder. "I did not!"

"Doesn't matter. What matters is that it happened." He placed his hands on her shoulders and took a deep breath. "On this very spot something life-changing happened. You barreled your way into my life and I have never been so glad to almost knock a girl down in my life."

She laughed but he could tell that she was beginning to catch on as to where this was going and he could only pray that she wouldn't bolt. They had settled back into a comfortable relationship. Better than it had been before everything happened, but she was still Juliette Barnes.

"This is sacred ground to me, because it's where our story began. So, I think it's a good place to start the next chapter." He never broke eye contact as he knelt to the ground, pulling a velvet box from his jacket pocket. He watched as her eyes lit up and her jaw dropped as he opened the box. "Juliette, I love you. I want to spend every day for the next fifty or so years showing you just how much. Will you marry me?"

She immediately sank down onto his knee, her face inches from his. There were tears in both of their eyes. "You didn't really forget your phone did you?" He shook his head apologetically. "Yes, I'll marry you," she whispered, kissing him softly as the words echoed through the empty halls.

The small party was still going on outside the Villa when the newlyweds decided to sneak away for some time to themselves. From the water's edge they could hear guitars being played and songs being sung. The pair walked hand in hand as the waves barely washed against their feet.

"So, that was ... pretty perfect," Juliette said with a sigh, looking up at Avery.

He nodded. "I think so. I'm glad we did it this way. No paprazzi or craziness."

"Rayna said the marketing team at the label would send out the single photo and news release in the morning." She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Which means it will be all over the internet by lunchtime."

"But it's on our terms." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they continued walking. "And for the next twelve hours or so, it's our secret. I love you."

"That's good to know. You haven't told me that in the last 10 minutes. I was beginning to worry," she teased, leaning into him. He pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head. "Did you think when you ran into me that night at the Opry that we'd ever be here?"

"Ha!" he laughed at the memory. "Not in a million years. And you ran into me."

An exasperated sigh fell from her lips. "I am not having this argument again."

He laughed again and they fell into a comfortable silence and just listened to the waves hitting the shore. "I guess things just work out how they are supposed to," he said, breaking the spell. "It just takes time for people like us. I would have waited a lifetime, you know. Now we have the rest of our lives for the two of us."

She took a deep breath and stopped walking.

"What is it?" he asked, pausing in front of her. She saw his forehead crease in concern. She was pretty sure he could tell that she had something on her mind. He had more than likely known something was up for a while, but he had never asked, once again illustrating his neverending patience with her.

She smiled at him in an attempt to quell his worry. "I wasn't sure when to tell you."

"Tell me what, Juliette."

"What you just said ... about the two of us." She paused, unsure of what his reaction would be. "How would you feel about it being the ... three of us?"

It took a minute. For a few seconds, Avery looked completely clueless. It took all she could do not to laugh when his eyes got wide and the metaphorical lightbulb went off and he realized what she was telling him. "You're pregnant?"

She bit her bottom lip and nodded at him as he placed his hands on her shoulders.

"You're sure?"

She nodded again with confirmation. "I took six tests last week, just to be certain. They were all positive. So ... yeah. We're having a baby."

The joyful laughter that came from deep inside of him as he lifted her up into his arms was a sound that Juliette committed to memory. She wanted to always remember that moment. As the waves crashed around their feet, soaking the hem of her dress, he kissed her deeply and she knew that no matter what came their way in the future, they would survive it together.

All three of them.

The End! Hope you enjoyed and let me know what you thought!