Chapter Fourteen:

May 10 1970

"Daddy!"

Seymour hadn't even moved out of the doorway before both his legs were attacked by his two children. Laughing he leaned down, kissed the top of his son Alan's head and hoisted his daughter Lucy into his arms.

"Whatcha bring?!" asked Alan moving quickly to see what was behind his back.

"Shhhhh! Where's your ma?" He whispered.

Lucy cupped his hands over Seymour's ear and whispered, "Outside."

He moved the arrangement into view. Alan ooed in response.

"What's this for?" he asked.

"They're called carnations. They're from our shop. Your grandma liked these."

Alan moved forward smiling and ran his fingers on the top of the petals.

"But why?" Lucy asked.

"Do you know what today is?" Seymour asked.

"Sunday!" Alan answered proudly.

"Well yes," Seymour laughed, "but it's also Mother's Day."

Alan's eyes moved from the pink flowers back to his father as a smile illuminated on his face.

"And we're giving them to mom!" he exclaimed.

Lucy gasped, unable to contain her excitement. Seymour exhaled a small laugh and put her down before dividing the flowers between his children. Lucy immediately took off running. Alan instead took his father's hand before following. Out the back door and past the flagstone patio they went. Audrey was tending to the window boxes outside the kitchen window with her back to them. When Lucy came running she turned. Her eyes widened with surprise.

"What's this?" she asked as Lucy extended her half bouquet.

By then Seymour and Alan had caught up. Alan, forgetting he was holding a bouquet, threw himself around his mother's legs for a hug. Caught up in all the excitement. Audrey laughed and passed her hand through his curly brown hair. She looked up at Seymour.

"What's all this?" she asked again.

He pulled her in for a hug, joining their son. Caressing her back he kissed her neck shortly before pulling away.

It was Lucy who spoke up. "It's mother's day!"

Audrey smiled.

"Oh it is." She crouched down to be level with her children as they extended their portions of the bouquet. "Pink carnations!" She smiled up at Seymour knowingly.

"Grandma's favorite!" Alan explained proudly.

"I know," Audrey sighed smiling. She gathered up the halves from her children and held them at eye level. "I think your Grandma would'a liked it if we put these in some wata', don'tcha think?"

Grabbing hold of her husband's hand, Audrey led them back into the house. She briefly handed the bouquet to Alan while she hunted for a vase in the cupboard. Seymour watched her do so and smiled. He couldn't help but think back to all the days at the shop he had marveled at her as she built arrangements. Years after he had met her in that little shop he still felt the same way he did gushing over her from across the counter. The feeling of magic. Audrey caught sight of him staring and smiled back. She filled the vase with water and placed it on the dining room table. Alan handed the flowers off and she slid them in.

"Beautiful," Audrey stated, standing back to admire them. She glanced at Seymour and saw his smile slowly falling as he gazed into the arrangement. Audrey, catching sight of his falling spirits, pulled out two of the flowers.

"Here. I think we need to honor some other motha's."

He stared for a moment before a smile spread wide across his face. Holding his hand she led him into the living room.

On the mantle is where the Krelborns kept their photographs. In small little silver frames sat a collection of black and white snapshots of the family and their children over the years as they grew, and loved, and learned. Tucked among them Audrey kept another photo from her childhood of a small and spunky blonde girl at the age of two sitting next to her mother. She had very few photos of the two of them happy, but here they were both laughing. And then there was one photo that was quite different. It had been discovered in a folder in city records many years prior. It appeared to be a school photo of a girl in her late teenage years. Though colorless in the photo her eyes were quite bright, enlightened by her smile. Her round face and curly hair were identical to her son's. Seymour smiled at it as he lay down the flowers next to the photographs. Audrey rested her head on his shoulder.

"She woulda' been proud," she cooed.

It wasn't the material things in their life that made it worth living. Seymour had love. He had the love of his wife and their two children. And he had gotten that without the help of a talking plant. Despite her fear, he had turned out alright after all. Looking down, she was proud of her boy.

The End

Final Author's note:

Oh my god we did it! Both of us! I actually finished this story and you finished reading it! High five!

If you are reading this I would like to thank you. This originally was going to be a quick 5 chapter fic, ever so briefly expanding on the original fic, and here we are on Chapter 14. This honestly took part of my soul to write, and I never thought I would go this deep, or love carnations this much. That being said I have since gone back and watched the movie and Alana's flower, pink carnations, show up several times. They are on the table in the scene where Audrey builds the funeral arrangement and also in "Feed me (git it)", and finally in the wedding bouquets of the theatrical ending. His mother was always there in a way.

Some thanks I need to give are to Nixxie-the-lizard for writing a little snip bit about Alana and Erik and inspiring this entire thing. The idea that Seymour and Orin are brothers is genius and I couldn't have come up with that. Thank you for letting me piggy back on it!

I also need to thank S. Snowflake. Through this entire story they have dealt with my random middle of the night DocX and rambling. If it hadn't have been for their critique and help this would've been left for dead long ago. Thank you for, well, everything!

If you liked this check out the fic that inspired it:

"I started life as an orphan" by Nixxie-the-lizard