Phew, so the last chapter I've got planned...I'm not honestly sure what to do now. Two years later, this feels finished and it feels weird. :) So, thanks everybody for all the reviews you've left and just for reading. I hope you've enjoyed Stripes' journey and drop me a review if you can. Thanks so much for reading! :)

Ma and I did not move from that couch for over twelve hours. The sun had fully risen and our alarms had been blaring for hours by the time either of our bodies decided they were not as dead as we felt inside.

Sometime in the night, Ma had fallen into me, sobbing silently into my shoulder. I had stared at that fuckin' computer screen until the battery died. Neither of us knew what to do, too shocked to understand anything aside from the quick and painful death of those beating things in our chests. So we did nothing. We sat in silence amongst the screaming alarms and the ringing of our phones.

Auntie Siobhan rushed into the house during her lunch break, swearing loudly about scaring her half to fuckin' death. As the sight of the two of us, pale, tear soaked, and blank, she paused. "What fuckin' happened?" she asked, hand immediately going to her rosary.

Ma still couldn't move, only still heaving on my shoulder. My first reaction was to point at the computer, my eyes still seeing the horrible news on the dead screen. "I don't understand, sweetheart."

Unable to find my voice at first, choking on the sob in my throat, I croaked out, "They're dead, Auntie Siobhan. They died yesterday." A blood curdling wail came out of Ma beside me.

I was four hours late in calling in sick to the university. My first class had left after waiting a half hour according to the history department's secretary when I shakily explained to her I was in the middle of a family emergency. Three of my students had come to the office to ask after me. On a different day, I might have been touched that they liked me enough to stay so much longer than the asked ten minutes.

But it wasn't a different day.

At Siobhan's prodding and practically carrying, we found out way into the closest bedroom, Ma's. Despite all the years he'd been gone, she still kept one side of the bed made up for Da. It was something I'd never commented on, but we both knew why there was a pillow there she refused to ever use but never took away.

As my head hit the pillow that was supposed to be Da's and Ma broke down all over again, I felt them slowly start. I thought back to one day almost a year ago when I sat on a roof with Conn, looking into those gorgeous grey eyes that made my stomach disappear, and made him promise not to let me cry. Because of forces completely out of his control, he broke his promise from across an ocean where his body was apparently frozen at the bottom of the fuckin' harbor. I didn't fuckin' care if he hadn't wanted me to love him anymore; I did. I was always going to and him dying didn't change one fuckin' thing.

Siobhan could only turn off the light and go to get both of us a whiskey as we curled into ourselves and sobbed.

"I'm fuckin' going, Ma!" Stripes shouted, straining against Ma's hold. She knew what she fuckin' needed to do. Ma wasn't going to stop her. It had been a full forty-eight hours. She was wasting fuckin' time.

"You're sure as fuckin' hell not, Chloe! Ye put that bag down right fuckin' now!" Grabbing the duffle bag for emphasis, she threw it across the room to land dully on the stairs. The two women stood there, staring each other down, grey eyes on green. Finally, practically panting with held-in emotion, Ma stated, "Ye are not going back to Boston."

"Yes I am," Stripes protested, making to rush past her to the door but quickly losing her fight as Ma's arms enveloped her in a hug. "I-I have to go. I have to find Smecker and find them and-and-and…"

She hadn't thought past finding Smecker and getting an explanation. She was too angry to do any real thinking; that's what Smecker was for. He was the thinker.

Grabbing the younger woman's chin gently, Ma forced her to look at her. "No, ye don't. Ye don't have to do anything but stay here and figure this out. Ye aren't going to move on, ye aren't going to get better, not fuckin' yet, but ye are not goin' back to get yerself killed by some mobsters." As the anger and pain continued to fight in Stripes' expression, she pressed on, "Connor wouldn't fuckin' want ye to. I raised the boy. There's not a chance in hell that he'd want his lass to get herself killed over him."

Laughing bitterly through tears, Stripes said while blinking rapidly, "Ye realize that is the most fuckin' cliché thing ever, right?"

Smiling sadly, Ma shrugged, "Cliché doesn't make it not true. Now go put yer fuckin' bag away…I'm not losing ye, too, Chloe. Not fuckin' now…"

TBS TBS

Stripes stared at the phone a week later, St. Patrick's Day. She'd been staring at it for the last hour, wrapped up in a blanket at the kitchen table, nursing a glass of whiskey. It had been a week since that fuckin' article had come out. It had been a week since they had fuckin' died. It had been a week since all the life in the little house she'd come to love had just been squashed.

Being an ever-resilient woman, Ma had turned all of her grief into energy after that first day. She'd cleaned the house top to bottom in between work and bartending at the Anvil. She'd had her longest dry streak since she'd been pregnant with the twins. She never drank depressed…a trait Stripes couldn't say she'd picked up in the last week.

Ma had long since left for the Anvil for that night. The whole family was gathering, having a memorial of sorts. St. Patty's wasn't a night you stayed at home, no matter the circumstances. Family and company would heal any wounds. Along with that, the history department at the university in Dublin was having a party. Being faculty, Stripes was invited to the fairly formal event. Stripes knew she should go to something.

Stripes had gotten ready and everything. Under her blanket she was fully dressed in her green cocktail dress, only her heels sitting by the door unworn. But when the time had come to leave to arrive early, she just couldn't. She wasn't ready to be around…people. She wasn't ready to be around people and be expected to be social. She wasn't ready for it to be a year since she'd really met them. She wasn't ready for their time in her life to be over. Although she loved their family, a deep, dying part of her said they were what made it work. They were what made her work, even if they were so far away. She knew they still loved her. And now, they were dead… Conn was dead and she couldn't escape the giant part of her chest that had died as soon as she read the words.

If she stayed at home, staring at inanimate objects and blaming them for everything, she wouldn't have to be ready.

Not unlike the last time they'd left her, she'd hidden in the university library for two days, clad in her polar bear pants. Ma rode the train into Dublin the second and demanded she come back. Grief wasn't going to get healed by hiding inside a giant pile of books. While Stripes begged to differ, she relented to Ma's experience and tears. She'd lost her husband once and continued on. It seemed she was wasting no time in picking herself up and beginning the long, arduous climb out of the hole that Conn and Murph and Da's deaths had thrown them into.

As the phone continued to sit there and mock her, Stripes finally sighed, her hand coming to rest on her Gaelic dictionary. She'd been contemplating calling Smecker all night, demanding an explanation. After being talked down from getting on a plane and doing it in person, the thought had been bouncing around her head all week. It was dangerous. She wasn't supposed to have any contact with America at all.

Downing the last of her drink, she sighed again. She just could not catch a break when it came to them. She honestly wasn't sure what good could come from this one. They weren't going to come back to her safer. They weren't going to make her feel better or make her better as a person or give her a family when they were…dead.

Playing with the black beads of her rosary, she tilted her head upward to the ceiling and smiled ever so slightly, "Connor McManus, ye're a fuckin' bastard for this, I hope ye know that. I hope ye're stuck on a fuckin' cloud with Murph's annoying ass for the next fifty years until I get there, old and fuckin' lonely because I fuckin' love ye so much."

Standing and taking her glass to the sink, she subsequently put the phone back in its place in the living room. Quite suddenly, she couldn't shake the feeling that if there was something good to come from it, she wasn't going to find it there at home.

Lord save her, Ma had been right. Following a couple break downs and a decent bit of whiskey, Stripes had finally managed to crack a smile. As Ma had tried to tell her, all week she'd been just wallowing in her own self-pity, her own consuming grief. If she wanted to ever have a chance of moving on the tiniest bit, she needed to face her memories of them head on and stop letting them cripple her. She needed to make the memories into gifts instead of sources of pain. The sooner the better, too.

What better place and time than St. Patty's Day in the Anvil later?

Grabbing Conn's coat from the chair beside her, she slipped the wool over her shoulders. She'd been wearing the garment every day over the winter and had been sleeping in it that week. Now, with a backless dress, she had an excuse. Pulling on her boots, shoving her heels into her plaid messenger bag, she grabbed her helmet. Pushing her bike a bit fast, she could make it down to the train station and only be a half hour late to the party.

Life had to keep going. She didn't have to move on, but she had to keep going.

TBS TBS

"Siebel! Siebel, will ye stop flirtin' with yer wife and get the fuck over here?!" Ma shouted with a smile as she struggled with two large boxes of whiskey bottles. A loud round of laughter spread through the full establishment.

As her brother-in-law swore savagely at her, smile on his face the entire time, he plodded slowly over and took a box from her. She let the loud rhythm of the music take over her brain as she knelt down and began restocking behind the bar. Jamie, her nephew, had been playing a consistently sloppier version of "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" for the last three hours. Being the only non-traditional song the little band knew, Ma quickly let it tune out the rest of the loud hum of chatter. For all the guff she gave Chloe about not hiding in a bunch of books, she went out every night and hid in a crowd of people.

Humming and mouthing the words in turn, Ma continued her work, wondering at intervals with a smile if Murphy had found the band name 'Dropkick Murphys' amusing or not. She was still humming absently to herself when the bar went completely silent without her notice.

As conversation and cheers positively erupted moments later, she didn't think enough of it to look up. Someone had probably fallen down or something. She already had a pint glass filled to the brim with car keys.

The second bout of silence caught her attention moments later. Frowning, she merely shook her head and continued stocking.

"Could we trouble ye for a beer, Ma?"

Her heart stopped beating. She could tell. She was going to have a weird arrhythmia for the rest of her fuckin' life because her heart had fully stopped. She didn't need to look up to know where the synchronized voices came from. After hearing them grow from infantile babbling to manly infantile babbling, she knew exactly who they were.

Smiling widely, tears already spilling, she replied to her sons, "Not until ye get yer asses over this bar and give me a hug this fuckin' instant, ye ungrateful, wonderful little bastards!"

TBS TBS

"Aye, it was time to be done. Our friend Smecker had some things ready and we managed to pull it off. Goin' off the bridge was intentional," Conn explained over his pint to their uncle. "We had breathing stuff in the car and on already. It was a little fuckin' cold, but…"

Murph nodded, "It was time to come home."

The two brothers exchanged a glance, small, sad smiles on their faces before they subtly clinked their glasses and took a drink. They'd been wanting to come home for a long time…ever since Stripes left. It just hadn't been the same after her. Conn was fuckin' miserable without her—he'd come to know without a doubt that she was it for him—and being around her had made all three of them realize that their job should only go so far.

While neither had trusted to hope, both had kept the faint wish that she'd be there. Somehow that she'd managed to find their home and be waiting for them…Apparently, things didn't work out that way.

"She's gonna fuckin' kill you three."

Murph and Conn looked up at their uncle with confusion as he grinned at them while leaning over the bar. Ma and Da had long since disappeared, having twenty-five lost years to sort out. Also, aside from her habitual swearing and some chastisement at letting her believe them dead on Mothering fuckin' Sunday, she had been genuinely ecstatic to see them back from the dead. Neither of them had had the heart to ask her if Stripes had ever appeared. Ma hadn't said anything.

"What the fuck are ye talkin' about?" Murph finally asked. The pure hope on Conn's face ensured he wasn't going to have the ability to speak.

"Ye two know exactly who I'm talkin' about. Yer Ma's a fuckin' softie at the core. She on the other hand is goin' to gut the fuckin' two of ye, makin' her think ye're dead. I don't know how yer Ma managed to talk her down from goin' back to avenge the three of ye. She was right ready to kick some fuckin' ass. She's been flip-flopping from devastated to fuckin' pissed all week… Aye, that's her bike now, I think…"

Sure enough the high whine of her source of transportation cut through the hum of noise. As it wound down to a stop, the bar went silent for the third time that night and all eyes were on the twins.

"Wait just a fuckin' minute," Murph demanded, highly confused expression on his face. "Ye mean to tell me that not only is Stripes—our Stripes-here, but she rides a fuckin' motorcycle?!"

Chuckling at Murph's confusion and Conn's growing hope, Siebel nodded, "Aye, she's been here since last June and she's had the bike for about six months now. She's got a fuckin' tattoo, as well, if that's what ye're interested in."

"Never fuckin' mind that," Conn exclaimed, "She thinks we're fuckin' dead?! Fuckin' wait! What color's her hair…"

He quite abruptly trailed off as she walked through the door, eyes down, golden red hair hanging over her shoulders, looking inconsolably miserable. After how long he'd been sad, lonely, and pining for her, Conn's instinct was to run straight to her and never let her go. His brain remained too paralyzed to let him.

Not noticing the silence surrounding her, Stripes groaned as she strode into the bar, immediately heading behind the counter, holding her head, "Siebel, I need a beer! I can't do this fuckin' be around sociable people thing, yet…" She let her forehead drop with a thud to the wood of the bar, not unlike her first visit.

"Aye, ye'll be all right, though, Stripes, love. I promise ye," Siebel mentioned nonchalantly.

Randomly swinging her arm in his direction, as if trying to hit him without having to look up, she shook her head. Her accent was gone and everyone could hear the exhaustion in her voice, "What? No, stupid Siebel…Fuck you… Oh, I'm not nearly close enough to drunk to be this ineloquent, even for St. Patty's."

Rubbing her eyes, she queried while raising her head, "Where's Ma? I need a drinking bud..."

Freezing mid-word, her green eyes widened taking in the two men before her. Connor was sitting there, staring at her with his glorious smile on his face. Eyes flitting to Murph, it occurred to her that he was there, too. Shocked beyond all sanity, her mouth opened, a scream almost past her lips. Before more than a choked squeak could get out, Stripes had fallen to the floor in a dead faint.

"FUCK!" Murphy swore.

Conn vaulted over the counter. Despite a few gentle shakes, she didn't respond. Trying to get over the joyful shock that he was again holding Stripes in his arms, Conn picked her up. She remained limp. Sighing, he glanced at his uncle, "Where's she live?"

Unable to get the smirk off his face, the man nodded in the right direction, "Yer place. She and yer Ma are housemates."

Nodding, Conn and Murph exchanged another glance. A familiar grin spread over Murphy's face. "I'll say hi to her tomorrow. I'll let ye take the anger and she'll just be happy to fuckin' see me."

"Fuckin' thanks, Murph," Conn grumbled as he headed through the door.

It had begun raining outside, but there wasn't much Conn could do to keep her dry aside turning her face more into his chest. The rain didn't bother him in the slightest. He couldn't get his head wrapped around the last fifteen minutes.

They were home. Their Ma was their same old Ma they loved so much. The Anvil was the same Anvil. Everything was the way it was supposed to be. And somehow, Stripes had made herself a perfectly fitting place in all of it. Conn had fully resigned himself to never seeing her again, let alone seeing her with golden freaking hair. He'd accepted the tough fact that he was far, far away and she needed to find somebody else to love her. He'd wanted someone else to love her. He'd wanted her to be happy, to fuckin' hell if he was. If she was, he would be, too.

It was making his brain spin in circles realizing that he probably didn't need to worry about any of that. Then, the terrible thought that she might've found someone new entered his mind. Just because she was living with his Ma didn't mean she couldn't date. It didn't mean she couldn't have moved on. His hold on her tightened.

Fuck her being happy with someone else, he was scared.

The porch light was already on when he reached the house he and Murph had grown up in. Letting himself in, he strode into the kitchen. It looked the same, aside from a gigantic pile of books sitting in a corner of the table. A laptop was teetering atop it and a now worn Gaelic dictionary was beside it. Smirking, he readjusted her in his arms. Well, he'd found Stripes' study spot.

Walking into the brightly lit living room, Conn found Ma and Da sitting down, a bottle of whiskey between them. Rising from her chair, Ma came over. "Poor thing, I wondered if this would happen. If ye bastards had just given us a phone call, this wouldn't have happened."

Shaking his head, Da shrugged, "We weren't exactly counting on ye two watching the news for us."

Helping Conn lay her down on the couch, Ma rolled her eyes, "What the fuck did ye think she was going to do? She's head over heels in love with ye and we're the only family she's got."

Catching the look on Conn's face, anticipating his question, Ma shook her head, "She isn't seeing anybody. She tried once because I made her and didn't make it past the first five minutes. She said it felt like she was cheatin' on ye. It doesn't matter if ye were only together for a couple of days; ye were it for her. It took her a bit to admit but she always knew."

Grabbing a shot glass and filling it, Ma tilted Stripes' head up and poured the liquid in. Within seconds, Stripes had bolted upright, spluttering and hacking up the burning alcohol. She'd been awoken like that before. Finding Ma's face above hers, Stripes grabbed her shoulders in a death grip. Instantly sobbing, she exclaimed, "I'm going in fuckin' sane. I saw them. I swear to God I saw them."

Shaking her head, Ma smiled, "No, ye're not. They're just insensitive bastards." Holding out a hand, Ma helped the younger woman to her feet. Then, after Da gave her a warm hug and a smile, the two exited the room, leaving a dazed Conn and positively bewildered Stripes standing across the room from one another behind them.

Sniffing back some of her continued tears, Stripes finally managed to hiccup, "You guys are fuckin' assholes; I hope you know that…"

"Aye, I know."

"I-I wore my polar bear pajamas to teach my class for Christ's sake," she stuttered out, raising an accusing finger at him. "For two fuckin' days!"

Grinning, Conn shook his head as he strode forward, "I'll bet ye were beautiful, too."

Sucking in a deep breath and finally letting out the huge smile that had risen up all the way from her toes, Stripes met him half way, "I missed you so much."

Grabbing her face with both hands, he interrupted her giggle as he crashed his lips onto hers. Kissing back and wrapping her arms around his neck, Stripes' mind finally stopped trying to catch up. Nothing fuckin' mattered; he was back. Pushing herself up onto her toes, she pressed herself up against him. Pulling back only when he had tightly lifted her up into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist, Stripes pressed her forehead against Conn's. Biting her lip shyly for a moment, she stated breathlessly, "You are never leaving me again, Connor McManus."

Bringing one of his hands up to run through her mind-bogglingly bright hair, he shook his head, "Never again, Stripes." As she smiled, he breathed, "I love ye so much."

"I love ye more."

Rolling his eyes, Conn silenced her with another deep kiss.

Vaguely noting that the backdoor had loudly closed awhile back and Murphy was going to lie low, he smiled against her lips. Tightly holding her with one arm, he slipped her shoes off, dropping them to the floor, before making his way toward the well-known stairs. There was only one bedroom she could've been staying in and he knew it well… She lost no time in pushing his jacket from his shoulders along the way.

From what little he could make out of it in the dark and his distracted state, his old room hadn't changed much. She had pushed the two beds together, making herself a large one along one wall. The rest was basically as it had been aside from her clothes and books being strewn everywhere.

In the faint light from downstairs, his stare was quickly narrowed to only the green eyes he'd missed so fuckin' much. Running her hands over his chest, as if continuously reassuring herself he was really there, she smiled sweetly up at him. Damn, he'd missed that smile. Running the hand that wasn't holding himself up down her face, he ghosted his fingers over the scar on her neck.

So much had happened since then. So much had changed…

Catching his hand, knowing what he was doing, she intertwined their fingers and pressed a kiss to his palm. "I'm only holding yours," she whispered with a smile.

It suddenly dawned on him that there was one thing he never wanted to change. Murph was the one to rush into things, to go with his feelings, but fuck if Conn wasn't his twin. When it came to her, his feelings had never steered him wrong. "Will ye marry me, Chloe?"

The words were so loud in the relative silence of the house, their breathing and her clock the only other noises, Stripes didn't realize what he'd said for a moment. Worry had firmly settled upon his face as she lay there beneath him, his question finally dawning on her. The explosive grin on her face effectively wiped it away. "Aye. I will."

She pulled him down to kiss her before he could utter a word more. It was a good night, she'd found the good in it, and she wasn't going to let it be over yet…

TBS TBS

"Hi, Murph…"

Stripes groaned far too early the next morning. However, the traditional poking of her nose brought a smile to her face. This time, she'd made sure to pull Conn's black t-shirt and her panties on before falling completely asleep in his arms. At some point, God save her, in her married life she was going to be able to wake up without a Murphy to worry about…

She could hear the smile in his voice before she opened her eyes, "Good mornin', Stripes. How was yer night?"

"Fuckin' hell, Murph," Conn complained from her other side, swatting absently in his brother's direction. "Ye're a fuckin' dick."

Smiling as she merely grabbed Conn's arm and pulled it in to wrap around her, Stripes admonished, "Be nice to yer brother, Conn."

"Aye, I knew I'd fuckin' missed ye, Stripes," Murph declared brightly.

Grinning back at him, she snuggled further under the blankets and into Conn's embrace, "I missed ye, too, Murph. Do ye think ye could let us sleep in a tad bit longer, though?"

She'd already closed her eyes, expecting Murphy to be kind and acquiescent to her small request after not having seen Conn for almost nine months. He couldn't deny her at least sleeping in with his twin, could he? "Aye, but ye know…I could really use some breakfast. Ye and Conn can always fuck later, ye know..."

Green eyes shooting open into a glare, she stared at him. He continued to grin at her, knowing and reveling in the fact that he'd made her mad. Rolling over and quickly pressing a strong kiss to Conn's lips, Stripes was out of bed within seconds. Taking both twins by surprise, she had a hold of Murph's ear and was pulling him down the stairs angrily.

"Ow! Fuck, ow, Stripes!"

Ignoring him and how his shouting roused not only a chuckling Conn but also Ma and Da from bed, she continued on her journey. Not bothering to pull on pants or shoes, she hauled him down the street to The Anvil. Finally letting go of his ear, she pushed him toward the door, exclaiming laughingly, "Make yer own fuckin' breakfast, Murph!"

Taking in the sight of her in the middle of the street in an oversized t-shirt only, he grinned, "I fuckin' missed ye, Stripes."

Grinning back, she returned his fierce hug, "I missed ye, too, Murph. But, if ye try that shit on my honeymoon, I'm kicking yer ass."

"Honeymoon?!" he demanded, look of wonder on his face before a smile broke through. "Aye, I'll give ye a break then."

Pressing a kiss to his cheek, she turned to walk with as little blushing as possible back to her house. Uncle Siebel's very, very loud whistle brought her efforts to an abrupt halt. Blushing bright red, she sprinted back to the house.

She returned to find Conn sitting on the porch steps, grinning broadly at her as he'd seen the whole scene. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her lovingly down into his lap, ignoring the small crowd of grinning onlookers. Pressing a long kiss to her temple, he hugged her to him, "Happy St. Patrick's Day, princess."

Grinning up at him, she wound an arm around his neck and pulled him in for another deep kiss. "Happy St. Patty's to you, St. Connor."