AN: Wow, here it is. It's been a four and a half month venture to get here, but this is really, finally the end. As much as I'm looking forward to being done and having time to work on my long list of other ideas, after all this time it's kind of sad to really say goodbye to this story. I've said it a zillion times, but I'll say it again: Thank you to every single person who has read this, with double thanks to those who've reviewed, even if it was just once, and the ones who've faved and alerted. And to whoever nominated this on the LJ Glee Awards 2010. The story didn't make it past seconding, but I was just excited to have been noticed. Thanks!
So finally, the end. And yes, it's fluffy. Because as much as I love me some good angst, I can't resist giving these two a happy ending. They're just so dang cute, lol.
Au revior, and hopefully when I get back in two weeks from my vacation I will have something new to post. :) End impossibly long AN now... PL&H - Artie R
Epilogue – September 2017
I roll into the house quickly and close the door behind me, cutting off the early autumn chill that's swept over Chicago. Shrugging out of my jacket, I toss it over the arm of the nearest piece of furniture and look around. The living room and kitchen are empty, and the only sounds in the house are faint strains of music. I follow them down the hall to my bedroom.
Tina is standing at the foot of the bed, her back to me as she folds one of her skirts into the suitcase sitting on the mattress. She's humming along with the radio but when I stop in the doorway she glances over her shoulder and smiles. "I thought I heard you come home," she says, turning back to the suitcase.
"You feeling better?" I ask, rolling around to the side of the bed. This morning when I'd left for work she had been a little under the weather, but she seems to be fine now. She just nods, humming along with the Beatles again. "Dee in taking a nap?"
"Yeah, she was pretty tired after dance," Tina says with an affectionate smile. Shortly after we were settled into my house in Chicago, we enrolled Destiny in dance classes at Brittany's studio. It was almost all she'd talked about for most of the last month and a half. She got her first pair of ballet slippers last week for her fifth birthday present and has hardly ever taken them off. At this rate I'm betting she'll need a new pair before Christmas. "She's been down for about a half hour so I expect she'll be awake soon."
I nod and then lift myself up on my elbows to peer into the suitcase, not at all surprised to see that she's gone ahead packed my clothes in as well. "Nearly done already?" I ask with a short laugh.
"We are leaving tomorrow," she reminds me. "I figured now would probably be a good time to start. Would you go get my blue dress from the closet for me? I forgot to grab it." I nod and push myself over, retrieving the designated article of clothing and bringing it back. She has a good point about the packing. We're heading up to Seattle for the weekend for Grace and Jake's wedding, and even though we've known about it for a while now, we've put off packing until the day before.
As I watch Tina folding a pair of socks with an excessive amount of concentration, I get the feeling that something's off. Brow furrowing, I ask, "Tee, you okay?" She glances at me curiously so I elaborate. "You seem like you've got something on your mind. What's going on?"
She nods, turning her gaze back to her hands. "The director called today," she says and I look up in interest. Last week she went to her first audition for a new play opening up at the Cadillac Palace Theatre and we've been waiting all week for a response. I hold my breath expectantly as she sighs and comes around to sit on the mattress facing me. "I got the part."
"Oh my God." It's out of my mouth before I've even fully processed, and once it sinks in I laugh. Reaching forward, I grab her hands and pull her down to me, kissing her. "Tee, this is amazing." She smiles, but somehow it doesn't exactly match her eyes. "Why does it feel like I'm the only one excited about this?" I ask in confusion.
Tina takes a deep breath. "I turned it down."
"What? Why? I thought this is what you wanted to do." My brain kicks into overdrive, sending me into a panic that even I know is completely irrational. Has she changed her mind about staying in Chicago? What went wrong? I thought everything was going great, all things considered.
"It is," she says quickly, obviously sensing my alarm and placing a comforting hand on my arm. It'd be a lie if I didn't say I breathed a little sigh of relief. "But…" She trails off, chewing at the inside of her cheek anxiously. I squeeze her hand, waiting on bated breath for the inevitable catch. She finally meets my eyes and there's so much going on there I can't pinpoint anything for sure. "Do you remember that night in your hotel room? The movie marathon and the candy war and all that?" I nod, not quite sure where this is going. She tightens her grip on my hand and pulls in a slow breath. "Artie, I'm pregnant… Again."
My breath lodges somewhere in my throat, making me instantaneously lightheaded. "You're – we're – really?" She smiles hesitantly and nods, and what else can I do but laugh. "You're pregnant," I say in awe, glancing quickly from her face to her stomach and back. "We're going to have a baby. Another baby," I amend quickly. I laugh again, the reality of the situation really starting to hit me. "Tee, this is even more than amazing. This is – it's fantastic. Phenomenal. We're having a baby!"
"We're having a baby," she echoes and when she smiles this time it's completely genuine. She initiates the kiss and I respond eagerly, entirely caught up in this perfect moment. When we pull apart she rests her forehead against mine and I brush my thumb over her cheek. I'm not alarmed to feel the tears on her skin, because they're the good tears, the ones that just make her smile even more beautiful.
I back up and hastily murmur, "Wait here a second." Pivoting, I push myself into the closet again, easily finding the dusty box in the far corner and lifting it onto my lap.
"Are those –?"
"Yeah," I answer, setting aside the lid and staring down at the black leather shoes. The metal plates on the soles click together loudly as I plunge my hand into the left shoe, closing my fingers around the smaller box shoved into the toe. When I pull it out I lay the shoebox on the floor and roll my chair back to where Tina is still sitting on the bed.
"Artie, what's that?" she asks, eyeing the box in my palm.
"Your eighteenth birthday present," I say, fingering the worn velvet. "It's been hidden away in that shoebox since I got it. I could never bring myself to get rid of it, and now I know why."
Taking a deep breath, I set the brake on my chair and meet her gaze. "I'd get down on one knee if I could," I say and she copies my smile at the memory even as her eyes tear up and she lifts her hands to cover her mouth. "I love you, Tee, and if I've learned anything by this point it's that I'm going to keep feeling this way about you for the rest of my life. It's five years late but –" I open the box and she gasps at the simple silver band nestled inside, "– Marry me?"
She's crying, her hands still over her mouth, but she lifts her eyes to mine and nods enthusiastically, all of her uncertainty and hesitation having faded sometime in the last two months. My hands are shaking as I take her left hand and slide the band onto her third finger. For a long time both of us just stare at the way the ring looks against her skin, and then she takes my face in her hands and kisses me again.
"I love you," she whispers against my mouth, smiling. "And we're going to get married, and have this baby, and be like a real, normal family."
"Yeah," I agree distractedly, my mind still trying to grasp all of this. It's been a broken and out-of-order journey, but somehow my life with Tina has come full circle to where I always hoped we'd be some day. My best friend is going to become my wife, we have our beautiful daughter, and now we have another little baby on the way. Her parents took so much from us in the past, but in the end we still won and we've found a way to get it all back.
"Are you scared about being pregnant?" I ask quietly, because I have to know. After everything she went through the last time, I can imagine there must be some anxiousness.
"No," she says, and says it so confidently that it has to be true. She takes one of my hands and lays my palm against her stomach. "You're here with me this time. With everything we've already survived, we can handle anything."
Ignoring the prickling at the corners of my eyes, I stare at my hand resting over the flat plane of her stomach. Somewhere underneath there is our little baby, and she's right; this time I'm going to be there for everything. She places her hand over the top of mine and I smile. "I'm glad you're not, because I am," I admit with a laugh. She smiles, squeezing my hand affectionately until I can feel the cool metal of her engagement ring against the back of my hand.
"I can't believe we're really going to have another baby," I say in wonder. Smirking a little, I add, "You'd think we'd have learned our lesson the first time. If we don't figure out how that protection thing works soon we're going to wind up with a whole mess of kids. I'm talking like so big that some tv network will give us our own reality show. Like, a Mormon-sized Abrams horde."
Tina laughs, the bright, real laugh that scrunches her nose up. "And I'm sure you'd have a problem with that," she says sarcastically.
I consider that thought for a moment, biting my bottom lip, and then laugh and shake my head. "Probably not," I agree. "Although I don't know, if they all wind up as active as Dee, the chaos might drive us both to an early grave. I have a hard enough time keeping up with her, let alone ten or twenty more."
"Yeah, let's just survive this one first and then we'll see where you stand on that giant horde," she says with a smile. When I glance up at her face again, she's staring down at her left hand with a slightly dazed smile. "I can't believe we're really going to get married," she says, glancing at me through her lashes before turning her eyes to the ring again. "You know, whenever I thought about what this would be like to get engaged, and how it would happen, I never imagined it like this."
"Me neither," I say, turning my hand over to wrap my fingers through hers, tracing my thumb across the silver band. "But then the only time I ever seriously thought about it, I was eighteen years old so I suppose times have changed a bit since then."
"You didn't imagine you'd be the father of two when it happened?" she asks with a smile.
"Considering I was eighteen, no, really wasn't expecting that," I say, laughing. "You know what though? I can't say for sure because I'll never really know, but I think I like it better this way. I was less nervous today than I was in all that time our senior year after I decided I was going to propose."
"When was that?" she asks curiously.
I feel a half-smirk creep onto my face and confess, "The summer before our senior year. I made my first payment on the ring the day before you asked me if I'd ever thought about us getting married after high school."
She laughs. "Oh yeah, I remember that day," she says. "That explains why you had such a deer-in-the-headlights look."
"What? I thought I played it pretty cool." She gives me a skeptical look and I shrug it off. "Either way, I stick to what I said. After we went through all of this stuff and still somehow managed to wind up back together, I'm thinking it's pretty obvious this is some act of destiny." I pause, surprised at the words, and then laugh. "And I totally just got the irony in what I just said."
"Witty," she says, rolling her eyes. I pout dejectedly and she laughs, leaning down to kiss me. When she pulls back she examines my face for a minute and says, "I love you."
"I know," I answer, smiling.
Her eyes widen and she laughs. "Did you seriously just Han Solo me?" she asks in amusement.
"Maybe I did," I say. "And guess what? You recognized the line. You're the bigger nerd."
"You used the line," she argues.
"Which you recognized, out of context." I glance down over her and then smirk. "Oh and Tee, you're wearing a cardigan."
She blinks in surprise and glances down. "It's cold in here," she rebuts weakly. "Besides, it's your sweater."
"But you're the one wearing it," I say firmly. "Face it, this time I win." I don't duck fast enough to avoid the pillow she throws at me. "What was that for?" I ask indignantly.
"Your grand prize," she says with a grin. I shake my head as I toss the pillow back to her, and she sets it on the bed again.
"Sore loser," I grumble, making her laugh.
"Oh you know you love it," she says, standing up and wrapping my worn blue sweater tighter around her body.
"Always, Tee."
She smiles and walks around the bed to the suitcase again. "C'mon, help me finish packing," she says, setting about rearranging a stack of shirts.
"Do we have to?" I ask, arching an eyebrow suggestively. "I mean, we just got engaged and found out we're having another baby. Sounds like cause for celebration to me."
"Yeah, and we have a five year old daughter who will be waking up any time now and I'd really rather not scar her for life," Tina responds, laughing, and I sigh in defeat. She bends down and kisses me again, and this time when she finally straightens up we're both a little bit breathless. Regarding me through her lashes, she says, "Maybe later." I smile triumphantly and she laughs. "Now I didn't know which tie you wanted to wear with your suit for the wedding, so go pick one and put it in the bag before you forget again, okay?"
"Alright, alright," I say, pretending to be exasperated as I roll back to the closet. I can't help but smile though as I stow a dirty old shoebox back into the corner and start browsing through a row of ties.
"Not the green one, Artie," Tina calls from the bedroom and I laugh, rolling my eyes.
If someone had asked me nine weeks ago, I would have told them that I couldn't have possibly wanted more than a second chance with my girlfriend and having my little girl become a part of my life. Now my second chance has changed into a lifetime commitment to the girl of my dreams, and in about six months my little girl is going to be getting a baby brother or sister.
Yeah, it's been a crazy ride and it's far from over, but I've ended up with everything I ever wanted and more, and that more than makes up for it.