Epilogue
— Beca —
The first of the morning rays began to filter through the cracks in the blinds, and I rolled out of bed, stretching. Chloe had of course been up for at least an hour already, and I knew exactly where to find her. But first, I headed downstairs and put water on to boil, dumping a teaspoon of instant coffee into each of the two chipped black mugs on the counter, and filling them with water once it was ready. It wasn't long before I was ascending the stairs again, mugs in hand. It always frustrated me that I had such a prominent limp in the mornings, and I grumbled as I stumbled on the second to last step, sloshing burning coffee onto the landing. I hear a snort from the room ahead.
"You know you need to massage your leg before you get out of bed in the morning, babe." She chuckled, finally leaning back in her chair to look at me through the doorway as I approached, tongue poking out of my mouth as I concentrated. I walked round behind her and set the mugs down on her desk, only spilling a little more as I did so. She squealed and dabbed at the coffee-speckled pages, flapping at me with her spare hand. I leant down to kiss her, and her hands slowed as I did so, the spilled coffee forgotten temporarily. I pulled away, smiling.
"Don't nag at me about my old war wounds, you know I'm stubborn, it's part of my charm." She laughed at that, stroking my cheek lovingly before turning back to assess the damage. I followed her gaze, my eyes running over the mess of handrwitten pages scattered across her desk.
"How's it coming?"
"You know, I actually woke up in the night with SO many ideas for this last part, I think it's almost done!" She beamed, putting her hands to her face. I leant down again, pressing my forehead to hers and humming as she moved her hands to cup my face.
"Well I can't wait to read it then, in that case. I hope you're prepared for a harsh critique, don't think I'm gonna be going easy on you just because you're a hot piece of ass!" She squeaked in indignation, shoving me playfully and then squealing again for real as I fell flat on my own ass, still laughing. She got up, towering over me, and offered me a hand.
"I might have come down there if it wasn't for that comment." She giggled, and pulled me to my feet and into her arms. "We need to get going anyway, I think the others will be waiting on us if we're too much longer." She said. I sighed.
"Oh yeah, Amy's thing." She tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
"You know you'll enjoy it once we're there, and besides, we promised her and everyone else we'd be there! We've barely seen them since the last run into town." I knew she was right, and so we traipsed into the bedroom together and began to get ready. Later, after dinner with our friends, she would finally present me with the first few chapters of her novel. At some point, many years ago when the world first turned upside down, I had imagined how that moment might feel, and what I might be doing. Safe to say it was everything I had hoped it could be, and then some. It was hard to compare the life we had now with the one I'd left behind all that time ago, but if asked, I would always say I was happier now, hands down. My life had purpose these days, and although with that came inevitable uncertainty and sometimes loss, I embraced it gladly day after day. Music filled my mind again too these days, and at night I lay beside the person I treasured beyond all else. Some days I would look back on what could have been, what we had lost, but mostly now I kept my focus forward, knowing there was always more to come. Nothing in life is ever easy, and sometimes even the best laid plans go to waste (that's like, a saying right?) but somehow, despite it all we'd made it. As we walked hand in hand to greet our friends, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction and peace wash over me. Things weren't completely static now, not by a long shot, but ultimately what we'd fought so hard for had become our reality, and it was perfect. After everything, we had finally reached the future we had painted in our past, and it moved me. Gazing up into the sunlight, I wasn't running anymore.