Chapter Twenty-Nine: We Have Not Long To Love

"A wise man once told me family don't end in blood, but it doesn't start there either. Family cares about you, not what you can do for them. Family's there through the good, bad, all of it. They got your back even when it hurts. That's family." –Eric Kripke

"Tate! Are you almost ready!?" JJ called from downstairs.

Tate quickly finished packing and zipped up her suitcase. Just a few days ago, they'd gotten a call from the family that had bought the old Jacobs home. Apparently in their rush to get in and out as soon as possible when packing up the place–as Tate had no desire to be there–they'd neglected to grab the boxes nestled into the loft of the barn. Since there were a fair amount of boxes, the only option was for Tate to go back up to Boston and look through it or everything would simply be thrown out. Originally, Will had offered to take her, but then JJ decided it might be nice if just the two of them went.

Tate had been adopted just two weeks prior, on the fourth of June, and Natalie Campbell Jacobs had become Tate Campbell LaMontagne. It had taken a while for Tate to finally decide on her new name. First, there'd been the matter of her last name, which had been the hardest to decide. JJ and Will had assured her she could keep Jacobs if she wanted, or they could hyphenate it, but eventually, she'd decided to do away with the old name. Tate wanted her family's name, the name of the people who loved her. She'd been the only Jacobs left and didn't see the point in keeping a family name when there was no family left to share it with. As for her middle name, that hadn't been quite so hard since people rarely ever use it. It was Lauren Jacobs' maiden name, and both Tate and Theo had been given it as a middle name. Tate had thought about letting Will and JJ pick a middle name for her but since she was becoming a LaMontagne, she wanted to keep at least one of the names she shared with Theo. The choice to change her first name was by far the easiest. Tate hadn't even planned on changing it until Beck mentioned that she was technically allowed to, and since Tate could count the number of times she'd been called Natalie on one hand, she'd decided to make Tate her legal name instead of just a nickname.

Ever since Tate had been adopted, JJ had been making even more of an effort to spend time with her. A photo of the five of them—Will, JJ, Tate, and the twins–sat in a small frame at the top of Tate's dresser. Beck had taken the picture of them outside of the courthouse, just after the adoption, and it quickly became Tate's favorite picture. After all, it was the first one of them as an official family.

As she heard JJ yell again, Tate grabbed her bag off of her bed and headed downstairs.

"Do you have everything?" JJ asked as she caught sight of Tate.

"Yeah, I think so," Tate replied.

"Good enough for me, let's get going," Will said as he picked up Tate's bag.

Will would drive the pair to the airport before heading home since both he and JJ had decided it would be easier for just one of them to go to Boston so that they wouldn't have to travel with Kit and Henry.

As JJ and Tate left the airport and drove through Boston, the sights of the city were achingly familiar to Tate. There was Fenway Stadium, where she and Theo had gone to at least once a month to see the Red Sox play; the Boston Public Library, which had become their meeting place with Grant while they were in foster care, to ensure they could always find each other; and the many spots along the Freedom Trail that Thomas had always taken the family to visit on the weekends, like the Bunker Hill Monument and the Old North Church. Boston had been a city that, like many people in New England, Tate adored with a passion. Now, it was just a painful memory of what her life used to be. Not that she wasn't content with her life right now, because truth be told Tate was probably the happiest she'd ever been, but sometimes she missed how simple things used to be.

"So, do you have anything you want to do while we're here?" JJ asked Tate as she glanced away from the road for a moment.

"Aren't we going to get the boxes?".

"Well, yeah, but we're here for three days, we might as well do something fun," JJ said.

Tate was quiet for a minute, and then simply shrugged her shoulders in response. It took all of JJ's restraint to withhold a sigh. She'd been trying for weeks to spend more time with Tate in an attempt to try and seem more like a mother to the girl. Tate had a far better relationship with Will, and although JJ didn't resent it, it was something she wanted for herself and for Tate. JJ had also noticed that the number of times Tate almost called Will "Dad" before stopping herself had increased in the past few weeks, and yet she'd never once almost called JJ "Mom". Again, although JJ wasn't mad about it, it was just a painful reminder that JJ and Tate's relationship could use some work. Tate deserved a mother, and this trip had been JJ's way of getting them to bond more.

"What about if we look at some schools?" JJ tried.

Tate perked up slightly at that. Ever since they'd decided Tate would be skipping a grade the following school year, Will had made it clear that he wasn't exactly a fan of the idea that Tate would be going off to college the year after that. He seemed to think she should just take a gap year, or go to Georgetown or another nearby university, whereas JJ was more supportive of Tate actually going away to school. Tate wasn't exactly sure that she'd want to go to school in Boston, as it might be better to start fresh in a new city that wasn't filled with memories, but at least she'd have the option. It was also an added bonus that Boston was filled to the brim with top-notch schools.

"That sounds good," Tate told JJ.

"Anything non-academic related that you'd want to do?".

"Cannolis,".

"We flew 400 miles and all you want is cannolis?" JJ asked.

"You clearly haven't been eating cannolis from the North End," Tate quipped. "But if you meant an activity to do, we could go to a baseball game or check out a museum,".

Tate knew JJ was trying her best, so she'd promised herself that she'd put in an effort as well. As much as she didn't really want to be in Boston, she knew it would be a good opportunity for her and JJ. Besides, Abby was always telling her that if she didn't automatically dismiss the idea of something, she might actually enjoy it. And Tate had come to find, despite how annoying it was, that following Abby's advice actually helped.

Tate sat perched on the edge of the barn loft, looking through a box on the floor next to her. It was a rainy spring day and the barn held just the slightest chill in the air. The barn had remained mostly undisturbed since the house had been sold, as the new owners had no use for it, which is why they had only discovered the boxes a week ago. Tools and pieces of scrap wood were scattered on the lower floor of the barn, the final remnants of Theo's workshop. JJ and Tate had been at the house for about two and a half hours and were roughly halfway through the boxes they needed to look through. Tate was beginning to regret coming on the trip, as most of the items she'd found were something she'd get rid of without hesitation: old clothes, rusty tools, broken toys, and some of Thomas' old case files. The box that Tate was currently searching through had obviously belonged to Theo, as Tate recognized most of the items from Theo's junior year of high school. It'd been the last school year he'd attended in foster care since he'd turned 18 the august before he had started senior year, and it had been the fourth high school he'd gone to. Like most of the schools they attended except for the one in Dover, Theo hadn't cared much for it, which is why Tate assumed the box was up here in the first place.

As Tate went to toss the box off the loft and into the pile of things she and JJ had deemed acceptable to be thrown out, she noticed a thick book underneath one of Theo's hockey jerseys. After taking a closer look at it, Tate realized it was a photo album. She opened the book, the spine cracking slightly from years of sitting on a shelf unused.

"What's that?" JJ asked as she realized Tate had stopped looking through the boxes.

"A photo album," Tate said softly as she recognized the first picture.

The photo in question was of Tate and Theo at Theo's championship baseball game that had occurred a mere three weeks before their parents died. Tate sat perched on Theo's shoulders, her small hands resting on Theo's blue baseball cap. He was wearing a blue and gray jersey and still had his pitcher's mitt clutched between a few fingers as he held onto Tate's ankles. Theo's distinctive handwriting sat beneath the photo, cursive scrawl in blue ink that read: "Tate-Age 6, Theo-Age 13".

JJ got up from where she'd been searching through boxes and sat down next to Tate, looking over the girl's shoulder at the photo. Will and JJ had a few photos of Tate when she was younger scattered around the house, but not many. They hadn't been able to find any of her as a baby when they packed up the house and only a handful of her from around the age of three to the age of six. JJ had once asked Grant if he had any, or if he knew where she could find some, and he'd informed her that most of Tate and Theo's foster parents hadn't been too concerned about documenting their childhood. As Tate flipped through more photos, JJ realized they must have been taken after Lauren and Thomas died. Some of them were Theo and Tate together, with the occasional appearance from Grant, whereas others would just be of Tate, and there were a few of just Theo with a group of boys or a blonde girl.

"I didn't know he had these," Tate told JJ quietly.

"I guess he thought it might be nice for you to have someday," JJ explained.

Tate paused in her turning of the pages at a photo of her and Theo in a park. After looking at the picture for a few seconds, Tate recognized it as the Boston Common. It was clearly late fall in the photo, as the leaves were rich shades of red and orange, and both Theo and Tate were wearing jackets. Tate suddenly remembered the day the picture had been taken, a day she hadn't thought of in years. It had been taken while they were still living with the Moores and Bill had come to visit Tate and Theo. By that point, Tate was eight years old, and Theo had turned fifteen a few months prior. Tate had only met the detective once before, when she had just turned six, and she barely remembered the man, whereas Theo knew him far better. He'd shown up and asked the Moores if he could take them out for the day, and of course the family hadn't had any objections. After all, as long as they got their check, they were happy. He'd taken them to Frog Pond and bought them ice cream, and while Tate had sat on a bench reading a book, Bill and Theo had a hushed conversation nearby. After that, they'd gone about their day in the park, and Bill had snapped the picture of the pair shortly before driving them home. Later that day, Tate asked Theo what he and Bill had been talking about, but he simply told her not to worry about it. Tate never really thought about it again, but now that she remembered it, she realized Theo must have told Bill how the Moores were treating them, because not three days later they were removed from the home.

"That's a nice one," JJ commented.

"Bill took it,".

"He did?".

Tate nodded and it was then that JJ realized the handwriting on the photo was indeed different from the others. It was a much messier cursive than Theo's, the type of handwriting that only doctors ever seemed to have. As she examined it, JJ noted just how similar it was to Will's own handwriting.

Tate was suddenly extremely glad JJ had convinced her to come to Boston. She hadn't even known these photos had existed until ten minutes ago. She'd never been truly upset by the lack of childhood photos she had, but it was sometimes difficult to see pictures of the boys laying around the house. It was basically a timeline of their life, with pictures of them from newborns to the fourteen months of age that they were now. Amelia and Beck's house was basically the same, filled with photos of Asher and Ezra in all the stages of their lives, at all the major milestones. But Tate had only ever had pictures that Will and JJ had taken over the past year and a half and a few pictures of her from preschool and kindergarten. Now, thanks to Theo, she had something to actually document her life with. She also had more than just one picture of her with Theo, which Grant had given to her shortly after Theo's funeral. Her previous lack of childhood photos was just something that had always been a fact, something that showed no one had ever cared enough to actually take a picture of her. Tate had never realized how badly she actually wanted photos of her as a little kid; never realized how much she wanted proof that between the death of her parents and Theo's eighteenth birthday, Tate Jacobs had still existed; never realized how much she wanted proof that before William LaMontagne and Jennifer Jareau, someone had loved her and wanted her.

"There is no future, there is no past. I live this moment as my last. There's only us. There's only this. Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other road. No other way. No day but today.

I can't control my destiny. I trust my soul, my only goal is just to be.

There's only now, there's only here. Give into love, or live in fear. No other course, no other way." –Jonathan Larson