A little warning there is some swearing in here I don't often use swear words but emotionally high strung... so... yeah.

Can I just say a huge thanks to everyone for all the encouragement through this, it has been a huge project and has gone on for quite some time. Thank you for thinking about commenting and liking!

As well thank you to those who have read some of my older pieces this week, I got comments on my married life one which I wasn't expecting! so thanks for that too!

Paul stood in the doorway of the study watching as Lavender's head was in a pile of science exercise books, marking them off. His brow furrowed, his mind uneasy, he subconsciously took a heavy sigh which he didn't know was physical until Lavender looked up from her books.

"Paul." She said concerned "that sigh had the weight of the world in it." She said to him.

His lips upturned at her greeting it was so very typical of her to hear the weight in a sigh. "Not the world, just the soul of a boy who..." he trailed. "I don't know." He said with a chuckle, then another sigh "Should I feel guilty? About never wondering about Angela? Never feeling a whole or empty? But then, you came and I was ecstatic about having a mother of my own but I wasn't missing one, and now Angela comes and I want to know her as a person but just not as my mom, because I don't need to know a mom, I know my mom, that's you, but then she says I have a half sister and I want to know her as my sister!..." he looked down at his feet and said quietly "I'm not sure this is making any sense."

Lavender came from the desk and sat on the couch they had in the sofa and tapped the space beside her, to which he swayed for a moment before he came and sat down.

"Truth is," Lavender said to him "its a complicated situation." She told him wisely. "Angela is after all your birth mother, and was very young when she gave you up."

"But dad was the same age and kept me." Paul told her "I can't imagine giving up a baby, what did I do? What didn't I do? What right did she have to leave my dad like that!"

Lavender looked seriously at him before asking "Are you mad at her for leaving your father or leaving you?"

He looked her in the eyes before he said "That's what she said when I temper tantrumed."

Lavender chuckled "You temper tantrumed?" she asked him "Oh I would have loved to have seen that!"

"Dad gave up so much to raise me, I know. I don't remember everything, but all the things I do remember... he loved me and she gave up her right. I... I don't understand."

"I doubt she does." Lavender confided in him.

"I...I think I am mad at her for dad, he never spoke a word against her ever in front of me." Paul told Lavender "and then neither did you."

"Because we both want you believing you would made out of all the good things about her, just like every parent wants their child to believe. There's no need to belittle someone else in order to make yourself look big. Angela was, smart, she could charm people to her way of thinking, she had a lot of leadership qualities even at a young age." Lavender smiled "and I can't blame her for wanting to see you."

He looked at his mother and smiled "I love you mom." He told her.

Lavender smiled "I love you too." She replied. "So, you have a sister?"

"Yeah, she's five, loves rhymes." Paul smiled.

"Ah! A poet gene!" Lavender nodded. "You want to meet her?"

Paul nodded "Yeah I think so, yeah."

"That's really good." She told him.

"I can't believe it, it wasn't that long ago I was an only child no I have two siblings!" he said with a chuckle to her.

"Well a sibling and one in the making." Lavender smiled to him.

"They're both lucky." A voice said from the door. Stephen said smiling looking in.

"Dad." Paul said looking at him.

Stephen smiled further then said quietly to him "I don't regret keeping you Paul." He told him. "I don't hate Angela for going and neither should you." He told his son, "Things would have been different had she been there, and I don't want anything different." He told Paul. "it brought us here."

"Joshua! Micheal!" Their mother called of them. "Come on, its time to go home."

The two boys tared across the playground the older making dragons roaring sounds, the younger screaming in excitement.

"Ahhhh!" Josh exclaimed. "Mommy! Save me save me!" he shouted running straight into her legs.

She laughed and picked him up. "You have nothing to be scared!" she said holding him up just far enough that Micheal couldn't reach. "You know the one thing dragons are scared of?" she asked him.

He laughed in delight as she continued "Of mommy's!" she exclaimed. "Roar!" she leaned over Micheal picking him up and kissing them both. "Home time." She told them both.

Josh held onto the pram as they walked, and partway home he asked "Mommy, Can Hanny play football with us yet?" he asked.

His mother smiled "No Josh, sweetheart, not yet."

The second week in his hometown was easier then the first. He found himself in a comfortable pattern.

"Are you ready?" he asked his mother.

"Is anyone ever ready?" she asked him.

He smiled and took her hand "no, but its an important first step. AA is there to support you in recovering from the alcohol the Edge Network to help with it and the gambling." He told her, he looked down at her shaking hand "Withdrawal?" he asked her.

"I... I don't know." She shook his head. "I'm scared." She told him.

He nodded and whispered to her "You have nothing to be scared of, Addictions are scared of doctors." She looked up at him and smiled.

"Look at them," Anne whispered to Gilbert as they all walked down the docks. Gilbert and Anne were walking quietly behind Josh and Zara watching as they walked together. "I don't think I've ever seen Josh smile quite so much."

"Ah young love!" Gilbert whispered.

"Its hard to believe we were ever like that." Anne smiled.

"Oh we were," he told her "or do I have to get Josie to pull out those old video of high school." He told her "My eyes were always on you my smile always more genuine when you were in the room. Its that finding and belonging with another person." He said with a smile "The discovery!" he whispered to her kissing the back of his hand.

She blushed slightly with a smile playing at her lips "Don't you ever wish for that again, you know a new girlfriend?" she asked him.

"No!" he said rather quickly.

"Oh?" she asked him.

"What you would?" he asked her.

Anne chuckled "No, you know how I felt about dating another person, frankly the idea terrifies me."

"Oh." He said with a nod, "No, I never felt this way before, and although the discovery was exhilarating..." he said with a smile to her "the troth I discovered keeps holding more and more treasure for me." He told her, to which she looked at him softly "There has never been anyone for me but you."

She chuckled and squeezed his hand further "You too Mister." She told him. He smiled down at her and wrapped his arm around her.

Josh and Zara turned towards the water stopping at the bridge looking over the side. Gilbert and Anne stopped and looked over with them.

"When you work on the docks every morning for four years then go away," Josh chuckled "you forget how pretty it is."

"You worked down here?" Anne asked him.

"Yeah right over there." He said pointing at the fishermans monger." He smiled. "I gutted fish." He said with a smile. "Fresh off the boats."

Anne's eyebrows went up surprised "You were destined to cut for a living." She said.

Josh chuckled "You have no idea." He said looking again out towards the boat. "Ah! Marco hasn't gone yet!" he exclaimed. "Gil, come on I want you to meet my old boss..." Josh exclaimed, he moved so fast Gilbert had to jog to catch up, leaving Anne and Zara alone watching them go.

Zara smiled at Anne. "Typical," Anne told her wryly. "They always went running off together."

"Oh?" Zara asked.

"Yeah." Anne told her, then added "mostly to classes," which made Zara laugh.

"Oh Josh really loves Gilbert's company, he mentioned him the first two years of university before we lost touch, its nice he's had someone constant in his life this whole time."

Anne smiled "we wouldn't be without him." She looked at Zara whose eyes were looking out toward the shadows of Josh and Gilbert along with Marco. "Its hard to imagine why you would?" she questioned.

Zara's eyes moved to Anne there and she whispered "he didn't support my marriage, by the time it was over I tried but he never replied," she shrugged "he didn't want to." She said quietly.

"Why?" Anne asked.

"Why?" Zara reflected. "I dunno, people move on in their life, I supposed he did."

Anne looked at Zara pensively. "I suppose that's one way of looking at it." Anne admitted.

"There's another?" Zara asked her.

"Well, Gil and I didn't speak for two years during college, I thought he had moved on, the fact was that neither one of us had."

"You and Gilbert didn't speak for two years?!" She asked surprised.

"Um," Anne nodded, "We kissed and it was amazing," she remembered with a smile playing on her lips "he told me he loved me, and I completely freaked and wouldn't tell him why, he asked me more or less if we could be together and I kept telling him we couldn't. So he asked for some space, to sort his mind out over it, to...um, get over me." She said with a shrug.

"But he didn't?" Zara asked her.

"He went to New York on a student exchange." Anne took a huge sigh "it was hell!" she admitted. "I thought he had fallen for the first girl he met in New York," Anne chuckled "and I was ignoring how jealous I was and I pushed myself through a relationship with someone else, but I was unhappy in it, I was blown over with his attentions because I was lacking the attention I so often held in Gilbert's gaze." She blew out a huge sigh "I was sooo unhappy and Gilbert wasn't handling it well either, he was doing these adrenaline rush stunts a lot of them with the girl I thought he was in love with , when she came back with him I thought they had become an item and she implied it and everyone thought they were together, but he got careless ended up in hospital in the ICU to start with and when I found out I panicked I couldn't think of anything but to be with him, turns out he was doing these stunts and adrenaline stuff because when he was doing them it stopped him feeling numb over what happened with us."

Zara sighed "That's really sad." Zara confirmed "For both of you."

"My point is, I was giving him the space he said he wanted at first but then it just became a caesium. So many different choices might have stopped it, Should I have talked to him when he sent me the necklace? Or maybe talked to him when he got back from New York? Or maybe while he was in New York to tell him I missed him, or, my personal favourite that I should have continued to kiss him that night, share with him what was stopping me, and he'd do what he did when I told him anyway and hold me, and love me."

Zara looked at Anne for a few seconds before she whispered "Wow."

Anne smiled "Soooo, has he told you why he didn't come to your wedding yet?" she asked Zara.

"No." She said quietly looking out to sea. "No he hasn't."

Anne nodded and turned to look out to the sea too. "Maybe it's time to find out."

"You were so lucky!" Gilbert said with a smile to Josh as they walked back towards the girls from the harbour.

""Oh?" Josh asked.

"Yeah your first job had quite the view." Gilbert said.

"Well, if you count as providing for myself since I was Freshman in High School lucky sure." Josh said with a smile to Gilbert, they took a few steps in silence before Josh admitted "I know."

"And Zara is great." Gilbert reminded him "Female best friends rock." He said with a smile to him.

"Easy for you to say you sleep with yours." He said with a raised eyebrow to Gilbert.

Gilbert grinned widely "Yup, I do!" he admitted proudly. "I think you could too." He dropped casually.

Josh looked at Gilbert a little shocked as Gilbert looked to him. "No," he said shaking his head. "No, Zara doesn't like me like that."

"Alright," he said just as casually as before, they fell silent for another couple of steps before Josh broke the silence.

"No, I'm not just denying it." He reaffirmed to Gilbert. "before I came to uni, I offered for her to come, and then again in the airport the day I left."

Gilbert looked at him then looked at the ground "You never told me that."

"Not my proudest moment." Josh muttered. "If she loved me she would have figured out I was asking her to come with me because I loved her."

Gilbert eyebrows furrowed before he arm went out the back of his hand stopping Josh in the chest "Wait a minute, hold on," he said shaking his head "are you telling me you never told her you loved her."

Josh swallowed then shrugged.

"Josh, she's not a mind reader." Gilbert told him.

"I wanted her to come with me, what else does it mean?!" Josh asked him.

"Look, I am the master of not telling a girl how I feel okay, I know what I'm saying."

"Grand one to be telling me what to do, you told Anne you loved her and didn't talk to her for two years."

Gilbert's eyebrows shot up a small sigh leaving his mouth before he quipped "and you didn't speak to her for eleven years, I'm still winning buddy."

"She married someone else!" Josh quipped back.

"You never came back here." Gilbert reminded him.

"Because I lost everything!" Josh exclaimed "My parents didn't want me and neither did she!"

Gilbert stood stunned. "It must have hurt to get that wedding invitation." He said eventually.

"I had been saving up to come back here that summer, the summer going into the third year." He said quietly. "I, I um, I wanted to see her." He shrugged before he continued to walk. "I couldn't watch her marry someone else."

Gilbert felt exasperated, "Josh, you got to tell her man!"

"No, you're not getting it, she married someone else. Married, she didn't love me she never loved me, she couldn't have married someone else if she loved me back." He stopped and took a huge sigh.

Gilbert thought for a moment before he spoke "Look, I don't know what happened then, and I know it must have been awful, but, I'm saying this based on now. Based on what I see when she looks at you and you look at her." He paused and said "its like when I look at Anne or she looks at me." There was silence between the two men before they landed on the promade where the girls were standing about 200 yards away.

"Look at the girls clucking like hens." Josh smiled.

"Well Anne likes Zara, she's a kindred spirit." Gilbert told him.

Josh chuckled, "Yeah. Yeah she is."

"Sorry we have to go home tomorrow." He said to Josh.

"No, its absolutely fine." He told Gilbert "Really, you've been the support I needed and more." He said. "Thanks man."

"No problem." Gilbert said. "One thing in return?" he asked.

"Anything!" Josh replied.

"Try again." Gilbert advised.

Anne turned over in the bed looking at the clock. 2am in the morning she took a heavy sigh. 3 more hours and they would need to be up for the plane.

She looked confused around the room for a moment, knowing Gilbert had thrown her slip dress carelessly across the room before they had made love three hours earlier. She spotted it lying across the back of a chair. She chuckled before she realised she would have to get out of the bed completely starkers in order to get it. She blushed slightly in the dark. Had she have been at home there would be no problem, she probably wouldn't even bother getting it on to got to the bathroom, and even though the room was private and the bathroom was private, it wasn't their own home and a small part of her worried there was a hidden camera, she scoffed in her mind over it, had there been a hidden camera both Gilbert and her had given them quite the show over the last week. They had made love morning and evening, enjoying the others company while getting to spend time with each other had... quite the impact! She still slid out of bed and put the slip on going to the bathroom, she used the toilet before she turned to wash her hands, her eyes fell on the strip of the pills in front of her. Her jaw fell open her eyes narrowed as she focused on the day indicated on the strip of pills, she hadn't just missed one day.

She shook her head, it was a stupid idea leaving it in the bathroom, when she usually had it on the bedside table so she wouldn't forget.

She swallowed trying to not to panic her left hand reached across her stomach she bit her bottom lip. She took a deep breath and shook her head, the chances were still slim. She decided drying her hands. She slid back into bed and decided not to worry, and most importantly not to worry Gilbert.

Three days later Josh lay in the sand with Zara beside him, them both looking up at the clouds, as they sometimes did in days past, unnoticed to both of them their hands were in the others

"Thank you for being with me Zara," he said quietly to her. "I really have missed you." He told her. "I really needed you the past couple of weeks."

"I just wish it were better circumstances." She said quietly. They lay quietly before she decided, he was going home tomorrow, she needed to know, or at least, she wanted to know. "Josh?" she asked him.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Why did you not come to my wedding?" she said after a little pause.

Josh took a deep breath and sat up, their hands parted something which Zara felt acutely.

"Oh, um," he blushed and shrugged. "I um, I couldn't come." He told her.

"To have you there, I would have paid for your ticket, mom and dad wouldn't have minded..." she told him.

"It wasn't the money." He shook his head. "Zara it wasn't the money, I was going to come back the following summer to just, to..." he trailed suddenly unsure of himself.

"You were going to come back?" she asked him as excitedly as though he was telling her over the phone after not seeing each other for years. He nodded not sure how to continue "Oh my god! Josh..."

"I couldn't see you marry someone else." He finally blurted.

She sat stunned for a moment as Josh got up and started to walk away. He couldn't believe he just blurted it out. He burned red before she caught up with him stopping in front of him she wanted his attention. "Josh, why?" she asked.

"Because... I..." he started quietly then looked at the ground "...because I loved you." He said shyly. He couldn't see the look on her face, a one of shock and relief both together. "See, I thought maybe I had more of a chance with you, maybe I'd done enough to prove myself to you."

"Josh..." she started.

"But I wasn't enough, and I know it alright? And I couldn't watch you marry someone else, I couldn't sit there and see you marry someone who wasn't me when I wanted you so much." He took a deep breath "then, then you got married for all I knew happily so, I couldn't stand to pick up the phone or read letters or e-mails or texts and so..." he trailed shrugging.

"Josh I didn't know."

"How the hell did you not know?!" Josh exclaimed. "I offered, I said 'come with me' in the airport!"

"I couldn't come and you knew it, there's no risk when you know I couldn't say yes."

"You could have said yes!" He objected.

"and lived where?" she asked him.

"Halls of resident." He said as if it was obvious.

"I couldn't live there if I didn't go there." She told him.

"Then we would have got a stinking little apartment, I would do it to be with you!" he exclaimed. "I loved you!"

"Then why did you never tell me?!" she asked.

"Because you are too good for me!" he finally blurted.

They stood both shocked. Him for saying it, her for hearing it.

"Josh." She whispered she came closer his arms went around her waist her hands on her chest "Is that what you believe?" she asked him.

"I had nothing to offer you, my home was broken, the only things I owed was my mobile phone, my laptop and the kindle you gave me."

She chuckled. "I forgot about that kindle." She smiled.

He hand went in his bag and pulled it out she looked amazed at it "My prized possession." He said to her quietly.

"Does it still work?!" she asked amazed.

He chuckled "I had to get the battery replaced." He admitted. "but yeah." He chuckled.

She looked to it then up at him "Wow!" she exclaimed. "Josh..." she said her head shaking "I don't understand, how you could think I was too good for you." She whispered.

"I had nothing!" he exclaimed.

"and I had everything until you went away." She told him.

It was Josh's turn to look amazed. "What?" he asked her.

"Come on Josh, I loved you all the way through high school then you went and I was all alone and you made clear you didn't want me!"

"How!?" he exclaimed.

"We talked about long distance you said you weren't ever coming back."

"You never said the girl was you and we were talking hypothetical! And I offered in the airport for you to come!"

She took a deep sigh standing back "we're going round in circles." She shook her head.

He took a step in and caught her round the waist again "then lets break the cycle." He told her, before he brought his lips to hers and kissed her gently.

"Josh!" she exclaimed as he pulled back slightly "Josh we don't know each other anymore." She whispered to him.

He smiled "Well I sort of thought that was the point in dating someone." She looked at him amazed "You know to get to know each other better."

"But... what about..." her mind was spinning from the kiss.

He waited her for to finish the sentence, then when one wasn't forthcoming he leaned down and whispered to her "I let you go once, you can't possibly think I would do it again without at least trying." He told her "I know I have nothing, but we would have each other." He whispered to her. "If that is enough..." he whispered with a smile before he closed in and kissed her again this time steadier and more certain. "...I am all yours and I am all in!" he whispered to her.

She part way giggled part way spurlted. "Josh you were always enough."

He smiled his eyes closing in pleasure his eyes opening as if he was a new man he smiled widely. "I was?" he asked her.

She giggled "You played so well at being confident, you even had me fooled at times. I always forgot..." she said before she reached up and kissed him.

When the kiss broke he chuckled in delight "I... I can't believe this is happening!" he exclaimed.

"Believe it baby." She teased him before they kissed again. "Um, Josh." She whispered. "Hold on. Hold on." She told him before he opened his eyes. "What are we doing?" She asked him "Moving forward?" she asked.

"Whatever you need." He told her.

"Josh. No come on we need..." she started.

"No, no." He said shaking his head his hands coming up to cup her cheeks "I go back on that plane in the morning." He told her "I have a job I work there in Kingsport, that is my home now but if you need long distance then that's fine, if you want to come and live with me its fine..."

"Josh people don't just up and leave their home!" she told him.

He swallowed and shook his head "Then long distant?" he asked her.

She sighed "But how do we make it work?!" she asked.

"We can, because we want to." He said to her. "Please, Zara, give me a chance?" he asked. "I love you."

She bit her lip and looked up into his eyes "Josh, I just don't know."