At long last, the final chapter—and the final thank-yous. Black Knight 03, thank you...and I hope you enjoy this...maybe make you just a little less sad? Lara783, if 'twere up to me, you could certainly have a Gordo! ;) swim6516...wow, so weird to think this story won't be distracting you from college anymore! I should probably think that's a good thing, huh? :D Kay, am so glad your heart melted—I was hoping that might happen...to at least one person! :) Thank you, Vazed, and 'finally' is right! No worries, pixievix, I'm just happy to see you back...and that you're still enjoying this. :) Aw, MP, thank you—you are absolutely welcome to archive this...I'm honored you'd want to! LOL, Jay, your enthusiasm cracks me up—I'm so glad you loved last chapter! Ziny, happiness is what I'm goin' for! Thank you! I3itterSweet, I'd wondered where you'd gone...glad to see you again...especially when it means I get three reviews for the price of one! :D Hermione781, yup, Matt is definitely the author of all things Strange...although I found out about his involvement in the bubble universe at about the moment Gordo and Lizzie did. ;) writerchic16, embrace the addiction...addiction is good...well, so long as it means you're enjoying the story, it's good, anyway. :D I do remember you, Amanda, and I'm glad you made it back, despite evil computer gremlins!
I hope you all enjoy a fantastic holiday season! Now, on to the chapter...
Epilogue: Two to Go
"Just one sip?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"One sip won't hurt."
"You won't stop at just one sip."
"I will. I promise. Pleeeaase? Just one little, teeny-tiny sip? I love margaritas."
"Yes. And that's why you won't have just one 'little, teeny-tiny sip.' You'll down the whole glass. And that's bad."
"I won't."
"You will."
"Won't."
"Will."
"Won't."
No answer this time. Only one eloquent, raised eyebrow.
"You're cruel, Gordo." Her bottom lip was probably halfway across the table, Lizzie'd stuck it out so far. But he was being cruel—even if he was right—and she'd damn well pout if she wanted to.
Gordo—damn him—only smiled. Sweetly. "I know it, Mrs. Gordo," he nodded, reaching to pat her hand where it lay clenched on top of the table. "Now drink your orange juice, love. You know how good the folic acid is for the baby."
Lizzie retracted her lip, mimicked in a low taunt, "'You know how good folic acid is for the baby.' Folic acid, schmolic acid," she declared. "I'm a doctor. I know all about folic acid and pregnancy. If I didn't have enough folic acid in my body when I got pregnant five months ago, the damage is already bloody well done. So don't force that folic acid good for the baby stuff on me, David Gordon. I want margaritas! Now, gimme a sip!"
"No." He sounded so calm. How could he sound so calm? Didn't he know his wife, the love of his life, was angry at him? Her fists clenched into tighter knots.
"Everyone else is having margaritas." Under the table, one black-sandaled foot stomped.
"And you're having whine. I don't see how you're suffering." He was plainly fighting back a grin. Infuriating man! "Besides, Maggie isn't having a margarita."
Lizzie glanced across and down the long table to where a seven-months-pregnant Maggie Craft sat, skin glowing, big tummy an adorable curve beneath her strappy teal dress, her husband's arm around her shoulders as he raked a hand through still-impeccable hair. If she didn't like Ethan and Maggie Craft so much, she could hate them, they looked so gorgeous. Pouting again, Lizzie turned a glare on her husband, trying to ignore how yummy he appeared in black slacks and crisp grey shirt, his tie a soft watercolor bleed of greys and dark reds where it loosely circled his neck.
"She's beautiful," Lizzie announced. "She doesn't need a margarita. I, on the other hand, am a house. And everyone knows that a margarita—even just a sip!—keeps you from feeling like a house."
His grin won through at last. "Lizzie," he said, "I am not letting you have any of my margarita." Before she could launch into another tirade—all ready, perched on the very tip-tip of her tongue—he squeezed her close to him with the arm resting on the back of her chair and ran his other hand over the small mound of her stomach. As always, his touch settled and grounded her, calmed and soothed, and she could feel the anger and the discomfort and the irritation giving way. "You're not a house, Liz," he whispered, lips brushing a kiss to the soft skin right before her ear. "You're breathtaking and stunning and I'm the envy of every man in this restaurant."
"Are not," she protested, but the warm curl of a smile was eclipsing her pout. "Some of the men are married."
"I bet they can't even remember their wives' names now."
He was absurd. But so sweet. Giggles rising in her throat, she leaned closer to her husband, lifted a hand to play with the tails of his tie, and purred, "You just let me know if any cute ones come sniffing."
Gordo jumped, wide eyes meeting hers. "Over my dead body!" Immediately, the giggles fluttering behind her tongue poured out in a bright stream, deepening into full laughter as she watched Gordo valiantly attempt to suppress a manly pout. "You still can't have any of my margarita."
"I know, sweet," she conceded, leaning to peck his cheek, "and thank you for cheering me up."
After a moment, he grudged a gruff, "You're welcome," and the laughter flickering deep in his eyes convinced Lizzie it was safe to return to the conversations swirling around her.
Earlier that evening, she and Gordo had attended the Hillridge High School Class of '07 Ten-Year Reunion. Officially started in the morning with a Welcome Back Brunch, the reunion had continued with a few planned outings throughout the day and ended with a combination dinner and dance in the evening. Halfway through the dance portion, though, Lizzie and Gordo had agreed to join their high school friends in adjourning to the Saguaro Street Cocina, source of the best Mexican food Hillridge had to offer. There they'd ordered a handful of appetizers and margaritas all around—excepting Maggie and Lizzie, of course—and proceeded to catch up and reminisce and generally enjoy themselves immensely.
Despite having kept in contact throughout the years—granted, some better than others—they'd been talking almost non-stop for a little over two hours now. And still the alcohol and the conversation was flowing.
"All right, Maggie." On Gordo's other side sat Miranda, svelte and elegant in a cranberry slip dress...which she was nearly spilling into the appetizers as she leaned over the table. Miranda, Lizzie knew, enjoyed margaritas at least as much as Lizzie did. And Miranda wasn't pregnant—was, in fact, making the most of an evening among adults, away from her children, who were staying the night with Jon's parents. "All right," Miranda said again, and Lizzie didn't need to hear her next words to know what they were. Miranda had, after all, asked the same question four times that evening. "Tell us about Kate again, please?"
Jon Dukov groaned from where he sat between his wife and Bethel Washington. "No, no more about Kate Sanders, please!"
Miranda tossed long, black hair and leaned further toward Maggie over the table. "Ignore him, Mags," she said. "I want to hear about Kate again. Please?"
This time Larry Tudgeman groaned. "We've heard this story so many times tonight, I think I could tell it."
"So go ahead, Tudge," Miranda shrugged. "I don't really care who tells it. I just want to hear about the-the—" Her brow puckered. "Can't remember the name now. Whatsits? Those green things, shaped funny. They're soft and you mush 'em up?" She snapped her fingers, turned down the table. "Bethel. You're nice. You'll tell me what they are."
Plainly, Bethel wanted desperately to laugh, her dark eyes glittering with humor, but she took a deep breath and, in the voice Lizzie suspected the librarian used to help children, said, "Avocados, Miranda."
Before Miranda could respond, Am Smith jumped in with, "Yes, avocados. Miranda, if I tell you the story, will you promise not to ask to hear it again?"
"I promise," Miranda said, then added with an alarmingly devious—and sober—grin, "At least, not tonight."
Jon rolled his eyes, but Am only nodded. "Fine. Now listen carefully, Miranda." Leaning past Larry over the table, she said in an exaggerated, gossipy tone, "You remember Kate Sanders, right?" Miranda, eyes eager, nodded. "Well you remember how she dropped out of college to marry that Jim Banyon, at least a decade older than her and every bit the aspiring politician, complete with roving eye."
Another nod, this one accompanied by Miranda saying, "Yeah, and then three years ago, she filed for divorce, which was finally granted just over a year ago."
Am was supposed to have said that, but she just shrugged and continued, "Well, you'll never guess whom she's just gotten engaged to."
"Who?" Another question Miranda had asked four times that night.
"An avocado farmer by the name of Joe Hunter, if you can believe it! Imagine Kate Sanders living on an avocado farm. And, to top it off, she's even been studying avocados, despite the fact that—" Miranda added her voice to Am's, "—she's allergic to avocados!"
Miranda was the only one to laugh at this punchline, although there were a few scattered grins at Am's dramatic recital. Lizzie and Gordo, as they had each time they'd heard the story, merely shared a glance.
"So," Lizzie whispered, leaning close to her husband, "what does that make it now? Four down, two to go?"
Gordo nodded. "So it seems."
"Only Veruca and Larry and Am are left. Everything else has turned out just as we guessed from the bubble universe." She nibbled her lip, then said, "Do you think we should help them along?"
Gordo's eyes widened comically. "Absolutely not! Everything else has turned out just as it should without any interference from us. I think Larry and Am will get it together when they're ready. As for Veruca, how on earth do you propose to help her? Put out a personal ad for men with grey in their beards?"
Lizzie snorted. "Even if I found someone who wasn't ancient or psycho—or both—she'd never agree to meet him. To hear her talk, all men are completely and utterly useless." She shook her head, shot a swift glance across the table to where Veruca Albano sat. "I hate to see it, Gordo, but she's becoming more and more like Aurelia every day."
"I'm sorry, sweetheart." Gordo's eyes were dark with understanding. He knew very well how close Veruca and she had become in college, when Gordo had been across the country at Columbia University in New York City. Although they'd made the decision together—Gordo would pursue his dream in the best school for him to do so, while Lizzie attended UCLA to save money for medical school—and although they'd stayed as close as the phone and email and the United States Postal Service allowed, there were times when they'd both needed a friend who lived a little closer. Am had been that friend for Gordo, Veruca that friend for Lizzie.
"It's all right," Lizzie smiled. "We'll figure something out. In the meantime, though, the result of one of your many uses—" she winked, slid a hand over her belly, "—is employing my bladder as a pillow. I'll be back." Dropping a kiss on his lips, she stood and hurried for the bathroom.
It really was amazing, she reflected a few minutes later as she washed her hands, how closely the bubble universe correlated to their own. Again and again over the years, she and Gordo had exchanged smiles and even laughter as bits of the fairy tales they'd lived came true.
First had come Ethan and Maggie's marriage only a year after they'd graduated high school. Maggie had been halfway through nursing school, Ethan already working his way up to head DJ at Hillridge's favorite radio station. Since then, the couple had added six-year-old Celia Margaret and four-year-old Tara Katherine to their family. Gordo was firmly convinced their next child would be yet another girl—only fitting, he said, for the guy all the girls had wanted in middle school.
After Ethan and Maggie's happy ending had come Jon and Miranda's. They'd chosen to attend Northwestern Illinois University together, Jon in physics and Miranda in music, and gotten married the summer between their junior and senior years. Jon had gone on to get a Ph.D. in particle physics—which he'd just started putting to good use at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, where he attempted to find proof of, among other things, alternate universes. Miranda had also earned a doctorate—in music—and now taught vocal performance and diction at Wheaton College. And as if all this wasn't enough, Jon and Miranda also had four-year-old Nikolas Jonathan and one-year-old Lillian Elizabeth to keep them busy.
And next came us, Lizzie thought, smiling at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Although they'd attended different schools for their undergraduate degrees, Lizzie had chosen to move to New York City for med school...but not before Gordo and she had gotten married the summer after college graduation. Since then, Gordo had worked on several film projects—some even of his own devising—while Lizzie toiled her long, expensive way through med school. She was in the final year of her residency now, the perfect time in both their opinions to finally start a family. Even if it does mean looking like a house and not being able to drink margaritas.
Her reflection's smile softened before drifting into a frown. That was really the last of the romantic connections so far—unless one counted Kate, whose life had played out almost exactly like Arevhat's fairy tale. Only Am, Larry, Veruca, and Bethel remained.
But then, Bethel's fairy tale counterpart hadn't appeared even the littlest bit romantic. The Black Snake had been wise and kind—traits which Bethel Washington had in abundance—but Lizzie and Gordo hadn't known anything about the snake-woman's life. Lizzie wasn't entirely sure what this meant, but she absolutely refused to believe that Bethel was fated to live alone—although so far, through gaining a bachelor's degree at Biola University, a master's degree in library science at Texas Women's University, and a position as a children's librarian at the San Antonio Public Library, Bethel had done just that. Hmm. Lizzie met her own pensive eyes in the mirror. Maybe she should put out a personal ad for Bethel...
At any rate, Bethel had certainly matched her fairy tale—what little there was of it. So, that left only Am, Larry, and Veruca.
Am had attended Columbia University with Gordo but moved to LA three years ago, where she'd been working on some small-grossing but critically acclaimed films. Larry had earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at Stanford University and now worked with nanotechnology at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He'd also just recently published a science fiction novel—a little hardcore for Lizzie's taste, but interesting. And yet, for all their success—and apparently still-strong friendship—they'd shown no inclination toward becoming anything more to one another.
As for Veruca, she'd just finished her doctorate in international economics at UCLA and had several interviews with federal and international institutions lined up. Yet over the years she'd become more and more cynical and sharp-tongued and—Lizzie suspected—with no King Grizzlebeard in sight, would only get worse in the years to come.
Her mirrored frown deepened. As much as she wanted to help her friends, she knew Gordo was right: the bubble universe truths had to show themselves on their own schedules, not hers. Determinedly smoothing the furrow from her brow, she nodded, flashed a smile, and left to return to the table.
She was just nearing the main entrance to the restaurant when a voice rose over the hectic hum of conversation and flamenco music, "Not even one table, Marcus?" The voice, deep and aggrieved, was remarkably familiar, but for the life of her, Lizzie could not connect it with a face or even a name. Her steps slowed.
"Not one," Marcus, the restaurant's host, replied, the sad shake of his head audible in the words. "It's the high school reunion. A lot of the guests are here instead of at their party."
"Can't say as I blame them," the other man said dryly. "But I was looking forward to treating myself with a plate of huevos rancheros. I sold a sculpture today and decided I deserved a little celebration."
By now Lizzie was close enough to see the owner of that familiar voice—tall, broad-shouldered, longish pale blond hair, a lazy smile crinkling the edges of his eyes. And then those eyes met hers, keen, dark, a world deep, and recognition shot through her.
"I'm sorry," she interrupted Marcus, who was estimating when a table might be available, "I couldn't help but overhear." Flourishing her most stunning smile, she continued, "I'm one of those high school reunion people who're keeping you from a table, and I just thought I'd ask if you'd be willing to join us. That way you can have your huevos rancheros—was that it?" Without waiting for his nod, "We certainly won't mind adding another person to our group, and there's ten of us so you're bound to find someone you'd like to talk to. And if you're interested, you can even share our margaritas. Heaven knows I can't have any," she gestured at her tummy, "so there's more than enough to go around."
For a long moment the man and Marcus just stared at her. Then, with sprawling ease, the man's smile slid into a grin. "You know," he said, intrigue flickering deep in his eyes, "I think I'll take you up on that."
"Great!" Probably a little too much enthusiasm there, Liz. With a self-conscious shrug, she clarified, "That is, it's the least we can do, since we're taking up all the room." Shoving a hand at the man, "I'm Lizzie Gordon, by the way—Lizzie."
"Nice to meet you," he nodded, grasping her hand in a firm shake. "Marion Grazik, but I go by Grey." He grimaced, "For obvious reasons."
"Grey it is, then." Turning to Marcus, "It's all right that he shares our table?"
The host grinned. "Certainly. I'll put your order for huevos rancheros into the kitchen, Grey."
Grey thanked him, then swept a hand into the restaurant. His left hand. His ring-free left hand. Perfect! "Lead on, Lizzie."
Right.
On the brief walk back to the table, Lizzie managed to extract a brief bio from Grey—ostensibly so she could seat him beside people he'd enjoy speaking with. In reality, of course, she already knew exactly where he'd be sitting. And it was to that spot she directed him as soon as they reached her friends.
"Hey, everybody," she called from the end of the table, "this is Grey. He's hungry, he wants huevos rancheros, and there aren't any more tables open in the restaurant. So, I invited him to join us." A jumble of greetings met this announcement, followed almost immediately by several confused, overlapping introductions. But Grey seemed to actually understand most of them and settled to his seat between Lizzie and Veruca looking entirely at ease.
Fortunate, since as soon as Lizzie sat down, Gordo demanded her attention.
"What have you done?" he mumbled, frowning.
"Nothing, Gordo," she replied. "I didn't do anything, I swear. I mean, not aside from inviting Grey to eat with us."
"I thought we weren't going to interfere." His frown was more concerned than cautious now.
"I didn't intend to," she whispered back, fingers brushing the top of his hand, "but I walked out of the bathroom and there he was, just standing there talking with the host. It was too perfect. You have to admit he's the image of King Grizzlebeard. I figured why not take a chance? Nothing might come of it, but then again, it's just as possible he's perfect for her."
Gordo glanced across the table to where Veruca and Grey were already deep in conversation—Grey wearing his lazy grin, Veruca her fiercest glower. "They're certainly showing the classic Loyde and Aurelia signs," he conceded.
Lizzie returned her gaze to her husband and winked. "No doubt she's thinking he's a screwball artist or something—he's a sculptor with a gallery here in Hillridge. What she doesn't know is that long before he decided to pursue sculpting, he was a very successful civil lawyer in Seattle. They should be having some interesting conversations, if nothing else."
Gordo chuffed, a smirk curling the edge of his mouth. "Interesting battles, you mean."
"Same difference," she shrugged. "And I promise, this is the only interference I'll indulge in."
"Really?" This time, Gordo looked at Am and Larry, talking animatedly about turning Larry's novel into a screenplay. Lizzie felt not even the slightest temptation to meddle in that couple's affairs. They were much too stubborn to listen to what she had to say and, judging by their intent expressions and the occasional lingering glance, not so far away from discovering romance as she'd initially thought.
Still, no reason not to get the most out of this situation. Lowering her eyes just enough to watch her husband through her lashes, she answered a meek, "Really."
Gordo's eyes immediately narrowed. "Really?" he asked again, wary.
"Really."
The narrowed eyes remained for an endless minute, then slowly, slowly Gordo began to relax. Just as he nodded and reached for a tortilla chip, Lizzie let loose a wicked grin and cleared her throat.
"So long as you let me have a sip of your margarita."
####
end of epilogue
end of story
Chapter Notes:
I am not affiliated—and do not own—any of the institutions, universities, or degree programs mentioned in this chapter...even if it was fun researching all the characters' futures. :)
Story Notes:
I'd initially started this as a break from the novel I was writing. And while I'd had every intention of finishing Between Stars, I had absolutely no idea I'd do so 20 months, 24 chapters, 192 pages, 593 kb, and over 90,000 words later. This has become a novel, itself...and it's been both a ball and an immense learning experience to write.
In regard to more LM fanfic...I have an idea or two percolating, but before I throw myself into another monster of a fanfiction, I'm going to turn my hand to a novel. I hope that once I've completed that, I'll be able to come back and write another story here. In that case, I hope all of you are still around to once again lend your time and thoughts and support.
In the meantime, thank you to everyone who's taken the time to read this as I've posted it for the past year! Especially thank you to everyone who's dropped me even a word or two of feedback—I don't know that I could've finished this without you!