AN: I know this story is taking longer than my others; I appologize. My muse isn't cooperating, and my computer is having issues with accessing I'm doing everything I can to get more updates in. Thanks for all the reviews I've gotten so far.

The first thing Elliot heard when he woke up the next morning was the birds. He then remembered where he was. "Liv?"

"Mmm?" she sleepily replied, turning over.

"Listen." She did.

"To what?"

"Exactly. Have you ever heard it this quiet at home?" She smiled.

"Maybe at two in the morning."

"It's ten."

"Okay, even if nobody else is awake, Ben would be by now."

"Exactly." He got up, and headed out into the main area of the condo. Still silent. The kids' room was empty. Just before he panicked, he noticed a piece of paper taped to their door.

Olivia looked up from her attempts to wake up when Elliot came back in their room. "What are they doing?" she asked.

"They're at the marina."

"They're what?!?"

"Yeah. Since when are my kids morning people?"

"So does that mean we've got the place to ourselves for a bit?" Elliot grinned, flopping back on the bed.

"It would seem that way."

"Fine. I'm going back to sleep." Elliot's jaw dropped, but with an innocent smile, she really did roll back over and pull the blanket back over her head.

He tickled her until she screamed. And she never did go back to sleep.

They eventually did get up and get dressed and head out to the marina to find their children. The four had rented fishing poles and were having a great time at the end of a pier. Kathleen backed away from Ben with a laugh as he teased her with some of the bait.

"Daddy!" Lizzie called when she noticed him and Olivia.

"You guys having fun?" he asked. Everyone nodded.

"Who's caught something?" Olivia inquired.

"I got one this big," Rick told her, indicating about five inches with his hands. Lizzie beamed.

"I caught one this big," she said, specifying a fish about twice the size of her brother's.

"Wormies," Ben proclaimed, attempting to hand a couple to his mother.

"And on that note," she told him with a laugh, "If you guys are done fishing, I think you need to get cleaned up." Ben returned the worms to the little container of bait they had, and Rick and Lizzie gathered up the fishing poles. They headed down the pier, leaving Elliot and Kathleen behind.

"Have you had a good morning so far?" Kathleen asked him with a teasing smile as they watched the water. "And no, I don't want any details. A yes or no will do." Elliot smiled.

"Yes. And thank you for it."

"No problem. We know you guys never got a real honeymoon, so we're doing what we can. Besides, it was nice getting some quality time with Ben and the twins. Ben's changed so much in so little time."

"It hasn't been that little of time…You know what you're going to be doing come September?"

"CUNY for the moment. Mom didn't tell you?"

"We haven't talked much…and she probably thought you had." Kathleen looked away.

"Sorry. I wasn't keeping it from you or anything. I guess I just forgot. I haven't been thinking about the future all that much lately."

"I understand that. You had a lot of stuff going on."

"Yeah…Grandma was scaring us sometimes. She'd just sit there and she had this look on her face like you knew she was million miles away…or gone back in time." Elliot wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I guess that's how you know when you really love someone."

"How?"

"Because you're always with them, kinda, even when they're not really there." Kathleen felt a kiss on her forehead.

"You've always been with me."

"I know. I think part of me got left behind in New York. That's why I knew I'd come back, no matter how long I stayed away."

"I'm glad you are back with us. I feel like I'm looking at a totally different person right now."

"In some ways, maybe I am." Elliot nodded.

"I'm proud of you." She smiled.

"Thanks."

"Come on," he said, slipping his hand into hers. "Let's go catch up with everyone else."

That afternoon, Olivia and Ben watched from a beach towel on the shore while Elliot and the kids played in the water. "You sure you don't want to try it?" she asked her son. Ben vehemently shook his head; he'd always been afraid of the ocean. "We can hold hands the whole time." Another shaken head.

"I'll hold your hand, too," Lizzie called over her offer as she stood with a boogie board in shallow water.

"Me, too," Rick added as he joined his sister. Kathleen, having overheard them, laughed.

"He's only got two hands!"

"You want Daddy to take you?" Elliot asked as he sat down beside his wife and youngest. Ben shook his head again.

"You know, the water here's a lot warmer than the water in New York," Olivia tried again.

"No."

"You don't have to be scared of the waves," Elliot told him. "We won't let go of you if you don't want us to." Ben shook his head so hard he almost toppled over.

"I'm not goin' in."

"Okay, okay." With shrugs, Lizzie and Rick returned to boogie boarding. Kathleen stayed in the water to keep an eye on them. Ben started digging a hole in the sand.

"Are you looking for China?" Elliot asked.

"Pirates," Ben informed his father.

"I don't think there are any pirates here." Ben grinned, and with reflexes faster than any toddler should possess, grabbed his father's sunglasses and dropped them in the hole. Olivia stopped the little boy before he could bury them.

"Buried treasure," Ben explained.

"I don't think so, mister."

They all looked up at a cry of "Whoa!" and turned their attention to the waves in time to see Rick's board go flying up into the air – without him on it. The wave brought him all the way in to shore, and was laughing when he stood up.

"That was so cool," he proclaimed before using the wrist cord to retrieve his board and heading back out through the break zone. Ben turned to Elliot.

"Can I do that, too?"

Once the sun had set, the temperature cooled slightly, making it bearable to be outside and not be in the water. Elliot and Olivia sat out on their deck, listening to the sounds of the kids playing Frisbee on the beach.

"I don't know how we're ever supposed to go back to our real lives," Olivia said. Elliot laughed.

"Don't think about that right now."

"Believe me, I don't want to." Cheers could be heard about a particularly good catch out in the sand.

"I'm still in awe," Elliot revealed. "I mean…they could have gotten new computers, new video game systems, new MP3 players, ballet shoes, soccer balls, clothes, music – whatever, and they all decided to do this instead. I can't believe that to two twelve-year-olds and an eighteen-year-old, spending time with their family meant this much." Olivia smiled.

"We're all lucky to have each other."

"Yeah...I'm glad Kathleen's not going far in the fall. I mean, I just got her back; I don't want to lose her again. It seems like everything's going so fast. Can you believe that Rick and Lizzie are almost teenagers? And next fall, Ben's starting school? And the year after that, the twins are gonna be in high school?"

"You're wishing their lives away." Elliot laughed.

"I'm not wishing anything away! I'd jump in a time machine if I could."

"Does it seat two?"

"Sure." They smiled as the kids joined them. Kathleen was carrying a very sleepy looking Ben.

"It looks like it's time for bed, buddy, huh?" she asked, standing up and taking him from her stepdaughter.

"Night, little man," Rick told him. The girls also called goodbyes. Alone with their father, the kids lounged around on the deck as well. Lizzie laid her head on Kathleen's lap, and she began braiding her little sister's hair.

"You have fun today?" Elliot asked them.

"Yeah," Lizzie told him. "I like the beach. I wanna live at it when I grow up."

"Not me," Rick countered. "I like cities."

"How about you?" Elliot asked Kathleen.

"I don't know. I wouldn't mind living on the water, or in a city, or in the mountains, or whatever. I'm not picky." Elliot grinned.

"Since when?" Kathleen stuck her tongue out.

"I just hope we don't scatter to the ends of the earth," she told her siblings. "I don't want to be that far away from you guys."

"Me, too," Lizzie agreed.

"Me, three," Rick added. Elliot smiled.

"Me, four."

TBC…