Here is (officially!) the last chapter! You guys have no idea how sad I am that it's over already! :( But I genuinely love this story so much and am so proud of it, and I hope you guys love it as much as I do! Thank you all so much for reading; it makes my heart so happy to know that Haleb Nation is still out there, albeit much smaller and less intense than we once were, and I am so glad I could bring some Haleb love and joy to the remaining Halebers!
I would LOVE LOVE LOVE it if we could get this story to 100 reviews (That literally would have been so easy four years ago, but now it's like pulling teeth!), so if that means leaving multiple reviews (I'm looking at you, Duncney ;) ), do what you have to do, haha! But also, if you've been reading the whole time and not reviewing (I can see the stats, I know there's lots of you!), please just leave me one review for the final chapter? Pretty please, just this one time?!
*I may (*MAY* BEING THE OPERATIVE WORD HERE) revisit this story and write an additional chapter here and there, but only if it's something really good/important and I have inspiration for it. I don't want to give you guys crappy chapters just for the sake of another chapter. So if there is anything else you want to see, let me know in a review, and if I feel inspired by it, I'll try to add on to this story, but no promises. Like I said, it has to be really good or I won't post it, LOL. (I love being a perfectionist! Not!)*
At this time, I need to focus on finishing school, and I just really need a break, so don't expect anything new from me for at least the next couple of months. :( And honestly, writing such a long story was a lot more difficult than I remembered, so I'm not sure I'll ever write anything this long again. BUT I do have a ton of ideas, so I genuinely hope I can, and am going to try really hard, to get motivated again and try to write some more for you guys! Also, I'm sure I'll stay active on here, and I'm still super excited to read other new Haleb FanFictions, so if any of you have any ideas or any inkling to write Haleb, please do! I promise I'll read it and support it! Even if you've never written before, just try your hand at it!
Long(er) A/N at the end because I know what you guys are really here for, but, if you're interested, it's there.
Boris Yeltsin: Thank you! Here it is!
DuncneyLoveOfMyLife: Yay, thank you! So glad you liked it! And oh my gosh, yes, school is the WORST! Haha, same exact feelings about Spencer! I didn't mind her (didn't love her, didn't hate her, she was just there), until 6B. And now she literally ruined the entire show for me! I can't watch scenes with her because I just hate her so much! EXACTLY! Hanna is the only person Caleb really talks to! I don't get Spa-blech shippers! Okay, so you think they had chemistry? Cool, but they literally never had a real conversation? All they talked about was her mom and the campaign, -A, Hanna, and occasionally Toby? Wow, how romantic! BARF! They couldn't hold a conversation if their lives depended on it. Even when they had "oh my god, such an amazing friendship, so much chemistry!", literally all they talked about was Hanna and -A sooooooo... It was just so wrong, so random, so disgusting, and I will NEVER forgive Marlene and Co. for it. I think it's even worse than Ravenswood for me. At least they could justify that by being greedy assholes and doing it for the money, but this was just about being petty assholes and torturing fans for their own enjoyment. Literally, WE ARE THE REASON THIS STUPID SHOW WENT ON FOR SEVEN SEASONS, AND YOU MADE SO MUCH MONEY, so why would you not just give us what we want?! Honestly, I just kind of hate Ezra, and I feel like him being friends with any of them is just weird (at least before the time jump), but yeah, I could totally see Caleb and Emily! And we wouldn't have to worry about her screwing Hanna over and going after him, so even better! Oh my gosh, YES, OBVIOUSLY THE SEX WITH HANNA WAS SO MUCH BETTER! Literally, he and Spencer couldn't find anything else to do or talk about, so all they did was have sex, but obviously it wasn't even very good... I'll be honest, I completely stopped watching the show after 6.10 and only watched the Haleb scenes, and I haven't rewatched or anything in years, so I actually don't get a lot of the references you're making to the show, haha. But I'm sure I agree! LOL, I can pretty much quote every single Haleb scene word for word, but ask me about any non-Haleb related storyline, and I'll probably just look at you blankly. I'm lucky I even remember who all of the -A's are. (Or possibly unlucky, because I have to remember the utter disappointment every time I think about it.) Like, I have no idea what "Spencer in a thong" is a reference to AND I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW! I do not need to see that or watch that or have that image in my head! Ugh! Hanna is the ONLY one Caleb wants to see in a thong! And yes, Tom is the worst! But are we really surprised?!
Enjoy the last chapter!
A few minutes later, their dinner arrived, and they made small talk as they ate at their small dining table, talking about everything from their jobs, to their friends, to Brody, to their baby, of course. That last topic of conversation would probably be pretty popular over the next several months...and probably the rest of their lives, actually.
After dinner, they moved back into the living room for a little while to wind down before bed.
They were sitting in comfortable silence as Hanna half-watched the end of Twilight and half-scrolled through her phone, while Caleb was going over some work emails on his MacBook.
"I'm gonna get fat, ya know," Hanna said quietly, breaking the silence.
"You're not going to be fat, babe, you're going to be pregnant!" Caleb laughed, glancing up from his computer briefly.
"Will you still be attracted to me?" she questioned softly, and the genuine fear in her voice made Caleb set his laptop on the coffee table and shift his full attention to her.
"Do you even have to ask that?" he asked in shock, hurt that she could even think about something like this.
"I don't know," she muttered. She didn't know why the thought had even come to her mind - probably because her body had always been what she was most confident in, and she had never not had a good body to show off - but now that it was there, she couldn't help but be genuinely concerned.
"Of course I will," Caleb said emphatically, meaning it completely. "Hey, come here," he murmured when she didn't look convinced, encouraging her onto his lap and wrapping his arms around her waist.
He tucked a stray blonde lock behind her ear, and forced her to meet his gaze.
"Hanna, I love you," he stated. "I love you more than anything, and I think you're the sexiest woman in the world."
"I know you love me, but...I also know you love my body," she muttered. "I mean, that's the reason you were interested in me in the first place, right? Are you still going to think I'm sexy if I have stretch marks and love handles?"
"Of course I will," he repeated adamantly. "Hanna, you know I love your body, but that's not why I love you. I love...your heart, and your brain, and your sense of humor. I don't care...what size you are, or how much you weigh. That means nothing to me. I get to be married to the love of my life, and I am so completely in love with you, and so insanely attracted to you, and that will never change."
He hated that she was feeling like this, that he made her feel like this. He didn't know what he had done wrong as a husband to make her doubt his unwavering attraction to her.
"Han, you are carrying my child," he reminded her, stroking her stomach softly again. "And I cannot wait to see your body change as our baby grows in there. There is a literally a human - that we made - growing in you. And honestly, I can't think of anything sexier than that." It was true. He was already so excited to watch their baby grow, was already imagining the moment when Hanna would give birth and they would finally get to meet him or her.
She finally cracked a small smile; he always knew exactly what to say. And she knew he was right. She knew how incredible it was that women had the ability to grow a new life inside of them, and she also believed him fully when he said that he didn't care what she looked like, that he would always be attracted to her.
"You could grow five babies in there - like that show you watch, with all the girls - and I would still be so obsessed with you," he assured her, stroking her cheek gently.
"That will never happen," Hanna countered quickly, but she appreciated the sentiment. "I love you."
"I love you, too," he replied easily. "And you know what else I heard?"
"What?" she asked warily, the look in his eyes making her nervous for what he was going to say next.
"I've heard that women's boobs get bigger when they're pregnant," he murmured.
"I've heard that, too," she replied softly with a small smile.
"I can get behind that," he informed her with a smirk, cupping her breasts in his hands, massaging them through the thin fabric of her shirt.
"I'm sure you can," she chuckled, rolling her eyes lovingly. She knew how much Caleb appreciated her breasts. Some men were boob guys, and some men were ass guys. Caleb was definitely a boob guy.
"I love you, and I love your body, no matter what," he whispered, leaning in to kiss her deeply as his hands made their way under her shirt and up her sides, setting the smooth, bare skin on fire.
They watched TV for a few more minutes before making their way to their bedroom to get ready for bed. Caleb had already changed his clothes and brushed his teeth, and was already sitting in their bed with Brody, waiting for his wife, who was taking much longer than him, as per usual.
Finally, Hanna finished her nighttime skincare routine, applying hand lotion as her final step, slipping her engagement and wedding rings back on her finger as she made her way over to their bed.
"Putting that ring on your finger was the best thing I ever did," Caleb observed with his signature smirk, as Hanna slipped into bed beside him, and curled up next to him. "Even if wedding planning did almost break us."
"How much do you love me?" Hanna asked as Caleb was getting ready to leave for work one morning.
"More than everything else in the world combined," he replied.
Damn. That was a good answer. Maybe she shouldn't do what she was about to do. But oh, well.
"Then would you mind stopping by the wedding planner's office and dropping this off?" she asked sweetly. "It's the finalized list for invites."
"Sure," Caleb replied, kissing her on the forehead and taking the stack of papers from her.
But when he moved to put the papers in his bag, Hanna panicked. That wouldn't work.
"Can you look over the list first?" she asked suddenly. "Make sure I didn't miss anyone you wanted to invite?"
Caleb took the list back out to look at it, as his fiancée had requested.
His eyes scanned the list quickly, before stopping as he frowned.
"Hanna," he began slowly, looking up at her, as she sat at the kitchen island with her morning coffee and toast.
"Hmm?" she attempted casually, looking up from her phone.
"How many 'Jordan Hobarts' do you know?" he asked steadily.
"Uh, just the one," she replied, trying to sound confused.
"So you want your ex-husband at our wedding?" he asked in disbelief.
Hanna had to work really hard to keep a straight face, as she said, "Well, we've all moved past that now, haven't we? I think he'd be happy for us."
"I'm not so sure about that," Caleb muttered. Since he and Hanna had been together, he had run into Jordan Hobart exactly once, and it had resulted in a black eye.
FLASHBACK WITHIN A FLASHBACK - LOL
"Babe!" Hanna exclaimed as soon as Caleb walked through the door, immediately noticing his already-bruising eye. "What the hell happened to you?" she asked as she made her way to the freezer to grab a bag of frozen peas, before following him over to their couch.
"Well, I had the pleasure of running into your ex-husband," he replied as he sat down on the sofa, encouraging her onto his lap so she was straddling him as she pressed the frozen vegetables against his injured eye. "Something tells me he found out about us."
"Jordan did this to you?" she questioned, horrified. She knew he was angry about the way she had ended things with him, but he wasn't typically violent. "Please tell me you didn't hit him back!" she added desperately.
"Nah," he assured her. "I didn't really feel like I could do that. After all, I'm the one who swooped in and made his wife fall in love with me," he added with a cocky smirk. "But I did tell him it was us that he overheard having sex in the bathroom at Spencer and Toby's wedding."
"You didn't!" she gasped, unable to contain a short giggle.
"No," he agreed with a sigh, making her laugh. "But I really wanted to."
He winced as she adjusted the bag of peas, making her feel guilty - she knew she was to blame for his black eye.
"I'm so sorry," she apologized. "This is all my fault. He's still mad at me for cheating and for leaving him, and he took it out on you."
"It's okay," he assured her. "It was worth it, just to see the look on his face when he saw me." Caleb had felt...vindicated as soon as he saw the shocked, angry, resentful expression cross Jordan Hobart's face as his eyes landed on the man his wife had left him for. "God, I hate that guy."
Hanna raised her eyebrows questioningly.
"He didn't treat you right, and that pisses me off," he explained. "You deserved so much better than that."
"Well, then, good thing I have better now. So much better," she said as the hand that wasn't holding the vegetables against his eye went to his cheek. "And I really am sorry. This is all my fault," she repeated.
"Well, I forgive you," he said immediately. "If you had never cheated on him, then he probably wouldn't have hit me. But then we also wouldn't be together right now. I would take a black eye over not being with you any day," he finished. "Of course, I wish you had just never married him in the first place," he added quickly.
"Trust me," Hanna said confidently, stroking his cheek gently. "If I had known there was even a chance that you would come into my life, I never ever ever would have married him."
END FLASHBACK
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd have a problem with it. Do you not want him there?" she asked innocently.
"You mean the guy you were married to when we met, and whose back we snuck around behind for months?" Caleb exclaimed. "Of course I don't want him there! And I really don't understand why you would want him there, either!"
At this point, Hanna couldn't stop herself from laughing; Caleb's reaction was even better than she had hoped.
"Why is this funny?" Caleb asked defensively. He was having a really difficult time wrapping his head around why on earth Hanna would want her ex-husband at a day that was supposed to be all about them, their relationship, their love. Then, it hit him. "Is this a fucking prank?"
They loved to prank each other, but the longer they were together, the better they got to know each other, and the more difficult it became to trick the other. Hanna was seriously surprised she had pulled this one off so well.
"I didn't think you'd actually fall for it!" she exclaimed, laughing hysterically as he glared at her. "Of course I don't want him at our wedding! Seriously, why did you believe me?"
He didn't answer, just rolled his eyes as she finally stopped laughing.
"So just to confirm, no ex-husbands at our wedding?"
"No ex-husbands at our wedding," she assured him, picking up the list from the counter and scribbling out Jordan's information. "Actually, you don't even have to drop this off - I can just email it, but then the prank wouldn't have worked," she laughed.
"You are evil."
"Are you sure you're ready to put up with me for the rest of our lives, then?" she smirked at him.
"Absolutely."
A couple months later, though, he wasn't so sure.
"Babe, which color do you like better for the tablecloths?" Hanna called out to Caleb as soon as he walked out of the bathroom after his shower, a plush white towel wrapped around his body, as he used another one to dry his hair.
"I'm pretty sure those are the exact same color," he informed her, looking at the nearly-identical off-white fabric swatches his fiancée was holding up.
"They're not!" Hanna argued. "This is Egg Shell - " she said as she held up the swatch in her left hand, "and this is Ivory."
"Han," he said slowly. "They're the exact same."
"They're not, but whatever," she muttered, clearly frustrated. "Well, which one do you like better?"
He sighed in defeat. How was he supposed to have a favorite when they were the exact same?!
"Egg Shell, I guess," he told her, not really caring, as he pointed to the fabric in her right hand.
"That's Ivory," she countered immediately. "So which one? Ivory or Egg Shell?"
"Ivory, then," he said definitively, feeling like they were having the exact same conversation they had been having daily for the last few weeks. If it wasn't tablecloths, it was napkins, or vases, or centerpieces.
"Thank you," Hanna said pointedly, jotting down the decision as Caleb went into their bedroom to get dressed for the day.
As soon as he came back out, Hanna was standing in front of him holding two pieces of paper, one with a gold border, and one with a black border.
"Which one do you like better for the escort cards?" she asked urgently. While their wedding was still several months away, she knew it would be here before they knew it, and there were still so many decisions to make.
"Babe, it's Sunday," he reminded her. Sundays were supposed to be the one guaranteed day they could always spend together, with no chance of either of them having to work, and this is really not how he wanted to spend it. "Let's go do something fun. Wedding planning can wait," he tried to persuade her, pressing a soft kiss against her lips.
"It cannot wait," she argued. "Do you know how long it takes to get some of these things? If we don't make decisions now, our choices might not be available, and we might have to settle for Cream tablecloths," she added, horrified, as though that was the worst thing in the world. Caleb was pretty sure that "Cream" probably looked about as different from Ivory as "Egg Shell" did.
"Of course it can wait," he argued. "How about we go out and do something fun today, and then tomorrow after dinner, when we're both home from work, we can make some more decisions. I don't think one day is going to lose us our Egg Shell tablecloths."
"You said you liked Ivory!" Shit.
"Yes. Sorry. Ivory," he agreed. "Now how about you go get ready so we can go?" he tried again.
"Which one?" she asked, holding up the two escort cards again. He much preferred it when her "Which one?" was in regards to dresses she was trying on for him to decide between, or, even better, lingerie.
He sighed. Clearly he was not going to win this battle.
"I really don't care," he said exasperatedly, making his way over to sit down on the couch and turn on the television, knowing already he was going to be stuck in the apartment all day while she agonized over wedding details. "You can pick."
"You don't care?" she echoed, following him over to the couch. "This is our wedding. How can you not care?"
Caleb could hear her voice rising with each word, and he knew he was on the verge of another one of Hanna's bridezilla meltdowns.
"That's not what I meant, Hanna," he attempted, standing up again. "I'm just sick of wedding planning consuming our lives! I don't understand why planning for one day should take up hundreds of other days!"
"This is not just 'one day,' Caleb, this is our wedding day!" she argued, practically shouting at this point. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"God, Hanna, of course it does, but that doesn't mean I want to spend every waking moment looking at flowers and fabric swatches, and fucking escort cards!"
"Well, I don't understand why it is so hard for you to just choose one! I already did the hard part and narrowed it down, so I don't think I'm asking for too much when I ask you to choose between two or maybe three options!" she cried. "Why don't you care about this at all?!"
"Because I don't give a damn whether we have Egg Shell or Ivory or even Cream tablecloths!" he replied, equally frustrated.
"Well, if you don't care about our wedding, then I guess you just don't care about marrying me at all!" she said, making Caleb roll his eyes at how overdramatic his fiancée was.
"Hanna - " he started, before she cut him off.
"Maybe we just shouldn't get married at all, then!"
"Maybe we shouldn't!" he agreed, storming past her and grabbing his jacket, slamming the door behind him as he left their apartment.
Obviously he didn't mean that. He was just pissed off, and it had slipped out in the heat of the moment. He knew they both needed some time to cool off, so he spent the morning walking around their neighborhood, enjoying the fresh air that he craved after a long week in the office, enjoying the day that he had so desperately wanted to spend with Hanna.
A few hours later, Caleb was feeling calm enough to face Hanna again, so he made his way back to their apartment, expecting to find Hanna at their kitchen table, which had turned into Wedding Planning Central, as he walked in.
He was surprised when she wasn't there, so he called out for her.
"Han?" No answer. "Hanna?"
Their apartment wasn't that big, but he peeked into the bedroom and bathroom anyway, but she was nowhere to be found.
He took out his iPhone to call her, but it went straight to Voicemail.
Figuring she just went out to grab lunch or something, he sat himself down on the couch and flicked on the TV.
A few hours later, though, it had started to rain, and she still wasn't back. Beginning to get worried, he called her again, and was again greeted by her Voicemail. That didn't stop him from calling her another ten times, though.
Just as he was getting ready to start calling every person Hanna knew to see if they had heard from her, he heard the front door of their apartment open, before Hanna walked in, her hair and clothes dripping wet, and her face clearly tear-stained.
"Where the hell have you been?" he asked immediately, standing up and approaching her, but stopping a few feet away, keeping his distance for now.
"I was out looking for you," she replied quietly, and he could see her eyes filling with tears again.
"And you couldn't answer your phone?" he questioned, frustrated.
"It died," she said simply. Probably from all the times she had tried calling him with no answer, but she really wasn't in the mood to fight right now, so she didn't bring that up.
"Jesus Christ, Hanna, I was worried sick about you," he exclaimed, suddenly pulling her into his arms and hugging her tightly, uncaring of the fact that her hair was dripping on him and soaking through his clothes.
"Why?" she asked, but it was muffled because her face was pressed against his chest, as she hugged him back just as tightly. She knew she was being a bitch and didn't deserve him, so she wouldn't have been surprised if he really had wanted to call off the wedding.
"Because I love you," he told her, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
He pressed a kiss against the top of her head before she pulled away, her eyes clearly shining with tears.
"I'm so sorry," she said tearfully, running her hands down his arms and grabbing his hands.
"Me, too," he agreed.
"I didn't mean it, any of it," she rushed out. "I don't know what's gotten into me; the wedding is just making me crazy, and I - "
"Hey, shhhh," he hushed her, brushing away a stray tear, and tucking a strand of her wet hair behind her ear. "I didn't mean it, either."
"So you still want to marry me?" she asked hopefully, and he almost wanted to laugh at how nervous she seemed for his answer, as though one stupid argument could ever stop him from wanting to marry the love of his life.
"More than anything," he assured her. "But come here, we need to talk," he said, as he encouraged her to follow him towards the couch, pulling her down onto his lap and looping his arms around her waist.
"Earlier, you said that if I don't care about the wedding, then I must not care about marrying you."
"I didn't mean it - " she got out quickly.
"Hey, shhhh, I know," he said reassuringly, running one hand up under her wet T-shirt and rubbing the smooth skin tenderly, soothingly. "I just need to make sure that you know how completely backwards that is."
"I do," she murmured softly, and he believed that she did know, but he still wanted to explain himself, explain his frustrations with the wedding planning process.
"Han, the reason that I don't care about the wedding is because all I care about is marrying you," he started, taking in a deep breath as he prepared himself for uncomfortable territory: talking about his feelings. "And it's not that I don't care about the wedding, because of course I do," he corrected. "It's just that I don't care about every single little detail in the same way you do. I know that it's important to you to have a big wedding so that's what I want, too, because it's what you want.
"But I guarantee you that I am not going to remember what color the tablecloths were, or what kind of flowers we had, or what the escort cards looked like. You know what I'm gonna remember?"
"What?" she asked softly, staring back into his eyes that were pouring into hers.
"I am going to remember how hard it was for me to breathe when I saw you in your dress for the first time, making your way down the aisle towards me. I am going to remember how surreal it was to have us introduced as husband and wife for the first time, because that's exactly what I've wanted for so long, Hanna."
He could feel himself getting choked up as he spoke about their big day, but it was nothing compared to Hanna, who had tears streaming down her face again.
"I am going to remember feeling like the luckiest guy in the entire world when I get to lead you out onto that dance floor for our first dance. I am going to remember all of the uninterrupted time we get together on our honeymoon. And that's why I couldn't care less what centerpieces we go with, because that's not what matters to me, and that's sure as hell not what I'm going to be paying attention to.
"You really think I'm even going to notice the flowers when I'm just trying to soak up the first few hours of being married to the most amazing, most beautiful, sexiest, funniest, kindest woman I've ever met?" he asked rhetorically, making her giggle, and wipe away her tears.
"I love you so much," she told him, leaning down to connect their lips. She seriously had no idea how she had gotten so lucky. He truly was the most incredible man she could have ever dreamed of.
"I love you, too," he said sincerely. "And trust me when I say that I cannot wait to marry you. God, Han, I've wanted to marry you for so long, I would be totally fine with eloping tomorrow if it meant I got to call you my wife that much sooner. But I know you want a wedding, so if you want me to help you make decisions, then I'll do it. But just know that if I get frustrated or don't seem interested, it's just because that's not what's important to me. What's important to me is finally making you my wife."
"That's what's important to me, too," she agreed, her eyes filling with tears again. "God, I've been so stupid! I guess I just had this idea in my head that our wedding needed to be perfect for our marriage to work." She knew how dumb that was. Problems with their wedding was not what had caused her marriage with Jordan to fail. "But...now I realize how ridiculous that is. This wedding is already perfect, because I'm actually marrying the right person this time."
She curled up even closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder as they sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, before Hanna sat up abruptly again.
"I can't wait to marry you, either," she started. "I want to move up the wedding. I want to marry you as soon as possible."
Caleb hesitated, intrigued by the prospect, but knowing it wasn't exactly realistic.
"While you already know that's exactly what I want, we booked the venue months ago," he reminded her. "I doubt we'll be able to get it any sooner, and there aren't a lot of other venues big enough."
"Then we'll downsize," she said immediately. She had already done the big wedding thing, and, honestly, it was awful. She had spent so much time greeting and thanking people she barely knew, that she couldn't even enjoy it. She had no idea why she was so set on doing it again. "We haven't sent out the invitations yet, so it's fine. But you're right; none of that other stuff matters. I just want to marry you. And I just want our favorite people there to celebrate with us. I don't care what venues are available. We can get married in...a Waffle House, for all I care."
"You do not want to get married in a Waffle House!" Caleb laughed, rolling his eyes.
"You're right, I really don't want to get married in a Waffle House!" Hanna agreed. "But I would do it, if it meant I got to marry you sooner. Caleb, you are exactly what I've been waiting for my entire life. And I'm tired of waiting. I just want you to be my husband already!"
"Well, I'm down," he agreed immediately. "Not for Waffle House," he amended, "but I'm sure we can find somewhere else to get married as soon as possible. Kaylie's gonna kill us, though," he added as an afterthought, referencing their wedding planner who had already put in countless hours.
"Screw her," Hanna said immediately. "I don't care what she thinks. This isn't about her, it's about us. And I don't want to wait any longer than I have to to marry you."
"It's a plan, then," Caleb said definitively, as Hanna cuddled up close to him again. "You, me, your family, our best friends, as soon as we can find a decent venue."
"And Brody!" she added.
"And Brody, of course," he agreed.
"And your family..." she trailed off nervously.
"Maybe my mother," he agreed tersely. "But there's a good chance that even if we invite her, she won't come." His mother loved to pretend she was a doting parent who adored her only son, but he rarely heard from her, and most of the time she was busy in Montecito living it up with her rich husband.
"What about your father?" she asked softly.
"Hanna - " he started. She knew exactly how he felt about his father. After Jamie Doyle had entered Caleb's life a few years ago, Caleb had given him chance after chance to prove himself, but he just kept letting him down.
"I have to tell you something, and now that we're in such a good place again, you have to promise not to get mad," Hanna rushed out.
"Well, then don't give me something to get mad about," he said through gritted teeth. "Hanna, what did you do?"
"You have to promise not to get mad!"
"What. Did. You. Do?"
"I sent our wedding announcement to your dad!" she informed him nervously.
"Hanna - " he began angrily.
"You sound mad!" she interrupted accusingly.
"Hanna," he said, more calmly this time, as Hanna looped her arms loosely around his neck, clasping her hands behind his head. "That man is not my dad. He may biologically be my father, but he has never been a 'dad' to me. I am so sick of giving him chances."
"I understand that," she said gently. "And Caleb, you know that I love you more than anything, and I just want what's best for you. So if you really don't want him there, then I'll respect that. But I just don't want you to regret it later on."
"I'm pretty sure I'd be more likely to regret having him there, than not having him there," Caleb laughed humorlessly.
"Okay," Hanna agreed. "If that's how you feel, then okay. But I just want you to think about it, okay? For me?"
"You know I can't say no to you, Hanna!" he exclaimed, knowing he had no choice when she asked him to do something "for her."
"That's kind of what I was counting on," she admitted, smiling sheepishly, and leaning in to kiss him.
"Did you ever think we'd end up here?" Hanna asked a few minutes later, after a comfortable few moments of silence.
"Uh, no," he snorted.
"Really?" she asked, slightly disappointed. She knew she couldn't blame him; their journey to get here certainly hadn't been easy, and she knew she'd given him plenty of opportunity to doubt her. But she just thought it would have been so romantic if he had told her that, yes, somehow, he had always known things would work out for them, and they would end up right here, exactly where they wanted to be.
"Don't get me wrong, I wished we would. Trust me," he assured her. "For...the majority of the time we were sneaking around together, I wanted nothing more than to be with you, for real. This is exactly what I dreamt of. But I knew better than to get my hopes up. Or, at least, I tried not to. You are...the only woman I have ever loved, Hanna. The only person I've ever really loved, even," he corrected. "But I knew, all along, that falling for you was...a huge risk. That you might not feel the same way, that you might have just seen me as...an amazing lover," he emphasized with a smirk, "but not someone to actually settle down with."
"Wow, someone's getting cocky again," she teased, rolling her eyes, shoving him playfully.
"Or that...even if you did feel the same way," he continued, serious again, "you'd never have the courage to leave your marriage, and we would both end up heartbroken and miserable. That's the only thing that could have made it even worse for me; I was...shattered after you turned me down. I had never felt that much pain before, ever. I could deal with my own pain, though. But what almost destroyed me was knowing that you were hurting just as much. God, I was so angry with you, because I knew that neither of us needed to feel like that. You could have just made a different decision - it was as simple as that.
"But that didn't stop me from wishing that I could take away your pain, and just add it to my own. Which just pissed me off all over again, because your decision to stay with that douchebag was the reason we were in this mess in the first place!" he attempted to lighten the mood, having gone a lot deeper than he had intended. Sometimes, he and Hanna would be talking, and it would just feel like the most natural thing in the world to spill his guts to her, and tell her everything that he was feeling. But other times, it would feel as though it was causing him physical pain to dig deep and open up. He hadn't grown up like this, talking about feelings and emotions. He was so used to shielding himself, hiding his emotions behind sarcasm, and it was a really difficult pattern to break, even knowing how important it was to Hanna. He hated feeling like he was letting her down, like she expected - or, worse, needed - more from him.
"Caleb - " Hanna started, her eyes already filled with tears at the reminder of how much pain she had caused Caleb, had caused both of them, really.
"I know," he said simply, cutting her off. He hadn't told her all that to make her feel guilty. He actually hated bringing up those feelings; it just served as a reminder to both of them of a really difficult time in their past, one that they had long moved on from. So he wasn't really sure why he had told her all that; it had just slipped out somehow.
"Hey, no crying," he objected, wiping a tear from her cheek. "That's all in the past. We don't have to worry about that anymore. Now we're together, and we're happy, and everything worked out the way it was supposed to."
"You're right," she agreed with a soft smile, blinking quickly to get rid of the lingering tears. She didn't want to talk about that, didn't want to rehash old times. "When did you know you were in love with me?" she asked, changing the topic to a much more pleasant one. Somehow, she didn't think they had ever talked about this.
"The first time I saw you," he answered automatically.
"Stop," she laughed, rolling her eyes, amused. "That was when you knew you wanted to sleep with me. And it took a looong time before you were interested in anything other than my body."
"Fine," he gave in. "Maybe not the first time. But I think you seriously underestimate how quickly I fell for you. I was interested in you - like, really interested in you, not just interested in sleeping with you - even before we hooked up the first time."
"Really?" she asked softly.
"Of course," he said confidently. "But it's not like I could just ask you out. I knew right away you were special, though. All the time we spent working on the campaign together, I could tell that you were kind, and you were hilarious, and you were smart - even when you didn't see it, I could tell how smart you were. Even when you were a spoiled brat who turned your nose up at me every time you saw me, and treated me like something you scrape off your shoe, I could tell how amazing you were."
"Excuse me?" Hanna gasped, pulling away from him and sitting up so she could look at him. "I treated you like something you scrape off your shoe? You were so mean to me!"
"Maybe," he admitted reluctantly. He wasn't proud of how he had treated Hanna in the beginning, but he hadn't felt as though he had another choice. "But if I hadn't pushed you away, then you would have been able to tell how I really felt about you."
"And would that have been so bad?" Hanna asked defensively.
"Uh, yeah!" Caleb replied. "Hanna, I was falling in love with you while you were married to someone else. I wasn't exactly going to put it all out there and wait for you to break my heart," he explained. "Instead, I waited a few months until I was completely in love with you, and then laid it all on the table just so you could totally shatter my heart," he joked.
"Yeah, that was the way to do it," Hanna muttered sarcastically.
"Well, by that point, I didn't really have much of a choice," he told her. "I knew that there was a chance you would say no. But I also knew it would be way worse if I never tried at all. I was so completely and totally in love with you, and I couldn't imagine my life without you. But I also couldn't let things continue on the way they were. I wasn't okay with that anymore, and I knew I never would be. I didn't want us to hide anymore. I wanted a real relationship with you, I wanted to be able to plan a future with you. So...it was worth a shot. The shot backfired, of course," he added quickly. "But I didn't regret it."
"Thanks for not giving up on me," Hanna said softly. "And for believing in us even when I couldn't. I'll always love you for that," she added, giving him a gentle kiss. If he hadn't fought so hard for her, for them, then she would still be stuck in a loveless marriage, missing Caleb every single day, not even knowing if he felt the same way.
"Always," Caleb replied easily.
Hanna was content with that reply, curling up further against her pillows, and into Caleb's side, as she turned her focus to the television again, half paying attention to the Friends rerun he had put on, and half distracted by the calming feeling of his hand gently stroking her back, under the T-shirt of his that she was wearing.
"It was the night you got drunk and did the Hoedown Throwdown."
"Excuse me?" Hanna questioned, confused, having forgotten their earlier conversation already.
"You made me go over to your house that night, you drank half a bottle of tequila, and then you showed me how you could do the Hoedown Throwdown. It was the first time I had seen you just let loose, and not be so worried about how you looked, or what anyone else thought of you. That was when I knew that was in love with you."
"Shut up."
Caleb was taken aback by Hanna's shock. "Is that...not the right answer?" he asked. He had thought it was pretty good.
"No, it's the perfect answer," she replied, tears filling her eyes again. "Because if you had asked me when I knew that I was in love with you, that's the exact same night I would have said. I probably didn't realize it until the next morning," she added, rolling her eyes as she remembered just how drunk she had gotten that night, "but it was when you went and got me cinnamon rolls. I know it wasn't that big of a deal, but it meant so much to me. It proved that you cared about the things that I cared about, and you were willing to do the little things to make me happy. That was what made me realize I was in love with you."
"Wow," was all Caleb could say. He couldn't believe they had never talked about this before. That was pretty early on in their relationship, and he had known, of course, that he had been falling more and more in love with Hanna every single day over the next several months, but he hadn't realized that she had known just as early as he had.
"I think I knew from the first time I met you that I wanted to be with you," Hanna admitted. She hadn't admitted it at the time, of course, not even to herself. But looking back, she knew it was always there. "We just had this...spark, that I'd never felt with anyone else before."
"Oo, a spark," he teased. "What was that like?"
"You didn't feel it?" she questioned sadly, and he could tell how disappointed she was, as he realized that his joke may not have translated well.
"Of course I felt it," he assured her, taking her face in his hands and pressing his lips against hers.
He used his index finger to encourage her face to turn so she was looking up at him, so that she could see him as he spoke.
"I remember," he started, his voice low, husky, making Hanna shiver, "that every time your perfectly manicured little hand would brush up against mine, it was like my skin was on fire, and it took everything in me not to shove you up against the wall and rip your clothes off, or even just kiss you like I'd never kissed anyone before - I hadn't really decided," he added casually. "And I remember when you would rub up against me in those tight little dresses of yours - the ones that showed off just enough to make me realize how much I wanted you, how much I wanted to touch every single inch of your body, kiss every single inch of your body - god, that just about drove me insane. I mean, seriously, did you do that on purpose, just to drive me crazy?" he asked accusingly.
"Sometimes," she admitted, laughing breathlessly - Caleb's words had had quite the effect on her.
"I wanted you so badly," she whispered. "But I knew I couldn't have you." Her voice was husky now, too, ready to drive him crazy in the exact same way he just did to her. "So I would make sure that my hand was placed in exactly the right spot that you had no choice but to brush it when you were reaching for something, just so I'd have an excuse to touch you. And I would rub up against in you in those 'tight little dresses of mine' so that I could hear your breath hitch because I was that close."
"Oh, so you knew exactly what you were doing," he accused, chuckling.
"Mmmhmm," she agreed. "And I would make sure I was always sitting next to you in meetings, and I would 'accidentally' bump your leg with mine under the table, and I would press my knee up against yours..." she trailed off. "But it was so hard for me not to do...this," she continued, placing her hand on his lower thigh and dragging it up his leg slowly. And then she was pressing against his crotch, applying pressure, making him groan, before she pulled her hand away abruptly, moving her body so she was straddling him again, as he held her tightly by the hips.
"I hope we never lose the spark," she said earnestly, looking down at him.
"Oh, you think we still have it?" he questioned teasingly. "I said that I felt it at the beginning, not that I still feel it."
By now, she knew he was just being an ass, teasing her for his own amusement, but she could play this game, too.
"I don't know, you tell me," she replied, as her hands ran up under his T-shirt, rubbing circles on his bare skin, as her lips went to his jawline. She made a line of kisses down his neck, before her lips found his pulse point, sucking hard, as her hands continued to explore his chest and abdomen.
Eventually, she pulled away, smiling down at him triumphantly.
"We definitely still have it," he confirmed with a smirk as his hands found her ass. Not that he had ever had any doubt at all about that.
"Yeah, we do," she agreed with a grin, running her hands up and down his thighs again.
"I like this," he murmured, covering her hands with his own.
"Yeah?"
"Mmmhmm. It reminds me of Spencer and Toby's wedding. Except, it was the other way around," he pointed out.
"Remember...we were at dinner...and my hand just kept going further and further up your leg..." He demonstrated, slowly running his hand up her thigh, stopping at the top. "But you were wearing a dress then, so I was able to - "
"I remember!" she cut him off, not needing to know how he was going to phrase what he had done to her during dinner with her husband and best friends present. "I was so irritated with you," she recalled. "I was so afraid we were gonna get caught, but so turned on at the same time."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she confirmed. "But it's a good thing you dragged me to the bathroom later that night, or I would have been a twitchy mess all night long."
"It was definitely a good thing," he confirmed. "But, if I remember correctly, it was you who invited me to the bathroom."
"It was not," she argued immediately.
"I am pretty positive it was," he objected.
"Oh, god, it might have been me," she groaned as she thought harder about what had gone down that night. "I wasn't like that before I met you!" she defended. "Like a horny teenage boy who couldn't get enough sex," she clarified in disgust.
"Good!" he exclaimed, with his cocky smirk that had once driven Hanna crazy but now - well, it still drove her crazy, just in a different way. "That was an amazing night."
"It was," she sighed contently.
"It would have been even better if I could have brought you home with me, and we could have recreated it all...night...long," he pointed out, making Hanna's breath hitch again.
"Well, then, good thing I'm your forever wedding date now. You're the only one I want to have classless and completely inappropriate mid-wedding sex with," she assured him.
"I sure as hell better be!" he exclaimed, making her laugh. "Does that mean we can have sex at Aria and Jason's wedding?" he asked with a smirk. After several years of on-again, off-again, Jason had finally manned up a few months ago and admitted that what he and Aria had was real, popping the question in the most casual way possible - after sex. But Aria was too excited to care how he had done it; Hanna knew she had been way past ready for Jason to propose.
"I think that can be arranged," Hanna agreed slyly. "But I'm gonna be so pregnant then!" she realized suddenly. Thinking quickly, she had only missed one period, so she was a maximum of about six weeks along. Aria and Jason's wedding was in six months.
"Is that supposed to change my mind...?" Caleb questioned jokingly, making Hanna laugh, and roll her eyes lovingly.
If she had ever had any concern at all about their sex life slowing down, that was long gone. After nearly two years of marriage, they were as in lust as ever; it was truly like they couldn't get enough of each other.
"Some things never change," she teased playfully, before they both went quiet again, as she climbed off his lap and curled into his side again, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, holding her close.
"Do you remember that night at the Family For All event?" she broke the silence a few minutes later, having been lost in memories of their...affair, something she tried not to let herself think about too often. "When I didn't have any idea that you even were going to be there, and then suddenly you were pouring your heart out to the entire room, saying things even I didn't know about you?"
"Yeah, I remember that night," he confirmed. "That was a really hard night for me."
"Because you gave such an emotional speech?" she guessed.
"No," he said simply, making her sit up and turn to look at him questioningly. "Because I had to see you with...him. And because you two looked...happy together. That killed me," he admitted, making her heart break all over again. For the most part, they had been able to move past everything, had accepted everything that had happened as just a part of their past, but Hanna knew the feelings about it all were still there, albeit, buried deeper than they once were.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered through tears, curling into him again, as though being as close to him as possible would remind him that none of that mattered anymore; they were happy and in love and well on their way to their happy ending.
"You don't have anything to be sorry for," he assured her. "That was...your life. And I would say that it was my mistake for choosing to get involved in it, but...it wasn't a mistake. If I hadn't, then we wouldn't be here right now. So I'll never call it a mistake."
"If it makes you feel any better, we weren't really happy," she attempted. "Well, I definitely wasn't, at least. I had just perfected my happy trophy wife performance by that point."
It did make him feel a little bit better, but then he felt guilty about that - he loved this woman more than anything in the world, so why was he happy about the fact that she had been so unhappy for years before she met him?
"Anyway," he said, shaking his head, trying to shake off the emotions, realizing he had hijacked her conversation. "What about that night?"
"You were so vulnerable that night," she said softly. "I had never seen you like that before. And that was the night I realized - "
"How fucked up I was?" he cut her off.
"No," she said pointedly, sad that that was where his brain immediately went. "How much pain you were carrying around. And I wanted, more than anything, to be in your arms." She curled herself around him, as though it could take them back to that night when she couldn't be in his arms. "And I wanted to kiss you." She pressed her lips against his in a soft but passionate kiss. "And tell you that everything would be okay," she whispered, pushing his hair back gently and stroking his cheek tenderly. "And take away all of that pain."
He closed his eyes at her soft touch, grateful as ever that they had made it as far as they had, and that he had such an amazing, supportive, loving partner by his side, for the rest of his life.
"You have already healed so much of that pain," he murmured reassuringly, pressing his lips against her temple. It was true; Hanna had made everything in his life better, even his scars from his childhood. But he knew they would never be totally gone, and he didn't want her to feel like she was responsible for trying to make that happen. "But my pain is not your burden, Hanna."
"Of course it is," she disagreed immediately. "You are my husband, Caleb. When you're hurting, so am I." This was one thing she hadn't expected, or been prepared for, when finding her soulmate, how much his happiness, his well-being, affected her own. If he was suffering, then she felt that pain like it was her own, and she knew that was true the other way around, too.
"Well, thanks for putting up with me and all my baggage, then," he said with a small smile.
"It's not baggage, Caleb," she sighed, hating how he never seemed to feel like he was good enough for her. She knew how wrong that was. "It's just part of who you are. And I love every part of you. I just wish you could see yourself the way I see you. Because if you could, then I know you would never feel like this again, like you're not enough or something. Because you are. Caleb, you are everything to me. And I already know you're going to be everything to our child, too. This baby doesn't even know yet how lucky they are to have you as their father. But they will."
"You are going to be the most amazing mother in the world," he told her with complete confidence. She was always so supportive of him, always doing everything she could to make him feel better, to make him feel loved. And he already knew she would be the exact same way with their children.
"And you're going to be the most amazing father," she said in return. She fully believed that. She knew he wasn't quite there yet, but there wasn't a doubt in her mind.
"Thank you for choosing me." He would always be grateful to Hanna for everything she had done for him, and he knew that he would never feel like he deserved her. But he wasn't about to remind her again just how far out of his league she was.
"It was never a choice, Caleb," Hanna argued. "It was always you, from the moment I met you. It's like fate wanted us to be together. I just wish I hadn't fought fate in high school when Toby tried to set us up. We could have had so much more time together," she added wistfully.
"Yeah," Caleb sighed in agreement. He knew it didn't do any good to have regrets about things that could have been, but he still sometimes found himself imagining how much different things could have been if they had met and fallen in love in high school, how much simpler things would have been, how much less pain they both would have had to endure, if Jordan Hobart had never been in the picture.
"And I'm sorry it took me so long to realize that we were meant to be," she added. She still couldn't believe how close she had come to giving all of this up - Caleb, their baby - who they both already loved completely - and happiness, and love. How close she had come to choosing to settle for someone who didn't make her happy just to please everyone else, when everything she had ever wanted was so close, was right there, begging her to choose him.
And she knew she had hurt Caleb, and that's what she regretted most about the whole thing, how much pain she had caused the man who she loved so much.
"Well, you were worth waiting for."
The end.
And they lived happily ever after, because of course they did. They're perfect together.
I always imagined they would have a couple of babies, and also adopt a couple of kids from the foster system, given Caleb's past.
I just wish we could have seen Haleb's babies, and more of their life together, for real. Like, I seriously can't believe I wasted seven years of my life on this show, and all I got was a Haleb wedding in the courthouse because Hanna was about to go on trial for murder, and never even got to see Hanna telling Caleb she was pregnant, LET ALONE see the baby. Sigh.
I think that's how PLL fucked up the time jump so badly. It was truly awful. They did a terrible job. It was rushed, and certainly did not do the characters, the ships, or the fans, justice. The only other show I can think of that I've seen do a significant time jump is One Tree Hill. And they actually did it right. So much better than PLL. The writers of that show understood that, after four seasons, the fans were tired of watching the same old tired teenage drama storylines like love triangles over and over again, and actually let the characters grow up. We got to see actual mature, realistic adult storylines and issues, like Naley struggling to find time for each other with both of their demanding careers, Nathan's depression, Brooke's assault, Brulian's fertility struggles. We got to see actual good weddings, we got to see Jamie grow up, we got to see Lydia and Brulian's twins, we got to see them have jobs and careers and families. PLL, on the other hand, made us waste 5 and a half years of our lives watching what was supposed to be two years of their lives, and then skipped five years, and gave us a season and a half that basically the only thing it accomplished was fixing all of the things they had fucked up DURING the time jump. I mean, they fucked over all of the characters and the ships going into the time jump, and then had to use the remaining season and a half to fix it, so we never actually got to see them living their adult lives. We got gypped of seeing weddings and babies and careers, and instead had to suffer through the exact same high school drama for the billionth time. I would have been totally okay with Haleb having issues in 6B and 7, if they were actual realistic, adult issues instead of just the same bullshit drama we dealt with for seven years. They never let their characters grow up at all, it was the exact same shit over and over again. I hate when people are like, "But it'd be so unrealistic if all of the couples were still together after high school." Like, are you fucking joking? After everything that happened on PLL, all of the pedophiles and murders in this rich town, everything -A managed to do, all of the people coming back to life, all of the secret twins, the fact that Peter Hastings was basically everyone's father, LITERAL GHOSTS, and all of the other bullshit that happened, you're seriously trying to tell me the most unrealistic of all of these things is these girls being happy and still in love five years later? Yeah, OKAY. SURE.
If PLL ever does end up doing a movie or a (real) reboot or anything, I think I speak for all shippers when I say, THEY BETTER NOT FUCKING MESS WITH THE SHIPS AGAIN. JUST LET THEM BE HAPPY. Let us see them have happy marriages, let us see them raising their children, let us see their adult lives. We are so sick of watching the same tired bullshit on repeat! It got old after season 2.
Okay, end of rant. I just had to get that out.
Hope you enjoyed Illicit Affairs! Thanks for coming along for the ride. :)