Epilogue
AN: Thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing. This last chapter goes to RocketLover, who has become a most excellent friend.
The large house was quiet for once, all of its occupants still slumbering away on a Saturday morning in October.
The Chicago weather was beginning to take on a crisp air, and the pains of missing summer vacation had subsided in the Romano children. Halloween would be upon them soon, and a predisposition to a sweet tooth was a hereditary trait in the Romano family.
A large head pushed open the door to the master bedroom and poked its head in. The dog huffed upon realizing her people were still asleep. There was breakfast to make and walks to take. That's what Saturdays are for. Two ginormous paws planted themselves on the top of the bed, whacking the side of the man's head as he slept. Gwennie wanted dad to get up.
Robert Romano groaned as he felt the Bouvier's paw on his face and tried to roll away from it, only to be blocked by Lizzie curled up into his side. A very naked and cuddly Lizzie. Robert was thankful that they had passed the point of the kids running into their bedroom anytime they felt like it. Sometime when Grace was seven and John was five, Robert had insisted that the bedroom door be shut and locked. Children should be taught to knock. Now that both of the children were older and more aware of what sex was, they had no desire to ever step foot into their parents' room, and locking the door hand become unnecessary. The kids knocked, and the parents put on robes.
Unfortunately, they had grown out of the habit of locking the door, and Gwennie was clever. By the time she had gotten big enough to reach the door handle with her paws, she was opening doors intentionally. Thankfully, Angus, their male Bouvier had never picked up on that habit. Far too easy to get Gwennie to do his dirty work for him.
It had taken two dogs to come close to filling the holes in their hearts when Gretel had passed. The tumors that had caused her insulinoma had eventually come back when the munchkins were still small, and no matter how much Grace and John had begged, mummy and daddy could not fix their beloved friend. It had been years before Robert had been ready to bring another furry friend into the house, but here they were, with two of them.
The big paw of Gwennie swung again, catching Robert's head, and his groan was loud enough to wake Lizzie.
"Good morning, love." Eye barely open, Lizzie slid her hand behind her husband's neck, pulling him in for a kiss.
"The dogs want breakfast. Which means the kids are probably awake as well."
"It is Saturday. We've probably stayed in bed too long as it is."
Glancing at the alarm on the end table, Robert could see Elizabeth was correct. Nine am was sleeping in late when you had a house full with two kids and a dog for each of them. Weekends off were wonderful perks of being in charge, though, and both Robert and Elizabeth savored them. A silent signal passed between the two, and they both fought back the lull of Hypnos and climbed out of bed, donning enough clothing to face their children without embarrassment.
Headed downstairs, they passed the open doors of their children's rooms, both empty, and the faint sounds of the tv from downstairs suggesting they had been up a while. The hallway was lined with pictures of their life together. Pictures from their wedding in London and subsequent honeymoon on the English canal system. Pictures of their children, small enough to still fit In their arms. Ballet lessons, football practice, karate dojos, trips to New York to see their Aunt and Uncle, trips to England to see their grandparents. Pictures of Grace and John in scrubs, young enough to still sit on their parents' shoulders outside an O.R. Pictures of Grace and John in scrubs old enough to be standing shoulder to shoulder with their parents in an O.R.
Work had always been a point of contention when it came to raising their family. Grace had absolutely been an accident in the first year of their marriage, and neither Robert nor Elizabeth had planned for expanding their family that early. But they did, right in the middle of Elizabeth's pursuit of funding to expand the E.R. and Surgical departments to sustain a full trauma surgery team.
There had been many sleepless nights, scheduling conflicts with the nanny, juggling of schedule, and long sessions with Dr. Whittaker to get them through it. It had taken roughly five years for some of Elizabeth's projects to start to come to fruition, and that was right in some of the hardest years with two small children. Work had suffered at some points, but one parent was always home in the evenings. Eventually, with enough funding, it became that both parents were home in the evenings. With their eldest now sixteen, Lizzie was no longer the Associate Chief of surgery but the Chief of Trauma Surgery. With a more limited and specialized caseload, her schedule was easier to manage. Robert had hired an eager surgeon with no life to fill Lizzie's shoes in surgery and was happy to turn off his pager every Friday at five. Johnson wanted the admin experience in order to run his own department one day, and Robert was happy to give it to him. Elizabeth had a senior surgeon in her department looking for a similar experience, and thus Robert and Elizabeth managed to have precious time with their children
Making their way through the house, Robert and Elizabeth found Grace in the kitchen, putting the kettle on for her mother. Her own cup was long empty of tea and had been replaced by the delightful coffee from the little Italian moke pot.
"You know if you keep drinking coffee, you'll stunt your growth."
Grace rolled her eyes at her father, she was used to him picking on her, and he knew she got her coffee addiction from him. "Oh really? What's your excuse then?"
Pouting at his daughter, Robert moved towards the counter that held the espresso machine that was firmly off-limits to the munchkins; they had broken the last one by taking it apart to see how it worked and had bits left over when they rebuilt it. Naturally, they were important bits, and the once perfect and expensive espresso machine was reduced to making coffee that would make the E.R. lounge proud; that is bland, scalding, and only vaguely brown.
Elizabeth pulled the kettle off its stand as it started to beep, enjoying the instant gratification of the electric kettle. Another thing they owned due to their curious children. John had tried to make mummy tea on his own one morning as a surprise and nearly burnt the house down. He also wasn't allowed around Bunsen burners in chemistry class unsupervised either.
Robert watched his wife and daughter as he waited for the shots of espresso and enjoyed the sight before him. The same mass of unruly red curls made them almost identical from behind, and Robert knew John's hair would be the same if he ever let it grow out. John, who was coming in from the back porch, putting his empty mug on the counter eagerly awaiting more tea.
The silence in the kitchen was companionable, and no one in the family felt the need to break it as they went about meaning breakfast. They rotated out what they had for Saturday mornings, and today it was Lizzie's pick of a fry up. Robert always treated the kitchen as another place to learn surgical skills and teamwork, hoping one of the munchkins would follow them into the OR for a career. Something that was starting to look more like a reality.
His little girl was not so little anymore, and Robert often had a hard time accepting this. He missed the precocious five-year-old that he played operation with. She'd liked it so much he made "bodies" out of playdough and other objects and would walk her and eventually her brother through all the different procedures mummy and daddy did at work. Both kids loved it. Loved it so much they went to school rolling their eyes and telling their teachers they were as useless as first-year med students. Oops.
Those games of operation had paid off, and with university applications being a year out, Grace had been giving medicine serious thought.
"Soooo. I got some school pamphlets in the mail last night. I was hoping we could visit some this year."
The table was quiet, and Grace looked nervously between her parents.
"Oh. Where at?" The nervousness in Elizabeth's voice was evident. Even though she had gone to boarding school at a young age and loved it, it tore at her heart to think of her daughter leaving. At one point, her father confided in her that he spent almost a month drunk, and her mother had been so horrible at work she had been put on suspension for making colleagues cry.
"Ones in Baltimore. The other London."
"London? Did your grandfather put you up to this?" Charles had eventually grown fond of his son in law, but Robert wouldn't put it past him to convince his granddaughter to move to London out of spite. You took my daughter so I'll take yours.
"Daddddddyyy." The word rolled off her tongue in a manner that only a teenager was capable of achieving.
"Okay, okay. What schools?"
"John Hopkins–"
"Yes!" Robert interrupted his daughter, excited to hear his own alma mater named as a choice. One step closer to a second generation of Romanos in the medical field. Grace just rolled her eyes, clearly used to her father's antics.
"Andddd, London University."
Robert was able to ignore the smug look Lizzie sent his way at the mention of her own university but was unable to ignore her swift kick under the table.
"I figured you both turned out well enough to give them a look. And for the record, grandfather wanted me to apply to Oxford."
"And I'm guessing my mother said Cambridge?" Any mention of Madam Corday had an 85% chance of eliciting an eye roll from Elizabeth, and this was no different.
"Well, they're very different schools darling, what ah, what are you thinking of applying for?" Lizzie had asked the million-dollar question. Robert was holding his breath, and John was looking back and forth between his sister and parents, mouth hanging open and fork frozen halfway to it.
"Oh, you know, pre-med." It was said with such an air of nonchalant that it was clear she could only be Robert's daughter. The feigned disinterest was rolling off of her in waves. John finally missed his mouth, too busy watching his family and stabbing himself with the fork in the process.
"You know, that means one day you'll be as useless as a first-year med student." Sarcasm ran strong in the Romano children, and though he was the youngest, John did not lack in it.
"I will never be as useless as a first-year med student. It's not like we didn't get all the required reading as bedtime stories. Or learn surgery 101 with playdough sculptures."
No one at the table could keep a straight face at that point. While Robert and Elizabeth had always attempted to foster their love of medicine upon their children, it was more often than not their children asking to spend time in an OR with them, a love of blood and guts seemingly in their DNA at this point.
"We can plan a trip to Baltimore after you take the SATs next week. There's no sense in visiting if you don't make their score bracket. I don't think we can swing London until summer at the earliest, though." Robert was sick of the SAT's, and his daughter hadn't even taken them yet. She'd started a prep course and had been actively studying all summer in order to take them for the first time in the fall. There would probably be a second test come spring or maybe even next fall, but Robert was hoping she'd be well into early admissions at that point. Early admission, which meant essays, something that had always fallen to Robert to help with. There had been one too many phone calls with teachers over the years that revolved around, yes, that is a perfectly correct spelling of the word when Lizzie had been the one dealing with grammar and writing.
Food had been finished, and the two teenagers had started clearing the table in anticipation of the day. It had been an unspoken rule in the house for many years that Saturdays were for fun, and while the munchkins, as Robert so fondly thought of them, hand plans with their own friends more often than not, the mornings were always spent together. No work would darken their doorstep on the weekends, something that ironically they had worked very hard to achieve.
County General had grown from its under-budgeted and underdeveloped roots into a teaching hospital to be proud of. As Chief of Staff, Robert dragged the whole hospital into a new age of higher standards backed by funds he'd spent many long hours to raise. At one point, he'd even been named Chicago Man of the Year for his efforts, something his children had teased him about mercilessly. His efforts had been matched by Elizabeth's to create a well-staffed Trauma Surgery department for the intercity hospital that saw it all. They were now a Level One Trauma Center thanks to her efforts, and Robert had been so proud of her the day they reacted to that designation. A bottle of Dom had been bought, and Robert and Elizabeth had raised a glass to Lucy, whose loss had put them down that path.
As the post-breakfast clean up finished, the house came alive as the family started to get ready for their day. Elizabeth caught Robert's eye from across the room and shared a knowing glance. Things were changing. It was inevitable that one by one, their children would grow up and leave home, and that time was quickly approaching. These happy mornings would sooner rather than later come to a halt, the absence of their children ending a chapter in their lives, something neither was ready for. They knew they'd get through it, though to enjoy the adults their children would eventually become and see all their hard work come to fruition.
Robert looked back at his wife, needing no words to know how she felt. It would soon be just the two of them again.
Their life together had turned out as Robert always hoped it would be, a match made in heaven.
