Author's Note: This one gets a bit more kid-focused than the previous installments. Enjoy!
Laurie wakes up from surgery with a gasp and an instant ache in her bones. It's dark, rainy, and quiet, and her first thought is a mix of "find Annie" and "is this real?"
She pulls herself up and wheels her IV stand down the hall, peeking into rooms and trying to ignore all the similarities between her recurring nightmare and the reality she's found herself in. When she finds Annie's room, though, all those nagging thoughts disappear.
When Michael attacked Annie, he missed all major organs, but the sheer amount of blood lost on the bathroom floor is what almost killed her. The biggest wound, traveling from behind her hip to up and under her ribcage, took countless stitches to close and now keeps her bedridden with a morphine drip. And Laurie doesn't even want to think about the array of cuts, bruises, and other wounds that were caused by Annie being chased, beaten, and thrown throughout the bedroom and bathroom.
"Oh, baby. Oh, Annie. Please don't die. Please, please, please don't die."
Part of her wants to barricade them in the room until Annie gets better, but she knows that's irrational. This is real life, where there's no Nurse Daniels, no Buddy, and no Michael Myers waiting in the shadows anymore.
After almost losing each other a second time, both Annie and Laurie start to take their relationship much more seriously. They went from best friends, to lovers, to a couple of total messes, but now they're going to give an actual relationship a go.
"I don't want to just sleep with you," Annie had explained. "I want everything"
"It's yours, baby."
Sheriff Brackett has to hand it to them, they keep their relationship reboot hidden from him for the better part of a month before he clues in that their constant touching isn't out of support or comfort.
He remembers realizing Laurie's glances at her best friend were more than innocent when they were both just juniors in high school, and he also remembers how their first go at things ended with a hostile household where the slightest look from one girl could set the other off. So he lets them take their time figuring things out, and waits to talk to them about it until they come to him. He's not going to force them out in the open like that, especially when their individual mental traumas are only just beginning to finally heal.
Every time he walks into the kitchen in the morning to find Laurie standing behind Annie, with her arms around the smaller girl's middle, while the brunette makes breakfast, he just smiles, shakes his head, and pours himself a cup of coffee.
When he first watched the two girls interact, as toddlers, he was worried Laurie might have the same violent outbursts towards other children as her brother did. But watching them then, and watching them now, it's clear to him that Laurie will do nothing but look after Annie.
The attacks on Halloween of 2007 turned Annie into a very different person than she was before that night. She remained crass and opinionated at her core, but also became neurotic, organized, and mature. Rather than graduating high school and going on to spend four years partying at a state college, which was her original plan, she spent two years hidden in the house until the second attacks.
The year following the second attacks marked her maturity kicking into overdrive: "I need to get my shit together this year, dad. Is the station hiring?"
It wasn't, but a law office in town was looking for an assistant, and Annie's resume found its way to the top of the pile. It turned out all of her other Halloween '07-induced qualities made the job a perfect fit. Calls were answered right away; forms were signed, sealed, and delivered days before they were due; and anybody in the office found slacking off was dealt with by none other than the mouthy brunette at the front desk.
Annie's office is within walking distance of both the Java Hole and the college, so Laurie pops by once in a while to check up on her (Annie would argue she just doesn't want to go home and study).
"Y'know, it's pretty dead in here..."
"And?"
"You should just skip out early and come home with me."
"Oh, so the princess of punctuality is trying to get me to skip the rest of the day?" Annie flirts in response, her eyes never leaving her computer screen as she goes over the week's appointments.
Laurie rolls her eyes and leans against the desk. "Not the rest of the day! Just take an extra hour for lunch."
Annie's only response is an are-you-kidding-me glance and then she's back to typing.
"Okay, twenty minutes?" Laurie tries, reaching over to lightly run her fingers through the hair hanging off the brunette's shoulder.
"Laurie..."
"Come on, Annie. You worked overtime twice last week. You've earned a break."
"Okay, I'll tell you what," Annie spins her chair around to fully face her pleading girlfriend. "I'll talk to Marion about leaving early on Friday, okay? We'll go for a walk, grab some pizza, and do some other, uh, activities" she finishes with a faint trace of a blush.
"Mm, perfect." Laurie grins, bending down to press a kiss to her cheek.
"Now get going, before Marion walks in and I end up having forever off of work."
"I'm already on my way out!" Laurie spins her bag around as proof as she starts heading towards the exit. "But Annie?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
The finals for Laurie's first year of college lead her (and her girlfriend) to the town's public library for the good portion of two weeks. She crams for her psych exam in particular while Annie works her way through the reading list she may or may not have ignored back in senior year (she needs something to do, and she's in a library, so she might as well read).
Mya stops by occasionally to drop off coffees for the girls, courtesy of her Java Hole discount (read: free caffeine whenever needed), but is always considerate enough to not stay long, realizing that they probably don't want her to hang around with them in the spot they spent so much time with Lynda.
The first study day is partly spent ignoring the table they used to sit at when they were a trio, with neither girl mentioning their deceased friend's name. But by the time the sun starts to set, Laurie cracks.
"What do you think Lynda would be doing if she was still here? Would she be in college too or doing something else?"
"She'd probably be taking it easy with all the money she would've made from the bets over whether or not we'd get together." Annie jokes with a soft, sad smile, dropping Jane Eyre to gently run her hand across Laurie's back.
The purchase of their first house together includes the adoption of a small grey cat, who they name Charlie.
"Why do you want this one so bad?" Annie waves her hand in the direction of the cat rubbing against her ankles.
"Well, if our future baby turns out to be a boy, I don't want him to feel overwhelmed with two moms and only lady pets."
"And a cool aunt!" Mya chips in from across the room, a cat in each of her arms.
"Laurie, you do realize he probably won't give a shit, right?"
"Oh, shut it" Laurie hushes her girlfriend as she bends down to scoop up their soon-to-be-pet.
Two days after Annie's 27th birthday, her first pregnancy test came back positive. That one little plus sign had been planned and anticipated, but still managed to turn both of the unborn baby's mothers into overly cautious, paranoid messes.
Annie started yoga (well, attempted it once or twice); began eating even healthier (pizza was now never present in their house); and went for daily walks (accompanied by Laurie).
Laurie, on the other hand, started working longer hours in an attempt to save even more money for the baby, but took breaks similar to smoke breaks. Rather than light a cigarette, she would take ten minutes to call Annie and check up on her. She had to cut back, however, because Annie started answering the phone with remarks such as "I haven't moved off the sofa since you last called".
Once Annie hit the six month mark and became too bloated and wobbly to go to work anymore, she started designing the baby's room. She picked out the paint at the hardware store, owned by Ben Tramer, who offered to deliver the heavy cans to the Brackett house that night. Annie accepted, and bit her tongue to keep from making a comment about how he called her wife "fucking hot" in high school. (Damn hormones).
She's napping when he stops by with the paint, so Laurie fills her in when she wakes up.
"Ben's going to help me paint the room on Saturday, and Mya will probably swing by too. Never thought I'd be doing our baby's room with those two, of all people."
"But I'm going onesie shopping with Rachel this weekend, remember?" Annie replies, referring to her co-worker-turned-friend.
"Well, I read it'd be bad for you and the baby if you were around all the fumes, so you can't really be involved." Laurie explains with a shrug.
Annie's slippered feet carry her over to her wife as quickly as she can go with twenty extra pounds on her midsection, "I don't want our daughter's room painted by you and shortbus Tramer!"
"Baby, the books say..."
"Fuck the books. You're always reading those books. I bet the doctor would say it's fine!"
"I don't think he would." Laurie tries to keep a handle on the amused smirk spreading across her mouth at Annie's dramatic antics.
"I want to be involved in her room." Annie shoves her bangs out of her eyes, a gesture that appears every time they argue.
"Annie, honey, you picked out all the furniture and – where are you going?"
"Downstairs to throw all those books in the trash."
The bedroom door slams behind her, leaving Laurie to sigh and heave it back open. Somebody has to stop her wife from starting a fire with the public library's property.
When Lynda turns four, she starts asking for a sibling, and her mothers just nod and smile. But when it's just them, and she's tucked up in her bedroom, Laurie curses out the dead brother she wishes wasn't her brother and the genetics that come along with it.
"Laurie, you know I'll carry as many kids as we want," the brunette tries to be rational and reassuring despite the toll this conversation takes on her every time they have it. "They're not any less yours just because I'm the one having them. Look at your parents! They were your parents even though you came from Deborah Myers."
"It's not fair! He took this from me. I should be able to do this for us," Laurie gasps out, gripping onto both of Annie's hands for support. "I love you more than anything, Annie, and I can't have a fucking baby for you."
"I know, nothing about this is fair," Annie whispers, kissing the hands interlaced with her own. "But we'll be okay."
Mason is only a few weeks old, but he's already showcasing how much different he is than his sister. He'll wake up once or twice throughout the night, while Lyn still elbows her way in between her mothers in the middle of the night, or flat out refuses to go to bed at all. Mason eats wherever and whenever, while the eldest Brackett child is the definition of a picky eater and tries to con her way into eating in the living room every evening.
But whenever Annie opens her mouth to complain about Lyn's behavior, Laurie is right there to jump in and point out that she is exactly like one of her mothers, and it isn't the blonde one.
James Samuel Brackett, "Jamie" for short, was born three weeks early, with a small list of minor health problems. Petite with a pile of light brown hair, he becomes his siblings' main priority, despite them being only seven and two when he enters their lives.
The boys' close age means they share one of the larger bedrooms in the Brackett household. Mason's day bed is on one side, while Jamie's crib is on the opposite side of the room. But in spite of all the talking-tos their eldest son gets, and the significant distance between the two beds, at least three times a week Annie and Laurie wake up in the morning to find Mason curled up in his brother's crib with him.
Meanwhile, always the brasher of the three, Lyn takes to expressing her concern for Jamie by loudly exclaiming "watch his head!" at any friend, co-worker, or relative of her mothers who come over to see the new baby.
"For two people who never had siblings, we're doing pretty good with our babies." Annie remarks to her wife as they sit on the sofa opposite their children. Lyn is holding Jamie, a pillow supporting her arm and his head, while Mason does a quiet rendition of This Little Piggy with his brother's toes.
"Well we did have each other growing up." Laurie points out
"Don't make it weird, Laurie."