"Dad! Why won't you let us come to the airport with you?" Ewan whined.

Dave grabbed his keys off the side table by the door and stepped into the living room where the kids were sitting on the couch. "Because, her flight could be delayed and I'm not keeping you kids entertained in Glasgow Airport!

"Her flight is on time! We checked online!" Paul argued.

Lucy added her own input as she brought in a bowl of popcorn. "Dad just wants to be able to snog her senseless without us watching. Let him go."

Dave ignored her statement—and the possible truth of it, moving towards the door. "I told you all, I'm bringing her here as soon as I pick her up so she can see you. Behave. Goodbye!"

Alex pulled her luggage off the baggage reclaim center and checked out through customs. As she came around the corner into the public area, she saw Dave leaned against a wall, reading a magazine. She weaved in and out of the crowd coming out of the international gate, hoping to sneak up on him. She got within a few feet of him before he caught sight of her purple rolling suitcase and looked up to see her, a look of utter delight coming across his face.

"Excuse me, sir. I'm looking for my fiancé. You haven't seen him, have you? He's a tall, dark haired, incredibly handsome, Scottish bloke." She grinned and stepped closer.

She got just close enough that he reached out and grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her into his embrace. His hands slipped between her backpack and her back as he pulled her flush against him and whispered in her ear, "I thought you might never get here. I've missed you so much." He then left her breathless with a kiss. After a bit he did finally let her breathe again, moving one hand to take her left hand which rested at the center of his chest, lifting it to look at the ring on her finger with a smile. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed the knuckle below the ring. "My fiancée." Dave saw a slight frown creep across Alex's face. "What's wrong? What is it?"

"It's just—" Alex bit at the corner of her lip a moment and then sighed and looked down at his chest, her fingers fiddling with the weave of the sweater he wore. "You really do want to marry me?"

"What kind of question is that, Lex?" He leaned down to try and look into her face. "I asked, didn't I? Where is this coming from?"

"It was a long flight. I had a lot of time to think, and well, I was thinking about you and Rita—you two were never married—and I just thought—,"she blurted out quickly, then paused, unsure how to continue.

"You just thought—" Dave lifted her chin with his hand, looking into her eyes. "Alex, Rita and I were—well, we were Rita and I, we had our reasons for the way our relationship was the way it was. And, you and I, we're—we're us. No two relationships are the same, right? That was then, this is now. Remember, we agreed: we don't forget our past, but we don't live in it. And that includes making comparisons to our former relationships. I asked you to marry me because I want to be your husband, okay?" She nodded and he ended the discussion of the topic by giving her a quick, and this time gentler, kiss. "Now, there are several children at my house who about to burst with excitement to see you again. Shall we go?"

"Yes, please. I would be happy to not see another airport for quite some time. And I can't wait to see the kids."

"Alex!" Five young children yelled in unison as the door opened and Alex came through. Tanya smiled from the living room door as her own son joined the stampede into the entryway, bodies smashing into a group hug around the woman who had entered.

"Hello, hello!" Alex smiled as she squeezed all the bodies around her. After they broke up, she stepped over and gave Tanya a hug as well.

"We missed you!" Evie said with a huge grin on her face as she clung to Alex.

"I missed you too!" Alex smiled back at the young girl.

Dave sat on the end of the couch, separated from his fiancée by his own children. Lucy sat between he and Alex, with Evie sitting on her other side. Sam was curled up in her lap, Ewan and Paul sat on the floor on either side of her legs. Tanya sat on the other side of Evie. Since he had brought her to the house, the children had barely allowed her to be out of their reach.

It shouldn't surprise him that they would react this way to having her back—they had encouraged him to go buy the ring, to go and take it to her in America. Knowing that his children truly loved her too was all it took to push him out of his indecision as to if he should propose. And after he got back, they had daily asked him when she would be returning, until a date had been set for her return flight.

He quietly got up as everyone else watched a movie on the TV. He went into the entryway and pulled his camera out of his backpack, slipping back into the room and getting as good an angle as he could of the group crowded on and around the couch. The click of the shutter caught their attention and the shot went from candid to posed, with everyone smiling.

He came back over to the couch, camera in hand, and motioned Lucy over. She scooted to the end of the couch, and finally he was able to sit next to Alex again, putting his arm around her shoulders, she leaned into him and rested her head against his chest. Sam got up and moved to his own mom, Tanya adjusting her position to hold him. Dave showed Alex the preview on the screen of his digital camera and she hummed, pleased with the picture.

It was barely two minutes later, as the movie ended, that he realized she had fallen asleep. He had planned to get her home earlier, but she had given in when the kids begged her to sit and watch a movie with them. Now he hated to wake her when he knew she was exhausted—her travels and the past three weeks catching up with her.

Tanya looked over and smiled, whispering, "I'll get the kids to bed, stay there." Tanya and Sam had already planned to stay over that evening; she in Lucy's room, and Sam with the boys.

He smiled as she quietly wrangled the children, guiding them upstairs, and mouthed, "Thank you," to her as she handed him a quilt from off the back of the couch. He watched her slip upstairs behind the last of the kids and looked back down at Alex. Now, did he move her, or stay?

Tanya saw the lights still on downstairs and came quietly back down, hearing no sound, after getting the kids to their rooms. She found her father still in the same place on the couch, but now passed out asleep himself, with his feet propped up on the coffee table and the quilt laid over he and Alex. She smiled and took care of turning off the lights before heading back upstairs to Lucy's room for the night.