A/N: Thank you everyone SO much for the reviews and reads and likes and everything for this story. It's finally coming to its conclusion, so I hope you like this final chapter. Thank you all again for reading it, enjoy! :)

It started off easy.

He stepped onto the porch and he silently wrapped her up in his arms, tightly, maybe too tightly, but she couldn't care less because his arms, his strong, wonderful, comforting arms were around her. They started at her waist, pulling her into his body, pressing him against her, melding their forms together as if they could literally melt into each other's bodies. Then her arms came up and locked around his neck, and she buried her face into his neck, the spicy scent of his cologne permeating her being.

Then his hands were moving up, one in the center of her back still holding a phone to a call that still had not ended, and the other cradling the back of her head. They stood there, on his front step and held each other for who knew how long, not long enough, never long enough, but this time, there was promise in this hug. There was future in this hug, and so they didn't want it to end just yet, not just yet, so they clung together for a few moments longer, letting their bodies linger together.

"I love you," he whispered into her hair, just above her ear, just so she could hear.

"I love you too," her response was immediate and meaningful, and she could hear his smile, and she knew he was smiling because it was happening, it was all happening.

"You actually came," he pulled away, but not too far, just far enough that he could cup her face in his hands. "You're really standing here, and you're really—"

He made a choked kind of sound, something between a sob and a cry, and she just laughed and stared at him. The tears were pricking her eyes, and he was blinking back his own. "Yeah, I'm really here."

"You actually showed up."

"I fired her because I hated her. I hated her because she had you, and I wanted you, and I hate her, I still do, and when I fired her, I was so happy because it meant I didn't have to see her face anymore because I was constantly reminded that she had you for a while, and I didn't."

"I knew it," he told her, but it was free from malice and just was. It was just a statement of truth.

"So am I too late?" she asked because she really needed to know. She needed a straightforward answer right now, one that was face to face so she could look into his eyes and know what he was thinking, see if he felt the same way she did. It was not going to be easy, the part that came after this, but she needed to see that it would be worth it.

"You never would've been. You could have come to me fifteen years from now, and you could have told me then that you wanted me, and I probably would have fallen at your feet and praised the Lord."

She laughed, "No, you wouldn't have."

"You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this, Stephanie."

But she does. She knows because she's been waiting constantly for her brain to catch up. Her heart has always been with Chris. Years passed, and her heart was so firmly entrenched with his that it could not break away, but her brain, ever damning her, always got in the way. But it finally caught up, it finally said to her heart that the wait was over, and her heart soared straight for Chris's where it belonged, where it always belonged.

"I've been waiting, I've been waiting for myself to realize how stupid I was, how idiotic I was, how scared, and how silly it was to be so scared when the alternative was just…settling."

"Where's Paul?" They have to come down to the real world because while this is easy, the rest will not be. Paul will make sure it isn't, and she certainly doesn't blame him. She gives him his anger, does not shy away from it because it's entirely deserved. She wished, vainly now, that it could have ended differently or began differently, but it's too late to speculate on that.

"I left him, well, he left me," she told him. "I 'fessed up."

"Everything?"

"Pretty much, yes."

"Come on inside," he told her, "Jess won't be home for hours, we have some time to talk, figure things out."

She stepped inside his house, looking around furtively. She'd only been there once before, and it was for a party he held once that she happened to go to because she was in the area. They ended up having sex in the laundry room, her sitting on top of the dryer. She doesn't remember much about the rest of the house. He grabbed her hand, and led her upstairs to his office. It was cluttered, but it seemed like an organized mess. She took a seat on the couch and he took one next to her, turning so he could face her. She did the same.

"So…you confessed?"

"Yeah, I confessed," Stephanie said, "it was just…well, it was…you said you could live without me."

"Steph—" He immediately tried to interject, probably to tell her that he was wrong, except he wasn't wrong, and they both knew it. If it came to that, he probably could live without her. And that was okay. She could probably live without him too if it came to that. The problem was they didn't want to live without each other. The will was there, but the want was not.

"No, really, please don't apologize for that," she told him, grabbing his hand and placing it into her lap so she could hold it with both of hers. "I don't want you to apologize for telling me the truth. You can live without me; we both know that because you've had to for so long. I was the coward. I was the one who kept telling you no, and you were the one who was so brave. You told me over and over again how it could be, how you would make things easier for me. You were the one who believed when I was the one who kept denying you."

"I just wanted to be with you."

"And I kept saying no. For years I looked at you and told you no, and you kept fighting. You kept seeing something in us that I refused to see, and one day, who knows what day it was, you decided that it was something you could do without, and I realized that I couldn't do without you."

Her voice clogged with tears as she spoke, and those damn pricking tears threatened to spill until one of them did break the levy. She wiped away at it furiously, upset that a tear dare fall before she was ready. Then she laughed at herself for thinking that Chris cared if he saw her cry a little. He didn't care, he never cared because he loved all of her.

"So you told him?"

"I had to, even if you rejected me, he deserved to know. I told him how long we'd been together, reiterated that the girls were his, and that was that. He got angry, knocked over some things, yelled at me, and left."

"He didn't—"

"Of course not," she shook her head. "He would never, he's not that type of man, we both know that. But he was angry, and rightfully so. He should be angry, I was never faithful to him. He was a good husband, and I was a horrible wife. I wanted you the entire time I was with him, I just never let myself have you. He's going to Texas to see Shawn, and I'm here, the girls are with my mom, I'm going back tomorrow for them, but I wanted to make sure that things here were…"

"Yes, I still want you," Chris told her. "And we'll make it, Stephanie, we'll make it work and we'll be great."

"I believe you," she told him. "I believe you because I know now that this is it. I should have said it sooner, I should have been braver—"

"You're brave now," he leaned forward and kissed her softly, barely a touch, just enough to calm her down. "We'll be brave together."

It got difficult.

It was bound to happen. It was always going to happen really. They knew that their bubble of happiness would burst and it would be loud and resonate for so many people and in so many ways. He told Jessica, and on some level, Jessica already knew. She knew when Chris left the first time that it was not just because things were hard between them. She knew that there was someone else. And never, ever believed that someone was Barbie Blank. She was still mad, mad that he didn't break off. She yelled, she left, slamming the door behind her. It was to be expected, and he took it. They both had to understand and accept their former significant other's reactions and feelings.

The divorces were not drawn out, but they were not pretty. There was a division of assets, custody, and arguing over petty things. Chris held her hand when she came back to him, telling her that the hard part was almost over. It never seemed over though, and there were some days where she questioned her choice, wondering if it was better to go back, if she really, truly could have settled, if she hadn't been brave, if she let herself live without him would she be better off.

Then she would think about it for a few more minutes, and she would realize she was wrong in thinking that, even if it was just for a second. There were mornings where she woke up next to him, where he didn't have to rush to leave, where they didn't have to come up with a way to get out of the hotel room undetected, and she would smile at his sleeping form and cuddle in further to catch a few extra minutes of sleep. She was content in those moments, and all the difficult things didn't seem so difficult anymore.

He moved to Connecticut for her. With his traveling, Jessica got custody of the kids, but he could visit them any time he wanted, and he did so often. She got custody of the girls because of Paul's traveling, but again, he was allowed visitation whenever he wanted, and he took advantage of that often. It was awkward, stilted, and sometimes acrimonious, but they made it work somehow because the kids were their top priority for all of them. The kids got along wonderfully, and that was the only part that gelled quickly.

After it was difficult, it got better, and when it got better, it got easy again.

Time doesn't heal wounds, not completely because scars always stick around, no matter how much they fade. And one day, long after you've forgotten about the scars, you'll see it again and for a moment, you'll remember all the pain that came with it. That's it though, just a memory, something that's faded and fuzzy in your brain, but you move on, and you forget about it again.

That wasn't to say sometimes it wasn't hard. Holidays were never easy, trying to coordinate who got the kids and when, school functions always brought some of the awkwardness with them. Sometimes the kids didn't get along, and the house was filled with shouting instead of laughter, and sometimes the adults weren't any better, bitter words of resentment used in silly arguments. That was life though, a messy web of emotions that you simply tried to make your way through.

And that wasn't to say that sometimes it wasn't incredibly easy. A small wedding in their backyard, just their families, and a silly, fun reception afterwards where Stephanie shoved so much cake into Chris's face that some got up his nose and he had to leave for fifteen minutes to try to clean it up. One more child too because they felt the need to pass on their combined genes, and Stephanie finally got the little boy she always wanted. So, yes, sometimes it was very easy.

And they couldn't live without each other, not in the end. In the end, they really couldn't. He might have said he could if he had to, and she might have believed she could if pressed, but they couldn't, and they didn't, and they never wanted to. Sometimes you have to take that leap of faith, have to go through the difficult to get to the easy, and vice versa. You just have to take that one jump. Chris did first then Stephanie, and then it was just them.

Stephanie never did hire Barbie Blank back though.

There are just some choices that aren't mistakes.

THE END