Got a lot going on in this chapter! I hope you guys enjoy the whirlwind. My plan is to spit out a chapter a day still until this weekend, then it's a free for all, so who knows what will happen. Side note, the other day I cleaned out my car and found 9 (NINE!) coffee cups. It's a problem... Thank you guys so much for the support. Your reviews mean the world to me. I know it's cheesy, but it's true.

I tried to sound sad as we finished packing Polly up, bright and early, I was nursing a cup of coffee, buzzing from the excitement and the rush of caffeine. John moped about as he collected odds and ends of her belongings. I grabbed my satchel and stepped into my shoes before gulping down the rest of my coffee.

"You want your go-mug?" John asked from the kitchen.

"Nope, I'm okay." I responded, really wanting it, but not wanting the TSA to fuss over the likelihood of it being a bomb.

"Are they all dirty?"

"Yup!" I said insistently, I wasn't sure, but I didn't want any fuss over his, either.

He appeared from the kitchen, holding a mug of still-steeping tea, "damn, I wanted to bring my tea."

"Bummer."

Lafayette let himself in, looking more comfortable than usual in a pair of joggers and a sweatshirt. It fit with his whole, 'not feeling well' schtick, "good morning, mes amies!"

"Hey, Laf." I waved.

John almost rolled his eyes, and mumbled a, "hi."

Polly appeared, suitcase in hand.

"Ready to go?" I asked the room.

They all confirmed.

"You really need your bag, Alex?" John questioned, tugging at the strap of my messenger bag where it hung on my chest.

"Yes." I said a little too quickly.

He glanced at the backpack Lafayette had slung across his back and furrowed his brow and looked at me curiously before shrugging. I made sure all of the lights were off and locked up behind us. John helped Polly with her bag.

On the train, Polly took a few final pictures of the city and made small talk with Lafayette about what all she'd done over the course of the week.

We made it to Laguardia, the omnipresent flood of travelers a disorienting headrush. John let out a heavy sigh and wrapped Polly up in a big hug once we got to gate.

"You have your ticket?" He asked her.

"Oh no!" She cried, putting forth an Oscar-worthy performance, she knit her brows together, mouth popping into a shocked 'o'.

"I've got it," I patted her shoulder, trying to look reassuring and casual as I reached into my bag, and pulled the papers out from where they were nestled just beside my laptop. I looked at them with concern and then stared into John's face, trying to convey puzzlement.

"What's the matter?" John asked, his face evolving.

"It's just so weird," I started, and stepped closer to him so he could see the papers, I looked over my shoulder at him, "there's four tickets here."

"...What?" I watched the wheels spin in his mind, gears cranking to try and make sense of the information.

"I'm taking you home for Christmas, querido." I said it quietly, almost a secret between us.

"What?" His eyes lit up, shimmering.

I nodded, "merry Christmas, mi amor. Te amo."

"Alexander." He gasped, throwing his arms around me.

"I'm coming as well." Lafayette tapped him on the shoulder.

"Seriously?" His mouth hung on a broken hinge.

"Seriously."

"That's why you've been so weird! You're not sick at all, you just know what a blabbermouth you are!" He slapped Lafayette's arm playfully.

Lafayette nodded, grinning guiltily.

"This is amazing… but we don't have any clothes or anything."

"Taken care of." I smiled.

"Patsy picked up our luggage from the post office, we shipped everything that you will need." Lafayette informed him.

He hunched forward in surprise, "are you serious? You really did all this?"

I nodded and pulled him back into a hug, "I figured the best gift I could give you was your family, I know it's been a long time since you've had Christmas with them… and well, you're welcome this year, so I figured we should take advantage of that."

"This is the best gift ever, I love you so much."

"I love you, too. Now come on, we don't want to just stand here."

We made it through security, unsurprised when Lafayette was 'randomly' selected for a second pass of the wand. Boarding was quick, I'd opted for Business Class on the sheer premise that I couldn't tolerate shelling out for first class, but it was still nicer than economy. On the plane, I sat beside John, Lafayette and Polly in the row in front of us.

"Am I the last to know?" John asked.

"Sure are, everyone else was in on it." I swallowed, my knee bouncing of its own volition.

"I can't believe you pulled this off, I'm such an ass, I was so mean to Laf."

Lafayette looked at us between the seats, "you were."

"Sorry… you still love me."

"Aren't you lucky for that?"

"Whatever."

I halfway listened to the safety procedures and tried to keep my breathing even.

"You doing alright?" John rubbed circles across my boxy kneecap.

I pressed my lips into a tight smile, "fun fact, statistically speaking, passengers in a devastating plane crash have a 24% chance of dying."

"You and I have very different ideas of what the term 'fun fact' means, but I'm sure we'll be fine."

"I have a more comprehensive grasp on the English language, we'll go with my definition... Let's hope that this isn't flight 1.2 million."

"What?"

"Well, that's the odds of plane crashes, one in 1.2 million. Hopefully this isn't 1.2 million."

"You have plane crash statistics memorized?"

"Looked them up again the other night, memorized them then, wanted to make sure the data was the same. Did you know that over 300 people have died in plane crashes in the last two years alone?"

"Alex, you're okay. We're totally safe." We started moving and I felt less inclined to believe him.

"I mean, we're safe now, it's the descent you have to watch out for, that's when 47% of crashes happen, they're the most lethal ones, too."

"I'm totally revoking your internet privileges when we get home." My hand found his as we made our initial climb.

The flight was uneventful, no dying happened, not even a crash, Lafayette and Polly slept the whole ride. Martha picked us up from the airport, we climbed into her Range Rover, John taking the middle seat in the back between me and Polly, Lafayette rode up front, chatting with Martha for the entire journey out of the city and to their country home. John beamed, face split in two by his grin.

I leaned over and whispered in his ear, "you happy, querido?"

He nodded vigorously. We got to the Laurens estate, car rolling down the long drive before we came to a stop. Harry waited on the front porch, Ellie running the length of the wood planks, tagging between the two swings. She was bigger and faster.

John tackled Harry into a hug and stooped to talk to the baby who looked at him suspiciously, she pushed past him and grabbed at the leg of my jeans, I bent down to talk to her and she grinned, looking at John and pointing at me.

"I know, I know, he's your buddy, I'm chopped liver." John smirked.

Ellie raised her arms to me, I obliged and picked her up, she tangled her little fingers in my hair, "how you been, chiquita?"

She looked into my eyes and babbled an unintelligible response.

"Hmm, sounds like you've been keeping busy. Any thoughts on the stock market?"

Drool dribbled down her chin and she chewed a finger contemplatively before babbling again.

"Definitely agree, the Dow's in rough shape." I nodded.

She rubbed her cheek against my beard and giggled before shimmying down to the ground again.

"She's so big!" John squealed to Martha.

"Told you, it's crazy, she turned two and bam, just over night, she's not my baby anymore." Martha agreed. We went inside - the house looking more lived in, less pristine and terrifying since I'd last seen it - and found Jem lounging on the couch, playing his Nintendo Switch.

"'Sup, loser? Mr. I'm way too cool to say hi to my brother." John threw his hip into Jem's shoulder.

"Hey, Jack… Alexander… You're still around," He sounded almost surprised, can't get rid of me that easily, asshole, "congrats. No one else has ever been able to tolerate my brother for this long."

"Hi Jem, while I can commiserate the struggle, I plan on tolerating him for a very long time." I smirked at him.

Lafayette was still talking to Martha, Ellie was bewildered by him, his glasses now covered in her fingerprints.

"So, Jack, you really didn't know?" Harry was behind us.

"Not a clue til this morning." He confirmed.

"Well played, Hamilton!" Harry high fived me.

"Thanks, Lafayette's the one who had trouble keeping the secret."

"Doesn't surprise me. Dude's never been good at secrets…" he shot a glance at Lafayette, "have you?"

Lafayette's cheeks burned, "I didn't mean it!"

"What?" I looked between them, stuck in the dark.

"You want to tell it or should I?" Harry asked him.

"You can." Lafayette hung his head and freed a coil of hair from Ellie's grasp.

"So, Lafayette was a good kid, right? Until big bad New York City got a hold of him, but growing up, he was a pure little dude. There was this one night where me and Jack snuck out and went to a party, and well-"

John cut in, "-it's the night I totalled the Mercedes."

"Harry was with you? What was he, like 12?" I looked on in horror between the two of them.

"I was 13, but hey, shit gets weird when your mom dies."

"Fair." I agreed and listened to the rest of the story.

"But Laf told our dad about it." John got back to the story

"Snitch." Harry crossed his arms.

"It's a good thing, too! You both could have died." Lafayette countered from his place on the couch.

"But we didn't!" John reminded him.

"I mean, dad almost killed us." Harry laughed.

"Oh, shut up, punk, you mean dad almost killed me, you were still the golden boy… next to Jemmy anyway, he didn't like you hanging around me all the time," John put his back against Harry's and rocked side to side, like a bear trying to scratch an itch against a tree, "afraid I'd rub all the gay off on you. C'mere, need to give you some of my gay."

Harry slammed his back against John, their heads clacking together, John rubbed the back of his head and turned around to properly shove Harry. Lafayette and I exchanged horrified glances at the impressive show of sibling rivalry. Harry accidentally kneed John between the legs, he dropped to his knees and doubled over, the wind knocked out of him, he lunged his arm out and one knuckle punched Harry in the thigh. Harry's leg went out and he braced himself against the couch.

"Gentlemen!" Martha boomed, the hair on the back of my neck prickled at her tone.

"Sorry, Pats." John's voice was higher than I'd ever heard it.

"Sorry." Each syllable drug out in Harry's somber voice, he rubbed his thigh and offered a hand to John. They grinned at each other as John let his brother help him up.

"Fuckin' losers," Jem muttered and excused himself upstairs.

John and Harry stuck their tongues out in his direction once his back was turned.

Martha bounced Ellie on her knees and cooed in sing song, "you're gonna need so much therapy when you grow up."

"It's not so bad." I offered, earning a smile from John.

John leaned against the back of the couch shaking a leg out, trying to adjust his abused manhood inconspicuously. I offered a sympathetic smirk and he joined me on the couch opposite of the one Lafayette and Martha sat on, laying his legs across my lap.

"You two did not make it hard to be the good one." Lafayette mused at the two boys.

"I can only imagine what it was like." I empathized with him.

Ellie slid off Martha's lap and banged on the tv cabinet, "M'ana! M'ana!"

"No, baby, no Moana right now, maybe later, it's almost time for nap." Martha calmed her.

Ellie knit her eyebrows together and stamped her tiny foot, "No! M'ana!"

"Sorry, not right now, love."

Big tears rolled down Ellie's cheeks and she shrieked, "M'ana now, mama!"

"No ma'am, looks like it's naptime now, since we can't be kind," she picked her daughter up, "tell uncle John and Alexander you'll see them later, and maybe if we can be kind after nap we'll watch. Let's go."

Ellie sobbed as she was carted away to her room. John and I exchanged pouts empathizing with the baby's outburst.

"She is precious." Lafayette sighed.

"Damn, I was kinda ready to watch Moana again." I admitted.

John shot me a surprised look.

"What? Songs are fucking catchy." I shrugged.

"So when y'all gonna start having babies?" Harry asked.

Lafayette's brows made a mad dash toward his hairline in surprise.

"Uh… Well… I don't… We've only…" John stammered, "we haven't been together that long."

"Just curious, Alexander's so good with Ellie I figured you guys would be in a rush to start giving Ellie cousins. Jack's always wanted to be a dad, did you know that Alexander?"

I smirked at John, his ears growing bright red, "I had a hunch."

"Sure be a better dad than ours was, Jackie!"

"Like that's hard." John grumbled. I rubbed his legs, trying to reassure him.

"You want to be a dad?" Harry looked at me.

Lafayette's eyes darkened, lashes falling over them as he looked at the ground, suddenly finding his thumbnail very interesting, confirming my suspicion that John talked to him about my past, I didn't mind, knew from the jump that they were a packaged deal.

I bit my lip, hands hesitating from rubbing John's shin, fingers twitching for a cigarette, "someday."

John's lips twitched in a tiny smile, he looked at me with secret, hopeful eyes.