Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Chapter 24 - Generation Love

Alex's POV

I heard a light knock on my door. I sighed.

"Come in," I called. Surprisingly, Harper walked in slowly.

"Hey," she smiled.

"Hey. When did you get here?" I smiled, then remembered that I was home alone with the doors locked. "How did you get in here?"

She shrugged. "I asked Justin to poof me over. And, just out of curiosity, why'd you lock the doors if you're home?"

"I really don't know. Since they took Leah, I haven't felt safe." I shuddered. "Especially when Mason's not here. I just feel like any minute someone's going to burst through the door and take me away. It scares me."

Harper raised her eyebrows. "You know that's not going to happen, right?"

"I know. But it just feels that way." I sighed.

She curiously looked down at the book in front of me. "Since when do you scrapbook?"

I bit my lip. "I dunno, when I was a few months pregnant with Leah, I found some old pictures of Mason and I from when we were in high school that were jumbled up in a box, and I guess I wanted to keep them in a safer place. Then when Leah was born, I felt the need to creatively document everything she did." I shrugged. "I'm not very good at it, though."

Harper flipped back to the first page, which was a purple sheet of paper with blue matting around the pictures. The picture on the right was of me, holding Leah for the first time. I don't think I could've had a bigger smile than the one in that shot. The picture next to it was of the three of us, and probably one of my favorites. I was smiling down at my beautiful newborn daughter, happy tears glistening in my eyes. Mason was kissing my cheek, and Leah was looking up at us. Right as a nurse was ready to snap the picture, An astonishing smile spread across Leah's face. The doctor gasped.

"In all my years, I have never seen a newborn smile that young." he had told us. I examined our daughter, who was still smiling.

"I heard that newborn baby smiles were actually gass," Mason stated awkwardly. I snickered a little. Way to ruin the moment.

"That's usually what it is," he said, smiling down at Leah, "You can tell by the look in her eyes. Most babies haven't adapted to moving their eyes on command, but she's focusing directly on you two. That's not gass; that's a smile." From then on we knew that Leah Nicole Graybeck was a special child.

Harper continued flipping through the pages and reading every quote and sidenote I had written until she reached the end. "Wow, Alex, these are amazing! Better than I could have even attempted!" Harper praised, "You really should do more of these!"

I smiled and pulled three more out of the box. "Got one for every year," I smiled. Harper scanned through each book with amazement, until she finished the last one. "But Leah's five, and you only have four of them. What made you stop?"

I hesitated, but pulled out an unfinished book from a box under the bed. Loose paper and sticker sheets fell from the pages as I set it between us on the bed. "I started this one earlier, but I kind of stopped when, well, all of this happened." I looked down at the few pages I had started, mostly of Leah with the family: making cookies with her Nonna, playing (or winning, should we say) video games with her uncle Max, Justin pushing her on the swingset in Central Park, putting whip cream on my dad's face while he was sleeping, her birthday party (before the catastrophe), I even found a picture of both of us crashed on the couch together that Harper had taken. I smiled at that one; she looked exactly like me.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Mason slowly and quietly snuck through the front door late that night, expecting Alex to be in bed already. He was surprised to find her on the curled up in a ball on the couch, sound asleep. He smiled, then sat down beside her. She smirked a little in her sleep. "Come back over here, Leah," she mumbled. Mason smiled at his wife. "Leah? Where are you? Leah?" his smile faded when he heard the fright in her voice.

"Leah!...NO! Let go of her! No!" she tossed and turned and fidgited. Mason tried to consol her. "Calm down, love. It's alright," he told her, stroking her hair. But she continued to fight her invisible intruder. "No! Leave her alone! STOP!..Leah! Leah!"

"Alex, wake up! Alex!" Mason shook her shoulders. Alex's first impulse of being woken up from a nightmare was to smack whoever was nearest with all her might, and that's what she did. "Oof," he muttered, but continued to shake her. She kept fighting him until her eyes snapped open to find Mason holding both her wrists. She caught her breath, taking in what was going on.

"You were only dreaming, love," Mason soothed her, rubbing her back as she sat up.

"Yeah, more like a nightmare," she grumbled.

"Tell me about it then."

She sighed. "Well, you, Leah, and I were throwing a frisbee in the park, having a really good time together, until the frisbee went off into the woods. Leah took after it, and she didn't come back right away. And then-"

"I kind of heard the rest, you talk in your sleep," he shrugged with a smirk.

"Yeah?" she smiled a little. He nodded. He smile faded as she looked in the other direction. "But the dream got me thinking."

"You? Thinking?" He joked, "My goodness, darling; that dream must have shaken you up."

"Hardee har har," she playfully punched his shoulder.

"But what were you thinging about?"

She looked down, "Us."

Mason raised an eyebrow. "Why is 'us' a bad thing?"

"No, no no! Not the normal us! I mean the other us. The bad us."

There's another us? Huh?" Mason asked in confusion.

"Not us us. I mean like us. Like the not good us."

"So there's a good us, and a bad us?"

"No! Like the- oh you know what I mean!"

Mason blinked a few times, "Sorry love, but I can't say that I'm following you."

Alex groaned. "As in the trial. That's the bad us."

"Oh." he realized.

She sighed. "Exactly! I've been so worried over Leah that I haven't even thought about what's going to happen to us. What if they decide that the law's still broken? What if we can never be together ever again?"

He took her hand in reassurance. "I've been thinking about that too. But I choose not to worry about that. All I know is this: win or lose the the trial, they can't keep us apart forever. They can try, but they can't stop destiny." He intertwined their fingers and touched her diamond ring, making her smile. "I promised you that I would love you forever and ever, and I always keep my promises."

Alex smiled and nestled into his chest as he pulled a blanket over the two of them. "Mason?"

"Yes, love?"

"I love you."

He smiled. "I love you too."

She looked up at him and into his eyes. "How did I get so lucky to find someone as amaizing as you?"

Mason grinned and twirled her hair around his finger. "It's fate; not luck." :)

Alex smiled and yawned. "Tired, darling?" he asked. She nodded and used his chest as a pillow. "Time for bed then."

She held his had hostage as he tried to get up. "Carry me." she mumbled. Mason smiled and did as he was told.

Okay, so this chapter wasn't that important. Not one of my faves, but I'm really excited for y'all to read 25! I've already started working on it (which is why this one's so short) and I think you're gonna like it :)

Thank you for reading! Review if you like:) and if you wanna be my best friend, follow my twitter! ShayDenney311