NEVER TOO LATE

Chapter 6

A/N: So this is it! The last update for this fic is a two-part epilogue. The first part shows what happened to Olicity after they got together and reveals briefly what happened in the hospital after the jogging incident. The second part tells about the near future - from the wedding and onwards. I hope you like how the story ends, and if you have the time, please do let me know how reading and following this has been for you. Once again, thank you so much for taking the time. This has been a fun mini-adventure!

It was a mildly humid yet unusually hot summer day. The air conditioning in the coffee shop below had been turned on the entire day to keep customers comfortable. Oliver tried to study in one of the unoccupied booths all afternoon until dinner time in order to cut down on energy consumption and, of course, expense. But soon after Felicity arrived and helped him and Thea close shop, he had moved all his books, laptop, and school stuff upstairs to his apartment. He turned on the AC in his bedroom and set up a makeshift study area in it because he was sure he wasn't going to be able to concentrate on his work with the heat, and there was only one AC in his apartment.

While Felicity was busy making coffee in the kitchen, he changed into more comfortable clothes. He put on a pair of black-and-red Starling City Rockets jersey shorts and an off-white muscle shirt made of soft and thin cotton material that really didn't do a good job of keeping his perfectly sculpted muscles hidden from view. He then turned his laptop back on from hibernation and shuffled his papers, arranging them so that Felicity wouldn't have a hard time figuring out which one was which.

Felicity had been helping Oliver with school work. It was his last semester in business school, and he was anxious to complete all the requirements and finally get his bachelor's degree. Towards the end of the spring semester, he had contemplated on skipping the summer term and just enroll his remaining courses in the fall semester so that he could spend more time with Felicity and Connor, who had already graduated last May. He had always taken Connor to summer camping trips as his son was growing up, and every other year since business started to take off, he had taken his family to out-of-town vacations that were well within the family budget. But when Sandra passed away, he had been too sad to plan anything special for him and his son. Connor had understood and had never asked for any of those; in fact, even when his dad and Felicity had already become a couple, he had been the number one advocate of putting off for next summer the camping trip that Oliver had started to plan for him and Felicity, in favor of his father graduating as soon as possible. Felicity couldn't have agreed more.

So there he was, agonizing over his last few undergraduate courses in the heat of summer when most of the students and faculty in the university were off on vacation. He was struggling particularly with one course, which he couldn't, for the life of him, understand or appreciate in the beginning – Research and Statistical Methods. Oliver was doing fine in the first few weeks, but when the professor started on topics that required mathematical ability, he felt as if a vicious virus had messed with the operating system of his brain (which was Felicity's analogy, by the way). He didn't understand – or maybe, he couldn't accept – why a business major was required to take such a course. Every time he came across a difficult topic or skill to learn, he'd start a litany of complaints that Thea and Connor had gradually learned to ignore.

Not Felicity though. She was patient with him, but stern. When she agreed to tutor him for this course, she had made it clear that she wasn't going to go soft on him and that she wasn't going to tolerate him giving up. She told him that dropping the subject was out of the question and that she was going to make sure he passes the course, not just by the skin of his teeth, but with a fairly decent mark that would make them all proud of him. Sure enough, she made a world of difference. Because of her intelligence and perseverance, measures of central tendency began to make sense to him, pleasantly recalling that he had encountered concepts like mean, median, and mode way back in middle school but had paid more attention to Tommy or to the girls in his class than to his math teacher, whose name and face he couldn't even remember. He began to understand big words like variability, variance, covariance, and deviation, which he had previously thought were synonyms. Under his girlfriend's guidance, Oliver's confidence sky-rocketed. Her constant encouragement boosted his self-image as he was affirmed that he, too, had the smarts. He only regretted that he hadn't taken his studies more seriously when he was younger. He wondered how differently his life would have turned out if he had, and if he had met Felicity way back in high school.

In the past week, however, the irritable monster in him was starting to show its ugly head again. A month ago, his professor had assigned a short-term qualitative study as the final individual assessment for the class. It was supposed to evaluate how well they acquired the knowledge and skills in the course by making them do real-life research and then writing a paper about it. Oliver chose to do a descriptive study on Connor's Brew customers and look into which types of beverages were frequently ordered by men and women, students, professionals, singles and married people, and senior citizens. He had already finished conducting the survey about two weeks ago, and fortunately, Felicity thought that he had already met the ideal number of respondents that would make up his research sample. With her help, he had begun analyzing data from the survey questionnaires all week last week. The problem was that Oliver was stuck with data interpretation because it turned out that certain statistical concepts were still unclear to him. He'd been griping over that all day, and the weather and temperature hadn't made things easier for him. He knew that Felicity would be able to straighten things out, and he had been waiting impatiently for her to arrive from a day-long faculty academic planning meeting.

"Everything's already set up in here," he hollered to his girlfriend from inside his bedroom. "You can come in anytime, sweetheart!"

Felicity's stomach still did somersaults every time Oliver called her "sweetheart." They'd been a couple for close to three months now, having gone on formal and informal dates almost every other day, and they had gotten to know each other much better, but there hasn't been a time when goose bumps hadn't broken out on her skin when Oliver called her sweetheart. She loved it very much. It was certainly more suitable for a middle-aged couple like them, and so much more endearing than "baby" or "babe" – repulsive words that made her cringe because those were the words that Cooper used to call her. When Oliver learned how she felt about those words, he was totally relieved; he didn't know what he would do if she asked him to call her "babe" because the word brought back memories of Laurel and Sandra, which he preferred to leave in his distant past. "Sweetheart" was very appropriate, Felicity thought, because it always reminded her of how they actually got together… over coffee and sweet treats. Also, this term of endearment really went well with how she preferred to call Oliver. She called him "honey," and judging from the way he'd flash a winning smile at her time she spoke it, she knew he loved hearing her call him "honey" just as much as she loved hearing him call her "sweetheart."

"Be there in a sec, honey!" she replied with gusto.

Less than a minute later, Felicity walked barefoot into his bedroom, carrying two mugs of steaming hot black coffee. She had a feeling this was going to be an all-nighter, so a steady supply of caffeine was warranted. Oliver had texted an SOS with a frowny when she was in the meeting, and when she asked if it had something to do with his research project, Oliver told her that he was due for consultation with his professor the next day and still hadn't been able to figure out what to do about the analysis and interpretation of the data from his survey. While preparing coffee, she had composed herself and repeatedly told herself, "Keep calm, and keep him calm," which was something that probably might not happen given the amount of caffeine she had brewed in the kitchen.

After about three hours of helping Oliver use a computer software for statistical analysis and feeding data into the program, Felicity thought they were ready for another round of caffeine to keep them awake and focused. She had been sitting cross-legged beside him on the edge of his bed behind the table he had set up for their work, but when she moved to stand, he caught her wrist and squeezed it gently.

"Stay," he spoke softly.

"I was going to go get us another round of coffee," she said.

"I don't need coffee. I need you," he explained quite succinctly as he stroked her forearm.

Felicity bit her lower lip as she blushed, a small smile forming on her lips. Could anything be sweeter? For a moment they just gazed at each other, heart eyes glimmering with childlike mirth. (If Thea were there, she'd be rolling her eyes to her hairline in disgust. Conner would simply be shaking his head in amusement and leave them be.) Oliver tugged her towards him, and she landed on his lap, making her gasp and giggle a little.

"My head hurts with all these numbers and tables. I think I need a short break right now. A little cuddle might help," he told her, grinning.

He enveloped her with his muscular arms, and she just had to curl one hand on his bicep. Her other hand landed on his abs, which she stroked a few times before she wrapped her arms around his neck and let him rest his head on her chest.

"How does this feel?" she asked him with a mischievous, teasing tone.

"Perfect," he answered without opening his eyes. He was grinning like a fool.

They hugged each other without uttering any word for a couple of minutes, and then Felicity spoke, "Well, we'd better get back to work. I still think we need another round of black." She moved to get him to unlock his hold on her, but he tightened it instead. "Oliver…" He kept his eyes shut and pretended not to have heard what she said. She kept squirming in his arms, but he wouldn't let her go. "Honey, we still have a long way to go," she said. "You said you need to be able to show Dr. Grisham something tangible tomorrow."

Oliver growled in exasperation and discontent. "I just don't get why I need to present all these figures and charts. Can't I just tell him that more male customers prefer the hot drinks and more female customers like the cold ones? I can just say that most customers above fifty years old order regular coffee more frequently compared to the flavored ones?" He grumbled.

"Oliver…" Felicity responded calmly. "Presentation of data in a research study needs to be done meticulously. Before you get to the conclusions and recommendations part, you have to report the data from your findings in a logical and systematic way."

Of course, he knew that. He just didn't want to do it. He'd been staring at the screen of his laptop for hours, trying to figure out what to do with the data in the frequency and distribution tables. Felicity had been trying to help him interpret how the data on the respondents' gender, age, social status, civil status, etc. correlated with the data on the respondents' beverage choices. Though difficult, that had been comprehensible for the most part, but when she started explaining which statistical method they were supposed to use to test their findings for reliability and validity, she completely lost him. When they got to the part where the program converted their data and findings into diagrams with numbers and letters (Greek ones, too!) and lines that were straight, diagonal, and dotted, his brain short-circuited and then shut down.

Oliver just didn't get why it was so important for him to know what normal curves were and whether or not the results of his survey were skewed. The only type of curves that he had been very familiar with for a huge part of his younger years was the type he'd traced with his hands on the bodies of women. For twenty years, he had mastered those curves on only one woman – his wife. In the last two years since he had lost her, he thought that he had lost that expertise as well. Female curves hadn't even grabbed his attention. But now he was with Felicity, and, well, her curves were something else. Each time he noticed them, it took every ounce of self-control for him to keep his hands off her and be a decent gentleman.

As the days, weeks, and months passed by, he found it harder and harder to keep it together when he was with her. It became particularly difficult and complicated when she had opened up about her ex-boyfriend Cooper Seldon. He appreciated her for telling him about it for several reasons. First, it helped him understand why she reacted adversely to his touch on the night of the gala. He finally understood where she was coming from, and he felt compassion for her, promising that he would do everything he could to help her get over such a traumatic experience in her past. He didn't want to be responsible for another one of her meltdowns. Second, it helped them establish their boundaries. They had agreed that they would take it slow to give each other time to adjust to their new relationship and learn the tricky balance between his manner of physically showing affection and her more conservative standards for intimacy (although they did laugh when they realized how ironic it was for forty-year-olds to be "taking it slow" when they were both obviously almost over the hill). But Oliver loved her, and thus, he respected her and her wishes, and she loved him all the more for it. Exercising restraint wouldn't kill him, he figured.

"Hey, where did you go?" Felicity asked him, a tiny laughter escaping her lips. She had noticed his silence.

"Huh?" Oliver responded, vaguely registering what she meant. "Oh. I uh… I was just thinking…"

"I'm guessing that whatever it is, it has absolutely nothing to do with statistics," she commented.

Oliver sighed. His forehead creased, but there was a hint of a smile on his lips. Felicity couldn't figure out what he was going to say. He was quiet for a while, contemplating what his response would be. He wasn't sure if this was the right time, or if he still needed to give it some more time. He had actually been putting off telling her about his desire to take their relationship to a much deeper level of commitment. They had been together for just close to three months, after all. He'd been hesitating, because he didn't want her to think he was moving too fast; he didn't want their family and friends to think that theirs was just another whirlwind romance that wouldn't make it past the honeymoon stage.

Yet Oliver didn't know how much longer he could rein in his emotions and control his desires for this amazing woman who had turned his world upside-down. The mere mention of her name made him giddy and light-headed. Being with her more and more frequently animated every single cell in his body. Sharing lessons from the past, his present thoughts, and his dreams for the future with her established a soul-level connection between them that went beyond mere physical attraction. They had only known each other for close to a year; nevertheless, the stronger the bond grew between them in such a short time, the more profound their intimacy became in the different aspects of their relationship, so much so that Oliver felt that physical intimacy was the only line left uncrossed. Just then, he recalled a Scripture quote he had heard many times over during weddings: "It is better to marry than to burn." That gave him the boldness to speak with a calm conviction.

"Felicity…," he began, "why are we waiting?"

"Waiting?" Felicity wasn't sure what he was referring to.

"I mean, what are we waiting for, really? Do you remember our talk when we were at the hospital?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," she replied. "How could I forget the talk we had during rehab?" She chuckled as the memory of that day when they had their jogging accident replayed in her mind.

"Well, I was just thinking… I have a pretty stable business. You have a job that you love doing and pays well too. We are both incontestably 'of age' and capable of supporting a family. We have been… for quite some time now, actually," he paused to chuckle a bit. "And as John so aptly helped us realize at the hospital, we are really not getting any younger. I told you that day that I was 100% sure about how I feel about you, and you said that you feel the same way about me. Except now, I'm even surer that what I have for you is more than just fleeting emotion." He took a deep breath and said, "I… I love you, Felicity. I care about you a lot, and I want to take care of you and spend the rest of my life – what's left of it – with none other than you. You sat in that wheelchair holding my hand while I lay flat on my stomach with a heated pack on my lower back, remember? I asked if you would consider committing to a relationship… with me. You… you warned me that because of your abandonment issues and your past failed relationship, you were only willing to be with someone who was willing to take you all the way to the altar. I took that challenge. I chose to be with you. Because I knew then what I know now… that you are my always, and I just want the chance to be yours. Sweetheart, I'd take you to the altar right now if… if you love me enough to let me… if you're 100% sure that you want to spend the rest of your life with me, too. I guess… what I'm trying to say is-"

Oliver didn't get to finish what he was trying to say because Felicity's lips crashed against his in a searing kiss that caught him by pleasant surprise. Her fingers ruffled his hair fiercely. His arms pulled her even closer to him as his hands roamed all over her body. He didn't even notice that one of his hands started rubbing soft, slow circles on her hip, but she didn't mind, much less notice it, because she felt safe in his arms. For both of them, it felt like finally finding home after years of wandering and losing their way.

When they pulled back only because they needed some air, Felicity lovingly said to him, "That was some speech, Mr. Queen." She was teary-eyed, and she tried hard to keep from crying. "And here I thought I was the one who babbled and spoke in sentence fragments."

Oliver simply chuckled and then pulled her into him again. He kissed her this time. It was not as intense as the one they shared just a moment ago, but it was just as unmistakably sincere. He poured into that kiss his heart and soul, hoping that she understood how serious and determined he was about his interrupted proposition.

Felicity did understand, because when she pulled back just inches away from his face, she said, "I love you too. And, Oliver honey, the answer is yes." She beamed at him proudly.

"But I haven't asked the question yet," Oliver mildly protested, squeezing her tight in his arms.

"You didn't have to," she said. "You said it in that kiss." She pecked him on the nose.

He captured her lips once again and deepened the kiss, sending shockwaves throughout her body. She moaned, he groaned. Unexpectedly, she caught both his hands and placed them on both sides of her pelvis. He smiled into the kiss, their lips parting slightly. He understood clearly what her gesture was telling him: that their love had finally healed her, and that she was no longer frightened by her past, no longer uncomfortable with this kind of closeness.

As he gave her hips a gentle squeeze, he remembered the boundaries they had set and decided to honor them. He pulled back slowly and looked up at her, grinned mischievously. "Now, what was that kiss trying to say?" he asked.

She answered, "That you can't wait until our wedding night to have all of me…" She sighed contentedly and then added, "…but that you will… because you are a truly remarkable and respectable man."

Felicity beamed at him, but soon spoke again, to Oliver's delight. "And to speed up the process of getting to our wedding night, I'm offering you an incentive," she offered. She broke away from his embrace and moved to stand. "We will finish the data analysis and interpretation for your consultation tomorrow, you will expedite the completion of this research project before deadline, and I will marry you as soon as you come down that stage after receiving your diploma. How's that?" She tilted her head and squinted, waiting for his response.

"Oh, you're good, Ms. Smoak," he declared, shaking his head while laughing.

"Best teacher in the world!" she remarked with a wink.

"Fine! It's a deal," he agreed. He took her hand and kissed it.

"Great! But you still owe me a ring," she teased as she made a run for the door to fetch more coffee.

Epilogue:

Oliver Queen graduated from Starling City University with a bachelor's degree in business at the end of the summer term. His family and close friends were there at the graduation rites in the morning. Felicity was there, of course. She kept her end of the deal and married him on the same day in the gardens of the Queen Estate where the simple ceremony and reception were held in the early evening and witnessed only by close relatives and good friends like John and Lyla Diggle and Caitlyn Snow.

Moira and Thea had helped with the wedding preparations. Oliver and Felicity were more than pleased and impressed with what mother and daughter were able to pull off with just a few weeks' notice. Donna Smoak had flown in from Vegas a few days before the big day to help her daughter with last minute details, and so did his best friend Tommy Merlyn and his wife Laurel, Oliver's former girlfriend, who arrived from Coast City on the day of the graduation and the wedding. Robert Queen was tremendously proud of his son, but not half as proud as Connor was of his father's achievements in both love and learning.

After the wedding reception, Diggle drove Oliver and Felicity to the airport where they boarded a commercial plane to Greece for their honeymoon. They spent three fantastic weeks on the islands of Santorini. Felicity had done extensive research on popular honeymoon destinations and immediately fell in love with the crescent-shaped group of islands after seeing a photograph of the island's famous Caldera against the backdrop of a beautiful sunset. She had since dreamed of exchanging romantic kisses with her groom on the very spot shown on the online travelogue. It hadn't been difficult for her to convince Oliver about granting her dream honeymoon. (He would have flown her to the moon and back if she had asked him to.) But when she showed him information about Santorini being a culinary paradise that promises "the ultimate gastronomic experience," he immediately gave the green light to book airline tickets, hotel accommodations, and island tours.

They did get their wishes and more. Felicity got her fair share of exceptional encounters with wines – many of them, red – produced from grapes that were grown from the island's fertile volcanic soil. Oliver bought several recipe books of Greek and Mediterranean cuisines, intending to try them in his kitchen and maybe even to experiment with some of the salads and entrees as new inclusions on the menu of Connor's Brew. They enjoyed the white, red, and black sand and pebble beaches on the islands, and were awed by the spectacular rock formations and extraordinary lunar landscapes they saw during island-hopping. Best of all, they enjoyed their first most intimate moments as husband and wife in their luxury hotel suite, in the plush cabin of the yacht they rented, and even once… at twilight out on the beach in a secluded yet safe alcove where their tour guide brought them. They fell in love with the place. They grew fond of their romantic getaway, and the charm of what was known as "the pearl of Aegean" captivated them. They agreed to return to Santorini for their first anniversary, and Oliver booked a suite in another hotel in one of the other islands before they flew back to Starling City.

Felicity continued to teach at the university but also took on consulting jobs for Queen Consolidated at the insistence of her father-in-law who had wanted someone he could trust to help out in the company's cyber-security upgrades. Robert knew that his daughter-in-law was among the best IT experts in the country (and perhaps, even the world) – which he flaunted at every opportunity – and he wisely maximized the opportunity now that she was family, for the good of the business that would eventually benefit not only his children but his own grandchildren.

One year after they were married, Oliver did open a second branch of Connor's Brew in the main educational district of Central City. Connor volunteered to manage it and to supervise the operations of the original coffee shop, so he moved there and rented an apartment just three blocks away from the shop. He came back to visit his family in Starling once a month and on holidays. Thea went solo, opening her own branch of Connor's Brew in Starling City's business district, one block away from the QC building, without having to pay her brother franchise dues. It became an instant success as it was frequented by the employees and clients of her family's company. She hired a barista named Roy Harper, whom she eventually fell in love with, and married after two years.

When the Queens had returned from their honeymoon, the Diggles broke the news that Lyla was again expecting. Their second child, John Jr., was born seven months after. The boy became Oliver's godchild, just like eight-year-old Sara had been Felicity's godchild. When John Jr. was nearly two, Lyla was pregnant again, so she resigned from her job at the government agency to be a full-time wife and mom to their growing family. John continued to work as the head of security at the university.

When Felicity learned that John and Lyla were expecting their third child, she cried on-and-off for days. She felt frustrated that after three years, she and Oliver couldn't get pregnant, and that her time was running out. She felt sorry for herself for being too old to conceive, repeatedly apologizing to Oliver for failing him. Oliver constantly assured her that there was absolutely nothing to apologize for, saying that he did not marry her just to have children and that he loved her just the same, with or without them. Yet Felicity seemed inconsolable during those days. Nothing he said made her feel better. He feared that her sadness and disappointment might worsen the day she finds out that Thea, too, would be expecting.

What was most frustrating was the fact that she and Oliver had done their part. Prior to the wedding, she had gone to the doctor for a check-up. She had been insecure initially each time she thought about the fast-approaching wedding night and honeymoon, and her mother suggested that she see her OB to make sure that everything was still "okay down there" at her age (Donna's words). The OB had done a thorough physical exam and a sonogram of her reproductive organs, yet despite the fact that the doctor had assured her that there were no physical and anatomical problems with her, she often struggled with anxieties about the possibility or impossibility of mothering Oliver's child.

On their second year of marriage, they had also consulted three different fertility specialists about the alternatives that were available for them. All three medical experts had suggested that they seriously consider in vitro fertilization or IVF if they really wanted to get pregnant soon, because beyond age 43, the chances of giving birth to babies with congenital anomalies increased. Felicity had understood that the older she got, the riskier it was for her to go through a safe pregnancy and deliver a child without complications. They had tried undergoing IVF procedure once, but it had not worked out, and Felicity was at the brink of devastation. Oliver had hated seeing her so unhappy and miserable. After a very emotional, tear-filled talk that reassured them of each other's love and devotion, they both had decided to just let nature take its course and to be content with each other, whether or not they would have a child of their own.

On her forty-third birthday in January, Felicity indulged herself in one last all-night crying session in Oliver's embrace, and then she let go. She resigned herself to the fact that she may never conceive, never be the biological mother of Oliver's son or daughter. She promised herself and her husband that she would keep on loving Connor as her own son.

Three months after, she was delayed. It wasn't the first time this happened in the last three decades that she has had her period, so she didn't think much of it. When her period still didn't come after some more time had elapsed, she became worried. She became even more anxious when she started having dizzy spells, palpitations, mood swings, and strange temperature changes. She opened up to Oliver and told him – in between sobs – how she feared she was already undergoing early menopause. Oliver told her not to jump to conclusions without getting the facts straight first and suggested that she go see her doctor the very next day. He tried his best to calm her down, rubbing circles on her back until she fell asleep out of exhaustion.

In the morning, Oliver himself accompanied her to the OB's clinic. He held her hand in the waiting room, in the doctor's office, and even in the examination room when the doctor asked him to come inside and join them.

"Mr. and Mrs. Queen," the doctor began to explain her diagnosis of Felicity's condition, "I'm very sorry to disappoint you…" The doctor had not even finished what she was saying, but Oliver and Felicity had started to feel even more discouraged at her tone. Felicity squeezed her husband's hand, as they prepared themselves to receive bad news, but the doctor went on to say with a brighter tone of voice, "…but Felicity is not going through early menopause. I'm quite sure she's pregnant." The doctor smiled.

The couple gasped in shock at the revelation. Neither one of them spoke. Neither of them breathed. Neither could even blink in astonishment.

Pregnant.

How? The news was too good to be true.

When the doctor sensed that Oliver and Felicity were having a hard time letting the news sink in, she took the liberty to speak again. "Mr. Queen, I think your wife is going to have a baby. Her cervix is closed, and all the things she's been experiencing are signs and symptoms of early gestation. I could do a sonogram to confirm it, if you'd like." The doctor smiled again.

Oliver and Felicity were still too dumbfounded to respond, but tears were already rolling down Felicity's cheeks. After a few seconds of silence, Oliver said softly, "Yes, please do that."

The doctor nodded and told Oliver that he could stay and watch the procedure…

…which confirmed that his dear wife was indeed about five or six weeks pregnant.

Oliver and Felicity watched the pulsating gestational sac in her womb on the monitor. Oliver had joined his wife's crying spree, and soon they were hugging each other in joyful wonder. The doctor congratulated them, happily offered tissue for wiping both the gel on her stomach and the tears on their faces, and then left to give them some privacy to rejoice together. The Queens left the clinic, hearts overflowing with indescribable mirth. They were going to be parents in eight months.

That December on Christmas Eve, Miracle Queen was born and became the delight of every member of the Queen and Smoak families and their friends.

The delivery was just as difficult as Felicity's pregnancy had been. She had suffered from all-day sickness from her first trimester up until the middle of her second trimester, and one time she even had to be hospitalized for severe vomiting and dehydration because she couldn't keep anything down, including water. By the time she had been able to eat regular foods again, she had already lost ten pounds. Her drastic weight loss had her and Oliver worrying for the baby, but the OB had assured them that there was nothing to be worried about because hyperemesis gravidarum would pass and was not really a cause for alarm, and that difficult pregnancies were common to pregnant women over 40.

The doctor (and the husband) kept a close watch on Felicity. She came in for check-ups every two week for close monitoring of her blood pressure and sugar levels and for the monitoring of the baby's growth and development. Felicity feared that the baby might have genetic abnormalities because of her age, but on the sixth month a sonogram was done and it cleared the baby from congenital anomalies. On her last trimester, Felicity's appetite was at its peak, and she had gained back all the weight she had lost.

The day she delivered Mic – as they fondly called their baby girl – and her first cry rang out in the delivery room, Felicity knew that all the discomforts and inconveniences had truly been worth it all. Oliver was there with her, holding her hand all throughout the labor, which took ten long hours. The doctor had offered to do a cesarean section because the labor was beginning to put stress on the baby and was tiring out Felicity fast. But Felicity held on, determined to bring her baby into the world wide awake. Oliver cheered her on, awed by the courage and strength of his wife. On the eleventh hour, she pushed with all her might, and the most beautiful baby girl Oliver had ever laid eyes on was finally out.

From the recovery room, Felicity was wheeled into her private room on a gurney by two nursing aids. Mic was wheeled into the room in a bassinet by Oliver, alongside her mother. A midwife soon joined them, assisting Felicity in feeding her baby. At first, Mic had difficulty latching on to her mother's breast, and Felicity felt very uncomfortable, adjusting to the initial painful sensations of breast-feeding. But with a little coaching and help from the midwife, mother and daughter soon found their connection. When they were all settled, the hospital staff left, and the Queen family had their first private time together.

As little Mic was quietly sucking on her mother's breast for nourishment, Felicity and Oliver exchanged knowing looks. "She's beautiful," Oliver whispered. Felicity smiled and said, "Yeah. She's perfect. We did good, didn't we?" It wasn't a question; it was more of an affirmation. Oliver nodded.

They were a family at last.

Oliver sat on the hospital bed beside his wife and put one arm around her, holding her close. His other hand came up to her cheek, and he kissed her on the lips affectionately. "I love you," they said adoringly to each other. His hand moved to touch their baby girl's cheek with his pinky finger. "We love you," they told their tiny daughter.

As they gazed upon their precious bundle of joy and held each other close, Oliver and Felicity fully grasped the truth… that it is never ever too late to find true love and lasting joy.

Farewell to this story and to all its readers and followers. Thank you very much!

Comments and reviews are welcome and appreciated.