A/N: hello surprise, I'm alive. Alex tweeted about this a while ago and I wanted to write it then but I'm just now getting to it so here you have it: run away by ben platt but it's stevie and blake. Enjoy and thank you for reading :) ps, stream sing to me instead by ben platt

"One night before they went to bed, he kneeled on both knees and this is what he said."

Blake and Stevie had tried to stay away from each other. That's how they told the story afterwards, anyway. The truth was maybe a little bit more complicated than that; while each of them had sort of tried, there had also been something between them that neither of them had been able to ignore. From that first night under a lampost in Georgetown, neither Stevie nor Blake had been able to stop playing it all over and thinking about it. She'd thought of nothing but the softness of his lips against hers and he had been unable to shake the way it had made him feel to look at her, blue eyes alight with something he hadn't understood until she was against him and leaving him no choice.

That had been almost two years ago now; things had shifted and changed around them in ways that they could never have predicted, but like figures at the center of a snowglobe, Blake and Stevie had remained the same. That was not to say that things between them hadn't changed as well; they had admitted to their inability to stay away from one another and grown closer. There had been dates and flowers and more late night calls for various reasons and they had come to know one another intimately, in mind and heart and body. But the feeling that had been ignited on that winter night in the dark with gloved hands and bright eyes...that had stayed. It had remained steadfast no matter the season and though they liked to tell the story in a way that made it seem like they had not expected to end up here, the truth was that they both had known from that very moment. That part of the story, Stevie liked to think, was just for the two of them.

It was late, nearly midnight already. Stevie, in light pink pajama pants and a tee shirt that she thought might have been her boyfriend's at some point near the beginning of their relationship, had already settled under the sheets and was leaning against the headboard, blonde hair piled messily on top of her head and glasses resting on her face as she studied the paperwork in her hand which she had brought home to read over. Blake, hovering in the doorway unnoticed, thought her the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He always had. She glanced up at him, and he watched her eyes light up.

"Hey," she said, and he knew. Not for the first time, he knew he wanted that for the rest of his life and the next one if such a thing existed and he couldn't keep it quiet any longer. He took a few silent steps forward and dropped to his knees next to their bed, taking a confused Stevie's hand in his own.

"Blake?" she asked, just the right amount of concerned.

"I'm not...a hero," he began. "I mean I try to help people but I don't save the day. I'm not the wisest person in the world, you know, I'm not like your dad doing symposiums and lectures and inspiring people and-" he broke off there, giving his own head a little shake under her amused gaze on him, and then pressed on determined to leave Stevie's father out of his little speech going forward. "I'm not the most impressive man in the world, Stephanie," he continued softly. "But you can look at me and see...I love you. I love you and I'm yours, forever. Really forever. I want- I want to stay with you forever."

Stevie's eyes were brighter than usual as she nodded her head.

"I know," she whispered. "Yes."

Blake stared at her. Stevie always knew what he meant, sometimes before he did.

"Yes," she said softly. "I want to stay with you forever, too."

"Yes?" he whispered. Stevie laughed and nodded her head.

"Yes."

And just like that, it was done: right there in their bedroom in pajamas at midnight. Just the two of them, the way it had always been meant to be.

"Some years went by, they had a child; he was funny strange and mild; their love for him ran deep."

He had Blake's dark eyes and Stevie's blonde hair. He'd been born slightly early, and was thin and long even as a toddler, and there had always been something a little bit mysterious about their sweet, bookish, beautiful boy. Ethan was seven now, and told jokes at the most unexpected moments. He didn't care about spending time with other children or playing outside very much, but he loved to sit with his grandfather and read books or take walks with Stevie in the evening, when Blake was still at work and Ethan could pick flowers for him to leave on his desk. Blake would find them the next morning and had each one pressed in the books on his office shelf. Sometimes, when reading or doing research, he stumbled across an old one, smiled to himself at his unbelievable luck, and tucked it back between the pages.

Ethan, as far as Stevie and Blake were concerned, was perfect.

It was getting late: almost 9 pm already. Ethan sat on his small twin bed, pale skin nestled beneath blue blankets as his dark eyes gazed up at Stevie.

"Mama?" he said. His voice was soft and had the slightest edge of gravel to it, too heavy for a seven year old but perfectly suited to their son. She hovered in the doorway, looking back at him.

"Yeah, sweetie?"

"I'm going to have bad dreams."

Stevie smiled slightly, moving back into his bedroom.

"How do you think we can fix that?" she asked softly. Ethan looked at her, wide eyed and permanently curious.

"You can stay with me?" he replied, voice trailing in an uncertain question that tugged at Stevie's heart.

"Ethan," she said gently, kneeling next to his bed and taking his small hand in her own the way she had been since he was a tiny baby in a hospital incubator. "I'm not a superhero or even the smartest person in the world. You're going to meet so many people in your life who are smarter and better and different from us in a million ways. But can I tell you a secret?"

Ethan nodded, watching her with rapt attention.

"There's nobody you can count on more than your family. Grandma and Grandpa taught me that," she said.

"And Daddy?"

Stevie smiled and brushed delicate fingers through Ethan's light hair in the warm halflight that spilled in from the hallway.

"And Daddy," she echoed. "Daddy taught me that a bunch of times."

"So you're going to always stay with me," Ethan said. Stevie nodded.

"Always," she whispered. "I promise."

With that, she curled under the blankets and felt his small body relax against hers, his fingers tangling in her hair for comfort as she pressed a kiss to the top of his head. That was how Blake found them later, home late from a business trip and hovering in the doorway. He leaned his head against the doorframe and watched them for a moment. As Stevie shifted ever so slightly and Ethan let out a barely audible, childish snuffle in his sleep, Blake was sure that his heart would burst.

"Look in my eyes, and know I'll always stay; and I won't run away."

It was getting late; almost sunset. And Blake could feel himself fading too, like the sun. At his side, as she had always been, Stephanie McCord Moran. A fierce, beautiful, soft force of a woman who had stood by him fearlessly and been everything he could have dreamed to have in a person to share his life with. Now, in the evening sun that streamed into their room through the thin curtains, laugh lines lit in gold and silvery hair falling perfectly against her neck, her hand in his, Stevie was the most beautiful thing Blake had ever seen.

"I'm sorry."

It had been quiet between them for some time until Blake spoke. Stevie turned her blue eyes, still as bright and beautiful as ever, on her husband, brushing her thumb against the papery skin on his hand as she smiled slightly at him.

"Blake," she began. "When we first started dating, you didn't want me to move in with you, remember?"

He did.

"Because you were afraid," she continued. He nodded.

"Of this," he admitted. He'd never said it aloud, but this- the leaving- had been what he was afraid of.

"I know," she murmured, warm and understanding. She shifted so that she could see him more fully and rested a delicate hand on his cheek. He turned into her touch reflexively, as if magnetized to her.

"You thought it would be better to do it on your own than to hurt anyone. But you didn't. My mom and dad- what they had- that was always what I wanted, and you were it, and more. You gave me everything and then some, Blake Moran."

"I'm sorry."

"Shh," Stevie insisted. "Don't be sorry. You did everything perfectly. You did good, baby. It's okay."

"I don't want to put you through-"

"Oh, Blake," she sighed. "I can't...I can't save the day. I can't give you the answers. But I can stay. To love is not to leave, so I'm going to stay right here with you, okay? It's okay."

They looked at one another in the quiet evening and it could have been late winter in Georgetown, gloved hands and bright eyes lit by a lamppost. There hadn't been a need to speak then, and there wasn't now. Like figures in a snowglobe, Stevie and Blake had remained the same.

"Forever," Blake breathed. The ghost of a young woman's smile flickered on Stevie's features.

"Forever."