Hi, so here it is, THE FINAL CHAPTER! I hope you have enjoyed this story as much as I have enjoyed writing it, I am very happy to have gotten it all out before Christmas.

Like I said in the previous chapter I am not totally against coming back to this little family so let me know what you think, with Blue Bloods ending in Season 14 (tragedy) I am slowly opening the door again back to this wonderful family.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine.

Please Read and Review.

And for the record Lacey is SIX. Any issues before that was a mistake.

And I wish you and your families a very Happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

AND A MASSIVE THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT!

A Man Walks Into A Bar

Chapter 6-Hiding Behind My Smile

THE FINAL CHAPTER-Sebastian and Joe share a moment with their daughter and their extended family as they look at what their family now looks like post the revelation.

"I know your angry"

"I am angry. Did Lacey get down okay?"

"Yeah, she wants to go over on Sunday is that okay?"

"You're asking me?"

"We co parent Seb of course I am asking you"

Sebastian opened his mouth and then shut it again and then he nodded. Joe could see the tightness in his jaw paused.

"How is she?"

"Fine…she's…she's a bit more…I don't know what you call it?"

Joe could see Sebastian change tact at the last minute in order to get his temper and his words under control.

"Tired" is all he said eventually "She's just tired"

"She's not the only one" he said sitting down on the couch next to his husband. Joe watched him for a second and then.

"Your still upset?"

"I get a phone call from Jamie that your in the hospital, that you've been shot, your partner is dead and that you've been on an undercover assignment for the past six months and then when I get to the hospital I am told the entire family thought for forty eight hours that you were dead and none of them ever bothered to call me. Family that by the way I trusted with our daughter while you were gone and then there you are grinning like an idiot when you see me. And for all Franks stories of which I will admit he has quiet a lot nobody ever told me that they were sorry. I just got a family thing. Were not family Joe. For all that they say we are were not. You tell me if the roles were reversed what your response would have been to that?"

Joe stared at him for a second and then nodded.

"Pass me the phone"

"Why?"

"Just do it"

Sebastian passed him the phone and it rang once.

"Frank yeah it's Joe. Listen I am only going to say this once, you should have told my husband that I was missing, if you want us to be family then you should have told him, you included a teenager in it before you told him. If you don't include him in news like this again I am never darkening that doorstep again. We might be there on Sunday depends because I want to sink my cock into my husband's ass and I might never leave. Comprende? Yeah. Tell the boys I said hi!"

And with that he hung up the phone and threw it over to the chair leaning back and putting his feet on the coffee table.

Sebastian stared at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Wow"

"Yeah I have that affect on people"

"You did check that was Frank right? Not his secretary?"

"Please you ever met Abigail Baker. She'd take a great amount of joy in passing on that kind of message. I imagine being trapped on the fourteenth floor it must lighten the dark day."

Sebastian snorted leaning back on the couch.

"Hey" Joe said turning despite the burning in his side at the movement. "Look at me?"

Eventually those eyes turned to look at him and Joe grabbed that well loved face pulling his husband close to him.

"There is nobody who matters to me more than you and Lacey" he said. "Nobody."

"You have a job—"

"And if you ask me if it's the job or you, it's you everytime. I'll hand him my badge this Sunday if you want me to."

Sebastian laughed once. "I don't" he said finally. "I don't want you underfoot that much"

He knocked his head against Joes and then as if the fight sagged out of him he leaned into the embrace. Joe wrapped both his arms around him.

"I'm still mad at you" Seb mumbled. "You can't do six months now deep cover. We have a child"

"I know. I'll tell them no more"

"And when they say you have to?"

"Then I hand in my badge. Like I said. Them or you, the job or you, the world and you, you win everytime. And that's before you get to that girl in there"

Seb smiled against him.

"You had better get your cock up my ass then and make up for lost time"

"Really?"

"No not really your injured."

"Not massively!"

Seb laughed just as the door opened and Lacey came out in her unicorn pyjama's her blue teddy, so neatly named Blue Teddy in her hands.

"Daddy?"

"Heya Lace"

She scrambled onto the couch and moulded herself between them.

"Are we awake?"

"Someone shouldn't be?"

"I know. But I am"

"The sarcasm is so you"

Joe grinned dragging over the blanket that they kept over the back of the couch and using it to wrap their daughter close. Lacey snuggled down and then shot up again nearly headbutting him.

"Not making you hurt Daddy?"

"Like—"

"Joe!"

"Nah" he said winking at his husband in the kitchen. "Nah baby you are not making me hurt, in fact you are the one of the two things that make it all better"

"Oh. What's the other?"

"Daddy"

"Ah" she said nodding and then she snuggled back down again.

"Smooth" came the reply from the kitchen. Joe grinned as Seb came back in with two bowls and a cookie on a plate.

"Lacey—"

"Can we watch Bake Off?"

Sebastian caught his eye and Joe raised his eyebrows.

"Did you watch it without me?"

"Your lucky that's all I did without you"

"Daddy?"

"Okay but one episode and then we are scrubbing our teeth clean and going back to bed oaky? And this is a very special night Lacey, this is not happing every night."

"Okay"

"Don't look at me Lace. I agree with Daddy. Cookies and ice cream and staying up late is for special occasions"

Lacey rolled his eyes in a move that Joe knew deep down she had gotten off him. He pressed a kiss on top of her head and then turned back to the TV. His arm was on the back of his couch around his daughter and his fingers grazed his husbands fingertips running alongside the back of his hand to where his wedding ring was. Sebastian shot him a look and then rolled his eyes that warm smile that he had back and Joe relaxed a little back into the couch and they snuggled down to watch the TV.

It was the little things that you forgot about.

Sunday all he wants to do is stay in bed. He really does, this is the first Sunday that he and his family have managed to have for themselves for a long time. Joe watches as his husband steps out the shower taking in the well formed body, the steam clinging to the hair that curls when it's wet and sticks up when it's rubbed with the towel.

"What would it take for me to convince you to come back to bed?" he asked shifting the duvet so that he was on display.

Sebastian turned and raised an eyebrow and then gave him a long look up and down in that toe curling way that he had. Joe leaned back but then he remembered that that aggravated his arm and his leg where he had been hit. Sebastian rolled his eyes leaning down to drop a warm kiss onto his shoulder and then his mouth.

"We have a six year old stud. Spending all day fucking like a pair of horny teenagers went out of the way when we got her"

Joe groaned as jeans were thrown his way.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah baby girl?" Seb called grinning. Damn…he was wearing the sinful hip jeans.

Joe was still in the doghouse. It was torture for his husband to wear those jeans and Joe was trapped full in the knowledge that he had to go to dinner with his family rather than peel them off him and ram him against the kitchen island.

You know…when his kid was in bed.

"Can we go? Eddie said she had a puppy for me"

There was a pause as Sebastian turned to Joe and Joe knew they were both thinking the same thing. Suddenly all he wanted to do was to get dressed and get out of bed.

"WAIT WHAT?"

"It was a puppy farm"

"I am still amazed you didn't come home with one"

"Oh are you serious Jamie because there was a very cute black and white one that I thought—"

"You've done it now" Danny muttered grinning at the look on Jamie's face.

"Did they have a pure black one?"

"Two"

"NO"

"Daddy"

"No" Joe said flatly. "And don't even think about hitting up your grandmother for one either. She's working her way out the doghouse she's not going back in"

Lacey turned to look at him her nose scrunching in confusion.

"Why is Nana in a doghouse?"

Sebastian shot him a look that was not helpful.

"She just…she just is"

"Is she getting a dog?"

Joe thought about it and grinned. Inflicting that kind of mess on his Mom might be kind of fun. Looking at what they had been through the last few months he had a feeling it would make them even at the very least.

"I was wondering?"

"Oh?" Sebastian asked looking at Danny from the side.

"Well…Maria…"

"I can't get her in for a private tasting—"

"And I wouldn't ask but—"

"I did bring three things that might be on the menu next month if she likes them. She can choose"

Danny clapped his hands together.

"Dude you have saved my bacon in more ways than one"

"Aha. Remember that the next time he nearly—" he covered Lacey's ears with his hands.

"Blown up"

For a second the two men stared at each other and then Danny nodded.

"Yeah fair enough" he said finally. "You should have been the first phone call"

"I am the first phone call" Sebastian said flatly. "I am the first phone call always. I don't care I am the spouse. I am the husband and the father and the guy who makes the medical decisions, I am the one that identifies anything that has to be identified. I do the arrangements. You don't like that then go."

Joe smirked into his stew. Danny Reagan eyed his husband for a second and then nodded.

"Fair enough" he said turning back to his own stew. Lacey between the two of them stabbed her fork into her steak.

"So no puppy?"

"No puppy"

"Okay…how about a sister?"

Sebastian choked on his wine.

"Now that's a good idea" his grandfather said with what could only be described as a manic glint in his eyes. It reminded Joe of the way that his mother would get that gleam when he had come home and told her that he wanted her to meet the boy that he thought he was going to marry. Or that time when he had asked her to speak to the florist when they had told him that they didn't serve…weddings like yours.

Joe still didn't know what she had said but the poor woman had been left white faced and ashen and had closed up shop eight months later.

"No it's not" Joe said shaking his head.

"Well…it's nice to have you all here again. Family. One and all"

Sebastian raised an eyebrow and then turned back to his stew. His grandfather on the other hand seemed to understand that and then said to his plate.

"The good thing about this…the one good thing that we can take away from all of this is that we have time. We have time to build on our relationships, time that we can be a family. We have time. And time is precious. One day you will wake up and you will realise that there is no replacement for time"

There was something to that, that Joe thought was more than a speech. Some kind of hidden apology. He didn't know what kind of conversation his grandfather and Seb had, had while he was in hospital but he knew that it had been a conversation and a half. His husband looked at him with a side gaze and there was that soft look in his eyes again.

With Lacey between them they couldn't tangle their fingers together but it was felt.

This was love.

This was family.

To Joe this was everything.

And he felt like his father wherever he was, would approve.

And yeah, there you go, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and this story. Wishing you all the very best and see you soon. x .