𝓇𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 ／ 𝓃𝑜𝓌.

“i wish you could too bubba,” she replies with a shrug of her shoulders. she wishes there could be more done, more to help, more to fix her. but it’s all on her now and it’s a long road. she’s been here before, she remembers the way but it’s harder now. she reaches over and touches his hand gently, wrapping her fingers around a few of his with a squeeze before withdrawing to lean back on the wall. a wince, she looks around for a chair to sit in. standing still hurts a lot, she hates it. she’s supposed to use a chair now when going out of the apartment for long periods but she’s too stubborn and refuses to sit in another wheelchair again. not until she’s old. “i can’t believe it’s coming so soon.” she doesn’t mind she’s not in the wedding party, she’s not related to anyone and sunni isn’t required to have her there. she’s just happy to be invited to the ceremony. part of her wonders if all of the grand wedding decorations and plans will make her jealous that she got a courthouse with no one else around. yeah, probably. “that’s the one thing i don’t envy about it all- the planning. that’s probably the one reason i’m happy simon and i skipped all of that.” laughter. “so what about you and jay? any secret plans i should know about?” she’s teasing, of course she already knows the plan for sunni’s wedding- her and sunni and jay are all in on it. she’s been helping keep it a secret for ages, asking eli to come with her to appointments or shopping or anything to get him out the house while the other two plan the big surprise. she’s happy to help. 

of course she wants to try again, of course she wants to make a family with her husband. she wants four or five kids, one will come out a dancer between the two of them. that’s the hope anyway. but things are changed now, mal thinks. barely able to stand on her own, fear worms its way through her heart at the idea of it all now. she wouldn’t be able to hold her own baby, take care of them, walk with them. “i want to give you children.” the words are spoken softly, turning to look at him with pleading eyes. “i want to walk around glowing about being pregnant and being able to talk all that gross mushy talk that sunni has for ages. you will be the world’s best dad, i know that.” but would she be a good mom? “we can always adopt, you know.” something hits too close to home talking about adoption, talking about taking in a kid that wasn’t yours to start with and suddenly calling yourself a parent. mal wonders if wanda and william ever felt this kind of fear with elijah or her. “we can make appointments with a fertility doctor,” she finally broke the silence after a few minutes. “see where we are. if it’s possible.” it wasn’t a yes, not yet. she refused to get her hopes up again.

“sorry, didn’t mean to make it sound as if your stress about it isn’t important either. everyone is stressed out about this.” he tries to calm her down a little, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at her comment about the ‘thing with elijah and the ring’ as if it wasn’t important at all. he doesn’t envy sunni’s situation at all, having grown up around her parents too- thankfully just not in the same house as them like her and her sister. his mother was always as supportive as could be, as well as fin’s mother who had taken in the rag-tag group of four so easily and quickly once fin started bringing them all home. jay eventually had a second bedroom, sunni moved in for months at a time and ivy was always rotating in and out but at least she was getting hot meals once a day. “you should have told me your dad was in town sooner. you know i would take the attention off you for a day, i don’t mind. sure ivy could really do it well too, she always had the skills to make him get off your back and worry about her for a while.” best friends, people who would be together forever. that’s what jay saw when he looked at all of them, the group now almost three times as large as when it first started. with additions of spouses, children, friends, they’d all made their own little happy family. “just a few more days right? then it’ll all be over and we can all go back to happy lives without the gross adults in it.”

she truly hadn’t thought about it since the hospital, refusing to let herself miss their baby. she’d heard most of her life that she might never be able to have kids, down on ovary from her first accident and too much trauma to the other parts that it was highly unlikely. so when she did come home and was able to share the news with her husband, her world had felt better than ever. and then it all came crashing down in one afternoon and nothing has quite been the same since. is this the feeling of what jasper and raven had gone through all that time ago? she can’t imagine how they must have felt, she wants to ask raven questions, she wants to have jasper and simon talk but that would mean all of that is real and she doesn’t know how to handle it all right now. his questions, they hurt, she hurts thinking about it. her hand resting on her now flat stomach again and finally looking up at simon with watery eyes. “i haven’t thought about it much.” truth. “i don’t know if i want to try again.” truth. she does wonder if it’s hopeless, to having a family of her own. the discarded orphan unable to make her own family, that was the truth of her life lately. “do you even think we can?”

to say he was a little upset would be the truth, jaden couldn’t help but feel sorry for the younger girl on how she was acting. makes him wonder exactly what kind of other business this diner might be working. perhaps that’s the cynic in him, or the fiction writer always looking for deeper meanings and plots to things- likely she was just a young girl hitting on a patron for a better tip. “no, i think this last cup of coffee is it. the bill, please, is what you can get me.” he looks back up at her after closing the cover on his tablet and slipping the stylus into it’s place. “but you might want to cover up, please. you seem to be having a wardrobe issue, my dear. it’s unbecoming of someone as pretty as you, alright.” 

jay stops, turning to look over at his boyfriend with a smile. “we can talk about it now if you want. i kind of assumed it was this unspoken thing since i did say i wanted to marry you in the future.” he reaches over and runs his fingers through eli’s hair before bending over to kiss his forehead. soon, he thinks. as long as eli doesn’t say how much he doesn’t want to be married in the new few minutes at least. butterflies sit in jay’s stomach as he pulls his shirt on, crawling into bed next to the other. “put the ipad away, lets talk. yes, i want to marry you. i want to spend my life with you. the whole big dream. kids, a yard, a giant dog and a few cats.” 

he saw the confusion on her face and laughed a little, shaking his head. “my name’s jaden. i’m one of his older brothers.” holding his hand out in greeting for her to shake. he’s making it obvious he’s not looking at her chest, clearly she wants him to by how she’s bent over, flashing things at him. as beautiful as she is, he finds it disapointing she has to stoop to such levels to get attention. “i’m kind of here on a surprise, so if you could keep me being here a secret.” 

“seriously just, come on.” she grabs him by the arm and yanks him, wanting him to come with her. “just come into the back office or something, please. i just really really need to talk with you.” looking around quickly, she sees no one else and sighs. “isn’t that concierge guy usually here until like eight? he can cover the front desk for a few minutes.” she lets go of his arm to slip into the back office with the door cracked open, pacing around the room. she pays no mind to what’s in here or the cameras, just the swimming panic in her stomach. 

just as he was about to look around for someone to help him, a voice came from the side asking the question he just needed in that moment. “please,” he said softly, nudging the mug over before looking up at the owner of the flirtatious voice. surprised with how young she looked, jaden paused for a minute before giving her a smile in return. “thank you- hey, you don’t happen to know jonah do you?” 

she wasn’t thrilled about this talk, she wasn’t thrilled to have to tell him this at all. rational parts of her brain told her she should wait to talk to him about it at all until she’s sure about it but the panic of the situation has her running to daniel for support. “we need to talk, right now. take a break, whatever. i’ll fucking call finley myself but step away from the desk and come with me.” 

Tablet in hand, he’s hand editing his last draft before sending it off to his actual editor. He types everything and then does all his edits with red on the page in his handwriting. He finds he’s able to remember things better and make notes instead of just having the words changed. It’s helped with plot holes in his latest series at least. He’s not given up hope yet of seeing his little brother and the hotel is lonely anyway. He’s going to stay for at least another cup of coffee before leaving. 

She still worries that she’s going to lose this one too, while she’s past the first trimester now, just over 10 weeks, Raven had made it all the way to 20 weeks before and still lost their little girl. She paces the apartment these days, thinking, voicing worries aloud to Jasper when he’s around to listen. “I kind of want to tell everyone. But I also want to wait until I’m having the baby.” Likely not to happen, they know. They’ll start showing eventually and unable to hide it. “What do you think?”

“they’re fine,” gwen replied with a roll of her eyes. bleached hair tossed over her shoulder, she leaned in to whisper so their parents couldn’t quite hear the arguement taking place on the other side of the breakfast table. “have you seen him? he’s really hot, i wanted a taste of that.” she’s always wanted what ivy’s had, that’s clear now. a cheap imitation of the girl’s life. sort of. “look, they’re even fucking again, who cares. i made them stronger, you’re welcome for that.” leaned back in her chair, coffee cup in hand, gwen debates dumping in on sunni’s lap. “free sex tape for you, whatever. sell it, you’ll finally have your own money then. married into it this time, how pathetic of you.”

“My last surgery is next month, depending on how the physio continues.” Coming up next to him, she leans on the wall, arms bracing most of the weight to keep her legs from getting too tired too quickly. “But that’s only if we can’t get my hands to work they way they’re supposed to. I still can’t use my left one at all, most of the time. I have no grip anymore.” She lifts her hand sadly, before looking out again over the sky line and giving a brighter smile. “It’s such a nice day. What’s it now, a couple more weeks until the wedding? Are you exciting to be in it? How’s Fin doing?” She wants to ask how Elijah’s doing, but asking never got the answers out of him. He would just have to work himself into talking about it, make it feel natural for them both. She learned long ago not to ask him bit be open for it should he need anything. 

The days are getting closer to the wedding and the stress of it all was starting to weigh on the group of friends. With Jay working on the music, he was writing an original score for their first dance as a married couple, things have been crazy in his own life as well. He’s blessed with how Elijah was so supportive of this endevour, giving Jay the space and time he needs to work on this. It’s been a miracle to get Jay out of the house anyway, so it’s no small feat that he’s sitting at the diner having a real meal for the first time in days. “The wedding is so close, I honestly can’t wait until it’s over.”

A million fights with her sister later, Gwen was feeling a little less like a person and more like a punching bag these days. So she sought out the comfort of his arms lately, breaking all the rules she’d set for herself coming here. What’s so special about Daniel that he’s got such a power over her in the first place? Sitting behind the counter, she tunes the violin in her lap, drawing the strings as needed for sound. Quietly, as not to disturb those around her. “When are you off work? I’m bored.” 

“Hey, Bubba,” she said softly, moving to stand next to him and look out on the world below them. The world, that for the longest time, didn’t want either of them in it. Sometimes Malai wondered if the universe did all these things on purpose, to force the siblings out of the world.