The Santiago clan meet ups happened pretty often, and Jake really enjoyed those. He didn't have much of those big family gatherings being an only child of a single mother, but he had extended family like most people did. Though no members of his extended family had ever been the type who got together for big family meet ups. His family tree just wasn't one of those that had branches going all over the place with leaves and fruit and had get togethers with all of the seeds when they grew up. His family tree was more of a sapling with some few scraggly limbs and only got together when another was chopped down.

Not like the once a year meet up with grandparents, great grandparents, parents, kids, nieces, nephews, cousins, cousins twice removed and everybody else every major holiday.

Amy's family was one of those families.

And the two of them hung out with her brothers and their families pretty often where it was just the descendants from Amy's mom and dad, and those were always awesome. They always had a good time and it was just a Good Family Thing.

It was more of the extended family gatherings that intimidated Jake.

This would be his first one. Apparently they always had to have it at the same person's house because 99% of people's houses weren't big enough to accommodate the size. There was a good 50 people at the extended family meet ups, every time. By the next generation they'd have to start renting an event center because they were only multiplying.

Jake was glad these only happened once a year, cause he could not handle anymore than that.

Amy usually hated being around a lot of people, but turns out she just hated being around a lot of strangers. Being in a crowd of strangers was a death sentence for her. Being in a crowd of family members was another story. She might still get annoyed at overbearing relatives that pinched her cheeks after all these years, but she wasn't actually bothered by being around all of them at once. Family. She grew up with these huge gatherings with the same people. And only one or two people were ever added on in a single year- joining as a significant other or someone would bring a new baby.

Jake was usually good with people. And he was fine with being in a crowd of strangers. But being in a crowd of a single family (someone else's family- he'd never even been in a crowd of his own family) was not his forte.

But Amy picked up the slack. Introduced him to everybody, always kept her arm around his, so he wouldn't freak out trying to find her if she just suddenly disappeared. Which she didn't. Never disappeared at all.

She always had her hand on his shoulder, or his back, or their arms entangled so he wouldn't have to glance in her direction to make sure she was still there if he couldn't feel her at all times. But he could always feel her, and he was beyond thankful for that.

All of the Santiago clan was welcoming and accepting. He had never had his cheek pinched so many times in his life. In the first minute of ever meeting some of her family members way too many of them pinched his cheek when he was basically a total stranger. Just weird, but not bothersome (other than the pain). Plus, he always had a bit of a warning because Amy would either whisper in his ear when she recognized one of her cheek pincher relatives coming for them with a smile, or they'd go after Amy's cheek first and gave him a chance to prepare himself for another round.

("Sorry, it's a thing they do," she cringed with embarrassment. "I think my cheek's gonna be too sore to actually kiss you for the next couple days by the time this is through," Jake laughed.)

And then Amy's sister in law's would share about how overwhelmed they were the first time they came to a Santiago meet up. They also promised Jake that it got better after you were used to it.

He was totally going to have to work on his Spanish before the next one came around.

He wasn't the only boyfriend/girlfriend/fiance/spouse there that didn't know Spanish cause there were a couple others, but most of them had a good enough to get by understanding of the language. And every genetic Santiago was fluent in Spanish and English (except for a few cousins who only spoke broken English just as broken as Jake's Spanish was) but for the majority, the whole family was bilingual (though because there were so many members they had some relatives who had a knack for learning languages that knew a few more just cause population sampling of language gifts).

Jake had been reassured that apparently kids are made for learning languages, and that's why it wasn't any effort to teach babies to be bilingual cause their brains are made to soak up and naturally learn whatever languages their parents speak. And apparently your brain started sucking at learning languages the older you got, and even high schoolers and middle schoolers were way out of their league with toddlers, and adults were the freaking worst brain advantage wise. Of course, some adults were better than other adults cause of smarts and stuff, but Jake totally wasn't smart (at least not book-smart) and he took French in highschool and barely managed to scrape by because the teacher liked him. So he was sucky at languages even when he had an advantage over adults. And now he was sucky at an adult level too.

He wondered if he could get it down to a conversational level by next year's extended gathering.

But he wasn't good at learning even when he was motivated, so he was pretty sure it would be at least three or four years down the line until he could actually hold a conversation that had no English in it at all. Probably longer, to be honest. It wasn't like he hadn't tried to learn a bit before on his own, but it mostly went in one ear and out the other even when he gave and earnest attempt.

It was when he was thinking about the whole language barrier thing that he realized exactly what it meant. How big of a deal it was. He knew it would take at least three years of complete commitment for him to learn any language. And he was fine committing now to really trying to learn a whole language for the next three+ years. He wanted to make that commitment now.

Just learning Spanish wasn't the commitment, though. The commitment was that he was going to start learning now, so he could actually know it ASAP because he was going to spend the rest of his life around all these bilingual people whether he was actually bilingual or not.

The commitment part was more like knowing it would be worth it. No one was going to learn a language for a relationship if they had any reservations about that relationship working out, even a speck of doubt.

He wasn't going to wait to start seriously learning until he was secure enough in the relationship to use all that brain power required to learn a language. He wasn't going to wait because he was already secure as secure could be. He was going to be coming to these extended meet ups five years later, ten years later, fifteen years later. He was going to be coming to the Santiago family get togethers for the rest of his life, cause he was going to spend the rest of his life with Amy Santiago. He was going to marry her.

He was going to marry Amy Santiago.

Jake felt like the realization should have hit him harder than it did. But it wasn't really a revelation- more like a conscious acknowledgment. It wasn't a surprise to him.

He loved her. He really, really loved her. That wasn't a surprise at all. And that day, he was thinking that a good way to conceptualize that love was getting married. So it was kinda a big deal, but it kinda wasn't. It wasn't anything that he was nervous of anxious about. The excitement would probably hit him later on, but he wasn't even that worked up about it now. Of course he wanted to marry her. Duh he wanted to marry her.

It was sorta a big deal, but it was a natural, easy progression of gestures he did to show his love for her. It wasn't a thing he was scared of or intimidated by. It wasn't a startling revelation. It was just regular. He loved Amy Santiago and he wanted to marry her. That's all there was to it. He loved her.

It wasn't a huge symbolic commitment between boyfriends and girlfriends. It had nothing to do with boyfriends and girlfriends. It had nothing to do with any of that. It had everything to do with Jake and Amy. Only Jake and Amy.

It wasn't a boyfriends and girlfriends eventually get married after enough time sort of social rule thing.

It was just Jake and Amy.

Jake loved Amy, Amy loved Jake, they loved each other. She made him happy. He didn't want to get married because it was a next step sort of thing. He wanted to get married because being married to Amy would make him happy. Even happier than she already made him every single day. He loved her. Simple as that. No obligation, no rules. Just happiness.

At his internal monologue, Jake had to chuckle, shaking his head with a slight smile.

Amy tightened her arm around him. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, babe. Just lost in my thoughts. I love you," he murmured and kissed her on the temple.

"That's what I thought," she teased, laying her head against his shoulder.

Yup, Jake thought. This was the life.

Their life.

Together.

AN: Long time no see!
I'm pretty sure the next chapter after this will the last one. Then I can finally get started on that pregnancy fic I've been planning for about, oh, three years.
Though, I mean, I said I only had 2-5 chapters left in the author's note in chapter 16 when I made that promise (way back in 2015), and then here we are at chapter 29. Take it as you will.

-one of the reasons I've always stated that I have at least two chapters left every time I mentioned what I thought would be a conclusion of this fic is because I'd planned from the start that the second to last chapter would be Jake realizing he wanted to propose, and for the last chapter to be a proposal. Ta dah.
This realization chapter used to be completely different than the current version, though. Sorry for the wait-

Also, I love including all this nerdy psychology crap in my fics, and it's really evident in this chapter. I feel like I should apologize for all the brain and language shit in this update, but I shan't.

Hugs and kisses!