Epilogue

The familiar noise of Molly's was comforting to Connor Rhodes. He sat alone at the bar, tapping his fingers against the wood.

"What's up Doc?" Herrmann asked, "You've been taping away for a while now…" The firefighting bartender didn't miss much, Connor mused.

"I have a surprise for Sarah." Connor managed, "And I'm hoping it goes okay." The nerves in his stomach were worse than the night he had proposed eighteen months ago.

He just had to wait a little bit longer for his wife to finish her shift and he could get working on his surprise.

After a year of marriage, he didn't think he could fall anymore in love with her, but she surprised him every day. He swore the world got a little bit brighter the second she walked into the bar.

It didn't take her long to find him in the crowd, a beaming smile appeared on her face.

"Hey. Sorry I'm late." She said, taking the seat next to him and placing a welcome kiss on his cheek. He laughed to himself every time she did that. Something so simple had been the catalyst for everything. To him having to face up to his feelings about her, to letting someone in again, to him standing at the top of the aisle and watching her drift towards him like a vision.

"Hey, don't worry about it." He said, "How was your day?"

"Good. The new residents are just getting the swing of things. Beth and Alyssa wanted my opinion on a case so I got held up." She told him before ordering a drink.

The fellowship suited her. Despite the rockiness of her residency and the lack of relations with her team, Sarah's work life took a turn for the better when she was offered her fellowship. She had earned it and then earned the respect of her colleagues. After all her own doubts and the doubts of those around her, psychology suited her.

She took a sip while glancing over at him, "What?"

"Nothing." He said far too quickly, his wife was deceptive of people, but he was at the top of her list, she could read him like a book. Which was a good thing, he mused, no matter how much he would try to bottle things up or close off everyone, Sarah would know and she'd just be there for him until he was ready to open up.

It had taken time, for the two of them really, to become comfortable with the idea that someone could stay. Through everything, ups and downs, that they had someone that would stick by them.

"There's something." She smiled, "What's going on with your jitters?"

He should have known that he wouldn't be able to keep his surprise a secret for too long. She had known about his plans to propose before he did.

She had told him that she didn't want some public proposal, they had fallen in love together, away from everyone, and she wanted a proposal like that. And that was what happened, he carried the ring around with him for a week, before just deciding that he couldn't wait any longer and arriving at her door with the question on his tongue.

"Nothing."

"Uh huh." She nodded along, "Sure. You'll tell me eventually." She smirked, knowing full well that he would.

It was going to be their next step. But he couldn't tell her, he had to show her.

"How was your day?" She asked sweetly, changing the subject.

"It was productive. Busy. The new fellows aren't quite seeing eye to eye."

Sarah laughed, "Was it like déjà vu?

"Ava and I got along." He protested.

"After I cleared things up for you." She pointed out.

"Well these two aren't as amicable."

"Life was never going to be easy being an attending." She reminded him while she intertwined her fingers with hers, "But you got this, it's what you've worked for."

Perhaps that's why their relationship worked, Connor thought glancing at their joined hands. They were practically each other's biggest fans, they knew what it was like to be alone and lonely, and never let the other feel like that again and they both understood the pressures of their chosen careers without being too close in their fields.

Connor managed to keep both him and his wife distracted from his nerves from telling her about a complex case that he was working on until they both finished their drinks.

"I have a surprise for you." He admitted as they shrugged on their coats.

"Really?" Her eyes brightened.

"Yeah." He smiled.

"What is it?"

"I can't tell you or it wouldn't be a surprise." He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and she automatically wound her arm around the small of his back. It was times like this he never wanted to let her go. He could feel her laugh as he placed an absentminded kiss into her hair.

He led her to his car, "We have to go for a drive to get there though."

"So it's a place?" He could see how quick her mind was working to figure out what kind of surprise it was.

"Kind of?"

He started his car and started off. He drove for twenty minutes, taking turns that would take them in circles until he was sure that she would lose place of where they were going, in hopes that she wouldn't guess his surprise before seeing it.

He pulled up outside the empty house. It was shrouded in darkness. No one was home.

"Where are we?" Sarah asked, looking around the neighbourhood lit up by its street lights.

He was too nervous to smile much, suddenly worrying that she wouldn't like his idea. That he was being too obvious about just how much he had unknowingly fallen for her years ago. That she wouldn't like him making presumptions. He hoped she would like it.

"You'll see." He said and she followed his suit and got out of his car and he wordlessly took her hand and led her up the driveway.

"Connor?" She asked, apparently half way up the driveway she remembered exactly where she was. "What are we doing here?"

"What do you mean?" He didn't know why he bothered trying to feign his Rhodes' aloofness, she saw straight through it every time.

"Connor!" She laughed, tugging on his hand.

"Okay, okay." He smiled, pulling her close, wrapping a hand around the back of her neck to kiss her.

"Now you're just trying to distract me." She told him between kisses in the dark.

"I don't hear you complaining." He smirked as she laughed. Placing a final quick kiss on the corner of her mouth he reluctantly pulled himself away.

"Okay, this is my surprise." He handed her a small box, the same size box as her engagement ring had come in.

"What is it?" She took it from him, never taking her eyes off his.

"Open it."

She glanced between the small box in her hand and his eyes before lifting the lid. "It's a pair of keys." She stated.

"It is."

"For this house?"

"Exactly." He said and watched she wrapped her fingers around the pieces of metal.

"You bought this house?" Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

"I did."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"…Because…because when we were taking about buying a place together and all I could think of was this house…" He said, running a hand through his hair wondering how he was going to phrase this right.

"Because in the madness that my life had descended into, you were there. And this house…" he laughed "Do you have any idea of how much I wanted to buy it on the spot, the moment I saw the look in your eye all those years ago, I wanted to camp out here with you for the rest of my life and make room to get you a grand piano if you wanted and enough space for us to grow as a family and when it came on the market and…"

It was usually the other way around, usually his amazing wife was the one to go on a ramble and spill out words and it always was him that interrupted her train of thought with a kiss.

He found that he didn't mind it being her interrupting him.

"This is amazing Connor." She said with her arms around his neck while glancing between him and the house.

"So you like it?"

"I love it." She said, "And I love you too. Do you have any idea how much I've dreamed about us in a house like this? But to have this exact house? Connor it's amazing."

"I'm glad you think so."

"I can't believe it's been so long since we had that viewing here. That was the day I kissed your cheek and thought I had ruined everything!" She said. "I love this house."

They finally moved up the rest of the driveway and let themselves into their new home. As he wandered around the place, Sarah never letting go of his hand, he thought of just how far he had come.

His career was exceeding his own expectations, he owned a home in Chicago and he had Sarah.

And if he had learned anything in the past few years, it was that it didn't matter what life threw at him, at them. They weren't alone.

They could face it all together.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this little finale. Thank you so much to everyone who has read this story until the very end! And thank you so much for the amazing support along the way. I can't put into words how much it means to me that people read and enjoy my stories! Lots of love x