Final chap!

54

Throughout the duration of the drive home from the movie house, and the walk from the car to their apartment, Harper's voice and pace flexed between a tentative speed and a skip at her mothers game of 20 questions. Despite her reassurance that she'd give this kid a chance, Alex was determined to find as many flaws as she could, to make the mental case she'd built against him stronger, but she was coming up short. Every time her daughter scrounged up an answer that worked in Jeremy's favor, she'd add a little bounce in her step, skipping until she reached the wide strides of the tall brunette. She linked her arm into that of her ma, working her, "baby of the family can do no wrong," charm. She leans into her mother, nuzzling into her side, Alex slips her arm around her shoulder.

As they walk in the door, the keys are hung as quietly as possible as Piper is sleeping on the couch. Alex leans an ear toward the crack of her son's door, listening for any sound that says he's awake before knocking, "J?"

She can hear the mattress of his bed rustle, as he adjusts his position, but he doesn't answer. "J?," she says again through the door, "are you okay?"

"No," he croaks.

"What's wrong? Can I come in?"

"I don't wanna talk about it," he says, muffled, as though his face is pressed against his pillow.

Harper watches the brunette stand outside his door, her hands are mounted on both sides of the frame in obvious distress that her son is hurting and he won't let her in. She doesn't ask again, but just waits to hear any other sound. After waiting for several minutes without a sound, she says she's here to talk, or sit and not talk, any hour of the night if he changes his mind. Later, well after midnight, after her mothers have retreated to their bedroom, Harper knocks on his door,

"Jamie...it's just me," she whispers. She frowns as she's ignored outside his door, until it cracks open. He assesses that there's no one else behind her waiting to check on him and trudges back to his bed. She steps in and quietly shuts the door behind her. She watches her brother climb into his bed, the case from his pillow is stained with tears, his back faces her. She doesn't need to ask if Lauren talked to him as his face reads clearly, and as she sits atop his bed, she decides, she hates her. Hates her for making her big brother cry, for not thinking about how he would feel if she went out with someone else, how she would've, could've, gotten away with going out on that date and never even told him.

"Did you break up?," she asks trying her best to mask the emotion behind her inquiry.

He lays face down, she can see the sweat on the side of his face, the heat from his tears and his comforter, behave like a steam. His shoulders jerk, a muffled sob is exhaled as he nods. Her hand finds the grooves between his scapulae and rubs in soothing circles. She knows she did the right thing in threatening Lauren to tell her brother, but seeing him ache like this still forced her to question.

"Should I have kept my mouth shut?," she asks him.

"With what?"

"Well I told her to tell you...or I would."

"How did you know?"

"I...saw her at the movies"

"You did?," he asks turning over.

"Yeah."

"What exactly did you see?"

"It doesn't matter, I just thought you had a right to know, I mean it's already bad enough..."

"No," he stops her fearing having to handle more details, "I'm glad I know. I mean I'm not but I wouldn't have wanted to find out later either."

"She said they didn't do anything," she tells him trying to offer his him some kind of consolation. "Did she at least tell you why?"

He shrugs again and shakes his head no, "but I also didn't give her much of a chance to talk." She nods in understanding.

"I just kind of said," his eyebrows wrinkle, she watches anger replace his pain, he continues bitterly, "I'm glad I was worth so much to her after all this time, that she couldn't be bothered to have a conversation with me first, and she said she was trying to now and I said well now you mean the same to me and... I hung up on her."

She looks around his bed and doesn't see his phone. "She didn't try to call you back?," she asks exasperated that this girl isn't on her knees begging for forgiveness.

"I don't care if she wants to talk to me, were done."

She eyes around his room and sees his phone on the floor by his desk, most likely having been hurled in frustration. She picks it up, and presses in Lauren's birthday to unlock it, knowing the code having spied over his shoulder countless times and sees a list of texts and missed calls from the slimy cheater.

"She texted you a million times," she tells him.

"I don't care Harper."

"Okay," she says and sets his phone on his desk. "Do you want me to get out?"

"It's up to you."

She curls her lip and mouths "okay" to herself. "I'll be right back, want anything from the kitchen?"

He hadnt realized until she mentioned food, that he hadn't eaten anything since lunch, "what're you getting?"

"I don't know what do you want?"

"Sandwich?"

"Okay."

She's returns with a few options of DVD's tucked into her side and two plates with sandwiches on them. She opens her arm to drop the DVD's on his bed so he can pick what he wants to watch and sits on the floor beside his bed. She passes a plated sandwich over her shoulder, "peanut butter's on the bottom."

Midway through their dinner, Piper turns to Jeremy, "so Harper said you're in a band?," she asks lightly, urging on the dinner conversation.

"Yeah, but were not like official or anything."

"Do you write your own songs or do covers, or..."

"We've written a couple, but mostly do rock covers, like Nirvana, Guns N' Roses, AC/DC."

"Well those are good choices," she taps her mute wife's ankle with her toe, pushing her to be more interactive "Alex, don't you think?"

"Yeah they're alright," she says dully, earning a glare from Harper, knowing those bands are in the regular rotation on her phone. She sees her daughter's look and musters up a follow up question, "what's your favorite song to cover?," she asks.

"I'd probably say Paul Mccartney's intro to 'Come Together' or Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust.' I get a solo, and everyone knows those songs, so everyone's pretty into it."

"Nice," she says genuinely and relaxes some.

"Yeah my parents are pretty into old school rock."

"He's named after Pearl Jam's 'Jeremy,'" Harper adds.

"Yeah? I'm named after the drummer fom Van Halen," she shares. "'Jeremy' is a little...dark, no?"

"Yeah I know, the first time I listened to the lyrics I thought to myself, 'okay my parents are freaks.'"

Alex stares at him intently, interested.

"They said they didn't use the name because of what the kid did, but why Pearl Jam wanted to write the song. They said you could choose to end your own life and make that your way out, but ultimately the situation doesn't change. Or what you should do is to choose to prove yourself, be stronger than other people and then come back from a bad outcome."

Her eyebrow raises and she allows an isolated confirmatory nod. "Ironic, I know. Slightly twilight zonish."

She snickers, "s'still dark." She sips her water, it's so cold she can feel it go all the way down. "You know Harper's named after..."

"To Kill a Mockingbird," he finishes.

She tries to fight her smirk but she can't help it, "oh so you can read?" Harper and Piper cut their eyes at her at the same time.

He feels his body tense, "it's a great book."

"So you've read it?"

"Last year," he swallows, prepared to be given shit for his shortcomings, "yes."

"Alex!...," Piper warns.

"Do you like to read?," she asks softening her tone.

"Yeah I do, I just find it... found it...," he quickly corrects himself as Alex manually makes a sweeping motion with her hand, indicating shes fucking with him, "harder to read on demand and have someone else guide my analysis. It's easier for me to go at my own will but it doesn't really work that way does it? So I had to adapt."

"Agreed, though the group analysis could be helpful because maybe other people discover things that you had read over," she offers, "but I get it, it's hard to just read a certain amount of the book when someone wants you to."

"Exactly," he says thankful that she seems to understand.

"Well," she pushes back from the table, and starts gathering some dishes, "Jeremy, it was nice talking to you."

Harper looks up at her trying to read if shes means it genuinely or sarcastically.

"And... you're welcome over anytime," she completes. As she he leaves the room, his head collapses on the table.

"She likes you," Harper tells him and rubs his head.

He whimpers.

Piper chuckles, "do you guys want dessert? We have ice cream, cake?"

"The biggest piece of cake I'm allowed to have," he says.

"You got it," she says and walks into the kitchen to find Alex, "see he's not so bad."

"No, he's perfectly fine there's nothing wrong with him."

"Then?," she raises a hand toward her wife's body language, "why are you sulking?" She lifts the cover to the cake and walks over to the drawer to grab a knife.

"Is there something wrong with me?"

"Why're you asking me that?"

"You just seem to be okay with them going through all these things I feel like... like I'm dying Pipes."

"You aren't dying. It's hard for me too sometimes, but I expect this to be part of it. They're doing what they're supposed to do." She cuts two pieces, one sizably larger than the other and plates them.

"I just feel like it's too much sometimes, that they're growing and they don't need me anymore."

"That's isn't true," Piper tells her rubbing her hand over the brunette's in comfort. She hands her the knife to lick off the frosting like she usually does.

She takes it, frowning, "isn't it though?"

"You always feel like you need your parents. You know that."

"But you can survive without them." She licks the knife.

"Yes, well...if you have to, if you don't have a choice." She recovers the cake, and lifts the plates walking out of the kitchen, but pauses, "I think if you get good ones, you feel like your life is enhanced by having them by your side. Don't count your self out. You're still needed very much."

After the kids somewhat savagely consume their cake, Harper asks if the two of them can go out for a walk.

After a while, the brunette makes her way down the hall, and stops in the doorway of Jamie's empty room. When the front door closes, it gets her attention but she refocuses on the space in front of her. She looks around his room it's relatively neat for him, but feels eerily empty.

Piper places her hand on her back. "It's quiet," Alex drones.

"They stepped out."

"To do what?"

"Just out. She asked if they could go for a walk."

"They just spent all evening together."

"Yeah with us?"

Alex turns her attention back to his room. Piper brushes the dark hair away from her wife's face, "I told her to be back in an hour."

She nods slightly, "I'm not gonna like coming home and having his room be empty like this all the time."

"He's not leaving tomorrow," Piper reminds her.

"But soon enough he'll be gone, Harper will be out all the time, the house will be so quiet," the corner of her lip dips down, "I feel bad for making fun of Holly now."

"I'll let her know you empathize now."

In their bedroom Alex lay back on their bed, listening to the deafening quiet of their apartment. She feels odd at this prospect, that if the house is quiet, her kids are out. Out, doing well, and that's the point isnt it? For them to do better than you? To meet people that enhance their lives, to go on to experience things that you may not have had a chance to. You hope that you've instilled enough good that they can leave their mark on the world. And yet it hurts so much because all of those things are things that you love and you want to hold onto, tight against your chest, forever.

Piper notes the melancholy emanating from her wife, "he's gonna come back for breaks Al, and he's just a car ride away, if we need to go to him sooner. It's going to be alright."

She stares at the ceiling, "he's just one of the people I'm the most proud of in the world, and he's leaving."

"He's leaving, temporarily, to be on his own, to learn new things, to open his mind to concepts that he hasn't had a chance to yet. You know it's the best thing for him, you just have to remind yourself that it's all just temporary."

The brunette quietly lies on their bed, her crossed arms cover her eyes, she tries not to focus on her loss but on her son's gain.

"Al?," Piper mutters from across the room. "Hmm?"

She comes from within the closet wearing a skimpy nurses uniform, "you know there's advantages to having the kids be out of the house right?"

"Like what?," she says still supine.

"Al?," her voice deepens, the brunette picks up on the sultry drawl.

Her neck bends to lean up, but when she catches sight of her wife she comes up onto her elbows, and smirks, "suddenly I'm feeling incredibly sick, like I might lose consciousness. I might need mouth to mouth." Piper slinks across the room, crawls atop her and kisses her with erratic passion.

At school the following day he manages to avoid Lauren where they normally pass each other in the halls, until they're forced to be in the same room for the one class a day that they share. He chooses a different seat than he normally does and at lunch sits with a different group of friends.

After school she goes to the fields hoping to get a chance to talk to him before practice but he doesn't go. She exhausts her attempts to contact him via cell phone, so she makes her way to their apartment, hoping she can convince him to at least hear her out. When his doorbell rings he hears her voice on the intercom,

"Jamie, please," her voice pleads to be let up. After a few moments, he hits the "listen" button again to see if she's still there. She can hear the static from the box, "I'll wait down here for you. I'll wait until you let me up, or you have to come down. I have nowhere to go." Her voice sounds strained with desperation he thinks and as mad as he is, at the thought of making her cry, he presses, "door."

He stands in the open doorway.

When she gets up the elevator she walks up to him somewhat timidly, "Jamie...", she starts, but the sight of her, recreates that bubbling anger, and he interrupts,

"in case you haven't caught on, I don't want to talk to you. I don't care what you have to say I'm not interested please just...go."

"Jamie, please? I just... I just want talk to you."

That voice. "There's nothing to say."

"I have plenty to say," she clarifies.

"Let me rephrase, there's nothing to say that will make me feel as good as I did before I found out that you were interested in someone else, alright?" For that moment he doesn't care that his voice is raised or that he's causing the tears to accumulate in her eyes. "I truly don't care what you have to say."

He can tell she wants to grab him, she wants to feel his arms around her, truly wants to forget what she did, what she was going to do, and yet she stands solidly and keeps her hands to herself. "Jamie, please just give me a chance..."

He can't take the pleading, "didn't I deserve a chance yesterday? To be explained that you don't want to see me anymore before I go and find out that you are a date with some other guy?!"

"Yes," her head nods dramatically while she takes a section to compose her voice, "But I never wanted to stop seeing you. I messed up. I shouldn't have gone there." She takes a deep breath, "Jamie it's so hard."

"What is? Being with me?"

"No," she looks at him as though he's lost his mind, "the thought of having to say goodbye to you."

"What are you talking about?"

"You're going to go away to school, and I'm happy for you, but you're going to meet all sorts of new girls who are smart and funny and pretty and I'm going to be here." The jealousy bleeds through her words despite her attempt to keep her face indifferent. "It's just, the long distance thing? Its hard and it doesn't usually work."

He can't believe she quit before they even tried, "it works if both people want it to work. I don't know why you didn't even consider coming with me."

"I want to stay close to my dad. It's just him and I now, and I need someone to look after him. I want to be close by."

"Did you tell him that that's the motivation for you not applying to schools that are further away?"

"I don't need to give him my reasons why I want to stay," she says defensively, "I feel like it's the right thing for me to do. But that doesn't mean that I don't want you to be able to go where you want to go. You're always so excited when you talk about going away to school, I don't want to hold you back."

"You wouldn't be holding me back from anything, Lauren. If you told me that this is how you felt I could have reassured you that I would be willing to do anything to make sure we stayed together."

"Could have?"

"I don't fucking know how I feel right now," he snaps at the injustice of his colliding emotions.

She nods understanding the implications of her actions, she tries to hold it together her body shakes with the sobs she keeps inside, "I don't want to break up."

"Maybe you should've thought about that before you went on a date with some other guy."

She takes a long time to say "I thought that maybe if I went out," she cant complete the sentence, say "with another person" out loud, "...it might make it easier when you left."

"You make it sound like I'm leaving the planet and I'm never coming back. You could've come up to visit me. I could've come back home to visit you. We could've Skyped or talked on the phone, every day, like we do now."

Her red cheeks are wet at the emphasis of all the could've's, but he continues.

"But I don't know if I want to put that effort in with someone who couldn't have been bothered to talk to me about what they were feeling. I mean what the fuck, we've been together for five years! I would've never done this to you!"

"I know! And I'm so sorry. I didn't want to hurt you, I was doing it just to see if I can make it hurt less for me. I know it was selfish, I don't...want to say goodbye."

Her hands brush her face clean, she wipes them on the thighs of her jeans but due to the repitition, they don't dry.

His hand stretches the fabric from his t-shirt and pulls up to wipe her face. He pulls her in close, she presses her face into his chest, relaxing some as his arms tighten around her body. Her body jerks with sobs, still upset but relieved at the contact.

"Try not to think of it as 'goodbye,' think of it as 'I'll see you later.'"

With a slight shrug of her shoulder, she nods into his chest. She looks up into his eyes, and tilts her chin up tentatively, unknowing. She wets her bottom lip with her tongue, he leans in and takes it between his own. They slowly make their way to relax in his room, and lay down on his bed as they've done after school for years. As she lays against the crook of his arm, he brushes his fingers through the length of her hair, drawing his fingertips from her shoulder, past her elbow, down to her wrist and back up again. His hand smoothly slips under the strap of her tank top, his palm completely covers her breast, he gently caresses it, eliciting a smile he's seen innumerably. She shuts her eyes, getting lost in the moment. She breathes deeply, memorizing the way his hand feels against her chest. He adjusts slowly, taking a position atop her, she removes his shirt over his head and places it on the bed beside them. As he leans down, pressing his chest against hers, her breathing quickens at the heat of his skin directly against her own. Perhaps it was the recent events that made them feel beholden toward one another, but they take their time, mouths exploring one another, as though they're each undiscovered territory. He's careful not to break their contact as he reaches over to the drawer of his nightstand. His hand wanders blindly, searching the full cardboard box. He withdraws his hand and rips the foil.

The evening before he leaves for school, Nicky comes over to wish him off. She hands him a book "College Survival Guide for Freshmen Year."

"Thanks aunt Nicky," he says flipping through it.

"I put some post-it notes in there," she tells him.

He nods, pausing to read one of her tips and starts to laugh, "does this mean I have your approval to drink again?," he asks pulling off the post-it that advises him to lay down a blanket to absorb the sound of a fallen ping pong ball.

"It's not so much approval, as it is encouragement to do stupid things in the smartest way possible." She stares at him for a moment and gets lost in his face, "I'm not saying 'where did the time go' or 'it feels like yesterday when blah blah blah,' because these last eighteen years have been long, trying to make sure your ear didn't fall off, or you didnt fall into a hole or somethin, but..." she turns to Alex, "remember when we used to clean that butt?"

"Oh," he whines with slight disgust.

Alex smiles, her eyes have been perpetually glassy for days, she nods.

"And now it's going to college."

His ma's smirk pulls across his face, its prideful and all knowing, as though there was never a doubt in his mind, that this would be his path.

"You be good okay? I know you wont mess up, ..." at the start of her words, she watches her best friend stand up, and raise a hand to excuse herself from the room.

Nicky looks back at him, and waves away the emotional brunette who disappeared toward the back of the apartment. "I know you worked really hard to get here, but your moms did too. You let them know if you need some help okay? Or me. Don't know how much help I'll be, but im here."

"I know aunt nicky."

A puff of air escapes from her mouth, in awe, "another College."

"You talkin smack about me?," Piper asks entering their living room from the back of the apartment.

"Not at all. Just telling College the Second here that I might need to start calling you Pipes. Less confusing."

"Ahh, I see. What is that?," she asks pointing to book confused, "I thought we packed all your books. I cant! This is never ending!"

He hands it over to her, "uh, I just got this, relax. I'll just put it in my backpack."

She reads the cover, "you gave this to him?" she asks Nicky with raised brow. "Why? So he can study for college?"

Nicky tongues the inside of her bottom lip, "yeah something like that."

"What's wrong with my book?," he asks his mother.

"Nothing sweetie."

"I gave your mom some shit when she first got to prison. We shared a room for a couple of days, I asked her what she did to get herself there and she told me that she read somewhere that you weren't supposed to ask people that. She freaking studied for prison," she chuckles while covering her eyes.

"What's wrong with that?," he asks.

She sighs with a wide smile, "nothing...I guess. she did alright. Better than alright, got out before I did."

Nicky eyeballs Piper, as she strokes her chin with slight shame.

"Your mom's of rare form, you don't see a lot of people with a collegiate background behind bars. You know, the kind of people who know everything, well... from a scholarly standpoint. Let's be honest here...," she says while swerving to miss Piper's shove, "which is reason number 87 as to why you're going, and you're gonna kick ass and keep your booty out of there, yeah?"

"Yeah. I'll make sure I put the blanket on the floor, stuff like that."

"That's right."

"Blanket on the floor?," Piper asks confused.

"Don't worry about it," Nicky brushes it off and drapes her arm around Jamie's waist. He leans down some to give her a proper hug and reassures her that he'll stay out of trouble.

They wake up before the sun comes up and pack Polly's borrowed SUV with all of his stuff. After a four hour drive, they check in on the first floor of his dorm, get his key, and head upstairs to check out his room. Every floor is filled with freshmen and their families, cleaning, lifting, organizing, introducing themselves, putting their insecure, friendliest feet forward. By the time they make it to his room, he's met five kids that live on his floor. His moms and sister each hold an armful of his belongings, while he sets his down and looks for his dorm key. They shuffle into his room and set down his things, when Piper's eyes go wide at the walls comprised of cinderblock. Her breath catches in her throat, her stomach feels hollow, her hand comes up to her stomach, her fingers claw at the fabric trying to placate the visceral nausea the image produces.

"Mom?," he asks.

"Yeah?," she whispers in a daze.

"Pipes?," Alex says louder.

"Yeah," she repeats at the same dull whisper. A hand finds the small of her back, and rouses her slightly. "Yes?," she focuses her wandering eyes on those of her wife, needing her to get her out of the room. Alex sees the panic in the blue eyes that plead, she eases Piper into a seated position on whats to be their son's extra long, standard, college issued mattress. She keeps a hand on Piper's thigh, and leans over to find their car keys. She tosses them to Harper,

"go rip open the pack of water and grab her bottle." Harper looks worriedly at Piper, who looks moments away from a full blown attack, "go!," the brunette urges.

The pace of Piper's breathing quickens, Alex places her hands on either side of the blonde's face, "Pipes? You're okay. Slow down."

But she cant, her head shakes back and forth, her quickened respirations continue. The brunette pinches her nose and mouth, "hold your breath, just for a second."

Piper's eyes go wide, as her air supply is cut off.

"Good, just look at me, everything else is background." She lets go, and breathes with Piper. Harper runs back in, opens the bottle and hands it to Alex. Once Piper's breathing becomes more regular she passes her the bottle.

She takes a sip and gulps it hard. She looks at her family, who all stare at her alarmed, "shit. I'm sorry."

"What the hell was that?," Jamie asks her, when it seemed as though her actions came out of nowhere.

She takes another sip of water, as Alex pushes off his bed and grips the nape of her neck, her elbow goes slack.

Piper chuckles to herself at the situation, she waves her hand behind her, "the walls," she bites her knuckle, "and the beds across from each other," she erupts in full blown hysterical laughter, "it reminds me of my prison cell."

Alex pushes her glasses ontop of her head and rubs her eyes, fighting the urge not to cry from being overwhelmed by what this day represents and now her wife's near nervous breakdown.

Jamie collapses on his roomates mattress and looks around and starts to laugh.

"We're paying seven thousand dollars a semester for a prison cell," her laughter continues. Harper still looks at her concerned, unsure how a person could go from strong, to requiring a padded room, to uproarious laughter, in a matter of five minutes.

Alex shuts his door, to which her son thanks her for her aide in his avoidance of being coined the floor weirdo.

Piper notices her daughter's discomfort, "hey," she says to grab her attention, "I'm good," she tells her reassuringly. "I think between talking to Nicky last night and then just seeing this wall, I just got a little overwhelmed."

"Can we get my stuff up here so it looks a little less like your prison cell? I have to sleep in here tonight."

Piper nods and stands up, and they all walk out of his room. She pulls back on Alex's arm, letting their kids walk up ahead of them, "thanks, she says finally acknowledging that Alex brought her back to the ground."

She brushes it off as though theres no need for thanks, "i havent exactly dealt well with the emotional chaos lately either. The table was due to turn."

Piper glances at her, "we're gonna be okay right? By the end of the day today, I'm gonna be able to drive home, without an asylum pitstop, yeah?"

Alex smirks, "yeah, were gonna have to. I don't have time to visit you in a straight jacket."

Piper leans her head on her shoulder, "I'm glad I have you."

She sighs and hooks a finger in Piper's pocket, "I'm glad we have each other kid," she says as they step outside, Harper and Jamie are leaning on Polly's car, waiting for one of them to unlock the door. They start what will be many trips back and forth until the car is empty and his room is full off mismatched bags and boxes. They maneuver around his roommate and his family, getting to know each other pretty well, as all 7 are cramped in the small space, both with entirely way too many things. Alex cleans while Piper helps him organize, Harper figures out locations to hang some of his posters and lights around the room to make it feel more like his space. After a full day, they follow him down the hill to his dining hall for a dinner that isn't half bad, picking slowly through it, to prolong the inevitable. The reality of a four hour drive back home, is what finally gets them to return the dining hall trays and start heading up to the parking lot.

"So you're gonna head up and get settled?," Alex asks him, she'd ask him anything to not have to get into the car just yet.

"Yeah for a bit, and then I gotta go down to soccer house, all the freshmen do. S'tradition."

"They're gonna haze you?," she turns to Piper, "they're gonna haze our son."

"They're not gonna haze me! Just give us a hard time, it's nothing dangerous, can you please not worry?"

"No, no I can't not worry. Unless youre home, I'm going to worry."

"You'll learn to not worry."

She rolls her eyes, as he has no idea, "can you at least call tonight when you get back from your non-dangerous hazing?"

"Yeah ma. Can you guys call me when you get home?"

"Mmm," Alex grunts.

"Yes baby, we'll call," Piper tells him and scoops him into a tight hug and holds on for a while. "Go out, okay?," she recedes and looks at him properly. "Anything that comes your way, you grab it. Stick to things that make you happy, but don't give up on the things that you find challenging."

"Okay mom."

"And please be careful and kind. And make sure you eat healthy, and go don't go to bed too late."

"Yeah mom, and I'll floss nightly and say my prayers, can you guys please trust that I'll be alright?"

She kisses his forehead and squeezes his shoulders, "love you."

"Can you make sure they actually call me when you guys make it home?," he asks Harper.

"Yeah I will, they'll forget."

"I know," he says, "and make sure they don't leave the keys in the door."

"Yep."

"Hey were not incompetent, just sometimes forgetful," Piper defends from behind the wheel.

Harper smiles at him, "I'm gonna miss you."

"I'll miss you too. You can come up on a weekend, just let me know when and I'll make sure there's good stuff going on."

"Yeah if they let me."

"They'll let you, well figure it out."

She nods, not quite ready to say goodbye, but tries to not let it show for the sake of their mothers. She hugs him quick, as he tells her, "take care of them."

"I will," and climbs in behind the passenger seat.

Alex keeps her eyes up, he sees them start to get glassy and gives her a hug, "ma, I swear ill be fine."

Her arms encase his head, she presses her chin into his hair, her tears finally fall. She hides her face amidst his hair.

His sounds are muffled from being suffocated, "and I'll see you in a little over a month okay? If you guys don't forget about family weekend."

"It's on all the calendars," she says, not lifting her head.

"Ma, I cant breathe."

"I don't care. You call everyday okay? Whether it's on the way to class or at night to recap your day."

"I'll try."

"Everyday!," she squeezes him harder.

"Uhhh," he releases, now actually semi-suffocated, "okay, everyday!" She lets him go, and squeezes his face in her hand. "I'm gonna tell Finn to make sure aunt Polly gives you so much crap about this."

"Go ahead, I'm a fuckin mess."

"Yes you are," he confirms. "You should probably go now...," his eyes are sad, "you know, before it gets any later."

She nods, "I love you."

He bites his lip and nods back.

She draws in her gasp, and anchors her foot into the pavement, as if shes about to have a tantrum, "you have to say it back!"

He tries to swallow the lump in his throat and waves to Piper, who's behind the wheel and Harper who's rolling down the window, exclaiming that they'll see him in a few weeks.

He hugs his ma one last time, and tells her "I love you too." He pushes her backward, making her sit in the passenger seat. He waits for her to plant her feet inside, before he shuts her door waves goodbye.

The End

A/N: so there it is for whoever's reading. Loved reposting. Ill be working on getting the Lost Chapters soon. There's only 8 or 9, but it's something!