Hey there, it's been a long year or two, not really sure how long I've been gone. Not really sure if I'm back either. I've gone through some serious changes in this time away, and I just really felt like writing. So here goes nothing. I don't own The Foster's, we all know that.

Finally, Now and Forever.

"Who's this?" Those are the two words that started a million mile long relationship. That caused every wall I had to crumble, with me sitting there with cement trying relentlessly to build it back up. I knew even then, even in that tiny moment with the fat lip and black eye that I was home. And no, I didn't mean in the Foster's household, I meant in that one particular Foster's heart.

It was a rough start to say the least, his girlfriend, high school, the moms, and the family that I had slowly come to view as my own. When it came time for adoption I was already eighteen, and for that we were both grateful. He went to Julliard, I attended UCLA. And even though we were thousands of miles apart, we could have never been closer. Phone calls were made every night, with us still whispering like we were meeting in the kitchen back home.

The first time he said 'I love you' I wept and hung up the phone before I could ruin the moment, I guess in reality I already had. I sat in the bathroom of my dorm room watching his face pop up repeatedly on the screen as he tried to backpedal. Tried to take back the three words that made my heart constrict, I guess this was it for us. It was literally now or never.

I chose now. He chose never. I guess I should have picked up the phone.

Talya, that name still made me cringe. For two years in our college education I had to watch them kiss, touch, hug. To say that it broke my heart would be an understatement. That's why I stopped coming home. I should have said the words back to him, I should have answered his call. My heart constricted, my chest got tight, and I couldn't breathe every time I thought of them, but then, in the soft moment of the early morning light, when I heard the melodies coming from his bedroom. When I let my eyes rest on the six string sitting by the edge of my bed, did I remember, it was us. It would always be us.

I guess this is where things start to change, because right now it's four in the morning on July 17, 2020. The summer before our senior year of college, when I hear him on the phone, arguing with her yet again. I slip my legs out from under the blanket and stand on shaky legs. The doorknob is cool to the touch but I recoil my hand back like it had burned me anyway. Once again the mantra repeats in my head, it's now or never.

I choose now, I sure hope he doesn't choose never.

I didn't bother knocking on his door since it was left open. He sat on the edge of the bed, legs splayed open, elbows resting on his knees, on hand held up his head the other held the phone to his ear. A floorboard creaked under my weight as I watched his head snap up. The half smile we had come to give each other formed on his lips. I gave it right back.

I continued walking into his room, closing the door behind me, turning the lock in the deafening silence. He had grown into a man, someone that makes your mouth water with desire. I walked to him slowly, hearing Talya scream into the phone, asking him if he was even listening to her. Climbing onto his lap, my legs straddling his, with his hands coming up to hold me up by my bottom, that's when I knew he had chosen now as well.

"I gotta go." He said into the phone, tossing it onto his nightstand. Those words forever changed my life as well. For this night, was the night I gave myself to Brandon Foster: The love of my life.

I woke the next morning with his shirt on and his arm curled around my stomach, holding me as close to him as humanly possible. I felt the kisses on the back of my neck, and heard the others awake and running around the house. As if nothing was going on behind B's locked bedroom door. I turned to him, smiling, and immediately he kissed my lips hungrily.

"I've been dying to hold you like this for years." He whispered. I nodded the affirmative.

"We have to tell them." I said, running my fingers through his hair, lightly scratching his scalp, rubbing my leg against his. I heard his mumble his agreement, as he kissed my neck. I sighed, and pulled myself away from him. Collecting my clothing and putting it on over his shirt. I walked to the window, opened it and climbed out onto the ledge.

"Meet me in the living room in an hour." I whispered to him, before smiling once more at him and walking to my bedroom window a few steps over. Normally, this is the point where I would be freaking out, and planning to run, but this time… We are both 21 and consenting adults. We followed every rule, tried to make things not work between us. There's always been an unspoken agreement, an invisible line, and last night we crossed it. When I land on my bed again, I see the text messages from him. The three words that haven't been said in years.

I type back to him quickly, and get ready to shower. Today was going to be a long day.

"Hey Stef, Lena?" I call into the kitchen as I run down the stairs.

"In here." Is the reply I get from the both of them, one from the living room, and the other from the kitchen porch. I laugh to myself. After all this time, things haven't changed.

"Lena, can you come into the living room. I have something I want to talk to you about." I feel him behind me before I hear him speak.

"We." He says "We, have something to talk to you about." Lena makes her way into the kitchen giving us a look that screams she knows what is going on. But smiles at us anyway and follows us. She sits near her wife, Brandon and I stand there looking at each other, and then back at them. I start.

"Brandon and I have decided that we want to, that we need to, that we have to." I sigh.

"What she means is that I love her. And I have since I was sixteen years old. I have tried, we have tried, to date other people, to get over whatever this is between us. We never broke the rules while she was a foster kid in your care. Hell, we didn't even breach a line until a few years ago when I told her I loved her and she hung up on me. Still scared that she would lose her family, but no matter what you say today, I have decided that I love this girl right here. I will do anything to be with her." He had turned to me, taking my hands in his and looking deep into my eyes.

"Yeah." I nod my head, his thumb comes up to wipe away the tears that have escaped my eyes, not the first time, nor will it be the last time that he repeats this motion. He rests his hand on my cheek, stepping closer to me, his head bending down and mine leaning up, his lips capture mine softly, tenderly, and we hear footsteps running down the stairs. A shout from Jesus to Mariana, and then to Jude who starts to clap. I drown them out, and focus on him, on my constant, on the one thing that made me decide to stay. We break apart, chests heaving with red lips and cheeks. We turn to look at our moms, not really knowing what to expect.

Stef is the first one to speak, mainly because Lena is crying into her shoulder. "Thank god." Is all she says. And then she hugs us. I finally feel completely at home.

The next year of college is a hard one, but one I wouldn't return for anything. Flights were taken every weekend, me to New York. Him back home to California. Both of us back home to each other. In May of 2021 we graduate, him a week before me, with a Bachelor of Music, which sounds sophisticated. And I graduated with a major is humanities and a minor in psych. We returned home after my graduation, sitting at the table with our moms, and our siblings. Hands clutching onto each other on top of the dining table, discussing where we would live, arguing was more like it. There were job opportunities in each state, and some in between. In the end he moved back home, because the next day on a drive to the school where I would be working, was a small house. A three bedroom on a cul-de-sac, white with blue shutters, just like the one I lived in before my mother died. And there on the front lawn was a for sale sign.

Living together was easy, sharing a room was easy, falling in love was easy. Everything was easy between Brandon and myself. Until the day I came home from work, kicked my shoes off in the entrance, and heard a barking from the living room. Rolling my eyes I walked through the doorway, pulling my hair up as I go. And there, in the middle of the floor was a yellow lab with a bright green ribbon tied around his neck. He was laying on a small piece of paper.

I cried when I read the words, and cried even harder still when Brandon came into the room with our family.

"Well, will you?" he said. I nodded, and cried harder still when he slipped the diamond ring onto my finger.

We were married on July 17, 2023 in the backyard of our childhood home. It was a small and intimate wedding, he played a song he wrote for me as his vows, I told him that I trusted and loved him.

This is what life is supposed to be about. Surrounded by the ones you love, loved by the ones who you are lucky enough to find. All my life I considered myself unlucky, until I landed at the Foster's.

"By the power vested in me by the State of California, I now pronounce you husband and wife."

This time it wasn't now or never, it was finally now and forever.