A/N: If you're reading this around the time I posted it, make sure you've read chapters 13 and 14 first. I posted the final three chapters on the same day.

Stephanie and Stella stayed in Trenton until a few days after I had the drain removed and was cleared to drive and return to work as long as I didn't do anything strenuous. We spent the time planning the logistics of the move and explaining what was happening to Stella. She had been elated to learn that she was going to live in the same house as her parents and both cats on a permanent basis. She had sat down with Boston and explained to him that they were going to live in Trenton and that it would be so much fun. Her good mood lasted until the next day, when she was looking out the front window and asked which house would be Katie's. When we explained that Katie would be staying in Indiana, she felt apart. She couldn't imagine a world where Katie wasn't her neighbor. After explaining that she could still talk to Katie on the phone and that there could be visits, she had calmed down, though her explanations to the cat had become a little sadder.

I convinced Stephanie that since she was moving to a new home, she should get a new car. She had chosen a Lexus SUV in silver because she said our cars didn't have to match. I had insisted she drive it back to Indiana because her Honda was nearly ten years old. The title to it was at her house, so once she moved back to Trenton, we would sell it. The Honda was currently sitting in my garage next to the Cayenne.

Something else had stayed behind in Trenton and that was Boston. It didn't make much sense to drag the cat back to Indiana for a month, just to bring it back to Trenton again. That hadn't made Stella happy either and she had been in tears as Stephanie had backed out of my drive.

The plan was for me to fly out to Indiana right before Christmas to spend the holiday with them. My mother was coming out the day after Christmas to spend a couple of days, then Stella would then fly back home with her while Stephanie and I stayed behind so that we could pack up the house and she could spend one last New Year's Eve with her best friend. There wasn't too much that would be coming to Trenton with us. My mother would check extra baggage on the flight back with Stella's clothes. That left us with packing up everything else and taking it back in Stephanie's car. What wasn't being taken to Trenton was being donated to a local domestic violence shelter. Katie would oversee the donation pick up after we left.

I enjoyed the Christmas holiday with Stephanie and Stella. It was nice to see the traditions they had together that would be carried over to our lives in Trenton. Katie had come over on Christmas day to watch Stella open her presents and to have dinner, since her parents had taken a cruise during the holiday. I knew she was happy for us, but I could tell it was hard for her. Katie didn't have any family left in Indiana, and the one she had found for herself was now leaving her too. Stella asked her at least twice a day if she could move to New Jersey as well. Katie told her she wasn't sure, but that she would definitely think about it.

My mother spent three days in Indiana with us, helping us pack and distracting Stella whenever she saw us put something she wanted to keep in the trash or the donation boxes, especially when she hadn't looked at it in a year and had forgotten it even existed. As we started packing up the house, we realized that Stephanie was bringing much more with her than we'd anticipated, to the point that there would be absolutely no way for us to pack it all in the car. We ultimately decided to rent a trailer to haul everything back, rather than risk shipping it and things getting broken or boxes getting lost.

We saw Stella and my mother off at the airport two days before the new year. The house was almost completely packed up except for the few necessities required for living there, which we would throw in a final box the night before we left. We spent the rest of the time disassembling any furniture that required it, deep cleaning any rooms that were now empty, and visiting with Katie. Katie told us that her parents had decided to sell the house now that Stephanie wouldn't be living there. I could see Katie's mood deteriorating the closer we got the new year.

Katie and Stephanie had a tradition of going out to dinner on New Year's Eve, then hanging out at Katie's house to ring in the new year since taking a baby to a bar wasn't allowed. They both said "You have a baby…in a bar…" at the same time when talking about it and laughed hysterically. I was later informed it was a line from a movie called Sweet Home Alabama. Since we wouldn't have a baby with us, we decided to go to Katie's favorite bar after dinner. We had gone to their favorite Italian restaurant, which was definitely not like the Italian restaurants of New Jersey and probably had Stephanie's ancestors rolling in their graves that their great-granddaughter would consider that place even remotely Italian. The bar was a much more interesting experience. It was a gay bar called Georgia's, which was hosting drag queen karaoke for the holiday. I had volunteered to be the designated driver since I wasn't interested in getting anywhere near drunk. Katie and Stephanie had tried to encourage me to have more, saying that we could just call a cab or an Uber, but I'd declined. Someone needed to be responsible, and I wasn't a responsible drunk. Well, it wasn't that I was irresponsible so much as I was just very horny when I was drunk, but being drunk turned me into a premature ejaculator, which was mortifying. Not that Stephanie would have cared, but I had a standard to uphold in my own head. I had never finished before she was satisfied yet, and I wasn't about to start now.

"That guy dressed like Dolly Parton was really good," Stephanie said in my ear as she signaled to the server for the server's attention. "Do you like Dolly Parton?"

"Who doesn't?"

Stephanie leaned into me, and I could tell she was already drunk. It was ten-thirty and she had just finished her second mojito. "She seems like she's so nice."

"Maybe you should drink some water and order something to eat before you get another mojito," I suggested. "Otherwise, I'm going to be carrying you out of here."

"Good idea," she said, picking up the small paper menu on our table. "What sounds good? Nothing healthy, obviously. So obviously you won't you eat it."

"I do know how to eat unhealthy things," I told her. "I just prefer to make it a rarity and not the base of my food pyramid like some people."

She laughed and showed the menu to Katie, who was almost as drunk as her and had been sitting very close with a woman she'd met almost immediately upon entering the bar.

"Cheese fries, definitely," Katie said. "I'm going to need to them. I'll right back," she told us and added in an exaggerated whisper. "Don't come looking for me." She headed off towards the back of the bar with the woman leading her by the hand.

"That's the bad thing about going to gay bars with her," Stephanie observed. "She gets to go off and have fun and I'm stuck out here."

"I'm here," I reminded her. "If you want fun, we go off and have our own."

"Oh yeah, I forgot," she said with a giggle. She was shit-faced, which I didn't feel too comfortable with considering she took medication.

I ordered cheese fries and a large glass of water for her, telling the server not to bring the third mojito that Stephanie had requested.

Someone dressed up like Dame Edna took the stage and started singing ZZ Top's She's A Bad Girl.

"I'm a bad girl, aren't I?" Stephanie asked seriously while she listening to the off-key singing.

"If you want to be," I said. "Do you need me to spank you?"

"Maybe later," she whispered. "See, I can talk about sex without being embarrassed when I'm drunk."

"I know, and it's an endearing part of your personality," I told her.

Katie had reappeared alone from whenever she had gone to by the time the cheese fries appeared. Her cheeks were pink, and she looked like she had enjoyed herself back there.

"Thank God, I'm starving," she said. She put several fries in her mouth and savored them. "She was intense, but I'm not complaining."

I managed to keep Stephanie from ordering another drink until about eleven-thirty, and I tried to convince her to go with something with a lower alcohol content. She and Katie decided to order martinis and were finishing them off by the time the countdown started and glasses of champagne were being delivered around the room. Stephanie and I kissed as the clock struck midnight and Katie had been grabbed by a drunk guy nearby to ring in the new year. We stayed for a few more minutes until they had finished their glasses of champagne and then headed out.

"Take me home and fuck me, please," Stephanie said in my ear as she leaned heavily against me.

"Babe, I doubt you'll be awake by the time we get home. But if you are, then I promise I will."

I got them loaded into the car and we drove the twenty-five minute drive back to their neighborhood.

"I can't wait to go to bed," Katie said. "I'm so tired."

Stephanie kept yawning, but shaking her head and sitting up straighter in her seat every time it happened.

"Why do you keep doing that?" Katie asked her. "You look like a dog that just came in from the rain."

"I have to stay awake if I want to get laid when I get home," she replied in a conspiratorial whisper. "You-know-who said I have to be awake."

I couldn't help but laugh. I hadn't seen Stephanie this drunk before, and it was a new experience. When she had too much wine, she fell asleep, but I hadn't been out with her when she had been drunk on liquor. She had once told me she was an animal when she got liquored up, but the only animal I had imagined her referencing was an unconscious sloth.

We dropped Katie off at her house and I waited until she had gotten inside her door and closed it before backing out to go to Stephanie's. I pulled into the garage and shut the door.

"Yeah, I made it," Stephanie said, pulling me across the console to kiss me.

"Yes, you did," I said. "Push your seat all the way back and recline it."

"What?" she asked, but eventually found the buttons on the side of her seat. I pushed my own seat back and climbed across the center console to be on top of her.

"Oh wow. We're going to christen my car," she said excitedly as I worked on unbuttoning her pants.

"Exactly," I said. Once I had her pants off, I lifted her hips so that her feet were resting on dashboard. I worked on getting my own pants lowered and fulfilled my promise to her. It wasn't our usual flavor, but she had asked me to fuck her and that was exactly what it was.

"We need to do this every week," Stephanie told me as we recovered. "Literally, just like this."

"I'm not sure the shocks in the car can handle it that often," I replied as I pulled up my pants. "But it was very, very fun."

We had disassembled her bed the night before, so we had to sleep on the mattress on the floor. We had barely gotten in there and undressed before she was begging me for another round.

"Babe, I don't think I have it in me," I told her. "I'm not twenty-one anymore, and that was especially intense."

After a few more minutes of pleading, I went down on her and that seemed to satisfy her enough to go sleep. I was awake by six the next morning loading the last couple of boxes into the trailer. The only thing left in the house was Stephanie's travel bag. I made a coffee run and dropped a cup off to Katie, who answered the door still wearing her clothes from the bar.

"If you still want to go to breakfast before we leave, you need to get ready. I'm going to get Stephanie up now," I told her. She nodded and headed back into the house.

"Rise and shine," I said as I nudged Stephanie. "I brought coffee and told Katie to start getting ready. I want to be on the road by ten."

"Oh my God," Stephanie moaned. "You're so mean."

I was outside getting the trailer hooked up to the car while Stephanie and Katie got ready. We would be leaving straight from the restaurant. Both women stumbled out of their respective houses around eight-fifteen and I followed Katie to a diner a few minutes away.

Stephanie had French toast and bacon while Katie ordered a little bit of everything. I had an omelet and toast. I didn't say much as Katie and Stephanie talked. Both of them had points where they almost started to cry, but held it together.

"What are you going to do?" Stephanie asked her as we walked outside an hour later.

Katie shrugged. "I don't know. I think I want to get out of Indiana, but I'm not sure where I'd go."

"New Jersey has nurse practitioners too," Stephanie said. "I'm sure they need one somewhere."

"After all the shit you've talked about New Jersey, you think I want to come there?" Katie asked, laughing. But her laughter turned to crying as we reached our vehicles. She and Stephanie both cried while they hugged each other and talked about how much they would miss one another.

"Thank you for everything," Stephanie said to her as they pulled away. "Really. I couldn't have done this without you."

Katie shook her head as she wiped her nose. "Yes, you could have. It's just more fun to have someone with you."

I hugged Katie as well. "Thank you," I told her. "You did more than you know."

"I know she can take herself, but don't make her feel like she has to do it all on her own," she said. "She's not great at letting people help her."

Stephanie was tearful as we drove away, and I pulled onto the interstate for the last trip between Fort Wayne, Indiana and Trenton, New Jersey.

"It has been almost five years ago exactly since I showed up here," Stephanie commented as we passed Lutheran Hospital. "It has been a hell of a ride."

I reached over and held her hand. "I know. This place is always going to be important to us. Stella was born here. That's no small thing."

Stephanie fell asleep as we crossed into Ohio and didn't wake up even when I stopped to put gas in the car and buy a bottle of water. She was still hungover and emotional from saying goodbye to Katie and the life she had built for herself in Fort Wayne. But I knew she was happy with the choice she had made and that we would be happy together in Trenton. It made me think about her wanting another child someday. Maybe things would be just fine, and she would have a healthy pregnancy and we would have another beautiful child. But I still couldn't stop worrying about the what-ifs of it all. I told myself it wasn't a question that needed answered today and focused on the drive.

"Where are we?" Stephanie asked when she woke up. She started digging through her bag and pulled out a bottle of Advil.

"About twenty minutes outside of Pittsburgh," I told her. She grabbed the water and took two tablets with a long drink.

"Don't let me get that drunk again," she said. "This is the worst hangover."

"I tried to stop you," I told her. "If you'd kept drinking at your own pace, you would probably still be passed out."

Stephanie offered to take over, but I told her I was fine to drive the rest of the way. I wasn't as confident as she was that she had her faculties back in place. We pulled into the driveway at home at nine-thirty that night. Stella had tried to wait up for us, but she had fallen asleep on the couch watching a movie with my mother. We left the trailer to be unloaded in the morning. I had expected my mother would stay another night but she had wanted to get home and left by ten. We got Stella into her own bed and headed to the master bedroom with our travel bags.

"I need a shower," Stephanie said as she started to undress. I spent the time she was showering unpacking both bags and getting ready for bed. The cats were both on the bed wanting my attention, so when Stephanie came out of the bathroom in her pajamas twenty minutes later, it was to find me under a layer of felines.

"I guess no one missed me," she said as she climbed into bed and was ignored by both cats.

"I missed you," I said.

"You've been with me for over a week."

"Yes, but I missed you when you weren't here, and I wasn't there. And now I won't have to miss you anymore."

She scooted close to me, and I pushed the cats away so that I could roll over and hold her.

"Welcome home, babe," I said.

"It's good to be back," she whispered, and I knew she meant it.

Two years later…

"You're a loud eater," I commented to our six-day-old son, Matthew, as he fed on Stephanie's right breast.

"Stella was too," she said. "I don't know why. I think's he has a stuffy nose. She always had one as a baby."

We were sitting up in bed at three in the morning for what had become an easy routine. I would get him when he cried and bring him to Stephanie so she could feed him, then I changed him and got him back to sleep so that she could get as much sleep as possible.

His birth had not gone the way Stephanie had expected and I had hoped. Stephanie's joke was that she didn't choose the chaotic life, the chaotic life chose her. I wished the chaotic life knew when to take a fucking vacation.

Stephanie had been picking Stella up from her last day of kindergarten before the winter break last week when she had slipped on ice and fallen. She had landed on her ass, and thought she was fine at first with just some pain in her bad hip. But within an hour had started bleeding heavily and having pain in her abdomen. She had left Stella with a neighbor and called me from the back of the ambulance. Tank had already run into the conference room and pulled me out of a meeting to tell me about the 911 call to my house, so I was already in my car and headed towards the hospital by the time she called.

She had suffered a placental abruption from the fall and the baby needed to be delivered immediately by emergency caesarean. Her obstetrician's office was thankfully connected to the hospital, and the doctor had run through the building to get scrubbed in. Because it was an emergency surgery, I wasn't allowed to be in the room. I was told that the baby would be taken straight to the NICU after it was delivered due to Stephanie being five weeks out from her due date. I had also been informed that if the bleeding couldn't be stopped, Stephanie would need to have her uterus removed. I told the doctor to do whatever was best for both of them, and paced the hallway in the Labor and Delivery unit, twisting my wedding band around my finger. I had decided to wait to call our families before I had news because their anxiety wouldn't make anything better.

An hour into the surgery, a doctor came out and introduced himself at the resident over the NICU. He had said the baby was doing well and had been delivered within minutes of Stephanie being put under. He wasn't needing oxygen, but they were running some tests to make sure there were no other problems before deciding whether to keep him in the unit or letting him come into the postpartum room with Stephanie. I was given a wrist band that had an ID number and Stephanie's name. I was told not to remove it while they were still in the hospital because it was proof that the baby belonged to us and the nurses would compare our bands to his every time he left our presence. After what felt like an eternity, the obstetrician came out to talk to me.

"Stephanie's in recovery," she said. "But I couldn't stop the bleeding, so I had to perform a partial hysterectomy to remove her uterus and fallopian tubes. She's going to need blood transfusions and will be here at least a couple of days, but she should make a full recovery."

I nearly cried as I thanked the doctor and was told Stephanie would be moved to her room in a little while. A nurse from the NICU came out to tell me that my son was doing very well and that the doctor was releasing him from the NICU. I was shown to a room and told to wait for Stephanie and the baby to be wheeled in. Matthew had been brought in and the nurse confirmed our bands matched before she left us alone. I sat in a chair holding him, amazed that I had helped make something so tiny. He had only weighed five pounds and worried that I might squeeze him too hard. He looked exactly like Stella had in the newborn pictures I had seen of her. Stephanie had been brought in half an hour later, still a little groggy from the anesthesia, but much more alert once she saw the baby. She had cried and apologized for not being more careful when she got out of her car, but the nurse and I both reassured her that it wasn't her fault.

Helen brought Stella to the hospital the next day to meet her baby brother. Having been traumatized enough by ambulances and hospitals in her short life, she had refused to get out of the car and sobbed that she didn't want her mother and baby brother to die. I had gone to the car and reassured her that Stephanie and the baby were fine. She hadn't believed me until she got into the room and saw for herself.

We had been worried about how she might feel about having to share attention after spending six years as an only child, but she adored Matthew and enjoyed being helpful around the house. Stephanie had been released from the hospital on Christmas Eve, allowing us to be home for the holiday.

"At least he's a really good baby," Stephanie commented as she put him on her shoulder and patted his back. "Maybe after such a dramatic entrance to the world, he's realized everything else is pretty easy."

I took him from her and changed his diaper. He was already falling asleep before I finished getting his clothes back on.

"You know, now that I'm a few days passed the whole scary event, I'm looking forward to my uterus-free life," Stephanie said once I had put the baby back in his bed.

"Are you?"

"No more periods, no need for birth control. Yeah, it's sounding pretty good," she said. "We got another baby before it left, so that's all I wanted."

I kissed her. "I'll let you keep the enthusiasm," I said. "I still can't sleep without remembering Tank telling me you had called 911."

"You'll be okay," she said. "We're fine. We're healthy, and we're all home together."

"Hopefully I'll be in better shape by the time I go back to work in February," I said as I turned out the light.

I watched Stephanie as she quickly went back to sleep, clutching a small pillow to her abdomen. She knew I'd been struggling with anxiety since Matthew's birth, but she didn't know how bad it was. I hadn't been able to stop thinking about her dying. When I slept I would have dreams that she hadn't survived surgery, or that someone would come into the office where she worked and shoot her. I kept reminding myself that she would be okay, but it wasn't helping. I had called my doctor earlier that day to set up an appointment for later in the week. I was going to need something to help me relax.

I knew it would get better, and one day we would tell him all about the day he was born. Stephanie would undoubtedly embellish and try to make it sound funny because she always knew how to find something good within the scary stuff. I had little doubt that Stella would be the type of big sister who would help take care of him and tell off anyone who tried to hurt him, but would also throw him under the first available bus when she needed to cover her own ass at home. I knew I wanted to be the type of father he needed from the start to ensure he grew up knowing what it meant to be a good man. I didn't want him to believe he had to suppress his feelings or act like he didn't have any to be respected in the world. I had lived my life like that for too long and knew the cost.

"Stop worrying," Stephanie whispered. How she could tell I was awake when my back was to her and I hadn't moved was beyond me, but I relaxed when I felt her hand on my back.

"I will," I promised. And I always kept my promises.

A/N: This has been my absolute favorite story to write by far. It was hard to not want to keep writing about them, but I wanted to leave them here. Still healing, still laughing, and still loving. Thank you to all of you who followed me and put up with the two-and-a-half years it took me to finish this. I already have more stories in my head, but I don't think they'll be as angsty.