Chapter Text
Two Years Later
Tim remembers dreaming, once.
A long time ago, when the future was so uncertain.
He remembers dreaming about laying in a bed by the sea with Lucy.
He remembers dreaming about little feet and happy giggles.
He remembers dreaming about love and happiness and laughter.
He remembers when he’d had that dream that he had hoped, desperately and with all of his heart, that it was something he would one day be able to actually have.
He remembers two years, three months, and a handful of weeks ago, when he hadn’t been brave enough to hope he would one day have this, his current reality, and he barely believes that he has it now.
He stares at Lucy, cradling their newborn to her chest as she feeds him a bottle. He watches as Eleanor toddles around the little cabin, dressed in only a diaper and the tutu she’d refused to take off even on the beach. He laughs as Kojo, the dog they’d raised from a bottle-fed puppy, follows Eleanor around, sniffing at her feet and hoping for snacks as she munches on a cracker.
He watches his family, and he feels ridiculously and utterly happy.
He remembers his dream, and he smiles as he stands up from the bed briefly to grab Eleanor around the waist. She giggles and flails her chubby toddler hands, and then curls against his naked chest as he lays down with Lucy and Oliver.
Lucy turns to him and smiles softly and Tim buries his head in Eleanor’s brown curls, too overcome to speak.
“I love you,” Lucy whispers, and Tim’s heart aches as he basks in the sunshine of their seaside cabin. The wind is blowing gently through the windows, and he can hear the sound of the waves crashing in the distance, the cries of the seagulls, and the echoes of laughter and happiness from other families on the beach.
He remembers how he’d been holding Eleanor when Lucy had gotten the news she was in remission.
He remembers the day they brought Eleanor home.
He remembers when Angela had told them that the embryo transfer had worked, and that his and Lucy’s baby was growing inside of her.
He remembers Oliver’s birth.
He remembers every moment, every second, that led him to where he is now.
He remembers all of the bright places in a time that had been so dark he’d almost lost hope.
“I love you, too,” he whispers, and he reaches out to gather his family into his arms.
I wonder in moments sometimes,
if my body were to leave this earth before
yours, where is it and in what tiny matter
of life would I be reborn into? What if I
was reborn inside the color of someone
else’s eyes? Would you feel me searching
for you across grains of soil and would
that give you the strength to carry your
eager toes to me and if you to happen to find
me, would a tiny fraction of me be enough
for you?
What if I was reborn in the curl of your smile
and every time your lips leaped across your cheeks
you felt the explosion of our love still madly
rippling inside me?
Would you smile then, and only then, just to feel
I am there?
Wherever it is that I am reborn, after death has
once stolen me from your arms,
I wish
and I hope
and I beg
that the universe will construct a way
to let us love each other
yet again.