WRitten in — well, honestly written in 26 minutes because until 2:34 my brain refused to work so this isn’t exactly what I wanted, but close enough. Its done.

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Jason paused on the landing of the stairs, and as he’d done often in the last week, stood back and observed.

Scout sat on the sofa between Cameron and Danny, her hands clutched around a gray controller, her small brow furrowed. “And if I press this button and this one at the same time—”

“Yeah, that combination will activate the punch—” Cameron winced. “Okay, but without the  X, it’s just a punch to the air, so—”

Elizabeth emerged from the kitchen, a plate of cookies in her hands. “Okay, Aiden said these were better—”

“Since the last ones were black on the bottom—” Jake, sitting on the armchair sideways, his legs slung over the side and a sketch pad in his lap, leaned over to snag a cookie as his mother set them on the table. “We told you not to help, Mom.”

“That was not my fault,” Elizabeth huffed, then flicked Jake on the shoulder as she turned around, and spotted Jason. Instead of calling attention to him, she just smiled and came over to him. “Hey. Enjoying the quiet before we go to the Quartermaines tomorrow?”

Nothing about the house was quiet — Cameron hadn’t finished moving into the house around the corner yet so he and Jake were still sharing, and Danny hadn’t wanted Scout to be alone at the mansion anymore, so he’d dumped his things with Aiden. And then Elizabeth had insisted on a whirlwind twenty-four hours to redecorate Cameron’s bedroom to something more suited to a seven-year-old—

With four boys and one girl sharing the limited space, quiet wasn’t something Jason often found these days —

Or something he looked for.

He reached for Elizabeth’s hand and she came up the two steps to stand next to him. “No, just wondering how much longer they’ll all get along.”

“Don’t ask questions, just enjoy it for as long as we have it.” She leaned into his side. “Molly called while you were upstairs. The guardianship was approved by the court, and Drew cleaned out his office at Aurora.”

It had been little more than a formality, but with the holiday slow down, it had taken longer than expected to have the courts sign off on everything — it’d been the last loose end in the whole nightmare. It was over.

And yet—

“It feels strange,” Jason said, and she frowned at him. “Not that—it happened. This—it’s what I want. Being with you, having them together—all of this—” He paused, trying to find the right words. “I just—I don’t know. I didn’t expect it to come together so fast. I thought we’d be fighting Alexis for months. Or that Turner would force Danny to go to trial—but it’s over. And I didn’t—” He met her curious gaze. “I didn’t have to do much to make it happen.”

She smiled, then laced their fingers together again. “It must feel strange not to have to do the rescuing for a change.”

Jason made a face. “I don’t need to rescue people—”

“I know. But you’ve done it for so long, it’s hard to know how to react when you’re on the other hand.” She leaned up to kiss him briefly. “It must be hard to let everyone else save the day. It was our turn.”

“I guess. Or maybe I’m just surprised Carly didn’t make everything worse,” Jason admitted, and she laughed.

“No, not that hallway—” Danny tried to wrestle the controller from his sister. “You suck at this, and you’re gonna ruin the whole campaign—”

“You told me to hit that button—” Scout grunted, and tugged so hard that when Danny let go, it went flying and knocked Jake’s water glass over—sending the liquid casading onto Jake and his sketchpad.

He yelped, got to his feet. “Hey, watch it!”

Cameron dropped his controller, bored already with the game, and headed for the kitchen — where a few seconds later, Aiden yelped, “Don’t lick that! I’m not done with at spoon—”

“I guess the answer to your question was two minutes,” Elizabeth said, with a heavy sigh. “I’ll take the kitchen—”

“I’ve got this—” Jason gestured towards the trio, where cookies were now flying through the air.

“It was nice while it lasted,” Elizabeth said, backing into the kitchen with a grin. “But probably a good idea we didn’t have a dozen kids, right?” She turned back to the boys in the kitchen, where Cameron and Aiden were furiously fencing with a soup ladle and a chocolate-covered spoon.

Never a dull moment, Jason thought, snagging Danny’s hand before another water glass could go flying, and grabbing the tray of cookies with the other. A far cry from a year ago, when he’d been sitting in some dive bar in Malaysia, plotting another job to get him closer to Pikeman, to his freedom —

But there was nowhere else he’d rather be.

THE END

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