I’m Blue, But I Wont Be Blue Always
Title: I’m Blue, But I Wont Be Blue Always
Author: flowersforchuck
Rating: PG-13
Summery: Ch-ch-ch-changes. Pons and Medulla ‘vers.
Characters: LuRe, OC’s, Ethan
Disclaimer: Don’t own them; never have, never will.
A/N: Written for Fun Fic Friday. My little piece of fluff went sad really quick. It meandered quite a bit too. Unbetaed, so it’s riddled with mistakes.
“It’s not what it looks like.” Luke knew it was stupid to say, but it was the first thing that popped out of his mouth when Reid walked in, and he was already cringing when Reid clutched at his heart dramatically.
“Oh, thank God! For a minute I thought that was a pony.” The over-the-top dramatics done with, Reid’s face of horror morphed to his usual cut-the-bullshit look as his eyes latched onto Luke. “So tell me, Mr. Snyder, what exactly am I looking at?”
Luke scratched absently behind his ear and sighed, “It’s a pony. But, Reid…”
Reid held up a hand. “Unless you say you’re ‘watching it for a friend’, I don’t care. We agreed.”
“I know, but look at him. He’s a Welsh Mountain Pony…gelded.” Luke hurriedly added. “Dad knew his owner, and the guy’s going through a divorce and isn’t able to keep him anymore. He said this pony was gentle as a lamb, great with kid, and when I saw him I just knew. Isn’t he beautiful?”
Luke broke eye contact with Reid to gaze at the palomino pony. His coat was a medium gold that made his white mane and tail stand out beautifully. His front legs had half-cannon markings, while the back left had a stocking. Luke smiled and held out his hand for the pony to nuzzle at, and it gave Reid a better angle to look at his face.
Reid barely glanced at him before rubbing a hand over his face and dropped down onto a bail of hay. “We agreed that when she was eight...”
Frustrated, Luke snapped, “It’s two months. What’s the big deal?”
“You mean besides the fact it looks like we’re caving? She’ll be unbearable if we give it to her early. She’ll just stamp her foot twice as hard the next time she wants something.”
Luke picked up a brush and started working it over the pony’s coat. “Well, I’m not taking him back. He’s ours now. I’m keeping him.” It came out harsher then what he wanted, and now Reid was looking at him, trying to make it add up.
Because he was Reid it didn’t take long. “Is this about Beth or about the baby?”
Luke didn’t pause his strokes, but realized he was pressing his lips together and quickly released them. Reid knew all his tells. “Mom took the kids to the park and out for dinner; they’ll probably be back soon.”
“Well then we need to hurry.” Reid whipped out his cell and dialed. “Hey, how’d you like to make $50? Drop whatever you’re doing and get your ass over here.” Reid didn’t wait for an answer and hung up.
Luke paused his brushing and asked, “Who’d you call?”
Reid got off the bale and brushed off his ass. “Your brother. We’ll need his help if we’re going to get this thing out of here.”
Luke was incredulous. “Seriously?”
“Yep, and when May 30th gets here we can bring him back.”
Luke shook his head but didn’t try to talk Reid out of it. He was too tired to fight.
It wasn’t long before Ethan pulled up, and before Luke knew it Beth’s pony and all it’s paraphernalia had been loaded up. They decided to keep him at the farm for the time being, then move him to another of Holden’s friends until Beth’s birthday.
One month ago Luke went with Holden to look at a prospective pony for Beth, and later he met up with Reid at the hospital for Katie’s ultrasound. That was the day they were going to find out if the kids were going to get a brother or sister. They weren’t going to get either. He was a boy.
The first few hours Luke was numb. He spent part of it taking turns holding Katie until Chris showed up, and at least a half-an-hour sitting in the hospital parking garage in Reid's car. David was barley two and not yet cognitive enough to understand what had happened. Beth was though, and neither one of them wanted to go home and explain it to her.
In the end, Reid was the one to lay out the hard truths while he held their crying daughter, and wished desperately that he didn’t have to hear it again.
After that night there was a shift in Beth. At least that’s what Luke told himself. The fact was time had changed Beth. She wasn’t the adorably precocious, chubby faced girly-girl from two years ago. Well, she was still precocious, but at almost eight she was taller and leaner; almost gangly. The golden blond curls had morphed to a auburn blond that was stick straight, and to Luke’s dismay, never looked brushed.
Pink and purple still dotted her wardrobe, but it was intermixed with other colors like orange and black. Her favorite shirt was black with a white skull and crossbones, topped with a sparkly pink bow on the front. Luke was speechless when she shoved it into his hand while Reid just rolled his eyes. Not because he particularly hated it, but because it was so un-Beth. She picked it out herself, and it was the first, in what would be many steps that she would take to claim her independence from them, and it scared the crap out of Luke.
Ethan finished helping him set up the pony into one of the Snyder stalls, and Luke hugged his brother tight in thanks. He turned 17 in December. One more year of high school and he’d be off to college like Natalie. Reluctantly, Luke let him go, and silently marveled at how tall he had grown.
“Don’t worry about it, Luke. I’ll be out to feed them before school in the morning, Okay?”
“Yeah, Ethan, thanks again.”
Luke gave him a reassuring smile and started home to Reid and the kids.
“Daddy!” David squealed in delight when he walked through the door, and knocked down the foam castle he was building to get to Luke.
“Hey, buddy. Glad to see me?” David gave him a slobbery kiss in response, and Luke laughed because his heart was filled with joy. That joy was short lived when he heard Beth and Reid arguing.
“Why not?!”
Luke flinched at her volume. Everything she seemed to say lately came out in a yell.
“You know why not.”
“But Jamison lives closer to school!”
“This isn’t a discussion.”
Another thing that made him nervous for the future was Reid and Beth’s relationship. The two had butted heads since she could talk, but at the end of the day she was always his little girl. He was usually the one she ran to first when hurt or scared. He was the one who could quiet her down as a baby.
Almost eight years later and Luke still hated to think about those first few months with her. When Beth was born, Luke was finishing his last two classes to earn his B.A. in English, and because he was still in school, Reid took point for the first six weeks of child rearing.
It shouldn’t have been such a big thing, but it was what Luke blamed when he realized the bond the two shared. When he realized he felt left out.
“Jesus Christ, Luke! She was like a goldfish at that age; she forgot who I was as soon as I was out of her line of sight!”
“Then explain to me why she always wants you; why she always reaches for you? I feel like a nanny to my own daughter. But then she’s not really mine is she?”
Luke flinched at the memory. He spent years being Noah’s doormat, years drinking to feel less like a failure and a freak, but that moment was his lowest. He was jealous of Reid. He was jealous of Beth.
After his shameful outburst things got better, not right away, but gradually. It helped that Reid backed off. Before, when Beth cried or even made a noise at night, Reid would be the first out of bed to change her, feed her, rock her, or sing to her. Sometime he did all of the above.
When they found their groove, found what worked, and shared responsibilities they decided it was time to shove that responsibility off on someone else. Mainly, Luke’s extended family who was chomping at the bit to spend time with their newest member.
They need that time alone together, and It was amazing how many orgasms one person could have in six hours.
In time everything balanced out, and they finally felt like a family, Luke didn’t think he could be happier.
More shouting brought him back to the present, and both he and David were shocked that it was coming from Reid.
“You know what? Fine! If you don’t want to practice you can go straight to bed!”
“Dad!”
“Nah-uh. Your choice, kiddo.”
“Fine! The piano’s stupid anyway!”
There was stomping, then a door slamming, and Luke looked at David’s stunned face before the toddler grinned back at him and slapped Luke on the cheek. He was able to block a second blow and re-placed David among his blocks.
He found Reid in the kitchen eating directly out of the ice cream container. An activity strictly prohibited by Reid himself. His lip curled when he saw Luke, and pointed a drippy spoon in his direction. “You! You wanted to give her a pony? The way she’s acting I’m not sure we should give it to her at all.”
There were moments, like the one he was in right now, that he wondered if it wouldn’t be best for everyone involved if he fled with David the second Beth hit puberty. The thoughts were fleeting, and he knew that whatever was going to happen between clashing father and daughter, Luke would be in the middle trying to broker peace. He glanced back briefly at David, and the phrase ‘but who will think of the children?’, flashed in his mind which caused him to giggle.
“It’s not funny. Like I’m going to let her spend a school night at a friend’s?! Oh, especially one named after a whiskey!” Reid placed the tub of ice cream on the counter and stabbed at it with the spoon, and muttered, “She drives me crazy.”
Reid usually ended that sentence with, ‘and you want another one.’ Its absence was like a neon sign.
Luke opened his mouth to confess. When he said, ‘It’s not what it looks like’, he didn’t mean it wasn’t a pony, but that it wasn’t a bribe. Either way, it was a lie because it was a bribe shaped pony. He wanted Beth to be happy again. Luke wanted to be happy again.
Reid didn’t let him get any of it out before he threw both the half eaten ice cream and spoon into the sink. He brushed a kiss to Luke’s temple and scooped up David. “I’ll put Medulla to bed. Why don’t you go take a shower; you smell like a barn.”
Luke sighed, salvaged the ice cream from the sink, and made his way upstairs. He stopped by Beth’s door and knocked. He didn’t wait for a response before walking in to find her cutting out miss-proportioned paper dolls.
“He’s being unfair.”
“Rules are rules, Beth.”
“They’re stupid.” Luke crawled into bed next to her, and she immediately crinkled her nose and looked at him accusingly. “Did you go riding today?”
Luke stilled himself, he didn’t scratch at his neck or suck in his lips. “No. I helped out Uncle Ethan for a couple hours at the farm.”
She still eyed him suspiciously, but the sound of Reid singing to David drifted down to them, and she let it go. “He doesn’t sing to me anymore.”
She looked so sad that Luke pulled her in close. “To be fair, baby, you asked him to stop. Said you were too old for lullabies.”
She sniffed into his shoulder and grunted in response. He sat with her until he was sure she was asleep. Carefully, he tucked her in, and peeked in on David, who was snoozing peacefully.
Reid had beaten him to the shower, and after a moment’s hesitation, Luke shucked his clothes and slipped in behind him.
Luke was surprised to see Reid’s eyes bloodshot when he turned to him. He didn’t even try to hide what he was feeling, and brokenly confessed, “I feel like she’s punishing me for something.”
Luke pulled him in, Reid tucked his head into the crook of Luke’s neck, and Luke rubbed circles onto his back while Reid’s body shook with his sobs. “She not. Not really, I think she’s just confused.”
It didn’t last long, it never did with Reid, before he was pulling back and washing his tear off under the spray.
Looking far more composed then Luke felt he replied, “Then that makes two of us. Why does it feel so fucking different this time?”
Katie was implanted with three embryos on the first attempt, none of which took. They switch to two on their second and got Beth. Attempt number three, Katie miscarried seven weeks in. It was sad and disappointing, but David soon followed.
There were a lot of differences. Convincing Reid was an arduous task. Katie was getting older. Beth was more conscious of what was going on, and while not completely on board at first, she seemed to warm to the idea.
“If it’s a girl can we name her Glitter!?”
Reid handed him the bar of soap, and Luke shrugged. “It just is.”
Reid sighed and stepped out, grabbing his blue towel, and started to dry off. “It just feels like everything is changing at once.”
Luke didn’t know what to say to that because he felt the same. Reid left the bathroom and Luke finished cleaning up.
When he got out, Reid wasn’t in the bedroom. He figured he was in his office, and thought about leaving him alone, but Luke’s tired. He wanted to sleep, but he wasn’t about to try unless Reid was beside him. Not that night.
He headed down the hall, and was surprised to hear Reid's voice drift from Beth’s room. Luke made his way to the door and leaned against the jamb to listen.
“‘Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn’t approve of imagination.’”
Reid emphasized the last line, and lifted an eye in Beth’s direction. She giggled and reached a hand up to pinch his nose. “Was Mr. Dursley based on you, Daddy?”
Reid mock growled, “Why I ought’a...”, and pounced tickling her under her armpits.
Luke smiled as he watched. Things hadn’t changed suddenly. They were constantly changing, subtly shifting like the foundation below them. It was just that they were both more vulnerable to it at the moment.
Luke moved and leaned against the wall of the hallway. He sighed in relief. Things weren’t great, but they were going to be okay.
Beth and David were going to grow up. They were going to fight with Luke and Reid, they were going to rely on them less and less, but it was okay. When the time came that they did end up needing their parents, they’d be ready. And if that time never came? That would be okay too; Luke and Reid would always have each other.
Author: flowersforchuck
Rating: PG-13
Summery: Ch-ch-ch-changes. Pons and Medulla ‘vers.
Characters: LuRe, OC’s, Ethan
Disclaimer: Don’t own them; never have, never will.
A/N: Written for Fun Fic Friday. My little piece of fluff went sad really quick. It meandered quite a bit too. Unbetaed, so it’s riddled with mistakes.
“It’s not what it looks like.” Luke knew it was stupid to say, but it was the first thing that popped out of his mouth when Reid walked in, and he was already cringing when Reid clutched at his heart dramatically.
“Oh, thank God! For a minute I thought that was a pony.” The over-the-top dramatics done with, Reid’s face of horror morphed to his usual cut-the-bullshit look as his eyes latched onto Luke. “So tell me, Mr. Snyder, what exactly am I looking at?”
Luke scratched absently behind his ear and sighed, “It’s a pony. But, Reid…”
Reid held up a hand. “Unless you say you’re ‘watching it for a friend’, I don’t care. We agreed.”
“I know, but look at him. He’s a Welsh Mountain Pony…gelded.” Luke hurriedly added. “Dad knew his owner, and the guy’s going through a divorce and isn’t able to keep him anymore. He said this pony was gentle as a lamb, great with kid, and when I saw him I just knew. Isn’t he beautiful?”
Luke broke eye contact with Reid to gaze at the palomino pony. His coat was a medium gold that made his white mane and tail stand out beautifully. His front legs had half-cannon markings, while the back left had a stocking. Luke smiled and held out his hand for the pony to nuzzle at, and it gave Reid a better angle to look at his face.
Reid barely glanced at him before rubbing a hand over his face and dropped down onto a bail of hay. “We agreed that when she was eight...”
Frustrated, Luke snapped, “It’s two months. What’s the big deal?”
“You mean besides the fact it looks like we’re caving? She’ll be unbearable if we give it to her early. She’ll just stamp her foot twice as hard the next time she wants something.”
Luke picked up a brush and started working it over the pony’s coat. “Well, I’m not taking him back. He’s ours now. I’m keeping him.” It came out harsher then what he wanted, and now Reid was looking at him, trying to make it add up.
Because he was Reid it didn’t take long. “Is this about Beth or about the baby?”
Luke didn’t pause his strokes, but realized he was pressing his lips together and quickly released them. Reid knew all his tells. “Mom took the kids to the park and out for dinner; they’ll probably be back soon.”
“Well then we need to hurry.” Reid whipped out his cell and dialed. “Hey, how’d you like to make $50? Drop whatever you’re doing and get your ass over here.” Reid didn’t wait for an answer and hung up.
Luke paused his brushing and asked, “Who’d you call?”
Reid got off the bale and brushed off his ass. “Your brother. We’ll need his help if we’re going to get this thing out of here.”
Luke was incredulous. “Seriously?”
“Yep, and when May 30th gets here we can bring him back.”
Luke shook his head but didn’t try to talk Reid out of it. He was too tired to fight.
It wasn’t long before Ethan pulled up, and before Luke knew it Beth’s pony and all it’s paraphernalia had been loaded up. They decided to keep him at the farm for the time being, then move him to another of Holden’s friends until Beth’s birthday.
One month ago Luke went with Holden to look at a prospective pony for Beth, and later he met up with Reid at the hospital for Katie’s ultrasound. That was the day they were going to find out if the kids were going to get a brother or sister. They weren’t going to get either. He was a boy.
The first few hours Luke was numb. He spent part of it taking turns holding Katie until Chris showed up, and at least a half-an-hour sitting in the hospital parking garage in Reid's car. David was barley two and not yet cognitive enough to understand what had happened. Beth was though, and neither one of them wanted to go home and explain it to her.
In the end, Reid was the one to lay out the hard truths while he held their crying daughter, and wished desperately that he didn’t have to hear it again.
After that night there was a shift in Beth. At least that’s what Luke told himself. The fact was time had changed Beth. She wasn’t the adorably precocious, chubby faced girly-girl from two years ago. Well, she was still precocious, but at almost eight she was taller and leaner; almost gangly. The golden blond curls had morphed to a auburn blond that was stick straight, and to Luke’s dismay, never looked brushed.
Pink and purple still dotted her wardrobe, but it was intermixed with other colors like orange and black. Her favorite shirt was black with a white skull and crossbones, topped with a sparkly pink bow on the front. Luke was speechless when she shoved it into his hand while Reid just rolled his eyes. Not because he particularly hated it, but because it was so un-Beth. She picked it out herself, and it was the first, in what would be many steps that she would take to claim her independence from them, and it scared the crap out of Luke.
Ethan finished helping him set up the pony into one of the Snyder stalls, and Luke hugged his brother tight in thanks. He turned 17 in December. One more year of high school and he’d be off to college like Natalie. Reluctantly, Luke let him go, and silently marveled at how tall he had grown.
“Don’t worry about it, Luke. I’ll be out to feed them before school in the morning, Okay?”
“Yeah, Ethan, thanks again.”
Luke gave him a reassuring smile and started home to Reid and the kids.
“Daddy!” David squealed in delight when he walked through the door, and knocked down the foam castle he was building to get to Luke.
“Hey, buddy. Glad to see me?” David gave him a slobbery kiss in response, and Luke laughed because his heart was filled with joy. That joy was short lived when he heard Beth and Reid arguing.
“Why not?!”
Luke flinched at her volume. Everything she seemed to say lately came out in a yell.
“You know why not.”
“But Jamison lives closer to school!”
“This isn’t a discussion.”
Another thing that made him nervous for the future was Reid and Beth’s relationship. The two had butted heads since she could talk, but at the end of the day she was always his little girl. He was usually the one she ran to first when hurt or scared. He was the one who could quiet her down as a baby.
Almost eight years later and Luke still hated to think about those first few months with her. When Beth was born, Luke was finishing his last two classes to earn his B.A. in English, and because he was still in school, Reid took point for the first six weeks of child rearing.
It shouldn’t have been such a big thing, but it was what Luke blamed when he realized the bond the two shared. When he realized he felt left out.
“Jesus Christ, Luke! She was like a goldfish at that age; she forgot who I was as soon as I was out of her line of sight!”
“Then explain to me why she always wants you; why she always reaches for you? I feel like a nanny to my own daughter. But then she’s not really mine is she?”
Luke flinched at the memory. He spent years being Noah’s doormat, years drinking to feel less like a failure and a freak, but that moment was his lowest. He was jealous of Reid. He was jealous of Beth.
After his shameful outburst things got better, not right away, but gradually. It helped that Reid backed off. Before, when Beth cried or even made a noise at night, Reid would be the first out of bed to change her, feed her, rock her, or sing to her. Sometime he did all of the above.
When they found their groove, found what worked, and shared responsibilities they decided it was time to shove that responsibility off on someone else. Mainly, Luke’s extended family who was chomping at the bit to spend time with their newest member.
They need that time alone together, and It was amazing how many orgasms one person could have in six hours.
In time everything balanced out, and they finally felt like a family, Luke didn’t think he could be happier.
More shouting brought him back to the present, and both he and David were shocked that it was coming from Reid.
“You know what? Fine! If you don’t want to practice you can go straight to bed!”
“Dad!”
“Nah-uh. Your choice, kiddo.”
“Fine! The piano’s stupid anyway!”
There was stomping, then a door slamming, and Luke looked at David’s stunned face before the toddler grinned back at him and slapped Luke on the cheek. He was able to block a second blow and re-placed David among his blocks.
He found Reid in the kitchen eating directly out of the ice cream container. An activity strictly prohibited by Reid himself. His lip curled when he saw Luke, and pointed a drippy spoon in his direction. “You! You wanted to give her a pony? The way she’s acting I’m not sure we should give it to her at all.”
There were moments, like the one he was in right now, that he wondered if it wouldn’t be best for everyone involved if he fled with David the second Beth hit puberty. The thoughts were fleeting, and he knew that whatever was going to happen between clashing father and daughter, Luke would be in the middle trying to broker peace. He glanced back briefly at David, and the phrase ‘but who will think of the children?’, flashed in his mind which caused him to giggle.
“It’s not funny. Like I’m going to let her spend a school night at a friend’s?! Oh, especially one named after a whiskey!” Reid placed the tub of ice cream on the counter and stabbed at it with the spoon, and muttered, “She drives me crazy.”
Reid usually ended that sentence with, ‘and you want another one.’ Its absence was like a neon sign.
Luke opened his mouth to confess. When he said, ‘It’s not what it looks like’, he didn’t mean it wasn’t a pony, but that it wasn’t a bribe. Either way, it was a lie because it was a bribe shaped pony. He wanted Beth to be happy again. Luke wanted to be happy again.
Reid didn’t let him get any of it out before he threw both the half eaten ice cream and spoon into the sink. He brushed a kiss to Luke’s temple and scooped up David. “I’ll put Medulla to bed. Why don’t you go take a shower; you smell like a barn.”
Luke sighed, salvaged the ice cream from the sink, and made his way upstairs. He stopped by Beth’s door and knocked. He didn’t wait for a response before walking in to find her cutting out miss-proportioned paper dolls.
“He’s being unfair.”
“Rules are rules, Beth.”
“They’re stupid.” Luke crawled into bed next to her, and she immediately crinkled her nose and looked at him accusingly. “Did you go riding today?”
Luke stilled himself, he didn’t scratch at his neck or suck in his lips. “No. I helped out Uncle Ethan for a couple hours at the farm.”
She still eyed him suspiciously, but the sound of Reid singing to David drifted down to them, and she let it go. “He doesn’t sing to me anymore.”
She looked so sad that Luke pulled her in close. “To be fair, baby, you asked him to stop. Said you were too old for lullabies.”
She sniffed into his shoulder and grunted in response. He sat with her until he was sure she was asleep. Carefully, he tucked her in, and peeked in on David, who was snoozing peacefully.
Reid had beaten him to the shower, and after a moment’s hesitation, Luke shucked his clothes and slipped in behind him.
Luke was surprised to see Reid’s eyes bloodshot when he turned to him. He didn’t even try to hide what he was feeling, and brokenly confessed, “I feel like she’s punishing me for something.”
Luke pulled him in, Reid tucked his head into the crook of Luke’s neck, and Luke rubbed circles onto his back while Reid’s body shook with his sobs. “She not. Not really, I think she’s just confused.”
It didn’t last long, it never did with Reid, before he was pulling back and washing his tear off under the spray.
Looking far more composed then Luke felt he replied, “Then that makes two of us. Why does it feel so fucking different this time?”
Katie was implanted with three embryos on the first attempt, none of which took. They switch to two on their second and got Beth. Attempt number three, Katie miscarried seven weeks in. It was sad and disappointing, but David soon followed.
There were a lot of differences. Convincing Reid was an arduous task. Katie was getting older. Beth was more conscious of what was going on, and while not completely on board at first, she seemed to warm to the idea.
“If it’s a girl can we name her Glitter!?”
Reid handed him the bar of soap, and Luke shrugged. “It just is.”
Reid sighed and stepped out, grabbing his blue towel, and started to dry off. “It just feels like everything is changing at once.”
Luke didn’t know what to say to that because he felt the same. Reid left the bathroom and Luke finished cleaning up.
When he got out, Reid wasn’t in the bedroom. He figured he was in his office, and thought about leaving him alone, but Luke’s tired. He wanted to sleep, but he wasn’t about to try unless Reid was beside him. Not that night.
He headed down the hall, and was surprised to hear Reid's voice drift from Beth’s room. Luke made his way to the door and leaned against the jamb to listen.
“‘Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn’t approve of imagination.’”
Reid emphasized the last line, and lifted an eye in Beth’s direction. She giggled and reached a hand up to pinch his nose. “Was Mr. Dursley based on you, Daddy?”
Reid mock growled, “Why I ought’a...”, and pounced tickling her under her armpits.
Luke smiled as he watched. Things hadn’t changed suddenly. They were constantly changing, subtly shifting like the foundation below them. It was just that they were both more vulnerable to it at the moment.
Luke moved and leaned against the wall of the hallway. He sighed in relief. Things weren’t great, but they were going to be okay.
Beth and David were going to grow up. They were going to fight with Luke and Reid, they were going to rely on them less and less, but it was okay. When the time came that they did end up needing their parents, they’d be ready. And if that time never came? That would be okay too; Luke and Reid would always have each other.