[Samuel x Roman]

a l l i s o n​

Allison couldn't really focus on much for the rest of the day. She held the last part of the class and waited until the girls' parents came to pick them up and explained the situation to them so they'd know why their children were mildly traumatized. After the class, she made sure to call their original teacher to tell her what had happened and after that, she finally headed home.

She updated her parents on what had happened, they were of course just as worried as her about their niece, and also gave her some hugs for dealing well with the situation. Allison wasn't a little kid anymore but she was still very close to her parent and it was nice to have people like them recognize when she managed to do something.

It wasn't all that long after she had arrived home she got a call from her uncles though, telling her that Letha wanted her to come over. Allison was out the door without hesitation and as happy she lived so closeby. She entered the Hemlock-Ortega house without knocking, Samuel said hello and directed her to the living room where she found Letha.

Allison carefully sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders, but didn't squeeze her too hard to avoid hurting her, "How are you feeling?"
 
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"Sore," Letha mumbled, but the smallest of smiles met her lips as she saw her cousin enter the room. "The doctor said I'm going to be in a cast for a few weeks, which sucks, because I won't be able to dance until it gets better."

That was the worst part of all of this. She knew she was going to be in pain and everything would be difficult for her to do. But to not be able to dance ... it was going to made her so upset. She loved to dance more than anything else in the world, so the idea of not being able to do it, even for a short period of time, was terrifying.

But Letha just sighed and pushed it out of her mind. She didn't want to be upset while Allison was here. She wanted to enjoy her time with her cousin as much as she could.

"I'm sorry if the other girls were upset when I left, I hope it didn't ruin the lesson."
 
a l l i s o n​

"Well we were all a little worried about you, but we powered on and finished the lesson," Allison said with a soft smile. Letha truly was a little angels, or the most kindhearted of princesses, she had broken her arm and was the most concerned about practice not being ruined. Even if it had been completely ruined Allison would have probably said it wasn't just to make Letha happy, "a couple of the girls sat down and watched but we still went through the choreography a couple of times,"

She moved his hand and gave Letha's lovely golden hair a little pet. It was so sad that she wouldn't get to dance in a while, but hopefully the break wasn't to bad and she'd be back in the studio withing a month, even if she had to be careful. Still that was a lot of time not practicing. She'd definitely get behind with the choreography the group was doing but...

"You know Letha, if you want while you're arm is healing I can come ver and we can do some practice at home, nothing crazy that could hurt you, It'll just be such a shame if you don't get to practice at all, and if we take it easy and your daddies allow it I'm sure we could figure something out,"
 
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When Allison suggested they find some way for her to still dance while she was healing, Letha lit up with happiness. That was one of the best things she had ever heard. Letha absolutely hated the idea of not being able to dance for an extended period of time -- this would cure that and it would make it easier for her to heal without having to worry that she would never dance again.

"That would be amazing, thank you so much, Allison," Letha said with a pure and sweet tone to her pretty voice. God, she loved her cousin. She loved everything about Allison so, so much.

Letha leaned into her side, a way for her to hug her older cousin without moving her arm and causing herself more pain. "Do you want to stay and watch the movie with me?" Letha offered sweetly. Because if she was hurting, she knew having her cousin there with her would help her feel a thousand times better.
 
a l l i s o n​

"Of course, Letha!" Allison said with a smile, " I don't have anything today anyway so it all works out well,"

Allison was of course incredibly happy to just hang out with her sweet little cousin to make her feel better, but truth to be told she felt like she owed it to her. Letha had been on her watch when she got hurt and as much as she knew it wasn't really her fault she felt like she could have prevented it maybe. She could have made sure the girls stood with more space between each other or payed more attention of something. So the least she could do was watch a movie with her.

"What do you want to watch? You call the shots, that's like the one upside to getting hurt or feeling bad," alisson said and gave Letha a very gentle nudge, "you can totally take advantage of the situation and get a bunch of stuff you want," she said this, but she also felt like Letha wasn't all that likely to take advantage of that more than any other kid, maybe ask for ice cream and extra affection from her daddies and siblings.
 
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Letha wasn't the type of person to take advantage of the situation even if she was the one who was suffering. She just wasn't like that. She didn't want other people to have to suffer just because she was, too. But if Allison wanted to stay and watch a movie with her then she certainly didn't have a problem with that at all.

"Well, I was watching Moana, but I was only watching that because Daddy put it on and he was watching with me. I kinda wanna watch Peter Pan," said Letha sweetly. So she searched their Disney hard drive and found the movie, before settling in to watch it with her amazing cousin.

Letha knew she was in for a rough few weeks, but she also knew that during that time she would have ample support and that eventually, she would get better. So with that knowledge, she was able to settle in and watch the movie, and eventually, a smile crept onto her face.
 
m a t i l d a​

For the past couple of weeks things were finally starting to make sense again. Elliot had kept his promise of not coming home late, or well, they had sat down, figured everything out and decided that it wasn't all that unreasonable to say that while Elliot worked on the production he'd be home a little later, so they added twenty minutes to the time he normally came home. It wasn't too bad, they could move dinner twenty minutes ahead which meant there now was less dead time for Matilda where she was just waiting and she could spend that time focusing on other things. There were also some occasions when Elliot came home a little late even now though, but it was okay, because he wasn't late more than he was on time.

Matilda was still a little scared that her want and need for him being home was getting away for hit work, but it did seem like production was still going well and she was happy about that. Elliot was even prioritizing the family a little more when he could, he had clearly been trying to do things to compensate when he was late, but it wasn't quite the same as now, he had, for example, offered to pick up the kids today. Matilda happily allowed him to do that because he hadn't in a while, and it gave her some extra time to head to the store and buy groceries for the weekend.

"Hey guys, I'm home!" Matilda called as she entered their home, two full grocery bags in her hands, she continued to speak a little loud so whoever was closeby could hear her, "sorry if it took a while, the store was really busy today, this is why it's better not to go shopping a Friday evening,"
 
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For the last few weeks, Elliot really had been trying. He had made his best effort to be home when he said he would be home and if he was late it was never by more than fifteen minutes, and he would always call ahead. Several times he had brought home flowers or treats or something else to cheer her up a little bit. It didn't make up for being late but hopefully it would help.

That day, Elliot had decided to do something really nice for his wife. He had arranged for his sister to take the kids for the night, and he had told Matilda he would pick them up when really, he was using that spare time to set up his surprise. It was meant to be a dry night, so he had set up their patio table with a bouquet of lovely white roses, and he had illuminated the space with white fairy lights. Elliot wasn't the best cook in the world, but he had asked Roman for advice and so he had prepared a roast beef dinner with potatoes, pumpkin and peas. He was just taking the meat out of the oven for it to rest when the front door opened.

Elliot was wearing a nice dress shirt and a pair of jeans, so he threw off his apron and dashed out into the kitchen to meet his wife. "Hi, hello, give me those," he said excitedly, taking the bags and dashing them into the kitchen. Then he came back and put his hands over his wife's eyes. "I have a surprise."

Elliot lead his lovely wife through the house and to the back patio, and only when they arrived did he allow her to see. He smiled and stepped to the side a little so he could see her reaction. "I thought I would make you a nice dinner, I just have to go inside and serve it up. And the kids are with Karlie for the night so it's just the two of us."
 
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Matilda was surprised even before Elliot showed her the surprise he announced. Elliot was a pretty spontaneous person, so him coming up with different surprises had happened every once in a while throughout the many years they had been together. But it wasn't something that had happened in ages and Matilda would have thought Elliot was much too busy to do something like surprise her.

But there he was dressed up all nicely, wanting to show her something. If he had prepared something she wasn't going complain and she curiously let Elliot lead her out to the patio. There she was allowed to see again and what she was saw was absolutely lovely. Nothing special but still thoughtful and gorgeously executed. Roses, fairy lights, the table set. It was such a nice idea. It wasn't something that took too much time and energy, something they both were short in supply of right now, but it still clearly had thought, time and effort behind it. And it was something that would save Matilda cooking dinner and would allow her some time to relax while the kids weren't home.

"Elliot... You didn't..." She started but stopped herself, no Elliot hadn't had to do something like this, but it was so nice that he had so there was no point in saying that. She turned towards him and put her arms around him, "It's amazing, I love it,"
 
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"Yes, I did have to," Elliot insisted as he hugged his wife back. She was so selfless, so generous. Elliot didn't deserve her. "I wanted to try and do something to cheer you up, after all the shit that's been going on because of me. I know this can't make up for everything but hopefully it can show you that I want to make things better."

Elliot kissed his wife on the top of the head, then pulled out a chair for her, pushed it in once she was seated and then went inside to dish up the meal. The succulent roast beef ended up a lot nicer than what he had expected, so he took a picture of it and sent it to Roman before cutting it up and serving both himself and Matilda as much as they would usually eat (which, for him, was a lot). He then served out the roasted potatoes and pumpkin, plus the steamed mint peas, and topped it all off with the red wine sauce he had honestly bought from a bottle, not that he would be telling anyone about that.

"Madame, your dinner is served," he said in a false French accent as he brought out the two plates on a tray. That tray also held a glass of Matilda's favourite beverage, and a glass of Coke for himself. He sat down, placed their plates in front of the both of them, and then held up his glass to propose a toast.

"To a wonderful dinner, to a peaceful night for just the two of us, and for the next step to the recovery of our relationship."
 
m a t i l d a​

Matilda quietly let Elliot sit her down by the table and leave her to go fetch the food. It wasn't that she couldn't believe he had done something like this, just that he had taken the time to do it now. But even so, it made her feel all warm and happy inside. Her love for Elliot had never faltered throughout any of this, but this was a fantastic reminder of why she loved him. Even if he did mess up he always wanted to make it up, it was just the kind of person he was.

Soon Elliot was out with what actually looked like a well-prepared meal, she could recognize the recipe on sight from being over at Samuel and Roman's. He must have asked his best friend for help. That didn't make this mean less, on the contrary, it just meant he had tried his best to actually succeed with the meal and Matilda felt really proud of him.

Elliot joined her and proposed a toast, Matilda raised her glass as well, a big smile on her face, "cheers," she so hoped that this really was what they were toasting for. A beginning to think to go back to what they had used to be, the start of them feeling happy and less stressed again. And honestly, she also believed it was the case.
 
b a i l e y
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Bailey and Fliss had only been living in their house for a couple of months, but it already felt like home. Of course, they had personalised it before they had moved in but they had made a few additions to it during the time in which they had been staying, such as a new dining set and a new bathmat, that just made it seem all that more personal. Bailey loved, and he loved his beautiful Felicity.

Currently, Bailey was in the kitchen and preparing a grilled fish and salad meal for himself and his girlfriend for dinner. He was humming along to the rock song that was playing in the background, and he kept casting warm glances over to his girlfriend as he prepared the salad and grilled the fish.

And then the doorbell randomly rang. Bailey frowned. "Who could that be?" he wondered. Bailey was the kind of guy who would always answer the door at night instead of his girlfriend, but he really needed to pay attention to this fish so he couldn't move just yet. "Can you see?"
 
f e l i c i t y​

"yeah sure," Felicity said with a small shrug, she had a floor plan and a catalogue of tiles in front of her, she was working on renovating a kitchen for a client and had promised to have some ideas ready the next time she met up with them. It was always the kind of thing that was easily taken out to work on when Bailey was doing dinner since she didn't mind interrupting it to eat. Or open the door it seemed.

She got up and opened the door without really thinking much about it, possibly just wondering who'd visit during dinner time unannounced. Until she saw who was there and it both made sense and not at all.

"Mum? what are you doing here?" She asked only sounding surprised because she hadn't really had a chance to start to sound annoyed yet. The woman in front of her looked a lot like her, only older, with short hair and dressed much more properly than Fliss who was wearing a pair of comfy sweatpants and a knit sweater since they were just having a cosy time at home that day.

"Oh I was in the neighbourhood and thought I'd stop by," she said as she walked in without Fliss saying she could do so.

"You're never in the neighbourhood," Fliss insisted, because she never was, not when Fliss lived in her old apartment and not since she and Bailey moved.

"Well now I was and I haven't seen the house yet, so here I am," Helen proceeded into the house and into the kitchen, "Oh that smells lovely, what are you making?" she asked Bailey as if she hadn't only met him a handful of brief times before.
 
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Bailey looked up to see who was there and frowned when he did. He had only met Helen a couple of times, but he was a bit iffy on her, simply because of how she had treated Fliss before he had even met her. He honestly wasn't surprised when she just waltzed in uninvited, it was sort of characteristic of her to do things like that. But even if he wasn't very keen on her being here, Fliss hadn't kicked her out, so he was going to be nice.

"Grilled barramundi and an almond and mandarin salad," Bailey answered as he took the final fish fillet off the grill. He placed it on the plate with the others and let them sit to rest while he went to set the table. But instead of doing so right away, he hesitated at the cutlery drawer.

Was Helen going to stay for dinner? He didn't know how that would go if she did. But it was up to Fliss.

"How many places should I set?" he asked her -- Felicity, not Helen. That left the whole thing up to her, whether or not she wanted her mother around, and if she ended up not wanting her to have dinner, it served as a reason for her to leave.
 
f e l I c I t y​

"I don't know how many plates you should set up," Fliss said, voice slightly annoyed. It sounded like it was directed towards Bailey but Fliss hoped he realized that wasn't the case and turned towards her mother to imply that it was her she was annoyed at.

She ignored it and chose to read it as if Fliss was just asking her if she was staying, "oh I don't know I had some other plans,"

"No one is forcing you to be here," Fliss insisted.

"Yeah well the other plans weren't as important, i'd rather stay and see the house," Helen argued in a pleasant tone and took a seat by the table, glancing over at Fliss work but not mentioning it.

"That would be a new one," Fliss scoffed.

"What is that supposed to mean, Felicity?" Helen said, tone a little offended.

"I'm just saying it's not like you've valued checking up on my life before other things much in the past," Fliss said and walked up to Bailey for comfort, her arms were cross and face portrayed a scowl.

"Felicity I am a very busy person, and I know I have been there for you as much as I should be in the past but now that you're older I'll gladly try better and—"

"So you want to have more contact with me now that you don't have to put any effort into taking care of me?" Fliss said dryly, because that was exactly what it sounded like to her. She couldn't decided if her mother's faced looked shocked and offended or just as if she had been busted.

"No Fliss that's not it at all, I would gladly take care of you and help you out, but you're not allowing me, take your move in for example, I received no request to be there,"

"I didn't invite you because I knew from experience you wouldn't come, and even before I asked dad for help he offered it. That's what a good parent does. They don't just show up uninvited when it fits them after their kid has gotten sick and tired of being the only one who puts in effort!" Fliss said, her voice progressed from being at a normal tone to fairly loud. She was upset Bailey had to be involved in this and she was upset this was the moment this conversation was happening. She had thought about calling her mother out on her bullshit for years but now it just came out and she was feeling way too emotional. So much so that she suddenly burst out into angry and upset tears. She quickly turned into Baileys arm so her mother at least wouldn't see them.

"Fliss I—" but Helen did not seem to have enough words to defend herself.
 
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Bailey felt sad that this was the kind of relationship Fliss had with her mother. It was no fault of her own -- without a shadow of a doubt, Helen was the one to blame. But Bailey still wished it didn't have to be this way. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to be so distant emotionally from your family members. But he also couldn't imagine what it would be like to abandon your child in the way that Helen had done to Fliss.

"Look, Helen, I don't really know you all that well, but I do know that you haven't been putting the effort you should be putting into Fliss and your relationship," Bailey said diplomatically. He was clearly on Fliss's side, but he wasn't going to be hostile. "When she was a kid it was your responsibility to maintain that, but because you didn't put in that groundwork it's affected your relationship as adults and it's really sad to see."

Bailey let out a sigh, gave Fliss a kiss to the head, and pulled out two sets of cutlery before pointedly setting the table with them, the salad and the salt and pepper. "I'm sorry if I'm overstepping any lines but I just want to allow you to see what's been going on from an outside perspective."
 
f e l i c i t y​

There was a brief and very heavy silence after Bailey had put in his two cents about the situation. Felicity had no intention of speaking until her mother said something, hopefully an apology, but fliss doubted it.

"I— felicity if you felt that way you should have told me earlier," Helen finally said, standing up as if getting ready to leave again. She was shifting the blame over to fliss and fliss wasn't even surprised.

"Don't you get it? I've never been close enough to you to feel like i could talk to you like that,"

Another silence followed and then finally, "Fliss, I'm sorry," helen's voice was a little softer now, finally swallowing her pride.

"Yeah you should be," fliss said stubbornly but turned back to her slightly. She looked unsure of what to do, clearly she had no idea how to handle her upset child even when said upset child was an adult, because she had never been good at that. Despite everything Fliss felt bad for her, so she wiped her tears, "mom look, let's not talk about this now. I just want to have a nice dinner with Bailey and I don't think you should stay,"

"Oh-okay,"

"I'll call you, I promise, but it's up to you to meet up with me," She was going to be firm wth this, if her mother wanted to talk about this it should be she who made sure that happened.

After an awkward goodbye Helen had left and Felicity was back in the kitchen. The meal smelled amazing and all she wanted was to be happy and comfortable and just have a nice dinner, but now she was too upset. She said nothing and went to get her work things but stopped mid through as she let out another sniffle. What just happened was a lot, because this was the first time she truly expressed her feelings to her mother.
 
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As Fliss finally opened up to her mother about her feelings, Bailey served their meals while remaining quiet while working diligently to ensure he knew the conversation so they could talk about it later.

Bailey was so overwhelmingly proud of his girlfriend for speaking her true feelings. He knew how hard it was to actually do that, but he had never been in a situation where he had had to do so to someone who he loved. He had a good relationship with his parents. But just because he couldn't necessarily relate, that didn't mean he wasn't proud.

Bailey had just set their plates down at their places on the table when Fliss let out that little sniffle. Immediately, he was at her side with his arms around her small frame, rubbing her arm gently and making little hushing noises.

"I ... I am so proud of you," he murmured. "I can't begin to understand how hard it's been for you while you thought you didn't have a voice, but you've found it now, and I'm so unbelievably happy that you have. I love you."
 
f e l i c i t y​

"I love you too," Fliss sniffled and snuggled her boyfriend's chest a little. It was nice to hear his supportive words, he was such a good person and she was happy to have him. Without him saying that she would have probably felt bad and blamed herself for upsetting her mother. But at that moment she mostly just felt a combination of overwhelmed and relieved.

She had finally said it. It had been years of it building within her and she had finally called her out on what she was doing, "maybe she'll be better now that I told her... I hope she will, but if she's not it's her problem, it won't have to be mine anymore,"

She pulled away from the hug with a small smile and wiped her tears, "thank you," she said, Bailey hadn't done much but he had defended her and been there for her and that was all he really could do, and he needed to know she appreciated that, "Let's eat? I'm starving and it really does smell amazing,"
 
r o m a n
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Roman was standing in the kitchen, humming along to a song and icing a batch of raspberry cookies he had spent the day making for his family, when the doorbell rang.

"Can someone get that, please?" Roman called out to his children, who were scattered at various intervals around the house. By this point in time, Harper and the twins were all old enough to answer the door by themselves and know not to let anyone in or follow anyone out.

"Okay, Dad!" called Harper. Roman heard him jump up and run to the door, and in that time, Roman took the freshly baked cookies over to his husband at the table and offered him one with a kiss to the cheek. Harper came back, looking confused.

"Dad, Papa, there's a boy, he says he knows someone called ... Manuel?"
 
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