"Forever sounds perfect," he agrees.
As sleep begins to claim us, I think about the future we're building—not the fantasy version where everything is easy and perfect, but the real one where we'll figure things out as we go. Where we'll make mistakes and learn from them, where we'll grow into the people we need to be for each other and for our child.
This isn't an ending. It's barely even a beginning. It's just the next step on a path we've been walking together for nine years, finally moving in the same direction with the same destination in mind.
And for the first time in my life, I'm not afraid of where that path might lead.
Epilogue - Micah
Eighteen months later
"Emma Rose Keller, what do you have in your mouth?"
I swoop down to intercept our nine-month-old daughter, who's sitting in the middle of our living room surrounded by packing boxes and looking far too pleased with herself. She opens her mouth to show me a wad of packing tape, grinning like she's just discovered the secret to world peace.
"No, baby girl. That's not food." I carefully extract the tape while she protests with an indignant squawk that sounds exactly like Nick when he's been told he can't have ice cream for breakfast.
"She's helping," Nick says from across the room, where he's attempting to disassemble our bookshelf while Emma's stuffed elephant—aptly named Peanut—supervises from his pocket. "Very thorough quality control."
"She's going to poison herself with packing materials," I correct, but I'm smiling as I say it. Emma immediately crawlstoward the nearest box, determined to resume her inspection duties.
Our first apartment—the one where we accidentally fell in love and figured out how to be a family—is barely recognizable under the chaos of moving day. Boxes labeled in Nick's terrible handwriting are stacked everywhere: "Kitchen Stuff," "Micah's Medical Books (Heavy!)," and my personal favorite, "Random Crap - Deal With Later."
"I can't believe we accumulated this much stuff," I say, surveying the damage. When I moved in here twenty months ago, everything I owned fit in my ancient Honda. Now we need a moving truck.
"That's what happens when you become three people instead of one," Nick points out, holding up a tiny pink onesie that Emma outgrew months ago. "Remember when she could actually fit in this?"
The nostalgia in his voice makes my chest warm. Nick has turned out to be exactly the kind of father I always suspected he would be—completely smitten, mildly overprotective, and utterly baffled by how fast everything changes. Last week he spent twenty minutes staring at Emma's old newborn photos, muttering about how she used to be "so tiny" and "where did the time go?"
"She was never that small," I tease, rescuing a framed photo of the three of us from Emma's exploring hands. It's from the hospital, taken maybe an hour after she was born—Nick holding her like she might break, both of us looking exhausted and amazed and completely overwhelmed.
"She was! Look at this!" He holds up a newborn diaper for comparison to the size Emma wears now. "She was like a tiny, wrinkly alien. Now she's..." He gestures helplessly at our daughter, who has successfully opened a box of books and is now methodically pulling them out one by one.
"A tiny, mobile tornado," I finish, moving to stop her before she gives herself a concussion with my pathophysiology textbook.
"Exactly." Nick grins, abandoning the bookshelf to scoop Emma up before she can cause any real damage. "But our tiny, mobile tornado."
Emma immediately starts babbling at him in the complicated language of toddlerhood—half sounds that might be words, half pure gibberish, all delivered with the utmost seriousness. Nick responds with equal gravity, nodding along like she's explaining quantum physics.
"She says the boxes are too slow and we should just stay here," he translates solemnly.
"She does not say that."
"She might. Her communication skills are expanding rapidly."
As if to prove his point, Emma points at me and says, very clearly, "Da-da!"
Both Nick and I freeze. She's been saying "Ba-ba" for Nick for months—her version of Papa that makes him melt every single time—but this is new.
"Did she just—" Nick starts.
"She did." I reach for her, and she comes willingly, repeating "Dada, Dada" like she's proud of herself for figuring out this new word.
"We're both Da-da now, apparently," Nick says, looking delighted. "Very progressive of her."
"Or very confusing," I point out, but I'm smiling too. Emma has always been creative with language. Her first clear word was "Na-na" for Diana, followed closely by "Ba-ba" for Nick, and something that sounds like "Ki-ki" for the neighbor's cat she's obsessed with. Logic has never been her strong suit.
"I'll take it," Nick says, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Da-da number one and Da-da number two. We can work out the details later."