The Pretend To Be Agreement

Epilogue - PT. 2

And Will had proven to be quite the patient man when it came to her. He had waited for this particular moment, where they'd meet again, for three and half years now. 

He remembered the day like it had been yesterday, but in reality, that moment — the one that had his heart beating so hard inside of his chest he had thought it would burst — had been a little over a month ago. 

It had been sometimes in early September when he had gotten the phone call...

***Flashback to the phone call***

He had just gotten done leaving Grace another voicemail, one he was sure would go unanswered. 

Sighing, he puts the phone back in its cradle and got up and walk out of his bedroom, but froze in the doorway when he noticed a trail of water leading from the bathroom to up the hall and all the way to what he suspected was the kitchen. Curious, Will follows the trail, careful not to avoid stepping in it, not wanting to soak his sock clad feet. 

"What the hell..." his voice trails off as his gaze goes from the trail to his naked, eight-year-old nephew displaying himself in the complete nude in the middle of his sister's dining room. 

"...Luca," he began, keeping his voice soft, "why are you naked?"

It was probably pointless asking Luca why he was naked. 

Or, just asking why an eight-year-old did anything in general. 

But, this particular matter seemed slightly different than from when he had questioned his trouble-maker of a nephew of why he was teaching his pet hamster how to swim (the end result in that little...experiment had left Luca's hamster, Henry, traumatized and fearful of water). 

Luca simply shrugged, "Because it's fun?"

Will purses his lips, eyebrows scrunching together as he thought of how he was he going to have to explain this all to Samantha, when the woman in question suddenly came bursting out of her bedroom and running down the hall, going sliding across the floor due to the water trail Luca had left behind. 

"Sammy!" Will cried, thinking on his feet, and racing for his sister. 

He caught her in his arms just as she was about to land flat on her butt. Helping her stand up, he checks for any signs of injury, but still asking even though he hadn't found anything, "You okay?"

Although shaken up but otherwise fine, Samantha nods. "....Yeah, I'm fine — I would, however, be much better if this little one  —" she directs her gaze down onto her son, crossing her arms, " — hadn't gone running off. What were you thinking, huh? Mommy could've gotten seriously injured." 

Again, Luca shrugs, not seeming all that worried that his mother could've actually been hurt. When Samantha notices this a look of sadness falls over her facial features, and, doing the brotherly thing, Will places a comforting hand on his sister's shoulder, giving it a squeeze. She looks up at him, giving him a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Seeing that nobody was going to stop him, Luca turns tail and runs, skipping his way around the kitchen. 

Once he's out of the earshot, Will looks down at his sister, opening his mouth to ask how she was doing when Samantha beat him to it.

"I'm fine," she tells him, but Will raises a skeptical eyebrow. "I'm. Fine. I really am. I-It's just hard, you know? He's got all this energy and nowhere to put it and I wish there was something I could do about it, but I can't. And...And —" She doesn't finish her sentence as a choked sob escapes her mouth and without any hesitation, Will pulls her into her chest, allowing Samatha to cry into his shirt, her short arms wrapping around his mid-section.