The oldest tale in time is that as a teenager one's biggest worries are acne, fitting in, anxiety, and high school. What is not supposed to be a teenagers biggest worries is becoming runaways with their old band of friends while uncovering the dark...
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Three years go by quickly, soon the teens who had grown out of that phrase were dressing up for the youngest's teens' high school graduation.
Gert was the first teen to leave the hostel and just like planned she had gotten her GED and into Smith. Molly went back to Atlas Academy but she did her nightly sweep of vigilantism, that is as long as she got her eight hours of sleep, did her homework, and wasn't failing any classes. Alex had gotten accepted to UC Berkley, and after a few months of contemplating accepting, he chose to leave the sunny LA weather for the untamed San Francisco clouds.
Karolina got into UCLA while Nico had decided college wasn't for her and she worked on finding some balance with the darkness in her. Chase on the other hand got into a school with a good engineering program as planned which for him was USC. Luna, on the other hand, did focus on herself, she learned that anti-depressants didn't mix well with her body.
At first, Luna had experienced insomnia and waking up super early, early as in before the sun rose and slept after midnight. Chase had learned of Luna's insomnia after waking up and seeing that she was already awake.
"Moons are you awake?" Chase groggily asks
"Yeah," Luna sighs in almost a whisper moving her eyes off the ceiling and to her side where Chase laid
"Is this one of the symptoms?" Chase asks having had the whole list of side effects of the anti-depressants she was taking memorized. Chase had been keeping a list of any symptoms after noticing that his girlfriend's skin was easily bruising
"Yeah, but in about an hour I'll fall back to sleep" Luna mumbles as if it was no big deal but to Chase, it mattered. Especially when they first had tried to get back to their normal lives, Luna had the most trouble falling asleep because she'd see Chase's bloody body just like the night she had held him or rather an alternative future him
With a yawn Chase stands up from their bed, "Come on we are going for a run"
"A run?" Luna asks sitting up on their bed not planning to exercise at any point in the day
"Yeah," Chase says walking around their dark bedroom to grab a shirt from his cabinet to put on "Remember exercise was one of the things meant to help"
Knowing that he was right Luna wines while getting out of bed, "Fine but we are running at my pace not yours"
That's where the couple started to go on runs either if that was in the morning or the afternoon. Even after Luna stopped taking antidepressants and started to look into holistic medicine. One of them changing her diet, experimenting with essential oils and pressure points, learning to meditate with Nico and over all keeping up her therapist appointments.
It took three years for Luna to figure it all out, but even then after so much time, she was still struggling with some things. Just like all the teens that night with Morgan brought them nightmares and they all had their own symptoms of PTSD.
When Molly's name was called she walked up the stage to accept her fake diploma and for her family in the crowd to cheer super loud for her that the teen's cheeks turned pink and it wasn't because of the sun. The graduating teens walked for a final time down the aisle the ceremony finishing, and their first task was to pick up their real diploma. The second task was for Molly to find her family in the sea of random families, but it was them who found her.
With many hugs and congratulations directed towards the youngest graduate, along with photos taken on the school grounds the family all decide to leave once Molly was ready. The young Latinx girl said her goodbye to her favorite teachers and see you later to the friends she's made, they all drive to the airport.
They had decided that their traditional birthday week would land on the week following Molly's graduation. All of them were officially on break from college and had traveled to for the youngest girl's graduation so it seemed like the best time to travel as a group to celebrate the birthdays they weren't around for. In living in different parts of the states they all had to learn how to live without seeing each other's faces every day.
With living miles apart constant traveling wasn't possible because of the amount of school work they were assigned along with their new life in the cities. When it was one of the runaway's birthdays a message or facetime call was made but visits were rare, so they came up with celebrating everyone's birthday for a whole day during a random week in the year. They would travel to some random state and stay in a random city that they would write on a piece of paper and then someone would pull out the name from the hat.
The first year of said tradition they had landed in Huntsville, Alabama which was known for the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. It's something the teens found out once they had landed in the town, and they had a lovely time. The only thing to go wrong was that on the first day after they landed they ate gelatin, it being Luna's first time eating the dessert she found it tasted good but soon got sick.
In growing up in a household that loosely followed Islamic law in what one should or shouldn't eat, Luna had always said no when offered gelatine or certain foods. Mainly because they contained an ingredient that in her family's religion was forbidden. Such as pig, and gelatine contained pork byproducts along with another animal collagen.
In the second year of traveling, Alex sprained his ankle at the amusement park they went to and Gert brought along the person she was dating.
◇─◇──◇
Chase had everything planned out, from the ring to the blooming flowers at the botanical garden. So, once they were bloomed, he made sure to plan out the day and so far, everything had been going great. Luna had enjoyed the picnic that he had planned, and it wasn't too hot of a day to be out under the sun
"Luna?" Chase asks making Luna drop her hand to her side no longer touching the blooming red-tipped white rose. Luna turns around to face Chase and when she does the brunette freezes at the sight of Chase on his knee
"A-are you?" Luna stutters everything around her disappearing and her focus to be fully placed on Chase kneeling before her
"Luna-"
"W-wait!" Luna exclaims and Chase does just that, he was scared for why she had cut him off but all Luna did was reach into her purse and pulling out a black ring before walking towards him and kneeling before him "I-I wanted to be the one to ask you to marry me, so will you?"
"Yes," Chase replies with a smile making Luna's eyes start to water
Their moment was interrupted by the sound of confetti popers exploding around them. Looking around Luna was able to see her family all around her, making her stand up asking, "When did you all get here? A-and the confetti-"
"It's biodegradable and the staff knows," Alex says having been tasked with buying the confetti and to not ruin Luna's happiness he made sure to tell the staff about the confetti
"Thank you," Luna says with a sniffle, which was from the happy tears she was holding back
"It was all Chase," Alex replies making Luna's heart warm-up at the thought of her boyfriend, no, fiancé put so much thought into everything
Not being able to hold her excitement any longer Molly attacks both Chase and Luna pulling them into a tight hug, "You two are engaged!!"
It's then that the congratulations from the rest of the runaways begin. Soon Luna and Chase realized they hadn't exchanged rings and so with a smile on their faces they place the engagement ring on each other's hand while surrounded by family
A/N: these future chapters won't have much of a timeline but for the most part they kinda are in order
