Howdy :) So here it is, the last chapter of Omega whooooop! Except don’t think of it as the last cuz I’m also uploading an epilogue so make sure you read that one too. This is kinda a big moment for me – actually, typing THE END on the epilogue was every bit as amazing and awesome as those cheesy author speeches given at school assemblies (okay, not quite that amazing but pretty close) not to mention I’m done with school so that just makes the world sweet. So yeah, I want to give a HUGE thank you to all y’all for reading/voting/commenting/being awesome fans because it really means LOADS to me, I can’t even tell you how much. Thank you so much for your support these 2 years (if you have actually been with me through Delta’s 2 years, yay, otherwise just smile awkwardly and nod, I totally understand) andddd um enjoy the summer! Or winter I guess if you live in like Australia. I dunno. But yeah thank you and enjoy this final (but not so final!) chapter!!! I’ve loved writing for you guys! :D

Also - the song "Heaven Knows" by Five for Fighting is an amazingggg song that I'd probably pick to be in the end credits if this were ever made a movie! Wattpad wouldn't let me put a youtube video on the side for some strange reason....So give it a listen while you read :)

Graciasssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!! (that was not meant to say ass) <3 vb123321

Chapter Thirty



♦ Charlie ♦



When I tried to open my eyes, there was nothing there. I couldn’t tell if it was because my eyes were stuck shut or because the world really was black, but as I fought to get to the surface I was held back, pressed firmly down into the dark. It swallowed me and swirled around my mind until I was slowly drowning in it, the black stamped against my eyelids. I was certain I was blind, that there was no escaping this dark pit.



At first I felt nothing, the black blocking out the world, but suddenly colors erupted across my vision for just a split second – although what was time in this vortex? A flash of pain accompanied them, so quick that I barely had time to register it, but it left a dull, burning red that refused to die away. The black was swirled with these colors now, splashing through my mind as I fought against them, and then a cool, soothing white swept over me and it was gone.



As I reveled in the calm that fell over my dizzy mind, I became aware of something soft and cool beneath me rubbing against my skin. One hand rested against something hard, the other somewhere in the space beyond; I was only aware of it because of a slight pressure. I was still unable to see, my eyelids pressed shut, but slowly my senses were returning: first touch, then the taste of something strange in my mouth that was then echoed in a smell, and then sound filtering through my ears.



“He’s waking up,” a voice said from miles and miles away.



I tried to turn in its direction – it was familiar, but I wasn’t quite sure how – my eyes still struggling to break through the white as I heard the voice say something that was too distant to understand. Finally the white broke through to a filmy grey, images slowly materializing in the mist, and I began to make out the outline of someone sitting to the side – the side of a bed that I was lying on. Raggedly-cut dark hair framed her face, the pressure on my hand increasing as my eyes opened wider.



“Hey, Charlie,” she said, her lips moving before her voice reached my ears through the clearing mist, and then I knew her. Something gave a mighty leap in my chest, my vision suddenly spinning a little as a rush of love and relief flooded over me. She was here, she was next to me, her beautiful eyes looking into mine – this had to be a dream, how could it be real, but when had my dreams last been like this?



Somehow I found my voice. “Kiss me,” I murmured, trying to reach for her, but my limbs wouldn’t respond. “Maybe I’ll turn into Prince Charming.”



My brain was warning me it was the wrong thing to say, but my senses convinced me that it was a dream after all, because if it were real her features wouldn’t be coming closer as she leaned in, tears flecking her eyelashes. I wouldn’t be feeling her soft hand against my burning face as she pushed the sweaty hair off my forehead. I wouldn’t be drinking in her familiar scent as she came closer still, her eyes so near mine that I felt as if I were drowning in them.



And I wouldn’t be hearing her whisper, “You already are,” as her mouth parted in a little smile, and then I knew it was a dream because suddenly her lips were on mine. The black swept back over my mind as my eyes closed automatically, colors exploding behind my eyelids as I tried to make my lips respond to hers, my heart pounding so furiously that I thought it would burst into a million brilliant red pieces.



Nothing I had ever imagined could compare.



Too soon she was moving away, my eyes opening again in protest to look into her beautiful face. Her eyes were starry, teardrops like diamonds on her lashes as a smile trembled on her lips, one hand still cupping my face. Her gaze was crushing my chest, squeezing the air out of my lungs as I stared at her, drank in her presence, my mind swirling and black beginning to fringe my vision. I tried to push it away, keep it out forever, because all I wanted to do was lie there and look at her, but it dipped across my eyes again, blocking her shining eyes and returning me to the darkness.



A wave of fear washed over me as the dark did as well, fear of the images of that room and the man and her screams and my family’s terror. But this time was different: The black was calm, spun with pale colors that didn’t come with pain, everything muted as the feeling of her lips stayed against mine. I could still hear the sound of her voice, though I couldn’t see her or make out any words, and at some point I thought I could hear my mother and Sadie, too.



And I wasn’t afraid.



Time did that thing again where it slipped away and jolted back at random intervals, messing with my mind as I fought to keep conscious for longer periods. Astrid was constantly by my side whenever I woke, holding my hand and telling me it was okay. Mom and Sadie were, too, their faces looming above me as they said my name. At one point a doctor stood over me and told me that I was recovering nicely, that my lung was almost completely healed, but that didn’t really mean anything to me.



It wasn’t until I opened my eyes and found that I could clearly see everything in the room that I convinced myself that I was going to make it. Silence buzzed in my ears, and it took me a moment to realize that some of the machines that I dimly remembered were no longer there. As I looked around, wondering at the calm, I realized that Astrid was sitting slumped in the chair next to the bed, sound asleep. We were alone in the quiet room.



I just looked at her for a long time, because this time part of me knew that this was the moment, that I wasn’t going to pass out again this time. She had her unfamiliarly short hair pulled back in a raggedy ponytail, her face tired but peaceful as she dozed. What would she say? The fear was back – fear that it all had really just been a dream.



After what seemed like forever, she stirred, her eyes slowly opening to look at me. A smile curled over her lips as she straightened in the chair and said softly, “Hey, Charlie.”



Words were sticking in the lump in my throat as I began to lose myself in her eyes again, just as I had so many times over the past six years. They were shining in the harsh fluorescent light overhead, turning my insides to gel as I tried to look casual.



“Hey. How you doing?”



“I’m good.” She swallowed, her eyes a little nervous. “Though I guess I’m supposed to ask you that.”



“Never been better,” I replied without thinking, because she had just taken my hand in her own and my mind had slipped momentarily. It was true, though – and now I realized just why I had woken up, how I had gotten through all that had happened.



Astrid smiled again, scooting the chair a little closer so that she could sweep the hair off my forehead in a vaguely familiar gesture. I held my breath at her touch, wanting to catch her hand and hold it forever but too scared to try. We spent an awkward moment looking at each other, my heart burning but tongue tripping and her eyes like stars again, the hesitation as obvious as the sweat mingling on our palms.



“Oh, for crying out loud, kiss him already!”



We both jumped at the loud voice from the doorway of the room, Astrid’s face turning tomato red as a smirking Josh came into view. I felt my own face flaming and would have tugged my hand out of Astrid’s if I hadn’t been enjoying it so much. She didn’t let go of it, though, and as Josh leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and grinning at us, she looked back at me with a curious expression.



“Well?” Josh demanded petulantly, glaring at her. “He’s finally conscious!”



I was blushing almost as furiously as she was now, giving Josh a shut-up-now look as I tried to laugh but found I was speechless again. With some difficulty, I propped myself up against the pillows into a half-sitting position, Astrid watching anxiously as I winced a little. She took both of my hands in hers, her face suddenly earnest as she looked at me; I felt somewhat nervous as she leaned in with shining eyes. Aware of Josh’s presence, I stared at her blankly as she took a deep breath, took my frozen face in both hands, and kissed me full on the lips.



“I love you, Charlie Gallagher,” she said when we broke apart. “I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you before now –”



A loud noise from the doorway cut her off as Josh practically cackled, clapping and grinning like an idiot. “You should see your face, Charlie!” he hooted, springing forward with a maniacal gleam in his eyes. “You look like you’ve been shot in the chest!”



“Josh, you’re not funny. And be careful!” scolded Astrid, shoving him away as he tried to jump on the bed. “He isn’t completely recovered yet.”



He made a little bow in her direction. “Yes, ma’am.” And then, seizing the hand Astrid wasn’t holding, he pumped it enthusiastically as he said to me, “Congratulations, sir; your six-year journey is at an end.”



Dazed, I stared at him as my hand moved up and down and then pulled it out of his grasp to touch my lips, wondering if they had somehow been changed by hers. Astrid laughed a little, smiling as I looked over at her. A tear was in the corner of her eye, and she raised one hand to wipe it away as I squeezed the other. Josh was beaming at us, sitting on the corner of my bed and looking like a proud father.



“Jeez,” I said to him, still feeling dizzy and unable to tear my eyes away from Astrid, “you’re happier about this than we are, I swear.” But of course that wasn’t true, because nothing could compete with the huge, roaring sensation that was swelling inside my chest, wiping away the bullet hole and filling it with emotion.



“Well, I freaking should be!” Josh looked almost affronted. “I’ve had to put up with both of you being idiots for, like, half a decade, it hasn’t been easy, you know.”



Astrid laughed shakily, wiping her eyes again, and I tugged at her hand, pulling her closer and kissing her. It was the first time I had kissed her, and even though it still made my head spin, it was nothing compared to hers. Then I had known that she had initiated it, known the sweet taste of her love freely given, and as we gazed at each other, both smiling like crazy people, she leaned in and kissed me again.



“Okay, okay.” Josh grabbed Astrid’s shoulder from across the bed, pulling her away from me. “Do I need to chaperone you two? It’s like both extremes with you guys, seriously – I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He slid off the bed, backing away with hands held up in surrender as Astrid glared at him. “Thank goodness they took your gun away.”



I was smiling, my entire soul swelling in my chest as I imbibed her presence, the gleam of her hair, the wildly happy look on her face that matched mine. Josh was smirking again as he glanced at me, pretending to shoot me with a bow and arrow as he winked, and I rolled my eyes at him as he said, “I’ll leave you two in peace,” and left the room.



Astrid and I were left alone again, her face serious even as her eyes smiled at me, her hands still holding mine as I just looked at her and tried to remember how to breathe. “Just tell me one thing,” I whispered, my voice finding its way back to my vocal cords. I didn’t want to say it, I didn’t want to ruin the moment, but I knew I would never be satisfied or convinced until I knew for sure. “What about Jay?”



I realized then that she was crying silently, a single tear leaking down her cheek as she gazed at me, and I reached up one finger to catch it. It landed on my fingertip, glistening in the light, the light that shone in her eyes as I looked up at her again, terrified of her answer. She wiped a hand across her face, creating a sinking feeling in my stomach, but when she spoke her voice was firm.



“I knew you were going to ask that. And I don’t blame you.” She took a deep breath. “I thought about it – you know, what he said to me and everything – and really, I think I’ve known for a long time now. Josh was right: it was really obvious. I’ve just been an idiot.” She laughed shakily, her eyes still glimmering. “He’s pretty bright for such a moron, you know? Brighter than me, anyway…I guess everyone knew but me. I’m sorry, Charlie.”



“Why are you apologizing?” Another time, maybe, I would have been angry – there had been plenty of times I had been angry – but that amazing sensation had swept over my entire body and negative emotion was extinct. Astrid looked upset, opening her mouth to argue, but I just smiled at her. “You’re fine.”



“It’s not fine,” she protested, somewhat hotly, but I shook my head at her.



My torso was beginning to ache from sitting in such an awkward position, but I didn’t want to move away from her. She was smiling again, wiping her eyes and trying to make it look like she wasn’t as emotional as she was, because that was what she did, and that was why I loved her, even if it could get pretty annoying.



“So just one more thing.” I tried to keep my tone light. “Is this a dream or real or what?”



“Charlie,” she said, her voice constricted, “the dream has been the last six years. This is what’s real.”







The next few days were like a blur, but a completely different blur than the past weeks had been. I was finally able to stay conscious for long periods of time that were mostly taken up by talking to Astrid, Josh, Mom and Sadie, and Joel. The kid seemed to have returned to his normal perplexingly-energetic self, asking me all sorts of questions on what it was like to be shot, no matter how many times Astrid tried to tell him it wasn’t an appropriate question.



My sleeping patterns were so erratic that I spent many nights staring at the ceiling, my mind turning circles but mostly coming back to her lips and the shine of her eyes. Sometimes the old fear would return, stalking me as I lay alone in the hospital room, but I reminded myself that he was gone and was never coming back, that he couldn’t hurt her or my family.



That’s not to say that he disappeared entirely. Almost four months is a long time to forget in a couple weeks. The nightmares stayed, as they would stay for years and years to come, and the fear stayed, too, but it was different. I had her and I had my family and I had hope, hope for a future better than that dark, dark room that I had resigned myself to after that first month there. It crept up on me sometimes, that fear, because fear always does that, but now I knew how to push it away. And she would always be there in the morning, an understanding look in her eyes when she saw that I had had a rough night.



I counted down the hours until I could leave the hospital bed, which the doctor said would most likely be soon now that I wasn’t in a comatose state. As I wasn’t really a sit-around type of guy – I didn’t know too many field agents that were – I had difficulty following his orders and lying in bed feeling useless.



The chest tube that had been placed in my lung to help it heal was removed once it began to heal and was able to inflate on its own, which had actually been a few days before I came around. I was now supposed to be in a sitting position as often as possible so that it had better breathing capacity. The bullet wound in my leg was mending itself as well, and after three weeks total of being in that hospital bed, my cracked ribs longer hurt at every move and my brain didn’t feel like slush, although more sleep helped that.



Sadie was ninety-percent of my moral support; from the moment she walked in, crossed her arms, and said, “You always gotta be James Bond, don’t you?” to the time she snuck me a cupcake even though the doctor forbade it, I knew I could count on her to cheer me up even more than Astrid. My little sister was ecstatic to be with me, even though it was in a hospital of a spy agency – she probably thought it was pretty dang cool. The conversation I had had with Joel swirled in my ears uncertainly, but Astrid assured me that Sadie believed I walked on water.



“Though I don’t know why,” she would say, and I’d laugh.



My mom, naturally, never stopped worrying and constantly hounded the doctor about my medication and health. The director of Omega wasn’t too happy about having two civilians staying at his agency – Josh came to me with many stories of loud complaints heard – but once my mom offered to act as a cook for the agency, all negative remarks disappeared. Nothing beat her chocolate chip cookies, after all.



I was living in some sort of awe, still half-convinced that it was a dream. When Josh told me what Young had said about retracting the AWOL, I didn’t believe him, still expecting agents to storm into the hospital room and handcuff me to the bed. But as the days passed and Young himself came to see me, delivering the same news and offering me cordial congratulations on completing the assignment successfully – “oh, and it’s good to see you healthy again, too” – I began to think that maybe everything would be okay. My mom and Sadie were okay, Astrid had stars in her eyes whenever she looked at me, Finn and Cloying were gone, that darkness was a thing of the past…the idea of going home was becoming a reality.



Even so, frustration levels were reaching new heights at the end of the third week, as I was convinced I was fine though the doctor said otherwise. Whenever I expressed my dislike for all the medical technicalities wrong with me, Astrid just smiled and my mom patted my hand in an extremely motherly fashion, while Sadie, Joel, and Josh told me to shut up and stop trying to make myself a martyr. Still, I noticed that none of them could help grinning widely when Doctor Neil finally told me that he was going to discharge me.



“God bless you and all your descendants,” I told him fervently, feeling like kissing his feet – until he introduced the idea of physical therapy to me. I had an aversion to anything medical in general; staying in a hospital room consciously for a week had almost been more fatal than the wounds themselves. But the doctor’s word – and my mother’s firm agreement – was law, and so I found myself attending the therapy sessions there at the agency.



It turned out that therapy was actually a strong point at a spy place, which made sense, seeing as field agents often returned with bullets stuck in their anatomy. The employed therapists were so stereotypical that I almost couldn’t handle it – young, female, generally beautiful, and entirely too cheerful. As I endured the exercises they put me through, they always exclaimed about how strong and lucky I had been and how well I was doing.



“I feel like punching them in the face,” I confided to Astrid as I sprawled on my stomach on the floor of the gym, pretending that I was doing push-ups. I had been attending therapy for two weeks – marking five weeks since we had arrived at the agency – and though Josh and Astrid were getting antsy as well, nothing compared to the impatience I felt.



“Oh, come on, it can’t be that bad,” she said with a smile, her arms crossed over her chest as she looked down at me. “You complain too much.”



“Now you’re turning into Josh,” I grumbled. “Where is he anyway?” Astrid looked evasive, which immediately made me suspicious. “If he’s up to anything with Sadie…”



“Nothing like that,” she said at once, and as I looked up at her with raised eyebrows, she looked across the gym. “Oh look, your therapist’s coming back!”



Groaning, I rested my forehead against the gym floor so that I didn’t have to see the huge smile I knew would be on Kristi’s face. She didn’t walk, she bounced, her blonde ponytail swinging from side to side as her Nike-clad feet stopped in front of me. I glanced up at her, giving her the most annoyed look I could manage.



“Hey, Charlie!” she chirped, her lips cherry-red and her blue eyes bright. “How are we doing over here?”



“I was fine until you decided to show up.”



Astrid sent me a glare. “Stop being rude, she’s just trying to help you.”



I gave up. “Why do girls always side with each other?”



Kristi didn’t seem to be able to do anything with her facial muscles but keep them in the world’s largest smile. “Do you want me to do some push-ups with you, Charlie?” Therapists also had a weird obsession with saying your name. “It might be nice to have a partner.”



“Can we not and say we did?” But of course there was no arguing – I had found it was nearly impossible to get your way with Kristi. Underneath that blinding smile was an iron will that could not be denied. I pitied her boyfriend.



Astrid sank to the floor next to me, getting into a plank position. “I’ll do some with you, Charlie,” she offered, mimicking the therapist’s cheery tone. “Ready?”



Josh was right – what did I see in this girl? And I still couldn’t deny her, either, because the moment I looked into her eyes, I was a goner. Whether she knew she was doing it or not – and half of me expected she did – her eyes had a way of doing this thing that made my insides melt. So I found myself lifting my body off the floor, making sure to complain the entire time as Kristi began to count enthusiastically.



As we stopped at ten and rested on our stomachs, Astrid teased, “You better get back up to two hundred, Charlie. I like my men with six-packs.”



Because it sort of hurt to do even ten push-ups, I gave her the dirtiest look I could produce but allowed her to lean over and kiss me; I still got dizzy at her touch. Kristi giggled like a seventh grader, proclaiming us to be “simply adorable” and then walking away to terrorize another patient after telling Astrid to make sure I kept up the intervals.



“Okay, come on,” she said, going to plank again. “Ready for another set?”



“How ‘bout we skip that part and just get to my reward?” I suggested, smiling at her and widening my eyes. I wasn’t sure exactly how effective my puppy-dog face was – I needed to get lessons from Joel – but apparently it was okay, because she laughed a little and rested on her elbows again. I wanted to kiss her again, but part of me was still afraid to; I didn’t want to overdo it, didn’t want to mess things up.



“Here comes Kristi,” she said, inclining her head in that direction. “Better get cracking.”



I complained, mainly because I could, but therapy wasn’t all that bad. Josh or Astrid often joined me in the sessions, although they generally ended up making me feel depressed because they would come after a seven-mile run and still proceed to beat me in any exercise. I was assured that it was because I hadn’t been at my normal health for nearly five months, but it didn’t make it any easier. The only thing that kept me from screwing the whole thing was the thought of getting better and leaving it.



Staying at a foreign spy agency for weeks at a time was wearing away at everyone, and it was obvious that we all just wanted to go back to the States. Young assured us that all the legality issues – or lack thereof – had been taken care of, that it was only until I had recovered. I wondered if he expected us to return to Delta, and then I wondered if we would. Josh, Astrid, and I discussed it a few times at Omega’s agency, though we had never come to a conclusion.



Delta had done so much to us – setting up the (albeit fake) AWOL, lied to us, stalked us across an ocean, basically made our lives hell – and especially after the whole ordeal with Jay, we didn’t know if we could trust them. Young’s attitude towards Jay’s death, my near-death, Astrid’s breakdown, and Joel’s situation was a little hard to stomach. And we would probably never know if it were true that they blew up the Nicholsons’ house – but still, it was weird to think that we could just throw half our lives away.



We saw Pierre again only once, from a distance as he talked with Young, but none of us made any move to approach him. He was wrapped in the world of Omega, a world we couldn’t understand, and the stress his agency had caused us over the past few months could hardly be forgotten, even if they were supplying my lifeline. Astrid knew when we left that she would never see him again, and when I finally got up enough guts to ask her, she said she was okay with it.



Six weeks after we had arrived at the agency, all the muscles and blood vessels and who knew what else that had been torn up by bullets in my body had mostly healed, and the damage done to my abdomen and head had been mostly resolved. My ribs didn’t hurt anymore when I rolled over, and I no longer got tired when I stayed up for too many hours at a time. Although I definitely wasn’t one hundred percent back to normal, I wanted to get out of there.



Finally Doctor Harry Neil agreed that it was time he gave me a check-up to see where I was to determine if we could leave. I almost went crazy with impatience while he made me walk around the gym, lift certain things, do push-ups, and then proceeded to check everything that he could with a stethoscope and those other doctor tools I didn’t understand. He asked me questions about how I was sleeping, whether I was still having nightmares, what I was eating – they went on and on as I answered as calmly as I could. The truth was that I would never really be able to shake off the old fear of the dark, but he just shrugged and said that was a psychological, not medical, problem.



And then he told me, a smile unfurling on his face, that I was free to go.



For a couple minutes I could only wander around those white, white hallways, trying to make his words sink in, because the prospect of going back to the States was so unrealistic that I could barely believe him. It was February and I hadn’t been in America since early August. Half a year of my life had disappeared and so much had happened that sometimes I had felt that there couldn’t possibly be anything different than that dark, dark room or the panic of a chase or the exhaustion of long, sleepless nights in unfamiliar hotels.



When I finally reached the room where everyone had been waiting for me, I could only stand in the doorway and stare at them. Their faces were expectant, hopeful, beginning to turn doubtful as they looked at me. Astrid got to her feet with a worried look, that old resignation entering Josh’s eyes again, Joel’s face falling slightly as he saw their reactions…but my mother and Sadie just watched me, not reacting, and it was them that I looked at as I said,



“Plane leaves in two days.”



Astrid let out a gasp, her hands flying up to her mouth as her eyes widened, and Josh leaped out of his chair with a huge grin, hugging a bewildered-looking Joel. Sadie whooped loudly, rushing over to throw her arms around me, and I tried to make it look like I was returning her embrace as I looked at my mom, who had tears in her eyes.



“You’re coming home?” she whispered, still not moving, and I nodded. Taking a deep breath, she let a smile break across her lips and hurried across the room to hug me. I released Sadie to bury my face in my mom’s shoulder; she was half a foot shorter than me, but I felt like a little kid in her arms again. She was talking in my ear, saying things about how I was going to stay with them for a while and she didn’t care what my stupid director said, but I didn’t listen to her words, just drank in her voice.



Josh enveloped Sadie in a massive hug, swinging her around the room as she laughed helplessly, and as my mom and I broke apart, I hid the fact that my vision was a little blurry by saying gruffly, “Josh, didn’t I say not to mess with my kid sister?”



As he let go of Sadie and raised his hands innocently, I turned to look at Astrid’s glowing face. She didn’t move towards me, nor I to her, but just looking at her eyes was like a lifeline, pouring strength into my veins as slowly my hope began to build again.



Three days later, as we stepped off the plane at JFK airport and were greeted by a smiling stewardess, I took in the flapping American flags and lines of busy people wrapped up in their own lives. Voices filtered through an intercom, security guards scouring the crowds with grim faces, and I was surrounded by an atmosphere of talking, laughter, and shouting. Somewhere a mom was trying to keep her kids in check as she looked around desperately for their flight, a man sprinted to catch his, a couple kissed at the gate.



“We’re really back,” I said, taking it all in as I stood stock-still in the crowded terminal.



Astrid was next to me, tucking her arm in mine as she looked around. “Nothing like good old American chaos, huh?”



I smiled, a huge sense of relief washing over me suddenly as it finally began to sink in that everything was going to be all right. “I’ve missed it, believe it or not. It feels so weird to be back here. You realize it’s been six months?”



She rested her head against my arm for a moment. “I’ve missed you, Charlie,” she said quietly, and though she had been with me for the past two months, I understood what she meant. I was becoming myself again, leaving the darkness behind me as the mess of the last half-year slowly began to clean itself up.



The crowd pressed around us, jabbering away in many different languages, caught up in their own problems, but I had never felt more detached from them. And this time it wasn’t a bad feeling. They were oblivious of Astrid and I standing there, a lone girl and boy watching the world go by as we drank in the familiar aura.



Home. It had been such a foreign word for so long, but now, even there in the busy airport filled with strangers, it had never seemed so close.



“It’s all over, isn’t it?”



Astrid glanced up at me, and the stars in her eyes still made me lightheaded. “We’re back, Charlie,” she said softly. “You’re back. Yeah, it’s finally over.”



I nodded, wrapping my free arm around her and reminding myself that happy endings really could exist. Taking a deep breath, I looked around one last time and picked up my bag, and together we began to move through the crowd to where the others were waiting for us.