Falling Apart, Together✓

Chapter Thirty

*5 Years Later*
"Paris and Baker! If you don't stop your yelling you'll wake the others!" I yell as my two oldest children run around upstairs like a herd of elephants.

"Sorry Mommy!" They both yell down, effectively waking up the babies. I sigh, picking one of them up.

"Shh. It's ok Brady." I say to my youngest son. After everything resolved itself with "the Richard thing", Ransom and I sat down and decided we were going to look for surrogates who would carry another baby for us. Three of the five embryos took and to say we were shocked was an understatement. Now we had Paris, Baker, Rachel, Stella, and the youngest, Brady. It also needs to be said that we were done. Five kids was plenty and I was going insane.

I worked it out with the Patriots that I would do pictures during training and home games during the regular season and the photographer they had brought on to assist me during the end of my pregnancy, would do away games and playoffs, and then we would trade off Superbowls as they came. Other than that, I was a stay-at-home mom.

Ransom was brought on by Harlan to help him at the publishing house. I think he was training Ransom to take over for him, much to Walt's displeasure.

He walks in after work that night to find me surrounded by chaos. Paris and Baker are still fighting and the triplets are all screaming. "Woah, woah, woah. Hey!" He yells and miraculously all the noise stops, even the babies who don't understand what's going on. "What's with all the noise?"

No one said anything, but Ransom could tell I was on the verge of a breakdown. "Ok, you're going to go upstairs and taking a bath. No, I don't care." He says when I try to argue. "I can handle this. Paris, Baker, you're helping me clean up this mess." He tells the kids.

"That's not fair! Baker's the one who made it." Paris whines.

"And now you're both gonna clean it. Get started. And you three," he says, the triplets looking up at him. "You three are going to let Daddy settle in and then he'll get started in your dinner."

I'm hesitated on the stairs, watching him roll out orders like a boss. He sees me still standing there and gently pushes me upstairs. "Go. As soon as I get them settled in for the night, I'll bring you up some wine and dinner." I give him a small smile and head up.

...

I'm not sure how long I'm in the tub. It must have been awhile, and I probably fell asleep, as most of the bubbles were gone, the scalding water was room temperature and the candles I lit had the wicks burned down to almost stubs.

Ransom's leaning against the door frame, watching me with a content smile on his face. "What?" I ask.

"I just like looking at you." I smile.

"You're such a dork." I say with a laugh.

"Did you ever think we'd get here?" He asks, coming to sit beside the tub.

"Hell no. Not even after I came back and we started over. So many things tried to keep us apart."

"But here we are, out on top."

"The climb was a bitch. But the view is well worth it." I say before he kisses me.