Goal: A Normal Life

For Granted (Side Story EVERLINE)

Claude POV

"Come on Daddies! You guys are so sloooww. Mommy needs to protect the baby in her belly. What if she trips?! Mommy, stop carrying that!"

This cute 4-year-old who is berating us is our little star, the fruit of all our love, our beloved daughter. She grabbed Caius' hand and dragged him to where Ivy was and motioned him to carry her. Ivy politely declined but Caius still carried her anyway, leaving her to sigh in defeat.

I smiled at the sight of our husband taking care of our wife. She tends to do everything on her own, we've already had multiple talks about this but even then, she's too used to having to depend on her own without anyone's help.

Our little girl walked on her little legs towards me, she stared up at me with sparkles in her eyes, "Papa, carry me?" she asked cheekily. I chuckled and picked her up. We walked a few more minutes before we were all happy with where we were.

Raven placed the picnic blanket down while Demetrius and Sebastian prepared the baskets. Heinrich took our daughter from my arms while I went ahead and helped Vincenzo fix up the drinks. He's still learning how to properly make the tea Ivy likes, she's had a different palate and now she's pregnant. Her taste buds are completely different now from the last time. Slade grabbed the cutleries and arranged them around the blanket.

Caius assisted Ivy in sitting down in the middle. I took in how beautiful she was, she was wearing the dress Slade had crocheted and it hugged her body beautifully. She told us how much she loved the feeling of it on her skin, so he made more.

We ate our lunch that we all helped prepare early this morning. The kitchen was a mess after Ivy tried making the sauce, we all laughed at how cute she was when she panicked that the sauce reached all the way to the ceiling. She was trying to be quiet since our daughter was still asleep but our daughter is quite the heavy sleeper so she slept through all her mother's little accidents.

I love this.

The happiness I feel when I can say with my whole heart that this..this is home.

I swore to myself that I would never take this for granted. I never planned on it but I changed even more after we saw it. I think we all did. The tears we shed that night we watched it happen..it wasn't our ivy but..it was her. I felt something shift in me after that. I then realized how lucky we were.

Not everyone has the chance to have a second chance.

* * *

Athena's POV

Marriage

It was something I dreamt of as a child. I always wondered who I'd be married to and whenever I thought of it, the faces of my childhood friends always popped up in my mind. It has always been them.

The happiness I felt whenever all nine of us were together, was nothing like I've ever felt. I felt safe when they were around me. It felt like a warm blanket wrapped around my body. It felt like home.

I started fantasizing about being together with them at the young age of eight, it was silly really. A young girl's dream. But the look in their eyes when they stared at me, I might not have known what love was then but I knew, it was love.

At Eleven years old, we started slowly figuring out what we wanted to do with our lives. A talent agent stopped Hugh while we were going out to buy school materials. That was the very start of his career. Initially, he was hesitant but when I saw the initial results of his model profile, I was so happy that I posted it on my wall.