The Split

Epilogue

A/N: Surprise, it's the end, please don't kill me :o

Epilogue

"Kirstie! She spoke but you're gonna be mad!" I yell down the hall.
     "I am mad!" She runs into Marcia's room, lightly shoving me, "I'm mad that I missed it."
      "No like, we never actually discussed what she's gonna call me, and she-"
      "Dada!"
      I point at Marcia "Keeps saying that. I have been saying mom to her for months okay, I didn't do that."
      "Dada!"
       Kirstie smiles and picks up Marcia, "While you've been saying Mom, I've been saying Dad, so now we know who she listens too, aye Martian," she tickles the small girl's stomach creating beautiful laughter. By the way, Martian totally stuck and I take full credit for it. "Who dis?" Kirstie points to herself.
     "Mama!"
      "And who that?" she points at me.
      "Dada, dada!"
      "How long has she been saying Mama then?"
      "She said it yesterday, then I wanted to surprise you with Dada,"she smiles across at me.
      "You want me to be her dad?"
      "Baby, you already are, you're the best dad she could ask for. Best boyfriend I could ask for too, but that's somewhat less important," she laughs.
      Kirstie and I have only been dating about four months and Marcia's not quite one yet, and Kirstie's still decided that I'm going to be the father figure for her daughter, or I guess it's our daughter now since I am her dada which brings tears to my eyes every time she says it. I always knew I would be a dad one day, I just never thought it would be to a child that wasn't biologically mine. And I know at some point that me and Kirstie will have more children in the future, she wants four, I want three, we'll see how that turns out.
      Some people might think it's exteme, talking babies and what not when you've only been dating as long as Kirstie and I have, but it's not. People spend these first few months of their relationships getting to know one another, having been friends for four years before this Kirstie and I already know pretty much everything about each other. That and she has a daughter right now, so that prompts the talks because we want Marcia to have siblings close to her own age, it'll still be a couple of years before she gets any though, we'd like to be married. Okay maybe it's slightly over the top the amount of time we spend talking about it, but really it just means that we're planning on being together for a long time and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Kirstie's decided that it's finally warm enough to take Marcia to the beach for the first time. It's always pretty warm in California, but she's decided May will do just fine. It's sort of an early birthday present to Kirstie too, I hate the beach but I'm going to go for her, and for Marcia.
      I did some research on the best beaches for kids, Kirstie thought it was very funny, but I was serious, and I found one nearby that was perfect.
      We drove there with kids tunes playing and Marcia babbling along in the backseat, I was still learning them, but Kirstie knew all the words.
       Taking a child to the beach was a lot bigger deal than I thought. Firstly she had to wear this bulky waterproof diaper, even though Kirstie wasn't sure if we were gonna take her in the water, which is fine because everything about the ocean scares me. Secondly the poor girl was so covered in sunscreen I was sure if I picked her up she'd slide right from my hands. I have to admit, she's easily the cutest thing on the beach though, her little swimsuit has the ruffles and her little sandals match.
      Kirstie took a lot of pictures on her phone, and I mean a lot. They were mostly of me and Marcia, I kept trying to get out of shot and she kept telling me to get back in. Apparently it was the super rareness of me being shirtless that she had to capture at one point, because most of the time I did funnily enough have my shirt on. But we were about to take Marcia in the water, at least just by the edge.
       "Tie your hair up babe, it's getting in the way of some of the shots," she hands me a hair tie and I tie it up as best I can, I was out of practice seeing as my hair was only just long enough to tie up again. I was thinking of growing it out and Kirstie didn't seem to mind the idea, just warned me that Marcia will pull it.
       With sunblock on, shoes off and water wings on little arms I carried Marcia to the waters edge, Kirstie followed us with her camera on.
       "Are you sure you wouldn't rather take part in this moment?" Part of me didn't want to go near the water, I'd rather film it, and the other part was thinking maybe it'd be great if all three of us could do this together with no camera in the way. The whole ocean fear thing is winning out at the moment.
      "I'll film a little then I'll join in, and you'll be fine, you're hardly even going in the water, it's not deep yet so it's not technically the deep ocean, which is what you're really afraid of," see, she knows me too well.
      "Fine," I sigh with a slight chuckle. I step into the water so it's barely ankle deep then lower Marcia down until her feet touch the water too. She pulls her legs up as soon as she does though.
     "Yeah it's a little cold huh?" I laugh. Kirstie tells me to lower her a bit more, a little bit of cold water wasn't going to hurt her. So I do and she keeps on pulling her legs up higer until it's her butt that's in the water, she cries out, making Kirstie and I laugh. We knew she was fine because she starts splashing at the water and digging the sand up with her tiny fists and most importantly, laughing.
     "I'll be back," Kirstie says as she runs off, hopefully going to put her camera down.
     "It warms up pretty quickly huh?" I lightly tickle Marcia's side. "But if you don't like the ocean that's cool, I don't like it much either. This shallow won't hurt us though," I'm pretty sure I'm speaking more to myself than Marcia.
     The waves were only small, so it was ideal really for Marcia to just sit there and splash around. Kirstie finally comes back over and kneels down beside us. I glance over at her and have to double take, my attention is supposed to be on Marcia but that becomes very hard when Kirstie looks that good.
      "So who's the hottest mom on the beach, or you know possibly ever," I watch her with a smile and she lightly shoves me.
     "Shut up!"
     "Hey! I'm holding a child here!" I fake gasp and then we both break into laughter, Marcia joins in to, but I'm pretty confident that she doesn't know what we're laughing about.
It's time to get out of the water when Marcia starts to change colour. We go back up on the sand and Kirstie makes quick work of getting Marcia changed into something warm so that the squirming child can go back to playing in the sand.
     "At this rate she's going to bring home half the beach in her diaper," Kirstie laughs as she releases the baby who all but dives into the sand beside us.
      "She's gonna put her hand in her mouth!" I warn.
      Kirstie turns, "I'll let her do it once, then she'll learn hopefully won't do it again."
We watch and sure enough Marcia puts her sand covered hand in her mouth then reels back, toppling over, drool all over her chin.
      "See sweet-pea, don't do that," Kirstie says sweetly, pulling Marcia into her arms. "Can you pass a wet wipe, I'll give her something to eat."
     Kirstie wipes off the small hands like a pro then I hold out an apple slice for Marcia to take, she had a couple of teeth coming in and she really seemed to like apple, she could suck on it and chew it, the best of both worlds when you're not even one yet.
      "Have you thought much about what Scott offered up last week?" I ask.
      "Of course I have."
      "And so what are you thinking?"
      "That I'd love to make music again but that I don't think I'd be able to do the whole touring thing anymore. Which sucks cause I loved that side of it, meeting the fan a different place every two days, getting to see the world, but I have a child now and until she's 18 she's my top priority, and then even then," she half laughs.
     "Well I reckon we can still make music, we don't have to tour, there are plenty of musicians who don't tour, can't think of any off the top of my head but there some out there," I nod surely.
      "Then I'd love to do that, all five of us working together again, it'll be amazing. Especially if you put forward that song you wrote for Marcia," she smiles at me and I shake my head.
      "No, that's just for Marcia, besides it doesn't even have a name," I look across at the little girl,       "She's gonna name it for me when she can talk," I chuckle lightly.
     "Fine, but if we're a song short of an album at some point then you'll have to reconsider," she smiles smugly at me, that was her way if saying she'd won and I better not talk back. I was happy to play by her rules. "So what about what I said, have you thought that over?"
I nod, "Esther and Kev are getting along a lot better-"
      "Because there's something going on with the two of them."
      I shake my head, "Absolutely not. No. Anyways, they're getting along better and I spend most of my time at yours anyways so it would make sense to move in, but don't think I'm gonna start eating my vegetables just cause we're being all grown up and living together and stuff."
      She laughs, "Puh-lease I'm too busy trying to get Martian not to spit them back out to be bothered worrying about you... yet," she smirks again. Great, just great. "I can just see at some point saying 'if you eat a piece of broccoli, dad will eat a piece of broccoli."
      "Dad will not."
      "Dad will so if I tell him to," she points to herself.
     "How can I still love you even though you're trying to make me eat baby trees?"
     "I don't know, how can I still love you even though you call broccoli baby trees!"
     "Kirstin my dearest you have me stumped."

The End...

A/N: But is it ever really the end?? 

What if we added three ;)

PS. Every time I wrote broccoli I spelt it differently and none of them were right ;P