Chapter 15
After spending a perfect Friday evening in Michael’s arms, Sydney abandoned all her prior plans for that weekend. She realized that no tourist trap could even be half as good as spending more time in Michael’s embrace, so the two of them spent a perfect Saturday together at her apartment. On Sunday, they did visit a few places Michael wanted to see before Sydney took him to the train station for his four fifteen departure. Their goodbye was sad, both of them knowing it would probably be another two weeks before they saw one another again. They both agreed, though, that seeing each other in two weeks was most definitely better than not seeing each other at all.
Through the next week, Sydney and Michael spoke over the phone daily. It seemed that any awkwardness and tension left over from their eight years apart had almost vanished entirely; they were right back to being their old selves, except perhaps a little older and wiser. Sydney found the older and wiser part to be a large benefit too; they had both lived a good part of their adult lives without one another, giving them a chance to experience things apart. In the end, this only reaffirmed for them that they were better off together.
For Michael, his time apart from Sydney was very lonely. Before Sydney returned to his life, he would often spend evenings after work at some of the hang-out spots around town. Sometimes, he would go out on a date, but more often than not he just hung around the friends he had in town. Now that Sydney had returned, he hesitated to do that for a few reasons.
First, since the whole town knew about his and Sydney’s rekindled romance, they were more likely to ask him questions about it; questions he was not keen on answering. That was the one thing he hated the very most about living in a small town: the gossip. Quite frankly, he did not care who was dating who or who was breaking up with who and could not understand why people cared such things about him.
The other reason why Michael did not like to go out by himself was simply because he felt as though since he and Sydney were a couple, they should hang out as a couple. Of course, this did not apply to every night a week; every couple needed its time apart, but every time he did go out, he thought about Sydney, which made him sad since it would be another week until he could see her once more. Sydney was scheduled to arrive in Hemlock Grove on Friday, two weekends after he visited her in New York; however, she surprised him by arriving on Tuesday instead.
“What are you doing here?” Michael laughed as he let Sydney into their house at eight on Tuesday night.
“Do you know much traffic there is leaving New York City at rush hour?! I thought I was actually going to die while sitting in line on the highway,” she sighed, dumping her bag down on the floor.
“Well its lovely to see you too, honey,” Michael teased.
“Oh I’m sorry,” she laughed before giving him a sweet kiss. “Hi.”
“Hi. What are you doing here?” he repeated his unanswered question.
“Oh well I have this work thing nearby early tomorrow morning so I thought it’d be nice to spend the night here since it would be easier to get from here to my meeting than from the city to my meeting,” she explained with a smile before kissing him again and kicking off her shoes.
“Um, question, what kinda meeting are you having out in Hickville for your fancy-schmancy financial advising felgercarb?” Michael asked with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s with a client,” she laughed. “You got any food? I’m
starving. All I ate on the drive here was an old Pop Tart.”
“Ew,” Michael grimaced. “Why didn’t you stop at Burger King or something?”
“Ew,” she returned a grimace. “I didn’t want to die of a coronary before I got here!” Michael rolled his eyes and directed her towards the kitchen.
Later that evening, as they were getting ready for bed, Michael tired to strike up the romantic mood, but Sydney stopped him. “It’s that time of the month,” she informed him simply.
Michael’s entire body slumped down onto the bed as he grumbled, “Comes here early…no sex… oh! You know what you should do? You should switch to that birth control pill where you only get it four times a year.”
She gave him a suspicious look. “Why…and how do you even know about that?”
“’cause there are commercials for it like every five seconds on TV,” he informed her. “And that way you wouldn’t get it so often so we wouldn’t have to-” his comment was cut off by a loud ‘thwack’ as Sydney hit him in the head with her pillow.
“Michael Vaughn you are disgusting!” she exclaimed, though she was laughing.
“What?!” he asked innocently.
“First, that pill creeps me out –it’s unnatural. Secondly, oh you poor, poor baby that you can’t last just a few days a month – however will you survive?!” she mocked him with an eye roll. Michael merely shrugged before kissing her goodnight and sliding down beneath the covers, his arm around her waist.
~*~
After her meeting on Wednesday morning, Sydney returned to New York City for the remainder of the week. On Friday, she was one again driving to Hemlock Grove. During that trip, she seriously began contemplating buying a vehicle for herself. After all, she now had use for a car, at least every few weekends and she did not see that going away anytime soon.
Due to a traffic snarl, Sydney did not arrive at home until after nine o’clock. By that point, she was so exhausted, she just went straight into the bedroom, knowing that if she sat down on the couch it would only be moments until she fell asleep. As she was changing out of her work suit, Michael came in the room.
“Hey I wanted to show you something before you went to bed,” he said softly. She gave him a curious look, and he walked over to the nightstand beside their bed to retrieve the item.
“Your wedding ring…” Sydney said with confusion when Michael held up the item between his thumb and index finger. “But I thought you said you threw it in the river…”
“I did,” he said softly as he sat on the edge of the bed. “But apparently I have crappy aim. I found it a month later along the riverbanks. It was a bit tarnished, but I had a jeweler clean it up and then I put it away, someplace safe…”
“Why did you tell me you had it before?” she asked, sitting beside him.
He was silent for a moment before telling her, “I was scared…scared that this would all blow up and I’d get hurt again. But then I realized that if I kept being scared and holding back, I would just make sure things did blow up, but I don’t want them too.
“I saw on the calendar that next week is our tenth anniversary, technically anyway, and I was thinking how nice it would be if we were to renew our vows… Not next week, of course,” he clarified with a soft laugh, “but maybe in a few months…before the end of the year.”
Her heart fluttering softly, Sydney leaned over and gave him a long kiss. “I’m glad you said that because I have to tell you about my meeting on Wednesday.”
“Okay…?” Michael said with total confusion.
“Well first, it wasn’t a meeting – it was a job interview. A bank nearby is looking for a financial manager. It’s only a forty minute commute which is totally doable from here and it would be especially nice if I was able to live here with you, you know since you’re my husband and all,” she smiled at him.
Michael was so surprised he didn’t react for a whole minute; he just stared at her. Finally when he did speak, he asked, “But what about the city…your dream job… do you really want to give that up?”
Sydney sighed heavily and picked up one of his hands in hers. She had been thinking seriously about that exact question over the prior two weeks and had formulated a perfect answer. “I’m not giving it up. I had seven years of it and, while I loved it at the time, I knew it wasn’t the job I was going to have until I was sixty-five. The last few weeks at work have really kinda sucked since my boss decided to be a jerk about some stuff… that combined with our tenth anniversary made me think about the future, my life…
“I’m gonna be thirty soon and that means I want to have a family. I don’t want to do that in New York; I want to do that here, and I want to do that with you,” she smiled at him. He smiled back at her. “I want our kids to grow up like we did in this little hick town…because as much as I hate it sometimes I do love it and I want it for them.”
“I do too,” he agreed before kissing her. “So you’re like…moving back here?!” he asked with excitement.
She laughed softly. “Well not tomorrow – but definitely by the end of the summer, depending on if I get the bank job and when they want me to start.”
“That sounds wonderful,” he said, kissing her again. Then, he pressed his ring into her palm and she gave him a curious look. Grinning, he held out his left hand and wiggled his ring finger at her. Finally realizing that he wanted her to put his ring on, she laughed and did so, smiling at the recollection of her similar action from ten years prior.
After she did this, Michael leaned over and unclasped the necklace hanging around her neck, slid her ring off of it, and then placed it onto her left ring finger. Then, he gave her a long kiss. “I’m so glad to have you back,” he said softly to her.
“Right back atcha,” she smiled.
Epilogue
“Daaaaad come on! Let’s go already!” nine-year-old Scott groaned while banging his head against the back door impatiently.
“Where are
you going?” Scott’s older sister, Nina, asked with distain.
“Fishing,” he said simply.
“Honey,” Sydney laughed softly to her son, “there are no fish in that stream.”
“
Cray fish,” Scott clarified. The girls grimaced.
“Ready to go,” Michael smiled as he walked past his girls and over to his son. The fourteen years since he and Sydney had renewed their wedding vows had been utterly blissful.
After taking the bank job and moving back to Hemlock Grove permanently, Sydney and Michael’s relationship picked up essentially right where it had left off, only much better and mush stronger. They renewed their vows in October of that year in a real wedding ceremony before taking a real honeymoon to officially kick off their rekindled marriage.
Just a year later, Sydney became pregnant with their daughter. A year after she was born Sydney was pregnant once again, completing their family. She stayed home with the children until Scott was in kindergarten, at which point she returned to her bank job. In exchange, Michael began working only half days so that he would be home with the children when they were through with school. This was the perfect way for them to continue raising their family with the loving atmosphere that Hemlock Grove provided.
“Don’t bring home something gross,” Sydney warned her husband before he could escape out the door. “You can catch as many crayfish as you want, but if I see one in this house…,” she threatened dangerously.
“Don’t worry,” Michael laughed, “you won’t.” Then, he left with Scott.
Sydney turned to her daughter and smiled. “How about we girls go do some shopping while the boys are doing gross things?”
“Yes!” Nina cheered.
Sydney laughed and put her arm around her little girl. “C’mon, let’s go.”
thanks for reading everyone!
like i mentioned before, this will be the last fic i post here at AA. It's been quite a run for me... 4 years i belive, which is crazy long. However, all good things must come to an end
I will still be posting fics for a little whlie longer (i belive the promise i made was at least through the end of december) but only at RF and/or OI. So i'll see you guys there.
I'll still check in here every few days or so, so if you have questions you can still PM me
Thanks everyone!