JUSTIN

"I wasn’t prepared for Brian to want more than to be in Lily’s life. I planned to hold off on relationships, because Lily wasn’t going to have 'uncles' that might disappear from her life. I’m not blind to Brian, he’s gorgeous, but it takes more than what he looks like for me to want to pursue a relationship with him. I can also see he needs all his attention focused on Gus, Lily, and his father. Do I see the possibility with him? Yes. But he’s still healing from his past, and I don’t want to be in the way of that process. It took me a long time to see that my relationship with Ethan was the result of missing my mom and sister, and wanting someone to point to and say I wasn’t completely alone. I jumped into something that ended up being the biggest mistake of my life, and I don’t want us to end up having problems that will affect Lily and Gus in the long run,” I tell Ted when he was sitting in my studio.

“Okay. I really just came by to see if you needed any help with your taxes,” Ted tells me.

“Sorry. Emmett made it seem like I was just avoiding the inevitable,” I tell him.

“Emmett wants us all to be happy. He thinks meeting someone means the possibility of falling in love. He is the optimist in this family,” Ted tells me.

“I hope he’s right, I want to be really in love one day,” I tell him.

“I don’t want it,” He tells me.

“Why?” I ask.

“I have problems with understanding why anyone wants someone like me. I get why Brian wants you, everything about you makes it easy to see,” He tells me.

“What makes you think anyone sees what you do?” I ask, pulling out the paperwork I usually leave until the last day before taxes have to be filed.

“You’re easy to get to know, you never make an issue of our issues, and in case you bypass mirrors, you’re rather easy on the eyes,” He tells me.

“You are too, but you don’t see that,” I tell him.

“Thanks, but I know what I see,” He tells me.

“I see someone who picked the wrong asshole to love, and most likely overlooked other guys because you have a confidence problem. You're successful if you want to be, and figured out that the guy you fooled yourself into believing you loved, you really didn’t love, but wanted, because he was a fantasy,” I tell him.

“How do you know I didn’t love him?” Ted asks.

“Daphne doesn’t think you did, because of what happened. It makes sense to me, if you love someone, you don’t try to get away from them. You want to live for them,” I tell him.

“Have you ever had a relationship, other than Ethan the cheater?” He asks, sort of pissed.

“No. But tell me a single relationship you know where anyone did the things like Michael was doing to you, that you would see as love. I’m not judging you, but telling you that love should feed you, not starve you,” I tell him.

“Alex said it was more like a crush that I got to fulfill,” He tells me.

“You got your dream and it turned into a nightmare. Learn from it the way I did with Ethan. I thought us both being artists was a good thing. It just turned out that Ethan couldn’t handle anyone not kissing his ass and telling him he was the next big thing. I won’t let him affect every potential relationship by comparing them to him,” I tell him, handing the paperwork to him.

“Why are you letting it affect Brian then?” He smirks, leaving the room.

“Lily, don’t you see Daddy needs to spend time with you first?”  I ask her, leaning over her in her bassinet.

Lily grunted and left me a diaper to clean. Somehow that wasn’t the agreement I was looking for. I laughed and picked her up to change her. I passed by the wall of diapers, still wondering what he was thinking. My doorbell rang and I went to answer it. Brian was standing there looking lost, while Gus just ran in and went to play with the toys he left here for him.

“You just missed Ted by minutes,” I tell him, taking Lily to her room.

“Are you okay?” I ask, since I hadn’t seen him since yesterday.

“I don’t really know. Carl wants me to meet his other children. I don’t have the best relationship with siblings,” He tells me.

“I had a great relationship with my sister, no matter how short it was, I would give anything to still have her here. Whatever your sister was like, it doesn’t mean your other siblings will be like the her,” I tell him.

“I haven’t asked because you don’t seem to want to talk about it...” He tells me.

“My mom and sister were coming to see me and got in an accident. It was just a freak accident, but it left me without the only family I had. I want Lily to have people other than just me. Carl’s offering that to you, Gus, and Lily. You have a chance at something I don’t, a family that will accept you,” I tell him.

BRIAN

“Good God, how did I miss it?” I ask, pulling him into my arms while the tears stream down his cheeks.

“Miss what?” He asks, softly.

“You’re not as all together as we all thought,” I whisper.

“You’re letting something that not all of us get sound like a bad thing,” He says, letting me hold him.

“If it means that much to you, then we meet them,” I tell him, making him look at me.

“It should mean something to you,” He tells me as the tears continue to fall.

“I think you convinced me,” I tell him, wiping the tears from those beautiful eyes.

“Why do you want me?” He asks.

“Being around you heals me. You're like the sun. You help me forget the storms before you appeared. I don’t know. I’ve never really felt anything like you make me feel, just by being around you. You don’t realize what I would have done to someone else if they had interfered with what was happening when Carl showed up. It was different when you did it,” I tell him.

“You wanted to know him, or you wouldn’t have been making excuses,” He tells me, confident.

“There you are, my Sunshine,” I tell him, kissing him because he needed it just as much as I did.

“Thanks, but I’m sure Lily would like this diaper on,” He tells me, as we both look at Lily peeing everywhere.

“It’s okay Princess, there isn’t any mess that we won’t help you with,” I tell her.

EMMETT

Carl and I were going to visit Justin. He wanted to spend time with his granddaughter and didn’t know how to get there. We walked in as I usually did. Neither of us knew what to make of the conversation. I was rooting that the two would at least try. Gus waved at us and continued to play. Carl sat next to Gus, playing with him.

“I really think they would be great together,” I whisper to Carl.

“What anyone but them thinks doesn’t matter. It’s what they think that matters,” He tells me.

“Are you going to be okay with Joan?” I ask him.

“Right now I just want my children to meet and to see my family whole,” He tells me.

“It’s nice that it doesn’t bother you, my family let my being gay be the only thing that mattered,” I tell him.

“I can’t love only parts of my children, anyone who can loses the chance to know everything. I don’t love Lily for anything but the wonderful addition she’ll be,” He tells me.

“I think Justin wants her to have as much family as she can. He’s like me, no family left,” I tell him.

“You have Brian, Ted, and Shelly. I have a feeling you’ll have Justin as well. You're always going to be family to me, because you stood by Brian,” He tells me.

“We used to have Vic, but Brian isn’t ready to let him back in our lives. I miss Vic, he was like the anti-Debra,” I tell him.

“You guys don’t call her Deb?” He asks.

“No. Well it’s more to do with Alex wanting to distance the nickname, because we saw Deb as someone who cared, when it was the opposite,” I tell him.

“I’ll make sure to correct that,” He tells me.

“None of us really care if you never say any of their names. Especially the G-I-R-L-S,” I spell out so Gus doesn’t figure it out. “That had a not so great effect on a certain someone,” I tilt my head to Gus.

“They shouldn’t be a problem,” He says, helping Gus with a building block.

“How do you know?” I ask, when he winced when he realized he said it out loud.

“I just saw them in one of my cells before I left,” He shrugs.

“At least they made it into one,” I tell him, pissed that they got away with more than people without parents like Lindsay’s would have.

“I thought so too,” He smirks at me.

“I want you to be my dad,” I tell him.

BRIAN

Justin and I were listening to them talk. He giggled, saying Carl was his hero.

“Really? I was hoping for that spot,” I tell him, kissing Lily as we walked in.

“Hey guys. Carl wanted to spend time with Lily. I figured I wouldn’t let the big cop get lost in our city,” Emmett tells us.

“I have to pick up Mom, John, and Peter,” I tell him.

“You want me to come?” Emmett asks.

“I wanted to bring Lily and Gus with me,” I tell them.

“Carl can stay with me. Then the kids can get grandma time,” Justin tells me.

“If you don’t mind. I’d like to get to know Justin too,” Carl tells me.

“You have to deal with her sometime,” Emmett tells him.

“Not when she needs time with Brian. I think she’s worried more about how he’s going to deal with it. I don’t want it to become awkward when she’s meeting Lily the first time,” Carl tells me.

“Thanks,” I tell him, for understanding.

“Tell Joanie that I’ll try to make it easier, but we do need to talk to each other soon. I want this family to work, and she’s part of it,” He lets me know.

“When do Carl and Vicky get here?” I ask, as my offer for his.

“Anytime you want, Carl is bringing his family to my house in Pittsburgh, but it’s only an hour here. I need to tell him to stay away from Liberty Avenue though,” He tells me.

“Why?” Emmett ask him.

“My sons look almost like twins,” Carl tells us.

“Two of Brian. Jesus, the world isn’t ready for that,” Emmett tells us.

“I don’t know, one’s kind of interesting, two might be fun,” Justin comments, wiggling his eyebrows.

“My brother is straight,” I warn Justin.

CARL JR

I left my family at Dad’s to go get some breakfast. I got out the front door and was almost to my car when a woman came out of nowhere, yelling that I was an ungrateful asshole. Then she took off, saying I better not fucking call the cops on her or some guy named Michael, if I expected to move back here. I got in my jeep, trying to figure out what the hell that was about. Hopefully the nuthouse caught the crazy that escaped. Seriously, the wig and the massive button collection just screamed UNBALANCED to me. Maybe we should have just gone to New York, not here.