6 1/2 months later

Jenny smiled at everyone who was gathered in her grandmother's kitchen and living-room. This was her family, the people that loved her and that she loved.

They had surprised her with a get-together for her 18th birthday which was today.

As she looked at the cake with the candles and thought about what she should wish for when she would blow out the candles, she thought to herself that there wasn't much she was still wishing for.

All in all she was very happy and the last year had been better than she could have expected. A lot of her lifelong wishes had come true over the course of the last year and now she found herself with a loving family, loving grandparents, a brother and his siblings and more uncles than she had known existed in her life.

Ever since that meeting in LA with her father had gone so wrong and Brian had taken her to Washington, D.C. to meet Ben and Hunter, she had started to build a relationship with those two as well as everyone in their Pittsburgh family.

Hunter, his family and Ben had come to Pittsburgh for the long Easter weekend and Jenny had gone and visited them in D.C. for two weeks during her summer break. This had really helped them to get to know each other better and to connect again.

She had also spent some time in New York with Gus which had been great fun.

Shortly before the summer holidays, she had started working for Emmett's company, helping out as a waitress at some events, earning herself some extra pocket money that way. Ted had helped her with her school work when she had started to struggle to keep up with Maths and Blake had been a great friend, easy to talk to and always having time and an ear to listen to her and whatever was on her mind.

And then there were Brian and Justin: Gus' fathers who she almost considered her own fathers as well. They had both welcomed her into their family and she would often spend weekends at their house when Gus was in town, sometimes also when Gus wasn't in town and she wanted to spend time with Luke.

They had gotten very close in recent months, but as far as the family was concerned, they were still in the 'Are they or are they not interested in each other' stage of things and hadn't acted on their feelings yet.

Brian and Justin had talked to Luke once about his feelings for Jenny and while the boy had admitted that he liked her and probably also more than just a friend, he had also admitted that he was scared of their friendship changing should he act on it. And really, wouldn't it be weird? She was his brother's sister... Of course she wasn't his sister, but with her being Gus' sister and living with his grandparents it all felt weird to him.

Brian and Justin had tried to assure him that they would be fine if Luke wanted to see if there was something between him and Jenny. As the boy had said, she wasn't his sister, so it might be weird, but their family had seen weirder things already. So far neither Luke nor Jenny had acted on their feelings though, so for now they still seemed to be friends only.

Vicky had loved having Jenny around. Jenny was like the big sister she had never had and Vicky had just loved to have another girl around at times. There were so many uncles and brothers in her life, but she had felt like there had been a definite lack of girls, so now with Jenny as a part of the family, she felt like she finally had another girl in her life. Of course there were Molly and Daphne, but both of them had their own families and careers and weren't around as much as the rest of the Liberty Avenue family was, so Vicky didn't see them nearly as often as she saw all of her uncles.

Debbie and Carl had also loved having Jenny around. Yes, it had been quite a change to have a teenager in the house again and at their age change wasn't something that came easily to many people, but both Carl and Debbie loved her and felt like having Jenny live with them only made their life more exciting, happier and helped to keep them young.

There hadn't been any contact from Melanie ever since that court date before Christmas when temporary custody had been granted to Debbie and Carl. Jenny had tried to reach out once and had sent a long letter to her mother, but she had never received a reply in return. It had made her sad, but in the end she hadn't really been surprised. She had heard about how her mother had cut Gus out of her life, so now it just seemed like she had been the next one to be kicked out of her life.

As for Michael, he had tried to contact her twice by email after her visit to Anaheim. He hadn't apologised once for his behaviour at the meeting and had only insisted that they should meet again, this time without anyone of the family present, so Michael could tell her his side of what had happened. Maybe she could also convince Brian to join, so Michael could see him again. After all it had been many years by now since they had last spoken.

Jenny had replied once to his emails, telling him that she wasn't interested in any contact with him if all he was interested in was Brian and her connection to him. If he wasn't ready to get to know her for who she was without talking about Brian, she didn't see how they could move forward with their relationship. Michael hadn't contacted her again after that which had told Jenny all she had needed to know.

As with her mother, it had made her sad, but not nearly as sad as it should have. As Brian had told her on their flight back from D.C. so many months ago: It was their loss! She had a family now, a family that she loved and that loved her. Enough to organise this surprise get-together for her.

Of course Jenny had expected some kind of party as it was her 18th birthday, but she hadn't expected Gus to come in from New York or Ben and Hunter to come in from D.C. just for her birthday.

Seeing all of them in the room, watching her as she was about to blow out the candles, made her feel very loved.

She smiled, then closed her eyes and blew out the 18 candles on the cake in one go.

Everyone cheered as she thought about the wish she had just made: She never wanted to lose these people. She loved all of them and wanted them to be a part of her life for the rest of her days.

The End