Chapter 21: Episode 22 — The Long-Awaited Epilogue

“No Damien,” Astrid says as she stepped out of their car.

“You didn’t even think about it, love.” Damien whines, closing the door and taking his daughter’s hand, helping her up the stairs of the Matthews’ mansion.

“And that’s because I have had my mind made.” She says casually as her son zooms right past her. “Leo please be careful!”

Soon enough their daughter ran after her brother.

“And now I’ve lost two,” Astrid threw her hand up, “Sera, please keep that dress clean at least until grandma sees you!”

But she only hears a giggle before she lost sight of her daughter's curls around the hall.

“Astrid.” Damien takes her hand and made her face him. “Please? I know I won’t be the one doing the whole housing for nine months, but remember how fun it was?”

“Housing?” she raised a brow, “I’m not even pregnant yet and you’re calling me a house?”

Damien shrugs, “Fine, forget I asked.” He follows their children down the hall and right, leaving a confused wife behind.

“I should have known you were the one making all that ruckus.”

Astrid looks up and sees her grandfather making his way down the stairs.

“Grandpa, good morning.” She smiles and hugs him. “Feeling better?”

“When did I ever felt not?” he laughs.

“Last week when you caught a cold?” she teased.

“It’s just the cold, princess, that’s a long pass.”

“If you say so.” She chuckles and walks beside him, his arm hooked around her arm.

“Now,” he drops his voice into a whisper, “what were you and the Cayce boy arguing about?”

She frowned, “You heard that?”

He made the face that she would usually make when she has no answer for him, “A bit.”

She chuckles and shook her head. “He wants to have another child.”

“Well, I don’t see the problem with that.”

“There’s a lot of problem grandpa.” She whines. “And not just the Circle and the heir and whatnot, it’s about family history.”

“You have to explain this to me, love. As I said, I don’t see a problem with what Damien wants.”

Astrid sighed, “It was hard enough when I was pregnant the first time. I didn’t know any health history for me, and when the twins were born Damien didn’t have one to offer either.”

“I see…” he nods, “I would offer to find who your parents are but we don’t have any leads at all. Unless we could build a time machine-like in that film your kids love so much… what is it again? The kid with a weird hair and crazy family… Uhm, Reagan? No, Ronald? No, no… Robertson?”

“Robinson.” Astrid grins remembering the day the kids made Father Johan sit down and watch cartoons with them.

“Ah, that’s the one! Anyway, unless we have a time machine-“

“Which we don’t.”

“Exactly, then there’s just no way to know who they are.”

“And that’s what’s wrong with the idea of having more kids, grandpa.” She says.

“But wouldn’t it be worth the risk though?” he asks, “I mean, Damien loves children, and you are an amazing mother, what’s stopping you? A little flu?”

“Flu is just one of the few.” She says as they finally reached the dining room where everyone was and the children were outside the garden playing.

“That’s why we have doctors and medicine, princess.” He says, “What’s a little sneeze to a lifetime of happiness?”

Astrid smiles at him as he taps her on the face before facing everyone.

“Well, this is a rowdy bunch if I’ve ever seen one.” He says overall the noise of the dining hall.

The gang was dropping off the kids at the Matthews and invited the Johnsons and Uncle Rhaumwald for breakfast, afterwards they would be leaving for their trip at the Jacobson’s rest house for the whole week.

A whole week of vacation for everyone was a rare occasion for them, and it was one that they’ll never forget, that’s for sure.

Later that day Astrid and the gang were at her house celebrating their freedom from parenthood for at least a week and was just reminiscing and looking through the albums.

“I still can’t believe that you went to all that trouble just for a cake.” Hera laughs after Allana told them the story about the birthday cake for Astrid’s 16th birthday.

“We were banned from stepping near any oven or stoves for the rest of the year as punishment.” Derek chuckles as he pulls Hera near him so she could snuggle comfortably.

“It was worth it though.” Jared says, “it’s not like it wasn’t edible.”

“Yeah, it just wasn’t for everyone’s taste bud,” Ash adds laughing along with the others.

“It must have been tough though, having to have Astrid disappear like that,” Tenshi says.

“It was,” Ash forced a smile and glanced at her sister, “but it was for the best.”

Astrid stifles a laugh, “For everyone’s sanity probably.”

They gang laughs again, and Astrid looks across from her and sees Damien sitting quietly. They haven’t spoken since they left the kids and she was genuinely beginning to worry. But at the same time, she needed him to realize the gravity of what he’s asking.

“Oh, sorry…” Allana says as she picks up the papers and some envelopes that fell out of the album she was flipping through.

“What’s that?” Derek asks.

“I’m not sure, it has a hospital’s logo on it though,” Allana says handing them toward Astrid.

“With all the times I’ve been in the hospital I wouldn’t know what these are,” Astrid says as she flips through it. “Hm…”

“What is it?” Ash asks.

“I think it’s from my brain surgery.” She says, looking through the envelopes this time. “Yup, that’s the one… see?” she hands her brother one paper describing the report of the surgery.

“Hm, this is easier to understand now.” He says since he had just finished his doctorate a few months ago.

“Huh…”

“What?” Collin asks this time.

“There’s a sealed envelope.” She says.

“Ooh, maybe something secretly went wrong during your operation and-“

“Shush.” Hera hits her husband with a pillow, “open it.”

“It’s probably just some result of a test,” Allana says.

“Yeah…” Astrid says dropping it on top of the other files and taking the ones from Ash. “Let me just keep this out of the children’s reach before they turn it to a comic page.”

“Tell me about it,” Hera says as she finished up her fruit juice.

Astrid went to their bedroom and toward the walk-in closet where she and Damien had a vault placed for their papers and other important things they have. She set down the papers as she unlocks it and when she was about to put the papers inside she sees the sealed envelope again.

She shrugged off the curious feeling earlier, but she had to know what was inside.

Cause maybe, just maybe Derek wasn’t wrong.

“Where is that wife of yours?” Allana asks Damien who was wondering the same thing the last 20 minutes.

“Probably got distracted by something to do upstairs.” He grins, for the first time the whole day, “I’ll go check on her.”

Damien follows Astrid to their room, he knew she’d placed those papers in their vault, but still, he looks around wondering if something else caught her attention.

“Astrid?” he steps into the room and sees her sitting at the edge of their bed, paper in hand her eyes red from crying, “Astrid! Are you ok? What’s wrong?”

She stared at him for a moment and tried to talk but nothing came out.

“Love, what is it? Are you ok? Does anything hurt?”

She shook her head.

“Ok, did you remember something?”

She shook her head again.

“Astrid, tell me what’s wrong, you’re scaring me.”

She looks back at the paper and hands it to him.

“I found them.”

“What?” he takes the paper and looks it over.

“They found us.” She says this time.

“Is this…?” Damien asks, just as surprised as he went through the paper again, and only receiving a nod from Astrid.

“Yours is there as well.” She says, “Your dad requested it.”

“No…” he says and flips through the other page. “Wow…”

“I know.”

“I can’t believe it…”

“I know.”

“We need to talk to them.” He says.

“What?” Astrid sits up.

“We need to talk to them, Astrid!” he says excitedly, “This could be the answer to everything.”

“What are you talking about?”

Damien kneels in front of her and cupped her face, “You want to know about your past, don’t you?”

“We’re supposed to be away from the parents and children.” Derek whines, “Not going after them.”

“It’s really important,” Damien says.

“So important that you shoved us in the family van?” Jared whines.

“And if my wife gets hurt-“

“Please, this is just like a walk in the park.” Hera waves her hand at his husband.

“What did they say, Collin?” Astrid asked.

“They’re at the hangar,” he says, “the security had already told them that we’re seeing them off.”

“Can someone tell me what’s going on?” Ash begs for the umpteenth time since Astrid and Damien ran down to tell them that they were seeing their parents off.

“You’ll see.” Damien grins toward Astrid who was just as excited.

“There, that’s them.” Tenshi points out the next private hangar they were driving up to.

The moment Damien stopped the car they jumped off and ran to their parents.

“Mom! Dad!” Astrid calls out.

“What is going on Astrid, are you guys ok?” her mom asks, looking worried.

Astrid laughs and just hugged her, “Yes, never been better.”

“Please don’t tell us that you already miss the tots, there’s a no exchange rule until the weekends.” Uncle Rhaumwald says walking toward them.

“This is your fault, dad,” Damien says.

The others were making their way to them now.

Uncle Rhaumwald sighed, “What did I do now?”

“Not that it's bad,” Damien says as he walks up to him and hugged him as well.

“What is with all the hugging?” Uncle Ashton laughs when Astrid wraps her arms over his shoulder like when she was small.

“Again, blame Uncle Rhaumwald.”

“Well, for the first time he might have done something right.” Her dad says.

“He did more than that,” Damien says as he hands his dad the paper, and Astrid did the same thing.

“What’s this… is this a-“ Aunt Hannah asks as she looks through the paper.

“DNA test?” her husband finished for her.

“Uncle Rhaumwald had it done when I was in surgery,” Astrid explained.

“Oh my god…” Aunt Hannah laughs, crying happy tears and pulls Astrid to a hug, “Oh god…”

“I can’t believe it…”

“Can someone explain what’s going on?” Ash asks.

His dad then walks up to him, tears in his eyes as he handed him the paper. Ashton reads through it and soon his eyes widened as he looked up at the man he had known as his dad.

“Dad…” his dad laughs before he pulls him into a hug as well.

“This is amazing.” Uncle Rhaumwald says, hugging Damien with one arm and studying the paper again, “I’ve forgotten all about it with all that happened after I requested it.”

“All this time…” Aunt Hannah says cupping her daughter’s face. “My children.”

Ash wraps his mom into a hug as well even picked her up and twirled them around.

The gang watched as the long-awaited reunion had finally come, and it was as magical as it is miraculous.

Then Ash turned to his twin sister and hugs her as well.

“Welcome home baby sis.” He whispers.

“Welcome home big brother.” She says back.

Ash pulls away and stares at her, “Now you don’t have any reason not to have kids.”

Astrid laughs as she nods and thought of a way to let Damien know that she changed her mind.