Well as promised this is the end. I don't know what the future will bring, but I am grateful to all of you who have followed this story. You all make my heart full with every review and comment. Thank you!

5 years later...

Gerry

Gerry finished up NYU law school at the top of his class. After passing the bar he went back to the sports agency for two years before he opened his own agency. Although the agency was sad to see him go, they wished him well and a lot of his former clients jumped to his agency.

In his personal life that's where the biggest update had come. Gerry was always so single minded about where he was going that he didn't really have time for a relationship. Two summers previously he had met someone in Italy and was smitten. Her name was Elaina Montegro. Her family was from Florence also. One of Gerry's cousins had dragged him to a garden party down the road and the moment he walked in he could see where his future was going. Elaina was stunning, think of a young Sofia Lauren. She was tall at 6' 0", she had the greenest eyes he had ever see, he was sure she was a model, which he found he stuck his foot in his mouth when he learned that she was a Theoretical Physics Ph.d candidate. She was due to complete it in a year.

Brains and beauty. Olivia knew her son was done the moment she met her. She was everything that she could of asked for Gerry. She was kind and Ava and the twins adored her. Gerry was glad that Ava liked her, he would never admit it, but he cherished his spunky little sisters opinion.

Gerry may have been the tough big brother, but Olivia knew him to be kind, generous and he loved his family very much. So, it was no surprise that at 26 Gerry proposed to Elaina and they were married the following Summer. The wedding was probably one of the biggest affairs Florence had seen in a long time. Gerry asked all his brother's to be his best men, including the twins. Ava made the best flower girl, but Gerry balled his eyes out as Olivia gave him his special wedding day gift. It was a St. Christopher Medal with an inscription on the back that said, May God protect my first born.

Olivia and Gerry had forged a great bond. He was hers and she was his, they would never look back as nothing more than mother and son.

Teddy

Teddy was in his third year of Medical School at Columbia. He enjoyed undergrad so much that he decided to stay. He shared an apartment with one of his classmates. They were both good for each other in supporting each other in subjects they found difficult. Teddy had gotten through his depression with flying colors and being home and a good routine helped in his recovery.

He was looking forward to joining Grant and Grant medical practice. Fitz had specialized in Pediatrics and Teddy wanted to be a Pediatric Surgeon. He just need to get through Med school and his Pediatric Surgery rotations.

Philip

Philip single handily turned the Yale Lacrosse team around. With his signing to the program and getting other blue chipper signed, they were projected to win the NCAA Championship this year. They made it to the finals last year but lost to Duke.

Philip's painting had taken on so much attention that he had gallery opening in New York and Italy. He was highly touted as the next big thing in the art scene. He was featured on the front cover of The Artist magazine as a wunder kin. It was hard to keep him grounded when he sold his first painting for $50,000. That is where Olivia stepped in and pulled his coat tails when he needed it. She made him put the money away so he could set himself up with a studio of his own when he graduated. The sales didn't end there and with his upcoming senior year, he had enough money to just paint for at least three years and not worry about money.

Olivia made him take finance courses at school to make sure he knew how to handle his money and not go crazy.

Philip still was a deep thinker and he never said anything until he mulled it over in his mind. Lately he had been thinking about Mellie and what she taught him, and what it would have been like if she was still in his life. He's positive that he either would have blown all the money by now and dropped out of school. Money was her alter she worshiped at and if he had remained loyal to her, and not let Olivia into his heart, he didn't know where he would be now.

He sat down one Saturday and wrote Olivia a hand written letter. He expressed his gratitude for coming into his life and keeping him grounded in a world that could get out of hand if he let it. For always having his back and coming to so many of his games, and being the loudest when he played. He doodled a beautiful heart at the bottom of the page and told her how much he loved her.

Olivia got the letter and had it put into a shadow box and placed in on the wall in their bedroom. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever received from anyone.

Adam

Adam decided that he would attend Princeton. He wanted to be as close to home as possible and get a great education. He loved the English Lit department at Princeton and he was looking forward to spending the summer at Oxford coming up. He was accepted into a summer program that deep dived into J.R.R. Tolkein and C. S. Lewis. They were colleagues at Oxford and they still have some of their private papers.

Adam's writing had matured like he had. He still wrote the Adventures of his baby sister series, but they had grown with Ava as well. He shocked the entire family when he produced a novel that Olivia could only compare with something like the Grapes of Wrath. It was good, so good that the his publisher was going to publish it. He was going to use his middle name to publish it so it wouldn't get confused with the children books. A. Myles Grant would embark on who he was really meant to be as a writer.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to keep up his children's books, but when he read to Ava and the boys he had them captivated by his stories and that was what kept him going.

Ava

Ava was still a spunky second grader at the Brearley School for girls. Fitz and Olivia would alternated taking her to school each day. Most of the time it was Fitz. She still had her father and brother's wrapped around her finger. She could also make her baby brother dance to her tune. Olivia had to reprimand her periodically because she thought she was their mother as well as their sister. On a whole she was smart, loving, and could be funny as hell. Olivia helped to balance her out as well as her grandmother's.

The family worried for nearly a month after Modesta passed away. Ava grieved for her something awful. So much so, that they took her to Florence for spring break. Once she was able to say her goodbyes to her Great-Grandmother she seemed to come out of her fog of grief.

After they returned home, there was a package waiting for Ava. It was from Modesta. She had written down all her recipes for her. Her note said that feeding your family was love, and she was passing down all the love from her ancestors to her. Ava cried for an hour after she read the note. Fitz and Olivia allowed her to cry it out in their bed and let her fall asleep with them that night.

Ava took those receipts and told her family she would be the greatest chef the world had ever known. The family had no doubt about that at all.

Elijah and Elliot

Were the sweetest boys Olivia thought ever existed. They were inseparable. The first three months of their lives they could not go to sleep unless they were in the same crib together. It took sometime, but they eventually got them into their own cribs.

Their Great-Grandmother Modesta was able to see them grow for at least three years before she passed away. She was a 100 when she died but to see these boys come into the world, she felt like her family would be alright as they moved into the future.

At five they had started at the Browning School like Teddy and Adam. They were as smart as Ava and a little bit mischievous when they knew they could pull things over on people. They would go to each others classes at school and pretend to be the other until they got caught. Olivia told them if she found out they did this again, they would be on punishment from now until they graduated form high school.

They never tried it again and were sad that their mother was mad at them, which to them was a rarity. They were good boys and Mama's boys to boot. Fitz were looking forward to seeing them develop more as individual and what would peek their interest in the future.

Fitz and Olivia

It had been almost nine years from that night at the lake. As they laid in bed reflecting on their lives together.

"Have you regretted anything?" Fitz asked.

Olivia thought for a while.

"No, this is how my life should have been. I wouldn't change a thing. If I didn't go through all the pain that I did with Daniel and my ex-husband, then I wouldn't have been ready for you. To fight for us."

Fitz really listened and agreed with everything she was saying.

"My only regret is not finding you sooner. I do hear what you said, but I wish my boys had your love from the start. Maybe if I had been stronger and left Mellie after Gerry was born, I'm sure we would have found each other. Babe we have always been meant to be together."

"I'm sure we are love, but we are here now and that's what counts and our boys and our princess are flourishing. We've made our way now, and I can't wait for the rest to unfold for us."