Entry tags:
This Beautiful Fantastic Fic: Make Your Own
***
Title: Make Your Own
Author:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kat_lair / Mistress Kat
Fandom: This Beautiful Fantastic
Pairing: Bella/Billy/Vernon
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2533
Disclaimer: Not mine, only playing
Summary: They don’t talk about it. Or, well, they do, but not, Bella thinks, in a way that people would expect them to, with serious faces and rules and accusations. Instead, she asks "Do you think he gets lonely?" lying curled up against Billy's chest, and he says "I've been thinking about that extension. We'll show him the blueprints tomorrow."
Author notes: Okay, so if you know this movie, great! If you don’t, well I’m not surprised, because I only stumbled on it completely randomly on TV. And it was utterly charming except for how Vernon rather got left out of the full happy ending (beginning). Hence this. I blame Andrew Scott. Please check out the trailer which alone should convince everyone of the OT3 here…
Bella has a house and a (beautiful, fantastic, demanding) garden. Two of them really, because the first thing Vernon and the girls do when they move into Alfie’s old house is to knock through the fence separating the two back gardens.
“The girls like to visit the fish,” he says, eyes red-rimmed because even this late in the autumn there are still flowering things abound. “I’ve no idea what I’m going to do in the spring,” he adds, sniffling into his sleeve.
“Honey,” Bella tells him, because she’s looked into this and because there’s no way she’s going to have time to keep up with Alfie’s garden as well on her own. “Local honey should help you build your immunity, and help with the allergies.”
“Huh.” Vernon blinks at her in that slow way he has, the one that tells her he’s thinking of at least five new recipes, all featuring local honey.
***
So Bella has a house and a very big garden. She also has a published book, a contract for two more and ideas for at least ten of them. The money isn’t anything to boast about but it means she doesn’t have to worry about making it to work on time any more, not when her commute is across the house, from bed to the old, battered writing desk surrounded by notes and drawings, and Billy’s models.
Bella also has Billy. Not that you can have people, not like that, but she has his time and attention, and sweet smiles that make crinkles at the corners of his eyes, and sweeter kisses still, ones that make her toes curl in her wellies, like happy little beetles.
Billy moves in three months and five days after Alfie’s death. Milly asks if they’re going to get married but Bella thinks ‘why would we?’ feeling her face scrunch up at the thought. Billy laughs at her and bends down to drop a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I would if Bella wanted to,” he says and leaves it there. None of them bring it up again, not even Vernon, and Bella thought he might, having been married himself.
Instead, he helps to carry Billy’s boxes and bags into the house, the two of them talking in low voices. Bella watches them laugh as their shoulders bump together, completely at ease with each other, and happiness bubbles up inside her, sweet and fizzy like champagne and strawberries.
Bella has a house, a garden, and a right to call herself a writer. She has Billy and his inventions and his big hands framing her face, her waist and back and thighs as they lie in the bed (a bigger one now, her old single having found new life in Milly’s guest room) and trade slow kisses while frost creeps up the window. And she has Vernon, baking bread in the kitchen, holding out a spoon of rich stew for her to taste, waking her up where she’s fallen asleep slumped over the typewriter again, subtly replacing Billy’s packed lunch of ham sandwiches and pickled eggs with something far tastier and more nourishing.
A good thing too, as it turns out that putting two creative types together only doubles their inefficiency when it comes to things like eating dinner and keeping a reasonable bed time. Sometimes, Bella fears that Vernon views her and Billy same as his girls, as children that need looking after, so she’s fiercely glad when he comes to them one early December morning, with a distinctively adult problem.
The local greasy spoon has just been put for sale. “I can’t afford it,” Vernon says. “I can’t afford it but…” he says, and leaves the ‘but I want it’ unsaid, because Vernon is not very good at asking for what he wants. It had taken him years to stand up to Mr Stevenson after all.
“But you could turn it into a restaurant,” Bella finishes for him. Billy is nodding next to her, pencil already scratching against paper as he sketches what looks like a sign.
“A café,” Vernon demurs, “maybe catering.” There’s light in his eyes, the kind of banked yearning that Bella knows she’s seen glimpses of before. It goes out quickly. “I can’t afford it though,” he says again, for the twentieth time, as he wraps his fingers around a chipped mug of tea. His accent is stronger somehow and Bella knows he’s going to break into melancholy Gaelic any minute now.
Billy’s leg is warm against hers under the table; a steady pressure that lets her know she’s doing the right thing before she even does it.
“Maybe not,” she says, reaching out to cover both of Vernon’s hands with hers. “But we could.”
***
The garden turns with the season; the colours fading to deep greens and browns. She worries about the koi but Vernon buys a floating pond de-icer and makes sure no one overfeeds them as the water temperature drops and their metabolism slows down.
Billy starts experimenting with mechanical fishes and for a few weeks the house is full of sketches of fins and tails and glimmering scales. He still has his workshop but somehow it’s their bathtub that ends up full of sharp, glittering metal, like piranhas eager to bit at an unsuspecting foot, until the two of them just troop next door to use Vernon’s shower.
He shakes his head at them but never says no, instead offering tea and toast, slathered with butter and homemade raspberry jam.
In return, Billy helps with renovating Vernon’s – “Ours!” he points out every time – new business premises. Bella and Vernon try to remind him that it’s enough to get a working kitchen together, there’s no need to invent that many improvements, and Billy mostly listens to them although the oven fans now somehow generate energy as well as use it and in the end there’s just no point to argue against reduced electricity bills.
For Christmas, Bella makes garlands of ivy and holly and snowberries as bright as pearls. Billy’s brothers come by to the utter confusion of the neighbourhood and the utter delight of Rhian and Amy. Milly brings around a pudding soaked in brandy, and Vernon cooks for three days straight, using both kitchens and running between the houses until Billy starts muttering about building some kind of extension to allow for more direct route than the garden, a measuring tape already in one hand and a stolen cookie clamped between his teeth. Bella sits cross-legged on the sofa and lets the chaos and noise and light of all the people wash over her like sunshine.
***
A few weeks later, she comes down one morning finds everyone in the kitchen. Vernon is making pancakes, Amy, Rhian and Billy standing to attention around him, all with identical looks of awe as they watch Vernon toss and flip a pancake like a pro before sliding it onto a waiting plate.
“Okay,” he says, “now we sprinkle some sugar on this one.” He opens the cupboard door and then huffs in annoyance. The bag of sugar is sitting on the top shelf, well out of reach.
He tries anyway, stretching up until his fingertips skim the shelf and his shirt rides up. The girls are giggling and Billy is trying hard not to, although his face is, as always, an open book, spelling mirth and fondness.
He steps close, leaning against Vernon’s back, one hand curling easily around his hip for balance as he reaches up and plucks the sugar deftly, depositing it next to the waiting pancakes without a word.
Vernon mutters a thank you, and there’s a pink tint to his cheeks that could be from the stove but Bella is pretty sure is not. She rather suspects it’s similar to the slow heat warming up her insides.
“Morning,” she calls, walking in and combing her fingers through Amy’s hair absently. It’s weekend so the girls don’t have to go to school which is good as Bella could do with a test audience for her latest book.
“Bella Brown,” Billy says. “Good morning.” He searches her eyes for a few seconds and then smiles, pulling her in for a kiss.
Bella giggles a bit, feeling giddy like she did when they broke into the library after hours, breathless with a shared secret and their own daring.
“This looks amazing,” she says, untangling herself from Billy just enough to wrap her arms around Vernon from behind, hooking her chin on his shoulder as she watches another pancake cook into golden perfection.
***
They don’t talk about it. Or, well, they do, but not, Bella thinks, in a way that people would expect them to, with serious faces and rules and accusations. Instead, she asks "Do you think he gets lonely?" lying curled up against Billy's chest, and he says "I've been thinking about that extension. We'll show him the blueprints tomorrow." Their super king-sized bed feels somehow bigger than before.
Winter relinquishes its hold slowly and for weeks Rhian and Amy trail snowmelt and mud all over the two houses. Vernon's café gets a fresh lick of paint, and a mural of Luna and other magical beasts, surrounded by flowers. Bella's third book, currently in progress, gains a new character; a red deer in search of his antlers.
"Did you know Vernon taught me to hug," Bella asks, her arms around Vernon's shoulders and her eyes on Billy who is watching them from the kitchen doorway, the girls hanging on each arm.
Vernon huffs a laugh. "I didn't have to teach her," he says, shuffling them around so he can see Billy too but not really letting go of her yet. "She knew how. She just needed reminding."
Billy nods, serious, like this is a great wisdom Vernon is imparting. And well, it is. The same kind of wisdom that was in Alfie’s book.
Billy walks over, good-naturedly dragging Rhian and Amy along, and gently transfers the girls onto their father. He uses Vernon’s distraction to reel him into a quick hug of good night himself.
They watch from the backdoor as the bobbing torchlight recedes through the garden and into the one next door. It’s getting harder and harder to say goodbye at the end of each night.
***
Sha Baile, Vernon’s café, opens in late February, just as crocuses are pushing to the surface, shy but determined. He is a nervous wreck and not hiding it well, and Bella and Billy are bursting with pride and not bothering to hide it at all.
There’s an actual crowd – well, five people – by the time they open the front door. Milly pushes through first, using her age and elbows unashamedly to get to the front of the queue.
“There’s a queue!” Vernon hisses at Bella, half panicked, half incredulous. There’s a smear of flour on his cheek and she reaches out to rub it off with her thumb, his stubble scratching her palm as she cups his face briefly.
“Well, you better go serve them,” she tells him gently, giving him a push toward the counter.
She and Billy sit in the corner table all day, occasionally pitching in to help, but mostly just watching Vernon blossom with each compliment at his food until he’s near glowing, standing tall and pleased and quietly proud.
“Oh my god,” he says, after the last customer has left. “That was murder. I’m dead.” He blinks owlishly at the dish towel in his hand and then smiles softly at it like it’s his new best friend.
Milly had the foresight of taking the girls for the night, and Bella is grateful for that now, watching Billy nudge Vernon into one of the chairs while they do a quick tidy and count the register.
By the time they are finished, Vernon has recovered enough to form sentences longer than three words, and he talks the whole way home, about dishes that sold well, dishes he got compliments on, dishes he’s planning to create, how everyone had loved Bella’s mural, and how the kitchen works like a dream and—
“Vernon,” Bella says, stopping the flood of words with a fingertip to his lips. They’re standing on the street, between their two houses, and there’s dark spring dirt under her nails because she’d wanted to feel the earth after the long winter and had taken the gloves off, just for a few moments, the day before.
“What?” he asks, his mouth catching on her skin briefly, his eyes flickering between her and Billy, who is already holding the front door open. “What?”
“It’s late,” she says, even though it isn’t really, not too late, and for that she’s grateful. “Come to bed.”
“Please,” Billy adds softly, his eyes kind behind his glasses, his hand extended in invitation.
Vernon stares at them for a long, breathless moment, his expression slack with surprise like someone had just pulled a rug from under him, except the exact opposite.
“I… Really? You… For, uh, tonight?” he finally asks, shifting on his feet nervously.
“Any night,” Bella says, taking his hand in hers, tugging him to the door. “Every night, if you want.”
“We miss you.” Billy’s arm wraps around her middle, pulling her to his chest. His other hand curls around Vernon’s shoulder, thumb skating over his neck, the corner of his jaw. “Stay?”
Vernon’s nod is shaky, but the way he closes the door behind them, locking it carefully, is decisive, brave.
The way he fits between them on the bed, laughing and happy and finally, finally letting himself take what he wants, is perfect.
***
The summer gentles the garden into an oasis again, lilies and foxgloves and dahlias opening up like treasures. Even the little wild strawberry recovers, its small, white flowers promising berries a bit later on. The local honey has helped enough that Vernon can help with the gardening for longer than ten minutes before succumbing to aggressive sneezing.
They build that extension, linking kitchens together with a large sunroom slash greenhouse, filling it with herbs and tomatoes and chilli peppers, all of which find their way into lunches and dinners and special treats, both at home and at Sha Bhaile. She thinks Alfie would have approved, even if he wouldn’t have said so out loud.
They have parties, with guests and gourmet snacks and fairy lights strung across the trees, Milly drinking sauvignon blanc straight from the bottle and Billy’s brothers teaching Rhian and Amy pranks that will definitely land them in trouble at school. But as wonderful evenings like that are, it’s the quieter ones that Bella loves most; when it’s just the five of them sprawled on pillows and blankets on the grass until the gathering dew chases them inside. Inside Bella spins a new bedtime story that may make it into a book down the line, Billy folding paper into birds and hedgehogs and bears to bring it to life while Vernon makes hot chocolate, the happiness on his face almost too raw to look at directly.
Those are the nights that Bella holds close to her heart, wrapped in the love of this beautiful, fantastic family they have made.
***
Title: Make Your Own
Author:
kat_lair / Mistress KatFandom: This Beautiful Fantastic
Pairing: Bella/Billy/Vernon
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2533
Disclaimer: Not mine, only playing
Summary: They don’t talk about it. Or, well, they do, but not, Bella thinks, in a way that people would expect them to, with serious faces and rules and accusations. Instead, she asks "Do you think he gets lonely?" lying curled up against Billy's chest, and he says "I've been thinking about that extension. We'll show him the blueprints tomorrow."
Author notes: Okay, so if you know this movie, great! If you don’t, well I’m not surprised, because I only stumbled on it completely randomly on TV. And it was utterly charming except for how Vernon rather got left out of the full happy ending (beginning). Hence this. I blame Andrew Scott. Please check out the trailer which alone should convince everyone of the OT3 here…
Bella has a house and a (beautiful, fantastic, demanding) garden. Two of them really, because the first thing Vernon and the girls do when they move into Alfie’s old house is to knock through the fence separating the two back gardens.
“The girls like to visit the fish,” he says, eyes red-rimmed because even this late in the autumn there are still flowering things abound. “I’ve no idea what I’m going to do in the spring,” he adds, sniffling into his sleeve.
“Honey,” Bella tells him, because she’s looked into this and because there’s no way she’s going to have time to keep up with Alfie’s garden as well on her own. “Local honey should help you build your immunity, and help with the allergies.”
“Huh.” Vernon blinks at her in that slow way he has, the one that tells her he’s thinking of at least five new recipes, all featuring local honey.
***
So Bella has a house and a very big garden. She also has a published book, a contract for two more and ideas for at least ten of them. The money isn’t anything to boast about but it means she doesn’t have to worry about making it to work on time any more, not when her commute is across the house, from bed to the old, battered writing desk surrounded by notes and drawings, and Billy’s models.
Bella also has Billy. Not that you can have people, not like that, but she has his time and attention, and sweet smiles that make crinkles at the corners of his eyes, and sweeter kisses still, ones that make her toes curl in her wellies, like happy little beetles.
Billy moves in three months and five days after Alfie’s death. Milly asks if they’re going to get married but Bella thinks ‘why would we?’ feeling her face scrunch up at the thought. Billy laughs at her and bends down to drop a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I would if Bella wanted to,” he says and leaves it there. None of them bring it up again, not even Vernon, and Bella thought he might, having been married himself.
Instead, he helps to carry Billy’s boxes and bags into the house, the two of them talking in low voices. Bella watches them laugh as their shoulders bump together, completely at ease with each other, and happiness bubbles up inside her, sweet and fizzy like champagne and strawberries.
Bella has a house, a garden, and a right to call herself a writer. She has Billy and his inventions and his big hands framing her face, her waist and back and thighs as they lie in the bed (a bigger one now, her old single having found new life in Milly’s guest room) and trade slow kisses while frost creeps up the window. And she has Vernon, baking bread in the kitchen, holding out a spoon of rich stew for her to taste, waking her up where she’s fallen asleep slumped over the typewriter again, subtly replacing Billy’s packed lunch of ham sandwiches and pickled eggs with something far tastier and more nourishing.
A good thing too, as it turns out that putting two creative types together only doubles their inefficiency when it comes to things like eating dinner and keeping a reasonable bed time. Sometimes, Bella fears that Vernon views her and Billy same as his girls, as children that need looking after, so she’s fiercely glad when he comes to them one early December morning, with a distinctively adult problem.
The local greasy spoon has just been put for sale. “I can’t afford it,” Vernon says. “I can’t afford it but…” he says, and leaves the ‘but I want it’ unsaid, because Vernon is not very good at asking for what he wants. It had taken him years to stand up to Mr Stevenson after all.
“But you could turn it into a restaurant,” Bella finishes for him. Billy is nodding next to her, pencil already scratching against paper as he sketches what looks like a sign.
“A café,” Vernon demurs, “maybe catering.” There’s light in his eyes, the kind of banked yearning that Bella knows she’s seen glimpses of before. It goes out quickly. “I can’t afford it though,” he says again, for the twentieth time, as he wraps his fingers around a chipped mug of tea. His accent is stronger somehow and Bella knows he’s going to break into melancholy Gaelic any minute now.
Billy’s leg is warm against hers under the table; a steady pressure that lets her know she’s doing the right thing before she even does it.
“Maybe not,” she says, reaching out to cover both of Vernon’s hands with hers. “But we could.”
***
The garden turns with the season; the colours fading to deep greens and browns. She worries about the koi but Vernon buys a floating pond de-icer and makes sure no one overfeeds them as the water temperature drops and their metabolism slows down.
Billy starts experimenting with mechanical fishes and for a few weeks the house is full of sketches of fins and tails and glimmering scales. He still has his workshop but somehow it’s their bathtub that ends up full of sharp, glittering metal, like piranhas eager to bit at an unsuspecting foot, until the two of them just troop next door to use Vernon’s shower.
He shakes his head at them but never says no, instead offering tea and toast, slathered with butter and homemade raspberry jam.
In return, Billy helps with renovating Vernon’s – “Ours!” he points out every time – new business premises. Bella and Vernon try to remind him that it’s enough to get a working kitchen together, there’s no need to invent that many improvements, and Billy mostly listens to them although the oven fans now somehow generate energy as well as use it and in the end there’s just no point to argue against reduced electricity bills.
For Christmas, Bella makes garlands of ivy and holly and snowberries as bright as pearls. Billy’s brothers come by to the utter confusion of the neighbourhood and the utter delight of Rhian and Amy. Milly brings around a pudding soaked in brandy, and Vernon cooks for three days straight, using both kitchens and running between the houses until Billy starts muttering about building some kind of extension to allow for more direct route than the garden, a measuring tape already in one hand and a stolen cookie clamped between his teeth. Bella sits cross-legged on the sofa and lets the chaos and noise and light of all the people wash over her like sunshine.
***
A few weeks later, she comes down one morning finds everyone in the kitchen. Vernon is making pancakes, Amy, Rhian and Billy standing to attention around him, all with identical looks of awe as they watch Vernon toss and flip a pancake like a pro before sliding it onto a waiting plate.
“Okay,” he says, “now we sprinkle some sugar on this one.” He opens the cupboard door and then huffs in annoyance. The bag of sugar is sitting on the top shelf, well out of reach.
He tries anyway, stretching up until his fingertips skim the shelf and his shirt rides up. The girls are giggling and Billy is trying hard not to, although his face is, as always, an open book, spelling mirth and fondness.
He steps close, leaning against Vernon’s back, one hand curling easily around his hip for balance as he reaches up and plucks the sugar deftly, depositing it next to the waiting pancakes without a word.
Vernon mutters a thank you, and there’s a pink tint to his cheeks that could be from the stove but Bella is pretty sure is not. She rather suspects it’s similar to the slow heat warming up her insides.
“Morning,” she calls, walking in and combing her fingers through Amy’s hair absently. It’s weekend so the girls don’t have to go to school which is good as Bella could do with a test audience for her latest book.
“Bella Brown,” Billy says. “Good morning.” He searches her eyes for a few seconds and then smiles, pulling her in for a kiss.
Bella giggles a bit, feeling giddy like she did when they broke into the library after hours, breathless with a shared secret and their own daring.
“This looks amazing,” she says, untangling herself from Billy just enough to wrap her arms around Vernon from behind, hooking her chin on his shoulder as she watches another pancake cook into golden perfection.
***
They don’t talk about it. Or, well, they do, but not, Bella thinks, in a way that people would expect them to, with serious faces and rules and accusations. Instead, she asks "Do you think he gets lonely?" lying curled up against Billy's chest, and he says "I've been thinking about that extension. We'll show him the blueprints tomorrow." Their super king-sized bed feels somehow bigger than before.
Winter relinquishes its hold slowly and for weeks Rhian and Amy trail snowmelt and mud all over the two houses. Vernon's café gets a fresh lick of paint, and a mural of Luna and other magical beasts, surrounded by flowers. Bella's third book, currently in progress, gains a new character; a red deer in search of his antlers.
"Did you know Vernon taught me to hug," Bella asks, her arms around Vernon's shoulders and her eyes on Billy who is watching them from the kitchen doorway, the girls hanging on each arm.
Vernon huffs a laugh. "I didn't have to teach her," he says, shuffling them around so he can see Billy too but not really letting go of her yet. "She knew how. She just needed reminding."
Billy nods, serious, like this is a great wisdom Vernon is imparting. And well, it is. The same kind of wisdom that was in Alfie’s book.
Billy walks over, good-naturedly dragging Rhian and Amy along, and gently transfers the girls onto their father. He uses Vernon’s distraction to reel him into a quick hug of good night himself.
They watch from the backdoor as the bobbing torchlight recedes through the garden and into the one next door. It’s getting harder and harder to say goodbye at the end of each night.
***
Sha Baile, Vernon’s café, opens in late February, just as crocuses are pushing to the surface, shy but determined. He is a nervous wreck and not hiding it well, and Bella and Billy are bursting with pride and not bothering to hide it at all.
There’s an actual crowd – well, five people – by the time they open the front door. Milly pushes through first, using her age and elbows unashamedly to get to the front of the queue.
“There’s a queue!” Vernon hisses at Bella, half panicked, half incredulous. There’s a smear of flour on his cheek and she reaches out to rub it off with her thumb, his stubble scratching her palm as she cups his face briefly.
“Well, you better go serve them,” she tells him gently, giving him a push toward the counter.
She and Billy sit in the corner table all day, occasionally pitching in to help, but mostly just watching Vernon blossom with each compliment at his food until he’s near glowing, standing tall and pleased and quietly proud.
“Oh my god,” he says, after the last customer has left. “That was murder. I’m dead.” He blinks owlishly at the dish towel in his hand and then smiles softly at it like it’s his new best friend.
Milly had the foresight of taking the girls for the night, and Bella is grateful for that now, watching Billy nudge Vernon into one of the chairs while they do a quick tidy and count the register.
By the time they are finished, Vernon has recovered enough to form sentences longer than three words, and he talks the whole way home, about dishes that sold well, dishes he got compliments on, dishes he’s planning to create, how everyone had loved Bella’s mural, and how the kitchen works like a dream and—
“Vernon,” Bella says, stopping the flood of words with a fingertip to his lips. They’re standing on the street, between their two houses, and there’s dark spring dirt under her nails because she’d wanted to feel the earth after the long winter and had taken the gloves off, just for a few moments, the day before.
“What?” he asks, his mouth catching on her skin briefly, his eyes flickering between her and Billy, who is already holding the front door open. “What?”
“It’s late,” she says, even though it isn’t really, not too late, and for that she’s grateful. “Come to bed.”
“Please,” Billy adds softly, his eyes kind behind his glasses, his hand extended in invitation.
Vernon stares at them for a long, breathless moment, his expression slack with surprise like someone had just pulled a rug from under him, except the exact opposite.
“I… Really? You… For, uh, tonight?” he finally asks, shifting on his feet nervously.
“Any night,” Bella says, taking his hand in hers, tugging him to the door. “Every night, if you want.”
“We miss you.” Billy’s arm wraps around her middle, pulling her to his chest. His other hand curls around Vernon’s shoulder, thumb skating over his neck, the corner of his jaw. “Stay?”
Vernon’s nod is shaky, but the way he closes the door behind them, locking it carefully, is decisive, brave.
The way he fits between them on the bed, laughing and happy and finally, finally letting himself take what he wants, is perfect.
***
The summer gentles the garden into an oasis again, lilies and foxgloves and dahlias opening up like treasures. Even the little wild strawberry recovers, its small, white flowers promising berries a bit later on. The local honey has helped enough that Vernon can help with the gardening for longer than ten minutes before succumbing to aggressive sneezing.
They build that extension, linking kitchens together with a large sunroom slash greenhouse, filling it with herbs and tomatoes and chilli peppers, all of which find their way into lunches and dinners and special treats, both at home and at Sha Bhaile. She thinks Alfie would have approved, even if he wouldn’t have said so out loud.
They have parties, with guests and gourmet snacks and fairy lights strung across the trees, Milly drinking sauvignon blanc straight from the bottle and Billy’s brothers teaching Rhian and Amy pranks that will definitely land them in trouble at school. But as wonderful evenings like that are, it’s the quieter ones that Bella loves most; when it’s just the five of them sprawled on pillows and blankets on the grass until the gathering dew chases them inside. Inside Bella spins a new bedtime story that may make it into a book down the line, Billy folding paper into birds and hedgehogs and bears to bring it to life while Vernon makes hot chocolate, the happiness on his face almost too raw to look at directly.
Those are the nights that Bella holds close to her heart, wrapped in the love of this beautiful, fantastic family they have made.
***