Gavin's late.  That man would be late to his own funeral.

The warmth of the day lingered long after the sun had set and Bella kept her eyes closed tightly, inhaling the scent of the twilight as her children sang, 'Happy birthday to you.'

She could see the candles through her eyelids, the way the light flickered made her think of the fires from just two nights ago, but she pushed the thought away.  She would not allow those ghosts here. Not now. 

"Open them!"  Will said brightly.

Bella opened her eyes and saw the cake her children had made, complete with more candles than she ever saw in her whole life. 

"The whole thing is going to be covered in wax!"  She laughed.

"Better blow them out fast then,"  Rora said with a smile.

Bella took a deep breath and blew hard, trying to get all the ridiculous amount of flames to die... failing to hit a few without some help from her children who clapped when she was finished.

"Mine first," Will said with a bit of pride offering a small package to his mother.

Eagerly Bella peeled back the paper to find a plain box that seemed to indicate no product. 

"Dad had to help."

Bella opened the box and gasped as she reached inside and pulled out a small silver locket.  She opened it and found photos of her son and daughter as babies inside.  Her eyes welled with tears.  "Oh William..."  she said offering it to him and lifting her hair.  "I love it so much.  I never take it off.  I want to remember you both just this way forever!"

Aurora smiled as she watched her brother put the necklace around his mom's neck and clasp it.  Inside she could hear movement.  She looked back to the house, her instincts not able to silence the training of almost twenty years.  She could see her mother's security staff talking in the den, close to one another.  Not odd really, but, that they had all chosen to be there at that moment... that they seemed so animated now.

"Your turn."  Bella said to Aurora.

"I... um..."  she looked inside to the guards, two of whom looked out to meet her eyes and then returned to an act that felt... conspiratorial? 

"Rora?"

"I was going to wait for Dad to be here."  Aurora looked to the woods where her father had spent so much time since the take down of Louis and her mother's rise to Godfather Chairman.

"I love gifts.  You know this,"  Bella sighed.  "Come on... your father will see it later.  Please!"  She teasingly begged.

Aurora looked back to her mom and smiled.  "I guess Dad did get it before you." 

She glanced at Will who averted his eyes.

"My gift would have been best this year but," The teen lamented, "She got lucky."

"Will..."  Aurora glared.

"It's true.  Tell me it's not!"

"You're both killing me!"  Bella said bouncing in her seat.

Aurora smirked and watched her mom intensely as she shared, "I'm pregnant."

Bella looked at the woman before her, almost unable to accept the words and said, "I'm going to be a grandmother?"

Aurora nodded.

"Really?!?"  

Aurora's face split into the brightest smile it had worn in the weeks since Billy's death, her amber eyes sparkling in the dying light.  Then, it hit Bella why Aurora had been so short with everyone, so emotional, walking around talking to herself... it wasn't just Billy's death, it was so much more than that. 

"Is it... ?"  The words came out before she could bite them off.  

For a moment Aurora's face was sad and she touched her belly lovingly and nodded.

Bella stood up and pulled her daughter into her arms and held her tightly.  Aurora returned the embrace.  For a long moment, they stood there, holding one another.  Bella whispered into her hair near her ear, "Aurora Byrne, you're going to be a great mother."

She pulled back, putting her palms on either side of her face, and looked Aurora in her tear-filled eyes and then Aurora watched the blood drain from her mother's face as she reached out and took hold of the pearl-handled m1911 from her daughter's shoulder holster just under her jacket and pushed Aurora to the ground with a strength that only a mother could muster when the lives of her children were in danger.

In a smooth motion the patio table went down as a shield and she was dropping behind it.  Will fell in close with them, huddling tight against his sister's side.

"Order 15?!?"  Aurora called out to her mother after having popped to take a shot, realizing to her horror, it was their own men.  Whatever this was, the first wave, it was their own people!

Bella gritted her teeth, trying to hide the wound in her leg from the children, realizing how bad the situation really was. 

"No."  She looked to the left side of the patio.  Men were coming around from the front of the house.  

"Well..."  Aurora popped up to shoot again, the gunfire ricocheting off the metal table.

Bella did not reply, her heart was pounding in her head so hard it was all she could hear.  Her skin burned.  Panick consumed her as she remembered a morning having breakfast with her father on his patio - not long before he became Godfather Chairman.  It had been a happy moment, not unlike this one.  The bullets didn't sting quite as bad as she remembered the ones from 20-some years ago hurting.

Odd.

Bella looked at her kids and grabbed Will's head and kissed his brow and lowered her gun to just once put her hand on her daughter's womb.  Aurora looked at the offending hand with horror.

"Mom!?!" 

"Order Zero." she said in the same way someone said, 'I love you.'

"We're not leaving you!"  Will protested.

Aurora stiffened her lip, seeming to have understood her mother's need.  The need to protect her children.  And now, Aurora had to protect her own. 

"I love you."  Aurora said flatly.

"RORA NO!"

"I love you, too."  Bella said.  "I'll cover you.  GO!!!"

Aurora grabbed Will's arm violently and pulled him along with her for all she was worth  

"RORA!"  Will cried out.  "RORA NO, PLEASE MOM!!!!"

Behind her, she could hear gunfire but she didn't dare look back.

---

Bella came up from behind the table and opened fire.  Aim.  Exhale.  Squeeze.  Aim.  Exhale.  Squeeze.

The flower pots exploded beside her, clay pottery rained down onto the beautiful Tuscan tile work.  The bite in her arm, the ache in his shoulder, she ignored them and moved away from her children, never looking back.  She needed to get the gunfire away from them and so Bella ran towards danger.

---

"WHAT'S ORDER ZERO!?!"  Will struggled against his sister who drove him forward through the long grass towards the woods.  He kept screaming so loud she knew if any of the attackers had actually known that order zero was a no-win situation where her parents were expected to not come back from, it would bolster their ranks.  And so, Aurora said nothing and pushed onward away from danger as had been the plan since she was scarcely old enough to understand the concept of a day her parents would never come home again.  "RORA, LET ME GO, RORA!  WHAT'S ORDER ZERO!?!" 

Will struggled with Aurora and as her grip on him came loose, gunfire split the air.  Will skid to a stop as he watched the man who was just about to grab them from behind fall dead.

Aurora looked to the shooter, expecting Gavin but instead finding Alucard there with a smirk.  "I knew there was a party but..."

"NO TIME!"  Aurora snapped to cut off his witty retort, letting him know this was anything but a time for jokes.  "THE HOTEL.  MEET US THERE!"

Will was scrambling up to his feet as Alucard dashed off past him, tipping his wide-brimmed hat in a farewell to them.  His gun in hand he headed towards the group that was giving chase to two young adults in an attempt to end the Godmother's bloodline once and for all. 

Aurora took hold of her brother's arm again this time, the boy who was still staring at the dead man on the ground.  It was the first time he'd ever watched a man die and he didn't think he'd ever forget it.

Aurora had a much easier time bringing her shell-shocked brother along with her than the one who was desperate to rescue his mother.  Across the brook and up the hill, into the thick she moved along a deer run she knew her father liked to follow.  The deer run would lead them to a field near the highway.  She could get a car there and then, then she'd get them out of the city.  But first, she had to get them out of the woods.  Aurora ran as hard and fast as she dared with her brother stumbling along beside her, keeping an eye and ear out for trouble and any sign of her father.

Gavin was sitting halfway up an oak tree, staring up at the clouds as they slowly drifted by. Sometimes it felt like half his childhood had been spent in the trees back in Newfoundland, whether he was hunting or just trying to find a moment of peace away from his father. He'd sit there with Tara, talking for hours, or he'd sit there alone just thinking. Resting there, it felt like thirty seven years passed in the single swaying of an oak as the bestial young killer in leather and rags transformed into a silver haired aristocrat. 

He sighed, raising the bottle of whiskey to his lips. He still hadn't really talked to Bella about Louis and Apollonia. He'd waited until she was safe, and then disappeared to process, and he knew that Bella understood. Gavin tended to either process monumental decisions in a heartbeat or over a long period of silent consideration. This was the latter. 

As he sat in the tree, he remembered back when Race Street just began. A young- well, younger- Jack Mezzo, asking a couple hungry looking twins if they could help him find a dog. Shit, that felt like another life. Gavin still remembered that initial meeting of Race Street: him, Jack, and Tara. Well, if he was being honest, it was Jack and Tara sitting at the table and drawing up plans for the Pier while Gavin drank in the background. But damn it, he'd still been there. And over the course of a lifetime, he'd killed and nearly been killed for Race Street again, and again, and again... it felt like 1800 times... until almost none of his friends were still alive.

Jack. Tara. Will. Adonis. Arturo. Charlie. Eddie. Bunny. Yvette. Ilaria. Ralph. Doogle. Bagpuss. Roger. London. Vincent. Grosso. Luis. Louis. Apollonia.

Gavin grimaced. It was horrible to see that civil war. There were so many good shared memories.

But in the end, he would always stand with Bella. Without her, he wouldn't be alive. More than that- he might never have truly lived.

There had been so many women in his life- and yet so much emptiness. He'd had close friends and lovers that he'd treasured: Evelyn, Madeline, and especially Stella... but Bella had changed everything for him. 

A young man catches a glimpse of a young woman in a sundress and leans over a booth in an ice cream shop. What's the worst that can happen? A joyride through Montreal. An image of raven hair splayed out on a picnic table in Chicago. A staircase- a gunshot.

Gavin smirked, his memories interrupted. On that day, hunting Garrett... he'd cheated. Or maybe Bella had. He'd rolled the dice and lost- he was supposed to die, really. And then Bella wouldn't let him. By all accounts, he should have been killed dozens of times, but he'd never come closer than that day.

And after that day... everything was different. Marriage. A daughter. A son. Stepping back from the life to raise them. He'd built a life that no one would have expected, especially himself. 

Gavin finished the bottle. Race Street would be fine. It'd been knocked down before, burned down even, and rebuilt. Bella would rebuild it now, and he would help her do it. And if they failed... well, all good things must come to an end. And if he died... well, at least he could finally sleep.

With a smirk, Gavin tossed the bottle down to the ground. It was time to get back to celebrate his wife's birthday, and he expected he'd get chastised for being a few minutes late.

As he was climbing down, he heard the first gunshots. Jumping and landing deftly, his gun was in his hand in a heartbeat as he ran toward Hollow Point. He skidded to a stop at the treeline as he saw the fleet of hostile cars that had arrived, and his mouth opened slightly. He could see the men moving toward the house, mowing down the heavy security the Byrnes employed. This wasn't a normal hit; this was an assassination by an overwhelming number of trained professionals. Even as his brain told him he was certainly running to his death, Gavin's heart propelled him forward.

Bella. Aurora. Will. 

Were they even still alive?

Pushing back against his fears and his quickly tiring legs, Gavin felt a surge of adrenaline as another, larger volley of gunfire exploded inside the house. Whoever was in there was putting up a fight...

The run toward the house felt like Gavin was running through waist deep water; time almost froze as he heard them before he saw them.

"WHAT'S ORDER ZERO?! WHAT'S ORDER ZERO?!"

It was Will's voice, and Gavin felt his blood run cold. Order Zero. Which translated to... we're fucked, save the kids. As he thought of them again, he saw his two children appear with a pair of mercenaries chasing them. 

"Aurora! 8 o' clock!"

Gavin focused on the other one, moving to shoot; his hand was shaking from exertion, but he dropped his target in four shots. He whipped his gun around, but Aurora had turned and shot the other one, aiming more from Gavin's direction than her own eye. Scanning for threats, Gavin saw no one else.

Gavin gasped to recover his breath as his two children ran at him. The each hugged one side of him, resting their heads against the scars on his chest just like they did when they were kids. He breathed deeply, recovering his breath and his focus as he kissed each of their foreheads, inhaling the scent of their hair. He allowed himself... ten seconds... and he closed his eyes.

He remembered Aurora, looking up at him from her crib in Chicago in the moment he became more than a man- he became a father. He saw her walking unsteadily toward him and Bella, heard her reading her first book out loud as Gavin practiced his own reading, and he remembered grinning with his wounded hand in his pocket as he watched her dance recital. He remembered the year they'd been Santa Claus and the first time he ever taught her to shoot a gun. He remembered the endless training sessions with her, and he remembered the joyful bruise he'd received the first time she'd been too quick for him in a sparring session. He remembered Billy asking for his blessing, and he remembered her standing at Billy's grave in Sicily. He remembered Iceland. 

He remembered Will, named for Gavin's best friend who wasn't his wife or his sister. He remembered watching Will come into the world, and he remembered running after him on the lawn. He remembered being astounded by the young man's mind, recognizing early that Will would be more intelligent than him- maybe even more than Tara- and trusting his own cleverness and experience to try to stay one step ahead of his son. He remembered the many meetings with angry teachers, and the laughter they shared in the car after those meetings had ended. He remembered teaching his son how to play poker, then watching him demolish a field of players to face him down head to head in a tournament. 

Gavin forced himself to open his eyes as the gunshots started again in the house. He looked at Aurora.

"Your mother's inside?"

"Yes."

"Tactical appraisal. Can we win this?"

Aurora opened her mouth immediately, then closed it again. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

Oh... shit.

"Can I get her out?"

Aurora knew what he was capable of more than anyone- but she shook her head again, looking like she was about to cry. Damned pregnancy hormones. Gavin was silent. He'd never feared death until he had children. But at least they'd be safe. He gulped, nodding at them as he spoke.

"I'm going to your mother. You know how to survive in the woods; go so far in that they don't find you. Keep heading north until you hit the highway, then go east. Take this money... you already have a gun. Okay."

Gavin took a deep breath and rested a hand on each one of his children's shoulders. His voice broke only once as he spoke to them.

"I am very proud of you both. And I love you. Now go."

He patted them once and then turned, striding towards the house as he built up into a run- then a hand on his arm stopped him.

"Dad! Don't..."

Gavin looked over at his son, who released his arm. 

"I have to, Will."

He remembered words still echoing in his mind for decades, from a broken young woman who'd turned for help to... well, one of the objectively worst people she could rely on. "You came to me, she'd said. And he'd promised her he always would. He shook his head at Will as he shook his arm free and moved toward the house- but he felt Aurora grab ahold of his other arm as Will reattached his own grip. Gavin closed his eyes.

"I have to go. I need to be there for her. She doesn't deserve to die alone."

"Dad... it's suicide."

As Gavin glanced back to respond to Aurora's words, she was stunned by what she saw, because she'd never seen her father cry. Both Aurora and Will dropped Gavin's arms and watched him walk toward the house.

Then he stopped, wincing in pain as the cacophonous gunshots continued. He felt like he was being torn apart, and Will's voice filled the empty spaces within him.

"Dad... would she want you to die like this?"

"Ye-"

Gavin halted his instinctual response. He could imagine two Bella's on either side of him, whispering in his ear.

One: "Gavin, go with them. You lived for me- don't die for me. Live for our family- live for our children."

And the other: "You always come to me, my Wolf. We lived together. We should die together as well. And how would you feel, waking up tomorrow knowing that you abandoned me? This is how our story ends- how it was always meant to end."

Opening his icy blue eyes, Gavin made his choice.

__________

One Year Later

Aurora clutched her baby to her chest as she looked down at the pair of gravestones in the cemetery.

Bella Byrne                  Gavin Byrne

Will stood next to them, playing the part of the doting uncle as he adjusted the blanket for his nephew. The Byrne children and grandchild were silent as the wind rustled gently through the oak trees of the cemetery. Aurora looked down at the names of the gravestones in silence before speaking to her baby.

"That's your Grandmother's name, Gav. She had many names in her life. Isabella. Izzy. Hot Rod. Don. Bella. Dragon. Godmother. But the one she always loved the most was Mom. She would have... been a fantastic grandmother. She was a fantastic grandmother, for the brief time she knew about you. We fought constantly as I grew older and I wish... I wish I had her here to talk to me. There's so many questions I have about... everything. Diapers. Bottles. Ransom notices. She would have loved you- she did love you."

"I miss her too."

Will's voice was soft, with a tenderness that was a strange departure from his usual clever sarcasm; growing up, Will's voice had always been the verbalization of Gavin's smirk... but he'd change in the last year. He'd become a man, losing some of the joy in his life but gaining fortitude. Will had aced his first semester of college without paying a cent to his teachers, and for the first time was strongly considering his future. Law school? A run for office? Who could say what the future held?

Both children grew quiet as they heard the footsteps approaching them. They heard the sound of the crunching oak leaves and felt a hand rest on each one of their shoulders, holding them. The man's beard was long and mostly trimmed, and his blue eyes seemed like they'd lost much of their fire as they stared down at the gravestones. When he spoke, his voice was low.

"I'd like a moment alone."

The children nodded and whispered their farewells as little Gav stared up at his grandfather. When they'd left, Gavin dropped to his knees in front of the gravestone. His voice was low, barely above a whisper- almost a prayer.

"Bella, I think about you every day. Every morning when I wake up in bed alone and I reach for you. Every night, when I turn down the sheets for a solitary sleep. You wander through my dreams, and I never quite seem to catch you. I go churches, beaches... anywhere I can to try to catch a single piece of your spirit. I expect part of me died with you that day... and, God help me, I wanted to die. I never wanted anything else in my life from the moment I'd fallen in love with you- to live and die by your side. When you found me back then, I was flirting with death whenever I could, ready to trade my life for... just about anything. But you showed me there was more. I was a beast, and you made me a man. You made me a husband. A father."

He blinked, denying his tears. 

"I hope you understand. Those final moments, when I imagine you waiting for me... I torture myself with those moments every night..."

Gavin reached out and touched Bella's gravestone as the vision of his wife's death burst through his mind again. Bella, reloading her gun and ignoring the pain that screamed every time she moved her arm, every time she took a step. The deep breath... and she must have thought of Gavin and the children. Then the charge. It was suicidal, designed to draw every bullet within half a mile as her children ran to the woods. Gavin could almost see her stumbling across the lawn, firing at and dropping a pair of enemies. A shot hits her hip and she stumbles, throwing herself forward and rolling underneath the hail of bullets before rising and shooting another enemy. Turning her gun to fire at- and then the shot hits her in the chest and she falls to her knees, to her back. Gavin hoped desperately that she'd landed on her back- that she'd looked at the open sky as she'd died, rather than the ground. What did she think in those final moments, before the opposing Godfather ended her life? 

Did she wonder why Gavin abandoned her? Did she think he'd already been killed?

The thought chilled his heart as he let his hand drop from the gravestone.

On the good days, Gavin imagined that she looked up at the sky and smiled. That she knew her children were safe, and that his failure to appear by her side was all the evidence she'd ever need that she'd not only helped make Gavin Byrne a great man, but a good man. A family man.

" but I torture myself with that less and less now, Bella... because there are times when I'm holding my grandson, when I'm rocking him to sleep, and I imagine your hand on my shoulder, your voice in my ear, and you tell me I was right. I hear you forgive me... and I pray to God I was right."

Gavin paused, composing himself. His voice was stronger when he spoke again, moving unsteadily to his feet.

"I had my choice. Go down shooting- or retire. And God forgive me, I retired. I... I'm a full time grandfather now. Barely leave the house, and I'm more likely to die from an especially deadly diaper than a gunshot. Aurora is a wonderful mother, but I expect she'll get lured back into the life soon enough. Will wants to be President. And I... sometimes, I feel like a ghost, empty, hollowed out like one of the walking dead. But there are times when I don't. And I have a purpose. Three of them. And someday..."

He rested his hand on her gravestone again. This time, no vision came, but he imagined her standing there looking at him and smiling.

"... someday, we'll be together again. Until then... I love you. And all of it. All of this. It was worth it."

He walked slowly back to his children, not bothering to hide the fact that he'd shed tears. Aurora spoke kindly to him.

"I'm sorry about the gravestone, Dad. I had to have everyone think..."

"No. You did the right thing. And I'll need it sooner or later."

His children reached for him and enfolded him into an embrace, and for a moment Gavin could have sworn he felt Bella's arms around them all. Then he blinked, and forced a shadow of his old smirk.

"Now... who wants some ice cream? I know a place up the street. You know, Little Gav, the way a person eats their ice cream says a lot about them..."