EPILOGUE

Beth didn't bother knocking.

She never did anymore—not at Alex's place. The penthouse had long since stopped feeling like someone else's home and started to feel like an extension of her own, a second gravity well she fell into whenever the weight of life became too much to carry alone. And lately, that weight had only gotten heavier.

Henry's trial had stretched something inside her—thin and taut like an old wire. The custody hearings had eroded what was left of her patience. The move had been a blessing, but it came wrapped in boxes and bruised emotions. Even the silences in her life felt thick lately, like the air had been oversteeped with memory and grief and didn't quite go down smooth anymore.

But today... today, the air felt different.

Lighter somehow.

There was a softness in the atmosphere the moment she stepped inside. The kind that clung to the edges of late afternoon sun slanting through wide windows, casting quiet gold across the marble floors. The scent of fresh paint met her immediately—cool lilac with a clean finish, undercut by the faint sharpness of drying plaster and the earthy tang of cardboard tape. It smelled like newness. Like possibility.

Beside her, Elliot raised an eyebrow as they toed off their shoes, his expression wry.

Beth mirrored it with a smirk. "What?"

"Nothing," he said, voice low with mischief. "Just wondering how long it'll take you to start crying."

She shoved him lightly with her elbow, but her chest ached a little at the truth of it. She could already feel her throat getting tight.

"We're here!" she called as she peeled off her coat, the warmth of the apartment stinging her fingertips in the best way—like thawing after a long walk through winter.

A moment passed.

Then her phone buzzed with a familiar name.

📱 Alex: In the nursery. Don't judge the mess.

Beth laughed under her breath, the sound soft and fond. "She's nesting," she said to Elliot, who just shook his head like he'd been expecting as much.

They followed the trail of sound down the hall—low music humming from a Bluetooth speaker somewhere in the distance, soft and melodic, the kind of background noise that calmed rather than filled. There was the rustle of something being shifted. A quiet grunt. A box being dragged. And underneath it all, the echo of something Beth hadn't felt in weeks.

Hope.

When they reached the doorway, she stopped short.

Not because the nursery was perfect. It wasn't.

But because of the way Alex looked sitting in the middle of it.

She was cross-legged on a wide, plush white rug, dwarfed by a sea of pastel chaos. There were baby clothes strewn in overlapping piles, half-unwrapped mobiles dangling off the edge of an armchair, a tower of unopened Amazon boxes labeled fragile and some assembly required. A length of tissue paper clung to her sock like a badge of honor. She was wearing an old, oversized hoodie that Beth was pretty sure had once belonged to Chan, sleeves rolled halfway up her forearms, her hair pulled back in a lopsided bun that had definitely seen better hours.

She looked exhausted.

She also looked radiant.

One hand curved instinctively around the swell of her belly, thumb moving in slow, absentminded circles. Her face was pale but calm, her lashes casting delicate shadows on her cheekbones, her eyes soft with something Beth hadn't seen in a long time.

Peace.

Not performative peace. Not the kind you pasted on to survive a meeting or a meltdown.

Real peace.

The walls around her were painted the softest shade of lilac—like the inside of a seashell. Gentle, grounding, just a little dreamy. Everything in the room felt unfinished, in-progress, mid-transformation. But that was the beauty of it. It wasn't a mess.

It was becoming.

Beth stepped inside slowly, absorbing every detail. "Wow," she murmured, hand resting on her hip as she took in the scene. "This looks like something out of a baby catalog. Like, a high-end, bougie-as-hell one."

Alex looked up and smiled—small, weary, but real. The kind of smile that said she was trying. The kind that had taken effort. "Don't sound so surprised."

Beth snorted and dropped to the floor beside her with a dramatic groan, legs stretching out in front of her until her spine cracked. "I mean, I'm just impressed you managed all this without going into premature labor. What was your plan—stare at the crib until it felt guilty enough to build itself?"

Alex didn't even blink. She just reached behind her, grabbed a wrinkled sheet of instructions from beneath a heap of pastel swaddles, and waved it limply like a white flag. "That was exactly the plan. So far, it's not cooperating."

"Shocking," Beth deadpanned, but the fondness in her voice softened the jab.

Elliot was already kneeling beside the crib box, squinting at the glossy diagram like it had personally offended him. His fingers were sorting through the mismatched pile of wooden panels and metal brackets with surgical precision, his mouth moving in quiet curses about mislabeled screws and poor design choices. Beth crouched beside him and passed over the toolkit she'd brought from home—old, worn, the handle molded to her grip from years of fixing things herself. It was solid. Reliable. Unlike the rest of life.

She might not have known how to navigate custody battles or emotional landmines or the sheer uncertainty that came with trying to rebuild a life—but furniture? Furniture she could handle.

Within minutes, they'd settled into a rhythm that felt old and familiar. Beth took point, skimming the instructions and wielding the screwdriver with practiced ease while Elliot sorted bolts and separated washers with color-coded efficiency. Alex, as predicted, had been relegated to what she called the 'non-lifting, non-bleeding' zone—planted in the center of the chaos with a bottle of coconut water and a baby bump that moved every now and then like it had its own commentary.

She made snarky observations about Allen wrenches and the inferiority of furniture designers who didn't test their builds on sleep-deprived parents. She sang along softly to the playlist Elliot had put on—classic, soothing, full of artists they all liked. But Beth kept glancing over. Watching.

She saw it in the tiny shifts. The wince Alex tried to hide when she adjusted her knees. The way she paused between words, like her breath didn't want to cooperate. Her hand kept drifting to the small of her back, fingers pressing in rhythmic circles like she was trying to keep herself from unraveling.

Still, she glowed.

Not the magazine kind. Not the romanticized, airbrushed version people liked to pin on pregnant women like it excused their pain. This was something deeper. Earned. Alex looked like sea glass—smoothed and burnished by storm after storm, her edges no longer sharp but no less strong. There was something luminous about her stillness. A resilience in her softness.

Beth finished tightening a bolt and sat back on her heels, brushing a smudge of dust off her leggings. The crib frame was beginning to resemble an actual crib now. The curves of the rails were elegant, the base secure. It felt like progress. Like something real.

She looked over just as Alex shifted to tuck a pale grey blanket beneath her knees, wincing slightly at the motion.

"You good?" Beth asked, voice lower now, gentler.

Alex's fingers threaded through her hair, tugging loose strands from where they'd stuck to her temple. The half-ponytail she'd attempted earlier was barely holding together, and her neck glistened with the faint sheen of effort.

"I'm okay," she said finally, her voice quiet but honest. "Just... tired. Nausea's been worse again. She hates toast now. And mint tea. And probably me."

Beth frowned and reached over, brushing a bottle cap out of Alex's path. "You're her favorite person in the world. Even when she's making you puke like it's a competitive sport."

Alex huffed, a laugh threading under the exhale. "Second favorite," she murmured, hand drifting instinctively to her belly. Her thumb moved in slow, grounding strokes. "Chan's voice still calms her down the fastest. She kicks toward it. Like she's listening."

Beth didn't say anything at first. Just smiled faintly and turned back to the crib, adjusting the angle of the side rail so the slats lined up clean and even. There was something about the way Alex said his name—soft, reverent, like the syllables held warmth even when she was too exhausted to summon her own.

And then Beth cleared her throat and spoke.

"So," she said, tightening a screw with intentional nonchalance. "When were you going to tell me about Hyunjin?"

The silence that followed was immediate—and dense enough to slice.

Alex froze.

Not dramatically. Not even noticeably to someone who didn't know her as well as Beth did. But her hand stilled on her belly. Her eyes didn't blink. Her entire body seemed to go still with that practiced, feline stillness of someone hoping not to be seen.

From the other side of the crib, Elliot made a strangled noise, caught somewhere between a cough and a laugh. "Oh no."

Beth's head snapped up, her eyes narrowing. "Don't 'oh no' me, Turner. You knew too?"

"I thought you knew!" Elliot held up his hands, palms open in surrender. "Felix told me months ago. I assumed it was already common knowledge."

Beth turned back to Alex, who was now rubbing both hands over her face like she could physically erase herself from the moment. Her fingers dragged up into her hairline, tugging gently at the strands like maybe a little pain would distract her from the conversation. "God," Alex muttered. "I was hoping to get through at least one day without that particular interrogation."

Beth sat back on her heels, arms folded across her knees, expression unreadable. "Too late. Spill."

Alex groaned. "I didn't not tell you," she mumbled, voice muffled behind her palms.

Beth arched a brow. "You just strategically never mentioned that you're in love with two members of Stray Kids," she replied, deadpan. "Small oversight. Tiny little footnote."

Alex peeked at her through parted fingers. Her cheeks were flushed, half from embarrassment and half from the warmth of the apartment, but she didn't look away. "It's not a big deal."

Beth snorted so hard she nearly dropped the Allen wrench. "Alex. It's kind of the definition of a big deal."

Alex groaned again and flopped back onto the rug, her spine curving like a comma, one arm draped dramatically over her face like she was auditioning for the cover of a tragic Victorian novel. "It didn't feel like something I could say out loud for a while. It was... too much. Too soon. Too everything."

Beth watched her carefully, the way you watch a sparrow trying to look like a hawk. She set the wrench down on the floor beside her and leaned back on her hands, palms pressed to the rug, fingers splayed wide. "But you're saying it now?"

Alex didn't answer immediately. Her free hand fiddled with the corner of the blanket beneath her hips, tugging loose a fraying thread and winding it around her finger like it could hold her together.

"I am now," she said at last. "Yeah."

The words came out small, but sure.

Beth didn't respond right away. She let the silence settle between them—not awkward, not pressurized, just real. The kind of silence that stretched across years of friendship, across hospital rooms and dressing rooms and midnight breakdowns. A silence that held space for both honesty and history.

Finally, Beth nudged Alex's leg with the toe of her sock. "I'm not mad, you know."

Alex moved her arm just enough to glance sideways at her.

Beth's gaze was calm. "Just a little offended you didn't trust me to handle the truth."

"I did," Alex said quickly, sitting up again with the slow, careful motion of someone whose center of gravity had shifted weeks ago. Her hand braced at the base of her spine. "I do. I just... needed time. To figure out how to say it without it sounding like I was out of my mind. Or about to get eaten alive by the internet. Or both."

Beth scoffed and rolled her eyes affectionately. "Screw the internet. You're happy. And I don't need to understand how it works to know that it works. I've seen the way they look at you."

Alex blinked. "They?"

"Chan's been in love with you since Seoul," Beth said matter-of-factly. "Like, probably since that time you passed out on his shoulder in the airport and he didn't move for three hours because he thought you looked peaceful."

Alex's mouth parted in surprise, but Beth wasn't finished.

"And Hyunjin..." Beth shook her head slowly. "Hyunjin looks at you like you're the first day of spring after a really long winter. Like you're warmth and color and reason, all wrapped up in one tired, stubborn body."

Alex stared at her, stunned. "That's... that's poetic."

Beth gave a half-smile. "You're in a poetic-ass relationship."

That made Alex laugh. A real laugh, warm and slightly wheezy, one hand drifting automatically to her belly like she was sharing the joy with someone else.

"It's weird," she said softly. "I used to think I'd ruined my chances at anything like this. After David, after Jakarta, after—everything. I thought love was a closed door. Like I'd burned the bridge and the foundation."

Beth's expression shifted—softened. Her eyes searched her best friend's face, taking in the subtle curve of her tired smile, the vulnerability woven into every syllable. She reached out and squeezed Alex's knee.

"It wasn't closed," Beth said gently. "It was just... waiting. For the right people to knock."

Alex looked at her then—really looked. And for a moment, neither of them needed to speak.

Her eyes went a little glassy, but she didn't cry. Instead, she smiled. Small. Lopsided. The kind that said I didn't know I needed to hear that until you said it.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Beth squeezed again. "Always."

From across the room, Elliot made a dramatic gagging noise loud enough to echo off the nursery walls. "Okay, enough. You two are nauseating."

Beth snorted and didn't even turn around. "You're just jealous we have emotional depth."

"I have depth," Elliot countered. "I just don't parade it around in lilac nurseries while bonding over polyamory and past trauma. Some of us are subtle."

Alex reached behind her without looking and grabbed the nearest stuffed animal—a small, teal sea turtle. She chucked it in Elliot's direction with surprising accuracy.

"Go back to sorting bolts, hacker boy."

Elliot caught it one-handed and gave a smug little bow. "As you wish, my lieges."

Beth shook her head and laughed, turning back toward the half-finished crib. But something inside her had shifted. Her chest felt looser. Her shoulders, lighter. This wasn't just an afternoon project anymore.

This was ritual.

This was blessing.

They weren't just assembling a crib—they were stitching together something sacred. A family. A future. A life that looked nothing like what any of them had planned, but somehow, exactly like what they needed.

Beth picked up the Allen wrench again, held it like a sword forged in IKEA, and pointed toward the next panel with the overdramatic gravitas of a seasoned warrior.

"Alright," she declared. "Let's give this baby a throne."

Alex rolled her eyes so hard it was practically audible, but her smile didn't falter. If anything, it deepened, tugging at the corners of her mouth with a quiet kind of wonder.

And in the corner—where the crib slowly took shape against lilac walls, bathed in the soft gold of early evening—the future waited. Quiet. Certain. Impossibly bright.

Later that night

Beth let herself into the apartment with the quiet click of her key and the familiar scuff of her boots on the entryway mat. The air inside was warm, the kind of warmth that didn't just come from heaters or insulation, but from presence. From comfort. Someone—almost definitely Changbin—had lit the vanilla woodwick candle she kept tucked beside the sink, and its soft, rhythmic crackle was the first thing to greet her. The second was music, low and lazy, curling through the apartment like steam. Some old jazz record hummed from the living room speakers—sleepy saxophone, brushed drums, and a double bass that thrummed beneath her ribs.

She dropped her bag by the door and didn't bother taking off her coat. Rage was a better insulator anyway. With purpose in her stride, she crossed the apartment like a woman on a mission from God—or vengeance.

Changbin was sprawled on the couch like a man with no idea what was coming. His phone in one hand, a half-empty glass of sparkling water precariously balanced on his thigh, he looked up just in time to catch a pillow to the chest.

"YAH!" he yelped, nearly spilling his drink as he jerked upright. "What the—?!"

Beth stood over him like divine retribution in denim. "You absolute traitor."

Changbin blinked, clutching the pillow like it might shield him from her wrath. "What did I do?"

"You didn't tell me about Hyunjin," she said, voice sharp enough to slice air.

His mouth opened. Closed. Then opened again—like his brain had hit an unexpected reboot.

"I... I thought you knew," he offered, expression carefully neutral. Too neutral. Suspiciously neutral.

Beth let out a noise that was equal parts disbelief and offense as she shrugged off her coat and tossed it over the armchair like a banner of war. "That's what Elliot said! Like it's some obvious universal constant. Like gravity. Or the fact that I'm always five minutes late and never fully emotionally prepared for anything!"

Changbin put his glass down and sat forward slowly, like she was a live grenade and he was trying to defuse her with eye contact. "Okay, but—have you seen them in a room together?"

Beth threw her hands in the air. "That's not the point!"

She began to pace, one socked foot thudding softly against the rug with every step. "The point is, I'm your girlfriend. I'm Alex's best friend. I was literally at her engagement party! I was there when she was hemorrhaging in a fucking bathroom, holding her hand while she screamed. I helped her lie to JYP! I practically co-parent her trauma!"

She spun on him, finger jabbing the air with righteous fury. "And no one thought to tell me she's in a committed relationship with two of you?!"

Changbin raised both hands like he was trying to negotiate with a small, very angry god. "Okay, when you say it like that, it does sound kind of bad—"

"It is kind of bad!"

She collapsed onto the couch beside him with the dramatic grace of a Roman empress, grabbing the very same pillow she'd just used as a weapon and burying her face in it. Her voice came out muffled but still crystal clear in its indignation.

"You people are terrible at communication."

Changbin rubbed a soothing hand along the curve of her spine. "Babe, I'm not defending anyone, I swear. I just... it didn't feel like a secret. It felt like them. Like something that always was, even before it made sense."

Beth lifted her head and squinted at him, suspicious. "How long have you known?"

He hesitated. His eyes darted away for the briefest moment—just long enough.

Beth narrowed hers. "Oh my God. How long?"

"...Since Christmas," he admitted. "Well—technically, since before Christmas. But that was when Chan told me. Hyunjin told me earlier, I just didn't think he meant it like—like that."

Beth stared at him, dumbfounded. "So you've known for months."

"I thought you knew!"

"I didn't!"

They glared at each other, a full standoff—Beth with narrowed eyes and twitching eyebrows, Changbin with the wary posture of someone cornered by a small but furious animal.

Then Beth groaned—loud and theatrical—and dragged both hands down her face like she could physically scrub the betrayal from her pores. "I need wine," she announced. "And possibly a cheesecake the size of a hubcap. And definitely a list of every single thing you people have failed to tell me in the last six months."

Before he could respond, she flopped backward onto the couch with a dramatic sigh, one arm flung over her face like a heroine in a Victorian painting. "God. I'm losing my touch. I missed a polyamorous throuple forming in my inner circle. I should be excommunicated."

Changbin snorted, but his amusement softened quickly into something more tender. He scooted closer, resting a warm hand on the denim-clad bend of her knee. "You're not getting excommunicated. You were just... busy. Traumatized. Sleep-deprived. Slightly feral. Distracted by the hot guy who kept bringing you fruit in bed."

Beth peeled her arm off her face just enough to shoot him a glare. "That's not fair."

He raised an eyebrow, grinning. "It was a lot of fruit."

She swatted at his thigh, a lazy slap that landed with a muted thud—but then her hand stayed there, curled lightly against his leg like she'd forgotten to move it. "I just..." She exhaled, frustration unraveling in a sigh. "I feel dumb. Like, am I seriously that out of the loop?"

He nudged her gently with his knee. "You're not dumb, baby. You're just... the last to know."

Beth stared up at the ceiling, eyes tracing the soft flicker of candlelight dancing in the corners of the room. "That's what's bugging me, I think. I've been there since the beginning. I was in the hotel room when she thought she lost the baby. I've held her hair. I've held her secrets. And now I find out about this after Elliot? After Jisung? What's next—Cassie knew from the womb?"

Changbin's laugh was loud and unfiltered, vibrating through the couch cushions and into her bones. "Honestly? Probably. That kid's got eyes like a hawk."

Beth let out a groan, but the tension in her voice was already beginning to ease. The fire of her outrage had burned itself down to embers—still warm, but manageable. "They do look happy," she admitted, a little reluctant but sincere.

He nodded, a quiet smile pulling at his mouth. "They are. Chan's never been this grounded. And Hyunjin..." He paused, eyes going a little soft at the edges. "He looks at her like she's something sacred. Like he's found his favorite place in the whole damn world."

Beth made a strangled, wounded noise and jabbed him in the ribs. "Ugh. Gross. Stop making it romantic, I'm trying to stay mad."

"You'll get over it," he murmured, tugging her gently against his side until her head landed on his chest. His hand found her waist and settled there with easy familiarity. "You love her too much not to. And now that you do know, you'll probably be the one planning their ceremony. Or handfasting. Or whatever polyfairy bullshit they decide to do next."

She was quiet for a beat, cheek pressed to the soft stretch of his hoodie. The candle crackled gently from the kitchen counter, its flame throwing sleepy shadows across the ceiling.

Then, grudgingly: "I already have outfit ideas."

Changbin grinned against her hair. "Of course you do."

"And don't think you're off the hook," she added, poking his ribs again without lifting her head. "Next time I'm the last to know anything, I reserve the right to make you sleep on the couch. No blanket. No cat."

He gasped. "Not Midnight!"

She smirked into his chest. "She's on my side now."

"Traitor," he muttered, kissing the top of her head. "Fine. I'll keep you fully briefed on all major developments in the Stray Kids polycule from now on. Cross my heart."

Beth exhaled slowly. Not quite a sigh—more like a release. Her body softened fully into his, and for the first time that day, her mind did too.

They stayed like that for a while. Wrapped in the scent of vanilla and warm wool, cradled by candlelight and jazz, the sharp edge of her frustration finally dulled into something quieter. Safer. The last of her irritation slipped out of her in one long, lazy exhale.

Whatever came next—ceremonies, secrets, surprises—they'd figure it out together.

Beth could live with that.