AN: This is me, your friendly author 👋🏻 😉, reminding you Intrepid Readers, in the friendliest possible way, that the end is in sight, okay? Soon? I don't know exactly how many more chapters, but this story, like the tour, must come to an end, right? So no flipping your shit, right? Ever onward, to the next Wattpad adventure? There's so much good stuff out there, right?

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"Are you excited about seeing your dad?" Poppy asked.

MJ nodded, smiling. "This probably sounds crazy to you, but this is the longest we've ever been apart," she confided.

They were speaking in low voices on the darkened plane, though they could probably have blasted a cannon and not have awakened anyone. Across from them, Poppy's brothers were sleeping, heads leaning against each other, arms and legs comfortably entwined, though there was more than enough room in the spacious, first-class seats for each of them to have plenty of space to himself had he so desired.

MJ took a quick picture of them, smiling.

"Aren't they the cutest?" Poppy asked, shaking her head.

"You know, the boys didn't go away to school, to Harrow until they were thirteen," Poppy began. "Until then, all of us went to a really wonderful school in London, very progressive for England, which can be difficult to find, you know? Especially with Archie, mum and dad didn't want him stifled in any way when he was little." Poppy laughed. "You only see him now, and he's actually calmed down quite a bit, if you can believe it. We weren't sure if Harrow was going to work for him, actually, but it's tradition for us Spencers, so we all discussed it, and decided to give it a try, and they're working with us, so I think he's going to make it. And quirkiness aside, he's really quite brilliant, and they know they're lucky to have him."

Poppy leaned forward and brushed some hair off of Archie's forehead, and did the same for Heath before sitting back. "Anyway, when Archie was seven or eight, back when we were still going to Caswell Day, our old school, he staged a protest sit-in up in one of the trees in the yard. Has Heath told you about that? I mean, he was at Harrow already, but he wasn't in the band yet or anything."

MJ shook her head, eyes wide with interest.

"There was a really old chestnut tree in the yard at school, and it had been left because it was so old, this great, ugly thing. It apparently had some sort of tree disease, you know, rot or whatever, and one day in early spring they finally came to mark it so they could cut it down, and our little Archie was sitting in class and saw them marking it all up all over the trunk, you know, the best spots to make the cuts so it would fall properly and not impact the other trees that were around it." MJ could see Poppy was starting to laugh just remembering.

"Well, during lunch break, Archie loads up his pockets with sandwiches and snacks and such, and marches out to the tree, and before anyone can do anything sensible, he's shinned right up the tree, nearly all the way to the top. God, I can still remember how tiny he looked in his yellow jumper, way up amongst the branches."

Poppy shook her head. "I was called out of my French class to try to get him down, but he wouldn't come, and no adult could go after him, because the tree was nearly rotted through because of the fungus or whatever it was, you know? The branches wouldn't have borne their weight."

"Why was he up there?" MJ asked. "I mean, what was he protesting?"

"There was a squirrel who had a nest in the tree, if you can believe it. The silly thing had given birth, and Archie used to watch it during class. He was crying, poor thing, he said it would be squirrel baby murder to cut the tree down," Poppy remembered, her voice growing soft.

"Oh my god," MJ said, putting her hand to her mouth. "How long did he stay up there?"

"Eight days," Poppy said, her voice still soft.

"What?" MJ hadn't meant for her voice to come out so loud. "That's not possible! He would have been dehydrated! Or gotten hypothermic! He was only seven or eight? I mean, how did he go to the bathroom?" She turned to the young woman next to her. "Seriously, Poppy, he could've died, your parents wouldn't have risked that, would they?"

Poppy smiled and shook her head. "I helped him," she admitted. "Heath too. Archie rigged a little pulley system, and we sent up a blanket, and water and biscuits and things like that. And nappies, though he doesn't like to talk about that much. We sent them up in resealable plastic bags, and he sent them back down the same way, usually at night, when no cameras were around."

"Cameras?"

Poppy nodded. "He got kind of famous, and news shows came to record him and that. The English have kind of a grudging respect for truly eccentric behavior, you know? And our Archie's always been one of a kind." She looked at MJ, smiled and shrugged. "So yeah, they came to interview him and show him on the news, and on the eighth day the babies finally left the nest, and Archie climbed down and everyone clapped and Archie was a hero and little girls gave him flowers and chocolates, and his head swelled to about three times its normal size."

"You left out the part where I heroically carried him all the way to the car because he was so dizzy he nearly fell over," Heath said from where he'd been sleeping, his voice gravelly from just having woken.

"Oh my god, you do love to exaggerate," Poppy said, shaking her head. "He couldn't have weighed more than four stone, especially after living up in that tree for a week."

"And he smelled absolutely awful, too," Heath added, nudging his sleeping brother's shoulder. "Here, swap with me, Poppy, so I can sit with MJ, please?"

"Aww, we were having nice girls' chat," Poppy protested, but she obligingly switched seats with Heath, pulling Archie's sleeping form so he could snuggle into her.

"So, based on what's been going on with you and your song this past week, my label would like to meet with you, and my agent would like to meet with you, preferably before my label meets with you," Heath told MJ. "This works out beautifully, since they're both based in Los Angeles, which is where we'll be."

"I know," MJ said, smiling tremulously. "And you think this is the right thing to do?"

Heath raised his eyebrows at her. "Well, yeah, I do. I mean, normally, getting an agent is the goal, and getting a crappy agent so you can get a decent agent so you can get a great agent is the chronology, so you're definitely skipping a few steps, but yeah, you're doing everything correctly, you know?" He rubbed her cheek with his nose in a gesture of affection.

"And having an agent with you when you sit down with a label is definitely what you want, so I think you're doing it exactly right," he added. "I mean, are you worried that someone's out to rob you?" He leaned in so he could look in her eyes. "Are you worried that I'm out to rob you?"

MJ shook her head. "Oh no, Heath, of course not!"

Heath shrugged. "Don't be so quick to say no, darling, it wouldn't be unheard of. In my case, you happen to be right, of course, but you're right to worry also.

"Luckily," he continued, "I'm already so successful and well-known that my agent and label aren't likely to try to cheat you, though, which is nice."

MJ looked uncomfortable.

"No! No, MJ, you put that thought right out of your beautiful head right now!" Heath said, so loudly that Poppy opened her eyes to stare at them for a second.

"How do you even know what I'm thinking?" MJ asked in wonderment.

"You're worried that, just because we're shagging, you're cutting to the front of the line or something, and that you're getting special favors because of it, and this isn't all happening because of your talent," Heath said, his voice somehow soft, yet hot with anger at the same time.

MJ looked at him in amazement.

"How do you do that?" she asked.

"I know how you think," he said, looking smug.

"Okay, so?" MJ asked. "What about all that? About cutting to the front of the line, and not paying my dues, and having success dumped in my lap because I got lucky?"

Heath looked at her. "Yeah? It's true. So what?"

MJ stared back. "What?"

Heath continued to look at her. "So what if all that's true? We are shagging, and I happened to hear you sing and heard how amazing you are and pulled you on stage and didn't let Meredith steal your song. So fucking what?" He grasped her arm. "All I did was open a door for you, MJ. If you hadn't been able to sing, if you'd had no talent, then nothing I did for you would've mattered, right?" He nodded for emphasis. "Just like me and the boys winning that contest. If we'd had nothing to work with, it would've meant bollocks, you know?

"You took the chance that luck, or in this case, that I gave you, and turned it into something, because you're incredible, pure and simple." Heath leaned in and kissed her, smiling after.

"So shut up about line jumping and all that sodding nonsense, yeah?"

MJ, her face barely an inch from his, nodded, smiling back at him.

Heath leaned back and took a deep breath, satisfied.

"So, how much does your dad know about us?" Heath asked, clasping MJ's hand, rubbing her knuckles.

MJ shrugged. "From me he's just heard that we're good friends," she offered.

"Good friends?" Heath repeated. "Have you been trying to hide it from him?"

"No, not exactly," Mj said. "But it seemed important to me, and I thought I owed it to him to tell him in person, you know?" She swallowed. "And honestly, at first, I didn't know what exactly was going to happen. So I didn't tell him, and the longer I didn't tell him, the weirder it got that I hadn't told him, if you get my meaning. And now it feels kind of important, and he's going to know as soon as he sees me, and I'm going to tell him first thing."

"I'm going to be there, right?" Heath looked at her. "Right?" he repeated. "I assumed that, you know, like you said, whatever's going on here is important enough that I'm going to um, be meeting him straight away--?" His eyes were wide with expectation, and hope.

MJ laughed. "Of course you're going to meet him, 'straight away,' as you put it," she reassured him, patting his arm. "I wasn't exactly sure you wanted to meet him right out of the gate, so to speak," she said.

"Of course I do," Heath said.

"Okay, then, you shall," MJ said, laughing. "I was actually planning to just take the bus home from the airport," she told him. "Sally already told me I could have today off, though since I'm your PA, I guess I should've asked you?"

Heath laughed. "As your boss, I officially give you the day off, with one change: I'm going with you, and we're taking a car."

"I guess that makes more sense, huh?" she said. "I wasn't thinking. I just automatically turned back into Santa Monica MJ, you know?"

"Yeah," Heath said, bopping her nose. "I love her, a lot."

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"So this is where you grew up?" Heath asked.

He immediately loved it; the yard, the porch, the color, the windows. It had housed and protected his darling MJ when she was small, while she was growing into the woman who sat beside him now. He felt like he would have known it before he saw it, almost, and everything about it was dear to him, from the little mailbox, painted blue and white, to the swing which hung on the porch, and the hummingbird feeder which hung from the corner.

The car door opened to homey, neighborhood sounds, a lawn mower, sprinklers, children laughing, birds. The sun shone down, making sharp shadows of them on the sidewalk as they walked up the steps.

MJ's steps quickened as they got closer to the front door. It opened before they reached it, and a man came out, a man as tall as MJ, but darker.

"MJ! There you are, finally!" His voice was low and booming, as deep and rich as a piece of the best chocolate cake.

"Dad!" The pull of MJ's bag hit the porch with a clack as she jumped into the man's arms.

Heath had an impression of dark, curly hair, like his love's, and tan skin, and a happy, smiling, face, perhaps with a mustache?

"So, MJ, who have you brought back from your world travels to meet your old dad, hm?" he rumbled, finally releasing his daughter.

"Dad, this is the boy I've been telling you about," MJ said, smiling, turning and pulling Heath closer. She put an arm firmly around his waist, and leaned in and kissed him. She wanted her relationship to him to be clear from the get-go, and she didn't want Heath to feel in any way that she was trying to hide who he was to her.

"Dad, this is Heath," she said, giving the introduction the gravitas it deserved.

"Heath, this is my dad, this is Anastasios, though everyone just calls him Tasos," MJ said.

Heath stepped forward and held out his hand without releasing MJ's waist.

"I've been so looking forward to meeting MJ's father," he said. "It's a great pleasure to meet you, Mr. Jassemolada."