Home Is Where Your Heart Is

Two Weeks Later

“Oh my world, he is so handsome,” Vero gushed as she saw the sleeping baby in the car seat that Sophia was carrying.

“Thank you,” Sophia smiled cheekily, hugging her friend closely.

“You couldn’t stay away, could you?” Vero smirked as she gently ran her finger down the baby’s chubby cheek.

“No, Pittsburgh is more my home than I ever realized,” Sophia admitted. “When I got back it was…it wasn't like when I was just visiting. Everything just seemed so different, so foreign, that I decided to just come back here,” she smiled. “I mean, I may be involuntarily single, but that doesn’t take away the fact that most of my life and my friends are here.”

“True that,” Vero nodded as they slowly walked out of the airport, heading straight for her BMW.

Quickly strapping the car seat in, Sophia followed Vero’s lead and climbing into the car, buckling up as her friend began the drive towards the city.

“So what about now? What are you going to do?” Vero asked softly, glancing at her friend in the rear-view mirror.

“I don’t know,” Sophia admitted. “Take care of my son to the best I know how to and the rest, well I’ll just have to wing it,” she said slowly.

“He really does love you, you know,” Vero stated as she drove up the ramp onto the freeway.

“What?” Sophia frowned surprised.

“Two weeks ago, he came over to our house and he asked if we knew where you were, he’d been looking for you. When we told him that you had really left…I’ve never seen anyone crumble so fast before,” Vero sighed. “I know that you don’t believe that he loves you, but I saw him when he was talking about you and I don’t even think that Marc talks about me that way,” she smiled softly. “The way he lit up when he was talking about you, you could visibly see that he loves you.”

“Do you have to make me cry?” Sophia half-smiled.

“No, I just wanted to know,” Vero smiled.

“Thanks, but if I start crying it’s going to be really bad,” Sophia stated. “And messy,” she added. “Cause I’ll start lactating and that will ultimately ruin my shirt and then I’ll get really moody because this is a really nice shirt. And I like this shirt,” she smiled, causing Vero to burst out laughing. “I really am serious”

“My god, you really sound like a mum,” Vero smiled

“It comes with the territory of sleepless nights and the diapers,” Sophia smiled as she looked at her friend through the mirror, feeing strangely at ease as she turned her head and watched the suburbs of Pittsburgh passing by outside the car.

Driving down the familiar street and turning up the driveway she hadn’t seen in weeks, Sophia smiled as she parked outside the garage next to the large Range Rover standing there. Stepping out of the car, she glanced around and couldn’t help but feel like being back in Pittsburgh really was a good thing. Grabbing all the things from the trunk she walked over to the massive double front doors and rang the doorbell.

The door being pulled open, she was pulled into a massive hug which caused her to laugh as she dropped the bags onto the ground just as she was lifted off the ground.

“I'm so happy you're back!”

“It’s good to see you Mark,” Sophia smiled as he put her back down on the ground.

“It’s great to see you too,” Mark smiled widely. “So are you back for good now?” he asked as he helped her carry the bags inside of the large house.

“I don’t know about ‘for good’, but for a great while at least,” she replied honestly as she closed the door behind her.

“Sophia!”

Turning around, Sophia broke out in a massive smile as Dorrie appeared from the hall leading to the kitchen.

“It’s great seeing you again,” Dorrie smiled as she wrapped the younger woman in a massive hug. “You can never leave again,” she stated seriously.

“We’ll see about that,” Sophia smiled good-natured, she wasn't even sure she wanted to leave again.

“It’s good to have you back,” Mark whispered, kissing Sophia on the cheek before collecting the bags and heading up the stairs with them.

“Thanks for letting me borrow all that,” Sophia smiled gratefully as she turned back to Dorrie and the two of them slowly walked through the house.

“You're welcome,” Dorrie replied simply. “We weren’t using it anyway, but are you sure you don’t need any of it for longer?”

“Yeah, I'm sure,” Sophia nodded. “I have everything I need right now, and I probably got a few things I don’t need too when I was back home,” she revealed. “All my family and friends were really excited about seeing him when I got back; mum had called about everyone we know as soon as we hung up after I told her.”

“That’s grandmothers for you,” Dorrie nodded knowingly as they turned the corner and walked into the kitchen. “Want to tell the world about their grandbaby.”

Relaxing in the lounge after Sophia had helped Dorrie feed her two daughters; the two of them were simply talking. The two of them hadn’t known each other more than from the times they had spent together at the Mellon Arena or other places where the whole team had been at, but after everything that happened, they’d become really close and Dorrie loved being able to help her friend with whatever questions she had about the baby, what to do and motherhood in general.

The sound of the doorbell reaching them, Dorrie frowned slightly. “I'm not expecting anyone,” she noted as she stood up from the couch and walked around it. “Maybe Mark is,” Sophia suggested as Dorrie walked up the steps.

“Yeah, maybe,” Dorrie mumbled, having an ominous feeling about who it might be.

Hearing muffled sounds coming from the hallway, Sophia carefully flipped through the travel guide about Barcelona that had been lying on the table, in a hope of entertaining herself and stop herself from eavesdropping. As the door slammed shut, she jumped in surprise and looked up just as Dorrie hurried back into the lounge.

“I had no idea, trust me, I am so sorry,” she apologized whispering, causing Sophia to frown confused.

“What are you…?” she trailed off as she saw the person who was standing in the large archway, mere feet behind Dorrie. “Oh,” she let out softly as she quickly looked back at her friend. “I should go,” she stated softly as she closed the book and quickly stood up, rounding the couch and heading straight for the archway the two of them were standing in.

Jogging up the three steps without as much as a glance towards them, she about passed them as she felt a hand grab hold of her forearms. Stopping in her tracks, she kept her eyesight forwards. “What?” she practically growled, only then realizing just how much she’d begun to resent him.

“Could you just…” he began hesitant.

“Could I what, Max?” Sophia snapped at him as she pulled her arm away from his hand and glared at him. “Ignore you? Pretend like you don’t exist? Don’t call you? Make you feel like an idiot?” she ticked off as she continued glaring at him. “Take your pick, because I’ll do it!” she stated angrily, her temper once again flaring up.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Dorrie said softly as she hurried away from them, not wanting to be caught in the middle if/when those two got into it.

“Soph! Come on!” Max exclaimed. “You can’t just blame this one on me!”

“Why the hell not?!” Sophia snapped at him. “You are the one who ignored me when I was in the hospital! You are the one who didn’t call me back! You are the one who hasn’t even acknowledged your own son!” she yelled at him. “So yeah, I think that I'm fully entitled to blame this whole thing on you!” she continued, poking him in the chest as she did.

“I'm not ready to be a father!” Max defended himself, equally as loudly. “I'm not ready for that! I'm not responsible enough!”

“Do you think I am?!” she exclaimed disbelieving. “I'm younger than you! I am so not ready to be a mother,” she pointed out. “But I don’t have that choice because we have a baby and I can’t just turn by back and leave him with someone else,” she said softly as she quickly turned away from him and brushed away the stubborn tears that escaped and rolled down her cheeks.

“Soph…” Max said softly as he reached out and gently placed a hand on her shoulder, only to have her flinch and quickly shake it off. “Don’t touch me,” she ordered softly.

“I'm sorry, Sophia,” he whispered softly, not really knowing what to do. He had never really seen her that raw and exposed. Over the 13 something months since he first met her, he’d seen her at her best and at her worst – at least he thought so. And he’d seen her cry at several times.

But he had never seen her as hurt as she appeared in front of him right now. Sophia had never been one to be especially open with how she was feeling, her temper aside, and to everyone she met she always seemed like a steady fast, calm person without a care in the world, but the person who was standing in front of him looked more fragile than he’d ever seen anyone.

“You don’t get to be sorry,” she stated coldly, causing him to flinch as if he’d been slapped, he’d never heard that sort of coldness in her voice before. “You know how I feel about what my dad did to me and my mother, and what I think about that. You said it was horrible that a parent could do that to such an innocent child,” she reminded him. “And yet, you are doing the same thing to your son.”

Feeling like he had been sucker punched, Max sank down in one of the couches, running his hands over his face and through his hair, tugging on the ends of it.

“Just because you’ve never met him and have never seen him, doesn’t make in any less wrong or hurtful,” she stated as she looked out over Mark and Dorrie’s vast backyard.

“He’s beautiful,” Max whispered as all he had to do was close his eyes and he could see the latest picture Marc had shown him just days earlier when they were at the Igloo. “And he actually has your nose,” he stated softly.

“What?” Sophia asked surprised as she turned to look at him.

“I stopped by Marc and Vero’s just after you had left and I saw a picture of you two,” he revealed. “And I sort of, kind of, may have bullied him into showing me all the ones you’ve been emailing them,” he admitted embarrassed.

“Why didn’t you just call me?” she questioned.

“I was embarrassed, and I was scared,” he admitted as he refused to look up at her. “I go around telling children to always try your best at everything you do, teaching them that everything they do have consequences and that you always have responsibilities in life,” he pointed out as he yet again ran his fingers through his hair.

“And what do I do when the biggest responsibility and the biggest miracle in life happens?” he asked rhetorically. “I run. I take the coward’s way out and I run,” he admitted. “I couldn’t call you; I didn’t know what to say. Because how do you really apologize for something like that?” he wondered out loud.

A heavy silence spreading between them as they both thought about everything that happened, neither of them really knew what to say.

“I'm not a perfect mother,” Sophia said softly as silent tears fell down her cheeks. “I have no idea what I'm doing half the time and everyone around me just seem to think and expect that I should just know what I'm doing,” she admitted. “And I really don’t.”

“Most of the time I'm just winging it, praying that what I do is the best for Patrice because I'm clueless and I'm alone in it,” she cried softly. “I have no younger siblings and none of my friends have young children. I’ve never even babysat a day in my life!” she continued. “I have no idea what I'm doing, but I still wake up every day pretending that I do.”

Watching her literally break right in front of him, Max could feel his own heart breaking. He loved her so much and everything he did seemed to only be hurting her. Quickly getting up from the couch he strode over to her and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer and letting her cry against his chest.

“You say sorry,” she mumbled against his shirt as she wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, feeling more comfortable and secure than she had done ever since she’d been forced to leave the Mellon Arena in an ambulance.

“What?” Max frowned slightly as he looked down at her.

“When you apologize, you say sorry,” she repeated. “And you do everything you have to, to make up for it. It doesn’t matter what it is, it’s just what you have to do,” she whispered, her eyes closed as she breathed in the scent that was purely him mixed with detergent and cologne, a scent she’d come to recognize everywhere.

“I'm sorry,” Max whispered slowly against the top of her head, loving having her so close and his arms again.

“We’ll work on it together,” she nodded slightly.

“I’d like that,” he smiled against her forehead, placing a soft kiss on top of her head. “What did you name him?” he asked softly as he rested his cheek against the top of her head.

“Patrice Maxime Talbot,” she revealed softly, refusing to move away from him.

“You gave him my last name?” he asked surprised, having figured she wanted nothing to do with him.

“I have my dad’s last name,” she replied simply. She hadn’t really thought that much about it, but talking to her mother, giving her son his father’s last name just seemed like the right thing to do.

“Can I see him?” he asked softly, not daring to look at her.

“Do you really want to?” she asked uncertain, not really trusting that he was serious about it.

“He’s my son,” he whispered simply. “I love you, and I’ve thought about wanting to have a family, with you, more times that I could count,” he admitted. “I was a coward, but I still want that, with you.”

“You completely sure,” she checked.

“I'm more than sure,” he nodded.

“V is watching him,” she told him.

“You're letting Veronique watch out son?!” he asked, sounding rather disbelieving as he backed away and looked at her questioningly.

“She’s great with him,” she smiled back at him, her sparkling eyes locking with his as she could clearly see the love that was mirrored in them.

“I love you, mon chéri,” he whispered softly as he gently brushed his fingers over her smooth cheek, leaning forwards slowly. Brushing his nose against her cheek, he was happy to find that instead of moving away from him, her eyes slowly fluttered closed and he tentatively brushed his lips against hers.

Feeling his lips pressing against her own, she realized just how much she’d missed him and she slowly moved her hand up to the back of his head, pulling him closer to her as she tangled her fingers in his messy hair.

“I love you too,” she whispered softly against his lips, feeling like she’d finally found her way back home again.