‹ Prequel: Trouble-Maker
Sequel: Summer Boy

Infinite

Detour Home

It took about a month for Arch's biological mom to get any rights when it came to the son she'd left behind. She still wasn't allowed to see him, but she had earned the right to fight for him in court. The date was set for May 16th and it was incredibly hard to explain to Arch what it was all about.

I called Ronnie when I found out and asked him to come home for the court date. "I can't do this alone, Ron," I said into the phone as I sat on the couch in the living room, peering up the stairs at Arch's closed bedroom door, "I don't know how Arch is even going to take this. He needs you to be here for him through this."

"I know and I wish I could be, Att, but I'm not sure if it's even possible for me to get two days off tour on such short notice. That's two shows we'd have to cancel," he murmured, sounding frustrated and upset.

"You could play the show on the fifteenth and then fly home after. I'll pick you up from the airport that night and in the morning we'll go to court, then you can fly back after. Maybe you won't have to miss any shows," I thought out loud, needing to see him and have him by my side through everything, "I miss you, Ronnie, and Arch misses you. We need you here. It's been almost three months."

He sighed through the phone. "I'll see what I can do," he replied, sounding like knew that he'd be able to. Despite being part of a group, Ronnie had a lot of authority when it came to what they were doing. He never missed a show; however, pushing through sickness and soreness to give a piece of his heart out to each person who went to his shows.

On the fifteenth, Arch was bouncing around the house while he waited for the time to come for us to pick Ronnie up from LAX. I tried to get him to eat dinner around six, but he slid out of his chair and dropped to the floor, sprawling out on the tile.

"When is he going to get here?!" Arch asked, drawing out the words in a complaining way, "I want him to come home."

I stood at the counter and peered over the edge. "Arch, get off the floor and back into your chair," I demanded, having already told him twice to stay in his seat and stop playing around, "I'm not kidding, I'm going to make you stay here when I go get him if you don't eat."

He complained with a series of unhappy noises and forced himself back into his usual chair at the kitchen table. "Can I watch TV?" he asked, turning around in his seat to look at me as I fixed up something for myself, "I'll take my food."

I gave him a pointed look. "No, you're sitting at the table. Now eat."

He sighed and slid around in his seat to face away from me and back to his plate. The closer the day came to bring Ronnie home, the worse Arch's listening skills became. He was becoming more and more like a worry-less little boy who didn't have a care in the world. Despite having to tell him things more times, I enjoyed the change in him.

"Do you want apple juice or milk?" I questioned as I turned off the stovetop and headed across the kitchen to the appliance.

He turned and piped up, "Juice," before turning back and shoving another nugget in his mouth. His eyes widened and he chewed quickly when my phone dinged on the island. "Ronnie!" he shouted, about to get out of his chair again. He stopped when he realized that he wasn't supposed to and stared at me. "Aren't you going to get it!?"

"It's just Twitter," I replied as I carried two glasses of juice over, "Ronnie's busy with tonight's show already. He won't have time to call until it's over and he's getting on the the plane."

Arch frowned, holding a chicken nugget in his hand and grabbed his cup with the other one. He took a swig and asked, "Where is he?" He glanced back at the schedule on the fridge, trying to read it from his spot.

As I walked over to get my plate, I detoured over to the fridge to make Arch content, even though I already knew where he was. "Kansas City, Kansas," I read off of the schedule, heading back over to the table.

"How long will it take him to get here?" the little boy asked, practically forgetting about his food as I sat down next to him.

"We've had this talk twice already," I replied, but answered anyways, "The flight will take just under two hours. We'll pick him up from the airport at about two thirty in the morning."

I wasn't super pleased about having to take Arch out so late in the city, but letting Ronnie take a cab from the airport to Pasadena just seemed wrong. Plus, I doubted that the little boy would sleep either way. His best friend was coming home and there was a chance he was more excited than I was.

"What do you say to taking a nap today?" I asked, knowing that he usually refused when he was forced but could fall asleep on his own at any time, "You don't want to be too tired when Ron gets home. Although I'm sure he'll be beat."

Arch frowned. "I'm not tired," he said, taking another bite of chicken when he saw me looking at his mostly full plate, "I don't need to sleep."

"Well fine, but when Ronnie gets here you can't stay up all night. You've got school tomorrow," I allowed, referring to his daycare. He'd be going there while Ronnie and I went to support him in court against his mother. She'd be fighting for her right to see him and we'd be fighting for his right to be left in peace. She was the woman who brought him into the world but also the one who left him alone in it.

He'd become our family more than hers and I couldn't bare to let her take him and ruin him again. He was just becoming comfortable in the world and living a life that he actually enjoyed, so Ronnie and I were both going to fight for the life he was living and the possibility that it might turn out better than if he went back to Abigail Drewry.

Ronnie had managed to cancel the show on the sixteenth with the promise of rescheduling it and refunding the money for the people who bought tickets. On his twitter, he wrote that "personal matters" had arose and he needed to be home to be there for his family, stating lastly that family was the most important thing to him.

Arch had asked why Ronnie was coming home so soon and why he couldn't come with us during the day, so I told him a version of the truth that would keep his blue eyes from crying.

"We've got some things to do," I explained, sitting on the coffee table in front of him a few days ago, "It has to do with you, but you don't need to be there. Ronnie and I are going to take care of everything."

The thought of it being about his mom didn't even cross his mind. "Are Will and Olivia mad at me?" he questioned, his voice becoming soft and his tone gentle, "I didn't mean to be happy about leaving them. I just love you."

I sucked in a breath and shook my head, putting on my best smile. "No, Will and Olivia aren't going to be there, sweetheart," I answered, "There's just some stuff we have to figure out about your mom." I waited for his realization and reaction.

He frowned, looking slightly confused, and pressed his palms into his jean covered legs. "My mom?" he repeated, "My mom is going to be there?"

I nodded. "Ronnie and I are going to meet her," I said, realizing that this would actually be our first time meeting the woman who raised Arch for four years. I'd seen her before in the daycare when she'd bring him in, but she'd never acquired about his time there so there was no reason for me to meet with her. Arch was a good child. There were no issues. I never scheduled a meeting with his mother. "I'm sorry I didn't invite you to come, but it's not a good idea for you to be there, Arch."

"I don't want to go," he stated, sounding again like the little man who explained his father's death to me. Composed, mature, but with a hint of pain underneath it all.

I nodded and took his hand in mine. "Alright, you're going to Nicolas tomorrow then," I said, thankful that he didn't want to see her after so long, "I think they're having some kind of sports day. I'll have to check the schedule but it's some kind of mini-Olympics."

He had practically forgotten the reason that Ronnie was coming home when the day came. He was more excited about him being here than the reason for it. It felt like two am would take forever to arrive, but we passed the time by watching movies. Halfway through our third one, Arch fell asleep on the couch next to me with his feet in my lap.

I carefully stood up when my phone began ringing in the kitchen where I'd left it after dinner. Arch and I had loaded our plates into the dishwasher and then he'd raced out of the room to pick out our movies while I grabbed our dessert.

I quickly grabbed the little machine and put it to my ear, answering it in one go. "Ronnie, are you heading this way?" I questioned, glancing at the clock on the wall.

"Yeah, just left the guys. Took a taxi to the airport and am trying to board now. Just wanted to let you know that I'm on my way. I'll see you in a few hours."

"I'll be there. Text me what gate you're at and I'll meet you there. Arch is out already, so he'll be bouncing off the walls when we're headed that way," I said, smiling as Ronnie chuckled on the other end of the line.

"I can't wait to see you both," he said, "But I have to go. The plane is boarding and I have to figure out where I stuck my fucking pass," he grumbled, rustling around through the pockets of his jacket and jeans, "Alright, see you in under three hours. I love you."

"I love you too." I hung up and took the phone with me. There was no sense in moving Arch from the couch seeing as I'd be waking him up in two hours to head to downtown LA, so I kept him in his spot as I stuck a different movie in the DVD player and slouched down beside him.

During the movie, I managed to grab my phone without moving off the couch and waking Arch. I fiddled with it, deciding against sending a text to Heather because of Kyat, and scrolled lazily through my numbers before switching to the internet, finally bothering to look at the Twitter account that Ronnie had set up for me.

There wasn't much on my account seeing as I hardly used it. Part of me wanted to snap a picture of the boy who had practically crawled into my lap in his sleep, but putting him out there like that didn't seem right. The idea of his mother finding him and showing up here was terrifying although it hadn't happened yet.

Ronnie, of course, had taken pictures with Arch before and posted them on his Instagram and we'd yet to be found out by the woman who claimed to be feverishly searching for her son. I went to Ronnie's Twitter and scrolled through a few of his tweets before going to his pictures.

I got a notification every time he did something, so I'd seen these all before. Pictures of him and the guys, of the fans, of the venues, of their bus and setlists. It was a tour gallery.

When I got passed the more recent pictures, I landed on one of Ronnie, me, and the guys from Pariah Conviction from the night I told them that Epitaph was offering to sign them. Among us was Chance, crowded in between the band, grinning excitedly, proudly, and looking so much younger than everyone else.

Chance was a soft-spoken guy. He was the "behind the scenes" for the band and their best friend. When their lives had changed, so had his. I made a note to get in touch with the guys and see how everything was going for them. They were on their way up and had offered a twenty year old kid a ride on their coattails.

Just after one am, I lifted Arch up on the couch in attempts to wake him. His eyes opened slowly and blinked at me as he tried to wake up and become aware of what was happening around him. He pushed the quilt off his shoulders and sat up, leaning against the arm of the couch. "What time is it?" he questioned groggily.

I sat down on the coffee table and grabbed the blanket before it could pool around his feet. "Time to get ready to go get Ronnie," I explained with an easy smile. He sat up completely, quickly, and grinned. He pushed off the couch cushion and tried to run towards the door, but I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him back.

"Jacket, shoes, hat," I listed.

He nodded his blonde head quickly and pushed my arms off him. Arch changed directions and bounded up the stairs to his bedroom so he could get all of those things on. I followed, grabbing my coat, keys, and shoes.

"I'm ready!" Arch shouted.

I chuckled and shook my head. "Lose the sunglasses," I said, "It's dark out. You're going to walk into a car or something."

He huffed but easily took them off and walked over to set them on my dresser before returning to his spot in the doorway. "Can we leave now?" he asked.

I stepped into my shoes and pulled my bag over my shoulder, the strap crossing my chest and holding my hoodie against my body. I checked for my keys in my pocket and pulled my hood up over my head. I held my hand out to him.

He grinned and raced into the room to take my head. Both of us headed out onto the upstairs balcony and then down the stairs. Arch tugged on my hand the whole time, too eager to walk at a decent pace. At the front door, I pulled his hat down over his ears and zipped his coat, despite his complaints.

"Don't you dare run," I stated as I turned to lock the door behind us. He was already down the stairs but stopped at my words and waited, practically bouncing in the dim light cast by the porch lamp.

I turned around and motioned for him to go on. He trekked down the sidewalk and practically fell into the side of the Escalade. I followed at a slower pace and opened the backdoor. He'd gotten in the habit of wanting to climb in by himself, so I waited for him to clamber inside and buckled him in before I closed the backdoor and walked around to the driver's side to get in.

"Aren't you excited!?" Arch asked, practically shouting.

I grinned in the mirror at him. "Of course I'm excited," I replied, my knuckles turning white as I gripped the steering wheel, "It's been so long. I can't wait to see him."

"Me neither!" he exclaimed.

The ride to the airport was just under forty minutes. Arch was hyper through most of it, but as more time passed, his eyelids were getting heavier and heavier and he talked faster to make up for it and to keep himself awake.

"Baby, you can take a nap," I said, peaking in the mirror as his head drooped against the side of his seat, "Ronnie's plane doesn't land for over a half hour. I'll wake you up when it's time."

He shook his head, matting his hair against his seat. "No, I want to go in with you and meet him."

"I can carry you and I'll wake you up when the plane lands," I offered.

"No." He set his little jaw and stared out his window as the city lights got brighter and more common. He watched as we passed them, blurring the colors together as we went. When we got to the airport, he sat up straighter in his carseat and stared with wide, blue eyes.

"This is LAX," I told him, "It's cool, isn't it?"

"It's huge!" he shouted, "How are we going to find Ronnie?"

I smirked. "When he lands he's going to text us where he's at. We'll go meet him." I pulled into one of the large parking lots. Despite the time, it was still busy, as was the airport itself. I pulled up to this entrance into the airport and shut off my car as two men in maroon vests made their way over to us.

"Come on, Arch," I said, catching his attention back from the people swarming through the airport, "This is where we get out. Grab your things."

He grabbed the little sign he'd made for Ronnie and unbuckled himself. I climbed out of the car and smiled at the valet, handing him the keys, already seeing Ronnie's cringe when he realized I'd let a stranger drive and park his car.

"I'm picking up my fiance," I said to the younger man who stood in the open doorway of the Escalade, "He has pictures of this car and if he finds so much as a finger print where it's not supposed to be, you'll regret ever taking this job."

The valet looked surprised and worried. "I'll drive careful, miss," he said.

I gave him another look, warning him to do anything other than "careful", and pulled open the back door. Arch stood up on the floor of the Escalade, waiting expectantly for me to lift him out.

I carried him on one hip with my arm wrapped around him and the other holding our things, including the valet ticket that I'd stuck in my sachet-like bag. Arch wrapped one arm around my neck to hold himself up and carried his banner in the other. It was a poster that read "WELCOME HOME, RONNIE!" and underneath held a photo of Arch, Ronnie, and I together. Arch had written, "I missed you" at the bottom in his comfortable, childish scrawl and decorated it with different stickers we'd found at the back of a coloring book and pictures we'd printed off the internet. Vines of glitter glue lined the edges in a picturesque way.

I showed Arch the airport as I carried him through it. We stopped at the lists of flights and I pointed Ronnie's to him, noting that the landing time was just twenty minutes away. Arch bounced in my arms, practically slipping out of my grasp and to the floor.

We didn't get much attention from those around us. At this time of night, everyone was just worried about getting where they were going. Arch hung around my neck as we moved to Ronnie's gate and sat down in two of the blue plastic and cloth covered chairs, facing the television as it played one of the numerous versions of a news broadcast.

Arch stared out though the wall of windows at all the lights surrounding us. From the runway, all the way to the gates of the airport, everything was lit up with bright and blinking lights - each a color that represented something unknown to us. Arch dropped out of his chair and pressed against the windows, counting out loud the number of colored lights that dotted the land that spanned around us.

I breathed out and leaned against the back of the uncomfortable line of chairs. A lone woman who sat opposite me caught my eye and smiled, her dark eyes darting back to Arch. Watching him brought images of our future. I could picture our baby, our biological child, waiting anxiously for the return of his father after so long. I'd thought about it before, but it had never been as tangible and raw as it was now.

In Arch's place, I saw an older version of him side by side with a younger, darker haired boy, pressed against the glass, eagerly watching out against the darkness as their father's plane rolled down the tarmac in front of them. They shared a look and then at me, and the longing in their eyes tore at my heart. Someday, this would be me again, telling my children that their dad was finally home.

As a plane lurched down to the ground right in front of Arch, his eyes widened and he grinned, screeching loudly while he ran over to me to grab my hand. "He's here!" he cheered. He was practically jumping, holding my fingers with his.

I smiled and swung our connected hands between us. Along with the few people who'd been waiting with us, we moved closer to where the passengers would be coming through. Many walked through and took off where they were going, others met with the people who were waiting to see them. When Ronnie came through, a grin spread across my face and I was sure that not even Arch could feel more excited than I did.

"Ronnie," I breathed, moving straight into his arms. He said my name in the same way and tears came to my eyes before I could even consider why. He wrapped himself around me and I pressed my face into his shoulder, fingers bunching in his cotton hoodie.

"I missed you, I missed you so much. I'm so glad you're here," I said, crushing him to me for the first time in three months, "Oh my gosh, Ronnie." I pressed my arms against his sides, my palms against his back, and held onto him.

He pulled back and was grinning. He kissed me, hands cupping my face. "I missed you two," he said when we pulled back, "Both of you." Despite me tightening my arms, he turned and looked at Arch, yanking the hat off his head. "You're already getting bigger," Ronnie said, pulling the boy into a hug, "Stop growing."

I took a moment to look at him. I'd seen him and pictures and heard his voice everyday, but standing in front of me, it was obvious he'd lost weight and had definitely been enjoying himself. Wearing only a thin hoodie and jeans, he looked comfortable and at ease. His hair had been recently shaved again on the right side, but the rest grew haphazardly all the way down to his jaw and shoulders.

"You look thin," I said.

He turned, slightly baffled, and then grinned. "You look great too, Att. Great to see you." He had already pulled Arch from the ground and held his one carry on in his other hand.

I scoffed and pushed his arm. "That's not what I meant," I muttered, although smiling, "You guys just need to eat better on tour. I know how you were last summer, I can't help but worry."

He sighed and wrapped his arm over my shoulder, pressing a kiss against the side of my mouth. "I love you and I'm fine," he replied. He lead us away from the terminal and braced himself to answer all of Arch's questions about tour.