‹ Prequel: Trouble-Maker
Sequel: Summer Boy

Infinite

Arch Drewry

"Arch!" I called as the young boy pulled the front door open, "I thought you weren't allowed to open the door?" I questioned jokingly as the five year old launched himself at me.

"He's not," Olivia said as she appeared in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest as she gave the little boy a warning look. But she cracked a smile and reached her arms out to me. "Nice to see you again, Atticus."

I wrapped my arms around her. "You, too, Olivia. How have you been?" I asked, lifting Arch into my arms as he battled for my attention. Olivia smiled at her foster son and led us back into the house.

"Hello, Atticus," Will greeted, walking into the living room with Georgia in his thick arms. He walked past his wife and pressed a kiss against her cheek before handing their youngest foster child over to the woman. She kissed her husband and they said their goodbyes as he slipped into a jacket.

"I'll call you," he promised her, "I'll let you know how everything goes." He turned to me and waved. "Goodbye, Atticus. See you later, Arch."

"Court hearing," Olivia explained when he was out of the door, "We're applying for custody of Georgie."

"Oh, wow!" I exclaimed, "That's amazing."

"Yeah." She nodded and kissed the little girl's forehead. She slid Georgia off of her lap and onto the couch next to her as a baby started wailing from the other side of the kitchen, where the bedrooms were.

"Oh, Tommie," Olivia sighed, pushing herself up off of the couch. She turned her attention to me after situating Georgia securely on the couch. "Could you watch her for just a moment?" she asked as she hurried out of the room, not even waiting for my reply.

"Sure," I said to myself, smiling at Arch as he grabbed onto my arm

"Lets got to my room," he stated, trying to drag me off of the couch. He slid to his feet and wrapped his little fingers around all of mine. "Please, Atticus, please," he repeated, attempting to yank on me.

"We're watching Georgia," I replied, "We can't just run off and leave her all alone, Arch." I wrapped my arms around his wiggling body and and pulled him back onto the couch.

"I don't care," he stated, pushing himself right back up from the couch, "I want to go to my room."

I crossed my arms over my chest as he stood in front of me in the same way. "What's wrong?" I demanded to know, staring at the child as his attitude found its way to his face.

"Nothing," he lied, pulling away from me when I tried to grab onto him. He turned and hurried out of the living room and through the kitchen door. I frowned and stared after him, wondering what had gotten into him. I grabbed Georgia from the couch, surprised by the dead weight of her, and followed the path that Arch went. I pushed through the kitchen and came out on the other side, standing the long hallway, three out of five doors left open. I carried Georgia into the room that she shared with Tommie, and smiled at Olivia as she turned to face me.

"What's wrong?" she questioned automatically, becoming worried at the sight of me standing there with her soon-to-be daughter in my arms. She turned and started fawning over Georgia, trying to see how I broke her already.

I shook my head and handed over over. "Nothing's wrong with Georgia," I replied, smiling to ease her worry, "I just need to talk to Arch and he's disappeared into his room, so I'm going to go in there." I stepped back into the doorway and waited for her response.

The orange haired woman nodded. "Oh, okay," she stated, lifting Georgia higher on her hip as she glanced down at her biological son. "Is everything alright with you?"

I smiled at her concern and tangled my fingers together. "I'm great," I told her, turning the ring around on my finger subtly. "I've never been better."

Olivia noticed me fiddling with my fingers and she grinned widely, reaching out to grab my hand roughly. "Oh my gosh," she exclaimed, turning my hand around to get a better look at the ring, "This is gorgeous, Atticus. Is this for real?"

I nodded and smiled at her excited squeal. She was a hard woman to impress and somehow that made it all even better. "He proposed last night," I confirmed, laughing as she bounced Georgia on her hip and cheered.

"That's amazing," she gushed, shaking her head in disbelief, "Have you guys thought about a date yet?"

I shrugged my shoulders and tossed my dark hair behind me. "We haven't decided yet. We're engaged indefinitely until we can come up with a better idea."

Olivia ran her fingers through her hair and moved to place Georgia in her crib. The little girl stood up and wrapped her fingers around the gate of the crib, wanting for her mother to pick her up again and hold onto her. "Let me know when you start planning," she suggested, "I'd love to bring Arch to your wedding. He is always talking about you and your boyfriend- what's his name?"

"Ronnie," I replied, grinning at the sound of his name coming from my lips. "And I definitely want Arch to be there." I twisted the ring around my finger again and nodded down the hall to Arch's room. "I'm going to go talk to him."

I cross the hall and pushed Arch's door open wider. The little boy laid stomach-down on his bed. When I walked in he rolled over and looked up at me. I held my hands in the air and shrugged my shoulders. "What's wrong, baby?" I questioned, sitting down on the bed next to him and pushing his legs so that he was parallel to me.

"Nothing," he stated, rolling over and pushing his face into his pillow.

I slid my arms around his stomach and pulled his limp body so that he was sitting on me. He opened his eyes and gave me a bored expression. "Why are you so angry?" I asked, running my fingers over his growing hair.

He pushed his lips together and shrugged his shoulders stubbornly, his gaze not meeting my gaze.

"Tell me."

He pushed his mouth into my shoulder and mumbled a few unrecognizable words. I pushing him back and asked him to repeat himself. He sighed and said then at a normal speed, clearly enough for each word to make me feel just as bad as he was. "Olivia and Will want to be Georgia's mommy and daddy but nobody wants to be mine," he said slowly, shrugging his little shoulders like his pain was no big deal.

I wrapped my arms tightly around his shoulders and pulled him against me. His snaked his around my waist and held onto me too, with all the sadness in the world bottled up inside of his five year old body. I had no idea how to help him with this. I couldn't force a family to adopt him instead of a little baby girl, but I could distract him, give him something else to think about. "Guess what, Arch," I whispered to him.

"What?" he asked with a thick cloud of tears in his voice.

I slid him so that he was sitting on the bed next to me and I took one of his hands in mine. He looked up to me with wide blue eyes and waited for me to tell him. "Ronnie and I are getting married," I told him, watching as a smile trickled over his lips.

"Really?" he asked with amazement.

I nodded quickly and held out my hand. He looked at it once, causing me to laugh as he wrapped his arms around my neck, more than a little bit excited about the news. He was practically bouncing in my lap. When he sat back down I held out my hand and showed him the ring that Ronnie had bought for me. He grinned and reached out to touch it cautiously, like he thought it would break if he poked it too hard.

"Ronnie's working right now," I said, "But I'm going to get him for lunch, do you want to come with?"

Arch nodded quickly with a large smile on his face. "Lets go!" he encouraged, sliding off of his bed and hurrying to sit on the floor near the door so that he could pull his shoes on quickly, not even bothering to tie them.

I chuckled and nodded before telling him to wait here. "Let me go ask Olivia first, Arch," I replied, getting up from his bed, "We have to make sure it's okay with her." I stepped around him and over to his door, stopping only to look back when he replied.

"She doesn't care," he said, fiddling with the laces of his shoes, "She's too busy with Tommie and Georgie." He looked up to me without any bitterness or anger and it was heartbreaking.

I forced a smile and nodded towards the door across the small hallway. "Wait here. I'll be right back." I left the room and peaked back into the children's room, but she wasn't in there anymore. Her only biological child laid in his crib, his eyes closed as he slept.

I stepped into the room and peered down at the little boy. He was just over a year old but was very small. His hair was an auburn color and his skin was pale. He was the Harris' miracle child and he was their biggest priority in life.

I touched his cheek softly before I headed out of his room and back towards the living room to find his mother. I smiled at the woman when I appeared in front of her. She sat on the couch with Georgia in her arms, a bottle held to the child's mouth. "Olivia," I said softly, catching her attention.

She looked up to me, somewhat startled, but quickly composed herself. "Are you leaving now?"

I nodded and asked, "I was wondering if I could take Arch out to lunch, he needs a little bit of one on one time."

She licked over her lips and thought about it, catching me off guard. I assumed she'd have been happy to have one of the three off her hands. "Where would you be taking him?" she questioned, situating Georgia better in her arms.

I shrugged. "I'm not sure, yet."

Olivia shook her head which caused me to instinctively cross my arms. "I'm sorry, Atticus. But Will left already and he has Arch's booster seat. So I don't think it's a very good idea for you to take him without him being seated properly."

I nodded and dropped my arms to my sides. "Oh, I completely understand," I replied, "But I actually have a car-seat in my car already. It's my sister's but it's made for three to five year olds, so it's perfect."

Olivia looked surprised. She shifted Georgia in her arms and then nodded firmly. "Okay, well I guess that's fine. Just don't have him home too late. He hasn't taken a nap at all so he'll need to go to bed earlier."

I nodded my head and told her that we would be back before dinner. After that, I headed through the kitchen and grabbed Arch from his room. I lifted him into my arms and carried him out of the house in one swoop, saying goodbye to Olivia as I went.

"Where are we going?" Arch asked excitedly as I strapped him into the car-seat. He was a little too big for the settings that it was on, so I had to take him out of it and fix it for his height and weight, since he had grown so much and was quickly out-growing Nico.

I smiled over my shoulder as he stood next to me in the driveway. "I don't know." I shrugged as I fed the seat-belt through the booster seat, "Do you want to get Chinese food?"

Arch grinned and climbed into the car. I made sure he was buckled in correctly before I slid into the driver's seat, agreeing that's what we were going to have. Arch and I listened to CDs on the way to Epitaph, where the band was meeting to arrange somethings about another Spring tour.

"Can we listen to Ronnie's song?" Arch asked when we were about halfway there.

I gripped onto the steering wheel tighter and tried to quickly figure out how to deny him. Ronnie's music was fantastic, but this album was not appropriate for a five year old. Instead of flat-out saying no, I looked at the CD rack that hung on my visor, and then sighed dramatically. "Arch, I'm sorry," I said, shaking my head, "But I don't actually have Ronnie's CD with me." I glanced in the rear view mirror and watched his face fall.

"Oh. Well, okay," he muttered, just a little upset but less so than he would've been if I would've just told him no.

We pulled into the Epitaph parking lot just a few minutes later and I parked in one of the spots in the front, knowing that nobody would care if I parked in a spot reserved for bands and people who worked there. I shut off the car and got Arch out before I locked it.

I waved at the semi-new receptionist and she called me over, smiling at the little boy who was holding on tightly to my hand. "This one can't possibly be yours," she stated, looking over the large desk at the child. "You're not old enough to have a child as big as him!"

Jordana had just been hired a couple weeks ago and we'd only met once when I popped in to drop some food off for the guys. I'd introduced myself when she'd stopped me and told me that I wasn't allowed past the lobby since I didn't have an ID badge.

All the musicians who were signed to the label had one, they were renewed every year so that they would stay up to date with the bands who were joining and leaving the label. The employees also had one, as did I and all of my siblings, in case of an emergency.

Arch grinned up at the woman and tightened his grip on my fingers. He looked nothing like me or Ronnie, but of course anyone would assume that a woman with a child was probably that child's mother, even if there'd never been any evidence for it before.

I lifted Arch into my arms and shrugged my shoulders, knowing that if I blatantly denied the accusation then it would hurt him more than anything.

Jordana looked shocked and she shook her head. "Yours and your boyfriends'?" she questioned, having already seen Ronnie and I together here.

I smiled and patted Arch's back. "We have to go," I told her politely, "Ronnie is waiting for us."

She said goodbye and Arch and I headed to the elevator since the band was on the fourth floor. I put Arch down in the elevator and stared at him as he grinned at his reflection in the mirrors. He wore simple clothing, a Boston Red Sox shirt and a pair of tiny jeans. His hair was blonde, but looked so much darker than it had when he first arrived at the daycare. He was five now, just had a birthday and aged another year. This had been the first without any parents.

Ronnie and I had bought him a few things and attended the small party at the Harris'. It hadn't been anything too extravagant, but large groups of kids from the Harris's foster child support group came with their foster-parents. It felt more like a charity outing for orphaned kids than a birthday party. Olivia wanted to make sure that every child felt special, which only made Arch feel less so.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened, showing a small room in front of us and two large hallways heading back into the building on either side of the elevator. I curved around and headed down the one of the right, Arch following after me excitedly.

"Where're we going?" he asked, running up and taking my hand in his.

I smiled down at him and pointed down the hall with my free hand. "To get Ronnie," I stated, "He wants to eat too. Plus, I want to talk to him about some stuff," I added.

Arch nodded brightly. "What kind of stuff?" he inquired, tipping his head to the side like a small, curious puppy.

My smile widened and I shrugged my shoulders. "I'll tell you later," I promised, stopping in front of a large black door, "How about now we go surprise Ronnie and meet our friends?"

Arch grinned widely and nodded his head, reaching for the door handle and trying to push it open so he could see what was on the other side. I helped him open the door and then I led him inside, his nerves growing as we entered the darkened room.

The Epitaph rooms were large, more like suites. Behind each door in the hallway was a studio with two more rooms inside, one with a large conference table and one with couches and a coffee table for bands to work and talk about important things while feeling comfortable. The studio in front of us, full of buttons and a recording room was empty, but I could hear shouts and hollers coming from the room to the left, the one with a TV, computer, and couches.

Each room was sound-proof, especially from the hallway, but the guys had left the thick door open so I walked right through and leaned against the door hinge, grinning at the riled up group of men who sat strewn all across the couches.
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An update! (:
I hope, hope, hope that you'll comment and tell me what you thought and what you're thinking about Arch, the Harris', their kids, and even Atticus. Feedback is amazing and makes me want to update even quicker. Although that doesn't always happen. :P