Chapter Text
epilogue.
We’re going to let the credits roll through a montage of social media posts and text exchanges that stretch over the next four years.
If you really want to get the full effect, play “Come What May” by The Scene Aesthetic and scroll slowly, imagining names are popping up alongside these screenshots.
And then the song fades as the screen goes black again…
Only to fade in on a dark bedroom with a white noise machine chugging along, trying to drown out the noise of downtown London.
A phone lights up and begins to buzz against the bedside table. From beneath a fluffy duvet, a hand reaches out to grab it.
“Hello?” The bleary voice belongs to a young man we’ve never seen before. He sits up groggily in bed and pushes a black eye mask up onto his forehead.
“Daniel,” Vic’s voice cuts through the room and makes him sit up straighter, even in his disheveled, half-asleep state. “Are you awake?”
“Well, now I am,” he grumbles, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. “What is it?” he asks his boss before he frowns and tries in vain to squint at his watch in the dark. “And what time is it?”
“It’s just gone two—”
“Jesus…” he mutters under his breath. “What happened?”
“Have you looked at your phone recently?”
Daniel lets out a heavy sigh. “No,” he says plainly. “I’ve been a bit busy looking at the backs of my eyelids, Vic.”
“Well, you need to be awake for this.”
“You know I was given the week off, right?” he asks. “Hazel’s Rules?” Hazel has always been incredibly firm about his not making himself available while they’re on holiday. And at least one weekend each month. And three full weeks out of each year. “Are you certain this can’t wait until Monday?”
“Just look,” Vic demands.
He inhales steadily and pulls the phone from his ear. There is a parade of notifications that he ignores to swipe into the most pressing—the red badge above the Instagram logo that’s spinning numbers like a slot machine, climbing higher by the second.
“What am I—” he stops. “Oh!”
“Oh?” Vic practically barks. “That’s all you have to say?”
“Well, I’ll say congratulations,” he reasons after a moment.
“Did you know about this?”
“Uh,” he frowns. “I knew he was going to propose after she passed the bar,” he says. “He’s had that ring for—”
“Yes, I know how long he’s had that ring,” Vic snaps. “I just thought he would have mentioned something about it before he went and told the whole world she’d said ‘yes’.” She lets out an exasperated sigh. “God, he just loves to make work for me. I’ve got to get something out about this as soon as possible. I need to call—”
“Vic?” Daniel asks, biting back a smile. Not because he loves listening to his boss spin up her PR machine, but because he’s thinking about the look on Joe’s face when he showed him the diamond ring he’d picked out for Hazel six months ago. How he’d looked genuinely worried when he’d asked, ‘D’you think she’ll like it? You think she might say ‘yes’?’
As if there was even half a chance that she might say 'no'.
“Vic?” he tries again when she still hasn’t stopped listing news outlets and points of contact they’ll need to divide and conquer.
“What?”
He clears his throat and looks down at the photo a second time. Posted from Florence, three hours ago. He smiles again. Right as the calendar would have switched over to Hazel’s birthday. “Maybe we could just let them enjoy this for a few days?” he suggests. “We can go to work on it when they’re back from their holiday on Monday.”
There’s a long pause from Vic’s townhouse. Daniel prepares himself to be snapped at again, to be told there is no time to lose, and to get Joe on the phone immediately and figure out why he thought he could drop a bomb like this without telling anyone.
“Alright,” she says finally.
He blinks. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she agrees, sounding tired. “You’re right. Text him and tell him we’re both taking the weekend off—we’ll talk on Monday.”
Daniel’s grin widens. “On Monday,” he echoes. “G’night, Vic.”
She hangs up, and he swipes into his messaging app to tap out the intended text, but stops after a moment. If he knows Hazel—and after four years of being in her life via Joe, he likes to think he knows her pretty well—she would have turned off both of their phones the moment after Joe hit ‘publish’ on that little birthday announcement.
So Daniel powers down his work phone entirely and falls happily back to sleep.
Fade to black.
Remaining credits roll.
The End.