you can't help but become the sun / julien baker

chapter twenty-nine

Maggie's Pov:
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"Julien! Julien! Wanna race?" Fallon bounced up and down. Us girls had just gotten to the park, while Josiah had gotten there ten minutes earlier to set up the picnic.

"Of course I do! I'll race you to that tree over there! Ready? Set, go!" Julien and Fallon started running, racing over to the tree across the playground. Giggles echoed across the empty park as Fallon was beating Julien.

Noah and I smiled as we watched Fallon touch the tree first, Julien lifted the little girl and placed her on her shoulders.

"She loves to talk," I chuckled, closing the car door.

"It's nonstop, she's determined to learn new words all the time. It's definitely not normal for a kid her age to speak like that but I was also that way so it might just be a family thing. Oh, I never got to ask you! Why are you in Tennessee?" Noah asked as we slowly made our way across the road.

"It's not the best story but I stopped hearing from Julien for a month and then I got a text from her saying that she wanted to break up. I wasn't just gonna let her ghost and then throw away our whole relationship so, I drove hours because I knew my girl wasn't doing well. We're totally fine now, though."

"You drove hours because she said she wanted to break up? Just from how you talk about her, that definitely doesn't seem like something she'd do," Noah's eyes were fixed on my girlfriend, I could tell that she believed me but the way that Julien was laughing and carrying my niece on her shoulders, if you didn't have prior knowledge of the situation, you would've thought she was fine.

"Exactly, when we called Phoebe and she told us they were having a tough time contacting her, that's when I knew I had to make sure she was okay. I didn't bring anything but my phone and charger, this is one of her old shirts."

"You really love her, huh?" she asked as we passed the tree they were racing to, Julien and Fallon were almost to the blanket Josiah had decorated for the picnic.

"Yeah, it's scary when I think about it too hard but I'm absolutely in love with her," my soft expression totally gave away everything I was thinking.

"Maggie, I can tell you're thinking about marriage," her comment made my jaw drop.

"How the- how do you know?"

"Mom powers, you start to know everything when you become a mom. When did you start thinking about it?"

I watched as a bluebird flew over our heads, thinking about my answer before I spoke. "After I got to her house, I was comforting her. I realized when I felt her breathing level out that she's the person I wanna spend the rest of my life with."

"Hurry up mama and Auntie Maggie! I want cake!" Fallon yelled from her spot on Julien's lap. The cake and water were sitting in the middle of the blanket, so we picked up the pace to alleviate the impatient child.

"We're coming, honey!" Noah called out. "If you think it's too soon to start looking for rings and thinking about proposing, remember that you can be engaged for as long as you want. Your brother and I aren't gonna get married for maybe a few years and we were thinking about just going to a courthouse and doing it that way."

"That's true. I leave sometime tomorrow then I won't see her until I fly out for the LA show on our anniversary. We've only seen each other in person a few times."

Noah hesitantly looked to make sure the distance between us and the blanket was large enough to say what she wanted to say in confidence. "I'm gonna be honest with you, I got pregnant with Fallon the fourth time I hung out with Josiah and we had only been dating for a few weeks so I really don't see an issue with it."

I laughed as we approached the blanket, "that makes me feel a little better about everything." I sat next to my girlfriend, close enough to where our legs were touching.

"About what?" She asked, looking over at me.

I stared into her loving, hazel eyes as I quickly conjured up a white lie. "We were talking about that one time we saw Brady and his new girlfriend at the mall."

"Ew, he's awful," Julien censored herself for the sake of the little girl who sat in her lap. I could tell she wanted to say more explicit words but responsibly held herself back.

"We don't use the B name in our house anymore, he's old news," Josiah picked up the knife and started cutting up the cake while Noah got out the plates and forks.

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a/n: I found out that you can get Julien's records on vinyl off a site called 'Magnolia Record Store' which is so freakin cute and ironic.

also, I had an idea for an extra third epilogue chapter instead of my planned two, and I started writing the idea I had so I wouldn't lose it, and it legit made me cry. Like I got really emotional over it and idk why?!

-A