Six Months Later…
Finn stood at the altar on the lighthouse overlook, surrounded by family and friends who celebrated their love as it was, not as it might be if circumstances were different. The ceremony was simple and heartfelt—no medical equipment, no temporal monitoring, just love witnessed by their community.
Jake served as River’s “best person.”
Captain Torres walked Finn down the aisle, finally present for his son's most important moments rather than fleeing from family complexity.
When it came time for their vows, Finn felt his heart hammering against his ribs with nervous excitement. He'd written and rewritten his words dozens of times, wanting to capture everything their journey had taught him about love and acceptance.
River spoke first, his voice steady and sure: “I promise to love all of you—your kindness, your creativity, your unique relationship with time. I promise to be your anchor when you drift and your lighthouse when you're finding your way home. I promise to see your TPD not as something to fix but as part of what makes you extraordinary.”
Finn felt tears streaming down his face as he replied: “I promise to trust our love even when my mind travels to other timelines, because you're my anchor in every moment. I promise to let you support me without trying to control me, and to support you without losing myself. I promise to see our love not as fragile but as strong enough to handle whatever strangeness time brings us.”
As they kissed for the first time as married partners, Finn experienced a gentle episode that showed their entire futuretogether—not as guarantee but as beautiful possibility, filled with both joy and challenge, triumph and ordinary Tuesday afternoons that would matter just as much.
When he returned to present awareness, River was smiling at him with infinite tenderness.
“Good episode?” River asked, using their private language.
“The best,” Finn replied, kissing him again as their friends and family cheered around them.
Three years into marriage,on a Tuesday that started like any other, Finn had his worst episode in years. It lasted four hours, leaving him disoriented and exhausted, temporarily unable to distinguish between past and present realities. River found him in their garden, talking to someone who wasn't there about books that hadn't been written yet.
“Hey,” River said gently, settling beside Finn on the ground without asking questions about what he was experiencing. “I'm here when you're ready.”
It took another hour for Finn to fully return to the present, and when he did, he was crying.
“I thought I was done with the bad ones,” Finn said, his voice small and defeated. “I thought we'd figured it out.”
River gathered him close, his own hands shaking slightly. “We have figured it out,” he said firmly. “Figuring it out doesn't mean it stops happening. It means we know how to get through it together.”
They spent the rest of the day quietly, River working from home while Finn recovered his sense of linear time. By evening, Finn felt stable enough to joke about the episode, but Rivercould see the fear lingering in his eyes—the worry that maybe their peaceful years had been an illusion.
“I love you,” River said over dinner, his voice carrying the weight of daily choice rather than desperate declaration. “Bad episodes and good ones. Easy days and hard ones. All of it.”
“Even when I forget which year it is?” Finn asked, attempting lightness but needing reassurance.
“Especially then,” River replied. “Because that's when you need me most.”
That night, they held each other a little tighter, both understanding that their love story wasn't a fairy tale with a perfect ending, but something more valuable—a daily choice to stay, to support, to see each other clearly through whatever came.
On their fifth wedding anniversary, River and Finn wrote letters to their future selves, documenting their current happiness without demands for its permanence. They'd learned that love wasn't about guaranteeing forever but about choosing fully in each present moment.
“Dear Future Me,” Finn wrote, his handwriting careful and clear, “I hope you remember how happy we are right now, even after yesterday's difficult episode reminded us that this isn't easy. I hope you remember that River makes coffee every morning with the same careful attention he brings to everything he loves. I hope you remember how his hands feel in mine during my episodes—anchor and comfort and home.”
River sealed their anniversary letters in bottles to open on their tenth anniversary, trusting in time's passage rather than trying to control it. The ritual had replaced the desperatebottle messages of their early relationship, supernatural mystery transformed into ordinary magic.
As the sun set on their anniversary evening, River and Finn reflected on the journey from mystery and crisis to acceptance and peace—though they both knew peace was something they had to choose daily, not something they'd achieved once and could take for granted.
They sat on their porch, hands intertwined, watching the lighthouse beam begin its nightly rotation across waters that held no more supernatural terror, only natural beauty and the occasional reminder that life was unpredictable.
“Do you ever regret it?” River asked quietly, his thumb tracing circles on Finn's palm. “The complexity, the uncertainty, the fact that our love story isn't simple?”
Finn smiled, leaning into River's warmth as the first stars appeared in the darkening sky. “Simple love stories are for people who don't understand that the best things in life require courage.”
They understood now that their love wasn't extraordinary despite Finn's TPD, but because they'd learned to embrace the complete truth of who they were together—difficult episodes and peaceful ones, moments of clarity and periods of confusion, the constant uncertainty that made each good day feel like a gift.
River kissed Finn as the lighthouse beam swept across them, their lips warm in the cooling evening air. The kiss tasted like years of choosing each other, like whatever challenges tomorrow might bring, like the simple certainty that they would face them together.
“I love you,” River whispered against Finn's mouth.
“I love you too,” Finn replied, his heart full of gratitude for the extraordinary life they'd built from the ordinary courage of accepting each other completely. “Evermore.”
The lighthouse beam continued its eternal rotation, illuminating tide pools where new life flourished in the spaces between sea and shore, constant change and eternal rhythms, temporary and evermore. In its light, two men sat together on a cottage porch, their love no longer dangerous or desperate but grounded in the simple, revolutionary act of seeing each other clearly and choosing to stay.
Tomorrow would bring new challenges and new joys, and they would face them as they always had—together, fully present, choosing love over fear every single day. That was their evermore: not a guarantee of forever, but the daily miracle of two people brave enough to love without conditions, across time and beyond understanding.
Even when love was difficult. Even when the future felt uncertain. Even when temporal displacement episodes reminded them that some things couldn't be controlled, only navigated with grace and patience and the steady anchor of partnership.
Especially then.
