Never-surrender | Mikayla & Magnus - Tumblr Posts

Magnus's brows furrowed as his attention was pulled from his daughter to his beautiful neighbor. It seemed the two were going through similar personal turmoil about their daughter's new journeys. Reaching out, he placed a reassuring hand on her arm. "I have an open pair of ears anytime you need to talk about anything, Mickey." Returning her smile with one of his own.

"Yes, that sounds like a great idea." His voice was boisterous as he followed her to the kitchen. This was a joyous occasion after all. Waiting patiently as she poured them their glasses, he couldn't help but smile as he reminisced about when the first settled here. " I remember when we first moved in next door and you invited us over to dinner. Elizabeth was happy to know that you had a daughter her age, was excited all day. "

Taking the glass, he gave a small thank you before taking a drink from it. " It's been going well. I'm going to be heading out to Napa in a couple of weeks to take some new shots of a location." Then an idea came to mind. " Have you been? You should come with, I usually have Elizabeth to explore places with but with her choice of college, I think she'll be busy settling in. It's a nice getaway. "

"You know... I kind of hoped she'd take a year to figure things out, but I'm okay with her not..." or so she thought. "I'm worried for her though... really worried. She's -" Mikayla hesitates, before shaking her head. "Well, now's not the time for that kind of talk. I'm sure I'll tell you about it later," she amends, smiling over to him with a gentle smile.

And then she claps her hands. "Now! About that wine!" she exclaims excitedly, moving towards the kitchen with him in tow. Grabbing a couple wine glasses, she sets them down before she fills them up with wine, handing him a glass before sipping at her own.

"So how's work going?"

"Of course, take your time." Magnus smiled at Mikayla, he would never rush her. While he hoped she could make it, he also understood that she had children and a family to tend to and it wouldn't be easy to just drop things and go. His life had been full of travel, his daughter and he had never settled anywhere until a couple of years ago when he fell in love with the golden state.

"It might not be what I want to hear, but it is what I needed to hear." He chuckled as he took a drink from his glass. "It makes me feel as if I am part of a club now. One in which parents watch their children grow up and go off to make their own lives." It was perhaps harder for the man since she was his only child. Not quite ready to accept that she was now off to make her own way in life. "At least it's not a country away. A plane ride away, right?" It was said more in a way that showed that he needed a little bit of reassurance that everything would be okay. But he also wouldn't turn down the sage advice of a mother who had done this more than once.

Mikayla hadn't taken a vacation in... lord knows how long. It had truly been some time since the woman had done anything for herself rather than spending all her time dedicated to her children, both her biological children and the children of her daycare. The last vacation she had been on, had to have been when Steve was still alive...

"Oh trust me, I want to make it. I'll let you know as soon as I can figure it out, alright? I promise," she spoke with a small smile, looking towards where the children were now. Finding a smile making its way to her lips, Mikayla thought back to the first time she had seen Magnus and Elizabeth, and found that she couldn't quite remember the first time that they had appeared. They seemed to have just... came from nothing. Like God knew exactly what he was doing by just placing them into her life.

"Does it get easier?" she parrots, sighing as she shakes her head. "No... if anything, it gets harder," she admits with a small sigh. "I was upset when my first graduated, and now I'm even more upset that my baby is graduating. I know that's not what you want to hear..." she speaks apologetically, grimacing as she does so. "Its especially hard when they move so far away," the experience in that sentence was hard to ignore, as her eldest son had moved clear across the country to New York.

Magnus's shoulder slumped as he wracked himself with guilt. He had always done only what was best for her the moment she was born. The moment the doctors said his wife and other child did not survive the birth, and the nurse placed a crying babe in his arms, he knew that everything he had to do was for her. This felt like a failure on his part. A sigh came from the man as he placed his hand over hers. Thankful that he had her in his life, for a moment he had doubted everything he had done to provide for his daughter. His career made it hard for them to call anyone place home, maybe he had found a place for them to settle too late. So many maybe's, could've, should've's raced through the man's mind.

As always, his friend was right. The choices were to either let her believe that his marriages had failed because love was not real, something broken by infidelity, or just a flitting fancy, leaving as quick as it came. Or tell her the truth, that the women he had come to want to share his life with had eventually wanted to ship her off to some boarding school or just away in general. Knowing her, she would take the guilt onto herself, blame herself for her father not being happy and that was just not an option to him. "You're right," he conceded. Mikayla in her wisdom knew them so well in the couple of years they had spent living next door to her. "How are you so wise?" He smiled at her knowing fully that she was an amazing parent who had done it with more children than Magnus's one. How he wished he had found someone like her when Elizabeth had longed for a mother in her younger years. "Do you think you could come over and have dinner with us tomorrow night? She flies back to college the day after and I don't want it to be so awkward and I know she misses you."

Mikayla's heart broke with what she heard. To know that Elizabeth didn't believe in love was painful for the woman to come to terms with, and she wasn't even the woman's mother. Though she thought of Elizabeth as one of her own, and she could only hope that Elizabeth trusted Mikayla enough to come to her for anything that she'd need. But right now this was about Magnus, not his daughter.

And with that thought, she reaches forward, taking a gentle hold of his shoulders, "You've not done more harm to her than good. You've done what you know to be the right thing... if she knew about what you've gone through with your previous relationships, the outcome would be the same. A disbelief in love, but for entirely different reasons," the rationalization came with ease to her, "If you feel like the right course of action now is to admit the truth to her, then I will support you... but sometimes, things are better left unsaid."