3 months later

"Thea, dude. You're coming!" I exclaimed, knocking some sense into my friend who was trying to avoid coming home with me for Christmas. Kate and Lily had invited me over, and of course I would never decline that. Lily's fabulous cooking making an entire Christmas dinner? That sounded perfect.

"I just don't wanna impose." She said, shrugging slightly as she helped me pack. "It's like, your first Christmas with a real family."

I raised an eyebrow at her, stopping what I was doing to grab her hands. "It's yours too. Come on, please? You're also my family."

I saw her eyes flicker hesitantly before she agreed, a small smile appearing on her lips. I let her borrow my other suitcase, and she went to get packing. University had it's perks - almost an entire month off at Christmas. Was it mostly study leave? Yes. But that studying could be done anywhere, including Kate and Lily's home.

"You will love King." I exclaimed, hanging around in her doorway, my hands moving excidedly as I thought about the little baldy.

She gritted her teeth, faking disdain. "I've never been too sure about bald cats..."

"That's mean. She's a cutie!" I defended, stepping past her to smack her shoulder.

I slumped down on her neat bed, glancing around the room. I was never in there a lot but when I was I loved to look at all of the different trinkets and posters she had. It gave me a better sense of who she was as a person, deeper than what she'd told me and shown me herself.

"Dude. Slipknot?" I asked, my eyes amazed at the poster that seemed random in with all of her Taylor Swift and Gracie Abrams posters. She nodded shyly, grabbing a few colourful outfits from her drawers. I absolutely adored the way she styled herself with rainbow trousers, colourful t-shirts, neon fishnet gloves and all kinds of bright makeup. It was so refreshing to see how different her style was and how she wasn't afraid to be seen as different. I really admired that about her.

"Mayson!" Lily squealed, rushing towards the door to greet me as we walked in. She watched in awe as Thea followed me, clearly adoring the unexpected guests style. "Hi! I'm Lily." She offered Thea a hand to shake, and she took it, greeting her back.

"Kate is just on a later shift but she'll be back soon, please come in!" She moved to the side, letting us go further into the place I called home for a month after the incident until I felt well enough to go back to uni. I didn't visit as often as I'd have liked to, but I facetimed Lily once a week for my counselling, and often said hi to Kate before we got started.

I'd learned that I didn't need to completely get rid of Aislynn, so I still chose to see her sometimes. But that realisation led us to other things, and we had dove straight into dealing with my grief over both parents. My dad's was more complicated. His was a suicide after he attacked me, so that was a whole other type of trauma that we had barely touched on. I didn't feel quite ready yet, so Lily respected that and we took it slowly.

I saw a lot of my mum in her, or who my mum could have been without the influence of her abusive husband. It broke my heart at first to see Lily so cheerful, but we worked on that too and now I was delighted to see her in Lily. Like how I could still see Aislynn, there was a way to see my mum too, in Lily. So I hadn't completely lost either of them and as long as I kept their memory alive I never would.

"What are you thinking about?" Thea asked as we opened the door to the spare room. There were a few of my things still here, and I was glad to see them again as I sat down at the end of the double bed and glanced around at the simple artwork. It was paintings that Kate had made herself. Outside of work, she used it as a coping mechanism which Lily had recommended for her. Kate wasn't much of a talker, and having a physical output for the trauma she endured because of her work and also her past, which like predicted was very similar to mine minus the imaginary girlfriend, helped her a lot. She used whatever colours reflected her mood, and put them anywhere on the canvas.

The one in the spare room was made the night of Lily's proposal to her. It was splotches of pale pinks, greens and blues that created an abstract version of the view of a loch between mountains, and blossom trees surrounding the area. It looked vaguely like the first camping trip that Aislynn and I took together.

"Just a lot to take in." I smiled at Thea, finally answering her question after coming out of my trance. She nodded with a knowing smile, understanding my deep adoration for Kate and Lily. They were the two most genuine souls I had ever had the pleasure of knowing and they took me under their wing no questions asked when I came into their lives.

A familiar padding sound travelled down the hall and into the room. Thea turned around and squealed when she saw King, similar to how I had done. She instantly scooped her up, showering her with kisses that were welcomed by a loud purr. A rare tear trailed down Thea's face, and I gasped.

"Is that a tear, Althea?" I asked her, moving closer and gently cupping her face in my hand to wipe away the tear. Her face heated up under my hands touch, and I let it linger there for a moment before pulling away, patting the cat in her arms.

"Shut it." She said, sticking her tongue out at me. "How can you not cry when she is just so adorable?"

"Fair point." I laughed. "You know I was just teasing, right?" Her nod and smile reassured me. I'd been careful to not tease her about certain things too much, because despite her not revealing too much about her past to me, I could tell it wasn't all that great. I didn't know what could trigger painful memories.

Kate appeared in the doorway, greeting Thea with a glance between the two of us that I didn't recognise from her. I stared at her suspiciously, before rushing to wrap my arms around her. Yeah, new software update, I'm a hugger. "Hi, honey. I missed you." She said, and I responded with something similar. Her pet names filled me with warmth every time she said them, and it settled just right with the way I searched for validation and comfort in others. She was becoming like a parental figure to me.

"Merry Christmas!" Thea whispered. My eyes opened to see her staring into my soul on the other side of the double bed that we had to share. I jumped at the proximity, before falling into a fit of giggles.

"Merry Christmas." I responded, sitting up at the knock on the door.

Kate and Lily opened it slowly, hesitantly speaking. "You decent?" Kate asked, and I lobbed a pillow at the door.

"What do you think?" I laughed. They were convinced that we were more than friends. Apparently their gaydars tingled at a suspiciously high level around us.

"I think that Santa's been." Lily whispered, her tone building excitement even though we all knew the truth about Santa. We both scrambled out of bed, and joined the other two to walk towards the living room together all in our matching Christmas pyjamas. I could get used to this feeling, I thought as I sat down near the tree. I'd put a gift under for all of them, but the amount of gifts had quadrupled overnight.

"I'll go first." I suggested, passing them their gifts. Thea opened hers first, and was delighted to find a skirt I had sewn for her in her usual, rainbow style. She squealed before thanking me profusely, giving me a small side hug.

I'd gotten Lily and Kate a shared gift, and was hoping that they'd adore it even though it wasn't the most expensive. They both smiled softly and held the new photoframe close to them. It was a picture of the four of us from earlier in the month when we had gone iceskating. We'd gotten a stranger to take it, and we all stood there clutching to eachother as we tried to keep our balance for one second to get the picture taken. I also gave them a second photo that they could put in it instead if they liked, this one was of us the moment later, when Thea was slipping over and dragging us all down in fits of laugher. It was genuinely my favourite holiday memory ever, and I knew it meant a lot to them too.

They had been trying to get an adoption application approved, but were struggling to be accepted because of the nature of their careers and the length of their hours. I felt awful for them, especially Lily, who had the life long dream of being a mother. It affected Kate too, but she hid it better and poured out her feelings through her art. They weren't exactly my mothers but they provided a similar sort of relationship for me, and I could only hope that I meant something to them.

"Mayson, this one is fragile." Kate said, her expression serious as she placed a box down in front of me. I opened the box, instantly starting to cry at the sleeping ball of fluff inside of it. I lifted up the little ragdoll kitten, and held it close to me.

"He's a rescue." Lily said, explaining his background that made me cry. He had been separated from his mum too early and was too much work for the people that had adopted him. When Lily told Kate about him, they knew they had to get him, and they decided to get him for me. He shook with nerves against me, and I gave him little kisses until he calmed down and relaxed in my arms, purring gently.

"Thank you so much." I started, already in tears. Lily grabbed Kate's hand, and they shifted closer to me. I looked up in confusion, until Lily started to speak.

"Mayson, we have to ask you something."

Her tone was serious, and it filled me with nerves, but I nodded. If they wanted me gone, I understood. I was still having little outburts of emotion and they could be a lot to handle. I could do it alone but they usually helped me anyway.

"We wonder if... you'd like to officially move in." Kate continued. My heart sank. "You don't have to move out of your flat, but we want you to have a space here. Thea too, if she wishes."

"Oh my God." I started to completely sob, and Lily pulled me against her.

"We want to adopt you, honey." She whispered, sending me further over the edge.

"B-but why?" I asked, trying to pull myself together but failing at her next words.

"We love you like you're our own child." Kate reasoned, in tears herself. I looked over to Thea, and she was also a mess, sobbing into Kate's chest.

"I..." I started to speak, wanting to accept it but also super cautious of the idea of them actually wanting me. "This is everything I could ever need." I said at last, finally breaking Lily too who just broke down on my shoulders.

We all sat there together, a sobbing mess on the floor while we all embraced our chosen family.

After we had calmed down, King strutted in, heading straight towards the little kitten who I'd decided to call Princess to keep with the royal titles. I would have gone with queen so that it was even, but I thought King might adopt the baby. Instead, she pounced on him, playfighting with him gently.

"She's bald!" Thea remarked, and we all looked at her as if to say 'well, duh.' Then she continued. "She's bald and she's torturing people who have hair!"

Understanding the reference, I started to cry again, this time with laughter. Kate looked at us stumped, especially while her wife also burst out laughing.

As the wind blew threw the slightly cracked window, a faint breeze of Aislynn's rose scent hit me. Glancing up, I spotted her - a ghost-like silhouette of her - patting little Princesses head, and as everyone questioned his unprompted purrs I knew who it was. She was still here with me when I wanted her to be. I'd have to be okay with that because this was it. This was my home. I'd finally found exactly where I belonged, and I'd never let that go.