Five Years Later
***

Carson smiled widely at his fiancé. It was five years from their Puerto Rico trip and they were still as happy together as they had been when they first started dating. They argued a bit but that was expectant. They were young and learning.

Ivy was holding their three month old baby. Alice Clifford had been nineteen inches and six and a half pounds when she had been born. She had been a bit small but the doctors swore she was healthy.

Carson loved the two girls in his life so much. Carson proposed the day after he found out Ivy was pregnant. It was a bit out of order but Carson had been planning for a long time but always chickened out. He knew that it had been the right moment though.

They had been a bit surprised when Ivy had gotten pregnant since they were so young but they were both still really happy. Ivy had just turned twenty three two months earlier when Alice was born.

"She keeps grabbing on to my finger," Ivy said, holding up her pointer finger and showing the tiny hand attached to it. Their daughter had recently learned that she could grab things for short amounts of times and would try to hold on to everything that she could find.

"We better get going. Mom and Dad's thirtieth anniversary party starts in about half an hour," Carson suggested, kind of scared to run into his family.

Not that there was anything wrong, just that Ashton still kind of wanted to strangle him for getting his only daughter pregnant. Ashton loved Alice of course. He just wished his daughter and soon to be son-in-law would have waited a bit.

"Yeah, let me just change my shoes. Alice got a bit of spit up on the heels in wearing now. I think she was trying to communicate that I wouldn't be comfortable in them and I completely agree," Ivy said, unraveling her daughter's fingers from her pointer finger and handing her over to Carson.

"Us true Clifford's have to look out for our initiated Clifford's," Carson commented.

***
Carson slowly handed over his baby to his mom. They had barely made it into the door before his mom was begging to hold Alice. Sophie would watch Alice occasionally and she had utterly fallen in love.

"Happy anniversary Mom," Carson said, kissing his mom on the cheek.

Sophie led the small family into the living room where everyone else was and they said their hello's. Carson sat on the floor with Ivy since there were no more seats. The new parents nervously watched as Alice was passed around the family members. All of them cooing over the cute little baby.

"Do you think she looks more like Ivy or or Carson?" Calum asked, holding up the baby gently and motioning towards the two young parents.

"She has Carson's nose but Ivy's eyes and lips. She definitely looks more like Ivy right now but that might change when she gets older," Luke said. He was sitting next to Calum and was the next person to hold the baby. Alice squealed happily as if she knew the group was talking about her. Luke handed Alice off to Mack and Mack lifted the girl up to his face

"Yes baby. It is good that you look more like your mom. Your Dad's not as cute as her," Mack cooed at the baby. Alice reached up and tried to pull at Mack's face. She managed to grab at his stubble and scratched his face.

"Ow, that hurt. Take the baby," Mack said, handing Alice off to the Jett.

"That's my girl! Way to defend Dad," Carson cooed at his daughter from across the room.

Alice shifted in Jett's hands and saw Carson and Ivy sitting across from her. She started to cry. It had happened occasionally that if Alice saw her parents to far away or if she saw them leave that she'd start crying. It was apart of being a baby though so Carson and Ivy didn't mind. They found it quite cute that their daughter would be upset if she wasn't with them because that would all change in thirteen years.

"Look why you did Jett," Carson muttered.

He crawled over to where his daughter was and picked her up.

"Hey Princess. I'm right here. Please stop crying. Daddy's right here," Carson cooed, poking Alice in her little tummy.

"Daddy," Luke snorted and stopped chuckling when Michael threw a rubber band at him and hit him in the forehead.

Alice started laughing again and Carson grabbed her baby from Mack officially.

"She might be tired. We did skip her nap today," Ivy suggested.

"Can you take her up to the play pen in Mom's office so that she can sleep but still be nearby?" Carson asked, walking over to his fiancé again.

"Can you? You can get her to sleep a lot faster," Ivy responded.

"Okay. I'll be right back," Carson said.

He walked the familiar path to his mom's office and found the pen that was filled with blankets for their daughter. Sophie had bought it almost two days after she had found out that Ivy was pregnant. Alice was yawning and Carson could tell how tired his daughter truly was.

"Here you go, princess. I'll come and check on you in an hour. If you need anything don't be afraid to cry. I'll be here in ten seconds flat once you do and then I'll calm you down and maybe get you some food or change your diaper or help you sleep again. It's your choice. I love you Alice," Carson rambled in a soft voice. He always could just talk to Alice and Alice would be asleep soon. She was asleep in a bit and Carson made his way back to his family and friends.

"Is she asleep?" Ivy asked and was confirmed with a nod of Carson's head.

"I just talked to her and she fell asleep soon after," Carson said.

"Doesn't surprise me that you put people to sleep when you talk," Mack said happily.

Carson walked over to Mack and hit him on the back of his head jokingly.

"No need to be rude. I just talked to her about you and your job and she fell asleep halfway through," Carson said, smiling cheekily at his brunette best friend.

"Hey! Sorry we're late. What have we missed so far?"

The crowd turned away from Carson and Mack's "arguing" to the two girls that had walked in. Stevie and Charlie were coming in with messy hair and puffy lips and the whole family knew why they were late.

"I'm so glad Alice didn't have to witness this," Carson mumbled.

"I kind of wish I was Alice," Ivy whispered back. Her fiancé chuckled and wrapped his arms around her.

"You're so cute."

"But you're cuter."

"I guess," Carson said shrugging his shoulders.

"You're supposed to agree with the fact that I'm cuter, dumbass."

"I mean the last time I agreed, we got Alice," Carson said grinning.

"Exactly. That's why you should agree again. Alice was the greatest thing to ever happen to us."

"That is true. I might love her more than I love you."

"Me too."

"Are we witnessing their first fight as a couple?" Valeria whispered loudly to Michael, allowing everyone to hear her.

"I think so. Even then, it's a weak fight," Bella commented.

"Whatever. You're just jealous that we have a cute relationship and a cute baby," Carson grumbled, hugging Ivy tightly and then kissing her cheek.

"Um, you seem to forget that we have the cutest relationship ever and the cutest children ever," Michael said, grabbing Sophie and pulling her down on to his lap.

"I guess that is somewhat true. You did give birth to me," Carson argued.

"No. It's completely true. Sophie and I are the cutest," Michael argued back. They weren't being serious. Some argument like this always occurred, when there was a family get together, between the two male Clifford's.

"At least I didn't have to find my girlfriend on the Internet to get someone to like me."

"At least I found my girlfriend on the Internet so that we could later give birth to you."

"I don't know what to say anymore."

"How about thank you?" Michael asked grinning, knowing he had won the argument.

"Thank you," Carson sighed but still grinning as well.

Even though a few tough moments had happened to him and Ivy, he knew they always would be pulled back together.

So many things could've gone wrong but he was so glad that him and Ivy were able to work it out and have such a good outcome. They had a daughter and they were going to get married in a year. They had a family that cared about them so much and they had friends that they could lean on. Also Ashton had yet to castrate Carson so that was a plus.

Everything had finally fallen into place and Carson couldn't wait to see what would happen in the future. Maybe another baby. Maybe two. Maybe Carson would start touring again. Maybe Ivy would start writing her new book again. Carson was excited for the future and couldn't wait to see what was in store for him and his family and his friends and for Ivy and for Alice.

***

Here's the epilogue. I wrote it in like an hour and it's 1.5k words so idk. I'm happy though. The small Internet Friends series is finally over and it's bittersweet. I started writing Internet Friends in the end 8th grade and finished it in the beginning of tenth grade (it took me forever to write since I was lazy af on writing it until this year) I'm so proud of how far it's gotten and how much recognition it's gotten.

Thank you all so much for everything. You guys are amazing. I love you all so much and thank you for being on the journey of me growing as a writer. I'm so excited to start writing new actual full length stories. I have the prologue up for two Calum stories which I'll be starting in early February. There's one called Exposed which I'm super excited about. It'll be longer than Internet Friends and then I have Roman Holiday which is the second book in my Badlands series. I'm so excited. Please go check them out! I love you all so much. Xx

-malumwritings