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The light doesn’t return to Sammy’s eyes for three months after Jack returns.
Ben tries not to think about it, not to do the mental math and stress or force anything. In seven years, he’d never known Sammy to be the kind of person to react positively to push back, and things like that weren’t likely to change.
But one afternoon, a few hours before Ben and Sammy are due to head to work at the newly re-reopened station, Jack opens his eyes and smiles groggily at Sammy.
“Hey Sammy,” he whispers sleepily, reaching out his hand and grasping the shaking one resting on the comforter beside him. “I was just dreaming about you.”
Ben leaves the room to let them talk softly to each other, and texts Emily and Lily with a small smile on his face.
Things get easier after that. As easy as they seem to get in King Falls anyway.
Jack starts eating solids, and laughing at Ben’s retelling of the infamous Suplexing Sammy Saga and rolls his eyes at Lily and Sammy’s incessant bickering. He starts looking Emily in the eyes, after months of being unable to, and she’s so pleased that she flushes every single time.
“I think your girl has a crush on me Benny,” Jack teases, and Ben doesn’t even correct the nickname.
When Lily awkwardly introduces Katie to him, Jack pulls her into his first automatic hug post-void, and all of them have to wipe away a few tears.
Things feel safe, warm. Like home. For all of them.
Troy calls on a particularly quiet night to let Sammy and Ben know he’s arrested Jacob for the eighth time that month and to remind everyone that Perdition Woods is still off limits. Before he hangs up, a smile in his voice, he attempts to subtly question Ben about the ring he’s been carrying in his pocket for the past two months.
Sammy joins in the interrogation with gusto, and Ben squeaks in protest. “It’s not going to be a surprise if you two idiots can’t shut your trap.”
“If Emily Potter, the most brilliant and intuitive investigative mind I’ve ever encountered (sorry Lily) has no clue what’s coming for her than I-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ben mutters before sinking in his seat, his headphones slipping slightly as his hair recalibrates. Troy hangs up eventually, and they break for commercial, Sammy finally noticing the look of genuine concern colouring Ben’s face.
Sammy’s voice is laced with worry as he asks “What’s wrong Buddy?”
“What if she says no?” he finally manages, and Sammy smiles fondly at him.
“We both know she’s smarter than that. You’re everything to her, Ben.”
“She’s brilliant, isn’t she.” It's not a question.
“Too brilliant for either of us idiots.”
They sit quietly, listening to the closing notes of Archie’s Pom Chi jingle, before clicking back on air.
“Good evening Friends and Frickards, you’re listening to 660 on the AM dial, we’re here to talk tonight with you about - “
Emily says yes, and it’s a surprise to absolutely nobody. Jack and Lily dance around the lounge room when they hear, and Sammy doesn’t stop crying for over an hour.
“Our little Benny’s growing up,” somebody says fondly, and Ben once again doesn’t bother to protest.
Jack and Sammy go on dates, and it’s a strange experience. In their old city, their old life, they knew nobody, but that still didn’t make it safe to be in love out loud.
King Falls is different. They start slowly at first, holding hands in the dark of the movie theatre. They move up to under the table at restaurants and kissing each other swiftly on the cheek before they get into the car.
It’s Bella Jensen who drastically changes things, really. She asks “Mr. Jack” and “Mr. Sammy” to take her ice skating, and neither of them can say no to her big round eyes. Jack laughs so hard at how uncoordinated Sammy is after all this time that Sammy never wants him to stop. Bella tugs him aside and whispers that his friend is really nice.
“Fiance,” Sammy corrects her uncertaintly, before she flings herself around him so suddenly, and with so much force that Sammy is momentarily startled. She scolds him for not telling her he was engaged - sounding so much like Mary in that moment - and the ease of her acceptance washes his fear clean away.
With Ben, it hadn’t mattered because Jack didn’t feel like a possibility. But now -
In King Falls, everybody knew their names. Hell, their entire story had been broadcast over the airwaves nightly for years. People had (mostly) always loved Sammy, and they loved Jack too. Not by default, but because he was every bit as wonderful as Sammy and Lily had always made him out to be.
He blew kisses at babies, and waved to their mothers. He smiled at and greeted each person in town by name. He always had time to chat to Rose and Archie and Ron. He was generous with his time and with his love.
There was just something special about being able to hold hands, to lean into each other, to kiss in public. Without fear. Without repercussion. Met only with love in return.
Sammy had never understood public displays of affection, but now he lived for them. There was no need to pretend anymore. He loved Jack Wright, and everybody needed to know.
The Sammy and Ben show had changed too. They still had their regular callers, they still complained about the antics of apparitions and werewolves, and they still had no idea who the hell Merv was. But something deeper had shifted.
“How’s your boy?” Mary had asked quietly, sweetly at 3am one morning, and Sammy had spent thirty minutes explaining to her in detail the contents of their previous day. Everything from helping him tie his shoes, to the walk they took in the park, to the candlelit dinner they’d had at the restaurant that used to belong to Ernie. “You sound happy,” she’d said once able to get a word, and Sammy had replied truthfully for maybe the first time ever,
“Yeah, I think I am.”
There were a lot of arguments too.
“I have the best fiance in the world,” Ben would proclaim, thrusting his fork into the air and sticking his tongue out at Lily, who he figured would be forced to agree, lest they all face Emily’s wrath.
“Usually, I wouldn’t hesitate to agree Arnold,” she’d simpered, drumming her fingers against the table, casually drawing attention to the brand new ring shining on her finger, “but I feel like I’ll have to throw my own fiance into the ring this time.”
Sammy would forever deny that his proceeding coughing fit had anything to do with this announcement.
(Lily had said ‘fuck tradition’ and asked Jack and him to be her “best.” Sammy had thought having Jack back would stop the tears, but here they were again.)
The two men hadn’t figured out the logistics of their own wedding yet, and so suddenly they were planning three at once.
“Do you think Ron has enough Gazebos” Ben had queried one night, shuffling through his many wedding-related notebooks, and Sammy had rolled his eyes in response.
“It’s like you don’t even know the man.”
“You make a fair point, Shotgun.”
Years later, they would look back on these moments and wonder what they’d been worried about.
Saving Jack hadn’t ended their story, but it had started a new one. A happier one. One they got to write word by word each day, together.
They’d always be left with the scars of the six years before. They’d never get back the time, or the lives they’d lost. They’d never get back the sleepless nights, or the security or the old radio station.
But they had each other, and more and more often, that was enough.
And as Emily held her and Ben’s first tiny child, it didn’t seem to matter how they’d gotten there anymore.
Lily tried her hardest to hide the tears she was obviously crying, before asking “the kiddos” name.
Ben and Emily shared a look, before Ben nodded in affirmation. “Cecil,” Emily said quietly. “Cecil Potter-Arnold.”
(None of them bothered even trying to hide their tears at that.)
And then life went on, as it always does. Things aren’t always perfect, but sometimes they feel pretty damn close. And every night Sammy watched the sleeping (greying) form of his husband snoring softly beside him, engulfed in dreams that were no longer nightmares, he couldn’t think of any other life he’d rather have than this one.