Forced

Epilogue V

If you put yourself in a position where you have to stretch outside your comfort zone, then you are forced to expand your consciousness. ~Les Brown

Third Person POV

"Wake up, lazy bones!" A petite ten-year-old orange-haired child groaned as she laid herself across the foot of Michael and Luke's bed. Michael shifted slightly as Luke groaned and pulled himself off - only to lay back down with the covers over his head. 

"Cella what is it?" Michael sighed as he propped himself up and rubbed his eyes. He was careful to keep the blanket over himself and Luke due to the previous nights events. 

"You said we were going to do something special for Finn's birthday today, and you said that if you weren't up at eight to come and wake you up so I did!" Cella smiled, she then pranced out of the room as Michael sat wide eyed. 

"Michael?" Luke groaned. "I'm going to take your silence as you forgot." 

"What? No?" Michael laughed nervously as he climbed out of bed and began to get dressed. Finn was the younger of the two children that Luke and Michael had. He was shy and quiet, although they enjoyed him that way for he was much smarter and had more common knowledge then his older adopted sister Cella. 

Luke dragged himself out of bed and began to get dressed as well, internally sighing because he knew he would have to clean up Michael's mess as always. If Finn found out that Michael had forgotten to plan something for him then Finn would break down in literal tears. Not the fact that he was upset that there was nothing on his birthday but he could not believe that his own father had completely spaced on it. 

"So what are we doing if you didn't forget it?" Luke asked.

"We can go to the zoo?" Michael smiled, hoping Luke would say yes but Luke only shook his head. "Why not? Kids love animals!"

"This is Finn we're talking about, not Cella." Luke sighed. "Finn won't like being around all those people. I also don't want him being scared of the animals." Luke put his hands on his waist and spoke in a matter-of-fact manner. "If you're planning on taking him to see animals, you should take him to the aquarium this afternoon." 

"Why not now?" Michael asked, not understanding why Luke would not want them spending all day there.

"Because it's Finn!" Luke huffed. "I swear you don't even know your own kid!" 

"I do too know him!" Michael huffed. Luke shook his head and sighed before walking out the door of the bedroom, his first thought was to at least make a nice breakfast and then tell Finn that they had forgotten. Luke saw no point in lying, but Michael did. He thought it would be better for the two of them to act like they had not forgotten, in order to spare his feelings. 

While Michael thought through what to do, Luke was cooking while Finn climbed up to sit at the island in the kitchen.

"Hey kid," Luke said as he walked over and ruffled his dark hair before hugging him. "Happy birthday." 

"Thank you." Finn said, his voice was quiet as Luke had always known it to be, and it was not that Finn did not like Luke or was shy around him. He was just pretty quiet. 

Not to say that it was a good thing to Luke, Luke was often doing things that brought him slightly out of his comfort zone in order to make him have a little more courage - but he always remembered that he had to instill interests in him, not force him into activities that put pressure on him.

"Did you have a dream you wanted to tell me about?" Luke asked, and they always carried the morning off like this. Finn actually enjoyed talking about his dream and having Luke listen to him. Finn was not at all interested in the 'good morning, how did you sleep?' and that was it. He wanted to feel engaged in a conversation with Luke.