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Meanwhile,
back the Blossom Satellite House, Rahali grew into a teenager and rolled
Pick Your Own, and I chose Knowledge for her. She and Norman got along
well, and both of them did their best to add to their very meagre bank
account. Norman had been working part-time in Retail for years, and
Rahali soon found a job at the local library. It wasn't much, but it
made sure that they had food and managed to pay the bills.
 
Rahali knew that she would only be able to get into college if she got
scholarships - and not just one, she was going to need several. Luckily,
she was intelligent and loved learning, so she managed to not only constantly
bring home and A+, she also rose quickly to the top of the library teen
career. In the end, she qualified for 5 scholarships (for having an
A+, for being top of her career, and for having 8 points in Mechanical,
Logic and Cooking). And apart from all that, she also stayed up half
the night to watch her beloved stars.
When the time came for her to go to University, Norman gave her a firm
hug and let her go, with nearly no jealousy. As much as he had wanted
to go himself, he knew that he would at best have been in the upper
average of students. Rahali would be among the very best.
And yes, Norman knew that he could have asked Xie for assistance at
any time: her family was rich and she was generous, she would have willingly
given him money without expecting anything in return. But after seeing
how shamelessly people like Adam behaved, Norman had vowed to never
become like him.
But when Xie finally was done with taking care of her family in Xanè
absence, and Norman could finally put an engagement ring on her finger
and ask her to move in, they had to make a decision about their new
home.
 
It wasn't the dump Norman had spent so many years in, but it was a far
cry from what Xie was used to. In the end, they agreed that Xie would
pay to significantly enlarge and improve the house - after all, they
wanted it to become a big home for them and their children. Besides,
Xie could call in many favors from friends of her father, and got things
done at remarkably low prices. This was the end result of the renovations:
Now that the house was done, it was finally time for them to get married.
They'd decided on a very small ceremony: Xie wasn't interested in either
of her cousins, and Norman only invited Rahali to come home from college
for the day. And, after talking about it with Xie for several weeks,
he also decided to invite his mother. After all, he still thought that
she had kicked him out together with his father - that was, after all,
the main reason he'd never gone to her for help, he'd thought she wouldn't
be willing to offer it anyway. Much to his surprise, she showed up at
his wedding (which I apparently neglected to take pictures
of. *headdesk*).
Norman had a long talk with Moon, and discovered that she hadn't kicked
him out at all! She'd only wanted his father out of her life, but by
the time she felt strong enough to look for them, Aiden had been arrested
and deported, and she had assumed that Norman had somehow been deported
as well. They updated each other about their lives, and promised to
keep in touch.
And after Moon and Rahali had left, Norman and Xie locked themselves
into the bedroom for an exhausting wedding night.
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