Between 7x18 and 7x19

"What are your plans for tonight?" Piper's mother asked curiously as she turned into Finn's neighborhood. They had been out shopping all afternoon for the Dancemania trip, and her mom was now dropping Piper off at Finn's house for the evening.

"We're just going to watch movies. Probably eat dinner with his family," Piper answered, watching out the window as the increasingly familiar houses of her boyfriend's neighborhood passed them by.

Tonight was their one month anniversary, and Finn had wanted to go all out for date night. They had been so busy at the studio with rehearsals, however, that Piper had requested a night in at his house instead. Nothing sounded better than cuddling with her boyfriend and watching movies in his basement all evening.

"You spend so much time at his house. You two can spend time at ours too, you know," her mother pointed out as she pulled the car to a stop in front of Finn's house.

"I know," Piper replied with a sigh. Personally, she preferred spending time at Finn's house because they could escape into his basement for alone time and his parents trusted them enough to give them privacy. They didn't have that luxury at Piper's house. Still, she knew her mother had a point. They needed to spend time around her family too.

"We could do dinner with Finn at our house. Maybe one day next week?" she suggested, her hand resting on the door handle as she turned back to her mother, who nodded, her eyes lighting up.

"I'll start looking through my cookbook tonight!"

Smiling at her mother's excitement, Piper climbed out of the car before anything about a curfew could come up. She made her way up to the front porch, and just as she lifted her hand to ring the doorbell, the front door was pulled open by none other than Finn. A soft smile spread across Piper's lips as she looked up at him. "Hi."

"Hey," he said quickly, a look of regret in his eyes. "I might have made a mistake."

Piper's smile faded as she asked warily, "What did you do?"

"I bribed my sisters into building a pillow fort for our date, but now they don't want to leave the pillow fort."

His lips formed a tight line, but Piper simply laughed. As far as mistakes he could have made went, this was by far the least worrisome. "That's okay. We'll just have a couple of guests."

"But it's our anniversary," he started to protest.

"Finn, it's fine. It's not that big a deal."

He bit the inside of his lip agitatedly as she stepped inside. "So, a pillow fort, eh?" she asked, raising her eyebrows in intrigue as he shut the door behind her.

"Yeah, like a drive-in movie, but at home," Finn explained, scratching the back of his head unsurely.

That sounded like something straight off of Pinterest, but Piper thought it was a cute idea nonetheless. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him then pulled away to tell him, "That sounds amazing," her forehead resting against his.

Finn's hands had found her waist, and he smiled softly before reconnecting their lips once more, Piper's arms wrapping around his neck as she leaned into him. The kiss lingered for several moments, and Finn's hand had just moved up to tangle in her hair when someone cleared their throat behind them. Piper immediately pulled away and glanced over her shoulder sheepishly to see Finn's stepdad walking down the stairs. Mark gave a wave of the hand and said, "Hi Piper," as he crossed the living room to the kitchen.

She awkwardly returned the greeting and hoped she wasn't blushing as she looked back to Finn. He removed his hand from her waist, holding her hand instead as he pulled her into the kitchen to say hello to his mother. Afterwards, they moved downstairs to where a decently sized pillow fort took up the middle of the basement.

Gracie poked her head around the blankets, and her face lit up as she laid eyes on her brother's girlfriend. "Piper!" she exclaimed, jumping up and running to throw her arms around Piper's waist. London glanced around the blankets as well before disappearing back into the fort.

Piper laughed as she greeted Finn's little sister then Gracie grabbed her hand and yanked her towards the fort. "Look at our pillow fort!"

"Wow! Did you do that all yourself?" Piper asked, feigning a look of amazement as she crawled inside with Gracie.

"London helped," Gracie told her simply, and her twin nodded, her blonde curls bouncing.

"Hey, what about me?" Finn asked, following their lead and settling down on the other side of London.

"You don't do it right," Gracie told him before disclosing to Piper, "We did all the hard work."

"It was my idea," Finn pointed out, but Gracie simply gave him the most exasperated look Piper had ever seen from a six-year-old, and she laughed, catching Finn's eye over the top of London's head. He gave her a tight smile, and she could tell he was annoyed that his sisters wouldn't leave. She simply shrugged at him, trying to communicate that it really didn't bother her as London passed her the book she was holding and pointed to a picture in it.

"That's the kind of frog I have," she said in a quiet voice.

Piper tried to express interest in the subject as London told her all about the frog she had "given a home" then pulled her back up the stairs to see said frog. London was far more soft-spoken than Finn and Gracie, so Piper did her best to give her as much attention as her siblings undoubtedly received.

When London pulled her frog out of its tank, Piper fought to keep her expression one of fascination despite the fact that frogs crept her out. They were slimy, and there was something about those beady eyes that she just didn't trust.

"Want to hold him?" London asked, holding the frog out to her, but Piper quickly shook her head.

"I don't want to drop him," she said reasonably, coming up with the excuse on the spot.

London simply shrugged and told her, "His name is Finnn."

Piper's eyebrows rose in surprise, and she bit back a laugh as she asked, "Did you name him after Finn?"

"Yeah, 'cause Finn talked Mommy into letting me keep him. But I made it with three n's instead of two so no one mixes them up."

This was simultaneously the cutest and funniest thing Piper had ever heard, but she forced herself to keep from laughing as she asked seriously, "Does that happen a lot? Getting mixed up?"

"Just once, by Daddy, but I think he was just pretending. Finn didn't think it was funny."

"The frog or your brother?"

"Both."

After Finnn had been safely returned to his tank, they returned to the basement. To Finn's utter dismay and Piper's great amusement, the evening progressed with the twins having no intention of leaving the pillow fort. Gracie enthused to Piper about her dance classes while London insisted on watching Animal Planet and wouldn't let Finn change the channel no matter how much he tried to talk her into watching something else.

An hour and a half into their date, they had all eaten dinner, and Gracie had pulled out her bracelet-making kit to make friendship bracelets with Piper. Meanwhile, London had wrapped herself around Finn similar to the way a koala might attach itself to a tree. Despite his obvious irritation earlier in the night, Finn seemed to have resigned himself to their fate as he let his little sister crawl on top of him and watched the bobcat surgery playing out on screen with minimal complaints. Piper subtly snuck a picture when Finn wasn't looking. It was too cute a sight to let go undocumented.

As the bobcat surgery on TV was coming to an end, the voice of Finn's stepdad called for the twins, and then Mark poked his head around the blankets. "Alright, girls, it's time to give Finn and Piper some space. Come on."

The twins immediately began to protest as Finn pushed London off of him and sat up from where he had slumped against the support of the couch. Piper smiled and gave a small shrug. "It's okay. I don't mind."

"It's getting close to bedtime for these two anyway," Mark said with a good-natured smile. "Come on. Gracie."

London had grabbed her frog book and crawled out of the pillow fort, but her twin was more reluctant to go. "But we're making bracelets," Gracie cried, sticking her bottom lip out in a pout that was obviously supposed to convince her father to let her stay.

"It's okay! We can finish them next time I come over," Piper quickly promised.

"When?"

"It'll be soon. I promise."

Still pouting, Gracie relented and followed her dad and sister upstairs. Smiling slightly to herself, Piper carefully set aside the half-finished bracelets and pushed the bead kit aside before crawling over to sit next to her boyfriend for the first time all night.

As she settled down next to him, she noted the look of admiration in his eyes as he gazed at her, and a fresh wave of butterflies was sent to her stomach. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Her question seemed to catch him off guard, as if he didn't even realize he was looking at her in such adoration, and Finn quickly shook his head. "No reason."

Piper raised her eyebrows before cuddling up to him, wrapping her arms around his torso and laying her head on his shoulder. His arm wrapped around her almost instinctively, and she prodded again, "What are you thinking?"

"That you're really good with them."

Piper hummed, hugging him closer as she mumbled against his shoulder, "Why'd you never tell me you have a frog named after you?"

He groaned at the question, and Piper finally let out the laughter she'd been holding in earlier. She peeled her head off of his shoulder, pulling herself into more of a sitting position as she told, "That's a huge honor," her tone light and teasing.

Finn simply rolled his eyes. "Yeah, it's everything I've ever dreamed of."

Piper laughed again, unable to stop herself as she continued thinking about the frog upstairs and how absurd it was that it shared a name with her boyfriend. Her laughing seemed to be contagious because the corners of Finn's lips twitched as he shook his head to himself, and then he started laughing too.

"Three n's?" Piper asked when she finally managed to catch her breath again.

Finn sighed and shrugged. "She didn't want people to get confused." He shook his head exasperatedly before fixing her with a serious look. "You can't tell the team about this. The last thing I need is this getting out and ruining my reputation."

"Honestly, I don't think anyone would be surprised," Piper told him, fully serious. She smiled to herself again in amusement before asking, "Can I at least tell Amy?"

"Amy, who will tell Henry, who will tell the rest of the bros?" Finn pretended to think about it before shaking his head. "No way."

Piper feigned a dramatic sigh before peering at him thoughtfully. "You're a lot smarter than people give you credit for."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

She nodded as she leaned in to kiss him. When she pulled away, Finn sighed, holding one of her hands in his as he muttered, "This is what I wanted to be doing all night."

Piper gave him a regretful smile as she asked, "This isn't the anniversary date you dreamed of, is it?"

"I wasn't exactly planning on spending the night with my sisters, no."

"But you did because you're a good brother," Piper told him softly before leaning in to kiss him again. Personally, she loved watching Finn with his little sisters because it was clear how much the twins adored him and vice versa. There was nothing more attractive than a guy who was good with kids, and Finn passed that qualification by a landslide.

"I just can't tell them no," Finn muttered when they pulled apart, and Piper gave a soft chuckle to that.

She returned to resting her head on his shoulder as she commented, "Your stepdad seems like a nice guy. You like him, right?"

Finn nodded, absentmindedly rubbing gentle circles against her back as he said, "Yeah, he's cool. We go fishing sometimes."

Piper knew that much because she and Finn had talked about their love for fishing in the past. (It was the only outdoor activity he enjoyed.) She knew there was tension in his relationship with his dad, who lived in Vancouver, but Finn had never expressed such resentment for his stepdad. Even still, Piper still felt like she didn't that much about him.

"How'd he meet your mom?" she asked curiously.

"Technically, they went to high school together, but he was working in the hospital Mom was an administrator in it when we moved here. He helped her pay for my dance classes when she couldn't afford it, so I guess he's kind of the reason I'm still a dancer. Hard not to like him after that."

Piper sat up in surprise at this new information. "Wait, really? You almost had to quit dance?"

Finn nodded as if this was the most casual piece of information he'd ever revealed to her. "Yeah. And they'd only been dating, like, a month when he offered to pay for my classes. She wouldn't have let him, but I don't think she wanted me to quit dance any more than I did."

Piper had grabbed his hand and held it in her lap, looking down as she traced her fingers over his. She couldn't fathom the idea of Finn not being a dancer. That was like trying to imagine James without Riley or Ozzy without Legions of Lasers.

How different would her life be if Finn had quit dance all those years ago because of financial issues? He never would have come to The Next Step. Would they have even met? Probably not. They would be living in the same city with no idea of the other's existence.

Just the thought of that made Piper shudder. She hardly remembered what it was like to have a life without Finn in it, and she didn't want to imagine a world where they might have never met at all.

The ghost of a smile crossing her lips, she looked up at him and said, "I guess we should be thanking him then."

Finn's brows knit together in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"If Mark hadn't helped your mom pay for dance, we wouldn't be celebrating our anniversary right now. We wouldn't even know each other."

This revelation seemed to blow Finn's mind, and he looked away for a moment, processing her words. His hand closed around hers, and he looked back to her with a soft smile. "Well, thank God for Mark then."

Piper smiled at that before leaning forward, closing the distance between them again, one hand caressing his face and the other finding the back of his neck as she kissed him slowly, letting it linger and feeling extra grateful in that moment that they were together and nothing could change that now. When she finally pulled away, breathless, she rested her forehead against his and uttered, "Thank God for Mark."

Finn was looking at her once more with adoration in his eyes, like he couldn't believe she was actually real. Piper reached around him to check the time on his phone, abandoned on the floor next to him. "It's only a little after 7:45," she told him, "We can still have the movie night we planned on."

His eyes lit up at that, and he quickly moved to turn on the PlayStation he used for both gaming and streaming purposes alike. "What are we gonna watch?" Finn asked as he settled next to her again.

"You choose. Preferably something that doesn't require too much attention to follow," Piper told him while checking her notifications. The A-Troupe group chat was blowing up, and she opened it curiously. Richelle had sent a video of Jones' performance from season 12, and everyone was discussing it.

"Hotel Dystopia?" Finn asked after scrolling through the Netflix options and failing to find anything that they were both interested in watching.

Piper smiled and nodded. "Sure. Hey, did you see the video Richelle sent in the group chat?"

"No. What is it?"

He watched over her shoulder as she played it. Jones was full of tricks, style, and technique. He had it all. His team was going to be tough competition to beat at Dancemania. Piper shook her head as she watched him dance. "He's insane."

"I don't know. I think we can take him," Finn said, sounding confident as ever.

The corners of Piper's lips twitched as she looked at him. "He made it to the finals last year before he had to leave the competition," she reminded him.

"Yeah, and we won Regionals in the Senior Advanced Division when most of us weren't even 18, so..."

"I wish I had your level of confidence," Piper told him dryly.

"You just have to stop worrying so much."

"Do you know me at all?"

"I do. That's why I know you won't." He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she rolled her eyes. On a more serious note, he added, "You're actually way more confident than you give yourself credit for though."

"Yeah, right," Piper said, fighting off another eyeroll. She used to be confident, but that was back before Finn had come to The Next Step, before Josh and Miss Angela had stolen it all away from her.

"I'm serious," Finn told her when she looked at him skeptically. "Confidence is attractive, babe, and I'm attracted to you, so..."

Piper laughed in spite of herself as a warm feeling spread through her that only Finn ever made her feel.

They settled back, turning their attention to the movie on the screen. While Finn could probably rewatch his favorite movies over and over again, Piper lost interest watching movies she had already seen pretty quickly. Such was the case tonight. After about ten minutes, she was already scrolling through Instagram. The Dancemania account had posted about last season's runner-up soloist signing with Maria's management company, and she showed the post to Finn.

"That could be us next year," she said, "Kind of crazy to think we're going to be professional dancers in a couple of weeks, eh?"

"Totally."

"I mean, I'm trying not get my hopes up too high, but it would be really cool to go on a world tour next year."

"For sure! I really want to see Australia."

Piper smiled, looking to her boyfriend as she asked, "Why Australia?"

"I want to see a real kangaroo, and it's on my bucket list to go surfing there."

Piper smiled endearingly before tossing her phone aside and stretching her legs out in front of her. "It's really weird that we won't be able to compete anymore, but this could open up so many opportunities for the future. Amy and I have talked about auditioning for a touring company together."

"I could see you doing that," Finn said, eyes trained on the TV as he spoke.

"What about you? I heard Luther Brown's holding auditions for his tour this summer," Piper said, recalling something James had mentioned the last time she had talked to him.

"But I won't be able to go on his tour because we'll be on the Dancemania tour," Finn told her matter-of-factly.

She grinned and shook her head at herself playfully. "Right, duh. How could I forget?"

He hummed to that, looking down at his lap for a moment before suddenly pausing the movie. "Um, actually..."

Piper raised her eyebrows as he trailed off, noting how serious he seemed. "What?"

He glanced at her before shifting so that he was sitting facing her. "Okay, maybe it's kind of crazy, but I've actually been thinking about going to school for broadcasting."