A/N: Here it is, the long-awaited (okay, not really that long!) sequel to my first Jate story, Fate. This is a twoshot, and the next chapter will be in first-person narration by Lily, because it's going to take place several years after his chapter, and for some reason, the first-person narration by someone OTHER than Jack and Kate works so much better. This is a post-season finale . Since the Sawyer/Kate kiss is coming in 3x02, my day wasn't totally ruined after watching the (incredibly AMAZING) season premiere. I won't hold off the story by ranting about how much I already hate Juliet, I'm sure you guys know how I feel :) Anyway, enjoy, have fun, chapter two will be along shortly!
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The man in the dark Armani suit checked his watch for the tenth time that morning. He was clearly nervous. He waited in the pastor's office with his daughter for all of the guests to sit down so the ceremony could start. Someone would knock on the door to let them know when they could walk out, but people were still arriving, mingling, taking their time. From the window above the door, he could see his cousin's six-year-old grandson, Jacob, the ringbearer, looking just as bored. He kept sticking his tongue out at the little flower girl, a four-year-old whose name he didn't remember.
He bit his fingernails and wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead with the handkerchief in his suit pocket. Then he stood and began walking back and forth along length of the room.
"Dad, stop pacing. This is my wedding, if anyone should be nervous, it's me." Lily stood and touched his arm gently.
Jack Shephard looked into the green eyes of his eldest daughter and felt an upsurge of pride. His only regret in life was that he had missed the birth of his first child. When the twins had come, and Noah after them, he had been in the room with Kate the entire time. Nothing, though, he felt, could make up for missing Lily's birth, even if it hadn't been entirely his fault. It was something that neither of them had ever told their daughter. Some things were better left unsaid.
They had all grown up too fast. Each of them brought new discoveries, new challenges. With Lily, he'd had to learn all about being a first-time father. He spoiled them all mercilessly, but with Lily, he overindulged. She was their first, and that made her special. The twins had been, well, twins, twice the trouble, but often double the rewards, while Noah with his condition was a handful and a worry, but always a joy.
Jack felt old. He could almost feel it each morning when he woke up. He was pushing sixty, and he'd long since given up trying to get rid of the grey that grew in his hair and beard. Kate told him it looked like salt and pepper and he'd laughed at her, tease her about how old she was getting. He still thought she was beautiful. He told her that every morning, no matter how much she protested or turned red. He wouldn't leave the house without kissing her or telling her he loved her. During his summer break, Noah had constantly told them over breakfast how glad he would be to leave for college in the fall; they behaved like lovebirds even after all this time.
A knock on the door shook him from his reverie. Lily looked at him, and took a deep breath. As he came to take her arm, he saw her eyes were full of tears. He kissed her forehead and she leaned against him.
"Don't cry, sweetheart," he handed her the handkerchief. "You'll stain your dress."
She wiped her eyes and gave the piece of cloth back to him. "I bet Mom didn't cry on your wedding day."
He led her to the wooden door and reached for the doorknob. "I was more nervous than she was," he said, pulling open the door. The church lobby was deserted. They walked across to the doors of the chapel, waiting once more.
"I watched the tape with her once." Lily remarked, watching his face. "Whoever taped it has serious issues. They kept zooming in and out. I couldn't see your faces, but I always remember how you held me the whole time, and I didn't cry. Mom told me you cried when you made your speech. She wouldn't let me see that part. Said it makes her cry to even watch it. She hides it when I come home."
"We watch it now and then," Jack said, straightening his suit. He suddenly hoped someone would have a camera in the chapel. The night of Lily's senior prom (and it seemed to long ago now) she had looked beautiful, but seeing her now, dressed for her wedding, he felt just like a proud father should. He almost didn't want her to walk through these doors. He wanted to shut his eyes and go back in time to keep his children young.
He wanted to open his eyes and see Lily running into his arms with a bunch of flowers freshly-picked by a four-year-old's chubby hands: "I love you, Daddy! I picked these for you cause I love you!"
He wanted to open his eyes and bring his twins home from the hospital, still trying to get over the shock, and the days when no one could get any sleep because of their constant crying, until the day they began to smile, laugh.
He wanted to open his eyes and see Noah, only seven then, open his eyes in that hospital bed after the doctors had said there was no hope, his face so pale, but so cheerful, even after recovering from his worst attack, and there was that wonderful smile as he told them. "It doesn't hurt anymore, Daddy."
Sniffling at his side brought him back to the future with a jolt. He was old again, and his Lily was almost a married woman. Inside those doors were his other children, growing and grown-up. Tom in his first year of residency at Johns Hopkins, Sam, attending Harvard and getting ready for his bar exam; Noah, now a senior in college, and following Jack not only to his old alma mater, Columbia, but into medicine, although he wanted to specialize in pediatrics.
Inside that chapel were the friends he had made by accident, the irony of a plane crash. Inside was the woman he loved.
He took a deep breath and looked at his daughter. "Nervous?"
She glanced up at him with a quizzical look on his face, one he knew so well from her mother. "I'm never nervous, Dad. You're the nervous one. I'm just too emotional."
"Promise me you'll let us visit once I get my first grandchild."
"Daaaad," she rolled her eyes at him. "I'm not even married yet, and you're talking grandkids. Aaron says he likes the name Jamie. It's unisex, you know."
"I know. Jamie's a good name, girl or boy."
She started to say something else, but inside the double doors, the usher knocked to let them know that the ceremony was ready to start. From inside, the doors opened as if by magic, and they were greeted to a pair of ushers, who nodded at them. Just ahead, the flower girl and the ringbearer fidgeted, impatient.
"What's her name?" Jack whispered, nodding his head toward the little flower girl, who was picking her nose shamelessly.
"Karolena. With a K and an E. Stacey didn't want people to pronounce it like the state."
Jack watched as one of the ushers pushed the children forward through another set of double doors, then signal for Jack and Lily to follow behind. Lily gave him a smile that bled nervousness, but he only squeezed her arm. Once the children had disappeared through the doors, it was their turn, and the opening strains of the wedding march began to play as they entered the chapel. As they began the long walk down the aisle, Jack wondered vaguely if his parents had been nervous at their own wedding. He thought of his mother, who had died the year before. She should be here, sitting up front with Kate and the other children. Locke should be here; his death three years earlier from a heart attack was felt deeply by most of the survivors, as was Rose's, from cancer a decade earlier. One generation fading, another beginning.
It was, in a way, just right that Aaron and Lily were getting married. At least once a year at the Flight 815 reunions they saw each other, and there were other occasions for meeting, births, weddings, sometimes funerals. Aaron, Patrick and their little sister Ruthie had almost grown up side-by-side with the Shephard children, and hardly anyone was surprised when they announced their engagement. People in the tabloids, those who still remembered or cared, called it part three of a fairytale romance. They talked of Charlie and Claire, and of himself and Kate, and how wonderful it was that their children were getting married and continuing the fairy tale. Both Charlie and Jack thought it was silly, but Kate and Claire thought it was cute. They had both spent weeks planning the ceremony with Lily, picking out the right colors, getting all of the decorations, sending out invitations. Some days, Jack fell into old habits, going out and getting himself moderately drunk, musing about letting go of his little girl, dreading the wedding day, dreading having to watch her and Aaron catching their plane to London for good. He could look forward to grandchildren, he told himself that, but it would be hard, not seeing Lily every weekend, not having a whole family anymore.
They had reached the altar and here Jack had to let go. It was the ceremony and it was his own release of the past. When he let Aaron take her arm, he was saying goodbye to his little girl forever. It broke his heart, and as he moved to where Kate stood, she took his hand and gave it a comforting squeeze, as if to say, It's okay, you did the right thing. He wasn't so sure, but he let it happen because he knew he had to let things go. He silently counted to five and the fear went away. Lily gave him a secret smile that he returned. His heart beat so loudly he was sure that it was echoing in the almost-silence over the liturgy. He stole a side-glance at Kate and wondered what she was thinking. Was she as scared about losing their daughter as he was?
The ceremony was beautiful, and things went smoothly until halfway through the communion rites, Jacob, the ringbearer, started getting antsy and issued a well-aimed kick at the priest's kneecap. When his mother hurried to pull him into a pew, he sat patiently for about a minute, then threw the pillow–that had only several minutes before contained the rings–across the aisle at the flower girl.
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"You take care of my little girl, you hear me, Aaron?"
His new son-in-law gave a solemn nod. Jack always liked Aaron; he somehow reminded him of himself, in a vague way. Aaron was serious and committed. He would take care of Lily.
The group stood in the middle of the Boston-Logan airport, saying goodbyes all around. The entire wedding party had taken a Hawaiian Airlines flight to LAX, arriving in California at 9pm Pacific time, with the exception of Sun, Jin, and their son Tai, who had taken another flight from Hawaii back to Korea. Sayid, Shannon and their now-grown children, daughter Soraya, and sons Essam and Hashem, had hurried to catch their flight to Toronto an hour earlier. The others had boarded flights departing for various locations, and now, the only ones that remained were the Paces and the Shephards. Aaron and Lily were preparing to take the 10:45 to Boston, a five-and-a-half hour flight, then change plans for a seven hour flight to London. Charlie and Claire were staying overnight in LA with their younger children, Patrick and Ruthie, flying out in the morning back to their home in Mancester.
While Aaron said his goodbyes to his parents and siblings, he and Kate and the boys hugged and kissed Lily. She was crying, tears running down her cheeks as she laughed, happy.
"Take care, sis." Sam said, kissing her cheek.
"Yeah," added Tom. "I guess we can get off Aaron's case now that you're actually married."
"We'll miss you." Noah said in his shy voice.
"Keep out of trouble," Lily told the three of them, moving to envelope Kate in a hug. "I'll miss you, Mom. You all ought to come visit us as soon as you can."
"I want to know everything," Kate pressed. "Get to work right away on my first grandchild."
"Moooooooooom," Lily blushed, looking embarrassed. Aaron grinned over at her from where he was buried under a sobbing Claire. Lily turned away, shaking her head in disbelief as Jack leaned down to kiss her cheek.
"Dad," she said softly, hugging him tightly. "I'll miss you."
"You'll call?" He asked hopefully, his heart ready to break. He was going to miss her.
"Every week. Twice, if I can. And I'll email you both all the time."
"You know your mother never checks hers."
"I heard that," Kate interrupted, shaking her head at them. Lily looked up at him, still crying her happy tears.
"I'm always a phone call away, Lily, you know that. If Aaron ever gets—"
"He's not like that, Dad. Don't worry. I can take care of myself, I'm a big girl, remember?"
He hugged her again, tears threatening to spill out of his own eyes. He wiped them away quickly with his hand and drew back, placing his hands on her shoulders. She chewed on her lip, a curious habit she'd picked up from Kate.
"Hey, Lily!" Aaron called "Come on, we're going to miss our plane!"
She looked expectantly up at him, and he nodded, leaning down to kiss her cheek again.
"Good luck, Lily. Take care, be good. I love you."
"Love you too, Dad." She hugged him quickly again, then moved to quickly hug her brothers and mother, and including her new in-laws. The two newlyweds hurried to their gate, waving behind them as they went. The two families watched them until they disappeared onto the airplane.
Charlie and Claire left first with Patrick and Ruthie, wanting to get back to their hotel and get some sleep before the long flight in the morning. Tom and Noah went next, with Tom yawning his goodbye, muttering something about paperwork he needed to do. He had offered to drop Noah off at Columbia on his way back to Johns Hopkins, three hours for Noah, and an additional four for Tom to get home. Sam left shortly after, with an extra "Good luck," from both Jack and Kate. He would be taking his bar exams in two days.
Alone of their group, Jack and Kate remained to watch the plane take off, following it into the sky until it was no longer distinguishable. He sighed, and the two of them walked in silence out to the parking garage and their car. As they went, she put an arm around his waist and leaned against his shoulder. "You took that better than I expected," she told him matter-of-factly.
"I got that from you. The whole 'letting go' thing, I mean."
"They love each other. She's our first, and our first to get married. It'll be hard, but we'll just imagine it's like she's still in college."
"Yeah," he said with a grin, as he turned off the alarm to the black Mercedes and went around to the passenger side, opening the door for Kate. "Except she never came home with grandchildren when she was in college."
"Such a gentleman," she remarked, kissing his cheek and ignoring his previous comment. He went around to his side and opened the door, easing into the drivers' side seat and shutting the door, turning on the ignition.
"We're getting old." Kate said woefully. She reached down to turn up the radio, an oldies station that was playing Sinatra's "You Make Me Feel So Young." He looked at her and they laughed at the irony.
"What are we going to do with ourselves?" she asked him after the song ended.
"There was always that vacation we were going to take to Europe," he suggested, yawning in spite of himself.
"No, I mean today. Tomorrow, just this week. Things are going so fast, we need some time to settle down. What do you want more than anything, Jack?"
A million thoughts ran screaming through his mind. He wanted a lot of things, but as he looked over at Kate, watching him curiously, everything else seemed much less urgent.
"You," he said, as he finally eased the car into their garage, turning off the engine. "I just want a few days of peace and quiet and relaxation with you. Before we get too old," he added as an afterthought.
She reached over to remove the keys from the ignition and opened her door. "I'm just a little bit afraid of all this. Getting old. Feeling like my body's starting to tire out."
"You aren't that old," he told her, climbing out of the car and shutting the door. "You're still beautiful, Kate, inside and out."
"Don't be so charming, Jack, honestly." They made their way slowly to the front door, her leaning against the door frame while he hunted his pockets for the house key. "I mean, you always tell me that I'm so beautiful, so I think you should get down every night on two knees and be grateful that someone like me would wind up with someone like you."
"Ouch, there goes my sense of masculine pride. You wound me, Kate." He unlocked the door, flipping on the light switch in the front hall. She started up the stairs, while he headed to his office to check his messages. He had quit his job at the hospital long ago, like he promised her, but he missed his job. It had been Kate's idea for him to open an at-home consultation service. He worked at home and spent more time with Kate, and he liked it that way.
She was asleep, still fully dressed, when he finally made it upstairs into their bedroom. He didn't wake her, but removed her sandals and pulled back the blankets before snuggling in beside her. In her sleep, she unconsciously moved closer to him, her body fitting snugly against his. He let out a deep sigh as exhaustion overtook him, and fell into a pleasant, dreamless sleep.