A/N: I binged the entire series in like... a very short amount of time, and I feel soo... deflated now that I don't have it to watch anymore. This is just me trying to give Jesse some kind of happy ending. Post-finale... canonical. Enjoy. (comments are the best and they are really encouraging... this will be multi-chapter if I buckle down)

The sky here isn't like anything he's ever seen before. Some days he spends hours sitting on his sagging porch, just watching the clouds trail across the pale blue. It's like faded denim, washed so many times the cotton threads are soft and coming apart at the seams. He wishes he could reach up and feel the softness high above him, trail his fingers along the worn fabric of the sky. He's just beginning to feel again, and there are times when it's so painful he can't pull himself out of bed, not even for the beautiful view.

He still smokes, fat little hand rolled cigarettes filled with the tobacco from the mercantile. It's all he can get way out here without spending a fortune. The paper is cheap, and it smells faintly of chemicals when it burns. He doesn't mind, far worse fumes have invaded his nostrils. He wonders on occasion if in some kind of grand irony he'll be diagnosed with lung cancer when he's an old man. His mask came off far too often for his pink lungs to be totally unscathed, and sometimes in the winter he gets a cough he just can't shake.

He once thought about coming up here and just walking off into the wilderness. He wanted to let the universe decide his fate, to be put on trial in the cold woods with the wild creatures and merciless exposure. If he wound up bear chow, so be it. His sins were numerable, and the fate seemed deserving. It was the lie he told himself while driving north, bags packed in the back seat, straps of hundred dollar bills lining the sweater hanging heavy on his shoulders. He was too much of a coward to actually go through with it.

He drove to the coast, following the directions posted along the side of the road until he came to a tiny fishing village. The people there had looked at him strangely when he rolled up, mostly gruff men with downward turned mouths. They stared at him unblinkingly. He had practice with this kind of thing. It was a game men played, asserting dominance over newcomers. He caved, knowing he could never win it here, not in this place. He'd killed, viciously, heartlessly, but none of them knew that. To them he just looked like some college dropout with more than a few rough years under his belt.

Thankfully, money is the universal language of mankind, and for a few crisp bills the men were able to point him in the direction of a cabin. It's empty and in disrepair, the once bright orange "For Sale" sign hanging limply on the fence post, faded to the light yellow of tobacco stained teeth. It's his now, barely two words spoken over the deal, a firm handshake and a shaky signature.

There's a pile of wood beside his porch, round hunks of cedar and pine. It doesn't really hold his attention much these days. He's been making furniture out of the fragrant material for months, first little stools and chests, and finally a beautiful set of rockers on his porch advertising the skill he's developing. He's more interested now in the great round growths on the trunks of trees, the cancerous lesions in otherwise perfect specimens. When you cut into them, the grain dips and curls like smoke on the wind, lines flowing in and out of each other.

The burls are hard to find. The man at the saw mill on the edge of town shrugs when he asks about getting them. He doesn't bother with the damaged trees, not that he runs across many of them. It's a small operation, milling logs into lumber for the town's needs.

Jesse shells out a stack of bills for a used chainsaw and goes hiking, hoping to stumble upon one he can get himself. The land his cabin sits on is several acres of forest, and he takes off without rhyme or reason, walking in circles some days until nearly dark. He's found several small ones on branches. Shimmying up the trunks with the saw hanging beneath him is difficult, but he manages, hacking off the diseased limbs and finishing the work on the ground. The day he finds the first unattainably large one is the same day she knocks on his door.

The people in the village occasionally come by to silently watch him as he works outside. But this is different, the sun already dipping below the horizon when he hears the knock. He's already thinking about how he could possibly harvest the giant burl swelling out from an ancient cedar, but the noise pulls him out of his insular thoughts. A woman with coal black hair and deep brown eyes stands framed in his doorway, a kind expression on her smiling face. "I need you to make me a hope chest."

That's it, no preamble, no niceties. Her hand shoots out, grabbing his wrist and turning his palm up. "I'll pay you two hundred dollars, take your time. I want the quality I can see in your other pieces."

The twenties in his hand are soft, like she's fished some of them out of her dryer's lint trap. They're stacked unevenly in his hand, and he glares at her silently, shoving the money back at her. "I don't do that."

She narrows her eyes at him. They're not brown like he first thought, but some honeyed mixture of gold and dark green. It's more clear to him in the soft glow of the bare bulb hanging over them. Tucking her hands into her pockets, she rocks back on her heels, shrugging. "Well, you have my money. I don't really see what the big deal is. This is clearly a hobby of yours."

"I don't need your money." He takes one step out the door, angrily yanking one of her hands from the shallow pocket of her jacket. The bills press down into her palm, and he curls her fingers around the cash, until he feels her own muscles take back control. She sighs, shoving the money back down into her jacket.

"Why won't you do it?" Her tone is not accusatory, but tinged with frank curiosity. "I've never known anyone to turn down cold hard cash. What's your story? Why are you here?"

It's the last thing Jesse ever expected anyone to ask him, here, in this place. It leaves him slack jawed, painful memories rushing over him in an unexpected wave. He snarls at her. "None of your god damned business."

She shrugs, unaffected by the venom in his words. "Do you want to know why I'm here?"

Before he can shake his head no, she smiles again. It's blinding, the light behind her fading into comparative darkness. He blinks, opening his mouth to tell her to leave.

"I came to Alaska to find a husband. Sure, the man to woman ratio isn't as crazy as people make it out to be, not in the big cities… but out in places like this.. Well, hell it's like five to one, and some mountain man isn't going to care that I'm a little soft around the edges." She pokes at her thigh somewhat self-consciously, the rattling commentary tapering off. "So clearly, I'm gonna need a hope chest."

He can't help but be drawn into her little bubble, the happy expression sparkling in her eyes is too tempting to deny. He shuts the door behind him, arms crossing over his chest. "I don't know what that is.. so… you're out of luck."

She laughs, and it's a sound he hasn't heard in so long that he feels tears gathering in the back of his throat. Coughing, he leans on the doorjamb to get a better look at her. The silken waves of her hair fall almost to her waist, wavy and just a bit unruly, and her skin is tawny and glowing under the light of his porch. She doesn't look like any of the villagers, the lean and taciturn people that work on the shore. She's soft and round, and probably a little shorter than everyone she meets. The apples of her cheeks are red and sweet when she smiles, which seems to be all the time. She's not like the people here. They stare at him with their lips pursed, only grunting when he's in their way. She's chatty and bubbly. She doesn't belong.

"Oh, no? It's just a rectangular cedar chest, you know, one that fits at the end of a full sized bed. People call them hope chests because you're supposed to fill them with things you hope to use in the future, like home stuff to use after you're married… It's kind of antiquated, but I like it."

Jesse doesn't have a response for this. There was a chest much like what she describes in his childhood bedroom, full of drawings and sketches, and even the occasional stuffed animal. Every day he breathes a sigh of relief for the distance between him and his family, for the chasm that was there before he even left. It's probably the only reason they survived his foray into madness.

She watches him fade out, his eyes unfocused and a little glassy. His adam's apple bobs gently, and he looks up at her. "A hope chest, huh?"

"Yup. So?"

It might be nice to work on something with a purpose for a change. He has to keep himself occupied anyway, might as well be productive about it. "I think I could do that, but it might take me a while… to find the material and everything."

She hops up and down with excitement, lunging forward to capture him in a miniature version of a bear hug. She squeezes briefly at his shoulders before pulling away and digging the money back out. He clears his throat. "Why do you want this thing anyway? Couldn't you just… buy more stuff with that money and not worry about this box to put it all in?"

Her eyes get a little sad, dropping down to stare at the faded bills. "My grandfather used to say, 'If you want something good and pure, you have to go through all the motions, beginning to end, no shortcuts.'" She blows out a tired breath, cheerful countenance falling away. "I haven't done that in the past… and the results were not so good."

Jesse grunts, picking up the habit from the natives. She's holding the money in front of her like an offering, this time deciding to wait until he actually takes it from her. "I don't want your money."

Her face falls, and he's quick to explain. "It's just… I'm not a carpenter, so… I don't want to charge you for something until it's done. It might be shitty."

Her button nose wrinkles in displeasure at his comment. Shoving the money back in her pocket, she says, "Well… ok. I guess I'll stop by in a couple weeks to see how far along you are."

He nods, putting his hand on the cold metal of the door knob. She takes her cue to leave, walking carefully down the rickety set of steps he's rigged up to his porch. He watches her make her way down to the end of his drive, hiking one leg up to climb into her giant pickup. She waves at him as she puts the thing into reverse, the pungent exhaust cutting through the clear cold air just as her taillights fade out of view.