A/N: A scenario where David keeps existing even after "The End". He's a great kid, I like to think there's a place for him in that afterlife with everyone else.

XXX

Something has changed.

There are little things he's been noticing: Mom smiles a lot more, laughs out loud in a way he hasn't heard since he was really little, if ever. Her eyes are brighter than he's ever seen. And Dad seems so much more relaxed, relieved, happy. Not that his parents weren't happy before, but this is new. This is a different type of happy.

David is a smart kid, so it doesn't take him too long to figure out why Mom and Dad are so different.

"You wanna come down to the station, kiddo? See how things get done around there?" James Ford asks, dimples big and inviting. He's a good guy to look up to when Dad isn't around.

James is always inviting David places, taking him on ride-alongs, letting him watch some milder interrogations. When they get home in the evening, Mom is usually there if she isn't at the hospital, and as her two guys stroll through the door she gets this goofy grin on her face that David knows is new, and just for he and James. The Southern man steps over to Mom and kisses her and calls her Blondie and she giggles and swats him away and then hugs David hello and asks him about his day. David likes the family they're building.

"Why don't we try making dinner tonight, to surprise your dad?" Kate Austen asks, a flash of mischief running across her face. She's a nice substitute for Mom when he is at Dad's house.

Kate is always offering a hand to David, getting him to take more risks, pulling him along on little adventures when Dad is paged to the hospital. Cooking has been her latest thing; whenever David stays at his dad's she is there, ready to help with a project, listen to a story, be an audience for his recent piano piece. She's roped David into helping make dinner numerous times now, and when Dad enters the apartment and sees them in the kitchen, the two of them laughing and making a mess, he gets this look on his face like he has never seen something so beautiful, so great, as David and Kate dancing around the small space. David likes the family they're building, too.

He'd never really entertained the idea that Mom and Dad would get back together after the divorce. And now, as he's learning to love James and Kate, he doesn't even want them to. He likes how breezy Mom has become since James came around, enjoys how peaceful Dad looks with Kate by his side. He doesn't question how they both fell in love again so easily, doesn't even wonder where they came from. As long as his parents keep looking so content, he is at ease.

He's meeting all sorts of other new people, too: Aunt Claire of course, and her boyfriend Charlie from that band Driveshaft and their son Aaron, and the Kwons from the other side of the world, and millionaire Hurley and his girlfriend Libby, and John Locke who used to be in a wheelchair, and Mr. and Mrs. Hume with their cool accents. David doesn't fully understand exactly how Mom and Dad and James and Kate are connected to all of them, but for some reason he just knows that isn't what matters. The important thing is that everyone is happy, and right where they are supposed to be.

XXX