AN: hey everyone! Remember when I said this was goodbye? Well, I kinda changed my mind haha... I'm planning to write a Christmas fanfic before to long, so enjoy my little epilogue and hopefully you'll accept my little smiley face as a token of my appreciation :) -kittiesgalore

1 year later

Gabriel and Riley jumped at every little noise and talked as quietly as possible, trying not to wake their week old son, Liam as they took him for only his second car ride. "How we doin' back there?" Gabriel whispered as he looked in his rear-view mirror at his wife.

"You're a horrible driver, you know," Riley gave him a hard time with a sly smile.

"Oh, well excuse me for trying not to kill our child," he smiled back.

"You didn't kill him but you woke him up," Riley smiled as she watched her son yawn and open his little hazel eyes identical to Gabriel's.

"Just in time to make his rounds," Gabriel looked in his rearview mirror and smiled before flashing his CyberCom ID and drove through the gate.

"Alrighty, little man, let's go," Riley put Liam's diaper bag over her shoulder and picked up his carseat.

The now family of three made their way up to C-Doc and managed to quietly sneak in the door and stay unnoitced long enough to hear the team breifing some sargeants on a case when they saw them. "Surprise," Gabriel said with a smile that hadn't left his face.

"You're back!" Jameson exclaimed as he gave Riley because he hadn't seen her in at least a month and she'd been off the job for over six months. "I never realized how hard your job is until I had to do it."

"I take it you missed me," Riley laughed.

"You have no idea," Nelson joined the conversation and gave her a hug also.

"How are you?" Lillian walked back from the front of C-Doc and greeted her agents.

"Well, I got four hours of sleep last night," Riley sighed as she picked up Liam out of his carseat.

"And I got three," Gabriel chimed in.

"Perks of parenthood, right?" Dr. Cassidy had come over to greet them after he realized they were back.

"So who wants to hold him?" Riley asked as she held Liam out in front of her after he kept grabbing at her hair.

Lillian quickly volunteered, "He's precious," she said as she held him.

"I know, and it might just be a new mom thing, but for some reason, everytime I look at him, I just can't help but wonder how anyone could look into the eyes of something so innocent as their own child and cause them harm," Riley sighed as she watched Liam get passed around with a smile on his face.

"You're still thinking about that girl, aren't you?" Gabriel asked as he gently put an arm around his wife.

"Guess I am," Riley laughed awkwardly as she tried to change the subject.

"You know, the first thing I promised myself when I first held Liam was that I wouldn't be anything near the kind of father Paul Tofellson was," Gabriel said.

"If there's one thing I've learned over the years is that you don't go back on your family," Riley declared.

"You can never take it for granted that you have people who will never turn their backs on you," Cassidy added.

"Liam's a lucky boy," Lillian began. "He'll spend his whole life surrounded by people who would give the world for him. Some people don't have that privilege."

Dedicated to all victims of child and domestic abuse, that they would know

they're not alone.