AN: Sorry for the choppy chapter and abrupt ending. I just hope it doesn't hurt the overall story too much. Anyway, hope you enjoy the ending to this story.

At precisely a quarter to six on Saturday night, James returned to the Condo to join the Cohen family for the family dinner at the Life Café. Sammy was standing next to his brother, clutching a coloring book and a small box of crayons, which James had told him to bring to entertain himself while waiting for dinner to come. When the door opened, they were greeted at the sight of Rodolfo.

"Hello, Rodolfo," James smiled at the teenage boy.

"Hey, James," Rodolfo responded with a slightly sheepish grin. "Thanks… for offering to help the others find me the other night."

"It was no trouble at all. Good to see you're back home." James took a moment to glance over Rodolfo's shoulder at Mark and Emily, the later in the process of running a comb through Lucia's hair. "Are you allowed to come to the dinner, or is someone watching you?"

"My 'jailers' have decided to grant me a two-hour probation," Rodolfo smirked. "But once we get back home, my sentence is in full swing again." Mark and Emily had kept their promise to Rodolfo yesterday, and had taken him all over the city, from Thomson Square Park, to the zoo, and even stopped at Grimaldi's for a pizza lunch. But after that day-out, Rodolfo's punishment for sneaking out of the Condo was put into effect. James chuckled and entered the Condo, where he was greeted by Penny, while Sammy had toddled right up to Emily to show her his new coloring book. The three-year-old had taken a liking to her when she had babysat for him the night Rodolfo had ran away.

"Well, I guess we should be going then," Mark decided, leading the way to the door. "If you're late to a family dinner, Maureen's in a snippy mood all night."

The entire group was assembled at the Life a little over fifteen minutes later. All throughout dinner, the Bohemians laughed, joked, and brought up some of their fondest memories. Even the younger members of the extended family took part in the fun. Sammy had allowed Lucia to color a page in his coloring book while Rodolfo and Zack went between listening to the adults' stories and talking about what they'd do with Alvin when Rodolfo's week-long punishment was over. When the check came, Penny volunteered to take go up to pay it, with everyone chipping in for their portion of the bill.

"Thank you, Miss Cohen," the maitre' d nodded in acknowledgement as he accepted the money. He'd long since grown more pleased to see the Bohemian family at the Life after they'd become able to actually pay for their meals there. When Penny turned to rejoin the others, she saw James standing behind her.

"Hi, James. Is something wrong?"

"No, not at all," James shook his head. "I just remembered I never thanked you for inviting me and Sammy to come along."

"Oh, no problem. I'm glad you could come."

"Yeah. Your family's really great. I wish my family was like that. Mine's all extremely conservative in their views. Hate to think what they'd say if they met your family."

"Mmm. I think I can honestly say that we've all heard everything your family could say," Penny chuckled. "Thankfully, we're too close to each other to let what other people think bother us. As we often say, la vie Boheme. You'd be surprised by some of the stuff this family was tested with."

"Well," James replied slowly as his face broke out into a gentle smile. "I think… I'd like to hear about it sometime."

Over at the table, Mark was laughing with the others as Maureen brought up the prank war she once had with Roger years ago, which had eventually resulted in Roger's hair being dyed neon blue. As he laughed, he chanced to glance over in Penny' direction and his smile disappeared. She and James were standing quite close to one another, smiling and talking about something. As he watched, the two shared a small, shy kiss, followed by another, a little bolder, and another. Moments before Mark fully slipped into his 'keep away from my daughter' mode, he felt a hand give his arm a gentle squeeze. Turning, he saw Emily give him a soft 'leave them be' smile. Sighing heavily, Mark sent one more glance at Penny and James, but then gave in, allowing them to have their moment.

Mr. Grober's History classroom was once again filled with students. By the window, Alvin was talking avidly to Zack and Rodolfo.

"Hey, Dolfy-boy," Charles drawled as he sauntered up. "Noticed you weren't in school on Friday. Was it too hard to listen to the rest of us talk about our families?"

"Shut up, Charles," Zack glared as Alvin placed a restraining hand on Rodolfo's arm, in case he tried to react. Thankfully, Mr. Grober chose that moment to walk in, signaling the class to take their seats.

"Good morning, class," Mr. Grober greeted. "I hope you all enjoyed your weekend. Today, we'll start with the events leading up to the Civil War." After a pause, Rodolfo raised his hand. "Yes, Mr. Davis?"

"Actually, sir," Rodolfo began. "I wasn't in on Friday…."

"Yes, I was notified about your aunt and uncle's call to the principal."

"The thing is, I was wondering if I could present my family tree project now."

"I see," Mr. Grober nodded with a faint smile on his face, taking a moment to think it over. "Well… I suppose I could hold off on my lesson for a few minutes."

"Thanks, Mr. Grober," Rodolfo picked up the rolled up poster board that had been stored under his desk and made his way to the front of the room. Silently, he unrolled the family tree and paused for a moment to glance at the pictures of his parents that had been pasted to the poster board. Smiling at the images, he turned back to the class, taking in Zack and Alvin giving him their undivided attention and Charles looking at him with an unreadable expression.

"This is the story of my parents," Rodolfo began. "It's the story of my dad, Roger, and my mom, Mimi, and all they went through to be together, and have me. They may not have been model citizens or anything like that. But I still believe that I couldn't have had better people as parents. Because not everyone can go through everything they did, and still love as strongly as they did for each other and me."