Hey, we've reached the end. I'm not writing a continuation to this to be clear; I'll write a separate 'fic next time. Thank you all for sticking with me and I've loved it so much. The reason this chapter is so long is because I didn't want to deprive you by not tying up different storylines. Thanks again. BTW harmattia is Greek for tragic flaw or Achilles' heel in modern terms.

During the six months she spent at home, Nicole came to realise what people meant when they said motherhood is a full time job. She did her best to give her everything she needed and felt guilty and wary having to leave her in day-care the morning she went back to work. Not to mention, she had heard I told you so, more times from Antonio than she cared to remember; she had become a compassionate and protective mother the day Maya was born. She had put Nicole through the wringer for six months and the colic she had for ten weeks, put her on edge; motherhood was amongst the hardest things she'd ever committed herself to. But as always, she persevered and came to know Maya inside out and how to care for her. That's why she felt guilty for leaving her with a childminder even though he had passed her rigorous interview. Antonio noticed her stalling.

"The highway will be hell in half an hour." He said, rubbing her back.

"I know." She replied, happily watching Maya who was mastering the art of putting all her fingers in her mouth.

"It'll get easier, but you do have to go to work. It's what you wanted."

She picked up her briefcase full of files she had been looking over to be on top of things on her first day back, there were operations she was coordinating that had gone to plan and some that had failed due to "ass-backward" decisions, as she called them, made in her absence.

"It is. Let's go."

"You're not going to say goodbye?"

"You're used to this. I can't."

He drove her to work and she didn't say much on the way there. She was shutting down all those feelings in order to focus on work. She was mentally prepared; catching up on current events, doing extreme workouts to get her body back and concentrating on the future had put her in the mindset to handle the world she had dedicated herself to for he last twelve years.

"She's fine Nic. I ran his record remember? All he has are a few parking tickets. You don't have to worry." She nodded silently and he knew she didn't hear, register and/or believe a word he said. After five minutes of awkward silence, he reached for her hand instead of the gear shift. "It won't be like the last time, I promise." He said reassuringly after realising what was bothering her; she was four weeks pregnant and the thought of losing the baby weighed heavily on her mind. She disclosed her worry once, when they agreed to try again on their first wedding anniversary. His promises were full of sentiment, which she appreciated, but couldn't control the outcome. That was left purely to chance. "Think about why we wanted this in the first place; so Maya could have a little brother."

"Sister." She corrected him although it didn't matter to her either way. "It'll be nice though; having kids that are fourteen months apart. They'll be close."

"It'll be even better when we have four." He joked solely to push her buttons.

After an hour-long briefing from her boss, she was back to throwing her weight around as it allowed. She found the more energy she put into work, the less she had to think about what was hurting her and who she'd go home that evening. All in all, it was a bad first day; an off-the-books operation she coordinated had been brought to her boss' attention incurring a mid-afternoon grilling which she responded to with uncharacteristic restraint. Luckily he gave her the breathing space to fix it but the news of an Agent she sent undercover dying after a bad judgement call as well as having to comfort their parents who wouldn't leave brought her to a low point. Nicole's workout was interrupted by Pollock; she was four pounds away from her original weight and he was standing in the way of her achieving it. She lowered the speed of the treadmill and wiped her forehead.

"Code red. Canton, Ohio." He said reverting to their basic language.

"Thirty-six hours." She replied, stepping off and taking the case file. "Twenty two days?"

"No reliable sightings."

"Damn. I'm on it." She confirmed and he was relieved that she hadn't lost her spark completely.

Antonio and Jess were attending a meeting in the field office with the head of Ohio's police department, the state's top forensic investigator, the forensic psychologist that was Jess' new partner and the District Attorney; Anna Delores. Theo Vanholten, aged twelve, was kidnapped on the way home from school twenty-two days ago and with forty-seven convicted sexual predators living in ten mile radii of his home, school and youth club there were too many suspects to find him the conventional way. The disappearance had been the material of the local newspapers and created a moral panic across the state but particularly in his home town. There had been four vigilante acts of vandalism and the police office had been bombarded with calls of fury. Finding him was a priority not just for his family, but to gain some respect from the residents.

"Of the suspects there are four ex-convicts, five teachers and two youth workers who still aren't accounted for and none of the tips have led us anywhere. Of the four so-called sightings, only one of them was right and Theo has since been moved from that location. I assume whoever took has either killed him already or skipped the state." Anna informed them.

"Or," Nicole announced, walking in unexpectedly. "His kidnapper is enjoying the attention and keeping him right here in his hometown while we go on a wild-goose chase. Of his immediate family,"

"Who we ruled out entirely." Anna interrupted.

"I don't believe in entirely." Nicole rebutted. "Especially when his heroin-addict uncle, Vincent Schmitt, returned to Canton six weeks ago. He moved to Cincinnati after the family wrote him off. My sources tell me he owes some people a lot of money."

"If he was trying to hold his nephew for a ransom to pay them off with, then he would've done that already." Jess stated.

"Unless what they want isn't money itself but a commodity they can use to get money in perpetuity." Antonio suggested, sensing the growing tension between his current and ex- wives.

"Or however long that is until they kill Theo." Jess concluded. "Excuse me." She said, leaving to decipher her vision.

"If it's a trade; what can they do with a twelve-year-old boy?" Anna asked before answering her own question in a grim tone. "Prostitute him. I'll compile a list for known and named associates of convicted paedophiles and child pornographers, especially those whose trials gained widespread media attention."

"I'll have my top officers find Uncle Vince within the hour." The Police Head affirmed.

"He's in interrogation room number three. The strung-out bastard resisted arrest." Nicole replied, annoying Anna for stepping on her feet.

"I'll interview him." Antonio volunteered to get out of the room which had become much smaller since Nicole's entrance.

"Agent Scott, do you know who's behind this?" The Police Head asked.

"No Sir, I don't. One of my best agents will call in an hour. Until then I'd appreciate it if you told me everything you know about Judge Gary North; there were accusations of his involvement in a paedophile ring,"

"You're walking on shaky ground Agent Scott."

"I understand that and I don't intend to sling mud, but surely he can help."

"If you can get him to cooperate, he's all yours. Just don't mention my name."

Anna observed Jess' and admired her prowess; they way she exploited his paranoia and gained his trust, was the mark of a fully-fledged F.B.I. Agent who had come into their own.

"Are you alright?" Jess asked intuitively.

"I'm fine, just fine. Do you believe him?" Anna asked in her professional and slightly agitated tone.

"He's so strung out he couldn't have masterminded this. He lost control of the situation before it even began so at most, you can charge his as…"

"An accessory, I know."

"Where's Maya?" Antonio asked Nicole

"She's at Mom's. To think I left the field so I could be home every night, but here I am."

"You don't have to be here, you want to." He said, realising that she still loved the field more than he did.

Anna walked in on their conversation. "That Agent of yours is really something, there was a positive sighting in the North-East."

Jess joined them in full gear. "The tactical team will arrive at the location in thirty minutes with the police outside to arrest them. Pollock tipped the media."

"So this is where you save the day." Anna said to Nicole in particular, in half wit and half cynicism.

Nicole picked up her jacket. "No, actually I'm heading home. Goodnight guys."

"What?" Jess asked, totally bemused.

"This is your case and I don't need the extra paperwork. Just make sure my Agent arrests the lead perp; she's earned it." Jess smiled, knowing Nicole did the same for her almost four years ago. With that she was surprisingly gone.

Three months later.

By five a.m. he found her in the nursery that Nina had decorated with zeal, already feeding the baby.

"Go back to bed, I'll take over." He said kissing her shoulder. "You were great out there."

"I guess I was." She replied and then asked, "What would you think if I went back to the field?"

"Is that what you want?"

"I think about it sometimes but I know that means seventeen-hour days, always being away and trying to fit your kids around a schedule that doesn't make much time for them."

"You said; if you don't like reality, change it. I'm willing to do that. The question is; are you? Whenever I mention leaving the Bureau, you dissuade me and the only reason I've put up with it this long is because I know you get vicarious satisfaction from me doing the job you love."

Damn, you do pay attention. "Are you still willing to take a well-paid, mundane job?"

"That depends. Are you ready to leave D.C.?" He asked, predicting a negative answer.

"Yes."

"What? You won't miss it?"

"I bought a house, we built a home. Which do you think I'll miss the most?"

"How about New York?" He stared at her until they both burst out in laughter. The idea of their living in the same state as his mother and sister was hysterical. That was an open invitation to familial interference that neither of them appreciated. "Are you sure this is what you want?"

She kissed him to quench his doubt. "I'm ready."

He felt free. Not only because he was finally rid of Pollock and his subtle ridicule, but because he was who he wanted and chose to be and had found the woman who accepted him for who he was and didn't try to change him. Jess would miss them but she didn't say a word against it; when the need arose she called Nina who bared her grievances. Nicole was her friend, her partner and previously her mentor and she would never forget what they had shared in all that time.

Before a few weeks before they left, Jasmine visited finally ready to hear 'the whole Darnell story.' He initially pursued her for six months to no avail. By then, she had made the choice that college was her destination and between school and her part-time job she didn't have time for him. He always offered her a ride in hissexy bad-ass Jetta and the one day she was running late to work, she had no choice but to accept it.

"The art of male manipulation is making a woman or even a man believe they're not being manipulated. That's what he did to me. I'm sure I saw parts of him that were genuine but the layers of bullshit far outweighed that."

After gaining her trust and loyalty through false promises and dedications of Freddie Jackson records to her on a local radio station, the relationship began when she was seventeen and ended in her third year of college.

"Things had been going sour for the past year. He was always overprotective and controlling but the last year was the worst because I let him put his hands on me even though I knew it was wrong. And I justified it because he was looking out for me. You always here that victims are isolated but I wasn't; he used my freedom and independence as a cover for what he did to me. How can the opinionated, tough, go-getter Nicole Scott be knocked by her man? That's what my roommates thought."

"So why'd you leave and how?"

"We went out to a club one night and frat guys who I knew from college were there. I was getting a lot of attention and he couldn't handle it; so after a yelling match in the car; he dragged me inside and slapped me around his apartment."

"I thought you lived together?"

"Only on the weekends and vacation, for the most part I lived on campus."

"Right. So you snapped that night?"

"Absolutely. After I'd thrown my heels at him we were fighting and it got so bad he ended up strangling me. I still remember looking up at him and seeing his face blurry then clear then blurry again. As though he would rather hold me down forever than let me go. But I'd already outgrown him."

"Did he stop?"

"Yeah. The first words out of his mouth were an apology that made me sick. So I walked; with no shoes and marks on my neck and my face. I just left."

"Where'd you go?"

"I can't remember all I know is; I was gone for good and there was no way he could reach me again. There was no love for him; just devastation. But it happens every day. Aint that a bitch."

"Did you kill him?"

"No. He shot himself."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because after everything he did, I had to own up to what I put myself through. He doesn't owe me his life and I wasn't going to take it because I reclaimed my own the night I left him."

"Wow. Do you think ever loved you, in the beginning?"

"Who wouldn't love someone who put up with them at their worst and still kept on giving? He loved getting over on me, the power I yielded, the way I sacrificed myself for him. The ultimate comedown came when he saw I wasn't that person anymore and the hold weakened into nothing."

"Do you think Mom would have left?"

"No. I don't agree with what she did but know this; those were the desperate actions of an isolated individual. She had nowhere to go; she was trapped in a loveless, fragmented marriage and disowned by her family."

"That's so messed up."

"It's real; it doesn't have to be good."

"Ten years is a short sentence for murder."

"It was solicitation, not murder."

"Oh. I'm leaving this fall."

"For Baltimore I know. Good for you. Just remember to visit; even if it's just for laundry and free food. So about your boyfriend, what should I know?"

"What do you want to know?"

"If he treats you well, is going somewhere with his life, respects you. That kind of thing."

"I think he respects me but that's subjective, you can't measure that type of thing can you? I had a boyfriend when I was fourteen. He was twenty."

Nicole did her best not to display any signs of shock. "Go on."

"I was excited to have him notice me and all my friends were jealous. It was really stupid because he was in it for him, not for me."

"Did you have sex with him?"

Jasmine nodded. "I was the second in my clique; I didn't want to be the last. When I had fight with my friend; she told everyone and it got back to Mom and Dad. So going to rehab wasn't the first time I've upset them."

"Sounds tough."

"It was. When she found you, she would rave all the time to Dad about how you'd done so much your life and how you surpassed her expectations and everyone else's; but she never told me. He did. Of all the reasons I used, one of them was hearing about you and the first time we met I had to know that you weren't just a myth or something. At the wedding I could see that Kelly was jealous, and when I come over and see you with Maya, I feel the same way."

"Why?"

"She doesn't suffer because of who you were or who you are; she's lucky."

A year later.

For Jess, the feeling of going home was always a mixture of anxiety and excitement; she longed to see her family again but feared the gap between them and wondered whether they could handle the differences. In the time she had taken to find that this was the life she wanted and the man she wanted to share it with; she had gained enough life experience to justify her decision. She knew Nicole and Antonio would support even though they no longer worked together, and telling them was so easy that it gave her the confidence she needed to tell her family. Pictures of their seven-month-old baby girl Ramona Denise were stuck to the fridge in the new apartment she shared with him. He sensed the growing nerves as the cab driver neared her house and put his arm around her. After a few minutes of stalling she found herself introducing him as what he was, "Mom, Doug; this is my fiancée."

After the initial shock cleared, they came to accept it and more importantly, accept him. So much so that Toni insisted on throwing a party so he knew the family he was marrying into.

"You could've warned me Jess. Did you see Mom's face? Classic."

"I meant to; it just happened so fast."

"Why'd you say yes?"

"I didn't have to think or question it; as soon as I said yes I knew it was the truth."

"Cool." He said nonchalantly. "Don't get mad. Guess what I did to your car?"

"What have you done?" She asked in astonishment, giving the pale facial expression he always got out of her as a child. "Tell me!"

He laughed at her, taking away the serious edge D.C. had given her. "Nothing. Relax, you're at home now."

Eight months later.

After settling in in theDirectorate of Intelligence Division, Antonio soon realized the probability of Nicole agreeing to having any more children was low, especially when Maya learnt the word No and her will was starting to rival Nicole's. The car ride home from their trip to Monterrey could have been a scene from Are We There Yet? They left the girls with Nina and James and headed for the cathedral where Jess and her intended were getting married. Nicole had always liked him and as she told Jess, Kelly and Jasmine, "Any man who knows your worth, and shows it, is alright with me."

During the ceremony, she contemplated what if scenarios but knew that she learnt invaluable things from Darnell even if they caused her pain at the time. The experience of doing something her mother never could, made her grow up even faster. It also taught her she was alone in the world. So up came the walls that shielded her from getting to close to others and the always-ready-to-run way of living where she didn't commit to anything, anyplace or anyone except her job.

It was only until she treated the relationship with Antonio like it was for keeps and committed herself to it that she found it was alright to be vulnerable with someone and trusting the wasn't a sign of weakness because taking the risk of believing in him and herself connoted profound inner strength and growth. She was the superhero who'd overcome their harmattia.

What was isn't what is or will be; she recalled Jess' wise words with the belief that committing to the present and the future was more important than the past. The nightmares, bad memories, feelings of guilt, shame and humiliation were all a part of her but so were the love and loyalty she shared with her family and friends and the innocent joy that was reflected in her daughters.

Doug walked behind Jess, whose arm was linked to her Uncle Paul to stop her from falling. He couldn't explain how much Jess understood him or how much he loved her so instead he made a pact with Nicole and Antonio to kick this guy's ass if he ever made her unhappy. After frowning at their cursing in a holy place, Toni was glad to know that she did have people who loved and treated her like family in D.C. and dispelled one of her earliest fears from when Jess left Quantico.

Pollock and Janice sat next to Nicole, who couldn't be a bridesmaid because she couldn't wear the dress Jess had picked out to ensure no-one out dressed her, and Antonio, who was dealing with old memories of being forced to do his Holy Communion and Confirmation despite averaging at five days a year of Catholicism at present. She was sure Janice was pregnant again and was the driving force in his attendance and both their weddings. After the vows and priest pronounced them Mr. and Mrs…

"Do you remember when the judge called us Mr. and Mrs. Cortez? How long did that last, a day?" Antonio joked while Nicole was on her second glass of wine.

"I had to go for the hyphen. I'm only Mrs. Cortez on jewellery. They look great together, I don't think I've ever seen her so happy." Nicole commented on their first dance to Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn's If this world were mine.

"That's what can love can do, when it's not driving you crazy."

"They'll have their days."

"You think she'll take his name?"

"I don't know; Jessica Davina Burgess has a nice ring to it."

Three years later.

Jess watched Jack playing Frisbees with their two-year-old son Giancarlo and their Beagle, Frodo, and asked herself how many children she actually had. She slid her Baretta 9mm pistol into the holder on her hip and met Nicole at the gun range. Together, they used live targets to substitute exes that had wronged them and vent their frustrations with their husbands. Jess finally agreed that happiness is a warm gun, especially if you're a pissed-off woman.

"Do you ever think of Colin?" Nicole asked, beaming at her 99.2 accuracy.

"Not anymore. After he got married I realised he doesn't belong to me anymore and as a friend I want him to be happy, even if her face does resemble a rodent's." Jess blurted out much to Nicole's amusement. "I'm kidding."

"And I'm a natural blonde. Look at it this way; he did it because you gave him that blind faith, remember? Did he ever find out?"

"No. At least he's found the one and he deserves it."

"Cool. Let's hit the track."

"Let's not." Jess said knowing Nicole would coerce her into running countless laps with her hen congratulate her after putting her through physical hell. "I need some new friends." Jess remarked when they were done.

Over the years, frequent trips to Colombia and Mexico had honed her cooking skills, easily put ten pounds on Antonio and embedded her more into the family. As she had predicted, her girls were as inseparable and she and Kelly were. On arrival, he was amazed by the smells of his favourite meal; Chuletas de cerdo con manzana, Cebiche; which he hated as a child and Churros which every child she knew loved with melted chocolate. Consuela's influence and the films, Like Water For Chocolate and Waitress had rubbed off on her; she was cooking her feelings away.

"Pops is dead." She said without warning. Her unchanging facial expression and rational, emotionless tone she used showed that she'd opted for intellectualization as the defence mechanism of the day. He immediately hugged her, waiting for her to come undone but that wouldn't happen until after they had flown to Chicago for the burial, after she'd taken care of Jasmine who'd last seen him at her college graduation a few months before and after she delivered her last words to him at the service. The comfort of crying in her own home, with someone who held her and didn't pacify her gave her the freedom to let go of what she held together to take care of others.

She'd known about her grandfather's pneumonia for over a year and in that time he had prepared her for the inevitable. Under his instruction; she took care of her family before flying out and when she was back in her comfort zone, mourned his death only once. This once took at least four hours but when it was over, it was over. Her Aunt Naomi's rousing rendition of Blessed Assurance no longer rang in her mind and her Uncle Terrence's mention of her mother's past addiction was forgotten. It was a new day and as she walked past their rooms, put up some new pictures and sat in the garden in a peaceful, meditative silence so penetrating she thought she could hear him saying, "Look around you; you're doing fine. You know you're something special baby girl."

Yes…I am.