Thanks for the reviews. As you can see, I finally got around to posting the epilogue! Sorry it took so long but I've been feeling so angsty about Jate since the finale that haven't been able to write anything fluffy, as those of you who've been reading my recent fics will have noticed, and as usual, this is as fluffy as it gets!

I couldn't decide what to call Sawyer and Juliet's baby so I decided to use ReadingRed's idea - especially when I found out that it was actually a popular Southern name! ;)

Epilogue.

"Do you think Amy will be offended that we didn't invite Ethan?" Kate asked Juliet, bringing her mug up to her lips.

They were sitting at opposite ends of the LaFleur's couch, drinking coffee while their children played together on a blanket on the floor. With Sawyer and Juliet's son, Wyatt, now seven months old and sitting up on his own, they had decided that it was a good time to arrange his first official playdate with Sydney, which so far seemed to be going pretty well. There hadn't been any tears yet which Kate took to be a good sign.

Juliet raised a dubious eyebrow at her. "Do you really want the man who tried to steal your nephew playing with your daughter?"

Right now, Ethan was like any other two year old boy; it was easy to forget what he was capable of, or would be in the future. Just the thought of it made her a little nervous. "Not when you put it like that!" she insisted. She watched her fifteen month old daughter totter across the room to retrieve a building block that had rolled off the mat, bringing it back to Wyatt, who was waiting with his hands outstretched. Already they made a pretty good team. "I don't care what Jack says – she's marrying Wyatt." She mussed her dark curls affectionately when she paused in front of them. "Aren't you, Sweetie?"

"Yeh!" Sydney cried, even though Kate doubted she had any idea what she was agreeing to. At least it wasn't 'No', which was her new favourite word, especially at naptime.

"From her mouth to God's ears," Juliet joked and she and Kate both laughed.

Just then the front door slammed behind them and Kate heard Sawyer's voice drawl, "You ladies look like you're havin' fun," as he rounded the corner into the living room.

"Oh, hey, James," she greeted him. "We were just talking about you."

He sighed in mock resignation, pretending to shoot a cowed glance at Juliet. "What'd I do this time?"

"We were just saying that Wyatt has your dimples," Kate explained with a smile. He was the spitting image of his father, with the same cheeky grin – albeit with less teeth – but he had his mother's colouring with his sandy blonde hair, brilliant blue eyes and porcelain skin. Together Sawyer and Juliet were the model of Aryan breeding.

It would be interesting to see what kind of children he and Sydney would produce if they did in fact get married, with her every bit as dark as he was fair. While Sydney's eyes had appeared blue at first, one morning not long after they'd brought her back from Ann Arbour, Kate had gone in to pick her up from her crib and found Jack's beautiful brown ones staring back at her just like she'd always imagined.

"And he's not above using them to get what he wants," Juliet agreed. She was always the first one to cave whenever he flashed them.

Kate had never seen Sawyer as proud of anything as he was of his son. She remembered him telling her once, when he was just a few weeks old, that he considered him to be the best part of himself. It was the same way that she'd always felt about Sydney, like after years of getting everything wrong, she'd finally done something right. "That's my boy," he gloated, scooping him up off the rug and swinging him high in the air, causing him to squeal with delight. "He's gonna be a lady-killer when he grows up."

Juliet smiled at the sight of them together. "Just like his dad," she teased Sawyer.

"Speaking of dads, we should get going," Kate announced, catching Sydney under the arms before she disappeared beneath the dining room table. Much to Jack's dismay, she seemed to have inherited her adventurous streak along with her evasiveness. In the months since she'd started walking, she'd sent both of them into a panic on more than once occasion when she'd wandered off somewhere around Dharmaville. Finally Jack had installed baby gates all over the house in order to keep her fenced in. "You know how this one's is. He won't take a break unless I remind him."

She turned to her daughter, now securely positioned on her hip, where she could keep an eye on her. "You wanna go see Daddy at work?"

Sydney nodded with big jerks of her head.

"Thanks for the coffee, Juliet," Kate told her as Juliet gathered up the empty mugs and carried them to the sink.

"Any time."

"Say bye, Sydney," she instructed her daughter as they made their way to the door.

"Buh-bye!" she shrieked.

Since they'd been at Juliet's all morning, Kate hadn't had time to prepare anything for lunch so she decided to stop off at the cafeteria.

Hurley waved to them from behind the counter as they entered. "Hey, Kate. Hey, Sydney. I have something for you," he told the little girl, fishing a chocolate chip cookie out a jar on the counter, chuckling at the way she strained her tiny body towards it as she reached out to accept her prize.

Once she had it in her hands, she held it up proudly. "Mama!"

Her innocent enthusiasm made Kate smile. If only they could all be that happy with something as simple as a cookie. "Wow. Aren't you a lucky girl?" she said, sighing inwardly as she watched her try to cram the whole thing into her mouth at once. "What d'you say?"

"Tenk ooh," Sydney chirruped through a mouthful of cookie.

"Uncle Hurley."

"Unkoo Early," she repeated, stumbling over the name.

Kate managed to catch Hurley's eye and they both laughed. "I think that deserves another cookie," he said, taking a second chocolate one from of the jar. She still hadn't finished the first one but she made a grab for it with her other hand, taking a huge bite out of it too.

"You realise she's gonna expect that every time we come in now?" Kate teased him, using the hem of her daughter's pink t-shirt to wipe a smear of chocolate from her chin.

"I know, but she's just so darn sweet. And smart," he agreed with a sheepish grin. Just like with Aaron, he'd always had a soft spot for her and Wyatt. "Hey, you think she'll be a doctor like Jack when she grows up?"

While Kate knew that he was trying hard not to put any limitations on her, she also knew that he would prefer if that particular family tradition died with him. "Not if Jack has anything to say about it," she assured him. He would rather she became a janitor if she wanted to follow in her footsteps; at least then she could avoid falling into the same trap of blame and self-doubt that that he had. But he was learning. They both were. Things were definitely better this time around.

She gathered a few things onto her tray and placed it on the counter between them. "Would you mind if we got this to go?"

He was sitting at the desk in the corner when she let them into the shed, pouring over a stack of papers. It was a far cry from his ritzy office at St Sebastian's, with vacuum cleaners and floor buffers and other janitorial equipment lining the walls instead of books but he always seemed more relaxed there, as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders, which in a sense it had. He was no longer responsible for people's lives, just those of the two people that he loved most.

"Daddy hi!" Sydney called as soon as she spotted him.

He looked up at the sound of her voice, breaking into a grin when he saw them, standing and leaning over the desk so that he could kiss Kate. "Hey." He took Sydney from her and settled her on his own hip, placing a series of noisy kisses on her cheek. "Hi. What're you guys doing here?" he asked Kate.

"We came to bring you lunch." Kate set the paper bag down on the desk in front of him, along with a thermos filled with coffee.

As always, she could see that he was touched that she wanted to take care of him. He used the hand that wasn't holding Sydney to pull her in for another kiss. "What did I do to deserve you?" he murmured against her lips, making her smile too.

When he finally released her, she opened the bag and began taking things out of it to show him. "You have a choice between chicken and mayo or roast turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiches and then there're vanilla cupcakes for dessert so there's no excuse for you not to eat something," she finished in a stern voice.

"Wow," he said, clearly impressed. "You must have been in the kitchen all morning."

She scooped everything up and put it back inside. "As much as I would love to take the credit for making all of this, it wasn't me. It was all Hurley."

"I knew I should have married him instead," he teased her.

"Ha ha. Very funny," she complained, feigning offence. "Maybe I should just take this back then." She reached for the bag but he snatched it away with his free hand.

"Don't you dare!" he insisted, clutching it to his chest so that it was shielded behind Sydney.

"So what about you and Syd?" he asked seriously when they both sobered. "Will you stay and have lunch with me?"

"If you've got time, I was thinking we could turn it into a picnic. Maybe take Sydney down to the duck pond." She was just old enough now that Kate thought she might get a kick out of feeding them so she'd brought along a couple of extra slices of bread just in case.

"I always have time for my girls," he agreed with a smile.

"You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that," she told him. She loved that his new outlook on life meant that she and Sydney came first.

He lowered Sydney to the ground and went back over to his desk, closing the files and gathering them into a neat pile. "Okay, let's go." He picked one of Sydney's little hands up in his and Kate took the other and together the three of them walked outside to enjoy the afternoon sunshine.

Again, thank you all for reading and reviewing. ;)