So…it's been a month since I updated. SORRY. Real life hit me in the face. As we're into the ending parts of the fic now, I'll try to update more often for those of you still reading. : )

"Wayne," Teresa said, her voice almost choked back as her youngest son jogged toward her. He wrapped her in a bear hug and didn't let her go until Kimball appeared out of one of the few completed buildings at the settlement, and then he stepped back to allow his older brother to embrace their mother. Kimball picked Teresa up and spun her around, and she laughed, so very thrilled to be with her boys again.

"We've set up a tent with a little more structure, Ma," Wayne said eagerly. "It's the size of a one room cabin. There are three of them. Summer's in one, Kimball and I in the other. They didn't want to get married until you got here."

Grace came back from tying Mouse and raised her eyebrow at Kimball. "I don't get twirled?"

Kimball glanced at her, cracking a rare smile before answering in his typical fashion. "No."

"C'mere, sis," Wayne said, scooping her up and spinning around. He almost lost his balance and looked sheepishly at Teresa as she laughed.

"Pete is building a shack for me and him," Grace said. "We'd love to be married as soon as that's feasible."

"Is there a preacher in town?" Teresa asked.

"Yes," Wayne said. "He's been marrying people every day."

"He's a good man," Anton said, nodding. "Just as your boys are. They have a good mother."

"Good father, too," Teresa said, and then wondered if she should specify that she was talking about Walter. He fathered them. He is their father. Her own thoughts hesitated.

But he's not who Grace calls Father.

Teresa sighed. She'd managed to get Jane out of her head for less than an hour, and how he was right back in, setting up camp, flashing her that smile as if he'd never left.

"I'll carry your things to your tent," Kimball offered his mother, picking up her trunk. "Welcome to Oregon, mother," he said. "We're here."

"It's so nice to meet you, Mrs. Jane," said the older man who was taking a lunch break from chopping trees. "Sean Barlow."

"Barlow," Teresa said, shaking his hand. "That name sounds familiar."

"Well, some family of mine used to do the magic business with your husband's family," Sean said. "Boy, when I heared he was coming to Oregon…and to search for Red John Bandit!" He shook his head. "I've got some family back East, they don't know I'm out here yet, but should be coming along in a few year's time. Sam, Susannah, their kids. If I was a lucky man, they'd bring my Eleanor with them. But I shant see her again."

"Who is Eleanor?" Teresa asked.

"My wife," Sean said sadly. "Married to her for eleven years, and then one morning she just runned off with a cowboy. Ain't seen her in eight years. Some say she's dead. Others say she's got seven sons by seven men and ain't one of them's mine. I'd take her back though. In a half a shake of a lamb's tail, I would."

Teresa nodded, not exactly sure where the man was going with his story. He continued to ramble, about his lost fortune and his wild, runaway wife and how his family will have the shock of their lives to see him when they come out to this side of the mountains, and he couldn't believe that a Jane and a Barlow had met so far away from "where all the shenanigans happen" in Tennessee.

"Mama?"

Teresa and Sean both looked over to where Grace was approaching. "I don't mean to interrupt," she said, "but we've made venison."

"Would you care to join us?" Teresa asked Sean.

He smiled. "No, I need to get back to work. Thank you, young lady."

Teresa followed her daughter to their fire, where the boys were already eating hungrily. Teresa took a piece of venison and pulled it apart, not really hungry at all.

"Grace?" she asked, looking over at her daughter. "That thing you said…about Jane. What did you mean?"

"The thing I said?"

"You called him 'father'." Teresa said flat out. "You've never called him that before. It's always 'Father Jane', or 'Father Patrick'. You've always saved 'father' for talking about your real pa."

Wayne gave Grace a bit of a surprised look, and then glanced at Kimball. His expression did not give away his thoughts.

Grace looked into the fire. "Our real father died when I was a baby," she said. "I don't even remember him. There wasn't a male around the house when I was young. Then he showed up, and…" she shook her head. "Momma, he's a tortured soul. He's got these demons about him, this bit of him is just uncontrollable. But…" she shrugged. "He tries to do right by us. All of us. You taught us that men should act respectable toward women. He showed us how men are supposed to act around women."

"He did," Kimball agreed.

"Respecting women?" Wayne asked. "He's made Mother bend over backwards for him the last two years."

"Wayne…" Grace said. "No one can make Mother do anything."

He can, Teresa thought to herself, feeling guilty. He can.

"Mother," Grace said again, looking over at Teresa. "When I…when I walked into your bedroom the day Julia was born, and you two frantically started screaming at me to get out, to go away, trying to prevent me from witnessing what awful tragedy was unfolding…" she stopped when her mother blinked hard and looked down at her lap. Grace reached over and put her hand on Teresa's knee. "I only saw you two a split second before you saw me. But I saw how he was looking at you. He was holding your hand tightly, his other hand was brushing your hair back, and he was looking down at you with such worry…" she shook her head. "I never have doubted that he loves you. Having seen that, I just can't. When…when Louisa's mother died in childbed, she said that as terrible as that day was, what hurt the most was her father's complete lack of concern for her mother. He just wanted the baby. 'It's a boy', he said. 'I know it's a boy'. It was in fact a son, but the baby died, too, not ten minutes after his birth. Louisa said that her father had never seemed less interested in his wife. He didn't care that she was dying. He wanted his son." She shook her head slowly. "But there was never anything more obvious to me than his concern about you was that day. He loves you, and he tried his damndest to do right by us. And that's good enough for me. He's failed so many times, at so many things, but he's the one I think of when I hear 'father'. It doesn't make a difference that I'm not his blood."

"Oh, Grace," Teresa said, reaching over with one arm and tugging her daughter closer, using her hand to guide the red head to rest on her shoulder. Tears were in the older woman's eyes as she rocked Grace slowly back and forth. Across the fire, Kimball, expressionless as usual, observed. Wayne, not looking very happy, shifted his weight.

Teresa found that making up her bed in the new tent was just as simple as it had been on the Oregon Trail – shaking out her blankets and curling up on the floor. "We will have beds soon," Kimball told her. "Anton and I are working on making them. At least for you ladies."

"Kimball," Teresa said as he was about to head for his and Wayne's temporary quarters.

"Yeah?"

"I…" she studied her son. "I just needed to look at you. I know the light's terrible, but…" she shook her head. "We made it. We're here. We're safe." She smiled. "And I'm very excited for you to marry Summer. It doesn't matter to me that that baby ain't yours. You'll be as proud of that child as I am of 're gonna take it and raise it as your own and you won't coddle it and when it grows up it will be as strong and independent as you are. Because you are."

"I know," Kimball said. "My parents taught me how." He gave her a small smile and vanished into the night.

Teresa watched him go, then looked to her side and up, staring at the moon.

"You still love him."

She turned to see Sean Barlow, walking not ten feet behind her, leading two skinny oxen. "I…" she started. "I don't know."

"You do," he said. "I come from a family of psychics, remember? You're still a little bit in love with him. But he's so secretive, and controlling, and reckless, and unpredictable. You never really know his true plans. Sometimes you wonder if you even know him at all. But then he'll go and do something that will remind you why you love him, and the cycle starts again. And you lay awake thinking about him every night." He gave her a sympathetic smile in the moonlight. "It's hard, isn't it?"

She closed her eyes and gave him a polite smile in response, and he moved on, leaving her to craw into the big tent and find her blankets. The night was chilly – winter was nearly upon them – and it took less than an hour for Grace to find her way across the space between her and her mother. They wrapped their arms around each other and shifted the blankets over both of them, hoping to stay warm enough for a little sleep.

You would not BELIEVE how happy I was that the guy from the finale was named Barlow, since Sam Barlow established the Barlow Toll Road at the end of the Oregon Trail in 1846! The family, Sam and Susannah, that Sean mentioned are the real life couple.

And yes, I did make Lisbon's "so that thing you said...what did you mean?" line be to Grace in this fic instead of Jane. In case anyone was confused on that. ;)