Thanks for the reviews. That was basically the end, but to round it all off, here is the usual epilogue, albeit with one slight difference... ;)


Chapter 50. Sunday Afternoons

It was another scorching summer's day in L.A. and Kate was sitting on a beach blanket with Libby and Claire, watching a game of football unfold. There were only four players: Aaron, Christian, and Kevin and Libby's five-year-old sons Matthew and Andrew, but between them, they had enthusiasm enough for a whole team.

Seven years had passed since the rescue, but the Shephards, the Callises and the Paces still saw each other every weekend; the women sometimes five or six times a week since their children attended the same public school. These Sunday afternoon barbeques had become something of a ritual since Kevin moved to L.A. to be closer to Libby, provided that both he and Jack could get the day off work.

The children were divided into two teams: Aaron and Christian, the defending champions, on one side in what they collectively called team Shephard, with the younger Callis boys as their challengers. At seven and eight years old, Jack and Claire's sons were opposites in every physical way: while Christian was tall and dark, with his father's eyes and his mother's curls, Aaron was short and fair, but they couldn't have been closer if they'd been born to the same parents. In spite of how uneven the odds were, they'd refused, as always, to be separated, thrashing their less experienced opponents to both their parents' pride and embarrassment.

"Go Matty!" Libby cried when her son scored the boys' first touchdown, jumping up and pumping her fist in the air, colouring slightly when she realised that everyone else was just clapping politely. Kate couldn't blame her; ten minutes before, when Christian scored for their team, she and Claire had high-fived each other, grinning like morons.

"Did you see me, Daddy?" Matthew asked excitedly, seeming to forget that the game was still in progress, and that he had the ball, as he scurried over to where his father was drinking with Jack and Charlie as they took turns at the grill.

"Yeah, buddy, good job," Kevin told him with a grin, ruffling his hair when he dropped the ball and tackled him around the waist, beaming, "but you might wanna keep your tongue in your mouth next time – we don't want you biting it off."

"Okay," Matthew agreed, though Kate doubted he would remember when he was concentrating hard on winning, forgetting the ball as he bounced back over to the makeshift field.

As soon as he noticed this, Christian started towards it, but before he could retrieve it from where it had rolled under the table, a dark-haired toddler crawled out from underneath the tablecloth, tottering up the beach with the ball held out in front of her.

Exchanging a titillated glance with Jack, Kate laughed as she watched their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Emma, head for the hills, much to her son's chagrin.

"Give it back, Emmy!" he cried, chasing after her, causing her to giggle and run even faster. "You're not in the game – you're too little, and you're a girl!"

"She gets that from you," Libby told Kate, her eyes twinkling with amusement, as Kate tried to decide whether or not it was time for her to step in. "You always had to play with the big boys."

Fortunately, Jack seemed to have it under control. "Chris! Let your sister play, okay, man?" he called, just as Christian managed to catch her, pinning her arms with his elbows as he pried her chubby fingers off the ball.

With a scowl, and a surly, "Yes, Dad," that made Kate dread his teenage years, he pushed it back into her hands, steering her to the place where the others were waiting. But before he could finish explaining the rules to her, she was off and running again in the opposite direction to the one she was supposed to be headed in.

"Other way, Emma!" he shouted, waving his arms while Aaron ran after her, trying to turn her around, both of them letting out exasperated sighs when she carried the ball into the endzone and promptly abandoned it in favour of trying to pick up a dead jellyfish. "You just gave them points!"

Kate climbed to her feet, preparing to bring her adventurous child back to the blanket before she reeked any more havoc, but as Christian started towards her, irate, the twin's six-year-old sister, Allie, stepped out in front of him. "You leave her alone Christian Shephard – she's just a baby. She can't help it," she told him, fixing him with her bossiest glare as she came to Emma's rescue, pulling her away from the jellyfish. "You too, Aaron Pace. Come on, Emmy."

Both boys looked cowed as, taking her hand, she led her away from the group, to where she and Aaron's five-year-old sister, Julia, were building a sandcastle together. "You can play with us."

"She gets that from you," Kate shot back with a grin, impressed, as always, by the little girl's diplomatic skills, and all three of them laughed.

"Hey, I just thought of something," Claire said, leaning back on her elbows, as they went back to dividing their attention between the two groups, Kate cringing when Emma pulverised the girls' sandcastle with her bare feet. She was a handful; "spirited", Jack always told her. "How weird would it be if they grew up and got married? Chris and Allie, I mean. They're always fighting."

"Too weird," Kate said, thinking back to her own brief marriage to Kevin, though secretly, she couldn't help the flood of warmth that surged through her at the idea of the three families being united forever. She couldn't ask for better in-laws for her son than his godparents.

"She's already got him henpecked," Libby agreed proudly, casting an apologetic glance at Kate, who couldn't deny it. For some reason, whenever Allison Callis spoke, her headstrong little boy listened.

"Burgers're ready!" Kevin called, clapping his hands to get everyone's attention, and abandoning their games, the children amassed on the table like a litter of puppies, the younger ones helped by their fathers.

Watching him with a smile, Kate couldn't help noting that in addition to filling his own plate, her son, who was tall enough to reach past the others without any trouble, also prepared one for Emma, then Allie, a kind of peace offering, she supposed, which Allie graciously accepted. Libby was right; she kept him on an impressively short leash. They could all learn a thing or two from her.

When the children were all settled on blankets, Aaron, Christian and Allie in one group, and Matthew, Andrew and Julia in the other, their parents helped themselves to what was left. As Libby passed him at the grill, Kevin caught her around the waist from behind, kissing her, to her surprise, causing her to blush, and the boys to throw salad at them, which Kevin promptly returned, to their delight.

When Jack brought over their plates, Emma crawled from Kate's lap into his, and he helped her cut her burger into smaller, more toddler friendly pieces before starting on his own, while she dripped ketchup down his legs.

Beside them, Charlie flapped his own burger open and shut like a mouth, making it talk, and Emma giggle, while Claire watched him with an affectionate grin.

It was just another Sunday afternoon in L.A., but glancing around at her family and friends, Kate couldn't have been happier. Even if Christian and Allie grew apart, and married other people, they would always have this, and an experience no one else would ever understand, to unite them.


So that's the end. I know a lot of you want me to keep going, but I feel like it's reached it's natural conclusion, and that anything more would be overkill. I am, however, working on a new idea. It's canon, set after season three (real time, not flashforward time), so Kate will not be a pregnant teenager, but her criminal past will factor into it. It's based on the idea that Naomi was telling the truth, and the rescue was legit, and is basically my revenge on Sawyer for being such a jerk! It'll be a little bit different to my recent work, more of a slow build (I've always wanted to do one of those Jack and Kate as roommate stories), but hopefully you'll enjoy it. Thanks to everyone who reviewed (don't forget to let me know what you thought of the story as a whole!), and to Shavanda for acting as a sounding board for a lot of my ideas, and I'll see you next time. ;)