AN: Okay Folks!

Here is the epilogue! We are finally done with this boring drivel! The real story (aka Part Three) will be posting soon! Thanks for hanging in, reading, favouriting, following, reviewing!

Mega thanks to WPear, twi nana, CowgirlKelly, and catgrl, for reviewing last chapter!


Chapter Twelve: Epilogue

Renée's POV

Watching Sarah go through recovery after the accident was stressful for everyone. She had always been a strong, capable woman, and being unable to do things for herself that she normally wouldn't think twice about, was like torture for her.

I still remember the panic when we heard her distress over the radio as she asked for an ambulance. Charlie had phoned the ambulance, grabbed Sue and June, our resident nurses, and headed to the scene of the accident, knowing they could get there before the ambulance would.

Billy and I stayed home with the kids until we could get the Uleys to come and watch them. It was the worst fear I have ever felt.

Losing Sarah would have been like losing the heartbeat of our family. She was the one who kept the rest of us sane. June and Sue and I all had very...extreme personalities. Sarah was the even-keel one, with the steady hands and soft smile. She always had a hug or reassurance for anyone who needed it. She was always our safe harbor during the storms of life.

And the accident was her own personal hurricane.

But, she got through it. Her body healed and soon enough, we were all able to breathe. And gradually, things went back to normal.

By the time the kids were heading back to school after winter break, Sarah was almost as good as new. Thank heavens for Charlie's blood. Her recovery probably would have taken a year or even longer without it.

But even after Sarah was healed, all of the kids were a lot clingier with her than they ever had been. The rest of us moms were basically chopped liver for a while. I guess nearly losing her had scared them just as much as it had scared us. Even though we had carefully downplayed how bad it really had been. I think they instinctively knew.

But the kids had their own stuff going on as well. They were getting old enough that they were each finding their own paths in the world.

Leah, our oldest, was just as stubborn as always. But she had learned patience and compassion. She spent most of her free time with Sam, although she had learned to make room for Angela and they seemed to coexist peacefully most of the time, though they certainly still fought on occasion.

Rachel, the eldest of the twins, was the head of creativity and marketing for the GCBS Kids Café, which was what George Charles' lemonade stand had become. She conducted surveys among all of their friends to ensure they catered to the demands of their demographic.

Their menu had evolved into specialties that they could charge more for because they were fancy and popular. And while anyone could eat their wares, they were only willing to sell to other kids. Which meant, if an adult wanted a frozen lemonade, they had to send their son or daughter to pick it up for them.

Some of their most popular items were the Bannock Bread Sandwich Series, with Peanut Butter Jam and Peanut Butter Banana being their biggest sellers. And they made a frozen peach lemonade and a frozen raspberry lemonade that all the kids went crazy for.

Eventually, we had built them a little structure in the corner of our yard that they used as their café. It had four tables they had salvaged and decorated with fancy tablecloths Sue made for them.

It had a counter and a menu board. They had purchased a blender out of their profits which they used for their frozen drinks and they had purchased a double burner hot plate to cook their bannock and other items. They also had upgraded their picnic cooler to a mini-fridge for their cold ingredients eventually (which we had gotten for them one Christmas).

The café was almost always where Rachel, Seth, and, of course, George Charles, could be found whenever they weren't in school or doing their chores or homework.

They were open from 4-6 pm on weekday afternoons. We made them close at 6 pm so they could have dinner with the family and still do their homework before bed. Their hours on Saturdays were 9 am to 4 pm and we insisted they take Sundays off entirely so we could still do things as a family.

RaeRae was the one who took the orders and served the customers and chatted with them and kept them happy. George Charles, the proprietor, and chef of the establishment, handled the books and the cooking. Seth did their grocery shopping at the farmer's market in town and kept the café clean and well maintained.

Becks sometimes hung out there as well whenever she missed her twin, and of course made purchases there, as all the kids did, but mostly, she preferred to play basketball with Leah. They had both gotten pretty good and by the time they were old enough to go out for the girls' basketball team, they easily made the starting lineup and quickly became the star players.

Speaking of Becks, I still remember the day I went into the older girls' bedroom and found her kissing one of the other girls from the basketball team. I've never seen two people fly apart and pretend to be studying as quickly as those two had! I just giggled and collected the laundry and advised them to lock the door if they wanted their privacy.

I was surprised something similar hadn't happened with Willie yet, but he was too preoccupied with his music to have time for boys. He had gotten so good with the violin that we'd had to get him a better violin teacher in Seattle. So, every Saturday, one of us grown-ups took turns driving Willie to Seattle to study under an accomplished professional violinist.

It was worth it, though. His sound was amazing. He could play almost any piece of music and play it tremendously well.

So well, in fact, that by his grade ten year, he was already fielding offers from college music programs as well as professional orchestras. He kept declining them though and when we asked him why, all he said was that when the right thing came he would know it. "I'll feel it in my bones," he insisted. So we let it be.

Seth, in addition to working with George Charles and Rachel, had gotten pretty interested in skateboarding. He wasn't looking to do it professionally or anything, but he was pretty good at it and could do all kinds of fancy tricks on it.

So whenever he wasn't at the café, he was usually doing grocery runs in town for George Charles on his board. Or running errands for us, such as dropping parcels at the post office or picking up tools for Billy from the hardware store. Really, he would take any excuse to pop a wheelie or whatever.

And then there was Bella. Out of all our kids, Bella was the one who was best at managing her time. She made just as much time for her younger siblings as she did for her older ones.

She would play basketball with Leah and Becks; hang out at the café with the GCBS crew; sit and listen to Willie practice his music; work on her karate (she had passed all the other kids in level ranking); and still make time to play dolls with Suzie; or help Henry with his homework; or break up a disagreement between Jakey and Julia (which happened a lot).

And when any of the kids had a problem, they were just as likely to take it to Bella as they were to bring it to us. She usually had a reasonable solution to offer and when she didn't, she would find one. Her problem-solving skills rivaled those of most adults.

She even helped George Charles when he was thinking of expanding his business. He wanted to diversify but he wasn't sure what to invest in next. So Bella suggested he start a landscaping business in town and hire their friends in town as his employees. That way, he only needed to be there to advertise and secure clients. Once the clients were in place, his workers could do the rest.

So he did. He took a portion of his profits from the café and used them to buy push-powered mowers which were cheaper and better for the environment. He hired Sam, Atarik, and Quil, to begin with. They each received a mower on loan and were told that if it broke they had to pay to replace it. He told them they wouldn't have to find clients or even interact with them, they just had to mow the lawns.

In return, they would get fifty percent of the money from the lawns they mowed. Since they were used to not having any money, they thought this was a great deal.

So George Charles went about setting up clients and scheduling their services and once a month they made their checks out to him (we had helped him open a bank account back when the café started getting to be a big thing). Then, each of his employees would receive cash from him once a month for the lawns they mowed. He allowed them to set their own availability and scheduled their clients accordingly. For the most part, it was pretty win-win.

Although, most of the time, when his employees came to pick up their pay, they just turned around and spent it at the café. But hey, that was their choice. And all of their parents were happy because he was giving the kids something productive to do. He also donated ten percent of his total profits to local charities. He may have been focused on profits but he also had a good head on his shoulders.

And of course, whenever Quil came around to pick up his pay or discuss something with his boss, Jakey and Julia were thrilled to have extra time with him. That was where most of their fighting stemmed from. Quil and Jakey were best friends, but Julia was head over heels for Quil and he for her. So whenever he came over, Julia and Jakey would both try to have one-on-one time with him and exclude the other.

Poor Quil just wanted to spend time with both of them and I think he was getting a little sick of being the rope in their tug-of-war. But of course, whenever things got really strained, Bella would jump in and put things in perspective and then for at least a while there would be peace.

Suzie tended to get pulled into those disagreements too because Julia was her best friend and therefore expected her to take her side. But also, Jakey and Suzie were...close. In the way that George Charles, Seth, and Rachel were...close. As in, we had taken to keeping an open door policy around the house.

With so many children, many of whom weren't even biologically related, it was bound to be an issue. And it really wasn't like we could say much. Charlie's biological parents, Helen and William, had been first cousins. So were Josh and Lucas' parents, Jonathan and Mirabelle. It was an extremely small tribe. Nearly everyone was related in some way or another.

We couldn't control the future. All we could do was slow it down. And all of the kids had been given "the talk" several times in several different ways by several different adults who had all stressed that they were young and would have the rest of their lives to do grown-up things and should take the time now to just be kids or they might one day regret not doing so.

We were really blessed though. To think that a few fights between siblings and some getting a bit too affectionate were the only problems we had to contend with, well, it meant our kids were pretty good kids.

Of course, there was one problem we'd started having that couldn't be ignored much longer.

Last week, Willie had come home with bruises on his face and limping badly enough that Bella had to help him into the house.

"What happened?" Sue asked, frantically applying first aid.

"He just started hitting me and calling me bad words and he told me to stop staring at his brother," Willie admitted quietly.

"It was bad, Moms. I had to pull the kid off of him. By the time I got there Willie was on the ground, it didn't look like the boy was going to stop." Bella whispered.

"Good Lord," Sarah trembled. We were all pretty shaken.

Charlie came over, "What was the name of the boy?"

Bella shook her head, "Don't, Pa. One kid isn't the problem. The problem is, it's a small school. No one is openly gay there except Willie. The other boys are afraid to talk to him because they think everyone will assume they are gay if they do. And even the ones who are...they don't have Willie's confidence. They're just scared. Not everyone has accepting parents like you guys.

"He needs to go to a bigger school where he won't be the only gay kid. Where he won't stick out as much. That's the solution," Bella insisted.

"She's right. I don't wanna go there anymore. I don't have any friends there besides my siblings and I can see them at home. It's been getting bad for a while now. Sam told Leah that he and Angela would watch out for me if I transferred to Forks. They said there are other gay kids there. I think I would be happier there. And safer," Willie pleaded.

And so, the grown-ups discussed it. To us, it felt like running away from the problem. The other boy should have to answer for his behavior. And I didn't understand how a community that could openly accept our polyamorous family could also openly shun our gay son. It hurt my heart.

But it was a small community and if that was one thing that they weren't ready to face, maybe it was in Willie's best interest to change schools.

The world was changing and I hoped that one day, being gay wouldn't still have the stigma it did. But we couldn't change the future by wanting it to be different. It would only change by teaching future generations to accept others for who they are. Which was what we díd with our kids and what they would do with theirs. We just had to hope that others would do the same.

After talking it over, we reluctantly agreed to let Willie transfer to Forks. There were only two weeks left of his grade ten year. So, for grade eleven, he would have a fresh start in a new space. We could only pray that things would be better. Little did we know it would be the beginning of all kinds of huge changes for our family. For our community. And eventually, for our world.


AN: Well, that's it for Family Album!

I will post a teaser when Part Three: Uniting the Alphas begins posting. It should be soon!

As promised, here are all the kids' names and faceclaims, organized by household!

Blackswan Household:

Leah (LeeLee) = (canon) Julia Jones

Rachel (RaeRae) = (canon) Tanaya Beatty

Rebecca (Becks) = Tristin Mays

William (Willie) = (Young) Eddie Spears

Seth = (Older than canon) BooBoo Stewart

Isabella (Bella) = Madison Cheeatow

George Charles = Blair Redford

Julia = (Terminator Genisys) Emilia Clarke

Jacob (Jakey) = (Young) Douglas Booth

Suzanne (Suzie) = Barbara Palvin

Henry = Aiden Andrews

Uley Household:

Sam = (canon) Chaske Spencer

Atarik = Siddharth Nigam

Mira = Miika Whiskeyjack

Emery = Sienna Agudong

Uley/Clearwater Household:

Clara = Taysha Fuller

Edmond = Nathan Kress

Harold = Aramis Knight

Allen = Marcel Ruiz

Webber Household:

Angela = (canon) Christian Serratos

Isaac = Xolo Maridueña

Joshua = Sladen Peltier

Ateara Household:

Quil = (canon) Tyson Houseman

Molly Mae = Alison Fernandez

Littlesea Household:

Collin = (canon) Brayden Jimmie