It's over. Woot! I actually finished something. I'd like to thank all the people who reviewed, especially Kelby and Mari. I'd also like to thank Maggie and Nikki for hosting me on BohoGirls. It's a great site people! Go to it! Lots of great fan fiction.

My next story is already in the works. Actually, I'll be posting the first chapter a little while after I post this. So look for that.

Reviews are the food of life people. And without further adieu…the end.

Peace

-elodie

Wisp

Epilogue

"Happy twenty-eighth, Miss Winnie," Mark said, planting a firm kiss on the top of her head.

"Mmm, don't remind me," Winnie groaned. "I never imagined I'd feel so old."

Mark coughed loudly. "How do you think it feels to be over thirty?"

"Oh, shush you." Winnie said playfully, sitting up in bed and stretching. "Are we still visiting your parents today?"

"They want to see Roger again. They're always complaining that we never bring him around."

"And then we'll eat dinner with Maureen and Joanne at the Life tonight, right?"

Mark nodded and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "Yep. Are you going to be OK?"

Winnie grinned devilishly and forced herself to stand up. "I feel like I'm going to drop any second."

"Aw, you've got another week." Mark stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her.

Winnie leaned back so she could look up at his face, her nightshirt stretching tightly around her swollen stomach. "Would you like to carry this baby around for the last week?"

Mark grinned impishly. "No, I'll pass."

"What time are your parents expecting us?"

"Ten."

"We better get going."

Mark pouted. "Do we have to?"

Winnie punched his shoulder playfully, slipping into her pair of comfy sweatpants. "This was your idea."

"Very true. But still…"

"Bring your camera. It'll keep you busy. Besides, your mother just wants to see Roger. He is her grandson, you know. She was so angry at you when you let her miss his third birthday." Winnie said, pulling a gauzy shirt over her head.

"I didn't let her. That was purely an accident. Lack of communication on her part."

Winnie raised her eyebrows. "Mark, she leaves a message on our machine at least twice a week. She at least attempts to communicate. You still screen your calls, for Pete's sake."

Mark mumbled something unintelligibly as he dressed himself.

Winnie rolled her eyes, smirking at him. "It's just for a few hours. Besides, she misses you. She told me so."

"She did?"

Winnie nodded. "Yeah. She loves you, you know."

Mark grumbled, "Could've fooled me."

"Mark," Winnie wrapped him in a big hug, "Your family loves you. I mean, yeah, it's hard to believe it sometimes, but they do."

"I love you, Winnie."

Winnie smiled, her heart swelling. "I love you too."

Mark kissed her gently, running his hands down her back and resting them on her hips. "We have a little while," He said to her quietly in between kisses.

"Mark," Winnie said playfully, cracking into a smile. "We need to leave soon. And I'm nine months pregnant."

"That never stopped us before…" Mark laid her back on the bed, kissing her neck.

Winnie blushed and began giggling. "Mark, that tickles." She shivered as his mouth ran from her neck to her chest.

"Mommy?"

Mark and Winnie sat up quickly, seeing their three-year-old son standing in the doorway. "Oh, Roger. We didn't know you were up yet."

The little blond boy climbed up on the bed next to them and cuddled in between them. "What was Daddy doing to Mommy?"

Mark looked to Winnie sheepishly and pulled Roger into his lap. "Well Rog, Daddy was just tickling Mommy."

"You was?"

"Yep. Mommy loves to be tickled. Why don't you tickle her while I go make breakfast and then you can open your presents, OK?"

"Mark!" Winnie squealed as Roger grinned wildly and began tickling her.

*          *          *

"Grandma!"

"Hey little Mr. Roger. Grandma has a candy cane for you inside the house. How does that sound?"

"I love candy canes!" Roger yelled, running inside the house.

Winnie laughed as Mark attempted to help her out of the car. "Mark, I can do it. I'm not an invalid."

"Sorry Miss Winnie."

Mrs. Cohen held out her arms to her son. "Do I get a kiss? You haven't seen me in a year!"

"Hey Mom," Mark bent down and kissed his mother on the cheek. "It's nice to see you again."

Mrs. Cohen nodded her head towards him and bustled off to wrap Winnie in a tight hug. "Oh, Dearie, come inside. You shouldn't be out in the cold in your condition. Come now, inside. Cindy and the kids are in there."

A half an hour later, they found themselves seated in the Cohen family sitting room, watching Cindy's eleven-year-old daughter, Ashley, play with Roger on the floor. Cindy was chatting with Mark on the couch, having finally decided to put their differences aside and get along. Cindy's fifteen-year-old son, Lukas, sat in the far corner of the room, curled on one side of the love seat. He leaned his head against the window above, obviously bored out of his mind.

Winnie felt bad for him. She knew what it was like to sit on the edge of a crowded room and just feel out of place. So she decided to befriend him.

She plopped down in the seat next to him and offered him a small smile. "So you're Lukas, huh?"

He turned his head slowly, glaring at her. "No. I'm Bridget."

"Sorry, stupid question. Are you as bored as I am here?"

Lukas nodded. "Yeah. I didn't think you'd get bored here. You are an adult."

"I'll tell you a secret," Winnie whispered, leaning in closer to him. "I'm really a kid at heart. And I hate any sort of social gatherings. I get nervous around people."

"Me too," Lukas said quietly.

"Except Mark. Mark never made me nervous. He's wonderful."

Lukas looked at her surprised. "Really? Uncle Mark just always seemed like kind of a big nerd."

Winnie grinned. "Oh, he is. It's so endearing. One time here we had…Wait, never mind. I shouldn't tell you that…"

"What?"

"Well, let's just say he made Star Wars sexier than I'd ever imagined."

"I don't want to know, do I?"

"Probably not."

"Grandma's mad that you and Uncle Mark aren't married yet."

Winnie cringed. "Yeah, I've heard. Marriage is kind of a scary thing to us. It's something we've talked about but we've always been too scared to go through with it."

"Uncle Mark always seemed like kind of a wimp too."

Winnie patted Lukas' hand, biting her lip. "Lukas, your Uncle Mark is anything but a wimp. He's had to put up with so much shit in his life. He lost three of his best friends within three years and then another a few years later. He's the strongest person I know. My rock, y'know? Always there for me. And I love him dearly for it."

*          *          *

"Your nephew is a nice kid," Winnie said to Mark as they were driving back to the city.

Mark grinned at her. "You think? He always reminded me of myself. A big science nerd, into film, loves sci-fi."

"He thinks you're a nerd."

"Well, I am."

"That's what I told him."

"Hey!"

Winnie grinned and patted his arm. "Your family's really not that bad, you know. Cindy seems different. Well…nicer."

Mark nodded, his eyes still focused on the road. "She's got a rich boyfriend."

"Ah. That'd do it."

"Winnie, have you ever thought about marriage?"

Winnie turned to him, a bit surprised. "Well, yes. Of course I have. I think we've talked about it before."

Mark shrugged. "Well, I mean really thought about it. Like we've joked about it before and my mother's nagged us about it, but… Oh, never mind."

"OK…" Winnie deflated, turning to gaze out the window. She could hear Roger snoring softly from the back seat.

"Let's get married," Mark said softly.

Winnie's head spun around to look at him. "What?"

"Married. You and me. I have a ring and everything," He grabbed the steering wheel firmly with one hand and rooted around in his jacket pocket, pulling out a small box. "It was my grandmother's ring."

Winnie opened the box and gasped. "Mark, it's beautiful. Of course I'll marry you." She leaned over and kissed his cheek.

Mark's cheeks flushed pink and he grinned at her. "You really will?"

Nodding earnestly, Winnie slipped the ring on her finger. "Perfect fit," She said. "And of course I really will. I love you, Mark."

"Love you too. You look tired."

Winnie yawned widely. "Oh, I am. Mind if I take a nap?"

"Not at all."

Mark couldn't help but smile as Winnie curled up as best she could and drifted off to sleep. Life was pretty good. Pretty damn good if you ask him. He had a girlfriend - no, fiancé - a son, another child on the way, loving friends, and he was starting to connect with his family after so many years of resentment.

He glanced back into the backseat and grinned at the sight of a sleeping Roger. When Winnie had found out she was pregnant, it had been right around Mark's thirtieth birthday, just when he was starting to doubt his purpose in life. He was failing miserably as a filmmaker; he was waiting tables for a living. But Roger gave him something to truly live for.

Mark had never imagined that he'd be a father. He'd never really imagined Winnie as a mother. But the day she gave birth to Roger, a sweltering July day, and they both held the tiny blond baby in their arms, Mark knew that this was meant to be. They'd brought this person into the world and he would save them both.

Not that they really needed saving. After Winnie came back for good, nine years before, they'd started going to psychiatrist together. They both got jobs; they both began to stabilize their lives. Two years later, Winnie's Aunt Lilia died of breast cancer and they received a tidy sum of money and the house in Provincetown.

Neither Mark nor Winnie could stand to go back to the house where they'd lost their Roger. So they sold it, profiting even more from the sale of it. For the first time in their young lives, they were not financially strapped and they were going to enjoy it.

Their first task was to fix up the loft. It had been steadily falling apart over the years and they redid everything. By then, Winnie was pregnant so they needed to create a room for the baby. They turned it into an ode to Roger, the old Roger. There were musical notes painted all over the wall, some forming a melody that, if you concentrated hard enough, sounded almost like a song from Puccini's La Boheme. Musetta's Waltz was what Mark said it was.

Mark still remembered the night that Winnie told him she was pregnant. She'd been showing symptoms for a while, but Winnie was always sick and Mark had just attributed it to her lacking immune system. She sat him down on the couch and told him straight out, "Mark, I'm pregnant."

He's been stunned to say the least, but so happy. He whooped and began to dance her around the room. Then he called Maureen and Joanne, Collins, his mother, even Benny, to tell them the news.

It happened to have been the last time he ever spoke to Collins. He passed away in his sleep that night.

Mark sobered, thinking about his deceased friends. There were five of them. Collins, Roger, Mimi, Angel and…April. All to AIDS. He shivered. How he hated AIDS. It was one of the few things he truly hated. But god, did he hate it.

Startled out of his reverie by a sharp snore from Winnie, he smiled and gently pushed a strand of her away from her face. He could also hear Roger snoring softly in the backseat. He loved his family so much. And they loved him. And that's all he needed.

Life was good. He had a future wife, a son, a child that was about to be born any day, a loving family, a job, enough money to live comfortably, and love. Mark had reciprocated love.

Yes, although it may be hard, life was good.

finis