THIS IS IT! THIS IS THE FINAL INSTALLMENT OF FATHER HOUSE!

It's been fun, ya'all. Keep it real.

Just so you know, this chapter isn't meant to resemble anything on my beliefs about whatever afterlife may or may not exist. I chose to do it this way because it made the most sense for the things I wanted to say. Also, I did this one in a…different perspective than the rest of the chapters have been. Let me know how this one works out, okay? Thanks!

Epilogue: Letter From Heaven

I was Julia Peterson.

It's been a year, to the day, since I died. It's taken quite some time to adjust to this strange state of death, and it will take more before I'm ever truly at peace with it. But like anything else, the journey was half the fun. One of the biggest misconceptions is that dying is a terrifying process, but I don't see it that way. Maybe it's because I was blessed enough to have time to grow into it, to get in those last few things I'd always meant to do, say my good-byes, come to terms with the whole idea. It was sad, naturally, but not at all like you'd think it would feel: painful, hopeless, frightening. Death can be, and has been, described as any number of things; for me, it was an adventure. A very grand adventure.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the way things have turned out for everyone. Dad proposed to Allison on that New Year's Eve, and surprisingly, she asked for time to consider it. It was all too much, too fast, she said. They waited a month, he asked again, and she realized what a fool she was being and said yes. They had a June wedding – it wasn't an extravagant affair, relatively simple and understated for such a celebration, but it didn't diminish the meaning of it at all. They make a hilarious couple - not your usual newlyweds, to be sure, but the love is there and that's all they need. James and Julie, I'm pleased to say, are working through their marital issues and have a baby to call their own now – a son named Matthew. He's healthy and happy and has one of the best, if somewhat comically inexperienced, pairs of parents in existence. Mom's doing really well; she hasn't taken a sip of alcohol in over a year, is seeing an incredibly nice man that would never hurt her (third time's a charm), and still talks to Dad often. She even keeps up with Robert from time to time; I think she's slowly soothing the wounds his own mother left behind by becoming a story of success. I worry about him sometimes. Often, when I see him, he'll be staring at a picture of us from my twentieth birthday with this melancholy expression on his face, or he'll read the poem he wrote for me (or attempted to, anyway – poor boy, for being a such a brilliant doctor, his ability with words is amusing at best) that he thought I'd never find out about and get misty-eyed, or sometimes he'll touch the beautiful Christmas gift he never got to give me, a 14-karat gold canary yellow diamond necklace, and his fingers will linger too long. It's times like these when I have to give up the charade and admit that heaven isn't paradise if I know he's hurting so much. More than anything, I wish he'd just forget about me and find someone else to give so much of his heart to. I wish he wouldn't feel guilty about living while I'm not. Still, he's coming along, slowly but surely. Eric, I think, came around the quickest of all of them, and he gives me hope that they're all going to pull through. I'm so glad they have someone as levelheaded and intelligent as he is to remind them that generally when you turn the pages on a calendar, it's not backward but forward that you move them. As for Dr. Cuddy, she makes sure things are running smoothly and that the workplace romance between Dad and Allison doesn't disrupt the flow of the hospital. Initially I'd been worried that she wouldn't know how to handle Dad after everything was said and done, but I was wrong. She's as patient as ever – possibly more – and gives him room to be himself, all the while faithfully standing by to lend a hand.

I haven't seen Len here, so I'm assuming that he never did anything redeeming in his life to make up for his transgressions. Although I feel a minimal bitterness towards him now, it gives me comfort to know that he is doing penance for everything he did. Somehow, I know that long before I came into his life, someone must have hurt him the way he hurt me. Someone must have told him he was worthless, beat him until he wished he was dead, stolen his innocence before he could understand what he was losing. I'll always feel sorry for him because of this; no one learns to be as cruel as he was without an example to model. There's not a reason in the world he should have taken his anger out on me, though. Two wrongs have not, do not, and will not equal a right. Wherever he is, he should know that he's finally been forgiven but not at all forgotten. He is remembered for exactly what he was; this should not make him proud.

But what of me? What have I become?

I'm still Julia Peterson; the only difference between me during life and me now is that I'm not sick, I can't be hurt here, and I am so lonely, possibly more than I've ever felt.

I never thought I'd end up saying that, but it's true. Mom was right: I'm nothing without the people in my life. Here in heaven, the idea that you get everything you could possibly want is bullshit. You only get the things that are in good clean fun and that won't affect the world of the living. Well, the only things that can truly make me happy are people, people that are still blessed (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) with living on the planet earth. Here in this strange, new place – dimension, actually, if you want to get technical about it – I'm merely passing the time until I see them again.

Not that I want to see them here, not for a very long time, at least. Just because I'm dead doesn't mean they need to follow me into the grave. I want them to understand this, if nothing else. They can't know what a joy it is to see them alive and well. Yes, more than anything, I want more time with them, just as everyone will want more time with their loved ones someday. I want more time to tease Dad about being married to a woman who's young enough to be my sister, to be the first person James and Julie call once they decide they need a baby-sitter, to give Mom a hard time about the new guy, to giggle with Allison and laugh with Eric and kiss Robert and joke with Lisa. I ran out of time…on earth, that is. Although I'll never be able to experience human life with all of its amenities again, heaven offers second chances to everyone, even those that never thought they'd need them. That's the good thing about heaven: once you're in, it's eternal. I have eternity to find them again, and it's worth the wait. If you look at it very carefully from just the right perspective, I think you might find that it's possible to say I have all the time in the world. That makes all the difference.

I wish you nothing but the best. All my love, Julia.

…So tell me. Was having the whole thing in italics distracting:P You laugh, but I'm serious. It looks fine on good ole Microsoft Word, but maybe when I post it, things will be different…

Haha, well, naturally you didn't think you'd get away this quickly. I'm asking for your help…again. You see, while I was on vacation, I ended up getting SO bored that I read over all 200-odd reviews you all have been gracious enough to be bestow upon me in addition to every single chapter of Father House. It was like watching a train wreck. Some of it was okay, I'll admit (oh, the agony!), but a lot of it made me wonder what I was thinking when I posted it. I have compiled a list of things I need to remember in future stories. Read it over, if you'd like; see if I got everything. If you leave a review, feel free to add more.

1) No more House/Cam! (Or really, any form of romance.) I'm sorry, but I don't see how they're ever going to work out on the show; they're too vastly different, and I definitely don't do them justice when I try to work them out together. Plus, writing about love is best left to those who have been lucky enough to experience it. Hangs head forlornly That's not me.

2) Read dialogue out loud. I got this suggestion from someone who clearly knows what he's talking about, and it really does help! (Although it's difficult to get my parents out of the study so I can do it alone – they're not of the variety that enjoys fan-fiction and House, M.D.)

3) Wait a day or two before posting. I need to give myself some time to read over my chapters with fresh eyes – I could have avoided everything from minor grammatical errors to major issues with the plot, medical facts that played a huge role, and lots of other things.

4) Don't be swayed by what you think people want! When the idea for this random story first popped into my head, it was never my intention to make it a House/Cam, or have that random thing in there with Wilson and Julia, or anything like that. (Chase/Julia was bound to happen, though. :P) But the more I read other fics on the site before I started posting, the more I wondered if I'd actually get any nice reviews if I didn't do the House/Cam thing. So I thought, "Well, hell, I'll give it a try." In the end, it worked out nicely (or tolerably, anyway), but it makes me wonder what I could have done if I had stuck with my own ideas.

5) That being said, reviews are there to help the writer! So far I haven't been too bad about this (I don't think), but I must always remember that no one (hopefully) is saying something to be a jerk. Constructive criticism is a way of saying, "You're a good writer. Here's how you can be a great one." It's a good thing to take what other people have to say to heart, especially when they're more experienced, more talented, and are not biased to your own work like you are. ("You" meaning "me," of course.)

6) Cursing, when used in excess, detracts from the story. I know this is a verrrrrrrrrrrry controversial issue (though slightly insignificant in the shadow of other verrrrrrrrrrrry controversial issues), but let me say this: I have nothing against swearing. I'm fine with it. Sometimes it's quite fun. But in earlier chapters, I went a little crazy with it. I stuck profanity where it just wasn't needed, and in reading it over, it kind of detracted from the other elements of the scenes. During scenes of high emotion, yeah, it's natural that some characters might let something slip. During normal conversations, however, that doesn't happen quite as much. I know some people got a little offended by my excessive usage of obscenity (sorry, again), and I want you all to know I'm making every effort to cure my potty-mouth. Or at least get it under control.

Like I said, anything else you want me to remember? Even if it's something you've got to repeat to make sure I get it, let me at it. And if I've done anything well (hmmm, that would be nice, if I had), it would be pretty sweet if you could find it in your heart to point it out so I can do more of the same.

(Here comes the Miss America part of the whole thing – while I get my tiara and tissues, you can quietly sneak away if you don't want to hear all about my gratitude and world peace and fluffy things like that. :P)

Thank-you so much for reading! I know I've been saying this all along, but I meant it every time and will continue to mean it as long as I'm writing. It means a lot to me that you spent so much time studying this random story I've been laboring over and faithfully telling me how it's looking. You've made a sixteen-year-old kid who believes writing is a dream that will probably go unrealized for her feel like a bestselling author (oh, Lord, even I think that's lame). I've enjoyed this more than you will ever know.

Sorry, you'll have to excuse the crazy, sentimental statement above. First fan-fic.

Lots of love!

Cara/house-of-insanity

P.S. Ooh! I thought of another one already! Things I need to remember when writing fan-fiction number seven: author's notes shouldn't be longer than the chapter they accompany. Sounds good, right?