A/N: So, here it is, the epilogue. Note that we are 9 months and a bit after 1 July of the previous year ... ;) The ending is not specially fluffy, but it's very sappy, 'cos I'm like that.

I want to thank everyone for reading this and for all the encouraging and helpful feedback, which is wonderful to get. Thanks to the prodding of our own Sonnet Lacewing, authoress extraordinaire, I have got off my tokhes and back to my original novel, which (while I can't match Sonnet's speed) I hope to have finished in the next few months. So if something new (other than mini-fic instalments) turns up here, it will be because something got into my head and wouldn't leave me alone -- otherwise, I will be trying to pour my writing energy, such as it is, into the non-fan-fic.

Disclaimers as per usual.

Epilogue: Edinburgh, April

Numair swung down from his bicycle and walked it in through the front gate. The day had been warm for early April, and he was tired – had been even before cycling five miles to the University in the morning and five miles back in the afternoon. For some time now Daine had been sleeping badly, and, therefore, so had he.

Spots galloped round the cottage to meet him, and when he opened the front door the dogs greeted him with what he always considered rather excessive enthusiasm. Mammoth, the big Irish wolfhound Daine and he had adopted from the SSPCA rescue some years ago, had a glint in his dark eyes as though he were trying to tell Numair something. Griffin, never enthusiastic about Numair at the best of times, held himself aloof, disdainfully preening his whiskers.

"Daine?" Numair called. "Sweetheart, are you here?"

There was no answer, which was worrying – unless it meant that she was napping upstairs, or on the sofa, or outside in the back garden.

"What about it, then?" he inquired of the assembled company. "Where's Mum?"

There was no reply. The beasts knew, presumably, but didn't care to say.

They tried the sitting-room first, but it was empty; then they trooped upstairs to check the study, the bedroom and, finally, the sometime spare bedroom, now a tidy, pristine nursery with cot, flat-topped bureau, and antique rocking-chair.

Back down the stairs they went, out into the back garden, where – as he ought to have guessed, Numair told himself – Daine was propped up sideways in the wooden swing under the arbour, asleep over her inexpert knitting. Cloud purred steadily from atop the pillows behind her head. Beside them on the grass was an enormous cardboard carton, rather battered at the corners. Stepping closer, leaning down to kiss his wife's damp forehead, Numair chuckled at the address inscribed in multi-coloured felt-tip pen on the top of the box:

DAINE, NUMAIR, & BABY SARRASRI-SALMALíN

CAERKETTON

SWANSTON VILLAGE

SCOTLAND …

The return address was in Toronto, but included no names.

Numair perched on the far end of the swing, in the gap between its right-hand arm and Daine's bare feet, which he lifted into his lap. The swing swayed a little with his weight, and he braced his feet to steady it, fearing the motion would wake her.

"Ow!" Daine exclaimed, sitting up abruptly and dislodging both the knitting and Cloud, who yowled in protest. She blinked at Numair and rubbed her eyes with one swollen hand.

"What's the matter, love?" he inquired, concerned.

"The usual thing," Daine sighed. She swung her legs down and put one hand on her prodigiously rounded belly. "You know how it is – it sleeps while I'm walking about, and does gymnastics when I try to catch thirty seconds' rest."

Numair laid his hand alongside her smaller one.

"You know," she continued, "Alanna and Miri and Thayet all told me that theirs quieted down toward the end. Even the midwife I saw today said it's unusual for it to be so active this late, 'specially since I've stopped drinking coffee altogether. It's like—" both of them flinched at a series of sharp jabs; it was followed by a disconcerting sort of wobbling rumble as the baby turned itself around. "It's like being pregnant with an octopus."

Numair gave his wife's shoulders a sympathetic squeeze and looked about them for something to distract her. "What's in the box?" he asked.

Daine looked at the gigantic carton and frowned. "I've no idea," she said. "One of those delivery companies brought it round. The bloke took one look at me—" a rueful chuckle— "and offered to put it wherever I liked. The house is so hot today I couldn't bear it, so I asked him to bring it out here where I could keep an eye on it. As it's addressed to all three of us, I thought I'd best wait till you were here, at least."

Numair's arm tightened about her shoulders again. "I know this waiting is wearing on you, love," he said. "What did the midwife say today?"

She sighed – it felt as though she were always sighing, lately. "The same as last week. 'Soon.' It was Julia I saw today – noncommittal is her S.O.P., as Alanna would say."

Numair leaned down so that his face was an inch from her belly. "Your mother," he said to it, " has had quite enough. Don't you think it's time you put in an appearance?"

Daine chuckled, which perhaps had been the point. "Come along, then," she said, heaving herself upright. "Let's open this box."

Numair's pocket knife made short work of the yards of sellotape sealing the lid. Inside the box, nestled in a mass of shredded newspapers, they found almost a dozen smaller parcels, variously wrapped in paper and fabric bags, colourful boxes and wrapping-paper patterned with tiny footprints. An envelope was sellotaped to each one.

"Hang on," said Daine, as Numair lifted out the last parcel and seemed about to abandon the box. "There's something else at the very bottom." Obediently he reached in again, probing amongst the shredded paper at the very limit of his long arm's reach. After a moment, with a triumphant grin, he straightened up and handed her a large, bright-yellow envelope on which was written, in a familiar hand, Daine.

She slit it carefully with Numair's knife, and drew out a card emblazoned with sunflowers. "Very cheerful," she grinned. Opening the card, she read,

Dear Daine,

By the time you read this, I hope you'll already be holding your little one. In case not (my Emma was two weeks post dates!), hang in—you're almost there!

If we were closer, I'd have thrown you a baby shower. I figured this is the next best thing. I e-mailed everybody from the committee, and also Amy at U of C, and asked them if they'd like to send something for you, to send it to me. I thought it would be more fun to get a big box of prezzies all at once.

All the best, honey. You're going to love it—when you're not too tired to think, that is!

Jan, Ben, Emma, and Khaja send their love, too.

Love,

Laurel

Daine sniffed, touched by her friend's words and annoyed with herself for going all teary again – it was the hormones, right enough, but that somehow didn't make it any less infuriating. She handed the card back to Numair, who read it through and smiled.

"Let me get you a nice cold drink," he said, "and then we can open the rest."

Amy had sent children's books: one called ABC of Canada, another called Love You Forever and a third titled, puzzlingly, Alligator Pie. "Alligator Pie was my favourite when I was little," she had written in the accompanying card.

Sandy's contribution was an astoundingly lifelike plush cougar cub; her card included a telephoto shot of a young radio-collared cougar exploring the edge of a mountain creek. "Kitten looks well," Numair commented. "I'd radio-collar her too, if she were mine, just to keep her out of mischief."

Daine elbowed him in the ribs.

Pritha had sent tiny Calgary Zoo romper suits and t-shirts, and a packet of minuscule socks; Laura, a dozen diaper wraps patterned with jungle animals; and Linda another round of books: Where the Wild Things Are and The Paper-Bag Princess "for the baby", and two volumes on breastfeeding for Daine. "That's five, now," the latter said, grinning. "I shall have to feed this baby for decades to justify all this expense."

"Or," Numair returned, prudently edging out of reach, "we could have a few more."

"Ask me again in six months' time," Daine groaned. "Just now, I'd as soon never be pregnant again."

Mike Lloyd in Colorado had chosen a book on fatherhood for Numair, wrapped (by his wife, his card explained) in a series of flannelette blankets patterned with daisies, sailboats, and giraffes. And Sandy's friend and colleague Jim sent Numair and Daine into gales of laughter with an obviously handmade t-shirt that read "My Mommy is the Beast Whisperer."

Laurel's present was a baby sling, a simple, practical affair beautified by the brilliant emerald batik pattern of the fabric. A note was pinned to it which read, "Someone gave me one of these when I had Ben, and it saved the day more times than I want to admit. You may have thought of this already, but it never hurts to have one more! Emma picked the colour—I hope you like green …"

When Daine lifted the soft bundle of fabric out of its box, she found beneath it another gift: a framed photo of Khaja and her eight-month-old calf, Sarisha. Again she had to scrub a hand across suddenly leaky eyes.

Bruce and Greg had clubbed together to contribute a baby carrier of the pouch-and-padded shoulder-straps variety – in size extra-large. "'This is for Numair'," Daine read aloud from the card, "'in case Laurel's gift is too small for you. We bought it on our trip to Vancouver last month—see enclosed for details' – what does that mean?"

"Something's fallen out of it," Numair said, stooping to retrieve it. "Another card, it appears. Let's see."

He slit open the top, opened the enclosure, and began to laugh. "Now we know what they were doing in Vancouver," he said.

"What is it?" Daine asked, trying to peer around his arm.

Numair handed it over with a grin: "It's a wedding announcement."

She read it, and felt her face crease into a grin. "A lot's changed since we went on that holiday, hasn't it?" she reflected.

"Mmm," Numair agreed, holding her close and kissing the top of her head. "It must have been the altitude."