A/N: A short, final epilogue to what became a much longer story than I originally intended, or imagined. Thank you all so much for the support and wonderful feedback - I was sure everyone was going to yell at me for pulling out a suspended sentence at the end of the last chapter, but I guess people like a little unreality now and then. Or maybe the people who wanted to yell at me just were disgusted, and didn't comment. Either way, thanks for reading. It's been fun.

She lay with them until they fell asleep, and after, all four in one queen size bed. Emma's breath swept across her cheeks, and Matt's face was nestled in the crack where her back met the bed, one of his hands laid flat against her back. In the dim light from the other room, Kate could count Emma's eyelashes. Occasionally she would sigh, or move her face a little against Kate's hand, as if her dream self was checking, just to make sure Mommy was there.

Mommy was there. Kate lay perfectly still, and looked, and counted their breaths, and told herself that it was over. She didn't believe it yet. She was waiting for the door to burst open. She was sure that lying there, she was placing them in harm's way. And yet. She could not seem to stand up. It would not be possible for her to love them more, these small people that she made. She would do better, in the future. She would stay.

After dinner, Claire had taken the kids to Walmart to give Jack and Kate a moment alone. She returned with pajama pants (blue, with little yellow stars), a pack of Hanes underwear, and white socks. Kate didn't have any shoes she could wear socks with, since the only ones she owned at the moment were heels DeWitt had brought for her to wear in court, but she thanked Claire anyway. Someday she would own sneakers again.

She was still thinking of everything in the future tense. The uncertain, far-off future, not the tomorrow future.

She took a bath in the bathroom of their hotel suite. There was bubble bath, and her toes wrinkled. She had forgotten that could happen.

In her silly pajama bottoms, and one of Jack's T-shirts, she felt almost like a person again. The kids wanted a story. They all wanted to sit on her lap; they all wanted to touch her face. Jack smiled and laughed at everything. Kate sang them to sleep. Later, after she managed to pull herself away, Jack tried to sing her to sleep, but she was too startled by the softness of the bed. She swam in and out of consciousness, turning her head to watch him there, count his eyelashes.

The first morning she woke up with Jack, she was still sticky and startled from the night before. She didn't know what she had expected, though she had been in love plenty of times, and sex – well, not even worth thinking about the number of times she had done that. She felt silly, but in her head she thought, this was different, this was new.

She woke up to the sight of his back, curled slightly. At night, they both had a habit of creeping apart, shaking each other off. It had taken years for them to learn to sleep together. That first morning, they were not even touching. She drew a breath in, and wanted so much to run away. She thought, if I am very quiet— But she knew it was a lie. There was nowhere to go. Even if she made it out of the tent, he would be there. She could not avoid him. In reality, she didn't want to. It was only that she did not know what to say, how to be his lover. Sometimes she wasn't even sure if they were friends.

She stared at his back, and measured the length to the door, and how quickly she could get on clothes, and who would be awake this early in the morning to see her emerge alone from Jack's tent. She reminded herself that this had been her choice, she had wanted to come. She had thought about it, and dreamt about it, and hesitated until her body ached, and she had chosen to come to him, because she had known that he would never come to her.

She held herself still.

He woke up, eventually. His shoulder twitched, and then he turned onto his back, blinking. Her eyes twisted over his tattoo. 5. Five seconds, and the fear is gone.

He turned his head to look at her. "Hi," he said, his brow wrinkling a little. There was a ghost of a smile around his lips, but it seemed to be waiting to come to life.

She tried to smile, to reassure him. "Good morning."

He rubbed a hand over his face. She wondered if he was rubbing her away, if he would rather have woken up alone. He could hardly have refused her, coming into his tent in the dark — but she didn't think it had been that kind of night. "You're here," he said finally, looking up at the ceiling. She didn't know what that meant. She sat up, clutching his shirt over her breasts. Startled, he sat up too.

"I'm sorry, I'll—"

"No! No." He grabbed her arm, their first touch of the morning. Her nerves tingled all the way up, remembering. "I meant… I didn't mean you should go. Please, stay."

His grip on her arm loosened, but he didn't stop touching her. She looked up at him, their eyes sparking. She should not have sat up, that was a mistake. Let's try this waking up thing again. "Hi," she said, her lips twitching into a smile.

"Hi," he said again.

"I think I'm in love with you," she confessed.

"I know I'm in love with you," he replied, with a rueful smile. He was shaking his head when she caught his face in her hands, and lifted his chin to kiss him good morning.

Kate had forgotten about upholstered chairs, and how you could sit with your whole body curled up inside the small square, knees pressed against the arm and feet falling asleep. She was watching Jack sleep. It was 3:19 in the morning. The ache behind her eyes meant she was tired, but she couldn't get out of the chair, couldn't do anything but stare at Jack's back as he slept. She wondered if the hotel had an all night bar, and then remembered it was Iowa. She had forgotten about upholstered chairs, but bars she remembered.

He woke, suddenly, gasping as he reached for her. He turned his head, made out her shape in the dark, stilled. "Are you okay? What time is it?"

"Late. Early. I'm fine, I'm just… can't sleep."

"I thought you were tired." She had said that, and he had put her to bed without question, had simply held her.

She shrugged. He pushed himself up, leaning against the back board. He was losing his tan too, or maybe it was just the pale light. "What's going on?" he asked. "Where are you right now?"

How well they knew each other. She smiled slightly. "Neverland."

His brow creased. "You don't want to grow up?"

"I'm afraid that I'm going to wake up. Because this could never really happen."

"Ah." He nodded. "How long do you think it'll take before you realize that Neverland is a real place?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe when they stick us in a nursing home of the same name."

Jack smiled. "It's real, Kate," he said. "This is it. You're free."

Free. She nodded, absently, her eyes sliding across the wrinkled white sheets. Abruptly she readjusted her seat, drawing one knee up, and rubbing a hand over her face. "Are we going to drive back?"

"If you want to. We can rent a van. Kate… we don't have to go to LA. I mean, we have to go there to get stuff, at some point, and the kids are in school. But I meant what I told them, about going wherever you want. Since I'm changing my focus for my residency, I don't have to stay at the same hospital. And LA has a lot of… I don't necessarily want to be there."

"I don't know," she said. "It's been a long time since I thought about it. And Claire and Charlie are there, that would be nice, to know someone. And your mother."

"She would be upset if we left," Jack admitted.

Kate's lips twitched. "She doesn't like me."

"She doesn't know you."

"That's what all husbands say." Not Kevin, though, Kevin's mother had loved her.

"I guess so."

Would they have another wedding? The possibility seemed exhausting at the moment, but Kate supposed it might be nice. Another chance to wear white and say her vows and mean them. And then what came after that?

"Kate?"

Jack was squinting at her in the dark. She rolled her neck around to look at him, and clasped her knees close to her body and said, "What am I going to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what am I going to do? I have never held a real job, Jack. I never went to college. I barely graduated high school! I've been a fugitive since I was twenty three, and now I'm thirty six." She didn't say, I can't be your housewife, but she supposed he knew that anyway. She wouldn't try, and fail again.

"What do you want to do?" Jack asked, looking at her as if he meant it, as if she could do anything, in the world.

"I don't know."

"You don't need to know, now. You have time. We have time to figure all this out."

Funny listening to Jack tell her she didn't need to know what to do next. "You always knew what you wanted to do."

"That's because..." It was still hard for him to say, even to her, but finally he did, "because I was trying to prove something to my father." His lips quirked. "Maybe I really wanted to be an accountant." The suggestion was so ridiculous that after a beat he shook his head. "No."

"No."

She curled her neck down, until her forehead touched her knees. She was free, and the truth was that she was more scared than she had been when she was running. Now she had to be something, now she had to grow up and choose a life.

"You could lead wilderness hikes," Jack suggested suddenly. "But you'd probably have to guarantee no one would get eaten by polar bears."

She lifted her head and peered at him. He was looking back, straight-faced. She laughed. "You're not funny."

"I can be funny."

"No, you can't. You're not funny, Jack." But she was laughing anyway, and then they were meeting, halfway between the chair and the bed, kissing. Their smiles got in the way, they kissed lightly with their curved lips. Their eyes caught, and the smiles disappeared, replaced with urgency, desire, different expressions of joy. Jack's hands slid beneath her T-shirt, across her skin. She leaned into him, letting go of gravity. He caught her up, and up.

Fin

A/N: Originally I planned this chapter as a ten-years-later sort of thing, but then I realized my vision of their future was not the point of this story. I wanted to leave it open, for everyone to imagine as they will what happens next. However, since I did go to the trouble to plan out this whole future... if you really want to know, comment (ideally with some feedback included) and I will tell you my personal vision. Otherwise, the sky is no limit, imagine away.

Thanks again.