This chapter goes out to the amazing makealist... If you're not reading her "Ghosts of L.A." right now, you should be. (OK, not literally "right now." After you read this and leave a review, of course.)

"Steal time when there isn't enough
Turn the wheel, I'm backing it up
Don't feel old, hope I'm backing up
Don't feel old...
1975 ringing in my right ear."

- Emily Haines, "Shrine to Fast Goodbyes"

How many more times is James supposed to say it's OK when it's not?

Instead he just keeps an arm tightly around Juliet, watching as the graduates take their seats, waiting throughout speeches from the principal, the superintendent, the valedictorian. He and Juliet share a small, awkward smile at that; when Juliet's a senior, she will (or already did, however the hell that works) purposely flub a couple of tests so she doesn't have to be the one to make a speech.

About a dozen graduates collect their special awards, Rachel smiling and posing for a second on stage; James sneaks a peek over at the Carlsons as Juliet's mother - what the hell is he supposed to think of her as? Dana? Mrs. Carlson? Ex-Mrs. Carlson? Except it doesn't matter, he'll never meet her - half-stands to snap a photograph.

The teenage Juliet is clapping and cheering with her dad. The Juliet next to him watches the stage, very still, and for just a second he thinks he sees her lower lip tremble.

His own wave of sadness passes over him, then. One that he didn't expect. Mostly he's thought about her in all of this, whether it was be a good idea at all to even be here (he's firmly in the "not" category, thanks and no more callers and have a good fuckin' day). But what he wasn't thinking about was seeing this other Juliet - not in this way. More as a novelty, something he and his wife could share a knowing smile over. Instead, what he sees is a shy and sweet and awkward girl, but also innocent and so... so goddamn buoyant. And shit, that hurts. Where does that buoyancy disappear to?

(And somewhere out there, there's a version of him that's still an entire year away from pulling his very first con.)

Diplomas get passed out, and Rachel crosses the stage for hers, pumping her fist in the air to scattered laughter. Juliet's mom is taking more pictures.

Jealous. He realizes he's jealous, that's definitely part of it, there's their mama, right there, all huge smiles and camera-snapping, and, well. Shit. Except he'd bet the entire goddamn LaFleur stock portfolio that he's not gonna put the camera down for one fucking second when his boys have their graduations.

At some point he realizes Juliet's turned her head, but she's watching him, not her family. "You OK?" she whispers, sliding her hand into his, her eyes telling him that she knows exactly what he's thinking. As usual.

He leans over, presses a kiss to her temple, and she reaches out to touch his face. "Yeah. You?"

"I'm OK."

I'm OK. He's OK. Everyone's OK, rings out in his head. When Andrew was born, everything was just perfect, unbelievable but still, perfect. That day, Juliet calling him in from the living room, and her standing there with that big belly, standing in a growing puddle, and even her socks were wet, and the two of them just stood staring at each other for way too long, shocked that this was actually happening.

According to Juliet, it was a perfectly normal labor and birth, although it frankly had scared the shit out of him and then he didn't want to let the baby, or Juliet, out of his sight for an instant. The nurses would kick him out every night, and every morning he'd be back the second he was allowed in until Juliet and the baby were released from the hospital.

Miles was over a lot in the beginning, and although he wasn't exactly comfortable dealing with a baby, he was damn good when it came to unloading the dishwasher or folding clothes. Or just keeping them company while they were more or less trapped in the apartment with a newborn during the cold weather. Jin visited in the hospital, brought the baby a stuffed panda, and then he disappeared for awhile. No one could blame the guy, really, even though none of them really talked about it much.

And then they were so in love with this tiny little new life in their cramped apartment, and the baby babbling and the tiny socks and the strained vegetables perpetually smeared on the surface of the high chair, and it just felt like they were being forgiven by the universe for anything and everything. But they must have been out of their goddamn minds all the same. Because once Andrew started sleeping through the night, they figured they weren't getting any younger, might as well start working on the sequel. It had taken awhile to conceive Andrew, it would take awhile again, anyway... right?

But then Andrew started teething. And teething meant screaming, and crying, and not sleeping, and screaming some more. Oh, and more crying. And more not sleeping. Break out the birth control again, this was a terrible idea, and really, they could wait until Andrew was in kindergarten or first grade or high school or had his own place, right?

One afternoon James was yet again pacing the apartment with Andrew gnawing desperately on a frozen waffle when Juliet came in quietly, closing the door behind her and slumping against it, staring at them, not speaking.

"Hey hot mama, you mind, he's been screamin' at me for an hour and I really gotta pee."

Juliet just kept watching them, but he really did need to pee, so he dumped the baby in her arms and hurried down the hall. By the time he was out a couple minutes later, Juliet had the baby in his stroller, sliding it back and forth over the parquet floor. Her handbag was still looped over her shoulder as she stared at that Dharma Polaroid they had propped up on a shelf.

"Hey, your, uh..." James tried to gesture toward the bag on her arm. Why the hell wasn't she saying anything? This was starting to unnerve him.

Juliet looked at the bag, confused, like she didn't even know she owned such a thing. Finally she slid it down along her arm, thumping it to the flood where she stood. "You know how..." Before she could go on, Andrew turned up the volume and Juliet scooped him right back out of the stroller and onto her hip, turning back and forth at the waist to rock him. The baby grabbed onto her hair, calming slightly as he smeared mashed waffle into it. Juliet just looked down at the baby without trying to pull her hair from his hands. "I think his waffle is defrosting," she finally said. Andrew ramped up his crying again.

Oh yeah, James was seriously starting to get creeped out. "OK, blondie, you better tell me what the hell is goin' on."

"Other than the waffle defrosting?" They were speaking louder than usual, to be heard over the baby. Juliet's forehead furrowed. "You know... how we thought we should start trying again? And then we changed our minds?"

James glanced over at the pile of laundry no one had finished folding since yesterday. "Uh... yeah?"

Juliet tilted her head, raising an eyebrow. "Too late."

It took an astonishingly long time for that to sink in. In the meantime, James' eyes drifted to Andrew on her hip, his little face red from crying so damn long. Oh, shit, was his first thought, oh shit oh shit oh shit, that wasn't supposed to work so fast.

"You mean... You mean that you...? You... You're tryin' to say...?"

"Yeah. That is exactly what I'm trying to say."

But James glanced back at Andrew. Yeah, they'd bet on the Cowboys in the '78 Super Bowl, and the Steelers that January, but fuck, the Dharma payout was pretty much gone, their stocks weren't going to turn into gold overnight, and they had tuition payments for Juliet, rent, baby-sitter, groceries, shit shit shit and Andrew was going to be teething forever and they were going to have another newborn and their kids were gonna be, what? Eighteen months apart? Not even that? And James and Juliet were never going to sleep or be able to speak at a normal volume ever, ever again.

Except just then, Andrew calmed down again as he brought his fistful of Juliet's hair to his mouth, chewing on it, and he paused and let out a big ol' happy smile at his daddy.

James finally looked up at Juliet, and she was just standing there with waffle in her hair, some combination of terrified/upset/not-caring-about-waffle-in-her-hair, and he let out a long, low breath. "Well, all right then."

"All right?" she said incredulously. They stared at each other for a second before a little smile came onto her face, one he unexpectedly felt himself return.

"Yeah. All right."

Her smile grew and she hoisted Andrew a little higher, pulling her hair out of his mouth and kissing the baby on his forehead. "Your parents are incredibly inarticulate sometimes," she informed him, before leaning over to kiss James, too. He grinned against her lips and wrapped his arms around the both of them, waffle bits getting every-damn-where, and Juliet pressed her face into his neck and started to laugh.

It was all gonna be all right.

Except by March 1980 - when Juliet was screaming bloody murder in the delivery room, digging her fingers into his arm and the doctor was saying something was wrong, the baby was stuck, its heart rate was down - nothing felt all right at all. The room was somehow humming with James' own fear. Juliet needed a C-section, they were getting her onto a gurney to take her to the OR, a nurse injecting something into her IV and the doctor telling James he can't go with them. And James, protesting (OK, yelling) that was his wife and his baby, and he needed to be there, Juliet telling him it was OK, it was OK, and at least he managed to get out that he loved her before they left him standing there in the fucking hall.

He realized he had no idea what to do, was he supposed to call Miles, except Miles was watching Andrew and...

There was a payphone in the hall, gleaming stainless steel with its blue AT&T bell logo. When did the government break up that particular monopoly, anyway? He can't even fucking remember, losing his grasp on the here and now. "Jin?" James managed to choke out before he started crying, deep shuddering sobs that somehow managed to convey whatever fear he couldn't speak.

It was pretty much the longest fucking forty-five minutes of his life. Jin showed up right before the end of it, when a nurse came out with a bundle in her arms. "Mr. LaFleur? Congratulations. Your son is just fine."

James looked down at that squished-up sleeping face, the tiny hand curled up right next to it, then looked back up at the nurse in disbelief. "He's OK? She's OK?"

The nurse flashed him a huge smile. "Everyone's OK."

Juliet, Amy, the infirmary, Dharma. He's OK, she's OK, everyone's OK. Jin right at his side. Their own fucking happy ending, dammit. James' knees weakened and when the nurse handed him the baby, he had to concentrate to keep his arms from shaking as Jin smiled wide and thanked the nurse profusely.

James looked down at the baby in disbelief. Little tuft of blond hair, Juliet's lips.

"I heard your wife is studying to become a Labor & Delivery nurse."

James looked up again. "Uh... uh, yeah."

The nurse smiled. "At least now she'll have a story to tell her patients."

Stories, the LaFleurs had plenty of. It's just that most of them sounded more like science fiction.

When they finally let him in to see her, Juliet was still half-asleep under a couple of layers of thin white hospital blankets. He sat down next to the bed, the baby still in his arms, sound asleep. Was he supposed to wake her up? No, he should let her sleep, right? But what if she was mad he didn't show her the baby as soon as possible? What if the baby got hungry, was he supposed to get him a bottle?

Sometimes he wished this whole husband-and-father thing came with an instruction book.

The baby shifted in his arms then, snorting a bit with his eyes still tightly closed, and Juliet mumbled something. James took that as an excuse to rub his thumb over her cheek. "Hey there, sleepin' beauty."

She opened her eyes and squinted, looking a little stoned. "Hi," she murmured, and looked at the baby in his arms, eyes still closed, but now experimenting with sticking out his tongue. "Is that our baby?"

"Nah, it's just some other baby I rented." Damn, he couldn't help himself sometimes. "We got ourselves another boy, blondie. Just like you thought."

"Oh," she whispered, slowly reaching out a hand to touch the baby's face. "Oh, god, I don't know, he... he looks pretty good to me. Maybe we could keep him."

"Maybe we could. You OK? You need anythin', you in pain, I could get the doctor...?"

She squeezed her eyes shut a couple of times, her mouth opening a little. "Mmm. No, I... just... I can't figure out how to hold the baby." She was definitely still stoned. "He's OK?"

"He's OK, you're OK, everyone's OK," James assured her. Assured his own wildly thumping heart. Holding the baby tighter.

"We're here," Juliet said, her eyes dropping closed again.

"Here, where?" Is he supposed to try to reason with her right now?

"We're... we're just... we're here." Juliet opened her eyes, looked right at them. This time she smiled.

Juliet rests her head on his shoulder as the graduates disperse among their families, angled just enough that she can watch her family. She's still got those big sunglasses on, but they're not that dark and he can see her face. The longing. The way she blinks and the tear shining in the corner of her eye.

But after a few minutes of pictures, Rachel with her little sister, Rachel with their mother, their father, Rachel with an assortment of friends, they pick up their stuff. Join the row of people at the end of their row, filing out, away from them. Juliet tenses against him, he sees her jaw clenching, the sudden anger in her eyes as she inhales sharply. Her back stiffens against his arm like her entire body is about to revolt, her breath speeding up.

They watch them go.

They watch almost everyone go, until only a few small clusters of families remain. Juliet pulls away from him, watching the empty chairs where her family had been. He wants to ask her what she wants to do now, does she want to follow them to the restaurant, get a table in the corner, hide away? Go back to their hotel, go back home, go to fucking Fiji, anything she wants. But Juliet suddenly pauses, tilting her head and pulling off her sunglasses.

"No," she gasps out. "No."

"Juliet - "

But she pulls further away from them, yanking her arm away from his, stumbling forward, across the aisle to those deserted metal folding chairs. "No! No, no, no no."

"Juliet - " James lunges after her, his heart thumping painfully. This entire thing was a horrible fucking idea, what is she doing to herself, they have to leave, they have to stop this and forget any of it ever fucking happened, she's just torturing herself now and -

Except Juliet is kneeling down, reaching under a chair in the row behind. She twists around and holds up a small silver box. "James. Something - Rachel's present - something - this didn't - this isn't what happened. Something changed. Oh, god. No. No no no." Her eyes are desperate when they meet his. "The boys, I - "

"Isn't this - didn't you want - " How is he even supposed to ask this?

"Did I want something to change?" she bursts out incredulously, still perched on the ground, balancing with one hand on the seat. Her face twists. "James, I - how could you think - this is our life, no, I don't want anything to change, I don't know what - I mean..."

He feels sick, his surroundings seeming to spin around him. She's always the one arguing that nothing can change, he's been the one afraid of it, afraid she wants to take it back sometimes, if only she could. But she's just staring at him, shaking her head over and over, her blue eyes locked into his. "How could you not know that? That I'm in this with you, 100 percent? I'm in this with you, James."

James runs a hand through his hair, stepping forward and kneeling in front of her so they're at the same height. "I don't know, baby. I just..."

"Well, it's incredibly stupid of you, OK?" Juliet is half-crying, half-laughing, still clutching the box. "I wouldn't have, if I had known. What the hell could have changed? We're still here. I mean, I just - I thought - whatever happened, hap..." She looks at the package in her hands, then back up at him, their eyes locking.

And at the same moment, they know. They just know.

"Oh my god," she whispers.

Somehow James remembers how to breathe. "It was always you," he chokes out.

Juliet reaches out to him, squeezing the box between their hands as she grabs onto him. "No," and her voice is as clear and sure as it's ever been. "It was always us."

Just a tiny bit more after this. Feedback has sort of fallen off for this so if you're enjoying it, please leave a review. Thank you!