Disclaimer: I do not own the Mediator, for the last time!

This Is Now, For Now

Epilogue

There were too many people dressed in black.

There were parents, family and cousins, classmates. There were crying neighbors, mournful lovers, strange passerby that always showed up at the funerals to pay respects. Everyone in the town of Carmel was there, it seemed, and then tons of others from out of state. There was me, there was Jesse.

But we didn't belong there. Not us. Because of what happened.

I leaned against Jesse, and his hands gripped mine for support. Surprisingly, I wasn't crying, or even close to it, as I had been the whole summer. I felt hollow, maybe a little guilty, but I couldn't cry. Maybe because I hadn't known her that well, or because I knew that she was still living on, albeit an unhappy existence.

People, each with a pink rose, moved up to the grave, laying their flowers down on the smooth green grass. Jesse and I stepped up in line with each person, him following me. I stared at all the crying faces, all the sad faces, all the faces like my brother's that looked like they would never love again. If they had known, oh, if they had only known what had happened.

Brad was trying to keep it together from the looks of it. He laid his rose down, whispered something to her ashes hidden under the earth, and stood up. When he was done wishing her a happy afterlife, he turned in the opposite direction and walked over to his car, but I knew he wouldn't leave without us. I stepped up, looking down at Kelly Prescott's grave and holding the pink rose poised above it.

I hadn't known immediately what went on after I blacked out in the church a couple days ago. The last thing I had remembered was Paul, and Jesse, and overwhelming sounds surrounding me before I fell back into a brain-dead fatigue that was hard to escape from. And when I had woken up two days later, my eyes sleepy and blurry, I found David's face staring into mine.

"She's awake!" he cried as my sleep-crusted eyes struggled to stay open. "Mom, Dad, Jake, she's awake! She's alive!"

Mom had come over, tears in her eyes, staring at me with that desperate, worried expression that moms always get about every little thing. "Oh, thank God, Suze. Thank the Lord, my God." And she kissed my face and told me how great it was that I was alive and the doctor only said I had some smoky gunk in my lungs and was exhausted and that was it. So that it didn't make sense to me why everyone thought it was a miracle that I was breathing.

When the memories came rushing back, I said in a voice that stung like hell from smoke damage, "Jesse? Paul?"

David nodded really fast, and then ran around the corner of the hospital room. I heard his hurried little puberty voice calling out to someone, and then two seconds later, Jesse stepped out from behind him, smiling and looking pained and older at the same time. He was clean, wearing a neat shirt and crisp clean pants.

My heart picked up speed, lying on that hospital bed, seeing him standing there. Safe, alive, not in danger. But mostly, there. "Susannah, I'm here."

I beamed at him, wanting to throw myself into his arms, but realizing that was going to be a problem with all of the tubes coming out of me. So I settled for holding my hand out to him, and he came over and clasped it, looking a little relieved I could move.

But there was something wrong. Rather, someone.

"Paul?" I asked faintly, so quiet that I wasn't sure anyone heard me.

But apparently they did. "Oh, Suze. Paul…" Mom trailed off, covering her hand with her mouth. The tears seemed to well up in her eyes again. I didn't know if that was a good or bad sign. Because, honestly, I couldn't tell anymore.

"He's all right, Susannah," Jesse said, laying his other hand on my arm. "He is okay. Healing."

My chest welled with relief. The savior and the love of my life were alive and well. But, "Really…" I struggled to say, disbelieving. Because it didn't seem likely. Paul had been dying when I saw him last. He couldn't have recovered. I slept for two whole days. Two whole days doesn't heal wounds, physical or emotional.

"He's having a rough time," my mom said when she removed her hand and took a shuddering breath. "Stitches, in head, chest, arm… but he's recovering. He had to have blood transplants, Suze. He was… not good. But he's better now. You are so lucky you made it out okay, unlike poor Kelly."

And then I asked. And then everyone left but Jesse, saying he knew the story best. And then I learned.

After I had fainted, Jesse ripped a strip of Maria's – well, Kelly's – t-shirt from her body, a little bit of her pants, and a shoe, leaving it outside the fire. And then, to save the secrets of the spectral plane, he threw her body in the fire. It turned to ash in mere seconds, and when the firefighters and paramedics arrived a couple minutes later, he started pleading the fast thought out cover story to them.

Paul, Jesse, and I were out for a night in the town, but noticed something wrong with the Mission when walking by, wanting to say goodbye one last time. Flames were licking the windows, and when we got inside, we caught the image of Kelly calling out to us, but the flames engulfed her too fast for us to do anything. The huge crucifix of Jesus fell over onto Paul and I in the structures turning to ash, and we fainted from the hard-hitting injury. Jesse was just going to call the cops when they arrived.

When I had to give my report after I was released from the hospital, I told them that she might have been there because of depression over the break-up with Brad. That she didn't have the will to live, and just didn't see a point in running from the fire where she might've gone to pray with some candles and a blanket because the concrete was cold. This hurt him, but I promised myself that I would make him feel better when he was ready to know the truth.

Jesse told the police that she had been acting weird lately, adding to the story of depression. Her parents, naïve like the real Kelly Prescott, added to the story through the power of suggestion, putting in little details about her eating less and becoming more moody. If they only knew.

Paul hadn't given a witness report. But I had to thank God he was alive.

When I saw him, after I had been released two days later with minor wounds and all that jazz, I almost bowled over half of the hospital staff running to his room. When I burst in the doors and saw him lying on the bed, with stitches and bruises and lacerations and all that fancy doctor lingo, I let the tears fall down my face. Again.

I took the plastic chair by his bedside. His parents left us to ourselves, and I grinned at him in relief when his face broke out into a smile.

"I never thought you'd be so happy to see me in your life, Suze," he joked. "I would've expected a knife or some medieval weapon to kill me with."

I glared at him, the tears evaporating pretty fast. "I should. I honestly should. Because you were such a freaking idiot, thinking you'd be a hero and everything – "

"Relax, Simon." He chuckled and reached for my hand. "I'm alive, aren't I?"

"Yes, but – " Why wouldn't anything come out of my mouth? It was like it was full of cotton, for a million emotions or something. "How did you know to come?"

He raised one arm a little half-heartedly. "After you're oh-so-nerve-calming call, I decided to do my research."

"On?"

"On what could be happening. I talked to your brother for a while, grilled him about you and Maria. So I hightailed it off to Kelly's house after stocking up on supplies, and saw the door ajar. And your black backpack."

Well, dammit. That's how he knew? Just by a backpack that Maria and Josefina had so carelessly left on the front porch? I was seriously questioning their evil genius IQ at that moment.

"So the next guess was the Mission, for an exorcism." He shrugged as much as he could without tearing any stitches. "There are only a number of places in this small town, y'know."

I nodded and tilted my head. "Well, as much as I want to hate you right now, I don't think I can. You saved my life, and you saved Jesse's. I think I owe you my life for that, Paul Slater."

But he started shaking his head before my sentence was over. Then, he seemed to change his mind and started slowly nodding. "Hey, I've got a way you can repay me."

"What? Anything." I was already regretting it, though. Personal slave? Lifetime servant? Permanent ghost-butt-kicker in exchange for himself?

His face was grave as he said, "Be with Jesse. Love him again. God, Suze, you were miserable without him. Did you even look in the mirror those six months? No offense, but you looked like crap."

I stared at him in shock.

Paul's face broke out into a wide smile, and with the little strength he had, he clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, I'm serious. It's over now. They're gone. Spend the rest of your life with Jesse. I want you to be happy."

I slowly, reluctantly nodded.

But he was right. Everything was over. Maria was gone, Josefina was gone. And I don't think Paul was going to change his mind about keeping her in hell forever like last time.

The events done reeling like a movie strip through my head, I let the rose fall onto the grave, staring at it with a final conviction. "Goodbye, Kelly," I whispered. "We didn't intend for you to be sacrificed in this supernatural game."

Jesse placed a hand on my shoulder from behind, as I tried to keep my face from wavering. I had always thought everything else I had gone through, all the things with the revengeful bitch Heather and the vampire and the Angels and Paul. I had thought that had been the worst. But nobody who was innocent had ever been a direct victim. I hadn't let anyone die without doing something about it.

Until now.

Jesse placed his rose on top of the grass, and took my hand from behind. We didn't want to go to the luncheon later, or anything else. I didn't know why we didn't want to either. Was it because we felt guilty, or because we weren't close enough? I couldn't tell. But Jesse was leading me wherever I needed to go, so I let my heart guide me and followed him.

When we were a good hundred feet away from the gravesite – far enough that no one would hear us, but close enough that we could still see them – we stopped on a patch of very green grass by a few scare gravestones.

One of which, I noticed, was Hector "Jesse" de Silva's.

Jesse's hand came up to caress my arm. Gently. "Are you okay, Susannah?" his voice spoke quietly.

I tore my eyes away from where I had been staring at the tombstone to his eyes, which were darker and more liquid then the gray sky that threatened to release rain pouring down on us. I nodded my head, attempted a smile.

He tried to smile back and we stared at the tombstone, thinking of Kelly's already-made grave that would soon be joining it. And thinking of all the pain and heartbreak and love and hurt and betrayal that we had gone through in the past twenty-four hours.

"Please forgive me, Susannah," he suddenly said, very quietly. "I shouldn't have listened to Josefina. I shouldn't have agreed to the soul transfer in the first place. I shouldn't have – "

I reached up and put a finger on his lips. "Shh," I said in a whisper. "Don't apologize. It's okay. We're both alive, aren't we?"

He reached up, gently took my hand down from his mouth and placed it in his two huge, strong ones. We heard the burst of a sob from across the graveyard. "But I should never have led you to believe… to believe that I didn't love you."

Could I blame him? Could I seriously blame him for the traitorous bitches that threatened my life as blackmail for him? And that he loved me so much that he decided to risk his own in trade for mine?

I stared up at him, tears dangerously welling up in my eyes, thunder rumbling in the close distance. "Jesse. It's okay. You chose my life."

"But your life was destroyed," he whispered, closing his eyes, as if he was in actual pain. "I ruined it for you. I deserted you when you needed my trust the most. The timing was wrong, and I shouldn't have listened to her. You should have never… put your love into me."

"I like loving you." And then when I heard how silly that sounded, I laughed. "Oh, you know what I mean."

He opened his eyes, smiling half-heartedly. "Susannah… you don't know how much it pained me to toss the letters into the fire on Josefina's command, let the phone ring and then pick it up to disappoint you. You don't know how much it hurt."

I took a shaky breath, placed my other hand on top of his. "Jesse. That was the past. This is now."

He stared at me, willing me to go on.

"We were at the beginning of forever," I whispered. "We were going to make mistakes. We both hurt each other, we both didn't trust completely, we both were nervous about keeping it together. But, we know something now."

"That I love you, more than anything in the world?" he asked, leaning his forehead on mine with a faint smile on his face.

"No." I smiled. "That I love you more than you do. And don't try arguing."

He let out a breath, which tickled my nose and almost sent me swooning to the ground. How much I had craved this closeness, now that there was nothing between us anymore. No secrets, no lies, no mistrust.

"But what about college?" he asked, eyes rippling with worry again. "I can always enroll somewhere close by, so we can – "

I shook my head wildly, eyes widening. "No. No, Jesse, no. Don't give up your dream for me. And I won't give up my dream, whatever it is, for you. Because whatever mistakes we made in the past year, they'll be fixed this time around."

Jesse's eyes filled with hope again, and it was all I could do to prevent myself from doing something stupid and ruining this perfect epiphany moment.

I said, "I'll call."

"I'll write."

"I'll text."

"I'll fly."

I smiled wider, staring into those liquid eyes as the rain started to silently fall around us. "And I'll trust."

"And we'll both love," he whispered.

I nodded my head, tilted it upward to meet his lips. It was sweet, it was cleansing, it was everything of new beginnings. New beginnings, the middle of life together, the rest of forever, or whatever it was. A chance to figure things out, love, and enjoy life while not giving up anything else. And I suddenly didn't feel myself caring about what was coming next, only knowing with my whole heart that whatever happened, he'd be right there, and I'd be right there too, and we'd always know what to do.

"And love," I said.

A/N: So. This is it. The end of the story. What a year it has been! Seriously, it's been practically one month shy of a year since I started this story. And to everyone who's stuck with me, I thank you.

I also want to thank all the readers, alerters, favoriters, and reviewers for encouraging me! I never expected this story to be a hit, just a little idea I had floating around in my head that was too far-fetched to work, but I wrote it and you liked it, so thank you so much!

I have one other Mediator story on the horizon, from Jesse's POV. I'm not sure if I'll be posting it in the near future, but you never know! I'm definitely not leaving this fandom for good, though.

So, one last time, please review this for me! And THANKS AGAIN TO EVERYONE! :D