My Never
Epilogue 2

This is it, people. Just a few more tidbits about the future I wanted to write. Hope you enjoy them :)


Devony ~ the Cottage ~ 11 years later

Eleven years to the day Derek presented Addison with their majestic cottage, Devony Shepherd lounged in her white sleigh bed, curling her toes into the soft fleece. A smile split her face as her phone lit up and she lifted it to see her boyfriend Tuck's name.

Hey babe. G2g, bball practice. Love u!

Devony snapped her phone shut and shut her eyes tight, thinking of Tuck and the way her head felt so safe when cradled against his muscled chest and held there by his lanky mocha arms. Devony was tall, already approaching 5'8" at fifteen years old, but Tuck was something else, already a half a head taller than her, she had to stand on tiptoe to kiss his lips.

Her fantasy musings about Tuck led to her thinking about his upcoming sixteenth birthday party and a request his mother Miranda had made of her. Sighing, she rolled off her bed and padded through the luxuriant comfort of her Seattle home, taking in the glimmering view of the city at night and her own looks in the reflective window simultaneously. She frowned, running fingers over her sharp cheekbones, large blue eyes and full lips. Her mother had promised that she would grow into her face and Tuck told her everyday that she was beautiful, but she couldn't help feeling that her looks were that of separate features without a common thread.

Addison Shepherd had an entire closet set out for the photographs and artwork they saved, organized by year, or else Devony's task might have been impossible. Tuck's mother wanted to blow up a picture of him as a child and hang it to embarrass him in front of all his macho basketball friends, and Devony, mischievous even eleven years later, was in on the plot. This particular picture was taken when he was four and she was three, after they had apparently painted each other at daycare.

Twirling through the softly lit marble foyer (she was now on her high school dance team), Devony passed ten-year-old Caden, who was playing his latest composition on the piano for his young paramour, Mark and Callie's daughter Acacia. He grinned at her as he played, and she winked back, noticing how Acacia blushed as she watched him.

Eight-year-old Vienna passed her in the hallway, her pixie-like face carrying a pout identical to their mother's. "What's up, Enna?" Devony asked.

"I found a pet spider, Devie, in the yard, but Mommy screamed and said I couldn't keep it!"

"Spiders like it outside better," Devony told her fireheaded sister, trying to be comforting as she repressed a shudder.

"No, Harold doesn't. Harold loves it in here!" Vienna countered before stomping off to her room.

Devony sighed and shook her head, continuing to the closet stuffed full of memories. She bypassed recent years to dust off memoirs of times she barely remembered. She thought she'd just spotted pictures from when she was three when little hands captured the hem of her snow-white cashmere sweater.

"Devie?"

"Yeah, Hunter?" Devony asked her seven-year-old brother, trying to keep the annoyance off her face.

"Whatcha doin'?" He cocked his head to the side, the spitting image of her father.

"I'm looking for something, buddy."

"Will you play with me after? Cay and Enna are being boring," the little boy pouted dejectedly.

"Sure," Devony agreed resignedly, knowing that if she entertained her brother for a while her parents might let her go out with Tuck after basketball practice. "I'll come find you when I'm done, okay?"

After Hunter had scampered off Devony dug her hands back into the closet. She had nearly reached the appropriate basket when her elbow knocked into a stack of old newspapers and sent them flying.

"Damn it!" Devony swore, chasing the fluttering papers back and forth over the lacquered wood of the floor. She gathered them up, holding them to her chest, and prepared to stuff them back into the closet before a bold headline made her freeze.

Disappearance of World Class Neonatal Surgeon Linked to Kidnappings Across the Country

The bottom fell out of her stomach. Why did her parents have these papers hidden away? Hands shaking, she rifled through the stack, though in her heart she dreaded what she would find.

Victims of Kidnapping Found Raped, Murdered, Trial Pending

Sex Trafficking Offender Suspected to be Behind Recent Kidnappings

Latest: Kidnapped Victim Addison Montgomery Found by Rafters in Mexico

Devony's lithe form puddled to the ground, each breathe sharp and ragged as it burned her throat, her stomach rebelling in comparison to the rest of her numb body. Her stance against the closet was the only thing keeping her in a sitting position.

It simply couldn't be right. She would know. Someone would have told her. She would remember …

Except …

Except, according to the dates on the newspapers, she had been three years old. Heart racing, Devony combed back through her earliest memories … there was one of her on her father's shoulders, waving Pluffie in the air as they walked through the hospital … her mother, hooked up to a frightening array of tubes and wires and machines … her father's words, "Then the princess was kidnapped by some bad, bad men …"

Devony knew her parents had been divorced briefly, she knew that she'd stayed with her dad while her mother was sick and that was what had gotten them back together … sick … why had she never questioned that simple explanation before? Sick with what? She had been there after all, been in the midst of this hidden tragedy. She should have known.

As this conviction descended, movement was reborn into her limbs and Devony, tears still staining her cheeks, hurried through the house until she located her mother. Addison Shepherd was in the kitchen, one ear pressed up against the phone; Devony deduced that she was ordering take-out because her father wouldn't make it home for dinner, which was a rare happening in the Shepherd house. Her parents were almost always home for dinner.

Addison turned, alarmed, when she spotted Devony's tears, and wrapped up her order quickly. Her mother had aged well over the years and although her crimson hair sported a few strands of grey and laugh lines decorated her face, she still achieved an elegant beauty that Devony couldn't help but envy.

"Devony, what's wrong?" her mother asked, gripping Devony's shoulders softly and meeting her eyes. They fought like any other mother/teenage daughter combo but remained close also by doing things like conspiring to steal Derek's credit cards and throwing out any fish that made their way near the house. And although they had the usual disagreements, Addison could tell, as she always could, when something was seriously wrong.

Silently, Devony handed her the newspapers as a few more crystal tears coursed down her cheeks.

"Oh," Addison sighed softly. "Oh, Dev. This wasn't exactly how I wanted you to find out …"

Devony's sobs refused to be restrained any longer when she registered her mother's sorrow, and Addison swept her up in a hug. She wanted to protest, wanted to say that she should be the one comforting her mother, but she was reduced to crying into the peacock silk of her mother's shirt instead.

"Shh," Addison murmured, just like she had whenever Devony had obtained a cut or bruise as a child. "Shh, it's okay. I'm okay."

"How can you be okay, Mom?" Devony sniffed.

"It was over eleven years ago, Dev. And I won't lie to you and say I never think about it or have the occasional nightmare about it, but it was a long time ago. I'm healed."

"How could I not have known? I was there, I was …"

"You were three, Devony Sadiyah," Addison said firmly.

"Still, all that really happened? And I didn't know? You were really … really …" The word refused to leave her lips.

Addison's face darkened. "Yes, it all really happened. And it was awful, so awful that even if I could explain to you how bad it was, I wouldn't. But I was lucky to survive and lucky to have your father, so that's what I try to focus on."

Devony digested the new information, trying to make sense of it; trying to picture her strong, proud, beautiful, unbreakable mother at the mercy of kidnappers … she couldn't do it. "So that's what Red Light is about," she said finally, simply for something to say, because the foundation her mother had started made sense now.

"Yes."

"And that's why Dad freaks out when he sees r-rape stories on the news?" She remembered seeing her father's jaw tighten, his fists clench, the tendons straining, but she thought it was a normal reaction to such an appalling crime.

"Yes."

Devony leaned against the counter, one slender arm supporting a head suddenly spinning with conflict and angst. Shock still suffused her, it was one of those things you saw on the news and hoped never happened to you … and yet, it had happened to them.

"Devony, this doesn't change anything," Addison reminded her softly. "Yes, you know a little more than you did, because you're old enough to handle it, but nothing has really changed."

"I just … can't believe it," Devony admitted slowly.

"Sometimes I can't either. But it happened and it's over and done with and honestly? It was terrible, for all of us, but me, your father, our whole family, we're stronger because of it. It's a difficult burden to put on you and a difficult thing to discover on some random afternoon, I know," her mother smiled sadly. "And we can talk about it more later, whenever you need to," Addison promised, kissing her forehead. But for now, come on."

"Come on what?"

Rich laughter filled the kitchen as Addison eyed her daughter suspiciously. "I'm not stupid. Tuck's birthday party may be this weekend, but I delivered the kid. I know what day he was born. I also happen to remember a certain four wheeled present his mother mentioned …"

Devony gasped, excitement exploding like fireworks inside her, remembering how Tuck had wanted to take her out when he turned sixteen. She imagined Tuck in the only nice slacks he owned, a crisp white shirt contrasting with his chocolate skin as he flashed his bright smile at her. Then something in her mother's statement registered. "Wait – you've seen my boyfriend naked?"

"Well, Dev, most babies come out that way …" her mother snorted.

"So my mother pulled my boyfriend out of his mother's vagina? That is so wrong," Devony moaned, covering her eyes.

"Go get dressed," Addison ordered, rolling her eyes. "Or you won't be seeing any of him at all."

She took a few steps toward the hallway before glancing back at her mother. Addison looked contemplative with fiery curls streaming around her face and her ocean colored eyes - the exact same color as Hunter's - staring off into space. "Mom? Will you be, you know, okay? Because I can stay ..."

"Thanks, sweetie, but I'll be fine," Addison assured her. "Go out with your boyfriend. I know the two of you have been waiting forever for one of you to get a car so you don't have to have me or Miranda drive you everywhere. Just remember -"

"Keep it G-rated, yeah, yeah, I know," Devony muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Well, PG might be allowable," her mother grinned. "But you better hurry up."

Devony ran off to the laundry room to find the designer skirt she'd purchased the previous weekend and pulled it nervously over her thin, milky legs, scrutinizing herself anxiously in the mirror. She had a few modest curves but often felt self-conscious about her stick-like figure; although Addison told her constantly that she'd been exactly her as a teenager except for the hair. She could only hope that she would continue to take after her mother.

"Do I look all right?" Devony asked as she pranced back out into the kitchen, biting her lip uncertainly. She wore a pair of Harajuku Lovers Mary Jane pumps (her mother had passed on her taste in shoes), a black silk wrap skirt, her cashmere sweater, and an ice blue camisole.

"You look beautiful," Addison assured her, gnawing on her own lip for an entirely different reason. "Just don't let your father see it," she warned as they turned to see Derek's lights in the driveway.

"Mom, I have a window," Devony laughed mischievously before racing upstairs, ebony curls bouncing behind her, oblivious to the fact that Addison watched her daughter slip away, a small, sad smile on her lips. Vienna curled her arm inside her mother's and buried her nose in her mother's side and Addison held one daughter close as the other grew further and further away.

"I guess maybe Harold could stay inside for one night," Addison told Vienna as they headed toward the door to greet Derek.


Derek ~ the Cottage ~ 23 years later

Derek settled himself carefully into his favorite deck chair, trying not to aggravate any symptoms of arthritis as he watched slightly blurry lights begin to shine in the darkened city below them. He had been observing the view for twenty-three years now - from this house, at least - and yet the way the dusky mist settled over the valley never ceased to amaze him …

"Grandpa, hurry up!"

"Yeah, Grandpa," Addison teased from beside him as she pinned back her snow white hair. They possessed age spots and wrinkles and were sure dentures and cataracts were to come, but Derek thought Addison just as beautiful as the day he'd first seen her at Columbia all those years ago.

"Right, where was I?" he inquired of his two grandchildren. Zalmai was four and had flawless, latte colored skin, the famous Shepherd blue eyes, and dark curly hair that could have come from Devony or Tuck. Scarlett had just turned two and Derek could trace her wicked grin back through her mother Acacia to his best friend and the boy he'd spent his childhood with. But although she looked like her mother and grandfather, Mark, she'd inherited Caden and Addison's rose colored locks that hung in delicate spirals around her shoulders.

"The story, Grandpa!" Zalmai practically shouted. "You said you'd tell us the story!"

"So I did," Derek sighed, giving the smile he was famous for.

"Oh, God, I've got to hear this," Devony called as she and Tuck came out of the house, arm and arm and still clad in scrubs. Both had decided to follow in the footsteps of their famous surgeon parents and were working on very successful careers. Zalmai had been a surprise but a welcome one, and the two were planning on having more children once they developed their careers in emergency and neurosurgery.

"You were very entertained by this story during your time, Missy," Derek reminded her. He looked around at all his family as Acacia and Caden joined them. His oldest son had opted for a career in architecture while his wife worked for a fashion magazine. They lived in New York, as Derek and Addison had so long ago, and they all had made Christmas in Central Park a tradition. And although Vienna and Hunter were away attending college, and Evelyn, of course, would never be with them in more than spirit, Derek couldn't imagine a better existence.

Zalmai and Scarlett scooted forward eagerly in anticipation for the story, and Addison joined their wrinkly hands and ran a finger over his knuckles. It felt just as good as it had the first time. "Once upon a time there was a princess, the most beautiful princess in the whole universe. She had gorgeous long red hair, eyes the color of the ocean on the clearest day, and the most amazing body-"

"Derek!"

"Sorry, babe, but you did. Still do, in fact. Anyway …"

~ The End ~


Wow. I literally can't believe this is over. I've been working on it since December and now it's August and it's over 100,000 words long. I want to thank each and every one of my reviewers for their support - your comments made me smile and I'm so glad you loved the story. Really, you were great at reviewing.
Anyway, endings. It's a love/hate relationship, people. But reviews will ease my relative suffering. One last one? ;)
I did mention a sequel, but at this point, I have a lot of other stuff I want to write. There are things to be explored in Devony and Caden's pasts and certainly Addison and Derek's, but for now, this is the end.
Oh, and btw, look for my new Addek story! Coming this week or next to a Grey's Anatomy fanfiction site near you. And that's enough shameless story pimping for me.