Epilogue

Cassidy woke up, surprised that Garrett was still next to her. Out in the hall, she knew the house was awake; she could hear Garrett and Chelsea's ten year old son charging down the stairs. She turned toward Garrett with the intent of waking him up... and tears welled behind her eyes. Gently, she reached out to brush a piece of hair from her dead husband's face. She leaned down, kissing the cold forehead, before she got out of bed. Oh God, she was left to tell them... but he'd died peacefully in his sleep, by her side, not some fiery bloody death like she'd always feared. She went downstairs to find most of the family gathered in the kitchen.

Chelsea looked up and could tell by the expression on Cassidy's face something was wrong.

"Kids, you'd better sit," she said firmly. Even in her seventies, Cass had aged astoundingly well and still retained her old presence. "Garrett died in the night."

"Oh no..." Chelsea reached for Garrett's hand.

Garrett squeezed it gently. It was his duty to be the strong one, for now... he'd have his time to dwell on it later.

Ella was watering up already. "Dad..."

Ivy stood and hugged her mom tightly.

Cassidy smiled a bit at her daughter. "Don't break me now, dear. He died peacefully."

"Are you okay, Mom?"

"I will be, eventually."

Nathan - now with a family of his own - pulled her into a hug. "You don't have to be strong, Mom... we're big kids now."

And Cass began to cry.

The phone rang, but no one in the room seemed to notice. Not until ten-year old Michael walked in and handed it to Chelsea. "Mommy, it's for you."

She took the phone and walked over to the sink with her cup. "Hello?"

"Chelsea... hi," Zack greeted.

"Zack?"

"Yeah. I... Chels, Dad's dead," Zack blurted out.

Chelsea dropped the cup and it landed in the sink with a loud clang. "What?" She asked hoarsely.

"Dad's dead... I'm sorry to spring it on you like that but I don't know how to tell you..."

"He's dead? Are you sure?"

"Yeah... Mom found him."

"Oh God..." She sob quietly.

Garrett was immediately on his feet and pulled her close. "Baby, what's wrong?"

She turned the phone off and turned to him. "My dad...."

Garrett rocked her gently. "I'm sorry, baby..."

She wiped her eyes. "I...I have to go...I need to go over there..."

"I'll drive you."

~*~*~*~

Grace was up earlier than usual. Something made her wake up around five, and after trying and trying to get back to sleep, she got up and made breakfast for everyone. She didn't think anything of it when Gavin never came down, although he was usually the first one up. She brought a cup of coffee up to the room. "Wake up, Gavin." She walked to the bed. "Gavin?" She dropped the cup onto the floor, causing a rather loud noise and the coffee to spill everywhere. She sat on the bed and touched Gavin's cold hand. "Baby?" She whispered, letting the tears run down her cheeks as she climbed into the bed, resting her head on his chest. "Please...don't leave me....Gavin, I need you..." She sobbed.

Gavin was motionless.

"Mom? What was that noise?" Rebecca asked. Standing in the doorway, and seeing the scene in front of her, she knew what must've happened. "Oh no..." She ran downstairs to call Zack.

Grace touched his cold face. "Come back to me..." She pleaded.

Rebecca dialed the phone number for her brother with trembling hands. She'd come home from school to visit...Rebecca had wanted to spend some time with her parents....

"Hello?" Zack answered groggily.

"Zack?" Rebecca whispered, almost as if she didn't want to disturb her father's peaceful rest.

"Becky? What's going on?

"Zack, it's...it's dad."

"What happened to Dad???"

"He's gone..."

"He... shit, I'll be right over."

Rebecca hung up the phone and waited for Zack.

Zack came through the door a few minutes later and pulled her into a hug. "Did you call Auntie Cass and Uncle Garrett?"

She shook her head. "I only called you...Mom's up there with him..."

Zack kissed her forehead. "Come on... I'll talk to Mom." He went upstairs.

She followed him.

"Mom... are you okay?" Zack began.

Grace looked up at Zack. "He's...he..." But she couldn't bring herself to say the words.

Zack lifted her to her feet gently and hugged her. "Shh, Mom... it's okay..."

Grace shook her head and sat back down. "No...I need to stay..."

"No... he's gone Mom, it won't do any good."

"Zack...Zack I have to stay...if he wakes up..."

"He's not waking up, Mom." Zack forced her to her feet.

"No..." She sobbed.

He hugged her. "Shh..."

"Zachary...Zack...he needs me..."

"Shh... it's okay, Mom, Dad's fine."

"He's not...he's not fine..."

"Shh. It's okay."

"He's dead." She choked back a sob.

"I know, Mom. I know. It's okay, you can cry..."

"How could he leave...?"

"He didn't leave you, Mom... let's... let's go to Aunt Cass and Uncle Garrett's..."

Grace shook her head. "I have to stay..."

"I'll call them... stay with Mom," Zack instructed Becky.

She nodded and approached her mother, carefully avoiding her father's body.

~*~*~*~

Not ten minutes after they'd hung up, Garrett and Chelsea burst through the front door. "Zack?" Chelsea called.

"Upstairs!"

Chelsea fairly charged up the stairs. "Zack, where's mom?"

"Still with Dad." Zack sighed.

Chelsea looked into the room and clasped a hand over her mouth, trying to fight the tears threatening to spill.

Garrett enveloped her in a hug for the ten or twelfth time of the day. "Shh."

Chelsea walked into the bedroom. "Zack, you and Garrett take mom...put her...put her in the study for now..." Chelsea told them with a bit of a tremble in her voice.

Zack looked into the room and felt himself welling up as well, but he gently lifted his mother's dead form and placed it not in the study, but next to her husband. "I think she'd like that better, Chels."

Chelsea wiped her eyes and nodded. "At least they're together." She hugged her sister, who had sank to the floor and was sobbing openly.

Zack lifted Becky to her feet. "Shh. It's okay, Becky, it's okay." He squeezed her gently.

She just cried even harder.

Chelsea practically collapsed into Garrett's arms.

"Hey... it's okay... think about how devastated Mom was... this is better for them." Zack rocked her gently.

Garrett led her from the room and practically forced her to sit. "Shh... I know, Chelsea... I know."

Rebecca nodded. "I don't understand....why did they have to die?"

"It's not fair, Garrett...."

"I know." Garrett couldn't help the twinge that she'd not asked once how he was feeling, but decided it was probably better that way.

"It was their time, Becky, that's all."

"But they weren't even sick..." Becky replied. "I was talking to them last night...."

"They were old, Becky. I know you never thought of them that way but it was a long time before they had us."

Chelsea looked at him through teary eyes. "I'm sorry...I'm...you didn’t even get to react...we left so quickly..."

She nodded. "Zack...what are we supposed to do without them?"

"Shh. I'll have time later."

"We'll be alright. I promise."

Rebecca wiped her eyes and walked over to the bed, pulling the covers over them.

"Garrett...I'm sorry..."

"Shh, baby," Garrett said simply, holding her close, but then his cell phone rang...

Chelsea looked at him. "Garrett?"

"Mom..." He bit his lip.

~*~*~*~

Cassidy went upstairs slowly, with a sense of melancholy. The two Spencers gone... and something else twinged in her heart, suddenly making her think of Grace. "All of them..." She said quietly, continuing up the stairs. She knew it, somehow, Grace had died as well, and she was alone. But maybe not for long... "Garrett, everyone left... I might just have to come along too." She'd wanted just a little while alone with him, as she'd told the kids, but maybe fate would be kind to her and let her go too... She gently laid down on the bed, as if she was afraid to disturb him, and reached out to take his cold stiff hand in her own... she felt tired, suddenly... maybe a nap would be in order, it had been a long morning...

Ivy found her about an hour later.

~*~*~*~

The funeral procession was long. Four coffins being brought into the church rather than those of the two Spencer brothers. After the coffins, the children of the dead, all grown with their own families slowly walked in.

The Spencer family had grown so big they took up the first two rows of pews. The service was short, none of them wanted it to drag on... During the service, Chelsea had a feeling that they were being spied on...that someone might try to ruin the peacefulness of their sleeping parents. She turned her head and looked to the back of the church.

Kayla was in the back, wearing a black hat so as to avoid recognition, and next to her stood Chad. Three children sat in the pew with them, one boy blonde and another dark haired, and between them a little girl with her red hair in pigtails.

Chelsea thought she recognized a woman in the back, but turned her attention back to the service, squeezing Garrett's hand.

Garrett gently squeezed back.

After the service, Kayla and her little family went to speak to the Spencers absolutely last... just in case, as Kayla had told Chad, just in case they make a scene...

Ivy had to restrain Ella from walking up to their sister and slapping her in the face.

"You don't belong here." Nathan told her coldly. "You've caused our parents enough pain, let them rest."

Kayla lifted her daughter as if to protect her. "I have as much right as you to say goodbye." It had to be Nathan, that tall young man standing beside Garrett.

Chelsea let go of Garrett's hand and followed Michael, who'd wandered over to the gravestones.

"You have no right to say goodbye. After all, you said it a long time ago, didn't you?" Ella hissed. Chris kept an arm around her to restrain her just in case.

"Nice to see you too," Kayla shot back.

"Ella? Who is that?" Rebecca asked her cousin.

"My filthy betraying sister," Ella told her.

It was Garrett who finally spoke up. "Do you really think this is what Mom and Dad would have wanted us to do? Do any of you really think that?"

"Michael?" Chelsea approached the ten year old. "Michael, what are you doing?"

There was a moment's silence. Kayla noted to herself how exactly like their father her brother was.

"Just looking... Mom, who's buried there?" He asked, pointing at another grave in the Spencer family plot.

"It's been years, Garrett...she has no contact where her own family for decades! And she doesn't bother to come back until they're dead! How are we supposed to act?" Nathan asked.

"You're supposed to embrace the fact that she came at all."

Chelsea looked at the inscription. "That was...your father's younger brother...he would have been your uncle."

"What happened?"

"He died."

Michael nodded.

She hugged her son. "You were named after him."

"That's why I noticed it..."

"There are a lot of people buried in this plot..." Chelsea said, looking around as if realizing for the first time.

"Yeah... I kinda think that stuff's interesting, Mom... not dead people but like, family trees... I think I wanna try hunting stuff up."

"Well... this would kind of be the best place to start, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Want me to look around here with you?"

"Yeah, if you don't mind." He smiled.

She nodded. "Alright...where do you want to start?"

"Well we know Grandma & Grandpa and Great Aunt Cass and Great Uncle Garrett... are Grandpa's parents here?"

Chelsea nodded. "They're...over here." She pointed to two adjoined stones.

"Nathan - is that who they named Uncle Nathan for? - and Holly..."

Chelsea nodded. "Actually, you have another Uncle Nathan."

"I do?"

She nodded and led him over to a smaller stone. "My brother..."

"He died young..."

"He was four or five..."

"Oh."

Chelsea nodded.

"We'll have to come back sometime, when I have like paper or something and keep track... cause we kinda have a really big family..."

She nodded, her attention drawn to a bunch of smaller markers. "I...I don't know who these are..."

"They're little," he noted.

"That's...they're just little memorials..." She looked down at them.

"Lots of people have died in this family..."

"Maybe we'd be a bit warmer if she came before Mom and Dad died." Ivy said quietly. "Made her peace before..."

Chelsea nodded.

"Probably. But I wouldn't put it past Mom to come back after us if we aren't friendly."

Nathan crossed his arms. "You've really got a lot of nerve, Kayla. It's one thing to come back now...but to bring *him*..."

"He's my husband."

"He stole you!"

"I chose to stay."

"You broke their hearts, Kayla." Nathan said coldly. "You broke them."

"But we're lucky, Michael, we've got a big family." Chelsea pointed out.

"I fell in love. And if they'd thought it through they'd have understood."

Nathan shook his head. "No, because we didn't realize it was possible to fall in love with scum."

"Shut up."

"No."

"Mama I don't like them," the child in Kayla's arms declared.

"Yeah... we do." Michael smiled.

"Do you want to get back? Looks like we're missing something over there." Chelsea looked over her shoulder.

"Yeah... okay," Michael followed his mother back.

Chelsea and Michael walked back over. She rested her chin on Garrett's shoulder. "What's going on?"

"My siblings aren't wild about Kayla's arrival," he said quietly. "And apparently I'm just not as assertive as my dad."

"You are...but everyone's so emotional right now..." She whispered.

"This wouldn't be a problem with him..."

"But you're not him, Garrett..." She pointed out. "You're you."

"And we need him. Not me."

"We need you. Especially now...but...maybe it'd be better to let them fight...let them get whatever residual anger they may have out....but not here. Don't let them do it here."

"I won't let them do it, period."

She nodded. "Make them leave the cemetery, then. Our parents don't deserve this."

Garrett nodded and shooed his siblings toward the car.

~*~*~*~

Kayla sighed as she sat down.

Chad squeezed her shoulder. "You sure you want to do this?"

"Yes. I am."

He nodded.

Ella walked into the room a few minutes later and stood against the back wall, simply glaring at her sister.

She returned the look, looking rather like her mother. "Look, Ella, clearly you have a problem, so why don't you just get out in the open?"

"Kayla, it would be one thing if you had come back before they died...but you were just asking for it when you come back after they're buried."

"I came to pay my respects to them. Not to you."

"Well it's too late, either way."

"I don't need your forgiveness or your approval. I'd like to have it, but I'll do just fine without," she said sharply.

"Both of you knock it off," Garrett ordered.

Ella looked at her brother. "Garrett...how can you let her in the house?"

"She's our blood, Ella."

"She's no sister of mine."

"Do you really think that would be what Mom or Dad wanted?" Garrett demanded of her.

"She broke their hearts! She betrayed this family!"

"And they still considered her every bit their child, now SHUT UP!" Garrett roared.

Ella took a step back.

"Look, Ella... I don't want to yell at you... I just don't want this family crumbling again," Garrett said with a sigh. "And I don't know how to fix it. But it feels wrong to me to sit here and yell at Kayla."

"Maybe you should be the one yelling at her." Ella told him. "She came back and we've been bickering and yelling and it's not right, Garrett."

"We're all going to stop bickering and yelling," he said firmly. "And we're going to stop now. I know as well as you how it broke Mom and Dad's hearts when Kayla didn't come back. I was there, I watched Dad tell Mom. But Kayla's still our sister."

"And you're just going to forgive her?"

"I'm sure as hell going to listen to her."

"And you're going to let *that* stay in the house?" Ella shot a disapproving look at Chad.

"Downstairs, yes."

Ella glared at Kayla.

Kayla returned the look.

Michael pushed the door open. "Dad? Mom wants to know if you want to eat soon."

"Tell her sure, Michael." Garrett smiled at his son.

He nodded and left the room.

Garrett sighed.

Ella walked over to him. "Are you going to handle this?"

"Excuse me?"

"You're in charge now, Garrett." Ella said. "Are you going to handle her?"

"I heard you. I'd like to know what you mean by handling."

"It's pretty obvious that none of us want her in this house, Garrett."

"*You* don't."

"Nathan doesn't, either."

"Nathan doesn't know Kayla."

"And whose fault is that?"

"Ella, don't start."

"Don't start what? Garrett?"

"I know your side of the story already."

"So?"

"So it's hers I need to hear."

"Then you'll be the only one. I'm going to see if Chris has gotten the kids fed yet." She left the room in a bit of a huff.

Garrett sighed and headed to the kitchen, hoping to find Chelsea.

Chelsea looked up. "Hey, I saved a plate for you." She handed it to him.

"Thanks." He kissed her softly before taking the plate.

"You alright?" She sat next to him.

"I guess..."

"Everything's squared away with Kayla?"

"No."

"Oh."

"I don't know what to do, Chels."

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to forgive her... I mean I know she won't stay long anyway."

"Do you want her to stay?"

"I guess. But it'll be easier if she doesn't.

"Maybe you could get them to do what my parents did...stay close by, but not in the house...that way she can try and fix her relationships with everyone." Chelsea suggested.

"Maybe. I'll talk to her."

She rubbed his shoulders.

He sighed. "It's just... I don't like seeing the family this way... can't help but think Dad would have done better."

"Your dad would be proud of the way you're handling it."

"I guess... I don't know."

She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "This was just...really unexpected..."

"I know..."

Chelsea sighed. "There's something else...something really unexpected..."

"What is it, Chels? Are you okay??"

She nodded. "I'm fine..." She trailed off.

"What is it, honey?"

"I'm pregnant."

"That's great... are we happy about this?"

She nodded. "I just found out...I was going to wait until later to tell you..."

"No, I'm glad you told me." He smiled at her.

She kissed him.

He kissed back.

Chelsea smiled a bit. "I'm sorry it came up at such an inappropriate time..."

"I don't think anyone's parents would be too ticked off about it."

"No..."

He pulled her close. "I love you, Chels."

"I love you too, baby."

"We're gonna have to tell Michael."

She nodded. "I'm sure he'll be happy to have a little miracle sibling."

"Bet it's a girl."

"You want a girl?"

"Yeah, I do."

Chelsea smiled. "That'd be nice..."

"I think so too."

She kissed him again. "You need to eat."

"Yeah."

"Sit down and eat."

"I *am* eating."

"Good." She smiled.

"It is good," he agreed.

She nodded and rubbed his shoulders.

He smiled up at her.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. I will be."

"Good."

He smiled.

"We'll be fine..."

"I know we will. It'll take us some time... but everything will be fine."

"Yeah..." She paused. "Things...things are safer...now, right?"

"Things'll be alright."

"But..." She hesitated. "At the cemetery...Garrett....Michael and I were looking at the grave stones..."

"Yeah?"

"I don't want us to go through what our parents went through...I don't want to have to bury our children before they reach high school..."

"We won't, Chels. I promise."

"I think it might have startled him...to see that Michael died at such a young age....it scared me to realize that it could happen again..."

"He's the right age..."

She nodded, looking a bit uncertain.

"But he'll be fine."

"I hope so."

"He will."

"And the little one?"

"Will be fine too."

Chelsea nodded. "I hope so."

"We will. We'll be fine." He kissed her gently.

She kissed back.

"Hey, I thought I was supposed to be eating," he teased.

"You are." She smiled. "You kissed me, remember?"

"You started it. Somehow."

She smirked. "That's because you're so handsome."

"Oh am I?"

She nodded.

"Well yay for me."

She kissed him again.

He kissed back.

"Everything will work out."

"I know."

"Finish eating."

"Well yes ma'am."

~*~*~*~

Nathaniel Spencer jumped over the fence. The house on the hill hadn't changed at all externally, even in nearly a hundred years. Inside it was updated, of course, but his family had always been a bit obsessive about tradition. He walked down the street. You'd think, he mused, that being an international power and all they'd have better security, but he wouldn't complain about just having to jump the iron fence rather than other elaborate stuff. He suddenly noticed a dark haired girl sitting on a bench not far from the house. Brushing his own red hair out of his face (red hair appeared in the family every once in a while), he approached her. "Hi."

She looked up, squinting a bit from the sun. "Hi."

"Can I sit here?"

She nodded, moving over a bit and closing her book. Erica was almost grateful for the company...her family was, in her opinion, over the top in finding out about her friends. "I'm Erica."

"Nathaniel." He smiled.

"I don't think I've seen you around that much before."

"Nah... admittedly, I don't get out much... My full name's Nathaniel Spencer," he said by way of explanation.

Erica nodded. Everyone knew about the Spencer family...as a child, she'd always been strongly warned to stay away from them. "Erica Kincaide." She said in reply.

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