A/N: As I wrote this chapter I was stuck on two questions. The first I think of as the Julia problem – how do you redeem a character who has done something really unpleasant? The second was – and what's the point? Fake Zane and Zane's mom can't stay in Eureka, so giving them an epilogue all for their own seemed kind of pointless. But Diana – well, her voice just would not get out of my head. The real story ends at the wedding, though!

Epilogue

Later that evening

His head was down, his shoulders slumped. Diana reminded herself firmly that just because he looked like Zane didn't mean he was like Zane. No, he was some weird amalgam of Andy and Zane – a combination that made the day she and Henry had spent with him much more comprehensible, even if no less odd.

He looked up at the sound of the door sliding open and despite the reminder she'd just given herself, Diana had to blink twice to stop herself from showing a reaction to that sulky face. She felt the same mix of exasperation and love she'd felt when summoned to pick him up after he'd been expelled from MIT. And Yale. Not so much Cornell, though, that one really hadn't been his fault, and she'd felt more righteous rage than exasperation that time. Robot, she reminded herself. Still, he was a robot with her son's memories, and that was…interesting.

"Aren't you supposed to be at a wedding reception?" he asked, and his voice was exactly as sulky as his expression. Diana pressed her lips together to hold back the smile. Robot! She reminded herself again.

"I was there," Diana acknowledged. "But I find it hard to relax with unfinished business. And we have – well, let's call it unfinished business."

He shrugged. "Plug me into a terminal and I'll download everything I know about sonoluminescence." He looked away.

Diana's eyes narrowed. "I'm actually more interested in the attempted murder than the explosion."

"What?" His eyes shot back to her as he stood up hastily, almost knocking over the stool he was sitting on. "I didn't try to murder anyone!"

"My son?" Diana said pointedly. "The guy you locked up in a cupboard for two days? The one whose identity you tried to steal?"

"I wasn't going to kill him." Fake Zane sounded scornful, exactly the way real Zane did when he thought someone was being stupid.

She raised her eyebrows. "And what exactly were you going to do with him after you copied his face, stole his identity, and married his girlfriend?"

Fake Zane sighed. "Send him to Australia." He slumped back down onto the stool he'd been sitting on. "The two days in the cupboard – that was kind of an accident. I didn't expect him to show up Wednesday night, but when he did…well, it was too good an opportunity to miss."

"Australia?"

"I debated trying to find someplace without extradition laws, but the terrorist watch list would work just as well, and Australia is a hell of a lot more comfortable than North Korea."

Diana paused. Okay, that was a surprise. Extradition? Terrorist watch list? What was he talking about? "Extradition?" she asked carefully. "Why would that apply?"

Fake Zane frowned. "It was my escape plan, originally. There's a cargo shipment headed to Australia tomorrow morning, and I've got the redaction paperwork ready to go. It's a fake identity, of course, but I put the name on the terrorist watch list. If Dr. Calvin tried to get me, she'd have to battle it out with Homeland Security. She couldn't do that without admitting a lot of top-secret information. And first she'd have to find me. But when I changed plans, I figured it'd work just as well to keep him in Australia for a while. He'd have found a way back eventually, but – well, it doesn't matter. I screwed up." He looked away again, his face pained.

"That would be one way to put it," Diana agreed wryly. She was getting the picture – all the pieces were finally starting to make sense. "So you had the explosion already planned before you met Jo?"

He nodded.

"And you met her…" she prompted.

"She was mad at him," he burst out, "—and he, he had this amazing person at home, but all he was doing was working all the time. He was – " his voice trailed off and when he added, shaking his head, "…so stupid," Diana wasn't sure whether he was referring to himself or Zane.

"So you were escaping from Dr. Calvin?" she prompted again.

"She wants to kill me! I'm just an experiment to her. She told him that she couldn't wait to open up my brain and find out how the neural network had progressed because of the memory device. I knew then that I had to get away." He sighed.

Diana stayed quiet, her expression thoughtful.

"The explosion was self-defense, really," he offered. "Not that it matters, anyway. It's not as if I'm going to get a trial."

"I don't know about that."

He looked back at her, eyes alert. "You could let me go," he suggested. "I can't break out from inside, but it'd take you ten minutes, max, to hack the system from out there."

"Mmm, that'd be one approach," Diana agreed. "Messy, though. Where are the redaction papers?"

"Really?" He stood, hands pressing against the glass. "You'll help me?"

"I haven't decided yet," she admitted. "What are you going to do if I get you out of here?"

"Go to Australia, I guess."

"You're not going to –" she paused, looking for a delicate way to phrase the question, but he understood immediately.

"Try to win the girl?" His smile was sad. "No. She made her choice. And … I just wanted to make her happy. I thought I could."

Diana nodded. "Redaction papers?" she asked again.

He gave her directions to where they were stored, and just a few minutes later, she was flipping through them thoughtfully. He'd named himself Miles Dyson*, she noted, and given himself a solid background that would get him a job as a computer scientist. He'd have no trouble in Australia. If, that is, she let him go there. She sighed. Decisions, decisions. It seemed like such a waste… her eyes narrowed thoughtfully, as she considered the idea she'd just had. Finally, she began to smile, pulling out her phone.

A solid twenty minutes later, she said, exasperated, "Dr. Fargo, do you really want to have to explain to a congressional subcommittee on ethics what exactly it is about your programming that has caused more than one robot to fall in love with my daughter-in-law?" Okay, it was fighting dirty, but really, why was he being stubborn about this?

"Uh, no, not really." His voice didn't squeak. He simply sounded resigned. He must be getting used to her.

"You've already reported that the robot was destroyed in the explosion: all you have to do is not update that report. It's not even lying, it's just skipping a little paperwork."

Fargo sighed. "You know, I honestly think I'm beginning to understand Zane a little better. Are you coming back to the reception soon?"

"I'm working on a new set of paperwork, so as soon as you agree with my idea, I can wrap things up here, and head back over there. It sounds as if it's going well?" She could hear music and the noise of happy party-goers in the background.

"Oh, yeah. And the food is incredible. But, uh, Jo's father and Zane's father seem to be in a competition to see who can do the most shots of tequila: I'm not sure it's going to end well."

Diana closed her eyes in resignation. That sounded so like Henry…ah, well. Not tonight, because that would be awkward, but from here on out, he'd have an able-bodied assistant to carry him home. "So we're agreed?"

"I think you're crazy, but all right, go ahead," Fargo sighed. "Just – if it ends badly – please keep GD out of it."

"It's not going to end badly," she promised him. "But I'll come up with a cover story just in case."

Smiling, she finished up the paperwork and headed back to the cell where Fake Zane was waiting. He was standing this time, and had clearly been pacing the few short steps of the small room, but he looked at her as the door opened, eyes wary and then hopeful as he saw her expression.

"You're going to let me go to Australia?" he asked eagerly.

"No." She shook her head but as his face fell, she typed in the code for the lock and let the door slide open. She held out the folder of papers she was carrying and waited for him to step close enough to take it, then pulled out the keys to her rental car. "You'll have to drop me off at the reception first, but then you can take the car to Portland. There'll be a plane ticket waiting for you at the American ticket counter in the airport."

"But – if I stay in the United States, they'll catch me in no time."

"Catch who?" she said cheerfully. "Don was destroyed in the explosion."

"You're just going to let me leave?"

"Not exactly." She indicated the papers and as he flipped open the folder to take a look, she continued, "You chose family over freedom when you decided to try to marry Jo instead of escaping to Australia, so I thought that might be your choice again, if in a slightly different way. Or perhaps I'm punishing you for kidnapping my son. Being Henry's assistant is likely to have its challenges. But he's getting older, and he could use the help."

He looked up at her, expression stunned, "You gave me a new name."

"I didn't like the one you picked." She shrugged and smiled. "I think I'll call you Hank, if that's okay?"

"I – uh, yeah, that's – that's fine," Hank was still looking confused, as Diana put a hand on his elbow and started ushering him toward the door.

"We'll have to talk about whether you want to stay looking like Zane or change your look," she mused. "And although your paperwork says you'll be working for Henry, you're really going to be working for me – Henry's supposed to be on a low-cholesterol diet and he's terribly stubborn about it, so I could use your help with that…"

She had other ideas, too, lots of them – he was strong, smart, tireless, with an incredible memory, no need to eat or sleep – oh, yes, Hank was definitely going to be an asset for her work, too.

And meanwhile … well, Henry had always wanted a boy named after him.

* I've been trying to work that cross-over joke in for the whole damn story and it just never fit anywhere! I really wanted Henry (the real Henry, not Zane's dad) to find the papers somehow, but that was too complicated for such a small joke. It would have been funny, though – and it would have been so appropriate. Dr. Calvin's line about the neural net architecture in Ch20 is actually a direct quote from Alison in Ship Happens, but Skynet is also described as a neural network. Oh, and yes, Dr. Calvin is a reference to Asimov and I, Robot. (Also, Rostand is named after the security guard in Gross Pointe Blank –what can I say, I'm fond of the obscure cross-over jokes!)

I am pretty sure that this is the end of this alternate universe, since I am a happily-ever-after type and that generally means that wedding = ending. So I wanted to take this last chance to say thank you for reading and especially thank you to everyone who has reviewed. I wrote my very first chapter of my very first story because I was driven so mad by the ending of "I'll Be Seeing You" but pretty much every chapter after that - something like 40+ of them? - has been because of your encouragement! Thank you!