One month later

Sleep gently pushed me away, allowing the grasping throes of my consciousness to snag me and to drag me upwards towards the surface of attention.

My soft inhalation was timed to the moment that my eyes opened, my world beginning to build around me as everything became un-blurred after long seconds passed. Cool air rushed down my nostrils and I began to feel… everything – my first sensations for the day.

The outside air, the air not within my bed, was frigid and lingering, but I barely felt a chill. The soft but thick blankets that were draped up to my mid-torso were doing an admirable job in dispelling away the cold from my body, letting warmth encase me. The silk upon my skin hugged me, molding to my shape, keeping me safe from freezing. But if the sheets within my bed had not been enough in driving away the wintery bite, then perhaps the body partially draped across me, throbbing with heat, had helped do the trick.

Somewhat bemused, I lifted my head a couple inches to see that a gray arm was lazily draped across my chest, its owner melded against me to partake of my warmth, a nonviolent robbery of my own resources. There was a fluttering hot breath at my neck and I glanced over and made a soft and broad smile on instinct at the sight of Nya sleeping next to me. Well… more like she was sleeping upon me.

I don't think I was ever going to take this, this sensation of waking up to being wrapped up in a loved one, for granted ever again. Knowing how easy it had been for my life to disintegrate without any warning, I was going to treasure these moments every single day.

Nya was conked out, which was particularly apparent because her facial expression at the moment was rather interesting and not very flattering. Her jaw was dropped open an inch, her tongue lolling to the side in her mouth, and her hair, usually messy all on its own, was flopped in every direction and somehow impossibly more tangled than before. As it was quite obvious, she was out of her suit because we had been previously engaged in a night of intense exertions just a few hours prior to whatever time it was right now. Her enviro-suit lay neatly folded upon a standing chair near the far wall of the bedroom, the rest of her metallic apparatuses perched perfectly on top of the foldable and stretchy bodysuit.

My wife mumbled in her sleep, a string of meaningless noises, and nudged herself more against me, looking to keep herself warm and snug, protected from the morning chill. I don't know if she intrinsically managed to sense that I was awake or that she was trying to steal more heat from me (as her own body circulation was noticeably poorer than an average human's) but I managed to find it irresistibly cute that she was squirming around like this, holding onto me like one would to a life preserver. Her smooth skin pressed against my side and I gave a murmur of my own, finding the position that I had awoken into to be quite pleasant.

The glow of the chronometer upon my nightstand drew my attention away for a beat as I moved my head to check the time and get it firmly locked into my head.

4:30 PST, it read.

"What the hell?" I said out loud, perhaps a bit louder than intended because Nya gave a sleepy little grunt and nudged herself against me irritably. I was a bit too distracted in my own thoughts, to be honest, because I was not expecting to have woken up at 4:30 in the morning. I even craned my head towards the other side of the bed to have a look and sure enough, the windows were still dark. The light of the sun had not even hit us yet, which definitely indicated that it was still the early morning.

Weird, I considered, as I would have figured that last night's activities, plus all the casual drinking we had been doing prior, would have precluded our eventual wakening at about noon. I should have been so exhausted that I would have been in a coma for half a day. If this clock was right, and it sure looked like it was, I had only received about four hours of sleep total, at most.

I flopped my head against the pillow with a groan. It was going to be a long day.

The next half an hour was spent by me desperately trying to regain back some semblance of the sleep that I had been so firmly entwined in but that inclination never bothered to rear its head. It was like I had drunk a whole pot of coffee or tea beforehand and now I was paying the price, despite the fact that no stimulants were in my system. Jealous, I looked back over to Nya, whose unsuited body was still holding onto me tightly, wrapped up in her own peaceful little world.

Eventually, I had to admit defeat and relegate myself to the fact that I would just have to take a nap in the middle of the day or so as I carefully pried Nya's hand off of my chest before I rolled over to the side of the bed. Nya whimpered out in her sleep and her body curled into a fetal position all on its own, her lone hand clenching over the spot where I had been resting in a rather pathetic move. Still, Nya's biologic response to her husband and primary heat source suddenly departing was so pitiful and yet so endearing that I myself was consumed by the desire to lean back over and kiss her cheek as a gesture of reassurance.

I'll be damned, I noted as I pulled back. She actually smiled in her sleep.

"I love you," I whispered into her ear. Cheesy and clichéd the saying might be but hell, it certainly does have the desired effect upon the right people.

I then pressed my feet to the floor, rubbing at my forehead to ward off the encroaching headache from sitting up too quickly, only to make a shiver as my bare soles made contact with the cold hardwood floor instead of my fuzzy slippers. I had to make a glance over the side so that I could aim my feet accordingly and encase them into the woolen moccasins. With that finished, I stood up and picked up my robe from the end of the bed and draped it over me since I was too lazy to put on any real clothes right about now. It was too early for that, in any case.

Leaving Nya to doze by herself, I edged out of the bedroom and into the living room of our large home. There were only the dimmest of lights on in the house right now, all being reflected off the glass door that led to the balcony, allowing my reflection to be clearly projected right back at me. Ordinarily, I could look out that door and see the towering pines scrape against our unobstructed view to the Pacific Ocean, but there was still the blackness of the early morning to contend with, obscuring what would normally be a breathtaking sight.

California. Our home… for good, this time.

The living room was simply furnished, mostly a result of Nya and I not taking enough time to do any online shopping for stuff to fill our house with, but there was this sort of minimalism to the entire picture that complimented a rather studious lifestyle. A couple square looking plush chairs combined with a very tasteful couch the color of cream all faced a brick fireplace, above which was where the holo-screen was perched. The walls were bare from a noticeable lack of art in the place, an issue that was more difficult to solve than it appeared to be. I really needed to go and find something to fill those empty voids, I sourly reminded myself. Too bad Nya and I had somewhat differing opinions on what classified as "fine art" these days. Nya's tastes ran to impressionistic creations while I tended to prefer art that was a little more abstract. Naturally, we tended to butt heads every time we tried to broach the subject of art, so that was a facet of home decoration that we had deliberately put off for a time.

But despite the bareness of the entire house and how it appeared, this was now our place of residence – our permanent place of residence. Nya and I had moved some of our stuff from the Citadel over to here, in Santa Cruz, in order to help support our family and give us an idea of how to grow together. The apartment on the Citadel was going to function as a second home, but no longer as our main place to lay our heads. It had been decided between us a long time ago, more than a year in fact, that our kid was going to grow up knowing what it was like to have a planet to call their home instead of languishing on a space station for their childhood. A planet was the best place to raise a kid, in any case.

Our Taylor… our little girl… she would always know that Earth would be her home.

In the midst of the foyer, I placed my hands on my hips and gave a longing sigh as I gave a slow turn all the way around. All the damage that had been done during when Eyzn's goons had tried to storm this place had finally been fixed up a couple of weeks ago. It had taken a contractor several days to repair all the structural damage and to patch up all the bullet holes. The end result was that the place looked brand new – no evidence at all that there had been a firefight. Just the way I wanted it. I wanted my daughter to grow up without the threat or knowledge of violence looming over her head.

That girl deserved a better life than mine up to this point and I was pretty damn determined to give her that.

I then walked into her room, a lovingly styled space that combined modern and rustic elements together to create a very pleasing place to reside in. Two of the four walls of Taylor's room were lightly fogged glass, able to become transparent with the push of a button. Ordinarily, she would be able to have a view of the sea as well, and judging how a tinge of light was starting to warm up the night sky, she would be able to do just that in an hour or two.

Taylor lay in the middle of a plush bed within her environmental bubble. She was curled up underneath a warm blanket, sound asleep just like her mother. Taylor's hair was short and thin, colored a very fine black. She had definitely grown from the newborn that had been my first ever glimpse of her. At nearly a year old (by about a month or two) Taylor was looking pretty healthy for a girl of her age.

Very healthy, in fact. Not at all like when… when I had found Nya holding onto the body of the clone.

What a horrible day that had been.

The environmental bubble was transparent and made of a squishy material, very easily manipulated. There were rubbery ports that could be compartmentalized in case Nya or I needed to have direct hand contact with our child, which meant that Taylor was not completely isolated from her parents all the time, thankfully. Tubes and quietly humming fans were attached to little miters near the top of the bubble that connected to a cylindrical apparatus at the ceiling of the room, providing Taylor with fresh and safe air for her to breathe. The air could be heated and cooled as necessary, and many of these tubes helped provide our baby with food and water so that her dietary needs could be addressed.

All in all, everything was set up to make sure that Taylor had as normal of a life while growing up as possible.

I grabbed a rocking chair from the side of the room and gently placed it next to Taylor's bubble, trying to be as quiet as possible that I did not wake her. I then sat down upon it and proceeded to slowly rock myself back and forth for several minutes, utterly possessed by this desire to watch over my sleeping daughter, to protect her from harm.

"Taylor. My little Taylor. I don't think you can ever imagine how lucky you are," I whispered to the sleeping girl, quiet enough that it was even hard for me to hear myself. "Heh, I'm even having trouble imagining it. You have it all: parents who love you, a wonderful home, and the promise of a good life ahead of you. And to think… I did not imagine that this was possible. In all my dreams, I would have never have thought that we would be together again, Taylor. All this time… and yet we found you."

I looked down at the floor before I appraised the barely brightening window, my hands now clenched together. "I wonder, will you remember any of it? Your time away from us, I mean. I certainly hope not. You're way too young to have that looming over you. You deserve to grow up happy, joyful, guiltless. That's all your mother and I have ever wanted for you. You have the luxury of forgetting all of this, but I don't. And having you comprehend the sadness I felt when I thought you were gone… no child needs that."

The baby stirred and made a little mumble before smacking her lips and calming in her sleep.

I leaned forward and gingerly tapped the tips of my fingers against one another. "I don't know… maybe we'll tell you the whole story once you're old enough. It wouldn't be fair to keep you in the dark forever, but I hope you'll understand why we weren't going to tell you right away. It's not fair to put that kind of trauma on you when you're so young. Only when you're ready will your mother and I tell you everything."

I smiled as I then looked to the ceiling in thought, emitting a sigh to blow away any remnants of stress. "Although… I probably won't ever tell you about my whole story and… how I got here. To this universe. Sorry, Taylor, but even you'd find all those aspects to be beyond belief. I mean, look at where you are! You are going to grow up in a time where you get to travel between worlds, to meet with alien species, and to have access to such fantastical technology that's still beyond my wildest dreams. Hell, the very fact that your parents are different species altogether is something that's only just become second nature for me to consider. How are you to understand that when your father was growing up, space travel was a luxury for scientists and the super-rich, that we knew of no other intelligent life in the universe, that cancer and other genetic disorders could not be eradicated completely, and that this very planet was in very real danger from the frantic wars ongoing between differing factions within my race? I don't think I'll ever be able to explain that to you because you certainly won't believe me. The only person in this galaxy that knows my story is your mother, and she's going to take that secret all the way to her grave, I promise you."

The burnt orange rays of the sun were just starting to skim the tips of the lush sequoias, scything their way through the ocean fog that was creeping over the hills to the ocean. The approaching light began to warm the room and I rubbed at my cold hands eagerly.

"I probably would've wanted to have been born in your time," I mumbled. "Maybe things would have been easier for me."

With a shrug, I leaned forward once more. "Maybe that doesn't matter all that much. Maybe what really matters is that you're going to grow up with parents who love you. A while back I don't even believe that I thought I was going to have kids in my lifetime. I was a different guy many years ago – someone who was too angry and filled with too much self-loathing. Just a careless idiot who stumbled upon your mother at what had to be the most fortuitous timing of my entire life. The both of us saved each other many times over and I learned to be a better person because of her. We had our ups and downs together, but I honestly think that the worst is all behind us, Taylor. I think that you're going to be the very best part of my life and I'm excited to share it with you."

"Not to mention all this," I added as I gesture to the skylight, which was proudly displaying the map of stars twinkling above our heads, coupled with the crisscrossing lines of aerial traffic as they traversed the globe, making their way to the mass relay on the far edge of the system or to the Citadel orbiting overhead. "I get to raise you with the entire galaxy open to you. An entire galaxy! Worlds upon worlds to explore! I never had that opportunity when I was a kid! You are going to have so much potential when you get older. There are going to be so many places for you to go, Taylor. I'm just excited to see what you will do with your life because you will never get a better shot than this."

In her bubble, the little girl turned over on her back and gave a peaceful sigh.

As the chaos in the wake of Eyzn's madness slowly began to wind down, everyone else began the process of going back to their regular lives, trying to deal with the fact that now every little event seemed to be rather boring by comparison. After getting shot at for days on end, a day spent at the office would feel even more mundane than usual.

Rie and Chandler survived their encounter in Tel Aviv just fine. Rie walked away with only minor flesh wounds while Chandler's, despite being more serious, healed within a week. Both were still relatively mobile and in good spirits once the craziness from the past few days had died down.

The two of them were actually in the process of moving to Earth as well, coincidentally. Rie had managed to land a residency opportunity at the Royal National Hospital over in London, Chandler's old stomping ground. She had been selected after going through a grueling hiring process and she was due to start her new position as one of the new lead orthopedic surgeons in a matter of weeks. Chandler had similarly found a new role as a manager for a large pharmaceutical company over in Hamburg, a quick twenty minute hop via shuttle from London.

The two of them, last I heard, were very excited to embark on their new careers. We have since made plans to meet up for dinner next week.

It would be like nothing had ever changed between us.

Iroa's body was transported back to Rannoch, whereupon he was buried within the very soil he was banished from, a privilege available to any quarian, despite his status as being exiled. Nya and I had figured that Rannoch was a fitting place for the man's last memory to reside, considering his attachment to the planet. He would have wanted his remains to have made it to the homeworld in the end.

As a final gesture to Iroa's sacrifice, Nya had submitted a formal proposal to the local civilian affairs council in Rannoch's capitol city, requesting that Iroa be posthumously be reinstated into the rolls of all the ships that he had served on and that he would no longer be listed as an exile. Nya listed the selfless achievements that Iroa had performed for his family since his banishment, indicating his worthiness to be treated as a quarian that deserved the recognition that had always eluded him in life. That way, Nya could finally proclaim that she had honored the man she had known as her father, for his last actions at attempting to bring her family back together.

That request is still pending.

What remained of Sagan was also dropped off at one of the main manufacturing hubs on Rannoch. The quarians, in the wake of a new policy passed down by the Admiralty, were now allowed to start reactivating and repairing geth while keeping in mind that their biases towards artificial intelligences were to be stifled in the wake of the immense progress the geth could be able to provide. It seemed only fitting that Nya and I hand Sagan over to the people who could do a sufficient job of putting him back together. Sagan would not be the same geth once he was reactivated as he would have no memory of his previous life, but I figured that he would have wanted his body to be used in the most efficient manner.

It would be a fitting way to pass off the memory of my friend.

Strangely enough, about a week ago I received a message from the tech that we had left Sagan with. The repair and refurbishment process was going very smoothly and they expected to have the geth reactivated within the next month. However, the tech had noticed some oddities about Sagan and left a message with me to see if I could shed some insight.

From what the tech had noted, Sagan's core memory had not been completely wiped upon his death, evidence of which was presented in the form of fragmented, but useable, packets of data still residing within the geth's main memory. This was unusual because geth were supposed to wipe all of their memory cores upon deactivation in reflex, yet there were still segments of locked memory embedded in Sagan.

As to what this meant, I had no idea. I never bothered to message the tech back because the implications of such a discovery were beyond my understanding.

But I wondered if it was too crazy for me to begin to hope.

A hand then touched my shoulder, gently gripping against me. I immediately felt a smile upon my lips. Who else would this new arrival be?

"Couldn't sleep?" I heard Nya ask me, softly so as not to wake the baby.

I lifted my hand to enclose around hers, keeping my gaze wrapped upon my child. "Something like that." I then stood up and turned to face my wife, noting that she too seemed a little sleepy, not to mention that she had deliberately stolen one of my fluffy robes so that she could walk around with some modesty. Actually, modesty was probably not the issue – Nya got cold way too easily without something covering her.

"I take it you were spending hours just watching Taylor again?"

I glanced back to the sleeping infant. "Only one hour this time. She's always been in the back of my mind lately." I smirked towards Nya. "You did good, honey."

She shook her head. "We did good. Our daughter. Our family."

"Just the way I wanted it. And yet I have this feeling that she might just vanish every time I take my eyes off her. It's a ridiculous feeling, but I haven't been able to shake it just yet."

Now Nya started to tug at my arm, a hopeless look on her face. "She'll still be here later in the morning. It's too early for you to lose sleep over this." As I raised my head up a bit to look at her better, she gave a wide smile, showing her teeth, as she nudged me out of the room as her three-fingered hands guided me with her. "Come back to bed with me," was her sensuous order.

I bumped my eyebrows playfully. "Why? Need someone to warm you up?"

Nya smirked and she gave me a playful slap, one so light I barely felt her palm against my cheek. "Not that way, you oaf. I can't sleep out of my suit if you're not in that bed with me. It's too damn early and I'm too damn cold."

"Oh? So it's for purely selfish reasons you're tearing me away from our daughter?" I grinned as well as I dug my heels into the floor, intentionally making it much more strenuous for Nya to budge me, which had an interesting effect on her.

The quarian growled as she shot over to my back and began to push on me in her frustration, using her head to ram into the small of my back while her hands bit at my shoulder blades, forcing me forward a step or two every couple of seconds. We were now out of Taylor's room by now and headed down the hallway toward our own bedroom, the air noticeably chillier in the larger corridor.

"Rrrggh," I heard Nya groan out as she continued to push me, a tricky endeavor considering I was playfully working against her. "You… bastard. Why must you make things so difficult?"

"Hey, I was having a nice moment with my daughter!" I protested with a laugh, amusing myself by making Nya's life more arduous than it needed to be. "You're the one who barged in and ruined things!"

Nya huffed as she finally managed to shove the both of us into the room. "Only… because… I… was… cold! Wagh!"

Nya let out a yell as I unexpectedly made a sidestepping motion, which caused her to pitch forward as her body's momentum had all been front-facing as she had been pushing against me. With no body in the way for her to lean against, Nya's hands pin-wheeled on empty air and she would have had a hard fall to look forward too, if the bed had not been right there to safely arrest her decent.

The mattress made a creaking noise and the sheets rippled as Nya landed upon the bed with a loud croak. She blinked for a moment, a bit uncertain as to her surroundings, before she slightly turned over on her side and beheld me with a sour look, trying to decide how hurt she should look from this semi-betrayal.

"I hope you're happy with yourself," she stated flatly, obvious not amused at my antics.

Meanwhile, I was covering an uncontrollable smile with a hand. "Only because I didn't expect that move to work so well. You took that pratfall like a champ."

Nya then sat up, her robe partially askew, about to angrily pout. But she barely had crossed her arms and scrunched in her shoulders before I walked over to her, put a hand under her chin, and oriented her head up so that I could softly kiss her on the lips.

Her anger evaporated on the spot as she gave a grateful mumble. I had learned long ago that the key to make Nya no longer angry at me, or at least to wipe away her facetious disappointment, was to ply her with affection. Physical intimacy, being a rarity for her, was an instant antidote in that regard.

After the kiss was broken, Nya still had an exasperated expression on her face, but it was quickly softening as her deeper inhibitions were coming to light.

"You certainly are a presumptuous one, Sam," she sighed with a forlorn grin.

I could only shrug. "Only because I know you too well, Nya."

"Deviant."

"Pretender."

"Get in this stupid bed, human," Nya growled as she shot a finger towards the empty side, fed up with this pointless bickering.

I too was bored of how this conversation was panning out, not to mention that sleep was starting to infringe upon me once more, all but dooming me to join my wife under the sheets. "Etiquette was apparently not a virtue on the flotilla," I lightly bit back, unable to resist one more parting shot.

Nya had to bite her lip to prevent her from delivering back a scathing remark in kind and the two of us began to prepare to get into bed in blissful silence.

I kicked off my robe first and rested my torso against the mountain of pillows, waiting for Nya to join me. Almost meek but quickly adopting a teasing look, Nya shed her own robe, giving me an unobstructed view of her body, from her breasts, to her toned stomach, down to the little shock of hair she had between her legs. Uncontrollably grinning, Nya quickly clambered into bed and rolled her body partially atop mine once more, warming me, and she placed her hands upon my chest and rested her head upon them, letting her look at my face to her heart's content.

The two of us spent several minutes just staring at each other with nothing less than complete adoration. Our fingers started to lightly brush each other's, just simple movements like that as we occasionally brought our heads closer to kiss in this position - light pecks and a quick melding of warm lips. We did not have plans to do anything too fancy right about now as we were rather tired but intimate little moments like these could make an entire day worthwhile, even when the day had barely started. Just us, alone in our perfect little world, cuddling with nothing but our skin deliciously mingling against each other, partaking in our own secret heat.

I wonder if Nya knew just how much I cared about her. More than anyone could ever fathom, would be the answer.

"Ours is not… a normal relationship, is it?" I blurted out loud after fighting to keep my eyelids open for about a minute, momentarily disregarding my urge to fall asleep.

Nya laughed at that and gave her shoulders a tiny shrug. "I have no idea what is normal anymore. Should life-or-death situations typically not be included in this package that you call… normal? Or are you just comparing it to what you would have found back where you came from?"

"Honestly, I don't know," I murmured as one of my hands slid along Nya's bare back in an absentminded fashion. "I just don't have the first clue. The kind of person I was back then is… is so hard for me to recall. All the time I've spent here has slowly eroded the memories of my previous life. But I was not happy all those years ago. I was miserable, tired, a selfish bastard. I had wanted to end it all. And now… these little deviations from the 'normal' that I had known… knowing the difference, I really don't care. Normality doesn't matter anymore. We're together and that's enough for me."

I then carefully gripped Nya's arms near the shoulders as I added steel to my voice. "We've led crazy lives, you and I. What we've seen together is enough madness for our lifetimes, not to mention that we're not even close to being middle-aged, yet!"

Nya groaned and rested her forehead flat on my chest at that revelation. "Sam, you ruined the moment by reminding me how close we were to screwing everything up between us… and we're not even at our own halfway points!"

"Ruined? How could I have ruined anything, when we only have the best years of our lives in front of us?" I cupped Nya's cheeks before she rolled over onto her back so that we were both looking upwards, towards the ceiling. "We have everything, Nya," I gestured in the air animatedly as she watched with pride and amusement. "Everything that we could ever want. We have each other, stronger than ever. We have our daughter back, and we can finally have the family that we've wanted for so long. Christ, Nya… we can watch our baby grow up. If that doesn't excite you, then I don't know what will."

"Oh, I don't know," Nya snuggled against me mischievously. "I mean, there's always more we can do on the family front."

I raised my head slightly, incredulous. "The hell is that supposed to mean?"

My wife gave a subtle intimation, trying her best to look innocent. "I'm just saying, there's always room for expansion. I… well… maybe at some point you'd like someone else to join us? A son, perhaps?"

I had to clasp my hands completely over my face as I hysterically began to howl in disbelief for half a minute. My body was shaking with laughter so hard that even Nya was starting to rattle along next to me, an eyebrow precariously arched upon her face.

"Haah… ahhh…" I panted as I fought back peals. "You… you're kind of thinking a little too far ahead for me there, Nya. One kid is enough for now."

"Yet… you're not opposed to the idea to have more children down the line?"

I turned my head to indicate my seriousness to my wife while keeping a part of me aloof. "Ask me again in a couple of years. Deal?"

Nya immediately nodded at that. "Deal."

The cavernous serenity soon overwhelmed us as we lay next to each other, our hands clenched together, as we smiled and stared up at the ceiling. The two of us appreciated the quiet as we listened to each other's breathing, low thrums that existed in a small bubble of sound that only we could perceive. We wanted this moment to last so much, to the point where we refused to say a word to the other for fear of wasting the preciousness of our time together.

It was the company, the welcome presence, that we were so devoted to here. Lying upon this bed, holding onto Nya's hand, I could think of nowhere else that I wanted to be. Here, I felt safe, loved. Nothing else was pressing upon my mind. I could not think of anything else that I intrinsically desired, except to stay right here and reap the benefits of being with my family.

Within this house were all the people I loved the most. The luckiest man in the galaxy was right here, for he was no longer left wanting.

"Still… that's interesting," I finally murmured as I slightly turned my head to stare straight back into Nya's glowing eyes.

"What?" Nya whispered.

"It's just the fact that you aren't hesitating for such a big step like that. It's… humbling. You would willingly go through having a kid all over again just for me. I just thought that really means a lot. It does. Because if I make you so happy, if falling in love with me makes perfect sense, then… then coming here, finding you, was all worth it. All of it. If I made such a positive influence on your life, Nya, then maybe this is where I was always meant to be. Nowhere else, no matter the universe. With you… I'm home. For real, Nya. I'm home."

Nya shook her head but she gave me a warm look, her eyes never taking themselves off of me as she ruffled my hair gently and rubbed the back of her knuckles against my scratchy cheek. Her touch was warm and soothing – I was immediately calmed by it. Nya then leaned over, her lips at my ear, her breath tickling me, causing goosebumps to run up and down my body.

Then her light voice secretly sighed into my ear.

"What took you so long?"

A/N: With that, we have come to the end of Patriarch.

Over a year and a half of combined writing, over 800,000 words total, and the trilogy of The Quantum Error is finally complete. Writing the journey of Sam and Nya has been an immense blast from start to finish, and I couldn't be happier at the support I've received along the way. From all the heart-wrenching moments (and sometimes heart-attack inducing moments) this installment has created, I hope that you all find a shared sense of relief now that Patriarch has come to a close. You all were a great audience to write for and I've constantly been entertained and touched from the feedback that I've received. I hope this happy ending makes up for all the panic attack moments that I had you endure - I know I've put you through the ringer in regards to twist after wrenching twist, but hopefully this brings about a sense of genuine closure.

Speaking of closure, does this mean that this will really be the end of Sam and Nya's story, even now that they've got their daughter back? The honest answer is: I have no idea. I'm not going to make the mistake that I did last time about putting my line in the sand by saying that there will not be any more sequels, but as of right now, I don't really have a plan as to what I'd like to do, IF I was going to make a sequel. With that being said, I think that this trilogy of stories will more than suffice for right now. If there are to be any spinoffs, they're going to be quite a ways away as I want to try and experiment on more original fare first before returning to fanfiction.

BUT... I'd keep an eye out in the near future, because Sam and Nya just might show up again in places that you might not expect!

I'd like to extend special thanks to the following individuals: ArchReaperN7 (for letting me utilize a few worldbuilding ideas from his wheelhouse) and to Bossproject (for his elaborate analyses and insights which led me to adopt some changes for the betterment of the story).

My sincere thanks to you all for helping to support Patriarch. I hope that I was able to deliver a story to your liking. As usual, you were a tremendous audience to write for and I hope to see you in the future, no matter where life takes us.

Rob Sears, signing off.