Author's (final) Note: Thank you all for reading my story. I hope you felt it was worth it! There really were a million other things I would like to have touched on (more about Donovan's death; Helen - and Joan and Ruthie - dealing with the aftermath of the shooting; Grace and Joan patching things up a bit more; etc), but I simply ran out of time. And I knew that if I didn't finish writing before I got back to school, I probably wouldn't finish the story at all (and school is proving that theory correct. I have time for no other writing but what's assigned in class. Bah). I would've been highly disappointed with myself if that had happened. Thank goodness it didn't.

Also, I know some of you were disappointed that I didn't use the other Joan characters more, but I just didn't feel like it was necessary in the story. I went into it intending to write it as a Joan/Helen story, but the more I wrote Joan and Ruthie together, the more I realized it was a story between those two. And Helen was the (main) supporting character, lol. I did plan on using Grace more, but that didn't pan out. And Will, Kevin, and Luke didn't seem relevant to the story. They wouldn't have been socializing much with Ruthie… and really, it was just about the women, anyway. As for Adam… he had no place in this story, as far as I was concerned. If he were still Joan's boyfriend, I would definitely have used him, but he's not and he broke Joan's (and my) heart, so I had no intention of including him.

Anyway, I hope you'll review and let me know what you think of the final chapter and the story as a whole. When I have time I'd like to write another Joan fic, and I'm thinking of making it a sequel to this one. But we'll have to wait and see how that goes. So... thanks again to all you reviewers -- and if you haven't reviewed yet... what are you waiting for? ;oP

P.S. To those of you who know who Kristin Chenoweth (actress/singer/Broadway baby/coolest frickin' person on the planet) is, I thought I'd let you know that she was the inspiration for Ruthie. If this story had ever been an actual episode (sigh), Kristin would've been the only person allowed to play the role... 'cause I wrote it for her. Hence the million or so references/allusions to her throughout the story. I also have the story up at angelfire, with a bunch of banners and stuff I made to go with it ('cause I'm that big of a dork), but I don't know how to post the link here, so I'll try to put it in my bio. I wrote a poem about Kristin, too, and I'll put that in there if I can. Okay, done whoring my work. For now. Hee. Have a good Thanksgiving, guys!