Well, I guess Regression will have to stay the way it is. By the way, the story is done . . . but the last two chapters are on my magical little disk and it doesn't look like the next part will be making it to the internet anytime soon. You know what you have to do. I on the other hand, have a day to sit back and read all the stories that I haven't had time to. So I'm going to review myself out, but I'll be writing something. Even if it's the "good job, jeep it coming" type deal.

I went back and fixed the McCarty/McCartey thing. They are all spelled the same way, with the "e". I fixed the spelling errors that I found. If some one out there finds more, email me and I'll fix it.

Here be the Epilogue.

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XXXII. Epilogue

Sara Pezzini and Jake McCartey pushed their way through the throng of television reporters outside the court house. Earlier this morning the Judge had handed down the sentence.

William Mollard was found guilty on several counts of murder in the first degree and conspiracy to murder. However his mental state would keep him out of prison. Instead, he would spend the rest of his life in a maximum security hospital.

He would never see the outside world again.

And that was just fine.

Sara ducked into the passenger side of the blue car. Jake got behind the wheel and locked all the doors.

"Thank god. I can't stand the press." Sara spoke and let her head fall against the head rest.

"You get used to it after a while." Jake started the engine and began to drive away from the court house.

"I haven't. I don't think I ever will."

"Yeah, well-" He cut himself off.

"What?"

"What the hell are they doing here?"

Sara looked out the window to see who Jake was speaking of. There on the curb stood Ian Nottingham leaning against a black luxury car with Kenneth Irons in the back seat.

"I don't know, Jake. I don't care either."

"Let's just get out of here." He turned the corner headed back to his place.

"Are you happy?"

"With what?"

"The ruling, Jake?"

"He's out of the way isn't he?"

"I guess so. You don't think they'll ever let him out?"

"I think they'll be having too much fun trying to figure out how his head works."

She shook her head at his response. He'd been in a bad mood all week. Amazingly, he hadn't let it show through on the stand. That was one hell of an off/on switch.

"Are you okay, Jake?"

"I'm fine."

"Liar."

"I said I'm fine, Sara."

"All right. I was just worried is all. There's no need to get all uppity about it."

"Uppity?"

"What about it?"

"I haven't heard that one before."

"Never?"

He shook his head "no."

"Well, why are you so . . . temperamental this week? You've been normal up to this point."

Jake didn't answer her for the longest time. When he finally did she didn't understand him.

"I've forgotten something."

"Forgotten something . . . about the case?!"

"No. About me."

* * * *

So this was where he was going to live now. It was all right. It was all white. It was all bright. He giggled at his little rhyme he had made up. Rhymes were so fun. They kept it cold here. That was good.

Sometimes people would come and talk to him about strange things. They always asked him what had made him do it. He wondered what they meant and he told them so. Do what? Kill people, they said. He tried to explain to them that they weren't dead. All the people he had helped were in a better place, that they were alive there.

But the people didn't understand.

Seiji had been right.

No one understood.

Only he and the white-haired man did.

He had called him again. The white-haired man told him that he needed to help people this way now. By making the normal people understand, so that they could go out and help people like he had. The white-haired man was so smart. It was such a good idea, but it was hard work. The white-haired man had told him as much. He said that it might take the rest of his life to do it.

But he understood.

He had to help the special ones in this new way now.

William Mollard at on his cot and swung his legs back and forth. He couldn't move his arms in the funny jacket they had given him, but that was okay.

He began to hum his favorite song, and smiled for the people looking at him through the window on his door.

* * * *

Why was the damn airport so crowded? Jake McCartey pushed his way through the multitude of human bodies in the terminal. They had let him through after he flashed his badge even though he didn't have a ticket. Thank god. There was that stupid gate.

He looked around for the person he was looking for. This was where her flight was leaving from.

There she was. He put his hand on her shoulder and she looked up to she who it was.

"Jake, what are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you. Melissa."

"Sorry to be rude, but you have to hurry they're about to board my flight."

"Who am I?"

"Huh?"

"You heard me. What made me different from all the other people you could have saved in Japan?"

"Does it really matter? The point is that I did."

"Stop circling around the answer. I want to hear you say it!"

"Say what, Jake? Are you feeling all right?"

"I . . . I don't know." He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down.

"Listen to me," she spoke quietly, "and pay attention because I am going to get in more trouble than you can imagine for say this."

He met her eyes and nodded his head.

"You haven't forgotten anything, Jake. Everything we ever experience is recorded away in our minds. Recalling the facts in question is the difficult part. Sometimes we push them, consciously or unconsciously, so deep into our own minds that we may never be able to recall them. But some people do. It comes in flashes, moments of clarity, and in dreams. There are instances where it is forbidden to tell someone or to help them recall those memories because no human is supposed to have knowledge of past lives, unless they remember it on their own."

Oh.

"That's it then . . . I know you?"

"Yes."

"How long?"

"A very long time."

"You said you'd get-"

She held up her hand to stop him.

"I can take whatever is dished out to me. I have been for four centuries."

The final boarding call came over the intercom.

"I have to go, Jake. We sent the others home, and it's time for me to go too."

"You'll keep in touch?"

"Of course"

She boarded the plane, and he watched it taxi from the gate.

* * * *

His arm itched under the plaster of the cast.

"Damn it." Bruno Dante swore under his breath. at least the kid could have broken his right arm. That would have gotten him out of paper work since he was right handed, but he had broken his left arm.

Nearly everyone had signed it. Even Pezzini. And her signature was right where he couldn't avoid looking at it. She had to have done it on purpose.

Bitch.

He was being relatively nice ot her, though. He didn't know where that kid was, and he was scared out of his mind.

He didn't want to think about it right now.

* * * *

"That's quite a story, Chief?"

"Tell me about it." Sara spoke to the younger man sitting in the booth across from her.

"See, I leave town and you get into all kinds of trouble. Next time I'll leave you with a chaperone."

"I don't need a chaperone, Gabriel." She griped.

"Yes you do." He took a bite of his pizza. "So where's your significant other?" He spoke around a mouthful of food.

"At the airport."

"Wanted to see his friend off, huh?"

"Something like that."

"Do you care if I grill McCartey about them, I would have killed to meet one of those guys." Another bite.

"People did get killed, Gabriel."

"You know what I meant Sara."

"You'd probably try to get one of them to give you one of their weapons to sell."

"Do you know how much that would go for? . . . Think they'd let me?"

Sara laughed and rolled her eyes at him. "No!"

"I get it, you're tying to cut in on my action." He joked.

"Perhaps."

"No more problems with the whole vision slash dream thing anymore."

"No, but then I haven't had that much time alone when I'm asleep to know for sure." She smiled.

"Way to much information. Young person present."

She laughed again whole she watched his face turn red from embarrassment.

It was turing out to be a good day.