AN: OMG!!!!!!! I CAN NOT BELIEVE THIS!!! I was just looking at this, and I'm like 19 chapters? But.... there's twenty.... *sweatdrops* I've had this finished since the last chapter, but I guess it just slipped through when I was posting. ^^ SORRY!!!! But here it is, Chapter Twenty aka The Epilogue!!!!!

Chapter Twenty/Epilogue

"And I would have stayed up with you all night,

Had I known how to save a life."

Three months later....

"Oi! Duo! Don't drop that!"

"Oh, shuttup, Heero. I got this." Duo hefted the box up, spinning on his heel and walking- more actually staggering and swaying- away from the Land Rover.

But Heero snatched the box away before Duo could completely tip over.

"No you don't, Duo. You're much too little to carry this thing. What's in it, anyway? Bricks?"

"Close," Duo grumbled. "Books." He was staring right at the permanent marker scrawling on the side. "Or so the signs say. And I could have carried it. Because I am not little!" Still grumbling, but smiling the whole time, he grabbed the next biggest box.

"Oh? Is that the reason you couldn't find the tea bags when I put them on the top shelf?" Heero teased, dumping the box into the living room before returning, with Duo following him.

Duo stuck his tounge out. "You don't have much room to talk anyways- you're only an inch taller than me. Being short and being little are two different things. And it's not like I hear you complaining about my height or my size!"

"This is true," Heero nodded, caught in his words.

Quatre laughed overtop of the box he was carrying- the small box; Trowa still wouldn't let him lift anything heavy. They'd both *tried* to take their relationship slow... but here they were, three months later. Moving into a house together. "Too much info, Duo!"

The braided boy shrugged. "Oh, well. You're the one who invited us to help you two move. Not my fault. You should've known what you were getting into."

Trowa nodded. "Yeah. Weren't you the one who did his high school term paper on the Kama Sutra?"

Heero's head whipped around, eyes bugging out.

"Nani? Did you say...."

Quatre blushed and shook his head, waltzing away quickly. Duo just shrugged again.

"So? I had to write about something. Why not that?"

Trowa laughed, and Heero shook his head with at small smile.

"Maybe when we get home, I could look at that term paper- if you've still got it?"

Duo grinned like a Cheshire cat. "Oh, how 'bout I just give an oral presentation about it?"

"Hmm. Possibly. Maybe a visual demonstration to go along with it?"

"Hey! Either leave, or shut up!" Wufei called out, coming back out of the house. "Some of us don't...."

"Don't what?" Duo interupted smoothly. "Don't actually have sex?"

"Hey!" Relena said, stopping behind Wufei on the porch, in the open doorway, hand on her hip. "Some of us actually rather have sex than stand around our friends' house just talking about it."

Trowa had to set his box down before he dropped it, doubling over with laughter at the shocked expressions on Heero and Duo's faces. Wufei was caught somewhere between flushing bright red, snickering, and oogling his girlfriend.

"That," Wufei said, in control of himself once more, "would be a 'burn', right?"

Duo recovered enough to stick his tongue out at Wufei.

"Oh, well, Wuffers. Looks like we know who wears the pants in your house."

"Damn straight." Relena nodded. She shooed Duo up the steps. "Now get moving! We've got two trucks to unload, and only about three hours of daylight left! Hup, Two, Three! Move it, scrawny ass!"

"Ouch," Duo winced. "You sure know how to hit the old ego, Counselor."

"And don't forget it either, Maxwell," she said smugly. A horn beeped and a silver Mercedes pulled up alongside Trowa's Land Rover.

"Look what the cat coughed up," Releena laughed as the passenger side door swung open and her sister-in-law appeared.

"But I'm so much more pretty than vomit, though? Right?" Iria asked with a smile as Zechs stepped out of the driver's side.

Iria reached back into the car, and pulled a glass dish wrapped in aluminum foil out.

"Figured you'd all forget to eat- or else call for some kind of God-forsaken take out," she chirped, almost tossing the dish to Relena, who proceeded to peel back the foil to peek at the contents.

"What is it?" She asked dubiously.

"Broccoli, rice, and cheese casserole. Bet you didn't know your brother was a hell of a chef," she smirked.

"Right," Duo drawled, coming out the door. "Like it takes a damned Le Cordon Bleu degree to boil rice, and toss in broccoli and Velveeta."

"True," Zechs agreed. "True."

Iria and Relena laughed. Laughter continued to be a constant on through the afternoon, evening, and well into the night. The moving van, Duo's pickup, and Trowa's Rover were all emptied, and the once vacant house was filled with boxes and bags, and things strewn everywhere in a mess. Paper plates loaded a trash bag, along with bare remnants of the casserole- which had turned out to be very, very delicious. Relena was dozing on the haphazardly placed couch, using Wufei as both blanket and pillow. Iria was giggling at the sight, whispering something to her husband to make him blush a pretty pink. Quatre and Heero were sprawled on the floor, engaged in a game of chess on the board they'd unpacked, and Duo was telling Trowa about the latest marriage counseling session he'd mediated.

"Well," Iria said, breaking the quiet companionship. "I think it's time we left."

"So soon?" Relena mumbled, her eyes blinking open.

"Soon? It's almost ten!" Zechs exclaimed to his sister.

"Oh, damn," Relena gasped. "We need to get going, too! I have a court session in the morning! Wufei," she shook his shoulder. "Wufei, wake up. We need to go."

"Mmmhh. Don' wanna," was the muffled reply and Wufei nuzzled Releena's neck and tried to burrow deeper.

"Awww! Isn't our little Wuffers so cute!" Duo laughed. Wufei shot awake in an instant.

"My name is Wufei, not 'Wuffers'!"

Duo laughed, and elbowed Trowa. "Got him up, though, didn't I?"

"Duo," Heero said, rising from the floor. "It's time."

Duo's eyes lit up. "The present?" he asked gleefully.

Heero nodded once. Trowa and Quatre exchanged worried, confused glances as Duo hop-skipped outside.

"If the four of you would wait a moment," Heero asked the others. "I think you'd like to see mine and Duo's housewarming gift."

Duo returned a moment later, laded with a large, square, flat package. Confused stares came at him from all angles as he set the covered item against a stack of boxes.

"It's my first full sized work," Heero admitted shyly. "Everything else has just been doodles and sketches. But, I just finished this a few nights ago, and I want the two of you to have it." He smiled softly. "I think she would have wanted you to have it."

Quatre blinked in confusion before Duo smiled and removed the white cloth cover.

Gasps filled the room, and tears filled Quatre's eyes. There, on the canvas in front of him, stood Kaori. It was a full profile of her, violin tucked under her chin, bow drawn across the strings. It was obviously not a professional work of art, but Quatre had never seen anything so beautiful or perfect. A full profile of her facing the viewer at a slight tilt to her stance. Above the violin, her eyes stared straight ahead, as if her gaze was held by someone.

An invisible breeze blew through the picture, her hair, pulled into her favorite twin ponytails, lifted up. Her bangs curled down her face, a few strands across her cheek, across her nose, but never obscuring those beautifully haunting eyes. She was dressed simply, as she normally was, in jeans. But instead of the long sleeved sweaters she often favored since her teen years, she wore her once beloved tanktop. It rode up over one hip, where her lifted arms pulled it up. And you could see the smooth, gold-dusted porcelain skin of her upper arm, unmarked and unblemished. Unlike other of Heero's works, there was color here. Not much, and softly shaded, but it was there. Highlighting her midnight black hair, sparkling in her sapphire eyes, shimmering across her gold-dust skin. The soft green of the shirt and the faded blue of the jeans.

One could almost hear the music surrounding her. In fact, if one looked closely enough, they could see the faint, faded musical notes on the canvas. Quatre saw them, and looked closer. Then he smiled. He could see the lines there, see the notes on those lines.

"Heero... I love it," he said softly. And reading those notes, remembrance and comprehension overcame him. He knew that music; he'd played that music once before. "Have you titled the work?"

Heero grinned at that. He looked at the couples in the messy living room. Iria leaning back against her husband, a far-off smile on her face. Relena and Wufei in an embrace, their eyes still locked with those painted ones. Trowa's arms wrapped tight around Quatre as the blond stared at the picture.

And Duo, right by his side, their hands clasped, fingers intertwined. He lifted their paired hands kissed his lover's knuckles. Prussian eyes met with Cobalt as they both smiled softly. Heero glanced back at he picture he'd painted, back at his sister- the woman who's saved them all in some way or another.

"I call it.... 'How To Save A Life'."

~~OWARI~~

AN: Oh, I'm so sad. That's the end of 'How To Save A Life'... for real this time ^^. But don't worry, I have a sequel that I'm contemplating. It's titled 'Fall Away' (eh, another Fray song). It's set about ten months after Kaori's death... in other words, around seven months after this chapter. There are still a few more side fics I'm working on, as well. But I'm focusing on Apathy's sequels right now, so... maybe....someday.....

This was just to lend a more happy ending feeling to the story.

Please Review!!!!!