Title: Hang in There, Baby

Summary: It's 14 years later, and Charlie is nearly 16 years old. When she stumbles upon a box in the attic of videos from a girl claiming to be her big sister, Charlie wants to get to the bottom of it. Who is this mysterious Teddy, and why does no one want to tell her about Teddy?

Rating: T

Warnings: Depression, attempted suicide (non explicit), mild cussing in strong situations, paranoia.

A/N:The final-final, epilogue. This was probably the easiest thing I've had to write for this entire story...I can't believe it's over. Thanks at the very end.

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My name's Charlotte, Charlotte Duncan. But you can call me Charlie. I've always been called Charlie, and so being called Charlotte just isn't the same. I'm Charlie and it's just stuck—but I never said I didn't like it.

I'm eighteen, turning nineteen in two months, and my older brothers, PJ and Gabe never let me forget that I'm that much younger than them.

See, while my family is small—only six people—the age differences between all of us are pretty big. Mom and Dad are in their late fifties, PJ's sixteen years older than me, at thirty-four and Gabe's twenty-eight.

My family lives in a small house in Denver, Colorado, but it's only Mom and Dad at home right now. I'm attending college right now—I got accepted into The College of William and Mary on scholarship, just like my big sister.

PJ lives in Concord, Massachusetts, with my sister-in-law, Claudia and my two adorable nephews, Shane and Casey. They come to visit us whenever they can, but Concord is where they call home. For a while, the rest of us did too, but when I was sixteen, we packed up and moved to Denver. He's a doctor, and we couldn't be prouder of him. Claudia is a doctor as well, but she's only part-time, seeing as how she wants to be the best mother possible to Shane and Casey. She's a big part of the family, and we're glad that PJ found her.

Gabe lives in Trenton, New Jersey. He's going to get married this fall, to a woman who's going to fit right in with our crazy family. He helps Dad run the family business, and he and his fiancée, Noelle, are already planning on adopting several kids, since Noelle can't have children.

Naturally, I'm closer to Gabe, since our ages are closer, but PJ means a lot to me as well. I pretty much grew up with PJ out of the house, so he's more like my uncle than my brother, but he's still family—close family.

My whole family is pretty protective of me, and I totally understand that, seeing as my older sister, Teddy, died in a fire. That, and I'm the baby by about, oh, ten years.

But I love my family, and I'll never, ever forget them.

Mom was sad and depressed for a while—from when I was three to when I was fifteen—and she's seriously religious, going to church two or three times a week. She takes some serious anti-depressants, but she's also a totally awesome mom. She makes the world's BEST brownies, can do anything in photoshop, is an awesome photographer and texts as easily as I do. She works in the family petshop with Dad, and she loves it.

Speaking of Dad, he runs a petshop. Or rather, three petshops—one here in Denver, one in Trenton and one in Concord. The three places that shaped our lives. He used to be an exterminator, but when Teddy died, he decided that he'd seen enough death and was ready to start giving life. Hence, the petshops. The store took off and he opened a second store, and when Gabe showed an interest in business, he let Gabe open and manage one, so now there's a mini-chain cross-country.

My house is filled with pictures—there's barely an inch of wall that doesn't have a frame or picture nailed to it. My room is covered in candid snapshots and polaroids pushpinned to the wall and the rest of the house has memories from everything we've ever done as a family—every accomplishment, milestone and memory is there.

There are, of course, plenty of diaper pictures, but you know what? I don't mind people seeing them. If they can't take me as a kid, they haven't earned the right to know me now.

So anyway, I'm living here in Denver with my family, and today is March 5th. To most people, this wouldn't be a strange day—it would be totally normal, except maybe a birthday or something to some families. Not in my house. Not with my family.

Today, we dress in bright colors and go to the cemetery. We sit on the grass next to Teddy's tombstone and tell her about the year. We share memories and laugh and cry and leave little letters in a basket along with a dozen fresh roses.

Today, people who Teddy knew and loved and people who had their lives changed by Teddy come and share a memory about Teddy. This year, there's ten people coming—me, Mom, Dad, Gabe and PJ (Claudia, Casey and Shane are visiting but not spending the day at the cemetery) make up the first five—Nina and Roxy make seven, and then three more are coming. Those three are people important to our family and important to Teddy. Their names are Ivy and Emmett Heglin-Wentz and Spencer Welsh.

This is the third year we've all been there, because over the past fifteen years, everyone's been scattered across the US—we Duncans in Concord, Roxy in Trenton and the Heglin-Wentzes lived here. I'm not exactly sure where Spencer Welsh was or where he's come from, and all I know is that he was Teddy's ex-boyfriend—and we only got in contact with everyone when I was sixteen

We'll all hang out at the cemetery and then come over to our house, where we'll watch all of Teddy's old videos (Mom, Dad, Gabe and Noelle will inevitably grab the couch while Mr. and Mrs. Heglin-Wentz will take the loveseat. Nina and I will sprawl out on the carpet with the little kids and Claudia, while PJ will be fiddling with the DVD player the whole time. Spencer Welsh will take an armchair and Roxy will perch on a hassack with Kate) and everyone will recount just how every situation happened and how it all turned out—basically it'll be a glorified storytime and a trip down memory lane for everyone older than twenty-five.

We'll all nibble on Mom's brownies, my peanut-butter cookies and carrot sticks with ranch dressing (although those will remain mostly untouched) and we'll all agree to meet up next year if nothing stands in our way.

But nothing will, we've done this and variations of this every year for the past three years. People say they won't make it, and they will.

They always do.

But then in the next week, everything will go back to normal—PJ, Claudia, Shane and Casey will be back in Concord before the week is out, Spencer will have faded by the day after and the Heglin-Wentzes will have returned to their home. Roxy, Kate, Gabe and Noelle will go back to Trenton and back to their ordinary lives, and Nina and I will go back to college and our fabulous boyfriends.

Nina's my best friend in the world. She's my roommate at college, and although she's had a history of dating bad guys, I really think she's found a keeper. Nina's a high-energy, high-maintenance girl, but the guys she's found (a sweetheart named Christian) can keep her grounded and loves her a lot. I'm crazy protective of her, though, and he knows it. We're as close as sisters, Nina and I, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

We grew up in Concord together, but our junior year of high school, we split up—I moved to Denver, and Nina moved to Trenton, New Jersey with her mother and step-mom. We kept in touch via webcam and visits as often as we could. But as soon as it was possible (meaning the second we were old enough to attend college), we dormed together and were right back to our best-friend ways. We're going into our second year of college now, and I'm proud to say that we are honor-roll students (no thanks to our respective boyfriends).

One word for Nina? That's impossible. She's got a wonderful personality, and there's no one word in the entire world that can describe her in all her insane awesomeness. Well, there is one. Nina.

Christian is her boyfriend, a dramatic sweetheart who couldn't hurt a fly and loves Nina with his entire heart. They've got the world in common, loving the same things and hanging out with the same friends.

My boyfriend is James, a communications major. I'm a communications minor, English major, and we've got a few classes together. We're a lot different, but I love him.

As for me…well, there's quite a lot to say. I'm Charlie Duncan, five seven, with dark blonde hair and brown eyes, contacts and a retainer, legally blind and moderately popular but somewhat a dorky nerd. I've got a past that sounds like it's from a soap opera but a future that's anything but. I'm happy and have a family who doesn't hide anything and a best friend I would give the world for and a boyfriend who I'll cry over when we break up and then forget all about but am proud to love now because he makes me happy. But my family and friends are what's important now.

But whatever. I'm just Charlie—Charlotte— Duncan.

This is my life. I think I like where it's taken me.

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Thanks to my three hundred-plus reviewers, and I'm sorry it took so long to get this to where it is now.

Love to you all!

And until next time,

Sylver