A/N: I don't recommend writing a 15-part multiparter in a fortnight. Thanks especially to Cat for the hand-holding and giving me something to compete against to actually get this completed in time for the Jello Forever Challenge. I'd have given up long ago were it not for you.

Thank you to: Frogster, dwennie, boutondor, yaba, Ebony10, autumnftw, lisbon69, Koezh, forthecoast, April, and Divinia Serit for reviewing part fifteen and not giving up on this despite... ehm... certain decisions I've made during this. Especially so to April who logged in anonymously - the death, I believe, was a natural progression of the storyline. I'm sorry if you disagree, but I always write what I think works best and don't shy away from things like that.

x tromana

(PS. Yes, the change of tenses is intentional)

Epilogue

He's drowning in blood.

Not his, though.

His first wife's, or maybe the second's. He's not quite sure.

Doesn't matter really. It doesn't make a difference either way.

They're both as dead as each other in any case.

Jane hears a sound and glances to his right. Company. He hadn't expected him back so soon. It would have been nice to have one night without him, just a few hours of solitude, but it wasn't meant to be.

"It's your fault," Samuel Bosco Junior seethes, as angry as ever. "You promised you'd look after her and you couldn't even do that. Just how useless are you?"

He turns away, unable to focus on Bosco's face. Mainly because the man is right. He is useless.

And his relationship with Teresa Lisbon? That was just a pile of broken promises and broken dreams.

Some more spectacular than the others.

Bosco clicks his tongue in irritation. He's not going away any time soon and they both know it.

Jane once joked that Bosco would come and haunt him. He never realized that would be the literal truth.

Irony can be a pain in the ass sometimes.

"She never deserved it, you know," Bosco continues, despite Jane's best attempts to block him out. "It should have been you who died, not her."

For once, Bosco is talking sense.

Peeping out of one eye, Jane notices a glass on the table. An inane object, but if he just…

Yes.

He stands and shuffles slowly in the direction of the cup, skirting around Bosco carefully, who merely rolls his eyes in response.

"He's doing it again."

A new voice invades.

He's not all that familiar with it, not yet anyway. It's been too soon.

But he does already associate it with one thing: dreamless sleep.

For the first time in what feels like forever, Jane cracks a smile.

That'll be nice.

end