I know I said a long time ago that the end was near and then somehow it was not. It has finally arrived. For those of you who always skip author's notes, introductions, prefaces and other authorial autobiographical indulgences I would suggest you skip this boldish Ital-ickey stuff. But I want to take a moment to explore the purpose of this little story. If you hadn't guessed by now it is just one long- (much longer than I had originally planned)- love letter to Jack and Kate. I wish to acnowledge the help of both Erica and Stef, without their friendship, expertise, kindness and encouragement this certainly would not have been written.

Thank you readers for hanging in there. For me, it has been a joy.

Jack stood at the shoreline meeting the sunrise as he had every morning for the last thirty years. He stood with a net in his hands poised to drop it, leaving it to rest and wait for the day's bounty. Something stilled his movement, he saw a motion out of the corner of his eye and he turned.

A bright yellow bird flew out of a tree and fluttered in the air beside him. It beat its wings in what Jack perceived to be a desperate attempt to gain purchase in the air. Finally the small bird found its rhythm and began to glide high over the water, it turned skillfully in midflight and Jack eagerly traced its movements. The yellow bird's path was like a daub of living paint freshening the morning sky. It dove down towards the water, either flying or falling and Jack felt his heart bottom out as he watched it plummet lower and lower over the sea. At the last minute however the bird stopped in midflight and recovered itself flying low and in. It finally came to rest exactly where it started, on a branch in a tree at the edge of the jungle a short way across the sand. Jack looked at the golden splash of color against the green trees, the bird paused only a moment and took fight again, disappearing back into the jungle's depths.

Jack glanced at the net that he still held in his hands and changed the course of his movements, instead of dropping it into the shallow ocean waters, he gathered it back into his hands. Jack turned his back on the sea and made his way to the well trodden path that led through the jungle and back home.

Kate took the water off of the fire for morning tea. It was the last of the season's chamomile that grew in the clearing beyond, a perennial patch that Rose had cultivated many years before. Kate looked around the small piece of ground that she and Jack had called home. Where there had been grass alone there were now gardens that had furnished them with all that they had needed for these many years. Their home stood in the center, much larger than the humble reed structure she had prepared before the birth of their boys. The cottage was made of peeled and polished saplings now long burnished by time and age. The arbor before the door was covered with vines of blooming jasmine and honey suckle, Kate breathed in the delicate fragrance of the pink and orange blossoms.

Kate walked slowly over to the stone wall that served as a foundation for their cottage. This wall had been Jack's gift to her during the twins first year; it was a thing of simple beauty. Jack had collected it slowly, stone by stone from a creek bed at the foot of the cliffs. Kate placed her hand on one particularly beautiful stone, a piece of polished gneiss. Its bands of dark and light stripes had charmed the boys and they often used to place their hands upon it to begin their long games of hide and seek. It had been the agreed upon safe spot, home base for their games that through the years became more complicated and lengthy. Tom and Ted had made a science of hiding from one another. They had been so different but it had been uncanny how well they both knew the landscape of the island and more importantly each other's minds. This made concealment the ultimate challenge. Kate had chided them gently one evening for spending so much time hiding from one another, but Tommy drew her up short by saying that it wasn't the hiding that they loved so much as it was the seeking. Then Teddy had piped in, finishing his brother's thought as only he was able to. Kate smiled and remembered Teddy's beautiful clear voice saying, "the best part is the finding, Mom."

Kate began to pull some ivy that threatened to completely obscure the piece of polished gneiss and changed her mind, instead she pulled one dead leaf off of its tendrils and left it to complete the course of its ramblings.

The only thing in the clearing that remained perfectly intact from before the time that they had come was the large boulder at its center. Kate looked at it now, she remembered the time long ago when she sat upon it thinking that she might spend the rest of her days there alone, unable to leave Jack and unable to join him as he lay recovering with Bernard and Rose. She remembered the desolation she faced that morning, thinking that he had not wanted her. She remembered the piercing sweetness of the joy she felt when he had come to her. His love for her was the single most beautiful gift of her life; it was a serendipitous, unexpected thing. She knew very well that she did not truly deserve it and that realization provided the most glorious aspect of his gift, it was not earned, it was free. She didn't ever have to live up to him, nor he to her. She was at liberty to love him fully, unfettered by any hint of exchange. And she had. Oh she had. Jack owned her heart fully almost from the time she had met him and he still did. Even now it was as if the world that had been dark in his absence, lit up when he was near.

Kate continued to prepare a simple meal for Jack, she gathered the tea and fruit and placed it on a polished piece of wood that served as a platter with a shaky hand and moved to the boulder to sit and rest while she waited for him to come back from setting the nets. She was not hungry, her ability to eat much had passed in these past weeks but she was grateful for every small thing that she could still do and setting the tea was one of them. She turned and faced the path so that she would see him when he came, the light of the dawn was dim but it would brighten soon.

Jack took the path with a quick step; he hated to leave Kate alone for long. He could see that she was getting weaker day by day. It would not be long now. Jack pushed all the implications of that thought deliberately out of his mind. Now more than at any other time in his life, he was contemplating only the present, the future was utterly unthinkable.

Jack arrived at the first clearing, Bernard and Rose's humble cabin still stood; there was even a ring in the grass beside it where they had all spent so many nights together telling stories. As he looked around, Jack felt a poignant pang of loss, Bernard and Rose had been gone for many years now. After the twins were born it had become a nightly ritual to meet at the fire to remember and relay all the books that they had read. By plumbing the depths of their memories for all the stories that had captured and formed their imaginations over the years, their retellings became an art. They built a narrative world to inhabit for each other and most especially for their boys. Over the years every story they had ever read had been told before Rose and Bernard's fire. It became a wealth of literature that even Sawyer might have appreciated. Jack smiled ruefully, he had not thought of that son of a bitch for a long time. Jack shook his head, even though the description was appropriate, he had still been a real friend.

Initially Jack had great fears of raising their children alone on the island without the benefit of modern medicine. He would wake up at night in a cold sweat thinking of the dangers which might befall his sons. As the years went on however, Jack's fears had been as much about the boy's minds as their bodies. Jack feared ignorance even more fundamentally than disease and danger, this was a fear that Kate shared as well. He and Kate and even Bernard and Rose had talked many long nights about the problem and they had all dedicated themselves to imparting whatever knowledge they possessed on to the twins. By the time that they were fully grown and their island education had been complete, both boys were wise with a depth of understanding far beyond their years. When the heart breaking time had come for them to leave and make there way in the greater world, they were the finest young men that Jack had ever known.

Jack entered the clearing they called home and saw Kate sitting on the boulder waiting patiently for him to return. Even after all of these years she still held on to her remarkable beauty. Her hair now white was still thick and long, framing her face as ever with its luxuriant curls, Jack smiled at the thought of his intimate acquaintance with it over the years.

Kate who had always been so strong was now as fragile as a tiny bird, Jack feared that she might break with every movement that she made. Age had crept up quickly and shaken her body from the inside out. Without diagnostic tools there was no sure way for Jack to know exactly what was happening to her, but Jack suspected that it was her heart. He knew with no doubt that for Kate there wasn't much time.

Jack realized really fully for the first time, that Kate sat on that boulder every day to wait for his return from setting the nets. Jack ducked his head and looked at the ground, smiling at the wonder of it. She was waiting for him. It always surprised him, the fact that she loved him so much. Jack loved her, that he knew, he wondered if he had from the moment she had sewn the stitches into his back so long ago. The birth of his feeling for her was hard to pinpoint, it was so powerful. For Jack, Kate was like the force of gravity, a constant abiding law of nature. It was almost impossible to imagine her absence, without her, he would have no center; he would be floating adrift in the world.

Jack met Kate's eyes as he entered the clearing and what he saw there almost shattered his heart. It was as if the sun had come out for the first time, her face revealed such a sweetened countenance upon seeing him.

"Jack, do you think that we could take a little walk this morning?" Kate looked curiously at the net still in Jack's hand and spoke quietly as she handed him his morning tea.

"I don't think so, I think that we should stay here, you need to rest." Jack would have done anything for Kate but when he saw her shaking hands and her labored breathing he thought that this was one request he may not be able to fulfill, he didn't think she was up for it.

Kate knew what Jack was thinking and she restated her request. "Jack, I don't want to just sit here and wait. I can do a lot of things but not that. I need to do. If I get too tired I can lean on you or we can even stop for a little while. But Jack please don't ask me to just sit here and bide my time."

Jack looked down at her, if it were up to him he would figure out a way to prolong every moment she had left. He knew it was foolish but he somehow thought that perhaps if he kept her completely still, she could stay with him just a little while longer. That wasn't fair and he knew it.

Kate knew the truth of it and she wouldn't allow it, she had to let go and so did Jack, sitting there would not make it any easier.

"All right Kate, a little walk. Not too far though, where will it be today?"

"Jack, there are some guavas in the orchard that are ready," Kate corrected herself quickly after she saw the look on Jack's face at the very idea of her picking any guavas, she smiled, did he think she was going to be climbing trees? She continued, "but somehow I don't want to do that, or I mean watch you do that today. Let's just see where our feet take us."

Jack nodded, and stood, he offered his arm to Kate almost as if he were fourteen again and ushering at his cousin's wedding, for some odd reason this little walk felt like a formal affair.

They circled the two clearings, Jack tried to force them both in a homeward direction but Kate wordlessly steered them a little further afield. Even still she had a yen to explore, and she knew where every path led but she didn't want to see the same old ones, she wanted to go in the direction of the beach, not their beach but the old one, the twins had called it 815. They loved to hear their parent's story, it had come to them from Rose and Bernard. Kate and Jack did not talk much about their original span of time on the island, it felt like another era somehow. The years after the birth of the twins were ones in which their hearts were utterly intertwined, the years before that seemed dissonant somehow, the pitch hadn't been perfected. But today Kate needed to hearken back.

Kate became a little wobbly on her feet and for a moment everything became fuzzy and dark. Jack put his arm over her shoulders and supported her as she stumbled and nearly fell, he had not been paying particular attention to the direction they were going in, his eyes were on Kate alone.

"Kate, we are stopping now. After you get your breath back we are going back home."

Kate recovered her breath and looked around. "Jack, look."

Jack looked up impatiently, he was angry at himself for letting Kate override his common sense yet again, he needed to get her back.

He did a double take, it was the cave.

Kate took Jack's hand in her own and led him to the cave's mouth. The light was dim but the entrance was wide enough to let in a warming stream of sunlight that pierced the interior. Kate's eyes came to rest on the glint of something shining in the single shaft of light, it was the tiny plane. She lifted it and held it in the open palm of her hand in front of Jack.

Jack looked upon the object, he did not like it, he never had but he was curious about what it meant, why they saw it just now, today.

Kate felt the onset of another bout of wooziness, the darkness came upon her so swiftly that it knocked her down. She fell at Jack's feet suddenly, he had no time to break her fall this time.

"Kate! Kate." Jack leaned down falling to his knees by her side, he lifted her head gently to see if she had taken a blow, no thank god her head was not bleeding. He put his ear to her chest in desperate attempt to assess her condition, her heart was beating but erratically. He placed his hands upon her cheeks and willed her to wake. He breathed her name, "Kate, can you hear me?"

Her eyelids fluttered open, "Jack, I want you to have this, please take it now." Kate pushed the plane at him. Jack accepted it into his hand.

"Kate, will you let me lift you? Will you let me take you back home?" Jack was pleading with her, his words said one thing but Kate knew what he really wanted. Jack was asking her not to go.

She tried to obey, she tried with all of her heart not to go, but her body would not comply. She had the strength for only one more thing.

"Jack, I love you." Kate lifted her hand and placed it into Jack's larger one and turned her face to his with a faint and fleeting smile.

Jack looked at her, his Kate and watched as her chest ceased to rise and fall, he watched as her features somehow lost their animation in an instant. He watched her loss and felt his world end at that moment.

Jack reached over and placed his fingers upon the lids of her eyes and closed them one last time and then he placed his head upon her chest and wept.

When the last tear came he felt as if he was missing a large portion of his body, as if he had lost both legs and an arm and he would now need to learn to navigate without them. Jack shifted his weight, and looked around. He saw the tiny plane lying between them, he lifted it and placed it between his fingers and found Kate's hand again. He pressed the object into her fingers and felt its weight between them. As he did so, the light in the cave altered, the single shaft tilted and turned, its angle was different somehow and Jack looked wide eyed at the change.

He felt a surge of strength course through his spirit and he knew that the tiny plane had one last gift to impart. Jack allowed himself one small smile, Kate had not been able to stay but he knew now that he could go. He could join her, his heart surged and he looked at the form of his beloved and laid his body down.

Jack enfolded Kate's tiny hand into his own and for the last time, closed his eyes.

The end