EpilogueIt’s amazing all the things that can happen over a period of 13 years. Things hadn’t always been easy, Abby and Luka now have 3 beautiful children and a new house, a bigger one, to fit them all in. Karen… Or Karri as she was now known was now 16 years old, and was nearly the picture of her mother not only in personality but in the way they looked, same mouth, same nose, same figure the only difference being Kari’s hair, which had turned out a light chestnut colour, a mix of Abby’s dark hair and Richard’s light, her eyes which were such a strange mix of colours, yet completely mesmerising for anyone who dared to look into them, she was also slightly taller than her mother, which was one of her major triumphs. It wasn’t much of a surprise when Kari turned out to be completely into all forms of the arts. She’d been doing ballet and piano since she was 5 and was extremely talented at both, she was also a prized member of the choir, chamber choir, jazz band and the drama group at her school. She drove poor Luka to the point of despair, she was a very popular character at her school, but as it turned out only about three or four of those friends were female.
Then there was 11 year old Danielle, or Dani, named after Luka’s wife. She was nearly 12 now and a complete angel. She was painfully shy but very smart, she had a passion for nature and was hugely interested in biology and animals, she’d even convinced Luka to get them a cat, from a shelter of course, they had had Livvy for 6 years now, and she was Dani’s very best friend. She was keen to do right by everyone else and would get upset if she upset anyone. She loves Karri to pieces and really looks up to her. She’s a knockout herself and even Karri is worried about all the attention she’s going to get from the boys. Karen agreed with her parents that she was going to help keep boys away from her at all costs. She had dark chocolate brown curly hair and bright traffic-light amber eyes with bright flecks of green around them, her features were very neat and little, and she had the most beautiful cheekbones you could ever imagine, she however, very small for her age and probably always would be, but In short she was an extremely pretty little girl, and although she was shy she’d made plenty of friends, she longed to be a marine biologist when she grew up.
Sam had the largest age gap however being 6 and 11 years apart from his sisters, “hell” Kari had commented one evening. “In some countries I’m old enough to be his mother!” this did not go down well. Sam was cute, loud, hyperactive and irritating as all 5 year old little boys were and he was a handful, and seemed to prefer wearing nothing at all, which made things interesting on days out or family gatherings. His profession though still stayed the same, he wanted to be a fire fighting farmer pilot, they tended not to ask exactly what this entailed but there did happen to be a picture on the fridge that he drew of himself inside a plane with a fireman hat on, with what look like various farmyard animals with hoses spraying water on the forest fire below. Sometimes they would marvel at quite where his imagination had come into play. He was a Luka look-alike through and through, exactly the same hair and smile. One interesting thing about Sam was his eyes; one was dark chocolate brown like Abby’s and one was bright green like Luka’s maybe they would change when he was older but for now he had “the best of both” or as Kari’s affectionate nickname for him suggested “Hovis bread”.
Things hadn’t al been easy though, when Karen was about 10 and Dani about 5, Richard had been released from prison, on account of changing his ways, being off any form and drugs or alcohol and showing genuine signs of improvement in his therapy sessions, not to mention the fact that certain connections appear to go a long way. He’d discussed seeing his daughter with both Abby and Luka long and hard, and eventually they’d agreed, it was Luka surprisingly, who wanted to give him another chance. After all, she was his daughter; it was partly his right to see her. They truly believed he had changed. After a few months though, Abby and Luka had noticed a change in Karen’s attitude towards them, Luka in particular, she’d ignore Luka and Dani, which made Dani very upset. A year and a half later whilst Abby was pregnant with Sam and visiting her mother, it had escalated so much one evening Kari ended up hitting little Dani and screamed at Luka that he wasn’t her father, and never would be. That had hurt him badly, and he’d spent the rest of the evening consoling a sobbing Dani whilst Karen had paced about her room. Something just wasn’t right, Abby tried to talk to Karen but all she could get out of her was when would she and “dad” be getting back together. Abby had never quite managed to be in a room by herself with Richard after what he’d done all those years ago. She talked to Karen for a long, long time and found out Richard had been telling her that her mother and he loved each other very much, but Luka was making her stay and he also told her that she and Abby would come with him one day because he was their real family and Luka and Dani would be left behind. It had taken a long time to fix everything again, and it was all unwanted stress for a very pregnant Abby, and it was a dark few months for Karen, as Abby had stopped Richard from seeing her full stop, and Karen couldn’t help but blame her mum for everything. When she was about 13 Abby had sat her down for a long talk about Richard and what he had done to her, to them, about everything, and finally things began to get a little brighter again. That was the last time the family ever heard of Richard. Abby would always remember their last conversation, after she’d talked to Kari. She thought it was sad after all this time he couldn’t let go, she hoped wherever he was now, he’d been able to move on, or would be able to someday, underneath it all, somewhere there was a great guy she’d fallen in love with. Maybe that man had long since gone.
Nowadays everything was going great. It had taken a while but Kari was calling Luka “dad” again, and the family was a “Normal” as can be expected….
“BRRRRRUUUUUMMMMM!!!!!!!! NEWWWARHHHWW!!!!!!! POOOOOWWWW!!!!!!” Luka grinned as he stood quietly at the entrance of the kitchen, watching and listening to the small shadow underneath the table cloth. Sam was great at escaping from the bath clothes less, and great at hiding… For about five minutes anyway until something else distracted him and his great hiding places became slightly less inconspicuous. Luka slowly edged over to the table, bent down and with one swift movement grabbed his son by the legs and carried him upside down into his bedroom with Sam laughing a wriggling with half hearted indignant cries to put him down.
“Never!” cried Luka as he deposited his son on his bed, where Abby was waiting with clothes for him. He struggled in protest but soon gave up, trying to avoid being dressed by one parent was hard enough, but both were simply an impossibility. Sam flashed them a cheeky grin once they were done and jumped up on the bed, ready to run off again, Luka began tickling him mercilessly and he ran to his mother for protection, wrapping his arms round her neck and his legs round her waist.
“Argh!” she exclaimed she stumbled at the sudden weight change and they both went crashing to the bed. Luka gave an identical grin to his son’s, one Abby knew only too well.
“Luka, you dare, no, you, Luka No- ArghHahaha!” it was too late, Luka now began to tickle them both mercilessly, in her eagerness to escape Luka’s grip, her knee accidentally collided with his… Sensitive area. Luka fell too the floor holding his crotch.
“Urghhh…” he moaned lying on the floor. Sam however found this hilarious and was rolling about screeching with laughter as Abby fell to his side in dismay, trying to suppress the smile from her lips.
“Oh my god Luka! I’m so sorry!” Luka just moaned. Abby started to chuckle.
“I really am sorry, but to be fair, you KNOW I have no control when you tickle me…”
Luka moaned again and muttered quietly. “No need to take it out on my manhood…” Abby chuckled again and bent to his ear whispering softly
“Want me to kiss it better?” Luka’s eyes widened and a smile passed his lips. When from the doorway came a cough.
“Excuse me, but when you two are finished scarring all your children for life, maybe you should brush squirts hair and take me to this concert?” Sam frowned.
“Hey!” he exclaimed. “I’m no squirt!”
Kari smiled from the door.
“Anything you say smidget!” She avoided Albert bear that was hastily flung at her through the door.
Half an hour later then were all ready to go, Luka, Abby, Dani and Sam were sitting waiting for Kari to come downstairs. They were all dressed smartly, Luka in a shirt and tie, Sam in his smartest shirt and pants, however the tie had been taken away due to major fiddling. Dani had he favourite posh outfit on which was a pretty cream dress with daisy pattern all over it which she wore with some very delicate white sandals and a creamy coloured shawl, her long curls where waving freely down her shoulders. Abby wore a simple, yet effective black dress, her hair clipped up and simple red heels which matched her red shawl. Gingerly Kari walked down the stairs in a beautiful silky dress with gold Lilly’s stitched on it and he long hair was down and straight, tucked neatly behind her ears and the golden necklace that hung round her neck given to her by her grandmother, Maggie was glinting in the light, the golden dragonfly looking almost alive. They all stood stunned.
“You look beautiful Kari…” Dani gushed as she walked up to her sister, Karen blushed a little. Abby gazed at her proudly, her parents looked at if they were about to cry, and Sam just nodded ain agreement to Dani’s statement.
“Soo… we going to this concert or what then?” Kari asked, they grinned and nodded, Luka smiled.
“So you’ve kept what you’re going to be singing tonight a big secret… Can you tell us yet?” Dani asked, looking up at her sister pleadingly. Karen relented.
“Ok. Tonight I’d gonna be singing Stand By Me, that song from the movie, it’s by Ben E King… But you’ll have to wait and see… I can’t believe it’s my first solo part I’ve had in any of our school’s concerts… I’m really glad you guys are gonna be there.” She smiled at them, her eyes resting particularly on her mom and… And her dad. She grinned.
“Ok, shall we go then?” Karen asked, and with that, they bustled noisily out of the door.
When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we'll see
No I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me
Just on the mantelpiece in the living room there are a lot of photo’s, ones Abby found and ones Luka found around and about, there one of Luka and his family when he was younger, and one of Maggie, Abby and Eric. There are pictures of them both in their college years, wearing outfits they regret now. Then there’s pictures of Abby pregnant with Karri, and Danielle and Sam, and pictures from when each of them were babies, even one of Luka and Karen when Karen was about 5, they are both wearing ridiculous balloon hats.
And darlin', darlin', stand by me, oh now now stand by me
Stand by me, stand by me
If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
And the mountains should crumble to the sea
I won't cry, I won't cry, no I won't shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me
Through all these memories sat on the mantle piece there’s one taken of the family from last Christmas, when Eric and Maggie came to stay, Luka and Abby kissing under the mistletoe, Eric holding up Sam, Sam pulling a face at he sight of his parents “kissing” Dani sat on the floor smiling angelically, one arm around Kari and one stroking Livvy who was lying on her knee, Kari, one eyebrow raised with that wry grin so similar to her mother’s and then popping in at the side of the photo just in time, is Maggie, waving ecstatically. Right next to it is a similar picture Luka found of his family in Croatia, his brothers and sisters and wife and children, Abby had it framed beautifully for Luka’s birthday and placed it proudly up on the mantelpiece. There was still so much to happen yet, but for all that had happened over the past 13 years. None of them would’ve changed a thing.
And darlin', darlin', stand by me, oh stand by me
Stand by me, stand by me, stand by me-e, yeah
Whenever you're in trouble won't you stand by me, oh now now stand by me
Oh stand by me, stand by me, stand by me
Darlin', darlin', stand by me-e, stand by me
Oh stand by me, stand by me, stand by me
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Finally finished a fic innit!!!!
Whaaaaaaaayyyyy. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it, more than happy for anyone to crit this bit, actually, could you please crit this as harshly as possible, I would like to know if I should re-write bits xDD
Yeah, and thanks ergirl, good luck with yours too.
(In that like hour and a half I was writing this I SHOULD have been revising psychology... I'll go do that now...)
Hope you all enjoyed my fic wotsit