All right, time to put this thing to bed! Final chapter.

I so very much appreciate all of you who read this. I also appreciate those of you who reviewed-I may not always reply to them, but do know that I read each and every one and they all mean a lot! But even those of you who read and didn't review, I appreciate you sticking with me through this. This one's probably the longest story I've ever written, and with so many failed attempts, it took the longest amount of time by far. So now some journey has come to an end, and all that cliche jazz. Anyways, here is the final chapter, and I hope you like the end!

Chapter 15

Saturday, October 15, 2011
1:38 p.m.

Knocking softly on the door, Alan attempted to hear what was happening on the other side. There had been a rustling sound, but it stopped.

"Who is it?" came Don's voice.

"It's just me," Alan answered, and he was rewarded by footsteps, followed by the door slowly swinging open a moment later.

"Hey, Dad," Don greeted. Alan had to hold back a laugh at the current state of his oldest son's appearance. His wet hair was completely disheveled, tufts of it sticking out in all directions. He was currently shirtless, wrist splint and the stitches closing his shoulder wound all visible. His pants were on, but unbuckled, unbelted, and unzipped. And he looked really tired, Alan thought. Don sort of looked like a walking disaster.

Alan smiled. "Hey, Don. I just came by to give you this shirt." He held up the white dress shirt that was currently hanging from the hangar in his hand. "But you look like you could use a hand."

Don sighed. "Yeah, I guess. Come in." He stepped away from the door, and Alan entered Don's childhood bedroom.

"I mean, I don't really need much help," Don was saying. "But you know, if you could just help with the shirt and the tie, I can handle the rest."

"Mmhmm." Some things never changed. Don would still never ask for help if he could at all avoid it. "Well, then, go ahead and finish putting on your pants, then."

Don smiled a small smile and proceeded to zip and awkwardly button his dress pants with one hand. Alan handed him the belt that had been laying on the bed. I'll be impressed if he can get that all the way on with one hand, Alan thought.

He was impressed; Don fumbled with the belt a little as he pulled it around his waist, and a lot when he attempted to close the buckle, but he ended up finishing the task in only slightly above average time.

Alan turned to take the dress shirt off the hangar. "Okay. There are some rules that come with this shirt, this time. First off, no getting shot while wearing it. Second, no rolling around in the mud, either. I want it relatively clean when it comes back."

Don grinned. "Is that the same shirt I wore to Charlie's wedding? Because I also got tackled by a huge guy and lost my gun while wearing that shirt."

"No," Alan told him. "You complained about that one being too big, so I'm giving you a different one this time. This one's a little small for me, so it'll probably be just right for you."

"Good," Don said. "That shirt seemed unlucky, too. The last thing this wedding needs is any more bad luck."

"Oh, Donnie," said Alan with a sigh. "You'll be fine. This wedding's going to be fine. Pretty much everyone's already here at the house—well, all the important people, anyway, so we don't have to worry about anyone being kidnapped on the way over."

Don smiled, but the look in his eyes seemed far away. "Yeah. That's always a good thing."

"Everything okay, Donnie?" Alan asked as he began gingerly pulling the shirt sleeve over Don's injured arm.

Don sighed, wincing a little as the movement of the shirt jarred his injured shoulder. "Yeah. I don't know. I'm starting to think maybe this wasn't such a great idea."

"What wasn't?" Alan wondered. He held the shirt out so Don could put his left arm through the other sleeve.

"Getting married today," Don responded quietly as he carefully shrugged his left shoulder farther into the sleeve. "Maybe we should have waited. Maybe I shouldn't have insisted that we do this today."

"Well, Donnie, if you both wanted to do this, then I don't see why it would be such a bad idea." Alan let go of the shirt, watching as Don turned around and attempted to button the shirt with one hand. Seeing that the process was slow yet still successful, Alan turned to pick the black necktie up off the bed. He put it around his own neck and started to tie it. "Unless you're thinking you're not really up for this. I mean, you've been resting on the couch for days, but I don't think you're quite a hundred percent yet, maybe—"

Don cut him off. "No, no, no. That's not it. I feel fine. But I mean, maybe we should have waited until I healed up more, or something. You know, at least until I don't look like I just went a few rounds with a professional wrestler. Maybe trying to do this so soon was a dumb idea. But I'm just so tired of waiting."

Alan pulled the tie over his head, making sure not to mess up the knot. "I know you are, son," he said as he slipped the tie over Don's neck. "But if you wanted to do this today, and Robin wants to do this today, then I don't see what the problem is."

Don simply stared at Alan as he fixed his son's shirt collar, tightening the tie in place.

"Yeah, I think we both wanted to do it today," Don finally said. "I mean, I'm pretty sure Robin's okay with this, but what if she would really rather have a nicer wedding like we'd planned? What if she just went along with this just to make things easier?"

Alan couldn't help but chuckle. "Don, you know Robin better than I do. But even I know that she probably would have told you if she wanted this to happen differently. You did not pick a woman who is afraid to speak up when she'd rather do something differently."

Don smiled wide at that comment. "That's true."

"But really, Don, you look beat already," Alan pointed out. It was true. There were bags under Don's eyes, and his demeanor didn't seem as spirited as it should for one who was about to get married. "And the wedding hasn't even started. Are you sure you're going to be okay for this?"

"Yeah, Dad, really, I'm fine," his son insisted in typical Don-fashion. "I just haven't really moved for like a week, you know? I just need to get used to being up and around again. I'm fine."

"If you're sure," Alan said, fixing his son with a hard stare. Maybe Don was right, maybe they really should have waited until later. "Because I know you don't like to admit these things, but if you don't think you're up for it, you've got to say something."

Don set his left hand on Alan's shoulder. "Dad, I'm fine. I swear. That's not what the problem is."

"Then what is the problem?" Alan asked, puzzled.

Don sighed, clearly considering carefully his next words. Finally, he spoke, pulling his hand off Alan's shoulder. "I don't know. It just—it kind occurred to me that . . . well, I really don't want any of the memories that we have in the future of this day to have anything to do with what happened last weekend. And I don't know—I'm kind of, you know, a walking billboard of evidence for what happened. And it's all still fresh in our minds. I don't know, I'm just starting to think maybe we should have waited until things died down a little bit."

"Maybe," Alan conceded. "But I don't know about you, but earlier I was thinking about how nice this was to be doing this today. I like having this reassurance that everyone is here. I like knowing that my whole family is here, alive and healthy." Well, mostly. Alan couldn't help feeling a pain of deep sadness, as he had last weekend and back when Charlie had gotten married, that his late wife wasn't around to see her two boys marrying such wonderful women. Margaret would have been so incredibly proud of them, that Alan knew for sure.

He shoved his grief aside; it wasn't relevant to this particular discussion.

"What I'm trying to say," Alan continued, "is that I'm looking at today as more than just your wedding day, Donnie. It's a day of celebrating the fact that everything is as it should be. Everyone who is supposed to be here is here. Well, except for maybe—" okay, he couldn't help it, he had to say it—"your mother."

"I do wish she could have been here," Don said sadly, looking to the floor.

"She'd be very proud of you, Don," Alan assured him. "But the point is, other than her, our whole family is here today. And that's including those who aren't related to us by blood. I'm talking about everyone we care about. We need to celebrate us all being here. I mean, last week we just came so close to losing you."

Don's eyebrows furrowed; clearly he was trying to hold in some pretty strong emotions.

"I know," he whispered, and Alan's heart broke at the regret that laced his son's quiet voice. "I'm sorry, Dad."

Alan figured Don would protest, but he didn't care. He threw an arm around Don's shoulders, careful not to disturb his injured one.

Pulling his son into a semi-awkward one-armed hug, Alan whispered back. "We're going to tell you as many times as you need to hear it, Donnie, but you haven't done anything wrong here. You don't have anything to be sorry about." He waited until Don nodded before he continued. "The point is, we almost lost you, but we didn't. You're here today, and you're getting married. Any memories that I have of this day in the future are going to be all about how especially appreciative I was to have all the people I cared about in one place, especially my two sons—one of whom is married to a wonderful woman and the other of whom is getting married to another wonderful woman."

Don pulled back and smiled. "Yeah. That's true. That's the important part, right?"

"That it is," Alan agreed. He picked Don's discarded sling up from the edge of the bed. "Let me help you get this on, all right?"

Don gave him a strange look. "Aw, come on Dad. I really don't think I need to wear that thing. I promise I'll make sure to hold my arm still and not move it at all."

There's the Don we all know and love. "You need to wear it, Donnie. It'll be really difficult to keep your arm perfectly still without it. I know you hate it, but you have to wear it."

Don grinned, and Alan could feel himself smiling, too. He gingerly eased his son's injured arm into the blue fabric of the sling and carefully brought the strap around Don's head.

"Yes, Dad," Don mumbled, but Alan could hear the amusement in his voice. "Well, I guess I should just be glad that the hand the wedding ring goes on isn't the one that's injured, right?"

"Right, there you go," Alan murmured, fixing the sling strap so that it wasn't twisted. Once done, he set a hand on Don's good shoulder, fixing the younger man with a quick, reassuring gaze. Don smiled, picking the black blazer up off the bed. He slipped his good arm through the sleeve, and Alan helped him settle the other side of it on top of his injured shoulder.

"Well, we should probably head downstairs," Alan said with a smile. "You don't want to be late to your own wedding."

"Oh, ha ha," Don was grinning. Alan turned toward the door, starting to head out. He expected Don to be following him and was surprised to hear his son's voice come from far behind.

"Dad," Don was saying, and Alan turned around to see his son, staring red-faced towards the floor. "Um, I, uh . . . I haven't quite mastered the fine art of tying a shoe with one hand. Do you think you could . . ."

"Oh! Sure, Donnie." Alan couldn't help but laugh.

Yep, some things never change.

3:00 p.m.

Dad had been right. Any memories Don would later have of this occasion would be centered around feelings of joy, gratefulness, and relief.

He sat now in a daze, on a bench at the side of the house, out of sight of the rest of the wedding area, almost disbelieving that the events of the last couple of hours had actually occurred. Finally. Of course, some of that daze was most definitely at least partly due to the pain killers he'd taken earlier, and quite possibly the fatigue that had crept up on him in the last few minutes.

Thankfully, he'd managed to stay quite alert during the ceremony and all the moments leading up to it. Possibly it was due to some form of adrenaline or something that had given him some blessed burst of energy for all the important parts of the day.

Robin came and sat down beside him. He immediately reached for her left hand, smiling as he fingered the wedding ring that was at last resting there.

She looked amazing. The one moment during the ceremony where he'd nearly lost his focus and zoned out completely was at the very beginning—when Robin had come down the aisle, her gazed fixed upon his. It was so cliché, but she had seriously looked like some sort of supernatural goddess or something. She'd practically been glowing in her white dress, her hair curled elegantly around her face, her eyes twinkling from across the backyard as she locked gazes with him. Watching her, he'd nearly forgotten in that moment why they were there and what they were doing. If anyone noticed that, blame it on the drugs. He was sure Charlie had noticed; as his best man, his younger brother had been standing right there next to him.

"You okay?" Robin finally asked. She still looked just as amazingly beautiful as she had before. She reached a hand up and briefly touched his cheek before bringing it back down to cover his own hand. "You look a little out of it. Does your arm hurt? I could bring you something for it."

Don chuckled. "No, I took something right before the wedding. I think that's the problem."

"What, that you're drugged?" Robin asked and Don nodded, smiling sheepishly. "Great. It's always been part of all my wedding day fantasies that my husband would be high on pain meds during our ceremony."

Don laughed and threw up his good hand in mock offense. "Hey. I was not high during our ceremony. Drugs are just now kicking in."

Robin laughed back. "Whatever, Eppes. I saw that glazed look in your eye when I was coming down that aisle."

"That had nothing to do with the drugs," Don protested. "That was because of you."

Robin didn't say anything, instead just looking at him questioningly, not breaking his gaze until he spoke again.

Don fumbled getting the words out. "I mean, you just . . . you just looked so, you know, amazing and beautiful, walking down the aisle, I don't know. I just—"

"Uh huh," Robin cut him off, her eyes sparkling in amusement. "Nice try."

Don laughed incredulously. "I'm serious! You look so incredible, I just couldn't help but just stare at you the whole time."

Geez, Eppes. If you're going to go all cornball, maybe you should just quit and go to bed now. Maybe you can get Robin to come with you . . .

Robin was laughing, probably at him and not with him, and he rubbed his forehead with his good hand. Man, he was getting really tired. Come on, Eppes. It's your wedding day. Wake up.

"Yo," a voice called, "Mr. and Mrs. Eppes!" It was David, Don realized. He looked up to see David peeking around from the back of the house. "Everyone's looking for you two."

Robin rose to her feet, slapping Don's knee affectionately. "Yeah, we should probably cut the cake now before Don passes out."

"I'm not going to pass out!" Don protested. "I'm fine." He rose slowly, and much to his dismay, a little unsteadily. Robin chuckled and wrapped an arm around his waist.

"If you say so, Eppes," Robin whispered in his ear.

"I do say so, Brooks," Don breathed back. "Oh, wait, no, you're actually an Eppes now. So, yeah, I do say so, Eppes. Mrs. Eppes. Whatever."

Robin laughed out loud now. "I so very much believe you."

They walked out past David and around the corner. Don gave his former second-in-command a pat on the shoulder with his good arm. Thank God for David. One good thing about being kidnapped on his wedding day, Don figured, was that it meant that David had been there to take charge. Not that he didn't trust Colby, Liz, and Nikki to have found him in time, but he'd known David for longer than any of them. It was a small comfort to know that David had been the one out there leading the search.

It was good to have him here. Don made a mental note to try and figure out some way to get David back in LA. He knew the younger agent didn't particularly love DC, and secretly longed to return to LA.

Aw, hell. He was pretty damn proud of all the people on his old team, he realized, seeing them standing around laughing and drinking champagne. Speaking of which, how fair is that? Champagne at a wedding and the groom can't even drink any. Damn drugs.

Stop drifting, he told himself. The point was, he was grateful not just to David, but to Colby, Liz, and Nikki for all rallying together and working pretty quickly to find him.

And on that note, where was Charlie? Charlie had done amazingly well under pressure this time, something the genius was not usually known for. But from what Don had heard, Charlie had only spent a small amount of time lost inside his head before he'd shoved it all aside and whipped out some pretty fast math. Don knew perfectly well how crucial Charlie's part had been. His team could've eventually found out where Shore had taken him, but without Charlie's math to majorly speed things up, Don knew he'd have been toast.

There was Charlie. He was standing over near the corner of the house, talking with Robin's sister, his arm slung around Amita's shoulder. Having Amita and Larry had probably helped Charlie a lot, too.

Don smiled. He was quickly realizing how many people he was indebted to. He'd have to take them all out for a nice dinner or something, later. Right, because a fancy dinner is perfectly adequate payback for working hard to save someone's life.

"There you are, Donnie, Robin." Dad suddenly appeared out of nowhere. "You all right, Don? You look exhausted."

Don grinned. "Never better, Dad." He felt Robin's arm tighten around his waist.

"Good," Dad said. "Let me go find that knife so you two can cut the cake." And just as soon as he appeared, Dad was gone.

"You sure you're okay?" Robin whispered to him again.

"All right, you win," Don conceded. "I guess I'm a little fuzzy. I'm sorry I'm on drugs for our wedding day. Maybe we should have waited a couple more weeks to do this, or something."

Robin shook her head. "No. It's not important. What's important is that we're married, right?"

Don grinned as wide as possible. "That's right. We're married." He still couldn't wrap his fuzzy brain around that one.

He stumbled to one side a little. Charlie materialized on his left, placing a hand on his arm.

Charlie was chuckling a little in his ear. "Man, you look exhausted. I can see it in your eyes."

Don turned to smile at Charlie, patting his younger brother on the back with his left hand. "I know, Charlie. But it's all right, I'm fine." Which it was, as far as Don could figure. So what if he was drugged up to his ears on painkillers on his own wedding day? It didn't matter.

At least they were all here, he thought for the zillionth time. It had taken him and Robin one go-around and a breakup, a year apart, another two years of dating, one failed marriage proposal, one successful one, followed by a year and a half and then a failed ceremony to get them here to this point. It had all been so ridiculously complicated.

"Complicated works for us."

Robin had been right. They certainly did complicated well, and that was okay.

He looked around over the large wedding cake on the patio table. Everyone he cared about was right here. His old team—David, Colby, Nikki, and Liz; Amita, Larry, Robin's family, his dad. His brother to his left. And Robin, his wife, to his right. All of these people were his family, and they were all here. And he was here too, which was also good.

Dad had been right. He'd remember this as a celebration of family, and not as a reminder of Ralph Shore and what he'd almost done to him.

He would remember this day as being filled with gratefulness for all these people he had who were willing to do anything to make sure he was here today, safe and sound. And most importantly, he'd remember it as the day he'd finally managed to marry Robin Brooks.

Don awkwardly reached over with his left hand, covering Robin's right hand, which held the knife, with it. Together, they slid the knife down through the cake.

And of course, a little cake to celebrate family and marriage was always a good thing.

END.

Thank you all so much for reading! Hope this chapter wasn't too mushy, but hey, I like to explore the softer side of the Eppes men. :) Oh, and as a special note to Rinne, I hope you appreciate the shirtless Don at the beginning of this chapter. ;)

Thanks again for reading, and please click that review button! Till next time!