You asked for it. So here it is...
A final epilogue for J & Logan
He had waited for her as patiently as his wolf allowed. He didn't know where he was, not really. An open expanse of forest, tall trees casting him in shade. He didn't know when he was, either. He only knew that she would come.
Eventually, his Jos' would find her way back to him.
*
Her final moments had been silent. She'd not known much beyond the soft murmur of her family's voices and the love that wrapped around her like a warm embrace.
J was not scared. She had always known this was coming.
She was sad – she wasn't ready to leave her daughter. But she knew her friends, her family, would look after her.
So as that final breath rasped through her chest, as her focus drifted beyond this world and into the next, J knew that she'd done all she could and that finally, finally she could rest.
The soft lapping of water against the shore dragged J from her sleep. She blinked heavy eyes against the sun overhead, raising an arm to cover her face. Shifting into a seated position, J took in the serene world around her.
An ocean of blue-green jewel tones stretched out into the distant horizon, an ice blue sky overhead. Beneath her, pale golden sand sunk between her toes, warmed by the midday sun. It was the forest though, that caught her attention. Its lush green foliage spilling out onto the golden sands.
Something about that forest called to her, something in it.
It began as a delicate burn in her middle but grew like a wildfire until she was on her feet and walking numbly towards the shadows it offered.
It was only as her eyes adjusted to the darkness that she noticed, and she slammed to a stop.
Her wolf.
Her wolf was back.
The breath that caught in her chest was almost painful. She felt stronger than she'd been in years. Stronger yet dead – that much she was sure of. Wherever this place was, it was a moment caught in time. An eternity that stretched out before her unblinking.
A tug through her middle had her walking forwards again, climbing through vines and plants, weaving between curving trees and ducking beneath curtains of leaves.
It was beautiful, this place.
Onwards she moved until her thighs burned and her feet shuffled through the ground as she walked up an incline. How big was this place? she had no idea. Yet onward she went, letting the sensation in her middle guide her like a compass.
She reached a clearing, a pool of crystal clear water and a slowly trickling waterfall.
That was where she found him.
She hadn't known she was looking for him until her knees bowed at the sight of that familiar flick of fur – of those eyes of gold that found her, as they always had done in life.
He froze, a predator startled from sleep on a large, flat rock beside the edge of the pool.
Her throat wouldn't work, her limbs unable to move as she just watched him.
How many years had it been since she'd seen him last? How many nights had she dreamt of him? Holding on to fragments of memory until they began to wither and blur with age. Sometimes she could barely see his face, barely remember hear his laugh.
But now he was here. Him, forever frozen as he'd been that day, even as she'd aged, her hair turning grey, her skin wrinkling as her wolf abandoned her.
But now here he was, as youthful as he'd ever been. She was too, she could feel it in the lithe movement of her limbs. Wherever this place was, the time that had passed between them had been erased.
His eyes drilled into her as he studied her. Did he think her a mirage?
*
She couldn't be real.
He'd had this dream too many times.
She was never really here. And it hurt.
And yet... she looked different. Only slightly. She looked as young as she'd been last time he saw her - but her eyes – they held a wisdom, an age, they hadn't before.
She had come.
He transformed back into his human form, his feet carrying him towards her like a starving man. And he was, starving. For her, as he always had been.
She watched him in silence, unmoving, her wolf flickering in her eyes. He'd missed her wolf too.
He stopped a short distance from her, more than an arm's length as he couldn't trust himself not to reach for her.
She was dead, like him. He had never expected to be this happy about it. But how long had it been for her? Had she found someone else to love? Did she still crave him the way he craved her?
He would take what she'd give. Friendship, if that's all she could offer.
As long as he could bask in her company for the next eternity or so, he would try to be content.
*
If her heart wasn't already still in her chest, she knew it would have stuttered and fallen silent at the sight of him. The images of him her memory provided had done nothing to capture his true likeness. He was everything. Everything she ever could have wanted.
She wanted to walk to him but couldn't, couldn't move her damned limbs which felt fused to the sandy dirt beneath her feet.
She should have known though, he would always come for her.
He saw something in her look, perhaps it was the gnawing hunger, perhaps it was the frustrated desperation – but whatever it was snapped him from his silence as, with a growl, he thundered towards her and drew her to his chest, his arms holding her to him with a desperation she'd never known.
Their lips met, tongues clashing as their wolves glowed in their eyes. His hands traced her body, fingers gripping her skin and clinging on like she might disappear on the wind.
How long he had been waiting for her.
They had always been like wildfire, their love, their need, an untameable heat, but now they gave into that animalistic instinct, into the fire.
Let it burn. Let it rage. They were together, J didn't care what happened next.
*
As they laid beside the pool, J's hand dancing across the surface of the shining water, Logan's body enveloping her as his own hands continued a lazy exploration of her body, J sighed in utter contentment.
Logan pressed a small, chaste kiss to her shoulder, tightening his arms for just a second.
There was too much to say. Too many words to ever voice, so they'd remained in relative silence as they'd clung to one another long after the shining sun had set and risen again.
"Our cub..." Logan started, as she felt him tense behind her.
J's chest ached, tears springing to her eyes. The cub he'd died to save. The one who'd never known him.
"Ava," J supplied for him.
He drew in a sharp breath and she felt the soft brush of a tear falling onto her shoulder. Logan's arms tightened around her again, before he nudged her to turn over. She settled into his arms, her hand finding its place on his chest. He leaned back, just enough to look down at her.
"Tell me about her."
And so she did. J told Logan, her smile beaming with pride, about their daughter. Of her first words, her similarity to Logan. Told him about all of the Rootbridge daughters, of the friends they'd made. Of the childhood their daughter had spent with J and her grandmother.
She told him of the ups, of the downs. Of the wins and the losses.
She told him everything.
And when she was done, Logan cried for all he'd missed and for the pride that burned through his middle.
They held each other long into the next day and the next, and the next.
And each time Logan kissed J, tasted her, and held her against him, he was reminded of how lucky he had been to find her. Of how blessed his life had become. And he knew in that moment, that he wouldn't change any of it.
Not even for a second.
And as J faced a millennia in the arms of the man she loved, as they waited for their friends, their family, to join them, J knew she'd never known happiness like this, and that she too would never change any of it.
From her disastrous childhood leading her to find Cassidy and the others, to killing Caine leading her to finding Logan. Every misstep had led her somewhere greater.
And yes, she would always miss her daughter, they both would. But J knew that she was safe, loved and that when she was ready, she would join them.
On the second week, as J and Logan explored more of the forest they now lived in, they found the first sign of life. A pile of stones with a hand painted sign on the top.
Small huts revealed forgotten faces. J let out a desperate cry at the sight of grandmother. Of her mother. And of the man stood beside her.
Her father.
Even in death, J finally found her home. Her family.
She met Logan's father, his mother, the ancestors Will and Trevor had traced.
And there in that moment of no time or place, J and Logan were finally able to live with a freedom they'd never been granted in life.
And so they waited patiently. For their friends. For their family.
For their eternity.
*
A/N
Well, there you go! J & Logan ended up together in the end, even if it was in the afterlife!
When I started writing J and Logan's story I had no idea how it was going to end, or that I'd grow to love them so much. J, especially, has become one of my favourite characters and I will miss her.
I had never intended to love J and Logan so much and I also never intended to kill them both off! I love that some of you have connected with J and Logan just as much as I have, and can only apologise that they didn't get a happy ever after while alive - but at least they have now..!
For more of J, make sure to check out Midnight Wolves where she makes a cameo - and I'm currently working on the sequel (well, technically a prequel) which will have a little bonus glimpse of J & Logan as there's one small secret reveal left for the two of them! (It was previously, subtly, hinted at but no one (yet) has picked up on it..!)
V_F