Chapter 16: Epilogue

A light breeze drifted over the plateau where Brandon sat looking down at two adolescent children sprawled close together in the waters of their little island's lagoon. As he watched, the memories of fifteen years came back slowly, one by one. The children's births, the time they'd spent together as a family, and even the circumstances that had led to the five of them being here in the first place. They were happy memories, for the most part, and left a smile on his face as they played back to him like an old home movie.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of grass being disturbed, and as he turned to identify the source, the happy sight of Celeste approaching sent a shiver of delight through his soul.

"Hi, Angel," he greeted her. "Come to spy on me?"

"I thought you might be up here. Mind if I join you?"

He patted the ground beside himself in invitation, and Celeste happily sat, then leaned against his shoulder.

"Watching the kids?" she stated the obvious.

"Yeah," he agreed. "It looks like they've found a new interest in each other. I should have brought the binoculars, but my intention wasn't to spy on them like this."

Celeste focused on the sight below, her eyes glazing over at the sight of her nephew's muscular form that seemed to be lifting and dropping at the hips. From the close proximity of their daughter and her half brother, it took very little imagination to realize what was happening between the two.

"I think our daughter has discovered boys," Celeste tried to sound gruff and upset, but there was a twinkling gleam in her eye that betrayed her true feelings. "Well, one boy, anyway," she amended.

"You make it sound like they should be as old as us before they become lovers," Brandon snickered. "We were expecting something like this to happen eventually. I wonder how far they've gone?"

"If your son hurts my daughter... , " Celeste began to threaten.

"Oh come on, Angel!" Brandon interrupted her threat. "Jay adores his sister and would never hurt her. Not intentionally, anyway, and you know it. Besides, she's my daughter, too. Are you implying that I don't love her as much as her mother does?"

Celeste allowed that little grin she'd tried to suppress to grow into a warm smile, then nuzzled against her lover's cheek before kissing him there lightly.

"No, I'd never think a thing like that, Lover," she apologized. "For her whole life, you've always been there whenever she's needed you. But you have to admit that you've got yourself between a reef and a school of sharks where your kids are concerned. We were taught that boys lose their virginity as soon as they entered puberty, but girls were supposed to wait. How do you manage to keep that balance when both children are yours, especially when that old-fashioned idea keeps rearing its ugly head?"

"I think I forgot that crap when Tracy was about Jay's age. If all girls waited until they were old maids, who would the boys have their first time with? Some hooker, maybe?" Brandon wistfully remembered his first time, and the girl he'd had sex with. His eyes glazed over and became unfocused at the memory.

"So if they did start having sex, you'd be okay with that?" she asked with as neutral a tone as she could.

"Sure. Why? You wouldn't?" he asked with a curious element to his tone.

Celeste gave the idea a few moments thought before she answered, and found an inner conflict within her mind. It was one thing, in her opinion, to be both his lover and his sister's, but quite another to accept that their daughter might be her cousin's partner.

"Part of me is still stuck in the way we were brought up, I guess," she finally found some of the words to express how she felt. "Maybe I'm being a little bit of a hypocrite here, though. It's okay for me to be with both a man and a woman, but not for our daughter to be with her brother? Why do I feel like that, Brandon? I mean, it's not like breaking taboos is new to us. But for our daughter to be living the same way? Those old taboos seems to be coming back to haunt me, despite the fact that we've all ignored them for so many years."

"Maybe that's why I don't have a real problem with the two of them being together," Brandon added to his side of the argument. "After all these years, I couldn't give Tracy up if my life depended on it. Couldn't give you up, either, for that matter. Remember that first night that we were together, back in Turtle Bay?"

"Remember it?! Like it was yesterday! How could I ever forget that night?" her reply was emphatic.

"We broke almost every rule in the book that night," Brandon reminded her. "So why can't our children break a few rules too?"

"Jay, want to sneak off into the bushes so we can ... you know?!" his half-sister Tanya whispered conspiratorially in her excited brother's ear as they lay on their stomachs in the shallow water of the lagoon, her hand sneaking underneath him as she fondled his erection.

"I get to touch you this time too, if we go. You know how much I love to make you tingle," her brother almost begged for the chance to pleasure his sister.

"Momma and Daddy are up on the ridge, watching us, I think," she let him know. "Momma would have a fit if she knew what you do to me!"

"I doubt it," he corrected his sister's conclusion. "Knowing Auntie Celeste, she's probably doing the same thing with Dad that you are. What I can't figure out, though, is why my Mom never seems to be worried about what they do."

"That's easy," Tanya informed her brother. "Your mother's as bad as mine when it comes to being with Daddy. The three of them share the same bed, so it's not like our Moms don't know what's going on. Let's go into the bushes," she pleaded with her brother him. "I want to see your stuff spurt out!"

"What about Auntie Celeste and Dad?" he questioned. "They'll see us."

"They're already watching us," Tanya reminded her brother, "and they're sure to see that you're hard when we get out of the water. Knowing Momma, she'll be too busy with Daddy to care where we go."

"It's not your Mom that I'm worried about," Jason expressed his fears, "it's Dad. He might get pretty angry with us, especially if we're ... you know ... doing that stuff."

"Yeah, you're probably right," she conceded, "but I still want to feel your ... thing when it's hard, and make you feel good."

There was a few minutes of silence between the two teens as Tanya speculated on a possible long-term acceptance of their growing sexuality.

"I wonder if they'll ever let us do the things they do?" she finally voiced the question burning in her mind. "I mean, it's not like they don't do stuff" – she emphasized the term – "when they think we're not looking. But I've seen them, and so have you."

Jason spent a few moments trying to sort out the dilemma in his mind, his initial look of frustration slowly giving way to one of curiosity.

"What?!" Tanya recognized the changes in his expression. "You're thinking about something, I can tell. What are you thinking?"

"Well, you know how Dad always says that we can talk to him about anything? Maybe this is one of those things. I'm not comfortable sneaking around behind his back, Sis. Besides, he's bound to find out some time. This island isn't that big."

"Are you crazy?!" his sister reined in her brother's enthusiasm. "If you tell him what we've been doing, and what we'd like to do together, he'll send you to one end of the island, and me to the other! Is that what you want?"

"No, he won't!" Jason defended his father. "Dad's pretty understanding. If we tell him the truth, maybe he'll let us be together more. And it's not like he doesn't do those things with his sister. If they can do them, why can't we?"

Tanya gave herself a few moments to roll her brother's argument around in her head. What Jason had suggested, talking openly to their parents, was the way they'd always handled all the questions that had come up in their young lives. Maybe this would be another subject to ask their parent's advise and opinion about, she tried to convince herself.

"So when are you going to talk to them? To Daddy, Momma, and Aunt Tracy. Our mothers will probably be in on this one too, knowing them," Tanya put the onus on her brother.

"Me?" Jason tried to find some support from his sister. "Why not both of us? Or are you ashamed of me, and what we like to do together?"

"No!" she emphatically defended herself, the answer coming to her lips a lot faster than she'd intended it to. "No, I'm not ashamed of you! I love you, Jay, and I always will!"

"Then you'll come with me when I talk to Dad?" he challenged her declaration.

"When are you going to talk to him?" she dodged his enquiry.

Jason mulled that over for a minute before answering. From what Tanya could understand of the pensive look on his face, he was more serious about them approaching their father together than she'd first thought.

"Dad and I are supposed to go sailing in the canoe this afternoon," her brother finally shared his slowly forming idea. "If I take him out far enough, he'll have to listen to me. You know how he gets when he can't see the island. As long as he doesn't bring a compass, he'll be dependent on me to get him home again, and that'll put me in a better bargaining position."

Tanya didn't have to exert much of a mental exercise to understand what her brother had in mind. Jason's sense of direction was uncanny. Under almost any circumstances, he always knew exactly where he was, and how to get to where he wanted to go. Even in the dark, he could find his way to or from anywhere on the island, and if he was out of sight of land, he could still find his way back without hesitation.

"So either he lets us be together, or you're going to leave him out there?" she questioned his logic. "If he won't go along with it, what are you going to do? Swim home, maybe? All he has to do is follow you."

Her point was valid, Jason realized, but he was counting on the strong bond they had with their father to make such an irrational move unnecessary, and he let his sister know that in no uncertain terms.

"It won't come to that, Sis, and you know it!" he emphatically stated. "Dad's always been there whenever we had questions, and he's tried his best to answer them, too. Remember when we asked him how babies are made? And the way our mothers almost squirmed like sea worms when we did? Dad kept his head about him, then told us everything we wanted to know ... and maybe a few things we didn't."

Tanya replayed that particular session back in her mind, remembering her reactions when Brandon had explained the entire process explicitly, then found that she was a lot more curious about experiencing motherhood now than she'd been back then.

"Yeah, I remember," she quietly admitted, "although at the time, I never could figure out why people would do those things with each other. I sure didn't want someone sticking their thing in me!"

"Still feel that way?" Jason wondered of her.

"Not when that someone is you," she confessed in a warm tone full of future possibilities. "I'm still a little scared to let you, though. Maybe after you talk to Dad, we'll see how I feel about it. Now, are we going into the bushes, or are you going to lay here in the water with your thing all hard? I really want to see it, Jay, and to make you feel good like the last time you let me touch you."

"Do I get to touch you this time, too?" he tried to bargain.

"Maybe, ' she teased him as a wicked smile crept onto her lips.

"You're letting that sail luff, Jay," Brandon pointed out to his son, who seemed to be giving their outing only half the attention that he usually did. "Pull the mainsheet in."

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. Sorry, Dad," Jason mumbled as his concentration returned to the task at hand.

As Brandon studied his son's expression, it took him only a moment to understand that the boy's thoughts were somewhere else that day. The two had been close for Jason's whole life, and quite regularly shared the vagarities that all teens seem destined to struggle with. From what he could tell, they were about to share another one.

"How far out did you have in mind to take us?" he asked of his son. "I can't see the island any more. Are we heading for Davao, out of curiosity?"

Without navigation instruments on board, and with anyone but Jason, Brandon would have been worried. But his son had an uncanny sense of direction. On more than one occasion he'd tested the boy's ability to determine a given compass point. Unaided and without any instruments, the youth had been accurate within a degree or two, every time – and they'd gone through that exercise more times than Brandon could remember. Jason could get them home again without the necessity of a compass, Brandon knew, even if they sailed in the dark.

"Umm, I guess we should head back, huh?" Jay reacted to his father's enquiry. "You and Mom don't handle being out of sight of land too well, do you?"

"I'm okay as long as I have a compass, but I didn't bring one. Didn't think I'd need it," he admitted to the helmsman.

Jason smiled, then pointed his finger aft and slightly to the right of the boat's centerline.

"That's west," the boy indicated to his father, then swung his arm a little more to the right. "Paradise Island is over that way."

"Jay, I have no idea how you do that," Brandon confessed, his pride in his son's maritime abilities influencing his tone.

"It's something that I just do, Dad. Maybe that's why you and Mom named me Nereus?" as he referred to the Greek "Old Man of the Sea" that was his namesake.

"That wasn't what we had in mind at the time," Brandon shared with his son, "but it seems appropriate now. Sometimes I think you were born to be on the sea. You're at home out here, and more comfortable than I ever was on land."

There was a lull in the conversation as Jason returned to his earlier inner soul searching.

"Sometimes," the younger Winters finally broke the silence, "I find being on land so confusing. Out here, everything seems calming to me. I guess that's why I wasn't paying attention to where we're heading."

"Want to talk about it?" Brandon invited.

Again there was that lull before Jason accepted the invitation to express the doubts in his mind.

"It's Tanya. Things between us are changing, Dad, and sometimes I'm afraid of losing my best friend."

"Are you two fighting? Or is it something else?" he speculated about the affairs of his oldest two offspring.

"No, we're not fighting. We never fight. Maybe if we did, this wouldn't be so ... so difficult for me to figure out," Jay gave as a vague answer.

"So what's going on between you two, if it's taking most of your attention away from sailing?"

"Umm, she kissed me the other day," Jason began to open up.

"So? She's your sister, and she cares about you – a lot. She always has, and if you treat her right, she always will. I don't see a problem, Son," Brandon tried to get his first-born to open up a little more.

"It wasn't that kind of a kiss, Dad. I've seen the way you kiss Mom and Auntie Celeste. It was one of those kinds of kisses," Jason let a little more of his secret confession come out.

"I see," Brandon began to understand what was on his son's mind. "Just one?"

"No," Jay murmured in a soft and reserved tone. "She's kissed me that way lots of times lately."

"I take it that you enjoy them, then?" he enquired of his oldest.

"Enjoyed it? Dad, I couldn't get enough! We must have kissed for half the afternoon. And while we did, I had weird thoughts going through my head. I wanted to touch her, feel the softness of her skin, run my hands over her ... over her breasts, and between her legs! What's wrong with me, Dad? Why do I have those thoughts?"

Brandon gave himself a few moments to fully understand his son's dilemma, then answered him truthfully.

"There's nothing wrong with you at all, Jay," he tried to calm the distraught teen. "I have those same feelings whenever I'm with your mother or your aunt. Tell you a secret. Your mother enjoys having her breasts touched as much as I love to touch them. The same goes for your aunt.

"Your sister's becoming a young woman, Jason. Almost overnight, she's gone from being the Tomboy you grew up with to being a very beautiful young lady. I see a lot of her mother in Tanya, and the only way I can resist her charms is to remember that she's my daughter. But I think she was meant for one man, and one man only, but I'm not him. You are, I think. Have you talked to her about how you feel?"

"A little, but it's scary. What if I accidentally do or say something she doesn't like? She'll hate me, and I'll lose my best friend!" the fear in Jason's tone came back.

"Jay, if you do something that she doesn't like, she'll tell you. But I seriously doubt she'll hate you. You said that she was the one that kissed you first? If she didn't feel like she could trust you, I doubt she would have done that in the first place. I'm sorry, but I don't see the problem here."

"It's more than just the kisses, though," Jason took their talk to a higher level. "It's the way I feel about her. I mean, we've always been around each other, played together, been out in the lagoon together, and explored the island together. But now? Now I want to take care of her, make sure she's safe, and do whatever I can to make her happy. She's always been my sister, but suddenly, she's becoming more than just that. I find myself wanting to touch her, feel her, have her touching me, and spend the rest of my life with her."

"Jay, it sounds like you're falling in love with your sister. And if she was the one that initiated those kisses, maybe she's falling in love with you, too.

"When I was about your age," he went on, "I found myself falling in love with your mother, and I felt about the same way that you do. Unfortunately, where we lived, that was frowned upon. Brothers weren't supposed to fall in love with their sisters. So I kept those feelings to myself. It was years later that I found out how Tracy felt, back then. When we finally reconnected, almost twenty years later, she was the one that insisted we forget about the old taboos and become lovers. That was one of the reasons we left the States in the first place."

"So what do I do about this, Dad?" Jason still felt confused.

"What would you like to do about it?" Brandon challenged his son to look inside himself. "Ignore your feelings and hope they go away? That's what I tried to do, and it didn't work. At first, I managed to block the ones about your mother, but eventually I completely lost the ability to feel anything. It was Tracy and Celeste that helped me change all that, and for the rest of my life, I'll owe them both for what they gave back to me."

Brandon took time to sort out some of his own thoughts while allowing his words to sink into Jason's mind. It was only when his son was ready to hear more that they continued. But it was Jason that took the initiative.

"Dad, if Tanya and I were in love, what would happen?" he posed an ambiguous question.

"What would happen? I guess you'd both feel the way you do right now, scared out of your minds, until you understood it a little better, and then you'll both want it to go on forever. It takes work and commitment to keep that love alive, but the rewards are well worth the effort. Eventually, you'd probably have kids of your own. It'll take both of you to teach them, help them learn all they need to know, and show them what love is all about. It took all three of us to raise you two, but you were worth the work. Whether your sister wants that is something only she knows, and she might need some more time to find her answers. I'd suggest that you talk to her about how you feel, about how she feels, then find out if you both want the same things. If you do, then you'll probably end up like your mother and me. If not... ", and Brandon left that thought to speculation.

"And if Tanya wants the same things I do? What then?"

"Then you work together to make your dreams come true."

Jason went back to pondering what he'd been told, and wondering if he should broach the subject of their growing desire for intimacy.

"How long would we have to wait before we could be together like you and Mom are?" Jason's growing optimism triggered a new concept in his mind.

"When it's time, you'll know, Son. Your mother and I had a feeling that something like this would develop between you two. If you both really want to be together, and you can show us that you're committed to each other, I don't see a problem. I was going to build an addition to the house some day so that your Mom, your aunt, and I can have a quiet place that's all ours. If you and Tanya have a relationship started by the time I get that ambitious, we can always build a house for you two instead."

"You'd do that, Dad?" his son's disbelief expressed itself. "Let us be together? Help us start a place of our own?"

"If your sister feels anything like you do, Jay, I couldn't stop you if I tried. My little girl is about as determined to get things her own way as her mother. Let her have what she wants and she'll do anything for you, if she can. Celeste and your mother are that way most of the time. We'd rather be a part of the solution to your problem, and not a source of it. So yeah, I'd do that, Jay. The three of us just want you kids to be happy."

"And the way I feel about Tanya is okay?" Brandon's son needed confirmed.

"The way you feel about your sister is the same way that I feel about mine, and your aunt, too. It's definitely something that I consider to be okay, and I'll bet that you want to explore those feelings further. Just remember that you're dealing with my daughter, and that I love her as much as I love you. I never want to see her hurting, so be gentle with her. She's a lot stronger than she might seem, but it doesn't take much to break a woman's heart. She trusts you implicitly. Show her that you deserve that trust. And if you ever have a problem that I can help with, you know where I am."

Jason pondered that for a few more minutes before saying anything else. When he did, it wasn't what Brandon was expecting, but illuminated the person that his offspring was becoming.

"Maybe we should head for home, Dad. I really need to talk to Tanya. Besides, there's three whale sharks about a mile ahead of us, and I think they're feeding. Let's leave them to fill their stomachs."

"There is?" Brandon turned to see if he could spot the behemoth sharks. "I don't see a thing, Son, but if you say they're there, I believe you. Maybe you're right when you say that we named you for that Greek god. Who else would know what's happening in the middle of the Pacific besides my son?"

Jason brought them about, then set a mental course back to Paradise Island, and home.

"Dad, would you talk to Tanya about what we discussed?" Jason enquired once they were headed west again.

"If that's what she wants, she'll let me know. But it's you that she wants to hear from, not me. Like I've always told you, if you two need or want help, or have questions that you can't answer yourselves, you're more than welcome to come to me, your mother, or your aunt."

"Daddy, can I talk to you?" Tanya came out of the house and asked her father in a soft and subdued voice as he sat quietly on the top step of the veranda while mulling over his conversation of the afternoon with Jason.

They'd finished supper earlier, and Brandon had indulged himself by taking the time afterwards to assess the state of his children's changing relationship. He softly patted the deck beside him in a silent invitation to his daughter, waiting for her to speak when she was ready to open up. In response, the young adolescent took a seat next to him, accepting the open arm of security he now offered her, and leaned into her father's shoulder. As a form of welcome, the older man softly kissed the crown of her head, and that loving familiarity brought back memories of similar times with his own sister.

"Problem, Princess?" he enquired, ready to give her his opinions on any subject she cared to bring up.

"I'm not sure, Daddy. It's Jason. He's not the same boy I grew up with."

"Are you two still getting along, or should I be worried?" her father pried for some clarification.

"No, we still get along," she tried to alleviate his concerns, "but he treats me differently now. When we used to go exploring, we'd treat each other as equals. But now, he treats me like I'm a helpless ninny all the time. Always stopping to make sure I can get up the rocks, or manage the game trails to the plateau or over to the spring. Honestly, he makes me feel like I'm someone that needs to be looked after every minute of her life. I'm a big girl, Daddy! I can take care of myself!"

"Have you told him that, Sweetheart?" Brandon attempted to refocus his daughter's point of view.

"I'm afraid to," she confessed. "What if he gets mad at me for questioning what he does, then won't speak to me? What if he decides that I'm just a pain in the neck to him? If Jay wasn't there, I'd be ... I'd be lost! He's my best friend. I can't imagine life without him. Doesn't he love me any more, Daddy?"

Brandon couldn't help but smile at the irony of his children's inner conflicts, for he'd heard the same arguments from his own sister, many years earlier when she was about Tanya's age. Back then, he'd suppressed his feelings for her. But this time, he promised himself to try and handle things better by allowing his feelings to come out, then encouraging his children to do the same. When he'd been a teen, denying his feelings had almost cost him a sister, and could have closed the door on the life of happiness they'd found in each other.

"There's a reason why he treats you like that, and it's not because he thinks you're a ninny, as you put it," Brandon started out on an explanation that was based on the day's earlier discussion. "Your brother does care. You're the most important person in the world to him, and for that reason, he goes out of his way to make sure you're alright. It's his way of trying to show you that he loves you, but he's having a hard time of it right now."

"Why, Daddy? Why can't he just tell me how he feels? He always did before. What's changed? Why is he like this?" Tanya's frustrated confusion tumbled from her lips.

"What's changed?" Brandon took on one question at a time. "Your brother's finding that he loves you as more than just his sister. You're growing up, Princess, and on the threshold of becoming a woman. He sees those changes. He's also dealing with new and strange feelings that he has about you becoming a woman as much as his sister. But he's not sure how to handle it all. He's just as afraid of offending you as you are of getting him angry with you. Remember the story your aunt and I told you kids about when we were growing up? How we lost track of each other? Jason's afraid the same thing could happen between you two."

"So how do I stop it, Daddy? How do I make sure that Jay knows how I feel about him?" she sought some direction out of the confusion inside.

"Talk to him, Sweetheart. Tell him how you feel. Get Jay to open up and tell you what's going on in his head, too. Your aunt and I lost that ability when we were kids, and it almost ruined something that's special to us now. The sooner you two talk, the sooner you'll find your answers."

"I would, but he's gone over to the North beach," her disappointment echoed in her voice. "Said he had some thinking to do, and he couldn't do it while I was around. That hurts, Daddy. Why would he push me away like this when all I want to do is make him happy?"

"Everyone needs room to think sometimes, Sweetheart. Just like you, your brother's confused right now and needs to sort out his feelings. Don't take it personally. You're not the source of his problems. When he's ready, he'll share what's going on with you. Wait for him, if you really love him as much as I think you do. And when he does tell you, take the time to listen, then let him know what's going on in your head too. He needs to know, probably more than you're aware."

"How do you know all these things, Daddy?" she looked for some confirmation.

"How? I was fifteen myself, once upon a time, Princess, and I remember how confusing it was for me. Besides, Jason asked me the same things you did when we were out this afternoon. Your brother adores you, Sweetheart, just like I adore both your mother and your aunt. Give him time to find a way to let you know."

"He does?" a spark of hope began to glow inside the young teen. "As much as I adore him? Daddy, if I didn't have Jason in my life, I don't think I could go on! He's the most important person I can think of – except for you and Momma, I mean."

"I know, Princess, I know," Brandon assured her through grinning lips. "You don't have to tell me how you feel about your brother, because I see it every day in the way you act around him, and the way you treat him. You might want to let your brother know, though. He needs you as much as you need him, Sweetheart."