Epilogue: Whatever happened after "The End" happened by lazslotatherton

The producers and writers have left it up to the viewers to fill in what happens to those who make it off the island or lived beyond the events of "The End". Presumably most of us will come up with some sort of suitable happy ending for the characters we loved. This then is the epilogue that I would have written for the characters:
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For my part I think that with Jacob gone they are able to leave the island on any bearing they want although Lapidus should remember the bearing to leave the island from when he flew the chopper back and forth to the freighter. From there they would presumably fly to the closest airport although we don't know how much fuel they had left when they landed on Hydra island. Probably Guam, Hawaii, or the Philippines. Explaining the mysterious disappearance of Ajira 316 and the rest of the crew and passengers might pose some problems when they finally get home. We never learn if there continue to be forces at work trying to get back to the island or to protect it, or if the Dharma Initiative still exists. With Hurley running things maybe people will be able to come and go to the island and the survivors won't have to lie about where they were. Still, if the heart of the island is so important that it must be protected I can't imagine that Hurley will let just anyone come there so they will probably have to continue to keep the island hidden from most people. I Imagine Eloise Hawking would continue to be an off island asset in managing the comings and goings of the island. Presumably the survivors on Ajira might want to contact the island to see what happened after they escaped so they might go to her to do so.

How Kate is going to explain how she survived another mysterious disappearing plane ride or how and where she found Claire will take some doing. Eventually the dust will probably settle from their mysterious return and I like to think that Claire will be reunited with her mother and Aaron, and Kate will choose to live close by and continue to help raise him. With Jack and Juliet dead maybe Kate and Sawyer give it a go and maybe it works for a while and maybe not but ultimately we learn in the flash sideways that they are not soulmates since running in to each other does not cause them to come to the realization that they have died. Furthermore, the evidence seems to suggest that their initial attraction to each other came from the parts of them that were "lost". When Kate was on the run, a man like Sawyer would naturally be the kind she would gravitate towards since he too was on the run and not likely to stick around. Conversely con-man Sawyer wasn't ready to truly be close to anyone when he arrived on the island, making someone on the run perfect. But after they resolved their issues on the island, they formed slightly more healthy relationships, Kate with Jack off island, and Sawyer and Juliet in 1977. In any event, they had worked out their issues and could go on to lead normal lives. We know that Kate waited a long time to be reunited with Jack so presumably she had a long life. Sawyer had disappeared for years after killing a man in Australia but we don't know if anyone would be looking for him or if he was a suspect. His reappearance many years later after presumably being killed on Oceanic 815 would probably start to raise lots of questions since it would now appear that the original Oceanic 6 of which only Kate is a returning member were lying about where they were and who actually survived since she would be returning with the presumed dead Claire and Sawyer.

Miles never got his money but I think having resolved his daddy issues he might not care so much about that any longer. In any event, Ben seemed to have no problem getting money from his various associations off island so maybe he would make good on their old deal and Miles would eventually get his pay day. I could imagine him continuing to work with Sawyer since they had spent 3 years together in the Dharma Initiative. He may also go off with Frank since they were Freighties together. I like to think that Frank returned to some Caribbean Island and flew puddle jumpers and ran a beach front bar to make ends meet and lived out his days in the sun. Hard to say what Richard would end up doing. He would have no citizenship or documentation of any kind so it would be difficult for the others to try to explain where this 150 year old guy came from. Perhaps he would return to the Canary Islands to live out his days. Or maybe continue to protect the island from the outside by joining up with Ben's people. It seems unlikely, however, that he would have any desire to return to the Island.

Finally, and most importantly, we know that Ben seems to think that with Jacob gone leaving the island shouldn't be a problem anymore. It would seem only fitting that Desmond would sail the still sea-worthy "Elizabeth" (that Sawyer and Kate left anchored off the shore of Hydra Island), the boat that brought him to the island all those years ago, back to Los Angeles to find Penny and their son. With Widmore dead and his considerable fortune passed to Penny, and with the island now being done with Desmond, they lived out the rest of their days until they were old and before his death Desmond reads Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend".

As for the other characters, we don't know what happens to them either. The season 6 dvd is said to address Walt in some way. We assume he lives with his grandmother in New York until he is an adult and lives a normal life afterwards. Maybe after a time, Hurley while still the protector of the island visits Walt and tells him that his father helped save the Oceanic 6.

Ben may maintain the role of island protector after Hurley decides to call it quits. We know Ben isn't ready to move on with the Losties but we don't know if this is because he still hasn't atoned sufficiently for his wrongdoings. Perhaps in protecting the island without ego or megalomania he eventually will have worked through his issues and be ready to move on.

Rose and Bernard continued to live on the Island, burying Jacks body on Boone Hill next to Locke, Boone, Shannon, Scott, Ana Lucia, Libby, Nikki, and Paulo in the grave Ben had dug for himself before Ilana decided to grant him clemency. They and the dog Vincent continued to remain retired and never again got involved in the affairs of the island or its inhabitants.

It seems like most of MIB's recruits got killed during Widmore's mortar attack and we know that the temple others were also all killed. This may leave a few others alive somewhere else on the island but it's not too likely that many of them survived. We don't know of any others that were sent anywhere other than the temple after Widmore's mercenaries came to kill everyone. New Otherton and the Dharma barracks seemed completely abandoned as well but there could very well be some other parts of the island where others were hiding. It's also unclear if any of Widmore's people that he brought on the submarine were left alive on the island. I like to think that the producers would not kill off Cindy, Zach, or Emma through a mortar attack so I'm going to say that they eventually are found by Ben and Hurley and allowed to return home and be reunited with their mother. Perhaps Cindy stays on to assist Ben reform the remaining others.