He was a happy man, he realized as he looked across the Kansas sunset. Six years ago, he couldn't have very well said that, but now it was the clear, beautiful truth.

He looked fondly at his wife, who was holding their little boy, Lucas. Their daughter, Lily, would be five years old in three days.

I almost lost her, he thought, and a short-lived wave of depression picked at his heart. Lily had had heart complications as a baby and almost died, but by some miracle she had come back to life. Now she and her brother were the light of Carlton's life.

"Look, Daddy!" Lily called, running up to him with her hands cupped. "I caught a sunshine bug."

"It's called a firefly." Carlton smiled as he lifted his daughter into his arms. With the pure fascination that only a child could have, she watched the small bug crawl across her palm.

"What's it doing?" She asked, her blue eyes following the bug's venture over her tiny hand. She leaned forward, her dark hair falling over her face.

"It's trying to get away," Carlton explained, pulling her silky hair behind her ears. "It wants to fly off."

"But I don't want it to leave." Lily looked up at her father imploringly. "Can you tell it to stay, Daddy?"

"I can't make it," Carlton said gently, and Lily let out a small "oh" of disappointment as the firefly spread its wings and flew off into the warm summer air. "You need to let it fly."

"There's another one," Lily said excitedly, pointing her finger at a small golden glow a few feet away. "Can we go catch it?"

"We can try," Carlton said firmly, and with the same sort of resolve and determination he used when solving homicides, he set after the small bug with his daughter still in his arms and caught it in his hands.

"There you are, princess," he said, carefully transferring the bug from his large, rough hands into her delicate, smooth ones.

"It's so beautiful," Lily whispered, her eyes filled with awe as the bug's glow slowly faded and came back again. "It's like magic or something."

"Or something," Carlton murmured, more to himself than to his daughter.

As if the moment weren't already perfect enough, Juliet came walking towards them, baby Lucas on her hip. He couldn't help but think that the golden glow of the sunset made her look even more like a Greek goddess than usual. Her long, wavy hair fell to her waist and her blue eyes, which were always full of love and compassion, shone even brighter as she saw two of the three people she loved most.

"Mommy!" Lily jumped out of her father's arms and threw herself at Juliet, hugging her mother's legs.

"Lily, love, it's time to go home," Juliet said gently, laughing quietly as she knelt down to stroke her daughter's soft hair. "It's your bedtime. Lucas is getting sleepy." Lucas yawned loudly and rubbed his dark blue eyes, as if to prove his mother's point.

Just as Lily opened her mouth to protest, Carlton intervened. "You take Lucas home. We'll stay here a little longer."

Juliet shrugged and smiled. "I see I can't keep you two from your fireflies."

"Just another day," he said, and kissed her. "See you in a little bit."

Juliet turned around and disappeared over the hill, Lucas already falling asleep on her shoulder.

There was a happy silence as Lily ran around the surface of the hill, chasing fireflies that always seemed to disappear the moment before her hands closed around them.

"Daddy, how do they disappear?" Lily asked, looking up at her father.

"They aren't disappearing," he said, kneeling down next to her. "They just stop glowing so you can't see them. Look at that one." He pointed to a small glowing bug that faded quickly.

"It's gone," Lily said stubbornly.

"No, it's not." Carlton took his daughter's two small hands and closed them around the spot where the bug had been. Lily gasped as she felt it crawling around between her hands.

"How'd it do that?" She whispered, staring down at the bug.

"It was always there," her father explained. "You just need to know how to find it."

And, strangely, he realized, the same could be said of the illusive notion some called happiness. It was always there, for everyone, for anyone- but you just needed to know how to find it. You needed to learn to be flexible and read between the lines- as he had -and see the invisible firefly and catch it before it flew away forever.

But he had caught the firefly, and as the result he had this little dark-haired, blue-eyed angel in front of him. She climbed into his arms and he stood up, holding Lily against him protectively.

He stood and looked out into the purple sky. Even though his life had been full of confusion six short years ago, he had found happiness.

The sun ever so slowly sank into the sky. It was the end of the day, but certainly not the end of the happiness that would come in the future.

"I love you, Daddy," Lily whispered.

"I love you too, Lily."