Is "THE END" Really...then end?

So many of us writers crave to write those two little simple words and for so many reasons.
1. It's the end of the journey.
2. Finally I can begin to move on from this story and start a new one.
3. It's a sense of accomplishment.

Those of course are just a few of the many examples it means to write the words, "The End." For me as a fiction writer, this thought came to me after having written my first novel, "Silence." An adventure romance set in the 1920's. I spent so much time in that world. Creating those characters, sharing their dreams, desires, bitterness, shame, anger. I murdered many of them, made some fall in love, some out of love, I spent warm Fall days in the English countryside with them. I sat next to the cold glass of a rain covered window on a train, wondering where this story would finally come to an end. I created a world that was romantic, exciting, dangerous and innocent all at the same time. Yet like everything else, if I didn't write the final two words, how could I ever let my characters live? Giving them to the world so others could take that journey with them.

However, this is not what I mean when I say, is the end, really the end. When I finished writing the book, putting editing, proofing and everything else technical that goes into a book, being just concerned with the story. I wondered just exactly what became of my characters after I wrote the end. Did my main two characters really live a long happy life filled with romance? Did awful things happen to them? Did they cheat on each other? Was the life of an English farm girl too boring for a man used to Hollywood of the 1920's?  Did the detectives and Scotland Yard just go back to their boring old daily lives?  What became of my characters after I was done with them?

Are they frozen in time, waiting for me to come back? These are curious musings by this author who has decided that sometimes everything we think we know is only a facade waiting for the wall to crumble and show the truth behind it. By that comment I mean, I've actually allowed a few of my characters to make their way into my newest novel. Perhaps this is just to please me, to give them a little more life, reward a reader from a previous book with a little easter egg to find in my new novel. Or is it a chance to see what choices they have made as to where they have ended up?

I wonder...do any of you ever wonder the same things about the lives you create, enjoy, use and then leave behind for your next new shiny loved ones?

Thoughts and comments are welcome!