AUTHORS NOTE: So this is the end team. I know. It's been a slow, unrealistic ride along the dirt path of Helen's imagination but finally we've reached that beautiful oasis. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters that you know and love

[The End of the Line]

"Will she be okay?" Leila screamed at Robbie the minute he stepped into the waiting room while Ellanna sat at the window staring out emptily because you couldn't see anything thanks to the darkness of the sky. The two of them looked over at her for a moment but when she didn't so any signs of wanting to join in Robbie turned his attention to Leila.

"She's fine. Thankfully the bullet didn't hit any vital organs. She'll need time to heal and it'll be a bit painful to move for the next week or so but she'll recover wonderfully," he promised her smiling as she jumped up and gave him a hug. He embraced her back before smiling. "You're allowed to go in and see her before she goes to sleep." Leila didn't need telling twice before she was out of the room.

"I'm glad she's okay," Ellanna finally voiced so that Robbie didn't think that she didn't care but she didn't tear her gaze away from the window. He stood there for a moment before he moved over to her so that he could try and understand what was wrong with her.

"You should be elated. We put the man who murdered your best friend away." He said leaning against the wall and looked at her. Her eyes were now puffy and red from crying but he suspected that she'd cried all the tears that she could. He heard Jackie talking down the corridor and the excited voice of Leila as if they were talking at Ellie's door.

"Yes but a part of me thinks that she could have survived this. If she'd have just left him then she'd still be sat online e-mailing me about the most stupidest things." She looked down at her ankles, her hand rubbing at she smiled. "The last e-mail was about how she'd seen this bird fluttering in her garden and how she'd thought of that scene in Forrest Gump when Jenny prays to be a bird and how she'd felt the same thing. She told me in so many ways that she wanted to be free but I just thought she meant from the whole housewife thing. She never told me that..." She looked away, tears falling again so he assumed he had been wrong earlier.

"Ellanna, no one could have predicted this. That's why it's called a crime of passion."

"It wasn't though. The son of a bitch had actually calculated it right down to a fucking back up plan. He was going to kill Sheila no matter what happened because he wanted a new life."

"Well now he has that," she turned round to see Leila stood there at the door with Jackie's arm wrapped around her shoulders. "He's going to rot in prison, Ellanna like he deserves to be. She'll be fine where she is now." Ellanna smiled before standing up and moving over to the door.

"Let's go harass the love of my life then," she said confidently as they moved down the corridor leaving the two detectives behind as Jackie moved towards him, her arms wrapping around her chest as she stopped in front of him.

"This is a shock to me but you're excellent with teenage girls. I thought they'd scare you." She teased before smiling at him and he looked down at her.

"You know this is why I think everyone thinks we're secretly screwing each other," he pointed out, "I think we should try it." He just laughed as she reached out to punch him, his hand taking hold of her wrist as he pulled her in for a hug where they just stood for a few moments.

"Do you think they'll ever write again?" Jackie asked him as she thought of the short little stories that had started all this drama in the first place. She'd read them and had been impressed with how amazing some of the works had been. It was mature with perfect prose and she'd hate to think that they'd be scared away from writing because of this.

Robbie looked through the door where you could hear the laughter wafting in before shrugging his shoulders. "I hope not. They were good at it and look what it brought them," Leila's excited voice reached them about how it would make an awesome case story, "and I don't think they will," he laughed as if they had answered Jackie's own question. "Writers never stop, no matter what life throws in their way." He promised her before smiling as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders. "Come on, let's go hang with our little detectives."

THE END