When the Storm Breaks

By Hazelmist

A/N: See Ch.49 for Extensive Summary and there's a list of the OCs and flash-forwards too (the one at the end of Ch. 35 is the biggest one, but there are brief references to the shorter ones in Ch. 39 and end of Ch. 32 & Ch. 48).

Apologies for the LONG chapter, but I'd be an asshole if I left you guys hanging, so I shoved two chapters worth into one. It was so hard saying goodbye to these two and to all of you. I've been writing this fic for SIX years and I've cried and laughed over so many of your comments. Thank you for helping me heal and for letting me keep someone's memory alive. Thank you to the first few reviews I ever received on , I wouldn't have kept going if I hadn't gotten a response, and thank you to the people who always seemed to review when I felt like giving up. Thank you to all the amazing individuals who offered to read through a chapter, and all the brilliant people who offered to translate a passage and answered all my idiotic questions about their native language. And thank you to my dear friends, one of whom suffered through the very first draft of this chapter and the 'bloody skeleton'. You guys have fangirled with me, talked me through panic attacks, taught me so much, inspired me to be a better person and continue to tolerate my obsession with sunsets and beaches. THANK YOU FOR BEING AWESOME!

WARNING: TEARS. SOPPINESS. HUGGING. (brief mention of PAST drug abuse)

Dear SEA, this stupid story's dedicated to you. You used to laugh at the stupid stories I wrote about the evil llama and the haunted gazebo. I snuck them into this story, but honestly I only wrote this monster because I was sitting on the floor outside of your hospital room and I didn't know how to accept your death. And it hit me then, that there was one very small stupid thing that I could do. It took me over six years, 51 chapters, and approximately 300k words, but I did it. I finished it. It won't make a difference, but I left as many footprints as I could in the sand, and I hope that the rising tide that is time and my own fading memories won't wash them away.

Chapter 51: Epilogue: After the Storm

The solstice is still a week away, but summer's in the air as Ellie Richardson approaches Iris and Keira's home.

On her last failed visit, the house had been closed up and shuttered, absent of any life in the gloomy month of November. Now the house glows in the sun as if it has a fresh coat of paint. Bumblebees drone in the hydrangea bushes that bloomed in hues of pink, lavender and periwinkle blue. White morning glories wind around the mailbox at the end of the drive, and budding yellow and peachy pink roses crawl up a trellis. One of them could bloom into the colours of the sunrises that painted the endless skies over Broadchurch; the same shade of the petals that Alec pressed into her palm and left on her desk when he silently begged for forgiveness. Ellie's overwhelmed by the memories and the heady fragrance of the blossoms. It's hard to believe that a frigid woman like Iris could be responsible for nurturing a garden.

The scruffy dog at the top of the steps, scratching at the plaid bandana around his neck, only adds to Ellie's mounting confusion. He looks ridiculous, until his ears perk and a warning growl rumbles through him. Ellie backs off, but it's too late. The creature rises from the porch and barks until someone opens the door.

"Princess!"

A willowy young woman scoops up the ferocious beast. The dog stops barking, sniffing the girl's neck and licking her ear.

"Sorry, 'bout him, he's harmless, well, mostly harmless," she laughs.

Ellie stares open-mouthed at the woman Alec's angry teenager had grown into in the year that had passed since she'd last seen her. There's no doubt in her mind that this is her: the girl Alec had idolized and the "princess" from Fred's fairy tales. Keira had inherited her father's height and her mother's blue eyes, but she'd shed almost everything else they'd passed onto her through genetics and their own tragic mistakes. Her mother still sighs over her hair colour and her leather jacket, but the chains have been replaced with more sparkly bangles and less makeup. The bruises have been tattooed over, and her eyes are clear and focused on Ellie.

"Do I know you?" Keira inquires, forcing Ellie to collect her jaw.

Keira frowns at her until Ellie remembers the coat draped over her arm and the precious cargo it had kept safe for so long. The mutt squirms in Keira's arms, smelling something of interest in Ellie's handbag.

"I need to talk to you, Keira," Ellie blurts.

Surprised, Keira loses her handle on the dog. The mutt recovers quickly, pushing his muzzle into Alec's coat. Tail wagging, he nuzzles Ellie's thigh.

"He likes you," Keira remarks.

"Or your father," Ellie snorts as the dog rubs his head along Alec's coat, leaving fur and a trace of his own scent. Suddenly, Ellie's struck by a hazy memory of Alec on a bench at dawn and a scent she couldn't place. She blinks and the red light of dawn is gone, settling into a blush that spreads across her cheeks, after realizing what she implied to Alec's daughter.

"This is your Dad's coat," she explains. "He left it at mine ages ago, but I never got around to returning it." Keira's staring at her as if she's an insect under a microscope. Ellie's flush deepens, recognizing that look as one she must've learned from her father.

"He's in the cemetery, it's a fifteen minute walk from here," Keira answers her unspoken question, pointing west.

The terrible truth doesn't pain Ellie as much as it might've six months or even six days earlier, because Alec Hardy isn't in the ground. He might've died, but he's not gone. She sees Alec in Fred's bright eyes when he talks about their 'adventures', and she believes that somehow Alec was with her last night too. Ellie's almost certain he's also the reason that Keira's eyes are clear.

"I could take you to him," Keira offers.

"Can we talk first? I promise it'll only take a minute," Ellie assures her.

Keira considers her with a crease between her brows and then nods. Gently shooing Princess aside, she ushers Ellie inside and prevents the dog from sneaking in behind them. He whimpers at the door, before wandering off after his master.

Keira leads her into a sitting room done up in tasteful shades of ivory and grey. The sequined pillow and a pink afghan thrown over the sofa mar the understated elegance, along with the collection of dog toys under the chair. The coffee table's littered with papers, books and the remains of breakfast.

"I have an exam next week," Keira admits sheepishly as she stacks up the papers and plates. Ellie protests, but Keira's already halfway to the kitchen with the dirty dishes.

"You want a cuppa? I can make tea." Alec's daughter appears young and unsure of herself, even though her height and something about her eyes suggests she's aged beyond seventeen.

"I should really…" Ellie hesitates and Keira's face starts to fall. Fred threw a tantrum on the way here, and she still doesn't want to know what Tom broke earlier. Ellie left her naughty sons at a park near the same cemetery Keira mentioned, promising she'd collect them in an hour.

"Tea would be perfect," she agrees, and Keira lights up. Ellie hears her banging around in the kitchen before she reappears.

"It'll be a few minutes, Iris' kettle is ancient." Keira rolls her eyes, settling on the sofa while Ellie sits in the chair across from her. Ellie can't help but stare, as Keira sends off a text and fiddles with her mobile phone.

"So, um, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"I was a friend of your Dad."

"I know. It's Ellie, right?" Keira squints at her and nods. Perhaps she recalls seeing Ellie at the hospital. "I found an old photo of you with your kids in my Dad's wallet," Keira confesses, toying with a silver hoop earring. Alec must've nicked one of the Miller family photographs when he'd helped her pack up the cottage in Broadchurch.

"Iris mentioned he had a 'lady friend' while he was living in Dorset," Keira adds, casually inspecting her varnished nails. Ellie blushes.

"I wasn't his 'lady friend'-" she breaks off, as Keira stonewalls her with her father's arched brow. "And I wasn't his girlfriend," she admits with a sigh, remembering Alec's reaction to that particular term. "I don't know what he would've called me."

"Ellie?" Keira suggests cheekily.

"Sometimes," Ellie laughs. "But most of the time he called me Millah." Keira smiles at her poor imitation of her father's accent.

"We worked together in Broadchurch for a bit, I was still married then, and one of my son's friends had been murdered," Ellie supplies, even though it's obvious from Keira's lack of questions that she already knows what happened. Ellie's grateful that she doesn't have to go into the details.

"After the case was solved…" Ellie pauses and mulls over her words. "Your Dad used to check on me and my boys." Keira's listening raptly, hanging onto every word. Ellie struggles to put aside her own embarrassment and to tell Keira the truth for Alec's sake. "At first I think he felt sorry for us, but then I got divorced and he came round more often, and well, things changed between us…" She clenches the coat that lies in her lap, thinking of how they'd become a family. A lump forms in her throat and she has to let go.

"He missed you Keira, not a day went by when he wasn't thinking about you." She looks at the young woman across from her whom Alec would've been so proud of had he lived to see her. "Alec was good to us, but he loved you more than anything in this world." Keira ducks her head. Ellie wonders if this is too overwhelming for her, but she'd given Alec her word.

"I wanted to keep your father with me for as long as I could, but I knew that he never would've been happy if he hadn't seen you again," she says, swallowing around that lump in her throat. Taking a deep breath, she relinquishes her grip on the coat.

"He'd want you to have this." Standing, Ellie places Alec's coat on the coffee table. She folds it like one of those flags they offer those that serve and give their lives for their country. And God, Ellie wants to retrieve it and wrap herself up in the only tangible evidence she has left of him, but there's something of Alec in Keira too.

"I have something else for you." Ellie pulls the letter from her handbag and moves around the coffee table to sit beside the wide-eyed girl. "Sweetheart, he wrote this when he was very ill. I didn't realize how important it was until long after he left." Keira takes the letter and Ellie loses that last piece of Alec she'd selfishly kept.

"He gave this to you?" Keira frowns and traces her own name in her father's shaky scrawl. Ellie nods and squeezes Keira's shoulder. Honestly, Alec had no idea where he'd misplaced that letter, but the coat had been a gift of love and he'd unknowingly buried his heart in there with it.

"He left it in my care, in case anything happened to him," Ellie fibs, and then apologizes, "I'm sorry, I should've visited you sooner."

Keira's barely listening to her as she reopens the letter Ellie had unsealed months earlier. Ellie's heart is breaking all over again, but Keira's curiously unmoved.

"You don't have to read it now, Sweetheart." Alec had poured his heart into the lines Ellie had read before she'd stopped herself. He'd shared so much with her, but that letter was something Ellie had no right to intrude upon.

"I should go," she says softly. Keira's head snaps up as Ellie stands.

"You don't want tea?" she asks alarmed, and Ellie recognizes her father leaking through. "Shit, it should be done. Give me a mo'."

Keira dashes into the kitchen, leaving the letter scattered amongst her schoolwork and Alec's coat. Ellie fights the urge to tuck the letter safely away, but she can't fight the compulsion to smooth the wrinkles from his ruined coat, or to stay for a few more minutes with the little bit of Alec shining through Keira.

Restlessly, she explores the room, discovering a series of pictures ranging from Alec's childhood to Keira's tentative emergence into adulthood. Ellie pours over the photographs of a younger Alec, especially the ones where he's with Keira. Even in the photos where he isn't gazing at Keira, it's obvious that his world revolved around her. He didn't have to smile, although he did beautifully in some of them, the happiness Keira gave him is in his eyes. He was a different man, well-groomed and inexplicably lighter.

At the end of the mantle is a framed picture of Keira sitting in front of Iris' house with her parents. Keira is in a hoodie that's too large for her and her then bubble-gum pink hair is tied back, revealing her blonde roots. She's too pale and there's a tightness around her eyes that's wrong for someone so young, but her smile's genuine. Vicky's stiffly sitting apart from her daughter and ex-husband. Clearly this had been taken after the divorce, and possibly around the time Keira had found her addiction. Keira has her arm looped through Alec's and her chin on his shoulder. Alec isn't smiling, but he's gazing at his daughter as if she's the centre of the universe.

It's a sweet photograph, but this is the bearded Alec Hardy Ellie had known, and the snapshot lacks the naïve happiness from the earlier family pictures. Ellie touches Alec's face and wonders why he seems so scared and familiar to her. Did he suspect his daughter was using then? With her pink hair, Keira doesn't appear much older than the day Ellie had met her, which is impossible because Alec hadn't seen his daughter for at least a year.

Unless…

Ellie flashes back to one of the blurred memories from her dream last night, the puckered scar on Alec's chest and the metal box bulging beneath his skin that would've shocked his heart after it stopped. He'd seemed so real, but Ellie had woken up alone, and Keira had practically confirmed that her father was buried in a cemetery nearby.

And yet…

The front door slams, snapping Ellie out of her reverie.

"Darlin' you in here?" a voice calls, and Ellie hugs the family photograph to her chest.

Footsteps halt behind her and a prickle of awareness sends her heart fluttering. She closes her eyes, but he shuffles in with the sunlight, radiating warmth and steeped in the scents and memories of a summer that ended too soon.

"Ellie?" He sounds like hope, and her heart erupts into a frenzied gallop. Before her brain can reason with her, she's spun around.

He stops in mid-stride and she stares at the stranger in front of her.

If she's hallucinating, Ellie doesn't care. Sunlight streams in through the curtains behind her, highlighting the auburn in his windswept hair and the faint freckles arcing over his nose. His hair and beard's been neatly trimmed. He's traded in his wrinkled suit and crooked tie for a fitted pair of jeans and a charcoal grey jumper, but it's the fact that the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders that leaves her breathless. Keira might be in the next room but her presence manifests the entire house; the way he carries himself is completely altered by the reassurance that she's safe and nearby. If it wasn't for the frown lines ruthlessly etched into his face, Ellie might not have recognized him at all.

"You're here," he states incredulously. Some of the wrinkles fall away from his face as his gaze strokes over her, softening with each curve he lovingly retraces. "You look nice," he adds with a fleeting curve of his lips. His wistful smile fades upon his rediscovery of the spot where Derrick Norseman hit her; and suddenly Ellie's struck by flickers and flashes of last night in the hospital, the row in the gazebo, and how Alec Hardy cried when he saw her bruises.

"Alec," she whispers, and a tear trails down her cheek along with the first trickle of doubt. She starts toward him, but the coffee table and a dizzying reality check comes between them. Keira slams something in the kitchen and Ellie freezes.

Alec casts a furtive glance at the closed door, and then follows her gaze to his old coat and the pieces of his heart discarded with Keira's schoolwork. He picks up one of the tear-stained pages.

"I thought I lost this," he says quietly. "When I was at the Traders I must've…" His voice trails off as his attention swivels from the letter, to the coat, and then to her.

"I didn't find it until October," Ellie explains in the same hushed tone.

Alec pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Did you read it?" he asks and swears under his breath. "That was private," he snarls. Ellie doesn't tell him that she only read the first page.

"You didn't write me a letter," she defends herself. It's petty, but it's the only stupid thing she can latch onto. It's enough to get the volatile ball of grief and anger rolling. "All I got was an old coat and a phone number of a woman who took you away from me."

"You're upset because I didn't write you a letter?" he sputters, hissing at her, "Seriously? That's why you've been ignoring my texts and calls-"

"You called me?" Ellie interrupts him, and the tips of Alec's ears turn a shade of red she's never seen before. Iris had left voicemails in the weeks following the surgery, but there had been another strange number that had called and texted her at odd hours of the night last fall. Ellie had blocked the number, chalking it up to a drunk who'd been given a wrong number, but there was a more troubling possibility.

"It was after Keira relapsed," Alec whispers, but Ellie's having difficulty looking past her own pain. "I called you from a different number and I was…" he sighs, and rakes his fingers through his hair. "Alright, I might've been pissed."

"No, it couldn't have been you," Ellie denies it, but all of those niggling doubts she's had over the last twelve months are colliding like dominoes to form a bigger picture. And yet Ellie refuses to believe the evidence standing right in front of her. "Fred can text and talk more coherently than that bloke. I had to block the poor sod's number; he called me seven times that night-"

"Miller," Alec cuts in sharply, his eyes boring into hers.

"I didn't recognize your voice," Ellie realizes and another tear escapes the widening chasm in her broken heart. "Why didn't you come see me?"

"I did," Alec admits shamefully, propping his hands on his hips. "I came by your work one morning to apologize, and then I saw you walk out laughing with him." He glowers at the floor until she catches up with him.

"That was ages ago," she recollects, stammering, "Theo and I weren't even together yet…"

"I knew you for a year and I never heard you laugh like that," Alec recalls, his face softening along with his voice. "I didn't stand a chance."

"You were jealous?" she flounders.

"Aye," Alec concedes and throws the letter down onto the table like a gauntlet. "Clearly, he made you happier than me. Why do you think I stayed up in Scotland with my daughter?"

"That's where you've been all this time?" Worthington had been hinting at it for months, and if Ellie had just asked once or admitted she hadn't actually spoken to their former colleague instead of lying...

"If you'd picked up the phone when I called, you would've known that," Alec snipes at her.

"Don't you dare put this on me!" Ellie's voice cracks. "If you'd been sober when you first called me-"

"You have no idea what I've been through," Alec interrupts her, eyes blazing.

The surge of anger hits her like a tidal wave, drenching her along with three hundred and sixty-five days of pointless grief and loneliness. The tide keeps rising with an unmatched fury, feeding off painful memories and threatening to drown her, but Ellie can't dam it up anymore.

"I've been in mourning for the last year," she lashes out at him, tears welling up in her eyes. "And you have the nerve to be upset with me for moving on, because you were too much of a bloody coward to tell me that you've been alive this whole fucking time-"

"Oh, and that's somehow my fault too," he snaps, and Ellie explodes.

"You bloody died on me!" she snarls in his shell-shocked face. "You admitted it last night."

"I should've never told you that," he groans. "It wasn't for that long, I didn't even see Jesus," he says flippantly.

Ellie rides out the last wave of anger, grabbing onto it like a life line in the tumultuous sea of emotions flooding through her. Blinded by her rage, she lunges at him and smacks him with the only weapon left in her arsenal. She hits him with the picture frame until he backs up into the mantle. The photographs rattle with the force of the throbbing tension resonating between them.

"They told me that you were dead!" Her voice still shatters over those words that she never said aloud to anyone other than Lucy. Maybe a part of her had always suspected that Alec wasn't really gone, although after all the shit they'd been through she hadn't dared to hope for a miracle. Even before her former life came crashing down around her, miracles were something that happened to other people.

"I grieved for you," she confesses, and it feels as if Alec's taken a knife to her, as the words gush forth from the festering wound. "Worthington made me take a week off because I was crying in the Ladies. I couldn't tell her who died, I couldn't even tell my boys because you made me promise to wait." A note of hysteria creeps into her tone, and Alec's just standing there, staring at her as if she's a mad woman.

"I was in therapy. I even dated a widower, because I thought that was something we had in common, and I broke it off with him when we reopened Sandbrook and you wouldn't leave me the fuck alone," she continues tearfully. "Did you know that I once spent a whole day googling your obituary, and then today when Keira told me you were in the cemetery-" She bites her quivering bottom lip. "I t-thought that's where they b-buried you," she stutters, pressing a hand to her mouth to muffle a sob.

"Don't be so dramatic," Alec scoffs, rolling his eyes. "I died for a few minutes, but you knew they brought me back."

"No, I didn't," Ellie spits.

"You were at the hospital," he argues, folding his arms over his chest. "You told me last night and I confirmed it-"

"I left right after Keira told me you died and Vicky ran me off," she interrupts him.

"But Iris-" His voice falters and his mouth falls open.

"I never listened to any of the messages," she reminds him. And finally, finally, it dawns on him.

"No," he denies it, but he recognizes the truth in her pained eyes. "But we've seen each other since then," he continues, desperately, "Last December, Fred had an asthma attack and you threw a bedpan at me, because I thought you were shagging Theo –," he stops, scanning her face. "You don't remember," he realizes as she shakes her head. She'd been so ill that her memories of that night are fuzzy at best.

"Tell me that you didn't actually believe what Keira told you," Alec begs her, "Ellie, you couldn't have thought that I was dead all this time. Did you?"

Ellie lets the tears speak for her.

"Fuck." Alec drags a hand through his hair and rubs the nape of his neck. When he meets her gaze, his eyes are glistening and his voice trembles.

"Ellie, you knew I'd come back for Keira."

"I hoped," she rasps, tasting the salt on her lips. "I really wanted to believe that you were strong enough, but you seemed determined to die on me."

"Ellie," he whispers and there's an apology weighted between the syllables. Brushing a curl off of her forehead, he traces a barely visible scar from a car door. "I can't explain it, but once you told me you'd be there when I woke up, and then I saw her." His breath hitches, and Ellie closes her eyes as he tells her, "You changed everything."

Alec's fingertips slide down her cheek, chasing the teardrop that spills from her lashes. His touch sparks the raging wildfire of her grief, but hope is an eternal flame that burns brighter in Alec's glittering eyes. Some of the seething anger and heartache bleeds from her in the form of the tears she blinks away. Alec clumsily catches one beneath his thumb, and Ellie can feel him, smearing her makeup and peeling away all of her delusions and doubts, until there's nothing but the truth.

"I came back fighting for my daughter, but only because of you," he confesses.

His lips graze her left eyebrow and his hand cradles the back of her head. His arm curls at her waist and he holds her, his chest rising and falling against hers, and his heart hammering in tandem with her own.

"I'm not dreaming?" she gasps.

"No," he breathes into her hair.

"You've told me that before, but you always leave me," she sniffles. Alec tips her head, forcing her to look him in the eye.

"Not this time, Ellie." He cups her elbow, sending her hurtling back to that interrogation room in Broadchurch. Their gazes lock, like two halves, suddenly becoming a whole again. But this time when Ellie gazes into his eyes, she finds everything that she lost that day.

Ellie takes a leap of faith. Rocketing forward, she flings herself over the precipice and trusts him to break her fall. Alec staggers beneath her weight, but he catches her somehow. For one blissful moment her feet actually leave the ground, and it's as if she leaves the last twelve miserable months on the floor behind her.

"You're here? You're really here?"

"I never left," he whispers, and she kisses him.

Ellie releases the family photograph along with the rest of her worries. The frame smacks against his back, shattering on the floor with the last of her doubts. Ellie barely hears it over the roar of her own heartbeat thundering in her ears, and the litany of 'I missed you' and her name over and over again on Alec's lips. Alec's trembling all over and her arm is shaking from the strain she's putting on her injured shoulder, but they refuse to let go of this moment or each other.

"Please, don't go," she whimpers.

"It's okay," he murmurs soothingly, as she hides her face in the crook of his neck. "I'm right here. I'm not gonna disappear."

Alec strokes her hair and tries to kiss away her pain, but he only makes it worse. The tears stream in rivulets down her cheeks, pooling in that endless supply of guilt that weighs on him, until it's too much for him to carry. He sets her down gently and she blinks up at him.

"Ellie." Alec frames her face between his hands and she splays her palms over his chest. "I can't erase the last twelve months," he admits, rubbing away another teardrop with his thumb, "But I can spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you," he vows.

Ellie steps back, remembering all the other times he tried to make it up to her. Her eyes drift to the coat he'd given her in one of those mangled attempts, and he picks up the ruined garment. Ellie assumes he's going to return it to her, when he sinks to his knees next to her. Wrapping one of his hands up in the fabric, he collects the cracked picture frame from the rug.

"I forgot I was holding it," Ellie apologizes.

"Why were you looking at this one?" he wonders.

"I recognized you," she confesses, and waves a hand at the mantle behind them. "Those other pictures, they're lovely, but this" – Ellie combs his fringe out of his eyes, sketching a few of the more prominent frown lines with her fingertips before fondly scratching his beard – "This is who I fell in love with."

Alec stares at her for a long searching moment, and then at the bundle in his lap. Flipping the picture over, he rips off the velvet backing, revealing the photograph and a brown square that vanishes into his hand.

"When was it taken?" she asks as he places the picture with Keira's letter.

"The same day I got this back," Alec replies, and the object that had been stuffed in behind the photograph magically reappears between his thumb and index finger. It's a manila envelope, not much bigger than a postage stamp, and Ellie reaches for it.

Their fingers brush and a jolt of electricity passes between them.

"Careful," he cautions her, "'s not much, but I made you a promise…" Alec's voice fades out as she recognizes the name of a reputable jeweller stamped across the front. The paper's so thin that the circular indent of the contents is visible from the outside, leaving very little to her imagination.

"What is it?" she asks stupidly.

"Blimey, why do you have to be so difficult?" He gives her a withering scowl and impatiently motions to the envelope. "Just open it."

Alec clambers to his feet, and Ellie slips her thumbnail beneath the flap. She glimpses sparkles and a flash of silver before the sudden onslaught of tears makes it too difficult for her to focus. Her thumb twitches and the flap closes, but the diamonds are branded on her retina. Alec swallows audibly and clears his throat. His burr is thicker when he speaks.

"It was me Mum's," he says, bracing himself against the mantle. "She gave it to Iris for safekeeping along with me."

Ellie stares at his tense shoulders, wondering if this is actually happening or if she's dreaming again.

"When Iris realized you made the right choice, bringing Keira into the hospital, and that we were going to be okay, she returned it to me." He takes a steadying breath and turns to her. "Ellie, I want you to have it."

"This was your ex-wife's?" she chokes out.

"No," he snorts. "Vicky had her wedding ring picked out the day she was born. Keira's the same in that respect," he adds, answering her next query. "They want something new and flashy, not something that's old and broken." He scrubs a hand over his weathered face, and Ellie realizes that they're not discussing the ring anymore.

It's too much for her.

"When Keira told me you died, a part of my heart died too," she confesses, curling her fingers around the precious metal. "I don't think a bit of metal can fix me."

She stretches her fist out, but Alec lifts his warmer, steadier hands to capture hers and the ring between them.

"It's yours," he tells her.

"Alec," she whispers, "I can't take care of you."

"I'm not asking you to," Alec says roughly, reverently kissing her knuckles. His lips are softer on her hands, and more tears spring to her eyes. "You saved my life and possibly Keira's too. If you won't have me than you can pawn the bloody thing," he offers, and Ellie pulls her hand free from his.

The walls are starting to close in around her, and her chest is so tight she can barely breathe. Her brain can't handle the idea that happiness might be at their fingertips, throwing her into a blind panic.

"I have to think about my boys," she reminds him, but it's her own fragile heart that worries her. "After everything we've been through in the past two years, you know that if anything ever happened to you, it would break them." Her voice wavers as she seizes his wrist, slapping the ring into his palm.

"Ellie, wait."

Alec grasps her hand, spinning her round. The room whirls like an out of control funfair ride, until he breathes a string of syllables into her ear that brings it to a grinding halt.

"Give them my love, and tell Fred I'm sorry I'm not…" he chokes up, because it isn't just about her, it never was.

As Alec struggles to find the right words, her anxiety ebbs away. She's conscious of the ring still pressed between their palms, but it's lighter than she expected. Alec mumbles something too soft for her ears, but Ellie can see in his glistening eyes what's in his battered heart.

"Perhaps, you should tell him," she suggests hesitantly.

"You want me to tell him the truth?" he croaks.

"Maybe it's time," Ellie sighs and pushes up on her toes to kiss him.

When she opens her eyes again, Alec's in tears.

"Are you sure?" he asks her, and Ellie nods. "Miller, you have to be certain, 'cause if you're not, it'll hurt 'im."

"We don't have to tell him now," she soothes him, but he paces away from her, not seeming to notice the ring changing hands again.

Ellie glances down at the manila envelope, wondering how she could agree to all of this, when she hasn't even seen it properly. Then she looks at Alec, and it doesn't matter if it's a bauble from an arcade or sixteen carats, her mind's made up. She stuffs the ring into her pocket.

"They're at the park, we can go now."

"No," Alec rasps, rubbing at his nose. "I want to be the one to tell him. He has to hear it from me."

Ellie wants to argue with him, but he already has a hand on the swinging door. Ellie had forgotten about Alec's suspiciously quiet teenager, but Keira makes her presence known now, scuttling away from the door and back to the kitchen table.

"I was just about to bring in the tea," she announces brightly to Ellie, making a show of pouring the tea. "Oh, Da did you want one?"

"No, I'll be back in a bit." He stoops to kiss his daughter's forehead.

"Everything alright?" Keira asks worriedly, shooting Ellie a pointed glance over his shoulder. Alec grunts and Ellie gives Keira a reassuring smile, before following him outside.

Ellie almost trips over the excited dog waiting for them and Alec growls at the 'Bloody Idiot' to go away. Bloody Idiot ignores him, nudging Alec's hand until he scratches him behind his mismatched ears. Upon closer inspection with a fresh coat of mud and the bandana now shredded, Princess is one of the ugliest dogs Ellie's ever seen.

"You have a dog," she states, as if this observation is more earth-shattering than the fact that he's been alive for the last year.

"He's Keira's," Alec insists, glaring at her, but Bloody Idiot seems to have missed that memo. The creature's practically wriggling beneath Alec's practiced fingers, and Ellie can't believe she's actually jealous of a dog.

"You've been sleeping with him, haven't you," she croons to Bloody Idiot, and Alec's glare turns murderous. "You don't snore, do you?" she asks the mutt, mock seriously, and he sneezes in her face. "Yep, my sons are going to love you," she sighs, resigned to her fate.

"Give me fifteen minutes to explain everything to Fred," Alec pleads, pitching his voice low enough that Keira won't be able to overhear them.

"I trust you," she tells him, praying that she isn't making a mistake. "Take all the time you need, I'll stay with Keira."

"Be careful with her, Miller," he warns her. "She's been through a lot."

"I'll be gentle," she assures him, and Alec timidly pecks her on the cheek.

"Bye, Ellie."

Ellie watches Alec storm off into the afternoon sun. He cuts through the neighbouring field with Princess prancing along next to him. Ellie has to restrain herself from running after him, but she has to learn to trust that Alec isn't going to go away. She waits until he's almost out of sight and then slips back inside.

Keira's waiting for her with her hands on her hips and another thunderous glare she must've learned from her father.

"What did you do to him?"

"Nothing," Ellie insists.

"Listen, Ellie, I would've totally rejected him too. That was like the most unromantic proposal ever," Keira grouses as Ellie's jaw drops. She flips her blue waves over her shoulder and sighs. "I'm not saying he needed to fly you to Paris with a mariachi band and six dozen red roses, but it's not that hard to mess up a proposal. It's four words and he didn't even get down on one knee."

"Keira," Ellie tries to interrupt her, but she's in the middle of a rant.

"Mum basically had to propose to him; he nearly gave himself a heart attack just thinking about it. And honestly, after that fiasco, I can see why." Keira rolls her eyes and pauses to sip her tea.

"I didn't reject him," Ellie protests.

"It doesn't sound like you've accepted him either," Keira points out, and motions toward the back door. "I haven't seen him this upset since the last time I relapsed."

"He's not upset, he's emotional," Ellie argues feebly, wringing her hands. "Keira, your father and I have been through a lot," she labours to explain, "I didn't think I'd ever see him again."

"I know, that was my fault, I'm really good at ruining people's lives, especially my Dad's," Keira says grimly, and Ellie gapes at her. "But now that I've met you and Tom and Fred, I'd like to fix it, so if you could please sit down," - Keira pulls out one of the chairs at the table - "let's figure this out before he does something colossally stupid."

Ellie's knees give out on her and she crumples into the chair. Keira pushes the cup of tea toward her and gives Ellie a moment to collect herself with a fortifying gulp of Earl's Grey.

"It wasn't your fault you know," Ellie tells her, "If I'd listened to Iris' messages or spoken to my boss I would've figured it out."

Keira shakes her head.

"Dad would've gone to you directly if it hadn't been for me."

Ellie opens her mouth and Keira holds up a hand.

"I'm a recovering heroin addict," she reminds Ellie and rolls up her sleeve to show off the evidence. The tiny scars are still there from the repeated pinprick of a needle, but they're enclosed by a freshly inked tattoo of a compass.

The tattoo's a lovely addition that was chosen to encircle those marks rather than disguise them, and Ellie's suddenly struck by a comment Alec made when they first met about everyone having an unreliable moral compass. But looking into Keira's defiant eyes, Ellie predicts that Keira's compass won't break again. Keira scrutinizes her, but Ellie refuses to judge her or hold her past against her.

"I'm clean now, but before my last stint in rehab, I was willing to do anything for a fix," Keira recollects, hesitantly revealing, "Dad didn't want to risk having you or your kids around me in that state."

"Keira, you don't know that."

"The first time my father saw me high, he got drunk out on that back stoop by himself and spent the night crying and calling you," Keira informs her bluntly. Ellie wishes she hadn't written off that drunk dial so quickly. "The next morning Dad told me that we were going to Scotland, and we weren't coming back until I was drug-free for at least three months."

Tears prick at Ellie's eyes, but she refuses to let them fall.

"Last December, I was two months clean, and Dad was so proud that he took me to a movie. That's when he got the call." Keira finishes off her tepid tea, before going on. "He apologized, but he said there was an emergency and he'd have to drop me back at the rehab. He wouldn't tell me anything other than that he needed to get on the next train, so I nicked his phone before he left and called Tom back…"

Ellie's eyes widen when she realizes what happened and Keira nods.

"Dad tried to be so careful never to mention any of you," Keira continues, tears brimming in her eyes, "But he slipped up from time to time, and Marty, Iris and even Mum implied that there'd been a woman in his life. Tom didn't know who I was, but as soon as he told me that you and his baby brother were in the hospital, I knew Dad had another family."

"Sweetheart," Ellie murmurs and covers her hand on the table. "I would've loved to have met you."

"I know that now," Keira sighs, rubbing at her eyes. "But when I first found out and he denied it…"

"You relapsed again," Ellie concludes, and a tear streaks Keira's cheek.

"He left you and Fred at the hospital, and returned on the next train to deal with me. I thought he'd be angry, but…" She sniffles and swipes at her damp cheeks. "He blamed himself for everything, and it was selfish, but I let him." She looks at Ellie with those shimmering blue eyes, and Ellie recognizes a bit of the child she met outside the waiting room at the hospital.

"I made him give up his other family," Keira whispers tremulously.

Ellie opens her arms to her, welcoming Keira into her heart. Keira's taller than Ellie and all sharp angles, but she seems so much smaller and softer when Ellie coaxes her into her embrace.

"I'm sorry," Keira apologizes, and Ellie shushes her.

"Keira, you've got nothing to apologize for," Ellie assures her, stroking her blue hair. "I've been waiting to meet you for a long time; I knew just from the way your father talked about you that if anyone could save him from an early grave and teach him how to live again, it would've been you."

"You don't honestly believe that," Keira scoffs, jerking away from her to fix her makeup.

"I do," Ellie says. "Your father begged me to stay with him that day, but I had to ensure that you got there in time to see him. He needed you."

Keira gazes up at her through her tears and Ellie already loves her. Digging the ring out of her pocket, she sets it on the table between them.

"Sweetheart, I love your father very much," Ellie tells her. "I realize that you don't know me at all, but I'd like to rectify that. Keira, I want me and my boys to be a part of your family." She scans Keira's face, searching for the slightest sign of disapproval. Instead the younger woman rewards her with a hint of a smile.

"I want him to be happy," Keira confesses.

"Me too," Ellie agrees, smiling.

"Then what are you waiting for?" she wonders, pushing the envelope toward Ellie. "Put it on."

Keira sniffs and scoots to the edge of her chair in anticipation. Ellie tips the ring out into her palm and her heart leaps into her throat.

"I hope it's not too simple," Keira worries, chewing on her lip. "I persuaded him to update it, but he insisted on silver and he refused to reshape his mother's diamond."

Keira's right, it is simple. Young Ellie Richardson would've been disappointed by the old-fashioned cut and size of the centre diamond, but she's older and wiser now. She can appreciate the striking difference in this ring from the empty promises she wore for over fourteen years. The two tiny diamonds set into the silver band, flanking Alec's mother's diamond are just enough that Ellie recognizes the beauty in its simplicity.

Ellie slips the ring onto her finger and she falls a little more in love with Alec.

"I didn't think I'd like it," Keira murmurs, stunned, "But he was right…"

"It's perfect," Ellie rasps, swallowing hard.

"Don't get soppy on me," Keira playfully warns her. "We still have to figure out what you said that upset him."

Ellie watches as the diamond's facets catch and refract the light. It's pretty, but she vividly remembers Alec's first accidental proposal, when he'd offered her that plastic ring from the arcade that Fred tried to eat and told her he didn't think he deserved her.

Ellie's train of thought abruptly reverses. She goes through everything that was said in the sitting room before she (according to their eavesdropper) rejected him, and then Alec insisted on telling Fred the truth. She dwells on that and then it hits her.

"Shit," Ellie hisses and leaps up from her seat.

"That was fast." Keira follows her out through the sitting room. Ellie collects her handbag from the sofa, apologizing profusely.

"I'm sorry. We'll have tea another time, your father's about to make a huge mistake."

"I knew it." Keira holds the front door open for her and locks it behind them. "What's he done, anyway?" she asks nosily, hopping into the passenger seat of Ellie's car.

"Nothing, if we're lucky." Ellie nervously glances at the clock on the dashboard and floors it.

They screech to a stop opposite the park, and Ellie doesn't care that she's done a rubbish job of parallel parking. With her palms sweating and her heart banging against her ribcage, she races into the park, desperately calling for Fred and Tom.

Keira finds Tom on a bench and yanks one of his earbuds out.

"Oh, it's you again," he grunts, instantly recognizing Keira. Before Ellie can ask about that, Tom notices his mother and his eyes widen in alarm.

"Mum, I can explain," he starts, and Ellie grabs him by the shoulders.

"Where's your brother?"

"Erm, we're playing hide 'n seek," he lies, "I'll go find him."

"Tom," she growls. "Did you lose him?"

"'Course not." He stands and backs away toward the pond.

"Is he with Alec?" she asks and her eldest pales.

"Yeah," Tom grudgingly admits, "But I didn't tell him we were here this time," he defends himself, eyeing Keira accusingly. "He just showed up all agitated and asked to talk to Fred."

"Where are they?" Ellie demands.

Tom hesitates, before pointing to the opposite bank of the pond. Ellie spots a flash of orange and hurtles after her youngest.

It takes her less than ten seconds to reach Fred. He's crouched by the edge of the water with his pudgy hands outstretched toward the ducklings, but Alec beats her to him. He sweeps her child up into his arms and Fred squeals, half annoyed and half delighted that his latest attempt to pet the fluffy ducklings was thwarted.

"Daddy!" he giggles, and Ellie stops dead in her tracks at the sound. Alec continues up the embankment with her son balanced on his hip, both of them oblivious to her presence. "But I want one," Fred whines.

"They have to stay in the pond with their Mummy," Alec replies and lowers Fred to the grass. He crouches down in front of Fred and taps the tip of his scrunched little nose. "You have to stay with your Mummy too," Alec says gently.

"But I don't want to," Fred complains, stomping his foot. "I want you to come home."

"Fred, I…"

Ellie steps on a paper cup and Fred sees her. He runs from Alec to her, flinging himself at her shins.

"Make Daddy come home!" Fred whimpers, pouting and tugging at the hem of her blouse. "I want Daddy to come home!" Fred's face changes to a dangerous shade of red that forewarns of an oncoming tantrum, but Ellie's watching Alec's hunched shoulders and his hand covering his eyes. Fred dramatically wails, and Alec gets up and stumbles over to another nearby bench.

"He's coming home, Fred. I just need to talk to him," she promises, soothing her baby.

She looks around frantically and Keira and Tom jump into action. They've got Fred in hand and distracted by ice lollies before she can manage to thank them. That was the easy part. Ellie wipes her sweaty palms on her blouse and joins Alec on the bench. He has his head in his hands, but he sits up as soon as she touches him.

"Did you tell him?"

"I can't," Alec responds thickly, and Ellie's relieved.

"'m sorry," he babbles, his burr stronger than she's ever heard it, "He's jus' a wee bairn, and I promised I wouldnae leave him."

"I know," Ellie murmurs, rubbing his shoulder.

Alec stares past her to where Fred's grinning toothily up at his daughter. Keira waves and then leads the boys away, seeming to take everyone else with her. The ice cream truck pulled up at the opposite side of the park, and cries of delighted and disappointed children fill the air and fade into the distance.

Suddenly, it's just Ellie and Alec on a bench overlooking the little pond. Even the ducklings have left, lead away by their anxious mother to a place where besotted children like Fred can't reach them.

"I love you," Alec professes solemnly, "And after what you did for me and my daughter, I'd do anything for you," he pledges, sniffling. "But I love Fred and Tom too, and I've already witnessed first-hand what happens when someone walks out of a child's life…" He rests a trembling hand on Ellie's knee, and looks up at her beseechingly. "I know they're not mine, but I've learned my lesson, and I can't make that mistake twice."

"You're an idiot, Alec," she sighs and rests her head on his shoulder. "I don't want you to tell Fred that you're not his father, and I certainly don't want you to abandon him or Tom."

"Then what do you want?" he wonders as she loops an arm through his and snuggles into his side.

"What I've always wanted," Ellie murmurs and weaves their fingers together atop her knee. "I want to take you home with me."

She shuts her eyes and waits. It takes Alec longer than she expects, but eventually she hears his sharp intake of breath. Gently, he untangles their fingers and turns her hand so that the diamond sparkles in the sunlight. The ring's even more gorgeous when he locks their palms together again.

"I've got some conditions," she warns him.

"Of course you do," he groans, but she can feel the smile he's hiding against her temple.

"I'm not taking your name," she refuses.

"Good, I don't think the world's ready for another DI Hardy." He cups her face in his hand. "I wouldn't want you to be mistaken for the worst cop in Britain."

"Not the worst," Ellie argues, reminding him of what they accomplished in the past forty-eight hours. She holds his hand against her cheek and touches her other hand to where she knows the metal box sits beneath his skin.

"What's the next condition?" he prompts her.

"You have to officially adopt Fred."

Alec's eyes widen and fill with tears. Leaning over, he kisses her hard, wordlessly sharing his joy with her. His fingers re-familiarize themselves with her profile and the nape of her neck, gliding over her skin and leaving gooseflesh in their wake.

"You'll be stuck with me," he warns her, parting from her to scrape his sleeve over his tear-streaked face.

"I'm counting on that," she confirms. "My boys and Keira will need you to stick around for at least another fifty years, do you understand?"

He nods, struggling not to cry.

"This cannot stop on me ever again," she growls, tapping his heart. "Or I'll send you to hell myself."

"Understood," Alec acknowledges, resting his forehead against hers.

They stay like that for what could've been seconds or hours, slowly adjusting to the idea that their time together isn't restricted anymore by a clock.

"What's the last condition?"

"You have to marry me," she instructs him, crooking a finger under his chin and bringing his misty-eyed gaze up to hers.

"We don't have to get married," he counters, but Ellie knows he wants to marry her. He's endearingly old-fashioned and he's wanted to marry her since he gave her that arcade bauble.

"Keira would be disappointed if we didn't," she points out.

"Tom too," Alec concedes. "I asked for his permission when I refurbished the ring," he adds shyly, and Ellie feels so much for Alec that it simply cannot be contained in a four letter word.

She says it anyway, and he smiles through his tears.

"Are you sure?" he asks.

"Are you?"

"I think this is the fourth time I've asked you," he reminds her, chuckling.

"Or the fifth if you count the arcade bauble that Fred almost swallowed," Ellie corrects him, grinning. Alec shakes his head and holds out his hands to her. He helps her up off the bench and looks from the ring to her eyes.

"Marry me?" he proposes.

"Fine, Alec, I'll marry you," she agrees, rolling her eye.

His smile brightens like a sunrise and the transformation is stunning. Ellie seizes a fistful of his jumper and tries to kiss him, but they can't contain their happiness and laughter bubbles up between them.

They're still laughing when Fred comes pelting out of nowhere and suctions himself to Alec's leg like a sticky starfish. Keira and Tom are already bickering, and the dog's barking and running circles around them. Apparently Keira and Tom had a wager on when Alec would propose, and in the chaos that follows, Ellie's the only one who witnesses Alec kneel down and ask Fred the most important question of his life.

Fred doesn't really understand the question, but when Alec assures Fred he'll come home to stay, he readily agrees to let Alec adopt him.

They all walk back together with Keira teasing Tom mercilessly about a cute girl they'd seen in the park. Princess lopes ahead of them and Alec reluctantly puts Fred down, so he can chase after his new friend. The white house looms on the horizon, and Alec squeezes Ellie's hand as Iris comes outside to meet them. Keira's already made the introductions and brought the kids inside, by the time Alec and Ellie approach.

Alec lets go of her hand to kiss Iris' cheek.

"You're late again," the older woman clucks, "And you didn't tell us you were bringing home your family." Iris pats Alec's shoulder, and although she barely nods in Ellie's direction, Ellie can sense something shifting as Iris rushes inside to make room and set plates at her table for them.

"Happy birthday, bastard!" a voice exclaims, and the Scottish doctor comes out of the house to clap them both on the shoulder.

"Go away, Marty," Alec groans.

"It's good to see you, Ellie," Marty greets her. "If he breaks your heart again, I'll break his nose for you," he offers generously. Alec shoves him into the house, leaving them alone together.

"It's not really your birthday, is it?" she wonders. It's amazing that she can agree to marry someone, and yet not know his age. Alec glowers at the door Marty disappeared through, and Ellie realizes that it is in fact his birthday.

"How old are you?"

"I'm forty-three," he grudgingly admits.

"We spent the last one together, didn't we?" she recollects.

"With everything that was going on, it honestly slipped my mind," he confesses, and his eyes darken with the memory of how close she came to losing him in that same week he'd turned forty-two.

"I didn't get you anything," she says sadly.

"Don't be daft," he dismisses her, but his gaze sweeps over her like a caress. "Last year, you brought my daughter back into my life," he recalls.

"I don't think I can top that one," she concedes, "But I can try."

Alec arches a brow and Ellie steers him away from any prying eyes. He stumbles over a trowel and they fetch up against the house behind another trellis of budding roses. Throwing her arms around him, she kisses him like she should've all those months ago in an out of order restroom before he went in for a surgery she was almost certain he wouldn't survive. In the future she might tease him that all it took was her withholding a kiss to keep him alive, but now's not the time.

"Happy birthday, Alec," she tells him breathlessly, and suddenly they're back in the kitchen of the cottage on the outskirts of Broadchurch, when she'd wished for a simple moment like this. Alec pulls her close and burrows his nose in her hair.

"Thank you," he whispers.

Ellie opens her eyes and Alec grins at her. In his smile, Ellie glimpses the unlined face of the handsome man he'd been before he collided with her and heartbreak, but Ellie looks beyond the sudden flash of teeth to the lovely crinkles branching out from his eyes. For the first time she lets herself hope for tomorrow, and next month, and next year, and beyond to more wrinkles, rows, grey hair, and laughter…

Alec's thumb brushes the corner of her smile and she knows he can see it all reflected in her eyes. This moment goes beyond anything they ever could've imagined.

"You ready for this?" he asks nervously, and Ellie grins back at him.

"C'mon Alec," she urges him, and drags him into the house to meet their family.

And later that night, after a pleasant dinner and 'see you soon' instead of goodbyes, Alec gazes in awe at the cozy white house he and Keira picked out as their safe haven all those years ago. Tom opens the door, and Alec takes a sleeping Fred from her and carries him upstairs to the nursery.

After establishing that both boys are asleep and texting Keira goodnight, Ellie points out that Alec never did get down on one knee. Alec closes the door to her bedroom, sits her on the edge of the bed and kneels before her.

"I'm going to take care of you," he vows.

Alec takes his vows very seriously. Ellie quickly forgives him for his unromantic proposal and decides that getting down on one knee in public or when one's daughter is eavesdropping is vastly over-rated.

Ellie wakes up alone in the middle of the night, but the diamond ring on her hand glimmers in the pale moonlight; a promise from Alec that'll light the way through the darkest hours. She yanks on her dressing gown and checks on Tom, before moving onto Fred.

Alec sits in the old rocking chair, watching her youngest sleep. The door creaks on its hinges and he looks up as she tiptoes into the room. His eyes are shining again and his face is streaked with silver tears, but he reaches for her and tugs her into his lap.

"Welcome home, Alec," she whispers. Putting her arms around his neck, she drifts off in the shelter of his embrace.

She wakes with the first rays of dawn lighting the nursery, and Fred cuddled up with her on the rocking chair. For a split second she panics, but then she hears a snuffle behind her, and she tips her head to meet Alec's sleepy eyes. She kisses him good morning, trying not to jostle Fred. The moment's fragile enough with him snuggled up between his parents.

"You're crying," Alec observes, suddenly wide awake and frowning.

"You stayed," Ellie whispers, and lifts her left hand to stroke his jaw. Alec nuzzles her palm and kisses her engagement ring.

"I'll always come home," he says it like a promise, tightening his arms around her and Fred.

"Are you sure you want me to be his father?" he asks her one last time, and Ellie kisses him again.

They're both a bit weepy now, and gazing at their son. It doesn't matter that the paperwork will take months, maybe even years, to be processed, or that Fred was created and loved in some way for the first year of his life by someone else. It no longer matters that Fred opened his eyes for the first time in the arms of another man, when Fred opens his eyes today, he sees Alec first.

"Daddy?"

Alec brushes Fred's curls out of his eyes and smiles.

"I'm here," he answers.

"Can you stay?" Fred asks, pouting.

Alec glances at Ellie and she beams.

"Yes," Alec tells Fred.

"For how long?" Fred wonders.

Alec and Ellie share another look, and then he turns to Fred. Wrapping his fingers around Fred's smaller ones, he kisses Fred's forehead and promises,

"Always."

A/N: Thank you to all of you who made it through When the Storm Breaks (or skipped to the end). You guys deserve pizza, wine and a hug after that rollercoaster. I'd love to hear what you think, and don't be afraid to be honest. This story started off as a one-shot about a first kiss on the beach and Alec giving Ellie his daughter's letter in case something happened to him, but I decided to expand it before posting. Obviously it's changed A LOT. I had a death in my family around Ch.7 and the story and Alec's condition became forever linked to that moment. I came home from the hospital and I said to myself, they're going to get the miracle that my family didn't. It was really dumb, but being an emotionally driven writer, I had tons of pain, grief and anger that I had to work through. It got really messy, really fast. The irony was that the closer I got to my ending, the easier it seemed to just let Alec die, but I'm stubborn. So I tried to toy with both ideas for a while, hence the 'ghost' story aspect and the lack of a trigger warning (if anyone has any recommendations on the tag please let me know). I apologize if I confused the hell out of you or if you're disappointed that I did that to Ellie. I'm planning on adding a one shot from Alec's POV to this universe, but we all know I take FOREVER to write and edit. I apologize for the clunky, long and delayed ending and for not letting you see Alec's POV, but I'm tired and I can't put this off anymore. THANK YOU TO ALL YOU LOVELY PEOPLE! I FINISHED IT!