Finally the final chapter. Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed! Enjoy.

"Are you gonna tell me what's going on, or am I gonna have to beat it out of you?"

Danny glanced up to see Sam wearing her determined face. He sighed. In some situations she was the most observant person he'd ever met, though she had a blindness for things she didn't want to know. She obviously wanted to know about Ste and Brendan.

"I told you, Brendan's a monster and Ste can't see it."

"Yeah, you said that and variations on that quite loudly quite a few times but you haven't actually said what makes him a monster."

Danny grunted. He suspected that, should he tell her what the McQueens had told him, Sam would agree with his actions. But she would want to know more and that could get complicated.

Sam sat down next to him, still looking at him with an expression Danny recognised as the one he used with the kids when he wanted them to tell him something. He wasn't going to be won over by a look like that.

Sam sighed, "Look," she said, "if he's some sort of criminal, we can do something about it!"

Danny grunted. He'd already made that offer to Ste. It was unlikely he had changed his mind. "I've got no proof," he said.

Sam didn't give up, "Ste could..."

"Ste won't say a word against him." Danny knew his voice was harsh. He felt bad about it but he couldn't change the fact.

"Right, so... is it possible, then," said Sam, carefully, "if Ste's so fond of him, that he's actually not a monster? That you got the wrong end of the stick?"

"No!" Danny cried, "He tried to strangle me!"

Sam's eyes widened, "Why?"

Danny bristled, "What, you think I must have provoked him?"

"Well, if you didn't, we need to get onto social services and a mental health doctor," said Sam.

Danny wondered if maybe that would be a good idea anyway, after what Steven had told him. The man obviously had more issues than he cared to deal with.

"Just leave it, Sam," he said, too tired and upset for politeness. "I'm going to bed," he announced, and left her sitting there looking slightly affronted. He supposed it wasn't like him to go off in a strop, so no wonder she was perturbed. Maybe Ste did get it from somewhere after all.

He slept poorly with terrifying images of Brendan beating Ste. Every time he closed his eyes, his mind came up with a new and more terrible act of violence that Brendan might be committing on Danny's son, and each time he awoke with a start until he gave up on sleep altogether and wondered down to the living room to watch the telly brainlessly instead.

The sun had barely broken into the sky when there was a quiet knock on the door. Danny glanced at it before he got up. Not many people were likely to knock at such a time: it was too early.

He went up to the door and looked through the peep hole. Brendan.

He opened the door. "What do you want?" He demanded with maximum rudeness.

Brendan was looking at the floor, hands deep in his pockets. His mouth twisted at Danny's words, as though he were holding in a retort. "To talk," he said, quietly. He took a step forward, as though he were about to just walk in without invitation, but then stopped himself and tried to look contrite. "Can I come in?" he asked.

Danny thought seriously about saying no. The images from his dreams, still so clear in his mind, supported that answer but there was something in the man's expression that suggested a child fighting his guilt.

"Five minutes," said Danny, and stepped back to let Brendan through. The dark-haired man stepped carefully into the house.

"Looks different," he said, awkwardly.

"Since yesterday?" asked Danny, wondering if Brendan was secretly a hippy too, and about to say he could see the difference created by the drama in the aura of the place or something

"Since I lived here," Brendan clarified, "Chez liked it more... colourful."

Danny knew that the polite response would be to accept the comment. Or even express surprise or at least interest at it. Danny didn't want to be polite. "Small talk? Really?"

Brendan shrugged and sprawled on the sofa. Danny couldn't define what it was that made Brendan's pose a sprawl rather than just sitting. Maybe it was the sheer exhausted casualness of it. Here was a man without an iota of social awkwardness. He just didn't care what people thought. To Danny it showed the man's arrogance, strongly belying Ste's insistence that he was damaged and redeemable.

"It's paler now," Brendan said conversationally. "Didn't notice the other day. Only noticed Steven. He kind of does that to people." He smiled strangely. Danny didn't know what to say to the comment, so he raised his eyebrows as he did when the kids were off task at school.

It didn't seem to impress Brendan very much. The Irishman looked at Danny coolly until Danny had no choice but to look away. "Why are you here, Brendan? To gloat?"

"No," said Brendan.

"Yeah, right," said Danny. Of course the man was here to gloat. Why else would he be here?

"Steven..." Brendan started, but then cleared his throat and looked away. "Steven didn't sleep last night. He kept telling me he wasn't angry with me, but he didn't want me to touch him. That's not like him. Usually he's insatiable."

Danny blanched. Despite all his knowledge to the contrary, Danny liked to think of all his children as innocents. He definitely didn't need a mental image of his son with this man.

"Look, I overreacted," Brendan said, awkwardly, "I heard what McQueen said and I saw what I expected to see. It's my issue."

Danny genuinely considered demanding to know what he thought he saw, but he held back. He had already guessed what Brendan had suspected, and he already knew why. Asking now could only be about hurting the man, something he suddenly found almost impossible now the man was here.

Instead he said "Yesterday, Ste promised me you aren't violent any more. You showed me you are. Ste deserves better than abuse from you."

Brendan's lip seemed to twitch under his facial hair. "Yeah," he mumbled, "yeah, he deserves anythin' he wants." He wriggled his foot for a while, and Danny wondered if he was going to say anything else, or if Danny should just ask him to leave. It felt an age before the Irishman said, with a strange airiness to his voice, "You know, me and Steven broke up more often than we got together."

Danny frowned. That didn't make sense.

"Yeah," said Brendan, "we'd break up, and then, a few days or weeks or months later, we'd just be with each other again. Didn't matter who he pretended he wanted to be with. Doug was the longest, but even then, there was just … something, you know?"

"No," said Danny.

Brendan didn't seem deterred by Danny's unforgiving tone, "We'd just have to be in a room together, or see each other across the street, and we'd both just know."

"Know what?"

Brendan shrugged and fidgeted. "Like, with my kids, it wouldn't matter if they were here or on the other side of the world, if they killed someone, if they did something awful, they'd still be my kids, right?" He looked at Danny with enough intensity to bowl him over, "You're the same right? I can tell. The way you're so protective over him, even though you've only known him a few months."

Danny nodded. Steven was his son. Nothing could ever change that.

"Well, me and Steven, we're the same, you know? He'll always be Steven, and I'll always be Brendan." Brendan laughed a gulping laugh, "that doesn't make sense, does it? I mean it's love. Real love. We'll always just... love each other."

Danny wondered if Brendan had gone mad. None of that made any sense.

"It's as real as my love for my boys. I moved away from them to keep them safe, but they let me, because they think it's just because I'm a shit father. I try to stay away from Steven, he just comes to me. He believes in me, even after everything. You have no idea how that's changed me."

"But you hit him!" insisted Danny.

Brendan nodded. "Yeah. And once I moved country so he wouldn't have the temptation to come back to him. He just followed me." He wore a glassy expression for a number of seconds, then shook himself, as if he was trying to break free of some difficult memories.

Danny folded his arms "Do you think you will stop hurting him?"

Brendan's gaze didn't waver, "I don't know," he said. "That's why he needs you."

Danny bristled, "Ste's welcome whenever he wants!"

"And am I?" Asked Brendan in a voice that showed he knew the answer. Danny did too. The answer was no. He wanted this bully out of his house, he wanted him a million miles away from his family.

"If you make him chose, you will break his heart," said Brendan. "I'm pleased he had someone looking out for him while I couldn't, but I'd rather he'd never met you than have to see him hurting and not be able to fix it."

Danny felt another stab of anger "I'm his father! I didn't just look out for him!"

Brendan didn't flinch, "Steven and I didn't exactly have the best experience of fathers," he said, "but I hope you mean that."

Danny surveyed him, cautiously. "I don't trust you."

It was a fact and he aimed it to hurt. Brendan simply smiled.

"That's good, I don't trust you either."

…xxx…xxx…xxx…xxx…

His heart was pounding. He could hear it crashing in his ears, reverberating through his head. He could barely see through the tears polluting his eyes, as his shaking hands pulled his clothes on.

Brendan wasn't there. He'd gone, disappeared without a word, left Ste all alone in a blank hotel room. Once again, Brendan had given him a reminder of the perfection a life in his arms could be, then confiscated it all. He'd taken Ste to the precipice of the most beautiful mountain, then abandoned him to find his own way down a treacherous path, left him without a reason not to jump.

Behind him, the hotel room was a mess. He'd begun by searching for Brendan in a brainless way, under the covers, in the bath then in the cupboards and under the bed. He didn't want to admit the truth to himself at first, and had desperately scoured the room, as though kidding himself Brendan was playing some sadistic game of hide and seek. It had taken him ten minutes to accept Brendan had gone. The only proof he'd ever been there was a small back pack, a tracksuit and a handful of underwear. Brendan hadn't even bothered to pack properly before he'd run, escaped the crushing neediness of life with Ste.

If only Ste could find him, persuade him that last night wasn't how it would be. Ste wasn't weak or pathetic. He could show Brendan… what? That he wasn't needy? That wasn't going to be easy when every cell in his body quivered with the need to find him and hold him and never let him go.

He flew from the room, the poisonous, treacherous tears now pouring down his face in burning trails. Where would Brendan go? To Ireland? To try to find Cheryl? To try to convince the police he really had murdered his father? To find his children? Why wouldn't he tell Ste about any of those things? Unless he didn't want Ste to know, didn't want Ste to find him, didn't want Ste in his life anymore.

The thought made him stumble and sob in misery as powerful as that he'd felt when Brendan was shot. Hotel staff stopped and asked him if he was alright, if they could help, if he needed a doctor. He shrugged them all off, started to run again, escaped the hotel, and ran and ran.

It took him an age to get back to Danny's. He wasn't sure he wanted to be there. The 'I told you so's would be unbearable, the pity worse. He reached the stairs, the familiar stairs that had led to so many important places in his life; The Barnes' home, Tony's flat, and an unacceptably large number of his previous partners, not to mention two of the most significant men in Ste's life. He looked at them, and couldn't go a step further. He didn't even know if he was here for Danny, or if a part of him had forgotten the last year and he expected to find Cheryl's warm laugh and Brendan's uncompromising beauty at the top of them.

He fell back, away from the stairs, staggered. What was he thinking? What was he expecting? He couldn't just go back to pretending life without Brendan was possible. It wasn't. Life without Brendan was like swimming without water. There was no life without Brendan.

"Ste?" said a voice, "Ste, are you alright?"

Ste ran away from the voice. It wasn't one he cared about, he stumbled until he found himself leaning against the window of the shop.

"Er, what do you think you're doing?! You're scaring my customers away!"

Ste wanted to shout at that voice, but his anger was beyond words. He sprawled away once more, not even knowing where he was going.

It was his fault. He hadn't wanted sex last night. He'd been so cold, no wonder Brendan had thought they were over, that he didn't really love him anymore. If Brendan had treated him like that he'd… well, he'd feel something like this.

He hid his face in his hands, shut out the world. Why was he even doing this anymore? What was the point of going on?

"Steven?" shouted a voice.

He spun towards it, eyes now wide. Brendan was running towards him. It took him a matter of seconds to grab him, pull him towards himself, and wrap him in his arms. "What is it? What's happened?"

Ste buried his hands in Brendan's tracksuit. He didn't answer, he just clung on. He never wanted to feel that again, so he was never going to let go.

"Hey," said Brendan, "whatever it is, I'm here now. We can sort it!"

"Don't leave me!" Ste sobbed, "Promise me! I can't lose you again!"

Brendan pulled him closer. "I told you, I will never change the way I feel about you."

"That ain't a promise!" snapped Ste, "I know you, you'll get some stupid noble idea in your head and you'll bugger off! You've got to promise me you will never leave me!"

Brendan didn't loosen his grip, "I will never willingly leave you," he said.

Ste's head threw itself up. He had expected to be brushed off again, some promise that he wouldn't hurt him, or he'd do what was necessary to keep him safe. Some pretend promise that sounded like he was giving Ste what he wanted, but could actually leave at any time. But that sounded real. "D'you mean it?" Ste demanded.

Brendan's clear blue eyes looked at him seriously, "I won't lie to you anymore either," he said, "I have no secrets from you anymore."

"I won't lie to you either," said Ste, "I love you so much."

Brendan said "I know." Confidently.

"You know?" repeated Ste, furiously.

Brendan was smirking at him, "Not as much as I love you."

Ste stuck out his bottom lip, "That's better."

"That lip," said Brendan. "It looks edible." Brendan licked Ste's lip, then nibbled at it, and pulled it into his mouth. Ste turned it into a deep kiss. Brendan was here, Brendan was here, Brendan was here.

Brendan pulled away too soon. "Come on," he whispered gently into Ste's ear, taking his hand firmly. Ste looked at him quizzically, but he made no further comment, so Ste followed him. Brendan led him back across the street, and to the stairs that had halted Ste's progress before. With Brendan beside him, they didn't seem anywhere near as daunting, though Ste still hesitated. He didn't want to witness another argument.

At the top, Brendan knocked casually on the door. Danny opened it, looked at them both just enough to notice their joined hands, and then stepped back to let them both into the flat.

Ste glanced at Brendan. Did he dare hope what this could mean?

Brendan led him inside. Leela and Tegan were arguing in the kitchen. Perri was sprawled on the sofa with her phone stuck two inches from her eyeballs. Sam was holding and chattering away to baby Rose.

"What's going on?" said Ste.

"Breakfast," said Brendan, "come on."

He pulled Ste towards the table, and sat down with him. Behind them Danny cleared his throat and ordered everyone else to the table. Perri barely moved. Sam was singing 'Heads, shoulders, knees and toes,' all the way to the table, tapping the bits of Rose as she named them. Leela threw a plate of bacon onto the table.

"Tuck in!" she cried.

"Er, she didn't make it! I did!" interrupted Tegan, bringing a second plate, this one full of sausages.

"I did the beans!" snapped Leela, going back to fetch more food.

"Oh well done, you've learnt to use a microwave," teased Tegan.

Ste looked at Brendan again. "Seriously, what's going on?"

Brendan put a comforting hand on his knee. "I don't know what you mean," he said with a smirk. "Mmm, bacon." He picked up a rasher and put it all in his mouth.

Ste turned to look at his Dad. He was watching them, with obvious caution. "He cares about you," Brendan whispered in his ear, "I don't want to be the one that makes you unhappy, anymore."

Ste turned back to him, "I'm only ever happy when I'm with you," he told him with complete honesty.

"And if you could have both of us?" said Brendan, glancing up at Danny.

Ste didn't know what to say. If he could have everything the world must be about to end.

"It's not gonna be easy," said Brendan quietly, as the girls argued over whether you should be allowed ketchup or brown sauce with bacon. "We're different people, we ain't gonna be going for a friendly beer any time soon."

"But you won't fight?" Ste asked, terrified of a 'no' and terrified of a 'yes'.

"We'll try," said Brendan. "We've got one thing we both agree on."

"What's that?" asked Ste.

"That you're the most incredible man in the world," said Brendan. "We want you to be happy."

That was it. There was going to be an explosion or a fire or the apocalypse or something. A huge wave was going to cause devastation localised to the Chester area.

A tear dropped down Ste's face.

Brendan wiped it away and grinned at him. "Get a bit of sausage in ye," he growled.

The world didn't end over breakfast. Perri got ketchup on the table cloth, a nasty smell emanated from Rose's nappy. Tegan sulked that Leela had managed to burn baked beans in the microwave. Brendan ate everything he could reach, and Ste decided he didn't care if the world ended tomorrow. Today was the best anyone could ever dream.

Sorry it was a tad cheesy at the end there! Reviews are always appreciated!