A huge thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read this story. This is the final chapter. Hope you enjoy it, and please let me know what you think.

Chapter Seven

~ Ste ~

Brendan holds your hand the entire way back to the village. You keep thinking he's going to let go at certain moments, like when you get in the taxi together. But he doesn't waver for a second.

As it doesn't need to be opened for lunchtime yet, you ask the driver to drop you at the restaurant, and as you unlock the door and lead Brendan inside he stares at you, bemused. "Ye never said ye owned a restaurant, Steven."

"You never said you'd been released from prison," you point out, but you're smirking. Your voice echoes around the empty room.

"Touché." He drops his bag on the floor and looks around. "The place looks great. How long have you..."

"I bought it about a year after Doug died," you tell him, and the mood instantly shifts. "Lucas bought into it about ten years ago, so now we run it between us."

Brendan looks awkward now that you've mentioned your husband, and you don't think you can face a deep conversation just yet, so you do your best to break the tension.

"I guess it won't be long before I'm too old for all this," You gesture around them. "Luc will be able to take over, and then maybe his son after him."

"Can't imagine ye not cooking. Besides, ye aren't too old."

"I'm sixty, Brendan." Unspoken words linger in the air between you: Look at how much time we've wasted.

You wander through to the kitchen, leaving him standing there to mull over that thought. "You coming or not?" you shout from behind the door. "If you're hungry I can make something."

Brendan appears just as you're finding the frying pan. "I see some things never change," you laugh.

"What?"

"The mention of food always did get your attention."

He moves closer, until your bodies are almost touching. "It's not about food in general, Steven," he replies. "It's food made by ye."

Your breath catches in your throat. "Oh," you say, and now Brendan is holding your face in his hands. He tilts his face forward until you can almost feel his lips on yours, and you know without a doubt that he's about to kiss you – really kiss you – for the first time since that day at his hospital bedside. The anticipation almost hurts.

"Brendan!"

It's Leah's voice that interrupts you as she bursts into the kitchen, but you push aside your frustration when you see her childlike excitement at seeing him again. The last time your daughter saw this man she was five years old. Now she's forty-three, but in this moment she might as well be that little girl again; the one who had proclaimed him to be her 'Daddy Brendan'.

He looks overcome when Leah goes to hug him without a second's hesitation, but recovers himself enough to embrace her back. "Look at ye," he says afterwards. "Little Leah Barnes."

"Not so little anymore," she laughed happily. "You recognised me then?"

"Hard not to, ye look just like ye mother," Brendan grinned at her. "How is the old-"

"Brendan!" You cut him off loudly.

He raises an eyebrow at you. "I was only going to ask how the old girl is, Steven."

You sigh. You're not sure exactly what word you expected from him, but it was probably along the lines of 'battleaxe'. Leah knows all about Amy's thoughts on Brendan, and merely shrugs at you both.

"Mum's great," she replies. "I don't think she'd appreciate being called an old girl, though!"

"I thought you were going to your mam's for an early lunch?" you ask then, suddenly worried that Amy might be about to appear from outside to eat here instead. Her promise not to cause trouble with Brendan isn't something you're certain of until you see them in the same room together; but you'd rather not find out on his first day back in the village.

"I am," Leah nods. "But I was just passing on the way and heard voices in here. And since I know Lucas and Karen are already round at Mum's with the boys, I knew it had to be you two. Sorry to just drop in and disturb you but I couldn't help myself. Tom thinks I should mind my own business but..."

"But since when have you ever listened to what other people think?" You finish with an eyeroll. "So where is Tom?" you add of her husband.

"He and Lilly went on to Mum's. Alright then Dad, I get the hint! I'll leave you both to it. Unless you two want to come with me?"

Brendan smirks. "I don't think that'd go down well, do ye? But thank ye. It's really good to see ye."

Leah smiles softly at him. "The feeling's mutual, Brendan. I'm really glad you're here. Even if it did take a lecture to get you to chase after Dad."

He laughs, good-natured and care-free and just like you remember him being with her when she was a kid. You shake your head at her. "I am still here you know, Leah!" Secretly though, you're glad she took charge while you were in Dublin. And the pleasantness of this conversation is something you'll remind yourself of when everyone else sees you with Brendan, because you know nobody else will treat him the way Leah does. Of course there was still Katy, who might well welcome him with open arms, but then she was another one of a kind.

When your daughter leaves, you hurry to get on with cooking, because you know that after lunch at Amy's, Lucas will be over to open up the restaurant. You want to be out of here before then, because you don't want to re-introduce him to Brendan while he's working – the timing has to be right.

You only serve up an omelette, but the man wolfs it down as though it's his last meal. He thanks you afterwards, in the kitchen, by snaking his arms around your waist, and for a moment you consider that you're about to kiss him while pressed up against the sink with egg on your breath (and his).

And it's not that you care about the lack of romance, because surely you're far too old for any of that? It's just that suddenly you don't feel prepared for this moment, and so you turn in his arms to do the washing up, and you rope him into helping you.

He doesn't say a word about it, but you know it's bothered him.

"Steven."

"Mm?"

"Is everything...okay?"

You've barely been home a minute before Brendan is throwing you a worried glance, and now you throw your jacket on the chair and plant yourself firmly in front of him.

"'Course," you reply. "Why?" You're pretending otherwise, but no wonder he's asking. It must have been difficult enough for him to come back to this village, and now you've made it worse.

"Back at the restaurant. Ye seemed a bit...off with me."

You sigh, and then you give him what you hope is a reassuring smile. "You mean before I forced you into the washing up? Sorry. It wasn't about you."

Brendan reaches out to you slowly, as if afraid you're about to reject him again. It reminds you of the tentative way he used to touch you in the early days of your 'relationship'; he would brush your hair away from your face, brace his hand on the back of your head before he kissed you. And yet other times, he would beat you black and blue without any sense of hesitation.

But his touch from years ago, that was about Brendan rejecting who he was, and with it who you were. Today, as his fingers brush against your cheek, the pause he takes beforehand counts for something else.

It counts for so much more.

"Then what was it about?"

You're still revelling in his touch, so it takes you longer than usual to answer. "I just...you were going to kiss me earlier, weren't you?"

He chuckles, and if he says no you think you might throw something at him.

"Maybe."

"Oi!"

He brings his other hand to your face now too, still amused. "Okay. I was going to kiss ye."

"Right," you nod, and you have a feeling you're pouting. You're a sixty year old man and you're pouting at him in the same way you used to when he disappointed you as a young man. "It's not that I didn't want you to or anything."

Brendan tilts his head to the side, observing you in the way that only he can. "So...?"

"I wasn't ready. Maybe it's because it's been so long, I don't know. I just...we haven't really talked. Well, not without me throwing abuse at you, we haven't."

By the end of your confusing explanation, you're trying to make light of the situation; but what you've done is pave the way for a serious conversation. It's one that's badly needed, and you know you can't avoid it because your head won't let you do what your heart so badly wants until it's out of the way.

"If ye want to talk, Steven, I'm ready to listen. And I will listen – it won't be like it was before."

"Sit down, then," you say quietly.

And he does, and suddenly the ball's in your court and you've no idea where to start, so after you've taken a seat yourself that's what you tell him.

The look Brendan gives you is sad, as if he can sense how much there is for you to say; how much you've been through since he left you. "Just start at the beginning," he replies. His voice quivers with the words.

If he really wants to know everything, you'll be starting with the drunken one night stand you had with that lad; but as it's nearing on forty years since it happened you refuse to feel any guilt over it. It may have been a bit soon for a rebound fling, but you were a mess and you'd let the alcohol make your decisions for you. No, that's one thing that can stay in the past, where it's always been.

"Well you already know about the drugs. I was an idiot, I'd lost you and the kids and I'd got it into my head that I wanted to buy the club."

His face creases in confusion. "Why would ye want to do that?"

"I wanted to feel close to you. In the end a bloke called Trevor got his hands on it – or at least, his boss did. He just ran it for him." You're rambling. It's like you're still putting off the bigger confessions. "I dealt for him, for a bit. Got myself beaten up as well."

You see Brendan clench one of his hands into a fist, resting tightly at his side. "Where is he now?"

"Why, planning on teaching him a lesson for me are you?" You can see it in his face as well. You want to laugh. It's like he's forgotten that he's too old for any of that now. "Trevor's in prison, Brendan. His boss is dead, and he turned out to be even worse, so it was lucky I got out of all that business when I did."

"I should've been there."

"Yeah, well. Yes you should've. Doesn't mean the stuff I just told you wasn't my own stupid fault. Anyway I've been through worse."

You don't look at him for a few minutes as you sit in silence. What comes next remains to be the most traumatic experience of your life. Losing Brendan is a close second.

"My mam died." That's putting it far too mildly. It excludes your involvement, but the fact you've even mentioned her at all tells him that one way or the other, her death mattered to you.

He stands up and makes his way over to you, and you find yourself getting up from your own seat and meeting him in the middle. This time, when he holds your head in his hands, you lean into the touch and close your eyes.

"What happened?" he asks, his breath so close it tingles against your skin.

"She had cancer," you mumble back. "Tony saw her at the hospital when he was having treatment. He got through it, but it was already too late for her. He said...he said I should go and see her or I might regret it for the rest of my life."

You tell Brendan how it had felt going back to your childhood home, how you'd felt like a child again. You tell him about your decision to move her into the flat so you could look after her; something you hadn't intended on doing.

He listens, eyes never leaving yours, as you confide in him about finding that box with all your dad's letters in. You can see it all in your head, the memory of that day you'd confronted your mother over a lifetime of lies.

"She said she was sorry, and that she was trying to protect me. Then she asked me to do something for her."

Brendan's body tenses. He knows. Without you even having to say it, you know that he knows.

"Tony tried to stop me, but I did it...I...helped her go."

You've held this in for so long. It's not as though you haven't grieved, haven't spoken about it with other people: Doug, Tony, Sinead and later Amy. It's just that they were the wrong people. They picked you up when you were down, did right by you and you love them all for it, but they weren't him.

Before you know it your head is against Brendan's shoulder, your body pressed into his broad chest as it shakes with the effort of your sobbing.

You hadn't wanted this to end in a breakdown, but it doesn't matter. He's got you, and he's not letting go.

~ Brendan ~

You're watching him sleep, something you haven't been able to do since those harrowing last days before your arrest. You might be imagining it but he looks content in his sleep, Steven does. He seems more at peace than you think you've ever seen him. It's barely eleven at night but the things he'd had to tell you have drained him. It had been hard enough for him to talk about what went on with his mum; but there had been plenty more besides that revelation.

Not long after getting back with Douglas – the details of which Steven had skimmed over – he had discovered a whole new family of his own. He'd found his father; or rather his father had found him. The man's dead now – Daniel, his name was. But he'd had a wife and three daughters, which meant Steven had three sisters in his life. They had moved out of Liverpool years ago, so these days he doesn't see them as often as he'd like to.

You had felt physical pain for Steven when he'd told you about Pauline, but a tiny piece of that had eased when he had explained how his father, step-mother and sisters had looked after him. You know from experience that sometimes there really is nothing like a sister's unconditional love, and you're happy that he's been able to have that in his lifetime.

He had told you other things about his family, like how his lost-lost father had had an affair with that McQueen bloke (the one you'd once slept with, Steven couldn't help reminding you). Apparently Daniel could never quite make up his mind which he preferred: men or women.

That had been yet another secret Steven had been involved in in this village, but he made sure to share some of his happier memories with you too. Becoming close with that Sinead O'Connor, the scouse girl you remembered mainly because of her weedy ex-boyfriend (another McQueen), being godfather to her daughter, as well as Tony's twins. Then years later walking Leah down the aisle at her wedding and becoming a grandfather.

You didn't insult him by commenting that at least he'd had some of the happiness you'd wanted for him, but you let yourself bask in the knowledge inside your head. That had been what you'd wanted, all the usual milestones a man like Steven deserved, without him wasting his time on you.

You're here now, though, and you think it must be okay for you to be selfish and stay by his side, because he was the one that had come back to you. You'd just had to do a bit more running before he could truly let you in again.

Lost in thought as you mull everything over, you fail to notice Steven has woken up until you hear his voice croak out your name. He sits up on the sofa where he'd dropped off an hour before, looking at you in confusion before apparently remembering why you're here.

"Brendan," he repeats, and now that he's no longer sleeping he looks shattered again.

"Yeah, I'm here," you say softly, moving out of the chair to crouch down before him. "Ye okay?"

Steven blinks back at you, as though re-processing the conversation he had with you earlier. Then he nods, just once. "Didn't think I would be after re-living all that, but yeah."

For some reason his answer makes you dwell on it again. "If things had been different, if I could've been there..."

"Don't," he stops you before you can finish, and you realise it's a good thing he did because he might very well have argued that you could've been there. "Let's not do this. I know what you want to say but I don't want to hear it."

What you almost said is that you would gladly have taken over the Pauline situation for him. You'd gladly have saved him the trauma of the court case and the guilt; the doubt he'd cast over himself over whether he'd helped her on her way out of revenge, or out of love.

You know what your motive would have been, but you also know him, and there was no way he could have killed anyone out of malice.

It's your turn to nod now, and he takes his legs off the sofa to give you room to sit down beside him. "So," is all you say once you've positioned yourself in the space next to him.

Steven looks at you questioningly, and it's obvious that he's not going to take over the awkward discussion for you.

You rub the back of your neck nervously, then clear your throat. Expressing your feelings to this man hasn't become any easier with age. "Steven, I...are we okay?"

There's a grin starting to take shape on his face. "What do you mean?"

He knows exactly what you mean. Only, he's going to make you say it properly. You just hope you can find the right words for him.

In the end you don't beat around the bush.

"I want to be with ye, Steven. Forever, this time. If ye'll still have me?"

He's beaming at you, but then his eyes flash with worry. "What, here?"

"Anywhere you want to be. And yes, if that's here then it's where I want to be too."

"But what about the..."

"The club?" He's thought about it too. Warmth floods through you, knowing that even though he hadn't brought it up before now, Steven still knows you inside out. You realise just from the tone of his voice that if you'd turned down his invitation to come back to the village, he would have understood in an instant.

Initially, you had been worried about how you'd feel seeing the place again. But then, when he'd taken you into his restaurant, you hadn't even looked at the club which had surely been in the background.

You'd known then that if faced with a choice between being with Steven or avoiding the formerly named Chez Chez for the rest of your life, the answer was obvious. The love of your life wins every time.

"It doesn't matter," you reply, feeling lighter with the words. "It's just a building, Steven. I'd happily suffer living next door to Cheryl Cole if it meant spending the rest of my life with ye."

He snorts out a laugh. "You'd be lucky, I bet she's got the best retirement home in the country."

"Could be us too, one day," you joke, grinning back at him. "So, what do ye say? I'm not getting any younger here."

"Neither am I, so I guess you'll do," he smirks. You let out a grumble and reach over to pull him into your arms, and he relaxes against you. "Alright," he adds seriously. "Forever sounds promising to me. But we don't have to stick around here all the time. I can come back to Ireland with you, see Cheryl. And you'll be able to see Declan again, and Paddy."

You'd hoped for that anyway, but hearing him say it cements everything. Seconds later and you're kissing him. It's your first kiss with him since you were in your thirties, and you savour it like the luxury is about to be taken away from you again.

"I love ye," you breathe out the words as you break apart. You feel forty years younger again, like you just had your first ever kiss with him. Only better.

"Love you too." This time it's Steven who pulls you to him, and as your lips touch again you remember the promise you'd made to him, and to yourself the night you were shot on that balcony.

"In the next life."

Turns out you didn't need a second life to start over.

~ The End ~