Chapter 13 – Post Trauma-Day Six

"The nurses are allowing me to continue extended visiting privileges. I suppose they think we've earned it after yesterday's excitement." Alec sighed and rubbed Liv's hand gently. "You'll be so proud of Ellie. CS Jenkinson says she handled the interview with Jim 'exceedingly well given the circumstances.' I promise you that none of us are going to do anything to screw this up, darlin'. We're going to make sure you get to see him rot in jail for what he's done to you." He paused, his eyes slipping shut a moment. The exhaustion from the past few days: mental, emotional, and physical was catching back up with him. He lifted her hand up and kissed her knuckles.

*Flashback – Month 6 of Alec and Liv*

"So, you must be the infamous Olivia MacDonald that Daisy has told me so much about." Tess Henchard looked the woman over.

"Aye, that'd be me. It's a pleasure to meet you, Tess. Please, call me Liv—all my friends do." Liv smiled and held her hand out to the woman.

Tess forced a strained smile as she shook Liv's hand. "And you'd like to consider me a friend?"

Alec stood in the kitchen, hands pressed on the counter as he leaned over with his face hung down. He was not at all thrilled with the idea of Tess being here tonight, but Daisy had wanted both women there to see her off to the prom. They only had another half hour and the Latimer's would be there to pick up Chloe and Daisy and drive them to the dance.

"I'd like very much not to consider you an enemy, Tess. If not friends, then at the very least we can be on friendly terms. For Alec's sake, and especially for Daisy's. We all want what is best for Daisy." Liv spoke calmly. She had been thinking about and considering this meeting for a long time, before she even knew when it would actually happen. What Alec hadn't told her, Ellie had—enough to know that Tess Henchard could be a strong ally or a volatile enemy.

"And you think that you galivanting around with her father is what is best for her?" Tess was quick to snap back.

Liv sighed. Tess was not going to make this easy. "You don't think that her father being happy is good for her? You are Daisy's mother, and I would never want anything but a good relationship for the two of you. But you know by now, I know everything that happened. You have no right to keep Alec from happiness—with his daughter, or with another woman."

"No, but if someone is going to be sleeping with her father, in the room next door, that is my business," Tess said quickly, her words dripping with attitude.

Liv frowned, and for a moment within her eyes flamed a particularly Scottish type of anger, but she grew quiet, though stern, with her reply, not wanting to be overheard by the girls down the hall. "I believe you've made an incorrect assumption, Tess. You need to take a step back. I've barely seen what the inside of Alec Hardy's bedroom looks like, let alone been having hot sex with him with your daughter in the room next door. Believe it or not, Tess, not all relationships are built around sex. Sometimes they're built around friendship, love, and trust. And even if we were, to think that Alec wouldn't have enough sense to be discreet with his daughter around is appalling. Perhaps you're mixing up his relationships with some of your own."

Tess's expression went through a variety of expressions, from angry to mortified to ashamed within moments. But she spoke no further.

About that time, Alec finally had gained the courage to come back into the living room and brought with him two glasses of wine that he handed to both the women. Tess had stopped talking the moment he walked into sight, and he glanced between the two women. He recognized the look in Liv's eyes, but he wasn't sure he had ever seen the look on Tess's face. He decided it might be best for him to move the conversation to what surely would be safer ground. "The girls still haven't come out yet?"

"No doubt still fixing up their make-up and hair. Daisy refused to let me help her, she insisted that she and Chloe had it under control." Tess said, glancing down at her glass of wine then back up to Liv, reluctantly. "I assumed she was having you help her."

Liv gave the woman a small smile, glad they were moving on. "That would have been a disaster. I've hardly ever worn makeup, and I'm not great with doing up my own hair let along anyone else's. No, Daisy and Chloe have been planning for months how they were going to do their hair—looking at magazines and practicing on each other," Liv explained.

"You must have made all the other girls in school terribly jealous, not having to wear makeup and still looking so good. It's easy to see why Alec finds you attractive." Tess said with an almost friendly tone. Alec coughed and almost choked on his glass of water.

"Well, I never went to any dance or discos, none of that. My father wouldn't allow it, then once he was gone, my mother was too sick. My girlfriends all went as a group, just like Chloe, Daisy, and their girlfriends are tonight. But I was never able to join them." Liv shook her head as she explained.

"That's a bit of a sad tale—Daisy had told me a bit about your childhood, but—" Tess had started, but stopped when they heard the door to Daisy's room open down the hall.

"Ah, here's my girl!" Alec beamed as Daisy came out first, with Chloe following. They spent the next few minutes taking pictures from their phones, and Liv's digital camera. Soon the Latimers were there to pick up the girls and they said their goodbyes to the girls from the front patio. Daisy carried along her overnight bag, as she was sleeping over at Chloe's after the dance.

After they were gone, Alec had gone back in to take their drink glasses back, when Tess turned to Liv. "I'm not used to seeing Alec so happy and it's been a bit—shocking. But you do seem—nice. And I appreciate that you are encouraging Daisy to keep me a part of her life even though she is living with Alec now. Thank you."

"You are very welcome. Despite all that's happened between you and Alec, Tess, and the mistakes you made then—you are her mother. The past is the past. Daisy spent enough time feeling like she only had one parent. Unless you prove yourself to be an unfit parent, I would never encourage her to be anything but as involved with you as she can be."

Tess nodded and the two women looked down the hill to the waterfront for a bit before Tess looked at her watch. "I need to be going." She then glanced towards the house and back at Liv. "I think he's afraid to come back out."

Liv grinned. "Yeah, you're probably right about that. I need to head in to get my things. Alec's taking me home now—I have to be up early to catch a train to London for the week. I've got to do some publicity nonsense for a new paperback version of my book. Wait here and I'll send Alec out. Despite the turn our conversation took, Tess, I'm glad we were able to meet." Liv smiled at the other woman and headed inside.

*Present Day*

"Hello, Alec."

Alec looked up, surprised at the voice he heard, and the face that went with it. "Tess? What are you doing here?"

"Daisy called and told me what happened. I came as soon as I could get away from work to see how you were both doing." Tess Henchard stepped in from the doorway to come to the opposite side of the bed. "Bloody hell, he really did a number on her, didn't he?"

"Aye," Alec said with a sigh as he nodded. "But we got him. He won't be bothering her ever again."

"I brought you lunch," she said as she handed over the bag she had brought in with her.

Alec couldn't hold back a chuckle. "Why does everyone bring food for me when they come?"

"Because everyone who knows you knows that you'd go days without eating if the food wasn't sitting in front of your face." Tess replied.

He shrugged and accepted the bag. "Well, thank you."

"By God, she has been good for you. Accepting a gift and saying thank you." Tess smirked, Alec scowled.

"Why are you here, Tess?" Alec's eyebrows furrowed.

"Consider this an offer of friendship and good will." She held her hands up in a placating gesture. "I won't stay long, but I do want to ask you one more thing."

Alec's eyebrow shot up. "What's that?"

"When she wakes up—are you going to ask her to marry you?" Tess asked. "Please tell me you are."

Alec looked quickly at Liv then back at her and whispered, "I can't believe you are asking me that—here—and-now." He got up and grabbed Tess by the arm, pulling her into the hall.

"Stop avoiding the question, Alec," she said sympathetically, her eyes matching her tone. "She's good for you. Don't let her get away."

He looked back at her, with a serious expression. "I don't intend to. But we don't even know when she'll wake up, and if she'll remember me when she does."

*Flashback – Month 6 of Alec and Liv*

Alec stood close to Liv as she leaned against the wall in the entryway of her flat, taking both her hands in his. He had walked her up and ensured she made it inside, and now he was supposed to say goodbye.

"You really have to go for an entire week?" he grumbled, then sighed and leaned his head down, bumping his forehead against hers. "What am I going to do without you here a full seven days?"

Liv smiled up at him. "Well, let's see. You're going to bury yourself in your work, take Daisy out for lunch every day, the two of you will have dinner with Ellie and the boys on Tuesday night, on Friday night there's the picnic at the Latimer's. And most likely, you're going to slip back into your brooding, grumpy, ways." She sighed dramatically. "It's going to take months for me to undo the damage done by one week away." She grinned up at him.

"See, now? Is it worth all that trouble?" Alec returned her smile. "Can't you just tell your publisher—"

"No, I cannot just tell my publisher anything if I want my book to continue to be successful, and for the next one to do as well. You know this is important to me." She ran her hands up and down the front of his chest, and saw his sad eyes. "Just like you are important to me. But this was part of the agreement of our relationship, right? Our work is important to us. Sometimes your work requires you to practically disappear for days on an investigation. This is what is required of my work." She leaned in and gave him a long, slow kiss, then pulled back. "It won't be so bad. I'll miss you terribly, too. But we'll talk as often as you like, and Daisy can teach you how to video chat using that app on your phone."

"Only for you and my daughter would I learn to Skype," he grumbled again.

She smirked. "Aw, you really do love me."

He looked down sweetly at her, his eyes turning serious. "Aye, I certainly do."