Hello! I finally have the internet back! A big thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing this story – every comment is appreciated! If anyone is still following it, here's the latest instalment. (To be honest I'm wondering whether I'm dragging it out too much, I'm nowhere near figuring out an ending...) Anyway, please let me know your thoughts.

P.S. Happy #StendanInDublin anniversary :)

Chapter Six

~ Ste ~

The first thing Leah asks you when she picks you up at the airport is how you left things with Brendan. You don't really know how to put it into words. He basically promised you everything, and you realised you couldn't doubt him anymore.

Your daughter smiles at you, all coy and triumphant like the little madam you remember from when she was small. You haven't given her an answer but she's seen it on your face.

When she drops you home, she sees you into your flat, roots inside her bag for a moment and brings out a small piece of paper. Pressing it into your hand, she kisses you on the cheek and tells you she'll leave you to it, that she'll see you later.

Once Leah is gone, you sit down and unfold the paper to find Brendan's name on it, along with a phone number.

It's only been a few hours, but you long to hear his voice again.

He picks up on the first ring. "Hello?"

"Brendan." You look around your empty home and ask yourself what possessed you to leave him in favour of returning here, where, despite the family and friends you have scattered around the village, you are alone.

Maybe you'd been too overwhelmed; thought you'd needed the thinking space? But right now, hearing his voice in your ear; now you wish you were with him.

"Steven? Ye okay?"

"Yeah," you say into the phone. "Yeah, I am now. Are you busy? Can you talk?"

"I can talk all night if ye want to," Brendan replies, his voice soft and calming.

So that's exactly what you do. You listen while he tells you all about his son Declan, who had apparently been waiting for him back at Cheryl's while he was busy running after you.

You give yourself a moment to take that in, feeling special for the first time in you don't know how long. You've spent all these years feeling second best while Brendan languished in a prison cell to protect Cheryl. Now he's putting you first.

He sounds like a huge weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Declan had given him the chance to explain as much as he could about his mistakes; his failings as a father. You're proud when Brendan tells you he hadn't made any excuses this time. It's going to be a long process, but he's starting to build bridges with the people that matter most.

And that includes you.

"I can see ye again, can't I?" he asks, voice soft and suddenly shaky.

You almost laugh, because the idea of not seeing him again is so ridiculous that you don't take the question seriously. Then you remember how angry you were with him in Ireland; and the vulnerability in his eyes when you took it all out on him. You picture the look on his face right now, and you know he needs you to reassure him.

"Look, Brendan," you sigh. "It's not going to be easy, letting you back in my life. For a start, there's a lot you don't know about what I've been through in the last thirty-odd years. All that stuff I said, it's everything I've wanted to shout about since you left me. But you were right, what you said about not coming all that way just to yell at you. I thought I just wanted closure, but you knew better. The truth is, now I've got you back, I can't lose you again."

There's a silence, and then his voice is in your ear again, louder and more confident now.

"Was that a yes?"

This time you do laugh, and you feel young again with it. You could almost be that naïve lad all over again, drawn to Brendan in a way that leaves you unable to say no, even if you wanted to. You'd had plenty of reason to refuse him in those days, before you'd grown more of a backbone.

None of those reasons matter now.

He calls you himself the next day, and towards the end of the conversation he latches onto one of the things you told him the day before. He wants to know what you're holding back from him about your past.

Your throat dries up at the thought of it. It's crazy, but you're scared of what Brendan might think of you once you tell him – despite the fact that you've overlooked far worse when it comes to his own dark past.

"Steven? Ye still there?"

There's a moment, just like there was back in Ireland, where you're just on the edge of telling him everything. Over the phone you won't have to see the look on his face. In the end, though, you tell yourself you can be braver than that.

"Next time," you answer him. "I'll tell you the next time I see you."

Amy is giving you a lecture. She is so fired up, you almost feel bad that once she's stopped talking, you'll be telling her for the hundredth time that it's made no difference to you.

Almost, but not quite.

"I still can't believe you went to see him. Brendan!" she's saying, yet again.

"Still?" you reply. "It's been nearly a week, Ames. You're just going to have to get over it."

"Get over it? That man nearly tore you apart, Ste! More than once! I know I'm getting on a bit, but you don't expect me to have forgotten, do you?"

You sigh. "No. And I haven't forgotten either, okay? It's just that I still-"

"You still love him." Amy finishes, shaking her head at you. "And you're really going to see him again?"

What can you say to that? You don't think you could stop yourself, even if you wanted to. You nod wordlessly.

She starts ranting again, and this time you tune out while she lists the usual complaints. It's not like you need reminding – as you've already pointed out, everything Brendan Brady has ever done to you is stored permanently in your memory.

The thing is, while you know that Amy looks back on those dark times in concern for you, her best friend, the rest of her anxiety over that man is linked to any time ever spent with the kids.

The kids, who are now adults with families of their own.

So surely any involvement you have with Brendan now is no one else's business but your own?

"...and then all that rubbish about changing his ways, all for you, and he went and killed his own father!"

You bristle at that. You love Amy to pieces, really you do. But she just doesn't have a clue and if this continues, you'll only get more and more wound up. You don't see any reason why you can't tell her the truth now. There's nobody else in the house, and Brendan has served his – or rather, Cheryl's – time.

"Except he didn't do it," you announce in a quiet voice.

At least a full minute passes before she says anything back, and then:

"Say that again." She definitely heard you, you can see it on her face. What she's doing now is daring you to repeat the idea that Brendan, the man she has hated for so long, might not be the monster she's always thought him to be.

"He didn't kill his dad," you repeat now, looking her straight in the eye.

Amy's voice is deadpan. No one would have thought the two of you were having a somewhat casual-sounding conversation about murder. "Right. So who did, then?"

You waver for a moment. Once you answer this question, there's no going back. But you've kept the secret for most of your life now, and you're suddenly more desperate than you've ever been to talk to someone uninvolved in the events of that night.

"Cheryl."

Amy actually spits out her mouthful of tea. The fact that she was able to drink it in the first place, in the face of such a disturbing topic, tells you just how little she believed in what you were trying to say to her.

Until now.

Amy seems to realise that you wouldn't make something like this up, especially about an old friend. She abandons her cup, sits up straighter and starts fiddling with her perfectly done-up hair. The brief look she shoots you next seems to say, "keep talking" - so you do.

You talk about Walker, about the night of hell he put you and the Bradys through before Seamus' death. You tell her things about it that you've never spoken about with anyone, like how the man had tortured Brendan, forcing him to confront his father while holding them captive. You tell Amy how Walker had filmed it, and then later had it sent to Cheryl.

"What do you mean, Ste? What about Brendan and his father?"

You don't want to have to say the words, hoping that Amy would grasp the implication about Brendan's dad but it's not as obvious to people like her, who have happy childhoods to speak of. When you tell her exactly what you mean, she drops the hand from her hair and lets out a long breath. The words ring unpleasantly in your ears, and all you can think of in your mind's eye is the look on Brendan's face the day he'd told you himself.

"So this...this video Cheryl was sent," Amy says carefully after recovering herself. "Their dad was actually talking about it? He admitted to it, and that's the first she'd heard about it?"

You nod. "She told me what happened that day," you explain, remembering the conversation that day at the hospital. "She was clearing out the house, 'cos she was meant to be moving away with Nate the same week, see, and then she found Walker's gun from the night he..."

You can't help but trail off at the thought of it – you've never forgotten that gut-wrenching terror that Brendan had been taken from you while you'd been locked away in that giant fridge. Of course, this was before you even imagined that he was about to be ripped away from you in another way entirely.

"Anyway," you somehow find your voice again. "Then this package turned up and Cheryl found out the secret her big brother had kept from her for all those years. She went to the club to find him, only Seamus was already there, and he was...he was..."

Amy reaches for your hand across the table and gives it a squeeze as you break off yet again. This time it's the image of Brendan, defenceless and terrified; and it's something that has stayed buried with you alongside the secret you're finally spilling out.

Ever since Cheryl had told you exactly what happened, you've known deep down that if it had been you that had found them that night, you wouldn't have hesitated in pulling that trigger just like she had. That was part of the reason why you couldn't be bitter with her.

"So their dad was hurting Brendan," Amy finishes for you, and her voice is wavering in a way it hasn't done in years. "Cheryl turned up, saw what was going on and shot him, didn't she?"

You can only nod again. After a few beats of silence, she completely floors you with her next response.

"Wow. I didn't think she had it in her, that one."

Of all the things you thought she might say, that was the last thing you expected.

"What?"

"I get it," she tells you, and you wonder what she gets – what it is that happened all those years back; why it happened, or why Brendan became the person he was when you first knew him. "I'd have done the same in her shoes."

"You...really?"

Amy's face doesn't even flicker. "If someone I loved was in danger and there was something I could do to save them, then yeah, I would. If it had been our kids, I'd have done anything."

"Me too." Strangely, you find yourself smiling, and after a moment she gives you a tentative one back. You start to wonder if maybe this entire conversation has actually only played out inside your head, because up until this moment you've never known her willing to justify any form of violence or murder.

Now she makes a noise you can't decipher, as if she's thinking something over.

"What is it?"

"About Brendan's father," she answers quietly. "I met him. It was that day we rowed in the pub about me taking the kids and he...well, he was there."

You can't place it. "I don't—"

"You weren't there. I was talking to Nancy about you and Brendan, calling him all sorts as you can probably guess, and then suddenly this older bloke turned around to stare at me. He never jumped in to defend Brendan but I didn't think anything of it at the time."

"Yeah well, that man had almost everyone fooled," is your bitter reply. You're still not over the fact that you were one of them, once upon a time.

Neither of you know what else to say, so after a while you get up and head for the kettle, taking your cold cups of tea with you. "Another brew?"

Amy nods distractedly. "Ste?" You turn back to find her staring up at you, her face showing the kind of compassion she had never been able to muster for Brendan before – had never had due reason to, until today.

"This doesn't change what I think about all the awful things he's done. But if I see him again, I won't kick off. Okay?"

The mood shifts, and you grin at her. "Thanks, Ames."

At that exact moment, your granddaughter walks into the room – neither you or Amy noticed her letting herself in, apparently. "Finally!" she announces. "About time you gave his boyfriend the thumbs up, Gran. Does that mean we can meet him now?"

You can't help but laugh as Amy rolls her eyes and lets out a huff of annoyance.

~ Brendan ~

Steven has invited you to stay with him in Chester. There's a 'no' on the tip of your tongue at first; because you've already told your sister that you've no desire to go back to that village, so why would you change your mind?

But the fact is there's one very good reason why. Steven wants you. He still wants you after all these years, and he's already proved that by flying all the way to see you. If nothing else, it's your turn to make the next move anyway.

He waits for you at the airport, and the moment you see his face all your worries - about returning to the scene of the crime, coming back to the place you've feared would only be haunted by thoughts of your father – all of it melts away.

You hold him in your arms once again for what seems like an age; and then, in a move so far removed from the man you once were, you take his hand in yours and walk out into Liverpool.

When you arrive in the village together, Steven is the light that filters through the dark memories of the last time you set foot here. There are no ghosts or demons anymore.

You don't know how you'll feel waking up here tomorrow morning, but right now, with him by your side, you feel like you've finally come home.