"Epilogue"

A/N: This is it. The very last chapter, and I'm equally excited and upset to finally say it's complete. It's been a long and emotional struggle to finish it, and I hope you as the reader have found it a good ending following Alec's long and sometimes painful exit.

Everyone who has taken the time to read all of this, and leave a review or two (or even if you've just read) I want to thank you.

This final chapter is dedicated to Anna: you've read these last few chapters and given me such feedback and medical information, and I have to thank you for your help.

(Listening to Beth's Theme from the BC soundtrack would be most appropriate, I think, while reading this. It sets the tone.)

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It was raining when Ellie called them all together two weeks later: Beth, Paul, John, Daisy, Ellie's own sons—everyone who had a hand in or was a witness to Alec Hardy's final days. It was to be a private, quiet meeting, Ellie explained over the phone to each and every one of them. Down at the beach by the ocean.

Beth left Mark with their newborn son and made her way down the familiar path to the sea, seeing Paul making his way across the field. She waited for him and they fell into step together. It wasn't a hard rain, but a light spattering drizzle that could almost be mistaken for fine snowflakes.

Beth looked over at him. "You were invited too, then."

Paul nodded. "I was a bit surprised, honestly," he admitted. "Do you know what Ellie's planning?"

She shrugged. "She was a bit closed-mouthed about it." She grinned a little. "I think she's channeling him a bit, actually, just to throw us off."

"Daisy came in yesterday, I here."

"Yeah. She came for dinner with Ellie and the boys, and Chloe invited her to stay the night."

Paul smiled. "Is she still planning on staying here for the summer, then?"

Beth nodded. They were nearing the beach, and she was glad of that being so unused to even being able to walk normally. "She wants to finish school here, too, but she said her mother is fighting her on it. She loves it here, and she said last night that she feels closer to Chloe than most of her friends back at her school. Not to mention she absolutely adores the baby."

"I did see you're walking better," Paul acknowledged. Beth had finally had her child almost two days after Alec had died, much to her relief. It had allowed Ellie some sorely-needed distraction, and some sorely lacking joy—not to mention that Beth was just relieved to not walk around and feel like some huge bloody whale.

They reached the beach to find Ellie and the boys standing at the water's edge; Daisy and Chloe were farther down the shore, looking at shellfish together. (Daisy was, once again, wearing Ellie's bright orange parka.) John was approaching at the same time, looking better rested since the last time Beth had seen him.

Ellie smiled when they all came together, calling the teenagers back. She wasn't so worn or wan as before, Beth was pleased to see, her skin gaining its natural color back and her eyes sparkling with humor. She was putting herself back together, slowly but surely. It would take her a long time, Beth knew, her thoughts drifting to Danny once again; but Ellie was strong.

'I don't know if she'll be able to handle this. After what happened…'

'Please. She's survived her bloody husband's confession. If she had any excuse to fly apart it was then. She's stronger than that. She's putting herself back to together just like you are.'

"Kind of appropriate behavior, isn't it?" Paul asked dryly, blinking water out of his eyes. The wind was picking up.

Ellie nodded. "Very." Her grin was tinged with sadness, but there was humor as well. "He always was a miserable sod."

"Only when he wasn't," Daisy retorted without bite; it was a familiar reply.

John shifted, hands in his pockets. "Are we doing this or not?"

Ellie nodded. "Yeah. Just waited for you all to get here." Bending down to the bag she had at her feet she withdrew a simple box unadorned and unremarkable. When she opened it, however, Beth raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't seem to be much here."

Ellie's smile turned downright mischievous for a moment; beside her Daisy blushed a deep red and tried to hide her own small grin. "Some of it mysteriously landed in the toilet earlier this morning," Ellie said quite innocently.

Beth's mouth fell open, as did Paul's; it was John who, after a moment, started to laugh. "He told you to, didn't he?" he said, remembering Alec's black humor. "He wouldn't have wanted this, all of us here now at the beach."

"He'd be yelling at us," Daisy agreed, her eyes bright despite her efforts. Chloe looked at her sympathetically but didn't speak.

Ellie nodded. "I'm sure," she said dryly. "And we'd all ignore him just like always." She looked up from the box and the ashes it held, meeting all of their gazes. "I'm glad you all decided to come, anyway, though. I'd like to think we made him—happier… before the end. That's why I wanted you here, you're all the ones who cared."

"We tried, Ellie," Paul said softly. "That's all any of us can do. I think Hardy knew that."

They all nodded agreement with the vicar's words. Daisy stifled a sniff. Beth took hold of her hand and squeezed it gently, comfortingly. Ellie did the same.

Ellie looked up at Beth. "I haven't asked lately, how's our little Alec doing?"

Beth smiled. "Home with Mark. He's kept us up two nights in a row; he's very—insistent."

She had named her newborn son Matthew Alec, but very quickly the baby boy was known by his middle name; she wasn't quite sure who had first decided to call him by such, it might have been Chloe or Beth herself, but Beth knew that the boy would never be known by his first name.

"I don't even know how you got Dad to agree to allow you to name your son 'Alec'," Daisy admitted. "He hated that name."

It was Beth's turn to smile mischievously. "I promised him the baby's first name wouldn't be 'Alec'. But I didn't point out that a lot of people today are known by their middle name."

Paul and John chuckled. Tom, standing at his mother's elbow and holding onto a fussing Fred, looked up at Beth like he had never seen her properly before. Ellie merely grinned, knowing how sneaky her old friend could be from several memorable past experiences.

"Alright, everyone at the water's edge. That's it. Tom, don't let Fred sit in the sand." Ellie looked back down at the box. "Here we go." She took a deep breath. "One last goodbye."

"Love you, Dad," Daisy whispered.

They all stood tall and straight in a line looking out at the water, a small band of people who had somehow become close and drawn together through one man, paying tribute. When finally Ellie upended the box they watched the cloud of ashes fly in the air even in the light rain, disappearing quickly over the ocean's tumultuous waves.

Beth watched the ocean long after the last remains of Alec Hardy had gone, thinking back to the morning of Danny's death. It had been on this very beach that she had seen her boy's body—it had been Hardy who had caught her first to keep her from getting too close, she suddenly recalled. It felt right, this; actions set in motion months ago, the case that had torn so much from her life, and the friends she had thought lost but who were now regained, had come full circle in some small way now. She and Ellie and their families were healing, just a bit, and would take years before they were nearing normality, and they would never be whole again… but they were all down the right path. And John and Daisy, and even Paul, had been adopted into the little ragtag group of the remaining Latimers and Millers.

Ellie looked over at her with a tremulous smile and tear-filled eyes, and Beth reached over and squeezed her hand much as she was still holding onto Daisy's. Two of the strongest women he'd ever laid eyes on, Hardy had told Beth. Able to stand back up even when life nearly destroyed them.

He hadn't realized his own strength, Beth had thought, and despite her discomfort she'd told him so, thanking him for solving Danny's murder.

She blinked the rain from her eyes now, thoroughly damp, but there was a certain peace to this moment that hadn't been there before, even with several of their tears. Remembrance. That was the key. Not to obsess over and remain in the past; but to grow every day and learn. Live the life for those who couldn't be there.

She was living for Danny, as only a mother could, and she would always remember her boy when the sun was shining; but now she found that a small piece of her had latched onto a brooding unkempt DI, and she would never be able to look at the rain without recalling Alec Hardy.

And that, she found, was somehow right.

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"I let the rain fall. But this rain is beautiful. And whoever sees beauty will never grow old. Will never die. I let the fear fall on me like rain but never again. Let it fall. Let it tumble. Let it pour down in droves because this is life.

This. Is. Life."

-Kafka; the Musical, Murray Gold