A/N: Final chapter! I hope you guys have enjoyed this story, and I really appreciate any feedback you have to offer. In my mind, this was a satisfying ending, but it does leave room for a sequel/continuation, so let me know :)
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It's 3am when the knocking wakes him. It's soft but he has always been a light sleeper; he clambers off the sofa where he passed out last night and pads to the hall. There is no sign of dawn yet, but the moon has ventured out tonight, and casts an eerie warmth over Hatchetfield. It glistens off of cars and windows alike, and lights the way of those who dare leave their houses at this hour. He braces himself, pulls on a jacket and curls his free hand into a fist - just in case.
Tom Houston opens his front door, rubbing sleep from his eyes, to see a petite, pale woman dressed in a forest green jumper covered by dark overalls. She shifts her weight, glances at him for just a second before casting her gaze over her shoulder and back again.
"Emma?" He gapes at his missing sister-in-law hovering in the moonlight like a ghost.
"Tom." She breathes with a smile. "Oh my god." Then she steps forward, raises her arms in an aborted motion. Her face falls, and its a moment before she regains her momentum. "I'm sorry I've been gone so long."
Tom frowns, overflowing with questions. He wants to demand answers, figure out where the hell this woman has been. Does she know that he reported her officially missing after the funeral? That he thought, though he never dared to say it aloud, she had taken herself away forever, overwhelmed with grief?
Instead, he says: "Tim was so looking forward to getting to know his Aunt. Janey- she always spoke so highly of you." He sounds bitter, and he doesn't really mean that, although he has plenty of reasons to be.
"I didn't mean to leave. I... you might not believe me if I explained." Emma taps her fists together, a nervous tick she has picked up in her time away. The truth... well, she can't bring herself to say it, to someone who isn't like her. But Tom and Tim are all she has left of Jane, and they need to know. No, she needs to tell them.
In that moment, with his sister-in-law spiralling on his doorstep, Tom makes a decision. He hears his wife singing her sister's praises, his son asking if they can take Emma to Pizza Pete's for her next birthday, to 'make her happy'. He dwells on his own sympathy for the woman, their grief almost the same even now.
"Try me." He challenges, stepping back from the door to allow her in. She starts, eyes wide, and then with only one last scan of the driveway and the street behind her, she darts in after him.
And in a hushed murmur, in his dim living room on his couch over a scotch and, later in the morning, a coffee, she does.