When the Dawn Breaks
By Hazelmist
A/N: SPOILERS FOR WHEN THE STORM BREAKS.
Hey guys, I'm aware that When the Storm Breaks does not need an alternate ending and I obviously don't expect anyone to read it, but when I was struggling to complete the fic, I wrote multiple alternate endings from different POVs. I planned on using some of these scenes for an additional epilogue told fully from Alec's POV, but I wrote this, and for some reason it remains my favorite of the three that didn't make the cut. It is mostly told from an OFC's POV and there is some brief, mostly one-sided OFC/Alec Hardy, but I promise that it ends with Alec happily married to Ellie. It's not perfect, but hopefully one day, someone might stumble upon it and enjoy it.
Dear SEA, I can't believe it's been nine years since you left us. I still miss you. The place we grew up isn't ours anymore, but sometimes I like to imagine that there exists an alternate universe where it's always low tide and we're sitting on the deck just watching the dawn break...
When the dawn breaks, Dr. Martin Baxter gets the news that Alec Hardy's daughter has overdosed. Alec's heart is recovering surprisingly well from the surgery, but it's in no state to weather this oncoming storm. He instructs his nurse to knock Alec Hardy out with the strongest sedation the patient can handle.
"This will set back his recovery," the day-shift nurse protests, but Dr. Baxter outranks her and insists that it's in her patient's best interests that he remain unconscious until they can figure out what 'the bloody hell is going on with his daughter'.
Katie, the night-shift nurse, privately agrees with Madeline, especially after her patient wakes up with an unfocused gaze and immediately tries to drag her down onto the bed with him.
"Ellie," he slurs and clumsily pets her curly hair. "Love you," he keeps telling her over and over. And then, right before the second round of sedation hits, he says,
"Marry me."
He passes out before she can give him her reply. As far as first proposals go, it could've gone better, but when Katie worked at the pub, she once witnessed a bloke so drunk, he got sick all over his girlfriend's shoes halfway through his garbled proposal and threw a pint glass at Katie after his girlfriend turned him down. Katie had been manhandled by plenty of confused patients and angry bar patrons, but this patient had been so gentle, and he hadn't broken anything or gotten sick on her. Yet. Overall, Katie considers herself flattered, if only he hadn't gotten her name wrong.
When Katie tells Madeline the following morning what happened, her co-worker shrugs.
"Could've been worse, the octogenarian in bed six kept asking me to "wash" his prick."
"You're missing the point," Katie sighs.
"Tell him I'll marry him," Madeline quips. "He's the only man I've met on this ward younger than sixty, and if he's related to Dr. Baxter, he's probably rich."
Katie smacks her with their patient's chart before handing it over.
"Fine," Madeline huffs, "I'll invite you to our wedding."
Suddenly, their patient's bed alarm goes off. Katie instinctively follows Madeline into her "suitor's" room. Their patient's sitting on the edge of his bed, his hairy legs and knobby knees sticking out from beneath the short hospital gown. He's got half his leads ripped off and he's fumbling with the bandage on his chest.
"Go away," he grunts, without even looking up to acknowledge Madeline or the woman he allegedly loves. Katie's a little wounded that the first man who proposed to her probably doesn't even remember the proposal or already regrets it.
"Mr. Hardy, those need to stay where they are," Madeline chides him, reattaching the leads, while Katie shuts off the alarms.
"I need my clothes."
"Mr. Hardy, you just had pacemaker surgery and Dr. Starzl and Dr. Baxter recommend that you rest up and remain here."
"Horseshit," he snarls at them. "Dr. Baxter can go fuck himself! I know when I've been drugged. Something's happened to Ellie and he better get his arse in here and explain, before I-"
"Alec."
An elderly woman bustles into the room and Alec Hardy immediately sits back down.
"You must be feeling better if you're being rude to the nurses," she observes wryly, but the hand she stretches toward him trembles slightly.
The fight goes out of him.
"Where's Ellie?"
"Darling, I don't know," the woman says, and her voice breaks over the last syllable.
"What happened?" he asks, desperately clutching at her liver-spotted hands.
"Rest, Alec, I'm sure she'll be here soon."
"But she was here, I thought-" His gaze flits to Katie for a split second. Katie tries to back out of the room as recognition dawns on him. "I need your phone," he says to the woman.
"Alec, listen to me, she's fine."
"Did you call her?" he asks.
"Yes, I just called her."
"You're lying."
"Alec, this has nothing to do with that horrid woman," the woman snaps. "I wish I knew why you're so infatuated with her, if you had any idea what we've been through because of her meddling-"
"Where's Keira?" he asks abruptly, and the silence that follows is deafening.
Katie's intrigued, but Madeline grabs her by the arm, spinning her out into the hallway before Dr. Baxter appears out of nowhere and slams the door in their faces.
Two minutes later, the alarms start going haywire again. Baxter kicks them out, but not before they hear the yelling.
"Heroin? Are you serious? Why didn't anyone tell me? This is my daughter, my only child, and no one thought to tell me that this has been going on for months?"
Katie goes home, and Alec Hardy isn't there the next night.
Two months later, Katie meets them again on a different ward. The hospital's short-staffed, and Katie's the unlucky soul that gets floated over to another unit and assigned Dr. Baxter's niece. Katie's nearly forgotten about the incident with Alec Hardy. At first she doesn't recognize the man, fully dressed and slumped over the bed of the skinny teenage girl who's withdrawing from another heroin overdose. But when Baxter walks in and they start rowing in front of her, she does a double take. Alec Hardy doesn't seem to remember her, but the next night Keira's up and talking, and everyone's more relaxed and nicer to her, especially after the mother stops hysterically crying and leaves with her boyfriend. By the third night, Keira's irritated and bored out of her bloody mind. Her father's struggling to keep her entertained. Katie tries to help by engaging Keira in conversation and letting her have all the ice cream she wants.
"You're a horrible patient," he teases his daughter, and Keira snaps back something about it being genetic.
"It's true," Katie admits, stage whispering to Keira, "I took care of him on Cardiac one night, and even sedated, he was worse."
All of the color drains out of Alec's face, but Keira brightens up for the first time since she was admitted.
"You took care of my father too?"
Alec's ears turn red beneath their combined scrutiny. Katie wishes she'd kept her gob shut, even though Keira's finally excited about something.
Katie doesn't find out why until she transfers to the same ward right before Christmas, and gets Keira back as a patient.
Heroin overdose, again.
Apparently, Keira had been up at a rehab in Scotland when she had her overdose, and although the medical facilities were more than equipped to handle her, Mum had insisted on having her transferred home. Mum spends all day fussing and lashing out at Dad, who spends a lot of time getting tea and waiting his turn.
"Keira seems better this time," Katie says to him.
"I think this one scared the hell out of her," Alec sighs, dragging a hand through his shaggy hair. He looks like he hasn't slept or showered in days. "Hopefully, it'll be enough to keep her clean."
When Mum shows no sign of leaving or letting him anywhere near his daughter anytime soon, Alec shoves his hands into his pockets and starts hesitantly.
"Listen, I don't really remember the night you took care of me after my surgery, but I'm sorry if I said or did anything inappropriate…"
"You don't have to apologize," Katie stops him, blushing. "You thought I was someone else," she blurts out, and once again she wishes she could keep her gob shut. But she can't. The man next to her looks so bloody exhausted and alone, and somewhere out there is a woman he desperately needs.
"You should tell Ellie you love her," she says in a rush.
"Shit." Alec pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Oh, and we might've gotten engaged," she adds and Alec swears again, louder.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Katie says dismissively, patting him on the shoulder. "My Mum was thrilled, until I told her I had to turn you down."
"Karen."
"Katie," she corrects him, smiling, and for a moment Alec's lips twitch upwards. His eyes are sad though, as he shakes his head.
"It's weird, but you do look a bit like her," he says wistfully. Katie realizes that he must've told Ellie he loved her and she turned him down.
Alec's eyes follow her into the room, and Katie's not the only one that notices his gaze on her. Keira lights up like a firework. As soon as her mother leaves, Keira's all over it. He humors his daughter up to a certain point, glad that she's finally found something to laugh about, even if it's at his own expense.
"My Dad fancies you," Keira whispers loudly and bursts into giggles at her father's horrified face.
"Keira," Alec sighs and drops his head into his hands.
Katie waits for one of them to mention how much she resembles the mysterious Ellie, but oddly they don't. Katie keeps her mouth shut.
Keira pesters him, but it's amusing in a way, and Katie gets pulled into their game. Keira asks her all sorts of personal questions, and keeps giving her Dad meaningful looks. She tries pulling them both into conversations, but Katie's busy with other patients, and Keira fails to see that her Dad's only engaging because he wants to see his daughter smile.
Or maybe she does.
Dawn's breaking when Katie pauses outside their room. Alec's sitting on the edge of the bed and the two of them are looking out the window. Katie hadn't seen the resemblance between them until that moment, and it's not even something she can put her finger on.
"You're lonely," Keira observes.
"'m not," he argues and leans forward to kiss her forehead. "I've got you now."
"Don't be soppy."
"I love you," Alec tells her anyway, and Keira lets him brush her lank hair from her face.
"Ask her out."
"'m not interested," he grunts, and Katie's surprised by how disappointed this makes her.
"She's pretty."
He hums in agreement and Keira beams. He's still watching his daughter intently when Katie enters the room to check Keira's vitals and ask if she needs anything before shift change. Keira deliberately requests a beer for all of them and Alec rolls his eyes.
"Ignore her, Ellie. We're fine." And then seeing Keira's confusion and Katie's look, he corrects himself, "Kare-Katie."
Keira sighs and it's her turn to roll her eyes. When the elderly woman, Iris, arrives to relieve Alec, Keira makes him go and asks Katie point blank to get tea with him. Katie's just as surprised as he is when she agrees.
"Sorry, about all of this," Alec apologizes as they sit down in the hospital's tea room sometime later. "I haven't seen her smile in forever…" he tapers off and his eyes turn inward. Katie suspects that there was a lengthy estrangement when Mum and Dad got divorced, although it appears that they got past that recently.
"I'm still trying to figure this all out, the whole single parenting thing," he sighs. "I'm rubbish at it."
"Nonsense, I've seen worse."
"Do you have kids?" he asks her and Katie shakes her head, prompting his next question. "How old are you anyway?" She hesitates, seriously considering tacking on another few years, because he's obviously older.
"I'm twenty-eight."
Alec puts his cup down and scratches at his beard where there's already a hint of grey. Katie's always gone for slightly older men, but she knows that Alec Hardy's a lot older, at least mentally, than any of the other men she's dated or contemplated dating.
And yet she asks him out anyway when she runs into him a few months later with his daughter in a Nero's.
Keira looks fantastic with her hair dyed lavender, and Alec looks better because he knows Keira looks better. Alec's either too stunned or too eager to appease his beaming daughter to turn Katie down outright, and two days later, when Katie gets off shift he takes her out for breakfast.
He almost calls her Ellie again before they even place their order, and Katie knows it isn't going to work. It's a shame, because Alec Hardy turns out to be funny and fiercely devoted to those that he loves.
And he's still very much in love with Ellie.
"Do you want to talk about her?"
"Who?"
"Ellie," she says pointedly and Alec takes a steadying gulp of his coffee. He's quiet for so long that Katie thinks he's not going to answer, but then:
"She's dating someone else."
Katie had already suspected that this was the case, but she'd still hoped that maybe the woman would have changed her mind by now. Perhaps Ellie had never seen how much softer Alec Hardy was around his daughter.
"Have you spoken to her?" Katie prompts him.
Alec nods and then scrunches up his nose. "Sort of," he mollifies, touching a silvery scar on his brow. "I still talk to her kids."
"Does Ellie know that?" Katie asks, narrowing her eyes.
"No," he admits guiltily and rubs a hand over his clean-shaven jaw. "Tom called me when his brother and Mum got sick around Christmas. He didn't have anyone else to call."
"And you went and took care of them, even though Ellie's seeing someone else?" Katie asks incredulously.
"I'm not sure if she was then…" he admits sheepishly, staring into the dregs of his coffee. "I might've overreacted and blown the whole thing out of proportion." And pushed her right into the other man's arms, that's what he doesn't say, but Katie's seen it happen before.
"I don't understand what happened." He shakes his head in disbelief. "One minute she's begging me to stay with her, swearing she'll marry me if I survive the surgery, and then suddenly she's gone." He exhales heavily, tapping his coffee mug. "No phone calls, no texts. I have sixteen voice messages from her on the day of the pacemaker surgery, and when I finally track her down, she runs away at the sight of me."
"It sounds like she ghosted you," Katie says apologetically. Fortunately, Keira's already explained this term to him. "Maybe she heard the word marriage and she panicked."
"Maybe," Alec concedes, but his thoughts are adrift and the crease remains between his brows for the rest of their 'date'. Despite his baggage and broken heart, Katie exchanges numbers with Alec Hardy. She feels sorry for this man who clearly could use a friend, someone other than his seventeen-year-old daughter.
He stands her up on their next 'date', but he shows up a few days later at her work to apologize. It's more than most men would've done. She gets a good look at his face, and she knows.
"You saw Ellie."
"She nearly got herself killed," he growls, and even though a few days have passed, the worry's evident in his voice.
"Did you talk to her?"
"Only for a moment," he replies, sighing. "Her boss pulled me back in on the case, but I'm not allowed to interact with Miller."
Katie wonders vaguely if there had been abuse, but quickly discards the idea after another glance at Alec's slouched shoulders and sad eyes.
"You should talk to her, Alec."
"I'm not risking her career. She's worked too hard to get where she is right now."
Katie's never met a man so willing to sacrifice his own happiness for those he loves. She knows it's stupid and futile, but she asks him to dinner. He hesitates, but when she reminds him that he stood her up, he agrees to make it up to her. He mentions Keira and she immediately insists on picking him up so that she can see her again.
It's out of her way, but seeing Keira light up like a child on Christmas when she realizes her father's actually going on a date is well worth it. Alec wears a suit, but Keira insists on taking his tie. Katie only gets to talk to her long enough to establish that she's much better, before Keira's shoving her Dad out the door with her.
"You clean up nice," Katie comments, because he does.
"You too," Alec responds automatically, but although his eyes drift over her, he's wishing she was someone else.
It's a shame because Katie finds herself liking him more and more over the course of dinner and hating Ellie a little bit more for stealing his heart. He barely touches his meal, and he's tipsy after their first glass of wine. He actually laughs at one of her stories after the second glass, and Katie's amazed at how much more handsome he is when he smiles.
It's been so long since she's met a good man, she makes the mistake of kissing him in the car. He's pissed enough to kiss her back, but not drunk enough to forget. He slips up and calls her Ellie, and maybe she would've ignored it, if it wasn't for the yearning reverberating between one syllable and the next. She's seen too much to believe in God, but Alec Hardy makes that woman's name sound like a prayer.
"Katie," she corrects him, combing her fingers through his hair. "I'm Katie."
Alec makes a pained noise deep in the back of his throat and holds her tightly for a moment. And then he's apologizing and out of the car. He walks to the edge of the car park and tips his head back to look up at the stars. Katie watches him for a few minutes before joining him.
"Two years ago, I had nothing. I was ill and I wasn't speaking to Keira…" he rasps. "That's when I met Ellie and she…" He sniffs and scrubs a hand down his face. "She brought me home again."
Katie pats Alec's shoulder and takes him home. Alec dozes off in the passenger seat, and Katie knows that he won't call her even if she did ask. They pull up to his house and he apologizes again when she shakes him awake. Katie shushes him and lies, telling him she had a good time.
Alec leans over and kisses her forehead.
"Goodbye, Katie," he whispers. Katie's still sitting there frozen long after he's gotten into the house.
She stays up all night thinking about that little touch, and trying to picture the woman he'd envisioned when he'd done it.
As the months pass, she entertains the idea of calling him, maybe someday in the future when he's finally gotten over Ellie. She gets a glimpse of him on the news one day. They're sentencing a murderer of two poor teenage girls who were killed in Sandbrook years ago, and for a brief moment they show the courtroom. Katie spots Keira immediately, sporting bright blue hair, that's the only reason why she notices Alec Hardy at all. Katie scrambles for the remote, but fortunately it's a slow news day and there's a photograph on the fourth page of the Daily, showing the same shot again of the grieving parents and Alec and Keira in the background. Katie recognizes Keira's Mum from the hospital, Dr. Baxter and the elderly woman. Flanking Alec is a woman Katie shouldn't recognize, but she looks remarkably like an older version of Katie. Katie finds herself thinking about it a lot and deciding against texting Alec for reasons she doesn't want to think too much about.
One year turns into another, and Katie finds herself caught up in a whirl-wind romance that has her expecting her first child before she even has the ring on her finger. It was unexpected, but she loves Matt, and they're both excited. Matt takes off work to go with her to the appointment, even though it'll probably cost him a promotion. They sit together in the waiting room, ensconced in their little happy bubble, hoping that today they'll know whether they're having a boy or a girl.
They've been waiting for almost an hour, when another family joins the already packed waiting room. Fortunately, they don't have another screaming baby with them, or any food that might make Katie nauseas, like the woman next to her who took forever to eat her buffalo chicken sandwich. Katie barely notices them at all, until she feels the little boy's eyes on her. His Mum's clearly having an issue with the paperwork, but the small child's curious brown eyes are fixated on Katie's sequined pocketbook, a gag gift from her future-sister-in-law. Katie waves at him and he latches onto Mum's leg, hiding his face in her hip. Mum distractedly runs her hands through the boy's curls, but a minute later, he's staring at Katie again.
"I think you've made a new friend," Matt laughs and Mum hears him, noticing where her boy's attention has wandered.
"He loves the ladies," Mum admits, rolling her eyes as her son wraps his arms around his Mum's waist. "He pretends to be shy, but once he starts talking, he doesn't stop." The secretary says something and Mum has to dig out her wallet again. The boy creeps closer to look at Katie's sparkly pocketbook. He lifts a hand as if to touch it and stops himself as if he knows he's not supposed to.
"What's your name?" Katie asks.
"Fred."
"That's a nice name. I'm Katie."
Fred looks at his Mum who's still preoccupied and Katie leans forward to keep him distracted.
"How old are you, Fred?"
"I'm four."
"You're five now, Freddie," Mum corrects him, joining them. "You just had a birthday, remember?" Mum sits down in the chair next to Katie, dragging Fred up and into her lap. "He's not usually this quiet. He loves to talk, especially when his father's around," she sighs, wrapping her arms around him.
"Is this your first?" she asks Katie, noting their linked fingers and the shiny ring.
Matt answers, but Katie's barely listening as the woman smiles for the first time. She's probably about ten years older than Katie, but the resemblance is still there, the curling dark hair and something in her smile that shows her gums. The woman's smile fades, and Katie loses whatever she thought she saw there. They talk for a few minutes, but the woman's distracted. She keeps looking at the clock, and the door, and her phone, and fussing over Fred. Whatever she's there for, it isn't good.
"Sorry, I'm Ellie, by the way." She holds out a hand, and Katie sees it again, that flash of a smile that must've drawn Alec into her orbit. There's a ring on her finger, a lot smaller and simpler than Katie's stunning diamond, but still there. Katie wonders if -
"Daddy!"
Fred jumps off his mother's lap and runs into the legs of a man she never thought she'd see again. He sweeps the little boy up onto his hip, only half listening as Fred babbles, because his worried eyes are on the woman next to Katie. He's older. There's grey peppered in his beard and at his temples, and yet somehow holding that child he appears younger. Ellie gets up and goes to him.
Katie can hear bits and pieces of the hushed conversation that follows.
"They left a message on the answering machine."
"…it's just a biopsy, it's standard procedure, you didn't have to…"
"You don't have to go through this alone anymore, alright?" Alec cups the back of her head and presses a kiss to her forehead and Ellie goes limp against him. "It's going to be okay," he reassures her.
When Ellie protests, Alec puts down a squirming Fred to pull her into his arms. "And if it isn't, I'm right here with you."
Alec brushes her hair from her face and Katie notes the matching silver wedding ring on his hand. He picks up her hand and kisses Ellie's wedding ring, before reaching down with his other hand to grab the back of Fred's jumper before he tries to pet someone's service dog. Without breaking eye contact, he leads them to three empty chairs on the opposite side of the room.
Katie turns to Matt with tears in her eyes.
"You're turning into a sop," he teases her, and Katie doesn't tell Matt that she once went on a date with Alec. Not then anyway.
They find out they're having a boy. Katie's still crying when they walk out and almost bump into Keira and a teenage boy kicking a football outside the building.
"Katie!" Keira gasps. "You're pregnant."
"We're having a boy," Matt answers for her, beaming and tucking her into his side.
"That's great," Keira gushes, and she waves to someone behind them. Fred comes bounding over to them, chasing the football and almost kicking it into Katie's leg. Matt steadies her, but gives the boy a scathing look that's not nearly as bad as the one he gets from his mother.
"I'm so sorry," Ellie apologizes. "Are you alright?"
"It missed me." Katie's still weepy. Ellie misreads the tears as an injury, searching for somewhere they can sit down.
"She's fine," Matt assures them, but Ellie keeps fussing, offering all kinds of things from her purse, until Alec touches her on the shoulder. Katie hastily wipes away the last of her joyful tears, struggling to keep the smile from her face.
"Congratulations, Katie," he says.
"You know her?" Ellie's eyebrows go up.
"She's a nurse, she took good care of Keira," he explains, nodding over at his daughter.
"And you," Keira adds, elbowing him. Alec frowns at her, but doesn't deny it. Ellie looks from him to Katie, and then back again.
"Ohmygod!" She starts laughing. "I'm so sorry, Katie," she says between giggles. "Really, I am."
"'s not funny," Alec grumbles, but it's obvious that he loves the sound of his wife's laughter.
The joke's lost on Matt, but Katie will explain it all to him later. Right now she's watching Alec take his wife into his arms and whisper into her ear.
"You're lucky she turned me down," he teases her, and Ellie gazes up at him.
"I am," she says seriously, stroking his cheek. Alec reaches up to keep her hand there. He doesn't say a word, but Katie can hear him telling Ellie he's going to be there for her no matter what.
She sees Alec one more time, years later. Her baby boy, Jack, is four now and his younger sister is a terror in the terrible twos. Matt's up for another promotion, and they've already hit a rough patch in their marriage while they try to juggle two kids and their careers.
Little Anastasia's throwing a tantrum on the floor of Sainsbury's and Jack's trying to climb the shelves, and all Katie wants to do is sit down next to Anastasia and cry. Of course, it's then that she sees him, the first man who ever proposed to her. His hair's gone almost completely grey, but he somehow looks better than the last time she saw him. He plucks Jack down from the biscuit display and sets him down between her and the nine-year-old boy who must be Fred with several more inches and a wider vocabulary.
"I'm Fred," he introduces himself to the wailing Anastasia. "Do you want a banana?" he asks her, and even though Anastasia's refused to eat bananas for the last four weeks (claiming she hates them now) she takes it from Fred.
Alec gets Anastasia back into the shopping trolley, before helping her up off the floor. She hadn't even realized she sat down.
"I'm sorry, I just found out I'm pregnant again," she tries to explain between sobs. "Matt and I don't want another and I don't know what I'm going to tell him." She worked the last three nights, and Matt has been so busy at work that she hasn't slept more than three uninterrupted hours in ages. Couple that with the exhaustion of her third and definitely going to be the worst pregnancy, and she's already a wreck before factoring in the two demanding children.
Fred takes the trolley, making funny faces at Anastasia until she starts giggling again. Jack quickly forgets all about her, desperate to impress the older boy.
Alec guides her through the checkout, and takes the groceries out to her car. And she's so fucking tired that she lets him help her get everything into the boot, while Fred entertains her suddenly docile children.
"Was Fred planned?" She doesn't realize that she asks it aloud, until Alec stops to stare at her. "Sorry, you don't have to answer that."
"I adopted Fred."
"I chose him to be my Dad," Fred pipes up from behind him, grinning. Alec's lips curl up at the corners as if this is a constant joke between the two of them that never gets old. "My sperm donor's in jail," Fred explains, and Alec sighs.
"You shouldn't call him that," he chides him, but he ruffles the younger boy's hair.
"Well, I'm not calling him my father," Fred argues, pouting. "You're my Dad."
Alec looks over at Katie and shrugs as Jack drags Fred back over to his baby sister.
"He loves babies now that he found out Keira's having one," he says, running a hand through his grey hair.
"Is this the first grandchild?"
"Aye." Alec expels a breath. "She's a bit young, but she married a good bloke."
"Congratulations."
"Same to you," Alec tells her and Katie wants to cry because she's not excited at all, even though she should be. Fresh tears fill her eyes, and Alec lays a warm hand on her shoulder. "You should go home and talk to your husband."
"I can't," she whispers, "We're always fighting and the kids are crazy. I never get any sleep because he's always at work, and I don't want to give up my job but-" She breaks off in a sob.
Alec turns her away from the kids and awkwardly pats her on the back until she stops.
"I'm sorry," she apologizes when he hands her some paper napkins. "I'm really sorry."
"Stop apologizing to me," he grumbles, "You kept me and my daughter alive, and then I stood you up and took you on the worst date."
"It wasn't the worst," she argues with a wet laugh. "Matt got a flat tire on our first date and I had to show him how to put the spare tire on in the pouring rain," she recollects.
"And yet, you married him anyway," Alec points out, squeezing her shoulder.
"Yeah," Katie realizes. "How'd you convince Ellie to marry you?" she asks, because she's always wondered. His lips twitch again as if he wants to smile.
"I gave her a ring and told her to keep it," he deadpans.
Katie laughs.
"You left out the part where you came back from the dead," a voice interrupts cheekily. Ellie pushes up on her toes to kiss Alec's cheek. "I told you to meet me back at the car."
Alec motions to Katie. Ellie notices Katie's bloodshot eyes and the two kids that are in the trolley that Fred keeps pushing in circles around the car.
"Please tell me that you did not get us banned from the market again," Ellie groans, closing her eyes and dropping her head to Alec's shoulder.
"It only happened once – twice," he mollifies, "And it was Fred's fault."
"No, it wasn't," Fred denies it, and Ellie launches into a hilarious anecdote of how Fred and Alec got banned from the store after baby Fred tore apart the cereal aisle. Katie's laughing so hard that she almost pees, when Ellie tells her what Fred did with Alec the second time it happened.
Katie and her commiserate over how terrifyingly awful their children could be at that age, and Katie feels much better by the time she straps her children into their car seats and prepares to drive away.
Alec and Fred start to walk away, but Ellie lingers with Katie to make sure she's going to be alright.
"It'll get better," she tells Katie.
"What made you change your mind?" Katie wonders. "I mean, why did you leave him and what brought you back?"
"He didn't tell you?" Ellie's eyes widen and then she shakes her head. "That idiot, over there, he died on me." Ellie holds up a hand. "It's a long story, Katie, but back when you met him as a patient, I thought I'd already lost him." Ellie's eyes are haunted as she gazes at Alec who's waiting with Fred near the entrance to Sainsbury's.
"It was horrible, but I learned to stand on my own two feet and to live without him…" Ellie glances down at the ring on her hand. "And then when I found him again, Alec gave me this ring to keep as a reminder that I'm not alone anymore."
"I think he did it to remind himself too," Katie says softly. "He told me once that you brought him home."
"Stubborn bastard fought me every step of the way and then changed his mind when he got his new lease on life," Ellie laughs, fondly looking back at him and Fred, "but we got there in the end."
She bids Katie goodbye and Katie watches as she rejoins Alec to finish the shopping that Katie's meltdown interrupted. Fred runs ahead of them, but Ellie says something that makes Alec laugh. He grabs her round the waist and kisses her. Ellie playfully pushes him back from her, but they're both grinning as Ellie drags him into the Market with her.
Katie thinks that maybe she sees them again on her tenth wedding anniversary. But the couple's dancing so closely on the patio that it's hard to tell where one of them ends and the other begins. Matt returns to the table and reaches for her hand, and Katie finally understands what Alec Hardy meant all those years ago as the couple and everyone else disappears leaving just Matt's hand in hers, warm and familiar.
"Take me home?" Katie murmurs.
"We just got here, love," Matt laughs, but as he looks into her eyes, he feels it too. "Okay," he agrees, smiling, "I'll take you home."
The couple dances on, spinning each other beneath the fairy lights.
"You're still rubbish at this," Alec teases his wife as he catches her against him.
"We just need more practice," Ellie murmurs, nuzzling the underside of his jaw. "Now that Fred's older, you can take me dancing more often," she suggests.
Alec shuts his eyes as she brushes her lips over his pulse point. He doesn't understand how after all these years Ellie can still shatter him with a touch.
"You keep doing that and I might not take you anywhere," he warns her. Ellie laughs and tucks her head in beneath his chin. They sway in time to a song that no one else can hear, but that's as familiar to them as each other's palms.
Alec brings their joined hands to his lips, kissing her wedding ring and the inside of her wrist. Ellie's eyelids flutter shut as his other hand drags up her side until his thumb brushes over the scar from the biopsy ten years ago that they'd reopened again a few weeks earlier. Ellie touches his sternum, pointedly reminding him that he has scars and worries of his own.
"Don't think about it," she tells him and lifts her hand to stroke his cheek. "We've survived worse."
"You promised to outlive me," he reminds her.
"And you promised to annoy me for at least thirty more years," she argues, tapping his chest.
Alec dips to kiss her and curses when it rapidly becomes clear that kissing isn't going to be enough right now.
"We didn't even get dessert," Ellie whines as they rush back to the car.
"I'll buy you a 99 tomorrow," he promises.
Ellie smacks him, giggling as he slides a hand up the skirt of her favorite dress.
They barely make it home and they don't even make it to the bedroom.
Alec wakes up in the middle of the night to find her on the edge of the bed, her hand curled over her left scarred breast. He kisses the vertebrae of her spine until she finally rolls over and lets him kiss each of the scars on her breast.
He makes love to her gently and slowly, dragging it out for as long as he possibly can, reminding her of all the hours they'd thought had been snatched from them that they've since had to make memories.
They fall asleep, tangled up together.
Alec wakes up in the searing light of daybreak, alone and afraid. The stab of icy fear pierces his chest, paralyzing him. For a moment, it's as if the last decade didn't happen. And then the light glints off his wedding band and he hears the singing that cuts through his heart so sharply it takes his breath away. She's here with him, and she's happy, happier than she's been since their latest health scare.
He checks the time, grabs his jogging pants and skids to a halt in the kitchen. Ellie's making breakfast in one of his button-downs and the portable radio's blasting their song. He reaches for her hips and she turns to give him a blinding smile.
"The tests came back negative. No cancer."
Light-headed with relief, Alec scoops her up. Ellie squeals as he sets her down on the counter, spilling the pancake batter.
"Knob!" But she's laughing as he kisses her throat and then her beautiful cancer-free breasts. "Alec, c'mon, 'm starving." But she unbuttons his shirt for him, and sighs as he kneels on the sticky tiles before her.
It's a long time before they sit down at the table to breakfast, but Ellie's not complaining anymore. Alec can't take his eyes off of her. Finally, she sets down her empty plate and climbs into his lap.
He wraps her up in his arms and wishes he could keep her right here forever.
"It's okay," she tells him, carding her fingers through his greying hair. "It's okay now."
Alec stops shaking as she presses a kiss to his forehead.
"I've still got thirty more years to annoy you," she quips.
"I'm looking forward to it," Alec promises and kisses her.
He takes her back to bed and they stay there until Fred comes home.
A/N: Thank you to everyone who read When the Storm Breaksover the past TEN years, I owe you guys my life and sincerely hope that you're living your best lives. This has been up on Ao3 under the same penname but a very kind reader requested that I post the alt. ending here where it all started, so thank you again! I'll try to transfer the rest of my Broadchurch fics over to this site at some point! Thanks again! 3