Reckoning Point, стр. 82
“Hold it steady,” Alex murmurs to Erik, and he stands up as Elian prepares to walk the plank. He should help Erik hold the wood firm, but he’s not going to. No, this time, unlike the last time Elian was rescued, he wants to take her hands as soon as she reaches him. This time, he won’t hang back, scared and confused by whatever might have been done to her. This time, he wants her to know that it doesn’t change anything for him.
She locks her eyes on Alex’s again, takes two tentative steps, one more, and then, finally she is on the pier. Alex grips her wrists and pulls her to him, his heart singing as she lets him. He had thought of so many things to say, dreamed about the words he would speak when she was back in his arms, but now he finds they are not necessary.
“Did you … did I hear you right?” she asks, and pushes her arms against Alex’s chest to look up into his eyes.
He is momentarily confused, didn’t think he had said anything, and then he remembers and realises what she is talking about.
He pulls her close again so he doesn’t have to lie once more while he is staring, drowning in her hopeful gaze.
“Yeah,” he said. “Klim is your biological father, not Niko.”
“Thank God,” she whispers, and his heart pulls and pushes at the enormity of the lie, and what it means for her.
67
ELIAN, ALEX AND ERIK.
THE HOSPITAL
15.7.15 Morning
Erik sits by Naomi’s bed and stokes her arm. He tells her in a whisper everything that has happened, that the doctor is now gone, that his body washed up on the sand dunes a miles from the pier in the early hours of the morning, just as the fishermen were beginning their pre-dawn trawls.
She is not awake, but the consultant is hopeful. The nurses claim that she can hear him, and that he is to talk to her, so he does. He breaks off at points in his one-sided conversation to tell her that it is okay, what she did, that he can handle it, that he will raise this baby as his own, that he loves her.
He does not know if any of his words are true, but for now that is not important. She just needs to wake up, and recover, and then he will see if it is okay, if he can handle it, if he can raise this child and if he still loves her.
He hears heavy footsteps come into the room and he looks up to see Alex.
“Any change?”
Erik offers him a tight smile. “Not really, but they’re hopeful.”
“And you? How are you doing?” asks Alex.
Erik shrugs, looks back down at the sleeping form of Naomi. “I’m glad you found your girl. Is she okay?”
Alex nods. “She will be, now it’s over.” Alex clears his throat, seems to hesitate before he moves over to the bed. “Erik, no single family is totally normal, I know mine isn’t, I know Elian’s isn’t, neither are the majority of cases I’ve worked …” he tails off, coughs again. “I guess I’m saying that you can find a way through this, if you want to.”
This time the smile on Erik’s face is genuine, warm and, for once, wide. “Thank you. For everything.”
When Alex leaves the hospital the first thing he notices is that the weather has turned. All summer, in London, in Chernobyl and here in the Netherlands, the temperatures have soared. Now, though it is still only July, there is a chill. He had checked the weather back home on his phone earlier and seen that London was deluged in rain. Alex doesn’t want the summer to end, though it has been the strangest season he can remember, it has bought up a lot of welcome surprises.
He looks at one of these surprises now, perched on the stone wall at the entrance to the hospital, her small suitcase at her feet. He scuffs his own trainers against the step of the door. He doesn’t want to take her back to London, for if he does, he is in no doubt that real life will continue, he’ll get back to work, she’ll do … whatever it is she does. They will no longer be together, and Alex doesn’t want her to drift away before he has fully got her back.
They had spent last night together, but they hadn’t slept, there had been too much information to share on both sides.
“So, this Lev has … gone?” Alex asks. “Who was he? Why did you come here for him?”
She had given a small shrug, hadn’t answered him, but also hadn’t seemed too concerned that he had somehow escaped.
“He won’t come for me,” she said. “We’ll never see or hear from him again.”
He walks over to her now, sits beside her on the low wall.
“Did you say goodbye to your friend?”
She looks up at him, offers him a smile. “Yes, it’s a shame, we hadn’t really got to know each other all that well, but I’ll miss Brigitta.”
He nods, he understands, he feels like there is so much more to know about Elian, and that’s why when they get back to England and step off that plane he already knows he won’t want to say goodbye to her.
“Um, Ellie, how would you feel about not going home yet?”
She looks surprised. “Where would I go?”
Tentatively he takes her hand, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth as she lets him.
“I had a call from my father a few days ago, asking if I’d like to join him and my mother at their home in Majorca.” He pauses, squeezes