Chapter Text
Joyce had baked too much, as she always did, pastel cupcakes lined the counter, glazed ham cooling under foil, plastic eggs half-forgotten in a bowl by the door. Laughter drifted in and out of rooms, softened by the ocean air pushing gently through open windows.
But the back porch was quiet.
The boards were still cool beneath their feet, the railing worn smooth by years of hands that had leaned there, Hopper’s broad palms, Joyce’s restless fingers.
Mike stood with his elbows braced against it, staring out at the water like he could find the right sentence written into the waves if he waited long enough.
El stood beside him.
Close enough to feel him.
Not close enough to touch.
They had been orbiting each other like this for months, careful, reverent, afraid of knocking something loose if they moved too fast. Phone calls every week. Sometimes twice. Sometimes just breathing on the line while Kate slept and the world stayed quiet for a few minutes longer than usual.
He had read her letters in winter. He hadn’t said a word. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t know how to speak without shattering them both.
The sun was sinking now, Easter evening painting the sky in soft bruises of pink and gold.
Mike swallowed. “I read them,” he said.
The words fell between them like glass. El didn’t flinch. She didn’t pretend not to know what was written on those pages.
“I figured,” she said softly.
He turned then, really turned, and she saw how much he’d been carrying. The tired red in his eyes. The way his shoulders never quite rested, like his body still didn’t believe the ground would hold.
“I didn’t know how to bring it up,” he said. “Every time I thought about it, it felt like I’d be asking you to relive it.”
She nodded. “It hurt when I wrote them,” she said. “And I know it probably hurt you toread them. But… it would’ve hurt more for both of us if you never did.”
He laughed once, he didn’t know what else to do broken and breathless. “I read them in order. Even the ones that scared me.”
Her mouth curved faintly. “I always write like I’m talking to you, I could always tell you anything, even the things that hurt me most, the things that terrified me- haunted my nightmares”
That nearly undid him.
Mike looked back out at the water, because if he looked at her any longer, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to speak.
“I need you to know something,” he said. “Before you start apologizing.”
She inhaled, shallow. “Mike-”
“I was lost too,” he interrupted, voice already breaking. “After I thought you died. I don’t think I ever let myself say that out loud.”
Her hand curled into her sleeve.
“There were nights in college where I didn’t think I was going to make it through,” he continued. “Not because I wanted to die, but because I didn’t know how to keep living in a world where you weren’t in it.”
El’s eyes filled instantly.
“I used to go into my dorm showers” he said. “Late. Three, four in the morning. I’d turn the water on and stand there for hours because it was the only place I could make noise without anyone hearing.”
His voice dropped, raw and unguarded.
“I’d cry until I couldn’t breathe. Until my chest hurt. Until my hands went numb.”
El pressed her fingers to her mouth, shoulders shaking. She could barely look at him, but also how could she not look into his eyes.
“And then I’d get dressed and walk,” he said. “There were empty fields outside campus. I’d stand there in the dark and scream. Not words. Just… sound. Until my throat burned and my voice was gone.”
Tears slid silently down her cheeks.
“I didn’t know how to carry it,” he whispered. “Losing you. I wanted to give up. Not dramatically. Just… quietly. Like I was done fighting.”
“Mike-”
“I’m telling you because I don’t want you to think you were alone in that,” he said, finally turning back to her. “You weren’t. You never were.”
She broke then.
Not loudly. Not violently. Just a small, shattered sound as she folded inward, arms wrapping around herself like she could hold everything together if she tried hard enough.
“I thought you’d hate me,” she whispered. “That if I came back, I thought you’d think I forgot you. That I replaced you.”
Mike shook his head immediately, stepping closer without realizing it.
“Never,” he said. “I wasn’t jealous. Not of him. Not of your life.”
She looked up, eyes red and terrified. “Then why did you stare?”
His answer was immediate.
“Because I was in awe.”
Her breath caught.
“Because you survived,” he said. “Because you built something. Because you loved her-” his voice softened at the thought of Kate, “so fiercely. Because you let yourself open up to someone else after everything.”
He swallowed hard.
“I was proud of you. And I still am. I always will be.”
She let out a sound that was half-sob, half-laugh. “I was scared it would erase him. Or you. Like loving one meant betraying the other.”
“It doesn’t,” Mike said firmly. “You didn’t stop being El when you were with him. And you don’t dishonor what you had with him just because you’re standing here with me.”
Her voice trembled. “I am not Claire with you,” she said. “And I was never El with him. They’re… different lives. Different parts of me.”
“And they’re both real,” Mike said. “Both of them.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty.
It was full, full of grief finally spoken, full of love finally understood and accepted.
El stepped closer. Just to exist nearer to him.
“I loved him,” she said quietly. “And I still love you.”
“I know,” Mike said. “And that doesn’t scare me.”
She exhaled shakily. “It scared me.”
He reached out then, slow, asking without words, and brushed his thumb against her knuckles.
“You don’t have to choose,” he said. “You never did.”
Her eyes closed.
For the first time in years, the guilt loosened its grip.
They stood there for a long moment after the silence settled, the kind of silence that didn’t feel empty, just heavy with everything that had finally been said out loud.
The ocean moved below them, steady and patient, like it always had been. Like it always would be.
Mike was the one who broke it this time. “Can I ask you something?” he said quietly.
El nodded. “Yeah.”
He hesitated, fingers tightening briefly around the porch railing before he let go, turning fully toward her.
“Tell me about him,” he said.
She blinked.
Not because she didn’t understand, but because she hadn’t expected that.
“About… Christopher?” she asked softly.
“Yeah,” Mike said. “If you want to. You don’t have to.”
She studied his face carefully, like she was searching for something, jealousy, pain, resentment, anything that might make the question dangerous.
She found none of it.
Just gentleness.
Just honesty.
Just the steady weight of someone who wanted to know her.
“You really want to hear it?” she asked.
He nodded. “I do.”
Her throat tightened. “Why?”
Mike swallowed. “Because he mattered to you,” he said simply. “And because that life mattered. And because I don’t want to love only the version of you that existed before everything broke.”
Her eyes burned.
“I want to know the woman you became,” he continued. “Not because I’m comparing. Not because I’m competing. Just… because she’s you.”
El looked out at the water, breathing slowly, steadying herself.
“Okay,” she said finally. “I can tell you.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, not closed off, just grounding, and leaned back against the porch post.
“I met him in the bakery,” she began. “I was still new. Still scared of everything. I didn’t speak the language well yet. I burned the bread all the time.”
Mike smiled faintly. “That makes sense.”
She laughed quietly, then continued.
“He came in every morning,” she said. “Not because the coffee was good, it wasn’t, but because it was warm. And small. And quiet.”
She paused, remembering.
“He had this tired look,” she said. “Like grief lived right behind his eyes. He’d sit at the counter and talk about nothing. Weather. Work. His grandfather’s hotel. Sometimes he’d just sit there and watch me knead dough.”
Mike listened intently, like every detail mattered.
“He never pushed,” El said. “Never asked questions I wasn’t ready to answer. He just… stayed. And after a while, I realized how rare that was.”
She swallowed.
“I didn’t fall in love with him all at once,” she said. “It was slow. Terrifyingly slow. I kept waiting for it to hurt. For something bad to happen. It took years of knowing him for me to even let him freely kiss me, touch me, hold my hand.”
“But nothing bad came from it,” Mike said gently.
“No,” she said. “Nothing did.”
She glanced at him briefly, then back to the ocean.
“He asked me to walk home with him one night,” she said. “It was snowing. My hands were numb. He kept making terrible jokes just to make me smile.”
Mike huffed softly. “Sounds like something I would’ve done.”
She smiled, fond and sad all at once. “Yeah.”
“When I finally told him I loved you,” she said quietly, “he didn’t flinch.”
Mike’s chest tightened.
“He didn’t see it as a threat,” she went on. “He said loving someone doesn’t mean you get to rewrite their past. That if he wanted all of me, he had to love the parts that still belonged to someone else.”
Mike closed his eyes briefly at that.
“I think that’s when I knew,” El said. “Not that I loved him. But that I could.”
She shifted, fingers twisting together.
“He held me while I broke down, the night I saw your picture on the back of your first book, the day I saw you for the first time in so many years…” She said, her voice cracking softy.
“He never asked questions, he never pressured me, never forced me. He saw my pain and understood it, and carried me through even if he didn’t know the full truth”
“He proposed on the beach,” she said. “It was windy. Cold. He was so nervous he dropped the ring.”
Mike smiled, small and genuine.
“I said yes and cried for hours afterward,” she admitted. “Not because I didn’t want to marry him. But because I was grieving something that never got to exist.”
Mike nodded. “I understand that.”
“We were happy,” she said. “Quietly. Gently. It felt… earned.”
She hesitated.
“And then there was Kate.”
Mike’s expression softened immediately.
“She wasn’t planned,” El said. “I found out two days before our wedding, and I was terrified. I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t think I deserved to. It took me till our wedding night to tell him”
He listened without interrupting.
“He talked to my stomach like she could hear him,” El said, smiling faintly. “Every night. He told her she was loved before she even existed.”
“One night I broke down, and I let everything out, the lab, how I met you, our friends, my family, my mother… all of it” Her voice trembled. Tears now streaming down her cheeks. “I was so scared that she would end up like me, but he assured me that my past didn’t matter, and whoever our baby would end up to be, she would be us”
“When he died… I didn’t know how to survive it,” she whispered. “But she did. She kept moving inside me. And I stayed because of her.”
Mike’s eyes shone.
“She saved me,” El said. “Over and over.”
She looked at him then, searching.
“I was scared to tell you all of this,” she admitted. “Because I didn’t want you to think you were replaceable.”
Mike shook his head immediately.
“I don’t,” he said. “I never did.”
She exhaled.
“I wanted to know,” he added softly. “Because that life made you who you are. And I love her too.”
That broke something open in her.
She covered her mouth, shoulders shaking.
Mike stepped closer, not touching yet, just there.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said. “I’m honored you trusted me with that.”
She nodded, tears slipping free.
“I’m glad you asked,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to keep it separate anymore.”
The air shifted again, not charged, not rushing, just softer. Warmer. Like two people finally standing in the same truth.
They stayed there as the sky darkened, the house glowing behind them, knowing something was changing, not erasing the past, but making room for it.
No rush.
No erasing.
Just recognition.
The porch light flicked on behind them without either of them noticing.
Inside, Joyce laughed at something Hopper said. A chair scraped. A door opened and closed. Life continued in soft, ordinary ways, unaware that something quiet and monumental was happening just beyond the glass.
Mike leaned back against the railing again, not because he wanted distance, but because he needed the wood under his hands to steady himself.
“I used to imagine you,” he said.
El turned slightly toward him.
“Not the way people think,” he added quickly, almost apologetic. “Not like… fantasies or anything. Just-” He searched for the right word. “Future versions. Of you.”
Her brow creased gently. “What kind?”
He swallowed. “The kind where you were safe,” he said. “Where you were laughing about something stupid. Where you were living somewhere warm, or somewhere cold, or somewhere completely unfamiliar. It didn’t matter. As long as you were alive.”
El’s chest tightened.
“I told myself that if you were out there,” he went on, “then you deserved more than grief. More than being frozen in the moment we lost each other.”
She hugged herself tighter, like she was bracing for something.
“I used to think that if you were alive, and you came back, and you hadn’t moved on… then all that pain would still be sitting there waiting for you,” Mike said. “Like a trap.”
He looked at her then, eyes soft but fierce.
“I didn’t want that for you.”
Her breath shook.
“So when I read your letters,” he continued, voice thickening, “and I saw you falling in love again- even through guilt, even through fear, I didn’t feel replaced.”
She searched his face again, still afraid.
“I felt relieved,” he said. “Because it meant you weren’t stuck in 1987. It meant you didn’t let the worst thing that ever happened to you define your entire life.”
Tears slid silently down her cheeks.
“I was scared you’d hate me,” she whispered. “I was scared you’d think I chose wrong.”
“There was no wrong choice,” Mike said immediately. “There was only survival.”
She laughed weakly, wiping at her face. “It didn’t feel like survival.”
“I know,” he said. “It felt like betrayal. Like guilt. Like constantly looking over your shoulder.”
She nodded, painfully seen.
“But El,” he said softly, stepping closer now, “I wanted you to have mornings that didn’t hurt. I wanted you to have someone who held you when you panicked. I wanted you to have a child who gave you a reason to stay.”
Her breath hitched.
“I wanted you to love again,” he said. “Even if it wasn’t me.”
That broke her.
She folded forward, hands braced on the railing now, shoulders shaking as she cried openly. Not quietly. Not politely. Years of fear and restraint and carefulness spilling out all at once.
Mike didn’t rush her.
He stood there with her, close enough that she could feel his warmth, his presence steady and sure.
“I was so afraid that coming home meant choosing,” she said through tears. “Choosing between the life I built and the life I lost.”
“You don’t have to choose,” Mike said. “You never did.”
She looked up at him then, eyes red, raw, honest.
“I still love him,” she said. “And I still love you.”
“I know,” Mike said again. “And I don’t need either of those things to disappear for me to be here.”
Something in her eased, not vanished, not fixed, but allowed.
“You’re not erasing him by standing here with me,” he continued. “And you’re not betraying us by having loved him.”
She exhaled shakily. “I was so scared I’d stop being El.”
“You never stopped,” Mike said gently. “You just grew.”
The wind shifted then, lifting her hair slightly, carrying the salt and the sound of the waves between them. They were standing closer now, not intentionally, not dramatically, just drawn by gravity they’d been resisting for years.
El reached out without thinking, fingers brushing the sleeve of his sweater.
Mike stilled.
Their eyes met.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
There was no rush. No desperation. No fear that this would undo anything.
Just recognition.
“I missed you,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said. “I missed you too.”
He leaned in first, or maybe she did.
Neither of them would ever be certain.
The kiss was soft. Uncertain. Full of breath and tears and history. It didn’t try to reclaim the past or promise the future. It simply acknowledged what had always been there.
When they pulled back, their foreheads rested together, breaths mingling.
She didn’t feel like she was replacing anyone.
She didn’t feel like she was losing herself.
She felt whole.
Not Claire.
Not just El.
But the woman who had survived, loved, lost, and come home anyway.
Mike brushed his thumb gently under her eye, wiping away a tear.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said quietly.
She nodded. “We always have.”
They stayed there as the house glowed behind them, the ocean steady below, knowing that nothing had been erased, only finally, fully seen.
And for the first time since everything fell apart, the future didn’t feel like something to fear.
It felt like something they could walk into together.
-
El woke the next morning to the sound of the ocean.
Not the sharp, violent roar she remembered from Icelandic cliffs, but the gentler rhythm of Montauk, waves rolling in like breath, steady and patient. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was. That half-second of panic flared in her chest, instinctual, old.
Then she remembered.
The house.
The porch.
Mike.
Her heart stuttered, not in fear, but in something fragile and warm.
She sat up slowly, careful not to wake Kate, who was sprawled across the bed sideways, one sock missing, hair an impossible tangle. Joyce had insisted they take the room with the window facing the water, saying nothing more than, “It feels right.”
El brushed Kate’s hair back gently, fingers lingering at her temple.
“I’m still here,” she whispered. “We’re okay.”
Kate sighed in her sleep, unconcerned with existential revelations, and rolled closer.
El smiled.
Downstairs, the house was already stirring. Floorboards creaked softly. A cabinet opened, then another. Hopper’s unmistakable cough echoed faintly from the kitchen.
She pulled on a sweater and stepped into the hallway, pausing when she heard voices.
Joyce and Mike.
Not hushed. Not secretive. Just… early-morning quiet, the kind reserved for people who had known each other forever.
El hesitated, then continued down the stairs.
Joyce was at the stove, hair loose, cardigan draped around her shoulders, flipping pancakes with practiced ease. Mike sat at the table, elbows braced, coffee cradled in both hands like he needed it to anchor him.
Joyce looked up first.
Her eyes flicked to El’s face, to the softness there, to the way her shoulders sat lower, less braced, and something shifted.
Joyce smiled.
Not curious.
Not questioning.
Just knowing.
“Morning,” she said gently.
“Morning,” El replied.
Mike turned then.
Their eyes met, no panic, no awkwardness, just a quiet acknowledgment of everything that had settled between them.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she answered.
Joyce watched them for a moment longer than necessary, then turned back to the stove.
“Kate still asleep?” she asked.
El nodded. “Out cold.”
Joyce hummed approvingly. “Good. That girl burns energy like it’s her job.”
El laughed, a real laugh, unguarded, and Joyce’s grip tightened on the spatula just slightly.
She plated the pancakes and set one in front of Mike, then another in front of El.
“Eat,” Joyce said before squinting at the both of them “You both look like you’ve been emotionally hit by a truck.”
Mike snorted. El smiled softly.
They sat.
The silence wasn’t heavy. It wasn’t careful. It was the kind that came from shared understanding, from a conversation that had finally been had.
Joyce poured more coffee, then leaned back against the counter, arms crossed loosely.
“You know,” she said casually, “I always liked Easter better than Christmas.”
Mike raised an eyebrow. “Because of Jesus?”
“Because things come back,” Joyce said simply.
El swallowed.
Joyce glanced at her, just once, and nodded, like she was affirming something only they shared.
After breakfast, the house slowly came to life. Hopper stomped around, grumbling about the weather. Kate woke and demanded chocolate eggs before being informed by everyone simultaneously that it was too early. Laughter filled the rooms.
El found herself watching Mike across the kitchen as he helped Joyce dry dishes, their movements easy, familiar.
Nancy arrived late-morning, hair still damp from a rushed shower, eyes sharp as ever. She took one look at Mike and El standing near each other, not touching, but unmistakably aligned, and said nothing.
She didn’t need to.
Later, El stepped out onto the porch again, mug warming her hands. The guilt she’d carried for years felt… quieter. Not gone. Not erased.
But no longer screaming.
Mike joined her a few minutes later, standing beside her like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “I think so.”
He hesitated. “You don’t have to have it all figured out.”
“I know,” she said. “For the first time… I actually believe that.”
They stood there, watching the ocean.
She thought of Christopher, of his laugh, his patience, the way he’d loved her without demanding pieces she couldn’t give. The thought didn’t hurt the way it once had. It felt like gratitude now. Like carrying him forward instead of holding him back.
And when she looked at Mike, at the boy who had found her in the woods, the man who had loved her enough to let her live without him, she didn’t feel torn.
She felt full.
“I was scared,” she said quietly, “that coming home would mean losing parts of myself.”
Mike shook his head. “You didn’t lose anything.”
She nodded. “I think… I finally understand that.”
The house breathed behind them. Kate laughed inside. Joyce’s voice floated through an open window.
El leaned just slightly closer to Mike, not a declaration, not a promise, just presence.
And for the first time since she’d run, since she’d survived, since she’d loved and lost and kept going anyway, the future didn’t feel like a punishment or a test.
It felt like something she was allowed to step into.
Slowly.
On her own terms.
And not alone.