Hi, so here is the FINAL CHAPTER of this story! When I started this monster last year I didn't know where the character of Bridget would take me but I am pleased to say that I think I have left her in a good place. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and this story.

I want to thank everyone who has supported me over the course of the writing of these forty two chapters. I want you to know your reviews and your favourites and your following has been a source of immense comfort and I hope to return to this great fandom when the inspiration strikes. Until then, happy reading.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.

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Bridget

Chapter 42-Farwell My Lovely

Bridget looks back at how far she has come and how far she has to go as Erin makes a decision about her life and her future. Hank goes along for the ride, Bridget learns to forgive herself and finally things come full circle so to speak in the final chapter of this story!

The meeting was both painful and yet not painful. Looking back months later even years after the fact Bridget was still unsure of how she had felt as she had sat down at that kitchen table and confessed that she had been unable to get to Lexi. That Lexi had been in that house as a support for her. That the truth was that Lexi wouldn't have been at that party had it not been for Bridget and her stupid need to not feel anything.

And yet…she didn't cry. Meredith had never been a crier, Lexi had never been a crier in the same way Bridget had never been one for tears either. Both of them had been cops kids through and through and Meredith had been held hostage at her own kitchen table and had still not dissolved into tears.

It seemed as well like the grief that they both felt was beyond tears, and certainly if Bridget's feelings were anything to go by—she was certain that there were no tears left.

At the end of Bridget's uploading Meredith stared at her for a second and then her face seemed to soften a little around the edges. Bridget who had been expecting anger had not expected the hug. She couldn't remember the last time she had been held like that, as if by a mother. God knows Erin's hugs didn't feel the same way as that one did in Meredith's kitchen but she found as Meredith walked her to the car both of their faces showing a little less strain and with the promise that Bridget would never be a stranger, that the burden of living while her friend was dead had lifted a little.

It was she supposed a natural part of moving on.

Lexi though, Lexi would have said it was love.

She had Bridget thought as she drove home, always been a soppy bitch.

"Cow" said a voice inside her head and Bridget laughed without meaning too and then promptly had pull over into the nearest car park and contemplate that she was actually smiling over something again, and it didn't hurt.

When she went home last night she could have almost laughed. Her Dad had clearly been doing the whole pacing up and down thing that normal Dad's did when the dates came round. Of course hers would do it for another reason.

"Hey" she said smiling. One eyebrow was enough to tell her that it had been a long time since she had lasted smiled (as if she didn't know that already) and she found that she was a little bit more receptive to the hug as well.

Later that night when they sat down for dinner she found she could eat a little bit more. They spoke a little about Meredith but then as they were nearing the end of it Bridget was suddenly struck by an epiphany.

"Oh" she said finally. "Oh I get it now. Do you know something Dad? I think I've finally screwed myself to the point. I've reached it in my own head…"

"No I don't know" her Dad said watching her as if he was expecting her to suddenly suggests that they go to Mars or something.

"I don't blame myself anymore…for surviving"

Her Dad opened his mouth and then shut it. For a second he seemed to be thinking hard about what he was going to say and Bridget could almost see him crossing off the suggestions in his head because they were too…well…too Hank Voight to come out sensitive.

"It's ok" Bridget said after a second of watching this painful internal struggle. "Really It's ok. I think I had to get myself to this point alone and now I'm here well…I guess I cannot sink any lower so that has to be a good thing"

Her Dad looked as if he wanted to say something to that and then again thought better of it. Bridget didn't mind. The nightmare that had been going to see Lexi's mother was over. She found that night she could breathe a little easier and sleep a little easier, deeper and longer. And that she couldn't smell the stench of smoke which had haunted her since she had opened her eyes to a world without her mother, her brother and her best friend.

The drama was never over however. Even if by some miracle Hank got one daughter back to the land of the living something always had to happen to the other one. He had been denying the process, denying the fact that it had been coming for the better part of six months but he knew that deep down for certain Erin's career in Intelligence and potentially as a cop was coming to a close.

He wasn't surprised by it really. He could fight for Erin the same dogged fight he had fought for her when she had been fifteen, when Charlie had been in town, when Nadia had died, when she had moved Bingham's body for him, certainly whenever that mother of hers was interested in her. He had fought all of those fights even fighting for her career…a fight where he was convinced he couldn't win was something he could do. But…but the truth of the matter was he was tired of fighting. He had pulled or certainly helped pull Bridget back from the brink. He wasn't sure if he had another fight in him especially because it seemed like Erin herself wasn't even interested in fighting.

And then there was the dramatic involvement of Bunny Fletcher. Hank took stock of who he had lost since he had begun running this department, Jules, Nadia, Lexi…he would take them all for Bunny Fletcher. In fact he could throw Bunny Fletcher to the wolves that were the FBI for the hell of it, sit back with a scotch and watch nature take it's course but he had long since given up on that. Erin despite his best efforts didn't hate her mother enough to watch her rot for a crime that she didn't do (though Hank would bet his shield on her knowing it was coming one way or another) and a touch of calculation and interest ensured that his department was working the case.

The FEDs were a problem that he could deal with. Erin under an escort to sit at her own desk was not. Bridget going back to school without Lexi was not. If he was being honest he wasn't sure how much more he could take of this. Of this constant struggle between the two children he had left and how he was going to get them back onto even playing fields.

Camille he knew would tell him to relax and let Bridget and Erin do what was best but Hank had never been one for relaxing like that. All of his energy had to be burnt out somewhere or else the events of what was going down would continue to hit him and then…well…then he'd do something stupid.

He'd done it before after all. Browning, Bingham, Matt Casey, and look where that had gotten him. No son, no daughter at one point, and at another point in his life no job and a good long stretch inside. And Hank would be damned if he was going to prison again just because he couldn't control the noise in his head.

"You need a vacation" Al said when Hank told him this that night over a beer. "Take Bridget, take Erin and go somewhere warm for two weeks. Jay and Antonio can cover the department, go and be somewhere other than here when Erin's fired or demoted or reassigned. Go and spend some time with them. God knows what I would do for five more minutes…"

He trailed off and Hank knowing where his train of thoughts had gone (and resolutely not thinking of Bridget collapsing into Matt Casey's arms just at the point where he had thought he had lost the only thing that had kept him alive at one point) reached for his phone.

Various parts of Europe were supposed to be lovely at this time of year after all.

Erin came round that night they closed…or her Dad closed the case involving her mother with a look in her eye that told Bridget that she had made a decision and that she knew it was not going to go over very well. She and her Dad were locked in a room together for an hour or so and then when they came out Bridget who had known Erin since she was fifteen and she had been a scared and sad ten year old knew that Erin had made a decision to leave the department and to move on somewhere, out of the city, out of their lives, out of the job.

Once it might have upset her. But for the first time since Justin had died (and now she was admitting it probably since her Mom had died) she had managed to admit to herself that she was on a good emotional standing. She could talk she found about things that she had never wanted to talk about before and she knew that she was a little more older and wiser than that sixteen year old girl who had loved her brother and her father and had been unable to forgive Antonio for choosing something other than her family. She was more mature than the girl who had gotten the Cartier watch and the haircut and the black dress that had made her legs go long or who had given her virginity to Sean Roman simply because she had wanted to feel something other than the dread that came when you knew that something was wrong in the back of your mind.

She had lost most of her family but had somewhere along the lines gained a new one so when Erin told her she was leaving she didn't make a barbed comment, or some sort of joke or cry or scream. She took it as something that she had known was coming. Because she had ever since she had pulled her head out of her own grief and acknowledged what was coming.

"Your still gonna come to Europe right?"

"Hell yeah, your Dad's paying, wouldn't miss that for the world"

"Oh good, cause the drinking age in London is eighteen, now Erin and I can hit the town like we planned. Lexi would have been so jealous…god she'd have never let me hear the end of it."

Erin stared at her for a second and then at the smile that Bridget flashed at her and then laughed. Bridget laughed too and found that it didn't hurt or feel like a betrayal to feel things again.

"Ugh" was all her Dad said to that rather witty (or so she had thought) response. "I am going to find the take out menus."

He hugged her on the way out the door and Bridget hugged him back moving to sit next to Erin and listening to the sounds coming from the kitchen.

"Are you alright?" Erin asked finally tilting her head to the side as she took her in. Bridget turned to her and her smile was sanguine and as genuine as she could make it.

"No" she said truthfully. "I don't know if I will be alright for a long time. But I figured something out today. That whatever happens, whatever has happened…one way or the other...I will be"

And with that she sat back on the couch and let the night carry on, safe, secure and for the first time in a time too long ago to remember, happy.

It was no small thing for her she thought smiling. Happiness.

And for the last time let me know what you think. I thank you all again for your support over the course of writing this story.

Happy Reading.