A/N: Hello again! This is the final chapter, and it's probably horribly sweet and completely ridiculous but I wanted a happy ending :P Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing, and I hope this doesn't make you puke ;)

Sarah x

Five years later...

Hanssen turned around from his conversation with Chantelle Lane across the nurses' station desk when he heard a cry of, "Daddy!" to find four-year-old Anya running down Keller corridor, her long dark hair flying behind her, her Santa hat falling askew, her mother and sister following with smiles. "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Look what I got you!"

He picked her up as she ran to him, just like he did almost every day. "And what might that be?" he asked her, ignoring the amused looks he knew he was getting, just as he got every time his daughter came onto a ward. She passed up a small net. "Oh, chocolate coins," he smiled. If he thought his daughter would have let him forget it was two days until Christmas Day, he would have tried. "Well, thank you," he said.

He ripped open the net with his teeth and peeled one open, splitting one between himself and Anya. "Daddy, Ellie's home!" she squealed excitedly. "Ellie's home from unresity 'cause it's Christmas!" she emphasised, completely mispronouncing 'university.' She whispered to him, "It's in my pocket."

"I know, darling," he replied, smiling over at Serena and Eleanor as he felt around his daughter's coat pocket for what he had asked her to take with her today. "Thank you," he whispered into her ear.

"Well, I just have to finish off my paperwork and then I can come home," Henrik said to Serena, leaning down to kiss her cheek.

"I'll do it," volunteered Antoine Malick, now a consultant himself. Hanssen turned in surprise so the younger man reiterated, "It's Christmas and you've got a little kid. No brainer."

"Thank you," he replied.

"No problem," he smiled, taking Hanssen's stack of papers before he changed his mind about delegating it. Serena tried to take Anya from Henrik to allow him to collect his belongings, but the girl protested loudly, throwing her arms around his neck and clinging for dear life.

"It's fine," he assured Serena while Chantelle laughed behind them. "I'll put my coat on one way or another. How was the train down here, Eleanor?" he asked. She was studying medicine at Dundee University, and he knew the weather across Scotland had been awful since November.

"Horrible," she replied. "Got stuck at Leuchars and Edinburgh. I hate the snow. Although I had better luck than Siobhan. She lives in Glenrothes and the police shut the bridge at eight this morning. She'll probably have driven right around by Perth to get home, which sucks for her."

"Ah," he said, knowing all too well the tedium of northern winters.

"You're a right little Daddy's girl, aren't you?" Chantelle said, reaching up to ruffle Anya's thick dark brown hair. Chantelle, of course, knew the truth just as everyone else here did, but they all accepted that, in the sense that really mattered, Anya was Henrik's daughter. Hanssen just smiled to himself and kissed Anya's pale forehead.

Serena came to stand beside him with Eleanor on his other side. He took the small box in his hand and opened it where Serena would not be able to see. "I have a question for you, Serena," he said to her.

"Why don't I like the sound of that?" she drawled at him, her impudent sense of humour vastly unchanged.

Rolling his eyes, he ordered her, "Give me your left hand," because his movement was restricted in holding Anya. She hesitated so he said, "Stop being a baby and give me your hand."

She lifted her hand to him and demanded, "What's this question? Let me guess...can we have sushi for tea? Or – did you get some decent chocolate while you were out? Or, did you turn the Christmas lights off before you came out?"

He put the ring he had bought yesterday on her fourth finger as she listed all possible mundane questions he could have asked. When her relentless ranting abruptly stopped, he said, "Will you marry me?"

The look of shock on her face was priceless, and the question had reduced the whole ward to a temporary standstill. "Yes," she whispered. "I must be off my head getting married at this age, but yes!"

"We already know you're off your head, Mum," Eleanor grinned. Hanssen smiled and leaned down to kiss Serena while Anya started clapping her hands happily. To his amazement, everyone else followed suit, both patients and physicians alike. It was only when he broke off their kiss that he saw three familiar figures standing watching, all three grinning.

"Well," Jac Naylor said, carrying in her arms a little red-headed girl who looked almost frighteningly like her mother – Flora Naylor-Maconie – and Jonny Maconie at her side. "I never thought I'd see the day Henrik Hanssen had a family of his own," she smiled.

"Likewise," he raised an eyebrow at her. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," they all replied together as they walked by, presumably to start celebrating Christmas as a family.

"I'll go and bring the car around for you," Eleanor volunteered, and Henrik braced himself for Serena's undoubted reaction.

"Nice try, young lady!" Serena retorted. "Like hell am I letting you drive my car!"

"Oh, come on!" the young woman groaned. "I passed my test in the dead of winter in Angus, for Christ's sake!"

"Yeah, a month ago, on your fourth attempt and in a one litre Corsa, not a two litre diesel BMW," Serena reminded her. Hanssen shook his head to himself at their bickering – if there was one thing that had remained the same, it was the constant squabbling Serena and Eleanor did. Even over the phone, it was amusing to listen to. "No, we'll let Henrik go and get his coat and we'll leave together. And don't you dare take anything work-related home, you hear? Laptop and paperwork stays here over Christmas!" she warned him.

"Yes, ma'am," he sighed. To this day, he still hated not having work to do.

He them Serena and Eleanor niggling at each other, Eleanor still attempting in vain to convince her mother to allow her to drive the car.

The degree to which Eleanor Campbell had grown up since that explosive day she showed up drunk at the hospital made her almost unrecognisable, both in attitude and appearance. She had given up the dark eye make up and the dangerous drinking habits to be replaced with a more adult beauty akin to her mother's and an attitude that somehow got her the grades to study medicine. But Henrik sided with Serena here – he wouldn't let Eleanor drive his car either.

The change in Serena Campbell had been more gradual. She had struggled, to begin with, to get to grips with her second shot at motherhood, but now she was the best mother the girls could have asked for. She had always stayed strong and somehow managed to survive while giving him full credit for it, but he didn't feel like he had done anything notable. The ordeal she had faced, the ordeal that made all of this possible, was both a blessing and a curse: she still had the occasional nightmare about what she could not remember, but mere hours after Anya had been born she had recognised that the only good to come of what happened was the child she had given birth to and the family they had created out of love, pain and friendship.

He wandered to the lift, Anya still in his arms, to collect his things, only putting her down on his desk to put his coat on. He went to pick up his work laptop and briefcase full of papers before reminding himself that Serena would murder home if he took that home at Christmas.

He went into his drawer and took out the two necklaces he had dug out from his mother's possessions – one with a diamond heart and one a sapphire flower – and kept them in his hand as he lifted Anya up again. As they left his office and he pressed the button for the lift, he remembered again how lucky he was and how well everything had turned out. At times he still struggled to comprehend how such horror had created his family.

The change in himself, too, had been gradual and positive. He smiled every day. He got on better with his colleagues, even those he did not particularly like. He loved his family more than he ever dreamt was possible.

When he reached Keller, he sat Anya down on the desk of the nurses' station. He separated the necklaces, and put the diamond heart around Eleanor's neck. "What's this?" she asked him quietly as he put the sapphire one around the youngest's neck.

"These were my mother's," explained Henrik. "And I have a feeling she would have wanted her granddaughters to have them."

"Thank you," the sisters said at the same time. Eleanor hugged him tightly. It didn't bother him anymore. It didn't bother him for everyone to see he was human and loved his family. Why would he even want to hide that? They were a family. Not a typical one, granted, but a family nonetheless.

"You're welcome," he replied, patting her back lightly. She stepped back to her mother's side with a glowing smile, and it struck him just what a brilliant young woman his once-troubled, mouthy and enduring step-daughter had turned into.

"You didn't have to do that," scolded Serena, but the fondness in her dark eyes told him he wasn't really in trouble. In response, he just kissed her jaw and picked Anya up once more – she was going through a phase of refusing to walk if he was there, and it was driving Serena demented. She had given up on trying to force her to walk herself, for now, anyway.

"I love you, Daddy!" Anya said, bringing back him from the past. She said it every day and he never took it for granted. To know this little girl adored him was a gracious blessing he would never forget was just that – a blessing.

"I love you too, baby," he answered her, to her squealing and giggling delight kissing the end of her nose. It brought an identical amusement to Anya's eyes as it did when he did it to Serena. He meant it every time he said it, and he knew that, whatever happened, he would always love this little girl like she was his own.

After all the highs and excruciating lows they had survived together, after the mess their lives had been thrown into and what beauty and grace and love they had salvaged from that wreckage, Serena Campbell was to be his wife, whom he loved like had had loved no other woman in his life.

Eleanor Campbell was to be his step-daughter, whom he had grown to love beyond what he had expected that night he held her in his arms after she forced her mother's secrets out in the open. He felt for her like he did his youngest daughter, and he only hoped she knew he would do anything for her.

Anya Hanssen would always be his little girl, whom he loved like she was his own child, and even though biologically it wasn't true, legally and in his heart it was. Nothing as ordinary and immaterial as biology would change it: she was his baby girl, and he would always love her to bits.

Hope this is alright!
Please feel free to review and tell me your thoughts!
Sarah x