Read Chapter 35: The Board's Decision

The video call was scheduled for eight, but the island was awake by six. Freya stood at the kitchen window of the cottage, watching the grey light creep over the Sound, and tried to remember the last time she’d seen so many lights on in the village. The MacLeods’ kitchen. The post office. Even the Kirk, where old Mrs. Fraser had lit a candle, she said, for all of them.

Alistair came up behind her, sliding one hand around her waist, and pressed his chin to her shoulder. He hadn’t shaved. She could feel the rasp of it against her neck.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, not meaning it.

“The board can call me wherever I am. I’d rather be where I want to be when it happens.”

She turned in his arms. “Whatever happens, I’m proud of you. Even if you don’t want to hear it.”

He kissed her forehead. “I hear it. I just don’t know what to do with it yet.”

The phone rang at exactly eight. Freya watched him answer, listened to the tinny chorus of voices on speaker—the board chairman, a woman from legal, and the quiet presence of Marcus Chen, who had agreed to attend as an observer. She heard the chairman begin with formalities, the way men did before they delivered bad news.

Alistair’s hand tightened on the table. “Just say it.”

The chairman cleared his throat. There was a pause, then the woman from legal spoke instead. “Dr. MacLeod, as you know, this inquiry was convened to review your handling of the emergency appendectomy performed without proper administrative approval. Given the extraordinary circumstances—the storm, the condition of the patient, the lack of viable alternatives—we have weighed the evidence carefully, alongside your subsequent record and the statements provided by the crew of the *Sea Harvest*.”

Freya stopped breathing. Statements. The rescued crew. Maeve had been speaking with them all week, gathering signed affidavits, but she hadn’t thought—

“The board has voted to take no disciplinary action,” the woman continued. “Your medical licence remains unrestricted. This decision is final and will be recorded in your file as a closed matter. Furthermore, the board wishes to formally commend your actions during the rescue operation and your dedication to your patients under extraordinary circumstances.”

Alistair didn’t speak. His hand was still wrapped around the phone, knuckles white, but his shoulders had dropped an inch, the way a man does when he sets down a weight he forgot he was carrying.

The chairman spoke again, softer now. “You’re a damn good doctor, Alistair. We know that. We always did. This was never about your skill. It was about the paperwork, and the paperwork is done.”

There was a shuffle, then Marcus Chen’s voice, clear and calm. “Dr. MacLeod. I was asked to deliver this news in person, but I think a recorded call is sufficient. For what it’s worth—I reviewed your surgery notes. I would have made the same call.” A brief pause. “I’ve also requested an extension of my locum placement. The island may need regular cover while you undertake broader community responsibilities.”

Alistair blinked. “Thank you, Marcus.”

The call ended. The room was silent, and then the sound of the wind against the window filled it, and Freya felt Alistair’s hand find hers on the table. He let go of the phone and pulled it away from his ear, and she saw his eyes were wet.

“It’s over,” he said. “They’re not coming for me.”

The door burst open. Maeve stood in the doorway, phone in hand, breathless. “You need to see this. Both of you. Now.”

She thrust the screen toward them. A notification, then a headline from a national broadcaster: **MINISTRY CONFIRMS LIGHTHOUSE REPRIEVE AFTER COASTGUARD RESCUE AND COMMUNITY CAMPAIGN**.

“Read the rest,” Maeve said. “Go on.”

Freya took the phone. Her voice trembled as she read aloud. “The Department for Transport, in consultation with the Scottish Maritime Heritage Trust, has announced a five-year reprieve for the Alisgeir Lighthouse. The decision follows the heroic rescue of the crew of the *Sea Harvest* and the successful public campaign led by islanders and documentary filmmaker Freya MacLeod. The period will allow the community to develop a sustainable heritage plan, with government funding available for renovation and maintenance.”

She looked up. Alistair was staring at her, a slow smile spreading across his face. “You did that. You and that camera of yours.”

“No,” she said. “We all did. But mostly Alistair—it was your courage in the storm that changed the story.”

He kissed her then, hard, in front of Maeve, who grinned and slapped the doorframe. “Get a room, the pair of you. But first—Craig’s putting a barrel in the square and I’ve been told to announce it at the pub. The whole island wants to toast you both.”

Freya laughed, and then she was crying, and she didn’t know if it was joy or relief or the sheer, bone-deep exhaustion of the last months.

They descended toward the village together, Alistair’s arm around her shoulders, the compass Duncan had left him in Freya’s pocket, warm against her thigh. The sky had cleared, and the morning broke over the island, grey gone, all gold. The pub doors were open; she could hear the first chords of a fiddle.

The celebration lasted until nightfall. Freya filmed none of it, and for the first time in her career, she was grateful for the absence of a lens between herself and the moment. She danced until her feet ached. She drank a pint Maeve shoved into her hand. She watched Alistair laugh, truly laugh, with Callum’s arm around his shoulders and Iain’s hand raised in a toast, and she thought: *This is what he looked like before. Before everything.*

Later, when the pub had thinned and the musicians were packing up their instruments, Alistair walked her back toward the lighthouse path. The beam swung overhead—still burning, still his.

“Five years,” he said. “That’s not forever.”

“No,” she said. “But it’s a start.”

He stopped her at the gate, turning her to face him. His eyes were tired, but clear. “Freya. I’ve been thinking about what happens next. About you. I don’t know what the board saying yes means for us. I don’t know what the summer will bring, or the next year, or the five after that. I just know I want you in it. In all of it.”

Freya looked past him, down at the village below, the lights in the windows, the boats tied in the harbour—a place she had come to by chance and now could not imagine leaving. Home. She opened her mouth to answer, but the words hadn’t formed yet, and so she climbed on her toes and kissed him instead, tasting salt from the sea and the whisky from the toast, feeling the steady drum of his heartbeat against hers.

The beam swept past, over the water, into the dark, and for the first time in months, no one was afraid of what came next.