What Dreams May Come

I don't on anything except wild fantasies about Alec and Ellie. Cheers to Chibnall, Tennant and Colman.

Miller popped in late with an update on the boat being Oliver's; at least his dad's boat. I knew it was a lead in to something juicier. As this constabulary group was new to me, the local gossip was a way to learn about my team. You can gather a lot of information making tea in the kitchen. And this was juicier than I expected. SOCO Brian Young had just asked her out. Out, out I wondered or drinks with the gang out. A big difference. Miller left shortly after and me even later yet. Once I was back in my hotel room, pills taken, changed to my jimjams, stretched out in bed; I waited for sleep to take over. I was having more difficulty than usual. Miller and Dirty Brian...ew?...but!...ach!? ta.

Fade-out / Fade-in

Mark Latimer had claimed during questioning him about his alibi the night his son died, that he'd been with Becca Fisher. A lovely Australian girl who ran the Traders Hotel.

We called Miss Fisher in to collaborate and what we heard was not as expected. She wasn't with Mark that night but another husband in Broadchurch. When she refused to tell us more until the room cleared out and only myself was left, my sweet-tempered DS screamed. "Really, Fisher; again? He knows I'll divorce him if he stopped by for a friendly beer and friendlier shag." Fisher had the common decency to hang her head and apologized to Miller. "He said you'd had your pills and would never find out. I don't want to lie even for the Latimers, but I didn't want to hurt you either." "I'm a bloody detective, you think I wouldn't have figured it out eventually, bitch?" "Now Millah, just cal..." "Don't tell me to calm down. This is also the local strumpet who's cuckold every wife surrounding the back field of my neighborhood." "Oh, weel, I understand your anger." "No, sir; you don't."

Late Friday afternoon, Broadchurch constabulary, bullpen. I watched as everyone left for the day but my DS, Ellie Miller. It was several days after Becca's confession and Miller was letting her boys stay with her sister Lucy and Oliver for the weekend. She'd thrown Joe out and he was openly staying with Becca. Dirty Brian walked through and gave a shout out to Miller. She waved him away with a "See you Monday." Since Joe moved into the hotel, I'd decided to seek better accommodations and found as Tess would have put a "quaint" little blue bungalow by the river end of Broadchurch; close to the ocean as well.

None of my colleagues knew of my culinary expertise. For some reason, I'd marinated two steaks that morning for that night's dinner. Pasta with lemon and butter and just enough Dram Buie Whiskey to give the pasta some flavor. My makeshift sauce needed to be cooked down a bit to dispel the effects of the Whiskey that I can't have. Found some short corn cobs to grill. Had left herbal sun tea on my steps and I'd soon have a decent dinner for two.

I sidled over to Miller's desk and plopped down on the corner. Looking around, I was relieved no one was about. "Miller, please tell me you're going to eat with your sister and kids or the Latimers and have an actual meal?" "Not your business, Sir." "Actually it is; I'm done with shit meals and have prepped enough to two tonight. Bring today's updates on the case and we'll have a working dinner. I've no wine, if you want to bring some." "Oh, ran out?" "Don't drink much anymore. Set out some Herbal sun tea before I left. Steaks marinating in some good Whiskey." "How good is the Whiskey and enough left for drinks after?" "I'm a bloody Scotsman so it is top shelf Whiskey. May be enough for one glass but I'll be walking you home." "After one glass?" "Top shelf, Millah!" "Steak does sound good, much better than a Tuna Helper, which since the boys are out all night; I'd end up eating all of it alone...with a bottle of the shitty wine Joe bought."

"We'll stop for a good bottle of White and and one of those ready to cook pies... sherbet; that I can have on my fatten me up again diet. My cardiologist in Sandbrook wants me to gain a stone or two." "Ten stone would make you look better, Sir!"

Our shopping done, we headed back to my bungalow. Miller brought in the tea and files while I pulled out the steaks and started the small propane grill on my stone deck. While that heated up, I gave Miller the salad fixings and I buttered and wrapped in tin, the corn, two apiece I thought. I set the pasta pot with water to boil. Poured a couple of cups of Dram Buie to low simmer and fixed us two glasses of tea. "I've got to warn you, Ell, the tea is herbal." "So you said in the office." "Oh, yeah, huh."

Taking the steaks to the grill, I asked how she likes hers. The answer was barely pink. Took the corn out to cook next. I found myself thoroughly relaxing as I had with Tess and Daisy fixing dinners at home. To be certain, I grabbed my blood pressure cup and had Ell take it. A little off for most people but in my range.

"I need to call my cardiologist with these numbers, if you don't mind checking the steaks. Don't turn them over yet."

Unusual, I found my Broadchurch cardio at home. Told him the numbers as I wandered as far from Miller as I could. Just loud enough to be heard over the phone, I asked if the numbers were alright for intimate contact. Receiving a bollocking from the doctor, he finally told me to be careful, very careful. Grinning from ear to ear, I hung up and told Miller, the numbers were acceptable for a long night of running through the case.

We sat down to eat and had a nice meal. I had some questions regarding the gossip I'd heard in the kitchen. Ellie supplied precise answers for me. We touched on the case, mostly time line information.

I'd started the pie to bake as we sat down. We let it cool a bit while she had her glass of scotch, I had more tea. After pie on the sofa, I turned off most of the lights and we just sat looking out on the water. She became restless and started walking around. I got up and sat on the sofa arm. As she passed me, I gently grabbed her and pulled her close. Before she could do anything, I kissed her. A long kiss that took our breaths. Nuzzling her temple, I said "I've been wanting to do this for 2 days now." A breathless "What?" "Since you mentioned Dirty Brian asking you out, I've been fantasizing about us. Then you threw Joe out and...Ellie, I'm in love with you." "You can just get out of love, Sir." "Can't."

She hadn't left my arms and I realized hers were wrapped around me. I kissed her long again. When I felt her returning the kiss, I pulled away. "Spend the night with me, Ellie." My heart was beating fine. No dizziness, shortness of breath or fading feeling. This was right.

As I moved to kiss her again, she made the advance. Kissing me back wholeheartedly, she whispered, she wanted to spend the night. We moved to my tiny bedroom and I began to undress her, carefully laying each item of clothing on a chair. My clothes I just dumped in a corner. We moved as one through the night and early morning, she left as I slept. Weel, the bed was small.

We were both back in the office on Monday. I decided to make no comments other than to ask her and several others if they'd had a relaxing weekend. All came back affirmative. Literally they said "Affirmative." In the open bullpen, Miller asked for some personal time on Wednesday, she had an appointment [I panicked for a moment, until I remembered it took at least two weeks for a pregnancy test] with her attorney to start divorce proceedings. Asking what was the rush, it was a contingency of the contract Joe signed to try to insure he'd not screw Becca again. Most of the wronged wives in the neighborhood had the same contract.

I was going to question Mark Latimer again. And this time we got the truth. Nigel left around 10 for last call, however he usually goes poaching on a farm for pheasants. Mark went with him that night. Both described siphoning the gas from the farmer's tractor and cutting the barbed wire fence and I solved a case Bob and I had started before I received the call regarding Danny.

Ell came in Wednesday late with a big smile on her face. Due to the contract Joe signed, Ellie got the kids, house, the better car and half the checking account and all of the savings. Ellie didn't want child support. It might take time for him to find a job. All he was getting out of the house was his clothes, personal items and the shitty wine. Having taken a bottle in with her that morning, the Judge had agreed, it was shitty wine.

Because of the contract, the divorce would be final in about two weeks. She was given her proclama nici in court as Joe couldn't answer against the acquisations with Becca waiting to be called if needed. Ellie was forcing this as a statement to the other husbands in the neighborhood. Beth had asked Mark if he wanted them to sign a contract as well. No need, if everyone but them and his own single mother-in-law had one, Becca was not someone he wished to visit.

Another two weeks and Millah would be single. I understood this very talented detective / mother / homemaker deserved very much to be a wife of a loyal husband. And I wanted to be that husband. The preparing of the dinner itself was enough to convince me that I very much needed a loving family home. I only hoped I could convince Daisy and Tess as well, that I deserved this.

What I forgot to count on was Tom Miller, Ellie and Joe's oldest son. I'd followed Ellie home that night, mutual agreement, so I could cook lemon chicken for four. Fred was too small to help, so I tried to enlist Tom to help coat the chicken in flour, egg yolk and then in semolina flour. He tried to get out of it. His mother told him dinner would be very late if he didn't help out. Going to bed hungry was not something he was looking forward to.

Thanks to Daisy, I knew some of the recent bands out and found out he was a skateboarder too. Something I'd tried in Glasgow decades ago. He asked if I was going to be around more often. I responded that as his mother was now a single parent, we might bring work here so she could parent him and wee Fred and I'd help by cooking. "I can tell you're not happy with that option. There's not much that can be done if you look at the logistics." "You can't replace my dad." "I don't intend to." "You keep watching her." I looked him straight in the eye and said, "Aye." He flushed and mumbled "You can't replace him." "I truly have no intention to replace Joe. However, once this case is over I'd like to be more to her than a boss."

"I'd just like to be friends to you and Fred, if you'll let me." "You can..." "He's your dad and unless I find out he killed Danny, he should still have a part in your life. There will be no replacing him." "Alright."

A month later the divorce final, Ellie asked me to move in. She'd told our CS about our relationship and Elaine wasn't fazed. She knew me well enough to catch on to what we were up to Monday after our romantic Friday.

I was going to have Tom mow the lawn, per Ellie's instructions, when I found what I thought was Tom's phone in the shed. Taking it to him, I saw him playing on his phone, Ellie drop the cup she as drying and said that it as Danny's phone. We grabbed the boys and sped to the station to have SOCO check it out. With my prints on file, Ellie called Mark to bring in a couple of items from the house, that she knew only Joe ever touched.

The prints matched. Mine, Danny's and Joe's. We called Becca to get Joe out of the hotel and closer to the nick. Once there, I arrested Joe, while Ellie had taken the boys to the tech room overlooking the interview room. If we were going to hear what I thought he would tell, Ellie felt Tom at least needed to hear. Once the interview was over, I returned to the tech room and was grabbed by a sobbing Tom. Wrapping my arms around him, I calmed him. Told him I cared for him more that Whiskey. "Whiskey?" "Chocolate Whiskey!" "Brilliant, Uncle Alec."

As a family. I and the Millers went home for a quiet evening, attended Church on Sunday and had the Latimers over for a great dinner, Beth and Ellie, spoke their minds on how Ellie could have not known about what Joe did. I put in my two cents on the mind of a criminal and the girls settled their differences with love. After they left, Maggie came by with her friend Jocelyn Knight and Ellie and I gave Mags the exclusive interview of the entire case. Including mine and Ellie's relationship. Jocelyn aimed some very good questions at various points. Maggie told her she needed to come out of retirement and take up the crown's case.

Being involved with the evidence, from the interview. Jocelyn made sure nothing was left to chance. Joe had acquired Sharon Bishop, an old and bitter Junior to Jocelyn. As Sharon knew she would, Jocelyn built her case brick by brick; Sharon couldn't make a single hole in it. Lucy had, at Ollie's insistence, came to us saying that she'd seen a man of Joe's build dumping something in a bin near 4 am. SOCO ran through the trash dump and found a bag containing the plastic bags and gloves Joe had worn to clean Danny and the cottage. One Susan Wright came in to claim the man who dumped Danny was her natural son, Nigel Carter. In a lineup of five men dressed in the dark clothing that Lucy had described, Susan couldn't say who was Nigel; but she did finger Joe as the right build for the man she saw. Mark and Nige both took the stand to confirm their alibi's and was fined by the Judge to recompense the Farmer whose gas they siphoned and ordered to personally repair the fence they cut.

I gave evidence as the SIO of the case and Bishop could in no way poke a hole in my testimony. Mark's visit to Joe was done in my presence with the door shut between them. Bishop went at Ellie with guns blazing, claim our affair was the incentive to get Joe out of the way. Ellie fired back two shots to Bishop. The divorce decree that ended her marriage before the phone was found, based on Joe's affair with Becca and from a tidbit Jocelyn let loose on, a shot at Bishop about her mothering skills. Bishop ended her cross exam of Ellie immediately.

Apparently Joe was shite during Bishop's play cross of him and Sharon could only call a few of the defense witnesses to re-cross. Lucy was called as 3 weeks after she came in, Ellie had loaned her some money. Having told Jocelyn what she was going to do, Jocelyn made sure there was a paper trail and had Maggie as a witness to the exchange.

As Lucy starting pulling out the papers, Bishop cut her off and rested her case. The Crown offered 30 years with possible parole in 20. Joe didn't want to go to prison at all and was refusing the accept until the Judge told him, the Jury had the right to sentence him to life. Joe accepted the plea and was sent to jail to await his sentencing. It went down according to plan.

I had kept the bungalow and not sublet as I still had a year's lease. Told Ellie and the boys about my heart condition. Asked Ellie for some time to gather my thoughts over the weekend. She agreed with the condition to call her if I was experiencing problems.

I thought long and hard about getting the pacemaker as my last appointment had me with a 75 percentage chance of making it through. Come Monday morning, I walked to the station to convince Elaine to open Sandbrook officially. Once at the bullpen, I noticed the board still had Danny's case up.

"What the fuck is that still doing up?" "Sir?" "The Latimer case. Solved last September and...and...! My office now, Millah!"

"Hardy, is everything alright!" "There are 3 people still in the bullpen that transferred out since the Latimer case was closed. The fucking board is still up. You're still here and not arresting motorists speeding through Devon as a PC. What happened over the weekend?" "What do you remember?" "Just tell me what you said Friday night before I went home?" "The boat appeared to have been my Brother in laws and Dirty Brian asked me out."

Ellie noted the anguish in his voice as I said. "Oh, for fucks sake; the whole last year has been a dream! Shit!"