Set during the first episode of the second series of Broadchurch.
Lifeline
Even at this distance she looks like shit.
The Ellie of old—with her elfin cheek and naughty grin—is gone. The rag doll woman standing in her place wears a bloodless mask. Two glassy pebbles where her eyes should be.
She has been fished up into the room and dropped to a sudden stop. And when she looks at them, for a second he thinks she is so bewildered she has forgotten who she is and where she is and an old instinct has kicked in and these are familiar faces so how can she be lost?
For a second he thinks she might come their way. Then she shakes and turns her back to them—DI Hardy is hailing her—and Beth bristles.
'Didn't think she'd have the nerve.'
'Yeah, all right, Beth. Let's just see it through.'
Mark looks ahead. It would be nice if Beth might do the same sometime. Oh, he knows she's holding it together for them at the moment. Turns out she's the strong one. The practical one. She's making all the decisions keeping them afloat. But dive deeper. She's looking at the now—not the future. She's flooded with poison. Every breath pumps rage in her blood—the baby's blood—and he's worried for them.
Worried and useless. His boat in a dry dock. He can't tell her how to feel—if counseling has taught him one thing, that's been it. He feels what he feels. She feels what she feels. There's no right way or wrong way to do it.
Some people get numb, some people get confusion. She got rage. He got guilt.
What did you get, Ell?
Mark almost can't breathe around Beth anymore. Her rage burns up all the oxygen. At first he'd lived with it. Rage can't fire forever. It needs fuel to survive. After weeks of waiting for the flare to subside, he wakes up: she has no shortage of fuel to consume.
Murmurs about Tom started early.
Lucy, who sits behind him, took Tom in days after the funeral. Ell had vanished. Just like that: gone. It seemed peculiar when two weeks later Tom was still there, with his aunt. Even going to school.
It seemed reasonable at first. Then started the whispers. Oh, Tom's angry. He blames his mum.
It makes perfect sense to Beth. It's natural justice. Karma at its delicious, smiting best. Tom knows the truth and has freed himself from the rot.
Mark is not so sure. He sees a flaw. If Beth's justice is at work—what does she make of the little one. Fred. If it's justice for Tom to escape, where's the justice for Fred still being with his mother? How can she see that as justice?
It's not justice at work.
When it's over—or rather when Mark realises it's just beginning and they are facing a trial—he looks up.
DI Hardy's hand hangs in the air as Ellie makes a swift exit through the door. Behind Mark, Lucy Stevens frets, pushing her way to the end of the public gallery. She ducks outside but returns shaking her head.
This doesn't worry Mark. A trial ensures they haven't lost Ell entirely.
But they're close to it, and he must act.
If Beth finds out … he flicks a glance her way and straightens. He betrayed her once—and he was wrong then. But this time betraying her is the right thing to do.
One day, when—not if, he crosses his fingers—Beth understands, he hopes she will forgive him. Hopes she knows that while she was burning everyone and everything down around them, he was fighting in her wake. Saving their lives as well.
Ell looks like shit? Ell feels like shit.
He doesn't know for sure—he doesn't know anything for sure these days—but he hasn't forgotten the memory of friendship. And he recognises the look on her face, knows a kindred spirit, because he sees it on his own when he isn't too scared to stare into a mirror.
And while he can't say it for himself, he can say it clearly for her: She doesn't deserve it.
And Tom is the only lifeline he can throw.