She thinks there are no secrets between him and her. He wishes she were right.
Alec lies to Ellie by omission, but the results are still lies. As of this morning, two secrets are left between him and her. As of this afternoon, one will be gone. So will he be, maybe. Maybe not. He doesn't quite dare to hope.
A few more hours lie between now and the pacemaker operation, and they're going to be lonely despite the trial he is going to attend. The one person who knows about his operation doesn't care enough about him anymore to take it upon her to accompany him to the hospital, and the person who does care doesn't know about it yet because she would care too much.
It's odd to think that this morning might have been the last time he ever woke up. The last time he showered and got dressed. The last time he made himself a cup of tea. The last time he packed a bag to go somewhere.
Alec has put the few things he hopes he'll need into the travelling bag: loose, comfy clothes for after the operation, even his toothbrush and toothpaste although he hopes he can get out of the hospital by tonight if he lives through the procedure at all.
He takes a photo out of the top drawer of his bedside table and holds it at arm's length. Unsatisfied with the fuzzy contours he's seeing, he pulls his reading glasses out of the pocket of his suit jacket with his other hand, flips them open with a flick of his wrist and slides them onto his nose. Now he can see the ginger girl in the picture clearly. Daisy seems to be smiling right at him and he feels himself smile back at his daughter despite the dire circumstances. It's a sad smile, but his eyes are full of love and warmth fills his heart when he thinks back to a few days ago when he got to hug her again after months of no contact. Alec knows she would call him soppy if she could see him now, and it only makes him smile more.
Ever since the intensity of his symptoms made it impossible to pretend that he was alright, the thought that he could be doing whatever he is occupied with for the last time has accompanied him every waking minute.
It pops up like a reliable, sinister jack-in-the-box and causes a piercing pain in his chest. For once, it doesn't have anything to do with his failing heart.
After placing the framed photo in the padded side pocket of the travelling bag standing at his feet, Alec straightens. The drawer is still open and his gaze lands on the single item left in it: a pebble with an indent that makes it look like a heart. The mud clinging to it has dried and cracked so that it looks a lot more fragile on the outside than it is on the inside.
Ellie doesn't know that Alec has kept the pebble Fred gave to him on their walk a few days back. She might never learn that the stone heart with the crumbling outer shell makes him think of her, of the strength that is hidden beneath a layer of trust that has fractured more and more over the course of the investigation and the trial.
He has no idea that her trust in him is what keeps her heart from falling apart.
Alec can't bring himself to scrape the dirt off of the pebble, so he picks it up with great care and wraps it in a tissue. It fits into the little pocket on the inside of the bag and he zips it closed.
Just like that, it's time to leave.
He arrives at the court building a little too early, the way he intended. Alec places the bag in one of the lockers in the lobby before going through the security check and walking up the stairs to the first floor. Leaning onto the railing of the gallery in front of courtroom 1, he looks out for Ellie. When he sees her cross the wide open space on the ground floor, he walks over to the top of the stairs to meet her there.
She's got that look on her face that tells him that she has braced herself for whatever accusations the defence might throw at her today and that he better not try to be nice and too obvious in his attempts to support or even comfort her.
When she sees him, she acknowledges him with a nod and it's enough of a greeting for him, so he turns to walk into the courtroom in front of her.
There are still empty seats next to the door, which is ideal for how he has planned to leave. He has spent several nights pondering when to tell Ellie about the operation. Alec didn't want to give her any opportunity to fuss over him, because she has got enough on her plate and he knows that she would have taken care of him nevertheless. However, the thought of keeping it from her until it's all over didn't sit well with him either, especially when he imagined her reaction if he didn't make it through alive. He finally resolved to tell her where he's going the moment he leaves court. He knows she'll be exasperated, but it won't be the first time he exasperates her - hopefully not the last time either - and he is almost sure she won't follow him given the aspersions that were cast on them only a few days ago in that very room.
All his careful planning dissolves into nothing when Ellie doesn't follow him up the stairs to the seats on this side of the room, but tells him that she'll sit with Maggie, who he can barely make out through the glass surrounding Joe. Dumbfounded, he stares after her. They usually sit next to each other or at least close to each other in here. They were partners during the investigation, after all. That's when it hits him - it's the first time they are here together after the defence insinuated that there might have been an affair between them and that it might even be ongoing. While she didn't seem to give it too much thought when they were out of town, she might be concerned in here, in front of the community that already has enough - however unfounded - reasons to think the worst of her.
He keeps standing and taking in the way she recoils when she passes Joe in the dock just that little bit too long, but he can't bring himself to care. After all, it might be the last time he sees his only friend.
Alec is sick and tired of everything happening for a potential last time.
Resigned, he sits down alone. He'll need to find another way of letting her know about the operation. If he sends her a text, she won't read it until during or after the procedure since she always turns off her phone in court. Still, it's the best he can do now.
When he wakes up to Ellie's exasperated voice and her angry face looming over him while his nose is being assaulted by the scent of her washing powder mixed with the dull odour of the iodine solution they used on him, his first thought is that he must have made it through. His chest hurts, but to see Ellie reacting the way he expected her to adds to his relief and he laughs at her despite the pain because he's still alive and there's one less secret between them.
He looks up into her eyes from which the anger is fading and revealing how much she cares for him and thinks that one day, he will tell her the truth about how the Sandbrook case fell apart. In a future he doesn't quite dare to dream about, he might even get the chance to tell Fred about the pebble he took to the hospital with him when his broken heart was mended.
For now though, he just wants to go home.