Hazelmist's A/N: Major spoilers for S2 but it's a VERY AU take on S2. There was a story that I couldn't write, but it never really went away. I started typing it out in June but it's been in my head since the days were dark and cold. So this is for SEA because I hope you heard us and you knew that we were there, and this is for mykelara because instead of telling me I'd lost my mind she told the other side of the story.
When The Ocean Met The Sky
Part 1
D.S. Ellie Miller solves the Sandbrook case on her own. At least that's what the papers all say, what the files say, and what the transcripts and the recordings say, but Ellie knows that isn't true. Former D.I. Alec Hardy knows it too but they're the only ones.
The chief superintendent makes her a job offer and Ellie considers taking it just to wipe that fake smile off of D.S. Tess Henchard's face. Because Tess knows Ellie won't take the job. Ellie had bribed, bullied, guilt-tripped, and blackmailed Tess Henchard into giving her full access to the Sandbrook case, the station, and every resource Tess had at her fingertips with the promise that the case would be closed and Tess's dirty little secret would never come out. It was a risk, but Tess agreed and helped Ellie fill in the blanks without asking too many questions. She didn't want to know and Ellie didn't want the credit. Ellie lies and tells them she'll think about it. Then she takes the stupid plaque, her pride, her reinstatement, and her reputation, and gets the hell out of there. She drives straight back to Broadchurch and that bright blue shack on the water. But it's already boarded up and he isn't there. She considers going back to the flat or the house that she once called home, but he won't be there either. Parking the car on the side of the road, she walks from there.
Ellie finds him sitting on the beach in the shadow of the cliffs. He's huddled in a patch of sunlight that he doesn't feel with his knees drawn up to his chest and his eyes fixated on the horizon. Ellie takes off her shoes and slowly makes her way down the beach. Her feet sink into the cool sand that's still damp from the earlier rainstorm, leaving a lone trail of footprints behind. Each step is harder than the last and by the time she reaches him, she's stumbling. The sun blazes through the clouds again as she stops beside him and her shadow looms over him.
"Hardy?"
Hardy blinks but doesn't move a muscle. Ellie sighs. She plops down in the wet sand beside him and shivers as the chill seeps into her. She mirrors him and hugs her knees to her chest. It helps a little bit but she's always cold these days. Hardy's freezing.
"Hardy," she tries again.
"Nice work, Miller," Hardy tells her and it almost sounds sincere. He still won't look at her. "Out-bloody-standing," he compliments her, but there's a bitter undertone that scrapes her ears.
"Here." Ellie digs out the ugly little plaque and tosses it at him. It doesn't hit him but it lands in the sand on the other side of him. He moves for the first time, turning his head to look at it. A ray of sunlight reflects off of it obscuring her name and blinding both of them. Ellie's eyes water as Alec's hands clench around his knees and his jaw tightens.
"You deserve it," he says.
"I don't want it. I don't want any of it," Ellie spits out through gritted teeth. "That should've been yours."
Alec shakes his head and squints into the sunlight.
"I couldn't solve it," he reminds her.
"You just did!" Ellie points out. "And I can't even tell anyone because they'll think I'm mad –" Alec looks directly at her for the first time and her voice dies. He stares at her for a long moment. His voice is soft when he finally does speak.
"Miller, I couldn't have done it without you."
"I know," Ellie concedes and rubs at her watery eyes. "But it's not fair to you!"
"Ellie." Alec says her name and Ellie's eyes snap back to him. "I don't give a fuck about some stupid plaque, or the fact that you got offered my job, or what they're saying about me or you in the bloody papers. I failed those families. But you gave me a second chance to make it right." He holds her gaze and his face softens.
"Thanks to you, they finally got some closure and Pippa's and Lisa's murderers are behind bars."
Ellie knows he's right, but the realization that no one will ever know what really happened still hurts, and that D.I. Alec Hardy redeemed himself and fought for over two years to get those two girls justice.
"I just wish I could tell someone the truth," Ellie says and then adds: "They should know that you weren't the worst cop in Britain."
Alec wheezes a rusty laugh and his lips curve up into a half smile that lingers as he looks at her.
"Thanks, Miller," he says. He lifts one of his hands and claps her on the shoulder. He barely brushes her but Ellie automatically flinches away from him. His skin is cold as ice and Ellie braces herself for the shock that always comes every time he accidentally touches her. It doesn't hurt this time.
"Sorry," he apologizes and lowers his hand to the sand between them. His palm slides over the fine granules as he sits back on his hands. Ellie watches him, wondering why the wind ruffles his hair and the light gleams in his eyes but he doesn't feel it. She drops her hand to the sand and sifts her fingers through the grains, treasuring the feel of it getting beneath her nails and sticking to her skin and clothes.
"Can you feel it?" she asks him.
"What?" Alec frowns at her.
"The sand?" Ellie clarifies.
Alec glances down at his hand, resting in the sand between them. He spreads his fingers wide and his forehead wrinkles as he concentrates on the task. She leans forward in anticipation, but Alec shakes his head and his hand sweeps up toward hers again, leaving nothing in its wake.
"I used to hate it," he confesses, enviously gazing at her fingers digging into the sand centimeters from his. "I hated the way it got into my hair, into the food, into the tent, into the house, and into the cracks in between the floorboards. But now I'd give anything just to feel –" he breaks off and curls his hand into a fist. His whole body goes rigid beside her as he tries so hard to do something so ridiculously simple.
"I can't," he sighs and starts to pull away. Ellie reaches out to him without thinking. Alec's breath hitches as two of her sandy fingers overlap with his.
"Can you feel that?" Ellie asks curiously and looks up at him. Alec swallows and nods. The sun is setting behind her but she swears she can see it rising in his brown eyes. There's a light burning there that she hasn't seen in such a long time, and she foolishly thinks that it might just be that spark of life that he's lacking in so many ways.
Ellie scrapes the heel of her hand through the sand, getting the grains into the creases and the lines of her palm before sliding it little by little over his until her hand rests over the back of his with a gritty layer of the ground up rock between them.
"I can feel that," he whispers, his voice close to her ear. He's bent his head down toward hers and all she can see is his shaggy hair, lightened to auburn and almost a bronzy gold in the sunlight. She slots her fingers between his own and he brushes his thumb along her pinky. He rubs the itchy sand from her skin and she feels the marble like coolness of the pad of his thumb. She bites back a gasp as his breath brushes against her cheek like the first sign of winter.
"Does that hurt?" he asks. Ellie shakes her head.
"Does this?" she wonders and lifts her free hand slowly toward his bent head. Her fingertips ghost through his surprisingly silky hair and she uses the barest touch to reveal his eyes. She boldly passes her fingers through the shaggy strands again and he closes his eyes as if he's in pain. Ellie starts to recoil but he shakes his head. So she does it again and again until Alec makes a sound in the back of his throat that startles both of them. She drops her hand, alarmed, but when Alec opens his bright eyes into hers she knows that it's a different kind of pain. He leans further into her space and she lets him.
"Can I?" He brings his other hand up to her face and she nods automatically. Her teeth sink into her bottom lip as his trembling cold hand grazes her cheek. His knuckles lightly trace over her cheek bone, and her body relaxes and inexplicably melts into his delicate touch even though he should be freezing her. He cups her face in his hand and sweeps his thumb over her bottom lip, forcing her to release it and the last of the tension. She closes her eyes.
"You've always been so warm," he whispers. "Sometimes it hurt, even before…"
"I thought you were colder back then," she chuckles and he withdraws from her. "I was wrong, of course," she adds, and shivers as her body registers the loss of his nearness. She opens her eyes and all she wants to do is take away the pain and the hurt and the cruelty of it all. Reaching out, she rests her hand over his heart.
It's too much and too sudden. He jumps but instead of shoving her away, he roughly drags her into his arms and pulls her head down to the coldest part of his body. It's painful for both of them, but Ellie hooks her fingers into the front of his shirt and Alec twines his fingers in her hair. They need this moment because it will probably be their last. His chest rises and falls beneath her ear out of habit.
"When?"
"Tess wanted to wait until after the case was closed," Ellie tells him. Her eyes sting with tears that'll scald him if she lets them fall.
"This weekend?" He crushes her against him, and Ellie feels that emptiness and that hole that he's trying so desperately to fill.
"Tomorrow," she whispers. "She's going to do it tomorrow."
Alec freezes and Ellie listens to the roar of her own blood in her ears. She presses her lips to his chest and she feels the cold numbness seeping into her. Alec gasps and chokes on what could have been a sob if he was still capable of that.
"I'm so sorry, Alec," Ellie apologizes, fighting back those burning tears. "I tried to talk her out of it and I even tried to tell her the truth –"
Alec hushes her and kisses the top of her head with bloodless lips that send shivers all the way down to her toes. Ellie trembles against him and flattens her hand over his heart.
But it doesn't beat.
She hasn't felt a heartbeat there in over four and a half weeks.
Ellie breaks down and Alec holds her even though it hurts them both. When she's done the sun has sank into the ocean and the stars are coming out. He walks with her up the beach, alongside the rising tide, but they only leave one trail of footprints behind. They stop by her car and a flash over his head catches Ellie's eye. A shooting star.
"Make a wish," she tells him and closes her eyes.
Alec kisses her before she can open them. It's the coldest kiss she's ever received. She imagines that this is what the night air tastes like at the darkest hour, or that moment right before it starts to snow when the world is cold and silent with anticipation, or perhaps this is what it feels like when someone tells you goodbye the night before they're going to die.
"I'll be there tomorrow at the hospital," she tells him and rests her forehead against his. He nods and wraps his arms around her to hold her for one more moment.
It doesn't hurt as much when they touch, but maybe it's because they both know that this will be the last time.
She doesn't sleep that night but she pretends that she can. He doesn't make a sound but she knows the exact second that he enters the house. He's shown up at her house plenty of times (mainly, she thinks, to scare the hell out of her) but tonight's the first time he's entered her bedroom. He stands on the threshold for what feels like hours until she finally gives up the pretense of sleeping and looks directly at him.
"Are you awake?" he asks softly as if he thinks she's still dreaming.
Ellie sits up and he backs out of her room.
"Alec, wait." He soundlessly returns to the doorway but he keeps his head down. She wraps the duvet tightly around her and resettles herself against the headboard.
"Do you want to talk?" she asks.
"Not really," he admits and scratches the back of his neck. "Besides Tom's here now and I wouldn't want you waking him…" She knows what he really means. He lifts his head and his eyes dart around the room, taking in everything but her.
"He already thinks I'm crazy," Ellie reassures Hardy but softly, just in case Tom is in fact awake. "They all do."
"I don't," he reminds her.
"You might not even be real," Ellie sighs.
He hesitantly steps over the threshold and the temperature drops. She shivers and tries to hide it from him. His footsteps are silent, slow, and measured, but finally he reaches her. Ellie automatically moves over to make room for him on the bed. He backs off again, shaking his head.
"We can't –"
"Oh, for fuck's sake, I'm not a necrophiliac!" Ellie snaps.
"I'm not dead yet!" he protests, and for the first time she gets a good look at his face. He's paler than usual and his eyes are dark and wide and hurt.
"Sorry," she apologizes and looks away so she won't tear up. "I didn't mean it like that."
He's quiet and she's having difficulty blinking back tears. She doesn't want to break down in front of him, not again, not when he's only got hours left.
"What time is it?" she asks him and scrubs at her face.
"No idea."
That surprises her, that and the fact that he's here at all.
"I thought you'd be with your daughter," she confesses.
"I was but it was hard, especially since I can't –" he breaks off and curls his hands into fists at his sides. He shakes his head again. "I should go. It's late and Tom might hear you –"
"Alec," Ellie interrupts him. "Come here."
Alec slumps down on the bed beside her. At first he tries to stay perched on the edge, but she reaches out to him and he's turning into her before he can stop himself. Ellie bites back a yelp as the icy wave hits her. She's not ready for it and he jerks back from her.
"Sorry," he whispers.
"It's alright," she lies. She waits a second and then starts with a hand in his hair. He can't wait that long, and a minute later he's got her face cupped between his hands that are as cold as metal but handle her like she's made of glass. He's shaking almost as hard as she is and yet they can't let go.
"You can feel this?" he asks her. "Does it feel real?"
She nods and hangs onto his wrists, afraid she'll cry if she tries to speak.
"You're the only thing that feels real," he whispers and leans his cold forehead against hers. "Why are you the only one?" he wonders.
"I don't know, Alec," she whispers, swallowing back tears. "I don't know."
She remembers the first time it happened. Four and half weeks ago, Ellie walked out of the hospital and cried. When she stopped, she got up off that bench, picked up her toddler from the child minder, and went straight to that bright blue shack on the water. She couldn't quite explain why but she needed to be there.
Four and a half hours later, he walked in to find her standing in the middle of his house with her toddler at her feet and his unsolved Sandbrook case spread out upon his wall. Ellie was losing herself in his file and his careful work that had all somehow gone dreadfully wrong, trying to find a tangible piece of Hardy in there and cling to it. Fred was the one that noticed him. Ellie ignored her son, used to incoherent babble and senseless nonsense. It wasn't until Hardy actually went up to the wall and snapped that she'd gotten something wrong that Ellie was even aware of his presence. She moved it without thinking and shot something back at him. This went on for a good ten minutes; Hardy correcting her and Ellie fixing it, all the while both of them sniping at each other until their hands met on top of the file.
Ellie received the shock of her life and if Hardy still had a solid heart he probably would've gone into cardiac arrest. Ellie screamed bloody murder and picked up her son who very unhelpfully pointed out Uncle Awec.
"What are you doing here?" she asked him.
"This is my house," Hardy reminded her and propped his hands on his hips.
"But you're – you're –" Ellie stammered to a halt and Fred started wailing. She focused on her son instead of trying to grasp Hardy's presence in his house when he should've been miles away, lifelessly lying in a hospital bed. Hardy followed her into the kitchen and started telling her where everything was and Ellie went with it. After her son was fed and put down for a nap, Ellie walked the four steps into Hardy's kitchenette and Hardy followed. She made tea; two cups which Hardy didn't touch.
"It's going to get cold," she growled at him. He still didn't touch it and Ellie brought both cups to the table. She slammed one down in front of him and he cringed. She glared at him and he hesitantly slid his hand across the table, and then right through the fucking tea cup. Ellie blinked at him and he kept going until his hand passed through her solid cup as well.
"Stop that," she snarled at him and swiped at his hand. She got shocked again by the iciness of his skin and jumped up from the table. Hardy had leapt to his feet as well, and they stood panting and staring at each other with nothing but a wooden table and a couple of chairs between them.
"Bloody hell, Hardy, are you some kind of –" She couldn't even bring herself to say it. She didn't believe in this kind of crack pot shit. "Is there something in the tea? Have I gone mad because of the trial? Am I hallucinating?"
"How should I know? I was walking through walls, and everything, and everyone until your son tried to give me a unicorn," Hardy said as if a stuffed mythical creature, and a child attempting to interact with him was the craziest thing that had happened to him all day.
"I can't be the only one."
"You're not. Wee Frankie–"
"Fred!"
"Right, he can see me too."
"Great," Ellie exclaimed, pressing her palms to her forehead. "I'm comparing my sanity to my eighteen month old that has imaginary friends. And I'm having an argument with a man that's dead –"
"I'm not dead!" Hardy insisted obstinately.
"You coded three times! And you never woke up after the surgery."
"Then what the bloody hell am I doing here talking to you right now?" Hardy demanded and crossed his arms over his chest.
Ellie couldn't explain it, so she decided that it wasn't happening. Either she was still sleeping or there had been some powerful herbal hallucinogens in that tea, or perhaps she had finally had that mental breakdown the counselor warned her about.
"I'm leaving," she told him and dumped her cup into the sink. "And when I come back tomorrow I expect that this place will be empty and you were just a figment of my imagination."
Hardy rolled his eyes, but he didn't attempt to argue with her or stop her. She picked up Fred and left him with his hands hovering over the cup of tea she made for him.
It was still there when she returned the next day and she breathed a sigh of relief. She got in her car and drove down to the hospital to find that her hallucination of Hardy was partially right. He was alive, but barely. Tess was leaving as Ellie walked in and her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen.
Alec Hardy was in a coma.
Ellie talked her way into Hardy's room and found Alec Hardy also standing by his bedside, frowning down at his lifeless but solid body in the hospital gown. He looked up at her as she walked in and then both of them turned to look at the numerous monitors flashing, blinking, humming, and beeping.
"You're still breathing," Ellie said optimistically to the corpse-like Hardy in the bed. She reached out hesitantly and tapped the hospital sheet that rose and fell with each forced breath from the ventilator. His body was warm like a body should be and Ellie withdrew her hand to the guardrail. "You seem peaceful, not grumpy or cold at all…"
She looked up and discovered Hardy glaring daggers at her.
"Piss off," he told her.
Ellie sighed and turned her attention back to the closest monitor. A doctor came into the room, barely glancing up from his clip board before turning to log into the computer.
"You must be Tess Henchard," the doctor surmised and was so absorbed by the screen that he didn't hear Ellie's stammered denial or Hardy's derisive snort. He clicked away on the keyboard for a moment and then walked right through Hardy to check up on one of the monitors more closely. "You can talk to him, you know," the doctor said suddenly, his back to them and his eyes narrowed on the fluctuating numbers. Ellie gaped at him, but the doctor wasn't talking about the startled Hardy across the bed from her. The doctor went on, oblivious to both of them. "Studies have never been able to accurately prove it, but most people believe that they can hear you, and some even have gone so far as to argue that it actually helps speed up the recovery. Personally, I think it helps just talking, not for the patient, but for the loved ones sometimes it makes it easier to let go."
He logged out and left the room before Hardy or Ellie could wrap their head around that statement. Ellie averted her eyes and wound up studying the pale figure buried beneath wires and a breathing tube.
"Do you want me to talk to you?" Ellie asked hesitantly.
"No."
His reply was immediate but something about his tone suggested the contrary.
"Am I really the only one?" she whispered.
"Tess brought Daisy – my daughter – here last night," he said hollowly. "I thought that if anyone would be able to help me make sense of this it would've been her. But she was crying and I couldn't even touch her." He opened his hands in front of him and gazed down at them. "I was shouting at her and she didn't hear me. She looked right through me, just like everyone else."
"Everyone except me," Ellie reminded him and met his eyes.
"I don't get it." Hardy shook his head. "You're one of the most irritating people I've ever met."
"Oi! Watch what you say, I can unplug one of these wires."
"Go ahead," Hardy told her. "I don't even bloody care anymore."
She stood there with him for two hours. About an hour in, he tired of her attempts at small talk and chatter and started talking back to her. He snorted and actually cracked a fleeting smile when he saw how the doctor caught her in the act of a heated one-sided argument with a comatose patient. Ellie got kicked out of the hospital room soon after that and Hardy followed her out, smirking.
He was moping again by the time they returned to his blue shack on the water. Ellie dropped him off there, and then realized that she didn't have to when he strolled into her flat the following morning and caused her to break a dish. She yelled at him, but Fred was fascinated by Uncle Awec, and Hardy could at least keep an eye on her son for short periods of time when she was close by. He continued moping around her flat, and the hospital room, and the blue shack when she kept forgetting that she didn't actually have to drive him there for the next three days. When he followed her into the courtroom on Monday morning and realized that he could commentate on the whole thing without anyone noticing but her he earned himself a SHUT UP and Ellie received a verbal warning from the judge. She was lucky the case was sped up by the fact that Hardy could no longer give testimony, but she wished that he had managed to get her banned from the courtroom before the entire case got tossed out over a technicality. Ellie wept the day that Joe was freed largely thanks to hers and Hardy's shoddy police work. And Alec Hardy suddenly stopped moping and decided that they needed to take another look at Sandbrook.
Hardy was the one who suggested that she hide out in the shack until things simmered down. So she packed up some of her things and moved in there with the assurance that the rent was paid up until the end of the month. At four A.M. they both found themselves in front of that wall of evidence again and Ellie realized that she had a tool with her that they hadn't had before.
"Hardy, no one can see you and you can walk through walls…"
It helped too that Hardy could feed Ellie an endless supply of very personal information when they went to see Tess. Ellie hit a nerve when she reminded Tess that Hardy wouldn't be in a coma if it hadn't been for the mistakes made during Sandbrook. Then she told Tess everything that she knew and made up some bullshit about Hardy having another file of evidence locked away somewhere. Maybe Tess could sense Hardy in the room because Ellie scared her just enough to get Tess to allow her access to everything, and buy the story that Hardy had invested everything in Ellie before he went into that coma.
Between the two of them and with a little help from Hardy's guilty ex they solved the case in four and a half weeks. Ellie got all the credit even though she stressed that it was the work of D.I. Hardy and grudgingly added D.S. Henchard in there as well, just in case Tess decided to rethink Ellie's source and have her investigated. Ellie was reinstated as a D.S. and was offered the D.I. position that Hardy had held for nearly a decade, and the papers hailed her as the one that had solved a case that had haunted the former D.I. for almost three years and nearly killed him.
Somehow during those four and a half weeks, Ellie Miller got used to his voice in her ear, and Hardy sniggering nearly every time he taunted her into a one-sided argument in public. And she got used to him silently passing in and out of the room without warning, and turning up to entertain Fred for a little while when she desperately needed a break from being a single parent. And she got used to his chilly presence, and his skin that was like ice that they sometimes forgot about until they touched. And it was even sometimes funny in a ghastly way when they visited his hospital room and Ellie spoke to Hardy right in front of the doctors and nurses while they took the vitals of someone that shouldn't have been able to hear them. Mostly, though it was sad, and they stayed away from that reminder that Hardy shouldn't have existed in that form at all. Ellie wasn't sure how much longer they could have gone on like that, but they channeled most of their energy into solving that case and when it was over…
Tess Henchard decided it was time to take Alec Hardy off life support.
Ellie wakes up on Alec Hardy's last day to find the bed empty and cold. She can't remember when she fell asleep but Hardy had been there when she closed her eyes. What if he's already gone? She scrambles for the time and she calms down. But it's not until she hears his voice in the nursery that she breathes a sigh of relief. She pushes the door open and is surprised to find a wide-eyed Alec holding her son. It's adorable until she remembers what Alec is and that in the last four and a half weeks he hasn't been able to really touch anything except her.
"What are you doing?" she asks him slowly. Her heart is in her throat.
"I picked him up because he was crying and he stopped," Alec answers, frozen. "He just stopped and –"
Her son is roughly four feet off the carpeted floor, and rationally, Ellie knows that a fall like that won't hurt him. But she warily moves toward Alec as if he's a lion that's got her child in his den. Fred squeals delightedly and latches onto Alec's neck. Her son giggles and rubs his face into his's scruff like he's a cat and Ellie is just as frozen as Alec now.
"What the hell–"
"I don't know," Alec whispers incredulously, his arms wrapping more firmly around her squirming but very happy child. "It was instinct and I've tried before –"
"You what?" Ellie gaped at him, horrified.
"It was an accident," he says apologetically, "And all he did was cry when I touched him, but he's not crying now." No, he's definitely not.
"Uncle Awec!" Fred shrieks and pets Uncle Awec's cheek. Alec holds her boy securely and Ellie remembers that he had a daughter once, a daughter that he can't hold or talk to and that he hardly ever got to see in the last two or so years. He's staring at her son in awe as if he can't believe that he's real and Ellie remembers that Fred was the first one that saw him. Fred wiggles closer and touches his nose to Alec's, and Alec shuts his eyes as if it's all too much. Ellie wants to shut her stinging eyes too, but she can't take her eyes off of them.
"God, Miller, don't just stand there," Alec hisses. "What if I hurt him?" His voice cracks.
Ellie crosses the room and takes her son from Alec. Fred starts wailing then. Alec shushes him and smooths back Fred's curls. Fred quiets immediately, and Ellie realizes what's missing, and why Alec can suddenly take away the tears rather than cause them with a touch of his hand. Before he can step back, Ellie's got her hand on his chest.
"You're warm," she observes, her eyes lifting to his. "What happened?" she wonders, searching his face.
"I don't know," he says, shaking his head. "I was with you all night. Then I heard Fred, so I came in here and I –" He motions to the crib and Fred, and shrugs.
Fred wriggles impatiently against Ellie's hip and she puts him down next to the red firetruck that she stubs her toe on every other morning. He zooms off with it to the other corner of the room and Ellie turns to Alec.
"You didn't just wake up this morning and walk out of there, did you?" she asks and hates herself for hoping.
"Yep, took the breathing tube out and everything else they had plugged into me, grabbed my clothes, and strolled right past my ex and the doctor, and out of that hospital," he responds sarcastically.
Ellie smacks him and Alec pulls her into his arms. She grabs the lapels of his coat and he meets her halfway. He doesn't have to hold back anymore and Ellie tastes the desperation, the sadness, and that feeling that neither of them dared to define. She doesn't give a damn about what he is anymore, in fact she doesn't give a damn about anything except the feel of his deceptively warm body against her, and his hands knotted in her hair and fisting in the back of her dressing gown. He seeks her out like a drug, like he hasn't felt anything in so long. Ellie realizes that although her pulse throbs and her breath comes in short but ragged gasps, she's never felt more alive in ages. She thinks that she would've let him take her right there on the bloody carpet if it hadn't been for her son.
She stays him with a hand on his chest and braces herself against the crib behind her. She has to catch her breath and the hand on his quiet chest reminds her that he doesn't.
"You need to go see your daughter, right now," she tells him and taps the spot where his heart should've beat. She thinks she feels the faintest echo there as he draws her in close for one last quick kiss. But she could've been imagining it.
"Mum? Mum?" Her teenage son barrels into the room and Ellie steps away from Alec and goes to scoop up her youngest.
"Are you all right, Mum?" Tom asks her anxiously, but his eyes are scanning the room and searching for something. Ellie touches her son's shoulder. He looks at her and Fred and relaxes immediately. "Sorry," he apologizes with a sheepish look. "I thought I heard a man in here."
Ellie whips around to stare at Alec but he's already gone.
"I'm gonna be late for school, but it was the strangest thing, could've sworn he was Scottish…"
Tom runs out the door and Ellie follows fifteen minutes after him, barely remembering to drop Fred off at the child minder's before she's racing back to the hospital where it all started. There's construction, and she hits traffic, and then once she gets to the hospital it takes her forever to find a parking spot. By the time she gets inside she's only got twenty minutes left. The snobby woman at the desk recognizes her and won't let her in because she's shagging the doctor that kicked Ellie out when Hardy recently decided it would be hilarious to pick a fight over his body.
"It's just immediate family," the woman reminds her.
"Yeah, well, I'm his –" Ellie can't come up with a lie fast enough and even if she could tell the truth she doesn't know how to describe her relationship with Alec Hardy now. "I'm his partner," she says at last, struggling to look convincing as the woman's eyebrows lift skeptically. She shakes her head when Ellie doesn't elaborate.
"It doesn't matter if you're his partner. The law doesn't allow –"
"Oh, to hell with the law," Ellie snaps, but before she can launch into a fresh tirade against the unfairness of it all a hand grasps her arm.
Ellie jumps out of her skin at the sight of him. His eyes are bloodshot and red-rimmed, and his hand burns through her jumper but not because he's too cold. Ellie glances at the woman, because surely she must be able to see Alec now when he looks so solid, and he feels so warm, and his eyes are still shining with tears; but Alec tugs Ellie along before she gets the chance to really find out. He drags her through the waiting room, out through door after door, and down staircase after staircase until they're outside in the sunlight behind the hospital. Ellie wrenches herself free from his hand before her arm goes numb, and chases him across the lot until the pavement ends and they reach the grassy overlook beyond it. Alec keeps going and Ellie wonders why he just doesn't disappear. At last when she thinks she's lost sight of him, she almost trips over him, huddled on the edge of the hill and hidden from view from the rest of the world that can't see him anyway.
"Oh, Alec," Ellie whispers and crouches down next to him. She places a hand between his shoulder blades and he shrugs it off, curling in on himself. Ellie sits down beside him, longing to close the distance between them, but not wanting to add to the pain that he's obviously in right now.
"I meant to be here earlier, but I got stuck in traffic, and then that bitch at the desk –"
"Tess wouldn't have let you in anyway," Alec says with a strangled laugh before going on bitterly, "She's busy making amends right now with a body that can't hear her, but she didn't even bring Daisy and neither one of them could see me or hear me or feel me. And Dave, Dave's in there for support." He starts laughing, really laughing then, hysterically, and Ellie knows he's cracking wide open and breaking apart.
"You should go back in there," she suggests nervously, knowing that she's dangerously close to her own breaking point, "Maybe –"
"I can't do it!" Alec spat. His voice is hoarse from the rough sound of his hysterical laughter that's gone completely. "I can't just stand there and watch myself die. I can't, Ellie, I don't want to. I don't want to die." His voice cracks as he looks at her and he blurs before her as her own eyes fill with tears. He grabs her then and kisses her so hard that it hurts. And then he's easing up and Ellie tastes the salt of his tears or hers and feels that warmth that he's been lacking for so long that it's searing now.
"How much longer?"
"I don't know," he whispers but his voice is harsh against her ear.
"What'll happen do you think?" Ellie blurts out, grasping at straws as she seeks out one more glimmer of hope. "Do you think I'll still be able to –"
Alec shakes his head and makes a sound that shatters that last shard of hope that she's been clinging to ever since Tess shattered whatever the hell this is when she announced that she was taking Alec off of life support. He wraps his arms around her and Ellie feels herself falling fast and hard for this man that she didn't know she wanted or needed this much until it was too late. He leans more and more into her until she's tipping backwards into the grass, and pulling him down with her.
"Thank you," he whispers, voice shaking as he breaks the kiss and rests his forehead against hers. His arms are trembling and he won't be able to hold himself up above her for much longer. The sun is shining behind him and through him, and Ellie's heart sinks. "Ellie, I –"
"Don't you fucking die on me!" Ellie hisses and drags him closer for one last kiss. "Please, stay with me. Alec!" For one second, she swears she feels the beat of his heart against her chest, but then her heart is racing out of control as he collapses on top of her and she can barely feel the weight of him at all.
"Take care of yourself, Miller," he says faintly. Then he's slipping away from her no matter how tightly she tries to hang onto him. Ellie cries until her eyes are finally dry and she can't delude herself any longer.
Alec's gone and she's alone again.
She blinks up at the blinding sunlight as she sits up in the grass. She can feel the heat of the sun and she thinks she'll never forget the searing warmth of him in those final seconds before he faded away.
A/N: There is a second part written by me AND mykelara. I take FULL responsibility for any errors or insanity in the first part. By the time episode 02x05 of Broadchurch aired in the US, I was well aware of the sentiment that it seemed like Ellie was set up to solve Sandbrook if Alec died. I took that and put my own AU spin on it. I know that people have done similar ideas and coma scenarios before, but it never really struck me until I actually went through it and experienced it myself. I hope that NONE of you ever have to go through anything like that. I tried to convince myself that this individual was somewhere, ANYWHERE other than that hospital bed connected to a machine that measured brainwaves and surrounded by sobbing loved ones and I started to wonder and hope… Obviously it wasn't something I could put into words but Broadchurch helped and Ellie and Alec and finally mykelara gave a voice to everything that I couldn't quite translate. So thank you mykelara for continuing the story, and I'm sorry SEA for putting sand in your bed when we were kids even though I knew you hated sand, but more importantly I want you to know that I love you.