A/N: I loved this season of Broadchurch and love Ellie and Alec's relationship even more. In Season 1, Alec mentioned something about visiting Broadchurch when he was a child which gave me inspiration for this fic. Enjoy!
Never Growing Up
"For god's sake, Alec, will you hurry up?" A brown haired women in her early thirties called, exasperated at her slow son. They were walking alongside a crammed Dorset beach and trying to find a place to set up for the day. It was a gorgeous and hot July day, causing everyone in the area to progress towards the coastline – the only place where there was a cool breeze coming in off the sea to break up the humid and hot air. There were hundreds of people atop the golden sands and even more splashing about in the sea.
A young Alec Hardy came bounding towards his mum, his brown hair, which was in desperate need of a trim, falling into his brown eyes. He looked up to his mother. "Sorry!"
"It's okay, just stick with me. There are a lot of people," Her voice was laced with a thick Scottish accent. The boy nodded, squinting his eyes from the sun. It took them both a while to finally find a place to sit down, right next to a family of two adults and a young girl.
Alec's dad found them ten minutes later and brandished a plastic bag with three portions of fish and chips. Alec ate his quietly, savouring the taste of the fresh cod while looking out at all the people playing on the beach. He wished he could join them, but he felt that he should stay with his parents in case they started arguing again. He would then have to break them up, comfort his mum and then try to get his dad to calm down. Just as he had expected, his parents managed to find something to fight about. The ten year old wasn't stupid; he knew that a divorce was imminent. He just wished that they'd get it over and done with.
His parents were now in the middle of a full blazing row. They were catching the attention of lots of people, resulting in sympathetic looks being cast his way. Alec hated it. He was angry at his parents. He didn't understand why they had to fight here, and not argue later. Couldn't they just pretend to be normal for one second? Why was he always looking after them? The anger, embarrassment and exasperation caused the young boy to stand up and walk away.
He'd wanted to do that for ages, and there was something about the yells of his parents fading into the distance and being replaced by the soothing crashing of waves on the shoreline which lifted his mood. He pushed his parents to the back of his mind as he sat down on the sand under a cliff and just watched the world go by around him.
He was content in sitting there for the rest of the day, but something caught his eye. There was a girl who looked about his age trying to build a sand castle. He reckoned that she had been with the family sitting next to his parents. She had a small bucket and was filling it up halfway, turning it over and then without patting it, lifting it up. She was dismayed every time that the sandcastle crumbled. Alec couldn't resist. He stood up and walked towards her.
"You're building your sandcastle wrong, by the way" Alec declared. She stopped what she was doing and leaned back to look at who was speaking to her. She had short brown curly hair and hazel eyes which were squinting against the sun.
"Wha'?" The girl asked, looking annoyed. Alec sighed.
"Look, you need to fill the bucket to the top-"Alec started, surprising her with his Scottish drawl.
"No, you look. I can build a castle by myself." She retorted. It was Alec's turn to be surprised.
"If you could, you would've by now." Alec shrugged. The girl growled angrily before proceeding to fill up the bucket and trying to build a sand castle again. Just like the time before, when she lifted up the bucket, the sand fell in on itself and ended up in a sad heap next to her.
"Need some help?" He asked again, smugly.
"No." She said through gritted teeth. Alec sat down onto the warm sand next to her and held his hand out for the bucket. She angrily smacked the bucket into his hand. He filled the bucket to the top with sand, adding a bit of wetter sand to keep it stuck together and then flipped the bucket over, tapping the top. He slowly lifted the bucket off and left behind a perfectly formed sand castle.
She muttered something to herself, taking the bucket off him and carrying out the exact same method as he did. When she lifted her bucket up, her sandcastle also stayed in its perfect shape. She couldn't help but smile a wide and gap-toothed smile.
"Thank you." she said honestly. Alec was again surprised.
"I'm Alec Hardy." He replied, holding his hand out to her. She looked at his hand for a minute, confused, before grinning at him.
"Ellie Miller." She giggled, not shaking his hand. He awkwardly retracted it, guessing that that was payback for earlier.
"Do you live here?" He asked, digging a moat around his own sandcastle.
"Yes. You sound like you're from somewhere else." She replied absentmindedly, building two more sandcastles.
"I'm from Scotland." He answered, brushing the sand off his hands.
"Scotland? But that's so far away! Don't they have beaches in Scotland?" Ellie scoffed.
"But they're cold." Alec complained. Ellie laughed and then jumped up, brushing the sand of her knees.
"Come on then, I'll show you the best rock pools in Broadchurch." Ellie offered kindly.
"Okay!" Alec grinned, running after her as she started to run down the beach. Ellie was clearly trying to run faster than him, giggling as Alec's trainer clad feet got stuck in the sand. He stopped and took off his trainers and socks, leaving them higher up the beach so they wouldn't get taken out by the tide. Then he burst out into a full sprint, revelling in the feeling of his bare feet against the hot sand. He laughed as the wind was hitting him and cooling him down. He had never felt like he was allowed to be a kid, nor that he really wanted to be. It wasn't until this moment that he realised how much he was missing out. Ellie beat him just marginally and they both stood on the edge of the rock pools out of breath.
"What do we do?" Alec asked, turning to ask Ellie.
"We look for crabs." She replied, as if it was obvious. She held up her bucket. "Once we get lots of crabs, we can race them down the beach."
Alec grinned. "Where would the crabs be?"
"My mum says that we have to be like detectives to find them. So, you're detective Hardy and I'm detective Miller. Follow me, Hardy." Ellie ordered, marching between the rock pools. Alec followed her, listening as she explained how to find them. She reached for a bit of driftwood and turned over a large clump of seaweed. Out scuttled the largest crab that Alec had ever seen.
"'Ello!" Ellie laughed, reaching down and pinching the crab up with expertise and placing it into the seawater filled bucket. "Look! There's one by your foot!"
Alec looked down and saw the crab scuttling dangerously close to him. He took a step back, earning some teasing from Ellie. When he refused to pick it up, she leaned over and scooped it up.
"Don't like crabs then?" Ellie asked while leaning over to look into a smaller rock pool.
"Not really." He replied, pressing his tongue into his cheek. Alec and Ellie chatted idly while Ellie filled a bucket up with crabs.
"Since you're so terrified, I'll line 'em up." Ellie teased, picking each crab out the bucket and lining them up on the beach. A couple had already started to walk down to the sea, but they weren't moving very fast.
"Pick your ones." Ellie instructed. Alec pointed to the four closest to the end and Ellie nodded. "3, 2, 1, go!"
Alec and Ellie cheered their own crabs as they slowly and obliviously made their way down to the sea. The first to hit the water was Alec's.
"I won!" Alec grinned. Ellie laughed, helping the last of the crabs back into the sea and pouring out the sea water from her bucket. They played for a while, standing on the water's edge and running back onto the beach every time a wave hit. One unexpected huge wave hit the shoreline, knocking Ellie over and covering Alec from head to toe in water. Ellie was laughing so hard that Alec had to help her out of the water and further up the beach.
The sun was beginning to set as the two made their way back to their parents. Alec didn't want to go back. He had had more fun with Ellie than he had ever had with anyone else. He was allowed to be a kid and if he went back to his parents, he wouldn't be. Alec's parents had stopped arguing, but were still curt with each other.
"Elle! There you are!" Ellie's mum smiled, waving at the ten year old girl. Alec's parents looked up and saw Alec with her.
"Mum! This is Alec, we raced some crabs and then he got splashed by a big wave." Ellie laughed, causing Alec to laugh as well.
"Alec, we need to leave now." Alec's mum warned, beginning to pack up her things.
"If you want, we can look after Alec for a bit if you two want to go by yourself? It would be a shame to split the kids up if they're having fun together." Ellie's mum offered, earning an excited nod from both the children.
"It's alright, thank you. Come on Alec." His mum repeated, picking up her bag. Alec looked deflated.
"Mum, can I just-"
"Alec. Now." She ordered. Alec nodded, picking up his towel off the sand. He felt a lump in his throat as he saw Ellie watching him sadly.
"Bye, Detective Hardy." Ellie smiled, offering her hand for him to shake. He smiled and shook her hand.
"Bye, Detective Miller." Alec replied. Another call from his parents and Alec was running after them, turning around to wave goodbye to her.
Alec told himself that he would never forget little Ellie Miller, with her curly brown hair, kind eyes and infectious smile. He remembered her during the worst of times to come. His parents never actually divorced – they didn't need to. His mum died in a car accident a few months later.
As time passed, he started to forget little things about her. The colour of her hair, her Dorset accent. Eventually, he had completely forgotten that he had ever met her.
The minute Alec had stepped into Broadchurch, he knew that he had been there before. He was getting memories in little snippets about the place, but he felt like there was one large thing that he had forgotten.
He had been called down to the beach after Danny Latimer's body had been found sprawled out underneath the cliff. He remembered the cliffs. He knew that there were rock pools further down the beach brimming with crabs. He just couldn't remember how he knew that.
"Oh god, no." Alec had been talking to one of the police officers, trying to understand as much information as he could when he heard her. He assumed she was another nosy citizen, trying to get the first look at Danny so she could tell everyone.
"No, no, off the beach. Off the beach." He tried moving her back when he noticed the way that her brown curls of her hair reflected in the sunlight. His chest tightened and he felt like he knew her.
"I'm police, I'm police." She stuttered, holding up her badge and keeping her eyes on the small body. Alec knew right away. Ellie Miller. It was his Ellie Miller.
"Miller?" He breathed, his brown eyes wide. She furrowed her eyebrows and looked up at him. Her face lost all tension when she realised who it was.
"Alec?"
"Can I sit?"
Alec had been sitting on the bench on top of the next cliff along to where Danny had been found, next to the coastal path. He looked up and saw Ellie.
"'Course." He replied, shifting up to give her some space.
"So we both became real detectives then." Ellie said, leaning her elbows on her knees and looking out over the sea. Alec looked at her and then nodded, a small smile ghosting his lips.
"Yes. Not just crab detectives." He replied, earning a small laugh from Ellie.
"Did you ever come back to Broadchurch?" Ellie asked, leaning back into the bench.
"No." Alec replied, looking at the ground and pressing his tongue into his cheek. "My mum died four months after we met. My dad never went anywhere after that."
"I'm sorry." Ellie sympathised, those same kind eyes from when he was ten looking at him. He nodded, and they both sat in silence.
After Joe Miller was arrested for the murder of Danny Latimer, Ellie and Alec started to lose touch. They had to be reunited again for the reopening of the Sandbrooke case as well as Joe's trial. Alec knew that Ellie wasn't the same, nor that she ever would be. She had lost her husband, her son, her best friends and her community in one day. He had watched her entire life crumble around her and he felt helpless. There was nothing that he could have done for her.
The reopening of the Sandbrooke case was taxing and arduous, but once the right killers had been caught, Alec couldn't help crying. He wept for the two girls killed and Danny, he wept for his own family, he wept for the destruction that he had caused to himself, and then he wept for little Ellie Miller. The little girl with the bright smile and kind and open personality who had been killed by unfathomable pain and loneliness.
Alec was standing outside the taxi, his head and heart conflicted. He hated the town of Broadchurch, but he had kept on coming back like something was tying him to it. He realised then what it was.
"Sorry, I've changed my mind." Alec hurriedly apologised to the taxi driver and started to run down the road which he knew led to the beach. He saw her sitting on the sand, huddled in her bright orange jacket that he had come to love. He walked up to her, catching her attention when he blocked the sunlight.
"'Ello. I thought you were leaving?" Ellie asked, looking up to him. He said nothing, but held out his hand to help her up. She looked up at him, confused.
"C'mon, Miller." He pressed. She grabbed his hand and stood up, brushing the sand off her knees.
"What on earth are you doing?" Ellie laughed as Alec started to untie his shoes and take off his socks. He stood up straight and then sucked in a deep breath. He broke out into a wide grin.
"Race you to the rock pools." He contested before starting to sprint across the sand.
"Oh, you KNOB!" Ellie laughed, pulling off her shoes and sprinting after him. They both laughed harder than they had in years, the wind whipping through their hair. The cool sand had replaced the hot sand from many years before, but Alec found that he preferred it this way.
"I'm going to beat you again!" Ellie warned through laughter as they approached the rock pools.
"I doubt that, Miller!" Alec retorted, picking up speed. He looked over to her, seeing the ten year old with the sunburnt cheeks. Ellie reached the rocks just before he did.
"I won!" Ellie laughed, her face red from the wind and running. Alec rested his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
"Only because I have a faulty heart!" Alec protested, earning a snort from Ellie.
"Don't you try that on me. I won, fair and square." Ellie laughed, prodding him in the chest. The two spent the rest of the day finding crabs and racing them down the beach, happier than they could remember.
"Here you go, Miller." Alec grinned, handing her a 99 flake. Ellie paused for a second before looking at him.
"Do you think you could start calling me Ellie? It's just…Miller…" Ellie started, and Alec nodded.
"Okay, Ellie." Ellie smiled as they both settled down on the edge of the pavement in the harbour. The sun was setting and the two sat and watched it. They didn't know what they would be doing next, nor where they would go but in that instant, they were both happy.
