When the Storm Breaks
By Hazelmist
A/N: AU AFTER S1! I finally saw the Season 2 finale! Thank you so much to all of you that reviewed, favorited, followed, and listened to me struggle with this story! You guys are AWESOME. There's another note at the end of the chapter that will hopefully clear up some of the issues with this chapter.
Keep in mind I wrote a lot of this BEFORE I was aware that there was a book or a second season so I have OCs in place of Tess, Daisy, Dave etc. and a different canon. The first part of this chapter is sort of an interlude. The Trigger warning occurs in the THIRD section of this chapter. If the trigger warning bothers/worries you, feel free to jump to the note at the end of the chapter.
TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of and Implied Past Pedophilia / I leave the rest up to you
Chapter Fourteen: Heatwave
The heatwave started with an unseasonably hot afternoon in the beginning of May. Broadchurch residents would remember that weekend for the very memorable and very illegal fireworks, and several scandalous incidents that occurred as a result of rising temperatures, sparks literally flying, and the Wilsons emptying their extensive liquor cabinet in anticipation of a retirement in the Virgin Islands that still hasn't happened.
Tom Miller remembers it for that mortifying moment when he got his first kiss from the Wilson's granddaughter in front of everyone at the bonfire. Oliver Stephenson would rather not remember his mother trying to talk to a humiliated and horrified Tom about the kiss afterward, but his cousin's face had been priceless. Nigel Carter doesn't remember anything about that weekend, and the Latimers actually burst out laughing when they tell him weeks later how he wound up on the roof. Paul Coates remembers stumbling upon something that would've been the talk of the town at one point, but he keeps walking and doesn't tell anyone until later, much later, after they're both gone.
Ellie Richardson remembers it too but for very different reasons. It was the weekend she tried to pack part of her broken heart into a box; but there were too many memories, too many photographs, too many torn pages, too many scars, and then there was Alec Hardy.
She can still see him, standing on the threshold with her. The heat and his embarrassment had flushed his skin, making him look healthier and his eyes brighter. He'd peeled and shaved off so many layers of his armor that day that he seemed like a stranger to her. And yet, there had been no one in the world that she had trusted more than that broken man. When he opened that door, she dragged him in after her.
Sometimes, Ellie wants to burn that weekend out of her memory almost as much as her traumatized thirteen-year-old, although to be fair, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the way Alec Hardy kissed her, quite the contrary.
And that's the problem.
She thinks about that weekend with Alec Hardy and how it all started with him turning up on her doorstep on an insufferably hot day in May…
It was only the first weekend in May and Alec Hardy was already sick of the heat. As soon as the taxi pulled away, he stripped off his coat and slung it over his shoulder. It had been pleasantly mild when he left his hotel room that morning, but Vicky had chosen to meet at that stuffy snobby over-priced restaurant he took her to on their last anniversary. The price of a cup of tea had been enough to send his heart rate soaring.
He hated her for making him go all the way up there just so she could tell him in person that Keira was getting a new Dad. Step-father, he corrected himself as he loosened the blasted knot in the noose around his neck, but it didn't help. Keira had sent him occasional one or two line texts in response to the daily barrage of texts, emails, phone calls, and voicemails Alec had left her. Ever since Ellie had called him a coward outside of the house he'd once told Keira they could make their home, Alec had been desperate to get a hold of his daughter. But perhaps this man that Vicky had been seeing for years had stepped in to become more of a father to his daughter than he had ever been. Vicky had apologized and told him that he could've seen Keira, but she already had plans to stay with a friend that weekend. If Alec hadn't been so upset by the bomb she just dropped, perhaps he would've told his ex-wife precisely why it was so important for him to see their daughter now. He knew she'd suspected something was seriously wrong for a while, but after he'd viciously lashed out at her one time and blamed it entirely on her, she'd stopped asking about his health altogether.
Unfortunately, it was getting harder for Alec to ignore the fact that his heart was failing. He'd passed out last week in public and it took everything in him to convince DI Worthington that he was fine and that a trip to A&E was unnecessary. Alec was taking his pills more often than he'd like to admit, for situations that wouldn't have triggered him six months ago or even six weeks ago. His next request for a refill would require a visit to his doctor, something that he had been putting off for months. And Alec was afraid of what they were going to tell him.
Panting, he slumped down on Ellie's doorstep to rest. He blamed the sheen of sweat on his forehead on the heat and tried not to think of how short of a distance he'd walked from the main road. After collapsing last week, he'd been dodging Ellie's phone calls, even though it would've been impossible for her to find out what had happened simply from the sound of his voice. But Ellie was persistent and last night he'd picked up and reluctantly agreed to come back to Broadchurch today. The whole ride to Sandbrook he'd considered making up some excuse to avoid her, but all it took was an hour with his ex for him to realize how much he needed to see Ellie again.
He sneezed and noticed for the first time the blossoming shrubs and spreading hedges that were threatening to smother the small cottage behind him. Snapping off a particularly invasive branch, he idly began plucking the leaves off. Six weeks ago he'd sat shivering in that same exact spot and gazed out into the darkness. Now everything around him was so warm, loud and bright that it was hard to believe he was in the same place. Birds chirped, a dog barked, a tractor trundled along, and two girls about Tom's age raced each other on bicycles. The girl in the lead was laughing and as she egged on her slower companion, Alec was reminded of two other girls forever frozen in a photograph that captured one of the last happy moments in their short lives.
The Sandbrook casefile flashed through his mind; the two beautiful young girls, a flicker of the disastrous trial, the faces of the grieving upset families, and then his own estranged family as he walked away from them. He tossed the twig and shut his eyes. When he opened them again the girls were gone.
"I'm losing it," he mumbled and scratched at his chin. Flinching, he soothed the raw skin with a more careful touch of his fingers. It felt strange, like he was trying on an old suit that no longer fit. He barely recognized himself in the mirror but there was only so much that he could blame on a razor.
"How long have you been out here?"
"Not long." He picked up his coat and scooted over so that Ellie wouldn't hit him with the screen door. She closed the door and perched on the step below him. They sat in silence for a minute or two, baking in the sunlight.
"How'd it go?" Ellie asked and picked up the branch by her feet that he'd neglected.
"About as well as expected," Alec sighed and dragged his hand down his face.
"You didn't get to see Keira?"
He shook his head and Ellie snapped the twig in half.
"What'd Vicky want then?" Ellie inquired.
"She's marrying the bastard she had an affair with. Apparently, she's been shagging Aaron off and on for years," Alec informed her wearily and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"God, I'm sorry, Alec." Ellie flung the twigs into the shrubbery and shifted so that she was turned fully toward him. Touching his knee, she peered up into his face.
"Are you alright?" she asked him softly.
Alec shrugged and scrubbed his hands over his face again. "Keira's finally getting a father."
"Alec," Ellie said sharply and squeezed his knee. "You are her father. You will always be her father."
"Now, you sound like my ex when she's looking for more money," he snorted and lifted his head from his hands. Ellie didn't find it funny. Her eyes widened and then narrowed to slits.
"What happened?" she demanded.
"I just told you what happened," Alec groaned.
Ellie grasped his wrist. Tugging his hand away from his face, she studied him for a long time.
"Miller, you're staring," Alec growled. Self-conscious, he traced his jaw again, missing the beard he'd worn like an extra layer of skin. Ellie stretched out her hand and immediately found his newest scar. Alec jerked back from her, scowling.
"I nicked myself with the razor," he lied, but his fingers betrayed him by unconsciously seeking out the other little white scar behind his ear. Ellie eyed him critically, but as she took in the rest of him, her expression softened.
"It's a bit weird," she admitted, motioning to his face. "I always thought after seeing you before Sandbrook – I meant when you were in the papers and on the telly – not that I noticed -" she stammered to a halt and he swore she blushed. "You look different," she decided, nodding to herself. Over the next few minutes though, she kept stealing sidelong glances at him.
"What?" he finally barked.
"You're wearing a suit and tie again," Ellie pointed out to him, smirking.
"I didn't have time to change." He shrugged out of his suit jacket and was about to attack his tie again when Ellie did it for him. Vicky used to fumble and strangle him with the silk whenever she attempted the task, but Ellie was surprisingly gentle and efficient for someone whose husband had only worn ties for formal occasions.
"I had to teach Tom how to do this," she explained, smiling ruefully as she undid the knot and slid the silk free from his collar. Alec let her do it and they both pretended she wasn't thinking of the man who should have taught Tom.
It pained him to think of all the things he would never teach his own daughter. After Keira crashed a bumper car, they used to joke about how much they dreaded teaching their daughter how to drive. He wondered if Auntie Iris would be the one that got stuck with the job or if Aaron would step up as her new father.
"You know you didn't have to come all the way down here," Ellie told him, still fixated on his blue tie.
"Yeah, I did," Alec confessed and focused on folding his coat and suit jacket over his arm. Ellie added the tie to his collection and Alec asked her: "Are you sure about this?"
"Moving?"
Alec nodded, although he wasn't quite sure what he was asking her.
"I'm not sure about anything right now," she told him honestly. She stood and paused to take in the view from her front stoop.
"I never thought I'd leave this place," she marveled. "I never even considered leaving this place, not once in my whole life."
"Ellie, we don't have to do this today," Alec spoke up. He had sat back on his hands and he was gazing up at her. She was silhouetted against the landscape and that endless impossibly blue sky, and for the first time Alec could see the beauty of it all and felt the pull of it somewhere deep within him. Watching her, he imagined what it would be like if he agreed to stay, if he offered to sit with her on that narrow stoop with the bees buzzing in his ears, and the ugly little cottage at their backs, and the nosy neighbors constantly speculating about whether they were or weren't sleeping together. He thought about chasing Fred through the Market, and watching football with Tom, and waking up next to Ellie, and kissing her in the kitchen; and he thought that maybe if she asked him right now, he might just be foolish enough to agree to stay out here with her for the rest of the afternoon, and the next, and the next one after that…
"Come on, Alec. Let's get this over with before you take back your offer to help me pack up the house," Ellie sighed.
"I promised, didn't I?" he reminded her.
"You were half asleep on the phone last night, you would've agreed to anything."
"I wasn't asleep," he protested.
"Alec, you called me darlin'," she mimicked him.
"I didnae." His Scottish accent was so thick that it drowned out his weak denial. Alec felt the blood flood his face and he brought his suit jacket and coat close to his chest.
"Is that what you called your wife?" Ellie teased him, grinning.
"No," Alec admitted quietly, embarrassed because it was much closer to his heart. "That's what I call my daughter." Ellie was taken aback by this as if she understood what it meant to him.
He slowly stood and opened the screen door for her. Ellie hesitated, and then taking him by the arm, she dragged him in after her.
At the end of the day, they hadn't finished, but they'd made a significant dent in packing up her stuff. Ellie had suggested they split up and each take a room. Alec had chosen the kitchen because Ellie rarely cooked and he wouldn't feel like he was digging through her life. God knew he'd already done too much of that without even trying. Sealing up the last of the cardboard boxes, he piled it along the wall with the rest of them and wiped his brow with his bare forearm.
"Miller?"
Checking his watch, he wondered how he missed the shadows creeping into the room or the silence that had seeped in to fill the void of Miller's radio. He stretched his arms above his head and massaged the back of his neck. His body was aching and tomorrow he was going to regret volunteering, but this seemed to be one of the few physical activities that hadn't sparked a reaction from the defective organ housed within his chest.
"Miller?"
Groaning, he pushed off from the counter and searched the house. She'd been in the sitting room earlier, but she'd shouted something to him about the bedroom, and he was grateful her questionable taste in music had followed her upstairs.
"Millllerrrr!"
He climbed the stairs and threw the bedroom door wide open. Ellie shot to her feet and the heavy book in her hand hit the floor with a bang. Her hair was in disarray and her jumper was on the bed, along with an open shoebox, a couple of paperbacks, and many photographs. Some of the photographs had been violently ripped up. The carpet was strewn with the debris and pages that had been torn from the books. An empty cardboard box rested next to the hope chest still waiting to be filled.
"Don't you knock?" Ellie snarled and wiped at her nose.
"Sorry, the door was open and you weren't answering," he floundered and stumbled back a step. Something crackled beneath his foot and he found the radio in pieces. Ellie must've hurled it at the door. That explained the silence.
"What do you want?" she snapped and crossed her arms over her thin tank top. He wanted to know if she was okay, but clearly she wasn't.
Shivering, she hugged herself tight against a chill that he couldn't feel. His instincts screamed at him to get out and leave her alone so she could pull herself together. He wasn't the most perceptive person but he could sense that something private, something sacred to her had been opened with that hallowed yellowing shoebox. Her face was blotchy and puffy, but her eyes were dry, and as he moved toward her they burned into his.
She was vibrating with that suppressed rage simmering beneath her flushed skin. Alec could feel the heat radiating off of her, even though he was careful not to touch her. And yet she was still shivering. He took a cautious step in the direction of the bed and painstakingly retrieved the jumper she'd had on earlier from the messy remains of a life lost.
One of numerous photographs came with the jumper, clinging to the material. Passing her the jumper, he examined the snapshot. Alec had been so desperate to cement Ellie's innocence that he'd gone through the Miller's former home with SOCO and by himself at least four times. After the last search, he'd thought he'd seen all of the Miller's family photographs but he'd never seen this one. Ellie was in a beach chair with Fred in her lap, and Tom was kneeling in the sand on one side of her and Joe was on the other. They all had on ridiculous neon cheap shades and there were palm trees in the background.
"Where was this taken?" he asked softly.
"Florida a few weeks before…" Ellie's voice cracked and she clamped her mouth shut.
Alec nodded and touched Ellie's face in the photograph. Her sunglasses were pushed back from her forehead to control her unruly curls and she was squinting up at the photographer, her smile as blindingly bright as the sun reflected in her eyes and the rare color in her face. She was beautiful. What kind of man could toss a woman like that aside? What did that bloody bastard need so badly that he was willing to sacrifice a wife and two sons that any man would've been proud of?
"I wish I could give this back to you," he said to her, indicating the photograph in his hands. "But I can't. No one can do that. We can't go back and change the past. You have to learn to let the past go."
He replaced the photograph on the bed, his eyes lingering on their genuine smiles, even Joe's. Turning, he discovered Ellie frozen with the sweater still clutched in her hand and her eyes locked on the same photograph. He risked touching her, lifting his hands to her bare arms. Her skin was cooler and her face was more haunted than enraged.
"Ellie, if I wasn't so certain, if I had any shadow of a doubt, or if I thought that there was even the slightest chance that I could've been wrong…"
"It was Joe."
It sounded odd coming out of her mouth after all this time. He'd broken her with those three words, and although he knew that Ellie had accepted it as true as soon as she saw Joe and had not doubted Joe's guilt in all the months that followed, the way she said it now turned his blood to ice. She took a deep shuddering breath and stepped out from under his hands.
"There's something you need to see," she told him and stooped to pick up the book from the floor. Straightening up, she offered it to him. It was a hardcover titled "The Color of Fire", and judging by the flaming heart on the cover it was a trashy romance novel. Alec remembered coming across a small stash of books during SOCO's second run through, but most of the books had been Tom's textbooks or children's books for Fred.
"How strong is your heart?" she asked him, dead serious.
"Miller, I'm not a prude," he retorted and yanked the book out of her hand. Ellie buried her head in her hands, mumbling something about him keeling over. He started paging through the book, skimming what was definitely poorly written erotica. "Boom, boom, thunder and lightning flashed before his baby blues and I found magic in his -." He broke off reading out loud, unable to get through one more line of that utter shite. She was scaring him. "Ellie, what the hell is this? Some kind of sick joke?"
"No! God, I wish it were," Ellie moaned, shaking her head and pointing to the book. "Look inside the –"
"Fuck," he swore and slammed the book shut. He was lucky Ellie had warned him. Swallowing hard, he opened it again and forced himself to look at the photograph jammed between the last pages of the book.
"Is that - ?" he asked at last.
"I think so," Ellie whimpered. Sniffling, she scraped her hands down her face and glanced around. "There were – there were more but they weren't –"
"More?" Alec gaped at her.
Ellie went to the nightstand and grabbed a small stack of photographs that Alec had missed earlier. She looked at the first one and then gave them to him. Alec had to put the book down so that he could sort through them. He understood what Ellie was trying to tell him. There were only five of them and the only thing that set them apart from the family photographs on the bed was that Danny was in every single one of them. Joe had cut people out of some of them, and there was only one where he had his arm around Danny, but they were younger and Tom was half in it as well. Ellie had shut the only incriminating photograph in the book and left it there.
"Did you know about this?" he asked her. This was evidence they both knew he had to ask.
"Of course not!" she snapped and pressed a hand to her forehead. "Packing up the old house was a blur but it must've been in that box of junk I found in the back of the bedroom closet. I thought I chucked it, but some of the stuff ended up shoved into other boxes." Sighing, she collapsed at the foot of the bed in the midst of the twisted family collage. She slumped forward with her elbows on her thighs and held her head between her hands.
"Alec, I swear I never saw those photos until today. All I want to do is burn them or bury them so deep that no one will ever find them. I want them out of my house and I don't want Tom, or Fred, or god forbid the Latimers – "
They both cringed and Alec snatched the book up and stuffed the rest of the photographs inside so they didn't have to look at them. He wanted to chuck the bloody book into the ocean but even the Atlantic Ocean wasn't wide or deep enough to hide something like that. All secrets surfaced eventually, and Alec knew that this one had surfaced for a reason.
"Don't show the Latimers," Ellie pleaded.
"I won't," Alec promised. There was only one person that had to see this, and although the idea sickened Alec, he knew that it was necessary to ensure that Danny and all those that loved him rested in peace. After that he would bury the book under six feet of evidence in the bowels of the Broadchurch Police Department, and hopefully it would rot in hell along with Joe Miller.
Ellie tried to stand up but her knees gave out and she wound up sliding to the floor.
"Ellie!" He threw the book on the bed and sank to his knees in front of her.
"'m okay," she insisted and waved him off. Propping herself up, she sat with her back to the bed. "I'm okay," she repeated. Her hands trembled as she pulled her knees to her chest. "I'll be okay," she corrected herself, her voice wavering. She lowered her forehead to her knees and Alec crawled over to sit beside her.
"I want to let it go and forgive and forget, but then I find something like that –" Her voice broke and she raised watering eyes to his. "How could he? How could he do that to Danny? Why is Joe still torturing us?" she hissed and all of that pent up rage tumbled out of her in a rush of words as the dam finally broke.
"It's been months and all I want to do is move on and that fucking bastard is always there. He's everywhere. I can't go to the bloody Market without seeing someone that resembles him and I can't look out the damn window without thinking about him. I try to pack and he's in all of the boxes, I try to sleep and he's in my dreams. I can't even look at my own sons without seeing him and I can never stop -" She tripped over the last word and curled in on herself. Sucking in a breath, she hugged her knees to her chest so tightly that Alec knew she felt like she was about to fly apart. "I want it to stop. I want it to end. I want -"
"I know," Alec whispered and lightly touched the top of her head. Her hair was soft and her curls sprung up in the wake of his fingers as he passed his hand through them over and over again. He tried to solely focus on Ellie instead of that fucking monster she'd been married to for fourteen years but his hand was shaking.
"I wish he were dead. I wish I never met him. I wish –"
A single sob escaped her, her whole body heaving with the effort of reigning in the rest. She wrenched herself free from him and flung herself at the bed with a vengeance. The paperbacks hit the bureau and the shoe box struck the bathroom door. Photographs spilt and flew everywhere as she ripped the duvet from the bed. Alec flinched as the alarm clock hit the wall. Ignoring the dizziness, he heaved himself up from the floor and stowed that ugly hardcover book safely out of the storm's path.
"Unbelievable!" Ellie exclaimed incredulously and picked up the indestructible alarm clock. There wasn't even a scratch on it. "What is this bloody thing made of? Titanium?" She turned it over between her hands and went to smash it against the bureau but Alec stopped her.
"Drop it, Miller."
Ellie stilled at the sound of his voice. Alec stepped up behind her and clasped her shoulders. The room tilted and Alec shut his eyes. He pressed closer to her to remain upright and the world narrowed to the sound of their breathing and the blood roaring in their ears.
"Drop it," he repeated himself, his hands slipping and sliding down her bare arms. He lowered his head to hers and his fingers circled and pressed into the veins at her wrists. Her pulse steadied his and he whispered her name against the shell of her ear.
"Ellie, it's not worth it. He's not worth it," he breathed.
The alarm clock dropped from her slackened fingers with a clunk. Alec sighed and unconsciously kissed the back of her head. Running his hands up her arms, he rested his temple against hers. She leaned into him and he tried to brace himself against the bureau.
"It's okay," he told her soothingly, but it wasn't. A shitty platitude wasn't going to fix anything and a lousy piece of furniture wasn't strong enough to support the burdens they carried. Alec caught her against his chest and the pain was almost unbearable.
"It's okay."
Their descent was slow but inevitable. Somehow, they always wound up dragging each other down.
He lost track of time as the shadows lengthened around them and the color bled out of the room. Eventually, the knob digging into his spine became too bothersome and he was forced to move. Ellie reluctantly picked her head up off his chest and sat up beside him.
"Sorry," she whispered, rubbing at her eyes. "I didn't mean to –" She shook her head and drew her knees to her chest. "I thought I would be okay but that -" She faltered again and the photograph weighed heavily on their minds.
Alec scratched at his ring finger. He never thought he'd consider himself fortunate, but he did. Vicky had destroyed his life, but it all paled in comparison to what Joe Miller had done to his family and to Danny. He rolled up his sleeve and searched the inside of his forearm until he found it. After two and half years it was impossible to notice, but Alec could still feel it on the surface of his skin.
"I burned myself the first week I moved out," he said, outlining the small shiny scar. "There was a storm and we lost power in the hotel. I was so obsessed with Sandbrook, so intent on reversing all the damage Vicky had done and solving that case that I raided the supply closet for matches and candles and worked through the night."
He leaned toward her and held out his forearm between them. Ellie scooted closer to examine his arm, but by now it was too dark to see it. She touched the inside of his arm and her fingers left a pleasant trail of sparks in their gentle exploration. After a few moments, her thumb returned to the scar and traced over it.
"Did you burn the place down?"
"Nearly," Alec admitted and Ellie snorted. "I was lucky the woman in the room next to mine was a nosy old bat and already had it in for me. After three days of not sleeping, I crashed so hard that I slept through most of the banging and the hot wax pooling around me as the candles burned down. It wasn't until the concierge threatened to break in that I woke up just in time to put them out. If it had been a minute or two later…" He trailed off and Ellie squeezed his arm. They both knew how quickly a fire could start. Alec covered her hand before she could pull away.
"I let Sandbrook consume me. I was so single-mindedly focused on that damn case that I didn't realize until after I lost it what I'd given up." He lifted his eyes to hers.
"Alec, you haven't lost anything. There's still time -"
"Ellie, I lost two and half years with my daughter. Even if she can forgive me, those are two and half years I'll never be able to get back." He let his words sink in and leaned in closer so that they were eye to eye. "Ellie, you can't let this consume you. You've got two things that I didn't have –"
"What's that?" she interrupted him bitterly, "A fire extinguisher and some common sense?"
"No, Fred and Tom."
He caressed the back of her hand. There was an indent where her wedding ring had been, but in time that would fade too. Releasing her hand, he gently pushed back the curls from her forehead. Her eyes gleamed in the gloaming and Alec recalled that blindingly bright light reflected in them from that last happy hour in Florida.
"Ellie, listen to me," he pleaded. "Don't waste any more of your time with them thinking about him."
"Alec," Ellie sighed wearily.
"Ellie, please, try to remember that," he was begging her. "Trust me. You'll regret every second you lose." Out of all the shitty platitudes, this was the one piece of advice he needed her to hear.
Ellie heard it and more importantly she heard everything that he hadn't said. There was a steadiness in her gaze that hadn't been there before. Alec went to kiss her forehead and she tightened her grip on his arm.
"How long have you been here?" she wondered softly, her eyes searching his.
"I don't know a couple of hours."
"No, I mean, how long have you been here?" she clarified. She gestured to the room around her, to the little space that remained between them, to his arm that she held onto.
Alec didn't really understand what she was getting at, but he knew that he met her in the heart of summer, that he shattered her at the first signs of autumn, that the sentencing and their separation happened in the middle of a November rainstorm, and that he'd brought another storm with him on his heels when he forced himself into her house in the winter. He remembered snow in her hair outside of a coffee shop and the first time he saw her dressed up with Geoffrey. He remembered sitting at the kitchen table with Fred and Tom and the sound of their laughter when Fred threw a lump of cheesy pasta at Alec. He remembered following her out onto those blasted cliffs and giving her stolen flowers in the sunny parking lot. Everything had changed so fast as spring snuck in and brought with it a hope that Alec hadn't dared to feel in years. A bed had been shared, confessions had been made, barriers had melted, and walls had come down. They'd known each other for less than three hundred and sixty-five days, and spent more than half that time apart or bickering, and yet…
"I've been here the whole time," he realized. He held her hair back and mapped out her face. No, she wasn't the same blissfully naive woman that he'd met on the beach or the same broken woman that had curled into his side on that bench. She'd changed and grown, and he'd been there the whole time and barely registered the transformation. She was someone different, someone tougher, someone that despite meltdowns, and torn up photographs and a tragic case that would never stay closed, would be alright very soon. Perhaps, she'd never be as happy as she once was, but she wouldn't need Geoffrey, or Alec, or anyone else as long as she had those two boys. Alec could walk out of that house and know for certain that Ellie was going to be fine, but something held him back.
"Thanks," she said, drawing circles around his scar.
"For what?" Alec asked.
"For being here."
Bending her head, she tenderly brushed her lips over the scar on his arm. And for the first time in years, Alec felt it burn.
The heat spread up his arm and through him. From the day they met, Ellie had been an irritatingly warm presence but he never quite understood how warm or how many of his layers she could blaze through with a mere touch of her mouth. She moved to kiss his wrist and Alec swore she kissed the very vein that carried the blood back to his heart.
"Miller," he all but growled at her. Ellie paused, but instead of heeding his warning, her fingers stroked the inside of his arm and her lips ghosted over his skin until they landed on that stupid burn mark again. His hand was already in her hair, and his fingers twined in her curls, bringing her closer even as half his instincts screamed at him to push her away. The other half of him relished the heat that licked at his insides and warmed a part of his heart that he thought didn't exist anymore. Closing his eyes, he dropped a kiss to her hair and nuzzled his head against hers.
"Ellie," he breathed her name and kissed her jaw. She shivered and he felt the vibration in his own limbs. Shifting closer, his hand uncurled from her hair and settled on her bare shoulder to turn her fully toward him. Ellie let go of his arm and he lifted his palm to her face.
The vibration went through him again, but this time he was aware that it was coming from outside of himself. It was behind him, somewhere beneath the dresser.
"Alec."
"Ignore it," he told her gruffly.
"I can't," Ellie sighed against his mouth. "It could be Tom or Lucy."
Of course, his phone was downstairs and who would be calling him anyway? Feeling like a complete moron, Alec released her and sat back so suddenly that his head banged into another one of the knobs on the dresser.
"Are you -?"
"Fine!" Alec hissed and rubbed the back of his head. She rested a hand on his shoulder and leaned across him but Alec was closer.
"I've got it." He stretched out and slid his hand beneath the bureau. Her phone stopped vibrating the moment he touched it. He dragged it out and swiped the dust from the screen, revealing the missed call.
"Your boyfriend," he spat and slapped the mobile into her open hand. Ellie flushed and scrolled through the missed texts. Alec started to get up and Ellie's fingers slid into his hair.
"He's not my boyfriend," she told him, half focused on texting not-her-boyfriend Geoffrey. Her fingers gently kneaded his scalp. In spite of everything, Alec's eyelids drooped. It wasn't until his head lolled and almost hit the same bloody knob that he belatedly caught up with her motive.
"Stop that!" He shook her off and accidentally knocked the phone from her hand. Ellie's eyes went wide. Alec inhaled deeply and struggled to regain a sense of equilibrium that he'd been lacking since Ellie handed him that damn book. He rubbed his hands down his clean-shaven face but the strangeness of the sensation after all this time didn't bring him any comfort.
"I should go." He cleared his throat and tipped his head toward the now silent presence between them. "You should call him back."
The screen lit up with another text and Ellie picked the phone up to prevent him from reading it. She unlocked the screen and her blank face was lit by the eerie glow. Weighing the phone in her palm, she locked the screen without answering and extinguished the light.
"I'll drive you."
Ellie had made that hesitant offer a few times but Alec had refused to let her cross into his territory. His residence changed frequently and it was always far enough to be an inconvenience to her, but his current location was closer than he would've liked to admit.
"Miller -" he tried to protest but Ellie's mind was already made up.
"It's the least I can do after you helped me pack up the house," she pointed out.
"It's not done," Alec reminded her. They were already in the midst of a mess and Ellie was threatening to make it worse. After what just happened, how could she not see that this was a bad idea?
"Well, then, I guess you'll have to come back and help me pack up the rest," Ellie replied briskly. Alec struggled to make out her face but Ellie was already on her feet with her back to him. He slowly got up and joined her at the foot of the bed in the center of all that turmoil. It was so dark now that Alec could barely make out anything more than rough shapes, but neither of them went for the light. It was better that way.
"We're not going to finish this tonight and I need a break."
"Lucy's got the kids 'til tomorrow?" Alec asked and stepped closer to her.
"The day after tomorrow," Ellie corrected him, surprising him. "I didn't know how long it was going to take or if you were serious about helping, but I knew that I didn't want Fred or Tom with me when I went through everything. I packed up the old house in a rush and I had a bad feeling that I'd find something…" She didn't have to say anymore, she found it. Alec touched the back of her shirt and Ellie leaned into him. The darkness swelled around them, swallowing the little broken shards of a picture perfect family shattered with three words. As much as he wanted to get out of that suffocating room, he knew that they couldn't leave it in that state.
"Are you hungry?" he asked.
"There's nothing in the fridge," Ellie informed him. Alec removed his hand from her back and put his hands on his hips. He stared at his feet even though Ellie could barely see him.
"I heard about a place near the hotel that allegedly serves edible, possibly even decent food. If you want to drive me back we could stop there…" He held his breath and waited.
"You're buying," she decided. He sighed in relief and pretended to look at his watch.
"Fine. Go shower and change, Miller. I'm not taking you out looking like that." He waved vaguely in the direction of her attire, although he honestly couldn't remember what she was wearing, except for the fact that her lumpy jumper was buried somewhere in the wreckage and the thin tank top she was wearing underneath showed a little more skin than he could handle at the moment.
"You're joking, right?" Ellie snorted. "It took you two and a half years to find a razor and I just ruined your only shirt and you expect me to dress up?"
"We'll stop at my place then and I'll prove to you that I have more than one shirt," he grouched at her. Grabbing her arm, he spun her around and steered her toward the adjoining bathroom. Ellie grudgingly went grumbling, but she poked her head out before he even managed to flick the light on.
"Alec, you have to leave my bedroom if I'm showering and changing."
Alec kept his back to her and brought the book to his chest so she wouldn't have to see it again.
"I dropped my phone in here," he lied. "It'll take me five minutes to find it. Don't come out or yell before you do."
She called him a wanker under her breath and deliberately locked the door. Alec waited until he heard the sound of running water before he switched the light on. He took a moment to survey the damage she'd left in her wake and then he started picking up the pieces.
By the time Ellie got out of the shower, Alec was already downstairs and had hid the book in a paper bag beneath his coat. Everything else had either been trashed or had been neatly packed back into the shoe box and placed in the waiting cardboard box. It wasn't until later, much later that Ellie discovered one of the photographs she'd ripped in half had been missing for quite some time. But by then, it hardly mattered.
A/N: "The Color of Fire" is NOT an actual book, and although my writing's mediocre at best, I credit the title and that one shitty line Alec read to a writing contest that ended with disastrous but hilarious results. As for the photograph inside the book, you can interpret it however you want, but the only thing you're actually SEEING is Alec and Ellie's reactions. It could be anything, perhaps even something as mild as a school picture, it's more the fact that Joe had it and he hid it knowing he shouldn't have had it that set Ellie and Alec off. I'm deliberately leaving it open. What Joe's character did in S2 definitely influenced this chapter. It's hard because I liked Joe in S1, and even though I hated him after finding out he was the killer, it wasn't until the S2 trailer and I watched S2 that I really HATED him. I needed to do something to make the switch so that Joe's not the same Joe from S2 but he's not the same Joe I had in mind when I started this story either. Sorry, hope that makes sense. I'm curious to hear your reactions and please be honest with me.