When the Storm Breaks
By Hazelmist
A/N: Thanks to all you AMAZING & LOVELY & PATIENT human beings who read, commented, gave kudos, translated, and cheered me on with my writing and RL. Seriously, I want to hug all of you and share my tater tots, pizza and wine with you. Thanks to the organ donors and the families who have made that difficult decision, and a big shout out to the doctors, nurses, teachers and researchers who make miracles happen every single day. Also thank you to my friends for tolerating all my silly questions and whining over the years, and pretending they don't mind it when I butcher their native language, or when I chase sunsets, or accidentally bring them to a weed festival, and spam them with photos of all the beaches I wish I was on. THANK YOU!
JUST A REMINDER I STARTED WRITING THIS LIKE FIVE YEARS AGO AND I HAVE OCs. ALSO SEE CHAPTER 49 FOR EXTENSIVE SUMMARY OF CH.1 – CH. 48. PREVIOUSLY ON WTSB CH.49: A drunk Derrick Norseman mistook Ellie for Phoebe's Mum, and confessed to 'Cate' at Phoebe's grave that he was Malcom Frost's accomplice. Ellie tried to arrest him and he violently resisted. DS Aaron Cooper (who shagged Alec's ex-wife Vicky and is now married to her) was allegedly sent over to the cemetery by Alec to check something out that Frost said on his death bed. He saved Ellie's life and helped her with the arrest, before attempting to beat Norseman. Ellie found out that Keira overdosed after seeing her father and that Norseman sold her the heroin and didn't call for help. Norseman went insane and the paramedics knocked him out. Cooper revealed that he sees and fears ghosts and that Frost was very sick and in the same hospital. He sent Ellie up to Frost's 'haunted' room to confirm that Norseman was his accomplice. Ellie's boss ordered her to go home, but Ellie fell asleep and woke up with a message from her boss supposedly reversing that order. The chapter ended with Ellie shocked by Frost's rapid deterioration and the fact that Cooper might be right about his room being haunted…
TRIGGER WARNING: Intensive Care Unit scene including a Code Blue, off screen death of minor character, serious discussion of assault, life & death, and some drug use
Dear SEA, I wish you could see our 'baby' sisters now. They grew into awesome nurses who save lives. I remember the three of you laughing up on the deck, soaking up the last rays of that final summer together. In that moment, we weren't thinking about the future or how little was left of yours; you weren't scared of what was deteriorating inside of you, and they weren't worrying about the nursing exam; but I still think that you guided them onto the path they took from there. You'd be proud of them. It's been almost five years, but we still miss you every day.
Chapter Fifty: When the Storm Breaks: Part Two
"Miller?"
Ellie's heart leaps into her throat, but time doesn't stop.
The machines whir and hum. Lines wriggle across the heart monitor while blood pressure, oxygen, and brain waves flash stats and warnings at her from various screens around the bed. The tank shuts off with a hiss, and the morphine continues at a hypnotizing drip.
On the other side of the wall an elderly woman screams as her enemies transform from MI-6 to the undead. But Ellie doesn't fear the shy "ghost" she loses in the plunging vital signs. The woman whimpers, and Ellie silently begs him to haunt her instead. She waits for him to reappear, her fragile hopes sinking along with the numbers. But he's gone, and now she's alone with a murderer who's a prisoner of his own failing body.
"I should chop off your balls and your little cock," Ellie spits at Frost.
"Don't waste your time, Miller, he won't feel the pain."
Ellie startles, whirling on the lanky figure by the door.
She gasps, hands fluttering to her lips. The fluorescent lights are harsh on his pale skin, carving shadows and crevices in his face she doesn't remember. His oxford shirt is hopelessly wrinkled and he's in dire need of a haircut, but his face has filled out along with his beard. He's not a shell or a shade of the man she loved. Every step toward her is weighted by the burden hunching his shoulders and chaining him to the deathbed of the man who ruined him. Her hands twitch against her mouth and stretch to close the yawning gulf between them, but the rain drums a tattoo on the window, drenching her with a dose of reality.
You're in shock, the rational part of her brain points out, you could've hit your head earlier or you're dreaming.
"What are you doing here?" His rough Scottish burr smothers one internal argument, only to provoke a new one. Worthington's message had been a mess of static containing an order Ellie had obviously misinterpreted.
"Is he dead?" she stammers. He shrugs, staring over her right shoulder. Frost's vital signs are cruelly reflected in the lenses, hiding the searching gaze behind his specs.
"What about the confession?"
"It's been sorted," he grunts, shoving his glasses into his untidy fringe to rub his eyelids. "Ten bloody hours of meandering narrative and useless details, but we finally got his accomplice and definitive proof."
"We solved it?"
"Aye," he concedes, and his voice catches as he reminds her, "We couldnae have done it without you, DS Richardson."
Thanks to her, he's done his penance. There shouldn't be anything else tethering him here, but they don't find peace or even relief in the aftermath. Frost's corpse is a vacuum, sucking at everything within its reach. They closed the case, there won't be any more notes in his handwriting or roses the hue of forgiveness. Her co-workers won't heckle her about the "office fairy" completing her paperwork or leaving cold cups of tea, and her boss will stop asking her how Hardy's getting along with his daughter in Scotland. She can tell Theo the truth about Alec, and maybe they'll give it another go or perhaps she'll date someone new. They can all move on, but now that Ellie's faced with closure, she doesn't want to let him go.
"You don't have to stay for this," she murmurs and he sighs. His fingertips outline the purple smudges beneath his eyes, futilely scrubbing at the mantle of exhaustion shrouding them.
"He's not going to get up and walk out of here," she persists.
"He's not going to prison either," he bitterly points out, removing his glasses and tucking them inside his Mackintosh. "After what he did to those girls and to their families, I want to see him suffer," he growls, glowering at a man who's no longer there. Frost hasn't officially been declared dead, but his brainwaves are nearly stagnant.
"Haven't you suffered enough?" she asks, facing the tortured man beside her.
He shakes his head and she breathes his name.
"I need to be here." His voice quivers. Passing his hands over his glittering eyes, he swallows audibly. "I need to watch him die."
"He's already gone," she whispers and her heart navigates the final steps.
Suddenly Alec Hardy's in front of her and death isn't such an insurmountable barrier. She rests her palm on the bedrail; centimetres from his pinkie. It's dizzying being this close to him, and so close to something she's been chasing for so, so long.
"Alec, it's all over."
He gasps for the air he shouldn't need anymore. Ellie uncurls her fingers from the plastic and hovers them over his white knuckles. She's terrified of what'll happen when she touches him, scared that he'll dissolve between one tearful blink and the next.
"You can let go now," she whispers and he chokes on a suppressed sob. The pained sound rips through the stitched up wound in her heart, as he tries to dam a tide of grief that's been four years in the making.
"I can't," he whispers.
He bites his trembling lower lip, but a tear drips from the tip of his nose and another snags in his beard. One of the machines starts beeping shrilly. Alec cups a hand over his mouth, but his muffled cry rattles her. Any second now, a nurse will walk in here and he'll disappear or she'll wake up.
"Alec, it's time."
She touches him. It's a fleeting brush of their fingers but the contact rocks through them. He wrenches his hand from the guardrail and staggers back from Frost's deathbed. She tries to steady him as the world falls apart around them; but he tips over an empty tray and sets off another ominous alarm.
"Leave it, let's go."
She leads him out of that hellhole, away from the pain and the suffering. The instruments screech at them from behind and overhead, as if Alec's presence was the only thing keeping that stubborn bastard alive.
"Code blue. ICU. Bed Seven."
A nurse rushes past them, clipping Ellie's injured shoulder. Little firecrackers of pain explode along her left side, but she can't stop now. Gritting her teeth, she keeps moving toward the red light at the end of the tunnel. The emergency exit looms up ahead, and she glances at Alec. His index finger is plugged into one ear and there's something jammed between his chin and shoulder.
"Cooper, slow down," he's saying, "Frost confirmed it was Derrick. No, I'm not going to murder him-" He breaks off and his eyes nervously flick to Ellie. "Aye, she's with me."
The crash cart rattles toward them, and Alec stops walking. It takes Ellie a few seconds to realize that he's fallen behind; by then the ward's erupted into a dizzying swirl of organized chaos. Even though she can't see him through the shield of grieving loved ones kicked out of another coding patient's room, a suspiciously Scottish outburst confirms he hasn't vanished.
"You stupid, stupid idiot, what is the point of you? If I find so much as a scratch on her, I'll have you sacked and prison will be the least of Derrick Norseman's concerns once I'm done with him."
A nurse shepherds the family toward the waiting room and Alec slams his fist against a poster promoting organ donation. Ellie knows she must be dreaming or hallucinating, but as Alec braces himself against the wall and hangs his head, she can't remember him ever being so alive. He's not a man at peace. The seething anger simmers beneath his skin, threatening to boil over at any moment.
"Miller, what happened earlier?"
"Nothing," she lies.
"Horseshit," he grinds out between gritted teeth. Ellie's mouth goes dry as he plants himself in front of her. Raking his eyes over her, he assesses the damage from her mud-splattered boots to the shallow cut over her left eyebrow. His gaze lingers on her bruised left cheek and a throbbing vein pops out at his temple. He's rapidly losing control of his temper, but Ellie won't let him goad her into a row where everyone can witness the mental breakdown her therapist predicted.
"Come with me."
Ellie holds out her palm, forgetting the slivers of glass the paramedics plucked from her 'lifeline' with tweezers. Alec pinches the bridge of his nose, turning away from the scrapes as if he can't stand the sight of them.
"Please, Alec."
Nodding, he motions for her to go ahead. Ellie backs into the emergency exit and Alec reluctantly joins her in the musty stairwell that smells faintly of cannabis. Slamming doors from below and ghostly footsteps echo eerily in the chamber. Wilson Memorial is Britain's newest hospital, but the floors are already blood-stained and steeped within tragedy. Ellie's grief-soaked memories from the last times she came here threaten to overwhelm her, but tonight Alec isn't a ghost confined to the past. He solidifies his presence with each worried glance he bestows upon her, flowing into the cracks in her fragile heart she thought she'd managed to weld together in his absence.
She falters in the red glare of the emergency exit as Alec scans her with smouldering eyes. His hands clench and unclench at his sides, itching to examine her. Ellie craves his touch, but she's more afraid of what'll happen if they can't connect at all. Will the dream collapse around her or will Alec fade along with her delusions?
Something cool grazes the bruise on her face, and suddenly she's flashing back to the cold rainy cemetery with Derrick Norseman backhanding her across the face. Flinching from the phantom touch, she fetches up against the emergency exit.
"Don't touch me!" she snaps.
The fresh air grounds her in the present, but the light flooding in from outside illuminates Alec's blazing eyes and his outstretched fingers. Jamming his hands into his pockets, he bites his tongue. She wants to apologize, but the truth will have to suffice.
"He might've hit me," she admits, and Alec rocks back on his heels as if she struck him. "But I'm fine," she insists.
"God, Ellie." Alec slips past her, taking pains to make sure that they don't brush up against one another. The space between them hurts more than any of her injuries.
They cut across a wet patch of grass in stony silence. It was drizzling when they first stepped outside, but the storm's already ebbing in the clouds overhead. Shivering, Ellie drags his old coat more closely around her, and wonders if she'll ever be warm again.
"Over here," he barks and ducks into a cosy little gazebo that would've been more suited for a fancy golf course than Wilson Memorial's most frequent visitors. Toeing a cigarette butt out of her path, she ensures that they're completely alone before Alec explodes.
"What the hell happened in the cemetery?"
"Norseman got a bit feisty when I arrested him."
"That's not what Cooper told me," he presses between clenched teeth. "The bloody coward said that Derrick Norseman could've raped or murdered you."
"Don't be so dramatic," she scoffs. "Cooper's exaggerating."
"Miller, you have no idea what that man is capable of," he snarls.
"The paramedics already checked me over. I'm fine," she protests. "He roughed me up, but I made the arrest and I had him under control."
"He hit you," he points out, enraged. "He's a suspected accomplice in a brutal crime, and he sold my daughter heroin, and then left her out on a fire escape instead of calling for help." His accent bleeds through, emphasizing every word with his ire.
"My daughter could've died and he didn't bloody care," he growls at her. "Don't think that he wouldn't have murdered you too if he needed to shut you up."
Alec's fear reverberates through the gazebo, and the truth pierces and taints those fuzzy seconds in the cemetery when Norseman got on top of her. If Cooper hadn't gotten there in time – if Cooper hadn't been sent by Alec - but Ellie doesn't want to dwell on the what-ifs right now.
"You were reckless and careless, and if I were still your superior officer-"
"You'd be thanking me because I solved your bloody case," she interrupts him, fuming.
"It's not about the fucking case," Alec yells at her. Ellie trips backwards into a post, forcing him to rein in his unbridled temper. "You're missing the point, Miller." He thrusts his fingers into his hair and paces away from her.
"You're right, Alec, this is about Keira," she reminds him, and Alec whirls on her. "And now, thanks to me, Norseman will finally serve time for what he did to your daughter."
"I didn't know it was him," he practically spits at her. "I was so focused on protecting her from the drugs and that wretched scrote was right under my fucking nose…" He kicks a post and grimaces. Cursing, he limps off to another corner of the gazebo.
"It wasn't your fault."
Alec pauses and glances up at her from the bowels of a hell she can't even begin to imagine. He stands silhouetted against the brightly lit building that never sleeps, casting an impossible shadow.
"Tell that to my daughter," he challenges her, and guilt radiates off of him. "She only went to Derrick's that night, because the surgeon told her I died."
"I know," Ellie confesses, and takes a deep breath. "I was there."
Laughter rings out somewhere in the distance, a harsh reminder that while Wilson Memorial's home to heartbreak, that same building has been the birthplace of many miracles. Seeing Alec now, Ellie wonders if this is what he would've become if the surgeon had saved his life, but modern medicine could only do so much. Ellie had put all of her faith in Alec's love for his daughter, and although she failed to bring Alec back in the form she wanted, she doesn't regret any of it.
And yet she can't look away from the mirror of her own guilt rippling in Alec's damp eyes.
"Alec, that day you went in for the surgery…" she trails off, wringing her hands and steeling herself to take the blame for the hell he's been through. "It was me. I arranged for Keira to be brought to the hospital."
"No." He shakes his head. "Iris and Vicky-"
"Do you honestly believe that they would bring Keira, when they knew about her addiction, and that you were her biggest trigger?" she interrupts him and he clams up.
"No, I went to see Vicky," she tells him fiercely, closing the distance between them, "and I had to blackmail her with Sandbrook in order to get Keira here in time." She pokes him in the chest, knocking him back a step. "And I made sure that you saw your daughter before they put you under."
"Why?" Alec flounders. "Why go through all that trouble?"
Ellie wants to strangle him, surely the idiot had some idea how she felt about him.
"You fuck-witted wanker," she sighs, and all of her fears dissipate somewhere in his wide-eyed gaze.
Fisting her hands in the front of his slippery Macintosh, she drags him down to her. Their lips brush and time grinds to a blissful halt. Alec freezes, but he shudders helplessly, thawing and melting into her. Gently, he cups the nape of her neck, his lips tentatively moving against hers. Ellie feels sparks all the way down to her toes. For the first time since she left the cemetery, she's warm again. Clinging to him, she releases the albatross from around her neck she hadn't even realized she'd been carrying.
"I thought that if there was anything or anyone who could've kept you here, Alec, it would've been Keira." He blurs in the kaleidoscope of tears that well up in the wake of her confession, but he doesn't let go of her.
"Ellie."
He ghosts his lips over her forehead and the tenderness of that gesture knocks the breath right out of her chest. She can't breathe. There's a lump in her throat and her heart is expanding within her chest to the point where it hurts to inhale.
"You're not angry?"
"God, no." Kissing her temple, he forgives her with another touch of his lips.
Ellie sags against him and he strokes her hair. His heart beats faintly beneath her cheek, reminding Ellie of when she'd held a Conch shell up to her ear in Florida. They told her it was the sound of the sea, when in reality it was merely the echo of her own blood rushing in her ears.
It's too much and not enough. She starts to cry, leaving tears pearling on his new Mackintosh. Overhead the tempest hits them with one last gust of wind, spraying them with a burst of icy rain. Ellie shudders, but Alec shelters her from the storm.
"Why didn't you tell me you were there?" he asks.
"I had months with you, at least I could give you fifteen minutes with your real family." Angrily, she swipes at her tears. "I knew me and my boys weren't enough for you, but I thought if you just saw her…"
Alec gapes at her.
"Ellie, I asked you to marry me." His voice cracks over that sacred word, and she's throttled by a fresh wave of grief. "I didn't even remember that I had a daughter when I first…" He stops to clear his throat. "And then they told me you weren't there and that my daughter had…" He chokes up and Ellie covers her face in her hands.
"I'm so sorry," she whimpers, "I didn't know."
"Iris didn't call you?" he asks incredulously.
"I couldn't listen to the messages," she stammers, swallowing past the burning lump in her throat. "I knew they blamed me for what happened. I was there when Keira came out crying, and Vicky told me to never come near them again."
Alec stares at her for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice shifts up an entire octave.
"You didn't listen to any of them?"
"No, I kept getting drunk dials, so I deleted all the messages, and I blocked both numbers." She buries her face in her hands, but her apologies tumble and spill over between her sniffling sobs and splayed fingers. "It was too much. I'm sorry, Alec."
"It's okay," he sighs.
Lowering her shaking hands, she looks into the shadowed face of a man who appears to have weathered the last lonely year right along with her. A tracery of fine lines branches out from his glistening eyes, like gossamer webs spun by a poisonous spider. Ellie wants to touch them, to absorb the gleaming tear tracks painted on his cheek and that burning light in his eyes that her subconscious hadn't been able to fully recapture even in her wildest dreams.
"Is Keira alright?" she asks.
"She's brilliant," he gushes with the glowing pride of a parent who idolizes his daughter. Most people grappled with religion in the dark, but Ellie had known from the day he said her name that Alec believed the sun rose and set with Keira. "I've watched her go through so much, but she's been clean for months, and she's strong, really strong."
"That's great," she tells him, blinking back tears. She'd unknowingly triggered his daughter, but Alec had found the silver lining.
"Sometimes she reminds me of you," he adds shyly, ghosting his fingers over her injured cheek. Ellie gasps as her skin prickles pleasantly beneath the pads of his fingertips.
Wounded, Alec withdraws from her. Ellie seizes his wrist, bringing his warm hand to her blemished skin. His brow creases as he searches her gaze, but when she nuzzles his palm, he gingerly maps out the damage with both hands. Painstakingly, he takes her apart and pieces her back together with a keen eye and a careful touch he usually reserves for delicate evidence.
"I'm alright," she reassures him. Alec slides his hands over her throat and settles them on her shoulders. "Really, I'm-" She bites back a curse as he prods the pulled muscles in her left shoulder.
He apologizes by kissing the shallow scrape over her left eyebrow, and it feels so bloody good to be held again that Ellie doesn't give a damn if he's real or not.
"Take me home, Alec." His eyes widen.
"Are you sure? We can go to A&E first," he hesitantly suggests.
"No, Alec, take me home," she begs him.
"Alright," he agrees. After months of fighting so hard to keep him, it's still surprising in her dreams when they go home together. He grasps the post behind her, and an entire year and hundreds of miles disappear in a split second.
"I'll take you home." Alec exhales forgiveness and Ellie inhales redemption. She can almost taste the sweetness of closure in the air between them, but she doesn't want this dream to end without a proper goodbye. His nose nudges hers and she shivers in anticipation.
"How far away did you park?"
"I'm near A&E."
"Helpful," he remarks drily, winding an arm around her waist and drawing her in slowly. "You've managed to narrow it down to roughly three hundred potential parking spots."
"I have faith in you, Alec."
He dips down and she loops her good arm around his neck. The second their lips meet again the chemistry reignites between them. Alec makes that needy sound deep in his throat and Ellie sighs as their bodies naturally come together like they've never been apart. Electricity simmers beneath Alec's skin sending off shocks wherever he touches her, and Ellie wonders if this is what it feels like to be struck by lightning.
"Am I dreaming?" Alec asks softly, resting his forehead against hers.
"I think I might be," Ellie confesses shakily.
"Let's not wake up," he suggests huskily, and uncurls his hand from the post behind her to press her closer. He stretches out their time together until they're suspended well beyond the moment she should've woken up somewhere else without him.
The rain drips from the wooden eaves and down the nape of her neck, until Alec turns them so that he'll get wet instead of her. He lacks the feral desperation that coloured their time together when he was dying, but the paint on the post behind them is scuffed where he dug in his nails with that same restraint that's tempering their kisses. It makes her head spin.
"I've missed you," Alec tells her between soft kisses.
"I love you too," Ellie says for the first time.
There's a tremor that starts in Alec's fingertips and spreads like a shockwave through his entire body before it washes over her. Ellie breaks the kiss when her knees start to wobble, but Alec keeps his eyes closed as they sink together to the grimy floor of the gazebo.
"I love you, Alec."
Tears leak through his lashes, streaking his cheeks, and Ellie kisses them away until there's too many for her to catch. Cradling his scruffy jaw between her hands, she rains kisses down on his cheeks, his nose, his mouth, his beard and his forehead. She thinks of every bloody time that she knew she loved him, well before she could articulate it, and she thinks of every bloody time that he desperately needed to hear her say it, but she wasn't brave enough to open her heart. She whispers those three words over and over again to make up for every missed opportunity, until he wonders aloud if she hit her head earlier.
"How could you not know that I love you?" she sighs, combing her fingers through his hair.
"I've been in hell," he rasps against her cheek.
"I know." She traces the creases and valleys in his face that her subconscious had kindly erased in almost every other dream she'd had of him.
"It's over," she promises him, nestling his head in the crook of her neck. "You've done your penance, you can rest now," she soothes him. "You don't have to hold on anymore."
It strikes her that Alec's not the only one hanging onto the past; she's been using Sandbrook as a way to preserve his memory but tonight it ends. She senses a new beginning on the horizon like a sunrise that cannot be stopped. Even the darkest nights break at dawn.
"Alec," she whispers, "Let go."
She touches his whiskery face, brushing his damp hair from his forehead. There's something so raw in his eyes that her subconscious could never mimic. It's gone in an instant, but the storm's already broken.
Alec stifles his quiet sobs in her snarled curls and rocks them through the aftermath. Ellie grows sleepier with the rhythmic rocking. The fragrance of rain mixed with a hint of the nearby ocean is more potent than any drug, especially when combined with the musky scent unique to Alec untainted by illness or the chemicals he took to combat it. Her heavy eyelids droop and she forces them open.
"C'mon, love."
Alec shyly fumbles for her hand and their fingers twine together like two gears shifting back into place. Their shoulders bump, their eyes lock and she experiences a tingling beginning with their joined hands and culminating in a heady rush to the head.
The light pollution snuffs out the stars like the fleeting lives that'll never walk out of that hospital, but a fine mist thickens into a rolling mantle of fog as they start a new journey into the unknown. Before them the pavement's pockmarked with so many puddles that the asphalt seems to shimmer and waver beneath their feet. Everything seems a bit smudged, set to fade at any second, like a dream.
Alec guides her through the blurred melding of light and shadows, until they somehow locate her car in the fog.
"You okay?"
"'Course," she slurs, nuzzling his shoulder.
He has a soporific effect on her, she can't remember the last time she's been this bloody tired. She's been leaning more heavily on him until he's practically carrying her. The last thirty-six hours have finally caught up to her with a vengeance, threatening to drag her into a deeper realm of sleep. Each step becomes harder than the last, and Ellie's grip on Alec and the dream's slackening.
She nods off again, and the whispering voices in the cemetery call to her. She finds herself walking amongst the dead and threatened by the only living creature amongst them. Derrick Norseman roams free in her dreams, stalking her through the tombstones, but this time she can't run fast enough and Cooper isn't there and -
"Ellie."
The cemetery slithers away and Alec's concerned face swims back into focus.
"Ellie, you have to let go of me," he coaxes her.
"Stay," she mumbles and his lips graze her forehead.
"I'll be right here," he promises.
Alec detaches himself from her, unmooring her from her anchor, and the dream collapses around her. Phoebe's headstone bursts through the carpet and a tree crashes through the window behind the sofa. Norseman sneaks up behind her, dragging her down, down, down.
And Ellie drowns.
"Ellie, wake up."
Ellie's ripped out of one nightmare and thrown into the throes of another. The light's searing her eyes but there's a man hovering over her with his hands on her face.
Norseman.
Her blood turns to ice. It's the same assailant from her nightmare, but this time she can't lift her heavy tingling limbs to get him off of her. Gasping, she forces herself to fight through the pins and needles. Her arms move, shoving the dark figure off the edge of her sofa and onto the floor. Scrambling to sit up, she seizes the first thing her hand touches, something plastic and heavy, and lobs it at the shadow's head. It misses him, knocking over the lamp before shattering against the wall. The room plunges into darkness but the lights are still sparking behind her eyes and the man's cursing.
Suddenly, he's launching onto the sofa and seizing her flailing arms. She bites his ear hard and knees him hopefully in the groin. The man yelps and collapses on top of her.
"For God's sake, Millah!"
Ellie freezes. She holds her breath as he pants against her cheek. His weight's so achingly familiar, as familiar as her name on his lips. She breathes him in and images flash through her mind to fill what the darkness can't illuminate. Her nose is pressed against his stubbly neck, and in her mind's eye she sees the red glow of a sunrise as he sits beside her on a bench in the aftermath of the case that would crack Sandbrook wide open. She shifts slightly and his fingers tighten convulsively around her wrists.
"I've got you," he soothes her. "It's all over. You're home now." Ellie hears the same soft voice that comforted her in the hospital the night Fred was hospitalized for an asthma attack and she'd fallen so ill that she'd thought that maybe – just maybe for one night he'd been there.
"Alec?" she whispers.
He sighs and releases her wrists. Groaning, he props himself up on his arms.
"Are you okay?" he asks, smoothing her hair from her forehead.
"Are you?" Ellie wonders.
"You almost decapitated me," he whinges. "Cooper's right," he remarks, grudgingly conceding, "You should play for England."
Ellie rolls her eyes and whacks his shoulder.
"You should stop scaring people," she shoots back.
"Sorry, you were screaming and I forgot the kids were in Broadchurch," he apologizes. "I hope Fred wasn't attached to that toy, I think you broke it with the lamp."
Wincing, they disentangle their limbs and sit on the edge of the sofa. She's still in her muddy boots and Alec's ruined coat, explaining why he's resurfaced in every one of the nightmares she's had tonight. The last thing she remembers is her boss telling her to go home and then falling asleep outside the waiting room where Alec reunited with Keira. Everything that followed, Ellie chalks up to a vivid dream. Putting her feet up on the coffee table, she struggles to unknot the filthy laces, but her whole body aches and her clumsy fingers aren't cooperating. The painkillers the paramedics gave her are already wearing off along with the adrenaline. All she wants is a hot bath or her bed.
Frustrated tears fill her eyes and she's determined to go to bed with them on. She stands and Alec trails after her like a shadow.
"Ellie, wait."
She pauses at the bottom of the staircase he never managed to ascend. He hovers uncertainly, before awkwardly gesturing to her mud-stained boots.
"You're tracking dirt through the house."
"So? What are you going to do about it?" she sneers, daring him to do something.
So he does.
He clasps her arms and some of the pain evaporates as he trails his fingertips from her elbow to her wrist. It's his eyes though that caress her through every layer of clothing, and burrow beneath her bruised skin in search of a soul she's bared to him before but tried to wall up in his absence. Alec holds her gaze long enough to remind her how easily he can burn through her armour, and then he kneels at her feet.
He deftly unknots her bootlaces and Ellie's knees almost give out on her again. She forces herself to remain standing but she caves to her impulses, lightly resting her hand atop his bowed head. He encourages her to hang onto him, and card her fingers through his silky hair as he removes her shoes and then her socks. Tossing them aside, he rises from the floor and towers over her.
"You've ruined my coat," he rumbles in her ear, and Ellie has to steady herself against the wall. She'd nearly forgotten about the broken glass littering Phoebe's grave, Alec's coat must've protected her from the worst of it.
"I didn't think you'd notice," she scoffs, climbing up the stairs without fully turning her back on him. The stairs creak beneath their combined weight, and Ellie relishes the sound and the feel of his breath heating the nape of her neck.
"I'm a bloody detective," he reminds her.
"You'll need to bag it for evidence," Ellie pretends to sigh.
"Oh, yes," he agrees. Ellie hesitates on the step where he fell all those months ago, but he's right behind her.
"And I expect that you'll need to do your own investigation to ensure that I'm not wearing anything else that might be tagged as evidence," she suggests mock seriously.
"You know I like to be thorough," he says huskily as they mount the top of the stairs.
Ellie turns to him and the air crackles between them. He cages her in against the nearest door without laying a finger on her, and she tumbles into the nursery. Her kids are in Broadchurch for the weekend, but Fred created a landmine of toys before he left. Ellie steps over a miniature helicopter, but Alec isn't so lucky. He curses, kicking it aside, and Ellie almost doesn't recognize the sound of her own high-pitched giggles echoing eerily in the silent house.
"Real smooth, Casanova," she chortles and Alec's pupils dilate.
Sobering, she backs up. He pursues her through the dark, matching her step for step in a dance she never thought they'd continue. There isn't any music, but Ellie feels the same slow build-up of an intimacy she thought had been lost.
Her leg hits the old rocking chair and Alec catches her before she falls. Slipping his hands inside her coat, he gingerly pushes it off her shoulders. Ellie helps him free her arms from the sleeves and he throws it over the helicopter in the corner.
"Do you always handle evidence like that?" she chides him.
"I am the Worst Cop in Britain," he reminds her.
"Not anymore," Ellie corrects him, lifting a hand to his jaw.
He closes his eyes, and when he opens them they wink and gleam like the never-ending tapestry of stars over Broadchurch. He kisses her, and Ellie swears there are falling stars bursting behind her eyelids and burning up beneath the pads of his fingers.
Her eyelids flutter. Everything's brighter. At first she thinks he's glowing from all the constellations blazing beneath his skin, but her hand on his chest is painted silver too. Weak moonlight slants in from the window behind them, splashing a pale square on the carpet and ensnaring them in a kinder, softer world where he all her dreams come true. Beneath her palms she feels something that her subconscious could never mimic.
"Your heart's beating," she whispers.
"Yeah, it does that sometimes," he whispers back.
"But you – you died," Ellie stammers, measuring the impossible steadiness of a faulty organ that she thought had failed him. "Didn't you?"
Grief's a wildfire smouldering underground that can resurface at any moment, and Alec's brutal honesty sets it ablaze.
"As soon as they opened me up."
His words rip through her like shrapnel. Her blossoming hopes shrivel up and die and her heart shatters into a million little pieces. It's been twelve months since she lost him, but it feels like Alec stabbed her in the chest. She didn't search for his obituary, and she wouldn't discuss his death with anyone but Lucy, because a tiny delusional part of her still hoped that maybe the knob had somehow absconded to Glasgow with his daughter.
"Did it hurt?" she asks tremulously, hooking a finger between two buttons on his Oxford shirt.
"I don't remember," he lies and holds her tighter.
"But how are you here?" she wonders, sifting her fingers through his silver-tipped hair and worrying the buttons on his shirt.
"I don't know," he sighs, and turns to press a lingering kiss to her temple.
Ellie can't take it anymore. Her fingertips stumble over another button and she rips his shirt wide open.
"I liked that shirt," he growls and she unleashes a tempest.
Their lips crash together, teeth clacking and hands seeking to rediscover every inch of skin. Another one of Fred's toy vehicles gets trampled underfoot and Ellie's head almost cracks against the shelf containing Fred's rock collection when the thing starts wailing. Alec sniggers against her throat when she mentions taking all the fucking batteries out, but he dials down his enthusiasm, using one of his hands to cushion her head against the wall. Ellie's hands keeps gravitating to his chest, sneaking beneath the fitted T-shirt, until Alec pulls it up and over his head. He abandons it with his Oxford, but the second of hesitation confirms her earlier suspicions.
She holds him at arm's length, inspecting his chest for the Y shaped scar that always featured so prominently in her worst nightmares. He's put on almost a stone and his chest is hairier than she remembers, but he almost looks healthy, which doesn't explain why he's shying away from her. She flattens her palm against the centre of his chest, nudging him into the moonlight. Sometimes in her nightmares he bleeds out in front of her, or they let her see his stitched up body after it's over. But tonight there's no blood or festering wounds, and he's lacking any ugly scars.
"How is this possible?" she repeats, frightened but desperate for an answer that he can't give her.
"Ellie," he whispers, "come here."
He takes her hand and lifts it to a spot closer to his collarbone. The pads of her fingers run over a thin line of puckered pink skin and explore the hard lump below it that his skin can't fully disguise. She's had many dreams of Alec over the last year, but the pacemaker had been the one tiny detail her subconscious always neglected.
"They left it in you," she gasps.
"Do you want me to take it out?" Alec quips, and Ellie tears up.
"Am I dreaming?" Ellie asks as he clumsily wipes her tears away.
"I've been asking myself that every morning since I woke up in the hospital," he confesses, gazing down at her with a level of awe she thought he only reserved for his daughter.
His fingers skim over her cheekbone and the curve of her lips. Ellie reaches for him, running her hands over his bare shoulders before leaning in to reverently kiss the pacemaker scar. Alec's breathe hitches and he kisses the top of her head.
"You're really here?" Her bottom lip trembles as Alec kisses first her right cheek and then the bruise on her left. Ellie stays him with two fingers against his scar.
"I'm here," he promises, and cradles her face so that his fingertips brush over her temples. "I'm staying right here."
It's not the first dream where he's made her false promises, or reminded her that his memory will outlive him. But it is the first time she doesn't immediately wake up.
They resume a more languid dance as Ellie strips him of his armour; one layer at a time. His alabaster skin's so beautiful in the moonlight that Ellie wants to make love to him right there on the floor of the nursery. But Alec's so slow on the uptake that Ellie wonders if he's lost interest. He combs his fingers through her snarled curls, and Ellie smells the rosemary that was left at Phoebe's grave for remembrance. A glimpse in the mirror reveals a reflection of herself that Ellie barely recognizes.
"Maybe I should clean up," she suggests, blushing.
"I'll wash your hair," he offers.
Alec draws the bath while Ellie removes her clothes. It takes more time than it should because it hurts to lift her left arm over her head and her bruised hip screams in protests when she has to shimmy out of her work trousers. Her fingernails are filthy with the dirt from someone else's grave, but Alec's sharp intake of breath behind her is the worst part. He stares at her in abject horror and Ellie squeezes her eyes shut.
"How bad is it?" she asks, bracing herself against the sink.
Alec says nothing, but his stony glare is reflected in the mirror. The rage that burns in his eyes is only tempered by the intensity of his remorse and love. He still blames himself for what happened; he'll always blame himself.
"You're very lucky," he says, and turns her so that she can see the purpling mottled skin down her back in the mirror. The worst of the bruising is around her hip, where no one but Alec will ever see it. The scratches aren't noticeable, although she'll have to wear extra makeup to hide the bruise Norseman left when he struck her.
Alec rifles around in the medicine cabinet until he locates the paracetamol. She's dreaming, but Ellie humours him by dry swallowing a few of them. He digs the fluffiest towel out of her cupboard and struggles to wrap it around her without touching her breasts. It might've been hilarious, if it wasn't for the tears in Alec's eyes.
"I am proud of you," he tells her, his eyes shining, "but damn it, Ellie, please don't ever do that again." Sniffling, he ducks his head.
"I'm okay," she lies.
His presence alone is a red flag that she's not okay - not yet anyway - but she's already done everything she can to absolve him of his guilt and free him from the hell of his own construction. Crooking a finger beneath his chin, she brings his watery eyes to hers.
"Alec, you don't have to worry about me or the boys anymore. We're fine."
"I know," he rasps, chewing on his bottom lip to prevent it from quivering. "But I gave you my word that I'd look out for them as if they were my own." Ellie recollects Fred's many adventures with Daddy and she's envious, because some of them must've been real.
"Fred will always be yours," she whispers, and Alec shuts his eyes as if it's all too much. "He chose you as a father figure, and even if Theo – or I meet someone else, I will never take that away from him," she vows and he sniffs. Framing his face between her hands, she leans in to kiss his forehead.
"Keira's going to be fine too," she promises as he gazes up at her through wet lashes. "I'll check on her tomorrow."
Alec picks up her hand, tenderly kissing each of the scratches on her palm, before bringing it back to the organ that will always be hers. There's so much gratitude and love in his eyes that it transcends words, and anything her subconscious could've cobbled together from her fading memories of him.
Speechless, he thanks her by folding her into his arms. They stay like that until the mirror fogs up behind them and Ellie loses her towel.
He barely fits in the tub behind her. His legs are too gangly to cram in comfortably and water sloshes over the lip of the tub, flooding the tiled floor and splashing up the walls. He doesn't tear up again until he discovers the hand-shaped bruise on her ankle, and then he gets shampoo in her eyes because he can't stop his hands from trembling.
"Sorry, fuck, sorry," he apologizes, washing the suds from her hair with one of Fred's plastic bath toys.
It's ridiculous, but then Alec coaxes her to lean against him. As the shallow water goes cold around them, Ellie feels his chest rising and falling behind her. His breath warms her forehead, but it's the deceptive thrum of his heartbeat that lulls her into contentment.
"This is nice," he rumbles.
"Comfy?" she teases him. One of his hairy legs is hanging outside the tub and she's fairly certain the other one is asleep underneath her.
"Mm."
She tips her head, cracking an eye open to peek at him. He prevents her from moving any further, dripping water between her breasts as he brings his arm across her chest to clasp her arm. He avoids jostling her injured shoulder, rubbing circles on her bicep instead. The happiness and love she feels for him in the moment is almost overwhelming.
"I love you," Alec says softly, sucking a favoured spot behind her ear. The water's cooled, but the heat pools low in her belly.
"Come to bed with me, Alec."
They clamber out of the tub and she snags the towel first. She squeals as his wet arms wrap around her from behind. Her shrieks dissolve into laughter as Alec nicks the towel from her. They have a playful tug of war that quickly ends with the soaked towel forgotten on the floor and their hands all over each other. Their bare feet leave shining footprints on the hardwood floor that'll be gone by morning, erased along with almost every other sign of Alec's presence.
In the morning Ellie will wake up alone in her bed to the sounds of her children scampering and thundering up the steps. But right now, Alec climbs onto the bed with her, tenderly marking and soothing each and every bruise within his reach. Only her three-year-old legitimately believes that a kiss can staunch and heal a wound faster than a bandage, but Alec makes a very compelling case for an alternative remedy.
That night he brings down the stars for her, and as Ellie floats along in the aftermath of their shared bliss, she looks down at Alec's head pillowed on her breast.
His eyes are closed and the lines have fallen away in his slumber, and for the first time since she met him, he's at peace.
Ellie wakes up alone, but more relaxed and content than she's been in months. She lies in bed, listening to the dulcet tones of her children squabbling as sunlight warms the empty space in the bed beside her.
"It was Fred!" Tom's accusing his little brother, but Fred's learned how to point the finger back at him.
"No, it was him!"
"Clean it up before your Mum wakes up and I won't tell her," Olly bargains with them.
Ellie drags herself out of bed as Tom continues to vehemently protest that it wasn't him who broke it. With boys, she's learned that sometimes she's better off not knowing. She squints at the clock, shocked that it's already half past eleven. Grabbing her housecoat, she tiptoes to the loo before Olly takes off and she loses her precious ten minutes of privacy. The last thing she needs is for Fred to barge in on her and start asking about Mummy's 'boo-boo's'. She showers in record time, tosses back some paracetamol and uses her remaining minutes to mask the bruise that Norseman gave her with concealer.
She freezes when she sees the purple marks on her collarbone.
"Bastard," she grumbles, "That wasn't the type of sign I asked for."
Humming, Ellie debates on a dress to dance on his grave, but decides to spare poor Keira and her sons the embarrassment. She settles on a pretty yellow blouse and the same tacky necklace she wore on her date with Alec. Checking her purse, she makes sure that Keira's letter is still there, and then she tries to hunt down Alec's coat.
Fred catapults into her bedroom, wearing the garment like a cape. He trips over the comically long sleeves and Ellie scoops him up before he hits his head on the bedpost.
"What super hero are you today?" she asks.
"I'm Daddy!" he exclaims and tries on a scowl that he might grow into one day along with Alec's coat. The coat's filthy and ruined, but a part of her still wishes she could keep it for him since she has nothing else to give him. Maybe she could ask Keira for a photograph.
"When's he coming home?" Fred pouts and Ellie smiles ruefully.
"Not today, darling, but…" She brightens as an idea occurs to her. "If you're really, really good today, maybe we'll go to the park and I'll show you where Princess Keira lives."
Fred claps his hands as Tom and Olly slip in through the front door looking immensely guilty. Ellie doesn't ask, nor does she notice that the broken lamp from her sitting room is leaning up against her neighbour's bins.
A/N: I'm wicked tired and I've been failing spectacularly at RL. I had millions of drafts and I kept rewriting it. Last week I decided that I've been hanging onto this stupid thing for too long. It's not perfect, and you probably have questions that I meant to answer in this one. I have some drafts that were definitely better, but I need to let this story go before I fall out of love with it or go insane. I'm not making any promises, but the epilogue should clear up the BIG question (although I left windows open and you could always stop here if you'd rather stay in the grey area, I seriously contemplated it). I have some additional scenes that I may post as well, depending on the feedback and how I feel once I've finished editing the epilogue. So don't panic if you see the chapter count change. Thank you again for your encouragement, your support, and saving what's left of my sanity. You are magnificent and I wouldn't have gotten here if it wasn't for you.
So I'll ask you one last time, are you ready?
