Alec's head had remained in his hands, still shaking it and wishing Miller had been more careful, given she was a detective.
"I put it to you PC Miller that you had forsaken your two boys to go be with DI Hardy to celebrate the fact your husband was no longer a problem and that you could carry on with your affair," the defence lawyer gloated.
"Do you think you're going to win by twisting things around?" Ellie retaliated.
"PC Miller, you can't address counsel in that manner," the judge reminded her. "Be very careful I don't caution you for contempt of court."
"Sorry, Your Honour," Ellie swallowed, wiping tears from her eyes at the mess that was happening to her again. "That's not what happened though, Your Honour. There was no affair, I needed someone who knew about the case to talk to. My sister wouldn't have understood and my nephew is the local reporter, how could I have talked to him when he may have been tempted to use it for a story despite me being his aunt."
"I understand that PC Miller but in future, address the bench, not the counsel," she was reminded again. "Ms Bishop, I hope these allegations are founded?" the judge asked the defence. "It had better not be just speculation?" she asked over the brim of her spectacles.
"Very well, Your Honour, no further questions for the witness," Ms Bishop had to back down, knowing the damage had already been done.
"I will not tolerate any outbursts or counsel fabricating half truths in order to defend their client," the judge warned her. "Please just stick to the truth and what has already been established, Ms Bishop. The witness is not the one on trial here."
Alec let his breath out that he'd been holding but it was maybe too late now. There would be talk when they got outside and he couldn't trust Olly Stevens to hold out on such juicy gossip whether it included his own aunt or not.
"You are released," the judge told Ellie as the prosecution had no further questions for Ellie. "Court is adjourned for twenty minutes," she added, Alec thinking they needed it after that but it would give reporters time to call it in. He could only pray that Rose wouldn't believe what was written but would she come back anyway?
If she'd been considering it, she wouldn't now, he thought as everyone stood while the judge was leaving. He was going to try to keep his distance from Ellie but would that even matter now? He tried to delay leaving but Ellie was waiting for him.
"What the hell was all that about Miller?" he asked her without thinking how it looked.
"How the hell do I know Hardy?" Ellie hissed back as she waited to get a drink, trying to ignore the stares. "We've got nothing to hide, have we?"
Alec raised his eyebrows, thinking maybe he should come clean about his sexual encounter with Rose Tyler, not that they'd had proper sex but it had come very close a few times.
"Don't you dare have a secret relationship with that woman who turned up," she hissed again at him as she paid for her coffee.
"Shush Miller," he warned her as they moved away from everyone.
"Tell me you didn't get involved with her," Ellie tried to calm down.
"Not with her," was all Alec was willing to admit.
"What? Are you off your head?" she asked him. "Are you serious, in your condition?"
"It's not a condition," he still insisted on playing it down and he didn't want her knowing about his appointment to have a pacemaker fitted, if he survived it.
"It is a condition you nitwit," she replied, blowing on her hot drink. "Oh lord, Olly swore a certain heiress was in town a while ago. Please say it's not her?"
Alec was guilty by his silence, making Ellie say she didn't want to know.
"Really Hardy, couldn't you have stayed well away from her?" she then asked him. "She's engaged for goodness sake."
"Read the papers Miller, she called the wedding off," he tried to tell her without raising any more suspicion than there already was.
"I won't believe it until I see it," Ellie remarked. "It's still a stupid thing to do and it's dangerous, especially with what's wrong with you."
"Go on Miller, bring that into it, why don't you?" he replied. "If you must know, we were just friends and kept each other company," he had to admit.
"A likely story," Ellie shot him down. "Well if she was postponing her wedding plans, it wouldn't have necessarily been for your benefit."
Alec pulled another face at her. Ellie didn't care if she'd burst his bubble or not, after trying to rope her into his old case and her being stupid enough to agree to take him to Sandbrook.
"I didn't tell my sister where I was going when I asked her to have Fred overnight," she admitted.
"Good, no-one needs to know," Alec replied as everyone was heading back to the courtroom.
Then suddenly, Beth Latimer turned around to face Ellie.
"If that's true Ellie, how will you prove it was Joe who killed my Danny?" Beth asked her.
"Leave it Beth," Mark was trying to get her away. "It won't do any good."
"Won't it?" Beth turned on him as he took her arm.
"Sorry Ellie," Mark tried to tell Ellie.
"Don't apologise to her," Beth hissed at him.
"It was just the defence trying to get him off," Alec joined in.
"You two should have known better," Beth turned on him.
"There was no truth in it," Alec tried to assure her. "The defence were getting desperate."
"You'd better be right Inspector," Beth replied as Mark led her away.
Olly Stevens had wasted no time trying to put something together during the break but his editor grabbed his phone out of his hands and read the Tweets.
"Olly, shame on you, it's your own aunt," Maggie chastised him
"It's news Maggie," Olly protested. "I want to get in before the rest of them do."
"I can understand other reporters but not you petal," Maggie tutted as she turned his phone screen off, hoping the message would disappear and not be posted. "Have some respect."
Olly was trying to make sure his message had gone through as they got seated again, Maggie shaking her head and trying to tell Alec she wasn't taking any responsibility for her junior reporter. Ellie went off to sit next to Maggie, trying to ignore Alec but she wouldn't be able to later as they drove up to Sandbrook. She was now regretting agreeing to take him and she would be more than annoyed if the hotel hadn't got her booking or they got it wrong.
No further accusations were made, the prosecution had recalled Mark then they were all let go for the day. Ellie had arranged for the babysitter to drop Fred at her sister's house and Alec collected the overnight bag he'd had to leave at the desk downstairs after being reminded to do so when he'd gone upstairs with it.
As they drove up towards Sandbrook, cars passing them and Alec wondering if she always drove like she was on a country lane on a main road, he started messing with the radio and Ellie slapped his hand away.
"So go on then, what went wrong in Sandbrook?" Ellie then asked him. "What made you think it was Claire's husband?"
"Oh, so now she's not that woman I may have had something going with?" Alec replied.
"Don't be a smartass Hardy," Ellie sighed. "While we're on the subject, you and Rose Tyler seems a bit unlikely."
"You jumped to the wrong conclusion, as always," Alec replied. "We were nothing more than friends but she needed someone to talk to. She admitted all the wedding plans were getting a bit much and they'd been taken over by her mother."
"That seems more than likely, this Jackie Tyler is supposed to be as bad as the other one," Ellie told him. "So why did she pick here, of all places?"
"She never said," Alec tried not to say much.
"I bet she did, you just don't want to tell me," Ellie replied as she saw the turn-off they wanted. "You'll have to guide me the rest of the way."
"We'll go to the estate first, then the hotel. They had better have got us two single rooms," Alec warned her.
"Hardy, the damage has already been done, it will be all over the papers by now," Ellie complained.
"That seemed to have been the idea," Alec had to agree.
"It's so embarrassing," Ellie further complained as Alec indicated which turn-off she wanted at the junction.
After finding the Gillespie house, Ellie went to find the hotel and Alec got their things from the back of the car. It was just a big chain budget hotel but neither of them were bothered, that was until they got to the desk.
"I'm sorry but the booking wasn't registered," the receptionist told Ellie.
Alec went up to the desk to join her.
"We have double?" the poor woman offered, seeing the look on Alec's face.
He thought maybe she'd not seen the evening edition of the local paper.
After collecting the key, which Alec grabbed hold of and gave the receptionist one of his looks, they found the room then went in search of some food. Alec had stood in the doorway.
"Oh come on Hardy," Ellie complained as she tried to get past him. "It's late and I'm tired and hungry. We'll take half the bed each, you sleep on top."
Now was the time he wished it was Rose that was with him but he couldn't say anything.
"You'd better not snore Hardy," Ellie warned him when they got back and she came out of the bathroom.
"Me?" he questioned her.
"I bet you never snored when Rose Tyler was with you," Ellie told him as he got a cover out of the wardrobe and took his shoes off.
"Shut up and go to sleep Miller," he replied, making it an order, not a suggestion.
Rose was just about to leave work when Jake entered her office without knocking, a few late edition newspapers in his hand. He put them on the desk in front of her.
"Where's your boyfriend?" Jake asked her, Rose noticing everyone had gone back to calling John that.
Then she saw the headlines mentioned Alec and picked the newspapers up. She read some of it and threw them back on the desk.
"So, you did meet him?" Jake asked her since she'd denied anything after she got back. "Come on Rosie, you know I won't say anything."
"Yeah, I met him," Rose admitted, sitting on the edge of her desk. "I spent some time with him."
"Come on, I bet it was more than that?" Jake wanted to know. "I'm not judging you."
"I know Jake. What do ya want me to say?" Rose asked him. "Now it seems I'm wasting my time, he was already involved with her."
"Ya don't know that for sure Rose," Jake reminded her. "It's just gossip, probably to discredit them as witnesses and officers."
"Why should I care?" Rose tried to bluff as she felt sick. "Don't you dare show this to John. I never admitted I met Alec Hardy."
"That's between the two of ya Rose," Jake told her. "I'd worry more about your mother."
Rose gathered her things and followed Jake out after he'd picked up the newspapers. She went down to where John was and sat leaning on his untidy desk.
"Won't be a tick love," John grinned at her. "What's wrong?" he then noticed she didn't look happy.
"Nothing, I'm just tired," Rose replied.
"Well if you say so but I think we need to talk," he replied, opening his desk drawer and trying to fit everything in.
Rose wondered if he'd guessed. He hadn't but it was now worrying her that he'd see the news headlines and put two and two together that Alec had been in Broadchurch the same time she'd been there recently. They'd already agreed nothing would change in their relationship, they'd been fine before Jackie had interfered.
Even so, Rose always thought he still wondered if it was him she'd wanted or his twin. When they got home, all John wanted to know was about the wedding plans that had been put on hold.
"To be honest I'm glad you got your mother to back down," John told her as they ate a Chinese takeaway they'd called for on the way back.
Rose was somewhat relieved that was all he was bothered about.
"You are?" she wanted to make sure. "You took it better than I thought."
"Come on Rose, we were fine before she took it over," John reminded her. "So, how long do we put if off, now we're not under pressure?"
"When we feel the time's right?" Rose suggested, trying the eat the noodles without dropping them, something he did quite often, half Timelord or not.
She supposed there was still a lot of Donna's mannerisms about him.
"Yeah, we'll both know, won't we?" he laughed.
She sat and thought about the bits she'd read in the paper then got her tablet out and looked them up online. She gulped as she read what had been said about Alec and his then DS. Was any of it true or should she assume it was made up like they used to do with her and John?
Then she wondered if that was why he'd been so reluctant to be intimate with her or was he genuinely bothered she had been engaged and not wanted to start a scandal? Well it seemed like he'd got mixed up with one whether he liked it or not but if this Ellie Miller was back in the picture, where had she been until now?
Had they fallen out or was it just they were lying low and he just happened to be on his own when she'd arrived in Broadchurch? Either way, there was no way she could go back now, even if the guilty person was set free, Ellie Miller would have chosen to stay with Alec.
"Looking someone up?" John asked as he looked to see what she was doing, Rose just closing the web browser in time so he didn't see another twin.
"Just catching up," Rose bluffed. "I'm off to bed John, I'm tired."
"Yeah, okay then? Just going to watch a bit of tele," John grinned.
Rose knew he'd wake her up getting into bed, he still liked to hug and kiss, she supposed it was still a novelty for him now he was half human and it would wear off sooner or later. She still loved him, she always had but if things slowed down a bit between them, everyone would start noticing.
The next morning, Alec and Ellie walked through the woods where the young girl had been found then Alec went to see Cate, giving Ellie a key for where Claire and Lee Ashworth had lived after having a late lunch.
"You kept a key?" Ellie asked him as he got out of the car.
"In case they came back," Alec tried to tell her.
"So you're hiding Claire to see if her husband comes back?" she wanted to make sure. "What then?"
"Then I set a fire under them," Alec replied. "See what you notice," he nodded next door.
"Why do I bother?" Ellie muttered to herself as he knocked on Cate's door.
"What are you doing here?" Cate Gillespie wanted to know.
"Just a few minutes of your time," Alec told her.
Cate stood aside and let him in.
"You and Tess got divorced then?" Cate asked as she poured more wine out. "So did me and Ricky."
"Sorry to hear that," Alec replied.
"It was coming," Cate let out a laugh. "Does she know you're here?"
"No. What weren't you telling us Cate?" Alec wanted to know.
"What makes you think that?" Cate challenged him.
Ellie had let herself in next door, kicking all the mail scattered all over the hallway. She looked in the kitchen, then went into the lounge, sitting on the low sofa and feeling the light oak floorboards. Then she got up and tried to listen if she could hear talking next door.
Hearing nothing, she opened the patio doors and went outside, peering over the fence and just seeing Alec standing in the other doorway. What had he even expected for her to find? The police would have gone over everything at the time.
After this, she had to go eat on her own while Alec caught up with his daughter. She hoped his ex wife hadn't taken any notice of the false accusations. When she'd thought about it though, she'd no-one but herself to blame getting caught on camera that night. Why hadn't Becca taped over them?
They parted company just before six and Alec went off to meet his daughter, seeing her inside then he saw his ex wife.
"Alec," Tess greeted him as he sat down and picked up the menu, squinting at it.
"Why are you here Tess?" he asked her as he debated what to order.
"Dad, it's all chicken," Daisy reminded him.
He finally decided, since Tess wouldn't say while she'd turned up as well. Daisy had just gone to get her drink from the counter when Ricky Gillespie appeared beside him. Alec got up to face him.
"He called me," Tess admitted, knowing Alec would realise why she was there now.
"You stay away from Cate," Ricky warned him just as Daisy came back. "This your girl?" Ricky asked her, making Daisy step back. "I had a daughter, she would have been your age but she died."
"That's enough Ricky," Alec warned him back as Daisy sat down.
"Go back where you were Hardy," Ricky continued. "There's nothing here for you now."
"I came to see my daughter, you don't get to tell me," Alec turned on Ricky. "Get out of here before I have you thrown out."
He'd lost all the sympathy he once had for the man whose daughter had been killed by Lee Ashworth but they hadn't been able to prove it, since Tess had lost the only evidence they'd had.
"You're a failure," Ricky turned back to tell Alec as Alec followed him to make sure he left.
"Alec, you're not on active duty," Tess reminded him when he sat down again.
"Why did you tell him where we were?" Alec wanted to know.
"Don't start fighting you two," Daisy told them both, folding her arms.
"It was that or he made a formal complaint at the station," Tess replied.
"Like you pointed out, I'm not on active duty Tess," he reminded her.
"Well it could damage any chance you had of getting back," Tess told him.
"For your information, I was teaching over at the academy until recently," he snarled back at her.
He didn't want to admit that he'd had an encounter with Rose though. All seemed to be going well until Tess wanted to know how he'd got to Sandbrook.
"I came with someone," he finally had to admit.
"No, don't tell me. You came with your detective sergeant you've been accused of having an affair with?" Tess asked him while Daisy went to the ladies room.
"Shush Tess," Alec warned her as the place was getting crowded. "There was no affair, it was the defence stirring up trouble. Come on Tess, you don't believe it do you?"
"I suppose not but what about everyone else?" she asked him.
"Do I look like I care?" Alec replied sarcastically. "So is there any chance you'll reopen the case?"
"You are joking Alec?" Tess wanted to know. "Not without any further developments. You coming up here and bothering Cate doesn't count. You look awful Alec, what happened to you? Forgotten how to shave?"
"I have no-one to impress," he told her, thinking Rose hadn't been judgemental of him. "I'd best be off now, it's a long drive back. By the way, I'm going into hospital soon, for a pacemaker."
"What?" Tess asked him as Daisy came back. "Tell me you're not serious?"
"Serious about what Mum?" Daisy asked as she put her coat on.
"Ask your dad," Tess replied, trying to get her own coat on.
"Dad?" Daisy questioned him.