"Chapter 5"

A/N: And here's where it all starts to go downhill.

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When Ellie woke next it was late morning and the sun was shining through the curtains. Struggling with the blanket that had somehow become entangled around her legs, she staggered to her feet. Her back cracked as she stretched.

Then the headache hit her. Change in position had clearly kicked it into full blown gear and her strangled ''bloody hell' was merely a groan. Her head was pounding, her mouth tasted brown, and her stomach was roiling.

She would have smashed the near-empty wine bottle to the floor but Alec was still sleeping soundly where she could fuzzily recall seeing him before. As much as she wanted to make her displeasure known, she was loathe to wake him. Instead she made her slow painful way to the kitchen where she filled herself a glass of water and swallowed two ibuprofen; dehydration, that was the killer with drinking. Hoping the water would help with her hangover she dumped the rest of the wine down the drain and threw the bottle in recycling.

She leaned heavily against the counter, gazing down at the snaking rivulets of red liquid resting in the bottom of the sink, and let out an explosive sigh. She rubbed her face wearily. What had gotten into her last night? She never drank like that, never ever turned to drink to settle her problems.

Oh dear god, Alec had seen her like that. As much as she was glad that he had been there to stop her while she was ahead she felt equally ashamed that she'd allowed him to see her sink so low. What must he think of her now?

But then she snorted. He had already seen her at her worst when she'd been screaming and sobbing after Joe's confession. What would getting drunk change? He had stayed, after all, rather than leave in the middle of the night. She must not have scared him too badly.

She placed the now-empty glass in the sink and turned. "Bloody hell!"

Alec was standing quietly in the doorway of the kitchen, a suspiciously satisfied grin playing on his face when seeing her reaction. The night of rest had done him good; his face wasn't quite as worn, his eyes not as shadowed. Color was finally returning to his skin. His shirt was wrinkled from sleeping and his hair was wilder than normal. "Scare easily, Miller?" he asked innocently.

On reflex she called him something rude and threw a wadded-up dishtowel at him. Equally on reflex he caught it before it could hit him in the face, and abruptly in the stunned silence he started to laugh. After gaping wide-eyed at what she'd just done, she joined in.

"Ow," she gasped after a particularly fierce throb of pain shook her head. The suddenly new-found humor had not quite passed, however, and she was loathe to let it go. She mock-glared at him. "What happened to stopping me before I became a swaggering drunken mess?"

He smirked. "You weren't swaggering yet."

She rolled her eyes. "What happened to that towel…?"

He raised his fist, one corner of said dishcloth hanging from it. "This towel?" His grin, foreign as it was, was downright evil. She realized belatedly that he was somehow an expert at kitchen battles and managed to grab hold of a second towel just in time.

Fifteen minutes later they were seated back in the living room, nursing cups of tea (and their shirts damp from the dishtowel/water fight that had somehow happened). Ellie was silent for a long moment; then she abruptly turned to Alec. "Do you think I should go see him?"

He didn't have to ask who she meant. He didn't quite look at her. "I don't know. Will you go ballistic on him again?"

She did not rise to the bait of his jab; she felt little shame at going full-out on Joe, even if it reflected badly on her as both a person and a cop. "I just feel so—trapped," she confessed. "Maybe if I go see him once he'll stop asking for me."

"So that you can tell yourself you've done what you needed to do and never think of it again." Now he looked at her. His expression was carefully neutral, but Ellie thought she knew what he was thinking. "It won't work, Miller," he told her flatly. "Joe is not your responsibility. When are you going to stop thinking that he is?"

She shifted to look at him, trying not to show how hurt she was. "Why wouldn't he be my responsibility? I let him get away with murder!"

"That was his choice," he retorted sharply, more sharply than she'd ever heard him before. "He chose to hang out with an eleven-year-old boy for hugs and God knows what else—"

"He did nothing else, we know that!"

"Doesn't mean he wouldn't have," he said, echoing what he had told her months ago, but this time it was said without the quiet calm he'd had before. This time he was almost vindictive. "He told me straight up, Miller—'I was in love with him'. Doesn't matter if he hadn't touched Danny then; a phedo always starts with that sentence."

Ellie slumped. She had heard the damnable confession for herself, there was no doubt that Joe was entirely guilty, a despicable excuse for a human being, but her heart still refused to let him go completely. On all levels she shouldn't want to see him at all.

But that didn't change the fact that she did.

And that made her angry. She glared at Alec. "So you automatically tell me not to go see my husband simply because he's a potential pedophile?" she snapped, fingers clenching around her mug.

"Yes." The answer was blunt; his hackles were raised, responding to her tone. Neither of them held their tempers well. Her headache throbbed slightly again, only adding to her sense of quickly-rising fury.

"I need some closure. He took so much away, I need to know why!"

"There is no knowing why, Miller! He did it, it's done, and there's nothing you can do!"

She leaped to her feet, placing the mug on the table. Tea sloshed over the rim, scalding her hand. She cursed. "Drawing from personal experience, are we?" she snarled. "Going to finally tell your old friend to bugger off, then? You clearly don't want to hang out with a murderer!"

"Do not bring John into this!" He was on his feet as well; they stood several feet apart, the coffee table separating them. "That has nothing to do with anything!"

"Oh, I think it does!" Ellie retorted, in no mood to back off. Where had all this anger come from? "You refuse to listen to any opinion about murder because you've been betrayed by your best friend!" She clenched her shaking hands into fists, suddenly blinking back tears. "If that's how you feel about it then you should just leave! Can't have a murderer's wife disgusting you!"

"If this is how you feel then Beth was right to stay away from you!"

He had gone too far. The words had barely left his mouth before he realized what he'd said, and he immediately backed away a step, shame and horror flitting across his face. Ellie had flinched as if slapped, white, looking at him like she had never seen him before. She blinked, and a tear slipped silently down her cheek.

"Leave." Her voice was hollow.

He made as if to move closer, to stretch out a hand. "Miller—"

"Just go."

She had not moved a muscle, had not even raised her voice, but it was Alec this time who flinched back and retreated. Within seconds he had grabbed his coat and the door was slamming shut. Ellie was left with silence, a mess of spilled tea, and a whole different kind of betrayal making her chest ache.