"Chapter 16"
A/N: This chapter was hard to write. Very hard to write, so if it was difficult for me to write it'll probably be difficult to read as well. I apologize now because I am truly sorry.
So any of you have left reviews (wonderful, amazing reviews and I'm grateful for every one), several of you asking me to save Alec. I have not, although there were several times where I almost went back on the storyline and rewrote it so that he would live. In regards to those pleas and this chapter's events, I'd like to explain why I wrote this outcome: when looking at Alec Hardy I saw a very broken, lonely man and his heart problem only added to that image. Before season 2 aired I believed (and still do to an extent) that his storyline would have been somehow right if he had died. I was also reading so many fanfictions that dealt with very similar storylines: Alec's heart condition worsens, he has a major episode, the doctors tell him he needs surgery for a pacemaker, Ellie persuades him to get it, he gets it, he survives, and everything is a happily ever after. I've loved those stories, every writer addresses the circumstances differently, but the outcome remains the same: Alec lives. And the part of me who is very realistic started to protest because in life not everything is a happily ever after, not every health problem can be solved and the patient survive. Sometimes life has a sadder ending. So I started writing 'Through the Dark' with that in mind. I now can only ask you to forgive me and respect the direction I took with this. I love Alec and Ellie and Beth and the rest of Broadchurch so this was heartbreaking to write, but I hope you read this chapter all the same. So please read on and tell me if I ended Alec's storyline well and respectfully.
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Paul had gone for the night, leaving the book he had finished on the table beside Alec's bed. Ellie looked in on him: sleeping—fitfully, his breathing labored. Daisy, home from the Latimers, was curled up along his side, her fingers intertwined with his.
It was quiet.
She called Lucy and asked her to watch the boys for the night. Lucy, used to her odd-timed phone calls, must have picked up on her odd tone because she barely hesitated before she agreed, and it was with a weird relief that Ellie packed a bag for Fred and told Tom to pack his own. Her eldest son looked at her but did not comment; she wondered if he, too, had somehow picked up on the odd feeling surrounding the house.
"Can I—say goodbye to him, Mum?"
She felt a lump form in her throat and she could only nod. Lucy wouldn't be over for a few minutes, anyway. She gave him privacy while he went into the guest room. John, having been staying overnight the past two days, was settled on the couch and struggling not to drift off to sleep.
Lucy came and went, barely saying a word—afraid of bringing up the wrong thing, Ellie supposed, but she wasn't in the mood to talk to her sister so she wasn't too offended. She merely kissed Fred and Tom goodbye, sharing a tremulous smile of assurance with her eldest, and waited until they had driven out of sight before closing the door and making her way back to the living room. John was dozing off but jerked awake again when hearing the door shut, snuffling out a deep breath as he rubbed his face.
"Sorry," Ellie apologized quietly, sitting in the chair across from him.
"It's alright," he yawned, stretching. It was late. Ellie sat back and simply breathed for a moment, giving herself a time to calm down. She was overreacting, that was all, just an overreaction to what the house felt like. Alec's health had been fine for the past couple of days, there was no reason for it to go downhill now. He was craning his neck to look at her. "You look like you could go to bed yourself," he said wryly.
Ellie shook her head; she didn't have to explain in words how she slept very little anymore and hadn't for days since Alec's situation had started to seriously deteriorate, every small cough enough to make her heart start racing. (Some tiny little part of her, a part that she refused to acknowledge, was almost relieved by the knowledge that soon it would all be over.) just lying in her bed, though, sounded beautiful and so she finally said goodnight to John and went upstairs. Daisy had finally fallen asleep.
She grabbed a book and slipped into her pajamas before climbing into bed, glancing at the clock; twelve o' three. A light was still on at the Latimer's house where Ellie could see it out the window. She idly wondered who was still up—Chloe, perhaps, still having not learned that actually going to bed at a reasonable hour was a good idea on a school night.
Slowly everything quieted around her. John had flipped off the lights downstairs and Ellie had shut off everything but her lamp, casting the house into comfortable shadow. The pipes behind the walls gurgled soothingly. The silence was only broken by the sound of her book when she turned a page or the rustle of sheets.
It was just passing three-thirty when she heard heavy footsteps, and when she glanced up she shot up straight in bed, her book flying forgotten in her hands.
"Alec, my god!"
He was braced against the doorframe of the room, pale and trembling; but he was still on his feet, still trying to fight, even though she could tell he was close to collapsing. The few feet to her room had cost him.
She couldn't be angry with him. Not now. "You bloody idiot! You're supposed to be in bed, what the hell are you thinking—!" She gripped his arm and was unprepared for the cold sweat that burned her palm, almost letting him go.
He was definitely trembling. "Something's wrong, Ellie."
She swallowed. She knew why he was here. He knew why he was here, and he had already admitted to her in a quiet moment his fear of dying alone. She was just about to reply when his legs went out from under him; on instinct she stopped his fall only barely. "Alec!"
He shook his head helplessly, struggling to find his feet. Ellie dragged him up again, steadying him when he wavered. "Come on," she said past the sudden knot in her throat, and led him to her bed. Bracing herself against the headboard she drew him down with his head in her lap. His breathing was hitching, pained; placing her hand on his chest she found his heartbeat was flying, practically shuddering. How had he managed to climb to his feet and walk?
John appeared at the doorway, the blood draining from his face as he realized what was happening. Then to Ellie's horror she heard Daisy approaching, and she and John shared a spilt second of wild-eyed fear, neither of them wanting her to see. Without even thinking John turned and caught Alec's daughter before she could turn the bend into the room.
Alec had managed to hear what was happening, Daisy was loud in her protesting, but it was far too late to attempt to move. Ellie's heart went out to him to see that even now he was thinking of Daisy. He groaned, breathless and in pain, and finally fell back again to look at Ellie. The fear in his eyes was entirely unmasked now and she fought to keep from completely breaking down for him.
The end came swiftly. Ellie cradled him as closely as she could and refused to let John to call for an ambulance. Alec's explanation of the DNR order had made it very clear of what he did and did not want done.
It was hard. Harder than she'd ever imagined. It seemed, ironically so, that even at this final end life was not going to give him up easily and for several agonizing moments he thrashed, struggling to breathe in her arms. She was weeping openly now, appearances and pride be damned, one arm wrapped around his torso and the other still on his chest.
"You'll be fine," Ellie sobbed, repeating it like a mantra over and over again. "You'll be fine, I'll be fine, it'll all be okay…" Her hand was brushing through his hair, her heart feeling like it was being squeezed into pieces as his stopped. That heart, which had carried him through so much, several which she would never know about. That heart, which held a hell of a lot more compassion and understanding than most would expect.
At three forty-three it finally ended. The heartbeat beneath her fingers stilled.
She choked on another sob, her thumb softly stroking his cheek, the unshaven stubble rough against her skin. "You're okay now," she whispered in the quiet. "You're okay now."
He felt heavy against her, heavier than she'd expected. Struggling with her tears again she bent and placed a light kiss into the fringe that had always liked to hang in his eyes, and refused to let John move him out of her lap.
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Beth knew she didn't have to see Ellie—she could easily turn away from her old friend and pretend that nothing had changed since Danny's murderer had been found. Selfishly, for a moment, she was sorely tempted to do so; however much she had healed since the loss of her son it still was very evident that Beth Latimer was very much raw inside. She didn't know if she could handle having to be around Ellie's own sadness when Alec Hardy died.
It was the ex-detective's words during their talk, and a late night visit from Paul that convinced her otherwise.
"Paul," she said without thinking, "would God be ashamed if I turned my back on someone?"
The vicar seemed taken aback by her question but answered it as earnestly as he answered all her other questions. "Jesus commanded us to help one another. To forgive and move on. But only the Lord knows what exactly is going on in someone's heart." His gaze was as shrewd as always. "It's Ellie again?"
She nodded, not surprised that he had read her so well. "How long has it been since you've been to see Hardy?"
He was silent for a long moment and that warned her even before he spoke. "I just came from there, actually."
Her heart fell despite itself, dismayed. "That bad?"
He nodded. "I'm afraid so." He sighed, shifting in his seat. "I admit that I never truly liked the man, but this… sometimes I do ask God 'why'."
"I don't want to see Ellie," Beth admitted quietly, looking down. Her hands ghosted over her swollen stomach; the baby kicked. "After it- after it happens. I don't know if I'll be able to handle how broken she'll be."
Paul was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Sometimes, Beth, we're put in a situation that we don't like. That we're afraid of. And later it will turn out that we were placed there precisely because we needed to be. You reconciled with Ellie when all of this started with Hardy, correct?"
She was taken aback by the realization that he was right. "Yeah."
He sighed again. "I don't believe in coincidences, Beth. Everything works in the Lord's time. I think He's placed you and Ellie together again simply because you needed to be."
How could Beth argue with that? It was early morning, just beginning to lighten in the eastern sky when she made her slow way across the field hoping to make it Ellie's. The sirens reached there first; even from far off she could see the flashing blue-and-red of the ambulance in Ellie's driveway. Heart quickening, Beth stepped up her pace. She reached the driveway just in time to glimpse a covered gurney being placed in the back of the ambulance; she studiously looked away and continued on but wasn't able to help but flinch when she heard the paramedics close its door behind her.
The front door of the Miller's house was open but she waited until the last paramedic passed her; he recognized her, respectfully inclining his head. She swallowed and did the same.
Hardy's friend, John, was pacing in the living room, disheveled and unkempt. It was clear he had had no sleep and the red puffiness of his eyes only confirmed what had happened. She stepped farther into the room. "John?" she asked hesitantly.
He jumped, turning to look at her. "Who-? Are you Beth?"
Of course Ellie—or Hardy—would have told this man about her. She nodded. "You're John O'Bailey. Har- Alec told me about you," she explained; he had looked at her curiously, clearly realizing what she had as well.
"He was the one who solved your boy's case."
"Yes. He did." Suddenly she was very glad she had followed Paul's advice and spoken to Hardy; he'd deserved to know, after all, how grateful she had been for him giving her and her family answers. How grateful that he hadn't given up on Ellie when she had. "He missed you," she said quietly, surprising herself by saying it out loud.
John swallowed hard, eyes shining suspiciously bright. He didn't speak but his slow, jerky nod was answer enough. Beth hastily retreated, knowing how it felt to be seen breaking down. She headed to the stairs, half in a daze, terrified of what she'd find when she ascended. It was in Ellie's room that she found the object of her search.
Ashen and hollow-eyed, Ellie sat numbly on a chair beside the messed-up bed, hunched over as if falling into herself. She barely stirred when Beth arrived.
The atmosphere was crushing. Beth stepped forward. "Ellie."
She flinched slightly. "He's gone, Beth," she whispered; she was looking down at her upturned hands as if wondering what she'd lost. "Three thirty-three this morning."
Beth's heart clenched painfully. "Ellie- I don't—" She swallowed, unsure. "Please—let me help. Let me in." Quite suddenly her own sense of pain and fear was gone, replaced by a simple need to help. She could handle Ellie's grief. She sat beside her.
Slowly Ellie turned to look at her. Her eyes were shining with unshed tears again. "I loved him, Beth. He was there after Joe—after what happened. He didn't look at me any differently than he had before. We still fought and argued and insulted each other." She bit back a sob. "When I asked him when he'd suspected it was Joe did you know he was nearly in tears himself? 'I really wanted to be wrong.'" A small, humorless smile slipped across her face. "He never admitted it but he hated having to solve the case. He resented the fact that it was Joe and that that would tear our two families apart."
She fell studiously silent, and Beth was left to flounder, registering the new information. She wondered now just how hard it must have been to make that discovery that Joe had been the one to kill Danny. Beth had always been so caught up in hers and her family's grief that she had never really registered how horrible it must have been seeing it from the outside. Had Hardy been tempted to keep it quiet and claim there was no more evidence to find Danny's murderer; would it have been easier for the Latimers to live in doubt and ignorance than with such an awful and debilitating end? But she didn't say any of this out loud; instead she merely asked, "He didn't suffer?"
Ellie swallowed hard again, shaking her head. "He couldn't breathe by the last minute but by then…"
He was too gone to care, Beth finished in her head. Tears were escaping Ellie's hold. Beth drew her close. "I'm sorry, Ellie."
She was surprised by Ellie's small sobbed laugh. "From you I'll believe that."
"Come over today." Beth was slowly, softly, rubbing her back, trying to calm her. "Bring the boys, and Daisy—and John if he'll come. Don't stay here."
Ellie pulled back, wiping her face. "I'll have to see if I can. I have to go to the hospital later…"
Right. Beth nodded, showing her understanding. Before she could answer, however, light footsteps brought her attention to the doorway.
Daisy was looking in, pale and red-eyed. She was very quiet, the look on her face reminding Beth of the expression she had seen on Chloe's face following Danny's death: shellshock. She probably didn't have any clear idea of what she was doing.
Beth beckoned her closer. "Come here, sweetheart."
And finally Daisy had the one thing she had wanted from the very beginning: a mother's arms. Without a pause she was in Beth's embrace and sobbing for the father she had lost.