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The first time it happens, it’s an accident.
Her head is swimming in CCTV footage, to the point where it feels like her memories too have been dipped in the graininess and blue tint that the security cameras record in. She hesitates to check the time, knowing it’ll only upset her.
She clicks on the next one agitatedly, her mouse making a loud noise that under normal circumstances would make Hardy raise an eyebrow at her. Beside her, though, he doesn’t move, just continuing to read through whatever transcript he’s holding.
She squints at him a little, suddenly unsure. With the glasses and that fringe of his it was hard to tell sometimes. She’d never accuse him of sleeping on the job, but with the day they’ve been having and his health record, she wouldn’t blame him.
Her shoulders drop. She decides to let him be. She’s only got the one more video to get through before she was going home anyway, case be damned. She’s missed Fred’s bedtime, again, and if the guilt wasn’t enough she knew she’d never be hearing the end of it from her dad later.
She rewinds the tape, rubbing at her eye. When nothing of import shows up, as suspected, she sighs and closes out of her computer and starts packing her things. Hardy still hasn’t moved. Definitely asleep then.
She huffs and pulls the bag around her shoulders.
“Goodnight, sir.” She says, loud in the empty quiet of the dark office. When he doesn’t stir she chuckles, and kisses the top of his head before making her way out.
It’s only until she’s in the car that she realizes what she’s done, meaning she completely missed how Hardy had startled awake then stilled in shock.
-
The second time, somehow, is an accident as well.
Once again they’re working late on the case, this time at Hardy’s kitchen table, and her head is swimming, this time with the numbers of the phone records they’ve been poring over. They were close to something, she could feel it, but it wasn’t revealing itself readily and it was extremely frustrating.
Hardy had gotten up to pace, or something, a few minutes ago and hadn’t returned. She looks to see him standing in front of the kitchen window, just staring out into the night.
It was just like the wanker to let her do all the work while he brooded.
Well then, she’d make them some tea. It didn’t look like she’d be finishing any time soon anyway.
She moves around the kitchen, trying to find a balance between not making a racket and waking Daisy, but noise enough to break her partner out of his haze.
No luck though, as Hardy doesn’t budge.
She wonders sometimes, if he misses the view from his chalet. That little blue house on the water must’ve been sublime for the type of moody introspection he specialized in.
Not that this current house wasn’t good. It was nice and actually homey in a way the chalet hadn’t been, with the traces of Daisy all over. It made him an actual part of town now, gave him permanence. The little rental had suited him, but now so did this one, for his new chapter here in Broadchurch.
She hands him his tea, a touch less stronger than he would’ve made it. He accepts it wordlessly, the tosser, but nods his thanks, and that’s when she presses her you’re welcome into his cheek a hair's breadth away from his beard.
This time she’s aware of what she’s done the second she’s done it. She can feel the breath leave him as she pulls away. Swallowing, she looks down and walks away from him and back to the table. Back to work.
Neither of them say anything. An hour later, they make the breakthrough she predicted, and behind his grim smile is something unreadable in his eyes.
-
She loses track after that, but it definitely stops being accidental.
The first time he does it, it’s small and at her temple because she’s managed to break a particular tough alibi, and he brushes past her to stalk down the hallway to the next task, ranting the whole time.
She does it, finally not out of sleep-deprivation when he brings her a thermos, on his jaw, and says “Ta,” before they go join SOCO Brian.
And then it happens again. And then again. Until it’s not so much of a Thing as well as… a thing.
He meets her at one of Tom’s matches instead of work, because she didn’t want to miss another one, so she presses one to his shoulder. She hands him some sort of granola bar and he drops one on her hair. One is exchanged over muffins when she picks him up to interview a witness.
It doesn’t feel unusual, the thing is. They still don’t make physical contact, as a general rule, other than the handshakes given to everyone when another case is solved. They’re not in any rush to hug. Their behavior hasn’t much changed either, as he still demands things from her and she still refuses to give in without proper explanations. They still bicker and bite at each other, and these little kisses don’t change any of that.
Because ultimately they’re not conscious. She doesn’t know why he keeps them up as much as she doesn’t know why she does either. They’re extensions of what they want to say perhaps, because saying the words thank you feel like too much. Too… not them. She doesn’t stop to think when exchanging small kisses became them.
So it’s fine. She continues to kiss him and to feel his beard on her cheek, and he doesn’t say anything. He kisses her just above her left eyebrow and she doesn’t bring it up. It isn’t a thing.
-
Until of course, it is.
She’s home today, off on a Saturday for once for Fred’s birthday. They’re throwing a party, a proper one now that he’s old enough to actually remember and participate. Her backyard is filled with small children, and even though she’s called reinforcements in the form of her dad and sister, it’s all still very stressful.
She’s retreated to the kitchen under the guise of checking on the cake for a moment of calm. She opens the fridge to make sure it’s still intact. The last thing she needs right now is to leave the sea of children out there cake-less.
“Ellie?”
Fuck. She’s been caught. She closes the fridge to see her sister.
Financial stability looks good on her. Whatever mischief that’s led to the smile she’s currently got on does not.
“What?” Her tone is flat.
Lucy’s smile widens. That doesn’t bode well for her at all. She can almost feel her hackles rising. “There’s someone here to see you.”
“Who?”
Somehow Lucy grows smugger. “Front door.”
Ellie grumbles and pushes past her. Best get whatever this is over with.
She opens the door and gasps. “Oh! You came, you said you wouldn’t!”
Hardy makes a noise she doesn’t know how to classify and looks away from her, vaguely pained. “I’m not here for that. I’m here cause,” he pauses and makes eye contact then, and it’s that look in his eye again, the unreadable one from that second time she-, “cause you left your- your jacket. You left your jacket at the office and I thought I’d bring it. You’re on my way, anyway.”
Not really. He was the one that lived closer to the office, it’s why they always used his place when they worked late. She doesn’t mention it, however, just takes the jacket from him.
It’s not actually a jacket, more of a cardigan that she usually keeps at her desk when it gets chilly. She doesn’t mention that either.
“Oh well, thanks!”
He nods, eyes back on the ground.
“Tell you what though, come and pop in and say hello? Have a slice of cake?”
He’s protesting before she even finishes, so she steps out of the house and onto the porch with him. Doesn’t even think before she puts a hand on his elbow to pull him in.
His protests stop. Her badgering stops. Neither of them move.
It’s hard to forget how bloody tall he is, when she has to quite literally crane her neck to see him when they’re this close.
“No thanks, Miller.” He’s just as gruff, but softer now, “I’ll let you get back to the party.”
She nods and picks her hand off of him. It takes more effort to do so than it did to put it there in the first place.
“Right.” He nods again, then turns around and walks out into the driveway.
“Thank you for the jacket!” She calls, and he throws a hand up in response, before getting into the car and driving away.
She lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, and turns around to go back in.
“What the hell was that then?”
Lucy’s got her hands on her hips.
Ellie rolls her eyes as she walks back in and closes the door. “Don’t start.”
But she’s asking herself the same.
When the final party guest leaves two hours later, the sun’s setting and Fred’s asleep on the sofa after the two slices of chocolate cake he’d eaten. She’d better wake him, or it’ll be a nightmare trying to get him down later tonight, but he looks so peaceful that she just sits beside him and adjusts him to be more comfortable.
She watches the sky burn outside as her thoughts return to Hardy in full force in a way they hadn’t had a chance to once she’d returned to the party.
It was weird, the look on his face when she’d opened the door. Even weirder was the swooping thing her stomach had done upon seeing him.
His bullshit explanation aside, it had been nice to see him. She hadn’t seen him since. Well. Just yesterday when they’d closed the case, and he’d told her to go home early with a brush of his beard to her cheek and a half-smile he only brought out for special occasions. Felt like longer.
She’s smiling to herself remembering it when the grin stops before it can fully climb up her face.
Oh.
He hadn’t kissed her. This time, when he’d come by. She had been so close, and he’d left without even a small one on her forehead.
It’s unsettling. It’s even more unsettling how much it unsettled her.
The sun dips lower, and she shakes her head and goes to wake Fred.
-
She doesn’t know what time she falls asleep, but it can’t have been long before she’s woken up by a buzzing.
It keeps buzzing as she roots through the sheets for the phone. That had been one of the pros in the end, few that there were: she’d gotten a whole queen bed to herself.
She barely glances at the Caller Id before she answers, “What is it? Did something happen?”
A pause. “Did I wake you?”
“Of course you fucking woke me it’s,” she glances at the clock on her nightstand, “three thirty in the bloody morning! Now what’s wrong.”
Hardy pauses again, “Nothing,”
She’s seething, but she tries to keep her voice down for the benefit of her kids sleeping next door, “It better well be something for you to be calling at this hour, or I’m going to bed right now so I can be well rested enough to cut your head off come tomorrow morning.”
Typically, he begins talking before she’s finished, “Listen, can you meet me?”
She grumbles, but gets out of bed, “Where?”
Some fifteen minutes later she’s walking up the pier to their usual bench. She hadn’t bothered to change, just pulled her orange jacket over her pajamas.
He’s facing the sea when she approaches, but turns around at her footsteps. “You came.”
Her eyebrows knit, “Of course I bloody came, you sounded a state. You okay?”
He doesn’t respond. She takes a seat. God knows how long this could take.
“What are we doing, Miller?”
“What?”
He looks away from the sea to her face, as if he’s searching for something. “You heard me.” he says, before resuming watch of the ocean.
She considers playing dumb for a moment, but they deserve better than that.
“I suppose,” she squirms, “we’re just doing what feels right. What feels- uncomplicated. Because it has been, until now. Uncomplicated.”
He turns and sits down on the bench. “Is it though?”
“Well hasn’t it been?” She doesn’t know if it’s the quiet night besides the waves below them, or the look on his face lit up by the moon and the streetlights, but she begins gaining speed, “We’ve been doing it for weeks now and you haven’t said anything!”
He doesn’t reply which is good because she’s still going.
“It’s just another thing we do now, these, these-“ fuck she can’t say it- “these kisses,” she said it!- “like you making me tea once in a while or me buying you chips. It doesn’t have to interfere with who we are because even when you add them in… I’m still me and you’re still-” you, she wants to say, but it’s too tender, “a knob.”
She’s worked herself up by the end, so she takes a breath and looks down to the right at the wooden planks of the pier. She can’t look at him.
He surprises her by laughing. A genuine laugh, that has him throwing his head back. She finds herself start to smile too.
“I am still a knob, and you are still you.” He grins wryly, and it’s hard to look at directly but she can't not. “You’re right.”
“Usually am.”
“So if I kiss you now, properly - none of the wee ones from...” he trails off with hand gestures and swallows audibly, “you’re saying we’d still be. Us, then.”
She takes a breath. It’s a completely new concept, somehow, and her gaze returns to the planks. “Suppose so, yeah.”
He tilts toward her, his knee bumping hers. That’s new contact they’ve never had before. His hands go to her cheeks, gently making her face him. Also new.
When he leans in and she follows it’s new as well, but she finds as she sinks to it, it’s not wholly unfamiliar. Her chest settles.
They’re still them.