Chapter Text
It had almost happened on Bonfire Night.
He had been expertly persuaded to join Ellie, Beth, and their kids, along with a number of neighboring families, at the beach. He’d agreed for Daisy’s sake, or so he told himself (and anyone who asked). She had taken his very predictable grumpiness in stride and he had stuck close by her all evening, preferring her over the horror of other people.
Every bit of agitation and resistance that held so much tension in his body immediately dissipated when he saw her face light up in the glow of the fireworks. A smile so genuine, so unburdened that it nearly lifted him off his feet. She laughed as her father attempted to lift Fred up to get a closer look, struggling against the wind to keep her hair out of her eyes. And then she looked at him.
He, naturally, had been totally caught off-guard. He’d almost forgotten he himself existed. He could scarcely imagine what expression she found on his face in that moment. But evidently it pleased her because she didn’t look away again. His whole body was suddenly aware of her – not for the first time, of course, but the first time while in such close proximity to her whole body. He felt each crackle of the fireworks rumble inside his own chest.
She licked her lips. Out of habit, he knew, pure biology, to keep them from getting too dry in the brisk November air. But once his gaze fell in that direction that was it. He willed himself desperately to look in any other direction but he could not.
And then he was saved by her four-year-old.
“Mumma!” He was squirming, more or less trying to climb her body. Evidently her father had had enough of carrying him.
Ellie lifted him up onto her hip with surprising ease. She glanced back at Alec almost apologetically. And then the moment disappeared along with the fading fireworks in the sky.
The next time had been completely unprofessional.
They’d had a suspect in the interview room. Their fifth suspect for this particular case, one that had been draining them. Not one particularly exciting or dramatic, but seemingly endless. They questioned him in their typical Hardy & Miller manner – good cop, bad cop, with an abrupt switch when things got heated. This time when the switch came, Ellie going from good cop to bad cop, there was a certain electricity to it. She was on fire. He nearly forgot himself and watched her in awe. She got her confession and when they exited into the hallway, she was on cloud nine and he was unbearably turned on. Both exhilarated in their own way, when they reached a corner, they both stopped, fingertips accidentally brushing. As they tried to pull their hands away they both ended up moving closer to each other. Ellie was unintentionally boxed into the corner. A thousand impure thoughts raced through Alec’s mind in only a few short seconds. But he could swear she was having them too.
Then CS Clark strode onto the scene. “Well done, you two.” And they moved apart. Alec could not look her in the eyes.
Fortunately Ellie recovered much faster.
The third time had been equally inappropriate – at his daughter’s seventeenth birthday party.
He had been in way over his head with both the planning and the execution of the thing. And he felt internal competition with his ex-wife, who was throwing her a do of her own the following weekend. (Lucky Daisy.) To be fair, Daisy was doing most of the planning herself. Alec was mostly supplying his credit card to finance the affair. But he’d have to host it. At his house.
He felt grateful, to be honest, not to be throwing the Sandbrook version of the party, where Daisy had gobs of friends and neighbors to overwhelm her. (Read: overwhelm him.) Here in Broadchurch, her friends were much fewer, but the pressure seemed greater. At least the grand sum of the people they knew could fit inside his modest house on the hill.
The night before the party, Ellie showed up at his door with a bottle of scotch.
“Here.” She shoved it into his hands and let herself inside. “Have a drink. Or two. And take a breath.”
He frowned at her, trying to puzzle out her sudden presence. She looked so casual – well-fitted joggers but very loose-fitting v-neck t-shirt under a massive cardigan. As far as Alec was concerned, casual was the epitome of sexy, considering the most he typically saw of her was business attire.
“Your daughter sent me an SOS text.”
“She – “
“She wants you to calm the bloody hell down, Hardy.”
She grabbed his arm and led him over to the sofa. He was so distracted by her touch that he was easily led. But she did not sit down with him.
“It’s a party. As long as there’s food and drink and music, there’ll be no problem.”
He stared at her helplessly.
“If it’ll make things easier, I’ll even come and help.”
He breathed out. “Oh thank christ, would you?”
She chuckled. “I’ll get the boys sorted with supper then come straight over,” she agreed. “Now have a drink and relax.”
And she left. Left him with a bottle of scotch and the image of her breasts in that top.
The following evening she was back, in his kitchen, helping him heat up boxes of frozen appetizers from Tesco.
“Thank god you didn’t have it catered,” she said with a snort. “These bloody kids won’t know the difference.”
Everyone on Daisy’s list showed up and the house on the hill was filled to the brim. Alec hid in the kitchen with Ellie. For more reasons than one. Every once in awhile, at her direction, he popped out with her to deliver some food to the masses. But never alone.
In the kitchen they shared a bottle of wine. She regaled him with stories of every party she’s thrown – for the boys, for her sister, for a holiday. Stories of things gone horribly wrong. He found himself laughing harder than he had in – years??
Around 9pm, they arranged seventeen candles in the sheet cake and lit them. Alec carried it out into the living room, slowly and precariously, and Ellie led the singing. He only joined in once his voice could no longer be individually detected.
Alec cut the cake while Ellie did all the painful interacting with sugar high teenagers. She organized the cake distribution flawlessly. Once their job was done, they retreated yet again into the kitchen. She had a piece of cake of her own, which she ate with her fingers because they were out of utensils at this point.
“Lovely,” he remarked sardonically at her.
“Please.” She rolled her eyes, leaning against the counter. “You’ve seen me eat yoghurt with a knife when no spoon was available. This is nothing.”
He picked up his glass of wine from the counter and watched her drop another bite of cake into her mouth, then lick the icing off her fingers. This may have been the one and only time he ever had a desperate craving for sugar.
He looked away and cleared his throat. “Uh. Thank you, by the way.”
She smiled. “You’ve already thanked me with cake.” She licked more icing off her thumb.
He threw back what was left in his wine glass then set it aside. Using that jolt of liquid courage, he reached for her plate. “Can you just, um – “ He took the plate from her hands and set it on the counter.
Her eyes were wide. She didn’t know what to do with her sticky hands, he could tell.
He reached for her wrist. “Honestly could not have gotten through this bloody evenin’ without you, Miller.” He could feel her pulse with his fingertips. “Saved my arse.” He didn’t mean to move in closer, but that’s what seemed to be happening.
She was looking up at him. Her expression hadn’t changed – eyes wide, sugar-glazed lips slightly parted, the slightest furrow in her brow.
Then Daisy burst through the kitchen doors. “Hey, Dad? Ellie?” She stopped short. “Shit. Nevermind!” She backed out of the room, but the moment had passed.
“Well.” Ellie breathed out, wrist falling out of his grasp. “Now that the worst is over, I ought to be getting on.”
He froze. It was a moment before Alec realized she meant the party. The worst of the party. He exhaled. “Right.”
And now it’s fucking Christmas and he’s desperate for a fourth time.
Well, no, he shouldn’t say that. He’d not like a fourth time of almost kissing Ellie Miller. He’d like a first time of actually kissing Ellie Miller.
He’s drawn her name for the office Secret Snowflake and he’s inexorably convinced this has been rigged. He ought to have gone with his gut and opted not to participate at all. But he’s trying to be a better sport about these things.
Now the question is: what do you get for the woman you’re in love with, without revealing you’re in love with her?
Alec spends a week nearly tearing his hair out, both at home and at the office. He can hardly concentrate on the string of cases that pass over his desk because he’s too busy typing in key Miller-related words into the Amazon search box in hopes of finding some inspiration. “Small town.” “Ocean lovers.” “Kit kats.” “Orange.”
It’s absurd. He knows her so bloody well and yet these are the only words he can think of. But what else is he going to do? Search for “brilliant, witty, impossible, beautiful, amazing?” Bugger it all.
Three nights before the office holiday party, he gets wind that the team is going down to the pub to celebrate a case they’ve just closed. He waits until they’ve already been gone at least forty-five minutes, then he dons his jacket and sets off to the pub on foot. Make an appearance, like she’s always telling him to. Help keep up morale.
He can hear their boisterous table in the far corner without seeing them. He grabs himself a pint at the bar – he’ll drink perhaps half of it, his presence is a gesture at most. Then he moves in the direction of familiar voices.
Ellie’s voice. Laced with a Scottish accent. His Scottish accent.
“Ach, get on with you, ye useless lot.” She’s standing at the table, holding a cocktail of some sort, and she has the entire table in stitches. “Aye, what’s the point of any of ye, if ye cannae do this one simple task, eh.”
“Oh, El, El, do that day where he was in an hour early but he thought we were all an hour late.”
A chorus of encouragement follows.
“All right, all right.” She takes a sip of her drink then clears her throat. “Aye right, the lot of ye! Ah’m fair scunnered wit’ye, wandrin’ in when’er ye please. Yer a chancer, ye are, and next time I’ll be comin’ fer yer heads, I will!”
Half of them are nearly falling out of their chairs when Alec takes a few steps closer into the light.
“Yer arse is parsley there, Millah,” he says, laying the accent on extra thick, before taking a long sip of his pint.
Ellie, to her credit, barely flinches. The rest of the team is frozen, terrified.
She takes a sip of her drink. “Any notes?”
Against his will, his lips curve into the barest of smiles.
It’s then that the question changes. What do you get for the woman you’re in love with, when you want to reveal you’re in love with her?
***