Chapter Text
Tim was not a pious man.
He visited church, only because everyone was taught to go there. He didn't particularly listen to any of it of course, but the ritual was there. The standing and sitting and kneeling. The mumbled hymns he never quite learned the words to.
But he didn't believe in anything holy, or spiritual, or anything beyond what he could see and touch and ignore.
And yet here he was. In the cathedral, and not on a Sunday.
There were more important things to focus on but he couldn’t shake some of his own thoughts on things.
Mainly Elliot’s murder.
Well, the one where he did the committing not the committee… or something. Ugh.
When Elliot got arrested, Tim had saved the day, but only barely.
He'd needed that final push from the sheep, the lamb with the painted hooves, with the orange sheep waiting and watching for him to connect the dots they had clearly already figured out. He'd needed them to show him what he'd been too blind to see. Or too willing to forgo because he’d been too afraid to think about it, because he couldn’t figure it out right.
And now he couldn't stop seeing.
That's just how it was, Tim supposed.
Knowledge was permanent; once you learned to see, you could never look away.
And if you did, that would be worse.
He walked through Denbrook now noticing the things he'd long been ignoring. He'd been kind but assertive about it, fixing problems he hadn't realized were problems.
The slaughterhouse had been doing illegal things before Rebecca tore it down. The restaurant had stopped paying taxes, the same one that had been bribing him with sandwiches for years. He'd started leaving those sandwiches with the homeless man who slept on the benches near the square.
The sheep watching him from the meadows, orange and white shapes at the edge of his vision. The broken pavements that needed repair. The way the streetlamps flickered on Elm Street and no one had called it in.
He noticed Rebecca, too.
She'd stayed in Denbrook after the arrest, despite everything. Said she wanted to honor her father's legacy, learn the sheep business, figure out what George had built. She was even still staying at the inn. She still used the caravan as the main location of operations, but she couldn't bear to sleep in the caravan. She'd told him once, her voice carefully neutral, "It smells like him. Like his life that I didn’t… get to share. I—I can't."
They'd developed something like a professional relationship. She called the office sometimes, not about the case, but about the town. Especially about disputes with Caleb over the lease. Though she called for other things, like strange noises near the meadow.
Or about the sheep, who she was learning to understand in her own way.
…And their shared understanding that these sheep were maybe special.
But that wasn’t the important part.
She'd forgiven him. That was the worst.
He understood now what her gaze had meant when she stepped out of that county car, a freed woman. It wasn’t anger nor blame.
Something worse.
Understanding.
She knew he'd been a tool. She knew he'd been used, new to all of it, fumbling in the dark. Afterwards, she'd learned how awful he used to be, how botched the investigation was, and—and—
And she'd forgiven him anyway. Not forgotten, forgiven, which sounded worse to Tim somehow.
Tim didn't know how to deal with that.
He'd been praised, of course. Rebecca had thanked him while Lydia had sent a note before she left saying: It seems you're not the Fool after all. The rest of the townsfolk had started looking at him differently. Respect, maybe. Or something adjacent to it.
He still didn't feel like he deserved it.
Elliot had convinced him to pursue the case because people would finally recognize him, see him as a hero. You get to be someone.
After Elliot, when people saw his uniform, they saw someone who'd solved a murder. Someone who'd caught a killer.
…
Not the someone who'd almost made a terrible mistake and corrected it at the last second.
They didn't know about the sheep. They didn't know about the book. They didn't know how close he'd come to letting an innocent woman rot in jail.
Tim knew.
And that knowledge sat in his chest like a stone.
He'd changed. He was more aware now.
And it was exhausting.
Because awareness meant responsibility. It meant seeing the ripples and knowing you couldn't ignore them.
It meant walking past the butcher shop and thinking about the sheep in the meadow.
He'd vomited into a paper bag ordering a meat sandwich at the inn last week. Beth had patted him on the back, not unkindly, as he'd asked for a salad instead. "George did that to people," she'd said. "Turned half the town off meat just by existing."
Tim hadn't corrected her, although now he realized why the butcher was so hateful towards George now. Still, it wasn't George really.
It was the sheep with their eyes and their strange but undeniable intelligence.
…He—He couldn't eat something that might have been like them.
In another way, it meant signing paperwork and wondering if he was making the same mistake again.
He'd been backlogged for the last two weeks, because he kept making sure he actually knew what the forms he was signing were. For the longest time, he hadn't cared. Sign here, initial there, don't worry about the boxes you don't understand. Now he read every line. Now, he asked questions while the county clerks had started to dread his calls.
The Denbrook officer who kept asking what the bloody forms meant.
Whoops.
Tim had willfully ignored things his whole life. It had been easier that way. Safer. He'd been a bad cop who slept fine, because he never looked close enough to see how bad he was. Now he was a better cop who couldn't sleep at all.
The dam had opened and the water rushed through.
Tim didn't know how to stop it.
He didn't know if he wanted to stop it.
Because for as much as it hurt, for as much as it causes him grief in the stupidest ways like being a nuisance to county clerks, no longer getting to eat meat or having people be weird about your newfound sense of morality as a police officer…
…it somehow didn't feel as bad as being ignored. Being called stupid or being irrelevant.
Being useless.
He'd do anything to never be as useless as he was before.
The chapel was empty.
As he said, Tim had come here to think.
To escape the paperwork piled on his desk and the phone calls he didn't want to return.
To escape the looming thoughts about murder and Elliot.
Rebecca had called this morning… something about the sheep acting strangely near the inn, and would he come look when he had a moment?
But he needed space.
He needed silence.
...
The church was old. Centuries old.
The walls were thick and the windows were stained glass, depicting saints Tim had never learned the names of. The air smelled of dust and candle wax as if something… older, something that settled in the lungs like memory. It was dilapidated, clearly outdated. The reverend had struggled to keep it in shape, even taking a bribe from George just to fund the repairs. Tim had noticed the cracks in the mortar, the way the roof sagged slightly at the eastern corner.
He'd thought about filing a report. He hadn't.
...He just wasn't sure he wanted to fix this particular issue over all the other issues in town.
Because for all its wear, the church was oddly robust really. The stained glass, despite its age, had never shattered. Not during the storm of '89 that had taken half the roofs on Elm Street or not even when the Morrison boys had pelted it's windows with tomatoes that one summer.
The windows held while its walls and roof stood the test of time.
The altar at the front, draped in faded velvet, was carved from marble so solid it seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it.
The church endured. And clearly, it had endured long before Denbrook was Denbrook, and Tim suspected it would endure long after the town crumbled back into the fields.
There was something about the place really. Perhaps it was why he and his fellow townfolk kept visiting it even though he knew some of them didn’t like God really.
...The silence.
Outside, the town hummed with its usual distant noise, it was a small town, but still bustling with life with a subtle sound that you didn't realize it was there until it wasn't.
But inside the church, the walls swallowed sound. It was constructed somehow so that you could just feel the stillness, thick as the stone itself.
It was beautiful too, the way the light fell through the windows in colored shafts. Clear sometimes but colored in others. And those lights were beautiful even as the sun sets. Blue, red, and gold, painting the stone floor in patterns that shifted almost imperceptibly with the setting sun.
It made him feel small in a way that wasn't unpleasant.
He'd been sitting in the front pew for an hour, maybe more. Outside, the light was fading and soon it would be dusk, then night.
The reverend was still in the bushes, Tim had seen him on the way in, pruning something with obsessive precision, not meeting Tim's eyes. Hillcoate had been like that since the murder of George Hardy. Quieter and more avoidant. Tim hadn't pressed.
…
Elliot’s murder.
His actual death now, not him committing it and not the commit— oh whatever.
Tim had read the file. He'd made calls, tried to piece together what he could, because even though the county had washed their hands of it, he couldn't stop himself.
Elliot's circumstances were strange. The county trial had been stalling because Elliot's lawyer was just too damn good, far too good. The bastard.
And the bloody DNA test was still caught in a backlog thirty miles away.
The prosecution was frustrated, and even the jury thought it was Elliot. Truly, the judge himself was losing patience. And Elliot, for all his scheming, had been stuck in a state of being not convicted yet not freed, instead just waiting for the judgement to drop.
So, apparently, they decided to send him back to Denbrook.
It was a bit of legal maneuvering that Tim didn't fully understand. Something about the lesser local charges like obstructing an investigation or fleeing arrest taking precedence while the county case gathered dust trying to resolve itself.
A way to keep Elliot detained without admitting the murder trial was going nowhere.
The judge had signed it off, and the county officers had driven him back a few days ago, installing him in Tim's single holding cell.
Tim had been ready to handle it... Ready is a strong word, but he had tackled it with a confidence he decided to make up, because he wasn't going to be taken advantage of by Elliot again. Honestly, he had braced himself for the confrontation, for Elliot's smirk and Elliot's camera and Elliot's voice saying Officer-Hero like it was a joke only he understood.
But Elliot hadn't been like that, obviously.
For one, Elliot looked completely different. Not a single blonde hair, back to his darker natural hair color. Of course, his appearance in Denbrook was fabricated, that was the point of a disguise, but it shocked him how different he actually looked. Also, he was in an orange jumpsuit, befitting of his crime.
Really though, it was his attitude had shocked Tim.
He'd been quiet and cooperative. The camera was gone, of course as it was confiscated as evidence. He'd sat in his cell and asked, in a voice that almost sounded genuine, about the status of his case. About Rebecca. About the sheep.
It was in his South African accent.
Almost unrecognizable really from the “Elliot” persona.
Peter Van Buren. At his most honest.
Tim had kept his answers short.
A more biased cop probably would’ve treated Elliot badly, but… Tim couldn’t bring himself to be cruel to Elliot. How could he? He was a cop not some vigilante, or someone who deserved to bring about his own torture or what not.
He was just Tim, a policeman who still didn’t know what he was doing half the time.
So, he'd just done his job. Even though Tim didn’t particularly like him.
He'd checked the cell twice a day, delivered meals, filed his paperwork while under the gaze of that awful guy. Escorted him to court when necessary, though he only got to do that once before—
…Elliot had been found dead at the inn.
The details were sparse. The county had been quick to close the book, and Margaret had handled the body with her usual quiet efficiency. But Tim had gathered what he could from his vantage point while assisting Margaret a little, though she didn’t seem to want him to be around. Perhaps after the mess handling George’s case, understandable really.
But he found other things to investigate, but even those were low pickings given that his office was one of the scenes. The cell door had been open, while Elliot’s handcuffs were still inside, locked, as if Elliot had slipped out of them and left them behind.
The orf medicine on his face and hands and neck. Some in his mouth maybe? He didn’t get to have a close look.
But really, it was the method that bothered him.
It was George's medicine and invention.
Apparently eaten or drunk, to be killed by.
…Margaret had ruled it a suspected suicide, pending further tests. But Tim had read her preliminary notes, the ones she'd shared as a courtesy. Especially seeing the word inconclusive appearing seven times.
Tim… didn't know what he believed. But he knew something was wrong.
Why would Elliot kill himself two weeks after being moved? Why not the first night in county, when the walls were closing in and the charges were fresh? Why not before the arrest, when he still had a chance to run?
Why the inn? Why George's medicine?
And who got him to the inn in the first place?
…It still wasn't really his case. The county had jurisdiction over the death of a county prisoner, even if that prisoner had been temporarily housed in Denbrook's cell. They'd sent someone to take statements, to photograph the scene, to collect the body. They'd told Tim, in not so many words, that his involvement wasn't necessary.
He had helped where he could, but even he could see the message.
No one expected him to investigate.
No one wanted him to.
Good riddance, the town whispered. Justice found its own way.
He'd heard it at the inn when he'd gone to check things out, part duty and part a strange need to know what the fuck was happening.
Beth had been shaken as her unsteady hands poured drinks, but even she'd said something about it being “right”. Ham had grunted what sounded like approval. Caleb had nodded solemnly. The reverend had offered a prayer for Elliot's soul, though his heart didn't seem in it.
Tim had almost agreed.
Elliot was a murderer.
He had killed George Hardy, framed Rebecca, manipulated Tim, nearly gotten a flock of innocent sheep slaughtered.
Elliot had used him.
Elliot had looked at him with those dark eyes and called him Officer-Hero and meant none of it.
Why should Tim care if he was dead?
…
…
…But he did care. He couldn't stop caring.
Tim stood up and started pacing the aisle. The chapel was spacious, too spacious, almost, for a town this small. His footsteps echoed off the stone walls, the sound bouncing back to him like a question he couldn't answer.
He thought about Elliot.
Peter, he corrected himself. His name was Peter.
But in Tim's head, he was still Elliot. The man with the camera. The man with the too-bright smile and the hungry eyes. The man who'd shaken Tim's hand and called him a hero and used him like a hammer to drive a nail into an innocent woman's life.
Tim hated him. He also, strangely, owed him.
Because without Elliot, without that initial push, that insistent You could be someone… Tim would still be the same person he'd always been.
He never would have read the book. He never would have learned to look. The case would never have existed if Elliot hadn't created it.
Elliot had forced him to see. And Tim, for all his resentment, couldn't pretend that was a bad thing.
And now Elliot was dead. And no one cared.
…And Tim was the only one who couldn't let it go.
He paused at the front of the aisle, near the altar. The velvet cloth covering the marble was worn thin in places, and he could see the edge of something carved beneath it. Some old lettering, worn smooth by centuries of hands.
He wasn't sure why he did what he did next.
Perhaps it was exhaustion. Mayhaps it was the stillness of the church, the weight of the silence, the way the light was fading through the windows and turning everything gold and grey.
Maybe it was the thought that had been circling his head since yesterday, the question he couldn't stop asking:
Why?
He needed to know. He needed to understand. And he would never get answers.
Not really.
The county would close the case and once that’s done, the town would move on. Elliot would be buried in an unmarked grave somewhere, and no one would ever ask what really happened.
Tim needed Elliot.
In his head, it didn’t feel like subconscious. Not so much a prayer, more a demand, rising from somewhere he hadn’t known existed.
A wanting. A need even.
Tell me what happened. Tell me why. Tell me—
His foot caught on the edge of the altar step.
It was a stupid mistake, the kind he used to make all the time. He threw out his hands to catch himself, and his palm hit the marble table, hard.
The impact jolted up his arm and the velvet cloth shifted beneath his fingers.
And it hurt. He’d feel it more, but then he felt it.
The air changed.
Tim stayed there, bent over the altar, hand pressed against the cold stone as the chapel grew quiet.
Perhaps not even just silence anymore, but something deeper.
A swallowing of sound. Echoes gone. Even his breathing wasn’t audible.
The temperature had dropped. Tim could feel it pressing against his skin, raising the hairs on his arms, creeping down his spine like cold water.
He looked up.
A woosh from behind.
Then looked behind.
Elliot.
Elliot was there.
Standing at the end of the aisle, where the light from the stained glass fell in fractured colors. He was transparent, shimmering at the edges like heat haze.
He looked wrong in a way that made Tim's stomach lurch.
Too still and too pale, the colors of the window bleeding through him where they shouldn't.
Wrong even more, as he was wearing the same clothes he'd worn the day of the arrest. The stylish jacket, the plain shirt.
Same blonde hair even.
His camera was gone and his smile was gone.
Nothing like the Peter Van Buren of the today, like the man who disappeared after the murder brought back to his original form, which wasn’t even his real form at all.
…Elliot looked tired. Defeated, maybe.
Dead.
"No," Tim whispered.
Elliot tilted his head. The ghost of a smirk crossed his face.
Not the confident smirk from before, the one that had said I know exactly how to use you.
Something smaller. Sadder maybe.
"Hello, Officer-Hero," he said. His voice echoed strangely, as if coming from very far away.
And with the accent. The real one, which out of all the things strangely grounded Elliot in some amount of reality, but Tim still felt like he was going to lose it.
Tim's hand was still on the altar. He couldn't move. Hell, he couldn't breathe.
The sheep had been one thing. Intelligent, persistent, but he could believe that animals might have intelligence. He'd seen it with his own eyes. There was evidence, with the painted hooves, the stolen hat, and the way they'd followed the investigation.
But this—
This was a ghost.
This was the man who'd killed George Hardy, standing in the church where George's children had been given away, looking at Tim with dead eyes and a sad smile.
Tim wanted to run. He wanted to close his eyes even. Just pretend he didn’t hear anything and that this wasn't happening.
For just the briefest moment, he wanted to go back to being the man who didn't see, who didn't know, who didn't have to deal with any of this. The man who signed forms without reading them and slept through the night.
But that man was gone.
Elliot was here. A ghost, impossible and undeniable.
And Tim Derry couldn't look away.