Chapter Text
The beeping was slow and continuous, like her own personal clock except it didn’t stop ticking even after she had left the room. No; it followed her around long after she had stepped away from the suffocatingly clinical ball of wires, disinfectant and antibacterial gel that was Hardy’s hospital room and only then when she was long gone, far away from it all, did the ticking return and morph into something different. What was wrong with DI Hardy?
Oh, there was no denying he was a sick man (you could tell that just by looking at him, sometimes) but Ellie had seen heart medication and it didn’t look like that. It had never looked like that - two meagre oval pills—two pills a day?—rattling around in a thick brown bottle. The only pills she had ever seen that looked like that, were...
“Mrs. Hardy?”
”Miller. It’s Miller, actually. Miss.” Ellie coughed, tapping her flat shoes against the tile of the floor and sitting up in the stiff-backed chair as she was summoned. For a moment she couldn’t meet the gaze of that who had called her and instead glanced over at Hardy. He looked so pale faced and.. and small, lying there swathed in blankets and wires and intravenous lines. Not that she would ever tell him that.
”Oh.” The ward sister recoiled, looked at her notes again and for a moment seemed to reconsider the decision to let Miller into his room. “Miss Miller, do you happen to know Mr. Hardy’s next of kin? It isn’t you, I’m assuming?”
Ellie hesitated. The ward sister pushed the ball forward. “We’re looking at keeping him on the ward for a few days, just under observation, but he’ll need clothing and toiletries...”
She trailed off, questioningly, and Ellie nodded in slow understanding. “...no, I- I don’t think he has any.” A lie of course. Ellie knew of Hardy’s wife, of Hardy’s child— but it was hardly as if they would be able to come to his rescue. “It’s just me.”
The ward sister nodded and in one pointed motion passed Ellie Hardy’s jacket, gaze flickering down to the bulging rightmost pocket. “In that case, this is down to you.”
Ellie rose, silent, and clicked toward the door but made no attempt to release herself from the disinfected bubble just yet. “Those pills,” she murmured, turning to face the ward sister once more.
Now that the sister wasn’t leafing through her notes she busied herself by filling a syringe with a milky white liquid — then attaching the syringe to Alec’s IV line. “Those pills,” said the ward sister, “are no good for him. Nowhere near.” A tut. “I’ve always sympathised with people who feel they need to take them but he...” a glance now, at the sleeping Alec, “...he was just overwhelming himself.”
She fell silent, watching as the intravenous line drew in the milky liquid. “Any more and I think he would’ve given himself a heart attack. I’ve put him on a lower dose for now. Body needs to recuperate.”
”Those pills,” Ellie repeated, “...they aren’t heart medication, are they?”
The question hung in the air, dangling on a precariously trembling tightrope. The ward sister studied Ellie; she carried a look about her that said, ‘you don’t know?’, and at long last shook her head.
~
Though Hardy was currently living in a hotel room it was somehow not at all what Ellie was expecting. The room was in a state of untidy peace, as though Hardy was expecting no one to pierce his own tranquil bubble (even if they promised to clean it up for him) — Ellie felt almost sickened at the thought she had to do exactly that. Casefiles, notes and materials sat in neat stacks along the desk and floor beneath. The bathroom door, ajar, let in a bright chink of light and gave Ellie a glimpse of an otherwise undisturbed bathroom if not for a suspicious looking trail of liquid drying on the floor and bottles of pills, the same ones at the hospital, one sealed, the other opened and clearly rooted through. The main sleeping area — two beds, sheets crumpled on both as though he couldn’t decide which to rest in. On one rested a blank workbook and some pencils. Colouring pencils, Ellie noted, not fit for writing up notes— colouring pencils not unlike the ones her young son used. The other bed held the remote control for the television and a very messy note in spider-webbed handwriting (God, how did anyone ever decipher his write-ups?!) that looked as if it had been screwed up, thrown toward the bin, then retrieved again. Biker Mice from Mars, a closer look at the note shouted, channel 0036.
Between the beds was a nightstand. There was a glass resting on it with a few watery remnants of—ah, there was the squished up carton on the floor—orange juice lurking in the bottom.
Not here to snoop. Not here to intrude. It was getting increasingly more difficult for Ellie to tell herself this as she padded around the tiny space. Clothes. He needed clothes.
...Ah. His clothes were strewn messily into an open suitcase, plonked onto the floor beside the leftmost bed. Everything but his uniform, anyway — which was folded neatly in the wardrobe. Gingerly, Ellie plucked out at least three crumpled nightshirts, pants, and threw in a uniform for good luck.
It was only on her way out that the thin light of the bathroom captured her again and her stride faltered. Toiletries. He would need toiletries.
Putting down the pile of clothes Ellie slowly pushed open the door to the bathroom. The glimpse of the puddle on the floor became a full-blown puddle in and of itself trailing from the base of the sink (mercifully, Ellie realised as she bent to sop it up with a flannel, it was water.)
His pills were dotted around the basin, nestled close to his toothbrush and miniature bottles of shampoo and shower gel. A towel (the scratchy cotton hotel kind) hung lopsided on the towel rack. Scooping the miniature bottles up along with the pills into one large handful, Ellie backed out of the bathroom as quick as she had entered. With her armful of pills she blindly—and really rather stupidly—reached out for the pile of clothes she had discarded at the same time - trembling like some sort of human Jenga.
This wasn't Ellie's downfall.
Her downfall was connecting gaze with the keycard to Hardy's room, realising that she needed the card to leave, and reaching over for it.
On cue--
”—Shit!”
...all of Hardy’s pillbottles, pants and even his jacket cascaded out of her arms. Huffing out an agitated breath Ellie sunk down to collect up his now even-more-crumpled clothing. Something else, she paused in realisation, had rolled out of the pocket of Hardy’s jacket and was lying abandoned on the floor... abandoned, floppy, its metal keychain glinting as if it was trying to garner sympathy out of her.
Perhaps, Ellie rationalised, it wasn’t his. Perhaps it was his daughter’s. Reminded him of her, or something; because if there was one thing Ellie knew of Hardy it was that he wasn’t a carry-around-an-elephant-keychain sort of person. But if there was another thing Ellie knew of Hardy—judging by his pills and his sickness and his floppy trunked friend—it was that she didn’t really know him at all.
~
“What do you do to relax, Hardy?” Ellie asked brightly, leaned against the rocky wall. No point in pussy footing around the subject, was there? She had seen those pills, she had seen his room. And Hardy was a clever man, he would have the dots connected the second he woke up and saw her saunter blurrily into his line of vision holding out a bagful of his clothes.
She stuffed a salt-fattened chip into her mouth, mumbling, then held the greasy paper out toward him. When he didn’t make any movement to grab a handful she nudged it toward him once more. He had just been released from hospital, narrowly escaping death’s talons by the sounds of things, this was a bloody celebration as far as she was concerned.
Next to her she could feel all of Hardy’s thoughts slowing down, his gaze sharpening in upset as he looked out over the sea.
“...I drink.” he murmured.
He said it in such a way that while Ellie knew he was telling the truth she really rather suspected something else was hidden beneath it. “Oh,” she cocked her head, face scrunching in a scoff. “Not that. Come on, you must know what I mean.”
”Of course I do,” Hardy grumbled. There was very little point in denying it. Miller was as sharp as he was, if not sharper; denying it would just be another bloody ballache. “I just don’t appreciate your shitty euphemisms. I don’t, ‘relax’--" he frowned, venom dripping behind every word as he put up his shields and turned away, voice rising. Despite that - she should never have agreed to go there. That was his private space. That was his secret to keep. “I never have. I don’t believe in the system. I believe in getting justice and working hard and—”
And I can’t do that like this. Unspoken words but words that were so very obvious he may as well have spoken them anyway.
Ellie looked at him even though he couldn’t make her gaze and sucked her lip, tasting salt. “—And that’s why you’re taking those pills, you bloody idiot? Don’t give me that bullshit, I know what they are. Hardy, suppressing what’s biological—what’s inside you—it’s dangerous. You could’ve died, no wonder you’re collapsing all over the place!”
”Oh, don’t, Miller.” Hardy spat as though he was working his way through a fat glob of gristle. “You sound like my mother.”
Not the best comparison. Ellie bit something back and watched Hardy as he shakily breathed out.
“Let’s finish early today,” she decided once the silence had gathered, as if that’s a thing they do, as if they finish together. Forensics were still working on prints and until they came back from analysis any progression in the case is out of their hands at least for the evening—and Hardy had just been discharged from hospital, for Christ’s sake!
“Take a night. Give in to it, Hardy. I mean properly—really properly. Once, just once, and if it doesn’t work you can say well there you bloody go then and we’ll never talk about it ever again.”
Alec looked at her for a long, long moment. Looked at her as if she’d lost the plot—or as if he had for daring to slip into it.
”...Cartoons,” he murmured. “I watch cartoons.”
~
“Cartoons, then!” Ellie chirped, voice artificially bright. She swung her arms as she looked around his hotel room—as if she was seeing it for the first time. Something about being around Littles made this bright bouncy voice come out - one more suited for a pre-school teacher rather than who she really was. That was the caregiver in her, evidently. “What cartoons do you like?”
The grin on her face was so wide her cheeks ached but Goddamn it if she wasn’t getting Hardy to engage with her. “Fred watches loads of CBeebies. God, please don’t tell me you watch CBeebies. I think I’ve seen enough CBeebies for it to dribble out of my ears.”
Hardy sniffed, plopped onto the bed next to her and then stared at his perfectly shined shoes before clumsily kicking them off. He tugged at his tie, throwing that off too, and loosened his tight shirt. Had Ellie not been there he would have taken all of his clothes off and switched them for pyjamas, but somehow he was coming off shy. “Channel 36,” he murmured eventually. Any other time and he would have had some very ugly words to say to her, but right now his head was pounding, he felt exhausted, and he wanted to zone out. “Biker Mice from Mars is on now until 6:00. Then Scooby Doo. Then Looney Tunes. Then Dangermouse.” He wasn’t the greatest fan of Dangermouse but it was a take-it-or-leave-it situation until the News took over. Every time he watched them he tried to tell himself he wasn’t the biggest fan of cartoons in general, tried to tell himself that he was just watching them for that Saturday morning nostalgia. Which was true, but it was also partly pining for those years when he really was small enough to curl up on the carpet at six am watching cartoons and messily feeding himself a bowl of extra milky Coco Pops.
(If Ellie thought he sounded as if he had recited the schedule off by heart, that was because he had.)
Ellie watched him, as he climbed into bed all untucked shirt and stiff lined trousers, and sucked her teeth thoughtfully. “Oh come on now, sir,” she scolded gently. “I might be stupid, but even I know you don’t sleep in your uniform!”
He stared at—no, through—her and for a moment Ellie regretted saying anything for it looked as if he was going to spit it all back in his face.
Then he sort of looked like he wanted to deny everything, worried lines creasing at his eyes.
Then, finally—amazingly!—his resolve crumbled. Pushing the duvet off he stood and rummaged through his messy suitcase, pulling out a crumpled pair of cotton pyjamas (that made Ellie wince to look at and want to throw in the laundry) before disappearing off into the bathroom with his parting words being only a slightly pouty, “I’m going to miss it,” as if it was the crime of the century for Ellie to even think of telling him to dress comfortably.
”Not if you hurry up,” Ellie countered, turning on the television.
~
Well, Hardy certainly wasn’t wrong. Television on, tinny theme tune just winding down and precisely at five on the dot Hardy had curled up on one of the beds, hugged his knees, let his head rest on top. Next to him was Ellie, laying flat, one hand underneath her pillow. She made no motion to curl into him, and he her, even though the instinct was there. “...this all you do, then?”
Somehow she had expected more. She had heard of Littles watching cartoons, yes, but then there was fingerpainting or putting together a jigsaw puzzle, LEGO, toy cars... and all he wanted to do was watch television? Oh, he was engrossed in the show, evidently— eyes all glazed over, just about able to squeak out a, ‘Mmm?’ in her direction. “This,” she said, nodding at Biker Mouse #1. “Cartoons. Nothing else? Blocks, cars...” She stiffened slightly, jolting in happy realisation. "Oh! Play-Doh? Fred bloody loves Play-Doh. I can get you some, if you want. And cutters—God, Fred has bloody loads of them. Squishes it all ‘n then cuts it all up into little strips of spaghetti. One of these days I’m going to find Play-Doh in our dinner, I swear."
Hardy studied her intently as she spoke. ”...no. Jus’ cartoons... colouring maybe.” he murmured, flushing pink. “Don’t need anything else. I’m not like... that. I’m not one of those. I’m just... forgetting to take my pills tonight.” Besides—anybody could watch cartoons. It didn’t matter if he was a grown man. Grown men watched cartoons all the time. And did colouring. Right? He doodled all over his notes when there was a lull at work. That meant nothing.
His brow was up, though, as much as he wanted to ignore it. Play-Doh. Play-Doh was a new one. He liked Play-Doh, from all the way back when Daisy was tiny. Long after she'd gone to bed he could happily have sat at the kitchen table making dinosaurs and blobby orange men with green hair.
Attention fractured, his gaze dropped from the television and twisted idly around the room... resting not so subtly on the pile of clothes bursting out of his opened suitcase. He tried to pull away but his gaze returned there again and again. Ever the detective, this didn’t go unnoticed to Ellie either. Even if she didn’t say anything, Hardy knew she could see his gaze move. He squirmed with the pressure. “Well... there is one more thing.” He proposed shyly, fingertips graduating toward his mouth out of instinct.
”Mmm?” Ellie encouraged with a nod. It was only then that she noticed his thumbnails, bitten down to slivers, and in cascaded the realisation.
Hardy slipped from his bed and padded over to his suitcase. He rifled through it with all the care of a Little (not a whole lot!), unzipped the inner pocket, and hunted. His fingers closed around the familiar object, clung, and plopped it into Ellie’s lap.
Ellie stared.
...Well well well.
Mr. Alec Hardy, Mr. ‘I don’t believe in the system’, had a pacifier. A navy blue pacifier with a large clear nipple, attached to a chain consisting of chunky blue-and-white beads so that he could clip it to his clothing if he so wanted to. That, in and of itself, didn’t surprise her. She was a caregiver through and through; very little surprised her. The funny thing about it, though, was that it looked pristine. Freshly taken out of its packaging pristine. There were no scuffs, holes, dribble marks, or any of the other signs of love and care that ended up transferred to a Little’s possessions. She raised her eyebrows to it quietly, well aware of Alec’s presence, and held back the snarky comment as she looked up toward him—drinking in his worried look. “Sir, this is a...” she began softly.
He nodded. “...a pacifier,” he finished her sentence, gnawing ever so slightly on his nails as he stared at it. “I’ve never used it, I’ve just...”
Nailbiting not enough to abate his anxiety, he rocked on his heels. “I’ve just had it, ever since my classification.”
(They had been giving them away, free, on his way out of the centre. He remembered that day as clear as anything; stomping out of there, fists clenched, knowing that whoever next decided to speak to him about anything remotely Little was going to get their head firmly thumped off of their shoulders. A vendor was stood just outside the Little door and clocked onto him before he could try to duck out of her view. "Pacifier, sir?" she asked, voice full of sympathy as she took in his frown--but chugged on as brave as anything. "They're complimentary."
"No, thanks," he tried in vain to shake her off, bristling. No point in denying it even if his skin crawled; she had seen the door he'd slipped out of.
"Oh, go on." she tutted, rifling through the plastic rainbow she had in a basket just in front of her, pausing for thought, and then throwing a navy blue pacifier at him. "Complimentary."
He thought twice about catching it. Thought about letting it fall to the floor and crushing it under his heel with a sickening plastic crunch. Thought about squeezing it in one tight fist until the plastic shattered.
But he caught it. Caught it and threw it into the bottom of his satchel with just a sniff. He didn't know why he did it then; he still didn’t really know any better now. The best he could come up with was a faint and begrudging realisation that if this was his classification he was going to be noted down and treated as such, and so maybe it was a wise decision to come to terms with it.
Except he hadn't. He never had.
He'd found his pills from some deep dark corner of the internet. Two a day, said the label on the bottle, morning and evening or whenever necessary. And he took them and felt a bit numb and sort of forgot about his classification every day until it rolled up into a nice thick bowling ball and punched him in the stomach and the cycle turned around again. He never really paid much thought to his pacifier. Didn't need to, not with the pills. Never really thought about getting rid of it, though. Just stuffed it into his suitcase (out of sight out of mind) as soon as he could and left it there.)
Ellie eyed the pacifier for a long moment, eventually giving Hardy a glance. He seemed to understand what she was asking despite Ellie saying nothing— despite the iceberg concealing every ounce of his Littleness chipping slowly away. He nodded, and she took the pacifier into her own hands, twirling it around slowly. Disbelief swirled. “You don’t believe in the system, but you have a pacifier?” She wanted so badly to bite but knew it risky especially when Sir was in such a vulnerable position; that rocky midpoint of not-Big but not blindingly Little. Instead Ellie held it back. Hardy had clambered back onto the bed now with all the grace of a baby elephant and had pulled the sheets over himself with all the dexterity of a rather large toddler.
Ellie looked at him. She chuckled, fond and sweet, no different to how she would be with Tom or Fred. She straightened his blankets, fiddled with a loose piece of cotton at one corner, and came out with it. “...I think you should use it.”
Alec looked at her if she had gone utterly, completely, over the deep end, insane. Their gaze snapped and fell away in a matter of seconds and then he started to look as though he was considering it, and then as if he had gone utterly, completely, over the deep end insane for even thinking of it - again. Christ.
One night with Miller, and what was she doing to him? "I..." he stammered, mouth opening and closing, staring at the pacifier in her fist. Hesitantly he tugged it from her grip and raised it to his lips - movements all cowed and sheepish as if he was expecting Miller to burst into huge peals of cackling laughter the second he put the nipple to his mouth.
She did not.
(She never would.)
She nodded encouragingly and smiled and made gentle noises of praise. In any other situation Hardy sort of supposed he would bat her away and tell her to leave him alone, but right now he couldn't have felt more comforted. Though hesitant he let the rubber nipple balance precariously on his lip as if it were a fat filled cigar.
This time, Ellie really did chuckle at him. But it wasn't mocking, it wasn't teasing -- it was low and fond and filled with happiness for him. Reaching out one finger, she pushed the plastic shield so the soother fitted more snug around his lips. The rubber nipple was a little more intruding and he 'mmpf'ed in embarrassment around it, tongue not quite sure what to do with this funny-tasting intruder. He stabbed the nub, his tongue swirled slow exploring circles around it, before finding a resting point.
Alec almost worried he wouldn't know what to do next--just leave it there?--but the second his mouth got accustomed to the feeling of the soother in his mouth his instincts were flooded with the need--not the longing, the need--to suck. Slowly he drew in, suckling on the rubber nipple quietly. Nothing changed, aside from the room filling with gentle popping suckles that made his cheeks flush pink. And... and the feeling that every little suckle pulled him further and further into relaxing, all melted and floaty there in the middle of the bed. He shifted slightly, suckled a little more in contentedness, and settled bonelessly in his bedsheets. It was as if sucking on the soother had flicked a switch and woken up his Little-space in a mere moment because now he didn't really mind Ellie being there watching him, nor did he mind having his pacifier. It was just... calming--sort of like being drunk without the drink--and he could go to sleep right now and it wouldn't matter at all.
Alec was so relaxed that falling asleep was almost what he did. He settled down. He closed his eyes. He patted his pockets and the area around him as he always did, searching, exploring. Where was it? He-- he had to have it with him. Always. Even--no, especially--for sleeping. Brow scrunching, the blind and tired movements of his hand on the bedsheets grew even more frantic. "Wh're..."
Sleepiness was stitched into his voice. "Wh're izzit..." a whimper now, as he sat up dizzily and threw the blankets off of him, searching through the tangled sheets. "It.. it has to be here somewhere...!"
"What?" Ellie sat up, looking at him, concern flooding her features. "Sir...? What are you looking for?"
He didn't hear her. "Where... I- I kept it safe, it.." he patted his pockets and catapulted himself over to his suitcase, throwing out handfuls of his clothes.
“What are you looking for?” Ellie asked a little harder this time as Alec ransacked his suitcase and frantically went on a hunt.
“It’s— it’s here somewhere. It has to be here, it’s—“ he stammered, patting down his pyjamas, feeling in the pockets of his suits and his coat and his trousers but obviously to no avail. His eyes filled with tears before he could stop them, biting his lip and running one hand through his hair. It... it had to be here. Think, Alec. THINK. He would never, ever misplace it, it was his and he loved it and kept it. If it wasn’t in the pocket of his coat or suit, it would be... it would be... in bed, maybe? He always took it to bed with him, but only when he was by himself. Not— not when he was in the hospital—so... then it would be in his pocket...
“I need my jacket. I can’t find my jacket.” He ordered, pacing.
All of this fuss over a jacket? Ellie looked around, nodding to the coat he had thrown out of the suitcase. “Your coat is there, Alec, won’t that do?”
“Not that, the other one, there’s another one...” Alec mumbled, biting his thumbnail.
“This one?”
Recognising the jacket she had taken from the hospital Ellie threw it toward him. “Bit crumpled. Let me take it with me, smooth out the creases.” She murmured. He ignored her entirely, feeling in the pocket. It was lumpy, and so the breath that he hadn’t realised he had been holding in came out in a rattled noise of relief. Plunging his fingers into the pocket he felt familiar mink-soft fabric and his heart fluttered happily. He fished the tiny elephant out of the pocket and clutched it in one hand, letting his jacket fall crumpled and unloved to the floor. Satisfied, he clambered back into bed, popped his pacifier back into his mouth—and didn’t let go of his elephant once, the keychain dangling from his fist.
“Where did you get that?” Ellie murmured, watching as Alec curled up with the keychain as if it was his lifeline.
His eyelids were already half closed and even though he was suckling on his pacifier he was doing so sleepily. Of course, she thought. Mums never underestimate the power of a comfort toy.
“Sss’from th’zoo...” he mumbled around the rubber nub.
Ellie cooed, happily springing to a new conclusion. She loved hearing stories about Alec being a parent. Made him feel a bit more... normal. A bit more human. Besides, it looked like a keychain that had cost £2 from the bargain bin of London Zoo, or something, so why he was so attached to it was a mystery, unless...
“Awh. Did Daisy get it for you?”
...yes. That’s what it looked like, after all; a keychain from the bargain bin of London Zoo that Daisy had bought with her pocket money from a school trip... a keychain that he couldn’t quite let go of now that Daisy was a bouncy bratty teenage girl.
But—to Ellie’s eternal surprise—he shook his head. It was slight and sluggish but it was a headshake all the same. “Before she was born...” he said in between a snore. “Mine ‘n Tess’ first date...”
He rolled over, toy still in one fist, drool collecting in a little pearl at the corner of his lip. Tess has bought it for him. She didn’t mind. Not then, not when it was their first date and everything was new and exciting. She indulged him in it as lovingly as any caregiver would. Not that she was a caregiver, mind. She’d ducked and dived away from testing, refusing to believe she was ‘one of those’. Nevertheless they found that happy balance; she didn’t mind so much right the way up until her belly began to swell into a bump. No more, she said then, no more because you have a family now and you want to be a DI and maybe if you weren’t the way you were if you didn’t have this thing this fucking disease then Pippa and Lisa would have survived
...So, no more.
Alec snorted and then snored loudly and exhaustively, body limp. It was an exhausting battle just to say the word ‘date’ apparently, as he had crashed the second it left his mouth. Ellie chuckled, slipping from his bed and tucking him in properly. “Boring company?” She asked him, but all he did in reply was snuggle further into his blankets and cling tighter onto his keychain.
She stayed with him while he slept. He hadn't ever liked it when he was in hospital, but Ellie couldn’t help it. She’d done the same for Tom when he was first born—typical first-time-Mum nerves that oh God what if he’d stopped breathing in his sleep?—and for Fred, so that was the mother hen in her. Slightly different for Alec, she supposed. Not so much to check that he was still breathing, but to make sure his heart didn’t actually give up the ghost while he wasn’t taking his suppressants.
He looked so much more peaceful now. At the hospital he slept with a permanent frown on his face but now the lines in his brow had been rubbed out. His entire face seemed to relax, and the only thing he seemed to focus on was the gentle suckling of his pacifier. It came in bursts; he would suckle, fall quiet, suckle a little bit more and murmur in between. All the while the keychain was clutched tightly in one fist, jangling every time he rolled over. Sometimes he would rub the trunk against his cheek as if he was checking he hadn’t lost it again.
And, if you had asked Alec, he would’ve very much agreed with Ellie’s suspicions. He had never been the greatest sleeper, mind ticking over like an overexcited metronome as it hurtled over every possible result to the case he was working on. Then when he did fall asleep he would start thinking of Sandbrook, of Claire, of Lee, of poor poor fucking Pippa in the water and plunging in to save her, the icyness trickling down his back and into his lungs and making every breath an agonisingly ravaged effort, sloughing through the wetness over and over and over except in his dreams his hands slipped and his grip slackened and under he went with her screaming and coughing lungs bursting with saltwater... until he would explode into a panicked awake state and find that no, while he was not submerged in water, the water had made it into his bed of its own accord and so even more of his precious spare time was mopped up in shameful 4am showers and stripping of beds.
So far, that seemed to be much less of a problem. Alec melted into one of the most comfortable sleeps he’d had in years. Each little suckle of his pacifier batted away any of the creeping scary thoughts before they could bloom into a full blown nightmare.
Or so he thought. Rolling over, pacifier pressed into his mouth, he heard the sound of running water somewhere deep in the back of his brain. It might’ve just been Ellie, ducking into the bathroom while it was quiet—but this water was like freezing rain, droplets thick and lashing down his back. He whimpered, shifted, suckled a little harder as a scream echoed in his ears, loud and desperate, but then the dream plunged on in the same way it always did. Barrelling into the icy water, heart pounding lungs aching legs like gelatine grab Pippa cold dead weight he slips under chokes on saltwater, gurgles until his throat aches but Pippa drifts out of his grasp and No, he screams, no, no
”NOOOO!”
The dream collapsed in on itself as Alec catapulted back to being in the Traders, sat in bed, pyjamas sticking to his back in sweat, chest heaving so hard it made him feel sick; pacifier shot out with the force of his cry, landed in his lap.
”Alec!” Ellie jumped with a gasp, sitting ramrod straight in a nearby armchair. His name flew out of her mouth before she could even think to correct herself - but somehow it felt better in the moment than calling him ‘sir’ or ‘Hardy’. “Oh, Alec, are you alright?”
”I- I need to— gotta—!“ Alec stammered out mid-breath, eyes wide as he scrambled from the sea of duvet toward the bathroom knowing exactly what was coming next if he didn’t move. A tiny part of him, the part not swamped by fear and panic and need, washed over in relief at just the sound of Ellie’s voice.
Ellie waited. There was nothing else for her to do but wait, after all, and he had moved too quickly for her to check on him as her instincts told her to. And, well, Ellie wasn’t stupid. If Alec was running straight for the bathroom there was only one reason why.
So she waited. A minute passed, then another, and although Ellie hardly paid attention to such things she couldn’t help but realise there was no sound coming from the bathroom whatsoever— running water or otherwise. Hesitantly, she upped and padded over to the closed bathroom door, fingers poised to rap against the wood—but something tugged her to a stop. Now that she was closer to the door she swore she could hear sniffling— choked back, quiet sniffling. “Alec,” she called gently, “Are you alright?”
“...yeah.”
The voice was quiet, unsure. Sat on the toilet Alec stared at his wet pyjama bottoms in disbelief, and tried not to pay attention to the puddle on the floor even if he had made it at least some of the way.
”You sure...? You’ve been in there a little while, that’s all, and I—“
”Miller, don’t you have somebody else’s business to poke your nose into?” Hardy snapped.
”Alec, I want to—!”
“Miller, just— just go away!”
Ellie recognised that tone of voice all too well; a weak bite that didn’t really have anything packed behind it and meant entirely the opposite. “Alec, I’m sorry but I don’t think I quite believe you...” She jiggled the doorknob. “Please, open the door.”
Alec sniffled. There was a moment of silence before, ever obedient to Ellie’s gentle caregiving tone (if there was anybody who knew what to do, it was Ellie) he unlocked the door.
Ellie praised herself for taking in the scene remarkably quickly. Alec, sat on the toilet, pyjama bottoms almost see-through and sticking to him with wetness on the thighs. Small puddles collected and ran into one another on the floor. Alec, wet-eyed, snivelling, red on the cheeks. It was the first time Ellie had ever seen him cry and it made all of those maternal, caregiver instincts itch as they flooded her body. “Oh, Alec...” she cooed at him, voice falling to softness with realisation. She stepped inside the bathroom gingerly as if it was a crime scene, looking him over. “You’re okay, it was just an accident!”
”I- I tried-!” Alec hiccuped, nodding rapidly, voice swollen with tears. “Tried... I just...”
”Oh I know, Alec,”—She bit back the instinctual ‘sweetheart’—“you’ve done so well. Okay...” she looked around the bathroom, frantic for a moment, and finally unrolled a handful of toilet tissue over one hand, “Let’s get you cleaned up, hmm? Bottoms off, please!”
Alec wanted to listen, he really did. Ellie’s voice was as sweet and as compassionate as it ever could be and rather than be embarrassed his subordinate was seeing him in such a position he relished the pin pricks of relief that rained down upon his skull. Had he taken his proper dosage the thought of cleaning up himself and the bathroom, while embarrassing, was a drop in the ocean. Without it he felt... tiny. Tiny and swamped by the gargantuan responsibility of having to shower himself and clean up the floor... so for Ellie to help was a weight off of his shoulders. “I... I can’t.” He whimpered out.
”Can’t...? Whaddyou mean, ‘can't’?” Ellie frowned, flushing the toilet tissue away once the floor was clean.
Alec sniffed, bunching his wet pyjama bottoms in both fists. “I don’t have a change. Last fresh set.”
’This has happened before’ was sewn neatly in between the lines—Ellie glossed over it for now because asking Alec if he’d ever thought of using protection seemed like a step too far at the moment—and asking him how he thought he’d survive without needing to bung some of his clothes in the washer at some point likely wouldn’t get answered either. She nodded, understanding all the same, thoughts rolling around her head and gaining traction. “...alright. You have undies, though? Fresh ones?”
A nod.
”Fresh uniform for tomorrow morning?”
Another nod.
Ellie shrugged. “Well, fresh undies on, then. I’ll nip home with your dirty clothes, wash them, and you can have them back tomorrow. Easy.”
Alec nodded. He shuffled out, retrieved a fresh pair of boxers, and shut himself in the bathroom once more.
~
”Ellie?” Alec scrunched the bedsheets in his hands and fidgeted in the bed that suddenly felt too big for him.
Ellie was on her way out of the door, the night drawing in later and later. He almost didn’t want her to leave but saying that felt scary somehow.
”Hmm?”
Ellie turned. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips to see him buried beneath bedsheets, pacifier in one fist, tiny elephant in the other. Suddenly all the things that made Alec who he was - the heavy brow, the stern glare, the beard - they melted away, and he looked as small and as vulnerable as Fred. And to hear him call her ‘Ellie’ was the cherry on top of the very sweet cake. Rightly so, she supposed. Little Alec had no need to worry about work.
“...you’ll bring my clothes back, tomorrow?”
”Yes. You take your pills in the morning, like normal, and we’ll go to work, and then when we finish work I’ll pop here with you and give you your clothes. Okay?”
A thoughtful nod. “Here?”
”Here.”
Alec fidgeted again, whispering. He looked hesitant for a moment, but also too Little to care about it at that moment. “...can you bring Play-Doh? You said you’d bring Play-Doh.”
Ellie giggled. “I’ll see what I can do, Alec. No promises!” even if she was already mentally preparing to snaffle away a few tubs and cutters from Fred’s toy-box when he was at nursery.
(He’s too young for it anyway, and not having to scratch orange dough out of the grouting of the bathroom with one fingernail would be a blessing. Then again, who said Alec would be any better?)
Alec smiled. Eyelids heavy even though he’d not long napped. “...night, Ellie.”
”Night, Alec.” Ellie returned the smile on her way out, flicking the light off and plunging the room into calm darkness— and Alec, into a peaceful sleep.