Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It does not get easier, seeing someone dead. What is easy for him is pretending it’s not devastating. It is easy for him to keep his eyes dim and dead when faced with gory tragedy. He’s gone the other way before, and he knows that it’s a surefire way to let the nightmares in, admitting that what you’re looking at, what you’re standing above with a notepad and pen, could ruin you if you let it.

It’s not the first skull he’s seen bashed in. It’s not the first wall and carpet stained with the blood of a young woman. They are the demographic that he sees the most. Jealous boyfriends, angry husbands, friends who expect love in return for their kindness.

“Oh, god…” Miller doesn’t know how to keep the nightmares out yet. She’s still green, despite all she’s been through. He used to chide her for it, but he’s given up trying to strip her of her softness. Maybe he’s jealous. Maybe he admires it. Neither is something he would be willing to admit. 

He spares a glance at her. Her hand is over her mouth, and her eyes look tearful. He feels some vague, stupid instinct to rush her out of the room, to make sure she doesn’t have to see any more of it.

But she’d smack him for that. She doesn’t need protecting.

“Do we know who she was?” Miller asks, hardening herself. 

“Can’t be sure yet. No one’s supposed to live here.”

It’s a dump. A lone trailer on the edge of the woods, so far from the water that the rent would be cheap. But there’s no name on the mailbox, and there was no lock on the door. 

“Who called it in?”

“Couple a’ teenagers. Took a statement, but they didn’t say much. I think they came here to smoke pot.”

“I guess that didn’t pan out how they’d hoped,” Miller says, too light, too casual. “They didn’t do it, then? We’re sure?”

He nods, pulling a pair of nitrile gloves from his pocket, handing them to her, and then taking out a pair for himself. He wrinkles his nose at the familiar snap of the gloves on their wrists. He squats down, looking studiously at the woman’s body. Fully clothed still, if a little rumpled. What a cruel world, where that fact makes him feel all warm and fuzzy. At least she was just brutally murdered. 

She’s on her stomach, arms splayed as if trying to crawl away. There’s an upturned bottle of nail polish beside her. Red even when dried, in stark contrast to the blood. She’s been here at least a couple hours.

“I’ll take a look around,” Miller says, and he wonders if she’s just eager to get away from the sight. 

-

The shoddy floorboards creak as she walks down the narrow hallway of the trailer. There is a smell of old food and the vague rot of a place uncleaned. No electricity, she finds, flicking the light switches. It seems like the kind of place you’d go to shoot up, but the floor is free of needles and lighters and anything else. There are, of course, the typical stained mattresses of a place where no one ought to live, but they go to anyway, out of desperation. Maybe for clandestine meetings. What a nasty place to have an affair…

The thought of infidelity makes her refocus. Mustn’t get distracted by her path to emotional recovery. Her therapist would tell her it’s unhealthy to ignore it, but what the fuck does she know? There is no one in this entire world who knows. Not quite. The closest thing to understanding that she has is Tom, who barely talks to her. And Hardy, who is even worse.

She’s alone, and suddenly the thought of being dead on the floor of an abandoned trailer doesn’t seem so bad.

Hardy comes up behind her, settling a hand on her shoulder, and she twitches, still so unused to his awkward, fumbling friendliness. She tries not to be endeared.

“Find anything?” he asks, his dead but doe-like eyes darting around the room as if he doesn’t trust her to have seen everything there is to see.

“Nothing obvious. But the place definitely hasn’t been scrubbed of evidence.”

“Y’think they panicked and ran as soon as they did it?”

“Mm,” she agrees. 

They leave their forensics team to do what they do best, and go back to the station for tea and planning.

His office is always cold. It was supposed to be her office. She would have kept it warmer. She would have put a plant in the corner that he’s left barren…

They’re silent for a while, save for the sipping of their tea. Finally, she says what she hopes they’re both thinking.

“I hate how easy this is going to be.” She can see her reflection in the teacup. She’s so tired.

“Yeah,” he agrees, seeming not to care, but she knows that he does. She has learned how to tell when he is in pain. She’s a detective, isn’t she? She’s not so dumb as to learn nothing, spending all that time with a man. Right? Surely Joe was just a lapse in judgment. An outlier. Her one mistake, and the only one she can afford to make for the rest of her life. “Ex-boyfriends, whatnot. We’ll look into all of ‘em.”

She nods, holding the teacup in her palms, warming herself in the chill of his office. 

“Tom’s got that...thing later, right?” he asks after some time, leaning back in his chair, taking off his silly little glasses.

“Football game,” she says, sounding defeated. Man can’t even remember what sport her son plays. So much for learning anything about one another. “Should I tell him I can’t go?”

“Didn’t say that,” he corrects. “Wanted to make sure you were still going.”

“Oh…” Her eyes flutter to the side. “Why?”

He sighs, clasping his hands over his chest, looking full of regret for having even begun the conversation.

“You’ve still got a chance with your kid, Miller. Don’t cock it up on behalf of me.”

She pouts, hating how girlish she is, and sets down her tea on his desk.

“On your behalf?” she asks. “This...this isn’t about you, sir. ” She stands up from her seat, grabbing her coat off the back of the chair. “I do this work for women like that girl from earlier, not because I’m loyal to you . Cocky bastard.”

Despite her cruel worlds, she gives him a wry smile. Always she must stop short of being truly kind to him, as if it would be some sort of betrayal to her pride. Even if she’s gotten soft for him, just a little. Even if he is truly the only person who can read the looks on her face anymore. She’s just such a mystery to everyone else these days.

He grins and bids her goodbye, seeming to shoo her out of his office with a wave of his hand.

-

He sits in the silence of his office for a while. His phone lays waiting on the desk, begging to ring with some news on the woman’s identity, on anything. All the lights in all the other rooms of the station go out except for the fluorescent ones above him. Everyone gone off to enjoy the start of the weekend. 

It’s nearly six at night when finally he receives a report, and he scrambles to put on his glasses to read the email.

Chapter Text

She remembers being small, and why it was terrifying to be around so many boys. And now, grown, she still feels a distinct unease at the sight of them, though the reasons have changed. She feels cruel for having hated them so much as a little girl; they are just children, too. Innocent. At the whim of adults and their bad, bad decisions.

Tom runs fast. She could never keep up, even when she was a young mother. He was always running, and it’s only gotten worse. He seems to have started highschool on a downhill slope, tumbling faster and faster to get away from the avalanche, plunging himself into sports and classes, because if he goes fast enough, it won’t ever catch up. She goes too slow. In her dreams she’s sprinting away from her old house, across that field, screaming though no sound comes out. She’s yelling a silent warning. But when she wakes up, she’s in her new flat, soaked in a cold sweat, cursing her alarm.

She tries to focus on the game. She wishes everyone else would, too. It’s hard to avoid being a spectacle once you’ve been on the news. She tries to put the blame where it ought to be: on Joe, for being a bastard. And not on herself, for not knowing just how much of a bastard he was.

Maybe he’s dead. Maybe some mother braver than her had the guts to kill him, and there was no one around to pull her off. Lucky bitch.

Tom scores a goal and she applauds, speaking quietly to Fred, who is ripping grass out of the ground and wearing it on his head. 

“Look at your brother, Freddy!” she says, kneeling down, brushing the grass off of his head and bemoaning the stains on his clothes. Fred grins with all his baby teeth, and she feels that same melting she’s been desperately clinging to for months. The little bit of joy she’s allowed to have.

She turns her head toward the parking lot, mapping out how they’ll leave before the mad rush of parents, and she rolls her eyes. Of course he’s here. Overdressed for the heat, ambling across the gravel lot with his shoulders ever-hunched. She gives him a timid wave as she stands up, dusting herself off. 

His approach is always like some great beast slouching toward her. He is frightening, and in a way she can’t name. Not violent. Not cruel, now that she knows him a little better. But there is something in him that strikes fear into her heart, and she can never let him know. He is some daunting force of nature, and she despises that about him. It would have been so nice for him to have just been an incompetent lug, but no. He had to deserve her job. He had to be a good partner.

She’s hesitant to be seen with him in public, after all the bullshit from the trial. An affair. People do love their drama.

“What?” she asks simply, folding her arms and turning back toward the game. She’ll not ignore her son. Not now. Not ever again.

“Found out something. Identity of the victim. Possible murder weapon,” he says, furtive, clearly ill-at-ease to be talking about it next to a boy so young and sweet. Fred tugs on his jacket and he mumbles an awkward hello .

“Yeah?” she asks, through her smiling teeth. She doesn’t look at him.

“Schoolteacher. Local. Tom might even know her.”

“Fuck’s sake…”

“Yeah.”

Maybe this place is cursed.

“They found a garden trowel in the woods. Blood on it.”

“A trowel did that to her skull?” She turns away from the game, looking at him as if he’s truly lost his mind.

He just shrugs, and she understands. She has come to understand it, with time. If driven to it, a man can accomplish such miraculously violent feats.

“Fingerprints on it?”

“Adult male, unsurprising. No matches.”

“Shit.”

-

He sits down beside Fred, whose eyes are now glued to his brother, sprinting across the pitch like a boy much older. You have to be, don’t you? Older than you are, when something so terrible happens? At least Fred was too young to remember anything but the comfort of his mother.

And she tries so much, he can tell. To be normal, to pretend to be normal. He can’t begrudge her that; he is an expert at pretending and ignoring. It’s nearly cost him his life.

“Uncle Alec! ” Fred squeaks, ripping a fistful of grass up from the root and tossing it in his face. 

“Thanks,” he says, lamenting the pile of grass now in his lap. He swears he hears Miller snort. “This going to be much longer?” he asks, desperate.

“Have you not been to a football game? Ever?” she asks, passing him a sparkling water from the cooler. “Calm down. It’s almost done.”

“We’re on a bit of a clock here, Miller.”

“I’m just--” She breathes. She deals so much better with him being an asshole than she used to. “I’m just doing what you said.”

Tom scores another goal. He cracks open his sparkling water.

She drives them all, Tom and Fred in the back seat, the smell of sweat permeating into the front. He tries to be subtle in covering his nose with his hand.

“Just got to drop you two off at your Auntie’s for the evening, okay? Work to do.”

“Mm.”

Hardy looks sidelong at her. He wonders if her eyes have always been so sad, or if he just met her at the wrong time. Maybe once, she had been a bright and happy thing. Maybe she could have had it so easy, before he came along, poisoning everything he touches.

But she will barely let him. Most attempts at comfort, of which he’s sure she needs so much, are met with squirming and denial. He can’t blame her. He’s just another man for her not to trust, even if her job requires it of her. That’s where it ends. It would be selfish to expect anything else from her.

Once the kids are safe, they head to the station. The radio plays quietly, the 80s station, celebrating the New Romantics. He always hated that.

“Her name’s Felicity Graham. Taught at Tom’s school,” he says, flipping open the folder he brought. “Well-liked. Very pretty--”

“Why’s that always near the top of the list?” she asks.

“Begpardon?”

“People always talk about dead girls that way. Oh, she was so beautiful, it’s a shame . Fuck’s sake. She also had a teaching degree, does that not mean shit to anyone?”

“I’m just reading from the file, Miller.”

“Well I--” She coughs as she pulls into her parking spot. “I know you don’t do that. Just...people. Everyone else.”

He’s silent until they get to the door of the station. He holds it open for her, as if any amount of chivalry can make up for the life he’s led.

“ You can write the press release then,” he says, too snide, too mean. 

“Oh, fuck off.”

But, as ever, their bickering subsides so easily. He sits on the edge of his desk, feeling restless. His shoulder aches, and he presses his hand to it. Ever since the procedure, the area’s never been the same. They didn’t mention that. They didn’t mention that, yes, your heart will work like it ought to, but everything around it will be so much worse. They didn’t mention that it would hurt to look in the mirror with no shirt on, hating the unseemly lump in the shape of a pacemaker that hides beneath your skin.

Miller opens the file in her lap, legs crossed at the ankles, doing that thing she does where she chews on the inside of her cheek while reading. 

“What would a schoolteacher like Ms. Graham be doing in that trailer?” she asks, flipping through the photos. He sighs, leaning forward, giving up, ambling over to the couch to sit down beside her. 

“Apparently she was very active in the uh, ‘troubled youth’ program. I’m thinking her work brought her there, and something went wrong.”

“We brought anyone in yet?” she asks, passing him the photos she’s through with, paying him no mind.

“Coworker who is pretty sure he’s the last to see her alive.”

“Can’t have done it?”

She is holding a photo of the victim’s half-painted nails. Her hand stained with pen marks from a day spent teaching. No wedding ring. No engagement ring. There go the usual suspects. 

“I’d like to rule him out tonight. He’s waiting.”

She nods, takes a breath, and closes the file. Silence hangs there, heavy like the ceiling might collapse. At what point, once the file is shut, do they just become two adults sitting on a couch, metric tons of baggage between them, finally at a standstill as they try so hard to run away from what hurts them? He doesn’t know because she never lets it get to that point. She never softens quite enough for him. It’s like she knows better.

“Well. No use wasting any time, then,” she says, tossing the file back onto his desk and heading for the office door.

“Right…” He stays seated a moment, staring at his hands.

“...you coming?” She leans against the door, head tilted, almost coquettish in her stance, almost teasing.

“Are you…” He sighs and buries his head in his hands. “Are you okay? ”

She folds her arms.

“Fuck kind of a question is that?” she says, relaxing her stance, walking over to him and lazily grabbing him by the elbow, tugging him up from the couch and toward the exit. “Of course not, but I’ve got a job to do, haven’t I?”

He follows as he’s bid, shuffling along, feeling a bit like a lost duckling.

Chapter Text

It is exhausting, though she will never admit it. At least not without some prodding. But after two hours of interviewing Mr. Whitney, she finds she can’t stand the sound of someone else’s voice. But still she lets Hardy speak to her after.

“That was unhelpful,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

She sighs and sits down on the couch in his office, tilting her head back to look at the ceiling.

“So he saw her leave school for the half-day, around noon, once she’d cleaned up the classroom,” she recites.

“Yeh.”

“That puts the homicide at no later than 1 PM.”

“Small window. Dunno if that’s to our advantage or not.”

“Could be…” She leans forward, elbows on her knees, and rubs her temples. “He said she had no discernible personal life. All work.”

“Know what that’s like,” he comments, off-hand, wishing he hadn’t.

“And yet no one’s murdered you yet, somehow.”

They laugh, and it makes her feel sick inside.

After some silence, some thought, she speaks. It feels like she’s throwing him a life raft, because st the sound of her voice, he perks up, looking away from the file.

“Do you fancy a drink?” she asks, leaning back once more, arms crossed as if she’s being forced to ask.

“What like...with you? Out?” he asks, blinking through his clumsiness. 

“Was thinking at my house. It’s nicer than here. Just gotta pick up the boys.”

He’s quiet for far too long, his chin resting in his hand.

“Yeah, alright.” He coughs and slides out his chair, grabbing for his jacket. She’s just a hair flummoxed by his eagerness, and she raises her brow some, but still she follows. “You’re always a little more clever after a drink, Miller. Might actually solve it.”

“Oh, shut up.” She shoves him between the shoulders, urging him out of the office.

The ride to her sister’s is quiet. The radio plays softly, Space Oddity, and she swears she hears him humming just a little. Floating in the most peculiar way. 

Ellie wonders what songs play in your head when you’re about to die. Do you know it’s happening? Do you know that you’re leaving your ship to float endlessly into space? Maybe Ms. Graham had the time to accept it, before her brain stopped working. A brief moment of peace before it’s all over. Sometimes she would prefer that to the burden of living.

But as her sons climb into the back seat, she stifles her fatalism and smiles.

“Sorry it’s so late, babes.”

“What’s going on? Did someone die?” Tom asks, now so immune to tragedy.

“Yes.”

She can feel Hardy’s discerning eyes on her. It makes her feel like a suspect, but, for once, he doesn’t chide her. She exhales, hating her relief. Fuck that man’s approval. Fuck him, always thinking he knows best.

They arrive at the house and she argues the boys to bed. And of course, by the time she comes back to the living room with glasses and wine, he’s got the file spread before him, his notes all around. She takes an involuntary moment, then, to study him. The veins in his hands as he holds his head. The tapping of his foot, restless always. How heavy he breathes. She has gotten used to the rhythm of him. It no longer unnerves. It comforts.

She pours him a less-than-generous glass, knowing he oughtn't get drunk. Neither should she. A woman’s been killed.

“You sure the boys won’t hear us?” he asks, taking his drink. She flusters at his hushed tone, as if they’re doing something wrong.

“Er...yes. It’s fine.” She crosses her legs and takes a slow sip, shutting her eyes at the bitter relief of Cabernet on her tongue. “So,” she coughs, “where were we?”

-

He tries to take his time. He tries not to ask for another glass. But there is a tired desperation he feels, like if he can numb himself just a little it will be easier to think without feeling a damn thing.

“So it was probably one of the kids she was helping. We’ve gotta…” He takes a sip. “Interview them all, find out who they are.”

“Could have just been a squatter,” she posits, offering him that constantly challenging glance. He despises it, he tells himself. He lies and claims that it doesn’t make him better. That it doesn’t make him utterly endeared. She drives him insane. It would have been nicer had she been dull and obedient, he thinks, knowing he’s wrong. It would have been easier if the lights weren’t dim, if the wine weren’t good, if her eyes didn’t seem to absorb the reports and photos like a sinkhole. Nothing gets away from her anymore. Not after Joe. She just can’t let anything escape, because last time, it cost her so much.

And he wants so much to say, I forgive you, even though that means nothing. He wants to tell her, you’re still brilliant, and I’m astounded by you. But he quiets himself with another sip of wine. She doesn’t have the room for him to suddenly be honest and kind. 

“Besides, what troubled teen carries around gardening equipment?” she asks, looking pointedly at a photo of the bloodied trowel. “Although…”

“Yeah?” He leans in, too alert and too interested, too obviously hanging on her every word. God, he really shouldn’t drink…

“The local kids were starting a community garden last month. She might have been the architect of it, I never asked. Stupid…”

“Ellie…”

“What?” 

“You’re not.”

“What are you talking about?”

He groans.

“You’re not stupid, Miller. You’re just...good. You don’t look at everything like a crime scene unless it is one.”

“...shouldn’t I, though?” 

This is another reason he shouldn’t drink. Things always seem to turn sad with him. Sad and soft. He puts a hand on her knee. She does startle, but she doesn’t shove him away.

“I hope you stay like you are, Miller.”

She gulps, seeming to stare into him, eyes narrowed and searching. Her chest rises and falls heavy, like she’s short of breath. She parts her lips as if to speak, and instead, finishes off her glass of wine.

“Er...I think it’s time for bed.”

He lets his hand fall from her knee, feeling sheepish and like an utter idiot. She’ll be furious in the morning, and he’ll be sober, and therefore far less moony and kind. It’s just the wine, just the thrill of the case. He’ll wake up and she’ll just be Miller, decent detective and woman utterly repelled by him.

“Getting a cab?” she asks, standing up.

“Ah...might stay on the couch. That alright?”

He awaits her denial and disgust, but she doesn’t say anything for a while as she cleans up the glasses.

“Fine,” she says, smiling sleepily, grabbing a folded blanket off of the armchair and tossing it at him. He catches it in an absolving laughter, and he’s pleased that she, too, grins and giggles.

As he tries to steady his spinning head for sleep, he reminds himself what magic the night can work on someone lonesome. It means nothing. 

But, in the very early morning, he sees her from the couch, standing in the kitchen drinking a steaming cup of coffee. Her hair tied back, wearing a soft robe, reading over their files again, just refusing to stop. He’s sober as a judge, and she’s still magnificent. Goddammit. He should pretend to sleep a little longer. Maybe forever. He grabs a pillow and covers his head with it. God fucking dammit.

Chapter Text

She won’t pretend it isn’t sweet. She’s seen him sleeping before, but he’d been in a hospital then. And she’d been furious. But now she’s calmed by the pre-child quiet of the morning, and he’s a mess. Hair a slave to static, snoring like a hibernating bear. She tries not to smile as she goes about her business, certain to cough and make just enough noise to wake him without actually having to wake him.

And how would she even do that with her dignity intact? She could place a hand on his arm and shake him. That would be alright. Or, she could sit on the edge of the couch, and whisper, her voice all throaty from sleep, Alec, it’s time to wake up. But, self-loathing idiot, he’d think she was teasing because of what he did last night. Not as if it was some sort of big deal! Just a hand to her knee, a casual compliment. They’re friends, aren’t they?

She’s staring, she realizes when he grunts and wakes up, looking charmingly disheveled.

“Tea?” she asks, turning around so he won’t see how she smiles. Funny, she always imagined him waking up screaming. Oh god, she’s imagined him waking up, hasn’t she? Fuck me, she thinks, and then wishes so much she’d thought of any other phrase.

“Mmh,” he replies, flattening out his hair and stretching his neck. “I am officially too old to crash on couches.”

“Offered you a cab,” she reminds him. 

He says nothing. Already, so early, and she’s beginning her torment. She could ask, she could beg to know why exactly he chose to stay. But he would only lie.

After some toast, after Tom has left for school and the babysitter has come, they leave. She’s young, about to graduate high school. Ellie cannot ignore the way the girl giggles when Hardy bids her goodbye. She teases him as they get in the car.

“Oh, I have a feeling she’ll be wanting to watch Fred quite often now,” she says, buckling her seatbelt and checking herself in the mirror. Her cheeks seem too taut, too warm from smiling. 

“Shut up, Miller.”

“Oh come on, you remember being young, don’t you?” she asks, backing out of the driveway, her arm around the back of his seat. “Having little crushes like that. It’s sweet.”

Again, he’s silent, and she fights off the regret. It’s best to focus on their task.

They get to the community garden at about nine, just as the sun is truly breaking through the morning clouds. The flowers are bright and vast, blooming proudly with a small cobblestone path meandering through. She remembers a garden like this, on an old date. With Joe, of course. He’d picked daisies and told her to smell them, and she’d reminded him that daisies don’t smell good. Idiot. Maybe he was always just awful and she was too stupid to see it. So desperate to be loved that she allowed herself to be blind.

“You alright?” Hardy asks, a hand to her back, and she stammers.

“Quite,” she lies. No, she’s never alright. She’s accepted that. It hurts too badly to ever truly go away. That makes it easier to ignore the scene, how nice it is: a handsome man who cares for her, standing ankle-deep in flowers. 

But she doesn’t deserve that. All she can do is her penance, and it will never be enough.

“Right, well…” He starts along the path, looking about. 

“Right…”

-

He’s bid by some boyish, long-forgotten instinct to bend down and pick a posey from the ground, but he resists. He also resists to urge to turn around, to look at her, surrounded by flowers, all the pinks and yellows reflected on her clear skin. 

Eventually, he finds a wicker basket at the far end of the garden with quite a few tools in it, all the same brand as the trowel from the trailer.

“Miller.” He waves her over to show her. It’s not great evidence, but it at least puts credence to their theory.

“So it was one of the kids?”

“Likely. Large teenager, maybe.”

She blinks. 

“Miller?” he leans forward, interrupting her eyeline.

“I...what if I’m running out of time to stop Tom from being a monster?” she asks suddenly, wringing her hands and staring into the basket of tools. “He’s growing so fast and I’m worried I’m too late. It’s so easy for men to be terrible—“

“Miller!” He grips her shoulders with his strong hands. “What are you—“

“I’m sorry. I…” She takes a steadying breath. Or, she tries to. He can practically feel the shame burgeoning out of her, he can tell how much she would hate to cry in front of him. Again. Again and again…She sniffs and runs a hand under her eye. “S’been on my mind. Didn’t mean for it to just…” She gestures vaguely. He shakes his head. Shit, it’s happening and he’d better prepare to be socked in the gut, but it’s happening.

He moves his hands around her shoulders, pulls her in, allows her to hide her face in the curve of his neck. He’s not sure what to say, because he never is, and of late, she’s been leaving him even more speechless.

“S’alright, Miller,” he says, even if it isn’t. 

Maybe if they weren’t police. Maybe if no one had to die in order for them to be forced so close together over and over. Maybe if they were just two people in a garden, he could be more of a comfort. Maybe then it wouldn’t feel so awful to have his heart struggle against its machinery. “But come on, now, we’ve got work to do.”

“Right.” She sniffs again, and squirms free of his embrace. 

They call in the new evidence, and then they head to the community center for a list of the kids involved in the garden project. He drives, giving her a chance to dry out, to calm down. He should have picked a flower or two.

-

She’s so stupid, stupid, stupid. She’s frail and she’s weak and it’s going to get her fired. Isn’t that what people always say? That women are too emotional to have any power. Well, she’s gone and proven that right. Once, just once, she wishes it could be him who needs the shoulder to cry on. That would show him. But Ellie knows he would sooner die than ask for help.

They walk into the lobby of the community center and they’re met by a portly middle-aged man, sitting behind the counter and cutting the stems of flowers to fit into a vase.

“For Ms. Graham’s memorial service,” he says somberly. “Not sure if you’ve heard—“

Hardy pulls out his badge.

“Ah. Afraid I’d not seen her for a few days, sir. Madam.” He tilts his head toward them both.

“That’s alright, sir,” she says, keeping her voice even and calm. Steady and confident. Heartless. She can feel Hardy looking at her, his brow raised. “Just need a list of the kids she was working with.”

“It’s such a shame,” he says as he turns away toward the filing cabinet. “Just a shame…”

Armed with their list, they head back to the station to look up all the older boys.

She sits at her desk, him hovering behind her, a hand on her chair. She can hear him breathe. Always too heavy, always as if he’s still in danger of collapsing again. 

She notes his smell. It’s not like other men, who bathe themselves in thick cologne like they’ve got something to hide. Him, even after hours and after sleeping on a couch, just smells like a nameless strength, clean and sturdy. Faded soap. Clean sheets. It’s astonishing, for her, to imagine that even Alec Hardy uses scented shampoo. She always imagined he just came out of the womb a full grown man in a suit, and that he requires no maintenance. But she’s seen him disheveled, and she’s smelled him exhausted…

“There’s one,” he says, reaching over her to point at the screen. “Big kid.” 

She jots down his name. Gregory Worth. Gangly but strong-looking.

“And call in that man from earlier, too. Might know something.”

She nods, and he claps his hand on her shoulder. And, as if compelled, she reaches up and places her hand on his, anchoring him there. He does not pull away. Instead, he gives her a warm squeeze. She swivels in her chair, grinning, feeling a bit like she’s being spun beneath his arm in a dance, and he grabs her hand and lifts her up from the chair.

“We’re getting somewhere, Miller.”

“Hm, bit of a dream team, eh?” She giggles, letting their hands lazily swing between them for a moment, before she feels the heat beaming from her ears and swiftly lets go in favor of grabbing her jacket. 

“Might say.”

She perches against her desk, and he leans against the adjacent wall. Again, the quiet settles, and they spend a little time, dallying with a smile between them. He scratches the back of his neck. One of those meaningless little things men do, and they unknowingly make you feel weak in the knees. Damn him. 

His phone vibrates, and she’s actually grateful for the interruption. He squints at it, reading a text.

“Memorial services are tonight. We should be there.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit, did you know she comes from money? Her parents are footing the bill. Fuck, why does no one tell us a damn thing!?” He smacks his hand against a nearby desk and she jumps a little. “Changes everything, doesn’t it?”

“You think someone wanted her money? Then why...why bash her head in?”

He presses his palms to his temples and sighs, starting to pace back and forth before her.

“Don’t know. But we’ve got to go to that. Look at everyone. But don’t act like you’re lookin’.”

“Obviously.”

“It’s gonna be fancy. Try not to look like a cop, Miller.”

He grabs his jacket and heads for the door.

“5 PM. The hell kind of a memorial service has a cocktail hour? Fuckin’ wealthy bastards—“ He goes on ranting as he leaves, as he goes down the stairs, as he hails a cab, and Ellie realizes she’s been biting her lower lip. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Chapter Text

She stands in front of her full-length mirror. She seems to have atrophied. Skipping meals as a form of self-torture, forgoeing hair products and makeup becaue she just can’t muster the energy. But tonight, she can’t look like a cop. She can’t look like someone who starves themselves on every level for the sake of her job, for the sake of ignoring her hurt.

And she’s comforted at the sight of herself, for the first time in a while. She’s wearing her nicest dress, which thankfully, happens to be black. Cap sleeves and pearls. She feels like Audrey Hepburn, if Audrey Hepburn was tired all the time and couldn’t get the images of a smashed, bloody skull out of her head. Her curls are looser than usual, soft, tied effortlessly into a French twist that seems to wilt with the minutes.

He’s texted her further instructions. Don’t introduce yourself unless you’re asked. The champagne will be fancy, try not to drink too much. She rolls her eyes and tosses her phone in her purse. 

She seals herself with red lipstick. A further barrier between her and everything else. 

They meet in a parking lot near the service, trying to be discreet. He’s leaning on the trunk of his car, sloping and sinking despite his well-fitted suit. Black, sleek. Longer coattails than normal, and his tie is actually done properly. Shit, if he isn’t like a scrawny, irritating James Bond.

“Evening,” he says, cracking his neck and shoving off of the trunk before he even looks at her. But when he does, he blinks in a flutter. “Christ, Miller.”

“What?” She holds out her hands, looking down at herself, searching for where she’s gone wrong.

“Y’look…” He upturns his palm and indicates her, as if appraising her. “Didn’t know you cleaned up so nice.”

“You’re one to talk. You’ve combed your hair,” she parries, placing her hands on her hips. 

And there they go, walking at a measured distance toward the hall, the off-brand, poor man’s Audrey Hepburn and James Bond.

-

In the garden he’d likened her to Persephone. Now, clad in black and looking exhausted, he realizes he was wrong. He isn’t Hades, dooming her to a dark life. She’s both sides of the coin. She’s Spring and death, and she’s owned by no one but herself. He wishes he could say the same. He pretends he’s alone, and pretends there isn’t a hole in his heart. Literal, this time, and there’s no surgery or anticoagulant that can fix it.

He holds open the door for her, letting her go in first, playing the part of a kind gentleman. He hopes it’s not so obvious how she’s managed to stun him, and utterly. He tries so much not to look at the dip in the back neckline of her dress, how her spine begs him to run a hand down it, to unclasp her pearls, to ask if he can unzip it--

Focus. A woman is dead.

He grabs them both a glass of champagne and looks around. Ms. Graham was clearly well-loved, and he’s sure he knows who her wealthy parents are. An older couple, standing by the little shrine they’ve made. There’s a framed portrait adorned with roses upon roses, and a collection of her favorite things. A donation box, for some unspecified fund in her name. That might be something.

“Look,” Miller says, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm to guide him. He flinches. “Those are some of the kids from the garden project.”

“I’ll go. You talk to the parents.”

Before he leaves her, he takes a moment to look at her again, allowing himself the terrible error. 

“Miller…” he begins, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“What?” she asks, and he wonders if she’s nervous, tucking a curl behind her ear.

“...good luck,” he says, knowing himself a coward.

“Don’t need it,” she challenges, turning her shoulders some, as if proudly posing.

Regretfully he turns on his heel without another word, cursing himself, taking a too-generous sip of champagne. He stations himself by the food, close enough to the group of teenage boys to hear them talk, but not so close that it’s clear he’s listening. He keeps his back to them, knowing that he sometimes manages to recognizable, and unfortunately infamous.

“...had such a crush on her last year…”

“Oh you wish --”

He knows one of the boys is Gregory Worth. He’s clearly the leader of the pack.

“That any way to talk ‘bout a dead woman?” Gregory asks his friends. He sounds a little bit like he’s been sneaking champagne. “She was there cleanin’ the place, I bet. Was gonna be a halfway house, once she got it up n’ runnin’.”

“It was a shithole.”

“Yeah, well. Doesn’t change anythin’.”

Cleaning? Doesn’t seem likely. She’d been painting her nails. An affair with a student? He rests his chin in his hand and looks over at Miller, who’s chatting sympathetically with the bereaved parents. Though she plays a part, though she seeks information, he can read her face so plainly. No one understands the feeling quite like her, of being lost, of having your world inverted. He’s angry, and he knows he has no right. Angry at Joe, for hurting a good woman, for being a deceitful bastard.

His instincts tell him to bring Gregory in. But it would cause a scene, he knows.

From across the room, Miller waves at him. He lifts his hand to wave back, and wills himself to forget that they’re working. They can just be two people, all dolled up, drinking champagne and mourning with their community. Maybe they can feel like they belong. Maybe she can feel like belonging with him. She beckons him over as the parents go on to greet other guests, and he makes a quick approach.

“Learn anything?” he asks, quietly, though they are so close together it would be a miracle for anyone to hear.

“They’re rich bastards but they’re good parents.”

“Kids all in love with her, I bet. Good motive.”

“Oh? So now all of a sudden you remember what it’s like to be young and have a crush?”

“Well, yeah, but I never killed anyone over it, did I?”

She sips her champagne and giggles girlishly as she does it. He’s a goner, isn’t he? 

“Come on, let’s talk someplace else.”

He takes her by the hand. An excuse. No one can own her, and she can find her own way.

-

Once in the dark corridor, he finally lets go of her hand. The warmth is missed. She tells herself it was an act. Oh, just a couple sneaking off to snog in the most inappropriate of settings. People would believe it, given all the talk about them.

And Ellie would be lying if she claimed not to have thought about how it might have gone. Having a real affair. It could have happened, she guessed, had she not been so stupid as to love her shit husband all the while. But Hardy’s too good for that, isn’t he? He’d not touch her, no matter how nice she cleans up.

“We need to question Greg Worth. Tonight.”

She nods and runs a finger beneath her lips, wiping away any errant lipstick. 

“How do we get him without it being a big spectacle?” she asks, backing up, leaning against the marble wall, sighing at the pleasant feeling of the cold on her back. 

In the dark, his eyes look vacuous. Pools so deep there is no seafloor to touch your toes to. There that beast slouches, and she feels a bit like getting devoured. And wouldn’t it be perfect, here? Wouldn’t it be the right place and the right time? Wearing a perfect dress and red lipstick and standing in a dim hallway? 

Before she can decide if it’s worth it, he steps closer to her. There’s that daunting scent again, the terror of his gaze. 

“Miller, I…”

Even in the dark, she can watch him eye her up and down. Her lips part with a sharp breath that she cannot help.

“What is it?” she dares to ask, and her voice is small and timid. She hates that. She hates that he is a tonic to her strength, even as he bolsters it.

“I don’t want this to make you worse,” he says. She feels her ribcage crumbling, all her steel walls coming down at once. He knows she’s a mess inside. He knows she’s got nothing left but sorrow. He knows she’s holding on by a thread that spins and snaps. “If it’s all too much--”

“S’not,” she says with a resolute nod of her head. “I...I have to finish it. Like you had to finish it. I can get better after.”

“After?”

“When it’s done. Then I’ll work on me.”

He’s bold and sad, reaching up to run a thumb along her cheek, and she’s thankful for the darkness to mask how flushed she knows she is.

“I just want you to be alright,” he admits. “It’s stupid, but…”

“It’s not stupid, Hardy.” His hand falls to her shoulder. “I think we both need some time. I dunno, maybe we can...take a trip or something.”

“A trip?”

“Someplace warm.”

“A’right.”

He’s smiling then, biting his lower lip, and he rests his palm on the wall behind her. She’s trapped, and with no desire to escape. It could happen, here. The dam could break.

In the distance they hear footsteps. They turn their heads in unison toward the source, and they see a figure silhouetted against the far light of the next room. He freezes, and Hardy removes his hand from the wall.

The stranger runs. He's tall and wide, shaped like Gregory Worth and clearly panicked.

“Shit--” Hardy says, groaning as he begins to chase him. “Miller, cut him off round the other way.”

“Right.”

She holds the hem of her dress and kicks off her patent leather shoes, and then she sprints back into the main hall to find the other entrance to the corridor. 

Their timing is never right. Maybe it never will be.

Chapter Text

She’s not surprised to find that Greg Worth is absent from the main hall. Little bastard. Gave them the slip, no doubt, and panicked to find them there in the darkened corridor. 

Ellie is almost thankful. Had he not come, had he not interrupted, the things that might have happened...His hands on her, or in her hair, tearing down what’s left of her bobby pins, the sound of their soft metal hitting the floor like a bell ringing that it’s time for her to give up. And she would have, she knew. If he’d asked. If he’d kissed her. 

But she has to ignore the dull ache between her thighs. She has to run. She scurries through the crowd, trying not to draw attention, attempting to give off the air of someone who is heading desperately toward the restroom. Once she reaches the other side of the hall, she breaks into a faster run, stopping short of sprinting lest she fall down, tear her dress, but oh , to have Alec find her in such disarray, the fabric slit all up her thigh and the cap sleeves wilting from her shoulders--

She could make him insane. She could change his goddamn life with a mere ten minutes in a bed.

She sees their culprit rounding the corner, and she shouts.

“Stop! I’m police!” she yells after him, knowing she sounds breathless and tired. It’s only the running, only the aging, she tells herself. It has nothing to do with her chest feeling heavy with lust, her lungs squeezed by anticipation.

He rounds another corner and she gives chase, sparing a moment to turn her head to see if Hardy is coming behind her. He’s far behind, and she rolls her eyes, as ever. 

Fine then. He clearly wouldn’t be able to keep up with her anyway.

“Hey!” She catches up to the man, grabbing him roughly by the elbow. He’s dressed in long sleeves, with a bandanna around his mouth and a hat pulled far down on his brow. “You--”

The sensation of a blade entering the skin is not unlike piercing a pin cushion with a needle. There is a little resistance, a little begging from the surface not to be punctured, but then it slides in so easy. It’s not sharp, at first. It merely feels like you’ve been ripped open. There is a hole in you now, and it is all you can think about. It is no wonder you could die from it. All your blood and all your thought seems to rush to that small spot where you’ve been hurt, and the searing pain turns the world around you into a muffled, spinning dream.

And then the blade is pulled out, and the hole is hollow, and the wind can get through to howl in your bones and blood. You miss the weapon because it was keeping you warm.

She hears her name shouted with a hoarse, familiar voice as she slides down the wall and 

onto the ground. She hears footsteps escaping, and footsteps coming closer. Through her blurred vision she sees the face of a man, and she cannot think to name him, the pain is so great. All she can know is that, beneath the torment, this funhouse mirror man is to be adored. In a stupor she reaches out to him, and she hears her name three more times. Softer now, like an apology. 

The world goes dark. Did you ever get better? Now she’ll never have to fix herself.

-

They won’t let him in the room at first, and it takes all his strength not to throw a fit. 

“S’my partner in there, I found ‘er, you’ve got to let me--”

“Sir, I don’t care if she is your damn wife . No one is coming in until she’s stable.”

Meaning she isn’t. Meaning she’s bleeding and if he had just been a little faster maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Their suspect escaped, and he’s furious, but he can’t be bothered to care about that particular failing right now. He cares about every little noise he hears through the door, about every grim or pleased expression on the nurses and doctors that file in and out. But his detective skills can do him no good in this situation, especially because he can’t seem to focus. He breathes heavy, he feels the world spinning, and he leans against the spartan white walls to keep from keeling over. He presses his fingers to his chest, as if worried his pacemaker has simply evaporated. But it’s still there, and it’s still keeping him alive. How unfair for her.

He paces a while, dealing with phone calls he wishes he could ignore, giving instructions to the uniformed officers and the like, so that they may cling desperately to any hope to solve the case without him there. No one asks him to come in. No one urges him to leave the hospital and do his job. It’s like they know better. He’s not going anywhere.

He supposes he should find them insubordinate for their assumption that he’s that attached to Miller. But it would be unfounded, because they’re right, and he’s a fool, and good god , he almost kissed her in that dark hallway. He wavers back and forth on whether or not it might have prevented her from getting hurt. Maybe they wouldn’t have even noticed the man down the hall. Maybe he would have been too utterly enveloped in her arms, maybe she would have been sighing and making such sweet, pleased noises if he could have just lifted her up against that marble wall and--

He slams his hand upon the nearest table. He’s a lech. He’s sure that his own stupid desire has caused this, and that if she dies, he’ll have to promise to go on loathing himself even more than he already does. Maybe that will be easier for him. Easier than trying to love someone.

A nurse comes out, pulling a thin, yellow, paper gown spattered in blood from off her body, but she’s smiling.

“You can see her now, she--”

He doesn’t wait for any news, he just pushes past her and barges into the room.

She’s awake, on oxygen, covered in a blanket, just her bare shoulders peaking out. She squints, and when she sees him, she smiles.

“Miller--”

“You’re here!” she says. Oh god, she’s loopy. They’ve pumped her full of morphine, no doubt. “My knight in shining armor.”

“Oh shut up, Miller.” He grabs a chair and drags it to her bedside. When he sits down he gives the nursing aid a stern and pleading glance, and he promptly decides that he’s done with whatever task he’d been busying himself with, and leaves the two of them alone.

“Hullo~” she says, reaching out one hand, mussing up the blanket that is already barely covering her.

“Christ, Miller.” He pulls the sheet up, covering her. Her skin is so lily white, and it looks so fragile, now that he knows it’s been marred by a knife. But he takes the hand he’s offered, and he squeezes it. “You alright?”

“Dunno. Hurts, but not as much as it will later.”

He chuckles just a little, overflowing with relief. He can’t stop grinning.

“Oh no!” she gasps, clasping yet another hand onto his. “He got away, didn’t he?”

“That’s not what matters, Ellie.”

“Ellll-iiiie. I like it when you say it.”

“You’re fucked out of your mind, aren’t you?”

“Mhm.” She brings his hand close, holding it to her cheek. “I’m sorry I went n’ got myself hurt, Alec.” She smacks her lips as if she’s trying his name on for the first time.

“You were doin’ the right thing. Don’t be sorry.”

“Will we still solve it, you think?”

She loosens her grip, and he frees his hand, but only to press it to her clammy cheek.

“Yeah. But you’ve gotta rest first.”

“Will you stay?” she asks, turning her head into his palm, chasing after the affection as if he’s already on his way out the door.

“F’course.”

She smiles wide, and then winces. His sympathy devastates him, makes him feel all sick inside, and angry. When they do catch the bastard….

“You were going to kiss me,” she says, a gentle and happy accusation. His eyes grow wide and he raises his brow. 

“I--” Well, she probably won’t remember this conversation anyway. “Yeah. Yeah, I was.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“...dunno.”

They stay quiet, and he’s relieved to see her steady breathing and her stable vitals blinking on the monitor. Eventually, she falls asleep, his hand still cupping her face. He stands up, trying not to wake her, and he freezes. Even injured and sick and sweating, she’s beautiful as a classical statue. Strong and perfect, with sturdy curls and an always-knowing look on her face. He sighs. Shit.

“I’ll be back, Miller,” he promises, and he leans down to kiss her pale forehead. “Don’t go anywhere, a'right?” He brushes some hair from her face, and achingly turns to leave and go make more calls in the waiting room.

Chapter Text

She awakes to a searing pain in her belly. The meds have worn off, and she’s drenched in sweat. Her gasping stirs Hardy, who is half-asleep in a chair beside her.

“Fuck,” she croaks, trying to sit up, trying to grasp at her wound as if pressing it down might make it any better.

“Stay still, Miller,” he insists, standing, steadying her shoulders and pushing her back down into the pillow. “You’ve only just been sautered shut.”

She hisses, wincing, wishing she was a little less clammy. How stupid, to be worried about the way she looks when she’s been fucking stabbed. Isn’t she a proper badass now? No doubt she’ll have a scar worse than a cesarean. Not like anyone will see it. A man hasn’t seen her in the nude in what feels like millennia. Save for maybe whomever stitched her up today…

She has a foggy feeling, like she’s forgotten something. She wants to ask what the hell that look on his face is for, but she’s too tired to bother. She tries to take a deep breath, groaning at how it stings.

“We should call the nurse, get you more morphine,” he insists, reaching for her call button.

“No, no, leave it, I’m fine,” she says, laying her hand upon his to still him. It oughtn't feel so familiar, and yet she lets it linger. 

“Don’t be a hero, Miller—“

“Shut up,” she pleads. “You’re so loud, everything is so loud…”

He sighs and sits back down.

“Guess I shouldn’t bother asking how you’re feeling.”

It hurts so much to laugh.

“I’m mad at myself.”

“Don’t be, we’ve got people out looking for him—“

“It’s not just that, Hardy.” With great difficulty, she shifts her position, turning on her side a little. The pressure from the mattress pushing on her wound is actually like a salve. “When it happened, I…”

He leans in, elbows on his knees. Her vision is blurred by the pain, but she tries to focus on the dark void of his eyes.

“I thought, ‘well, that’s kind of nice, isn’t it?’ Like it was a kind of pain I could make sense of, for once.” She looks away, focusing on the pillow beneath her head out of the corner of her eye, suffocating the shame. “It was easy to hurt, you know? Not so complicated as...everything else.”

His silence makes the ache come back. But, since so rarely does he soften, the tenderness, the empathy on his face makes her dizzy. Loss of blood, she’ll blame it on. His brow stitches tight, and his lips part as if to speak. But before he can say a word, a man in green scrubs comes bursting through the door. They both inch away from one another as if what they’d been doing was so lewd.

“Ma’am, how are you feeling?” the doctor asks, slapping on some gloves. 

“Like I’ve been stabbed.”

Hardy snorts at her joke, but the doctor doesn’t find it very funny.

“Sir, if you’d mind stepping out, I’ve got to look at the wound,” the doctor insists.

“Erm—“ Ellie struggles to say. “He can stay.”

The doctor shrugs, and Hardy looks as though he wants to protest, but she shoots him a desperate glance. Don’t leave me, she thinks. Carefully, the doctor pulls the sheet aside, trying so much to protect whatever modesty she has left, and she sees the wound for the first time. It’s not pretty. Bruises are beginning to bloom around the puncture, dried blood is flaking off in chunks. It’s all red and puffy, a disgusting gash. But, Hardy, he doesn’t look disgusted. He just looks angry, even as he reaches for her hand to squeeze.

“Looks good,” the doctor says, and he pulls the sheet back down. “Funny thing though, it doesn’t look like the wound was made by a knife.”

“Begpardon?” Ellie asks, lifting her head. 

“Too dull, and it looks like the skin was punctured with more force than you’d need with a knife. Looks more like scissors, if I had to guess.”

Hardy looks pointedly at her, his vacuous eyes wide and certain. Scissors. 

“Could it have been, ah...a pair of gardening shears?” Hardy asks.

“Well, they weren’t for arts and crafts, that’s for certain. Nearly nicked your liver.”

Hardy’s phone rings, and the doctor is eager to make his exit. 

“Yeah? Shit, a’right. Be there soon.” He hangs up, and he stands, fixing his jacket. He’s still dressed to the nines from the party, and she sees hazy flashes of their little near-mistake in the corridor. 

“Where are you going?” She laments how sweet she sounds.

“They’ve brought in Greg Worth. Gonna go question him.”

“Well— I have to come with you!” She sits bolt upright, nearly forgetting to hold the sheet up over her chest. 

“Miller don’t be an idiot—“

“It’s our case, I’m not gonna lay here while you—“

“You’re not well!” He puts his hands on her bare shoulders, and she takes a breath, forcing herself to be resolute.

“And you’re a hypocrite if you think I shouldn’t sign myself out of here right this second.”

She awaits whatever bullshit argument he will conjure up, raising her brow expectantly. But he has nothing.

“I’m gonna find some gauze. Wrap you up. But if you start bleeding through it you’re coming right back.”

“I’ve got a change of clothes at the station, we can go straight away.” Grimacing, she pushes herself off of the bed, reaching for the floor with her feet in those ugly hospital booties. “Find me ah...one of those gowns. I imagine they’ve tossed my dress.”

“A damn shame…” he says as he rummages through cabinets. She must be gaining back all that precious blood she lost, because she feels her cheeks get warm and flushed.

She has done things so frightening. So demanding of a calm, keen manner. But somehow, holding a thin sheet over her chest in a cold, cold room, Alec Hardy wrapping white gauze around her waist, she feels so terrified. That beast ever-slouching, ever-critical, with hands so gentle and reverent she no longer knows who he is. At the party, in the dark hallway, he had touched her like a lover. And here, she confirms that he is capable of something so sweet. He rips the tape with his teeth, and she flinches, curling her toes tight in her rubber-clad socks. He presses it, firm but careful, at the place where the bandage ends, and he seems to seal his work with a flat palm to her spine. 

“All done,” he says, and she bites her lip so as not to smile at the crack in his voice. He helps her on with the gown, tying it tight in the back. “Let’s go. Be slow, Miller.”

“Can’t really afford to,” she protests, hooking an arm around his ribs as they begin their limping walk out of the hospital. She signs the paperwork swiftly, keeping her gaze low, hiding whatever shame she feels for being so stupid. She knows, she knows she should stay. But they have Greg Worth. They have work to do.

-

He waits for her outside of the interrogation room, leaning against the wall, staring at the bottom of the door that leads to where she’s changing into proper clothes. He nearly offered to help, but thought better of it. It had been enough, before, wrapping her wound, to make some sweat collect on his temple. Wouldn’t want her getting the wrong idea.

But, even with her nasty gash, she had still seemed her unique brand of perfection. Strong and refusing to cry each time the gauze passed over the spot. Her soft, pale shoulders as he pulled the hospital gown around her body, the soft curls at the nape of her neck…

He’s fucked. He finds himself hoping the interrogation takes hours, just so that he can put off being alone with her. He’ll do something stupid. At least she appears not to remember what he’d admitted to her.

She comes out of the room looking fresh, her hair tied back properly and her clothes neat, thus far no blood seeping through her shirt. 

“Took an ibuprofen,” she assures him, though still she reaches out to steady herself, grabbing onto his arms. “Should help a little.”

“I need your head on right, Miller. This is important.” 

“I’ll be fine, just...let’s go.”

And he cannot help but keep a hand on her back as they enter the cold, gray room where so often they sit. Side by side, but miles away. Across the table there hunches Greg Worth, long dark sleeves rolled up and a knit hat discarded to the side. Alec tries not to snarl at their culprit. Little bastard must be the one did this to her, and he tries to stifle the instinct for swift vengeance. He’s just a kid, even if he is an asshole.

“Mr. Worth!” he begins, sliding down into a chair, pulling out the other one for Miller, who carefully settles in with just the slightest groan. “You left the party pretty early. Just couldn’t handle your grief?”

“Oh, come off it,” Greg spits. “Just ask what you wanna ask. Don’t got time to fuck around.”

“Somewhere to be?” Miller asks, folding her arms, leaning forward some. Alec eyes the space beneath her arms, searching for spots of blood.

“Yeah, home.”

“Very well,” she says. “You worked in Ms. Graham’s community garden, is that correct?”

“Mostly did the pest control. Not exactly a green thumb.”

“What kind of pest control?”

“Pourin’ beer on slugs,” he says, a snide grin on his face.

“Y’ever drink it? While working?” Alec asks him with a suspect raise of his brow.

“Sometimes. Got hot out.”

“Get drunk?” Miller asks, tapping on her open notebook.

“Once. Fucked up the posies.” He snorts.

“Ever caused any other harm?”

“...what, you think I killed her?”

Hardy raises his brow, lifts his hands up as if in shock.

“Didn’t say that.”

“S’what you meant.”

Miller coughs, holding onto her abdomen. Greg Worth’s eyes flicker to her belly, and then back down to the table. That little shit.

“Did you get along with Ms. Graham?” Hardy asks. 

“Yeah.”

“Close?”

“...I guess.”

“How did you feel about her?”

Greg shifts in his seat, gulping and squirming, falling utterly silent.

“Mr. Worth,” Miller manages to say. “We’re just trying to figure out what happened to her. You can help us or you can keep silent but there will be ramifications if that’s what you choose to do.”

“What? Gonna beat me up?” He grins. Ellie falters, her fingers gripping hard onto the table’s edge. Hardy slams a fist on the table.

“I don’t think you understand that you’re not in a position to be a snarky little bastard,” he says. Greg startles, sitting more upright. Hardy would be lying if he said he didn’t kind of like that effect he has on people. The ability to terrorize. He can be such a gentle man, but it is so much easier to be cruel and unrelenting. 

Greg sighs, seeming to accept some measure of defeat. His eyes grow dim, almost watery.

“Ms. Graham and I…” He sniffs and presses his hands together, nervously lacing his fingers. Hardy glances over at the tape recorder, triple-checking that it’s on. “We...messed around a couple times. That’s all, nothing...you know. It’s stupid, yeah, but I was— I am, I think, in love with her,” he admits, slow and croaking, his upper lip twitching.

Aghast, Hardy and Miller look at one another, futilely attempting to keep their jaws shut. Ellie is the first to compose herself.

“Did she end things? Did you?” she asks, her tone a soft timbre. Hardy despises That melting feeling that grows in his chest and throat. 

“Neither. She...she died before we got that far.” He lets his head drop and he takes a long, shaky breath. “But it wasn’t me, you’ve gotta believe me!”

“If you hadn’t killed her why assault a police officer with garden shears, Mr. Worth?” Hardy asks, pointed and stern. Greg fumbles, his mouth shaking open. He’s been caught. 

“Couldn’t have you guys...lookin’ about for who did it.”

“Oh?”

Silence. They both know he won’t budge.

“Stay here. We’ll need a DNA sample. You’re not out of the woods yet,” Hardy warns him, sliding out his chair and turning to leave. But, he stops, waiting for Miller to get up, offering her a hand to help. She takes it, and he feels absolved. As if to make him acutely aware of the suffering he’s caused, he gives Greg Worth a look of distilled shame and disdain. 

He feels...protective. Old-fashioned, as if some brute has hurt his woman and he needs to show him what for. But Miller will have none of that. 

On the walk to his office, she stumbles, and he swiftly grabs around her ribs, arms under hers, to keep her upright. Their chests pressed close, their chins tilted toward one another…

“You alright?” he asks her, so quiet, so weak, so worried. She says nothing, looks across his face as if trying to gather the words she wants to use. She grips onto his arms and clambers back to a proper standing position.

“Fine,” she tells him, and she frees herself from his grasp, heading for his office door. 

He will just keep missing his chances. He will just keep being a coward until it’s too late, and that will solve the problem of his wanting. 

Chapter Text

Once inside his office, she lays down on the couch. On her back, squinting at the fluorescent lights on the ceiling, trying to focus on that bright stinging instead of the pain in her gut. Hardy closes the door and she gulps, as if she’s been trapped in here with him. Her fear has not subsided. But she can’t quite place it. It is nothing like true terror. It is a long-forgotten excitement she has since denied herself the right to feel. Nervous anticipation. Devastating giddiness, even through the agony. He leans on his desk and sighs, and she turns her head.

“Do you believe him?” she asks. He taps his fingers on the wood. His hands are larger than she’d noticed before. 

“About what? That he was involved with his teacher or that he didn’t kill her?” he asks, sounding exasperated and downright angry. “Christ…”

“Either one, Hardy, I don’t know.”

He presses a hand to his cheek in thought.

“Nothing about her character says she’d sleep with a student.”

“People do strange things, I guess.”

“Yeah, but why Greg Worth?” he posits, seeping disbelief. “He’s a knob.”

“Most boys are.”

“Be serious.”

“I am being serious,” she insists, grunting as she sits up. “But you know what I mean. You can’t really...explain what makes you like a person. She made a mistake, yeah, but maybe that’s all there is to it.”

“What is?”

Ellie shrugs.

“She wanted to be with someone. Maybe she got drunk, too, off of the pest control,” she suggests. “A garden...romantic, right? Sometimes these things just...happen. Between people.”

There is nothing but the sound of the air conditioning, nothing but the soft whir of the old computer and the struggle of her heavy breathing. 

“I s’pose they do…”

He sighs anew, ambling over to sit beside her on the couch. The weight of him beside her makes her anxious, and she clasps her hands to her knees. Holding on for dear life against the pain and the fear.

“So maybe he got jealous or something, maybe she did try to break it off, and he flew off the handle,” he says. 

“Hm. But why the nail polish? I hardly get dolled up when I’m about to dump someone.”

“Oh yeah? How long’s that been?”

“Oh, fuck off.” 

They laugh lightly, as if their task is not to solve a murder. She would feel sick inside, if she wasn’t overwhelmed by pain, by an adoration she is trying to strangle out of her heart. He’s so...cute. Isn’t that childish of her? To feel such a way. He’s a grown man, a stickler, and a total ass, and yet, sitting there, smiling coyly and looking as though there are questions he wishes to ask, he is utterly adorable. Shit.

“I can’t believe that little shit stabbed you,” he says, sounding truly at a loss. “Had I known that was gonna happen, I’d not have—“

“Hardy, stop,” she commands. “I knew the risks. I mean...sort of. Some of the details are a little odd, gardening shears, and whatnot.”

He nods, accepting it. She feels a little...honored, to know he gives a shit. 

“Did the pills work?” he asks, unthinking, reaching out and pressing one gentle hand to the tender place on her abdomen where her blood gathers beneath her shirt. He holds her waist, leaning toward her, as certain as if he is leading her in a dance. She shivers, feeling his thumb run along her lower rib, his palm like a soothing elixir. She realizes she hasn’t answered him.

“Er—no, not really…” 

He is staring at her waist, at his hand, as if deciding. Calculating. She does nothing to push him off. Her body remains open, facing him, her right arm sliding across the back of the couch and draping over his shoulder. He slides his hand around her back, cradling, protecting. 

Her every instinct is at war. Kiss him, slap him, reject him, love him, don’t trust him, don’t trust any man ever again because you know what happened last time...Finally he raises his eyes to meet hers, and she’s never seen him look so unsure. He always seems to know exactly what he is doing. But he looks lost. She feels like she’s falling down a dark, bottomless pit. She feels herself collapse, from the inside out, all hot and sad and trembling, and he places a hand on the side of her neck. She grabs loosely onto his undone tie.

“...sometimes I just don’t know what to do about you, Miller.” His voice is so soft, with so much grief in it she feels her heart burst. Pity? Maybe. He does lead a lonely life. But moreover, she finds she wants to embrace him, to nurse that deep, traumatic wound until he’s better, all better, good as new.

But were he good as new, he wouldn’t be Alec Hardy. And that’s not who she wants.

God, she has not been kissed in ages. Certainly not like this. There has been no passion but anger in her life for years, nothing that made her numb in the toes and hot in the ears. Their lips are parted some, hardly clasped against one another, their small kisses so quiet she can almost pretend that she’s not been so foolish. She can feel his hesitation; his hand on her back is so rigidly place. She likes to think that her wound is the only thing keeping him from devouring her with his every lip and limb. She wants to be wanted . 

Just as she begins to lean back against the armrest, he stops himself, coming up for air, truly breathless. His brown eyes burn on her. She’s crumbling. He takes a long, slow, trembling breath, and he pulls her back up, settling both of his hands on her shoulders instead.

“We can’t do this now,” he says, and it sounds as much like scolding as it does like an apology.

“I know…” she says, sadly nodding, though still she clings to his tie. “I know.” He gulps, his eyes growing dim and sad, and he stares at her pale collarbone.

He kisses her again. One for the road. A little more desperate, a little more hungry. Bidding their little misstep goodbye for the time being. She makes some weak-willed noise into his mouth, and she tries so hard to stop herself from pouting.

“We’ve got work to do…” she says, pressing her hands flat to his chest. “Er…after. We should talk.”

“Talk…” he echoes, and on his tongue it sounds like a curse.

“Oh don’t be like that. You don’t just...do that and not tell me what’s on your mind about it.”

“Might take a while,” he says, gathering himself, fixing his tie, and standing tall. “Come on. We can hold him for a while. Got to get more on him, though. Wait for the DNA results.”

“And in the meantime?” she asks, straightening her shirt out, joining him by the door. He leans against the wall a moment, his gaze fogged over. 

“Unfortunately, we’ve got more people to interview,” he says, opening the door. “So long as you’re up for it.”

“Will be a good distraction,” she says. “Er—from the pain.” He gives a proud but quiet laugh. Bastard.

-

The rest of the interviews are fruitless. More of the same. She was a lovely young woman. She was a great teacher. No one would want to harm her. So on and so forth, and though he takes notes and tries to stay engaged, his every thought is just beside him, sitting in a folding chair, looking tired and beautiful. It is wrong, he knows, to feel any modicum of joy at this moment. He should be serious and sad and focused, but he fights a smile. Her touch was so sweet. Her kisses so needy. Years of repression and lonesomeness, all showered upon him, lucky man. God, if she wasn’t so injured, if they weren’t so busy…

But there will be time. Hours. He will take his time and it will last for hours.

Chapter Text

He takes her home, both of them stewing in their discouragement, and they don’t talk. Tom is there, and Fred is at his aunt’s.

“Mum—“ Tom says when they walk through the door, Ellie seeming to wilt beside Hardy, clinging to him in her pain and exhaustion. “What’s happened to you?”

“Your mum had a, er— occupational hazard. Got to rest up a bit,” Hardy tells him. Tom, for a moment giving up his apathetic teenage exterior, rushes to hug his mother, who winces at his embrace, though she smiles at the affection.

“It’s alright, Tom. Nothing serious,” she assures him, patting him on the back, taking a long breath. These days, she feels she has to savor him as if he will be ripped away. “I’ll be good as new in no time.”

He hardly believes her, but he shuffles off to go make them all some tea as Hardy helps her up the stairs to her bed. She finds herself wishing for different circumstances entirely: sloppy kisses as they scramble to the second floor, a trail of clothes in their wake...But still it’s sweet, and he lays her down on the bed as if she is some nervous, shivering virgin. The mattress gives to the shape of her, and she sighs. 

“Should we...I dunno…” he mumbles, sitting down on the edge of the bed. She raises a teasing brow. “Christsake, Miller, not that. I mean should we let that...breathe a little.” He gestures toward her wounded stomach.

“Mm. Probably.” She begins to sit up, trying not to let out any unpretty grunting as she does so. But, before the mattress can begin to creak from her aching movements, he turns, a hand on her shoulder, his eyes traveling slow, searing through her pale face, scrutinizing every button of her shirt. Her lips part, and she falters beneath that gaze.

“Lay down,” he commands, so gently, a sweet plea for her willful submission. “I’ve got it…” 

She eases, and she smiles, bashful, girlish. Giddy. She knows not what he’ll do, and, stupidly, she’s prepared to let him do whatever he wants. She’s so tired, and tired of pretending not to want him. His hands, his lips, on her, all over, a million little apologies for having so long been a total asshole. 

After a painfully long stare-off, he descends. He burrows his face into her neck to softly kiss, his right hand sliding off her shoulder and onto the buttons of her shirt. One little plastic button, slipping out of the tightly knit fabric, and that is all it takes to make her dissolve into a puddle of her former self. One more, and she is dizzy, and she can no longer blame it on the loss of blood. As he goes about it, he speaks, low and out of view, hiding in her shoulder.

“I think I realized it a while ago, Miller…” he says, and she can feel him smiling, can feel the soft fuzz of his beard on her now-bare collarbone.

“And what did you realize?” she asks, leaning her head to the side, resting it on his. He starts on the gauze, gently ripping the thin fibers, revealing her bruised skin. His hand rests beneath her rib cage, in the smooth valley there, a place so vulnerable, but she doesn’t flinch in the slightest.

“That you’re incredible and I’m incredibly stupid,” he admits, finally, mercifully, lifting his head, his lips grazing her cheek. She laughs, and for the first time in hours, it doesn’t hurt.

“Well I could have told you that…”

“Shut up…”

“No, you.”

He makes a playful, growling noise as he kisses her, full on the lips. So dry from hours spent busy, but the soft touch fixes her. He fixes her even though she’s irreparable.

Once she’s free from her gauze, he tears himself away, inspecting the damage. He frowns. A blend of anger and tenderness. Sympathy and regret. He does, though, take the time to look her over, her shirt parted, framing her rising, falling chest. The bra she left as a backup at the station is nothing special; sleek and black, but well-fit enough to be enticing. Clearly, since he seems so much to salivate like a man far less composed than usual.

He slides down, rests his head on her lap, an arm tossed over her legs.

“Aren’t we supposed to talk?”

He grunts a little.

“Let’s just sleep a bit, Miller.”

“I am exhausted…” She lowers her hand into his messy hair. It’s knotted, somewhat greasy from all their hard work and sweat. “I wish we could make some goddamn progress.” But she remains still, sleepy, content with his head resting on her lap and her fingers braiding into his hair.

“Still—“ He yawns. “Waiting on evidence…” He looks at her horrid gash. “Never thought I’d hold so much malice toward gardening shears…” he says.

“Wonder why he had them in the first place. Said he just did pest control.”

Hardy sits up, his soft, amorous fog so swiftly evaporating. This is far more familiar, but Miller can hardly say it is any less beloved.

“Who did he get them from? We’ve got to ask. Miller, you’re brilliant, come on, get dressed.” He springs to his feet, grabs his jacket from the chair. She tries not to pout as she buttons her shirt, knowing he’s right. There will always be more time, and there will always be more tea to rouse them. 

Before they can leave, Tom opens the door with their tea on a tray. She panics, folding her arms over her chest, and Hardy takes a sharp turn toward the window, leaning an arm on it above his head, pretending to be quite interested in whatever is happening in their back garden.

“Tea’s...done…” Tom says, setting the tray down. He’s not so young as to have no idea what’s going on. Old enough to read the room. Damn.

“Oh, we’ll have to have it to-go, sweetheart,” Ellie says, coming over to run a hand over his head. “Thank you so much.”

“You have to go back to work?” he asks. “Or do you have...plans?” 

Alec coughs, resting his forehead against the window.

“Er...work, Tom. I’m sorry, we’ll do dinner together real soon. Promise.”

Tom nods, noncommittal, and then abruptly turns to leave. Ellie winces at the sound of his door closing.

“Shit,” she laments, smacking a hand down on the bed.

“Sorry, Miller…”

“Not your fault.” They all know whose fault it is. They all know who is to blame for everything. But she tries not to think of him. Not after being touched so well, and so lovingly, by someone she can trust. She is sure of that now. There is something in his eyes the likes of which she has never seen, and she is so weak beneath it.

-

He opens the door to the holding area with such gusto, it makes Gregory Worth jump up from his seat on the cold metal bench. 

“Mr. Worth.” He approaches the bars, slipping his fingers around one of them, showing no fear. He has to make this kid know that he is not the weak one here. And his strength is spurred on by a libidinal confidence, stirring and growing in his chest since he left Ellie’s house. She’s sitting in his office, making calls. It stings to be away from her, even if she is only across the building. Beside him there is an empty space where she ought to be, and he tries so much not to get distracted by longing. “Got another question for you.”

“Told you everything,” he insists, folding his arms. “Where’s your partner?”

“Oh, worried about her wellbeing, are we? Feeling a little regret for nearly fucking killing her?” He slams his open hand on the bars, and they shake from impact. Greg flinches. “Tell me who gave you the gardening shears. You said you’ve not got a green thumb.”

Greg bites his lip, chewing harshly as if he could will his own mouth into oblivion to save himself.

“Answer me, Worth, you’re running out of usefulness.”

He sighs and brings his feet up onto the bench, hugging his knees to his chest.

“Mr. Dunham. From the community center. Okay? He said I could trim the stems for Ms. Graham’s memorial.”

Shit, shit shit shit how could he have been so stupid? He groans, pressing his palms to either side of his head.

“Don’t think this gets you off the hook. Y’still stabbed Miller, and you’re still in deep shit.” He points an accusatory finger, his eyes fierce and cruel, and then he turns to leave.

He strides like a hungry predator down the hall, to his office, mumbling under his breath so many lamentations and threats. He storms into his office, and Miller looks up from the desk, a curious look on her face.

“What did he say?” she asks. He approaches her, holding her face in his hands.

“Oh, Miller, it’s all gonna be over soon, believe me.”

“What—“

He kisses her, hard and fast, and he knows there are people out there working. He hopes they can’t be bothered to look, but in that moment, high on the job and on a proud, newfound lust, he can’t bring himself to care.

“We’ve got to go to the community center. Quick.”

“That little man with the flowers, are you serious?” 

He nods as they hurry to the car, admiring how she always seems to know his next thought. He knows how it works, between detectives, of course. You’re partners for a while and you finish each other’s sentences. But he swears this is different. 

Chapter Text

The car ride is sickening. She feels as if she’s been trying to read the whole way to the community center. She keeps her eyes closed, and she is met only with visions of Alec’s softening gaze, of his veiny hands unbuttoning her shirt, but she dares not to imagine anything further. Maybe she can’t. She’s not quite sure what it would be like. 

“D’you think anyone saw us, Miller?” he asks, releasing the elephant in the room to run rampant. “I mean, when I…”

“I’m sure they’ve been taking bets on it, it’s alright,” she says, still not opening her eyes. 

“You really think that?”

“I have ears.”

She wishes she could see the look on his face.

“Well, so long as it won’t botch the case against Mr. Dunham and Mr. Worth,” he says, somber and final.

“It might,” she says, considering it, foolishly, for the first time. 

She waits in the silence to hear him say he doesn’t care, that he’d risk his career for her, and some other stupid bullshit people say in the movies, and it never comes, and she is grateful. She can’t have him being as daft as she is.

The engine shuts off and she lets her eyes flutter open. They feel so dry, and the air stings them hard. She’s so tired. Maybe, when it’s over, they can take that nap… She gets out of the car, a hand pressed to her stomach where her wound feels murky, and begins her slow walk toward the door, Hardy at her side, his hand hovering beside her arm, ready to cradle her, to save her. He’s a coward, she realizes. He’s the bravest coward she’s ever met.

She thinks she might love him for that. But she can’t let that happen.

“Let me do the talking,” Hardy commands, standing before the closed door, his dark eyes searching her face. She feels very pale, and too exhausted to really argue, but still she manages to get a jab in.

“You always do,” she accuses, and, to her tired delight, he smiles. What a rare thing to see, and it makes her chest feel tight, and it makes her ache so much worse.

The door is locked, so he knocks, rapping roughly on the painted wood. They wait for a little while, and there is no answer.

“Well he’s got to be here, his car’s parked outside.”

“He’s spooked.”

“Should we kick it in?”

“You want me to?” He looks at her, his brow raising in pride, as if jumping at the chance to show off, to be the hero, to impress.

“Kind of,” she admits. “But it wouldn’t be smart.” She knocks this time, weakly, and shouts through the crack by the hinges. “Mr. Dunham! Wessex police! Just need to talk to you again.” There is a faint sound inside, what feels like metal falling to the floor, and finally, they hear the deadbolt slide open. Before Mr. Dunham can do it, Hardy turns the knob and barges into the building, badge at the ready.

“Oh there’s no need, sir, I know who you are--”

“So why’d you not answer the door?” Ellie asks, joyfully disobedient. She can impress too.

“Having a nap,” he answers.

“Did you give some gardening tools to Gregory Worth?”

“Don’t, ah...don’t know the name. Ms. Graham had so many students helping her--”

“Didn’t mention he was one of hers.”

“Oh...yes, I see. Er…” Dunham claws at his own chest. “Yes, I...may have lent him my shears. For Ms. Graham’s services. He’s not returned them yet, I’m afraid. Little thief, he is.”

They back him toward the counter where first they saw him clipping flowers, and he fumbles, reaching for the countertop, his brow shining with nervous sweat.

“Did you lend any of the other students any tools?”

“N...no, they all returned them at the end of the day…”

Hardy nods, a snide and knowing gesture. It used to make her furious. Now it just makes her feel all hot, inside and out. They exchange a glance, unreadable, with so much room for imagination. Maybe he’s saying they’ve got him. Maybe he’s saying that, after this, he’s going to take her into a supply closet at the station and shag her brains out. She is too tired to think on it all that much. Too dizzy. Too clammy. 

“Ever lend anyone a trowel, Mr. Dunham?” Hardy asks, spreading the folds of his jacket, placing his fists on his slender hips. “Have y’got just the one?”

“Just the one, I’m afraid. There wasn’t much funding.”

“Seen it lately?”

“...no. Suppose I lost it.”

“Suppose? Have you not looked?”

His glossy eyes dart back and forth between them both.

“We all know what you want to say, so just say it,” he says, growing dark and cold, his nervous nature giving way to something akin to grim resignation.

“What was your relationship with Ms. Graham like, Mr. Dunham?” Ellie asks, keeping her countenance gentle. Bad cop-woman cop. It settles people’s nerves to have them think she is all feminine, maternal softness.

“I considered her a friend.”

“She ever tell you anything about her personal life?”

He blinks as if measuring his response. He lets his hands drop from the counter, and he pools them upon his lap, fiddling.

“She was involved with that Gregory Worth. I told her it was a bad idea.”

“And?”

“She…” He wipes his brow. “She said she loved him. Felt terrible about it, him being a student and all. Guess you can’t control what your heart wants, poor girl.”

They stare him down as if wringing more words out of him, but nothing comes.

“And what did your heart want, Mr. Dunham?” Hardy asks, breaking the silence.

Dunham’s bottom lip trembles. He bites the insides of his cheeks. He shuts his eyes, and a lone tear escapes, slowly meandering down the wrinkles and folds of his skin.

“She was just so lovely, sir. You can’t possibly understand…” he breaks, cradling his face in one hand.

-

As he cuffs him, he tries not to grin. It’s not a happy day, just because they think they have their man. A young woman has been killed, a victim of stupid men and their infatuation. He is trying not to seem happy, because he knows it will soon be over. That soon, he can sit beside Miller and tell her, in plain language, that they should be together. That it’s not worth fighting it off anymore, that they should let people talk because he’s almost died once before and it could happen again, and he would hate to go to his grave without the knowledge of her love. But he keeps his mouth shut, and leads Mr. Dunham to the car.

She leans against the doorframe, clutching her stomach. Stalwart and magnificent, she has made it through this trial with a horrid gash in her belly.

“Hardy, give me a moment,” she pleads, bending forward, breathing heavy.

He shoves Dunham into the back seat, slams the door, and presses the lock button no less than five times, comforted by every assuring honk from the car. Never again can he let something escape.

“Y’alright, Miller?” he asks, and he does not hesitate to hold her by the arms, his head tilted as if ready to dive in for a kiss. It is so hard to resist, now that he knows how it thrills him. She nods, though her eyes look dazed and her skin is pasty. “Come on then, you’ve not rested enough. We can hold him for a bit before questioning--”

“No,” she interrupts, attempting to walk to the car, still clinging to him like a raft. “Need to end this. She deserves justice.”

“Miller--”

“This bastard needs to--”

“ Miller. ”

“Get what’s coming to...him…”

He catches her before she hits the muddy ground, in his arms like the mourning Pieta . She feels all hot, all wet, shivering like winter.

“Ah, fuck.”

In his skinny arms he lifts her, grimacing at Dunham all the while, until he has her in the passenger’s seat, buckled in and safe.

“Shit, Miller. Knew y’were lyin’,” he mumbles, rounding the car to get in. He drives over the speed limit by a miraculous measure, deposits Dunham at the station with his rights quickly read, and then speeds all the more toward the hospital, talking softly to her as he drives.

She stirs a little, dazed and feverish.

“Sorry…” she mumbles.

“Oh don’t--” He scoffs. “Don’t be an idiot and go apologizin’.”

“You’re angry with me…”

“Stop that, Miller.”

-

She worries, at first, that she’s been sent back in time. The pain is even worse than before, when she’d woken up stabbed. It burns and swells. 

“Bacterial infection,” the doctor says, his eyes fixed on her chart. “We did our best in the OR to decontaminate but that weapon must have been real nasty.”

“Gardening shears…” Hardy says, his voice muffled by his hands, fingers laced before his chin, elbows on his knees.

“Right. Well. An aggressive course of antibiotics and she’ll be good as new.”

“Shit…” she says once he’s gone. “I’m sorry, Hardy--”

“Shh.”

He reaches out and runs a hand over her forehead, and she feels herself sink into the hospital bed. His touch absolves and titillates. She wonders how on Earth he does that.

“You’re so sweet. Why didn’t you tell me you were so sweet? Asshole,” she croaks.

He laughs.

“Didn’t seem worth mentionin’.”

She sighs and reaches for his hand. Here they are, again. It seems that they will never stop being at one another’s bedside. Forever ill and forever foolish, they just keep getting hurt. At least, she hopes, they don’t have to hurt each other. Not anymore.

“Are you going to question him without me?”

“Oh, love,” he says, stroking still her knotted hair. Her heart leaps. “I have to. Not t’leave you out, but--”

“I understand.”

“I’ll give it a special flair in your honor. The Miller touch.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

“I’ll be an absolute petty bastard and still leave him thinking I’m pretty, I guess.”

“Oh, shut up…”

But she grins, and he laughs, and he leans down to kiss her. It’s brief and chaste, but it is enough to make her melt. In her chest, between her thighs, all the way down to her numb and curling toes.

Smiling, she lets go of his hand, and with all her might she scoots over, giving him room on the bed. 

“Do you have to go straight away?”

“I can...wait a bit.”

She gives him a vague nod, and he seems to understand. He climbs onto the bed beside her, an arm across her chest, knees bent over hers, hanging on her as if she will simply evaporate. The silence is littered with the gentle pecking of his lips upon her cheek, and she strokes his arm until he is so near to sleep.

But he can’t stay forever. He can’t remain in this small heaven. There are cruel and terrible men to talk to.

He just doesn’t understand it, how desire can drive someone to violence. Even should she have rejected his touch, shrunk from him, he knows he would have forgiven her and still have found her astonishing. He passes on his protectiveness to the intravenous antibiotics hanging above her, and heads back to the station alone.

Chapter Text

Though he sits in the dark interrogation room, listening to the stories the two offenders have to tell, making sure they match, his heart is somewhere else entirely. He’s thankful; to commit himself fully to the unfolding of the truth would hurt too badly. He grows tired of sad stories. He just wants something to end happily, for once.

Dunham sits hunched over at the table, looking resigned to whatever fate he’ll meet. What a lonely old man.

“I came to the trailer to do the lawn for her,” he says. “She was there, getting ready to meet young Gregory.”

“And then what happened?” Hardy asks, resting his elbows on the table, leaning in. “You argued?”

“So to speak…” His tone is sad and defeated. “I told her she was being foolish, and she seemed to snap. She was usually such a sweet girl, you know, I think she got tired of holding it all in. I was just the unfortunate one to see it happen.”

“Right. You were unfortunate.”

His sardonic cruelty is not met well. Dunham begins to weep.

“It all happened so fast, I...she was saying such cruel things to me, and I had the trowel in my hand…”

“What did you do with it?”

“Please don’t make me say it.”

Hardy says nothing. He stares him down, the bags beneath his eyes so heavy. It will be over so soon, so soon…

“Sir, you’ve got to understand, I was enamored of--”

“Y’don’t go around killing people you love, Dunham. What did you do with the trowel?”

“I…” He cradles his head in his hands. “I struck her in the head...with the...sharp bit.”

“Once? Twice?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know…”

Hardly flips closed the folder he has open in front of him and leans back in his seat.

“And how did Greg Worth find out about all this?”

“He came by the trailer, to meet up with her. He...saw what I’d done.”

“And?”

-

“He told me that if I said anything, he’d kill me,” Gregory Worth says, shrinking into himself in his folding chair. “I saw what he’d done to Ms...to Felicity…” His voice cracks. “I knew he meant it. He would kill me, or at the very least tell everyone what was going on, and I...I couldn’t let that get out, for her sake.”

“For her sake?”

“Everyone loved her. If they new she’d been fuckin’ around with a student--”

“Right. So why did you stab Miller?”

“...I was drunk off the champagne at the services. I had the idea to...make it look like I’d done it. To her. It was stupid…”

“Insightful of you.”

“C’mon, can you just... “ He begins to sob. “You understand, right? It makes you do stupid shit, being in love.”

“That’s not what people mean when they say that! They mean...moving across the country or buying a house! Not stabbing my-- not killing a…” Hardy sighs, attempting to collect himself. He rubs his temples. “So Mr. Dunham threatened you. Had he ever been violent before? What made you think he really meant it?”

“He had it out for me already, because of Felicity. And I’d seen him with the rabbits in the garden.”

“Rabbits?”

Worth makes a somber face and mimes the snapping of a very small neck. Oh.

He leaves the interrogation room, again feeling more empty than he should. They have their man, they have their confession and corroborations, but it doesn’t feel like justice. Just because someone might go to prison for killing a woman doesn’t undo what’s been done. 

He phones Miller, who answers on the first ring.

“Hullo…”

“We’ve got ‘em.”

“Oh! You brilliant man, you…”

“Are you on the morphine again?”

“Not telling.”

-

She’s in hospital for nearly a week, just until her wound begins to close up nicely and they are sure it’s no longer infected. All the while, though it festered some, she never felt as disgusting as she ought to have. She knows who to thank, because of his bringing flowers and candy and taking her children to come visit her. Imagine that, getting a bouquet of carnations from Alec Hardy, who so unceremoniously drops it on your bedside table as he stares between his feet.

“I’ll be let out today, babes,” she tells her sons, who sit on the edge of her bed, savagely devouring the candy that Hardy brought for her. “Have you kept the house nice?”

“Tried to. Fred spilled juice on the carpet.”

“Oh--”

“Just kidding, mum. It’s fine.”

Once the boys leave, they’re alone again. They have fallen into a sweet little routine during her time here. He brings dinner, much better than what they serve, and they try to talk about anything other than work, and they fail.

“Trial soon?” she asks, covering her mouth as she chews on the last bite of her sandwich.

“Two weeks. Been meaning to talk to you about that…”

“What?”

“I think it would be a good idea if we er...didn’t…” He waves his hand back and forth between their bodies. God, he’s such a good kisser for being so repressed.

“Oh…”

“I mean-- not, as in…” He sighs. “I still like you.”

“Oh, gee, do you want to go steady?” She laughs gently at his expense, and he frowns.

“I just mean that, for the sake of the case, I don’t think we--”

“You’re saying we can’t fuck, Alec, I get it.”

He blinks, seeming breathless and horrified.

“Yeah. That.”

She nods. It’s bad enough most of their coworkers probably saw them kiss, for them to be meeting up for a clandestine tryst would make their credibility fall apart.

“What if they ask us? If we’d done anything else during the investigation? Even that could make us seem unprofessional,” she says.

“Well, we can’t lie.”

“Obviously. But we need to get our stories straight.”

“A’right…” He stands up and goes to sit on the edge of her bed, an arm across her body, his eyes so soft on her. She feels as if they float on a cloud, sometimes. They are no longer of his earth. “I’ll tell ‘em I waited as long as I could, but you were drivin’ me mad. And you tell ‘em I was just too dashing to resist.”

“Ah, the whole truth and nothing but.” She giggles like a schoolgirl. It doesn’t hurt anymore, to laugh.

In the weeks leading up to the trial, they do their best to stay at arm’s length. Especially in the office. Anyone who makes a joke or a comment is swiftly told to shut the fuck up , and they never drive home together. When they do meet, it’s at each other’s houses, never at a fancy restaurant or a beautiful park or the tempestuous ocean. Those places are all too romantic. But her house, with its child-smell and dirty dishes, and his house, so lonesome and empty, would be difficult places to carry on a blossoming love. 

It’s excruciating. At least for her. She is hesitant to ask him if he burns and loses sleep over the longing, but she can’t imagine it. Alec Hardy, tossing and turning in bed because he won’t stop dreaming of sex. It makes her laugh. 

They get to know one another in a new way. A softer way, where they cannot butt heads as they do on the job. Often they fall asleep beneath one blanket, on the couch, forcing themselves to be chaste no matter how much it hurts. Quite literally, sometimes. It feels as though her body is glowing with want, every inch of her skin its own rapid pulse. 

She lays a hand on his chest, feeling the hard patch of his pacemaker. She thanks that little thing, for keeping him alive for her to have.

Sometimes they let themselves cheat a little. They’re parked in the car, far out of town, working, and things are slow. Before they can stop themselves, she’s climbed over into his seat and they pant into one another’s mouths, whispering about how they can’t, it’ll fuck everything up, someone will find out…

And they behave. She behaves. Maybe it will just make it that much sweeter.

-

On the morning the trial is set to begin, he paces the lobby, waiting for Miller to arrive. She’s always a little late, and it still makes him angry, even if that bitterness very quickly dissolves into lust. When she does walk into the building, he strides to meet her, and they must quell their habit of leaning in to kiss and press their hands together.

“Are you ready?” she asks. She looks put-together, as if she’s trying to seem sewn up. Reserved, maybe hoping they won’t even ask about them.

“Yeah,” He nods toward the stairs, and they climb them slowly, as if ascending to their doom.

In the little hallway outside of the courtroom, they’re alone for just a moment. The sounds of the busy building are distant, and the air is clean and cool. She is leaning against the finished wooden wall, and he is standing but inches from her. He looks both ways, up and down the corridor to be certain they’re safe, and then he presses himself close, hip-to-hip, his hands curling around the back of her neck, his lips to her ear.

“Can’t fuckin’ wait for this to be over, Miller…” he says hoarsely, and he feels her shiver, feels her threaten to go limp from his touch. He kisses her neck and she gasps. He could have her, right here, in the hallway, and fuck everything up, his entire career, even. So strongly does the desire pulse through his veins, overwhelming his implanted device. Maybe he’ll die. He would at least die happy.

She puts her shaking hands on his chest, curling her fingers into his shirt.

“I’ll be worth the time. Promise,” she says, and he cannot help but let out a desperate whine from deep within his chest.

They hear the door creak open and they separate, leaning against opposite walls, feeling an ocean apart. It is time to begin.

Chapter Text

Being in a courtroom feels like stepping into a nightmare that keeps repeating. But she’s awake, and she’s withering in lust, forcing herself to focus on anything but the man sitting beside her. Perhaps it is just the longing, the forbidden nature of him right now, but his every aspect makes her shiver. His tired eyes, the static that teases his hair. His hands crossed in his lap and the way he leans back in the chair as if he is not captivated by the proceedings. God, she wants him. His little stunt in the hallway has made her feverish, eager for a swift guilty verdict.

Most of it goes as planned, the few valuable witnesses giving their testimony, their stories unchanged, helping it along. With each round of questioning, she and Hardy seem to ease, knowing they are getting closer to the end.

But despite how well it goes, this place gnaws at her. She remembers sitting in this same seat, watching as her ex-husband got away with something of which he was so clearly guilty. She can see the box in which she cried. She can see the clear glass dock, and though she knows it’s Dunham in there, it is just as easy to see Joe sitting in that spot. She wishes so much she could reach for Hardy’s hand, hold it tight to steady herself. She would squeeze so hard it might even hurt him, but she knows he would let her. Each time he glances over to her, there is a look of the utmost sympathy on his face, a soft longing to make her better and make it all end, and quickly.

But they’re trapped at arm’s length, and then finally, he’s called to testify.

He looks so lonesome up there, standing in his suit, so skinny and exhausted. He addresses the jury plainly and frankly, and his voice makes her squirm. Damn him. She crosses her legs.

“You and DS Miller have been working together quite a while, have you not?” the defense asks. Here it comes. The inevitable. She wants to feel indignant, she wants to complain that this only happens because they are a man and a woman, and that it is outside of anyone’s imagination that they wouldn’t fall into bed together. But she doesn’t have that notion to cling to any longer.

“That’s correct,” he answers, cold as stone. She hopes she can be as steely when she’s called.

“What do you consider the nature of your relationship?”

“We’re work partners and we’ve become friends with time.”

“Friends. And that doesn’t create a conflict of interest?”

“Not in my opinion. We keep it professional--”

“I see.” The barrister clears his throat, taps his fingers on the desk, and then so clearly does he fight a grin. “At Ms. Graham’s memorial service, you and DS Miller had a private conversation away from the main hall, yes?”

“Yes. We were discussing what to do next.”

She shifts in her seat. Everyone is turning to look at her, trying to be subtle. She wants to tell them to fuck off, but she keeps her lips tight, her gaze fixed on Hardy. Whenever their eyes should meet, she gives him a stalwart nod. 

“Mr. Worth has told me he saw you two in a rather compromising position. He described something quite intimate.”

“Oh? Was this before he stabbed her or after?”

It’s a bad move, being snide, but she can’t help the way it elevates her. She could laugh, were she not so nervous.

“What on Earth were two professionals doing, standing nose-to-nose in a darkened corridor, whispering to one another?”

“I don’t see how it’s relevant--”

“Answer the question, DI Hardy.”

And for the first time, he falters. She can see him gulp, watch him calculate his next words as if his life depend on them. She looks at him, lost, wishing so much that she could speak to him, tell him, it’s alright, blame it on me. I’m the harlot and you’re the gentleman .

“It was an emotional night. I felt...like I needed to be close to someone.”

Even in their most private moments, he is rarely so earnest. Her heart flutters as if it’s as sick as his used to be.

“But nothing else happened. Mr. Worth appeared and we chased him down,” he goes on. “Then he assaulted DS Miller with a pair of gardening shears.”

Ellie glances to the jury, trying to gauge them. She tries to remain objective, judging whether or not he’ll come off as sympathetic and honest. But she’s clouded so much by her desire. What juror would not find him handsome? Who wouldn’t believe him, with that rough but sweet voice? 

The defense finishes with him. Their argument is weak, and she knows it. They are grasping at anything that will make them seem unreliable, and two minutes in a dark hallway is nothing compared to all the work they’ve done.

-

The next day, she’s called to the stand. He wishes her a quiet good luck, under his breath. They’ve not spoken about his testimony. He wishes he could tell her yes, I was emotional, and I needed closeness, but not with anyone else, maybe not ever, and I should have kissed you . But he can only sit silently, offering her the same affirmation of a nod as she’d done for him the day prior.

“I’ll dispense with the lead-in for these questions, DS Miller. You’re an intelligent woman, so I’m sure you know what I’m going to ask,” the barrister says. Hardy swears he sees her eyes struggle not to roll.

“Thanks,” she deadpans, frowning that tired frown.

“On your first case with DI Hardy, rumors circulated that you had indeed conducted an affair.”

“Yes, but we--”

“I’m not finished. I do wonder if, even if it wasn’t true at the time, it planted an idea in your head. After all, you were free from your marriage. No doubt you needed a shoulder to cry on, and there he was.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“And so, knowing an affair could again disrupt your case, you rushed to conclusions about Mr. Dunham and Mr. Worth so that you could end it quickly and go on with your business?”

“Absolutely not.”

“And then DI Hardy pressured Mr. Dunham into giving a false confession so that the two of you could hurry up and get off together, right?”

“No, that’s ridiculous--”

“DS Miller I know I don’t have to tell you how important it is that you don’t lie.”

“Do not speak to me like I’m a little girl,” she snaps. Hardy flinches. Her temper and her pride can do them no good, but he admires it too much to signal for her to cut it out. “I am a police officer, I have children of my own and I don’t even talk to them as if they’re as stupid as you’re treating me.”

The judge doesn’t protest her outburst. She simply leans her chin in the cradle of her fingers and waits for the next blow to hit. Miller runs a hand beneath her nose and her eyes, fighting tears. She can cry later, when it’s over, and he’ll wring the tears out, his arms around her like a shield from all this. 

And what then? Another case, another opportunity to use their closeness against them? Each and every time, they’ll just keep accusing them of rushing through the motions to make time for an affair. There is no safe time for them to begin, and they’ve already begun, and he feels like he’s being pulled underwater by a heavy anchor in the shape of a woman he adores, and the pressure is too heavy and the ocean is too deep. The only way to stop the accusations from coming is to not allow there to be anything between them. Never again.

He knows that, but he can’t consider it. Each time he gives a moment of thought to it, to the idea of ending things between them, his heart aches too much to go on. It is like a taboo he’s forced upon himself. There is nothing to do but love her, even if it makes him a stupid, stupid man.

The jury goes to deliberate, and there’s no telling how long it will be. It seems cut and dry, to him, but he knows there’s no use having expectations.

He meets Miller in the lobby with two cups of tea to-go.

“That went about as well as I thought it would,” he says, his voice low as if talking about something they shouldn’t.

“I guess we’re out of the woods, right? They’re deliberating now. Can’t really give more evidence.”

“You never know.”

She pouts, and it sends him reeling. There are so many secret corners in this building, he knows. They could be quick, they could be quiet. No one would have to know. There are locks on every door and security cameras that could just happen to short out. There are desks and walls and countertops that beg him to lift her onto them, to have her like a man who’s been starved.

And hasn’t he? He’s felt no gnawing hunger like this before. 

But he stays well-behaved, and they share their tea out in the crowded lobby like they’ve got nothing to hide. They sit for an hour or so, until the courtroom door swings open and they’re beckoned back inside for the verdict. 

They are the last ones to enter. Once everyone else is inside, in their seats, they take a moment to breathe. Out of view, they smile at one another with the tenderness they’ve been keeping at bay for hours.

Chapter Text

Guilty . Unanimous. Absolution, finally. He feels as if his body weighs half what it used to, just hearing it from the foreperson’s mouth. He exhales, his lungs free from the grasp of the case for the first time in weeks, and inevitably his eyes fall to Miller, who has a hand to her chest as if trying to still her heart from beating too fast. He places a hand on her knee, clinging as if he’ll fall right out of his chair, and she tilts her head back as if praying to god, staring at the fluorescent lights of the ceiling. Her pale neck, all stretched, her glossy eyes all wide and bright…

But they must still their want for just a little while longer, he knows. He pulls his hand back from her knee and stuffs them both into his pockets, standing up and shuffling out of the courtroom before he can even hear the sentencing. All the sound around him seems to twist and warp, becoming unrecognizable against the ringing in his ears that signals his freedom. He sighs in the lobby, loud and unapologetic.

He knows, of course, that there will still be paperwork to do. Monotonous, endless, excruciating. Were he a worse man, he’d have someone else do it. He’d have Miller do it, if he didn’t have other plans for her. Plans to shag her senseless and be left a husk of his former self. She seems to have that power within her. He’s barely a person as it is.

As discussed, they take separate cars back to the station. Their subordinates are cracking open a bottle of champagne to celebrate their victory, and though he finds it a little crass, he has a bit to calm his nerves.

“We’re all goin’ out for drinks,” one of them says. She doesn’t seem like she needs to get any more drinks. “You’ll come, yeah?”

“Ah...best not,” he says, downing the rest of his champagne flute and heading briskly into his office.

She’s already there, in his seat, filling out their paperwork with a sense of urgency. Organized swiftness, desperate efficiency. Her eyes remain focused on the pages even as he closes and locks the door.

If she’s playing a game, he’s too weak but to do her bidding and play along. He saunters over, perching on the desk, right beside her, reaching for her pen and snatching it from her fingers.

Her lips part in the hopes to protest, but he can see that she’s got no will left in her. She looks up at him, her eyes too big, too sweet, her hands pooled politely in her lap. Playing innocent. Pretending there’s nothing bubbling over within her. He slides the pen back into the forsaken coffee mug he keeps them all in, and her eyes follow the slow movement in a careful study. Her gaze follows his fingers, his hand, his wrist, the cuffed sleeve of his shirt. All the way up to his tie, loosened around his neck. His stance is open, one knee bent nearly up onto the desk, but she stays reserved, ankles together, posture straight.

Once he’s dropped the pen in the mug, he reaches out to touch her face. Guided by want, involuntarily, she leans her cheek into his palm, his touch seeming to give her a peaceful euphoria he’s never imagined she could feel. She is soft, then, like a painted angel. She closes her eyes, drinking it in. And when she opens them, his chest feels all hollowed out, all bereft of breath and aching for a kiss. She grabs his tie. She tugs him down. He’s slavish to her wants.

The blinds are closed by some divine providence, or maybe by her clever forethought, and he hopes dearly that their colleagues have all filtered out to get drunk. Because god forbid they see him, on his knees, his jaw slack and his eyes wide in awe, nearly groveling before Miller like she’s some saint.

She chokes up on the leash she’s made, pulling him closer to her, her countenance serious and challenged, though he grins with a glee he can’t quite name. He allows her her few moments of control. She’s earned that, hasn’t she? He’s been cruel for so long. 

But his submission doesn’t last. Seconds later, and he’s no longer on his haunches, his hands around the back of her neck and his lips on hers with a hungry groan. He burrows his torso between her knees, and she envelopes him briefly, before he begins to stand, backing away, leaning over her with his hands falling to the armrests.

“Get up,” he tells her, his voice a soft growl. She stands, her brow raised, laying in wait for him to demand something truly lewd.

He doesn’t. He wraps his arms around her waist and kisses her like they are old sweethearts. Her arms fall around his shoulders and her back bends as if they are dancing. Finally, he can hold her like he wants to, no injuries, no one watching. Finally, she can melt into his arms like he’s dreamt of, and there is nothing to get in the way. It’s a sloppy kiss, like they’re much younger than they are, but just as stupid. It’s foolish to do this. Here, especially. But his judgment escapes him in favor of her sweet breath and the way her hips tilt into his like a taunt.

She tugs on his tie as she turns to perch on the desk, keeping him locked into her kiss, regaining control as he reaches to blindly sweep the papers from the wood. 

But it is as it always is with them. A push and pull, and a power struggle. He grips hard onto her thighs and pushes her up and against the desk, urging her to sit upon it, placing himself between her legs as if they are his to part. She gives in, and he hears her leather shoes fall to the ground. She even laughs, and it’s just so sweet, and she’s just so perfect, and he’s going out of his damn mind. It would be so easy to just rip her clothes off, turn her around, make it quick and dirty and scratch that itch, and he knows she would let him. In that moment, he knows she would do anything he asked, and that the feeling is mutual. 

But he wants it to last. He wants more of her hands in his hair and down his back, wants the slow agony of her unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it out from his trousers, wants the slick rush of his tie being pulled from off his neck and every sweet, subtle sigh from her lips.

-

She’s never been very good at talking dirty. But her mind is awash with so many nasty things to say, so many lewd requests and loving promises. She’s thankful that they are too numerous for her to pick, and she stays silent except for her quiet gasping as he leaves a trail of kisses down her neck.

He’s pressed against her at the edge of the desk, hard, trembling to rut like he so clearly wants to. And it would be a joy, to have him, fast and unforgiving. But there will be time for that. There will be time and time again for them to make love, rough, gentle, slow, quick. She reels with the possibilities, unable to stop herself from considering what it might feel like to finally, finally , have him inside her where he belongs.

His shirt parted, she feels his chest. She feels the small bump of his pacemaker, that blessed thing that keeps him alive to touch her and hold her and kiss her and say her name in a way that makes her melt. She runs her fingers over it, gentle and reverent, before taking hold of the collar to strip him of the shirt entirely. And he hardly dallies, either, hooking his fingers between the buttons of her shirt and tearing it open. She nearly squeals at his desperation, and can feel herself swell in expectation.

They are all tongues and hands and teeth. It is teenage as much as it is mature and lurid, how they mumble vague, sweet nothings to one another as they strip more and more bare in his office. I’m going to wreck you. I think I’m going to cry, it’s just so nice . She stops short of begging him to tell her he loves her, and she withholds any similar promises she’s not yet sure she can keep.

“Christ, if you aren’t a vision,” he says, breathless, once she’s wiggled out of her trousers and he’s deftly unclasped her bra. He drinks her in with a sort of awe she’s not seen on a man’s face in ages. An appreciation she never thought she’d get again. 

They breathe at one another, chests heaving, sweat collecting on their temples. He steps away, looking her up and down, biting his lip at the sight of her in nothing but lacy black underwear, unbuckling his belt like he’ll use it as a whip.

They cannot wait any longer. He tugs the fabric aside, the only thin, lacy layer that’s keeping them apart, and he takes what she knows has been his for longer than she’ll ever admit.

Chapter Text

The afterglow is a fury of tremors that shake the last vestiges of ecstasy from her body, and kisses that heal all the wounds they’ve sustained together. He’s tossed his discarded jacket over her shoulders, and they stand embracing. She’s warm in the cocoon of his arms, weak in the knees from his fierce but tender love. It was like a dream. Surreal in every touch, the sweat on his brow glistening in a new way. He’d made love to her in multitudes. It made her feel delicate, but it made her feel strong. And she feels like some mythical goddess, how she made him whine into her mouth, how she made him curse under and above his breath. And she wants to tell him, she wants to admit, there’s no one better than you , but she withholds her gushing in favor of sweet and heavy silence.

She can hear his heart. Steady by design. He is all electricity and spark. Being near him is a bit like being struck by lightning, isn’t it?

He kisses the top of her head. He’s left her a mess. Clothes spread around his office, lace around her ankles. As if groveling, he kneels down, kissing her thigh as he helps her get dressed again.

She smooths down his hair once he’s standing again. She’s made it a wreck, and she takes in the sight of him all disheveled and reeling with delight. She wants to remember the look of him, like this. She wants to see it again and again.

He kisses her as she buttons her shirt.

“Er…” 

There he is, classic model Hardy, awkward and fumbling.

“I wasn’t just, uh...blowin’ off steam. Really wanted that.”

“I know,” she laughs, much to his frowning. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just...cute.”

“Watch it, Miller,” he warns her gently.

“Thought maybe you’d start using my name now,” she comments, running her fingers through her knotted hair. “Maybe even just...in my ear…” She grabs his collar and smiles, coquettish and teasing. He flusters so easily, now.

“Next time,” he promises, cradling her face in his hands. “Soon, yeah?”

In that moment she wants to beg for it again already. But he’s not shagged all the sense out of her. 

“We’ve got work to do,” she laments, holding onto his thin wrists and guiding his hands away from her cheeks. 

“Right…” He fixes his tie and spares a glance for the closed shades. “Think anyone heard us?”

“They were all going out for drinks. Could use one myself.”

“I’ll take you out. When we’re...done.” He turns to the array of discarded paperwork that they pushed onto the floor. “Christ.”

-

They sit down, waiting for the flush in their cheeks to dissipate, working on their forms, trying not to get distracted. It’s a mood killer, certainly, to be filling in paperwork about a gruesome murder and a relentless trial. He would be thankful were he not still so overcome with want. Even inside her, surrounding her, mumbling curses into her skin, it hadn’t felt like enough. It felt as though nothing he could do would express his desire properly. Words, maybe, but he’s shit at those and she knows it.

“Do you think we ought to tell people?” she asks, not taking her eyes from the paper.

“I suppose we have to, right?”

“Mm.”

“God, almost don’t wanna give everyone the satisfaction.”

She raises her brow, crosses one leg over the other, and appraises him.

“I mean obviously I want to be with you, don’t be like that, Miller. Just...I’d not want to ruin your reputation. Mine’s been fucked for a long time—“

“Mine too.”

He stares sadly. He forgets that he is not the most broken of the two of them. He can’t even be sure they are on equal footing. God, how he wants to toss the paperwork aside again and go to her. Fix whatever’s wrong. He signs one final form and then stands, sighing. His body’s not what it once was, even if he tries to make love like a younger man whose heart never broke. He sits beside her on the couch, an arm around her shoulders, and she curls into him, breathing deep. 

“Take me for that drink, Alec,” she bids him, firm but sweet. “Hold my hand in public or something. I want to feel like a real person again.”

“A real person?”

“Someone who dates. And fucks in the office and goes out for drinks with her...whatever he is. And then goes home, and sleeps alright.”

“And what is he?” he dares to ask, fighting a proud grin.

“He’s an arse,” she deadpans, though she tilts her chin up to kiss his cheek. His urge to smile wins out. He feels, for the first time in what feels like forever, gleeful. Happy about something other than evidence and justice and his god damn job.

“Right. A drink.” He tears himself away and stands, reaching out a hand for her to take. She obliges, grinning girlishly. They hold their hands together as if ready to dance, fingers laced and palms pressed. “You were a delight, love.”

“Not so bad yourself,” she coos, lowering their hands to their sides. He feels teenage and new. Free from the cage of his own making. When they leave his office, they see that there is still one coworker still at work, and thank fuck, she’s got her headphones on. And though she notices them and waves, he squeezes her hand harder still, leading her out the door, out into the fresh air to try and be real people, together.

Chapter Text

One month later.

“Are you sure about this?” Ellie asks him, her fingers holding tightly onto the paperwork. It’s a human resources form, disclosing their relationship to the powers that be. It’s...a little too detailed for his liking.

“Yeah, a’course. Haven’t got much of a choice anyway,” he tells her, clicking and unclicking his pen ad nauseum. “Not like I’m gonna....not be with you.”

He adores the way she blushes, adores the way he has that unique capability. No one else can fluster her. No one else can make her weak in the knees. She’s told him. 

It has been a month of unbridled joy and endless sex. They feel like teenagers, sneaking off in every corner and at every opportunity to make love as if they’d invented it. And it does feel so brand new, with her. The things she does...the sounds she makes, the way she smiles when she’s coming, they way she touches his hair when he’s busied between her legs. 

And she’s been so firm, no-nonsense, and he’s glad of it. They’d not been dating two days when she introduced her strict list of ground rules. Like fuck am I ever getting married again, so don’t get any ideas . He agreed with every item. 

They seal the envelope with their paperwork in it and mail it off to the people who hold their fate in their bureaucratic hands. It is done, and he’d worried briefly that making it official might ruin the thrill, but then she buries her face in his chest and he feels as though he will seep through the ground in a puddle. She moves him. He wraps his arms around her and kisses the curls piled atop her head.

“Let’s go home,” he says. By home he means wherever they end up. His place, her place. Wherever there is a bed for them to share, sundry items left at one another’s houses. Tom’s been a good sport about it all, hardly ever acting like the bratty teenager he ought to be. He’s been through too much, Alec guesses. He doesn’t have the time to be bitter toward anyone but his father, and the universe at large. 

“Yours,” she mumbles into his chest. “We’ve got leftovers in the fridge.”

“Had something else in mind.”

“Oh, well of course. Got to work up an appetite.”

She bites her lip, grinning like a tease, and grabs his hand to lead him out the door, to her car, and to their freedom in the evening. He follows like a duckling.

-

At his house they lay in bed, basking in their sweat and the shivering remainder of their orgasm. They’ll start again soon, she knows. They always do. It is that fabled honeymoon phase, pardon the word, that she knows one day will subside. Still there will be passion, but it will not be overwhelming and it will not keep her from sleep like it does right now.

She’ll never marry again, but she wouldn’t mind something that could last forever. She wouldn’t mind an easy love that makes her happy during the quiet moments of the day.

She wants to tell him that she loves him, if he doesn’t already know. It is a silly thing, to assign such importance to that specific confession, but they’ve been conditioned to think of it like life and death. If he doesn’t say it back, if it’s too soon, if he chokes up and cannot answer.

She has seen such awful things, been through so much horror, and yet this strikes fear into her like nothing else.

He turns his head to her, his wide, dark eyes a black hole toward which she uncontrollably approaches. There is no turning back. She opens her mouth, but he kisses her before she can speak.

“God, I love you, Miller,” he says, quiet, against her lips as if he cannot bear to separate. He hovers there, their lips brushing softly, waiting for his absolution.

“I love you ,” she echoes, sliding her arms around his neck, pulling him close, on top of her, letting her knees part and her back arch. His sweetness makes her so, so ready, so eager for him to show her just how much in love he is. 

Beneath the sheets, they undo all the hurt. They whisper to one another to heal. They embrace to keep the nightmares out.