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“Miller.”
A hand – an annoying, insistent hand – was patting her cheek. Ellie groaned. Why did the man have to be so bloody infuriating at every turn?
“Miller, open your eyes. Come on.”
Still, just this once, he probably had a point. Ellie fought against the weights that seemed to have been affixed to her eyelids and pried them open.
A blinding, and also very annoying, burst of light followed. Jesus Christ. She blinked, willing for it to settle into something less sharp and invasive until, eventually, Hardy’s face emerged from the white – it was far too close to hers for comfort and all scrunched up, staring down at her.
Hardy let out a relieved sigh.
“There you are.”
“Where else would I be, on the bloody moon?”
God, she had the worst headache, as if a construction crew high on crack had been let loose inside her skull with drills and jackhammers. Her heart too was going a mile a minute, there was an uncomfortable tightness in her chest and she was clammy and nauseated.
Focus, Miller , she told herself. Establish facts.
“How long– was I out?”
Hardy, the knob that he was, jabbed her in the ribs.
“No, keep your eyes open.”
I’d only closed them for a second , Ellie bristled at him silently. He looked so stupid, frowning like that. Then, perhaps belatedly remembering that people are expected to answer the simple questions they are asked, he added–
“Not long. Only a few seconds.”
Right, okay. That didn’t sound bad. It still left her with the question of what happened though and why she felt so rotten. She turned her head – slowly, so that she didn’t throw up – to survey their surroundings.
They, both of them, seemed to be on the floor. That made sense. She had fainted after all. But the floor was … wet and … made of cobblestone? The ceiling too looked a bit like, well, all grey and with an expanse of clouds, it didn’t– Oh, that was right, wasn’t it, they were outside. They had been walking when–
Shit .
So that’s why Hardy looked like someone was forcing him to attend a ball or something, then.
Netherfield Park is let at last , a distant part of her brain supplied. She imagined Hardy brooding and glaring at everyone with disdain at a Regency ball thrown in some great opulent hall.
It wouldn’t work. He was too short for it for one and besides he would stick out like a sore thumb in his dishevelled suit, with the tie all askew.
And in the real world Ellie had much graver problems than a Scottish grouchy knockoff Mr Darcy.
“’you call for help?”
Hardy nodded.
“Yes, yeah. They will only be a minute.”
An ambulance was on the way. That was good. She tried to take in a full breath, aware that she was panting.
“Then I couldn’t have been– out for only a few seconds– could I? If you had a full– conversation with– 999.”
“Oh don’t be pedantic,” Hardy grumbled.
Ellie glared back at him.
“It’s my– poisoning and I’ll be– as pedantic as I please.”
Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? They had been investigating a series of fatal poisonings when a jogger, face obscured by a hoodie, bumped into her on the street and pricked her neck with something before disappearing into the grey afternoon.
Then she realised something else: Hardy was holding her. Hardy was holding her because there was every chance she would die before the ambulance even reached them, like all the other victims.
“It’s no fun, is it–” she said and she wasn’t sure whether it was to distract him or herself “–when your partner– collapses– no warning?”
Hardy rolled his eyes, said, “it’s been four years, Miller, when will you let it go?” and a part of Ellie loved him for this, in a giddy, frantic way, as if she would be safe as long as they were bickering, as if his grouchiness and his temper would unite to shield her from encroaching death.
Suddenly she wanted, more than anything, to hold his hand. Quite embarrassing really, she’d be disgusted with herself any other time, but some provision had to be made for her current circumstances. As she clasped his bony hand in hers, she wondered whether he’d felt the same when he reached for her hand as he lay panting on the damp ground, waiting for another ambulance that may or may not arrive in time.
What thoughts had crossed his mind then? Had she looked like this too, terrified and doing such a shoddy job of hiding it?
They’d barely known each other then. They’d barely known each other and still–
Focus.
“If I don’t make it, tell Fred and Tom–”
Hardy cut him off.
“I don’t want to talk to your children, Miller, tell them yourself.”
Twat. Ellie hated him. She squeezed his hand – hard enough to bruise she hoped – trying and mostly failing to take in even breaths. Her head was swimming.
“This is important.”
Hardy sighed and she hated too how helpless he looked.
She had her sister, and dad, and knew that Beth would always look after her boys too, but if she didn’t make it…she needed him. How could he not know that she needed him to– She hoped that he would be there for them, she supposed, as they grew up. Which—what a wild thing to expect from your boss who hadn’t so much as called in the three years he spent away.
But the least he could do, the least he owed her, was to tell them.
“Tell them I love them.” Tears were clouding her vision. She tried to blink them away – to little avail. “I love them so much, and–” The dinners and school nights she missed came back to her in an avalanche. Just last week Tom had yelled at her that she never listened, slamming his door. “I’m sorry I wasn’t– a good mother.”
“Talk sense.” Hardy moved their clasped hands to wipe her tears, an awkward motion that almost jabbed her in the eye. “You are a great mother.”
It was like he really believed it. Like he really knew.
“How would you know? I am not– your mother, am I?”
Hardy made a face and Ellie smiled – yes. She just had to focus, nevermind that things were starting to sound – and look – like she was going underwater again, static blurring her vision while her heart felt like it was determined to beat its way out of her chest.
“I liked it better when you were unconscious,” Hardy said somewhere far away, his voice distorted, and Ellie looked at him, trying to focus, to come back with a witty reply – anything that would keep the game going. She watched as his mouth moved and his brow furrowed, perfectly silent and in slow motion, before sound caught up a few seconds late– “I did not mean that. Miller, come on.” He shook her. Or maybe it was an earthquake and the whole town was shaking. “Staaaaay with meeeee.”
The words echoed and echoed into the damp October morning.
Stay with me.
Ellie wanted to stay with him. She just had to fight for it, and that was okay – she’d fought her entire life. To make something of herself, to forge a career at CID, for her kids. She tried to keep her eyes open but it was too much; her grip was slipping.
“ Hardy ,” she gasped, holding onto his hand for dear life. She would just have to fight.
“–here, Ellie, you will –st fine.”
Hardy.
Shit.
With the last of her energy, Ellie kicked herself for being so stupid. The Sandbrook murders had left him a mess. Now if he lost his sergeant – friend – like this– He, who took responsibility for everything, never mind whether it was his fault or not–
She couldn’t breathe. It was as if her lungs were filled with hot, viscous liquid.
“Hardy,” she tried again, barely managing to get the word out. All that time she’d wasted, joking, when– Christ .
“I’m here. ‘m right here. Just hold on.”
But God, she wanted to strangle him. Where else would he be? The outer Hebrides?
She concentrated – hard – on what she needed to say.
“Don’t you go–”
The world tilted in its axis. She tried to cough, to breathe, but her lungs had stopped working. Her heart was spasming in her chest. She grasped at Hardy, trying to find a foothold, something, anything, to break her fall – but there was nothing. Just a cold hungry void, pulling her down and down.
*
Only one clear voice cut through the terrible dark.
“Don’t you dare,” it said. “Miller, don’t you dare let go.”
*
So Ellie didn’t.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
“Miller.”
Ellie smiled. Hardy. Though he was bothersome, at the moment, he was also a welcome distraction given how crap daytime TV was.
“You brought flowers,” she said, looking at the massive floral bouquet in his arms that was almost as big as he was. Really, it was a miracle he could at all see where he was going with that massive thing, with flowers and leaves sticking out, covering his field of vision.
“And chocolate.” Hardy wriggled his hand to draw attention to the box he was holding, a bit awkwardly, alongside the bouquet.
Her stomach rolled at the thought of eating anything sweet. Her boys would love it, though.
“And wine?” she ventured, watching him set the flowers down on the plastic set of drawers.
He let out a laugh – a short bark of a sound that was ill fitting on him like an oversized coat. “You wish.” Her Mr Always Serious. But after everything– well, he could stand to laugh more in general, in her professional opinion. Loosen up a little.
Then he turned, and without the flowers obscuring his face, she couldn’t hide her wince.
“You look like shit.” The bags under his eyes had expanded to the point that they seemed to be considering holding an independence referendum. His hair was a true mess even by his standards, oily and pulled in every which direction, his suit – was that the same suit he had on when she was attacked? – was rumpled to within an inch of its life, and he looked pale as a sheet. “Did you get any sleep?”
He gave her an unimpressed look. “ You ’ve been sleeping all this time and you look worse.”
So, no then, he hadn’t. The knob.
He glanced around the room, looking a little lost at sea, before his eyes landed on the chair next to the bed – last occupied by Beth a couple of hours ago – and pulling it out, he sank down onto it with a heavy sigh. Maybe it was the drugs talking but he was utterly fascinating – Ellie could watch him all day. So she thought she would for a bit, reasoning it was the least she deserved after everything.
He bounced his knee, looking from Ellie’s IV bag to the blanket to – briefly – her eyes.
“How are you feeling?”
Ellie felt like shit. Her chest hurt with every breath (bruised ribs from chest compressions, she had been told), she had been dozing on and off the entire day, her head was full of cotton, and even going to the loo took Herculean effort. But–
“Yeah, good,” she said, not lying one bit. Because compared to yesterday– those horrible few minutes she spent waiting for the ambulance and the disjointed hours that followed– she was wonderful. “Alive.”
“Good.” Hardy nodded, before a hard look settled in his eyes. “We caught the suspect on CCTV, ID’ed him. There is nowhere for him to run now. Only a matter of time before he is ours.”
“Good,” Ellie replied, doing her best to act as if she hadn’t been getting a live stream of updates from five separate people at CID throughout the day.
Hardy went back to bouncing his knee and gave her another look, beseeching and despondent.
He cannot be this bad around hospitals, Ellie thought. Time was, he practically lived here, after all.
Then she realised what it was: there was something Hardy wanted to tell her, and Hardy being Hardy, he was willing her to read his mind instead, to spare them both the horrors.
Sadly, being poisoned had not bestowed her with any psychic skills.
“Out with it,” she said, as authoritatively as she could manage in her current state. “What is it that you want to tell me?”
“What makes you think it is anything at all?”
You literally jumped back at the question, you twat, she thought. But glaring at him until he cave in was a more effective strategy at the moment.
Hardy looked at the ceiling, as if to draw strength from a heaven neither of them believed in.
“I’m sorry. I–” He drew in a steadying breath before meeting her eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay with you.” Shook his head. “Had to catch the bastard.”
He was actually feeling guilty. Over … not staying with her overnight? Had he been poisoned too – evidently with a mind-altering drug? Taken over by aliens?
“What makes you think I want you anywhere near me while I sleep?”
It came out a bit accusatory and he crossed his arms at his chest, scowling at her.
“Well you asked for it, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.” Belatedly, Hardy remembered they were in a hospital and nurses might frown at one of their usual shouting matches, lowering his voice as he went on to an angry hiss. “It was the last thing you said before–”
“Before you told me you preferred it when I was unconscious?” Ellie hissed back, enjoying herself too much, but it was a step too far. Hardy winced, looking stricken.
Crap. Why did he have to be like that? She was fine. No one had died. And she couldn’t even apologise now without making this into an intractably awkward mess. Ugh.
“I wasn’t telling you not to leave me,” she said instead, taking a deep breath to get them back on course. “I just didn’t get to finish my sentence.”
Hardy looked up, his interest piqued.
“What were you going to say?”
Yes.
Well, in retrospect perhaps this was not the right way to get them back on course.
As she faded in and out of consciousness and hands – urgent intrusive plastic hands she did not like and could not swat away – roamed over her body, needles pricking, and colours flashed across her closed eyes, as she felt herself fall, a part of her mind kept coming back to what she had planned to tell Hardy. Thoughts had blurred into indistinct fragments by then, and she supposed that it must only be in retrospect that they joined together again to form coherent words. But the feeling of it remained the same.
Don’t you go blaming yourself if I don’t make it because you are a damn good man and I will come back and fucking haunt you if you act like I was a helpless damsel in distress you couldn’t save when I accepted the risks that came with the job a long time ago. I don’t even care if you catch the perp or not – just don’t you fucking dare ruin your life because you think you are doing right by me.
Obviously, saying all that out loud might send both of them into cardiac arrest – again. But she still said, surprised at her own anger–
“Don’t you go blaming yourself if I don’t make it.”
“It’s a good thing you made it then.” Hardy tried to smile. It was a grimace – his sleep deprivation giving free rein to whatever he felt to parade across his features, which in this case, was monumental guilt. “It was a close call,” he added, looking at his hands.
Ellie fucking knew it. She wanted to slap the idiot – or yell at him, at least, at the top of her lungs, oversensitive nurses be damned.
All in good time.
Right now she was too tired for a real fight, not to mention still a bit drugged and a part of her still felt unsettled despite knowing she was fine, too keenly aware of how her family would be making funeral arrangements now and Hardy probably sobbing in a ditch had the ambulance been a minute late.
So, she beamed at Hardy with a glee she forced herself to feel and said–
“And tell me – how does that close call feel?”
Hardy pouted. A fixed point in a universe collapsing in on itself.
“ Four years , Miller, don’t you start again.”
“You will have to be nice to me now.”
“I’m always nice to you.”
“No you are not. And no more working through the lunch hour – from now on, we sit and eat. Everyday.”
Hardy sighed, shaking his head and Ellie carried on with her offensive, feeling more like herself with each passing second.
“I get to choose the music in the car, too.”
“You are already choosing the music in the car.”
“Yeah, but you moan about it all the time.”
Hardy ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even further.
“Any other demands?”
Ah.
Ellie stopped, feeling her cheeks heat up. Drugs – that’s what was to blame. She would never even consider the idea in her right mind.
“You can buy me pastries on your way in every morning,” she said as smoothly as she could, hoping Hardy would fall for it.
Hardy did not.
“I am not buying you pastries." He dismissed her. "Now out with it, Miller – coy doesn’t suit you.”
How dare he? She had never been coy in her life, least of all with him. She tried to think – if she could only come up with a retort that would change the subject and give her back the upper hand–
“What do you want?” Hardy asked again, the dog with a bone that he was.
Ellie scowled at him.
Fine then – change of strategy. If she couldn’t get him to give up, she could always own it and embarrass him to death instead.
“I want a hug,” she declared, meeting his eyes. But their encounter – and his offer – in the women’s toilets at the courthouse during Joe’s trial came back to her and she threw in further deterrents with haste– “a really long hug. Two minutes at least. Maybe more.”
There.
Hardy once again looked like he’d been punched in the gut. He would be too embarrassed, he would leave, and Ellie would be fine. Fine and alone, until Beth and her boys returned, which was…fine. Great really. It was peachy.
Except Hardy …
…nodded?
Then sitting on the edge of the bed, he leaned forward, opening his arms.
Oh God , Ellie thought, her mind lagging half a second behind, this is happening , just as Hardy’s arms closed around her awkwardly and she leaned in, not knowing what else to do but to hug him back.
It was bloody weird. It was wrong – she and Hardy did not hug, not even once. They were colleagues. He was her boss.
He was also a furnace, which you would not expect from how cold his hands always were. She inhaled and exhaled. He definitely needed a shower.
God, the longer she stayed in this hug, the more everything she held back– this horrible leftover fear, not only for herself but for the people she loved too–
No, she would push him away.
She couldn’t afford to break down just yet, not when she needed to be strong for her boys, not in a hospital room where a cheerful nurse might burst in any second. Honestly, she now kind of got why Hardy discharged himself against medical advice every time the moment he could drag himself to his feet. She shifted, and was preparing to extricate herself away, when–
Hardy buried his face on her shoulder and let himself go, falling into the hug.
She heard his breath stutter and when he hugged her like this, with all of his warmth– the weight of his head on her shoulder– And she was drugged. And she’d almost died . God, she’d been clinically dead for almost a minute before they managed to revive her.
She wasn’t strong enough to hold all of it at bay.
So she let her head fall against Hardy’s shoulder too, holding him as hard as her aching chest would allow, breathing in his sweaty gross scent. Hardy in turn raised an arm to bury his hand in her hair, clutching at it, and she felt his shoulders begin to shake.
“Are you crying?” she asked tearfully.
“Yeah.” Hardy sniffled. “You?”
She laughed in return, which turned into a proper sob.
“I’ve got you,” Hardy murmured, rubbing his free hand across her back and rocking them back and forth on the bed. “I’ve got you, lass.”
“Ugh. Please don’t call me lass ever again.”
“Don’t almost die in my arms ever again and I won’t.”
Ellie let out another laughing sob. She was so glad to be alive.
And, although she would not admit it out loud when she was well, she was so glad to have Hardy too, whatever it is that the two of them were.
“Deal.”