Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The first clue was the house.

More precisely, the wall of magic that surrounded the whole place. Ellie took one hand from the steering wheel and rubbed at her temple. Concealment charms always gave her a headache, seeing the magic as well as the thing it intended to obscure. It was a kind of paradox. The more severe the optical illusion, the stronger the magic.

Hardy’s weakened signature could not have created this.

———

Claire called him ‘Alec.’

He doesn’t like being called Alec, Ellie thought to herself. She looked over at him, at how he immediately curled in, shoulders hunched, arms brought forward to cross protectively over his chest. She tried to catch his eye, but Hardy resolutely did not look back at her, eyes fixed on Claire.

Something was very wrong. She just couldn’t put her finger on it quite yet. The feeling didn’t get any better as Claire continued talking.

The cloying perfume of influence laced her words, iridescent black oil spilling slick over the table, and Ellie wondered if Hardy was really buying the whole damsel-in-distress act. Even with magical assistance easing the delivery, she was laying it on pretty thick. He only shifted his weight, clearly uncomfortable under Claire’s gaze.

“How long have you been here?” Ellie asked.

Claire thought for a second. “Seven months or so?”

He’d bought it. Bought seven bloody months of it. For some reason that she wasn’t ready to investigate right now, it made her seethe. It was easy to rationalize as anger at a stolen promotion, but whatever reason she chose ultimately didn’t matter. She just couldn’t stay in that house any longer.

———

“You nearly died on me.” He looked so vulnerable, lying there in the hospital bed, his magic barely flickering. Other, darker red strands of magic coiled around him. They were subtle enough that she had previously thought they were just part of his magical signature, but now they rose to the fore, and their purpose was obvious.

“Curse-induced heart arrhythmia? You should have told me!” She was angry, both for and at him, and she couldn’t decide which outweighed the other. “Can’t they fix you?”

“Nah. They want to do an exorcism, but they don’t know whether I’ll survive it.”

It didn’t take a medical degree to look at him and know he wouldn’t.

“Please, Miller.”

“I’m going back to work.” She couldn’t stay in that hospital room any longer.

“Please don’t go.”

———

“Please, Miller.” Now he was looking her in the eyes. He took a deep breath, and it caught in his throat. She saw his adam’s apple working as whatever words he had been about to say stopped before they were properly formed. After a moment, he was finally able to say, “I can’t do it on my own.”

Oh bloody hell.

———

Ellie was something of an anomaly. She could see magic, see the swirling tendrils, all the points where they crossed and connected. She just couldn’t feel them. She didn’t have any magic and she hadn’t yet found any magic that worked on her. Incantations fell flatly off her lips, talismans became duds while on her person, and spellwork stubbornly refused to take hold. But, she could see it, all the different shapes and shades of it, lighting up the world around her in a way everyone else was blind to, at least without a specialized forensic lab. A little quirk that had certainly come in handy in her work.

It was partly why Joe’s betrayal had shook her so hard. Her whole career, she had seen criminals use magical trickery to accomplish their ends. But Joe’s evil had been purely mundane, and her love for him had proven more effective than any charm could have hoped to be.

———

She wasn’t keen on spending the night in a stranger’s house. A stranger she didn’t like, and certainly didn’t trust. Especially given that, should anything happen, the concealment placed over the house would prevent any help from coming anytime soon. She wasn’t even sure she had cell service here.

She grabbed the cleanest, least musty-smelling blanket she could find out of the cupboard, and tumbling after it came another — no, not a blanket, a fur. She knelt to pick it up.

The weight of it surprised her. It kept spilling from her arms, and there was a lot of it. Finally, she got the thing spread on the bed, and she stood over it, wondering why it was in the cupboard. It seemed a strangely extravagant find in the worn down cottage.

My, but it was gorgeous, she thought. It wasn’t in the most pristine condition, but even so it shone in the light of the bedside lamp, lustrous and silver. She reached out a hand to smooth over the dense strands. It was warm, and softer than clouds, and as her fingers buried deeper, a shimmer of blue rippled over the fabric and reached up her hand.

She jerked back.

Staring down at the pelt, she held her breath. Now, Ellie, it could’ve been just a trick of the light. Tentatively, she reached out again. Before she even made contact, the same magic, stronger this time, danced over the folds and swept up against her hand like surf on the cliffside. She didn’t pull away this time, but watched as her fingers formed little eddies of silvery blue, and gentle waves washed up against her wrist.

Selkie magic. She’d never seen it in person before, but she knew she was right. What was Claire, a patent succubus, doing with a selkie coat?

A sudden knock at the door pulled her out of her thoughts. Hardy’s voice followed. “Y’alright in there, Miller?”

Almost before he’d finished she was calling back in a high voice, “Don’t come in!” Thankfully, he didn’t seem to hear the note of panic. Or, if he did, he assumed it was at the thought of him seeing her in her sleeping gown, which, to be fair, was also true.

“Course I’m not coming in, I’m on the sofa.”

Ellie wasn’t quite sure what you were supposed to say at a sleepover with your ex-boss and his unofficial-witness-protection-princess. Oddly enough, she’d never signed up for one of those before.

“Goodnight!” she called awkwardly.

She heard him sigh and mutter something before an answering “night” came through the door, and his footsteps retreated down the creaky hallway floor.

Carefully, Ellie folded the selkie pelt back up, and bundled the whole thing back into the cupboard. She’d ask him about it tomorrow.

Unfolding the blanket she had originally gotten down to sleep with, an envelope fell to the floor. How many secrets could one chest hold? She was half tempted to feel for the back of it, just to make sure it didn’t open into any wintery landscape.

The envelope was addressed to Claire Ripley, and opening it, a single pressed bluebell lay against white parchment. No magic this time. An ordinary envelope, with an ordinary flower. Still, it was odd. Ellie carefully placed it back on the shelf, added it to her list of things to discuss with her partner, and finally, got into bed.

Actually sleeping, however, remained a different story.

———

The next morning, driving back, she brought it up with him.

“You know the wardrobe in that bedroom? Last night I found a selkie coat up on that top shelf, a live one.” She waited for a response, but none came. She quickly glanced over at Hardy, and he didn’t seem to have reacted to what she said at all. “Did you hear me?” she asked.

“Yeah, and?” he said, acerbic as always. Well if he didn’t think the seal-coat was anything to be concerned about, then fine.

“I also found a letter, wrapped in cloth. Well, I say letter, it was a bluebell in an envelope.” That seemed to get his attention. He finally looked over at her.

“What d’ya mean a bluebell?”

“Just that, a single flower.”

Paying attention to the road, she missed the curl of red thread winding itself around Hardy’s ears before disappearing once again.

———

Ellie very much did not like Claire Ripley.

Hardy was back to looking hunched and uncomfortable, pressed up against the kitchen counter, as far from Claire as he could get. He was trying to look casual, but Ellie was a detective, and she could see the whites of his knuckles where he was gripping the edge of the countertop. Ellie sat herself at the table, opposite Claire, partially between them. Claire payed no attention to her, staring expectantly at Hardy.

“Well, Alec?” Oh, Ellie really didn’t like her using his name.

He did not look back at Claire. First his eyes went up over her head, then back down at his feet. “You risked everything for me, and I let you down.”

“Yes,” was the automatic, eager response.

Ellie had told herself that she wasn’t going to get involved, she was just going to be there, present, but after Claire fired off a “I won’t go back there again,” accompanied by a pungent saccharine spike of influence, and Hardy had immediately gone silent, Ellie found she couldn’t just sit there.

“C’mon, get your coat.”

———

She came by his shack later that night. When she’d dropped Claire back off at the cottage, he’d been gone, so she reasoned he must’ve walked back into town, the idiot. No taxi would’ve been able to find that cottage. Sure enough, when she walked up and knocked on the glass door, she saw him passed out on his sofa, glasses still on his face.

Her knocking roused him, and she had a horrible moment of seeing the pain on his face as he sat up. She watched him push it down, and stagger over to open the door, leaning against the frame.

“She’ll do it. Claire’s agreed to meet him.”

“Oh, Miller, I could kiss you.”

She looked at him hard. “Just promise me you will be safe, you won’t do anything reckless.”

She wasn’t sure he heard her properly because he responded “She’ll be safe.” When she just looked at him he repeated it. “Nothing reckless, she’ll be safe.”

———

Chaos.

Lee had taken Claire, Beth’s water had just broken, and Hardy was screaming at her.

There was a tether of silver-blue attached to him, pulling tighter and tighter, himself angrier and angrier, and finally she threw her keys at him. Fine. Let him go after Claire, she could deal with that later. Her best friend who hated her guts was going into labor.

———

Sitting on the Latimer’s stairs after the midwife turned up, she thought about that afternoon. She had time all the following day to think about it, too, sitting outside the courtroom, waiting to be called.

The first clue hadn’t been the cottage at all, she realized. In reality, the evidence had been there all along.

———

He knew, somehow, about her. They had just pulled up to Beth and Mark’s house, and he — who had only been here one week after swanning in and taking a job meant for her — he wanted to be the one to tell her friends the tragedy. She could barely fathom it herself. How did he fancy he was going to?

“Watch them. Every movement.” His words could just be those of an outsider to a local, or instructions from a DI to a DS. But Ellie looked at him, saw his face, and knew his meaning. How could he possibly know? She didn’t exactly go around telling people.

There was something else, just under the surface, and it looked painful. It glinted blue and red and-

“Don’t look at me like that.” He got out of the car as she blinked her eyes away. Gathering her bag, she focused on the house in front of her, where a mother was waiting to be told her son was dead.

———

Just as she found the CCTV clip of Danny Latimer skateboarding down the street, she heard Hardy’s footsteps coming around the corner. No tsunami of anger preceded him now, only steady focus.

She had meant to tell him about the footage, but, glancing over the top of her monitor at him, instead what came out was, “different suit?”

“Press conference in ten minutes,” he said by way of explanation, striding into his office. He came out again just as quickly, and she saw that the top button of his shirt was still undone, the knot of his tie still loosened ever so slightly.

She had half a moment to think that she wouldn’t enjoy wearing things around her neck, either, if she was drowning - before that vision vanished, the flare of magic gone as quickly as it had come.

———

She’d seen a newborn colt once, and that’s exactly what he looked like, all long shaky legs, getting into the boat.

“You alright?” Again, for a moment, there was water pouring down his face, dripping from his jaw, seeping from his shoes into the bottom of the boat. Then it was gone.

“Don’t like being on the water.” He looked out towards the sea. If she didn’t know any better, she’d have said the look on his face wasn’t one of fear, but of longing.

———

That night, she dropped Fred off at the babysitter’s, and drove out to the cottage. Claire answered the door, and Ellie summoned her most convincing smile.

“I just want to get hammered, what do you think?”

———

Espionage and lying. This was what being partnered with Hardy got you, thought Ellie as she dug through the wardrobe. Oh for goodness sake, where was it? There!

Her fingers closed around the softness of the seal-coat, and it came rushing out, blue and silver waterfalls cascading down her arms as she cradled it. Odd, that Hardy had seen and taken the bluebell, but not this. Another piece of the puzzle. She wasn’t sure where it fit yet.

Wafting up from the fur came the sickly sweet smell present through all this house. It didn’t come from the pelt itself, but clung to it, almost seeming to mat the fur where it stuck.

That was all the evidence and incentive Ellie needed. She just barely had time to ease it gently into her overnight bag when a soft knocking came at the door, and Claire came in bearing tea.

“Mine’s still snoring,” she said, stepping right over Ellie’s bag and climbing into the bed, passing Ellie a mug. “Feel better?” she asked.

Ellie looked at her smirking face. Yes, she thought, much better.

———

Now to actually test her theory. Even if she was wrong…

She didn’t think she was wrong.

———

In hindsight, she was far too hungover to have this conversation.

“I found something, last night. That pelt I mentioned before? It was still there.“ She looked up at him. No reaction, like she hadn’t said a word. Frowning, she changed tactics. “Claire told me Lee used rohypnol on her.”

Again, as soon as she changed the subject, he was paying attention. “Rohypnol? She never mentioned that before.” Ellie was done.

“Oh, why are you being such a fuckwit about this?” she demanded. “She lived next door, she had access, her story’s inconsistent. This woman you’ve been protecting? She’s a suspect!”

“I know,” he said quietly, then looked surprised that the words had left his mouth.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought I was going crazy. Needed someone else — “

Of course that would be when she got called to give evidence.

———

As furious as she was at the allegations, she kept thinking about the seal-coat still in her bag in her car.

She had wanted to drive him home, but with what happened in court today, it was better that he took a taxi. She called the babysitter to ask if she could keep Fred a little longer that night, and God bless this sitter, she said yes. Then Ellie got in her car and drove straight over to Hardy’s. So much had gone wrong today, but there was one thing she could put right.

———

He opened the door, face shuttered. “Miller, you shouldn’t be here. The defense — “ She shouldered past his protests into the living room. “Miller!”

She set her open bag down on the table in front of him. The pelt shone inside.

He didn’t even look down. Now that they were so close, she could see the faint blue of his weakened magic pulsing with his heartbeat, see it echoed precisely in the waves swaying around her bag. He wouldn’t look at it. Alright, fine. Maybe she had to do this the round-about way.

“Hardy, have you lost something?” That brought him up short.

“What?” and he looked a little lost himself.

“Did you lose something?” Comprehension flashed across his face before it turned to steel. He took his glasses off.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

———

“A mistake was made. A big mistake.” He was looking her in the eyes. Earnest and unflinching.

“By you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

———

Only, Ellie wasn’t backing down that easily.

“Well, I do. I think you have lost something. I think it was stolen from you. Was it?” Hardy was staring at her, jaw set. He didn’t answer. “I think Claire stole something from you, and that’s why you’ve been protecting her all this time. Is that right?” He still wouldn’t answer.

“Look, whatever power she had over you? It’s gone. You don’t have to protect her anymore.” He was steadfastly looking her in the eyes. He still wouldn’t look down at her bag, and he still wouldn’t say a word. Ellie was a mother of two boys, but even her patience had its limits.

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Hardy!” and taking the bag, she spilled out its contents onto the table. Directly in front of him. What happened next, she was not prepared for.

———

Hardy’s whole body recoiled violently, and his curse roared into ugly life. She could see the dark red lines of it crawling up his neck, sliding through his hair, burrowing into his ears. One tendril snaked over his temple, and ink bloomed across his eyes. He swayed against the wall.

“Miller,” he pleaded. He slid down to his knees, hand gripping where his heart beat erratically. “Miller, please.” He opened his mouth to say something else, and she watched in horror as the curse came up from his chest and wrapped around his throat.

———

He was dying. She was sure he was dying. This wasn’t the drowning she had caught glimpses of before. This was real. This was his heart seizing under her palm, spasming.

Stopping.

———

He retched, but nothing came out, and she was saying over and over “I’ll stop, I’ll stop! Oh God, Hardy, just breathe, I’m sorry, I’ll stop, I promise!” She grabbed a blanket off the sofa and threw it over the pelt, obscuring it. Her litany of panic kept pouring out of her, though she doubted he could hear it, hear anything.

Finally, he leaned back against the woodwork and pulled in a long breath through his nose, black receding from his eyes, red threads sinking back under his skin.

He pulled out his pills and scrabbled at the packaging, but his hands were shaking too much. Ellie’s weren’t much better, but she took them from him anyway, and popped one, two out into his waiting palm. He got them in his mouth and swallowed them dry. They sat there in silence and didn’t move for a long while.

———

“I’m sorry.”

Hardy shook his head. “Not your fault, Miller.”

“Still gonna fix it.”

“Don’t think you can.”

“We can. Together.”

He looked at her, exhausted, beaten, but almost willing to hope. He pulled himself tenderly to his feet.

“Would you,” he paused, swallowed. “Would you look after — “ swallowed again. “until then?”

Her heart burned painfully in her chest at the depth of trust in those words. “Are you sure?” she asked. “You know, I don’t have any magic to protect it with, I would just be keeping it close to me. I could hide — I could find a safe place somewhere here, instead, in your house.” How difficult, talking around it this carefully. It was so close, literally within his reach, and who knew the last time he’d touched it, been allowed to touch it? But it might as well have been on the other side of the world for all the good it did him.

“Aye, Miller, I’m sure.”

She peered at him, but he seemed earnest. Her eyes ran up and down his form, shoulder still leaning heavily on the wall for support. Her eyes landed on a shadow near his neck.

“What’s that?” she asked, and reached up a hand to nudge the collar of his shirt just slightly. “What happened to you?”

His arm came up to move her hand away, “It’s fine. Leave it,” but he was spent, and Ellie all the more determined. The open collar revealed more bruises forming a distinct pattern disappearing under his shirt down his chest.

“Is that a boot print?” Shock and rage ignited within her. “Bloody hell, Hardy!”

“I told you, it’s fine,” and immediately hissed as her fingers brushed the bruised skin. “Happened when I went after Claire.”

“Lee Ashworth did this?” She thought of the sickly yellow that she had seen tracing the veins in his muscles, supernatural strength that might once have been reminiscent of gold. “Let me see.”

“S’not as bad as it looks.” He didn’t pull away.

Ellie crossed her arms. “No reason for me not to see it, then, is there?” He glared balefully at her but began undoing the buttons. A horrible thought came to mind. “You don’t have to do that just because I said so, right? I’m not forcing you?”

He shook his head. “You’re not making me do anything, Miller. Not how that works. Stop your fretting.” His shaking in his fingers calmed enough for him to undo the last button on his work shirt.

He pulled down the collar of his undershirt to reveal a mess of green and yellow over his sternum, with the crescent edge of Ashworth’s boot heel still an angry red over top. Her eyes took in the sight before moving across his chest. “How’re your ribs?”

He let go of the collar in favor of lifting from the hem. The skin around his left side was horribly discolored and smatterings of broken blood vessels outlined two of his ribs. She brushed his button-up back and bent down to look, and it was her turn to hiss.

“If you’ve been walking around with broken ribs, Hardy, I swear to God.”

“Not broken. Just bruised.” He winced.

“And how can you tell?” She’d picked up some things from Joe over the years, such as broken and bruised ribs being nearly identical symptomatically, but having wildly different potentials for complications.

“What d’ya think selkie magic does, Miller? Course I can tell.”

“Well, excuse me for not knowing. It’s not like we get many of you lot down here.” A shimmer of blue passed over his side, but when it faded the skin remained mottled and inflamed. “You’re not healing?”

“Can’t. Not without — “ he bit off the rest of the sentence, not looking at the coffee table.

To distract him, she brushed more of the shirt aside. “Let me see your back. I’m probably right in assuming you’re not going to hospital, so someone should take a look at it.”

He huffed, but gingerly slid the dress shirt off his shoulders and laid it on the sofa. She couldn’t see his face with his back turned, but she could see him abort his attempt at reaching up to pull his undershirt over his head the typical way. He changed tactics, crossing his arms to grab from the bottom. Ellie stopped him with a “here, just let me…” and carefully lifted the fabric. His lower back looked ok, and thank goodness, it seemed his kidneys had been spared.

His upper back, however, was one large bruise. If he weren’t already so skinny as to have every vertebrae on display, they would be now. Each divot in his spine and the ridges of each scapula stood out in dark purple relief on the yellowed skin.

“God, Hardy, what happened?” her hand hovered over his back. Just looking at it hurt.

“Lee, he…” Hardy coughed, and his arms cradled his ribs. “He caught me in the chest. Next thing I knew, I hit the ground, and he was standing on me.”

Ellie looked up, “Did your head hit? Any nausea, headache?” Again, her hand hovered just over the base of his skull, barely keeping herself from probing through his hair to feel for herself.

“I don’t have a concussion, Miller. Now, if you’re finished?” She eased his shirt back down and backed away, avoiding tripping over the coffee table.

“Here, keep your back turned a moment,” and lifted the pelt back into her bag. He shuddered, but didn’t turn until she let out a quiet “alright,” then he all but collapsed on the sofa.

“Shops are all closed now, but I’ll bring by some bruise cream and painkillers tomorrow.”

Hardy put his head in his hands and a growl issued from between his fingers. “Bloody hell, Miller. I ask you for one favor. You don’t have to go trying to take care of me.”

Ellie very nearly stamped her foot. “Well, I wish you’d let me!”

He took his head out of his hands and squinted up at her. Might have been peevishness. Might have been his glasses still on the floor. Maybe both. She continued regardless.

“You said it yourself. You can’t do it on your own. And you don’t have to. You wanted my help. Let me. And…” she swallowed, looking away now. “And you told me not to be alone. So don’t make me. Be alone. Let me do this.”

Just like him, she couldn’t turn back until she heard his soft “alright.”

———

Chapter Text

———

They were going to Sandbrook. Ellie watched from the car as Hardy told Claire they’d be gone. She was obviously displeased, but it didn’t seem to phase him anymore. Before, he’d bowed his head, hunched his shoulders, now he simply held out Bob’s card, strode back to the car, and got in. Ellie could see Claire’s face, and she took more than a little pleasure at the anger there.

———

(He’d never been able to leave Claire in the seven months she’d had him at Broadchurch. Not even to see his daughter. Anytime he’d tried, her voice had whispered in his ear, “you have to protect me, Alec, don’t leave me” and his car had never even made it out of the drive.

She loved his name. Loved saying it as often as she could, her voice spilling down his back, in his hair, on his hands, anywhere she could touch.

He’d known she had his coat, had stolen it. He obviously couldn’t prove it, when he couldn’t even see it thanks to the curse, but he could feel her hands, sometimes, running through it, smearing her magic through the tufts of fur until he was shaking from the violation of it.

Miller had been his last hope. His hail mary. He hadn’t been certain it would work, but Miller not having a magical presence herself had allowed him just enough leeway to bring her past all Claire’s wards and orders to keep her secret.

He trusted her. She hadn’t let him down.)

———

Ellie turned the key in the ignition perhaps a little more savagely than necessary. As Hardy put on his seatbelt, she said, with feeling, “thank fuck at least that part’s sorted.”

He huffed his agreement, and she saw a slight smirk at the corner of his mouth.

Good. He had some fight in him yet.

———

“I found her,” he said. “Pippa Gillespie. She was in the river.” It was all Ellie could do to keep driving, as she listened with a still horror. He’d been made to keep this inside for God knows how long, and the wound had festered, and now it was finally being drained. “Just kept trying to heal her. She were the same age as my daughter.”

———

“Go to sleep, Miller.”

With him there, safe, next to her, for the first time in many nights, she actually did.

They didn’t discuss either of their nightmares in the morning.

——

“I made copies before handing back the originals,” he said, holding out the keys. See? Espionage. She’d said so.

———

Tess, as Hardy introduced her, was bright and sharp, and Ellie had the distinct feeling of being sized up by an opponent as she shook her hand. A second later, her intuition was confirmed.

“Oh, you’re Joe Miller’s wife,” Tess said, a pointed jab thinly wrapped in pretty sympathy. “The Broadchurch case.” Tess’s rosy magic buzzed over her skin, but Ellie could see she didn’t reach for it. This was pure, simple passive-aggressiveness. Female pettiness at its finest.

Ellie wanted to ask this woman just what she had done to put them at odds, when she’d never even met her before. But she thought to herself, kindness, Ellie. Kill them with kindness.

So she smiled and made room, filled in with information when prompted, and answered all her questions.

“So Claire Ripley’s down there with you, too?” Now, Ellie knew jealousy when she heard it. ‘Claire, too?’ Claire and who? Ellie? Was she really that jealous just because they both were at one time seargents under Hardy?

He paid it no attention. “Couple of officers, that’s all, some surveillance — “ but Tess spoke over him.

“Alec, you’re not even on active duty!”

Ellie quickly looked at Hardy, but this wasn’t like when Claire had used his name. He didn’t shrink away. He wasn’t afraid of her. In fact, if anything, he leaned further in. He started firing right back.

It all made sense a moment later. “Oh, God, you’re his wife.”

———

“Don’t take the moral high ground with me, Alec!”

Hardy’s silver turned sharp as edged steel. Tess’s rose pink flashed red as blood. It was a perfect storm, and they seemed to be wringing every last bit of lightning from it that they could.

“Me? Take the moral high ground? You built a bloody house there!”

“At least I didn’t run!”

And suddenly they were in the eye of the hurricane, Hardy’s voice low and deceptively calm. “I didn’t have a choice.”

———

In the car, on the way back to the hotel, she’s putting two and two together.

“That night, Claire stole from Tess’s car, didn’t she?” She was careful to be as vague as possible. He still understood her.

“Yeah.”

“Did you know, before it happened, what she had in her car?”

He breathed out long through his nose before answering. “No.”

Ellie’s hands wrung the steering wheel. A poor substitute for someone’s neck.

———

They would have to get up at an ungodly hour to be at court on time, but they could still get a few hours of sleep. Hardy had just come back from dinner and his silence would suggest it had gone about as well as expected. That is to say, not well. She was crouched down between her side of the bed and the wall, digging through her overnight bag on the floor. He was sitting on the opposite side, kicking his shoes off and tossing his suit jacket and tie onto a chair.

As she reached for her flannels, her hand brushed the coat.

She hadn’t wanted to leave it behind unprotected in Broadchurch, or in her little studio flat in Devon, but now, knowing how Claire had stolen it from Tess’s car, she was paranoid all over again she’d made the wrong decision.

Those worries were shoved aside to make way for new ones as a sudden sharp inhale came from over the bed.

She pulled back her hand. “God, I’m sorry, I didn’t think, are you ok? Does it hurt?” She was screwing this up, in over her head, what was she thinking?

“Miller,” he cut her off. “S’okay. It’s…” he paused, still not turning to face her. “…nice.”

Oh.

Well then.

She eased herself down fully onto the floor. Then, as gently as she could manage, she lifted the whole thing out onto her lap. Instinctively, she ran her palm down a patch where it had shifted during travel and the tufts of fur had rucked up.

At her touch, Hardy took one shuddering breath in, held it, and finally let it out again in one great rush, the long line of his back unwinding, shoulders dropping, elbows coming to rest on his knees. Ellie, valiantly, did not freak out.

“Alright?”

His voice came back quiet, but sure. “Yeah, good.”

———

In true Ellie Miller form, the moment was ruined when she had a sudden thought and absolutely had to ask “This isn’t getting you off, is it? Because —“

“Fuck’s sake, Miller!”

“I don’t know! I’ve never done —“

“Would ye stop bein a bloody —“

“Don’t have a go at me!”

“What kind of — “

“Just answer the question!”

“NO! It’s not!”

“Fine!”

He grumbled something under his breath and she muttered a half-hearted ‘knob’ at the back of his head.

She grabbed a pillow off the bed and stuffed it between the small of her back and the wall. This way if she leaned back and craned her neck, she could just see him over the edge of the bed. Satisfied, before she lost her nerve, she resumed.

She wasn’t quite certain what she was doing, but whatever this was, the pelt was a warm satisfying weight on her legs, the fur was dense between her fingers, and the light of his magic pooled and swirled around her hand without actually touching her. Ellie lost track of time, absorbed in the sensation of it, occasionally looking up at the span of Hardy’s shoulders to make sure he was still ok.

———

(This was nothing like it had been with Claire, or even Tess. With Tess, she had buried her fingers deep and pulled at the root, until it smarted and his skin turned red, scared he would slip away if she loosened her grip. She never fully believed him when he told her that he wanted to stay, that he loved her. In the end, her own inability to trust brought about the very thing she feared most.

Claire had enjoyed keeping him off-balance. Her touch came at any time, without rhyme or reason. In turns she was gentle, then teasing, then cruel. Ghosting over the surface, just letting him know she was there. Then running her hand the wrong way up the entire length of it so his very spine itched, before flipping it over and sinking her teeth, hard, into the leather underside.

On one very memorable occasion, before the Latimer case, she’d found a lighter in one of the kitchen drawers. He’d been at work, delivering a lackluster seminar to a group of equally lackluster cadets, when white hot agony had seared into his scapula, and the smell of burning fur and flesh filled his nose. When he’d finally crawled home, the skin of his entire left shoulder weeping, blistered and peeling, she’d just blinked her big doe eyes at him and said “I was bored. You left me alone for so long, Alec.”

He’d been afraid for a long time after that, of the scissors in her hairdresser kit, and what she might do if she ever got ‘bored’ again.

But he wasn’t there anymore. He was here. With Miller.

Miller.

Her hands were so soft.)

———

Every once in a while, her fingers found a snag, and ever so carefully, she would ease the tangles out, till they lay straight and smooth. The last of Claire’s influence sloughed off the ends of the fur as Hardy’s own magic followed through and flushed it out.

———

(His breath caught for a moment whenever she found a knot in the fur, ready for her to rip through it. The first time, he wanted to tell her to just leave it, but then she did something with her fingers, and something untwisted in him, some old compulsion from the past three years finally letting go. Slowly, he could breathe again.)

———

The whole thing reminded Ellie of when she was a little girl, and her mum would brush her hair. Or of sitting with Lucy on her bed, painting each other’s nails, talking about school. Or of pressing a kiss to the top of Tom’s head, her little boy, all grown up. Or of Joe, but those memories were too painful.

And now Hardy, this stubborn, good man, sitting in a crappy hotel room in a town that almost killed him, and still hated him, all because he wanted to do right by two little girls he never even knew.

Ellie wished, suddenly, painfully, that he could turn around. That he could be next to her while she did this. That there wasn’t a stupid bloody curse keeping him from looking at, touching, speaking of, or even hearing about a piece of his own soul.

She didn’t know how much longer she sat there, but eventually, she made herself fold the skin back up and place it carefully back in her bag, closing it. Her knees protested, as did her back, but she got up, sat on the edge of the bed. Hardy turned, eyes moving from the space between them, to her hands, then up to meet hers.

“Better?” she asked.

He nodded slowly. “Thank you.”

He certainly looked better. Stronger. Clearer. The aura of silvery blue still had those red lines weaving through it, still twitched occasionally in time with his arrhythmia, but, overall, it looked healthier. Steadier.

She wanted to take his hand, kiss his cheek, brush the fringe of hair out of his eyes, but all that seemed in some absurd way unbearably more presumptuous than the intimacy of the past half hour. Things always did seem to be upside-down with him.

So, instead of doing any of those things, she lay down, pulling the covers over her.

“Go to sleep, Hardy.”

———

Court was shit.

———

“Does Claire know we’re coming?”

“No.” Alright then.

———

This was a different Hardy sitting across from Claire than the one that had stood there previously.

“This is now the third version of that night that you’ve come up with. Why couldn’t you tell me this before?”

Claire tried anyway. Her bottom lip trembled, and she looked down at the table. “Didn’t want you knowing what he used to do to me.” Sweet perfume reached for Hardy.

It slid right over him, finding no purchase. Claire couldn’t see it, but Ellie could.

———

No perfunctory trawl of disappointment through the radio stations. That’s how deep in thought Hardy was on the way back into town. Ellie broke the silence.

“Sure I can’t just break some of her ribs? I’m quite proficient.”

He snarled. “I don’t think even that would make her tell the truth, even if we could submit it as evidence.”

“Well, it’d at least make me feel better. Come on, just a few of the teensy ones?”

“Teensy ones?”

“I mean, surely, she doesn’t need all of them.”

“Hm.”

“Well, if she calls you ‘Alec’ again in that insipid little voice, I might not be able to stop myself.” Ellie said, with a little more force than she’d intended.

Hardy just huffed a laugh, and there was quiet again for another mile or so.

“It were Tess, gave me the name Alec.” He was looking out the window, at the trees and houses racing past. “I didn’t have one, before. Didn’t need one.”

Ellie remembered a conversation from what felt like a lifetime ago.

“There’d never been anyone at those cliffs before, but there she was, just a girl. I was still only a lad myself.” Hardy paused, caught up in the memory. “I heard her. All seven of her tears. When I came out of the water she just looked at me. She said, ‘are you here to be my friend?’ Wanted my name and didn’t believe me at first when I said I didn’t have one. Said if I was going to be her friend she had to call me something. She said I ‘looked like an Alec.’ I didn’t really like it, but s’not like I had any better ideas.” He laughed dryly. “Our first argument, it were. They don’t put that in the ballads.”

Ellie gave him a few seconds, and when he didn’t continue, she spoke up. “What happened then?”

Hardy sighed. “She went home, I went with her. Went to school, became a detective. Got married, had Daisy.” His voice warmed, mentioning his daughter. “Think I finally understood, when I held her. I wanted her to have a word that was all hers.”

He was quiet then. After a little while, Ellie asked, “Is there something else I should call you?”

“It’s just fine the way you say it, Miller. No need to go changing it now.”

———

(There was a piece of paper titled ‘The Last Will and Testament of Alec Hardy’ in a sealed envelope at his house. No use changing it now. It was true, anyway. He didn’t mind his name when Miller used it.)

———

Tom was going in the witness box. Hadn’t Joe stolen enough? He’d stolen Danny, destroyed the Latimer family, ruined her friendship with Beth. Her name, her home, her career, her friends, and now her son?

Hardy reached out to comfort her. He’d been so open with her, giving so much of himself, and Ellie wanted desperately to reciprocate, to let him hold all the crumbling pieces of her for a moment and be as vulnerable with him as he’d been with her.

But she knew if she let go right now, she might never be able to put herself back together. She jerked away from him.

———

They were going back to Sandbrook. This time, the car was silent.

———

“The stress they’ve put you through, do it to them.” Ellie was done. Done with the injustice, done with the bullshit, done with taking it out on each other instead of the people who deserved it.

“Start with Claire.”

———

(“I think we’re done.” It was intensely satisfying saying those words to the woman who’d basically held him captive for the last three years. “I’m giving you forty-eight hours.”

“You can’t do that.” That would have been true only a matter of days ago, but now —

“I can. It’s over, Claire.” His stomach turned over as he hung up the phone, and he had to remind himself that Claire couldn’t touch him anymore, never would again. If she tried, she would have to go through Ellie Miller first. He looked over at her, her ridiculous orange jacket and messy curls. She nodded back at him.

Yeah. He’d like to see Claire try.)

———

Later, she was so preoccupied with the intense relief of finally having won her son back again that she didn’t notice Hardy was gone until the judge called an adjournment.

She checked her phone. One unread message.

———

(He was on the beach, and the sea calling him. The waves came in, rushed back out again. Should he go with them? It’d been so long.

But a voice was coming from inland, a voice he knew.

His magic reached for it, red thread falling away.

“Wake up!”)

———

If Ellie had thought Hardy seemed a new man after freeing himself of Claire, he was utterly reborn after the exorcism.

“I made it, I made it through!” His magic reflected the giddy disbelief in his voice, swirling in delight. She hadn’t thought the blues and silvers subdued before, but now the splendor of them astounded her, more vibrant than she’d ever seen. Fractals of light spun through them as though under the full noon-day sun, not the fluorescent ceiling of the hospital. Not once did they spasm or falter. No trace of red thread remained. His heart beat soundly in his chest.

He hadn’t died. He was going to be alright. She clutched the railing of the hospital bed so she didn’t do something stupid like try to hold his hand.

———

(“So, is it safe now?” Miller asked. “Can I — “

The exorcism had left him so exhausted, so relieved just to be alive, it had been so long, he’d almost forgotten. Instead of coming off the bed, post-procedure precautions be damned, he settled for leveraging himself upright with his right arm while Miller thought to close the curtains around the cot. Then she was beside him again, and he saw with unclouded eyes what she held in her outstretched hands.

He was reaching out, wrapping his arm around the achingly familiar weight to pull it onto himself, and between one breath and the next he had buried his face in the softness, whole again for the first time in so long.)

———

Far too soon by Ellie’s standards, Hardy pulled back, but it was only to spread the coat out on the hospital bed and pour over it, touching and inspecting every last inch. The fur that had been so heavy and awkward in Ellie’s hands flowed smoothly in Hardy’s. The muscles in his arm and sinews in his hand showed as he easily lifted and turned the pelt about, left arm resting in his lap.

The rightness of it settled warm in her bones. How anyone could have taken this away from him, she couldn’t imagine. So, she wasn’t expecting the words that came next.

“I need you to take it back.”

Chapter Text

———

“I have to finish this. I can’t let the family down.”

———

“What?” Incredulity prevented her from saying more.

He looked up from the coat, fingers still buried deep in the fur. His hospital gown gaped slightly from how he leaned over, and Ellie could see the wound from the exorcism, a neat ridge of tissue just under his left collarbone where they’d pressed the iron rod at the end.

“We’re not done with Sandbrook.”

“Why can’t you keep it?”

“It’s a liability. We still don’t know who cursed me. They could do it again, but not if they don’t have this.”

“Well, it was Claire, wasn’t it?” Ellie could hear her voice rising.

His remained calm. “Ellie, we don’t know that for sure.”

He was right, she realized. Ellie had assumed, but it was entirely possible someone else could have done it. Trust no one.

Except her, it seemed.

“Okay.”

That was when they heard Tess’s voice followed by a nurse’s coming down the hallway.

Trust no one.

———

(It tore at him almost more than he could bear, when he lifted up the pelt and Miller took it away from his willing hand, the weight sliding from him again when he’d only just gotten it back. Even though her hands were always gentle, folding it back into the overnight bag she’d begun carrying, he had to dig his fingers into his thigh and clench his jaw to keep from begging. She was reticent enough to take it from him as is, and he knew if asked she would give it back to him in a heartbeat. He couldn’t let that happen. Soon, he thought, and forced himself to believe it.

He lowered back onto the bed, and the curtain slid aside.)

———

When Ellie woke up, the sun still hadn’t risen, which meant no one had to see her quietly crying in her kitchen. Her kitchen. Hers. In the middle of her kitchen. In her own house, with her boy asleep up her stairs. Not alone in a horrid studio flat in bloody Devon. The toaster dinged, and she wiped the back of her hand over her eyes.

Before she left, she went up into the loft, and uncovered her old hope chest. Her mother had wanted her to have one, she was traditional that way. Hardly any of the silly things she put inside as a little girl actually made it into her house, but the chest itself was solid cedar, beautiful, and lined with rowan wood. Impervious to moths and magic. She placed Hardy’s pelt inside and turned the key.

———

She went by the cottage first and found it in shambles. More than just a tantrum, Claire had torn through every room, clearly searching for something and not finding it.

Ashes in the sink confirmed what she already suspected, and nothing else remained but to close the door behind her on the last remaining traces of sweet perfume.

———

Tess opened the door for her. “Alec’s still resting.” In her hand, she held up an open file. “Decided to take a look.”

Ellie peered through the open doorway and saw Hardy indeed sound asleep. She wanted to ask if he’d had nightmares, but thought better of it, and contented herself with the peaceful ebb and flow of his magic. The broken curse still wasn’t quite real to her, and to keep from staring she went to make tea.

All the mug handles were facing the same direction.

Tea in hand, she came back out into the living area, sat down at the desk, and flipped through the neat stack of folders in the corner. After a moment, she got up and went to the fluffed cushions of the sofa to look through more orderly stacks on the coffee table. Not a single speck of dust on any surface. A quick glance through another doorway showed washed and folded linens. A line of sun-bleach on the floor revealed where the rug had shifted ever so slightly.

The destruction of the cottage. The profound tidiness here. Not a single spot untouched. Two sides. Same coin.

She knew what Claire had been looking for. What about Tess?

———

(Miller handed him the photo of Pippa wearing the pendant. He’d looked at it more times than he could count. He took it anyway. Conscious of Tess’s hand between his shoulder blades, he waited till she walked past him to set the photo back on the table and slip his hand in his pocket.)

———

They had underestimated Ashworth’s desperation.

Hardy liked it when they panicked, Ellie thought. Well, Lee Ashworth was panicking.

He was waiting for her that night, when she opened her front door, and she had a moment to thank whatever God was listening that she had sent the boys to Lucy’s in anticipation of working on the case at Hardy’s all night. Then, Ashworth was on her.

The door shook as he shoved her against it, and his breath stank of the bile in his magic as he growled in her face, “where is it?”

Ellie tried to stem the instinctual onslaught of fear. “Where is what, you bastard?”

His hand slammed the door next to her head. She flinched despite herself. “Don’t play games. I warned him to leave us alone. He didn’t listen. Claire told me everything. About Hardy, what he is, about his coat,” he leaned in even closer and she turned her face away. “She told me you have it.”

Even now, they still weren’t free of Claire’s machinations. “I don’t. I don’t have it, and I’d never give it to you if I did.” His hand turned her face back to him, dreadful in his stillness.

He stared at her. “You really gave it back, didn’t you?” he said in quiet astonishment. “How?” She didn’t have an answer.

“Alright then,” he said, pulling her suddenly away from the door in a crushing grip, “If you won’t give him to me willingly,” he squeezed tighter. “I’ll just have to make him do it myself.”

———

After using her own cuffs to bring her hands behind her back and her own tea towel to gag her, he’d dragged her to the beach, where a boat waited to take them far away from shore. Presumably, so no one could hear her scream when Ashworth made her cry seven tears into the sea.

———

She tried desperately not to think of Hardy. But not thinking of Hardy meant thinking of Joe. Joe, who had touched her the way Ashworth was now beginning to. She turned her head, but Ashworth’s hand in her hair forced it back painfully over the edge of the water. Gravity gathered the tear at the corner of her eye, held it there.

Nowhere to run. Had Joe thought about doing this when he had ferried Danny’s still-warm body down the coast in that stolen boat? She felt the cold edge of a knife against the bare skin of her thigh.

Salt to salt. The tear dropped.

———

(He was looking at their wall of evidence when he felt the first tear fall in his chest. Like a clock beginning to strike the hour, he felt it resound in him, and he knew immediately who it belonged to.

He was out the door before the first note finished echoing.)

———

The knife trailed over her skin, leaving shallow cuts that she trembled at the effort of holding still against. Each gentle wave that rocked the boat made her terrified that Ashworth would slip, and the knife would bury itself in her thigh, her stomach, her breast. She tried to shut her eyes against the fear. That knife would do far worse to Hardy if Ashworth succeeded.

She had tried not to think of him. Now she just prayed as her tears fell, don’t come. Don’t come, Alec. Please.

———

(He had just the presence of mind to call Broadchurch CID to get police and paramedics to the cliffs. The second tear fell on his way to Miller’s house. Once he got there, the third and fourth strokes of the bell came in quick succession, growing louder and louder. The front door hung open, and he ran through it up the stairs to where he could feel what he needed waited for him. He pulled the key from his pocket as the fifth of Ellie’s tears reverberated in his head.

Lifting his coat from the chest, he flew back downstairs and out onto the street, the call on his soul urging him toward the sea. The sixth tear fell.)

———

Ellie hadn’t kept track of her tears once they’d started falling, but maybe Ashworth had, because his hands abruptly stopped their horrible exploration, the knife lifted away. He cast her back into the bottom of the boat, and stood over her with torch in hand, shining it into the depths. A long knife red with her blood, he held at the ready.

And waited.

The boat rocked gently. Then, again, less gently. Ashworth swung the torch, and in that precise moment something collided with the boat. The torch flew from his hand into the darkness, and only the sallow aura of his magic showed against the stars.

The boat settled again.

Ashworth’s calm broke. He screamed at the expanse. “C’mon, you bastard!”

And there was water, frigidly cold and utterly dark, as whatever had hit the boat did so again, this time capsizing it. Flashes of magical light filtered through Ellie’s closed eyes, and her lungs burned for air. She kicked her feet, but with her arms pinned behind her back, she couldn’t find the surface.

Something from underneath brushed against her, and suddenly she felt a rushing all about her. Then her feet were stumbling up onto wet sand.

A spray of blue and silver followed barely a half-second after her, Hardy’s long form spilling from the pelt. He lifted the fur, and swung it around to cover her own bare form. Even if her knees hadn’t already been about to give out, they would have under the weight of a massive soaking-wet seal-coat. Hardy caught her. Gently, he lowered them both to their knees in the sand.

———

(She wasn’t healing. He kept pushing his magic, and it kept just washing over her as he pulled her from the water.

It’s Ellie, he reminded himself. Ellie, bleeding, but alive. Not Pippa, not dead.)

———

“Ellie,” he said desperately. “Ellie, are you, you’re bleeding. Ashworth, did he…?” She shook her head.

“No. J-j-just touched me.” Her voice shook. Her whole body shook. From cold, from anger, fear, relief. Her arms were still trapped behind her, she was still cold, still soaking wet in the middle of February, and the salt stung fiercely where Ashworth had cut her all down her front. So, she said the first ludicrous thing that came to her mind.

“You’re n-n-naked.”

“Is that really what you’re worried about right now?” His eyes widened and voice rose in exasperation. It was too much. His fond annoyance was too normal, too wonderful in the face of everything she had gone through, and not tonight only. She burst into tears.

“Oh, Ellie.” Strong arms pulled her forward, pelt and all, and her head came to rest against his shoulder as sobs wracked her body. His voice came softly, “Ellie, I’m so sorry.”

“You came,” she said into his neck. “You’re here.”

“I’m here.” He held her tight, saying it for his own comfort as much as hers. “I’m here, Ellie.”

“I’m s-sorry. I tried n-not to, but he, I — “ He shushed her gently, clutching her somehow even tighter. He tucked her down against his chest, pressing his lips to the top of her head.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. It’s gonna alright.”

———

They left Ashworth stranded to be picked up by coast guard. Alec just kept holding her until the flashing lights and sirens arrived. The medics, police, SOCO, everyone was the definition of professional, but they could all see the coat, see the DI’s nakedness, and put two and two together. Small town like Broadchurch? Everyone would know. He wasn’t safe.

But any worries Ellie had were dispersed when Dirty Brian handed crime scene coveralls to Alec and said as he zipped them up, “You may be a shitface, but you’re our Shitface. No one here is gonna say anything. Secret’s safe with us.”

When they took the cuffs off, she pulled the pelt off her shoulders, as someone else wrapped her in a blanket. She held the coat out to Hardy.

“Ellie,” he began.

“Go, take it somewhere safe. I’m useless right now. It’s not safe with me.”

“I can’t leave you like this,” he protested.

Janet, a lady with grey streaks in her hair and crinkles by her eyes, who had been a paramedic for many years, tugged the blanket more firmly about Ellie’s shoulders and looked at Hardy. “Go on, love. We’ve got her from here. You take care of that, now, and someone will call as soon as she’s settled. She’ll be fine till you get back. Lord knows the hospital has your phone number on record.”

Stalwart English pragmatism: tonic for the soul. It strengthened Ellie’s legs to carry her across the sand to where a stretcher waited, and it moved even the surly scotsman to take the pelt from Ellie’s hands, press one last kiss to her forehead, and start trudging back inland to the place where he knew it would be safe.

———

Of all the cuts, only two needed stitches. The rest they simply cleaned, applied an antibiotic ointment, and bandaged. Lord, lots of bandages. The visual effect of it was rather worse than the reality. She supposed Ashworth had done that intentionally, but she couldn’t find any grace for him in her heart and didn’t fancy trying to.

True to Janet’s word, Alec arrived shortly after the nurses pulled the covers up over her and left her to rest. It was his turn to sit next to her hospital bed, hand gripping the railing. This time, she summoned all her courage. She put her hand over his, and he turned his over to cradle hers, careful of her bandaged wrist. A key sat warm and heavy between their clasped palms.

How ridiculous, she thought as she reveled in the intimacy. She had seen him naked in more ways than one, yet his thumb smoothing over the back of her hand threatened to undo her.

Always upside-down. Oh, how she loved him.

———

(“What happened out there?” she asked.

What happened was Ashworth forgot seals were carnivorous predators. True, coming on land meant fasting. He had grown lean from long years of not hunting, but that didn’t mean he had forgotten.

His teeth hadn’t lost any of their sharpness.)

———

With everything coming to a head, the trial, Sandbrook, Ellie wasn’t surprised when Tess came to visit her in the hospital.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” she said, and she sounded almost genuine. “Alec doesn’t trust easily. I’m glad he has you.” She put a hand on Ellie’s shoulder in what might have been gratitude.

Then, red threads spiraled down her arm and began weaving themselves over Ellie’s chest. Tess leaned in, spoke quietly in her ear. “I understand this will be difficult for you, but I can’t lose my daughter. He will not take her from me. She is mine. He thinks he can just walk away and take her with him? I always knew he wanted to. I had to do it. He said he loved me, but I knew he was going to leave. I had to curse him. He wants to take Daisy away from me, I know he does, I can tell. But I won’t let him. I called him from the ocean. He will listen to me. I will make him listen.”

Ellie had heard quite enough. She sat up, and the web of red magic fell in tatters around her.

Tess pulled back, shocked. “How…?”

“Tess Henchard, I am placing you under arrest for the cursing of Alec Hardy.”

———

“It was Joe.”

———

“It was Tess.”

He must have already suspected, but hearing the confirmation of it….

He buried his head in his hands. Ellie wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him as he grieved the girl he’d loved, and monster she’d become. The mother of his daughter. The woman who was once his wife.

———

(He sat across from her in the interview room.

“Used to be, you said, ‘I love you.’ Then, when you couldn’t say that, you told me ‘I loved you.’” He looked up into Tess’s eyes. He didn’t recognize them. “Can you even say that now? That once you loved me?”

Tess just looked back with that smirk on her face, eyes empty, and that was answer enough.)

———

Ellie had heard Paul preach once, about sin being its own punishment. ’So God delivered them over to the evil desires of their hearts,’ or something like that. It was poetic in a way, but Ellie was nothing if not practical, and a police officer at that, and she remembered thinking that putting someone in handcuffs was a much more satisfying execution of justice than simply letting the sin itself punish the offender.

But in this case, it made sense. Tess, in cursing her husband, had forgone her love for her family, so the curse had taken it as payment. The curse had slowly brought Alec closer and closer to death. It had likewise taken Tess’s family and her capacity for love further and further out of reach. Now she had no love. No family. Ellie honestly couldn’t imagine a worse punishment.

They were absolutely still sending her to prison.

———

Claire, Ashworth, Ricky, Tess. So much pain. So much injustice.

“All those lives.”

———

She took his hand.

“We’re not alone.”

Epilogue

Turns out, when you weren’t paying alimony, child support, rent for a country cottage and the living expenses for its occupant, as well as your own living expenses, all on one salary, you could afford something a little nicer than a dockside shack that threatened to flood every time it rained.

“You like it?” Ellie asked brightly. The house was halfway up the hill, walking distance from the Miller residence, with large french doors that showed the barest glint of blue at the horizon.

Alec made a vague noise, hands shoved in his pockets as he appraised the living room. “What do you think, Dais?”

Let no one say Daisy was not her father’s daughter. Hands shoved in her hoodie in much the same way, she made the same vague noise, but added, “It’s nice, dad. Could be good.” Ellie, who had begun studies in ‘teenager’ courtesy of Tom, recognized this as hearty endorsement. She gave Hardy a double thumbs up and a big smile. Fred even clapped his hands.

They had decided that it would be good for him to have his own place with Daisy.

She had already accepted the depth of her love for him and the wonderful reality that he loved her just as much, but they had only just begun exploring the ways to express it to each other that fit with two teenagers, a toddler, and jobs that never stopped. Better for them to have their own space, and they could see where the future led them.

There was no rush. They had all the time in the world.

Daisy went out onto the patio and Alec crossed to Ellie. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she placed one hand on his chest, feeling his heart beat strong and steady, blue and silver waves washing over her.

Yeah, thought Ellie. This could be good.