Chapter Text
He didn't meant to drink this much. He knows he shouldn’t have; he knows it from the medical reports and from the little label on the blasted pillbox and from the last time this happened, when he woke up in a hospital with a gash through his forehead.
It’s been years since he’s gotten well and truly pissed, not since his days in university, but the first scotch lifts the weight of Pippa’s body from his arms. The second clears the water from his lungs, the third takes the unrelenting worry from his head, and by the time Miller and Claire have gone back to their rooms, he’s stopped counting by drinks and started counting by sluggish heartbeats.
He’s Britain’s worst detective, after all. Cast out of one office for his mistakes and another for his health, there’s nothing left to do but sit and read and wait and think and remember. Most days he can handle it, shove Sandbrook and Broadchurch and everything in between into a recess in the back of his mind that’s been purpose-built for storing the things he can’t bear.
It’s been raining, though, pooling in the streets and soaking through his jacket and he doesn’t stop, doesn’t pay it any mind until he wakes up in the middle of the night gasping for air. The nightmares are the worst of it all, really. At least when he’s awake, he can run.
Miller’s been getting on his case lately – says he looks haggard, that the guys back at the station were right. She’d offered to come with him to an appointment once, only once because he shot her that terrible piercing glare that means ‘I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have someone like you’ and ‘Leave, leave while you can’ and he brings destruction wherever he goes, doesn’t he? He’s an oncoming storm, a hurricane, a deluge of water and–
Stop. Stop thinking about it. Focus on the heartbeats, the th-thum, th-thum, th-th-th-th thum, the familiarity of pain, the medicine that’s only a room over. Everything’s blurry as he pulls himself to his feet, peripherally aware of the bottle spilling onto the carpet as he sways down the hallway. The porcelain of the sink is cool under his hands, hands that shake as he pushes pills from a blister packet. He dips his head under the faucet, swallowing them like they’ll save him from what he’s done to himself. It all goes sideways as he straightens, water running down his chin and panic settling between his ribs.
He didn't meant to drink, or he did and he pays it no mind because he’s slipping, fingertips scrabbling for purchase on the smooth basin as his knees give out.
He only has a moment to think as he falls, a single name, an end goal of the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
Ellie.
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She hears Alec yell her name (her first name, the one he never calls her, the one that runs together with failure in the minds of half her hometown) over the running faucet before she hears the crash, throwing off blankets in a blind panic as she jumps from the bed. She shouldn't have let him open the bottle, shouldn’t have listened when he said it was only a nightcap and that one drink couldn’t hurt and now he’s gone and killed himself and it’s all her fault. Alec’s not breathing when she steps through the door, his slim frame contorted at awkward angles.
Bile rises in her throat at the sight of him, a vision of that night at the dock superimposed over the cool tile of the bathroom floor. She’s a detective and a mother and a friend and she should know what to do, and yet rationality flees from her as she sinks to the ground with a wail.
She learned this once, years ago – press the fingers into his wrist, confirm that there’s no pulse, confirm that Alec’s dead, confirm that his heart’s stopped, remember that he’s never been lively but he’s always been alive and stack your hands on top of each other and press into his sternum as hard as you can.
The crunch of cartilage from his chest is a concession to his humanity; when she breathes into his mouth between screams, he tastes of cherry aspirin and alcohol.
Claire wakes up soon enough, clearly rattled as she dials the ambulance. Ellie keeps on with the compressions, ignoring the burning in her arms, the way Alec’s torso contorts under the pressure, the bits of one-sided telephone conversation drifting from the front room.
She goes on until she can’t anymore, resorts to rocking back and forth while she cradles Alec’s body. Her tears fall on his cheeks and she swipes them away with her thumb, an attempt at dignity. He’s too pale and too cold, and she’s selfish, isn’t she, because all she can think of when she hears the sirens approaching the house is Joe.
It’s as if someone’s put the world on fast-forward when the paramedics reach them. She can’t make out the faces of the men who lift Alec from her arms, who nod along to her hasty explanation as they strap him to a stretcher. “You did good by him,” one of them says as he kneels next to her, standing with a start as she shoves his hand off of her shoulder. She wants to protest, to tell him to keep his hollow platitudes, to convince him that it’ll be her fault if Alec dies and promise that she’ll never live it down.
She doesn’t, though. She can’t, not when each breath feels borrowed and every word sticks in her throat like a thorn. They leave her alone, and it’s routine now. She stands up. She tries to stand up. She tries to stand up and shakes the feeling of static from her legs and walks to the door and grabs the car keys, the one with the stupid keychain that Alec bought.
Claire shouts after her, and Ellie locks the door with a click, reminders and warnings going out the window as she starts the ignition and the ambulance pulls away.
Alec will make it. He’ll make it if she has a say in it.
He has to make it.