Hiii, I'm back and so sorry for being reaaaally late to the party. I can only excuse this with a) this site being a bitch and not letting me access my account and b) the busy life of a part time actress and fulltime student (9 lessons each day! Iek!) c) Me having forgotten about this already finished chapter FOR MONTHS.

Also, as you can see, I don't bother retelling the plot. I trust you guys are still aware what happened in Episode 4.

A church service and the family press conference later, Alec felt utterly exhausted. Once away from all the journalists, he tried to process what Miller had told him earlier. Something about a village called Whitby and Jack Marshall. Things were getting slightly blurred again. He stumbled away outside to get some cool air and swallow some pills.

Before he even had a chance to recover, Miller left the school gym as well and ran towards him.

"Is everything alright? I was looking for you." She didn't even attempt to hide her concern for her currently very wobbly boss. What frightened her even more was the fact that, hadn't she known about his illness, she wouldn't have followed him and he just would have walked back to Scotland Yard, fully aware that he was in no condition to. She would never even have known about this.

"Found me now, haven't ya, Miller," he mumbled, sounding a bit annoyed but mostly out of breath.

"Yeah, and I'm driving you home, now."

He tried to resist but Ellie was having none of it.

"You look terrible. It's either your hotel room or the hospital, sir. You're not going back to work."

He eventually opted for the hotel. Miller drove him there, unsuccessfully trying to shut him up. He didn't back down however and instead of leaning back in the car seat and catching his breath, he questioned his colleague about their findings regarding Jack Marshall. Perfectly reasonable, he thought.

Ellie managed to somehow get the idiot she called her boss to his hotel without further incident. However, his refusal to shut up wasn't only getting on her nerves, it was also making him worse. His brain was obviously getting less oxygen than it needed, as he was stumbling rather than walking. Also, he had stopped making a lot of sense.

Becca Fisher, who was currently working upstairs, gave Alec a sympathetic look when he passed her on his way to the room. Ellie didn't think she looked any surprised or taken aback at the sight. But then again, Ellie had made sure to tell her about his heart condition, just in case.

Once they were in the room, Ellie forced him to sit down. He was pale and sweaty.

Ellie sighed. The man looked like shit and although he almost always looked that way, she felt sorry for him.

She got out her mobile phone and told Alec to stay put. Once outside the room, she called Joe. He knew, of course. After all, she had spent all night in hospital with DI Hardy.

"What's the matter, sweetheart? You coming home?" Joe said.

"No, actually, I wanted to let you know that it might get a bit later. It's him."

"Oh no! He okay?" came the reply.

"Yeah," Ellie said, "sort of. I'll be home soon."

"Okay. I love you," Joe responded and hung up.

When Ellie came back into the room, she was greeted by a pitiful sight. The DI had fallen asleep but he seemed to be suffering nightmares for he cried quietly and clutched his chest. Ellie decided to wake him up and get him to bed because the chair wouldn't offer a lot of comfort for the man.

She crouched next to him and touched his arm while softly saying:

"Sir. Please wake up, it's just a nightmare."

He flinched and startled awake.

"Miller! What're you doing here?"

"I drove you here, remember? Now, Sir, I suggest you get some rest. I'll see you in the morning." He nodded and she left.

Ellie watched her son with unease. Somehow, she had let her boss talk her into this. So, here they were in the middle of the night, her boy Tom skateboarding down the road as a replacement for Danny. It was surreal and stressful for nearly everyone involved.

Once the whole thing was finally over, she took Tom home and put him to bed, he was exhausted and seemed a bit shaken. Joe was already in bed and little Fred was sound asleep too but Ellie just couldn't sleep. The house was eerily quiet and Ellie felt rather content, surrounded by her loving family. Nonetheless, something felt off. She couldn't quite place the feeling, couldn't know that it was her Police Sense tingling as a reaction to long-term exposure to a murderer. What she did come up with was that it must be pity for her lonely, grumpy boss and since she had no intention of going to sleep just yet, she decided to go and see how the idiot was doing. With any luck, he would be still up. If he wasn't - then at least the walk to the hotel and back would have cleared her mind a bit to finally go to sleep.

When she reached his room, however, she heard heavy breathing and quiet sounds of distress from the other side. Already knowing what to expect, Ellie decided that is was best to immediately wake him since all that distress couldn't be good for a man with a heart condition. Ellie ran to Beth to get the keys from her and burst into the room. The commotion still hadn't woken up the guy but Ellie was once again faced with a sweaty, whimpering mess.

When she had succeeded in gently waking him up, Alec didn't realise at first that he had company. Instead, he began crying as he often did when faced with his bleak, unhappy life.

Ellie was at a loss as to what she was supposed to do now. Just when she decided to finally get over herself and try to comfort her boss, he saw her. Immediately, he calmed and stopped crying. When Ellie looked at his almost indifferent, grumpy expression, she was on the verge of forgiving herself for not having seen her boss's condition sooner. He was a very good actor.

"Miller?", he said irritably. "What's going on?"

"I just wanted to check on you, sir. You're lucky I did, though," she stated dryly and noticed how his eyes grew a bit unfocussed. He was about to say something no doubt grumpy when she cut him off.

"You better take some of those pills of yours."

Well, what do you guys think?