How to Start a Fire

By Hazelmist

Summary: A wise man once said that love is friendship set on fire. In this case, Alec Hardy starts the fire. Literally. Shameless Alec/Ellie one-shot.

A/N: The quote is supposedly credited to someone named Jeremy Taylor but there's also a poem commonly used in wedding vows by Laura Hendricks. I had writer's block last summer and Nannyogg123/Mykelara gave me a prompt (the quote was not the prompt). I don't think that this was quite what she was expecting or hoping for, but I had a lot of fun writing this. I tried unsuccessfully to use some UK English and to go without a beta, so please forgive the many errors. I figured we all could use a break from the ANGST because I needed one, so I cleaned off my hard drive and I'm posting this. Enjoy!

"Love is friendship set on fire." Jeremy Taylor

Four days before Christmas a fire in the oven destroys her kitchen. Ellie's furious. The estimate for the repair is outrageous. Ellie didn't even like the bloody kitchen. She puts down the pink sheet of paper and rubs her eyes. Blinking a few times, she gets up and walks into the dreaded room. It's just as bad as it looked the night before. The oven needs to be replaced, as well as several kitchen appliances and pots and pans. The wall behind the oven that she had spent hours with Tom trying to paint eggshell white is now scorched black, as well as the cabinets above it. And even though she hired a professional cleaner, she swears the room still reeks of smoke and the smell of burnt sugar will linger forever.

They told her that she was lucky it was only the kitchen. It could have spread to the whole house if they hadn't been called in immediately. Ellie doesn't feel very lucky. As she looks around the cleared room she remembers the first time that she and Joe had walked in here. She squeezes her eyes shut and blocks the string of bittersweet memories that follow. After almost two years, she's gotten better at that, but stress always makes it worse, and right now she's under a lot of stress.

Fuck. She really needs a glass of wine, or perhaps the whole bloody bottle. Dragging her hands down her face, she wonders if she'd feel better if she hit Hardy over the head with the bottle.

Because Alec Hardy started the fire.

Two days earlier.

Ellie was late.

Hardy knew it was stupid but he worried about her. And it was unlike her not to check in with him, since he was currently minding her three-and-a-half-year-old. Or at least he was trying to. Fred Miller was definitely part wild animal. Hardy had turned his back on Fred for less than thirty seconds, and he was already standing on top of the counter, reaching for something in a cabinet high above his head.

"Whoooaa! Let's not climb the furniture when Mummy's not here." Hardy rushed to take him down from the countertop. Fred pouted and propped his little fists on his hips as soon as Hardy had safely lowered him to the tiled floor. He strongly resembled his mother when he did that.

"What were you looking for?" Hardy asked and crouched down in front of the boy.

"The colours are up there."

"The colours?" Hardy repeated sceptically. Fred nodded with all the gravity that a three-and-a-half-year-old could manage. Hardy brushed the curls from those large brown eyes he'd inherited from his Mum and smiled.

"The colours for the Christmas cookies!" Fred explained with a heavy sigh that he definitely learned from his teenage brother.

"Ah." Hardy nodded and stood up. He poked around in the top shelf until he found something that seemed like it could've been food colouring. He opened the faded yellow box and was relieved to see that the red and green liquids were still moving around in the bottle. They'd only need a few drops. He didn't know what colour the greyish one was supposed to be and he put that one away.

"These colours?"

Fred clapped his hands delightedly. Hardy lined up the food colouring with the last of the ingredients and set the oven to preheat. As he and Fred shared a conspiring grin, Hardy thought that Ellie was wrong about the danger of him and Fred in the kitchen together. They were simply making Christmas cookies. What could possibly go wrong?

Forty-five minutes later, Hardy shut the only tray of cookies that had survived the wee Miller high on sugar and limited on attention. Hardy had to stop him from eating all of the batter and trying the food colouring, and the kitchen was a bloody mess. Ellie was going to murder him if she found the kitchen in this state. He set the timer and scooped up Fred, carrying him upstairs to the bath to get him washed up and changed. It was a daunting task, but they managed it somehow with a short tantrum, a lot of wet clothes and a minor flood that paled in comparison to the water damage Daisy had been capable of at that age. Wearily, he deposited a much cleaner and fully dressed Fred in front of the telly, where he could still see him from the adjoining room. Then he hurried to scrub the kitchen before Ellie came home.

He was surprised when five minutes later she called, because she should have already been walking through the door.

"What?" he answered, reverting to old habits because the kitchen wasn't clean yet, and she was late and he was concerned. He squinted at the clock, noting how late she was and that there was less than twenty minutes left on the timer.

"Where are you?"

"I'm with your son," he said, and checked again to make sure that said son was absorbed by the telly. He had to jam the phone between his shoulder and his cheek, so that he could continue washing the mixing bowls. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"I'm fine, got held up at work. How's Fred?"

"He's fine, Miller. Are you on your way home?"

"Yes."

"Okay," he said, relaxing. "Drive carefully, Miller. They said there could be some patches of black ice."

He hung up on her. Finishing with the mixing bowls, he wiped down the kitchen table one last time. It wasn't spotless but it would suffice. He had twenty more minutes, so he swiped his phone off the table and joined Fred in front of the telly.

Switching off the television, he chased the boy to his bedroom. They were both laughing when Hardy caught him. He tucked the boy in and read him a silly children's book about a llama that Fred loved for some reason that eluded Alec. Fortunately, Fred had the book almost memorized and Alec didn't have to spend much time looking at the hideous spitting protagonist of the story. His mobile rang again and he automatically passed it over to Fred. Leaning against the doorjamb, he listened until Fred said goodnight to his Mum and handed the phone to him.

"Mummy wants to talk to you," he told him. Hardy's eyebrows shot up but he took his mobile back. Whispering goodnight to Fred, he shut the light off and left the bedroom.

"I thought you were on your way home," he said.

"I was but then I got stopped again by your friend," she snapped.

"What?" Hardy had no idea who she was talking about.

"Hardy, I know you're not an idiot, so don't even try to pretend-"

"What the hell are you on about, Miller?" Hardy interrupted her, never one to beat around the bush. He glanced behind him at Fred's closed door and tiptoed to Ellie's bedroom. Thank god Tom was staying over at a friend's house.

"I'm talking about Jessica," she spat and Hardy heard the slam of a car door.

"Jessica?" Hardy was drawing a blank.

"Jessica White!" Ellie hissed and it finally dawned on him.

"Oh, D.C. White." Hardy recalled the tall young woman with long frizzy brown hair and kind eyes that had talked a little too much, and had an annoying habit of blushing and constantly coming into his office for trivial things, and – Fuck. Hardy had to sit down on the edge of Ellie's bed.

"She's a D.S. now. She transferred from South Mercia and started working for me a few weeks ago," Ellie went on and the car engine revved in the background. "I mentioned that I was from Broadchurch and the Sandbrook case came up. You can imagine my surprise when I found out that not only does she know the role that I played in solving those bloody cases, but she's also your biggest fan!"

"Jesus, Miller, it was years ago," he groaned, balling his hand into a fist. He must be the unluckiest bloke in Britain because there were thousands of coppers Ellie could've wound up working with, but it had to be her.

"Not to Jessica it wasn't. To her it was just yesterday that you two were working the Sandbrook case, when it all went to hell and you-"

"It was one drink!" he snarled.

"I think it was a bit more than that," Ellie remarked snidely. Hardy had to take a deep calming before he set off the fucking ICD in his chest.

"I ran into her a few months after the Sandbrook case collapsed, alright? It was a long time ago and after Tess left me I – it was a mistake," he admitted.

"Did you sleep with her?" Ellie interrogated him. Hardy was about to tell her, when suddenly it occurred to him that he didn't have to tell her anything.

"Why do you want to know?" he asked slowly.

"She's my new D.S. and if she's still smitten with you after years-"

"She wasn't smitten with me," he argued. "She might've fancied me, I wasn't completely blind to that, but she never-"

"Are you still interested?" Ellie grilled him.

Hardy's jaw dropped. He actually pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it.

"Is that what this is about?" He got up and paced the length of the room. "Are you worried that I'm going to start shagging your D.S.?"

"You did sleep with her!" Ellie crowed. When Hardy didn't deny it fast enough, she added viciously, "I knew it."

"Like you never slept with anyone else," he spluttered. "You think I don't know about that random bloke you-"

"Piss off!"

"Fine, let's tear apart my one transgression and pretend that you've never been lonely."

"You broke her heart!" she accused him.

"I didnae," his accent was thick now, but he knew he'd called her bluff when he heard the click of her jaw. "You're exaggerating, although I don't know why," he sighed, suddenly tired of fighting with her. He'd suspected the one night stand but he hadn't been certain. It hurt knowing that Ellie had been that lonely. He slumped down on the foot of her bed. "You've got nothing to worry about Miller. It was years ago and before I met you."

"Right," Ellie said, though she sounded unconvinced.

Hardy sat there with the phone pressed to his ear and waited for her to say something. But for once the silence stretched on and on, and Hardy felt the need to fill it.

"Miller?"

"Yeah?"

"There was never anyone else," he confessed and ran his hand over the duvet. "And there isn't anyone else. So if you ever…"

"If I ever what?" Ellie wondered.

Hardy sighed again and scratched his eyebrow. He was being ridiculous, but for a few minutes there he'd thought that Ellie was jealous. And if she was jealous then there was a chance that maybe she might be open to hearing that he had barely been able to look at another woman, since she came barrelling back into his life, shortly after they'd solved Sandbrook.

"Never mind," he dismissed it and closed his eyes. "Come home, please," he told her and put everything that he couldn't say into those three words.

"Don't worry, I'm ten minutes away," she chuckled. "How naughty was he this time?"

"He was good. We baked something."

"Oh, god, tell me you didn't," Ellie groaned. Hardy rubbed the back of his head and smiled sheepishly. "I'm glad you at least figured out that the timer was broken."

"What?" Hardy's eyes widened and he leapt to his feet.

All three of the fire alarms in the house went off at the same time. Hardy opened the door and immediately smelled smoke and burning sugar.

"I'll call you back," Hardy said and hung up on Ellie screeching in his ear. He woke up a sleepy Fred, and didn't even make it halfway down the stairs with him, before he saw the flaming stove and the billowing smoke.

"Shit!" Fred exclaimed.

"Shit," Hardy agreed and silently repeated the word over and over again. Ellie was going to kill him.

He called the fire department.

Ellie Miller arrived to find three fire trucks outside her house, as well as half the town gathered to watch. It took her a minute to spot Alec Hardy without a coat, but he had her excited son snugly wrapped in his orange puffy jacket in addition to his own winter overcoat.

Ellie took Fred from him and inspected him from head to toe, ignoring Hardy's apologies until she was certain that Fred was fine. Her son was more than fine, since he seemed to be the only one that was thrilled to watch the house smoke, and the lights of the fire trucks flash, and the army of his idols troop in and out of their front door. By the time Hardy finished explaining to her what had happened, and he'd confirmed that he was fine too, and she'd called Tom to tell him what had happened and that they were alright; the fire was out and the fire chief informed her that the damage could've been a lot worse. He assured her they'd be back tomorrow to do another check and a more thorough investigation, and suggested that she and her family stay with someone else for the night.

Ellie waited until they left and the neighbours dispersed, before she called Lucy and told her what had happened and that Fred and Tom were going to be staying with her for the next week at least. After she rang off, she looked at Hardy and took her sleepy son from him. She hadn't noticed that Hardy had taken him from her while she was on the phone.

"I'm sorry," he apologized again with those big eyes that she really hated right now. "You both can stay with me tonight."

"No." Ellie was so furious that she could barely form sentences. "I can't even look at you."

She knew that she was being unreasonable, but she couldn't help it. She'd had an awful day at work, and it had ended on a sour note with the young and pretty D.S. going on and on about Hardy and blushing. And then after she'd been done yelling herself hoarse, after he'd confirmed that he fucking slept with that skinny, long-legged woman with the warm hazel eyes; her kitchen had gone up in flames, because he'd been so bloody careless. And her son had been in the house with him.

"If you change your mind…" Hardy said and rested a hand on her back. Ellie flinched away from him and he shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Stay away from me," she hissed.

Hardy nodded and watched her as she made her way back to her car. Ellie buckled Fred into the car seat and got into the driver's seat. She started the car again and backed out of the driveway. He was still standing there beside his car when she drove away.

Two days later.

Ellie stares at the damage and wants to cry. But she learned a long time ago that crying won't solve anything. A knock on her door startles her out of her miserable thoughts. Here it is the day before Christmas Eve, and she's trying to deal with her bloody kitchen instead of spending time with her boys. And someone's at the door. She hopes it's not the carollers, or god forbid, someone looking for a donation, because she's not in the mood to deal charitably with anyone.

Of course, it's Alec bloody Hardy. He's wearing a black mackintosh that's doing very little to keep out the cold, judging by the way he's hugging himself and hopping up and down on the balls of his feet. She opens the door and he gives her those puppy dog eyes. She wants to slap him because he shouldn't be able to still make her feel sorry for him.

"You've got thirty seconds to convince me why I should forgive you," she snaps.

"I didn't come here for that. I came back for my coat and my wallet," he explains and squints at her. It's flurrying a bit, she realizes belatedly, and his hair's plastered to his head. She wonders how long he stood out there, debating whether to knock on the door or not. "Can I come in?" he asks her and shivers.

She sighs and lets him in the front door. He closes it behind him and shakes the snow out of his hair and his thin coat. Ellie goes to get his overcoat and realizes that it's at Lucy's. Hardy must not have been thinking straight when he used his own winter coat as a blanket for her son and handed them both off to her, because his wallet was still in one of the pockets. She'd left that at Lucy's too.

"What's the matter?" he asks and follows her into the kitchen. He rubs his hands together and blows on them, but he freezes at the sight of the damage. His eyes immediately jump to the pink piece of paper she forgot on the table. Ellie can't get to it fast enough. Hardy picks it up and narrows his eyes. God, the knob must have left his glasses in his coat too. She rips it out of his hand and nearly tears it in half.

"I'll pay for it," he offers generously.

"I don't need your help!" She storms out of the kitchen and into the sitting room, where she stuffs the slip into the manila folder that contains the report from the fire chief, and the receipt for the cleaner's hefty bill.

"I know, but it was my fault," he reminds her and trails her into the sitting room.

"How did you not notice?" She whips around and rails at him. "You had to have smelt something burning or noticed the smoke-"

"I don't know," he sighs, combing his fingers through his damp hair and pushing it from his forehead. "I tucked Fred into bed and then I was talking to you about-" he breaks off and Ellie rolls her eyes.

"Oh, my god, you've already forgotten her name." Ellie gasps and makes a strangled sound that could have been a laugh if she found anything funny about this. "Did she really mean that little to you?"

"I remember her name," he protests and crosses his arms over his chest. "But I didn't want to bring Whi-Jessica up since it's a sore subject. It bothers you and I don't know why."

"She works for me now, and she's a nice girl!"

"Miller, it was one time and it was a mistake that I won't be repeating." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I was an idiot, alright? It only took me once to learn that lesson."

He drops his hands and shoves them into his pockets.

"Just give me my coat and my wallet, and I'll go."

"I can't do that," Ellie says, biting her lip.

Hardy lifts his head and looks at her.

"I left them at Lucy's," she admits guiltily.

"Fine." Hardy expels a breath and nods. "I'll go there myself and get it."

"They're actually out right now…" Ellie informs him, staring at her socks, so she won't have to see him glaring at her. "Lucy and Olly took them to see The Christmas Carol. They haven't called me, so I'm assuming that they're not home yet."

"Do you know when they'll be back?" he asks her.

Ellie looks up at him; but instead of the frustration, exasperation, and impatience she'd expected from him, after waiting two whole days and driving two and half hours for nothing; she sees something else deep within those brown eyes that's almost obscured by his obvious exhaustion.

"I don't know, but it's getting late so they should be home soon." She studies him, trying to figure out what's going on behind his steady gaze and hesitantly adds, "You can stay here until then."

Hardy blinks. He stands there for so long that Ellie thinks that he'll say no, but then he nods again. He hangs up his coat in the hallway and joins her on the sofa. Ellie jumps as he sits beside her and his shoulder brushes hers.

"Sorry," he mumbles and scoots over a little so they're not touching anymore.

"No, I'm sorry," Ellie apologizes and wrings her hands in her lap. "I shouldn't have gone off like that on you. It's just…"

"What?"

"It's this house," she sighs. "I thought that all it needed was a can of paint but it can't erase all the memories. It seemed like the cheapest and most convenient option at the time, since we had the mortgage nearly paid off, but now…" she falters and kicks the file off the table with one of her feet. They stare at it for a long time before Ellie decides to collect it from the floor. Hardy risks touching her, staying her with a warm hand on her knee.

"I'll help you pay for it, don't think about the money. Between the two of us we'll find a way…"

"It's not about the money," Ellie tells him, annoyed. "And I'm not even that mad about the kitchen anymore. But there are so many ghosts in this house, and I keep thinking about Joe, and all his secrets, and how I never knew that man at all." She glances at Alec and he's staring at her. He distractedly rubs his thumb over her knee cap and stops.

"Is that why you were so mad at me on the phone yesterday?" he wonders and frowns. "Did you think that I was hiding something from you or that I was the type of man that would treat you like he did?" His eyes widen as he misreads her stunned silence as confirmation, and he continues with a sharpening accent, "Did you honestly think that I would start shagging your D.S. behind your back and screw up all the hard work you've put into proving yourself a DI capable of leading a solid team, or that I would throw away everything that we've worked toward here for some fleeting moment of-" Ellie covers his mouth with her hand, unable to bear those words that had destroyed their marriages, even though it had been different, so very different in her case.

"I know you wouldn't do that, Alec," she says softly, using his first name for what might be the first time. "I do trust you. I was being stupid and jealous."

"Jealous?" Hardy leans forward and she returns her hands to her lap, suddenly interested in the dark freckle on one of her knuckles. "You were jealous?" he repeats, and stretches his arm across the back of the sofa as he turns fully towards her. His hand rises from her knee to her thigh and Ellie feels a spark that she blames on static electricity. Her thigh is left tingling from the shock and it spreads to the rest of her body in ripples and waves.

"Why would you be jealous?" he asks softly. He's too close and she inexplicably wants him closer and something inside of Ellie finally snaps.

"Oh, I don't know." Ellie throws up her hands. "Maybe, because she's younger, prettier and skinnier, and you slept with her-"

Hardy laughs at her.

"I'm glad you find this funny!" she snarls. Then she realizes what she said, and what she implied, and what she inadvertently revealed. The blood rushes into her heated cheeks and she scrambles to her feet.

"Miller!" Hardy catches her in the kitchen and spins her around to face him. He's not laughing anymore and he's got her cornered with a soft gaze that's anything but heartless.

"Ellie," he says her name and the sound sends another pleasantly warm tingle down her spine. He strokes her arm and his fingers leave sparks in their wake, threatening to light her nerves on fire. "Ellie, I've been jealous of every bloke that you've smiled at for the last four months, maybe longer."

"How much longer?" Ellie stammers as he steps toward her. She fetches up against the fridge; the only appliance that was left entirely unscathed. Alec halts, suddenly shy.

"A lot longer," he confesses. Ellie is shocked by two revelations: his and her own. Or perhaps she's more shell-shocked by how much it doesn't surprise her. She'd been so busy rebuilding her life that she hadn't even noticed that when she'd invited him back into it, they'd slowly began to build something between them. The jealousy and the fire in the kitchen were the last straws and Ellie can't ignore it any longer.

"I don't believe you," she whispers, even though all she has to do is look in his eyes and she sees it, written across his irises like a language for her alone to understand.

"You should," he says and his hand grazes her cheek. "You've got no reason to be jealous of any other woman because I'm not thinking about or even looking at anyone else." His breath is hot against her ear as he leans in to breathe. "You're the only one, Ellie."

He gives her some space and a moment for it to sink in. She hears it in his voice and sees it in his eyes and feels it in his touch. It's enough to stoke the coals within her and breathe a new life into a part of her heart that she thought had been burned to ashes. He's waiting for her and all she has to do now is strike a match.

She reaches for the knot in his tie, reeling him in until his body is flush with hers. His eyes brighten like flames roaring to life and Ellie smiles.

"Well, go on, make me believe it," Ellie dares him.

Alec Hardy kisses her. The kitchen fades away and takes all those bloody ghosts and memories with it. When she opens her eyes again, everything's changed. She cards her fingers through his hair and he cups her face between his hands and gazes at her as if she is the only one in the whole wide world.

Ellie realizes that the kitchen isn't necessarily the issue, or the house. She takes him by the hand and laces their fingers together. Leading him away from the scorch marks and the damage that the fire left behind, she feels a new kind of fire burning within her. And she thinks that maybe, just maybe, Alec Hardy can help her build a home again.

A/N: I tried to fix it up and probably made it worse. Hope you got a kick out of it anyway!