When the Storm Breaks

By Hazelmist

A/N: I started this story in September 2013 after watching the first season and falling in love with Alec Hardy and Ellie Miller along with the rest of the Broadchurch universe. It began because I wasn't ready to say goodbye to them. At the time I had no idea that it had been renewed for a second season with the full cast or that there was a book. This story IGNORES Season 2 and is AU after the Season 1 Finale. The details of Sandbrook and characters such as Tess and Daisy hadn't been revealed, so I took the liberty of creating and naming my own versions of them.

For SEA, because life is too short and you were fabulous. 3

Chapter One: It Started with a Storm

The storm started just hours before their first encounter, but it had been brewing in Broadchurch for months.

Ellie Miller loathed Alec Hardy even before she met him on the beach on that fateful day. He took her fucking job. Of course, she hated him. And Alec Hardy wasn't exactly charmed by her either. He wanted peace, quiet, and to be left alone. Instead he was interrogated, harassed, and smothered by this rural D.S. who was so adamant about protecting the innocence of her small town that she might have ruined his entire investigation.

They were so different that it was amazing they got anything done together that first week. She struck him as far too warm, naïve and stubborn, and he was so cold, bitter, and aloof. He infuriated her. She annoyed him. But they were driven by the same desperate need to solve the murder and catch the bloody bastard that had killed Danny Latimer. She'd known and cared for the boy, and he needed to clear his conscious with this case before his time ran out. Somehow, united by their mutual desire to get justice at whatever cost, she learned to bite her tongue and open her eyes to the darker truths of humanity, and he began to listen to her and share the burdens he carried with her. Gradually, their hostility towards one another evolved into tolerance, respect, and even a fragile trust.

Fifty-nine days later the hurricane that had ripped through that sleepy town finally claimed its last victim, as the exhausted killer was beaten down by his own conscious and confessed to Alec everything he needed to hear.

The case was closed and Alec finally had closure. His heart should have been able to rest easy now that his penance was done. He'd lost his job and he'd almost sacrificed his life in the process, but at least it was over. The moment he'd seen Danny's body on the beach, he'd known he would have given everything he had left just to bring this case to its horrific conclusion. But he'd never expected that it would hurt this much or that he had anything else left to lose.

Breaking the news to Ellie nearly killed him. She'd worked so hard and had done so well, and yet all along the cold-blooded murderer had been sleeping in the same bed as her. While Hardy had foreseen his own tragic demise, Ellie had not and had never had any reason to suspect it. In a matter minutes, her husband was exposed and severed from her forever. Her heart was broken, her family was destroyed, and the entire town that had known and loved her, the whole damn community that she had once fought so hard to protect from him and the very killer that had slept under her own roof, had turned its back on her forever. Her whole world had been shattered with three revealing words.

"It was Joe."

She'd cracked right there in the interrogation room and Alec knew that nothing he or anyone else did or said would ever be able to put her back together again. That was what destroyed him.

Danny Latimer's murder had threatened to demolish the community of Broadchurch, but from a distance Alec watched the town coming together on the beach to heal in the aftermath. They held hands and grieved side by side, lighting fires and remembering the life of one of their own. And Alec knew that though they were hurting now, Broadchurch would survive this and continue to go on, perhaps stronger and closer than ever. He hated them a little bit for it, because she would never be a part of it.

The storm broke, and Alec was left adrift in its aftermath, an outsider once more. And this time Ellie was there with him; ostracized, devastated and so very alone. He knew she couldn't look back, because it hurt too much. And he couldn't look at her directly, because he recognized the storm simmering in her eyes. The anger at her husband's betrayal seethed inside her and he couldn't bear to see it, because one day it would be gone, and she would only find herself to blame. And he would hate to see her so empty, so alone, and so much like himself.

She'd told him she would move on, give the boys a fresh start, and he knew she would try her hardest for their sake. He realized now that he'd underestimated her when they first met; she could handle a lot more than he'd ever expected. He thought that if anyone could move past this tragedy, it would be Ellie.

But when he turned to look at her again, she was twisted around and gazing at everything she'd just said she was leaving behind.

"We can never go back to the way things were," she whispered disbelievingly and her voice cracked. She brought her hand to her mouth, but she couldn't hold the sobs back any longer.

She was miles away from him now, wrapped up in her own private hell that she would live in long after Danny Latimer's story was buried. She didn't seem to be aware that he was still sitting on the bench beside her. He should have left her alone to grieve, but he stayed.

She probably hated him, and maybe she should. He shifted closer to her on the bench. She flinched when his shoulder brushed hers. He reached for her anyway. She lashed out at him, and called him some nasty names. He thought that this might be the last time they ever saw each other, and that maybe she really did blame him for everything. But then she collapsed against him and dragged him down with her into that dark spiralling storm, and he knew that she wasn't yelling at him. He was the only thing she had left to hang onto.

Now, he felt how much she was hurting because she was hurting him. He could feel her nails snagging on his coat and tearing at the seams as she clung to him. Her tears were so hot that they seared his skin, soaking through the fabric of his shirt. Each and every sob ripped through him like the storm that had torn through Broadchurch. He realized that Ellie Miller was not just something that had washed up like a piece of driftwood in the wake of the storm. She was still trapped in the centre of that hurricane. And now so was he.

He held her closer and they tried to ride out the squall together.

He didn't know when she'd finally cried herself out and fallen asleep on his shoulder. But his face was wet and salty with tears that may or may not have been his own. Exhausted, he leaned back on the bench, noticing for the first time that the skies were clear. Shivering, he huddled closer to her warmth, before closing his eyes and shutting out the constellations above.

He opened his eyes again to the brightness of a new day dawning in the aftermath of a storm. He could hear the distant roar of the waves from here. The sea was calmer today, and though the fires had burned out hours ago, the smell of smoke lingered in the air. Danny's death would always linger here even if they had managed to lay the case to rest.

"Tell me it was all a bad dream."

More than anything he wanted to tell the broken woman curled against his side that it had been nothing more than a nightmare. But it was the one thing he would never be able to do for her.

"I'm sorry," he apologized.

Her face fell as that last spark of hope burned out, and he was reminded again of what he'd never thought he had left to lose. He reassured himself that though the storm was far from over for her, she didn't have to weather it alone. He would make sure of that.

"Come on," he said, nudging her. He got up from the bench and held out a hand to her. She took it automatically, allowing him to pull her to her feet.

She was drawn back one last time and they drank in the sight of the slumbering coastal town together.

"I don't know where to go from here," she admitted helplessly.

"I don't think any of us do," he agreed, but it was a lie. When she left, he knew he'd follow her. Because he'd already decided that he was going with her, wherever she chose to go, until he was certain that the storm was truly over and Ellie would be okay.

A/N: Sorry, I'm slowly making some minor edits, but I am a stubborn American and mainly rely on myself (and the fact that it's a slight AU lol) for the Brit-picking and general editing. Suggestions and Constructive Criticism are ALWAYS welcome.