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.”
———