Broadchurch Fanfiction: I might not make it home

Longing For The Unknown

~ After a long hiatus, I have another chapter for you, as requested by cxllmejamie. I hope this chapter is as good as (or better than?) the previous chapters. I've kind of switched the focus from Alec to Ellie in this chapter. Hope you enjoy! ~

"Alec? Up already?" Ellie asked, walking into the living room.

"Couldn't sleep really." He said, he was sitting on the couch with his feet on the coffee table.

It was 7 in the morning at the Miller household, it was quiet and an air of tense emotion sat in the room. The last couple of days had been emotionally draining for both Ellie and Alec. Ellie didn't realize how big of a toll the previous events had taken on her until she was sitting wide eyed in her bed after her first nightmare in a while.

As apart of the police force, nightmares weren't at all an unfamiliar companion. There were some cases that were so horrid and gruesome she wouldn't sleep for days without a memory slithering it's way into her dreams.

Last night had been different though, it was as if she was losing someone she loved all in her nightmare. When she woke up she couldn't really remember what occurred in the nightmare, but what lingered was an intense feeling of dread and sadness, longing almost.

Ellie took a seat next to Alec, he had his head resting on the back of the couch and his eyes closed.

"I've got some sleeping medicine in there if you'd like to take it, sleep in the rest of the day?" She said.

He opened his eyes and turned to her, "I think I'm okay for now, though, I may take it tonight." 

There was a pause, before Ellie began

"Alec, do you realize you almost died?" She said.

He took a deep breath, "Yeah, Miller, I know. It's happened before." He said calmly.

"It's happened before? Surely not like this? You were technically dead for 2 minutes, your heart stopped."

"I know, Ellie." He sensed the tension in her voice and looked at her, "Are you alright?" He asked.

She didn't speak for a while, then with a dismissive tone she answered, "I'm fine." She got up and headed upstairs to wake her boys up to head to school. 

--~Broadchurch~ --

The next night, Ellie woke in a cold sweat, unlike the previous night, she remembered everything that went on in her nightmare, it was intense and made her want to forget everything that had happened.

She had been using her flashlight to look for the suspect they were after. She couldn't see very far, but she could hear the gravel beneath the suspects shoes crunching.

Suddenly, behind her a loud crash came and a giant serpent slithered out from behind a near by car. It made a hissing sound as it bared it's fangs.  As it lunged forward to stick her, Alec appeared in front of her with a gun and shot it, but that only made it angrier, and with lightning speed it used it's teeth to place two deep puncture wounds right over Alec's heart. She could still see the venom dripping from it's fangs as Alec fell lifeless to the ground.

Then she woke up.

It felt all to real, she was debating whether or not to get up and check on Alec. She told herself that he was fine and it was only a dream. The longer she sat there, the heavier the feeling of panic began to feel. It felt like she was suffocating. She flipped the covers off of her and walked quietly down to Alec's room, pushing the door open quietly, she peeked in. He wasn't there.

He's probably down stairs. She told herself to halt the panic.

As she walked down the stairs, she noticed an unmoving figure sitting on the couch again.

"Alec?" She whispered.

Nothing.

She walked to the couch to find it was Alec, but his eyes weren't open. Suddenly the panic took over, she began shaking his shoulders to wake him up.

"Alec? Please wake up. Please Wake up." She began whispering to herself.

"Ellie? What is it? What's wrong?" He sat up in alarm to find Ellie with tears in her eyes, sitting next to him.

"What's happened?" He asked.

"I thought you were dead." She began crying.

After a few seconds, Alec's chuckles could be heard from beside her.

She stopped crying and felt anger pulling itself into her mind, "Why are you laughing? You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

He stopped laughing then, "Oh nothing, I just didn't realize you cared that much about me Miller. You're always 'Don't talk just business, gotta catch the villain.'" He chuckled again.

Then he was rubbing his arm after a swift, but gently, punch to the arm.

"You can make your own coffee tomorrow." Ellie said as she got up and stalked towards the stairs.

Before she began climbing them, she said in a calm and quiet voice, "I do care about you, Alec Hardy."

And then she was gone and he was left sitting there with his thoughts.

~ Well this isn't a super long chapter, but I hope you enjoy it. I think this is the last chapter. After I publish this one, I may go back and edit the previous chapters but don't expect any new updates. I hope you guys enjoyed this little Broadchurch adventure and don't forget to check out some of my other stories! ~