Chapter Text
⇥ Flashes of blood, viscera, flesh. Half baked babies that are more goop than fetus. Another splash of blood and the sharp flash of surgical lighting. Finally a perfectly round and normal child emerges, but the blood obscures her face and she only stays perfect for a moment – before melting in a grey sludge in gloved hands. Another attempt to remove a round pink child, a little less perfect but still functional, handed to the mother who’s got her own blood splattered across her gown and face. But at least there’s a motherly twinkle in her eye right before the scenes cycle through again – violence and miscarriages and harrowed births on repeat.
He really wishes he could shake this nightmare. It’s been fifteen years and ten months of trying to shake it, but it still crops up at odd times – like whatever blacked out state he’s currently in. Though, maybe it’s the weight of Sandbrook (the weight of Pippa Gillespie in his arms) being unresolved and being in the middle of solving Danny Latimer’s murder, another child (equally bloodless on his dead body), that’s forcing the nightmare upon him again even though he’s sure his own daughter is safe at home with her mother. Certainly the stress of the unresolved cases is making his irregular cycle turn into an even more irregular shape that’s bleeding him dry and turning his abdomen into a vice. Which would explain the lack of consciousness, if he's blacked out from the pain. And the foil of pills being shoved in his face by, he can tell with or without his hazy vision, an angry Miller who’s caught him in the act.
“Take the bloody Tylenol.” is the first bark out of her mouth, hard-pressed to force her motherly instincts onto him. Not that she needed to, not when her boys need all they can get.
But he sighs and lamely grabs the package, slowly popping the pills into his palm and taking the open water bottle she’s now handing him. He’s reclined on his office sofa, so it’s easier to just throw the pills into his cheek and trickle them down his throat with a chase of water than to sit up and take them properly. And he doesn't bother to blink away the haze to look at her properly, since the fluorescent lights are jabbing the start of a migraine into the back of his eyes and the continued pain has him twisting to curl onto his side.
“Don’t go fetal on me!” His DS hisses. “I’ve got a hot-water bottle in the microwave, it’ll only be a minute.”
Hardy grumbles but listens to her orders, flattening onto his back again and wincing at the strain of his muscles. She’s in and out like lightning, and he sighs with heavy relief when she dares to set the heated bottle on his stomach herself. This breach of intimacy he can allow because the warmth instantly starts to sink into the weary muscles and contracted organ to soften the blows.
Miller sits on the edge of his desk and crosses her arms. “You’re lucky it happened in here, or I would have been exorbitantly pissed that you collapsed on me in the field.”
“It’s just a stomach cramp,” He lies, “I thought I could just lie here for a few minutes and it’d go away but—”
“Then you blacked out from the pain.” She shakes her head disapprovingly.
He can’t be sure of the timing, but he knows for a fact that she couldn't have seen this take place from her desk so she definitely got up to pester him in his office and found him in this heap.
“You know,” She huffs, “I wouldn’t be surprised if your stomach is cramped because you never eat anything.”
They’ve only worked together for a few weeks total at this point, but it was already a point of contention with her that he hardly ever ate (at least compared to her constant need to snack or pick or have a junk meal). Though, if she was taking the bait on the lie and not making any assumptions about his condition (or not voicing them, rather) then he could live with her berating him about his lack of self care. He’s half dozing again anyway, and she’s sighing about it.
“Just get some rest, let me know when the painkillers make you feel chipper again.” Miller stands up slowly, knowing he’s never chipper. “I’ll see what I can figure out on my own at my desk until you do.”
Hardy makes something akin to a nod, even if he’s mainly just breathing deeply as the heat spreads across his belly.
“Lights? Door?” She asks politely with one hand wavering on the light switch and one on the door knob.
“Lights off, door closed.” He mutters and exhales heavily when she compiles, despite hiding his eyes in the crook of his elbow to be safe.
For the moment, his secret is still safe. He just needs to ride out this pain and get his head straight.