Chapter Text
It took a single phone call to flip Alec Hardy’s life on its head.
Being a detective, Alec should’ve known how detrimental a single phone call can be and how it can change someone’s life for better or worse. After living in Broadchurch for over four years, he was biased when he said it was the latter. There was always something odd going on in Broadchurch, despite its reputation as a quaint little beach town. From the murder of Danny Latimer all those years ago to the small-town gossip that was spread across town before the clock could strike noon, the citizens of Broadchurch never seemed to catch a break from it all.
Alec Hardy was no exception, his reputation as the “Worst Cop in Britain” preceding him even after moving from Sandbrook. Even after he had solved the Sandbrook case, putting the murderers in jail and putting his broken heart to rest, people still kept an eye on the man, unsure of what to make of him. Once the worst cop, always the worst cop, he supposed, but the weary eyes of people were the least of his concerns.
For a few months, Alec’s life seemed to slow down. Cases became fewer and farther in between, and the ones that Alec took on were never too serious; not like the ones he had worked the first few years residing in Broadchurch. The biggest case he had worked on as of late had been a home invasion that was solved in three weeks flat; their lead suspect had confessed as soon as he was brought into custody after the guilt had eaten away at him for too long.
As much as Alec hated to say it, work had become boring . He could almost say he missed the constant adrenaline rush.
The day he got the call was the same as every other one the past week: Excruciatingly long. His day had been chock-full of random paperwork and scrolling through the same emails for the hundredth time. The only “break” he got was setting his monotonous scrolling aside to listen to his partner, DS Ellie Miller, go on about the town gossip over fish and chips (though he was never that interested, it gave him an excuse to take his eyes off of his computer, even if it was for a measly fifteen minutes).
When 6 P.M. finally rolled around, Alec had his stuff together ten minutes prior, ready to clock out and book it back to his small town home near the beach. He watched closely as the second hand on the clock steadily ticked closer and closer to the bold eight on the side of the clock. Distantly, he noted that his daughter, Daisy, would’ve been home by now. He tapped his heel against the tile floor of his office as he tried to recall what food they had left in their pantry; he figured it wouldn't hurt to stop by the market to pick up something for dinner, though.
Just as Alec reached into his coat pocket for his phone to make a quick call to Daisy, his office phone let out a shrill ringing sound. The office phone always hurt his ears, so he made quick work of snatching the phone up and pressing the handset to his ear.
“Wessex Police, DI Hardy speaking,” Alec grumbled into the phone. When he glanced towards the clock, it was now ten seconds past eight, which bothered him; he wasn’t meant to be taking work calls after hours.
“Alec?” A woman’s meek voice from the other end of the line asked.
Upon hearing his first name, Alec could feel his heart skip. An uncomfortable feeling grew in the pit of his stomach, a knot forming in his throat. It was rare for anyone to address him by his first name. He was always called DI Hardy for some other variant. Even Ellie , the woman Alec had grown so close with the past four years, never called him Alec. Hearing it now, from a strange voice on the phone, in a building mostly deserted by now, was eerie.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, he continued, “Speaking. What is it?”
He hadn’t meant to sound so blunt, but the tone of voice was second nature.
There was a brief pause in the conversation where Alec listened as the woman shakily inhaled, sounding as if she had been crying not even minutes before picking up the phone. The sound made Alec uneasy.
“It’s Rachel Lancaster. Do you remember me?” The woman’s voice remained soft as she spoke as if she were whispering into the speaker, “I won’t be hurt if you don’t.”
Alec paused, the gears in his head turning as he attempted to recall the name. Remembering names became difficult after working in the detective field for so long, but Alec was sure he’d never met a woman named Rachel. He might have said hello to one in passing, possibly even waved, but he was unsure.
After the silence lingered for longer than what was comfortable, Rachel spoke up again.
“We met at that party in Edinburgh way back. I was drunk off my arse and ran into you, do you remember?” Rachel repeats the question, hoping to jog Alec’s memory.
As luck would have it, the memories of that night come flooding back, nearly giving Alec whiplash as the memories play back in his mind.
Distantly, Alec remembers how he never wanted to be at that party in the first place; if his best mate hadn’t been the one hosting the party, Alec was sure he would’ve never gone. But suddenly, there he was, holding a halfway-full red solo cup, the condensation sticking to his palm.
The music was blaring in his ears, and Alec remembered how baffled he was to find out people enjoyed the ear-splitting music. Anxiously, he watched from a far wall as the crowd danced to the music. Could it even be considered dancing? The bodies in the crowd were bumping into one another, most of them off-beat from the music after having one too many drinks. Alec curled his lip in disgust at the crowd.
The room had steadily grown far too hot for Alec’s liking; the crowd of people swaying to the music had made the room sweltering , and he silently wondered if the people in the crowd were breaking a sweat. That was the worst thing that could have popped into his head, his stomach twisting violently at the thought of a sweaty crowd with sweaty bodies bumping into one another.
Alec rushed to leave the room, his free arm pinned to his side as he attempted to avoid the disgusting crowd of young adults he made a beeline for the kitchen, which had way fewer people than the living room had. Just as he turned the corner, a woman, whose face was a bit blurry in his recollection of that night, ran straight into him. The plastic solo cup that Alec had been holding in front of his stomach was crushed between the weight of the two bodies, the liquid inside spilling over and splashing not only on the front of Alec’s jumper but the front of the woman’s dress.
“Oh, shit, I’m so sorry!” The woman, who he now recounts as Rachel Lancaster, apologized quickly, her eyes watching as the now crushed cup fell to the floor with a soft clatter that could barely be heard over the music.
Alec raised his hands in the air, his eyes instead going to the front of his sweater, which was now drenched in watered-down alcohol. The sweatshirt clung uncomfortably to his skin now, and Alec gritted his teeth out of annoyance. Grabbing the front of his wet sweater, he pried the fabric from his skin.
“Here, I saw the bathroom earlier, let me help clean you up,” Rachel insisted, but Alec decided that he had enough of her, and walked away to find the bathroom himself. It was his best mate’s house, after all, he had been to the home plenty of times to know it like the back of his hand.
However, it seemed Rachel wouldn’t let him off that easy, since she was practically stepping on Alec’s heels as he made his way back through the disgusting crowd and up the stairs.
“Just let me help! It’s the least I can do.” If one thing was for certain, Rachel knew how to stand her ground.
When they two made it to the bathroom, Alec stood just outside the open door, his back turned to Rachel. He squeezed his eyes shut as he threw his head to the ceiling, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose between his fingers. Reluctantly, he turned around, looking down at the woman standing in front of him. He noticed now that she must’ve been at least half a foot shorter than him, if not more.
“If I let you help me, will you leave me alone?” Alec sighed.
This seemed to put a smile on Rachel’s face, and she visibly brightened. “Absolutely,” she said with a wink that Alec wasn’t sure what to make of.
From there, the rest had been a blur. Though Alec couldn’t remember what exactly happened after he and Rachel entered the bathroom, he had a good idea if his memory served him correctly. It was hard to mistake desperate hands clawing the clothes off of one another and frenzied kisses for anything else.
“Alec?” Rachel’s voice cut through the memory, bringing Alec back to the present.
“How did you get this number?” Alec suddenly asked.
The sudden shift left Rachel rigid, her hands shaking as she took a deep breath. This call was a long time coming. She knew that and had prepared herself time and time again for this exact conversation, but some things were easier said than done.
“The station’s number isn’t exactly private,” Rachel tries to joke, though Alec doesn’t find it all that amusing; his silence is proof of that.
“I wouldn’t have called if I wasn’t desperate. We haven’t seen each other in nearly twenty years, do you honestly think I’d call just to chit-chat?” She asks, scrubbing a hand across her face. Rachel had grown increasingly annoyed with Alec as the conversation went on.
After that night at the party, Rachel never tried to call Alec for a reason . Though, under the circumstances, she felt she had no choice. No matter how long she tried to stave off the conversation, (and she had done a decent job of doing so over the years) the topic managed to come back up. She decided that she might as well bite the bullet and take the damn phone call before someone took measures into his own hands.
“What’s so important then? I don’t have all night,” Alec runs a hand through his hair, the now-dried gel breaking under his fingers.
“Your son wants to meet you.”
That sentence alone was enough to knock the wind out of Alec.
Son. The word didn’t sound real as it left Rachel’s mouth.
“My what?” Alec couldn’t bring himself to say the word, the thought alone leaving a horrible taste on his tongue.
“Your son ,” Rachel repeated, her voice breaking, “He’s been asking about you. He won’t stop asking about you, I didn’t know what to do other than call you-”
Alec cuts her off quickly, refusing to entertain the conversation any longer, “You have the wrong number.” He feels his heartbeat restlessly in his chest; if he didn’t know better, he could’ve sworn he was panicking.
“Just listen to me, please,” Rachel begs, a sob knotting in the back of her throat, “ He’s just gotten out of the hospital- the doctors told us he’s bipolar. He’s sick, Alec!”
Alec shifts his weight on his chair as he listens, Rachel’s voice shaking with every word. He’s never been good with emotions; hell, he’s not good with his , let alone someone else’s, so he sits in relative silence as he listens.
“All he does these days is ask about you. I didn’t even want to call you, but he’s nearly nineteen now, I couldn’t keep it a secret from him forever. I think it’ll do him good to meet you; maybe if he did he’d stop acting so…” Rachel trails off, her voice quiet.
The silence is deafening. Alec opens his mouth to try and say something, but his voice dies in his throat. What is he meant to say in a situation like this? Part of him wants to believe he’s dreaming, that his alarm will ring any second now and this nightmare will be over. None of this feels real.
“What’s his name?”
That was all Alec could manage; he at least ought to know his son’s name.
“Campbell,” Rachel sighs, resting her head against the bedroom wall.
“ Campbell, ” Alec doesn’t realize he repeats it aloud until he hears Rachel’s gentle laugh from the other end of the line.
“Yeah, I always was a fan of that Campbell Scott,” Rachel wipes a tear threatening to spill onto her dress sleeve.
Alec almost cracks a smile at that. Almost . If his heart wasn’t trying to beat out of his chest, he could have even laughed, too, but he finds it hard to while being told information that’s turning his life upside down. The pit in his stomach grows as he watches the clock. Campbell, his son , was nineteen; an adult now, and he’d never met his father.
Alec feels nauseous as his mind lingers on the fact for too long. Rachel finally breaks the silence, feeling uncomfortable.
“Will you meet him?”
The question sounds too loud as it echoes in Alec’s head. He liked to think that his life as of now was nothing short of perfect; Alec lived with his daughter, he had his pacemaker surgically placed at least three years ago now at this point, and he had one of the best friends he could’ve ever asked for. His life now was everything a younger version of him would have only ever dreamed of, so was he willing to risk it all to meet a boy he never knew existed till now? Was it worth it? What would Daisy think of Campbell? Would the two get along?
The plethora of questions left Alec’s head spinning. His fingers dug into the padding of his office chair to steady himself.
Despite all the negatives that plagued Alec, he felt a twinge of guilt tug at his heart; Campbell, his son (he wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to hearing the word, let alone saying it), had been asking about him, wanted to meet him. Alec couldn’t let Campbell go on about life without ever meeting his true father, could he?
“I’ll do it.”
Though Alec couldn't see it, Rachel visibly brightened at his words, "You would?" She asks, sounding unsure.
Alec swallowed every uncertainty about the situation and nodded, "Aye. It'd be pretty awful of me to say no now."
He listened closely as Rachel sighed a breath of relief, her body slumping in on itself. A weak, shaky smile spread across her face, squeezing her eyes shut as tears threatened to spill down her pale cheeks.
"Thank you," She whispered, "God, thank you. " She raised her head to the sky as she spoke, as if she were talking to God himself.
Alec couldn’t bring himself to say anything else, too overwhelmed by the sudden rush of reality smacking him like a brick to the face. He all but slammed the phone back onto the receiver before slumping back into his chair, the back rocking under his weight. His fingers scratched nervously at the arm of the chair as he resisted the urge to run his fingers through his hair again (a nervous habit he picked up during the Sandbrook case that never quite went away).
He stared blankly into the dimly lit office of the Wessex Police department. He tries not to scream, but he slaps a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound anyway.