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Chapter Text

April

The whole thing starts on a lazy Sunday morning. The two Hardys are having a leisurely breakfast together, since neither of them needs to rush off to work or school. Daisy is giving Hardy a detailed account of her plans to go to the shops with some friends for the day while Hardy eats his toast and listens contentedly.

“So what’re your plans for the day then, Dad?”

He shrugs and brushes the crumbs of the last of his toast off his fingers. “Oh, I dunno. Look over some case files, I suppose.”

At this, Daisy abruptly puts down her fork. “Dad, I’m worried about you.”

“Worried? Darling, I just had a checkup last week, they said everything was fine–”

“No, not your heart,” she interrupts. “Your…” she gestures broadly towards him and trails off.

He’s mildly alarmed. “My what?”

“Ugh,” she groans dramatically. “Your social life, Dad. I know you said you didn’t want me to help you with Tinder anymore, but even if you’re not interested in dating you can’t just hide at home alone and read case files every weekend, you still need to do things and talk to people outside of work. You need a hobby! And it wouldn’t hurt to make more friends either.”

“I’ve got friends,” he feels the need to say, sensing he ought to be offended that his daughter is talking about him like he’s some kind of hermit.

She raises a skeptical eyebrow as she picks up her fork again. “Friends, plural? Apart from Ellie Miller?”

He gives her a perfunctory glare, just on principle. “Alright, fine,” he admits, rolling his eyes. “I’ve got one friend. But, darling, I don’t need more than that. I’ve got you, I’ve got Miller...wee Fred seems to like me well enough...”

“Alright, fine,” she says through a mouthful of eggs, “let’s say you don’t need more friends. That still doesn’t change the fact that in a few months you’re going to be living alone again, and when Ellie isn’t around you’re going to be bored and sad and lonely if you’ve not got things to do after work.”

Of course, his daughter is right. He hasn’t been looking forward to living by himself again, and is already anticipating an increased frequency of late nights at the office to avoid coming home to an empty house. At least he’s not living in a hotel anymore, and Daisy will be answering his phone calls.

“Darling, is this about those bloody dating apps again because I really don’t think–”

“It’s not about dating apps, I promise,” she says. “I really just think you need a hobby.”

“Dais–”

“Look, why don’t we start with brainstorming, and then maybe you could join a club or something.” She pulls out her phone and looks at him expectantly. “What do you like to do for fun?”

He blinks. “I don’t like fun,” he replies dryly, picking up his mug. “I’m not a fun person.”

She rolls her eyes with a level of pure teenage disdain that Hardy could never hope to achieve. “When you were first here in Broadchurch by yourself, what would you do when you finished with work?”

“I….” Hardy thinks back to his earliest time in Broadchurch – the lonely nights spent poring over Danny Latimer’s case or talking to Daisy’s voicemail, or sneaking off to check on Claire. Unbidden, he recalls the excruciatingly embarrassing conversation with Becca Fisher in his hotel room that he desperately tries to repress at all times. He puts down the mug, grimacing at the memory. “I liked to...read?”

Daisy raises an eyebrow at his expression, but he really does have a well-worn collection of mystery novels, so it’s not like he’s lying, really.

“Join a book club then. Ask Ellie if she’s in one. Ooh, or Chloe’s mum.”

He stares at her blankly. “You...want me to ask Beth Latimer if I can join her book club?”

She shrugs. 

“No.”

Unphased, she scrolls through something on her phone. “What about...hmm...chess?” 

He wonders if she’s found a website for this. Hobbies for grumpy single fathers dot com? “No.”

“Photography?”

He scoffs. “‘Not photographing those bloody cliffs.”

“Cycling?”

“No.”

“Ooh, fishing–oh shit, wait, sorry...not a good idea, never mind...”

He shudders and crosses his arms tightly, nauseous just at the thought of it. “No.”

Perhaps sensing that she’s lost her moment, she tucks her phone out of sight and picks up both of their empty plates. “Alright,” she says determinedly, “I’ll do a bit more research to find something that you’ll like. Yeah?”

He grunts noncommittally as he gulps down the remainder of his tea.

The next day, Hardy and Miller are having lunch in his office (or rather, Miller is having lunch and Hardy is picking at the bag of soggy chips that she’s forced upon him) when he hears his phone buzz. While Miller looks around for the source of the noise, he seizes the opportunity to chuck the chips into the bin and then pulls out his phone, holding it at arm’s length to read the message.

BIRDWATCHING??? omg Dad pls

He sighs.

No.

A week later, he comes home late from work to find Daisy watching a baking show that she insists is “extremely popular” that she “can’t believe he hasn’t heard of.” When she invites him to sit down and watch with her, he agrees with only minor grumbling. Not like he’s got anything better to do.

After about five minutes of watching panicked bakers assembling croquembouches, Daisy turns to him expectantly.

Not a detective inspector for nothing, he cuts her off before she can even begin. “No,” he says firmly. “You want to eat those damn things, you learn to bake yourself.”

She pouts.

The next day, he gets a call from Tess, ostensibly to coordinate Daisy’s next weekend with her mum. But given that the dates have already long been in Hardy’s calendar, the “coordination” takes about two minutes.

After perfunctorily confirming with him that he’s got the right weekend marked down, Tess asks curiously, “Why is Dais asking me about whether you liked golf when we were married? You haven’t taken up golfing, have you?”

Hardy groans. “God, no.”

“She also asked me whether you were really allergic to cats or just using that as an excuse to not let her have one growing up.”

“Oh, Christ,” he replies. “She’s trying to find me a hobby. Tell her if she brings a cat home my new hobby’ll be wheezing uncontrollably at all hours until she takes the bloody thing out again.”

Tess laughs. “I told her about the time we did Christmas at Aunt Cathy’s and you almost went into anaphylactic shock with her three kittens following you around everywhere.”

“Good.” 

May

It’s just around dinner time and Hardy is about to roast some vegetables when Daisy comes bounding into the room with a gleam of resolve in her eye.

“How’s dinner coming along?” she asks, leaning against the counter in a studious attempt to be casual.

He squints at her suspiciously. “‘S fine.”

“So...you like cooking, don’t you?”

“I like eating meals that aren’t deep fried and swimming in oil,” he corrects her testily as he slides the pan of broccoli into the oven, “which apparently runs counter to the philosophy of every restaurant in this godforsaken town.”

(Earlier this week he’d ordered a salad special for lunch from Broadchurch’s most recently opened cafe and received a monstrosity that somehow consisted mostly of cheese, deep-fried corn (why?), and bacon. He’d managed to extract a few leaves of lettuce from the bottom of the dish before giving it up as a bad job. Miller promptly helped herself to the bacon and spent the entire walk back to the office laughing at him.)

Daisy waves off his ire. “I get it, Dad, you only eat vegetables and bland foods that taste like cardboard, you can feel your arteries clogging by osmosis every time you walk past the chippy, blah blah blah. Speaking of vegetables, I’ve found you a new hobby.”

“Dais, I’m not taking bloody cooking classes if that’s–”

“Please,” she scoffs. “You’d never eat the food you learn at a cooking class, not like they’re teaching people how to make plain toast.”

Hardy wonders faintly if he should feel insulted at his daughter’s continual jabs at his eating habits, but really he’s just impressed by her casual contempt and utter confidence in whatever she says.

“No,” she continues, sounding incredibly pleased with herself, “you are going to start gardening!”

“What?”

“Oh, come on, it’s a good idea! Remember all those plants we had at Mum’s house?”

In fact, he does, now that she mentions it. Back before his life went to shite, he had been the primary waterer of all the family houseplants. By the time of the divorce, they had amassed a fairly respectable collection of orchids, spider plants, and a rather lovely rhododendron, among others. Unfortunately, he hadn’t really been in a position to take any with him when he’d moved out of the family home in a daze with just two suitcases of clothes and little else – he didn’t even remember to pack his toiletries, let alone multiple boxfuls of potted plants.

“Well, they’re all dead now.”

He winces. His poor rhododendron.

“Sorry,” she says blithely, not sounding particularly sorry at all, “just, you were the one who always took care of them! And without you around, Mum didn’t bother and they all shriveled up and died.”

“Oh aye, keep telling me how dead my plants are.”

“See, your plants. I think you’d like doing some proper gardening – think of all the vegetables you could grow!”

He can feel her eyes glued to him as he takes the cutting board to the sink for a wash. 

“Well?” she asks impatiently.

He takes his time rinsing off the cutting board, enjoying keeping his daughter in suspense for a few moments.

The idea of growing his own vegetables does sound appealing, though.

“Aye, might be nice,” he concedes finally, and her answering grin is bright enough to make his heart soar.

Chapter Text

June

For the last few weeks, Ellie’s noticed a bit of a change in the mood of her oft-taciturn boss. In the previous month he’d been getting a bit more broody as he’d seemed to internalize what it meant that his daughter was actually going to be leaving for uni soon. But recently, he’s had a bit more of a spring in his step. He hasn’t snapped at anyone for leaving the lid off the milk in days, and only made one single grumbling comment when Ellie dragged him along with her to fetch lunch from the chippy on Wednesday. He’s even left the office at a reasonable hour every evening this week.

Naturally, Ellie is suspicious. 

“Are you seeing someone? Romantically?” she asks him abruptly one afternoon, while they’re both in the break room preparing tea. She springs the question on him unexpectedly, hoping that this way she has a better chance of extracting an honest answer.

“What?” he replies, sounding surprised and vaguely disgusted at the very idea. “No. No, I’m not...doing the whole dating thing anymore.” His nose wrinkles derisively. “Told Daisy to delete those bloody apps from my phone.”

She narrows her eyes at him, though she’ll admit his repulsed reaction to the idea of dating seems too genuine to be that of a man hiding a secret new girlfriend. “Really.”

“Mm.” Rapidly losing interest in the conversation, he pulls the milk out of the fridge.

Perhaps another approach then. “You’ve been leaving awfully early this past week.”

At this, his hand slips and he manages to pour almost the entirety of the contents of the milk jug into his tea and onto the counter. Aha, Ellie thinks.

“I, er…I was seeing Daisy,” he says unconvincingly, when Ellie knows from Beth that Daisy’s had dinner with the Latimers at least twice this week. He busies himself with cleaning up the spill and keeps his back to her. “There’s only so much time left before she’s away for uni, you know.” 

He falters a bit at that, as though he’s just remembering the truth of his words. Then he clears his throat and picks up his mug. “Well, back to work, Miller,” he says gruffly as he brushes past her, the milk jug left forgotten on the counter.

She grins. Oh, he’s definitely hiding something.

The next week, they pass near the little blue house where Alec used to live as she’s driving them out to interview a witness.

“The fun fair’s coming back in a couple of weeks,” she says idly, smiling at the memory of trying to convince Hardy to ride the bumper cars as they walked through the fair with Fred.

“Oh aye, I know,” he responds absently, distracted by something on his phone. “Heard from Ted Robinson.”

“What?” she shoots him a disbelieving look before turning her attention back to the road. Mr. Robinson, a 67-year-old retiree, has no children or grandchildren anywhere close to Daisy’s age, and as far as Ellie is aware has never been either a suspect or a witness in a police case. So why the bloody fuck would DI Alec Hardy, who’d rather jump in the ocean than make small talk with a stranger, be having a conversation with him about the Broadchurch fun fair?

His eyes widen as he seems to realize that he’s revealed something he didn’t intend. “I do talk to people sometimes, Miller,” he tries, feigning indignation.

“Not unless they’re at a crime scene, you don’t!”

“Well, alright, he was talking to me,” he clarifies hopefully, as though this will clear everything up. 

It doesn’t.

“Where was he talking to you?” she asks, incredulous. “How do you even know him?”

Unfortunately, at this point Hardy realizes that it’s time to switch tactics, so he does what he does best and clams up, focusing intently on his phone.

“God, you didn’t join his Tuesday night bridge club, did you?”

“No,” he scowls fiercely, and then glances up at the road. “You missed the turn.”

“Shit.”

July

It’s a lovely evening, so after dinner Ellie decides to pop out for a quick stroll around the neighborhood. Her sons have no interest in joining her – Tom is glued to some sports game on his PlayStation and Fred is avidly watching him, cheering enthusiastically whenever his older brother scores a point – so she heads out alone and walks the quiet streets of Broadchurch by herself, taking some time to appreciate the serenity of it all.

Her moment of zen is interrupted as she turns a corner and almost quite literally runs into Alec Hardy. If she lets out a bit of an undignified yelp, well, no one but Hardy is around to hear it, and at any rate he appears to be just as startled as she is, if not more so.

Recovering from the surprise, she grins. “Hello, Hardy!” she says, genuinely happy to see him. She takes great pleasure in running into him around town outside of work, if only as proof that he’s a real human person who has to do grocery shopping and errands just like the rest of them.

“Ngh,” he responds, eyes casting shiftily about.

“Are you sure you’re not dating anyone?” she asks, remembering another evening run-in with him the previous year. She peers around, but the only other person nearby is old Ted Robinson, who’s holding his pruning shears and plodding down the winding little path to the Broadchurch community garden behind them.

Her eyes dart back to Hardy, who has started to slowly inch away from her. “Hang on…” she says slowly, taking in his dirt-smudged shoes and trousers.

At the same time, they both notice the garden trowel peeking out of the bag he’s carrying on his shoulder.

She beams delightedly, puzzle pieces falling together at last. “Alec Hardy, have you been gardening?”

Hardy, meanwhile, looks faintly mortified – he’s cultivated a very specific reputation for himself over the last few years, where he’s known to exclusively spend his time outside of work either taking care of his daughter or brooding dramatically on cliffs. His new hobby undercuts this image rather substantially.

“Have you got a plot here, then?” she asks eagerly. “Can I see it?” 

She starts walking down the path, but he hurriedly moves to block her.

“No. No,” he whines as she slips by him.

“Why not?”

“Oh, don’t start, Miller–”

“Look, I won’t make fun of you, I promise!”

A despairing noise escapes from him.

“Oh, please, I only want to see,” she pleads, continuing up the path determinedly. “If you don’t let me in now, you know I’ll only come back later when you’re not here.”

He lets out a dramatic groan, but nonetheless gives up his ineffectual attempts to block her path and falls into place walking beside her. “I’m not telling you which one’s mine,” he warns, as they approach the garden and walk down the little path between the different plots.

After passing by a few plots, she stops. “Could it be the one labelled ‘Hardy Horticultural Society?’” 

He swears.

The little wooden sign in question is rather adorably decorated with little hand painted fruits and vegetables, and bubble letters that in no way resemble Hardy’s slanted scribble.

“Daisy put it up,” he admits eventually, dragging a hand down his face and letting out a long-suffering sigh.

Ellie takes his further silence as an invitation to look around. The little plot looks quite well-tended, as far as she can tell, if a bit sparse compared to some of the more well-established plots. The soil looks freshly watered. He’s got some sort of peas or beans along with tomatoes growing, and a few other mysterious plants that she can’t identify. It’s all rather sweet, really, thinking of her grumpy, surly boss voluntarily taking time out of his days to come here, tenderly watering plants and harvesting tomatoes.

She turns back to him, beaming. “Hardy,” she says earnestly, “this is lovely. Really.”

He blinks and shoves his hands in his pockets as he takes in her words. “Thanks, Miller,” he says eventually, allowing himself a crooked half-smile. Then his smile morphs into a smirk. “Maybe you’ll finally start eating salads if they’re made with home-grown vegetables, aye?”

She snorts. “Not bloody likely.”

Chapter Text

September

Miller walks into Hardy’s office with a grin. “New case,” she says, waving the folder in front of him. Things have been a bit slow the last few days and they’ve both been itching for something more interesting to do. He grabs the folder out of her hand and holds the folder as far away from his face as humanly possible as he tries to read the file. 

She gives him about five seconds before snatching the file back. “Oh, just get a new pair of glasses, for God’s sake, if you’re going to keep losing them.”

He glares at her, but without his glasses he really has no recourse so he reluctantly gestures for her to share the details.

She reads out the details of a break-in on Stevens Street. “...called in by the neighbor,” she finishes, flipping the page, “Bertha Smith.”

“Oh, Smith, is it?” he replies with a scowl. “She’s a suspect, add her to the list.”

Miller double-checks the report. “She’s 86 years old!”

“She’s been stealing my green beans for weeks.”

Ellie feels Hardy hovering over her shoulder as she finishes some paperwork at her desk.

“Miller, I need a favor,” he says, shifting in place a bit.

“You alright?” She eyes him up and down, noticing that he looks a bit distressed.

“I need you to take some of my courgettes,” he responds. “I’ve got too many, I can’t eat them all myself.”

“....Oh.” Not the sort of favor she was anticipating. “Sure?”

“Great,” he responds with clear relief. “I’ll come ‘round yours tonight, then.”

She and the boys have just finished dinner that evening when she hears the knock on the door and gets up to open it. She’s greeted by the sight of her boss clutching an enormous cloth bag that looks like it holds significantly more than the three or four courgettes that she was expecting. 

He promptly sets the bag down on her doorstep with an ominously loud thump.

She peers in the bag. Oh, bloody hell. “These are massive! How many courgettes do you have?”

“They won’t stop growing!” he replies with manic desperation. “You’ve got the boys, they can eat them.”

“Not for 3 meals a day, 7 days a week! There must be bloody 10 pounds in here, you can’t give this all to me!” 

“Miller,” he pleads, “I’ve got three more bags like this, please, you’ve got to take these.”

“Just...I don’t know...go visit Daisy and bring her some!”

“I asked, last time we talked on the phone,” he admits miserably. “She just laughed at me and said ‘this is why you need more friends.’”

He looks so despairing that Ellie can’t help but take pity on him. “Oh, fine, give them to me,” she sighs, dragging the bag just inside.

His eyes light up.

“Only these,” she says warningly, not wanting to end up with any more of the surplus. “You can bring the rest to the office to share.”

“Oh, no,” he immediately shakes his head. “No, no, I don’t...no.”

“Why? It’s not a secret to the community that you’ve got a community garden plot, is it?”

“It’s just…private...” he trails off, recognizing the contradiction but clearly unhappy about it. “Ach, fine, I’ll bring them in tomorrow,” he grumbles. “You’re driving.”

“I’m not your bloody chauffeur!” she responds, but he’s already walking away.

The next morning they leave the additional bags of courgettes on the table in the break room, with a note next to them telling people to help themselves. Ellie wastes no time informing everyone that Hardy has grown them himself, and Hardy rolls his eyes and grumbles but she can tell that he’s rather pleased the next day when DC Singh tells him that she’d cooked some with dinner and they were some of the best she’d ever had.

On a late Saturday morning, Daisy stretches out across her bed and FaceTimes her dad.

“Hello, darling,” he greets her fondly on picking up the call. As usual he’s holding the phone out at an aggressively unflattering angle, but she can still make out what looks like a smudge of dirt across one of his cheeks.

“Hi Dad!” she replies. She squints at the background behind him. “Are you at the community garden?”

He smiles a bit, which for him is practically like beaming. “Aye, at the plot,” he affirms.

Daisy has been beyond thrilled to discover that her plan to find her dad a hobby worked so well. Of course, she knew he would like gardening, but she’d really thought it would require more effort to make him believe it, too. When she first came up with the idea she’d of course expected him to say no, again, and had already been brainstorming ways to start slowly sneaking in houseplants so he’d be forced to take care of them and realize that his daughter was right. 

He seems lighter somehow, like he’s not carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’d never texted much, but now he’ll send her multiple texts a week, unprompted, usually accompanied by a photo of one of his plants. He’s even started using emojis. (Last week she found herself forced to explain emoji sexting to her father after he sent her a message that was just a row of aubergines. Thank god he wasn’t growing peaches, too.) She doesn’t think she’s ever seen him quite as excited as he has been in these last few months. 

“How are the tomatoes?” she asks.

At this, he actually does beam, rather proudly. “Great,” he says. “Really great. Here, look.” He tries to turn his entire phone screen towards the plants, but the front-facing camera just ends up pointing at the dirt.

“Oh my god Dad, switch the camera!” she groans.

“Can you see them?” she hears offscreen.

“No!”

After minor fumbling and griping about “bloody technology,” and some very clear instructions from Daisy, he’s able to switch his phone to use the rear-facing camera and points it at his tomatoes.

“Aww, Dad, they look so nice!”

“Thanks, Dais,” she hears him say happily, as he moves the camera around the plot. “And look, there’s the aubergine…”

He natters on about each of his plants, giving her a detailed account of where he got each one, how the harvests have been, and even how he’s worked with his plot-neighbors to fend off some leaf-eating pests.

After the tour is finished, he almost seamlessly flips the camera back to face himself. “So, Dais–oh, hang on, sorry,” he breaks off and looks curiously at something off-camera. “Are you...” he appears to be talking to someone else, “are you putting eggshells down?” A pause. “Does that help?”

Daisy can faintly hear what sounds like someone else giving her father gardening advice, which honestly delights her more than she ever thought possible. 

“Sorry, Dais, just getting some fertilizer tips from Ted,” he says after a minute, returning his focus to the screen. “You look awfully pleased.”

Making no attempt to wipe the grin off her face, she shrugs. “Just happy to talk to you.”

He smiles wistfully. “Miss you, darling.”

She misses him, too. Still...

“At least you’ve got your plants now.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Aye,” he agrees, looking out at his plot. “I’ve got my plants.”