Chapter Text
Alec was sitting on the floor in his very minimalistically decorated apartment… or one might rather say not at all decorated. It was just an apartment, with plain off-white walls, some furniture that seemed to be just scattered around without much thought given to it´s placement, few books here and there, open yet turned off laptop and multiple unfinished cups of cold tea sitting on the countertop. Alec was a mess, and he was painfully aware of it. God knows he tried to hide this part of himself from the outside world for as long as he could, but now… he just couldn´t. He failed. It would have all been fine, he put together a comprehensive plan on how to survive the night and it failed him. Literally speaking-he did survive but that didn´t matter much to him, his dignity didn´t and now he was sure… no, he was positive the only thing that kept him alive (while simultaneously killing him) would be taken away from him just like everything else in his life had been.
Alec didn´t dare to move. Both his body and mind were rigid, static, unmoving, it was the only way he knew to assure that no more incidents would happen. “Incidents” that´s what his parents used to call it. Oh, how he despised being like them. A memory of probably the biggest incident crept up into his mind. It was early December. Alec´s mother, Mrs. Clara Anne Hardy would be described as a lovely woman with an everlasting social battery by most of her friends. She was a primary school teacher, but she was a primary school teacher for way too long. She became a mother in her late thirties and by that time all her girlfriends were already picking up their kids from school and taking them to football practice. She felt out of place with her newborn but also incredibly happy and content. Finally feeling as if she found her purpose. However becoming a teacher the moment she finished school meant she trained her eye to pick up on trouble. And in her dictionary “trouble” stood for different. Each start of the school year she scanned her classroom looking for misfits, little geniuses and simply put “weirdos” amongst her new pupils and braced herself. The moment a child couldn´t sit still, was remarkably terrible or extraordinarily good in certain activities, wouldn´t talk or would talk too much, she knew that in 3 or less months said child´s parents would be regular visitors of her office and for all the wrong reasons. So, when she saw these quirks in her toddler, naturally, she decided to do anything to keep her boy from becoming trouble. He wasn´t like those uneducable, wilful, and stubborn little spirits in her classroom. He was good, perfect and she fancied keeping it this way.
However, on this snowy day all her tactics were failing. Alec, who at that time was barely eight, loved christmas trees. He would inspect all the decorations, look for his reflection in the round ones and for patterns in the pointy ones and he would stroke the branches and let the needles glide over his skin. He was mesmerized by any and every christmas tree he ever had the chance to see. And so, his mother decided to take him to see probably the biggest one in their town. It was in the middle of their local shopping centre. To get there they had to take a bus. Buses used to be challenging but they got over it. Alec had a strict set of rules of what to do and not do while on a bus. When he was younger, he used to cover up the noise of the engine by humming, his mother took pride in him not doing that anymore. It only took a few spankings, and all was fixed. Alec now didn´t hum, he sat quietly and motionlessly, and his mother was happy. Whether he was happy as well… that´s another story. They arrived at the mall and made their way to the promised tree. It stood big and tall, all shiny and gorgeous with a thick trunk and green needles all over. Alec was ecstatic. Although he couldn´t inspect the decorations closely because there were four poles connected by a ribbon creating a protective square around the tree, which disappointed him a little. He was happy nonetheless and so he jumped joyfully in one place a few times until his mother deemed his little jumps inappropriate. After a few minutes of appreciating the sight in front of them his mother announced that now was the time to shop. Christmas holidays were slowly creeping up on them and she barely had any gifts to give to their relatives. That was the moment all hell broke loose.
You must understand that while Alec was incredibly happy, he was also exhausted. The bus wore him out, the crowd around the tree was stressful and loud and he was ready to go home. And most importantly he was unaware that they were to go shopping up until that moment. It was all too much. He felt cranky, tired, and betrayed. Alec threw himself onto the floor. He felt his mother´s tight grasp on his arm, felt her trying to stand him up, console him and “for the love of God, stop with that screaming, stop it, stop it!” and he did not stop, couldn´t stop. Alec trashed on the floor, crying, and screaming for good fifteen minutes until he was too exhausted to do anything. There was a circle around them from which people just vanished. A boy throwing a fit while his mother screamed at him was a spectacle but only from afar. When it all stopped, Alec sat up shielding his face from the world, rubbing at his eyes, his mother kneeled beside him. It was only then he realized he had wet himself and was mortified. He knew very well that the kids in school weren´t the way he was and so he came to the conclusion there was something horribly wrong with him. He got a beating of a lifetime that day. He could still feel his father´s belt on his skin, sharp and stinging, even now, four decades later.
The bed behind him creaked quietly whenever a shiver ran through his body, or he was choked by a sob. His back was almost glued to the bedframe in fear that if he had moved, he´d be punished, ridiculed, and scolded. The set of rules was carved into his brain, he was failing, failing his mom, dad, himself, everyone. In the morning, all was good, perfect even. Well… not perfect in a way that he´d enjoy himself but in a way that nothing horrible happened so far. The whole department was getting ready for an annual christmas celebration before the holidays began and everyone, except a few chosen ones that were to stay on duty, went home to spend time with their families, celebrate, drink, and do all the festive activities that Alec never found liking for… not even the trees did it for him nowadays. There wasn´t much to do, all that was on his agenda that day was go through a few documents, sign one or two papers and that was it. No tough cases or barely any cases at all, just one theft and some complaints from locals about whatever. He was finished rather quickly and at some point Ellie even came to chit-chat for a bit or attempted to do so.
It´s not that he hated talking to people, he didn´t, but it was so much easier to pretend that he did. Sometimes even Alec himself fell for his pretend-hatred and was harsher and colder than he´d like to be. During his school years Alec realized that he was not made for it, no matter how much he tried or wanted to participate in all these little chats during lunch breaks, he´d always make some terrible mistake that his classmates deemed not only awkward, but also unforgivable. Schoolboys are cruel, you only ever have one chance to come off as cool and worth talking to and if you miss that chance, it´ll never be forgotten. It didn´t matter that no-one no longer remembered what exactly was it that Alec said or did, everyone remembered that he did it and that it was weird and awkward and strange and all the negative adjectives the youngsters could come up with. And after failing at being a worth-talking-to-person one too many times, he decided to do what his classmates did to him. If they didn´t let Alec talk to them, neither would he let himself be talked to. It´s a lot less mentally exhausting to be known as an absolute dick than a weirdo. He masked what he thought was his incompetence by calling out the incompetence of others. The bad part was that he couldn´t just snap out of it once he deemed someone to not be a threat. This wall stayed up no matter what.
Around noon a secretary knocked on his door asking whether she could put some boxes into his office, she added that it was just some junk that laid around the main room and simply “wouldn´t fit the vibe of the party”. He silently nodded and commanded himself not to wonder what on earth could be in those boxes. Because it´s not like the whole department is just going to stop working for the night, there really aren't many things that can be put away and he truly didn´t want to yell at some poor secretary that put away case files from the community desks only because she thought it inaesthetic. Someone can sort them later and at least nothing can get spilled onto them. Also, the boxes barely took up any space as they were lined and stocked along his cabinet. So why bother caring.
When he went to reheat his tea to the communal kitchen, he saw that the place started to look a lot more festive, there were garlands hanging from the ceiling, a small christmas tree on one of the cleaned-out desks, even some christmas lights on the windows. It still looked like an office, but now with a spark of joy. She did a great job, he thought. Alec expected that roughly in an hour the room would start to fill up with people, even people from different bureaus in the bulding, and he was right. Around three, people started coming out of their offices, some even brought their homemade baked goods and some beverages, the table designated for food was now cluttered with plates of biscuits, store-bought crisps, cupcakes, some cut up fruit and a platter with vegetables and multiple types of cheese, even a cake was there. He wasn´t a fan of these gatherings but it was nice to see the shared effort. He went back to his office after a short stroll around the main room to inspect how was the “party” in question looking.
Alec had two bottles of wine in one of the drawers in case a situation that required it came up. And by that situation he meant a birthday he forgot about that literally no one else managed to forget about or anything that required an apology or a thank you gift. He was prepared. He always was. Alec thought that this occasion required both bottles and so he went to put them on the table that now held over five other bottles. The moment the door to his office was slightly ajar he realised just how loud it was outside. Everyone was talking, and “everyone” at this hour was probably only half the people that would eventually come. Ellie caught him the moment he snuck out of his office with a huge grin holding a plate of christmas crinkle cookies.
“I was looking for you everywhere!” she exclaimed and lifted the plate up a little “Here, have one, Tom and I spent the whole evening baking them yesterday and it was so so worth it, you see… they have this crust but they´re also kind of soft on the inside and the this time we finally managed to make them not to sweet and just, please, have one, sir.” Ellie smiled.
Alec scanned the plate quickly and carefully picked one up whilst awkwardly holding both bottles by their necks in his left hand. “Thank you.” he said quietly and delicately took a bite trying not let way too many crumbs fall to the ground. “They´re good, really good.” He stated after swallowing the tiny piece he dared to try. “I´m going to save the rest for later.” And with that he started to turn around to go back to his office table.
“Oh… you don´t like it.” said Ellie with that disappointed but not surprised tone.
“No, no-no, it´s not that… I-I´m just not used to eating sweets too much.”
“It feels like you´re not used to eating anything too much.” she said slightly criticizingly.
“Alright, okay, I… erm” he gave up and just shoved the rest of the cookie into his mouth.
“See? Wasn´t too hard, was it? Next time at least pretend you like it.” She joked with an emphasis on the word pretend. Little did she know that was basically the only thing Alec ever did. Pretend.
“No.” he whined a little “I really liked it, I promise… tell Tom you two did a really good job.” He smiled although a bit desperately and with that he left to go put the bottles to their designated spot. Ellie was left with the plate of cookies at his door.
If there was one thing Alec liked about christmas, it was wishing people merry christmas. It was like a magical phrase. The moment someone uttered these two words both sides of the conversations knew that it´s over. The conversation is finished and all that´s left to say is to you too. It was so easy to end talks with people during December. And it even worked in groups! Once you wished said group merry christmas you were automatically not only excused, but you were expected to leave. This was his tactic for the night. He could handle an exchange of a few sentences. Talking about work or the weather or even the holidays for a while and then saying his magical words and moving on, possibly to another very short conversation. He had found the best way to spare his social battery and not come off as a dick both at once. Alec already used his tactic while leaving the table that was set with different beverages. It was a lady from the finances, roughly in her forties, red dyed hair and glasses, very bubbly… he could tell even from those initial few seconds. They´ve never met, she shook Alec´s hand, unaware who he was, announced her name and waited for his. She… well, Laura then asked how he had liked the party and they chatted for a while. Very short while. Alec then wished her merry christmas and everything was great. He even made her laugh at one point.
After chatting to more than ten people and coming up to Ellie whenever he had a chance, because it was easier to talk to her and he could at least rest a little and less rude than leaning onto a wall not even trying to socialize, he started to feel a little worn out. It didn´t help that after chatting with Miller for the fifth time, he started to wonder whether he was annoying. Did she even want to talk? Did it seem creepy that he kept coming back to her while they were in a crowd of more than sixty people? There were plenty of people to talk to, weren´t there? He had to stop, she wasn´t here to support him through this social nightmare, she was here to have fun. Because she could, she knew how to and she was good at it. He had to let her be. Alec didn´t notice that Ellie had registered the frequency of their chats lessened. She began to look for him in the crowd from time to time, just to make sure that he was still there.
Someone clinked a wine glass with a fork. It was some guy, an important guy presumably. He had a little speech about all the hard work they´ve all put into making this town a better place and all that corporate bullshit that always has to be said on every office gathering ever. To end his monologue, he took a bottle of champagne and opened it with a bang while everybody cheered. Alec´s hands flew to his ears. He had already endured hours of constant chatter and clinking glasses and chewing and flickering lights and it was too much of everything for too long. Of course, he´d react that way. Of course, he´d react. The moment he did it, the world stopped spinning. Fuckfuckfuckfuck he did not just do that. Just as quickly as his hands landed on his ears, they landed back by his sides. Everything was blurry and he was about to make a run for his office when someone touched his shoulder. He quickly turned to see who it was, ready to recoil and leave them be with some snarky comment while he fled the scene.
It was Ellie.
And with quite a worried look on her face. She saw it. She was not meant to see that part of him, no one was. He wasn´t whatever his mother thought he was. He was unphased, emotionally disconnected from the world, untouchable. That´s what he was. That´s what he made himself to be. And now he felt this whole façade crumbling over one stupid gesture. It felt like his old self seeped through the sturdy tall walls that took years to build. He heard his dad´s shouting, his mother´s remarks and all of his classmates´ giggles. God, Ellie saw. Ellie knew. He did his very best to not start running but also get to his office as quickly as possible, which resulted in an awkward speedwalk. He speedily grabbed the doorhandle and made himself disappear behind the door.
It was quieter, not quiet, however. Alec made his way to the cabinet, grabbing the knob and opening one side when suddenly hundreds of papers spilled over his feet. He knocked over one of the boxes that he managed to forget about in his fervor. Of course, it were case files, and now they were everywhere. He just wanted his headphones from the cabinet, he´d put on music, would ignore the world for few minutes and then he´d come back recharged and ready to be a worth-talking-to-person again. But now that was impossible. He kneeled in the pile of papers and curled into himself, forehead on the floor, legs nestled under him and hands shielding his head as if he were expecting a dog to attack him. That´s the position they taught them in academy, although the only thing attacking him right now was his mind, or rather betraying him. He thought he got this, he came up prepared and with a plan. How come it failed? His hands curled into fists, and he hit, once, twice…
“What are you doing?” Ellie almost shouted. She ran to crouch beside him. Why was it all getting worse? Sure, she saw him the first time he did something stupid, but why did she have to see this as well? He could have happily had a fit on his office´s floor surrounded by shit ton of papers, that he´d would sort through and put back in the box once he was done behaving like a child and everything would be fine. He´d then tell Ellie he´d been having a migraine, and the noises had been just too much at that moment and he´d have gone home. The perfect ending. But the universe hated him, Alec thought. She couldn´t see him like that. He had to get up and so he did. It was only then that he realised there was snot running down his top lip and tears staining his cheeks. “Oh… you poor thing, what´s going on?” asked Ellie. And that´s when he properly lost it.
There was a war in his head. On one side he just couldn´t cope anymore, ran out of strategies and was at a loss. On the other side he knew he must have looked ridiculous; he hated the idea of Ellie seeing him and then him having to explain what on earth is wrong with his head to behave like that. Whatever he did only made that war worse and so he fell apart. Alec sort of threw himself back headfirst to the floor only to hit his forehead on the carpet which he immediately realised made him forget about the battle going on in his brain. So, he did it a couple more times, each time with more strength. Ellie´s words weren´t being received, whatever she said didn´t seem to reach Alec. She couldn´t let him hurt himself, sure, the floor was carpeted, but it must have still been painful. So, she slid a hand under his forehead and lead him up into a sitting position, although a little forcefully, but she deemed it necessary. He was crying, not even sobbing but gasping for air and he reacted to nothing. When she was picking him up, he seemed ready to fight back but now he just leaned on her lifelessly like a doll. It lasted a few minutes. Ellie stayed quiet but held Alec as tightly as she could. He was calming down and she was afraid that if she loosened her grip, he´d fall back into that deep dark pit that those last fifteen minutes were.
“I´m sorry” Alec barely got out, but Ellie heard.
“For what?” Ellie tried to look at his face, but he curled up more. There was no answer. It was silence for a while and then Alec started shaking, crying quietly. This was different. This felt like an aftermath of whatever the first thing was. He felt more responsive in her arms and so Ellie decided on talking him out of it rather than just waiting.
“You have nothing to apologize for. You´re alright. You don´t need to be sorry” and so it went on and on until Alec straightened himself and Ellie had to let go of him.
“Want to tell me what happened?” she asked.
“No.”
“Okay, do you want a lift home?” there was no answer, Alec kept staring at the floor and so Ellie stood up. Panic ran through Alec as he thought Miller was on her way out of his office ready to tell everyone that their DI just had a breakdown mere meters from them. But she didn´t leave. A box of tissues appeared in front of him, Ellie put them on the floor and sat back in her previous spot. He grabbed a handful and cleaned his face the best he could.
“I´m sorry.” He whispered again.
“I´m giving you a ride home, clean yourself up, I´ll handle the files.” She grabbed one of the folders and started putting the scattered papers inside. Alec just hoped he didn´t ruin any. He felt so terrible, his brain shut off, he was only capable of complying. While Ellie tidied up the papers and returned them to the box, Alec sat in his office chair digesting what he´d done. After a few minutes Ellie lead him out of the door, no one paid them any attention while they walked through the bureau, lot of people were drunk at this point.
“Do you want me to turn on the radio?” Ellie asked once they were both sat in her car. Alec´s hands were twisting in his lap, and he was rocking slightly, it would have gone unnoticed by anyone else, but not by Ellie. He shook his head, that was enough. She was just happy he was responsive and somewhat aware of his surroundings.
“I saw you flinch… when… when the champagne popped.” Ellie started the car and carefully drove out of her parking spot. “I knew something was up when you stopped showing up. I was so worried. And you were doing this… this thing with your hands… I mean, you´re doing it now too…” Alec´s hands went static.
“No, oh god, no, don´t stop it… I can see it helps you… I´m not judging you or anything. I just… I talk when I don´t know what to do, you know that. And now I really don´t. I don´t know how to help but I want to.” Ellie cried out and kept glancing at Alec while simultaneously trying to safely drive them to Alec´s house.
“It didn´t happen for years.” Alec suddenly announced still in his choked quiet voice.
“Did it use to happen?” Ellie asked carefully. She was used to Hardy being quite reluctant when it came to questions. But normal rules did not apply today she concluded. Nothing about today was normal. Ellie caught Alec nodding slightly.
“Do you know why?” she continued to ask.
“Yea- no. No.” he answered quickly. The second no finally coming out in his regular voice. His eyes never left his knees. He wasn´t as erratic anymore but kept staring into one spot.
“Okay” was the last word said during their drive. Ellie decided it was enough talking, no more questions needed to be asked even though she had about a million floating around in her head. They arrived at the house. Alec wasn´t sure if Ellie planned on entering or just dropping him off, he wouldn´t stop her no matter the course of action she´d take. She did come in with him, Alec was relieved almost?
“I´m going to make you a cup of tea… You do whatever you need to… you know.” Ellie instructed as she entered the kitchen looking for a kettle. Meanwhile Alec sat on the sofa and removed his tie. The suit, contrary to popular belief, didn´t feel uncomfortable… at least not for him. His tie on the other hand sometimes overwhelmed him, there were moments where it felt as if he were to choke if he didn´t remove it, but he never did. He allowed himself to do so now. He also took off his suit jacket. When he was done removing everything necessary, his hands folded themselves in his lap and he stayed still waiting for Ellie to come.
“Here´s your tea.” She set the two cups on a little table near the sofa.
“Want to tell me what happened?” Ellie dared to ask, she smiled supportively at Alec. There was no answer so she didn´t push.
After a while Alec took a deep breath and whispered, “I don´t know how to be.”
“What do you mean?” Ellie turned to face Alec and grabbed her cup from the table. The tea was still very hot, but she needed something to hold onto.
“I don´t know how to be now… Like… Like this. I thought that it was gone. I tried. I really tried to be different, but I am not. I am still the same person and now I don´t know how to be.” That was a lot of words. Ellie expected either silence or barely a sentence, instead she received a whole confession that was interrupted by occasional sobs. “I would stop myself from being… This.” He gestured to himself and continued “I´d do everything just to keep it down, hidden. But I… I failed. And now I don´t know how-how to be.” Ellie stayed quiet, she wanted him to talk, to open up. “I didn´t do… that thing… for years. They´re going to take my badge and… and my firearm licence… God… You-You can´t tell them.”
“What would I even tell them? And why?” she felt a little insulted Alec thought she´d be capable of sharing something so vulnerable with the department. “I am… I´m not going to tell anyone anything, I promise. You need to rest… Please, I want you to stop overthinking what had happened and just rest.”
“Okay” Alec gave in.
"Let´s get you into something more comfortable. Pyjamas maybe? -do you even wear pyjamas?” Ellie realized she had never seen Hardy wearing anything else but his work attire which consisted of a white shirt, navy blue suit and sometimes a coat.
“I do.” Alec answered missing that sprinkle of irony in Ellie´s question.
“Okay, show me where´s your dresser then… or can you do it yourself?” Alec shook his head and stood up; Ellie followed him to his bedroom. He pointed to a drawer and stood by twisting his hands. Ellie dived in for some sweatpants and a t-shirt.
“Alright, you change. I´ll be on the sofa if you need me.” She handed him the clothes and closed the door behind her, leaving Alec to some privacy.
Alec appeared in the doorframe after a few minutes. He was wearing a striped t-shirt that looked comically large on his thin frame and black sweatpants that have seen better days. He joined Ellie on the sofa. She was sipping her tea and handed him his. Ellie spent two hours at his house, after they finished their teas, she forced Alec under a blanket and not long after he´d fallen asleep. Then she waited about thirty minutes to make sure he isn´t planning on waking up on going back to his previous state and afterwards she left, praying her boss will be okay. What a strange night.
Alec got woken up by a headache. It was dark and he was painfully confused. Slowly the memories started to resurface and so did the emotions. He was embarrassed, sad, angry, scared all at once. He got up, deciding to head to bed because he didn´t want to spend the whole night on the sofa, before entering his bedroom he headed to the toilet. He saw himself in the mirror while washing his hands. There were dark circles under his eyes that were red and swollen and his lips were bitten till bloody. It all came back. Every sensation he felt the moment he fled the party to hide in his office was back. He heard his dad again, his mom and classmates too. This time he decided not to fail them, not to fail himself. His whole body shook and so he was taking only very little unstable steps to get to his bed. The weight of it all however got the best of him, and he collapsed right in front of his bed. This time it didn´t have to do anything with his faulty heart, this was his mind playing tricks on him. He sat up, leaning onto the bedframe and tried to survive the night.