Chapter Text
Alec came home amidst a windstorm and driving rain, arriving in the foyer half-soaked and dripping water on the old oak floors. He had either managed to bypass or dismiss the various servants who should have met him on the way, and from where Grant watched in a distant doorway, he was both dismayed and horrified to see how ill and gaunt he looked.
He had kept up with the various news rags and watched the occasional press releases that had cropped up during the Broadchurch case, but the cameras and videos never accurately showed varying health or illness. Looking at Alec’s scarecrow thinness and grey pallor was a kick in the stomach even if he knew that the pacemaker surgery had been successful.
‘I’ll come to the hospital, son, to bring ye home to recuperate–’
‘Don’t you dare, Dad. The last thing we need is the head of the Wallace family showing up with the bloody press in tow and let them connect the dots.’
That particular conversation had taken place only a week before the surgery– a necessary one seeing as Alec was the eldest son and therefore heir to Grant’s prestige and position. Otherwise Grant was sure that Alec would have gladly left him in the dark completely about his illness and allowed his obituary be the thing that told Grant of his death.
It had been over a year since he’d heard Alec’s voice, even longer to see him in person, and he had been loathe to end the phone call. ‘I dinna want to leave ye alone withou’ company, Alec.’
‘I’ll be fine, Dad, I’ll have Miller there. Stop fussing.’
Well, Grant had never met this so-called Ellie Miller– the only thing he cared to know about her was the fact that she was the wife of a child-killer, a detective who was apparently so terrible at her job she couldn’t even figure that out herself. Really, it was a good thing that she had transferred to Devon and Alec had been medicalled out of the force; otherwise he would have had to intervene. His son would not work with someone like that. ‘I dinna think she would be the best help for yer recovery–’
‘Bloody hell, fine. I’ll come up for a month or so if that’ll make you happy, but I’ve got some things I need to finish up here first. Is that satisfactory enough for you?”
‘I’m ecstatic,’ Grant had said dryly to Alec’s disdain, wondering again how his eldest son had become such a loose cannon. He had received a single text the day of the scheduled operation that said ‘Survived’ and nothing else, and now a week had gone by.
Ah, there was Ewan to take the bag Alec carried with him. Grant could see the strain such weight was wearing on the sutures, but even as he watched his son irritably gestured the servant away; knowing all too well when he was playing with fire, Ewan respectfully nodded and left with hurried composure.
“Will ye never let the servants do their jobs, Alec?” he asked as he walked into view. “I pay them to do the menial tasks, after all.”
If Alec was surprised to see him so suddenly, his smooth expression didn’t show it. “I’d rather not put up with the mollycoddling if it’s all the same to you, Dad.” He paused, frowning when he caught Grant’s stare. “What?”
The suit was bedraggled and of much lesser quality he could afford, and ill-fitting to boot. But more than the fact of Alec’s unkempt appearance, it was the dark carpet of thick beard that was most startling, a look that merely heightened his resemblance to Grant himself.
It still did very little to conceal the sickly pallor and sunken cheeks and eye sockets, all signs of a sudden yet serious illness.
Grant shook himself free of his horror and shook his head. “The scruff is new, that’s all.”
Alec scowled like he’d been told off. “Don’t have time to shave it.”
It wouldn’t do to start an argument so soon– knowing his son, Alec would turn and walk out into the rain and back into the car if one started up now. Swallowing his automatic response, Grant sighed and took the bag himself.
“Dad–”
Grant shut him up with a look, one of the last semi-effective tools he had when faced with Alec’s stubbornness. “I’ll hear naught about it now, son. It wilna do to irritate those sutures, so for now I’ll carry things for ye.” Turning on his heel to effectively miss the glare Alec was undoubtedly giving him, he waited until he heard his son’s footsteps following him before he spoke again. “What was so important, then, that ye had to stay in Dorset for?”
It took almost forty steps before he heard a response; when he did, it was soft and almost too hard to hear. “Solved Sandbrook.”
Grant felt like he had missed a step, both physically and mentally; the last he had heard of Sandbrook was its collapse in court, and Alec’s claiming of the blame. He’d assumed that the case would be left unsolved, and had actually tried to use its collapse as a way to bring Alec home here– an action that had led to one of their worst fights in recent memory and subsequently the years of silence. “I didna ken ye were still working on it.”
“Nobody did, and I hadn’t been– not really. Not until the last couple of months.”
“And ye solved it all by yerself?”
“No. Miller did.” There was pride there in Alec’s tone, a sense of satisfaction easily overheard if one didn’t know him well. “I practically had to force her to help me with it, and it turned out she’s the one who found the definitive proof to get the bastards.”
The swelling of pride in Grant’s chest prevented him from answering immediately– his tenacious boy. Just as quickly, though, the anger and pent-up frustration took the fore, like it always did. “Is that the reason why ye look like death warmed over, then, Alec? Was solving Sandbrook more important than yer health?”
“It mattered getting the families closure.” And just like always, Alec’s voice was clipped and icy to match Grant’s tone. His guard and his hackles were up. “It mattered bringing those girls home.”
There it was; Grant had never figured out exactly what went on in his eldest son’s head, nor what it was that caused such a blatant disregard for his own wellbeing. (He suspected, but he couldn’t very well ask Alec about it.) Cursing the frequent miscommunications and misunderstandings that separated them, Grant turned abruptly and stopped where he stood. Born from long practice, Alec followed suit and eyed him warily. He looked so wan and exhausted, and Grant’s heart ached for him.. “Well, ye’re here now and that’s what matters. We’ll get ye settled and back on yer feet– and ye’ll no go and do anything that will damage what the surgery fixed, aye?”
The wariness flashed to something approaching disappointment, even sadness, and then it was gone– replaced by the same tiredness. He was simply too worn down for anger, and it was to Grant’s alarm that he simply nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”
~/~/~/~/~
Alec’s listlessness continued for several days; he spent a large portion of that time in his room, or helping Millie out with her various chores. Though he had spent as little time as he could in the manor over the decades, he always slid into his role of the eldest son without trouble– even if he had the frustrating habit of doing everything himself and leaving nothing for the servants to do. For this particular trip he avoided everyone as much as possible, including Grant himself. As always, he bluntly refused any part in making decisions pertaining to the manor or the Wallace family.
“I’m never here enough to have a fair say.” This particular conversation came five days following Alec’s arrival; it had done nothing but rain during that time and so it was harder for the two of them to avoid each other. The look on Alec’s face was nothing short of exasperated as he worked on reorganizing the bookshelves in the second-story library. He still looked far too unkempt and wan for Grant’s liking. “Will has a lot more authority than I do with this place, anyway– ask him what he thinks.”
Grant could hardly keep from rolling his eyes, more than fed up with his son’s constant dodging of his responsibilities. “Alec, it isn’t a matter of yer brother being here more or not; as the first born–”
“Don’t start with that shite, Dad– I’d had enough of that when I was thirteen.” The glare sent his way was pointed, and despite himself Grant subsided. It had been a quiet evening when Alec had first left at thirteen years old, sneaking out of the manor with a suitcase full of clothes and books he owned and walking the entire length of the drive so that he could be picked up by Mairi’s mother at the road– covering his bases, even at that young age, to make sure Grant had as little control over him as possible.
And he had stayed away for years then– not the longest stretch by any means, but certainly the one that stuck with Grant the most.
“All right,” he said now, “I would like your input because ye still stand to inherit the responsibilities of this family–”
“Still no good, Dad.” Alec didn’t even bother to look at him this time, working on moving another stack of books around.
“Then what would be good for ye, son?” Grant demanded sarcastically.
“No talk of inheritance for one thing, ta. The doctors very clearly said one thing following the surgery– no stress.”
“And solving Sandbrook wasna stressful?”
It was the wrong thing to say. Alec’s spine straightened and the look on his face was a mix of emotions he couldn’t quite pin down– they were all very raw. “Not discussing it, Dad. Not with you.” Then he was turning his back to place more books on the shelf, effectively showing what he thought of Grant’s opinions.
He was still unwilling to let it go. “So who will you talk about it with, son?” he demanded.
“No one.” His spine had not yet loosened, and he remained facing away so Grant couldn’t read his expression. The raw emotion in his voice had turned ugly. “No one here, anyway.”
That hurt. It always did when Alec excluded him from things troubling him– even though he knew very well why that was. “So ye’d talk about it with some woman ye’ve known for six months maximum–”
“Leave it alone, Dad.”
Grant shut up halfway through his sentence, realizing too late his mistake. It wasn’t anger he had been hearing in Alec’s voice just now– it was grief. If he said one more word, he was sure Alec would actually start crying.
What had Sandbrook done to him that would affect him so? The question settled deeply into his gut and spilled into his limbs, leaving him both curious and horrified. Whatever that had happened to Alec hadn’t just left its mark on him physically– there were new wounds there to cover up the scar tissue left from forty years ago.
The room tilted, and he felt abruptly nauseous. How could he comfort Alec now, when as a boy Grant had merely listened to his cries and wallowed in his own sense of grief? There had been no hugs then, nothing from Grant to ease the pain of Mairi’s death– how could there be, when she’d ended her own life so? How could he overcome forty years of distance between them now?
He turned smartly on his heel and left the room, unable to simply stand there and watch his son grieve, knowing his sympathy and comfort now would be both unwanted and unappreciated. He closed the door gently behind him– then, struck with remorse at his actions, he leaned and rested his head against the door. There was no sound of sobbing coming from the other side, but after a long moment of silence he heard the books being thrust more forcibly in the bookshelves as if they were being thrown there.
*****
There was a newspaper sitting on his bedside table that evening, innocently open to a specific page. Grant rolled his eyes and huffed, smiling to himself. Millie again, subtly giving him a lecture on keeping up with his sons’ activities. Certain that the news article would be talking about the latest of Will’s charity balls in London, he took his time preparing for bed and didn’t pick it up until he had pulled the quilt down. Then his eyes fell on the headline, and he froze.
Sandbrook Solved
It was a short article in the grand scheme of things, barely a column; flipping to the front of the paper he saw it was the Broadchurch Echo, written by a Maggie Radcliffe. Although it stated the bare facts (three suspects have been arrested at this time, though no names have been yet been released), it did have a short quote by Alec himself.
When asked how he felt having finally solved the Sandbrook murders, DI Hardy said, ‘It’s solved. There’s too much damage done now to say it’s been resolved, but the girls have been given a measure of justice. It’s more than I could hoped for even a month ago.’
Grant read the statement over three times, trying to imagine what the last few months had been like for Alec. He couldn’t. Troubled by this realization, he skimmed through the rest of the article barely picking up on the rest of the words. He saw the name Ellie Miller mentioned but didn't pause to read her statement, uncaring about her thoughts about the case. There was a picture accompanying the words, that of his son and a woman dressed in an orange coat standing together on a sidewalk. Grant took a moment to study the woman’s features– curly brown hair, almost homely in appearance. He wondered what Alec saw in her to speak about her with such respect. His eyes drifted down to the final sentence of the article and was unprepared for the kick to the gut it gave him.
Justice has been done, but will things ever get back to a semblance of normal? Only time can tell.