Work Text:
“Oi Hardy!” Daisy ignored the boys. They hadn’t bugged her in a long time, thanks to her father’s outburst. “How’s your mum?” She tightened her hold on her backpack and walked faster. What did they have with her? Had she been the subject of yet another smear campaign? There hadn’t been any major cases recently.
With a weird feeling in her stomach Daisy continued through the school until she had finally reached her locker. That’s when she froze. Plastered all over it was a grainy image of a young girl with an awkward bowl cut, hugging her figure, dressed in a school uniform.
Who the hell was she? It wasn’t Daisy, she knew that. She’d never had a bowl cut, thank fuck, and she didn’t recognise those school uniforms either. She looked vaguely familiar, somehow Daisy thought she should know who that was.
With a long sigh, she ripped it off and stuffed it into her locker, never to be seen again among the rest of the crumpled-up permission slips and information sheets that had never reached her dad, crushed between schoolbooks and long forgot snack bars.
“Hey Hardy!” Another boy shouted, which made her flinch, despite herself. “Tell your mother to stop crossdressing and to get back to the kitchen.”
The chorus of laughter rang in Daisy’s head as her stomach turned. She hurried to class, hoping the boys would not be there come next break. She sat down in the very last row, as she always did, where she’d stay unbothered by most of the teachers and her classmates. Usually.
“Daisy?” A group of her peers came up to her. The popular girls, as they would like to be known as, with earrings almost as large as the obnoxious arm-rings they all wore that made a clattering sound every time they moved.
She looked up with apprehension. “Why didn’t you tell us your…eh dad-” Laughter resounded in the room, which made her frown. “Okay, no but seriously, why didn’t you tell us your dad was a tranny?”
“What?” Daisy nearly screeched.
She rolled her eyes. “Trans. Whatever. Why didn’t you tell us he-she was a woman?”
Before she could respond they were called to order by their teacher. Daisy couldn’t concentrate on the lesson. Her dad wasn’t trans. Why the hell was everyone saying that he was?
She thought about the picture on her locker. Could it have been her dad? But the girl in the picture had worn a skirt. He wasn’t really trans. Why then would he wear a skirt? It was probably not even her dad. Maybe they were all being mean about bullshit. She wouldn’t be the first bullied for something not true.
When the bell finally released her, she didn’t wait to be harassed by her classmates again. Daisy locked herself in the nearest free bathroom stall. Her fingers typed furiously on the google search bar.
‘Worst cop in Britain secretly a woman’, titled the daily sun. Underneath a picture of her dad, alongside the grainy photo that had hung on her locker after lunch.
---
The whole office went quiet when the DI’s door opened. Nobody dared to speak. Alec couldn’t bring himself to look up. Bile rose in his throat. He stumbled through the bullpen until he reached the loo.
He didn’t notice the pain that shot through his knees as he collapsed in front of a toilet, body convulsing to get out what little breakfast he had forced down to please his daughter.
His carefully guarded secret, that he had put in so much effort to keep hidden had been exposed by some arsehole journalist who didn’t have anything better to do with their time but go and dig around in his own personal life.
Why could they do that? What gave them the right to do this? What the hell had he done to deserve that? Alec knew the answer to that. The flashes of memories that were shared only between him Paul and God seemed reason enough. But why now? Why like this?
He hadn’t fucked up a case in a long time. And the last time the press had covered anything remotely to do with him had been when the Winterman trail had closed with Leo Humphries firmly behind bars. His sobs sounded pathetic in the police toilets, but Alec couldn’t keep himself from it. He had no more dignity to lose.
There was nothing that could come up anymore. His head fell against the stall wall. He made himself get up. His legs were shaky, unstable and the blood was rushing in his ears as he stumbled over to the sink.
He splashed water in his face, trying to wash the tears off his face, but new ones kept coming. Eventually, he looked up, catching his eyes in the mirror. A woman stared back at him. He didn’t let himself look at her. Alec tore his eyes off the reflection.
Ellie looked up from her desk when the bullpen had gone quiet. There walked Alec, head down, slumped over. She swallowed. He looked like he was just about done with life. When his door fell shut behind him she shot a look around the room.
She knocked on the door. Without waiting for an answer, she went in. Hardy sat on his chair, staring at the newspaper, not acknowledging her presence. She wasn’t even sure he’d even noticed. “Hardy?” She asked, gently.
Finally his head shot up. The mask on his face of uncaring slipped, just a second, as panic washed over it and was quickly wiped off it again. “Miller.” His voice was hoarse. As she looked at him she noticed the redness in his eyes.
“Are you alright?”
He stared at her, blinking. “’m fine.” Alec eventually chocked out.
Her eyes fell on the article that he had covered up with his hand. “They’re bastards.” She concluded. “They had no right publishing that.”
“No.” He agreed, quietly.
For a few moments they sat in silence. “Does Daisy know?”
“She does now.” He sniffed.
“Oh Alec.” He didn’t correct her on using his first name. “Is there anyone I can call?”
Now he stared at her in confusion. “What d’you mean?”
“You’re in no state to drive.”
“Why would I be drivin’ now?”
“You shouldn’t stay here.”
His face shifted. He swallowed the regret and grief that came up on him as he realised that she didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. He didn’t’ let the tears escape. “I know you don’t want anythin’ to do with me, but until the CS approves a transfer I have to work at this station, whether you like it or not.”
Ellie realised that it must have sounded like that to him. “That’s not what I mean.” She explained in a panic. “The press just printed an article slandering you. You don’t have to stay here. You can go home, take a break, read a nice book.”
“Bugger them.” He said, with a pretended nonchalance but visibly less tense than before. “I’ve got a job to do.”
She looked at him with concern. “Are you sure you don’t-”
“Aye. Certain. Now get back to work Miller.”
---
Despite his insistence that he would keep working, Alec found it harder and harder to concentrate. Every time his eyes caught on his wrists, every time he looked at his legs, his body burned. Nothing felt right in his body. It was too soft, too slender, too feminine.
It was lunchtime now and while the office went quieter and quieter he kept working. By one almost no one was left in the bullpen, which he could tell by the eerie silence that had fallen over the building.
Eventually there was a knock on his door. He didn’t answer, knowing that Miller would come in anyway. But the person who knocked didn’t. They did again. “What?” He finally called through the door.
“Alec?” He knew that voice.
“Paul.” He stuttered.
The door opened and there he stood, holding a bag of takeout. “I thought you might want something to eat.”
“Miller called you.”
“Actually, I was already getting it when she did.” Paul told him with a small smile. He stepped inside, setting the bag down on Alec’s desk. “I got Thai.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You still need to eat.” Alec didn’t have the strength to protest.
After they’d eaten in silence for a few moments, Alec finally spoke. “They all know.” said, heavily.
“It’s not fair. But you don’t have to go through this alone.” Paul told him with a lot of conviction.
“I have to talk to Dais.” Alec decided. Paul didn’t protest his decision. “Can you pick her this afternoon?”
“Of course.”
He pulled out his mobile. His hands were shaking as he pressed the call button. It rang, once, twice.
“Hello?”
“Hi Dais.” His voice was shaking. It was way too high. Alec hated it. “Eh listen, Paul will be picking you up today, that alright?”
There was a short silence. “Dad why didn’t you tell me that-”
“Let’s not do this over the phone, please sweetheart?” Alec all but begged his daughter. “I have to work but we’ll talk tonight.”
“Okay.” Daisy said quietly. “Bye Dad.”
The phone call ended before he could say his goodbyes.
---
Alec got home uncharacteristically early that day. After Paul had promised to get Daisy from school that ended at half past three, Alec had found it impossible to concentrate. The only thing that had kept him at work was the thought of walking through the bullpen and all the people staring at him. At four though, the nervousness about the talk with Daisy had won over the unwillingness to face his subordinates.
He had practically run the short way to the elevator and hadn’t let out a breath until he’d been in his car. Now, stepping through the door he wasn’t sur what he was expecting.
Daisy had accepted his and Paul’s relationship quite well, so maybe it wouldn’t go as bad as he’d feared. But on the other hand, he didn’t want himself to have too much hope for something that could turn out so completely differently.
So he braced himself to lose his daughter for the second time in his life and this time, really never see her again. He didn’t want to think of the things he’d do if that happened. The house was quiet, but the lights were on.
He closed the door behind himself, felling like the air was stuffy and way too warm. Quietly, he made his way through to the living room.
There he saw his daughter. Alec froze. “Hi dad.” She said, quietly. There was no obvious resentment or hate in her tone, which calmed his stuttering heart a little.
He swallowed. “Hey Dais.” A short but heavy silence filled the room.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Daisy then asked the question that must have been bugging her all day.
A pang of guilt hit him like a birk. “It’s-” He cut himself off. He couldn’t keep telling her it was complicated, even if that was the truth. She deserved a better explanation than that after he’d hidden his identity from her for the past eighteen years. “Let’s sit down eh?”
Daisy did, wordlessly, waiting for him to speak. Eventually, he did. “You see what, eh, people made of it when they found out.”
His daughter nodded and frowned.
“I didnea want people to look at me differently. And by the time I met your mother most people didnea know that I was trans.”
“But mum knew?”
“Aye.” He affirmed. “Her and my doctor. That was it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Do you not trust me?”
“Course I do sweetheart.” He stated, firm, taking her hands in his. “I just didnea feel like it mattered. Does it?” His heart was thumping fast in his chest. He held his breath.
“No.” Daisy cast her eyes up at him. “Not really.”
He pulsed her against his chest. “I love you so much darlin’.” Alec said, quietly, not caring if his daughter would call him soppy for it.
She didn’t. Daisy smiled. “I love you too Dad.”