dreams of distant lives

by Anera527

Alec Hardy's childhood was a lonely one.

"dreams of distant lives"

~/~/~/~/~

Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man.

-Thomas Wolfe

~/~/~/~/~

He could hear his mother crying behind the heavy oak of her bedroom door. It was a thick moaning more than true tears— she sounded wounded, and it frightened him. Sitting in the shadows of the hallway with his knees drawn up to his chin, Alec held his breath and listened to the creaking of the floorboards beyond that closed door, knowing what that sound was. He could hear the rumbling brogue of the old white-haired doctor but couldn't pick out individual words.

Beneath him he could hear the heavy pacing of his father. It wasn't fear driving Lucas Hardy's feet, he knew; it was anger.

'Blood on the floor!' he'd bellowed as his wife lay whimpering in the doorway. 'What the hell are you going to do to get it out of the carpet?'

She wouldn't be leaving the bed for awhile— or so Alec heard the doctor telling her now. Two weeks' bed rest. No exercise, no straining herself, no sitting up.

There were stitches in her belly. Blood had marred her hands.

She'd been sick for the past few weeks. Food had made her nauseous and she'd spent several mornings in the bathroom. Alec had stood in the doorway of her room one morning and caught her feeling her stomach as if searching for something, and he had been about to ask her why she had looked so sad before she suddenly started to cry.

The doctor had shown up without being called. The scene he had opened the door up to was of Elaine Hardy sitting in a pool of blood in the doorway of the sitting room with an irate Lucas Hardy utterly ignoring his wife's pain. Of the couple's six-year-old son he saw no sign but he knew that that meant nothing. The lad was already excellent at hiding and observing.

The blood had been mopped up but it seemed to Alec that he could still smell it; a cloying metallic taste that coated the back of his throat and frightened him. His mum was not supposed to be sick, or hurt, or bleeding. She had utterly ignored him when he had tried to ask her what was happening and his dad's loud voice had chased him away. He'd hidden between the sofa and the wall until the doctor had helped his mum to bed, and then he'd taken refuge in the upstair's hallway.

The doctor finished settling his mum and opened the door, closing it gently behind him. His scraggly face was grim and he missed seeing the slight lad on the other side of the hallway, dreading what he was going to have to tell the furious man downstairs.

As soon as the doctor's head disappeared down the stairs Alec seized his chance and leaped to his feet, pushing open his mother's door.

The curtains had been drawn and all that gave the room any light was the small oil lamp sitting on the bedside table. His mum lay beneath a coverlet, her thick red hair tangled and straggling across her pillows, and he could hear her croaking and moaning in distress. He crept along the edge of the downy mattress and peeked over its edge, wondering what had so upset her.

"Mummy?"

His quiet voice made her jump, flinching as if she'd been struck by the flat of his dad's hand. She gasped raggedly and a tear dripped down her temple into her hair. Slowly she turned her head to look at him.

"Alec." Her voice was barely over a breath and gravelly with tears. She made no move to reach out to him.

He reached up across the blankets and holding onto them climbed up on the bed with her. He had only recently learned how to clamber up by himself on the furniture.

His mum watched him with exhausted, dark eyes. In the dim lighting he couldn't tell where her bruises were. He was a naturally quiet child and so he spent the next several minutes merely looking at her, trying to make sense of what had happened.

"Hurt?"

His voice broke the silence between them and shattered the flimsy illusion of peace. It broke something in his mother, too. She choked on a whimper and quiet suddenly she reached out and grabbed hold of him. "Oh Alec," she whispered, "oh my sweet lad… I'm sorry, I'm so sorry… you would have loved being a brother, I know you would…"

He didn't know what to make of the word 'brother'. It was foreign to him; was it like his cousins Ben and Jaime? The two of them were 'brothers' but it meant nothing beyond the fact that they looked very similar. His mum was stroking his hair and he thought she was crying again but he couldn't see her face. He was stiff and uncertain in her arms.

The approach of heavy feet made them split apart and Alec looked fearfully towards the door. His dad was coming and he would raise his voice like he usually did. Without a glance towards his white-faced mother he clambered back down onto the floor and hid in the closet, hiding behind her pants and skirts.

His father entered a moment later and Alec had been completely right— the shouting started as soon as the door opened.

"Miscarriage?! You daft whore, you lying Jezebel, you were pregnant and you didn't tell me!" His father was a slight man but his anger always seemed to triple him in size so that he filled the room. Alec shrank farther back against the wall.

"I didn't want it." His mother's voice was pale and shaky.

"What?" His father's voice was suddenly deadly quiet.

"I didn't want it, Lucas. Not- not after…" But her voice broke and she couldn't continue. Alec heard her breath brokenly and swallow hard but she had gone mute. Even as his father hurled abuse and language at her that was shocking she refused to respond.

Telling Lucas Hardy to stop never worked anyway. Alec knew that from observing them. His father was stubborn and refused to back down. His mother had a sharp tongue but she rarely won against him. There had been that night weeks ago, when he had heard them arguing in his dad's bedroom. He was telling her to do something and she was telling him 'no'. Over and over again she had told him no and his voice quickly rose until it was interrupted with the sound of ripping clothes and his mother had wept and screamed for him to 'stop'.

The door had been closed, so Alec hadn't seen what had happened, but he had heard it all.

It still confused him.

~/~/~/~/~

His mother's eyes were empty as she hung the clothes up on the line. It was a beautiful spring afternoon, bright with the fresh green of the trees and the bright colors of flowers, and her bright yellow dress made her a beautiful sight. Seated on the stone steps of the bad door, Alec watched her work while he half-heartedly read through his homework. He was eleven and he was supposed to read through poetry.

He didn't like it.

"Mum, what's the point of schoolwork?"

She barely looked at him as she continued to work. "It helps you learn, Alec. It teaches you discipline. A work ethic."

"What's an ethic?"

He always asked questions. He was an insatiable child with a mind for detail and sometimes she found him tiring. She loved him dearly, yes, but he was a handful. There were days when she could barely bring herself to get out of bed and the idea of handling his endless questions and energy was frightening.

"It's a- rule, I suppose. Something you follow. Like I follow God's words."

"Does Dad have an ethic?"

Her stomach clenched. The bruises on her arms were hidden by her sleeves but they throbbed with remembered pain anyway. They had fought again last night. "He did, once," she finally replied quietly. "Years ago. Before the church ostracized him." It was an old bitterness that never went away with him; his being forced from the congregation was what had driven him to drink and abuse. "You father was a gentle man once, Alec-my-lad. Kind. Helpful. And the best sense of humor you could hope to meet with. But sometimes things happen and you… change."

Lucas had not yet gone after their son with his fists, and for that she was thankful. Small favors, that was what she was thankful for. Her son's innocence was too important to be sullied by physical violence; she was careful to hide her hurts and physical pains from him.

"Are we really taking a trip, Mum?"

She nodded. The bags were ready and full of the things they would need. "As soon as your father gets here we'll be off."

"Where are we going?"

"A place by the sea. A little town called Broadchurch."

~/~/~/~/~

The sea was vast and endless. The horizon was so far away he couldn't tell where it ended and the water began, but he liked it that way. The smell was different too— a fresh smell even laden as it was with salt, and the wind was crisp as it blew in his face. He didn't like the sand, though. It went everywhere and ended up in everything, and it was itchy.

The beach was better than the campsite, though, where he had left his parents arguing. The cliffs that rose up like mountains were frightening in their sturdiness but he sat beneath them all the same and imagined them to be the hands of an ancient titan. The wind could be its breath as it slept.

He wandered the beach until it darkened and on his way back to his parents he watched the stars come out. He'd never seen them before so clearly in the city. It was an endless blanket above his head.

It made him feel small.

~/~/~/~/~

"Lad? Lad?"

The unfamiliar rumble dragged Alec back to bleary awareness. Disoriented he didn't immediately respond and all he saw was a dark brown beard in front of his face. A hand was gripping his shoulder and gently shaking him and he automatically reached up to swat it away. He heard a low chuckle.

"Now I know you're awake. Can you tell me your name, lad?"

It was a welcoming voice, warm and concerned; it had been a long time since Alec had heard someone sound like that. Blinking away his confusion he looked up and saw a copper standing in front of him looking at him with bright blue eyes. "Alec," he muttered after a moment. "Alec Hardy."

"Hardy, huh? Not a Thomas Hardy fan, are you?"

He groaned at the old joke; it was one he supremely resented since this was the millionth time he'd heard it in fifteen years. "No." He didn't mean to be so blunt but he was achy and tired and he just wanted to be left alone.

"Not often I find a laddie your age out here, Alec," the copper said. "Nor do I find them sleeping on park benches." His keen gaze swept Alec up and down and the boy ducked his head but not before the man saw the evidence he was attempting to cover up. "Who hit you, lad?"

It was a darkening half-moon bruise on Alec's chin, clearly the imprint of a fist, and guiltily he raised a hand as if he could hide it. "No one. I ran into a door."

"Aye," the copper replied quietly, "and it managed to punch you a good one too as you left."

His parents had been fighting. It was a rare sight now to see his mother standing up for herself anymore— years of verbal and physical abuse had washed her of color and spirit; her hair was greying despite her young age (she said it was because she was a redhead) and her eyes were listless and always empty. Like they had been all those years ago when she had lost her unborn child.

That was the day when things had really grown ugly between his father and mother. Lucas seemed to resent her very existence from then on and beat her more and more and it was only because Alec himself was so very good at hiding that he didn't usually feel his father's fists.

His mother never stepped in between her husband and her son, certainly.

But Alec had stepped in between them today and his father had struck him for his audacity.

The copper seemed to guess that that was what happened if the sympathy in his expression was any indication. It made Alec edgy. "I'm fine, really," he insisted. "I'll just be heading home now."

"The streets of Glasgow are not ones a lad your age should be traveling alone. How old are you?"

"Fifteen. I know my way around."

The copper refused to be driven off. "Let me walk you part of the way, then. It's too late now to be out by yourself."

It was odd to find someone who cared. He's just concerned, Alec tried to assure himself as he stood. He's not suspicious, and he won't ask you about your home life…

"If it was a relative who struck you, Alec, you know you can tell someone."

Damn it.

"It's nothing. It's just a bruise. It was my own fault anyway." It was the most he was going to say about all that had happened, of that he was determined. He glanced over at the tall man beside him. "It isn't like a nark to be interested in someone like me anyway. Why do you care?"

The copper didn't look over at him. Their footsteps were loud in the silence as they walked. "We do care, lad. It's just hard to let others know that when they're so busy shutting us out. And you… I haven't seen you running the streets before. You don't seem to be that type of teenager."

Alec ran the streets some nights with his friends. He'd seen a lot more of life than most people would have believed and he knew a lot of the haunts of this section of town. It was a fact he had never shared with his parents, although he was very familiar with the bars his father frequented.

He was extremely careful to avoid those.

"You stick your noses where they don't belong." He said it bluntly, still annoyed by this copper doing just that.

"I'd like to think we're decent human beings, Alec. We help protect others from harm. It's a policeman's duty to serve and protect. If I see something like a bruise on your face I'm not being nosy— I'm being concerned. I've seen several lads and lasses your age and younger sporting very similar marks before. It's not right."

If the copper was looking for confirmation for his questions he wasn't going to get them. Alec buried his hands in his pockets and watched the pavement in front of him.

Unfortunately, that seemed to be answer enough. The copper's eyes saddened. "You look like you could do with a hot meal, Alec lad," he said finally in the gaping silence. "There's a small diner half a block down from here, serves an excellent dish of onion soup."

Dinner sounded appetizing. His mother rarely cooked anything flavorful or even good to eat. The idea of a hot meal was too good to resist. He looked the copper with a frown. "How do I know you're a real copper, anyway?"

The man laughed. "Smart lad. You could be a copper yourself if you wanted to. Here." He lifted up his badge and let Alec read it.

Joshua Steward, aged 33, of the Glasgow PD.

He sighed. "All right, then. If only because you like the onion soup so much."

Joshua Steward had a heartfelt laugh, full and genuine. Alec would soon find out he used it often.

~/~/~/~/~

"You aren't supposed to be out here, Alec lad. This is the third time this week I've come across you." Joshua's voice was laced with disappointment. Focused on his drink, Alec very carefully didn't look up to catch his gaze.

"I couldn't stay in that house," he confessed unhappily. "They're fighting again."

It was a quiet bar on the outskirts of Alec's neighborhood, a small building that brushed the very edges of the indecent crowd. The bartender and owner knew Alec fairly well and let him in despite his being only sixteen, and so more often than not he found himself here merely watching the crowd for the hour or so he was here for.

Joshua sighed and sat across from him. He looked critically at the mug Alec held and was satisfied when he smelled the strong aroma of coffee. "That's what you said the last three times."

"Just because I say it a lot doesn't make it not true," Alec retorted.

"Aye, but you don't have to bite me head off for making an observation. Have you had somethin' to eat?" He wasn't surprised when the lad shook his head silently, but it saddened him all the same. He had come across several cases of neglect and abuse over the past decade he'd been walking the streets as part of the PD, and if Alec Hardy didn't quite fall into the former he certainly fit into the latter. The only mark he had seen on the lad had been the bruise on his chin the night he'd found him asleep on a bench nearly seven months ago, but that was only physical evidence of the neglect his parents heaped on him.

He'd been wrong in his initial assessment of Alec too that night, he had discovered. He had initially believed that the lad wasn't one who knew the streets but he had been proven otherwise. Alec knew all too well the places to go and where to avoid, and he had been taught to look out for the spots where the coppers haunted. He wasn't part of any gang so far as Joshua could tell; rather Alec was more of a loner in that respect, but it still stood that the lad was walking a fine line of a good life and one that wasn't quite so healthy. It would be so very easy for the sixteen year old to be drawn into a life of drugs and alcohol and even prostitution if the wrong sort of person came along.

"The guy sitting at the table in the corner has coke on him. He's been dealing the past few times I've been here."

And then of course the lad would say something like that, and Joshua would feel his worry lessen. He nodded his thanks for the information and took a sip of his own drink. He had been teaching the lad the finer points of observation and police work over the past months when he had time off or had a moment to sit while on patrol, and Alec seemed to thrive on it. The lad had a mind for noticing details and he was quiet and unassuming enough that a lot of people overlooked him.

He was hoping to suggest the idea of joining the Academy to Alec when the time came.

"Your dad was arrested an hour ago for drunken misconduct."

Alec snorted. "Did he crack a bottle over some other guy's head again?"

"Aye. Started a brawl that smashed five tables and cost about five hundred dollars worth of damages. He'll be in overnight."

"Good."

"You can still report him, Alec lad. With this latest charge you could get him locked away for good. You and your mum could live easily."

"Yeah, until he gets out again. He'd only be locked up for two or three years and then he wouldn't let me forget that I was the one who turned him in."

~/~/~/~/~

"Alec!" Lucas's shout shook the rafters above his head; there was a worrying soberness to his voice that made Elaine, standing in the kitchen kneading dough, stiffen automatically with fear. She could hear him stalking through the door with a heavy purposeful tread. She shuddered, knowing that whatever happened would not be good. Her hands trembled. She had known that it would not be good for either her or Alec that Lucas had been made to spend the last night in jail.

Teeth gritted together Lucas grabbed hold of the stairwell and bounded up to the second floor. The door to his son's room was closed— no doubt the lad was hiding behind his books again, oblivious to the rest of the world. "Alec!" he bellowed furiously. Without waiting for a reply he shoved open the door and stepped in. Sure enough his useless son was seated at his desk with a book of literature open. He barely reacted when the door smashed into the wall.

"Are you going to answer me, lad?"

Finally Alec's head lifted; he still didn't look over. "What it is?"

The indifferent tone incensed Lucas more. "I heard something very interesting when I was locked up in that jail cell last night," he snarled. "Something about my son being friends with a fucking copper."

Alec's hand stilled on the paper he was writing on as his finger kept his place in the book. He closed his eyes briefly but knew there was no way to lie. He didn't try to argue or deny it. "I am," he admitted.

"Do you care to explain to me then," Lucas growled furiously, "why you have decided to shame your mother and I by showing that you're loyal to me? You've been talking to that copper, haven't you? You've told him lies and garbage, and you had his friends arrest me to try to scare me!"

"I didn't!" Alec stood from his seat, his book and paperwork forgotten. "I didn't tell him anything of the sort. I didn't need to, anyway, he could see the evidence for himself. You were arrested because you were a drunken bastard last night—"

Lucas's hand striking him across the face stopped the sentence cold. His son fell back, landing against the desk with wide eyes. The bright red mark of a handprint was already appearing on his cheek. "You will not disrespect me, Alec!" he shouted. "I am your father, and you will treat me as such."

"I won't show you respect you don't deserve!" Alec retorted, refusing to back down. "You're an abusive sod and a drunk, you beat on Mum—" Again he stopped mid-sentence when suddenly his father grabbed hold of his arm in an iron grip, the tips of his fingers digging painfully into the muscle of his bicep.

"I beat your mother because she deserves it! I should have started teaching you the same years ago." Dragging his son closer he started to loosen the belt around his waist.

"Dad!"

Alec's cry of pain made Elaine jump where she still stood. There had been an awful crashing from upstairs and she thought she'd heard the fall of a body but she couldn't be sure. It was a familiar sound, usually when Lucas grabbed hold of him too roughly, but today it didn't stop. A second crash from above made her leave her sanctuary but she didn't have to go very far before she ran not the source of the noise. She rushed into a living nightmare. Lucas had their son on the floor above the stairwell and while Alec shielded his head with his hands the buckle end of Lucas's belt flashed down on his back again and again. Blood already stained the metal and even as she watched droplets scattered the walls. She heard her son's screams as if from a great distance and she could do nothing but watch dumbly as the buckle arched down again.

This had to be a dream. A nightmare.

The crimson of blood was raked down the stairs as Alec, finally able to wriggle free of Lucas's grip, desperately fled from the belt and tumbled down the steps. He landed with such an awful finality she feared he might have broken his neck in the fall, but he had only had the air knocked out of him. He stirred almost immediately. He was trembling visibly and he nearly didn't mange to get back up. His lip was split and there was a darkening bruise on his face, but it was when he turned his back to her that Elaine couldn't help her whimper of horror. His back was a mess of blood and shredded skin. The buckle had gouged a brand in muscle and sinew, painting it a bright red for all to see.

For one moment the family of three was frozen in one instant, only able to stare at each other, unable to believe what had just happened.

And then Lucas moved to go down the stairs, and Alec scrambled to his feet and ran. He brushed past Elaine and met resistance when she tried to hook onto his arm, but he shook her off and fought onwards.

She caught up to him in the garden, her cry of fear loud and not quite sane. She managed to grab hold of his arm again and this time he didn't slip away.

"Alec! Alec, please, wait! Please, you know he didn't mean it, he has such an awful temper! Please, please stay!"

He was white and shaking, and he was starting to cry. She had always hated seeing him cry. "You're making excuses for him, Mum! He's beaten you and raped you and- and you're still trying to make excuses for him!"

"You're father is a good man! Alec, he loves me, and he loves you too—"

"He doesn't love either of us! You can't see that, can you." It was not a question. He was looking at her as if he had never seen her before. "He's got you so fucked up you can't see it. I called for you, Mum. You just stood there and let this happen. You'll let him beat you again tonight."

She was losing her grip on him, in more ways than one. She was crying too and desperately trying to keep him from running off. Who knew what trouble he could get them all into? "The Good Lord says to forgive. He's my husband, and God says to obey and love your husbands in all things. This is the Lord's plan, Alec-my-lad, it is! God will put you in the right place even if you don't know it at the time!"

He went white with fury. "If your so-called God allows a bastard to beat his wife and child, and allows a husband to rape his wife, then he's no god of mine." He shook her off roughly and ran out of the gate, where he turned left onto the sidewalk and away from her sight.

It was the last time she would ever see him.

~/~/~/~/~

Keith Locke, head of the Glasgow Police Department, was just sitting down to review the latest cases from the morning when he was paged to come to the front doors. Sighing in a mix of exasperation and amusement he looked lovingly at his cup of coffee and stood up. He usually had the morning hours to himself so that he could get done what he needed to, so to be called up front again was certainly out of the ordinary. He walked into the lobby with a raised brow at the secretary. "What do you need me for, Kate?" he asked.

She didn't respond with words. Instead, wide-eyed and shocked, she gestured towards the doors. Keith turned to find a young lad standing there with a blood-stained back and a purpling bruise on his face, looking like he either wanted to run or drop where he stood.

"I need to see Joshua Steward," he croaked.

~/~/~/~/~

Lucas Hardy was arrested that very same day. His wife Elaine was heavily sedated and taken to the psychiatric ward after suffering a nervous breakdown. A doctor's check-up told them she had suffered recent physical abuse to the back and stomach, where an old scar sat above her hip. Of the mental damage, the doctor said, he couldn't say how extensive it was but she was in a very fragile state.

She was to be monitored at all times. Her son, whose name she moaned aloud over and again, never visited her.

Lucas was charged with domestic abuse and abuse of a minor; with his other charges of drunken misconduct over the past ten years it was set up to be a hefty sentence, of which the courts would decide in a few months time. Until Elaine Hardy was stable enough to be interviewed and questioned her husband would be detained in jail.

Alec was sent to live with his aunt who lived on the other side of Glasgow. Being close to summer break he suffered through finishing his studies and then spent several weeks with Joshua Steward as the copper watched the streets.

"You could go into police work yourself, Alec lad," Joshua said quietly one evening. They were in his flat for the night, Alec having packed a bag so that he didn't have to go back to his aunt's for a few days. The lad was sitting on his couch with his knees drawn up to his chin and his arms wrapped around his legs. Joshua folded the paper up which had written an article about the upcoming trial of Lucas Hardy and sat back in his own seat.

"I don't think I could, Joshua. It… I don't think I would be cut out for it."

"Oh come on, now," he chided him gently. "You know that's a load of shite. You like watching the bars and streets as much as I do. And who knows? Maybe in a few years you'll get a chance to help a lonely lad or lass just like I had the honor of doing." He poured a measure of scotch in two different glasses and carried one over to Alec. "It's still another two or three years away before you could even sign up for the Academy, but think about it, aye? Promise me that?"

Alec looked up at him with careful brown eyes, appraising him just as he had so many months ago, clearly looking to see if Joshua was taking the mickey. But the copper was entirely serious, and he found himself entertaining the possibility. The ability to help people. To protect others from a childhood and a home he had been forced to live in for his entire life.

Was it really so impossible?

He grinned up tiredly at his mentor and his friend and held aloft his glass of scotch. "Cheers."

No. It really wasn't all that impossible at all.