Alec threw down his empty package of pills from where he lay on his bed, still in his work suit that he'd worn four days straight now. Alec, he laughed at the fake name he'd chosen so long ago. He would have to make another run to the drug store soon, maybe not tonight if he was fortunate enough to find some more in his sock drawer. He couldn't stand it, keeping this secret all these years of who he was, and what he'd lost. He had all of his memories of being the Doctor, a burden that no human was supposed to hold. He managed though, for the first few years Rose had helped him when they came into this other universe. But now, she was gone.
He could remember the day he lost her. He could remember pain he'd felt when he came home and saw the police cars. He'd heard the call at the station, only a bit of it. Being a detective he didn't think more than What sick bastard could do that? But at that moment when he pulled up to his house, that he'd been so afraid of owning in the first place, he screamed on the inside. Jumping out of his car and running to the door, passing every officer that pawed at his suit as they tried to stop him. Tears streaked down his face as he looked past the officers waiting to block him at the door to see the glazed over eyes of Rose, his one true love. The one victory the universe allowed him to have and it was ripped away from him. A wall was shattered then, the wall separating his delicate human half from the pain of a Timelord. And as they pulled him away from the door, kicking and yelling objections. He shook one of the officers off, dropping to the ground by one arm and just sitting there with one hand over his eyes. He cursed and spit as they let him be, covering his face and hoping it was all a dream. When he finally looked up, as if the universe decided that enough wasn't enough, he was just in time to see the body bag coming to a slow stop directly in front of him.
There was something that bothered him, above it all. Something that lead him to believe that it was all his fault. A week before all of this happened, a week before hell tapped on his shoulder to let him know that it was still there, one of the criminals he'd put away had escaped prison. His fingerprints were all over the scene. There was something the killer didn't know. Heck, how could he have known? They hadn't even told Jackie and Pete yet, wanting to wait after the first trimester. Rose was pregnant. They didn't find out until she was sixteen weeks in. She was having a little boy. But that dream was gone now, that beautiful family he'd wanted, along with Rose.
He'd searched for one year, managing to get on the case after cheating through a psych analysis. It was quite simple really, after so many years of pretending to be sane and alright with the things around him. He pushed aside any thought of the rest of the Tylers as best he could. Jackie tried to get in touch with him sometimes, Pete as well. Oh Jackie had been devastated, when she found out. She nearly beat him to a pulp saying that he should have protected her. And he should have, he knew that. Yelled at himself every day that he should have been there at home. He heard it later, the entire call Rose made herself as the man was pounding on the door of their second story bedroom. If only for evidence, at least that was his excuse when they asked him why he wanted to see it. He should have known it was her when he heard the response team was being sent out. And, even if it was in the past, he would never forget the look on his mother in law's face when she found out that her only daughter was dead. He continued to search that whole year, almost never taking a break. He never found the man. Blaming himself for Rose's and their unborn child's death and unable to find the escaped convict after a year of searching, he fled to Broadchurch, his history in police work earning him a place in their police force. The only thing that showed from his past life with Rose and the rest of the Tylers being his flashbacks. Having to remember the deaths of, not only others, but himself. After being shielded for so long, it was horrible.
Today, as he searched for Danny's killer, that's what pushed him. Knowing how it feels to lose everything without closer of any kind. Why he was so angry, why he was so driven. That was all there was to it. And he wasn't going to rest until he gave this family the closer he never had. It was all he could do to try and be what he used to be. A doctor, meant to make the world better. But now, it seemed that he couldn't seem to even make himself well. Maybe that's what he was really trying to do. To get some form of closer for himself. Is that what he hoped to accomplish by catching whoever did this? Maybe. With a deep longing sigh, as a few more tears rolled down his face and into his untrimmed beard and he searched through a drawer for yet another packet of pills only to come up short, he wished that he had been full Timelord that day. Maybe then, only one of his hearts would have been broken.