"Chapter 2"
A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews! This chapter will be violent, and will have mentions of torture, so I'm giving the warning now to be prepared. Nothing too graphic, though.
As to 'Heart of Hearts', which I was asked about, the next chapter is being worked on. It should be up sometime this week.
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He wakes abruptly, surrounded inky darkness. The air smells dank and wet, of rotting foliage. Over the thumping of his heart he can pick out the gentle lapping of water against a bank—he's been left by the side of a river. Its soft purr is like a menacing growl to him and he feels a chill run down his spine as the feral fear of what that water means to him registers. He tries to sit up and finds that his hands have been tied in front of him with coarse rope, tight enough he thinks the tightness of the knot will draw blood.
Definitely abduction, then, he thinks, and forces down his fear; it won't help him by freaking out. He swallows past a dry throat, his heart racing, and waits for his eyes to adjust to the dark.
Then he hears a truck door slam closed; it was its approach that had woken him, he supposes, and he can't do anything but listen as light footsteps approach. The back of his head throbs with pain and he can feel drying blood plastering down his hair on the back of his neck. The sudden light of a lantern (a bloody camping lantern, of all things) blinds him as the person turns into sight around a tree and it takes him a moment to see who it is who has done this.
"Joe?"
Bloody hell. Besides the supposition that miller's husband has kidnapped Fred, he hasn't heard or seen anything about Joe since the end of the man's farce of a trial besides Miller's assurances that he had been "dealt with". Although he's grateful that the people of Broadchurch have not become a community of murderers, he curses the fact that in this instance he appears to be at Joe's mercy.
He looks like shit. His clothes are mussed and wrinkled and hanging off him unhealthily, and a spotty beard colors his jaw. His face is pale and peaked as he comes closer, clutching a simple fold up chair.
"DI Hardy," he says coldly; his Welsh accent grates like stone. He unfolds the chair and sits down, keeping four or five feet between them. "I see I've managed to surprise you."
"What the hell are you doing, Joe?" Alec's still too taken aback to be angry and until something changes he's willing to simply be wary. He senses, though, that things cannot remain this calm for long. "Where's Fred?"
Joe smirks but his eyes glint in a flat way. "You've always been the one asking questions," he says by way of an explanation of Alec's first question; he ignores the second completely. "Now you'll be the one answering them."
"About what?" There is a burning anger in Joe's eyes Alec doesn't like.
"About my wife." The stress of 'my' turns the statement dangerously possessive; Alec isn't sure if Joe really understands that Miller truly hates him now and holds no fond emotions for her husband. "About your affair."
The accusation nearly makes the copper gape in astonishment. "You couldn't have asked Miller about this herself?" God, this can not be happening. He shifts half-heartedly in the sandy earth of the riverbank, trying to find purchase.
"I would but they've exiled me." This is the focal point of Joe's fury, bitter and biting. "I asked for sanctuary with Paul but the son of a bitch rallied the town together and carted me off to Sheffield."
Good for Coates. For the first time Alec finds he can whole-heartedly back something Broadchurch's local vicar has done. He stays silent, however, hoping that it will prompt Joe to speak up again. He has to find out what frame of mind the man is in.
He's rewarded. Joe seems unnerved by the silence. "I'll be visiting him soon enough. Him and Beth." The last name is spat with hatred, startling Alec.
"Beth?"
"She's become the fucking matriarch of the entire town. She's the one who made the decision to toss me out."
There's another person Alec is going to have to congratulate; he had been impressed by Beth Latimer's strength throughout her son's murder case and beyond even if he rarely spoke to her one-on-one. He isn't surprised that she had made the decision; it's her right after all.
But she's endangered herself by doing so. "Joe, this isn't going to solve anything. You know that. You've just condemned yourself to another jail visit and a trial for this. Don't add any more."
"It's worth it," Joe snaps. "To see them all paid back for what they've done. They're all guilty in this, it's not just me! Mark cheated on his wife, you heard him, he was going to leave Beth for Becca Fisher. Nige was threatening people with crossbows. Even Paul, he's a violent drunk!"
"You're the only one who murdered a child, Joe." Alec's voice sharpens with a mix of anger and disbelief; he can't believe what he's hearing. "An innocent boy who should have been able to trust you!"
Joe's expression darkens. "He was going to tell them. He would've ruined everything. Our perfect lives would've been ruined."
An icy shard of horrified disgust rips at his stomach. "You're glad you killed Danny," he breathes in open dismay. The realization falls between them and hangs there like a ghost.
Joe's lip curls in a derisive sneer. "Don't play the high and mighty game, Hardy. You wouldn't have solved the case if I hadn't turned myself in." He leans forward. "So what are you hiding, then? You're just as hypocritical as everyone else. You asked an awful lot of questions about how Danny and I hugged. Even asked if we were naked to do it. Do you get off on that sort of thing, then? Imagine children naked while you're jerking off in the shower?"
The disgust faded to horror and for a split second Alec thinks his careful mask will crack and Joe will see just how badly he's shaken him. "Never."
"My wife, then. You really were having an affair, weren't you? All the way since the beginning!"
"Don't be daft," Alec snarls, thoroughly put off by the old accusation. His own temper is rising. "We hated each other!"
"And yet you came for dinner. You worked late hours together—and what were you two doing while I was in jail, eh?"
"Absolutely nothing."
It's the honest truth but it makes no difference; it only sparks Joe's crazed fury. "Liar!" he explodes, red and wide-eyed, and Alec feels the breath catch in his throat when he realizes that it's this that killed Danny.
'It would have been brutal.'
Brutal, yes. And terrifying. The switch has been flipped and the anger hiding behind Joe's placidity is in full, unobstructed view, ready to lash out. "I heard Bishop say it herself—Ellie went to see you in your fucking hotel room. She left our boys alone that night for you! You both denied it but you were having an affair that night!"
"Your wife came for answers to understand why her husband would want to fuck an eleven-year-old boy!"
Joe screams in rage and lashes out viciously, catching the copper across the face. Unable to catch himself, Alec sprawls in the dirt, his breath leaving him all at once. Pain lancing across his ribs and chest and he has one moment when he fears that the pacemaker is broken before he feels strong, trembling hands grab his hair and force his head up.
Joe's eyes are black in the dim lighting from the lantern, lip curling in a snarl of hatred. The water of the river laps gently softly against the shallow bank, deceptively calm and languid, and suddenly a peculiar smile curls the other man's mouth as he turns to look at the expanse of river. "This is where that girl's body was found, isn't it?" he asks softly. "This same river, since you're in Sandbrook now."
'I found her. Pippa Gillespie, she was in the river.'
Very little frightens Alec. Angers him, sure, makes him nervous, yes—but true fright. Only the water can do that. Pippa's bloated, decaying face dances in his mind's eye, floating beneath the water's surface as the rain beat down upon him, and he can feel himself drowning again.
His sharp intake of breath and tensing shoulders draws Joe's attention. "Ellie laughed at you, you know," he remarks with that same odd smile. "Said you're afraid of the water."
He can't brace himself to push up off the ground, he can't even twist out of Joe's grasp, but he tries anyway, desperate to escape his captor's grip because he sees the glint in Joe's eyes, knows it to be something violent, and he can already guess what the man's plan is.
Anger makes Joe strong, however, and Alec is still trying to shake off the hit to the back of his head. "You tell me you and Ellie were having an affair, Hardy," Joe bargains with him, "and I won't do anything to you. I'll let you go. Just say you were having an affair."
The water creeps closer, dangerously closer; he can already smell the heavy decay of the foliage beneath the surface and shakes his head. "We didn't, Joe. It never happened." The water splashes a bit as Joe's left foot enters the river and he makes one last attempt at escape.
Joe's quick, and grabs hold of both his shirt collar and his bound hands, and pushes him in. Water, rich with the sickening smell of rot and decaying plant life, washes over Alec's head and soaks his shoulders, rushing up his nose and into his mouth. And quite suddenly he's thrust back into the terrifying moment of being drawn deep into the river while retrieving Pippa's body, light and darkness swirling together and confusion about what way was up or down. Panicked and terrified he thrashes and fights Joe's grip, trying to dislodge the man's grasp on the back of his neck bt the latter proves stronger than he looks. Joe keeps him below the water until spots are dancing in front of his eyes and he's on the verge of losing consciousness, and then he's yanked, choking and coughing, back into the air.
Joe's furious expression dances in front of him. "Admit that you had an affair with my wife, Hardy," he growls, "or I'll do it again."
Trembling and trying to steady his dangerously racing heart Alec looks up at him and for a moment is tempted to do just that just to make sure he won't be drowned again. But then his stubborn streak kicks in despite his fear. He's the man who had given up his home and his family to protect his guilty wife; he had been the one to stand up for Ellie in court, he'd defended her when everyone ignored or reviled her.
He couldn't betray her like that. Not now.
"It- never happened, Joe."
The answer, rough and honest, drives the latter crazy. Previous threats of water suddenly forgotten in his explosive rage Joe again grabs him by his shirt and hauls him away from the water's edge, letting the copper fall onto the dirt. A sharp, quiet 'click' fills the sudden silence of the riverside, and Alec freezes. Metal glints in Joe's hand, a sharp pocket knife its source. He begins to slide backwards without conscious thought but Joe follows him with that same dark look in his eyes, the fury of just a moment ago still burning hot. "Ellie's mine. She's just angry right now but she'll remember that she loves me! She'll come back to me soon."
Joe's beyond reason, but with no other way out but by that Alec tries to reach him anyway, still sliding backwards and trying to free his hands. The rope has loosened. "Joe, this isn't going to help you. This isn't going to help her. You can still back away from this!"
"I want to hear you say it!" The knife flashes as Joe crouches and holds its blade up, very close to the copper's neck. "I want the man who destroyed our perfect lives to admit it! Admit that you turned my wife against me."
Alec doesn't speak, doesn't even try to move; pushed to the very edge of tolerance and shaken by Joe's words the only thing he can do is laugh. It's raw and humorless and not entirely sane and it gives joe pause.
"I've fucked up a lot of lives, Joe. Yours isn't one of them." The prevalent self-loathing he can't quite keep hidden from his voice is telling and it catches Joe's attention. To Alec's luck, it specifically catches the attention of the sanity and reason that the murderer has left. Curious pity softens Joe's expression for a moment.
"Then you know what I'm doing. You said you're divorced—you must have wanted to stay with your wife! You can't tell me you weren't desperate for your family to stay together!"
The frightening part of Joe's words is that on one level Alec can understand Joe's want of his wife and children back. Following Tess's infidelity he had wanted his family and its stability back more than anything—its crippling absence had literally almost killed him. If he's completely honest with himself he realizes that he still wants that.
He's silent for too long. Joe is unnerved by the silence and it makes him nervous. He's never dealt with fear well—it's what, after all, led him to choking the life out of Danny that fateful night. He doesn't notice the copper's expression suddenly shift as Alec shifts a couple of inches farther away from him but he recognizes fear when he sees it. Pain is something Joe had seen a lot of while working as a paramedic, and he sees it now in the other man's expression, buried deep in his eyes.
It stills his hand. Except for Danny, he realizes he has never before hurt another human being before.
When has his hands changed from a healer's to a killer's?
It makes him angry all over again, that question, and he's still hasn't had time to calm down from his last furious outburst. "What's wrong with me, then?" he shouts suddenly, his skin flushing red again. "You all look at me like I'm a freak, like I'm wrong, even Ellie—telling me I can't see my own sons, threatening to kill me if I speak to them. I've saved people, I've saved lives! I've mattered!"
"You're not the only one whose life matters, Joe!" Alec retorts furiously. "Those girls at Sandbrook, Danny, any child killed—what about those lives?"
Joe is predictable, exactly what Alec is counting on. He's hoping his words will tip the man over the edge and make him lose his temper all over again and he's rewarded when Joe shouts like an enraged bull and lifts the knife higher, aiming to stab—
The ropes slide off from where he's been working at them and he catches Joe's wrist just in time. His attacker's eyes widen in shock but that's all he can do before Alec wrests the knife away and throws it in the dirt several feet away. Pain lances up his sides at his sudden movements but Alec ignores it and kicks Joe away from him. Dirt flies as Joe lands heavily on his back and he barely registers the scramble Miller's husband makes to grab the knife again. He pants and tries to catch his breath, coughing as his body tries to expel the remains of the water he's inhaled. When he looks back up Joe is crouched over, clutching the knife in a trembling hand.
Faint sirens, far far off, still the moment. Struggling to keep in control, Alec catches Joe's eye, shuddering. "You didn't cover your tracks, Joe," he rasps painfully. For a moment the man looks at him with calmer, wider, frightened eyes. A pitiful wreck. "Just stop this, Joe," he pleads. "Please. Tell us where you have Fred. Give Ellie that. You don't have to be this way."
"My life is ruined," Joe whimpers, clutching the knife closer. "My family, my friends—they all hate me." A low sob escapes his throat. "I killed Danny."
Something in the atmosphere is changing. Something bad. The muscles in Alec's arms and back tighten, preparing for either flight or fight. Several feet separates them.
The knife glints and Joe swallows hard. "Nothing's worth living for when you don't have your family."
Shit! They move at the same time, Joe driving the blade towards his own stomach and Alec leaping to stop him.