Crashing Waves

19

"Why didn't you report it." Alec said as he sat beside me, watching my every move as I sat up, ashamed to even look at him. "You know there are places set out to help you in a situation like this-"

"I didn't know how to confront it, ok?" I interrupted him, making him shut up. "He did horrific things to me, Hardy. Things I didn't even think could happen to anyone, let alone me. But here we are." I let a tear slip down my cheek, sniffing as I clicked the morphine button multiple times, trying to dull the pain in my side.

"They would have helped you. You know that." He was trying to comfort me, I know that, but it didn't work like that.

"Alec, so many women get raped now. The word itself... we have a rape culture that is complete taboo to even mention, and towns like this, like Plymouth... so much goes on that no one ever knows about. Because they're scared to. Like I was." I gathered the strength to look at him, clenching my fists into balls on the blanket when I did.

"You have no idea how dirty I felt after the first time. We hadn't had sex before that. He... he did it almost every week, for months. Right up until I ran away to here." I watched him listen to my story, watching his heart sink as I told him what Alan had done to me.

"When we slept together, you told me-" Alec stopped, making me think back to the night we had sex. I had told him to hold my hands up.

"If you hadn't, I would have pushed you off me. I know you aren't Alan, and I wanted this, us, to happen. Despite what you thought that night was, to me it meant something. I just need time to... readjust." It sounded like a daft thing to say, but the past year Alan and my old DI were the ones who owned me.

"Walker." Hardy growled in his Scottish accent, leaning forwards so his arm leant on the bed, his hand softly stroking my arm. "You understand now that we've slept together, we-"

"I'll move back to Plymouth once this is all over, don't worry." I knew what he was going to say, and it was fine. It hurt, but I knew I needed to go back home eventually. I needed to properly move on, sell the rest of my things and move out officially from Devon. I was done with that place anyway.

"No. I was going to say, I'm looking into buying that house on top of the cliff, by Broadchurch beach." He started, making me wonder where this was going.

"I need to fix the breakages, but I was thinking of selling the cottage and renting out the house, to pay for the mortgage."

"Are you asking me to rent from you." I laughed, closing my eyes as I relaxed, still can't laugh without shooting pain.

"You work well with Miller and I, and I've been looking to have another qualified DS hired. The chief wants us to bring in trainees and I'm not sure." Back to complaining.

"You'd make a good teacher." I replied, smiling. It was true. Although he could come off as brash and maybe a little boring, I bet his daughter had learnt a lot of morals off of him.

"I doubt that. I hated the college lectures I did." He groaned, and I shook my head in disbelief.

"You? Lecturing? Now that's something I want to see." The laugh was worth the pain, but Hardy's smile quickly rescinded when his phone buzzed.

"Miller." He said to me, standing up to take the call. "Miller." He greeted Ellie on the phone, nodding. "Right. Is he-?" Broken sentences and agreements told me nothing and my heart began to beat like a hummingbirds, I was finding it impossible to calm myself down. "Right. I'll let you deal with that. See you soon." Hanging up he looked at me.

"The video evidence we found wasn't enough to make him confess, but Miller  and the Chief are sure it's enough for the Crown in court. He's been charged with sexual assault, assault and recording you without permission. She's trying to work of the breaking and entering still, but we're taking that with us too." I didn't realise I wasn't breathing until I sighed in relief, looking at my trembling hands resting down on my legs.

"He's- he's gone." I couldn't believe it. "Thank you. Thank you so much." Sitting up I swung my legs over the bed and wrapped my arms around Hardy, sobbing into his shirt.

"Get back into bed, you'll rip your stitches!" He said, stepping with me back to the bed where he helped me on. Right before I could look up he pulled my head into his chest, holding it as his lips softly touched my forehead.
Alec Hardy being compassionate, who knew.

"Thank you, Alec." Shifting over slightly, much to my discomfort, Hardy sat on the bed, letting me lay back down as our bed sharing in a single before allowed us to slip into position, albeit careful of all my tubes coming out of my wrists. "If it hadn't been for you... you'd probably be investigating my murder." 

"Don't say that." He snapped back, allowing me to fiddle with his tie, tracing the patterns on it.

"Please go back to the station when I fall asleep." I said, the morphine dosage I'd given myself making me feel extremely drowsy. "I want you to talk through with Miller what happened. And also sort out that housing situation. After all, if you're going to be my boss and my landlord, I want to know that I'll be in safe hands." Patting his chest my eyes slowly began to close. Hardy's gruff responses were enough for me, feeling his chest vibrate every time a word, or noise, escaped his mouth rather soothing.

***

Hardy waited until Alice fell asleep, not wanting to disturb her. Gently leaving her side, he placed her head back on the pillow and kissed her forehead, cursing himself for letting her get to him. It had been too long since he had even considered anyone else other than Tess, after all Alec had still loved her when she stabbed him in the back and had that affair. Daisy was the only one that had stopped him from trying to win her back. She had begun to visit him more, in fact she was due to stay over at the end of the week, but from what she had told her father, Tess was happy.

Alec decided that, for once, he wanted to be happy too.