Chapter 2: Ghost in a Machine

Alec's heart jumped when he heard the first, "Hello!", but it plummeted with a feeling that left him with lead in his stomach and an all too familiar pain in his chest at her continued voice of, "…leave a message and I'll get back to ya! Bye!"

The same. Always the same. He shouldn't have let himself think this time would be any different. But hope is always the last thing to die in the heart, no matter how stern we are with ourselves.

There was the beep telling him to leave his message… telling him he was once again talking to a ghost in a machine, trying to hold on to the sound of her bubbly voice in her message prompt as a grasping connection to something good, something that brought a fleeting warmth to his bleak life.

There might have been a time where he would have felt bitterness and anger at only getting her voicemail yet again, but he was too tired for that, too done with fighting back. All he wanted was to hear from her and let her know just how much he missed her and cared about her.

If Miller had been there, she would have been stunned at the difference in tone his voice took on. It softened, became the voice of the dad who'd stayed up listening to the trials and tribulations and drama that belong only to the world of a six year old.

"HI, it's me, checking up with your voicemail as usual. Listen, if you get the chance, give me a call. It's been a really long time this time."

And it had. He ached thinking about just how long it had been. At this point he wouldn't have cared if all she did was talk to him long enough to say "Hi" while she walked in to school.

"And I know you're busy with school and home and all the other things you do, but…. I do think about you, everyday…" he paused to collect himself, to swallow the feeling of desperation that crept into his throat and to collect himself, "Sorry, not getting soppy, sorry…you had my word on that."

She had. When it had become clear that his life was drifting away from hers and he had made the geographical move away, away from her school and friends and life.

"I can call you, right? Keep up with what you're doing and at all that?" he had asked.

With a typical teenage sigh and plant of her hand on her hip she had replied, "Yeah, of course. So long as you don't go getting all gooey or embarrassing or anything like that."

He had laughed and promised.

At first she either answered or returned his calls on a semi-regular basis, but it was hard to stay actually in touch when he hadn't actually seen her in….it killed him to think how long it had been…and the time between getting to even talk to her had gotten longer and longer.

"We could, um…ah…do, video call, couldn't we? I'd like that. You could be, you could be my first video call…" he could hear his own desperation now, but he couldn't help it, "…before you forget what I look like."

He was afraid, so afraid. He was losing her and he knew it, and he felt utterly powerless to do anything about it. His girl. His baby girl. The one he had held in absolute amazement when she had been born. The one who had gotten him soaked at bathtime more times than he could count. The he'd had to bribe into doing her homework with promises of extra videogame time when her mother wasn't around. The one he'd taken for hikes and explored chambered cairns with in the windswept, bleak northernmost part of Scotland.

And now all he had left was begging into her voicemail. He clamped down on the vacuum that was building to a roar in his chest.

"Right, well, that's me. This is dad signing off. I love you darling."

The roar crescendoed until it filled his ears and his voice threatened to break.

"Please give me a ring."

He hung up.

A little voice started whispering to him that he'd never speak to her again, that all he'd ever get would be her voicemail, that all she'd do was see his number and the message symbol and immediately let out a disgusted sigh and delete it.

The vacuum of desperation grew. He had to do something… had to work… had to do anything to get his mind off it all. Where was that report that stupid SOCO Brian had left him earlier? He rummaged around on his desk. It wasn't there. He'd just had it a hour earlier!

His mind rapidly spinning past the point of control, he barged out of his small office into the half-darkened common area. They'd all left. Every single one. He was alone with only the quiet hum of the building to echo the roar that filled his ears.

Where was the damn report?!

He strode over to Miller's desk and rifled through the folders that covered it. It wasn't there. Nor was it on the desk that faced hers. His spinning frustration grew more desperate as he tore through practically every folder and piece of paper in the entire office. He had to find it. He had to!

Suddenly he found himself face to face with the pinboard of the pathetic progress they'd made towards finding Danny's killer. The boy's picture stared accusingly at him, demanding to why he hadn't been brought to justice yet.

Alec couldn't even think anymore and he felt the room start to constrict in on him.

He rifled through a stack of papers next to the printer. Not there. NO! He couldn't even find a single damn report! What fuck good was he?! He tried to take deep gulping breaths to push back against the monster that was eating him. But it was no good. His failure to even be able to find even a single report that he'd been looking for, broke him, and he could no longer ignore the crushing grief and defeat that he'd been trying to hold back.

He slid down the wall, shaky, and with an eerie sense of panic calm… a moment of quiet where the rushing in his ears and head fell to the background and acted to muffle all sounds except the pounding of his heart… a blip in time before the tidal wave of loss and failure and grief and despair crashed over him, the pain so intense he didn't even know what to do with himself.

He sat alone in the dim office: a single, broken figure, swallowed up by the indifferent and uncaring night.