A/N: So I may be on hiatus right now but I couldn't bear to miss the anniversary of the end of Ashes to Ashes. 4 years ago the last episode was just ending, and my upset over aspects of those final moments inspired my first fic two days later. And now look where I am.
This snippet fit into canon in my world; the date, 9th May 1998. When Lucy and I watched Eurovision a couple of weeks ago I found myself really annoyed that I hadn't included the show taking place in the UK in 1998 in my timeline, and so the idea for this two part anniversary snippet was born. I hope you enjoy it – and if you're at all confused you should search for 'Dana International eurovision dress rehearsal' and 'Guildo Eurovision' on youtube!
~xXx~
"The poor man. He's going to have a lifelong phobia of parrots now."
"Not my fault."
"You made him frisk her!"
"I wasn't going to frisk it, didn't know what I was going to find!"
"It?! Gene, be respectful, that's insensitive!"
"I'm not being insensitive, I thought it was a giant bloody parrot! I don't care what bits she's had sawn off, wear that many feathers for yer dress rehearsal and it's a one-way ticket to the local petshop."
Alex sighed and leaned back against the wall as myriad performers passed them by on their way to get ready for the performance of their lives. She couldn't help but feel as though they'd drawn the short straw. She'd have given anything to be curled up on the couch watching the camp production from home instead of stuck providing security on the night.
"So how come we are lumbered babysitting half of Europe while everyone else is enjoying Robin's home-cooked pizza and waiting to spot us in the background, point and laugh?"
Gene pulled his flask from his pocket and shrugged.
"Beats me, Bolly, must have pissed off Terry Wogan in a previous life."
Alex pouted a little as Gene illicitly downed a few mouthfuls of alcohol and pulled a face as though it had stripped the lining from his throat.
"It could be worse," she said, "some of those people must have paid a fortune for tickets. We get to watch every act up close and personal."
"We're their babysitters, not a pair of bloody dentists."
"You're not really helping matters, Gene," Alex accused, "You could at least try to get into the spirit of things!"
"I am," Gene insisted.
"How?" Alex asked incredulously and Gene held up his flask.
"Got a drop of liquor from every one of the twenty five competing nations in here," he said somewhat proudly. Alex frowned suspiciously, took the flask from his hand and quickly tested his claim. Choking a little from the power of the alcohol, she wiped her lips and handed it back to Gene.
"God, you weren't kidding, were you?" she spluttered, already feeling her head spinning slightly.
"I'm going to market this to the EU," Gene told her, "it's my bit towards promoting world peace." He shrugged, "everyone'll be too pissed to organise wars."
Alex sighed deeply and brushed her fringe away from her face.
"You should make the most of tonight," she told him, "we won't see the likes of this again."
"Too true," Gene mumbled, "next time we win the sodding thing I'm booking the whole of May off, annual leave."
"You won't have an opportunity, we won't be winning again," Alex told him. She was surprised to see him throw her a slightly distraught glance. "It's true," she continued, "this year; second place. Next year, lower. Five years from now we're taking home nil points and Terry Wogan's threatening to throw in the towel."
Gene narrowed his eyes slightly. He took a long swig from his flask and gasped quietly before he finally replied;
"Shoebury taught me there's such a thing as a spoiler warning, you know Bols."
"Oh come on, Gene, you should be used to spoilers by now," Alex told him, "as much as I might try not to, sometimes things –" she shrugged a little guiltily, "slip out."
"Like your top cobblers when you forgot to do yer zip up," Gene commented, but Alex wasn't really listening.
"Do you know what will feel really strange?" she asked thoughtfully.
Gene nodded.
"Yes, Bolly, but you said we weren't doing that any more after the last time when you couldn't sit down for a week."
Alex seemed oblivious to his words, deep in thought as she contemplated her realisation. She tapped her fingers softly against the wall as she continued;
"When I run out of familiar years," she said, "right now everything I go through… I've seen before. It's a repeat. But then one day, come two thousand and eight, I'll reach the end of the line and suddenly I'm into the unknown. Blank pages. New territory. I won't know anything that's about to happen. Or anything that has happened, the first time around. Well," she tilted her head to one side, ever deeper in contemplation with a little, distant smile playing on her lips, "I suppose I did have a slight taste of two thousand and eleven… but that doesn't count. Not really. I suppose –"
"Bolly?"
Alex finally stopped talking long enough to turn to Gene.
"Hmm?"
A potent flask appeared under her nose.
"Stick this in your trap and give yer lips a well-deserved rest," Gene demanded, "not to mention that over-fried think-pan of yours. Blimey, woman, this is supposed to be the most mind-numbing night of the year, not the Royal Institution's Christmas bloody lectures!"
With a slightly annoyed glance Alex took the flask and sipped from it. She found her slight irritation fading fast as the warming mix of European tipples worked wonders. She supposed she was rambling, again. But then again, that was just who she was. She smiled to herself. Some things hadn't changed since she arrived in 1981. Now here she was, seventeen years on. She was still as headstrong, wordy and opinionated as always even though in so many ways she, and her life, had changed. The night that Gene had led her to the Railways Arms and left her there she thought everything was over. She could never have imagined how one leap of faith would change her entire existence.
"For the better," she whispered to herself.
"What?"
Alex glanced at Gene, unaware she'd spoken out loud. A tiny smile crept onto her face. There was Gene, a few more wrinkles and a few longer words in his vocabulary but he was the same Gene Hunt she'd met all those years ago. For what it was worth, she wouldn't have it any other way. Her smile grew a little broader as she said,
"Nothing."
"No, you were flapping yer lips again."
"I was doing no such thing!"
"I saw them!"
"I was making a mere observation to myself!" Alex protested with a smile.
"I've got something you can observe later," Gene began but before he could get too far into his innuendo a panicked Jake ran in their direction, screeching to a halt in front of them.
"Guv!" he cried, "Ma'am!"
"What?" Alex asked, her heart-rate rising from the urgent tone that greeted them.
"Don't tell me that parrot's gone into a flap?" Gene asked, pocketing his flask.
"No, it's Guildo," Jake cried breathlessly, "His trousers have escaped!"
With a look of panic between them, Alex's eyes met Gene's.
"That's not good," she gasped.
"Trousers that colour shouldn't be allowed to exist in captivity, let alone in the wild," Gene mumbled just as a scream came from somewhere nearby.
"That's them! That's the trousers!" Jake cried.
"Then quick! After them!" Alex's feet began to move in the direction of the escaped legwear with Gene following hot on her tail.
As the two DCIs chased the mutant fabric around the stage, barrelling into the show's erstwhile host, making an enemy of Terry Wogan for life in the process, it was just another day on the job for a woman who'd skipped back and forth through time and a man who'd led so many to fill their potential. The rose and the rough diamond had faced every hardship imaginable but they'd come through every last one because they'd had each other, as friends, as colleagues and as lovers. They were as unbreakable now as they'd ever been.
No kind of Euro-hell was going to change that.
To Be Continued
~xXx~
A/N: So 4 years ago, Ashes to Ashes came to an end. It was only right that this part of the mini-fic should focus on the stars of the show itself. In two days' time it will be 4 years since I wrote the first chapter of Out of the Window and there will be a second part, focusing on the characters I've created and come to love. Thank you for reading!