The Consequences of Falling
Summary: Alex and Gene – together forever? 2008 – myth or reality? Galex (of course!).
Disclaimers: Naturally I own neither Gene et al, nor LoM/A2A: they belong to Kudos and the BBC, alas...
Acknowledgements: The quotation at the end of Chapter 6 is taken from Volume 2 of the LoM Official Companion. As I'm sure you'll realise. Thanks to leakybiro for beta'ing and plot contributions.
A/N: Set after episode 8 of A2A, so spoilers for everything. Major character death in Chapter 4 – be warned!
Chapter 1
Quietly, DCI Gene Hunt let himself into the downstairs bar of Luigi's Italian restaurant. In the half-light that filtered through the stairwell, it looked like all night time places during the day: shabby, unkempt and sad. Gene smiled wryly – it reflected his mood, and seemed an appropriate place to be.
It was, in fact, where he had been on many preceding mornings, and he was beginning to feel at home with the upturned chairs, empty tables and unnatural silence. He went behind the bar and poured himself a not entirely legal drink. Luigi's license did not extend to serving before eleven in the morning, but Gene reckoned that as he'd served himself it didn't count. He wasn't intending to pay for it anyway, though he'd see that the restaurant owner was properly recompensed.
Sitting alone in a place intended for thronging, happy people, and where he had himself on occasion been very happy, Gene's loneliness bit him like a stray dog: mangy and cowed, but still maliciously ill-tempered. He took a mouthful of the sour beer and found it only mildly comforting. He thought of all the evenings he'd spent here with Ray, Chris, Shaz and the gang, before his infuriating DI staggered in wearing nothing but a wide belt and a bemused expression; all the evenings he'd spent here with her, getting progressively more inebriated and aroused, but continually resisting the impulse to do what she had once or twice almost invited him to do, because she was a colleague, a stranger, a fellow traveller on a particularly friendless road. He still hated himself for not seeing her safely to her room when she was simply too drunk – at his instigation and expense – to resist the lechery of that passing red-braced opportunist, as much a pervert in Gene's eyes as any rapist, because both preyed on those unable to defend themselves.
He grimaced. If any other bird had done what Bolly-knickers had done, he would have written her off as a common tart and had nothing further to do with her. The fact that he saw Alex Drake as a victim rather than a perpetrator showed how different she was, and how differently he felt about her. During the past week, when she had yet again taken leave from work and his days had no longer been filled with her outrageous clothes, sensuous perfume and irritatingly bouncy curls, he had done some hard, painful thinking, and come to what should not have been a revelation by anyone's standards: that he was, in spite of himself, in love with her. He would have to act on that fact one way or another, either by consciously ignoring it and getting on with life regardless, or by declaring his feelings and risking a gentle brush off – as he'd received from her on more than one occasion – or brutal rejection.
He felt his chest contract at the thought. It was the worst thing he could imagine, and it made him realise how deeply in over his head he was. He'd been in love before of course, and had his heart broken too, but even those bitter and formative experiences seemed minor compared to this. Alex was far more precious and rare than anything else in his life, and contemplating her, and the strangeness of her, naturally made him think of that other life-changing person who had crashed into his settled, ordered world and turned it upside down. Sam Tyler had changed everything – even the very place he lived and worked – and if Sam had been a woman, Gene would have been as much in love with him as he was now with Bolly. The idea brought another wry smile to his lips. Sam's 'gay boy' science and Alex's psychological new-speak made him realise that he had been half in love with Sam, though he couldn't have explained it to anyone, had never dreamt of sexualising their relationship, and certainly wouldn't in a million years have admitted it. His friendship with Sam had been hard-won, solid and blood-deep, the kind of friendship that a man experiences only once in his lifetime, when he recognises a brother, clasps him close, and knows he will never let him go.
But Sam had gone, slipping away from Gene like quicksilver, and a part of his heart had been torn out with him. He even found it painful to talk to Annie now; despite his contributions to her family – financial and otherwise – it upset him that she knew mere duty kept him calling, and she was quietly slipping away from him too. He'd lost Sam, and Sam's children, for ever, and the wounds were still fresh and raw. It was his own fault: the Gene Genie wasn't supposed to form attachments, to make friends. He'd broken that rule, and Sam had paid the ultimate price.
He sure as hell wasn't going to lose anyone else.
Which brought him back to why he was here: to make sure Alex had safely negotiated another night's storms, and was ready to face the day. As if to echo his thoughts, he heard movement from Luigi's flat, and a few minutes later the little Italian emerged, plump in production line bonhomie, paisley pyjamas and striped dressing gown, and carrying coffee for his good friend Gene. He looked at the empty beer glass with obvious disapproval, but said nothing: he knew the policeman well enough now to accept him on his own terms.
"You do not look right, sitting there by your own," Luigi said as he sat down and pushed Gene's coffee across the table. "It is a wrong place, an empty room like this."
"Would you like me to mention the war, Luigi?" Gene's voice was just this edge of dour.
Luigi laughed in the particularly humourless fashion he had perfected over the years. "No thank you, Mr Hunt, your colleagues are very fine for that. You have come about the lovely signorina again, no? She is ironing her beautiful clothes now – I take her coffee, just like you, to say hello – but I think she will not join you for work, as she does not wear anything."
Gene spluttered into his drink. "I won't ask how you know."
Luigi shrugged. "She ask me in to check the iron. She is not wearing much. A beautiful lady, Mr Hunt, but not my beautiful lady, so we are good together."
Gene sighed. "One day, my friend, you must learn English. In the meantime, I'll have another coffee, this time in a proper mug, not one of these semi-tassies." It was a word Alex had taught him, and he felt rather superior for remembering it. For a second.
"Demitasse," a seductive voice whispered in his ear. As he twisted round, its owner walked behind him and sat down in the chair between Luigi and himself and, gentleman that he wasn't, he couldn't help noticing that, while she might now be wearing one of his spare shirts – it always gave him a thrill when she did that – she wasn't wearing much else. In her hand she clutched an iron, completing the surreal image. "It's a demitasse, and I'll have another one too, Luigi, if I may."
Gene's eyes met Luigi's in briefly-shared male appreciation of Alex's state of undress. Then the moment was over; Luigi left to fetch the coffees, and Gene spoke. "It's good to see you up and about, Bolly, but why the household implement?" He eyed the iron warily.
She waved it at him, and he flinched. "Luigi said he'd fixed it, but it doesn't work."
"Huh. Doesn't surprise me. So how are you, Bols?"
"Better." She smiled thinly, and he saw the pain that still haunted her, the shadows beneath her eyes. She'd lost colour and weight since she'd witnessed Tim and Caroline Price's deaths, and Gene wished he'd been able to run to her where she knelt on the ground, distraught and screaming, rather than taking the hand of their shocked and silent daughter, and leading her to safety. It had been weeks ago – Christmas was almost upon them – but still she lapsed into these black depressions, and still he had to drag her out before she drowned.
"Better enough to come back to work?"
"Missing me?"
"Definitely better enough to come back to work. No, not me – it's Raymondo. Pining for you, he is."
Alex grimaced. "Well, as long as it's for Ray… Thanks, Luigi."
"Seriously, Alex. How are you?"
"Why are you being so nice to me, Gene?"
Because I love you. "Because you are a valued member of my team, DI Drake, and at the moment I am a woman short."
Alex giggled, but it was a strangely sombre sound. "I keep reliving it, but at least this time I knew what to expect."
"The Prices? Oh, your mum and dad… It's all in the past now, Alex." He didn't know why he had to keep reminding himself that her childhood had not been like other people's. How could he have forgotten so easily? Every thought about the Prices must bring the deaths of her own parents back afresh.
"Yes."
"That poor kid."
The shock of her cool, soft hand on his took his breath away, light and peripheral as it was. Without thinking, he turned his own hand over to hold hers, and her fingers curled around it in response. "You saved her, Gene. In all that horror, you saved her. She will remember you always."
"I should have come to you." It was less than he felt, perhaps more than he should have said, but she just shook her head.
"You did the right thing. She will hold your hand all her life."
"I hope she'll forget it as soon as possible. Why?"
She met his eyes, and he felt, as he always did, their depth and thrill, their mystery and beauty. They were the most astonishing eyes he had ever seen, drawing him in, and all he had to do was surrender, lean towards her, until they gently closed with the soft perfection of a kiss… He blinked, breaking the spell, though his expression remained desperately poised between desire and despair.
"Don't you know?"
He shook himself, something half-remembered slipping away from him even as he grasped it. "I did my job, Bolly. I'd rather take a bullet in an alley than do what I had to for that little girl."
"But you will take care of her, won't you?"
"She's got your Evan White to take care of her. He's not going to like it if I stick my nose in, is he? And he does seem to genuinely love her."
"I want you to keep an eye on her anyway."
"Don't you trust him?"
"Of course I do, and I know he'll do a great job of bringing her up, but I want you to be there for her too. A bit of – " she smiled " – oh, rugged masculinity."
"Huh," he replied, but not dismissively. "I'm not very good with kids. But – " he held up his free hand as she started to protest " – I'll try, OK?"
"Thank you, Gene." She smiled the little girl smile that melted his heart. "It's important to me." He wondered why. What did she and the child share, more than a name? Parents dead, in an explosion – that was strange. Something like knowledge tugged at the corner of his mind, but he didn't give it the attention it craved, and it soon gave up and wandered away.
"Anything else I can do for you, while I'm in this expansive mood?"
She didn't immediately answer, instead gazing beyond his shoulder at something only she could see. So intent was she that he almost turned to look, although he knew there could be nothing there. He felt completely out of his depth, wanting beyond anything else to heal her wounds, but not even knowing where she was hurt, never mind how to cure her. "Will you make me a promise, Gene?"
He looked into her pale, gaunt face, and wished he could give her the world. But he couldn't, even if it had been his to give. He had to be strong – had to save her from the Gene Genie's curse. "What?" He wished he could have been gentler.
"Promise me…" The pressure of her hand in his tightened, and he resisted the urge to reply in kind. "Promise me that you'll never leave me."
Leave her! Leave her, when virtually everything that he valued in this world was sitting in front of him, embodied in her? When even the thought of a life without her was empty and cold, she being his sunshine and the warmth of daylight on his skin? The loss of his dearest friend in that stupid, unnecessary car chase had sucked his soul almost dry, and it had withered like an autumn leaf, dry and unloved. But she had made his job worthwhile again where it had become a duty, his life a joy where it had seemed a shell. That he had fallen in love with her was a ghastly complication, quite unintended, exposing them both to danger and pain, but he felt alive and vital in a way that he hadn't for months. Sometimes, she made him think he could see the wind, hear the grass growing – feel the heartbeat of time itself. And all without her giving anything back. How much more rich and glorious if she loved him… The beauty of it would have been almost unbearable.
Which is why he would have to refuse her. If she got too close, he would lose her, just like Sam – and, just like Sam, it wouldn't be him who would pay. The words rose to his lips, bitter like bee stings. "You making me a proposal, Bolly? Takes more than that to catch the Gene Genie."
He saw the flick of pain behind her eyes, unnaturally bright as she ruthlessly suppressed her reaction. His heart cried out with the agony of turning away from her, this woman who was all he had ever wanted, and whose like he would never find again. But he knew it was necessary, and his face hardened. He couldn't – he mustn't…
She saw it – he knew she saw it. He sensed an answering bleakness in her own expression, and the moment when he might have changed his mind was gone. Pulling her hand free of his, she pushed at her chair. "That's not what I meant," she said. "I thought you might understand. Silly me." Then she was gone, running up the stairs to the safety of her flat. Her quiet despair was far worse than any anger, and he felt as though she'd ripped him apart.
Gene's face mirrored his emotional turmoil. He dug his nails into his palms, proof against a greater, unseen pain, and his eyes began to shine as he stood up to leave. But then again, it might just have been a trick of the light.
What if he was wrong? What if Alex was going to suffer anyway – or indeed not suffer? Why did he assume that he was vital to everything that happened here, that whatever he did would inevitably influence her, for good or ill? Perhaps he was being obsessively self-centred. Could he afford to let go: to relax his grip? Life would surely go on whatever he did, so perhaps he could stop being the Gene Genie, just for a little while…
He watched Luigi come down the stairs, and saw the caution in the man's eyes. Well, Gene had bitten his head off on occasions less stressful than this, so maybe he was wise. Wiser than Gene, whose carefully-ordered world might have been knocked sideways by Sam Tyler, but was being demolished by Alex Drake. Did it matter? Did it matter, as long as she was happy? Did it matter, as long as he was happy?
It was a startling thought: that in the midst of all his responsibilities, there might be a chance of something as apparently marginal as happiness. What if that was his true purpose here, and not – as he had always thought – looking after people, protecting the weak, punishing the wicked, serving the common good? What if the Gene Genie himself mattered, after all?
Luigi approached and broke his reverie, for which he was profoundly grateful; he was getting into deep and murky waters. "The signorina, she is coming with you?"
"No, Luigi, the signorina is not coming with me," he said sadly. He grabbed at his unfinished drink, downing the now chill liquid in one gulp. Grimacing, he strode towards the exit, regaining his accustomed assertiveness with every step. "You can tell her I've gone. And that was bloody horrible coffee."
He took the stairs two at a time, and walked alone into the chilly sunlight.