This one has been hanging around since late last year. I had it all written and sent it off to my Faithful Beta reader who gently pointed out that Gene started the story getting stabbed, and then ended up having a bullet fished out of him! Ah. Well, I am only human, and my only explanation is I must have got carried away whilst taking a break in writing this one! Still, that's all sorted now, injury sustained and everything through use of one weapon and no, I don't mean Alex's caustic use of Wit!
My Froggy Muses have been absent a while now, other than when I managed to write nearly all of Chapter One of my Beta Reader and I's original novel 'Conversations At The Dragon' (should you wish to know more, please PM me!). I'm kinda hoping I'll be grabbed warmly by the brain cell soon because I'm missing Gene and Alex, even PG's recent sojourn as a Smiter of all things Half Dead in ITV's 'Demons' was a reminder that we need the Manc Lion/Gene Genie out on the roads of the Metropolis in 1982 and soon please!
Hope you enjoy this one, I know I enjoyed writing it.
Hold on, please: An A2A ficThe last time, Alex recalled, anyone had been holding her hand like this, it had been her daughter.
Molly had fallen off her bike at the age of 7, scaring the hell out of her mother. The small red and gold bicycle laid, wheels horizontal to the ground, discarded on the grass, and Molly lay on the tarmac, blood spilt from her forehead.
Alex had ran faster than she ever thought possible to the fallen form, the blood pumping so loud in her ears as she screamed in terror 'Molly!'
The small form of her daughter laid, unmoving on the unforgiving black surface.
As Alex hurled herself beside her child, her only child, the only person she had in the world, she found herself praying for the first time in years.
'Dear God, please save her, please don't let her be hurt, please, please, please…' promises made and forgotten world over by parents at such a time.
Alex had rolled her daughter over and found a deathly pale face, eyes closed, with a gash of about four inches at the fair hairline.
Blood was seeping all too enthusiastically out of the wound, caused, Alex could see, by a carelessly discarded, and now broken, glass bottle.
Cursing drunks and drinkers of alcohol who wandered about with the damned things at night, Alex had stroked Molly's forehead and cheeks, gently speaking to her, entreating her to come back to her.
'Molly? Molly? Sweetheart? Come on, open your eyes darling, I'm here now.' She found herself with tears flowing down her face and falling on her daughter's pale cheeks.
Slowly, Molly's eyelashes fluttered, like small dark butterflies on her bloodstained face.
Alex had gasped back the tears and made herself smile at her daughter, thanking the God she had decided had forsaken her for returning Molly to her.
'Molly! Oh thank God! Sweetheart? I'm here…'
Molly had vaguely looked at her mother, curled up closer to her and closed her eyes again, causing Alex to cast caution to the wind.
She had raced Molly to the local A&E department, brooking no argument about the speed of treatment and attention Molly received with such ferocity; the staff had acquiesced in order to make their lives easier and remarkably quieter.
Lying in the enormous, adult sized A&E hospital bed, Molly had reached out for her Mother's hand and held it with the grasp that did not falter even when she eventually fell asleep.
'Mild concussion, Mrs Drake,' the older paediatric consultant told her, 'we'll be keeping her in overnight just to be on the safe side.'
'And the cut? Her arm! She said her arm hurt! Is it broken?' Alex demanded, 'She fell very awkwardly, I'm concerned about her let knee…'
The Doctor crouched down next to her and calmed her.
'The cut on her forehead looked more serious than it was, really. The nurse removed several small pieces of glass and flushed the wound out; really you won't be able to see the small scar once it heals – which it will in the fullness of time. Other than that, cuts and bruises, and nothing more to worry about. You did the right thing bringing your daughter in Mrs Drake, and now it's up to us to make sure there's no further mischief.'
'Mischief?'
The Doctor smiled wryly, 'In the head department. Hence my recommendation to admit Molly overnight – it's purely a safety precaution. I have no doubt she'll be right as rain – bar a headache tomorrow morning which is easily solved with half an aspirin. Trust me, Mrs Drake, your daughter will be fine.'
And she had been. Alex had spent the night next to Molly, and taken her home the next morning.
And the following weekend, Molly and Alex went to buy a better fitting bike helmet. Alex swearing to herself it was the last time her ex-husband was being allowed to do things like that. Barbie might be fashionable, but she was far from functional.
And now Alex was holding someone else's hand.
A much larger hand.
A much larger, hairier hand that belonged to someone much older, who should, by rights have been a damn sight more sensible.
A damn sight more sensible than to try and talk an irritated and off his head with cocaine knife wielding shoplifter.
The struggle had been brief, ever so slightly just a touch too dramatic for Alex's taste and too bloody painful for Gene.
The formerly knife wielding maniac lay on the floor, hands cuffed behind his back, face down with Ray's right foot between his shoulder blades.
Chris was standing talking to the shop owner who was being patched up at the scene by Shaz.
And Alex?
Alex was kneeling by Gene, who was laying flat on his back on the pavement, his trademark black coat not swirling behind him as was its usual function, but rucked up and shielding his suit jacket from the detritus on the pavement.
Alex was not blaming herself. Absolutely not. This was not her fault. In any way or shape or, er, way.
She wasn't responsible for everything that happened now was she?
A flicker of doubt asserted itself in her mind.
'Everything is significant.' She had told herself. Everything. From Arthur Denton's appearance and subsequent arrest to meeting her own mother. Whatever this place was, it was bringing some pretty weird and wonderful things forward from Alex's own subconscious.
And how she bloody hated it.
Not all the time, I mean sometimes it was quite funny, the other day she had felt the need for a chocolate fix and was searching fruitlessly for a Snickers bar till it clicked – here, in 1981, they were still called Marathon. And it was true – the Curly Whirly bars Shaz bought Chris really did seem larger than the ones Molly had at home.
But at times like now she really, really wanted to back to her real life now.
Right now please.
But maybe hold that thought a moment.
Gene lay unmoving, his face a ghastly pallor due to shock and loss of blood.
His eyes were closed, so Alex was hoping he was unaware of the pain racking his body.
Hearing a scuffle, she looked up, and saw Ray and Chris manhandling the deranged knifeman – now sans weapon thank God – into the back of the police transit van.
He was resisting arrest with all his might, until Ray – taking great pleasure in the manoeuvre – elbowed the prisoner in the ribs with gusto.
Winded, the now former knife-man fought no more and Ray, with help from Chris, unceremoniously bundled the man through the opened doors and slammed them shut.
'Bastard.' Ray announced to no one in particular.
Several heads nodded in agreement.
Chris jogged over to Alex.
How's the Guv?' he asked quietly.
'I don't know, Christ,' Alex told him gently, 'I don't like his colour, and he's unconscious.'
Chris sagged helplessly.
'Oh, *where's* that bloody ambulance?!' Alex cried in frustration, 'The NHS can't be struggling yet! Thatcher's not been in long enough!'
Chris, colouring, edged away from her and walked back to Ray who was leaning against the police van, furiously chain-smoking.
Alex shifted her knees on the hard pavement and adjusted the pressure on Gene's chest.
'Don't you leave me, Gene Hunt,' she told him in unintentionally soft tones,' You're the only damn one who knows what's going on in this ludicrous fantasy of mine…'
She paused, straining her hearing for sounds of a two tone ambulance siren.
'Besides,' she added, 'you still owe me a drink.'
As she had added this last comment, she had lifted her head and looked at the road, almost squinting at the horizon, as if by sheer willpower she could make the ambulance appear.
Because she had done so, she hadn't seen Gene's eyelids flicker and then open…
For a glorious moment, Gene wondered why he was lying on his back on a pavement looking up at the sky.
And then the pain kicked in, almost taking his breath away.
'Bloody hell,' he hissed through gritted teeth.
'Besides' a soft voice that he knew he knew from somewhere, 'you still owe me a drink…'
He let his head fall to the right and saw the familiar permed corkscrew curls he saw every day and was dreaming about with increasingly regularity at night.
Luckily – for Gene – Alex was still willing an ambulance into existence and therefore missed the adoring look he, albeit unintentionally, gave her.
Letting his head fall back to between his shoulders, Gene let his mind wander, not even worrying that this inability to stick to even thinking about Alex was a sign his body was going into deeper shock.
And was he though was this.
Under what passed as normal circumstances, finding himself flat on his back looking up at the sky meant, to Gene, that he'd had another alcohol induced evening of enjoyable frivolity.
This wasn't true here – and Gene had two damn good reasons why:
One – It was full daylight, and there wasn't a hint of the moon in the sky.
Two – His chest felt like it was burning.
Hey, he was a Detective. It was his business to know these things.
What he didn't know was how he had got here.
'Drake?' he tried to say, but his mouth and lips were bone dry.
He forced himself to swallow, and he licked his lips.
'Alex?' this time he managed to croak out her name.
Alex heard her name being hissed at her.
Her initial response was annoyance.
'Oh, for God's *sake*!' she muttered, looking over her shoulder to find out who was trying to attract her attention in such a way.
Then a hand clamped over her own.
And her hand was applying serious pressure to Gene's chest, practically ramming the wad of cotton wool and handkerchiefs onto the bleeding all too freely wound.
She gasped and looked down, first at the hand, and then at Gene.
'Oh my God…' she whispered, in shock herself now.
Gene coughed and forced a smile, though it hurt like hell.
'You don't get rid of the Manc Lion that easily, Inspector.' He told her.
Alex couldn't help it; the tears welled up in her eyes.
'And less of the waterworks please, Drake, that's no example to set the troops.' Gene gasped, fighting for air.
'Stay with me, Gene, okay? Please, just stay with me!' Alex pleaded with him, one hand still applying pressure, the other clasping his hand desperately.
'Always, Bolly, me and you against the world, eh?' he told her, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out again.
At the same moment, Alex finally heard the ambulance siren.
Two hours later, she was ensconced in a hospital waiting room, with nothing but vending machine coffee and five year old 'My Weekly' to read.
Evening was setting in across the metropolis, and ordinarily, she would have been at Luigi's, sinking red wine like it was going out of fashion.
Not tonight.
Tonight, she was sipping terrible coffee and waiting for someone vaguely medical to come and tell her that Gene was dead.
For Alex was torn between two horrible possibilities.
If Gene lived, or at least, continued to 'live' as a construct in this fantasy of hers, then she was stuck here, in this version of 1981 for a further indefinite period.
If Gene died, there was a strong chance that might just be the trigger for her to return to her real life.
The latter thought made her heart pump a little faster, as the thought of seeing Molly, of holding Molly, of telling her daughter she loved her so very much, lifted Alex up so high she could have floated away.
But the thought that it would cost a good man's life bought her down with a thump.
For, despite herself, Alex had had to adjust her thinking since she had arrived here.
Gene Hunt might have been ready to dole out rough justice when Sam was here, but Alex could see that Gene's experiences had changed him.
And he was a good man. Not terribly moral at times, and certainly not the most erudite or outwardly intelligent of men, but he was a good man.
He cared. And though a certain part of him hated that he should care, it didn't stop him.
His team were his family, and come what may, he would protect them from any outside force that tried to harm them.
Alex had been prepared by Sam's memory about Gene's affinity with the Western genre of Hollywood. 'The Sheriff of Manchester' he had called himself whilst at North West HQ.
Now, with his move South, it had changed to the 'Manc Lion'.
Alex allowed herself a small smile.
Did that mean she was one of his Pride?
Behind her she heard a small cough, and she spun round, to find a tired looking man in scrubs looking at her.
'DI Drake?' he asked.
Alex's knees buckled under her and she collapsed into a battered armchair.
'Doctor?' she whispered, instantly feeling the old Catholic Guilt of her early childhood chastise her for not praying for Gene's immortal soul at such a time.
'You are Detective Inspector Alex Drake?' the Doctor asked more kindly, walked slowly over to her and sitting down next to her.
'I am. DCI Hunt? What happened? Please – just tell me. I have to know!' she begged, regardless of how desperate she sounded.
'The operation wasn't an easy one. The thrust of the blade deflected off a rib and in the direction of his right lung. And he was weak; we had to give him substantial transfusions.' The Doctor once again wiped his hand over tired eyes.
'You did your best, and I thank you for it…' Alex said quietly.
It was all over.
Gene was dead.
The Doctor gently took Alex's hand.
'But despite all of that, he was lucky. More than lucky. The knife hadn't punctured the lung and the debris from his rib therefore hadn't infiltrated his windpipe. Give him a couple of weeks and he'll be back to work unless you can persuade him otherwise.' He said, finishing with a smile.
Alex's head snapped up to look at the Doctor.
'He's *alive*?!!!!' she cried, 'actually alive?!'
'He's alive. Still out with the anaesthetic at the moment, I fear, but all the signs are that he'll make a full recovery and have an interesting scar to show the Police Surgeon. And his colleagues at the bar no doubt!' The Doctor added, standing up.
'Thank you! Oh thank you so much!' Alex shot up out of her seat and hugged the Doctor enthusiastically.
'Er, you are quite welcome, DI Drake.' The Doctor, embarrassed at this show of emotion from her, smiled nervously, and exited the room.
Alex sank down in the seat and put her head in her hands.
'Er, DI Drake?' The Doctor was back.
'Yes!' Alex looked up at him.
'You can tell your colleagues no visitors for a couple of days, please, but I'm sure he'll be pleased to see you all. In small groups. You must be careful not to tire him.'
'Of course. I understand.' Alex nodded.
The Doctor paused then said quietly, 'I don't know if your friend is a religious man, but a few of us in the operating theatre agree that his Guardian Angel must have been keeping a close eye on him today.'
And having said so the Doctor nodded at her and exited the room again, leaving Alex to cry in pure unadulterated relief. The tears ran unchecked down her face and onto her jeans.
Eventually she pulled herself together and found a nurse who told her she could take a peep through the recovery room window at the patient, but no more.
However, when they got there, Gene was the only patient in the room, and the Nurse relented when Alex pleaded and promised to be brief and not to disturb him.
Alex entered the small quiet room and perched on the chair by the bed that held Gene. He was bandaged across his chest, and Alex gently pulled the blankets a little higher over them to keep him warm.
Then she took his hand in hers and just watched him sleeping the drug induced sleep of a man who had proven, against all appearances, to be a very lucky man.
Afterwards, when the nurse had asked her to leave him, Alex stood outside the hospital and shivered. The temperatures had dropped again; autumn was taking a firm hold on 1981.
She zipped up her jacket and thrust her hands into the pockets.
Looking up, she saw, through the light pollution, a few stars bravely glittering in the night sky.
She dropped her head, closed her eyes for a few moments and then looked up again.
'Thank you,' she told the heavens, 'I could be home. I could be with Molly. But right now, that's not worth a good man's life. And he *is* a good man. So, thank you.'
And having made her peace with the Almighty and the general cosmos, she went home.