On The Good Ship Lollipop

So, I was incredibly unlucky with iplayer and got this song as my entry of xTimeGirlx's shuffle contest but it was impossible to write a songfic to it. So I have come up with this which is inspired by the song instead (btw in case you're wondering about the rather odd music I have on my computer I tap danced to this song for a show last year.)

Set in Ashes series 3

I do not own Ashes to Ashes or any of it's characters, nor do I own the song ' On the good ship lollipop.'

For any M&C readers; it is coming soon but is on my desktop pc which is broken. Hopefully fixed before the end of the week.

'The good ship Fenchurch is listing, Gene. That crack in the hull is only gonna get wider. What now?' - Jim Keats 1983

On the good ship lollipop.
Its a sweet trip to a candy shop
Where bon-bons play
On the sunny beach of Peppermint Bay.

Alex awoke with a start, early morning sunlight streaming through the curtains she'd forgotten to close and making her squint. She fumbled for the clock that was on her bed side table, 7:28. Two whole minutes before the alarm was due to go off. She pulled her arm over her face to try and block out the invading light whilst attempting to cling onto the few remaining fibres of the dream she'd been having... it was a good dream she knew that much but the more she tried to stop it escaping, the further away the details seemed to float. The alarm clock rudely butted in, "all right, I'm getting up." Talking to the electricals must be one of the first signs of madness, probably comes from living alone for too long. She felt like there was something or someone else missing but couldn't be any more specific, like the dream the more she tried to remember the less she could. She eventually decided that she must have once owned a cat or a dog, is that who Molly was? The name was familiar but she just couldn't place it. A hammering at the door broke into her thoughts and she went to investigate, 7:30 was way to early for anyone she knew unless there was something major going down in CID. The knocking came again, "Coming!" Alex undid the chain and pulled open the door expecting to see her DCI stood there, he was the only one who ever came to the flat. Instead she was met not by a person but a white envelope addressed to DI Alex Drake, she ripped it open without thinking of the possible consequences, fortunately it only contained a letter which she slowly unfolded and read. Dropping the letter in shock she placed her hands to her mouth, her mind whirring who could have sent this?

"Ma'am, Ma'am!" Shaz was getting desperate, the Guv would be back soon and he'd be really pissed off if he caught DI Drake sleeping at her desk again. "Ma'am!" She tried a little louder this time shaking her superior officer's shoulder and finally getting a response.

"Shaz?" Alex jerked awake for the second time... but wait the first time wasn't real, was it?

"The Guv'll be back soon Ma'am, I made you a cup of tea." Shaz smiled and placed the cup on Alex's desk.

"Thanks Shaz," she was truly grateful. If Gene has caught her sleeping at her desk again she would have got a right bollocking. Alex sipped her tea and tried to sort out her confused mind, the lines between dream and reality were blurred. She'd been asleep, in CID but it had felt so real. "But then all of this does feel so real." she mused to herself.

"Ma'am?" Chris was looking at her strangely.

"Sorry Chris, talking to myself." She saw Chris turn to Ray out of the corner of her eye and make the 'crazy' motion with his hand, maybe they were right for once maybe she was going crazy. Alex ran her fingers through her hair and looked down at the work she had been doing before she'd fallen asleep, noticing suddenly the white envelope lying on her desk, it hadn't been there before she was sure of it. Although if it had maybe that was why she had dreamt of receiving it. "Did anyone see when this was delivered?" She held up the letter for everyone to see but was met with blank looks from all present, and this is supposed to be a room full of detectives. Looking down she noticed her hands were shaking slightly as she lid a finger under the flap and tore the envelope open, she unfolded the paper inside and read:

Are you too late or too early Alex?

25 years too early maybe.

If you want to know where the answers lay,

Then go to the place where bon-bons play.

Alex gasped and dropped the letter onto her desk, it was exactly as she had dreamt. So someone knew the truth then, that she was from 2008. But what did they mean too late? She was too late to save her parents was that it? She turned the paper over in her hands looking for clues but found nothing, it had been written on a typewriter so no clues in the hand writing. She looked back at the words again trying to work out what they meant 'where bon-bons play' she repeated the line to herself a few times, it seemed familiar but why? Maybe it was from an advert, those things ingrain themselves into your brain without you noticing.

"Drake!" Gene hadn't really entered the room just shouted into it and Alex dropped the letter into her lap to conceal it from her DCI, they were just getting back on track after the shooting, it would not do them any good to bring up 'the future' again. "Interview room two, could really use your psychiatry on this one." She nodded and waited until the door had swung shut again before stuffing the letter into one of her desk drawers and following him out.

Gene was worried as he stood in the corridor outside the interview rooms waiting for his DI to join him, he knew she was concealing something from him. Maybe it was more of that Sam Tyler crap she insisted on dredging up, what ever it was clearly affected her. She hadn't corrected him when he said psychiatry instead of psychology, and on a normal day she would probably have insisted he use the word please aswell. He did this to rile her up, secretly he loved arguing with her and would create things to disagree on deliberately. Especially enjoying the way she seemed to come alive when she was angry and her eyes burned with passion.

"Ready?" Alex had joined him by the door, he nodded in agreement not looking directly at her and the entered the room where a thin greasy looking man was sat at the table. He looked drawn as though he'd recently lost a lot of weight, and his dirty clothes hung off him in places. His skin was very pale, almost grey and his grey eyes were sunken into his face. He was very nondescript, even his hair was grey. He was fidgeting in a way which told Alex he was a drug addict who hadn't had his fix, and he was humming an oddly familiar tune. Alex was sure it was a happy song but it sounded eerie coming from this man's lips.

"So Joshua, thought you'd rob a sweet shop so you could buy some brown sugar?"

Joshua was rocking backwards and forwards in his chair "No Guv, I mean yes Guv." Alex frowned, why did this man call Gene Guv? "He told me too, said to take the candy from the baby." His eyes darted wildly between Alex and Gene and his breathing rate increased, he'd said too much and now he was scared.

"Who told you too Joshua?" Alex joined in the questioning but didn't get a reply, he started at her for a long while and stopped his rocking.

"He told me you'd be here, the lady copper he said." The rocking re-started and increased in intensity with each line he spoke. "Said it's all about you Alex Drake, all of it." Gene looked at her confused, how did he know her name?

"Sorry, what's about me?"

He continued as though he hadn't heard her "Your wrong Alex, wrong... too late." Joshua suddenly sat up straight from his previous slumped position and then seemed to ooze towards Alex completely ignoring Gene. "But too early too." He smiled then a creepy smile which revealed rotting teeth, Alex recoiled from his breath but he didn't appear to notice just kept smiling and slowly tilted his head to the right the grey eyes unblinking.

"That's enough from you I think." Gene had endured watching Joshua try to slime and confuse his way around Alex for long enough, he slammed Joshua back into his chair and got up taking Alex's elbow and steering her from the room. Once outside he called to Viv to put Joshua in the cells then turned back to Alex who didn't seem at all fazed by what had just happened. They both watched Joshua walk down the corridor with Viv holding the chain of his hand cuffs, he was whistling that same tune from earlier but Alex still couldn't remember what it was. "Are you okay?"

"I'm Fine?" What was going on? Gene was suddenly being all caring, very odd. They started walking back towards CID, "Why was he calling you Guv?"

"He used to be a copper, good one an all."

"CID?" They pushed open the doors to the squad room as she spoke and headed straight to Gene's office. The man himself shook his head in response to her question.

"No, uniform. But he had the potential." He pre-empted Alex's next question "Took too many back handers to pay for the drugs, got caught an been pulling blags to pay for his habit ever since." He poured them each a scotch and carried on talking "Thing is, usually he's good at it. He knows what we'll be looking for and leaves no trace."

"But this time he got caught." Alex nodded summing up the situation.

"No, I don't think so. I think he let himself get caught, someone told him to do the sweet shop. Someone else is pulling the strings, and it's got something to do with you Bolls." He looked at her curiously as though the answers were written on her forehead, Alex felt like she was being x-rayed. The tension between them broke suddenly as Chris burst in to talk to Gene about a case he was working on, Alex felt herself dismissed and returned to her own desk where she pondered the letter some more.

End of part 1

This will be quite a short fic, maybe three chapters. I hope you have enjoyed the beginning and please review and tell me what you think.

BB x