Disclaimer: The characters don't belong to me – they belong to Southern Star and Channel Seven.
Summary: An alternate way that "One Day More" could have played out. A tragedy involving one of his own prompts Tom to fight for his career and Evan realises where his heart may truly lie.
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Tom eased himself back into the stiff hospital chair, letting his tired eyes close slowly as his head rest forward in his hands. Around him, life in the hospital went on, people hurrying to and fro before him, each with something to do and somewhere to go. All the while, he had nothing left to do but sit alone in the corridor, unable to believe what had just happened.
It had just been minutes after he had arrived back at Gina's house, just minutes after his disastrous attempt to clear his name before Falcon-Price and Monica Draper, that the phone call had came. The one phone call that nobody ever wanted to hear. It was the phone call that announced that someone had fallen, another victim to the world of crime which was beginning to feel as though it were suffocating him. As if it had a noose around his neck and was pulling it tightly.
They'd already taken her up to surgery by the time he'd arrived. He'd only just managed to catch Sophie Ash before she disappeared into theatre and had barely managed to force an explanation from her. But there was no assurances. No "she'll be right" or "it's nothing serious". Just a lot of "we won't know until she's in surgery" and "you know I can't tell you, Tom".
There was a kind of cruel irony in the fact that she was the one who had fallen. She, the one who had become quite like a daughter. She, the one who had forced him to look at the way he was living his life and stand up once again. If anyone should have taken the bullet, it was him.
That phone call still played heavily on his mind. He could still hear it, word for word – Evan's desperate and grief-stricken voice nearly screaming in his head. He didn't think he'd ever heard Evan Jones so upset before.
"Hello?" Tom asked the caller, his voice bitter and distant. He paced the veranda of Gina's house, his mobile at his ear.
"Boss!" Evan's voice was so loud, so distressed, that it forced Tom to pull the phone away from his ear instinctively. He glanced at it momentarily, before returning it to his ear.
"I'm not your Boss, Jones," he told Evan firmly. "Not for much longer, anyway."
Evan appeared to have taken little notice of Tom's words. "Boss!" he repeated, his voice breaking slightly. "You have to get down to the hospital. Something's happened…"
Tom's eyes widened in horror, Evan's words sending shivers of panic through his body. He knew that the words "something's happened" were never good. They were the generic opener that he knew he'd used several times himself. They never led to good news. "Something's happened?" Tom asked slowly, the words catching in his throat.
"It's Amy," Evan explained, his voice softening at the mention of her name, "she's been shot."
He hadn't been able to move. He'd just stood on the veranda, eyes staring blankly ahead, his mind processing nothing but a sickening black. Over a relatively short time, Amy had attained a place in his heart something akin to Maggie. She, the woman who had had to fight down her overwhelming past every single day, had given him a reason to fight for his own existence.
Now she was lying on the operating table, paying the price for his mistakes. Evan had told him what had happened over the phone – that they had been out to arrest Adam Cooper when he'd pulled a gun and shot Amy in cold blood. Even though it had been Adam's gun and Adam's decision to fire, Tom couldn't help but feel a niggling sense of responsibility. Adam wouldn't be back in Mt. Thomas, caught up in this web of crime if it weren't for him. Adam had been his responsibility and he had failed him, now it was Amy suffering for it.
Evan was going to be feeling the brunt of this too, once Falcon-Price got a hold of it. He had been on the scene; they were bringing Adam into the station against protocol. Any judge could construe Amy and Evan's actions as interfering with a witness. They should have been more focused on finding new jobs rather than harassing Adam Cooper. Tom knew that was the line Falcon-Price would take.
He wondered how his troops – even if they were only that for a few more hours – were coping back at what would be their station for just a little longer. Somehow, he had the sense that trying to save their station may have dropped significantly lower in priorities. Saving Amy was probably now in its place.
Alex watched, defeat clearly in his features, as two of the uniform clad figures in the muster room carried what used to be his desk outside to their truck. Much to his dismay, the repossession and closing down of their station hadn't stopped just because Amy was now fighting for her life in hospital.
It had finally seemed to sink in that the Mt. Thomas Police Station would be no more, more than likely helped along by his charges' acceptance of the situation. Susie was looking forward to a fresh start, Joss had lined up a new job, Kelly was arranging to get her boyfriend a transfer alongside her and Matt seemed indifferent to the whole situation. He knew that he, Evan, Amy and Tom were the only ones still tied deeply to this station.
Somewhere in the mess room, he could hear the sounds of loud crashes and shouts of anger, possibly directed at the lockers. He didn't even need to think about who the frustrated person behind the racket was. He'd seen Evan Jones explode enough times to know.
He peered through to the mess room, its starkness taking him aback. With half of the lockers now gone, the table and chairs removed and the coffee and Tim Tams usually adorning the bench cleared away, it had all but lost the comfort that he had come to associate with it.
Evan stood in the centre of the room, the top of his right hand bloodied and one of the lockers on the bottom row now bearing the black scuff marks that indicated that the detective had brought his foot to it in anger. Alex looked his mate up and down, crossing the room to gently guide his old friend away. Surprisingly, Evan allowed Alex to lead him to the cupboard where the first-aid kit remained alone on its empty shelves.
"Mate," Alex began, shaking his head for a lack of words. "Do you think Amy and Tom would want you to be acting like this?"
The mention of Amy's name seemed to make Evan even more downcast than he had been just seconds before. Alex's expression softened further as he gently dabbed at his friend's hand with a cloth from the first-aid kit.
"I'm sorry," Evan apologised quietly, keeping his head lowered. "It's just…I just…" He shook his head, his eyes misting over as the words refused to come. "I let this happen. I saw him pull out the gun…I let him shoot her…"
Seeing Evan's despair, Alex knew there was only one way to make him snap out of it. Swiftly and sharply, he brought his hand across Evan's face; hard enough to leave a bright red mark but not hard enough to bruise.
"This is not your bloody fault!" Alex snapped, his voice a little tougher on Evan than he really would have liked. "You couldn't have done anything."
Evan nodded, silently agreeing with Alex's words. He couldn't truly believe them, though. Not while he couldn't truly tell himself that Amy would make it through. Not while everything was going on. Not while he couldn't stop the horrible breaking of his heart in his chest.
It just wasn't fair. Tom dragged himself to his feet, trudging down the corridor to where he knew he could find a glass of water. Amy Fox was the best copper he had met in a long while – certainly in the leagues of PJ Hasham and Maggie Doyle. She embodied everything he believed in, everything he once thought he had been. She was the fighter – fighting to put her past behind her, fighting to find justice and now fighting to stay alive.
The afternoon sun beyond the hospital windows showering in, casting long shadows on the floor. Tom found himself unable to quell the thoughts about what that day had done. It had already claimed one beautiful, if somewhat rebellious, life in Gina and now it threatened to take Amy as well.
It was difficult to believe that one of his own officers – or to be more correct, former officers – had taken a gun to a police officer like Amy. They had often strayed down the wrong path, occasionally to places where even he couldn't rescue them from, but they had always essentially been good kids. His kids. But Adam Cooper was different. Somehow, while others like Maggie, PJ, Dash and Nick had bloomed, Adam had disappeared into the woodwork. The forgotten son.
He was the reason Adam had found this path of crime and self-destruction. The reason he had felt so threatened that he had found the need to shoot a young woman. In effect, he may as well have put the bullet in Amy himself.
Suddenly, he was disturbed from his self-pity by the sight of several nurses pushing a bed along the corridor, a bed containing none other than Amy. He stopped in his tracks, the nurses stopped so that he had a chance to survey his younger colleague. Amy's eyes were closed, her hair a mattered wreck over the pillow beneath her head. She was wearing one of those generic hospital gowns that only seemed to highlight how pale her face was. An oxygen mask had been strapped over her mouth and nose, occasionally clouding as her chest rose and fell.
He reached out, taking her hand and giving it a fond squeeze. He couldn't hold back the misty tears from his eyes. He stared at her, disbelief in his features. Amy had always carried herself with an impeccable air of strength and confidence, even if her heart was breaking deep inside – it made it impossible to ever imagine her helpless like this. And now she was. And he was to blame.
Evan stepped out into the slowly disappearing sunlight of that afternoon, his gaze immediately falling upon a single blonde as she loaded up her old car with her belongings from the station. He approached her, the sound of a twig crunching beneath his feet catching her attention and causing her to spin to face him.
"Jonesy," she mumbled in disbelief, having never expected to see him again before she climbed in her little car and disappeared from Mt. Thomas forever, the last three years having been little more than a painful memory. She gulped, trying to find some neutral ground. It was actually easier than she'd have thought. "How's Amy?"
He shrugged as he approached Susie, sticking his hands into the pockets of his blood-stained suit. "I don't know," he replied, not even Susie able to deny the forlorn glint in his eyes at the mention of Amy's name. "Tom's with her now."
"That's where he needs to be." Susie agreed with a nod, nervously brushing hair back from her eyes and behind her ear. As she slowly lowered her hand, she found her eyes connecting with Evan's uncomfortably. She tore her gaze away, kicking at a stone on the ground nearby with her foot. "What are you going to do now?"
Evan sighed heavily, the tears still present in his eyes, as he looked around, shrugging. "I haven't thought about it," he confessed quietly, "Amy and I have been so busy trying to clear the Boss that I guess I haven't thought about it. I can't leave now, anyway. Not till Amy's right at least."
Susie nodded, biting her bottom lip in silent thought. Finally, she reached out, giving him an awkward hug in farewell. After several seconds of surprise, Evan relented and wrapped his strong arms around Susie. After their friendship and disastrous romance, it seemed to be all they could manage to do. When they broke apart, she reached up, brushing the back of her hand along his cheekbone. A slight hint of a smile broke across her lips, something mirrored with far less strength in Evan's face.
"You're a good man, Evan Jones," she told him as she turned to leave. Before she had climbed into her car, however, she decided to add something else. "Amy's lucky to have you, you know."
As Susie roared the car into life and disappeared down the street, Evan farewelled her with a stunned wave. He couldn't believe that Susie Raynor had just said that. Did she think that he and Amy shared something, something so precious that he hadn't even shared it with Susie? Did he even have a chance to act upon whatever was there, if Susie was right?
Tom invited himself into Amy's hospital room, each step slow and deliberate as he tried to accept the sight of her lying lifeless in a hospital bed, drip in her arm, mask over her face and machines surrounding her, their steady beeping the only sounds in her silent hospital room. He finally found his way across the cold hospital floor, taking her hand in his as he sat down in the chair at her bedside.
The situation seemed awfully familiar to the bedside vigils he had maintained whenever Maggie Doyle had found herself admitted to hospital for whatever reason. Except that this situation had extra, far more sickening twists. Amy had been put into this position because he had failed one of his troops. There was still no guarantee that she was even going to survive that afternoon. And even if she did make it, there was a large chance that she wouldn't walk again.
Sophie had explained that the bullet had lodged itself dangerously close to her spinal cord. They couldn't remove it, they couldn't do anything. All they could do was wait and see and hope like hell that the swelling went down and nothing was damaged. The situation teetered terrifyingly close to the Jack Lawson situation years before, something that unnerved Tom greatly. He couldn't bear to see someone else go through that same downward spiral that had led Jack to a manslaughter charge.
As Amy lay in the hospital bed, her eyes closed and her chest rising and falling in time with the machines, Tom couldn't help but wonder if she had any idea how close she had come. And how close she still was. The job came with risks, they all knew it. It was hard to forget whenever you pulled on the uniform. But they shouldn't have come with these kinds of risks. Not the risk of being shot by a man like Adam Cooper.
He rose her hand, kissing it lightly before holding it to his cheek. Amy was the sort of copper that the force was lacking these days. A brilliant investigator, a superb sympathiser and a damn good friend. She had been the only thing getting him through the cancer. And now the roles were reversed and it was his job to get her through this.
Evan leant against the doorframe of the CI office, watching sadly as Joss said his final farewells. Susie would be well on the way to Melbourne now, her words still echoing around his head, distracting him from the few logical thoughts he had had about finding Adam Cooper and bringing him to justice. Now Joss was leaving and Matt and Kelly wouldn't be too far behind him. He knew that he ought to be happy for his colleagues, especially when they were finding themselves good positions that were going to make them happy in the long run. Susie had taken a promotion to Sergeant in Fitzroy, Joss was joining the Traffic boys and Kelly and Matt found positions at the same station where they could both easily find their way to a Senior Constable promotion when they became eligible. He couldn't help but speculate if perhaps they had intentionally taken positions together and that Kelly and David wouldn't be together for much longer.
He and Alex hadn't even considered new jobs yet. They were too busy saving their old ones. Alex had to coordinate the removal of furniture and he couldn't even think about where his career would go, not when he couldn't even tell if Amy was going to make it to a new job at all.
Alex enveloped Joss in a blokey hug as the young Constable took one final look around the station and disappeared, off to a new job and a new beginning. Just as Alex had invited himself into the increasingly empty CI office, the phone rang, startling Evan back to earth. He dived for the phone, bracing himself on his desk, or what would be his desk until the removalists returned for it. "Hello, Mt. Thomas CI," Evan answered, his heart giving an unpleasant pang in his chest at the sudden thought that he probably wouldn't be saying that again.
As the person on the other end of the phone spoke, Evan's brow furrowed deeper. Eventually, he returned the phone to its cradle, sinking back into the sole chair remaining in the office, looking up to Alex in total disbelief. "That was Homicide," he explained weakly. "They were looking for Amy."
"And?" Alex asked, folding his arms against his chest curiously.
"They wanted me to let her know that they'd been able to find two empty positions in the third floor of Homicide," Evan continued, his eyes wide in surprise. "Apparently they'd offered her a job in a higher position, but she refused to take it unless they could find a job for me as well."
Alex cocked an eyebrow, unable to hide a laugh of surprise. "Wow," he mumbled, "she settled for less for you. That's pretty big."
"Yeah," Evan agreed, nodding slowly as he climbed to shaky feet, "I'm going over to the hospital. Tell Kel and Matt I said goodbye, okay?"
Alex nodded, watching as Evan disappeared out the back entrance to the car park. As soon as his mate was out of sight, he ran a hand back through his hair, turning back to the muster room where Tom's desk was being carried out. Slowly, everyone else was finding out where their lives stood without Mt. Thomas as a part of it. Everyone else except for himself, Evan, Amy and their Boss.
Evan entered Amy's hospital room tentatively, causing Tom to jump at the sound of the door creaking open. He slowly relaxed at the sight of the detective closing the door behind him, staring at the woman lying in the bed in pure horror. Just one look at Evan's face told Tom that he had never been able to anticipate the sight of a weakened Amy lying still in a hospital bed.
"How's she doing?" Evan finally asked, his voice catching in his throat as he spoke. Tom nodded sadly, rising to his feet as he brushed strands of brown fringe back from Amy's forehead.
"The bullet lodged itself near her spinal cord," he explained in a shaky voice, "Sophie said they couldn't get it out without risking further damage. Bloody hell Jones, she may never walk again."
Evan closed his eyes, letting his head hang back as the tears threatened to overwhelm him. The day had started out fairly normal for all of them, yet had quickly changed from normal to downright awful in less time than he cared to consider. That morning, he and Amy had been on a simple surveillance operation. Now, she could be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.
"I'm going to get something to eat before I pass out," Tom explained, clapping Evan on the shoulder as he headed for the door. "Look after her, Jones. She's a fighter, but she needs someone here."
He nodded, watching as his Boss left the room through the corner of his eye. Finally, he hesitantly dragged his gaze back to Amy, staring at her through wide eyes. The shooting played over and over in his head, much like he imagined the phone call would be doing for Tom, each feeling of terror magnified every single time. It had now become an overwhelming memory he couldn't control. It scared him half to death, even though they were no longer being shot at by a fleeing Adam Cooper.
He slowly crossed the room to her, leaning down to kiss her forehead softly, caressing her beautifully soft cheek. Something deep down inside him confirmed that Susie had been right, that there was something between him and Amy that he couldn't afford to keep denying, especially now.
Wheelchair or no wheelchair, she was still the same strong, beautiful and intelligent Amy Fox he had somehow fallen in love with. He was going to look after her, whether that was in Mt. Thomas, Melbourne or wherever the wind took their drifting lives in this age of uncertainty.
Adam Cooper stood alone on one of the hills overlooking Mt. Thomas, the weight of the gun at his hip unfamiliar and unnerving. The light had all but gone, leaving a light orange glow over the small country town. It was bigger than he remembered it and darker too. But he somehow just knew that the coppers would never change. Maggie, PJ, Dash and the rest had all moved on to other things or to the great beyond, but the atmosphere still remained. As long as Tom Croydon was in charge, life in Mt. Thomas would continue to resemble a working museum.
He had never intended to shoot Amy Fox. Just like he had never intended to become caught up in the world of crime. It had just been the easier option, it always had been. Keeping quiet about the car had been so much simpler at the time than going to the Boss and having to put himself through another lecture. Taking a swing at Tom had been easier than trying to answer for his actions. Shooting Amy had been the less painful option than years in prison for his involvement in everything.
He sat down, letting himself lean back against a rock as he surveyed the Mt. Thomas sunset. He knew that he'd failed himself and everyone he knew. He didn't want to know what Tom Croydon was going through right now, or Amy Fox for that matter. He'd been shot himself once, he still remembered how painful it had been.
What got to him was how he had ruined the lives of not just Tom or Amy, but all of the Mt. Thomas police. Through his actions, he had directly caused the closure of the station and was forcing them away from a place where they were happy and to settle for second-best. He could still remember the intense panic that the station could be shut down; he'd had to face that before.
He reached down into his pocket, drawing out his gun and a piece of paper. He looked down to the note, setting it underneath a small rock that would act as a paperweight. He then turned to his gun, closing his eyes as he took in his final moments.
He wasn't letting anyone else down ever again. A shot rang out over Mt. Thomas.
Tom leant back in his chair in his office, closing his eyes as he let his mind drift away from the police station. It had been several months since Adam Cooper had set foot in the Mt. Thomas Police Station and changed the face of their team forever, before turning his gun on himself on a lonely hill in the last hours of the evening. He'd only left one thing behind that had righted all of his recent wrongs – a simple note. He cleared Tom of covering up the weapon and selling it, effectively closing Falcon-Price's case against him. Tom had nothing to answer for.
The station had been reopened, albeit downgraded to a sub-station of St. Davids, like Widgeree had been of Mt. Thomas for years. Only a handful of them had been allowed to stay on and all of them had faced a downgrade of some kind with the exception of Evan. He was the only able-bodied CI member left at the station.
Tom had been almost happy to take the downgrade to Sergeant. While the position of Senior Sergeant had once brought him much pleasure and a sense of fulfilment, it had only served to become part of the noose strangling him in recent years. To be rid of the responsibility was a deep relief. He hadn't felt so much like one of the troops in years.
Alex had been returned to his position of Leading Senior Constable, happily surrendering the Acting Sergeant ranking. He had never wanted it or needed it. He preferred to be out in the field, solving crimes and getting dirty in the uniform, not sitting behind a desk filling out forms and writing rosters. With less members, he got the opportunity to spend more time out and about than he ever had. He knew that Rory always thought it was more impressive to hear about solving crimes in the community than to handle the paperwork.
Evan was able to keep his rank of Senior Detective, much to Tom's relief. CI had given Evan a new depth and ability to do his job that uniform never could. He had solid investigative skills that were becoming more and more sharp by the day. Evan had gone from a cowboy liable to lose his job at any time to the responsible young detective that the big city squads always chased. But Evan would never leave Mt. Thomas. Not when that would mean leaving Amy behind.
Amy hadn't been downgraded as such. In the aftermath of her shooting, she hadn't been able to use her legs at all. Adam Cooper had effectively rendered her paraplegic. At first, the transition from therapy to work had been a rough one. No one could truly understand how difficult it was to see her colleagues out on the job and not be able to help them. But it was Evan's care and love that kept her going, that gave her the inspiration to go on. And in time, they had come to find their own way of doing things that worked perfectly. She still helped out in the field when she could, manning the station when she couldn't and always offering her usual, brilliant insight to any situation. She was a priceless member of the team. They couldn't bear to lose her.
Tom knew that Amy and Evan had become romantically involved. And at first, he had harboured some concerns. In fact, a hell of a lot of concerns. They'd never had much luck with in-office relationships in Mt. Thomas and Evan's track record spoke for itself. But they had their own chemistry and their own connections. He'd known that whatever Amy and Evan shared was special from the moment Amy had awoken to see Evan at her bedside. He hadn't left that hospital until the moment she did and then, they were rarely apart. Somehow, they had come to need each other as more than just the student/teacher type relationship they had originally bonded under.
Their old colleagues still kept in touch from their new stations. Susie was still working away in Fitzroy, aiming for the stars in her career. And in her love life. She'd met a young man quite by accident while on the job and were now very steady in their relationship. Joss had left Traffic behind after just days and was now stationed to a suburban station, somewhere close to his mother's house as Alex had pointed out with a laugh. And Evan had been right about Matt and Kelly and their motives in seeking a station together. It hadn't even been three weeks after their move to Melbourne before Kelly had broken off her relationship with David to pursue one with Matt. And just weeks later, they were working together in a small country station, not unlike Mt. Thomas.
Tom opened his eyes as he was brought back to earth by the sound of a phone ringing in the muster room. He watched as Alex leapt into life to answer it, nodding as the person on the other end of the line spoke. From his office, he could see Amy and Evan chatting in the CI office, perhaps over a difficult case or maybe just over their arrangements for dinner that night.
He knew that they were never going to be completely rid of the people who doubted them or tried to change their way of life in Mt. Thomas. They were a unique station with a one of a kind way of running things. People would always doubt them and perhaps, someone else would one day come along and try to destroy them just like Adam Cooper had.
But all Tom knew was that they would not go quietly. They would fight and fight against those who tried to rid Mt. Thomas of them until the very end.