A/N. Evening. A snippet of sorts, post the end of the series. Written in the first person from Ray's POV. Not very good at first person I don't like the way it steals my poetic licence so critical analysis would be appreciated very very much! Am still writing Asphodel Fields too, but the show itself has been slowly killing my inspiration for it, bad times. More soon though hopefully. I love all of your reviews by the way, so thank you. x
Loyalty.
Rule number one: Trust. It has to be in this job. It has to be.
I'm kneeling on the cracked concrete ground with her head on my lap. My knees are damp and my right foot is twingeing vigorously in protest at the uncomfortable angle. It hasn't been right since it got trapped in that bastard door. I'm leaning over to press my hands into her stomach but it's not doing much good. There's a hell of a lot of blood seeping through my fingers and it won't stop no matter how much I want it to. At least my body's sheilding her face from the first signs of rain that are spitting icily upon the back of my neck. Not that she'd notice; she was out pretty quickly. Almost as soon as she hit the floor her eyes had closed and now she looks so peaceful, white as snow and so unaware of the panic surrounding her and my ragged breathing hovering above her.
Shaz is the only other figure strewn across the floor with us, wildly shouting her name and gripping her hand fruitlessly. She's bloody useless, it should be a comfort but I wish she wasn't here. For some inexplicable reason I find that I don't want anybody else here, I want to stay like this and hold her until the ambulance gets here and I don't want anybody else in the sodding way. Mostly, I want him to leave. I haven't caught his eye since we heard the gunshots and appeared on the scene, and I don't want to think about the gut wrenching shock of the sight before us. It's rolling over and over in my head and I'm trying so hard to comprehend what must have happened but the way I see it, the conclusion is always the same. The Guv, statuesque, his pistol still smoking redundantly in his right hand and his mouth forming a small shocked o at his actions. Two bodies; one lifeless, and Drake, groping frantically for the ground beneath her and staring straight back at her boss with a look of terrific horror in her eyes.
Another one bites the dust. Chris doesn't have it in him, I should have seen through that. I trusted the Guv. I trusted him like he trusted Harry Woolf and if a fact had his seal of approval it was a fact. The wedge between him and Alex was one too far. We only get the end of conversations, you see, when we hear the raised voices and she storms madly from his office. We only know that he swore blind that she was bent and he made a promise to take her down. None of us believed any of it for a second. It was eerie, like when you first ask your Dad something he doesn't know the answer to or you watch him make a mistake for the first time. Alex Drake is many things, but she's not bent. Black is not white. We were never going to fall for this one.
He hasn't said anything at all. He's just standing there, rotten to the core, staring at us, blood on his hands. No, sod that, blood on my hands. That's what makes me really angry. I've committed myself to this force, to him, and he has no right to tear it all down around us. My fists have clenched into an angry plug upon Alex's stomach and I can't will myself to unclench them. I'm a coiled spring. Every element of every muscle is tensed in rage and I suddenly fear that any wrong movement would cause me to explode, to crush the body I'm cradling so protectively like a fallen glove. I've done everything for him. The Guv says jump.. a drink, a punch, a kick, a shot, respect your DI, leave Manchester. A command. No responsibility, just orders snapped in a moment. Mush. Then Drake came along. She smashed his philosophies to the ground. A letter penned in a purposeful scrawl, an explanation for everything that she stands for. Directions and unwanted advice, arrogant cow. I hold her more tightly if that's possible, and I could swear I see her smile.
A touch to the shoulder makes me flinch protectively, I didn't even hear the siren, and it's only as I stand and let the medics get to her lifeless form that I realise how heavy the rain is, and how much blood is on my jeans. He hasn't moved, and I find myself facing him, staring levelly back into his eyes as a human being. A regular man behind a big black coat and a few meaningless letters. The man with the gun in his hand. His expression changes, and when he speaks it sounds strangled and odd.
"Jesus. You think I meant it."
"You did it. You shot her."
I watch as my body flies into action. I don't know how I make the ground between us before my blood soaked fist makes contact with his chest. Something solid connects with my knuckles, a hip flask or a lighter, but I don't feel the pain as my hands beat wildly into his soft torso. I think he's on the ground by the time they pull me off him, barely defending himself and staring blankly into the sky.
And now the party must be over, I guess we'll never understand.
The sense of your leaving, Was it the way it was planned?