He took my hand. He held me to him. I breathed in the scent I would come to know so well. And I knew him then. I knew him in the way that I should always have known him. I would come to doubt him. I was a fool. I should have judged him there and then, for now and forever. For all his short-comings, Gene Hunt was a good man.

He held that little girl when she needed him most. He sensed her need. He didn't know her, but his unstoppable humanity drew him to comfort that child and draw her to him. She (well, I,) needed human contact. It told me that everything would get better. As much as it hurt, as much as the grief pierced me like a physical pain with every moment that past, he was there. He was there.

He lifted me bodily and carried me away from it all. His role now was not as a police officer, but to protect the child lying, whimpering in his arms, to get her as far away from it all as he could. His arms were to shield her, his legs were there purely to carry her to safety. Instinct took over, he protected the child.

After that day, I dreamed about the man who had held me. It was only time and tide that convinced me it was Evan. I dreamed of the man's smell, of his voice. The weathered northern accent reassured me endlessly. He whispered soft, indiscriminate words of comfort. Exactly what they were didn't matter, I just knew. I knew that all the while I was in the man's arms that I was safe.

I cried when he put me down. I missed the closeness and the warmth, and the steady beating of his heart, pulsing through his shirt against my cheek as he held me to his chest. Evan was there but…it wasn't the same. Yes, I would come to draw comfort from Evan, but never the feeling of complete and utter safety.

All those years later, he carried me like that again, down the corridor. Despite my having just fainted, I drifted in and out of consciousness. Again, I smelled the smell and felt the rhythmic thud . It stirred something within me, a long forgotten memory. It unsettled me. I brushed it off, deciding to think nothing of it, though a wrench in the pit of my stomach told me that something wasn't right.

For once though, my gut was wrong. Everything was all right. It was more than all right. I was back in the arms of the man who had changed my life, and would continue to bring me comfort and light when I felt there was nothing but darkness.

God, I would grow to love that man. As a child I would never have…well, to say I would have never guessed would be ridiculous, (who can foresee getting shot in the head and waking up twenty years in the past?) but I would never have had an inkling of the feelings he would inspire within me. He made me feel so much more than I could ever have imagined. Not just comfort, but everything and anything else. No other man had moved me so much, or will ever move me again.

It felt to me like a huge weight upon my chest. Every time he stared at my arse, winked at me or gave me a rare genuine smile, it bore down upon me, begging for release.

I suppose I always knew it was him. That's why Sam's notes intrigued me so. I was drawn to this character. The way he described him…it seemed somehow familiar, but only in the loosest sense of the word. Perhaps I just imagined it. But I felt it: instinct; that was the man. That was My Man.

You know what I find funny? In my time, kids pop-out babies because they couldn't be arsed using contraception, or else they want the benefits. And yet people like Gene Hunt never had children. No child could ask for a better father, and he had so much love to give. Wasted.

~OOO~

I was at work when the missus went into labour. I only found out via a note on the fridge: "Gene," It read, "I'm having the baby. See you at hospital."

See, that's what I liked about Carol. (I say liked, yes, because it was never love, the next few months proved that.) She was always straight to the point, no nonsense. The opposite of Bolly and her psychiatry crap, I suppose.

I arrived, practically falling over my feet as I stumbled out of the car. It was a strange feeling. Gene Hunt the Dad. I made my way down the maze of gleaming corridors, turning this way and that until I came to the maternity ward. A smiling, plump-faced nurse greeted me at the desk.

"Carol Hunt." I panted. "I'm the Dad."

Her face fell, she shifted her gaze for a moment, back down to her desk, fiddling with papers nervously.

"I'm sorry Mr Hunt. She gave birth about five minutes ago. I'm so sorry. Through here." She indicated a door to her left.

The world seemed to move in slow motion as I walked towards the indicated door. Several midwives and a doctor were in there, all gathered around something on a table I could not see, their clamouring bodies blocking it from view. A midwife glanced at me.

"Mr Hunt?"

"Yeah."

"I'm very sorry."

"What? Why the bloody hell is everyone sorry!" I began to panic, and registered vaguely the rise in my own voice. The midwife looked at me blankly.

"You didn't know? Mr Hunt… I'm afraid that your wife had a stillbirth. There was nothing we could do. We tried, I swear we did, but he didn't respond to resuscitation. I'm sorry…he's gone."

My eyes looked past her. Through a gap between two of the other women, I saw a tiny motionless figure on the tabletop. The midwife followed my gaze.

"Is that-?" I asked, just as a nod confirmed it. "Can I-?" another nod.

I crossed the room with difficulty as my insides went cold. The crowd around my son parted to let me through as I walked, resolutely on, my eyes still fixed upon him.

I reached out a hand to touch him. I stroked his cheek with my thumb, being as gentle as possible. He looked so fragile, so limp, so lifeless.

I took him in my arms and held him, just staring at his face, drinking him in, knowing that this would probably be the only time I'd get to see him. I touched my little finger to his closed lid, knowing that the eyes behind them had never seen, and that I would never see them.

I cradled him desperately, let ting the tears fall free, sobbing and holding him to me, willing, just willing him to come back to me, irrational, ridiculous thoughts whirring around my brain, wild bargains with God, begging him to bring my baby back.

That was the last time I remember crying, full on sobbing and tears, rocking back and forth, feeling like it'd never end. I felt like I couldn't cry enough, To feel my own flesh and blood dead in my arms was more than I could bear. My beautiful boy.

We called him Jack in the end. Jack Thomas Hunt.