A/N Very quick one-shot that turned out to be a bit longer than I'd thought it would. And I kind of think that this story should have some sort of warning attached to it but I'm at a loss as to what such a thing would say...
Heading For A Fall
Closing the file in front of her, her eyes drifted up towards the empty office and then to her right where her gaze landed on Gene's office for the umpteenth time. Everyone else had long since sloped off to Luigi's but the Guv was still in there, most likely indulging in his newly-found, albeit entirely unwanted, dedication to paperwork. She had stayed behind for a similar reason but her efforts had nothing to do with the case they had closed today. It was, however, just as unwanted. She looked down at the file again and sighed softly to herself, the ambivalence that had had a hold on her the last few weeks tightening its grip once more. Not for the first time a part of her wished that she'd never found the damn file to begin with though, as one hand prised the cover back just enough to reveal the photograph of Sam Tyler, she reminded herself once again that its appearance had been no stroke of serendipity.
If she still believed that this world was all in her head then the convenience of the file's appearance would make perfect sense, subconsciously anyway, because Sam Tyler had been weighing on her mind when she'd returned to the 'future'. But she'd long since abandoned the notion that she had any kind of control over this world which must mean that someone, maybe even something, else had wanted her to focus on Sam Tyler. When she'd first found the file she'd been so caught up with the idea that Sam's death could somehow tell her all she needed to know about this world, and maybe even point her towards the reason why she was here in the first place, that she hadn't let the 'who and why' behind the file's sudden existence bother her too much. Instead she'd gone through the file far too many times to count and with a fine toothed comb, too but there was nothing in it to contradict what Ray had told her when she'd first arrived here. Certain that there had to be more to it, that there had to be a reason she'd been pointed in this particular direction, she'd requested anything she could get her hands on from Manchester and had casually tried to broach the subject with those who had been there: Chris had told her that they'd all split up and he'd not been at the scene; Ray had merely repeated his previous account, virtually word for word; and the Guv... The Guv had point blank refused to talk about Sam. She'd felt a pang of regret for asking him about Sam Tyler at all because it obviously still hurt. She suspected that his silence on the matter had something to do with guilt: he'd been needed but that particular time he hadn't been there.
Hitting so many dead ends, and ruffling a few feathers in the process, she'd almost resigned herself to letting it go until the night DCI Keats had practically accused Gene of killing Sam. He hadn't used those exact words but that had certainly been his inference. She'd be lying if she said the thought hadn't crossed her mind; it had but only very briefly, and only because she was now starting to think that it was Gene who was at the centre of this world. She'd dismissed the idea as utterly ridiculous straight away. When she'd first arrived here she'd been taken in by Sam's descriptions of the Guv and by Gene himself but over time she'd caught glimpses of the good, kind, decent man that he seemed intent on hiding away. There was absolutely no way Gene could be responsible and there was nothing in the file that suggested as much. If Keats had evidence to the contrary then she felt that he would have had the Guv's knackers in a vice by now. And he hadn't. The thing was, as unlikely as the suggestion seemed, it had only spurred her on.
After her little tete a tete with D'n'C's finest she surmised that it was Keats who had left the file for her to find possibly because, as Gene had said, Keats wanted to pull the team apart and setting them at each other's throats would be a good start; divide and conquer reaped rewards, Martin Summers had proved as much and she wasn't going to let the same mistake happen twice. She knew that by digging further and deeper into Sam's death she was playing into Keats' hands but she wanted to prove to him that Gene wasn't involved, that the Guv was one of the good guys. And, she could admit quietly to herself, she wanted to hear Gene say as much, too.
Her gaze strayed upwards and to the right once again at the thought of Gene. Finally coming to a decision after what felt like hours of dithering, she stood up quickly before she could change her mind and, picking up Sam's file, she walked towards the inner office. Knocking on the door a couple of times she pushed it open and walked inside before he had the chance to refuse her entry. "Guv?" she started quickly, causing his gaze to meet hers.
"Bols," he replied simply, eyeing the file in her hand before setting down his pen and sitting back in his chair, his attention fully on her.
His almost welcoming gaze threw her for a brief moment and she held onto the door with her free hand for longer than was necessary before letting the handle go. Since her return to this world things hadn't quite been the same between them; by all accounts she should have been the one who was pissed off and angry because she was the one who'd been shot, who'd been suspended, who'd been doubted but she hadn't been able to hold on to any of those grudges. In her heart she knew the truth behind her acquiescence, she just wasn't ready to acknowledge that she had fallen in love with Gene Hunt. And there seemed little reason to anyway because she was sure that he didn't feel the same way about her. Not now - if indeed he ever had. Now he seemed almost angry with her most of the time, as if he blamed her entirely for all of this, for all the scrutiny they were all now being subjected to.
She took a step forward, her eyes dropping to his desk and briefly scanning the piles of paperwork that lay there, then came to a stop in front of his desk. His eyes still on her, she wished that there was a chair for her to sit on, something to put them on equal ground because despite his warm reception he was probably going to get very angry, very quickly. Deciding that standing might just be for the best she placed the file onto his desk so that it faced him. "What happened to Sam Tyler?"
"I've told you before. Sam died," Gene replied coldly, without taking his eyes off her.
"DCI Keats seems to think -"
"Keats wants nothing more than to take me and my department down," Gene interrupted quickly, preventing her from saying the actual words out loud. There was obviously no need - Gene seemed to know exactly what Jim thought of him. "And you're helping him," he added on, his voice sharp but under control.
"No," she denied with a small shake of her head, her arms coming to rest across her middle and her fingers unconsciously soothing at her wound. "You're the one who's helping Keats because you're too damn stubborn or proud or whatever it is that's stopping you from telling me what happened," she pushed firmly, determined to get her answer.
"You're never going to let this go, are you?"
She shook her head in response and his eyes dropped to the file she had placed on his desk. For a long moment she thought he was going to tell her where to shove it, to blast her for her lack of faith in him, but those words didn't come. "What is it that you expect me to say, Bols?" he asked eventually, his demeanour calmer than it was just moments ago and on the previous occasions she had dared to ask him about this particular subject. "That Keats is right?"
"No," she denied again. She didn't want to hear that at all but she did need to know exactly what had happened to Sam that day. As painful as it might be for Gene she needed to know why he hadn't been there for Sam when he'd always been there for her. What had been different that day? "I just want you to tell me the truth, Gene."
Gene pouted quietly at her but she held her ground as firmly as she could. "The truth is that Sam had to go," he said finally before pushing back and rising from his chair.
"I don't understand," she said softly, her gaze following Gene as he made his way towards the cabinet that held his endless supply of whiskey. She watched quietly as he removed the bottle and two glasses, her mind trying to complete the rest of the story with the crazy idea that Sam had done some sort of runner and Gene had helped him. Instead of heading back to his chair Gene walked towards her, causing her to abandon those thoughts and turn on her heel, stepping back a little so she could face him once more. "He had to go where?" she pursued when he showed no sign of elaborating any further.
He placed both glasses onto his desk just in front of her and then poured out a generous measure of whiskey into each glass. "Sam had to go, Alex," Gene repeated as he set down the bottle and picked up a glass.
The change of emphasis to his words chilled her from the inside out. She shook her head slightly in disbelief, thinking for a moment that she'd completely misread him but his gaze, hard and drilling into hers even as he coolly swigged from his glass, told her that she'd heard him right. Told her that Keats was right. Her chest started to ache with the weight of his confession, the pain worse than his bullet had been, and a multitude of awful, dark thoughts whirled through her head, each one reaching down to take a swipe at her guts as it circled. How could she have been so very wrong? "But he was your friend," she whispered.
"He was," Gene agreed quietly, honestly. "But he kept asking questions. Kept picking away at something that was better off left alone. And he might not have known it but he was going to destroy me, Alex. I had to do something."
The urge to flee was overwhelming. She wanted to run out of that door and never look back but her legs wouldn't move and he was standing in her way. The tall, solid man that she'd come to think of as her protector wouldn't let her pass, not now. Now he was her jailer; maybe he always had been. And where would she go if she did manage to escape? This wasn't her world; now, more than ever before, she was certain that it was his - and he was the one in control. He'd always been the one in control and she was completely at his mercy. She managed to pick up the other glass without her hand shaking too much and knocked back the contents in one long gulp. It burned fiercely as it went down and did little to lessen her despair. "So what happens now?"
Gene reached behind with his free hand and pushed the door to his office shut. "That's a good question."