Disclaimer: I own nothing – it all belongs to the BBC and one incredibly fantastic David Bowie.
He looked at the note again and sighed with his entire body. Tossing it on the chest masquerading as a coffee table, he chose to ignore the nearly-too-neat handwriting by shrugging off his coat and laying it over the arm of the couch. His eyes were momentarily drawn to the print hanging above the charcoal linen sofa, the large framed picture of a black hole.
To delay looking at the note even more, he glanced through the room, as if looking for a potential threat. But, no such luck in terms of a distraction. The floor to ceiling windows opened up onto a peaceful Thames, the electric lights broken by the wakeful current that had carried away his coat only a few months prior.
The muscles in his once-injured leg gave a vague twinge in sympathy of the memory, but it had been some time since he had felt regular physical pain from the gunshot wound. She had made very sure of that – for all her ways he would never presume to understand, she directed a great amount of caring towards him. And that applied to the wound he had limped away with after capturing Marwood. She had nearly scoffed at him when he hesitated at visiting a hospital, saying "Come now, John, let's not be stubborn to the point of stupid. You're far too precious to be lost to gangrene." He had only hesitated since he wished Justin had had the chance to go to a hospital to be saved.
His mouth jerked up to the left in a painful grimace of a smile, remembering his former partner who had continually risked too much for his sake. Of the deaths that sat on Luther's shoulders, that would be the majority of the mantle. Even though it was Marwood who was truly to blame Justin's death, Luther couldn't shake the guilt. Still, his mind derailed back to her as he stood alone in the flat, and he could almost hear her saying, "Sentiment is no excuse for lateness".
Which brought him back to the note. He picked it up, automatically analyzing it.
It was a customized cardstock, perfect for calligraphy. The edges were slightly rough, nearing on fuzzy. Obviously not written with whatever cheap pen nicked from an office, the ink was the blackest of blacks, probably housed in an expensive fountain pen. The handwriting wouldn't reveal anything if professionally analyzed, besides the fact someone had spent the time to learn this dying art. Another hidden skill of hers, he mused. It listed an address, and a warning against being tardy. Well, written by the average human it wouldn't be a warning, but from those hands?
He remembered the way she held the nail after she had cut Marwood's throat on the rooftop. Enough to wound, save Mary, and even escape.
Well, she would be more than slightly displeased if he was late, and he glanced at the time to realize if he showered now, he'd make it smoothly on time. Provided nothing happened, he thought, looking at his phone, almost willing a call from Schenk, with some twisted case as a plea for him to return to his former employment.
Nothing. Currently he was just living the city he had fought to protect for years. He knew for certain he couldn't return to his previous life, but he also didn't know what to move onto. This left him with plenty of time, which was occasionally interrupted by Alice. Tonight was one such night.
He dragged his hand over his head and down his face, letting out a tired growl. It wouldn't do to disappoint her now, and some small part of him openly wondered what she had planned. Not even wondered, he admitted to himself, pulling off his tie as he headed down the hall. He was entirely and totally curious.
In the cab on the way over to the address she had listed, he fidgeted in the slightly fancier clothes than he was used to. Of course everything fit him perfectly, she wouldn't have it any other way.
The days after the Marwood case were all slightly blurry, between the gunshot wound and the pain of Justin's death settling in, he just couldn't muster the fight anymore. Chasing down that lunatic hellbent on his own twisted form of revenge had taken it out of him entirely. So, when one brunette "journalist" managed to get into his hospital room, he just "hmm'd" and nodded. It was only a matter of time before Alice showed up again.
He didn't like seeing her without her newly shortened red hair and scarlet plum lipstick. She was wearing an entirely impractical outfit, playing the sympathetic female role to the injured detective. The small talk was wherever she guided the conversation, he being too tired to argue when she didn't answer his questions. He remembered that even with the disguise, that thin-lipped smile was hers alone. She was still out of place in the sterile room, but it was short lived because she showed him a small envelope, which she slid into the bag containing his personal belongings. After she reached over his bed, he heard a click on the morphine drip, and she slipped out of the room as he dozed off.
Later when he was released, Schenk visited to make sure he didn't need someone to help him home and simultaneously filled him in on what had happened. The older man's voice filtered from the room into the bathroom where Luther was finally getting out of the terrible hospital gown. As he was slowly returning his mobile to its proper pocket, his wallet to another, he rediscovered the envelope. An address scrawled on the outside, and a key on the inside.
"-you see, with DS Ripley gone, the department will have to be reorganized and-what's that?" Schenk gestured to the small package in his hand as he emerged.
"Don't know yet." He pocketed it, wanting to remove it from the conversation.
"…very well." Schenk conceded this, not wanting to upset the usually irascible detective. "As I was saying, the department-"
"Did DS Ripley's funeral already happen?" His hands in his pockets, one fist tightened around the envelope and key, the other around his mobile.
"Yes, it did. Well attended, too." The grey haired man pulled back slightly, as if to prepare himself to hide or run from an outburst. None came.
"I need a cab." He wasn't ready for discussion about the department, and he was hardly ready to face what was left of it. Really all he wanted to see was Benny, but with his luck he'd run into a recovering DCI Gray, who was absolutely on the bottom of the list.
"I could drive you?" Schenk tentatively offered. Hunching up his shoulders, Luther sighed, which came out as a bit of a groan.
"No, thank you, sir, but I think I'll take a cab."
"Very well." He made his way to the door, sensing this was over. Still, he stopped with a hand on the doorframe, his face scrunched up for a moment, as if searching for what to say without sounding too gentle. "John?"
"Yes sir?" He looked up, searching his boss' face.
"I too am sorry for the loss of DS Ripley. And…and I'm very glad you made it."
"Thank you, sir." He wasn't sure what else to say. How long ago had he forcibly brought Justin into his flat to introduce him to Mary? Justin was his best mate, and Luther didn't exactly come across those very often, if at all. The smaller man had grinned, and bore the awkward tension woven in the conversation with as much grace as he could muster under the circumstances.
By the time Luther had emerged from these thoughts, Schenk was gone and he stood alone in the room, looking at his shoes. This, at least, he recognized. He felt stronger with his own clothes on, and was quietly grateful that someone had taken the time to drop them of. Mary perhaps? He somehow doubted it, as a new coat had accompanied the outfit. He glanced back at the hospital bed one more time then turned on his feel and walked out, hoping it was going to be one of the last times he had to do this.
A cab ride later brought him to a flat that would very quickly become his new home. It was a very high-end area, really couldn't be any further from the flat he had briefly shared with Jenny. He mused as he rode up in the slick lift that the people who lived here probably bought the drugs from his neighbors in that previous building. The wallpaper had been peeling, the kitchen was barely passable, but for a precious small amount of time, it had been home. Jenny had seen to that, but she had also seen to the home's end, killing Toby Kent in the living room.
The lift respectfully pinged its arrival, and Luther walked into a small entryway that had only one door. The key Alice had left him fit and it opened into the most luxury he had ever lived in. Not only that, but she had taken the liberty of filling the walk-in closet with clothes just for him. She seemed determined to scrub away the vestiges of his old life, even down to the lack of a red tie.
Everything had been tailored, and the rumbling growl he let out at realizing she had just decided to make every detail her own would've sent anyone running. Still he was too tired to fight it, and by the time had made a cursory review of the flat, he fell asleep, fully clothed, on a couch that he couldn't even begin to fathom how expensive it was.
That had been months ago, and now he was used to her interference, although she would categorize it as intermittent blessings. Still, he disliked the formality of the three-piece suit that had been hung in the closet in his absence. He also disliked his apparent contentedness at not fighting such an absurd thing in his life. Had that last fight with Marwood taken it all from him?
Not a week after he was released from the hospital he quit. Schenk and Benny hadn't been all that surprised, after all, he had been accused of murdering his best mate and had to inhabit the mental space of some of the most twisted criminals London had seen. He had wrapped up the casework, and after a few pints with Benny at the end of the day, he walked away from it all. No more being DCI John Luther, no more being the messenger of the death of a loved one, and no more fighting the office politics that never ceased to haunt him.
His thoughts were interrupted as the cabbie began to brake to a halt. Luther glanced out the rain-streaked window at the address. A bar, to be exact. Paying the cabbie, he climbed from the vehicle and unfolded himself to his full height and looked the place up and down. Black lacquered wooden front, heavy curtains closed behind the windows to keep out the chill, and the windowless door simply had "110 Proof" painted with gold leaf in an Edwardian font.
He opened the door to a similarly dark vestibule, with an attentive young woman dressed in black waiting for arriving guests. Glancing around, he began to shrug off his overcoat and she stepped forward to take it from him.
"Whose party are you joining, sir?" Quiet tone, respectful, but the vowels were caught on what sounded like a few too many cigarettes.
"My name is Luther, John Luther." He didn't think she would've put it under "Morgan".
"Very well, one moment please." She didn't have to check a list, not that he saw one on the podium. Before his observations could go further, another young woman emerged from the doors behind the first and held it open for him.
He was very nearly getting tired of the secrecy of this entire evening, but waited for the second woman to close the door before following her down a hallway that ended in a set of French doors, the stained glass panels depicting birds in flight. These opened onto a bar, in what looked to be a renovated townhouse with the high ceilings and traditional moulding. The patrons at the bar were well dressed, in dark velvets and perfectly coiffed hair.
The young woman didn't stop and kept clicking her heels past the bar and the nearby seating area through a set of heavy drapes, and another door. She stopped at an open lift and gestured for him to enter.
"Top floor, sir."
"Thanks." He hit the button for the sixth floor and glanced at his watch. He was glad he had hurried through readying himself - he would just make it at the appointed time. He had stopped asking himself a long time ago why he didn't want to disappoint Alice; that was a rabbit hole he had no intention of falling down.
The lift doors opened to familiar music that made him smile and quietly laugh as he looked down at his shoes. As he heard the lyrics "we can be bad, just for one day", he moved from the lift to the parquet floors, and his gaze followed the floor to the middle of the room, where, champagne flute in hand, stood Alice.
The emerald green gown possessed a luster that made her gleam, and he would never dare say glow. Since glow had the connotation of something gentle, caring and healing. The silk hissed as she moved, setting down the glass before she walked towards him, her lips slightly parted in that ever present near smirk. Her heels echoed on the wooden floor and he soon found himself looking down at the woman who, for a brief time, may have been branded as his archnemesis.
"You made it." Her lips finally curled into a smile as she took in the figure he cut in the suit she chose.
"I did. Not that I don't enjoy an air of mystery," he gestured to the room, "but what are we doing here?"
"'We can be heroes.'" She quoted, taking his hands with hers and with a sudden moment of clarity, Luther realized she meant to dance. He shook his head but allowed himself to grin as they began to move across the floor.
He was inwardly elated to find she had chosen what he found to be the best of Bowie, and he wasn't sure how long they lost themselves to the songs he lived and breathed when he was younger. When the soft light caught her red hair in flashes, it reminded him of Ziggy Stardust, but the comparison ended when her eyes caught the light to look at him. The sharp greys, blues and greens that constantly challenged him. But not tonight. Tonight her smile continued to her eyes, and she was so incredibly pleased that her plan for the evening had gone off without a hitch. As the last track ended, there was a brief pause that they used to sip the champagne.
"Alice?"
"Hmm?" She glanced up at him over the gilded rim of the glass. "Something the matter?"
"No, not at all." He set the glass down. "Thank you."
This smile was wistful, and resigned. Before he could say anything else, the next track started and it took him a second to place it, as it was from a soundtrack. The soft chords pulled him to her and suddenly they were slow dancing. She rested her head on his chest, sighing.
"I do hope the world isn't falling yet." Her voice lacked the usual sting.
"I don't think it is." But the lyrics sat heavier and heavier on him, like wet clothes. It made no sense to fall, but he wasn't entirely sure whether he was falling or he had fallen. He wasn't going to voice any of these thoughts, as he didn't want to break the near trance state. This entire night was so surreal, the silk warmed between her back and his hand, the faint traces of perfume rising from her into this room that he somehow thought might not exist tomorrow. This was all a dream; he had likely fallen asleep on the couch again, fully clothed. His bowed form was going to ache tomorrow, but for now it slumbered beneath the picture of the black hole.
He bit his lip out of view of the gaze that missed nothing and decided that for tonight, dream or not, he was finally glad he had no fight left him in.