I've been off school sick today, so was watching my Ashes to Ashes boxset and as always, the ending of Series 3, Episode 5 broke my heart. So, I decided to write an alternate ending for the episode, in which Alex doesn't follow Keats out of CID. I've entitled this 'Only You' purely because it's the song at the end of the episode, and is one of my all-time favourite songs. Anyway, I hope you like it and reviews, as always, are appreciated!
X =D
Disclaimer – I don't own Ashes to Ashes. =D
Only You
Alex stood there by the door, watching Keats as he eyed her carefully, eyes blazing with a cold triumph that chilled her to the core. But still...he had been right. Why had Bevan said what he had said, and why had Gene burned Sam's jacket, if there was nothing for him to hide?
"Do we need to talk?"
Her eyes lingered on him for a few seconds longer, a whole mix of different emotions running through her as she paused, and turned her head back to look at Gene. Indecision hung in the air like a balanced sword, ready to fall one way or the other. Alex could feel Keats' eyes burning through her, could almost hear his teeth grinding as he waited for her to tear her reluctant eyes away from Gene. But she couldn't. In that moment, Gene looked up and met her gaze; his eyes were burning too, but not in the same way. There was an angry bitterness written all over his face as he saw her stood beside Keats, halfway out the door.
And then Alex felt something she hadn't felt in a long time towards him. Guilt. Guilt at the fact that she had even dared to question or break the trust between them – weren't they the ones that had a connection? The Guv and Bolly, unbreakable. Except they had broken, and it was her fault. She had no right to turn her back on him, no reason to doubt or desert him. He had been right that night in Luigi's; they were a team, and members of a team don't go sneaking around behind the other members' backs.
Keats spoke again, impatience seeping into his tone. "Alex?"
Turning back to him, Alex fixed him with a hardened gaze, knowing that Gene was still watching her every move, angry resentment clear in his eyes. "No, sir," she said, stiffening as she moved to turn away from him.
Keats shot an arm out to stop her, gently pulling her back round to face him. There was nothing gentle in his expression. "Are you quite sure about that, Alex?" His eyes flickered over to where Gene was still stood in his office, and then back to Alex's face. This time, his voice was low, and Alex felt like there was almost a dangerous undercurrent of fire to his words. "Because if you turn your back on me now, Alex, if you choose to trust him, I'm not going to give you any second chances."
Alex smiled - a small, confident smile that although he wouldn't let it show, worried Keats. "Well," she said, "I guess that's just a risk I'll have to take, sir." She smiled again and added softly, "A leap of faith." She tried to turn away from him once more, but again, Keats pulled her back to him.
"I mean it, Alex," he hissed, eyes blazing with fury. This wasn't how it was meant to go. He glanced over at Gene again, jealousy and rage churning in his stomach like the fires of hell. Maybe he had underestimated the two of them; perhaps the bond between DCI Hunt and DI Drake ran deeper than he had first thought. "No going back."
Again, Alex smiled knowingly. "You know, sir," she said, looking as though she was explaining about how she saw the light for the first time, "Someone once told me that wherever the Guv was, was the right place to be. And you know what?"
"What?" The single word came out as a seething hiss as Keats' eyes sparked, the line of lips becoming thinner and thinner.
She leant ever so slightly nearer to him and whispered, "I think I might just believe that."And turning her head a little to flicker her gaze to Gene, she added, "I think I might just believe in him."
"No going back, Alex," Keats warned her again, opening the door now. For Alex, the choice was quite suddenly very easy.
"Sorry, sir," she told him again, turning away. "There's nothing for us to talk about." And with that, she strode away from him and towards Gene's office. With a low cry of rage, Keats wrenched the door fully open and stormed through it, pulling it back with so much force that it swung violently behind him as he stalked away back down the corridor, away from CID.
The rest of CID watched on, stunned into silence as Alex strode wordlessly into their Guv's office and closed each blind in turn before nothing could be seen through the glass windows but the faint glow of light through the cream material. A muttered 'finally' came from Shaz.
For a few impossibly long moments, a dense silence filled Gene's office as Alex stood before him, waiting for him to say something. Anything that could reassure her that she had done the right thing in walking away from Keats.
Staring at her, Gene studied the gentle, patient expression on her face and for the first time in weeks, he saw something in her eyes that he had missed. Fire. Fire, and trust, and another kind of warmth that had always been in her eyes when she spoke to him before...before Keats had driven a wedge between them. "Pencil-neck not going t' satisfy all yer needs tonight, Bolly?" he asked, tone regretfully bitter as he poured her a generous measure of whisky and pushed it across the desk towards her. He hadn't meant to sound so petty, so jealous, but he had to know. Had to know before he told her anything.
Thankfully though, Alex didn't hold it against him. She just smiled and shook her head instead as she perched herself in her usual place by his computer. She took a mouthful of the amber liquid, closing her eyes gratefully as it burned her throat on its way down. "I haven't been sleeping with him, Gene, if that's what you mean."
"No, Bols," he said quietly, putting down his own empty glass as he wondered whether he should sit down or not. He stayed standing, the lamplight casting shadows across his already darkened face. "I know yer haven't...but you've been confiding in 'im, trusting 'im."
She looked down and looked...ashamed. "Not anymore."
Gene raised an eyebrow. "What d'yer mean, not anymore?"
Lifting her head to meet his gaze, Alex paused for a moment as her eyes collided with his and she drank in the familiar stormy shade of blue that had always told her so much about the man beneath all the Manc Lion bravado. "I mean, Gene, that I'm not going to help him anymore. And I'm sorry that I even thought about doing so in the first place. You were right – we're a team, and teams stick together and trust each other, no matter what other people are saying."
"Bloody hell," Gene exclaimed, causing a small smile to twitch across her face as she watched him. "The great Bolly-kecks is apologising; I might just suffer a cardiac flamin' arrest!"
She laughed, the sound so familiar to Gene's ears that it pained him. He had heard her laugh before, quite often before the shooting, during the late nights they would sit together in her flat or in Luigi's, drinking till the early hours of the morning – talking, flirting, exchanging thoughts until the alcohol numbed their brains. But it was a sound he hadn't heard in a while, and it surprised Gene to realise he had missed it – more than he cared to admit. "Oh, and wouldn't that be a loss for us all," she remarked, a joking sarcasm in her voice that he once again found familiar.
He chuckled briefly before they fell silent again, content to be wrapped up in their own thoughts of each other before Gene let out a sigh and refilled their glasses. "From now on, Bols," he said, raising his glass and waiting until she did the same, "We're unbreakable, you an' me. Un-bloody-breakable, agreed?"
A wide grin spread across Alex's face as she nodded and drank up. "Agreed."
Again, they fell into a companionable silence, drinking their whisky together in the secluded office, paying no thought or attention to the world of CID that lay just behind the shielded glass of the Manc Lion's den. Alex's soft voice broke through the silence as she glanced up at him again, gaze searching his face. "It was only ever you, Gene, you know that," she said quietly, and her whispered words hung in the air for a few seconds before Gene replied, finding it hard to completely meet her gaze as he tried to express himself to her in return.
"You too, Bolly, you too."
Alex's smile was almost melancholic as he spoke, but when she looked up, it soon spread into one of secretive happiness, her lips still closed as though she were concealing the answer to some great mystery behind her smile. "I was wrong to doubt you, Gene, I'm sorry."
He had to restrain from rolling his eyes and clicked his tongue in annoyance instead. Putting down his whisky glass again, Gene gestured with his head for her to move. "Will you stop apologising, Bolly, and come over 'ere?"
Still smiling at him, and feeling as though nothing mattered but them and the room that surrounded them, Alex put down her own glass and got up, moving round to his side of the desk, stopping to stand in front of him. "Why?" she asked teasingly, the expression on her face warm and playful. "You going to kiss me, or punch me?"
A low chuckle escaped Gene's lips as he placed two hands on her waist and pulled her closer, their faces so close that their noses brushed intimately together, breath mingling in the small space between them. Alex's lips longed for his as a fire spread a feeling through her stomach that she hadn't experienced in a long time – desire. "Think you'll find that's my line, Bols," he murmured, head tilting ever so slightly to the left as his nose traced reverently down the length of hers before their lips finally met.
Alex let out a tiny moan of pleasure as his lips pressed against hers for the first time and she inhaled, instantly drunk on the smell and taste of him. Bringing a hand up to rest on his chest, she gathered the material of his shirt into her fist and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss as their lips moved together, tongues dancing as flames flickered between them.
"Only wanted you, Gene," she murmured against his lips, eyes fluttering to a close again as he kissed her with a renewed fervour, light bursting before both of their eyes as they kissed, knowing what they had tried to deny all along. No matter who tried to pull them apart, they were unbreakable.
"Only you..." Gene added in agreement, his hands at her waist lifting her onto his desk as she opened her legs to wrap them around his waist, pulling him even closer to her as want and heated desire throbbed between them like an unsatisfied plea. And as his teeth nipped lightly at her earlobe before he moved his lips to suck on her pulse point, sending shivers of pleasure down her spine, Alex knew she was lost. Gasping and nodding in feverish agreement as she breathed, "Only you, Gene...don't stop...please..."
"Don't intend to, Bolly, I don't ever intend to," Gene muttered wickedly as he made light work of pushing her dress up around her waist and captured her lips with his again, peppering kisses there as her fingers ran through his hair, small moans of pleasure and ecstasy escaping her at every touch of Gene's hands or lips.
Finally, they had found each other again, and as the few remaining members of CID silently slipped out, leaving only their two superior officers alone within the walls of Gene's office, somewhere within the deep depths of the station, Jim Keats let out a beast-like wail of despair. He had failed – no hellish fire or satanic spell would pull them apart or break them now. They were just as they always had been, and always would be – unbreakable.
Far up above, in that enclosed office, Alex let out a frantic gasp, her breathing laboured as ecstasy, pleasure and desire ran through her veins, her heart pounding heatedly in her chest as Gene let out a groan into her hair, their bodies intertwined as one. And for one wild, blinding moment, three words fell as a desperate sigh from both their lips.
"I love you..."
Wonder if you'll understand
It's just the touch of your hand
Behind a closed door
All I needed was the love you gave
All I needed for another day
And all I ever knew
Only you
Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed that, and a massive thanks to TheFatalIllusion for reading this through for me. Reviews are very, very welcome!
X =D