A/N Hi guys, been planning this story for a long time, so hope you'll like it. In fact, this is pretty much why i first came on to ff. This story inspired by the song 'Playing with Fire' by Brandon Flowers, is basically going to continue from the end of series 3, with lots of surprises and some loose ends tied up. Don't get me wrong, I loved the ending, but it did leave me feeling kind of unsatisfied, and this has been boiling away for a while, so please R&R, it'll mean the world to me. The first chapter is pretty short, but I think its best to get them up (finally.) Enjoy! :) Naha x
Playing with Fire ~ Chapter 1
Gene sat down heavily after dealing with the new bloke, going on about his "eye-phone" or some such rubbish. He couldn't handle a new person right now; he had too much on his mind. He heaved a sigh and pulled his hip flask out of his jacket pocket, resettling himself on his chair as he looked at the Mercedes brochure that had been left on his desk by...who knew? One of CID, probably. Just to rub in the loss of his poor Quattro. Ah well. This new Merc actually looked pretty good.
This was useless, he couldn't deny it. Throwing the brochure onto the desk like a child having a tantrum, he stood up and walked out of his office, over to the desk that was formerly occupied by DI Alex Drake. Bollyknickers. He missed her, he really did. More than he had missed Sam or Annie when they'd left, more than he missed Shaz, or Chris or Ray. He sat down at her desk, running his hands over the calloused wooden surface without paying it any attention. His hands stopped roving as he felt something, scratched into the surface; he looked at it. 6620.
Whether she had written it, or whether Jim Bastard Keats had inscribed it on her desk for her to find, he didn't know, but it made him think; she knew everything about him. She had been so determined to find out what he was hiding, and yet he knew so little about her life. He knew she had a daughter, but he had never seen her or met her; as far as he knew, neither had Alex since she had been here. Why was that? And how could he know so little about her when she knew so much about him? He didn't even know how she had died, for God's sake!
He remembered once, he had argued with her about her daughter, saying she never saw her or spoke to her; that had struck a nerve-she had whacked him in the face. But that was only a small part of what was confusing him now, even after the truth had been revealed; why didn't Alex make sense? Where was she from, how could she remain such a mystery, even after she'd...even after he'd made her leave. He wondered if that was part of the reason he had made her go; he had thought it was because she needed to go, because she was ready, and he had to stay here, on his own, to continue working...but was that really true? He never remembered being told that he had to do this alone, and she hadn't been ready, had she? She hadn't wanted to go, hadn't wanted to leave him; he practically had to force her into the pub...
'Oh bloody hell, Gene, you've really bollocksed it up this time.' I mean, what if she wasn't ready, and he had pushed her somewhere she didn't want to be because he was too scared of the things he didn't know, or understand? 'Let's face it, Gene' he thought to himself, 'It's not her you're afraid of. It's yourself.' He buried his head in his hands. Well, he couldn't undo what he'd done. But he could find out more about her. That, he knew how to do; it was his job, after all. She had to have some evidence of some sort round her desk, or perhaps in her flat. He began rummaging around the debris on top of her desk, but there was nothing personal there; just case evidence and notes. He walked out of CID in a daze, on his own personal mission to search Alex's flat for evidence.