Hello. My pen-name is 'Miss Laurentia'. My first FanFic story is a one-off from the BBC series 'Ashes to Ashes'. It includes a brief crossover with the British tv series, 'The Good Life'Those with a beady eye, might also spot a brief reference to an excerpt from the Kudos documentary 'The End of Life on Mars'.
I acknowledge that the characters in my story are not mine, but are the creations of the writers of 'Ashes to Ashes' and 'The Good Life`.
My story starts off based on a combination of two scenes from episode 8 of Series 2. Alex tells Gene she's from the future. Gene suspends Alex because he believes he can no longer trust her. The rest of my bizarre story was the result of an online competition to write an 'Ashes to Ashes' story including as many words as possible from those chosen specially for the competition. A very effective way, I found, to get my 'plotting imagination' going!
I hope you enjoy my story and even maybe get a bit of a giggle! Comments and suggestions welcome.
ALONE
PART 1:
Since landing in the 80's, Alex had had many hard days. In C.I.D. there was the Sexism, the Racism and even the brutality and contempt toward the villains and the misfits that were dragged in off the streets.
There were the whispers of corruption and of course being on the street itself and often having to face what really were, the scum of the earth. Alex had to see too, the misery of their victims. Somehow it seemed more raw and 'in your face' than she'd remembered from where she came.
'From where she came'. That made for hard days too. Remembering and longing after her daughter Molly and wondering if she would ever get back to her. Wondering how, and feeling herself torn; going mad at the most inappropriate moments. Facing, alone, the incomprehension on her colleagues faces as she spun out.
But today had been the hardest. And it wasn't even because Gene had suspended her and demanded her Warrant Card. Bad enough – but it was Gene's complete and utter loss of trust in her that had hurt her most. She'd hated him at that moment, but she cared too; cared about what she'd lost with him.
And it was seeing his Hurt. She'd hurt him deeply. She saw that - in his tight, ice-blue stare; A stare that pierced her. There was the occasional perfunctory sentence he'd delivered in a dead-cold voice. But apart from that, there was the stony silence – the silence, the stillness and the stare - as Alex tumbled her words out trying to make Gene believe a bizarre story. The story of where she'd come from.
This was the Gene she feared. Not the yelling, arguing, insulting version. At least that Gene showed a passion of sorts. At least he was engaged. Gene yelled and argued and bullied, the way other people said `Good morning', or `Pleased to meet you' or `Thank you'. It was normal.
But today, standing before her, quietly, coldly demanding her Warrant card, Alex knew Gene felt betrayed; knew that he'd cut her; cut her off from him completely. And she knew it gave him no pleasure.
When she left, Alex felt the knots tighten in her belly, the heat rise to her face and her eyes ready to weep. It was all mostly because of her confusion. She hated him; she hated herself. Alex had to make sense of this somehow; to unravel her feelings and thoughts. She needed to talk, talk, TALK until it was all out. But to whom? There was literally…nobody!
In the past she could use Gene as a sounding board to some extent. Yes he might ignore or disparage her as she wittered on. But he tolerated it and she trusted him. Gene was big enough to absorb it all. Without impact sometimes. Yet it would leave Alex feeling a bit more relieved of her anxieties and a bit more organised in her mind. But now that door was closed to her.
Okay! The only other solution was to crush these feelings; obliterate them. Get drunk! But not alone. Alex feared the thoughts of loathing; of confusion and frustration; The thoughts of self-hatred that threatened to overwhelm her, drunk or sober.
She needed to have all her conscious thoughts clamped down. She needed her body to be taken over by thudding, mind numbing noise; To have her whole being crushed and lost and morphed into a heaving, palpitating mass of like-minded city rats escaping the horrors of the day; escaping as she was.
Alex left C.I.D. and slammed her self straight into her car and screamed off to Soho. She didn't even bother to tart herself up; to change into 'something slutty'. 'Oh God! Why won't his words go away?'. She didn't change. Who for? What for? Alex didn't care whether she picked up, or got picked up, or was totally ignored. Just anything - as long as she could no longer think; no longer feel.
She careered around Soho and surrounds until she found the loudest, the dingiest, the most crowded night club in the district. She'd be okay - for now.
PART 2:
Voices pecked annoyingly at Alex's brain. They were incessant.
It was driving her crazy. So high pitched; So querulous; So grating. What atrocious music was this? It wasn't the curiously therapeutic head-banging sort she had been listening to; had been feeling; all night. She was dozing and tried to ignore the sound. But it wouldn't stop.
Alex prised open an eyelid with difficulty, feeling the sand-paper scrape as she did so. Peering out, she saw that she had appeared to have woken up in a garden.
A man and a woman were either side of her, working in the earth. The woman was attractive in a pixie-like way. The `Pixie' didn't have to 'take her clothes off' to be attractive. Alex giggled in an addled, uncontrolled way. `Oh God that's funny! But where the hell did that thought come from?' She felt she was starting to remember - something; someone. Whatever it was, it was painful. She shut her memory down again.
The man had a rather dishevelled – but comfortable look; friendly.
Their voices were pitched annoyingly high in incredulity, as they argued, albeit in a rather cajoling way, with someone else nearby.
'Where AM I?' Alex dragged herself upright, holding her throbbing head, and registered the full bizarre nature of her situation.
'Oh Christ! I'm in 'The Good Life'. In the vegetable patch between Tom and Barbara!'. Alex let out a silly, drunken giggle as she threw her hands back in surprise and in mock horror. She fluttered her fingers in her endearingly girly way.
The fog in Alex's brain cleared enough for her to realise she was home; curled on her couch with the tele on. How she'd ended up there, she didn't know; With whom? Well - no-one in sight; But Alex half-wondered in her daze if there were the remains of a man passed out somewhere in her flat. Indeed she did think she had heard snatches of snores emanating from some distance place. But it could have been from herself. Anyhow, she'd forgotten anything that might have taken place that night. And yet she did remember, that for some reason, forgetting was good. Today anyway.
And what better way to forget than by watching this very late night repeat of the comedy series, 'The Good Life'. It was a show she had come to know of mostly through her parents and she'd always enjoyed seeing the repeats. It curiously made Alex feel closer to her parents since they'd died (well brutally destroyed, more like!). Alex settled on the couch under her coat, ready for some mind-soothing nostalgia.
Tom and Barbara were arguing with their neighbour Margo, who stood on the other side of the fence. Margo was trimming her prize rose-bush with precision and determination. Yet it was with delicacy that she snipped away, one dead-head at a time, with one (oddly large) ring-finger and pinky poised.
Typically, Margo had worn a stylish combination of a Knightsbridge skirt and blouse to this delicate operation. Her face was hidden from sunburn under a large straw hat. She was trying to be at her superior best, by looking good and attempting to ignore the affectionate jibes of Tom and Barbara.
`Oh Margo! Seriously! What's the point of Roses?' taunted Tom. 'You should be like Barbara and me and grow REAL plants like knobbly carrots and `airy potatoes. 'Ere ya are – just have a feel of me knobbly carrot…Corrrr!' Tom teased in a mock West Country accent. He giggled and honked away like a cheeky school-boy as he winked at Barbara and waved a freshly grubbed, earth mottled carrot over the fence.
Barbara was chewing her lip to stop from bursting into laughter at Margo's exaggeratedly outraged discomfort.
'Oh yes Margo', protested Barbara feigning a disappointed pout. 'I mean REALY! What ARE you going to do with Roses? It's not as if you can eat them. Can you!'.
Margo carried on defiantly, relentlessly, although her lips tightened and her snipping got louder and more aggressive. The rhythm of her snipping, sent Alex off into another doze but soon her eyes started open.
`AAAGGGHHH!', Ooh! Owww! Margo cursed loudly - but in an odd rasping way. `Oh Margo! What's wrong?' asked the Pixie.
'STUPID roses!' sobbed Marge as she sucked a large bendy thumb, blooded by thorns.
'Hmmm', thought Alex. 'Not exactly the dainty fingers I'd expected the lady-like Margo to have.'
'Stupid roses!' Margo's rasp became more aggressive. 'It's the rose bush. The bloody thorns. They got me!' and at last she lifted her face . And Alex finally saw. The face. Under the hat. THAT face!
'It's coming, Bolls! Beware of the rose. Operation Rose is coming Bolly!' It was Gene. Staring bulge-eyed at Alex; desperation in his look.
'Enough! Enough! Stop! Stop!', Alex screeched aloud at the screen as she desperately fumbled to find the remote. 'Nohh! Not him again!' She remembered now that this is just whom she'd been trying to escape.
Click, click, click. Finally Alex was as far away as she could be from Gene, from London, from her life. Gary Cooper now loping along on his horse on a black and white screen. He was tired no doubt from a busy day in the saddle.
Alex was suddenly starving so she left Cooper to amble on, as she herself shuffled to the kitchen. She'd remembered the plate of sushi sitting in her fridge. Making the sushi was one of Alex's ways of reminding herself she was not of this decade and must get back to her own. She'd mentioned to Shaz one day, that she would kill for a quick tasty plate of sushi between chasing blaggers but that she couldn't find it anywhere in the city.
Shaz had screwed her mouth side-ways and looked at Alex in utter incomprehension and disgust as Alex tried to explain it's contents. `Raw fish? That's just wrong!' was Shaz's incredulous response.
It hit Alex then, that of course! Food was as much of a fashion trend as clothes or music, and '80's London just didn't DO sushi! 'You've never heard of sushi? Right!' enthused Alex. `You're in for a treat then. I'll make you some.'
`Whatever', said Shaz as she showed Chris an eye-rolling sneer. And indeed Alex came to wonder whether it had been worth the effort she'd put in, to traipse half-way around London and back again to beg and buy the ingredients one by one from a plethora of weird and wonderful back-street food shops. Some were exotic but most just downright dodgy.
For Alex's sake Shaz had nibbled at Alex's creation but then promptly gagged. Gene had stopped dead in his tracks and stared at two lonely, dark, perfectly formed, untouched sushi rolls. He stared - blankly; blinking; as the clock, and the cogs in his mind ticked slowly on. He looked up, serious, asked the room 'Who let the dog in?' and promptly strode on to his office. The other responses weren't much better. 'Oh well,' thought Alex. 'At least I'll have my own tasty, secret symbol of the 'Naughties' to bring back the memories of my real home.'
And now she had the treat to enjoy, legs curled under her as she sat on her couch watching a Classic on the Tele. Perfect! In that world, the sun was going down and Gary's head lolled beneath his broad hat as his horse plodded on homeward bound. After a while the sleepy rhythm and her full stomach, sent Alex off again after a while, into a state of relaxed wakefulness. `At last. Peace', she thought. `Who knows how long it will continue? But grab it while you can.'
CLICK! The sound in the silence was like a bomb blast to Alex's ears. She jerked her head up. She saw the screen. But there was no cinematic vista. Instead the screen was filled; Filled with the black hole of a Smith and Wesson gun barrel and above, on each side of the barrel were two huge staring steel-grey eyeballs rolling and looming madly from under sharply arched brows.
'I'll kill you Alex! I'll kill you!' It was him! Again! Gene!
'Noh! No! Noh!' Alex screamed at the set. Again, the remote - she scrabbled for it. This time to turn the horror screen off altogether. But she stopped and sat bolt-upright.
'My God! My God! But it's TRUE! Gene DID say that.' Last night; As she left the C.I.D. He just couldn't leave it at taking her Warrant card. He'd deliberately followed her to the door of his office and had shouted to her for everyone to hear, 'You dare to get in my way and I swear to God I will kill you!'
Now here in her flat, on her TV screen, Gene was still screaming at her, 'I'll kill you!' His voice was now an uncontrolled, falsetto rasp; His face darkening and sweating with rage. A single strand of loosened hair shook furiously on his forehead. Light against the dark.
'I'LL KILL YOUUU!'
A quiet 'click'. A second's silence. Then…the sound deafened Alex. It filled her whole head.
Alex woke up.
END