A/N Yeah. I thought I was done with all of this but... [shrugs]

Where The Light Lies

Part One

The Railway Arms had always been his pub. It hadn't been the establishment in which he'd supped his first pint - that honour belonged to a building that no longer existed, in a street that no longer bore the same name - but The Railway Arms was the pub he'd chosen to make his regular; though perhaps it was wiser, when all things were considered, to think that it just might have chosen him instead. Regardless of its origins, and for the longest time, whenever he'd stepped through the doors of The Railway Arms - with his team in tow or by himself; after a successful collar or a particularly shitty day - it had always felt as though he'd found his way home. There was - nearly - always decent beer on tap, good memories to be found in every nook and cranny, and a barman who was armed only with a welcoming smile, and a slightly dodgy accent, for his customers. When he'd first figured out exactly where he was and what other, special, service The Railway Arms offered alongside its ale, the thought of ending his days in the pub had been a comforting one. When such details had slipped his memory, washed away with booze and friendship and loss, and even when he'd moved a couple of hundred miles away, The Railway Arms had still remained the pub he'd measured all others against - and had usually found them wanting. But by the time he'd finally tired of the world outside the doors of The Railway Arms and had taken the short walk into the pub that he'd set so many souls on before him, it hadn't felt much like home at all.

For the most part it was exactly as he'd expected it to be; the beer, the familiar faces, the happy memories, and, of course, Nelson himself had all been present and correct but there'd been one thing, one person, missing the day he'd walked into the pub. It was someone that his younger self, looking at The Railway Arms on a wet night in Manchester in an entirely new light and silently planning a future that involved a long and glorious career before ever walking across the threshold that had just opened up before him, would never have considered; a smart, gorgeous woman who had been both his partner and his friend, and had been more than a match for him in so many ways. The notion that such a woman could possibly exist just hadn't been in his vocabulary and even if such an idea had crossed his mind back then he would have immediately dismissed the notion as ridiculous. Older, though maybe not so much wiser, Alex Drake was all that crossed his mind these days which was unfortunate because she no longer crossed his path - in this pub or anywhere else.

"She looked as miserable as you do now the day she walked in here," Nelson offered abruptly from across the bar, having practically ignored the man sat opposite up till this point, other than to pull him a pint - a transaction that required few words between a publican and one of his regular customers. He'd picked up a freshly rinsed glass as he'd begun to speak and now he proceeded to slowly dry it off, his gaze on Gene all the while.

Gene bristled at the comment but managed to keep his mouth firmly shut; as true as he knew the statement to be, he was sure it hadn't been intended as the accusation it felt like and a surreptitious glance at the man on the other side of the bar seemed to confirm as much. The other man however, with his hands otherwise engaged but his eyes watching and waiting, was obviously expecting some kind of response to the statement. Like all good barmen, Nelson was keen to offer a listening ear and words of advice and though Gene might have been in need of the latter he wasn't too keen on submitting to the former in exchange. Talking about her, and with Nelson of all people, wasn't something he relished; the man was far too perceptive at times, especially where personal matters were involved, and there'd be no point in pretending that he didn't care about Alex or the fact that she was no longer around. Nelson would see right through him though, to be fair, he hadn't exactly won anybody else over in that respect. The most he'd achieved was an almost resounding silence on the matter. Not everyone had complied though; there had been a few brave - or possibly stupid - souls who'd dared to mention Alex in his presence.

Shaz had been the first, though that was most likely because, at that point, she was the only person who'd known exactly what Alex's intentions were. About an hour or so after his arrival here, and in the midst of a party to 'celebrate' such a momentous event as his entry to The Railway Arms, Shaz'd lured him to a quiet corner of the busy pub and told him that Alex wouldn't be making an appearance that night - or any other night for that matter. Until that moment he'd convinced himself that Alex was simply making him sweat a little before she made one of her stunning entrances; the way she'd always done when they'd both been outside the doors of The Railway Arms; the way she'd always done, after he'd let her go, in his dreams. In retrospect, maybe her absence shouldn't have come as such a surprise; it wasn't as if he'd asked Alex to wait for him or had even promised her that one day he would walk through the doors of The Railway Arms with only her on his mind. And it wasn't as if she'd told him that she would sit in the pub and wait for him either; maybe he should have realised that her sad 'Goodbye' the night they had parted had meant just that. But her rejection had hurt, had felt as though she'd swung that left hook of hers at him over and over again.

Almost as painful, for his pride at least, had been the realisation that Shaz had read him like an open book; the compassion had swum in her eyes as she'd babbled on, trying to offer him words of comfort and hope that he suspected she didn't, like himself, really believe. Feeling battered and bruised, though thankfully no longer showing any outward signs of such a beating, he'd simply walked away from the young woman, making his way towards the bar instead where the rest of the night had passed in a blur of drink after stupefying drink, a fruitless attempt to fill the empty hole that had taken up residence inside his chest.

Finding solace in the bottom of a glass had filled in the next couple of nights too, until Ray had, surprisingly but with very little subtlety, decided to offer his thoughts on the subject of Alex Drake. Perhaps Chris had spilt the beans because Gene was sure that whilst Shaz would remain unswervingly loyal to Alex, she wouldn't have been able to resist telling her bloke everything. Or maybe Carling had just put two and two together and come up with the right answer; sitting miserably in the saloon bar, knocking back pint after pint and most offers of company whilst he tried to forget that the only person he really wanted there with him was never going to show, he hadn't quite been the Guv that everyone remembered. And Ray always did have a knack of surprising him every now and then. Either way, Ray's advice had been, quite simply, to 'get over her', mostly by shagging every available woman in the pub. Gene had been angry enough - at Alex for not being here, for making him feel so damn much - to go along with the suggestion. However, when last orders had been called, and an attractive, attentive and more than willing woman had been hanging off one arm and his every word, he hadn't been able to go through with it.

He'd made the mistake of trying to find some comfort in the arms of another woman, when all he'd really wanted was Alex, once before and, as satisfying as it had been for a short while, the dalliance had eventually left him feeling even emptier, completely obliterating any pleasure he'd gained in the process. And it didn't matter that she wanted nothing more to do with him; Alex was still the only woman he wanted and no-one else would ever be able to replace her. So he'd left the pub alone, just as he had always done when they'd both been on the other side of The Railway Arms.

By the time Sam and Annie decided to poke their collective nose into his business a couple of weeks had passed by, most of which had been spent in an alcoholic haze in his, perhaps not so, beloved Railway Arms. Just like Shaz, they'd been sympathetic but also intent on convincing him that getting drunk every night wasn't going to achieve anything. He hadn't been convinced by their argument but - and perhaps it had just been the sight of the two of them together, beating time and death to find each other and a happiness that he seemed to have no hope of achieving - he had reconsidered his situation. Well, Alex's situation really. It occurred to him that perhaps she had distanced herself from him not because she didn't love him but precisely because she did and when he'd told her to go he might as well have told her that he wasn't interested; that slight pause in Alex's movements before she'd opened the door to The Railway Arms hadn't been to collect her thoughts on what lay ahead or to summon the courage to walk into the last great unknown but to find the strength to walk away, with her head held high, from the man who'd just told her that she'd only get in his way if she stayed. He'd decided there and then that he needed to talk to Alex, tell her that he should never have let her go, and then kiss her the way he'd wanted to that night instead of letting the restraint that had always guided him where she was concerned rule him one last time. And then maybe he could have her in his life again. After all, she'd forgiven him far greater sins in the past.

Just the thought of putting things right between them had felt like a new lease of life - exactly how he suspected stepping through the doors of the pub should have felt - but it hadn't lasted very long. When he'd tried to track Alex down he'd discovered that things weren't quite the same on this side of the pub doors. She was out there, somewhere, in the vast expanse that existed here, but he didn't know exactly where; places, like The Railway Arms itself, were just there, a connection waiting to be made but Alex had no ties to this pub and he'd severed his with her the night he'd sent her in here. There was no yellow brick road that would lead him to her; there was no homing beacon to guide his way. But as he'd later discovered, thanks to Chris when he'd tried to wheedle Alex's location from the younger man, even if he'd known where she was he still wouldn't have been able to find her. Alex's idea of heaven didn't involve him and it didn't matter one bit that he wanted to centre his around her: she was lost to him. That was the way of this world.

"You know why, don't you?" Nelson interjected again, unperturbed by his only customer's silence.

Silently, Gene took a large gulp from his glass, contemplating the reasoning that had led him here. Nelson had probably been quietly anticipating such a visit, for him to be at his absolute lowest and with nowhere else to turn, from the moment he had finally walked through the doors of The Railway Arms. And he was in no doubt that the other man already knew the answer to that question - he just wanted to hear Gene say it. His gut reaction was to say nothing, finish his pint and then leave but he was at his absolute end and at the end there was always The Railway Arms. And he had come in here willingly, in the middle of the afternoon when the pub was deader than all of its regulars combined, and alone, hoping for just this sort of conversation to occur. He couldn't back out now. He glanced at Nelson once more and found the exact same question repeated across his features.

"Because she had a daughter she wanted to get home to," he said quietly, letting thoughts of the child he'd once accused Alex of neglecting weigh uncomfortably on him. She'd only just come to understand that the longed for reunion with her child would never happen when he'd told her to leave a world that, thanks in part to his selective memory and a desire to keep her in his life, had become her second home during her extended stay. He didn't care that she'd never truly believed in the world outside these walls in the same way that he had done, the truth must have still hit her for six; his own life changing revelations, previously buried as deeply in his mind as his body had been in the ground, had taken far longer than a few cursory minutes to digest never mind accept. Yet all he'd done that night was offer her a few words that, even now, he could only hope were true; if her daughter was anything like Alex then he suspected that she'd pull through but there were no certainties in life. After everything Alex had done for him it had been a poor response and one he regretted as much as letting her go. It really was no wonder she wanted so little to do with him now. He placed his glass back down but held onto it like a life-line, ignoring Nelson's gaze once more because he knew, even without looking, that the other man wasn't convinced with his reply. He wasn't himself; it was just much easier to think that the separation from her daughter was responsible for her distress that night because it took the blame away from himself.

"No. Well, yes - there was that too," Nelson wavered, placing the freshly dried glass behind the counter and the towel over his shoulder. "If life - or death - were a little fairer she would have gone home to Molly but that was never an option for Alex. And deep down she knew that. Just as you know why she really walked in here in tears. It's the same reason why she's still unhappy now. She didn't want to leave you."

Gene stilled, the hand that was holding onto his pint gripping it harder. Hearing someone else say what he'd always known to be true hurt but not as much as the news that she was still unhappy; he could almost - almost - accept not being in her life if it was what she really wanted, if it made her happy. He could endure his own fate - a routine of drink-sleep-repeat that was now so ingrained he suspected it would see out his days here; if there even was an end to all of this - but only in the knowledge that she, at least, was content in this world. But it shouldn't be like this. This shouldn't happen to anyone he brought here, least of all her. "What was I supposed to do? You'd already invited her in," he said accusingly, raising his eyes to stare at Nelson. He regretted his tone, if not the words, almost immediately, even before the other man's mouth fell into a frown.

"I know," Nelson conceded with a small sigh. "There were some mistakes made that night."

A flicker of anger sparked into life at the admission that Nelson had got it wrong; if there'd been no invitation extended to Alex that night then he might not have made what he considered to be, despite his Coronation Day disaster, the biggest mistake of his life. He wouldn't have told Alex that he was better off without her - words that had simply been an attempt to avoid admitting his feelings for her rather than the truth; she wouldn't have left, tears in her eyes and pain etched on her face; and she wouldn't be unhappy in the only place that you weren't supposed to be. An accusation almost made it to his lips but it died as quickly as he himself had done all those years ago because Nelson had also got it right: more than one mistake had been made that night. It might have caused a few ripples but that invite to step inside The Railway Arms could have been ago he'd turned down a similar offer in order to remain out there and Alex could have done the same; she'd practically begged him to let her stay anyway. But he'd just told her to go.

At the time he'd convinced himself that sending her into The Railway Arms was the only way to keep her safe; Keats had come so close to claiming her - claiming them all - and with his own awareness of that world replete once more it had put the few times he'd had to step in and save Alex, and the one time he'd put her at risk himself, into fresh perspective. Being without her for a short while, though not exactly desirable, had been more palatable than taking a risk on losing her forever. It almost sounded chivalrous but only if he ignored the fact that a part of him, the nineteen year old who'd burst unarmed and without backup into an unknown situation and got himself killed part, had been relieved that he had to let her go. The thought of someone knowing so much about his past, even the one person who'd been prepared to help him pick up the pieces when his world had come crashing down despite that knowledge, had unsettled him as much as seeing Farringfield Green for the first time in decades had done and, just like that day in Lancashire with Alex, all he'd wanted to do was run away from a truth that threatened his status quo. Nelson had simply offered him an easy way out and he'd taken it.

He dropped his gaze to the bar once more, weighing up the true cost of that decision - and not for the first time. The conclusion was always the same; had he told Alex to stay chances were that not only would he still have her in his life now, he'd probably still be out there too because she just might have been right that night: maybe he had needed her. It wasn't that he'd made a complete balls-up of things without her - he was still the Manc Lion, after all - more that his, much shorter than anticipated, tenure after Alex's departure hadn't exactly been a triumph. A smothering blanket of changes had slowly wrapped itself around the Police Force and he'd struggled with his new confines. He wouldn't go so far to say that he had succumbed completely to Alex's influence when she'd been with him but he could admit that her words of encouragement, chastisement, cajolement and downright exasperation had seen him safely through some of the earlier changes but after she'd left no-one else had been willing to step into that role. Whilst some of her successors had been just as mouthy, determined and smart, they hadn't tried to change him or his behaviour. He suspected one or two of them would have been more than happy to see him fall by the wayside - an alcoholic, over the hill, dinosaur - but that was as much his own doing as theirs.

Mindful of the mistakes he'd made before he'd kept his new recruits at a distance; getting too close to them only made it harder to let them go - and he would always have to let them go. It had been easier to play the voice of authority at all times instead; if they fought against him then they were fighting against his world too and were therefore more likely to want to leave when the time came. But there was another downside to that approach. He'd once admitted to Alex - and he still blamed the booze for that indiscretion even now - that he sometimes felt lonely but that had paled into insignificance when she'd left. There was no denying that he'd missed her. He'd wasted a great deal of time wishing that she was still there, with her whiteboard and charts, her psycho bollocks and posh accent, and those ridiculously tight jeans that would fire him up in so many ways that he'd feel as though he could take on the whole world and come out on top. And it wasn't as if he could just forget about her, even if he'd wanted to; she was irrevocably linked with his own demise and he'd been determined not to lose sight of that - and who he was - ever again. Maybe if he'd held on to her as fiercely, his much younger Superintendent wouldn't have told him that the future of modern policing looked nothing like Gene Hunt and if he had, maybe Gene wouldn't have found himself agreeing with the smarmy bastard.

Nelson leant forward, resting both forearms on the wooden bar, trying to catch Gene's eyes. "It wasn't as straight forward as it seemed with Alex. It should have been the right time for her. She'd discovered the truth about her parents, her own fate and the true nature of the world out there. Along the way she'd helped so many people - it should have been enough. But it wasn't. Because no one had anticipated her falling in love with you. Nor you with her."

Gene met the other man's gaze sharply at that statement only to find that Nelson was almost daring him to deny it. He couldn't, of course, and Nelson wouldn't have believed him anyway; he loved Alex and had for quite some time. She was mouthy and posh and annoying but she was also sexy and smart and had the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen. He had it bad for her. He couldn't even take offence at Nelson's insinuation that Alex's feelings were entirely unexpected, even by the powers that be; at times, some more recently than others, he had been so sure that, as much as he'd always wanted her, nothing would ever happen between them. It seemed now that he'd been right all along though that thought didn't make him feel better about his situation, nor did the confirmation that Alex had fallen in love with him too.

Turning his attention back towards his glass, he eyed it morosely before knocking back the last of the contents. He wasn't sure exactly what he'd expected to gain by coming to Nelson; the other man engineering a meeting with Alex would have been the best outcome but he'd have taken a reassurance that she was fine without him, or that everything - as imperfect as it was - was just as it should be. He might not have liked it but he might have been able to start accepting it. But this wasn't any of those things; in fact, he felt worse than he did before they'd started talking. He should never have come in here today; he should never have come in here at all; and he should never have let Alex go. There wasn't much he could do about the last two but the first was easily solved. "Yeah well, it doesn't matter now," he muttered as he pushed the empty glass towards the other man and stood, signalling the end of the conversation. He wasn't sure where he'd go but he didn't want to be in this pub any longer.

"It matters to me," Nelson said, causing his companion to cease his movements and refocus his gaze in his direction. "I can't have the two of you unhappy: it ruins the atmosphere. And it still matters to you, doesn't it."

He stared intently at Nelson, searching the other man's face. Until now he'd managed to admit very little but - and maybe it was because he had absolutely nothing else to lose, or perhaps it was the honesty in Nelson's eyes, or possibly the fact that it wasn't really a question at all - he felt compelled to respond. "More than anything else," he said quietly, keeping his eyes on the other man and quietly hoping that he'd been right to come here after all.

Nelson nodded, a wide knowing smile gracing his face. "In that case, Mr Hunt, you're barred."

"Eh?" Gene managed, utterly perplexed and slightly annoyed by the other man's words; he'd just opened up to Nelson and it seemed that all he could do was throw it back in his face. The only response he received from Nelson's slowly retreating form was the soft click of a light switch as he disappeared around the other end of the bar. More confusingly, that sound was followed by a darkness that coloured the entire pub, despite the early hour of the day. He remained still, and slightly mystified, in the pitch black as faint stars began to appear above him and the temperature plummeted.