For my bestie and fav (and only) writing partner, Bugsfic on her birthday.
Alex walked into the station to find Gene leaning against her desk, embroiled in what appeared to be a deep discussion with Shaz and the boys.
Assuming he was appointing them to a new case, she weaved her way through the cluttered desks of her colleagues to ensure she was included in the briefing. Curiously, she was excited by the idea of one more assignment here in the eighties.
"What have I missed?" she asked breathlessly.
Gene turned to frown at her. "You're still here," he said, relieved. "Thought you'd quit on me, Bolly."
Even though it was impossible that he could know she'd spent the morning tidying up her flat; secreting away all her research and calculations involving her parents and Molly; his next words made her baulk with their implications. "You need to tidy up here too?" he asked, smoothing one hand across her desk.
"What you on about, Guv?" Ray asked, surprisingly rushing to her defence. "Drake ain't Poirot yet."
The older copper's shaggy grey hair appeared over the top of the newspaper he was reading at the mention of his name. Then, without uttering a single word, he licked his thumb and turned the page of the broadsheet before raising it to hide himself away and ignore them all once again.
They all gave each other knowing looks; Poirot would never clean up his work area during this lifetime.
Shaz decided to fill Alex in with what she'd missed. "We we talking about the New Year's party, ma'am. You'll go, won't you?"
Alex blinked. In her certainty that she was leaving Fenchurch East soon, she'd forgotten about the swanky party Shaz had told her about a couple of weeks previous. "I was rather hoping we'd all be together on New Year's," she said, suddenly sentimental.
Shaz turned to their grumpy boss. "See, you have to come then, Guv," Shaz pleaded.
"No," Gene said, his lips pouting like a toddler.
"Oh, come on, Guv. It'll be tops."
"Tops, Shaz? Watching you lot get shitfaced with someone letting off crackers in amongst it? Sure isn't my idea of a happy holiday."
"He's too old to stay awake 'til midnight," Alex sneered, maybe a little too waspishly, but the thought of not seeing him after tomorrow was making her abruptly out of sorts.
"I'm with the Guv. It's just a lot of garbage, it is," Ray said, now taking Gene's side. As he would in any argument that involved getting dressed up and going out somewhere other than Luigi's, Alex knew. "What's so different about tomorrow then that we need to celebrate it tonight?"
Alex took a deep breath. "It's not just a new day," she stated positively, "it's a new year. New beginnings. And I hope to wake up in a new world. A new time. If not, I'm going to wipe the slate clean and start again. I'm not going to let this beat me. I'm going to work out how to get back to the right year."
Alex looked up at the end of her speech to find everyone staring at her, agape.
Gene was the first amongst them to speak: "You're not normal people are you, Bolly? You can't just stick to champagne and fireworks? You have to spew out all this public school prattle."
"Hey, I went to public school," Chris injected.
"Bolly went their legitimately, Chris. It doesn't count when you just hang around out the front to perv on the birds through the gate."
"What I meant was," Alex went on, ignoring both men, "I'm going to make a wish at midnight. And with positive thinking, I believe it will come true."
"Can you do that, then?" Ray wondered.
"What?" Chris asked in his usual obtuse manner. "Make things happen with positive thinking?"
"Nah." Ray looked at his friend as if he was mad to even suggest such a thing. "I mean say a wish on New Year's Eve," he elaborated. "I thought that was just birthdays and such. You know, when you blow out the candles like."
"When's your birthday, ma'am?" Shaz asked, apparently going along with the lads' change of subject.
"Early August, Shaz."
"Oh, you're a Leo. That explains a lot."
"It does?" Chris asked, uncomprehending.
"It's like you being a Sagittarius, Chris," Shaz added, her tone indulgent, as if she was talking to a child. "It helps me to understand your moods."
Chris's face reddened. "I don't have moods," he declared, causing every member of the squad to nod emphatically.
"And Ray is obviously a Pisces."
Everyone giggled at Ray's outraged look, even though it was obvious he had no idea what traits a Pisces might possess.
"Okay… You know Chris and Ray's signs, but what about mine then, Miss Hocus-Pocus?" Gene challenged.
"Mmm. Something earthy," Alex offered. When no one else spoke, Alex looked up and realised everyone was staring at her slack-jawed again, making her wonder just how she'd expressed that last opinion. "I mean…"
"Yeah, what do you mean, Bols? You like your men earthy? I thought you liked 'em more poofy. Like the wanker. Nothing to dirty your pretty little body."
"When's your birthday, Guv?" Chris interrupted before Alex could think of any witty comeback. "That's how you work out your star sign, see."
"Thank you, Stephen Hawking. I wouldn't have known if you hadn't told me." Gene's sarcasm made everyone bar Chris snicker. Their boss then rocked on the spot for a moment before finally answering: "It was a few days ago."
"Really? Why didn't you say anything?" Alex demanded. How could they have celebrated? Some intimate dinner, just the two of them, a special gift to show him just how much… No. It was best that she hadn't known.
"Well, everyone was a little busy," Gene was saying. "Didn't need any song and dance about this body ageing. I'm still a young man beneath it all."
"Typical Capricorn, that," Shaz informed them all. "Not wanting to make a fuss."
"You lot are always fussing. Like now. You should all know the Crown doesn't pay you to stand around yabbering about hippy flower girl rubbish."
"Flower child," Alex corrected. "Or perhaps flower power?"
Gene let out one loud grunt of frustration, which seemed to spur Shaz, Chris and Ray into scurrying back to their respective desks, where they all flicked through files and papers in some sort of display of work ethic.
Alex took a little longer to take the hint, crossing to the correct side of her desk eventually, feeling Gene's brooding gaze following her the whole way. Once she'd lowered herself into her chair, he grunted again and stomped off, back to his office, leaving her to her own brooding.
….
After a brief rap on the door, Alex entered Gene's office without waiting for permission from the great man himself. She didn't want to waste the opportunity, after all. It was divine providence when Chris and Ray had gone to lunch just as Shaz had slipped to the ladies room, she thought.
"Any cases yet, Guv?" she asked, sliding her finger along the edge of his desk.
"Wot? You thinking of packing it up and heading over to the dark side, Bolly? Hopeful that some prossie gets cut up and dumped just after Christmas? Actually, I like it when Old Nick gives Saint Nick a fair go."
"Yes, yes, of course," she mumbled, chastened. She should try another tack. "What day exactly was your birthday, Guv?"
He leaned back and swivelled in his seat, stretching his long legs out alongside the desk. "Why do you need to know, Bolly? How did we get from New Year party talk to my birthday and that beatnik babble?"
"There were a lot of b's in that sentence," she joked, earning herself a slight smile.
"Should have added bloody Bohemian bullshit."
"Bugger," she replied, causing them both to laugh openly.
Once sober, he asked, "What do you want, Bolly, that you had to sneak past the posse to see me?"
"Will you change your mind?" she asked in a rush. "About the new year's party?"
"Why? You don't need an excuse to snog your boss. Just go for it any time you want, gorgeous. Lock the door and we can go for it now, if you want." He spread his arms out, welcoming.
She smiled at the sentiment he was bestowing, even though it was wrapped up in a sexist package. Could he read her mind?
"Guv…"
"Never mind then, Drake." He twisted in his seat until he was no longer slouching, his legs tucked back beneath the desk, and a pen in hand, all business. "You go to that party and find your prince charming and I'll go back to doing what I always do."
"What's that?" she asked, hurt that he was not only dismissing her but fobbing her off onto some imaginary man.
He shrugged. "Drink to forget another year's passed me by. Try and remember how old I should be."
"You must remember your age, seeing you just had your birthday. Why didn't you say anything?" she repeated.
"You're like a dog with a bone, you are. Told you. Everyone had plans that day. It's always been that way on me birthday."
"I could have changed my plans," she told him, sincere. "You could change your new year's plan."
"I need to stick to the plan," he hissed, his mood plunging even darker. He actually began writing after this comment. She was confident it might have been illegible scribble, considering the grip he now had on his poor writing implement.
She stared down at his bent head, a wave of nostalgia sweeping over her because of his thick ruffled 'do alone.
"I just wanted you there, when I said goodbye," she murmured.
He raised his head slightly, enough for her to see his eyes flutter closed, drawing attention to his lashes resting on his cheekbones. "Don't worry, Bols," he whispered softly. "My plan is to be there when you say goodbye," he promised.
After what felt like hours, but she knew must have been mere seconds, she turned to go. Only she found herself lingering in the doorway.
Keeping her grip on the door handle to steady herself, she turned her upper body towards him again. "You couldn't make an exception?" she rasped. "Just this once?"
"For you, Bols?" he asked, his tone almost… Reverent...
"Yes. Couldn't you just break your self-imposed rules and be there at midnight?" Her fingers bit into the cold metal of the door handle in case she begged embarrassingly. She couldn't imagine returning to her own time without at least-
He opened his eyes, but his focus seemed to be more over her shoulder, on the door she was clutching, more than her. "I can't," he softly replied. "I wish…" Finally, he continued: "How about I make you a deal? When you've finished at the ball, Cinders, come on home and we'll share a drink before your carriage turns into a pumpkin."
"Home?" It was she who closed her eyes this time, visions of her three storey home with Molly blurring with those of the pokey flat above Luigi's with Gene.
As she opened her eyes, she found his focus had again shifted and he was pinning her with his piercing green stare. "No place like home, Bolly. And that is why I'm seeing in the new year at Luigi's. In fact, why not blow that posh totty's party completely. It's sure to be full of fairies, and I don't mean the godmother type. Instead, you could spend the night with some real men and fine Italian cuisine."
She allowed herself to giggle. "The special of the day will be spag bog?"
"With garlic bread," he added imperiously. Then, grinning infectiously from ear to ear: "We'll say goodbye to the year with some vino, a silly song that makes zero sense to anyone but a Jock, and maybe, if you're lucky, a right proper snog from a Man man."
Her gaze lowered to his mouth, thinking about how it would feel pressed against hers as the clock struck twelve and the rest of the restaurant cheered around them. She would part her lips invitingly, he would slip his tongue into her warmth, urgently and demandingly before they had to part, for the sake of propriety and respectability. They could always continue with what they started upstairs and-
"No!" she blurted out.
Looking immediately hurt, his face fell, and his pout returned. "No?"
"No, I…" How could she explain? She wouldn't be able to take him upstairs to continue, because she'd be back in the 21st century. She'd be back home. Her real home. Where she knew she must truly belong. She couldn't belong here, could she? In this… State of limbo… "I can't," she finally finished, unsatisfactorily.
"Of course not," he sniped.
She fully opened the door then, eager to be far away from him and his now disapproving looks as possible.
"Just promise me one thing, Bolly," he called as she stepped through to the outer office.
Helpless, as always drawn to him, she turned back.
"Promise me you won't give up. Quitters don't end up at the right arms when the time comes."
She stared at him, shocked by his suddenly pale features. She'd thought he'd look irritated, angry. Instead his demeanour was one of apprehension, anxiety.
"In the right arms, you mean," she corrected his grammar.
He shrugged. "Just don't give up, Bols."
She shuffled back into his office. "Sure, Guv. I'll be a regular Kate Bush to your Peter Gabriel," she quipped, attempting some weak humour to lighten their situation.
"Kate Bush?" He stood, came around his desk and moved to her side. "We're not going to go all Age of Aquarius again, are we?"
She laughed. "No, Guv." She stepped closer. His lips were no longer pouting petulantly. Instead, they were full and alluring. "Lots of a's in that sentence," she noted.
He leaned closer. She could smell the sweet scent of his cheap out-of-fashion cologne in competition with the stale smell of smoke and sweat. Instead of being unpleasant as it should, it was comforting and oddly inviting.
"I just mean I won't quit." Would she quit if it wasn't for her daughter? Would she stay here with Gene if not for Molly? She should move, step back, away from his temptation. "I'll make sure after this life, I'll be in the arms of an angel. Lots of a's in that sentence," she finished, feeling foolish that she had to explain her joke.
"Bols-"
A ruckus behind her interrupted whatever he was about to say. The boys had noisily burst into the office. They had obviously spent their lunch break downing a couple of pints at the local.
"Looks like we might all be down at Luigi's, after all. I can't see those two twats making it into their gladrags for Shaz."
She could only nod in agreement.
"Oh no," she murmured when Chris put his portable cassette deck up on a stack of phone books. The player released a squeal as he fast forwarded. Alex could only laugh when his chosen song began to play.
Gene charged to his office door. "What the hell is that?" he yelled to everyone and no one in particular.
"I believe it's Abba, Guv," Alex answered with a grimace. "A classic," she said, stepping around Gene and out into the main office to fully take in Chris's karaoke style of the song.
"Happy new year, may we all have our hopes, our will to try, if we don't we might as well lay down and die," she quoted the familiar old tune that was still dusted off by everyone this time of the year in the future.
Gene moved back into his office. "You and I, Bolly," he said, gripping his office door so tightly Alex could see the white of his knuckles even from this distance. "You and I," he repeated, perfectly timed with the song, as if it was a regular on his playlist even though Alex could think of nothing more ill-suited to Gene than Abba.
Then, he shut his office door fully, leaving her to cope with the high spirited squad alone.
Agnetha was continuing on full volume: ...seems to me now, that the dreams we had before are all dead, nothing more...
Chris was in the corner, trying to explain to Ray how Abba's name came about.
Shaz was in tears. Her dreams of the posh party obviously as dead as the song's confetti on the floor.
Alex slowly walked over to the young girl and put her arm around her. "Can't beat 'em, join 'em, Shaz," she said. It would be her same motto should she wake up above Luigi's in the morning, she decided. Until she moved on to her next plan to get back to Molly, of course. "Let's go get a drink, Shaz."
The End