A/N: It's very rare that the idea of writing a fic leaves me in complete controversy. The last time I debated was when I posted Chapter 17 of OSAS. I was afraid that it was too much. This one made me debate as well. On the one hand, it seemed like it'd be moving and desperate, on the other, it could possibly settle poorly with many people. I was afraid that it would turn out like a public service announcement or that it would appear that I was trying to make light of the condition by putting it in fanfiction. I wanted neither and I concluded that I wouldn't write it, but it stayed, niggling at me and wouldn't let me write Deceit and Betrayal. I debated about posting, but again, it niggled at me. So I wrote and posted. And with my explanation finished, here is If Your Heart Stops Beating.
His back was turned away from her, the flask of whiskey in one hand. He stared into it for a moment, before taking a deep drink and closing it. Putting it back into his pocket, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes, pulling one out and twirling it around in his fingers, debating about lighting up or not.
On the one hand, he needed the nicotine. He'd tried several ways to quit recently, but none of them had worked. No expense had been spared on the miracle patches, pills and gums, but nothing had been able to replace that feeling of taking a nice long drag on a fag. A nurse stepped into the room and glared at him, spotting the cigarette in his hands.
"I'll thank you to put that away," she said shortly. Gene just looked at her and tucked it behind his ear before turning to Alex.
"Times sure have changed, haven't they Bolly?"
She didn't reply, her eyes shut tight. Gene stared at her, losing himself deep in thought. This was not supposed to happen. Sam had always threatened him. Alex had threatened CID. No one had expected that it would be the innocent that this would affect.
Gene only blamed himself. If he had listened to her back in the eighties, if he had tried harder to quit smoking, maybe this wouldn't have happened.
She coughed a wheezing, painful cough and he was brought back to the present. Every breath she took was strained, but he had learned to love the horrible noise that assaulted his ears. It was proof that she was alive still. He grabbed her hand, closing his eyes, remembering. It had only been about a year and a half ago when she started showing symptoms. The first day that they had noticed anything wrong was when she fell short of breath when playing with Alicante, their dog. This was nothing new; Alicante was hardly older than a puppy and ran both of them ragged sometimes. The problem was that Alex couldn't recover her breath. She had panted and wheezed for a good fifteen minutes before her breathing returned to normal. They had ignored it, putting it down to hay fever which she sometimes suffered from.
A few months later, however, and she hadn't gotten better. In fact, the episodes were lasting longer each time. She refused to see a doctor, insisting she was fine. He had gone along with her, but secretly worried about it. What was wrong with her?
When she started to cough up blood, however, he wouldn't take no for an answer. He took her to a doctor, who referred her to another, and then to another before they finally had an answer. By this time Alex was losing weight and was tired almost all the time. She didn't play with Alicante anymore and even her normally insatiable libido was nonexistent.
He would never forget the words that the doctor spoke, no matter how poncey they sounded and that he didn't understand a few of them. Advanced metastatic peripheral small cell carcinoma. Small cell lung cancer. He had listened numbly as the doctor described the cancer, asking if she had ever smoked, as it had a high occurrence with cigarette smoking and exposure to carcinogens.
That's when he had realised that it was his fault. She hadn't let him smoke in the house, but he smoked around her in the car, in CID. She had given him the warnings day after day that smoking could kill, but he hadn't listened. He had been too selfish, enjoying the nicotine, convincing himself that it was just because she didn't like the smell.
According to the doctor, metastasising meant that the cancer had spread to other places besides the lungs. He had listened in horror as the man said that Alex had tumours on her ribs, on her back and one was developing on her brain. The only course of action, the doctor had said was chemotherapy starting immediately. Even then, the chances of survival were slim. She had been detected in the last stage, Stage IV. The doctor looked at them solemnly and told them that the chances of the chemotherapy not working were substantial, and that it was only a measure to extend her life, to make it slightly more bearable. If the chemo didn't work, he had said, she'd only have sixteen months maximum to live.
So they had started the chemotherapy, the radiation therapy. He watched as Alex grew weaker, held her hair as she threw up into the toilet after an extensive session in chemo. She kept a bright outlook, however, no matter how shitty she felt. Alex spent the next eleven months fighting against the cancer with all her strength, even as she grew weaker and weaker. She had only had a few breakdowns along the way. The most memorable was one morning when she had emerged from the bathroom, her face one of shock. Gene had been buttoning up his shirt when she stepped. He moved over to her in two steps, noticing immediately the bald spot on her head, a clump of hair in her hairbrush.
"Gene," she whispered, before dissolving into tears on his shirt. He had held her for as long as she cried before she moved back in front of the mirror, taking her razor and looking at him desperately.
"I'm not going to wait for it all to fall out." He had stopped her from taking the blade to her head, instead persuading her to ring the woman who cut her hair. Gene had taken her there and waited outside. When she emerged from the salon half an hour later, it was with a face full of tears.
The next day, however, her bright mood was back, and they had spent several hours at a shop, looking at ridiculous wigs and trying to find a perfect one for her.
Another time was when they had to break the news to their children. After they married in 1984, they had two children, one right after another. Sean was born in 1985 and Alicia soon after in 1986. The two had known something was going on before Gene and Alex had sat them down. They had both accepted the news quietly, promising to be there for their mum, but that night, Alex had dissolved into tears once again.
"I can't leave my babies, Gene. I've already done that once. I left Molly behind. I can't leave them!"
He had stroked her back, shushing her. He was amazed. She had not brought up Molly for years, since before they got married.
"Do you want me to try and find her?" he had asked softly. She had looked at him in shock before shaking her head no.
"Wouldn't make sense," she mumbled.
Slowly, over the course of the months, her breathing changed into a horrible wheezing sound. Every breath was laboured, but she refused to stop going. Pain from the tumours on her bones was now a part of her and headaches were constant, but she continued to do things that she wanted.
Last month, the surgeon had sat them down.
"We've been doing everything we can. You've been getting the chemo at the dose that you can stand, and the metastases have shrunk slightly. However, the tumour on your lung has not changed at all. Mrs. Hunt. We want you to make a decision. We can continue the chemotherapy and the radiation, but there's just a scant possibility that it will help."
"And my other option is to go off the therapies and die," Alex said flatly. Her voice was raspy and hoarse, another effect from the cancer that had invaded her lungs.
The surgeon looked at a loss for words before clearing his throat. "At this point, Mrs. Hunt, it appears the chemotherapy is not working. We cannot do a surgery to remove it. There are no other therapies we can use at this point. You are too late into the cancer for them to help."
"If I go off the chemotherapy, will the pain get worse?"
"We can treat the pain. The nausea and vomiting will not occur anymore. You will notice an increased difficulty breathing and moving. Headaches may get worse. But again, the pain can be treated."
"How long will I have?"
"Two months at most."
"And if continue the chemotherapy?"
"Three, maybe four."
Alex nodded slowly, not looking at Gene.
"Let's just stop it," she whispered. Gene wanted to argue at that point, but she looked at him, her eyes begging and silenced him.
"There is also the matter of your code status, Mrs. Hunt. There is one of two options. One is if your heart stops beating, we just let it. The other is..."
She held up her hand, cutting him off. "That's the one I want."
"Are you sure Mrs. Hunt?"
She nodded solemnly.
"So if your heart stops beating..."
"Just let it stop," she whispered, looking at Gene with an apology in her eyes.
She coughed again and moaned, reminding him of the pain she must be in. He checked his watch. It was almost time for them to top off her pain meds. She had been mostly unresponsive for the last day and a half, only waking a few times.
Someone pushed the curtain aside, and Gene looked up to see Sean and Alicia coming in.
"Hey Dad," they murmured before looking at their mother.
Gene looked at her. It was difficult, painful. Her cheekbones were pronounced and her eyes sunken. Her skin was incredibly pale, almost matching the stark white of the linens. A small amount of brown fuzz was growing on her head, the only thing that contrasted. A nasal cannula was on her, pumping in oxygen for her to breathe.
She coughed again, her eyes fluttering open. Alex smiled when she saw the three around her bed.
"You came," she murmured weakly.
"Of course we came, Mum," Sean said softly.
"I love you. All of you."
"We love you too," Alicia said, kissing her mother's cheek.
Gene just continued to play with the wedding ring they had taped onto her finger. It had grown too large as her fingers grew skinnier and skinnier. She refused to take it off, however, and the hospital had ended up taping it so it wouldn't get lost.
"Gene," she wheezed.
"Yeah, Bolls?" he questioned, reverting back to her nickname.
"Tell me a story."
"What kind?"
"Anything. Get my mind off this."
Gene smiled. "About a year after I left GMP, we were on a case, breaking up brothels. We were taking down one on the river, and the twats that I came down with had misinformed me, so we got there late. It was lucky we did though, because there was this tart that had gotten into some sort of situation."
"Less of the tart, you bastard," she said good-naturedly.
"I'm just calling it as I see it, Bolls. Anyway, we pull out our guns, and this is the man we want, the man we think is in charge. He takes a hold of the tart and we hold fire, thinking he may have a gun. The tart opened her mouth, confused everyone and hasn't shut up since."
She laughed, her laugh turning into a hacking cough. "Thanks, Gene. That cheered me up."
Gene said nothing, stroking her hand. Alex turned to her children, looking at them.
"When are you two going to leave?"
"A few hours," Alicia said.
"You're more important than our friends, Mum," Sean added and Alicia nodded.
Alex smiled.
"Love you Alicia," she whispered. "And you Sean. Gene..." She started coughing, and they waited for her to stop, listening to the wheeze as she struggled to find oxygen to continue talking. "Gene, I love you. Ever since we first met. Even when I thought you were a..." She coughed again. "When I thought you were a misogynistic pig."
Gene smiled sadly. "Thanks for the pick-me-up Alex. And you know how I feel."
"Yes," she whispered. "You think I'm a tart." Gene laughed and she smiled, falling back to sleep. They sat in silence, listening to the wheezing breaths as the second hand on the clock ticked on and on. Gene studied his children, not for the first time, looking for ways that Alex would live on in them. With Alicia, it was easy. She was almost a carbon copy, except for the bright silvery blue eyes. With Sean it was harder. He was built like his Dad, carrying even the same pout and air of authority.
Gene noticed that Sean had seemed to produce a pen from nowhere and was fiddling with it and smiled. Alex had always done that. He had no idea where she found the pens and pencils, but she always had one on her to prove a point or to stare at when she was talking to him.
"We'll be leaving soon Dad. Will you be okay?"
Gene merely nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat as he stared at his wife, still beautiful in his eyes.
They sat in silence except for Alex's rasping breaths, all lost in thought. Gene was lost in his memories, lost the eighties, finding Alex, thinking she was mental, knowing that he had to shag her, thinking he never would. The amazing moment when she had said yes to going on a date with him, to marrying him, when they said 'I do.'
"Dad," Sean whispered softly.
Gene pulled back from his memory, trying to figure out what was wrong in the silent room. Then he realised, as tears formed in Alicia's eyes, that the room was silent. He stared at Alex, watching desperately for the rise and fall of her breath. There was none. She was gone.
They spent their time saying goodbye. Finally, Sean and Alicia left him alone in the room.
"You weren't supposed to go anywhere until I said so," he murmured to her, his hand brushing her cheek, his lips on her forehead. "And I didn't say so."
He imagined the smile on her face, the twinkle in her eye if she had heard and laughed at that comment. There was nothing, her face impassive, the hazel covered. There would be no more smiles, no more sparkle from her hazel orbs.
He was aware of the nurses outside the room, waiting to perform the end of life cares on her and stared down once more onto the face that he still considered beautiful, even if it was too thin and almost bald.
He smiled softly.
"See you around, Bollykecks."
With that, Gene stood and left the room, joining his son and daughter.
As they walked out of the hospital, Gene felt a drop of warm liquid trickle down his face. He reached up to brush it away, but didn't. Instead, the tears of the clouds dripped down on him, mixing with the solitary salty drop, mourning with him.
He reached his car and unlocked the door, sitting down, staring at the passenger side, remembering a time, nearly thirty years earlier, when a mad prostitute slept in the same spot. Little did he know that mad prostitute was his DI as he made lewd comments with Ray and Chris all the way back to the station. And he was even more clueless to the fact in a little over three years, that mad prostitute would be his wife.
Gene smiled, remembering, even as tears of sorrow started to flow down his cheeks. Closing his eyes and picturing Alex one last time, he started the car and drove away from the hospital, away from his wife. As he entered the empty house, Alicante came forward eagerly, only to have his tail fall and whimper softly when he saw that Gene was alone. Gene sat down on the couch petting the dog's soft head as his dark brown eyes stared at Gene mournfully.
"It's just you and me now, Alicante. Just you and me."
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