Sometimes she says things so like Sam it physically hurts. Gene has to brush her off, leave the room, just so he can be alone to clutch at the pain in his stomach from the violent, vivid memories she stirs up of Sam.

"If you look at it from a psychological approach you can-"

"You mean like 'ow he 'ates 'is father or something?" Chris cuts her off.

"Exactly, Chris! It could also be the opposite like an Oedipus complex, well, sort of. If we look...."

Gene can hear her through his closed office door. He tries to tune her out because all he can think of is Sam talking about profiling with that sometimes maniacal glint in his eye. It makes Gene want to throw up.

Sam... he even had a girly name, Samantha supplemented by Gladys, Dorothy or whatever flavor of the week it had been for Gene. At the time he'd thought nothing of it, though later when they were together he appreciated the irony of his efforts to feminize Sam. Now Gene would call him Sam every time, not Tyler or Dorothy or Nancy or ponce, just Sam every time to have him back.

Instead he has her. They have the same speech, same idealistic views, and sharp wit. At times it's almost his face that Gene sees when she talks and he's caught himself staring at her thinking of Sam. But she's not Sam, definitely not Sam Tyler.

Yet Alex does inspire that same trust and drive to do his best, what is right, that Sam did. She also brings out that same white hot anger only he can't bash her in the skull when he feels it. Violent as it had been Gene knew it had been just part of who they were, part of their relationship. It faded over time but a good old fashioned fist fight between himself and Sam had always cleared it up or at least made them feel better. One of their best had been that time with June in the hospital, sitting on the floor at the foot of her bed smoking after.

"So you want me out now?" Sam had said then.

"Are you joking? You've got to put this right," Gene had replied thinking how good it was just smoking beside Sam despite the way he'd bollocks up things in the case and for the girl lying in the bed behind them.

"I only know one way to police," Sam replied.

"So do I. She's not giving up and nor should you."

It had been the first time he'd had the urge to kiss Sam. At the time he'd squashed it away, ignored it as Sam's pansy influence getting to him. Yet the whole thing, the argument, the fight, and just sitting after had really felt perfect, had felt like life.

Gene doesn't ever want to kiss Alex like he did Sam. Oh, there are moments, times when they get too close, when the over done office flirting gets more serious. Sometimes it's because he thinks he should. His wife is gone, he's alone, and here is this beautiful woman who is annoying as hell but just fits well in his life. Really for all his going ons about how he'd rather shag a rapid dog the two of them do make some weird sense. He even tired asking her on a date that one time. But Alex just keeps reminding him of Sam and he can't. He just can't. She's not the real thing he wants, just a new model. He's putting his memories of a man gone on her and trying to make her fit that gap in every way but she couldn't possibly. She could never be Sam.

And he lies to her so effortlessly. They're trying to catch that bastard Neary and they meet his boyfriend Marcus. Gene's immediate reaction of disgust is half true because he sees what he's lost. It makes him furious. Why the hell should this scum bag get to be happy? Why should he get to have his little boy toy when the man Gene wants beside him is taken away? It's not fair, it's not fucking fair and it makes Gene want to break doors in or kick some little gob shite in the stomach.

"It's just another kind of relationship, Gene," she says to him in his office while Chris is getting Marcus set up in the interviewing room. "Nothing they need to be ashamed of and nothing you should judge them for!"

He has to grit his teeth together then because all he wants to do is slam her into the wall and just yell at her that he knows! He fucking knows that! He looks at her briefly and spares a moment to wonder that if she is such a bloody good detective then why can't she see through him? Why can't she see the pain she causes by just being there sometimes?

"Don't know what you right consider to be normal then," he says to her instead without looking at her.

Through it all he keeps lying to her, perfect act intact from years of his life with Sam under warps. It comes back to him like a cold hard vice around his neck, one he can easily bear. She doesn't blink. When they go to the club he runs back up the stairs with Chris and Ray because none of the stinking bastard fairies in there are Sam. He doesn't want another man, he never did. Gene doesn't even fancy men; telling Alex what he thought about two men together was true. But Sam was different and it's not another man, another person that he wants, it's just Sam.

Instead he has Alex. She goes on strange rants just like Sam did in the beginning, has all these forward thinking ideas and is a right pain in his ass. Gene will admit he likes her. She can be very good at what she does. She makes for a good DI and in the end he is glad to have her there. But she's not Sam. She won't replace him. He could never love Alex like he loved Sam.

Sam was such a bundle of contradictions. He always wanted things his way but then was always willing to fold in the end to Gene. They'd argue, disagree, have different plans to catch the bad guy but always come back together. He cared just as much as Gene did about getting the job done. Sam was a brilliant detective even if he sometimes ignored proper gut instinct in favor of his over clinical methods. Really, in the end, Sam had been a cop through and through just like Gene.

Then there were the little things, the personal things, things at times he just doesn't want to remember since they are no longer there. Sam would try to fix Gene's tie when no one was looking. He said Gene should 'look like a proper DCI.' Gene would always retort, 'I thought you thought I wasn't a proper copper?' Sam nearly always slept on his right side when Gene was with him and would sometimes curl his arms under the pillow as if it would try to escape in the night. When it was just the two of them at the station, sitting on either side of Gene's desk, Sam would often reach up almost absent mindedly and lightly brush Gene's hair with his finger tips. It always made Gene smile. When they left the station Gene would get Sam's jacket. Sometimes Sam called him a 'cuddly old bear' and Gene called him a 'bloody girl with your fuzzy animals.' But then he'd go and kiss Sam on the forehead, proving that he was just as sweet and sentimental. Sam liked to have yogurt for breakfast though Gene had always said it was no right thing to start one's day on. However, Sam was also a good cook and would always be finding strange recipes to make for Gene. Sam liked being kissed on the back of his neck which was rather convenient for a hidden office relationship. Gene could make Sam laugh more than anyone when he'd wanted to. It was pure joy to hear. It had made him fall in love with Sam all over again every time.

Now Gene's in London in an empty flat and a department without Sam. Now he has Alex instead and while she's not Sam she is something new so at least there's that.

"Gene?"

He looks up at his DI, seeing her slightly inquisitive expression which she seems to always have on her face.

"Yeah?"

"Are you all right?"

He pauses to drink the last of his glass. Quickly he glances at the newspaper clipping on his wall.

"I'm fine," he puts the glass down. "Just fine."