How would have the Wizard of Oz ended if Dorothy hadn't clicked her heels, and woken from such a horrible nightmare? Would she be happy in Oz, amongst friends, dancing and singing away her technicolor days or would she rail against it? Alex fingers the rim of her wine glass, clicks her heels together. She's hardly Dorothy, her bad dream ended with a bang and a last beat. The clock on the bar behind them still reads 9:06. "Ruddy things broken." says barkeep, tapping it ineffectually. "That's fine." replies Alex, "I don't mind."

Gene for all his mouth and bravado has been uncharacteristically quiet, nursing his scotch. She can't tell if he's angry with her, or happy, or sad. Everything Alex has known has been turned upside down on its head. She'd thought it her duty to set it right. Then came Keats and the cold grey truth and then—

She just couldn't. Leaving meant no more anything. No more crimes. No more helping people. No more Gene.

What a befuddled fairytale this had become. Off goes the lion, the scarecrow, the tin man into the sunset and here sits Dorothy in her ruddy red shoes, drinking buddies with the Wiz himself. Half-hearted chortling into her wine, she blows fermented bubbles, leaves deep red droplets along the corner if her lips. She'll miss them. Her friends. Colleagues. The most unusual of family. A thumb comes up and swipes across her lips softly, breaks her of the thought.

"Thinking too hard, Bolly. I can hear those cogs cranking overtime." Gene looks pensive, hesitant which Alex finds irreverently odd and perhaps the slightest bit endearing. Before he can move away again she covers his hand with her own and kisses his thumb, pressing it against her cheek. "I can't help it, Guv. S'who I am."

"I know."

"Lots to think about."

"Doesn't 'av to be."

"Is that how you do it, then?" it's not malicious, Alex sits up a little straighter, a spark in her eye. "You just stop thinking about it, about them, and eventually you just…forget? About Sam, and Ray, and Chris, Shaz? Someone else comes along, and that's it? We all do the time warp again?"

"Hm." there was a line of consternation that appeared between his brows, separating them from colliding together outright. "I don't remember."

Silence. Alex looks for an answer at the bottom of her glass, doesn't find it, and sets it down again with more force than necessary. She doesn't want it to be that way. She doesn't want to forget names, faces. She doesn't want to forget the truth. "Does it get any easier?"

Gene looks at her long and hard. Long enough that her upset turns into a scowl. "What."

"Get your coat, Bols. We're leavin'."

She's ready for another fight, to argue, beg him not to make her go. But they leave the pub and go the other way, and Alex can't help but feel just a little bit lost for a moment, trotting after him swiftly. In a moment of boldness she reaches for his arm, linking it with her own. Gene doesn't resist, doesn't even stiffen up to his credit. Alex considers this heart warming progress.

"Where are we going?"

"Taking you home."

"You're avoiding my questions."

"Well you ask so bloody many of them—"

"Gene." she has to pull, hard, but he stops. With that momentum Alex leaned in against his chest and kissed him. "It's just you and me. Partners." Her expression was soft, "Please, let me in." Something else hung at the end of that, dangling over their heads like some unseen thread waiting to be cut. "No." he told her after a moment. Alex felt her heart drop into her stomach. "Guv, I-"

"It don' get any easier. You go home, 'ave a drink. Go to work. Always scum to catch." An arm slipped around her waist, pulling her closer. "Think you can handle that, Bols?"

"But what—"

"No buts, Bolly." the solemness in his tone willed her silent, "Good coppers do their duty. They go to the boozer. They move on. That's the way it is." And that's the way it will always be echoes behind his words, but she doesn't miss it. Alex has always been good at reading between the lines when it came to the guv. Or so she'd thought. "Now, if I'm not mistaken, we've done this little dance before."

She can smell the scotch on his breath, the tale-tell cigarette musk trapped in the wool of his coat. She has to smile then, she has to. She can't help it. After all that, after everything. The subject of memories is tricky she is assured. This therein is the Gene Hunt Apology Tactic, patented and very, very well executed. He's had some time to perfect it. Alex tries not to bother herself with further details.

"Why, Guv, I do believe you're right. Only this," she reached around to grab his hand, sliding it up, up— Now then, Bollinger Knickers, are you going to kiss me or punch me?

To his credit Gene pulls no punches, and it's as soon as she lets go of his wrist does he give a light squeeze. Not hard, just there. Thumb following the line under her breast, there is the memory of a small smirk in the upturn of his lips. "Hm." He grunted, "Terry owes me a fiver. C's."

Any other day and she'd smack him, look disdainful— but it isn't yesterday, or last week. Today she lets it slide, smiles even. Kisses him like it is the last good thing left in this world.

It really is, though, isn't it? All mysteries come to a crossroads, and then everything is coming up Gene.

Both hands are on her arse then, pulling her flush. He's warm but his breathing is uneven, tickling her ear and raising gooseflesh down her spine. "Not gonna walk out on me this time, are you Bols?" It's not Gene but the young man on the hill, all bravado but terrified of rejection. "No, you clot." Alex laughs, she can't help it (she's nervous and frankly exhausted, but she'll set that aside for him), "I'm not going anywhere."

"Sounds like you've got expectations, Bolly."

"Absolutely none at all, Guv. Surprise me."

He does, finding that spot behind her ear with his teeth. Alex's sigh is encouragement and he trails lower, under the jaw, down the neck—

"Oi!" comes a shout from down the street, a constable standing in the yellow spill of street lamps. "Break it, up, quick as you like!"

"We better go, Guv." Alex pouts, reluctantly to leave the embrace, tucking in close as she threads herself through one arm. "Before your own PC writes you up for public indecency."

They're hardly in the door and Alex is pushed up against the wall, hitching her ankle over his calf when he slides one leg between her's. Blindly, she manages to worm her hands under his coat, sliding it off before working the knot from his tie. He's decidedly ahead if this were a contest, going straight for the hem of her dress and tugging it upwards. The friction is delicious and the angle is just right, Alex voices her displeasure in a little whine when he moves. Off goes her coat. "Arms up, love."

Her sweater follows and suddenly it's considerably cooler; she reaches for him to pull him closer, tossing the tie aside. His lips are dry as they slide down her neck, stopping to nib at the underside of her jaw, her pulse, a tongue dipping into the crux of her collarbone. Alex feels many things all at once. Teeth chattering it's freezing but he's so warm and she wants to burrow into him and never leave. Exposed, she thinks (and then doesn't think. How can she, with those great hands making their way south with one clear destination in mind. "Ohhhh…" like she's found the answer suddenly, a hitched sigh that dwindles in a guttural whine at the back of her throat.

Alex swallows thickly, tilts her head back until it hits the wall with a dull thump. "Don't…Don't…" she can't seem to form the words and then his hand is gone, the delicious pressure is removed and it takes all of her strength not to tumble down to the floor. "What?" he looks worried, wounded. "Don't stop." the words come too late, and she's too flushed. "That's useless now."

"You're a right kinky mare." And the grin is back. He takes her hand, pulls her close. She wriggles impatiently. Oh she'll show him kinky, Alex projects, as her hands grab firmly onto the front of his shirt. "Bed."

Alex distinctly remembers the distance from kitchen to bed being much shorter, but she's not often doing the wobbling march (the shoes, she'd forgotten the bloody shoes) and never once did she imagine dragging Gene Hunt by his shirt collar into her boudoir. This is a lie of course. She'd thought about it. Oh, how she'd thought about it.

Her sheets are still red. There's that corner, her side, turned down slightly. She hasn't slept in that bed for two—three days now. And Gene, Gene is like an anchor at the door frame, stopping hard and quick to stare in at the room (and her). Alex doesn't need to be reminded. "I'm not going anywhere." She twists her fingers along the front seam of his shirt skillfully, and the top button slides out of it's hole. "And neither are you." There will be no Keats. No mistrust. No limbo. This is about them.

"You're over-dressed." Another button, gone. She sounds more confident than she feels, struggles with the third before his hands cover her's and Alex realizes she's shaking. "Bols." quiet as he's ever been, but it's the sentiment that makes her still, staring. Waiting.

She falls into the kiss completely, lets herself be backed up, guided to the bed. It all happens so fast, laying there watching him finish unbuttoning the rest of his shirt with no such finesse; she's distracted by the smirk that made him look almost boyish, irony that, an idea that could have been followed up had she not been so easily distracted. Warm palms ghost up her thighs and Gene tucks his fingers neatly into the waistband of her leggings. Makes quick work of them, the shoes too, and Alex finds it harder and harder to teeter on the brink of sanity if he's going to touch her like that.

Drunk off of touch (it's been far too long, decades it seems), or love, or both everything is sluggish in a delicious haze. A moment of clarity as he slides two fingers in carefully, Alex arches her hips upwards and lets out the most content of mewling sighs. It draws a look of diligence from his brow and crooks his fingers just so—

"Fuck." she says quietly, biting the knuckle of one finger. "Beautiful." Gene says back, and kisses her just below her naval. On that jagged patch of skin that bears a sour reminder. She can't take much more than what he's doing— there it is again, that clumsy boyish enthusiasm that has her heart in her throat. "Come here. Come-come here." almost does she regret saying that, fast cooling fingers trailing her own evidence of arousal up her body to her breasts. He gives one quick squeeze before lightening, tracing them softly. Like he couldn't believe they (or she for that matter) were really, truly there.

He's close enough to kiss again so she raises up, propped on her elbows to mutter endearments against his lips. Finally. Yes. Closer. Just there. That's right. Oh!

"Bols…" it's a warning, or maybe it's a plea, the look in his eyes is desperate and Alex nuzzles into his shoulder, and she has to burrow in further to suppress the impending giggle when he jumps at the feeling of her fingertips grazing just above his belt loops. She can already feel him, hard against her thigh and rubbing against it earns her a heavy breath in her ear. A growl. If she'd hadn't been turned on before she certainly is now, and traces her fingers along the teeth of the zipper before guiding it down. Feeling devious, she shoots him a grin, licking one palm before shimming a little to get comfortable. "Alex."

She's about as devious as anything right now and looks him straight in the eyes, taking a firm grip. He's paralyzed it seems and somewhere in the back of her mind her subconscious sits upon it's shiny throne and laughs at the irony of it all. The Gene Genie, speechless. She gives him a confident pump, bites her lip a little and stares at the set frown he's made, the little twitch in the corner. A niche in the impenetrable Manc armor. She's fine this way, she thinks, just the rough-caught sound of his breathing and the comfortable weight pressing her into the mattress. He has other ideas, growling again and kissing her firmly, tangling one palm in her hair while the other guides her occupied hand in a fast and steady pace. Little bit of rough then, she mewls appreciatively in his mouth when he tugs nimbly at her cropped hair. "Bols. Bols." he punctuates his kisses. Alex stills, ceases her movements to look at him with glittering eyes.

"Right." she says and there is a new feeling low in her belly that just glows. And for that moment she felt like they were back, what felt like another life (that it both was and wasn't…semantics) entirely. They shift together and when he presses her thighs wider apart Alex sucks in a preparatory breath. Which of course is lost as soon as he enters, slick and her breath is gone and she's gone. Still as the night air, adjusting (for maybe time doesn't work quite here but that doesn't change the fact that it's been a long, long time since the wanker with the red bracers). Gene's got one arm wrapped around her knee tucking it over his hips and she complies readily, appreciating the delicious change in pressure. He moves in again and this time Alex sighs with pleasure, trailing the pads of her fingers up and down his arms, his shoulders, scraping at his back when he presses faster, deeper.

She pulls him down once for a sloppy kiss during and that's how they stay, straining. Open mouthed and panting; they finish in what feels like a furious wanton heat— cold sweat and a heartfelt cry of relief. Kindly, Gene rolls off her to the side, propping his chin up proudly on his fist staring down at her. Alex smiles lazily and warms when he smiles back. "You an' me, Bols."

"Lord help us all." she chuckles. "What time is it?"

"Nine oh six." he says quietly, looking at the bright red read out haunting over her shoulder.

"Ah." Alex says, carding her fingertips through his hair. "Then we have a little while yet."