A/N: Bonjour =) This will be my second Ashes to Ashes fanfiction on here, although I have started another three. It's just that my muse does these things to me, in that I start writing something, make loads of progress and just when I think I'm close to finishing, something else pops into my head that I know I have to write.

Anyway, this latest concoction of my mind occurred after I finally bit the bullet and ordered the first two series' off the internet having been an old scrooge who was unwilling to spend such a sum of money on something you couldn't read, write on or wear. Anyway, predictably I have watched the things on loop for ages now and after having seen the third episode of Series 1 this little AU came to me.

Just to say, this is not going to be some angsty tale of epic proportions about what happens in Alex's life after the attack. I think it will be done and dusted in a short, hopefully sweet, two to four chapters.

Disclaimer: I don't own them, I never have and never will. I'm just borrowing them for a little while, I'll give them back in a bit.

I Think We're Gonna Make It

Chapter 1:

"Ryan Burns, you're under arrest for the rape and attempted murder of Miss Trixie Walsh," Alex began, groping through the little-available storage space in her somewhat restrictive fancy dress costume for her police warrant card.

In her peripheral she saw Gene's eyes widen in panic as Rosebury-Sykes made his leisurely way ever closer to where they were standing.

Finally locating the errant ID she prepared to quickly, if discreetly for Gene's sake (to avoid his bursting a blood vessel or something), show it to Burns. Fixing him with her best, frostiest, steeliest look, she prepared to continue her sentence – the thing that was now a TV show and movie cliché; a commonly imitated spiel.

"You do not have to say any...what?" she was cut off as she felt Gene prod her arm, hitting a bone and setting off a throb. She rubbed the spot irritably as he gestured with his head at Rosebury-Sykes as he kept making his meandering, lordly way nearer; milling closer and closer and threatening the whole operation.

"Oh I don't bloody care," she whispered through her teeth, her jaw clenched so hard it hurt. She refocused her attention on Burns who had, by now, perfected the almost-twitching, rabbit-in-the-headlights look. This was fast turning into the farce she had been desperate to avoid.

"Ryan Burns, you do not have to say anything..." and, apparently, neither did she. She felt Gene hook his hand into the crook of her elbow and drag her away before Lord Pain-In-The-Arse could hear, and before her suspect could be apprehended.

She was pulled, protesting all the way, across the open deck level of the boat until they could lurk as inconspicuously as possible in an unoccupied corner. She was wedged as far as possible into the right-angle made by the merging of the two railings at a perfect ninety degrees. Gene was blocking her in, checking over his shoulder to see if they had been seen, to see who had done the seeing. When he was satisfied they were in fact unseen he directed his attention back to Alex.

"You have to be more careful Bolly," he said quietly, instinctively inclining his body towards her slightly to make them take up as small a place as possible. Okay, maybe that wasn't the only reason but if they could make themselves as little as humanly possible for two ridiculously dressed adults, then maybe they could melt away altogether. His eyes met hers and his resolve to remain as angry as possible bled away as she shot him a look that made him wither, wrenching her still-trapped arm away as brashly as she could muster and hitting her elbow in the process. It really was a very enclosed space.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she hissed. "You're compromising this whole investigation, not to mention my own integrity. He's our man and you bloody well know it as much as I do," she added, her sheer anger causing her to breathe heavily and clench her fists.

"We have to play it safe; go softly softly Bolls," he whispered back equally angry – angry at her anger and at his own cowardice. Angry at her anger at his cowardice. Angry at being so confused. Not really sure why they were so angry at each other in the first place and most especially when there was a man in the vicinity who had done so much more than piss off his D.I. or D.C.I. by undermining them.

"I couldn't care less, Gene," she said and he noticed that in her anger the finger-waggle around his name had reappeared. "We need to arrest this guy, you heard what he said better than I did!"

"Yes and I agree, he's probably our guy," emphasis on the 'probably' to show her that he still didn't believe this Trixie bird. "But Drake, and I suggest you mark this down as a first for the Gene Genie, we cannot go in all guns blazing!"

Her eyebrows clambered up her forehead in an expression of faux-surprise. She let out a classic Alex Drake laugh –a high and melodic cry which burst from her as she threw her head back and the curls bounced around her face. It was followed immediately by a single inhalation – low and almost rasping as it caught between her lips and clung to her throat; sultry, gasping. It didn't matter who or what she was laughing at (even if it was him), the sound was enough to make his brain slow down (not that it wasn't always running at low speed when Alex was around) and his heart shudder a bit. In its confusion it tended to pump blood the wrong way, too. Far too much of the stuff went southwards.

He ducked back a bit (still enough of his senses remained to do that) as she threw her arms up and cried,

"Well, that's just great. Bloody fantastic. The time Gene Hunt forgoes guns and violence and does it right and by the book for once and it all goes tits up, it's bloody wrong as usual!"

He tried not to take it personally but actually, he took offence at that.

"See 'ere Drake, I take offence at that. I've done nothin' bloody wrong, you can still 'ave your bloody suspect, but not while 'is lordship is 'round. Get the bastard when all is quiet,"

She stood on tiptoe to look above his head and her eyes scanned the deck slowly and carefully.

"Oh I can, can I?" she demanded. "Because now he knows we're on to him Gene, I can't see him anywhere! Funny that, you'd have thought he'd want to hang around for us to drag him off to the station," she was getting louder and people would probably start staring if the volume rose further, but he just didn't care anymore. If she wanted to turn this into one of the now-famous, storming Alex Drake vs. Gene Hunt shouting contests, then he'd match her blow for blow. The raging arguments (not always confined to just being verbal) were the stuff of legend by now throughout Fenchurch East.

"Well, did you want a job to go back to or not Drake?" he shout-whispered. "Because if I'd let you arrest 'im you would've 'ad to let 'im go anyway, because Rosebury-Sykes would 'ave 'ad the Commissioner strike you off before you could say Bollinger's. I was trying to 'elp yer,"

"Yeah well that went bloody well then didn't it? You tried to help me and now you've buggered up my operation," she cried (well, sort of), her voice reaching a crescendo (if you counted normal conversational volume a crescendo). She pushed past him, his body limp and willing to let her pass as it had failed to anticipate the action. He grabbed her arm again before she could get away and once again she wrenched it back, their positions reversed now – he with his back to the railings, her blocking him in. She turned away again, wordlessly this time.

"Where the bloody 'ell d'you think you're going woman?" he demanded, a few decibels short of a snarl.

"To find Burns and deliver justice," she called back. "Before he hurts someone else. And let me tell you this," she whirled around to face him again. "If anyone else gets hurt, if anything goes wrong, it'll be all your fault, Hunt," her hissing was back as she prodded an accusatory finger at Gene's chest before turning on her heel and slinking away. His reply dissolved in his mouth as, with a figurative and literal tail-swish, she was lost in the mingling crowds before he could call to her to turn around. He at least wished he could have told her to watch her back. Look after yourself, Alex. Stay safe. Please.

She was fuming as she stormed away. No, beyond fuming. She hated him right now. The stupid, idiotic, twatting, bastarding arsehole.

'Bastarding', nice touch Alex that's pretty commendable and – wait, you're meant to be Gene bashing here.

He was a Neanderthal. He was terrified of power – of having it, of succumbing to his own or others, of not having it. God, she detested his machismo and bravado and chauvinism (she couldn't think of another "-o").

She hated the way he was letting the Commissioner wrap him round his little finger just because some overly well-to-do lord with too much money and no idea of what to do with it shook your hand in a funny way. It shouldn't make any difference. This job was all about delivering justice and screwing the bureaucracy. Or at least, that was how she thought she'd created this world. That was how she thought Gene was constructed, particularly when he called her into his office to protest about the Thatcherite-Wanker...wanking. But apparently not, not if he wouldn't let her arrest a man who had raped and tried to murder one woman and maybe even raped and killed young Delphine Parks.

Couldn't he see that she was trying to get home? That maybe, just maybe, every single case she solved dragged her that little bit closer to her daughter and further away from the grinning, taunting, beckoning clown that haunted her life wherever she turned; left, right, centre. Just by being his Stone Age self he was jeopardising her survival. He might be killing her.

Gene bloody Hunt.

She hated the way her skin had tingled when he had grabbed her by the arm, the wrist. She hated the way his body had come millimetre-close to touching hers. It certainly felt like he was killing her. She hated it.

But she loved to hate him all the same.

She was stressed and confused. She could tell. The main indicator was the way she kept grabbing cocktails from the trays proffered by dapper waiters, although not one of them was Ryan Burns. She was a self-powered production line – take drink with one hand, tip it back and down it as quickly as possible, suppress the shudder throughout her body and the burning in her throat, put the empty glass on another tray with the same hand and pick up another simultaneously. It wasn't really a conscious production line. It wasn't really helping either. The alcohol hadn't kicked in yet, at the time she needed it. And yet, it would probably kick in when she least needed to feel pissed. Or to throw up violently and embarrassingly. Who knows, maybe she'd end up throwing up all over Rosebury-Sykes. Actually, maybe that wouldn't be so terrible. She'd rather like to see something vulgar ruin that smug shine on his shoes. Maybe she could time it when he and Gene were standing together. It would be a bit embarrassing, but it would be worth it. But that would require more alcohol, much more alcohol.

Her hand darted out to pick up another glass, this one containing champagne (Bollinger's, strictly no knickers) as she skirted to the edge of the deck for a better vantage point.

A moment later a second hand shot out.

This one clamped around her mouth before she could even take her second sip. Her scream, one of shock rather than terror was muffled immediately. An arm closed tightly around her waist. Next thing she was being dragged down an extremely steep, narrow flight of stairs that she hadn't even noticed before. She cried out and struggled but he was surprisingly strong for a skinny, terrified lad. She could feel his heart beating a quickstep through his shirt against her back.

She tried to scream again but his clammy hand clamped tighter across her lips and she dimly noticed the cold of a metal band push vertically against her lips.

She was tossed unceremoniously through a low doorway onto a hard wooden floor but that was as much as she could tell. Places were often described as pitch black but rarely was this so accurate. For Alex though, it was no exaggeration. The door shut fluidly and her sight was gone completely. She got to her feet and began to edge around this way, that way, anywhere was better than nowhere. He'd probably have a knife. She would not be a sitting duck. She would be calm, clever, she would be a psychologist and get herself out of this using reasoning and logic. There was absolutely no need to panic, Alex.

A lock pinged shut and a rustle like loose change told her that the key was no longer in the door.

Oh bugger.

Maybe she should panic.

One nano-step north-east, another dead west. Taking a random path to where she perceived the door to be. So far as she could tell he had not moved then but that didn't mean she knew where he was standing, far from it. But then, neither did he know precisely where she was standing either.

"Who are you? What do you want?" As if she even needed to ask.

A creaking footstep in her direction told her that he sure as Hell knew where she was standing now.

Shit. She took a step to her right in the hope it would lose him for a second. They were dancing a deadly two step and she couldn't allow herself to fall behind and get out of time. The music was the brass band of her fear and it was clogging up the room. But she couldn't lose the rhythm.

"Ryan," she began, realising she hadn't even seen him. "It is you, isn't it Ryan? You don't have to do this, don't give the police another reason to arrest you." All the while she spoke she didn't stop moving, she could tell he was slowly, passively following the path her voice paved in front of her.

"I...I saw you today," he began, his voice shaky and scared. "I have to do this,"

"No," she whispered. "No, you don't," she said quietly but he cut her off with a cry;

"Yes I do. I have to. I saw you."

"What could you possibly have seen that means you have to do this?"

"I saw you with that man. Dancing. Acting like a prostitute, a slut. That wasn't the way the Lord wanted you to be. You have sinned."

"Look, I know this won't change your mind Ryan, and I doubt if you'll even believe me, but I want the truth to be said," she began,

"What?"

"It was an act, it was all an act. I was...am...undercover. I was trying to play a part."

He let out a startled shout of delirious laughter.

"Even if I believed you, even if you weren't lying, it doesn't change a thing. You're impure, you're all impure," his voice was getting higher and higher as his fear cast a shadow on all rational thought. Alex could tell just from the way he spoke that he was terrified of what he'd become. He was terrified every waking second of what he could suddenly do if he lost a sense of himself. Scared of the monster within, the one we all have but while some keep it tamed others accidentally open the cage. Once it's let out, you can't put it back in. It was Jekyll and Hyde syndrome – his rational side was terrified of what he became when he was faced with people he perceived to be impure, the sinners.

"If this isn't what you want Ryan then you don't have to go through with it," she said and he let out a kind of strangled noise that was half cry, half sob.

"Yes I do, I have to," he repeated, it was all he seemed to be able to say.

"No, no you don't," she insisted – it was as good as anything else she could say. "I know you're terrified of this Ryan, I know you don't know where it came from, so naturally you feel that you can't put it back but let me tell you, you can Ryan. All you need is someone to show you how. You just need to fight it this once and someone can tell you how to escape all this fear," she said softly, waiting for him to cut her off again.

"I know you feel like you're trapped inside your own head and it makes you feel so small, so alone. I can understand that, I'm trapped right now too and not in the way you think, but in this whole messed up world. And it's a cruel place and it's not perfect and it's certainly not how God wanted it to be but you can't fight the impurities this way – there's more than one way to do it, Ryan.

You can do it this way and never try different paths or you can give something else a try. You could help people in more ways than one. And that's all you want, isn't it Ryan? I understand, I really do."

The hanging silence was looming in around her, particularly his lack of reply. Throughout her speech and her attempts to get inside his head she had forgotten one very vital thing: to keep moving. One minute she was convinced he was somewhere in front of her, feasting on the ginger-bread trail of her words to keep up with her, the next he once again grabbed her from behind, causing her heart to shoot into her chest. She felt her breath catch in her chest and her eyes start to flicker as he pressed his sovereign ring into her, marking her. This was a branding. The branding before an execution...or a sacrifice.

"I do want to help people and that's why I...have to do...this," he choked and Alex, even in her fear, felt that it was a kind of excuse to her rather than an explanation. Almost a sort of apology, really.

Then, all rational thought burst from her as she felt the smooth coldness of a blade caress the soft, tender skin of her throat. It caught and nicked as it went but didn't really break the skin or draw blood. It wasn't time for that yet.

She didn't know if having studied the case in detail and knowing what should be coming around every corner made it better or worse. Worse because she knew of the pain she was about to feel and of the likelihood of death but better because she knew how much time she had left, she knew the routine she had to go through before the end.

She would run and fight and try and get out if she could. Then she could try begging. And if that didn't work she'd scream and throw things to make as much noise as possible is she had to. Scream for help and for her mum and her dad and her daughter. Scream for the presence of Gene Hunt to make it all better.

A/N: Thanks for getting all the way to the end. Obviously it's not done yet so I'd love to get some reviews saying what you liked, didn't like and how to improve the subsequent chapters and getting the emails telling me someone has reviewed my story just generally makes my day.

As a little add-on, my totally unrelated A2A oneshot The Man in the Mirror was posted on a day when I went on holiday for a bit and as a result I couldn't thank each and every one of my reviewers as I like to as I got really behind with everything. Damn that real-life stuff! Therefore, this whole fic is for the wonderful people who read and reviewed, I wouldn't keep on posting if it wasn't for you guys!