No matter how hard he tried, or for how long he drowned his sorrows in whiskey, Gene just couldn't forget Sam. He couldn't move on. Once again he found himself glancing towards the newspaper clippings of Sam, and the ones of Sam and himself. But even more frequently he found himself glancing at the framed photograph of his old team that was now face down on his desk.
Why couldn't he just forget? Once again his eyes fell on the photo and once again his slightly shaking hand lifted it up just so he could look at Sam. Maybe he did it just to remember what he looked like. But then again he knew it was deeper than that. He missed Sam more than he'd ever admit.
His misses had left after he'd resorted back to the whiskey bottle. To be honest he didn't blame her for going. Not that it had done him any good. Apparently Ray had found him unconscious the next morning. But he couldn't remember anything between picking up the bottle and waking up in the noisy and dazzlingly white hospital ward two days later. His team had been worried that he'd lost it.
Then there was Alex. She was so like Sam. Bossy, stood up for what she thought. But there was something different about her that made his heart leap into his throat every time he saw her. Whether he liked it or not he knew that he had fallen for her and he had fallen hard.
Maybe he should just get it over with? Ask her out, somewhere fancy because she was a posh girl. But she was a decent copper and he didn't mind having her there. At least there was someone willing to hold him back.
He missed a lot about Sam. He missed the annoying tone of voice, his laughter at the Railway Arms when they had both being drunk out of their minds and talking about random things like how Annie managed to put up with them and how Chris could possibly be stupid enough the mistake the word bomb for bum.
He missed Nelson too, Luigi almost made up for the Jamaican man, he was friendly and gave him advice, particularly about Bolly, but no one could ever make up for Sam. Not even the classy girl of a DI he now had.
So as he sat in his office (with the sign pronouncing that he was the Manc Lion) in the Met his eyes wandered back to the newspaper clipping pinned on the board. It had been written by Jackie Queen but that didn't matter anymore. It was about Sam and that was all he cared about.
He poured himself a generous amount of whiskey and knocked it back, swallowing hard, letting it burn his throat before leaving for Luigi's wine bar, hoping to get drunk enough to forget Sam for one night yet also hoping that Alex would hold him back, he just wanted to be able to get the first proper night's sleep this year. But he knew the wine wouldn't help. Neither did anything else.
So he kept thinking of new ways to try and forget, other than drink and cigarettes. Maybe one day there paths would cross again.
But for now, no matter how hard he tried he just couldn't forget Sam.
Fin.