Disclaimer:I don't own Ashes to Ashes, but I'm making an application to Monastic for part ownership of Gene.
A/N: Yes, yes, I know I already have two stories on the go and very little opportunity for updating them, but this idea marched into my mind while I was doing the weekly shopping last weekend, and wouldn't leave me alone until I'd written it down. Then I rewrote a section of it during the week, and today I find myself at home, laid up with a throat infection, when I'd expected to be out doing a music review. So I'm taking advantage of the enforced leisure to post this before I'm tempted to tinker with it any more!
Not the best thing I've ever done, but I had to get it out of my system. Rather melancholy, but that reflects my state of mind at present. Anyway, please let me know what you think – as always, reviews would be much appreciated, and I'll update my other two stories as soon as I can!
The restaurant was elegant, quiet, discreet and undoubtedly expensive. The kind of place that she would expect a man like him to bring a woman like her, when he had something important to ask her. Not that he had admitted yet, that he was going to ask her anything, but she had guessed what was in the wind, as soon as he had invited her out on this date. That did not make things any easier for her. This evening would be upsetting for more than one person.
She sighed, very quietly so that nobody else would hear. Of course she cared very deeply for him, far more than she would ever be able to tell him, and for reasons which she would never be able to explain unless she wanted him to think her a lunatic. He probably did, in any case, she thought wryly. Of course she loved him, but it was not in the way he wanted, and it was going to be indescribably painful to have to tell him so.
She thought over all that he had ever meant to her. Protection, safety, security, friendship. The inevitable rebellions against his authority, always eventually forgiven on both sides. The knowledge that, with him, she and anyone she loved would always be safe from danger. Above all, the memories of what he had been to her on and since that terrible day, so long ago and yet so recently, when an eight year old girl, suddenly and violently robbed of her parents, had been left alone in the world. She owed him so much, and now she would have to hurt him unutterably.
"Alex?" She heard his voice, as though from a great distance, and, with an effort, she drew her attention back to the place and time in which she found herself.
"Alex!" He looked anxious. She loved him for that.
"I'm sorry, I wasn't concentrating. Thinking about our latest case," she lied.
His eyes locked to hers, mesmerising her, and he reached across the table and caught her hand in his.
"Alex, you must know by now how I feel about you."
"Yes," she said softly, her face expressionless.
"I love you, Alex. Far more than I can ever tell you." With his free hand, he reached into his pocket, produced a small box as though it were a conjuring trick, flipped it open to reveal a magnificent diamond ring, and held it out to her. "Will you marry me?"
Her face became very grave before it was illumined by a sad smile. "Thank you so much. I can't say how moved and touched I am, that you should ask me. But I'm sorry, I - I can't."
His face darkened. "Why can't you?"
"I'm sorry," she repeated wretchedly. "I don't want to hurt you - "
"You just have."
"But if I were to marry you, I'd hurt you far, far more, and I don't want that," she continued earnestly, as though he had not interrupted. "I do care for you, Evan, very much. I hope you know that. But not in the way you want. You are one of my dearest friends. It's as though you are the brother I never had. But the way I love you is not the way I would love a man I wanted to marry. It's because I care about you so much, that I know I'm doing the right thing by saying no."
He looked as miserable as she felt, but he did not move, except to grip her hand tighter.
"I'll only say one thing more, Alex. Remember that there's a little girl who's lost her parents. You're fond of her, aren't you?"
"Oh, yes."
"You know what a difference it would make for her, to have you looking after her."
"I love her in a way I couldn't expect you to understand, but I can never, never be her mother," Alex said with decision. "I have a daughter of my own. She's so far away now, but one day I will go home to her. If I stayed here with you and Alex, I would be abandoning my daughter. I hope you understand that I can't do that."
"Well, if that's all that's stopping you, why don't you bring her here to live with us, and we could look after both little girls together? They're sure to get on like a house on fire, Alex makes friends easily."
"I know," she said softly, and permitted herself a slight smile. "But I'm afraid that isn't possible."
Evan scowled, closed the box, stuffed it back into his pocket, and withdrew his hand.
"This is because of Hunt, isn't it? It's because of Gene bloody Hunt."
"My refusing your proposal has nothing to do with what I feel for him or for any other man," she said with dignity.
"I don't understand you, Alex," he said bitterly. "You're infatuated with that man. He's a liability. With him, all you'll get is what's left of his copper's pay after he's drunk and smoked it. You'll be tarred with the same brush as him and he'll ruin your career. He's violent, abusive, a bully, a drunkard, smokes like a factory chimney, drives like a lunatic, and breaks the law while pretending to uphold it. But with Alex and me - "
"You forget that he broke the law for you and Alex," she said quietly. "He put himself on the line to save a child he did not even know, from learning that her father had killed her mother and himself, and had tried to kill her, and why."
"Yes." Evan looked momentarily ashamed, and shifted uneasily in his seat.
"If anyone were to find out that he had destroyed evidence, it would be the end of his career. He lives for his work. For the ability to make a difference. If that were to be taken from him, it would destroy him. Much of what you say about him is true. But it's also true that despite all the macho put-downs, the insults, the pathetic sexist sideswipes, underneath it all he's a good, kind, decent man. As it happens, you're right. I do love him." Evan stirred angrily in his seat. "But that's something that I'm going to keep to myself, and I hope that you will respect my confidence." He nodded, still angry, but looked puzzled. "I've already told you, I can't stay here. Sooner or later I'll be going home. If I tell him what I feel for him, it would make it harder for him as well as for me when I have to leave."
"I wouldn't bother with sparing his finer feelings. I doubt he has any," Evan muttered nastily.
"I'm a psychologist," Alex continued. "I know that logic doesn't always govern our actions or our impulses. You're right, it would make more sense for me to love you and not him. It's strange, you and he are as unalike as two men can be, yet you both spend your lives working in your different ways for the law and justice. To me, you're like two sides of the same coin, so close and yet so far apart. But it's him I love, and all the logic in this world can't change the way I feel. I'm sorry, Evan. I know that telling you this has hurt you. I've already said, I didn't want to do that, but I respect and admire you enough to believe that you would appreciate my telling you the truth. I hope that, one day, you'll be able to forgive me."
"Thanks," Evan said stiffly. "Right. Well. There doesn't seem to be any point for either of us in prolonging this meal, does there?" He signalled to a waiter for the bill. "I'd better be getting home to my Alex. She'll be very disappointed, you know. I'd told her before I came here, that I was going to ask you to marry me. She'd seen the ring and guessed who it was for."
Alex smiled. "Very astute of her. Maybe she'll be a detective too, someday."
Evan grimaced. "Yes, ever since - since that day, she's talked about having a career in the police. She's besotted with that man Hunt, just like her older namesake. She calls him her Gene Genie. God knows what Caroline would have said, if she knew."
"She'd be glad that her daughter is guarded and loved by two good men," Alex said gently. "And I know that, even without me to help you, you will be the perfect guardian to little Alex, and that she'll grow up to be a beautiful, courageous, altogether wonderful woman. Even though I do say so myself."
Evan snorted. "She'd been looking forward to welcoming you home as one of the family."
"I am. I always will be." Alex spoke with a slight edge of desperation. She could feel how every word she and Evan were saying was driving them further and further apart. At that moment the waiter brought the bill. Evan produced his credit card and signed the receipt, and the waiter brought their coats. Evan helped her into hers. Although physically they were so close, she felt as though he were miles away from her. She could almost sense a chill emanating from his hands as he adjusted her fur coat over her shoulders and straightened the collar for her.
"Shall I ask them to call a taxi for you?" Even his voice was cold, small and distant. She felt as though she were looking at him through the wrong end of a telescope.
"No, thank you. It's a fine night. I'll walk." She noticed that he had not suggested giving her a lift.
"You're sure?"
"Yes, quite sure. Thanks."
They walked outside together, and he fished his car keys from his pocket.
"Good night, Alex. I expect I'll see you around sometime."
"I hope so." She spoke warmly, but she felt close to despair. "Give my love to Alex."
"I know you aren't giving your love to me." Without another word, he got into his car, started the engine, and drove away without a backward glance.
She watched the car until it was a tiny speck in the distance. It was as she had feared. Their relationship would not be able to survive his resentment over her refusal, and she would lose a friend whom she had needed badly in order to survive in this time. A wave of loneliness swept over her. But she knew that there was nothing else that she could have done.
She turned, dug her hands into her coat pockets, and started walking. The restaurant was far enough away from the station and her flat to make it an inconveniently long trek, especially in her high-heeled shoes, but the thought of taking a taxi, knowing that Evan would insist upon paying for it, had been intolerable.
She walked until the sound of her heels, rapping on the pavement in a regular rhythm, was the only sound of which she was conscious. But she was still far from home, both in this world and the real world. So, so far.
A screech of brakes close beside her brought her back to reality, or whatever this was. Warmth and happiness flooded through her as she recognised the car. Its occupant poked his head out of the window.
"Bols? All dressed up an' nowhere to go? What're you doing, walking the streets like a tart out of a job? Thought you 'ad a date with White tonight."
"I did." She smiled shakily. "It didn't work out."
"Oh." He tried, and failed, to conceal his pleasure at the news. "Well. Anywhere I can take you, then?"
Every fibre of her being ached to get into the car and sit by his side. To lay her head upon his shoulder, allow him to take her wherever he would, entrust herself utterly to him, let herself be enfolded by his love, never know cold or pain or weariness or loneliness again. It would be a life filled with all the things that she had never experienced in the real world. Excitement, adventure, colour, passion, love, happiness. It would not be easy, and it was unlikely to be romantic. He might never even say that he loved her. They would quarrel constantly. But it would be a life worth the living, with a man worth the having.
But she knew that if she stepped into the car now, a little girl would go on waiting for ever for her mother to come back to her.
"No, thanks, Guv." It was hard for her to speak, and even harder for her to force a smile. Her voice sounded scratchy. "I'm enjoying the walk."
"Oh." His face was grumpy with disappointment. "Please yourself, Drake. See you tomorrow morning, nine sharp." The Quattro took off at the speed of light.
She had not thought that rejecting him would hurt so much. The tears prickled behind her eyes and ran unheeded down her cheeks as she watched him go. She resolutely blinked them away.
"Thanks for the offer, Gene," she said softly. "You'll never, ever know how much I wish that I could have accepted it. But I've got to take the long way home."
THE END