This continues on from my fic 60 Minutes, so if you haven't read that, this will make no sense (although if you read my summary it might...) A refresher for those who have: Alex had been kidnapped by a man who would torture his victims for one hour before killing them. Gene was unable to find her and for six months believed her dead. He found her, only to find out that she was mad. She eventually returned, but the psychologist told Gene to wait at least a month before taking her on a case. 3 weeks later, Gene is missing at the hands of the same man who kidnapped Alex. They try desperately to find him, but get there one second too late and Gene has a knife sticking out of his chest. This proves too overwhelming for the freshly recovered Alex and she slips into a waking coma. When we last left them, Gene was visiting her daily, trying desperately to get her to return.
She lay on the grassy hill, staring up into the clear blue sky. The weather was perfect here. It was always that way. It was always the right temperature, and never overcast unless she wanted it to be. This world was her utopia, and she never wanted to let it go.
She could remember a time when it had not been this way. When she had first come to this world, full of despair and sorrow, the world had been dark and stormy. She had always been wet and cold and miserable. In the beginning this world had only been a place to hide away for a while anyway. But slowly, this beautiful new world became her home, and as she forgot more about the world she had come from, the more perfect this world became.
She no longer had any idea of who she was or where she came from. Nor did she care. The only thing she could remember about her life before this one was the sorrow she had brought over. And she knew that she definitely did not want to remember who she was. If she remembered who she was, she would probably remember why she had been so sad. And she did not want sadness creeping into her paradise.
A cat climbed into her lap and mewed, looking up at her expectantly. She grinned and started petting its soft head. The world was full of animals she had wanted, but not too many. She owned both a cat and a dog, as well as a horse and a very tame lion. This world was in complete harmony, and she and all the animals got along. There was no fighting in this world.
A breath of wind passed over the hill and swore she could hear someone's voice saying a name to her. Every once in a while, she thought she would hear voices in the wind, but thought nothing of it. They were nothing. She was staying here. She loved it here.
She stood, putting the cat on the ground and walked over to an oak tree a ways away from the hill. She swung herself up on the lowest branch and climbed up to the top, but the rough bark did not scratch her bare feet. She could not get hurt here. She could jump from the highest branch and land nimbly on her toes. She knew the concept of pain, but she no longer knew the feeling and in that she rejoiced.
The wind whispered to her again, and the voice that spoke seemed louder. "Let's go to dinner, Alex," the voice said softly.
She frowned, looking down at the grass four metres below her. Dinner? She had no idea what dinner was. She never ate in this world, never had the need to. Food was an idea lost in her transition between worlds.
Slightly disturbed, she jumped down from the tree. She landed beautifully on the balls of her feet, like she was only jumping a few centimetres instead of several metres, just as she knew she would. She decided to go in search of her lion, a docile male without a name. Like her, nothing here had a name.
She travelled through the world only she knew, passing the old house she had loved the moment she had seen it and a field full of her favourite flowers. The air had cooled slightly, as she had started to grow hot on her pursuit of her lion. She went over another hill and there her lion was, taking a nap in the warm sunshine.
She ran down the hill and gently put her hand on the lion's tawny stomach. She stroked the soft fur, loving the feeling beneath her fingers. The lion's silvery blue eyes opened and looked at her, but the lion did nothing. It merely lay, letting her continue to stroke its soft stomach. After a while, she moved up to its golden mane, staring out into the grassy field, thinking about everything and nothing at the same time. She contemplated the beautiful silence, how much she loved it. Once in a while there was a song of the birds, but usually it was silent, the quiet only broken by the whispered words of the wind.
The sun was starting to set now and she was growing tired. She smiled, looking at the animal next to her.
"What do you think?" she asked, moving around to the front of the lion. "Do you think I can use you for a pillow tonight?"
The lion blinked once and extended a paw, pulling her close to his warm body. She smiled, snuggling against the warm fur which smelled oddly of whiskey and cigarettes. There was something in that smell that saddened her, but the cause of the sadness had been forgotten long ago.
She hadn't always had the lion either. After the freezing rains and angry storms had stopped, the world had only been her with the cat, dog and horse. The lion had come after her world had stopped being invaded by the man she knew was impossible. She did not know what was impossible about him, but she knew that something about his appearance in the world was wrong, and so had ignored his pleas, ignored him. Slowly, he had come less and less, and the lion started to appear more. Now, he rarely came and she could almost always find the lion. And that was the way it should be. The lion was not an impossibility, but the man was.
She stared at the sunset, the deep red of the sinking sun relaxing her from the concern she had felt earlier. The voice had been nothing. Alex was no one. Alex was like the impossible man.
The lion snuffled in its sleep and she smiled drowsily. This was her world. This was her perfect world. And no one could take it away, not even the impossible man. Because he did not exist. No one existed except her. And she was happy with this.
~(*)~
Ruth stared at the chart on the table, not taking anything in. She was completely distracted, not thinking about anything but the woman who sat in the rocking chair, staring out the window. Something had happened earlier. She had been getting Alex ready to go to dinner, something that she had done ever since Gene Hunt had stopped visiting everyday nearly three years ago. But tonight, when she had talked to her, there had been a flash of expression on Alex's face. At least, Ruth believed there was.
Ruth didn't want to believe. Alex had been catatonic for nearly four years, and all the staff believed that nothing would bring her out of it now. The few people that visited had stopped coming, each visit taking a toll on them. Frankly, she didn't blame them. From what she had heard, Alex Drake had been one of the strongest women imaginable. And she had to have been. A woman couldn't just do nothing and become a detective inspector. But now, the woman wasn't even Alex anymore. Alex's body was a shell, living, breathing, but the soul that had once resided there was gone. So how could Ruth explain the slight change of Alex's face before she went to dinner? How could she walk up to Amy and tell her that Alex had frowned for just a second before her face went to its normal blank expression? Amy wouldn't believe her. She would just think that Ruth had gone mad.
Ruth knew that she had to keep this development to herself until something else happened. Something bigger.
"Are you going to put Alex to bed tonight?" Amy asked, snapping her out of her reverie.
"What?"
"Were you going to put Alex to bed tonight, or am I?" Amy was leaning on the desk, looking bored.
"Is it ten already?" When Gene had come, he had always put her to bed early. After he had stopped, Ruth had realised that Alex was awake far past the 9.00 bedtime he had her on. For that reason, they had pushed putting her to bed to ten.
"No," Amy replied. "It's only about nine-thirty. But she fell asleep in the chair."
Ruth frowned. "That's odd. Usually she's still awake when we leave."
"I know. She went to sleep when the sun started to go down."
And she almost looked content, Amy thought, but dared not to say anything out loud. Ruth would think her mental if she said that Alex had an expression on her face. Besides, people didn't just magically come out of a waking coma, did they?
"I can put her to bed tonight," Ruth replied finally. "You put her to bed last night." In reality, Ruth just wanted to see if she was really imagining things earlier or not.
"Sounds good. I'll finish this charting, shall I?"
Ruth nodded and stood, moving away from the desk and towards the woman in the rocker. What Amy had said was true. Alex was out like a light. Ruth felt bad for disturbing her. She almost looked content. Ruth shook her head. There was no way that Alex was looking content. People didn't magically recover from something like this.
Kneeling next to Alex's chair, Ruth put her hand on Alex's shoulder. "Alex," she murmured. Alex didn't respond. Ruth wasn't sure how to do this. She had never had to wake Alex up before, and the morning shift had said that she was always awake by the time they came in.
"Alex," Ruth murmured again, shaking Alex's shoulder gently. Alex snapped her eyes open, looking at her in wide-eyed fear before her face returned to its normal expressionless look. Ruth stared at the woman a moment. There was no doubt now. She really had seen an expression on Alex's face. Alex had heard her somehow.
Dazed, Ruth grabbed Alex's hands and pulled her up into a standing position. "C'mon Alex," she murmured. "Let's go to bed."
~(*)~
She woke with a start. For a moment, she couldn't figure out where she was. It seemed like she was in a building, with bright lights and a grey-haired woman sitting next to her. Then she blinked and was back in her world, but it was overcast and dark.
The wind blew fiercely, the whispered words she always heard now a scream. "C'mon Alex. Let's go to bed." She didn't understand the words that were said. She had known that language before she came, but had forgotten it somewhere along the line. The words she spoke to the lion were of her own creation, used in only her world.
She shivered nervously, feeling for the lion next to her. He was there, breathing gently. She curled back up next to him, closing her eyes and hoping that she'd forget it in the morning.
However, when the sun started to creep up in the sky a week later, she had not forgotten. The light woke her, but the sight of the world disturbed her. The sky was cloudy, and she did not want it to be so. The colours of everything seemed to have faded over the week. The grass, which had once been the deepest shade of emerald, now looked sickly and grey. The only thing that did not seem to lose its brilliance was the lion, which was still magnificently golden.
"What's going on?" she whispered to the lion. "What's happening?"
The only time this had ever happened before was when the Impossible Man visited. For some reason, when he invaded her world, it had seemed less real. But she knew that the Impossible Man wasn't here. If he was, the lion would not be.
Rain started to fall from the clouds, cold and wet. She never let it rain here. That could only mean one thing.
"NO!" she screamed. The world was falling apart. It couldn't fall apart. It was her perfect world.
"Alex!" The wind blew fiercely. "Alex are you okay?"
"NO! PLEASE GOD NO!" She didn't understand why the world was falling apart. She didn't even know what the person was saying. What was Alex? Why was her world falling apart for an Alex?
The world was starting to fade even further. Again, the only thing that hadn't lost colour was the lion. It was staring at her gently.
She started to sob as the wind whipped her hair, soaking wet.
"What's going on?" the wind screamed with another voice. She felt something nuzzle her, the only warmth that now appeared to be in her world.
She looked up to see the lion. Once more it nuzzled her and then sat down, staring at her, tail flicking expectantly.
"What's going on?" she whispered. "What's happening to my world?"
There was intense sorrow in the lion's silvery blue eyes. It looked almost like it was apologising. She realised what it was trying to tell her.
"I can't leave this world," she whispered, choking with sobs. "Please. No."
The lion licked her on the cheek once and then lay down in front of her, putting its paws out and pulling her in. She sobbed into the lion's stomach, curled into a tight ball as the colours faded to grey and eventually disappeared altogether.
The weight and warmth of the lion disappeared from around her and she opened her eyes to a different world than she had been used to for so long. Two women stood around her. One was the older woman she had seen the week before and the other was a younger brunette.
Tears formed in her eyes and ran silently down her face as she realised what had happened. She had lost her perfect world and was back in the land of the sadness again.
~(*)~
Gene sat as his desk, staring out at his CID. They weren't working – they hardly ever did – but he didn't really care today. He was staring at the calendar. It was a week until the next holiday and he was dreading it. Visiting Alex every day had torn him apart too much and now he only visited on holidays, on her birthday and on the anniversary of her first section. Each visit was short, but at the end of them, he felt like he had aged ten years.
He looked up at the clock. It was almost six. Almost lunch. His phone rang and he jumped, not expecting it. "Better not be the scum of London right now," he murmured to himself.
He picked up the phone and grunted his surname into the receiver.
"Gene?" a hesitant voice asked on the other end. His stomach dropped. He would recognise that voice anywhere.
"Ruth."
"Gene, I think you better come down." She sounded nervous and anxious, mixed together with some kind of fear and excitement.
"Why?" he said, starting to worry about what had happened on the ward. Had one of the patients attacked Alex?
"Gene...Alex. She's come back."
Gene stared at the phone for a split second before hanging up without saying anything and grabbing his overcoat. He jumped over his desk and rushed out the door, yelling something about lunchtime to the idle CID before getting in the Quattro and screaming down the road towards the ward.
Alex had come back. She had done the impossible.
to be continued
