White Flag

Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to Southern Star and Channel Seven. Otherwise, it's most likely mine.

This is the sequel to one of my fics "I Will Not Go Quietly" and takes place one year after the events of that story. So if you haven't read that, I strongly recommend you do unless you're the type of person who enjoys not having a clue what's going on. Also, unlike "I Will Not Go Quietly", this fic is separated into separate parts because it's much longer.

Other than that, enjoy and feedback is more than welcome.

Part 1

Amy stirred awake, the mid-morning sunlight drifting in through the open window above the bed hitting the clean white sheets, blinding her temporarily. She pressed her eyes shut tightly, snuggling down deeper into the sheets and the arms wrapped tightly around her waist, just above where all sense and feeling stopped. As she lay within his warm, strong arms, she couldn't help but feel that strong sense of sadness as her mind drifted back for the trillionth time to the way things used to be. To a time she tentatively thought of as the "good old days". Back when she could still be out there in the field with her colleagues, solving crimes as the strong and unstoppable Amy Fox, not stuck in this mess of a life, stuck in that bloody chair.

Using her arms to roll over gently – taking all care possible to make sure that she didn't wake him – she turned over in the bed to face the chair sitting just within arm's reach, taunting her unpleasantly. She didn't resent it as much as she had the day that everyone had stopped arsing around and finally told her how serious her injury had been. But it was impossible to look at it without feeling even the slightest pang of bitterness at the thought of "why me". She'd long lost count of the number of times she'd asked herself that question, each time desperately seeking an answer that she just didn't have. And she'd probably never have.

She could feel him stir behind her, raising his sleepy head from the pillows and running tender lips along her cheekbone, the small whiskers on his chin tickling her soft skin. Even with the thoughts of anger and resentment rolling around her head, she couldn't help but smile. He had that effect on her.

He was too good for her. He had always been beside her, from that very moment she had opened her sleepy eyes as the anaesthetic wore off to find him holding her hand in his with a tightness that told her instantly that he'd never be letting go. During those agonising months, she'd physically felt their relationship deepen. He'd had far more depth than she ever could have guessed from the senseless, immature cowboy she had first met. But even then, he had been doggedly loyal, an attribute she admired in him.

She had never liked feeling too dependant on anyone. If you counted on someone too much, it was too easy to be let down. Perhaps that had been why she'd never been able to become too close to PJ. But Evan had never made it feel like she was dependant on him at all. In this bedroom and in their office, they were equals with strengths and weaknesses that they could only try their best to deal with. The bloody chair was just happened to be hers.

"Morning," he grumbled in that half-asleep way he always greeted her as he awoke, pulling her protectively closer to his chest. These were their moments, tender, sweet morning moments when the world was theirs and theirs alone.

Beyond the open window and the flowing white curtain, she could hear the birds chiming their morning song. Before the shooting, she didn't think she'd ever stopped to listen to the birds. It was something that had always been lost in her list of priorities, along with things like watching the sunset or enjoying morning hours in the arms of her lover. These days, it seemed that those little things were the most important things.

"Morning," she replied quietly, gently using her arms to roll back to face him, tearing her gaze away from the wheelchair. Their eyes met and their lips connected as they sank back into the bed, their bodies close underneath the white sheets that separated them from the rest of the world. He ran a hand back through her silky brown hair, holding her closer to him. His precious Amy.

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The ear-splitting screech of the alarm clock causing Alex to near leap from his bed in horror, his eyes wide as he stared around the small, empty room as his heart raced unpleasantly in his chest. The alarm clock had been a poorly-chosen birthday present from Tom Croydon just months ago, a very unsubtle hint that he needed to be on time. He'd never say it, but he hated the bloody thing more than he could remember ever hating an inanimate object before.

8am. Still early. Or, at least, still early by Alex Kirby standards. Just by the rush within his body created by the untimely screeching of his alarm clock, he could tell that he could never return to sleep now. He climbed from the bed, kicking his legs free from the old checked blankets and approached the window, lifting the blind tentatively to stare out at the abandoned country road beyond. The woman across the road was out in her front garden, tending to her roses with a sort of love and care that he failed to understand.

The sky was clear, a bright blue dotted by the occasional fluffy cloud. The sight brought a smile to his face as his eyes sparkled. It was a nice day, the kind that he would usually drag Rory outside to toss the old footy around on. He hadn't done that in a while and he didn't really know why. Maybe it was because he just wasn't nine years old anymore. He was eleven, nearly twelve. Maybe life was different for eleven and twelve year olds these days.

He gave a yawn, passing a hand across his eyes as he let the blind hang again, blocking out the gardening neighbour across the road and dismissing the thoughts of Rory growing up from his mind. Crossing the room to his old, near falling-down wardrobe to pull on his uniform, he made a mental note to take his son down to the park that afternoon and toss the good old footy around. Even if it was only a useless gesture, at the very least, it would give him some sense of normality, something he was lacking especially now that Evan had moved out.

Evan had packed his suitcases and moved out not long after Amy had been released from hospital, constantly justifying his reasons for leaving despite Alex's assurances that none were needed. He and Tom had long worked out just what was going on between Amy and Evan and he had to say, he was all for it. Amy needed someone to look out for her these days and she was good for Evan. She gave him that responsibility and warm kindness Alex had almost forgotten Evan was capable of. Anyway, it was good to see the guy smile again. He'd been angry and unstable for so long, to see him happy was one of the most beautiful sights Alex had seen in a long time.

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Tired blue eyes opened, meeting the ceiling above him wearily. Staring absentmindedly at the roof as he slowly awoke, he couldn't help but notice how horrible it looked. It probably hadn't gotten a decent paint job since Anna and Susan were just little girls playing in the backyard with their Barbie dolls and tea sets. Nell had always pestered him to give the house a good paint, but he'd always found a reason why not to. Work, drinks, the sheer effort of having to paint the damn thing. Then she'd died and he'd just forgotten about it. The ceiling had faded away on the to-do list until it just wasn't there anymore.

Tom added painting the house to the mental list of things to do if he ever went insane and pulled himself upright, looking over the empty bedspace beside him. It was mornings like these that made him miss Nell and Grace more than he ever had. He so desperately missed waking up to wrap his arms around her, enjoying nothing more than the amazingly fulfilling feeling of the woman he loved in his arms. As he patted the empty space forlornly, he couldn't help but wonder about where they were now. His Nell and his Grace. He wasn't a religious man – he couldn't go back to there, he just couldn't when he didn't believe any of it anymore – but he hoped that wherever they were, they were safe. And they were happy. His girls.

The more his mind drifted to Nell and Grace, the more he wondered about Anna and Susan. With Amy's shooting and the whole Adam Cooper debacle, he'd never gotten back to them about that family reunion until he'd picked up the phone, only to realise it was too late and they probably only hated him more than ever. So many times he had stared at the phone, his whole body debating whether or not to just ring them and get the whole thing over with. And Amy reminding him about it regularly only ever seemed to make him think more about it, especially these days.

He knew he wasn't getting any younger. He was pushing sixty now and was hardly the fittest man on the planet. Even though the cancer was gone and had been gone for months, he still didn't feel quite right. There was just something that he could feel was wrong. But he couldn't say anything, not with everything going on. Life had certainly settled down again in Mt. Thomas and had even become very comfortable for the four of them left, but whatever he thought was wrong could only be secondary compared to everything else. Anyway, it was probably just his imagination running away with him. They'd all explained that it'd take a while to get back to feeling well again; he couldn't expect to feel better as soon as they'd given him the all-clear.

"Bloody hell," he told himself, dragging himself from the bed and to the mirror against the wall of his bedroom. He stared at his reflection, his expression becoming one of resolve as the date on the calendar hanging nearby caught his eye. It had been about a year since that day – the day that they'd nearly lost their station, that Amy had been shot and paralysed and that Adam Cooper had taken his own life. He only hoped like hell that no one else had noticed the thing that he had. It was the last thing they needed.

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"Morning," Tom mumbled as he entered the police station, hanging his car keys on the hook and making a beeline for his office. The others watched him go with worried eyes, each noting how he dropped the "good" from the beginning of his greeting. They each noticed how he slammed his office door shut a little more loudly than he really needed to so that the blind rattled against the window for a lingering moment. Even the radio sitting on Alex's desk – tuned to 3SD despite many protests from Alex – seemed to fall quiet at Tom's entrance.

Evan rose an eyebrow, turning to Amy where she was staring beyond him, biting her bottom lip as her hand hovered over a piece of paperwork, the pen poised in her fingers. "He's in a fine mood," he mumbled in a sarcastic voice, his expression becoming one of concern as he noticed the distracted expression on Amy's face. "You want to talk to him?"

She snapped to attention, letting the blue pen drop from her fingertips as she wheeled herself back from the desk and towards the door. "Yeah," she told Evan with a nod, her eyes now fixed on the heart-wrenching sight of Tom sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. "I think I might. See what's eating him today, you know."

He nodded, rising to his feet and bending down to steal a brief kiss. It lasted for barely a second, but it was more than enough for the pair. Neither of them really knew why they tried to keep their relationship secret, even when Tom and Alex had long worked out what their true bond was. But even if they were just trying to keep their relationship secret for no real reason, it made it feel just that bit more exclusive.

"Let me know," Evan told her quietly, running the back of his hand along her cheek as he took in the beautiful woman before him. She nodded as she wheeled away, glancing back over her shoulder.

"Of course," she told him with as close to a flirtatious smile as Amy Fox would ever be able to manage. "That's what pillow talk is for, isn't it?"

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The time between when the knock sounded at the door and when it opened to reveal Amy Fox wheeling herself through was so short that Tom didn't have a hope in hell of ever telling her to go away. Though he doubted that he'd ever have told her that anyway, perhaps it was just the wheelchair, but he knew he felt very uneasy sometimes when he spoke to Amy. As if he had to tiptoe carefully around her. The only thing about the whole situation that even brought the slightest smile to his face was how it had brought Amy and Evan together. That and the fact that Amy was coping with it far better than he could have imagined.

He buried his head in his hand, combing short grey hair back through his fingers. "What do you want?" he snapped, in a colder voice than he ever would have consciously used towards Amy. Especially when she was staring at him with that worried and concerned expression on her face – the one that had finally convinced him to seek medical help after that poor kid had been killed. Francis Sullivan. God, he could still remember the poor bugger's name.

Amy was taken aback ever so slightly by Tom Croydon's tone, her brow furrowing even further as she pulled herself to a stop in front of his desk, leaning across it and lowering her voice, just in case Alex or, God forbid, Evan decided to eavesdrop. "There's something wrong," she told him, her eyes shining as she braced herself on his desk and shifted her position in the wheelchair. "I know what time of year it is."

Tom gave an inaudible mumble and stared at Amy sadly through the fingers of the hand that he had buried his head in, suddenly quite a bit older than his age. "I just wonder why we bother sometimes," he explained in a weak and weary voice that showed all the strain of his failing health and the stress of the last few years. "The harder we try, the harder we fall."

Her eyes misted over with hot and painful tears as she looked her old Boss, one of the pillars of strength she had come to lean on in recent months. She began shaking her head as her expression became one of disbelief. "But I thought it was about taking the hits," she whispered. "Standing up again."

He sighed, looking away as he closed his eyes tightly behind the darkness and cover of his hand. He always felt somewhat exposed before Amy Fox. She was a good detective and was good at getting inside people's heads. She seemed to instinctively know when something was wrong and now was no exception. She was too good a copper and a person to be wasted on that damn chair.

He finally gave a pitiful excuse for a laugh and looked up to her, trying to mask the pain beneath a façade of brightness. "Don't worry, Amy," he assured her weakly, "I was just thinking about Nell and Grace this morning. I didn't get much sleep last night, there's nothing to worry about."

"Tom…" Amy sighed, her eyes still shimmering as she sat back in her chair, gripping at the wheels. She couldn't help but worry about him when he got like this. It didn't happen often – it seemed that once he had been demoted and she started to recover, Tom regained whatever will to live he had lost when he had pulled Grace's body from that dirty creeks all those years ago – but it did still happen. "I think there's something wrong with you."

A forced smile spread across his face and he let a false laugh escape his lips as his head hung back. "Not this again, surely."

"Yes, 'this again'." Amy told him, her expression suddenly becoming quite hard and stern. "You're like my father, Tom," she admitted, her voice softening as she spoke. "And if you think I'm letting you do this to yourself again, you've got another think coming."

Leaving those words echoing in the frighteningly empty office and station, Amy left, leaving the door hanging open as she returned to the office she and Evan shared, separated from his by the ghost town of a muster room. Tom rose slowly to his feet, rubbing at his chest in an instinct he didn't quite understand as he watched Amy and Evan speaking – Amy no doubt relaying the recent conversation to Evan.

His heart gave a sickening lurch in his chest, one that sent shivers of panic through his whole body that he could only thank his lucky stars that nobody had seen. The horrible feeling passed almost as quickly as it came, but he knew it had happened. And as much as he wanted to deny it, force it as far away from him as he could, he knew that Amy was right. Something was desperately wrong.