A/N: I own neither Ashes to Ashes nor Doctor Who.
Hello, everyone - I'm so sorry for the long silence. As Katie Duggan's Niece would put it, I've been having the year from Keats, and the resultant depression has stopped me being able to write for some time. I'm trying to get myself out of it now, and this oneshot is the first fruit of my new endeavours. If things continue to go well, I hope to start reading and reviewing other peoples' stories again (yours first, KDN!) and to resume my two interrupted stories.
Thank you so much to KDN for your support during this dark time, and to everyone who's continued to read my stories during my absence from the fanfic scene. It is so much appreciated.
This oneshot is unashamedly inspired by a recent rewatching of the Tenth Doctor's farewell to his companions in "The End of Time" Part 2. I'm not a big Who watcher (though I do date back to the days of William Hartnell and hid behind the sofa when the first Daleks trundled onto our screens - I was VERY young at the time), but of course I watched that episode on John Simm's account! Whovians should spot how I've followed and adapted the content of that heartbreaking sequence, hopefully those who don't know it will not be discommoded.
With hindsight following the end of S3, Gene does share some similarities with the Doctor, in that they are both fated to be alone and to lose everyone they love. The difference being that Gene can choose to go to the pub, which the Doctor can't...
This story would have taken a lot longer to write without the help of Chrissie's Transcripts Site, which contains currently contains transcripts of every Doctor Who episode from the "An Unearthly Child" in 1963 up to "Closing Time" in 2011. The rest will surely follow soon.
Reviews would be like water in the desert to me! Please!
Jackson Lake: Tell me one thing. All those facts and figures I saw of the Doctor's life, you were never alone. All those bright and shining companions. But not any more?
Doctor: No.
Lake: Might I ask why not?
Doctor: They leave. Because they should. Or they find someone else. And some of them, some of them - forget me. I suppose, in the end… they break my heart.
From "The Next Doctor"- Russell T Davies
Gene stood outside the Railway Arms as Nelson escorted his latest charge, DI Don Southcott, into the pub. Southcott passed through the door, and for a moment his silhouette was visible before it was swallowed up by the blinding white light. Just like... but Gene would not allow himself to think about the last person he had seen disappear through that door.
He knew that the pub was only a portal to bigger and better things. On the other side of that door, his charges got their reward for passing the tests they had undergone in his world. Most took the opportunity to enter a simile of their own world, to live the lives that they would have had, if they had not died. It was their own Heaven. Then, their rewards claimed, they would settle down as regulars in the great boozer at the end of the universe. He wondered idly what that paper-shuffling little twonk Southcott's idea of Heaven was. Probably a public library.
He wondered what they were doing now. That wondrous quartet he had sent through the door so recently, and yet so long ago. What she was doing.
Nelson emerged from the pub. "Still here, mon brave?"
Gene stirred. "Just off. Keep an eye on young Southcott. He'll be ironing the newspapers an' organising bar rotas if you give 'im the chance." He hesitated. "How are the last four I sent you?"
Nelson grinned broadly. "All still out on their travels."
Gene shrugged. "Thought as much. Might 'ave to keep their pints on the bar a bit longer, eh? Along with mine."
Nelson looked uneasy. "Well, as to that, Mr Hunt, I've got a letter here for you. From the Landlord." He drew an envelope from his jeans pocket.
"Eh?" Gene took it, slit it with his thumb, extracted a sheet of paper, unfolded it, and read the words on it with growing disbelief. The letters danced before his eyes. Dear DCI Hunt... In consideration of your long and faithful service...
"Bloody 'ell! They're retiring me! This letter's a bloody celestial P45!" He looked up, and saw that Nelson looked decidedly sheepish. "An' you knew about this, you pint-pulling bastard!"
Nelson shrugged. "Got to come at some time, mon brave. You know that as well as I do."
"An' who the 'ell's going to keep Fenchurch East in order, if I run off to the boozer?"
"New arrival. Comes with good credentials, so I'm told. Name of Morse."
Gene scowled. "I am not giving my office to a signalling expert!"
"Come on, now, Mr Hunt, mon brave. Your pint's waiting for you. And I've got the biggest selection of single malts you ever did see."
Gene stood, gazing around at the world that he had ruled so long, where he had saved so many souls from the forces of darkness.
"I can't go in there!" Even as he spoke, he flinched as he remembered who had said those words to him, standing in the same place, pleading to stay with him.
"Yes, you can." There was no sense of Nelson flinging his words back at him, yet he shuddered at the memory they awakened. "The Landlord has a good reason for wanting you in there. His reasons are always good, you know that. And His will has no why."
"No," Gene admitted bitterly, barely mumbling the syllable.
"You're here to do His bidding, just like all of us, and right now, His bidding is for you to enter the pub. Just like Southcott, just like Sam and Annie and Ray and Chris and Shaz and A - "
"Yeah, yeah." Gene was desperate for Nelson not to name her. For the first time, he sensed the despair she must have felt when he ordered her through the door. It might be the door to Paradise, but to him it loomed, lowering and menacing in the darkness of the night. It frightened him. It would take him away from the place where he wanted to be.
"I don't want to go." The words slipped unwillingly from his lips, and once he had said them, he wished that he had not, but they could not be recalled.
Nelson tactfully ignored him. "Going to get your reward, mon brave?"
His jaw hardened. "Yes. Yes, I am."
Nelson's hand was on the door handle. "Back to 1953? Chance to floor that bastard with the shotgun, work your way up in the world to DCI, maybe beyond?"
Gene was sorely tempted. But he had lived that life already, here in his own world, on his own terms. Would living it again be any better? Would he know that he had escaped the shallow grave? Would it all be worthwhile, living it without his friends? Would it mean forgetting them? Since she had gone, he had forced himself to remember. It hurt like buggery, but the prospect of forgetting her, them, of living in a world where he had forgotten that she, they, had ever existed, was worse still. It was an emptiness greater than he dared to contemplate.
"Will I forget - them?"
There was no need for him to say who they were. Nelson understood. Gene did not want to have to ask the question, to expose his weakness. But the risk of losing his precious memories was too great.
"No, mon brave, you'd remember them. But they wouldn't know you, of course. You'd be coming into their lives before they died."
That's right. If I go back to '53, none of them will have been born yet. By the time Bolly's grown up, I'd be an old man and she wouldn't look twice at me. None of them would know me. There would be other friends and comrades, he knew that, but the thought of shadowy unknowns replacing those whom he had known and loved so well, was like a physical pain. There was something else that he wanted more.
"Want to see how they're doing now."
It would be his way of saying goodbye to the life he had loved and the people who had made him love it, before his spirit succumbed.
Nelson grinned. "Nothing easier. But I've got to warn you, Mr Hunt. What people wish for as their reward doesn't always turn out to be what they wanted."
More of his gnomic utterances, sod him. Gene resolved to sort out that particular puzzle later.
"Shall we go in, then?" Gene strove to appear nonchalant, though he felt anything but.
"No need. Your car'll take you everywhere you need to go, and bring you back here when you're done."
"My car?" Gene turned to look at his hated bottle-green Mercedes. God, how he'd always loathed that motor. Bloody diesel monster. But before his eyes, it shimmered and changed into his beloved red Quattro. It even had the same, well-remembered number plate, JLY751V. Well, maybe good cars get to Heaven, too. He greeted it like an old friend, permitting himself a brief pat on the bonnet before he got in and fired it up. Nelson slammed the door and waved him off.
"See you soon, mon brave!"
The powerful engine roared into life. Gene gripped the steering wheel and luxuriated in the car's smooth, swift motion. Now, this really was like Heaven. The scenery outside the windows moved faster and faster, and blurred until he could not see them at all...
-oO0Oo-
DCI Ray Carling dashed down the alleyway, trusty Browning automatic in hand, dodging the bullets spraying all around him. Reaching an intersection, he slid behind a wall to catch his breath, and reached into his jacket pocket for his radio.
Empty.
Shit.
He risked peering out, ducking as another bullet whizzed past his ear, and saw the smashed remains of his radio lying on the path. He realised, with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, that it must have fallen from his pocket during his mad dash to shelter.
Bugger.
He slipped back into the lee of the wall to consider his options. They weren't good. God knew how long it would take the team to find him in the middle of the Five Mile Estate without radio contact. It wasn't known as the Manc Maze for nothing, which was why Sonny Tarran had made it his territory. The others had all urged him to wait. Sonny had to emerge from his den at some time. But Ray had refused to give that bloody drug dealer any more chances to destroy lives. He had gone in to challenge Sonny on his own ground, and now he was paying the price. The bastard had lived on the estate all his life, and knew every twist and turn of its tortuous passageways like the back of his hand. Now he'd found some cosy little eyrie on a walkway and was using Ray for target practice.
Now, if I could get over there and down to the car park, then he won't know I'm here...
A gunshot rang out on the first floor walkway facing him. Not Sonny's shotgun, a deeper, richer sound which Ray would have known anywhere. He gasped and looked up, just in time to see Sonny, on the walkway, straighten up, drop his gun, and fall. A few paces away from him, a tall, fair-haired man stood, his gun upraised, the muzzle still smoking. His black coat folded about him like an angel's wings.
"Guv?"
Ray dropped to his knees, all strength gone from him. The fair-haired man turned towards him, his face as grim and set as ever.
"Guv?"
The fair-haired man raised his hand in farewell, turned, and walked away.
Ray tried to scramble to his feet. "Guv! Wait!" He stumbled, and suddenly his team were around him, supporting him.
"Steady on, Guv!" DI Luke Murray, big and capable, threw an arm around his shoulder and helped him to stand. "You all right? We heard the shots, but we couldn't get you on the radio."
"No wonder." DC Kelly Jackson, a petite, pretty blonde, retrieved the mangled remains of Ray's radio from the footpath. "Out of contact, and in a place like this, too!"
"Tarran's up here," DS Vincenzo Montenecchi called out from the walkway. "He's dead. Bullet in the head."
"Wow! That was a good shot, Guv, getting him up there, and at that distance," Luke said admiringly. Ray continued to stare at the walkway. "Er - Guv?"
"That wasn't me." Ray had found his voice at last. "That was the Guv."
"But you're our Guv." Luke was understandably puzzled.
"No." Ray still gazed adoringly at the empty walkway. "He is, and always will be, the Guv."
-oO0Oo-
Fourteen-year-old Alex Price happily strolled home from school. She was glad to know that Evan trusted her to come home, let herself into the house, and start supper going. It was just like him to be stuck at some boring meeting again, but she was shrewd enough to guess that this was all part of a ploy on his part to encourage her to become independent. She knew that, in the months and years following her parents' deaths, she had been terribly clingy, constantly terrified that anyone she dared to love might be obliterated in a ball of flame and smoke. It had taken time and patience from all those around her, but she had gradually grown out of that, although she still suffered regularly from nightmares about that awful day. But at last she could believe that she could live past that horror and live her own life. Getting used to coming home from school on her own was a small but significant step in that direction.
"Hey, Alex!"
She was startled out of her reverie to see a girl of around her own age waving to her from across the road.
"Charlotte!"
She dived across the road and hugged her friend. She had always felt a strong bond of sympathy with Charlotte Pattison, who, like herself, had suffered terribly as the result of a bomb blast, and who, like her, had been protected by the Gene Genie. But at least Charlotte still had her father, and their bomber had been caught. The person who killed Alex's parents had never been caught, which was why Alex now dreamed of becoming a police officer. Some day, when she had grown up, she would find the man who had killed her parents, and she would arrest him.
"Great to see you! Long time no see. Sorry, did I hurt you?" She knew that some of Charlotte's injuries from the bomb blast still troubled her.
"No, thanks, I'm fine. How're you doing?"
"Oh, all right. Got some horrible exams coming up soon. Where've you been? I haven't seen you in months."
Charlotte smiled. "That's because Daddy took me to a special plastic surgeon in America three months ago. Result, no more facial scars and a much more beautiful me. There's still some post-operative scarring, but he says that'll go soon. He's fixed the scar on my leg, too. I'll be able to wear a swimsuit next year."
Alex looked properly at Charlotte's face for the first time. "Yeah, you look much better. Oh, I'm so glad for you. Congratulations!"
Charlotte looked at her watch. "Sorry, I've got to go. I've got a violin lesson in five minutes. Why don't you come to tea on Sunday? I'll bend Daddy round my little finger."
"Great! I'll have a word with Evan."
"He won't mind?"
"No, he'll be pleased, I know he will. See you!"
"Right! Sorry, got to run, or Professor Fiorentino'll kill me!"
Charlotte raced off, stopping at the street corner to wave to Alex before hurtling away. Alex waved back, turned away, ran across the road -
- and was pulled to safety as a lorry scorched past, burning the tarmac where she had been. Strong arms held her, and her face was buried in a warm, soft woollen overcoat. She knew the smell of that wool. The mixture of old fags, old Scotch and Old Spice was like Heaven to her. She looked up into a stern face and a pair of sea-bright blue eyes.
"But it's you... You're..."
Without a word, he deposited her on the pavement and walked away to his car. The same gleaming red car which had taken her away from a scene of horror on the worst day of her life.
At that moment, Evan's car pulled up outside their house and he got out. She ran to him.
"Evan! Evan!"
He took her by the shoulders, steadying her. "What? What is it?"
"It's him! It's the Gene Genie!"
He followed her gaze, just in time to see Gene wave to them once before he got into the Quattro and drove away.
Alex began to cry, and Evan pulled her to him, hiding her face in his shoulder as he watched the car go.
"Thank you, Hunt," he whispered. "Thank you for everything."
-oO0Oo-
The bells in the little country church rang out a wedding peal as the guests poured forth, followed by the best man, the bridesmaids, and eventually the bride and groom, laughing as they were instantly engulfed in a blizzard of confetti. The bridegroom, looking dazed at having won his girl at last, pushed a lock of gold-highlighted hair away from his eyes. The bride, ever more practical, started organising everyone into place for the photographs. It all made a very happy picture.
"Three cheers for the bride and groom!" someone called out. "Let's hear it for Shaz and Chris! Hip, hip - "
"Hooray!" everyone chorussed.
"Hip, hip - "
"HOORAY!"
"Oh, come on, that isn't loud enough! All together now, hip, hip - "
"HOOORAAAY!" This time, the decibel level of the cheering rivalled the bells.
The man in the black coat standing outside the lych-gate permitted himself a smile as he watched the scene. He might have known that wherever those two went, they would go together. One or other of them must have given up the chance of returning to a simile of their own time, otherwise Chris, killed seventeen years before Shaz, would have been middle-aged while she was still young. He guessed that Chris must have made the sacrifice, so that Shaz could be with her family. The chance of a life with her was his reward.
"Hello. Who are you?"
Gene looked a long way down to see a small, fair-haired girl in a bridesmaid's dress looking up at him with an inquisitive gaze. He crouched down to her level.
"I used to know the bride an' groom. Long time ago."
"Why don't you come in and see them, then?"
"Afraid I can't stop. Look, sweetheart, would you do something for me?"
"Yes?" she said eagerly.
He took an envelope from his pocket and held it out to her. "Give that to them for me, will you? Say it's a wedding present."
She took it and darted away into the throng. A minute later, Chris and Shaz were interrupted in a conversation with Shaz's mother when a crumpled envelope was thrust in the general direction of Chris's waistcoat.
"Hello, Jilly, love. What've you got there?"
"It's a wedding present," Jilly said importantly. Chris took it, opened it, and showed the contents to Shaz, who burst out laughing.
"A lottery ticket?"
Chris rubbed his nose. "Bit of a cheap present, innit?"
"You never know." Shaz took it and tucked it into her bodice. "It's a triple rollover this week. We might get lucky."
Chris looked down to Jilly. "Who gave you this?"
"The man over there." Jilly pointed to the lych-gate. Chris and Shaz both cried out as they saw the still, silent figure in black.
"Guv! Come in!" Chris took a step towards him. Gene waved once, then turned and walked away. Beyond him, they saw the Quattro waiting for its master. Chris would have followed, but Shaz gently held him back.
"No, Chris. He's saying goodbye."
Chris crumpled with disappointment. "He doesn't want us with him."
A single tear rolled down Shaz's cheek. "Not now. But we both know that we'll meet him again. Some day." Her tone changed, and she became brisk and professional. "And in the meantime, we've got all these guests out here and the soup'll be getting cold at the hotel. Care to start exercising your crowd control skills, DS Skelton?"
Chris pulled himself together with an effort, and saluted smartly. "Roger that, DC Granger."
"Skelton," she corrected him.
"Oh, yeah. Of course."
-oO0Oo-
In a smart bookshop, a young woman aged about thirty, with long, fairish hair and a birthmark on her cheek, sat at a table, signing copies of an imposing hardback book. A colourful banner beside her carried a reproduction of the cover: The World Within the Mind, by Alex and Molly Drake.
An elderly gentleman approached the table. "Is this a story?"
Molly shook her head. "No, it's not just a story, no. Every word of it's true. Or it is for my mother. She was kidnapped and shot in the head, and she was in a coma for years, and when she woke up, she told me all about the adventures she'd been having in her mind while she was unconscious. She met these wonderful people, and worked with them for years, and she fell in love with their leader. A man from beyond the stars. And we wrote it all down, and I edited it for her. She described them so accurately that an artist drew pictures of them. Look, that's him on the cover." She pulled a copy of the book forward. "She says that it's a good likeness."
"Thank you. I'll take it." She signed the book, handed it to him, and picked up another.
"And who's it for?" she asked the next person in the queue, without looking up.
"To Gene." The voice was gruff with suppressed emotion.
"To Jean - " She began to write.
"No, love. Gene with a G."
"Oh, I'm sorry, I've spoiled it." She put it aside, took another, and began to write. "To Gene. Funny, that was his name." She closed the book, handed it to him, and looked up. Their eyes met. She looked down at the picture on the cover, then up at him.
"You!" Her lips moved without sound.
He nodded, unable to speak for a moment. "Is she happy?"
Molly shook her head and glanced to her left. Gene followed her gaze. A woman, huddled in a wheelchair, prematurely old, her hair streaked with grey, her face lined, was being pushed slowly towards them by two medical orderlies. A drip feed was attached to her arm, a monitor was wheeled alongside her, and a massive computer, its keyboard controlled by a sensor on the left arm of the wheelchair, was arrayed in front of her.
"Amazing what they can do with computers these days, isn't it?" Molly's voice was harsh. "She's hardly ever allowed out of hospital, there's too much risk of infection, but she wanted so much to be here for the book launch and the signing. Since she came round, she's been paralysed, apart from the little finger on her left hand. She typed everything out with just that. She's been so determined that her story should be told. Their story." She looked at Gene. "Your story?"
Gene nodded, unable to speak. He'd guessed that Alex would choose to be with her daughter. But now he understood, too late, what Nelson had meant. What people wish for as their reward doesn't always turn out to be what they wanted. He gazed helplessly at the wreck before him, desperately trying to recognise a spark that would identify her as his Bolly.
Molly looked around her. "There isn't a queue at the moment. Please, will you come and say something to her? It - it might help her." She was trying not to cry. Gene nodded, his jaw set against the tide of emotion threatening to overwhelm him, and followed her over to the chair.
Molly crouched beside her mother and took a limp hand in hers. "The launch went down a treat, Mum. Interviewers and photographers from at least four of the daily papers and the Times Literary Supplement. And I must have signed over two hundred books already." Her voice was falsely cheerful. "And there's someone here who'd like to meet you."
Alex's eyes rolled up and met Gene's, and her already pale face lost every scrap of its colour. He could see the unspoken question in her eyes. Tears rolled helplessly down her cheeks, and a medical orderly moved in to wipe them away.
Feeling as though a walnut in his throat was choking him, Gene crouched in front of her and took her other hand. "Bols, don't cry. That's an order."
Through the tears, the still-bright hazel eyes lit up as though someone had switched on a bulb inside her, and a most beautiful smile spread across her face. He recognised her at last.
"I'm afraid that will have to be all for today," the other orderly said with antiseptic briskness. "Too much emotion's bad for her. Her heart rate's rising fast. Any more and it'll be at danger level." He made to turn the wheelchair around, and Alex made a desperate, animal sound. He paused.
Gene managed a grim smile. "See you around, Bolly Kecks." He rose, bent over her, and lightly kissed her dry, wrinkled lips, heedless of the orderly's expostulations.
"Sir, I'm afraid I can't allow that, God knows what infections you might be carrying - "
Gene reared up and faced him eye to eye. "Listen up, Doctor Kildare. This lady and I 'ave known each other for a very long time, and on 'er behalf I have a profound piece of medical advice for you. Get a brain transplant."
Alex smiled again, more faintly this time, as she suffered the orderlies to wheel her away. Showing a modicum of sensitivity, they backed the wheelchair out down a corridor, so that she could continue to see Gene for as long as possible. He stood with Molly beside him, watching with almost unbearable intensity until the chair was backed around a corner and out of sight.
"See you around." Molly's voice was very low. "That was the last thing you said to her, wasn't it?"
"Yes. Yes, it was."
"I don't know how you come to be here, and I won't ask, but thank you. Thank you a thousand times."
"What for? I made 'er cry."
"You've made her happy. It's the first time since she came round from the coma that I've seen her smile."
A loud bleeping sounded from the direction in which Alex had been taken. Molly reacted instantly. "That's the alarm on Mum's heart monitor!" Almost as soon as she had spoken, the bleeping was replaced by a high-pitched whine.
One of the orderlies came thundering towards them. "Miss Drake, you must come at once! Your mother - "
Molly stood stupefied. Gene pushed her in the back, roaring, "Go!", and she raced off down the corridor, leaving him standing alone, tears running unheeded down his face.
"See you around, Bolly Kecks," he repeated softly.
-oO0Oo-
In a Manchester street, late at night, a young man walked along in the falling snow while he remonstrated with his girlfriend over his mobile phone.
"Yes, Maya, I know I'm late, and yes, I'm sorry I missed it. Sorry, but I was on duty, even if you weren't." He held the phone slightly away from his ear to minimise the effect of her response before continuing, "We were about to end the shift when we had a call-out. Fight at a New Year's party at a pub in Deansgate got out of hand, and a 22-year-old male was stabbed in the street outside. We turned out and arrested the prime suspect, only to find he'd been drinking in the pub before a dozen witnesses at the time of the assault. Meant we had to take everyone in the pub and in the street outside back to the station and interview them." Another pause for feminine remonstrance. "No, it looks like the assailant might have not have been connected to the party at all. A random mugging. We're hoping to be able to interview the victim tomorrow to get an ID or at least a description, he's out of theatre and the medics say he's doing well... Oh, for God's sake, Maya, I'm sorry about the party, but don't you think a man's life is more important?" A click at the other end finished the conversation
As he pocketed the phone, muttering impatiently to himself, he heard a wrenching sob, followed by another, somewhere to his right. He paused, unsure what to do, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness he realised that someone was standing, almost invisible, in the shadow of an old building. Even though he could barely see the other person, he could somehow sense that they were keeping their face averted.
"Excuse me, are you all right?"
"Fine. Fine. Never better." A man's gruff voice, laced with pain, emerged from the darkness.
"Are you sure?" Sam said gently. "I'm a police officer. Can't I help you?"
"Are you? I'm a copper myself. Having bird trouble, are you? Heard you talking." Gene wondered if the odd device Sam had been using was anything like Southcott's much-lamented iPhone.
"Yes." Sam smiled ruefully. "I'm in the doghouse with my girlfriend. I missed her New Year party because I had to attend to an incident. I'd have thought that she of all people would understand. She's a police officer too."
"Take it from me, birds are more trouble than they're worth." A hand emerged from the darkness, holding out a hip flask to Sam, who shook his head.
"Thanks, but I'd better not. I'll need a clear head to face Maya when I get home. I hope you haven't had too much to drink?"
"No." In Gene's view, there was no such definition as too much to drink.
"Maybe it's time you went home," Sam suggested tactfully.
"Yeah."
Sam grinned. "Anyway, Happy New Year."
"And you." Sam turned and started to walk away. Gene called after him, "What year is this?"
Sam turned back. "Good Lord, how much have you had?" Gene shrugged, unseen. "2006, January the first." He spoke almost as though he were addressing a child.
"2006?" Gene made a quick mental calculation. The year Sam came to me. And to Annie. He smiled sardonically. "Tell you what. I bet you're going to have a really great year."
"Yeah?" Sam grinned. "See you." He strolled away down the street, leaving Gene watching after him.
"Sooner than you think, Sammy-boy," he murmured as he walked back to the Quattro. "Sooner than you think."
-oO0Oo-
Alex sat up in bed with a gasp, then relaxed as she took in her familiar surroundings, the red duvet, the mirrors around her bed, the digital alarm clock.
I'm still in the 1980s. So was it all a dream? Finding Gene's body at Farringfield Green, Keats, being pushed into the Railway Arms, going back to Molly, spending years paralysed in a wheelchair, seeing Gene again at the book launch, that pain in my heart...
She shook her head, realising how muzzy she still felt. Surely she had never slept for so long, or so deeply. A dream it might have been, but she felt totally unused to being able to move, or even to be able to breathe unaided. It was as though she really had spent years in a wheelchair. She felt as weak as a kitten.
Very slowly and cautiously, she levered herself out of bed, swung her legs round, and sat on the edge. She looked down at her pyjama-clad legs as though she had never seen them before, placed her hands firmly on the mattress, and tried to rise.
She could stand.
She could walk.
She did not know whether to rejoice or grieve. Her parting from Gene and her hellish existence trapped by paralysis were no more than a hideous nightmare, but it meant that she was still stuck in 1983, no nearer to getting home to Molly. Her little girl was still waiting for her.
More immediately, it meant that she must be horribly overdue at the station. She felt as though she had slept for days. It was strange that Gene hadn't phoned up to blast her into orbit for being late. Without further ado, she pulled off her pyjamas, showered, dressed, made up and did her hair, swallowed orange juice, muesli, milk and toast, dumped the dirty crockery in the sink, and made her bed. She was just about to grab her jacket and race out of the door, when the throb of the music from downstairs intruded upon her consciousness for the first time.
"Is there life on MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRS..."
That was strange. She had never known Luigi to play Bowie before. And why was the restaurant open at this time in the morning?
Just a minute...
Oh, shit.
With a sinking heart, she realised that she was most unlikely to see Luigi's when she went downstairs.
But in that case, how much of what I remember about going back to Molly was real, and how much a dream?
Her copper's instinct told her that there was only one way to find out. Reluctantly, dreading what she might see, she let herself out of the sanctuary of her flat. The corridor outside looked just the same as usual, except that its length was infinite. Door after door on either side was stretched out before her. She was quite literally looking further than the eye could see.
Not Luigi's, then. Although it does its best to look like it. Maybe other people here see a corridor from a place that they know.
She went slowly down the stairs, and turned at the bottom of the flight, not into a low-ceilinged, cosy restaurant with cheesy decor, but into a respectable-looking pub, all polished mahogany and gleaming brass. She did not need the shabby tariff list above the bar to tell her that she was in The Railway Arm . The S was missing. Sam had told her about that.
She looked vainly for anyone she knew. Where was Ray? Where were Chris and Shaz? She thought that she saw a sinister dark overcoat and a hawk-like profile on the other side of the bar - so Summers got here, because he died in Gene's arms - and she glimpsed Mac amid a group of smartly suited Supers, but otherwise there was not a soul she knew.
"Alex!" The voice speaking her name made her jump. She turned around to see a face she knew well, although she had never met its owner before.
"Sam! Sam Tyler!"
"Glad you can join us at last." He gripped her hand warmly.
She looked around her distractedly. "But where is everybody?"
"Ray and Chris and Shaz will be with us soon. They've got unfinished business. Nelson's outside seeing in another new recruit. He thought you might come down while he was out, so he asked me to explain everything to you." He gently took her arm and led her over to a table where a vivacious brunette sat. "This is Annie."
Annie rose and shook her hand. "Welcome to the pub, Alex. It's a pleasure to meet you."
Sam placed a glass on the table. "Nelson left this on the bar for you. Sauvignon Blanc from the South Island of New Zealand. He says that it'll be chilled by just the right amount." He gently drew Alex into a chair and placed the glass in front of her. "Sorry, I know how confused you must feel. I know how I felt, when I first arrived."
Ignoring the wine, Alex turned to Sam. "I don't understand. Gene sent me in here. But as soon as I opened the door, I saw a bright white light, and then I was back home with my daughter. I stayed there for years. I was paralysed, but at least I could be with her. Then one day I saw Gene again, and then I felt a terrible pain in my heart, and I woke up in my flat above Luigi's. So what's going on? Was my going home all a dream?"
"No, it wasn't a dream." Sam looked very serious. "When you pass through the door, you get the chance to have the life you would have had, if you hadn't died."
"So I really went back?"
"No, it was a construct world. I think you know that term rather well. It showed you what your life would have been like."
Alex bowed her head. "So I did die. Molly has to grow up without me. But if I'd lived, I'd have ruined her life." She looked up at Sam, tears in her eyes. "She stayed with me through it all. Thank God, she was never my sole carer, we could afford nurses, but her whole existence had to revolve around me. She never complained, not once. But I could see her growing older without having had the chance to be young. She never even had a boyfriend. I knew that I was a burden to her. At least - " she paused as tears threatened to overpower her, then continued, "At least, like this, I know that it's best for her that I died. She has the chance to live her own life. And someday I'll get to know what it is." She wiped her eyes. "She'll be fine. As - as Gene said." She looked at Sam again. "Is that why I was given that chance? So that I can enter Heaven without regret?"
Sam nodded wisely "It might well be. As for the others, I bet Ray's chasing criminals all over his own construct Manchester, and Chris and Shaz are settling down to live happily ever after, just as they should have done all along. Do you know what I did? I chose to have my life over again, up to the time I was hit by the car, to stop myself getting everything wrong and making such a mess of my life." He shook his head. "Big mistake. Everything happened just as it did before. I still let the job take over my life and I still broke up with Maya. Maybe that's why I was allowed to go back and try again. So that I'd have to accept that, however hard you try to change things that have already happened, they won't happen any other way. Sometimes even if they haven't happened already. I'd already found that out in 1973, when I tried to stop my Dad leaving."
"Yes," Alex agreed sadly. "Just as I did when I tried to save my parents in 1981." She sipped her wine gratefully. "But what about my flat? It looks just like my flat above Luigi's."
"Ah, Nelson's very particular about that. He makes sure that every resident's room looks like the place they slept in when they were happiest. Annie and I have a replica of our bedroom in the house we bought in Salford after we got together."
"Well, that clears that up. But what about Gene? I saw him in my construct world, just before I died there. How did he manage to get there? And when will he come here?"
Sam shrugged. "Who knows how or where the Guv can or can't go, if he wants?" He grinned. "You've broken a memory. New Year's Day, 2006 in my construct world. I met someone on my way home. I'd just been having a bust-up with Maya on my mobile, and I heard someone in the shadow of a building telling me I was going to have a great year." He took Annie's hand. "I did, too. It was the year I came to him and to you." He kissed her. "He didn't know which year it was, and he offered me a hip flask. Maybe that was the Guv as well."
"Could be," Annie said thoughtfully. "Keeping an eye on all of us, just as he always did."
Sam put an arm around Alex. "Don't worry. He'll come when he's ready. You know that. Once he knows you're here, maybe you won't have to wait very long."
-oO0Oo-
A red car stopped outside the pub and its occupant got out. He looked shattered. Nelson was still standing in front of the door.
"Did you find what you wanted, mon brave?" he said sympathetically. Gene's glare would have felled a lesser man. "They all OK?"
Gene leaned against the car roof. "Some of 'em are. Ray's a hero, still getting 'imself into trouble. Chris and Shaz 'ave got married, more fool them, but I've fixed it so they won't 'ave to work. Keeps Chris from making any more cock-ups at the Met's expense, anyway. But Sam's makin' all the same mistakes 'e did before, an' Bolly - Bolly - " He could not finish, and buried his face in his arms. Nelson tactfully remained silent until he straightened up again. "Right, that's it. Done. Where's my pint?" He turned to face Nelson, and the Quattro disappeared. He would not be needing it again.
"This way, mon brave. You never know, you might even find someone to drink it with."
Gene's eyes burned into Nelson's. "Drinking companion?"
Nelson held his hands wide. "Drinking companion, every sort of companion. The one you need, mon brave. Just as she needs you. She's waiting."
Gene looked away, gazing at the door. It did not seem so frightening as it was before. What scared him to bits now, was the thought of what he would find behind it. "Right. New balls, please."
"Eh?" For once, Nelson was stumped.
"Because Bolly's going to rip off the pair I've got, for sending 'er in 'ere," Gene said curtly.
"Ah." Nelson stepped back, leaving the pathway clear for Gene. He squared his shoulders, stepped forward, placed his hand on the handle, and opened the door. The warmth and sweetness of the pub flowed forth, with laughter, the chink of glasses, and, inevitably, the strains of "Life on Mars". Gene sighed gently, like Alex before him, as his spirit succumbed, and he strode boldly inside, with Nelson at his heels.
-oO0Oo-
The Guv's entry into the pub was something which those fortunate enough to witness it continued to recount for millennia afterwards. It wasn't just the crash with which he flung the inner door open, which caused several unwary drinkers to drop their glasses, the card school to drop their poker hands, and the dartboard to fall off the wall, forcing a promising tournament to be abandoned. It wasn't the glare he cast around the room, making everyone quake in their boots with the uneasy feeling that they were about to be interviewed in connection with some unknown felony. It wasn't even the round of applause, which began with one man as Tyler leapt to his feet, and grew and grew until the very stars seemed to shake, the sound of millions of pairs of hands, as every copper who had ever passed on saluted the return to Paradise of the greatest copper of them all. Nor even the way they all surged forward like a tidal wave, engulfing him, shaking his hand, clapping him on the back, while the air rang with their shouts. No, it was what happened when he shook himself free at last, grabbed his long-awaited pint from the bar, and walked up to the one person who had not joined in the general stampede, but had stood back, awaiting her moment. A tall, slender, breathtakingly beautiful woman whom none of the regulars, except for Sam and Annie, had seen arriving, and only two of whom had seen before. One of them, a tall man in a black coat, gave a strangled gasp and took a step towards her, but the other held his arm in a grip of steel.
"Don't be a bloody fool," Mac hissed.
"Sorry, Sir," Martin Summers murmured humbly, turned away, and downed his glass of Bushmills in one gulp.
Gene and Alex would not have noticed if a pipe band had marched though the bar. As soon as their eyes met, they seemed to be enclosed in a world which was only the two of them, inside a hermetically sealed bubble which insulated them against the noise and movement all around them. Sam and Annie tactfully turned away.
"Bolly." He set his glass down. Not for Shaz's winning lottery ticket would he have betrayed how nervous he felt.
"Guv." Her eyes were huge, and she looked terribly vulnerable.
"Been, er, been waiting long?"
"I've only just come downstairs, if that's what you mean." She spoke very low. "But before that, yes, I'd been waiting for a long, long time."
Gene could not answer. She dared to risk taking a step towards him.
"Tell me, Gene, when did you see me last?" Suddenly that had become the most important thing of all.
His gaze was so intense that it could have powered a city. "Well, er, I'm glad to see you standing up."
Recognition flashed in her eyes. But it was not enough.
"When, Gene?" She laid her hands on his chest and felt how wildly his heart was beating. "When?"
A single tear rolled down her cheek, and all at once it became easy for him.
"Bols, don't cry. That's an order."
Her face lit up, and her hands stole upwards to cup his face. "It was you…" Before he could think of anything to say, she drew him close and kissed him as softly and gently as she had when she kissed him in farewell outside the pub. But this was a kiss of welcome and of a new beginning. Almost involuntarily, his arms closed around her, and he held her as though he would never let her go again.
The kiss ended at last, and he smiled down at her tear-stained face. "Think we could adjourn this upstairs?"
"Oh, yes," she breathed huskily.
"I take it Nelson's kitted you out with a room?"
"Yes, a complete replica of my flat above Luigi's, stripy sofa and all." Her lips stole closer to his ear. "Including the studio bed. A double bed. Surrounded by mirrors."
"Bloody 'ell, I always knew you psychiatrists must 'ave your kinky side."
For once she did not correct his deliberate mistake. "But, Gene," she said softly, "what were you doing there, in my construct world?"
"Thought I was getting my reward. Having the chance to see how everyone's doing before I came in 'ere. But I wasn't."
She looked up at him. "Weren't you?"
"No." He gently tilted her chin upwards and kissed her again. "This is my reward."
THE END