As they walked into Luigi's, Alex realised why Shaz had suggested she went straight upstairs to her flat. Standing at the bar was the man of her affections; DCI Gene Hunt. She had realised that her front of despising him was a psychological cover for being head-over-heels in love with him. She listened as he grunted at Luigi for another scotch and her heart sank as he added a glass of house rubbish for the woman standing next to him. She noticed that Shaz was staring sympathetically at her, and so Alex smiled and said, "It doesn't bother me. Really, Shaz."

With that, the two girls found a table within viewing distance of the Gov, and ordered 2 glasses of red wine. Alex could hear vaguely hear the voices of the CID team around her, but they were merely annoying background noise apprehending her eavesdropping to the table opposite. She could see from their body language that their date was not going well. He was sat with his back towards Alex, but could see that he was sporting his usual posture which emanated cockiness. Her face was blank with boredom, and her eyes were darting around the room, trying desperately to find a distraction. Alex couldn't help but smile, immediately feeling guilty for wishing unhappiness on them both. 'She could be a very nice person for all I know…' she began to rationalise, but she wasn't fooling anyone. She hated how jealous she was and how little she could do about hiding her true feelings.

The blonde rose from her seat and leant over the table to whisper something to Gene. To Alex's horror, the blonde looked directly at her and Gene turned around, uncharacteristically pink with what seemed like embarrassment. It quickly turned to anger. As the blonde grabbed her coat and headed for the door, Gene headed towards Alex. By now, the whole gang had realised his vacuous anger coming nearer and nearer and the whole bar turned to watch the imminent volcano-like eruption. To their collective surprise, he merely sat at the bar and ordered a scotch, only turning back to beckon Alex to the adjacent stool. Chris and Ray exchanged mischievous glances and sat back to watch the fireworks which, to their dismay, never occurred.

"Sit, Bolly, and let me explain something to you." He downed the scotch and gestured for Luigi to get him another.

"You don't have to justify anything to me, Gov," Alex said through gritted teeth. Neither of them made any attempt to make eye contact with the other.

"You're damn right I don't," Gene barked. "But I don't want you getting the wrong impression of that girl." He looked at Alex, silently telling her not to interrupt. "She's an informant, giving me some info on Barris. As I'm sure you'll understand, you staring at 'er didn't make 'er feel any more comfortable divulging something which endangers 'er pathetic excuse for a life."

"Oh, Gov, I'm sorry. I thought she was…" Alex paused, trying to think of a plausible excuse for her faux pas. "I was worried that you were…"

"Spit it out, Bolls."

"Oh, piss off then." With that, she went back to sitting with Ray, Chris and Shaz. She caught his eyes once more and, if she didn't know better from experience, she could have sworn that he smiled at her. Well, a smirk at most.

That settled it. It was obvious now that his bravado was not solely unfounded. His smirk showed that he now realised that he had good reason to have a severely inflated ego: he had realised that Alex had feelings for him. Originally, maybe, his jokes relating to their relationship at the beginning were exactly that – a joke. Or maybe it was meant to encourage her feelings… or unearth them… he had really thrown her and he knew it. It was exasperating that he now had the upper hand and he knew it. Alex now had to sit back and see how Gene played it. And he knew that too.

Alex, again, recoiled into her own little world, mulling over her possibilities and allowing everything around her turn to white noise. She just stared at him, longing to tell him that she knew that he knew what everyone else had known forever.