A/N --- The reaction to the first chapter hasn't been great. But I'm really hoping that people will like this story. It won't be too long but it will hopefully be surprising...and hopefully you guys will enjoy it. Please review to let me know what you all think.
Al woke early, light was barely cracking through the heavy clouds outside his flat as he woke. He stretched out his legs and free arm, straining the ache of sleep from himself but for the one arm pillowing the head of Roxy who was sleeping in a blissful peace beside him. He stared at her face, she looked so calm. It was a rare sight and regretfully one that was only more rare now. The death of Archie, her father. Al sighed and slowly inched his arm out from underneath his beautiful Roxy. He moved to the window and looked out at the Square. The blue tarpaulin over the door of the Vic was rustling, an eerie sound only serving to make his skin crawl. He leant against the wall, looking back and forth between the Vic, the scene of so much pain and violence and back to the solitude of Roxy, sighing softly in her sleep, moving an arm languidly as if reaching for him. The daily barrage of police and investigators would be arriving soon. Al closed the curtains, willing himself to be able to block it all out, keep Roxy from it for as long as he could.
Sitting down at the desk in the corner Al laid his head in his hands. His eyes continued to be drawn to the woman laid in his bed, she looked so beautiful and yet there was so much pain there just to be felt all over again when she awoke. So much had happened in the last year. The year may be over but Al knew that this would all live on and fester long after the chimes of Big Ben had rang out across the city. He pulled forward some papers, sighing as he saw what he was facing again, old cheques never cashed, pictures and documents, some still from his old job. So many things dragged up, left unfinished. He grabbed a pen and scribbled it onto a blank piece of paper merely distracting himself, not knowing where to start.
March 12th 2009
"Doctor." The call came from the other side of the room as Al watched the monitors, reading notes from the files in his hand as he stood by the child's bedside. "The x-rays are back and it's a compound fracture of the tibia." The nurse held out the new results to Al and he took them, looking back and forth between the crying child and the words he was reading.
"Right, talk to surgery and up the morphine." He spoke, giving the paperwork back to the nurse who took them and followed his orders, leaving the room to consult with surgery.
Al turned to the child who's mother was sat holding his hand. He spoke to the little boy, telling him that they would make him better, they would make it stop hurting. He spared a glance and a word for the shaking mother but he knew that the police would be there soon. Too many bruises on both mother and child showed the truth, but neither were forthcoming and nothing would be done, he knew it and he hated it.
Leaving the room he watched as the staff and patients moved through the corridors, nothing would change. Unless he made the efforts, took the steps, broke those codes.
"Mfump" Al snapped from his reverie as Roxy grumbled in her sleep. He smiled at her softness, her vulnerability. So easily hurt, just like everyone else.
Across the Square Ronnie was dragged unagreeably from her sleep, her neck ached from the position it had been stuck in on the sofa through the night. She closed her eyes once again, willing sleep to claim her once more but the noises that had woken her would not desist.
"Get out! Get out and sober up! You're a disgrace!" Ronnie didn't need to wonder who was speaking or who she was speaking to. Wide eyed she stared into the middle distance, she should be used to this, used to Phil and Peggy arguing, used to Phil drowning any worried or troubles at the bottom of a bottle, used to this feeling of emptiness, used to the loss. But somehow, it just hurt all the more. An unconscious hand on her stomach was quickly snapped away as she remembered it was futile to protect something which no longer existed.
"Yeah, well Mum, that's gratitude for you isn't it?" The grisly voice shouted and resounded through the house but the words meant nothing to Ronnie, they didn't even register.
"What? Phil what are you saying, I loved him. What do you mean gratit..." The door slammed and a whimper could be heard from the hallway. Ronnie's eyes stayed unblinking in their vacant stare. Happy new year. 2009 had been put to an end, it was over. Unquestioningly the most traumatic and devastating year that Ronnie could ever have imagined and she had lived it. Unconsciously she wished for this year to be better, for it to hurt just that little bit less, but already the pain was present. A new year and still the same old agony.
"Mmm, morning." Roxy stretched tightened muscles as she gazed at Al. She watched him turn towards her, subtly pushing papers into a pile and out of sight with one hand. His face remained calm and held a small sympathetic smile though inside his nerves were set in panic.
"I thought you needed the rest." Al answered a question that hadn't been asked as he made his way towards the bed and sat down on the edge, leaning to place a kiss on Roxy's lips, sitting back up as they parted and watching Roxy lay back down, her eyes still closed.
"Come 'ere." Roxy muttered, reaching out blindly for the back of Al's neck and pulling him down on top of her. As their lips met heavily and moved together in a languid softness she pulled the duvet back off herself and opened her legs, pulling Al to lay between them, his pelvis cradled between her thighs as she threw the duvet back over them both. Her arms wrapped around Al, one hand burying itself in his hair as the other gripped his backside, her fingers digging into his muscled flesh as she pulled him almost painfully close on top of her, arching her hips up into him. His hands framed her face as he kissed her, reverent and gentle in her pain. Slowly and so gently he removed the remnants of her clothes as the light broke through the Square and they moved together.
"Mrs Mitchell?" DCI Marsden stood on the doorstep staring at Peggy Mitchell and the vacant, tired expression that she held. "We need to ask a few more questions." Marsden stepped uninvited into the house and past Peggy unhindered. "Is Veronica around?"
