Chapter 2
"There's more of it left than I thought there was going to be."
Robin adjusted his hard hat feeling like an idiot as he walked with the rest of the reluctant party through the half-destroyed corridor.
"Are you sure we should be in here, sir?" Shaz asked anxiously and Robin shrugged.
"He is," he said, pointing at Gene who was already halfway up the staircase.
Two weeks since the blasts and finally Gene had been allowed access to the building. He'd been clamouring for the right to investigate the damage almost from the first day but as most of the filing cabinets had been blown up on the night he didn't have a lot of leverage. Finally he'd been granted permission to re-enter the building after agreeing to an abhorrent amount of conditions. Wearing the hard hats was point number one.
They trailed up to CID, entering cautiously one at a time. Gene's eyes scanned the office, the charred and crumbling walls sending a horrid shudder down his spine.
"Thought more of this might have changed by now," he mumbled to himself.
Robin was close enough to hear and asked,
"What do you mean?"
Gene hadn't realised he'd spoken aloud. He knew he shouldn't have done, but it was too late now. Making sure that flapping ears weren't too close by, he leaned in and said quietly,
"Something like this happens, we usually skip a bit."
"A bit of what?"
"Few weeks. Months." Gene remembered the bomb concealed in Nailer's computer that had taken out a chunk of the station a year and a half previously. That had coincided with the loss of half his team to the Railway Arms and the arrival of new recruits. He felt strangely anxious as he realised that the blast had seen an end for several of his colleagues – mostly ones who worked under Simon - and yet there was no sign of anyone new. Was the world on strike?
"What do you want us to do, Guv?" Jake asked, "start gathering up the files for current cases or protecting the archives?"
Gene hesitated for a moment before he turned to Jake. He found himself giving a momentary shrug, which wasn't like him in the slightest, then he shook his head.
"Whatever I say is only going to be wrong so do what you like," he said, garnering curious frowns from those around him.
"That's not like you," Robin couldn't help commenting.
Gene was too distracted by Alex to realise that Robin may have been angling for a visit to the filing cabinet. He watched as she walked slowly across to the calendar on the wall and quickly pulled it down. He cleared his throat and she glanced around guiltily.
"Think I wasn't going to notice, Bols?" he asked. A dark look settling onto her face even though he had used the shorter version of her nickname. "Alex," he corrected with a sarcastic tone in his voice. Alex stared back coolly, not caring to get into an argument but clearly in no mood to make apologies that she didn't mean. She took a deep breath and, when she couldn't think of anything to say to Gene, she turned around.
"I'm going to check my office," she said quietly.
"That's it, walk away," Gene mumbled just loud enough to make sure she heard, "times like this we stick together. Apart from when you prefer the company of yer own four walls to mine."
Alex didn't react. She just carried on walking, ignoring his tone completely. There was a little pang of guilt that popped up for the way that she was treating him and she knew that what she was doing was cruel but she couldn't stop herself from blaming him for the choices he'd made, nor could she stop herself from pushing him away. She couldn't stand the idea of ever being touched again, or ever being intimate with someone. It had been sullied for her forever. Keats had stolen from her something that she could never get back.
Robin felt anxious as he watched her walking away and, feeling somewhat nervous, he asked Gene;
"I… I don't want to stick my nose in but… " he chewed on his lip as he glanced towards the door, "Alex… how is she doing?"
Gene looked at Robin with darkness in his eyes.
"Try asking someone she'll open up her bloody gob and talk to," he said and turned away leaving Robin to wonder what he'd said or done wrong. He felt anxious and nerves started to prick him as he thought about Alex and her lost expression. Something was wrong, quite clearly, and he couldn't just leave it at that.
After what they'd both been through, albeit at different parts of the building in Fenchurch West, their abduction led Alex and Robin to feel a deeper connection after their treatment at the hands of Keats. Their friendship was already close but now they found themselves understanding each other even more than before. Robin was the one person who Alex seemed to be able to open up to whenever their paths crossed.
He wandered slowly down the corridor and found her sitting on the floor of her office.
"Alex?" he frowned.
Alex looked over to him, a little startled by his arrival. She tried to smile a welcome to him but it fell rather flat.
"Sorry," she said quietly, "I was just checking the damage to my office."
"Good view from down there?" Robin asked and Alex gave him a slightly rueful smile.
"I suppose he sent you?" she said.
"Who?"
"Gene."
Robin shook his head.
"He was a little…" he hesitated, "…short with me."
Alex looked down.
"I'm sorry about that," she said.
"I think he's worried about you," Robin told her. She looked away awkwardly and didn't reply. "I'm worried too," he told her. He sank down by her side and turned to her. "How are you coping?"
Alex stared at the wall opposite.
"Asking me how implies that I am," she said. She sighed and shook her head. "Ask me another."
"OK," Robin sighed, "what's going on between you and Gene?"
Alex shook her head again.
"Ask me something that doesn't involve me in any way shape or form," she said. She tried to force a smile. "I'm sorry, Robin. I don't feel ready to go into things yet."
"It's OK," Robin said quickly, "I understand." He suspected he understood a little too well. While his treatment at the hands of Keats had been different to Alex's he was having nightmares all the time and still bore a number of injuries. He let out his breath. "Is it alright if I talk?"
Alex glanced at him cautiously, wondering if it was some kind of a trick to get her to open up but his expression seemed pained.
"Of course," she said.
Robin bit his lip and stared at his knees as he bunched them up to his chest.
"Alex," he began quietly, "have you spoken to her?" he turned to Alex and added unnecessarily, "to Kim?"
Alex's expression which was already strained and stressed fell further.
"No," she whispered.
Robin let out a heavy sigh.
"Have you tried calling?" he asked quietly.
"Every single day," Alex said quietly.
Robin closed his eyes.
"She won't answer my calls," he whispered, "not at all. I've tried leaving messages. I've called from other lines. I've left messages with false names. I can't get to her at all."
Alex nodded slowly.
"If I get through to the station then it goes straight to her answerphone," she said, "and whenever I've spoken to someone and left a message I'm not even sure it gets to her."
Robin nodded slowly as his heart physically ached inside of his chest. He kept his eyes tightly shut as he whispered,
"I thought dying was as bad as it would get. Being on opposite sides… I thought that was as hard as anything I would ever have to face. But now she's here… and so close…. And yet she's further away than ever."
He fell silent as he tried to keep his composure. The last thing he wanted to do was to fall apart, but it was getting harder to keep himself together. He opened his eyes as he felt a hand on his knee and found Alex looking as lost as he felt.
"I'm so sorry," she said quietly.
Robin breathed in slowly then exhaled. His mind was skipping all over the place as the mental images of Kim arriving to take him to safety filled his mind.
"She looked so thin," he whispered.
"Pardon?"
"Kim," he elaborated, "she was so skinny. Like bare bones."
Alex looked at him seriously.
"Robin, she's been through hell," she whispered, "she lost you, and your baby, and who knows what else she has been through out there."
"But she looked so frail," he said quietly.
"Sometimes it's hard to eat when you're depressed," Alex reminded him, "plus she didn't have your amazing cookery skills on tap any longer."
Robin tried to smile but it faded away to nothing.
"Kim always goes one way or the other" he said quietly, "she either stops eating completely or stuffs herself with junk."
"There you go then," Alex said quietly, "but she will pull herself together, Robin. Because she's Kim. That's what she does."
For a moment Robin seemed almost to feel a little reassured but then his expression darkened again.
"I can't stand to think of her in there," Robin said with more of an edge to his voice, "with him." He closed his eyes again. "I'm so scared for her."
"If there's one person who can survive –" Alex began in reassurance mode, but the sinking feeling inside her halted her sentence halfway and she turned to Robin with nervous eyes. "So am I," she whispered instead.
"Why did she do it?" Robin whispered, "she did do what I think she did, didn't she?" he looked at Alex, "she killed herself."
Alex found herself biting on her lip, mirroring Robin's nervous habit. She wished that she could tell him that they might have been wrong or that there was another possibility but she couldn't.
"Somehow she knew we needed her," she said quietly, "and if she hadn't then who knows what would have happened. We could both be dead by now."
"She gave up her life to get here," Robin said, his voice shaking, "and now she's here she's lost her freedom. She's stuck in there. With him. Keats," he spat that word violently. "She's not safe. We both know it. He could do anything to her, anything at all." A shudder passed down his spine, "anything that he's done to either of us."
Alex was out of reassurances, such as they were. The more Robin voiced his fears, the more she felt them too.
"Then we'll just have to hope," she whispered eventually, "that we've saved up a couple of miracles somewhere. Because Kim needs to get out of that place."
Robin swallowed.
"I already spoke to the Super to see if there was anything that he could do," he said quietly, "that place is like a bloody fortress of Keats's mind. He controls everything. No one transfers without his say so."
"How did she even get in there?" Alex wondered grimly, "I mean to say… I know how she got in there…. But as a DCI? Keats won't allow that."
"But Kim is the most stubborn person who's ever walked the earth," Robin reminded her, "if there's one person bloody-minded enough to simply force her way into that station with her rank…" he hesitated for a second. "I didn't even know she was a DCI before I saw her warrant." He looked at Alex. "You know though, a few months back I had a weird vision. I saw Kim's name on Gene's door."
A frown crossed Alex's brow.
"Seriously?" she asked and Robin nodded.
"It was just for a moment. Then it disappeared again."
Alex fell silent as she contemplated Robin's strange news.
"It's not Gene's door her name is now though," she said quietly, "is it?"
"I've got to get her out of that place," Robin whispered. He felt sick at the thought of it; Kim stuck in the darkness, Keats lurking around every corner. "What if he turns on the gas and air?" He realised too late that Alex wasn't the best person to mention that too as she turned even paler and looked as though she was about to cry. He hastily offered apologies but it didn't stop him worrying about Kim and the most horrible possibility. He hung his head. "Have to get her out," he mumbled. He rubbed his eye feverishly, attempting to hide a tear that was making an escape attempt. "I miss her so much."
"I know, Robin," Alex said quietly. She sighed. "Me too."
Robin bit his lip anxiously.
"In… what way, exactly?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" Alex asked, catching on a moment too late. She gave a sigh. "Robin, you said we didn't have anything to talk about –"
"We don't," he said quickly, "I meant it, it's fine, it's…" he hesitated, not wanting to offend Alex. "But things are different now that she's walked into this world. I just…" he felt himself reddening. He wasn't very good at things like this. This was one of the most awkward conversations of his life. "…just wanted to know… how you felt… when you saw her again?" He wanted the ground to open up and swallow him. "Just so as I know."
Alex felt awkward and somewhat guilty as she looked away. She couldn't pretend her thoughts about Kim were entirely platonic after the night they'd shared.
"Robin, right now I am in the middle of," she paused and flinched, "the biggest…. mental mess of my life. I don't even know how I feel about Gene, let alone Kim. I can't even contemplate that question."
"That's OK, That's OK, that's… fair enough," Robin said quickly, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable."
"I just don't know," Alex admitted quietly, "right now all I can think about is getting through another day in one piece, trying to block election night out of my head and watching the clock until my next batch of pills are due." Her eyes skipped to the cock. "Fifteen minutes and counting."
"At least you get to clock watch," Robin pointed out.
"Oh yeah, lucky me being DOA," Alex sighed.
"Did they give you any of Simon's little blue and white pills?" Robin asked.
Alex shook her head slowly.
"Mine are white and yellow," she said.
Robin nodded.
"Bet those are banned by now anyway," Robin said quietly.
Alex looked at him.
"Is there any news on his condition?" she asked quietly and Robin looked down
"Gene knows better than I do," he said.
"Gene's not been very forthcoming," Alex said quietly. She breathed in and out very slowly. "He won't go to see him any more either."
Robin frowned.
"What?"
"He didn't tell me why," Alex said quietly and looked away. "Although I suppose I haven't exactly made it easy for him to talk to me lately."
"Then who's been visiting him?" Robin asked, "I mean, I've gone when I can, but I don't really feel right about it."
"You're still friends," Alex reminded him.
"But the last thing we did was fight," Robin reminded her, "to physically fight. My apology… I don't even know if it got to him…"
"It did," Alex assured him quietly, "Shaz told him just before –" she flinched, "- the accident."
Robin felt a little uplifted at the news. At the very least Simon knew that he felt terrible for their fight. He nodded.
"Even so," he said with a difficult sigh. He glanced at Alex. "Simon… uh," he cleared his throat. "Look, before I came back here… while we were still in separate worlds… before…" he felt guilty, "me and Kim were together… Simon changed his name by deed poll. His surname. To Shoebury-Thomas." He felt the guilt of their relationship ending all over again, "I guess he dropped the other bit in general usage but…" he sighed, "he never changed it back and the hospital keep using his legal name."
Alex could understand why that made Robin feel awkward.
"I'm sorry, Rob," she said which caught Robin by surprise. It was only Kim and Simon who ever called him that. The friendship that he'd forged with Alex was a bright spot in the dark times. He smiled at her.
Footsteps came closer along the corridor and stopped nearby.
"Ma'am," Jake's voice came from the doorway, "the Guv wants to know if you –"
Jake stopped talking as he realised Robin was right there in the room. He swallowed and shuffled in the spot as Alex looked at him in confusion.
"Wants to know if I what?" she asked.
Jake tried to compose himself.
"Uh, just… if you wanted lunch," he said, "getting some sandwiches."
"No thank you," Alex said quietly, "I'm not really hungry."
Jake glanced at Robin, feeling the heat rising to his face right away.
"And you, Sir?" he asked quietly.
Robin stumbled over his words a little.
"Uh no – yes," he mumbled, "uh yeah. Food sandwiches. I mean tuna. Tuna sandwiches."
Jake nodded.
"Alright," he said as he made a hasty exit and Robin felt Alex's eyes boring into him like fire. He glanced around nervously to find her eyebrow raised by a mile.
"Food sandwiches?" she asked.
Robin's face started to redden.
"I get flustered when I'm choosing food," he lied.
"Food sandwiches?" Alex repeated. She frowned at Robin. "Have you and Jake fallen out?" she asked.
"No," Robin shook his head.
"There's something that isn't right between you," she said. She noticed Robin looked a little shifty and adjusted his weight as though considering getting up and leaving. "Come on, Robin, I've got eyes," she said, "what's happened? I know that Jake's had a bit of a crush on you –"
"How did you know that?" Robin asked quickly.
"Well for one thing the lump in his trousers when he saw you," Alex pointed out which made Robin flush desperately and try to hide behind the coat stand.
"It's nothing," he mumbled.
"Robin," Alex's expression softened, "if you can't talk to me then who can you talk to?"
"Who says I want to talk?" Robin mumbled, already knowing that his need to share what happened that night was blatant. He shook his head slowly. "Alex… me and Jake… almost had a thing going on. The night of the blasts."
"What kind of a thing?" Alex asked.
"I'm not drawing you diagrams," Robin knew that Alex had a fairly good idea already and didn't want to go into detail, "things had been kind of… funny between us for a while. I knew he liked me after Gene's party. I just," he swallowed, "didn't realise I liked him back."
"Oh," Alex's curiosity was piqued.
"It was after I fought with Simon," Robin put his head in his hands, "Jake was seeing to my injuries. Things started to happen. I never meant it to, it just… it felt natural," he cringed a little, wondering if he sounded too corny, "but we kind of… we got interrupted by an emergency and I left Jake waiting and never went back because I ended up tied up in Keats's office."
A memory came back to Alex.
"Jake's shirt…" she began and noticed Robin smiling with embarrassment.
"Yeah. My fault," he said grimly, "sorry."
Alex nodded slowly. This was the first thing that had taken her mind away from her terrible experience in two weeks.
"And since then?"
Robin covered his face with the palms of his hands.
"Since then he won't talk to me, won't look at me, keeps running away whenever we're in close proximity..." he slowly revealed one eye to glance at Alex. "And I can't really talk, because I'm doing exactly the same thing." He groaned. "Food sandwiches."
Alex tried to take it all in.
"And where is Kim in all of this?" she asked quietly.
"Says you," Robin pointed out.
"I'm so glad we've reached the point in our friendship where you feel comfortable taunting me for sleeping with your fiancée," Alex said.
Robin wasn't sure whether she was being serious or sarcastic, nor whether she was annoyed with him for his comment but she didn't look angry or upset, more bemused by the kind of conversation they were having.
"Me and Kim," he began with a sigh, "we're kind of different to most people. We're in a relationship that neither of us ever expected to be in and we've had a complicated situation with this place and the real world fighting over us. What happened before, when I went home for those few weeks… you and Kim, Simon's anger and jealousy… we realised we needed to have a really serious conversation. We knew things weren't the same for us as they were for others. We agreed that if we were separated again then we would never want the other to be lonely and if either of us met someone…" He trailed away, leaving that thought unfinished as he looked a little sheepish, "and there are things we missed about being with… the kind of people that… is natural to us. I miss…" he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him, "men."
"So you… wanted to become swingers?" Alex frowned.
"Good god, no, can you see me running off and having sex with strangers at wild parties?"
Alex laughed a little at the thought.
"No," she admitted.
Robin shook his head.
"Nah. Not what either of us meant. We talked about…" he shrugged, "other relationships. But only ones that meant something. I didn't want some sordid fling. Neither did she. We talked about, I don't know… something a bit more than 'friends with benefits'…" he felt awkward talking about it with someone who wasn't Kim, unsure if Alex would understand, but Alex didn't seem horrified or disgusted, simply interested.
"And Jake," she began curiously, "he would fill those requirements?"
Robin looked down like an embarrassed kid.
"I don't know," he said quietly, "there's something about him. ."
Alex chewed softly on the inside of her cheek.
"And Kim?" she began, "did she have anyone in mind?"
"Anyone, or someone specifically?" Robin asked, noticing that Alex was starting to look a little pink in the cheeks. She looked away and gave a shamed smile, caught out in her curiosity.
"Ignore me," she said quietly.
"Kim's liked you since she was in ninety five, Alex, you're aware of that now," Robin told her, "but she knows you've got Gene."
Alex seemed rather crestfallen at his words, then slightly annoyed as she mumbled,
"Even I don't know if I've 'got Gene' or not."
"Maybe this isn't the best time to be talking about this," Robin suggested.
"Oh please, Robin, your love life is the only thing that's given me a distraction lately."
Robin wasn't entirely sure if that was a compliment or an insult, but it was good having someone to talk to.
"Well anyway, it's not happening between me and Jake," he said looking a little sad, "He knew I was in a relationship but that we couldn't be together… now she's back he doesn't want to know."
"He knows Kim is around?"
"And knows that she won't even see me, but," Robin shrugged, "he's a bit scared of her to be honest. She scared the crap out of him."
"She did? When did she meet him?" Alex frowned.
"On that night," Robin made a weird head gesture, "he didn't know who he was talking to at the time, but now he knows."
Alex sighed.
"Kim is scary," she agreed.
In the silence that followed as they contemplated the terror of Kim, Robin heard Alex's stomach growling and glanced at her as she pretended nothing had happened.
"Thought you weren't hungry," he said.
"I'm not," Alex said curtly.
Robin looked at her sadly.
"Come on, Alex," he said, "please don't become another Kim."
Alex looked away, ignoring her worries.
"Just don't want any lunch," she said, "that's all."
Robin felt his heart sinking.
"I'm worried about you, Alex," he admitted.
Alex stared at a blank spot on the wall until the truth slipped out.
"So am I," she whispered.
~xXx~
Jake checked his notepad as he walked back into CID.
"Got everyone's requests, Guv," he said, "except DCI Drake who doesn't want one."
"Fine," Gene spat, "why would she when she could lose another inch off her non-existent arse instead?"
Jake was a little taken aback.
"And, uh, I couldn't find Marci, either" he said.
"Top of the ruddy Pops," Gene snapped, snatching off his hard hat with extreme prejudice, "that's where you'll find her. Along with Weedy Spice, Snooty Spice, Dykey Spice and Boobie Spice."
"I don't think those are their authorised names," Jake said sheepishly but scuttled off when Gene shot a glare his way, then absconded from the office.
~xXx~
The desk was all that was left of him.
Marci had been staring at it for ten minutes, rubbing her fingers back and forth on the surface. She sniffed and felt her eyelid twitch. That had better not have been a tear threatening to fall. She swallowed as she recalled those painful last moments, the way he saved her life, the way the explosion and the building swallowed him up. She felt so angry and resentful. She'd saved his fucking life just hours earlier – what had they gone through all of that for if they weren't going to be together anyway? Why has she been permitted to save his life if he wasn't meant to live?
The last person she had been expecting to arrive at the doorway was Gene, and the last person he'd been expecting to see in there was Marci.
"Morning, Nicey Spice," he mumbled.
She barely glanced at him.
"I'll go," she mumbled.
"No need," Gene told her but she began to walk towards the door anyway. "Marci."
Marci stopped and looked at him.
"What?"
Gene turned back to the room and nodded towards it.
"He was a bit of a strange one," he said, "your friend Eddie."
Marci closed her eyes momentarily.
"Got that right" she whispered.
Gene stared around the Hi-tech Crimes office and exhaled loudly.
"Simon's lost his whole department in one fell swoop," he muttered, "Vickery carked it too. Not that anyone's going to notice. But then, that's what you get for spending your life hiding in the bogs and –"
Gene found the end of his sentence stunted by the sudden arrival of a Marci who seemed to fly at him in an instant and without warning he found her arms around him as she sobbed against his chest. His first instinct was to warn her to mind the tie. The second was to place his hands awkwardly around her and just allow her to cry.
As his eyes looked past the top of her head into the room Gene couldn't help but wonder whether it wasn't just Simon's team that were supposed to be wiped out that day. He felt angry with himself for thinking it but he couldn't shake the thought that Simon's own condition was so precarious that he just might have been destined to go too.
He didn't want to think about that. He couldn't stand to. So he turned his attention to letting Marci cry for as long as she needed to.
At least someone is opening up to me, he thought to himself.
The fact that it wasn't Alex made him sting inside.
