A/N Hi all! Thank you so much for the reviews, I'm glad you like the story. I definitely want to send personal thank you messages but I'm stumped by this website I'm sorry I can't work out how. :( Particularly, apologies for the jumping between tenses that has been pointed out to me - it's one of my worst faults I'm sure, get too blabbery with the keyboard! Hope it's not a story ruiner, I'll work on that in the future though so thanks for pointing it out, I like specific feedback! Also apologies this took so long, been a busy bee lately. Anyway enjoy, and r&r x
INTERJECTION
The Pieces.
The single gunshot rings out from inside the bar, and all of a sudden there's a terrified lump in Gene Hunt's throat. He throws down the technology he's been wrestling with and is out of the car as Lee Douglas bursts from the bar in a similar frenzy. He's only frozen by the sight of the detectives for a second before he takes off at a sprint. Gene knows that he should be torn by which way to run but right then he couldn't give a toss about the scum bag they've been tailing. Vaguely shouting to his junior officers to, 'get the bastard,' he's inside the bar like a shot.
He sees Alex instantly. She's behind the bar staring straight back at him, and his heart leaps into his chest at her porcelain pallor. For a moment he's convinced that she'll crumble to the floor in front of him until he notices that she's the one holding the gun. As if following his chain of thought the object falls limply from her right hand, landing with a clatter so crisp that he could swear the room is silent save for that. It's only as he rounds the bar to reach her that the look of shock across her features becomes clear. There, crumpled awkwardly on the paisley carpet, is the young blonde barmaid. A single gunshot to her chest.
Alex is rooted to the spot as her DCI charges past her to Lizzie's side. "I shot her." It's only as she sees him crouched next to the motionless figure that her own legs go from under her and she finds herself landing awkwardly against a box of beers. The crash gets Hunt's attention again and his eyes widen as he looks at her properly. A small crowd has formed around the girl and he leaves her to return to Alex's side.
"Christ Bolly, what happened?"
"I shot her." Exasperated, accentuating every awful syllable this time.
"I mean to you, you daft bint." She looks down to her stomach where, sure enough, a dizzying amount of blood is beginning to stain the carpet she's sitting on.
"Ah, I'm, his keys I think. I'm fine. I shot a girl. She's, not her fault. I should, you should shoot me." Chris Skelton appears at this moment, his face blanched in shock as he sees the devastation before him. Gene tears his attention away from his DI for a moment to bark instructions at his officer.
"Chris. Ambulance, twice." He turns his attention back to Alex and presses her hand, along with his own, to her oozing wound. She lets out a strangled whimper as he applies pressure, and he can't bear the glassy eyed, lost expression on her face any longer. "Oh, bugger that. Come on. Just don't bleed on my bloody car."
"Yes Guv." Alex feels light-headed as she's hauled to her unsteady feet. Soon, though, he's bundling her out of the stuffy commotion of the bar into the icy night air, and by the time they're both in the Quattro she's feeling sick and dizzy. Throughout the drive she's only vaguely aware of his sideways glances, the panic on his face that he's trying to conceal for her sake as the deep crimson patch across her stomach grows and spills onto the seat through her ghostly fingers.
"Just, don't close your eyes Bolls. Come on, slate my driving or something, incessant mare that you are."
-o0X0o-
Alex is slipping. Ahead of her she can see the door to Gene Hunt's lair, and the Manc Lion himself, supping whisky and staring back at her with that famed pout of indifference across his features. She wants to call out, to let him know she's in trouble, but her lungs won't make a sound. The path up to that door is too steep and her shoes slide further back on the checkerboard floor with every step she takes. Soon she's on all fours, clawing at the panels with her fingers but it's no good, she can't make an inch of progress towards her boss, towards his office where she so desperately needs to be. Then she notices there's no gradient at all. It's not a slope that's stopping her progress but a vice like grip from somebody behind her. Surely Gene must see this, surely he can tell she's in danger, but when she looks for him again he's statuesque, maybe he isn't even real. She looks down to arms that are clamped around her waist and gasps. Lee Douglas, thick muscular limbs covered in tattoos, and they aren't motionless pictures, they're dragons and snakes that crawl across his skin and ooze onto hers as she struggles away from him. She manages to scream as she turns around in his grip, and now they've left CID and it's Martin Summers whose grasping her so tightly she can't breathe.
"I knew you'd come round, Alex. I knew you could do it. None of this matters, remember that, hold onto it. You shot someone who doesn't even exist." No, no, she wants to scream at him that she's not on his side, that she knows exactly where she is and she wants to see Gene Hunt. And then Summers is pushing her away, an angry shove and she knows what's coming, a deep pit of liquid concrete that will envelop her limbs. Now she really is screaming, eyes closed and lungs wailing, chains clinking until thud. Not a dark building site but a bright sunny field, grass between her fingers, and all the breath knocked out of her as she looks up at the tree and the rotten branch that'd snapped as soon as she put her weight on it. And then there's only one word left to say.
"Mummy."
-o0X0o-
"Ma'am?" Eyes open. Alex is breathing hard as she snaps back into consciousness, reeling from the nightmare and unable to shake the pain from that vice like grip around her stomach. It takes a few moments for her to calm down and place the pieces of her fragmented mind in order. She's in hospital, she hurts because she's been stabbed and, oh god, she shot an innocent young girl.
"I feel sick." Shaz is standing attentively beside the bed, grasping her hand and now reaching for a kidney shaped bowl, just in case.
"I'm s'posed to be outside, guarding the door and that, but I heard you shouting." Concern is etched across the features of the young WPC.
"Don't feel sorry for me, Shaz. This mess is my fault."
"That's not true, it was a struggle, and an accident, everybody thinks so."
"Everybody?"
"Witness statements." Alex looks thoroughly unconvinced by this deduction, but Shaz doesn't quite know what else to say so she takes leave of her superior and returns to her post outside the room, anxious not to be away from it for too long. Alex watches the girl leave before spotting a clock above the door. It's just after midnight, so she'd been out for a couple of hours. Sighing, but resigned to the fact that she won't sleep again until she has any real answers, she shifts herself painfully up the bed into a sitting position and stares fruitlessly at the minute hand.
-o0X0o-
It's 4am by the time Gene Hunt appears at the door of her hospital room. He looks bedraggled to say the least, and it takes him approximately five seconds loosen his tie and sit down heavily next to her on the bed. He even goes so far as to place his left arm around her shoulders and coax her to lean against him, a move he'd threatened previously on numerous occasions. "Just don't cry, Bolls. I've had enough of that tonight."
"I won't." She replies, already burying her face in her left hand.
"The girl died." He can't think of an appropriate time to tell her, so he just goes straight for it. Inevitably this piece of news initiates a stream of choked sobs and he has to summon the energy from his tired limbs to wrap both arms around her shoulders and pull her close.
"I killed her."
"You were impaled on a bunch of keys, Bolly." He speaks into her hair. "Your guts were spilling all over the floor. Even my aim would've been a bit off." He pauses for a moment, sensing that his comments aren't helping, and then he starts again. "I killed a kid once. He was running towards a crowd of bystanders with a gun. Except, it wasn't a gun. He wasn't armed, and he wasn't even looking for a fight. The situation I diffused was a kid who'd seen a mate in the crowd and wanted to get his attention. There's a lot of snap decisions to make in this job, Bolls. Sometimes we make the wrong ones, and the trick is to get through that without wanting to kill yourself. What if that kid had been armed and I'd hesitated? What if Douglas beat you to the weapon and took out half the bar including that girl, including you. For all we know you saved a real blood bath by retrieving that gun. Bloody hell, if only I hadn't sodding called in when I did... Well, it all could have gone a lot worse too, that's all." It's possibly the most heartfelt speech Gene Hunt has ever made, and he checks himself as he finishes, giving her one last squeeze before she pushes herself upright again.
"I've never shot anybody before." He sighs, they're both tired, and he knows there's nothing he can say right now to quell her devastation at the evening's events.
-o0X0o-
He could swear he only shut his eyes for a moment, but as he opens them again daylight streams through the blinds and he feels a piercing headache beginning to take shape. It's only as he stretches his arms languidly over his head that he notices he's alone. The space in the bed beside him is deserted save for a neatly folded hospital gown. All of Alex's belongings have also miraculously disappeared, including the overnight bag that Shaz had dropped off. He looks at his watch, 7am, and as if on cue a nurse appears in the doorway. At the sight of an unshaven DCI Hunt in the hospital bed her brow furrows and her hands move unconsciously to her waist. "Erm, and who might you be?"
"Mm a bloody police officer." He's sitting up by this point, head throbbing, and patting down his jacket until he finds his warrant card which he flashes accordingly. "Police protection." He reiterates, sensing that he's about to get an earful about visiting hours. She looks around the room pointedly.
"Well, you don't appear to be doing a very good job of it. Either of you." She gestures outside of the room to where Chris Skelton is dozing in his chair.
"Duly noted." He grumbles in reply, unable to think and converse simultaneously at this hour. He's out of the door before she gets a chance to trap him in with further questions, and he gives the chair an angry kick from underneath Chris as he passes, waking the confused detective with a start. "Where is she you div?" His comment is delivered at volume as he storms down the corridor towards the exit, leaving his junior officer to deal with the nurse.
-o0X0o-