A/N: Thanks so much for reading and reviewing this story so far, I know it's somewhat different and fairly out there and I hope you'll keep reading to find out what the truth is about Gene's situation – don't worry, Ocean, you're supposed to be confused at this point! (I am and I'm writing it! :D) But things start moving on apace from the next chapter so I hope things will start to fall into place soon!

~xXx~

Chapter 7

"Come on, Michael, you can do this."

If the 'this' was throwing the physio assistant against a filing cabinet then, yes, Gene though he probably could.

However, the 'this' on this particular occasion was taking a couple of slow, difficult steps forward, assisted by railings to help him along. He felt angry and frustrated that his body wasn't behaving the way he expected it to. But what upset him more was finally understanding what it was like for those who went home; the ones who woke up and had to recuperate physically in the real world, and that was before they even got to the part where they tried to work out if the world they'd been in was real or all in their head.

God, he'd screwed them up, hadn't he? It had been starting to get to him for a while but now he was feeling fairly sure that, as much as he tried to help the officers who came to him, he ended up making their lives a misery instead. The doubts had been creeping in for some time. Now they slapped him around the face like the proverbial wet kipper.

"One more time," the medical cheer squad urged Gene as he turned and made a very slow journey back in the other direction. This was damn well slow going. He slowly made it back to the other side of the rail and gave an angry growl. The bastard situation was taking away his roar.

"Well done you!" the physio assistant cheered, "that's great progress. How about a smile?"

"How about eating yer lunch through a straw?" Gene suggested as he climbed back into his wheelchair.

He fell silent as a porter wheeled him back to his room. The visit that DS Fullerton and PC Willis had made to him the night before was playing on his mind. He thought it over again and again but he couldn't understand what was happening. None of it made sense. Layton, Alex, the barge – it all swam around in his head and drove him crazy.

Just to drive him even more round the bend his ever loving alleged wife had decided to pay him a visit with an extremely over-gilded and long-winded story about how she'd baked him a cake that was allegedly the best cake she'd ever baked and surpassed her previous record of most delicious cakes, but that he wasn't going to be able to eat it because his doctors had forbidden outside food in the hospital and so she had fed it to the postman slice by slice instead. The story was then followed up by another long-winded story about how the postman was suddenly struck down with a terrible stomach ache in the middle of his round.

He zoned out to avoid the vast majority of her story, thinking about anything and everything else instead. He watched the clock to see if visiting hours were anywhere near over. He even ate some of the horrid, cardboard-tasting lunch they served him. His attention was drawn quite acutely to a flurry of activity in the corridor outside as a trolley went by, surrounded by doctors and equipment while a voice frantically asked if the patient was going to be alright.

Not if they've been fed any of this poison, Gene thought to himself, staring at the rather large amount of leftovers on his tray. Even though his stomach was empty and growling there was no way his taste buds were going to agree to another mouthful of whatever the mushy soup was supposed to be made of.

When she finally left and Gene was able to spend some quality time with the television, however, it was the final straw. The humiliation of the physio cheer squad, the cake he wasn't going to get to eat and the contents of his hospital lunch had all been building up into a vast explosion of Gene Hunt fury and it was when he switched on the television and heard one particular sentence that he blew his fuse;

"Here's how the pasty tax is going to work…"

The sight of pasties used for demonstration purposes instead of eating purposes only served to rile Gene up further. He felt himself shaking with fury, almost foaming at the mouth. He started to resemble the crazed, insane Keats as he growled and howled and cried out in anger.

"Cornish bloody pasties?" he cried, "they've gone far too far! Last bloody pleasure left in life and they've gone and flaming taxed it! What's next? Electric blanket tax? Big bosomed bird tax? Bloody Noel Edmonds bloody Jumper tax for the likes of Shoebury?"

That was as much as he could take. He switched the television back off and rolled over, pulling the hospital sheet to his shoulders and quietly fuming. So, first he was going to work out how to get his strength back and get out of the hospital. Later, he was going to work out how to get home. And somewhere in the middle? He was going to do his goddamned best to repeal the bloody pasty tax.

~xXx~

As soon as Alex saw the grim faces at the doorway she just knew.

Her bond with Gene was so strong that no one even had to say a word, she knew that the operation at the docks had gone awry somehow. In fact, she'd known something wasn't right all day. She should have said something but she didn't want Gene to think she was paranoid, or worse than that – downright crazy. She could just imagine what his reaction would have been if she'd begged him not to go on the reasoning that she had a bad feeling.

There was no putting it off any longer. She had to bite the bullet and ask.

"What's happened?" she whispered, dreading the answer.

It wasn't quite the answer she had been expecting.

"Gene's disappeared."

Alex just stared. Simon and Robin both looked nervous, as though they'd been expecting to say it even less than she'd been expecting to hear it. She waited for them to say something, to expand upon their words, but they just stood with their heads slightly bowed, staring back at her.

"Disappeared?" she repeated.

"We looked everywhere, Alex," Robin nervously walked towards her, "I mean, we combed the whole area."

"We asked around, we called custody, called CID, everything," Simon added, "no one's seen him for the last couple of hours."

Alex was glad she was already sitting down. The way she began to shake, she could barely stay upright on the chair as it was.

"Have you tried his radio?" she asked, her voice trembling.

Simon looked down.

"It was still in his car," he said quietly.

"The Aston Martin is still at the scene," Robin told her,.

Alex's nerves increased by many times over. If Gene was nowhere to be seen that was one thing, but leaving the car behind? Something had to have happened.

"When did you last see him?" she whispered.

"Alex. I have no idea," Robin said nervously, "it was chaos out there. Shins being kicked, random unexpected drugs, crocodiles… everywhere…"

Simon blushed and tried to ignore the fact that he had one sitting in his car.

"We've done everything we can to track him down," he said, and, I have to admit, I have a really bad feeling about this."

Alex's heart sank.

"Oh, not you too," she whispered.

Simon nodded and looked away. He knew that if he looked at Alex he was only going to make her own worries worse and she already looked half-scared out of her mind.

"The last thing anyone saw was when he finished depositing the truck driver into one of the cars," Robin told her, "no one really knows what happened after that."

Alex quickly got to her feet. Her heart was racing.

"We need to start looking," she said, "we need to officially make it known that he hadn't been seen in a long time and that no one's been able to contact him. Anything could have happened to him."

Simon glanced at Robin.

"By 'anything' does that include," he began before he trailed off a little. "No, that's stupid."

Alex froze one arm in her coat.

"What?"

"Never mind."

"Don't start a sentence and then stop," She frowned, "what were you going to say?"

"It's stupid. Forget it."

Alex took a step forward and said crossly,

"I've been here with Gene for sixteen years. I've learned every tip and trick involving the use of filing cabinets that you can imagine. Are you really not going to complete that sentence?"

Simon took a step back as he found an angry Alex in his face.

"I'm sorry," he gulped. "I just really feel stupid for thinking it because it's not possible."

"What isn't?"

Simon closed his eyes and gave a frustrated sigh.

"My bloody big mouth," he muttered. He opened his eyes and looked back at Alex. "Alright, the thing is, the way he went… it's like no one saw him at all, and there's just no sign, no trail…"

Alex looked at him a little blankly, not sure what he was getting at.

"And?"

Simon shuffled uncomfortably. He nodded at Alex and then at Robin.

"We've all done it," he said quietly.

Alex looked highly offended.

"We have not all 'done it'!" she cried, "in what depraved nightmare of yours did that happen?"

"No, no!" Simon cried, "I don't mean… 'done it', oh…" he slapped his forehead, "for pity's sake, why is your mind in the gutter?"

"It's not! You're the one who said we'd all… done it."

"I meant vanished, Alex!" Simon explained, "we've all faded away. Gone back."

Alex stopped ranting and raving for a moment to think about what Simon had said. Her face contorted with a mix of thoughts and emotions. Not only did she feel completely stupid for the misunderstanding but she also felt more than confused by Simon's words.

"Simon, Gene can't fade out," she said, "he's dead."

"Yeah, I know that."

"There's no body for him to go to out there," Alex reminded him, "it's not possible."

"That's why I felt stupid and didn't want to finish my sentence," Simon protested, "but you just kept pressing me!"

"We're not back to the details of this 'doing it' scenario are we?" Robin looked a little pale.

Simon stared at him, aghast.

"No!" he cried, "what's wrong with everyone today?"

Alex ignored them both and shook her head.

"Gene can't have faded away," she said, "he's dead." Even saying that still made her heart sting a little as she thought about it, "people don't just vanish for fun."

"Maybe there's a first time?" Simon said quietly.

Alex shook her head. She didn't believe that for a moment.

"No," she said quietly, "Gene's out there, somewhere. And either something's happened and he's found himself involved in a situation that he's unable to call in, or…"

Simon looked worried.

"Or what?" he asked.

Alex hung her head. That wasn't a sentence she wanted to complete,

"Let's just see what happens when we get back out there," she said quietly.

Robin and Simon exchanged a nervous look between them as Alex left the office at speed. Both had searched the area quite completely and found no sign of him.

"She won't find him either," Robin said quietly.

"But she is right," said Simon, "he can't have vanished. He has no body on the other side."

"No body, or nobody?" frowned Robin.

Simon rubbed his forehead.

"Oh for –" he closed his eyes. "Never mind. Let's just get out of here," he said as they followed Alex to begin a manhunt they'd never expected to start.

~xXx~

The pasty tax had been the final straw. It had just about killed Gene's hope for the future of humanity dead, deep down inside. He couldn't imagine a future where the public's enjoyment of hot, pastry-based goodies was taxed by evil fat cats who wanted to pocket more pennies at the expense of those who had great taste in lunchtime snacks.

Between the pasty tax and the physio he was exhausted. He was getting stronger but the doctor had been right about it being a long, slow process. By the time evening rolled around and he was trying desperately to find one of those nice educational channels with the ladies in a partial state of undress, making suggestive actions with their phones and wiggling their tongues at the cameras, he found himself falling asleep when he was only halfway through the stations.

In a deep sleep, oblivious to the world around him, the news played away on the screen. There were more stories about the pasty tax, something about some idiot in jail growing back his beard, and then the newsreader's expression became darker and sombre.

"And tonight's main headline again," she began, "Bloodbath at Fenchurch East police station; three dead, four injured. A wanted man who escaped from hospital after an overdose in his prison cell in January showered Fenchurch East CID with gunfire this morning, killing several members of the department and leaving four others in a critical condition including a detective who had recently returned to work after heart surgery and a pregnant Detective Inspector. More news on this story as we receive it." She looked down for a moment before carrying on with the next story. "And now for the Daily Beard Regrowth Update…"

While a graph showing millimetres X days passed appeared on the screen Gene carried on sleeping soundly, his snores drowning out the voice on the television set. He stayed oblivious to the familiar detective who lay down the hall, fighting for her life and the man who sat by her side, days away from losing his.

Sometimes being in ignorance was the best place to be.

~xXx~

A/N: OK, I blame the migraine medication for this. That, or the fact that SOME PEOPLE been destroying my brain! I have made a stupid poll on my profile. It's allllllll about the shipping, folks. I want to know who and what you ship, and it's multi select so you can pick as many pairings as you like. Now, there are some (erm… minimal…) normal couplings in there… and then my brain went a bit crazy. And also, plant pots, beards and crocodiles might be involved. You can pick as many as you like, and above all it's JUST A BIT OF FUN! So please go and have fun!

I love you guys. You know that, right?

(But not in a shipping way…)