A rather long Chapter 9 as promised! The amount of grief this chapter has given me and my beta is unbelievable! i must have wrote it about three times. But hopefully it has paid off. Thanks for sticking with this!
HUGE thanks to my beta Ashgurl. She has stuck with me through thick and thin, and without her, this chapter would be a total mess.
Chapter 9
Just as Alex relinquished all hope of being rescued, she heard footsteps heading her way. For all she knew, it could have been Evan, Layton and Tommy, but it wasn't. The three amigos had entered the building. Now would be their chance. She was pretty sure Layton was out the back talking to Evan because she could hear faint muttering in the background. Whoever it was, if they were indeed there to save her, they had to act fast. Alex's heart skipped a beat just at the thought of seeing Gene Hunt again.
"Right lads, you go around the back," Gene said, turning around to face men, "and I'll have a look about in 'ere," he added. He watched Chris and Ray head outside, and then proceeded forward, soon finding himself face to face with Arthur Layton. Standing behind him was Tommy Clark.
"Ah, DCI Hunt. We meet again," Layton said, a smile creeping across his face as he aimed his gun between Gene's eyes. "You're going nowhere, Hunt. Tommy, do the honours." With Layton's last remark, Tommy approached Gene, his confidence building as bound his hands and sat him down in a chair with his back against Alex's. Layton walked over to him, satisfied with the outcome, he spat in Gene's face. Before Gene had chance to react, he was knocked unconscious with a blow to the head from Tommy. "Tommy, take care of the other two will you," Layton asked and left Alex with her unconscious DCI.
'OK', thought Alex. 'Now what?' She sat thinking of how to get out of this mess - which was proving difficult – while Tommy kept coming and going, each time arriving with more and more fireworks, scattering them around the room and tying all of the fuses together. "This place is going to shine," Tommy said, before disappearing once more. She was in over her head. She just hoped back-up was on its way. But knowing Gene Hunt, it wasn't likely. Gene had managed to come to her rescue, but they were going nowhere fast. When it seemed Tommy couldn't fit any more fireworks into the room, he began to fill the others, leaving Alex and Gene alone with the distant sounds of Chris and Ray being beaten as she fought against the gag in her mouth, finally managing to remove it.
Gene held his head as it throbbed. "What the," was Gene's first thought upon waking. "Where the hell am I?" he said, looking out of the window onto the decidedly clean streets of the year 2008. Looking around at the interior of the car he was sitting in, he was utterly confused by the slits in the dashboard with the letters CD written next to them, the switches that moved the windows up and down, and most of all, the little box on the dashboard that read "satellite navigation." Getting out of the car, he noticed two teenagers staring at the vehicle he had just emerged from. Though Gene didn't usually see the details about people, Gene couldn't help but notice how strangely they were dressed. One of them was wearing jeans as tight as Bolly's and a jacket with a hood up. It wasn't raining, either.
"Nice ride, man. I've been wanting the new Audi TT," said one of the teens.
"Audi what?" Gene said, as he turned around to see what the two teens were looking at. "Christ on a bike," was all that Gene could muster. 'How the hell had this happened? And where in God's name was Bolly? He'd left her in the warehouse, been knocked on conscious and woken up here. He didn't know we could have gone on in between finding Bolly and this exact moment, but he was determined to figure it out.
Crossing the road, narrowly avoiding more strange looking cars and teenagers, he decided he'd ask the newspaper salesman for directions. The streets were full of tarts and weird looking buildings. "Oi, exactly where am I?" he asked, approaching the man. Before the man could answer him, Gene's jaw dropped at the sight of Alex's face sprawled across the front of one of the newspapers. Now totally ignoring the newspaperman, he scanned the headline which read: 'Detective Inspector Drake, still in critical condition after vicious attack.' Gene couldn't understand it. Last time he'd seen her, she was with Layton in a warehouse. Layton, thought Gene, both angry and distraught. He pulled the newspaper from the rack and handed him a fiver. But, the man wouldn't accept pound notes; he looked at him as if he was crazy. Unable to actually purchase the newspaper, he just went ahead to read the article about his DI.
"… three days ago at lunchtime, DI Alex Drake was called to take care of a hostage situation outside of Tate Modern. Her success however, was short lived when he later decided to take her daughter, Molly Drake. Choosing to go after the man, she managed to rescue her daughter and everything seemed to be under control… Later that evening Alex Drake went missing. A woman walking her dogs later found her unconscious on a barge by the Thames. It seems that she had been shot and is currently undergoing treatment in hospital from this almost fatal accident… We have reason to believe it was the same man who took her daughter hostage. Though police haven't released an official statement, the prime suspect is presumed to be one Arthur Layton…" Gene had read enough. Right now, he needed to see Alex. He had no idea about where he was; all he knew was that Alex needed him. What he didn't know was how to get there. To solve his problem, he called a taxi. There was too many buttons and holes in the car he was sat in previously. He just sat there, listening to the taxi driver, not understanding a word he had said. He was talking about sports players and celebrities he had never heard of, while listening to some man shouting words out of the radio, which, according to the announcer, was number one in the charts. Gene came to the conclusion that the taxi driver was insane.
--
Arriving at the hospital, he asked the nurse where he could find Alex Drake.
"Are you family? I can't allow just anybody other than family in, sir," she said, returning to her work. Gene stood there as he watched her tap her fingers on the keyboard of a rather strange looking machine. It was quite similar to the PC terminal that sat on his desk, only smaller. 'Bet it doesn't have pong', he thought.
"Don't tell me what I can't do. Now are yer gonna tell me where she is, or do I have to kick down every soddin' door?" He asked, but the answer was rhetorical.
"I'm sorry, sir, but only family are aloud in at this critical time," she repeated.
"I'm 'er 'usband" 'Her husband? Bloody hell!' he thought. 'What have I just said?'
"Why didn't you say so? Room 22, sir" she said, becoming worried about the man stood in front of her as the pout became evident on his face. Gene grunted his reply and stormed off to find her room, which took a little longer than had expected it to.
"Jesus Christ Bolly," he said, finally entering Alex's room. His eyes filled with horror as he took in the sight of her; tubes down her throat, electrodes stuck of her chest, machines bleeping in the background, her face deathly pale. Gene's body shook to the core, grief stricken.
"Hello," said a little voice as he stepped into the room. Turning on his heel, he found a little girl staring back at him, a little smile grazing her lips. "My name's Molly. What's your name?"
"Molly?" 'It couldn't be. Could it?'
"Yes. That's my mum."
"Molly? You're Molly? Bolly's Molly?" Gene was completely flustered.
"Who's Bolly?" said Molly, slightly confused at the strange looking man stood beside her.
"Oh, that's just your Mum's nickname. My name is Gene. Nice to meet you, Molly. I have heard so much about you," Gene said, kneeling down to be at eye level with the seated girl. He was still unsure about all of this.
"Gene," she laughed. "That's a funny name. I only know one person in the whole world that's called Gene."
"Well, now you know two. But there's only one Gene Hunt," he said, taking an instant liking to Molly. Hearing her laugh brought a smile to his lips.
"Gene Hunt? How do you know him?" she asked.
"That's me. My name's Gene Hunt." With these words, Molly nearly collapsed.
"You're Gene Hunt? You? But you're not real," Molly said, completely confused. This man wasn't very funny.
"You sound just like your mother, Molly," Gene said, pleased to be able to talk to someone so close to Alex.
"How do you know my mum? Do you know Sam?"
"Sam?"
"Yes. DCI Sam Tyler. My mum says he was crazy. He was in a coma for a while. Then when he woke up, he said he went back in time to 1973 and met you. He said he met himself too, and a lady called Annie. I never met him cus he killed himself, he jumped off the top of a building, but my mum has all his files," Molly explained.
"Yeah, I used to know Sam. But he was no DCI. He died last year, silly bugger. He drowned. Sam didn't kill himself. Then a year later, your mum came along, and has been driving me crazy since.'
"A whole year, are you sure?"
"Yeah, she keeps reminding me. She shouts at us all, saying we're all constructs, and then moans about wanting to go home. To you!"
"Constructs?" she asked, the cogs beginning to move around in Molly's head.
"Yeah, I know. She's crazy. Keeps saying she needs to escape her subwhatsit? That she needs to fight. She's been sayin' it all bloody year."
"Subconscious?"
"Yeah, that's it. She said she is stuck here like Sam was. You're a clever girl aren't you?" Gene said, surprised at Molly's intelligence. Then again, she was Alex's daughter.
"Like Sam was?" she asked. "When exactly did you meet me mum?"
"Seventeenth of July, I've known her three months now," Gene said, trying to recollect just how long he had known her. The time had flown by so fast.
"What's the date today, Gene?" Molly asked.
"5th of November, 1981. Why?" Finally, she was getting somewhere.
"Gene, today's date, is the 24th of July, 2008."
"What? But that would make me-"
"Exactly!" This was going to take a while, she could feel it.
"I don't understand, how did I get from sitting hostage with Alex in a 1981 warehouse, to here in 2008?"
"You were sitting with my mum a few minutes ago?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Well, Sam said he was hit by a car, and then he thought he woke up in 1973, but he was really in a coma," Molly began.
"Well, I was smacked around the chops by a scumbag. And then I woke up in somebody else's car!"
"And my mum was shot in the head. Don't you see Gene? My mum has done exactly what Sam did. She is here, like Sam was. Sam was in a coma, my mum is in a coma. And all the time they are in it, they think they have gone back in time. Sam went to the 1970's, and my mum is where? 1980's?"
"So, what you're sayin' is that a clout over the head makes you time travel?"
"Well, yeah. I suppose," but it wasn't that simple. "Well, a bad clout, Gene. My mum was shot remember? And Sam was ran over."
"But I just got a smack?"
"So you probably wont be 'here' too long. When you feel better in 1981, you will probably go back. When my mum comes out of her coma, she will come back to me," Molly said, looking over at her mum, hoping she would wake up. 'So, this is what she meant. She has to get back to 2008. No wonder she thinks we're all bloody constructs!'
"OK, suppose I believe all of this. Tell me about your mam's day before she was shot," he said.
"Well, we were on the way to school, and my mum gets called in. She said there's some man asking for her. He is stood with a gun to this girls head, me mum told me to wait in the car, but I got out. That's when that man grabbed me. But me mum saved me. It was my birthday. She said she would come home and blow my candles out when she was finished work. We always do something special for my birthday because my mum didn't have nice birthdays. Her parents were killed when she was younger. They got blown up in their own car."
"A car bomb?" No it couldn't be "What were her parents names, Molly?"
"Timothy and Caroline Price," she replied. Gene was passed himself. Little Alex Price was in fact, little Alex Drake. No wonder she was so close to Caroline. Caroline was her bloody mother! And she had lost her parents all over again. Bet she didn't know her own dad was behind it though.
Molly knew Gene needed some time to digest this information, so she thought it might be best to leave him alone. She wandered out to the nurse's station. One of the nurses there had been very nice to her these last few days. Gene had no idea where to begin. The poor man just found out what year it is.
--
Is this what you've been trying to tell me Bolly? All this time. He knew she was different, that she was special, but he had no idea. How can you be totally in love with someone and not know anything about them? Sure, he knew the kind of men she liked, but what else? Alex had always avoided talking about her childhood, and now he knew why. She would always ask him questions, but he never thought to ask her. But what Molly Alex's daughter had just told him, made Gene love her all the more. But she also said that she would wake up, and return to her. That would mean she would leave him, and never come back. He wouldn't be able to cope with that. He would refuse to cope with it, but Alex needed her daughter. By keeping her there, he would be depriving them both of their mother/daughter bond. No matter how much Gene wanted her to himself, her needs were greater than his. He'd have to let her go.
Breaking Gene away from his thoughts, was Molly's voice which could be heard just outside of the door. She was talking to a man, a voice he knew only too well. It was the voice of Evan White. Gene didn't want to fight with him, well he did, but not in front of Molly. There was a time and place to fight Evan, but sat by Alex's bedside in 2008 wasn't one of them. As he got up out of the chair, he began to hear noises. They were voices, 'now I really am going crazy!' But those voices were becoming stronger, blurry images were starting to appear, and the hospital was beginning to disappear. He could hear Alex. He could hear Bolly. He leant over Alex's bed, and placed a feather light kiss on her cold lips, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he found himself looking at his own knees. He couldn't move. It was then he realised that he was back where he started. Sat behind his Bolly, his hands tied behind his back, in the warehouse surrounded by fireworks. Gene Hunt was back.
What had just happened? Should I tell Alex? Will she think I am crazy? These were just a few questions that were running through his head. There was a whole list of them, which he would ask her as soon as he got out of this bloody warehouse.
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