Chapter 8

"Guv? Where's DCI Stringer?"

Gene looked up and saw Jake and Marci at the door.

"Have you checked around strong magnets?" he asked but they didn't seem amused.

"We can't find her," Marci told him.

"Have you asked her masked sidekick?"

"There's no sign of Robin either," Jake told him.

Gene leaned back and sighed heavily.

"What about Shoebury?"

"Not there."

"Bollocks," Gene growled as he got to his feet. The office was looking somewhat emptier than it should have been. He hoped they were all out on leads but somehow he had a weird feeling that this wasn't the case. "Get on with tracing yer suspects and I'll have a word with Metal Mickey when she sees fit to grace us with her presence again." He folded his arms as he walked toward the doorway. He pulled a scathing face as he looked over the office. If Kim, Robin and Simon were on leads they should have taken a radio or at least left details of where they'd gone. As he stood there a flustered Simon returned, took off his jacket, threw it over his chair with extreme prejudice and slammed a couple of things on his desk. "Someone's been on the happy pills," Gene boomed and Simon jumped. He looked at Gene, feeling little awkward about being caught in the middle of his bad mood but he was too angry to stay feeling that way for long.

"Don't Gene, I'm not in the mood," he snapped which set off a flicker of fury in Gene's eyes.

"Is that right?" he narrowed his eyes and Simon started to wonder if he should have kept his mouth closed. "Are you in the mood to step into my office and explain where you disappeared to without warning?"

Simon hesitated.

"I didn't disappear without warning," he bluffed, "I went to the latte run . The ones Jake got were cold."

"Is that so?" Gene narrowed his eyes again, "serve invisible lattes now, do they?"

"I dropped them," Simon snapped.

"Need to work on your co-ordination then," Gene told him. He stared at Simon's expression. He'd rarely seen him so angry. "Think you might need to step in my office and see if the filing cabinets can calm you down.

Simon pursed his lips and looked away.

"No thanks."

"It wasn't a choice, Shoebury," Gene told him. He stepped aside. "In here. Now."

"I've got work to do," Simon mumbled.

"Then you should have thought of that before you went dropping invisible lattes," Gene growled, signalling for Simon to enter his office.

Despite scowling Simon knew he had little choice in the matter and blundered into the room, looking like a stroppy teenage boy.

"What now?" he mumbled as Gene headed back behind his desk. He swallowed and chanced a glance up as he noticed how angry Gene had become.

"Sell attitude problems in Latte Land along with the invisible lattes now, do they Shoebury?" he barked. Simon didn't reply or even look him in the eye. "You've been like a bear with a sore head for the last two days." He hesitated. "Ever since we had words about a certain miraculous recovery by a young PC, in fact." He noticed Simon's cheeks starting to redden and he felt himself beginning to grow angrier. "You've been to see him, haven't you?" The look on Simon's face alone told Gene everything he needed to know. "What did I say to you?" he cried, "we talked about this -"

"Wrong, Gene," Simon's head rose and he exploded in Gene's face, "you talked. I was talked over. You didn't listen to me at all!"

"Meddling with Minnow Keats is only going to cause trouble," Gene snapped angrily.

"He needs intervention."

"He needs leaving well alone!"

"Unfortunately Keats doesn't seem to agree with you!" Simon yelled which brought Gene's ranting to a halt. He fell silent, staring at Simon with worry and confusion on his face. "Older Keats," Simon specified, "our Keats."

"Don't make him sound like a well-loved pet," Gene's voice was quieter and flat in tone. He swallowed as he eyed Simon. "Jimbo vanished. He disappeared up his own arse."

"Yeah, well he's crapped himself out," Simon waved his hand dismissively and began to pace. He tugged on his hair as he walked trying to relieve a little of the frustration and anger, "he's back. I saw him." He rolled his eyes, "saw him, yelled at him…" he stopped pacing as he turned to see Gene staring at him. "He walked in while I was there. He's got the hospital believing he's Keats Junior's uncle, officially responsible for his care," he shook his head and closed his eyes as his anger began to give way to fear, "this is what I want to intercept, Gene. I want to stop him getting his hands on his younger self. Can you imagine it? Two Keatses side by side?"

"I'd rather not," Gene shuddered, "last time I did that it took a week to get the stains out me trousers."

"I'm serious," Simon hung his head slightly, "someone has to stop Keats from letting that young copper grow up as bitter and twisted as him. There's still time. It'll take months and years before he's able to function as close to normal as he ever gets. "If we start on him now –"

"The re-spray'll be dry by Christmas, will it?" Gene asked. Simon shook his head and sighed.

"You just don't understand," he whispered.

"You're right, Shoebury, I don't understand," Gene barked, "I don't understand why you've decided to turn Mister Evil into your pet project when you're the one whose blood he's baying for!"

"Because I can stop him from doing that!" Simon cried

"Miracle worker now, are you?"

"No, just human."

"Which is more than he is!"

"How can he ever get better if no one's going to give him a fucking chance?!" Simon cried and found a hand grasping him by the collar as his back met with a familiar filing cabinet.

"You're playing with fire, Simon," Gene warned in fury, "you're not just meddling with one Keats, you'll have two of them on the go." He hesitated, "or is that what you want?"

Simon tried to pull Gene's hands away from his collar.

"God, no!" he choked.

"If you think you can convert young PC James Keats into one of the good guys and get yourself a mini-Robin –"

"What? No!" Simon cried.

"Everyone saw the bleedin' resemblance!" Gene reminded him.

"I want to help him, not hump him!" Simon cried, finally tugging himself free, "God…" he tried to straighten his tie and loosen his collar.

"I asked you to stay away from him," Gene said darkly, "Now I'm telling you. He'll look at you and he'll see the one that got away. He's already gonna try claiming you thirteen years from now. You want him to get a two for the price o'one deal?"

Simon breathed heavily as he narrowed his eyes at Gene, but Gene's stare was no longer angry; it was worried and anxious. Simon swallowed and looked down. He could understand that.

"No," he said quietly.

"Then," Gene began, "you need to keep yer distance."

Simon just shook his head, wishing that Gene could at least try to see it from his point of view, but he'd lost hope of that. He just wanted to stop arguing about it because the argument was already wearing him thin.

"Just forget about the whole thing," he told Gene, "I can't go back again anyway. Keats is telling the hospital not to let me in to see him."

"Really?" Gene's tone hovered between being interested and sarcastic, "thought he'd have used you like the rabbit on the greyhound track. Incentive to get the crippled one out of bed."

"Gene," Simon cringed at his words and shook his head. "I've had enough of this. It's none of your business what I do anyway."

"When the safety of the station is at risk it becomes my business," Gene told him as he marched towards the door, "when the safety of my friend is at risk it becomes my business," he called but Simon had already passed out of earshot, leaving Gene to close his eyes and flop heavily into his chair with frustration. Somehow he couldn't believe Simon would do the sensible thing and stay away. "You're too bloody stubborn," he mumbled to himself, "wherever could you have got that from?"

~xXx~

"Alright, Kim, I'm going to take a look first before I turn the screen around to show you what's going on, OK?"

Kim could only nod; she couldn't speak, couldn't even think. Robin clutched her hand as the midwife spread gel across her belly and began to dig around with the probe. She couldn't remember feeling so scared in all of her life. As she looked at Robin's expression she could tell that he felt the same.

"What can you see?" he asked quietly, his voice catching as the midwife started to smile.

"Baby's looking strong and healthy," she smiled. She turned the screen around for them to see. "Look, there it is – you can see its little arms there, and legs."

Robin swallowed as his heart felt like it fluttered right out of his chest. He started to clutch Kim's had a little tighter and, forgetting the real reason for their scan, a smile spread across his face.

"Kim, look," he breathed but she couldn't even register what he'd said.

"What about dates?" she whispered, "can you tell us how long… I mean…"

"Just let me take a few measurements," the midwife told them, it won't take too long."

Kim glanced at Robin as the midwife tapped a few details into her computer and measured the baby on the screen. She felt extremely churned up; the mix of emotions was suffocating her. Everything had happened in such a whirlwind; from the sudden realisation that her body had been healed on her journey into the world, to the positive test and now there it was in front of her, a little life moving, thrashing, waving, almost showing-off on the screen.

"Fuck" she whispered.

"Kim?" Robin said gently, "are you OK?"

Kim swallowed and nodded stiffly. She wasn't OK and they both knew it but what else could she do?

"All's looking good," the midwife piped, "there's no obvious cause for the bleeding on the scan."

"The dates?" Kim prompted.

"You're looking at about ten weeks," the midwife told her

Kim's eyes closed. She swallowed and felt Robin lean closer.

"I don't know what that means," he said quietly. Slowly she turned to look at him.

"It means," she said shakily, "that I conceived around the first week of October." A strong feeling of nausea crept up on her which she tried to swallow away was she saw Robin's complexion turn visibly paler.

"You were at Fenchurch West," he whispered, turning away so Kim couldn't see his eyes fill up with tears.

"…Or nine weeks."

Kim and Robins eyes moved back to the midwife.

"What?" Robin whispered.

"It could be nine weeks," the midwife repeated, "it's borderline. The baby's not lying in the best position for measuring. You're nine or ten weeks' pregnant. That's the closest estimate I can make."

Kim turned to Robin again. She bit her lip and swallowed as that one week's difference changed everything.

"One week later I was with you," she whispered, "It… it could be yours…" she swallowed, "or it might not."

"Is everything alright, Kim?" the midwife asked.

Kim didn't know how to respond to that. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to calm the dreads that were growing inside her.

"Fine," she whispered.

The midwife laid down the probe and wiped the worst of the gel from Kim's stomach.

"I'm going to speak to one of the consultants and see if he recommends an internal to locate the cause of the bleeding," she said as Kim sat up and scrubbed away the rest to the gel with rough paper towels.

"No thank you," she whispered.

"I-if all was well on the scan we'll leave it at that for now," Robin said quietly. He looked at Kim with concern as she stood up and started to refasten her jeans.

"Here," the midwife handed Robin a little black and white picture. He took it with a trembling hand. "You can keep this one."

Robin bit his lip tearfully as he whispered,

"Thank you."

"You'll need to speak to your GP and get referred to the midwife at your local surgery for proper pre-natal care," the midwife said but her advice fell on deaf ears. Neither Robin nor Kim could think about anything but the fact that it was too close to call. Neither could work out who was shaking more as they silently left the hospital and stood in the car park, clinging to one another for dear life. Kim wasn't sure she would ever stop crying and Robin didn't know how to make his chest stop aching.

They'd seen tiny heart beating. They'd seen a little arm wave to them. It was so much more real now than it had been an hour ago.

And that made it scarier than either could have imagined.