Hello! Thank you, as ever, for all your wonderful reviews; I can never get over the loveliness of the people in this fandom – on here and on Tumblr, you're just all such amazingly lovely people! I want to hug you all every time I get a review or message from you. :P Anyway, once I'm done getting sentimental over you guys, you may read the chapter! :) The last few updates have been pretty Scarlett-heavy, so I decided some Galex was definitely needed round about now…

X :D

Disclaimer – I don't own Ashes to Ashes… Gosh, it breaks my heart to say those words! :P

Chapter 10

"Here," Gene said, pushing a large glass of red wine into Alex's hands before sitting down on the sofa next to her. He took a long swig from the beer bottle in his hand and swung his feet up onto the coffee table, where scuff marks already resided from the many times his trademark crocodile skin boots had graced the worn wooden top.

"Thanks." Alex gave him a grateful smile and drained more than half the glass in one go before placing it carefully on the coffee table, away from Gene's feet so it wouldn't get knocked over. Shifting a little, she brought her legs up to tuck under her so she was sat more comfortably, facing Gene, with one elbow resting against the sofa back, hand propping up the side of her head.

Gene still looked pensive, a familiar pout resting on his lips as he stared down into space, not speaking. Alex reached out with the hand that wasn't propping her head up to nudge him affectionately, greeting him with a small smile when he turned his head to look at her.

"Hey, it's going to be okay you know, Gene… She'll be alright. You both will."

The atmosphere in the darkened room was quiet. The only light shone weakly from a dim lamp on a table in the corner, so that half their faces were in shadow, and the blackness of the night outside hardly seemed darker than the greyness of the room. Despite this, Alex felt remarkably comfortable in Gene's living room, sat on his slightly old, slightly too squishy sofa. She tried not to dwell too long on the fact that it felt so right, sitting there with him in peaceful companionship, nursing a glass of wine and not fighting over something as they did all too often in CID.

"Not without you, Bols," Gene eventually said, his words low and soft. "You're the one she listens to… A little bit, at least. Doesn't give a damn what 'er old Dad thinks." He swallowed. "Don't blame 'er."

Wetting her lips, Alex sighed softly and picked up her wine glass again. "You need to stop being so hard on yourself, Gene. You're doing fine. And you know, she will come around, I can promise you that… At the end of the day, it's you she needs to have a relationship with, not me. And she will. But you both need to let go of the past. In order for her to forgive you, you have to forgive yourself."

With a wry smile, Gene allowed his head to fall back against the back of the sofa and looked over at her. "S'too late in evening for yer psycho bollocks, Bolly."

Alex smiled. "That's more like the Gene Hunt I know and – "

She stopped abruptly, instantly feeling the heat spreading up from her chest to her neck and face. Her eyes darted downwards as she drowned her suddenly wide-eyed gaze in the deep red of the wine in her glass.

Shit.

The silence in the room suddenly seemed thicker than before, imposing as it hung over them like a sword, ready to hurt. Gene's eyes were fixed to her like glue, his fingers frozen around the neck of the beer bottle. For some reason, he found his throat dry; the words got stuck. He swallowed, and it sounded too loud in the absolute silence.

"Bolly – "

A nervous laugh escaped her, and she pushed herself to look up at him again. But just like before when he had hugged her at the top of the stairs, she couldn't quite meet his gaze. "You know what I mean."

"Bols – "

Gene didn't miss the flicker of fear that flared up in her eyes at his persistence, and he felt his heart mysteriously begin to pound in his chest. The reasonably cool room felt just a little too warm for his liking all of a sudden.

"Leave it, Gene. You know what I meant."

He watched as she knocked the rest of her wine back in one gulp, her eyes looking everywhere but directly at him. For a few moments, he was lost for words. Yes, he had known what she meant.

The first time she said it.

The second time… the second time smacked all too much of unneeded justification. Of nervousness, of poorly disguised panic. Gene was no psychologist – far from it – but he wasn't a detective for nothing.

Good God, the daft tart hadn't gone and fallen for him, had she?

Had she? He studied her briefly again – studied the way her gaze was still staring down into the depths of her now empty glass as though the last few dregs of wine there were the most interesting things in the world. There was a slight flush in her cheeks, an openness, a wideness to her eyes… her full lips were slightly parted. The thought suddenly came to him that he took her beauty for granted sometimes. She was bloody gorgeous.

She couldn't have fallen for him. Couldn't even have any of those feelings for him… She might love him as a colleague, as a friend, even… But not like that. Not the way he want- He stopped his train of thought.

Dangerous territory, Genie boy. Don't go there.

So why was his heart still pounding in his chest, the thudding of it against his ribcage seeming to echo itself in the dark silence of the room? Why did he not quite know what to say to her, how to move the conversation on from the awkward rut it had suddenly found itself in?

"Bols," he said softly again, and he could have sworn he saw her flinch, as though she was waiting for some great blow that she knew she just wouldn't be able to bear. Noticing this, he changed the rest of his sentence last minute – chickened out.

"Would you forgive me?" he asked.

Surprised, Alex looked up at him. Her body was still slightly tense, but there was visible relief in her eyes that he hadn't pushed the subject any further. Her eyebrows knitted together slightly and she unconsciously tilted her head to one side, confused.

Gene leant forward to place his now empty beer bottle on the table next to his feet. "I mean… if it was you… Would yer forgive me, Bolly?"

What felt like a million years of silence passed before Alex answered, and when she did her words were softly spoken – honest and genuine. They set Gene's heart racing again as he wondered how it was she could have such a great effect on him. It was like there was an aura of power about her that just couldn't be denied.

"I have forgiven you, Gene," she said quietly, looking up at him from beneath long, curved eyelashes. She blinked, and then looked at him properly, lifting her head up to meet his gaze.

"There's something about you, Gene Hunt… It doesn't matter what you do, or what you say to me, or to other people, even when I don't know the reasons for your actions. I always forgive you."

A sad smile touched her lips. "I don't think I even know why, but I do. Every time."

There was another tense silence following that, and her words carried more poignancy than Gene could ever have imagined. They touched him on a level he hadn't known he had and as he looked back at her, their steady gazes connected, belying so much, every inch of him longed to reach out and touch her. He wanted to trace the outline of her lips with his fingertips, wanted to brush his thumb across her cheek and cup her jaw in his hands… He had never truly understood before what people meant when they described someone as beautiful, inside and out. But in that moment, he felt like he was looking at the dictionary definition.

The glimmer of a smile quirked on the corner of his lips. "It's because yer a fruitcake, Bolly."

One of her most genuine laughs escaped her at that, unrestrained and unprompted. It was rich and full-bodied, her eyes lighting up as her head tilted back a little, mouth wide and smiling. She looked back at him with a dancing gaze. "That must be it," she said, and the laughter remained as an undertone to her words. "I'm going mad."

"Going mad?" Gene snorted. "Yer've always been mad, ever since the day I met you."

Rolling her eyes, Alex shoved her empty wine glass towards him. "Oh shut up and go get me another one of these. What is it, by the way? It's better than Luigi's usual plonk anyway, whatever it is."

Gene chuckled and took the glass from her and picked his empty beer bottle up too. "You're the boss, Bols."

She arched a suggestive eyebrow at that. "I was rather under the impression that you were the boss, DCI Hunt."

"Don't tell the others," he warned her, gesturing with the hand that held the beer bottle. "Ruin my reputation."

Alex grinned. "My lips are sealed."

The first thing Gene became aware of when he woke was that he was most definitely not in his usual sleeping position. The second thing he became aware of was that he wasn't in bed, and neither was he alone. Very slowly, as he groggily opened his eyes, he became aware of a warm presence at his side, a body leaning against his, hair tickling the side of his face. And finally, the last thing he became very suddenly aware of was the hand resting carelessly on his thigh, red nails contrasting against the black of his trousers… which would end up being a lot tighter if her hand accidentally ventured any higher.

"Bolly." His voice came out gruff and still heavy with sleep. He tried to shift slightly in an attempt to alleviate the dull ache at the base of his back that had come from falling asleep whilst still sat slouched on the sofa, but at the movement, a small, incoherent moan of protest slipped from between Alex's lips and she snugged closer to him, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

Gene froze. His eyes were wide as he tried to steady his breathing, tried to calm his erratic pulse rate. Alex Drake had fallen asleep on him. Alex Drake was snuggling up to him. Alex Drake's hand was on his thigh. Alex Drake's body was pressed up against the side of his. He could feel the warmth of her skin against his neck, could smell the light, feminine, floral scent of her shampoo from the hair that was tickling his chin. A lazy, absent smile rested on her lips as she slept, content to rest her head snugly on his shoulder, one hand on his chest, the other… He swallowed and gritted his teeth to keep back a moan that was just begging to escape him.

A few moments of tense silence and deep breathing later, Gene tried to shift slightly again, his arm wrapping around Alex's waist to move her with him.

"Bolly… Bols… Wake up, Bolly."

"Mhm…" She only snuggled herself closer to him, if that was possible, and Gene watched with wide, alarmed eyes as the hand resting on his thigh slipped upwards a little. The breath caught in his throat, and a small, strangled groan escaped him. She really was going to be the death of him.

"Right," he muttered, "That's quite enough taking advantage of the Gene Genie fer one night."

In one swift movement, he managed to gather Alex up into his arms and stood, carrying her from the room. His mind flashed back to the first day he had met her – all fur coat and no knickers, protesting as he carried her across the threshold of his kingdom. He hadn't known then that she was never bloody going to leave – his kingdom or his mind.

"Yer want t' eat a bit more, Bolly," he said as he carried her up the stairs, surprised at how light she was; not that she had ever been fat. "Get some meat on yer."

It did occur to him that talking to someone who was evidently out cold was more or less on a level with talking to himself, but he pushed the thought aside and, as quietly as he could, so as not to wake Scarlett up, nudged open the door to his bedroom and gently placed Alex down on his bed. With a small shake of his head at how she was still fast asleep, he pulled the covers up over her and then sat down on the other side, easing off his boots. She could have a go at him for effectively kidnapping her and taking her to bed in the morning; he was bloody exhausted and so was she, evidently.

Settling down under the covers, Gene rolled to face away from Alex and told himself to forget she was there. But it was hard to ignore her presence – the weight on the other side of the duvet, the knowledge that she was there, sleeping, her warm body so close to his… He could reach out and touch her, hold her… fall asleep with his arms around her.

Stop being a bloody poofter and get some sleep. You'll be nutty as a fruitcake too soon.

He sighed and closed his eyes, knowing he would always remember this as the day that he finally got Alex Drake into his bed. Sort of.

What Gene didn't see as he drifted off, body turned away from her, was the broad, smug smile that slowly spread across Alex's lips as her eyes fluttered open for a moment, fully awake. She closed her eyes again and burrowed deeper under the duvet, shifting her body slightly closer to Gene. After all, she could hardly be held responsible for what she did unconsciously in her sleep now, could she?

Ooh, I enjoyed writing that! I'd forgotten how much I really love writing Gene and Alex in these sorts of situations. Hope you liked it too and please review!

X :D