Chapter 10 is here! I hope you enjoy it, I wanted to just focus on Gene and Alex for a little while, so theres plenty of Galex stuff, plus more to come.

Thank you so much to everyone who takes the time to read and review this story.

I don't own anything.

Enjoy!

Alex crept round the corner of the dusty hall, hearing muffled voices she leaned closer to the door frame so she could hear the conversation between the two victims.

"I'm so sorry," A high-pitched voice said. Alex frowned; the caller had said there were two men being held captive, not females.

"Look, we're going to be okay. Don't blame yourself for this." A deeper voice whispered. "Did you hear that?" He said.

Alex quickly held her breath; he must have heard her breathing, after having just climbed 8 flights of stairs she didn't realise how out of breath she was.

"Hear what?" The higher pitched voice asked curiously.

Alex wanted to see who the victims where, but she had been given orders to simply find where they were, and not to be seen or heard. Having done her job, and being sure that no one was hurt, she quietly started walking back down the corridor of the abandoned hotel and slowly went back down the stairs. As she got to about the 5th flight she heard a creak behind her, she quickly whipped round to see no one there, so she carried on cautiously walking down the stairs. Her heart was beating heavily in her chest, and she felt like she was being watched, but she managed to get to the ground floor where she saw Gene arguing with another officer.

"See, she's alright isn't she?" The cocky young man said, but Gene saw the fear in her eyes as she went to stand next to him.

"Yeah, and it's a bloody good job too!" He growled at the officer, "Don't you ever give orders to any of my team again!" He said, putting an arm around Alex.

"I was only doing my job sir." The officer said coldly, and turned to walk off.

"Well learn how to do it right." Gene said after him, and then turned to look at Alex.

"Erm, eighth floor." She said shakily, "Room 86."

"How close did you get?" He asked.

"Close enough to know it's a man and a woman, but erm…" She began to say, and took a deep breath in, "When I was coming back down, I swear someone was behind me." She said, going into a whisper.

Gene stood in thought for a moment, "Right." He said to her, "You go outside; I'll take Ray and Chris up." He said, pushing her out the door.

"What? No!" She rebelled. "I know where the room is, you need me with you." She started to walk back towards the stairs, but Gene blocked her way.

"Bolls, I'll find it, you need to be on call for backup if we need it."

"Gene any idiot can do that! What are you going to do if someone has a gun?"

Gene sighed, he was adamant she was not going back up those stairs, "I've been in these situations plenty of times without you and I'm still here aren't I?"

Alex huffed, realising that he obviously wasn't going to give up she moved back. "Fine, But don't you dare get into trouble."

Gene resisted a smile, "Promise." He said sarcastically.

Alex rested her head on his chest, "I love you." She said quietly.

Gene went to immediately reply back, but Ray walked through the door, and he didn't want to show that type of weakness. "C'mon Bolly you sound like I'm never gonna come back."

Alex stood up straight, "Don't say things like that!"

Gene rolled his eyes, "You big softy, right, outside." He gestured towards the door. She turned and walked through, holding it open for Chris to go inside. Ray stood scowling at Gene, "Smile. Might never happen." He said to him sarcastically. Chris looked at them both, noticing the coldness between them both he decided to interrupt the awkward silence.

"Where bouts are they Guv?" He asked.

"Eighth floor." He said, and began walking up the stairs.

Alex stood outside, next to Shaz who seemed completely relaxed, chatting about something on the TV, at least that's what Alex could figure out, but she was constantly checking her watch. 5 minutes had passed and there was nothing to tell them everything was okay, or if it wasn't. She wasn't usually this anxious, it's just that she felt uneasy about the hotel, and she wasn't sure what it was. She just told herself she was being silly and attempted to relax a little.

They finally made it up to the eighth floor, and stopped just where Alex had previously been standing outside the door. The first priority was to get the captives out of the hotel, but things hardly ever went to plan. Gene pulled down on the door handle and slowly pushed the door open to see two men in a dusty hotel room, sat on the floor with their wrists tied to a bed post. They looked up at the three men and one said in a high pitched voice, "Oh thank goodness! Please help us!" Gene wanted to crack up laughing, it was actually two men, it was just that one of them was gay. Instead he gave Chris the order to get them out whilst he and Ray found who ever put them there.

"Right, who put you here then?" Gene asked them.

The older man stood up after Chris had cut the rope. "Thanks." He said to Chris. "And we don't have a clue," He said to Gene, "We were just driving along here when we noticed a broken down car, so Jacob here decided to stop and ask if they needed any help. When we got to them, they stuffed us in their car and drove us here."

Gene looked around the room, "Guv?" Chris said.

"Why this room?" He wondered, then snapped out of his trance and looked back at the two men, "Alright, so I'm guessing they aren't here anymore?"

"There's no car outside Guv." Ray said to Gene.

"Right." He said, "Well let's get you two down to the station then." Chris led them out of the door and they made their way back down the stairs. When they got outside Alex looked up and walked straight over to them, then noticed the two men and looked confused. "Gay." Gene explained simply to her.

"You don't say." She said, looking at the small man who was just getting into a car. "Any idea of who it was?"

Gene shook his head. "Claim to never seen 'em before."

"As always. Well we'll see about that." Alex said determinedly. She turned and both she and Gene walked back towards the car where Ray and Chris had already made their selves comfortable.

"Can you describe the car Mr Graves?" Alex kindly asked. The man relaxed into his chair and looked around at the interview room. Alex could see Gene's patience slowly wearing away. "Mr Graves?" She asked again.

"I think…" He began.

"…That it had 4 wheels and went brum?" Gene said sarcastically. Alex secretly smiled, but coughed to tell Gene it was inappropriate.

"Carry on Mr Graves." She said. He put his hands on his head.

"It all happened so fast... Blue." He nodded. "It was definitely blue."

"That really narrows it down." Gene mumbled, losing his patience.

"Perhaps your son can remember the model. How about the men? Can you tell us what they looked like?" Alex suggested, ignoring Gene.

"Yes, they were both dressed in dark tracksuits. They had their hoods up so I could only see their face a little. They didn't look English, and certainly didn't sound like it." Mr Graves said.

Alex glanced next to her and noticed Gene was just about to say something obviously insulting. "Thank you Mr Graves." She said quickly. "Now you've narrowed it down we can get searching right away." She led him out of the room and closed the door. She looked down at Gene and waited for him to say something. Instead he just sat back, thinking.

"Go on." Alex said.

"What?" Gene said innocently.

"Don't toy with me Hunt. Say something sarcastic just to get it out of your system." She said and went to sit on the table.

"And what makes you think I would want to say something sarcastic?" He mimicked her voice.

Alex scoffed, "Wel…" She began

"Hey," Gene pointed at her, "I could say something very professional." He said, and leaned on the table.

"Yeah, well god help us the day that that happens eh?" She joked, and then looked deep into Gene's eyes. They stayed like it for a few seconds until Gene quickly broke contact.

"Here's my opinion Bolls. Why say something stupid to look good, when you can get straight the point that I'm trying to make?"

Alex sighed in defeat, "Which is?" She regretted asking.

"Unless the gay prats any use, we're buggered."

Jacob sat with his head down, twiddling his thumbs. He looked about 23 years old, any woman would have agreed he was a good-looker. He was giving a lot more information than his dad.

"So you say you recognised the voices from a voice mail to your dad's answering machine?" Alex asked.

Jacob nodded. "He has his own garage, I work part-time. It was last Saturday, Dad had nipped out and the phone rang, but I didn't get to it in time. When I got into reception I looked at the machine and they'd left a message, so I played it. It was two blokes, said something like, 'look, you know who it is and we aint gonna let you get away with it! You still owe us, and if we don't get payed, we'll keep you in that place till you sort the mess out.' maybe not that exactly, but at the moment the first one spoke I knew exactly where i'd heard them. Very distinctive Birmingham accent."

"Birmingham?" Gene asked. "Your dad told us they weren't english."

Jacob looked confused, "No, they we're white! Both had dark eyes, looked about thirty."

Alex sighed, it was getting to the end of a long day and felt like they were getting absolutely no where. Everything that Mr Graves had told them was completely different to what Jacob Graves had said.

"Right." Gene said. "Thanks Jacob, your gonna need to come back Monday, but you can go home now."

"Thanks Mr Hunt." Jacob said, and left.

"Well that was, interesting." Gene said to break the silence. He looked down at Alex who had her head on the table. "You alright?" He asked her.

"Yeah." She sat up straight, and yawned. Gene got up, leaving everything on the table. "Where are you going?" She asked.

"We're goin' home." Gene said and walked to the door.

"We can't! We've got all this to sort out yet." She gestured to the huge piles of paper on the table.

"Leave it 'till Monday. Come on Bolly the girls aren't even gonna be at home tonight and I am not wasting my time 'ere workin'."

Alex sat in thought for a moment, "I was not aware of that." she said, and quickly got up and walked out the room and followed Gene.

Hope it was okay! Please review.