I am posting two chapters at the same time as they need to be read together as one event.

I have to say that they have almost driven me mad. I hadn't anticipated how difficult it is to write something with this much dialogue from two differing POV's.

Anyway, here they are and I hope that they work. As always thank you to everyone who reads the dark wanderings of my angsty little mind. It's much appreciated.

Characters belong to Kudos and the lyrics are the property of ABC

Once upon a time when we were friends

I gave you my heart, the story ends

No happy ever after........

What's it like to have loved and to lose her touch?

What's it like to have loved and to lose that much?

Oh God……………

Gene swallowed uncomfortably, feeling the lump in his throat as he struggled to breathe.

She was really here.

Alex was here.

He wanted her so much that he could hardly stand, his whole being dizzy with longing. The knowledge that she could still have such an overwhelming effect terrified him and his heart began to pound, panic clutching at his chest. Why was she here, anyway? Maybe she hadn't gone to the Bahamas after all. Maybe he'd misheard and what she'd really said was Barcelona......... Or even Benidorm?

His thoughts raced as he struggled to make sense of it all. He forced himself to stand straighter, schooling his expression into one of icy indifference. How the fuck had she known about this place anyway?

He'd never like surprises, he'd always loathed that precarious, teetering moment as everything hung between certainty and uncertainty. It unbalanced and unnerved him, and as ever, that made him angry. He tried to sort out how he felt, what he wanted to say, but it was all too overwhelming. Whatever she was doing here, he couldn't let his guard down now, not this time. She'd destroy him.

The slow burn of belligerent resentment that he'd been nursing all the way home, suddenly flared into defensive rage and without pausing to think, he panicked and snapped at her, blurting out the first thing that came into his drink be-fuddled brain.

"I thought you were on your honeymoon. Slumming it a bit here, aren't you? Or did Ryecroft bring you to sunny Spain to laugh at the lower orders?"

Scowling ferociously, he let the anger spread and grow within him, arming himself against her, watching with a sense of vicious satisfaction as the smile slipped from her face. He was furious with her for just being there, for having the nerve to stand there so calmly, in HIS house, in the one place that he'd thought was his refuge from her.

He walked carefully into the centre of the room, claiming the space for himself, needing to assert his ownership, but also very aware of how drunk he still was. She started to answer and he cut her off, not ready to listen to what she had to say. He couldn't allow her to see how weak she made him; not until he knew what it was she wanted from him.

"Incidentally, what are you doing in my house? You are no doubt aware that Spain has laws about breaking and entering, the same as England does?"

She nodded, watching him warily with those incredible eyes of hers.

"Well?" he snapped, making his voice deliberately hard. "I'm waiting for an answer."

"I came to talk to you about what happened.. … about the wedding…" Her voice was soft and hesitant and Gene felt shivers of longing skitter traitorously down his spine. His body wanted her, even if his mind was refusing to admit any such thing.

"Oh yes, the wedding! Do you know, it had completely slipped my mind! Yes, let's talk about that shall we?"

He gave her a wintry smile, making sure that his tone was bitingly cold, his reaction fuelled by the icy fear that gnawed at the pit of his stomach. Resolutely ignoring the look of bewildered disbelief on her face, he concentrated on suppressing the little voice inside his head that was asking him what the bloody hell he thought he was playing at. He was angry and scared and suddenly he didn't give a toss about why she there. All that mattered was that he was going to get his attack in first because if he didn't, he was lost.

"Why did you do it, Alex? Why did you make me stand there, dressed up like a twat while you married another man? How could you ask me to do that for you? You must have known how I'd feel about it? Wanted a good laugh, did you? One final humiliation of me before you pissed off to your la-di-dah new life!"

He saw her eyes grow wide with shock at his words.

"No! It wasn't like that! I 'd never have asked you if I'd known how you felt."

She moved from her place in the doorway and came towards him, stopping on the other side of the kitchen table, obviously unsure about coming any closer. She shook her head in sorrowful denial. "You have to believe me. I thought you were perfectly happy with the way things were"

"Happy! You think I was happy that we split up? That I had to sit there, night after night and watch that posh wanker whisper sweet nothings in your ear. You think I was happy that it was him that went upstairs with you instead of me! You're the one that's supposed to know about all that psychological emotional bollocks, but it's very clear that you knew nothing about how I felt, Alex! Nothing! Happy is the last word on earth that I would have used to describe my state of mind!"

He watched the disbelief spark into anger as he shouted, welcoming the indignant fury that glittered in her eyes.

Good.

She was angry too, now and it had always been easier to fight her rather than love her. He tensed himself for battle as she narrowed her eyes and shouted back at him.

"I'm a psychologist, for Christ's sake, not a bloody mind-reader! Anyone would have thought that you were made of stone, for all the emotion you ever show! I never knew how you felt about us when we were together and I never knew how you felt about us splitting up either! Not once did I even get the slightest hint that you cared about what was going on between me and Oliver! You were pretty busy yourself most evenings with that Lisa bimbo draping herself over you at every opportunity she got! Every time I ever looked at you, you had a hand on her arse! Do you think that made ME happy, Gene? Watching you with her! Knowing that you were taking her home to your bed!"

"Oh for God's sake! I only took up wi' Lisa because you were getting a bloody good seeing to from Doctor Dickhead!"

He watched as she struggled to speak for an instant, almost overcome with rage. "So you're telling me it was my fault that you got involved with that silly little tart, are you? You didn't have to, Gene! You made the choice to screw her. It was nothing to do with me!"

She was jealous, he thought incredulously. Alex was jealous of Lisa. The realisation flashed across his mind for an instant before he retaliated, unable to stop himself shouting back. This was how it was; how it had always been with him and Alex. He couldn't help himself. She was so bloody confrontational and so damn frustrating that even when he tried to have a reasonable conversation with her, he found himself arguing instead.

"So what else was I supposed to do! Sit in the corner like some sad lonely old bastard while you spent every evening with Mr Fancy-Pants surgeon? I tried Alex, I really did, but you can't expect to have everything your own way. You couldn't expect me not have a social life just because you wanted us to stay friends!"

"Social life?.....SOCIAL LIFE!So shagging every nubile twenty-something within a five-mile radius of the station is a social life, is it? Do you have ANY idea what sort of stories I had to listen to every morning when I came into work!"

Her voice rose to an anguished shriek and for the first time since they'd split up, all those months ago, he realised that maybe she hadn't been happy about what had happened either. So why hadn't she said anything? Why hadn't she let him know how she'd felt? She was always so bloody snooty, so "Little Miss Independent" that he never knew what the fuck she was thinking.

The voice in his head was louder now, urging him to calm down and listen to what she had to say, warning him that he was messing things up even more, but he couldn't stop. His own anger and the hurt were just too strong and he couldn't hold back, clenching his hands into fists to stop them trembling as he replied with his usual sarcasm.

"I don't listen to office gossip as a rule, but I'm sure you're going to enlighten me." That wasn't true. He knew damn well how filthy the stories had been. He'd made sure that Ray had known every salacious detail, knowing full well that Alex would end up hearing them too.

"Ray, Chris, all the lads; talking about you, describing the women that you'd picked up, laughing about what you'd done with them. It hurt............it hurt me so much that I obviously meant so little to you. I didn't ask you for anything when we split up, except possibly a little respect, but you couldn't even manage that."

She still couldn't see it. Still didn't realise why he'd behaved like such a bastard. The ache in his chest was so painful now that it stopped his throat and he struggled to keep his voice from shaking.

"That's not true, Alex. You did ask me for something. You asked me to do the one thing that was almost impossible for me. You wanted us to be friends." He shook his head, his mouth set in a grimace of pain. "You sat there and gave me the brush-off and told me that you still wanted to friends."

"And you believed me, didn't you, you stupid man!" she screamed at him, her face twisted with despair, fury driving her forward as she closed the gap between them at last.

"Of course I bloody did!" Gene roared, frustrated beyond measure by such a seemingly ridiculous turn in the conversation. "I remember your exact words; 'I still want us to be friends, Gene'. Stupidly, I was willing to cling on to any scrap of hope you might have thrown me, so why wouldn't I have believed you?

"Because when a woman says something like that, that's not what they really mean! They don't actually want to be friends! They either want you to sod off and never bother them again, or they're secretly hoping that maybe you'll change your mind and the relationship will begin again!"

"How the hell could it begin again! You started seeing someone else!"

Christ Almighty! It was impossible to argue properly with a woman. All they did was twist everything round and make totally illogical statements; mad as bag of snakes didn't even begin to cover it.

"It wasn't really serious! I just wanted you to realise what you were missing!"

"For fucks' sake, Alex! How was I supposed to work that out! Before I knew it, you were engaged to him. Why would I think that you still wanted me? You were marrying him! That's pretty damn serious in my opinion!"

He jabbed a finger at her chest in sheer frustration at the nonsense she was coming out with. He would never, ever understand her! He couldn't quite believe that he was even willing to try and get to grips with what went on in that pretty little head of hers!

"But it was never meant to get that far! You were meant to stop me! You were meant to come and get me back!......But you didn't."

He heard her voice wobble and break on the last word. Oh bloody marvellous. Now she was going to cry. Women always did that and it wasn't fair. It was way below the belt, because a bloke was always going to feel like a complete bastard if he made a bird cry.

He could feel himself weakening. She was so close to him now; all endless legs, and huge green eyes… and that damn scent…... All he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her and kiss her, tell her that everything was going to be OK, but he couldn't let himself think like that. How did that stupid song go? "And a taste of honey's worse than none at all". Too bloody right it was. He wished he'd never had the chance to know just what he was missing. It would hurt even more when she rejected him again. Better to never let her have the chance to so.

"Oh no! You can't blame that one on me, Alex. I've been there before, chasing after you like some love-sick nancy-boy. Remember?..... You and me in Luigi's?...... Sea scallops with pineapple rings, and me dying wi' me boots on as you slapped me back down. After that, there was no way on God's earth that I was going to chase after you again!"

"Oh for God's sake!"

He saw her roll her eyes in annoyance, before quickly spreading out her hands in front of her in a mollifying gesture, obviously trying to take the sting from her words. Frowning, he followed the arc of her fingers with his gaze, something was different about them…...what was it?......... He lost his train of thought as she snapped back at him, her exasperation with him clearly evident.

"Look, I came to say sorry about what happened at the church but if you're going to rake up the past, then all I can say is that I apologise about that as well, but you know as well as I do that it didn't happen quite like that, and I didn't exactly slap you down!"

For some reason, her attempt to placate him made things far worse; he felt as though he was a sulky child being humoured by its mother. How bloody dare she just brush it all away, and try to excuse her behaviour. He'd taken ages to recover from that particular incident and all he'd done that time was try his luck, albeit in a fairly obvious way. She had no idea how cold and cutting she could be when she wanted to and she clearly had no idea at all of how hopeless he'd felt as he'd walked her to the altar and left her by Ryecroft's side.

He let all the bitterness that he'd kept inside for months, pour from him, revealing the depth of his true feelings, knowing that he was hurting her, but somehow wanting to, needing to do so. He wanted to make her feel every bit as destroyed and humiliated as he did. Maybe that would mean that he was safe from her at last.

"You're sorry?....... Do you have ANY idea of what you've done? How bloody worthless and shitty you made me feel? And now you turn up here, and expect me to be pleased to see you. How long will it be this time before you're fed up with me, Alex, and you kick me back into the gutter again so you can run off with some other rich wanker?........ Speaking of which; where is lover-boy? Got bored of him have you and sneaked back to me for a bit of rough? Well, I suggest you just piss off back to wherever you came from, luv, because you're out of luck as far as that's concerned. I might be rough, sweetheart, but even I draw the line at sloppy seconds!"

He stood motionless, his face impassive, his body and soul raw with pain as he watched her struggle to speak.

"Gene…….. don't be like this...." Her eyes were dark with grief and a single tear crept down the curve of her cheekbone as she reached out to him with one trembling hand. "Please..."

Oh God……..there it was.

That word.......

"Please"

The word she never said; the word that had the power to render him helpless, his knees weak with desire, his whole body aching for her. He forced his gaze from hers, not wanting her to see the need in his eyes, staring at her hands once more as she reached out beseechingly for him, and with a sensation akin to being punched in the guts, his de-railed thought hit him like a freight train.

It wasn't there.

Her engagement ring…….. she wasn't wearing it…...........and she wasn't wearing a wedding ring either…….

Oh shit.

You stupid, stupid, STUPID bastard..…Why didn't you let her explain?…..Why didn't you notice it sooner?…..

Fuck…

What the bloody hell had he done…..she 'd never be his now......not after everything he'd just said.

Gene gazed at her in despair, consumed with grief and longing, preparing himself for her inevitable rejection as she began to speak once more.