Chapter 13

"So how long did you have to wait with Simon in A and E?" Kim asked as she and Robin lay side by sides in bed the following morning, staring at the ceiling.

"About seven hours," Robin explained with a yawn, "it would have been shorter but," he shrugged, "we were stuck in the queue behind a boy with a saucepan stuck on his head and, you know... it took them a while to loosen it."

"Poor Simon," Kim sighed, shaking her head.

"Poor Simon nothing," Robin groaned, "I had a wallpaper stripper salesman in a fluorescent pink shirt and silver tie calling me Dudette and giving me his number," he frowned, "written in steam, on the window."

"OK, poor Gene then," Kim said with a sigh.

"All he wanted was beer and strippers," Robin shook his head.

"Did he at least get the beer?" Kim asked.

"Well, no," Robin told her, "he didn't fancy it. You know, after they'd," he flinched, "extracted it."

Kim swallowed hard.

"Thanks for that, like I wasn't already feeling off-colour this morning."

Robin glanced at her, noticing that she seemed paler than usual and had been a little quiet as well.

"You OK?" he asked quietly.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," Kim said quietly, "I just don't feel well."

Robin reached to feel her forehead, although Kim gave her best attempt at flapping him away.

"Are you alright for work?" he asked her.

"Oh, yeah, don't be silly, I'm fine," Kim dismissed her previous grumble, "it's the bloody Surrey commute, I think. Done it twice this week. I don't want it to become a habit."

"Getting any further with that case?" Robin asked and Kim shook her head.

"It's impossible," she groaned, then her face clouded further, "speaking of which," she looked at Robin a little sadly, "we're out of time. For our special wedding present."

Robin closed his eyes and nodded slowly.

"I know," he whispered.

"Maybe we bit off more than we could chew," Kim sighed despondently.

"We just wanted to do something special," Robin reminded her, reaching out to hold her hand, "we tried our best."

Kim glanced at him.

"Is it really too late?" she wondered, "one last try tonight?"

Robin closed his eyes. He gave a long sigh and a shrug. They'd gone through every option they could think of to no avail and still couldn't find a solution. But he didn't like to admit defeat. He had grown almost as stubborn as Kim. Opening his eyes, he nodded.

"One last try," he agreed.

~xXx~

Alex opened the door of her office, peered down the corridor, pulled her coat tightly around her and made a speedy exit. Her red heels clip-clopped along as she walked briskly to CID and paced through the office.

"Aren't you a bit hot in that, Ma'am?" Bammo asked.

"Hot?" Alex repeated, a sly smile on her face, "hopefully."

She reached the door of Gene's office and opened it, stepping inside quickly. Gene opened his mouth to greet her but found himself silenced in confusion as she pulled down the blind, followed by all of the others around the windows.

"Blimey," Gene frowned, "if I'd know we were in for a blackout I'd have bought candles."

Alex turned to him and for the first time he saw her heavily made-up face and exaggerated hairstyle.

"How's Simon?" she asked, "is he able to sit down yet?"

"Apparently," Gene mumbled, "but I'm a bit more interested in the fact that you look like yer dressed for a rendition of Singing in the Rain."

Alex bit her lip and pulled together her courage. This was somewhat audacious even considering some of the stunts they'd pulled in the past. This was on par with the Easter bunny costume and she'd never lived that one down.

"I felt sorry for you," she told him, "all you wanted were beer and strippers." she reached into one of the pockets in her large coat and pulled out a can of lager. "Well, here's one part."

"Not the most important one," Gene grumbled, taking the can.

"I suspected as much," Alex told him, pulling her coat belt out of the buckle, "just as well I covered both then, isn't it?"

Gene could do nothing but stare, mouth gaping, as she stood before him, legs apart, and slipped the coat from her shoulders. It slid to the floor to reveal a rather familiar dress, one that he hadn't seen since the day a curly-haired DI arrived and turned his world upside down.

"Bloody hell, you weren't wearing that over breakfast," he commented, barely able to keep his tongue under control for long enough to speak.

Alex's foot silenced him again as it came crashing onto his desk. She tossed her shoe to one side before slowly, seductively sliding down her stocking right before his eyes. As it finally slid from the tips of her toes she threw it over her shoulder where it fluttered gracefully to the ground.

"I always knew this dress would come in handy one day," Alex smiled a little as she lowered her leg, turned on the spot and slid behind the desk where she raised her other leg into Gene's lap.

"Be careful with the heel on that!" he panicked, "there'll be no fun on the honeymoon if that goes in the wrong place!" but luckily for Gene the shoe remained in a threatening location for but a moment before she kicked it off to one side and began to push her stocking down, inch by inch.

"Why wait until the honeymoon for fun?" Alex asked, one eyebrow rising.

"That is a good policy, I'll sign it and implement it immediately," Gene mumbled as she removed her stocking and slipped it around his shoulders, rubbing it slowly` against the back of his head. She returned her foot to the floor once again and unfastened the zip of her dress smoothly, dropping one shoulder first, and then the other. Taking one last deep breath she slipped her arms from the sleeves and let the dress slip down a little, helped by her fingers to fall to the ground.

Gene almost choked at the vision in red lingerie Alex had become.

"Flaming hell," he mumbled, scrambling to his feet, "there's no way you can wear white tomorrow, not after this.

"Shut up and kiss me, Gene Hunt," Alex demanded, sliding her fingers through his hair and pulling his face towards her until, moments later, there was more lipstick across Gene's face than remained on Alex's lips and the desk was creaking like crazy.

Alex was right. Why wait for the honeymoon? Wedding's Eve was a tradition that needed to be born.

~x~

"Stringer."

Kim glanced up in surprise at the sound of Gene's voice.

"Yes Gu-Guv?!" she spluttered at the sight of him. There were red smears across his face, his hair resembled a rather messy bird's nest and his tie was half-undone and slung over one shoulder. She wondered for a moment if he was about to report a mugging. "Is... is everything alright?"

It took Gene a few moments to gather his breath.

"Whatever it is that you've been doing to my missus," he began and Kim feared a filing cabinet attack.

"Yes?" she asked warily.

Gene closed his eyes, exhausted.

"Keep bloody doing it," he demanded, then closed the door to head off for a long lie down.

~xXx~

Robin carefully sat his lunch down at the table and looked at Simon in surprise.

"Oh!" he said, "you're sitting again!" and Simon's face turned red while his eyes darkened.

"Yes, no thanks to you," he scowled.

"Me?!" cried Robin, "what am I supposed to have done?"

"You could have defended me from Gene, you know!" Simon cried.

"I was busy trying to fend off a bloody wallpaper stripper salesman with a shirt the colour if -" he hesitated, "your face!"

"My need was greater than yours!" Simon cried.

"You didn't hear what he made the steam cleaner thingy hiss in to my ear!" Robin protested.

"You're the one with the muscles, I needed you to defend me and you didn't!" cried Simon.

Robin's lip wavered.

"Why are you being so horrible to me?" he demanded.

"I'm not!" cried Simon, "horrible is a seven hour wait in casualty watching a team of medical professionals attempt to yank a saucepan off a boy's head!" he hesitated as he saw the state of Robin's lunch. "Oh what, not beans again!"

"It was that or sprouts," Robin frowned, "do you want me to sit here wafting forkfuls of green mush under your nose?"

"Now who's being horrible?" cried Simon as a speedy Kim slid into the seat beside him.

"Sorry, sorry," she said quickly, "I'm late again, I'm sorry." she looked at Simon in surprise. "Oh! You're sitting!" and Simon shot a dirty look in Kim's direction.

"I did not know my plight was common knowledge," he folded his arms indignantly.

"Oh come on, Si, it's just Kim!" Robin protested, "I had to tell her! She was worried about you!"

"Yes, I was actually," Kim told him, "I spent the whole night panicking about what state Gene was going to leave you in." she paused as Robin began to shovel little orange spherical objects into his mouth. "Ohh, not the beans again!"

"What is wrong with beans?" Robin protested but found an angry Kim finger wagging under his nose.

"I found that giant bean tin, you know," she warned, "if there's a second one joining it along with a two-tin rendition of We Are The Champions played with pencils then you'll be the one with a saucepan on your head and I'll be the one to put it there. Is that clear?"

Robin gulped.

"Perfectly."

"Good," Kim folded her arms and leaned back. "Anyway, I suppose it's obvious that this is the final meeting -" she hesitated, "Hang on -" with a thump of her fist to bring the meeting to order Simon jumped a mile and Robin swept up his plate of beans as though to protect them. "the final meeting before Alex and the Guv get married tomorrow." Her tone became darker as she admitted, "and so far we've failed, We've found no way to bring the Railway Arms to London and let them spend the night with all their friends."

"It's not for want of trying," Robin said sadly.

"t was just too much to do," Simon said with a sigh, "The Railways Arms is Gene's domain. Unless we consulted him and asked him to bring the pub down then..."

"I doubt that would have even worked," said Robin, "I think he needs to be bringing someone to the pub for it to appear."

Simon nodded. That was true.

"And even then, Gene drops them off and leaves," he sighed.

"We've got one more night," Kim urged them, "we need to at least try."

"What are you suggesting we do?" Simon asked, "drive to Manchester?"

"No," Kim sighed, "I'm suggesting we just do our best where we are. Here," she paused. "let's go to some places we know the pub has appeared. See if it's there. Maybe you can go to that place... the one where you used to hear Sam Tyler's voice outside the leather shop."

Simon felt his face heat up with fury.

"I am going nowhere near the disembodied voice of Sam bloody Tyler," he scowled.

"Come on, Si," Robin urged, "one last night. One last chance. It'll make up for the whole wallpaper thing if we pull this off."

"And if not it'll be my limbs that Gene'll pull off, one by one," Simon scowled.

"One last try," Kim urged

Simon closed his eyes and let out a long, deep groan. It wasn't exactly how he wanted to spend a night and he had more or less given up hope but he didn't want to let any of them down, not Robin and Kim, nor Alex and Gene. Finally he sighed and relented.

"Fine," he said, "we'll reconvene after work. One last try."

"Brilliant," Kim thumped her fist on the table extracting a scream from Robin.

"You're getting far too much enjoyment from doing that!" he accused as Kim got to her feet.

"Right," she began, "meeting adjourned! Time to get some lunch, before I eat Simon."

"Hey," Robin frowned, "why would you eat him before me?"

Kim patted Robin's head.

"Because you come with a side of beans," she said simply and scooted away to the counter.