Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to the BBC/Kudos. Anything else, including mistakes are mine!

I apologise in advance, I know that this isn't what a lot of you want right now, especially after episode 7, but they just won't be forced at the moment. They will get there though, I promise!

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(Prompt – Shapes)

Jumping At Shadows

Date: Friday 8th January 1982

"Alex... Alex...We're still waiting, Alex, but we won't wait for much longer..." "No!" Alex's eyes sprung open and she looked around the room wildly. The room looked eerie as the streetlights outside cast long shadows against the wall. She rubbed her eyes and thought for a moment about the little girl from her past and how she used to be so afraid of the shadows and the ghostly shapes they cast on her bedroom wall. Taking a deep shaky breath, she let it out, trying to roll the tension out of her shoulders.

It occurred to her that in 2008 she hardly ever dreamed at all, but in 1982 she dreamed almost every night. She flopped back down in bed and wondered if that was why she drank so much here, to block out the bad dreams that haunted her almost nightly.

She'd rid herself of the clown, he'd only appeared in her dreams once since her parent's death and she closed her eyes to block out the memory of the dream, where she had sacrificed Gene in exchange for her parents. Then she'd seen him at the farmhouse, warning her and Gene away from danger. But now he seemed to have gone and the voices she heard were no longer familiar, the voices that taunted her for not letting her fight to get home dominate her mind.

Deciding that sleep was going to be a long time coming again if at all, she turned the lamp on, got up and quietly opened her door, stepping out into the living room. She was greeted by the sight of the television on, the last programme long since finished, leaving only the test card girl. Alex shivered a little seeing the smiling girl and remembering Sam's numerous meetings with her. She quickly crossed the room and turned it off, having no desire to see her or her little clown in her flat.

She turned away from the TV and focused on the snoring figure slumped on her sofa, a small smile appearing on her face. She shook her head, knowing that she had nothing to fear from her dreams now, not with him here.

She'd long ago given up opening the door to him at all times of the night and told him just to use the key she knew he still had, if he needed to crash somewhere. She thought it might have been weird, and certainly in 2008, there was no one she trusted enough to have a key and sleep on her sofa so often. The light from her bedroom lamp bathed him in shadows and she took the rare opportunity to watch him at his most vulnerable. He was lying on his back with his hands folded on his stomach. His tie was slung over the back of the sofa and his shirt was half open, exposing his vest. She amused herself with thought that she even found that attractive on him as her gaze moved down his body, to his long legs, crossed at the ankle, his feet bare.

She walked into the kitchen and as quietly as she could, made herself a cup of tea, before wandering back into the living room to her late night guest. She wasn't naive enough to think that he only crashed there when he was really drunk, but it was still a bit of a mystery as to why he stayed there so often when he obviously had his own place. Maybe, like her, he got afraid sleeping in his place alone. She snorted at that, Gene Hunt, Afraid to sleep alone? Never.

It had always amazed her, just how much he filled a room, even in sleep and before she even realised it, she was moving closer to him, perching on the edge of the coffee table and watching him.

He mumbled in his sleep and she leaned closer, wondering what a man like him dreamed about. "I hope your dreams are good ones, Gene," she whispered, reaching out tentatively to brush a lock of hair back from his forehead. "I hope you always catch the bad guy, or win the darts match, or find the hipflask full of single malt that you'd forgotten you had...Or maybe in your dreams, you get the girl, because the hero always gets the girl..."

"Bolly, watching someone sleep is bordering on stalking, you know that, don't you?" Gene said without opening his eyes. Alex jumped in surprise, spilling hot tea over her pyjama bottoms and cursing.

"Gene! For God's sake! You could have let me know that you were awake!" She stood and stalked to the kitchen, grabbing a tea towel to try and dry her pyjama bottoms. In truth she was more mortified by the fact that he might have been listening as she spoke. She'd never hear the end of it then and the last thing she wanted to do was let him know that she had any kind of feelings for him beyond professional ones, despite the obvious chemistry between them.

"Hang on! How the hell can you have a go at me? I was sleeping peacefully until you came blundering in!" He sat up and scrubbed a hand over his face. It was a bare faced lie, but luckily, his poker face was excellent. He'd been awoken by her shout and when she got up he had pretended to be asleep, for a couple of reasons. The first being, he was still not a hundred percent sure that she was okay with him sleeping on her sofa as often as he did, even though she'd told him to use the spare key when he wanted to. The second, he wanted to know what she would do, how she would act, if she would give him any clue as to how she really felt about him.

"What are you doing here again, anyway?" She asked from the kitchen where she was fixing herself another cup of tea, along with a second one for Gene, secretly pleased that he was awake and she wouldn't be alone with her thoughts. "I know it wasn't a particularly heavy session downstairs, because there was only you and Viv left when I came up!" She put the teas down on the coffee table and flopped down on the other end of the sofa, looking over at him as he pulling himself up into a partially sitting position. His hair was rumpled from sleep, his face free of it's usual hard frown and Alex found her face flushing as she imagined waking up next to him, of him being the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes.

Gene noticed the flush on her cheeks, longed to ask her what she was thinking, but didn't mention it, running his fingers through his hair and reaching for one of the cups. "Your place is closer to work than mine and I was too tired to drive home," he said by way of an explanation, not wanting her to know that he slept much better on the sofa in her flat than in the bed in his own house.

She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it. If she made an issue out of it then he would make a point of not staying again and she liked that he did. "Okay," she said quietly, as they both sat drinking their tea, the silence stretching out between them.

"Oh, and just so you know," he said, turning his head and catching her eye. "I didn't get the girl." He fixed her with his gaze and Alex felt her stomach jolt, all her jumbled feelings rushing to the fore. She took a sip of the hot tea, to stop herself saying something she might regret, although in that moment it was hard to think of what that might be. She gave him a small smile, embarrassed that he'd heard her musings and suddenly aware of the tension in the flat. "Well...Maybe you'll get her another night," she replied, looking down into her cup, not able to face those piercing eyes, wishing she had the courage to ask him to stay the night, with her, to keep the bad dreams away.

He watched her, wanting her to say something more, wanting her to want him, to tell him. Hiding all the conflicting emotions he felt, and fighting the urge to throw caution to the wind, he sighed. "Maybe I will."