Chapter 20: 2011
The night had taken a very unexpected turn for Alex and Molly. Although there was much work to be done they had started to rebuild their relationship and to share the truth about Alex's situation. Alex knew it was almost impossible for Molly to truly comprehend but at least she was trying.
She left Kim and Molly alone to watch Keats's episode of Dispatches. Part of the reason was because she couldn't stomach sitting through it for a second time, but also she had a feeling this was something that Molly perhaps needed Kim to guide her through. After all, the programme only told of Keats's life in the real world, which Alex by turn knew very little about. When she heard the programme go off through the wall she waited for Molly to return but a fairly lengthy chat seemed to be going on between in them in the lounge. Alex started to become a little concerned and curious so she crept out of her bedroom to listen. She heard a couple of snatches –
"…That's how he knew Evan and how come he went to his house first –"
"…I knew him from the other place. He was kind of obsessed with me and that's why he cut my hair, trying to make me look like I did when I was there –"
"…He traced Simon through his counselling session and when Simon went to visit your mother that's how he ended up in her room –"
Quietly Alex tiptoed back to her own room, realising that these were all things she didn't know very much about – and more than that she wasn't quite ready to know either. Perhaps it was better that Kim and Molly had the conversation alone.
Eventually Molly returned to the room. She'd been crying but she gave her mother the first smile Alex had seen from her since the truth came out and departed with a hug. It was a hundred times more than Alex had expected, and as she waved her daughter goodbye that night she felt better and brighter than she had in a very long time.
That night she slept soundly, not even bothered by dreams of Manchester or helping Gene to find peace in the living world. She awoke to an empty flat for the first time since leaving hospital. There was a note on the table along with a couple of croissants –
"Enjoy your first day of peace and quiet, think of us battling with weird desks and cardboard cut outs. Hope breakfast is OK, see you tonight – R&K"
Alex sat down at the kitchen table, pulled a croissant onto the empty late they'd left out for her and gave a peaceful smile. She was winning the battle. She was getting stronger. This was a big step in the right direction for her. She knew that before long she would be up to making that journey to Manchester and finding a way to help Gene finally find peace.
~xXx~
It was actually strange for Robin and Kim to be heading to work together. It had been almost two weeks and something they had missed. Of course Kim could have done without Robin having 'morning sickness' in the car and expressing his intention to create a tuna/baked bean/biscuit combo at some point, but sharing the journey together again still brightened both their days.
Unfortunately for Robin Kim wasn't the only one who'd noticed his strange symptoms and behaviour in recent weeks. His colleagues had spotted his frequent trips to the gents, the scent of baked beans always hanging around his office and his changing physique and had affectionately nicknamed him 'Preggy Thomas', a name which was usually met by a cry of "Why are you being so horrible to me?" and a flood of tears.
Just after eleven that morning Robin paid his forth visit of the day to the toilets. On his skinny frame his swollen stomach made him look about four or five months gone and a passing sergeant couldn't help but notice. He sniggered, poked Robin in the belly and asked,
"When's it due, Sir?"
"About the same time as your P45!" Robin cried, fleeing into the toilets, in danger of crying again.
It was getting too much. It was all getting far too much and far too embarrassing. He'd been reading everything he could lay his hands on about hysterical pregnancies ever since Kim brought up the subject and although she had majorly backtracked on the idea for Robin it had become a somewhat distressing and embarrassing explanation for what he was going through. The only problem was that the more he read, the more symptoms he found himself developing. It was a vicious cycle.
When he finally stopped hiding in the toilets and went back to his office he sat down, pulled out a file and began to read, trying to take his mind off of the situation, when all of a sudden he felt something strange. He froze, his eyes bolting as his hand flew to his stomach. He swallowed hard as fear raged through his veins and then, without stopping to think, he grabbed the phone and dialled Kim's extension.
"Stringer, CID?"
"Kim!" Robin cried, "I need to see you now!"
He heard her clear her throat on the line.
"Uh, Rob, that's always good to hear, but this isn't time for a quick bunk-up in the lavs."
"No!" cried Robin, "I need you down here now – something awful's happened!"
He could hear Kim breathe in sharply.
"I'm on my way," she said.
X
All the way down to Robin's office Kim panicked and thought about worst case scenarios. Was Robin hurt? Was he ill? Had Nailer escaped again? Had he lost his X-Files DVDs?
"Robin," she cried as she burst into his office in a panic, "what's the matter?" what's wrong?"
Robin sat at his desk looking pained and anxious. There was sweat on his brow.
"Something awful's happened!" he cried.
"You said that," Kim rushed to him, "what's going on?"
Robin indicated his belly.
"I felt it kick!" he cried.
Kim frowned.
"Who kicked you?"
"The baby!"
Kim felt as though someone had hit her on the head with a comedy frying pan. Either that or there was a hidden camera somewhere and Noel Edmonds was about to jump out with a Gotcha Oscar.
"What baby?"
"My baby!" cried Robin, "the one in here!" he rubbed his stomach and watched Kim rolling her eyes.
"There is no baby!" she cried
"Yeah, I know we thought it was all in my head…"
"You thought, Rob. You thought. Which I know was kind of my fault, but…"
"…But there really is a baby in there!" he cried.
"There isn't!"
"Oh yeah? Well what do you call that then?" he cried dramatically, grabbing her hand and pressing it against him.
Kim hesitated as she felt something moving.
"Robin, I call that the double helping of beans on toast you had for breakfast," she said with a sigh, "you've got wind again and it's looking for an escape route."
"Beans don't kick!"
"That's not a baby!" Kim cried, a little maniacally by now. She stopped, closed her eyes and tried to take a few deep breaths. Her frustration wasn't exactly helping. "Listen, here's what you need to do," she began patiently, "take the rest of the day off sick, go to the chemist, buy some wind-eze and go to bed. And make sure you buy some air freshener on the way home."
Robin looked at her with hurt in his eyes.
"I can't believe you're treating the mother of your child this way," he said.
Kim groaned, hauled him to his feet and grabbed his jacket.
"Here," she said, "Go home. Get some rest. Take some tablets. And whatever you do, don't go reading any mpreg fan fiction without my supervision. I don't want you getting any more ideas."
As she gently but firmly shoved him towards the door she wondered what the price of an intense course of therapy was going to be, because there was no doubt about it now – she'd screwed Robin's brain up good and proper.
~xXx~
Alex was surprised to find her day of peace and quiet cut short by a returning, red-faced Robin. When she asked him what was wrong he'd mumbled something about baked beans and babies and skulked off to his bedroom carrying a chemist's bag. She decided it was best not to ask.
The weekend that followed was certainly more relaxing than the one before. There were no strange time phenomena, no fishy biscuits and the margarine stayed exactly where it was supposed to be. After their serious talk on Thursday night Alex and Molly had made some substantial progress. While Alex was still not sure how much of her story Molly believed – or was willing to believe – the fact that Alex had finally trusted her enough to be honest with her had made a real difference between them and Molly once again treated her mother with respect. She had even gone to spend Sunday afternoon visiting Molly to meet her foster family which allowed Kim and Robin some well-needed private time in which nothing kicked and no beans were consumed.
In fact, as Monday morning arrived everyone felt better, brighter and more positive than they had in a long while. Alex's head was clearer to focus on her dilemma about Gene's identity, Robin and Kim had been able to share some quality time together and Molly no longer felt as though everyone was lying to her.
But sometimes one day can flip your whole world upside down.
~xXx~
Kim made a mental checklist of everything on her desk to make sure nothing had appeared or disappeared over the weekend.
"Mouse mat – check, photo frame – check. Picture of Jarvis Cocker – Ch-what?"
She reeled in horror as she examined what she thought was a random picture of Pulp's frontman but turned out to be a photograph of Malcolm. "Shit, what, am I getting heirlooms from everyone who's ever had this desk?" she gagged. She picked up the photograph and flipped it over 'Bask; August 1995,' it said.
She shuddered and dropped the picture into the bin. It was all she could do not to throw up at the memory of those purple velvet trousers.
"Stringer," Kim glanced up to see DCI Huston beside her desk.
"Yes sir?" she said. She noticed his expression was grim and serious. She wasn't late, was she? She thought she was early. She checked her watch to make sure but the damn thing seemed to have stopped. Shit – another thing to replace. Usually Robin was the one who had trouble with watches. "Is something wrong?"
Huston held a file in his hands. He seemed to swagger slightly from side to side, in two minds whether to go ahead with his sentence or not. Eventually he drew in his breath and said,
"This is highly confidential at this stage, and I shouldn't be showing you." He hesitated as Kim's expressions froze, worried by his words, "but considering your unique position in this situation I thought that it was only fair that you should see this before DI Drake is approached with this information through official channels. But remember that this didn't come from me," he laid the file on her desk, "and please remind Chief Inspector Thomas that this didn't come from me either."
Kim stared at him, speechlessly, as he walked away into his office and shut the door behind him. She stared, a little open mouthed, and looked from his closed office door to the file in front of her. Her mind ran over a thousand scenarios, trying to work out what was inside of it but none of them came close to what she found as she pulled together her courage and opened up the papers before her. Her eyes ran down the screeds of information, trying to make some semblance of sense of the science and medical jargon she was seeing until one line summed up succinctly what all the jargon above had tried to explain in their own long-winded way. Her stomach dropped through the floor and her heart seemed to stop in her chest. The words before her made no sense, they just didn't. Her hands began to shake. She didn't know if they would ever stop.
~xXx~
Robin hadn't expected the cautious knocking on his office door, nor Kim's face to appear around the side.
"Hey," he smiled, "I was just thinking about you." He was about to ask her about various frivolous things – whether she wanted to go Christmas shopping that evening, when she wanted to wrap what they'd got so far – but the expression on her face stopped him in his tracks. "What? What is it?" the last time she'd come to see him with that look she'd been carrying printouts about hysterical pregnancy. He was understandably concerned.
"Rob, you need to see this," her tone was serious and shaken.
"Kim, what's wrong?" he started to get to his feet.
"No, stay where you are," Kim said quietly, "I think you'll want to be sitting down for this."
His worry increased as she walked towards him, pulled up a spare chair and sat directly in front of him. She set the file in her lap and reached for his hands which she held gently then looked right into his eyes.
"What is it?" he whispered, "you're shaking, Kim."
"Rob, DCI Huston just spoke to me," she said quietly, "he gave me this file. He made a big fuss about it being confidential." She bit her lip. She could hardly bring herself to go on. "It's about Alex's baby," her voice shook a little, "the DNA testing." She took a deep breath. "They've found a partial match."
Robin's expression was blank and confused.
"What does that mean?"
"It means," Kim swallowed as she tried to stop the words from sticking in her throat, "that after they found no matches for the baby's father they started attempting to find partial matches, familial matches, looking for close relatives in the hope that it would lead them to the – well, as they put it, the 'attacker'." She closed her eyes. "And they found one."
Robin stared on. Kim's words went right over his head; they had no meaning to him.
"But that's impossible," he said, "we know Gene's got no family –"
Kim shook her head quickly.
"There's more, Robin," she said quickly before he had a chance to end up on a tangent. Her whole face was full of strain, "you need to see who it is."
Slowly she picked up the file from her lap and handed it to him. He took it nervously, not sure he really wanted to know what was inside. Finally he opened the file and his eyes scanned the information, trying to find the revelation that had shaken Kim so deeply. As soon as his eyes settled upon it, as much as it had affected Kim it shook Robin a hundred times more deeply.
"Shit," he breathed as the colour drained from his face. He felt Kim's hand on his knee, squeezing it tightly, trying to keep him grounded.
"Rob? Are you alright?"
He swallowed and stared at the paper. It didn't make any sense to him.
"This is… this is just impossible," he shook his head, "it doesn't… I mean…"
"I know," Kim said quickly, "I know.
Robin just stared at the worlds, hoping that they would change or suddenly become more logical but they just stared back, defying him. He swallowed as his insides turned and churned.
"What do we do now?" he whispered.
"We'll have to tell Alex," said Kim, "she needs to hear it from us first."
Robin nodded, his eyes not moving from the paper for a moment.
"Shit," he whispered again. He took a gulp of air. "God, I feel sick."
"Me too," Kim whispered.
Robin finally moved his eyes from the file and met Kim's which were just as wide and scared as his own.
"I don't understand this Kim," he whispered.
Kim shook her head.
"Neither do I." she said. She watched Robin shake and shiver before her. "I think we should go home, Rob," she said quietly, "we need to talk to her now."
Robin nodded slowly. There was no point staying where they were, stressing and worrying about what was going on. And with no idea when Alex was going to be officially approached, the sooner they told her the better.
Together they stood up and left the station. Neither were in the best shape to drive but finally Kim took the keys, her hands slightly more steady than Robin's. The drive home was almost completely silent, filled only with occasional expletives. There seemed to be nothing else to say. The file had spoken of nonsense and neither really knew how to express what was going through their minds.
~xXx~
Alex hadn't been expecting the door to open and she jumped a little. One minute she'd been investigating Robin's well-stocked fridge of leftovers to seek out something for lunch and the next her peace and quiet was over again.
"I hope you're not checking up on me," she said as she peered out into the hallway, adding silently, or that Robin's got more pregnancy symptoms to nurse. But the looks on their faces stopped her in her tracks.
"Alex," Robin's voice was low and anxious, "we need to talk to you."
Alex swallowed as her heart started to speed up.
"From the looks on your faces I'll assume you're not about to elope to Gretna Green," she said.
"Can you sit down ma'am?" Kim said quietly.
Those words worried Alex even more.
"Of course, she whispered, finding her way to a chair. She watched as they sat down around her, Robin clinging to a file.
"There's been some news," he began quietly, "the DNA testing. They came up with a partial match… someone who shares enough DNA that they are likely to be a close blood relative of the baby's father."
Of all the things that they could have said, this was the one that Alex had not been expecting. Her eyes opened wide as she whispered,
"that's not possible… I mean, we only just found out Gene's family line died out a long time ago."
Kim and Robin looked at each other for moral support and strength to continue.
"I wish that was as strange as it got, Ma'am, but it's not," Kim said quietly.
Alex looked up anxiously as Robin placed the file into her lap.
"You need to see this," he said quietly, "you need to see the match they found."
Alex felt herself shaking as she picked up the file she wasn't sure she wanted to open it. She didn't know if she could handle whatever was on the inside. If it had shaken Kim and Robin to such a degree then what was it going to do to her?
"Please?" Kim's voice urged her, "you have to look."
Alex breathed in deeply as she felt a little movement inside of her. She found her hands trembling as she finally found the courage to open up the file. She tried to make sense of what she was reading but she wasn't as familiar with the scientific side of the jargon as she wished she was. Most of it appeared to resemble gobbledygook. But right at the bottom of the page was the sentence that brought home the realisation of what had caused Kim and Robin to feel so anxious.
One fact killed all the sense of the world half-dead.
"Familial database searching has concluded that the DNA of the following strongly resembles the DNA profile sought in this case and there is a high probability that this individual is a close blood relative of the attacker:"
Typed below that line was one name.
DCI Simon Shoebury