Chapter Forty Nine

Gene pulled back the curtains roughly to reveal an embarrassed and drugged-up Malcolm in the uncomfortable bed beyond them.

"Guv? What the hell…" He tried to pull his hospital gown around him a little more closely and turned a lovely shade of pink.

"Don't do that on my account," said Gene, averting his eyes at the horror of Malcolm's surprisingly hairy chest.

Malcolm stared at his visitors, a little shocked.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Come to check on you, make sure they didn't cut yer leg off or anything," said Gene.

"How are you doing?" Simon asked quietly. He stared at Malcolm's face. His eyes were red raw and tear-tracks had been left through the blood and dirt on his face. It made Simon tear up to see that. He couldn't help but think of Robin back home, learning of his own death. That thought cut through his heart like a knife.

"Leg hurts," Malcolm said quietly.

"I mean how are you doing, not your leg."

Malcolm looked down.

"I don't know, really," he whispered, "they keep trying to sedate me. Gave me a lot of pills."

"Did they give you the little blue and white ones?" Simon asked, a sad smile flitting across his face as he remembered his time in 1985.

"I think mine were yellow," Malcolm said quietly.

Gene looked a little awkward.

"Shoebury, give us some space, will you?" he asked. He slipped his hand in his pocket and pulled ou a £5 note.

Simon stared at it suspiciously.

"What the hell's that for?" he asked, "are you sending me to the pictures or something?"

"Go and see Metal Mickey," said Gene, "buy her some porn or something."

"I don't think my idea of porn and her idea of porn are going to be compatible," Simon mumbled but took the money none the less and disappeared out of the door.

Gene turned to Malcolm. He was surprised by the kind of fondness he felt towards the man known as the office klutz. The man who had once used a colander as a weapon. The man who, upon promotion to CID, had given himself a Jarvis Cocker makeover.

"I've spent a decade looking at that ugly mush of yours from me office window," he commented, "and I don't think I ever told you this but you're the only one who gets the sugars right in me tea every time."

Malcolm looked a little nervous.

"The last time you gave someone the 'ten years' talk they ended up dead," he said.

Gene looked down.

"I know 'sorry's not going to help you…" he paused, "we should have been there. We were too late. Kite was one of the best. And I'm sorry."

Malcolm wished Gene hadn't said that. It was only inviting the tears again and he knew Gene didn't approve of that.

"I failed her," he whispered.

"You did no such thing," said Gene. He picked up Malcolm's soiled suit from the back of a chair and threw it at him. "Come on, get dressed."

Malcolm frowned at the muddy clothes on his lap.

"I have to stay in for a couple of days," he said.

"You've taken up enough of the taxpayers money," said Gene, "get dressed. You're leaving."

"They need to re-dress my wound in a couple of hours," said Malcolm.

"I know someone else who can do that for you," Gene told him, "Get yerself dressed. I'll wait outside."

Malcolm stared after Gene as he began to walk away. The whole exchange had left him confused and bewildered. He was already going through the most unbearable grief as well as physical agony - now he had to add strange behaviour from the Guv to the list of things he was trying to deal with. The last thing he felt like doing was getting dressed and going out of the hospital. The hospital was the place that had the drugs. The hospital was the place that made his mind numb.

But The Guv was the one who gave the orders.

Slowly, he began to take off his gown and pull his clothes back on. Whatever Gene wanted with him, he just hoped it would be worth it.

~xXx~

Simon shuffled to Kim's ward, magazine in hand. Foregoing the porn suggestion he purchased her a tattoo magazine instead. He thought she might appreciate that more. As he arrived at the door he knocked cautiously and peered around without really waiting for a reply.

He found Kim curled up in her bed, her expression empty and lifeless. She glanced up as she saw him enter and just the tiniest smile crossed her face.

"Hey," she said "I was wondering where you got to."

"We had an emergency." Simon said quietly. He walked across the room and sat beside her bed, placing the magazine on the cabinet beside them. "I got you a magazine. Hunt made one of his usual, mature suggestions so I ignored it and went for this one instead."

"What kind of an emergency?" Kim ignored the magazine completely.

"What?"

"You said you had an emergency," Kim reminded him, "what happened?"

Simon stared at Kim and the worry on her face. She'd already been to hell and back - pretty much literally - that day. He was reluctant to load more depressing news upon here but he felt so alone, so terribly alone in this world without his Robin or his family or any kind of link to his past that he found he needed to let out some of the pain that had been building inside of him all day. Before he could talk himself out of it, his mouth opened and let out the words.

"We lost someone," he whispered, "…it was Susannah…"

He caught the look of horror on Kim's face and immediately regretted saying anything, but a plug of sorts had been pulled from his bottled emotions and suddenly he found his body wracked by loud, choking sobs that he couldn't control. Huge tears began to form and roll down his face as he flashed back to the sensation of Susannah's head resting in his hands and the feeling as her soul rose from her body, finally free.

He felt his head being pulled forward and took a few moments to realise it was Kim's hands behind the motion. She pulled his head towards her shoulder and held him there while he cried. Although she and Susannah had never been particularly close and rarely saw eye to eye she could see from Simon's raw emotion that her death must have been under circumstances that would haunt him forever and all she could think of was to hold him while he let out a little of the anguish the day had cast upon him.

Kim felt an enormous sense of guilt. Simon was the one person who had given her genuine hope; the knowledge that she would make it back to 2003, yet he had no hope left to cling to himself. She didn't know how much longer she would be in Gene's world but she knew that every day would be spent knowing her home wasn't a million miles away. As for Simon, she would just have to make sure that he had a friend to talk to when he needed to.

She wasn't the greatest at making friends. Maybe it was time to start.

~xXx~

Sorry this chapter is a short one - long emotional one coming up next time -x-