Gene awoke to the scent of coffee and the sound of the shower running. He squinted at Alex's alarm clock, decided it was far too early to be getting ready for the day ahead, and disappeared back into the comfort of Alex's duvet.

It had surprised them both, how easily they had slept alongside each other as if they'd been doing it for years. Alex couldn't remember sleeping so well in all the time she'd been at Fenchurch East. And for Gene, it had been far longer since he'd last felt the reassuring presence of a woman he loved and whom loved him in return, sleeping in the same bed as him.

"You're a bloody magician, you are," he remarked as he emerged from the bedroom and hovered, halfway to the bathroom door, with his eyes fixed on Alex.

"You think?" She turned around with two mugs of coffee, which she placed on the little kitchen table.

Her eyes sparkled and in that moment he saw so much of the Alex Drake that had been before the miscarriage. Her hair was damp and beginning to curl but her make-up was done, a flawless mask between her and the world. She was dressed in black jeans and a slim-fitting white blouse; as she'd turned, the fluorescent kitchen light had glinted off the gold and purple between her collarbones.

"For starters, you look… like that, first thing in the mornin'! And you managed to do it without makin' a single sound in there – first thing I knew was your perfume, when I woke up!"

Alex giggled. "Molly was a light sleeper when she was a baby, I got very used to getting ready without making any noise," she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she'd had chance to consider the can of worms they would open.

Gene was immediately sympathetic towards her, seeing her expression change to one of horror at what she had said. It was clear as day that she hadn't intended to say anything more, maybe ever, about her daughter. CID knew that she had a daughter, but they'd long since given up guessing what on earth that situation was. "Molly," he said softly. "That's a sweet name."

She nodded, her lips pressed tightly together. "Don't take long in the bathroom, your coffee will go cold," she said to change the subject.

They paused for a moment in the Quattro outside Fenchurch East Station.

"You've been very diplomatic this morning," Alex commented. "I know you didn't particularly want me coming back so soon."

He reached across the centre console and clumsily linked his fingers with hers. "Honestly Bolls, you were right the first time you said we needed more eyes on this case. The longer it goes on, the more chance there is of there bein' more murders. I need you back in there – but if you tell any o' that lot that I said you were right, you can find yourself a new CID, understood?"

Alex smiled to herself. Things felt right between them again, and it felt good. "If you really don't want me working," she said, speaking to the part of him she knew was in there, that had admitted a need for her through internally gritted teeth, "then I'll stay as long as it takes to go through that recording and the transcript, and then I'll go home. Happy?" There was a bizarre flash of something that she thought could be relief, in his eyes, that disappeared as soon as it appeared.

"I'm surprised I 'aven't got whiplash, sharin' the same air as you!" he exclaimed. "You can never make up your bloody mind!" A moment later, he was on her side of the car, opening her door for her. "Alright, Little Miss Changeable, you comin' in?"

The expected stack of paperwork lay on her desk, but it had been tactfully moved to one side, making space instead for the focus to be on a small bouquet of white roses wrapped in brown paper. Alex glanced around the room for a guilty face and Shaz's gave her away at once.

"You didn't have to do that, Shaz," she said, fighting a lump in her throat. "It was lovely of you though, thank you."

"S'alright Ma'am. I just thought you needed somethin' nice on your first day back in."

Alex nodded. "I really appreciate it."

Apart from a few sideways glances through the morning, her return to CID was smooth. She expected it to annoy her, to find it patronising, but it was actually quite helpful to be brought up to speed by over-zealous explanations of advances in the case while she had been away. She spent a long time poring over the three boards, streamlining the three maps into one, with each of the locations of the found bodies. In her own notes, she added locations significant to Peter Richards, because she couldn't shake the feeling that he was in some way connected, despite what the others insisted.

"Patsy Richards, where did she live again?"

"Leytonstone."

"So, four stops from Liverpool Street," she murmured, thinking aloud about the locations linked to the other women, and the husband's workplace. "And she was found in an alley near Moorgate?" Alex narrowed her eyes. It was too much of a coincidence for any of them to ignore. She had to build up a case that was watertight though, or she'd just be dismissed as hormonal or hysterical. "Did we get the information from Pathology, about the finger mark spacing on Patsy Richards and Karen Edgeley?"

"Yeah – uh, yes, Ma'am," Chris replied, correcting his loose affirmation at once. "Pretty much identical, they said that…" He scrabbled around his desk for the notes. "On inspection, it is highly likely that the same perpetrator caused the finger marks to both women."

She nodded thoughtfully. There was no concrete way of linking these to Peter Richards, unless they could get him into custody and somehow get a relaxed handprint from him.

Until she listened to the recording of his interview, she was beginning to doubt herself: there was no motive. But hearing his jumble of garbled comments, her deep understanding of psychology finally came into play and came in very useful: she knew something that her colleagues didn't, and it was going to pin down their suspect to the one they'd all but ruled out. There were a couple of missing pieces to the puzzle, but she had no doubt that they would fall into place.

"You're not going to like this, but Peter Richards is the killer of these three women," she announced loudly, standing up at her desk.

Ray scoffed. "What kind of psycho does in 'is wife and two birds that look like 'er?"

"By virtue of being an absolute arsehole about his mental state," Alex explained smoothly, "you have just more or less outlined his motive."

"What?"

"Ma'am, are you sure?" Shaz pitched in from her own desk, thinking of the messy interview she'd battled to transcribe and fighting to think of anything in it that stood out, or made any sense whatsoever.

Gene's door was ajar, so he heard every word of the exchange in CID. "Bolls, 'ave you been sniffin' glue? Richards made absolutely no sense at interview, couldn't even string a sentence together. 'e wouldn't 'ave 'ad it in 'im –"

"Psychology," she said simply. "Don't give me that look!" she said, raising a hand to stem the deluge of abuse certain to be heading her way. "He made no sense because he's not in his right mind – I'm convinced that he's having a psychotic episode. It wouldn't make sense to anyone else, not even to him once he gets back to lucidity. He's having paranoid delusions, delusions of grandeur, thinking he's the victim of conspiracies, the whole lot. It was all there at interview, you just didn't know what you were looking at, and that's hardly your fault. It wouldn't be a motive to anyone in their right mind, but to him, in that moment, it was crystal clear that those women had to die."

"God, 'e needs committin'!" Ray exclaimed.

Gene, who had been standing at his door listening in mild awe to Alex's spiel, returned to his desk and seized the phone. "I knew them brains would come in handy, Drake! You've caught us a psycho, nice one!"

Alex cringed. While anonymous, the killer of these three poor women had been a monster of course, but now that she had revealed his identity and shed light on his motive, in the eyes of the team he was monstrous on a whole new level. Hearing their comments and slurs about Richards' mental instability made her deeply uncomfortable – even knowing the two sides of the story as she did, she felt conflicted about revealing it all to an insensitive band of nineteen eighties coppers with no training or experience in handling someone in mental health crisis. Richards was dangerous in psychosis, yes, but he was probably every bit the middle-class, properly turned-out gentleman they'd expected on hearing his profession, when he was stable. He had to be brought to justice, but even in the early 2000's she wondered if the Crown Prosecution Service would look objectively at the case – what even was the objectivity of such a horrific case? She'd never worked a case like it in her own present-day; it all made her head spin as she walked around to the front of her desk.

"We need to locate him – carefully," she said to the room. "If we go shouting to all and sundry that he's psychotic, the press will get hold of it and we'll have a riot on our hands. Not to mention that it would contravene his privacy – I know none of you think that it matters, but it does. It's a privilege, not a right, to know anything about someone's mental state, so we're not telling his friends, his colleagues, anyone, is that understood?" She waited for the unwilling murmur of assent from the men in the room. "Ray, I want you on to his office at Abbey National – all they need to know is that we need to speak to him again in connection with his wife's disappearance. Make something up if you have to, yes? I want him here, this afternoon."

Ray nodded. "Ma'am," he affirmed sourly.

"What'll 'appen when we catch 'im, Ma'am?" Shaz asked quietly, her face giving away that she was still in a state of mild shock about it all.

Alex let out a breath unevenly. "I'm not sure," she said honestly. "He shouldn't get life imprisonment in a normal prison, it wouldn't be fair –"

"What's fair got to do with anythin'?" Chris put in, appalled at the idea that fairness was being considered when it came to the perpetrator of triple-murder.

"He's sick!" Alex argued, before she realised that this would barely pass muster as an explanation with fired-up detectives in 2008, so would be a next-to-moot comment in this CID.

"Yeah, sick in the 'ead, murderin' pretty birds cos of the voices what told 'im to!" Ray said acidly, his hand resting on the phone he was about to use. His face was twisted into an expression that only too clearly illustrated his lack of sympathy and understanding.

She pushed a hand through her hair and leaned back on her desk. "When you've got your Masters in psychology and clinical experience at Broadmoor, come back to me again with your poorly-informed judgements of mentally ill offenders, Ray," she said, attempting to push back against his blistering attitude but only sounding weary.

The room fell silent as she headed for the doors.

It was bitterly cold up on the roof, but high enough above the streets of London for it to almost feel peaceful. Alex breathed deeply, aware that she'd let her temper fray too far. She hadn't had chance to look at her 1980's personnel file – there was probably no way a woman would be allowed to undertake the kind of experience she had at Broadmoor, in this era. There'd be no record of it and they'd call her a liar, discredit her and hate her for trying to be too big for her boots. She'd be laughed out of the station, the over-ambitious plonk that just kept on talking–

"Alex?"

She was astounded to hear Gene's voice. She gripped the steel railing in front of her and stared out across the grey skyline. It was probably going to rain. The wind whipped at the tears she hadn't realised had slid down her cheeks as she'd been aggressively mulling things over.

"I know you're good at startin' rows with the lads, but one that you won is definitely not worth you chuckin' yourself off the roof for," he said as he reached her and stood beside her, his left hand overlapping her right on the icy-cold railing.

Alex sniffed and roughly swiped at her damp eyes with her left hand. She felt the corners of her mouth twitch towards a smile, but didn't have it in her to go all the way with it.

"I know he can be a bastard, but it's not like you to let Ray get under your skin so much."

"I know, I'm sorry –"

"Sorry?" He never ceased to be amazed by this marvellous, messy woman. "Don't give me that, Alex. You sure you're okay?" He switched his steely glare across the city to a concerned eye cast over her; the wind caught locks of her hair and pulled them about like the tentacles on an octopus, swirling them around her head.

She pulled her cardigan tightly around herself, nodding unconvincingly when she turned to face him. "I'm fine."

He kissed her forehead, taking them both by surprise. "You're a bloody strong woman, Drake, I know that much." Her eyes sparkled with tears, but there was no less truth in what he'd said. He'd seen her personnel file, and that lot down there wouldn't have lasted five minutes of the studies and training she'd gone through. And she'd had a kid at some point too, in the middle of it all?

"Strong?" she whispered incredulously. She shrugged it off. "I have to be." Her heart was heavy as she looked at him, his eyes searching hers for answers she couldn't give him. There was so much she could never tell him about herself, so many gaps that she had to allow him to fill with his own conclusions even though it killed her to do it.

They walked back down to CID in silence: although she'd never admit it, Alex was beginning to tire and she didn't notice Gene alter his gait to keep pace with her. She did, however, notice his hand that never moved from the small of her back, even once they'd pushed back through the double doors and into view of the team.

Back at her desk, once she had guardedly checked that she wasn't being watched, she pressed the backs of her hands to her cheeks in an attempt to cool them. To him, it had seemed like nothing to walk her back down to CID like that, but to her, it had meant the world and more.

"Uh, Guv, Ma'am?" Shaz sounded uneasy as she asked for their attention. "We've got a problem."

"What?" the Guv barked, halfway into his office and dying for a cigarette.

"Richards has goen AWOL," she replied simply.

For a moment, Alex put her head in her hands, overwhelmed.

Ray, who was privately glad not to have been the one to break the news, spoke next. "He's not been seen in the office since… day before yesterday, before 'e were interviewed. None of 'em's seen 'im since then."

Gene kicked his door frame in pure frustration. "Bugger."

"Alright," Alex said slowly, rising from her desk. Cogs were turning in her mind – could this work? "I want you to park all your preconceptions and prejudices for a few minutes – if we're going to make a plan to catch him, and we need to, then you lot all need a considerably improved understanding of his condition."

In the absence of another board to add notes to, she taped large sheets of paper to the wall. It didn't surprise her that there were mumblings of derision and disbelief as she ran through the rudiments of psychosis, nor that Shaz was the only one to jot anything down. It was a shock though, that despite their obvious misgivings, the men in the room still gave her their attention and seemed interested enough in what she had to say. She didn't doubt there would be derogatory comments later, but it was good to feel that she could make a difference in the moment.

"The important thing is not to spook him. It's impossible to predict how he'd respond but it's entirely possible that there could be catastrophic consequences. I don't want any officers hurt, or any members of the public. If he's really at crisis point then he could do anything; he could significantly harm himself, or worse," she said.

"What's it matter if the nutter tops 'imself and saves us goin' to court? Can't we just 'appen to chase 'im off a tall building?"

Alex wasn't sure who'd spoken. She stood immobilised by shock, stunned to silence.

"I'll give you three good reasons why we're not doin' that, gentlemen," Gene said, emerging from his office, once more brandishing a cigarette. "Their names are at the top of them three boards." Silence descended. "We're gettin' proper justice for the families of them girls."

No-one challenged this assertion and Alex was filled with gratitude that he'd not hesitated to back her up.

"So," he went on, "now, we get a full, clear picture. Talk to 'is friends, family, colleagues. Find out what 'e normally does, we're they expect 'im to be, the next couple o' days. No-one breathes a word that 'e's missing an' wanted on a triple murder charge, or 'e'll disappear faster than Carling's stint as DI."

Alex smiled to herself, covering her amusement with some difficulty. She pressed a hand over her mouth as she returned to her desk.

At around two o'clock, Alex quietly entered Gene's office armed with a mug of tea. She could smell the sugar in it, from the steam rising out of the scalding liquid. How that man still had any of his own teeth was a mystery to her.

He looked up when she came into the room and raised his eyebrows in silent greeting.

Alex put the mug down in front of him. "I definitely owe you one, after the last few days," she said in explanation. After a moment's hesitation, she closed the door and stood awkwardly in front of the desk. "And I need a favour."

"Go on?"

She inhaled through her nose and met his eyes for a few seconds before speaking. "I need to go home. I'm sorry, I just can't keep going anymore. I'm tired."

It was an understatement and they both knew it. Her voice cracked on that final word, highlighting in sharp focus the exhaustion in her eyes and the slight sag in her shoulders from holding herself to perfect standards since waking up that morning.

"If something comes up, you've got my number, just call me back in," she began, before being cut off.

"Not likely, Bolly," he said. "You're goin' 'ome to rest, not to sit by the phone."

She blinked. She'd expected a battle, even bearing in mind that he hadn't wanted her to come back at all yet. Her head spun and she stepped back dizzily to lean on a filing cabinet.

Gene reached for the phone. "You're not walkin'; I'll get uniform to drive you, remind 'em they're alive."

"You don't have to do that," she said quickly.

He returned the phone to the cradle, crossed the little office and cupped her face in his hands.

Alex's breath hitched in her throat.

"I know I don't 'ave to. But you don't 'ave to put on a strong front all the time, either." He met her eyes and saw pure exhaustion reflecting back at him. When he kissed her, she put her arms around him.

"Aren't you worried about what they'll think, if they see?" she asked in a whisper, as they pulled apart.

He gave her a strange look. "No," he said decisively. "I'm more worried about havin' you keel over on the job again, and makin' sure you're alright."

She didn't know how to reply to that. She rested her head on his shoulder, holding him close for a few moments longer and relishing the feeling of safety that came from being in his arms.

"What are you turnin' me into, woman?" He smiled though; she could be infuriating, but God, it was impossible not to be permanently in love with her.

The moment that her front door swung shut behind her, Alex found herself ambushed by an oppressively heavy fatigue that seemed to want to swallow her whole. She spent the last reserves of energy on removing her jacket and shoes before flopping onto the bed on top of the duvet. For a few excruciating moments, sleep eluded her and she frustratedly wondered why, until a tidal wave of restrained emotions crashed around her.

She didn't see it coming, but she was powerless: for a few minutes she sobbed desperately, overcome by thoughts of the baby she'd lost. She curled her arms around her empty stomach as she wept and eventually fell asleep with tear-stained cheeks.

There was a blanket over her when she woke up. She'd hugged one corner to her chest in her sleep, but had she managed to wrap herself in it too, without help? Her turbulent crying fit pushed aside, she felt safe again, knowing how the blanket must have got there. For a few minutes, she lay in the half-darkness in her bedroom, aware that she'd fallen asleep fully-clothed and having not eaten anything since breakfast. She was suddenly starving, certain that it was not just her tears that had led to the headache which pounded with each heartbeat. When she sat up, she pulled a hand through her sleep-mussed hair and realised that she could smell something delicious.

Coming out of the bedroom, she was touched by how much effort Gene had gone to, to try and make it a cosy, inviting setting. While she liked the flat well enough, 'cosy' was not a word she'd usually choose to describe its unapologetic of-its-time-ness. He'd lit candles on the coffee table, chosen one of her cassettes of gentler music (which she was sure he'd usually write-off as 'that soft shit') and to her delight, brought up two plates of pasta from Luigi's.

"Evening, Sleepin' Beauty," he said with a slight upward curl of his lip. "Feeling better?"

She nodded. "Mm, better for the rest, I think." Her eyes drifted from him to the food.

"It was bloody freezing in 'ere when I came in – anyone'd think you live like a frigging polar bear! I 'ad words with your thermostat, and it shouldn't be too bad now." He looked over to the little box on the wall, and Alex could just imagine what 'having words' would entail.

"I… didn't really notice. I was a bit preoccupied when I got back," she said, not quite willing to divulge how she'd spent the first few minutes in her bed. "I was warm enough though, thank you." She caught his eye, hoping he knew she meant for the blanket and for the encouragement given to her central heating. She couldn't wait any longer: she took a seat at the little kitchen table and picked up a fork. "I haven't eaten since this morning, can we eat now?"

The upward twitch of Gene's lip evolved into an eye-roll and a true smile. "Well, I didn' bring it up 'ere just for you to look at!"

Alex fell upon the plateful of creamy pasta ravenously, much to the disbelief and amusement of her dinner partner for the evening. "What?" she said thickly through a mouthful of pasta, very aware that every single idea she'd set in Gene's head about her refinement was being torn apart by the second.

"Nothin'," he said satirically. "I just don't think I've ever seen you eat so much in one go."

She elegantly, silently, raised her middle finger to him as she continued to eat, eliciting a small chuckle from Gene.

"It's nice to see you look after yourself, for once," he added quietly, not meeting her eyes.

Alex looked up, astounded. "Well, it's very nice to be looked after, too," she admitted. It had never been her strong suit, accepting help, so she forced herself to tell him that she appreciated his efforts. "You know, I will miss you, when your duty's done of keeping an eye on me and you go home."

He put down his own fork and bit the inside of his bottom lip. "Look, Alex, there's… there's something I need to tell you."

His expression had changed from light to deeply concerned, and it made the back of her neck prickle in fear. "What is it? What's wrong?" she asked hurriedly. She wasn't very hungry anymore.

"Somethin' 'appened this evenin', after clockin' off. One of Westminster's uniformed plonks got threatened outside Charing Cross, on 'er way 'ome."

Alex gasped, and impulsively she reached across the table for his hand. "Was she hurt?" She interlinked her fingers with his and was glad when he held her palm tightly to his as he carried on speaking.

"No," he said, relief evident in the single syllable. "Shook up, and 'er 'ole station's up in arms obviously, but 'e didn't get as far as layin' a finger on 'er, thank God."

She nodded, pressing her lips tightly together.

"The description she gave though…" He felt Alex's hand tremble against his, and he squeezed it tighter for a moment. "Whatever mad land 'e's takin' orders from, Richards is not above attackin' female officers that fit the bill. This plonk's slim built, dark hair, but shorter than the others. He's gettin' less choosy."

"How did Shaz get home tonight?" Alex asked immediately. "She takes the bus alone–"

"Not tonight, she didn't," Gene said firmly. "We was workin' late on the Richards case when the news broke, so I sent Christopher 'ome with 'er. She's safe. Which just leaves you."

She shook her head. "Doesn't matter," she said, knowing she sounded unconvinced the moment the words left her lips.

"Jesus, Alex, how did I know that's 'ow you was gonna react? How many times do I 'ave to say it – you matter to me, isn't that enough?!"

Looking down, she rubbed the smooth, cold amethyst pendant between the pad of her thumb and forefinger. Her insides were turning to ice.

He put a finger under her chin and tilted it slightly upwards. "I know you'll always say you can fight your own battles, and normally you know I'd let you. But just for a while, let me stay put, please. I need you know you're safe."

Alex was thunderstruck. "You can stay," she replied. "And… thank you," she added, knocked for six that not only had he vulnerably expressed a need to protect her, but by the way he'd said 'please'. Gene Hunt didn't ask nicely, especially not where danger was concerned, but for her, he had.

Thank you so much for the comments I've received so far on this story. Please do leave a review if you liked this chapter - it makes such a difference to my day!