So once again, I forgot I was posting. Life is crazy, you know? Here is the final chapter! Enjoy!
Alex woke slowly, her head pounding. She didn't want to open her eyes. She could tell through her eyelids that the sunlight was streaming in, and Alex knew that it would only aggravate her hangover.
Last night had been her welcome back party to CID. She wasn't exactly cleared for duty yet, but she was finally recovered enough to celebrate being alive. She had discharged herself from hospital against medical advice less than two weeks after waking up. Alex had spent the next week at home convalescing, barely leaving the flat, as she could still hardly walk. Gene would stop by every day, and the other members of CID all had made an appearance as well, including a particularly awkward visit from Ray. He had come armed with flowers that looked like he beat someone with them and he had refused to enter the flat. Instead, he had stood at the doorway, scratching his neck and trying to make small talk. Alex wasn't surprised that it was so uncomfortable; they never really spoke outside of work. To finish off the whole fiasco, however, he had given her a hug. It was the single-most awkward hug of her life. Out of instinct, he went for her arse, but caught himself and placed his arms around the middle of her back. He stood extremely stiffly, as though she might explode in his arms at any second, waiting until she returned the hug, before he let go. After that, he had nearly run down the hall, forgetting he was still holding the flowers. She found them in front of her flat the next morning.
Gene had laughed uproariously at the story, before realising that she was telling it with a glass of wine in her hand. Once it was clear she was willing and able to handle alcohol, he had started arranging her welcome back party.
He had insisted on carrying her into the trattoria, but he was also still recovering from the bullet in his arm. As much as Gene refused to believe it, his right arm was still slightly weaker than his left, and halfway down the stairs, it had given out. Alex had tumbled down three stairs before catching herself on the railing, nearly wrenching her shoulder out of joint. After making sure she was okay, Gene took on the gruff air that she had done it to herself and that she shouldn't be so clumsy.
In sharp contrast to this attitude, however, he kept buying her drinks. No one else was able to get a round in for her because Gene had bought so many that at one point she had 3 full drinks sitting in front of her. Against her better judgement, she kept drinking them, and somewhere between her fourth and fifth vodka, her memory became hazy and eventually fuzzed into nothing. There flashes, of course.A prominent one was Ray, sitting in front of her, floundering while trying to make conversation. He clearly wanted to pretend that the night with the flowers hadn't happened,but the awkward tension still hung between them. Another was her and Gene dancing to Duran Duran, Gene drunk enough to be truly uninhibited, a wide grin on his face.
There was also a faint memory trying to surface, the feeling of her lips on someone else's, but Alex pushed it aside. It had to have been a dream. Ever since the night with the Thatcherite, she had been careful about showing interest to anyone around Luigi's. CID gossiped like old women, and if anyone got even a hint of her kissing someone, much less of someone following her upstairs, she would never hear the end of it. She would not have kissed anyone last night, of that she was certain.
Alex took a deep breath in, willing herself to open her eyes. She really needed some , she opened them, blinking in the bright light of the late morning.
"Oh bloody hell," she said loudly, wincing as the noise assaulted her headache. The sleeping man in her bed did not move, a pillow over his head. However, Alex didn't need to see any more than the man's broad shoulders to know who it was.
The blankets were slightly below the man's waist, and Alex knew that he was naked. She took a deep breath in, jumping out of bed to the wardrobe to try and clothe herself before he woke up. As she moved, however, the spinning in her head made her stop, holding the wall, waiting for the world to stop moving.
"Bolly?" Gene's sleepy voice said quietly. "What are you doing?"
"Dressing," she said shortly, trying to not notice the warm flush that ran through her as she looked at him. He was delightfully sleep ruffled, the blond hair on his chest showing in the light.
"I see that, woman. But why in front of me?"
Alex bit her lip, torn between yelling at him to look at the obvious and putting a shirt on before doing anything. Realisation came to Gene's face as he took in more of his surroundings, his eyes widening.
"We didn't…"
"I think it's safe to assume we did," Alex replied. She couldn't help but be terse. She felt incredibly vulnerable standing in front of this man, completely naked, with nothing to hide behind.
Gene didn't say anything, his mouth hanging open for a moment before he closed it, turning his face away.
"Are you bloody smiling about it?!" she asked incredulously.
Gene turned back to face her, an innocent expression on his face. His lips were pushed into a pout, eyebrows raised and he was looking up through his eyelashes at her.
"I'd never smile, me," the laugh evident in his voice. "But if you are going to chastise me, Bolly, you might want to put something on first. Not that this isn't a good view, but it is difficult to concentrate." There was a quick smirk as he finished his sentence, but he quickly calmed his face into impassiveness. "I'll look away," he offered helpfully.
Alex dressed quickly, pulling on a pair of leggings and a batwing top. She walked out of the room in a rush, closing the door behind her with a slam. She winced as the noise aggravated her headache, but continued to the tiny kitchen, downing a few paracetamol before her headache could get worse.
"I can do a fryup," Gene said from behind her, making her jump in surprise. He walked around her, a twinkle of amusement still in his eye. Alex thanked God that he had decided to come out fully dressed in the overly wrinkled clothes of yesterday.
"We need to talk about this," she said.
"Food and coffee first. Bloody women, always trying to make conversation before you can properly wake up." He continued muttering darkly to himself as he pulled out the necessary ingredients for a fry up. The muttering grew somewhat darker when he realised that she had no bacon. "Typical woman," she heard him say. "Hundreds of bloody tomatoes and mushrooms and no proper meat to be found. Might as well make a goddamn salad for all the good that will do."
Alex chose to ignore him at that point, instead, losing herself in her thoughts. What did this mean? What were they going to do? Something in the relationship had to change now. Sex was something that couldn't just be ignored, no matter what Gene was doing now. What the hell had they been thinking last night?
A memory came unbidden, throwing her back to several weeks earlier, when she was just out of hospital.
"You shouldn't have left." Gene stood over the bed, a dark look on his face. His stitches had just come out of the cut on his forehead and although it made the wound look better, the small linear scabs of where the needle had gone through were still disturbing to look at.
"You left because they didn't let you drink whiskey. I'll be fine."
"I didn't nearly die, Alex," he said, the use of her real name jarring her to his seriousness.
"Got close," she muttered, crossing her arms. She had heard the full story from the many points of view of CID and realised how close both she and Gene had been to dying.
"Yeah, but not as close as you. You can barely walk across your flat at the moment for Christ's sake." His eyes were carefully guarded, but she could tell by the way he was chastising her that he was secretly agonising over how close she actually came.
Alex knew from how people acted she had been on the very precipice of death. Doctors had said it was a miracle she was alive. When the staff found out Gene had told her exactly what had happened, they were furious, expecting it to trouble her and hinder her progress. It was supposed to be carefully revealed over several days to limit her distress.
But to everyone's surprise, including Gene, Alex had just shrugged off her near death experience. She honestly couldn't remember much of being in the flat. The doctors had said she had received a fairly serious concussion between the kidnapping and the beating, and memory loss of the incident was nothing to be surprised about. Like before, they said that the memories may come back, but they may forever be lost to the haze of trauma. And she was fine with that. She saw the haunted look in Gene's eyes often enough over the past several days to know that it was nothing she wanted to relive. And because the memory of the boat had just come back, she didn't know if she could handle more recollections.
Gene sat a plate down heavily in front of her, snapping her out of her reverie and making her wince as her head throbbed. "Eat," he said firmly, trying to appear gruff, but a ghost of a smile was still etched on his face.
Alex stared at the food, her stomach turning. She hadn't had bacon, but he had found sausages and eggs. They had been cooked in enough grease that the slightly burnt toast was soaking it up and turning soggy. She took one bite, and her stomach threatened to revolt as the grease coated her mouth.
"I think I'll just have some porridge," she said mildly, shoving the plate in front of her away. Alex avoided looking at the pan still on the stove, retrieving things for porridge as quietly as she could. Gene merely shrugged at this, scraping her plate onto his own. "Not my fault you don't know good food."
Her mind was still buzzing, trying to work out what to do. Gene still seemed disinclined to talk about anything - he was still too busy shoveling food in his mouth - but they needed to resolve this issue. After so many years of the electric undercurrent, they had finally slept together. And what was worse, neither of them remembered it. Who knew that they went upstairs together? Was gossip spreading around CID even as she stirred her porridge?
"I can feel you thinking from here," Gene said dryly, mopping up the last of the grease with a piece of toast.
"We need to sort this out, Gene," her voice anxious, tinged with exasperation. "CID may already be talking about this and we need to come up with an action plan."
"An action plan? All we did was shag!"
"Yes, and I'm sure there's something in the rulebook about relationships with a superior officer, sexual or romantic! I don't want to be dragged into the Super's office the day I'm cleared for duty and told I'm being transferred. Especially if it turns out it's only a one night thing!" Alex stopped talking abruptly. She hadn't meant to tell him that she was looking for more. That would just stroke his ego, and if he didn't feel the same way, making working with him worse.
"If it's only a one night thing?" he asked directly. "You would consider something more?" His face was inscrutable, eyes closed off. Gene had listened to her enough about reading body language to know how to completely hide from her if he didn't want her reading him.
Alex was deliberately silent, scraping the porridge into a bowl and grabbing a spoon before turning to face him again. "I...I would consider it," she said finally, trying to give an air of indifference but knowing the tone was ruined by the small stutter at the beginning of her sentence.
A smug smile worked its way across Gene's face. "Course you do. Anytime a bird gets a taste of the Gene Genie she can't let him go."
Alex scoffed. "If I hadn't woken up with you in my bed this morning, I wouldn't have even known that I'd had the Gene Genie. So much for a memorable experience."
Gene looked offended, and she knew she had struck a low blow. "I'll give you a memorable experience," he muttered, grabbing her by the hand and leading her back to the bedroom.
She tried to pull away, but he turned her to him, pressing his lips against hers. Alex couldn't help it; she kissed him back, forcing one hand out of his grip and pressing it against his head, forcing him closer to her.
Gene turned her around, walking her backwards to the bed, pulling her shirt off at the same time. He pushed her onto it, laying down on top of her and grinned wolfishly.
"I'll show you a memorable experience," he repeated.
~(*)~
An hour later, they lay in bed together, naked. Alex was curled against Gene, gently stroking the soft down of his chest. He had one arm around her, the other behind his head.
"We really should figure out what we're going to do about CID," he said finally.
"So you admit that you agree with me." Alex grinned, looking up at him through her lashes and suppressed a small giggle.
Gene sighed heavily through his nose and nodded. "There will be gossip for sure. But before we can tell them what we're doing, we have to know, don't we?"
"Are you giving me the 'what are we' talk?" Alex asked in disbelief. If she had played this scene out in her head one hundred times, she would have never had Gene start that conversation.
"I mean, we need to know," he shrugged, acting like he wasn't being emotionally vulnerable.
"Well, we don't want one night," Alex said. "So are you willing to do the emotional side of things? Risk falling in love?"
"I think I could give it a go," Gene said. "As long as I get to keep shagging you, I think I can. You're bloody good at that."
Alex smiled at his deflection. Typical man. "Then we'll tell CID we're together. And try not to get so drunk this time."
"Sounds good to me, Bolly. You know, don't tell anyone I said this, but it's good to have you back. Don't lose your memory again, okay?"
"I don't plan on it, Gene." She curled into him and they lay in silence for a while, being reassured by each other's presence. Their nightmare was over, and they were together, stronger than ever.
"Unbreakable," she whispered, mostly to herself.
Gene smiled gently at her and linked a finger with hers. "Unbreakable, Bolly. Unbreakable."