Wow! I've been so pleased with the reviews for chapter 1! Wasn't sure if people would be interested in this as, plot wise, it's a bit different. So thanks everyone!
Thanks also to rantandrumour from Luigis for suggestions, medical explanations and for being a great Beta! I will raid your brain for info again I'm sure.
Divide and Conquer.
Chapter 2 - The terrible truth.
This was uncertainty. He didn't like uncertainty. He didn't like this place either. The hospital walls were all a clinical white with the occasional notice board full of posters. Hesitation was another thing Gene didn't like. But today, since speaking to Alex's doctor, he had felt both uncertainty and hesitation in large doses.
It had been two days since Alex had been run down by the police car and the past two days had become the two of the longest days of Gene's life. He had spent most of those two days splitting his time between pacing up and down the hospital corridors harassing medical staff for information and briefly returning to CID to oversee the investigation and yell at his troops to work harder on the case.
It had been late this morning when the doctor had asked to speak to Gene and now Gene knew the extent of Alex's injuries. The news had been hard to digest at first and Gene had been thankful for the close proximity of his hipflask, not that it had done much to soften the blow. The doctor had wanted to give Alex the news himself but Gene had objected, strongly. He was convinced that Alex had to hear this from someone she knew, someone she trusted, not some berk in a white coat who probably thought of this as being 'all in a day's work'.
He glanced down once more at the medical report in his hand with a deep hope that its pages might be wrong. He knew it wasn't. He had seen the car hit Alex and remembered her hurt words to him in the moments immediately afterwards.
He reached into his overcoat and took his hipflask out once more. Its contents did nothing to help the situation but it did at least steady his nerves.
Alex was no longer under sedation. She was tired, sleeping much and under heavy medication, but she was no longer being kept unconscious. Gene knew it wouldn't be too long before she would start asking questions... Questions to which she would need answers, and answers which he had taken it upon himself to give.
Gene sank one more deep mouthful of scotch. It was time.
Gene approached the door to Alex's hospital room and gave it a gentle push. He was trying to be respectful, to not make much noise, as if that would somehow help the situation. With a deep breath he stepped into the room and closed the door gently behind him, looking up as he did so to see Alex before him.
There she was.
The hospital room was small, clean and modern- only the best- and all paid for by the Met.
Gene moved the few steps towards Alex, stepping gently so as not to disturb her. Slowly, he pulled a chair nearer the bed and sat down, not saying a word, just taking in the sight before him.
Alex lay in the hospital bed, her eyes closed and her breathing steady. Any other time Gene would have admired how peaceful Alex appeared as she slept; it was a change from shouting her disapproval at a decision or spouting her psycho-bollocks at him.
But not now. Gene's attention was drawn to the deep grazes on Alex's face, and the bruising that ran down the left side where she had hit the road. His eyes ran slowly down her body, finally drawing to the outline of her still legs tucked neatly in under the sheets of the hospital bed.
Gene leant forwards, gently taking Alex's hand in his own. He noted her knuckles too were grazed from the impact, and gave her hand a light squeeze as he contemplated the sight of the smashed D.I before him.
It was a good moment or two before Gene realised that he had heard the sound, a change in the steady breathing before him. It had been almost too faint to hear. He looked up from gazing at her injured hand, looking to Alex. Her eyes were now slightly open, struggling to focus through the weariness and medication.
"Bolly..." Gene called with a gentleness rarely heard, "Bolls..."
He watched as Alex wearily blinked a couple more times as her surroundings began to come into focus.
"Come on, you've had 'angovers worse than that," Gene urged, attempting to regain his usual flippancy as if nothing was wrong. He had to be the strong one.
Alex slowly drew her free hand up to her face, rubbing her weary eyes. The aches through her body were like nothing she had ever felt before. Slowly, as her eyes adjusted, the unfamiliar world around her came into focus. White. The room was white. There was a drip in her other arm. Hospital. This was a hospital. Gene. Gene was there, his hand holding hers. If Gene was there then this wasn't 2008. If this wasn't 2008, then something must have happened to her in 1983.
A car. A road. Being on the ground. Everything was like patchwork in Alex's memory. She slowly looked to Gene's face where he sat next to her, tiredness and anxiety etched onto his expression.
"Bolls, do you know where you are?" She listened to the voice. "Do you remember what happened?"
Alex turned her head further on the crisp pillow and looked to Gene, searching for her answers.
"Bolly, do you remember anything?"
It took Alex a moment, her voice not having been used for two days, "Not much." Her answer came as barely more than a whisper. She saw the angst and hesitation in Gene's face. Would he explain? She needed to know! She tried piecing together the fragments in her memory. "Car? A road?"
"Hit and run Bolls," Gene explained with regret clear in his voice. "Bastard jumped in a police car, keys were still in it, hit you full on."
Alex closed her eyes as the information sank in, her mind still cloudily from the medication given for her pain. With Gene's words the memory slowly returned. She remembered sparring with Gene about the Quattro, crossing the road, the warning being shouted, an engine roaring. Everything after that was a blur of images, the impact of the car and the spiralling view from being hurled off the Granada's bonnet.
The sound of Gene getting to his feet, the chair scraping backwards, caused Alex to open her eyes again.
Gene paced to the end of the room, facing away from Alex and then back again. He clenched and unclenched his fists as he paced, something he always did when he was agitated or uncomfortable with a situation.
"Look Bolls, they think you're gonna be here a while," Gene finally said it as he halted next to Alex.
She saw the look on his face. This wasn't the usual Gene Hunt. This was a Gene Hunt with a considerable weight on his shoulders.
"How long?" Alex asked through her tiredness, looking to Gene for her much needed answers.
She watched as Gene sat down again, pulling his chair nearer the bed.
"Bolly," he began in an unusually gentle tone. "Alex..."
Alex lay there as Gene again took her hand, her own body tensing slightly as she read Gene's body language. She could tell, she knew a bombshell was about to be dropped, she had been in Gene's position too many times not to notice.
"Bolls, you took quite a hit. The car. It hit you from behind, hard... Too hard." Gene was trying to explain as coherently as possible.
"How bad?" Alex urged, bracing herself yet needing to know.
"In the road, you said summin'. You were hurt Bolls, your back," Gene explained. "Look, the docs have operated but they say you might not...or at least it might take time..."
It was then that the realisation suddenly dawned on Alex. She had been too groggy to notice when she had come too from her sleep, the medication having numbed her to the point where she was only aware of aches from bruises.
"Oh my God...Gene..." Alex reacted as the truth sank in. She felt her heart race with the horror of the realisation and felt as Gene now took her hand in both of his for comfort.
"I know Bolls, I know..." Gene sounded as reassuming as possible, "Look I don't pretend to understand the medical jargon but the impact... they said it injured your spinal cord."
"No," Alex said, almost begging as she felt her eyes begin to grow moist with tears.
"They said it's not severed," Gene continued. "So there is hope!"
"This can't be," Alex felt the tear roll from her eye."Gene I've got too much to do, I can't be like ...this..."
"Bolly, they won't know anything for sure yet, it's too soon." Gene was attempting to calm her. "You gotta rest up, heal, give your back a chance to recover."
"No, Gene this isn't possible." Alex shook her head slightly, always unwilling to admit defeat. "This was never part of the plan."
Alex turned her face away from Gene, looking down the form of her body as best she could from where she lay almost flat. She could see the bump of the bed sheets outlining her legs. They were there, looking perfectly normal as far as she could see. Yet there was no feeling, no sensation. The only sensation Alex could feel was a terrible pain constantly gnawing at her lower back.
"Move," Alex willed her legs. "Just move, please..."
There was no response, her injured body defying her, and Alex realised it was useless. She took a deep breath, trying to prevent it, but it was no good. Alex raised her free hand once again and ran the back of her hand over her eyes, trying to hide the tears which were about to fall in abundance, but the tears came anyway. It was then that Gene placed Alex's hand back down softly at her side, a little more of the 'old Gene' re-emerging on his face.
"Look Drake, you've been hit by a car, you've been seriously injured and you might not walk again," Gene announced. "Now I think that's as shit as you do, so I need you to snap out of the self pity because, to use your own psycho-bollocks against you, you're in denial."
"How do you expect me to react Gene?" Alex sobbed through her frustration. "I can't feel my legs, Gene, I can't move my legs!"
"I know Bolls, I know," Gene admitted with reluctance.
The two sat in silence for several moments, Alex wiping the occasional tear.
"Here," Gene spoke.
Alex looked to Gene's side of the bed and saw him handing her a tissue from a box on the small table beside her bed. Gratefully she took it and dabbed it on her eyes, wiping her tears as best she could.
"What am I going to do Gene?" she finally asked, her voice filled with despair. She watched Gene think for a moment, considering his answer.
"What you're gonna do Bolls is fight. I know you're upset, and that's fine, but I need you to use every ounce of that pain in the arse determination of yours and put your mind firmly on recovering", Gene encouraged from where he sat.
Alex simply listened, almost too numb for encouragement.
"Now I know it might take a while, and it's gonna be a long hard slog, but you're gonna get there Bolls," Gene continued. "You will walk again and don't you dare think otherwise."
"But what if I don't Gene?" Alex worried.
She looked down towards her legs again. She watched them just lying there, not moving and felt nothing but a deep shame envelop her.
"Gene, I don't want to be..." She couldn't bring herself to say it. She couldn't say it. It wasn't her, it was something that happened to other people, "Paralysed." The word tasted dirty to Alex, as if it couldn't be used to describe her.
"You're getting too upset," Gene had observed, "Maybe you should rest now."
"You'll need a new DI," Alex continued. "What use is a cripple?"
Gene shook his head. "Don't even think that way."
"Even if I get some feeling back, I might not recover fully Gene." Alex continued to dwell on the negative implications of her situation.
"Just stop it Alex, please", Gene urged. "You're not helping yourself by thinking like this"
"And if I can't walk again then I'll be stuck in a wheelchair." Alex again raised her tissue to her eyes.
No reply came from Gene.
Through her tears Alex saw Gene simply watching her, his sadness showing clear in his eyes as Alex stopped talking and simply cried.
After a moment, Gene's hand moved forwards and simply stroked Alex's cheek as she sobbed.
He seemed to just sit there, not speaking for some time, as if words were no longer required.
As he sat, and Alex sobbed, Gene simply stroked Alex's cheek repeatedly and calmingly, occasionally stopping to brush a small wisp of her hair from her forehead.
With Gene's soothing touch, Alex eventually felt her eyes growing weary again. She was tired, this was true, and it had been so much to take in so suddenly. She lay there looking to Gene but before long her eyes gradually drifted shut as her injured body's need for sleep called out to her once again.
"Shhhh... Whatever happens Bolls, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Gene hushed her so soothingly. "But right now, I'm gonna sit here, and you're just gonna cry. And when you've done that you're gonna go to sleep. I just want you to rest. Go on..."
End Chapter 2...
