Just in case: no currency involved except pleasure. Please don't sue. Thank you.
The club was dark, very, very loud and very, very crowded. Gene wandered outside for a cigarette, and a ponder on his next move. He had washed and changed his clothes, slightly surprised to find the suit hanging in CJ's wardrobe fitted very well. There were a couple of shirts, and he chose the black one, it somehow seems to fit...
CJ had been waiting for him, when he walked into what she described as her sitting room.
"Ready?" She stood up.
"Ready. And I need to catch up with Don Bradley..." he was slightly surprised that he hadn't given much thought to the other side of the puzzle since he'd arrived at the club.
They returned to her car. She paused for a second, then tossed him the key. "Perhaps you would like to drive?"
"Thought no one drives your car?" He was surprised, but his fingers were itching to get around a steering wheel of something like this.
"Humour me." Her expression was inscrutable.
He walked round the front of car, taking in the number plate for the first time. "A 55 KKR?"
"Old family heirloom." She wasn't going to be more forthcoming than that. He could tell. Something about the license plate struck a chord. He smiled to himself, and opened car door. She opened her door and threw a large black rucksack onto the back seat.
Once behind the wheel, he knew he had been right about it, this was definitely a driver's car, something that he could really relate to. He turned the key and the engine burst into life, he swung the car out of her parking space, and headed in the general direction of the club.
Once there, things had taken on a truly surreal quality.
Gene had to pinch himself to believe any of it was real. Suddenly he understood why both Bolly and Sam before her had behaved the way they did. Which was why he was wandering around outside on a freezing night, trying to kick start his bemused brain into some kind of order. Because I fear lord, that I have gone stark raving bloody mad...
The man who arrived at the club just after himself and CJ had introduced himself to Gene.
"Don Bradley."
"Gene Hunt." Gene had shaken his hand, and in that moment, suddenly he was standing on waste ground looking down at a badly traumatized small boy, who only wanted to see his baby brother. The image was so real he could almost feel the cold foggy air surround him.
The knowledge in the man's eyes was the real killer.
Then CJ... The attraction had been instantaneous and immediately obvious to anyone looking on. Don Bradley had taken her hand, and they were looking at each other in a way that suggested something a lot more...
Bradley ordered champagne, and they'd danced and laughed and chatted together as though they'd known each other their entire lives, while Gene's brain was reeling from all the connections.
Gotta put it all together... He was feeling cold and hot at the same time. The room seemed to be whirling around and voices seemed to be coming from somewhere very far away. He knew he had to get out...
He reached the street and staggered. Leaned against the railings and tried to put it all right in his mind. Because none of this makes any sense, if he's the child me and Bolly picked up all those years ago, where does he fit in all this... who am I here to save... I'm here to save someone right. He put his hands up to his head and wondered if somehow this was all a dream and he would wake up soon.
The clown was at the foot of her bed again. Only this time she knew it was her father. "this time" she said "I'm not scared... I know who you are... and I know what you've done... do your worst" She sat up and folded her arms across her chest, challenging him.
The clown smiled, and pushed her backwards
She was falling, through the air, into the black...then she was landing on the cobbles beneath... lying there, she looked up... he was standing there at the end of the street, but he was looking past her to someone in the fog beyond... she strained to see... the image was flickering, ripples expanded and covered her... she was sinking... a hand stretched out to her... she couldn't quite hear his voice, but he was shouting...she knew he was shouting...NO... she screamed, but it was useless... the clown was pulling her away ... away from her saviour...
Alex woke up with jerk, she was still fully clothed, lying on the sofa, and the television was the only light source in the room. She reached out for the remote and flicked over to a news channel and wondered for the umpteenth time where the hell Gene Hunt was.
It was four in the morning.. He stood outside the club, thundering headache, holding the key to the BMW in his hand and wondering whether to work his way back to Bolly's place or to try and sleep it off in the car until a reasonable hour, and then work his way back to Bolly's.
Right then he needed a corner in which to take some kind of stock, unravel the puzzle that was making his head hurt, and go home. He couldn't remember a time when he had wanted or needed to get home this badly.
He was sitting in the car, wondering about which option was the best one, when CJ crossed the road in front of him. She'd dispensed with the coat, was buckling something around her waist, something about the furtive way she was moving piqued his interest. He got out of the car, she was up to something and whatever she was up to was the answer to many of the questions he had buzzing around in his mind.
Following her was difficult, she was savvy and nervous and obviously surveillance aware. Several times he thought she'd spot him, but she kept moving. It was only when she disappeared in through a small door into a tall building that he knew he had her.
He followed her in, but couldn't see her, he looked around frantically... then he could hear footsteps up ahead somewhere in the dark. A door opened and closed. He followed. There was one door, it led to a stairwell, and he could hear someone climbing the stairs.
He looked up, SHIT, the stairwell seemed to go on forever upwards into the gloom. He knew he was always going to follow.
Twelve flights of stairs later and he was having to exert himself hugely just to keep behind her, keep quiet and stay in the shadows. Several times she stopped, and looked down behind her, he was sure she had seen him, but she continued on.
They reached the top. Gene paused, not only to stay behind her and out of her field of vision, but to catch his breath. Bugger the fags and booze, he was almost wheezing with the effort of the climb, you out of condition bastard, perhaps Sam had something in that overweight, over the hill thing he was moaning about...
Sensing he was close to answers, he climbed out onto the roof behind her. She was there, looking over the edge, then to his horror she walked away from the edge, spun and ran toward the parapet, she was going to throw herself over.
"CJ" he screamed her name, racing forward, her head whipped round and then she was over the edge, free falling for a few brief seconds, before the parachute deployed. He sagged to his knees with relief. For one hideous moment he had thought that she was taking the final swan dive, then the backwash of rage hit. He was angrier than he had ever been in his life, even the day of Bolly's apparent betrayal had nothing on the fury that was stoking up in him now. He was going to blow like Vesuvius, but he had to catch up with the object of his rage first.
Gene stormed back into the building, and opened the door leading from the fire escape to the building beyond. He found himself in a long corridor with rooms off, he could hear lift machinery going.
The cleaner was startled when a large angry man dressed in black entered the lift behind her, she normally had the floor to herself. One look at his thunderous face and she decided that keeping very, very quiet and staying in the corner was a good thing right then. He smacked the button for the ground floor hard, and even though her next floor was only two down, she really didn't fancy asking him to press the button for her.
Gene had time to nurse his rage on the way down, fanning the flames, life is precious and throwing it away on a childish and idiotic stunt like that... he felt sick, peering over the edge, the ground appeared to rush up to meet him.
CJ was walking back to her car, she dragged her chute into the bag, stuffing it in any old how, dimly aware that this was a bad thing because she would have to sort it out later, but right then she was so angry... Her surprise and horror that he had followed her spying on her, were nothing to the near panic she had felt as she mistimed her jump and pulled the rip cord early. His interference could have killed me. Her temper snapped, she was a free agent, it was no business of his what she did in her spare time. And base jumps made her happy. She knew this building was unguarded and 28 floors was too good to miss. She'd mapped it all out, worked out her landing zone and the timing, so that she was less like to get arrested...then he'd gone and fucked it all up...
"What the fuck is the matter with you," he bellowed from just behind her, "do you have a death wish or are you just stupid..."
"This is what I do..." she rounded on him, "get over it, because..." she stepped closer, standing toe to toe with him, anger sweeping through her building her rage, "up there," she stabbed upwards with an emphatic finger, "up there is the one and only place I really feel alive..."
Gene felt that surge of white hot anger, quite unlike anything that even Bolly at her most irritating could ever inspire in him, he grabbed her arms "Life is precious, why are you intent on throwing yours away, is this some way to get back at your parents? Because they died and left you...is it?" he demanded.
Her rage was matching his "what do you know," she was shivering, her breathing ragged, her eyes challenged him, "do you really want to know," her voice was starting to lose its edge, tipping over towards hysteria, "my mother was beautiful, she could light up a room with just a smile, she was feisty and challenging and intelligent, and I loved her so much..." her voice was pure agony "my father...my father was an over the hill, overweight, nicotine stained dinosaur of an ex copper, he was stubborn, with an overwhelming superiority problem, and a complex whiskey habit...and I worshiped him." Spent, she sagged in his hands, tears streaming down her face.
Gene had never relished being around crying women, but something snapped in him now, he gathered her close and held her. A second's stiff resistance, and she was leaning into him, her head on his shoulder, bawling like a tired child. He settled her close and rested his cheek against her hair as he soothed her back with a gentle hand. It was a moment of truth between them and Gene acknowledged it, he couldn't understand all of it, but CJ was the link, he was here to make connections, because it was only by making the connections he could save himself and Bolly, and get back to where he, no they, belonged. He didn't know how or why any of this was possible, or how he even knew it, but she is my little girl.
He held her tighter.
"I know who you are...I've known from the first moment you walked into the club" the choked whisper in his ear brought a flood of emotion to the surface, he felt the tears running down his cheeks. They stood a long time like that, just holding on, because that moment in time was theirs, and that gift was too precious to waste.