Thanks again to Emzi.x for her beta skills, especially as she should be revising! Plot starts here!

Disclaimer: Kudos to Kudos. Thanks for letting me play.

Chapter Two

Tuesday 16 February, 1982

There was a killer on the loose: a sadistic, misogynistic, psychopath. Two young women had been found in the docks area of East London. The modus operandi had been identical. The women, barely more than girls really, had been abducted in the early morning, each on the way to their respective places of work. They were middle-class; the first had been a primary school teacher, the second a law student in her final year. They had the world in front of them: careers they loved, supportive families, and loving boyfriends; families who were beyond devastated at the loss of their daughters. They had each been found seven days after their disappearances, lying face-down in the mud near the Thames. There was severe bruising to the wrists and ankles, suggesting continuous and harsh restraint, evidence of sexual assault and most disturbingly to the investigative team at CID, small cuts all over the bodies alongside deeper cuts causing extensive blood loss. The post-mortems, however, had returned the causes of their deaths as drowning.

Alex had thrown herself into the case. The first death had come to their attention a few days after 'the night'. She had kept her contact with Gene to a minimum. The clown had thankfully not reappeared after that morning but it had been the first time she had seen him since her parents' deaths and it had shaken her deeply. Now when she caught glimpses of Molly: in her school uniform; waiting to blow out her candles, Alex felt something she hadn't felt previously: Molly was judging her.

And then this case had come along and she committed to it one hundred and ten percent. She needed to forget about her night with Gene and all the confused emotions its memory provoked, and she was no closer to finding a route home. This morning she had gone into work at sunrise and now, just in time for elevenses, had already spent many hours poring over old cases, blocking out the chatter of her colleagues, searching the records for anyone who fit her carefully-drawn profile, someone who would have taken years to develop into this murderous pattern. She knew this man. Profiling is what she was most skilled at - she knew it was a man working alone, with a disturbed hatred and fear of women; she shuddered at the cliché of it. She had written endless notes and recorded her thoughts on her dictaphone.

The murders had occurred two weeks apart. As yet no one else had been reported missing but with no prints or useful forensic evidence to work with, a sense of urgency pervaded the team. They knew this would happen again; they didn't need Alex to tell them – as she did and often – that he had escalated. Having reached murder, he would have felt a high perhaps only heroin addicts could understand; his high would be short-lived and his hunger would remain unsatisfied so the murders would continue.

"DI Drake. My office." Gene appeared at the door to his office and called his DI, forcefully. Alex sighed and complied. Gene had been equally distant to her as she to him. He spoke to her only about work. Alex tried to read him but his gruff and silent demeanor gave her no clues.

"Right. You've been at it all morning. Have you found my killer?" said Gene, hunching forward over his desk, perched on his knuckles. Alex tucked her thumbs into the back pockets of her jeans and raised her shoulders. "You've got your profile by now, 'aven't you?" Gene emphasised the word 'profile' as if he was spitting out a particularly distasteful Special from Luigi's menu.

Alex rolled her eyes. She knew this killer inside out. She just didn't know where to find him. Part of his brilliance was his meticulousness and they had no forensic evidence to go on, nor any witnesses. She knew Gene would hate her suggestion but she pressed ahead unabated:

"We need bait, Guv."

Gene stared at her. "You are joking? You think I'm going to put a police officer in the way of this nutter because you can't find my killer!" he fumed, gesturing pointedly with his gloved hand between her, the desk and the main office.

"It's going to happen again!" Alex hissed, jaw jutting out, banging her hand on his desk and stamping her foot. "For God's sake, Gene. Do you want us to wait until another woman turns up dead or do you not think it might, just might, be a good idea to pre-empt his next move and bring him to us?" Her curls shook with every emphatic syllable.

Gene clenched his jaw in return, pouting and looking briefly out of the window. He hated it when she was right. He shuffled his feet, one hand on his hip. He looked down at the floor and then back at Alex's face.

"Okay." He sniffed. "But if anything happens to one of my officers, I'm holding you responsible, get it?" poking her in the chest. "We do this right, Drake." He had not called her Bolly since that night.

"Thank you." Alex smiled her widest, closed-lips smile.

She turned to leave. The clown was standing by the door to Gene's office. Alex felt a wave of nausea rush over her, stemming from the pit of her stomach like a white flash of light. She stumbled, reaching out a hand to the desk. Why is the clown shimmering? she thought, like the heat rising from a desert, as her head began to swim. The edges of the room turned to black, the clown was the only thing Alex could see, shining whiter and brighter. He loomed over her, his arms moving out towards her. He seemed to be getting larger. She put her hands up to push him away, turning her head to avoid his evil stare, the curling blood-red lips, but she was trapped looking up at him. Time seemed to stop as he moved closer. She could feel the scream rising within her throat.

"Alex! Bolly!" Gene reacted instantly. Catching her from behind he wrapped his arms around her waist as her knees buckled. He fell to his knees with her; her head slumped heavily against his shoulder. She struggled against him, arms flailing. Gene sought to calm her as he tempered his own rising panic.

"Shh, shh" He soothed, stroking her damp hair back from her forehead, leaning his cheek against the back of her head, and holding her arms tightly round her chest with his other hand, rocking them both ever so slightly, trying to ease her distress, and his own.

"Molly!" she cried. "Get him away from me!" she slurred.

"Alex, it's okay, I'm 'ere" Gene said softly and then more firmly: "For God's sake, woman, stop fighting me! It's over."

Alex blinked as the light returned to the room, like a fog clearing. Her head pounded and her heart was racing. She was hot. She needed to get her white leather jacket off. She pulled at her arms to do so and found resistance. Where was she? It took her a few seconds to realise she was on the floor and that she was being held. She ceased struggling. She was being held and it felt good, safe. The clown was gone. She breathed slowly and deeply through her nose a few times to steady her breathing and the thumping heartbeat.

"Shh, shh. You're okay now. It's okay." Gene whispered into her ear, no longer sure if he was talking to her or comforting himself. He had ached to hold her in his arms again after that night. He had been left with an emptiness that he couldn't comprehend. He wanted to rewind the evening and go back to the moment when she allowed him to kiss her. If he had his chance again he would have moved more slowly, taking the time to caress and hold her rather than the scrambled mess that had occurred. And now she was in his arms again but not in the way Gene had hoped.

Gene shifted her in his arms and supporting her back with one arm, slid the other under her knees; he lifted her to his chair and pushed her head forward between her knees, trying to get the blood to flow back to her brain. She didn't resist and put her hands to her head, pulling her hair away from her face. Gene reached for the whiskey, and poured himself a large glass and threw the glass back emptying its contents in one gulp, one hand absent-mindedly resting on Alex's shoulder.

"What the 'ell was that? Nearly gave me an 'eart attack." Gene paced back and forth in front of his desk, glaring at Alex with concern etched into his stern features.

"I… I think I need to go home" Alex stammered softly, barely audible. She stood slowly, gingerly testing her legs which unexpectedly managed to support her weight. The clown had gone but Molly lingered just out of sight, in the corner of the office.

Gene nodded slightly, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets, his lips returning to their natural pouting pose. She wasn't going to open up to him and he was buggered if he was going to push. She was deathly pale, though the colour was slowly returning to her cheeks, the greenish grey hue he had seen there a few moments earlier disappearing.

"I'm fine, Gene" She said unconvincingly but defiantly. Gene raised his eyebrows. "I skipped breakfast. I haven't been sleeping well." She could explain away the fainting to him but she had no explanation for the clown's return.

She grabbed the files on her desk as Gene ushered her through the office. "I can work just as well from home, you know" she spat at him before he had time to protest. Safe as she had felt a few moments ago in his arms, Gene witnessing her yet again in a vulnerable state unsettled her. Much as she had wanted him to comfort her a few weeks ago, playing the damsel-in-distress was hardly her style.

"If you're well enough to work from home, you can work at the office, and look at you, you're no good here." he responded, throwing his stern glance around the room, equally unprepared to reveal his hurt feelings. Alex jutted her jaw at him. "Look, we haven't time for me to lie-around. I just need a nap and a sandwich and then I can continue on the case as soon as I wake up." she offered sweetly, swaying almost imperceptibly.

"Fine!" He just wanted to get her home. His skin tingled unpleasantly as the image of her falling flashed back to his frontal cortex. Gene Hunt swept out the office, open coat flapping behind him while Alex trotted after him.

TBC...