The train ride to Alex's home had never seemed longer to Alex as she sat with her shoulder brushing Gene's and her bag on her lap, the familiar bag she had carried the day she was shot. Thinking on it, looking over herself, these were the self same clothes she had worn that fateful day when she had travelled across the decades. She glanced over at Gene, comparing him to the commuters on either side of him. He looked normal enough, maybe a little gothic with his long black coat but normal. His eyes took in the signs and people and appliances all around him with shock, still at sea in this amazing new world so different to his.
"What the hell is that, Bolly?" he muttered, pointing to the ticket carousel in front of him and the slot. Alex smiled.
"Let me show you, Guv."
She walked forwards and placed her ticket in the slot for the machine, and it pulled it in and allowed her through the carousel. She slipped it out of the other end and nodded to Gene, shoving it in her pocket.
"Your turn, Guv."
Gene swallowed, hoping not to make a fool of himself in front of Alex (although he'd never admit it), and pushed the card into the slot, watching as it was gently whisked in.
"Now you go through the carousel."
He proceeded through carefully, not with his normal heavy-handedness and with a definite sense of being completely out of his depth in this new version of his world. Alex took the card out the other end for him and grasped the sleeve of his coat, not wanting him to get lost in the station.
"We'll get a taxi, my house is only five minutes away."
Gene nodded. Alex gave him a smile and headed towards the taxi ranks, feeling a little alien herself but so experienced with stations like these that she could find her way around them blindfolded.
"I wonder if Molly will be there," she murmured as the taxi took them towards her street, her heart skipping a beat as she thought of her daughter. Gene nodded and looked out of the window, taking in this new version of London. Still everything awed him, from the people to the appliances and cars he could see. A teenage girl with perfectly straight red hair and black skinny jeans pulled out an iPod Touch as the taxi went past her. A child ran out of one house holding a Wii remote and pursued by two other children. A man walked out of one of the houses holding his mobile phone to his ear and pulling out his car keys as he went, slipping into a Smart car.
It was all so new, and so different.
Gene had thought he would feel threatened at first, but as he looked over at his Bolly he wondered if maybe he was somehow relaxed with her around.
"Gene Hunt doesn't do love," he muttered roughly to himself, turning away from his former DI.
But something inside him told him that might not be true after all.
As Gene had expected, Alex lived in one of the posh areas of London, in a three-bedroom house with modern, styled curtains and whitewashed brick. The other houses on the street were practically carbon copies of the house, but none had the jasmine bush next to the front door or the intricately-carved wooden bench in the alcove.
"I planted that bush with Molly," Alex whispered, crouching down and pressing her finger to one of the delicate blooms on the bush. She sniffed it gently, breathing in the familiar smell, and stood up, looking over at Gene and seeing him look away quickly. Her emotions were all over the place. She felt her chin wobbling.
"Gene- I can't believe I'm here- and you're here as well-"
She knew she was about to lose the battle with the tears in her eyes; Gene, seeing them welling in her piercing, delicate green eyes, hurriedly allowed her to hug him and wrapped his arms round her.
"You're home now," he murmured to her, patting her shoulder as her sobbing increased. "You're home now. Dunno where I'll bloody go, but you're home."
Alex looked up at him as if he'd gone crazy.
"Where else can you go, Guv? You'll stay here. You haven't got anywhere else to go."
"My house, maybe?"
A spark of hope for something familiar fizzed in his chest for a second before Alex shook her head.
"That street was destroyed years ago, Guv. Everything was knocked down and they built a supermarket there instead. A Tesco."
Gene sighed.
"So I guess I'm bloody homeless, then."
"I've got a spare bedroom here, you can have it."
Her statement brought up the question neither of them had really put into words yet; why were they here and how had this happened?
"What happened to me to bring me here?" was going round Gene's head.
"Why is Gene here and why am I back?" was drilling into Alex's brain.
Alex shook her head abruptly and dug in her bag, taking out her keys and opening the door. Gene stood back and watched her hands shaking as they did so, one wiping her mascara from her cheek and the other pushing on the handle and opening the path to the hallway.
"Come on in, Guv, it's cold."
"Why are you calling me Guv? That world is gone, Bolly."
Alex smiled at him, her eyes fixed firmly on his, brown-flecked green into stormy blue.
"The same reason you still call me Bolly, Guv. It's you. The name means you to me. It's what I've always called you."
Gene gave a little smile and stepped inside, feeling the warmth wrapping around him like a thick blanket and shivering slightly in it, kicking the radiator by accident on his way in.
"Sorry…" he muttered, bending down to straighten the radiator cover on it. Alex shook her head.
"No matter."
Just as he stood up and brushed himself down, a shrill ringing came from the lounge. Alex turned, her mouth opening in shock.
"Someone's… someone's calling me… why would they call me? I thought I was dead in this world…"
Alex moved over to the phone, keeping her eyes on it but turning back at the last second to look at Gene.
"Should I pick it up?"
"It's your bloody call, go ahead," he muttered, his eyes on the handset as well, the sleek plastic of it and the small buttons lit up on the body. Alex took a deep breath and reached out to pick it up.
A/N: Please tell me how this is going, I'm really not sure about it all still… Thanks for reading! Extra thanks to everyone who reviewed and reviews! Jazzola :)