Darkness… blankness… I can hear voices, but I can't tell where they're coming from…I can feel Gene's body against mine but only just, and ropes on my hands and feet accompanying a blindfold and gag… What's happening?

Alex struggled to open her eyes, shockwaves running through her body as she remembered what had happened. She was lying next to Gene on the floor of what looked like an empty warehouse, with metal shelves surrounding them and someone talking nearby on their mobile. The voice was the one from the phone calls, and Alex's stomach squeezed as she realised that the man who had tried to kill her and Gene now had both of them at her mercy.

Shifting as much as she dared, Alex found Gene's eyes, which were half-open and slightly blurred; Alex wasn't sure whether it was due to tears from her eyes or his. He caught to her gaze and gave her half a smile, which was mostly hidden by the gag on his face, trying to be brave for the both of them and shifting his bound hands to meet hers. Alex gripped his fingers as hard as she could, taking solace in the calming effect of his stormy blue eyes, so familiar and so warm as they delved into her eyes and this time held back no emotions.

"Damn you!" the voice shouted into his phone, and both Gene and Alex jumped and looked round, watching as the person threw his phone onto the floor and smashed it. Alex gave a little whimper that wasn't lost on Gene, as he tightened his grip on her hand and rubbed his thumb over her smooth skin.

"Fucking shit!"

Alex gave a barely-stifled giggle at the words, as they seemed so inappropriate and misplaced after his earlier explosion. The man spun round and fixed his gaze on Gene and Alex, a grin growing on his sallow features.

"Ah hah…"

He walked slowly towards the pair, and Gene squeezed Alex's hand hard and then channelled all his energy into trying to get free. The man walked forwards and grabbed the rope around Gene's arms, pulling him up and ignoring his gasp of pain.

"You are nothing but a nuisance," he hissed in Gene's ear. "You don't belong here, Gene Hunt. You should have crossed over yourself, but no, you had to stay here and make even more trouble for me and my comrades. The number of times we wished you destroyed, your soul thrown into oblivion for defying all the rules of life- all I want is to do the job I should have done years and years ago…"

Gene's eyes found those of the man, and he gasped as the sound of a shotgun firing rushed through his head, echoing in his ears, cold and cruel and deadly. Alex bit back a yelp of horror- this was Gene's killer, the man who had destroyed the Gene Genie all those years back and was now going to kill him here, and in all probability her as well.

"You'll have to get through me first!" she yelled through the gag, but all that came out was "mmm-mm mm-mmmh!" The man laughed cruelly and fixed his gaze on Alex instead, his dark brown and somehow familiar eyes boring into hers and lit with a strange fire.

"You may recognise me, Alex, and you may have forgotten. That's what happens when you're in a world that's not your own, you forget. Forget everything… even the faces of those you love and have had to leave behind," he added, his voice cruel, the tone cutting into Alex harshly. Alex gave a whimper and struggled with the gag, managing to shift it off most of her mouth.

"STOP IT!" she shrieked, tears now flowing down her face and her vision blurred so much that the only thing she could make out in the room was Gene's eyes, bright and fixed on hers, filled with sympathy and trying to calm her. Blood banged in her ears as she writhed against her bonds, fighting to free herself from both the rope and the diabolic man across the room.

"It hurts, doesn't it, Alex, forgetting?" the man asked softly, his voice now dangerous and cruel, leaning down to hiss in her ear, his breath hot and musky on her cheek. Gene kicked back and managed to overbalance the man, who fell slightly but not enough to actually fall over.

"I've had ENOUGH of your interfering!" he roared, standing up, reaching for his pocket and yanking out a gun. Alex screamed, desperation surging through her, and her squirming foot caught the man's stomach; he doubled up, wheezing, and Gene fought his way out of his bonds and punched the man until he was lying on the floor himself, the gun now in Gene's hands and no longer cocked.

"Gene…" Alex sobbed, holding out her bound hands. Gene first catered to the man who had terrorised her so much, binding his body with the ropes he had used to tie Gene up, and then turned to Alex and gently untied her wrists and ankles. Unable to stop crying, Alex hoisted herself up and clung to Gene as she took in the now feeble human being lying on the floor in front of her, tied up and coughing, retching occasionally. The gasps sounded familiar; was this someone Alex had known at some point?

"I won' kill 'im ye', I wan' some answers from 'im first."

Alex nodded her understanding and caught her breath, wiping her hand over her face, as Gene bent down and addressed the man in front of him, feeble and defeated.

"Now then, tosser, you wanna answer some o' my questions, keep you alive a bi' longer before I shoo' you?"

The man laughed, his fists unclenching.

"Like you shot Alex, Hunt? Like you shot hundreds of crooks, hundreds of people trying to make a living, like you shot the man who trained you and made you what you are today? What a pathetic job he did. All he did was create a monster, a murderer, Hunt. He should be ashamed of himself!"

The wind was forced out of the man's lungs by Gene's boot connecting with his stomach, driving the steel-tipped toe into the soft flesh and winding him harshly and abruptly. Alex stood by, holding her hand out as Gene passed the gun to her.

"Why are you tryin' to stop me an' Alex, an' who are you?"

"You won't know me," the man hissed, his eyes narrowed in pain and hatred, the poison evident in his dark irises. Looking into them, Alex could feel a shiver of recognition flowing down her back and shuddered inexplicably, not sure what to feel but somehow hating those eyes, almost as if she had seen them on the face of a villain in a dream, or the dream of a dream. Unable to shake the feeling off, she eyed the man with hatred obvious in her own eyes, instead focusing on what he had now done to them and what he had planned to do.

"I'm trying to stop you because I hate you, Hunt. You don't deserve a happy ever after, you or your cow of a DI-"

He was cut off at this point by another kick, but this time to the gonads. Alex winced, but inside she felt warmed by Gene's protectiveness, even if some of the time he just used it as an excuse to kick the shit out of someone he didn't like.

"Aiee…"

The unfortunate man curled up on the floor, his hands travelling to his crotch and grasping at it desperately, his face screwed up in agony. Gene watched with some satisfaction.

"Oh, 'ow the migh'y 'ave fallen, eh, bastard?" he grinned, relieved to hear Alex's snort behind him.

"I'll be saying the same to you soon, Hunt," the man whispered, managing a grin through his pain. Gene crouched down on his haunches, looking into the dark brown eyes, like Alex certain he knew them but unable to place them.

"Name?"

The man bared his long, decidedly pointed teeth. With a shiver, Alex noticed that his canine teeth were about twice as long as the rest of his teeth.

"You would be so surprised."

"Try me," Gene replied in a soft, dangerous voice, his whole body stiffening, a sign Alex had long since learned told he was ready for a fight.

"Nathaniel Plowman."

Gene and Alex exchanged glances.

"You 'eard of 'im?" Gene asked, his eyebrows drawing together, a look of confusion on his rugged face. Alex shook her head, her own eyebrows raised.

"Never, sorry, Guv."

"He's not your Guv," Nathaniel hissed, clenching his fists again, rage clear on his face as Gene feigned shock and Alex bit back a laugh, settling instead for a grin. "He's just a spoilt little child playing in his sandpit, a boy in a man's uniform! How can you trust him, Alex? He shot you, he deceived you, he didn't tell you the truth when you needed to get back to your little girl! How can you love him, after all he's done to you?"

Gene's face now showed real shock. Alex walked forwards and held the gun to Nathaniel's temple, grinning as he flinched away from the cold metal, which sizzled slightly as it made contact with his skin. Gene's eyes narrowed at it, but Alex didn't even notice, her anger taking up her mind and throwing her normal observant side out of the window.

"You know what I think, Nathaniel?" Alex hissed, her eyes fixed on his, both sets filled with loathing and fire. "I think you're the coward, the fantasist, trying to ruin a relationship, trying to become what you accuse Gene of being with such vehemence, and you've failed and so you're trying to turn me against Gene at the last moment, before we hand you over to the police and you never see the light of day again. We can get you sent down for attempted murder times two, dangerous driving, and, I would think, we would also lose you your job as a Detective Chief Inspector, am I right?"

Nathaniel grinned. Gene turned and gave Alex a look of complete bewilderment.

"You know somethin' I don', Bolls?"

Alex smiled.

"I was doing my research while you were recovering from our little accident, Gene. You didn't quite tell us your full name, did you, Nathaniel?"

Nathaniel bared his teeth again. Gene felt a sudden urge to shove them down his throat, but with the tension building in the room and Alex's gaze in him, he refrained and settled instead for reassuring himself that he'd do it later.

"You see, I fibbed when I said I didn't know the name. During my research, I decided to have a look at some files from 1983. Specifically, at the files of James Nathaniel Plowman-Keats."

Comprehension dawned on Gene's face as he turned back to the man sprawled on the floor, adrenaline pounding through him as the memory of DCI Jim Keats came back, loud and clear, and more disturbing than any home truth Gene had ever heard.

"DCI Jim bloody Keats," he said softly, resuming his dangerous tone of voice, his eyes narrowing and his fists clenching once again. "Long time no see, eh, Jimbo? Though' you'd catch up with an old mate, did you?"

Keats laughed, writhing again, making crude, animal-like noises deep in his throat. Alex backed away slightly, shocked by the growling and cackling, but Gene simply grasped Keats on the throat and pushed his head back hard, causing a bolt of pain to shoot up Keats's neck.

"See? No morals, Alex," Keats hissed, his knee trying and failing to kick Gene as Gene simply put out his foot to stop it. "He doesn't care who he hurts, and sooner or later it will be you, Alex, it will be you-"

Alex slapped her hand over his face, shutting him up abruptly and drawing a whimper of pain from him. Gene smirked.

"I'm not listening to your pathetic excuses for lies any longer, Jim," she hissed, her voice laced with rage and poison, her face contorted in vicious hatred of the man now lying helpless in front of her. She drew her hand away and slapped him, hard, on the face, and stood up with some help from Gene's shoulder, turning away and beckoning for Gene to do the same as she called the police to come and pick Keats up.

As she flipped her phone down, Alex turned to see Gene just staring at her, his eyes devouring her features, almost hungry, somehow hesitant in the way that they refused to meet her eyes and yet were focused on her face and body. Alex moved forwards and took both his hands in hers, pressing his body against hers, looking up into his eyes, smiling as he gently wrapped his hands around her waist and finally met her eyes, his blue irises so bold and familiar, her hazel-flecked green ones warm and soft in his gaze.

"I won't let him ruin our heaven, Gene," Alex said quietly, her voice full of happiness, the knowledge that now she and Gene could make their way forwards without Keats's interruptions, without him trying to stop them, kill them even, just as he had done in 1983. Both Gene and Alex were lost in the moment, their eyes fixed on each others', their gaze firm but distant, thinking of the people they had left behind, the people they wouldn't see again for a long time but would always be thinking of, would always be familiar with and warmed by the thought of.

Their gaze was so intense and so emotion-filled that neither saw Keats draw a gun from his jacket.

BANG. BANG.

There wasn't even time to scream before they were falling, onto the cold concrete floor, Gene's eyes closing in Alex's line of sight and scarlet blood spilling from his side, his body limp and the gaze he had shared so deeply with Alex gone from his blank eyes. Pain soared through Alex's body as she fell with him, her strength leaking out of her body with her blood and her last thoughts that she would never forgive Keats for this, and that at least she was dying with Gene, before blackness took over her soul and she breathed no more.

A/N: Ooh, and you all thought it was going to be so happy… but will it be? Am I cruel enough to deny them their happy ever after? You'll have to keep tuned to find out… please review, seriously, they make me amazingly happy, even one little review, even if it's just to say how much you hate that bastard Keats! Jazzola :)