Thank you to all who reviewed the last chapter! It means a lot to get those :) And a disclaimer for those of you who follow my tumblr, all the text before the second ~(*)~ was what I wrote that day I was in a good mood. Everything after that, I was not in such a good mood and so was fair game for anything to happen ;)

Chapter 10: Paperwork

Alex stared at the pile of paperwork on her desk, completely bored. It had been three weeks since she had recovered her memory, but suddenly Gene had started listening to psychologists and was keeping on desk duty for a full month. Nothing she said to him could persuade him to change his mind.

Not that she hadn't tried. She had been begging him for the past three weeks to let her out on the street, and when that hadn't worked she had tried other tactics. She had tried withholding sex, but forgot that she wanted it as much, if not more, than he did. By the third day of that resolution, she had been snappy with everyone, and kept fantasizing about having him on his desk. She had locked him out for the night, but had missed him so terribly that at one in the morning she phoned him to come back. Alex knew she was stuck until the next week, when the awful month was over, and she was allowed to take over Boyle's place as DI again.

She looked up at the clock. Three more minutes until lunchtime, and then another long day would be over. She looked down at the file she was studying again. There was nothing there that couldn't wait till tomorrow. Sighing, she dropped the pen and closed the file.

"Drake."

Alex looked up to where Gene was standing. He raised his eyebrows and motioned for her to join him in his office. As she shut the door, he turned on her.

"Trying to clear out early?"

Alex smiled. "Yeah. Is that a problem?"

"You might want to check with your superior officer first."

She set her eyes wide and innocent, putting her lips next to his ear and whispered. "May I please leave a few minutes early?"

He pushed her back away from him and smirked. "No, Bolly. I think I'm going to keep you here all night." Holding his hand up so she didn't go anywhere, Gene leaned opened the door of his office and leaned out.

"Lunchtime! Save a seat for Bolly and me. We've gotta finish some paperwork here, and then we'll be over."

"What paperwork, Guv?" asked Ray. "You've been shoving it all off on Drake."

"Yes, but I have to sign it all, don't I, Raymondo?"

Ray looked confused for a moment, but then nodded and left.

He turned around to see Alex glaring at him. "More paperwork?" she asked icily.

He grinned at her, quickly checking the office to make sure it was empty before crashing his lips down on her.

After they stopped, panting for breath, Gene grinned sheepishly. "Been waiting to do that all day."

"Do you think we should tell them?" Alex asked. Their relationship was still very much a secret to all of CID. Not that there hadn't been gossip going around. But Alex had squashed most of that as soon as she heard it.

Gene looked at her. "What do you think?"

"They'll find out sooner or later. Wouldn't you rather just tell them instead of them asking everyone else in the office and not getting any work done?"

Gene nodded. "You're right, Bolls. Lets tell them tonight."

Alex grabbed his hand. "Why don't we go to Luigi's then?"

"I told them half an hour, Bolly. Now close the blinds, keep quiet, and try not to muss up my hair too much."

~(*)~

It was another forty-five minutes before they wandered into Luigi's, looking none the worse for wear after carefully flattening hair and straightening clothes in their respective toilets. They headed straight for their table, both nervous about what they were about to do.

Luigi sauntered over. "Signorina Drake, so lovely to see you tonight. What can I get for you?"

"Veal Scaloppini, I think."

"And for you, Signore Hunt?"

Gene glared at him. "Anything besides your steak and chips pizza. And a bottle of house rubbish."

He nodded, backing away from the table to prepare their food.

Gene took a deep breath in. "Ready, Bolly?"

She nodded, swallowing, and Gene stood up.

"Right," he said loudly. CID instantly quieted down. "To stop the gossip that you all are inevitably wasting your lives on, DI Drake and I... Alex and I... are together. We were before she disappeared, and after she regained her memory, we decided to try it again."

Gene sat down, exhaling loudly. CID sat in stunned silence for a moment, before Ray broke it by jumping up.

"You owe me a fiver!" he yelled at Chris.

Chris sighed and got out his wallet. As Gene and Alex watched, several other CID members got out their wallets to pay Ray or someone else in the group.

Alex started laughing. Gene looked puzzled. "What's so funny Bolly?"

"I knew this would happen!"

"What, that they'd all bet each other on when we'd finally get together?"

She nodded. "Don't tell me it surprises you."

Gene shrugged. "Course not. CID gossips like old ladies."

Alex nodded.

Suddenly, a beaming Luigi appeared, holding a bottle of Bollinger. A waiter stood behind him with two plates of steaming food. Luigi moved aside, starting to pour champagne into a glass.

"What the hell Luigi? We didn't order that."

"I complimenti della casa," he said, his smile as wide as the Cheshire Cat.

"What?" Gene asked, as the waiter set the food in front of him.

"The champagne's on the house," Alex explained softly as Luigi walked away.

Gene frowned for a moment before perking up. "Least he gave us a decent champagne."

Clinking his glass against hers, he drank and started on his supper.

~(*)~

The next day, Gene sat at his desk, staring at Alex. She was staring at a file, the little crease in her forehead growing deeper. Ever since she had recovered her memory, he had kept to the psychologist's orders and kept her on desk duty. He knew she had rapidly grown frustrated by this, and had made sure to let him know. There had been three long days where she wouldn't let him touch her. Or worse, she'd start to get him excited, and then cut everything off, saying she was too tired. Just as he had been about to give in, she did, enabling him to keep her on desk duty. There had been another day when she had made him go back to his flat, but she had stopped that too. All in all, it had been fairly easy. And as much as he had suffered those few days that she had tried to torture him, he was happy that she had done it. It proved to him that Alex was back.

He had been nervous for a little while, especially since she did not let him get rid of the bear. But she had stuffed it in the wardrobe and had not bothered or even mentioned it since. Eventually, Gene was going to get rid of it. He was determined to do that. She couldn't remember anything from that time period when she thought she was five anyway. However, Gene knew it would have to be a ways in the future, after this ordeal had been almost forgotten about, a minor blip in their relationship.

Alex sighed and turned a page, unaware that gene was watching her. Maybe he should let her join them on their next call out. She needed to get her detective juices flowing again, needed to use her psychology again. He didn't want it rusty when she finally did come back.

The best part was that he didn't need to clear her return to full duty with the super. The super had told him that it was his own judgement on Alex.

"You know her better than I do," he had said. "You know the warning signs."

Since then, the super had been utterly unconcerned with the goings on of CID. Gene leaned back in his chair, considering. It had been over three weeks. Surely a few days here or there wouldn't hurt.

Suddenly, Gene's phone rang. "Hunt," he said flatly.

"Guv," said Viv's voice. "Dead body on Throgmorton Avenue."

"Right. Thanks, Skip." Gene hung up the phone and stood, pulling on his coat and opening the door to his office. "Raymondo , Bolly, Wonder Chris, with me."

Chris and Ray jumped up immediately. Gene paused by the door to see Alex and Boyle, both wearing expressions of amazement.

"But...I'm..."

"She's on desk duty!" Boyle whinged, cutting her off.

"Shut up Boyle. Bolly, you're coming. Unless, of course, you don't want to."

Her eyes widened, and she jumped up, looking delighted. "Of course I want to," she said as they walked down the corridor together.

He drove quickly down the street, and Chris and Ray lit up in the back. Alex sighed as she rolled the window down.

"Wind the window up!"

"I'm not getting killed by your cancerous habits," she shot back at Ray.

"It's not going to happen today, is it? It's bloody freezing. Can't you wait till summer to open it?"

"Every single time you light up, you are slowly killing yourself. Doesn't that even matter to you?"

"Not currently."

"Shut it, children," Gene said, acting annoyed, but secretly smiling inside. He had missed this.

"Aw, but Guv! Make her wind up the window! I'm freezing my knackers off!"

Gene slowed to a stop and turned around smiling. "Never had any anyway, Raymondo. Now, come on, let's have a look at that dead body. And Bolly, please do wind up the window. I don't want some scrote getting into the Quattro."

Alex rolled her eyes and started to wind up the window. "One day you are all going to have lung cancer..."

"And we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Gene said firmly.

Alex looked at him a moment, but she understood that he had just ended the conversation and to continue would only serve to piss him off.

"Right," she said. "Where's the body?"

Gene looked at her like she had just asked something idiotic. And indeed, she had. The body lay about ten feet away, with several plod standing around looking bored.

"Go away," Gene commanded rudely.

The plod scattered, all too aware of the Guv's fierce temper.

"Ray, Chris, go talk to some of the people around here. Ask them if they know anything about it. When Bolly has solved the case with her brilliant psychiatry..."

"Psychology," Alex corrected automatically.

"Right. When Drakey has solved the case with her wonderful psychiatry, I'll call you back."

He turned to see Alex staring at him with an eyebrow raised, looking amused and in disbelief at the same time.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said briskly. "Shall we?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

They uncovered the body, staring down at it. Gene could almost hear the wheels turning in her head.

"One shot to the face," she muttered. "It was personal."

"What tells you that?"

"The face is really what makes a human being recognisable. If you take away the face, you take the identity away as well. Someone has to be really pissed off at someone else to aim for the face."

"What if it was an accident?"

She smiled. "It's not. Look at the wound. That's a contact range gunshot wound with blowback."

"What?"

"If the person is shot with the gun touching their head, the large amount of gas and explosive energy sent into the wound causes severe tearing of the skin and muscles, giving the wound a gaping, jagged appearance, like we see here."

She knew he was going to ask what the hell she meant. Three, she thought. Two. One.

"What the hell are you doing?" Gene yelled suddenly, his voice sounding strained and hoarse.

There was a grunting of another man and Alex turned, confused, to see someone dragging Gene's unconscious form away, his arm around Gene's neck in the sleeper hold. She stared in shock for a moment, until the man opened a car door. She started running towards the car, reaching it in time for Gene's attacker to slam the door, Gene safely stowed away. She grabbed the handle, not thinking about how she was going to get Gene out, only that she wasn't going to let him get taken.

The attacker rounded on her.

"No, Alex. You get to find him. Maybe you'll be luckier than he was with you."

With that, Josh Burrows punched her in the jaw, sending her reeling backwards, falling into blissful unconsciousness.

to be continued