Your reviews make my day, so thank you! And Elliewelly1, I think I accidently sent you a minor spoiler- I hope you didn't notice…

The Robbery

Gene Hunt hated the world.

He rarely completely loved it- he definitely wasn't the sort to go around smelling flowers and composing poetry about the beauty of meadows or any rubbish like that. But he rarely felt as pissed off as he did now. And it was all her fault.

Gene knew he was being unreasonable. He should have rejected Ray's idea immediately. Alex had been lucky that she wasn't hurt more. The lack of confession hadn't mattered since he probably hadn't done it after all and Alex, in a way, had proved that.

He still couldn't bring himself to be nice to her. This morning, she had been the first one to arrive, after himself, and had bound over to his door, wrenched it open and asked if he was all right, a worried look on her face.

"Why do you care?" he had snapped, causing the worry to be replaced by indignation and for her to slam his door shut and make her way back to her desk.

He hated himself for it. He was being a prick and he knew it but just as he was about to open the door and apologise to her, he could hear the tape in his mind and could see her with him. He knew it had just been a job, she didn't like him and that if Alex had chosen to sleep with someone outside of the investigation, there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it. She still hadn't told him what had given the game away, just been evasive about him 'working it out'.

He still couldn't forgive her. Not yet.

XXX

The night after the first letter, there was another. Alex picked up as though it was explosive and turned it over.

It was the same as before, same card, same lack of envelope and stamp, same typing on one side. Only this time, the words were different.

You have three days to leave the Force. If you fail, we will kill Gene Hunt. If you tell anyone about this letter, we will kill Gene Hunt.

Alex put the letter in a shoebox with the first one and sat on her sofa, her heart hammering. She knew she was supposed to be scared and she was, she was completely terrified. However, she knew there was another possibility- could this be her way home? Was it beyond the realms of possibility that these letters were coming from the future?

XXX

Alex was halfway up the stairs leading into Fenchurch East station when Gene stormed past her, Ray and Chris following behind. She watched as he wrenched open the door of the Quattro and barked back at her, "Drake! Get a move on! There's a robbery at Fenchurch Jewels. If we go now, we can catch the bastards red-handed."

Alex leapt into the Quattro. It was the third day after receiving her latest threat. She hadn't left the force, she hadn't told anyone about the letters and she was running out of time. Gene, whilst had stopped any open hostility to her, still wasn't talking to her properly. He was skipping Luigi's, not consulting her about decisions and refusing to call her Bolly.

As the Quattro sped along, Alex thought maybe if she did well today, Gene would look at her again, properly and without the disappointment in his eyes. She would show them she wasn't useless.

XXX

"There they are!" cried Chris, completely unnecessarily.

Gene spun the Quattro around so that it blocked the getaway car. A squad car blocked the car from behind, preventing the robbers from reversing away.

The Manc Lion got out of the Quattro and slammed the door shut. Alex, Ray and Chris also got out. Three men got out of the getaway car wearing balaclavas, one carrying a large sack and tried to run for it.

Ray and Chris were hot on their tail as the robbers weaved between uniformed officers and frightened members of the public. Gene walked forward to inspect the car as Alex turned to those that had been in the jewellers at the time of the robbery to find out exactly what had happened.

The car wasn't empty. A fourth man jumped out of the car and kneed Gene in the groin, causing him to cry out and Alex to look up. As Gene fought back, the fourth man brought out a gun and held it to Gene's temple.

"The sad thing is," whispered the robber, "she could have stopped this."

There was a gunshot, then silence.