A/N: Tissue warning! The remaining chapters are all fairly emotional… some with happy stuff and some with sad. Before anyone beats me with Geoff's loofah please keep in mind that everything that is happening happens for a reason and there's a bigger picture opening up (Yeah, I haven't finished with those yet!)… and I absolutely promise a horribly saccharine sweet, mushy, happy epilogue that you'll be barfing over from now until Christmas :P Anyway, on with the story…
~xXx~
Chapter Nineteen
2012
"So who do we have here?"
"Kimberley Stringer, thirty four years old. She's a detective from Fenchurch East police station, been tracking the escaped patient from last night. Recently suffered cracked ribs after being hit by a car. Almost twelve weeks pregnant. She was being treated for a gunshot wound to the shoulder when she appeared to start convulsing and quickly went into cardiac arrest. She was revived at the scene but has been in and out of consciousness since then."
"Any history of –"
"She suffered cardiac incident last year; no underlying cause was ever found."
"Alright, cubicle three is about to be cleared, you can take her through there shortly. How about the patient the call came in for? How is she doing?"
"Alex Drake… she was pronounced dead at the scene; attacker had injected her with something… presumed to be heroin… then fired a shot at her. The witness reports seeing him smother her with a sheet of plastic. Attempts to revive her failed and she was pronounced dead at nine-o-six this morning."
"Oh, the poor girl. After everything she went through. Everything she survived."
"It wasn't third time lucky, that's for certain."
There was a pause.
"And the baby?"
~xXx~
1997
Simon raced along the pier, leaving the barge behind. His feet clanked against the metal as he ran until he finally emerged back onto terra firma.
"Gene?" he called out, "Gene?"
His eyes scanned the scene for any sign of him. There were several panda cars there now and a few uniformed officers wandering around the scene; some investigating the contents of the lorry, others finding some interesting substances in Layton's car, but there was no sign of the one person Simon needed to find. He eventually ran to a sergeant who was standing beside a car, talking to a couple of other officers.
"Excuse me," he panted a little, "Have you seen DCI Hunt? Do you know where he is?"
"I think he decided to escort Layton and DCI Keats to the station personally," the sergeant told him.
"Shit," Simon closed his eyes and groaned, "They've left already?"
The sergeant nodded.
"From what I could make out he was very keen to get them involved in a round of ninety-nine green bottles," he explained.
"Damnit," Simon groaned, "I bet he hasn't even got a bloody radio." He rubbed his head, glancing back to the barge. Alex needed Gene. He tried to work out the fastest way of getting hold of him and thought about calling his office but the chances were that he wouldn't be there and Simon wasn't going to leave a message after the fuss Gene made earlier. He didn't want to be accused of putting Gene's office in the red light district again. "Alright," he looked back at the sergeant, "I need you to do two things for me; first of all radio in for an ambulance. There's a pregnant woman in premature labour over on that boat," he pointed to the barge, "Layton injected her with something. We need to get her to hospital ASAP."
The expression on the sergeant's face was worried and a little confused.
"Alright," he said, "I'll do that right away, sir. And the other thing?"
Simon swallowed and took a deep breath.
"I need you to radio in to the station and leave a message in custody for DCI Gene Hunt. He needs to call DCI Shoebury the moment he gets back. Say it's important. Tell him…" he hesitated as he tried to work out what to say, "tell him that he has a very important visitor from a long way away who needs to see him," he paused, "and it's been a long time coming."
"Alright," the sergeant was a little confused but didn't question him. Instead he reached for the door of the car to get his radio.
"Thank you," Simon said gratefully, his eyes scanning the scene one last time. When he was absolutely sure there had been no mistake and there was no sign of Gene he started to head back to the barge. As his feet hit the pier he thought he could hear something; a voice calling his name. As he realised it was Robin he picked up his pace and began to run towards the boat, worried by his anxious tone. When he finally found himself back on board he tried to adjust to the dim light.
"Robin?" he asked, cautiously making his way back to him and to Alex, "what's wrong? Is it Alex? Is she OK?" He felt his concern growing. Her cries and whimpering were over and she was laying still and silently. That made Simon's worry increase for a start.
"She passed out," Robin said, his eyes wide with concern, "but that's the least of her problems right now."
"Why? What's happened?" Simon asked worriedly.
"We've, uh, got a problem –" Robin moved back a little for Simon to see. It took a while for him to adjust enough to the darkness and to see her properly. As soon as he was able to focus on Alexhis mouth dropped open and he slapped his hand over it. He looked at her svelte form and then looked to Robin in a panic.
"Where the bloody hell has the bump gone?"
"I don't know!" cried Robin, "one minute it was there, the next it had gone!"
"It can't have gone," cried Simon, "did you check in her pants to see if the baby had… fallen out?"
"I'm not looking in Alex's pants!" cried Robin, "besides, it doesn't work like that!"
"It might do… you're not a midwife."
"No, but I've got a book," protested Robin.
"A book?" cried Simon, "what do you need a bloody book for?"
Robin fell silent and looked away.
"Not important," he said quietly, "what's important is that suddenly there's no bump, no baby and I don't know what the fuck's happened."
"I just told them to radio for an ambulance," Simon cried, "I said she was pregnant… they're going to think I've gone mad… or that something is going on."
"Something IS going on!" cried Robin.
Simon stared at Alex, still out cold. He pulled and tugged anxiously at his hair as he stared at her. He couldn't imagine what was happening but one thought struck him harder than any other.
"What the hell are we going to tell Gene?" he whispered.
Robin just stared at him, a look of hopelessness on his face. He didn't know. He didn't know what the hell he was going to say to him. Nor to Alex for that matter. The baby was there just a few moments earlier as Alex clutched her belly in pain and tearfully sobbed that she thought it was coming. Coming, or going? They could hear a distant ambulance getting closer and their worried eyes met once more.
"Look," Robin began quietly, "Tell the ambulance crew you made a mistake about the pregnancy. Say she was delirious from the drugs, say it was a false alarm… It doesn't really matter. That's not the important part, and it's not like we'll ever see the damn paramedics again. It's Gene we need to treat carefully here. It's probably best that you tell him."
"What? Why me?" cried Simon.
"Because you know him better than I do," said Robin, "You can help him… he'll listen to you."
"Throw me against a filing cabinet you mean."
"No," Robin shook his head, "he trusts you. He'll listen to you." Simon doubted it somehow but he didn't want to fight about it. He looked at Alex, still out cold, knowing the sight of her flat stomach would be the thing to bring sadness to both herself and Gene.
"The baby went one way," he sighed, "why couldn't it come back?"
Robin bit his lip.
"It did," he whispered, "For a while."
"Then where is it now?"
Robin simply shook his head. He couldn't answer that.
~xXx~
2012
Dreadful dreams with horrid, violent images swirled around inside Kim's mind. There he was, time and again; Arthur Layton, causing pain and suffering to all those he came in contact with. The same old nightmares had been joined by a new batch, going around again on repeat. But they didn't end how she expected them to; once again a modified nightmare concluded the circle, the bullet that he fired right through Robin once again sinking into his flesh instead.
She gasped as she awoke, her eyes flying open and a scream on her lips. She tried to sit up but she couldn't move. There were bleeps. Bleeps, beeps and alarms. She scanned the room around her, her eyes moving from side to side. Oh fuck, not hospital. Back in hospital again? What the hell happened? She had no memory of anything happening to her. She knew there had been a wound on her shoulder where she'd been grazed by the bullet but it was only very mild, she'd been through much worse. So why the hell was she there?
She tried to replay through the events of the early morning; accosting Layton on the barge, the injection of something he plunged into Alex, the gunshot to her chest and the sound of his feet as he fled the barge.
And then… then there was that.
The thing she couldn't bring herself to think about.
She swallowed hard and breathed in deeply as she tried to fight the return of the memory; Alex's face turning ever paler as she starved her body of oxygen; the tearful requests for help, holding her head in her lap, the energy around them – oh god, how was she ever going to come to terms with that?
It was the right thing. She knew she'd done the right thing, everything that they'd done for Alex from the moment she awoke had been geared towards helping her home but she had never, ever expected to have such a literal part in her journey. She had never realised her own importance in the grand scheme of things. She closed her eyes as she remembered the last time they'd tracked Layton. That time it had been Robin sending Alex home. Had this been her turn?
Which led her back to her original question –
Why the hell was she in hospital?
It was a few minutes before a nurse came by and found her conscious.
"Kim," she said with a friendly smile, "I'll tell the doctor you're awake."
"Why was I even asleep?" Kim demanded.
"You had some difficulties when the paramedics were treating your shoulder," the nurse told her, "the doctors will explain to you what happened." She gave her another friendly smile and left the room before Kim had a chance to ask anything more.
Kim leaned back and closed her eyes again. Her chest felt heavy. For that matter, so did her limbs. She wished that she could make some sense of what was going on, but more than that she wished for a sign - any kind of sign that Alex had made it home safely – as she hoped and prayed that Robin would be heading in the other direction soon.
~xXx~
1997
Robin stood back with his arms folded as the paramedics moved Alex from the barge on the stretcher.
"Well, I feel like a total idiot," Simon told him, "Sorry guys, I was wrong about the baby. Yeah, thought she was in labour, turned out to be wind." He waited for Robin to say something but he was as quiet as he'd ever seen him. "Rob?" He frowned. "What's wrong, Robin?" he asked.
Robin looked at him, his face pale and drawn.
"Nothing really," he said, a slight sigh in his voice, "It's… this place, I guess."
"The barge?"
"The world."
Simon frowned.
"What do you mean?"
Robin swallowed.
"It's all got me kind of paranoid," he said quietly, "while you were out earlier, getting help, just before Alex's bump vanished I thought I saw someone."
"What do you mean? Where?"
"Over there, at the side of the boat," Robin explained. He pointed to the area, "but they were only there for a second, then the next instant they were gone."
Simon frowned.
"Who was it?" he asked.
Robin looked away.
"Does it matter?"
"I don't know if you don't tell me."
Robin closed his eyes. He didn't even want to voice it. It was too much to cope with thinking about, let alone to put into words.
"I don't know," he lied, "could have been anyone. It was too dark to tell."
He knew he was tired. It was a ridiculous hour of the morning and they'd been staking out Layton and his collection of drugs all night, but for the briefest moment he truly thought Kim was standing right there, piercings and all. He sighed internally. Wishful thinking. That's all it was. He glanced around him. If Alex was home then why wasn't he? Shouldn't he be going in the other direction? He needed to think about this. He thought Alex's fate and his own were linked, that her arrival would send him back to reality. Now he was going to have to think again.
"Rob, we'd better get to the hospital with Alex," Simon said quietly.
Robin nodded. There wasn't time to think about his own fate yet.
"I'll go with her in the ambulance," he said, "why don't you go straight to the station and see if you can find Gene. It would be better telling him in person than on the phone."
Simon nodded. Robin had a point.
"Alright," he said. He looked at him in concern as he began to follow the paramedics. "you… you are Ok, aren't you?"
Robin wasn't altogether sure. But the last thing he needed was Simon worrying about him.
"I'm fine," he said quietly, "we just need to get those two reunited."
He followed the paramedics from the barge with Simon heading out behind him. It had been a long night, and with so many questions still to be answered the night was far from over yet.
~xXx~
2012
"- it was a similar cardiac event to the one you suffered last year," the doctor told Kim seriously, "we don't know what caused it yet. We'd like to run some tests while you're here."
"You're not running any tests and I'm not here," Kim said quietly, "I'm discharging myself."
"You can't discharge yourself, your heart stopped!"
"It happened before and I discharged myself.
"We need to find out the cause for these episodes," the doctor told her, "there may be an underlying problem."
"I had all the tests last time and you found nothing."
"We may have missed something."
"Then that's your problem, not mine," Kim took a deep breath and tried to keep her cool. She started to realise something; something that she was trying hard not to think about but the thought wouldn't go away. If her heart had stopped then was she even still supposed to be there? After all the broken watches and the brushes with passing to the other side, had she only remained in the real world because she had a job to do – to send Alex home? And if so did that mean her job had been fulfilled now? She'd been focusing on Robin getting home – what if she was supposed to be going to his side instead?
And the paramedics had spoilt that.
They'd brought her back from the dead.
"Shit."
"I'm sorry?"
Kim bit her lip. She hadn't realised she'd spoken out loud. She tried to gloss over that comment and asked,
"Alex Drake," she cleared her throat, "she…?"
The doctor looked grim.
"I'm so sorry," he said, "she didn't make it. We were unable to revive her."
A wave of utter relief washed over Kim from head to toe. She knew that Alex had passed back to Gene's world but she needed to be sure. She tried to fight the smile that was threatening to cross her features, knowing that Alex was home at last.
"Thank you for letting me know," she whispered.
"Now, as for her baby," the doctor began.
Kim froze.
"Uh…. Yes?" she whispered, frowning.
"The paramedics were able to establish that the baby was, somehow, hanging on," the doctor told her.
A terrible, cold feeling filled Kim's bones.
"Go on," she whispered.
"As the baby was past the point of viability she was delivered by caesarean upon being brought in."
"What?"
"Now, it's very early days –"
"You what?"
"The baby is very premature and we don't know whether there could be any long term effects from –"
"What the hell have you done?"
The doctor frowned at Kim.
"We saved a baby's life," he said.
Kim felt herself starting to tremble. She gripped the covers in her hands and pulled them tightly around her. If the baby was alive and had been born there, in the real world, then what did that mean for Alex and Gene? She closed her eyes as an anguished sob burst forth.
"Oh god… what the hell have you done?" she whispered.
The doctor looked at her in abject confusion.
"It's our job to save lives, Miss Stringer, whether that's yours or the life of a baby who still has a chance."
Kim wanted to cry and scream. She wanted to yell the word 'no' over and over again. Of course the doctor didn't understand. Of course he didn't know what he'd done. But now there was a baby without a mother – and, she had a terrible feeling, a mother without her baby.
Suddenly her heart ached so much that she thought it was about to stop once again.
~xXx~
1997
Simon tore through custody. He knew Gene had to be there somewhere. He hadn't called him so he couldn't have got the message. Either that or he was accusing his answerphone of being a prozzie again. He finally conceded and went to the young officer on the desk.
"Has DCI Hunt come in with a couple of suspects?" he asked.
"He has," the officer told him, "he's preparing to interrogate one in room four."
"Cheers," Simon said quickly, dashing away again. He rushed down a different corridor and found Gene standing outside of the room, awaiting assistance from someone for his interrogation. "Gene!"
Gene glanced up and saw the extremely flustered Shoebury coming in his direction.
"Bloody hell, who's died?" he asked.
Simon came to a halt in front of him.
"No one," he panted, "sort of the opposite."
"I'm not in the market for medical miracles right now, Shoebury," Gene told him, "I've finally got me opportunity to interrogate Jimbo. I have Geoff, a box of loofahs and George Michael's entire solo back catalogue on standby."
"Gene, it's Alex," Simon said breathlessly. He saw Gene freeze completely, every inch of him motionless. "She's come back."
The words had come so out of the blue that they were almost devoid of meaning. They were like a statement that was so powerful his mind genuinely couldn't process it. While everything about tracking Layton and arresting him had been geared towards bringing Alex home Gene hadn't anticipated that her return would be so instant or so literal. He had expected that there would be more to it than that. To have him in custody one minute and hear those words the next? His mind couldn't process it
He turned very pale . He felt absolutely convinced his stomach literally turned round 180 degrees. He knew he was more or less indestructible but the way his heart responded by beating at a deathly-fast pace he felt sure he was about to keel over at any moment. For all those months he'd dreamed of hearing those words. Yearned for it. Dreamed about it at night and thought about little else all day.
Now he'd heard them and he couldn't stop shaking.
"Where is she?" - It was the first question that came to mind. Not the last… and not the only one… not by a longshot – but it was the most important. All he needed was to know the answer and then he could ask her the others for himself.
"She was on the barge," Simon told him quickly, "Layton… he injected her with something… we think she meant in two thousand and twelve, but –" he saw Gene zoning out the rest of his words as he started to move at a quickening pace towards the exit, "Gene, wait –" Simon lunged toward him and grasped his shoulder, "You need to hear me out. We got an ambulance as soon as we could, they took her to hospital."
"Then that's where we're going," Gene mumbled.
"Gene, listen," Simon's tone was more insistent now and finally Gene looked at him seriously.
"Spit it out, Shoebury, I'm needed," he growled.
Simon stood in front of him and placed one hand on each shoulder, taking a deep breath to steel himself for breaking the kind of news that no one should ever have to utter.
"Gene," he said quietly, "there's something you need to know."
Gene felt his mouth go dry. He stared at Simon, trying to keep his expression firm and strong.
"Is she alive?" he asked bluntly.
"Yes… oh god, yes, she isn't dead," Simon realised that he'd led Gene to think the absolute worst, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that..."
"Then what?" His expression darkened. "Stringer's pierced her eyebrow, hasn't she?"
"No!" Simon closed his eyes for a second, "No, Gene, you have to listen to me. This is serious." He took a deep breath in. "When we found her she said she thought she was in labour."
Gene's anxiety rose in an instant.
"The baby –" he began.
"Listen," Simon insisted. He looked Gene in the eye. "I went out the barge to get someone to radio for an ambulance. By the time I got back, her bump had gone."
Gene stared at h im. The words made no sense.
"A bloody bump can't disappear," he cried, "You sure it wasn't wind?"
"I'm serious, one minute she was pregnant, the next there was no sign."
Gene swallowed and tried to ignore the fact that emotions were threatening his gruff exterior. He kept his stare fixed on Simon.
"And you checked it hadn't… fallen out?" he asked a little abruptly.
Simon swallowed.
"Robin said it doesn't work like that," he said quietly, "He has a book. Apparently."
Gene breathed in and let it back out so hard that the sound echoed through the corridor. His tongue ran involuntarily over his dry lips as he asked,
"So, in Doctor Thomas's expert opinion," He swallowed, determined not to let Simon se his bottom lip wobble in the slightest, "What's happened to my kid?"
Simon looked down. He found himself fighting back tears.
"We think," he whispered, "that somehow the baby stayed in two thousand and twelve. Or at least, that's where it went back to."
Gene closed his eyes. His breathing couldn't keep up with him. All the oxygen in the world couldn't stop him from feeling lightheaded and unsteady. He swallowed and bowed his head for a second. This felt like a cruel twist of fate that he didn't deserve.
"If Bolly is back here," he began, his voice stiff and cold as he tried to keep it devoid of feeling, "then why isn't the baby here too?"
"Maybe because the baby… isn't a copper?" Simon asked quietly. The words sounded stupid but the truth behind them held possibility.
Gene looked at Simon.
"All the time it was inside her, it was hopping back and forth," he said
"Then maybe," Simon whispered, "it's not inside her any more."
"It's alive in two thousand and bollocks," Gene breathed. He felt a crushing weight on his chest. This was a little too much to deal with in one go. He shook his head. He needed to take things a step at a time and one part was more important than the others "I need to see her," he said quickly, walking towards the exit.
"Of course," Simon nodded, "Look, Ill drive you."
"Think I can manage."
"You've had a shock –"
"And I need to drive it out of me bones," Gene told him, "now if you're coming with me you're going to need a sickbag and a firm grip on the dashboard because we're not going to be taking a leisurely drive. Are you coming or what?"
Simon hesitated.
"Do you want me to come?" he asked.
Gene glanced at him. He hesitated and closed his eyes. It wasn't easy to admit it but he needed someone there. He didn't want to go alone.
"Get in the bloody car, Shoebury," he said quietly, "make it the whole way without losing yer dinner and there's a bag of chips in it for you. "
Simon followed Gene from the building and out to the car. It should have been a night for celebration and now it had become the most bittersweet of victories. He put aside any awkwardness and bad feeling that he still had towards Gene for the night. Whatever might have happened with his mother twenty years ago he'd come to know Gene as a friend. He didn't want a father figure; he already had a dad – that was the man that had brought him up for most of his life. He wanted back the friendship that they'd worked to build despite their differences and he wanted to offer him the support he needed to cope with a strange and difficult night.
If there was one good thing to come from the night then perhaps that would be it.
~xXx~
2012
Kim staggered down the hospital corridor. OK, so maybe she should have stayed where she was, at least for a few more hours, but she had enough of hospital beds and she had more important things on her mind. She followed the signs to the neonatal unit and stared through the window. She could feel herself starting to fill up with tears again.
"Can I help you?"
The voice caught Kim by surprise. She glanced around to see a midwife behind her. Time to pull yourself together, Kim.
"My, uh," she wiped her eyes on her sleeve, "my friend…. died tonight," she whispered, "but they saved her baby. I wondered… I just wanted to see her…"
"I'm sorry, that won't be possible for a while," the midwife said sympathetically, "at this stage with a baby born so early and under such difficult circumstances only next of kin would be allowed to see her."
"She doesn't have any," Kim whispered sadly, "not any more." She paused and bit her lip. "Except for a half-sister." She thought about Molly and felt a terrible sense of guilt crashing over her. She'd killed Molly's mother – as much as Alex needed her assistance and Kim knew she'd done the right thing by her she could never look Molly in the eye again. She hung her head as she thought about the teenager. Had she been told yet? Did she know about Alex? Oh god, what a horrible situation.
She closed her eyes as she thought about the tiny baby; the miracle who'd skipped timezones and somehow been born alive despite everything. The fight the poor mite still had ahead was terrifying to imagine. Whether the baby would make it or not hung in the balance and Kim knew that. But one thought stayed with her,
Molly had a sister now.
A piece of her mother, left behind, even thought she had moved to another plain; to the place she knew as home. While the baby should have stayed with her mother and gone back too, there was a teenage girl who now wasn't truly alone in the world as she would have been. She didn't even know if Molly would see it that way, her initial response to Alex's pregnancy had been one of jealousy and anger but as time had moved on she'd come to understand things a little better and had even shown excitement at having a sister on the way.
"Molly will look after you," she whispered against the doorway, as though the baby could hear, before she added silently, and Molly, this little one can look after you, too.
Perhaps, just perhaps there was a reason for the baby to stay behind after all. It didn't seem enough to Kim, but she couldn't deny the thought hit a chord with her.
She hoped she was right because it was the only thing that made any sense to her. A tiny legacy left behind from the strongest woman Kim had ever met.
"Fight on, little one," she whispered.
~xXx~
1997
"That's never happened before," Gene mumbled, taking the papers off the dashboard and throwing them onto the backseat. Until that point the papers for new recruits had always landed on his desk. Here were a set that had chosen a different venue for their arrival – his car. He could understand why as soon as he opened them. They were Alex's replacement papers. The world had cooked up a nice, elaborate story for her.
Deep undercover, infiltrating Layton's dealings.
Nice story. It saved Gene trying to cover up for her sudden reappearance, at least.
"Do you have to do it often?" Simon asked quietly as Gene drove.
"Do what?" Gene asked.
"Do you get people coming back often?" Simon asked, "do you have to cover up for what happened before?"
"Depends on how they left," Gene told him, "You were a bloody tricky one. You had to 'die', didn't you? You got the deep undercover treatment too, if I remember."
"Do many people come back?" Simon asked.
"A few," said Gene, "You. Batman. Sam. Bolly's joined elite company now."
The rest of the drive to hospital was mostly silent, except for Simon trying to break the tension by asking Gene some Pokémon-related questions but not only did Gene find it disrespectful that Simon would ask such frivolous questions under the circumstances but he also touched a raw nerve about a Doduo that got away. Simon decided not to ask any more Pokémon questions and settled for humming the theme tune to the TV show instead. It wasn't long before he found himself twatted around the head for that.
Soon they arived at the hospital and Simon found himself following along after Gene who was walking at a shocking pace.
"Gene, wait!" he cried, "you don't even know where you're going! We don't know where they've taken her!"
"I'm using me Bolly-sensing equipment for that," Gene told him.
Simon had a horrible feeling that, at any other time, that would have descended into jokes about that particular equipment residing in his joy department, but this wasn't the time or the place. He trusted Gene's instincts as he followed him along and somehow they found themselves in the right part of the hospital as signified by Robin pacing up and down the corridor with a black coffee.
"Gene," he said quickly.
"Where is she?" Gene asked immediately.
"She's in that room," Robin pointed to a door behind them, "but Gene, listen, they've sedated her. She was having a bad reaction to whatever she was injected with. They had to knock her out for her own safety. She was in danger of hurting herself."
Gene swallowed as he stared at the doorway.
"Does she know," he asked grimly, "about the baby?"
Robin looked down.
"I think so," he nodded, "she was crying. Asking what happened."
Gene's heart was sinking fast.
"Where's the bloody justice, eh?" he mumbled.
The door of Alex's room opened and a doctor walked out, checking notes on her clipboard as she did so.
"Doc, what's the news?" Gene asked immediately
"You are…?" the doctor asked.
"She's me better half," Gene told her.
"Alright," the doctor looked at her notes. "well, Alex is asleep at the moment but the sedation should be wearing off soon. Then we'll know a little more. She had a gunshot wound to the chest… we removed the bullet and cleaned the wound. She'll have a scar –"
"- to add to her collection," Gene mumbled sadly.
"- But it came out cleanly," the doctor told him, "we're treating her with antibiotics to prevent infection."
"What about the drugs?" Gene asked bluntly.
"We're running some tests to find out what she was injected with," the doctor told him, "in the meanwhile her vital signs seem to be stabilising so she should be out of the woods now."
Gene nodded as the doctor smiled and walked away. He turned to the open door and saw Alex; pale and asleep in her hospital bed. He closed his eyes, pulling his jaw into a firm line and breathed in deeply. He walked into the room. He'd waited for this moment for months on end, but the second he saw her face, her eyes closed and her skin so pale, he started to shake just a little. No one would even have noticed, but he did. He cursed himself for it. He was feeling horribly anxious. It wasn't like him. He was uncharacteristically lost for words and felt as though he wanted to run from the room. It took a lot for Gene to feel daunted by something – he could face the most hardened of criminals and look them in the eye without blinking, he could stare down the barrel of a gun and feel no fear, but the thought of having to tell Alex that their baby was no longer with them… the thought of having that conversation terrified him beyond compare.
He remembered how scared he'd been at the thought of becoming a father at first and how quickly that had changed. he'd been through such a bloody roller-coaster since Alex disappeared; knowing the baby had 'disappeared' too, then discovering that it had somehow travelled to the real world with Alex, and now -
He turned and left the room. He couldn't face it. Not yet. He couldn't stand to watch Alex's heart breaking.
"Gene?"
Gene didn't stop. He heard Simon call his name but he couldn't stop himself from marching straight past. He'd made it halfway down the corridor, ignoring the calls behind him until finally someone grabbed the back of his jacket and said crossly,
"Hey! Stop walking away from me!"
"Hands off the jacket, Shoebury," Gene said.
"What are you doing, Gene?" cried Simon, "you've waited months for this and you're walking away?"
"I need to clear me head," Gene told him.
"I thought your manic driving was supposed to do that."
"Well it didn't work, did it?" Gene snapped.
"I don't understand you," cried Simon, "for the last nine months you've been desperate for Alex to come back, pickling yourself, almost getting fired, slacking on the job… you drove two hundred miles to the pub because you didn't want to carry on here without her! I've given you my bloody couch, I've followed you to Manchester to stop you making a big mistake, I've spent three quarters of a year listening to you talking about her, pulling you out of the plant pots when you've been pissed, covering for you when Fletcher's been on your case… she's back, Gene. Why the hell are you walking away?"
Gene stared at Simon with angry eyes. How dare he confront him that way? How dare he spill so much bile and fury in his direction? How dare he –
How dare he point out the truth?
"Because," Gene hissed, "I don't have the faintest flipping clue what to say to her." He saw Simon's expression change and soften slightly. He didn't like seeing the pity in his eyes, "Alright, Shoebury? I looked at her and I didn't know where to begin. She's going to ask me where the sprog is. Or, if she knows, she's going to be telling me. And either way, I don't know what the bleeding hell to say to her because whatever I do, the first words I say re going to break her heart. That's why I don't do girly feelings, Simon; because I never wanted to be in this spot, right here."
Simon stared at Gene and wished that there was a magic answer, but there wasn't. He wished that he had the solution; a way out of the heartbreak, but he didn't.
"You can't outrun it forever," he said seriously, "if you walk away now you'll only have to work it out later. And I know you don't do 'girly feelings', for god's sake, you remind me often enough. So don't do girly feelings. Be the rock Alex needs to get through this. Be Gene Hunt. That's all she wants from you, and that's all you have to give her. She just needs you."
Gene swallowed. Simon wasn't telling him anything he didn't know. But hearing it from someone else certainly made it harder to ignore.
"So, Simon," he began quietly, "since you have all the answers –"
"I certainly don't."
"- tell me." He looked at him seriously, "what do I do now? Me kid's gone. Where do we go from here?"
Simon stared back at Gene. A conversation from two hundred miles away came back to his mind from a B&B up in Manchester. He could still hear Gene's voice in his head, asking the question that was driving him crazy - "So what do I do, Simon? If Bolly gets back without the sprog? How do we recover from that?" And now Gene's worst case scenario had come true
"Exactly what I told you a week ago, Gene," he said quietly, "you take her to bed and you try again."
Gene closed his eyes. Despite everything he gave a quiet, snorting laugh through his nose. He remembered that conversation too.
"That was weird enough coming from the mouth o'Shoebury the first time," he said, "even more inappropriate now I know whose cannon fired off half yer DNA."
Simon cringed.
"Too soon, Gene, way, way too soon," he covered his ears, "in fact, let's just say it's always going to be too soon, OK?"
Gene nodded.
"Deal," he agreed.
Simon raised an eyebrow.
"So?" he prompted.
Gene stared beyond Simon to the corridor he'd moved away from so quickly and the open door it contained. He drew in his breath and pulled himself up straight, then he nodded slowly.
"Do me a favour, Simon," he said, "take Batman to the pictures or something. Don't need people hanging around outside the room. Think we could do with some privacy."
"Sure," Simon said quietly, "although what cinemas you expect to be open at this time of night…"
"Ones we'd probably be closing down for not having the correct adult licence," Gene told him, "just bugger off."
"Right," Simon agreed. He gave Gene a tiny smile. "You're going to be fine, you know."
"Not only do I not do girly feelings but I am not allowing you to do girly feelings either," Gene told him, "so that's enough of that. Bugger off,"
"Fine," Simon rolled his eyes. He started to walk away, collecting Robin and removing him from the corridor on his travels.
Gene watched them leaving. He took a deep breath, pulled his strength together and paced with speed back to Alex's hospital room. No, it wasn't going to be easy. Yes, it was going to hurt. But they were strong enough to come through this together. His momentary panic wasn't exactly behind him but he knew that he had to overcome it. Alex needed him, they needed each other – and thanks to Kim they were together again. They had a second chance – they could pick up the pieces and start all over again – and this time Gene could live without fear of her waking up again.
She was firmly rooted in his world – their world – and she was going nowhere.
~xXx~
#...Happiness
More or less
It's just a change in me
Something in my liberty
Oh, my, my
Happiness
Coming and going
I watch you look at me
Watch my fever growing
I know just where I am
But how many corners do I have to turn?
How many times do I have to learn
All the love I have is in my mind?
Well, I'm a lucky man
With fire in my hands
Happiness
Something in my own place
I'm standing naked
Smiling, I feel no disgrace
With who I am
Happiness
Coming and going
I watch you look at me
Watch my fever growing
I know just who I am
But how many corners do I have to turn?
How many times do I have to learn
All the love I have is in my mind?
I hope you understand
I hope you understand
Gotta love that'll never die
Happiness
More or less
It's just a change in me
Something in my liberty
Happiness
Coming and going
I watch you look at me
Watch my fever growing
I know
Oh, my, my
Oh, my, my
Oh, my, my
Oh, my, my
Gotta love that'll never die
Gotta love that'll never die
No, no
I'm a lucky man…#
~ Lucky Man – The Verve