A/N: Sorry for the extra updates, when things are on my mind I write – especially when stupid summer means stupid early sunrise and that means the second youngest member of the family (not counting guinea pigs!) getting up at 5 a.m. - ugh! So I've gotten ahead and the last chapter will be posted tonight with the epilogue tomorrow :)

~xXx~

Chapter Thirty Two

Gene turned the box around in his fingers. How the hell was he going to do this? How was he going to do this right? His first proposal hadn't gone quite the way he'd planned. Falling down a hole at the start of it wasn't really part of his original vision.

This wasn't quite the same of course. Alex had already said yes before but. of course, back then there was always the possibility that she was going to end up back in the real world. He couldn't guarantee ever being able to complete the promise he made with the ring. Things were different now. She'd made the most enormous sacrifices to get home to him and to stay with him. He had to make this special.

So much had happened since the start of their engagement. The world had changed and shifted in myriad ways, and so had he and Alex. This was a different ring for a different promise between two people who now lived a very different life..

He pocketed the ring and got to his feet.

"Earth to Alex," he called out, "do you read me, Alex Drake?"

"I'm in the bath," Alex's voice called back.

The bath? Bollocks – he was going to miss that.

"Got to go out for a while," he called to her.

"I was hoping… you might join me?"

Alex's voice seemed strangely nervous and Gene didn't know why. She'd never been shy about coaxing him into the soapy water before. He cursed himself over and over for picking the wrong moment to head out but this was one of those 'now or never' things.

"Believe me, Drakey, I'd jump in head-first with me clothes on if I could, but there's something I have to do. Keep the water warm for me. Be back as soon as damn-well possible."

With that he hurried out. The sooner he went, the sooner he could get back and hopefully there would still be an Alex in the tub.

~xXx~

"Eddie, listen, " Simon put his head in his hands, "I've seen her hit you three times already and she's only been here two days,. Give it up. She's not interested."

"But sir, she's new, she needs someone to show her around –" Eddie protested, still salivating slightly at the thought of the sexy new recruit he'd been trying to pursue.

"Yeah, well," Simon began, "I think you killed that option dead the moment you said to her, 'which one do you want to explore first – the station or my trousers?'"

Gene walked in on the end of the conversation and immediately regretted it.

"The exploration of trousers is off-limits in this place," he declared, eying Eddie warily, "especially if this has anything to do with why one of my new recruits is currently sitting in CID with a whistle round her neck to call for help if someone tries to get fruity."

Eddie hung his head.

"Sorry, guv," he said.

"This might be a good time for lattes," Gene suggested.

"Yes, guv. Sorry guv."

Gene waited until he'd left before he turned back to Simon.

"You got five minutes?" he asked.

Simon sighed.

"I really need to organise the last of the toastercide reports," he said, "especially now that… cocky four slice moron has drawn up a peace treaty to call for violence-free toasting twixt man and machine."

Gene didn't ask.

"It's not a question, Shoebury. You've got five minutes."

He started to walk out of the office, leaving Simon to roll his eyes and get to his feet.

"It's a world full of free choice, isn't it?" he mumbled, following Gene to CID.

They walked to his office where Gene drew the blinds, then laid a large fabric item in a bag across his desk and walked to the filing cabinet to find his scotch.

"What's that?" Simon frowned curiously at the item on the desk.

"Just some things I got out of storage," said Gene. Simon was hoping for a more in-depth explanation than that and began to unzip the storage bag for a better idea but Gene cut the attempt short with the slamming of a glass in front of him that almost crushed his fingers.

"Here," he said as he started to fill it up.

"What's this for?" Simon asked cautiously. There had to be an ulterior motive somewhere. It couldn't be as simple as gene offering him a drink.

"You might need it in a minute," Gene warned.

"Why? Simon asked suspiciously, "What's happened? Oh god, has Keats escaped?"

"For once, no."

"Layton?"

"No. he's still cuffed and swearing his head off in the cells."

"You've set up a meeting for me to go and issue the woman with the fat arse those bloody diamond studs?" Simon narrowed his eyes.

"Will you shut your cakehole and listen?" Gene demanded. He sat down opposite Simon with a glass of his own. It was full to the brim. Simon suspected that whatever Gene had to say it wasn't going to be an easy conversation.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I think," Gene began seriously, "We need to clear the air. About yer mother."

"Oh shit." Simon understood the presence of the scotch now and downed his in one.

"Careful,. Shoebury," Gene cried in alarm, "that's a decent bloody bottle! That's not all going down your scrawny neck."

"Sorry," Simon wiped his mouth, "I was trying to get a head start."

"A fuzzy head, more like, Gene told him, "I want you coherent for this, don't want to have to go repeating meself later."

Simon stared at the empty glass in front of him; a million Genes reflected in the cut glass patterns.

"I don't think we're ready for this conversation," he said.

"Well I do," said Gene, "bloody hell, if the last few days have taught me anything it's that you never know when it's going to be too late."

"I don't mind it being too late for this conversation, honestly," Simon said quickly, holding up his palms.

"Shut up, Simon," Gene told him. He sighed as he sipped his scotch. "Are you listening?"

"Don't think I've got much choice, have I?" Simon mumbled.

Gene looked at him seriously, his expression serious and uncomfortable. Shit, it wasn't a conversation he wanted to have any more than Simon did but he wanted to get the air cleared as much as he could.

"We can't carry on ignoring the bloody thing," Gene told him.

"Works for me," said Simon.

"I'm fed up of walking on eggshells," said Gene, "I've spent my whole life burying me head in the sand. I did it with everything, even what the world was for. Even that I was dead, Simon. I buried me head in the sand about Alex too, all those years when I was scared out of me size elevens about losing her, always wondering when she was going to wake up – we never got over ourselves and talked about it. I wasted years. We both did. Got a chance to make up for it now and start again, but I don't want to make the same mistake here." He looked at Simon. "It shouldn't be possible. It seems like the most ludicrous thing this side of Live TV's programme schedule. But somehow it's a fact. You're my son."

Simon looked down. It was the first time Gene had said it so bluntly. hearing it shocked him, it stirred the feelings of anger and devastation up again inside of him. He breathed in deeply and wished he hadn't downed that drink quite so soon because he could have really done with it about then.

"I know," his voice was strained. He'd tried very hard to push the truth from his mind or to deny it, finding ways to convince himself it wasn't true. But when it came down to it every time he looked Gene in the eye he could see himself reflected within it now. He didn't like to admit the resemblances but they were there, and not just the physical ones either.

"I wish I'd known twenty years ago when I let the snake out the tank for the night, not twenty years down the line." Gene told him. He sighed. "Stupid poxy worlds and time bollocks, it happened twenty years ago but you're thirty something years old. Where's the sense in that?"

Simon shook his head.

"If you had known, what would have changed?" he said, feeling a little lost, "I wasn't born in this world, even if I was conceived in it. Some kind of freaky crap must have happened… the two worlds were just running too close that night… and even if my mum had wanted to tell you she'd never have been able to trace you." he froze and a frown came onto his face. Had she ever tried to trace Gene? There was no way to know.

"I'm not saying that if I'd known things would have been any different… Simon, it's clear yer mum and yer old man were happy, you told me yerself they stayed together and worked it thorough, so it's not like I was going to blunder into yer lives and stick a flag in you to claim me territory. But I still wish I'd known."

"I wish I'd never found out," Simon said honestly, "I miss what we were." He closed his eyes for a moment, "It took us a long time to become friends. I resent the fact that it was all for nothing."

"Was it?" Gene asked.

"Wasn't it?"

"Shoebury, I'm not playing the questions game, this isn't Whose Line Is It Anyway?" Gene told him, "listen to me – if you've got half me DNA there's nothing I can do about that but I'm not your 'dad'. Your dad is the man buying a bloody eighteen year old version of you all the X-Files merchandise he can find for yer birthday. Your dad is the man I saw in that family album of yours chasing yer sister into the sea and failing to start a barbecue."

"So who are you?" Simon asked. It was a genuine question. He couldn't work out how he and Gene were ever supposed to be friends again now they'd found out something that changed their lives so significantly.

"I'm the idiot you dragged out of the pub, the one you plucked out of the pot plants, the one who's flipping Christmas you gate-crashed two years ago." Gene sighed, "I don't know about yer genetic make-up but I know that we found a bloody decent middle ground even though we got off to a shakier start than Layton going off the drugs." He hoped Simon would reply but he was still staring at him, waiting to see what he was going to say. "Don't make me spell it out, Shoebury, the weedy feeling malarkey isn't for me." He breathed out heavily through his nose, sounding a little like an angry rhinoceros, "Fifteen years without a friend is a long time, Simon."

Simon looked down and nodded slowly. He knew what Gene was saying.

"I don't want you to try making up for lost time or changing into some kind of father figure I don't need," he said.

"Not that I was going to do that," Gene pointed out.

"But I wish I could stop feeling so," Simon's voice took on a dark edge, "bloody angry about it. About having to live with the image of you... bonking my mother for the rest of my life," he spat the words like they had a bitter taste, "about what my dad had to go through when he found out, about the memory of my mum being ruined forever, and you – I respected you, I looked up to you. For all your flaws and the insults and the filing cabinet technique, you just seemed to be a bloody decent man and I thought I could learn a lot from you. And then I find out you shagged a married woman and, oh yeah, she happened to be my mother."

Gene stared at Simon. He didn't look down or look away. He didn't show any weakness, he just stared him right in the eye.

"You remember another tape, Shoebury?" he asked. He saw Simon staring at him, "another present from Jimbo, a lovely little piece of film from the late seventies with me in the starring role and a young homosexual gentleman as the supporting cast." He saw Simon look away. "I was level with you. Simon. I told you I'd changed and you made a decision to get to know the man I'd become, not to hold then man I was then against me. "

"I know," Simon said quietly.

"How about making the same decision now?" Gene asked. Simon looked back at him cautiously. "You saw me making a –" he hesitated, not wanting to say 'mistake' – he knew labelling Mrs Shoebury as such wouldn't earn him any brownie points – "a bad decision. An error of judgement. And you know that you couldn't hold me to task for the things I'd done in the past when I'd learned from that and changed. I can't take back what I did. But I learned from it and it's not something I ever did again."

Simon stared at Gene. He couldn't make any promises. He couldn't say for certain that he could block it out of his mind or move on, but he would try.

"Alright," he said quietly.

"I'm not a bleedin' idiot, Simon," Gene told him, "things won't change overnight. But I don't want to be at war with you."

"No," Simon said quietly, "me neither."

Gene nodded slowly.

"And if you think," he began, "that you can ever get the image of my allegedly hairy backside out yer thinkpan then I've got something to ask you."

"Oh Gene, no, I'm not giving you a free toaster," Simon sighed, "I know people keep sending them to my office, but the paperwork –"

"Shut up, Shoebury, it's got nothing to do with toasters" Gene told him. He gave him a serious look. "It's about the round object of finger-wear you helped me buy yesterday." He looked extremely awkward and uncomfortable as he cleared his throat. "At some point in the future I'm going to need to get a second round object of finger-wear to join the first."

"Oh no, Gene, I'm not coming with you again," Simon began to push his chair backward, "I've had enough of helping you to buy jewellery. I've never been so humiliated in my life."

"First of all, I find that hard to believe when you've spent half yer time in this world wearing that jumper, Gene began, "and second, that wasn't what I meant. He hesitated, unsure how to ask. "I'm going to need someone to look after it for me. The ring. On the day." He stared at Simon waiting for him to cotton on so that he wouldn't have to spell it out but Simon just stared back blankly. "Do you really not get what I'm tryig to ask here?" he cried.

"Well, no! You're talking in riddles!"

"I want you to be my bloody best man, you idiotic, rainbow-coloured geek of the year," Gene yelled.

"Oh," Simon froze, "ohhh…." He looked at Gene incredulously. "You're – are you being serious?"

"If not then this is the most painfully drawn out and humiliating joke I've ever been a part of," Gene huffed, folding his arms.

Simon's face was a picture; a mix of disbelief, flattery and downright suspicion was spread across his expression.

"You seriously want me to be your best man?" he asked, bewildered by the turn of events.

"I did, I'm changing me bloody mind now though so you'd better say yes before I take the offer off the table."

"Yes," Simon said quickly, "I mean, thank you –"

"You think you'll be able to look me in the eye by then?"

Simon felt a stab of sadness as he saw the question was genuine. He honestly and truly wished that the truth had never come out. His friendship with Gene had become sturdy and solid and the facts as they'd emerged had shaken its foundations. But this time Simon had listened to Gene's words as he tried to explain things to him a little better, and finally he could see a little light at the end of the tunnel for them.

"I'll do my best," he said seriously.

"Good," said gene, "then ;et me give you yer first best man duty."

Simon frowned.

"Already?" he asked, "you've not even given her the ring yet."

"Exactly," said Gene, "you get the lucky job of plying me with alcohol until I get the bloody courage to ask her again."

Simon closed his eyes and sighed.

"Oh god," he groaned, "it's like history repeating…"

Maybe it was. There were a lot of parallels. But there were a lot of differences too. Gene knew that he and Alex were stronger than ever – and he hoped that when a little of the dust had settled then his friendship with Simon would be too. It played on his mind that Keats was still looming large, and although the leather restraints were holding him for now he hesitated to imagine they would keep him in one place for long. One day he'd get that call and know the beast had vanished again, and on that day they would all have to be at their strongest.

Gene knew they'd get there. They had to. Because whatever energy Keats was leeching from them, their combined determination wouldn't let him get the better of them. Keats could never win.

~xXx~

#...Well this is murder

On the dog train

When all the brakes have failed

And I'm going down hill

And if you see me wave

I'm only saying bye bye

There's not a single tear

Here in my eyes

And if you've heard this before

I'm gonna say it again

Life was easier when

I didn't have a clue

Because this is murder

I'm getting dog tired

Let's make the world

Brand new

How about you…#

~ Dog Train – The Levellers