Chapter 5

A wave of fear travelled through Simon's veins as he took a seat in Gene's office, facing the man who'd supplied half of his DNA, signed off his paperwork and given him a phobia of filing cabinets. Gene was a man he'd feared and admired in equal measures. The two had been through several world wars over the period of time they'd known one another but there had been an underlying mutual respect throughout it all. The last thing he wanted was to antagonise Gene but this was a fight he couldnl' back down from. He had to stay strong and steady.

A glass appeared in front of him and scotch flowed into it. Simon's eyes followed the owner of the bottle as he crossed the room and took his seat the other side of the desk, then poured a measure of his own before bringing the bottle to his lips instead and downing several large gulps, rendering his glass obsolete. Simon swallowed nervously, watching Gene as he wiped his lips and folded his arms. He knew whatever words were due to come from Gene's mouth weren't going to be pretty but he had to take them. He had no choice.

"Fifteen years ago." Gene finally grunted three words. He watched Simon staring at him with confusion.

"I," Simon shrugged and tried several times to begin a sentence but it simply wasn;' happening. "What?"

Gene closed his eyes and took in a very deep breath to quell some of the unrest bubbling in his chest.

"It's been fifteen years since Jimbo swanned into me station, had me door opening at his beck and call, fiddled with his nerdy frames and got his feet under the table."

Simon shook his head and closed his eyes..

"James isn't -" he began but Gene shut him up with a glare.

"You've given that speech before," he scowled, "it's my turn." He leaned back and lifted his glass, staring at the liquid inside of it as he finally spoke again. "I made one mistake and D and C came in to sit on me like a bloody great Doberman on me chest. He was sly, Shoebury. Took his time. He crept in and turned me team against me bit by bit, like a slow acting poison in their veins." He supped from the glass, unable to meet Simon's stare. "I ended up watching Bolly dig up my corpse." He could see simon flinch out of the corner of his eye. "He took my team away, destroyed my office, landed a right hook in me smiler," he closed his eyes, "and made me listen to Club Tropicana for two hours straight."

"Oh Gene," Simon's sympathy burst forward, despite everything. He might have been in love with James but the Wham! stuff was a step too far.

Gene looked at him sternly. It was vital he heard every word and truly understood it.

"Thanks to Bolly I got everything back. My team, my pride, my office. Took the A Team for last orders that night. You've met DI Carling."

Simon shuddered again.

"Unfortunately," he said.

Gene shook his head slowly. He drank the rest of his scotch, thumped the glass back on the table and refilled it quickly.

"He was there. Lurkin'. Spiting and hissing like the Cheshire Cat gone feral. I made a mistake that night, sending Alex away. She jumped out the window to get back here. I thought she'd be safer in the pub. No Jimbo. Instead the stupid mare decided she couldn't live without a whiff of me man-stink every morning." He hated to admit it but he could feel an irresistible smile threatening to break out on his otherwise unappeasable face. "The sight of her behind that scrawny idiot I'd been sent was a better treat for me eyes than a whole bottle of Optrex."

Simon initially nodded, then realised the description Gene had given of the aforementioned recruit was horribly familiar and scowled severely.

"Hey! I was that scrawny idiot!" he cried.

Gene ignored him.

"There he was again; the bad smell that kept creeping in every time someone dared to open a window," He growled, "with his video tapes and his promises. He caught you in his net right away, didn't he?"

Simon didn't know where Gene was going with this.

"I needed to get home," he said, trying desperately to cover up the shame he still felt about that, "I didn't know -"

"No one ever did," Gene sighed, "did they? Stringer. Eddie. Even Bolly got herself caught up in Jimbo's web. Bloody boomerang of evil; no matter how far we threw him he came back. Until they ripped his badge away and someone turned on the eternal fire extinguisher, hmm?"

Simon put his glass back down on the desk and stared at Gene.

"Where's this going, Gene?" he asked.

Gene closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He wasn't sure he knew himself.

"Fifteen years, that face has been the bad penny that keeps turning up," he said, "fifteen bloody years, couldn't turn me cheek for a second. He was sat over in the wild West, polishing his filing cabinets and his in-tray, and roughing up every poor twonk who had the misfortune to arrive in his station. But this," Gene's stare finally met Simon's and held it firmly. "This was always my domain." he saw Simon's head bow slightly as he realised what Gene was trying to say.

"He's not after your station, Gene," he began but Gene cut him off.

"Right here, right under my nose," he said angrily, "like someone's rubbing it in. 'Look, DCI Hunt, your worst nightmare is shuffling papers down the hall. At least, he is until six in the evening when he goes home and shacks up with your illegitimate son for a quick shoofty up his back alley!"

Simon drew back a little from the force of Gene's tirade. He swore some of the posters on the wall opposite flapped in the breeze. He watched Gene's brow become encrusted with beads of sweat that sat there like little jewels, catching the light occasionally as they slid downwards and his cheeks reddened a little like a cartoon character who was about to blow a fuse. There was a long silence before Simon dared to speak, even though Gene was still panting a little. He spoke in quiet, measured tones, as though frightened the ceiling would cave in if he were to talk too loudly.

"Maybe you need to flip things round and see it in a new light," he said quietly. Gene's gaze , which had been focused slightly beyond Simon's face, slowly turned directly to him.

"What?" There was no real anger behind his single spoken word, just confusion and a little annoyance.

"It's not Jim Keats sitting in my office, filing my paperwork," Simon got to his feet and slowly began to pace the room, "it's this guy called James. And James is terrified because his worst nightmare is just down the corridor." He hesitated, trying to read Gene's level of acknowledgement before saying, "that's you, by the way."

Gene's expression clouded suddenly, followed by an attempt to grab Simon by the tie, only narrowly missing his target.

"I've not quite washed all me grey matter down the crapper yet, Shoe-Boy," he scowled and Simon gulped. He knew he was in trouble now 'Shoe-Boy' was out of mothballs.

"Look, you hold all the cards here, Gene," Simon slightly took his life in his hands by leaning over the desk towards him, "James is not Jim Keats, and I've said that so many times this morning I'm thinking of getting Kim to tattoo it on my forehead at this point."

"Pffffft," Gene mocked, "you never would, you'd pass out just from saying the word 'tattoo'."

Simon ignored him.

"He's got no memory of what he did to you, to me, to any of us; all he knows is that someone rented out his body for a few decades and committed the kinds of sin that warranted me being punched," he cringed, "twice." He saw Gene looking slightly guilty. "You look at him and you see Jim Keats but you're only looking at the outside. Inside, there's nothing left of Keats. Nothing left of the flames and the evil that we all linked with that face and that name. Walking through those doors today was terrifying for James, but he did it. He wants to prove he's more than just 'the man who used to be Jim Keats.' He wants to make a go of this and he deserves a second chance. He's never had an opportunity to live and now that he actually does..." He closed his eyes and gave a deep sigh, "...he's got decades to catch up on, Gene, and he doesn't know where to start. But a truce with you would be a good place." He held his stare against Gene's and refused to back down. "Like I said, you're holding all the cards here, Gene. You could make his life a walking misery, but I think you're better than that."

Gene narrowed his eyes at simon.

"It's too early on a monday morning for reverse psychology," he huffed.

"All he wants is a fair chance to prove himself," Simon urged, "at least give him that. If you see him mess up, if he does one thing that sounds like Jim Keats's M.O. then you have every right to eject him from the station. But you can't deprive a man of the chance to live the life he's never had." He tried not to blink as he held Gene's stare, "That's what this place is, right?" That was it; the sentence that started to break Gene; "a place where we go for a second chance?"

"He wasted his second chance," Gene began but Simon shook his head.

"Jim Keats did," he said, "James hasn't even begun."

Gene stared at Simon, scarcely believing that the neurotic mess of a man who'd crashed into his office and broke three toes some fifteen years previously was talking him into letting Jimbo get his feet under the table. Then again, Simon was a very different person now.And so, he finally admitted silently with great reluctance, was Keats. 'James', he mentally corrected.

"One month," Gene huffed.

"What?" Simon blinked.

"He's got one month's probation," Gene said, wagging his finger under Simon's nose, "one month to prove you right. One hint of a flame and he's out on his ear."

Simon tried to keep calm but inside his heart began thumping harder and harder. He blinked and shook himself a little to make sure he wasn't hearing things, then he looked at Gene seriously.

"You... really?!"

Gene scowled. He didn't really want to repeat it.

"If he behaves, I'll behave," Gene said, clearing his throat angrily as Simon started to do a little congratulatory dance in front of him. "But," he said loudly, stopping Simon in his tracks, "that's a very big 'if'. Jimbo's been around the block enough times to find a way back. He'll always find a way."

Simon swallowed to gulp away the sudden reappearance of the anxious knot in his chest, . then he relaxed.

"James is stronger," he said decisively.

Gene stared at simon, not sure he was altogether happy with the events of the last five minutes but there was one thing that stood out to him above everything else; Simon's sudden confidence and strength. That was a quality he'd been lacking for such a long time. For that matter Gene was glad of the whole confrontation. Maybe there was a little of him in Simon after all.

He knew this was going to be the start of a dark and difficult time for all those who knew the horror that the sight of James's facial features had brought to them but he had a feeling they would survive it. He even wanted Simon to prove him wrong, not least of all because if James really was stronger then the dreaded Jimbo could be gone from their world forever.

With one last nod he sealed the matter, at least for the time being.

"Go on then," he indicated the door, "go and put your new DI to work." He hesitated as Simon's face started glowing with a grin he wasn't even trying to hide, then he added, "and by put him to work I mean on your filing,not on your -"

"One," Simon said loudly, aiming a single, solitary finger in front of Gene, "I'm allowing you one homophobic joke, so make it a good one and don't waste it on any cheap shots like the one you're trying to unleash upon me right now."

As he left Gene thinking carefully about which of many possibilities was going to be his insult of choice, Simon felt a pang of worry inside him. He wasn't actually sure where James even was, or even of he was still on the premises. He bit his lip and ran a hand through his hair as he started to scope out the surroundings, looking for his features, but there was no sign in CID. Fenchurch East wasn't exactly a small building and he wasn't sure where James could have gotten to, if he was even still there at all. He cursed himself for not going after James immediately, but he also knew James had to learn to fight some of his own battles. He just hoped this wasn't a fight he'd lost already.

xXx

She'd heard the crying long before she'd even reached the door.

A cold shiver ran through her and she hesitated; listening for a few moments as the crying seemed to lessen and some petrified muttering took its place. When silence eventually fell she knocked three times, very gently and waited. No one called to her. No one told her to come in but no one told her to go away either, so eventually she slowly turned the handle and opened the door.

She'd never seen a more terrified pair of eyes in all her life.

xXx

A/N: Hello guys! I am still here, and still writing. I actually wrote this a few months back but I have not been able to edit it until now as my health has become more difficult to manage. I had a second bout of meningitis in July and since then I've been having a lot of difficulty with my increasingly poor co-ordination affecting my typing and with the chronic pain in my hands and fingers. Please forgive me if this chapter is poorly typed, or if anything is incoherent – I have done the very best that I can and just really need to start writing again. My characters have been calling for me :)