Chapter 7
Marci looked out at all the naked people armed with their microphones and notebooks and wondered why she had to have such a vivid imagination.
The standard advice to 'Imagine them naked' which she'd been offered when she bemoaned to Jake that she was feeling anxious about the upcoming press conference had seemed helpful at the time but now she'd imagined their clothes away she was having trouble controlling her snickering. She'd attempted to turn it into a fake cough on at least three occasions, reaching the point at which Superintendent Fletcher had offered to get her a glass of water. Unfortunately she was so carried away by then that she started picturing him with no shirt and nipple tassels and had enormous difficulty in stopping the image from reducing her to a giggling heap.
The naked people had been fairly easy to talk to, however. Easier than she'd thought they'd be. She'd relaxed more and more as the press conference went on; her natural people skills came forth and she fielded difficult questions with ease. She started to realise that she was a natural. She'd found her niche. For the first time she started to feel as though she was moving forward in her career. It had been such a hard year that thoughts of promotion had been the last thing on her mind, but now she'd found a role that suited her she'd never felt so focused.
"D.S. Fell will now be your go-to person for a statement on any ongoing or historical CID case, as well as leading a recruitment drive, aimed at bringing more diversity and progressive thinking into Fenchurch East," Fletcher concluded his final speech, "we're moving into the twenty first century with a new outlook and complete transparency."
After the scandal surrounding Redlake and the fallout from Layton's manhunt, finishing with an explosive rooftop confrontation, there had been much outrage from both the public and from inside the force. The demand for change and transparency in the investigations that would follow brought the opportunity for people like Marci to move forward in their career with public relations roles that brought a whole new dimension to their work.
"D.S. Fell, perhaps you would like to say a few final words?"
Marci had been busy trying to re-clothe her audience and had only managed to clothe them enough to picture them all in novelty underwear but somehow managed to pull herself together long enough to look out at the sea of faces before her.
"Well," she began, clearing her throat, "I'd just like to remind you all that I am approachable and will be as forthcoming as I can be about our ongoing investigations. Mistakes have been made by Fenchurch East, just as they have across the London Metropolitan police force, but we are all human, and we are learning. We're happy to welcome all comments and criticism, and we'll take on board valid and appropriate suggestions. I want to work with you as much as with my station."
Fletcher stepped back as someone handed him a package from which he pulled a brand new camera on a neck strap.
"DS Fell, on behalf of Fenchurch East station, I'd like to present you with this top-of-the-range, brand new digital camera, which will help you begin your recruitment drive."
Marci felt awkward and self conscious as Fletcher reached forward to place the neck strap over her head like some kind of tropical garland. Still, it was worth it for the prize; the wonderful camera she'd been looking forward to receiving. Testing that was going to be fun...
There was a smattering of polite applause as Marci flicked her hair out from under the strap and held the camera up in front of her face. Other cameras flashed, taking photos of her pretending to take photos of the crowd around her. She was kind of glad the battery hadn't been charged yet because she didn't really want to take photographs of Fletcher with his nipple tassels.
It took a few moments before she remembered the tassels were just a part of her imagination.
"Thank you," she said, closing down her press conference and turning to leave the stage. It had been the strangest morning but it had boosted her confidence in shovel-loads. She had a new role, her relationship was getting back on track and life was finally moving in the right direction. Well, aside from the nipple tassels, of course.
~ x X x ~
Gene was already halfway through pouring a glass of scotch when Alex walked slowly and a little awkwardly through the doorway. Nothing felt quite right. Nothing at all. She closed the door behind her and moved towards the desk with an awkward smile.
"I see you've been Shoebury'd," she said, causing Gene to down his measure fairly quickly.
"How the bloody hell did he manage to wrap us all round his bent little finger?" he huffed, grabbing a second glass, "and don't even think about telling him what I just said because I'm apparently only allowed one homo joke and I need time to cook up a masterpiece."
"My lips are sealed," said Alex as a glass shot across the desk, missed her by an inch and crashed to the floor where it broke into several pieces. "Gene!"
Gene scowled, but playfully.
"You were supposed to catch the ruddy thing!" He admonished, "that always works in the movies!"
"This isn't one of your westerns," Alex rolled her eyes, scooping down to pick up the larger shards of glass. She set about disposing of them safely in the bin before eyeing up Gene as he placed another glass on the desk. "You'd better not be -" she began as the glass shot towards her. With quick reflexes, she reached out and stopped this one from flying off the table then sighed, exasperatedly. "Are you happy now?"
Gene held up the bottle and asked,
"What'll it be?"
"I don't think I have a lot of choice," Alex sighed and rolled her eyes but across her face there was a smile breaking out at the same time. She felt comforted to see Gene was still Gene. No matter what else was changing she could be sure her rock and her relationship would always be there. Plus she was grateful for the endless supply of alcohol when it was needed. It was a relief to watch Gene filling her glass.
"I'll need to lock away the valuables," Gene told her, "not having that snake slithering off with me scotch."
"Keats might be a lot of things but I'm pretty sure he has better things to do than steal your stash," Alex began, flinching a little as she corrected herself, "James. It's James."
"Ahh, so you've been Shoebury'd, too," Gene observed, watching Alex carefully to gauge her reaction. She looked down, staring into her glass. Her eyes looked distant, her thoughts in so many places that it was almost impossible to round them up properly.
"I think we've all been Shoebury'd," she said.
"It's like being Tangoed without the redeeming feature of the happy slap," Gene grunted, bringing a little smile from Alex.
"Do you buy it, Gene?" she asked. She could see him trying to think of a humorous response to avoid the question and added quickly, "I mean Simon's speech, not the scotch."
"Bugger," Gene said gruffly. He poured some more scotch into his own glass and leaned back in his chair, his feet up on the desk. "Bolly, I've got no bloody clue any more. I feel like me mane's being trimmed. What the buggering hell is my world doing?" A sip of Scotch washed across his taste buds, calming him a little with its familiarity. He swallowed and closed his eyes as he continued. "It's legit, Bols. He has papers. Nothing I can do about it, even if I wanted to."
"And do you?"
Gene's eyes opened and he looked at Alex, wondering what she meant by that.
"Do you?"
Alex looked away, not sure of her own answer. She drank some scotch and sank into a chair to contemplate her thoughts.
"Simon is adamant that he's beaten it," she said quietly. "Keats. Beaten the devil. Whatever it was. The darkness inside him."
"Can't smell any forest fires yet," Gene commented.
"Could it come back?" Alex asked quietly. She turned back to Gene and saw his expression mirroring her own. He had no idea either. "It could come back."
"It could go somewhere else," Gene commented. He recalled Robin's false charges earlier that year and cursed. "That cardboard-bonking bastard could be top of the tree by now. He seemed like a nice person to do business with if you've got horns and a tail."
"Maybe," Alex crossed her legs and sipped from her glass again. DI March was a nasty piece of work and there was absolutely no mistake about that but even so he didn't seem to have the same evil drives that Keats had been spurred on by during the dark ages. She stared into her glass again as she mused, "how can we tell? He looked the same, didn't he, Gene?" she turned back to the Guv. "Did you think he looked the same?" But before he had a chance to answer she flinched a little and shook her head, "No, he wasn't. Not exactly the same."
"Got a better haircut?" Gene scoffed but Alex wasn't listening.
"His eyes," she whispered, "his eyes were different."
Gene wasn't sure what she was talking about, but this was a frequent occurrence. He felt sure she was three sentences away from needing a notebook.
"Had he been to Specsavers?" he joked but the look on Alex's face brought him back to sobriety.
"His eyes were alive, Gene," she said seriously, "they were alive. They were scared and nervous and looked at us instead of inside us."
"The only thing he'd find in me is half a bottle of scotch," Gene mumbled but as much as he hated to admit it Alex's words had started to make sense to him.
"He looked like just another person. Another soul. Someone else looking for a second chance." Alex unfolded her legs and moved as though she was about to get up. "Do you have any paper? A notebook or -"
"I wish I'd gone to the bloody bookie and put a tenner on that," Gene sighed, thumping his glass on the desk. "You don't need a flip-chart to convince me, Bols, I saw the man. I know." He shook his head, hating himself for agreeing with her on this one, "I know. I saw."
Alex looked at Gene with a deadly serious expression.
"I knew that face, Gene. I knew those eyes. I saw them staring into my head when he had me tied and bound, held against my will. I saw that face glowering at me, and at you, wielding power over Simon and Kim and anyone else he'd made the focus of his darkness." She leaned toward him as she continued. "I looked at that face today and all I could see of him were his bone structure, his features, the things that can't be changed."
"A fist and a nose job could do the trick," Gene mumbled but for once he didn't even mean it.
"I forgot to look at the things that mattered," Alex continued.
"I'm bigger down there than him and that's a fact," Gene continued to throw in a flimsy attempt at humour but thy both knew it was only to cover up his discomfort at the situation.
"There was a new soul behind his eyes," she whispered "or an old one. One who'd never really had a chance."
"He had a chance," Gene said, suddenly serious, "you know that. His grand entrance was no different to anyone else's. A twat on the head, a long sleep and, bingo," Gene slammed his hand down on the desk to prove a point, "second chance city. Another recruit. A new boy, wet behind the ears, given a chance to prove himself. And he did that." He grabbed his Scotch and downed the last of it, pulling a slight face as it stung a little on the way down," he proved himself to be an evil bastard."
"He was in a coma," Alex whispered, worried that Gene's raised voice would bring attention from the others, hard at work outside, "he remembered what had happened to him. That was awful, Gene, we watched his tape."
"No worse than getting shot in the head," he said, looking her in the eye, "or torn up in a car accident, or stabbed in the guts," he shuddered, "or twatted on the head with a bloody computer."
"It was a server, Gene, they're big and heavy," Alex sighed, but Gene did have a point.
"You didn't grow horns, Bollyknickers," he told her, "neither did Simon or Batman or Stringer or anyone else in the Coma Club. He was the only one who welcomed the devil with open arms and slipped between the sheets with him for the best part of a couple of decades."
"He's not the same person now."
"What's stopping him taking a big leap backwards?"
"Simon." Alex's word finally brought Gene to silence. He looked at her, almost blankly, waiting for her to explain further. "He broke out of that dark spell for Simon, and Simon's the one who will stop him from taking a big leap back."
"And if Simon loses interest in Keats's back entrance?" Gene asked, arms folded.
Alex let out her breath slowly and leaned forward.
"They're in love, Gene," she said patiently, silently amused as Gene squirmed at the mention of the L word. "I know you find this a difficult concept to accept but sometimes two people actually want to do more than just 'bonk'."
"Stupid people," Gene mumbled, turning the colour of a ripe tomato.
"I think you're one of them," Alex smirked a little, trying hard not to laugh.
"You tell anyone that and you'll be getting none of the other for a long time," he barked.
Alex smiled again.
"Oh well, it's Tuesday tomorrow..." she commented, watching Gene's expression turn from uncomfortable to furious in the space of half a second.
"There's nothing Stringer keeps under the bed that stands up to me prowess," he growled but Alex was laughing.
"I'm only teasing," she said softly, "and besides," she smiled, "we don't always use the under the bed things."
Gene didn't know what to do; torn between covering up the issue developing down below or taking a shower to wash off all the 'love' cooties. Eventually he decided a swig from his bottle would answer all his problems. He took the opportunity to think about everything Alex had said as he drank. He hated to admit that it all made sense, and he wished he could just ignore it all but this was something that affected his whole station, his entire world, and the lives of everyone who mattered to him.
"Sometimes even the L word breaks down," he said seriously.
Alex closed her eyes and nodded slowly.
"I know," she said.
"What happens if the Jumper gets too much for Jimbo to deal with?" Gene asked, "or Simon turns his back on the Firestarter? What happens then? The flames come back and we sit around, toasting marshmallows while the devil gets his feet under me desk."
"Not going to happen."
"How do you know that Bols? Where's yer crystal ball?"
"I left it at home," Alex rolled her eyes, "I don't think that's going to happen, Gene. Simon's been hung up on him for as long as he's been breathing nineties air and James almost destroyed himself to get rid of the darkness for Simon, from what I've heard." She shook her head slowly. "James is Simon's DI and like it or not he's also Simon's boyfriend." She could see Gene squirming again, "he's not DCI Jim Keats, setting up his pencils in a lovely neat row. He's a detective inspector who will be spending the next year attempting to sort out the mess that is Simon's filing and joining him on his investigations. And god knows, Simon's been needing help for a very long time."
"Help? In which department?" Gene mumbled but the gravity of the situation was beginning to take away the humour from the moment. He looked seriously at Alex. "You sound like a convert."
Alex met Gene's stare as thoughts raced through her head. She considered his words and all he things she'd just said. There was so much to consider but those eyes kept coming back into her mind. She could still see them; innocent and alive. The person Simon brought to work that day wasn't Jim Keats.
"I think," she said quietly, "that I can give James a chance."
Gene nodded very slowly and pulled a face he didn't even realise he was pulling. His unintentional gurning covered up nervousness and doubt as he thought about everything they'd said and his earlier conversation with Simon. He thought back to Jim Keats; the darkness and the flames. There was none of that now. He hated to admit it but he could literally feel it. The physical crackling in the air like stale static was no longer a part of James's presence. He was a man, human, a newbie who maybe deserved a chance.
Maybe.
"I told Simon he's on trial," he said gruffly, "and I suppose, as long as he's behaving and staying out of our way," he rolled his eyes, "and clearing that mountain of paper on Shoebury's desk before it needs planning permission to grow any further... then we can call a truce."
Alex nodded slowly.
"Agreed," she said.
She raised her glass to seal their agreement and they clinked, even though both glasses lacked much in the way of alcoholic drink. It wasn't going to be easy to adapt but together they could cope.
"A few extra fire extinguishers as a precaution might be a good idea, though."
For once, Gene's joke was spot on.
"I'll get the catalogue," Alex smiled.
Same old Gene, she thought to herself. Thank goodness some things never changed.
~xXx~
A/N: Hey everyone – I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone reading and to let you know what's going on right now. As you're aware I've been having continued difficulties with my health and for the last month have been more or less offline. This week I rather unexpectedly managed to get a lot of writing done – in fact the rest of this fic is in the bag! There are 5 more chapters plus an epilogue and they're just waiting to be edited so they'll be going up as and when I can do so over the next week or so. It's felt amazing to get back into writing again and I can't thank you enough for still being here and following my stories.
A couple of weeks ago someone started reading my fics. I got an anonymous review on the first chapter of Out of the Window and now they're halfway through Strangers When we Meet. It seems strange to think people are still starting the journey right now when we've all come so far. I wish the reader had a FFnet account because I've been unable to reply to their anon reviews but I just wanted to say if or when you make it this far, I appreciate them all very much indeed and I hope you have enjoyed the ride!
Thank you so much for every review and every one of you who's still out there reading. Your support means the world to me. And to my beautiful Lucy-girl, you are the reason my world exists. Thank you for being my inspiration, you are my world xxxxxx