the_gene_genie | (no subject)

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Hours later, he couldn't honestly say if he's had any sleep or not. It's like hovering on the edge of consciousness, one foot in the land of the awake and lucid, the other firmly planted in the realm of nightmares. He jerks from images of blood and that gun, and his family, to Alex lying on his chest, comfortingly warm in the crook of his arm. Never awake, never asleep, and it gets to a point he can't stand anymore. During one of the more aware stretches, he jabs himself with a fingernail to make it stop, using the pain to bring himself back. He extracts himself from her, and heads to the bathroom. It's probably a good thing he destroyed the mirror. He doesn't want to see what he looks like at the moment.

The idea of lying down again is unbearable. He needs to move, but he's still too tired. Should go for a walk or something, but he can't contemplate dragging himself all the way downstairs and outside. He pulls his dressing gown from the wardrobe and lights a fag instead, pacing around the other end of the room a bit. Eventually, he sits down and sticks the TV on, flicking through endless channels (one of which, he notes vaguely, seems to be aimed at squid) until he finds football. England even. Euro 2012.

It'll do. He mutes the sound so she isn't disturbed, folds himself up in one corner of the sofa, and stares blankly at the screen. By the time the game's up, the night should be over. It feels like the first step on a long road, getting through this endless night. If he can do that, everything else should be a doddle.

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He looks at her hand. His twitches on his leg, as though he's about to take it, but overrode the instinct at the last second.

'For what?'

Her eyes sheen, but she keeps her palm outstretched.

'That I couldn't stay.'

She wanted to, at the end. She begged him, and she still remembers what he told her. Can't have you putting me off my stride, can I? The words still smart, but it's hard to hold onto the anger in the face of everything else. It's hard to feel discarded when he just spent the night holding her through her tears.

'Did you think I was -- bargaining for my life?'

Maybe she was. Maybe the voice of fear was the loudest in the chorus of those last few moments. But there was more. He should know that.

He takes her hand. It's what she wants, and he's pretty sure he's in no position to be refusing much at the moment.

He's not sure what she means, and it probably shows in the frown and confused shake of his head.

She gives his hand a squeeze, and then lets her grip relax, content to rest her palm in his. Again, just simple human contact, nothing more and nothing less.

'I know what I did, I mean...'

Words don't seem adequate. She chews on her lips, her brow furrowed as it's her turn to stare at the upholstery.

'I could never undo the damage I did. But when I asked to stay, it wasn't because I was afraid to move on. I didn't want to leave you behind.'

There. Not entirely the truth, but then, neither of them are strangers to convenient fictions.

The damage I did - - he doesn't try to tamp down the anger that flares, but it dies out pretty quick. He does pull his hand back, and uses it to run over his face. His stubble itches.

'You didn' know what you were doing.'

Though it doesn't change the fact that he asked her to stop, over and over, and she wouldn't trust him.

...but that doesn't matter, does it? She had reason not to, in the end. And it was...himself, helping her. So he must have wanted- -

He scrubs his hands over his face.

'I'm gonna get dressed.'

He pulls himself up without looking at her. He doesn't look angry. Just like he doesn't want to get into it. There can be no winners in this conversation.

'Gene...'

It's no use.

She did know what she was doing. And in the end, she was doing it for him. He was the young copper with half a face, pushing her on.

'He needed a name. You needed a name.'

He stands still. His jaw clenches. He doesn't look at her.

'Yeah. Yeah.'

Now his head swivels, his eyes hard when they find her face.

'At all costs, right? Doesn' matter if that's what I wanted.'

He shouldn't say it, he knows it, but it comes out anyway.

'Don' try an' pretend you did it for me, Alex.'

Her voice stays level and cool.

'No, I did for my daughter.'

He shakes his head, and opens the wardrobe. How's he supposed to fight against that?

There are no suits in here. Fine. He grabs the nearest thing, and disappears.

She closes her eyes, and forces herself to take a deep breath. He just found out he's been dead for thirty years. He's allowed some leeway.

A knock at the door stirs her from the sofa, and she opens it to admit the rat with the waiter's trolley. She signs for it, and sends the creature along its way before he emerges again.

And then she pours herself a mug of tea, and pours him one as well. Hers gets doctored with milk and sugar, his with -- she counts them out carefully -- seven sugars. It's a seven sugar day.

When he emerges from the bath, she's waiting outside the door, patiently holding it for him.

He'd thought about a few things, that hour in front of the TV. Things that twisted the knife a bit deeper. And she'd come and sat down, and he tried to tell her something honest, and he got that. So...so, nothing. Who cares? He scrubs himself in the shower, hot enough to burn, and then shaves because he's still not a sodding hippy. Old Spice, and the jeans and rugby shirt he'd grabbed. He could still collapse from exhaustion, but at least there's anger enough to fuel him a while longer.

He emerges in a cloud of steam, and is pulled up a bit short to see her there, holding tea.

'That mine?'

She holds it out to him.

'Can we please try again?'

'Try what?'

He looks at her suspiciously, but he does take the drink.

'Being honest with one another. We've never really had the chance, and... Well, it looks like we need the practice.'

'I've always been honest with you. It's not my fault new information turned up.'

But it has. So, OK, things are different now.

'What're we practicing for?'

She wraps both hands around the mug and sips, giving him a Look over the brim.

'Why do we practice anything, Gene? So we get better at it.'

He hasn't always been honest with her. He lied when he told her she was a 'hindrance', at his own admission.

She rests one hip on the back of the sofa, fatigue drawing dark circles under her eyes, and etching deep lines around her mouth.

'After I was shot, I left your world... I went back, and I sent Molly to live with her father. And, I don't know what happened -- whether you pulled me back, or whether I came when you called. But I do know, I came back.'

That should count for something, shouldn't it?

He looks down at his feet. The mug of tea is hot in his hand, so he drinks some.

'I didn' pull you back.'

He came to meet her.

'I came because you were-'

He stops, because he hasn't thought this through. But he knows the answer anyway. And he remembers being pulled back from Spain because of it.

'Dying.'

Her head tilts to one side, and if she hadn't cried all night, her eyes would sheen. But she's too tired for that. The sadness is there, but it's a pebble in the ocean.

'It makes sense now, in as much as any of this makes sense.'

She idly makes her way over to the table, figuring that's safe territory for the two of them.

'So yesterday wasn't the first time I was late.' Nor the first time he'd waited for her.

'Weren't late. There isn' a timetable for this stuff.'

Very few set rules, either. But when he knows, he knows.

He follows her to the table. Why not? He slumps into a chair, and concentrates on his tea.

'It jus' happens.'

She nods, watching the curls of steam rise from the surface of the liquid.

'And you know...'

'Sometimes.'

He's been processing details; times, places, people. Trying to square it away into some sort of order, so he hopefully won't have to go over it again.

'Not details. Never details.'

His voice sounds rough as hell. Throat starting to hurt, despite the steam from the shower.

'Sometimes there's places I have t'be, that's all.'

For a long moment, she just sits and tries to wrap her mind around that.

'Did it happen with -- any of the others?'

He snorts a laugh, once more without humour.

'Never shot any of the others.'

He's been wrestling with this a bit.

'Hard to say with Shaz, when she got stabbed. I would've been there anyway, 'cos we were chasing the bloke. You remember Phyllis? Took her, I think. That Christmas in Manchester.'

He shrugs, and falls silent. So many incidents are tied into cases, and happen in the blink of an eye. He doesn't get a lot of time to think about it, most often.

Sam. Chris. Ray. Bammo. All of them. All lost little sheep, under his crook. All coming to terms with the means of their passing.

And him. Her gaze plays over his face. His skin looks thinner, more fragile, and she can't help but note the lines of his jaw, his cheek, his temple. Whole and unmarred by violence.

'And Keats?'

The muscles around his eyes tense. He stares at his tea, and then drinks, only instead of it being a slow, tired movement, it's quick and tight.

'What about him?'