the_gene_genie | OOM: 6620, #3

'Yes, but we wanted to do it for the right reasons. I don't want either of us to feel coerced, or worse -- used.'

She pulls back a bit to look into his face, the lines around her eyes etched deep with concern.

'I want to make love to you, Gene. And I can wait, if that's what we need to do. I'm not going anywhere. And it feels like you're -- like there's something wrong, still. Like there's still something hanging over us.'

She might recognise the expression on his face. She saw it when he walked around his desk to stand in front of her, and held a tape out, and said, why am I a threat to you? Hurt, and sad, and resigned. And just a little bit angry.

'You think there's still something hanging over us?'

Really!?

'Of course there's somethin' hanging over us, Alex. When do you think there's not going to be something hanging over us?'

He wants to say it doesn't matter, that them going to bed won't make it worse, or better, or change anything. It'll make them feel good, and they can forget for a bit, and eventually the sex would be for fun. And because of how they feel about each other. Not anything else.

Except, she's looking at him all worried, and asking what's wrong?, and the anger coils together and burns up his chest, up his throat and out of his mouth. How can she not know?

'I had half my head blown off. And you...you dug me up.'

He pulls back further, hands dropping away from her. But his eyes hold hers.

'Hope it feels better, touching me with skin on. Wouldn't like to think the bones did it for you.'

As soon as he says it, he wishes he hadn't. But it's too late.

And there it is. Her expression crumples in the face of it. Her hands don't let him go, because she needs him to know.

'Gene...'

He has every right to be angry. It was a horrible thing to go through, and she was on the outside, looking in. But she wasn't the one who pulled the trigger. She wasn't the one who suppressed the memory. And she wasn't the one who kept the truth from him.

'Do you think I wouldn't change it if I could? Do you think for one second that that's how I wanted it to play out? I never in a million years would have imagined that drive ending up with me kneeling over your grave. I never would have thought -- you could have kept such a thing from me. That you were dead, and that I was, too.' The tears come, and she tries to power through them.

'I'm sorry, and I know the words don't mean anything; they don't change the truth, but they're all I have. I'm sorry and I love you and if I could change it all I would, but I can't. All I can do is hold you and touch you and tell you I'm here now, I'm not going anywhere. Please, forgive me. Tell me what to do to make it right, and I'll do my best.' The last few sentences are barely intelligible as the sorrow twists her voice in her throat.

There is no rhyme or reason that will save her from this. And she knows it, somewhere deep down. But she'll still keep trying, right up until the very end. It's all she knows how to do.

He laughs, dry as done.

'No, you didn't imagine it would be my grave. You imagined it'd be Sam's - because you thought I killed him.'

He wants her to stop touching him, and get off, but short of pushing her on to the floor she's got him trapped. He puts a hand up to his forehead, the left side, and his eyes close as he feels, like he's checking it's still there.

'I said stop.'

He remembers it. He'd pulled a gun. He'd said it, and she just kept going.

'I said stop.'

And she's not about to let him run away again. This is happening now. He opened the box, and she's not going to let him stuff all this shit back in until they've got it sorted.

'I didn't know what to think, Gene. I believed you when you told me what happened to Sam, but it didn't make sense. None of it did, not until -- the farmhouse. You kept coming to me, listen to me.'

She takes his face in her hands, gentle but insistent, her fingers trembling against the side of his face. He's whole, and vibrant, and strong, and glorious. He's here, not mouldering in the ground in some unmarked grave.

'You came to me. From the very first moment I came back, you were there. Every time I turned around, in the archives, in my flat in the middle of the night, bloody hell, in the middle of Luigi's, you were there. And you wanted something from me. I should never have listened to Keats, I know that now, but I could never have turned away from -- God, it was horrific. I saw the wound, Gene. I saw everything, every detail. Your uniform, your hair, your eye, and -- the wound. You wouldn't let me not see it. I don't know why you don't remember, but you trusted me, or you knew I wouldn't let it go, but you came to me, can't you see?'

'Of course I don't soddin' remember. That's not me. That's...him.'

He can't explain it better than that. Especially not when she's laying out the gory details of what that shotgun did to him, all the stuff he's been trying not to think about. He shuts his eyes, and shakes his head.

'You think I'm real, Alex? One minute I'm a skinny, twenty-two year old, the next I wake up an' I look like this. He's back there, in the ground, and he's probably more real than I am.'

He grabs her hands away from his face, and slaps one down on his chest. His heart is thudding. Of course it is.

'It might be beatin', but it's not real. None of it is real. It doesn't matter what he wanted.'

Keats told everyone he was a fake, and he was right. Maybe his previous self was telling her the same thing, but it doesn't feel like it came from him, so he can't relate to it. That ghost doesn't feel part of him. It just looks how he used to look, before someone blew his head off.

Edited 2012-07-13 15:21 (UTC)

She presses her hand over his chest, and grabs his, clutching it over her own heart, forcing him to feel the pulse running through them both.

'I know you're real, Gene. And I know that you're him and he's you. You have to be. If you're not real, then I'm not real.'

Because she's dead, too. She doesn't know if the bullet took her in the hold of that barge, or if she died later, after sending Molly away to live with her father. She doesn't know where reality ended and the dream began, but it doesn't matter. It's real to her. He's real.

'It's different.'

He takes his hand off her.

'Physically, we're in graves. I don't know what you'd call us now. But I bet you-'

He stops, and lets out a breath. He's too tired to sustain this rage. He wants to, because it feels like living, but there's just not enough in him to keep going.

'He was twenty-two, an' a useless PC. This-' he gestures vaguely at himself, '-is what he thought he'd be, eventually. Maybe he would've been. I'm a walking product of my own imagination, Alex. Of course it's not real.'

'You're real to me, Gene. You're not a product of my imagination. You're too bloody minded to be that.'

Her anger subsides with his, but there's still an edge to her voice.

'Your imagination, your will and your desire to help others like us, it was strong enough to create this body, and a whole world. Fenchurch was my home, Gene. It's real to me and to all the others who came through your doors.'

She catches his hand between hers, pressing her cheek against the back of his knuckles.

'You're real to me. We're here, together. And when I'm with you, I feel alive.'

That is a solemn truth. She's felt more alive the last three years than she'd ever felt when she was in the 'real' world. And that's largely due to his influence, as infuriating as it was sometimes.

He takes his hand back. But he does breathe out, and there's a small smile left behind.

'Alright. Alright, that's...look, I wouldn' change what happened after. I'm glad I got the chance to do somethin'. Might have preferred having the conscious choice, but that's jus' details.'

All of this is just details, really. What's happened has happened, and what is, is. He wishes the why, and the consequences, and the way it hurts, didn't matter so much.

'And we can't change any of it. A week after I go home, I won't remember what happened, an' I'll be glad to forget.'

He knows this won't be news to her.

'But I do want to be with you as well. Even after...everythin'.'

He pulls away from her for the final time, and she takes the hint, slipping to her feet and pulling her robe closed, crossing her arms over her midriff. She paces across to the window, listening to him tell her he'll be glad to forget again. To undo everything she fought to do. Maybe even to forget this, whatever this is they've been dancing around the past three days.

'Do you? Want to be with the woman who dug up your grave? Or is that image going to appear in your head every time you look at me?'

She thought they were unbreakable, once. She's not so sure anymore.

'Yeah.'

No hesitation. He's glad of the space though, and runs his hand over his face before picking up his cigarettes.

'I do. And I don't think of that every time I look at you. I know why you did it. I just wish you hadn't.'

The view is still beautiful, and it doesn't soothe her. She drifts back to the table, eyes playing over the flat. The poster, the beds, the champagne.

'I'm not sorry I did it.' The ice rustles as she pulls the bottle out and reads the name. (Bollinger Knickers) 'I am sorry you had to be there, that you had to watch. But I'm not sorry I did it.'

She thought finding the truth would take her home. To Molly. She swallows back another wave of grief, stunned by how sharp that loss still feels.

'You would have done the same, if you were in my shoes.'

He fought hard to keep her from finding the truth. To keep her from going home. And in a way, he won.

'Not denying it.'

And he can't ask her to be sorry she did it. No, he wishes she hadn't. but did she have a choice? No.

'I told you it was pointless, though. I stood right there, and said that what you were looking for didn't exist.'

Because he knew it when he said it. Those few days with Litton were the first time he started to wake up. He's always said she wasn't going anywhere, but that was the first time he knew it strongly enough to come out and say it. But she couldn't take him at his word. Couldn't, ever, take him at his word.

'You did, didn't you?' There's a quiet, bitter laugh on her lips.

The Scotch bottle is next under her scrutiny, only this time she's pouring herself a glass, three fingers deep.

'But remember, you didn't believe me when I told you I was from the future, did you?'

She'd tried to tell him the truth, and he'd called her crazy. Called her a bad mother. But he didn't take her at her word either.

'I wasn' the one with the bloody TV talking to them! Everything seemed perfectly normal to me. You drop that on me out of the blue, what did you expect!?'

He sighs with irritation, and lights a fag.

'Piicking it over isn't going to help.'

'I expected you to believe me. I trusted you -- enough to tell you what my version of the truth was.'

She's facing away from him now, and it feels like she can still feel his anger radiating off him in waves. It hurts her skin to feel it.

'I still trust you. And picking it over is the only way we're going to sort this rotten mess, so we can get back to what we both want. What we both need. A place where we can be intimate with one another, without fear of old wounds opening every time we let ourselves be vulnerable.'

That's what this dance feels like to her. Reel her in and cut her open, one slice at a time. She suppose she deserves it on some level, but it's not what she'd call fun.

'What person in their right bloody mind would believe that? Seriously now, Alex.'

So what if it turned out to be the truth? He didn't know what he knows now.

'An' if you still trust me - Jesus, you didn't trust me when you wandering off with Keats, listenin' to him pouring poison in your ear.'

Yeah, that still cuts.

He snarls and she moves farther away from him, this time opening the wardrobe and idly shuffling through the contents.

'I had to listen to him, Gene. He was the only one who seemed to know what was really going on. You said it yourself, he's very good at what he does.'

Her hand lights on a speck of blue wool, tucked into his jacket pocket. It's her scarf, the one he gave her at Christmas that very first year. She tugs it free, winding it around her hand.

'If I hadn't listened to him, I'd be like the others. Trapped in purgatory. Forgetting who I was, where I'd come from. Forgetting my little girl.'

Weren't there nights when she wanted to forget? Just for a few minutes. Just so the pain in her heart would subside and she could take a free breath? Weren't there nights with him when she wanted so badly to forget, so she could take some comfort in his arms?

'That's what you wanted, wasn't it? For me to give up and stay? For me to forget, like you?'

Isn't that what she'd asked for at the end? Begged, even pleaded for?

'It's not Purgatory,' he says immediately, like a father defending his child.

'No ones atoning for sins.'

He sees the scarf and deflates a bit. He was going to give that back to her. And her words - he can't defend against an accusation like that, and he doesn't have the energy to try.

She's folding that thing around her hand, and he remembers that Christmas. She as much as told him it would never happen, and he'd been quietly gutted. But now...they're here. And ruining it all over again.

He looks down at the floor, the fight draining out of him.

'It wasn' about giving up,' he mutters. 'I just want the team to work, an' when someone doesn't fit in...'

He shrugs. As far as he's concerned, it's man-management. Like he said to Sam once, he spends his time listening to the cogs in the machinery. She was out of sync, just like he was.

'When you talked about leaving, I thought you were on about transferring out. Going back to where your daughter was. Or, I think I did. I didn't give it much thought.'

He pulls smoke from his cigarette, and blows it out carefully. Christ, he is knackered.

'I just didn't want you to go away.'

'And yet, at the end, you told me I couldn't stay. That I was a hindrance. That you couldn't have me around because I'd put you off your stride.'

She finally turns and looks at him, and maybe he can see just how much his words hurt her.

'Why did you say that? If you didn't mean it.'

'I did mean it.'

He looks up, confused about her misinterpretation.

'Not about you being a hindrance. I already told you that. But you would put me off my stride.'

There must be Scotch. He gets up and pours one for himself.

'The new bloke's already turned up. It was weird enough putting him in his place while I remembered. If you were there an' all...the place isn't built for me to know what I'm doin', Alex. If I felt like I do now every day, I wouldn' be any use to anyone.'

They need him to be the one fully sure of himself. When they stumble in, scared and not having a clue what's going on, they need him to say 'be here at nine tomorrow', and 'that's your flat, go and live in it', and 'pub, now, and first round's on you'. With a purpose, they can start to sort themselves out.

He drinks, and watches her over the rim.

'When I was on the floor in CID, Keats told all of you that what you had there was living. Somethin' poncy about how you breathe, and love, or somethin'. And you shook your head, and said no.'

He puts his glass down, and crosses his arms. His voice is quiet, but firm.

'You wouldn't want that life, an' you know it. Because it's not real, and it's not Heaven for anyone but me. If I let you stay, I'd be doing everyone a disservice. Probably you most of all.'

'But we'd be together.'

Wasn't he just telling her, just this morning, how he's not sure the bar will let him come back?

Didn't he tell her he loved her this morning? Or did that all happen to someone else?

'Isn't that what you wanted? Isn't that what you fought so hard to have happen?'

'Yeah, it is.'

He passes a hand over his forehead. If this is what talking about things is like, he's glad he doesn't make a habit of it.

'That's why I kept tellin' you to leave it. That's why I-'

OK, how to say this?

'-I had the idea that if the date went well, we could stop what Keats was doing. You and me, together. That's why I kept telling you not to help him, and not to trust him, and you just wouldn' listen.'

Not angry this time. Resigned.

'If I could stop Keats, then the world would hold and you'd still be there with me. All of you would, an' it could be like always. Of course it's what I wanted.'

He walks towards her. Stops a foot away, and looks her in the eye.

'You probably did the right thing.'

She feels like she's twelve years old again, sitting on the foot of the bed in the dark with her arms wrapped around her knees, waiting to hear her parents coming up the stairs. Willing them to come home with every fibre of her being, knowing that it wasn't going to happen just because she wanted it to. She thought if she could only wish hard enough, if she could undo whatever mistake she'd done, that she could have them back. But it wasn't enough. It would never be enough to bring them back.

She's holding onto the blue scarf like it's the only solid thing in her world, and when he approaches, she unconsciously takes a step towards him, catching herself when he stops.

'Right now, it doesn't feel like it.'

Because he's there, and she's here. And it feels like the chasm between them is measureless.

'I don't want it to be like it was, Gene. I don't want to fall asleep every night on the couch because I've been waiting for the bloody television to give me some bit of news. I don't want to wake up alone, wondering where you are and what you're doing.'

She remembers the snippet of that Billy Joel song, and laughs through tears, looking down at the scarf again, unable to hold his gaze.

'I want so much more than that.'

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