the_gene_genie | OOM: Room 6620, #4

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OOM: Room 6620, #4

He hadn't dozed for long yesterday. And it had been another restless night, although not as bad as before - he still gave up in the end though, and slipped out of bed before Alex woke up. He thought she'd be awake by the time he got out of the shower, but no.

He went downstairs for a pint. Ridiculous really, at that time of morning, but he always recommended the pub after long operations that finished in the morning, so why should now be any different?

Of course, he got a bit more than he bargained for.

Which is why he's not trying to be quiet when he comes back into the room. If she wakes up, good. She needs to hear this.

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He looks a bit taken aback.

'Didn't go anywhere. Left school at fifteen, worked in the mill, did National Service, became a copper.'

And she knows what happened after that.

His life prior to...what it became; well, he's starting to realise what it is about the whole thing that made him so furious. Or maybe he's just starting to remember, very much against his will. But he lays the basics out for her there in the hope that'll be enough to settle the question. It's all the truth, and there's very little practical information to add.

'You worked in the mill?' That's a new bit of information. She won't touch his formal education with a ten foot pole, because as far as she's concerned, he's a DCI. She's never doubted his qualifications in that regard. 'What -- kind of mill?'

She really has no clue.

'Well, I had to do something. Can't join the force until you're nineteen, an' National Service wasn't 'til eighteen.'

He looks out towards the lake.

'It was a cotton mill. I spent most of the time cursing the Jerrys for not dropping a bomb on it.'

He had a Saturday job in a garage as well, but he's not mentioning that in case she brings up the Quattro again.

'A cotton mill.' Hmm. She'll no doubt be researching that when she gets a chance. Maybe they have a library here? Surely, they must.

'And in the Army? Did you serve overseas?'

She's genuinely interested in hearing about his life, now that they can talk like this.

'Yeah. Far East.'

He'd enjoyed the Army, until they left the UK.

'Food were shit.'

Her eyebrows shoot up.

'Really. I've always wanted to see Asia. Never got the chance.'

She imagines her version of traveling and his are vastly different, but it'd still be fun to see the Great Wall with him, or take tea in a tea house in the Japanese countryside.

Hmm, on second thought, maybe not.

'I'm beginning to wish we'd filled out those dating forms a bit more thoroughly, now,' she says, her tone telling him she's teasing. 'Were you infantry? Or something else?' She has no clue what his military career would have looked like.

'Mmm, infantry. Manchester Regiment. And if your idea of fun is dragging your way through a jungle, bein' eaten alive by every insect you can imagine an' plenty you can't - then I'm sure you'd love it.'

He had not loved it.

'Germany were alright. Apart from bein' full of Germans, straight after a war with the bastards.'

'Mmm, no, no that doesn't sound like fun at all.'

She cuts a glance at him as they cross the treeline.

'I imagine you found a fraulein or two who weren't so bad.'

He shrugs.

''Course.'

Goes without saying, doesn't it?

'Some spat at us in the street, some used us to piss off their boyfriends, some just wanted a good time. Same as anywhere. Less complicated in Singapore, but same general idea.'

He's not ashamed to admit it. He was eighteen, and in the company of a large number of young men. Of course they were going to go looking for women.

She hums, smiling as she imagines a young Gene Hunt chatting up some blonde thing with huge tits. He must have oozed charisma even then. And testosterone, never forget the testosterone.

'How old were you when you married?'

Her tone gentles a bit at that. She's not sure if Barbara was left behind after his murder, or if she was another construct of his world.

'Dunno. Never got married, did I?'

He's looking far away, half wondering where she's going with this, and mostly not wanting to think about it.

She walks in silence for a long time, wondering herself where she's going with this. She wants to know about him, that's most of it. But he's a young man in an older man's body. How much of his "life" has he actually lived, she has to wonder.

'You don't remember your wedding?'

'Oh yeah, I remember the wedding. Stag do, proposal, whole works.'

He's bitter, and sounds it.

'None of it were real though, was it?'

He won't look at her either, because he's furious about this but it's not her fault. It's all on him.

'One morning I had a girlfriend. By teatime, I'd been married more than twenty years.'

How is that fair? How!?

Her brow furrows, and her gaze falls to the path ahead of them.

'But you have -- memories of the interim time. As far as you knew, you'd lived that life right up to the day you met me.'

He glances across at her now, trying to understand why she's not seeing the point.

'Yeah. But they're not real.'

He thought she was asking how old he was when he actually got married. But he never did.

'If you want my fake age for my fake marriage, I was twenty.'

'And did you fake love your fake wife?'

She may be trying to make a point.

He looks away again, his face setting hard. OK, now he's angry at her.

'If there's something you're trying to say, just say it.'

'What I'm trying to say is, it doesn't matter whether or not it actually happened in some world that went on after you left it. It happened to you. The emotions were real. The events you experienced are written in your memories. As far as you're concerned, it's as real as any life you would have lived had you never been shot.'

She's trying to be gentle about this, but he's never done well with gentle. Gentle and direct, maybe?

It's a delicate balancing act.

Edited 2012-08-09 01:22 (UTC)

'It would be if I'd never found out it was fake.'

But he has. So everything's different now.

Alex crosses her arms over her chest, and slows her pace, walking with her eyes closed for a few steps as she tries to think.

'Does it feel fake to you?'

He sighs, exasperated, and not convinced she isn't being deliberately obtuse.

'My wife used to nag me when I came home late without phoning, which was most nights. She used to give me an earful when I'd drank too much, also most nights. She cooked a fantastic steak and kidney pie, and had an arse that'd put any bird to shame. If she didn't talk to me for more than two days, it usually meant she suspected I'd got off with some slag, and I knew I wouldn't be gettin' my leg over for at least another week. She was blonde, and it wasn't out of a bottle, ever.'

He looks across again, his face still set hard.

'Barbara at eighteen used to burn toast. God knows what she'd do to suet pastry. She'd go to church every Sunday, and secretly drink when she was out with me - never gave me gyp for gettin' pissed. Once I'd persuaded her that sex before marriage wouldn' kill either one of us, she never denied me that either. And she definitely wouldn' have stayed blonde without help.

Point bein' - do they sound like the same to you? I don't know what she would've been like twenty five years later. So yeah, it seemed real an' it always would, if I didn' know better now. But I do. You think the mother you met is the same as the real one I knew? You're dreamin', Alex.'

His 'life' was real - but it's all been undermined now. He doesn't know what's real, or what he made up. He doesn't know if he based the people he loved on what he wanted them to be, or whether he took bits of reality and expanded them to the logical conclusion. Nothing he knows is based on solid ground, and it's one of the things that's so hard about this.

Listening to it all, her pace slows even more, until she's stopped in the middle of the path, taking in all this new information.

'I'm not dreaming, I'm trying to learn what happened to you, Gene. I only know what you tell me. And I know what I experienced when I was with you. When I first arrived, I thought it was all a mental construct, but you proved to me that didn't matter. Betty is real to me. She's a wonderful, warm, loving person who cares deeply about her son. And I saw how you treated her. I can't imagine you'll feel any differently about her even knowing what you know now.'

'I don't know how your world and the real world are intertwined, I don't know how to tell where one starts and the other ends. But they are connected. How else would Sam and myself and all the others, how else would we have found our way to you?'

'The one thing I do know is that what you feel is just as important as what you think, and if you can't know the truth, then maybe you should take your own advice and trust your gut.'

'Yeah, well, my gut's telling me that here...'

He stops, and looks away sharply.

'It does matter what's real and what's not, to me. Because I remember my mother when I were a kid, an' it's not much like the one waiting back in Manchester now. It won't matter when I'm there, 'cos I won't remember. But it does matter here.'

Who would enjoy knowing their entire life, as they know it, is a lie?

'The emotions might be real, but if they're based on somethin' fake then the whole lot comes down.'

She gives up trying to be a psychologist for a moment, and takes his hand.

'I know it's hard for you, staying here. I know you need to go back, to take care of your new charge. And I'm glad,' she swallows, looking down at her fingers interlaced through his. 'I'm glad you came to look for me. This is,' she holds up their hands, her chin wrinkling as she tries to find the words, 'more than I could have ever hoped for. A chance to tell you how I really feel about you.'

Her words taper off and she lowers their hands, but doesn't let go of him.

'Everything that's happened between us, that's real.'

He's quiet for a moment, letting the rising emotion calm.

Then he smiles a little, or tries to, and squeezes her fingers.

'I never said I doubted that.'

And he never has, in any significant way. On occasion, maybe. But not long-term, and not really since they met up again here.

It's starting to rain again. He looks up to the sky, then back at her.

'Lets go back in.'

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