Gene needs a hug.

WOW. Loved it.

Good lord. Wombledon warned me it was bleak... I love sloshing about in Gene's head, and you open it up to us very well. Poor lamb. All one can hope is that he did, and it did.

Don't know I've missed so many of your fics. Will go back and explore.

I was really excited to see your name alongside a new fic and you didn't disappoint even this is is so sad. The twist is brilliant, as is the emotions you convey so well. Poor Gene.

Utterly tragic but nonetheless stunningly well written fic.

It was that twist that had me reaching for the tissues...

Absolutely fantastic! Lovely, dark, and depressing! (that's a compliment. I promise. :) ) What an unexpected twist at the end! I absolutely loved it!

What a sad story, but beautifully told, and the idea that everyone is Gene's construct, rather than the other way around, is a great twist. Great stuff.

If this is a tad dark, Monkey, then I'm going to get a safety hat for when you do a really dark one. It's agonisingly bleak to read, and the twist that Gene was the real one, awakening from a coma to discover that all the others were constructs, is shattering. That final line makes his suicide appear inevitable - but, just as Sam killed himself to be reunited with the others, might Gene's bullet send him home where he belongs? Or only to the final oblivion he craves?

Bother you, you've made me cry...

Oh err - that was a bit bleak wasn't it? Very well written though and I could imagine Gene's thought processes being exactly as written.

Nicely twisted at the end with the revelation that its been Gene in the coma all along. And of course the final chilling line.

I may not sleep tonight.

Oh! Nice twist at the end there, Monkey. Bloody bleak stuff but wow. Nice one!

This is so desperately sad that it's impossible to read without a prickling sensation in the eyes, and so multi-layered that I had to go through it more than once, hoping to find something to hold on to. As you said, it is very dark, and though you leave the ending ambiguous enough, most readers won't doubt what happened next.

My only hope is that maybe there's another layer, that the various definitions of reality are themselves in doubt, and that there's a possibility for Gene to escape the hell he's in.

Very sad, but very well constructed and tight.

Brilliant assessment of Gene's state of mind, and you really did well in your use of quotations from the show :)

Oh no! Bless his heart..how very sad :-(

Gem x