This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper

~ The Hollow Men, T.S Eliot

Alex's hands were trembling. She could feel the cool, reassuring metal of her gun against the small of her back where she'd lodged it into her jeans for just in case, yet she still found herself jumping at each distant thud of a door, each faraway car engine and the clunk of the heating. She shouldn't be here.

Keats' office at night was much like the man himself during the day – dusty and dark, just too warm for comfort and filled with file after file, all letters and numbers - no emotion, no life, no memorabilia of a past life to suggest anything beyond a cramped, cardboard cut-out of a man who set her distinctly on edge, no matter the position he had tried to take on as her confidante. Alex took a deep breath and began searching.

At first all she found were copies of files for every case they had ever worked – not just Gene, but all of them, even before they had arrived at Fenchurch and, in the case of Ray, Chris and Shaz, even before they had worked under the Guv. Alex frowned. Why would Keats need information that dated so far back? Next came the Sam Tyler files – his cases, newspaper cuttings, witness statements and write-ups from after his death, the inconclusive report. There was nothing there that Alex hadn't already read and pored over before. She moved on, searching with frantic fingers through the filing cabinets for anything, anything, that might be considered out of the ordinary for a D&C officer, even one with an obvious grudge, to be storing.

"Come on, Keats, you bastard, what are you – "

Her eyes lighted on a bunch of files that looked newer than all the rest. Brows furrowing, Alex reached for them and heaved them from the back of the cabinet, holding them up to the dim, orange light. Her lips parted, eyes widening. These files were not simply 1983 new, with no dog-eared corners or tea stains or rumpled edges like the others. They were 2008 new, crisp manila with printed labels, 21st century Met Police standard. Alex felt herself sway a little, heard the reeling of a tape in her head and the shatter of a gunshot through her skull. The files fell from her arms and a second later scattered themselves across the lino floor.

She found pictures of herself staring up at her – surveillance photos from the day she had been shot, medical reports of her brain surgery, arrest files and photos of her from Molly's birthday parties and newspaper reports of her parents' deaths all arrayed before her. Falling to her knees, Alex began scrabbling though the countless papers – her exam results, photos of her at university, her wedding photos, Molly's birth certificate, the decree absolute of her divorce, her bank statements, her mortgage agreement, school reports and payslips and custody agreements. Her entire life packaged up into a few police files.

"No…"

The terrified word fell from Alex's lips as she stared at the accumulation of her life, the documents and photos that made up her existence. Then Keats knew. He knew who she was, where she was from, what had happened. He knew she was fighting to get home, to see Molly…and that she was dead. She was dead in 2008. She was staring at the death certificate, the police report and the news article to prove it.

Alex felt the panic build in her chest, airways constricting as she fought to rebuke the truth. Keat's office, shadowed in orange light and dust, swam before her vision, the musty smell bitter in her sinuses now as she choked back a sob, rigid fingers clutching her death certificate as though daring it to dissolve in her hand. She wasn't going home. She wasn't going back to Molly, back to her old life, her old self. The weight of these final truths clanged inside of her, a clock striking twelve – time's up, game's over, dead. Dead. Everything was swimming – the word that had appeared on the whiteboard that very first day as she attempted to brainstorm her way out of her own coma, Zippy telling Molly her Mum was never coming home, Molly fading from view down a long corridor, blurry birthday candles and a blurry little girl, jumping to catch a kiss blown from too far away, and Gene before her, all crocodile skin boots and blazing gun and – Gene.

Alex scrambled to her feet, tears hot and heavy in her eyes now as she turned her back on the files and memories littered across the floor. She threw herself across the room, jolting as though seasick toward Keats' desk, hands scrabbling at the locked drawers she had intended on moving onto next. Panting, still crying, she smashed them open, blindly grabbing the brown bags inside and emptying them out onto the floor. Labelled video tapes, one for each of them but her – Chris, Ray, Shaz, Gene… And police reports, write-ups across the decades of their deaths… PC Chris Skelton, shot to death on duty. DC Ray Carling, hanged – suicide. PC Sharon Granger, stabbed on duty. PC Gene Hunt…shot to death on duty.

Alex stared at them all with empty lungs, breaths scraping the back of her throat as she attempted to pull together the rift opening inside of her, tried to stop herself from teetering on the edge, falling into oblivion because all this time, all these years and…they were just like her. Chris, Ray, Shaz, even Gene… they were all the same, they had just… They had forgotten. Would she have forgotten? Would she have forgotten Molly, Evan, her parents? And then, as if the darkness could get deeper, the blackness bigger, there was a file left in the bottom of the drawer. Manila, again, marked with black marker in what she recognised as Keats' handwriting: DISCIPLINARY ACTION.

Alex removed it with shaking fingers, her spine quaking now as she knelt before files upon files of devastating truths. She slipped the papers from this final one out onto her knees.

It was a plan. Transfer statements for Ray, Chris, Shaz and herself to D&C, whatever those letters signified now. No officer needed this amount of information; no officer could have this amount of information for a simple inquiry. There were fabricated witness statements claiming Gene's culpability in Sam Tyler's death. Testimonies to Gene's temper and tendency for violence. Forged evidence reports and a list of payments to the witnesses. Report after report, receipt after receipt. It was a set-up on a grand scale, the most complex and intricate and perfectly planned she had ever come across. And finally, Alex found herself holding an arrest warrant for DCI Gene Hunt, dated ten days into the future. An arrest warrant for the murder of DI Alex Drake.

She couldn't breathe. She felt the chasm opening up inside her and around her and she stumbled to her feet, clutching the file, intent on running and telling Gene, on telling everyone, anyone who would listen long enough to do something, to stop this, to stop Keats. Her mind raced, tripping up over the facts and the details as her heart continued chugging blood around her body, battering her ribcage as she took two hurried steps forward, stumbling over pieces of paper and photographs and she needed to get out, needed to run, needed to tell someone and –

The door was opening. Alex froze, felt her heart and brain freeze in that moment and the shreds of frantic hope inside of her died. She felt the oxygen in her lungs turn to mist as the door creaked open further. Keats entered the office.

He didn't pause. He didn't blink. Didn't even show any sign of being surprised to find her there, surrounded by papers and clutching a file with the power to ruin them all. Instead, he let the door click shut behind him and looked at Alex as though she were a child caught raiding the kitchen at midnight. He looked sad, disappointed even, as he shrugged off his jacket and tossed it aside over a nearby cabinet. Alex still couldn't move, chest rising and falling but brain unable to motivate her legs. She stood there, caught in the trap, waiting for her captor's next move.

Keats only looked at her again, dripping false devastation, and murmured sadly, "Curiosity killed the cat, Alex."

So I haven't written prose, let alone fanfiction, properly in quite a while, as I've only really been writing sporadically for about a year now, so I'm viewing this story as a 'getting back into it' exercise as my exams draw to a close. This is probably going to be around 8 or 9 chapters long, I think. I have the second written already, but won't post it until I've written the third just to make sure I can keep up a steady and regular update schedule. I don't even know how many readers are still around for Ashes to Ashes, but I hope some of you are still interested! Please do let me know what you think and I'll have the second chapter up very soon!

Eleanor :)

~ all usual disclaimers apply