Notes: This story started its life not long after the finale of series 2. As such it doesn't take into account anything we've seen during series 3. In my head Gene didn't run for long because that's not what Gene does.

The lyrics in the chapter are from Mirror Mirror, by Dollar

Thanks: To Wombledon, for going above and beyond the call of Beta'ing duty in order to make this thing readable.

To Sarah Blackwood, for putting up with me, and to the kind souls who reviewed chapter one.

~x~

Reached out a hand to try again.
I'm floating in a beam of light with you.
- I Ran (So Far Away) A Flock Of Seagulls

~x~

As he watched the sleet settle and then slide off the windscreen, the enormity of his situation began to sink in.

Fishing inside his coat for his cigarettes and lighter, his hand brushed the cold metal of his gun. Pulling it from the holster, he turned it over in his gloved hands, before placing it on the dashboard in front of him.

He had shot her.

He had shot her. He had made a very public threat to kill her if she stood in his way. Now she had a bullet embedded in her gut.

He had shot her. He had run, and he didn't need twenty odd years experience as a police officer to know how that might look.

He had shot her. He had left her for dead.

He once told her that, "Nobody knows anyone and the great lie of this life is we pretend we do."Perhaps the great lie of his life was that he didn't know himself.

Once upon a time, before she landed in his life, before he moved to London, before Sam went, he would never have dreamt of running. He would have fought his corner and held his ground. Not this time. This time, unable to face what he had done, he turned tail and fled. A cowardly lion.

He lit a cigarette and inhaled a great lungful of smoke, then exhaled it into a cloud that gathered above his head. Across the water a million lights glimmered in the darkness as London continued on indifferent to his plight, and as he watched the rush hour traffic crawl along the opposite bank he wondered how, in a city so big, he had ended up completely alone.

If he was honest the feelings of isolation weren't new to him. In fact, if he was completely honest with himself he knew exactly when the feeling had taken root inside him; growing in his heart like damp black moss on a wall. November 19th, 1978. The day the Decree Absolute was signed, officially ending his marriage of twenty years.

Ray suggested a drink to celebrate his new found freedom and although he didn't feel like celebrating, he needed no excuse for drinking.

At the end of the evening he found himself standing at his front door, swaying slightly and struggling to get his key into the lock. He waited for the click of a switch and the flood of light in the hallway beyond, her fractured form seen through rippled glass as she approached the door on the opposite side, poised to berate him about the lateness of the hour, his level of intoxication. But it didn't come. Instead he let himself into the darkness of the house, tripped over the doormat and collided with the newel post she always nagged him about dumping his coat on.

Uttering numerous colourful expletives he fumbled about, searching for the light switch, only for the filament to burn brightly for an instant and blow out, leaving primary coloured streaks across his vision. He crashed into the telephone table and felt about on top of it for the gaudy lamp that should have been there. But the lamp, like the former Mrs Hunt, was gone.

He didn't know what to expect from the end of his marriage but what he didn't expect to feel was the overwhelming sense of loss that engulfed him. It wasn't as though he wanted reconciliation. He didn't even contest the petition, which cited his unreasonable behaviour, despite the fact that he suspected there to be a third party involved. He realised that it was a long time since his marriage had been about love; if it ever had been. His marriage was about duty and convenience; though he gave little thought to how convenient is was for her. He should have been glad, ecstatic even. She made it all so terribly easy for him to walk away and yet, sitting on the bottom stair, he grieved his loss, the emotion amplified by the hollow house.

In the months that followed he masked the feeling of loss and papered over the cracks by carousing with the lads. He took frequent advantage of Sam and Annie's hospitality and he ignored the voice at the back of his mind that told him they were acting out of pity. He seized any distraction and threw himself even deeper into work. For a time, he even believed that it was working.

Then Sam disappeared.

Sam disappeared and everyone presumed him to be dead; drowned in the river. Certainly all the evidence suggested it to be the case. But despite the evidence, he was unable to just give Sam up, write him off. With no finality about the situation he was unable to move forward and instead of healing over, the wound remained raw.

When Charlie Macintosh called him out of the blue to tell him about a job opportunity in his division he snapped his hand off at the chance to escape Manchester.

Once he arrived in London, he hit the ground running, and at first, he was so busy tidying up the mess left by his predecessor to have time to think beyond his everyday existence. However, all too soon, thoughts about the uncertainty of his friend's fate began to creep back, unbidden and unwelcome. Having Ray and Chris with him was both a blessing and a curse. Some days, he found comfort in reminiscence whilst on others, it was like salt in the wound. On those days, he withdrew from them and assumed the role of watcher where once he would have been the one being watched, and then she exploded into his life. Alex Drake. All long legs, big eyes and an even bigger gob.

From the moment he carried her into his world, she was a thorn in his side, albeit one which he wanted. Desperately. Initially it was just a case of wanting shag her, any which way he could, and he spent many a happy hour doodling and daydreaming over the whys and wherefores. After a while, when the lust settled, it seemed that she had come to him for a reason. Of course he didn't believe in airy-fairy notions such as fate or destiny, but from the day they met he was unable to shake the feeling that there was a purpose for their meeting. He often wondered if she felt the same way because she asked him, several times, about why she was there. Each time, dependant on his mood and unable to find the words to express what he felt, he gave her a glib response about policing the mean streets or making his world a prettier place.

Life in London was far from perfect but for a while, with her around, it seemed to get a little brighter. For a while, when she was with him, the fact that Sam wasn't became a little easier to live with; and it made her eventual betrayal all the more painful.

But she hadn't really betrayed him, had she? He knew from the way that the day's events played out at least some of what she told him was true. But what of the rest? The rest wasn't just a lie; it was a fantasy worthy of H. G. Wells. A story so ridiculous it couldn't be borne out of anything but utter contempt for him. It was as though she was mocking him; laughing at just how readily he – the gullible fool - trusted her. There was no way it could be true, could it? "Just like Sam Tyler" she said. Just like Sam how?

What would Sam make of all this? Perhaps if Sam was still around then he wouldn't be in the mess he was in. But why the hell should he give a shit what Sam thought of all this? Sam didn't care what he thought when he told him to wait for back up. Sam didn't give a monkey's about his opinion when he went after the blaggers on his own, and look what happened to him.

If he had stayed there would have been awkward questions he wasn't sure he could answer.

Looking down at the packet of cigarettes lying on the seat beside him he saw that it was empty and that the ashtray, by contrast, was overflowing. He picked up the packet and crushed it in his fist before discarding it in the foot well on the passenger side. The side where she used to sit, gripping the door handle and griping about the white-knuckle nature of his driving. She protested too much, of that fact he was certain.

He tilted his head back to rest it on the padded head restraint and closed his eyes. The image of Alex Drake lying motionless on the ground floated before him. Instinctively he reached out to her and grabbed only at thin air while she slipped away from him, like water from a cupped hand. He brought his fist down hard on the dash, causing the gun to jump. He looked at the revolver lying before him. If a coward was what he was, if that was his true nature, then who could blame him for taking the coward's way out of this mess?

He reached out and his fingers skimmed the length of the gun. Gripping the butt tightly in his right hand he slowly raised it to eye level and tilted it upwards so that the barrel pointed toward the roof of the car. He only realised that the gun was resting against his temple when he felt the cold of the metal spreading down his face like icy fingers. His will no longer his own; he dragged the muzzle down the side of his cheek, over his jaw line and under his chin, his finger hooked in over the trigger...

"Oh go on, Geeene." Her voice was soft and low in his left ear and he felt the hairs on the back his neck prickle.

"What are you waiting for, Geeene? Just do it." Her tone was the one she used when she wanted him to do something he didn't want to do.

"A split second that's all it'll be. A split second and it'll all be over. There won't even be time for it to hurt. If only it were the same for me." The tone that, to his mind, promised so much and hinted that it would be worth his while to go along with her wishes.

"There's nothing left here for you now, Geeene." He would dig his heels in when he heard that tone. He would never allow her to get her way that easily.

"Just finish it, Gene."

But she usually got her way, in the end.

He felt his index finger flex involuntarily over the trigger, his jaw clench, and he was powerless to do anything about it. It proved harder to pull the gun away than it was to place it there. His hand was heavy, leaden. It was as though his consciousness had left his physical form and he was watching on as an outsider. His mind was fighting a battle with his body, and it wasn't winning.

"Do it." Her tone short, sharp, a command.

"No." He said aloud.

Her voice changed then. The honey drip intonation that made his trousers tight and his will weak was gone. Replaced by the note of barely concealed contempt she used to say his name when she believed him to be no more than a figment of her wild imagination.

"Do it, Gene, DO IIIIIT! No one wants you here, Gene, there's no one here to miss you, Gene, no one here gives a SHIT about you, Gene. Why should they, Gene? What have you done for them, Gene? NOTHING, Gene. That's right, Gene, NOT ONE THING. Might as well end it, Gene. GO ON THEN. Pull the trigger. What's the matter, Gene? Not scared are you? Oh, you ARE. Go on COWARD - DO IT. You're weak, Gene. WEAK. A pathetic, WEAK, COWARD. You spend your life playing the big man, then it all gets a bit tough and you run. Go on, GENE, DO IIIIIIT!" The last of her words were soaked with a venomous rage, and her image floated before him again; her face contorted in a rueful laugh.

He felt his finger flex again and bellowing from deep within his chest he wrenched the gun away from under his chin and emptied the entire contents of the barrel into the space beside him, shattering the passenger side window before ferociously flinging the spent firearm into the foot well.

Staring through the windscreen into the blackness, he gripped the steering wheel with shaking hands and breathed deeply in an attempt to calm himself. Then he reached into the inside pocket of his overcoat and pulled out his hip flask and undid the cap, which slipped from his fingers and rolled beneath his seat. Putting the flask to his lips he tipped his head back and drained its meagre contents. It was enough, for now.

If he had stayed, then he might have been able to persuade them that he didn't mean it, that the shooting was accidental and that he tried to protect her.

If he had stayed, he could have told them about the standoff with Boris Johnson. He could have told them how Jeanette held a gun to Alex's throat, how he pulled the trigger in an attempt to defend her from Jeanette and missed. How he would never dream of hurting her intentionally. He winced at the thought of things he said to her, all that stuff about how cold she was, and about her daughter. He didn't mean any of it. He was just lashing out as a frightened animal might do if it felt cornered.

He needed to tell he was sorry. He needed to know if the connection he felt they shared was still there.

He needed to know if she was alive or dead.

Reaching down, he flipped on the Quattro's radio and began twisting the tuning dial, hurriedly searching the stations for a news report. Personality DJ's prattled on... a traffic report... something poppy and banal from the chart... "In a moments anger I will freeze the frame, But my feelings for ya how they will remain"... a station that was almost certainly a pirate and then...

"...a spokesman for Metropolitan Police confirmed that they are seeking one of their own officers in connection with the shooting of Detective Inspector Alex Drake. DI Drake was among six people shot during the course of an attempted raid on a security van carrying gold bullion, which took place in the King Douglas Lane area of the city earlier today. The spokesman also confirmed that they are holding several men in connection with the robbery but refused to be drawn on speculation that the men in custody are police officers too. In other news..."

That was it. There was nothing more than he already knew. The newsreader used the word shot though, not dead. That had to be a good thing, didn't it?

He turned the radio off with a click; the percussive sound of hailstones that hit the body of the car and bounced into the night air was the only sound that remained. Even with its shattered window the relative warmth of the car made him feel safe, cocooned against the outside world, but he knew that he couldn't continue to use it as it would be far too conspicuous. He would have to continue on foot.

He switched on the engine and wiping away the condensation from the windscreen, he drove slowly towards the imposing hulk of a derelict warehouse rising from the gloom at the farthest end of the loading wharf. A task that was easier said than done as he dared not switch on the headlights for fear of drawing attention to himself.

Reaching the warehouse, he eased the Quattro through a gaping hole in the rotten corrugated iron that ran the length of one side of the building. Once inside it was so dark that he was left with little alternative but to switch on the car's sidelights, but even with the illumination they provided he could barely make out anything more than a few feet in front of him.

Suddenly a flock of pigeons reared up through the beams raising up a heavy dust cloud and startling him.

"Shit!" he uttered, braking heavily and letting out a strangled noise somewhere between a shout and a laugh. Frightened by a load of bloody birds! No doubt Bolly would find that hilarious.

Succumbing to his growing impatience he chanced switching from sidelights to high beam. In their sweep he caught sight of an area to the rear of the building that was partitioned off from the rest of the vast warehouse. He drove the Quattro into a secluded corner behind the partition and switched off the engine and lights.

Climbing from the car he stumbled over a mound of something that turned out to be a tarpaulin. He locked up, then shook away the layer of grime from the tarp and hauled it over the top of the car. It wasn't quite large enough to cover the whole car but he did his best to obscure the exposed sides. Finally he brushed the dirt from his hands, pulled the collar of his overcoat up around his ears, stuffed his hands deep into its pockets and made his way back across the deserted warehouse out into the bitterly cold night.

Once outside he lit his last cigarette and with his head bowed against the driving sleet he marched off in the direction of civilisation, or whatever passed for it in these parts.

He knew that every Bobby in London would be on the lookout for him so he did his best to stick to the back roads, slipping in and out of the shadows cast by the sodium street lights. Trudging through the maze of anonymous streets he eventually reached the outskirts of a sprawling council estate that consisted of low-rise flats and maisonettes, and three huge tower blocks that dominated the skyline for miles around. All about him the walls were daubed with graffiti and the streets were strewn with debris. The estate was like several on his own patch. - His patch, he could hardly call it that any more could he? –They were rat runs and policing them was a complete nightmare.

At the foot of one of the tower blocks stood a row of tatty looking shops and an even rougher looking boozer. The shop furthest away from him appeared to be an Off Licence. He was desperate for a drink and of the two places the Offy was definitely the safer bet; walking into a pub like the one he stood opposite would be akin to a lone male lion daring to use a watering hole on another prides' territory. At the very least he stood to be identified and grassed up by the sort of scum that would delight in seeing a copper banged up. Worse still, he stood to have seven shades of shit kicked out of him first.

The one thing that did seem to be going in his favour was the appalling weather. It was common for youths and miscreants to congregate in places such as this little precinct, but the sleet and hail had driven everyone indoors. The few people who were about were too busy hurrying to escape the downpour to notice him loitering around.

As he crossed the street, his view of the area beyond the shops widened and opposite the Off Licence he spotted a red telephone box. Its condition wasn't as pristine as the one that he sprinted past earlier that day, the majority of the glass panes were smashed and the red paintwork was mostly obscured by the same graffiti that adorned every other surface around him. Inside the box the smell of piss would have been overwhelming were it not for the ventilation provided by the broken windows, mercifully however, the sound of the dial tone buzzed when he lifted receiver to his ear.

Sheltered inside the telephone booth he watched as the sole patron of the Off Licence gathered up his purchases from the counter, stuffed them into a grubby blue holdall and trudged from the store, leaving the bell above the door jangling loudly in his wake. Inside the shop, the girl behind the counter clambered onto a high stool and began flicking channels on a TV set mounted on a bracket somewhere high on the wall opposite her. She looked like the sort of girl who was unlikely to be eager to keep herself abreast of the latest news and current affairs and he had a hunch that the programme she eventually settled down to watch was a soap.

"I hope I'm bloody right," he muttered to himself as he crossed the road and entered the shop.

The girl didn't even look around when he walked in; she was too engrossed in the goings on in Crossroads Motel to pay any attention to him.

Unlike the old-fashioned corner shops, the Off Licence was laid out more like a supermarket and the hard booze was tucked away in a corner at the back. "A shoplifter could have a field day in here," he thought, as he made his way over to it. Once there, he picked up a bottle of single malt, but then a thought occurred to him and he put it back, plumping instead for a half bottle of a far cheaper and no doubt nastier blended variety. On his way to the counter he passed a shelf filled with biscuits and he grabbed a packet of Digestives. He dropped the bottle down heavily on the counter in order to get the attention of the shop assistant, who was sat her back to him.

"Yeah?" She turned to face him, starring at him with her head cocked to one side as she chewed gum open mouthed. He guessed that the girl was no more than about twenty years old but she already had the sallow skinned and sunken-eyed look of most of the women from these estates, accentuated by a ratty bleach blonde ponytail pulled high upon her head. Alex used the word 'chav' to describe women like this, but from what he knew of Cockney rhyming slang he understood 'chavvy' to mean baby. He would have called her a scally.

"Those, ta," he said, pushing the bottle and the biscuits towards her "and twent... uh, ten Rothman's."

She turned to get his cigarettes from the display and he opened his wallet to discover that he was right to be prudent about his purchases. Twenty quid and the shrapnel in his pocket was all he had to his name. With little chance of getting his hands on any more cash any time soon, legitimately at any rate, God only knew how long he would have to make the money last.

"Can you give me some change for the pay phone, Love?" he asked, nodding in the direction of the box outside and handing over a tenner.

The girl sucked in a breath then blew it out in a pink gum bubble as she rolled her eyes at him and sloped over to the till. She punched in the prices, stabbed at the draw release with a chipped cerise fingernail and then scraped the change from the plastic tray.

"S'that it?" she asked, sounding thoroughly bored and dumping a pile of change into his open hand.

"Yeah, er, you haven't got a phone book I could borrow, have you?"

"You're right, I 'aven't," she said and went back to watching TV.

Sensing that the conversation was over Gene, pocketed the change, grabbed the flimsy carrier bag that now contained all the things; sugar, booze and nicotine that he relied upon to keep his sanity - or mask his insanity - and stomped from the shop, with his head bowed. On his way out he passed an old geezer on his way in.

"'Ere, don't I know you from somewhere, Sonny?" the man asked in an accent so strong that he likely suffered with tinnitus from being born so close to St Mary-Le-Bow.

"No, don't think so," Gene muttered. As he walked away he caught a brief snatch of the old man's conversation.

"Dunno, Stace," he said, "but 'e smelled like Old Bill to me."

He risked a glance backwards over his shoulder and saw the two of them starring at him through the grimy window of the Off Licence. He was running out of time. Common sense told him that he should move on from this spot, that he had lingered too long and drawn too much attention to himself, but his legs and his heart were weary and he couldn't go on wandering aimlessly through the streets. His next move needed to have a purpose.

He crossed back to the telephone box and once inside, pulled the door tightly shut behind him.

He took the whisky and cigarettes from the bag and placed them on the little shelf next to the telephone. The pack of Digestives came next. With that morning's double bacon and egg butty little more than a distant memory, he tore away the wrapping and ravenously shovelled four of the biscuits into his mouth at once, covering himself in crumbs. Half a packet later, his hunger suppressed, he tucked the remainder into his coat pocket and took a great slug of the whisky he'd bought. The liquid was harsh, scraping at his throat like wire wool, but he was glad of the warmth that spread across his chest.

After a call to directory enquiries, he had a list of numbers for every hospital in the London area and he began to work his way through them one by one. Dialling numbers, asking and answering the same questions over and over...

"Are you a relative, Sir? Not to my knowledge but I'll check our admissions list for you, Sir. No, I'm sorry, she wasn't brought here."

Each time he replaced the receiver he scrubbed ferociously at a number on his list with his pen. He was rapidly running out of options.

St Thomas' was practically the last on the list and so far from the scene of the incident that the chances of her having been taken there were almost zero, but he had to try it. He didn't want to contemplate the alternatives until he exhausted his current line of enquiry. If he was honest with himself he didn't want to contemplate the alternatives at all.

He fed some more change into the phone and dialled the number.

"Good evening. St Thomas' Hospital. How may I direct your call?" the efficient voice of the switchboard operator answered.

"I need to speak to someone about an emergency admission, please," he replied.

"Please hold," came the cool reply.

The line went silent save for a rhythmical clicking sound that told him he was still connected. He drummed his fingers on the top of the telephone in time to its metronome beat and glanced about, still acutely aware of the precarious position he was in. He was just switching the receiver from his right to his left ear in an effort to relieve the crick in his neck when he heard another voice.

"Admissions," an older female voice said. "Hello? Admissions. Hello, is anyone there?" she repeated tentatively when he didn't respond.

"Yes, I'm here, sorry," he replied, juggling the telephone.

"Oh good, I thought maybe you'd got cut off. We've been having some problems with the phones. Now, how can I help?" she said cheerily.

He wasn't sure that there was a whole lot to be cheerful about but her friendly demeanour did at least make a welcome change from that of some of the officious bastards he'd already had the misfortune to speak to.

"Could you check if a woman called Alexandra Drake was admitted this afternoon, please?" he replied, getting straight to the point.

"Are you a relative, Sir?"

"No, no I'm not; I'm a friend, I suppose."

"You suppose?"

"Yeah, uh, sorry, yes I'm a friend. I heard about the shooting on the news but they didn't say which hospital Alex was taken to. I've called all the numbers I know but I can't get hold of anyone who can tell me where she is," he said, bending the truth a bit. "She's been a good friend to me and I need to know that she's all right," he added, entirely truthfully this time.

"Okay, m'love. I'll check for you. Hold again, for a moment."

The line fell silent again and he resumed his anxious drumming before finally giving in and lighting another fag from his ration in an effort to quieten his nerves.

"I've checked the records for you, Sir," interrupted the voice. "She was admitted earlier today."

"How is she?" he asked, his heart in his mouth.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but I don't know. This is just the admissions section," she answered, sounding genuinely apologetic. "I can transfer you to reception in casualty, if you'd like?"

Hearing bleeps, Gene dropped another 10p into the phone. "Yeah, transfer me, please. Thanks, love."

After another few minutes of listening to clicks, someone eventually picked up but he got nowhere.

"It's hospital policy, Sir. We don't give out patient information over the phone."

"Look, I'm not asking for details. I just need to know… I just need to know if, if well..." He stopped, unable to say the words aloud. "Please, love, just tell me how she's doing. Please – is she dea… is she alive?"

The woman on the other end of the line relented. "She was alive when she left Casualty for surgery a few hours ago. She made it through the operation and is in recovery but has not yet regained consciousness," she said sympathetically.

He didn't reply.

"Sir? Are you still there?"

"Yeah, yeah. Still here. Thanks for your help. Bye." he said, forcing the words out over the lump in his throat. He placed the receiver back in the cradle, stubbed out his cigarette and rested his head on his arm. He stayed like that for a while, concentrating on the circular pattern of his breathing. He had the answer he wanted to hear. She was still with him, but he couldn't find any comfort in the thought. All he could think of was that it might already be too late. That she might still physically be here in his world, but in reality she was lost to him.

Suddenly he wheeled around and aimed a blow at one of the last intact glass panels on the opposite wall of the booth. He struck it full on and the glass cracked and sliced into the leather of his glove, drawing blood from the knuckle below.

He knew almost before he did it that it was a bad idea. If he hadn't already drawn enough attention to himself, then punching the glass panels out of a phone box was a good way to ensure that he got plenty. Without stopping to look around, he gathered up his things and tucked them haphazardly into every available pocket, before hastily exiting the phone box.

He needed to get to St Thomas' hospital, but he had walked so many unfamiliar streets in an effort to evade capture that he no longer had any idea where he was. The answer to his predicament came in the form of the tower blocks that stood at the heart of the estate.

He climbed the twenty odd flights of stairs to the roof of the tallest tower. The view from the roof gave him a panoramic view of the city, and almost gave him a heart attack into the bargain but he couldn't chance getting trapped in one of the decrepit lifts that served the building. From the top he managed to make out the wharf where he abandoned his car and along the skyline a face of the Clock Tower at the Palace of Westminster, which glowed like a harvest moon through the low cloud. St Thomas' hospital was situated directly across the river from it.

More by luck than good judgement he had walked in the right direction from the off, and so was over half way to the hospital. From his vantage point he managed to work out which direction he needed to head in once he got back to ground level, but he cursed himself for his complete reliance on his beloved car. If he'd bothered to venture out on foot more regularly or use the labyrinthine tube system he might have known which lines went to where. As it was he didn't have a clue so he couldn't even use the stations to navigate at street level. Eventually he decided to follow the path of the river. It was possible that it could leave him more exposed but he would be less likely to lose his bearings. He would just have to be on his guard.

It took considerably less effort to descend the twenty-four flights of stairs he climbed to reach the roof. When he reached the entrance hall of the flats, he allowed himself another gulp of whisky and a cigarette as reward for his efforts, and then set off once more in the direction of the river.

~x~

The route along the river took him past the barge moorings. The party boat where his team hauled in Edward Markham and his cronies. The place where he first clapped eyes on Alex Drake.

He didn't believe in love at first sight, most of the time he struggled to believe love existed at all, but his first sight of Alex Drake might well have been the closest he had ever come.

The place was dark, silent. He stood for a moment and watched the lights reflect white and red in the water below him; like paste diamonds and bright red lip-gloss. Suddenly an image of Alex shimmered bright beneath the surface, and then rippled and faded to be replaced by a new one. Alex again, but not like the Bolly he knew. This Alex was colourless; her clothes drab, her hair dragged back into a tight ponytail, her face ashen.

A car backfired like a gunshot somewhere close and made him start. He watched in horror as a light above her left eye glowed a deep red and then spread out around her in a sickening halo as she slipped further under.

"Help me Gene," she mouthed.

"Alex," he croaked.

For the second time that night he reached out to her, willing her to take his hand, desperate to pull her back to him. She reached back, grasped at the water that slipped through her frail fingers. There was a look of fear in her eyes and he could only watch on helplessly as she drifted away, becoming more and more translucent until she was nothing but light and shadow.

"Alex." He whispered hoarsely as he continued to stare into the water below him.

He remained like that for some time before his reverie was broken by the sound of a thick voice behind him, and the overwhelming stench of meths and decay.

"Poor wee lassie. She dinnae stand a chance... Bastard should be strung up..." A tramp with a broad Glaswegian accent slurred as he stumbled past. "Poor, poor girl, such a pretty lady..."

"Oi! Watch it," Gene barked as the tramp bumped into him.

"Shhhorry, pal. Dinnae see y'there," the tramp replied.

"I'm not surprised, drinking that shit," he muttered, nodding at the bottle in the tramp's hand and quietly grateful that he hadn't been reduced to the same state quite yet.

"Eh, y'gorra light, pal?" the tramp asked as he rooted through the folds of his many layers of clothing and pulled out a half smoked cigarette.

Gene scoffed. "You must be ruddy joking. If I give you a light, you'll go up like a Guy on Bonfire night."

"Ah piss off then. I wouldnae scrounge a light outta ye if ye were the last bastard on this earth, Gene Hunt!" The last of the tramp's words, far from being muddled and slurred, were clear and barbed.

Gene stopped short at the sound of his own name and turned to face the tramp.

"Aye, I know all about you, Hunt!" The tramp sneered as he pulled himself up to his full height and faced Gene down. "All about what you did. An' I tell you what, you'll pay for it right enough. You're goin' right to hell, pal!" The tramp spat, his eyes flashing with malice.

It was all Gene could do to stop himself recoiling at the sight of his yellowed eyes and black, gaping mouth.

Then as quickly as his moment of lucidity came, the tramp returned to his hunched form and shuffled away towards the gangway, cursing under his breath.

"Get a bloody grip, Gene," he thought, as he watched the man go, angry with himself for allowing his imagination to get the better of him once again.

He turned his back to the river and rubbed fiercely at his face with gloved hands in an effort to obliterate the things he'd seen. But like red wine stains on a cream carpet, he couldn't quite scrub them away.

~x~

He eventually arrived in the hospital grounds to discover a significant police presence and that, despite the lateness of the hour, there were still several hardy hacks hanging around hoping for a scoop.

He knew full well that he wouldn't just be able to walk in unchallenged, but was so focused on reaching Alex that he hadn't given any thought to how he might get near enough to her to see her; to talk to her.

In another time Sam told him all about coma patients, how it was possible for them to sense outside stimuli like music and conversation and even respond in some small way. He didn't know if it would work with Alex but he had to try. He had to get through to her somehow.

Crouching low to the ground behind a row of immaculately clipped Hawthorns he slipped past the two bored looking constables positioned outside the emergency entrance and crept down a narrow alleyway which ran between the old Victorian buildings and the newer development; all the while hoping that he didn't encounter anyone with a police dog.

He descended a stairwell at the far end of the alleyway that led down to the basement and tried the door. It was locked. He was just weighing up his options; breaking in or breaking it down; when he spotted someone walking towards him who could well have been sent in answer to his prayers.

Francesca Graham was, as her name suggested, part hot blooded Italian but mostly no-nonsense Yorkshire lass.

She was an old fashioned nursing Sister, the sort of woman who was both feared and revered in equal measure. She might have been the archetypal battleaxe were it not for the fact that her she had a disarming smile, a filthy laugh, and her uniform clung to her in all the right places. When he and Ray first met her she posed a challenge too good for either of them resist.

It was not long after he moved to London. She was working in the Casualty department of another hospital and he and Ray ended up there with a broken wrist and a concussion respectively following a drugs raid that turned nasty.

At first he didn't realise that his wrist was fractured, insisting that he was okay, that the swelling was just bruising, and that he didn't need seeing to. Well, not in the way she meant at any rate.

Ray remained in hospital overnight for observation and by the time Gene returned the following morning to collect him his wrist was twice its usual size and he could barely move it. Fran gave a bollocking for playing the hero over it, telling him that it would be a hundred times harder to x-ray.

As they left the hospital Ray announced that he thought Ms. Graham to be "A raving dyke who obviously wasn't getting any." Which lead Gene to conclude that despite having all night to work on her, Ray's chat up technique - the one that doubled as his best Sid James impersonation - failed to have the desired effect.

Not that his luck was any better.

Fran was right about his wrist. He needed to go back twice more before they could finally get a clear image of the fracture and it took more than a month to heal. Still, his numerous visits to the outpatients department did give him an opportunity to try out a few of his own seduction techniques.

He was determined to succeed where Ray failed and she finally relented and agreed to go on a date with him at the third time of asking; though some might suggest that if you ask more than twice it probably counts as begging.

They went out a couple of times and shared one night of what he thought was pretty fantastic shagging, and then nothing. He left her house the morning after and never heard from her again. He was disappointed. It wasn't as if he'd fallen for her but she was a welcome, if all too brief, distraction.

As she hurried past him with her jacket pulled up over her head to shelter her from the sleet he stepped out and grabbed her from behind, covered her mouth with his hand to muffle her shouts and dragged her backwards down the stairs. She fought him all the way, scratching and clawing at his hands and trying to stamp on his feet, then he felt her relax into his chest and he loosened his grip.

Big mistake! She wriggled free of him and before he could move she turned and punched him hard in the stomach causing him to double over in agony.

"Gene Hunt! What the bloody hell do you think you're playing at? You scared the shit out of me you stupid bastard!" She shouted.

"Shush, keep your voice down," he hissed through gritted teeth as he clung to the wall trying to catch his breath.

"Keep my voice... Keep my voice down! After that little stunt you just pulled. You have to be bloody kidding me. You're lucky I don't just march out there and get that copper over here," she replied, gesticulating towards to a police officer who was stood at the end of the alley with his back to them.

"No, no look, don't do that!" he replied breathlessly, taking hold of her arm with his free hand. "How did you know it was me?" he coughed.

"I'd know that heady mix of fags, booze and Aramis anywhere. Why else do you think I stopped struggling?" she said, standing over him with her hands on her hips.

"I need your help," he wheezed, looking up at her through the strands of sodden blonde hair that fell forward over his eyes.

"Did you not think to just ask? I'm a bit more receptive to polite requests than brute force you know. It might have been a whole lot less painful too," she replied, smirking at him.

"I didn't know how you'd react to seeing me," he grunted.

"Far better than when I get dragged backwards down a flight of steps I think. What the hell are you doing here anyway? The place is crawling with coppers looking for you."

"So you know then?"

"Oh I know all right, I've had the shift from hell so far thanks to you lot."

"The woman brought in with the gunshot wound, I need you to help me get in to see her."

"What, so you finish the job, you've got to be kidding?" She replied, shaking her head.

"No, I just need to see her, talk to her."

"Why? You won't get much out of her, the poor thing's still uncurious. Nasty things gunshot wounds to the abdomen."

"It's a long story."

"Make it the abridged version then, I've only got a twenty minute break."

Gene finally managed to get his breath back and stood up and lit another cigarette, then leant back against the cellar door and took a long drag.

"You didn't take one bit of notice of what I told you about those things then I see." Fran said, as she wrinkled up her nose and jutted out her chin in direction of the fag in his hand.

"What's the point, damage is probably already done," he sniffed and flicked away half an inch of ash from the end of the fag. "Besides I've got bigger things to worry about right now."

"Go on." She said, raising an eyebrow and folding her arms across her chest.

"You have to know, I didn't mean to shoot her, to hurt her. It was an accident."

"OK, you say it was an accident. But you ran because...?"

"I don't know." He admitted.

"You'd better have a good think about why then, hadn't you? I won't be the only one who'll want an answer to that question."

She was right of course, but he didn't even know how to begin to explain his actions, they were so out of character. It was one thing to admit it to himself that he'd behaved like a fool and a coward but to allow others to know it would be an admission of weakness. He was far enough out of control as it was without letting go of the reins completely.

He had to tell someone though, he could go over and over the explanation in his head, making sense of it, making his actions sound reasonable, but if it didn't ring true to anyone else he would be wasting his breath.

"Fran, I promise I'll tell you everything but please could you at least get me inside? I've been walking the streets for Christ knows how long and I'm shagging freezing. I can't even think straight."

"Well that's one way to explain away why you keep seeing visions of your critically wounded colleague I suppose," he thought.

"It's OK Gene; you don't need to explain yourself to me. It's probably for the best that I don't know too much. I'll help you but there are two conditions. One: if this goes to rat shit, my name doesn't go anywhere near it. I'm rather fond of my job here when plonkers like you lot aren't shooting the hell out of each other and I don't want to lose it, and Two: next time you decide to get yourself into bother do it on the other side of the world from me."

He nodded in agreement.

"Thanks," he said.

"Don't thank me yet. Right, you stay here while I go and check what's going on, and for god's sake put that bloody fag out."

~x~

He waited in the bottom of the stairwell for what seemed like aeons; getting colder and wetter and tormenting himself with the thought that the moment she left him she ran straight to the nearest copper; when he felt the stabbing sensation of the handle in his back as someone tried to open the door from the other side.

"Shit," he thought and his pulse quickened as he looked about him, frantically searching for somewhere to hide. There was nowhere, he was trapped and about to be discovered, he was sure of it. He flattened himself up against the back wall as the door opened.

"Gene, Gene, where are you?" Fran whispered.

"Right here," he said, stepping out from behind the door.

"What are you doing back there?"

"I wasn't sure who it was."

"Come in," she instructed as she ducked back inside, "and shut the door behind you."

~x~

"You never called me," he said, pouting as he mopped ineffectually at his soaking hair and coat with the rough hospital towel she handed him.

"You didn't call me either," she replied in her matter-of-fact manner. "Look, forget that." she continued, taking the towel back. "I haven't got much time left to do this, we have to get moving."

Fran led him through a network of basement corridors remarkably similar to those at Edgehampton. They could have died there, he and Alex, if Ray hadn't been so on the ball. But knowing what he knew now he couldn't help but think that it wouldn't have been such a bad way to go: painless, peaceful, in her arms...

"Stop there!" Fran raised a hand and placed it against his chest as he collided with her. He watched on as she pushed a door open a crack and peered around it.

"Come on, quick," she whispered, and they crept out of the basement and up a flight of stairs to the main hospital building.

He followed Fran through featureless corridor after featureless corridor; each one as clinical and indistinct as the one before it; stopping at every turn to make sure that the coast was clear. Several times they were forced to scurry back where they came from or dive into storage cupboards to avoid people who seemed to appear out of thin air, but somehow they reached their destination undetected.

~x~

At the far end of the corridor was a room with a police officer stationed outside it; Alex had to be inside.

"Gene, are you listening to me?"

He could hear Fran talking but he hadn't heard a word she said. He was too concerned with what lay beyond the door.

"Sorry," he answered absently as he continued to stare down the corridor.

"You need to concentrate for a minute," she said, and she took his chin in her hand and turned his face to hers. "I can't give you much time, I can distract the plod for a while but that's it. You need to be ready to move as soon as he does, okay?"

"Okay," he replied, looking down at her.

"Right good luck, and remember if this all goes wrong..."

"You didn't have anything to do with it, I know."

She was about to go through the swinging doors that separated the two of them from the rest of the corridor when he reached out and pulled her back into a tight embrace.

"Thank you," he muttered into the hat pinned to the top of her head.

"Just make it right, Gene." Fran replied.

He watched from behind a pillar as she approached the officer by the door. The two of them spoke briefly, Fran pointed to something further down the corridor from where they stood, then the two of them walked off at a brisk pace, leaving him alone in the corridor and the door unguarded.

His pulse racing, he took his chance and entered the room.

~x~

There was an atmosphere of controlled calm about the ward. The lights were dimmed and there was very little sound other than low hum of machines, and the hushed conversation of the nurses huddled in the station at the far end of the room.

There were six beds in the ward, three on either side of the door. He could see the patients in five of the six, none of whom were Alex. A hideous brown curtain obscured the middle bed on his left hand side.

All of a sudden the curtain twitched, and he dropped to the floor by the closest bed and watched as two men, one in a white coat and one in a very expensive looking suit, walked out from behind it. He held his breath and continued to watch as they exchanged a few words then parted company; the man in the white coat headed towards the Nurses' station, the man in the suit directly for him.

He scrambled under the bed and lay flat on his belly as a pair of highly polished shoes approached the spot he occupied just seconds before. They paused for a moment as their owner checked something on a clipboard, then turned with the precision of a military Drill Sergeant and marched from the ward.

He exhaled deeply and rested his head for a moment on the cool linoleum floor. He took a few more deep breaths then climbed up onto his knees and crawled out from under the bed and around the curtain.

He stood up and the blood rushed away from his head so quickly that he had to grab hold of the cabinet beside her bed to steady himself.

He knew that his first sight of Alex would be hard to bear, but as she came into focus he couldn't believe just how insubstantial she appeared.

He sank down onto the bed and took hold of her hand, running his fingers over every bone and circling her palm with his thumb. He bent down and placed a feather light kiss on the bruise that had formed where a cannula was inserted under her delicate skin.

The tears came then, hot and fast and he didn't fight them. He let them fall, for her, for himself, for the whole sorry mess, for the hope that he might be able to make it right.

"Alex, it's me," he said gently, "I don't know if you can hear me, Bolly, I hope you can. I need you, Bolly, I need you to wake up. They think that I shot you, well, I did shoot you, I know that, but I need you to let them know that I didn't mean to, that I was trying to protect you. Bolly, please wake up."

He felt her hand twitch under his. Perhaps it meant that she could hear him?

He carried on.

"Look, I haven't got much time here, Bols, someone's bound to come by soon and I'm still on the run. I don't really know why I ran, Alex, it just made things a whole lot worse, I know that now. I just couldn't face what I'd done to you. I'm so sorry. Please, Bolly, I need you."

Her hand twitched again; the movement more pronounced than before, and her eyes darted rapidly to and fro under closed lids.

An alarm began to sound urgently on a monitor beside him and he heard hurried footsteps outside the curtain. He let go of her hand and slipped under the bed just as the curtain was yanked back and nurses and the Doctor he'd seen earlier surrounded Alex.

"Get Gerard back up here," the Doctor ordered.

One of the nurses left the bedside and amidst the commotion Gene took his chance. He crawled out through the space she left, under the bed nearest the door and ran from the room straight into Fran, and Chris.

Fran looked up at him sadly and shook her head, as if to indicate that she hadn't betrayed his trust.

"Guv, I'm sorry, but you need to come with me now."

Gene dropped his shoulders and nodded his head resignedly.

"I won't need these will I, Guv?" Chris asked, holding out a set of handcuffs in front of him.

"No, Chris, you won't need them," Gene replied.

From the room behind them he heard the voice of the white-coated Doctor.

"It's okay, Alex. You're going to be fine."

~x~