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[oom] London, 2008
"It's a brisk two degrees below zero, this afternoon, but the weather doesn't seem to be what's keeping shoppers home this holiday season. We'll have more on the continuing economic crisis in just a moment. Today, scientists announced they've positively identified the remains of the Russian Tsar, Nicholas the second, using modern forensic DNA..."
Alex turned the news off, and reached for her iPod. Easier to do her yoga stretches with music, anyway. She needed to get back into her routine. Yoga used to be one of her favourite stress reduction techniques. So she focused on her sun salutation, going through each position three times, focusing on her breathing, trying to ignore the dull throb behind her right eye.
A phantom, nothing more. The bullet's out. She's home. Bols!
The days passed like water running through her hands. It was easier while the sun was up. Easier to believe that everything was normal and proper and right. Easier to believe that she was healing and that it was only a matter of time before 1982 and her time at Fenchurch East was nothing more than a distant memory.
The night time, that was another country entirely.
The fading light brought with it a vague sense of unease, the lengthening shadows calling out all the flaws in the world around her. The angles were all wrong, and it felt like the seams between floor and wall, wall and ceiling, door and frame, it felt like if she stepped to the side and tilted her head, she could see through them to the real world. Night fell and the whole of her world became a Potemkin village, built solely for the purpose of keeping her senses in line with the illusion.
Nothing felt real.
She refused to take the tranquillisers her doctor had prescribed. Wine was solace enough, and that not nearly enough. For one, she found she couldn't drink nearly as much as she had before. No, that wasn't right. She'd never been much of a drinker before Luigi's and the company of one Detective Chief Inspector. He'd filled her wineglass all the way to the brim, that very first night. And she'd let him. Never even questioned the why or how of it. It was just accepted.
Regardless, in 2008, Alex Drake was a light weight. Three glasses of wine made her head spin and gave her a terrible hangover the next morning. So she poured herself one glass, right before bed, and that glass only seemed to allow her to see all the details previously obscured by the light of day.
It was all wrong. Everything was all wrong. She paced from room to room, letting her vision blur, trying to catch glimpses out of the corner of her eye. Glimpses of what, she didn't know. No, that was a lie. She was looking for that horrible black and white geometric patterned couch. Looking for the red tea kettle that should be on her stove. For the Nagel print hanging in the tiny little bathroom.
She was looking for her favourite blue scarf that should be hanging on the coat hook by the front door. The one she wore everywhere, bought shoes and earrings to match, the one thing he'd given her for Christmas, along with a bottle of Bollinger's. The champagne they'd sipped before sharing a kiss to mark the New Year.
She was looking for him. Waiting to hear his knock at the door, persistent and demanding. Loud enough to make her wince.
Alex paused in her night time pacing, resting her forehead against the front door, imagining his footfall on the stairs that weren't there. Imagining him on the other side, leaning heavily on the door frame, long dark overcoat, driving gloves, bottle of wine and two wine glasses. (So close, they'd come so close.) She could see him in her mind's eye, separated from her by mere inches, five o'clock shadow across his jaw, that lower lip perpetually jutting out like a petulant child.
Alex...
She drew a breath and let it out again, slowly, willing the ache behind her right eye to go away and leave her be, just for one night. She drifted back into the kitchen, idle hands going through the motions, putting on the kettle (plain, stainless steel, all wrong), opening the cabinet and staring at the white porcelain mugs. Her favourite red mug should be right here. Her eyes clenched shut and she drew a ragged breath. No. Wrong kitchen. Wrong house. Wrong street. Wrong time.
Just think, Alex. Think.
Her hands returned to the file. She'd spent too many hours leafing through the now deceased officer's statements, but it was the only thing that felt vaguely connected to the truth anymore. He'd heard them. He'd heard them calling to him. Just as she still heard him when she dared to listen, his brash voice shouting in the distance, scared and frantic. He'd heard their voices just as clearly as she did.
Maybe if she could think clearly, she could figure out just what she was supposed to do. Maybe she could figure out why she'd become unmoored in her own reality, why she felt like she had unfinished business in the world she'd just fought so hard to escape. But the more she tried to focus on it, the more distant it became, lost in the haze of pain behind her eye, drowned out by the ache in her heart.
She left her cup of tea untouched on the counter and took the file out to the living room with her, the sound of the radio drifting to her like a voice from another world. She curled up on the couch and pulled the throw up around her, setting the folder on her knee and looking at the black and white photo of the man she knew as DCI Sam Tyler.
He must have got back to them somehow. He'd served with the team for seven years before his death. Jackie had said that he'd married WPC Annie Cartwright.
'Love of his life,' she'd called her.
Gene...
Eventually the file slipped from her numb fingers and her eyes drifted shut.
She slept and dreamt of the Quattro, nothing more than a red blur speeding through the streets of London. She dreamt she was sleeping in the passenger seat, listening to Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass.
The fire is slowly dying, but my dear, we're still good-bying,
But as long as you love me so, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...
Alex turned the news off, and reached for her iPod. Easier to do her yoga stretches with music, anyway. She needed to get back into her routine. Yoga used to be one of her favourite stress reduction techniques. So she focused on her sun salutation, going through each position three times, focusing on her breathing, trying to ignore the dull throb behind her right eye.
A phantom, nothing more. The bullet's out. She's home. Bols!
The days passed like water running through her hands. It was easier while the sun was up. Easier to believe that everything was normal and proper and right. Easier to believe that she was healing and that it was only a matter of time before 1982 and her time at Fenchurch East was nothing more than a distant memory.
The night time, that was another country entirely.
The fading light brought with it a vague sense of unease, the lengthening shadows calling out all the flaws in the world around her. The angles were all wrong, and it felt like the seams between floor and wall, wall and ceiling, door and frame, it felt like if she stepped to the side and tilted her head, she could see through them to the real world. Night fell and the whole of her world became a Potemkin village, built solely for the purpose of keeping her senses in line with the illusion.
Nothing felt real.
She refused to take the tranquillisers her doctor had prescribed. Wine was solace enough, and that not nearly enough. For one, she found she couldn't drink nearly as much as she had before. No, that wasn't right. She'd never been much of a drinker before Luigi's and the company of one Detective Chief Inspector. He'd filled her wineglass all the way to the brim, that very first night. And she'd let him. Never even questioned the why or how of it. It was just accepted.
Regardless, in 2008, Alex Drake was a light weight. Three glasses of wine made her head spin and gave her a terrible hangover the next morning. So she poured herself one glass, right before bed, and that glass only seemed to allow her to see all the details previously obscured by the light of day.
It was all wrong. Everything was all wrong. She paced from room to room, letting her vision blur, trying to catch glimpses out of the corner of her eye. Glimpses of what, she didn't know. No, that was a lie. She was looking for that horrible black and white geometric patterned couch. Looking for the red tea kettle that should be on her stove. For the Nagel print hanging in the tiny little bathroom.
She was looking for her favourite blue scarf that should be hanging on the coat hook by the front door. The one she wore everywhere, bought shoes and earrings to match, the one thing he'd given her for Christmas, along with a bottle of Bollinger's. The champagne they'd sipped before sharing a kiss to mark the New Year.
She was looking for him. Waiting to hear his knock at the door, persistent and demanding. Loud enough to make her wince.
Alex paused in her night time pacing, resting her forehead against the front door, imagining his footfall on the stairs that weren't there. Imagining him on the other side, leaning heavily on the door frame, long dark overcoat, driving gloves, bottle of wine and two wine glasses. (So close, they'd come so close.) She could see him in her mind's eye, separated from her by mere inches, five o'clock shadow across his jaw, that lower lip perpetually jutting out like a petulant child.
Alex...
She drew a breath and let it out again, slowly, willing the ache behind her right eye to go away and leave her be, just for one night. She drifted back into the kitchen, idle hands going through the motions, putting on the kettle (plain, stainless steel, all wrong), opening the cabinet and staring at the white porcelain mugs. Her favourite red mug should be right here. Her eyes clenched shut and she drew a ragged breath. No. Wrong kitchen. Wrong house. Wrong street. Wrong time.
Just think, Alex. Think.
Her hands returned to the file. She'd spent too many hours leafing through the now deceased officer's statements, but it was the only thing that felt vaguely connected to the truth anymore. He'd heard them. He'd heard them calling to him. Just as she still heard him when she dared to listen, his brash voice shouting in the distance, scared and frantic. He'd heard their voices just as clearly as she did.
Maybe if she could think clearly, she could figure out just what she was supposed to do. Maybe she could figure out why she'd become unmoored in her own reality, why she felt like she had unfinished business in the world she'd just fought so hard to escape. But the more she tried to focus on it, the more distant it became, lost in the haze of pain behind her eye, drowned out by the ache in her heart.
She left her cup of tea untouched on the counter and took the file out to the living room with her, the sound of the radio drifting to her like a voice from another world. She curled up on the couch and pulled the throw up around her, setting the folder on her knee and looking at the black and white photo of the man she knew as DCI Sam Tyler.
He must have got back to them somehow. He'd served with the team for seven years before his death. Jackie had said that he'd married WPC Annie Cartwright.
'Love of his life,' she'd called her.
Gene...
Eventually the file slipped from her numb fingers and her eyes drifted shut.
She slept and dreamt of the Quattro, nothing more than a red blur speeding through the streets of London. She dreamt she was sleeping in the passenger seat, listening to Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass.
The fire is slowly dying, but my dear, we're still good-bying,
But as long as you love me so, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...