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[oom] London, 2008
It never ceased to amaze her, how resilient Molly was.
Alex had been drifting in a waking dream since she'd left the hospital. A week in recovery, that was all she needed, apparently. Strange, how normal it all sounded. She'd been in a coma for seven days. And seven days was all that stood between her and her life. Her real life. Her doctor had kindly suggested that perhaps sleeping in her own bed would be more soothing, and she wouldn't need the sedatives anymore.
Evan had greeted her warmly, and she found she couldn't look him in the eye. She covered by running her hands through her short hair. Brain surgery was as good a reason as any for a style change. This was too short though. It made her look like some kind of razor girl, made her cheeks look all the more gaunt, made the dark circles around her eyes more pronounced. She didn't look well, and she didn't feel well.
Evan, for his part, took her reticence in stride. It was the English way to handle such things. Pretend they didn't exist. Ignore the awkwardness until it had passed. Failing that, spout platitudes. (Or shout and make knob jokes, and then get pissed. She can't imagine Evan shouting, or making knob jokes. She knows she's never seen him pissed.)
"You've been through a lot in such a short time, Alex. You need time to get your feet under you. I can keep Molly for a few more days, if you need me to."
"No. No, I want her with me." His eyes had gone wide at the vehement tone of her voice. "It's just -- I need her with me now. You, of all people, understand that."
He'd nodded and conceded the point. She'd plastered on the sweetest of smiles, and taken Molly's hand. She was her world. Her real world. Nothing else mattered.
Bolly!
Not the sound of his voice, calling to her in the distance. Shouting. Angry.
Bols?
Lost.
She sat on the edge of the bed and swallowed the handful of pills. They made it easier to sleep, though they didn't stop the dreams.
~~~
The red Audi Quattro tore through the streets of London, squealing tyres billowing smoke around every turn. His driving gloves clenched the wheel like it was the steering reins of a chariot, leather creaking as he levered his way through a sharp turn. The grubby store fronts and grey industrial buildings were a blur behind the windows, and the street lights left a greasy after image on her retinas.
Grey stone became brown stone, and stately walls became sooty industrial ruins.
"Should 'ave eaten, before y'get a skinful, else you'll regret it later."
He beamed at her and winked, a little boy's smile, mad with glee behind the wheel of his car, tearing up the streets of Manchester or London, it made no difference to him.
~~~
Bolly!
She woke with a gasp, the echo of his voice shouting her name still ringing in her ears. Her hand clutched the edge of the mattress and there was a part of her that grieved to see white sheets instead of red ones.
Tea. Tea would help.
She shuffled out to the kitchen. No. Hallway, long one. Windows. She went back for her dressing gown and shrugged into it, her eyes playing around the room. Hardwood floors. The floor length Victorian mirror she'd bought at the antiques shop in Islington. Her suits all pressed and lined up in the wardrobe.
A thick stack of files sat at the corner of her desk. She picked up the top one and made her way back down the hall, her ears still registering just how wrong the whole place sounded.
She put the kettle on and laid the file down, flipping it open to read as she found the milk.
My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident and I woke up in 1973. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever's happened, it's like I've landed on a different planet. Now, maybe if I can work out the reason, I can get home.
When she broke from her reverie, she realised the kettle had been whistling for a very long time.
"Are you all right, Mum?" Molly was stood at the end of the counter, a look of fear in her eyes.
Alex gave her a reassuring smile. "'M'fine dear. Just -- a little out of sorts, that's all. It's normal. I'm O.K." She grinned and tapped Molly on the nose. "Don't worry. Your face will stick like that."
"Mum, you do know I'm twelve, not six."
The eyeroll her pre-teen daughter gave made Alex's face split in a grin, and she pressed a hand to her lips, managing to keep the tears at bay until the girl had flounced back out of the kitchen, her school book bag dangling precariously from one shoulder.
She's so much older than I remember. So much older than I was when...His name is Gene.
She closed her eyes, clenched her jaw. Caroline and Timothy Price were dead seventeen years. And the memories that boiled so near the surface were entirely a fabrication of her subconscious mind, desperately trying to make sense of the trauma it had been plunged into.
She finished preparing her tea, her hands shaking, and turned back to the file. Why had she never asked Gene what happened to Sam? They all knew him. He'd apparently died a just before she showed up in 1981. Married, Ray had told her. To WPC Annie Cartwright. (Was he happy there? Was he allowed to be happy? How was that fair?)
DCI Sam Tyler had committed suicide, and not in 1974. He'd committed suicide in 2006, a mere span of weeks after he'd regained consciousness. Alex had spoken to him not hours before, when he'd called to cancel his counselling appointment. It had never struck her until that precise moment, just how happy he'd sounded on the line. Like he was going home.
A door slammed in the front of the house and she jumped, tea sloshing on the black and white photograph and scalding her fingers. Molly, off to school.
It never ceased to amaze her how resilient her daughter was. She was worried about her mum, it was true, but also a bit exasperated that things just couldn't get back to normal. She hadn't even minded her birthday party being rescheduled.
His name is Gene.
She did seem a bit put out when her birthday party turned into a bit of a coming home party for Alex, but that passed quickly. Her work colleagues all turned up, bottles of wine in hand, all wanting to hear the juicy details of her harrowing adventure with Arthur Layton in the belly of that barge.
She didn't tell them about Gene Hunt. They'd all read the Tyler file, and more than a few of them helped with proofing that chapter of the book. They'd think she'd gone right round the bend. No, she reserved her unburdening for her own psychologist, even though she was sure the woman thought she really had gone off the deep end.
His name is Gene and I...
So she drank wine and chatted, and it was all very lovely and normal and utterly surreal to her. None of it felt real. It felt like she was sleepwalking through a memory of her life. People laughed too loud, and the lights seemed like little icepicks into her brain. No one acted too surprised when she excused herself for a breath of fresh air.
It was Molly who found her, sitting on the back porch, soaked to the skin from the evening rain, her overdone mascara streaming down her cheeks.
His name is Gene and I belong with him.
This time when Alex told her not to worry, she looked even more incredulous than before.
~~~
Alex sat on the side of the bed and looked at the handful of pills in her palm.
She closed her eyes and thought of that vault beneath Edgehampton. She thought of the feel of his strong arm around her shoulder and the way he held her close against his chest. She would give anything to feel that right now. That feeling that everything would be all right. That he would see to it. He would take care of her.
She tried to imagine just what he'd say to her here, now. "Don't be such a jessie. Thought you trusted your doctors." His words could be so precisely accented, his language so controlled when he wanted it to be. She laughed to remember the times when he forgot he was supposed to be a Northern flatfoot and she an Oxbridge graduate, and never the twain should meet. "You think too much, Bollykecks. Stop thinking and just -- do what you know to be right."
She put the fat white tablets back into their bottle and drank the water down anyway. And then went in search of a bottle of wine. There had to be something in the house somewhere.
~~~
"Are you sure this is what you want, Alex? I don't want to hear about it later from my lawyer that this was all some sort of plea to get me to pay you more support." Even over the phone, her ex-husband's voice could take from calm to absolutely livid in just a few words.
"Listen. Peter." Even now, with this splitting headache, she struggled to keep her voice level and cool, even though she had to speak to him like he was a three year old child and not a grown man. "I love Molly more than I love my own life. You know that. But Evan has taken a case that requires him to travel to Paris later this week, and I -- I just can't -- I need time to get my head straight, all right? Things have changed, since the shooting. And I need time to process that."
"All right, all right. No need to get your knickers in a twist. I'm sure Mols will love to spend the holidays with us."
"Thank you."
"You think you can have her here by next weekend?"
"..." Alex closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to remember to breathe.
"Are you still there?"
"Peter Drake, she is your daughter. Not a shipment of your precious fountain pens. I am not putting her on a train. You will come here and you will pick her up yourself."
"Fine! Fine. Calm down, Alex. I was just asking. You sound like you really need to -- "
"Just be here, day after tomorrow, and don't forget. Not this time. D'you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Goodbye." She didn't wait for an answer from him to slam the phone down.
"Molly? Molly, can you come down please? We need to talk."
~~~
"Listen, DI Drake, I know you think you're ready, but really, I must insist on at least a few more weeks of therapy and counselling before we can be assured that you're ready to resume your duties."
"Guv, I am going spare sitting around here, trying to keep myself occupied --"
"What did you call me?"
"... Guv?"
Her superior officer chuckles down the line. "You've never called me that before. Resorting to the old traditions, are we?"
"Guv-- Gene-- DCI Grayson, really, I think you're making this out to be far more complicated than it needs to be."
"No, Alex. I think you are the one who doesn't understand. You've been through a violent trauma. You almost died."
Bolly!
"I am well aware of the seriousness of my injuries, sir. Couldn't possibly be more aware right now. And I think, that's part of the problem. I need --"
"What you need is rest. Relaxation. Downtime. Alex, don't worry. We have it covered without you. Now please. Take the time."
"... Yes. Sir. Yes, sir. As you say, sir."
"Are you still meeting with Dr. Solomon?"
"Twice a week, sir."
"Good. I'm looking forward to reading her reports."
His name is Gene.
"Very well, sir. Tell the team I owe them a round."
"Will do. Now get well."
He clicked off the line, and Alex fumbled with the mobile, trying to read the tiny buttons through her blinding headache. After a few moments, she just let it drop from her shaking hands, more focused on trying to bring her blood pressure under control.
~~~
She sat on the edge of the bed, rattling the pills in her palm, holding the glass of water in the other hand.
Tonight, it wasn't Edgehampton, or the floor of Luigi's Trattoria, bullets flying by overhead, and his weight pinning her to the floor. It wasn't even the memory of sitting on that wretched black and white monstrosity of a couch, leaning against his shoulder.
No, tonight's double feature was standing in the kitchen of that lonely flat, drinking hastily poured champagne and stealing a slow, impossible kiss, an memory that was chased by the searing lance of agony in her side, and the sight of him towering over her, black overcoat billowing, wafting the strands of smoke from the barrel of the Magnum. She doesn't know which hurts more. If you get in my way, I will kill you!
~~~
"Don't worry, Mum, I'll be fine. It's not like I can't take care of myself now."
"Yes, but that's not the point. Your father should --"
"Stop. Just stop!" Molly took Alex's hands between her own and pulled her mother down so she could look her in the eye. "I'm going to be all right. And you need to promise me that you will be too, okay?"
Alex's eyes sheened with tears, but she smiled and nodded. Stiff upper lip. Don't make me put a comforting arm around you. "I'll be fine, Mols. You have your mobile. You call me everyday, morning, noon or night. I want to know all about what's going on with you."
"I will, Mum. I'll be okay. Promise me you will be too?"
Alex looked into Molly's face for a long moment, and she couldn't breathe. "I promise."
It's a lie, and she knew it as such the moment it left her lips.
"I love you, Molly. I love you." Alex gave her daughter one last, tight hug.
"I love you too, Mum."
"Now go on. Don't leave your father waiting. Hurry up!"
She stood on the end of the garden path, biting her lip, determined not to cry. She waved and Peter gave a terse nod, grinning at his daughter as she clamoured into the front seat of the Rover. She watched the silver SUV all the way down the street, waving again as it turned the corner.
Only then did her knees give way.
She sank to the top step, her breath hitching in her throat.
Bolly!
Bols?
Alex, wake up! You can't leave me like this!
Alex had been drifting in a waking dream since she'd left the hospital. A week in recovery, that was all she needed, apparently. Strange, how normal it all sounded. She'd been in a coma for seven days. And seven days was all that stood between her and her life. Her real life. Her doctor had kindly suggested that perhaps sleeping in her own bed would be more soothing, and she wouldn't need the sedatives anymore.
Evan had greeted her warmly, and she found she couldn't look him in the eye. She covered by running her hands through her short hair. Brain surgery was as good a reason as any for a style change. This was too short though. It made her look like some kind of razor girl, made her cheeks look all the more gaunt, made the dark circles around her eyes more pronounced. She didn't look well, and she didn't feel well.
Evan, for his part, took her reticence in stride. It was the English way to handle such things. Pretend they didn't exist. Ignore the awkwardness until it had passed. Failing that, spout platitudes. (Or shout and make knob jokes, and then get pissed. She can't imagine Evan shouting, or making knob jokes. She knows she's never seen him pissed.)
"You've been through a lot in such a short time, Alex. You need time to get your feet under you. I can keep Molly for a few more days, if you need me to."
"No. No, I want her with me." His eyes had gone wide at the vehement tone of her voice. "It's just -- I need her with me now. You, of all people, understand that."
He'd nodded and conceded the point. She'd plastered on the sweetest of smiles, and taken Molly's hand. She was her world. Her real world. Nothing else mattered.
Bolly!
Not the sound of his voice, calling to her in the distance. Shouting. Angry.
Bols?
Lost.
She sat on the edge of the bed and swallowed the handful of pills. They made it easier to sleep, though they didn't stop the dreams.
~~~
The red Audi Quattro tore through the streets of London, squealing tyres billowing smoke around every turn. His driving gloves clenched the wheel like it was the steering reins of a chariot, leather creaking as he levered his way through a sharp turn. The grubby store fronts and grey industrial buildings were a blur behind the windows, and the street lights left a greasy after image on her retinas.
Grey stone became brown stone, and stately walls became sooty industrial ruins.
"Should 'ave eaten, before y'get a skinful, else you'll regret it later."
He beamed at her and winked, a little boy's smile, mad with glee behind the wheel of his car, tearing up the streets of Manchester or London, it made no difference to him.
~~~
Bolly!
She woke with a gasp, the echo of his voice shouting her name still ringing in her ears. Her hand clutched the edge of the mattress and there was a part of her that grieved to see white sheets instead of red ones.
Tea. Tea would help.
She shuffled out to the kitchen. No. Hallway, long one. Windows. She went back for her dressing gown and shrugged into it, her eyes playing around the room. Hardwood floors. The floor length Victorian mirror she'd bought at the antiques shop in Islington. Her suits all pressed and lined up in the wardrobe.
A thick stack of files sat at the corner of her desk. She picked up the top one and made her way back down the hall, her ears still registering just how wrong the whole place sounded.
She put the kettle on and laid the file down, flipping it open to read as she found the milk.
My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident and I woke up in 1973. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever's happened, it's like I've landed on a different planet. Now, maybe if I can work out the reason, I can get home.
When she broke from her reverie, she realised the kettle had been whistling for a very long time.
"Are you all right, Mum?" Molly was stood at the end of the counter, a look of fear in her eyes.
Alex gave her a reassuring smile. "'M'fine dear. Just -- a little out of sorts, that's all. It's normal. I'm O.K." She grinned and tapped Molly on the nose. "Don't worry. Your face will stick like that."
"Mum, you do know I'm twelve, not six."
The eyeroll her pre-teen daughter gave made Alex's face split in a grin, and she pressed a hand to her lips, managing to keep the tears at bay until the girl had flounced back out of the kitchen, her school book bag dangling precariously from one shoulder.
She's so much older than I remember. So much older than I was when...His name is Gene.
She closed her eyes, clenched her jaw. Caroline and Timothy Price were dead seventeen years. And the memories that boiled so near the surface were entirely a fabrication of her subconscious mind, desperately trying to make sense of the trauma it had been plunged into.
She finished preparing her tea, her hands shaking, and turned back to the file. Why had she never asked Gene what happened to Sam? They all knew him. He'd apparently died a just before she showed up in 1981. Married, Ray had told her. To WPC Annie Cartwright. (Was he happy there? Was he allowed to be happy? How was that fair?)
DCI Sam Tyler had committed suicide, and not in 1974. He'd committed suicide in 2006, a mere span of weeks after he'd regained consciousness. Alex had spoken to him not hours before, when he'd called to cancel his counselling appointment. It had never struck her until that precise moment, just how happy he'd sounded on the line. Like he was going home.
A door slammed in the front of the house and she jumped, tea sloshing on the black and white photograph and scalding her fingers. Molly, off to school.
It never ceased to amaze her how resilient her daughter was. She was worried about her mum, it was true, but also a bit exasperated that things just couldn't get back to normal. She hadn't even minded her birthday party being rescheduled.
His name is Gene.
She did seem a bit put out when her birthday party turned into a bit of a coming home party for Alex, but that passed quickly. Her work colleagues all turned up, bottles of wine in hand, all wanting to hear the juicy details of her harrowing adventure with Arthur Layton in the belly of that barge.
She didn't tell them about Gene Hunt. They'd all read the Tyler file, and more than a few of them helped with proofing that chapter of the book. They'd think she'd gone right round the bend. No, she reserved her unburdening for her own psychologist, even though she was sure the woman thought she really had gone off the deep end.
His name is Gene and I...
So she drank wine and chatted, and it was all very lovely and normal and utterly surreal to her. None of it felt real. It felt like she was sleepwalking through a memory of her life. People laughed too loud, and the lights seemed like little icepicks into her brain. No one acted too surprised when she excused herself for a breath of fresh air.
It was Molly who found her, sitting on the back porch, soaked to the skin from the evening rain, her overdone mascara streaming down her cheeks.
His name is Gene and I belong with him.
This time when Alex told her not to worry, she looked even more incredulous than before.
~~~
Alex sat on the side of the bed and looked at the handful of pills in her palm.
Bolly? Bols! Wake up, I need you!
She closed her eyes and thought of that vault beneath Edgehampton. She thought of the feel of his strong arm around her shoulder and the way he held her close against his chest. She would give anything to feel that right now. That feeling that everything would be all right. That he would see to it. He would take care of her.
She tried to imagine just what he'd say to her here, now. "Don't be such a jessie. Thought you trusted your doctors." His words could be so precisely accented, his language so controlled when he wanted it to be. She laughed to remember the times when he forgot he was supposed to be a Northern flatfoot and she an Oxbridge graduate, and never the twain should meet. "You think too much, Bollykecks. Stop thinking and just -- do what you know to be right."
She put the fat white tablets back into their bottle and drank the water down anyway. And then went in search of a bottle of wine. There had to be something in the house somewhere.
~~~
"Are you sure this is what you want, Alex? I don't want to hear about it later from my lawyer that this was all some sort of plea to get me to pay you more support." Even over the phone, her ex-husband's voice could take from calm to absolutely livid in just a few words.
"Listen. Peter." Even now, with this splitting headache, she struggled to keep her voice level and cool, even though she had to speak to him like he was a three year old child and not a grown man. "I love Molly more than I love my own life. You know that. But Evan has taken a case that requires him to travel to Paris later this week, and I -- I just can't -- I need time to get my head straight, all right? Things have changed, since the shooting. And I need time to process that."
"All right, all right. No need to get your knickers in a twist. I'm sure Mols will love to spend the holidays with us."
"Thank you."
"You think you can have her here by next weekend?"
"..." Alex closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to remember to breathe.
"Are you still there?"
"Peter Drake, she is your daughter. Not a shipment of your precious fountain pens. I am not putting her on a train. You will come here and you will pick her up yourself."
"Fine! Fine. Calm down, Alex. I was just asking. You sound like you really need to -- "
"Just be here, day after tomorrow, and don't forget. Not this time. D'you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Goodbye." She didn't wait for an answer from him to slam the phone down.
"Molly? Molly, can you come down please? We need to talk."
~~~
"Listen, DI Drake, I know you think you're ready, but really, I must insist on at least a few more weeks of therapy and counselling before we can be assured that you're ready to resume your duties."
"Guv, I am going spare sitting around here, trying to keep myself occupied --"
"What did you call me?"
"... Guv?"
Her superior officer chuckles down the line. "You've never called me that before. Resorting to the old traditions, are we?"
"Guv-- Gene-- DCI Grayson, really, I think you're making this out to be far more complicated than it needs to be."
"No, Alex. I think you are the one who doesn't understand. You've been through a violent trauma. You almost died."
Bolly!
"I am well aware of the seriousness of my injuries, sir. Couldn't possibly be more aware right now. And I think, that's part of the problem. I need --"
"What you need is rest. Relaxation. Downtime. Alex, don't worry. We have it covered without you. Now please. Take the time."
"... Yes. Sir. Yes, sir. As you say, sir."
"Are you still meeting with Dr. Solomon?"
"Twice a week, sir."
"Good. I'm looking forward to reading her reports."
His name is Gene.
"Very well, sir. Tell the team I owe them a round."
"Will do. Now get well."
He clicked off the line, and Alex fumbled with the mobile, trying to read the tiny buttons through her blinding headache. After a few moments, she just let it drop from her shaking hands, more focused on trying to bring her blood pressure under control.
~~~
She sat on the edge of the bed, rattling the pills in her palm, holding the glass of water in the other hand.
Tonight, it wasn't Edgehampton, or the floor of Luigi's Trattoria, bullets flying by overhead, and his weight pinning her to the floor. It wasn't even the memory of sitting on that wretched black and white monstrosity of a couch, leaning against his shoulder.
No, tonight's double feature was standing in the kitchen of that lonely flat, drinking hastily poured champagne and stealing a slow, impossible kiss, an memory that was chased by the searing lance of agony in her side, and the sight of him towering over her, black overcoat billowing, wafting the strands of smoke from the barrel of the Magnum. She doesn't know which hurts more. If you get in my way, I will kill you!
~~~
"Don't worry, Mum, I'll be fine. It's not like I can't take care of myself now."
"Yes, but that's not the point. Your father should --"
"Stop. Just stop!" Molly took Alex's hands between her own and pulled her mother down so she could look her in the eye. "I'm going to be all right. And you need to promise me that you will be too, okay?"
Alex's eyes sheened with tears, but she smiled and nodded. Stiff upper lip. Don't make me put a comforting arm around you. "I'll be fine, Mols. You have your mobile. You call me everyday, morning, noon or night. I want to know all about what's going on with you."
"I will, Mum. I'll be okay. Promise me you will be too?"
Alex looked into Molly's face for a long moment, and she couldn't breathe. "I promise."
It's a lie, and she knew it as such the moment it left her lips.
"I love you, Molly. I love you." Alex gave her daughter one last, tight hug.
"I love you too, Mum."
"Now go on. Don't leave your father waiting. Hurry up!"
She stood on the end of the garden path, biting her lip, determined not to cry. She waved and Peter gave a terse nod, grinning at his daughter as she clamoured into the front seat of the Rover. She watched the silver SUV all the way down the street, waving again as it turned the corner.
Only then did her knees give way.
She sank to the top step, her breath hitching in her throat.
Bolly!
Bols?
Alex, wake up! You can't leave me like this!