Ashes to Ashes For Whom the Bell Tolls

This is a bit different to what I usually write, but I really hope you like it! The basic idea and some of the dialogue is taken from _Desperate Housewives_, but hopefully you'll agree it fits perfectly with Gene and Alex. As usual, any reviews would be really appreciated! :)

_A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist. _– **Stewart Alsop**

Gene Hunt is not a man to dream. He sleeps too little and works too much, so that the few hours he can snatch in the early hours are deep and untroubled, the slumber familiar to the truly exhausted. It was Alex who dreamed, and she dreamed enough for the both of them, terrible nightmares and vivid prophesies, scenarios and ambitions that she would want to share with him the next morning, while he lay with his head under the pillow and tried to sneak another few minutes of rest.

He hates himself for that now. Often he will lie in the empty bed they used to share – he sold his flat after she left and moved into the flat above Luigi's permanently – and he will squeeze his eyes shut and pretend she's there, leaning up on her elbow with the sheet around her ribs, jabbering on about things that suddenly seem vitally important. Why didn't he listen? Why didn't he throw off the covers and silence her with kisses, or drink in every detail she wanted him to know? Because, he thinks bitterly as he opens his eyes to look at her cold pillow, we are too caught up in the blocks of our daily lives to care much about the minutiae.

So life goes on and Gene gathers his new team and it's not the same, it never will be, but it works and it's enough. They catch scum, drive the Merc, rough up dealers and clean up the streets. And sometimes, if he's really lucky, Gene will be able to look at her desk without his breath catching in his chest, and sometimes when the door bangs he won't look up, daring to hope that she might have come back to him.

But then, one night, Gene Hunt has a dream.

* * *

After Alex stepped through the door and surrendered her existence to fate, she endured a dark night of the soul. They all did, so she was told, when they first passed over. Even those who had moved on willingly, hand-in-hand with their true love or their best friend or maybe even a long-lost sibling, faltered in the end, railed against the laws of the universe that told them they could never go back.

And so she spent days, weeks, years, for there was no time in this place and no need for it at all, lamenting, grieving for the daughter who no longer had a mother and the damaged man who still trod the earthly limits of the world beyond. And then, quietly, the tears ran out and she began to surrender the parts of herself that she no longer needed: her aspirations, her dreams, her doubts and fears. She kept only her memory and her heart, because she was alone in this world, not like Shaz or Chris or Sam or even Ray, and so she clutched those remembrances close: the smell of Molly's hair, the texture of Gene's scarred, broken skin. She found that death made these things so much clearer, brought back the tiny details that had slipped away and sharpened them exponentially, like a photograph sliding into focus.

And then Alex Drake discovered that she could travel. She could cover vast distances, gaze upon worlds both side of the divide and then light on Molly or Gene or Evan, three humans going about their everyday, mundane business.

Curiously, she began to absorb their emotions. She embraced it, because it made her feel alive, this maelstrom of jealousy and pride and love, and because it made her feel needed. So she was suddenly, painfully aware when Gene began to dream, and she went to him, a spectre, a presence he could not feel, and she watched.

* * *

_They are dancing, and all he knows is her. She engulfs him, swallows him in smell and touch, the warm palm of her hand in his, the butterfly tickle of her hair on his jaw, the lightest powder on the sweep of her forehead. She is perfection - tired, frightened, vulnerable perfection - and he holds her with more care than he has ever held anything in his life. She is a splinter of happiness, and he will not let her slip through his fingers._

_His lips are on her brow, long, not-quite-kisses which make him feel emasculated and embarrassed, but he is somehow too lost in her to care now what anyone thinks, least of all her. He just wants to tell her, to show her, because he has waited so long and she has finally decided to trust him._

_She looks up. Oh, those eyes. He could drown in those eyes, their tawny sadness, the infinite helplessness that he wants to stopper up like a plug in the bath, so that she only has room for laughter in their wide, shining depths. She is coming closer and he feels drunk on her, like a bumblebee after a long draught of nectar, and he keeps his eyes wide open because he feels he might shatter into a thousand pieces if he has to miss a single second._

_The gap closes between them. It is like running for the train home as it begins to leave the station._

_Home._

_Alex._

_Millimetres._

_And then there is a knock at the door._

_They draw back and he sees she is shaking. Absurdly, the thought crosses his mind of a leaf before a storm. _

"_Go on." Her voice is a breathy whisper and it makes his chest ache with want. "Wait in the bedroom. I'll get rid of them."_

_He moves as though he's in a dream, waits in her bedroom with his heart drumming like nervous fingers, and craves her with overwhelming desperation._

_And then the door slams._

* * *

Gene Hunt wakes with a slow, sickening lurch to find he is crying. He has not cried, not properly, since he was ten years old but he is sobbing now: great, heaving, choking, childish hiccoughs that burn in his chest like the flare of a beacon.

He is wracked with guilt, with self-loathing and frustration, because he could have stopped her, could have held her close and kissed her until Keats went away, or he could have gone out there and explained everything, fallen to his knees and begged her for forgiveness. But instead he waited alone in her room like an overeager teenager, and his whole body aches with the bitterness of it, the loss and rejection.

Gene Hunt is not a man to dream, but this one will not go away. And so he sleeps in their bed night after night and awakes feeling sickened, sick at the world, sick at himself and the chasm of loss that he could have avoided.

And Alex, his guardian angel, his guide, his ethereal protector, goes to him.

* * *

It is a long time before Alex finds a way to help him. For weeks, she contents herself with sitting by his bed, wrapping arms around him that he cannot feel, attempting to comfort him with a presence that is nothing more than the breeze that ruffles his hair. It is Nelson who finds her, curled up in one corner of the pub and brooding on the torment she has left him with, and he lays a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Why do you cry, little lady?" He smiles at her and his teeth are white in the dim light. "Why are you not enjoying this beautiful day?"

Outside, the sun is rising over their world. She turns her tear-stained face to his. "He's broken, Nelson. _I _broke him and now..."

"Crying ain't gonna fix things." He sets a glass of wine in front of her. "It's up to you, Alex. But someone once told me that a dream is a wish the heart makes."

She smiles at him. "Cinderella. She was always Molly's favourite princess."

The bell over the door jangles and two newcomers stumble in, wide-eyed and bewildered. Nelson looks at her. "I got a job to do. But you know what you have to do." He grips her arm with surprising intensity. "Good luck, little lady."

Alex watches him go with a curious expression. Suddenly, it all seems startlingly clear.

* * *

_She looks up. Oh, those eyes. He could drown in those eyes, their tawny sadness, the infinite helplessness that he wants to stopper up like a plug in the bath, so that she only has room for laughter in their wide, shining depths. She is coming closer and he feels drunk on her, like a bumblebee after a long draught of nectar, and he keeps his eyes wide open because he feels he might shatter into a thousand pieces if he has to miss a single second._

_The gap closes between them. It is like running for the train home as it begins to leave the station._

_Home._

_Alex._

_Millimetres._

_And then there is a knock at the door._

_They draw back and he sees she is shaking. Absurdly, the thought crosses his mind of a leaf before a storm. _

"_Go on." Her voice is a breathy whisper and it makes his chest ache with want. "Wait in the bedroom. I'll get rid of them."_

_He almost lets her. But then something twists in his stomach and he is compelled to reach out, his hand finding her waist as though it was made to fit there. _

"_No, I'll go. Go and change into something slutty." And he smiles at her as he does so rarely, and it feels strange on his face. Curiously, it feels right to be smiling at her like this, as though he has thrown open his heart, just for her. She smiles back and it is brighter than the dazzle of a falling star, more beautiful than freshly fallen snow. Sadder than an old lady's heart._

"_No, Gene." She moves gently from his grasp._

"_Alex!" He feels panic move up his throat and he reaches for her again, finds just the tips of her fingers. She turns to look at him, still smiling that lovely, sad smile. "Don't answer it. Don't listen to him." He hesitates, wants to fall to his knees before her. "Let me save you."_

_She laughs then, this quiet little laugh that makes his heart ache, and she moves close to him, teases her fingers through his hair with the ephemeral touch of a summer breeze._

"_Oh, Gene." She shakes her head and there are tears in her eyes. She runs her hand softly along his jaw and he leans into her touch, swallows back a lump of grief. "You can't prevent what you can't predict."_

_He clutches her and he is too far gone to care that he is crying, that he is being needy and weak and clinging to her like a child. "Isn't there anything I can do?"_

"_Yes." She leans in and kisses him, the softest, most tender brush of her lips on his. Outside, the London sky is bright with thousands of stars, shining like lost souls guiding him home. "You can enjoy this beautiful evening. We get so few of them."_

_And then she moves out of his arms forever and he finds himself in her bedroom, listening to the final slam of the front door. _

* * *

This was the last time Gene Hunt would ever dream of Alex Drake.

And in a world that is not quite ours, so far away and long out of reach, she smiled.


End file.

Ashes to Ashes, Hurt-Comfort, Romance