3Right ladies (I think I can safely assume that anyone who reads this will be female!) this fic has been brewing for a few weeks, but I have a strange way of writing it down - scenes sort of come to me and not necessarily in order (I've just written the middle of this story down). So I know where it's going, it will happen but I can't promise how quickly it will happen. Sorry it's a short chapter to begin with.
I think about these two an unhealthy amount ... and I know I'm not alone!
Chapter 1
4th September 1982
He began to notice something wasn't right about a month before it happened. Her demeanour, her very presence changed overnight. Alex Drake entered CID a very different woman. Her hair was flat, her vibrant make up conspicuous in its absence and she huddled inside a baggy jumper. She looked ill, and he thought that was most likely true - one too many the night before, perhaps, except that he'd been in Luigi's the night before and she had excused herself almost instantly and retired to her flat for the rest of the evening. He'd thought about going to check on her, but remembered before he'd even left the table that she wouldn't be alone upstairs. The realisation had made him scowl and he had to down another four pints to forget.
Perhaps more disturbingly, DI Drake had entered the office in silence. Even nursing a hangover she had mouth on her and if anything a pounding headache upped the level of sarcasm and derision emanating from her decorated lips. But today there was nothing. No wistful sighing and nonsensical psycho-babble, no flirtation, not even a good morning met the room as she entered; she just slunk to her desk and buried herself in paperwork.
Perhaps they've had a row, he mused from his own desk. Or better still, she's chucked him altogether! Gene allowed himself a brief smile at the idea, but it soon faded as his gaze returned to the sheet-white face of his DI. The jealousy that had been bubbling under the surface for weeks, ruined his appetite and robbed him of sleep, eased slightly. He allowed his thoughts to wander and hope flooded his mind – they could go back to how it was before Simon wormed his way into their lives and ruined everything they had had. Back when he and Bolly spent both their work days and evenings dancing around each other; forever teetering on the tight-rope between love and hate; lingering glances, fiery arguments and tension so tangible you could reach out and grab it. But then he came, slithering from the shadows, and won her over with his posh voice and his PhD and he stole her away, and now Gene spent his evenings alone at the bar while he whisked her away to 'the theatre, darling' or an Opera Gene couldn't pronounce or, worse still, while the two of them headed upstairs to her flat. But perhaps it was over, perhaps she had grown tired of the Yuppie twonk and ended it and very soon they would be back where they left off; sitting ever-closer together as the wine bottle emptied and driving each other mad with their approaches to policing.
He stole another glance in her direction, just as she grabbed for a tissue and sneezed, her jumper slipping down just far enough to reveal what was, even at this distance, unmistakeably a love-bite. Gene poured himself a large scotch and kicked the bin across the office. She hadn't chucked him, she just had a cold.
