Title: Enough
Author: Liss
Fandom(s): Life on Mars
Rating: White Cortina
Pairing: Gene/The Missus
Spoilers: 2x02


She knows, when he comes home, that something’s gone wrong. And not just a bit wrong, but giant-scale, life-changing wrong. For a start, though she can tell he’s been to the pub, he’s still home fairly early, and he’s not even approaching drunk, and Gene’s a man who likes his drink.

She doesn’t mention it, of course. She never does, not when something’s wrong. He’ll come to her soon enough, because he always does. She just bustles round the kitchen, making dinner, commenting idly on what Tommy-down-the-road had got up to at lunchtime, and the scandalous price of fish down at the Presto. Gene doesn’t say much, just sits in his chair and flings off his tie.

She’s made shepherd’s pie, and they sit at the table – she’s always insisted; she doesn’t want to eat on her knee like a tramp – and still Gene doesn’t let on what’s happened. She wonders what could have been, if someone’s been hurt, even as she primly scoops up mince and mash, and complains about the way Ted Wright on the corner insists on leaving the bins halfway across the pavement, so that she nearly fell over them on her way back from the shops. Gene’s thawing a bit, she can tell, because he lifts his head for a moment to say he’ll have a word, and she knows that he will, and she won’t be falling over Ted Wright’s bins again.

They watch the news on the telly, and she knits, a complicated pattern that she borrowed from one of the women in the WI. Gene’s niece is expecting, and so she’s been knitting solidly for two months, now, since Gene’s sister isn’t one for that sort of thing. It’s a little matinee jacket, really pretty, and she hopes it’s a girl. Gene’s still not saying much, just turns the telly off when the news finishes, and announces that he’s off to bed.

He’s still in the bath by the time she’s in bed, hair combed out, in her new nightie from Marks and Spencer. He comes out smelling faintly of Imperial Leather soap, and climbs into bed. She turns out the light on the bedside table, and they settle down, into the familiar pattern that comes after so many years of marriage.

“I shot Harry Woolf today.”

She doesn’t say anything at first, because whatever she had been expecting it hadn’t been that.

“Really? Annoy you, did he?”

“Turned out he was bent. Running a criminal empire, under our bloody noses.”

“That why you shot him?”

“Tried to do a runner, didn’t he?”

“Well, that was silly.”

Gene doesn’t say anything for a little while, but she can tell he’s still awake, so she stays awake too.

“I looked up to him.”

“I know you did, love.”

She reaches out then, strokes careful fingers along the grain of his hair, and he leans into her touch.

“Of all the people… Bloody Harry Woolf.”

She doesn’t say anything now, just holds him, and it’s enough.