Title: In The Cold
Rating: T - moderate bad language.
Summary: People live and people die. People grieve and people cry. That's the way it is. Zain centric.
Pairings: Zain/Kristen
Disclaimer: As always, I don't own The Bill. Nor am i making any sort of illict profit from this. Trust me, if i owned the Bill, you'd know it. Kthx.
A/N: So this is really just me procrastinating (oh, how i love that word) against doing 100 hours of mindless database crap. Probably not going to get me those grades. Oh. Well. Yep. Spoiler wise, I guess this is written sometime when Zain has indeed done the dirty and does in fact take place at Honey's funeral. [it's such a crime that she didn't get one but that wooden plank called Lance Powell did)
Oh, and my prison knowledge? Not so great. It mostly comes from Prison Break so excuse the Americana elements.
"Oi rat! You betta' watch your back mate! I'm gonna kill ya. You fuc-"
A cell door clanging. The mutters of some riled prisoner faded.
(But it does not stop the voices inside his head)
HoneyKristenHoneyKristenHoneyKristenHoneyKristenHoneyKristenHoneyKristenHoneyKristenHoneyKristen.
The words go round and round like the ferris wheel at a fairground.
Jess had always liked the fairground. They used to sneak out together once their parents were asleep and go on the waltzers.
Jess had candy floss and then she was sick.
Now Zain has nothing and then he is sick.
-
He opens his eyes to grey. Grey ceiling. Grey walls. Grey bed. He wonders for a second if in Kristen's cell there is pink; pink for a woman. He thinks she'd prefer red.
"Go back to sleep, pretty boy."
Zain closes his eyes and does as he is told.
-
There was a woman. There is always a woman.
She smiles politely and tells him he got day release. Zain frowns back and says 'thanks.'
He looks at her lips, painted red and he thinks about Honey and her lips and the blood pouring from them and he flinches.
-
Zain dreams about bridges and burning, he dreams of dying women that stumble the earth and he dreams of blood pouring from lips that can't speak, not anymore. He sees a boat, a woman, and he knows this is his chance, this was his chance, but he didn't take it.
He awakens to snoring and the smell of piss and sweat.
-
He stands silently and lets them handcuff him. He hears the COs speaking and the policeman looks at him and nods.
"Discreet. Got it," the policeman concurs and Zain wonders how a cop turned criminal handcuffed in a church can be discreet.
They lead him to a small van marked 'POLICE' in yellow and blue and this is not discreet at all. The policeman pushes him in, and there is no hate or anger in his face, just neutrality. He wonders why the policeman doesn't have an asp or a belt to beat him with, after all he is (ex) DC Zain Nadir and he let PC Honey Harman die.
(She was one of their own).
-
Kristen kissed him, her hands caressing his almost smooth cheeks, and she kissed him. She kissed him hard and deep and she tasted of expensive coffee and wine and dark chocolate and his hand slid up the length of her spine and he was not naive enough (then) to think that this was how the movie ended, happily ever after.
-
He woke up to a headache and a cold hard sandy floor beneath him and the rope burned his wrists and he winced.
He heard Paul Haskew, that sonofabitch, and he knew that wasn't the way the story ended. He always thought he'd die old and alone (like his grandfather). He thought one day his heart would just do him the favour and give one last tick and just stop and then the world would stop moving and they would all stop dying and like bad poetry, he'd find freedom in death and answers in ashes.
He looked at Kristen and told her this wasn't the way it was supposed to go. (They were supposed to be rich and live on some island in the Caribbean that had sand and sea and bad Hawaiian shirts). He looked at her like he loves her (like he could save her) and with a trembling jaw and dancing eyes she cut him free.
Free to let Honey die.
-
There's a bump and a stop and he gets out. There is rain and wind but the church stands tall and the people walk in with black umbrellas and black coats and Zain feels stupid in his white jumpsuit.
(He shouldn't be here) .
The people stare at him, they stare at his handcuffs and they stare at his clothes, and he swears he hears someone hiss 'murderer'.
He sees Samantha Nixon and Phil Hunter, he sees Smithy and Gina Gold and he also sees Will Fletcher and Emma Keane.
He tries to smile apologetically and look ashamed and guilty and sad all at once. He gets the feeling that he is just making them angrier.
He sits down at the back of the church and he listens to the vicar talk sadly about Honey.
-
There's a burial and some crying and lots of looks but Zain doesn't pay attention. He is past caring.
Then there is a punch in the face and mutters and blood pouring from his nose into his lips and Zain knows this is absolution in its truest form, in the back of a churchyard with the dirt still fresh.
He sees Will Fletcher smile and Emma Keane bite her lip and Sgt Dale Smith frown at them, while Phil Hunter laughs.
It's strange that the laugh hurts more than the punch.
-
Zain always believed in destiny, but he knows that this isn't his; to languish in a rotting prison cell with a killer for a cellie. 'You two are destined for great things,' his mother used to say to him and Jess, and he wonders what she thinks now.
Jess' destiny was not to die for drugs at the age of fifteen. She could have been a model.
-
This is the way it ends, like a greek tragedy. Except Zain isn't convicted of incest or such crimes. He is a corrupt copper who let the love of his life kill an innocent women and he knows it.
There's a thud and a cheer and a scream in the cell next to him and he winces.
This is the ending of his story and Zain is not a hero or a saviour, he is a villain.
-
fini.