Wow! Last Chap Already! Again, this is only a transition fic, and CONSEQUENCES should be out tomorrow or at the latest by Monday afternoon. If you haven't guessed, CONSEQUENCES is the unpublished sequel! I own none of Ashes. Thanks as always to rolephant for keeping me from developing the plot one step to far in hopes of justifying the events of this chapter. (See disclaimer at end...)

Alex sat in the courtroom, trying to figure out when the world around her had fallen to shit. She knew exactly when it had, the day she had received the first rose. For some time she thought it was Gene, she had hoped it was Gene, and then it turned out to be Summers. If it weren't for him, she would never have gotten shot in the stomach, never met PC Summers, never known about Operation Rose. She wouldn't be sitting in this courtroom now, in handcuffs as her former mates from Fenchurch East looked on in anger and disbelief. She thought back to one of the conversations she had had with Gene in her cell at Fenchurch West.

"Guv, I had to confess. It was confess or get life. I couldn't spend the rest of my life in prison."

"Why was the gun at your flat?"

"I didn't know what to do with it. I couldn't think straight. Otherwise I would have just found a phone and rung you."

"Alex, I want to believe you, I really do."

"But you can't."

"Actually, I can. I was accused of murder too. Sam got me off, when the entire of the station thought that I was guilty. You're in deeper than I ever was though. I was a bit more fortunate after I shot you. Chris and Ray had gone through that in Manchester and knew that I would never do anything like that. They believed in me like Sam did. I'll believe in you, stand by you, even when the rest of the world believes differently."

His lips met hers briefly, and he walked out of the cell.

The court proceeded like every court case she had ever been in, only this time she was on the other side. She was the defendant. In this case however, there was no doubt what the verdict would be.

"On the charge of the murder of Police Constable Martin Summers, do you find this defendant guilty, or not guilty of murder?"

A jury member stood. "We find the defendant guilty."

The judge looked at her. "Alexandra Drake, it is the judgement of this court that you are guilty of the murder of Police Constable Martin Summers. I hereby sentence you to death."

Alex felt the officers at her side grab her arms. Tears streamed down her face as she walked down the corridors of the courthouse. Death? The DCI had said she would get a lighter sentence if she confessed! There really was no more hope.

*

Gene sat in the empty courtroom. Someone came up behind him and sat down.

"Guv." It was Shaz.

"Death, Shaz. She's going to die. She's innocent."

"Guv, c'mon. Let's go."

"I'm gonna figure out who really killed him Shaz. I promise you, even if it kills me, I will find out who did this."

*

The guards at Holloway showed no mercy. They threw the brownish-green jumpsuit at her and told her to change into it. All her effects were taken away. She was led down a corridor to a cell. The guard unlocked it and Alex caught a glimpse of a blonde haired woman sitting on the bunk before they threw her in.

"In there cop killer!" one barked.

As she fell on the floor her stomach twinged with pain as the stitches pulled. Alex heard the door slam and the other inmate in the cell walk over to her.

"Are you okay?" said a horribly familiar Irish accent. "Don't mind them bastards. They'll leave you alone mostly." Alex looked up praying to God that the voice didn't belong to the woman she thought it did.

"You have got to be bloody kidding me." Knelt on the floor beside her, staring, was Jennette Rivens.