Thank you for all the reviews! Second and probably last chapter of this. Enjoy.

Water, Gene decided as he slid gingerly into the murk, wasn't his thing. Travelling on water, a nice big speed-boat or a yacht, that was fine and dandy, but paddling around in the filthy stuff for fun… he'd never really seen the attraction. The closest he got to water sports was splashing his rubber duck in the bath. On the whole, he treated the medium with a suspicious mistrust more appropriate to a medieval witch.

And this stuff was freezing. It swashed around mid-thigh height and as he waded forward leapt in malicious waves to groin level, which solved one somewhat pressing problem, but made him gasp. Alex stood shivering a little way ahead, lighter in hand, following the direction of the current.

"Why?" he complained as they made their way up the tunnel. "Why go to the trouble of bringing us all they way down here? If Kent wanted us dead he could have done a quick shot-to-the-head jobby, chucked us in the local landfill and no-one's the wiser. And if he's looking for intimidation, what's wrong with a good duffing up? I'm telling you Drake, the mafia aren't what they used to be." He shook his head, half disgusted, half wistful.

"It's all about a show of power," Alex answered, launching into psychologist mode. "About saying, 'look at me, see what I can do'. I think our Tony's got a sadistic streak - you know, playing on basic fears." she listed them on her fingers. "Fear of the dark; fear of enclosed spaces; hydrophobia; fear of drowning is surprisingly common. I think, well I hope, that he's only trying to scare us."

"I have never met anyone who likes the idea of drowning," Gene said moodily. Alex remembered Sam and kept quiet for once. He sniffed, "Anyway, it's bleedin' working 'cos this place is giving me the heebie-jeebies."

They continued on in silence. The flame-light made strange twisting reflections off the water and crawled over the walls like glow-worms. It was much harder going than he'd imagined, and the current stronger too, and they made painfully slow progress. Left, right, left again, Gene tried to keep track of their direction but got muddled and gave it up, trusting to whatever internal compass his DI was following. Several times the turns they took stopped in dead ends or were blocked by large metal gratings and they had to go back and chose a different way. All the time the water rose steadily and not once could they find a way out.

When it got to mid-chest level Gene began to worry. He didn't say anything but could sense a building desperation in his colleague. At another dead end she stopped and dashed a hand angrily on the brickwork.

"This is stupid! We could be going round and round in circles and never know it." she turned to look at him and her eyes had that terrible lost-girl look that made him want to hold her. "They'd never find us, would they?" she asked quietly. "If we died down here."

He couldn't lie to her, so instead took her hand and led her back to where the passages converged. "C'mon. We'll find a way out, don't you worry your pretty little head about it."

Alex snorted. "They'd probably think we'd eloped or something," she muttered.

"What? Why?"

She laughed and waved the lighter in a semi-dismissive gesture, "Oh, because, it's just this mad idea that Shaz has that, well, we-" the lighter took on an interesting round-about motion "-you know."

"I wonder what gave them that idea," Gene said blandly. His expression was unreadable. "Watch out Inspector, you're blushing."

She opened her mouth to reply, but instead gave a squeal and leapt into his chest, almost dunking them both.

"What the hell are you doing you crazy bi-" Gene managed to splutter, before a huge brown rat brushed past his arm with a squeak of greeting. "Jesus Christ!"

The rat, unperturbed by its unusual sewer-mates, paddled on at a rate of knots, its long, fleshy tail steering it expertly and leaving a tiny wake as it passed.

"Quick!" Alex grabbed his arm and made after the rapidly disappearing rat. "Follow it! It'll know the way out!"

Gene splashed ungainly behind her. "DRAKE! Come back here! I don't do wildlife!"

The poor rodent, terrified by the enormous, shouting, galumphing creatures chasing it, sped off down a tunnel and Alex plunged after it. Frightened of losing her and being left alone in the dark, Gene struggled to catch up. After a couple of terrifying minutes wading in the pitch black, he found her soaked and breathless standing at a fork in the passage.

"I lost it," she said miserably.

"You certainly have," he panted. "Next time you decide to go off on a wild rat chase tell me, so's I can find something heavy to knock some sense into you with."

She gave him an apologetic smile, "Sorry Guv."

"That's ok. Now," he looked critically at the two possible channels. "Eeny-meany, miny-mo, catch a tiger by the toe, if he scratches let him go, eeny-meany, miny-mo." His finger landed on the left-hand tunnel. "Right. We go that way."

They had been moving for about five minutes when Alex said, "It'll be faster if we swim. We haven't much time."

"Um," was all Gene said. He was experiencing one of his rare moments of genuine fear; flashbacks of a recurring nightmare that had plagued him since Sam's death, always ending in him being dragged into a watery abyss by white-fleshed hands, unable to breathe. He tried not to think about it, but the images flared up behind his eyes, his chest constricting as though an ice-cold fist had forced its way down his throat and was squeezing the air from his lungs. His heart began beating wildly and for a mad moment he thought he could actually feel fingers tightening around his ankles… But Alex was now looking at him concernedly and he took a deep breath and pushed the terrible thoughts down and away.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah. Yeah." But he still shuddered as he slid forward up to his neck and tentatively performed a few metres of breaststroke.

After they had gone some way in silence he said, "When I were a kid back in Manchester I always hated going to the baths. People used to gob in the pool so much it was like trying to swim through jellyfish."

"Hgn," said Alex, who was holding the lighter in her mouth and attempting not to set her hair alight at the same time.

"I once found a half-crown at the deep end," Gene continued his reminiscence. "I almost drowned gettin' it, the water was that thick. They had to fish me out with one of them plastic hook-on-a-pole thingies."

"Hgn," she said again.

"The best time though was when this girl with a huge pair o'- er, a girl jumped off of the top divin' board. Only, when she jumped she was too close to the edge and her bathing suit got caught and ripped right off-"

"'Ot oz 'at?"

"I said, her bathin' suit was ripped right off-"

"No, not that," Alex had stopped and was holding the light up, head cocked to one side. "I thought I heard something…"

They listened. Gradually, and from far away there came a great booming sound as though an enormous hollow log was being hit repeatedly by hundreds of sticks.

"What the hell-?"

The noise grew in volume. It was now like a million angrily buzzing bees.

"Oh no," Alex said, he eyes widening in realisation. "There must be sluices somewhere! Come on!"

They surged forward, frantically splashing up the tunnel, but a wall of water turned the corner behind them, faster than a galloping horse, faster than they could swim, and Gene grabbed for Alex's hand without thinking…

The wave caught them up with a roar. The light went out and Gene's world became one of swirling, terrifying, unbreathable blackness. He lost any sense of up or down, forward or back. The fingers that were gripping so hard onto his were snatched away as the water swept them along like corks down a storm drain. He smashed into a wall (or it could have been the floor or even the ceiling), bounced off, hit another, desperately, desperately needed to breathe, struggling in the direction he thought was up, clawing at the black water as the terror of drowning down here in the dark gripped him with the irresistible urge to breathe oxygen, right now…

His head broke the surface mouth first, spluttering and gulping air. As he rose up his forehead hit the tunnel roof and he realised with horror that there was only a space of perhaps six inches between the brick and the dirty Thames water.

"Bolly?" he called.

No answer.

"BOLLY?"

Away to his right came a splashing followed by a gasping and the unmistakeable sound of someone coughing up water. He paddled towards it.

"Bols?"

"Guv?" came the raspy reply. "You okay?"

"Just peachy, thanks." His blind, numb hands found her in the blackness. "Now what?"

"There's got to be a way out. We may only have a matter of minutes." She sounded miserable and scared, but Gene found it hard to sympathise. He wasn't feeling great himself.

"Which way then brainbox?" The absence of light was disorientating and he hadn't the foggiest idea which direction they had come from. He could hear her thinking and knew she didn't have a clue either. The thought was not encouraging.

"Sod this for a lark," he muttered. "C'mon, we're going this way."

Half doggy-paddling and half frog-kicking they made their way up the tunnel, one hand brushing the left wall in case of a ladder. Gene was having to bend his head way back to keep his mouth and nose out of the water and the angle made it difficult to swim. Eventually he rolled over onto his back. The water lapped behind his ears and his forehead was almost pushed against the roof. The effect was terrifying and claustrophobic.

Alex was splashing along beside him. She had been very quiet for a while now. It had been the same when they were stuck in Edgehampton vault, he remembered.

"Gene?"

"Hm?"

"Sorry."

"What for?"

"Getting us lost down here. Not getting the evidence to nail Tony Kent so that we wouldn't be lost down here in the first place."

"Bolly," Gene sighed. "I couldn't get that evidence. No one on the team could get the evidence. Kent's a nasty, scheming, sneaky little bastard, and he's good at covering his tracks. It's not your fault."

"Thanks."

"Pleasure."

His face was right up against the roof now, lips almost brushing the brickwork. Terror crept up his spine, making his scalp tingle and his breathing ragged. Shit. I don't want to die.

Beside him he heard Alex give a tiny half-sob and ask again, "They'd never find us would they?"

She meant the rest of the team. Brawly, instinctive, loyal Ray; that dopey, patient twat Chris who'd sometimes surprise them all; Shaz, with the heart of a lion. Jesus, he was never going to see them again.

But his heart went out to the woman next to him in the darkness, that insufferable, prickly, totally insane person who'd challenged him on her first day and hadn't stopped pushing him since.

Gene found her hand in the water. His fingers were so numb it was as much as he could do to feel the squeeze she returned.

"It'll be all right, Bols."

She stopped swimming. He pulled her closer, wrapping an arm round her waist. Gene could feel her warm breath on his face and couldn't help remembering that day she punched him, in Luigi's later on when she asked him that question…

What would you do if this was your last moment on Earth?

Their heads bumped clumsily together in the blackness. Alex rested her forehead against his; he could feel her shaking against his frozen skin, the catch in her breath like a sob.

"Gene."

"Don't be scared." The pocket of air was thick and hot now, and getting less with every breath.

Your last few seconds…

"Alex…"

If he was going to die he was going to bloody well die with a beautiful woman in his arms.

What would you do…?

The water closed over their heads as Gene kissed her.

~~~OOooOO~~~

All Alex could hear was the hiss-boom of her heart in her ears as the water swallowed the last of the air. All she could feel was Gene's arms around her and his lips rough and demanding against hers. Why hadn't they done this before?

As if making up for lost time, she wrapped her legs around his waist, pushing him back against the brick wall, one hand in his hair and the other against his chest. Tiny bubbles streamed from his mouth and Alex felt them burst against her cheek, catch and tingle in her eyelashes. She had heard how in the final moments before you die every sense becomes heightened, every touch, colour and sound magnified, and she readily believed it as her tongue explored the inside of Gene's mouth and her skin brushed the stubble on his chin.

Oh God, she couldn't die. Not here. Not in this stupid bloody decade.

Could she?

The water pushed into her eyes, up her nose and into her throat. It was everywhere, suffocating, muffling everything. Except Gene.

I'm so sorry Molly.

Alex felt a sudden tugging at her clothes as the water swirled, eddied and rushed around them. She gripped the back of his jacket as hard as she could to avoid being swept away, instinctively reaching out a hand to grab the metal bar that he was pushed against. Her lungs were screaming for air, sweet oxygen that she'd never taste again…

Hang on.

Metal bar?

Scrabbling with both hands now she reached around Gene, feeling desperately, fingers splaying like starfish across the bricks.

Another bar. And another above that.

She began dragging herself up by them into the darkness and nudging Gene to make him follow. It was so difficult, an infinite effort to keep going and not give in to the soft unending black that clung to her, but all Alex could think about was that breath of air that could be waiting, inches above…

Her head broke the surface with a woop, Gene's face bobbing up next to her, gulping greedily as if breathing had never been so miraculous. He paddled to the side, clambering up the last of the ladder staples to the top of the shaft and heaving aside the drain cover.

The two of them made quite a curious sight flopping out of the hole in the pavement, soaking wet and gasping like a pair of landed fish. Alex lay back on the cobbles, exhausted. Slowly a huge smile split her face and she began to laugh. Gene couldn't help joining in, and, wheezing and giggly, they staggered to their feet.

They were somewhere near Embankment and the lights were just coming out across the city. The huge black shadows of buildings sat serene in the twilight, silhouetted against a sky that faded from deep midnight-blue at its dome through duck-egg-green and palest apricot and raging orange in the west. The Thames burned in the dying light. There were still people out on the streets, scurrying along to catch a bus or strolling in the balmy evening; further away there were sounds of traffic, sudden laughter and chinking of plates and glasses from a restaurant; the sound of someone playing a piano drifted from a window, mixing with the hard reggae beats pounding from some kid's boom-box.

Alex thought London had never looked so beautiful.

"Come on, Bolly," Gene said. "I could do with a drink."