Title:         Ghosts
Author:        Augustus
Email:         gaius_octavius_@hotmail.com
Web Addy:      http://rimmer.alphalink.com.au
Fandom:        The Bill
Pairing:       Various slash and het
Rating:        PG
Status:        New, complete
Category:      Angst, reflective
Challenge:     Kel's "write about George" challenge on
               Sunhill
Archival:      Lines. List archives are fine, as for
               anyone else I would be thrilled and
               honoured, but please let me know where it
               is.
Feedback:      Go ahead; make my day
Summary:       George returns.

Author's note: This is horribly self indulgent. You have
               been warned *g* But! but! I'm writing The
               Bill again! Finally! Seriously, you don't
               know how much that means to me... it's been
               a long break.
Disclaimer:    If I owned The Bill, this piece never would
               have had to happen. As is, I'm just playing
               with other people's possessions. Is it
               still owned by Pearson?
Date:          21-12-2002



*****************
    Ghosts
*****************


George doesn't want them to see him here, huddled in the
corner of the rearmost pew and buried deep within his
hymnal. He doesn't know whether they'd render him a ghoul
or frown upon his presence, but he had to come. Sun Hill
is his history, much as he'd like to forget. He's not here
to eulogise. Familiar faces are a punishment, weeping
families a bitter reminder of what it's really like, this
job he's gotten himself into, a career constable until the
end.

It wasn't so long for those like Ben Haywood, time's
cruelty shining in the tears on his mother's cheek. George
has heard about *her* story, although he doesn't question
the loss of both her offspring; that's just the way life
is, sometimes. If you think too much about right and
wrong, the twin concepts become tangled and that just
doesn't do when you're in the job.

Harder to ignore is the adult stoicism in the eyes of Di
Worrell's son, tall and confused in his frontward pew.
It's difficult not to notice the quiver to Cass' shoulders
(and won't she hate that later, such a blatant show of
fallibility) when someone mentions Harker's name. Spears
and Riley were really just newcomers, but Monroe had been
there forever it seemed, and George is glad he'll never
have to walk into the Inspector's office and see that
empty desk.

It feels different. Not many months in the scheme of
things, but George knows that a certain point has been
passed. Unfamiliar faces clutter his vision... and there
are so many people absent who really should be here, if
not to mourn, then to settle a score. The church is filled
with the living, the current relief, but it is the ghosts
that burn inside him, hazy faces that tease his senses.
And he's not sure whether he is the only one here who
feels frozen by the past, whether grief has made them all
forget that Sun Hill had been dying long before the petrol
bomb.

At the front, Taviner slumps against the standard, a
reluctant hero with shadowed eyes. They're all just
echoes, really, reflections of the past. If George closes
his eyes, it could almost be John Boulton there, stretched
and clad in uniform and glaring into the mourners as
though it was all their fault. And not just this, but
*everything*, because Boulton had always known that you
had to blame someone if you wanted to stay sane. He's gone
now, though, dead: and George would like to be sorry,
truly he would, but it was hard to cry for someone so easy
to despise.

Somehow, Rod Skase had loved Boulton, though, deep beneath
the self-adoration. If he'd been here today, George might
have wished him well, muttering condolences he didn't
mean. Rod would have shrugged and pretended not to care,
because that's the way it is. Always has been; always will
be. Rod was never one for eulogies. There'll always be
another woman to woo and perhaps one day one of them might
actually fill the gap.

It's all just seasons when it comes down to it, falling
leaves and swirling winds. The faces change, the halls
change and yet everything stays the same. People fade into
spectres, but their voices echo in George's mind. From a
distance, Chandler's artfully constructed drone splices
through thoughts without time. Out on the beat, the crime
circles on. There will be no pause for remembrance. Not
now, not ever.

And it was the same back then, when Sun Hill remained
bright and known, instead of the sepia shadow of today.
When Viv Martella was killed, then that was just the way
of the job, and not many cried when Cathy Marshall met her
end. Stop. Change. Start. The cogs grow a little more
rusty and the faces grow a little older and a little less
familiar, but that's the game, and George knows it well.

Dave's not here and it's probably better this way. At
least, that's what George tells himself while he peers
above his hymnal, sorting through the crowd. He knows what
happened - it's hard to miss things in this business - but
he'd expected Dave to come nonetheless. Perhaps that's
even why George is here, although he prefers to tell
himself that it stems from respect and duty. If Dave were
here, then it'd be easy to believe that the years hadn't
passed. Tony, George, Jenny, Polly... the chain of history
forms a barrier around Sun Hill, and it's too bad if
George wants to abuse Dave or beg him to return, because
he's not here. Just another ghost, another time.

Tony's eyes have changed, greying with his hair, and
George has heard that the years have twisted him into
something else. Polly's recuperating in a hospital bed,
not broken by the job but by her heart, while Mickey
teeters on the bridge between insanity and denial. June
has grown a little colder and Jim a little more cynical
and George senses that there's something between them now,
born not of passion bus simply making do. Even Boyden has
sunk into the background, a little less himself now that
Vicky's gone for good, and Jack Meadows isn't the same man
without the mane of golden curls.

George appreciates the irony in Nick comforting a mourning
Cass when he can remember Nick and Sam as rivals for
Smiffy's attention. It's easy to forget quarrels and
arrogance when the act changes and the play rolls on. He
misses Smiffy's cocksure voice, misses the arguments that
ended in Nick pushed hard against a wall with no one sure
whether it'd end in sex or bloodshed. But Smiffy's gone
(and Uncle Bob's retired) and now Nick's pretending that
Sam was his closest friend. George knows better, but he
doesn't say a word.

He stays silent a lot, does George. He learnt that from
the beginning, becoming an expert over the years. When
Dave betrayed him, the words quietened and froze and it's
never been quite the same since then. He's a little older
now, a little more reserved, and he's not letting anyone
into his heart again because people always leave, or die,
or find someone else. Moving onwards, beginning again. And
now nothing's the same and George doesn't think he could
speak now if he tries.

When the service ends, George is the first to leave. He's
not interested in small talk; he'd rather not comfort
those whose grief is sharper than his own. Because when it
comes down to it, he shouldn't be here, shouldn't have
raised so many spectres when forgetting would have been
safer. This time, when he drives past the station, it is
for the final time, and when he turns from the boarded-up
windows, for a moment his throat fills with bile. He can't
go back; no one can. The beat cycles on, as the ghosts
fade but never die.

~fin~
(c) Augustus, 21-12-2002

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Jonathan: What was it that Sherlock Holmes said to Watson?
Maddy: Get your kit off and give us a kiss?
(Jonathan Creek)
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