LOMFic - City
Title: City
Author: DorsetGirl
Fandom: Life on Mars
Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters or their universe. BBC/Kudos do. I’m not making any money out of this.
Rating: White Cortina
Word Count: 200 - two linked drabbles.
Summary: A look at Gene’s love for his city.
A/N: I’m writing some court-room scenes for Survival, and this came up in Gene’s thoughts while he was waiting for the next witness. I may leave the original idea in that fic, where it does serve a purpose, but I thought it might be worth working up as a stand-alone. There was to have been a third piece, concerning Sam's role in linking Gene to the city's future, but it didn’t seem to fit the mood.
City
* * *
For Gene, the job was personal - a passion glowing hot through every arrest, every crime, every new threat to his city. It was led by his heart, by his love for this city he’d spent his life in. He knew its people, its chimneys and alleys and mills; he felt safe in its docks and warehouses. Gene’s love for this city had been born with him, nurtured before he could walk, and fed by the moss-clad locks. His pride in its beating heart had been honed in the factories’ brooding shadows and polished by the silence of the canals.
* * *
But the job and the city were changing. Warm black bricks fell to cold glass and steel, and the old ways would not survive. Gene knew the people, their habits and jobs and desires, but as the factories died, the families left and Gene was alone. The Londoners in the new offices could never know the city as Gene did, and he would never know them. His memories would fade as the apartments rose, and he would be abandoned as the world moved on. Gene’s love for his city would die when he did; no-one could have loved it more.
* * *