Coronation Day by DorsetGirl, White Cortina, Gen

[dorsetgirl]

.
Title: Coronation Day
Author: DorsetGirl
Rating: White Cortina
Word Count: 1,500 words approx
Fandom: Ashes to Ashes
Spoilers for Ashes to Ashes episode 3.08
Warning: It’s impossible to give a warning without 3.08 spoilers, so please check out the title. If you don’t understand from the title exactly what I’m warning for, it’s best you don’t read

Comments

[lozenger8]

This is quite, quite fabulous. I feel the ache of it, and I am not a mother, but it's palpable here. I really like Mrs Hunt's seething anger towards PC Morrison. I also appreciate how Gene is still clearly his mother's son (and this is brought up in LoM, too, that line about keeping the streets safe, and OH, JUST MADE THE CONNECTION --- LAST LINE WIN.)

you drunken lummox

This is possibly my favourite use of lummox ever. It's close, anyway.

This is truly great, even though/especially because it's heartbreaking. Thank you so much for sharing.

[dorsetgirl]

Thank you! This was quite hard to write, by which I mean that it hurt, rather than that it was difficult. I knew I wanted to write it from his mother's viewpoint, but it wasn't until someone turned up to tell her he was dead that I realised no-one ever actually knew that for sure, and certainly not on that day *headdesk*. So the story changed somewhat in the writing, but she's a good lass, Gene's mum, almost as good at writing herself as Gene is, and I'm pleased you liked it.

[bluerosefairy]

Drat you, making me cry first thing in the morning. *sniffles*

This was lovely, and fits perfectly into what we know from canon. Our!Gene was always very conscious about keeping the streets safe for his mum, and you've captured perfectly that still-a-boy-almost-a-man aspect of 19-year-old Gene, who's a bit of a mummy's boy, but is so good-natured about it. His mum kind of breaks my heart, the way she goes through the years believing he's still out there (because he IS), and the way she gives Morrison what-for

[dorsetgirl]

Drat you, making me cry first thing in the morning

I kept making myself cry with this one, which very seldom happens! I originally had his mum more grief-stricken than this, but then somehow she became totally certain he was still out there. The sad thing is, I suppose, that she probably went quite doolally with the pain of it all - after all, no-one in possession of all their marbles would really continue to believe for thirty years that he was still working but just couldn't phone her. Despite the fact that it's true.

This was just one of those things that I had to write in order to be able to move on and assimilate the finale properly, so I'm glad it worked for some people. Thanks for reading and commenting!

[chamekke]

This is such a yearning, sad, loving story. Mrs Hunt is wonderfully drawn; she is fully three-dimensional, living and breathing here, very much her son's mother. And this portrait of her coming to terms with her terrible loss adds even more emotional power to those scenes in the A2A finale.

And it just gutted me (but in a good way) that Mrs Hunt passes away in summer 1983. Or rather, 'goes quietly to her grave'. One exquisitely crafted phrase out of so many in this understated, unbelievably poignant tale.

[dorsetgirl]

Thank you so much for a lovely comment. I did, to a certain extent, use my own relationship with my eldest son in this. The idea of wanting to hug him and look after him all the time but mostly respecting his wish to be treated as (nearly) an adult and wave him off casually even though it sometimes hurts - that's something I'm very familiar with, as I guess are most mothers of teenage boys.

Yeah, she goes to her grave in 1983; I couldn't make up my mind whether it was more heartbreaking if she finds out near the end what happened to him, or if she dies not knowing, so I tried to leave it ambiguous. But it seemed fitting that she should die around the time Gene himself discovered what had happened.

Thank you for reading, and for leaving such a lovely comment; I really appreciate it.

[pet_lunatic]

Achingly sad and yet bittersweet, given Mrs. Hunt's conviction that he's still out there somewhere. She isn't wrong, but if only he could have called her and told her what he was doing. A son to be proud of, indeed.

At Farringfield Green, in a field on a hill the crows never settle.

They circle and call.

I found these lines incredibly haunting. Beautiful story.

[dorsetgirl]

A son to be proud of, indeed.

Yes, definitely. Gene may be a rogue in many ways, but his whole life - if we can still call it that - has been dedicated to keeping the streets safe. He is at heart a very good man.

I found these lines incredibly haunting.

I'd decided I'd quite like to write his mother's point of view of that day, and then I woke up on Monday with those lines going round in my mind, which sort of set the mood. I'm glad you liked it, and thank you for commenting!

[elfbert]

Lovely story - really beautifully written. Makes you wonder about all of them - those families we never saw, but that would have been left behind. I'd love to write one for Ray (obviously, being me!) But Gene and his Mum is just a wonderful relationship to look into, however painful it is to read about her loss.

xx

[dorsetgirl]

Thank you very much! I must be really slow, but it honestly wasn't until she was standing at the door looking in shock at the unexpected visitor that I realised he couldn't be coming to tell her Gene was dead, because nobody actually knew that. So that rather changed the whole thing. I think there are whole chunks of the (newly-revealed) universe that I haven't yet processed, but if I ever want to write Sam/Gene again I need to do some sorting out in my own head and getting this out is part of that.

And Elf? DOOOOOO EEEEEEET!!

Seriously, you always do a wonderful job with Ray's back story and this would be a total heartbreaker. (Bonus points for getting in there his total hero-worship of The Guv - a substitute father figure? Who actually doesn't, most of the time, think he's a total waste of space, unlike his own father?)

Thanks for reading and commenting!