Ok folks, this is the first A2A fic I've posted...aside from a paragraph or two on fanforum. Reviews and concrit will be welcomed, flames will not. It's been my experience that, even if Gene doesn't do it, karma will come to your house and stamp on all your toys. You can't say I didn't warn you.

Disclaimer: I own only the odd bit of merchandise and my imagination anything even remotely connected with Ashes to Ashes and Life on Mars is the property of the BBC and Kudos.

Rated for language.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE SEASON TWO FINALE - IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THAT YET (where have you been?!) AND DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED STOP READING NOW!!

If there's anything else I've missed PM me.

Oh...the title's from a David Bowie song (isn't everything?) and I'm sorry the first chapter is a little on the short side.



Gene sat in a dim corner of Luigi's nursing another free drink from CID. He supposed he should have been more appreciative. Even by his standards he was being a moody git but being cleared of attempted murder and having his suspension ended didn't mean everything was better. The suspension of a certain Detective Inspector might also have been lifted but she still hadn't been near the station…or any of the team as far as he knew.

Alex Drake, a doctor had informed him, had discharged herself, against medical advice, and since then she had dropped of the face of the earth…his part of it anyway.

He didn't know what to make of it, any of it. Nothing about her recent behaviour made sense…not that it made a huge amount of sense normally. He'd always known there'd been a lot she wasn't saying, not for nothing was he a Detective Chief Inspector, but he had been equally unwilling to talk about anything other than the job. It hadn't seemed like a problem, neither had her recurring dotty outbursts; she was a bird, a posh one at that.

He hadn't expected her to be sensible but he'd never thought she could be such a lying scheming bitch.

That tape.

Her version of 'the truth'.

If he was brutally honest, hearing all that had been worse than the slap. The slap he could shrug off, everything else had festered, would continue to fester until he got some sort of explanation.

When he'd been laying low at the Tylers' house, an altogether weird experience without Sam around, Annie had suggested one. It was almost as troubling as his initial 'lying bitch' theory. Alex could have actually believed what she'd said. She could have 'serious psychological problems', not unlike but more severe than those Sam had experienced after his concussion. Something might have been going wrong in that brain of hers. It meant that there was a chance that she hadn't really betrayed and abused his trust, she could have been ill for the whole year, right under his nose, and he hadn't even noticed.

Gene didn't want her to be ill, didn't want to have threatened violence to a sick woman, a team member, a friend…but surely him being an ignorant bastard would be better than Bolly being a deceitful, conniving cow. The department would take years to get over it, Shaz especially looked up to her…and that dopey bugger Chris…even Ray had started to stand up for her. Definitely easier for them to hate him for a couple of months than her for years…not that he could change the truth, whatever it was.

"Guv?" Knowing that no excuse was good enough to warrant intrusion Gene was less than welcoming to DC Skelton.

"What?"

"Did you want another drink?"

"Does it look like I'd have trouble finding my arse with both hands?" Chris looked at his boss, evidently in too much of a bad mood to be pissed off his face.

"Er…no guv…"

"Then keep 'em coming until it does." Gene looked away from his DC, effectively dismissing him. Drink would help. It had to. At least it was something he understood. The familiar bark of one of his DCs' laughter from the bar prevented him from settling back into his thoughts, normally they'd all give him more space but they were still celebrating him being back on the job and they didn't want to leave him alone. It was a nice enough gesture he supposed but it was bloody annoying. He'd be better off alone with decent booze.

"You leaving?" Considering that he was stood with his coat on, Gene though that Chris's bloody stupid question was almost cause for demotion back to uniform, unfortunately training a new DC would be a pain in the arse big enough to make him let the stupidity slide.

"Date with a twenty-five year old." Chris looked suitably impressed, not suspecting that the twenty-five year old was Scottish and bottle shaped. Impatiently, Gene took the drink that Chris had yet to offer him, handed back the empty glass seconds later and left for the station. The privacy and comfort of his office was something he'd missed since his suspension, not that it had been the worst thing about his forced and furtive trip to Manchester. The single malt he'd stashed was calling to him like a siren though.

Gene told himself that he would not, under any circumstances, look up to see if her light was on when he got outside.

He also told himself that if he happened to see her window out of the corner of his eye, that it really wouldn't be his fault.

Her window was dark.