Dead Man Walking

Summary: Alex realises the depths of Gene's grief for Sam and decides to do something about it.

Disclaimers: Naturally I own neither Gene et al, nor LoM/A2A: they belong to Kudos and the BBC, alas...

Acknowledgement: Thanks to FirstDraft for beta-ing: this is her story as much as mine.

A/N: Originally written as a one-shot, but now the first of a trilogy. 'A Room with a View' follows.

"Get dressed, Gene. I'm going back to the station."

"Eh? What? What do you mean, 'get dressed'?"

The woman, standing now and looking at the man with whom she had just shared several convivial jars, raised her eyebrows with the exasperation reserved for close friends and small children, and left.

As she walked away, Alex Drake smirked mischievously, imagining Gene Hunt's inevitable discomfiture as he glanced down and realised he'd been chatting up his DI for most of the pleasantly hazy evening with his flies undone. "Bollocks!" he would mutter, surreptitiously putting the matter to rights before looking around to see if anyone had noticed, and then stumbling out after her.

And Luigi the bar-owner, who would carefully and kindly have seen nothing, would smile contentedly to his romantic Italian self: he loved a story with a happy ending.

"Bolly? Bolly!" The chilly night air might have sobered Gene somewhat, but it hadn't put him in a good mood, Alex thought, as she heard him stumbling about in the main office. From where she sat at his desk, reading the words of Sam's obituary on the yellowing cutting she had carefully removed from the wall, she could clearly see him but was pretty sure he couldn't see her.

The banging about stopped momentarily, and she peered through the open door to see what had happened – if Gene had fallen over, she supposed she would have to go and pick him up, which would be a pain. What she wasn't prepared for was her boss hurling himself violently through that door. She looked at him in shock and surprise.

"Gene? What's wrong?"

She was even more surprised when he snatched the cutting from her, tearing it in half in his uncontrolled haste. He looked down at the shredded paper in his hands, and then back at her, and before he recovered himself she saw with horrible clarity the torment and grief below the surface. Then it was gone, and all that was left was the anger.

"Don't you ever – don't you ever…" He took a breath, and with frightening care placed the cutting on the desk. "Losing colleagues, DI Drake, is not something you just walk away from. It doesn't leave you. Ever! So don't you dare…" He was trembling with fury.

"I've lost friends as well, Hunt," Alex snapped, angry in her turn. "You're not the only one, you know – I lost Sam, too!"

Gene breathed sharply. "Yeah – you knew him. I forgot – sorry. But you weren't there. You didn't see what happened!"

Alex swallowed her instinctive retort. She'd seen what had happened to 'her' Sam, and it was something beautiful and awful that she would dearly love to forget. But she didn't know what had happened here, to this Sam, Gene's Sam, and it was something that had troubled her ever since she had arrived. At the back of her mind like an unscratched itch, this was the day she had at last decided to do something about it. She walked round the table and stood next to him. "What did happen, Gene?" Her voice was quiet, and as she laid her hand on his arm he could feel her gentleness through his anger. "What did happen to Sam?"

Finally reaching her bed at nearly three in the morning, Alex couldn't sleep. Gene's story had been one of corroding guilt at his own failure to protect Sam and at the pointless waste of a bright young life. He had spoken of the younger man's dedication, his determination to catch a drug dealer whose crimes had sickened everyone and caused even Gene some sleepless nights, his belief that the drugs were funded by high-class robberies, and his unilateral decision to pursue a jewellery thief without Gene's back-up, and it had all been consistent with the man she knew. She had been desperately tempted to tell Gene just how much she did know, but she sensed that he was jealous of his friendships, and that any comfort he might gain from her revelation would be swallowed up in defensiveness and disbelief. And, after all, 'her' Sam was dead too…

Unbidden, and certainly unwelcome, images from the day when she had seen Sam's body filled her mind. She had felt a strange compulsion to say farewell: a need to honour this complicated, unique man who, in spite (or because) of the terrible thing he had done, deserved her respect. What she hadn't bargained for were the violent emotions that cascaded over her, or the fact that his image etched itself so indelibly on her mind.

It had been a beautiful day, clear and bright, when her phone rang; absently, she'd picked it up, expecting another routine call. She had spent much of the last forty-eight hours in Sam's virtual company both in her office and at home, reviewing his police files and the information he had sent her, and she was overtired, overstressed and oversensitive. For some reason she couldn't explain, his story had caught her as no-one else's had, and she felt almost as if she had been there at his side, knowing these people as he had – as if these experiences were as real to her as they apparently were to him.

So the caller's message – that DCI Sam Tyler, whose photograph had slipped out of its anchoring paper clip and lay smiling on her desk, had committed suicide by jumping from the roof of the Manchester Police building – was devastating. Not only had the entire medical and counselling resources of the police force failed this gifted young man, but now she would never be able to ask him more about the astonishing panoply of characters he had created. Immediately, she had felt guilty: here was a man's life, snuffed out like a half-burnt candle, and she was thinking of herself.

Perhaps it was that selfish thought, that instinctive reaction; perhaps it was the lack of sleep, the fact that she had immersed herself with such intensity in Sam's world. Perhaps it was an odd, unidentified prescience that he would turn out to be far more important to her than she ever could have imagined.

Whatever it was, something had propelled her to Manchester to say goodbye. Evan had leapt at the chance to play surrogate dad to Molly for a few days, and she had driven the lonely miles to breathe the same air that had sustained Sam, see the same horizons he had seen, hardly knowing why but knowing that it was important.

As the psychologist dealing with his case, she had encountered no obstacles to her request to see his body. A worried doctor had wondered if she really wanted to examine such a broken corpse, and she prepared herself for the worst, but in the end it hadn't been necessary: Sam had been as beautiful in death as in life, and his tragedy had been all the more poignant for it.

His face was calm and serene, the mouth soft and the lips just meeting, the eyelids almost transparent: a face of sleep, not death. She had seen dead faces, and knew the subtle changes that took place, the slight sinking of the flesh, the almost imperceptible loss of muscle tone. But there was none of that here – Sam's face was unmarked, without any sign betraying the terrible impact of that last, desperate fall. This was no corpse: this was a handsome young man, asleep but on the threshold of waking, his life tense and poised, full of hidden, glorious potential waiting just beneath the surface.

Imagining the broken bones and twisted limbs she could not see beneath the sheet that covered them, she had gazed on that unblemished, peaceful, intelligent face for several minutes, finding it impossible to reconcile the perfect, intact features with the fact that the rest of him was now too damaged to sustain life. He reminded her of a beloved cat that had died when she was about six: an old animal, to her it looked exactly the same in death as in life, and she could not understand why it would not simply open its eyes, get up and walk away. Long after her head had accepted the inevitable, her heart had continued to rage against it.

It was perhaps this childish self that spoke, rather than the adult woman, when she whispered to him. "Sam? There was so much I still wanted to ask…" She reached out a hand, almost as if she could take his and raise him up, but then let it fall to her side: the age of miracles, if it had ever existed, was long past. A very small sob escaped her for this dead stranger. She felt he had become her friend; now he would never know.

Without warning, she felt a gentle pressure on her arm, and barely resisted letting out a scream. Turning, she looked into the eyes of a woman she had never met but instantly recognised. It was Ruth Tyler.

"It's always later than you think," she said, and guided Alex away.

Sitting with Alex in her living room, Ruth was an unexpected oasis of stillness even in her deep, consuming grief. She was gentle and strong, qualities which had enabled her to stand tall following her husband's desertion and the ensuing poverty and loneliness, and to bring up her son as a thoughtful, unselfish and ambitious young man. Her courage, almost unique in Alex's experience, and her serenity in the face of this second blow, were deeply humbling.

As their conversation had progressed from its halting start, Alex had marvelled at the journey Ruth had made, drawing on reserves she scarcely knew she had, and blossoming from a young, frightened single mother to a mature, self-sufficient woman. Before she had thought her actions through, Alex had blurted out more about Sam's experiences than was strictly commensurate with patient confidentiality, only to find that Ruth already knew about them all.

Alex tried to reconcile this gentle face and grey hair with the person described in Sam's notes, and found she had at least as much in common with Annie Cartwright – the woman clearly so important to Sam in his unseen world – as she did with the Ruth of 1973. She smiled wryly to herself: that was to be expected, she supposed. Even the sketches of Annie – she had requested that Sam use a police artist to draw his 'imaginary constructs' – resembled a younger version of this older Ruth.

"I wish I could have met him. I almost feel I did – he left me such detailed notes on his experiences when he was in the coma. But it's not the same. I'm not sure how I can miss someone I never knew!"

Ruth's eyes filled with tears: her loss was still too fresh and raw for her to talk of Sam without them, though her voice shook only a little and her words were calm. "He was always what you'd call a good boy, my Sam. Even as a teenager, he seemed to know how far to go before stopping and taking stock." She frowned. "Would that make him too controlled, er – Alex? May I?"

"Yes – yes, of course." She felt a not entirely appropriate professionalism take over. "A person is the sum total and more of all his experiences. The fact that in one area of his life he might have needed to be in tight control doesn't imply anything in particular. Perhaps it was his self-control that made him so successful, so determined."

"I keep forgetting that you weren't a friend. Although I knew he was going to tell you what happened, so maybe you were in a way. He told me some of it – that man who sounds awful but got the job done – no paperwork and no red tape, he said – and the young woman who achieved her ambition to succeed in a man's world – where did it all come from? Those people were real to him, as real as you and me. And in the end he – " her voice faltered now, as she faced again the finality of her son's action " – he chose them, and not us. Was he really that unhappy?"

Alex had been stung by the passing comment that she was not Sam's friend, but her self-pity was quickly lost in the other woman's pain. She searched for words of comfort, knowing that in reality there were none. Time was the only healer of such wounds, and sometimes made a pretty poor job of it; in Ruth's case, she reckoned, her innate common sense would eventually pull her through, but that didn't mean the journey would be anything other than long and distressing.

"He was happy here, Ruth. He spent most of his time – there – struggling, fighting to get home. There were days when it was the only thing he thought about. Almost everything he did was directly linked to getting back here. But somehow – somehow his subconscious dictated that, to return, he had to destroy that world, not just leave it. I think that, perhaps, if he could just have left them behind, he would have stayed with us – stayed with you, I mean. It was because they were being killed that he found it impossible to cope with."

"So because he couldn't bear the deaths of his friends, he made us bear his death instead." It was the only thing approaching bitterness Alex ever heard Ruth say, but she immediately softened it by adding, "the burden must have been intolerable – if he saw himself as responsible for them."

"But they weren't real."

"They were to him. You're the psychologist – you know that reality is whatever we make it."

Alex felt suitably chastened. "He said he'd spoken to you."

Ruth was silent for a long time before she replied. "I had the feeling he was asking my permission. And I gave it to him. What if I'd refused?"

"Your permission?" This was something Sam hadn't mentioned.

"He said – he said he'd made a promise. He didn't say what, and I didn't imagine that it might have been to one of them. But he said he'd made a promise, and I said – " she faltered again " – I said that I knew he always kept his promises. He was asking me then, wasn't he? He was asking me if it was all right to kill himself. And I said yes."

"How could telling him to keep a promise be giving him permission… And even if it was, there's no way you could have made that connection. You can't blame yourself."

Ruth sat a little more upright. "I don't – if I did that, I'd blame myself for bringing him up to keep his word."

"I'm sorry – I don't understand."

"You told me that these people were dying? Sam told me he had made a promise. From what you've said now, I assume that promise was to keep them safe."

"You mean – "

"I think he intended to go back and save them. And the only way he could do that was to leave this world for the other."

Looking back on the paths that had brought her here to the small flat above Luigi's restaurant in 1981, Alex placed this as one of the defining moments. It was the first time it had ever occurred to her that Sam's world could be anything other than purely imaginary, and once it had taken root, the idea refused to die, sprouting and spreading like the growth that had been too deeply embedded in Sam's brain for the surgeons to remove.

Her mind reeled, first with outright rejection, then with the possibilities, and finally with the implications of Ruth's words. "Are you saying that he wasn't just leaving here – he was actually returning to them?" It was impossible – ridiculous – like consciously recreating a dream. But Ruth's face was very serious.

"It would make sense of his death. I – I need to make sense of his death."

Alex felt as if she was stumbling in a darkened maze, about to expose some world-shattering truth that might turn out to be merely a colossal lie. She was thrilled and terrified – and not a little sceptical. But something very powerful within her – the something which had connected with Sam as soon as she'd heard his voice, and which had strengthened the strange link between them as she shared his experiences – wanted it to be true, just as it had wanted her dead cat to be alive, all those years ago. This time, perhaps, her wish might be granted. "If he died to go back and save them," she breathed.

The two women looked at each other, almost daring to believe. "He could be with them right now – he could have done it. More things in heaven and earth," Ruth said. "How do we really know?"

But for Alex the moment had passed, and she felt a desperate need to reassert bland, safe rationality. The trouble was, in the face of Ruth's shining eyes, how could she? She forced herself to say something. "Sam knew."

"Yes," Ruth echoed. "Sam knew. Perhaps that's why he wanted you to know. He respected you – he did 'look you up' before sending you the information you'd asked for. Perhaps he wanted to change your ideas of what is real. Did you say you had pictures?"

Alex was wrong-footed by Ruth's sudden change of tack. "Pictures?"

"Of the people there."

"Oh – yes. They're very…"

"Real?"

"Yes. Would you like to see them?"

The two women spent a long time looking at the faces of those they had been left for. The artist had excelled herself, capturing the life behind the eyes of the men and women in Sam's head. Their features faded over the ensuing months, but Alex never forgot them.

And now, here they were – real – and she knew that in spite of logic and reason and psychology and pragmatism, Sam had indeed saved them. And when she got back to her own world, she would make sure that Ruth was told that her son's death had been worthwhile.

She wiped away a stray tear, and wondered if, in this awful situation, there could be any hope. In this world, Sam had simply disappeared. The cutting said he'd been drowned, but Ray had already admitted there'd been no body. And Gene was haunted by the thought that Sam's corpse was rotting in a neglected stream somewhere, or food for rats down a disused gully. It was not a good way to go.

But Alex knew he was also haunted by the irrational hope that Sam might still be alive, and that was what hurt the most. If I'd seen him, he'd said, If I'd just been able to see him.

And in that half-awake-half-asleep state when thoughts swirl around like the colours of petrol in the road, and the craziest ideas make the most perfect sense, she realised what she had to do.

"Where's Tyler, Guv?" Predictably, it was Ray – unthinking, block-headed Ray, the semi-civilised thug with a deep well of kindness that he had no idea how to tap – who blundered into Gene's renewed grief just a couple of days later.

"In my desk. Got torn – got to mend it. Don't you have anything better to do?" He didn't look up as he spoke, and Alex knew why. He was hollow inside – a dead man, walking.

Her heart bled for him, and she knew she mustn't wait any longer. Logic be damned – she owed it to him, to Ruth – to herself – to do the right thing. She stood up and made for the door, needing peace to think this through. Of course Gene, who somehow always knew exactly where she was and what she was doing, saw her.

"Oi! Where do you think you're going?"

She turned and smiled ingratiatingly. "Out!" she whispered, as insubordinately as she dared.

She could bring Sam back.

She had been shocked at his death, but after she had found her feet and had time to think, she had reached the obvious conclusion: that she herself had killed him. This was her world, created by her subconscious as she'd been shot. Since then, everything had gone pear-shaped, but at the beginning it was all as she had wanted it to be. And Sam's death was one of the first things she had been told about, so it must have been important. Equally important, she could see now, was the fact that his body had never been found. That she had left herself a way out. Sam had always controlled his world, but had scarcely realised it until the last few seconds, when his confusion and fear had almost destroyed it, but she had the advantage of knowing what was going on right from the start, and she knew it. The nagging feeling that things might be different here – that she might actually have no idea what was going on at all – was shunted away to the back of her mind. If relevant, it could be brought out and played with another time.

Days of hard soul-searching had convinced her that she didn't want Sam around because he knew too much. Because if he were there she wouldn't be unique. Because inevitably they would become rivals. But for what? Attention, promotion, kudos? Gene's affection? Was the picture Sam had painted back in 2006 so vivid that her need for him had, in effect, condemned Sam to death? It wasn't a comfortable thought, but her honesty made her admit it. If Sam were here, she wouldn't have Gene to herself. That knowledge opened a whole new can of worms, and she was pretty sure what she would find if she emptied it, but she wasn't prepared to go there. She had to get home, couldn't commit to this world as Sam had finally done. She couldn't afford to fall in love.

And bringing Sam back would ensure that she didn't. She was doing it for herself as much as for Gene. She could kid herself that far. Perhaps bringing back Sam was what she was here for: perhaps saving Sam was her ticket home.

It had been Molly's idea. Sitting just out of Alex's sight, she had put her head on one side (she would have put her head on one side, Alex knew) and said in that confident tone, "Perhaps you could swap places with Sam. If he came back, you might be able to leave."

It had seemed impossible until she had spoken to Gene, but now she felt it might just work.

She began. This was her world, her construction, and she could make anything happen. Anything at all. Wryly banishing thoughts of Gene, she concentrated on Sam. Sam was alive. Sam was well. Sam was happy and Sam was coming home.

He had to have a cover story, a good one. Why would he abandon his friends? What could be so important? So… he hadn't abandoned them – he had been working. But what cover story could there be? The cover story was that Sam had been working undercover. Deep cover – the kind not even your friends know about. The kind where you certainly can't write home. Dear Gene, I'm fine – please don't worry – I'll be back soon – oh damn, my cover's blown – he's coming to kill me. Sam had escaped from the car and no-one had been there to see him stagger up the bank. The authorities had taken advantage and placed him in deep cover. It was ludicrous, but she'd seen far more outrageous plots in films; she only had to believe that it could have happened. She knew she only had one shot at this, and she had to get it right first time.

She could safely leave the details to her subconscious, but the big picture was that Sam had been working undercover in – where was somewhere Gene would never have been? Wales – she could hear the sheep jokes already – and the job was now successfully over.

He had written to Gene when he was finished – yes, he would have done that – but the letter had never arrived. God bless the inefficiency of the Post Office, as crap in 1981 as it was in 2008. So Sam was going to walk into the station bright and breezy and unsuspecting – no, she couldn't do that. Not to Sam and certainly not to Gene. The first meeting would have to be just the two of them, so that Gene could walk into the station with Sam. So that Gene could stay in control.

And that, she realised, could only happen if she warned him. Which would mean that she would have to tell him that she'd known about Sam all along, that she had betrayed him right from the start, right from when she had asked about the cutting on the wall.

She would lose his respect, his friendship, his – she felt her eyes sting as the prospect of losing any tenderness this wretched man might feel for her confirmed how much she wanted it. She was like a small child, crushed and bewildered and utterly helpless.

He's a figment of your imagination and without you he would cease to exist. Who cares what he feels?

She started. Who had said that? A shadow moved on the wall: the Clown was in the room with her. She sat up in terror, looking wildly round, but now the room was empty apart from a slight rustling breeze. She began to realise Sam's panic at the intrusions of the test card girl in the little red dress, smiling as she mouthed evil words and clutched her sinister cross-eyed toy. But the voice she had heard was familiar, and she found herself arguing with it. Yes, he was a figment of her – no, Sam's – imagination, but even if imaginary, this was still Gene's world. Perhaps somewhere he was real? Hadn't Molly watched some TV programme where a computer game had been reflected in a reality half-way across a galaxy?

So now you're going to save someone in a science fiction show? Oh please…

It was the decent thing to do. You were nice – as nice as you could be – to people you didn't like, because it was the decent thing to do. You were nice to strangers, people you'd never see again, and who you wouldn't recognise if you did, because it was the decent thing to do. So what was the difference? She would soon never see Gene again, but if she could do something for him while she was here, it was right to do it.

She stuck out her chin at the disembodied voice.

You're going to spoil your imaginary happiness with some imaginary unhappiness because of an imaginary morality? Now, if you really wanted to do something for Gene…

Alex spoke aloud. "If you're saying I should, I know damn well I shouldn't! This is what I'm going to do, and you can get out!" She shouted the last two words, then instinctively glanced around to see if she had disturbed Molly. But Molly, of course, wasn't there.

You won't be able to do this again, you know. You think you're in control, but this is my world. You should be careful about what you want, Alex Drake – you might bring back more than you bargained for!

It was spoken in little more than a whisper, and she barely heard it. Tomorrow she would prepare Gene for the return of his friend, and herself for the loss of hers.

In the end, as with all the best laid plans, everything went awry.

The day had been ghastly. Gene had been more-than-usually abusive to everyone, Chris' lack of initiative had reached new heights and Ray's misogyny new depths, Viv's geniality had completely deserted him and even the usually sensible Shaz, with whom Alex shared the secret understanding of embattled women, was whiney and irritating. And the talk of the day was Sam. Do you remember when Sam did this… I was there when Sam said that… There was no escape, and she almost pleaded with Gene to have a drink with her, just to get away.

"So, come to your senses at last have you, Bols?" he said, as they sat at their accustomed table, wine and glasses between them like drawn battle lines.

"What do you mean?"

"Ready for a bit of the old Gene Genie magic?" His leer told her what his words meant, but even she could see his heart wasn't in it.

"Oh knock it off, Gene." She sipped her drink. "It's been such a totally shit day. I'm tired and I just want some peace. Couldn't you – "

He cut her off. "Have you been talking to people about our little chat the other evening? What I told you about Tyler? Because it was the hot topic today, wasn't it? Couldn't get away from it in even in my bleedin' office. Had bloody Hyde on the phone, didn't I? Wanting to know something and then saying it was a wrong number." He threw his wine to the back of his throat as if it had been water in the desert.

Alex blinked. "You had a phone call from Hyde? From Sam's old place?"

"Yeah." Gene refilled their glasses. "Couldn't be bothered to look for him at the time, so I don't know why they're pissing me off about it now." The muscles of his face hardened and she could see the shadows of months of unshed tears as he drank defiantly. She glanced away from him to a movement near the door.

And looked straight into Sam Tyler's eyes. He didn't look like a dead man walking. He was very, very much alive.

Sam didn't move, waiting for her to act. What do I do? She thought frantically. What do I do to make it right for Gene? She felt like an author who'd written herself into a corner.

She pushed the wine aside, reached out and put her hand on Gene's. He started, almost pulled it away, and then relaxed. "So, you have come to your senses!"

"Gene – " she had to keep her eyes from flicking back to where Sam stood, had to keep her composure. "Gene, I've been hearing rumours, just – er – barrack-room stuff I suppose. Too plebeian for you to have known about."

"Too what?"

"Things about – I don't think that – "

"Spit it out, woman!" Gene was irritated now, but he hadn't let go of her hand.

"Sam – "

"I don't want to talk about Sam, Alex. You know I don't want to talk about Sam. I've had a gutful of Sam all day and it's doing my head in. I can't talk about Sam – do you understand?"

She glanced up. Sam had moved a little closer, and was smiling encouragingly. He nodded, and mouthed, Go on! She could see his tension, and realised that these months must have been hell for him, too.

So she went for it. What else could she do? "I don't think Sam's dead – I don't think he died in that lake. I think he's been working undercover – really deep cover – and I think he's on his way home." Her voice cracked at the word. In her world, Sam's final home had been that bloody mortuary slab. But not here. Not here.

She saw the hope flare behind Gene's burning eyes. Then she saw it cut down, as it must have been cut down a thousand times before, viciously and without mercy.

"What are you trying to do to me, Drake?" he hissed. "What the hell are you trying to do? Because it's not very funny and I am not very amused!"

"I know he's alive, Gene. I've suspected it for days, but I wanted to find out for sure before telling you. I didn't want you to get hurt! I didn't want to make you believe it in case it wasn't true!"

"Of course it isn't true! How could it be true? They would have found something – they would have found something…" He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself, and Alex knew then that in his heart he had always believed. "How do you know?" he whispered, his hand squeezing hers so hard it hurt. "How do you know Tyler's alive?"

She swallowed, and dared to look up. Sam was waiting, poised and expectant. "Because he's standing right behind you," she said softly, as the tears began. "Because he's come back, Gene. He's right there."

Gene stared at her, pale as the ghost in her nightmares. Slowly, he released her hand, turned in his seat and stared at the man who stood by him. He looked up into his eyes, and realisation dawned. As if in a dream he stood and faced him, and taking the single step across the space that divided them, brought his face so close to Sam's that they were almost touching. Grabbing his lapels with such force that Sam nearly lost his footing, he spoke in a voice thick with emotion. "Where the bloody hell have you been, Tyler?"

Sam just smiled.

Alex wiped at her tears, and quietly stood up. There was no place for her here now. She put her finger to her lips as Luigi looked questioningly at her, and tiptoed towards the door. Outside in the unwelcoming cold, she leant against the smooth brick wall and sobbed with loss. Doing the right thing wasn't always the easy option, and she was pleased she'd taken the chance, but she hadn't bargained on the distress she would feel at slipping so easily out of Gene's life.

Then someone touched her arm. "Come back inside, Alex. We still need you. Both of us." She felt her hand taken, and even the glimpse of a white, dreamlike figure watching from across the road could not dampen her strange joy.

It was perhaps the most surreal evening of Alex's life. She sat in the oddly empty bar with two of the most vital, alive men she had ever encountered, knowing that one was imaginary and the other was dead. But her emotions seemed on hold, almost as if she was in shock: the tears and the laughter, she knew, would come later.

She and Sam snatched a conversation during Gene's absences at the bar, united by that other place they had both – for the moment – left behind, and aware that to speak of it before their friend would both exclude and confuse him. Not that Sam hadn't tried to be mischievous, making references that were quite transparent to her but obviously utterly opaque to Gene, but a few judicious below-the-table kicks had put paid to that game.

"I thought if you came back I might escape," she had said as Gene fetched their third bottle. "It still might happen – it doesn't have to be immediate. And if I can just stop my parents getting killed – if I can just change the past – that might do it." Sam had shaken his head, but she had persisted. "I know it didn't work for you – but I've got to try."

"I don't know," he'd said. "Just be prepared." She closed her eyes; to have someone who understood was like the kiss of morning sun after a cold night. He was just as she had imagined – everything he could have been, and more. If she had thought he was beautiful in death, how much more so was he in life! And the energy she had seen in his dead face animated it here beyond imagining: she had never seen anyone so alive. Suppressing the irony of that thought, she listened to him in rapt fascination, always aware of Gene but drinking in this new man like wine.

Half in love by the early hours, it was Gene who eventually brought her back to herself and reminded her that, even if these people weren't real, within their world they were capable of independent thought – independent pain.

"It's four o'clock in the morning," he said, "and way past Bolly here's bedtime. You're working tomorrow, Bols, even if this one isn't, and if you don't get a couple of hours' sleep you'll make even less sense than usual."

"Are you sending me to my room, Gene Hunt?"

"No. Not as such. You look tired, and Sam and I have got our own catching up to do."

"Oh, so you're not going to bed, then?"

"The Gene Genie never sleeps, isn't that right, Guv?" said Sam.

Alex snorted in frustration and disbelief. "I can't believe I'm being ganged up on by a couple of – of – "

"Imaginary constructs?"

She was furious. This wasn't what she'd planned at all. She was supposed to be the heroine here, bringing Sam back from the dead, returning his friend to a grieving Gene! Then she stopped: of course it was what she'd planned: she just hadn't thought it through. She'd known this would cost her Gene's friendship – that Sam would always be more important than she was. And that was why she had done it, after all: to make Gene happy. She couldn't whinge now, when the plan had worked and Gene no longer needed her.

She stood up. "Well," she said, her voice a strange mixture of defiance and defeat, "you two are stuck here, but at least I can leave."

"Of course you can leave – the stairs are just over there. And don't be late tomorrow."

Sam caught her eye. "Don't worry – I'll take care of him."

As she reached the bottom step, she turned for one last glimpse to find Gene watching her intently, and realised that, whatever had already happened here, there was a lot more to come.

CONTINUED IN 'A ROOM WITH A VIEW'