DISCLAIMER: The following story was written entirely for entertainment purposes. I do not own the rights to Ashes to Ashes, the characters, the settings- any of it. All rights and ownership are to Kudos, Monastic and the BBC. I am using them purely on a fan basis; not for money. The story may be taken down instantaneously if it should be desired, and I hope that I have not breached any regulations. I am simply a fangirl who believes this world needs more Ashes to Ashes in it! Thank you :)

A/N: Hello everyone! Thank you for taking the time out to read my latest attempt at reviving possibly THE greatest show of all time :D As written in the description, please bare in mind that this is set AFTER series two, but before the angst that was series 3. Gene's bullet may have taken Alex from 1982, but it delivered her back to 2008.

Hope you enjoy! :)

~Project Ashes~

Molly Drake sat, as she did every evening after school, with her headphones firmly over her ears, and her homework to hand. She hadn't always spent her evenings in this way; she could remember a time when homework would be scribbled in the car on the way to school, having spent the entire evening baking cakes or mocking celebrities with her mum. The evenings when she'd be stuck as a twig in mud over her maths work, and her mum would sit all night with her, working through the sums; teaching her, helping her, loving her.

Of course, Molly was glad her mum was home and alive. The nights spent worrying whether her best friend in life would pull through, would hug her again, swam all too fresh in her mind. But she had been naive to think that life would simply return to how it used to be, how she wanted it to be.

She knew her mum was trying to cope; she could see it in her false smile, or her over-starched uniform, or the petty cash she kept finding in her school bag. She was trying to be the mum Molly deserved, but she was a woman obsessed, possessed, and she couldn't shake it away.

At first, Molly put it down to missing work, or a need to keep on top of the flow, but her mum had always known when enough was enough, and would humbly switch off the laptop and head off to make the pair a hot-chocolates in time for whatever series they were addicted to at the time.

This was different, however. The past two weeks she hadn't left her laptop alone, punching the keys rapidly, only pausing now and then to scroll through whatever it was she had pulled up onto the screen. Her mum wasn't due back to work for another month, and Molly was dreading the occasion. At this rate, she knew it wouldn't be long until she lost her best friend entirely, until the only person she could turn to in life would be Evan. It was hard, so extremely hard, to watch the person she loved more than any in the world as they slowly crumbled to dust before her very eyes, as they became almost unrecognisable against their former self.

And that was why, as her mum sank down into her evening bath, that Molly Drake tiptoed into her bedroom, snatched the laptop and with undeterred fortitude, hit the history button.

She didn't know what it was going to take, what she was going to find, but the 12 year old new one thing with certainty. She would do whatever it would take to help her mother.

She would do whatever it took to make Alex Drake rise from the ashes.

Chapter One

It was nine o'clock when Molly heard the faint knock against her bedroom door. Lowering her book, she shifted up in her bed and scrubbed at her eyes wearily.

"Mum?"

Tentatively the door opened, and Alex Drake entered holding a mug of steaming cocoa. She placed it softly besides her daughter, reaching out a spare hand to stroke the tresses of her golden hair. Her eyes bore her guilt, her expression bearing self-hatred as her gaze poured over her child's wanting face, and Molly's heart burnt for her. Something was consuming her very soul, and she knew that if she could share it with her, could let her in, then maybe – just maybe- they'd be able to work through whatever it was that was slowly dragging her mother away from her.

"Did I wake you, sweetheart?"

Molly stifled a yawn, nodding down towards the book resting in her lap.

"Just thought I'd read a bit more of that before bed. It's starting to get good."

"What's it about?"

Molly picked up the aforementioned novel, lamely flicking through the pages as Alex perched softly on the edge of her bed. In the lamp light, Molly noted with sadness, her mother almost appeared more deathly than she had done in hospital.

"The pain of keeping secrets," Molly replied casually, and did not miss the wince in Alex's expression, "And how sharing them with those you trust might just help."

"I might borrow it when you've finished, like we used to?"

She was trying to be causal; trying to avoid the obvious connotations to her daughter's statement, but Molly was undeterred. She let the silence fill the moment, let her mother think about what things did used to be like, and only spoke as the eyes avoiding her own began to glaze with tears.

"Who's Gene Hunt, mum?"

At his name, Alex's eyes rose and burnt. The passion for life that Molly hadn't see in her mother for weeks sparked momentarily, before twinkling away like a breath in the wind. Stone cold shutters replaced her short-lived openness, but Molly felt an inch of hope; a chink in her mother's armour had finally been taken.

"Who?"

Molly snorted, shuffling over slightly to allow her mum to sit beside her on the bed. Alex remained seated where she was; distrust seemed to become her.

"That's a bizarre question to be asking, considering your search history."

Finally Alex's eyes slowly peeled up to meet those of her child's. It was the first time in her entire life that Molly had ever felt genuinely frightened of her mother. She'd been abrupt, firm, disciplinary to her before, but the anger she saw building in the once-familiar hazel eyes left her feeling on-edge.

"You went on my laptop?!"

Molly suppressed a whimper.

"I wanted to know what's been wrong, mum. You've been acti-"

"Just because you're my daughter it gives you no right to go snooping at my private stuff, young lady! What on earth made you think that you had any right to do that! What made you think for one second that-"

Alex's arm flailed up at her rebuke, her expression dangerous as her arms flung from her body. As she yelled, she saw in slow motion her arms failing to judge the distance, and rather than striking the air, her hand collided unceremoniously with her little girl's chin. The anger dissipated instantaneously, replaced with sheer horror.

"Oh, shit! Mols, I'm sorry. Mols, oh God, what have I done?"

Soft fingers rubbed against Molly's chin as the tears she'd attempted so hard to suppress began to flood down the girl's face. She shuffled forward, her hands reaching out to pull her daughter into a hug, and becoming mortified as she watched the younger girl instinctively flinch away. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I'm so, so sorry."

Alex shuffled over further, taking the spot that Molly had offered her earlier, and enveloping her girl in a hug. It was rigid to begin, and Alex began to fear that this was it; that she had finally cut the trust she'd been unintentionally hacking away at for weeks. But with a finally sob, she felt Molly relax into her chest, felt a fist bunch up her nightie and an arm tighten around her.

She held her daughter like the precious jewel she was, like she used to hold her, like she should have been holding her.

"You wouldn't believe me even if I did tell you," she whispered finally, and a little head rose from her chest, a blurred but curious gaze meeting her own.

"Why don't you try? It helps to share- you taught me that, remember?"

Molly sat back, letting her mum wipe the remaining tears from her eyes with the soft pad of her thumb as she thought. She hoped that she'd let her in, that she'd let her help.

Alex sighed, then opened her mouth to speak. "When I was in my coma…. I met him."

"He was a doctor?" Molly queried, frowning a little.

"No, darling, a copper- and a big bastard one at that."

Alex smiled fondly, and Molly noted the sincerity of the emotion.

"I…. This just sounds crazy, Mols."

"Please try, mum." The young girl urged, and as she began soothingly rubbing her mother's arms, she could feel her hopes rising. She could see, in her peripheral vision, her mother composing herself, and awaited the truth to finally be revealed to her.

"I went back to the 80's. At least, I thought I did. He was my DCI- part of the team I was on. There was him, Shaz, Chris, Ray-"

"Like from Sam's file?" Molly asked, recognising the names from those weeks ago when she'd been snooping at the files in the back of her mother's car. That fateful day felt like a lifetime ago, and at the same time, only yesterday.

"The exact ones, just, a different era…. I suppose." Alex replied and briefly sucked on her bottom lip as memories began to rack through her brain. "Anyway, I was there almost two years, Mols. I know it wasn't that long here, but it was for me."

"What happened?"

No longer able to keep Molly's gaze, Alex dropped her eyes to watch as her thumbs swept past each other; nervously she twisted them around and around.

"I couldn't stand him to begin, but over time I learnt to accept his little ways, his bullish, arrogant behavior, and well, we became…. closer."

Molly Drake allowed herself to smirk.

"You were shagging, you mean?"

Alex snorted her shocked amusement; "Molly!" she rebuked, her eyes almost shining as she lifted them to meet her daughter's once more. "No, no, we never did anything like that."

Her contented smile slowly began to fade once more, and her curiosity returned to her revolving thumbs. Molly watched as a sort of pain- agony, she assumed- filled her mother's face, and a tooth pulled at the lip below.

"I don't think he ever knew how I felt before I left." At Molly's confused glance, Alex found it appropriate to expand. "He shot me. An accident."

Molly whistled. "Pretty big accident, mum."

"He was a pretty big guy." Her mother retorted almost fondly. "It just- it felt so real…."

At her mother's admission, finally Molly thought she understood. Finally she thought that she could begin to help the tortured soul.

"You want to see if you really made it up at all, don't you?"

Alex nodded in response and Molly breathed deeply, preparing herself for the question she knew she had to ask, but that she thought she already knew the answer to.

"You loved him, didn't you, mum?"

A second's silence filled the room.

"Yes. Yes I think I did."

Alex shook her head. That hadn't sounded right.

"Do." She corrected, and finally Molly understood.

Somewhere across the city, a lone candle burnt. Its flickering tresses caught and flecked across a worn name place, a bitten nail slowly tracing the tip of the cool metal. As the finger pulled away, the candle was blown out, and a rumbling sigh echoed around the bright red walls.

A/N: So there's the first chapter! I'm sorry for the distinct lack of all things Gene/ Galex, but a certain gruff copper *DOES* turn up in the next chapter, and Galex is *CERTAINLY* to come. (I'm too much devoted to that Galex fluff to let it go missing from one of my stories xD)

Please review if you can, as I will be extremely grateful!

Cheers :)