Lightning illuminated the sky outside Alex's window and as the deep boom of thunder shook the windows, a brief glimpse of what she believed to be a long forgotten memory flashed in her mind. A young girl, around eight or nine squealing in shock at the loud thunderclap, a stuffed pink monkey squeezed tight in her slightly chubby arm. An older man, his hair peppered with white hairs attempting to suppress his laughter, but failing.
The details of their faces had disappeared in what seemed to be less than an instant. Had she even seen their faces at all? The little girl. Maddy? Milly? Holly? The name evaded her. On the tip of her tongue, so they say. But was she remembering this girl's name or making it up? Was this her little girl? Did she even have a little girl? Alex didn't know.
Alex was a psychologist. She knew quite a lot about the human brain, about the connections the brain makes, the reasoning behind people's behaviour. But many of the workings of the brain were still a mystery to science. And her own brain was a further mystery to herself.
Alex did not know what to believe about her former life before waking up on the Lady Di, dressed in red. She knew she had to have a past. Everyone had a past. But she knew that the detailed memory of hers seemed to be lost to even herself. She knew that after her first reliable memory of waking up on that boat she had believed she had a past that was not a past, in a place that was far from here, where the people acted differently and the technology was more advanced. A place where she came home to a child each night. But, could it be the future? Alex did not believe in magic. She believed in science. She was logical. She knew that there was no such thing as time travel. What she did know that the mind can make up elaborate places, imaginary worlds with imaginary people. But Alex knew that her brain was not creative enough to build the world that she was currently living in. The world was too elaborate, the people too diverse. Therefore, her scientific mind deduced that the world that she was currently living in was real. She was real, her flat was real, her workmates were real, the red Quattro was real, her perm was real, the faint smell of spaghetti sauce creeping its way up from Luigi's trattoria downstairs was real. But, the unscientific part of her told her there was an aching in her heart. An ache that told her there was someone missing from her life. An ache that caused not by a romantic partner, not from a friend. A child shaped ache.
Alex could not choose between the alternatives offered by the logical and emotional side of her brain. So, she continued on with her life as it occurred. She investigated crimes. She profiled criminals. She gave tidbits of feminine advice to Shaz. She tried her best to help Chris, not that it made that much difference, but one can only try. She argued with Gene Hunt over pretty much everything. With Ray she... well, she just tried to ignore Ray.
She went to Luigi's with her colleagues most night. She could rarely face being alone in her flat. The time when she was alone and the most interesting thing on television was the test card was the worst. When she had time to think the ache in her heart was most prominent. When she knew, really knew, that this was not her world. That she belonged in a different place, a place which contained her little girl. This was the time when she was most likely to see a vision of her. But she could not picture her face anymore. She saw a thick crop of dark hair, a brief glimpse of a mole on her cheek. But her eyes, what colour were her eyes? She didn't know. Inevitably sleep would take her and she would forget the young brown haired girl.
Her visions slightly reassured her of the existence of this disputed other life, kept the thought of this little girl alive. Gave her hope for a few, fleeting seconds. But mostly, they filled her with despair. Because she knew there was a little girl out there, waiting for her. And she had no idea of how to get to her, how to contact her. That's why she spent so much time at Luigi's with the others. She would drink enough wine so that she could forget the ache, so that the despair did not occur. That's why she kept her days busy working and her nights busy drinking and being drunk. A drunk state was not conducive to deep thought.
It was for this reason, as the storm continued outside her window, Alex found herself in a dire state of despair. The vision of the young girl and the older man was gone, she could not tell you exactly what the vision consisted of. What she could tell you is that she knew that she didn't belong here. Didn't belong in the flat, didn't belong with the detectives drinking downstairs, didn't belong in this time. She felt like crying and screaming with the loneliness, the need to be with the little brunette girl. The girl she couldn't even remember the name of. But Alex did not cry, she didn't scream. It was futile. She knew that from experience. Instead, as the lightning once again lit up the dark flat she saw the bottle of wine she had brought up from Luigi's an hour ago. She slowly walked towards it. Her movements were slow, the despair gnawing at her insides making each movement feel like she was walking underwater, her limbs weighed down by the overwhelming emotions she felt. She picked up the bottle, and clawed at the top like a madman. Having opened it, she drank the ruby liquid straight from the bottle, an urgent need to get drunk, to forget the way she currently felt. She downed as much as she could before she began to feel lightheaded and the burning sensation in her throat became overpowering. She then proceeded to collapse on the black and white sofa, the movement punctuated by a thunderbolt outside. She cried herself to sleep, the painful emotions only slightly dulled by her tipsiness, knowing that she was unable to do anything about her predicament.
A few minutes before dawn the next morning, the shrill call of the phone ringing called Alex away from her dreamless sleep. Groggy and with her eyes almost shut, she sought out the red handset. The voice on the other side of the line was gruff and Mancunian. "Bolly, get dressed, dead body near the river."
After Alex finished applying the last of her heavy eyeshadow and left the bathroom, she stopped outside the window and glanced out to the colourful streaks across the clouds and sky that indicated a new day had begun. Alex smiled at the sight before grabbing her keys and leaving the flat, only the slightest niggling feeling at the back of her mind that there was something missing.