A/N: Oh hello… Not back online properly or back writing fully yet but I *have* moved so that's one bit out the way! Broadband goes on tomorrow but it will be another couple of weeks before I will have the time to write regularly again and update my fics. In the meanwhile here's a big ball of angst that was supposed to be a oneshot but will probably end up as a 2/3 shot which honestly I have wanted to write since the finale but never had the guts before. It comes from the moment in which Keats hands Alex the scarf. For a moment I honestly thought that Keats was going to be the one telling the truth and Gene not quite the hero he'd been painted to be. The idea has changed somewhat since then but that was still the inspiration.

This short fic is dedicated to my amazing girlfriend who has helped me to embrace the darkness again.

~xXx~

As she reached the door of the Railway Arms and gently rested her fingers on the handle she seemed to hesitate. She could feel Gene's eyes upon her. She could almost hear him swallow nervously as he waited to see her pass through, but something was stopping her and she wasn't sure what it was to begin with until she looked down at the scarf in her hands. It felt real; the sensation of the wool against her fingers, slightly tickly, slightly prickly. The scent of Molly as though the woollen garment had been placed around her neck and shoulders just a moment before. There was a thought that struck her and one that wouldn't leave her alone.

Very slowly she retracted her hand and turned around. Her eyes fell upon Keats, still standing there; lurking, trying to regroup and recover from the punch delivered to his face. Her eyes met his. She almost couldn't convince her vocal chords to kick into action but she finally spoke.

"Where did you get this?" she whispered.

Keats's expression changed in a heartbeat. A spark of hope crossed his face and he stumbled a little forward as he breathed,

"I told you, Alex. You are still alive out there. There's something that's been holding you back. Someone who's been holding you back. That's Molly's. She's waiting for you." he watched Alex's devastated face turn downward to regard the garment again. "That's her scarf. You can tell, can't you, Alex? By her scent. By the feeling you get from holding it. Mother's intuition, am I right?"

Alex said nothing, her mind trying hard to block out the worries and the fears that were coming to her. Very slowly her eyes turned to Gene. He looked stricken and every bit as scared and lost as he had been the moment she uncovered the remains of his remains at Farringfield Green.

"Where did he get this, Gene?" she whispered as she clutched it tightly. She waited for him to reply. He had to respond, surely. After the intense, intimate moment that had just passed between them he'd have to give her the truth. She waited for it but it never came. "Gene, where did he get this?" she watched him set his jaw firmly; the action that spoke volumes, the motion that shut down any conversation before it even began, but this time he wasn't going to get away with it. "Answer me, Gene," she demanded as she took a step toward him, "tell me where he got this. This is Molly's. It's hers. It's not just a scarf that looks like hers, Gene, I can smell her, I can… can f-feel her…"

As she clutched it in her hands she took another step forward, a lunge that looked almost threatening to Gene. He shuffled back just a smidgen and looked not quite at her as he finally spoke.

"Some answers you don't need to know, Bolly," he said.

Alex felt her heart sink so hard and so fast that she felt quite sure it literally fell out of her chest, into her stomach. She swallowed and licked her dry lips but it made little difference. She moved forward a little more and stared him down for the first time in her life.

"I want to know, Gene," she told him, "I need to."

"Go on, Gene, answer her," Keats strolled amiably towards them, hands in his pockets and a smile across his face. "Don't keep the lady waiting." His smile turned almost instantaneously into a sneer, "you've already made her wait three years. Now tell her the truth and let the poor girl go home."

Alex trembled as she turned from Keats to Gene. There was something different about his face; something had changed in his eyes. She couldn't explain it.

"Please tell me this isn't true," she whispered, her heart breaking right before him, "tell me he isn't right." She held the scarf out in front of him. "This is Molly's. But this can't be Molly's." her voice grew angry "because if it is then it means he has been telling me the truth all along," she swallowed, "and everything you've said to me has been a lie."

With one single motion Gene smashed her heart into pieces. No longer able to look her in the eye he turned his head away. Whether she was dead or alive out there that action was the final nail in the coffin for their bond. Whatever the state of her body back home, she may as well have died right there and then.

"I'm alive," she whispered, trembling as she spoke so softly, "I knew it… I knew I was…." as though trying to talk herself in and out of the truth at the same time she stared at the watch on Keats's wrist. "But the time…"

"A watch is just a watch, Alex," Keats told her, "cogs and hands. Do you really think it would stop just because you were dead or alive? It doesn't mean anything."

"But I saw the time, out there…" Alex tried desperately to backtrack. Her mind was screaming at her to remember Gene's avoidance, to take note of the look upon his face but her feelings for him tried to fight against it. "In my hospital room. That… that was weeks ago…"

"Time is relative," Keats stepped toward her, "weeks may have gone past for you but out there - for your body - you've been suspended in one second, waiting for you to make your decision."

Alex's eyes turned to him; wide, pleading for answers, scared of the truth.

"What decision?" she whispered..

Keats placed his hands on his shoulders and stared into her eyes.

"You already know."

"Whether to stay or to go home," she whispered, more as a statement than a question.

"Reality or dystopia," Keats shifted on the spot as he leaned so close that his forehead damn near pressed against hers.

"Life or death," Alex's voice cracked.

Keats stared her in the eye.

"Your flesh and blood," he said, turning his head a little and almost spitting in Gene's direction, "Or him."

He made the word sound like poison. Alex's eyes turned to Gene. His expression was darker and emptier than she had ever seen. He didn't look like the strong, brash man that she had grown so close to. He seemed like a far weaker person, as though Keats or the truth had sapped him of his strength.

"Please tell me, Gene," she begged him with her eyes, "just tell me the truth. Am I still alive?"

She saw him swallow. That was as much as she needed.

"Bolly, come here," he murmured as she shuffled towards her but she took a firm step back.

"You were going to let me give up and walk away," she whispered, "you told me to go. You sent me to walk through that door. You were going to take away my life…." one tear fell from her eye and rolled at speed down her soft, cold cheek as the chilly evening air almost froze it to her face. Suddenly the deepest sense of betrayal began to filter through her bones. It wasn't just that Gene had stopped her from returning home but he had sent her away… she knew that she had strong feelings for him as heavily as she may have denied it, even to herself, and she'd thought maybe he had some kind of feeling for her too. But maybe she'd been wrong. If he cared then why send her away so callously, with barely a word? He was so cold, so unfeeling. If his feelings were preventing him from letting her go home then why send her away? Why not ask her to stay by his side, to work together, to come to know each other on a deeper level, to see what they might have become? "Why, Gene?" her voice was almost inaudible and her face furrowed with the worst pain of her life. "You didn't want to send me home… but didn't want me to stay with you either?" she looked him straight in the eye and he had to look away,

"He was scared of you," Keats told her, "you've been a threat to him from day one."

Alex's eyes never moved from Gene while his never dared to turn her way.

"How…" her tongue ran around her lips. They felt impossibly dry, unlike her cheeks which were beginning to play home to a line of lazy tears that rolled down her cheeks, "how have I ever been a threat to you?" she whispered, "because I found out the truth?"

"That's only one part of it," Keats spoke out. He was in his element, like an actor awarded the starring role in a play, "even in the office you're his biggest threat. Who's going to want a dinosaur in charge of CID when your face could be staring out from the glass that keeps the lion separated from the rest of the zoo?"

Alex turned to Keats, confused and alarmed.

"I've never wanted his job!" she cried, "Do you really think that's what I want? I want to get home… I want…"

"Molly, I know," Keats nodded.

Alex stared at the scarf in her hands then back to Keats's deep, dark, compelling eyes.

"How could anyone even think that I would want to take his place when I've been fighting so hard to get home to my little girl?" she breathed, her voice edging a little louder with every word, "I don't belong here… I never have…" she turned angrily to Gene. "I was never a threat to you. The only thing that's ever threatened your rein over the station are your quick fists and catalogue of misogynistic insults!"

As she watched, Gene turned his head around very slowly to face her. His expression was darker than she had ever seen. He looked like a lost and angry child who'd been accused of something that he wasn't guilty of doing, a child who'd had his backside beaten for the trouble. For a split second as he looked at her she felt her stomach violently churn and her heart burned as though someone had split it right down the middle with a poker from the fire. She gave an actual gasp and trembled just a little, taking a step back as though his stare alone could send her to the grave. Perhaps it could. She felt as though she didn't know anything for certain now.

"Are you really going to take the word of a man who subjects an innocent car to an hour and a half of Andrew Ridgeley's musical talent, Bols?" his question was disguised as humour but hurt and anxiety still showed through. It pained Alex to admit that this wasn't the Gene she knew; the Gene she'd thought she knew at any rate.

"Are you really going to take the word of a man who had a gun aimed at your head while you knelt beside his shallow grave, digging up his decaying body?" Keats countered.

"Jim!" Alex's eyes were wide but his shock tactics had already had an impact on her, that was something that she couldn't deny.

"He's been lying to you for three years."

"He'd forgotten!"

"He couldn't have forgotten everything, though, could he?" Keats' stare fixed itself upon Gene, "he remembered enough to chase you to Farringfield Green. He remembered enough to know there was something there you shouldn't see."

One again, as much as she tried to deny them, Keats's words spoke to Alex deep inside. She turned to Gene again, his expression as stricken as it had been the second she passed him the warrant that exposed his whole existence; the whole nature of his world. She closed her eyes for just a moment as she heard her pulse ringing in her ears and swallowed. In the distance she thought she could hear a long tone, like a heart monitor flat-lining. Was that her? She breathed in deeply as she heard a voice somewhere in the recesses of her mind -

"Losing her -"

Her eyes opened wide and focused on Gene. They were both right, Gene and Keats. She was dead out there, yet still alive. Her life was hanging in the balance. At that precise moment there was every chance she could be revived but every chance that she could let go. Her heart was racing and her limbs began to shake.

"I'm dying," she breathed, her accusing glare fixed upon Gene, "not dead, but dying. I still have a chance," she turned to Keats, "I can get back." she waited, hoping that someone one would help her, that one of them would tell her what to do but two faces stared back at her, both contorted with different emotions, both torn in the moment. "Please," she turned desperately from Gene to Keats and back again, "Tell me what to do… how can I get back? How can I wake up? How can I… how can I make them listen?" her eyes were wide and her mouth struggling to form a coherent thought, "I have to get back," letting the precious scarf fall to the half-frozen ground she lunged forward and grasped Gene firmly by his collar, "Please, Gene, help me… if I ever meant anything to you, help me now. I have to get back, I need to be with my little girl." she watched Gene's face darken as his eyes moved downward, fully unable to meet her gaze. "I need to get home! Tell me how!" Pulling him hard towards her she screamed into his face, "Tell me how to get back!"

As silence and a stony glance greeted her, the bottom fell from whatever remained of her world and in the silence another voice spoke out; a voice that left her chilled but offered the only exit route from the world that had all but consumed her.

"It's very simple, Alex," Keats stepped towards herm hands in his pockets, coat draped around his form like a cloak over his bones, "the answer is easy."

Alex felt her grasp over Gene falling away as her fingers slipped from his lapels and with a trembling body she turned to Keats slowly.

"H-how?" she whispered, choked by desperation, "what do I have to do?" she paused and waited, desperate for him to speak again, "Tell me how to get back, Jim… I'll do anything. You know that I would. Her eyes spilled over ferociously as she moved towards him and begged him, "please help me. That is what you were here for, wasn't it?" she tried to convince herself as much as anything, "to help me home?"

Keats looked subdued quite suddenly. His eyes turned their focus to the ground as he murmured.

"You need to end this, Alex. You need to take action. You need to take a life to get your own back again."

His expression disturbed her as she stared at him and felt a tremble deep inside.

"I have to… kill myself?" she whispered slightly incredulously but her stare was met with a shake of his head.

"No," he breathed, "not yourself. But you need to cut the circulation to the growth that's keeping you here."

"What?" her expression was frantic and tortured, "Jim, I don't understand."

Keats's eyes moved to Gene.

"It's him, Alex," he told her, "he's the one keeping you here. You know that already, I know you do, deep down. He's the one who's blocking your path home again."

"But what -"

"He's the one, Alex," Keats cupped her faced and stared into her eyes, "he's the one tying you down. You need to cut the ties. Slit the veins. " he swallowed as he carefully watched her expression, "he needs to die." he stared her right in the eye and pressed his forehead right against hers, "if you ever want to get home to Molly then he has to die. If he doesn't… you will"

With a gaping jaw and desperate eyes Alex turned to Gene, begging with him silently to take away Keats's words. It had to be a lie. It couldn't be the truth.

But as she took in the silent expression of devastation on Gene's face, suddenly nothing had seemed more like the truth.

The exit sign was painted clearly for her to see, and it was written in the blood of her Guv