Title: Stranger Things
Summary: Difficult to summarise. I wanted something punchy but couldn't come up with anything. Keywords: Rae Fisher, 1981, Alex Drake, Gene Hunt, Evan White, Conspiracy. If anyone fancies doing me a summary in their review I'd be very grateful. Please read! Set after the end of Season 1. I haven't a clue what happens after that and I won't find out until Christmas... I have been banned from buying the DVDs .
Rating: Not sure yet. There's definitely some swearing.

I really hope you guys like this. Please review!

Chapter One

2010

Fuck. Late.

Rae Fisher glanced at the clock on her dashboard and tapped out an anxious rhythm on the steering wheel. Glaring out of the window at the pouring rain, she grabbed her hands free headset and jammed it in her ear. With one eye on the road she jabbed at her handset and waited for the dialling tone.

"Hello?"

"Evan! It's me."

"Rae?"

"Evan listen, I'm stuck in traffic. Fucking rush hour. Can you push my ETA back, like forty-five minutes?"

"You're not even late yet..."

"I need to pop into the hospital before I get to you."

Evan didn't need to ask why "How come you left work so late?"

"Can't talk about it..." Rae eased her foot off the brake and inched forward in the queue of traffic slightly "Tell Molly I'll be there though. I will."

She heard Evan sigh. He lowered his voice "This isn't a good day to be late, Rae..."

"You think I don't know that Evan? You think I'm not half a second away from abandoning my car on London Bridge and jogging to your house? I'm doing the best I can OK?"

"OK, OK... Just get here in one piece alright?"

"Well I could go back and collect the arm I discarded in order to shed unnecessary weight, but I fear that would make me even later."

"You know what I mean." Evan said testily, ringing off abruptly. Rae rolled her eyes and scoffed. How dare he feel the need to remind her of what an important day this was? Her original plan had been to skip the hospital altogether and drive straight to his house. But as she'd just found out, today was the last chance she would have for a while.

X x X x X

Rae hurried up the ward, leaving a small trail of water behind her. Between parking her car and arriving in Intensive Care, she had gotten the soaking of her life. This did not add to her mood. The ward sister gave her a nod of recognition.

"No change?" She asked breathlessly yet always hopeful, and was met with a sympathetic shake of her head. Rae didn't know why, but her heart always sank a little deeper each time, as though the grief were made fresh in her soul.

Clutching the flowers that had taken priority over keeping her own hair dry, Rae made her way gingerly over to a corner of the ward she knew well. Perching on the edge of a plastic chair, she tried to ignore the small puddle that was forming around her.

"Hello Alex."

Around the bed, the machines conducted their sad symphony of whirs and bleeps, but there was silence from the human occupant as always. Rae stared for a moment at the form lying there, a pale and fragile shadow of the powerhouse Rae had once known.

But it was still unmistakably Alex. The long eyelashes, the elegant hands, the alabaster skin. The bullet wound in her forehead was just a grey-purple knot of scar tissue over her left eyebrow. When she awoke, the doctors had said, she would be able to consider an elective procedure to lessen the scarring.

If she awoke.

Rae bit back a small sob. It never got any easier, coming here. In the beginning, Molly had refused to leave her mother's side and so Rae and Evan had both had to split the time between them. This went on for the entirety of the school holidays, with neither Evan nor Rae feeling it would be appropriate to tell Molly that it couldn't go on, somehow just knowing that when the term began again Molly would go back to school without a second thought. "Mum wouldn't want me to miss anything." She had said it in such a way that Rae had had to lock herself in the bathroom and weep bitterly.

And so two years on, a pattern had emerged. Molly visited every other day after school and on Sunday evenings with Evan. Rae made it her first port of call whenever she was in London. It was rare that she should be alone with Alex though. Ordinarily, she would watch on silently while Molly read to her mother or chattered on about school.

Rae took a shaky breath and reached out to take Alex's hand "Well old girl, looks like it's just you and me."

Outside the rain lashed down, crashing into the window panes. Rae glanced out of the window and down at the street at the commuters making their way home, sheltering underneath their black umbrellas. To Rae, they looked like the finale of some macabre circus act. Turning her attention back to the bed, she flashed a small smile at Alex "Can you believe this weather? You'd never think it was July. Bet you're glad you're missing this, kiddo."

The words were out of her mouth before she'd even had time to register what she'd said. Rae's hand flew to her lips and she gasped through her fingers. Surreptitiously glancing around to check no one had heard that, she leaned closer to her prone friend "I didn't mean that. Of course you want to be here. I'm sorry." She sighed and gripped Alex's hand a little tighter "OK, I'll cut the crap and stop talking to you like you're not my best friend. After I leave the hospital, I'm going to Evan's to see Molly. It's her birthday, but you already knew that. And after that, I have to go away for a bit. On one of my... trips. You know the drill. But if I... when I come back, I want to see you up and bossing everyone about. That's an order, Drake."

Rae never knew if she expected Alex to respond, but leaving gaps in the conversation where her friend might have interjected had become the norm to her. The introspective part of her character suspected that it was due to a subconscious need to still act as though Alex were an active participant in daily activities. Acknowledging that she was now little more than a vegetable was something Rae simply couldn't do.

"I saw Harry the other day. You were right - he did turn out to be a wanker. Good job I listened to you eh? Remember when we met him at Oxford? I thought I'd never love again. When he dumped me you got me drunk on tequila and we poured paint on his car. I don't imagine they'd have let us into the force if we'd ever been caught. Irrational behaviour and all that." Instinctively, she began to laugh but caught herself suddenly. Giving a watery smile, she took a deep breath "...I know I say this every time, but I need you back here. Probably not as much as Molly, but I need you back because there's so much going on right now that I need to tell you. I need you back because I'm scared that I'm losing myself in my job and a whole bunch of other things that only best friends are equipped to deal with." Rae heaved a sigh and propped her head up with her free hand "I know it's not your fault or anything, You didn't want this to happen. I just wish you'd wake up, Alex..."

X x X x X

Rae stayed a little longer at her friend's bedside before deciding to brave the wet weather. She squeezed Alex's hand and gave a last cursory glance to her friend's face, checking for any signs of life. Finding nothing Rae smiled sadly and leaned forward to press a kiss to her forehead "I'll be back soon to see you, I swear it."

She sat in the car in silence for ten full minutes, barely noticing that she was soaking wet and shivering. Visiting Alex always left her this way. It had been so long since the incident that she was completely cried out and so now every time she left the ward it was in a state of sad numbness. It was something that she had discussed with Molly the last time they had visited. Evan had had somewhere to be that day, so it had been just the two of them. Molly had been silent until they were in the car, but Rae sensed that there was something her goddaughter desperately wanted to say.

Molly looked more and more like her mother every day. In her early teens now, she was becoming an exceptionally pretty young woman. Her eyes had a thoughtfulness and wisdom that many girls her age would never have. Her skin was bright and dewy and her body taking on the new curves that accompanied womanhood. She drew looks from boys her own age and older, which Rae suspected was highly discomfiting to Evan. That day in the car, she sat in the passenger seat deep in thought staring out of the window, hands folded demurely in her lap.

Taking one hand off the wheel, Rae reached across and gave Molly's knee a squeeze "What is it, pet?"

Molly gave her godmother a half smile and opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again as though she had thought better of it. Rae had allowed her to gather her thoughts. She knew Molly would eventually say what was on her mind but she spoke carefully, never one to speak before she had fully thought about something.

"I keep thinking that... well, we don't really cry anymore do we?"

Rae frowned "How do you mean?"

"I mean, when mum was first in hospital we cried all the time didn't we? But we just... don't anymore."

"Well..." Rae had chosen her words slowly "I think it's to be expected in a way. I suppose you could argue that when we first found out your mum was in hospital our bodies went into a heightened state of function -"

"Like fight or flight?"

"Exactly," Thank you, Alex "so we cried a lot and couldn't sleep very much because we were too tense, and basically ran on adrenalin. But the human body just can't sustain that kind of pace, so in the end it adjusts and settles down."

"I don't understand."

"OK," Rae swung the car around a corner "think about it like this. When you smell something really strong, you only smell it for a little while don't you?"

"Yes..."

"Well that's because after a while, your olfactory nerves go numb and you don't notice the smell anymore. It's a little bit like that."

"So our brains went numb?"

"In a manner of speaking. Where are you going with this?" Rae had learnt a long time ago to ask Molly outright what she was thinking. The kid was too bright to fall for any adult sugar-coating.

"I'm worried because we don't cry as much anymore. I'm worried that means that we're less sad. That we're getting used to mum being gone."

"Darling girl," Rae's heart went out to her goddaughter "Is that what this is about? You're feeling guilty because you don't cry so much anymore?"

Molly had stayed completely silent. Interpreting this as a yes, Rae had gently reach over and taken her hand "You and me and Evan are all still very sad that your mum hasn't woken up yet. I suspect that in some way, we'll all be sad until she does. But that sadness and that worry doesn't always manifest itself in tears. The fact is, we have to carry on until she does wake up because stopping just isn't an option. For a start, your mother would go mad if she thought Evan and I let you just stop living. And trust me, you don't want to see her mad."

"And what if... what if she doesn't wake up? What if she dies, Rae?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Molly, I can't pretend to you that this isn't going to go one of two ways. If your mum wakes up then I will personally high-five everyone in London. If she doesn't... then you have my word that Evan and I will always be there. Always. Never in a million years could we replace her, and I know that it will never be the same, but you have to understand..." Rae was rambling and she knew it. She took a deep breath "Molly, the night you were born I was there. I sat in that hospital room and watched your mum hold you. She had been in labour for nearly forty-eight hours. She hadn't slept and the drugs they'd given her had made her unbelievably ill. But even when you were out, she refused to sleep. She sat and just held you for hours and as I watched her, I suddenly realised that there was nothing deeper, stronger or more natural than her love for you. And I knew that it wasn't something that could ever be extinguished or lost. Molly, even if she doesn't come back to us, that love is with you. I would bet every penny I have on it."

It was a conversation they had both needed, and looking back on it as she drove to Evan's house through the rain, Rae knew they had both come out of it feeling a little stronger.

The rain had stopped by the time she drew up to Evan's grand townhouse. The lights were on inside and Rae could see that balloons and party streamers had been painstakingly hung up. Evan White would have spared no expense in celebrating his goddaughter's birthday. For that, Rae had to respect him.

It wasn't that she didn't like Evan, Rae rationalised, lifting the big brass knocker and letting it fall once, twice, three times. It was just that he always struck her as being vaguely displeased at the sight of her. Lawyers in general made her feel uncomfortable. Must be something to do with their innate ability to create conflict. But he doted on Molly to the point of moving her into his house with him after Alex had been shot, and never denied her anything, from affection and encouragement, to new books or a laptop. Before Alex had been put in the hospital, Rae's contact with Evan had been superficial to say the least and she had preferred it that way. When she had been introduced to him at Molly's christening, his polite smile and firm handshake had failed to betray the suspicious and vaguely perplexed look in his eyes. He looked almost as though he had met her before but couldn't quite remember where. Rae had thought it odd but hadn't dwelt on it too long. Any other time they had been in each other's company over the years their interaction had always been a little tense but thankfully limited to vague pleasantries at birthday parties and barbeques.

But when their lives had inexplicably collided with one another after the incident, Rae knew that things would be complicated. Luckily, concentrating on Molly's needs at the time had provided a welcome distraction, but Rae couldn't help feeling that Evan would have preferred if she had lost interest in her goddaughter's wellbeing after a few weeks and just left them to get on with it. But even if she'd wanted to fade into the background (which she didn't) Rae never could have forgiven herself if she had just abandoned Molly.

To begin with, Evan had been cagey at best. Whenever Molly had asked if Rae could go back and stay with them, he had made some feeble excuse that Rae had passed off as indicative of his general distaste for her. But when she had finally been graced with an invitation to the White residence, she was amazed to step inside and feel as though she were in the national gallery. It was spotless, which wouldn't have been in the slightest bit suspicious had Molly and Alex not made comments over the years about how untidy Evan was. All of his books were lined up alphabetically on the shelves and there wasn't as much as a single legal pad or scrap of paper anywhere. It was the same on each of the occasions Rae went there. Even Molly had noticed it eventually, suggesting to Rae that Evan wanted impress her.

"Not likely..." Rae muttered to herself sardonically as the door opened to reveal Molly in a pair of skinny jeans and a cream smock top. She had French plaited the front of her hair and swept the rest into a low bun. A few snaky tendrils had freed themselves to frame her face. Rae's breath caught in her throat. She was the spitting image of Alex.

"What's not likely, Rae?"

"Nothing, darling. You look beautiful." Rae stepped forward to gather Molly into a tight embrace "Happy birthday, pet."

"Thanks. Rae, you're soaked. Let me get you a towel... Evan, Rae's here!" Molly started to disappear up the stairs to search out a towel.

"No I'm fine, honestly Molly. The car seat took the worst of the water..." Evan had appeared at the sitting room door. He gave her a stiff smile "Hello Rae. You made good time." He leant forward to give her an awkward peck on the cheek. Rae forced herself to return the smile "Hi. Sorry about the frantic call earlier."

"It's fine. I'm glad you made it." He certainly didn't look glad "Glass of wine?"

"God yes."

"Here you are Rae." Molly had reappeared and Rae sighed inwardly with relief. Evan smiled affectionately at his goddaughter before ducking back out of sight without so much as a backward glance at Rae "I'll get you that wine." He said over his shoulder.

"Ta. Thanks for the towel, kiddo. Here, this is for you." Rae drew out a small parcel from her handbag and shook it enticingly. Molly grinned "Thanks Rae!" She planted a kiss on Rae's cheek and took her hand "Come and sit down. I was just about to open Evan's gift."

Rae allowed herself to be led into the sitting room which was, as usual, spotless. Molly noticed her godmother staring and nudged her "He started tidying the minute he found out you were coming."

Rae pretended to misunderstand Molly's meaning. She leaned forward conspiratorially "Something to hide eh?" Molly giggled and rolled her eyes.

It was meant as a joke, but even as she said it, some small spark ignited at the back of Rae's mind. Was he hiding something from her? Rae shook her head slightly to rid herself of the thought: Don't be stupid. Why would you even think that?

She perched on the window seat as Molly curled up on the sofa. A small pile of presents were stacked up on the coffee table and a DVD of Sweet Home Alabama was playing quietly on the TV in the corner. She cocked a brow at Molly "What did you have to bargain for this?"

"I have to tape Britain's Got Talent and watch it when Evan's out of the house. He doesn't like Simon."

Rae lowered her voice and spoke from behind her hand "Or perhaps he likes Amanda a bit too much if you know what I mean..." Molly began to giggle.

"Ahem..." Evan had appeared at the sitting room door without them realising. Rae risked a cheeky smile "Only joking."

Evan gave a tight smile "You always were a joker, Rae." He handed over a glass of merlot. Rae raised it in a mock toast "The world needs laughter." When Evan's back was turned, she tipped the wink at Molly who had, in a stroke of luck, inherited her mother's poker face. She shouldn't be attempting to win cheap points from her goddaughter by making fun of the man who was supposed to be her ally, but sometimes Rae found the temptation just a little too strong.

X x X x X

Molly hadn't had a birthday cake since her mother's shooting. Alex had promised her they could blow out the candles together, and once it became clear that she wasn't going to be waking up any time soon, Molly decided that she didn't want another cake until her mother was there to see it. It was a decision that both Evan and Rae respected, and so Molly's birthdays since had consisted of a meal shared by the three of them followed by gift giving, all the time accompanied with a few sad glances at the empty place at the table. By eleven o' clock, Molly was yawning and Rae was shifting uncomfortably on the sofa. The solitary glass of wine she had allowed herself was long gone and she'd had to keep pinching her leg under the table and reminding herself that being able to extract herself from Evan's company was more important than having another glass to take the edge off. Happily, Molly hadn't noticed all evening and had regarded each of her presents with genuine delight – A silver fountain pen and a first edition Jungle Book from Evan (Nice one, Grandpa Rae had thought mutinously) and a bottle of Chanel Cristalle and a Tiffany charm bracelet from Rae, who blatantly ignored Evan's disapproving stare as Molly opened them. From that point on, Rae had felt decidedly unwelcome and as midnight neared, she finally stood from the table and stretched out her long legs.

"Molly darling, I'm so sorry but I have to go. I'm going away for a while tomorrow so I shan't be around, but the minute I get back I think a little shopping trip is in order don't you?" Rae drew Molly into a tight hug "I hope you had a nice birthday, pet." Molly wrapped her arms around Rae's waist "Thank you, Rae."

"Don't mention it, dollface. Evan, do you mind if I use your bathroom before I go?"

"Of course," He stood quickly, obviously keen to get her out of the house "It's upstairs; I'll show you."

Rae followed Evan up the stairs and along the dark and undecorated corridors. Had she not even known this was Evan's house, she'd guess a middle aged bachelor lived there. The carpet was threadbare and fraying at the edges, the light fittings dated and cracked. All of a sudden, Evan stooped to pick up a stray piece of paper left on the floor. Clearly something he'd missed on his cleaning spree. He crumpled up the piece of paper and opened a door to his left just enough to throw it in and shut it again.

"Don't want to be known as slob, Evan?" Rae said teasingly, but quietly making a note of which door it was. Evan gave her the same tight lipped smile he had been giving her all evening and said nothing until they reached the door of the bathroom. "Here you are," He said gruffly, opening the door for her "I wouldn't want you to go leave without freshening your perfume first."

Rae stared at him for a small moment, her eyebrows raised "Was that a dig?"

"I rather think it was. You shouldn't be buying her perfume, Rae – she's fourteen for Christ's sake! It's so... adult."

Rae quickly glanced over her shoulder to check that Molly hadn't followed them upstairs before stepping closer to Evan and lowering her voice "Evan, in case you hadn't noticed, she is nearly an adult! Yes, when I held her at her christening, I never imagined in a million years that I would be the person to buy Molly her first perfume. I wish I wasn't. But that's the way the chips have fallen, at least for now. Just because Alex isn't here to see her grow up, doesn't mean you can keep her a child until she is!"

Evan sputtered for a moment. Rae suspected that she had just joined a select group of people who had ever dared to speak to Evan White like that. Eventually, he collected himself; levelling his gaze at her "This isn't over, Rae." He hissed, before stalking off down the corridor. Rae watched him leave before going into the bathroom.

X x X x X

As she washed her hands, Rae's mind flitted back to the piece of paper and the closed door along the corridor. Was Evan White hiding something from her? What could it possibly be?

X x X x X

Would love to know what you think!