A/N. This is my first Ashes to Ashes fic and so I hope I've got the characters down okay! This first chapter is just setting the scene really but I do hope to carry it on if anyone's interested in actually reading it!

Your thoughts are, as always, appreciated and loved so if you have time, please pop a quick review.

I don't own Ashes to Ashes or anything in the following story except my own imaginary constructs.

MBRB'xoxo

Alex Drake sipped her drink slowly as she looked around her. Tiredness was washing over her as she swallowed her wine, trying to concentrate on what Nikki was saying - something about work and the evergrowing pile of tedious paperwork that they needed to get through. She really didn't want to be talking about work on a Friday night in a pub. In fact, Alex really didn't want to be there at all. There was nothing she wanted more than to go back to her house and just tumble into bed with a book. Catching herself, she wondered when she had got so old in her mind. Since when did she not want to be out and about on a weekend with her friends, laughing and drinking? Swallowing the last of her wine, she placed her glass back on the bar and leant her head on one of her hands knowing that her expression was one of pure disinterest and that she was probably coming across as extremely rude, but she didn't really care. Noticing her friends drooping eyelids, Nikki stopped her sentence and took a closer look. Her skin didn't have the fresh and dewy look that it had always had anymore. It was duller, less cared for. As was her hair, tied back in a rough ponytail with slight signs of split ends and tangles.

'Are you okay, Alex?' she asked, leaning a little closer so that she could speak quietly to her friend who she was so concerned about. At the mention of her name, Alex looked up into Nikkis eyes, but her mind was a thousand miles away. Shaking her head of her thoughts slightly, she frowned and began to stand up.

'I think I'm going to call it a night. I'm really not feeling too good. Sorry Nik.' With her voice a little distant and not noticing the concerned look on her friends face, Alex picked up her small bag and made her way through the bodies and out into the street. Nikki sighed and took another sip of wine as Lewis wandered over, a slight frown on his face.

'Is Alex okay?' he asked. Nikki nodded and gave him a small smile.

'Yeah I think so. She's just not been the same since she woke up.'

Out in the street, Alex stopped to take a few deep breaths of fresh air. She found the Kingfisher – the pub her colleagues frequented – stifling and airless. She didn't even know why she came with them most of the time. The dark wood of the bar and the stone walls made the place seem dingy and so closed in and the large amount of regulars meant that the place was usually crowded with bodies standing close together, taking any table that they could. There where times when you just couldn't move or think, let alone have a relaxing drink on a Friday night. She often wished that they would use 'Benvenuto A Casa' as their regular drinking spot – a nice little Italian bar a little further away from the station than the Kingfisher – but the small increase in distance was deemed too inconvenient and the place had been labeled 'poncey' due to its name. A couple people who had been there before had also said it was dated and a bit stuck in the past, so the Kingfisher remained their regular haunt.

Sighing, Alex moved past the assortment of small shops and houses as she made her way home. The walk was only about 20 minutes or so and she welcomed the slight chill in the air as she slowly walked. Music played in the distance from one of the houses and cut through the still night. Deciding that focusing on the music would be better than escaping into her own head, Alex focused on the distinctive beat of the old tune.

We walked in the cold air

Freezing breath on the window pane

Lying and waiting

A man in the dark in a picture frame

So mystic and soulful

A voice reaching out in a piercing cry

It stays with you until…

The feeling has gone, only you and I

It means nothing to me

This means nothing to me

'Oh Viennaaa' she mumbled under her breath as she walked in front of the house that was playing the classic tune. A memory stirred within her of complete confusion but she smiled none-the-less, not knowing why. She tried to grasp the memory but it slipped away from her and she instead continued walking until the powerful beat couldn't be heard anymore and she was once again had nothing to distract her from herself. The song was still stuck in her head and she hummed it softly to break the awful silence which was around her and tried to remember what it was that she was connecting to the song. It was one of those awful half-memories that you know is there but is just on the corner of your mind and for all you know, it could have been anything. Something that happened recently, something that happened years ago, something that happened in a dream, Anything. All she could remember was the song playing and her being completely confused. There had been a lot of people being around her? No wait, she had been completely alone? Either way, she couldn't place a time when she would have ever been in that situation. Putting it under 'another one of those annoying things' in her head, Alex pulled out her door key as she approached the house she shared with Molly and sighed. Not for the first time, she wished there was someone else in her life that she could just talk to. Not even necessarily a man, just someone who she was really close to, who she could invite back to hers for a cup of tea or a glass of wine. Someone who she could rely on to have her back and who she could look out for as well. She loved Molly, of course she did, but she was growing up and getting on with her life now. She had all her girlfriends who she spent most of her time with now, always 'just going out with Sammie' or 'just going to Pippas' house'. But the point was she was always 'just going' and all Alex really wanted was someone who would just stay.