Chapter One; 1995

"Time for your bed bath, Alex."

The stranger by her bed raised an eyebrow excitedly.

"You want a hand with that?" he asked.

The nurse politely but firmly declined and insisted he left the room.

"Patient privacy," she told him.

"Nothing I haven't fondled a hundred times before," the man mumbled dejectedly as he left the room.

Alex closed her eyes in relief as he disappeared into the corridor. To say she was terrified would be an understatement. She had no idea who the stranger was for a start but he'd been rotating between declarations of love and lewd remarks about what he intended to do with her in the back of his car ever since she woke up.

She urgently wanted to scream, to beg the nurse to remove the man from the hospital. His attention was unwanted.

"That's a pretty ring."

Alex couldn't move her head to see what the nurse was talking about. Was she wearing a ring when she left home that morning? She couldn't remember. A little sensation was coming back into her body now and the feeling of the nurse removing the ring to wash her hand and arm struck her as a little strange. It was on a very specific finger. Her wedding ring finger. How long had it been since she'd worn her wedding ring? She couldn't remember but she felt certain there wouldn't be a ring on there now for any reason.

She closed her eyes and suffered the indignity of the bed bath. It could have been worse, she thought. She had no hang-ups about her body. She was in pretty good shape and had no embarrassing hidden tattoos to worry about. But even so, she felt like a muddy car getting hosed down on a Saturday morning.

"You're a lucky girl," the nurse told her, "your fiancé obviously loves you very much."

A sudden bolt of nausea struck Alex deep inside. The nurse clearly didn't know what she was talking about. She tied to tell her so but only managed to make a low growl with her vocal chords.

"He seems very attentive," the nurse continued.

Alex closed her eyes and tied to look at the situation from a logical point of view. OK, go back to the last thing you remember. Layton. Molly. Evan. Down by the river. In the car. Taken hostage. A bullet in the head.

So where was she? Was she hallucinating? Was she in a coma? She recalled the tapes of Sam Tyler, listening to his tales of going back in time and all that he had been through. Could her head have conjured up a similar scenario? It was a possibility, except that she had 'woken up'. She'd been told this as a fact. She was in hospital with a gunshot wound to the head. She had been though surgery to remove it. In fact, everything about the situation seemed logical and realistic for recovery following a cranial gunshot wound.

Except for that man. The stranger who wanted to do unmentionable things to her with his gear stick.

And the lack of Molly.

"Have you set a date for the wedding?" asked the nurse, not caring that Alex wasn't actually able to answer the question, "I think May is a lovely time for a wedding. All that lovely blossom on the trees."

Alex wished she would shut up. The bed bath was humiliating enough. Now she was silently humouring the woman about some imaginary wedding and blossom that would send the wedding guests sneezing into their champagne.

"You going to change your name, Alex? The nurse wondered, "Alex Hunt? Sounds snappy."

Alex's eyes darted to one side to try to get as close a look at the nurse as possible. There was something about that name. It was something familiar but she couldn't quite place it. Hunt. Why did that sound so familiar? She tried to run through her memory but she was tired and confused. Was it a colleague? A television character? A member of a musical group? One of her old school chums?

The nurse finished up the bed bath and began to cover Alex back up with her nasty hospital smock that boasted the fact it was property of the NHS. She gave Alex a warm and friendly smile and, with that, she said the words; the sentence that would change Alex's life forever, the ones that would strike her dumb with confusion, fear and anguish.

"I'll tell Gene he can come back in now."

Gene.

Gene Hunt.

That was why it sounded familiar. The name Sam Tyler's tapes brought up time and again. The one he'd met during his coma. The man who had antagonised and irritated him. The man who had taught and inspired him. The man he seemed to like and loathe in equal measures.

The man Sam's words painted such a clear description of. The man she had tried to resolve as being some element of Sam's psyche that his coma had brought to the surface. The one she'd spent countless hours trying to form spider diagrams about to put some clarity to the real reason behind Sam's apparent suicide.

And now, here he was, coming back into her hospital room to sit and whisper sweet nothings into her ear while simultaneously making comments that would have him in front of a tribunal within seconds of them leaving his mouth.

She watched him coming every closer, taking note of all the features Sam had spoken of. She could scarcely believe what she was seeing. Her mind had recreated him exactly as Sam had described. What was this? Some kind of copycat psychosis? Or perhaps her mind punishing her for not being able to adequately answer the question of why Sam did what he did.

Either way, her reconstruction of the mysterious misogynist was edging closer. She noticed for the first time that a second man had entered the room with him; a taller man with a black eye and a couple of cuts and bruises. Who was that? Another patient?

"Bols, Simon's 'ere to check up on you."

Simon? Alex mentally ran through all of the other names in Sam's notes. There was an Annie, a Chris, a Ray… not a Simon. Where had he come from? Must be a part of her own psyche, she thought. She remembered the local milkman was called Simon when she was a kid. He smelt of potatoes. But he was in his late fifties and had as much facial hair as Santa Claus so she didn't think that was the person who had entered her "hallucination". But who he was, she had no idea.

"Alex," he seemed pleased enough to see her with the warm smile he offered and the friendly kiss he placed on her head, "I just wanted to say hi while I was here. I came to see Gene but I wanted to check you were doing OK."

Doing OK? That wasn't exactly the way she would describe her situation, but he had no way of telling him so.

"I have to…. have to say thank you," Simon began, "for what you did for Robin yesterday."

Robin? Alex tried to work out if she knew a Robin. There was a robin that used to perch on the ledge outside the kitchen window during the winter. Probably not the same Robin that this stranger was talking to her about.

"I got a message," he continued, "I don't know how it happened, but it did. He's going to be OK, and it's thanks to you. You stopped him from making a grave mistake." He flinched at his choice of words. "You know what I mean."

No I don't! she thought to herself, I don't have a clue! I'm not really here… where AM I? Have I gone back in time too? Like Sam?

"I'm just going to steal Gene away for a few minutes, need him to sign some papers for me, I won't keep him for long," he paused, "and when you are feeling stronger maybe you can help me persuade him that television shows involving three-course meals are actually a really good idea." He gave her another warm smile and turned to leave.

Gene leaned in close. She could smell pickles on his breath as though he'd consumed half of the local branch of McDonalds that morning.

"Just got to go sign Shoebury's life away," he told her, "but I'll be back. Keep that bed warm for me."

With that he turned and followed Simon to the door. She heard snippets of their conversation as they left.

"You sure you don't mind doing this?"

"I don't mind signing yer bloody pole vault…"

"Deed poll."

"…I'm just pissed off because I will have to re-think me collection of Shoebury jokes."

Alex closed her eyes as the voices disappeared. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry - not that she was in a position to do either. Layton's bullet had sent her into a world of her mind's creation and somehow Sam's words had filtered so far into her subconscious that she'd inserted the figure of Gene Hunt as some kind of… significant other. She wanted to shake her head in disbelief at her own brain. She knew she could figure a way out of this situation. All she needed was some time. Some strength and some time.

Slipping into sleep as the anxiety of the morning overcame her, she held onto that notion. Perhaps when she awoke she'd have that strength to work through this. She's have the energy she needed to work out how to find her way home. She was certain of that.

It was like 1981 all over again - without the fur coat.