A/n I'm being slacker than I'd like with these updates, so apologies, but I hope you like this little chapter and I shall get started on the next asap!

As always, a little note with your thoughts is super appreciated, and special thanks to JoinTheHunt1981 and GeneHuntress for their consistent lovely reviews! You absolute babes

Enjoy!

MBRB'xoxo

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After Gene had left, Alex walked up the stairs and tapped on the door of Mollys bedroom. As usual, there was loud music coming from her room with the door muffling the actual words of whatever song it was she was listening to. It resulted in an annoying half noise which meant nothing to Alex except the beginnings of a headache. No reply came from Molly, so Alex pushed open her door slightly and peered around the door. Molly was lying on her bed, stomach side down and kicking her feet. She had a notebook in front of her and looked to be doing homework, pen in one hand and phone in the other as she wrote out a quite one-handed reply to a text. Her head was moving from side to side slightly in time to the music and Alex could do nothing but smile. It didn't seem necessary to distract her from her work and although she hadn't sat down and spoken to her properly in so long, it could wait. Shutting her door with a click, Alex made her way back downstairs and flicked on the TV. Molly, having been in her own little world, saw her door closing out of the corner of her eye and raised her head to see what had caught her attention. As the door fully closed, she raised her eyebrows. She was sure she had left it closed in the first place, but then again, she might not have.

It was several days before Alex heard from Gene again, but it wasn't often that she went more than an hour without him entering her thoughts. A couple of vague moments from the 80's came back to her at the most inconvenient of times but there where still annoyingly large holes in her recollections. She could remember a mural, but where had it been? She could remember a cat costume, a cigar and … superman? But why? And she could remember wine. Lots and lots and lots of wine. There needn't be a 'why' for the wine, but who with? When? Where? Surely she couldn't have sat with Gene every night for three years in the same place at the same table and drunk glass after glass of wine? Could she? Nothing would surprise her anymore.

But though nothing could surprise her, she found that she could be hurt by the memories. Not so much the memories, but by the people in them. Namely Gene. They had said that they would talk soon, yet here they where 4 days later and she hadn't heard a thing from him. Come to think of it, it had been her who had asked if the would talk soon and all he had said was 'If you want to'. She had taken it at the time as him not wanting to push her into having to talk to him, but now she thought about it, perhaps it wasn't that at all. Perhaps he didn't want to be cruel and tell her no outright, so instead gave a non-committal reply that she had read too much into. Perhaps he didn't want to see her at all. She wouldn't blame him. If she was causing as much confusion for him as he was for her, then it was perfectly understandable that he didn't want to see her anymore, but the thought still stung that maybe he hadn't even said goodbye. She had sent each and every night lying in bed facing the ceiling trying to remember the missing details of her 'other life' and thinking of Gene. He seemed to act as a catalyst to her memories, speeding up the process of her rememberings. She tried to convince herself that this was the reason she was hurt that he hadn't come to see her, that it was because she had wanted to discover more about the Gene she knew – and the Alex he knew – but when she was alone in bed at night with nothing but the dark and the occasional stray moth to keep her company, his broad shoulders and ruggedly handsome looks would enter her head. There had been a connection between them that she thought he had felt too, but in such a state of confusion, maybe it was just another mistake she had made.

Throughout the day, she had been to work and played at being normal, but it where as if her character just wasn't appearing right. She couldn't get the part as polish or as perfect as it had previously been and it was becoming more and more frustrated. In some ways, the people around her thought that she was becoming more herself – even over 4 days they could see a change in her. Her face had makeup carefully applied and she had dug out a fitted blouse from the back of her wardrobe as opposed to the unflattering ones she had worn for the last couple of years. But as she lined her eyes in the morning, it wasn't because she was feeling more like herself, it was because she could see the critical gaze of Gene looking her over and frowning and she could hear 'Blimey, you look 30 years younger without those bloody awful clothes hanging off you' ringing in her ears. Her cheeks burned with offence at the thought of him frowning at her appearance as if he were disappointed at what he saw and she promised herself that she would try and look more presentable in future, just in case she should run into him at some point. It bugged her that she was trying to make herself look better for the sake of a man she barely knew on the off-chance that she should pass him in the street but the thought of him seeing her again in such a state was bordering on mortifying. But she hadn't run into him. She'd heard absolutely nothing from or of him and it was beginning to piss her off.

After work that evening, Alex made her way to the little Italian bar or the first time since she had been there with Gene. As she walked through the doors of the dark little bar, she was greeted by the same man who had served her before.

'Ahh, Signora. Sit, sit' he told her with a heavy Italian accent and a smile lighting his face.

'Thank you' she told him gently, not sure if he had even heard her as he lead her past the tables, yabbering on in an excited little voice.

'He wait for you, I'm sure of it, Signora Drake. I know he wait for you. I offer him table for one but he always say no'. Alex wasn't really listening to watch the short man was saying until he stopped her and motioned to a table with a glint in his eye. Sitting at the table, as he had said, was a man who was waiting. And judging by the way his face momentarily lit up as he saw her and then changed to impassive as quickly as it could, he was waiting for her. The little barman scuttled off with the promise of a drink for Alex, and at Genes insistence, she sat down.

'I though you'd gone home' she told him softly, tying to hide the bitterness that crept into her voice and biting back the 'without telling me' that nearly slipped out. Gene remained with the same slightly pissed off expression on his face that he always had and he sniffed.

'Me? No home to go to' he told her with his usual tone of distain hiding the usual sadness his words would normally come with. Alex looked at him for a second, taking in the way he held his glass a little too tight and his shoulders where slumped more than they usually would be had he been in better spirits. The ball of resentment that had began to roll in her stomach was banished as she smiled gently at him.

'Well I hadn't heard from you for a couple days'. Her words probed for an explanation as to why he hadn't got in contact with her and he knew that there was no way that he would be able to avoid answering her unasked question.

'I couldn't exactly just turn up at your house with a cheap bottle of plonk and settle down to a night of crap TV and trying to remember your life from when you where nearly dead' he looked just over her shoulder in the annoying manner he always did, his head tilted back and chin stuck out a little. Alex laughed gently and the little bartender came over with a large glass of wine filled to the brim with the deep red liquid. She instantly took a sip to calm the nerves in her stomach and then placed it on the table, playing with the stem of the glass.

'I suppose not' she muttered. Of course she hadn't thought of that, she'd just jumped to the worst conclusion and assumed he didn't want to see her. The psychologist in her began chattering away about how that had a pretty clear meaning behind it and she was getting in too deep but she promptly screamed at that part of her with 'LALALALA NOT LISTENING SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP'.

'The question is, why the bloody hell didn't you find me? You're the woman. You're supposed to do all the runnin' around aren't ya. You're lucky some other fortunate pair o' legs didn't take your seat. Been batting them away'

'Find you? How was I supposed to do that? You waltz off into the city – that city being London – and you say that I should just find you? Do you know how hard it is to find someone in London, Gene? Especially when they think you've left them. Where would I even start?' she ranted, surprised at his nerve. Gene listened to her with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrows slightly raised. She was bloody feisty.

'You're knicker elastic is in danger of breaking, love. And you did find me, didn't you' he told her, a cocky 'you-know-im-right' look passed over his face and Alex, who had opened her mouth to argue, stopped before she spoke and then promptly closed it. He was right; she had found him. Did that mean he had been sitting here waiting for her every night for 4 nights on the offchance she would turn up.

'How did you know I'd find you here?' she asked after a while, her voice quiet, as she took a large gulp of well-deserved wine.

'I don't remember everything about you Bolly, but I do remember you're a sentimental tart' he replied, also taking a mouthful of his drink. She knew he was right. Sooner or later she would have ended up at this little bar no matter what. If he had never shown up at her place, she'd end up here eventually in the hope that it would bring back some memories of him and therefore memories of life 'before'. If he had turned up, she was certain that they'd end up sharing a drink over one of the old fashioned candles in a bottle at some point. But he hadn't come knocking, nor had he completely vanished from her life. It had been 4 days and here she was.

'Am I really that predictable?' she asked, looking at him through her lashes.

'One of the most unpredictable women I've ever had the misfortune to meet. I don't think even you know what you're gonna do from second to second, let alone me tryna be Mystic flamin' Meg' Gene sniffed again, looking like there was a bad smell under his nose.

'Then how did you know I'd be here?' she asked, curious as to how he seemed to know nothing about her, but so so much at the same time.

'One other thing I remember about you Lady B, is that you drink enough to sink a ship. Knew you'd be here eventually. And this cheap shite' – he held up his glass – 'doesn't actually taste like piss. So nothing to loose' he drank some of his 'cheap shite' and hissed through his teeth. Yes, he was glad to see her but no, he wasn't going to tell her the entire truth. He wasn't going to tell her he'd ask the Italian if she'd been in every time he entered the bar and that he didn't need to say her name because it was so obvious who he was waiting for. And he wasn't going to tell her his heart sank just a teeny bit as the bartender shook his head each time he asked, poured him a drink and told him his table was free. It's funny how quickly you can become a regular – and a friend - in a place when you have the world on your shoulders and a woman on your mind.

'Well, I'm here now so lets just have a quite night of drinking and talking, yeah?' Alex asked, smiling into the face of Gene Hunt. In reply, Gene raised his glass and clinked it against hers.

'Bottoms up, Bolls.'