A/N: Two drabbles in one, because I like them together... I feel like there should be a third, a middle to the beginning and the end, but I want a nap more.
Everything Will Be Alright
He can't think past his erratic pulse, his head's foggy with guilt and a fear that feels like it's spiralling out of control. He recalls, through the ache in his knuckles, hitting a doctor for making quips about lucky bullets.
Shaz sits with him while they operate. He stares down at the linoleum floor wondering how he could have been so ignorant.
A brain tumor, he can't quite believe it.
Molly doesn't exist. The tumor, it makes her hallucinate. It takes fiction and makes it real.
He's a betting man, so he knows the odds. Death? Brain damage? Fairytale ending?
"I'm from the future. I was shot, and I woke up here, with you. Just like Sam Tyler, only... only this is my reality. And I am fighting not to die, because if I die, I will never get home. And it's insane, but there it is. And I trust you, which is why I'm telling you the truth."
He owes her the world that's laying broken at her feet, because the reality of nothing has killed Alex. Being told everything she knows is a lie has left her a husk of her former self and he'd do just about anything to bring her back.
"You still believe in her," Gene states, his voice the answer rather than the question, "so lie"
She look up at him sharply, a sign that somewhere in there she lays dormant.
"You've got decades, so in the meantime you keep her alive by telling me."
He knows he's done good when she smiles.