Well, look at this speedy update! :D Well, relatively speedy compared to my usual uselessness, at any rate. A big thank you to those still reading and reviewing this story – you really mean a lot to me. And hey, I might as well do a bit of shameless advertising here and say that I've started a new Ashes story, which will be packed with Galex this time, called 'A Scarlet Letter', so I'd be beyond grateful if you checked that out, if you haven't already! Anyway, I'll shut up now and let you read. :D

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Disclaimer – I don't own Ashes to Ashes. :P

Chapter 10 – Awake

Wednesday, 16th August, 2008.

Annie looked up from Molly's dream notes with wide, surprised eyes. "They kissed?"

Nodding, Molly fiddled a little nervously with one slightly broken fingernail and met her psychologist's gaze. "Yeah, in Luigi's..." She bit her lip. "It was kind of... sweet, in a way. I mean, a week ago and I would have tried to hit him, but..." A small smile somehow strayed its way onto Molly's face. "Gene Hunt has kind of grown on me."

A similar smile replaced the surprise on Annie's face for a moment as she let out a small sigh. "Yes," she murmured to her, "He does that."

"I hated him at first... Well, I didn't believe in him; I thought it was all just in my head and I wondered why I'd thought up this horrible, rude, brutish man to be working with my Mum, but... It's like there's this other side to him that no-one sees much."

Annie's head tilted to one side slightly as she studied her patient. Some of the photos she still had from the good old days with Sam, Gene and the team in Manchester were scattered on the coffee table in front of them where Molly had been sifting through them, asking questions about the people in her dreams. "You say you used to think that everything you saw in your dreams was just in your head, Molly... Well, don't you think that now?"

Molly shook her head, and a faraway look came into her eyes as she stared down at the pictures, her gaze fixing on a fading photograph that had been taken by chance of Gene and Sam in a pub. Sam was grinning at his Guv, a pint held in his hand, and Gene was looking down at his own drink, a laugh just visible on his face too, as though the pair had just shared a joke before the picture was taken. Gene looked younger in the picture than he did in his dreams, Molly thought, not as careworn or sullen.

"No," she eventually murmured in reply to Annie's question. "It's just, the dreams look more real now, like it's all actually happening. It's like I've got to know them all and the stuff that goes on; it's just like this whole other world, but it doesn't feel fake... Everything sounds real there; I can even smell things like his cigarette smoke and my Mum's perfume." Molly looked up and met Annie's slightly concerned gaze. "It just feels real, like I'm more alive there. This," she gestured to the room they were in, "Doesn't feel as colourful or real as Mum's world does. I..."

Molly's voice began to take on the tone of confession, and she didn't notice the look of growing alarm on Annie's face, or the deepening concern in her eyes.

"I sometimes think that maybe Mum's world is the real world, and that all this is just a dream. Because everything just feels so much better there, as though I'm somehow more alive when I'm there or something. It's like..." Molly's voice dropped down to a whisper without her knowing it, as though her subconscious almost didn't want Annie to hear what she was going to say. "It's like, when I fall asleep at night, I'm not falling asleep at all... I'm waking up."

Annie stared at her newest patient, visibly alarmed as Molly stared down at the pictures on the coffee table, as if in a trance. She knew something weird was going on, that there had to have been some truth to the nonsense Sam had always spouted out before he started acting 'normally'. How else would this twelve year old girl know about her husband, or Gene, or about any of them? There had to be some sort of reason for her dreams, but Annie had no idea what that might be, or what the hell was happening. But surely, they were just dreams, and not reality, like Molly was suggesting? Because if that world – her Mum's world, as she was calling it – was real, then what did that make her world? Surely that was the same, because she had once been a part of the world in Molly's dreams, just before her Mum had arrived there? The whole thing was a mess, and Annie was sure even the most experienced of psychologists couldn't come up with one plausible, scientific explanation for what was happening to Molly. It was, in a word, unexplainable. What was it? Parallel universe? Time travel? Annie suddenly felt very, very old. All the pictures and Molly's descriptions of her dreams were reminding her that she was no longer the twenty something year old she once was.

"Oh, and there's another thing," Molly said, rousing Annie from her thoughts. "I heard this voice before I... came back." She couldn't bring herself to describe it as waking anymore. "It sounded foreign – Caribbean, maybe, or Jamaican or something – but it didn't come from anyone in Luigi's. I heard it just as the darkness started to come."

"And what did it say, this voice?" Annie asked, though she had a feeling she already knew who it belonged to. There had always been something oddly mysterious about the barman of The Railway Arms.

A small frown puckered on Molly's face. "It said something about when you can feel, you're alive, and when you can't feel, you're not..." She dragged her gaze up from the photographs to look Annie in the eye. "But, I'm not really sure what that means."

Annie thought carefully before replying. "I think, Molly, that it means exactly what it says. When you're alive, you can feel things. And when you're not alive, you can't."

"But..." Her frown deepened, her eyebrows knitting closer together. "What's that got to do with anything? I mean, I'm alive, aren't I? I mean, I'm breathing. I'm not dead." She paused a beat, and then asked, "Why, do you know who said it? Who the voice was, I mean."

Swallowing, Annie thought carefully again, slowly looking from Molly's face, to the photographs and back again. "Of course you're alive, Molly, don't be silly," she said softly, and then swallowed noiselessly again. "And no... I don't know whose voice it was. Sorry."

The lie made her look back down at the photographs again as her mind raced. Nelson. But what did Nelson have to do with anything? He was a barman, from a very long time ago. But then, come to think of it, what did any of them have to do with anything? Molly's dreams were unexplainable.

The car ride back from the psychologist's was quiet that day, as Judy hadn't been able to come along, so there was no-one to attempt forced small talk or ask Molly how it had gone, what they had talked about. Pete drove in silence, taking his eyes occasionally off the road to glance at his even more distant than usual daughter. He opened his mouth countless times to say something, but each time the words refused to come, and he closed it again. In the end, it was Molly who spoke first.

"Dad, you know when you're dreaming, how do you know that you're dreaming? How can you be sure it isn't real?"

A frown immediately came to Pete's face as he glanced at Molly again, then looked back at the road. Her question had taken him by surprise, but what had shocked him most was the absence of bitterness and anger in her voice. She hadn't spoken much since coming to live with him and Judy, but whatever words she did say had been laden with fury - resent and contempt clear in her tone. But not now. "That's a bit of a difficult question, Molly, I... I don't know. Because it doesn't feel real when you're dreaming, I suppose. And it does when you're awake." The reasons Molly could have had for asking the question suddenly dawned on Pete as he answered, and he slowly brought the car to a stop in the lay-by.

"Why?" he asked, turning to look at his daughter properly. "Are you still having dreams about your Mum, Molly?"

Molly continued to stare straight ahead through the windscreen, as though she hadn't even noticed that they'd stopped. "Sometimes," she lied, whilst her inner voice supplied 'Every night.'

"Well, Molly..." Pete was trying his best not to sound worried and forced his voice to be casual. "You know they're not real, don't you? It shouldn't be this way, and it's not right, but your Mum's dead. She can't come back."

"I know," she replied, because she had to. "I was just asking."

"Right. And you know that when you have these dreams about your Mum, they're not real, don't you?" His voice softened for a moment. "I wish I could bring her back for you, Molly, I really do. But I can't. And I know you don't like me very much at the moment, but I love you. You're my little girl, Molly, whatever might have happened in the past. And we're going to get through this, aren't we? And you know I love you."

Strangely, his words had an unexpected effect on Molly and for a moment, a lump rose in her throat, tears almost threatening to fall. She looked towards her Dad, and for the first time in a long while, met his gaze. She saw the worry in his eyes, and even felt bad for scaring him with her behaviour over the last few weeks. But she couldn't help it; she couldn't help what felt real and what didn't. Now though, she felt guilty, so although she didn't believe that she was going to get through 'this', Molly gave her Dad a small, weak smile and nodded. "Yeah... I know."

Pete smiled, sending a prayer up to a heaven he didn't quite believe in for helping him to start bringing his daughter around. He reached for Molly's hand and gave it a small squeeze. "Because this is what's real, Molls. And it's not nice at the moment, but we'll get through it. You feel alive when you're awake, don't you?"

"When I'm awake?" Molly asked, and then nodded with conviction. "Of course I feel alive when I'm awake."

With a smile, Pete let go of her hand and put the car in gear, pulling it back out into the road again. "Just wanted to make sure, Molls. Everything's going to be fine, you'll see. We'll work through this, and your Mum's going to be so proud of you."

Molly nodded again, a little abstractedly this time as she resumed her staring out of the window. She felt bad for her Dad; she did, because it wasn't his fault that she didn't feel like she belonged anymore. He had, if she was being honest, done everything he could to try and make her feel at home, to help her move on. But she couldn't, she couldn't stay here, couldn't move on here. Because this wasn't being awake. She wasn't alive here. And now, Molly thought, as she glanced at the digital clock in the car, it wasn't long until she could go to bed. It wasn't long before she'd be able to wake up again.

Hope that was okay, I kind of wrote it in record time. :D Thank you very much for reading, and reviews really do make my day, even if it's just a line to say quickly what you thought. Thanks again, and there's more to come soon, we're kind of hitting the home straight with this story now!

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