Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to the BBC/Kudos. Anything else, including mistakes are mine!

(Prompt – Air)

Harder To Breathe

Date: Friday 18th December 1981

Alex pushed open the door and stormed out onto the roof. It was the only place she could think of to get some peace and quiet and it was too early to start drinking, so she had to calm herself down another way.

Gene was in one of his moods and had snapped at every member of CID at least once already today, That was without putting down every idea she'd had and speaking over the top of her which she hated. She kicked at the wall in frustration. She'd never met a man who could wind her up so fast, could bring her temper to boiling point with so few words, but just as easily could make her feel safe, wanted and like a part of a real team, a family as she'd once called them.

Sometimes, when he looked at her, it seemed like time was standing still and all the air had been sucked out of the room. Times when she was sure that he was about to kiss her, and in those moments she wanted nothing more than to let it happen, consequences be damned. There was more between them than a working relationship, of that she was sure, their arguments were too fierce, the words between them too cutting to be purely professional. As much as she tried to fight it, she was attracted to him and that feeling just seemed to be getting stronger with every week she was stuck in 1981.

But he was so bull-headed, arrogant and proud and it was that side of him that had her standing on the roof of a police station in the middle of the day. She wished he would let her in, wanted to see what it was that made him the way he was, apart from the fact that she was over two decades out of her time and men were different here. Maybe that was part of the attraction, the fact that he was who he was and made no apologies for it.

"Bastard," she muttered to herself, walking across the roof to the small wall that ran around the edge, looking out across the city skyline. It was so different in 2008 that in 1981 it almost looked like a painting. There was no 'Gherkin'; no London Eye, not even Canary Wharf was there yet, although it would only be a few years before building started on that. Yet even with all these symbols of 'her' London missing, she had begun to believe that this was her home now, that 2008 was just a memory to her, that she couldn't get back, and still, the only thing that stopped her from breaking down when she thought of it was the impossible man downstairs.

She looked up at the clear winter sky and thought about Sam. What had he seen when he stood on the roof of the GMP building? Had he seen the buildings rising up into the sky, the Manchester of 2006 and decided that there was no place for him there, or had his thoughts been blinded by 1973, by the lifestyle of a bygone decade, by the people he'd met, by Annie and Gene.

She knew she should have seen it coming, the suicide of a man who seemingly couldn't live in his own world anymore. At that time she'd thought his words and subsequent actions were the products of someone who'd undergone a serious trauma and been in a coma, not a man who had come out of his coma into a different time.

She braced her arms on the wall and looked over as far as she could. Is that how she would feel? If she ever returned to her own time and place, would she end up standing on a roof staring out at her London and feel nothing? Would she long to be back in her flat above Luigi's, to go to work everyday in a place where she was a minority, where she faced prejudice? Of course not. She had something anchoring her to 2008, she had a daughter, someone she was responsible for, she would never miss this place and all the struggles she faced here.

But even as the thoughts crossed her mind she felt sorrow, a pang in the pit of her stomach at the thought of never seeing them again; the friends that she had made, the relationships she had cultivated. The thought of never hearing his voice again, or staring into those stormy blue eyes, or never getting the chance to...

She spun around as she heard footsteps on the roof behind her, her eyes widening at the sight of Gene striding toward her, before she pushed away the thoughts she'd been having and narrowed them. "Go away, Gene, I don't want to speak to you right now."

He snorted as he reached her, looking over the wall as she had just been doing. "Well I gathered that, Bols, but I didn't think us having an argument would justify you coming up here and throwing yourself off the roof!" He was making a joke of it, but couldn't quite hide the worry in his eyes.

"Oh please," she replied sarcastically. "I know you think that you're God's gift to women, Gene, but I hardly think you're worthy of me killing myself over! Killing you maybe! But not myself. Now, can you go away so I can get my homicidal feelings under control and then I'll come back down and everything will be fine again!"

Gene stared at her for a minute, trying to think of a glib reply. She'd brushed it off, but truthfully, he wouldn't be surprised if she had come up here to jump. Not because of him, he wasn't that vain, but because he wasn't always entirely sure that she was in her right mind and that worried him, no, not worried, terrified him.

"Well as much as I would love to leave you up here having your very own pity party, I'm afraid we've got this pesky little thing called a crime to solve and if you don't mind, I'd like to get said crime solved before six so I can go over to Luigi's and have a drink. Is that alright with you?"

Alex sighed and pushed away from the wall. She knew that one of her worst faults was that she could never let anything go, it was one of the reasons that she and Pete had argued so much, so it surprised her to realise that where Gene was concerned, her anger at him lasted only minutes and was then forgotten.

She gave him a glare for good measure before walking past him back to the fire escape. It wouldn't do to let him know that after all.