Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to the BBC/Kudos. Anything else, including mistakes are mine! Wow! Quarter of the way through! I didn't think I'd be able to write ten snapshots, let alone twenty five! Only seventy five to go! I hope everyone is still enjoying them and that they aren't getting repetitive. I really am trying to get some M rated work up, but it's a lot harder than I thought. I have no one to bounce these snippets off and I don't want them to be crap, so please bear with me and please review if you like them!

(Prompt – Why)

Was It Worth It?

Date: Monday 28th December 1981

It was stupid, she knew, but her flat had seemed sadly empty once all the newspaper clippings and notes had been taken down. It had seemed like without having a project to focus on, she'd given up completely and that wasn't the case at all. She just had a different prospective on it now.

That was how, for the second time in her career, she came to be studying Sam Tyler. Of course, she had to hide everything she found, all the photocopies, the notes, the odd photo she'd managed to find. The last thing she wanted was for Gene to find everything and he did seem to be there more often than not. There was no way he would understand, and she didn't want to dredge up old memories, painful memories.

She sipped her wine and tucked her legs up underneath as she read what she'd just written, flexing the fingers of her right hand as she did. What she wouldn't give for her laptop right now. She threw the pad down and closed her eyes, thinking back to how it had all started.

Sitting in her office, staring at the desk, Alex could hardly contain her excitement. DCI Sam Tyler had consented to let her study his case, the most unique one she had ever come across. He'd been hit by a car and slipped into a coma due to trauma to the brain. However when he'd finally awoken, he'd been different, distant, unable to function well, and more than that, much more.

He hadn't been back at work for long, but there on her desk was his spoken account of what he could remember from the coma he'd slipped into after being hit by a car.

She'd never met him before but he'd been an excellent policeman before the accident, with a spotless record. When he'd heard about what she did, studying fellow officers who'd undergone severe head trauma, he'd sent her his written thoughts, followed by the tape recordings that now sat on her desk.

Looking at her watch, Alex knew she should call it a day, start fresh in the morning but she thought she would just listen to the first five minutes and then go and pick Molly up from Evan's. She pressed play on the tape recorder.

"My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident, and I woke up in 1973. Was I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever had happened, it was like I'd landed on a different planet. If I could figure out why I was here, then maybe I could get home."

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She had stayed in the office that night listening to Sam's account of what happened to him, only pausing to call Evan and ask him if he could have Molly overnight. It shamed her now, knowing how often she had neglected her daughter but she had been so drawn into Sam's 1973 world and the people he had surrounded himself with that she couldn't stop listening.

Her heart had gone out to Sam, hearing the fear and despair in voice as he remembered what it was like to feel like he would never get back to 2006. But she had wondered why, of all the people his mind could have created, of all the personalities and quirks, Detective Chief Inspector Gene Hunt was the one he had chosen. He was the very worst of what the public thought of the police force. But the more she had listened, the more she'd heard admiration, respect and even affection for the imaginary man who had guided him, or more accurately, shoved him, through this journey.

She shook her head and finished her wine. Of course, she now knew that he wasn't imaginary at all. But how could it be that he was real? What was Gene Hunt? Why did they both end up with him and why was it that despite the fact he was everything that good police officers like herself and Sam had despised, he had worked his way into their hearts? She brought her fingers to her lips, feeling them curve into a small smile as she remembered their kiss on Christmas day. Of course, everything was back to normal now, with both of them acting like it hadn't happened, but that was okay, better in fact. They had to work together, and besides, they had been drunk and it probably hadn't meant anything to him...

"It's too late for this, Alex," she said to herself. "No need to drive yourself insane trying to figure out Gene Hunt, I'm sure he'll manage that all by himself!" Putting her glass down on the coffee table, she stood and walked to her bedroom, crawling under the covers and willing sleep to come to her.

Her eyes flew open as she heard a noise coming from the living room and her heart began to pound with the fear of one being woken from a deep sleep. She slowly got out of bed and looked around for a weapon, cursing to herself, as she found nothing. She crept to the bedroom door and looked around it into the living room, her eyes going wide as she saw the man sitting on her sofa. "Hello Alex."

She opened the door and stepped into the room, grabbing her robe as she made her way to where he was. "Sam?"

He smiled and crossed his legs. "You have questions for me. I might be able to answer them. I'd like to answer them, to be able to help you find your way home, whichever one you decide is the right one."

She turned a lamp on, blinking at the sudden light and rubbing her eyes. Sam Tyler was definitely sitting on her sofa. "What...Why...How..." She shook her head, and grabbing her glass, headed for the kitchen to pour a glass of wine, before walking back in and sitting down at the table, watching Sam warily.

Sam smiled at the guarded look on her face. "I don't know why you're so surprised to see me, Alex, after all you've already gone back in time, how much stranger can this be?"

"Right," she said with a nod. "Although it would have been nice if you'd have turned up during the day so as not to almost give me a heart attack!" He laughed at that and she couldn't help but smile, seeing how it transformed his face, made him look younger. "So, not a coma then? Not in your case anyway!"

"But a coma in yours?" Sam shook his head. "I can't talk about that, this place, what it is. I'm not even sure that I know. That's not why I'm here." He reached out for the folder on the coffee table. "Still studying me then? I'm flattered, Alex, but my heart will always belong to another!" He smiled again. "Ask." When she just frowned he sat up, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Ask me what you want to know."

Alex sipped her wine and pulled her knees up to her chest as she thought. "Well if you can't tell me what this place is, I'm assuming that you can't tell me how to get back to 2008...2009… To where I came from?" She sighed when he shook his head. "Tell me why, Sam. Why did you jump, why did you go back to 1973 after trying so hard to get away?"

A thoughtful look crossed his face as Alex tried to remember the year she'd come from. "You know the answer to that, Alex," replied Sam quietly. "It was never the same when I woke up. I didn't belong any more; I was numb, empty. 1973 made me feel a lot of things, but I always felt alive there, more alive than I ever had in my own time."

Her brows rose in surprise at the simple reply. "So your only way out was suicide? You had no way of knowing that you would wake up in 1973 again! What on earth could have been important enough to come back to?"

His smile softened. "That you're even asking me that, tells me that you haven't sought Annie out yet," he replied. "She was worth coming back for, Alex. But you're right; I didn't know if I would get back to 1973. I just couldn't live without feeling anymore, so I took a chance and it was the best thing I ever did."

Alex shook her head. "Even though you only had eight years here, it was still worth it?" She asked, trying to make sense of it all.

Sam rested his elbows on his knees. "They were the best eight years of my life and I wouldn't have changed them for anything." He stared into her face. "You're starting to feel the same aren't you, Alex? The lines are becoming blurrier, 2008 is feeling more like a dream and 1981 is becoming more of a reality for you."

Alex shook her head. "You're way off, Sam. But it is becoming clear why you drove Gene mad!" She smiled at him. "You were right about him though. He's quite something, and I will be sad to leave him..." She surprised herself at that, not realising how much it had been playing on her mind that getting back to her old life meant leaving Gene.

Sam watched her, seeing the emotions passing over her face. "He was a pain in the arse to work with, but underneath it all he's a good man, and he was a good friend to me, the best one I ever had in either life." He looked behind him to the door and got to his feet.

"I have to go, Alex, I'm not really meant to be here. But remember this. You don't have to leave him; you can stay. If you stop fighting, you can stay." He turned to walk to the door. "I hope you make the right decision, for the right reasons. And if you see Annie, tell her I always loved her."

Swallowing hard, Alex frowned. She wasn't staying here, no matter what she had told Gene while she was drunk, she couldn't. Someone needed her; the little girl whose name she still couldn't quite remember. She turned to tell Sam that but found herself suddenly alone in the flat. "I'm sorry," she whispered to herself. "I think I have to keep fighting."