A/N Thanks for all the reviews - much appreciated and they make this little monkey very happy. This is probably where the 'not the most sensible way to write a story' becomes apparent...

Everything We Apprehend

Chapter Three

August 2008

Her doctors had described her survival as something of a miracle, high praise indeed from those who played God on a daily basis; words such as 'lucky' - though getting shot in the first place could hardly be described as fortunate - and 'fighter' had been thrown around in explanation, along with the ever so modest surgeon's finely honed skills, of course. She'd undergone a barrage of tests and her prognosis was a cautiously optimistic one; a complete recovery seemed on the cards but no doctor worth his salt would ever play such a hand and say that, not when a head injury was involved - just in case those promised cards didn't come out of the deck. She'd merely smiled and nodded when given this information, uniquely aware of just how hard she had fought to survive and of how hauntingly familiar those words had sounded; she'd heard them before, from someone else's mouth, in a completely different accent though she refused to think about why they had felt so much more reassuring coming from Gene because that only made her think about him.

She tried not to think about him at all, she tried not to think about any of it, but it wasn't that easy; she'd left that world, left him, under a dark cloud – its fate, and his fate, just left hanging in the air – and that cloud had followed her here. She'd wondered once if that world would go on without her and back then, when its future had seemed brighter, she had hoped it would; but now... Now she wasn't so sure.

In fact, she seemed to spend a great deal of time and effort trying to convince herself, ironically at the same time as trying to convince everyone around her that the bullet hadn't affected her mentally, that it wasn't real, that it didn't matter, that nothing that had happened there mattered - but it was difficult. It was hard to let go of a world that had felt so real, so vibrant, so alive and she had wondered if Sam Tyler had experienced the same thing upon his return, if that was why he'd done what he'd done.

Her thoughts would always sour at the memory of Sam; he'd committed suicide, took the ultimate leap of faith to get back to that world - a world which now bound them together even though they'd never met, but his actions had left her desirous of the one person she could talk to, the one person who'd understand, at least to a certain degree, how she felt. No one else ever could, she felt certain of that, because she hadn't understood before, not really. But it was all so perfectly clear now, though it was an explanation that would never pass her lips; her planned book concerning DCI Tyler would never see the light of day. Besides, how could dry words, written in drab black and white, ever bring to life or do justice to the nuances of that world and its inhabitants when Sam's own impassioned narration had failed to reach her?

But she couldn't do what Sam had done; she wouldn't take that step. She had something, someone, to hold onto in this world: she had Molly. Her euphoria at being back with Molly - to see her, to hold her, to hear her voice and childish laughter - was so overwhelming that at times that she felt as if she was drowning in a sea of it but she never struggled against those warm, reassuring waves; she didn't have to, her daughter was her lifebuoy in this world. Just as Gene had been in that other life.

She closed her eyes at that thought, hoping to prevent that memory of her last few minutes spent with him from returning. It was the same memory that had come hurtling back at her when she'd awoken, marring what should have been her triumphant return, what should have been her two fingered salute to fate; the same memory that now tinged all the others from that world with a bittersweet aftertaste. Even those endless happy hours spent getting slowly legless in Luigi's now had a dark swirling undercurrent to them; the thought of what was to come lurked dangerously underneath, just waiting for the right moment to pull her under. And it was all his fault anyway, the stupid, bloody, impossible man. The last adjective stuck and she focussed upon it; he was impossible, he couldn't possibly exist, therefore it hadn't happened.

Her eyes opened quickly as the door to her room opened, the internal mantra of 'it wasn't real' still echoing weakly and unconvincingly, around her head, as she let her gaze settle on the figure that had entered: Evan. He held onto a vase, half full of water, throwing her a reassuring smile as he headed for the window ledge and she silently watched him as he placed a bouquet of flowers into their new home.

"Molly's with Claire," Evan offered before she could even ask where her daughter was, as he continued to fiddle with the flowers. "Think she's on her break," he added on, before she could voice her concern that her daughter was bothering a very busy hospital employee. Alex had liked the young nurse immediately, more so when she had heard how the the woman had been so very kind towards Molly. Evan turned to her, still wearing a smile and seemingly happy at last with the flowers but she frowned inwardly. This was all so... Different? Difficult?

If the only thing her sojourn to 1981 had left her with was the aftermath of the choice she had made between that life and this one she might have found the ordeal easier to deal with. But she was also left wrestling with the feeling that some things in this world were now a little off balance. Everything appeared to be the same yet she couldn't help but look at it all differently now; she felt displaced, her life seemed fractured somehow. Her experiences from back then, the ones involving her parents, and Evan, were just as jarring as her departure had been but, having some basis in fact, they made all her carefully constructed efforts to persuade herself of how inconsequential, how unreal, that other world was, crumble. How could she convince herself that Gene wasn't real when she had accepted other events - her mother's adultery, her father's quiet rage - as being just the opposite? And if she proved that those things were real did that mean he was too?

"Did they get him? Layton?" she asked abruptly, Evan's smile fading with her question. Layton had been the key to her getting home though, to her intense regret, she had only arrived at that conclusion after her parents had died. She had spent so much time following every possible clue that could solve - and thus prevent - her parents' deaths, certain that their salvation would be her way home, only to discover, at practically the very last minute, that the biggest clue had been there from the start and she'd not realised: Arthur Layton. But had his fingers really been all over the bomb that had killed her Mum and Dad or, given her last interactions with that man in 2008, had her mind just leapt to that conclusion?

Evan hesitated in his reply. This was a conversation they'd both seemed happy to avoid until now; her Godfather possibly out of guilt, if she was right about that phone call, herself because of the answer. There was an unreadable look upon his face and she wondered, given that her theories about the past were correct, if he had been dreading this question since she woke up. Maybe he'd been dreading the question since she had lost her parents. "He shot himself," Evan said quietly, "He didn't survive."

Alex could only nod her understanding, a mixture of surprise, happiness and disappointment rendering her almost numb. There would be no confirmation from Layton; he wouldn't admit to helping her father destroy his family, he wouldn't be able to tell her anything about 1981. Maybe she should just be satisfied with the explanation that her subconscious mind had come up with, accept that some things, some people, weren't real and leave it at that. Her future, the rest of her life, stretched ahead of her and, after all she'd been through, it should be ample compensation. Her eyes dropped downwards, to her hands resting in her lap, and for a split second she could have sworn that they were covered in blood. His blood. But she must have imagined it because when she blinked all she saw was clean, familiar, pale skin; all that stared back at her were long slim white fingers.

"Layton said he had something to tell me. About the day my parents died..." she said, raising her eyes back to him and holding his gaze steadily; she'd never noticed how old Evan had become, how tired he looked - had his appearance been the same before all of this or had guilt over her shooting added on yet another decade to the ones he was already carrying? She couldn't quite remember. The sentence hung between them as she watched his reaction; it was a calm and calculated move and a part of her, the part that had trusted this man for so long, complained loudly against such a deception. And as a flicker of pain crossed his face she felt ridiculously bad; it was unfair of her to do this to him, to test him in this way.

Evan edged slowly towards her hospital bed, taking the seat nearest to her and sighed softly before meeting her gaze rather strangely. She almost expected him to comment on how much she reminded him of someone he'd once known - as if she'd really been back to 1981. But he never; how could he - she hadn't been there, it hadn't been real. "Did he tell you anything, Alex?"

She held his gaze evenly at his probing question but inside her thoughts were screaming loudly: it was all true. It had to be, why else would he ask that question. Those fragments of memories that had been buried for years had, in the face of death, finally been unearthed and then carefully assembled to present her with the answer to a puzzle that had shadowed her life for long enough. An answer that had been hidden from her with the best of intentions. "No, he didn't," she answered finally and honestly.

"Oh," Evan said softly, his gaze dropping slowly from hers and she felt certain that he was relieved by her answer. Confirmation that she'd also been right in her assertion that Evan never would have the courage to tell her the truth; he couldn't even tell her now, not after everything that had happened, not even when the opportunity presented itself. At some point, the lie had become bigger, and potentially more dangerous and destructive, than the truth.

"Maybe the past is best left in the past." Blue eyes, now back on her, urged her to agree to something that she had already conceded. It would be enough for her to know the truth; she'd already forgiven him for his decision in 1981, she could do the same for the one he had made in 2008. And what could Evan have done in that situation anyway? There was no guarantee that Layton wouldn't have shot her if Evan had bowed to whatever demands had been made.

She nodded her understanding and the relief in his eyes was patently visible - the final proof, had she needed it, that she'd been right. She would salvage her relationship with this man because he was important to her, he had taken care of her when there was no one else to do so and she honestly believed that action was more than just a sense of duty on his part or out of any feelings of guilt. And he was important to her daughter too; it had been Evan who had cared for Molly, he who had been there for her daughter whilst she was incapacitated – and he who always would be.

"I'll go and see what Molly is up to," Evan said, his features still a little taut as he stood up. There was a faint, perhaps forced, smile on his lips as he made his way out of her room and she reciprocated it as she watched him leave, her smile fading once he was out of sight. Confirming what she had discovered had helped her feel more settled, and perhaps confident, about this world but as soon as Evan had gone her thoughts slipped back to Gene.

She'd only just come to doubt her - previously strongly held - assumptions about Gene and his existence when her ticket home had arrived; a one-way ticket that she could never have passed up, even under those circumstances. Maybe it was only her guilt at leaving him in the way she had that kept him so alive in her thoughts, that kept pulling her back to that world, back towards him.

But, like the world he'd inhabited, he'd felt so very real: she could clearly remember how his heart had beat so strongly under her palm; how his arms had felt when they were wrapped around her; how his eyes had burned with energy, with life, whenever they had argued; how his blood had been so strikingly red... Why had he worn a white, of all colours, shirt that day? Why couldn't she get him out of her head?

She had to know, one way or another, if he was real - not knowing was threatening to tear her apart and that would render her achievement of getting home null and void if she was of no use to her daughter. She wouldn't ask Evan (and how could she anyway without bringing up that painful past or explaining what had happened to her) but maybe she could look into the police records concerning the murder of her parents. If Gene Hunt was real, if he had been there for her when she was a child, if she actually remembered him rather than stole him from Sam Tyler, then his name would be there. And if his name was on that file, and he really did exist, he might still be alive, sizzling on a beach somewhere hot because the reason he'd been shot, the reason he'd been hurt, was her - and she'd never existed, not as Alex Drake anyway, in 1981.

Buoyed by that determination, and the trace of a smile of on her face, her eyes wandered aimlessly as she leant back against her bed only to settle on the flowers that her Godfather had been placing in water just minutes earlier. During the past week or so endless bouquets of flowers had arrived in her room - from friends, from colleagues, the gestures were given with the best of intentions but she'd never been one for flowers. She'd always associated flowers with death; having been plucked from their natural habitat and placed in unfamiliar, artificial, surroundings, they always bloomed briefly, sometimes longer than expected, but death was always around the corner for them. Waiting. Lurking. Just like it had been for her.

Her smile faded and she closed her eyes again, the sight of the flowers dragging her back there. She struggled against those lingering thoughts of that world, of Gene, but she found herself wondering if flowers ever dreamt of clowns; or of fast cars the colour of blood; if flowers ever dreamt at all.