Alex's long, delicate fingers were shaking as she picked up the call, pressing the "accept call" button so faintly that it almost didn't register. Gene watched like a hawk, his eyes narrowed slightly, his stance alert.

"So, Alexandra. You've made it this far. You and your precious DCI have travelled forward over twenty years to get you home and neither of you are dead- yet."

Alex swallowed. Next to her, Gene clenched his leather-gloved fists.

"You have more struggles to come, you know. And wouldn't you like to know the fates of Shaz, Chris, Ray- and your precious Molly?"

"What have you done to Molly?" Alex gasped, pressing the handset closer to her ear. The voice cackled.

"This is the 2009 you have come back to, Alexandra. But there is a difference. You don't know anyone in this world until you have proved to me that you deserve those people. The only person you have is Gene- the bugger slipped through my net to be with you."

Alex's eyes found Gene, standing next to her with his eyes fixed on the handset. His face was as shocked as hers.

"But it won't last. Once he's gone, you will have no-one to protect you or help you. You will be vulnerable… you will be helpless… all your psychology crap will be useless. All you will have is darkness… you will be mine."

Alex gasped out loud as the voice rang through the room, resounding off the bare walls and into the ears of her and her DCI. Gene strode forwards and grabbed the phone roughly, not hurting Alex but showing his emotions as he put it to his own ear and began to speak.

"Now listen here, dip-shit, if you're here to hurt Alex then you're going to have to bloody get past me first-"

"I will, Hunt," the voice said silkily. "I will get past you. I promise faithfully that I will get past you to your DI and I will take her and she will be mine when you aren't there. Do you really think that all your swagger and your bullshit will save her here? This is not the world of rough, tough police officers who are simply trigger-happy and have no sense of the real world- this is a place where people are governed by others and made to answer for the crimes they commit. Your cavalier "I'm-going-to-save-my-Bolly-and-I-don't-care-if-I-kill" attitude won't swing here. Oh yes, I know your nickname for her. I know all about both of you… I will foil you. I will take you both down and I will start with you, DCI Hunt."

The line went dead. Alex snatched the handset back and checked for any kind of caller ID.

"Nothing… it's an unidentifiable caller."

Alex dropped the phone back onto the table and faced Gene properly, seeing the boyish defiance she knew and an uncertainty she didn't.

"Gene, it's probably just a prank call…"

The words melted on her lips as she realised how stupid that sounded. Not only did this person know her name- her full name- but he also knew that Gene was with her, Gene's name, their positions in the Metropolitan Police from 1983 and even Gene's attitude towards policing, although a lot of people knew that last one, either having heard of the Manc Lion or been on the receiving end of a punch or kick from him. She shook her head, a blush creeping over her slim cheeks.

"No. It's not a prank call. It's someone who knows everything about the situation we're in. What if what they said was right? Molly- Evan- my friends- my colleagues- maybe they're all vanished in this world- oh Gene, I wish this would just end- I need my daughter back and my life back- I can't take much more of this-"

Gene, feeling almost as distraught as her, reached forwards to pull her into a hug, letting her rest her head on the spot on his shoulder it knew well. Her hair was still straight in this world, flowing over his shoulder; he missed the rampant, milk-chocolate curls that had graced her face and flown around her skull before. Pushing the thought out of his head and thinking "For goodness' sake, Gene, you're turning into a bloody nancy hairdresser!", he rubbed her back slightly and sat her down on the plush leather sofa. She was crying now, trying to save her mascara and failing, letting it make snail-trails down her cheeks and onto her lips, staining their bright red with black. Gene wiped a little off with one glove and almost immediately snatched his hand away, once again cursing himself for being a puff. Alex, guessing what he was thinking, smirked to herself and stood up shakily to sort herself out in the downstairs toilet.

Reappearing with her make-up once again perfect and her green eyes ablaze with a plan, Alex sat down on the sofa and looked over at Gene, beckoning for him to sit down next to her. He plumped himself down, drawing his coat off just before he did and slinging it over the arm of the sofa.

"Here's what I want to do. We'll use a tracker from my old station to find out where the phone call came from, whether it was a house, a mobile or what."

"A house or a what?"

"A mobile phone. There are millions more now than there were in the 80's, Guv, pretty much everyone has a mobile now."

Alex dug her own faithful Motorola out of her bag and showed it to him.

"My point is, we may be able to trace the caller and then we'll just have to persuade him or her to do what we want."

"Which is what, Bolls?"

"Let me see my Molly again," Alex said quietly and simply, smiling slightly at Gene. "And keep us both alive. I want to see my daughter again… I want to get back to my normal life."

She pushed over her fringe and let Gene see the scar on her scalp where the bullet had entered her head.

"That is proof that something huge has happened to me, Gene. The scar from when I was shot by that man and found myself in 1981. Maybe I'm properly alive again, I don't know. But whatever has happened, we're both here and I want it to stay that way. I just want to go back to normality."

"Do you… do you…"

In about three years of working with Gene Hunt, Alex had never known him so hesitant.

"Yes, Guv?"

"Do you want me here? Or do you want me to bugger off home?"

Alex knew what he meant.

"No, Gene. I want you here. With me."

Gene's face softened slightly, the harsh lines on his face becoming less stubborn and craggy as he took in his DI's face. Subtly, she shifted herself closer to him on the sofa, and reached out to put her hand on top of his. Gene looked down at her smooth palm on his rough, work-toughened fingers and gave his first real smile since being brought into this world.

"You're going to turn me into a real bloody poofter, Bolly."

Alex just laughed.

A/N: I hope people like the Galex… hopefully there'll be more in the next chapter! Thanks to all the awesome people who've reviewed and are about to review (pretty please? I live for these reviews :P)! Jazzola :)