"And who would you be, madam?"

Alex took her badge out and flashed it at the man on the desk, giving him a glance of her face and identity before stuffing it back in her pocket again, feeling a little vulnerable somehow despite Gene's behemoth-like presence behind her. He was looking around the lobby, a small smile on his face.

"Like 2009?" Alex hissed to him as they walked down the corridor to the left and into a room filled with equipment. Gene nodded.

"Now I understand how you know all your bloody psycho-bollocks, Bolls."

Alex laughed and flashed her card at the man standing outside the door, guarding the expensive equipment, who nodded and pushed the door open to allow them access.

Machines bleeped all around the room as they entered, monitors showing graphs and system errors in the "Repair" section of the room and otherwise resting on tables or the floor in other parts of it, machines for everything the police could possibly seem to need to do, it seemed to Gene as he stared wide-eyed around the room. Alex smiled back at him and extended her hand, grasping his and pulling him towards one corner of the room.

Gene turned round again as Alex turned on the machine and slotted her house handset into the allocated area, his blue eyes taking in the areas around them and the screens and boards and all the paraphernalia that this world demanded of its police force…

Gene's irises found a green screen on one of the faulty computers, and he began to walk slowly towards it, not knowing what was drawing him in but needing to get closer to it, to touch it, to understand it…

A beeping reached Gene's ears as he reached out to touch the monitor in one world and opened his eyes slightly in another.

"He's back! He's made it…"

Gene tried to focus but couldn't; the world was a blur and he couldn't make anything out. Someone was stood above him in a blue gown, his hair scraped back, a surgeon maybe, or just a doctor. Gene was struggling to understand, and fright infused his chest as he saw the man press something onto his bare skin, just above his heart. He tried taking in some of his surroundings; to one side was a blank room, to the other was a wide, thickly-glazed window, with snow falling gently and blanketing the outside world.

"Look for something familiar," something, maybe the voice that Alex had left in his head, told him, and he did so. The red bonnet outside the window seemed to be something he knew and loved, but the sight was overridden when he heard a faint young voice from his left.

"He will live, won't he? The Guv'll be OK?"

Shaz's voice. Gene would never have admitted it to anyone, but hearing it was like being enveloped in a hug by an old friend.

"What's happening?" he tried to whisper, but it wouldn't come, and the world slowly began fading, fading into blackness and darkness and the noises around him becoming fainter and fainter…

"Gene! GENE!"

Gene opened his eyes, looking up and seeing Alex's eyes hovering above his, full of concern, and her hands reaching out to help him stand up.

"Are you OK, Gene?" she asked, gently leaning him back against the table while he got his breath back. Several people had gathered round, staring at Gene, murmuring amongst themselves: "Is he epileptic? Did he have a seizure? Should we get an ambulance? Is he ill? How did he just collapse?"

"Mr Hunt just needs some fresh air, please can we go through?" Alex called, dispersing the crowd and assuring them that there was no need for an ambulance. They moved back willingly, making a corridor for the two to reach the door. Alex slipped the print-out from the machine into her pocket at the same time as steering the slightly dazed Gene towards the door. As he walked towards it, he noted that outside, snow was beginning to pile up on the cars and blanket the dark tarmac of the car park.

Opening her snow-covered car's door and slipping in, Alex waited for Gene to have plopped himself down next to her and be looking out of the gradually-being-covered windscreen to ask her question.

"Gene, what happened? And I want the truth. If it was some kind of flashback or something, I want to know."

Gene nodded, his eyes reading the warning on the back of the sun-visor but distant and faint; they may as well have been left back in 1983 for all the focus they had.

"I was in hospital, Bolls. Shaz was there, I could hear her talking, and they put some monitor thing on my chest when she was asking if I was going to be OK. And it was snowing there, just like it's snowing here."

Alex frowned at her reflection in the rear-view mirror, taking in Gene's words. She slipped her hand onto his and waited for his reaction to her touch. It was a brief smile, nothing more; his mind was over two decades away.

"What if… what if I die there, Bolls? What'll happen to me?"

"Gene," Alex whispered, putting her hand on his cheek, willing him to turn round and look at her. He did so.

"Gene, I promise you faithfully, whatever happens to you in that world doesn't matter in this one. You might feel ill here because you're worse there, but that's all and that passes. When I died in this world I was fine in that world; I didn't feel a thing. It was all irrelevant for everything other than that. And you're so pale you could blend in with that snow perfectly, so I think you're getting worse there."

Gene pulled down the sun-visor and had a look at himself in the mirror on the front of it. Alex was right; he could pass for a bloody polar bear.

"OK. Er… thanks."

"No problem," Alex said softly, pulling the print-out from the tracking machine out of her pocket and holding it up to read it. Gene leaned over and read over her shoulder, giving his characteristic smirk as he noticed that when his breath brushed over her shoulder, she gave a little shiver.

"Cold, Lady Bolls?"

She smiled as well and focused back on the print-out, her hazel-flecked eyes keen.

"Police number and so therefore withheld… so whoever's behind this is a copper?"

"Police bloody corruption," Gene growled, before Alex shook her head firmly.

"That's a thing of the past, Guv. This someone is just a copper; they're not corrupt and trying to get at us or anything like that."

Gene nodded to show he understood, his normal abrupt jerk of the head, and Alex found herself appreciating how close he was and wishing she had had the initiative to ask him on a date properly when she was back in 1983; they could have spent months, maybe even more than a year, together…

And then reality crashed down. Gene had slipped through the net once, and so the person doing this would be out to foil him this time. He might well have to return to his own time, where, it seemed, he was critically ill for some reason…

Alex shook her head to clear it, reaching out and slotting the keys into the ignition just as someone ran out and signalled frantically to Alex.

"Miss Drake! Miss Drake! Hold on!"

"Who are you?" Alex asked, winding her window down. The young woman stopped and panted for a second, getting her breath back, before throwing something into the car and standing up properly.

"Orders from one of the people at Scotland Yard- they said to drive to the storage park a couple of miles away and ask for storage space 12. You need to hurry, they'll be locking up soon for lunch."

"OK, thank you," Alex said, giving the woman a confused but thankful as she drove away. Gene picked up the object the woman had thrown in and quickly identified it as a key, with the fob rusted and broken but still recognisable as a key.

"Wonder what this opens up?" he murmured, turning it over. It seemed familiar somehow…

What's its purpose? both Alex and Gene thought as they rushed to the storage area, with the young woman's words in their heads and the keys clutched in Gene's leather-gloved fingers.

A/N: I am so so sorry this took so long to get up, only I have had four GCSEs in the past week and so have been very busy… I hope you liked it, and more Galex in the next chapter, I wanted to focus on the plot here (sorry!).Keep tuned and thanks for reviewing those who already have, and for those who are about to (who deserve thanks, please please please review!). Jazzola :)