Disclaimer: I don't own Ashes to Ashes or the characters. All I own are my ideas and the characters I invented for this fic.

Once again, thank you to everyone for all the wonderful reviews, favouriting, story alerting and feedback (including the lively debate on the Railway Arms, thanks ladies). Please keep it coming. I'm out of the country for five days next week (I'll miss Episode 6, alas! - thank Heaven for the iPlayer), so I won't be able to reply to reviews until next weekend, but I promise I will reply!

N.B. Some of the timings quoted in this chapter don't reflect what we now know happens in 1982 in Series 2. This is because it reflects the timing of "Decision Time", which was set in late 1981, shortly after the end of Series 1.

There has been a lot of discussion about the date of Molly's birthday. For my theory – which I follow here – see my afterword to Chapter 11 of "Stravagation".

"Molly? Molly? Wake up, it's all right, love..."

She dimly heard the voice penetrating her consciousness. "Mum?"

"No, it's me, Allie. Don't worry, you're okay."

With difficulty, she opened her eyes and found Allie bending over her, bathing her forehead. What strange eyes she has, she thought inconsequentially, one blue and one green.

"Feeling better now?"

"Yes - I think so..." She tried to sit up, but Allie gently pushed her back down.

"Whoa, whoa. You've been out cold for a couple of minutes. Take it slowly."

With Sam and Allie supporting her on either side, she managed to sit upright.

"Drink this." Sam pushed a glass of brandy into her hand. She obediently sipped it, spluttering over the fiery liquid but welcoming the warmth it gave her. As full consciousness returned, she felt a flood of shame and embarrassment. What on earth would her DCI think of her now? He had invited her into his home, made her welcome, trusted her with his children, and in return she had offered him what he must see as an unforgivable insult. She held the glass out blindly, and Allie took it and set it down.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry, sorry, so sorry," she muttered, burying her face in her hands. "You must think I'm mad."

"Of course we don't," said Allie soothingly. "You've had a bad day. Sam said so when he phoned me to say you were coming."

"No, no, I wasn't hallucinating." Suddenly it was very important that they should know why she had said it. "Look, I can show you - " Allie tried to calm her, but weak and wild, she reached for her handbag on the sofa beside her, rummaged for her wallet, and pulled out a crumpled snapshot. "Evan took this, the Christmas before my mother died."

Sam and Allie leaned over from either side to look at it. It showed Molly, a mousey child of eleven, her hair tied back, pulling a cracker with a beautiful woman. Both were smiling at the camera.

"Good heavens," Allie breathed. Sam said nothing and his face was impassive, but he took the photo from Molly's hand and studied it intently. The woman in Molly's photo had straight hair, drawn back and clipped up, and she wore no makeup. His mother's hair was cut in a fringe and flowed loose, and she wore the heavy makeup common in the 1980s. But it was the same face, the very same. He picked up the photo of his christening and held the two side by side in front of Molly.

"Doesn't look like you're mad to me," he said levelly.

"But they can't be the same," said Molly almost desperately. "They look the same age, but the photos were taken twenty-four years apart."

"Is it possible that you two are related?" said Allie confusedly. "Distant cousins, maybe?"

"I don't see how," said Molly wearily. "I'm an only child. So was my mother, so were her parents. That was why there were no relatives around who could take her on after her parents died. I'm sorry, so sorry. God knows what you must think of me. I should go - "

"No, Mols. I'd like you to stay, if you will." She had expected Sam to sound icy, furious, but his voice was as gentle as it had been when he was comforting her that afternoon. "I think the three of us should talk."

"What about?" said Molly almost pleadingly.

"We're detectives, and this needs investigating. Agreed?" Molly nodded wordlessly. "Let's start with names. My mother's name, before she married my father, was Detective Inspector Alexandra Caroline Drake. But she was always called Alex." He looked full at her as he said it.

"My God," Molly whispered.

"She was my godmother," Allie put in. "I was named after her. But two Alexes in the extended family was just too confusing, so I became Allie - Are you all right, Molly?"

"That was my mother's name, too," said Molly faintly. Allie took her hand, gripping it hard, and looked across at her husband.

"I learned today for the first time that your mother's name was Alexandra Drake," said Sam gravely. "You've just added the Caroline. Your own second name. And we discovered earlier that both our maternal grandmothers were called Caroline too."

"And both our mothers were shot in the head and went into comas," said Molly, almost unwillingly. "But mine died, and yours lived."

"Mum was left with a bullet scar on her temple, just here." Sam gestured to his forehead. "You can't see it in the photo. She grew the fringe to cover it. But you can see it here. This is their wedding." He went over to the unit behind the sofa and returned with a large album. He sat beside Molly, opened the album, and opened it at a large photo, showing his mother in an exquisite white satin gown of Victorian cut, with a low, square neck. She held a bouquet of white lilac and her hair was swept up under a gauzy veil, crowned with silver flowers. The white scar was clearly visible on her forehead. She was leaning on the arm of the tall, golden man, who looked magnificent in a black frock coat and grey topper. They both seemed ablaze with happiness.

"That's where my mother was shot," said Molly, very low. "They said I shouldn't see her again after she died, but I wanted to see her just once more without all the bandages and tubes, to remember her like that. So Evan let me. She looked so peaceful. There was just a bullet hole - here." She pointed to the same place on her forehead and there were tears in her eyes.

Sam laid the album aside. "How old was your mother when she died?" he said gently.

"Thirty-five."

"My mother was thirty-five when she came out of nowhere to join my father's team in 1981. No family, no friends, no home, no money, seemingly no past, only the clothes on her back and the warrant card in her pocket. And the clothes weren't much use. She was working undercover disguised as a tart. Dad used to say that she staggered into his life in six-inch heels and a two-inch skirt. That was all she had to wear until Auntie Shaz found her something else."

In spite of herself, Molly smiled.

"Even when she got married, there wasn't a single member of her family there," Sam went on. "The only relative she ever mentioned was a daughter whom she'd had to leave behind her. In the first months with the team she spoke a lot about wanting to go home to her daughter, but after the shooting she never mentioned her again. She always became upset if Dad asked her about it, so after a time he didn't ask her. He thought that the daughter must have died. But it may not have been that."

"Did - did she ever mention her daughter's name?" Molly felt as though she was in some crazy dream world, with reality and logic slipping away from her. One glance at Allie's face showed that she felt the same. But Sam was still sober, composed and thoughtful.

"I'm afraid she didn't, no."

A completely irrational hope blossomed inside her. "And is she - " She could not bring herself to say the words. "Can I ask her? Is she still alive?"

"I'm afraid not, love." Sam took her other hand and held it tight. "She died two years ago."

Her throat closed up with disappointment. She could hardly speak. "H-how did it happen?"

Sam sighed and looked at her sadly. "Dad retired as Superintendent at 65, in 2001. Mum was ten years his junior, so she kept working until Carrie and I flew the nest - Carrie's my sister, born a year after me. She's in banking. Married to a stockbroker and lives in Essex. It had always been Dad's dream to retire to a villa in Spain. I think Mum would have preferred to stay over here, but she never said anything. Wherever he was, she had to be. They'd invested wisely since their marriage - Mum always had an eye for a good investment - so after they sold their house in London following her retirement, they had enough money for it. They flew out to Spain in 2005. I'd just started with the Met, I think Dad thought that things would be easier for me if he wasn't there to overshadow me. He was probably right, at that. They got themselves a lovely little place in Alicante, and whenever either of us visited them we could see they were blissfully happy. Nobody thought Dad would live long enough to enjoy a long retirement, he'd drunk enough whisky in his time to float the Titanic and smoked enough fags to tarmac the M25. It was Mum who kept him young. He was fit as a flea, right up till the moment when he keeled over on the golf course at the age of 82. Massive heart attack, he can't have felt a thing. He'd just got a hole in one. Hell of a way to go. Carrie and I dropped everything to go out there and help Mum. I'll never forget how she was when we found her. She was just like a ghost. She kept saying, "I only came back for him. Now he's gone, there's nothing left." We tried to tell that of course there was plenty left, there was us and our kids, her friends. All the usual things one says to grieving widows, and Christ knows we get enough of that in our job. But deep down, I knew what she meant. Carrie and I had our own lives. She and Dad had been two halves of a whole."

"Came back? From where?" said Molly, frowning.

"That she didn't say. I thought that she was talking about when she came round from her coma. She'd always said that she'd heard his voice and came back to him. Anyway, he'd wanted to be buried in this country, so Carrie and I helped Mum make all the arrangements. After the funeral, she told us that she didn't want to go back to Spain. Couldn't bear to live alone in the house they'd shared for so long. So Carrie and I took leave of absence from our jobs and we flew out there to pack up what she wanted to take and arrange for the place to be rented out until we could sell it. We both offered that she could stay with us as long as she wanted, but she'd always been very independent and insisted that she wanted her own place. We found her a small furnished flat near here, close enough for Allie or me to look in every day, until we could get her something permanent. But we all knew that she wouldn't need it for very long. Physically she was still very fit, but - well, you've heard of people dying of a broken heart, and we saw it happen. She just faded away and there was nothing we could do to stop it. It was as though she didn't want to live in a world that didn't have him in it. She survived him by less than five months." He looked away, and Allie reached behind Molly to lay a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," said Molly softly, for the first time that evening feeling sorrow for someone other than herself. "I shouldn't have asked you."

"Yes, you should," he said gruffly. "You remember your mother as a brilliant Mum and a wonderful, brave woman. Just as I do my mother. We mustn't stop thinking about them, just because it hurts."

"No," Molly whispered. "But - "

"But what?"

"Now I can never ask her. I'll never know."

He looked at her very intently, started to say something, and hesitated. The two women watched as he silently came to a decision. "Wait there." He patted Molly's hand, rose, and walked into the next room. For a few minutes they heard him rummaging and cursing. Molly looked inquiringly at Allie, who raised her eyebrows and shrugged.

"That's his study," she whispered. "He uses it to work from home. But, no, I don't know what he's looking for."

Almost at once he returned with a long white envelope and a paperknife in his hand. He sat down beside Molly again, took a deep breath, and began to speak.

"A couple of months before Mum died, she asked to see me. I called round that day after work, like I did most days. When I arrived, I let myself in - I had a key - and found her sitting at her desk, writing. She asked me to wait a minute, so I went and made us some tea. When I came back with it, she was folding some sheets of paper into an envelope, and I could see that she'd been crying. We sat down together, and she said, "I want you to promise to do something for me." Of course I said, "Sure, Mum, anything." But I'll never forget what she said next. "Before I tell you what it is, you must promise that, whatever happens, whatever you might hear in the future, you will always remember that, since I came round from that coma in 1981 and found your father watching over me, I have never, ever so much as thought about any other man." Well, that went without saying. I've already told you, they were almost ridiculously in love. I couldn't imagine why she thought that I would think anything else. But she looked so very serious that I said, "Yes, Mum, I promise I will." Then she gave me the envelope - this envelope - and said, "There's someone whom I've wanted to contact for a long time. I want you to promise that, if you ever meet her after I'm gone, and you think that it is right that you should do so, you will give her this. You will have to make that decision for me." Of course, I promised I would, but I asked her why she didn't try and find this person herself. She looked very sad, and said, "No, I can't. It wouldn't be right. If ever you find her, you'll probably find out why. I'm not asking you to spend the rest of your life looking for her, because you'll probably never find her, but you come across so many people in the course of your job that you might just meet her. If ever you do, promise me that you'll be her guardian angel and treat her just like another sister." I hadn't a clue what she was talking about by that time - Mum had that effect on people - but I promised her solemnly that I would, and I asked her who this person was. She said, "I haven't heard of her for many years, so I don't know if she still lives in this country, or if her name is still the same. She may have married by now. All I can tell you is that when I knew her, her name was Molly Drake, and that she was born on the seventh of February, 1996." "

"My God..." Allie breathed. Molly was completely unable to speak.

"Exactly," said Sam gravely. "I knew that Mum's surname was Drake before she married Dad, so I'd assumed - wrongly, as it turns out - that the letter was for a member of her first husband's family, perhaps a niece. You've been working for me for over a year, but up till today I knew you only as Caroline Weston. Today you told me that you were born Molly Drake, and that your mother's name was Alexandra, called Alex. I looked up your personnel record. Date of birth, seventh of February, 1996."

Molly nodded dumbly.

"That's the final reason why I invited you here tonight. I'll admit that I showed you Mum's photo to see if you'd react." Sam shook his head in bewilderment. "How this all fits together I still don't know, but maybe Mum's letter will give us some answers." He held the envelope out to her. "I think this is for you."

Molly's hands were shaking so much that she could scarcely take the envelope. Sam gently took her wrist and held her hand steady so that he could slip the envelope into it.

"Would you like us to leave while you read it?" he said quietly.

"No. No. I'd like you both to stay, if you will. Please." He nodded, put the paperknife on the coffee table in front of her, rose, picked up his wine glass, and strolled over to an armchair. Allie followed him and settled herself in the armchair, and he perched on the arm, his arm around her, sipping his wine, waiting until they were needed.

Molly sat there for a few moments, holding the envelope in her hands, and took several deep breaths to calm herself. Only then did she dare to look at what she held. The envelope was addressed to Molly Drake.

"That's Mum's handwriting," she said unsteadily. "I'm sure it is." Neither Sam nor Allie said anything. She picked up the paperknife, carefully slit the envelope, reached inside, and removed two folded sheets of paper, covered in handwriting, and a snapshot of Sam's mother, wearing a white leather jacket, low-necked pink top, and figure-hugging jeans. Her hair was a mass of permed curls. She stood, facing the camera, her hands on her hips, smiling confidently, luxuriating in her beauty. With an effort, Molly turned the photo over. On the back, in a hand she did not know, was written The Boss. July 1981.

"Who called her the Boss? Your father?"

"Perish the thought." Sam smiled briefly, despite the solemnity of the situation. "But Uncle Chris did." Molly held the photo out to him, and he rose from his perch, took it, and showed it to Allie.

"Dad took that," Allie said. "There's a copy in his album, I've seen it. And that's his writing."

Sam returned the photo to Molly and sat down beside Allie again. With shaking fingers, Molly unfolded the letter and began to read.

TBC