Thank you all very much for your reviews, I'm sorry I wasn't able to respond to them each in turn, hopefully I might be able to this week. I felt so guilty about not resolving the cliffhanger straight away that I thought you might want to read this and fid out what happened next…

"Bolly."

Alex didn't move. She stayed stock still next to the Quattro with one hand resting on it, as though she was trying to calm it down.

"Step in to the light," she ordered.

The silhouette obeyed, taking forward one step so that it would be illuminated by a ray of moonlight shining through a gap in the roof. It was extraordinary. Every detail was perfect, from the stubble on his chin to silvery-green of his eyes. Even each dimension of his pout was accurate.

Alex walked slowly up to him as though he was a rare animal that could take a fright to her and disappear. Cautiously, she extended a hand and held it an inch from his cheek. He closed his eyes in anticipation of her touch, but it never came. She dropped her hand.

"Incredible," Alex whispered, gazing into his eyes, "Everything is exactly as I remember. Since I can't grieve effectively, my mind has taken my grief and fashioned a hallucination out of it. I don't want to let go, so it created a construct, albeit a construct with extraordinary detail."

"Bloody hell, Bolls, you haven't changed have you?" said the construct but there was no humour in his voice. In fact, there was a crack in it, as though he was on the verge of tears. Alex began to doubt, even more so when the construct reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

Could she really recreate that so perfectly? The coolness and smoothness of his leather glove and it brushed against her warm cheek and behind her ear. Her heart rate increased. All her reactions were real, so could he be?

"But you're dead, Gene," she said, a tear running down her cheek, "You were caught in a fire, the house collapsed and you never made it out."

"Yes, I did," Gene breathed, not moving his hand from her face, so Alex moved her face from his hand. She glared at him in fury.

"How can you be alive? Don't you know how many nights I've spent weeping over you? How I struggle to get through each day without you? If you've been alive all this time, why didn't you come back sooner?"

"I couldn't," Gene whispered, "Those bastards from the League were there, in the room I went into. They slapped something over my face. I watched as they took me out through a back door and bundled me into a car."

"What do you mean, you watched?" asked Alex, curious despite herself.

"From above. Like I was a ghost or something."

"Chloroform," said Alex quietly, "Did they hurt you?"

"No," Gene said quickly- too quickly, but Alex would let it pass for now.

"Just because you're saying all this stuff, it doesn't mean you're real. My mind is just inventing things for you to say to justify your existence."

"All right, I'll prove it then," said Gene and for the first time, his eyes slid away from Alex's and landed on the Quattro behind her. Give me the keys."

Alex turned her head to look at the Quattro. She hesitated.

"Give me the keys, Bolly."

Finally, Alex reached into her pocket and withdrew the keys. A frisson of electricity seemed to jump from Gene's hand to hers as she put it in his hand. Was that real?

They both got into the Quattro. Gene started the engine and switched on the headlamps, throwing light into every dark corner of the lock-up. The dingy space suddenly looked beautiful.

They pulled out of the lock-up. Gene sped the thing down empty roads, going as fast as he damn well pleased. Alex didn't tell him to slow down, on the contrary, she was having the time of her life. Any high speed chase she had been witness to before paled into insignificance now. The way it swerved round corners and accelerated down straights was brilliant. It was as though the Quattro had been grieving, same as Alex, but it now had its master back and was rejoicing.

Eventually, Gene slowed the Quattro down, pulling up outside Luigi's.

"'Ow many hallucinations," he said, "do you know that can do that?"

A huge smile slowly spread across Alex's face. "It's you. It's really you."

There was a silence as they just looked at each other, drinking each other in. Then Alex broke it.

"Who did you miss more," she said teasingly, "Me or the Quattro?"

Gene gave a small smile and leaned his face close to Alex's. "Too close to call," he said back just as teasingly before closing the gap between them.

Alex sighed as she felt his lips melt into hers.