Thanks to everyone who's read Chapter 1, and especially to those who've reviewed it, brief though it is. This chapter's longer and gives more idea of where the story's going to go. Please continue to let me know what you think!

Alex supposed that she should be frightened, but her only feeling was of being monumentally pissed off. She seemed to have been blundering along in this darkness for as long as she could remember, with no indication of where she should be going or what would happen if she ever got anywhere. Was this all that her afterlife would be? Walking in the dark forever?

She cast her mind back to the last thing she could remember before this unending blackness. I was standing outside Luigi's with the others...screaming a warning...gunfire...Gene pushing me down...a terrible pain in my forehead, just like when Layton shot me.... Then this darkness and nothing but the gut instinct that I've got to keep on walking. I've been shot in the head again. If that isn't enough to send me home, then what the hell is?

As she fulminated to herself, she became aware of something a long way ahead. Surely it's lighter up there? Or at least less dark. Something different anyway. She aimed herself towards whatever-it-was, and as she got closer it coalesced into a distinct patch of light. Like a spotlight in The Weakest Link, she thought wryly. Is this a case of Drake, you are the weakest link, goodbye? Closer still, and she realised that someone was standing in the light. A man, with his back to her. At least it isn't Anne Robinson. Still strangely unafraid, she marched up to him, fully intending to punch him dateless if he didn't tell her what was going on. But as she approached, he turned to face her, holding out his hand with an open, friendly smile, and she fairly staggered at the sight of a face that she had never seen in life, but had seen often in a photograph on the front of a file and on an old press cutting.

"Alex Drake! I'm so pleased to meet you at last. We've never met before, and yet I feel I know you well."

"Sam Tyler!"

"That's me." He took her hand and shook it firmly. He feels real enough. Just like all my constructs. But he was real...

"But - but you're dead."

"I know," he said, still smiling.

"Does this mean that I'm dead too?"

"No. Oh, no. You're here because you're in a situation which even I never managed. You're in a coma in both your lives. In 2008 - " He gestured to the right, and a scene materialised out of the darkness. She saw herself lying unconscious in a hospital bed, her head swathed in bandages, an oxygen mask over her face. She was wired up to a drip feed, and a heart monitor bleeped away in the background. Molly and Evan sat by the bed, gazing at her intently. They looked as though they had been there so long that they had frozen into their places. Her heart tightened with longing at the sight of her daughter.

"And in 1981." Sam gestured to the left, and another image appeared. She lay in another, old-fashioned, hospital, in another bed. Her curls were spread over the pillow. Again there were bandages, a drip feed, the sound of a heart monitor, and an oxygen mask. Gene Hunt sat beside her, holding her hand, his heart in his eyes.

She turned back to Sam. "So, what now?" she snapped. "Am I stuck here between two times forever?"

"No, Alex," he said quietly. "You're here because this is a turning point for you. You have to choose between your two lives. You will wake up in one life and make a full recovery, but you will lose the other life forever."

"It isn't a choice," said Alex flatly. "I'm going home to Molly. That's what I've been trying to do all this time. Send me back to her now."

"Not yet, Alex," said Sam, still very quiet and calm. "Before you can decide, I have to show you what would happen, depending upon what you choose. That's why I've been sent here."

"Oh, I can see what's happening here. Look, Tyler, I know you're Gene Hunt's friend, and so you want me to go back to him. It won't work. I'm sorry for him, of course, but he's just my construct. Molly's real. Just as I am. Cut the cackle and send me home now."

"Alex, I can assure you that my friendship with Gene has no bearing on this," said Sam, with such dignity that she felt ashamed of herself. "It wasn't my idea to come here. I was selected for this mission because you and I both know what it is to have to choose between two worlds."

"You made your choice. I make mine. Send me home." She glanced desperately towards Molly. "She's so close that I can almost touch her. Have you any idea of how I feel, after all this time away from her, the sheer bloody hunger? If you had children, perhaps you'd understand - "

"What makes you think I haven't got kids?" The words flashed out like a thrown knife, and his voice was raw with pain. Alex flinched. Gene said something like that to me once.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "You have."

"Two." Sam had himself under control again, but she felt how close he was to breaking down. "Danny and Samantha. Dan's five now and Sammy's two. I'm allowed to go and watch them and Annie sometimes. I can get right up close to them, but they never know I'm there. They never will. Nor does she."

"I'm sorry," Alex whispered again.

"You can afford to wait another hour, Alex," he said bitterly. "Then, if you choose to go back to Molly, you'll have all your lives. I won't."

"I'm so sorry, Sam. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I know."

"All right, I'll do as you say, although I can tell you now that it won't change my mind. But can you at least explain why all this performance is necessary?"

"You see, Alex, this isn't just about you. Whatever you decide will have an impact on the lives of the people you love most. I have to show you what will happen to them, depending upon when you live and when you die."

"Good God, what is this, A Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life?"

He grinned. "More like the Dickens, I think, though you're better looking than Ebenezer Scrooge and I hope you'll find me a more congenial companion than the Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come."

"Yes," said Alex, shuddering. She glanced towards Molly. "Back soon, darling." She turned to Sam. "Right, let's we get on with this. The sooner it's over, the sooner I can go home. What's first on the agenda?"

"First, I have to show you what will happen if you go back to 2008."

TBC