Disclaimer: BBC, Monastic and Kudos own Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. I wish I did.

Apologies to my readers for keeping you waiting for this update. Blame last week's site glitch - while I was waiting for it to clear, I got an idea for an additional section to this chapter, so there was a delay while I typed it out. I then decided against including it, but I did make some other amendments. Anyway, here it is - and Alex has to make her mind up at last.

Thanks so much to everyone who's reading and reviewing, please keep the reviews coming in!

She and Sam were back in the darkness again, standing between the two visions of herself in hospital.

"It needn't be like this," said Sam gently. "You know that. You were brought here to choose."

"It isn't a choice at all, is it?" said Alex savagely. "The only way to save the three of us is to lose my little girl forever."

"No," Sam said quietly. "You can still decide to go back to 2008 and see Molly again. To decide when you're back there that all this was part of your hallucination while you were in your coma, and that you don't give a tuppenny damn what happens to one of your constructs from the 1980s. You can regard this as a warning and use it to try to avert what will happen in 2010."

"Oh, God..."

"You don't even know if you can trust me. Trust any of this. I might be tricking you."

"Are you?"

"I'm afraid only you can decide that."

Alex stood directly in front of Sam and looked deep into his eyes, absorbing his steady gaze until she almost drowned in it.

"No," she said at last. "No. I know what you're telling and showing me is true. Even though I don't want it to be."

"How do you know?"

"Because - " Alex swallowed. "Because one of the last things I said to Molly was about you. She'd been reading your file and asked me about you. I told her, "He was a decent man and he was a good copper." I've met you, and I know that's true. I know that you won't lie to me. That what you've shown me will happen in both times, if I go home."

"Yes. It will."

"Even if I didn't trust you, how could you possibly think that I'd take such a risk with all our lives?"

"Believe me," Sam said sadly, "there are times when I feel that if I was offered the chance to go back to Annie and the children, even if it might put them in danger, I'd take it. But then I know that I could never do such a thing. That's why I understand what you're going through."

Alex was silent for a moment, thinking it through. "Since I went to 1981, I've believed a lot in destiny. I thought it was my destiny to save my parents, but I had to learn that I couldn't change the past. If I went home, I'd be able to hold my little girl in my arms again, to smell her, kiss her, hear her voice, feel her eyelashes tickling my face - " She stopped, unable to speak for a moment, and wiped away her tears. "You know how much I want that. But now I know what the price for it would be, and that all three of us would pay it. I could try to change the future. I could refuse to take Molly to school that day. I could ask Evan to take her. I could go by a different route. But I know that it would be the same as when I tried to save my parents. However I try to avoid it, I'd end up driving Molly down that road, towards the crash, and there would be nothing I could do about it."

"No. There wouldn't."

"And - " she added painfully, "and all the time I'd know that what I left behind was true as well. That the man I love destroyed himself because of me."

"Now you know why I had to show you what would happen if you went back to 2008. Your life and the lives of the two people you love most depend upon what you decide. And you know what you would have chosen if I hadn't shown you."

"I'd have chosen to go home. The obvious choice. It would have destroyed us all. But why does it have to be like this?" The last words were torn from her lips in a scream of pain.

"I'm afraid that's something I can't answer. I know you won't be able to think of it this way right now, but you've been lucky that you've been able to choose. So have they."

"I know," Alex muttered sullenly. "So, what now?"

"You still have to decide."

"But you haven't shown me all my choices yet. You haven't told me what will happen if I go back to - to 1981." She couldn't bear to say Gene's name. He would take her away from Molly.

"That, again, I can't show you."

"Why not?" Alex snapped.

"You see, Alex, not everything is predestined. Some events are, like the crash in 2010. But so much more depends upon the actions of individuals. If you go back to Gene, I can't guarantee you an automatically happy ending, because what you make of your life together would be entirely up to the two of you. You'd argue constantly, of course, because you both thrive on conflict. That's what attracts you to each other. But you love each other, and that would sustain you through everything. You'd have a very good chance of lasting happiness, marriage, children - "

Alex looked up. "Children?"

"Why not?"

She took a deep breath. "I'll go back to him. To Gene."

"Have you decided that because of Molly? Because of Gene? Because you might have more children if you go back to him?"

"All of them," she admitted.

"Be very careful, Alex. Don't go back to Gene unless you can value him for himself as well as for what he might be able to give you. It wouldn't be fair on either of you to do anything else."

"I'm doing this for all our sakes. Because, like him, I must go where I'm needed. Because I'm forced to put the man I love before my daughter," she added bitterly.

"You aren't," said Sam gently. "You're putting your daughter's future before your own desire to see her again. By doing that, you've saved the lives of the two people you love most as well as your own."

Alex nodded slowly.

Sam gripped her shoulders. "Look at me, Alex," he said urgently. "You must never, never blame Gene for the choice you've had to make. He knows nothing about it: how could he? If you do, then bitterness and resentment will wreck your life together and destroy both of you. Promise me that you won't."

"I promise."

"He's a good man. Impossible, as I'd be the first to admit - no, the second, you'd be the first. But good. You've read my reports, so you'll know that he hasn't had much happiness in his life. A wretched childhood, an abusive father, his brother's death, and the failure of a marriage which had been a sham for years before it ended. He's always been lonely - except when you or I were with him."

"He admitted to me once that he was lonely," said Alex softly. "Sometimes, he said."

"Not just sometimes. Always. He let his guard down so much, to be able to say that to you."

"Yes. I didn't appreciate that enough at the time. Now I - value it more than I can say."

"He deserves whatever happiness you feel able to give him. He finds it so hard to say what he feels, but you know that he loves you, and he'll do everything he can to make you happy."

"I know. I'll try to do the same for him."

"Thank you for that, Alex. I'm entrusting my best friend to you, and I know you won't let either of us, or yourself, down. You're both flawed, damaged, fascinating people - and fascinated by each other. Together, you'll both have the chance for a fresh start in life."

"A chance for us both to get it right this time," said Alex thoughtfully.

"Yes. Together, you could reach for the stars."

Sam looked infinitely sad, and amid her own anguish, Alex felt a pang of sorrow for him. Unless some unwished-for tragedy overtook his family, he would be lonely in his afterlife for many years to come.

"There's more than one reason why you've just made the right decision," he continued. "You and he were always destined for one another, even though you were born so many years apart. Just like Annie and me. That was why you were sent to him when you went back in time."

"Do you mean that I had to be shot in the head to meet my destiny?"

"Remember I had to be hit by a car and jump off a roof to meet mine! But, Alex, didn't you ever think, especially after your parents died, that there was some deeper purpose in your coming to him after you were shot? That of all the people alive in the world at that time, you were sent into the care of the man who guarded you as a child, and has guarded you as a woman ever since you came to him?"

"My guardian angel," said Alex softly. "Just as Shaz says that I'm hers. Right now, you're his guardian angel, and mine and Molly's too. You've saved all of us. But how real is all this? I thought that Gene and the others were my constructs. That I'd imagined them all while I was in my coma, because I'd read your descriptions of your adventures in 1973. Now I don't know whether my life in 1981 is real or fantasy. All I know is that I've never known anyone as real as Gene in my entire life. "

"He's as real as you want him to be. Just like everything in your life in 1981."

"What sort of answer is that for a psychological profiler?"

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Alex, than are dreamt of in your psychology. Or psychiatry, as Gene would say. If you want this, then accept it and don't ask questions. I didn't, once I'd made my choice to go back to 1973."

"If I can't have my Molly, then I must have Gene. If he isn't real, I won't be real either. Just so long as we're together."

"That's right. Are you ready to leave, then?"

"Can't I say goodbye to Molly?"

"I'm afraid it doesn't work like that."

"She'll never know why I abandoned her," Alex whispered.

"She won't think that. She won't know that you had any choice, or that you've saved her life by choosing to die in 2008. All she'll know is that you died of a gunshot wound received in the line of duty. She'll always love you and remember you and miss you."

He took her gently by the shoulders and turned her to face the vision on the right. As she looked at her daughter for the last time, Alex began to cry uncontrollably. "Oh, my little baby girl, goodbye, goodbye..."

Suddenly the bleep of the heart monitor was replaced by a harsh buzz.

"Mummy! Mummy!" Molly cried, and Evan shouted hoarsely for the nurse. They clung together desperately as hospital staff poured into the room. The scene faded into blackness.

Alex turned away and slumped to her knees. She cried until she thought she must have shed all the tears in the world. Then she cried some more, and still more. Sam knelt beside her, his hands folded in his lap, watching her but not touching her, allowing her the comfort of his presence and the courtesy of his silence. At first she was grateful for that, but as her tears slowed and complete desolation engulfed her, she missed the contact of another person. Gene wouldn't let me cry alone. He'd hold me and comfort me. Suddenly she was filled with a desperate longing to hear his gruff voice and feel his arms around her, holding her close to his beating heart, giving her strength, keeping her safe. Just as he did when I was a child, the day my parents died, and when we both thought we would die in the vault at Edgehampton.

In that dark place between the past and the future, words swam into her mind, written long ago by a Russian poet about another, very different Eugene: "I only know that God has sent you to guard and love me till I die."

Yes. Sam has just told me that Gene is my destiny, and that I am his. I still have a life to live with him. I'm ready to go back to him.

"Take me to Gene," she said wearily, scrubbing the last remnants of the tears from her aching eyes. "He's all I have now."

Sam helped her to stand. "Close your eyes, and when you wake up, you will be with him. After that, it'll be up to you."

"Then this is goodbye, Sam. I want to thank you. I know I didn't make this easy for you, but you saved me from making the wrong choice. Is there anything I can do for you in return?"

He smiled ruefully. "Not much the living can do for the dead, I'm afraid."

"Couldn't I at least give Gene your best?"

"He'd only think you're madder than he does already, or that it's the after-effects of the coma."

"Yeah, I think it's called concussion," Alex quoted with a watery smile, trying to imitate Gene's voice. "All right, I won't. But I'll always remember what you've done for me, and I'll always be grateful."

"If you have a son, will you call him Sam? Then I'll feel that I'm still in the world, in a way."

"You are, Sam. You live on in your children and in their and Annie's love for you," said Alex warmly. "And in the memories of everyone else who knew you and loved you."

"Thank you for saying that. It means a lot." Sam swallowed hard, deeply moved.

"But I'm sure Gene would want to name a son of his, of ours, after you anyway," Alex went on. "Sam Tyler Hunt. Or Drake. If it's a girl, Samantha Caroline Annie."

"Deal." He managed that old, engaging grin, and they shook hands. "Now, close your eyes."

Alex obeyed.

TBC

A/N: The poetry quotation comes from Alexander Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin". The translation is by David Lloyd-Jones, for the libretto of Tchaikovsky's opera based on the poem.