Prologue:

So that's what it's like, getting messages.

Half messages at any rate.

No wonder me team is always made up of breadbaskets.

The cheap brandy was no substitute for his scotch but it was the only thing to hand so it would have to do. Gene needed something right then, anything. The messages from Alex had been surreal and confusing. He stared at the blank screen, replaying them through his mind time and again. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that Alex would make it back but the more confused he felt about how she'd get there.

She had to make it. He was counting on it. And although he hadn't understood what his own role in her return was going to be he did know that he'd do anything necessary from his side of the line to being her home..

"You're getting your arse back here, Bols," he said firmly as he stared at the television where her image had played just a few minutes earlier, "you've got no choice in the matter because you're bloody needed."

My name is Gene Hunt. Me better half woke up from a coma and found herself in two thousand and bollocks. Now she's talking to me on the TV and I can't even get her tuned in properly. She needs to get back to her bloody home and somehow I have to help her, but when I'm fifteen years behind her it's bloody impossible to know what I'm supposed to do. So I'll keep looking until I find a way. Because she's coming back. I'm not giving her a choice in the matter. Bolly's coming home.

~xXx~

It was not supposed to be like this.

This was my route home.

This isn't fair… none of this is fair… and I don't know how to make it better.

Alex sat in the hospital room on the edge of the bed, waiting for the discharge forms. She felt like a bloody idiot, being treated for shock. She'd survived two comas, gunshots, car crashes and all sorts, and yet some stupid bloody hospital insisted on admitting her for shock, just because she'd gone a little bit cold and shaky. Well, how would anyone react when they'd just seen an unwilling party taking her route home?

This should have been her day. She'd made so much progress. She had people on her side, she had options to explore, Gene's identity should have been on the way to confirmation and she should have been the one with a bullet through her flesh as her soul travelled back to another world.

She'd come so close and yet something had gone wrong; so horribly wrong for all of them. She closed her eyes and shook her head, desperately trying to work out how she could turn things around and get back to Gene. She'd been so close that she could almost feel him there beside her and now she needed to find another way. Her heart was breaking but her resolve was stronger than ever. If she'd come that close once she could do it again, whatever she needed to do.

My name is Alex Drake. I haven't been shot so I haven't been sent back to nineteen ninety seven. My body healed fifteen years in the future so I woke up in the wrong world and the wrong life and now I need to get home. Somehow things have taken a wrong turning but the journey isn't over yet and I know I'll find a way. However long it takes I'm going to keep on fighting because there's a world that needs me as much as I need it. I'm not going to let Gene down.

~xXx~

I'm still alive. I'm still fighting. I'm still out there, somewhere.

My watch must have been a warning; a warning I ignored…. Or maybe just didn't understand.

Suddenly the sound of the kitchen clock isn't so annoying any more. In fact, it's the most beautiful sound I've ever heard.

Robin strode at speed through the cold January air. He barely felt it, even though he'd forgotten to put on a coat. The shock had numbed his skin.. All he could feel was the beating of his heart as he reminded himself again and again that it was still beating out there too, on the other side of the line between life and death.

He thought he had lost her. Kim. He thought he was trapped forever in the past and that years or decades might pass without seeing her again. It had taken thinking that he had lost her to realise for certain what he'd been scared to admit; that she was the one. It was her. It was always going to be her. As strange and unexpected as it had been, their relationship was as solid as a rock. In fact, it was as solid as one of those cakes he'd been stupid enough to try in the canteen earlier on.

But being alive wasn't the only shock he'd had that day. Kim had some news for him and now he had two reasons to get home. Surely there was a reason he'd been sent back instead of Alex. Now he needed to find out what it was and get back to the land of the living because the ring now sitting on his finger showed him that was where he belonged.

My name is Robin Thomas. I've been shot by a bullet that wasn't meant for me and now I need to find a way home to two thousand and twelve. There is a whole new life starting for me there and I am not prepared to let it go without a fight because this time I deserve to hold onto my happiness, and I'm going to fight my way back, whatever it takes.

~xXx~

I didn't know… how the hell didn't I know?

All those weeks I took the piss out of him, it was my fault all along.

I don't want to do this on my own. That world isn't allowed to take him away from me. Not now.

Kim pushed the tray away from her as soon as the nurse laid it down. Comments about needing to eat to keep her strength up just made Kim offer a few rude gestures and a selection of theories about what exactly had gone into the rubbery lasagne before her. Certainly it wasn't something she was going to subject her taste buds to. Maybe she'd been spoilt by Robin's cooking.

Beneath the hospital sheets one hand rose to her stomach and she closed her eyes for a moment, trying to take in the news. Nine weeks… she felt like a fool for not realising, but she was used to spending her days examining the inside of the toilet bowl in early pregnancy. When your boyfriend's stolen all your symptoms it can be a bit misleading.

She looked at the clock. Why was there no news yet? How long was this bloody surgery going to take? Exactly what path had that fucking bullet taken? She knew Robin was tough enough to survive the operation. He had to be. She was counting on it. It had taken her eight years to find happiness after coming back from that world. She wasn't going to let the world take away the source of that joy now.

My name is Kim Stringer. I'm caught up in the middle of a big metaphysical mess and I don't know where I was supposed to end up. I have shitty luck with getting hit by cars and cracking my ribs but apart from that I seem to be surviving. But now there are two people on the wrong sides of the line and I need to help them both find a way to make it back to where they are supposed to be. I don't know how. I don't know when. But I'm going to make those bloody worlds sit up and listen.

~xXx~

My name is Evan White. I was sent to prison for having a really crappy beard (and something to do with fraternising with known criminals as well) and now I spend my days dreading the arrival of Geoff and his razor. I may be one second away from having facial hair. I may be one second away from being clean-shaven. All I know is that I have to keep fighting. Fight to get my modelling career back. Fight to put Gillette out of business. Fight to grow a new beard.

Oh, and I heard Arthur Layton might be on the war path. So I might want to stay out of his way, too.

I wonder if he likes beards?

~xXx~

Author's Note:

What Do You Want From Me? Is the sequel to Eyes of Blue. The title is taken from a song released in 1997 – songs from that year will feature prominently since a) it was one of the best years of my life and I'm having fun revisiting the music and b) there are FAR too many songs that are oddly appropriate that were released that year!

This story follows on directly from Eyes of Blue and is meant to be read as a sort of second part to it, like a 2-part episode of a TV show. No, Eyes of Blue didn't have a nice, neat, happy ending. Guess what else doesn't have one of those? Life! If life wrapped up neatly into happy little chapters then the world would be a very different place. Since life doesn't work that way, why should fiction? :)

A recap of the story so far from Eyes of Blue: Alex had woken from her coma in 2011 and was fighting to find a way back to the nineties, while Gene wasn't coping well without her and almost decided to leave his world and head to the pub. While trying to get home something went wrong and Robin took a bullet that Alex felt sure was meant to be her route back to Gene. Now both Alex and Robin are on the wrong sides of the line between life and death and need to get back to where they want to be.

For those of you interested in the poll results during Eyes of Blue, the first poll came out very close, with 5 votes for Simon and 3 for Kim. The second was a surprising landslide for Kim who got 7 votes compared to 1 for Simon!

This story is going to be fairly dark in some places, but as always there's surreal humour to balance it out. Rating may or may not rise to M at some point for darker themes and possible Evan beard regrowth… Also, as you are aware there is a troublesome young lady about to be born within the next 2 weeks – if I go quiet you will know why! Obviously after her arrival it will be harder to update but from previous experience there will be a fair amount of one-handed typing going on in the early days after she's born so hopefully I will still be updating a couple of times a week.

All the usual disclaimers apply, don't own A2A or anyone in it, which in the case of Evan I am very glad about *shudders*

(Ugh, I do own Geoff though :-/ that's not good!)