A/N: the third and final part

It was ironic that practically the first thing Alex did after waking up was to sleep. It was a different kind of sleep, of course; a sleep not induced by a near-critical injury and heavy medication but a sleep that took her away peacefully from her wakeful state into a dreamy, drifting, soothing world.

The first few minutes after awakening from her coma had been confusing and overwhelming for Alex. One minute she had been in a world that felt so very real, making a decision that shattered her heart in two; the next, she had woken back in the real world, in a world she hadn't been a part of in what felt like three years to her but in real terms had been merely days.

As the bright white light melted flawlessly into the stark hospital décor Alex tried desperately to work out where she was and what was going on. The walls were white, the ceiling also, and the lights matched too. it was all a little overpowering for Alex's delicate senses and she had to close her eyes at first but no sooner had she closed them than doctors were prising them open again and shining torches in them which kind of pissed all over her point.

The first few minutes were filled with a cacophony of voices, with doctors and nurse talking amongst themselves, marvelling over how the antibiotics had done the trick after all and how lucky she was to have been revived after so long without oxygen. There were certain phrases she kept hearing again and again; limited rage of motion was one. Yeah,,she was getting that much, alright. Every time she tried to move it felt as though her brain had forgotten how to talk to her limbs. 'The daughter'. That was another one she heard repeatedly,. Where was her daughter, incidentally? She'd heard her calling her name so clearly, she thought Molly was sure to be beside her when she awoke but there had been no sign yet.

She tried to ask for Molly but aside from moving her lips and her tongue a little she found herself unable to properly speak. The doctors assured her that as time went by she would regain her speech and motion but all she could do for now was to lie back and try to focus on the chaos that bustled around her. Certainly that was preferable to remembering where she had come from. It was preferable to remembering how she had made it home. Anything was better than the memory of firing the bullet, the sound of the gunfire, the sight of Gene collapsing to the ground with blood pumping from his torso.

She flinched visibly as she remembered exactly what she had done. Perhaps the world had been all in her head and perhaps Gene really was just a part of her psyche; a combination of Sam Tyler's comatose hallucinations and the news report that had filtered through to her own subconscious of the police officer whose body had been found . Perhaps none of it had been real. But even if not, Gene had meant more to her than she could ever have were times when she thought they were heading towards becoming lovers. Other times when he'd been the best friend she'd ever had. But in the end she had chosen to sever that relationship permanently with the firing of a gun.

She closed her eyes and swallowed as the image of the shadow descending over him played through her mind; the sight of Keats enveloping his body with darkness. He surely was only going to hold him to offer him comfort for his final moments though, right? Because even though Alex had to take Gene's life to get back her own Gene deserved more than to simply fade away. Surely Keats would do nothing but offer him security and warmth in his final moments.

She couldn't even lie to herself. A sudden wash of emotion fell upon her as the reality of what she'd done struck her like an iron in the face. She could see in her minds' eye so clearly the sight of Keats hovering over him. She could see in perfect detail the expression on his face. It wasn't calm and peaceful. There was a gloat plastered across his features. His expression spoke of only malice. She tried to swallow but nausea swelled up inside of her and she found herself choking on bile with nurses rushing to help her deal with the problem.

"It's alright, Alex," one of them told her soothingly, "you've been through a lot, and you've been on a lot of medication. Some nausea is normal, we can give you something for that."

She kept her eyes firmly closed while her stomach continued to churn angrily. What had she done? The moment had been intense and she'd had little choice. She'd needed to make a fast decision and had chosen the one that led her home. She had to return to her daughter there were no two ways about it, but there was a terrible sense of guilt that wouldn't go away.

Gene -

She tried to block out the tears that were filling her eyes. Gene didn't exist. He was a figment of her imagination and the world was nothing more than a creation of her own mind.

"Alex? Alex!"

The familiar voice caused her to open her eyes quickly and she tried to gasp as the sight of Evan rushing towards her gave her the first sense of familiarity she'd felt since she'd awoken. His arms stretched around her and he wept against her cheek, whispering apologies over and over again.

"I'm so sorry, Alex, I'm sorry… I let you down… I've let you down so badly… you and Molly… I should have told you the truth, I should never have let this happen…"

The feel of his tight hold around her filled Alex with warmth and comfort for a moment but it faded away all too quickly as she remembered what she had learnt in Gene's world about Evan and her mother. She flinched and her body trembled as it all flooded back to her. Suddenly the nausea returned and the nurses flocked around her as she brought up more bile while Evan retreated, looking shocked, and the medical experts attempted to put his mind at ease.

"She needs her rest, Mister White… perhaps you can come back tomorrow…"

Alex wasn't sure she would feel any differently tomorrow. Tomorrow, or ever again. She knew something now that had changed her whole world. There was only one person she wanted to see and that was Molly. Where was she? She turned her head slightly as the nurses finished cleaning her up and tried to whisper her name but her throat was dry and raw from the tubes that had been down there and she couldn't make the words sound right.

"It's alright, Alex," one of the nurses smiled at her and lightly touched her hand "you'll soon be back talking at full speed. But for now just try to get some rest, alright?"

Alex gave something approaching a frown as the nurses left her room. It would be far easer to rest if she could have seen her daughter but she supposed her condition might have been a little scary for her daughter to witness. Maybe waiting a day would be good for Molly. But for Alex, it was yet another day apart, and she'd heard her voice so clearly. To have heard her and not be able to see her stung her heart.

Soon, Molly, she thought to herself, they will bring you to me soon. I'll get stronger. I'll get well and when when they bring you here I can hold you close and promise you that I will be OK.

Those were her final thoughts before she drifted into that first glorious, dream-filled sleep.

~xXx~

Sleep really did make a word of difference. Alex slept the rest of the day and most of the night, awakening for a short time as her vital signs were checked over and the doctor assessed her progress.

"You're doing well, Alex," he told her as he watched her wiggling her fingers and twist half her mouth into a smile.

"Good," she just about made her word audible and the doctor seemed impressed.

"You're doing an amazing job here, Alex," he told her, "you're a tough thing, aren't you?"

Alex had only one thing on her mind.

"Mols," she whispered.

The doctor stared at her, a flash of anxiety c rossing his ace.

"What's that?" he asked.

Alex pulled together her strength and concentration.

"Molly," she whispered again.

The doctor froze on the spot. His eyes shifted downwards and he took a step towards the door.

"We'll talk tomorrow," he told her, "for now, you're doing well and we are all so proud of your progress,"

Alex scowled as she watched him leave. There was a stirring in her guts of anxiety that she couldn't quite understand. Something wasn't right and there were things she needed to know but for now the doctors weren't talking and she wasn't exactly in the right state to persuade them. What the hell was going on? Had Molly been in the room when she was flat-lining? Was she too scared to go back and see her again? The thought of that strangled Alex's heart. She made a vow to herself that as soon as morning broke she would demand to see her daughter. If she'd been scared of Alex's condition then there was only one thing to do - to show her that she was going to be alright.

But that would have to wait because right there and then the darkness was overtaking her again and sleep descended upon her exhausted body and tired mind.

X

All night long her thoughts burned with fire. Her dreams had taken a very dark turn. Where earlier they had been peaceful and helped her to see that she was alive and recovering they now filled her mind with fury and devastation. She caught glimpses of Gene, his face contorted with anger, sometimes from her bullet and sometimes from something far, far worse. She saw Keats's face looming close by as though he was waiting around the corner to whisper over her shoulder again. She heard gunshots and saw the look in Layton's eye as he held a gun in her direction.

I'm happy, hope your happy too -

She awoke with a gasp. Her eyes turned from side to side, her heart racing. She couldn't seem to breathe in fast or deeply enough to calm her nerves.

"Good morning, Alex," a sombre voice told her.

Alex turned to see the doctor who had attended to her in the night. Beside him stood Evan, a sight that turned Alex's stomach on the spot. She did not wish to see him. Not then, not ever.

"Out," she whispered.

"Pardon?"

"Evan," she breathed, "out."

Evan seemed not to understand as he crouched by her side. He took her hand, veins swollen and tissue tender.

"They… your doctors…" he began quietly, "they asked me to talk to you."

"Get lost."

It wasn't very eloquent but it was all that came to mind. He seemed somewhat taken aback.

"I'm sorry?" he said.

Alex turned her face to him fully and her expression wrinkled with anger.

"My mum," she breathed.

She watched Evan's Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he gave what was almost an audible gulp.

"Layton told you," he whispered, "didn't he?"

Alex flinched.

"No," she whispered.

Evan hesitated. He glanced at the doctor as though he could offer some explanations. Alex seemed to know the truth but if Layton hadn't told her then he didn't know where else she could have heard it. they surely wouldn't have been stupid enough to let her watch the news.

"Your doctor told me you were asking about," he froze as he choked on a word, "about Molly."

Alex stared at him.

"Need her," she whispered. Why on earth hadn't they brought her in yet? She was Alex's whole reason for returning.

"How much do you remember?" Evan's voice was weak and low and Alex felt her heart starting to race.

"Remember?" she repeated.

"About Molly."

Alex swallowed awkwardly, her throat still painful. Evan's words made no sense.

"Where is she?" she whispered.

She could see Evan's entire face falling. His lip shook as a tear slowly fell from his eye and trickled to the end of his nose.

"She was shot," he whispered.

Alex's hear felt like it ceased to beat and her world failed to exist. Only one word burst through her thoughts.

"What?"

"Arthur Layton t-took her… under the…" he flinched and swallowed as his chest rose and fell with staggered breaths, "t-there was a shot and… they said you chased him down…"

Alex's mind froze up in that moment. She zoned out the words that made no sense to her. She felt her head shaking as she replayed the events of that fateful day; Layton grabbing Molly, dragging her away, the gunshot, her relief as Molly emerged unscathed. She remembered calling Evan to pick her up then climbing into her car and finding Layton there behind her.

"Lying," she breathed, cutting Evan off as he continued to talk.

Evan froze, his expression crestfallen and devastated.

"No, Alex," he said with fragmented voice, "I'm not. I wish that I was because then…" he swallowed. His lungs screamed for air as he struggled to breathe. "then I wouldn't have to… to break the news…" her eyes fixed on him as he whispered, "she didn't make it."

"Didn't get shot" she countered, watching the tears rolling down his face and collecting in his beard.

"You found her by the side of the river," Evan whispered, "and you tore off after Mister Layton but you didn't get very far and you hadn't waited for back-up."

"Molly's alive," Alex's whispers were gathering strength and volume again now as his words went against everything that she remembered.

"They couldn't stop the bleeding," Evan whispered, "she arrested… they couldn't find a pulse…"

"No -" the words were like a foreign language, this couldn't be real -

Bang.

The gunshot echoed in her mind. She could see herself running towards the sound, as clear as day, but every time she replayed it in her mind the outcome was the same; Molly returning to Alex, unscathed and uninjured. That was the truth! That's what happened! She saw it over and over in her mi-

Bang.

A different gunshot now.

Blackness descended over her as her head replayed a different moment; the moment she betrayed Gene, the moment she killed her Guv to get home. And she'd had to. She'd had a daughter to get home to.

Have! I have a daughter, not had….

"She's alive," she croaked, her voice trembling now, "saw her. Came out. Not hurt."

Evan turned tearfully to Alex's doctor for support and the anxious man knelt down beside her.

"Alex," he began gently, "I am so sorry."

"No," Alex commanded him to take that back, "Molly… Molls!"

"She isn't here, Alex," Evan's voice became louder as he cried in anguish, "she's gone."

"Heard her!" Alex gasped, recalling those last few moments on the other side as she heard her daughter's voice, "Molly!"

"She died before you were even shot," Evan whispered, his voice shaking, "They begged you by radio… told you to leave him and come back… to be with her as she passed… but you wouldn't stop."

None of this made sense to Alex, none of it., her body juddered violently as she replayed the events without variation in her mind. Molly was safe, she had to be safe, it wasn't possible… they were wrong…

'Mum… mum…'

She replayed the echoes of Molly's voice as she'd called for her the day before. It wasn't in her imagination, those cries were so loud, so true. She heard her calling. She had to be by her bedside.

"Molly!" she cried as loudly as her raw throat would allow, "Molls!" she turned violently from side to side, suddenly finding control of her limbs as a doctor cried in alarm,

"She needs to he kept calm, her head wound is still at a delicate stage of recovery! She could do real damage!"

"Molly!" she cried again, going back over every event from that day.

"Molly isn't here," Evan whispered, "She died and they couldn't… they tried, but.." he flinched, "…and when they had to tell you.. over the radio…" Alex prayed desperately for her body to shut down completely as Evan concluded, "they said that was why you put yourself right in front of him when you found him. That you wanted him to shoot you so you wouldn't b-be apart."

"What?" Alex shook. She'd done no such thing, he's been in her -

Bang -

The barge. She could still see he bullet flying at her. See, it was all as she remembered, There was no -

"Molly!"

She heard her own voice screaming this time. Well where the hell had that come from?

"Mum… mum…"

She could still hear Molly crying her name as she faded back to the real world but worryingly as she replayed the gunshot by the Tames and could see herself running down Molly didn't run towards her. This time, Molly did not appear.

Then where…

Where…?

Bang -

The shot on the barge, sitting in fear, trying to talk her way out of it.

Trying to…

A closing of her eyes. A blissful look on her face as he fired thee gun. Blissful? Why would she -

"I'm coming to you, Molly."

Her eyes opened wide. Where the hell had that come from?

She wanted… She couldn't have wanted him to kill her, she had been fighting…

Shed fought to get home because Molly was waiting, she'd seen her…

She'd seen her… in dreams…

In the world…

In Gene's world…

Little glimpses, here and there.

What was she doing there?

What was she…

"Mum… don't leave me…"

A terrible pain blasted into her heart as she recalled the final words she'd heard from Molly as she awoke in the real world; her daughter's cries becoming more distant instead of closer as her eyes opened and she found herself back.

"It's not surprising you've forgotten. Alex," Evan said quietly, his face as pale as snow, "you've been through a massive trauma… if not the effects of the bullet then you'll have blocked it out… to cope… to survive… you would never have made it back if you'd known that she had gone, I know that. I know you too well.

"Molly," Alex could say nothing but her name, again and again.

"I'm so sorry," Evan cried, his tears hot and violent as they rolled down his face.

"Molly! No!" Alex's breathing was staggered as she replayed the gunshot again but this time followed the image through as she ran down the steps and turned to where she expected Molly to run out again, just as she did every time the moment ran through her mind. When she didn't, emerge this time Alex kept on running. And there, on the damp floor was the body of her daughter, blood pumping from her torso, soiling her uniform, "no!"

Her body started to shake as a call went out for sedatives.

"This was too much for her!" Evan was crying, "I knew it was too soon!"

Alex could see it all now; she could see her dead daughter lying on the floor, then herself like a bull pursuing a red rag, on the trail of Layton. The moment she found him she'd put herself right in the way of danger, to make sure justice was done. To be sure he would never see the outside world again. The death of a copper as well as her daughter - he would never be released and she could be with her daughter forever.

Forever -

But she hadn't died. She was in limbo and she'd gone to another place.

A place where she could never have coped… never have survived unless she blocked it out.

He knew.

She closed her eyes and thrust back her head against the pillows as agony filled her mind. Gene knew. He had to have known that Molly was dead all along.

Shit..

SHIT…

She could hear that final gunshot again and saw Gene falling to the floor, remembering his silence, how hard she had tried to get him to talk.

"Mummy, don't leave me -"

Her daughter's words had been fading as she awoke because she was moving further away from Molly rather than towards her. She was moving towards life, not death. If she'd have known… if only she'd known,…

"Gene knew," she gasped as the full realisation hit. She could see it now, all those moments where he refused to give her the answers, the look on his face as he refused to explain why he'd kept her there, why he tried to send her away.

The pub.

"Oh my god, no!" she cried out as doctors and nurses grasped her limbs to pump something into her veins that would cool her anguish and stop her from thinking and from moving for a while.

Molly had been waiting in there, hadn't she? Waiting for Alex. If she had walked through the pub doors she never would have been alone. Gene hadn't dismissed her because he did not want to be with her he'd made that sacrifice so she could be with her daughter.

"No!" she cried as she felt something sharp pricking her vein. It all made sense now. All the things she had never understood. The dreams and the visions of Molly, bringing her into Gene's world - she was there ready and waiting for her mother to join her on the other side. That was the reason why Gene hadn't given her the answers she demanded, because he could never have told her that her own flesh and blood, her beloved baby girl, was dead. It was too much, too hard, too painful. And even if he had, Alex never would have believed it, just as she hadn't believed Evan. She would have looked Gene in the eye and called him a liar. She'd have fought him, beaten him, taken that gun from Keats far sooner and put the bullet in his chest if it meant getting home.

"Get off!" she cried trying to bat away the medical professionals but they were going nowhere as they held her securely, her body beginning to grow still as the sedative did its job.

Gene knew. Gene had only been trying to protect her. He had sent her away because he knew she would be reunited with her daughter, while Keats…

The scarf.

The fucking scarf.

That was where he'd got it - from Molly herself, not because she was waiting by Alex's body for her to awaken but because she was there, on the other side.

He got it from her. From Molly… He…

What had he done to her? What had he done with Molly?

"No," she wept, her body growing stiller with every moment until she couldn't move at all.

Her body ceased to function a moment before her mind did the same and in that final moment of consciousness before she was knocked out for the count the absolute truth dawned upon her. Keats had duped her to the Nth degree. He hated seen her weakness and used it to turn her against Gene.

Gene.

Her Guv.

Her best friend.

The man she thought that perhaps would become so much more.

Absolute anguish filled her body and mind as she realised that Keats had swallowed him up whole; his kind and strong soul, his goodness, the determination to do the right thing even when his methods were more than a little unusual. She knew there was something there. They both did, as much as they might have denied it. Another week and she'd have been ripping his clothes off with her teeth.

But she had betrayed him. She had chosen a daughter who was no longer a part of the living world over the trust and companionship of someone she saw as more than a friend.

His silence had been to protect her.

His sacrifice had been to make her happy.

And now it was all over for her. For him. When the drugs wore off she would awaken in a world without her daughter. As for Gene? Well, he simply would never awaken again.

And all because the devil had whispered into her ear.

In the split second before the drugs wiped her out and sent her deeply into a nightmarish sleep she saw his face one last time; the anguish, the pain but above that the betrayal.

Layton's bullets hadn't killed her but the look on Gene's face had been potent.

The rest of her life would be spent in pain. And all because the devil in a trench coat whispered the right, pretty little words into her ear.

Her punishment for her mistake would be having to lead the rest of her life, and spending every last second remembering the choice she had made.

She may have blocked out Molly's fate from her mind but sime things she could never forget, as desperately as she might try.

Why can I not forget how to breathe?

The End

~xXx~

A/N: I'm sorry that my usual policy of being as mean as I liked as long as everything was alright in the end does not apply here… and I do feel bad that anyone who's used to reading my other fics was expecting a happy or hopeful ending or at least a little redemption, but life doesn't always have a happy ending and sometimes neither do stories. This was a departure for me and one I am glad I faced and wrote.

I owe everything, plus an almighty hug of thanks, to Ranty for pushing and encouraging me to write this when I wasn't sure if I should. Ranty, you are the queen of angst and I hope that I've done alright and made you proud! You are amazing and I love you so much x

I would just like to add that I wouldn't be adverse to writing a sequel but it would take some serious support to do so because I'm not going to bother if no one's going to read, especially with 5 fics to update this week :P

Thank you so much for reading and huge amounts of gratitude to those who have reviewed, I can't thank you enough :