1982

"Guv?" Chris called, holding the phone against his chest.

"What?" Gene Hunt shouted from his office.

"It's Manchester on the phone," Chris said, a bit scared at the Guv's response to his next words.

"And what do them twerps want?" Gene had never liked or gone back to Manchester since Sam had died and his wife had left him. It was safe to say he did not like to hear from his old department.

"They want you to go up there."

"Why? I mean I know we were the best team but I can't be passed around like a hooker!" Gene said with venom in his voice.

"They've found something." Chris told him, fidgeting with a post-it note on his desk.

"What they have found? Their brains? Or have they found their arses?" He asked, pouting. He wished Chris would just tell him; he was starting to get annoyed by his DC.

"They've found the Cortina, just pulled it out of the river this morning, Guv!"

Gene had to sit in Alex's seat that she had recently vacated to give to the Guv so that he didn't fall.

"They want you to go down and confirm the car and pick it up."

"Pick it up?" Gene said, trying to stay together. He was not going to cry in front of his team, most of all in front of Alex; the headstrong, posh Bolly-Knickers of a DI who he had adopted to his team and held a secret longing for. He had not thought the Cortina that had been driven into the river by his last DI who was... had been his best friend would be found. It was still hard to talk about that day and it had been a long time since Sam had died.

"Well it is yours, Guv." Chris told him, shrugging.

"Yes, Dipshit, I know that I own it! When do they want me to go up?"

"Err..." Chris said, not sure how to word the next bit.

"Yes?"

"Erm... They want DI Drake as well."

"What?!" came Alex's voice from next to Gene as she wondered what Manchester wanted with her. She'd never even been there, well not in 1981 she hadn't, and in 2008, well that was a different life and a different time. Alex had recently given up on trying to get back to her own time. She knew Molly would miss her, and that pained her every single day, but she had no idea how to get home.

"They said something about getting to see a Molly Drake again, Boss."

Alex had to put her hands on the desk to stop herself from falling over.

"They said to get back to a Molly Drake, definitely Molly Drake. Not another name?" Alex checked, looking up at Chris with disbelieving eyes.

"Yes, definitely Molly Drake." Chris confirmed.

Gene stood up and guided Alex back to her chair. He had never seen her so white; this even beat the time when she was nearly dead back when he rescued her from the freezer in Chas Cale's restaurant. The thought made him shudder slightly as he remembered how close his Bolly had come to death that day.

"Alex?" Gene said, scared by the look on his DI's face. So scared he felt the need to use her first name. He never did that.

"Sorry, I just ... sorry, carry on." Alex told them, waving her hand weakly.

Gene motioned for Chris to continue but made a mental note to ask what the matter with that name was.

"They also said that Evan was waiting and Layton was not going to touch you and that they had found you." Chris said with a look that showed he had no idea what he had just said meant.

But Alex did and at these last words Alex Drake fainted.

When she came back to the land of the living, she found Gene and Shazza looking at her with different looks. Shazzer's was just overjoyed that she had come back round. Gene's was overjoyed, yes, but sadness was also behind that.

"Well, are we going or what?" Gene said, back his normal gruffness.

"Yeah," Alex replied, "but don't I need to get some clothes first?"

"No, I sent Shaz to get them. Was that okay?"

"Yeah. Well let's get going then," Alex said with enthusiasm.

"Are you okay now?" Gene asked. Truth was that when Alex had fainted he had been scared shit-less. He wondered why those names had affected her so much; he also wondered how she had been found when the transfer had been well known throughout all C.I.D departments. To be found, she had to be lost, but she wasn't. Was she? Again he made a mental note to ask her.