Maybe, just maybe, if she closed her eyes, if she tried hard enough, she could start to forget them, start to forget him, like she almost had forgotten her daughter; at least, it was a lie she could tell herself, for a little while.



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Episode 2x01: Homesick
Episode 2x02: Language
Episode 2x03: Team
Episode 2x04: Blood
Episode 2x05: Loyal
Episode 2x06: Emotion
Episode 2x07: Family

Alex had never seen so many hearts break as she did that day, in that room, as Chris' betrayal was exposed to them all; he had broken their little family, and Alex wasn't sure if it could ever be put back together again.



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Episode 2x01: Homesick
Episode 2x02: Language
Episode 2x03: Team
Episode 2x04: Blood
Episode 2x05: Loyal
Episode 2x06: Emotion

"Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home."
-Matsuo Basho, Narrow Road (tr. Sam Hamill)


The M1 stretched out before them, and Alex peered out the rear view mirror before casting a sideways glance at her daughter in the passenger's seat.

“Chin up, Molls,” she chirped. “We're driving towards your new home. You could be a bit more excited.”

Molly huffed a sigh, her slender form curled up in the seat as she peered out the window. “Easy for you to say, Mum. You've lived in London your whole life.”

“Which is precisely why Cambridge is such a great opportunity for you,” Alex replied. “You can always come back to London after university. It's not as if you're moving to another planet.”

“Might as well be,” Molly answered, glumly. Alex wasn't sure what had happened to the intense excitement that had surrounded her daughter the day she had received her acceptance letter in the post. For the last two years, Molly had talked about leaving London as if it were the only thing she'd wanted in the whole world. Alex didn't remember being as confused and disgruntled at eighteen as her daughter seemed now.

“You can come back every other weekend, if you'd like.”

Molly readjusted herself in her seat, looking down at her hands and looking back up at her mother. “What are you going to do with me gone?”

“Hm, I don't know. Maybe I'll try dating again.”

“Mum.”

“Really. I think your poor, old mum could use a bit of companionship...”

“Mum.”

( Alex looked over again, and Molly's eyes were welling up with tears. )


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Cut for length
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Muse: Alex Drake, Ashes to Ashes
Prompt: #327 - "Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home."
Verse: Open Verse, speculative post-series
Word Count: 936

She had mistaken his anger for fear, perhaps; although, with Gene Hunt, she imagined both emotions were one in the same.


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Episode 2x01: Homesick
Episode 2x02: Language
Episode 2x03: Team
Episode 2x04: Blood
Episode 2x05: Loyal

Summers made it sound as if she had to choose between her loyalty to Gene or her loyalty to Molly; but in the end, Alex knew giving in to his demands would mean she would have to betray them both.


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Episode 2x01: Homesick
Episode 2x02: Language
Episode 2x03: Team
Episode 2x04: Blood

They hadn't lost the war, as Gene had said, but they had won a small battle; however, Alex couldn't shake the sick fear that more blood would be spilled before the real war would come to an end.


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Episode 2x01: Homesick
Episode 2x02: Language
Episode 2x03: Team

More often than not the whole lot of them were like children to Alex; but if her job was only that of glorified babysitting, even she couldn't have asked for a better group of kids.


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Episode 2x01: Homesick
Episode 2x02: Language

Hers was usually the language of science, understanding, and sarcasm, and his the language of arrogance, honour, and brute strength; but as they sat in the interview room, their voices soft between them, they had finally mastered the common language of trust.

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Episode 2x01: Homesick

By the time she got back to them, the girl was already dead; Gene sat, cradling her in his arms, her blood soaking into his clothes, and the look in his eyes told Alex he knew all about being so lost, so alone, and so very far from home.

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Eight days. Eight episodes. Eight sentences.

For the next eight days, I'll be doing a one sentence story for each episode of series 2 in conjunction with my re-watch to prepare for series 3 of Ashes to Ashes.

“I've been watching you all night...” He slid into the empty seat next to her, blue eyes boring into her, undressing her beneath his gaze.

She tilted her head at him, brown curls spilling over her shoulder. “You should have said something earlier.”

“Well, I just thought, since-”

“Oi! You!”

The man from the bar jumped from his seat to a standing position in one swift move, like a teenager who just got caught getting to second base in the backseat of a car by his girlfriend's father. Which was probably very akin to what had just occurred.

After all, there were unspoken rules in Luigi's. And one of those happened to be, no bloke was allowed to flirt with DI Alex Drake while she was in the presence of the most esteemed DCI Gene Hunt. ( Or sometimes, even when she wasn't. )


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Cut for adult language and themes.
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Muse: Alex Drake
Prompt: 19.5 [STARTING POINT] I've been watching you all night...
Verse: Open Verse
Word Count: 1299

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save everyday
Til eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

Standing on a rooftop over London, Alex closes her eyes and breathes in the deep, familiar air of the city. ( Something inside of her stills, and when she opens her eyes, her gaze casts to the ground so far beneath her. )


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Cut for spoilers for the end of Life on Mars
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Muse: Alex Drake, Ashes to Ashes
Prompt: for the song meme: "Time in a Bottle" by Roger Whittaker
Verse: Open and Canon Verses
Word Count: 473

I've lost control.

This world – this creation of my own mind (if that's really what it is, I can't even be sure now) – but this world, this world I live in now, it's as if all within it is completely beyond my grasp. I thought this was about staying in control. Staying in command. Having a rule over my subconscious. All of that was to keep me afloat. ( All of that was to keep me alive. )


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Cut for length and spoilers through 2x08
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Muse: Alex Drake, Ashes to Ashes
Prompt: #320 - What do you command?
Verse: Open and Canon Verses
Word Count: 320

When I was young, I often fantasized that my parents had survived the explosion.

It made things a bit easier, to lie in bed and pretend that they weren't home not because they were dead, but because they were both safely tucked away in hospital. They couldn't call because they were both in a coma, but they would eventually wake up. And then one day they would come home and life would be the way it was before I saw them die.

I could have never dreamt that one day, my fantasy, my small tendril of hope that I clung to so tightly, would be my own daughter's reality. And I doubt that it gives her any of the same comfort that it once gave me.

The idea that I could have wished such a fate as my own on my parents in daunting. I fear, at times, that I have outlived my own body. Somewhere, in 2008, I'm wasting away in a hospital bed, as Molly watches. And here, in 1981, I live every day as if I have a chance of seeing her again.

I can't expect to know what will happen, if my body dies. Will my existence in 1981 simply cease? Or will I be trapped here forever? Will I grow, age, start to forget, and eventually die, like Sam? Have I died already, and I just will never know?

I'm trapped in my mind, I feel alive as I have ever been, even as my physical body fights and fades and slips steadily from my grip.

It's far to common to outlive others.

No one ever talks about what a curse it must be to outlive yourself.

Muse: Alex Drake, Ashes to Ashes
Prompt: #305: Write about something you've outlived.
Verse: Open/Canon Verse
Word Count: 282

Inspired by this adorable little illustration of Sally Sparrow, drawn by pi_sparrow (Link is prooobably considered NSFW.)

{{This is also for pi_sparrow. I hope I didn't butcher Sally too badly, bb.}}



“You're not wearing that,” Sally said.

Alex's mouth hung open, and she looked down at her top. It was a lovely red blouse, she thought, with little white polka dots. She'd even undone the top few buttons. Her trousers were slick and black, hugging all the right bits in all the right places, and Sally had certainly never complained about them before.

( Quite the opposite, in fact. )

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Cut for length and adult situations.
Minor spoilers for Ashes to Ashes.
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Muse: Alex Drake
Prompt: [ONE WORD] Cleavage
Verse: Crack/Time Will Crawl
Word Count: 1347

picture

The lights of the city had looked smaller than she was used to that first night; she didn’t notice when she stopped seeing the difference, or when it started to look like home.

Stake-outs, Alex mused, were intended for the specific purpose of observing, understanding, and reacting to a subject in order to better predict their intentions.

( She certainly was observing, understanding, and reacting on some pretty basic levels. But not to a suspect so much as to how Gene Hunt’s mouth moved against her, how she ground her hips against him, how her teeth bit into her bottom lip as she moaned in the back of her throat. )

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Cut for spoilers, sexuality, adult themes.
Minor spoilers for episode 2x05 of Ashes to Ashes.
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Muse: Alex Drake
Prompt: [SCENARIO] Amomaxia (or in other words, love-making in a parked car)
Verse: My own filthy canon
Word Count: 1278