More of Everything

And then one morning, it suddenly dawned on her. The realisation that she had begun to belong. Here. There. 1981.

Because, before - and this had always galled her, seeing as her location was born of her imagination, thank you very much - she hadn't ever felt accepted. As part of or by Hunt's team. Oh yes, she'd been tolerated well enough ... but only as The Spare Wheel, The New Girl. She'd never been able to train her mind to conjure up Acceptance, in this fantasy, this dream world. Or Friendship.

Until all of a sudden - or maybe not 'all of a sudden', maybe more 'all of a slow gradual process' ... Shaz had picked her up an eye shadow in that peacock shade they thought Rimmel had discontinued. Chris had taken it upon himself to educate her about football, in particular Man City's performance this season. Beaming with pride as she wittily bantered with Viv about last week's controversial signing. And Ray! Well, he'd been heard bollocking the new duty sergeant for using Alex's mug.

But Hunt. What of Hunt? It had become apparent that no one else dared sit next to him if she was around. The rest of the team knew sitting between the two of them - during briefing, in the pub, down at Luigi's - would only result in their raucous arguments being held across the whole table. Vociferously either disagreeing or agreeing with each other - it didn't do to get between them.

Alex struggled to stay ambiguous as she reflected upon this turn of events. She lay, tangled up in the warm crimson sheets of her bed, basking in the early morning rays that were filtering through the cheap cotton curtains. The alarm had just gone off for the third time. She'd welcomed Woolworths finally stocking the "new" alarm clocks with a snooze button feature. About bloody time, she'd thought as she queued up to make her purchase. Although scanning the back of the box, she'd seen that the earlier models had set the trend for peculiarly timed delays - the 7 minute snooze offended her mild OCD sensibilities.

Slapping the alarm as it began once more to belt out its Casio keyboard inspired 'jaunty' alert, she pushed herself up and out of bed. Padding into the shower cubicle, she shook her head. The plain facts were that she HAD a life and a FAMILY ... just so, so, so far away. So far away in fact, she hadn't the slightest clue how to return to it, to them. And oh, how she'd TRIED. Analysing the slightest, most unlikely clue. Acting upon the vaguest, most oblique instinct. And yet ... nothing. Every night, she went to sleep in Luigi's eighties Italiano inspired decor ... and every morning, she'd wake up in exactly the same place. Oh sure, there was the odd glimpse of her beloved, missed, longed for Molly, lingering almost tangibly in her peripheral vision. There were even tantalising snippets of 2008 that loomed out of the gloom of 1981, making her gasp, her head spin, leaving her dizzily grasping for something solid, something dependable.

Something. Someone.

"Dodgy ground, Alex" she admonished, "seriously dodgy ground." 

But other than that ... nothing. The obvious solutions to her release and return had turned out not to be so obvious in the end. In fact, she smiled grimly, so far removed from obvious, they were fucking OBSTRUCTIVE, debilitating, crushing - Alex involuntarily relived the briefest glimpse of the explosion that had killed her parents for the second time, before vigorously scrubbing shampoo into her hair, attempting to physically dislodge the images and sounds that had seared and scorched her mind...

... Much later on that day, Alex gathered up her coffee and pad from her desk, ready for CID's late afternoon briefing. She squeezed past Chris, who was battling with the Daily Star's crossword ...

"Four down, seven across - 'visitor'" she murmured to him as she eased behind his chair to her own.

"Oh right. Cheers ma'am, thanks. Wait, no - that doesn't go at all with seven down ..."