A/N: Yes, I've been very busy! This isn't the way I see the show going, or even the way I'd want it to go, but I thought it would be an interesting idea to explore. Mostly fluffy GALEX. This is the first brief, rather unfluffy part of three parts. I hope you enjoy it!

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A voice, calling to her from somewhere in the distance.

"Mum? Can you hear me? Wake up, Mum."

Alex's eyes snapped open. It was still the middle of the night, surely, but the room was awash in daylight. She blinked in confusion and became aware of the small figure at the end of the bed. It was Molly, wearing the dress they had chosen together for her birthday party. "Molls? Is that you?"

"Yes, Mummy. It's me."

Alex pulled herself to sitting and tears immediately sprang to her eyes. Molly had come to her before, but always somewhere just out of reach in the corner of her vision. When Alex would turn to her, she would vanish as if she had never really been there. Now, here she was, as clear as day. She could actually hear her footsteps and then feel the mattress sag slightly as Molly crossed to her and sat on the edge of her bed. "You're here! You're really here!" A tearful laugh caught in her throat as she reached out to take Molly's face in her hands. "I can touch you. You're real!"

She threw her arms around Molly and drew her in tight, and the sense memories came flooding back to her. The familiar sweet-berry scent of her daughter's favourite shampoo, Molly's warm, soft skin against her own, all the things that she had missed so desperately. "I don't understand. How…why are you…?" But she stopped herself. Molly was here. They were together again. Did it matter why?

She held her out at arm's length and cupped Molly's cheek with her hand.

Something was wrong. Molly looked back at her with dark eyes.

"What is it, Molls? Please tell me. You're scaring me," Alex said in a rush.

"I think you know."

And suddenly, it was if the horrible knowledge had flooded into her consciousness. "Oh, God. I'm dead, aren't I?"

"Yes, Mum. You've just died," Molly said with evenness. "The doctors tried to operate, but they couldn't save you. You never woke up, and so they turned off the machines."

Alex nodded once and blinked back tears. She dreaded asking the inevitable question. "What's going to happen to me?"

"You're going to stay here. For at least a little while. Maybe longer. That's how it works. You'll understand someday."

"And you?"

Molly hesitated. "I'm going back now."

"No…no…please! Please! I just found you again, Molly! Please! Don't go!" Alex's voice rose to a panicky peak.

"I have to." Molly stood and pulled her hand from Alex's grip. Her eyes were sad but resigned. "I'll be alright. I'll miss you awfully, Mum. But Evan and Dad will look after me. They will. You have to believe that. Please don't worry about me."

Alex let out a ragged sob and stretched a hand out to her daughter. Molly's image already seemed to be slipping away, as if down a long, dark tunnel. "Please! I love you, Molly. I need you! Please stay with me!"

"I can't."

"Will I see you again?"

"Someday. Maybe."

"Please. I don't want to be alone."

Molly gave her a curious half-smile. "You're not alone."

Alex frowned. "Who? Gene?"

She shook her head slowly. "That's not what I mean. There's another."

"Who? Molly, please!" The light in the room began to fade, and with it, Molly's ghostly image.

"I think you know that, too."

And then she was gone.

Alex bolted up in bed with a wrenching cry. The room had dropped into darkness again. Her heart thudded wildly.

"Just a dream…" she whispered to herself.

But then she somehow knew as she sat here shivering in her darkened room that everything Molly had said was true. She was dead. The bullet from Arthur Layton's gun had ended her life and dropped her into this world, apart from everyone and everything she knew and loved.

Her body began to shake with hard, abandoned sobs. She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth in a vain attempt at self-comfort. Her perfect, precious little girl was gone. Alex was dead, stranded here. Alone.

You're not alone..there's another.

She stopped suddenly, Molly's parting words ringing in her ears.

I think you know…

The days and dates began to speed through Alex's mind as she counted backwards through the last few weeks. And then she stopped on that date a month before and what had happened in this room.

"Oh, God…" she said. "It's true."

Her eyes shut slowly, and she ran a gentle hand over the soft curve of her belly.