A/N: I sort of forgot the disclaimer in the last chapter so here's one now – I don't own anything.

Also, thank you to all the amazing, lovely people who read/reviewed/messaged me about the last chapter. You're all fantastic.

And now, some Galexy fluff for you. This chapter may have little or no literary merit and be slightly iffy in terms of that thing they call Plot, but hey, it's happy. Enjoy!

-8-8-8-

He had expected to be confronted with a room full of people. Music and laughter and beer, lots of beer.

What he actually saw was just as good.

"I thought this was supposed to be heaven," he said to the person he found sitting on a bar stool, the only other person in the room once Nelson had melted away through a side door. "You could have at least been wearing something slutty."

Alex laughed, looking just as she had when he said goodbye to her for the last time in 1983. "Maybe later," she said.

"That a promise?"

"If you like."

"Good. I think I'm going to like it here."

He stood just inside the door for another moment, one hand still on the handle, his last link to the world he had lived and known for so long. Then Alex slid off her chair and took a step towards him. He let go of the handle and crossed the room to her, feeling like something of a ponce, unable to hide his eagerness to reach her, but he didn't care. He knew it wouldn't bother her. When he reached her, he put his hands on her waist and said, "Been waiting long?"

She shrugged and then gripped his arms, holding him to her. "Yes and no, I suppose. Time tends not to matter too much, here."

"Can imagine."

"I'm glad you're here now, though. I've been missing you." She said it so shyly, as though unsure he'd want to hear it, even after all this time and everything that had happened between them.

He smiled at her and hooked a finger under her chin to tilt her face up to his. "Yeah, well, I'm here now," he said. "Not going anywhere."

"Good, that's… good." She looked like she was going to kiss him, but she didn't. "Everyone's here," she said instead. "Do you want to go and – "

He cut her off with a finger on her lips. "Later. They're not going anywhere, right?"

"No."

"Well then, it'll keep. You got somewhere we can go and… y'know."

"'Y'know', what? Not wasting any time, are we Gene?" She looked slightly outraged at what she had taken to be a lewd suggestion but he could hear the teasing note in her voice. God, he'd missed her.

"Somewhere we can go and talk," he corrected her, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice. "So you can get your filthy mind out of the gutter, Bolly. For now, anyway."

She nodded. "Yes. Come with me." She pulled away from him but took his hand, starting to lead him towards a door at the back of the bar.

He realised he was forgetting something important. "Wait a minute, Bolls."

"What?"

He tugged her back to him, held her face in his hands and kissed her thoroughly. "Hello," he said, when they drew back for air.

"Hi," she replied, her smile bright enough to light the whole room.

"Right then, lead on."

She took him through the door and out into a beer garden, which had to be one of his very favourite inventions of all time. This one was particularly great; there was even an outdoor bar running down one side. It was warm, the sun was shining, and he could already imagine how good a glass of cold beer would be, drunk sitting at one of the tables spread over the grass. Just when he was thinking Alex was even more in tune with him than he had thought in taking him to such a wonderful little corner of heaven, she led him through another door and up a set of stairs.

"Have I been here before?" He was certain he had.

"Yes, but not in this world." She opened a door at the top of the stairs and let him into an exact copy of the flat she had lived in above Luigi's.

He was surprised. "Thought you'd have gone for a posh country estate with all the mod-cons and butlers." He watched her move around the flat, tidying away several loose items before stopping in the middle of the living room and turning back to face him.

"I thought you'd be older," she blurted out as he shut the door behind them and walked across to her. She clapped her hand over her mouth. "Sorry."

He chuckled at her response. "Bloody heaven, isn't it? Can look as old as I want, surely."

"Well, I approve."

"Good." He'd always known she liked his rugged, rough around the edges, just the right side of middle age look. Tart. He kissed her then, relishing his newfound ability to do so.

She kissed him right back, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning into him so he could feel all of her curves. He wondered why he had waited so long to come and join her here, but pushed the fleeting thought out of his mind. No regrets, not now. There was too much to be enjoying to have regrets.

They stayed that way for a while, eventually breaking apart and moving to sit on Alex's hideous black and white sofa. Gene noticed that, for all the 80s décor, she'd managed to squeeze in a few twenty-first century appliances. The snazzy microwave, the flatscreen television, the slimline stereo. All the good bits of modern technology, in his view. He supposed that anachronisms didn't matter in heaven. He took her hand as she curled up by his side, her fingers wrapping around his without hesitation.

So this was contentment.

"What happened?" she asked, starting the first of what he was sure would end up being many conversations to work out, exactly, what the hell had happened to them all.

Gene sniffed and leaned his head on the back of the sofa. "I got found out," he said and then fell silent for the best part of a minute. He half expected Alex to jump in and prompt him, cajole him into talking to her in the way she usually did, but she didn't. She didn't need to. Time wasn't an issue anymore.

"I'd forgotten about all of this. That the world I lived in wasn't real. But then I met Keats again in 2008," he eventually continued. "He came to me and told me that you were still alive in the real world, but that you'd been shot in the head, that you were going to die."

She squeezed his hand but said nothing. He made a mental note to ask her about why and how she got shot later.

"Then he left those pictures with me. They started me thinking, remembering stuff. Y'know, the ones you found in my desk."

"I remember."

"He told me to watch the news the next day, said it might interest me. I did and it did. They found my body. Didn't know who it was, but they found it and it made me remember everything. And right after that was when you died. Can't be a coincidence, that. Told you, Bolls, you and me. We've got a connection. Un-bloody-breakable."

He turned and looked at her then. She was watching him with big, watery eyes, and he thought that, no matter how much time a person spent in heaven living in peace, talking about death would always be awful.

"And then you came here?" she asked.

"Sort of. Could've stayed, I guess. Could've waited around in limbo waiting for my identity to be discovered and everything to fall apart. I'm sure that's what Keats wanted, what he expected me to do."

"But you didn't."

He shook his head. "No. I gathered up my team and ran. Beat him to it. Took myself out of the equation. Only thing I could do, really. For them and for me." He sighed. For all its ills, he would miss the life he had led in the space between two worlds. In some ways, it was the only life he had ever known.

"Well, I for one am very glad you did." Alex leaned over and kissed him again, just a small peck at the corner of his mouth, but it meant everything to him.

He gave her a smile, pulled her into him so her head was against his shoulder, and kissed her forehead. "Me too, love."

"Can you ever go back?"

"Not now. Not sure it's even possible and it would be too risky even if it was."

"Would you want to if you could?" She sounded casual but Gene knew she was worried about the answer.

He told her the truth. "Not without you and the rest of the Scooby Gang. No, Bolls, I'm staying here now. Not staying in this poxy flat for the rest of eternity, though. We'll have to get somewhere bigger."

"We?"

Oh shit. That had just slipped out. He had just been assuming that once he got here, that the two of them would be… well, a 'we'. He remembered in a rush how foolish he had felt on that night when they had danced, and he had thought something was happening, but then she had gone and… oh God, had he misread the situation? No, he couldn't have. It wasn't possible. Not when she had called to him from another world and then responded so enthusiastically to his kiss only moments before.

"Gene?" She was obviously after clarification.

"Yeah. We will." Nothing to lose now, after all.

"Okay," was her simple answer, no hesitation.

Relief flooded through him and he held her tighter, sniffing when her hair tickled his nose. "I never believed in heaven," he remarked.

"Neither did I. Not since I was a child, anyway."

"How times change."

She wrapped an arm across his waist and held on tight, face buried in his chest.

"Alex," he said softly, moving onto his last bit of urgent business before settling down to the rest of eternity. "I'm sorry about your daughter."

She didn't respond for a long time and he thought that maybe she wasn't going to. He wouldn't blame her if she didn't. Then she said, "I see her sometimes. I don't know if I'm dreaming or if it's real or just wishful thinking, but I see her. She's fine. She's growing up. She's beautiful."

"Of course she is, she's got you as her mum."

"I still miss her. I always will, but it's okay now. I know she's okay. She's happy."

He wanted to say more, ask her more questions on the subject, but he sensed it wasn't the time. "Good," he murmured. He squeezed her shoulders. "Missed you, Bolly Knickers. Thought I was going loopy at first when I heard you talking to me, calling me here."

She twisted to look up at him. "I'm still not sure what happened there," she said. "One minute I was in the bar, with everyone else, then suddenly it was just me and Nelson and he told me I had to call you."

"Dunno what happened but I'm not complaining."

"Me neither. I missed you. Even though you're stubborn, and arrogant and prejudiced and - "

He cut her off mid-tease. "I'm going to kiss you again, Bolls. You ready?"

She giggled and a pretty flush stained her cheeks. "I suppose."

"Right, it's going to be a good 'un, so brace yourself."

"Ever the romantic, Mr Hunt."

"Too right." He moved in for the kill.

-8-8-8-

Some time later – he wasn't sure how long – when he had thoroughly reacquainted himself with Alex and talked to her some more about his life and hers after he had left her here, the two of them left the flat and went back downstairs, stepping out into the sunny beer garden.

This time, it was filled with people. Some of them he recognised. Carter, his final DI, was propping up the bar with a pint and an attractive WPC. He raised his glass when he saw Gene, and jerked his head towards the main bar. "Think the ones you're looking for are in there," he said as they passed by.

"Ta."

He felt nervous all of a sudden. He didn't know why. He had no need to be. There was nothing to be nervous about here.

Alex took his hand and squeezed tight. "It's just anticipation," she said. "Don't worry, everyone's dying to see you."

"Interesting choice of expression there, sweetheart," he said as they approached the entrance. "And how do you know how I'm feeling?"

"Because I know you." Too true.

He kept his hand in hers as they entered the bar, eyes scanning the room for the people he had come here to see. He spotted them almost straight away. His chest felt tight with emotion. It had been so long. They were all drinking and laughing and all of them, every last one, looked happy.

On impulse, he stopped and turned to Alex, bent down and whispered something in her ear, something he never thought he'd be able to say to her. She gave him a goofy grin and pulled his head close to hers, then whispered the same right back.

Heaven was pretty damn good, in his view. Especially when he had a gorgeous woman at his side and all of his friends were standing to greet him, offering to get him drinks and welcoming him in.

He felt good, at ease, peaceful and he knew that, at long last, his work was finally done.

The (slightly cheesy) End.

A/N: Thanks for reading!