Alex Drake


 * The following article includes spoilers for the first 2 series of the British TV shows Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes.

Alex Drake is a police officer, most commonly affiliated with the Metropolitan Police Force and formerly with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Fenchurch East, London.

She arrived in Bete Noire in April of 2010.

Childhood
Alexandra Price (born 20th of April 2010) was the daughter of solicitors Tim and Caroline Price. Constantly in the spotlight of the media, the Prices were dedicated to their work, and often Alex felt emotionally neglected. She drew comfort from her privileged upbringing, her godfather, Evan White, and the rare, special times she felt she had her parents to herself.

The morning of October 10th, 1981, Tim Price began to drive his wife and daughter to the train station to see them both off on a well-needed holiday. While at a brief stop, Alex climbed out of the car to chase after a balloon she had let go of. While in the street, the Price's car suddenly exploded, and both Tim and Caroline died. Alex has brief, muddled memories of the incident - visions of the red balloon, her father's eyes in the rear-view mirror, the billboard they stopped in front of, and a man who she believed to be her godfather grabbing her hand after the explosion. David Bowie's song 'Ashes to Ashes' was playing in the car during the explosion.

Afterwards, Alex was officially adopted and raised by the doting Evan.

Her parents' senseless murder remained unsolved.

Early Adult Life
After graduation, Alex attended Cambridge University and received a degree in Psychology. She returned back to London and joined the Metropolitan Police, where she was trained to be a police psychologist. She spent some time in Langley, Virgina, USA, on secondment with the CIA.

She met, fell in love with and married Peter Drake, and gave birth to a daughter, Molly Drake. When Molly was six months old, Peter abandoned them both. Faced with the sudden life of a working single mother, Alex felt betrayed and alone, but was able to overcome her fears and self-doubts with the help of Evan and her in-laws. She and Molly keep in regular contact with Peter, but rarely see him.

2008
Working as a police psychologist, Alex decided to write a book pertaining to strange and uncommon trauma experiences by coppers. During this research she received the tape and file of DCI Sam Tyler of the Manchester Constabulary, who claimed to have traveled to 1973 during a coma he fell into due to head trauma. Not long after his recovery and "return" to the present day, Sam Tyler committed suicide. Morbidly fascinated with his story, Alex decides to revolve her book around Sam Tyler's experience.

On Molly's 12th birthday, Alex and Molly's usually morning was disrupted on the ride to school, where Alex received a call of a hostage situation next to the Thames. Begrudgingly leaving Molly in the car to go and assist, Alex found out the hostage taker, a man named Layton who was armed with a gun, had requested her by name, although she did not recognize him.

Although she managed to talk him down, Molly left the car and finds herself in the line of fire. Layton took Molly and ran for the docks, and a shot was heard. However, Molly was safely recovered with no further incident, and Layton was nowhere to be seen.

Instead of taking her to school, Alex took Molly to Evan, who took her home. Alex promised to come home that evening and celebrate Molly's birthday with her.

After returning to her car, Alex discovered Layton in her backseat and he takes her hostage. He forces her into a tunnel near the Thames, where he makes a phone call to an unknown recipient and informs them that he is looking at a "piece of [the recipient caller's] past." Confused, Alex does her best to talk Layton down.

With no warning or provocation, Layton shot Alex in the head.

1980s
Alex Drake woke up in 1981.

There she met the biggest players in what she had believed to be Sam Tyler's fantasy - DCI Gene Hunt, DS Ray Carling and DC Chris Skelton. Informed that she had requested a transfer to Gene Hunt's unit, Alex finds herself working for CID in Fenchurch East, London.

Convinced that her time travel is related to her parents murder, Alex decided that it was a test of her subconscious. Sure that she was in a coma like Sam Tyler, she was determined to stop her parents murder and wake up again in 2008. Driven by her belief and her need to return back to Molly, Alex - constantly plagued by headaches, ghostly images of a clown chasing her, visions of Molly, and the development of an alcohol dependency - fought to set right all she could to prove to herself she could remain in control of her fantasy.

Finding herself in a case involving Layton, who does not know who she is, Alex managed to put him behind bars. Hunt could not grasp her obsession with the convict, insisting that she do her best to become part of the team and fit in. However, Alex was fixated with developing a relationship with her mother, whom she learns she did not know at all, and even developed what could be considered a flirtation with her godfather.

However, when the fateful day of her parent's death comes, Alex found out how incredibly out of control she really was. Against all odds she still could not prevent their death, and is forced to watch the car explode again. Is is there that she learned the true events of that day - her father, devastated by the knowledge that Caroline cheated on him with Evan, plotted to kill both of them and Alex. Alex only managed to escape the car before the bomb he planted went off. Gene Hunt watched the event alongside the sobbing grown-up Alex, and it was he who grabbed the hand of the broken-hearted little girl and took her back to the station.

In the aftermath of it all, Alex finds herself still in 1981.

She lived there into 1982, slowly adjusting to her life there while she balanced the voices and visions that still convinced her that she was alive and in a coma in 2008. Unexpectedly, she began to bond and truly care about her team, growing an almost motherly affection for Ray, Chris, and WPC Shaz Granger, and an even deeper affection for Hunt.

After struggling with internal corruption in the force, Alex and Gene found their unsteady trust for each other crumbling. When Alex finally admitted the truth to Gene - that she was in a coma and from the future - Gene interpreted it as the last straw of betrayal and had Alex removed from the team. Determined to still prove herself and stop the corruption, Alex ends up involved in the final stand-down. Inadvertently, while trying to protect her, Gene shoots Alex in the stomach, and she loses consciousness.

Is it real or in my mind?
And Alex woke up in 2008.

All was as she imagined it - Molly waiting for her, and the world seemed whole again. Except for the image of Gene Hunt on the television, informing her that she was in a coma in 1982. Dreams of him haunted her, along with the unsettling sensation that even though this world looked like home, it never felt as real as the world she had dreamed of.

Unable to come to terms with having left the 1980s so suddenly, Alex was unable to return to work and sent Molly away to live with her father while she struggled to come to terms with her reality.

Confronted with messages from her team begging her to return, Alex entered a frenzy where she saw a vision of herself in a hospital bed, the clock on the wall reading 9:06. She saw flashes of a news broadcast about the recovery of a body that was believed to be that of an unidentified copper, and was confronted with the image of a young copper with a mutilated face. Confused and frightened, Alex suddenly woke up again, this time in 1983, with Gene slapping her face.

She was in hospital, having recovered from her coma. With a new and determined outlook on this world, she no longer truly believed it to be a fantasy. To her, it had become another reality. Still heavy with the desire to return to Molly, Alex decided to concentrate on bettering the world her friends lived in, in hopes that it would be enough to take her home - really home - for good.

Bete Noire
Her first day back in 1982, Alex wrapped up a kidnapping case and walked back to her flat. Instead of ever reaching it, she found herself on the streets on Bete Noire.

She now works for the Bete Noire Police Force under Chief Inspector Sam Tyler, whom she never expected to meet. Having on just recovered his file from Gene Hunt's filing cabinet in 1983, Alex is fascinated with Sam's experience and his fate in the 1980s that is still shrouded with mystery.

Having moved out of the hostel, Alex currently resides with DC Annie Cartwright and is helping her renovate the house. She is also working with James T. Kirk on developing a psychology and trauma-coping course for the force.