Disclaimer: The rights to Life on Mars belong to Kudos and BBC. I wrote this purely for the enjoyment of other fans, because this series made me think! Oh, and I'm still not making any money on fanfic.
1. Impact.
---------------------------
It wasn't every day that you'd see a pile of manila folders that appeared to be snoring. DCI Gene Hunt lifted a couple of folders and wasn't surprised when he found Chris underneath them, head down on the desk and fast asleep.Gene took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Sometimes, he thought, they just didn't pay him enough. And the sometimes seemed to come more and more often, ever since Sam Tyler had joined them.
"Chris."
Chris shifted a bit and mumbled, "Just five more minutes, Dad."
"DC Skelton, do I look like your dad?"
Chris raised his head, bleary eyes trying to focus. When he finally did the description 'startled rabbit' leaped into Gene's mind.
"Oh. No. Sorry, Guv."
"You were supposed to drive DI Tyler home after the Pub last night."
Chris blinked a few times while he thought this over. "Right," he finally said.
"He's not at home. And the reason I know this is because I was supposed to pick him up this morning and I had to kick in his bloody door again, since he wouldn't answer. And he wasn't there."
"Oh?" The battery was working again but the lights hadn't come on yet. "Oh." There they were.
"So where is he?"
"Oh yeah." Chris chuckled as he remembered. "Boss was really wasted last night...."
Yesterday had been a good day. They had nicked some long sought-after scumbags. Admittedly, it had come about mostly through Sam's insistence that the answer could be found in paperwork and interviews. But Gene had let that pass since the arrest had led to celebration and an enjoyable evening down at the pub.
To his own surprise Gene hadn't been the last one to leave. Sam and Chris and Ray had still been there when he'd walked out of the Railway Arms. He should have known that they couldn't be trusted. Wait, he had known that. He just didn't care about it.
"What did you do with DI Tyler?" Gene said with as much patience as he could scrape together.
"Well, Ray had an idea-" Chris broke off with a slightly worried look on his face.
Ray had an idea. That just about said it all.
"Where did you put him?"
"The morgue," Chris said, giving Gene a guilty look. "Sorry, Guv."
The worried look came back, shifted to guilty and then back to worried.
"Boss ain't going to be too happy about this," Chris said.
"Most likely not," Gene agreed, the rest of his statement following him on his way out the door, "He'll probably be a pain in the bloody arse for the whole bloody day."
The morgue was thankfully empty of bodies except for the one laid out on the autopsy table. It was covered from head to toe by a green sheet that rose and fell slightly over the face part with every breath. An arm encased in black leather stuck out to one side.
Gene shook his head. No, they just didn't pay him enough. He pulled the sheet away from the head.
"Wake up, Sam."
Sam's eyes opened almost immediately, taking in his surroundings. At least he was easier to wake than Chris.
"Am I dead?" Sam said.
Or maybe not.
"I hope not," Gene replied. "Because I can still hear you talking. Come on. Sit up."
Gingerly Sam sat up, his face going as green as the sheet in the process. "Ah, I've got a right headache. Need to- need to- Uh." He jumped off the table, landing on the floor with a groan and rushed out of the room, holding his hand over his mouth.
"Throwing up and there's not even a corpse in the room. Jessie." Gene shook his head again before following.
Sam's hangover kept him relatively calm the rest of the morning. At midday he was starting to show signs of plotting revenge against Ray, giving him long, dark and very thoughtful looks. But all in all he wasn't even half as insufferable as Gene had thought he would be, in fact he seemed to be only a fraction of his usual annoying self. Gene looked out at his harmonious realm with a feeling of contentment. Maybe the answer to Sam was regular massive hangovers.
With that thought in mind Gene looked at his watch and decided it was time to go to the pub. The Railway Arms was moderately crowded when he dragged Sam into it.
"You buying, Tyler? Good. Two pints. Bring them back." Gene clapped Sam on the shoulder, pushing him forward towards the bar and ignored Sam's look of surprised outrage that followed. He moved over towards a couple of empty seats in the corner. By the time Gene had settled himself Sam seemed to have resigned himself to his fate and was leaning across the bar disk, saying something low to Nelson.
Two minutes later Gene was drumming his fingers against the table surface, thinking he'd made a tactical error. Sam was still in conversation with Nelson and it looked pretty serious. Could be something. Could be nothing. With Sam you never knew.
If only he'd had one of those Western bullwhips - then he could have cracked it around Sam's ankle and dragged him back across the floor - no, that would have spilled the pints. Luckily he didn't have to wait any further for there was Sam coming towards him with a pint in each hand and a strange, almost stunned look on his face.
"Finally," Gene said. "You were over there forever. Swapping recipes with Nelson, were you?"
Sam put the drinks on the table and muttered something under his breath as he was sitting down. Gene thought it sounded like 'ungrateful bastard' but he was too busy sampling his longed for beer to pay any real attention. But he did notice that Sam was ignoring his own beer altogether. Instead he seemed to be fully occupied with staring thoughtfully at the bar.
"Pondering the miracle that is a good pint? Or did someone spit in yours?" Gene asked, hoping to ambush him into replying. And sure enough.
"I just found out that Nelson's hitchhiked from really far away," Sam said, sounding distracted. "Further than I ever thought possible. And he thinks I can get a towel."
"Eyh?" Gene said, perplexed. What did a towel have to do with anything? Well, he'd gotten a reply at least. Pity that it made absolutely no sense whatsoever. He could see Sam blink and swing his gaze over to Gene as if suddenly realizing where he was and what he was saying.
"Never mind," Sam said.
Gene's sensitive nose picked up a smell he knew well. He sniffed and gave Sam a suspicious look. "Have you been drinking scotch?"
Sam gave him a forced smile. "Those who are about to die," he said.
Gene made a little mental note to himself. Hangover + Sam = less annoying. However, hangover + Sam + more drink = morbidity, delusions and whining.
Gene re-directed the conversation into safer territory.
"So, got any new leads in the Carter case?"
"No."
"My money's on the husband."
Sam finally took a sip of his beer. Then he put the glass down and shook his head. "No, I don't think so. It doesn't really fit the evidence."
"No? Well, it fits my gut instinct."
"Not that again," Sam complained. "Gene, he had an alibi-"
"That you still haven't been able to verify! Playing cards with an ordinary-looking man named Smith? Yes, that really sounds like a believable alibi."
"Well, Smith being such an unusual name it might actually take me some time to find him."
"Come on, Sam. I fart better excuses than that. He was lying through his teeth about his alibi. I wager a Party Seven -"
Sam interrupted him with a groan. "No, definitely not! Never again. And lying about his alibi doesn't mean he did it. Remember Ted Bannister? It just means we need to talk to him again."
"Tell me one thing that speaks in his favour," Gene demanded.
Sam crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, giving Gene his most stubborn look. "The boy," he said.
Gene raised his eyebrows, sniffed and looked down at his drink. "I see," was his only comment.
Sam frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well, you've got something of a blind spot when it comes to small children and absent fathers, Sam."
"No, I don't! And even if I did, that has got nothing to do with it. He was sincere when he talked to me about his family. He loved them, I could see it."
"Sam-" Gene started to say but Sam interrupted him with a vehement, "No! Don't try to talk me out of this, Gene. I believed him. He loved his wife, he'd never have butchered her with a knife like that. There were no previous reports that suggests any kind of domestic violence. And even if he didn't love her, he does love his son and he'd never have killed her with the boy nearby. There's just nothing you can say that will change my belief in that."
He pushed his chair away, stood up and stalked out of the pub. Gene felt for the car keys in his coat pocket and then sank back in his chair, deciding that Sam could well stew for a bit while Gene enjoyed the last of his beer.
Several minutes later he walked out to find Sam sitting on the hood of the Cortina, arms crossed and staring down at the ground.
"Sparked any bright ideas yet?" Gene said.
When Sam looked up it was with tired eyes. "About a hundred," he replied.
"If any of them involves sifting through more papers I don't want to hear it. It doesn't matter how many times you say it, Sam - you can't find the answer to life in paperwork."
"I've never said that," Sam bit back. "And how would you know? You think the answer to life is beer!"
"No, I don't," Gene firmly denied as he unlocked the door to the Cortina. "I think it's scotch."
He got behind the wheel and leaned over to unlock the other door.
"Go on then," Gene said as Sam got in the passenger seat. "Tell me -what's the answer to life in Hyde?"
Sam blinked and frowned. "In Hyde?"
"In Hyde," Gene said. "Where you repeatedly tell me you come from and want to go back to."
Sam looked at him in silence for a second and then smiled. Gene just knew that he was about to regret having asked. Sam opened his mouth but never got to the point of actually speaking before the radio interrupted by burping out static and a voice, "Alpha One to 870. Respond."
Sam grabbed the receiver and Gene started up the engine. Back to business.
"This is 870. What is it, Phyllis?"
"DC Skelton wants you to know that he thinks he's found Smith."
Gene wasn't sure he'd heard that right. Maybe he was getting old, he definitely hadn't seen it coming. Apparently Sam hadn't either, for all his talk to the contrary. He sounded slightly bewildered when he said, "Say again?"
"He's found Smith." Phyllis repeated, not so patiently.
"Thanks. We'll be right there."
The first thing they saw as they stepped into the station was Chris heading towards them, smiling and with an enthusiastic little bounce in his step. He eagerly thrust a thick folder at Sam.
"I remembered something from the paperwork we went through last week, so I went back and looked at it again. An old interview from three years ago. It mentions in passing a man named Smith, ordinary looking man who comes in to town once in a while and plays poker for one night only at unspecified locations. But it's all a front, what he really does is sell illegal firearms that can't be traced."
Chris's smile faltered a little when Sam kept staring at him without replying but Gene could see that the little wheels in Sam's head were turning and turning so he let it be, while he himself asked the most important question.
"Has Litton found this Smith character yet?"
Chris's smile got wider again. "No, Guv. He's only in town once every year and so far they've managed to miss him by a mile. Seems they don't like to even mention his name around the RCS."
"Ah," Gene gave a sigh of pleasure, grinning in anticipation of future opportunities to needle Litton by suddenly dropping the name Smith into the conversation.
"Good work, Chris," Sam suddenly said, smiling. "Really good work."
Chris positively beamed at the praise and Gene tolerated it since he'd been given the gift of aggravating Litton, but he couldn't help but try to wipe that smile off Sam's face. He deserved it for distrusting the Gene Genie.
"So," Gene said. "He loved his wife. So much that he bought a gun. I knew that alibi was shit."
The smile disappeared but otherwise Sam just shook off the sarcasm. "Fine," he said. "Just tell me this-"
"What?"
"If he had already bought a gun, then why did he come back and kill her with a knife?"
Unfortunately Sam actually had a point there and Gene could think of no good answer.
"Let's ask him, shall we? Chris, get Ray and then bring back Carter."
"Get Carter. Right, Guv."
Terrence Carter was a little rabbit of a man who trembled visibly whenever Gene walked up to stand near him. This wasn't going to be hard at all. He should have done this from the beginning, instead of letting Sam run the show. Gene leaned across the table and put on his best stare.
"What did you do with the gun?" he asked quietly.
Carter went pale and started to stammer. "How-how-how-"
"That's a very good question. How long were you planning to kill her before you finally did it?"
This time Carter got stuck on another word. "I-I-I - I didn't-"
"Didn't mean to kill her but you couldn't help it," Gene relentlessly filled in the rest. "Cheating on you, was she?" But Carter seemed to grow a spine all of a sudden and sat there stubbornly shaking his head, no matter how much Gene glared at him.
"I-I didn't kill her," he said with determination.
Gene looked at Sam who had been sitting quietly, going through his notes. He caught Sam's eyes, raised his eyebrows and gave a little nod towards Carter. Well, it couldn't hurt. Except Gene's own ego. And if that happened he knew who would pay for it.
"This is about the boy, isn't it?" Sam asked.
Carter went pale again. He refused to look them in the eye.
"When did you first know that he wasn't your son?"
"He is my son!" Carter said. "He's always been my son!"
"But you're not his biological father, are you?"
Carter deflated visibly at those words. "I'm his father in every way that counts," he whispered.
Sam could be as relentless as Gene, despite his softer approach, but he let Carter have a few seconds before continuing. "Tell us what happened. From the beginning."
Carter looked lost. "She was pregnant when we got married. Didn't tell me much about the father, just his name, and that he was in jail for a serious crime. I loved her, so it didn't matter to me. And when Terry junior came along I loved him too. We were happy. Then last week-" He broke off with a pain filled look.
"You found out that the father was back," Sam said. Carter nodded.
"Yes. I don't know how he got out or how he found us, but he did. Gloria told me he'd phoned her, threatening her and wanting her to come back to him. And he wanted the boy as well. I couldn't let him take my family." He was talking directly to Sam and Sam nodded as if they had some secret understanding between them.
"How did you find out about Smith?" he asked.
Carter blinked uneasily a few times. "I play poker sometimes. A man owed me money and gave me an address instead."
"So you bought a gun," Sam said. Carter nodded. "I couldn't let him take my family. But when I came home-"
"-she was already dead," Sam continued when Carter faltered. "And you knew who had done it."
"Yes."
"So, what did you do with the gun?"
"It's in the attic. In an old shoe-box."
"Why didn't you tell us this before?" Gene leaned across the table again, ready to come down on Carter like the wrath of God. "You've let a murdering scumbag walk around freely on my streets!" He grabbed hold of Carter's lapels and dragged him out of his seat, normally an act that made grown men weep. But once again Carter showed that he had more courage than anyone could believe at first glance.
"I couldn't risk it," he cried out.
"We can protect you and your family from this man," Sam said.
"It's not that," Carter said.
"Then what is it?" Gene asked.
"I couldn't let Terry know the truth! About that bastard and his mother. I have to protect him. I'm his father!"
Sam had been right all along. It was about the boy, all of it. Gene let go and Carter dropped back into his seat.
"You will give us the name and address of this man," Gene told him. "You will sign a statement and you will give us the gun."
"And then?" Carter asked.
"Then you start praying that we find this bastard so I don't have to come back here and lock you up for wasting my bloody time!"
Sam pushed a piece of paper across the table and Carter wrote down the name and address with shaking hands before pushing it back to Sam.
"Set it up, Sam," Gene said. "We do this one by the book."
"Yes, Guv," Sam said, firing off a quick grin.
*********
Out of the corner of his eye Gene could see Sam swallow convulsively and grab on to anything he could to stay in his seat. As they turned into a side street the Cortina swerved slightly to avoid hitting another car, directly in it's path.
"Lucky guess, that," Gene said. "About the boy's father."
"Not really," Sam said nonchalantly, as if they hadn't just been turning a corner with less than four wheels on the ground. "Just something I remembered reading about, when looking at pictures of all of them. About recessive and dominant genes and all that."
"Dominant Genes?" Gene said and frowned. "If you're trying to insult me you have to do better than that."
Sam looked at him and started to laugh. And once he'd started he didn't seem able to stop.
"What's so funny?" Gene said, starting to suspect that he might have been insulted after all. Sam just shook his head helplessly, trying to stifle his laughter behind his hand and failing. Finally he resorted to turning his head away and looking out the window and that seemed to do the trick, but his shoulders still shook occasionally from held back mirth.
"Twat," Gene exclaimed, in reality speaking about Carter but glancing at Sam. "He should have told us sooner."
"Speak nothing but good about the dead," Sam said wistfully, obviously thinking about Gloria Carter.
"Well, that's a bloody waste of time. If you've got an opinion you should speak it, whether or not the subject thereof is dead or alive."
"The way you tell me every day that I'm essentially either mad or an idiot?"
"Precisely."
"And the minute I'm gone you're going to start telling everybody how glad you are to be rid of me?"
"Exactly."
"No, I don't think so."
"Well, then you'd be wrong, since I would."
"You say that now, but I bet you're going to miss me when I'm gone. Might even say something nice about me. You can deny it any way you want, Gene, but I know you will."
"How much?" Gene prompted.
"What?" Sam said, frowning.
"The bet. How much?"
Sam kept frowning. "You want me to bet on whether or not you'll miss me when I'm dead?"
"It was your suggestion. And dying wasn't specified. You just said gone. Could be anywhere. Could be gone back to Hyde."
"I wish," Sam muttered darkly. "Okay. 50p."
"That's all?" Gene said. "Chicken."
"50p. Take it or leave it."
"You're on."
"And we're here," Sam said pointing at a long building up ahead, external galleries running along its side. The car stopped, they got out and studied the house while they waited for Ray and Chris to catch up with them.
"What's the number on his door?" Gene asked.
Sam looked down at his notes, blinked and then looked up with an odd little smile. "It's 42," he said. Gene could se no reason to smile about that, but then he wasn't Sam. Sam seemed to find lots of things funny that no one else did. Maybe one day he'd find out why 42 was funny in Sam's world. Why not 58? Or 97? Or even 5?
"Looks quiet," Gene commented. "Think he's home?"
"No," Sam said, looking down the street. "I think he's over there."
"Bollocks!" They quickly crouched down behind the Cortina. Gene pulled out his Magnum.
"No heroics, Sam. We just wait until he comes over and then we'll grab him."
When Sam didn't answer Gene looked up to find Sam looking at him with an amused little grin. "What?"
"Nothing," Sam said. "That's just the way I would do it."
"I'm not Litton," Gene reminded him, giving him a slightly wounded look. "If all I wanted was to shoot someone I'd have shot you long ago. I just don't want you to go over and try and talk to him or something. That'll get us dead for sure."
"Right, Guv. Sorry."
Was the little shit laughing at him again? And where were Chris and Ray? And why did it take that bastard so long just to cross the street?
"This is taking too long," Sam muttered beside him, his face serious again. He leaned out a bit to take a look around. Suddenly he seemed to freeze up and then he was gripping Gene's arm in a death grip. Sam was staring along the row of parked cars and his face had gone pale all of a sudden.
"Do you see her?" he asked Gene, his voice tense.
"Who?" Gene looked where Sam was looking and saw nothing.
"That girl over there. In the red dress."
Still nothing. "Where?"
He followed Sam's pointing finger. Now he could see a small shape, a girl with blonde hair and a red dress, clutching a doll of some kind. She seemed to be half -hiding from them between two cars.
"I see her," Gene said. Sam let go of his arm.
Then he said something odd. "She's real, isn't she?" And he sounded almost ...defeated.
Why would he think that she wasn't? And where was Ray and Chris? This was all going wrong, Gene could feel it.
"Where's Borden at?" Gene asked.
Sam risked a quick look over the hood. "He's stopped on the other side. I think he suspects something."
They heard the shot a split second before it shattered the side window of the Cortina.
"Oh, really, Sherlock!" Gene said and rose to return fire then crouched down again. "Police! You're nicked, Borden! Put that gun down or we'll be forced to shoot you in a very unpleasant place!"
"Go to hell!" Borden's next shot killed the Cortina's paintwork.
Right. Gene and Sam rose in unity and fired off a couple of shots, not doing much damage except to the car Borden was hiding behind. This was a pure western standoff, and there would be no way to get at Borden until he broke cover or ran out of bullets.
And then Gene spotted the Cavalry coming down the street. In a taxi cab.
The car slid to a halt at an angle in the middle of the street and Ray and Chris got out, taking cover behind it and firing at Borden.
"Sorry, Guv," Ray shouted. "The car broke down. Had to improvise a bit."
"Save the chit chat for later," Gene called back. "Just shoot the bastard!"
But Borden was some sort of killing machine. He could kill you with a knife, he could kill you with a gun and he seemed to have at least two of those for he was firing in two different directions at once.
The girl suddenly gave a panicked little squeal and stood up, and Gene just knew that she was going to run straight into gunfire. His eyes followed a spray of bullet as they zeroed in at the new centre of movement. But then Sam was on the move.
"Sam!" Gene shouted, but it was too late. Sam was already making a mad dash along the parked cars. To get to the girl. To pull her back down to safety.
"Ray! Chris! Cover fire! Now!" Gene stood up, heedless of the bullets striking the side of the Cortina. He had to finish this so he fired every shot he had, then crouched down to reload.
Borden had stopped firing back. All was quiet once again. Someone must have hit him. But none of them dared to move out into the open just yet. "Ray! Check that the bastard's dead."
Ray moved towards the side of Burdon's last hiding place, carefully, slowly. Then confirmed it, "He's down, Guv."
They were finally free to rise from cover and Gene started counting in his lost sheep. They all seemed to be well and there except...
"Tyler!" No reply. "Sam!" The silence cut him with little shards of ice. He didn't want to think about what it might mean. "Ray, radio it in. Tell them we need an ambulance!" He started running towards where Sam and the girl had last been.
Sam lay crumpled on the ground, still protectively wrapped around the little girl. She was crying, curled into a little ball, hiding her face.
Chris reached them first. "Boss?" he said tentatively and took hold of Sam's shoulder. Just a gentle tug and Sam rolled from his side over onto his back. Sam's eyes were open, blinking. There was blood. Lots of it. Blood, all over the front of his shirt.
"I can't breathe," Sam said, an almost surprised look on his face.
"Bloody hell, I said no heroics," Gene said, kneeling down and carefully pulling away Sam's jacket so they could see the wounds. He heard Chris draw a quick breath beside him. Sam had been hit twice in the chest and Gene had absolutely no clue what to do. He pulled out a handkerchief and pressed it down where the blood seemed to be welling out most. It went red within seconds.
"Chris, take that girl away. Check if she's alright." The girl's cries had died down to little whimpers now. Chris took her and carried her away, talking calmingly at her all the way. A shadow fell across Sam and Gene looked up.
"It's on it's way, Guv," Ray said before Gene could even ask.
"Prop him up a bit, Ray. He says he can't breathe."
"Right, Guv." Ray lifted Sam up, surprisingly gentle, his arms providing support for Sam's back. For a second it seemed as if it was working and Sam took some desperate breaths. But then he started to cough and choke, his whole face contorted with pain and there was blood on his lips. Gene looked on in helpless horror and there was a strange look of panic on Ray's face as well.
Sam's hand came up and grabbed hold of Ray's lapel with surprising strength. He pulled himself up, closer to Ray, giving him one final whispered message to pass on, "Tell Annie-" but then his body failed him and his head fell back against Ray's arm and his hand fell away lifeless. He drew one more shuddering breath and then he stopped.
"Sam," Gene said and couldn't hold back the disbelief in his voice. He felt the neck for a pulse. Nothing. He felt the chest, for a heartbeat, a breath, something. There was nothing. He gently closed Sam's still open eyes and then closed himself off so he could do what needed to be done.
"You can put him down, Ray," he said, carefully suppressing any emotion in his voice.
Ray did as he told him. He carefully laid Sam to rest and then looked down at the blood on his hands. There was a look of shock on his face. "Guv, I'm...." He didn't seem to know how to finish and finally just gave a helpless shrug.
Gene stood up and pulled out a hipflask and didn't stop drinking until it was empty. He sniffed and looked around. Far away he could hear the sirens now, telling them the ambulance was drawing near. That help was on the way. Too late.
Gene could taste ashes in his mouth, ashes that seemed to swirl down and settle around his heart. Ray was looking at him for direction.
"We need forensics," Gene told him.
"Guv?" Ray didn't understand. Sam would have understood.
"This is a crime scene," Gene said. "Let's get it documented."
*********
He got through documenting the crime scene, got through closing the Gloria Carter murder case. Got through filling in the right papers in the correct way. Got through bearing Rathbone's false show of sympathy and Litton's slightly more sincere one. Gene got through it all, but when faced with Sam's wake at the pub he suddenly felt lost. They were all standing there, looking at him, people he knew and sometimes cared about, waiting for him to make the public toast to Sam's memory. And he didn't know what to say. But he had to say something.
"Sam Tyler liked to do things by the book." Yes, that was a good place to start. He could do this. "Just whose bloody book it was I have no idea, for many of the things he came up with were, well, original to say the least. He was surprising and irritating and just about the craziest bastard I've ever met. And the best copper." He could feel himself falter and pushed away his feelings once again. "I won't say anything about his methods but no one could fault his conviction. Or his courage. And for that, all of us are better coppers today." He let his eyes fall on Ray for a second and then raised his pint. "To Sam. May he pursue murdering bastards in heaven from now on."
"And make sure they get a fair trial," Chris piped up and some laughed and others laughed and cried, but they all said "To Sam," and drank, in his memory.
Later, when they were all a bit drunker he found himself at a corner table together with Ray and Chris and Annie Cartwright, her pretty blue eyes shiny with unshed tears.
"Sam was really smart," Gene said. "Wasn't he? I mean, in his own way."
"He was brilliant, the Boss was," Chris said. His eyes were shiny too. From drinking too much or from tears, Gene couldn't tell. They both looked over at Ray who had been saying something privately to Annie.
"He was special," Annie said, her voice soft and full of sorrow.
"We're not going to see another one like him," Gene agreed and this time all three of them looked at Ray. He looked back at them, opened his mouth, thought better of it and shut it again.
"Guv," Annie said and had to stop and swallow hard before continuing, "I'd like to see him."
"Right now?" Gene asked. She looked scared but gave him a determined nod.
Gene nodded in turn. "Let's go," he said. He had some unfinished business himself to take care of.
*********
Side by side they stood in the empty morgue, looking down at the body that was still completely covered by the green sheet.
"You know," Gene said quietly. "I was half expecting him to be gone. Vanished into thin air. Gone back somewhere. To where he came from."
He reached out and pulled the sheet away from the head. Sam had been stripped of his clothes and cleaned up a bit. But he was still dead. Undeniably dead. Unbelievably dead.
"Oh," Annie said. A small grieving sound. Gene looked over at her. She was pretty even when she cried. He thought about offering her a hankie, then remembered with a cold feeling that he no longer had any.
"His last words were for you," he offered instead.
She sniffled a bit and nodded. "Ray told me."
He wondered exactly what Ray had told her. He's have to ask him about that. Later. Much later.
She bent down and kissed Sam's lips, whispered something in his ear, her tears falling down on Sam's face. After several minutes she straightened up again, stroking Sam's cheek and over his hair.
"Oh, Sam," she said again. Biting her lip and closing her eyes. She suddenly took a deep breath and turned to leave, her eyes so full of despair that Gene almost let her go. But instead he said, "Wait."
He had to confess it to someone and it might as well be her. In fact it had to be her, no one else. For she was the only one who would understand. The only other person who'd really miss Sam, like Gene himself would.
"I want you to witness something. I made a bet with Sam, right before-" he broke off, swallowed. "He bet that I would miss him when he was gone. I said that I wouldn't. I was wrong." He pulled up two 50 p coins from his pocket, placed one on each of Sam's closed eyelids. "Something for the ferryman. You win, Sam."
Annie wiped at her eyes. "You think he knew?"
He shrugged. "Sometimes I thought he knew things that no one else did. Other times I really thought he was mad. I guess, we'll never know now."
She hesitated. "Do you remember when we first met him? He gave me some papers. About things."
They both looked over at Sam. "Things he said would happen." Gene nodded.
"I still have some of them," Annie said.
"You going to hang on to them?"
"You want them, Guv?" They looked at each other.
"No, no ... it's just... well, we could see if any of it comes true, couldn't we?"
"Sam once told me that there will be a woman Prime Minister soon."
"Heaven forbid." Gene fought the urge to cross himself.
They stood in silence once more and then Annie said, "I have to go." Pain had returned to her voice. Gene nodded.
"Cartwright, I have to go to his apartment tomorrow. I'd appreciate it if..."
"Yes, Guv," Annie said and then fled before she broke down completely.
And then it was just the two of them left.
He reached for the green sheet and then stopped, remembering the last time he'd been in this morgue, waking Sam up. It seemed like a lifetime ago. He felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness and grief claw it's way to the surface. It hurt. Bloody hell, it hurt.
"Wake up, Sam," he whispered.
There was pain showing now. In his voice, in his eyes, in his heart. He didn't bother to hide it any longer. There was no one there to see.
No one alive.
...in a coma....
2. Distant voices
---------------------------------------------------
"Wake up, Sam."His eyes shot open as someone pulled the sheet away from his face and he hastily sat upright on the autopsy table. He looked down at his shirt, expecting to see blood, but there wasn't any.
"What's going on?"
The last thing he remembered was dying. He'd died, actually died. In Ray Carling's arms. That was just wrong on so many levels.
"Come on." Gene motioned him. "We're going for a little walk."
"Where?" He jumped down on the floor.
"Come on," Gene said again, his face was completely neutral. Just like it had been that night when they'd gone to see Joni's dead body down by the canal. Uh-oh. This was something bad.
"Shouldn't we stay in the morgue?"
Gene stopped. "Why should we do that?"
"If you're going to kill me it might as well be here." He meant it as a sarcastic remark. Sam was totally unprepared when Gene shrugged and raised a revolver he hadn't even noticed up until that moment. "Okay," Gene said and took aim, straight at Sam's face.
"Gene, I was only kidding-" he said, disbelieving, desperate.
"I'm sorry, but I have to do this." Gene fired once, then lowered the gun. "You're cracked, Sam."
Sam was still standing, and breathing and wondering what the hell was going on. He looked down at his body and saw what Gene saw. Tiny cracks, everywhere. Pieces falling away. And underneath it he looked just the same, except he was wearing a suit. The same one he'd worn the day he was run over.
"What's going on?" he whispered again.
"Figure it out, Sam. You're a detective, aren't you?" Gene said. "What was one of the first things you said when you came here from Hyde?"
"This isn't real." Sam wasn't sure if he was talking about right then or that first day.
"Bingo."
"So?"
"So. You were right. This - isn't - real." He punctuated each of the last three words with a hard poke of his finger at Sam's chest.
The last of the shards fell away and Sam felt strange, like he'd just gotten a new skin. Or like he'd lost something, a protective shield he'd never even been aware of.
"Then what is it?" he asked Gene.
"I'll let Cartwright explain it to you. Wouldn't want to confuse you with similes and whatsits. You never get them when I use them."
"That's 'cause you always use them wrong," Sam muttered.
"I do not," Gene said. He sniffed derogatorily and snapped his fingers and suddenly they were up in the squad room and Annie was there, looking at him with apprehension. Sam sank down on the chair by his desk, torn between laughing and crying and just running away.
"You were the one who told me this was all real," he said accusingly. "Now you're going to tell me it's not?"
"No, it is real, Sam. Just not in the way I said it was. I needed set you off in a certain direction and I wanted you to trust me. And you do, don't you, Sam? You trust me?"
He looked at her at her large, beautiful, blue eyes. So open, so caring, so anxious when she looked at him. How could he not trust her when she looked at him like that?
"Yes," he sighed.
"We couldn't tell you before. You weren't ready to hear it."
"We?" Sam questioned.
Chris sat down on the edge of the opposite desk, giving him a little wave. "Hiya, Boss." Ray gave Sam a menacing stare across the desk and continued smoking in silence.
"So you're all in on this. What is this? What's going on."
"Well." Annie hesitated. "Do you remember that day when you got run over? Do you remember what Maya said to you before that happened?"
He'd gone months without hearing that name spoken, without even thinking about her and now it hit him like a physical blow. He blinked.
"Oh, my God," Sam said, a bit too loud to be talking to himself. "I'm mad. I really did go mad." Suddenly it seemed the only explanation that fit all the pieces.
Gene sighed the sigh of the long suffering. "Hurry up, Cartwright. The Pub will be closed before he gets it. You might be a clueless jessie, Sam, but you're not mad. What you are is in a coma. Now can we get on with it?"
Sam squeezed his eyes shut, laid his hands over his ears, listened intently to the noises coming from that shadowy world beyond his reach.
"I'm in a coma?" It felt right, better than thinking he was mad. "I'm in a coma." He opened his eyes to find both Chris and Annie nodding encouragingly at him.
"Why all this?" He waved his hands around and the surroundings wavered and then stabilized again. "Why not just tell me?"
"I told you that you were here for a reason," Annie continued. "And that reason was that you needed to learn to listen to all of us. Until you did, you weren't ready to hear the truth."
"Listen to you? Who are you?" Annie and Chris shared a look of uncertainty on how to proceed. Gene sighed explosively once again but didn't say anything further. Ray laughed.
"Told you he wouldn't get it," he said. Annie shot daggers at Ray then turned pleadingly towards Sam.
"You know us, Sam. You know all of us. We've always been here. You just forgot about us because bad things happened and you couldn't take it anymore, so you stopped listening to us. It happened gradually and slowly. You hid us away. But you do know us. Please, Sam."
They were all looking at him now, waiting. "But that ..." Sam started and then halted, again unsure. "What you're saying is that .... that you're me. That you're my... instincts, or feelings?"
"Finally!" Gene exclaimed, saluted him with his hip flask and took a swig out of it.
Annie smiled at Sam. "Maya told you that you had lost your instincts and she was right, you had. Your mum told you to hide your feelings away and you did, with success. You became a very good cop by doing that. But you lost a part of yourself too. You've always known it but never really did anything about it until the accident. And being a detective you set this whole place up where you could work it all out, find those forgotten memories and set things straight. Start over."
Sam stayed silent for a moment, taking it all in. He knew she was right. It wasn't so much reasoning as feeling the truth of her words. Annie sat down on his desk, cocked her head and looked at him. He took her hand and gave it a kiss.
"So... what part of my mind are you then?" he asked. She grinned mischievously. "Guess," she challenged him.
"I'd say logic and reasoning. And especially compassion." That earned him a brief kiss back, on the cheek. He stood up, walked over to where Gene was leaning against a filing cabinet and studied him in silence.
"Conviction. Strength. But... most of all ... gut instinct." He almost expected Gene to punch him but instead Gene gave him that little nod that he always gave when Sam was on the right track.
Sam walked over to Chris and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Optimism. Willingness to learn and a sense of adventure." Chris gave him an enthusiastic grin.
Finally he walked over to Ray. "But you - you, I'm not sure about."
"You're not? It's easy really," Ray mocked him.
"Then why don't you tell me?" Sam answered quietly. They stared at each other. Ray smiled darkly and blew a cloud of smoke into Sam's face. "I'm the part that you simply don't want to know about."
Sam nodded. That made sense.
"What about that little girl with the clown?"
Annie came over and took his hand. "She's part of your fears, Sam. Your fear of giving up. Of dying. And of living."
"And Nelson?" Sam asked Gene when he came over to stand beside him. "I've always wondered about him."
"He's part of your consciousness, trying to steer you in the right direction. Now can we get down to the Pub? I'm dying of thirst here." Gene grabbed his collar and started moving him out the door.
"Wait!" Sam dug in his heels and they all stopped in the door opening. "What's going to happen now."
"Now?" Gene said. "Now you're going home, Sammy boy. Nelson can tell you how to do it better than we can."
"But I'm not sure I want to go home." That made all of them look at him.
"You've been telling us for months we've been holding you back and stopping you from going home-"
"You were!"
"Sure we were." Gene nodded. "But that's not the point. The point is that you weren't ready before but now you are. Nothing is stopping you anymore. You can go back where you really belong. So go home, Sam."
"But I don't want to lose all this," Sam confessed.
Gene looked around, eyebrows raised. "This? You've always hated the place."
"No," Sam whispered. "I mean I don't want to lose all of you."
Annie hugged him close and he closed his eyes, resting his cheek against hers. He could feel Gene's hand on one of his shoulders and Chris's hand on the other, giving him their strength and support. "How can you lose us, Sam?" she said into his ear. "We've always been here. We'll always be here. You won't lose us. You can't."
"Promise me."
"I promise, Sam."
The hug went on for a little longer until Gene cleared his throat and tugged on Sam's collar once again.
"Now can we go before we all drown in sentiment? I feel like drowning in a pint, myself."
Sam laughed. "Pub is the answer to everything for you, isn't it?"
"You telling me it's not?"
Sam shook his head, still grinning. "No."
"Good lad. Come on then."
"Come on, Sam." Annie was still holding his hand. She tugged at it and he went with her. "It's time to go."
... or back in time?
3. Carbon Copy.
-----------------------------------------
"Wake up, Sam. It's time to go.""What?" Sam raised his head from where it had rested on the coroner's report. A sheet of paper was still stuck to his cheek. He brushed it away and repeated, "What?"
"Pub, Tyler," Gene responded with barely disguised impatience. "You coming or what?"
"He's already said 'What', Guv," Ray said. Behind Ray's shoulder Chris grinned a bit apologetically at Sam.
"Very funny, Ray," Sam said dryly as he picked up his leather jacket.
"Aim to please, Boss."
On the way to the pub he ignored the banter going on around him and took time to think. That had been a really weird dream. He couldn't remember much of it but Annie had given him a kiss in it and that was really all he needed to remember.
They walked into the mildly crowded pub and Gene said, "You buying, Tyler? Good. Four pints. Bring them back," and pushed him forward towards the bar disk before Sam could even think of a reply. He turned around to see the other three make their way over to a corner table and sit down, already deep in some conversation. Sam resigned himself to his fate and walked over to where Nelson stood.
"Four pints, please, Nelson. Apparently I'm buying."
Nelson nodded and smiled, pulled four pints and then took a quick look around, the smile suddenly dropping off his face.
"Listen, Sam," he said hurriedly and without his fake West Indies accent. "This is only going to work for a limited amount of time so you need to listen well."
Sam had been busy counting his money. Now he looked up with a distracted frown. "What is going to wo-hang on!"
Everything was quiet, too quiet. Nobody was moving or talking, they had all stopped in the middle of whatever they were doing, even the clock had stopped ticking. Sam became fascinated with a fly that was floating in the air near his head. He reached out and pushed at it with his finger. It moved away a bit and then floated right back to it's original position. It felt a little bit like stretching a rubber band.
"Sam! Focus!" Nelson said with some urgency. "Oh, right," Sam said and turned away from the fly to look around the room. "What's happened to them?" He asked.
"Nothing. They're the same as always. It's us. We're just outside at the moment."
"Outside? Outside of what?" Sam asked, although he had already guessed. He could see the smoke from Ray's cigarette curl up in the air in a perfect, unmoving arc. It was just such a weird situation. Even weirder than usual and he needed to hear the answer, to confirm that he hadn't really gone completely mad today, thank you very much.
"Outside of time, Sam. Look, it should come as no surprise that I'm not really from around here."
"No, not really a surprise," Sam agreed. "Where are you from?"
"That's too long a story for today. Now listen, this is important. I know you've been wondering if this is all real so I'll tell you this first - Yes, it is. We're really here in 1973. There was an accident in 2006. Not the one where you got run over. Another type of accident involving time and subspace and the fabric of the universe. A quantum rift was created and you fell through it at the same time as you had your accident. Unfortunately that wasn't all. You were also duplicated at the time and flung into two different time locations, thereby creating a connection through time with you at the centre of it."
Sam blinked a few times while the thoughts tumbled to a stop in his head.
"So you mean that I'm actually here, in 1973."
"Yes."
"And I'm also there, in 2006?"
"Yes."
"At the same time?"
"Mhm."
"And both of us are real? Or, is any one of us more real than the other? Am I more real than him?"
"No, you're both equally real. You're both you. At least at this moment. And of course, one of you is in a coma as a result of being run over. But you're both the single entity known as Sam Tyler."
Sam frowned. It all sounded vaguely familiar to him. Hadn't he seen this plot in some Star Trek episode before? He gave himself a mental shake. Never mind.
"How does that work?" he asked.
"Think of it as the creation of a perfect carbon copy. Except you're both originals. Like identical twins. But you both have the exact same experience, up until the accident."
"This is making my head hurt," Sam said. "Hang on, all those things I've been seeing and hearing-"
"Bits of consciousness, forgotten memories, sensory experiments and nightmares filtering down through the connection. It works both ways. The you in 2006 is probably dreaming about 1973 right now."
"So I really am feeling what's happening to him. Uh -me. Him? Oh fuck. Why are you telling me this now? I've been here for months."
"Because this is the first time we've thought we could do something about it. At first we didn't know what to do. I came here in advance to look for you and see how you got on. Creating an identity for you, to make it easier for you to be here."
"You could have told me," Sam complained. "People have looked at me like I was mad. And I wasn't sure that I wasn't, either."
"Yeah." Nelson looked a bit chastised. "Sorry, Sam. It was a bit of a rush job and I've been under strict orders to interfere as little as possible and just observe. They thought it would be too much work to get me into the police force at this point in time, looking the way I do. I've had to observe all from a distance. But you all seem to end up here anyway every day so it's been working pretty well."
"You said you could do something about this," Sam reminded him. "What?"
"We think we can break the connection between the two you. When that happens we think you'll both move to some convergence point where the universe decides if it can support two exact copies of the same entity or-"
"Or?"
"Or if one, or both of you will have to be destroyed, like matter-antimatter. When they meet they instantly annihilate one another."
Sam and Nelson looked at each other in silence for a moment. Finally Sam said, "That doesn't sound good."
"No," Nelson agreed. "But that's the worst case scenario. We don't really think that'll happen."
"You realize you're saying 'we think' an awful lot?"
"Well, that's part of the problem. Nothing like this has ever happened before, so we're not really sure how it'll all end when we try to fix it."
"And how do you fix it?"
"Well." Nelson didn't quite meet his eye now. "Uh, we think the best way to sever the connection is by killing you."
"Excuse me?" Sam leaned in towards the bar disk in quite an intimidating way and felt a shard of satisfaction when Nelson looked acutely uncomfortable.
"You have to die and then hopefully be brought back."
"Hopefully?"
"Hopefully, yes. And... there is a snag."
"A snag?" Sam could feel his face take on an almost maniacal expression, making Nelson squirm even more.
"A snag. We think you'll end up back in yourself but there are just no guarantees."
"You mean I could die here and wake up here. Or die there and wake up there. Or- die here, and there, and wake up here, or there. Is that it?"
"Well... there IS a chance that you just die, in one place or the other or even both, and wake up nowhere."
Sam closed his eyes and rubbed his hands over his face. "This is really making my head hurt. I need a drink." He opened his eyes again to see Nelson pour him a double scotch and he drank it down so quick that he nearly choked.
"So basically I die and no one has a clue what happens after that?"
"Yeah. We think a lot of it is up to you, really. That you go to the place where you feel like you belong most. Whether that means you'll be integrated back into yourself or remain as two persons."
"You mean I'm going home?"
"Is that really where you belong?" Nelson said and when he thought about it Sam found that he had no real answer to give, only more questions.
"What happens if I stay here? In 1973?"
"Then you stay here." Nelson shrugged. "I don't know."
"Well, that's reassuring."
"Seriously, Sam. There's no way to predict the outcome, so we'll have to deal with it as it happens. Almost forgot, an opportunity is coming up tonight."
"An opportunity. To do what? To die?"
"Yes. We think you should take it. We highly recommend that you do. Brace yourself, mon brave. We're about to step back in time, right - now. "
The whole room seemed to waver around them and everything started up again, like a DVD player going from pause to play. Real. Unreal. Surreal. Sam didn't know quite what to call it but he felt like he was moving through a dream as he carefully made his way over to the table with the four pints.
"Finally," Gene greeted his arrival. "You were over there forever."
Sam froze, wondering if it was possible that Gene had noticed something of what had been going on. But he was immediately reassured by the way Gene ignored everything else to focus on his beer that was now within his reach. Gene took a big gulp and then broke off, frowning and giving Sam a look of displeasure. "This beer's gone a bit flat," he stated.
So far it had been a most trying day for Sam and he exploded with an acidic spark. "You're the most ungrateful bastard I've ever met! Would it hurt you to say thanks just one time? What if I get killed tonight? What are you going to say to that, eh?"
Gene stared at him in silence for a second, like he usually did when confronted with the weirdness that was Sam Tyler, and then shook it off.
"I'm going to say that it was a good thing that your round came up first, before you snuffed it. Otherwise you'd have left us all dry." Suddenly Gene frowned again and sniffed twice before giving Sam a suspicious look. "Have you been drinking scotch?"
Sam threw up his arms in a gesture of frustration and decide there was really nothing he could say. Instead he crossed his arms and leaned back on his chair and started a silent stare war with Gene who quickly decided to just ignore him in favour of continued drinking.
Sam felt nervous energy thrumming through him, so much that he could barely sit still. He looked down at his hands, clenched and unclenched them. Repeated the action. He was going to die tonight. If he got lucky.
He looked up to find Gene frowning at him. "What's the matter with you, Tyler? You're jumping around in your seat like you've caught something off a prozzie."
"Nothing. Nothing's the matter," Sam said and tried to settle down a bit more. He really needed to think about something else. Anything else. Case files. He could think about case files. In fact ... why didn't he just go back and read through them right now?
"Right," he said, getting to his feet. "I've got to get back."
"You've barely touched your beer," Gene pointed out, making it sound like something unheard of.
"You can have it. I've got paperwork." He turned and walked out of the pub without looking back. But he didn't get far before hearing Gene's steps behind him. He stopped, not turning round. "What do you want?"
Gene walked up beside him and stopped as well. Sam could feel Gene look at him but was determined to look straight ahead himself. "Since you just ruined my enjoyment of a fine beverage I thought I'd come out here and ask you why you did that."
"Thought you said it was a bit flat," Sam replied and started walking again. Gene grabbed his elbow hard, forcing him to stop and look him in the face. Gene was looking at him with searching eyes, trying to see straight through his head to the thoughts inside.
"Now tell me, Sam. Seriously. Have you taken something?"
The words 'Yes, a reality check' flew through Sam's head but he was smart enough not to actually say them. The last thing he needed was to aggravate Gene further. He forced himself to be perfectly still and patient and serious.
"No," he said. "I'm not drunk. I'm not high. And I'm definitely not mad."
Gene looked at him again and then released his grip. "Good," he said and they resumed their walk.
Two hours after they had gotten back to the station Sam realized he was getting nowhere. It was getting dark outside and he couldn't stop staring at the paper in front of him. Time of death. Time of death. Time. Of. Death. Timeofdeathtimeofdeathtimeofdeath- Stop it!
He got up to get a cup of tea but never got that far. Instead he just stood there, looking up at the clock and anticipating every tick as if it was the last. "Tyler."
"What?" He turned around in time to be hit in the face by his own jacket, thrown at him by Gene.
"Got a stabbing near the old waterworks. Come on!"
Not for the first time Sam wondered if it was going to be a car crash that would do him in. The way Gene drove it seemed almost a certainty at times. And then there had been that other thing - in 2006, where he had actually been run over. And also duplicated. He sighed.
At least he was luckier than the poor bugger who was stretched out dead on a dark street after having been stabbed twenty-four times in the chest and abdomen.
"Name?" Sam asked Chris who shrugged in answer.
"Wallet then?"
"Haven't found any, Boss. Must have taken it. Probably a robbery gone bad."
Sam crouched down and studied the wound patterns, shook his head. "No, this is too violent. It's most likely something personal. Unless the perpetrator was on drugs. Well, it could of course be both. Let's not rule anything out just yet, Chris. I'll get a flashlight and go look for the wallet. It could have been dumped nearby to throw us off. Tell the Guv."
"Right, Boss."
Sam walked away back down a long, darkened alleyway, the most obvious escape route. After just a few yards he could see the flash light glitter in small drops of dark red matter. He leaned down and studied them carefully. Blood. So he was on the right track. Fifty yards on he found the wallet. It looked intact. He opened it carefully to preserve any prints. There was money still in it. Yes, definitely on the right track. He'd better radio it in before he went further into the darkness. He actually went as far as patting down his pockets before realizing that he'd forgotten to bring a radio. He'd have to go back, unless... Sam looked down towards the street. At first he could see no one then Ray moved into a pool of street light, on his way to somewhere else.
"Ray!" Sam called. Ray stopped and looked up the alleyway, spotted Sam waving and started to walk slowly towards him. "Ray! Come up here and watch where you put your feet! Move to the other side of the alley. There's a blood trail here." Sam marked it with his flashlight and Ray moved out of its path.
"Yeah, Boss?"
"I've got a blood trail and a wallet here. I want you to-" Sam broke off, distracted by a movement in the corner of his eye. "Did you see that?"
"Yeah, Boss. Couldn't tell what it was but it was something."
Both of them stared up the alley, hoping to catch it again. They started to slowly walk in the direction of that movement. Twenty yards ahead the shadow silhouette of a black-clad man broke away from its hiding place and started to run.
"He's still here!" Sam called and started the chase. "Radio it in!"
Sam ran, steadily gaining ground on the fleeing suspect, unaware if Ray was following instructions or even following him. He chased the suspect round the corner of a building, straight into another alley and then round another corner into an enclosed yard of some kind. And there he stopped, the suspect being nowhere in sight.
Sam looked around. He recognized this place. This was the old waterworks, where Trent and his men had nearly killed Leonard and Annie and himself. Somewhere nearby he heard the sound of a door gently closing. He started to move towards that sound, down some steps. Stopped with his hand on the door handle. This was a bad idea. Going in without back-up in search of a murdering bastard. Really, really bad idea.
He opened the door and stepped into darkness. Sam could hear water dripping and his own shallow breathing but no other sound. He moved the flashlight around, taking in grey concrete walls, pipes and hanging chains. The last time he's been here he's been too busy to actually take in what the place looked like but now he thought it would make a great set for a horror movie.
Sounds. Someone was moving about on another level slightly above and to the side of him. He moved quietly up the stairs, turning off the flashlight. Slipping soundlessly through the door opening. At least he thought so until the suspect in front of him turned around and attacked. He hit Sam like a ton of bricks, grabbing hold of Sam's throat with one hand and slamming him into the wall. Two hard and quick punches to his gut and Sam couldn't breathe. Pain was spreading but he was about get away from all of it, the edges of his vision starting to go grey. His body still tried instinctively to fight but his mind was calm. He was going home.
Then new sounds. And lights. The attacker was wrenched away from Sam. There was a fight right in front of him but he couldn't quite make out what was happening. It was effort enough to just to keep from passing out and to hold himself upright with a little help from the wall.
Finally the suspect was down on the ground and cuffed and Gene straightened up, brushing plaster dust off his camel coat.
"Well, that was a bloody stupid move," he said. Sam wondered if Gene was talking to the perpetrator or him.
"Where did you come from?" Sam asked, hearing his own voice shake.
Gene grinned. "Trust the Gene Genie. Ray told me what you were up to. I figured this was the most likely place you'd turn up in, around here. I was right, wasn't I?"
"Yes, you were." His stomach was hurting even worse than before. He shivered. Something was wrong. He pressed his hand against his shirt just over the place that hurt the most and it came away wet. Those punches, not just a fist then. A knife. Oh, damn, that hurt!
Gene stopped grinning and studied him more carefully. "You okay, Sam?"
"No," he said, starting to slide down the wall. "No, I'm not."
"Bloody hell," Gene said and caught him, gently sitting him down and propping his back up against the wall. Gene pulled out a handkerchief and pressed it down on Sam's wounds.
"He got me good, Gene. I think-"
"Don't say it," Gene interrupted. "Don't you dare create more paperwork for me. I've got enough to deal with as it is. Just hang on, Sam."
"Sorry," Sam said and smiled apologetically. But then a wave of pain swept in and the smile fell away and his eyes closed. Sam rested his heavy head against the wall and floated as he listened to Gene giving orders, setting things into motion.
"Don't have time to wait for the bloody ambulance. We'll take him to the hospital ourselves. Did Chris bring the car around?"
"Yes, Guv."
"Good. Now lift."
Sam was pulled up, around, out of the building and finally deposited in the backseat of the Cortina with Ray. He felt cold. So bloody cold.
"Keep pressure on those wounds, Ray." Gene said over his shoulder as the Cortina shot out on the road.
"Right, Guv."
But it was too late, wasn't it? Sam could feel it now, the call to go somewhere else. And yet he didn't want to go. He was still hanging on here. Still here. Because he'd changed so much since falling out of 2006. Changed in ways that wasn't so bad and he really did belong here. He realized that now. He couldn't believe he had fought it so much before. But that was the mother of all paradoxes - to be able to stay, he had to go.
"Guv!" Even Ray sounded a bit alarmed now. "I think he's-"
"No, he's not!" Gene's voice was fiercely determined. "We're nearly there. Hang on, Sam!"
Sam had been so cold but now he was floating in warmth. "You should see the light. It's so bright," he whispered.
"What did you say, Boss?" came Ray's startled response.
But Sam was gone, floating out into silvery light. Drawn towards a point in the distance and coming face to face with - himself.
"Hello, Sam." the other Sam said, smiling.
"Hello me, myself and I," Sam answered. "You know what's going on?"
"I know as much as you. I've heard everything. Luckily, I was never brain dead."
"Then you know about dad."
The other Sam's face clouded over. "Yes, I remember everything now. I can't believe I forgot it for so many years."
"Self preservation," Sam said and the other Sam nodded. "So, what do we do now?"
"I think we should cut this thing apart," other Sam suggested and pointed at a grey cord that stretched out between them. "I'm not really sure what'll happen when we do, though."
"Do you think we'll remember anything about our split lives?"
"I hope so. I just hope we can also avoid that whole mutual annihilation thing."
"Well, so far so good. The connection really did work both ways. You heard what Nelson said."
"Yeah, but it wasn't very hard. He was sitting right there by my bed when he said it."
"He was? Hang on - he's been visiting you in 2006?"
"He thought it best to talk to me in person. He knew I'd hear him, even in a coma. Time travel, Sam. If you can go one way you can go the other. You've been getting slow since dropping down in 1973, haven't you?"
"Shut up," Sam told himself. "We're really two different people now, aren't we?"
"Yes, I think we are. But it feels kind of right. At least to me."
"Yes, me too. And you want to wake up in 2006."
"But you don't. You want to stay in 1973."
"Hope we can both get what we want. I made my decision right before I died. I've got friends in 1973."
"Do you really want to live through the 80's again, Sam?"
"You've got a point," Sam acknowledged. "But I want to know how it all ends up."
"I always was too curious for my own good," other Sam said.
"No, we weren't. Not before, at least. We loved rules and order and procedures a bit too much. But I am curious. Too curious at times. And it's not as bad as I thought it would be, going out on a limb. So maybe you'll be curious too, from now on. Endure a little chaos, Sam. It can be quite refreshing."
Other Sam grinned. "I'll take my word for it. Shall we do this? Maybe we can pull it apart. Here's to both of us making it home."
They both placed their hands near each other on opposite sides of the cord and hesitated.
"Better to go out with a bang," Sam said. "Take care of Mum, will you?"
"You know I will," other Sam said. "Bye, Sam. It would be interesting to see you in the future. But not until I'm out of the coma."
They tugged at the cord simultaneously and it was surprisingly brittle and broke into splinters with a crackling sound, like an old piece of wood. For Sam the universe seemed to turn inside out and then blink out of existence.
It came back to him slowly. Something was tugging at him, reeling him in like a fish on a hook and he could only go with it, no need to resist it at all.
Sounds came back to him long before anything else but he wasn't awake enough yet to make real sense of them. Machines. And then voices. Slowly other parts of him reported in. And then pain came back, but thankfully dulled underneath a blanket of drugs.
"He moved!"
Oh, good, he knew that voice. Now if he could just open his eyes to see her.
"I think he's waking up."
"About bloody time. I've nearly run out of single malt here."
"Sam? Can you hear us? Someone should get the doctor."
"Chris, go and fix it."
"Right, Guv." Sam heard steps moving away.
He struggled with the final obstacle, his uncooperative eyelids. He could overcome them. he could. Just a little more effort. His eyes opened a fraction..
"Sam! You're back."
Like an echo of each other two voices answered, thirty-three years apart, "I'm back." Finally.
The End