| "�tears are
filling up their glasses" The red telephone started to ring and he looked at it, suspicious. He'd never heard it ring before. He looked around. No one else was taking the blindest bit of notice, as if they weren't hearing it. Selective deafness. Bloody typical around here. Reaching out with a large hand he grabbed up the slim receiver and put it to his ear. He heard beeping, like some weird alarm clock but steadily increasing in pitch and speed. There was a hissing too, like air escaping from a balloon blown up too far. And over it all a man's voice said, "Brain activity is increasing. Reaction to stimulus is getting stronger. Sam? Come on, Sam. It's time to wake up now. You can make it, Sam. Come on. Come back to us." Slamming the receiver back into the cradle, Gene Hunt's frightened gaze settled on his DI, sitting at the hurriedly pushed-together tables, a pint in his hand, laughing at one of Ray's crude in-law jokes. 'Come back to us.' "No." Gene muttered to himself, turning to order a double whiskey. "He's stayin' here." ~ "Sam? It's time, Sam. It's almost over, and then you can come home." Sam dropped the receiver, cut off the call from Hyde and looked around the quiet CID office with growing panic. Something started screaming in his mind and he recognised the sound of an EKG alarm. The green telephone rang again, and he picked it up. "They're rotten, Sam, to the core, and you know it. He's the senior man, they do what he says. Bring him down and the others will fall. Do what you were sent there to do and we'll bring you in. We'll bring you home." It was enough. He lifted the phone from his desk and hurled it across the office where it landed and cracked on the floor. Breathing like he'd just run the London marathon, Sam glanced about and caught sight of Gene Hunt's blond head above the wooden panel in his office door. He didn't have a choice but it was still the most difficult decision he'd made. Pushing his chair back he rose from behind his desk. The chair unbalanced and toppled over backwards, and the snap of wood startled him. He stared at it for a second, remembering just for a moment and with absolute clarity the first day he'd come here, sat in that chair with his arms wrapped around himself and nothing but confused terror in his head. He'd have done anything to go home that day, and for many, many days afterwards. But not now. There had been a time he would have gladly destroyed this place to get back to where he belonged. But no longer. Leaving the chair, he fled to Gene Hunt's office. Blue eyes pinned him to the door as it closed behind him. "Sam, what's up?" He took a deep breath. "Okay. This is going to sound crazy." "Everything you say sounds crazy." Luckily, Gene was in one of his 'listen to the madman, he has good ideas' moods. "Try me." Sam moved forward, stopped and dropped his open palms to the desktop strewn with paperwork and brown files. Gene leaned forward too, meeting his intensity head on. "Something bad's about to happen. An internal investigation maybe. I don't know." Interest turned to suspicion. "What have you done, Sam?" "Nothing. I give you my word and you have to believe me. I've done nothing. But I'm not the one they sent. I'm not the one who was supposed to come here. And when he gets here� he'll destroy it all." Gene's expression clearly stated that this was a lot crazier than the usual outbursts. With a frustrated groan, Sam moved around the desk, grabbed the arm of Gene's chair and turned him to face him as he leaned in. "I don't belong here, with you. I wish I did, but I don't. And I think�" he took a deep breath, "I think I'm about to wake up from the coma I'm lying in thirty years in your future. I don't want to, but I don't think I can stop it now. And when I go� the man who'll be me, here and now, won't be me. And he won't know you the way I do. He won't� feel about you - about the team - the way I feel. He'll do whatever it is he was sent here to do, Gene, and it'll hurt you and I never meant to hurt you." He expected a slap, or a punch to the stomach, and the ensuing fight that habitually followed. Either that or some dismissive remark that he'd have no comeback to. He didn't expect to watch the accusing expression fade to something close to fear. He'd never, ever seen fear on Gene's face before, even when some crazed maniac was trying to kill them. "You know� that red telephone on the bar, in the pub?" Sam was momentarily floored, lost in what was apparently a sudden kink in the conversational flow. He nodded dumbly. "Last night, it rang� and I answered it." Realisation was dawning. Sam had never seen anyone else use that phone. And when he answered it, after a ringing he'd come to believe no one else could even hear, he'd always heard the doctors' voices, and the equipment in the hospital room he was convinced he was lying comatose in. "I heard� these sounds. Mechanical and electric, like machines in a hospital, and this man's voice, talking about brain activity and stimulation. And it all sounded so close� like I was in the room with them." "That call was meant for me." "I think I know that." "I know I'm not making sense, Gene. But I don't want to wake up and find some bastard called Sam Tyler destroyed this team in 1973. I don't want to find out you were kicked off the force because of something I� he� was supposed to do - did do." He shook his head. "Does the name Sam Beckett mean anything to you?" It was an idle question born of frustration. "Okay, listen to me. You know me. I'm not consistent, I'm a pain in the arse, I'm always fighting you, but you do know me." Gene nodded, uncertainly. And Sam nodded grimly. Then he moved his hands from the arms of the chair to his Guv's sandy blond hair, and closing the space between them he touched his lips to Gene's. The reaction was what he'd half-believed it would be, the breaking of a tension that had built up over months; an unbelievably soft mouth opening under his, heart-achingly tentative tongue brushing over his own. Gene's hands settled on his own throat, in no way threatening. He tilted his head a little and Gene's tongue slid deeper into his mouth as he hummed softly. Sam felt the tears burning behind his eyes. He didn't want to leave this! He didn't want to wake up! Not now, not after so long�. He was needed here, wanted here, he belonged here! He wanted to scream, as loud and as long as he had at the start when the bitterness at being trapped here had almost turned him inside out. Now there was nowhere else. Now 2006 seemed like a bleak, lonely and painful prospect. Gene's mouth against his own was as close to perfect as he'd ever known. Those large hands brushing his throat, fingers at his jaw; he wanted to feel them all over him, touching, exploring, getting to know him as time and life moved on from this one moment. Heart breaking, he eventually forced himself to break away. "If anytime you're not sure about me," he murmured, "kiss me. Then you'll know." Gene nodded once, eyes as glassy as Sam's felt. "I don't want to hurt you. Please, please, remember that, and whatever happens, believe that." "Sam�." But there was nothing else to say. This had all started with a car accident he wasn't certain now he'd even had. He'd been thrown back here, into some other man's body, a man who'd been on his way from Hyde in order to destroy Hunt's team from the inside out, he was sure. Sam hadn't stopped the duel between the Sheriff and the bad cowboy dressed in black, he'd merely postponed it. If he'd done anything in the meantime to make Gene and his team stronger�. maybe there was hope. "Don't forget me." He turned, and with tears falling, he walked out of Gene Hunt's office for the last time. He wasn't even aware of his head hitting the desk as his body doubled over and he collapsed in the offices of Manchester CID, 1973, to wake up in Intensive Care in a hospital in 2006. ~ The punch to his stomach didn't come as a surprise. Gene grabbed one wrist and twisted it, slamming the dark head against the edge of the filing cabinet. He'd known, the moment those lips had snarled under his own instead of parting and welcoming. He'd known, and knowing had cracked his heart and his sanity in two. He left Detective Inspector Samuel Tyler to Ray. Winded and with a crack to the head, he wouldn't put up much of a fight and Ray had been desperate to give the man a good kicking since day one. It didn't matter that it wasn't the same Sam. Gene walked until he was outside, with tears in his eyes and a cigarette in his trembling hand. He looked out over the car park, bleary gaze settling on his Cortina as his tears broke free. "Where are you, Sam?" He murmured just to himself. "How do I get you back?" ~ This time, he made sure. This time it was a 4x4, a monster of an SUV, and he moved in front of it with a solid step. The envelope his colleagues would later find on the driver's seat of his own car was a suicide note and a letter signing over his life insurance to whichever unlucky, somewhat random driver he'd chosen. Strange then that he woke up in hospital. But it definitely wasn't 2006. Broken nose, broken ribs, broken wrist. Myriad cuts and bruises. He discharged himself, found a newspaper and smiled, showing off two cracked teeth and opening raw wounds on his lips. He ignored Phyllis' loud, sharp insults, barged through into the CID offices and grinned despite the murderous looks from the team and the choice names Ray chose to call him as he rose to his feet for Round Two. Sam held up his arm, wrist aching under the cast, and pushed open the door to Gene's office, relieved to see his Guv sitting behind his desk. Not for long. In a second rage flashed in the bright blue eyes and with surprising grace, he was over his desk and had Sam pinned hard against the filing cabinet in a split second. "Kiss me," Sam murmured before the first blow could connect. He saw uncertainly cross the defining features of the face he knew better than his own. He could taste his own blood in his mouth and swallowed it, rinsing with saliva, trying to get rid of the bitter metallic tang. "Gene�." The door swung open and Ray stormed inside, fist bunched, fury radiating from him. He wasn't going to get a chance to explain, and what the hell could he say? Grabbing at the purple tie knot, Sam yanked Gene to him and brutally kissed him, letting the violence slip away the moment their mouths connected, parting his split lips. Gene's body was shaking against him, but his tongue slipped inside Sam's mouth and Sam sucked on it gently, humming softly. The trembling eased. Strong arms wrapped around him and Sam smiled, sliding his own arms around his Guv's neck. Gene's mouth tilted slightly, tongue reaching deeper, one hand spreading on Sam's back, the other sliding up to cradle his head. Sam raked his fingers through the soft mane of blond hair, battling to taste. Finally Sam pushed Gene off him, not hard, and not really meaning it. It was more for show. Ray was still standing in the doorway, fist still at the ready but frozen in place. Gene threw a hard stare in his direction. "This is our Sam." "Yours, maybe, Guv�." "Don't get smart." Ray's mouth opened again. "And don't ask questions." He glanced at Sam. "You don't remember Ray beating the crap out of you do you?" Sam shook his head, glad that he didn't. He could feel the results and it wasn't fun, but the painkillers he'd picked up at the chemist were having some small effect and Gene's kiss had made it all worth it. "I probably gave him a concussion." But whatever Gene had said to them before, during and after their dealings with the other Sam Tyler, it seemed to have sunk in and Ray slunk back out muttering something to himself about Sam turning everyone into fairies. "I'll never live that down," Gene murmured, but as he did so into Sam's shoulder, Sam took it that he wasn't really all that bothered. "We're still here. You didn't hurt me." He took a deep breath, took a step back, and what Sam saw in his eyes was something too intense for him to deal with right there and then. "You're staying this time, right?" He nodded. "Course." "Good." |