Back and Forth

by elfin

 

 

1973

"You're nicked, Whittaker." Sam had given up on trying to get the words right. He'd heard the old version so often recently that the 2006 Miranda had become confused in his mind. He got the cuffs on the struggling man's wrists and Ray helped drag him to his feet, Chris taking Sam's place.

Gene stepped forward, and suddenly Whittaker was trying to back up, to get between Chris and Ray. "Keep 'im away from me!"

Sam's eyebrows rose and he glanced at his Guv. "Have you two met before?"

Gene shook his head. "Usually it takes an hour alone with me in Lost and Found before suspects start yellin' that." It was exactly what had been in Sam's mind. They shared a smile; Sam's wry, Gene's teasing, while Ray and Chris pushed their suspect into the back of the marked police car.


2006

"Sam?"

He shook himself from his memories. They were memories, he was sure of it. Certain. Couldn't be more convinced. His psychotherapist, his psychologist, even his psychiatrist, had told him otherwise but he didn't believe them. How could he? His first day back at work since waking from his coma over two months ago. Hospitalisation, rehabilitation; unending hours of painful physiotherapy and even more painful psychotherapy. And after everything, all it had taken was seeing this building again - the station that on the outside at least hadn't changed in over thirty years - to undo him. One look and everything had come flooding back. Annie, her smile and her friendship. Chris, his sweet innocence and willing to learn. Ray, his eventual grudging respect and that shock invitation to play on the CID darts team. Phyllis. Nelson. Gene. His acerbating, infuriating, beloved Guv'nor. In a moment there had been tears in his eyes, falling fast and unstoppable. Everyone had tried so hard to convince him that none of it had been real. And yet in his heart he knew now that they'd lied to him because they didn't understand it. What Sam had experienced was impossible, and so it was dismissed as a dream, a symptom of the coma. No one believed him, but he believed himself.

"Sam!"

He snapped his head up, stared at Maya as she stood next to his desk with one hand on one hip and one hand on top of all the paperwork in his in tray, as real as Annie had been standing in almost exactly the same place in such a different time. Back then this office had been devoid of the technology which he'd always believed allowed them to do their jobs. The only PCs were the uniformed officers who'd wondered onto the wrong floor. PDAs were a file template supposed to be used when a suspect resisted arrest. Fingerprint analysis took days, forensic evidence was used only when Gene Hunt ran out of obvious suspects, and taped interviews were overwritten with easy listening. But still, when he'd walked into the modern CID office this morning he'd felt a stabbing disappointment and a terrible, empty hollowness in the pit of his stomach which hadn't eased in the couple of hours he'd been sitting at his desk.

"Sam…. A woman on the Brooklands estate had reported gunfire in the house next door. Armed response is on its way but they've asked for a senior CID officer to be on the scene. They think it might be Carl Whittaker."

"Carl Whittaker?" Why did that name ring so many bells?

"You're nicked, Whittaker."

With a sudden flare of adrenaline, Sam finished the lukewarm coffee with a single gulp. It was too smooth, too sweet, not bitter enough. Why was the grass always greener…? He stood, grabbed his leather jacket from the back of his chair and his car keys from the desk. With a moment's hesitation he tossed them to Maya. "You drive."

Here, at least, she couldn't say no, couldn't disobey, couldn't argue. He thought he should be wishing that the same was true in the hastily gathered up shreds of their personal lives but he couldn't bring himself to feel it. Not now. Not after…. Wiping his tired eyes with the heels of his hands, he followed her out of the first floor offices and into the corridor, along to the stairs. He took a deep breath and stopped dead. Tobacco. Cigarette smoke. A faint whiff of whiskey. The building had been strictly 'No Smoking' for the last couple of years, when even the smoking rooms had been torn down and the areas fumigated - smokers forced outside in all weathers in order to satisfy their habit. Sam wondered what it would be like if drinking inside buildings was banned too. What a fucking dull society they'd become.

"Sam!" He brought himself back to the real world or to the present at least; what served as real in his present life. He breathed in the recycled air, slightly fragranced, not a hint of intoxicating substances or rabid poisons to be had. Nicotine withdrawal was one of his problems, one that had his doctors stumped; Sam had never smoked in his life.

Following Maya down the wide metal stairs he brushed his fingers along the wooden railing, encountering metal studs every five inches. There was something not quite right about how the materials felt beneath his fingertips, as if a layer of cling film sat between his touch and the stair rail. It was the same with everything. Nothing felt physically right. Since he'd woken from the coma, perversely, nothing had been real.


1973

"I'm not talkin' with 'im in the room!"

The panic in Whittaker's voice hadn't diminished on the journey from Bradford Road to the station, and once in Lost and Found, with Gene and Sam sitting opposite him, he made that emphatic statement and clammed up.

With a glance at Sam, "I think it must be the 'softly softly' approach they like," Gene shrugged his shoulders, "Well, it's fine by me." Pushing his chair away with the backs of his knees, scraping the exposed metal feet of it across the floor, he rose. Sam didn't watch him leave but he listened to every sound, hearing the door open, Annie's voice - quiet so he couldn't make out the words - and Gene's order, "Get in there, make sure he doesn't do anything I'll regret."

He didn't let the smile show on his face. Gene must constantly regret giving him that first inch because since then he'd taken countless miles.

With Annie seated beside him he turned on the recorder, which immediately proceeded to rip the tape from the cassette and chew it up. Still it was nice to do an interview with someone who took such things seriously and wasn't likely to stand up at any moment, over the desk and punch the suspect in the face if the answers weren't exactly what was expected or wanted.

"Have you met Detective Chief Inspector Hunt before?" Sam asked Wihittaker, more for his own amusement than to open up any real line of questioning. The fear in the man's eyes, then, was a surprise.

"Am I safe?"

Sam experienced a momentary flashback to the interview with Dickie Fingers, months ago, and the revelation about Chief Superintendent Harry Wolfe and his leading involvement in organised crime. He'd spent weeks ensuring Gene hadn't unravelled as fast or as far as everything he'd believed and trusted in.

"Of course you're safe," Annie had finally answered Whittaker's question. "What are you frightened of?"

"'unt!"

Sam shook his head, not understanding. "Apart from the obvious reasons, why would you be frightened of DCI Hunt?" He could feel Annie's curious eyes staring at him and turned to glance at her, two unspoken lines passing between them,

'He beats people up.'

'I know. But it's what criminals expect the police to do, isn't it?'

He couldn't believe the thought was his own. Then again, maybe it wasn't. Too much time spent in Gene Hunt's company. A strange role model for anyone to have, even worse when the knowledge that his method of policing was thirty years out of date. Still… some small things were better, some things made sense here, things that were pointless in 2006 hadn't even been thought up yet.

"Promise me I'm safe. You won't let 'im alone with me!"

Sam rolled his eyes, before catching himself, leaning forward and making sure Whittaker was looking at him. "I promise. Tell me why you're afraid of DCI Hunt."

"Gary Proctor."

"Sorry, who?"

"Gary Proctor. He were arrested last year in Bradford and transferred 'ere. Next day 'e were found dead in 'is cell."

So Billy Kemble hadn't been the first, but it wasn't a huge surprise. He wouldn't be the last either, Sam knew, although he'd hopefully done enough to keep the numbers low and CID blameless. "It happens," he stated. "What makes you think DCI Hunt had anything to do with it?"

"I know 'e did. A friend o'mine was in the next cell, 'e 'eard everythin'. When he was released, 'unt took 'im to one side, made 'im promise to keep 'is mouth shut, or else, you know? Gave 'im a friendly punch or two to make sure he'd understood - broke 'is nose and a rib."

Okay, so Sam had to admit there was a possibility that Gene had assaulted this other man, put the frighteners up him in order to protect his team. And a battering by Gene Hunt was never not going to leave a mark - he had the bruises of his own to prove that - but no broken bones. Gene knew how to fight dirty but he also knew how to fight fair. A cover-up of a cell death was probable too. They'd done it with Billy Kemble, even with Sam giving them grief at every turn. Still, Gene was no more a murderer than Sam was a serial killer.

"You're trying to tell me your friend said that DCI Hunt killed a man in his cell?" Whittaker nodded his head with a jerk. "Why?"

"Gary knew."

It was Annie's turn to sit forward. "Knew what?"

"About 'unt." Muddy green eyes flicked from her to Sam and back. "Do you lot not know anythin'? 'unt runs a… service, in the city. For businessmen. Prostitutes. 'e arranges things, for a price, and makes sure they don't get disturbed."

Sam sat back, unable to help the smile playing across his lips. "DCI Hunt could arrange the greatest piss up in the smallest brewery, but he could not and - let me assure you of this - would not arrange personal services for visiting businessmen."

"It's been goin' on for years!"

"You've got the wrong man."

Whittaker shook his head, folded his arms on the table and stared pleadingly at Annie. Sam looked at her, tilted his head and said, "no."

"Sir…."

"No! It's rubbish." Turning his attention back to Whittaker, he said, "Tell me about the murder at the Royal Crest Hotel."

That was where they'd picked Whittaker up, stumbling out of the foyer of the inaccurately named hotel on Bradford Road with blood all over his hands. They'd found a young girl, half-dressed and lying on the narrow bed in a first floor room. The sheets had been soaked in her blood and there were various wounds that had looked to Sam like stab wounds. The Royal Crest was less a hotel, more a not-so-glorified B&B. Sam was sure they still rented rooms by the hour and that the only patrons who would be found at breakfast were elderly couples holidaying - for some unknown and bizarre reason - in the great city of Manchester.

"'e did it! To keep 'er quiet! She was goin' to go to Liverpool, to report 'im to the police there."

"How do you know?"

"She told me. Asked me for money for the train fare, asked me to meet 'er at that 'otel. Only I found 'er… like that."

"How do we know you didn't kill her?"

"She were a friend of mine, I wouldn't 'urt 'er."

"Then tell me who did."

"I've told yer!"

"Carl, Gene Hunt didn't kill this girl. He's been with us all day."

"What about last night?"

"Pub. Then home, I suspect, to the saintly Mrs Hunt who has the patience of an angel."

"You don't know that! Nothin' to stop 'im goin' to the 'otel and killin' 'er…."

Sam had had enough. In one graceful movement picked up from his Guv, he stood up and slammed his hands, palms flat on the wooden surface of the table. Whittaker visibly jumped. "That's enough. You're accusing a high-ranking CID officer of killing an innocent woman without any evidence. DCI Hunt may not be a model of community policing but he certainly isn't a murderer and the idea that he organises crime is insane. Tell us something useful about this killing!"

"I've told yer!"

Shaking his head, Sam pushed his chair back and started for the door.

"Sir!" Annie followed him. "Sam, wait!" They got out into the corridor. "You have to take this seriously, an accusation's been made."

"No. There's nothing serious about that accusation."

"But… you said," she lowered her voice, "when Dicky Fingers told us about Harry Wolfe, you said any accusation against a police officer had to be taken seriously because policemen can go bad. He was proof of that!"

"Not this time." He looked at her, his mind as set as his heart on this one. "This time it's bollocks."

"Just because it's the Guv….?"

"Just because what's the Guv?" For a man his size, Hunt could be incredibly light on his feet. Sam turned as he sidled up to them in the corridor, nudging Annie's arm. "What's 'e up to now, Love? Beatin' up the suspects? It's a disgrace."

Sam felt the slightest stab of jealousy. "Carl Whittaker's just accused you of murdering the girl we found in the hotel room this morning." He watched the disbelief form on the expressive face and heard Annie's murmured of protest in the form of his name. He ignored her. "He also told us that you're the Christine Painter of Manchester, running a personal service for businessman."

Gene did look absolutely gob-smacked, but it didn't prevent the obvious first protest, "You wouldn't find me with my mouth around some suit's…."

Sam held up his hands. "Girls, Guv. Providing girls and a safe place for them to… enjoy themselves."

"Whittaker told you all this?"

Annie nodded. Gene's glare went from her to him and back. "And you believed him?"

"I just thought we should… investigate." The words were out before she obviously realised what she was saying. Sam thought he'd better get some placating done before she was demoted back to traffic warden.

"It's bollocks, Guv. I know it, you know it. I told Whittaker it was. He needs to fester in a cell overnight, get his head together."

Gene smiled at him, broad and proud. "WDC Cartwright'll sort that out." Stepping passed her he swung his arm around Sam's shoulders. "You deserve a drink."

Sam felt like beaming.


2006

The traffic was terrible. Hyde Road was crawling. Sam sat staring out of the passenger window of the unmarked BMW, tuning out the bass-heavy music on the radio. They'd caught a report from the scene on the news bulletin when Maya had first started the engine; Carl Whittaker, believed to have already shot two hostages during a bank robbery a week ago, had gone to ground. A neighbour - the same one who had called the police about the gunfire - had described a man she'd seen entering the house around seven when she'd been picking collecting the milk from her doorstep. Over an hour before the shots had been heard. Sam doubted that the man in the house was Whittaker. He'd spent too many long hours interviewing witnesses of crimes to know that what they'd seen and what their imaginations had pieced together were usually two distinctly separate things. The trick was to separate the lies from reality. It was something he hadn't been too successful with recently.

They finally reached the traffic lights to turn left into the Brooklands estate. Maya stopped at the red light behind a battered old Ford Cortina and for a moment Sam thought he saw a black leather gloved hand tapping on the large steering wheel. He closed his eyes for a moment, opening them to see a dark hand adjust the rear view mirror before tidying long black hair.

"Sam," Maya was looking at him, he could feel it, and reluctantly turned his head to smile at her in that most unconvincing way he knew he had. "We should talk." He should have felt guilty, he knew that. She'd waited, sat long vigils at his bedside, held his hand, talked to him, day and night. Four months. He owed her for that, owed her at the very least his time, and at best something of himself. But he was finding it impossible to give her anything, to give anyone anything. He'd never been so exhausted in his life. Three months he'd been out of hospital, and still he was having difficulty defining in his own mind what had been real, and what hadn't.

He'd considered looking up names in CID records but so far he hadn't been brave enough. What would it mean if he found them? But he was more frightened about not finding them. Accepting that they really had all been products of his own deranged imagination wasn't something he thought he could face yet.

The light turned green and without a response to her attempt at communication, Maya turned into the left hand lane. Half a mile later, the Brooklands estate was ahead. As she slowed the car, Sam turned to her. "Listen, Maya, I'm sorry. We will talk, we need to…."

He saw it out of the corner of his eye and it distracted him completely. A bronze coloured 1971 Ford Cortina 2000GXL, parked up haphazardly on the side of the road a few yards from the edge of the police cordon at the centre of which was the house in question. Sam twisted in his seat as Maya drove passed and stopped only a few feet from it. It looked every one of its thirty-four years; scratches, dents, the right headlight and indicator broken, the transparent plastic on the left indicator cracked like a spider's web. The chrome front bumper was rusted through in places, hanging off on the right side. One of the saddest sights he'd ever seen.

"Sam?"

But he ignored her for a moment, getting out of the BMW and crouching down in front of the automotive wreck. The number plate was so dirty he had to wipe it with the palm of his hand to see the registration but when he did so, his heart leapt into his throat and for a moment he couldn’t breathe.

KJM 212K

Although if he'd been asked, he wouldn't have been able to remember the number plate on the Cortina he'd spent months being driven around Manchester in at high speed ("in your mind, Sam, only in your mind"), a spark of recognition told him this was it. Impossibly, this was Gene Hunt's Cortina. And it was impossible.


1973

"So… putting your arm around my shoulders isn't gay?" Sam picked up his fifth Scotch from the bar and let his gaze settle on Gene while he waited for an answer. His coat had been dropped over the next stool, the top button of his white shirt was open under the blue jacket of his suit and his tie had been loosened. Sam's addled brain seemed to have taken more than a passing interest in the smooth, red/pink skin beneath the cotton.

"No," Gene apparently decided.

Sam put his glass back down carefully onto the bar and leaned across, sliding his arm around Gene's shoulders. He came to the same conclusion. "You're right."

"I'm always right."

"No, you think you're always right." Sam pre-emptied the usual pantomime argument. "What about… around the waist?"

Gene appeared to give that some consideration while he finished his Scotch and picked up a fresh pint. "Depends."

"On what?"

"On how it's done."

Sam shook his head, "you've lost me."

Gene manoeuvred down from his stool and standing slightly behind him, he put his arm around Sam, a big hand at his hip. Sam felt the strength of Gene's body, different to how it usually felt when it was being used to throw him against a wall or dump him on his knees with a blow to his kidneys. A friendly squeeze then it was gone.

"See?" Gene worked his way back onto the bar stool and took a mouthful of lager. "Not gay."

With a small smile, Sam glanced up and saw Nelson's eyebrows rise half an inch. His smile turned into a grin. "Not one hundred percent certain about that. But what about this?"

Getting down from his own seat, bolstered by alcohol, he moved to Gene's side and slid his arm around the man's waist, pressing into his side, getting his hand under the blue jacket to allow his fingers to spread over the waistband of his trousers and the thin material of his shirt, feeling Gene's warmth through it. Turning slightly, he tightened his arm, brought Gene into close contact from hip to shoulder, closing his eyes, breathing in deeply; holding it for just longer than necessary before letting go completely and returning to his stool, picking up his drink like he'd just been for a piss.

He didn't dare look back at Nelson, instead he kept his focus on his Scotch until curiosity dragged it up to Gene's face. Sam was astounded to see it flushed, to see his Guv flustered. "Gay," he muttered. "Definitely gay."

Sam grinned.


2006

He got a fresh mug of coffee and sat down at his desk. Three officers were still at the hospital, one seriously injured. Last year his mother had picked up the phrase, 'hell in a handbag' from one of her friends and this lunchtime he'd put an image to that incongruous description. Whittaker had been armed. Whittaker had always been armed. Negotiations had failed after less than half an hour, at which point he'd started to fire randomly out of a first floor bedroom window, hitting one officer in the chest, one in the shin and the other in the shoulder before Armed Response had even started firing back.

When the house had eventually been stormed, ("you're surrounded by armed bastards!") Whittaker had vanished. No body, not even a drop of blood to say they'd wounded him. Another miraculous escape, like the one he'd pulled from their case back in '73. Speaking of which, he'd arranged to have the Cortina towed to the police impound, telling the duty sergeant it was a vital piece of evidence and on no account should it go missing accidentally. He could tell that the man thought he was attaching far too much value to the wreck to be towed.

"I hear it all went to hell this afternoon," a snort, a grunt; Sam's head snapped up. "Doesn't surprise me." He looked around, to the door that led out into the corridor, through the frosted glass that hid the speaker and the spoken to from clear view. Sam could only make out shapes. Maya was one of them. The other was in darker clothes, definitely male, with a more solid build and his hands raised just above the wooden partition. "And I don't want a report! Don't give me stuff to read!"

Sam knocked his chair over in his hurry, watching the larger figure retreat as Maya came along the corridor towards the office. "Who was that?"

She stopped dead in her tracks just as she was through the doorway. "What?"

"Who was that? Who were you talking to?"

Her eyes held apology. "Sorry, Sam. I should have introduced you sooner. Chief Superintendent Roberts retired while you were in hospital. He was replaced by Chief Superintendent Hunt…." There might have been more but Sam didn't hear it, he was already off down the corridor.


1973

"So you're saying the more body area that touches, the gayer it is?"

Lucky it was between the lunchtime rush and the evening crowd. Lucky they were the only ones in the pub. Even Nelson seemed to have vanished behind the scenes, trusting Sam presumably to pay for any drinks Gene helped themselves to.

"Yes." Gene's mouth pursed, considering his answer after the fact, looking at it from all conceivable angles, possibly for any ambiguities.

"Holding hands, then, isn't gay?"

"Holding hands is girly."

"But not gay?"

"Unless it's two blokes."

"We're talking about two blokes! No way could any physical contact between a man and a woman be construed as gay."

"Unless the woman was a bloke."

"Then it would be two blokes!" Sam shook his head. "You're avoiding the question."

"I am not! Two men holding hands is as gay as it gets."

Leaning slightly forward on the bar, Sam reached across and covered Gene's hand where it was wrapped around his glass. He made the touch almost incidental, and as he did so he peered into the glass as he asked, "How's the Scotch?" He didn't linger, and his look at Gene as he straightened was pure innocence. Gene glared at him through narrow, suspicious eyes.

"Gay."

Sam shrugged. "All right. But not as bad as it could be."

"Okay, Gay Boy, what is worse than holding hands?"

Smiling triumphantly, Sam dropped his hand to Gene's surprisingly bony knee and squeezed. Not sexy, not sensual, just… not, for a man. His Guv was in obvious agreement.

"Maybe… the less body area is in contact, the gayer it is?" Sam suggested, turning Gene's theory on its head. But Gene's head was shaking 'no'.

"Your arm around my waist, Sammy-Boy, was definitely not something two blokes would do."

His smile this time was far less gleeful. Less like a kid playing a game, more like a man winning at poker. Closing the gap between them, Sam reached out his hand and sneaked it under the front of Gene's jacket, settling it at his waist, thumb stroking hot skin under warm cotton, fingers spreading around the gentle curve of him. Under his palm he felt Gene tense for a long moment, then relax, not leaning into him, but definitely not making any move away. Waiting a couple of seconds, Sam began to rub his hand in tiny strokes, up and down, fingers exploring what they could at Gene's back, thumb pressing a little harder into muscle and less fat than he might have imagined, had he ever imagined this.

He watched Gene pick up his Scotch and raise it to his mouth with a slightly trembling hand. He saw the deliberate swallow, the rise and fall of Gene's Adams Apple, the movement of his throat.

Voices outside suddenly broke the heated silence and as the front door was pushed open, Sam drew back and picked up his pint.

Ray's clap of his hand on Gene's shoulder was met with a subtle but not unmissed shrug, and a frown touched the DS' face, "All right, Guv?" before he ordered his drink.

Ray, Chris, Phyllis, Annie and the rest of CID assembled at a couple of tables close by, and Sam naturally assumed Gene would go and join them, especially as he hadn't said a word or moved many muscles since Sam had removed his hand. The sight of Hunt and his strange DI sitting together in the pub discussing whatever it might be wasn't an unusual one. That the topic of conversation had been how gay certain physical contact was between men didn't really change that. Besides, if the assorted CID officers did have their suspicions about Hunt and Tyler, nothing would be even hinted at in front of Gene.

But instead of joining them once they were happily ensconced at the tables, Gene still didn't budge. Sam waited but he just kept staring into his half-drunk pint until finally, Sam decided to take a chance. He leaned over and suggested in almost a whisper,

"Why don't we take a bottle and this 'what's gay and what isn't' discussion back to my place?"

Gene's instant grin stunned him. "Excellent idea. Nelson? Bottle of Scotch to go."


2006

"Oh my God…."

The man sitting in the office with Chief Superintendent Hunt on the door looked up as Sam pushed it open hard and stared. There was a single moment between them of something he couldn't name before the blond man in his early forties leaned back and assessed him.

"DCI Sam Tyler, isn't it? I'm sorry I haven't been to see you since you woke, we've been busy and without you around we seem to have lost more than just one man." Sam continued to stare. "How are you?"

"How am I?" He couldn't believe what he was hearing or seeing. "What the hell are you doing here… now?"

Blond eyelashes lifted away from blue eyes. "They said you were fit for duty, Sam…."

He shook his head. "I don't… understand."

Gene seemed to consider this. Then he waved Sam inside. "Sit down." For once he did as Gene Hunt told him to, closing the door and watching as a bottle of expensive Scottish Whisky was lifted from the bottom drawer of the desk along with two crystal tumblers.

Sam found his voice again as generous measures were poured. "You transferred here, while I was… in the coma?"

"Promoted from Hyde CID." He handed over a glass and Sam leaned forward to take it, stealing a touch to the hot fingers. A flash of memory assaulted him, a similar caress held for longer than necessary after a particularly brutal day. "I used to be an Inspector here, years ago."

"1973." He murmured it into his drink, but Gene caught it and chuckled.

"That's charming! I'm not that old!" Shaking his head, Sam apologised. He was still expecting to wake up from the incredibly vivid dream. "More like '93. Anyway, I've only been here three months so I'm still getting to grips with the case files. Carl Whittaker's of particular interest, had a brush with him meself a couple of years ago."

Sam nodded without thinking, "He shot you."

Gene's forehead furrowed. "How did you know that?"

Because I was there! And it wasn't a couple of years ago! It was thirty-three years ago! Sam fought to keep what felt like an insane grin from his face. "Must have read it in the paper, Guv." The term was out before he could swallow it.

"'Guv'? Blimey, that brings back some memories. No one's called me that since… must have been Ray when he was my sergeant."

"Ray?"

"DS Ray Carling." Gene's eyes fell to the whisky. "We were mates, a long time ago."

"What 'appened?"

"We fell out." For a moment, Sam thought - hoped - there would be more. But Gene appeared to back off from the edge of the revere and smiled over his glass, taking a gulp of it, savouring it at the back of his throat before swallowing. "History."

Sam took a drink, the silence stretching comfortably, like it had done on all those shared evenings in DCI Gene Hunt's office in 1973. Gene used silence to more effect than anyone Sam had ever known, and between them it had never been awkward. Sam could recall many occasions that they'd just been sat with a drink either side of Gene's desk, not speaking, happy to be there, when Ray or Chris or Annie had stumbled in, made their report, hesitated before backing out with just a nod of acknowledgment for whatever they'd had to say. What they must have thought was going on in the smoky office, Sam neither knew nor cared. Gene had slowly become his best friend. And more than any of it, it was that deep friendship that he missed most of all.

He sighed once and snapped out of it. Gene Hunt - this modern-day Gene Hunt in a dark blue suit and a pressed white shirt open at the neck - was watching him steadily. "What?"

A slight darkening of his face and an almost imperceptible shake of his head. "I don't know. I feel like… I know you, DCI Tyler."

There was nothing he could say to that which would make any sense. Then again, it hadn't stopped him from doing so in the past. He held Gene's gaze. "Maybe you read about me in the paper." It was good to see that sideways look of faint suspicion again, it made him smile.

"No. I feel as though we've worked together in the past."

Not just worked together…. Sam hesitated. "Do you believe in second chances?" Gene nodded slowly, obviously expecting some light to be shone on what he was feeling. He didn't have that light to offer, not yet. But it was a start. "Good." He finished his drink and rose. "I should get back to work, Sir."

"Sam?" He turned back. "I think… I prefer, 'Guv'." He nodded, grinned, and closed the office door behind him.


1973

Sam unlocked the front door of his flat and Gene closed it behind him.

"So we're agreed that there are levels of gay," he clarified, dropping his coat to the sofa, "that a casual arm around the shoulders isn't at all gay, whereas me stroking your waist probably is."

Gene nodded once, asserting, "Definitely is," and as Sam turned back to him he saw the humour from the pub was gone, replaced by a strange intensity in the blue eyes, an intensity he wasn't feeling quite drunk enough to deal with right then despite the five Scotches. Taking the bottle from Gene's hands he went into the kitchen and found two cheap tumblers from the draining board, filling them both two-thirds full. In the cramped and depressingly drab green living area cum bedroom, his Guv had thrown the almost infamous camel coat over Sam's own on the arm of the sofa and had taken his tie off. He was standing at the tiny four-paned window looking out over the labyrinth of brick walls and paved back yards, listening to the screams of the cats and a far-off clatter of dustbins.

Where the hell had this come from? This surging need for a physical connection with Gene Hunt. And for that matter, where had Gene Hunt come from? Which part of his fucked up psyche had come up with a prehistoric, Neanderthal like Hunt? Overweight… actually, not that overweight as had become obvious when they'd chased Trent along towpath of the canal with Gene in only his swimming trunks. Over-the-hill… no, that was unfair, Sam was throwing policing methods from thirty years in the future at the man and he was coping, adapting, even using a couple of ideas. Nicotine-stained? Yes. Nails, teeth… but then it was the early 1970s. Everybody smoked. It wasn't the social taboo it had become in Sam's time. Borderline alcoholic… well weren't they all? Wasn't he becoming just the same? Gene was sober when he needed to be, sober more often than Sam liked to think sometimes. Just not right now…. Homophobic? That was wrong too. Sam had been touching him the whole night and as yet he hadn't punched him. He definitely had a superiority complex, there was no doubting that, but there were cracks - Sam had seen them - and there was a heart under the often brutal exterior. As for the unhealthy obsession with male bonding….

Sam stepped up close, right shoulder pressed into Gene's back, sliding a glass into his hands, brushing his fingers over accepting fingers. A moment, then he moved to stand at Gene's side, back to the window, arse against the sill. He settled his eyes on his Guv's blank features until blue eyes swept across to meet his gaze.

"That look, Sam Tyler, is the gayest thing of all."

Sam couldn't keep the edges of his mouth from rising in a smirk. He took a mouthful of Scotch, feeling the burn at the back of his throat, cold after breathing the cool night and the air inside the flat, with its woeful central heating. "Bet I could do something more gay."

Gene snorted. "I'm sure you could, Sam. I'm just not sure I want to take that bet."


2006

He sat at his desk and read every note taken on Carl Whittaker in the last ten years. He'd asked for records going back longer, going back to the early seventies, but as yet they hadn't arrived from Archives and he wasn't one hundred percent sure that they were going to.

He did come across photocopies of the reports written up about the shooting in which this new incarnation of Gene Hunt had been shot. Similar situation to 1973 by the sounds of it. Whittaker had robbed a post office, Gene and a DI Skelton - Chris? - had chased him into a dead end alley. There'd been a scuffle, Whittaker had pulled a gun and shot Gene in the shoulder.

Had the present bled into his coma? Or was the past bleeding through to the present? All Sam knew for sure was that the grass was always greener. Trapped in 1973 all he'd wanted, all he'd dreamt of, was to get back to 2006, no matter what the cost. And then slowly, the cost had started to matter. He'd made friends, grown proud of and close to his colleagues. Gene had gone from being his violent, bigoted boss to being someone special, someone who'd meant more to Sam than any other human being he'd ever known. Yet still he'd longed for home. And when, one beautiful sunny morning he'd stepped out of the station to buy the newspapers and a passing car had knocked him back into the future, he'd felt a joy like never before upon waking.

Now, three months later, he knew he would walk in front of an SUV without a second thought if he could truly believe it would return him to where he'd finally realised he actually belonged.

Gene landed on his desk, palms flat on the mess of files, fingers spread, blue cuffs and silver links kissing the bony backs of his large hands. Sam stared up at him as he stared down at the paperwork and didn't turn to meet his gaze.

When no words were forthcoming he prompted, "Sir? Guv?"

"Nothing I want to say seems appropriate."

It took a moment for the meaning of those words to sink in. Then he shrugged. "So let's go someplace where they are."


1973

The silence seemed to last forever. Gene emptied his glass and looked forlornly into it until Sam returned to the kitchen for the bottle of Scotch he'd left there, refilled both glasses and held onto it. In every minute that passed Sam thought Gene would put down his drink and leave, or more likely down it in one and leave. But he finished three drinks, was refilled three times, and still they stood, Sam next to the window with his back to the wall, Gene looking out into the dark yards and alleys.

"I always thought blokes who fancied other blokes were ponces, fairies, limp-wristed girls."

"You're not alone. Most straight men in this time did… do. It's just fear. Stupid, illogical…."

"Sam!" He shut up with a small half-smile but for another few long minutes and yet another Scotch, the time was measured in silence. "I've been fighting it," Gene started again, eventually, as quiet as he had the first time and Sam had learnt his lesson, he said nothing. "This thing, this… attraction to you. Didn't want to admit it to anyone, least of all to meself. Thought I'd see you pair off with Annie and that would be the end of it." So it had been jealousy he'd heard in Gene's voice that night in the office, when he'd been telling Annie Dicky Fingers fingering Harry Wolfe for the post office job. "But you wouldn't go, wouldn't take what she's plainly offering yer, kept spending your evenings in the pub with me. The worrying… frightening thing is, if you decided to go to a different pub I'd probably follow. And if you stayed at the station all night, I'd sit in my office and wait. And I hate it."

"Hate it?"

"Okay. I don't hate it. But it scares the shit out of me. I'm a red bloodied male, Sam! I'm married, a copper, National Service, beer, Scotch, ciggies, football, horse racing, Sunday lunch and sex with the missus three times a week with the light off! I spend my whole life being sickened by the idea of one bloke touching another and then you walk through the door of my office and in a couple of weeks I go from masturbating over the tits on Page Three to getting aroused by throwing you up against the wall of the Gents. I'm ditching darts matches to sit and drink with you. And when I make love to my wife in the dark, it's you I'm thinking about."

It was news, all of it. Sam couldn't do much more than stare. He finished his latest drink, but not too quickly. Then he put his glass down on the windowsill and moved closer, lifted his head as blue eyes sharply met his own, and made Gene come the final couple of inches, waiting for the kiss, for the hesitant touch of a heavy tongue before parting his lips. In the next moment a glass bounced on the threadbare carpet and the metal frame of the bed protested loudly at the weight of two consenting adults hitting the mattress in a tangle of limbs attempting to divest other limbs of clothing in desperate need to find bare flesh.


2006

The Railway Arms was a stone's throw from the station. Despite being the haunt of Greater Manchester CID, at this time of the afternoon it was practically empty.

"What can I get you, Gentlemen?"

Mavis, the barwoman who seemed to always be here, somehow reminded Sam of Phyllis. He'd asked Maya once if this pub had been here before his accident. She'd smiled at him kindly and told him of course it had. But he wasn't sure, wasn't convinced. He didn't remember it being here. Or maybe he just hadn't ever ventured inside it.

"Two triple Scotches." Sam ordered for himself and his Chief Superintendent, who had taken a small table at the back of the pub. The smoking laws hadn't touched this place, and Sam watched Gene light up, watched the tension ease from his face and smiled to himself. He paid, thanked her, and took the glasses to the table, sitting opposite the smoking man. Second-hand nicotine had long ago stopped upsetting him. Gene had always smelt of burnt whisky and tasted of smoked red meat. Sam had been absolutely convinced his boss and lover wouldn't have made it to 2006 alive.

It was so good to see him, even if his presence was utterly impossible.

Crossing his arms on the edge of the round table, Sam leaned forward, forehead almost touching blond hair. "What are these inappropriate things you have to say to me?"

Gene's head moved, side to side, then he sat up slightly, picked up his glass and drowned the triple in one. Despite having seen him do it before, Sam was still impressed. He was even more impressed when his boss rose, crossed to the bar and ordered a second round, putting another glass down beside the one Sam had barely touched. For another few minutes, neither of them spoke. Gene looked as if he was running through a selection of starters for ten in his head, and finally he picked one.

"You know me." Sam hesitated, but nodded. "How?"

"If I tell you, it'll sound mad."

"Listen to me." His voice dropped to a harsh whisper. "As far as I know I've never met you before in my life. But… when you walked into my office this afternoon I suddenly felt something I haven't felt in years. There's no reason for it and I don't understand it. But everything made sense until the moment you walked through that door."


1973

"All those threats…."

"It's all I know, Sam. I'm learning from you but I can't change over night. Everything made sense before you walked through that door."

Sam smiled; happy, content for the first time since arriving on this planet. "I don't want to change you, just the way you do some things." He combed fingertips through messy blond hair, trailing nails lightly over the smooth scalp beneath. He knew it was a sappy gesture but he was feeling sappy. All the uncertainty, the hesitancy, was gone; Gene's mouth was making its way slowly along his neck, pausing to kiss the hollow of his throat, to bite down infinitely gently on his collarbone. Sam's other hand was comfortable at the base of his lover's spine, thumb stroking back and forth over smooth, hot skin.

Far from the denial and accusations Sam had been sure would follow their first time, Gene seemed to have easily accepted this new development in their relationship. He looked, sounded, just as happy and sated as Sam felt. For the first time the flat had heard laughter, witnessed joy; the pathetic excuse for a bed had supported the weight of two bodies rocking in the unsteady rhythm of sex.

Gene's fingers found a sensitive spot on Sam's ribcage. He screamed like a girl, tried to get away, to fold up out of reach, laughing, giggling, and Gene's face pushed into his shoulder, lips mouthing his throat. He let up, and Sam tipped his head back, gasping for breath, wrapping his arms around the male body lying half over him, holding him tight.

Another first time. Sam Tyler thought he might be falling in love.


2006

"I dreamt about you."

"What?"

"When I was in my coma, I had this dream. It was real, so vivid, I believed it. I lived it, for months."

"And I was in it?"

Sam nodded. "It was 1973. I was a DI, transferred from Hyde. You were a DCI. And… there was a Sergeant Ray Carling, a Constable Chris Skelton, and a WPC Annie Cartwright who I promoted to CID, into our team. They became our team."

Gene was staring at him with wide eyes and some small measure of fear. "Ray and Chris were in my team in Hyde."

"Why did you fall out with Ray?"

There was a long hesitation. "I had an affair."

"With a DI… a man."

"How the hell did you know that?" Hissed now, scared now. "Who the hell are you?"

"In my dream, you and I had an affair. Ray caught us one night, caught me sucking you off in your office. He didn't report us, didn't tell a soul, but he transferred into the Regional Crime Squad as soon as he could. He refused to talk to either of us."

"His name was… Tyler Samuels. When I look at you I feel what I felt when I looked at him."

"What happened to him?"

"After Ray… we stopped. I didn't want to risk my career or his. He transferred up North."

"We didn't care about our careers. You wouldn't give me up and I didn't want to stop."

Gene closed his eyes, shook his head and gulped down two-thirds of his second triple whisky. "How did you really know Whittaker had shot me?"

"Because he shot you in 1973. I was there."


1973

"Don't!"

Sam was as surprised as Whittaker. Wide-eyed, he glanced at Gene over Whittaker's shoulder, small smile springing to his face as the gun wavered to be turned one-eighty. "No. Whittaker, no, it's me you want, me who's been after you, making your life as difficult as possible. Me. Not Hunt. Come on." The gun swung back, and despite his second change of target, Whittaker's aim held firm.

"You've tried to arrest me once, tried to bang me up, and I got off, easy as anythin'. Do you really want a second go?"

"Yes. And a third, and a forth, until you collapse under the weight of all the evidence."

Heavy lips pursed. "The question is… do I want a second go. Do you think my answer's the same as yours?" There was only a moment between the question and the pulling of the trigger, a moment to think his life - both his lives - were over, and then his head was hitting the ground along with the rest of him, a heavy bulk in a camel coat landing on top of him. He struck out, legs and arms, toppling Whittaker before he could fire a second round, and as he dropped, Sam crawled out from under Gene and hit Whittaker so hard his head hit the concrete floor he lost consciousness.

Sam let out the breath he'd been holding. Let the ground take his weight for a second. Then pushed himself up on his elbows, expecting to see Gene grinning across at him. Instead he saw his Guv lying on his back, hand to his shoulder, blood seeping from between his fingers. "Gene…." He crawled over on all fours, gently forcing the hand to lift so that he could see the wound. With a sigh of relief he found a deep scratch where the bullet had caught him on its way to embedding itself in the brick behind them. There was a lot of blood, but even with the frightening emergency response service and the limited care available once at the hospital, Gene would live. Sam let go of his hand and it was pressed once again to the wound. "You're all right," he muttered, smiling slightly.

"It bloody hurts!"

"I know. But it's not fatal, and back up's on its way. We'll get you into the vicinity of a doctor."

"At least I wasn't wearing my coat! Wouldn't want blood on that, the wife says it's hell to get out." His good hand was starting to shake, so Sam lifted it again, fighting him when he fought against it, replacing it with his own, putting painful but necessary pressure on Gene's shoulder.

"You saved my life. And I don't think it's the first time."

"Well… can't lose you, can I? You're responsible for at least seventy-five percent of all our collars." But he'd avoided Sam's grateful gaze and when he did finally meet his eyes, Sam saw the truth in his expression.

"I love you too." He put a sarcastic spin on it, but knew Gene knew he meant it. It might have been a moment between them, if the gravel at the other end of the alley hadn't been thrown up by a hard-braking bronze-coloured Cortina and a selection of other police cars.

"Oy! Mind the sodding paintwork!!!" Gene collapsed back to the concrete and Sam could see the pain in his eyes. "This is your fault," he muttered softly, "before you started to nick my keys no one else ever dared drive it."

"I'll apologise later, after I've thanked you properly."

"I'll be holding you to that, Sam. The apology and the 'thank you'."


2006

"You took a bullet for me when I'd started to think it would be me taking one for you, and that would be how I woke up."

"I'm not saying I buy all this, Sam, but dare I ask how you did wake up?"

"I got hit by a car. A bloody taxi driver reading his 'A To Z' when he should have been watching the road. As I lay there I could hear the beeps from the machines in the hospital room in 2006 and I knew I was going to wake up. I was happy… overjoyed. But the last thing I saw was you, kneeling next to me, with tears in your eyes, begging me to stay." Sam wiped his own eyes with his fingers. "I've seen that over and over again. You keep me awake at night."

Gene's voice was quiet. "Not me, Sam. We only met this morning."

"It was you. I could have drawn you from memory. You've got a mole on the inside of your left thigh, and a tiny scar on your left testicle from where Billy Marlow kicked you during a fight when you were kids."

There was disbelief in those blue eyes staring at him now. "You can't know that."

Sam leaned forward. "You love having the tops of your ears sucked, and when you come you go very, very still. You always stayed the night because you love sleepy sex in the morning and afterwards you'd cook the best fry ups I've ever tasted."

"This is impossible, Sam."

"I stopped using that word months ago. When I saw you this morning, I thought someone had given me a second shot. I want to take it."

"You want me?"

"Yes." He picked up his glass and smiled around the rim. "Guv."


1973

Elbow on the bar, head against his palm, Sam watched Gene finish off his third pint.

"How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Drink all that and still get it up for an hour."

Gene grinned happily. "It's a useful skill, don’t knock it."

"Oh, believe me, I wasn't criticising."

"Good. That's what the wife always did. I'd get home from the pub, beered up and randy as 'ell and she'd push me away, tell me I smelt like a brewery and that I could sleep in the spare room. In the end I started to just go straight to the spare room, toss one off, go to sleep."

"Alcohol makes you randy." It was a quiet, private conversation. Everyone else was playing darts or watching the game on the television.

"Incredibly. Thought you'd realised that."

Sam shrugged. "Hadn't. Actually."

"It's part of the reason… for you and I. You don't push me away."

Shaking his head, Sam resisted the urge to reach out and brush his fingers over the smooth throat laid bare by the pull of Gene's violet shirt across his right shoulder. Her loss was his gain, but he didn't say that. Instead he offered another round of drinks.


2006

"You're nicked, Whittaker." Sam glanced at his boss. "Never could get the words right."

"Me neither."

Two uniformed officers, friends and colleagues of the three men shot on Brooklands Estate, dragged Carl Whittaker to his feet using the handcuffs snapped onto his wrists by Chief Superintendent Gene Hunt.

"This won't stick!"

"Course it will. Mud always sticks to filth like you."

Sam winced. "Your metaphors haven't improved."

"What?"

"Nothing. Carl Whittaker, you have the right to remain silent…."

Whittaker struggled against the cuffs and the restraining officers. "You're the filth, Hunt! Bent coppers like you always get found out in the en-" The last word was choked from his throat as Sam's hand grabbed him.

"Not another word," he hissed dangerously. "You will not accuse this senior policeman of being corrupt. Not again. Better men than you have tried and failed, take my word for it. Do you understand me?" Whittaker glanced over Sam's shoulder and back at him. He nodded with some difficulty. "Say, 'yes, Sir, I understand you.'" Whittaker's voice came out as just a squeak, and Sam relaxed his grip a fraction. "Say it."

"Yes, Sir… I understand."

"Good." He stepped back. "Now let me start again. Carl Whittaker, you have the right to remain silent…."

~

"He was about to accuse me of being bent."

Sam touched smiling wet lips to the side of a smooth ribcage. "Corrupt. He did it before, in my dream. I refused to listen, had him banged up and you took me to the pub and bought me a drink. It was the night we got together."

The man in his arms turned to face him, and Sam met his kiss with more energy than he thought he had left.

"Wasn't this kind of thing frowned upon in 1973?"

"What? Two bum bandits doing disgusting things to one another under the cover of darkness?"

Gene chuckled softly, pulling Sam closer. "Let me guess, I said that."

"To be fair, you said it before we started sharing my metal framed camp bed."

"God. I'm glad we're 2006 rather than back in the dark ages." Sam's bed in his present apartment in the old textiles mill was seven foot by seven foot on a raised platform. Even this modern version of Gene had called it 'a bit Graham Norton'. It was good to know there was still a hint of the Gene Hunt he'd fallen in love with buried somewhere in the man who'd become his lover after just eleven hours of knowing him. "You had a bit of a go at Whittaker, Sam. Not right that, threatening a suspect. A bit archaic."

"A bit 1973."

A large hand swept over his head and Gene's mouth touched his own. "It's not 1973 now. It's 2006. You're awake, there's no where to go."

"For the first time since I woke up, there's no where I want to go." Shifting down a bit, Sam cushioned his head against Gene's shoulder. "Stay?"

"Looks like I am doing, doesn't it?"

 

 

FIN

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