Surrender
by elfin
"…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."
Fin
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