Life On Mars fic : Blast

[talkingtothesky]

Title: Blast
Author: talkingtothesky
Spoilers: 2x03
Rating: Green Cortina (Bit of swearing...)
Word Count: About 4000! (I know, the damn thing just wouldn't end!) EDIT: Actually, it's so large I've had to post it in two different parts!
Pairings: Sam/Gene, Annie/Sam, and even a bit of Gene/Annie if you squint.
Summary: In which sad Sam gets himself blown up and hospitalized following Ray's accident ...
A/N: A response to the wonderful plot bunny provided by marsorbiter . This is my first outing with these characters, and I promise to put them neatly back where I found them. I have no idea whether any of them are at all in character. Also, this was meant to have a plot, but I fear it may have just turned into a string of arguments...Read at your own risk, and I'm sorry it's soo long!

Tick…tock…tick…tock…tick…tockticktockticktocktick.

 

“No rush, Tyler! You’ve got about 22 seconds before all blows sky high!”

 

The pliers are slippery in his sweaty palm. The clockface hovers menacingly above him, confirming Gene’s statement and daring him to disobey. It’s the red one, no, it’s the yellow – he knows he’s done it before, back in ‘Hyde’. Except how can he remember something from a place he has never been to?

 

Think! He orders of his unco-operative brain. While time seems to be speeding up, his mind is slowing down, the grey cloud forming over his memories and denying all recollection of his last encouter with a car-bomb. It suddenly occurs to him that he can barely remember what his own room looked like in 2006.

 

The insistent ticking of the clock. It looms above him, challenging him.

 

“15 seconds, Tyler!”  

 

He glances around for help, but none is forthcoming. Except for a face that appears out of nowhere and almost makes him hit his head on the underside of the car.

 

The Test Card Girl leans down from the back end of the car. Her blonde hair spills down, brushing against the pavement.

 

“What are you going to do, Sam?”

 

“I’ve got nothing to prove!”

 

Sam stares back at her, a million voices coursing through his head, a flood of memories bursting through the dam and swamping him.

 

“He’s hurt Sam, didn’t you know? They haven’t told you he’s dying, have they?”

 

“No!” Sam shouts, shaking his head – it can’t be true.

 

“It’s all your fault, Sam…”

 

No! Shakes his head again.

 

The pliers shake uncontrollably in his hands, as still staring at the girl hanging upside down, closes around the yellow wire and pulls.

 

And suddenly the clockface is superimposed over the girl’s face and the second hand gives one last tick.

 

“Bang! You’re dead, Sam.”

 

And the last thing he sees is the toy clown’s face laughing before he is swept away into oblivion.

 

-----

 

Gene Hunt dives behind his beloved Cortina for the second time that day. He feels the heat ruffle his hair as it rushes upwards and outwards in a swirling ball of flame. His gloved fingers clench the door frame as if it is the only thing holding him up. It is over in seconds, but his heart is lodged in his throat and refuses to start beating again.

 

He barely registers the bomb squad arriving seconds too late, the fact that Chris is babbling something incoherent. He is running – no, sprinting – to his DI’s side before he has chance to think.

 

And when he does, he wishes he hadn’t.

 

“Shit, Tyler!”  He drops to his knees and grabs hold of a  bloodied wrist, but his hands are shaking so much he can’t even find a pulse. He thinks he sees eyelids flutter, but when he looks again he finds it wishful thinking. He thinks Sam’s fingers twitch, as if to grasp hold of Gene’s own wrist, but Tyler’s hand remains still. He thinks the bastard’s flown about 6 feet from under that car. He thinks of how lucky they said Ray was to survive, and realises that Sam’ll have to be bloody lucky too. Gene hates thinking.

 

Instead, he stares shakenly down at the man lying motionless next to him and sees for the first time. The open gash on his forehead, seeping blood onto the pavement, the scattered, mangled remains of the metal clock that caused it. The rest of Sam is burnt, battered and bruised. His brain won’t stop putting things together as he runs through the events of the past few hours; the dark, defeated look in Sam’s eyes everytime Gene reminded him of this morning’s events, the flash of eagerness as he planted himself under that bomb and then stayed there.

 

The ambulance arrives after what feels like centuries and as they hoist Tyler haphazardly onto a stretcher Gene lets go of his wrist.  His gloves are smeared with  Sam’s blood and he stares at them, disgusted. His gaze shifts to the ambulance as it trundles off, painfully slowly. Onl y when it has disappeared around the corner does he turn and punch the nearest wall.

-----

When he stumbles through the doors of CID the next morning – only slightly pissed (“I’m a professional officer!”) – the first person he bumps into is Cartwright. She comes barrelling along the corridor, her voice far too loud.

 

“Thank goodness you turned up, sir! We’ve had three stabbings and a burglary!” When she reached him, however, her voice turned to a whisper and to his surprise asked; “How is he?”

 

His first reaction was to say; “How’s who?” It looked as if the alcohol had done its job. All it had really succeeded in doing, though, was pissing off the WPC.

 

“DI Tyler! You know, one of your officers, short hair, leather jacket, got blown up by a car yesterday?!” With one look from Gene, though, she shut up sharp. She put a hand to her mouth, as though amazed at her own daring.

 

“I’m sorry, sir, I’ll just-“

 

“I don’t know.” He admitted seriously, all traces of the hangover apparently disappated.

 

“You mean you haven’t even-!” she almost yelled again, then caught herself.

 

Gene shook his head. Then the anger returned in full measure and he half-growled; “Looks like my officers have quite a habit of getting blown up though, doesn’t it!?”

 

He pushed past her and made to stalk off down the corridor towards his office. Unfortunately for the both of them, the plonk was being just as annoying as Tyler himself, and followed him.

 

Gene made straight for his stash drawer of whisky; it was obvious he was going to need to drink just to get through the day. He didn’t bother to hold the door open for her, prefering to let it slam in her face. Maybe she’d get the message and leave him in peace.

 

The truth was that he’d been so wrapped up in feeling sorry for himself, he hadn’t even bothered to check up and see whether the bloke had died or not. In his head he’d pretty much made up his mind of the chances. He was half-expecting to see a note from Chris on his desk attached to a newspaper article detailing Sam Tyler’s fatal mission. It would probably paint a picture of Tyler the bloody Hyde-hero, valiant to the last in the hope of keeping the city safe. The whole idea made him feel sick.

 

For he knew that Sam Tyler was a ruddy coward; and he, Gene Hunt, had driven him to suicide.

 

It was at that point that Annie finally reappeared, apparently nursing a bruised nose. He busied himself with the glasses, reluctantly beginning to pour her a glass when it became apparent she wasn’t moving from his office.

 

“Oh, not for me, thanks, Guv.”  She protested. Gene shrugged and downed both glasses, one after the other.

“Right then, Cartwright, spit it out!”

 

“Okay…” For all her confidence of earlier, she wasn’t sure if what she was doing was the right thing. She could just as easily be demoted for wasting his time. Or she could get Sam into even more trouble than he was already in. “Well, you know when I’ve told you before that Sam still hasn’t recovered from his accident the first day he got here? He seems to have been getting worse recently. Remember Tony Crane? Sam has actually told me aspects of what Crane said to be true. He keeps saying that we’re all imaginary, or something. He was rattling on to me about something called Semtec and the 1990s earlier….”

 

She paused, risked a glance at Gene, who was watching her intently, and she realised suddenly that she hadn’t yet sat down. Dropping into a chair that Gene kicked out from the table towards her, she continued. “I…I snapped at him. I made sure he felt bad about what happened to Ray, and well…I don’t know, but sometimes he can take things too far…”

 

“You think it’s your fault?”

 

“I don’t know!”

 

“ He adores you, but I'm hoping you two aren't that close for him to kill himself because you had a go at him once?! Hell, Tyler pisses off everyone he meets, he must be used to getting shouted at! I mean, what have I been doing for the past seven months?!”

 

Annie, too, was losing her patience now. “How can you be so insensitive? When Ray gets hurt you go all high and mighty about needing to protect your officers, yet when Sam goes and very near dies, you don’t give a damn!”

 

“That’s because it was his fault! You can’t expect me to like Tyler when it was his brilliant idea that got Ray hurt! Ray has followed me up the ranks ever since I first started; Tyler turns up on his big Hyde-horse and starts trying to rewrite everything we stand for! The only reason I let him keep his job was because he’s a bloody good officer! “

 

“But that doesn’t allow you to care when he is lying in a hospital bed?”

 

“I don’t see you rushing to his side!”

 

“I thought you were there all last night!”

 

“ Well, obviously not!”

 

“Then we’re both responsible!”

 

“Fine!” He stood abruptly from his seat, knocking several files off the desk in the process. “Look, I’ve got a city to run here, so unless you’re trying to replace Tyler in the pain-in-the-arse stakes, I suggest you shift it!”

 

“Yes, sir.” Agreed Annie, knowing she had crossed several lines this morning already. “I’ll bring the files through.” She rose from her seat and was almost at the door when she decided she could push it just that one step further.

 

“In case you hadn’t noticed, Ray’s not the only one who’s followed you ever since he started. While yes, Sam’s different, you can’t say the changes he’s made haven’t been for the better! Sam’s stuck to his guns, even when the whole world’s against him – and even though you won’t admit it, he’s been right in several of those times! And you might like someone to agree with you all the time, but I’m sure if you were honest with yourself you’d see that Sam being a ‘pain in the arse’ has made you a better officer and quite possibly a better man!”

 

And with that, she half-ran out of his office, leaving him fuming and with an awful lot more to think about. He didn’t get those files for a very long time.

-----

(Continued here)