Life On Mars fic : Blast (Part 2)

[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!)
Pairings: Sam/Gene, Annie/Sam, and even a bit of Gene/Annie, if you squint...
Summary: In which sad Sam gets himself blown up folllowing Ray's accident...
A/N:  A response the wonderful plot bunny provided by marsorbiter. This is my first outing with these characters, and I promise to put them back neatly 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!

-----

He hates hospitals with a passion. Too tidy, too quiet, too clinical. And bloody freezing! Honestly, half the people in here were likely just sick with the flu!

 

He shoves his hands (gloveless) in the pockets of his coat and saunters down the never-ending corridors, not knowing where he’s going, but knowing at the same time.

 

The ward he’s in is full of coma patients, so it hardly matters if he makes a noise, and he doesn’t try to be quiet, never has.

 

It was his conscience that won over in the end, the annoying, Tyler-shaped conscience that had niggled away through the scotch until even that couldn’t make him forget anymore.

 

The department’s reaction to Sam’s accident had been very different to Ray’s. When before they had stood together and made Sam stick out as the scapegoat, now they were subdued but ultimately unaffected. There were no collection tins, no get well cards (apart from Chris, who had lazily scrawled ‘Get well, Boss’ while dropping bits of sandwich all over it.) This had annoyed Annie most of all, who had grown sick of the muttering that permeated the offices hour after hour.

 

The cases they’d dealt with had not been too complicated, but the O’ Brien case had resulted in Gene beating the bastard to within an inch of his life. He had only laid off him when some invisible force had pushed him back, his brain registering something about him being just as bad as the terrorists himself if he killed the bloke. Mercifully, said terrorists had been silent today.

 

Gene’d never admit it, but it had been strange without Tyler. Chris was all very well and good, but he wasn’t quite as enigmatic a colleague as Gene had grown used to having at his side.

 

Which is why he had wound up here, when even sitting in the pub had done nothing to soothe his rattled nerves.

 

When he finally finds the man he is looking for, it is an unpleasant surprise. Sam’s head is bandaged tightly,  a tube thrust down his throat forcing him to breathe. Gene has never seen him so quiet. A recollection from months ago, Gene remembers Sam telling a nurse “Tell them not to stop talking to her.” He’d wondered at the time how he knew so much about coma patients, but had never asked.

 

“Right, then, Tyler!” he said, sinking down into an incredibly uncomfortable hospital chair. He rubs his hands together, trying to figure out what to say next.  “You’re a royal pain, but Cartwright’s got her knickers in a twist over you and decided to give me the third degree this morning. Now, for all our sakes, wake up and get her off my back, will you?! Besides, I am not losing any of my officers over this! It’ll take more than the IRA to bring down my team, you got that?”

 

He keeps asking questions, but they keep going unanswered. “Now, whatever bee in your bonnet you’ve got telling you to get blown up is going to stop. We shouldn’t have blamed you for everything that happened to Ray, who I’ve only just found out is gonna be just dandy anyway! So Gladys, stop pissing about and wake.the hell.up!” He punctuates this with a slap on the bedcovers.

 

Sam remains still and silent; it wasn’t like Gene expected him to come round from a two day long coma just like that. The silence is broken, though, when a skinny nurse strolls up to the bed and begins to check Sam’s vitals. She asks him “You family?”

 

Gene starts and shakes his head. It had only just occurred to him that Sam had never really mentioned his family; Gene had assumed they were all back in Hyde. “Nah, I’m his boss.”

 

“Right, then, Sam’s boss!” she says brightly, with a cheeriness Gene despises. “It’s only a matter of time before he wakes up, he’s healing quickly and his brain has sustained no further damage apart from the obvious.” Gene snorts at this.

 

“He’ll be no more insane than usual, then.”

 

Nurse Williams (so it said on her nametag) ignored this and carried on; “It’ll be up to him where and when he wakes up, however. This kind of trauma often results in patients wanting to return home, take a break, regroup. In the meantime, you’ll just have to be patient while he decides.”

 

The nurse trots off again only for another set of clipped heels to appear round the corner at the same time. Gene groans.

 

“Oh, you came then?” Annie remarks, sitting herself down on Sam’s other side and glaring at him over the bed.

 

“How could I not? You’dve dragged me here by the balls anyway!”

 

Annie smiles slightly. “I’ve just been to check on Ray; they say he’s free to go. He’s just about bouncing off the walls demanding to get out of here!”

 

Gene breaks into a grin. “Good man! I’d better go and give him a lift!”

 

“Hey, not so fast!” Annie protests when he stands to leave. “What did the nurse say?”

Gene shrugged. “The lazy git’ll wake up when he wants to.”

 

-----

When the familiar voices return, Sam finds it both a relief and irritation. They are just a blur at first, loud and incoherent; disturbing his peace. Then he recognises the sound of the heart monitor and his mood soars. “Come on, Sam, wake up! We’ve missed you!”

 

Mum!? He thinks, tries to find his way in the blackness. Mum, I’m coming! I’m coming home! And slowly, ever so slowly, he begins to hear more and more of what’s around him, begins to feel the tingling in his body that promises great pain as soon as he opens his eyes. But it is worth it, because he is home.

 

“He’s waking up! Come on Sam, you can do it!”

 

He feels his mind drop back into his body again as the pain returns in full measure. His eyes open of their own accord, and he tries to focus his blurry vision on the ceiling. Only from what he can see already, it’s not as clean as he remembers it being. The striplights, the ice-white, downright cleanliness of it all. Instead he finds himself looking at a yellowy-brown ceiling; there is a tile missing and the voice doesn’t sound like his mum anymore.

 

“Oh, Sam! I’m so glad you made it!” cried Annie. Her grip on his hand tightened, and she leaned closer into the bed. Sam wrenched his eyes from the ceiling and tried to hide his disappointment. He had been so sure that time.

 

“Hi, Annie.” He croaked, his voice hoarse. His head feels unbelievably heavy and he realises that it is bandaged.

 

“Hello, Sam.”  She smiled brightly and picked up a glass of water from the table. 

 

“Here, drink this.” Sam tried to reach out to take it from her, but found his right hand still clasped in Annie’s. He tried again, this time with his other arm. He felt a sharp surge of pain in his left shoulder and almost cried out. “Woah, easy!” she said, moving her hand to rest on his forearm and stilling his movements. She held the glass to his lips. “Drink slowly or you’ll bring it back up!”

 

The liquid tickled his dry throat and he almost choked on it. But once it was down he felt better for it. He attempted to sit up a little straighter, then remembered the shoulder and decided not to risk it.

 

“How long you been there?” he asked. Annie shrugged.

 

“Not long. Couple of hours.”

 

“Right.”

 

A small silence echoed between them, half-truths stilled on the tips of tongues and then swallowed back down. When Annie spoke again, it was nothing but truth.

 

“The Guv just left a little while ago, I’d better let him know you’ve woken up.”

 

Sam froze. “What was he doing here?”

 

“He’s with DS Carling, giving him a lift-“

 

Sam interrupted her again. “Ray? What, is he ok? She said he was gonna die!”

 

Annie was looking at him strangely. But then, Sam supposed, he couldn’t blame her.

 

“He’s fine!” she told him, firmly. She was looking directly into his eyes as if trying to find out if he knew something she was not aware of. “They’ve all gone off down the pub now, and Ray’ll be given a hero’s welcome. Just you worry about getting yourself better!”

 

She stroked the back of his hand and stood from the uncomfortable chair she had been sitting on. “Listen, you will be ok on your own for a bit now? Only I’m s’posed to be at a family dinner now and my mum will kill me…”

 

“Yeah, course, Annie. You go.” Sam watched as she made her exit, his eyelids beginning to droop once again.

-----

Sam is awoken by a rough shout. “Oi, Tyler! I know you’re awake – don’t you dare go falling asleep on me!” He opens his eyes blearily to see his DCI marching towards him. He shrinks back under the covers, preparing for the bollocking of his life, but is surprised when Gene just plonks himself down on the side of the bed.

 

“You were supposed to be at the pub?” Sam asks, shifting into a more upright position.

 

“I was until that bird of yours rang and told me you’d woken up!”

 

“She’s not my ‘bird’!” he protests.

 

“Whatever, Tyler.” Then his eyes darken and Sam shrinks back again; he hasn’t escaped the telling off after all. “Don’t you ever do that again!” Gene stabs a finger in Sam’s direction. Sam knows there’s no point trying to stop him, he’ll just have to let him get into his tirade.

 

“I told you! I told you a dead moron is no use to anyone!”

 

“Not much use as a living moron though, am I?!” Sam spat back. “You spent long enough reminding me of that fact!”

 

This really puts the wind up Gene’s sails. “You selfish bastard! I keep doing everything I can to include you in this department and all you can do is throw it back in my face! You put someone in danger, and you still expect people to bow down at your feet just because you always have to be right?”

 

“That sounds an awful lot like you, doesn’t it! You beat people up just because they don’t agree with you!”

 

“You listen to me, Tyler.” Gene growls, his face dangerously close to Sam’s. “Cartwright may believe your shit, thinks it’s good for the department, but you are seriously testing my patience.  I warned you to get in sync; you’re lucky to still have a job, let alone a life!” He jabs his fingers sharply into Sam’s ribs and suddenly Sam is doubled in agony, heaving over the side of the bed. His whole body is burning with pain; when was the last time he took painkillers? He brings up the water from earlier, along with blood from his tattered throat. Sam feels like shit.

 

Suddenly there are fingers on the back of his neck, rubbing circles into the tense muscles. “Woah there, Sammy-boy!” Hands pull him back into an upright position. Sam’s ribs and shoulder are screaming with pain. He grits his teeth and refocuses on Gene, who is looking concernedly back at him. “Sorry, didn’t think…” he says quietly, his anger vanished. “You alright?”

 

Sam shakes his head as best he can, tries to breathe and struggles. And then the lights go out.

 

Sam stares ahead of him, Gene nowhere to be seen. There is a television on a wall bracket down the corridor, and standing directly beneath it is the Test Card Girl, illuminated eerily in the only scrap of light in the room; a shaft cascading through a crack in the ceiling.

 

“What do you want?!”

 

“You were lucky, Sam,” she says, clutching her wretched clown to her side, its neck twisted at an odd angle. “But you still can’t trust them! They hate you, Sam!  You’re not safe till you’re back home. I can help you get back home…” Then she is gone again, and the lights flicker on.

 

“Tyler, Tyler!” It’s Gene again. Sam groans as he adjusts to the light, but the pain is thankfully numbed.

 

“They’ve topped up your painkillers.” The Guv tells him unnecessarily, still perched on the edge of his bed. He sighs. “What’re we going to do with you, eh?”

 

Sam shrugs with one shoulder, deciding not to risk it. “Sorry for falling asleep on you, Gene.” He smirks.

 

“I am not your babysitter!” Gene insists, but he is smiling too.

 

“Do I still have a job then?”

 

“Only when they let you out of here!”

-----

 

They arrest Frank Miller; with Annie’s help, of course.  When Sam enters the pub later that day he recieves a round of applause from the whole department.

“Not bad, Tyler.”

 

“Well, I did have a bit of help from DC Cartwright.”

 

“Credit where credit’s due.”

 

Sam grins and immerses himself in the pub banter. He may not be ‘home’ yet, but he’s starting to build a new one for himself whether he likes it or not. 
-----
END.