Fic: Five Times Sam Tyler Fell In Love, white cortina, dakfinv
Title: Five Times Sam Tyler Fell in Love
Author: dak
Word Count:1238 words
Rating: white cortina
A/N: For
walkerbaby
1.
His partner drove hell for leather down the street, sirens blaring. Sam resisted the urge to grab hold of the door as they spun round a corner. Instead, he adjusted his cap and grinned at his fellow patrolman. His first day on the job, and already they were speeding to a call.
When the panda arrived at the house, Sam realized they were the first officers on the scene. They hurried to the front door and when they knocked, the door opened inwards on its own. Sam and Robert exchanged glances before cautiously entering the house.
What happened next was a blur. A man rushed Robby. A woman began screaming. A child was crying. Somehow, they subdued the man before he could do more than split Robby’s lip. While his partner loaded the suspect into the car, Sam checked on the mother and child. The woman was bleeding heavily from a stab wound to her arms and chest. The child was uninjured but terrified. Sam radioed for the ambulance and stayed with her until the paramedics took her and her child away.
When the woman and her daughter - Rebecca Baxter and little Rachel - arrived at the station a week later to give formal statements, Rachel immediately recognized Sam and ran to give him a big hug. Rebecca, on the road to full recovery, thanked him profusely for saving her life.
At that moment, Sam Tyler fell in love with policing.
2.
Mum was out of town visiting her mother. Auntie Heather had gone along, too. Grandma Maggie was very ill, so they told him, and needed both her daughters to look after her. They had offered Sam the chance to come with them, but being stranded with a sick grandmother who left lipstick smudges on his shirts and offered stale, store-bought cookies was not a sixteen-year-old’s idea of a fun weekend.
Mum had left him some cash for food, which he quickly spent on Chinese takeaway and new records. In hindsight, the takeaway had been a good idea; the records had not. Come day two, a penniless Sam stood in the center of the kitchen, starving and scared. He swallowed nervously and searched the refrigerator and cabinets for anything even remotely edible.
He was left with a stack of foods he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with. Gulping nervously, he took his mum’s cookbook off the shelf and searched for a recipe whose ingredients matched what was available to him. Reading the cookbook was like reading a foreign language. He didn’t understand most of the terminology and attempting to decipher it caused him more than one headache.
Nearly three hours and half a dozen curses later, he had finally prepared something that looked similar to food. Closing his eyes, he stuck in the fork, grabbed a bite, and carefully placed it in his mouth. His eyes immediately snapped open. Much to his surprise, it was not only edible, but actually tasted good. Sam was astonished. As he looked around the nearly demolished kitchen, he simply couldn’t believe he had been able to take seemingly random items and put them together to create something worthwhile.
At that moment, Sam Tyler fell in love with cooking.
3.
He had been having the shite day to end all shite days. Mum was on his case over his schoolwork; he’d been doing poorly in Maths and she’d finally found out. Then, in a fit of anger, he’d manage to break three strings on his guitar while tuning it - just one right after the other - and hadn’t the money to replace them until at least next Thursday. And, to top it all off, he’d caught his girlfriend, Julie, snogging Peter Andrews. Well, she wasn’t exactly his girlfriend, but he had taken her to the flicks a few times and bought her some flowers once.
He decided to ditch the tea Mum had prepared and spend his evening at Vinyl Heaven, scouring the stacks and losing himself in the music. Sam was doing just that when his fingers flipped across an old 7” he hadn’t noticed before. It caught his eye purely because his name was in the title.
He picked it out of the rack and took it to the listening booths, waiting impatiently for a booth to become free. After an agonizing three minute wait, he shuffled inside the tiny, soundproofed room, and put on the record. Then, he played it again. And again. And again. The lyrics, the chords, the singing itself - it was like nothing he had ever heard. It all blended together perfectly, lifting his spirits and erasing his dark mood. All he wanted to do was dance to that record and that music for the rest of his life.
At that moment, Sam Tyler fell in love with T. Rex.
4.
Having just made detective, he had been so busy with work that he’d barely had time to visit his mother. It had been over two months since the last time he’d seen her and he knew his absence was taking a toll. So, Sam cleared a weekend especially for her, and booked a fancy dinner at the most expensive restaurant he could afford. He even hoovered out his car before he picked her up. He didn’t want his mum to think he wasn’t taking care of himself.
Ruth was absolutely thrilled to see her son. On the drive to the restaurant she made Sam tell her everything that was going on in his life - work, friends, girlfriends. She even asked if he was keeping up with his guitar, and was so excited when he said he was.
They had just arrived at the car park, when Ruth started to have difficulty breathing. She had pains in her chest and began sweating heavily. Usually, Sam would have run inside the restaurant and borrowed their phone to call 999. That night, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the large, plastic brick he had, almost against his will, just purchased. Because he needn’t run to the restaurant or a phone booth, he was able to stay with his mum as he rang for the ambulance, keeping her comforted and calm.
At that moment, Sam Tyler fell in love with mobile phones.
5.
The air was cleaner, even though the offices were filled with smoke. He couldn’t listen to his iPod, but he could play a pristine LP. There were only three channels, but he could spend more time reading. There was no Diet Coke, but he could enjoy a fine whisky. Sometimes work didn’t get done, but sometimes he actually enjoyed being in the station with his team.
He couldn’t pinpoint when it happened. He thought it came somewhere between chasing Kim Trent in nowt but his swimming trunks and a t-shirt and saving Denise Williams from a crazed housewife. It happened, quite unexpectedly, sometime during the drinking and the punch-ups and the foiled blags. It could have happened when Ray dismissed him, then offered him a drink. It may have happened when Chris spilled tea all down his front, then managed to solve a case all on his own. It might have happened when Annie smiled at him, then coyly refused a date. It may have happened when Gene insulted him, then took his advice.
In all the confusion, at some point, Sam Tyler fell in love with 1973.