Fic: Steady As She Goes (6/86)
Title: Steady As She Goes (6/86)
Author: dak
Word Count: 1705
Rating: Blue Cortina
Warning: mild swearing, some angst
Summary: Sam gets a talking to.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not in the slightest.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Here's the next part, now with 50% less prat-like Sam!
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30 Part 31 Part 32 Part 33 Part 34 Part 35 Part 36 Part 37 Part 38 Part 39 Part 40 Part 41 Part 42 Part 43 Part 44 Part 45 Part 46 Part 47 Part 48 Part 49 Part 50 Part 51 Part 52 Part 53 Part 54 Part 55 Part 56 Part 57 Part 58 Part 59 Part 60 Part 61 Part 62 Part 63 Part 64 Part 65 Part 66 Part 67 Part 68 Part 69 Part 70 Part 71 Part 72 Part 73 Part 74 Part 75 Part 76 Part 77 Part 78 Part 79 Part 80 Part 81 Part 82 Part 83 Part 84 Part 85 Part 86
The light was bright. Painfully, blinding bright. As his weak eyes desperately tried to adjust, he could just barely make out the figure of a woman approaching him. He tried to open his eyes more, see who it was, but it was too painful and he squeezed them shut.
“Morning Phyllis.”
“Morning Boss.” Phyllis set down a tray on the bench near Sam’s head. “Guv wants to see yeh soon’s you’re dressed.”
“Brilliant.” Sam tried to stand and failed. “Weren’t you here last night? Don’t you ever go home?” He rubbed his splitting head.
“Oh that weren’t me boss. Was me evil twin. Fills in for me whenever we’re understaffed and I need to take another double shift.” Phyllis left Sam in the cell and went about her business. Sam opened his eyes again and realized he was sitting on the floor, back against the wall. He looked down and saw his torn and bloodied shirt. His pants weren’t much better and his shoes had certainly seen better days. The tray Phyllis had brought him contained a small pot of coffee, a bottle of Lucozade, and fresh clothes from his locker.
As he removed each article of ruined clothing he remembered the previous day’s events and wished more than ever that at that exact moment he would wake up in 2006.
Sam chugged the bottle of Lucozade as he rode the elevator to the third floor. Usually he would walk, but his body felt like it had been hit by several lorries and a few Cortinas, so the elevator seemed like a much better option.
He quietly entered CID, thankful no one else was there. He looked at the clock. 7:30.
“Tyler!” A booming voice bellowed from Gene’s office causing Sam to step back.
“Does he have to be so bloody loud?” Sam took another swig of Lucozade and braced himself for the lashing to end all lashings. He tried to confidently enter Gene’s office, but tripping on entry completely ruined the effect.
“Good morning, Sunshine.” Gene spoke in his full voice. Sam squinted through the headache and saw Gene leaning back in his chair, feet on the desk, wearing what Sam remembered as his clothes from yesterday.
“I’m sorry.” He stared at his feet while Gene’s piercing eyes never left Sam.
“Oh it’s going to take a lot more than that Sammy-boy. Sit down.”
Sam stiffly and slowly sat in the chair across from Gene. Despite his extra precautions he still managed to twist the wrong way, aggravating his tender ribs. He involuntarily hissed in pain, but Gene gave no indication he noticed.
“How’s Chris?”
“So now you care. Din’t seem so concerned yesterday when you were drinking the whole of Manchester dry.”
Sam still couldn’t bring himself to look his Guv in the eye. “Where’s Ray?”
“He’ll be in later an’ if you’re very lucky I won’t let ‘im finish what he started.”
“He could’ve given me a concussion and you left me alone in a cell.”
“Well excuse me Princess, but the doctors were already busy trying to save Skelton’s life! So sorry if I don’t have too much concern for my strung out, self-centered poor arse excuse of a DI!” Gene was standing at his desk now, towering over Sam who, if it was even possible, sunk lower in his chair.
“I’m sorry.”
“You damn well better be! Makes me wonder why Chris even looks up to you the way he does. Is this the kind of copper you want him to be?”
“So he’s alive then.”
Gene took his voice down a notch. “Barely. Two surgeries. Still can’t have visitors.”
Sam nodded, felt nauseous, and drank some more Lucozade. Gene sat back down in the chair. “So you remember what you did yesterday.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I wasn’t that drunk.” Gene stared at him skeptically. “Okay, maybe I was.”
“So tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“What you did yesterday after you disappeared from
the station.”
“I went to the Arms, to see Nelson, to talk to someone.”
“Poor barman must be scarred for life, acting as your Agony Aunt. Then what?”
Sam wasn’t sure if it was the hangover, the beating, or the massive amount of Lucozade, but he had a heavy suspicion that he was being interrogated. His paranoia only increased as he gazed up and noticed how Gene was looking at him.
“I-Nelson cut me off, I got angry, and I left.”
Sam knew that look. It was the look Gene reserved exclusively for suspects.
“Where’d you go after that?”
“I walked back towards my flat. Uhm, there was an off license, I think.”
It was the look that scared people into believing Gene Hunt could see into their very souls.
“You think?”
“No. I mean, there was an off license. Went in, bought a bottle of something, I don’t remember, then went back to my flat.”
“How long were you there?”
Sam usually sat next to Gene when he used that look. Being on the receiving end was not nearly as enjoyable.
“Only a few minutes. I...” was terrified of a Test Card Girl, is what Sam wanted to say. “I wanted to see Chris.”
“Did you go right to the hospital?”
“Where else would I go?”
“How’d you get there?”
“I walked.”
“Which route?”
Sam couldn’t take it anymore. “Why the interrogation Gene?”
“Which route did you take to the hospital, Tyler?”
Sam leapt out of his chair, but instantly regretted it as pain shot out from his chest, radiating through his entire body. He winced, but kept standing. “Why are you treating me like a suspect?”
“Did you go directly from your flat to the hospital?” Gene yelled.
“I think so!”
“I need you to know Sam! Do you even really remember or were you already too drunk for that brain of yours to store anything?” Gene was standing again, moving closer to Sam.
“Why is it so important?” Sam yelled back. All the screaming was doing his head in. He just wanted it to stop, but he knew it wouldn’t.
“Why can’t you just tell me!” Gene was an inch from Sam’s face. Even in clean clothes Gene could still smell the scent of alcohol and blood radiating off the smaller man.
“I walked directly from my flat to the hospital. I got the shit beat out of me by Ray Carling, then thrown into a cell by you. The last thing I remember is sicking up all over a WPC!” By the end of his tirade Sam’s voice was dry and hoarse. His breathing was labored and uneven, and he was having trouble focusing. He could feel his legs giving way, but could do nothing to stop it.
Gene gently caught him and sat him on the tattered office couch. He waited patiently for Sam to catch his breath. “You didn’t walk down by the canal?”
“No...” Sam heaved. “It’s…the opposite direction…to the hospital.” Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to still his breathing. “What’s going on Gene?”
Gene strode over to his desk and picked up a file. He pulled out a photo and handed it to Sam. Sam looked at the picture of the dead off license clerk and Gene watched the look of horrific recognition spread across Sam’s pale face.
“That’s, he’s the...”
“Found ‘im last night after you were locked up.” Gene grabbed an evidence bag off his desk and held it out to Sam. “This was near ‘im.”
Sam took the bag and saw inside it a paper belonging to the Lloyd Street case file.
“You were clingin’ to that yesterday like a life preserver.”
“And now it’s on a dead body,” Sam whispered.
“We need to explain that evidence, Sam.”
“I-I remember...”
“What?”
“Dropping the file. At the off license. The papers, they went everywhere. I thought I got them all, but I was...”
“Pissed.”
“Yeah. I dropped them. I panicked. And I dropped...oh shit.” Sam started patting his pockets, looking for something he knew wasn’t there. Gene went to the coat rack and pulled out a flat piece of leather from his coat, then handed it to Sam.
“Show me you deserve this.” Gene said as Sam gratefully took back his warrant card.
*
“And why would I want to do this, WDC Cartwright?”
“I’m not asking you to do anything, Ms. Queen, I just thought you might be interested in a breaking story.”
Jackie Queen stood smoking behind her newspaper building as she looked at the file handed to her by Annie Cartwright.
“Another example of police incompetence. Didn’t think Gene would approve.”
“We just want Chris’ story fairly told.”
“And this wouldn’t have anything to do with CID’s vendetta against DCI Litton?”
Annie crossed her arms. “It has to do with a respected officer getting shot in his own station.” Annie looked at her watch. It was nearly eight. “I have to go. Just, consider it.”
Jackie watched as Annie walked away, then flipped back through the file that was left for her.
*
A sleeping Ray stirred in the stiff hospital chairs. He’d returned to the hospital waiting room after the Guv had dismissed them, expecting to be able to visit his best mate. Instead, he was informed that DC Skelton had just come out of surgery, again, and was unable to have any visitors.
Ray had been annoyed to no end, feeling betrayed by his Guv’nor. Why hadn’t Gene told him? Well, maybe he hadn’t known. Those two thoughts had battled for dominance all night as Ray waited for news, eventually falling victim to exhaustion.
His eyes slowly opened this morning, and as Ray stretched his sore back he checked his watch. Five minutes til eight.
“Shit.” He stood up and grabbed his jacket, ready to rush out of the hospital and over to the station, but a woman’s voiced halted his escape.
“Mr. Carling?”
Ray turned to see a petit nurse cautiously approaching. “What is it, luv?” Ray was too tired to yell or make obscene comments regarding the young woman’s buxom appearance.
“Mr. Skelton can have visitors now.”
Ray immediately changed direction, following the nurse down the hall. Certainly the Guv would understand.
______
Part 7
Author: dak
Word Count: 1705
Rating: Blue Cortina
Warning: mild swearing, some angst
Summary: Sam gets a talking to.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not in the slightest.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Here's the next part, now with 50% less prat-like Sam!
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30 Part 31 Part 32 Part 33 Part 34 Part 35 Part 36 Part 37 Part 38 Part 39 Part 40 Part 41 Part 42 Part 43 Part 44 Part 45 Part 46 Part 47 Part 48 Part 49 Part 50 Part 51 Part 52 Part 53 Part 54 Part 55 Part 56 Part 57 Part 58 Part 59 Part 60 Part 61 Part 62 Part 63 Part 64 Part 65 Part 66 Part 67 Part 68 Part 69 Part 70 Part 71 Part 72 Part 73 Part 74 Part 75 Part 76 Part 77 Part 78 Part 79 Part 80 Part 81 Part 82 Part 83 Part 84 Part 85 Part 86
The light was bright. Painfully, blinding bright. As his weak eyes desperately tried to adjust, he could just barely make out the figure of a woman approaching him. He tried to open his eyes more, see who it was, but it was too painful and he squeezed them shut.
“Morning Phyllis.”
“Morning Boss.” Phyllis set down a tray on the bench near Sam’s head. “Guv wants to see yeh soon’s you’re dressed.”
“Brilliant.” Sam tried to stand and failed. “Weren’t you here last night? Don’t you ever go home?” He rubbed his splitting head.
“Oh that weren’t me boss. Was me evil twin. Fills in for me whenever we’re understaffed and I need to take another double shift.” Phyllis left Sam in the cell and went about her business. Sam opened his eyes again and realized he was sitting on the floor, back against the wall. He looked down and saw his torn and bloodied shirt. His pants weren’t much better and his shoes had certainly seen better days. The tray Phyllis had brought him contained a small pot of coffee, a bottle of Lucozade, and fresh clothes from his locker.
As he removed each article of ruined clothing he remembered the previous day’s events and wished more than ever that at that exact moment he would wake up in 2006.
Sam chugged the bottle of Lucozade as he rode the elevator to the third floor. Usually he would walk, but his body felt like it had been hit by several lorries and a few Cortinas, so the elevator seemed like a much better option.
He quietly entered CID, thankful no one else was there. He looked at the clock. 7:30.
“Tyler!” A booming voice bellowed from Gene’s office causing Sam to step back.
“Does he have to be so bloody loud?” Sam took another swig of Lucozade and braced himself for the lashing to end all lashings. He tried to confidently enter Gene’s office, but tripping on entry completely ruined the effect.
“Good morning, Sunshine.” Gene spoke in his full voice. Sam squinted through the headache and saw Gene leaning back in his chair, feet on the desk, wearing what Sam remembered as his clothes from yesterday.
“I’m sorry.” He stared at his feet while Gene’s piercing eyes never left Sam.
“Oh it’s going to take a lot more than that Sammy-boy. Sit down.”
Sam stiffly and slowly sat in the chair across from Gene. Despite his extra precautions he still managed to twist the wrong way, aggravating his tender ribs. He involuntarily hissed in pain, but Gene gave no indication he noticed.
“How’s Chris?”
“So now you care. Din’t seem so concerned yesterday when you were drinking the whole of Manchester dry.”
Sam still couldn’t bring himself to look his Guv in the eye. “Where’s Ray?”
“He’ll be in later an’ if you’re very lucky I won’t let ‘im finish what he started.”
“He could’ve given me a concussion and you left me alone in a cell.”
“Well excuse me Princess, but the doctors were already busy trying to save Skelton’s life! So sorry if I don’t have too much concern for my strung out, self-centered poor arse excuse of a DI!” Gene was standing at his desk now, towering over Sam who, if it was even possible, sunk lower in his chair.
“I’m sorry.”
“You damn well better be! Makes me wonder why Chris even looks up to you the way he does. Is this the kind of copper you want him to be?”
“So he’s alive then.”
Gene took his voice down a notch. “Barely. Two surgeries. Still can’t have visitors.”
Sam nodded, felt nauseous, and drank some more Lucozade. Gene sat back down in the chair. “So you remember what you did yesterday.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I wasn’t that drunk.” Gene stared at him skeptically. “Okay, maybe I was.”
“So tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“What you did yesterday after you disappeared from
the station.”
“I went to the Arms, to see Nelson, to talk to someone.”
“Poor barman must be scarred for life, acting as your Agony Aunt. Then what?”
Sam wasn’t sure if it was the hangover, the beating, or the massive amount of Lucozade, but he had a heavy suspicion that he was being interrogated. His paranoia only increased as he gazed up and noticed how Gene was looking at him.
“I-Nelson cut me off, I got angry, and I left.”
Sam knew that look. It was the look Gene reserved exclusively for suspects.
“Where’d you go after that?”
“I walked back towards my flat. Uhm, there was an off license, I think.”
It was the look that scared people into believing Gene Hunt could see into their very souls.
“You think?”
“No. I mean, there was an off license. Went in, bought a bottle of something, I don’t remember, then went back to my flat.”
“How long were you there?”
Sam usually sat next to Gene when he used that look. Being on the receiving end was not nearly as enjoyable.
“Only a few minutes. I...” was terrified of a Test Card Girl, is what Sam wanted to say. “I wanted to see Chris.”
“Did you go right to the hospital?”
“Where else would I go?”
“How’d you get there?”
“I walked.”
“Which route?”
Sam couldn’t take it anymore. “Why the interrogation Gene?”
“Which route did you take to the hospital, Tyler?”
Sam leapt out of his chair, but instantly regretted it as pain shot out from his chest, radiating through his entire body. He winced, but kept standing. “Why are you treating me like a suspect?”
“Did you go directly from your flat to the hospital?” Gene yelled.
“I think so!”
“I need you to know Sam! Do you even really remember or were you already too drunk for that brain of yours to store anything?” Gene was standing again, moving closer to Sam.
“Why is it so important?” Sam yelled back. All the screaming was doing his head in. He just wanted it to stop, but he knew it wouldn’t.
“Why can’t you just tell me!” Gene was an inch from Sam’s face. Even in clean clothes Gene could still smell the scent of alcohol and blood radiating off the smaller man.
“I walked directly from my flat to the hospital. I got the shit beat out of me by Ray Carling, then thrown into a cell by you. The last thing I remember is sicking up all over a WPC!” By the end of his tirade Sam’s voice was dry and hoarse. His breathing was labored and uneven, and he was having trouble focusing. He could feel his legs giving way, but could do nothing to stop it.
Gene gently caught him and sat him on the tattered office couch. He waited patiently for Sam to catch his breath. “You didn’t walk down by the canal?”
“No...” Sam heaved. “It’s…the opposite direction…to the hospital.” Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to still his breathing. “What’s going on Gene?”
Gene strode over to his desk and picked up a file. He pulled out a photo and handed it to Sam. Sam looked at the picture of the dead off license clerk and Gene watched the look of horrific recognition spread across Sam’s pale face.
“That’s, he’s the...”
“Found ‘im last night after you were locked up.” Gene grabbed an evidence bag off his desk and held it out to Sam. “This was near ‘im.”
Sam took the bag and saw inside it a paper belonging to the Lloyd Street case file.
“You were clingin’ to that yesterday like a life preserver.”
“And now it’s on a dead body,” Sam whispered.
“We need to explain that evidence, Sam.”
“I-I remember...”
“What?”
“Dropping the file. At the off license. The papers, they went everywhere. I thought I got them all, but I was...”
“Pissed.”
“Yeah. I dropped them. I panicked. And I dropped...oh shit.” Sam started patting his pockets, looking for something he knew wasn’t there. Gene went to the coat rack and pulled out a flat piece of leather from his coat, then handed it to Sam.
“Show me you deserve this.” Gene said as Sam gratefully took back his warrant card.
*
“And why would I want to do this, WDC Cartwright?”
“I’m not asking you to do anything, Ms. Queen, I just thought you might be interested in a breaking story.”
Jackie Queen stood smoking behind her newspaper building as she looked at the file handed to her by Annie Cartwright.
“Another example of police incompetence. Didn’t think Gene would approve.”
“We just want Chris’ story fairly told.”
“And this wouldn’t have anything to do with CID’s vendetta against DCI Litton?”
Annie crossed her arms. “It has to do with a respected officer getting shot in his own station.” Annie looked at her watch. It was nearly eight. “I have to go. Just, consider it.”
Jackie watched as Annie walked away, then flipped back through the file that was left for her.
*
A sleeping Ray stirred in the stiff hospital chairs. He’d returned to the hospital waiting room after the Guv had dismissed them, expecting to be able to visit his best mate. Instead, he was informed that DC Skelton had just come out of surgery, again, and was unable to have any visitors.
Ray had been annoyed to no end, feeling betrayed by his Guv’nor. Why hadn’t Gene told him? Well, maybe he hadn’t known. Those two thoughts had battled for dominance all night as Ray waited for news, eventually falling victim to exhaustion.
His eyes slowly opened this morning, and as Ray stretched his sore back he checked his watch. Five minutes til eight.
“Shit.” He stood up and grabbed his jacket, ready to rush out of the hospital and over to the station, but a woman’s voiced halted his escape.
“Mr. Carling?”
Ray turned to see a petit nurse cautiously approaching. “What is it, luv?” Ray was too tired to yell or make obscene comments regarding the young woman’s buxom appearance.
“Mr. Skelton can have visitors now.”
Ray immediately changed direction, following the nurse down the hall. Certainly the Guv would understand.
______
Part 7