Fic: Steady As She Goes (22/86), Blue Cortina, dakfinv
Title: Steady As She Goes (22/86)
Author: dak
Word Count: 1891 this part; [40,269 overall]
Summary for Whole: After an accidental shooting at the station, Gene struggles to keep his team from tearing themselves apart.
Summary this Part: What really happened to Chris?
Rating: still Blue-ish Cortina, uhm, what's slightly darker than blue?
Warnings: angst, swearing, violence, violent imagery, minor drug use, mild sexual situations, self-harm for whole
Spoilers: none here; see each chapter for specific spoiler warnings
Pairing: mild Sam/Annie, Sam/Maya
Disclaimer: Belongs to BBC/Kudos
A/N: Sorry for the wait! My sister was visiting from Japan so any free time I had was spent harassing her. But without further ado...part twenty-two!
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
"He’s slept most of the mornin’, poor thing. Don’t blame him. If I’d gone through everything he has, well I don’t know if I’d want to wake up either. Course that’s what got him in this whole mess to begin with, innit?"
Annie simply nodded as the nurse rattled on. She wasn’t concentrating on the woman at all, but was instead fixated on what lie behind the closed door in front of her.
"Is it alright if I wake him?" Annie finally asked.
"Well I should think so, if only for a little. Does need his rest, but it couldn’t hurt him to see a face as lovely as yours."
Annie couldn’t tell if the nurse was being serious or sarcastic, but either way she opened the door for the WDC and followed Annie inside.
"I’d like a bit of privacy. If you don’t mind," Annie cooed in her sweetest voice.
"No, no. I understand. Just shout if he gives you any trouble." The nurse left, closing the door behind her.
As Annie lay eyes on Sam for the first time since his "accident," as the Guv insisted on calling it, she wondered how he could possibly give her any trouble. He was as pale and thin as the last time she saw him, but his breathing was more relaxed. He was sleeping relatively soundly as well. It was when he tried to turn in his sleep that she noticed the restraints. Those thick, padded, leather straps horrified Annie more than anything else she’d seen happen to Sam.
She dropped her purse on the bedside chair and immediately started removing the straps.
"Don’t," whispered a voice. Annie looked down and saw Sam stirring from sleep.
"Why not?"
"They said not to," Sam mumbled.
"But why?" Annie queried again. Sam couldn’t think of an answer. Annie couldn’t tell if it was from drugs or sleep, but it certainly wasn’t like Sam to blindly follow such orders. "Are you going to hurt me?" Sam shook his head in horror, as if the thought of hurting Annie was akin to the apocalypse. "Are you going to...hurt yourself?" She asked slightly more cautiously.
Sam twisted his head away. "No. I don’t want to."
Annie went back to removing the restraints. "Then I don’t see any reason why you have to keep these on. Do you?"
Sam shook his head again, but didn’t watch as Annie freed his arms.
"There now. That’s better, isn’t it?"
Sam shrugged and rubbed the area just above the bandages where the straps had left an imprint. Annie moved her purse and sat in the chair.
"How do you feel Sam?" She hated talking to him like this, like she was talking to one of her little nephews, not when she knew how intelligent he really was. Stubborn, argumentative, a little selfish, and maybe a bit odd, but so smart. She stared at him sadly as he glanced around the room, no strength to do anything but no idea what he should do even if he did. "Sam?"
"Tired. Sore. Stiff...Angry." He said the last word in barely a whisper, hoping she wouldn’t even notice it was spoken.
"Why do you feel angry Sam?"
Sam shrugged again. "Am I being interrogated again?"
"Is that why you’re angry?" She leaned in closer.
Sam picked at the threads in his sheets. "If Gene wants to know how I am, he can come ask me himself."
It was Annie’s turn to get quiet. "He can’t."
Sam’s ears perked up. He looked at her inquisitively, like he did when he was doing enquiries. "Why not?"
His interest encouraged her. "He, well, the Guv was sort of banned from the hospital, sir."
"He what?"
"Well, DCI Hunt felt that you weren’t receiving the best treatment and when he expressed those concerns to your doctor..."
Sam actually smirked at Annie’s choice of words and went back to fiddling with the sheets. "So that’s where Dr. Jayne got that bruise."
As they passed a few more minutes in silence, Annie cautiously reached out and grabbed Sam’s fidgeting hand. He recoiled slightly, afraid of infecting her with the heavy melancholy that had fixed itself so strongly over his mind and body. Yet Annie did not back off, holding him tightly in her soft hands.
Sam saw the faded scars on her knuckles, leftover from when she had punched Litton’s DI. "Those healed nicely...How’s Chris doing?"
"Really well. Back at work now. Only desk duty, but I think he’s happy going things again for the team." Annie tried to get Sam to look her in the eye, but he wouldn’t. "He’d like to see you, sir. He’s really worried."
Sam’s fidgeting right hand froze over the bed. "You didn’t tell him about..."
"No. Only the Guv, me, an’ Ray."
Sam leaned his head back. "Ray. Great." He let his eyelids drop.
"Why don’t you get your rest, sir. I’ll be here when you wake up."
"You don’t have to be," Sam murmured.
"Well I will be, so you’ll just have to put up with it, won’t you?" She jibed. Annie swore she saw a smile hiding at the corner of his lips as he drifted off. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she feared.
When she was certain Sam was asleep she gently let go of his hand and slipped out of the room. She found the nurse waiting at the end of the corridor.
"I need to speak with Dr. Jayne please."
*
He spit his broken tooth out on the floor, wincing as he tongued his bleeding gums in a hopeless attempt to ease the pain. Blood and saliva dribbled down his chin and onto his shirt as he spoke to the two expressionless men before him. "Thought you was supposed to ask questions during an interrogation."
"This is just the warm-up. Play hasn’t even started yet." Gene growled. He nodded at Ray and his sergeant landed another heavy fist on the handcuffed man’s jaw. Roy Martin shot another gob of reddish fluid to the dusty floor as Gene pulled up a chair and sat down in front of him. "Think we’re ready for the first half now, don’t you?"
Martin didn’t respond.
"Where are your mates?"
"I don’t know. Try the pub?"
Ray snaked his thick arm round Martin’s equally thick neck and slowly squeezed. With his hands cuffed behind his back and ankles tied to the chair the suspect could hardly fight back.
"In case you hadn’t noticed, Mr. Martin, I’m not in the mood for a lengthy discussion."
"Told yeh...told yeh before where’d they go...din’t I?" He gasped out.
"I vaguely recall you helping us with our earlier enquiries, but unfortunately for you the Eagle and Carriage is no longer in commission. So, I suggest you tell me where those porridge-brained, Paki-hating, cop killing cretins are an’ I might let you hang on to a few of those chompers your mouth seems so fond of!"
"So you want...to pull them...into this, too? Eh? All coppers...together?"
"Pull them in? They did that themselves by puttin’ those shirt-lifters outta their misery!"
"I don’ know nowt ‘bout that!"
"Dom Sanders jus’ strangled himself then?"
"Dom’s what? Who told yeh that? Was it Harv? ‘E say they killed his fairy pet?"
Gene sent an almost imperceptible signal to Ray and Martin’s neck was released. "Harvey Quibell?"
Martin turned his neck side to side, trying to work out the pain. "Dom’s little mate from the fudge packin’ factory. ‘E’d say anything to get us in ‘ere, when they’re the ones who should be locked up. Disgustin’ what they do."
Gene carefully studied Martin’s face. "Harvey’s dead."
Martin appeared bewildered for only the briefest moment before fixing a hard stare ack on his face. "Serves him right then, don’t it?"
Ray stepped next to Gene. "You din’t know. What’d you think you were ‘ere for then?"
Martin studied the faces of the his captors. Confusion wasn’t something he often saw on copper’s faces. "You don’ know? Then I ain’t sayin’."
Gene shot out his arm, grabbed the skinhead’s crotch and twisted. "If you want to keep pissin’ outta your ding-a-ling and not a tube, then I suggest you do." Gene didn’t let go as the man squirmed in the chair.
"You wouldn’t believe me anyway! If I said I hadn’t done it!"
"Done what?" Gene roared.
"Shot that copper!"
"Chris?" Ray questioned.
"I don’ know ‘is name. ‘E was jus’ downstairs when I was tryin’ to get out."
Gene pulled back his hand.
"Was all hopped up on blow. Why they brought me in the firs’ place. Those other coppers came after me, wavin’ their shooters all over. That kid came outta nowhere. Scared ‘em I think. Next thing I know I’m in a cell an’, an’ that other DCI’s tellin’ me I shot ‘im! But I din’t. I know I din’t!"
"Which other DCI?" Gene demanded.
"The-the pale one. With the moustache."
*
Chris poked at his soup with a spoon. He wasn’t positive, but he was pretty sure soup wasn’t meant to wiggle like that. He took his tray back to the counter. "Doris, could I just have a butty instead?"
The canteen door was thrown off its hinges. In three strides Gene was on top of Chris, shoving a photo in his face.
"Is this the man who shot you?"
"Guv, what--"
Gene grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed the picture even closer. "Did he shoot you!"
Chris gulped and took the photo from Gene. He studied it carefully. He remembered the man who had shot him. The terror in his eyes, the frenzied look spread across his face. He had looked familiar, but Chris hadn’t been able to place him. He handed the photo of Martin back to Gene.
"I’ve never seen that bloke before in me life, Guv."
*
"The department has a right to conduct any psychiatric evaluation requested for its officers."
"If the evaluation is performed by a certified psychiatrist and not some girl with a bachelor’s degree!" The doctor rebuked, slamming his clipboard hard on the counter.
"I’d watch your tone, Dr. Jayne," Annie said sternly.
"And you should watch yours, WPC Cartwright, or you’ll go the same way as your DCI."
Annie took a step closer to the doctor, not caring how crowded the hallway had become. In fact, she was glad there were so many witnesses. "WDC. And you want to ban someone for disagreeing with you? Didn’t know this hospital was in Moscow, sir. I’ll be doing Inspector Tyler’s evaluation, and if that doesn’t suit you, Doctor, you can take it up with DCI Hunt down at the station. I’m sure he’d be pleased to have a chat with you."
Annie pushed past the doctor and down the hall to Sam’s room. She had so much adrenaline from the verbal fight she felt like she could take on the whole of Manchester. No wonder the Guv and Sam argued all the time. She held back from throwing open Sam’s door, afraid of waking him, but to her surprise he was already sitting up in bed, eyes wide.
"Psychiatric evaluation?" He asked her anxiously, his body trembling once again.
This was not the best time for him to be hearing the hiss of a respirator that wasn’t actually there.
___________
Part 23
Author: dak
Word Count: 1891 this part; [40,269 overall]
Summary for Whole: After an accidental shooting at the station, Gene struggles to keep his team from tearing themselves apart.
Summary this Part: What really happened to Chris?
Rating: still Blue-ish Cortina, uhm, what's slightly darker than blue?
Warnings: angst, swearing, violence, violent imagery, minor drug use, mild sexual situations, self-harm for whole
Spoilers: none here; see each chapter for specific spoiler warnings
Pairing: mild Sam/Annie, Sam/Maya
Disclaimer: Belongs to BBC/Kudos
A/N: Sorry for the wait! My sister was visiting from Japan so any free time I had was spent harassing her. But without further ado...part twenty-two!
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
"He’s slept most of the mornin’, poor thing. Don’t blame him. If I’d gone through everything he has, well I don’t know if I’d want to wake up either. Course that’s what got him in this whole mess to begin with, innit?"
Annie simply nodded as the nurse rattled on. She wasn’t concentrating on the woman at all, but was instead fixated on what lie behind the closed door in front of her.
"Is it alright if I wake him?" Annie finally asked.
"Well I should think so, if only for a little. Does need his rest, but it couldn’t hurt him to see a face as lovely as yours."
Annie couldn’t tell if the nurse was being serious or sarcastic, but either way she opened the door for the WDC and followed Annie inside.
"I’d like a bit of privacy. If you don’t mind," Annie cooed in her sweetest voice.
"No, no. I understand. Just shout if he gives you any trouble." The nurse left, closing the door behind her.
As Annie lay eyes on Sam for the first time since his "accident," as the Guv insisted on calling it, she wondered how he could possibly give her any trouble. He was as pale and thin as the last time she saw him, but his breathing was more relaxed. He was sleeping relatively soundly as well. It was when he tried to turn in his sleep that she noticed the restraints. Those thick, padded, leather straps horrified Annie more than anything else she’d seen happen to Sam.
She dropped her purse on the bedside chair and immediately started removing the straps.
"Don’t," whispered a voice. Annie looked down and saw Sam stirring from sleep.
"Why not?"
"They said not to," Sam mumbled.
"But why?" Annie queried again. Sam couldn’t think of an answer. Annie couldn’t tell if it was from drugs or sleep, but it certainly wasn’t like Sam to blindly follow such orders. "Are you going to hurt me?" Sam shook his head in horror, as if the thought of hurting Annie was akin to the apocalypse. "Are you going to...hurt yourself?" She asked slightly more cautiously.
Sam twisted his head away. "No. I don’t want to."
Annie went back to removing the restraints. "Then I don’t see any reason why you have to keep these on. Do you?"
Sam shook his head again, but didn’t watch as Annie freed his arms.
"There now. That’s better, isn’t it?"
Sam shrugged and rubbed the area just above the bandages where the straps had left an imprint. Annie moved her purse and sat in the chair.
"How do you feel Sam?" She hated talking to him like this, like she was talking to one of her little nephews, not when she knew how intelligent he really was. Stubborn, argumentative, a little selfish, and maybe a bit odd, but so smart. She stared at him sadly as he glanced around the room, no strength to do anything but no idea what he should do even if he did. "Sam?"
"Tired. Sore. Stiff...Angry." He said the last word in barely a whisper, hoping she wouldn’t even notice it was spoken.
"Why do you feel angry Sam?"
Sam shrugged again. "Am I being interrogated again?"
"Is that why you’re angry?" She leaned in closer.
Sam picked at the threads in his sheets. "If Gene wants to know how I am, he can come ask me himself."
It was Annie’s turn to get quiet. "He can’t."
Sam’s ears perked up. He looked at her inquisitively, like he did when he was doing enquiries. "Why not?"
His interest encouraged her. "He, well, the Guv was sort of banned from the hospital, sir."
"He what?"
"Well, DCI Hunt felt that you weren’t receiving the best treatment and when he expressed those concerns to your doctor..."
Sam actually smirked at Annie’s choice of words and went back to fiddling with the sheets. "So that’s where Dr. Jayne got that bruise."
As they passed a few more minutes in silence, Annie cautiously reached out and grabbed Sam’s fidgeting hand. He recoiled slightly, afraid of infecting her with the heavy melancholy that had fixed itself so strongly over his mind and body. Yet Annie did not back off, holding him tightly in her soft hands.
Sam saw the faded scars on her knuckles, leftover from when she had punched Litton’s DI. "Those healed nicely...How’s Chris doing?"
"Really well. Back at work now. Only desk duty, but I think he’s happy going things again for the team." Annie tried to get Sam to look her in the eye, but he wouldn’t. "He’d like to see you, sir. He’s really worried."
Sam’s fidgeting right hand froze over the bed. "You didn’t tell him about..."
"No. Only the Guv, me, an’ Ray."
Sam leaned his head back. "Ray. Great." He let his eyelids drop.
"Why don’t you get your rest, sir. I’ll be here when you wake up."
"You don’t have to be," Sam murmured.
"Well I will be, so you’ll just have to put up with it, won’t you?" She jibed. Annie swore she saw a smile hiding at the corner of his lips as he drifted off. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she feared.
When she was certain Sam was asleep she gently let go of his hand and slipped out of the room. She found the nurse waiting at the end of the corridor.
"I need to speak with Dr. Jayne please."
*
He spit his broken tooth out on the floor, wincing as he tongued his bleeding gums in a hopeless attempt to ease the pain. Blood and saliva dribbled down his chin and onto his shirt as he spoke to the two expressionless men before him. "Thought you was supposed to ask questions during an interrogation."
"This is just the warm-up. Play hasn’t even started yet." Gene growled. He nodded at Ray and his sergeant landed another heavy fist on the handcuffed man’s jaw. Roy Martin shot another gob of reddish fluid to the dusty floor as Gene pulled up a chair and sat down in front of him. "Think we’re ready for the first half now, don’t you?"
Martin didn’t respond.
"Where are your mates?"
"I don’t know. Try the pub?"
Ray snaked his thick arm round Martin’s equally thick neck and slowly squeezed. With his hands cuffed behind his back and ankles tied to the chair the suspect could hardly fight back.
"In case you hadn’t noticed, Mr. Martin, I’m not in the mood for a lengthy discussion."
"Told yeh...told yeh before where’d they go...din’t I?" He gasped out.
"I vaguely recall you helping us with our earlier enquiries, but unfortunately for you the Eagle and Carriage is no longer in commission. So, I suggest you tell me where those porridge-brained, Paki-hating, cop killing cretins are an’ I might let you hang on to a few of those chompers your mouth seems so fond of!"
"So you want...to pull them...into this, too? Eh? All coppers...together?"
"Pull them in? They did that themselves by puttin’ those shirt-lifters outta their misery!"
"I don’ know nowt ‘bout that!"
"Dom Sanders jus’ strangled himself then?"
"Dom’s what? Who told yeh that? Was it Harv? ‘E say they killed his fairy pet?"
Gene sent an almost imperceptible signal to Ray and Martin’s neck was released. "Harvey Quibell?"
Martin turned his neck side to side, trying to work out the pain. "Dom’s little mate from the fudge packin’ factory. ‘E’d say anything to get us in ‘ere, when they’re the ones who should be locked up. Disgustin’ what they do."
Gene carefully studied Martin’s face. "Harvey’s dead."
Martin appeared bewildered for only the briefest moment before fixing a hard stare ack on his face. "Serves him right then, don’t it?"
Ray stepped next to Gene. "You din’t know. What’d you think you were ‘ere for then?"
Martin studied the faces of the his captors. Confusion wasn’t something he often saw on copper’s faces. "You don’ know? Then I ain’t sayin’."
Gene shot out his arm, grabbed the skinhead’s crotch and twisted. "If you want to keep pissin’ outta your ding-a-ling and not a tube, then I suggest you do." Gene didn’t let go as the man squirmed in the chair.
"You wouldn’t believe me anyway! If I said I hadn’t done it!"
"Done what?" Gene roared.
"Shot that copper!"
"Chris?" Ray questioned.
"I don’ know ‘is name. ‘E was jus’ downstairs when I was tryin’ to get out."
Gene pulled back his hand.
"Was all hopped up on blow. Why they brought me in the firs’ place. Those other coppers came after me, wavin’ their shooters all over. That kid came outta nowhere. Scared ‘em I think. Next thing I know I’m in a cell an’, an’ that other DCI’s tellin’ me I shot ‘im! But I din’t. I know I din’t!"
"Which other DCI?" Gene demanded.
"The-the pale one. With the moustache."
*
Chris poked at his soup with a spoon. He wasn’t positive, but he was pretty sure soup wasn’t meant to wiggle like that. He took his tray back to the counter. "Doris, could I just have a butty instead?"
The canteen door was thrown off its hinges. In three strides Gene was on top of Chris, shoving a photo in his face.
"Is this the man who shot you?"
"Guv, what--"
Gene grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed the picture even closer. "Did he shoot you!"
Chris gulped and took the photo from Gene. He studied it carefully. He remembered the man who had shot him. The terror in his eyes, the frenzied look spread across his face. He had looked familiar, but Chris hadn’t been able to place him. He handed the photo of Martin back to Gene.
"I’ve never seen that bloke before in me life, Guv."
*
"The department has a right to conduct any psychiatric evaluation requested for its officers."
"If the evaluation is performed by a certified psychiatrist and not some girl with a bachelor’s degree!" The doctor rebuked, slamming his clipboard hard on the counter.
"I’d watch your tone, Dr. Jayne," Annie said sternly.
"And you should watch yours, WPC Cartwright, or you’ll go the same way as your DCI."
Annie took a step closer to the doctor, not caring how crowded the hallway had become. In fact, she was glad there were so many witnesses. "WDC. And you want to ban someone for disagreeing with you? Didn’t know this hospital was in Moscow, sir. I’ll be doing Inspector Tyler’s evaluation, and if that doesn’t suit you, Doctor, you can take it up with DCI Hunt down at the station. I’m sure he’d be pleased to have a chat with you."
Annie pushed past the doctor and down the hall to Sam’s room. She had so much adrenaline from the verbal fight she felt like she could take on the whole of Manchester. No wonder the Guv and Sam argued all the time. She held back from throwing open Sam’s door, afraid of waking him, but to her surprise he was already sitting up in bed, eyes wide.
"Psychiatric evaluation?" He asked her anxiously, his body trembling once again.
This was not the best time for him to be hearing the hiss of a respirator that wasn’t actually there.
___________
Part 23