Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
“Do you want me to go home?” Other Sam asked.
“No, of course not.” Sam looked down. You weren’t supposed to answer questions like that with a yes, he knew. Sam tries to be good fairly consistently, whenever he thinks the person he’s dealing with is real. It’s one of his better features. “You can stay as long as you like. It’s just...”
Other Sam sighed like he’d been expecting that. Because there’s a limit on how longe something like this can keep working. “Just?”
“It’s Mum. I think you make her nervous. On account of how she can’t see you.” Sam looked up at the sky. “I don’t think she thinks you’re really there.”
“She doesn’t?”
Sam shook his head. “She’s being polite about it.” Mum was good at being polite. “But I think she doesn’t believe you’re real.” Sam getting what other people think, but not giving it any serious consideration. I mean, why would he?
“Of course I’m real. That’s daft. What else would I be?”
Sam shrugged. “Don’t know. A game, or...” He sighed. “Mum said something about sending me to a psychologist.”
“She thinks you’re mad?” Other Sam gave him a sharp look. “They’re not going to put you away, are they?” I’m working off a very fuzzy late-forties, early-fifties set of assumptions about mental illness. Working-class people seeing a psychologist for problems they could manage without being hospitalized wouldn’t have been in other Sam’s mental territory.
“No! Of course not! Mum only said a psychologist, and she didn’t even say she’d do it, only that she was thinking about it. Worst it means is that they make me go to an office and talk to someone. I just...”
“I hear people,” Other Sam said, in a flat voice. This happened mostly because I got bored with comparative sociology. I think it’s a nice moment, though. “Talking. Just before I fall asleep. There’s a man who keeps asking me to wake up. He promises me things. Sweets and toys. But when I wake up, he isn’t there. And there’s other people. They keep saying they’re going to put me in an asylum if things don’t change. But I don’t know what they want me to change. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” I figure that consciously, it wouldn’t have been as simple as choosing. Which means that until his subconscious is in a better place, it’s just more unanswerable demands.
Sam took a deep breath. He didn’t know what to say to that. Other Sam got like this sometimes. He’d go off about something weird and scary that Sam didn’t know what to do about. If anyone needed to see a child psychologist, it was Other Sam. Even for a kid, it’s getting obvious. The boy needs help.
“Don’t worry about it. You can stay.” If Mum did send Sam to a psychologist, maybe could...translate for Other Sam. Tell the psychologist what he said. “I’ll deal with it. Whatever it is. You don’t have to go.”
Other Sam buried his face in his hands. “I can. If you want.”
“Do you want to go?” Neither one of them’s got it quite in them to make the demand that’ll hurt the other one.
“I’m scared. I’m scared there’ll be nobody, and I’ll be all alone, and I won’t be able to come back here, and she might follow me.”
Sam didn’t have to ask who she was. “Does she bother you a lot?”
“Not as much as she bothers you.” Same reason a cat’ll chase a frisky mouse more than a wounded one. Other Sam’s so broken that he’s no good to her unless she wants to devour him. Sam’s got fight. He’s more fun to play with. Other Sam dropped his hands. “Is she there every night?”
“Some of it’s just bad dreams, I think.” What I like is that, at this point, there’s really no way to tell. Test Card Girl haunting his dreams, and Test Card Girl scaring him into having nightmares about her would have about the same effect. Sam picked at his fingernail. Other Sam saw some of them. Remembered in the morning. It was how Sam knew they weren’t only nightmares.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Sam looked over.
“I’m just sorry. I didn’t want to...I always do this. I’m bad, and I do bad things to people, and even when I don’t mean to it turns out bad.” Again, massive guilt. There’s actually a level at which guilt makes it harder to do better; knowing you did wrong can be a spur to improve, but thinking you are fundamentally wrong, or that everything you do is wrong, only makes you question the point of making an effort.
“What did you do?” Sam asked.
“It’s my fault she’s here.”
“How can it be your fault?”
“It just is!”
“Oh, you think everything’s your fault.” Sam’s getting sick of this by now. Sam picked up a pebble and tossed it out into the street. It went off at a funny angle, and didn’t go very far. He was rubbish at throwing left-handed. It was boring having his arm in a cast. Very ordinary problems, on top of the other ones. “I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”
Other Sam didn’t answer. When Sam looked over, he was staring across the street.
Sam looked. It was her, of course. The girl. Standing across the road, watching them. Holding that bloody clown.
“You can just clear out!” Sam shouted. He’s beyond scared, and well into angry. He picked up some more pebbles and tossed them at her. “Go on, get lost! We don’t want you here! Shove off! And take your stupid clown with you!” He jumped up and flung the pebbles, as best he could.
She smiled at him. A car zoomed between them. When it passed, she was gone.
“See?” Sam turned, swaggering a bit. “She’s not so tough. Took care of her.”
Other Sam tilted his head and gave Sam an odd stare. He’s rather stunned at the prospect of anyone being able to do that. It hadn’t even occurred to him that any of his problems could go away anymore.
“What are you looking at me like that for?”
“Nothing.” Other Sam shook his head.
---
“Sam?” Mum looked up from the bread she was buttering.
“Yes?” Sam wiped his feet on the mat.
“Doctor’s appointment on Tuesday. Check on that arm of yours.” I wanted the specter of the child psychologist, but not to overdo it.
“Can I get the cast off?” Sam dashed over to his mum.
“Probably not quite yet. These things take time. He just wants to check how it’s healing.”
“All right, then.” Sam shrugged. He gave his mum a hug and started off towards his room.
“Your friend, Other Sam. Is he still around?”
“Why?” Very different reaction now that Sam knows what she’s thinking.
“Is he?”
“Sometimes.” Sam didn’t want to lie, but he didn’t want to upset his mum. That was the best answer he could think of.
His mum’s mouth tightened. Not what she was hoping for. Not the worst news either (that’d be if she found out about the little girl). “All right. The doctor may ask about him. And the dreams you’ve been having. She hasn’t quite let go of worrying about that, either.Just be honest and don’t worry about upsetting him, okay?” She smiled and patted his hand. “Tell him exactly what’s going on.” Because if she says it enough times, he’s bound to open up and be honest, right? Right? (Sorry, Ruth.)
He nodded. “Of course, mum.”
---
“It won’t work, you know.” The girl sat on the end of Sam’s bed. “It won’t stop.” She’s largely right. It’ll stop for a while, but it won’t end. I take a perverse pleasure in making her as honest and accurate as I can.
Sam threw his pillow at her. “Go away.”
She shook her head slowly, and wagged her finger at him. “You shouldn’t do that, Sam. I’m your only friend.” By her unique definition, very true. She looked down and started picking at a loose seam on her clown doll.
“Rubbish. I have lots of friends.”
She didn’t look up, just kept picking at the seam. “Poor little Sammy misses his mummy, while he’s stuck in his dreams. The voice on the phone left him alone, and he’s come apart at the seams.” I got this idea from a weird video game ad I saw in college. They had a poem I can’t remember the beginning of (except it was “Poor little someone,”) and it ended “Down came the glitches/who burned us in ditches/and we slept after eating our dead.” Sadly, I couldn’t work out how to make her say that (bizarre Last Mimzy-style crossover where she’s come back from a post-apocalyptic future to screw with Sam’s head?)
There was also a bit that went “Save one. Save two. For Red. For Blue. For me. For you.” I can’t remember who Red or Blue were, but I always liked that.
Stuffing started leaking out of the doll’s side. Because, if you can’t tell, I’m terribly literal.
“Sam?” His mother’s voice came through the walls. “Sam, can you hear me? Wake up darling. Please wake up.” She sounded so miserable.
Sam narrowed his eyes at the girl. “I’m dreaming. This is just a nightmare.”
“Please, Sam,” said his mother’s voice. “If it’s about Maya, she’s fine. She’s safe. Waiting for you to wake up. We’re all waiting for you, darling. Sam, please.” Unstuck in time again. This is before the last time she tried that trick.
Sam wondered who Maya was.
The clown doll was leaking stuffing quite badly.
The girl smiled. “Ask him what he hears,” she said, pointing at Other Sam. He’s already told Sam, though. I’m fairly sure I had a reason for doing it this way, but I can’t remember.
Sam glanced over. Other Sam seemed to be asleep.
“But if it’s my dream...” he started, looking back.
The girl was gone.
---
“Did you hear anything last night?” Sam asked. Ah, that’s why. To give Sam an excuse to prod.
Other Sam shrugged. “What do you mean?”
“Like...anything. I don’t know. People talking. The girl.”
“The girl?” Other Sam looked up. “Was she there?”
Sam looked away. He hasn’t developed his aptitude for lying yet. Which is sad, considering that by ‘if they know, they’ll think I’m crazy’ standards, he’s never that great at it.
“I’m sorry,” said Other Sam, yet again.
“Will you stop that?” Sam shook his head. “Forget the girl. She’s not that scary, anyway.” That was a lie, but he was tired of Other Sam apologizing. “Did you hear anything last night?
“Only the usual.”
“The usual?”
“I told you.” People tell each other things again and again in my fic. I think it’s because so few people really listen and remember. Other Sam pulled his knees up and rested his chin in his hands. “I hear people talking just before I fall asleep. There was that man asking me to wake up.”
“A man. You’re sure?”
Other Sam nodded.
“Someone you know? Maybe your father?”
Other Sam shook his head. “I didn’t recognize his voice.”
“Yeah, but you’re quite a long way away, from where you came from, aren’t you?” Sam waved his hands in the air. Sam hand-waves the problem. Because I am that literal. “Maybe that’s why you’re invisible. Only part of you is here, and the rest of you is back where you were before. Like ghosts.”
“Ghosts can’t touch anything.” Other Sam poked Sam in the shoulder. The whole touch thing I kept intentionally vague and subject to interpretation. Because if he couldn’t touch Sam, or didn’t touch things in front of Sam, he’d be too unreal. But if he touched anyone or anything in a way where it couldn’t just be in Sam’s head, he’d be too real.
Rewatching Fight Club, and thinking about how they handled it, was a big help.
“Well, dead ghosts, yeah. You’re not dead, though. If part of you is back there, and part of you is here, that would explain why you can hear them. Maybe it’s like that girl in the hospital; the bit that you left can’t wake up. Maybe someone’s waiting for you.”
“You think it could be my father?” Other Sam looked up sharply.
Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. I bet people sound really strange from that far away. It’s probably someone you know. Why else would they be talking to you?”
Other Sam blinked, and gave Sam a bright-eyed stare. “You think someone could be waiting? For real?”
Cruel Sammy. Accidentally cruel, but still. Dangling the hope of something better than an orphanage to go back to.
Sam shrugged again. “Sounds like it. Do you know what they meant about waking up?”
Other Sam nodded. “I think he wants me to go back. The way back, it’s kind of like...you know how when you have a dream that you want to get out of, sometimes you can make yourself wake up?” It’s different now. Easier, now that he wants back.
Sam shook his head. He’d never been able to do that. It sounded useful; there were a few dreams he’d have liked to escape from. I can’t do that either. Always envied that particular talent.
“It’s like you push with your mind. Not proper pushing; something else. I can’t really explain. It happens in your head. I think if I closed my eyes and pushed hard enough, I could get back.” Now he can.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Other Sam nodded.
“Are you going back?”
“Don’t know.”
---
“It’s the girl,” Other Sam said, scribbling with the colored pencils. “I’m scared of her.” This is a very different fear from the usual kind. Hope makes you stronger. Now he thinks he might have something better than hiding and disappearing, so he can afford to worry about someone else.
Sam grabbed the green pencil. “You think she’ll follow you?”
“I don’t think so.” Other Sam shook his head. Of course not. She got what she wants from him.
“Then what are you scared of?”
“Promise not to get mad?”
“I promise. What is it?” The pencil drew a blobby green shape on the paper. He dropped it, and picked up the yellow one.
“I told you that I saw her at the hospital, right? Well, she’s why I left. She said she could take me somewhere where I wouldn’t be alone. Only...” Other Sam looked down. “She made me promise that she could have whatever friends I found. And then you were there.” Two major strands of children’s stories; fairy-tale and wholesome. In fairy-tale stories, bargains are binding unless you can trick you way out, monsters and horrors are real, and you have to sort things out yourself. In wholesome stories, parents are there to fix things, and the kid’s main job in finding a solution is to own up, apologize, and talk the whole mess out.
It can be very dangerous not knowing what kind of story you’re in.
The pencil Sam was holding snapped.
Other Sam scooted his chair back. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!”
“How do you mean she could have me?”
Other Sam buried his face in his hands. “I don’t know.” He peeked out from behind his fingers. “Do you hate me?”
Sam shook his head. You weren’t supposed to answer questions like that with a yes.
“I’m really sorry.”
Sam unclenched his fist, and brushed off the broken bits of pencil. “Do you know how to make her go away?” Most important question; can you fix it?
“No.”
Sam dropped the two halves of the pencil on his desk, stood up, and walked away.
---
“I’m going,” said Other Sam. “I just wanted to say goodbye."
Sam nodded. “Goodbye.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You keep saying that.” Doesn’t quite want to give forgiveness yet.
“I am, though.”
“I know.” Sam looked up. “Good luck. Really.” But also not great at holding a grudge.
“Thanks.” Other Sam smiled.
“So, how does this work? Are you just going to vanish?”
“I think it works better if we both close our eyes,” said Other Sam.
“Count to three?” Magic. Very simple kid’s magic.
Other Sam nodded.
“Okay.” Sam closed his eyes. “One.”
“Two.”
“Three.” Sam opened his eyes.
Other Sam was gone.
---
That night, for the first time in weeks, Sam slept without nightmares.
The next day, with perfect accuracy, he told the doctor that he'd stopped having nightmares, and that Other Sam had left.
Another false resolution. They all live happily ever after, unless you have any awareness of the plot of Life on Mars.
Before and After
It was understandable, the doctors said, retreating into his mind like that. Natural that he’d want to escape. Echoing the beginning, but they’d hardly call it normal, or nothing to worry about.
PC Morgan didn’t see anything natural about it. Did some messing around with age to see if it added up. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but it came out plausible. He’d been at the scene of the accident when they pulled the bodies out. Watched the boy stiffen. Shut down. This is the picture I have; Sam Williams going like that after being pulled out, but before being taken to the hospital. The timing just works well in my head.
It haunted him, afterwards. The memory of it. The blood. The bodies. The little blank-faced boy. I like the idea of Frank Morgan being a decent guy in many ways. Someone who cares, wants to help people, and is even sincerely dedicated to cleaning up police corruption and brutality. Because having him get murderous over that is more interesting than having a complete bastard do it.
He’d come to visit a couple of times. Brought bags of sweets that went uneaten. Comics that went unread. From what I know of the British economy in those days, the other kids would have been mad with jealousy. Treats for the one kid who’s too out of it to care. The matrons encouraged him. According to them, he was the only visitor Sam had.
A boy shouldn’t be alone in the world like that, Morgan thought.
The doctors said to keep Sam talking. Give him something to look forward to. A reason to stay with them. He’d pulled out of it on his own, which was a good sign. It might mean he was recovering naturally. He might put all of it behind him. They wanted to encourage that.
Otherwise, he might retreat to his fantasy world permanently. I can see this fear haunting Frank Morgan for a very long time. That Sam might just stop again.
PC Morgan wasn’t going to let that happen. Not if he had any say. I got a certain mirror-image Gene Hunt quality from Frank Morgan; a lot of qualities either matching or reversed. The scrappy Save Sam side seemed to fit with that.
Years later, he watched Sam throw away everything they’d worked for. Saw Sam look at him like he was a total stranger. Learned that Sam had forgotten his own name. Can you imagine? Someone wandering around so off his head that he didn’t even know his fake name was fake?
Frank Morgan wondered, pouring over the case files, what more he could have done. If he could have prevented it somehow. Been more careful. Not approved the undercover mission. He’d known Sam was fragile, and he’d put him in that position. I kind of think Frank’s guilt is more well-founded than Ruth. Frank did take a risk with his Sam. Did put him in danger for his own reasons. He made that choice.
He wondered how much of this was his fault. The end echoing the beginning, obviously.
The end. That was fun, actually. Anyone want commentary for any more of my fic? Preferably something short? Wouldn’t want to spam the com.