Fic: I Dub Thee Unforgiven, Brown Cortina, by Little_Cello
Title: I Dub Thee Unforgiven
Author: little_cello
Word Count: ~6000
Rating: Brown Cortina
Warnings: Character death, potentially squicky graphic descriptions of a surgery, other disturbing things
Characters: Sam Tyler, Sam Williams, Frank Morgan, and then some
Summary: What if Sam Williams were real?
Notes: ... so... I have a problem with Sam Williams. Up until now, I've refused to integrate him into my headcanon of Life on Mars, and.. I don't know. This morning, an idea hit me, and once you've read the fic I think you'll understand why I had to sit down and spend 8+ consecutive hours writing it (basically this ate my entire day from 11am to 11pm). This is my attempt at making Sam Williams fit into LoM canon. I hope you'll enjoy it. ♥
Many thanks to The Annotated Martian and the Life on Mars Transcripts done by phantym-56 and chamekke - this fic would not have been possible without my checking on these fantastic sources for quotes and timelines etc. Further thanks to danae-b and talkingtothesky for betaing, inspiration, encouragements and deep discussions that made this fic fit together in the end. LOVE YOU GUYSSSSSS ♥
And lastly, I took the title from the song "The Unforgiven" by Metallica.
- -
He's in his car, driving through the outskirts of Manchester, head full of what is to come. He knows what he's doing, of course, that's why he was chosen in the first place. And he's been prepared for months and months, meticulously planning for every little eventuality. The fact that there's no family who might compromise him made him the perfect candidate for this mission, and he'd gladly accepted this immense responsibility.
He'd do anything for his DCI, after all.
So here he is, eyes on the road, only half listening to the music (his favourite Bowie album) playing from the cassette player. He's nearly at his destination, and once more he finds himself glancing at the papers lying on the passenger seat. His transfer papers, from C-Division in Hyde to A-Division here in the city. It's just a matter of introducing himself to his new work colleagues now.
He's as well prepared as can be, but that doesn't stop him from going through the plan once more in his head. Better safe than sorry.
Next to his road the landscape is a ruin, buildings apparently having been pulled down only recently. In the distance, a large sign is coming up - he knows what it's advertising, and looking at the state of the street he's driving on, he figures that it's high time they erect that motorway everyone's been talking about.
His eyes settle back on the road - and widen, as he sees something completely impossible.
A man has appeared, standing in the street, only now turning to face him.
The man is him. He barely registers the suit he's wearing, only staring at the man's face - his own face - for that one moment before reflexes take over and he yanks the steering wheel around, one desperate attempt to prevent the inevitable.
- -
On a dreary morning in February 1973, Sam Williams loses control over his car, goes spinning off the road. He hits his head on something, and everything goes black.
- -
On a dreary November afternoon in 2006, Sam Tyler is hit by a car. Seconds after his body comes to rest on the tarmac, his mind fades away.
- -
On a dreary morning in February 1973, Sam Tyler wakes up in a ruinous landscape, his memories full of snippets from the future and the past.
- -
Sam Williams doesn't know where or when he is when he wakes up.
He doesn't even know whether he really is awake.
He can't move, can't open his eyes. Hell, he can't even think properly. He's floating and rooted on the spot at the same time, in pain and not, clear-minded and up there with Lucy and her diamonds all at once.
He had an accident.
It's as if this thought unlocks something; suddenly, Sam hears voices.
But he doesn't understand what they're saying.
And at the same time, he does - he's in a hospital, in a coma (no, that can't be right, he can hear them after all, he can feel them moving about in the room, the shifting of air, the pinpricks of syringes and other things, things on his body, constant beeping, but he can't open his eyes), he's been hit by a car.
No, that isn't right. Can't be. He was in a car, he saw someone - himself - standing in the road.
He wants to tell the doctors that, only he can't get his mouth to work, can't move a single muscle.
He doesn't understand what happened.
- -
Time passes. Sam hears talk of things that don't make sense to him. What are 'mobile phones'? He always thought he was good with medical terms, for a police officer anyway, but the things his doctors are talking about sound so impossible that for a long time, Sam thinks he's in a prolonged nightmare, and at one point he prays to God that he will swear off his obsession for Star Trek and Doctor Who so long as he please just lets him wake up.
He doesn't.
Instead, sometimes, Sam catches glimpses of someone else's life.
A life of someone who shouldn't exist - someone he and DCI Morgan thought up, that day in the cemetery, when Sam's gaze had fallen on that one particular gravestone.
But the longer Sam is caught here, in a body that won't open its eyes, that won't move, that won't do anything of its own accord, the more certain he has to be that this man exists.
That it is Sam Tyler who is now leading the life Sam Williams was supposed to have.
Sam never thought he would end up hating a figment of his imagination, but well, here he is.
- -
Apart from the few glimpses of Sam Tyler, he spends endless days (weeks, months, ages) in what must his hospital bed, what really is his prison.
Sam never gives up on trying to move, even though after a while it becomes more of a habit to scream at his limbs to move, his eyes to open, rather than an actual impulse. By now he hears everything the doctors say with a clarity that makes him wonder how they can't realise that he can understand every word they say (even if he doesn't always understand their meaning).
It must be a radio that someone puts in his room that tells him that the year is 2006, and that simply is impossible.
Is it?
No, he has to keep himself from going mad, and admitting that he really is here, in this impossible place at an impossible time would be the first step down that road, and he can't let that happen.
So Sam Williams keeps straining, keeps screaming at this body that can't be his own to move, bloody well move.
Desperately wants it to move as effortlessly as Sam Tyler moves through a life that wasn't supposed to be his.
- -
His resentment for Tyler keeps growing, until there comes the moment where, for the first time, Sam wishes that the other man would simply die, vacate that body so Sam could return to what rightfully is his.
Something happens.
'Are you really lonely here?'
'No no no no no no, I'm not listening.'
'Don't you think it can be lonely out there too? In the white room that's too warm?'
'Stop it.'
Oh no, he certainly won't stop.
'Life goes on. But does it really go on for the sleeping man?'
'I'm not sleeping, I'm here!'
'Do you not like me with my clown? I can see I make you frown.'
He looks so deliciously desperate.
'When on earth will all this end? I'm your friend, your only friend.'
'GET OUT!'
Sam is back in this body. He doesn't know what happened there - but he knows it has left him with a sense of satisfaction... and hope.
- -
He's slowly coming to accept that he is indeed caught in an impossible time. Two thousand and six. No, it's 2007 by now, several months have passed since the accident.
But does that really matter? When all he can do is... nothing. Nothing at all. He can't even breathe for himself, needs help from a respirator.
His reluctant acceptance of the fact that he has landed in the future doesn't mean that he doesn't stop fighting it, however. Just like Tyler doesn't stop fighting his own predicament. The difference is that Tyler is able to actively do something. Catching those glimpses of him fighting his DCI - Sam recognises him as his intended target, Gene Hunt - makes him want to do unspeakable things. He thought he was slowly going mad, at the beginning of this ordeal; now he feels himself spiralling down faster and faster, thinking things he doesn't want to believe he's capable of thinking.
And yet, here he is, once more wishing death upon a man with every fibre of his being.
'What do you want?'
'I told you. I'm your only friend. I'm here to help. Do you feel helpless?'
He knows Tyler does.
'Yeah.'
'Unappreciated?'
'That's a big word for a little girl.'
Oh, if only he knew.
'Scared?'
'...I'll stop fighting. If I stop fighting, then I'm scared I'll die.'
That is the plan, yes.
'Give up. Lie down. Close your eyes. And sleep. And sleep. No more nastiness. Just sleep. Just sleep. Forever. Sleep.'
That's it... this is it....!
'NO!'
- -
Once again, Sam is left screaming in wordless frustration.
- -
A woman is at his side now, holding his hand. She says she's his mum, and that once more gives him the certainty that he is caught in a terrible nightmare. He doesn't have a mother, or a father; they both died during a coach crash when he was a child. And the person she claims to be, that only exists in his mind - Ruth Tyler, Sam Tyler's mother. He and DCI Morgan thought her up as well, seeing those two gravestones behind the one Sam had spotted.
And yet, Sam Tyler meets her in 1973, and it is her, even though Sam can barely believe what he sees with Tyler's eyes, in those short blips when their minds seem to intertwine, flitting between times.
How is all of this even possible? Sam wants to deny Tyler's existence, his and his mother's as well. It's terrifying, to think of the consequences. As though Tyler isn't just a figment of his imagination, a soulless alias Sam was supposed to inhabit for the duration of his mission.
And still, Ruth Tyler's hands on his are so warm, here, so loving. Sam wants to pull away, but of course he can't. He has no control over his prison. So, after a while, he reluctantly starts to concentrate on the touch, somewhat grateful for the change it makes from cold doctors' tools and syringes and IV lines.
She visits him often, spends hours sitting by his side.
She is the only one who does.
No, that isn't true - someone else visits, occasionally, but they never talk. Sam, after a while, figures it has to be this Maya Tyler sometimes thinks about. But if he loves her as much as he claims (as he tries to make himself believe?), if she is his girlfriend, why doesn't she talk to him? Why doesn't she touch him?
Sam finds himself wondering whether this Sam Tyler, whoever he is here, has any friends at all. Judging from the glimpses he sees now and then, of Tyler fighting his superior (I should be in his place), of the way he treats the rest of the division, he's not very good at making friends. Reaching this conclusion, Sam feels grimly satisfied.
The man who stole his body doesn't deserve to be happy, doesn't deserve to have friends.
- -
Sam finds himself missing his own friends. He misses his orderly desk at Hyde. He misses the long evenings of talking to Frank Morgan, in the office, a bottle of wine between them.
He misses moving.
He misses talking.
He misses hearing his own voice.
He's slowly going mad.
- -
There is one moment when Sam thinks, no, is so very sure that this torture is finally over.
The doctors and Sam Tyler's mother have decided to 'switch off his machines', whatever that means, but it makes him think that this must be the key, his ticket back into his own life. He's practically thrumming with anticipation when he sees images flashing in his mind - a gun trained at Sam Tyler's head, no one coming to his rescue. And while Sam, for all his resentment against Tyler, doesn't want to relish in the knowledge that his way out has to be through the death of a potentially real person, he can't bring himself to really pity this other man either. This should never have happened in the first place, and Sam tells himself that he would be feeling those same emotions if they were directed at anyone other than Tyler.
The clock strikes two.
Sam Tyler smiles, hearing his father whistling.
Sam Williams smiles, feeling a tugging that must herald his return.
But it never happens.
Sam Tyler is saved. Sam Tyler's mum swears she saw her son smile.
The machines stay on.
Sam Williams screams with disappointment, even though no one can hear him.
- -
Sam Tyler is making a right cock-up of this undercover mission. Not that he knows that it's supposed to be that, but it still fills Sam with rage to watch Tyler's blundering, through the few images he catches now and then.
Still, he finds himself looking forward to them in some strange way; they are the only thing that breaks the monotony of his endless days. He still hasn't managed to open his eyes, only the occasional twitch of a muscle somewhere in this body. This body. Because it can't possibly be his, he has no control over it whatsoever.
And when he sees a few seconds of Tyler running around like he's been in this body forever, it makes Sam burn with anger.
Makes him wonder whether Tyler realises at all what has happened. That he has stolen away another man's life, forced him into this endless slow torture.
Sam starts obsessing over that thought. He needs to make Tyler realise, needs to make him see.
And the moment comes, almost as if Sam does have some influence on what happens after all. Tyler is on his own, down in the bogs, currently feeling the effects of what the doctors are putting him - them both - through (tabasco for Christ's sake, it makes him want to gag, only he can't, and what even is the point of this test). Sam's attention shifts minutely, and--
There.
Mirrors.
Make him see.
Tyler looks up - one of the doctors says something, but it doesn't matter, Sam tunes out all of them, out - and yes, there is a reaction. Mirrors, mirrors everywhere. Make him see.
'Who's there?'
Me, you bastard, the one you stole his life from. Look.
'I'm here. I can hear you.'
He knows he's there, for God's sake, he doesn't need him to hear, he needs him to look. SEE. That he's in a different body, one that he has to give back.
'What?!'
Yes, that's right you bastard--
'GET ME OUT OF HERE!'
I am trying!, Sam shouts back, but Tyler doesn't hear him-- everything is gone in a blip, and he's left staring at nothing, staring with his eyes shut.
He really is trying. If only trying was all it needed.
- -
An indefinite amount of time has passed, and finally it seems as though this torment is coming to an end.
There is horror when Sam realises that now Vic Tyler as well has decided to come to life. For some time, he finds himself wondering whether he isn't actually in a coma in 1973, imagining the life Sam Tyler would lead.
But then the nurses around him talk gibberish again, about TV shows he's never heard of, talking about impossible appliances, throwing around swearwords that would have made him blush if only he were able to - and he has to reluctantly admit that, wherever it is he has ended up, it isn't his time.
Just like 1973 isn't Sam Tyler's time.
The only thing Sam is grateful for is the fact that Tyler hates his new life just as much as Sam does. He's constantly trying to 'go home', and Sam finds himself cheering him on, in his own special way, the only way he can.
'You've done everything you can think of and you're still no closer to home. Why are you still here, Sam?'
Tyler can't see him, but that doesn't stop Sam.
'I'm here for a reason.'
Like hell, Sam thinks, and withdraws.
This is why he's just as thrilled as Tyler is, standing in that living room Sam's never seen before in his life, yelling at the ceiling, the doctors standing around him, and he makes that extra effort to move, move, open his eyes.
This is why he's even more devastated than Tyler when nothing happens.
When Tyler finds out about his imaginary father being a murderer on top of everything else, once more a dark sense of satisfaction fills Sam.
Tyler stole Sam's life. He doesn't deserve happiness.
- -
The nurses keep cheering Tyler on, telling him to wake up, to hang in there.
Sam pretends they are talking to him, and does his best, but his best is not enough. He doesn't wake up, and neither does Tyler.
- -
Sam isn't alone in his room any more. There's a man, and whoever he is, he seems intent on killing Tyler.
Sam, lacking the ability to actually speak, urges him on mentally, despite the pain, despite how his head seems to be splitting in half.
And it happens - there is one blip where suddenly, Sam knows he isn't in that hospital room any more, and he hears Tyler's voice, pleading for his life, and elation floods his mind, yes, yes, he opens his eyes, sees the dingy flat that was always supposed to be his--
--and finds himself being tugged back into his prison, nurses anxiously murmuring around him, about how something got disconnected. No sign of the man who could potentially be Sam's saviour.
Sam thinks he'll go mad with disappointment and anger, residues of pain still coursing through this body. His body, judging from how real it feels.
No, he can't think that. Never think that.
- -
It happens again, and again. The man - Tony Crane - keeps returning to torment Tyler's body, and Sam is grateful, so grateful for the fact that he isn't giving up, that he hates Tyler as much as Sam does, but Christ, he's taking too much time (and causing a considerable amount of pain on top of that; the fact that Tyler can feel it as well is little consolation at this point). He's going to be discovered, and that will be Sam's best chance gone for good...
And indeed, it happens just as Sam predicted.
So close.
Sam lets rage and grief consume him for a long time after that.
- -
When DCI Morgan contacts Tyler, Sam thinks his heart is going to just stop. Frank must realise what is going on - Tyler is making no sense, he's speaking in a way Sam never would, so this is a slither of hope that he needs to hold onto, that his DCI will realise that something is off, and that he will... will...
… will what?
Sam doesn't even know. But he trusts his DCI.
Then, he has a disturbing moment of his own, when one of the doctors sounds just like Frank.
God, how desperately he wants to talk to him.
To anyone.
He doesn't even know what his voice sounds like any more; refuses to believe it sounds anything like Tyler's.
- -
Sam doesn't know how much time has passed. Ruth Tyler, the impossible woman, keeps visiting him, talking to him. He can't help but feel grateful for her efforts, because they seem to spur Tyler on as well. That, and she keeps reminding him what he's fighting for.
- -
There is one more moment where Sam is certain, so certain that this is it - Tyler has planted himself underneath a car bomb, and Sam screams at him to cut the red wire, end this miserable show. Only - for one moment, he hesitates.
Tyler is in his, Sam's, body after all. So if he destroys himself like that, then...
There's horror, for one terrible second - NO -
And then, nothing happens. Again
Tyler continues to live. Again.
Sam continues to lie still in his prison, this time faintly resigned rather than actively disappointed.
But that changes quickly. The anger resurfaces, grows, grows, grows -
'Red lorry, yellow lorry. Red lorry, yellow lorry. Red lorry, yellow lorry.'
'What do you want?'
He wants his life back.
'Red wire, yellow wire. Red wire, yellow wire.'
'Stop.'
Never.
'Come on, Sam. You try it. Red wire, yellow wire.'
'Just leave me.'
Never.
'Pick one.'
'Bang! You're dead, Sam. Oh dear.'
If only.
- -
The most infuriating thing is the fact that Tyler seems to be becoming comfortable with this life that never was supposed to be his (he never was supposed to have any life at all for God's sake).
Sure, there are times where he rages against it with all he has - like that one, that only time that woman comes to visit, apparently Ruth Tyler's sister. She talks in a sugary sweet voice, and Sam resents her for that, because it sounds like lies on top of lies, almost like a boy's wishful dream. However, it at least helps to rekindle Tyler's fighting spirit, so that's something.
Not that it really makes a difference, though, in the end.
When Tyler kneels in his flat, a picture of utter desolation, Sam can't for the life of him find one scrap of pity for the man.
- -
So even in this impossible time in the future, the doctors are prone to medical misconduct. As the drugs course through Sam's body, burning like fire and ice and acid, setting his mind aflame and threatening to shatter it into a thousand pieces, he screams and groans and yells, cursing everything and everyone, sobbing senselessly, thrashing about in this pandemonium of colours and sounds, worlds spinning and pitching and unhinging him completely.
And no one notices. None of it translates to his body, to any of his two bodies.
Tyler can't possibly feel the same things, and Sam hates him for it, hates him, despises him, wants him more than dead.
- -
More medication, that much Sam can make out through the cacophony that is his scattered mind, but it sounds wrong, it can't possibly work, details, you have to pay attention to the DETAILS, at least they both agree on that.
And they both, Tyler and Williams, shout in terror as everything slowly goes black.
- -
Sam doesn't know what's happened.
All of a sudden, he's in the same body as Tyler. His own body, once upon a time.
Too stunned, still reeling from the agony he'd been put through only moments before, he can only watch, feel his body move as Tyler kneels in front of the television set, talking to it like the impossible lunatic he is, urging his team on. And he really is moving, Sam can actually feel it, he's moving, for the first time in so long.
It floods him with such happiness that he just lets it happen, lets Tyler keep the lead, can't do much else.
- -
When he's back in the prison body, he weeps, sobs, cries, screams. Curses himself for not taking this chance, for not trying to push Tyler out once and for all. Unseen, unheard.
Tyler shares a tender moment with his bird.
It's not bloody fair.
- -
Maya returns, only to say a final goodbye.
Sam is torn about it.
He is at a stage where every single thing that torments Tyler fills him with complete and pitch black satisfaction - serves him bloody right - and from what he has gathered, this woman is the reason why Tyler got into his accident (and caused Sam's) in the first place. So by all means, he doesn't mind Tyler's desperation, nor Maya's dilemma, her reluctance. What's more, her presence in his room is awkward, and Sam doesn't want to be the one on the receiving end of this, even though Tyler does end up hearing most of what she has to say.
And yet...
This is a private moment, and for all his now ever-present thoughts of revenge and hatred, he thinks it is somewhat sad that the man Maya thinks she's addressing isn't even here, isn't really him. It feels like he's imposing on something.
But then, Tyler is imposing on his body, his mind, his life.
So at the end of the day, when Tyler suddenly doesn't seem to care about her any more, in fact seems positively relieved and happy as he kisses Annie Cartwright instead, Sam is filled with nothing but bitter anger, as he always is these days.
- -
The doctors are talking about something that is keeping him trapped in this coma. Sam wants to tell them exactly what, or rather who that is, but of course he can't. Hearing Frank's voice, even though it can't possibly be him, because he's a police officer and not a doctor - it fills him with hope still, with longing. Makes him fight again, trying to breach whatever it is that is holding him in this prison-body.
Then, he realises that his DCI has shown up at CID, that Tyler has been in his physical presence, talked to him.
It makes him think unspeakable things, gives him rage-powered energy. By this point, he is relentlessly battering at Tyler, in those few seconds he actually manages to impose his mind on that apparition that scares his counterpart so much, because he knows, he knows, one day he will be successful and drive Tyler into ending this whole twisted, miserable game.
Why doesn't Tyler see the sense of it?
It was death, or something coming close to it, that caused this whole mess - and Tyler had tried to do it, Sam remembers, at the very beginning, had tried to jump off that roof, only that bird Annie Cartwright had kept him from doing it.
By now, Sam finds himself hating her nearly as much as he does Tyler.
- -
There's a tumour in Tyler's head.
Sam thinks that is oddly fitting, thinks it with that hateful satisfaction that seems to be all he is these days. They are going to cut it out, and for a while he thinks that this is it, this is his way back home--
--until he realises that it's him who is going to feel the operation, just like he's felt everything happening to this body so far. No sedatives have kept him from the sensation of needles in his arms, and why would a man in a coma need painkillers?
Sam is scared. What if it goes wrong? What if they mess up his mind so bad (even worse than it already is) that he forgets - forgets himself, really does fall into a coma... what if he won't be able to get back at all?
Tyler seems very sure of this method being his way back home, but Sam has come to completely distrust Tyler. If Tyler draws hope from this, it can't mean anything good for Sam.
If only he could do something.
- -
Ruth Tyler tells her son to be strong for the surgery.
Sam tells him to give up, to go and die. Over and over.
And at the same time, he steels himself, because he knows that Ruth has the truth of it. He will have to be strong.
- -
It looks like Tyler is going to complete Sam's mission after all. He believes it's what he has to do to help along, to help the doctors bring him back. If he weren't past that particular emotion, Sam would hope the same for himself.
- -
When the day comes, when they indeed start operating, it's just as painful as Sam had thought it would be.
No, that isn't true - by this time, Sam has forgotten what physical pain is like, having been trapped in the agony of his mind. Now, as the knife opens up his head, oh God, his HEAD, he screams and screams and screams, in pain and terror, because how could he possibly have been prepared for this?
He begs them to stop, yells at them, all for nothing. Not even hearing Frank's voice manages to soothe him, it simply is too much.
And once more, caught in this hell without means of escape, Sam's agony turns into rage, screaming anger, directed against the man who caused all this.
'Knock knock.'
'Jesus!'
No, not quite.
'This, this is it, isn't it, Morgan's operating, isn't he...'
Don't say his name. Don't you dare.
'Very serious. Very nasty.'
'It has to be done-'
'But it's a very messy job, Sam. Are you strong enough?'
And then, they both see what's going to happen.
They see Tyler's friends die, one by one.
And Tyler--
'Stay strong. None of this is real.'
Oh, that makes the rage boil over completely. Tyler is still denying this reality, the reality he took from him, denying everything he's put Sam through--
'They can't feel pain, can they? None of this is real.'
'None of this is real - I'm coming home. Stay strong - none of this is real - I'm coming home-'
Sam is coming for him.
'Not long now.'
'No - Stay strong. None of- None of this is real.'
He'll show Tyler just how real it is, how real every moment of his tormented existence has been since this nightmare started.
- -
The agony goes on and on, so much so that after a while, Sam loses himself in it, just like he feared it would happen. There is nowhere to escape to now, and no one is listening to his pleading as they operate on him, as he feels hands rummaging in his head, and if he could vomit he would, only he can't, so it all seems to amplify until at one point, for one terrible moment, he can't even remember his own name.
And still Tyler blunders on. Sees his friends die again, refuses to believe it. Sam cherishes these short blips free of pain, relishes in Tyler's panic and his refusals. The surgery must be over soon, it simply must be, and then, then he'll be free, then--
And then he is back on the operating table, going mad over and over and over again.
- -
He'd told himself to stay strong, but after an endless amount of endless moments, Sam has reached a point where he knows he really is going to shatter, that nothing of him is going to be left.
And still he keeps screaming, for Frank to stop it (how can he be the one operating on him anyway, it makes no bloody sense, but then nothing has made any sense since all of this started), for everything to stop, for the world to end, anything at all to put an end to all of this.
And then, he hears Tyler shouting for Frank as well.
It distracts Sam, makes his attention shift, and he--
He sees.
The tunnel. The heist. Tyler's team is going to die.
Tyler is talking to Frank, not understanding.
Then Frank is gone, as suddenly as he had appeared.
Light, flashing--
So much light--
'You've done it, Sam. It's over.'
Has he? Has Sam, drowning in something far beyond agony, has he really done it?
'TYLER!'
No, that's not him, that's--
- -
On a dreary July afternoon in 1973, Sam Tyler looks up into the light.
- -
In an impossible time, Sam Williams feels a sudden decisive pull, through the pain that is this impossible surgery performed on him.
- -
In a hospital room in 2007, Sam Tyler opens his eyes.
- -
On a dreary, bloody July afternoon in 1973, Sam Williams blinks into the light of a torch, and the light beyond that, from the other end of the tunnel.
'Well done, Sam.'
He doesn't know what to feel. He doesn't even know how to feel any more.
'... DCI Morgan? F-Frank?'
The beam of the torch lowers; Sam flinches at the sound of screams and gunshots. His mind is reeling, flashing with images, memories filled with snippets from an impossible future and a past that isn't his own when it should have been. It's causing his head to ache (or is that a residue from the surgery?), making him groan, and all the while he can't even fathom the feeling, the miracle of being able to move.
'I...'
'You've done well, Sam. Your job is over.'
Sam blinks, shaking his head, his mind threatening to become hung up on the fact that he's even able to do this simple thing, shaking his head. He wants to listen to Frank, to answer with his own mouth and his own voice, to actually speak, he--
He sees Tyler exiting the hospital room, sees him wandering through Manchester, the impossible one, big and grey and loud and, sees him looking down at the Mancunian Way, (hadn't they just been advertising its construction?), sitting in his mother's living room, speaking into a cassette recorder--
And he sees him drinking with DCI Hunt and the others from A-Division, a rare moment of laughter and relaxation--
Sees him living his life here and there, the things he snatched away from Sam, the things he forced Sam to endure.
Sam swallows dryly, his stomach heaving, rebelling against the strain on his mind, why won't it ever end?
'Sir, I, I don't know what--'
'It's okay, Sam. It's over. You're home.' A hand lands on his shoulder, makes him tingle all over, and suddenly Sam realises that this body is all wrong, even though it's supposed to be his, but why, WHY--
Sam Tyler, cutting his own finger, not even realising that it's happening. But Sam is realising that it is, realising exactly what's happening, having seen it in the rapid progression of images, how time passed for the other Sam, a lot of time, even if it was just the blink of an eye for him. He realises with sickening clarity that this isn't over, that he isn't out of the woods.
He realises what is going to happen to Tyler.
Sam looks up at Morgan, into his ever impassive face, doesn't flinch this time when another shot rings out, more screaming - because this, this is so much more important and terrifying.
Terrifying because now Tyler up is on the roof of the station in the future, and Sam knows that he has to stop what's going to happen.
'No.' His body moves of its own accord (because after all this time, Sam doesn't remember how to even operate his own body), clinging onto Morgan as though he's going to drown. When he speaks, he's stumbling over his own words, his voice sounding alien to him. 'Sir, something happened, I-I can't even begin to explain it, but these past few months - that wasn't me--'
Sam bows his head, smiles.
'-- it was someone else, and, and he's coming back, I can't stop him--'
He knows what he needs to do. To get back.
'-- he's going to jeopardise the mission, he's going to kill me--'
'Jesus, Sam, calm down!'
Sam is shaking, terror clutching his insides, because now Sam is starting to walk towards the edge and Morgan grabs his face to make Sam look at him breaking into a run and he says, 'Who are you talking about?' only Sam is nearly at the edge he can't explain it so he chokes out his foot connecting with the railing levering him up in the air--
'Sam Tyler--'
- -
On a sunny July afternoon in 2007, Sam Tyler jumps.
- -
On a dreary July afternoon in 1973, Sam Williams Tyler WILLIAMS screams in his terror and lets go of Morgan, turns the gun in his hands on himself in a desperate attempt to stop it STOP IT I AM NOT LETTING YOU TAKE THIS. Only then hands grab him, he hears someone shout, trying to wrench the weapon out of his hands and Sam is falling he grips the gun harder, struggles, screams again--
A shot is fired, Morgan falls away with red blooming from his head and concrete is rushing up to meet him--
- -
On a dreary July afternoon in 1973, Sam Tyler calmly steps out of the train tunnel and saves his colleagues.
- -
On a sunny July afternoon in 2007, Sam Williams has no time for last thoughts as he hits the ground, shatters, and dies.
Author: little_cello
Word Count: ~6000
Rating: Brown Cortina
Warnings: Character death, potentially squicky graphic descriptions of a surgery, other disturbing things
Characters: Sam Tyler, Sam Williams, Frank Morgan, and then some
Summary: What if Sam Williams were real?
Notes: ... so... I have a problem with Sam Williams. Up until now, I've refused to integrate him into my headcanon of Life on Mars, and.. I don't know. This morning, an idea hit me, and once you've read the fic I think you'll understand why I had to sit down and spend 8+ consecutive hours writing it (basically this ate my entire day from 11am to 11pm). This is my attempt at making Sam Williams fit into LoM canon. I hope you'll enjoy it. ♥
Many thanks to The Annotated Martian and the Life on Mars Transcripts done by phantym-56 and chamekke - this fic would not have been possible without my checking on these fantastic sources for quotes and timelines etc. Further thanks to danae-b and talkingtothesky for betaing, inspiration, encouragements and deep discussions that made this fic fit together in the end. LOVE YOU GUYSSSSSS ♥
And lastly, I took the title from the song "The Unforgiven" by Metallica.
- -
He's in his car, driving through the outskirts of Manchester, head full of what is to come. He knows what he's doing, of course, that's why he was chosen in the first place. And he's been prepared for months and months, meticulously planning for every little eventuality. The fact that there's no family who might compromise him made him the perfect candidate for this mission, and he'd gladly accepted this immense responsibility.
He'd do anything for his DCI, after all.
So here he is, eyes on the road, only half listening to the music (his favourite Bowie album) playing from the cassette player. He's nearly at his destination, and once more he finds himself glancing at the papers lying on the passenger seat. His transfer papers, from C-Division in Hyde to A-Division here in the city. It's just a matter of introducing himself to his new work colleagues now.
He's as well prepared as can be, but that doesn't stop him from going through the plan once more in his head. Better safe than sorry.
Next to his road the landscape is a ruin, buildings apparently having been pulled down only recently. In the distance, a large sign is coming up - he knows what it's advertising, and looking at the state of the street he's driving on, he figures that it's high time they erect that motorway everyone's been talking about.
His eyes settle back on the road - and widen, as he sees something completely impossible.
A man has appeared, standing in the street, only now turning to face him.
The man is him. He barely registers the suit he's wearing, only staring at the man's face - his own face - for that one moment before reflexes take over and he yanks the steering wheel around, one desperate attempt to prevent the inevitable.
- -
On a dreary morning in February 1973, Sam Williams loses control over his car, goes spinning off the road. He hits his head on something, and everything goes black.
- -
On a dreary November afternoon in 2006, Sam Tyler is hit by a car. Seconds after his body comes to rest on the tarmac, his mind fades away.
- -
On a dreary morning in February 1973, Sam Tyler wakes up in a ruinous landscape, his memories full of snippets from the future and the past.
- -
Sam Williams doesn't know where or when he is when he wakes up.
He doesn't even know whether he really is awake.
He can't move, can't open his eyes. Hell, he can't even think properly. He's floating and rooted on the spot at the same time, in pain and not, clear-minded and up there with Lucy and her diamonds all at once.
He had an accident.
It's as if this thought unlocks something; suddenly, Sam hears voices.
But he doesn't understand what they're saying.
And at the same time, he does - he's in a hospital, in a coma (no, that can't be right, he can hear them after all, he can feel them moving about in the room, the shifting of air, the pinpricks of syringes and other things, things on his body, constant beeping, but he can't open his eyes), he's been hit by a car.
No, that isn't right. Can't be. He was in a car, he saw someone - himself - standing in the road.
He wants to tell the doctors that, only he can't get his mouth to work, can't move a single muscle.
He doesn't understand what happened.
- -
Time passes. Sam hears talk of things that don't make sense to him. What are 'mobile phones'? He always thought he was good with medical terms, for a police officer anyway, but the things his doctors are talking about sound so impossible that for a long time, Sam thinks he's in a prolonged nightmare, and at one point he prays to God that he will swear off his obsession for Star Trek and Doctor Who so long as he please just lets him wake up.
He doesn't.
Instead, sometimes, Sam catches glimpses of someone else's life.
A life of someone who shouldn't exist - someone he and DCI Morgan thought up, that day in the cemetery, when Sam's gaze had fallen on that one particular gravestone.
But the longer Sam is caught here, in a body that won't open its eyes, that won't move, that won't do anything of its own accord, the more certain he has to be that this man exists.
That it is Sam Tyler who is now leading the life Sam Williams was supposed to have.
Sam never thought he would end up hating a figment of his imagination, but well, here he is.
- -
Apart from the few glimpses of Sam Tyler, he spends endless days (weeks, months, ages) in what must his hospital bed, what really is his prison.
Sam never gives up on trying to move, even though after a while it becomes more of a habit to scream at his limbs to move, his eyes to open, rather than an actual impulse. By now he hears everything the doctors say with a clarity that makes him wonder how they can't realise that he can understand every word they say (even if he doesn't always understand their meaning).
It must be a radio that someone puts in his room that tells him that the year is 2006, and that simply is impossible.
Is it?
No, he has to keep himself from going mad, and admitting that he really is here, in this impossible place at an impossible time would be the first step down that road, and he can't let that happen.
So Sam Williams keeps straining, keeps screaming at this body that can't be his own to move, bloody well move.
Desperately wants it to move as effortlessly as Sam Tyler moves through a life that wasn't supposed to be his.
- -
His resentment for Tyler keeps growing, until there comes the moment where, for the first time, Sam wishes that the other man would simply die, vacate that body so Sam could return to what rightfully is his.
Something happens.
'Are you really lonely here?'
'No no no no no no, I'm not listening.'
'Don't you think it can be lonely out there too? In the white room that's too warm?'
'Stop it.'
Oh no, he certainly won't stop.
'Life goes on. But does it really go on for the sleeping man?'
'I'm not sleeping, I'm here!'
'Do you not like me with my clown? I can see I make you frown.'
He looks so deliciously desperate.
'When on earth will all this end? I'm your friend, your only friend.'
'GET OUT!'
Sam is back in this body. He doesn't know what happened there - but he knows it has left him with a sense of satisfaction... and hope.
- -
He's slowly coming to accept that he is indeed caught in an impossible time. Two thousand and six. No, it's 2007 by now, several months have passed since the accident.
But does that really matter? When all he can do is... nothing. Nothing at all. He can't even breathe for himself, needs help from a respirator.
His reluctant acceptance of the fact that he has landed in the future doesn't mean that he doesn't stop fighting it, however. Just like Tyler doesn't stop fighting his own predicament. The difference is that Tyler is able to actively do something. Catching those glimpses of him fighting his DCI - Sam recognises him as his intended target, Gene Hunt - makes him want to do unspeakable things. He thought he was slowly going mad, at the beginning of this ordeal; now he feels himself spiralling down faster and faster, thinking things he doesn't want to believe he's capable of thinking.
And yet, here he is, once more wishing death upon a man with every fibre of his being.
'What do you want?'
'I told you. I'm your only friend. I'm here to help. Do you feel helpless?'
He knows Tyler does.
'Yeah.'
'Unappreciated?'
'That's a big word for a little girl.'
Oh, if only he knew.
'Scared?'
'...I'll stop fighting. If I stop fighting, then I'm scared I'll die.'
That is the plan, yes.
'Give up. Lie down. Close your eyes. And sleep. And sleep. No more nastiness. Just sleep. Just sleep. Forever. Sleep.'
That's it... this is it....!
'NO!'
- -
Once again, Sam is left screaming in wordless frustration.
- -
A woman is at his side now, holding his hand. She says she's his mum, and that once more gives him the certainty that he is caught in a terrible nightmare. He doesn't have a mother, or a father; they both died during a coach crash when he was a child. And the person she claims to be, that only exists in his mind - Ruth Tyler, Sam Tyler's mother. He and DCI Morgan thought her up as well, seeing those two gravestones behind the one Sam had spotted.
And yet, Sam Tyler meets her in 1973, and it is her, even though Sam can barely believe what he sees with Tyler's eyes, in those short blips when their minds seem to intertwine, flitting between times.
How is all of this even possible? Sam wants to deny Tyler's existence, his and his mother's as well. It's terrifying, to think of the consequences. As though Tyler isn't just a figment of his imagination, a soulless alias Sam was supposed to inhabit for the duration of his mission.
And still, Ruth Tyler's hands on his are so warm, here, so loving. Sam wants to pull away, but of course he can't. He has no control over his prison. So, after a while, he reluctantly starts to concentrate on the touch, somewhat grateful for the change it makes from cold doctors' tools and syringes and IV lines.
She visits him often, spends hours sitting by his side.
She is the only one who does.
No, that isn't true - someone else visits, occasionally, but they never talk. Sam, after a while, figures it has to be this Maya Tyler sometimes thinks about. But if he loves her as much as he claims (as he tries to make himself believe?), if she is his girlfriend, why doesn't she talk to him? Why doesn't she touch him?
Sam finds himself wondering whether this Sam Tyler, whoever he is here, has any friends at all. Judging from the glimpses he sees now and then, of Tyler fighting his superior (I should be in his place), of the way he treats the rest of the division, he's not very good at making friends. Reaching this conclusion, Sam feels grimly satisfied.
The man who stole his body doesn't deserve to be happy, doesn't deserve to have friends.
- -
Sam finds himself missing his own friends. He misses his orderly desk at Hyde. He misses the long evenings of talking to Frank Morgan, in the office, a bottle of wine between them.
He misses moving.
He misses talking.
He misses hearing his own voice.
He's slowly going mad.
- -
There is one moment when Sam thinks, no, is so very sure that this torture is finally over.
The doctors and Sam Tyler's mother have decided to 'switch off his machines', whatever that means, but it makes him think that this must be the key, his ticket back into his own life. He's practically thrumming with anticipation when he sees images flashing in his mind - a gun trained at Sam Tyler's head, no one coming to his rescue. And while Sam, for all his resentment against Tyler, doesn't want to relish in the knowledge that his way out has to be through the death of a potentially real person, he can't bring himself to really pity this other man either. This should never have happened in the first place, and Sam tells himself that he would be feeling those same emotions if they were directed at anyone other than Tyler.
The clock strikes two.
Sam Tyler smiles, hearing his father whistling.
Sam Williams smiles, feeling a tugging that must herald his return.
But it never happens.
Sam Tyler is saved. Sam Tyler's mum swears she saw her son smile.
The machines stay on.
Sam Williams screams with disappointment, even though no one can hear him.
- -
Sam Tyler is making a right cock-up of this undercover mission. Not that he knows that it's supposed to be that, but it still fills Sam with rage to watch Tyler's blundering, through the few images he catches now and then.
Still, he finds himself looking forward to them in some strange way; they are the only thing that breaks the monotony of his endless days. He still hasn't managed to open his eyes, only the occasional twitch of a muscle somewhere in this body. This body. Because it can't possibly be his, he has no control over it whatsoever.
And when he sees a few seconds of Tyler running around like he's been in this body forever, it makes Sam burn with anger.
Makes him wonder whether Tyler realises at all what has happened. That he has stolen away another man's life, forced him into this endless slow torture.
Sam starts obsessing over that thought. He needs to make Tyler realise, needs to make him see.
And the moment comes, almost as if Sam does have some influence on what happens after all. Tyler is on his own, down in the bogs, currently feeling the effects of what the doctors are putting him - them both - through (tabasco for Christ's sake, it makes him want to gag, only he can't, and what even is the point of this test). Sam's attention shifts minutely, and--
There.
Mirrors.
Make him see.
Tyler looks up - one of the doctors says something, but it doesn't matter, Sam tunes out all of them, out - and yes, there is a reaction. Mirrors, mirrors everywhere. Make him see.
'Who's there?'
Me, you bastard, the one you stole his life from. Look.
'I'm here. I can hear you.'
He knows he's there, for God's sake, he doesn't need him to hear, he needs him to look. SEE. That he's in a different body, one that he has to give back.
'What?!'
Yes, that's right you bastard--
'GET ME OUT OF HERE!'
I am trying!, Sam shouts back, but Tyler doesn't hear him-- everything is gone in a blip, and he's left staring at nothing, staring with his eyes shut.
He really is trying. If only trying was all it needed.
- -
An indefinite amount of time has passed, and finally it seems as though this torment is coming to an end.
There is horror when Sam realises that now Vic Tyler as well has decided to come to life. For some time, he finds himself wondering whether he isn't actually in a coma in 1973, imagining the life Sam Tyler would lead.
But then the nurses around him talk gibberish again, about TV shows he's never heard of, talking about impossible appliances, throwing around swearwords that would have made him blush if only he were able to - and he has to reluctantly admit that, wherever it is he has ended up, it isn't his time.
Just like 1973 isn't Sam Tyler's time.
The only thing Sam is grateful for is the fact that Tyler hates his new life just as much as Sam does. He's constantly trying to 'go home', and Sam finds himself cheering him on, in his own special way, the only way he can.
'You've done everything you can think of and you're still no closer to home. Why are you still here, Sam?'
Tyler can't see him, but that doesn't stop Sam.
'I'm here for a reason.'
Like hell, Sam thinks, and withdraws.
This is why he's just as thrilled as Tyler is, standing in that living room Sam's never seen before in his life, yelling at the ceiling, the doctors standing around him, and he makes that extra effort to move, move, open his eyes.
This is why he's even more devastated than Tyler when nothing happens.
When Tyler finds out about his imaginary father being a murderer on top of everything else, once more a dark sense of satisfaction fills Sam.
Tyler stole Sam's life. He doesn't deserve happiness.
- -
The nurses keep cheering Tyler on, telling him to wake up, to hang in there.
Sam pretends they are talking to him, and does his best, but his best is not enough. He doesn't wake up, and neither does Tyler.
- -
Sam isn't alone in his room any more. There's a man, and whoever he is, he seems intent on killing Tyler.
Sam, lacking the ability to actually speak, urges him on mentally, despite the pain, despite how his head seems to be splitting in half.
And it happens - there is one blip where suddenly, Sam knows he isn't in that hospital room any more, and he hears Tyler's voice, pleading for his life, and elation floods his mind, yes, yes, he opens his eyes, sees the dingy flat that was always supposed to be his--
--and finds himself being tugged back into his prison, nurses anxiously murmuring around him, about how something got disconnected. No sign of the man who could potentially be Sam's saviour.
Sam thinks he'll go mad with disappointment and anger, residues of pain still coursing through this body. His body, judging from how real it feels.
No, he can't think that. Never think that.
- -
It happens again, and again. The man - Tony Crane - keeps returning to torment Tyler's body, and Sam is grateful, so grateful for the fact that he isn't giving up, that he hates Tyler as much as Sam does, but Christ, he's taking too much time (and causing a considerable amount of pain on top of that; the fact that Tyler can feel it as well is little consolation at this point). He's going to be discovered, and that will be Sam's best chance gone for good...
And indeed, it happens just as Sam predicted.
So close.
Sam lets rage and grief consume him for a long time after that.
- -
When DCI Morgan contacts Tyler, Sam thinks his heart is going to just stop. Frank must realise what is going on - Tyler is making no sense, he's speaking in a way Sam never would, so this is a slither of hope that he needs to hold onto, that his DCI will realise that something is off, and that he will... will...
… will what?
Sam doesn't even know. But he trusts his DCI.
Then, he has a disturbing moment of his own, when one of the doctors sounds just like Frank.
God, how desperately he wants to talk to him.
To anyone.
He doesn't even know what his voice sounds like any more; refuses to believe it sounds anything like Tyler's.
- -
Sam doesn't know how much time has passed. Ruth Tyler, the impossible woman, keeps visiting him, talking to him. He can't help but feel grateful for her efforts, because they seem to spur Tyler on as well. That, and she keeps reminding him what he's fighting for.
- -
There is one more moment where Sam is certain, so certain that this is it - Tyler has planted himself underneath a car bomb, and Sam screams at him to cut the red wire, end this miserable show. Only - for one moment, he hesitates.
Tyler is in his, Sam's, body after all. So if he destroys himself like that, then...
There's horror, for one terrible second - NO -
And then, nothing happens. Again
Tyler continues to live. Again.
Sam continues to lie still in his prison, this time faintly resigned rather than actively disappointed.
But that changes quickly. The anger resurfaces, grows, grows, grows -
'Red lorry, yellow lorry. Red lorry, yellow lorry. Red lorry, yellow lorry.'
'What do you want?'
He wants his life back.
'Red wire, yellow wire. Red wire, yellow wire.'
'Stop.'
Never.
'Come on, Sam. You try it. Red wire, yellow wire.'
'Just leave me.'
Never.
'Pick one.'
'Bang! You're dead, Sam. Oh dear.'
If only.
- -
The most infuriating thing is the fact that Tyler seems to be becoming comfortable with this life that never was supposed to be his (he never was supposed to have any life at all for God's sake).
Sure, there are times where he rages against it with all he has - like that one, that only time that woman comes to visit, apparently Ruth Tyler's sister. She talks in a sugary sweet voice, and Sam resents her for that, because it sounds like lies on top of lies, almost like a boy's wishful dream. However, it at least helps to rekindle Tyler's fighting spirit, so that's something.
Not that it really makes a difference, though, in the end.
When Tyler kneels in his flat, a picture of utter desolation, Sam can't for the life of him find one scrap of pity for the man.
- -
So even in this impossible time in the future, the doctors are prone to medical misconduct. As the drugs course through Sam's body, burning like fire and ice and acid, setting his mind aflame and threatening to shatter it into a thousand pieces, he screams and groans and yells, cursing everything and everyone, sobbing senselessly, thrashing about in this pandemonium of colours and sounds, worlds spinning and pitching and unhinging him completely.
And no one notices. None of it translates to his body, to any of his two bodies.
Tyler can't possibly feel the same things, and Sam hates him for it, hates him, despises him, wants him more than dead.
- -
More medication, that much Sam can make out through the cacophony that is his scattered mind, but it sounds wrong, it can't possibly work, details, you have to pay attention to the DETAILS, at least they both agree on that.
And they both, Tyler and Williams, shout in terror as everything slowly goes black.
- -
Sam doesn't know what's happened.
All of a sudden, he's in the same body as Tyler. His own body, once upon a time.
Too stunned, still reeling from the agony he'd been put through only moments before, he can only watch, feel his body move as Tyler kneels in front of the television set, talking to it like the impossible lunatic he is, urging his team on. And he really is moving, Sam can actually feel it, he's moving, for the first time in so long.
It floods him with such happiness that he just lets it happen, lets Tyler keep the lead, can't do much else.
- -
When he's back in the prison body, he weeps, sobs, cries, screams. Curses himself for not taking this chance, for not trying to push Tyler out once and for all. Unseen, unheard.
Tyler shares a tender moment with his bird.
It's not bloody fair.
- -
Maya returns, only to say a final goodbye.
Sam is torn about it.
He is at a stage where every single thing that torments Tyler fills him with complete and pitch black satisfaction - serves him bloody right - and from what he has gathered, this woman is the reason why Tyler got into his accident (and caused Sam's) in the first place. So by all means, he doesn't mind Tyler's desperation, nor Maya's dilemma, her reluctance. What's more, her presence in his room is awkward, and Sam doesn't want to be the one on the receiving end of this, even though Tyler does end up hearing most of what she has to say.
And yet...
This is a private moment, and for all his now ever-present thoughts of revenge and hatred, he thinks it is somewhat sad that the man Maya thinks she's addressing isn't even here, isn't really him. It feels like he's imposing on something.
But then, Tyler is imposing on his body, his mind, his life.
So at the end of the day, when Tyler suddenly doesn't seem to care about her any more, in fact seems positively relieved and happy as he kisses Annie Cartwright instead, Sam is filled with nothing but bitter anger, as he always is these days.
- -
The doctors are talking about something that is keeping him trapped in this coma. Sam wants to tell them exactly what, or rather who that is, but of course he can't. Hearing Frank's voice, even though it can't possibly be him, because he's a police officer and not a doctor - it fills him with hope still, with longing. Makes him fight again, trying to breach whatever it is that is holding him in this prison-body.
Then, he realises that his DCI has shown up at CID, that Tyler has been in his physical presence, talked to him.
It makes him think unspeakable things, gives him rage-powered energy. By this point, he is relentlessly battering at Tyler, in those few seconds he actually manages to impose his mind on that apparition that scares his counterpart so much, because he knows, he knows, one day he will be successful and drive Tyler into ending this whole twisted, miserable game.
Why doesn't Tyler see the sense of it?
It was death, or something coming close to it, that caused this whole mess - and Tyler had tried to do it, Sam remembers, at the very beginning, had tried to jump off that roof, only that bird Annie Cartwright had kept him from doing it.
By now, Sam finds himself hating her nearly as much as he does Tyler.
- -
There's a tumour in Tyler's head.
Sam thinks that is oddly fitting, thinks it with that hateful satisfaction that seems to be all he is these days. They are going to cut it out, and for a while he thinks that this is it, this is his way back home--
--until he realises that it's him who is going to feel the operation, just like he's felt everything happening to this body so far. No sedatives have kept him from the sensation of needles in his arms, and why would a man in a coma need painkillers?
Sam is scared. What if it goes wrong? What if they mess up his mind so bad (even worse than it already is) that he forgets - forgets himself, really does fall into a coma... what if he won't be able to get back at all?
Tyler seems very sure of this method being his way back home, but Sam has come to completely distrust Tyler. If Tyler draws hope from this, it can't mean anything good for Sam.
If only he could do something.
- -
Ruth Tyler tells her son to be strong for the surgery.
Sam tells him to give up, to go and die. Over and over.
And at the same time, he steels himself, because he knows that Ruth has the truth of it. He will have to be strong.
- -
It looks like Tyler is going to complete Sam's mission after all. He believes it's what he has to do to help along, to help the doctors bring him back. If he weren't past that particular emotion, Sam would hope the same for himself.
- -
When the day comes, when they indeed start operating, it's just as painful as Sam had thought it would be.
No, that isn't true - by this time, Sam has forgotten what physical pain is like, having been trapped in the agony of his mind. Now, as the knife opens up his head, oh God, his HEAD, he screams and screams and screams, in pain and terror, because how could he possibly have been prepared for this?
He begs them to stop, yells at them, all for nothing. Not even hearing Frank's voice manages to soothe him, it simply is too much.
And once more, caught in this hell without means of escape, Sam's agony turns into rage, screaming anger, directed against the man who caused all this.
'Knock knock.'
'Jesus!'
No, not quite.
'This, this is it, isn't it, Morgan's operating, isn't he...'
Don't say his name. Don't you dare.
'Very serious. Very nasty.'
'It has to be done-'
'But it's a very messy job, Sam. Are you strong enough?'
And then, they both see what's going to happen.
They see Tyler's friends die, one by one.
And Tyler--
'Stay strong. None of this is real.'
Oh, that makes the rage boil over completely. Tyler is still denying this reality, the reality he took from him, denying everything he's put Sam through--
'They can't feel pain, can they? None of this is real.'
'None of this is real - I'm coming home. Stay strong - none of this is real - I'm coming home-'
Sam is coming for him.
'Not long now.'
'No - Stay strong. None of- None of this is real.'
He'll show Tyler just how real it is, how real every moment of his tormented existence has been since this nightmare started.
- -
The agony goes on and on, so much so that after a while, Sam loses himself in it, just like he feared it would happen. There is nowhere to escape to now, and no one is listening to his pleading as they operate on him, as he feels hands rummaging in his head, and if he could vomit he would, only he can't, so it all seems to amplify until at one point, for one terrible moment, he can't even remember his own name.
And still Tyler blunders on. Sees his friends die again, refuses to believe it. Sam cherishes these short blips free of pain, relishes in Tyler's panic and his refusals. The surgery must be over soon, it simply must be, and then, then he'll be free, then--
And then he is back on the operating table, going mad over and over and over again.
- -
He'd told himself to stay strong, but after an endless amount of endless moments, Sam has reached a point where he knows he really is going to shatter, that nothing of him is going to be left.
And still he keeps screaming, for Frank to stop it (how can he be the one operating on him anyway, it makes no bloody sense, but then nothing has made any sense since all of this started), for everything to stop, for the world to end, anything at all to put an end to all of this.
And then, he hears Tyler shouting for Frank as well.
It distracts Sam, makes his attention shift, and he--
He sees.
The tunnel. The heist. Tyler's team is going to die.
Tyler is talking to Frank, not understanding.
Then Frank is gone, as suddenly as he had appeared.
Light, flashing--
So much light--
'You've done it, Sam. It's over.'
Has he? Has Sam, drowning in something far beyond agony, has he really done it?
'TYLER!'
No, that's not him, that's--
- -
On a dreary July afternoon in 1973, Sam Tyler looks up into the light.
- -
In an impossible time, Sam Williams feels a sudden decisive pull, through the pain that is this impossible surgery performed on him.
- -
In a hospital room in 2007, Sam Tyler opens his eyes.
- -
On a dreary, bloody July afternoon in 1973, Sam Williams blinks into the light of a torch, and the light beyond that, from the other end of the tunnel.
'Well done, Sam.'
He doesn't know what to feel. He doesn't even know how to feel any more.
'... DCI Morgan? F-Frank?'
The beam of the torch lowers; Sam flinches at the sound of screams and gunshots. His mind is reeling, flashing with images, memories filled with snippets from an impossible future and a past that isn't his own when it should have been. It's causing his head to ache (or is that a residue from the surgery?), making him groan, and all the while he can't even fathom the feeling, the miracle of being able to move.
'I...'
'You've done well, Sam. Your job is over.'
Sam blinks, shaking his head, his mind threatening to become hung up on the fact that he's even able to do this simple thing, shaking his head. He wants to listen to Frank, to answer with his own mouth and his own voice, to actually speak, he--
He sees Tyler exiting the hospital room, sees him wandering through Manchester, the impossible one, big and grey and loud and, sees him looking down at the Mancunian Way, (hadn't they just been advertising its construction?), sitting in his mother's living room, speaking into a cassette recorder--
And he sees him drinking with DCI Hunt and the others from A-Division, a rare moment of laughter and relaxation--
Sees him living his life here and there, the things he snatched away from Sam, the things he forced Sam to endure.
Sam swallows dryly, his stomach heaving, rebelling against the strain on his mind, why won't it ever end?
'Sir, I, I don't know what--'
'It's okay, Sam. It's over. You're home.' A hand lands on his shoulder, makes him tingle all over, and suddenly Sam realises that this body is all wrong, even though it's supposed to be his, but why, WHY--
Sam Tyler, cutting his own finger, not even realising that it's happening. But Sam is realising that it is, realising exactly what's happening, having seen it in the rapid progression of images, how time passed for the other Sam, a lot of time, even if it was just the blink of an eye for him. He realises with sickening clarity that this isn't over, that he isn't out of the woods.
He realises what is going to happen to Tyler.
Sam looks up at Morgan, into his ever impassive face, doesn't flinch this time when another shot rings out, more screaming - because this, this is so much more important and terrifying.
Terrifying because now Tyler up is on the roof of the station in the future, and Sam knows that he has to stop what's going to happen.
'No.' His body moves of its own accord (because after all this time, Sam doesn't remember how to even operate his own body), clinging onto Morgan as though he's going to drown. When he speaks, he's stumbling over his own words, his voice sounding alien to him. 'Sir, something happened, I-I can't even begin to explain it, but these past few months - that wasn't me--'
Sam bows his head, smiles.
'-- it was someone else, and, and he's coming back, I can't stop him--'
He knows what he needs to do. To get back.
'-- he's going to jeopardise the mission, he's going to kill me--'
'Jesus, Sam, calm down!'
Sam is shaking, terror clutching his insides, because now Sam is starting to walk towards the edge and Morgan grabs his face to make Sam look at him breaking into a run and he says, 'Who are you talking about?' only Sam is nearly at the edge he can't explain it so he chokes out his foot connecting with the railing levering him up in the air--
'Sam Tyler--'
- -
On a sunny July afternoon in 2007, Sam Tyler jumps.
- -
On a dreary July afternoon in 1973, Sam Williams Tyler WILLIAMS screams in his terror and lets go of Morgan, turns the gun in his hands on himself in a desperate attempt to stop it STOP IT I AM NOT LETTING YOU TAKE THIS. Only then hands grab him, he hears someone shout, trying to wrench the weapon out of his hands and Sam is falling he grips the gun harder, struggles, screams again--
A shot is fired, Morgan falls away with red blooming from his head and concrete is rushing up to meet him--
- -
On a dreary July afternoon in 1973, Sam Tyler calmly steps out of the train tunnel and saves his colleagues.
- -
On a sunny July afternoon in 2007, Sam Williams has no time for last thoughts as he hits the ground, shatters, and dies.