(no subject)
Title: Memento Vitae
Author: wesseling
Word Count: 2685
Disclaimer: Life on Mars is copyright Kudos and the BBC.
Author Notes: Thanks to all the people who beta read this fic. And thanks to
dakfinvfor the inspiration and the permission to post it. If it weren’t for her brilliant fic I would have never written this down.
Warnings: character death
Summary: It is an alternate ending. Inspiration hit me after I read part 17 of “Steady as she goes”. It was this paragraph: Sam was healing, but he was still wasting away. He wasn’t fighting. He was just letting himself go and Gene couldn’t understand why. Why a man who fought over everything would not fight for himself.
So here it goes.
He didn’t know why he was meant to be the first. Chris really didn’t feel comfortable being in this room all by himself. Well that wasn’t actually true. He was not alone. There in a hospital bed lay his boss. Though Chris doubted that he had ever noticed any of his prior visits, not to mention this one. Even when the room was full of people Sam Tyler probably wasn’t aware of them. But, discomfort and all, today Chris felt he had to be here. Today was going to be the day. The day they all had feared and tried to ignore and hoped it would never come.
The ultimate day.
He crossed the room and said his usual greeting which DI Tyler hadn’t responded to for two months and four days.
“Hiya Boss.” He waved his hand through the air. “It’s me. Chris.” He walked over to the small side table next to the window. It was full of things visitors had put there either to make the sparse room look nicer or to let the patient know that he hadn’t been forgotten. Things like flowers, cards, magazines and even some fruits and sweets. Chris glanced over the table. There was no more room to put anything on it anymore. Even the space under the window was cramped.
“You didn’t even take a look at all those ‘get well soon’ cards we wrote you. That’s not very nice of you, Boss.” He grabbed one of the latest cards from the windowsill and placed it between Sam’s fingers. Chris examined the resulting tableau and gave Sam a sad little smile.
“There you go. At least you held one in your hands.” He put the card back from where he took it. “Don’t really know what I should say to you, Boss. Never been that great with words.” He paused for a moment. „Weather’s been really shitty the last couple days. Though today - “ Chris looked outside the window,” - it looks alright.” Suddenly Chris shifted uneasily.
“Erm, you’re not interested in the weather.” He hit his forehead, scolding himself. “I’m such a div!” He breathed in deeply, really wanting to mean the words he was about to say.
“Boss, I promise you I’ll become a better policeman. Concentrate more. Work on my multitasking skills.” Chris’ face lightened up when he remembered something. “Last month I went to buy a new tape recorder. Old one broke.” It had happened during an interview with a suspect who might have had information on the whereabouts of Sam’s kidnappers. In the end the man hadn’t known anything though. And so the recorder had been smashed on the floor for nothing. But Chris wasn’t going to tell Sam that bit.
“Paid for it with the money you all collected for me when I was in hospital. Guv, told me that a big part of it was from you. Thanks.” Chris looked down and stared at his shoes.
“Though Ray said you only gave that much because you wanted to buy yourself a clear conscience.” He stated quietly and then fixed his gaze back on Sam.
“You shouldn’t have felt guilty for what happened. It was an accident. A wrong place, wrong time thing. Or was it the right place but the wrong time…or the other way around…?” Chris scratched the back of his head.
“Well, it was certainly neither the right place nor the right time for me to get shot.”
He smiled at this and eventually stepped closer to the bed.
“I’m feeling much better now. Wound is healing nicely. I’m even allowed to drink again.” Which he felt was the biggest achievement of his preceding recovery.
Chris finally had the guts to sit down next to Sam. Though he waited a few more minutes to pluck up more courage for the next words.
“I guess I’m gonna miss ye. Nothing new when I tell you it’s been kind of boring at the station. Ray and me can’t place bets on you and the Guv anymore like when’s the next time you start fighting and arguing about something, about anything.”
A little nervously Chris checked his watch. How long had he already been here? He didn’t want to use up so much of the others’ time. He looked at Sam again. “Well Boss, this is me off then.” Chris got up from the chair. And suddenly he appeared to be a lot older and more mature when he gave his sign of gratitude to the man who had served as his role model. “Goodbye and thank you.”
*
“So, there’s only you and me in the room now, Tyler. Now’s my chance to bugger your arse.” Ray clenched his fist, struck out, aiming for Sam’s face. He stopped an inch before he actually hit Sam’s nose. He gave a quirky smile. “Didn’t work, eh? You didn’t even flinch. Ye knew I wouldn’t do it, right? Turned me into a nonce, you did.”
Ray sighed deeply. “Looks like this is my last chance to apologize to you. Well, you know what? I’m not gonna do it. It was all your fault anyway. You and your stupid proper procedures. Bloody paperwork, bloody inquiries. You got Chris almost killed!”
Ray fell silent again.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t catch those bastards in time for you to tell you. Maybe this would have made you happy enough to wake up.” Ray reached out to grab Sam’s right hand. It wasn’t a proper handshake but it would do. “Goodbye, Detective Inspector Tyler. I will miss hating you.”
*
When Ray came out of Tyler’s room Gene had just lit up another fag. It would take him about three minutes to finish it and he wasn’t planning on getting up any sooner than this. It was not like they were in any hurry today, were they?
Ray sat down next to Chris. Both of them kept quiet. They were not exchanging any details of what they had said to Sam. They didn’t talk about their feelings, whether it had been hard for them to say goodbye forever or whether it was just as easy as talking to a brick wall which couldn’t respond to the things you were telling it either. Gene stumped out his cigarette on the floor and braced himself before talking to his DI for the last time.
*
“Didn’t think I could ever get rid of you. I thought I’d be stuck with you until I was pensioned off.” Gene was strolling through the room like a tiger in a cage that was too small. He was already craving a cigarette again but he wouldn’t smoke one in here. Instead he started to grab one of his flasks and then remembered he had emptied every single one of them while waiting in the corridor. He felt frustration rise in him and he fixed a stern glare at the man who was responsible for it. That man though didn’t even take notice of him being present in the room.
“You’re a fighter, Sam. Even after those bastards beat you up and almost let you drown you managed to come back. You clung on to life. And now you decide to let yourself go.” Gene shook his head.
“You never bloody do what I expect you to do.
Maybe when I finally give up on you then you’ll have the nerve to wake up.
A little reversed psychology or whatever it’s called. That would be right up your alley, now wouldn’t it?
Well, the moment has come Sammy-boy. There’s nothing left I could do for you. Tried everything. Threatening you, being nice to you, saving your job for you, losing your job to some pansy from Liverpool, even promising you you’ll get to be DCI when you wake up. Nothing worked. You are such a stubborn little shite, you know that?” Still no objection from Tyler though.
“I am really talking to meself here, aren’t I? You’ve probably already gone somewhere a lot nicer than here. Sitting on a beach, drinkin’ some nancy cocktail with three half naked birds dancin’ around you and bouncing on your dinga-ling whenever you wish.
Actually…,“ Gene smirked, “that’s my fantasy. Got to admit I don’t know what you might like best. Solving every crime the Hyde way, I suppose.” Gene stopped pacing through the room and paused in front of Sam.
“Is that it? Is that your personal heaven? Well, you could have got that here if you wanted. Didn’t mind all your crazy ideas when they were getting results.”
Gene placed his hand on Sam’s shoulder and squeezed it a little.
“I’m sorry Sam. For everything you had to go through.” He truly meant those words, his eyes reflecting deep sympathy.
He patted him one last time and went out the room. “Goodbye Tyler.”
Only one farewell left.
*
Annie made her way slowly into the room. Fear had gripped her heart and she was beginning to feel a little sick. She closed her eyes and opened her ears to the sounds of the room. She had spent so many hours here in the past two months. Sitting in that most of the time uncomfortable chair with the squeaky backrest. Remembering the rustling of the newspaper and the flipping of pages of books she used to read to him every now and then. And then there was this one sound.
The sound she had learned to overhear in the past few weeks. It had become an ambient noise. But now she perceived it again, really listened to it, to the woosh- - -woosh, knowing that this was the sound that would soon not be heard any longer.
Annie opened her eyes again, braced herself and walked over to Sam’s bedside and sat down. She pulled the chair a little closer to the bed, the backrest squeaking familiar as she leaned back.
She let her eyes travel over Sam’s still form. Up to his chest he was covered with a white hospital sheet. His arms were placed over the blanket, the IV tube sticking in one of them. His skin was so white that it was almost transparent.
“You look like a ghost, you do.”
No response. As ever. Annie sighed.
“For some reason I really hope that this might be the way back for you. To a place where you can be happy.” Annie looked over her shoulder, checking if they were really alone. Of course they were. Everybody had been promised a private moment with Sam. But just to make sure Annie lowered her voice so that she wouldn’t be overheard.
“I actually thought you would be the One. Silly me. Well, we would have had an odd start for a relationship anyway. I got to see you naked before I even got to kiss you.” Annie chuckled and then gave him an uneasy smile. Not that he could see it, she thought.
“I really regret that we didn’t have a first date. For some reason it never seemed to work out for us.” She moved closer to him. Her face now only inches from Sam’s. She took in his scent. At first he smelled like soap, sterile hospital soap but then there it was this distinctive scent for which Annie had no other word than ‘Sam’ - yes, this was Sam. Annie tried to memorize it so that she would never forget it. She would have really liked to kiss him now. A proper kiss on his lips. But the tube made it more or less impossible to do so. So instead Annie leaned forward closed her eyes and gave him a peck on his cheek.
Tears were beginning to well up in her eyes. Now it would be ok for her to cry, not later with the others in the room. And so she was not stopping herself from crying.
“You don’t have to be afraid. We’ll all be here. We won’t leave you alone.”
She bent over and tried to hug him as tightly as possible and she whispered the most meaningful words she had ever said to him in his ear.
“I love you Sam.”
*
When Annie came out Gene, Ray and Chris were all staring at the floor. Nobody dared to look up because they all knew what was about to come. So Annie took the empty seat between Gene and Ray and bowed her head in silence.
A few minutes later a nurse stopped by to inform them that the doctor would be right with them. They all got up and gathered around the door, keeping their thoughts to themselves.
“Maybe we didn’t do him a favour when…when we…” Annie started but broke off as she began to feel the tears coming back and winced as Gene responded to the sorrowful silence with a really harsh loud voice.
“Don’t you say that! None of you should even think about this! You all got to say a proper goodbye to him which you wouldn’t have got if he’d died that day we fished him out of the canal.”
And he turned to Annie.
“Just remember: thanks to you he can now die in dignity. He’s not wet, doesn’t have any broken bones or bruises and he’s not suffocating on his own blood.
No, he is clean and dry and all healed up so that he can die pretty as God made him, comfortably in a warm bed. Now tell me, isn’t this the way we’d all like to pass away sooner or later?” And Gene turned around again, addressing the rest of his words to everyone.
“We are all with him now! Got that? We will stand by his bed side like bloody Mary will do at the hour of our death.”
*
And they all went into the room, lining up in pairs around the bed. Gene and Ray on the left, Annie and Chris on the right side, standing there and looking at the man that used to be a picky pain in the arse, an arrogant prick, a friend and a role model or simply a huge part of their team.
And they all realized now that this wasn’t Sam anymore. That they had lost him on that day by the canal. That they had saved him and lost him while they had been waiting for the ambulance.
And Annie squeezed Sam’s left hand. It was bony and cold. She wrapped her other hand around Sam’s to warm it - and she realized that this was the last time she could do this for him. It was her way of supporting him through this. When the tube was removed and he would slowly fade away. Just keeping his hand warm until it was over was her way of saying goodbye forever.
She wanted to cry now. But she had promised herself that she wouldn’t. She wanted to be strong, didn’t want to show how deep her feelings for Sam were. And that she was going to miss him terribly. And when she thought about the time to come her heart ached…so enormously that she believed she was going to die with him.
Oh, sod it! Annie let her tears stream down her face, not feeling ashamed or embarrassed by the fact that two superior officers were standing opposite of her.
After a few moments Chris silently offered her a tissue which she gratefully accepted.
She let go of Sam’s hand to blow her nose. Just after she tucked the tissue away the doctor came into the room. Now it would start.
The last minutes of Sam Tyler’s life were running out.
Nobody was saying anything. Because there was nothing left to say. They all had made their peace with Sam. This…this was just watching Sam die.
Every five minutes the doctor came into the room, stepped next to Sam’s bed and put his stethoscope under Sam’s hospital gown to listen if his heart was still beating. After the third time the doctor called for the nurse, looked at his watch and said the final words.
“Time of death: 12.25 ”