Unbroken

[qthebadwolf]

Title: Unbroken
Rating: Blue Cortina, for language
Pairing: Sam/Gene (sort of)
Word Count/Length: 1050-ish
Notes: posted for the lifein1973 re-watch-a-thon, Episode 1 - many thanks to my betas, the brilliant 45eugenia and the divine gritsinmisery
Summary: There's a moment in the first episode that always makes me wonder, and I wrote this to answer the question it raised for me.

Comments

[silvaa]

Lovely writing and a very interesting take on the situation, thanks for sharing

x

[qthewetsprocket]

welcome. :)

[fawsley]

Oh that moment always makes me wonder too, so much so that I can now say that great minds obviously think alike, because you've written the absolutely perfect partner fic to my Time and motion. Plus you made me sob like a great big girl (maybe because I am one) with the last lines. Great first fic - thank you so much for sharing!

[qthewetsprocket]

*reads t&m*

hee! gmta indeed. :)

the thing that gets me in the episode is the fact that after the car hits sam, the driver just sits there...he doesn't open the door and start freaking out that he's just hit someone, or run to sam to see if he's okay, or drive away so he won't get caught. he just stays there and doesn't move. and while i do think that was probably more down to production constraints than anything else - ie, they didn't want to pay another actor to be the freaked-out driver, or have anything distract from sam's impending journey - that's still the kind of behavior that definitely raises the wondering flag in my head.

[fawsley]

Absolutely! Plus the way that we see the car away in the distance but then it takes far longer than it should to arrive on the spot and hit Sam, almost as if it were deliberate... Which we both know it was.

[qthewetsprocket]

absolutely. the car's going way too fast for it to have been an accident, for a start.

also, and this is probably a bit sick of me, but sam's kvetching about gene's bad driving in every episode afterwards always makes me smile a bit. after all, if anyone has the right to bitch about gene driving like a maniac...

[walkerbaby]

Gene killed Sam? OMG, that's somehow perfect. Poor Gene. You know somehow I've always wanted it to be Ray, or Sam himself, but A2A took away one possibility and I just can't see it with the other. Oh well. I like this better i think.

[qthewetsprocket]

when you get right down to it, i think gene's the only one who's strong enough to do something like that. and also selfish in a way...if given the choice between killing sam and keeping his memories of him, or walking away and forgetting sam ever existed, i definitely think he'd choose to keep him.

[qthewetsprocket]

oooh. *NOM*

thankee kindly. :)

[dorsetgirl]

That's a question I thought about again last week, too. We never see the driver, and there is a sinister kind of inevitability in it being Gene.

Personally I hate the idea and love it at the same time, and you've done a wonderful job with it here.

The past would happen just like it was supposed to.

And Sam was gone for good.

That moment of finality is so moving; until now we can think that perhaps Gene has watched 2006!Sam moving up in his career, keeping an eye on him, gaining some comfort from his presence in the world. And now Gene will never see him again even at a distance, and all the best times are behind him.

Lovely job, thank you.

[qthewetsprocket]

thanks! :)

until now we can think that perhaps Gene has watched 2006!Sam moving up in his career, keeping an eye on him, gaining some comfort from his presence in the world.

yeah, absolutely. in fact, i originally had a prologue where old!man gene walked up and punched a totally bewlidered 2006 sam in the face for not following orders (ie, for pursuing the robbery suspects on his own and getting 'killed'). but its tone was completely different than the main story and too distracting, so i ended up losing it in the end.

re: the finality - that's something i love and hate, too. i suspect gene has never really grieved for sam up until this point, because there was never any body found, and thus some lingering uncertainty whether he was really dead or not. but once gene runs him over that's it; no more sam forever. and he can finally start to grieve for him.

[dorsetgirl]

I have to say, I don't subscribe to this business of Sam dying or disappearing in 1980. It doesn't fit my view of the life these two characters lead after they get together and so I ignore it. After all, we have had it rammed down our throats that Ashes to Ashes is not a sequel, and it's clearly not a prequel, so what is there left for it to be but an Alternate Universe?

That's how I see it, anyway, but if for the sake of argument we accept the A2A view of what happened to Sam, then this is definitely how Gene would react to it. Totally believable that he would hold it all together until this moment and then finally let go.

[qthewetsprocket]

yeah, a2a doesn't exist in my own personal canon either. the only way i can watch it (besides fast-forwarding through alex's scenes) is by thinking of what really happened to sam, since there was never any body found...my current favorite theory being that he's locked up in the guv's basement as a punishment for disobeying orders. :) (bad sam. naughty sam. i think he needs another spank, don't you?)

seriously, though - they can say what they want...my sam tyler is NOT dead. so there.