whatever happened to all the heroes?

[poshmouthytart]

Characters: Alex Drake and Sam Tyler
Rating: PG
Time Period: Modern
Location: Outside the castle
Relative Date: Sometime after the death thread
Status: FINISHED

Comments

[sammytyler]

Sam had spent most of the day trying to find something to do. The message he'd sent to Annie before hadn't gotten the response he had hoped, so sending another one sounded like a bad idea to him. He'd have to go look around on his own. And at the very least, getting some fresh air was something he needed to do.

Sam was reaching for the door handle to the castle when it swung open. He stepped aside quickly. "'Scuse me..." he mumbled, more from habit than genuine feelings. He barely looked toward the silhouette standing in the doorway. He could tell from the hair it wasn't anybody that he recognized.

[sammytyler]

Sam let his hands slip from Alex's wrists and hang at his side. He took a deep breath, finally letting himself relax.

"I'm sorry you're here, Alex...I mean, I don't even know why any of us are here," he leaned forward and almost whispered. "I don't...understand how Gene and Annie are here, Alex."

He searched her face, hoping she could provide him with some kind of answer.

[poshmouthytart]

Alex pulled her hands away and gave him a dark look. She knew she didn't have the answers he wanted, anymore than he had answers for her.

"I don't know, Sam. But Gene, I think his memory's been changed somehow." Maybe he'd been re-imagined, but Alex couldn't fathom why. "I've worked with him in London for months now, in 1981, and he doesn't remember me. It's almost like... he's your Gene. Just the way you explained him to me." Alex took a deep breath, wondering if Sam knew he was dead by 1981. Well, dead in some sense of the word. She wouldn't exactly be pleased to explain it to him, so she put it out of her head. "As for Annie, I suspect you would know why she's here better than I would."

[sammytyler]

"You worked with him?" Sam looked skeptical. "In London? But..." Sam trailed off. He certainly wouldn't have gone to London. Even if the entire CID had moved there. So what happened to him? It didn't make sense. He tried not to dwell on it, but it was still a distressing thought. But it was only Alex's fantasy, right?

He shook his head and brought himself back to the conversation. "He's different to me too, Alex. He doesn't remember everything we went through. He lost months of memory...I just thought..." he trailed off, not wanting to tell her that he'd come here from a different time period, and making it sound so nonchalant.

[poshmouthytart]

"Almost ten years passed, Sam. Things... changed."

You died, she meant, but she couldn't find the words to say it. It seemed just a bit too harsh, a bit too unreal.

"When I woke up in 1981, he found me. Gene, and Chris and Ray. I don't know what could have happened to him, or why he could have lost his memory." She frowned. All the fights, the laughs, the times he had saved her... it all seemed beyond her grasp now, like none of it had mattered. "Unless it has to do with me. Or us."

[sammytyler]

"Things changed?" Sam parroted back to her, as a question. He could only guess what she meant, and wasn't sure he wanted to hear her say it.

"I don't know what any of this means, Alex. I don't understand it, okay? But I know it's happening...and at least we're here together. At least we understand, right?"

He gave her a soft smile, and was going to go on but the mobile in his pocket beeped. He pulled it out to see a private message from Annie. "Uh hold on a second..sorry." Sam pressed a couple buttons again before holding up to his ear.

His face quickly fell as he listened to the message. "Alex...something happened..."

[poshmouthytart]

Alex watched him as he answered the phone, tying to continue to breathe deep and clear her head. She pumped her breath through her nose and out of her mouth, and tried to form some coherent response to Sam.

But there was no need, because his face drooped and he spoke. She held her breath, all calming thoughts turning to vapour, and she looked at him intently.

"What? What's wrong, Sam!"

[sammytyler]

Sam started to answer Alex, but repeating Annie's message back to her would only make her more distressed. He replayed the message, and held the phone toward her so that she could hear it.

"Fuck! Where the hell are the stables?! I haven't seen any stables!" He pulled the phone back quickly. "Fuck!...I better call her back, tell her we're on our way."

He smoothed a hand over his face before taking a deep breath. He had to stay calm. He raised the phone back to his hear and left a message for Annie. "Annie, what happened? Where are the stables? Alex Drake and I are on our way...as soon as you tell me."

[poshmouthytart]

The message had barely registered in Alex's ears before she started spinning around, looking about as if the stables would magically appear.

She hadn't recognized the voice on the phone, but the last words reverberated in her ears. The Guv. Gene.

Alex rushed down the steps, stumbling over her heels, listening as Sam left another message. It was Annie, was just about all she gathered. But where was Gene?

"I shouldn't have left him," she moaned. Not this, so soon after the dead girl in the moat and the monster and now... "Sam, we have to find them!"

[sammytyler]

Sam kept hitting the mobile, checking to see if there was a reply from Annie. He glanced toward Alex, listening to her, but not responding. He gave her a quick nod. "She's answered," he said finally and listened to the message.

He tried to keep his face unreadable, but he pulled his cheeks in tightly and snapped the phone shut. "It's bad, Alex. They're-- just follow me," Sam said quickly as he shoved the mobile back into his pocket. He moved to the door without waiting for a response to her and just as soon he was opening it and out.

[poshmouthytart]

Alex gaped after him and got herself together. She rushed after Sam.

"Did she say what's happened?" she shouted, catching up to him and trying to keep up. Her exhaustion had faded to panic. "If he's hurt, we're going to need a doctor, Sam!"

She followed his lead as they bolted across the drawbridge. Sam seemed to have an idea of where they were going, and Alex followed blindly, only hoping against hope that they wouldn't be too late.