Fic: When You Were Young (4/5), green cortina, dakfinv
Title: When You Were Young (4/5)
Author: dak
Word Count: 1859 (this part); 10,334, so far
Rating: Green Cortina
Warnings: angst, mild swearing
Summary: Sam has an accident, in 1973, that renders him with the mentality of a 4 year old. Will Gene be able to cope?
A/N: It's going to five parts. That's it. Honest. Oh, I found my angst monkeys by the way...
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
It was gorgeous, that dream of his. Britt Ecklund all right there, and all for him. He didn’t know why he was in his old schoolhouse, or what all those monkeys were doing there. All that didn’t matter, though, because it was just him and her legs, and for some reason the Missus had told him it was perfectly alright, even if though there was still a piece of his brain snorting, “yeah, right.”
Just as he was getting to the good bit - his hands, her skirt, and the knowledge that panties weren’t an issue - Tyler had to go an ruin it. Poor Britt was so concerned with his crying that suddenly she had absolutely no interest in sex. Damn ponce had to ruin it for everyone, didn’t he? Gene kept pressing, but she kept pushing him away, telling him to go check on Sam.
A good slap in the face finally brought him into reality.
“Oh, wake up, you horny git!”
Gene startled awake, searching for his hands and finding them mysteriously tucked under Margaret’s dressing gown. “Wha?” He mumbled.
“Sam!”
“Gene.”
“No, you daft...” she sighed, and pointed to their door. “Sam’s crying in his room. Can’t you hear him?”
“When’s he not cryin’?” Gene rolled over, determine to track down that schoolhouse again, but a punch in the shoulder got him sitting up.
“He only listens to you when he’s like this. Go calm ‘im down.”
With a final aggravated sigh, just for show, Gene threw back his warm duvet and padded out of the room, down the hall to the spare room, Tyler’s room. Sam was probably just crying for his mum again, a woman harder to track down the Yorkshire Ripper. Gene had checked, and checked, but could find no trace of her or any other relative. He decided it was because Sam had no living relatives. Tyler’s current state of mind only had him believing he still had kin. Poor bastard.
He opened the door and flicked on the light, whatever he was about to say gone from his mind as his eyes fell upon an empty bed. “Sam?”
A sob from beside him drew Gene’s eyes downward, and he spotted Sam curled up in the corner by the door, hands clamped hard over his ears. He was shaking back and forth, mumbling something that couldn’t be described as words. “Sammy?”
He knelt down in front of him and tried to pry Tyler’s hands from his ears. Tyler kept replacing them there as soon as they were moved. “Sammy, what is it? Was it a nightmare? Is that it?”
“C-can’t...can’t sleep,” he stammered in a barely coherent voice.
“Why can’t you sleep?” Gene had managed to hold Sam’s arms in a firm grip, just away from his ears.
“Too...’s too loud,” he cried.
Gene listened, but all he noticed was the rain outside. “I can’t hear anything, Sam.”
“Beep. Whoosh. Beep. Whoosh,” he tried to explain.
“What?”
Sam pulled his hands back to his ears. “Beep. Whoosh. ‘S loud. ‘S really loud. I...it’s...” His frightened words devolved back into sobs, and Gene didn’t know what to do other than pull him close.
“I want my mum,” he cried in a soft whisper.
Gene stroked his head, careful to avoid his stitches. “I know, Sammy.”
“I can hear her. Why can’t I see her?”
Gene didn’t have an answer, but Sam wasn’t looking for one, as he lost himself in grief once more. Gene slowly rocked him back and forth, trying to settle his nerves, and hoping he would eventually cry himself to sleep. It took nearly twenty minutes, during which time Gene’s left arm went completely numb, but Sam finally passed out, tears still staining his cheeks.
Gene waited an extra few minutes, to be sure he was asleep, then carried him back to bed, pulling up the covers and making sure Mr. Cotton was under the unbroken arm. Sam squirmed, snuggling the animal closer, but didn’t wake. Gene looked at him one last time before going back to bed himself. “God help whatever thoughts pass through your brain, Tyler.”
*
Sam was irritable all the next day. He tossed his breakfast on the floor, sulked around the whole house, and refused to speak to anyone except Mr. Cotton, who was apparently brilliant conversation. By the time Gene’s shift was over, Margaret demanded he come straight home, avoiding the pub, so that she could take a much needed break.
The night wasn’t much better than the day. He refused to take a bath, even though he’d been messing about in the mud out in the garden, didn’t eat a bite of his tea, and said no more than two words to Gene the entire night.
The next day was even worse. Sam again refused to eat, spending most of the day huddled in a corner with his face buried in Mr. Cotton, who was apparently the only person he wasn’t mad at. Margaret caught him smacking his cast into the banister, but when she tried to get him to stop, he ran up to his room and slammed the door shut. He allowed Gene to see him later that night, but hardly said word, no matter how much his Guv pressed. Gene had never asked the question “what’s wrong” so many times in his life.
The third day, Sam didn’t leave his room at all. It was a Saturday, with no apparent crime, so Gene remained at home, trying to coax Sam outside. He listened through the door and could barely make out Sam’s side of the conversation with the sheep.
“I’m wrong, Mr. Cotton. ‘M just...’m wrong...”
Gene could think of plenty of times Tyler had been wrong. Which particular instance he was referring to was a mystery to him. That night, he decided, come hell or high water, that Sam was going to eat something. He brought up a sandwich Margaret had made, and entered the room without Sam’s permission, something that immediately gave Tyler the hump.
“Go away!” He shouted from the floor underneath the window.
“It’s my house. I can go where I like,” Gene retorted, setting the plate on the bed. “Now come here and eat.”
“I don’t want to eat,” he whined in a sing-song voice.
“What’s the matter with you, eh? Normally all sunshine and puppy dogs. What’s set you off?” Gene hadn’t meant to come off so abrasive, and he didn’t think Tyler would actually answer his question, a thought that was immediately disproved as an answer was screamed back at him.
“I’m wrong!” He shouted, leaping to his feet.
“What about?” Gene argued back.
“No. No no,” he whined, beginning to pace. “I’m wrong.” He pointed at himself. “I’m not...’m not...right. There’s...’m not... there’s summit...I’m wrong, Guv.”
Gene immediately snapped to attention. Sam hadn’t called him “Guv” once since he’d woken up from the accident. Tyler had stilled now, and Gene could see the total confusion on his face. His ability to sense that something was off warring with his inability to understand why.
“You had an accident,” Gene said softly. “You know how much you want to be a police officer? Well, you are a police officer. You are a detective, Sam. You’re thirty-six years old, and you’re a detective, and...you had an accident, at a crime scene.”
“I had an accident?” Sam repeated, his hand slowly rising to the stitches on his scalp.
“That’s right. You had an accident. You were hit by a car, and you...”
“An’ I woke up in nineteen...,” he whispered.
“And you woke up,” Gene abruptly finished for him.
“I want to go home.”
“You have to eat first,” Gene tried to persuade him, and changing the subject.
Sam shook his head no, and looked away, his face red with embarrassment.
“Why not?”
He shrugged.
“Sam Tyler?”
Sam sighed and fiddled with his cast. “My tummy hurts.”
“That why you haven’t been eating?”
Sam nodded vigorously, but winced at the movement. Gene sighed and walked over sitting Sam down on the bed. “You have to tell us if summit hurts, Sam. That way we can help.”
“ ‘Kay,” he mumbled.
“Anything else botherin’ you?”
Sam shrugged. “Me arm’s itchy,” he held out the cast.
“Well, you won’t need that thing on much longer. Anything else?”
Sam shook his head.
“Okay. You want some soup then or summit? Think that’d be alright?”
Sam nodded.
“Okay, then. Mrs. Hunt will bring some up, alright?”
Sam shrugged.
“Right,” Gene sighed and walked away.
“Gene?”
“Yeah, Sammy?”
“ ‘M not...I can’t be...’M not really a p’liceman, am I? Cos...it’s...I...I can’t be. ‘M too little yet.”
“I’ll go get that soup.” Gene left him alone, explaining to Margaret about Sam’s stomach ache, and collapsed in his chair, rubbing his hands over his tired face. He couldn’t tell if Tyler was getting better or if he was getting worse. He had a doctor’s appointment coming up, maybe then someone could tell him what was going on. He had a sinking feeling, though, that no doctor would ever be able to solve the case of Sam Tyler.
*
Tyler’s mood failed to improve over the next week. He did what he was told, but all with the air of a man headed for the gallows, not the childlike enthusiasm to which Gene had become accustomed. He was sluggish, slept during the day, but woke every night, screaming at phantoms.
He turned down offers to visit the station again, and soon Gene couldn’t even get him to play outside in the garden. He avoided the telly like the plague, still whispering his secrets only to Mr. Cotton. Gene knew Sam was becoming more and more aware that he wasn’t quite right, but that didn’t change the fact that Sam couldn’t understand what wasn’t right.
The next Saturday, Gene called the hospital to change Tyler’s next appointment to Monday. Gene tried to convince himself that the boy’s drugs were just off. They’d adjust them and he’d be his normal, cheerful self soon enough again.
It was just gone eight that night, when Gene was awoken from his nap. Tyler’s inability to sleep through the night and led to his own inability to sleep through the night, which in turn, left him utterly knackered during the day. If anyone asked though, he was simply resting. Gene Hunt did not nap. Searching for the source of his intrusion, he could only deduce that it was one of two things, and Margaret did not sneak up on him so quietly.
“What is it, Sam?” He sighed, rubbing the crust from his eyes.
“Gene, I feel funny.”
“Tyler, if you’ve got hold of me nudie mags again, I’ll...” Gene looked up to see Sam standing in front of him, a near vacant expression plastered on his face, his skin much paler than it should have been. “Sam?”
He stood just as Sam started to fall, catching him before he it the floor. “Shit! Sam! Sammy.” He tried to stir him awake, then noticed the blood dripping from his ear. Gene had never driven so fast in his life.
_________
Part 5