Fic: Steady As She Goes (15/86)
Title: Steady As She Goes (15/86)
Author: dak
Word Count: 2112 this part; [26,101 overall]
Summary for Whole: After Chris is shot by accident at the station, Gene struggles to keep his team from tearing themselves apart as Ray takes out his anger on Sam, Annie makes a decision which jeopardizes Gene's career, and Sam gets involved with a murder.
Summary this Part: The team finds Sam.
Warnings: mild drug use, angst, swearing, and lots of violence here; more angst, violence, swearing, and violent imagery for whole
Spoilers: mild 2.06 ref; minor refs to 1.04, 1.07, 1.08, 2.01, and 2.06 in others
Pairing: mild Sam/Annie
Disclaimer: Belongs to BBC/Kudos
A/N: Since the consensus last time was that I was, well, the word most commonly used was "evil," I thought I'd get the next chapter up ASAP. So, here it is! Please don't strangle me...
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30 Part 31 Part 32 Part 33 Part 34 Part 35 Part 36 Part 37 Part 38 Part 39 Part 40 Part 41 Part 42 Part 43 Part 44 Part 45 Part 46 Part 47 Part 48 Part 49 Part 50 Part 51 Part 52 Part 53 Part 54 Part 55 Part 56 Part 57 Part 58 Part 59 Part 60 Part 61 Part 62 Part 63 Part 64 Part 65 Part 66 Part 67 Part 68 Part 69 Part 70 Part 71 Part 72 Part 73 Part 74 Part 75 Part 76 Part 77 Part 78 Part 79 Part 80 Part 81 Part 82 Part 83 Part 84 Part 85 Part 86
"Sam. Sam wake up. You’re going to be late for work."
A disembodied moan escaped from under the gray, down comforter. Maya sat, already dressed for the day, on the edge of the bed, a steaming cup of fresh coffee in her hands. She gently shook the lump underneath the covers again. "Come on, Sleepyhead. It’s not very fitting for our new DCI to be late his first day in charge."
Sam threw back the covers to his waist and smiled groggily at Maya. "I am a DCI, aren’t I?"
She handed him the coffee and two aspirin. "A hung-over, naked DCI," she smiled. "That’s why you shouldn’t go drinking on a work night. Even if it is to celebrate."
Sam swallowed down the two aspirin with his coffee. "I’m not completely naked," he stated matter-of-factly before peeking under the comforter. "Oh."
Maya smirked and stood up from the bed.
"When did that happen?"
She threw open the curtains and let the morning sun stream into the gray room. "Around three this morning, Chief Inspector, when I got a call saying there was a Class ‘A’ emergency in your trousers and if I could respond immediately to the situation my DCI would be ever so grateful."
"I didn’t." Sam closed his eyes, suddenly remembering. "I did. Sorry."
Maya went to his closet and pulled out his sharpest black suit, pairing it with a blue silk tie. "Don’t apologize, sir. I might not let it happen again." She laid the suit out on a nearby chair. "Now get dressed before the criminals of Manchester decide to test CID’s new Guv’nor."
Sam rolled his feet over the side of the bed, rubbing his eyes. "Ugh. Don’t call me that. Makes it sound like we’re The Sweeney or something." Sam’s mobile ran. He picked it up and checked the caller ID.
"Duty calls?" Maya asked from the corner.
Sam nodded and answered. "D.C.I Tyler," he smiled at Maya.
Beep. Beep. He’s suffered a spontaneous pneumothorax. It can happen in cases like this. Beep. Beep. We need to insert a chest tube quick. He’s hypoxic. Beep. Beep.
Sam was plunged into darkness.
*
Ray was the first in the water. It was cold for this time of year. Dark. Murky. He didn’t want to think of what could be floating around him as he swam down. How many bodies he’d pulled out of here.
Annie used the car radio to immediately call for an ambulance. They told her one could be there in five minutes. She told them to make it two.
Gene tried chasing after the kidnappers on foot, but before he could even reach the bridge they were gone. He’d track them down later. They wouldn’t be hard to find. He’d make sure of it. Right now they had to worry about Sam.
Sam.
Gene turned back to the embankment just as Ray surfaced, a body in his arms. Gene scrambled down to the edge as Ray struggled to swim to shore. Gene ran into the water til he was waist-deep and took the limp body from Ray.
He carried Sam in his arms up to the flat, solid pavement, the unconscious man’s body flapping like a broken rag doll, as Ray panted behind. Annie grabbed a blanket from the boot of the Cortina and draped over a shivering Ray. He shrugged it off. "Give it to the nonce," he whispered.
"Ray! Knife!" Sam’s arms were tied tightly behind his back and the water had only made the knots worse. Ray pulled out his pocket knife and started cutting away the rope as Gene cradled Sam. His arms finally freed, Gene laid him out on the ground, and grabbed the torn, limp wrist, checking for a pulse. He realized he was still wearing his driving gloves, tore them off, threw them to the side, and checked again.
"It’s there. It’s there. It’s faint, but it’s there." Gene leaned his ear down to Sam’s mouth. "He’s not breathing. His lips are turning blue. He’s not breathing."
Annie knelt down beside Sam’s head. "Let me try CPR."
Gene moved out of the way and held Sam’s hand, fingers on his pulse, as Annie tilted back his head. "His nose. I’m supposed to pinch his nose, but..." Though it had stopped bleeding, the break was obvious.
"Just do it Cartwright! He can’t feel it."
Annie pinched Sam’s nose shut, silently apologizing, then covered his mouth with hers. He was cold. Just so clammy and cold and empty. She gave him another breath, watching for his chest to rise and fall.
"If that don’t wake ‘im, I don’ know what will," Ray said nervously as he paced back and forth, watching for the ambulance.
"Guv, only-only half his chest is rising. I-I think his lung might’ve collapsed. That’s, it’s what they told us--"
"I still got a pulse Cartwright. You keep breathing for him."
Annie did as she was told. Breath after breath after breah. Gene could feel the already faint pulse growing weaker, more erractic. He squeezed Sam’s hand tighter. In the distance he could hear the sirens.
"C’mon Sammy. They’re almost here. What’s the matter? You got a pretty bird with ‘er tongue down your throat, Ray looks like a wet poodle, an’ I’m kneeling at your side. Your perfect world, eh? Don’t you want to see that?"
Annie kept breathing for him. She could taste his blood in her mouth, but wiped it away and kept going. Gene couldn’t see Sam’s face clearly but knew it was bad. A broken nose was going to be the last of Tyler’s worries.
As Annie came up for air of her own, Sam suddenly coughed. Water mixed with blood and bile. Annie gently turned his head to the side.
"There you go Tyler," Gene encouraged. "Keep coughing. Get it all out. That’s it. Easy."
Annie stroked his damp hair, feeling all sorts of bumps and cuts. Sam was wheezing, only one lung working. It sounded horrible, painful, deathly, but he was breathing.
Gene could hear the ambulance, and probably half a dozen squad cars, getting closer. "They’ll be hear any second now, Sammy-boy. Any second." Still holding Sam’s hand in his, Gene used his other to unbutton Sam’s pajama top. He gently lifted away the wet fabric causing Annie to gasp and look away.
"Jesus..." Gene whispered. He could barely tell it was a chest. Almost every inch was a sickening reddish-purple, welts still forming. Every time Sam wheezed half the welts would shudder, while those on the other side remained perfectly still.
Ray flagged down the ambulance and almost dragged the drivers out himself. "Let’s go! ‘E’s over here! Get the stretcher you divs!"
Sam wheezed again, more violently this time. His whole body shuddered and he vomited, barely missing Gene’s loafers. He started coughing again, but couldn’t stop this time. Gene rubbed Sam’s arm as the drivers approached with the stretcher. "Easy. It’s okay, Sammy. Easy. Just relax Gladys. You’re okay. You’re safe. I found you. You’re with us now."
Sam couldn’t stop coughing as the drivers set down the stretcher and tried to take him away from Gene. With every cough more blood flecked Gene’s shirt and more blue appeared around his Sam’s lips. Gene continued holding his DI’s hand as one driver grabbed his feet and the other took him by his shoulders. A cry escaped Sam’s lips as he was picked up and placed on the stretcher.
"Gently!" Gene yelled.
"Guv, what’s that?" Annie pointed at Sam’s fresh pile of sick. Gene was about to yell at her for distracting him when he realized exactly what she was pointing at. Three partially digested pills lay in the lumpy, yellow mess. Gene instantly remembered Sam mentioning, with slight annoyance, the pills his "uptight" doctor had given him. Gene remembered thinking that if Sam "Proper Procedure" Tyler thought someone was uptight it must have been bad.
The drivers picked up the stretcher and carried the still coughing Sam to the ambulance. Gene saw Sam’s pale body tinged blue all over. He remembered visiting Mum and Stu when he was nineteen, just back from the service. He remembered walking into Stu’s room and seeing his little brother passed out on the floor, Mum’s empty pill bottle by his hand. Stu had just started experimenting with drugs then. He was that same color blue. Gene hadn’t been able to save Stu in the end, ten years ago.
Gene climbed into the back of the ambulance. "Get. There. Now."
The second driver slammed the back shut and was immediately behind the wheel. Sam’s coughing had temporarily subsided, but his breathing had worsened, coming in irregular bursts that caused his whole body to tremble. Gene grasped his shaking hand, the only part of Sam that didn’t seem to be injured.
"You stay with us, Dorothy. I have too much paperwork you need to finish."
Ray and Annie stood side by side and watched the ambulance vanish around the corner. When it was gone Annie threw her arms around Ray and hugged him tightly. Ray held her gently and stroked her back. "He’ll be alright. He will." Annie mumbled something into his shoulder.
"What?"
She lifted her head. "Thank you."
"Oh...Well, Chris would’ve never forgiven me."
He continued to hold Annie as both their nerves settled and the adrenaline wore off.
*
"Stay with us Sam!"
"Yeah. Your mum’ll never know."
Fourteen year-old Sam Tyler nervously stared at his two friends, absentmindedly rubbing his right arm. "I don’t know. I promised her I’d be home by ten-thirty."
"She won’t care," argued Pete, a lanky kid with long, black hair.
"Yeah," agreed Stevie, shorter and chubbier. "I skip me curfew all the time. My mum never says a word."
"Besides," said Pete, "Look what I got from me brother." Pete waved a plastic baggie filled with something Sam didn’t recognize.
"He din’t give it to yeh. You stole it." Stevie mocked.
"Same difference, innit?" Pete shrugged.
Sam stepped closer, examining the bag’s contents. "Is that oregano?"
Pete and Stevie looked at each other and laughed, then jokingly punched Sam in the shoulder. Sam casually rubbed it, pretending it didn’t hurt. He laughed awkwardly along with them, desperate to be let in on the joke. "What is it then?"
"Bloody hell, Sammy! Don’t you know anything?" Stevie jeered.
"It’s dope you div," said Pete, placing his arms around Sam’s shoulders. "Oh, you’re definitely staying with us now."
Sam crawled back home at five in the morning, opening and closing the front door as quietly as he could. A light flicked on in the kitchen and Ruth Tyler stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, eyes nearly as red as Sam’s.
"Sam Tyler, where have you been? I’ve been worried sick!"
Sam folded his arms across his chest and stared at his feet. "Just out..."
"You promised me you’d be home by ten-thirty! Then you don’t even call and let me know you’re all right? Sammy, I nearly called the police."
Sam couldn’t look his mother in the eye. She crossed the room in two seconds and knelt down to his height. She took his chin her hands and looked at him as only a mother could. "You can’t just disappear like that, Sam. I need you to keep your promises. Please?"
Sam nodded to his mother. "I will, Mum. From now on, I will."
Ruth rubbed his shoulders. "Good. Now, off to bed with you. You’re lucky it’s not a school night." She took his coat and marched him up to his room. "If you get hungry there’s a treacle tart in the fridge. An’ tomorrow you’re helping me cook Auntie Heather’s birthday dinner."
"Yes, Mum," Sam opened his bedroom door then looked back at his mother. "Why would I get hungry?"
Ruth stifled a smirk. "Off to bed, Sam."
An hour later Sam had devoured the treacle tart. He crawled back into bed and turned on the radio. New Order’s Blue Monday was gradually drowned out by a steady beeping.
Beep. Beep. Chest tube’s in place. Lung is reinflating. Someone needs to stay with him at all times. Beep. Beep. This can’t happen again. Who’s going to tell the mother? Beep. Beep.
*
Chris yawned and opened his eyes. For the first time in what seemed like ages he was actually hungry. He wondered if he could get a nurse to bring him something from the sandwich shop down the street.
Chris stretched and looked to his right. Gene Hunt was sitting next to him, staring into space with a look Chris had thought was used exclusively by DI Tyler.
"Guv? What’s wrong?"
___________
Part 16