Fic: Jabberwocky, Part 20b: Blue Cortina, Sytaxia
“So… Let’s have it. Can you read them to me?” he asked, and Annie nodded, and started to read the files, Sam occasionally nodding at her as she did so. Sam’s mind was reeling by the time that two nurses finally made their way into the room: five actual victims, plus Myers himself, the symbol, the statue, the note on the last victim’s clothing, Barrie stonewalling on the fingerprints, the matching fingerprints, the re-marked cases from Hyde, Morgan… Did he know that name? And finally, the strange visitor to Myers’ studio, who bore such a remarkable resemblance to Sam himself; Annie looked at Sam as she finished this, and the nurses cranked his bed up to a slightly higher angle and slid an odd, rolling table in front of him.
Sam wanted to ask Annie more about his past, and about their own theories about him, and wondered what she could possibly be thinking about his strange stories, and his behavior, in light of their recent findings. So if his 1973 self wasn’t from Hyde, where was he from? And the double… Sam couldn’t help but shiver as Annie told him about that; the double was something from his nightmares, a horrible apparition in his mind, not something that was ever real, not even in 1973. He remembered seeing the double while he was captured, but somehow, he knew that it couldn’t be this man, could it? He knew that Myers was the one with the large hands, and that the other pair of hands hadn’t been his; he distinctly remembered three voices, one that had to be Jefferson Myers, one that had to be James Grey, and the third, which was definitely not his own, but was so often masked by his doubles… The third was left-handed, and had hands that were larger than his own, but softer than Myers’ had been…
Sam continued to mull over the details of the case as the nurse that had been in before tucked a disposable paper cloth of some sort under his chin like a toddler’s bib. “All right, Dear, let’s take this slowly and see if we can’t get all of this down you, all right?” The nurse dug a spoon into the bowl of porridge that she’d set upon the table and started to move towards feeding it to Sam, but he stopped her, raising his arm and holding his hand out.
“Do you mind if I do that?” he asked, trying not to sound as annoyed as he felt at the nurse, and at the entire situation. He wanted to ask Annie more about Barrie, especially before meeting the man, but he wasn’t going to do so in front of the nurses. The thought that Barrie could be their killer seemed to make the most sense to him; it was where all of their scant clues led, and there were no other indications of anyone else. He wanted to see the symbol, as well, and part of him wanted to see Barrie, to feel his hands and hear his voice, to try and make some form of ID, to recognize him as there killer. He desperately wanted to ask more questions about their own thoughts about his ‘amnesia’ and about the double that the studio secretary had seen. Most of all, he wanted to get up and out of the damned bed, and that aggravation and frustration were manifested in an extreme disliking of the prattling nurse, making him feel more and more like Gene Hunt on a bad day every time he looked at her large, fake smile.
The nurse handed the spoon to Sam, and he managed to lift it and carry it to his mouth, and then to repeat the motion a few times, before his arm started to shake and he managed to spill porridge down his front. He tried again, and this time the entire spoon fell from his trembling hand. Frustration filled him as the nurse picked up the spoon and changed out the paper bib on his chest, and he was ready to snap at her by the time that Annie stepped in.
“Here, I can help,” Annie said, and she lifted Sam’s hand and twined hers around it, then settled the spoon into his fingers again and helped him to move his arm forward, just as Gene had done the previous night. Sam felt himself blush with embarrassment again as Annie helped him, wishing that the nurses would leave, so that he could discuss the case more with Annie. “It’s all right, Sam, you’ll be able to manage on your own soon,” Annie added, and Sam felt slightly grateful to her. “You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?” She asked, and Sam nodded as she continued to help him. They managed to make it halfway through the bowl before his stomach started to cramp and he pulled his arm away from Annie.
“That’s enough,” he said flatly, and the nurse gave him a stern look.
“You’re sure, Dear? Just a bit more,” the nurse said, and Sam shook his head, feeling his stomach start to cramp further, rolling around inside of him.
“No, that’s enough,” Sam said, and the nurse nodded, then allowed the second one to wheel the slim table away from the bed and out of the room. Sam’s stomach was doing cartwheels now, and he closed his eyes and tried to ignore it.
“Sam?” Annie asked, and he opened his eyes again and looked at her, and then looked at the nurse.
“I need to discuss the case more with WDC Cartwright, if that’s all right,” he said, and the nurse gave him an appraising look before moving for the door.
“All right, Dear, you have your friend come and fetch us if you need anything,” the nurse said, casting him one last glance before leaving the room. Sam was suddenly incredibly glad that she was gone, and he turned back to Annie.
“I… It looks like it could be Barrie, too, but something about that doesn’t make sense. Something about him coming back after me doesn’t make sense, either. The way that they were referring to me, they kept calling me ‘it,’ and that’s how he referred to me when he was in here earlier,” Annie winced as Sam said this, and then tried to make a connection to the fact that Sam had thought it important to the case.
“The killer didn’t see you as a person, he saw you as an object. A means to an end, not a victim. That’s why they had to blind you, before they started, started in on everything that they did. But they used the flash-blinding, and the blindfold, deliberately, so that you and the other victims could see them in the end… Did they, did they make you look at anything? Do you think there’s anything significant in that, any reason for them doing so? I thought it had to do with them seeing the victim as human in the end, or maybe that it had something to do with a show of power over the victim, but that doesn’t fit in with what we know about him.”
Annie continued on, “So far, I think that the catching of victims that meet your description is unconnected with the actual murders; there’s a reason that all of the victims have to look alike, but I think that Ray’s right about it being because of a vendetta against you, for a previous case that you worked on. But that’s the only reason men matching your description were chosen; they could have matched any description, as long as they all looked the same. And, I agreed with you and the Gov at first, about the eating of the stolen body parts, but now I’m not so sure. If that were the case, you’d have been treated like an animal, but the damage that was done is always so deliberate, as if it’s fitting into some grand pattern. I think that we might be able to find him, if we can figure out what that pattern is.”
Sam tried to keep from grimacing as his stomach turned rapidly inside of him again, and then let his focus move back to the case, “This is more than just serial killing; it’s ritualistic. The fact that I was seen as an object, and that any man fitting my description could’ve been used, means that he shouldn’t want me again; there are only a few reasons for him to keep coming after me: one, he feels that he’s failed in this instance, which doesn’t fit in with his cocky behavior in writing that note at all. Two, he’s after me specifically because of my previous involvement with him, whatever it is, and that doesn’t fit in the scenario, either, because he’s staked an extreme claim in me outside of the fact that he had any prior knowledge as to my identity. That mark, it’s a symbol of ownership, not one of revenge. And three, it’s because he needs to finish what he started. He’s very methodical - all of the measurements that had to go into the taking of the flesh, and the specific way that the body parts were removed, those are all things that point to this being a very, very obsessive individual. It really is a question of ownership, likely exclusive to any other motive, except to finish his grand project… And what that is, what…” Sam’s voice caught in his throat as another coughing fit took hold of him, and Annie rubbed at his back again as he leaned forward. Pain lanced through his ribs and back as the motion rocked his body jerkily, and the cramping in his stomach tightened into an incredibly hot, sudden pain. He tried to lean back against the force of the coughs and to breath slowly and evenly, then felt panic rise in him as he realized what was about to happen, “Shit. Shit. Shit!” Sam gasped it out, and Annie felt fear rise in her as she jumped up and moved towards the door.
“Can someone come down here, now, please, something’s wrong, could you…” Annie started to call out towards the nurses’ station, and then heard the sounds of Sam coughing and gasping, mingled with the sound of him moaning and something wet splattering on the floor. She turned and saw him leaning back, struggling to catch his breath, the bed, bedclothes, and part of the floor wet with vomit. The nurses came and pushed past her, and then started to shift and tilt his head, urging him to breathe slowly and pulling the soiled blankets away from him. Sam’s breathing finally evened out as one of them moved out of the room, and the nurse with the large, fake smile looked over at Annie.
“We’ve got to clean him up now, Miss Cartwright, if you wouldn’t mind waiting outside,” the nurse said, and Sam felt a bizarre surge of panic again. His eyes went wide and he stared at the nurse.
“Let her stay. Please. Annie. Stay with me,” Sam said, and Annie nodded, not sure of where to go in the room as the other nurse came back with a cart laden with clean linens, sponges, and what looked like steel bowls.
“You can stay, if you keep out of the way,” the nurse said to Annie, and then started to pull Sam’s hospital gown off of him, leaving him naked on the sheets. Annie wasn’t sure if she should look or not, staring at the large collection of heavy scars, and at the tube that was running out of Sam’s…. Annie looked away from what she knew had to be a catheter; she looked back towards his face, where the nurse was running a sponge along his skin.
“About time for you to be cleaned up, anyway, Dear,” the nurse said, and Annie saw Sam grit his teeth, either in frustration, or anger, or just in pain. She finally decided that it was a combination of three of them as the nurses continued to wash him, and then to change the sheets around him, deftly replacing the bedclothes around him and then pulling a new gown onto him, and pulling the new sheets and blanket up to his chest. The nurse inspected the IV line running into his left arm, and then settled the limb down next to him on the bed. She pulled one of the kidney-shaped bowls off of the table, along with the cup of water, and directed Sam to rinse his mouth out, but not to swallow. He complied, still looking incredibly upset and stone-faced, and then the other nurses wheeled the cart, and all of its soiled contents, out of the room.
The annoying nurse, as Annie had come to think of her, started to take Sam’s pulse, and then looked down at him, “Ribs all right, Dear? Nothing feels unsettled, does it?” Sam shook his head, glowering at her with an expression that Gene would have been quite proud of, and the nurse nodded, offering him another hideously fake smile, and Annie was suddenly reminded of Julie. What was it with women in other professions and the huge, horrible, fake smiles? Annie hoped that she’d never given such a smile to anyone at the station, especially not to any witnesses. “All right, Dear. Doctor Barrie’s in a meeting at the moment, but once he’s done, you’re first on his list, all right? He should be in by eleven,” she said, and left the room, not stopping to look at Annie as she did so.
Annie moved forward and sat down next to Sam, who was looking ashen and drawn, and she began to wonder if discussing the case with him hadn’t been a bad idea. She ran a hand along the side of his face, and he looked at her, an unreadable, but definitely negative, expression on his face. “I hate this,” Sam said, and Annie reached forward and took his hand. “It’s disgusting, and it hurts, and I’m just laying here, being hunted and trapped and shagging useless, helpless, and there’s nothing that I can soddin’ do and it’s all just absolute shit and, and, I just hate it,” Sam said, frustration and tears filling his voice, and he looked away from Annie again.
Annie continued to rub her hand along Sam’s cheek, “It’ll be over soon, Sam. You’ll be better soon. And you’re not useless; you were just giving me a lot of points to go off of on the case. You’ll be up and about soon, and you’re not helpless; you’ve got all of us here with you, all right?” Sam continued to look away from her as she said it, but she felt his face moving into her touch, and decided to try changing the subject. “Barrie’s coming in soon; do you want to go over any questions that we can ask him, or do you just want to play it like we don’t suspect anything at all?”
Sam finally turned and looked at her, and she moved her hand so that she was stroking his forehead instead of his cheek. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, “I don’t think we should let him know that we suspect him; if it is him, the Gov’s already got him on the alert by asking for the fingerprints, and we don’t need to give him any more information about us, not so long as we don’t have any information about him.” Annie nodded at this, then reached forward and pulled the blankets up higher on his chest.
“Do you want to get some rest, before he comes in? I can make sure that you’re awake while he’s here,” she said, and Sam felt shame and embarrassment wash through him again as she looked down on him.
“Annie… About, about me being from Hyde, or not being from Hyde, and, and what I told you, about where I come from…” Sam wasn’t sure what he could say to her that wouldn’t make him sound completely insane; then again, at least Annie had a proven track record of not turning him in for psychiatric evaluation after hearing him out. He looked at her, trying to meet her eyes, and found that this time, she was the one that was looking away from him, staring at his hand in hers.
“I haven’t told anyone what you said before, about being from thirty years in the future,” Annie was still staring at his hand. “But that’s where you think you’re from, isn’t it?”
“Thirty three years,” Sam said, sounding and feeling horribly tired.
“Thirty three years,” Annie repeated. “But that could easily be caused by the accident. Concussion, leading to amnesia, you wake up in a place you’ve never been before, totally confused about who you are or where you came from, and your mind constructs a delusion to try and fill in the gaps. It all makes sense, psychologically. So it stands to reason, if we can find out where you really came from, and why a DCI from Discipline and Complaints signed the transfer form, then we can start to piece together your real past. Once you start to learn where you really come from, there’s a good chance that at least some of your memory will come back, and the delusional past that you’ve constructed to replace your real one will just fade away. It all makes sense,” Annie said it slowly, and then took his hand in both of hers again, gripping it tightly.
“So you still don’t believe me?” Sam asked, and Annie gave him a sad look.
“Sam, how can I believe that? There’s no way that you can possibly come from the future. You’re not from Hyde, at least not from CID in Hyde, so you have to come from somewhere here. 1973. Reality. And once we find out, then, then we can start to help you, Sam,” Annie was looking into his eyes now, and Sam thought he saw hers starting to tear up.
“I’m not mad, Annie,” Sam said, searching her eyes for some sign, any sign that she believed him in the slightest, and she sighed.
“I know that, Sam. Especially now. Just… Don’t think about it, all right? The Gov’s in Hyde right now, trying to make sense of all of this, and once we find out where you really come from, maybe that whole vision will just fade away. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” She looked back at him, and Sam closed his eyes.
“Right now, we concentrate on the case,” Sam said, not wanting to look at her, not willing to see the disbelief, or the pity, in her eyes.
“Concentrate on the case. And on getting well again,” Annie said, and she reached up and stroked his cheek again, the flesh of her hand incredibly soft and comforting. Sam kept his eyes closed, and then opened them again as he felt sleep trying to overtake him, fighting against the sensation.
The door opened then, and Annie turned away, her right hand still gripping Sam’s. A paunchy, balding man with a crown of dark hair and thick glasses walked into the room, and nodded at her before making his way to the foot of Sam’s bed.
“Mr. Tyler, I’m Doctor JM Barrie,” he said, not looking at Sam, but instead checking the chart attached to the end of the bed frame.
“Sam Tyler,” Sam said, and, with some effort, managed to raise his right hand up. Barrie moved around to the other side of the bed, ignoring Sam’s silent request for a handshake, and then he moved to pull the blankets down, whilst pulling a stethoscope from the pocket of his white coat. Sam lowered his hand, trying not to let the suspicion, or the fear, show on his face as Barrie pulled the hospital gown away from his chest.
“Can you breathe in for me, please?” Barrie asked, and Sam complied, drawing air into his lungs as deeply as he dared while Barrie moved the end of the stethoscope across his chest. “And again,” Barrie said, and Sam stared at his hands as he slowly moved the pickup of the scope. Barrie’s hands were soft, and, indeed, larger than Sam’s and smaller than Myers’ had been. Sam let this sink in and tried to concentrate on the feeling of Barrie’s hands, part of him hoping that Barrie’s hands would trigger a memory, and part of him hoping that they wouldn’t.
Barrie withdrew the scope and started to move his hands along Sam’s chest, probing lightly at his ribs with his fingertips. Barrie engaged both of his hands as he did so, neither leading nor following with either hand, and then started to pull Sam forward. “And lean forward now,” Barrie said, and Sam did so, feeling Barrie’s hands snake along his back, once again probing at the flesh covering his ribs with both hands. He lifted the end of the stethoscope again, pressing it lightly along Sam’s back. “And breathe in again, and out… In again… Good.” Barrie pulled off the stethoscope and returned it to his pocket, and Sam tried to match the feeling of the man’s hands against him to the feeling of the hands in the warehouse, which seemed a distant, although horrific, memory.
“I’m going to order a chest x-ray for you; you’ll be taken down to the first floor for it before we move you to your room on the third floor. But everything does appear to be healing nicely, now. I understand you had some, er, trouble, with eating earlier?” Sam nodded, only half paying attention now, still wracking his brain to come up with a proper comparison between Barrie’s hands and the hands of his unknown assailant. Barrie continued to speak as he did so, “That’s normal, after all you’ve been through, especially with the heavy antibiotics course that we’ve had you on. Those effects should lessen over the next few days, though, so there shouldn’t be anything to worry about.” Barrie’s voice was flat, and Sam decided to stop dwelling on the feeling of his hands, and to try to concentrate on matching Barrie’s voice to the voices that he’d heard. The memories, though, seemed clouded and obscured by pain and fear, despite the crystal clear and frightening flashes of the incident that occasionally flitted through his mind.
“Do you have any questions for me?” Barrie asked, moving back to the foot of the bed and picking up the chart, and the pen attached to it. Sam stared, hard, as Barrie started to write something on the chart. Barrie was writing with his left hand… Sam felt his heart leap to his throat.
“No,” Sam asked, and then thought better of it, “How long am I going to be here? I want to get up,” Sam said, and Barrie shook his head.
“I’m going to have the nurses start trying to help you to walk, just across the room, mind, starting tomorrow. We’d normally have you shifting positions and trying to move a bit more as soon as possible, to help the build-up in your lungs break apart, but I’m very trepidatious about that, after the injuries that you’ve sustained; your ribs were quite badly broken, and you’re going to need to restrict your movements for a while as they heal. I’m afraid we’re definitely going to have to keep you here a while longer. Another week, perhaps more,” Barrie said, still writing on the chart and not looking at Sam. Sam felt more anger and frustration build up in him at the thought of this, and, deep in the back of his mind, fear at being placed like a sitting target for whoever it was that was hunting him.
Barrie looked up at Sam, “If that will be all, I’ve other patients to see. Good day, Mr. Tyler,” he said it very quickly, as if he couldn’t wait to leave the room, and Sam felt his suspicions rise up again. There was something very, very peculiar about Barrie’s behavior. He watched him closely as he exited, and then turned to Annie.
“What did you notice?” He asked Annie, and she looked over at Sam, releasing her breath, which she appeared to have been holding during the entire examination.
“He’s left handed; that was something that you remembered about the killer. And he seemed very, well, very nervous about seeing you. At first, I thought he was just busy, trying to move from patient to patient as quickly as possible, the way that he refused to shake your hand and the way that he was nothing but business. But looking back on it, it was like he was nervous, like he was trying to avoid touching you any more than was necessary, making any contact with you any more than was necessary. There’s a possibility that, if he is the killer, speaking to you would invalidate his feelings that you’re an object, and make him see you more as a human being. There’s also a possibility that he was trying to avoid as much contact as possible to avoid you remembering him, especially since, like you said, the Gov’s got him all upset and the like over the fingerprint requests; so it stands to reason that he’d be nervous.” Annie looked at the floor for a moment, raising a hand to her mouth as if she were just about to bite her nails, and then lowered her hands to her lap and looked at Sam once again. “Did he? Trigger any memories, that is?”
Sam stared at the ceiling and concentrated, hard, trying to match the movements that he’d just felt with the ones that he’d felt in the warehouse, and to match the hands that he’d just seen with the ones that he saw on the double’s bizarre television screen. “No. It… It didn’t feel any different than when the nurses touch me. It wasn’t, well, it wasn’t like it was…” Sam let his voice trail off, not sure if he should share those particular memories with Annie. As much as he wanted to, as much as he knew that it would do him good to speak to someone, part of him wanted to keep her as distant from the incident, and as safe from it, as possible. Sam closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on Barrie’s voice, and on what little he remembered about the voices in the warehouse, the muffled conversations, always on his peripherals, always shoved into the background as the struggle to breathe with his damaged lungs and to move with his arms pinned down like an insect taking the forefront of all of his thoughts, and the double’s voice sliding in and out of the conversations, melding with all of the voices around him.
“Sam?” Annie asked, and Sam opened his eyes and looked back at her.
“There’s a chance, but something about it, it just, it doesn’t feel right…” Sam was still trying to concentrate on the memories of the voices, and finding it hard to do so without getting lost in the memories of everything else, of the pain and the blood and the cackling laughter of the double and the little girl.
“So we’re back to square one, then,” Annie said, a bit of disappointment showing in her voice.
“Yeah. Nothing new from that,” Sam said, shaking his head and leaning back against the bed. He felt Annie close her hands around his again, and he opened his eyes, not remembering ever closing them. He looked at her. “Read me the case files again. All of them,” Sam said, and Annie shook her head.
“You ought to rest now, you’ve had a lot to take in, and…” Sam cut her off.
“Read me the files again, Annie. I need to get my head around this case,” Sam looked at her for a moment, and saw that she looked nearly as frustrated as he felt. “Please,” he added, and her expression softened.
Annie gave Sam an exasperated sigh, and then opened up the files again, but Sam couldn’t concentrate on her voice; his thoughts were still lingering over two facts: the fact that he was being hunted, and that it very well could be Barrie that was doing so, and the fact that his double could be much more real than he’d ever imagined, and present in 1973. The thought sent shivers up his spine as Annie’s voice droned over the post-mortem details once again.
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