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Chapter Text

Sam was feeling decidedly mellow. And that wasn't just a euphemism, though drunk he most certainly was. Usually a drunk Sam was still a tightly wound Sam - and yes, he was drunk enough to be thinking about himself in the third person - but tonight whisky and company had conspired to give him a feeling of general well-being. Morgan's cryptic comments had been pushed out of his mind by happier thoughts; Gene was safe in the bosom of his CID family and all was right with the world.

Apart from the mess-up in his medication that had put the future forcibly into his mind, Sam had hardly thought of 2006 the last month or two. More and more, 1973 was becoming his present. And today, November 17th 1973, had been a good day. Well, seen from the rose-and-whisky-tinted perspective of afterwards it had been a good day, more or less. It had ended well. And it had started with levering Gene into a squirrel costume. If Sam hadn't been such a moral man, he might have thought that a corpse or two of fairly unlikeable people was a fair trade for getting to see Gene dressed as Tufty the Squirrel.

Fear of the Guv's potential life sentence had stopped Sam enjoying the feeling at the time but, with hindsight, the camaraderie of Us against Everyone Else had been... enjoyable. They'd bickered - Hunt and Tyler would always bicker, it was an integral part of their working relationship - but they'd won the day. And Sam had many little memories to keep him warm through the long, fuel-short November nights. Not warm in that way, though it seemed the squirrel costume had officially entered Sam's list of fetishes. Not Gene's startling admission of trust either. Not entirely.

The thing Sam treasured most was the feeling of making a difference. 'I put a stop to it all months ago.' He'd been the cause of that, Sam was sure. Months ago they'd taken Warren down and Gene had put a stop to dodgy dealings Sam had never known about. That was a reason to celebrate - as if keeping Gene out of gaol wasn't reason enough.

For a horribly long time that was exactly where Sam thought he was going. Simply put, he thought Gene had done it. He'd never seen his DCI so drunk - and he'd seen him drink himself unconscious - and anyone drunk and angry enough to be waving a gun around was surely drunk and angry enough to fire it. Sam blamed himself, leaving a drunk man and a missing gun to find their own way home hadn't been his best idea ever, but he blamed Gene too. He'd known better from the moment he'd seen the second corpse. That second death wasn't a drunken moment of madness; it was deliberate and motivated and no amount of evidence could persuade Sam that Gene could ever be that kind of murderer, ending a life in cold blood to protect his own skin. And as Sam couldn't really work up any guilt over the death of Terry Haslam everything had worked out just fine and dandy. Thanks to the amazing partnership of Hunt and Tyler. Yup, definitely drunk when he was thinking in the phrases of Gene's high-spirited toasts.

And there was the other reason for Sam's good humour. Gene had been quite correct when he claimed he was his team. When Gene was unhappy they all suffered but the inverse was true - Gene in a good mood lifted all around him. Gene and the whisky, which was flowing almost too liberally. Every time Sam took his eye off the ball, Gene would top up his glass until Sam had lost track of how much malt had slid down his throat and his eye had lost interest in the ball altogether. Any more and Sam was in serious danger of joining in Chris' spastic dance around the office.

He joined in the general laughter as Chris tripped over his own feet and sat very suddenly in the middle of the floor, looking extremely puzzled as to how he'd got there. Gene shoved him out the way with his foot and swept Annie from her perch on the desk for a demonstration of how it should be done. Gave up after a few steps of something vaguely waltz-like, cheerfully cursing his unwilling partner. Even Ray had ditched the usual sneer.

Only a couple of months ago Sam might have envied this dysfunctional family but there and then, warmed by whisky, he felt a part of it. It was undoubtedly Gene who pulled him in, pulled them all in. In a malt-inspired flight of fancy Sam imagined him as a planet, exerting his own field of charisma-powered gravity that managed to appeal to the prehistoric Ray and the twenty-first century Sam and every man, and woman, in between. The Guv who knit them all together, made collegues something else and this drunken celebration a world away from the stilted work 'dos' of 2006.

Strange, really, that the most bigotted and offensive man Sam had ever met also managed to be the most tolerant. Not in the liberal 'everybody is equal' way Sam had been taught, but just a way of taking everyone as they came that Sam had never found in his own, consciously open-minded decade. No grudges held over the distinct lack of 'all for one' his team had displayed. No standing apart to maintain his authority. A git, a div, a bird, a few men so close to retirement they scarecely moved, a nutter from the future, and Gene made them his without ever expecting them to be anything other than what they were.

Sam had complained endlessly about being alone, isolated, and for a long time he'd felt it. The people here could never know his world, never believe in it, even if they were real, and that tainted every connection he made here. Should have made it impossible to find understanding. A normal boss would have taken one look at his new DI, ranting nonsense, and shipped him straight off to the funny farm. Gene had managed to shrug off the fact that he talked to furniture and had seen him anyway. Despite the lack of comprehension, here was acceptence, here was home.

And here, also, was a smiling, sweaty, tipsy Gene, tie and jacket long discarded, slapping Sam on the back as he filled his glass for the umpteenth time that night. Sam raised the glass and made a toast of his own, sloshing whisky over his fingers and tripping over every other word The encouragement to drink more was met with a roar of approval even though Sam knew not one of them had understood what he'd said. Sam wondered, if he squinted real hard, if he might just be able to make himself believe that it was 2006 that was the illusion.

It was only a persistent, nagging pain in Gene's side which persuaded him it was time to be moving. He'd poured himself and the man of the hour one last night-cap after Ray had staggered home with Chris half an hour ago and, drunk as he was, the temptation was to doze. If he'd picked a comfier spot to park himself, Gene might have succumbed to temptation and put his head down but there was a stapler digging into his ribs and he wasn't far gone enough to discount the indignity of having the cleaners peel him off the desk in the morning.

Besides, there was Tyler opposite in far worse straits. A dram away from passing out, the man was still blathering on. Gene had given up trying to follow the thread of his drunken ramblings when Tyler had stopped banging on about the delights of police accountability and drifted off into his fantasy future where everything was good and filled with sunny days and puppy dogs. He let the soporific slur of the other man's voice wash over him, grunting noncommittally whenever a response was demanded.

Gene had long ago learned it didn't do to listen too closely when Sam stopped making sense; that way he could never hear the thing that would force him to take action over his insane DI. This time of night it was an easy task, not even Tyler's usual nonsense but half-formed sentences even another drunk couldn't make sense of. From the occasional word that slipped past Gene's defences he was a sentimental drunk when fed an exclusive diet of single malt. Sam's eyelids were drooping and Gene could have sworn he was halfway to unconscious but still his mouth was flapping insistently, determined to get some grand concept across to his superior.

Gene manhandling him to his feet hardly interrupted him. There was a brief struggle, Tyler's ingrained response to anything Gene proposed, but when his intentions sunk in he acquiesced easily enough. His legs weren't as willing and Gene was not poised enough to pick up the slack and by the time he'd dragged them both through the double doors Gene was beginning to wish he'd left Tyler to the tender mercies of the cleaning ladies. Legs bendier than was natural, head falling against Gene's chest as he tried to keep them both upright - the corridor to the lift looked like a long and dangerous proposition when he couldn't even get Tyler pointing in the right direction.

It was, Gene had to admit, mostly his own fault. He'd plied his DI with much of Morgan's whisky, in lieu of actual spoken gratitude. Enough whisky to dissolve the stick permanently lodged up Tyler's arse and Gene found he liked the affect and plied some more, until Chris wasn't the only div drunk enough to be dancing round the office and falling over his own bloody feet. So really, Gene only had himself to blame when a never-seen-before cheeriness disolved into crazy talk, which was most of the reason he'd not left his DI for the cleaners to deal with. He did owe the man.

Sam'd come close to driving him insane with his thrice-cursed procedure, and Gene had seen the doubt there when he'd protested his innocence but he bore no animosity, had even doubted himself once or twice. But buried well beneath that Hyde brainwashing were a copper's instincts second to none and loyalty too, stronger than Tyler's devotion to protocol. His bull-headed persistence had proved itself and Gene owed him, for that and giving up his bed for a wanted fugitive.

So now he'd lumbered himself with a drunk who refused to fight gravity. He was starting to suspect Sam's stumbling movements weren't any attempt to stay vertical but rather to find a comfy spot to sleep. Gratitude or no, Gene wasn't about to stand there while Tyler had a nap, never mind what the close contact was doing to his equilibrium, so he gave the man a thorough shake to get things moving again. The movement it produced was not entirely useful. Tyler fell over his own feet and when Gene hauled him back up by his collar he fell right back against his DCI, tripping Gene when he tried to move them both forward. That killed another five minutes, getting them both up off the floor, and this time Gene tucked his DI under his arm. Adjusting to this balancing weight took more thought and practise than came easily to a drunk and Tyler wasn't helping at all, clinging onto Gene in a way that was most distracting.

"Would you stop bloody cuddling me, you great pansy!"

Tyler mumbled something in reply but Gene couldn't make it out and didn't put much effort into trying, knew it wouldn't be anything sensible. Didn't think he'd ever seen a man so drunk and still talking. But despite the unsettling feel of Sam's wiry arms snaked under his coat, they were making progress in a forward direction now so Gene pressed on until they reached the lift doors. The call button wasn't quite where he'd left it or was possibly moving around and it took a few jabs to summon the lift and Sam's knees gave out in the wait. Even drunk, Gene shuddered at the picture they must present. Gave his DI a bit of a kick. But Sam clung tighter and now Gene could feel his warm breath through the front of his trousers, something he determined to forget as soon as possible. He was more than relieved when the lift arrived and strode in without warning, leaving Sam trailing behind him. Gene prodded with his foot until his legs were over the threshold and they were going down.

And, Christ almighty, Sam was still talking. Sprawled on the lift floor, eyes tight shut, smiling beatifically at the ceiling and mumbling. When they hit bottom it was more hard work to heave him off the floor. One mention of home and Sam was fighting him again, protesting incoherently.

"I said it's time to go home, Sammy-boy," he bellowed into his ear and it woke him up like he'd hoped it would but into a panic and Sam resisted every inch as Gene dragged him upright.

"I've changed my mind," he squealed in protest. "I don't want to go home! I want to stay."

But having got this far Gene wasn't about to leave him in the lift. Enjoyable though it was to poke fun at his DI, he didn't want the plonks taking their turn in the morning. Neither did he want to walk past the nightshift desk sergeant with his DI cuddling him so he cut off further argument by grabbing the back of his collar and marching the little lightweight across the reception area and out into the night. The cold night air hit them both like a bucket of water, Sam wriggled out of his grasp again, this time to be sick at the edge of the carpark.

"Time to go home, Sam," he said again when he was done retching.

"Which home?" Tyler asked, which wasn't exactly a sensible question but it was in English so Gene was going to consider it progress.

"Your flat, you plank."

The air or the vomiting had done some good and a hand on his elbow was all it took to get Sam to his feet. He wobbled but stood upright.

"Not the future?"

"If that shit hole's the future you'll find me back in the dark ages. Done chucking?" Sam nodded, though whether he was answering Gene or the voices in his head was anyone's guess. "You understand if you're sick in my car I'll have to kill you?"

Another nod. "I'll be floating down the canal tomorrow."

If he was going to murder anyone Gene would probably take the time to weight the corpse but technicalities aside that was more sense than he'd got out of Tyler for most of the night so Gene nodded, and just to prove the little prick was back in the land of the living he added: "I don't think you should be driving, Guv."

Gene didn't bother answering that one, assuming Sam would have forgotten by the time they reached the Cortina. It was fifty yards and a flight of steps that only took ten minutes. Gene wasn't complaining because that was an improvement and he only had to pick Tyler up three times, and once more when they reached the car. Wrestling him upright - again - Sam beamed at him.

"You're not in prison," he said wonderingly, collapsing against the Cortina this time, for the sake of variety. Gene was getting far too soft in his old age, didn't have the heart to kick the man for the mess he was undoubtedly making of his paintwork.

"No I am not," Gene confirmed. "Suppose I've got you to thank for that."

Moving quicker than he had any right to after making such a mess of walking, Sam caught the back of Gene's neck and tugged. Caught off balance Gene lurched forward and Sam met him with a very determined kiss. Gene opened his mouth to protest, or sound alarm, or something, and the little bugger slipped his tongue in. He might walk and talk like a girl but Tyler didn't kiss like one, least not any girl Gene had had the good fortune to meet. He managed to be everywhere, licking and sucking and pressing and moving so quickly that it was only when his fingers slipped under camelhair to dig into Gene's arse that Gene thought to wrench his head away.

Sam grinned broadly, watching Gene through half lidded eyes and showing not a trace of the fear he should be feeling. His hand came up to touch Gene's face, Gene thought he was going to kiss him again and for a terrifying second thought about letting him - right there in the car park where any of the nightshift might see them - so Gene did the only thing he could think of and punched Tyler square on the jaw.

It was the two-ton straw that broke the camel's back and Sam finally found the oblivion that the whisky had promised. Gene watched him go down, breathing hard and feeling god knows what. Watched a good long while, before deciding he was in no way drunk enough and fishing a hip flask out of an inner pocket. It took more than a few mouthfuls before the terror faded enough for Gene to focus on the practicalities. He couldn't leave his little tart of a deputy unconscious in the car park.

Carrying Sam up the stairs to his flat, Gene reflected that at least this was easier than walking the little bastard anywhere.

Gene sat in the bar of the Railway Arms knocking back pint after pint of best while the survivors of his team tiptoed round him in rather scared silence. Sam watched from a safe distance as Gene picked up his glass and gave it a thorough glowering before taking a long swig. The Guv had been off all day, shutting himself in his office whenever possible and giving the sharp side of his tongue to anyone who bothered him. Sam, as usual, got the lion's share of Gene's ire. This might be fair, overall, even Sam had to concede he was probably the most irritating, but today had not been the usual disagreements over cases - he'd go as far as to say Gene had been avoiding him. The one time the Guv had marched out of his cave to visit a crime-scene it was Ray he'd taken with him, and Gene's defection was starting to get to Sam.

Sam had woken up in his own bed, fully clothed, front door swinging open and absolutely no recollection of leaving CID the night before. He did recollect, vaguely, dancing on one of the desks with Chris. And he could hardly forget the amount he'd drunk, given the pounding hangover he'd woken up with. But a couple paracetamol and a handful of antacids had taken the edge off and he'd turned into work more cheerful than was usual for mornings like that and very likely still tipsy. The Guv had soon put a dampener on Sam's fine mood and he felt the unfairness of it.

The night before had been all smiles and whisky and Sam had been pleased with the world, largely because Gene had been pleased with him. And so he should be. Sam had put his imaginary career on the line to dig the Guv out of the shit and together they'd got a result. But today he was relegated to that picky pain from Hyde - no longer a good thing, apparently, when he wasn't being picky on Gene's behalf - and he was starting to wonder if it would always be this way in this decade, two steps forward and three back.

He'd managed to put it down to a hangover for most of the morning. It wasn't often you saw Gene suffering like other mortals but when he did, by God, everyone suffered along with him. But by beer o'clock there was no doubt in Sam's mind he was being singled out for avoidance and hair of the dog did nothing to improve Gene's temper.

It would have been a quiet night in the Railway Arms anyway; there wasn't anyone who hadn't imbibed too much the night before. Annie had gone straight home from work, pleading the excuse of a girl's stamina, Chris left after his second pint looking positively green and the rest of CID were starting to drift off. Gene was the only one who'd put in any serious drinking. He carried his black mood with him and it affected everyone. He'd cried off the regular poker game and without the Guv presiding no-one else had bothered to play. The poor sod who'd proposed a darts match had been given an earful and now even Nelson didn't dare go near except to refill Gene's frequently empty glass.

So it was left to Sam, as usual, to beard the lion in his den. And even he had to top up his Dutch courage first and wait until the drunken sense of injustice overrode a more basic sense of self preservation. It took four and a half pints - Gene must have knocked back three times that in a couple of hours. Sam plonked his glass down on the bar and himself down on the stool next to Gene's with the air of someone who intended to stay. The Guv didn't bother to acknowledge his presence, just glared harder at his pint.

"Your dog been run over?" Sam asked, by way of getting the ball rolling. Gene turned his head and his scowl briefly to Sam and that had to serve as his answer. But Sam was nothing if not persistent.

"I know," he guessed sarcastically, "you were really looking forward to prison and now you're sulking because you didn't get to go?"

"I'm having a quiet pint," Gene growled, not taking his eyes off the pint in question. "Go pester someone else."

"That's not quiet, that's ominous silence, that is."

"Bugger off."

"Sure. Just as soon as you tell me what I've done to you that you're being such a-" It took a brave man to finish that sentence, Sam faltered slightly. "-such a prick."

Gene turned to look at him, eyes narrowed, that assessing, calculating glare Sam had seen directed at a thousand suspects. Sam had watched him knock back enough booze to fell an ox but he could see no trace of it in his face.

"Nothing," Gene spat eventually. "But you're not my Missus, Tyler. It's not my job to make you feel special. Sod off."

Sam drained the glass in his hand, prevaricating. Stayed put, quietly, with the ready-made excuse of waiting for a refill. Turned Gene's words over in his head. It was the 'nothing' that puzzled him, said heavily with a significance Sam couldn't understand. On any given day Sam irked Gene to the point of physical violence at least once. Today had started with an overly perky Tyler and a Guv with a sore head, there had to be excuses aplenty if Gene was spoiling for a fight. Sam started mentally reviewing all the things he might have failed to do and was still drawing a blank when his musings were interrupted by a fresh pint.

"It's not your birthday, is it?" he asked, after he'd paid for his beer. This, at least, got a reaction - Gene turned his head in an astonishment that quickly turned to anger.

"Tyler," he started, voice dangerously calm and low, "are you trying to imply I'm the kind of man that would have a sulk because someone forgot my birthday?"

"No, I-"

"'Cause there's only one fucking pansy in this station and you might want to try remembering that, Gladys, before you get yourself into serious trouble. No, it is not my frigging birthday!"

"But you are sulking about something?"

That was Sam's weak try for a joke, a half-hearted attempt to lighten the leaden atmosphere and take the sting out of Gene's words. But he might have predicted the reaction. Gene punched him swiftly and viciously, below the level of the bar, out of sight of Nelson and the pub's few lingering patrons. Gene's favourite - a hard blow to the solar plexus that left Sam gasping for air. By the time Sam had recovered enough to think about retaliation Gene had turned back to his drink and he decided against. Wandered off, frustrated, feeling the insult more than the injury.

There wasn't exactly much to distract Sam's attention. Though it was barely nine Ray headed off with a couple of the older CID men, leaving no-one in the pub that Sam knew by name. Just a couple of the nameless ones, stubbornly playing crib at a corner table, oblivious to all around them, and a couple of brave old men who'd wandered off the street despite the unfriendly atmosphere. And the Guv, of course, keeping up a steady pace at the bar and putting Sam in a quandary. He had a very recent example of how a pissed up, pissed off Gene could be a danger to himself, if not others. And Sam hadn't decided to be a policeman in an idle moment - the job was in his blood and an unexplained mystery was a red rag to him. He couldn't help feeling that Gene wasn't just taking out his aggression on the nearest target, but that he actually blamed Sam for his bad mood. Not knowing what he'd done was vexing in more ways than one but the mystery that really puzzled Sam was why Gene wasn't taking that aggression out with the knock-down fight he obviously needed.

If he'd had one pint less, if he wasn't still feeling the affects of last night's binge, Sam might have left it alone. Gone home to his lumpy bed and let Gene sort himself out. He'd managed forty-odd years, after all, without Sam's coddling. But the desire to know was eating away at him and the booze was eating away at his restraining good sense.

He took his glass back to the bar and sat down next to Gene, who didn't react to his presence with so much as a flicker.

"Time to go home, don't you think, Guv?"

Gene didn't acknowledge him for so long that Sam began to wonder if he'd even heard him. The Guv'd managed another three or four pints while Sam had sipped his one - it had to catch up sometime. He was opening his mouth to repeat the question, slow and loud, when Gene finally answered.

"You go," he said flatly. "See you tomorrow."

It wasn't exactly friendly but neither was it the punch Sam had been half expecting. Gene's hand was wrapped tight round his glass, muscles tense as if a great deal of restraint had gone into that one sentence. Restraint wasn't really a Gene Hunt characteristic - Sam should be taking advantage but he'd rather have the punch and the explanation than neither. If he was honest with himself he knew the next sentence out of his mouth was almost guaranteed to push Gene's buttons.

"Don't you think you've had enough? I could drive you home."

"No."

Sam shrugged and ordered two whiskies. If he couldn't bring a halt to the drinking, he could at least hurry things along to the spilling-guts stage. Or the fight. Whatever it took. Nelson complied with none of his usual good cheer.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

"No."

"I don't think it's healthy to-"

"Bloody well shut it, Tyler! How no-one's figured out you're a poof is beyond me - I've never met such a flaming woman! Nagging and pestering."

"I didn't realise it was gay to be concerned about your friends."

"How 'bout shoving your tongue down their throats? That qualify?"

The drink was starting to show now. In the droop of Gene's eyelids and the unfocused rage leaking past a brittle veneer of calm. The way he looked like he could have bitten his tongue a second later. It was that more than anything else that helped Sam extrapolate from the general to the personal and come to a conclusion that turned the beer he'd drunk cold in his stomach.

Very little of the night before remained in his memory, after the dancing. A vague recollection of Chris passing out and Sam helping an equally drunk Ray get him upright again. Ray carrying Chris home. Gene pouring him another drink - that was something of a recurring theme. Then a huge big gap before waking up in his flat. Sam was suddenly scared to know what that gap contained, so, being Sam, he came straight out and asked.

"Did I... make a pass at you?"

Gene looked around him, furtive and angry though there was no-one close enough to hear.

"Just this once, Tyler, leave it alone."

No swearing, no threats, and Sam should have realised that something so close to a polite request from the Guv was virtually begging. But fear and a lifelong aversion to the unknown compelled Sam to keep pushing.

"I really don't remember anything. I don't even remember going home. So if I did something..."

He trailed off; there was no point continuing. As soon as he'd opened his mouth Gene had knocked back the whisky Sam had bought, chased it down with the dregs of his beer. By the second sentence he was on his feet, swept his coat with him and stalked out of the pub. Inevitably Sam followed. He found Gene outside, leaning against a stack of empty barrels and lighting a cigarette.

"You're so frigging predictable." Gene took a deep drag and blew it up into the air, the cold November night obscuring the smoke behind clouds of condensation. He looked calmer out in the night air but Sam knew well enough not to take these things at face value. "Follow a man straight off a cliff once you'd got your teeth in."

"I just want to know."

"And I don't want to talk about it."

"No, talking would be gay, right? But it's okay to take it out on me. Not to mention anyone else within spitting distance."

Gene shrugged. "You could always piss off."

"Fine. And what about work. Should I resign? How far do you want me to go? Birmingham? Dover?"

Gene didn't answer and the cold in Sam's stomach grew positively icy.

"I'm sorry, okay? Whatever it is I did, I'm sorry."

"I'm not a poof, Sam."

"I know that! Is that was this is about? Did I impugn your manliness? Why don't you just beat me up and have done with it?"

Gene smiled then, a grim sight. Shook his head. And never had Sam come closer to understanding Gene's habit of kicking confessions out of people. Right now he wanted to shake the man until he spilled exactly what Sam had done. He'd hit on the Guv, apparently, which was cringesomely embarrassing - but only for Sam. Surely not enough to cause such a black humour in a man who didn't seem to have the slightest problem finding out his DI swung both ways. His mind turned to worse scenarios, the things he might have said, the feelings he might have shared. Something so bad Gene was wary of getting in range for a punch.

"Just tell me what I did and I'll go. All the way to fucking Australia if that's what you want."

"You kissed me."

Gene was staring straight at the bricks in front of him. He took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it away. Sam waited for the rest, wincing, but nothing else came. It didn't seem sufficient, somehow. Kissing Gene had been unwise, yes, and Sam was surprised he hadn't woken up with considerably more bruises in that case, but it wasn't enough to explain the furious temper Gene had been indulging all day.

"Well sorry, I guess. But it's not catching, Guv. You trying to say you've never got drunk and snogged someone you shouldn't have? I was just drunk." Sam crossed his fingers and hoped he hadn't said anything that would show the lie in his words. "And it was you that got me drunk in the first place. It's not some terrible crime."

"Did I say it was?"

"So what is your fucking problem?"

Gene moved then - with that speed Sam never got used to he had his DI by the neck against the wall. Leaned in close and for one heart-stopping second Sam thought Gene was going to kiss him. But he stopped an inch from Sam's mouth and growled: "I'm not a frigging pansy."

"Did I say you were?"

"You make me feel like one!"

The silence behind the pub got a whole lot quieter. Only Sam's soft panting could be heard as he struggled to breathe past Gene's restricting fingers. He could hardly have spoken and couldn't have thought of a thing to say. Except 'take me now' and the part of Sam's brain not too drunk or riled up for thought decided against that.

"You kissed me and I liked it," Gene hissed, a stage whisper that echoed round the alley. "And it's not fucking on, Tyler. 'Cause I'm not a queer, never been queer and you're flaming well wrong - it must be catching. 'Cause now... You won't leave me alone. Even when you're not bleeding well there. And every time I think I've got it sorted you stir it up again."

Gene was spitting furious again, resembling nothing more than a fire-breathing dragon, each angry sentence adding to the brume surrounding him in the freezing air.

"And don't think I don't know it's on offer. I'm not blind. I know I could have you. Could fuck you right there on my desk if I wanted to. It affects me like it shouldn't, Sam, and it's got to stop."

To illustrate the point Gene pushed against him. Sam could feel his erection pressing hard against his hip and knew Gene was receiving mirroring sensations. It was too much to swallow down, the hand round his neck, the solid body trapping his own slender form and Sam would have been panting even without that extra charge of feeling another man's arousal. Of seeing the affect he could have on Gene. There were a thousand things Sam could have said to calm things down but the words that came out of his mouth were: "Fancy a shag, Guv?"

Gene used his grip on Sam's neck to pull him forward as he stepped to the side, caught the collar of Sam's jacket as he stumbled and for a second Sam braced himself, thinking Gene was going to slam him face first into the opposite wall. But he steered them both deftly round the corner and threw him into the Cortina instead. Strode past Sam, around the car and into the drivers seat. Gunned the engine and waited for Sam to gather his wits and get in beside him.

He didn't like to ask and Gene was oppressively silent but a few turns told Sam they were heading to his flat. The Guv showed nothing but a kind of grim determination that filled the tiny space, an atmosphere almost solid with things unspoken. And it felt good, in a terrifying way, in a guilty pleasure way. The same kind of buzz as when Gene was half strangling him in that alley and Sam hadn't known if he was going to kiss him or kill him. The tingle of anticipation and the ball of dread were fighting for space in his stomach.

This time he wasn't even sure it was his fault. Okay, apparently he'd got sufficiently shit-faced to snog his superior officer but even Sam was astute enough to realise that wasn't what had Gene doing hoops. Now was the moment Sam realised he should have taken Gene's advice in the first place and let it well alone. Left Gene to his temper, let him sort himself out. It was a hugely pointless realisation. And this, now, should have been a moment straight out of fantasy but it felt more like the eye of the storm. Like life imploding.

If Gene was thinking anything at all none of it showed on his face. He drove with his usual single-mindedness and when they got to Sam's building, far quicker than law allowed, put only a fraction more care into parking than his usual slew-to-a-dramatic-stop method. Got straight out and strode purposefully towards the entrance, not looking to see if Sam was following. When Sam finally caught up Gene was outside his front door, staring menacingly at the battered and much repaired door frame. One hard push and the door swung open.

"Bust it in again last night."

"I don't remember."

"That's because you were unconscious. On account of me punching you."

"Oh." It was killing Sam not to know the details of last night's drunken escapade but he knew better than to ask. "Gene..." You shouldn't be here. This is crazy. So many things he might have said but Sam didn't want to say any of them, blood pounding, dick rock hard in his jeans. And maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. Maybe he'd already gone too far when he followed Gene out of the pub; maybe they'd been heading here for months.

"Shut it, Dorothy."

Sam shrugged, walked past Gene into his open flat. He didn't get far. Gene grabbed his arm and twisted, slamming Sam face first into his hideous, damp stained wallpaper. A swift kick and the door closed behind them, cutting off the murky light from the hallway. Sam could feel Gene's warmth behind him, looming close but not quite touching, except for the crushing grip on Sam's wrist.

"This how you like it?"

It was amazing how quickly better judgement evapourated with the arousing heat of that low growl. No, Sam would have said, but he didn't trust what might come out of his mouth, so he kept it tight shut.

"Caught the floor show, remember?"

A rhetorical question, of course he remembered, but Sam nodded anyway, as best he could with his face forced against the wall. Then Gene's free hand was on his belt buckle, a few swift, jerky movements and Sam's jeans were round his knees, cock tapping hopefully against the wall. The sound of a zipper and Sam could feel Gene's thighs against his arse and Gene's own erection even through the thickness of his leather jacket. Gene slipped his hands under Sam's shirt, fingers digging into his hips, lifting Sam clean off the ground until he had him where he wanted him. Sam could feel him lining himself up; he wasn't so far gone that the thought of Gene fucking him dry was a turn-on.

"Lube," he choked out, the word distorted by the wall. "Guv - Gene - lube."

Gene froze. For a second Sam thought he was about to turn around and walk away, the reality of what he was doing only now just sinking in. Sam's body groaned in protest - a dry, painful shag was better than no shag to his cock's way of thinking and the rest of Sam wasn't being given a voice. Then Gene moved, pressing his weight forward to hold Sam up, cock nestling in the cleft of his buttocks as Gene spat into his hand. Sam wriggled under his hold, apparently enough oxygen-deprived thought left for a little self-preservation.

"That's not lube, it's spit. Kitchen drawer."

Gene dropped him abruptly and Sam stayed were he landed, afraid even to turn his head in case he broke the spell. He was sure Gene had never even thought of doing this before but he showed no hesitation as two cold, coated fingers found his hole and Sam had to quash the bizarre and suicidal impulse to ask if Gene had ever taken his wife this way. One thrust and the fingers were gone, Sam was hoisted up again, he could feel Gene's slicked up stiffy slipping back into position.

Sam was leaking already though Gene hadn't touched him, didn't touch him as he thrust hard into Sam's arse. It stung but Sam had had rougher and the sting disappeared in a blaze of stars as Gene shifted Sam's weight and thrust in deeper. He heard Gene's slightly startled grunt as Sam exercised his muscles and clamped down on him. The grip on his hips tightened and Gene slammed him into the wall, over and again. His cock rubbing tantalizingly against the plasterboard with each movement. Sam snuck a hand between to touch himself as Gene picked up the pace and it was joined by Gene's larger one, grasping tightly over Sam's fingers, moving in time.

He could feel Gene's stubble against his ear, hear his half-stifled moans escalating until he came with a gasp. His fingers tightened convulsively and Sam followed a second later, coating the wall and their joined hands.

While Sam caught his breath Gene withdrew and stepped back, by the time Sam turned around he was all zipped up and cleaning his hand on his shirt. The silence was deafening. Sam straightened himself out. He cleaned his own hand and snaked it round Gene to pull him close but Gene pushed him away, confirming what Sam already knew.

"I'm not a queer, Tyler," he said angrily and Sam didn't have any answer so he watched him leave in silence.

For reasons of secrecy, Morgan didn't drive Sam back to the nick after their clandestine meeting and Sam was glad of it. There was too much buzzing around in his head to walk back into the station and pretend everything was normal. He was sure the shock of it all must be written on his face and the tiny part of Sam's mind not already devoted to its new cause wondered if his colleagues would be able to sense his betrayal. His mind had been made up from the moment Morgan had said the word 'home' and Sam was already starting to think of A division in a new light - not friends or figments but the enemy, an obstacle between him and his own time.

There had been days, more and more of them over the last few months, when Sam had really felt he could settle down in 1973. He'd never stopped fighting to get home, because it wasn't in his nature to give up, but he had started to wonder if he still wanted the thing he was fighting for.

He'd started living the fantasy in a way he'd never thought he'd be able to. He'd got used to things. His perspective had changed. He'd let go of the obsessive desire to Google anything that puzzled him. The Post Office on the corner had stopped being an unsettling nostalgia trip and become simply the place he bought his morning paper. Every tiny inconvenience no longer prompted a comparison of how much easier things would be in 2006. Sam could pick up a new case and his first thought was no longer 'is this the one that will get me home?'"

If Morgan had shown his hand two weeks ago when Sam first met him, it would have thrown him into one hell of a quandary. Now he clutched at Morgan's offer like the lifeline it literally was.

Because in that fortnight he'd discovered his whole fantasy life revolved around just one person and there was nothing in it that hadn't been tainted by that one night of wordless sex. The shift was tiny, Sam reflected bitterly. The Guv hadn't fired him, nothing so dramatic. Just ignored him with a determination that made his interview techniques seem wishy-washy and uninvolved. The fact that Gene - incredibly - had not once punched him since that ill-considered night should not have been cause for complaint, but Sam felt the snub. He gave Sam his own cases, paired him off with Chris or Annie and whole days could go by without Sam crossing paths with his superior officer though their desks were not ten feet from each other. Just like that, it felt to Sam, the easy camaraderie that had made this backwards CID home had evaporated and he was isolated in a foreign land once more.

There was no-one here who believed in 2006 but that hadn't stopped Sam talking about it. Everyone here believed in Gene Hunt and Sam couldn't confide in one of them. The idea of telling Annie that the Guv had shagged him and now wasn't talking to him was so ridiculous it was virtually the only thought that could raise a smile from Sam in those dark days. She noticed the shift in dynamic and the change in Sam's mood - it would have been hard not to - but Sam couldn't tell her the why and she soon stopped asking. His reticence and her hurt had gone a long way to severing another connection he'd made here.

There was no-one he could talk to because there was no-one here who didn't belong to Gene more than him. And no thing. Sam had made the effort to go to The Railway Arms once or twice but Gene was always there in the centre of it and he couldn't swallow his pride long enough to intrude where he didn't seem wanted. Didn't want to spend his evenings watching the Guv, still exuding that animal charisma for everyone but him. He was still the same force of nature that had drawn Sam in in the first place. Nelson's welcoming smile wasn't welcoming enough.

His support network - the friends and family and drinking buddies and casual acquaintance he'd built up through his life - were all thirty-three years away. His Mum, the last refuge for any troubled young man, didn't even know who he was. He wanted - needed - to be home, where people loved him.

And along came Morgan. With bizarre tales of tumours and a thousand other details which Sam barely heard because Morgan had used that magic word - home.

Even his subconscious seemed to be working against him. It couldn't go with the obvious, no. No big door marked '2006 this way' and a handy arrow. Everything had to be complicated, ambiguous, talk of cancers and undercover missions when all Sam wanted was to leave Gene bloody Hunt in whatever pit in his mind he'd crawled out of. Walk out of his fantasy with whatever was left of his sanity.

If it could be called sane to be so angry with a figment of his own imagination. And he was a figment. Sam had to believe that or there was no way home and that was a thought Sam could no longer bear. It was so much easier to believe the figment thing when Gene stopped being a physical force that threw him against walls as a form of punctuation and dwindled into a lurking presence, rarely seen. But knowing he was a figment, believing it, wasn't enough to dilute the anger. He didn't have Gene's tolerance for the flaws of the people around him. Took it all personally. He felt betrayed, didn't care if he repaid that with a betrayal of his own. Maybe even got a measure of satisfaction from the thought. Every time he was paired off with Chris on some case not worth his attention, every time it was Ray sat in the passenger seat of the Cortina and not him, every time Gene didn't quite look at him when he marched into the office, Sam felt it.

If it was a story about two people not them, Sam might have been sympathetic. A married man, his direct superior, in a world where sodomy was still considered a direct path to hell, if no longer gaol - not exactly a recipe for happy endings. Sam should have been able to understand a hundred different reasons for Gene to keep his distance. He tried for understanding but he never got there because it hurt.

Sam defended himself by giving up. Stopped challenging, stopped pushing. Felt a little vindicated when Morgan told him Gene was only a cancer - it was such an attractive thought. Better than believing he'd been rejected by his own subconscious, or that this loneliness was his life now. Better to believe a friendship was imaginary than that it just couldn't survive a little trial, could just disappear. Took away Sam's culpability too. He was no longer the victim of his own bad decisions - Gene Hunt was a growth and Sam could be rid of him, back to the man he had been in the century in which he belonged.

By the time he got back to the station he'd fully acclimatised to his new role as traitor. And he was greeted by the perfect opportunity. A case of Sam's, a fourteen year old girl raped in her own home. It hadn't taken a tenth of Sam's detective skills to identify the uncle, one Bruce McEwan, as the likely culprit and put out an APB. While Sam had been playing secret agents with the moustachioed man from Hyde, plod had apprehended the suspect at Old Trafford and, as Phylis informed him the second he walked in, Gene had started the interview without him.

It felt like a sign. It was Sam's case, he had every reason to be in at the finish, and nothing was more likely to bring out the excessive force in his DCI than a Man U supporting paedophile. It was easy for Sam to set the tape recorder going on one of the shelves in lost and found, because Gene barely glanced at him. Sam didn't join in the interview, just watched as Gene kicked and punched his way to a confession then kicked and punched some more. The crunch of breaking ribs sounded no more pleasant than it ever had but this time the violence didn't seem real; Sam's only thought on the unconscious suspect Uniform carried to the cells was - if he keeps this up I'll be home in no time.

Three days later Sam had got so immersed in the collection of evidence for Morgan he rarely resurfaced long enough to remember he did have another job. Almost every arrest Gene involved himself in ended up with some infraction of proper police procedure and Sam had it all neatly documented. By 2006 standards he had enough to have his superior drummed off the force but here, he knew, he needed something much bigger. Still, every piece of paper and every cassette he added to the file in his bottom desk drawer told him he was on track. On his way home.

It became his only goal. Sam no longer cared if Gene Hunt was the physical manifestation of a growth or just a figment of the more disturbed side of his imagination; he was sick of having him in his head. A second later that became more literal and he had Gene echoing through his eardrums as he threw open the door of his office and bellowed a summons the CID office hadn't heard in a fortnight. Before Mogan's bombshell this might have been a notable event for Sam, something to be approached with apprehensive pleasure, now he saw it only as an interruption to his journey home. He stomped into the office with no preconceptions - Gene had always used the same annoyed shout to precede a new lead and a bollocking alike.

The Guv was sitting behind his desk.

"Working hard, Tyler?"

"Just finishing the paperwork for the Trelawney case, Guv," Sam lied woodenly.

"Not been much of a team player this week."

Sam had steeled himself to 'yessir' until Gene was done and get back to his notes but the injustice of that remark got under his skin. His tightest self-control couldn't keep him silent. Only just kept his voice level, icy instead of angry.

"I rather got the impression you were avoiding me, Guv."

Gene grunted at this, steepled his hands. "You're a DI, aren't you, Gladys? Don't need me to hold your hand. Should be leading the troops, not shuttering yourself away with that never ending bleeding paperwork."

"Yes Guv." Back to wooden. "Is that all?"

He met Gene's eye for a moment, arrogant and aloof. Hoped the other man didn't notice how short the moment was before he turned on his heel. A fortnight of mutual avoidance and Sam had forgotten how dangerous Gene's eyes could be. When it came to getting confessions they were more than fit for purpose - scary as hell, looking right into his head. It was a combination that had hardened criminals blabbing like children and Sam had to turn away before they worked their magic on him. Three careful, measured steps towards the door and he heard the clatter of a chair that signaled Gene standing, the slap of his palm and the rattle that followed as the desk reverberated.

"No, Tyler. That is not bleeding all."

Sam turned, reluctantly.

"Now you can be as arsey with me as you like, dare say I deserve it. But I'm still your boss - you've not been pulling your weight and it's starting to show in my clear-up rates."

"I'll clear my desk then, shall I?"

Gene looked like he'd been slapped. He recovered quickly, eyes flashing. "Only if you want to be a melodramatic twat. What am I saying? Of course you do. Flounce off then, Gladys, I'm sure that's easier than getting on with your job."

Sam laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound and he didn't seem to have control of it. "Maybe I'll pop right out of existence. That would suit you, right? Or wouldn't you care either way?"

So much for wooden. Somehow the words coming out of his mouth were so horribly bitter and personal even Sam winced. He wanted to walk away. Out of the station and this impossible situation and never look back. He remembered the promise of home, if he could just survive this one last trial of 1973, and tried to tell himself it was all worth it. Gene didn't give him time to decide, stepping round his desk, grabbing the front of Sam's shirt and bouncing him into the wall. Sam felt a flicker of something and maybe Gene did too because he let go, though he didn't step away.

"I care about my city, Tyler, and my team. I care that there's villains roaming free because you're taking personal summat that ain't. You've got a job to do here, whatever those little voices are telling you, and if you won't do it, I'll have to find someone that will. It's not because I want rid of you."

Because he knew Gene, Sam knew that little speech must have cost him and felt a twinge of guilt. Then anger at the guilt because Gene had to be a figment, a figment that had shunned his company since the sex. Sam utterly refused to acknowledge the thrum this figment produced by his proximity. His mind had fooled him too often like this, offering a way out and then tricking him into not accepting it. This time he was determined to see this through, find his way back home to a place where he wasn't lonely.

So he opened his mouth to say the thing he thought would placate Gene, escape this uncomfortable doubt and get back to collating his evidence, but he didn't have the chance. Chris ambled in after a light tap on the door, stumbled slightly when he saw he was interrupting a heated discussion between the Guv and the Boss but carried on manfully.

"We've got a body, Guv," he announced. "Down the [factory name]. Shot."

Gene paused a second, eyes darting over to Sam, then he jerked his head towards the door. "C'mon then, Tyler. Let's get you some exercise."

Gene grunted his thanks as Ray slapped a pint on the bar beside him and turned back to the darts. At least, ostensibly he was watching the darts match. He'd angled his stool to keep one eye on Tyler who was brooding alone in a corner and couldn't have recounted who was playing, let alone the score.

There'd been a flash of his old, uniquely obnoxious DI this afternoon. Eyes, if not mouth, clearly blaming Gene for the death of his 'informant' Danny Croucher. The face of a man poised to give a lecture and follow it up with a demonstration of proper police procedure. But the lecture hadn't come and one phone call from Hyde later - Gene had checked with the operator as soon as Sam had left the room - his DI was missing in action for the rest of the day. Emerging just in time for a rare visit to the Railway Arms.

Action was required, no doubt about it, and Gene wasn't one to baulk at doing the necessary but he had a sneaking suspicion that the seven or eight pints he'd knocked back while watching Tyler counted as baulking. Gene found the lack of confident resolution more disturbing than the newly discovered penchant for buggery. He just didn't trust himself. He'd decided shagging Tyler would be A Very Bad Idea when the sexual attraction was still a nebulous and much denied wisp at the back of his brain; it was a knock to his rock-solid confidence when he found he'd gone ahead and done it anyway. He'd blame it all on Tyler, but acknowledging Sam affected his actions was hardly comfort. All it took was a day with the memory of Sam's drunken kisses, the tension of not knowing if the sly little bastard remembered, stir in a drop of alcohol and he was doing the nasty with his very male deputy. Some drunken frigging excuse for an idea that the doing would get rid of the wanting to. What sort of woolly gay decision-making was that?

His latest beer slid down without Gene noticing. He ordered two more pints and whacked them down on the table in front of Tyler before he could indulge any more in this nasty Sam-inspired habit of second guessing himself. Tyler flicked a slightly surprised gaze over his DCI as Gene sat down beside him with some determination, then glowered at the beer in front of him. Gene couldn't help but feel they had things arse over tit here - he was playing Sam's role. He soldiered on regardless, and if he was playing Sam he may as well get the lines right.

"Your dog bin run over?"

Another surprised glance sideways as Sam recognised his own words. He laughed, that rather unpleasant and slightly-crazier-than-usual laugh Tyler'd taken up over the last day or two. The one that came without a hint of a smile.

"No Guv. Just... having a quiet drink."

Gene settled himself more comfortably beside Sam on the tatty bench seat and sparked up a ciggie. Threw out a few casual remarks about the state of Sam's beloved Reds, got nothing but a disinterested grunt in reply.

He was starting to realise that the mistake he'd made with Tyler wouldn't be so easy to fix. Shagging him had been so far out of line it was dizzy, to borrow one of Sam's lively metaphors, but after, even Sam seemed to realise they'd overstepped that line. So damage control should have been simple, a little pretending it never happened until they both forgot about it. Gene couldn't do it. Remembered all too well the gleam in Sam's eyes as they'd fought and doubted his own self-control if he found that gleam was still there. He'd been so afraid to be his usual hands-on self that he'd gone to some great lengths to avoid the little poof altogether.

He had succeeded so well it had taken him a while to notice how very odd Sam had become. Now Gene had nothing against a little oddness, but Tyler'd never been the full shilling and odd for him was way past the minimum requirement for a padded cell. He'd been sullen in the office, on the few occasions Gene had found it necessary to speak to him, and Gene assumed that was for his benefit, could hardly complain. He'd not challenged Gene, fought him on any one point, and for that much Gene was grateful. Let Sam have his sulk. But his team wasn't the same clunky, badly oiled but effective machine without Tyler's strangely shaped cog. And his old oddities had started to intrude on Gene's notice again. The loud conversations on phones that weren't plugged in, sudden nonsense rants he addressed to the ceiling.

"Got any brainwaves on the [factory name] case?"

Gene wanted this killer, very badly. Needed his old DI back on the case, insubordination and all. Needed his DI back on the planet of human beings before he took that final step from eccentric to strait-jacket. But Sam wasn't playing ball; he shook his head silently.

"Not even going to tell me how the dead bloke were my fault? Most unlike you."

Like blood out of a stone. Tyler didn't even bother with a silent response to that one. Even now, with Tyler withdrawn, no hint of a gleam anywhere, and Gene still found himself distracted by the sense memory of that wiry frame against his in a hundred different fights and a handful of times that weren't fights. And every night, around the fifth beer, it got harder to remember the wrong of it. Wiry wasn't an adjective he'd every looked for in a woman but it suited Sam and the thought of sinewy muscle now had the same affect on Gene as passing cleavage. Sam's every muscle was tight now, belying his disinterested slouch.

"C'mon Tyler. Need ideas. How we gonna get these blaggers?"

"Beat someone up?" suggested Sam listlessly.

"That's half a plan," Gene agreed mildly. "Needs you on board to tell me when to stop, but."

Something flickered across Sam's face at that, something that Gene couldn't quite interpret but it pinged his copper's instincts and if Sam had been a suspect he'd've pushed on for a confession. As he didn't suspect Sam of anything more than being a bit of a drama queen, he just hammered the point home.

"Got used to you holding me back, Tyler. Necessary role and all that."

That flicker again. Guilt, Gene decided, and he didn't like it. Couldn't see the why of it. Was used to his DI always being sure he was in the right and he'd expected anger. Anger he got in Sam's words, but his tone lacked conviction.

"Are you going to give me a lecture on being a team player? Because that's be a bit rich, don't you think?"

"Well I'm an arsehole. Can't say you've only just noticed. That enough to make you forget you're a copper?"

Sam took a sip of his beer. Didn't look at Gene. In the same wooden tone he'd used earlier in the office he assured his superior officer he'd seen the error of his ways and his work would improve. Gene kicked him in the shin, just for the fun of seeing a more genuine reaction. Non-contact violence, he mused, that could work.

"You can cut that bollocks right out. If I wanted a DI that agreed with me I'd'a fired you a long time ago. And I'm trying-"

"I think I should leave."

He addressed his pint and for all Gene knew the drink had asked Sam a question. Gene brushed it off, wasn't a day went by when Tyler didn't talk about leaving.

"Back to Hyde? Where the constables weave daisies into their hair and the DCIs have magic wands?"

"No." Sam replied with some vehemence, though his eyes never left his pint. "Just... You don't want me here, Guv. I'm dangerous to you."

Gene narrowed his eyes, knew that already and didn't like that Tyler knew it too. "We talking mad axeman dangerous or Christine Keeler dangerous?"

"I could end you."

"There's hardly a week you don't come close. Got used to it."

"I should go. I'm not-"

"Oh, shut your cakehole. What you need is to quit feeling sorry for yourself. I'm trying to say sorry here and all you can do is blather on 'bout running away."

That got a genuine reaction. Surprise first, naturally enough - Gene Hunt was not in the habit of handing out apologies. Then that something else again and Sam was standing up, scooping his keys from the table. Gene caught him by the shirt-tails of that ridiculously neat jacket and yanked him back down. Half hoped to see that spark of a fight behind hazel eyes but Sam prised his fingers from the leather with such gentleness that Gene had to let him. The look in his eyes was a hundred different things but none of them confrontational. Though Gene didn't like to admit it, the man looked defeated already.

"I have to go, Gene. I just... I need to think."

He stood again and this time Gene let him go. His eyes followed Sam's determined stalk to the door then he turned his attention back to the beer in front of him, tipped the dregs from his own pint into Sam's barely-touched one and appropriated his glass. It wasn't unusual from Sam to have an unsettling affect on Gene's substantial gut nowadays but he'd never before touched the part that housed his famed copper's instincts. Was worrying, that. Moreso even than the way Gene couldn't help but watch that rear view as he'd made his exit.

After Morgan had left Sam sitting on his own grave, his feet had taken him back to CID automatically. At five o'clock he followed the crowd, still on autopilot, to the Railway Arms, noticing no-one and nothing but his own inner turmoil until Gene had slapped a pint down in front of him. Knocked him for six. He left - fled - the pub with no less turmoil and a good deal more guilt. Had walked the four miles back to his grave and sat and sat until he was sober again and numb with cold and a few things drifting in the maelstrom in his head solidified and began to make sense.

Sam had been back and forth like a ping-pong ball all day and as he'd left the Railway Arms one tiny word, one more conflicting emotion, might have sent him over the edge into insanity. The gibbering kind, not the pale imitation he dealt with every day.

The talk with Gene in his office earlier - years ago - had been... surprising. Set something unpleasant nagging at the back of his brain though he'd tried to stay focused. Fifteen minutes later he'd been staring at a corpse that put him right back on track. Immutable confirmation that Gene's cavalier methods ended lives, even if they were imaginary lives, and that he was doing the right thing in this world to get back to his own. His meeting with Morgan had rocked that certainty to its foundations.

He played his part, handed over the transcript of that first interview he'd secretly taped, told Morgan all about the death at [factory name], only to find out that the cancer was a metaphor. He had heard exactly what he had wanted to hear - a way back home when all that had been offered was some career-aiding destruction. And the man he'd thought of as some kind of guide dreamed up by his mind to lead him home was nothing but a policeman with a vendetta.

Sam's anger and righteous indignation might have kept him going but the anger had melted in the face of Gene's apology and the indignation seemed now to be on the petty side of righteous. Angry as he had been, Sam had never been able to deny that when it came to policing Gene did the best he knew how for the good of his city. And that best could be - had been - better with Sam's tempering and guidance. Morgan, who Sam had looked at as some kind of benevolent saviour, took on a certain malevolence as he'd talked about destroying Gene Hunt. Sam's judgement cleared without the promise of home dangling so temptingly in front of his nose and he could see that Morgan was wrong. Gene's sometimes indefensible methods were nothing more than a product of the force he served in and that force wouldn't be strengthened by removing him when there was so much worse to be found.

Getting home and doing right, the two things he'd been sure of the last three days. And if he had to doubt them he had to doubt everything. As Sam stared at the graves of his imaginary parents, he realised he was thinking of Gene as a real man again and now it seemed impossible that he'd ever believed he was a figment. Arrogant, almost, to believe his mind could dream up such a complex, unique individual. All too much to deal with when his mind was still reeling from the shock of discovering he wasn't on his way home at all. That there was no escape.

Real or unreal, right and wrong, everything blurred together until the only thing Sam was certain of was Gene Hunt. Gene who might not exist but had to because Sam knew him.

By five am Sam was almost frozen solid, but his mind was made up. For once in his tightly controlled life there was no place for rational argument and, decision made, he wasted no time in acting.

If anyone was surprised by DI Tyler walking into the station hours before dawn on a freezing November morning then that surprise didn't register with Sam; he was entirely focused on his task. Five minutes at his desk was all it took to collect the tapes and transcripts he'd gathered, and the MARS folder Morgan had given him. He walked straight to the Guv's house from the nick, not daring to stop moving, to give himself the chance to bottle out. It took a very brave man to destroy his own life, his hope for the future, and Sam was afraid he'd find his courage lacking if he stopped for just a second to consider the consequences.

2006 was lost to him. There was no way back home and even if there had been it wouldn't have mattered. If destroying Gene Hunt was what it took to get back to his own time then he'd left it too long, would never be able to push the button while he could remember that brusque apology, that awkward attempt at reconciliation. He'd never take that definitive step and he could live with that. No, it was the consequences in 1973 that he couldn't bear to think of. He couldn't look Gene in the face with that folder sitting in his desk, had no choice but to confess, though he knew it would be the final nail in the coffin of a friendship that might just have survived the sex. So he wouldn't think. He'd turn over everything he'd gathered, follow it up with his resignation and afterwards, that's what he'd think about what the hell he'd do next.

Sam secretly believed it would never come to that. That once he'd given up the fight here there'd be nothing keeping him going in 2006 and he would cease to exist. He did wonder briefly if that meant this world would cease to exist also but that was a conundrum beyond his understanding and made no difference to his actions. His choices were made not according to what he should do but what he couldn't, and any thoughts concerning what might or might not be real were going to get the mental equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and humming. It was Sam's single-minded focus that carried his feet all the way to Gene's front door, that raised his fist and demanded entrance and it didn't fail him until the front door swung open.

He'd been prepared for the Guv's glowering disapproval, before and after he confessed. He hadn't been prepared for six foot of sleepy Gene, in flannelette pyjamas, pillow creases across his face and bed hair that was nothing short of adorable. Took much of the sting from the predicted glower. It was steeling yourself to face a dragon only to be met with a cuddly teddy-bear and maybe it was closer to hysteria than humour but Sam couldn't stop the grin that spread across his face. Here was one image that could keep him warm through an unemployed 1970's existence or whatever afterlife he was destined for.

He raised one hand in a slightly ironic wave as Gene dragged a palm over his six o'clock shadow. "Hi," he said perkily.

Gene stared at him a second, impassive, unblinking, green eyes alert and searching. Sam had half expected the meaty fist that shot out in his direction, grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked; things deviated from expectations when the surface he crashed into was Gene's bulky form and the plot took a sharp u-turn as a hot, insistent mouth closed over his.

As a way of stopping all thought it was a thousand times more effective than his mental humming. Sam's world shrank to the tongue searching his mouth, the hand on the back of his neck, bristles rubbing against his chin. He was swept away by the momentum of it all and he obviously hadn't learned his lesson from their last, disastrously intimate encounter because Sam let himself be swept. The kiss was forceful like Sam would have expected and soft like he hadn't. Gene's free hand wandered slowly, down Sam's back and over his hip, commanding him closer until Sam could feel them both start to harden.

Gene pulled back first, though he kept a tight hold on Sam's shirt as he growled: "I thought I told you to stop doing that!"

"I'm sorry," Sam started, because he'd come here with a heavy conscience, those words ready on his tongue. "I... Wait. Do what?"

"Bein' all... available!"

He backed Sam against the door-jamb, the intensity in his eyes belying the mock-ire in his voice. This time Sam could see his intention and wriggled out of his hold while he could still remember why he had to. There was only so much one man could give up. He stood in the middle of the pavement, clutching his messy sheaf of papers in front of him like a shield. Gene narrowed his eyes, cocked his head slightly in that assessing look Sam knew so well.

"Now you start doing what I tell you?"

If Gene had moved then, Sam couldn't have stepped away twice. But Gene didn't move.

"I've got something to tell you, Guv."

Maybe it was the use of his title, maybe something he heard in Sam's voice, but the man in front of him was suddenly all policeman again, pyjamas notwithstanding. He jerked his head towards the darkened interior of his house and stood aside to let Sam pass.

Sam dumped his transcripts and interview tapes on Gene's kitchen table with the air of a conjurer but Gene headed straight for the kettle and didn't bother glancing at the pile until there were two mugs of tea standing beside it. Then he sat down, lit a fag and sifted through the lot, a quick glance at each transcript until he got to the MARS folder. Sam leant against the kitchen counter and watched, firmly ignoring the nervous energy that was trying to dictate he pace. His tea went cold as Gene read carefully through each loose sheet in the folder until at last he was done. He looked up at Sam expectantly.

"What's this then?"

Sam was wrong-footed. 'This,' he thought, was fully explained in the folder and it wasn't like Gene not to catch on quick. Or to be backward about expressing himself with his fists.

"My resignation," he said eventually.

"Thought you'd come for a bit of the old slap and tickle, meself." Gene's tone was casual, at odds with his penetrating stare. "Maybe it was on my mind."

"And I thought you didn't like to kiss. Guess we're both full of surprises."

As happened all too often since he'd landed in 1973, Sam winced at the sound of his own words and the petulant tone they seemed to come out in. His conscience might have led him here but it turned out his pride still had an objection or two. Though Gene's expression didn't reflect the dig, his stare now felt reproving to Sam.

"I'm an old dog, Sam. Takes me a while to learn new tricks." .

That admission was bordering on Gene's second apology of the night and as such should have been jaw-dropping, but Sam's shock sensors were so burned out after a fortnight of revelations that one barely registered. Added only slightly to the guilt wrapped around Sam's intestines, because he knew the failing was his and not Gene's. If he hadn't let himself get so mired in self-pity he might have remembered little things like patience and tolerance. If he hadn't let that self-pity turn to anger he'd never have taken Morgan's hand so easily. Life, as usual, dealt its own punishments. He'd been a melodramatic twat and now he was squirming under Gene's hard gaze and not discovering where that doorstep kiss might have led.

"Is that why you're resigning?"

Sam shook his head though, in a convoluted way, it was quite true. Looking back, eyes unclouded by hurt or misery, it seemed depressingly simple. Like a petulant child denied the thing he wanted, he reacted with spite and every bad decision led back to the man he fancied not stopping for a snog. Bad enough thinking in those terms, worse when he remembered how spooked Gene had been that night. There was no sign of that now; Gene sat calmly at the table, twirling one of Sam's neatly labelled cassette tapes between his fingers and regarding his DI thoughtfully.

"I don't want you to resign."

Sam laughed incredulously. "My job is to take you down."

"No." Gene tossed the cassette into the middle of the table, eyes boring into Sam. "Your job is to keep the streets of Manchester that little bit cleaner and you're damned good at it. You were born for it." That registered on the shock-o-meter, Sam's jaw worked in silent surprise as Gene carried on. "I don't accept your resignation, Tyler." He dusted off his hands, as if that was one matter settled. "Now, that twat from Hyde got copies of this little lot?"

"No. He's got the tape of the McEwan interview. And he knows about Danny Croucher."

"Is he going to get the rest?"

"No."

Gene leaned back in his chair and sparked up a second cigarette. Took a long slow drag and then another and Sam couldn't read him at all.

"Kicking a nonce, won't get me nothing but a pat on the back from my revered superiors. I should bleeding well sack you, Sammy-boy."

"I just resigned."

"No you didn't. Eight bleeding months undercover and all you've got by way of a case is a couple tapes of summat that'd only count as violence in the fairy world in your head. You should be ashamed of yourself."

"I am, Guv."

Gene narrowed his eyes, gave that short, barely perceptible nod that let Sam know he'd been understood. "You're not cut out for undercover. Better on the mean streets."

"DCI Morgan-"

"If he'd wanted to keep you he shouldn't have sent you to me. You're staying put."

Gene stood, ground his cigarette out on the manilla cover of the MARS report and swept the lot into the kitchen bin. He advanced slowly on Sam.

"I had one of those cacophony jobbies," he said conversationally. As if he was unaware of the affect he was having on his prey, though Sam was sure he wasn't. "A whatchamacalit, when you see the light?"

"An epiphany?"

"That's the one. All this thinking bollocks you put yourself through - not good for a chap. Plays merry hell with me constitution."

"It does?"

Gene stopped less than a foot away and Sam was frozen, a rabbit in those piercing green headlights.

"Aye. Throws me off my game." One step more and Gene's knee was between Sam's legs. "I'm giving it up. Don't say you haven't been warned."

Sam missed the warning, heard the words but he'd stopped listening, his eyes following Gene's hand as it moved towards him, until they crossed and could follow no longer. Gene's fingers slid slowly through Sam's short hair with more tenderness than Sam would have thought him capable of, saying more than the words he'd tuned out, more than the lust he could hear in Gene's rough voice. The combination was having a dual affect on Sam's brain and knees and he wobbled uncertainly toward a coherent sentence.

"We're in your kitchen, Guv."

"Well I didn't mean I'd given up thinking that much. I- Oh. Wife's away. With her sister. New nephew just arrived. Now you wake me up in the dead of night with this pile of manure. I'm owed some recompense. A shag, to be specific."

Sam gulped. Tried to remember the shagging was where it had all gone wrong in the first place. But Sam's voice wouldn't help him share his objections so he nodded instead.

"What I don't want is you moping around the office like a wet weekend."

Sam shook his head, hair threading through Gene's fingers as he moved.

"Don't want none of that fluffy talk, neither. I'm not a poof, right?"

"I'm a bloke, Gene."

"Well yeah. You be how you like - but you're not signing me up for knitting classes or getting me up in Lycra."

Sam blinked, taken aback by that mental image. Gene's eyes were drawing him in, his mouth inches away, and Sam felt himself smiling. Couldn't tamp it down, though the sensation was unsettling after two weeks of pouting.

"No Lycra?"

There was a brief answering crease at the corner of Gene's mouth. "You need someone to buy you flowers and tell you you're pretty, you know where the door is."

"I hate flowers. Maybe we could compromise."

More than a crease, this time, and Sam could feel laughter bubbling up inside. "Fine," Gene growled. "You're pretty." He dipped his head, stopping, frustratingly, an inch from Sam's mouth. Sam didn't close the distance, didn't seem to be able to move at all.

"You get under my skin, Sam, and sometimes it itches."

Fluffy talk, bloke style. It was more than enough of a promise for Sam, compliment and confession and when Gene moved that last inch Sam's lips were already parted.

There was no feeling around, testing each other. Gene kissed thoroughly, pressing Sam back against the kitchen counter and holding him there as he ravished his mouth. Confirming Sam's initial impression that being kissed by Gene Hunt was quite an experience, that invaded every sense and left him thoughtless. He struggled to give as good as he got, pushing back until they were grinding against one another, finesse disintegrating into a desperate fumble for bare skin under cloth. Sam won the clothing race, making short work of outsized buttons and pushing down Gene's pyjama bottoms as Gene was still blindly trying to untuck Sam's shirt. His tugging stopped as Sam wrapped a firm hand around Gene's rock-hard erection. New territory and Sam might have stopped to look and linger but Gene thrust into his hand with an obscene noise of want that went straight to Sam's cock and instinct took over.

He took advantage of Gene's distraction to reverse their positions, so it was Gene pressed back against the counter and Sam attacking him. Hand sliding eagerly over hot flesh, mouth hungry and clumsy until Gene pushed him away.

"Slow down, you mad bugger. I'm not going anywhere," he panted.

Sam could hear the crack in his breathless voice as he batted Sam's hands away and reached for his belt buckle. It was an extra turn-on for a mind almost overloaded. Deprived of his own groping Sam took an evasive step back to regard Gene. The bed-hair was nicely complimented by the just-kissed mouth and a look in those green eyes that Sam hadn't seen before. His eyes followed the line of Gene's now open pyjama top to where Gene was standing proud over the elastic of his trousers.

"Slow, huh?"

Gene's eyes narrowed, a mix of lust and suspicion, then widened as Sam dropped to his knees. His hand stroked up the inside of Gene's solid thigh, skimmed lightly over rough hair and tight balls to encircle the base of his shaft, Gene's eyes following every movement. Sam leaned forward, mouth open and intention obvious, savouring the scent and anticipation.

"I'm not doing that," said Gene bluntly.

Sam looked up at him, ran his tongue over his top lip in a nervous motion that made Gene shudder. "You'll fuck me up the arse but you don't want a blow-job? Are there rules to this 'not a poof' thing I should know about?"

Gene tugged on Sam's short hair, a gesture clearly meant to bring Sam to his feet rather than closer to his goal. Sam stayed on his knees, dampened his lips again and this time the effect was deliberate.

"Looking for a shag, not an apolo-" Gene cut off with a hiss as Sam ducked forward, swiped his tongue over Gene's purpling helmet. He looked up again to catch Gene's wide eyes and shrugged.

"I want to."

He wrapped a hand firmly round the base of Gene's cock, tight enough to feel the blood pumping underneath. Slid his fingers up, silky skin over rock-hard vessels. The scent of Gene's arousal filled his nose and mouth, that universal earthy musk drowning out yesterday's sweat and beer. Holding Gene's gaze he stretched his tongue out to trace over the slit.

"If you don't like it...?"

Sam licked again, careful and deliberate, starting a slow rhythm with his hand. Waited for permission. Gene's eyes fluttered closed, then open again.

"You're a dirty, filthy man, Sam Tyler."

Sam grinned broadly before taking Gene into his mouth. A snog and a grope had brought them both close to the edge and Gene was leaking steadily as Sam sucked on the head of his cock. His hands returned to Sam's hair, gripping tightly, and the tingle in his scalp went straight to Sam's groin. He wriggled as he worked Gene, finding friction against the seam of his thin polyester slacks.

Gene's hips started moving in time to Sam's bobbing head, pushing further down with each thrust. Sam swallowed around the head as it pushed into his throat and let Gene take over - fucking his face to his own rhythm - one hand clutching Gene's arse, holding him up, the other frantically rubbing himself through his trousers. He could hear Gene talking now, half-finished swearwords and a hissing, choked noise that could have been Sam's own name.

Gene's low groan as he flooded Sam's mouth vibrated through his body and Sam's; that and his own hand through fabric was enough to get Sam off and, as Gene finished spending, Sam came in his pants.

When awareness returned Sam was slumped uncomfortably against one of the kitchen cupboards. Gene was still leaning against the counter opposite, head tilted back, a towering giant from Sam's viewpoint near the floor and his expression out of sight.

Half-wary, half-sated, Sam started the long climb back to his feet, until he was leaning next to Gene. The broad grin on his face as he turned to look at Sam was calming. He glanced down at the wet patch that was making Sam's trousers uncomfortably clingy, hitched his eyebrows in what could have been surprise or mockery but said nothing. Gene rolled his neck and stretched, shoulder jostling companionable against Sam's, and it wasn't flowers and kisses but it was perfectly them, a much-missed easy silence as intimate as any touch.

They must present an interesting tableaux, Sam thought - Gene naked from the waist down, Sam damp and dishevelled - but the floral kitchen blinds were closed against any early morning audience and Gene either hadn't noticed or didn't care that his pyjamas were pooled round his feet.

"Me fags are over there," Gene said eventually. Sam's eyes followed the jerk of his head to the kitchen table and slowly caught Gene's meaning.

"A long and arduous journey. Would you like me to fetch them for you?"

Gene, typically, ignored the heavy sarcasm and smiled his agreement. With a long suffering sigh he couldn't really feel, Sam pushed off the counter and took a step towards the table. He was stopped short by Gene's hand fisting in his shirt, yanking him back until they were nose to nose and Sam's lips parted in anticipation.

"And a fresh pot, while you're there," Gene added, releasing Sam with a little push. Again, it took a second or two for Sam to process, his eyes and mind both fixed on Gene's lips.

"Tea?" he asked stupidly.

Gene nodded towards the window, still dark though the world was beginning to stir outside. "Bit early for whisky. In fact, you may as well get brekkie on."

Sam obeyed, tossing Gene his cigarettes on his way to the stove, the sticky and cooling mess in his trousers making itself felt as he moved. When he looked again Gene was decent, watching Sam with an unreadable look as he warmed the pot and slid some toast under the grill. He smoked in silence until his cigarette was done and Sam was buttering the toast.

"Are you staying?" Gene asked suddenly, voice ringing over the low scrape of the butter knife. Sam shot him a questioning look over his shoulder.

"A division. Salford," Gene expounded. "My team."

Sam considered the question with surprise. He'd been told he was staying, and somehow that had seemed the end of that.

"If you'll have me."

Gene snorted. "Bein' coy, Tyler, or picking up the double-entendre? I'll have you on my team as long as you get results same as every other bastard. What I want to know is - do you want to stay?"

Sam nodded. So many explanations and apologies that he owed Gene, he didn't know where to start. "Guv..."

"I don't want to talk about it," said Gene hastily, the difference between talk and torture not apparent in his tone. "That'll do for me. We'll leave Morgan for tomorrow. Let the little prick think his mole's still digging away."

He crossed the kitchen in two long strides, took his toast and tea out of Sam's hands and left the bemused DI to follow. Sam had no wish to talk or think of Morgan either, and Gene's new philosophy had never seemed more attractive, so follow he did, into the sitting room where the light was dimmer. And it felt perfectly natural to sit and sip tea as Gene demolished his toast. When Gene put the plate aside to light yet another cigarette Sam tilted his head back on the sofa and his eyes drifted shut to the contented rasping of abused lungs.

He'd not drifted far when the cushions shifted beside him, but the sleepless nights caught up in a rush and Sam didn't open his eyes until Gene seized his feet and swung his legs round. He struggled to focus as Gene deposited Sam's Cuban heels on the far arm of the sofa.

"Best you get forty winks, or you'll be useless today. 'M gonna get dressed."

Sam made a half-hearted attempt at a nod, squinting against the first light sneaking past the curtains. Let his eyes close fully and didn't once think of the chance to get home that had never been real. He was asleep before Gene's footsteps had reached the top of the stairs.

"And look, here's the evening shift starting early. Afternoon, Sunshine."

Strolling into work a mere three hours late, Sam had interrupted what might have been a midday briefing in another time - Gene heckling his team in this one. This highly unfair opening sally was followed up with a cuff round the head and Sam scowled at the bastard who had allowed him to oversleep. He sank into his seat with a bad grace that he hoped disguised his relief.

The house had felt empty when Sam had awoken and a little checking proved it so; he hadn't been sure what to make of that. The old-fashioned clock on the mantle told him he was already too late to bother with haste so he had a bath in Gene's flowery bathroom and manfully resisted the urge to poke around below the well polished and doilied surface of Gene's home. Aside from the dated photos, the only obvious signs of Gene's residence were the empty cups and overflowing ashtrays scattered around. He didn't look in the bedroom.

"To recap for sleeping beauty here, we've got a hit and run on Carslake Road. The body was known to us, Andy McGovern, and my gut tells me this one was deliberate. Too many people wanted that little scrote dead for it to be luck. Those of you that bothered dragging your carcasses in before lunch know what you're doing. Tyler, you're with me, we'll round up the likelies. Chop chop."

As usual when Hunt ordered no-one dallied. Sam followed him out to the Cortina, slid into the passenger seat and braced himself for the death-defying experience that was riding shotgun with the Guv. Strangely, he realised he'd missed it.

Gene filled him in on the unsavoury details of McGovern's life and death as they sped through Manchester's narrower side-streets. Nothing in his manner suggested he was the same man that had covered his DI in a worn blanket before leaving for work, but Sam was learning how easily the DCI mask came down. On reflection, he decided his seat in the Cortina said enough.

The name at the top of Gene's list of potentials had moved on from his last known address, so it was back in the Cortina to look for known associates.

"Who's this DCI Williams, than?" Gene asked, after a couple of minutes' companionable silence. The question caught Sam unawares - in a couple of short hours he'd managed to put Morgan and the MARS project entirely out of his mind.

"Where did you hear that name?"

"Was on your folder. And you'd best not be getting cagey with me, Tyler. Answer the question."

Sam didn't trust his ability to get a lie past Gene's infamous instincts so he took the truth as far as it might be believed. "Morgan said he was me."

"Don't you know?"

"I don't remember ever being called anything but Tyler."

Gene narrowed his eyes and Sam knew he'd noticed his careful evasion. It was so awfully tempting to confess the whole ridiculous, incredible truth. Would be such a relief, even as he knew he could never be believed. But he recognised it for another of those selfish impulses. Unfair, he knew, to dump his impossible existence on the man who'd already taken all his evidence of betrayal with scarcely a word.

"Morgan said I had an accident before I left Hyde. That I have amnesia."

"You say that like you don't believe him."

"I don't know."

Gene's eyes narrowed further, his attention fixed on Sam with a worrying disregard for the road. Then he pursed his lips in that facial shrug that indicated Gene had done his internal digesting and reached his own conclusions. Mental illness wasn't, apparently, something that warranted further discussion. They covered another half-mile before Gene declared casually: "I've half a mind to sort that little twat the old-fashioned way. My knuckles always wanted to know him better."

The idea sent a chill through Sam that he couldn't exactly place. Somewhere along the way Gene had made an enemy of Morgan without ever meeting him, and while Sam would back Gene in a fair fight - or rather, a physical fight - Morgan was an unknown quantity. A devious, untrustable quantity. An ambitious, unscrupulous officer or possibly a conduit to the future but most certainly a threat.

"Don't think that's such a good idea, Guv."

"You'd better think of a better, then, hadn't you?"

Sam blinked, dissipating the arguments he'd been marshalling, the agreement momentarily stunning him. He glanced at Gene again, but his thought processes were written nowhere on his face. Sam could only assume that this easy acquiescence was Gene's way of offering him something. A chance to make amends, or prove his loyalty, Sam wasn't sure. He'd have seized the opportunity with both hands if his brain didn't get stuck when it came to Morgan, a looping internal argument of real and not real, right and wrong that precluded planning. And again - after the fact - Sam was realising how selfish he could be. Stared to wonder how much this morning's grand confession had been about his conscience and how much was just throwing in the towel.

He got no chance to respond, as Gene pulled up outside a warehouse unfamiliar to Sam. They found their man, easy enough to spot from the way he legged it as soon as he saw DCI Hunt. Some on-the-spot questioning indicated he was guilty of nothing more than the usual fencing and dealing, so after a brief detour to dump him at the station they went for number two on Gene's list. This second suspect, Peter Bates, at least had the wit not to deny things at random until he'd been accused, and was cagey when pressed on the subject of his motor vehicle. On this evidence Gene declared him guilty and returned to the station with instructions to Sam to sort out the details like evidence and confession.

Sam, with a rare look outside his immediate field of interest, remembered Gene wasn't the only friend he'd burnt bridges with, and asked Annie to do the interview with him. It was a fruitless interrogation but nonetheless Sam felt he'd achieved something by the time they returned the suspect to the cells. It was without the frostiness that had become habitual that Annie set off to do the legwork, tracking down the car-stroke-murder-weapon that Bates claimed not to own. Sam returned to his desk with a vague feeling of contentment and was entirely unsurprised when Morgan phoned precisely two minutes later.

Apparently that was the way the world worked, real or not. Murphy had stalked him to 1973 and what could go wrong definitely would. Sam had thought he would be able to buy himself more time, at least, but even there Morgan had other ideas.

"Good news, Sam," he announced, with that slimy bonhomie that Sam was beginning to detest. "I know how keen you've been to get back home. Looks like it might only be another day or two."

"But I've got nothing concrete," said Sam. It was true enough. Anything concrete he may have had was now sitting in Gene's kitchen bin. He had no plan at all for dealing with Morgan, had barely managed to wrap his head around Gene, had thought there was time enough for everything else. He'd been 'undercover' for months, after all, prevaricating for a few more days or weeks should have been easy.

"But your information has been most useful," Morgan purred. "I've got men working on things from this end. We haven't abandoned you."

Sam bit back the defensive, Gene-esque reply he was tempted to make. Whatever was up, he could only make things worse by showing his hand now. "There've been some complications here," he hedged. And again, it was nothing but the truth. "We can't move too soon, I-"

"Don't you worry about that, Sam. Won't do to tip him off until he's dead in our sights, what? But take heart, that time will be soon."

"What... What are you... What's that supposed to mean?"

"Now, Sam, you know I can't say too much over the phone," Morgan replied smoothly to Sam's stuttering. "Not until we're ready to strike. I'll call you in the morning, arrange another meet. Or perhaps tomorrow will be the day? Then we can get you some leave. A nice holiday for that tired brain of yours."

The dial tone was left to answer the rest of Sam's questions. He slammed the phone down with a clatter, glaring venomously at the receiver. His uneasy relationship with phones was by now an unremarkable thing to CID and nobody had any comment to make about DI Tyler spending the last ten minutes of his working day giving the evil eye to a unresponsive piece of plastic.

It was Gene who broke the spell. Maybe he'd had enough of watching his DI engage in a malevolent battle of wills with an inanimate object or, equally possible, he was thirsty. Either way, he announced beer o'clock half an hour early, in his own unique way. Striding out of his inner sanctum, hauling his DI out of his chair by the collar of his jacket on the way past and declaring 'pub' to the room at large. It was probably strange to miss the random, almost affectionate acts of violence but there, Sam decided, it was. Almost certainly, he reassured himself, no stranger than finding yourself in the wrong era. He was swept out of the room with a golden glow of nostalgia for a fortnight past.

And as if by magic, the Railway Arms was restored to the jovial second home it had been becoming. The poker and darts and crude humour hadn't stopped during Sam's crisis of identity but he'd felt excluded, had excluded himself. Today he ordered a round and sat in the middle of the bar, feeling Gene's radiating approval. Indeed, so pleased was Gene to see Sam back and drinking with his team that Sam began to wonder if there hadn't been an ulterior motive for those early morning kisses. In the occasional quiet moment Sam entertained the idea of the Guv trading his dubious virtue for the sake of team building. And he wasn't the only one not bothering to hide his approval. Nelson's warm greeting and Chris' constant, encouraging company all served to remind Sam of what a dick he'd been. That Gene had been a dick too now felt a paltry excuse.

In an even quieter moment Sam tried to bring up Morgan's phone call but Gene dismissed him, as he'd suspected he would. Sam couldn't quite bring himself to ruin the celebratory atmosphere by pushing the issue, though Morgan's words were still creeping up the back of his neck. It was that same atmosphere that kept Sam in the pub long after he should have gone home, still nursing his third pint though his eyelids were drooping. But a brief morning nap couldn't counter a week of sleepless nights, by nine o'clock Sam was wilting and sense won out. He reminded himself the pub would still be there tomorrow and said his good nights. He hadn't reached the corner of the road before Gene fell into step beside him.

"Sneaking off, Gladys?"

"If you want to count announcing my departure as sneaking."

"You do need to work on your sneaking skills," Gene agreed. Sam shot him a look, not sure why he was being blessed with company, their earlier aborted conversation running through his head. He wasn't sure where he stood with Gene either, suspected that asking would most definitely count as fluffy talk and he was far too tired for diplomatic feelers. He found, surprisingly, he was content to wait and see. It wouldn't last, he knew himself better than that and it wasn't in his nature to be complacent, but he'd made his decision - 1973 for better or worse, and right now he was as chilled out and philosophical as it was possible for him to be. There was only Morgan, niggling, upsetting his equilibrium.

Gene turned off as they walked past the station and Sam stopped on the corner, uncertain. "Car," Gene called over his shoulder in explanation. He must have sensed Sam's stillness because he paused after two more steps, turned around. "I left the Cortina at the nick," he expounded. "You coming or not?"

It couldn't possibly be true, of course, but Sam thought he could he could hear a note of uncertainty in Gene's voice; he followed with an alacrity that left no doubt of his preferences. Chatting about Hyde didn't seem to be on the agenda and some things were worth a little sleep deprivation.

Gene got into the car in silence and Sam slid in next to him. "What's up, Guv?"

Direct, easily avoidable, and not even a hint of the fluffy.

"Buggered if I know." Sam saw the corners of Gene's mouth twitch up as he started the car. "And I don't know, so don't go getting any ideas. There's not nothing going up my arse."

Sam laughed; Gene's gruff humour seeping into tired bones like warmth. "That was a double negative, Guv. Don't they teach you anything in DCI school?" He ducked back automatically from the cuff Gene aimed at him and slid his hand teasingly over Gene's thigh, mostly in jest. "What's the matter? Afraid you might like it?"

Gene scowled down at the hand in his lap with such force that Sam hastily withdrew it. Scowl followed hand and travelled up to Sam's face.

"No," he said bluntly. It took Sam a second to realise Gene was answering his question and not the light-hearted groping. "Dunno why you do."

Sam opened his mouth, to say what he never found out, because Gene got in first.

"Wasn't a question, Tyler, so don't you go telling me." He caught Sam's hand and placed it firmly back in his lap. No tentative teasing of thighs for Gene, he slapped Sam's hand firmly over the bulge in his trousers. "Only intend to take advantage of it."

"You do?"

"While I can. I'm a man of easy morals. Don't tell me you're surprised." A flick of the wheel and Gene was taking a corner at a speed that made Sam acutely glad the roads were mostly empty. If the twitching he could feel against his palm was any indication, Gene couldn't be fully focused on his driving. "Wife'll be back tomorrow, most like."

Sam bit back the 'and then what?' settled instead for tightening his fingers. If Gene could learn to be gay, Sam could surely learn patience. Besides, tomorrow was a long way away and he was getting a little distracted himself.

Sam could tell from the plain décor and the neatly made bed that Gene had taken him to the spare room. It wasn't a nicety at the forefront of his mind as Gene pounded into him. Most of his thoughts, for then and some minutes after, were variations on the word 'guh'. By the time Gene flopped down beside him, sweaty and panting, he was floating happily, listening to Gene's heavy breathing as the mists cleared.

"Well that blew the cobwebs out," Gene remarked. "No doubt about it Tyler, you'll have to get a proper bed at that flat of yours."

Sam knew the acceptable manly response here would be to grunt, maybe make a lewd comment about the non-standard uses of tables. But he was fairly certain Gene had already labelled him the girl in this thing between them so he may as well go the whole hog, poking and prodding for confirmation.

"So, we doing this again then?"

Gene let the silence stretch until Sam was squirming. "Yesterday," he began ponderously, "you got off on sucking my cock." Gene sniffed. "That's not a thing a man passes over lightly."

Next thing Sam knew was Gene standing over him, fully dressed, right up to the coat and gloves. Poking Sam with a set of car keys and saying his name in a way that indicated he'd said it once or twice before. There was no sign of dawn, only the open door and the landing light allowing him to see Gene at all.

"'s night-time," Sam protested, attempting to burrow under the blankets and escape the persistent keys.

"Shift at the colliery changes at seven," Gene explained briskly. "Can't be late on me first day. You take the Cortina, reckon it's a bit flash for a miner."

"Won't people think it's a bit strange if I turn up in your car?"

"Tell 'em I dropped it off at yours, you prat." He pushed the keys into Sam's hand and ruffled his hair. He was turning to leave by the time Sam really woke up, parsed what was going on.

"Wait! Why are you going to the colliery? What... I mean, What?"

"Ray picked up the bloke who gave Croucher's name to the blaggers, so we've got an in. I'm going to be a miner, he's going to introduce me next. No more civilians, eh?"

"And you couldn't tell me this yesterday!"

"You were busy with Bates." Gene looked innocent. Sam knew from his innocent looks. "'Sides, thought you'd approve. Doing that softly softly thing. You like that."

If there was an innuendo there Sam wasn't about to be distracted by it. "Not without planning. Not without back-up."

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, Dorothy. Be sharing space with two thousand miners, think I'll be safe."

"One of whom is bound to recognise you."

"If they've met me, they'll know well enough to stay out of my way."

Sam was more than awake now, and on his feet before he knew it, the better to argue. "There are procedures to follow for undercover. Like a cover story. Like telling your DI."

"I'm telling you now, aren't I?" Gene cast an amused eye over Sam's naked and irate form. "There a specific rule that says you have to be dressed at the time?"

Angrily Sam grabbed a shirt, the only piece of his clothing visible, wrenched an arm into it.

"I'm just seeing how the land lies. Plenty of time for you to check with your big book of regulations before we make a move. You clean up this hit and run and I'll give you a ring when I've got a name. And look after me car."

And Gene went. Leaving Sam half hard, mostly naked, and with a vague sense of foreboding.