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It doesn’t seem fair that hangovers still exist. Then again, maybe the cost for no morning afters would be no nights before, and an eternity without them doesn’t bear thinking about.
Gene Hunt pushes open the double doors to the squad room with purpose; if he’s going to suffer, then so is the man who talked him into drinking half a bottle of Tequila before bed, and everyone who didn’t stop him. The room falls quiet when he makes his entrance and he takes a moment to breathe in the acrid air; smoke cut with sweat and way too much testosterone.
‘Where’s Dorothy?’
It’s Chris who replied. ‘Roof, Guv.’
‘Roof? Why?’
‘Don’t know. Said something about the view from up there.’
He can see Sam at the other end of the building, sitting precariously on the edge, forehead against the railing, legs dangling.
‘Grey concrete and smog,’ he shouts out as he marches the length of the police station only to hesitate a couple of feet from Sam’. He hates heights.
Sam looks up and back. ’What is?’
‘The view from up here.’
He smiles and turns back to look at it. Ugly and dank it might be, but he’s looking out over the city like it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He’s happy. He’s been a hell of a lot happier in the last twelve months than he was for the first two years, and that makes Gene wonder what the date is. Whether it’s significant. It just might be.
‘You’re not going to jump are you?’ he asks, cautiously lowering himself to sit, holding onto the railing as if his life depends on it when he knows well enough that it doesn’t.
‘Been there, done that.’ Sam’s still smiling.
Gene experiences the same chilling sensation that he used to whenever Sam talked like this. It’s like a cold, heavy stone in his stomach and it’s been a while since he felt it. ‘I hope you’re talking in meta wotsits.’
Sam shakes his head. ‘No, Guv.’
‘If you’d jumped, you wouldn’t be sitting here talking nonsense to me. You’d be a stain on the pavement.’
A grimace flits across Sam’s face for a moment. ‘I hope Mum didn’t see me.’
Gene feels slightly nauseous. ‘What are you talking about, Gladys?’
There’s a moment when he thinks - hopes - Sam’s going to let it go. But instead he twists around and points into the distance behind them. ‘I started from somewhere back there, broke into a run, climbed these railings in a single leap and....’ He turns back, leans forward and makes an ‘up and over’ motion with his arm. Gene has to stop himself from reaching out, grabbing his shoulders. ‘I don’t remember hitting the ground.’ Sam looks up at Gene like he’s waiting for something.
‘You’re a complete basket case. Always have been, since the day you arrived. Should have sent you back right there and then.’
The expectant expression on Sam’s face doesn’t change. ‘You’ve spent three years calling me names, every insult under the sun; insisting I’m crazy, that I’ve lost my marbles, one six pack short of a party.’ Gene likes that one. ‘But never once, not in all that time, has any of it been reflected in your eyes.’
‘What are you talking about, Alice?’
‘All the times you called me insane. You’ve never once looked at me like you thought I actually was.’ He pauses. ‘Because you know.’
‘What do I know?’ But Gene’s on the defensive and Sam’s smart enough to see through him. Always has been. He’s wormed his way under his skin, into his head, questioned everything in ways no one ever has before. If anyone was going to work it out, it was always going to be Sam. Especially… especially if he’s telling the truth now and he did jump. Because that means… That means he came back on purpose. He wants to ask when, but finds he doesn’t have to. He knows, remembers the break in time, the pause, the moment his world held its breath.
So he has two choices now. Deny it all and keep pretending he thinks Sam’s lost the plot. Or come clean.
Sam gives him time to decide, sits quietly next to him. He’s always found Sam’s presence calming when he’s like this, when he isn’t ranting and raving, trying to tear down everything Gene’s built, simply because he doesn’t understand it. Maybe the last few years would have been easier if he’d just told the truth in the first place. But it’s not a truth he’s ever said out loud before.
‘That day, out there on the railway. I saw the light behind you. First thought was a train, but it can’t have been, there was only one line.’
‘You know what it was.’
‘I thought I did. I thought you’d gone. But… then the light went, and you were still there, putting two bullets into Johns like Clint Eastwood. And I thought maybe I’d imagined it. But I didn’t, did I?’
‘No.’
‘How long were you awake for?’
‘A month.’
‘And then… you jumped?’ Sam’s still smiling. Overhead the clouds start to clear to a blue sky and a weak spring sun. ’After all the fuss you made about getting home.’
‘I know.’ He says it like he can’t quite believe it himself. ‘But nothing felt right anymore. Nelson told me, the night before, that… I was alive as long as I could feel something. After I woke up, I couldn’t feel anything. Like the world was on mute. The day I jumped, I’d been sitting in some… admin meeting. I couldn’t focus because I couldn’t find it in me to care about the suits sitting around the table talking about figures and statistics… I was distracted. Then someone pointed out I’d cut my finger. I was bleeding and I couldn’t feel that either. I knew there was something wrong. I came up here. It was so peaceful. And the idea of going back inside, back to any of it….’
‘You sound like me, killing yourself rather than face paperwork.’ He smiles at Sam, and Sam nods, sharing the joke. ‘Seems a bit extreme though, doesn’t it?’
‘That world… didn’t have any colour. I’d never been so alive as I was here. I just wanted to come back.’
‘You took a risk. Could have just made a bloody great mess on the pavement.’
‘Call it… a leap of faith.’
‘You’re such a pansy.’
Sam laughs. ‘I’m sure I still left a bloody great mess on the pavement.’
There’s a comfortable silence for a few minutes. Sam’s the first person he’s ever known who can do comfortable silences. ‘What year was it?’ He asks out of curiosity, because so much still doesn’t add up about him.
‘2006.’
For a second he thinks Sam’s taking the piss, then he looks at him and knows he’s not. ’Two thousand and six? Christ, that explains a lot. No wonder you seemed so utterly out of place. God, policing in the future must be a barrel of laughs.’ It’s a lot to get a hungover brain around. ‘The others, they come from this time, so it’s no great shock.’ He pauses, but there’s more that needs to be said. ‘I don’t know how you ended up here, Sam, or why.’
Sam’s expression is one of absolute contentment. Gene’s never seen one quite so clear before. ‘Because it’s where I’m supposed to be,’ he says, reaches out and take Gene’s hand. He’s so surprised, it doesn’t occur to him to shake him off. He just stares at it.
It’s ages before he says, ‘Puff,’ and Sam laughs.
‘Never change, Guv,’ he murmurs.
‘Don’t think I ever will, Sam.’ Gene shrugs. ‘I think that’s the point.’