Author's Note: The final chapter begins and the truth behind Sam's ghost and Gene's hallucinations are revealed! Thanks to Arria for her review. I appreciate your thoughts. ^_^

Chapter 3: Calm Stillness

Though he used no key, the before locked doors to the hallway opened easily for the kid. Gene, Ray and Chris followed young Sam not into a corridor, but onto a sidewalk. Ahead of them, down a shallow slope, a river raged. Gene rubbed his eyes, surprised that he wasn't more surprised. He knew for a fact that only a split second had gone by, but he could also remember leaving the station and getting into his car and, at the behest of the kid, driving down to the river .

"You all right, Guv?" Chris asked.

"Fine," he snapped, attempting to hide his bewilderment. If there was a God out there somewhere, He was certainly having fun messing with him. "Where's the boy?"

Chris and Ray motioned down the riverbank where the kid carefully picked his way through scrubs and trash.

"Come on," Gene replied and the trio made their way down, following the boy at a distance.

"This is where it happened," said Chris quietly.

Gene nodded, spotting the deep tire treads in the now dry dirt. It didn't make sense that they'd still be there nearly a year later considering all the rain and hubbub that had been through since and yet there they were, nearly the same as they had been the night Sam Tyler had driven his car into the river.

"Guv? What's this got to do with Ilene Hutchison?" Ray asked, pulling out a cigarette. The wind was picking up now and even with a sheltering hand, Ray had a bit of trouble lighting the fag.

"Not sure, ta tell you the truth," Gene replied. Ahead of them, the boy had just reached the water.

"I don't remember it ever being so rough," Ray said after a pause as he looked out over the choppy river.

"Maybe a storm's comin'," Chris replied, his attention also going from the kid to the water.

"That wouldn't make it this bad," Ray replied after taking a drag.

The trio paused a good three meters behind the kid who was looking around in confusion.

"Where is it?" the boy asked in a small voice that was nearly lost in the sounds of the whistling wind and the crashing water. The boy turned to look back at Gene and the DCI found himself chilled as he saw that young Sam's eyes had somehow clouded over and were now white and pupil-less. At Gene's side Chris gasped and Ray let his unfinished cigarette fall to the sandy soil.

"Guv…" the kid continued, the fear clear in his trembling voice. "I can't see anything! It's all gone dark!"

As if in response to the boy, the sky went suddenly black. The sun still shown and yellow-grey clouds still floated by, but any hint of blue had disappeared.

"This …is impossible…"Gene whispered.

"Shit!" came a shout from his side. Ray was seeing it too.

The sound of the water crashing against the shore brought Gene's attention away from the terrifying twist that nature had thrown their way. The river's waves were getting ridiculously high and were slamming against the piers and sand as if a hurricane was making landfall. Water was sweeping up around the child's knees and Gene realized the danger even as it happened. The man charged forward as an impossible riptide pulled out the kid's feet from underneath him and began sucking him into the icy water. The blinded boy thrashed as the water pulled him away and managed to cry out a gurgling plea.

"Gene!" he shouted desperately.

Gene hit the water, fighting to keep his balance against the torrent.

"Gene!" the boy cried again and then he went under. Gene saw his small struggling hand sink below the surface just before him and the man plunged his own hand down after the child with a shouted curse. At first he grasped nothing and hope suddenly vanished from him. He'd lost the boy. The kid –whatever or whoever he was- was gone-

And then his fingers closed around a child-sized wrist. Immediately Gene felt the hand grasp him back and with an exclamation of victory Gene pulled the drowning boy free.

"Guv!" Chris and Ray were beside him again, helping Gene to trudge out of the raging water, still holding the sputtering child. "That was close."

Gene looked to Chris with a nod. "Too close."

Attention went to the boy then, as he pulled on Gene's collar.

"You all right, Sam?" Gene asked, alarmed when the boy's still white eyes looked up to meet his.

The kid didn't say anything, just pointed. Gene followed the pointing finger down the shore, wondering as he did how the blind boy knew where to point to. That's when he saw it. Downriver, just under half a kilometer, Gene could just make out the shape of a body laying in the sand. Gene tensed, hardly noticing as bits of the landscape began to disappear into the oncoming black. Very quickly, the river and the shore were all that remained in the light.

"What the hell is goin' on?" Ray questioned fearfully as he looked back to where the car had once been.

"I think it's too late," said the boy quietly.

Gene stood locked in place, unable to force his body to respond as DI Tyler's words over the radio came back to him.

"You need to find my body…I'm dyin'…"

"It's all goin' to hell, Guv," said the boy. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Gene questioned. "You sound like this is all your fault."

The boy closed his eerie eyes and bowed his head in admission.

"How?" Gene exclaimed. "Don't be such a stupid nonce! That'd mean…"

Gene faded off. He wasn't really sure what it meant.

"You found my body, but it's too late."

Just like his dead friend's voice had said…

"Your body?" Gene questioned, his subordinates watching the exchange in confusion. "You're not DI Tyler. You're just-"

"I am. What's left of him anyway."

"That's nonsense!" Gene replied, but as he looked back out over the blackness beyond the shore, then back downriver where the body still lay unmoving, Gene found he wasn't so sure.

"I made this place… a place for my mind to go to, but the truth is… I'm dying. I've been dying. And no one can escape death forever."

"Damn you," Gene exclaimed, pushing the child at Chris who took him after nearly dropping him in surprise. "I live here. They live here. This isn't your world. It's real!"

But the truth was Gene didn't know what to believe anymore. What was real and what should be hallucination all seemed too mixed together to be properly separated.

The kid was Sam Tyler, but pint sized? Sure. The world was fading away into nothingness? Fine. But Gene was going to get it back. What the hell if it didn't make a lick of sense. Gene Hunt was no hallucination. This place, his life, the lives of Ray and Chris and Annie, Coral, and Phyllis… they were all real. No prepubescent lunatic DI was going to take it away from him. And then there was Sam… was it really possible that he could be saved? Even after all this time? The kid certainly didn't think so, but then, Gene never had been one to take advice from children.

"So you need to find your body? You need an anchor? Fine!" Gene shouted. With a motion for Ray to follow, Gene took off, full stop down the sandy shoreline towards the unmoving form on the ground. Even from this distance, Gene could tell it was the body of the adult Sam Tyler. "I'll be your bloody anchor!"

Even as he ran, Gene saw darkness encroaching towards Sam's body from the opposite direction. This was it, Gene knew. If the darkness got to Sam first… it would be the end of everything.

'So you believe it then?"

'…No'

Gene forced himself to run even faster. The cold soulless black was nearly upon the seemingly lifeless form, but so was Gene.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

In a cold sterile room, noise had been an incessant constant for what seemed like forever. The sound of people moving, of monitors beeping, equipment whirring and people talking urgently. Then the beeping slowed, the equipment stopped, and the movement ceased. People spoke, quickly, loudly, then quietly. Then the beeping stopped.

Quiet.

Quiet interrupted by a woman's sobs.

"No! He can't be!" she wailed. Her sorrow was heartbreaking.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Tyler. He's gone."

"No!" she sobbed, her cries echoing off the tiled walls and floors. "My boy! My boy!"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The noises were disturbing. Crying, shouting, and sirens. Those loud sounds grated on his hearing causing almost physical pain. More disturbing still was the darkness. It was everywhere now. He could easily escape the noise if he allowed himself to drift into the darkness, but that darkness, that nothingness, was more frightening by far. He tried to get away from both, but he had no direction, no handhold. He drifted. And now there was a tightness in what he felt should be his chest. He tried to breathe to relieve the pressure, but found it impossible.

And it was so quiet… He didn't know what it was that was missing, only that it was a steady, constant drumming and that it was essential. But there was nothing. So he drifted, unimaginable fear and an unexplainable sense of calm twisting around him in the darkness, playing a cruel game with his emotions. It seemed like it would be like this forever, calmness and fear intertwining with the still pain in his chest an ever present reminder that something was missing.

And then it happened. The drum sounded and his heart began to beat.

He coughed, water spilling from his mouth as he spasmed.

"Sam!"

Hands grabbed him, helping him twist to his side as he continued a deep, wet, hacking cough, trying to get the water in his lungs out and replace it with cool taste of oxygen.

After a few moments, Sam Tyler opened his heavy eyes to see Annie Cartwright kneeling over him against the night sky. His spirit soared and he lifted a weak hand towards her face, cupping it gently in his palm.

"You're here," he said, managing a whisper.

The brown eyed woman clasped her hands to his, relief clear in her whole posture. "I should be sayin' that to you, Sam! We nearly lost you."

Rough hands grabbed Sam by the shoulders and heaved him into a sitting position. Sam turned to see Gene Hunt crouch down on his left, opposite Annie.

"Lucky for you, Mrs. Doctor over here knew that CPR thing or we woulda," the DCI replied gruffly, but with obvious relief.

"Sam taught me," Annie told Gene proudly.

"Hmph."

Sam frowned, trying his best to focus. "What happened?"

"Drove yer car into the river, ya' git. You drive like a bleedin' woman."

"You were in a car crash, remember?" Annie prodded as she gently placed a hand on his forehead. Her hand was cold and he shivered. "You took a short cut, we think. Tried to cut them off."

"Any o' this ringin' a bell, Dorothy?"

Sam swallowed hard, the taste of bitter river water still in his mouth. "I was in the station," he said groggily. "No, I was… Gene, you were questioning me about a case… And Annie, you were missing. And so was I."

"Well, you're making even less sense than usual," Gene replied with a huff.

"You were unconscious, Sam. At least a minute. And ya' weren't breathing for almost as long. We haven't gone back to the station yet."

Sam put a shaky hand to his temples as bits of the crash came back to him. He had been in a car chase. So where had all that other stuff come from? He'd been a child again, and then he hadn't. He remembered blindness, fear, and the knowledge that he'd lost Annie, that he was losing everything. But he also remembered Gene Hunt. Loud, obnoxious, loyal Gene Hunt trying to keep him alive. Sam shook his head slowly.

"A coma dream within a coma dream?" he whispered.

"What?" Annie asked leaning closer.

But something was wrong. Sam remembered the chase. He'd forced the robbers down a side street, then one of his tires had blown. To make matters worse, he'd been going too fast to begin with. He'd lost control, but at the same time he'd been careening towards the water, he could also hear the high pitched whine of defibrillators and doctors' voices shouting and Sam Tyler had known beyond a shadow of a doubt that in 2006 or outside his coma dream created world, he was about to die. For good.

And when that happened, he would die here too. He'd always known it would happen some day. He had jumped off a building after all… And yet here he sat. Alive and pretty well in 1973, same as before and yet definitely different. Different, Sam knew, because as he examined this strange sensation inside of him, he realized he was truly dead in 2006. There was no going back now. And Sam felt strangely free.

"Hey! Snap out of it!" Gene exclaimed, clapping his hands in Sam's face.

Sam started in surprise and turned a glare at Gene only to notice something he hadn't before in the dark.

"You're sopping, Guv," Sam replied.

"Had to save your lily livered ass, didn't I?" Gene replied with a sniff.

"You pulled me out?" Sam questioned.

"The Guv an' Ray got here only a minute after you hit the water," Annie explained. "You forced the robbers down into an alleyway. Trapped hem. A squad car handled them and the Guv jumped right into the river, didn't even wait for the backup."

"You were the anchor," Sam replied with a grin.

Gene frowned. "You sayin' I'm heavy or somethin'? I'm no anchor. If I was, we'd both have drowned."

"Nearly did," Annie said sternly.

"But didn't! I'm more of a buoy or a submarine or somethin'. You know… none o' that really gives the proper feel to that heroic moment."

"Thanks for savin' me, Guv," Sam said earnestly. Then he pulled Annie into a kiss. "An' you too, Annie."

Annie smiled lovingly back at him as Gene whistled.

"Taking advantage of the near dead man, Cartwright?" Gene chuckled, calling Annie by her maiden name. "Don't let me stop you."

Sam chuckled and Annie gave Gene an amused pout.

"Where are Chris and Ray?" Sam asked.

"Up by the street, makin' sure the baddies are locked up proper in the squad car," Gene replied, his tone implying that the thieves were not going to be handled with care.

"Guv!"

The three turned to see Chris and Ray hurrying down the shoreline towards them.

"Or they were anyway," Gene sighed. "Hope they at least roughed 'em up a bit for nearly killin' our DI before letting the uniforms take 'em away."

Chris and Ray approached them quickly from uphill, their visibly worried expressions relaxing when they saw Sam.

"Hi, lads," Sam said in as strong a voice as he could muster.

"Hey, boss," Chris said before Ray gave him a light shove.

"See, I told ya' he'd be fine!" Ray replied.

"Only nearly," Gene replied, giving Sam a stinging slap on the back.

"I could use a drink," Sam replied.

"Good idea. Just need a bit o' fire in yer veins. Nothin' like a few shots of whiskey won't fix."

"I meant a real drink. I'm parched. Water or-"

"You nearly died of a major water overdose, Sammy-boy!" Gene exclaimed, dragging Sam to his feet. "And whiskey IS a real drink."

Annie slipped under Sam's arm for support, a frown on her pale face.

"He should go to the hospital!" she replied.

"Oh, don't be such a nag. He's not a complete sissy," Gene replied. "To the pub, gents! And lady."

Annie looked about to disagree, but Sam squeezed her hand and said gently. "It's alright. I'm fine. Surprisingly enough, I feel good. …Free."

Annie opened her mouth to argue with her husband, then, surprisingly, she only sighed and squeezed his hand back. "Alright."

"Right! Bit o' whiskey, maybe a beer or two, an' he'll be right as rain," Gene replied, taking up the lead as they headed up the slope to the street and the waiting Cortina.

"Whatever you say, Guv," Sam said with a chuckle.

Gene glanced back at him, the fog in the night air and the glow of the street lights behind him casting him in a strange ethereal glow. "Damn right."

~Fin~

Author's note: thanks to everyone who read this story and a special thanks to those who reviewed. I love to hear what you guys think! Cheers!