Everything but the Girl

Summary: Confronted again by the test card girl, Sam finds more questions than answers, and ends up fighting for his life.

Disclaimers: Naturally I own neither Gene et al, nor LoM/A2A: they belong to Kudos and the BBC, alas...

Acknowledgements: Thanks to FirstDraft for all the encouragement, fantastic beta-ing and late night e-mails. Thanks also to Elaine at , who provided detailed information on Weaste Cemetery, and Mark Ledington at , who told me all about Sam's beautiful car.

A/N: The third of a trilogy. 'A Room with a View' precedes.

PLEASE NOTE: This is the third story in a series of three - if you don't read the others first, this one won't make much sense! The first is 'Dead Man Walking' and the second is 'A Room with a View', and both have been extensively updated since their original posting.

"Tickets! Tickets, please!" Stentorian tones brought Sam Tyler out of his reverie and back to the present: a rattling, supposedly high-speed train out of Euston, taking him home to the house he'd bought just a year after coming back to this world for good. Home to Manchester, his birth and growing place. Home, at last, to Annie.

He smiled as he gazed out of the window, images of her almost-plump, intelligent face filling his mind. It was eight days since he had come back from the 'dead', some might say for the second time; he wasn't entirely used to it yet, and he knew that the only person grounded and clear-sighted enough to help him through this returning process was his Annie. Alex had been a breath of glorious fresh air, blowing away the cobwebs, and making him pleasantly nostalgic for the twenty-first century. Gene, hanging doggedly on to the belief that he might still be alive, cherishing his memory every day and living a half-life without him, was more of a problem. Sam felt an obscurely uncomfortable responsibility for Gene. He was almost impatient with him for being such a loyal friend, and knew that he was being unfair: he should appreciate him without measure, but he'd been so unsettled by the preceding few days that he just wanted to shake him off, and guilt at the feeling had made him harsh. But he'd always known he had his own life to lead: he'd come back here not only to save those he loved, but also for himself. This was his world, and he had again found a place in it. But once Alex had tentatively asked about his Annie, she was the only person in the world he really wanted to see. She would give him perspective, set him straight, and make him laugh at all his fears.

It had all been going so well, when that – that child that was no child – had crashed in. The raging headache that he had endured all day Sunday had only been partly a result of the copious amounts of wine he had drunk the night before. Knowing he was 'dead' elsewhere had – apparently – freed him of the test card girl's curse, and he hadn't seen her for nigh on seven years – had scarcely thought about her except as a bad dream banished in the light of dawn. Now she was back and – worse – others could see her. Now, thanks to Alex's intervention, she seemed so much more real.

It disturbed him that his thoughts kept returning back to Alex. What was she doing in his world? Not that he'd thought in that way for a long time, but he wasn't so entirely immersed that he hadn't noticed that no-one aged, that history unravelled just as he knew it would, that although Gene sometimes seemed to fight him every step of the way – even now – in the end things always got done as he wanted. He wasn't about to spoil what he had by over-analysing it.

But Alex had no such experience, no such compunction – what was she doing here, and was she going to upset the delicate balance that existed? Had she inadvertently awakened Sam's nemesis?

Later, Sam thought that if he'd reacted more quickly – denied that the child was anything to do with him, or ignored her, or done something desperate like jump off the train and make a run for it across the fields, he might have escaped. But he did none of these things. Instead, her stared in hopeless horror as a small girl in a bright red dress slipped into the seat opposite and smiled. "I lost you, Sam. You didn't look for me. But I've found you now, and I'll stay with you always – I promise."

After her initial speech she was silent for a long time, and Sam didn't know which was worse: the insidious stream of confidence-destroying evil he had expected, or this wordless, unnerving stare. It seemed that she was waiting for him to speak, and he was determined to make her wait. For nearly an hour, he did. In the end, though, he broke first.

"You've got no reason to be here. You've got nothing to say to me – there's nothing you can do to me any more. I'm dead – remember?"

The light behind her eyes switched on. "I'm so glad we're talking again, Sam. It's been so quiet without you. I'm only here to make sure you know what's going on."

Every instinct in Sam told him not answer, not to engage – not to interact. "What do you mean, 'what's going on'?"

"Where have you been, Sam? Where have I been? Have you thought about that? I switched you off – in the world you still think is real – and you never knew. What am I going to do with you here?"

"What do you mean, you switched me off? You're in my head – you don't exist in 2006!"

"Didn't you hear their voices? Trying to save you? Perhaps they could have. But I'm in control, Sam. What shall I make you do now?"

"You're not in control – you're in my imagination. This is my world, and there's no place for you."

She put her head on one side, as if considering his words, but he knew it was all part of the ghastly game of cat and mouse she played. "Who's in control, Sam? If this is your world, why is Alex Drake here?" She shut down, looking as if blankly at the stations and villages flashing by.

Sam's mind tumbled into an abyss. Questions kicked down the door to his consciousness just as Gene used to kick down the door to his bed-sit. How did he know what Alex looked like? Had he ever seen her photograph? They'd never met in the 'other place', though they had spoken, just once, on the phone. He knew she'd received his diaries, tapes and scrawled, meandering notes just a few days before he'd – died, she would have said, escaped, he preferred – and that as a result she'd actually made the journey to Manchester to see his body. Why had she done that, he wondered? To see for herself the face of a lunatic? To make sure he was really dead?

Had he looked out from behind closed lids to see her face as it stared into his own? Perhaps she was completely different in the other world: old, black, fair – gay? He grinned in spite of himself. She certainly wasn't gay in this world – it had taken him just minutes to register the unacknowledged sexual tension between her and Gene as they sat in Luigi's bar, and not much longer to detect Gene's nascent jealousy at the strange bond he and Alex so clearly shared. It had amused him for a while, and he had deliberately introduced topics of which his old boss could have known nothing – BandAid, Diana's death, 9/11 for God's sake – but he soon recognised that Gene's pain was real, the hurt behind the barbed comments deeply felt, and stopped playing games.

He surely must have constructed Alex – but for what? Did he need someone from his old life? Did he need to know what had happened after he'd died? There was surely no way anything Alex told him about 2008 could be real – it was all in Sam's imagination. And why had Alex been accompanied by the girl?

The solution dripped insistently into the edge of his mind, and in the end he had no choice but to face it. All these questions could be answered quite simply if one awful fact was true: that this was Alex's world, not his; that he was no longer in control of his destiny, and that Gene, and Annie, and all the other people who populated this world for him, were born of the information he had given her in that anonymous buff envelope.

And if that was indeed the case, what did that make him?

It was still light when he pushed open the gate that led to Annie's house. Their house – even though they'd been on the point of leaving it for the London flat – until he'd disappeared. He stopped, looking up at the green and white frontage, painted in the long, hot summer of 1976 – such a bad time to paint anything, he'd realised almost immediately – and beginning to fade now. This was home, with its shaggy oatmeal carpets, its too-few electricity points, its gadgets that didn't work quite as well as they should. Who would ever have rated him, dynamic Sam Tyler the wunderkind of the north, as a home boy?

Caught by a movement, his eyes went to the front door, where Annie stood patiently, framed by the surround, with that expression on her face: a unique mixture of exasperation, understanding, and love. His heart leapt. To think, if he'd led a 'normal' life, he'd never have met her…

"You took your time," she said. She'd never been one to fling herself at him, something he regularly blessed her for, and not only because this was a conservative neighbourhood.

"Trains a bit slower than I'd expected. How'd you – "

"Gene phoned."

"Ah." There was a moment of awkwardness that Sam hadn't anticipated. He felt bad for not coming up here as soon as he'd returned – but he also felt confused, like a character in a not very well thought out play. "Look, Annie, I'm sorry – it was overwhelming down there – Gene fussing like a mother hen, and catching up with Alex, and – just getting it all together again. I – I don't know why I didn't come up here first thing. I'm sorry."

"Well, you're here now," smiled Annie, always unfailingly pragmatic. "Are you coming in, then?"

"Yeah! Yeah – I'm just so pleased to be home." She stood aside to let him pass, and he drank in the presence and the scent of her. "Oh sod it!" he exclaimed and, turning towards her where she stood, kissed her as if it was the last thing either of them would ever do. The curtain-twitchers could kick up a storm if they liked – right now, he didn't care.

"Steady on, you!" she said when he finally surfaced. "Anyone would think you'd just come home after months on a dangerous undercover mission."

"Oh, Annie." He held her so close that it felt as if their bodies were blending like paints running together, there where they stood. Then, moving his hands over her willing softness, he caught his breath and pulled away a little. "Annie?"

"Hang on a minute." He heard the laughter in her voice, the precious laughter that he had missed so much. She gently kicked the door shut to prying eyes, and removed herself from his grasp. "I was going to be so furious with you, Sam. What we've all been through… But now that you're here, I can't be. Just to have you back…" She took a deep breath, as if deliberately to lighten the mood. "So come on, then!" She walked away from him, and he saw the mischief in her face as she glanced over her shoulder and let her wrap fall to the floor, exposing the naked beauty beneath.

Oh yes! he thought, as he followed her two at a time up the stairs. He was home.

"So tell me about this Alex, from Hyde." Sam and Annie had run the gamut of emotions in the eighteen hours since he had walked through the door, of which the main two had been love and anger. The love that had bloomed under the auspices of such strange husbandmen as Chris and Ray had rooted itself more firmly in their souls every day, and now tied them together like a rose that has grown through a hedge, each supporting the other, utterly and irretrievably intertwined. And anger – Annie's anger, born of fear and impotence and overwhelming, all-consuming relief. By the morning's light the one had finally wiped out the other, and she had cried out all the frustration and pain into her deep well of love, and forgiven Sam any wrong he might have done. Sam, who had himself cried freely with the sheer joy of being in her arms again, counted himself the luckiest man in the whole world to have found her. If his love for her could have been coined, he would have been a billionaire.

"Hmm?" he said through his toast.

"DI Alex Drake – Gene told me all about her. A friend of yours?"

Sam blinked. There were times when he felt he was running just to keep up. "Alex – yeah, but she's not from Hyde. She's from the Met – where did Gene get that from? And she's not a friend as such – we'd never met… We had a mutual acquaintance, and she knew about me from my record. Hunt's wrong – as usual!" He stuffed more toast into his mouth.

"So tell me about her," Annie persisted as she poured out yet more strong hot tea, made as only a Lancashire lass could. She never let him off the hook, Annie didn't.

Sam swallowed. "I think," he said carefully, "that she must have been responsible for getting me – back here, out of whatever I was doing. Undercover's not good, Annie – you lose yourself. I think that's what I was doing, and no-one cared. Alex says I've done the debriefing and everything – I can't remember any of it, and that scares me. I should have held on more, like I used to – should have tried to get back to you."

"Hey, hey… It's all right." He felt her cool arms around him, holding him like a child. "Gene and I knew you were working."

Sam looked at her in surprise. "But Gene said everyone thought I was dead."

"Everyone except Gene. And me – I couldn't let you go, Sam."

Sam let this sink in. Perhaps it hadn't just been Alex after all? Perhaps Annie and Gene had some control here too? "You mean – you and Gene…"

She laughed, and he felt the rippling sound like cool water on sunburn. "If he'd still been with his missus, she'd probably have come round here with a shotgun and the divorce papers. No, nothing like that, silly. Me and Gene – come on! He never lost hope that you were alive though he did come near it at times. He'd no idea where you were, but he were convinced that somehow you were out there. Even when he tried to make himself believe you were dead because it hurt too much. He kept me hoping, Sam. And he were right." She shook her head, as though at Gene's defiant temerity in the face of what others knew must be real. "He's a stubborn old bugger – he never gave up."

"Way to go, Gene."

"He searched high and low for you. He took leave, and looked under every leaf and blade of grass where your car was found, in – what do you call those things…" She traced shapes in the air and frowned.

"Concentric circles."

"Yeah, concentric circles. Out for miles. A really long way. Everyone were getting ready for the move down to London, but he just kept on going."

"You should have gone with them. To London. Started again."

Annie shook her head, and he felt the softness of her thick, dark hair against his cheek. "I couldn't bear the idea of being alone in that big flat, Sam, with all your stuff and everything. And I didn't have the heart to move it all back." She sighed. "I would have gone, eventually. When Gene said there was no hope left. I think he was getting near it. Even Ray had stopped helping him."

"Ray helped him look for me?"

"I think he thought the Guv were near breaking point, but he missed having you around to annoy, as well. He's deeper than you think, our Ray."

Now it was Sam's turn to shake his head. Not only at the thought that Ray might have wanted him – for whatever reason – to be alive, but with anger and distress that he could have been the cause of so much pain in a world he felt he should have been able to control. "Just like his brother," he said softly. "And he must have thought this was going to end the same way. Oh, God, Annie, I'm so sorry."

Annie held him closer. "Hey, it's all right – it wasn't your fault, was it? You didn't ask to go under cover. I don't suppose you were given much choice."

Sam felt guilt wash over him at her implicit faith. Was it is his fault – had he asked to go under cover for reasons he couldn't remember now, mindless of the anguish he would cause? Had he placed himself – perhaps this world – in danger, and only been brought back by the love of two wilful, stubborn, people who wouldn't take no for an answer? He was so confused – he knew he had to get a grip, but so many conflicting ideas were swirling around in his brain that he didn't know where to start. "But it's over now," Annie was saying. "You've come back to us. Gene said Alex used all her contacts, pulled loads of strings, and here you are."

Again, Alex. Again, Alex had controlled something in this world that he called his own. He pulled away from Annie's embrace.

"Sam?"

"It's all right – I just need to talk to her." He dialled the station number. If he was in control, the call would go through to the DI direct…

"Hello, Alex Drake speaking." Yes! he thought.

"Alex, it's Sam. Can we talk?"

"Sam – I've been expecting you to call. How are you?"

"Much better, thanks to Annie. Confused, though. And there's that little problem."

"The girl."

"Yeah."

"She came back with you, I know. Why – and how could she have got back? Wasn't the point that she tried to get you to give up before?"

"That's what I thought. She kept telling me to go to sleep, that I was a waste of space, worthless, not in control…"

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "And what is she telling you now, Sam?"

"Why? So you can make her say something different?"

"What do you mean?"

"She's saying that this is your world now, Alex."

"My world?"

"That you're in control."

"In control! My God, if I was in control, do you think I'd still be here, with these – these…" Gene's voice dipped into his ear. Are you going to practise your heavy breathing down that phone all day, DI Drake, or would you condescend to do something resembling work? Chris? Since when did that go there? Alex's voice reclaimed the line, lower now. "See what I mean?"

"Are you saying you can't make her go away?" He heard the panic in his voice, and felt ashamed. But at least Alex understood – she had her nemesis, too.

"I don't know," she whispered. "Why don't you try? But you must act as if you're in control. If she needs – " The phone was suddenly cut off, and Sam cursed, visualising Gene standing over Alex, quite unaware of the importance of her conversation, radiating disapproval and testosterone in equal measure. He was sure she'd respond appropriately to both, but right now that didn't really help him. He would just have to figure it out on his own.

And, in the meantime, he had a move to organise.

Four days later, everything was miraculously done. It was a dark-light summer's evening, and the day still lingered; Venus peeped over the horizon and the sky was beginning to lose its cobalt richness and shrug on the inkiness of true night.

Tomorrow they were leaving, and Sam felt a sure, unfounded knowledge that he would never see this place again. He was aware that things were changing, not necessarily for the better, despite the surreal ease with which their preparations had been managed. Annie's transfer to a London child protection unit had been cleared, authorised, and recommended; they had let the house, furnished, to a quietly responsible middle-aged couple called Ted and Laurie Carter for a very respectable rent; the possessions they wanted that were not already in London had easily been loaded into the back of a friend's van; and Gene had been more than willing to move his few months' worth of accumulated flotsam back to Islington. It couldn't have gone more smoothly if Sam had written the script himself.

He chose to ignore the implications of that thought. Sam was getting good at ignoring things, and it seemed to be working: he hadn't seen the girl since that awful train journey when she had made him sick to his stomach with her unanswered, insistent questions.

Becoming aware of his surroundings, he looked around him curiously. How had he ended up here? He'd wanted a walk alone on this last evening, after Annie had taken herself off to bed exhausted. He had no idea where he was or how far he'd walked, but he was suddenly surrounded by gravestones – rounded headstones in neat rows at odd angles… He went cold. The last time he had been in a graveyard, Frank Morgan had persuaded him that this world was real, and Sam had been so convinced that he had almost destroyed it. But these stones looked unfamiliar, and seeing the wooded areas surrounding the grassy stretch where he now stood, he realised it couldn't be the same place.

Uncomfortable, Sam turned towards the entrance not far behind him, where large white gates shone palely. Shouldn't the place have been locked by now? As he reached them, he realised where he was: Weaste Cemetery, miles from home. "This is Salford!" he exclaimed. "I haven't walked all the way to Salford!" He knew he had to get back: he must have walked for hours and he didn't like it here, anyway. He made to move towards Cemetery Road when a cold, small voice stopped him as effectively as if it had been a bullet.

"Don't go, Sam. You've only just arrived."

The cold crept through him and the hairs on his neck slowly stood on end, yet he felt the sweat break out on his back as he looked across the rows of headstones. Illuminated in a shaft of thin moonlight stood the girl, one hand resting on a stone, the other slowly and deliberately beckoning. He knew he mustn't go. He knew if he went he would never get out again – that this was the perfect place for her to end it all, as she had always wanted to do. This was the place to make him give in for ever, surrender his will, his mind, his life. He would lose everything if he walked back inside.

Slowly, as if in a trance, he turned and followed her in.

At the centre of the graveyard she stopped and faced him. They were right in the heart of the burial ground now, and there was no escape. He hardly dared look back the way they'd come, for terror of the traps she must have laid there. She smiled, her lips making the requisite shape but her eyes cold, hard and lifeless.

"You came to meet my friends."

"Your – your friends?" He leant on a stone for support. What did she mean, 'her friends'? Who was here but the dead?

"Oh, that's a good one," she said. "Look!"

Sam stared at the grave beneath his hand.

Gene Hunt

Who departed this life January 4th 1875

Aged 46 years

He took an involuntary step backwards, but before he could react, she pointed to another one, nearby. His eyes caught the words Annie Cartwright and died 20th February 1875 and his skin crawled.

"You see, Sam," the clear, cool voice cut into his thoughts, "they aren't real even here, just like I told you all those years ago. You made them up – they're all already dead. I'm so sorry you had to find out, but I had to tell you. There's only you left, all alone except for me."

No, he thought, No! He hadn't lived with these amazing, complicated people for eight years for it to come to this. He hadn't loved Annie and fought Gene, argued with Ray and educated Chris, to be told this.

"They're not dead – you can't tell me they're dead!" he ground out. "I've just left Annie, I've talked to Gene and Alex today – they're not dead. They're as real as you and me!"

"Are you real, Sam? Do you feel real? Do you think you're still falling in that other universe? Do you think you've hit the ground yet? What will happen when you do? Shall I stop them saving you again?"

On the edge of complete panic, he forced himself to think. All the doubts that he thought he'd conquered squeezed themselves out from their tombs like slime, insinuating, insidious, clamouring for nurture like small, evil nestlings. He was happy here – he made people happy here. He was alive here, and so were the people he knew and loved. So what if he had created them? So what if all this was only as real as his imagination? It was all as real as he was, and that was good enough. Wasn't it?

As if she had read his thoughts, she started to speak again. "Have you made people happy, Sam? You think you have, but how do you know? What about all the ones you've killed? What about Billy Kemble – you made sure you weren't there but you killed him just the same. And the girl from Warren's nightclub – can you even remember her name?" He backed up against Gene's headstone, and slid raggedly down it until he was sitting on the wet, night-cooled grass. She walked across the ground between them and sat cross-legged, where he could not avoid her stare.

He felt a stab of defiance. "Where's your clown? Where's your toy?" His confidence grew when she did not immediately answer. "Is he your friend? I've got friends who care about me – who love me – who want me to be with them. So where's yours?"

She shrugged. "He's busy. He doesn't concern you. But your so-called friends, Sam – don't you think they'd have been better off without you? Annie could've loved someone else – Gene could've had a reliable colleague – Ray could've been promoted. And what about now?" Her voice became soft, alluring, drawing him into her world. "Think of Annie: you're making her leave her home, her friends, the job she's spent five years creating – she's well thought of up here, Sam, but will she be as successful in London? And what about Gene? You say you'd never do anything to hurt him, Sam, but you're throwing him out of his home, sending him back to that lonely flat – you remember what it was like to be lonely, don't you, Sam? You remember what it was like when I was your only friend? Would you like it if I was Gene's only friend? Shall I be? Shall I help Gene like I help you? I might have to if you go to London. And what about your mother? Leaving her behind, all alone with her empty memories? Oh, wait a minute, I forgot – that shouldn't be too hard because you've already done that, haven't you? When you jumped off your tall building and left her with no-one except Alex for comfort. And Alex – you know deep down this is Alex's world now, don't you? You know you don't belong. I wonder if you ever really belonged anywhere, poor you." She leant forward. "You can make it right, Sam. You can free them all, and find your way home. This is the place, Sam – here, where it's peaceful and quiet, where no-one will ever disturb you and where you can sleep safely forever."

Sam wondered vaguely why she was out here – why she had been on the train – when he had only ever seen her before indoors, near a television to which she could safely retreat after each attack. But it was a very far away thought, and he lost track of it before it was half-formed. Her eyes were like crystal, deep and clear and bottomless, holding all the mysteries of the universe in their depths. They drew him in, swallowing him up in their completeness – and it was so easy to let go and fall through that soft, consuming water, chill and clean in the fragile starlight. He felt himself slowly drowning and knew that he didn't want to fight – didn't want to fight anything, ever again. As the dim surface light began to fade, he sank towards final, beautiful oblivion, and his dying heart wept for joy.

His eyelids started to close. It was so effortless, so calming, just to let go. Annie was lovely – she'd find someone better than him. Gene was self-sufficient, and he had Alex – he didn't need Sam. He'd been holding all this together for so long, and he was so tired: perhaps he could sleep now...

Gently, his head fell forward onto his chest. The blackness was warm and welcoming, waiting with enveloping arms to wrap him up for ever. It was cool and quiet – a dark tunnel leading away from the brashness of light and life and the sound and fury of screams and cries and Gene's voice, calling for help, Annie's voice, echoing down the emptiness to where he slowly fell, waiting for the peace of everlasting sleep –

Sam! Sam, help us!

Tyler? Tyler!

Sam – come back to us!

She's going to kill us all…

He gasped for breath, and choked on the cloying water that surrounded him. Clawing upwards, he felt the liquid burning his lungs as something malevolent pressed him down, trying to keep him away from the light. He fought against it, those voices echoing in his head and, as the water became clearer, so did his mind. He had to get back – had to save them, no matter what the cost. He burst through the surface and heaved in great lungfuls of sweet, warm air, vomiting water and death out of his body and pulling life back in.

His head jerked up as if pulled on a string. His eyes flew open – he couldn't have closed them now even if his life had depended on it. Sallow in the ghastly moonlight, framed in silvery-grey stone, the girl sat, motionless, watching him with pale, dead eyes. In a flash of intuition that was almost painful in its brightness, he realised what she had just tried to do.

Shaking, he scrambled to his feet: he wanted to look down on her, and he felt strength flow through him like life's blood. Months – perhaps years – of pent-up fury overflowed as he spat out his words. "You're nothing! You're nothing but self-doubt and self-loathing and – and corrosive fear!" That had come directly from Alex, he knew, though he had no idea how. "I don't want you and I don't need you. You aren't my friend, I'm not lonely, people here love me and I love them. I'm going to walk away from you and I'm never, ever, going to see you again."

If she was angered by his outburst, she gave no sign; she just seemed vaguely amused. "Everyone needs self-doubt, Sam. How else can you judge your own actions?"

"No – self-awareness, but not self-doubt! I know who you are – I know what you do. How stupid was I, not to see it before? I – " He broke off suddenly: in the midst of his tirade, the place where she stood had gone dark, and for a moment she had disappeared. As he stared, she faded back into view, and he realised that it was just the moon, going behind a cloud. But something in him leapt up in anticipation: if he could indeed recognise her for what she was, surely her power would be broken.

"I made you," he said, his voice as cold and quiet as hers. "I made you and now I'm going to destroy you. It doesn't matter if I'm dead somewhere else – here, I'm alive. It doesn't matter if I'm Alex's imaginary construct – this is still my world, within hers – I don't care. That's your secret, isn't it? That I have to care. That I have to care what's happening, care if I'm real. Well I don't. I don't care if I'm real to you any more – I'm real to me, and to Annie, and Gene, and if people have been killed because of me then I'm sorry, but it wasn't deliberate and it's over now. I'm walking away – from them, from you, from all this crap. And you are not going to stop me."

"Sam!" Her voice was small and reed-like. "You can't do this, Sam. I've been with you since the beginning."

"And that is long enough! I created you, this world – you belong to me. I can do what I like."

"You can't abandon me, Sam. You can't destroy me."

In spite of himself, he had to ask. "Why not?"

She grew taller in the thin light. "You're not the only one who needs me, Sam. You don't think you're the only one I have to look after, do you?"

Sam stared at her for what seemed like a lifetime, cold seeping through his bones. The urge to ask what she meant was almost overwhelming, suffocating, but he had seen her grow in strength and he knew that if he faltered, he would be lost forever. For everyone's sake, he had to be strong. "I am walking away now, and you are staying here. Staying with your dead friends, your John Hunt, your Hannah Cartwright – I can see what it really says on those headstones. You stay here with your self-doubt and your death. I'm going to live!"

He strode away, past the Catholics and non-conformists, down the long avenue of Church of England burials and towards the outside world and freedom. He was his own man, ten feet tall, master of this world and someone who knew himself, knew his faults and fears and knew that he could overcome them.

Her voice came to him, thin and dying on the wind, but he hardened his heart and refused to listen. Walking in all the self-confident determination and pride with which he had imbued Gene Hunt, he moved swiftly away from the cemetery, dark now in the suddenly cloudy night, and did not look back. Tomorrow, he would leave all this behind.

The Morgan 4/4 ate up the long miles between Manchester and London, making them smooth and short and taking Sam and Annie back to where he knew they belonged. It had amused him mightily to buy a Morgan, a beautiful 'vintage' car in racing green, once he could afford the asking price of nearly £10,000 – a small act of defiance that he enjoyed every time he got into the leather driving seat.

Annie, not fond of the car at the best of times, and definitely not when Sam put the roof down for long journeys, had wrapped her hair up in a tight scarf and taken a couple of sleeping tablets, telling him that his own company was quite sufficient for the drive and that he could wake her up when they arrived. So she could not protest when he slipped some 'real driving music' into the customised tape player: Iron Maiden – nothing like it – good, head-banging stuff. With the wind in his hair, the music in his heart and his foot on the pedal, Sam knew that life was good, and life was his, and life was starting, all over again, right now.

Singing at the top of his voice some two hours out – the tape had already reversed itself several times, and if Annie had been awake she would be screaming by now – he almost failed to notice the speck of red up ahead, but he was a good driver and swiftly registered it as something that shouldn't be there. The motorway, while fast, was busy, but no-one else seemed to have seen anything amiss. Indeed, although the two inside lanes were full of traffic, his was free and clear ahead of him – apart from this obstruction that grew by the second as the road flew by.

He peered through the windscreen, anxious and puzzled. Was it another car, travelling too slowly for the fast lane? A suitcase maybe, or something that had blown off a bridge? No, it was quite large – quite tall in fact – quite – quite person-shaped.

With horror he realised that a human being stood on the M1, right in his path. He couldn't brake – the car behind had been tailgating him all the way from Crewe, and would slam straight into him if he did. The lanes to his left were nose to tail, though still moving at over seventy, and to try to pull over would be madness. But he couldn't hit this whatever-it-was – he had to get out of this lane! They hadn't moved – maybe they couldn't – maybe they were injured, or drugged – too helpless to help themselves. To save a life, he had to risk his and Annie's, had to do the right thing, had to change direction, into the paths of other cars…

Everything slowed down. He braced his hands on the wheel, ready to turn it towards what must be certain death in the speeding stream of traffic. He tried to close his eyes against the inevitable carnage but couldn't, and he felt a surge of impotent bitterness that, after all, this might be the end. Desperately, he focussed again on the figure, which still hadn't moved.

And recognised it as that of the girl.

His reaction was instant: he didn't even think. He pressed his foot flat on the accelerator and gunned the Morgan's powerful engine to its limits; if he was going to die today, then she was going with him. He kept eye contact with her, pinning her where she stood as the huge car raced towards her. This was the one terrible thing she had imagined that he could not do: but it was the one terrible thing that she had made him capable of. Draining every last ounce of speed from the madly roaring machinery, fighting every human instinct to swerve and with his heart hammering and sweat standing out on his frozen face, he stared her down, emotionless, as the vehicle slammed into her, through her, past her – beyond her, into the open road ahead.

He glanced into his mirror. No blood on the tarmac. No skidding cars behind. No blaring of horns or wailing of sirens. No nothing. No – nothing at all.

And he realised that, at last, she was really gone. The last weight lifted from his shoulders, the last burden from his heart, and he laughed aloud into the suddenly new morning. Running Free blasting joyously out from the speakers to fill the air around him, he and Annie drove on into a new, bright beginning: into the future.

THE END