A/N: Written as part of an LJ fic exchange over at martianholiday. The prompt was, 'Sam/Annie; "It's a Christmas cracker Sam, it's not going to bite."'

Step into Christmas

December 24th, 1973, and he's four and thirty-seven years old.

The mental gymnastics required to make sense of that idea don't bother him like they used to; or, rather, he doesn't let them. He's made his choice- and it was the right one, he tells himself, against the hard knot of uncertainty in his stomach. The words become his mantra, for the bad days, when the mess and the noise of the city seem overwhelming and he's almost willing to trade feeling for indifference again.

Days like December 24th, 1973.

"Three locks on Mr Baxter's front door, didn't stop the thief. Did stop the ambulance crew, though. Time they got through that lot, he was bleedin' all over 'is carpet." Gene takes a long pull from his hip-flask. "That's what you'd call 'sartorial irony', eh, Gladys?"

"Situational." Sam corrects, half-heartedly.

"Hey." Ray says, grinning, "Maybe our man come down the chimney. We should put out a statement; 'anyone seen a fat bloke, bushy beard, red hat...'"

Sam groans, letting his head fall forward onto the desk. But not for long; the office air is icy through the usual fug of cigarette smoke, and he sits back up, rubbing both hands together.

"Christ almighty. There a window open in here?"

He thought he'd remembered the cold; remembered being swathed in layer after layer of knitted wool by concerned women and wrapping himself up in his duvet to sit in the kitchen for breakfast. All the same, he's not prepared for the shock of getting up each morning; the way his breath steams the windows up from the inside, clouds the air in the hallway of his apartment. Now that the fuel crisis has hit hard, most of the UK is on a three-day working week, leaving CID to crawl along with just the most skeletal of support systems. Everything is taking twice as long, from opening his front door to running a trace through the collators' den, and it's wearing them all down.

"Guv?"

Annie sticks her head around the door, her bag slung over one shoulder and several files balanced on top of a cardboard box.

"What is it, Cartwright?"

"Forensics just called. They're dusting for prints now, should be another few days with those, but they do know door wasn't forced. Whoever he was, he had a key; else someone let him in."

"In other words, it's taken 'em nine hours to work out what my blind an' deaf auntie could have told 'em, and she's right off her bloody Christmas tree. Fandabydozy."

"Oh, the festive touch." Sam sighs. "Nicely done."

Annie crosses over to his desk, biting shyly at her bottom lip. "I'm off at eight. You sure you don't- want to come over, my parents' place, after you're done here? It'll be a bit- mad, always is, but..."

Sam grins. "I think I like mad."He gestures to the box. "What've you got there?"

Annie lifts the lid; a large fruitcake, slightly sunken in the middle.

"For me Mum. She used to make it for us with dried eggs, when I were little. Then, one year we had eggs, Charlie put two straight into the cake tin, whole. We had to fish 'em out when he weren't looking, 'case we hurt his feelings." She smiles. It occurs to Sam suddenly how little he knows of Annie's family, beyond her parents and this nephew who fell off a pier. The thought makes him feel faintly ashamed; to cover it, he looks away, back to the open file.

"Could be a late night. I'll give you a call after nine, okay? Let you know."

"Okay." Annie hesitates a moment, then steps around the desk to kiss him, once, on the cheek. "See you later."

He watches her go from behind his fingers, scrubbing wearily at his eyes with both hands.

The desperate, drowning need that once held him to her has faded, along with the visions and the voices from his television set. What he feels now is subtler than that, but also broader; less-inward looking, but also less certain. Annie has noticed the change, and responded as she has always done; with a loyalty and a love that he knows is undeserved. In her gently determined way, the eggs story was a test; she wants him to probe further, or maybe respond in kind, tell her something about his own childhood.

She wants to know where he's from; where he is now, and he isn't sure he has the answer.

"It's a Christmas cracker Sam, it's not going to bite."

By Heather's elbow Uncle Harry laughs, a throaty laugh that is thick with sherry fumes. Sam's mother is looking at him with the worried, distant gaze that's already beginning to dominate his memories of her, pushing out the smile she wore whenever Dad came home. He grips his end of the cracker in both hands and shuts his eyes.

After Uncle Harry there was Oliver; then Jake, then Daniel, who stayed until Sam turned sixteen and declared himself too old to spend his holidays folded up on Heather's fold-out bed. He tries to remember their last conversation, tries to picture her face, but that particular episode in his life is all a blur, as if he was moving through it too quickly to take everything in; always too fast to get away, too eager to be out, working and learning and doing, but never quite, in spite of it all, alive.

But those are Christmases not yet passed. This is December 24th, 1973, and he's alive now, he must be, because his head aches with useless reading, and he's shivering from the cold, and when he touches his cheek where Annie kissed him a very little lipstick comes away on his fingers.

"Oi. Tyler. Ground control to Major Tom."

"Uh?"

Gene takes another slug from his hip-flask, grimacing. "I said, it's gone nine. Chucking-out time, Gladys."

"Guv, this is an ongoing investigation. Can't just call it a day 'cos you'd rather finish that hip-flask down the pub."

"This? Fuel for the old mighty engine." Gene tips the last dregs of whisky into his mouth, fishing in his coat pocket for a cigarette. "'M off to spread a little festive cheer. Cartwright said he knew his attacker. The bloke's eighty-six, half his pals have copped it, the rest eat wi' a straw, and we're looking for someone big enough to knock him out, tie him up, and then make off with the telly. Can't be that long a list."

"Then I'm coming too."

"Got Ray. The other plonk around here's gone home. Don't need you waving your girly arms around like Olive bleedin' Oyl." Gene waves a hand towards Ray's desk, which is almost entirely snowed under with folders, Ray snoring gently from behind a large paper drift. "Lights out at ten. Now piss off afore I make you file this lot yourself.

It's sleeting outside, and he has to hold the slip of paper right in front of his face in order to make out the address.

For the first ten minutes he contemplates turning back. The twenty-four hour, 21st century policeman in him, who he's never quite learnt to silence, is whispering about background checks and DNA analysis and the risks of leaving two drunk, grumpy bastards in charge of CID.

But this is December 24th, 1973, and though the day will come when procedure and science will be held up above gut-instinct and trust, that day is not today.

Auntie Heather, her arms around Jake, or maybe it was Daniel; the old radio crackling out John Lennon, 'Why don't we take off alone, take a trip somewhere, far, far away..."

He picks up the tune, softly, his free hand keeping time on the steering wheel.

Christmas Day, 1980.

It's still to come.

But it can wait.

For now, he's exactly where he wants to be.