AN: Thanks to Russ for making John such a wonderful character who makes my writing fingers itch and to Coolblue for some exceedingly kind feedback.
It is dark in the room, or as dark as it gets in a London flat. In truth, street lighting creates a permanent twilight. In the soft grey of the room there are darker blocks though - bed, chest of drawers, wardrobe, man. The man is on the bed; knees hunched, arms hugging the sheet around them, head bowed. He is very still, shaken only by his breathing which comes raggedly. Suddenly the shadow breaks up. The man lifts his head then pushes the bedding aside and slides to sit on the edge of the bed staring into the not-darkness.
John moves restlessly in the bed, in a tangle of sheets and a half-discarded duvet. Every time he closes his eyes he sees Kerry, huddled scared and bleeding amidst the broken glass in the back of the car. Now, as he slides over the edge into sleep, she transmogrifies into Dave Quinnan - and he's sucked into a nightmare of changing truths.
Kerry
beyond his reach, beyond his help -
George Garfield's voice, taunting, "Coward, Boulton."
- curled up on a bloodstained floor
huddled in a glass-strewn car
Crazily the scene slides and changes. He watches through glass as Dave Kerry is attacked. Then Dave is beside him, carrying something red and heavy. John turns to look - knowing/not knowing in the manner of all dreams what he will see.
Blood drips softly as Dave says, "A slice of my liver, Sarge?"
It's Kerry's face looking back at him, though. Then she smiles at him and half her face disappears. Teeth and flesh hang loose in a tattered bloodstained mess. Some part of John knows that this shattered wreck of a face gaping back at him isn't Kerry's at all, but belongs to a middle-aged shopper caught in a bombing back when he was a PC, but it smiles with Kerry's eyes and says,
"I'm all right, Sarge."
John jerks awake, sitting up in a convulsive movement. He's damp with sweat and his heart is pounding so hard it is seconds - minutes? - before he can focus on the glowing numbers of the clock beside his bed.
"Oh God," he gasps, fear, frustration and fury mixed.
Fifteen minutes, fifteen bloody minutes, that's all it's been.
"Oh God," he says again, but it is softer this time, close to prayer.
John drops his face to his bent knees and hugs them tightly, as though he can somehow hold himself together. He stays still now - still except for the painful breaths that make his body shudder as he fights back tears - still for an endless time. Finally, he moves.
"It's over," John whispers fiercely, then lifts his head. He pushes the tangle of bedding aside to sit on the edge of the bed, watching pictures in the grey darkness.
What haunts him, now he's awake, is the memory of waiting with Kerry at the hospital. He drove Kerry there, and then stayed - feeling helpless and wishing Liz would hurry up. Somehow, it would have been easier if Kerry had cried but, although her hands shook a little, she kept smiling with all the fierce bravado he would have employed himself. It would have been easier too if there was something he could do for her but Kerry shook her head when he offered to get her a drink, and said with brittle brightness,
"No thanks, Sarge. Why don't you get yourself one?"
He didn't though. He stayed sitting there beside her because he was scared that if he left her he wouldn't come back. He'd run out on Quinnan's sister, hadn't he? Deakin, Daly - probably any of the others - would have been able to comfort her when she'd cried. Him? He'd just sat there in frozen misery - then he'd run away. Garfield and A Relief blamed him for the attack on Dave but it was that moment of cowardice in the hospital John couldn't forgive. Now, sitting shivering on the edge of his bed, Meadows' words from that nightmare time when he'd had a needlestick come back yet again to taunt him.
"What are you frightened of?"
He knows. God, how well he knows. He'd known then, sitting in the car with Meadows and fighting back tears. He'd known in the bleak days following Dave's stabbing - known even as he cracked off-colour jokes and shouted at his subordinate officers - just as he'd known when he'd wrapped himself in a protective cloak of rage after the shooting at Romford. He'd known tonight too, as he'd waited in A and E with Kerry. He knows now as he sits growing cold in the grey-lit room. Take away his 'hard man' exterior and what will there be to hold onto? Better to be "Robocop - and God knows he hates that gibe - than to break.
It is usually Kerry who whispers, "Robocop", with that smile which dares you to admit you heard, but watching her tonight John recognised himself. It was there in that bravado which refused to give in - or to even admit that there was anything to give in to. Deep down some part of him wanted her to break, to cry, to admit the fear - to do the things he couldn't. Impossible to own that, even to himself, so instead he sat fidgeting on an uncomfortable plastic chair and - asking favours of a deity he'd long denied - prayed for Liz to arrive.
With a long soft breath out John pushes himself to his feet. No need for a light he knows the way too well. In the living room he goes to the shelf he uses as a bar and follows along the row of bottles, fingertips very lightly trailing over their rounded glassy fronts and slowly swooping in and out. He stops when he reaches the coldness of the pewter beer tankard he was given on his twenty-first by his Relief. It's an ugly great thing and he's never used it but for a moment there's a catch in his throat at this tangible proof that he was liked. The bottle he wants is just beyond it, half obscured by a stack of videos, as though by hiding it he can deny his need for it. John takes his first mouthful standing there watching his feet in the green glow from the video machine. After a second pull at the bottle he screws the lid on loosely then returns to the bedroom, the bottle dangling at his side.
John takes a couple more swigs sitting on the edge of the bed. The spirit's fiery in his throat and he grimaces a little but inside him some of the terrible tension is easing. He takes another mouthful then lies down, carefully balancing the bottle beside him on the bed. There's something comforting in the feel of the cool bottle in his hand. It's not that the drink makes things better - but it helps you to pretend that you don't care. He learnt that at Romford when Paul. when Paul. Hastily, he pushes the thought of Romford away - he couldn't bear the misery of that dream - and props himself on his elbow to take another drink.
Kerry, Dave, George, Paul they're all fading now. John screws the lid back on with careful concentration and lets the bottle topple over onto the empty half of the bed. Then he curls up among the tangle of sheets, reaching down to find the duvet and haul it, twisted, up.
Tomorrow'll be okay, he promises himself sleepily. He'll sort Burnside, then take Tom and get out and kick a few heads
It's quiet in the room, or as quiet as it gets in a London flat. In truth, traffic
creates a background tapestry of noise. In the grey darkness some sounds break
the pattern, though, as the sleeper mutters and moves restlessly