Chapter 4

"I'm really proud of you," Robin beamed, serving up a home-made pizza, "I know you didn't want to go but you knew it was the right thing to do. I hope you get your appointment through soon and then you can start to really get back to normal."

Simon sighed. He couldn't tell Robin he had no intention of attending any kind of follow-up or that the whole thing had been a waste of time in his eyes. It took a little of the pressure off while he searched for his own answers though.

"This looks lovely," he said, changing the subject.

"Thanks," Robin said proudly. Simon often thought Robin missed his vocation in life and should have been a chef instead of a police dog handler. The two jobs weren't really compatible, he thought idly. He imagined training up a sniffer dog to pick out the best tomatoes in Sainsbury's.

"What are the trays for?" Simon asked.

"We're having a lazy TV dinner," said Robin.

"Oh?" said Simon.

"I thought we could finally watch that Boy George drama!" Robin said happily.

Simon cursed silently. He'd spent a couple of weeks doing his best to avoid it but he'd finally run out of excuses. He thought about using the 'I'm too tired' one again, but the pizza did look really tasty… Maybe he could concentrate on the food and block out the 80s aspect of the evening, he decided.

"Great," he said quietly.

Simon had been right about the pizza. It really was excellent. Somehow the local Pizza Hut could never measure up to a home-made special from the oven of Robin. Now, though, all that was left was one sliver of crust and there was still half the programme to watch.

Simon hated that his coma experience had tainted his love of 80s music. It was one of the things that brought him and Robin together in the first place. Now he felt like he was watching it through closed fingers, like a kid who wasn't cried ready to watch their first horror movie.

He was just about doing OK until he started to hallucinate Keats in heavy make-up, warbling Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? and then he started to feel a little too disturbed. Luckily he found a distraction in challenging himself to think of 101 unusual deaths he could inflict upon that stupid psychologist woman.

He'd only gotten up to number 57 when the programme finished. There was a part of him that was a little disappointed, actually. He hadn't even gotten onto the subject that involved sharp, pointy objects shoved into uncomfortable places. He congratulated himself on making it all the way through the drama intact, and it had scored him some brownie points with Robin, too.

"That was brilliant," Robin said as he finally deleted the programme.

Simon gave a polite smile.

"Great," he said.

"Well worth waiting for," said Robin.

Simon nodded.

"Yes, well worth waiting for."

Robin bit his lip nervously.

"Uh… speaking of things that are well worth waiting for," he began nervously, "how… how are you feeling now?"

Simon looked at him cautiously.

"Why?"

"It's just," Robin hated himself for bringing it up, "I don't want to rush you, and I know how much you've been through, but it's been weeks since you woke up and a long time has passed since you left hospital, and we still haven't…"

Simon glanced down. He hadn't even thought about bedroom shenanigans. The last kind of action he'd had was when a concussed Keats tried feeling his bicep.

"Robin," he sighed, "it's not that you're hurrying me, and it's not that I don't want to. It's just…" he paused. Was 'Not tonight dear, I have a headache' too trite? "…By the time it gets to the evening I am so tired I just can't think about anything other than crawling into bed."

Robin sighed deeply.

"I thought that's what you'd say," he whispered.

Simon felt terribly guilty. He knew something was still amiss in his head and he needed to sort that out before he could think about very much else.

"But soon," he said, just hoping he was telling the truth, "I mean it. I'm getting better, every day I'm a little bit stronger."

Robin gave him a thin smile. He wished he could believe that.

"I'll clear the plates away," he said quietly.

Simon watched in silence as Robin got to his feet and made a big show of distracting himself with the washing up. He longed to get back to normal but had no idea what normal was any more. He just hoped he could find the answer soon.

-x-

Another night, another nightmare.

Simon had almost expected it as he closed his eyes and drifted off, but this time things panned out differently. There was still darkness, there was still a lack of oxygen, but this time the voice was clearer.

"Help," it cried, "Simon, I need you."

Simon fought against the darkness and the dense air. He ran and ran, step by step getting closer to the voice.

"I'm coming," he cried, "I'm trying to help you but I don't know who you are!"

"It's ME, Simon," the voice said insistently, "You're the only one who can save me. Please, hear me… see me…"

Simon looked desperately around him, looking for a face or a clue but there was nothing except darkness until he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned around.

A harrowed, anxious and desperate face greeted him. A familiar face. One he never thought that he would see again.

"Alex?" he breathed.

"I need you, Simon," she cried, tears in her eyes.

"H-how can I help you?" Simon trembled, "You're in nineteen eighty-five! You're decades away!"

"I'm closer than you realise," Alex whispered, "Please… find me…"

A last silent plea from her eyes caused Simon to choke up a little.

"Alex, please, tell me how and I'll do it," he begged, but her image was fading. "Alex? Alex!"

With the last scream of her name he awoke in a sweat, sat up and panted for several moments. He put his hand to his head and cried,

"Oh God," then cursed himself for being so loud. Now Robin would wake up and he would have more questions to answer. He braced himself but the usual worried reaction didn't come. After a few moments he glanced around and found the bed empty beside him. He frowned. "Robin?"

He waited for a moment but he couldn't hear footsteps, nor the flushing of the toilet. There was no sound to be heard. He slowly lifted his legs out of bed and shuffled into the hall.

"Robin?"

There were no lights on in the flat but he heard a noise coming from the kitchen and made his way there. He flicked on the light and found Robin sitting at the table, nursing a glass of whiskey. Robin very rarely drank, he'd just never been into it, so the sight shocked Simon.

"Robin? What's the matter?"

Robin raised his glass to his lips and took a sip.

"Nothing," he whispered, "I couldn't sleep. That's all."

Simon squinted a little, the light stinging his eyes.

"You're drinking," he said.

Robin shrugged.

"I'm over eighteen," he said childishly.

Simon hesitated. He didn't know what more to say.

"Well… I'll see you in bed in a bit?" he asked.

Robin nodded.

"Yeah," he said.

Simon hesitated for a moment. He wasn't used to seeing Robin like this. Usually Robin was the happy, optimistic one. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. Finally he turned around slowly and began to leave the room. He'd taken two steps into the hallway when he heard Robin ask;

"Who is he?"

Simon paused and frowned. He thought he must have misheared the question and came back to the doorway.

"What?"

"Who is he?" Robin asked again.

Simon frowned.

"Who?" he asked.

Robin took a swig of whiskey and pulled a face as the liquid stung his throat. It took a few seconds for him to regain the power of speech. He looked Simon right in the eye.

"Alex," he said.

Simon turned cold. Ice ran through his veins at the mention of the name. Something felt terribly wrong.

"What?" he breathed.

"It all adds up," said Robin, "the way you've been behaving. Not wanting to touch me, not wanting to be seen with me, not wanting to kiss me…" he stared into his glass. "How long?"

"How long what?"

"Have you been seeing him?"

Simon shook his head slowly.

"Robin," he whispered, crossing to the table, "I honestly don't know what you're talking about?"

"I heard you crying his name," Robin said in slow, measured tones, "in your sleep. Groaning." He looked at Simon again. "Is he someone from work? Have you been seeing him since before the accident?"

Simon's heart sank.

"Robin, no," he cried, "you've got the wrong end of the stick."

"Which is more than Alex did, by the sound of it," Robin muttered.

Simon shook his head.

"Alex," he began, "is a woman."

Robin frowned.

"So, what are you… coming out… in reverse?"

Simon gave a very deep sigh. This was the moment he'd been dreading. The moment he'd been putting off forever and a day. Now the truth would have to come out.

"Robin," he said quietly, slipping into a chair beside him, "I need you to listen to me very carefully, because what I'm about to tell you… It's hard for me to admit to. But I am not having an affair and I haven't gone straight either. OK?"

Robin glanced at him dubiously.

"I'm listening," he prompted.

Simon rubbed his temples. He'd tried so hard to avoid even thinking about 1985 that he didn't know how to even begin to put it into words.

"When I had the accident," he began quietly, "I didn't just… stop existing. It wasn't like something hit me on the head and then I opened my eyes again in hospital. When the server hit me I woke up somewhere else. Or… somewhen else. I was at the station but it looked different. I didn't know what was going on, I was terrified."

"It was a bad dream?" asked Robin.

Simon sighed.

"Pass," he said, "can I come back to that?" he ran his hand through his hair. "There were three guys in suits who kept telling me I'd been hit in the head by a mug. I thought they were treating me like a mug so I went to find my office, see what was going on, but that was all different as well."

Robin felt the room swim a little. He wasn't used to the spirits and they were beginning to affect him but Simon's words were starting to gather his interest.

"What happened?" he asked.

Simon exhaled loudly and with some annoyance.

"There was this guy," he began, "DCI Hunt. He appeared when I was trying to find out who'd nicked my iPhone. Treated me like a total ruddy idiot. I was all fired up, as angry as anything, I kicked a desk and wound up in hospital with three broken toes." Involuntarily he wiggled the toes on his foot just to check they were intact. "Turns out I was back in nineteen eighty five." He looked cautiously at Robin, expecting him to roll his eyes or call him out as a liar but whether it was the alcohol he'd consumed or the honest look in Simon's eye he did neither.

"You went back in time?" he asked, "you were dreaming about the past?"

"It didn't feel like a dream," Simon told him, "Rob, please, suspend your disbelief for a moment. Put yourself in my place. I knew I'd had an accident, a bad one at that. I knew I was in a coma. I was getting messages from home about my progress. The accident either sent me back through time or to some kind of weird dimension, or to a world my mind created to keep itself alive while I recovered enough to wake up."

Robin began to understand just a little about Simon's erratic behaviour. He reached across the table to touch his hand.

"So you'd woken up in this place, broken your toes, gone to hospital…" he paused, "what happened next?"

Simon shuddered.

"I'd been demoted to DI," he said, "My boss was a racist, sexist, homophobic caveman who wanted to send me packing to work at the nearest shoe shop because of my name. I wanted to scream." he paused. "But there was this woman, Alex. DI Drake. She looked out for me. She looked after me. She was a good friend. She tried to teach me that Hunt wasn't as bad as he seemed on the outside and that it was just how he got his job done. Things were different back then." he started to breath more deeply as the darker side of his experience came closer. "That was part of the problem, actually."

"What do you mean?"

"There was this other guy," Simon continued, "DCI Jim Keats. He was some kind of nutter as far as I could see, but he kept telling me he could get me home if I brought down Hunt."

"Is that how you woke up?"

Simon shook his head.

"He was a liar," he said, "he had me fooled at first, believe me. He showed me some footage of Hunt committing a homophobic hate crime. He told me if I didn't help him bring Hunt down then he'd let it slip that his new DI was gay. I was petrified. I had no way out, no escape route, there was no exit from this place. So I did something awful and I set him up. Alex… she went crazy. She's in love with the guy, honestly, couldn't see what she saw in him. I realised too late that Keats was full of shit."

"But you got home eventually," Robin pointed out.

"No thanks to that evil nutter," said Simon, "I went to try to put things right and he caught me. He played me messages you'd left on my iPhone, and my sister too. I know dad came close to switching off my life support."

Robin felt tears come to the corners of his eyes.

"How did you know about that?" he whispered.

"The message you left on my phone," Simon whispered.

"B-but I deleted it before I gave you the phone back," Robin cried.

Simon shrugged.

"I told you," he whispered, "This was not a dream."

Robin bit his lip, feeling upset and anxious.

"What happened then?" he asked, "I mean, you woke up, you must have… 'escaped' somehow."

"I was shot," Simon said quietly, "I'm not even sure how it happened. There was screaming… I remember snatches of Alex and Keats fighting over me, then Alex lifted my head and I started to feel a rush of energy. I felt like I was lifting… up… high in the sky. Everything went black for a moment, I had no idea what was happening, until I opened my eyes and you were there beside me."

"In hospital," Robin concluded in a whisper.

Simon nodded.

"I made it back," he whispered. He shook his head slightly. "But I can't shake that world. I keep feeling like I'm still in nineteen eighty five. I'm terrified of homophobia and I can't stand to hear the music I used to love because it brings it all back. I keep seeing Jim Keats everywhere I look, haunting me, taunting me. And I've been having nightmares…"

"What actually happens in them?" Robin asked, "you never tell me."

"There's a voice asking me for help," Simon said quietly, "and darkness. I can't breathe. Sometimes there's some kind of ancient technology, mocking me about being back in the technical dark ages. But tonight was the first time I found out who the voice belonged to, and it was Alex. That's why you heard me say her name. I was calling after her, trying to get her to tell me what was wrong and how I could help. Simon hung his head. "Now I'm worried she's really out there somewhere and relying on me to save her but I don't know what to do."

Robin shook his head slowly.

"You never told me about any of this when you woke up," he said quietly.

Simon sighed.

"I didn't know how," he whispered, "that stupid psychologist woman already thinks I'm mad. I wanted to hit her when she said it was all a dream. I didn't tell you because… well, if a stranger I've never met before thinks I'm mad then that's one thing but if the man I love does then there's not much point me carrying on."

Robin stared at Simon whose eyes were down-turned with sadness and worry. He took his hands in his own and took a deep breath.

"I remember the night we met," he said quietly, "the eighties night at the club downtown. You were dressed as Adam Ant, I was Boy George. It wasn't love at first sight… we could hardly see through all that make-up anyway… but I knew I'd made a friend for life. When Absolute Beginners started playing and we both cried, 'That's my favourite song!' I knew right then that one day we were going to be more than that, too. That's why, all those years later when we met again at work and I asked you round for dinner it was the first song I played." He leaned forward and forced Simon to look him in the eye. "I absolutely love you," he echoed the lyrics of the song, "and I believe you."

Simon hesitated. He hoped the alcohol hadn't affected Robin too much and that he'd have to go through the story again come the morning.

"I don't want to go to that stupid psychologist," he said.

"You don't have to," said Robin, "as long as you talk to me instead."

Simon nodded.

"I will."

"And I promise," Robin told him, "that I will do everything I can to help you find out what's causing these nightmares."

Simon gave a slight smile. The weight that lifted from his shoulders by talking to Robin was incredible and he cursed himself for not gathering the courage to do so sooner.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Robin slowly got to his feet. He felt slightly woozy but not enough to notice.

"Come on," he said quietly, "let's go back to bed. Together. And this time, if you have any bad dreams, remember I'm by your side."

Simon stood up and accepted the invitation. He hoped that by talking to Robin he'd broken the spell that 1985 had been holding over him. Maybe, just maybe, this time he could have a peaceful dream and tomorrow wake up firmly rooted in 2010.