Chapter Two

The following week he was back in that same seat, looking even more edgy than before. Alex smiled at him warmly. She was glad of his return; she had promised herself, after all, that Sam was going to be fixed, and she would be the one to do it. It would certainly show her colleagues the importance of dealing with emotional and physical trauma in the Force: she couldn't be sure, but she suspected they were dubious of her work, and of its worth. They needed convincing. She needed to prove herself. Sam needed his life back. At the end of this, they would all be winners, in one way or another.

'I didn't want to come,' he said. 'I wasn't really sure it would be useful.' He looked apologetic.

'I'm glad you did,' she said. 'I think there's more we need to discuss.' She looked down at her notes, the scribbled asides she had made the night before.

'Tell me about your father- '

'I want to keep talking about them. Keep them alive, in my mind. But then…' He lowered his gaze. 'I remember how I left them, and I feel guilty.'

She would let him speak; it was the right thing to do, for now. Let him speak if that was what he wanted. She could wait.

'Ray, you know, he really didn't like me. And d'you know what?' He laughed to himself. 'I didn't like him much either, not at first. Sexist, racist, homophobic. Couldn't stand that I had a different way of doing things; too stuck in his ways. Thought everything the Guv did was brilliant, even if it was illegal or dangerous. But after a while…I started to understand him.

And then there was Chris. He was so nervous, really worried about doing the wrong thing, or letting the Guv down. He would have made a good copper, though. I reckon in a few years…'

He stopped; Alex was looking at him strangely.

'They're not real, Sam.'

'I know, I know,' he said hastily. 'They were just projections. Chemical reactions. I know they aren't real.' But he wasn't sure he believed that.

'You're back at work full time now, aren't you?' she asked him after a moment.

He nodded. 'I needed something to do. I couldn't stand being at home.'

She smiled encouragingly. 'That's good: you're making progress.'

'I suppose.'

He had gone back to work, hoping that it would help. Whilst in Gene's world, he had wanted to get back modern policing, where everything was on computers, a search engine could get him information he needed within a few seconds and he could look through a case file without half of its contents smudged or lost. He had his own office. He had his title back, though he still accidentally referred to himself as D.I. Tyler. This was the modern world, where police brutality was a thing of the past and where all operations needed to be approved and signed off by a higher authority before they could go ahead. This was better, wasn't it? He could attend these meetings with Alex so easily; it was a few hours by train once a week, a feat that would have been unthinkable back there. With a wry smile, he imagined Chris's face as he told him of his journeys to London.

'What d'you wanna go there for, boss? Everything you need is here.'

'I know why he wants to go there,' Ray would say with a smirk. 'Higher class of toms in London.' Typical bloody Ray: nineteen seventy-three, through and through.

It was a world of convenience, of commodities, of grabbing at what you could while you could. And everything you needed was there in reach, waiting for you to take hold of it. Grab it before someone else took it first; it's yours, not theirs. He could talk to people on video conference, collecting evidence, from all around the country, all around the world, even! It was a technological utopia. But what of the people around him? He could walk down the high street of Manchester and not recognise a single face, and they would never even notice him. He was a police officer: he was there to serve the community. But most days he had to wonder, where exactly was this community? Where had it gone?

Sam would be a difficult case, Alex realised. She had hoped that talking about his work would help him, remind him of all the good things he had in his life. But the light had gone out as soon as she had brought him back to the present. He barely said a word about it. The only time he seemed alive, really alive, and feverishly excited, was when he was back in 1973. He felt he had nothing left for him here.

Still, she was not going to give up on him easily.

He arrived back in Manchester that evening; it was already dark at five o'clock. He'd taken a taxi back from Piccadilly station, the driver sullen and silent. The city was lit with bright lights, the neon signs of strip clubs, the loud thumping of the bass of club music. He let himself into his darkened flat, switching on the lights to illuminate the empty rooms with their beige wallpaper and laminate floors. He had loved the modernity once; it was so neutrally decorated, so minimalist, so...twenty-first century! But looking at it with new eyes, he saw it for what it was: impersonal, plain and temporary: the dwelling of a ghost.

The answer machine beeped. He pressed to hear the messages.

'Hi, Sam, this is D.C.I. Broadwell, A Division. Just wondered if you'd had a chance to look through those forms yet?' Don't want to rush you, Sam, I know it's been difficult lately, but they're getting rather urgent now. Paperwork, eh? Bain of our lives! But that's the world of policing these days. Terrible, terrible, but necessary. Anyway, I'll catch up with you later, Sam!'

He pressed the delete button, and then waited for the next message to play.

'Sam? It's Mum. Just checking in. I haven't heard from you recently, is everything OK? I expect you're busy with work. Come visit soon, eh? Love you.'

He sighed, touching the St. Christopher pendant around his neck lightly. His mother had given him that when he woke from the coma: he had told her he felt like a traveller, and the next day she had handed it to him, 'for luck'. Ruth Tyler: she had always been an amazing woman, and he had seen that. She had made so many sacrifices for him; he should make this one for her. He should settle.

'Sam, help us!'

'Tyler!'

He turned to the television, but there were no voices. Not anymore; not now he was back where he was supposed to be.

'Evan,' Alex greeted him, standing aside so he could enter their house. Molly charged down the stairs, flying at him. He pulled her into a hug, lifting her off the floor.

'Hey, someone's getting bigger!' he joked.

'Are you saying I'm getting fat?' Molly said, teasing him. 'That's a bit harsh.'

'We both know I meant taller; stop fishing for reasons to send me on a guilt trip.' He laughed, putting her down.

'Have you brought me anything?'

'Molly!' Alex frowned at her as Evan laughed. 'Did you leave your manners upstairs?'

'Well, it is nearly Christmas,' Molly reasoned. 'Two months. It's not that far away.'

Alex caught Evan's eye.

'Why do I get the awful feeling that she's going to become a lawyer?'

'There are worse things in the world,' Evan said, eyebrows raised. Alex pulled a face: sure about that?

'As a matter of fact, scrap, I did bring something.' He handed her a bag. 'Go listen to it now, if you like. But don't laugh at me if I've got it badly wrong, OK?'

'Wicked! Thanks, Evan!'

She ran back up the stairs.

'Not too loud, Molls!' Alex called up. She turned to Evan. 'Shall we?'

They sat in her living room, each with a glass of wine in hand. Evan was looking through the papers she had left scattered on the coffee table: Sam's notes.

'Oi,' she said. 'Those are confidential.' But the glint in her eyes told him she wasn't all that annoyed.

'Sam the Time Traveller?'

She laughed.

'Well. Not exactly.'

'So enlighten me. What is this new work you're doing?'

'I'm researching into the effects of trauma on colleagues.' At his blank face, she shook her head dismissively. 'It's just a sideline, really.'

'I see.'

She sipped her wine, and then looked at him curiously.

'Evan, why have you never got married?'

He laughed, confused.

'Erm...gosh, that's out of the blue, Alex. I just haven't.'

'But you're so good with Molly. Didn't you ever want that for yourself?'

'Of course. But I had you, and then you had Molls. I'm happy with the way things are.'

'So there was never anyone you- '

'No.' His voice had an air of finality about it, and she let the matter drop. But they both knew he was lying. There had been someone once, not that she cared to remember that.

It was best for the past to remain in the past.