By Any Other Name

a Tale from the Sandford P.D.

by Setcheti

 

 

Rating:  FRT: Moderate Profanity

 

Disclaimer:  I do not own Hot Fuzz.  I am simply borrowing Hot Fuzz because I enjoyed the movie and wanted more.  A lot more.  But there was no more to be had unless I wrote it myself, so I did. J

 

It was the Andys who’d started it, while Sergeant Angel was in hospital.  Wainwright had almost said Nicholas, sort of choked on it – probably because he’d been about to say Nicholarse out of habit – and came out with ‘Nick’ instead.  Cartwright had looked his partner in the eye for a long moment, then nodded, and afterwards by silently mutual consensus they’d both referred to Sgt. Nicholas Angel as ‘Nick’.

 

Danny had picked it up from them, liking the way the new name sounded in relation to the way his partner had changed over the month or so that he’d known him.  Nicholas Angel was the straight-up by-the-book London police officer who’d been ordered to Sandford against his will, who had never seen a cop movie, and who never broke a rule if he could help it. But Nick Angel was a cop who raided evidence lockers and was aided by hoodie street punks and had shootouts and car chases and fistfights with bad guys twice his size; he was the guy who came riding in on a white horse to save a town that hadn’t wanted to be saved instead of just reporting the whole mess and letting the chain of command tell him what they could do about it.  Nick Angel was off the fucking chain of command, to paraphrase a line from one of Danny’s favorite movies. Nick Angel was the Cop Who Couldn’t Be Stopped.

 

Except by an exploding sea mine, apparently.  And even that had taken a while to catch up to him.

 

Once Angel had woken up in hospital, after about four days of scaring the surviving members of the Sandford P.D. absolutely shitless by not waking up in a timely fashion like they thought he should have done, he’d taken to being called Nick without so much as a blink.  He hadn’t commented on it, he hadn’t even tried to correct anyone.  In fact, Danny thought he’d looked a bit relieved each time he heard it, and when Police Inspector Anderson – the top brass of the London Met – had come in calling him Nicholas he’d nearly winced and had quickly but politely corrected the man.  It’s Nick, sir, if you please.

 

Doris was the one who’d shed some light on the mystery, having been driven up to the hospital for a visit by John Turner.  “We were talkin’ about that – after Andy told us not to Nicholas him when we came up to visit,” she’d said, patting Danny’s shoulder.  “Sorry, but I think it’s mostly your dad’s fault.  The inspector always called him Nicholas – in that boomin’ voice of authoritative concern, you know, always soundin’ so right and reasonable about everything.  Nicholas was the one who was bein’ convinced he was losing his mind, seein’ murders around every corner that everyone else said weren’t really there.  Tony says he thinks that if you boys hadn’t changed his name away from that the poor bloke most likely would have done it himself.”

 

Danny couldn’t deny that she had a point.  One he thought the tall, sharp-eyed Met police inspector must have twigged to himself, because he’d never said Nicholas again on any of his visits to the hospital – and he’d been there a lot more than any of them had been comfortable with.  Sometimes he’d brought other people with him, sometimes he’d come by himself, and every time he’d insisted that everyone else leave the room; after a few of the initial visits had left Nick shaken and fretfully silent the Andys had started to take turns rather defiantly standing guard outside the room when the police inspector was there.  Which Anderson had noticed, and had strangely enough seemed to approve of.  He’d even said, “Good job, Detective,” to the not-quite scowling Wainwright one day as he’d been leaving Nick’s room, and followed up with a wryly pleased smile and the cryptic comment, “I’m glad to see Angel’s assessment of you is correct.  Good men at one’s back are vital to a command, you know.”  After which he’d gone without another word, leaving Andy wondering just what the hell he’d been talking about.

 

They hadn’t found out until about a week later, when Anderson had come back with a load of brass, some uniforms and a few reporters to witness him promoting Sergeant Nick Angel – and he had very clearly enunciated the Nick – to Inspector Nick Angel, assigning him to the Sandford P.D. just as soon as he was cleared for active duty.  The papers had been given the idea that the then-Sergeant Angel had been ‘transferred’ to Sandford as part of a hush-hush undercover assignment, that he’d been sent there specifically to find out about all of the suspicious disappearances in the area.  With his perfect record and numerous commendations and high score on the inspector’s examination – which the service had apparently had him take right there in the hospital – Nick was being paraded around in the media as a perfect poster boy for the police service, a shining example of how hard-working and self-sacrificing its dedicated officers were in their quest to keep each and every British citizen safe.

 

The whole thing was nauseating, really – Nick thought so too, and he’d blown most of it off with a tired roll of his eyes.  It was all about politics, the Met covering its collective arse in the wake of the monumental cock-up that had been his assignment to Sandford and their near-desperate attempts to get him back to London once someone had realized just where it was exactly that they’d sent him.  Because it turned out that people had had suspicions about Sandford for years; inspectors in other villages had heard disturbing rumors, drugs dealers had passed along warnings, and even the more desperate and dangerous criminals had known to avoid that part of Gloucestershire.  In fact, the rumors about Sandford had been so pervasive that Nick’s former boss, Met Sergeant Martin, had nearly been fired over the whole incident.  Personally, the collective surviving members of the Sandford P.D. thought the bastard should be sharing cell-space with the NWA rather than just being reassigned to a lower position; the Andys especially were rather keen on the theory that he’d been trying to take out some very stiff up-and-coming competition by making Nick disappear - permanently.  Although it was some consolation that, according to sources Doris refused to identify, Martin was rumored to be facing the rest of his career sans the opportunity for promotion because his actions – whether based in stupidity or malice no one at the Met much seemed to care – had pissed off so much of the London brass.  He’d also supposedly been warned that if he complained he’d be reassigned to the back-end of The Dales to deal with cow-tipping teenagers and farmers accusing each other of sheep thievery.

 

Coincidentally, no one had heard a peep out of him, not even Andy Wainwright’s connections at the Met CID, who were quite keen on knowing what everyone was saying to everyone else whether they needed to or not.  Which wasn’t really surprising, as everyone pretty much agreed that assignment to The Dales was definitely a threat that trumped being sacked hands down for a city police officer.  They’d still all been afraid that Nick would be ordered back to London, though, and the splashy announcement that he’d be going back to Sandford as their boss had come as something of a shock.  “I couldn’t say anything,” Nick had apologized the evening after the police inspector and his circus had been there.  “I didn’t know if I’d even pass the exam – I fell asleep twice while I was taking it and they had to stop the clock.  And even then, I’d only been a sergeant for a couple of months; it’s unheard of to be allowed another promotion that quickly, and especially not when it meant being put in charge of a station of my own.”

 

“Well, according to Andy’s friends nobody else wanted to take charge in Sandford,” Andy Cartwright told him.  “At least, nobody they were willin’ to let come in.”

 

“Ain’t that the truth,” Wainwright seconded with a snort.  “Apparently they turned down a few who were suspected of havin’ ambitions of takin’ over where the last inspector left off.”  For Danny’s sake, they all tried to avoid mentioning Frank Butterman by name if they could help it.  “You were the only one they could trust who wanted the bloody job, Nick.”

 

“And you’ll do just fine,” Doris assured, patting his hand.  She had stolen the chair Danny usually occupied next to Nick’s bed and had refused to give it up.  “We’ll all watch out for each other, it’ll work out, you’ll see.”

 

“It’s not going to be a cakewalk,” Nick warned tiredly.  “Half the village probably hates all of us…”

 

“Not quite half…”

 

“Thank you, Sergeant Butterman.”  Nick rolled his eyes, but he had a smile for his partner; one of the more surprising secrets that had come to light during the Sandford investigation was that Danny had passed his sergeant’s exam nearly a year before and his father had withheld the results from him – and from everyone else.  “Even if it’s not quite half, though, we’re still going to have to go very carefully for a while.”  He fought back a yawn.  “I think my first official order as inspector will be that no officer is ever to go out alone.  I’m not taking any chances, especially not while we still don’t know where we might have…problems.”

 

The conversation was starting to make him worry, they could all tell, and Doris changed the subject.  “So what are you and Danny goin’ to do when the rest of us start re-trainin’ on Monday?” she wanted to know, arching an eyebrow.  “You’ve still got a couple of days here before they let you both go home.”

 

Danny shrugged.  “We’ll prob’ly just laze around, yeah?”

 

“Not much else to do here,” Nick agreed, fighting another yawn; he was quite obviously trying not to fall asleep.  “John’s coming to pick us up on Wednesday.  And I’ve been threatened with six weeks in The Dales if I so much as write out a parking citation until I’ve been cleared for duty, so it looks like I’ll be lazing around Sandford for a while as well.”

 

“It’ll do you good,” Wainwright said, and meant it.  He’d become very protective over their new inspector, especially after he’d checked out the police inspector’s comment from a week previous and found out that Nick had put his own position – apparently the new one as well as the old one – on the line to go to bat for the rest of them, insisting that they all deserved the chance to keep their jobs if they still wanted them.  “Stayin’ with Danny until then, aren’t you?”

 

Nick nodded.  “His doctor says no beer, no crisps, and no ice cream or candy for the next fortnight.  And he has to exercise every day.”

 

“An’ yours says no runnin’, no work, and no stressin’ out,” Danny shot back.  “And you’re supposed to eat four meals a day and not exercise for the next fortnight.” 

 

Doris started to laugh.  “He put you in charge of each other?”

 

“Tony’s already said he and the missus will be lookin’ in every day,” Cartwright assured her, grinning.  “Just to make sure they don’t get confused and ‘accidentally’ start followin’ the wrong set of instructions.”

 

Nick snorted, which turned into a rough little cough that looked like it hurt him a bit.  “Ah, and the…insubordination begins already…”

 

“You ain’t on duty for another three weeks at least, Nick,” Wainwright reminded him.  “So right now?  We’re all just friends visitin’ you and Danny in hospital.”

 

Nick nodded, unable to speak thanks to another cough that had followed the first, but his eyes got a funny sheen in them that had nothing to do with them watering from him trying to get his breath back.  Danny had to look away fast from that, remembering that there was one other difference between Nicholas and Nick, maybe even the most important one.

 

Nick had friends, good ones.  Danny had to wonder if Nicholas ever had.