NEW
It was late. Jack and Brian had already gone home. But Gerry was in Sandra's office, celebrating the end of the Phillipson case, hoping that maybe in the rush of celebration... He shook his head. That sort of thing didn't happen with Sandra, the toughest blonde in the Met. He looked at her wide, open-mouthed smile and shrugged the bad feelings away. They'd put away a very dangerous criminal. This was a party. A very private party, with just the two of them. He took the few steps needed to reach her.
'We did it! We did it!'
He was laughing and shouting and pulled her into a hug. She answered it – just this once, what could it hurt? She hadn't felt anything in so long. Let her just feel this, this once. This now. And then he kissed her. Just like that. He meant to kiss her cheek, but she turned her head at just the right (wrong?) time, and their mouths met.
Lightning.
She felt everything in that second. The taste of the wine on his lips. The gentle autumn rain outside. The cheese sandwich he'd had for lunch, which was a slightly sobering thought.
He let her go.
'I'm sorry, Sandra. I didn't mean – I mean – your cheek, not... I'm sorry.'
'It's okay,' she whispered. More than okay. Damn it, she didn't want him to be sorry. And he was so very close, those eyes and his smell, that mix of smoke and flowers (why did he smell of flowers?) and his hair, shining part blonde, part grey. She breathed in deeply.
'Nevermind,' he said. Never mind? I do mind, Gerry, I mind so very much... And then she saw it in his eyes, that he minded too, that she wasn't the only one who had felt the lightning.
'Screw it,' she said, and pulled him back into the embrace. They kissed, longer, better than before. When they released each other, Sandra looked out of the window for lack of a better reaction. She licked her lips.
He observed her doing this. So they'd kissed. And now what?
'Sandra?'
'Yes?' she said.
'How about I take you out to dinner sometime? And when I say sometime, I mean right now.'
'I, erm,' still licking her lips nervously, he noticed, 'I'd like that, Gerry. Yes.'
-
They were sitting opposite each other, sipping white wine, staring at the remainders of dinner. While eating they'd only discussed the Phillipson case. It was safe ground. Safer than remembering. Safer than reminding each other of what had passed between them not an hour ago. But now that dinner was over, they had to decide what was next.
'So.' she said, finally.
'So.' he agreed.
'Where do we go from here?'
Your flat, I hope, he thought, but he didn't say it.
'I don't know. It's not too late.' She checked her watch and he laughed.
'I didn't mean not too late quite that literally, Sandra.'
'Oh.' She laughed nervously. 'Course you didn't. Not too late what way then?'
'Not too late to pretend it never happened.' Her eyes widened as he said that.
'I don't want to pretend it never happened,' she whispered hoarsely.
'Do you think I do?' he asked rhetorically. 'But it may be for the best. We work together. It's out of the question, right?'
'I'm the boss. I decide what's out of the question.' She smiled as she said it.
'Ah, the power of the Detective Superintendent.' There was a hint of delicious sarcasm in his voice.
'Maybe...' Sandra muttered.
'Maybe?'
'Maybe we should go to my flat, open another bottle of wine and see where this ends.'
'You know where it will end.'
'Yes,' she said. 'I do.' Her eyes were full of sweet promise.
