I did a whistle-stop rush through S9 so far to help me keep the voices right for Mulgrews, and this popped into my head as a result of watching the shifts and changes of the Christine-George relationship throughout the season. I've gone from hoping Christine wouldn't have anything to do with him to cautiously hoping that he and Carol will go their separate ways sooner rather than later (Tom obviously not being an option!). Hope people find something to like in this, and let me know...

Christine was packing some of her most precious possessions away in preparation for moving to Audrey's for the duration. She was keeping her house—as she still had a job, she could afford the mortgage, and she wanted Connor (and Imogen) to have a base when they came to visit (if they came to visit; tomorrow was her forty-fifth and so far there'd been not a word). Newspaper rustled and crackled as she carefully wrapped Connor's old toys. Some day she hoped there'd be grandchildren and those toys would have a new life. Connor had always been a careful child and his toys were in excellent condition for their age.

She was just about to tape the box closed when a knock sounded on the door and she groaned. It had better not be Audrey, she thought as she climbed to her feet. There was only so much goodwill she could take, and if Audrey had really produced that cake she was muttering about earlier—

She stopped dead at the sight of her visitor, long and lanky and carrying something whose shape was unmistakeable beneath its layer of brown paper.

'What do you want, George?'

Her old friend raised his package. 'To wish you happy birthday?'

'That's tomorrow,' Christine pointed out. 'And I'd much rather forget it, if you don't mind.'

'I do mind. Oh, come on, Christine. It's just a drink, let me in—'

'Not tonight,' she said with an attempt at finality as his hand went to the door. 'I'm not in the mood to be anyone's pet charity.'

'Who said anything about charity?' She'd forgotten to lock the door and he pushed his way in before she could fasten the chain. 'Unless it's me. I'm the one who needs charity.' His expression grew more morose than usual. 'She's dumped me.'

'Let me guess, for a handsome young lad she met on the cruise?' Christine couldn't help the acerbic edge that crept into her voice. 'Anyone could've seen that coming a mile off.'

'God, you're bitter when you're sober,' George told her as he pushed past into the kitchen, leaving her with no option but to follow. 'Where's the glasses?'

'Are you really doing this? Really? Don't you think the events of last term would be enough to keep me sober for a long time to come? Talk about a wake-up call, I damn near destroyed my career, George!'

He gave her an injured look as he began to unwrap his bottle-shaped parcel, but Christine ignored it. Twenty years had inured her to his injured looks.

'You know, this is why it would never have worked between us. We're bad for each other, George. We feed off each other's weaknesses. How am I supposed to stay in recovery if you—oh.'

'Yes, oh.' George sounded so smug she could have thumped him. 'Give me some credit. D'you really think I'd bring alcohol round? I know you don't think much of me, but I'd like to think—'

'OK, OK, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. I'm sorry, all right?'

'You do that too often, you know,' George informed her sanctimoniously. 'Jump straight for the jugular and end up apologising for it after.'

'And you don't?' she snapped as she accepted the glass of Shloer he'd just poured.

'Go for the jugular? Absolutely. I just don't bother apologising for it afterwards.'

Unwillingly, she found herself smiling. George's black humour alway amused her.

He gestured towards her with his own glass, his lips twisting. 'Miracles will never cease. She smiles! The sun shines again!'

'Shut up.' Her tone had lost some of its ice; underneath it all, she was glad to see him. 'So how was the cruise, apart from being dumped?'

'Oh, you know. The usual. Idiotic toffs with nothing better to do but sneer at everyone else, beached whales wearing barely-there bikinis and covered in fake tan, spoilt brats… I was glad to get home. And it was hot. You know I don't like the heat, Christine. I burn, for God's sake. Look.' He gestured at his nose, which was indeed a fetching shade of red. Peeling red, at that.

'Oh, poor baby. What do you expect me to do, kiss it better?'

'Well, since you mention it—' He put his glass down and reached for her.

Christine stiffened. 'What do you think you're doing? What am I, George? You do this every time, get dumped and come racing back to me, as if I'm some bulwark against loneliness. A last resort. Even Carol said it—' She broke off and took a swig of her drink. The sweet fizz of it left her throat feeling dry without the satisfying burn of vodka.

'What did Carol say?'

She looked up at him, taking in the lines that creased his face. He was no longer the debonair young man who had befriended her all those years ago and she—Well. She refused to think about the marks of time on her own face. Years of drinking and smoking and dammed pain had taken their toll.

'She accused me of keeping you in reserve; "if all else failed" we'd have each other. Two bitter old teachers together, she said.'

'The delightful Carol strikes again. When was this?'

Christine's mouth twisted. 'The day you accused me of being jealous.'

'You were jealous,' he said. 'Come on, this is me. I know you. You didn't want me yourself and you sure as hell didn't want anyone else to have me—'

'That's not true!'

'What are you saying, you do want me? Make up your mind, woman. You said it just now, we're bad for each other—'

'I know.' She drew a shuddery breath. 'I know, it was wrong, I shouldn't have said it. I said that when I thought you'd brought alcohol. Damn it all, George, you can't blame me! You spent most of my first term as Head trying to entice me to the bloody pub!'

'For a soft drink! D'you really think I'd deliberately try to drag you off the wagon? Me?'

She sank down onto a chair by the table with a groan. 'Fine, I got it wrong. Again.'

'You know what your problem is?'

She eyed him warily. 'Do I want to know?'

'I'm telling you either way. You're paranoid, you seem to think everyone's out to get you, that everyone's got some ulterior motive to make things difficult for you.'

Christine flinched. 'Going for the jugular again, are we?'

'Truth hurts.'

'Oh, stop it with the clichés.'

'And stop it with the lectures. At least it wasn't Shakespeare.'

She snorted and sighed. 'I know, I know. It's just… I've spent so long looking over my shoulder, expecting to be rumbled. I didn't want anyone to get too close, even Connor—' Her voice broke and she had to pause to collect herself. 'Even Connor used to ration out the mints. To cover the fumes. Becomes a habit, doesn't it?'

'H'mmm.' George had taken a seat opposite and his fingers twisted his glass by the stem. 'Like I said, I don't know how you did it for so long. Mixed alcohol and teaching.'

She studied the woodgrain of her table. 'I didn't. It was Connor. God, George, I made that boy's life a living hell. Night after night he came home to his mum plastered on the sofa, just ready and waiting to pour poison in his ears, you know what I'm like when I'm drunk, I can't keep it buttoned. Everything I keep in when I'm sober just comes out in a torrent. And in the morning he had to get me up, feed me, check I was decently dressed, make sure I had the books I needed … You know, Darren said that day I went round that Connor couldn't get away fast enough. He was right.'

'Don't be stupid. The boy loves you.'

'Does he? Or does he just feel responsible? He's always been a good boy and after he found out—' She bit deeply into her lip, deep enough that it stung but not quite deep enough to draw blood.

George was frowning. 'Found out what?'

Her breath caught. She'd been so sure she'd told him, one night years ago when they were deep in their cups. She had thought he knew, or at least suspected, but now he was staring at her in frank puzzlement, his dark brows practically meeting above his long nose.

'Christine?'

She said it as quickly as she could. 'Joe Mulgrew isn't Connor's dad.' It was too similar to the night she'd confessed to Michael Byrne, her heart was pounding so hard against her ribs she felt sick. 'I… I was raped. By my father-in-law.'

The answering silence was so deep and profound that eventually she glanced up, unnerved. In all the years she'd known him she'd never seen George Windsor rendered speechless before, but speechless he unquestionably was, his shock plain.

'You … you … God, Christine!'

'Just forget it,' she said hurriedly, rising to grab the bottle from the island behind her. Now more than ever she wished it was vodka. 'Pretend I didn't say it.'

His gaze narrowed. 'That's what you were trying to do? Block it out?'

'H'mm.' She topped up his glass and her own. 'Can you blame me?'

'No … no! God. I can't believe I didn't know.'

'I thought I'd told you,' she said very softly. 'I thought you knew. That was why—' Why I took so long to accept your friendship, why it was five years before we slept together that first time, why I'm such a bloody mess…

George knocked his drink back in one and shuddered. 'Disgusting stuff. Should have got the non-alcoholic plonk, it can't be any worse than that. So.' He eyed her. 'So Connor knows, does he?'

She nodded wordlessly.

'How?'

'Overheard me telling Michael Byrne. Just my luck, eh?'

'H'mm. Luck's never been your strong point, my lovely.'

'No… but it's why I don't blame him for walking away and not looking back.'

'He came back for your hearing,' George pointed out in his most judicial manner.

'Because he felt it was his duty to look after his alcoholic mother, as Audrey put it.'

'Damn Saint Audrey. He came back because he loves you.'

She threaded her fingers through her hair, hiding her face as the words were torn from her: 'Then why did he have to go?' The tears of loss and loneliness that she'd desperately tried to keep under control all term burst forth and she covered her mouth with her hand, still struggling to suppress her pain.

George did not move and his silence helped. It wasn't pitying, it didn't judge. He'd been right, that day some weeks ago. He did make a good confidante.

She sniffled hard and managed a wobbly smile. 'Thanks. For listening. And not being kind.'

One of George's eyebrows lifted in the supercilious gesture she knew so well. 'I don't do kind, Christine. You should know that by now.'

She gave a strangled laugh. 'I do. But thanks anyway. Thanks for being here.'

'Come on. Drink up.' He poured another glass and this time her laugh was more natural when she accepted it.

'Doesn't have quite the same ring, does it?'

'H'mm.' His eyebrows went up in perfect understanding. 'Cheers.'

'Cheers.'

They sat in companionable silence. Christine was too weary to make conversation and George seemed to know it. She sighed, realising that she owed him an apology.

'You were right.'

'I'm often right. Which pearl are you agreeing with now?'

She swallowed. 'About me being jealous. I—I didn't realise it until your mother told me—'

'Told you what?' he snapped, his shoulders going tense.

'That you… God, this is awkward. That you couldn't stop talking about me.' She could feel the heat in her cheeks.

George laughed. 'And you believed her? The old witch was just stirring, I never told her anything if I could avoid it.'

'Oh.' The heat on her cheeks had turned into a positive furnace of embarrassment that seemed to engulf her whole body. She wondered if this was what a hot flush felt like.

'But she was right about one thing, Christine. You're the woman for me, you always have been.'

'Yeah, as a failsafe.'

'No. Come on, have a heart. Don't make me say it!'

She rose, confidence surging through her for the first time in weeks, and circled the table to stand before him. 'Come on.' She held out a hand and George gaped at her. 'Come on,' she repeated. 'This is what you wanted, isn't it?'

He stayed where he was and the bright confidence that had filled her ebbed away.

'George?'

He rose. 'Not like this, my lovely. You're not in any state. I know you're sober, but loneliness and sadness are just as bad, believe me, I should know. Let's take it one step at a time, h'mm?'

Christine let out the breath she hadn't realised she was holding. 'Yeah. Yes, I'd like that. You're right, I—I haven't been thinking straight lately.'

George raised a dramatic gaze to the heavens. 'At last! At last! She admits I'm right about something!'

Christine gave him a sharp rap with her knuckles. 'Shut up, George. I'm going next door to get comfortable.' She moved towards the door and threw a look over her shoulder, the corner of her mouth twitching. 'Are you coming?'

A slow smile spread over his face, the kind she'd seen only a handful of times in their two decades of friendship. 'Try and stop me.'

This time, he accepted the hand she offered and she tugged him out of the kitchen and towards the living room just as the front door opened and a humungous bunch of flowers appeared.

'Mum?' the flowers said.

Christine stopped dead, her fingers tightening on George's like a vice. He made a small sound of pain and the flowers whipped away to reveal a startled Connor, Imogen wide-eyed behind him.

'Mum?' Connor repeated. 'And Mr Windsor?!'

Christine choked off anything else he might have had to say by throwing herself into her son's arms, one hand reaching to draw her daughter-in-law into the embrace.

If all else fails indeed, she thought as everyone started talking at once. The last resort could be pretty damned good.