Author: Regency
Title: Killing Mr. Innocent
Pairing: Jean Innocent/Mrs. Innocent
Warnings: some internalized homophobia
Summary: AU. Jean Innocent has been in the closet since she joined the police force. The mythical Mr. Innocent is a lie she made up to protect the woman she has shared her life with for twenty-five years. Now that woman wants out and Jean must decide if a thriving career in the closet is worth losing the person she has always loved.
Author's Notes: Can you guess who I've mentally cast as Mrs. Innocent? If you watch much British television I'm sure you can. Hell, if you follow me at all, I'm sure you can.
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters, settings, or plot elements recognizable as being from (Inspector) Lewis. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
Jean Innocent stared into her snifter of brandy and her brandy stared accusingly back at her. Another fine mess she'd got herself into.
"What I'm about to tell you, no one else knows. I ask that you use discretion in sharing it with others. I'm not ready to myself, not yet."
"Of course." Of course. James Hathaway was a man of his word. He could be trusted. It was herself Jean was questioning.
"That includes Lewis and Dr. Hobson. I trust them, naturally, but this is a delicate matter."
"Mum's the word, ma'am."
Jean nodded.
"When I was a PC, I was very standoffish. I was hard to get close to, ask anyone who knew me then. That was by design. I wanted to make rank, not friends. It was some time before I realized that to have the former, the latter was required, but I digress." She took a generous sip of her drink. It was scalding chemical burn going down compared to the warm glow she preferred. "I had my reasons for it. I didn't think I was above anyone. It wasn't really a matter of regulations. It's not even my personality. I can be quite warm to those who know me well."
"But you don't allow many people the chance," Hathaway ventured. Very quick, that Hathaway.
"Again, by design." She paused again, habitual reluctance warring with her dire need to confide in someone. She nabbed a handful of nuts she didn't have a taste for just for something to do with her hands. "I don't remember much of my daily routine from my early career. I imagine it was fairly bog standard. Errands, paperwork, patrolling, rinse and repeat. I remember studying to move to the detective track. I was very excited. Enough so that I was more talkative than I usually was. I must have mentioned home in some context; the details escape me. Either way, one of my colleagues asked me whether Mr. Innocent was helping me to prepare for my sergeant's exam. I was so startled by the question that I must have answered instinctively. I don't recall exactly what I did or said. Whatever it was, they took it in the affirmative and that was that. Suddenly, I was officious PC Innocent with a husband at home. That one detail defined my professional relationships for years to come."
Hathaway mulled over her final statement awhile. "Married people are considered more trustworthy, more reliable."
"More mature. More stable," she appended. "Once it was revealed that I had a husband I was considered more approachable. People wanted to know how we met, how long we'd been together, whether we wanted children. What was he like? What did he think of having a woman copper for a wife? Who wore the pants in our relationship?"
Hathaway took a pull of his lager. Probably to mitigate the awkwardness. Theirs wasn't a terribly fraternal relationship, partially by her own decision and partially by his decided aversion to all but a select few. This was a leap in social difficulty for them both.
"Not too intrusive by half?" he guessed, rather more correctly than he might have realized.
"Oh, it got much worse over the years. Small talk is harmless so long as you know when to stop talking, but people will eventually fill in the blanks themselves when you fail to present a spouse for their perusal." She sighed her long-lived regret and covered her eyes. When was the last time she'd rested? Two days? A week? She must have slept, but she was too shattered to confirm as much. "So long as I transferred to a new duty station every few years I didn't have to worry about producing a husband to prove my personal bona fides."
"Conversely," Hathaway supplied, "you couldn't find what you supposedly already had."
She coughed up a chuckle. "Something like that. If I had continued that pattern in Oxford, there wouldn't have been a problem. But I've stayed too long. Almost ten years without one sighting of Mr. Innocent. People begin to ask questions. They must; we're all police officers and very few of us are anything approaching foolish."
"There never was a Mr. Innocent." What surprise there was in his voice was minimal. That confirmed it: the rumor mill put paid to her lie before she could.
"Not as such."
Jean finished half her drink in a burning gulp. It tasted like poison. But she'd never liked this label, anyway. Sabrina was the brandy connoisseur. Give Jean red wine anytime.
"I can't remember ever wanting a husband. Even as a girl, when I played house, there was no Mr. Innocent. Just myself, the house, a baby doll or two, and one of my dearest girlfriends from school. At that age nothing means anything you can pinpoint, but the feeling didn't go away. When my friends were falling for the boys on the polo team, I was falling for my friends. I knew enough not to say anything in most cases. I knew not to do anything. I nursed my own heartaches." There had been so many unspoken heartaches during school. Those who didn't know her used to call her cold. Those who did simply thought her keen and studious. They were closer to right, but they were missing vital facts about her. She used to believe if she ignored them long enough they would cease to be true.
"That must have been lonely."
"It was unbearable, but I told myself it was fine. I would find a man who didn't repulse me and build a home." The bitterness remained potent and stomach-turning, audible in her voice. Her beloved grandmother's advice. And after it she was beloved no more.
"That's fairly depressing," Hathaway remarked candidly, only to be instantly remorseful. He touched her arm in unspoken apology. She waved him off. He was right. "I take it that never happened."
"It really didn't. Not for lack of trying, mind. I let everyone set me up and all I felt was a deep-seated disinterest and overwhelming dread. If none of them were a good fit, I would surely always be alone. A horrible fate for a girl so young, but I married myself to it. I married that loneliness to avoid exposing myself to disapproval from my parents and ridicule from my peers." She'd seen women and men ruined by that disapproval. Some of them had died for it. Jean had determined early on that this fact of her person would not be the death of her. Yet here she sat thirty years later on her proverbial deathbed, wondering if she'd placed her very soul in hospice as a girl and it was finally done for.
Jean cleared her throat. She was stuck. "Her name was Sabrina. I fell in love with her when I was twenty. She was nineteen. I was partway through university and she was a late starter. I was smitten the first time she argued with me over some obscure rule of law. My late father was a Lord Justice, I considered the law my niche. But she was much, much better. Smarter than me. Beautiful. Vivacious. I was enchanted."
"Anyone would be."
"Everyone was, but she was very serious about her studies. She was the best in all her classes, though I gave her a run for her money in those we had together. I loved talking with her. She was passionate about the world around her. She wasn't content to learn for knowledge's own sake, she felt a civic duty to humanity to improve the lives of others. It was like she reached into my mind and found my life's purpose. I thought, how could she know how I felt exactly and put it into words? But she did. I was infatuated. I hoped, I prayed that it would pass."
"I wanted to be a police officer more than I wanted anything except her." Jean put down her brandy, tangled her anxious fingers together to stop them trembling. She could feel her life crumbling brick by brick. "And I convinced us both that it didn't have to be hard. I just…wouldn't tell anyone. I wouldn't make friends of my colleagues. I wouldn't invite them home, which also meant that none of them could meet her. She was my secret. I made her that. I don't know why I ever thought that would satisfy her." She blinked rapidly to bring the blurring bar back into the focus. She wouldn't be crying about this; it wasn't her tragedy to cry over.
"We've been together all this time, inasmuch as you can be with someone who travels as often as she does." She took another unpleasant dram. "She's a diplomat and a human rights barrister. Where there's strife, there she is, wading in with her law books and her silver tongue. She's magnificent."
Originally posted by alexkingstonalamuse
Jean rubbed her red-rimmed eyes, only just remembering not to smear her mascara at the final moment.
"We haven't had a normal marriage and I'm scared she won't want that now. I've made her wait and wait and wait. She could find better. Someone braver than me."
James waited for her to gather herself before formulating a reply.
"If she's kept up with you for this wrong, I'd say she's invested in you. She's sacrificed her public happiness for your professional good. She must love you dearly."
"I wish I knew what I'd done to earn that. I'd do it again."
"I can't judge you when I'm scarcely more public with my…inclinations, I suppose. Orientation. Sexuality." He fiddled with the label of his bottle. "It's never been all women or all men. I feel so particular. There has to be a soul match or there's nothing for it. And it's easier when it's women. People don't question when I'm alone with a woman, when I kiss her on the sidewalk. But when it's a man people take a second look. Do you know how long I've tolerated being looked at twice? My background, my education, down to the unfortunate shape of my face." By god, did Jean understand.
"Not so unfortunate, according to the missus. You're very becoming in your unique way."
"A secondhand compliment? I'll take that." He smiled a very small smile. She smiled the same.
"She can be quite discerning when it comes to other people." 'Not me,' she didn't say. It went without saying.
"I've heard love is funny that way."
Jean uttered noncommittal response. There was nothing so funny about love anymore. None of it was enough. Not the laughter or the trips to the countryside. Not the lovemaking. Not the long holidays abroad where Jean could hold her hand and kiss her softly on sandy beaches under the sun. Where Jean was so much less afraid of being herself, of being Sabrina's. Once her fears might have been justified, even prudent in the face of her rather sexist, homophobic profession, only the times had caught up with them, and they were swiftly passing Jean by. Not Sabrina Innocent (nee McKee), however. Sabrina was no antique meant to gather dust unseen and most crushing of all she well knew it.
"I think she finally means to leave me. She hasn't said it, but it's in the air."
"Like the charge before lightning strikes."
"Just that."
"What would you do if she left?"
She propped her chin on her hand and tried to imagine that sad affair.
"Realistically, I'd go on. I'd take my promotion and transfer and continue my career. But my home would be colder and lonelier without her. It would be empty without her warmth and the hints of her she leaves everywhere. I don't think she means to meet me in Suffolk."
Jean tried to rally her flagging enthusiasm as though all wasn't lost. "We'd still see each other at holidays—we've a son." She laughed humorlessly at Hathaway's chagrined expression. "He's real, I assure you. I see him every other week or so, as our schedules permit. He's a good boy."
"With you for a mother, I can't imagine him as anything less than rule-abiding."
A lighthearted laugh spilled out of her, surprising them both. "Alas, no! He takes after Sabrina in that sense. He stretches the very letter of the law to its breaking point. Always with the best of intentions, to be sure, just with complete disregard for social expectations. We used to clash horribly over it. He wanted me to be braver and bolder and better all around. Took me ages to see what he was really angry about. All that disappointment and he still wanted to join the police like me."
"Because he loves you and thinks what you do is important."
"He's going to be a finer copper than I can claim. I must admit I'm excited to see how he fares." Her miraculous boy whom she had loved from the moment he was laid wailing and squirming onto Sabrina's chest. Their little amalgam of hopes and dreams. As painful as this was coming to be, Jean would relive the ache of it a hundred times just to see her family come together all over again.
In truth, she'd rather do anything else. Celebrate their twenty-sixth anniversary. Sell their house at a loss. Dance with her wife at the Policeman's Ball. Come out of the closet with a billboard and a public announcement on BBC One and BBC Radio 4. She'd rather be the woman Sabrina and Chris deserved any day to the one she was.
"And even if I wanted to make this right, how?" she croaked, her throat tight as she contemplated the careful, meticulous division of things, of a shared life split in twain. "This many years in, I'm not sure how to have that conversation. How do I go about correcting years of lies by omission now that it scarcely counts for anything?"
"I wouldn't say it counts for nothing, ma'am. Bravery always counts. As far as the other matter, I can't say I'm an expert on conversations of that sort. Me, I'm secure in my sexuality, I am, it's just…I'm not always sure I want to hear what people think of it. Even as secure as I've grown to be, the wrong words from someone I respect…"
"They can hurt."
"Very much." He finished off his lager in a long pull that spoke of Dutch courage more than thirst. "I like to think I could continue to work with someone who thought little of my sexuality, but I'm not sure I could."
"Someone who looks down you based on your sexuality or gender is someone you don't need in your life."
"But what if they're somebody I want in my life?"
Jean repressed the impulse to reach out though she could see that he was struggling. So many moments hung in the air, undecided. The minutes before an existential storm tore through fair Oxfordshire and upended their lives rang with tension. She wondered what unspoken battles James Hathaway was fighting. She surrendered to the unknown.
"Then, I don't know, Hathaway. I obviously haven't got any of the answers here. But if you ever need somebody that gets it, you know where to find me."
He tipped his head companionably. "Aye aye, ma'am. I'll drink to that." He tapped the bar and ordered another. Jean did the same, but this time she favored wine. She had decisions to make.
The house was fairly brimming with clatter when Jean arrived home in the evening. Knick-knacks were being rattled about on shelves. Cabinet doors were intermittently slamming shut with too much force. Someone was swearing deep in the bowels of the house and more than a few of the curses involved Jean's name.
Jean hesitated to put down her briefcase and bag, her keys. Would she even be staying the night when all was said and done? She was willing to give up the house as a loss to avoid drawn out arbitration. She was willing to give up most of their assets within reason to assuage Sabrina's misery. Jean only wanted her wife to approach a stone's throw of happiness again.
" 'Brina, are you home?" Obviously she was home and obviously she was furious. Again.
The house fell into silence that gave Jean a shiver. Sabrina's chilly silences were legendary. They could easily reverse the effects of climate change should they linger long enough.
"Sabrina?"
A soft thud from the staircase startled Jean. Sabrina was propped against the wall on the uppermost landing. She was just visible from the front door if Jean leaned down to see up. Her partner was still dressed from a day of glad handing MPs. Neat skirt suit, ridiculous heels, hair a curly halo of perfection.
So like their son's.
Part of the reason Jean had rarely brought her son around her nick wasn't a lack of pride, it was a glaring lack of resemblance. Chris Innocent was Sabrina through and through, and as in all the times before, Jean had chosen vague non-responses and silence when the truth would have sufficed. The prison she had built for herself was the hardiest one.
Still, she bucked up and hung up her coat and bag. "Rough day, darling?"
Sabrina watched her climb the stairs without a word, only to turn for the bedroom before Jean reached her. She followed her down the hall, past their respective studies and the room they kept for Chris. Past the extra guest room, to their shared bedroom. One they rarely shared at all with their mutually hectic schedules and asynchronous sleep tendencies. It was a wonder they'd survived this long loving each other, when their rest was better found apart.
But the waking hours did it. They always got those lucid moments right till now.
"Nice night out?" Sabrina asked in lieu of their usual greeting. Jean thought she could count on one hand the number of times they'd greeted each other with anything besides a kiss.
"It was enlightening."
"Friend?"
"Something like that. James Hathaway needed a word." He'd been lucky to get that word in edgewise with all Jean's nattering. She hoped in retrospect she'd been some use to him in the end.
"How's our young genius, darling?" Sabrina's voice softened from its brusque coolness. She had a soft spot for misfits. She married me, didn't she?
"Going through something. Not entirely sure of the details, but..." Jean hesitated. "He sort of came out to me. He's afraid of what might happen if he were to do so on a wider scale. He's afraid of losing the respect of people he's come to care for."
"Irony takes a bow."
Jean flinched.
Sabrina, her back turned toward the foot of the bed, didn't see.
"Right. Let's have this out, then. You've clearly got things to say."
"My wife is being promoted and I don't even rate an invite to the going away party. In fact, I only found out because your dynamic duo came up in conversation at a cocktail party and somebody mentioned you were headed elsewhere. The Deputy Assistant Commissioner at the Met is eager to see what becomes of you."
Jean's stomach dropped, this time with nascent excitement. "Me?"
"Your reputation for toughness and strict adherence to policy and procedure precedes you. Your people get results. The higher-ups notice you, Jeannie. Whatever shortcomings I might accuse you of, nobody can say you're anything but a dedicated, gifted policewoman. You'll make Commissioner yet."
Sabrina retrieved an almost empty glass of white from the bedside table and finished it off. She sat on her side of the bed, staring at her reflection in the vanity mirror. Her green eyes were ever so slightly bloodshot. Her nose was red. Her jaw trembled. Tears welled up only to be blinked away. This was Sabrina being strong. It had been for twenty-five years.
"Are you all right?"
"Far from it."
"How can I help?"
"That answer hasn't changed since you signed up. A lifetime on, I don't have the energy to ask again." Sabrina abandoned her glass to the table and rose to undress. Shoes kicked under the bed as they never were. Skirt and blazer chucked on the armchair. Her shoulders slumped and Jean's heart plummeted with them. Sabrina bent over their chest of drawers to find her pajamas, her hair obscuring her face. Her breath came in stuttering gasps as she rifled through flannel and cotton and satin with the occasional lace trim. Jean was rooted to the spot, unable to say any of what had cluttered her mind on the ride over.
Sabrina finally gave it up as a bad job and slumped back against the dresser in her slip. Still as beautiful as ever. Yet so much harder to touch. Her jagged edges had risen to the surface and it would be all too easy for Jean to hurt herself on them, same as she'd caused them with each passive acceptance of a falsehood. Every 'Mr. Innocent can't be here' when Sabrina was home. Every strained gap in workday conversation where Jean might have boasted as to her wife's accomplishments and elected instead to gab about the weather. All the petty cowardices that had made for better or worse far more awful than it had to be. All to be more than a label or the punchline in an ugly locker room joke.
"I have done everything you asked for years upon years. Has it occurred to you that maybe I'm tired of that? Maybe, just maybe I'm bloody exhausted of bearing the burden of keeping our story straight." She stared at the hardwood floor stretching like a line of demarcation between them. "I didn't even get to say I knew you. I'm a stranger to you who, coincidentally, shares your surname. Do you know how many times I've been asked if I'm related to your husband? That happens! Someone even asked me, for a lark, if I was his other wife. Imagine the hilarity, my love. Us, sister wives, all the time unknowing. I wager we'd rate The Sun for that headline, don't you?"
" 'Brina-"
"I am so tired of being your loose end. You get your straying, absentee myth of a husband and I get…what? I get a ring and no name. I can't even gloat about how amazing you are, because what if they look you up? I don't want an imaginary husband. I loathe even the idea of lying about myself that way. I always have! I worship you and you hide me."
"Like a keepsake," Jean parried in a pathetic excuse for a defense.
"Like a shameful secret!" Sabrina's voice caught on a sob. "I'm your wife, Jeannie. I'm your better half. But all you let me feel like is an appendage, some vestigial growth you'd be shot of if you weren't so sodding busy all the time." Sabrina scraped her curls away from her blotchy cheeks. "Christ but I wish you loved me like you love your job. Oh to be so beloved."
"I do." As she had in that little ceremony long ago, long before it counted for anything except the two of them. Not long before Chris's tearful introduction into their life. "I love you more than my job. I'm trying to love you as much as you deserve and I am not doing a wonderful job, I know, but please don't give up."
"Why not? You have."
Jean closed her eyes and prayed for the strength to keep fighting, not that praying was her forte. She wasn't even sure who, if anyone, was listening. This downward spiral had begun with Jean's refusal to have a formal civil commitment ceremony to officially cement their status as a married couple. She had refused for a bevy of reasons that were of little import now, but for Sabrina it had been the last straw. She had taken it as hard evidence that Jean no longer loved her at all. The ensuing argument had razed their relationship to the ground, leaving only its soot-stained frame intact. Now all that remained was pretense and even that was beginning to break down despite their gift for upholding the niceties. Marriage was supposed to be more than a facade; it was meant to be all the truths concealed behind one.
Rattled, Jean gathered Sabrina's clothing and hung it up to be dry cleaned. Her feet wanted her to retreat to the guest room, to hide behind an ever-growing pile of work that awaited her signature. Her heart wanted her to stay here. She was listening to her heart tonight.
Sabrina's gaze was heavy on her shoulders. From the very first day she had expected the world of Jean. Perhaps because that day Jean Innocent, bright-eyed, unwittingly head over heels, and well in over her head, had wanted so to impress her. Time had altered little in that regard.
She fingered a loose pearl button on Sabrina's blouse, making a mental note to have it mended the next day. Her wife had to look her best when staring down despots. A formidable woman ought to look the part. She brushed lint from the hem of Sabrina's skirt as she tried to make sense of what she needed to say.
"I slipped up, once," she began at last. "I told Robbie Lewis about Chris, how he's a constable now. I didn't think. I was just so proud of him."
Sabrina exhaled in a rush. She was frequently quick to emotion, to passion, to love. To forgiveness, most often quicker than Jean.
"We raised a good kid."
Between sitters and nannies and meddling aunts and helpful, nosy neighbors they'd managed it. Chris was golden. In some ways all Sabrina, in many all Jean.
"I'm not his mother on paper, you know. I'm his secondary legal guardian, or I was when he was a boy. Nobody ever knew he was both of ours." Jean had never intimated how much it bothered her not to have a legal claim on the child who cried for her when he broke his arm at six, or who called her to get him when he drank himself dizzy at a pub and needed a lift back to the dorms. It had seemed a fair trade-off for all she was permitted to have, yet a trade-off just the same.
Sabrina sighed again and this time Jean permitted herself to look.
"He was mine when he was with me and yours when he was with you. Never ours together."
"He was so understanding about that. He never once complained that we'd put him in the middle of that bloody mess we made."
Sabrina's jaw clenched.
"That I made," Jean amended. "I did this. It was me. And I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want a future that doesn't have us in it together. That's-there's no promotion worth you."
"It's not the bleeping promotion, you numpty. It's life, going on, getting on, and nothing changing. Are we going to be old and fully grey and telling people we're just the best of friends when our grandchildren come to visit? A couple of confirmed bachelorettes in matching rings shuffling along to the park while everyone exclaims over the power of friendships that last a lifetime?! I'm sick to my back teeth of living that lie. I don't deserve to have to. I'm better than that."
"You are."
"So are you." Sabrina tossed her head back with her shoulders. "So what are we to do about it? How do we proceed, Chief Superintendent?" She was all barrister. Her focused, devastating self in near nothing and altogether glorious.
Jean approached her wife and cupped her face in her hands. Sabrina smiled when they touched. "We do the right thing."
"And what's that?" Their noses brushed, their breaths mingled. Jean had loved this woman all her life. She coiled one of Sabrina's fluffy curls around her finger, then let it spring free.
"Come to my leaving do?"
"As your guest?"
"As my everything."
Sabrina kissed her lightly and stepped into Jean's arms with weary relief. "Only always, my love. "
The next evening followed an excruciatingly long day filled with meetings and paperwork and awkward partings. There were many who wouldn't miss Jean Innocent as she forged onward to the next stage of her career, but there were some who would and they wanted a moment to have their say. Many a young officer, men and women alike, had looked up to her and aspired to her progress. It was those officers who received her updated business cards with all the necessary contact information. The need for a steady mentor didn't end because their professional relationship changed. Those were also the people, Jean was beginning to see, who needed her to be more than the figurehead she had tried to embody. They needed her to be real. Sabrina made her real.
Jean arrived to the pub where her formal going away party was being held. There'd already been an informal get-together at the office that Jean had enjoyed. This was for everyone who had final parting words and complaints. There would allegedly be karaoke, a fact her wife had taken in with devious delight and Jean with dread. Somehow she just knew she'd be pulled into a drunken rendition of Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time.
If she attends, that is.
Though Sabrina had warmed at Jean's invitation, her inability to describe what the future held for them together had left Sabrina uneasy, and subsequently left Jean in a similar state. She wanted things to go on as they had, but not more than that she wanted them to change for the better. It was well past time for that.
Jean had finished two glasses of wine and three appallingly awkward chit-chats, had just barely survived one poorly chosen duet of Isn't She Lovely sung by a couple of desk sergeants, and still no Sabrina. She tried not to let it bother her, firmly talked herself down from the assertion that her future was this grim. Attending social events alone was the norm for both of them; she would endure tonight and then tomorrow she would try again. That was marriage.
Sabrina, when she appeared, seem to erupt into existence all at once; all hair and lurid perfume, smilingly secretively as her lips found Jean's cheek and her hands Jean's hips. The contact was brief, didn't linger, and Jean mourned its brevity instinctively, knowing it was for her sake. Sabrina preferred to linger over kisses when they occurred. Many a busy morning had been whiled away in the foyer at home with Jean caught between an immovable wall and the unstoppable force of Sabrina's plush lips. Jean made no excuses for her tardiness on those mornings and none were expected; her happy flush often said everything.
Jean caught her hand before it could be withdrawn and guided her over to the bar where Robbie, Laura, and Hathaway had formed a cluster to talk. There were the people with whom she had worked closest; it was their good opinion she hoped to keep, and Sabrina's. If she could have them all, she would call it a miracle and ask for nothing else.
It was Hathaway who spotted them first. A brief glance to their joined hands earned her a supportive smile. A small one per usual, but one that made all the difference in Jean's posture. She could do this. She could have this, Sabrina, the rank, the friends. She could have it all if only she were brave enough.
"Thanks for having us, ma'am," said Hathaway, alerting the other two to Jean's proximity.
"It wouldn't be a proper goodbye without a word for my favorite troublesome trio."
Robbie chortled goodnaturedly and Laura balked. "How did I get lumped in with these two?"
"You threw your lot in with them a long time ago. I call it like I see it."
"Amazing!" She pointed at Robbie accusingly. "This entirely your fault."
"Oi, I take that accusation to heart."
"As you ought!"
They descended into momentary flirtation that left Jean smiling. At least some good had come of her years in Oxford CID. Love could be considered a more than worthwhile legacy.
"Should I leave the three of you to it?" inquired Sabrina with enviable patience and fond humor. "Only, it's been a very long day and somebody needs to put a drink in my hand before I get tetchy." Her smile was beginning to flag.
"That would be my job," Hathaway piped up and he wheeled around to put in an order for brandy on her behalf. Of course he remembered. Laura hummed at the display, her tone curious. Robbie gave Sabrina a speculative look that was otherwise perfectly polite though it would have been less conspicuous had she been a murder suspect.
"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."
"Sabrina Innocent, an old uni chum of Jean's. I was in the area and heard this one was up for rank. I couldn't resist the chance to wish her well." She squeezed Jean's hand tight. "I never could."
Jean squeezed her hand in return. "I'm very lucky to have her."
Hathaway passed Sabrina her brandy and offered Robbie a fresh pint once Laura had opted to pass on a top-up. The silence was a touch awkward. Jean preferred it to the alternative.
Robbie drank with concentration that would have convinced only someone foolish enough to think he wasn't paying attention. Robbie Lewis was always paying attention.
"So you're an Innocent as well, are you?"
Jean took an especially long time swallowing her next mouthful of wine. She was just glad Sabrina had bothered to come to her going away do. She hadn't expected to hear from her again after last night. She was thanking god or whomever for small favors.
Sabrina shifted beside her, her glimmering eyes a touch duller than before but still bright over her snifter of drink. Still pushing onward. Ever the diplomat.
"I changed my name by deed poll when I was twenty. Nothing good has ever come from my birth name; I didn't mind giving it up." Her father had been a barrister as well, and a rather good one. He hadn't been a very good father, on the other hand, and he'd detested Jean for all sorts of reasons. Jean thought Sabrina well shot of him, name and all.
Jean cut in, finally, resolute, "I don't think I've made the proper introductions. I'll take over from here."
Sabrina's eyes widened, her social acumen for a moment deserting her. "I just introduced myself. No need to do it again."
"I think there is." She clutched Sabrina's hand tight and named the others one by one. "Robbie Lewis, my former subordinate and one of the finest investigative minds I've met yet. Laura Hobson, coroner and brilliant musician. James Hathaway, another fine investigative mind-an obscene understatement, I'm sure you'll find." She smiled at each of them in turn, taking confidence in Robbie's steady gaze, Laura's welcoming smile, and Hathaway's slow encouraging nod. "All, this is Sabrina Innocent...my wife."
Robbie's eyebrows flew up his forehead. Laura's head rocked back a moment and she blinked, before her expression settled on mild surprise. James smiled another of his rare, enigmatic smiles and offered Sabrina his hand.
"Mrs. Innocent, it's a pleasure."
"Thank you, Detective Inspector. I've heard the very best about you."
"Likewise."
Laura jumped in right after. "I've not heard nearly enough about you and I want to know everything."
Sabrina giggled. "I'm sure you will, dear. Seems Jeannie's got a lot to say nowadays."
Robbie smiled affably and offered the next greeting. "It's a pleasure, ma'am. If you'll forgive me saying so, it's about time you showed up."
Sabrina glanced at Jean who was fairly guzzling her wine in an effort to slow her racing heart.
"Agreed. But, better late than never."
"That's what I always say."
Every introduction after that was easier and easier. Those whose opinions Jean valued had weighed in and found in favor of unconditional support. Almost nothing had changed, save for the odd joke about invisible men being imaginary after all.
"Wonder what that means for the betting pool?" asked Robbie. Jean didn't even pretend to be unaware of it. Hathaway coughed to obscure a deep chuckle.
"Just see to it that money goes to a worthy cause. I trust you can handle that."
Robbie popped off a mock salute with his pint. "You got it, ma'am."
Jean smiled and slowly began to relax. Sabrina was making the rounds on her own, having recognized a few of the junior officers from conferences where she'd keynoted over the years. These up and comers came from all over, every letter in the queer acronym practically, all genders, races not before represented in the Oxford police, the gamut. They were vocal and loud and unwilling to put up with much of the bullying nonsense their forebears had suffered just to wear the uniform. Jean couldn't be prouder of them or the woman they were right to idolize for reasons not even they knew yet. Jean stepping out of the closet had set Sabrina free, too.
"That's some wife you've got there, ma'am. You're a lucky woman." He furrowed his brow. "I think I read about her in the paper once."
"You probably did. She tends to crop up on television as well if you keep it on long enough. She's the type." Jean shrugged and looked back to him. "She deserves better, I've always known that. God help me if she should ever realize it."
A throaty chuckle from behind tickled Jean's ear. "Oh dear, my aunts have been saying that since I first brought you home. You looked smashing in uniform and they knew you'd be trouble. I just hoped you would be."
Jean looked back at the woman who was without reservation or purpose of evasion the love of her life, and beamed. "Happy to be of service."
Grinning, Sabrina pulled her in for a quick but meaningful kiss. Jean fought down decades of self-restraint and kissed her back. Let Sabrina's warmth and love flow through her and settle her shaky nerves. This was it, the better of for better or worse, the good times of in good or in bad, meant for as long as they as they both should live. Jean thought it was about time they got on with it.
Sabrina didn't know it yet, but they had a wedding to plan.