The morning after (1/2)
Disclaimer: don't own anything just playing with them;)
Pairing: Sandra/Grace and Sandra/Strickland
Episode: God's waiting room
Rating: M (this could prob be a T but any mention of sex or use of suggestive language and I like to play safe!)
Summary: Can Sandra and Grace's relationship ever be mended and can anyone help if it can?
Author's note: I think Sandra and Grace's relationship needs more exploring and if I can throw in a little love action along the way all the better ;) Enjoy and please review if that's what you're into!
The night before
Opening the door just a crack Sandra looked in at her mother sleeping soundly. She wasn't sure she would ever really get over the few days that she'd just been though. The realisation that her mother really didn't believe that there was any hope for their relationship, and the guilt that she was feeling about the fact that she'd come to that conclusion many years before we're eating away at her.
Closing the door again she tiptoed down the stairs into the kitchen pouring herself a glass of wine before sinking into the corner of the sofa and letting out a deep breath that she felt like she'd been holding for days.
Things with her mother were never easy, they didn't discuss their feelings, actually they barely talked at all if they could avoid it, but somehow this week had found a can of worms opening that she never though she would be able to close again. In two simple statements her mother seemed to have summed up what was wrong with their relationship and why it would never be able to be repaired now;
"I'd have faded into the background and hope one day she'd realise that her other parent loved her too."
For years she'd blamed Grace for the distance between them, if asked she'd rant about how her mother was distant, unloving, never understood her. She'd have fought with anyone who tried to suggest that her closeness to her father was at the root of that lack of connection after all she was a child she couldn't be expected to ration out the time she spent with each of her parents, it wasn't her job. No, Grace was responsible and there was no shifting her from that stance. Now though she knew she had to admit to her own culpability in the situation. She'd worshipped her father, idolised him and when he died she hated Grace as much for what she wasn't as what she was. She wasn't him, she could never be him, she didn't even try and she'd never been able to forgive her for that.
Feeling a single tear trickle down her check she sighed staring out the window at the starless sky lost in her thoughts until a quiet knock at the front door brought her back to reality.
"Shit." She muttered saying a silent prayer that the unscheduled break in the silence of the house hadn't woken Grace she rushed to the door pulling up open ready to tear a strip off whoever was on the other side but being stopped in her tracks as she saw who her visitor was.
"Is she asleep?" Robert Strickland asked quietly, stepping inside and waiting for Sandra to nod before wrapping his arms around her and kissing her softly on the lips. "I figured you could do with someone to talk to."
"And if she hadn't been asleep?" Sandra asked trying to maintain her irritation but failing miserably, she had barely seen him for the previous few days and even then it was in work where they still had to maintain the illusion that they were merely colleagues. Now she already felt better just for having him there.
"I'd have balled you out for undertaking an investigation I'd told you to leave alone and she'd have taken great pleasure in watching me do it." He replied following her into the kitchen as she poured him a glass of wine while refilling her own.
"Look I'm sorry ok but it..." Sandra snapped defensiveness taking over her initial relief before he lifted a finger to her lips silencing her.
"I know, I understand, you got a result and I get it, I said that's what I would have done had I have had to come up with an excuse for being here but since I don't I don't want to talk about work I want to talk about you. Are you ok? I'm worried about you and I miss you."
"I miss you too." She smiled taking his hand and leading him into the living room to the sofa before sitting beside him and resting her head on his shoulder. "I'm fine though, I feel a bit like my emotions have been run through a mangle but I think it's been good for me, good for us, me and mum I mean."
"Has she been giving you a hard time?" Robert asked putting his arm round the woman he was fast falling in love with and without whom he didn't think he could imagine his life.
"No...well yes but no more than normal it's just she's made me think." Sandra replied snuggling closer into his side as she recounted the conversation about her father and how she'd realised that maybe she was as much to blame for the relationship, or lack of one, that she and Grace had. "I told her tonight that she could stay here longer if she wanted and she told me we were too far apart to keep living this close. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry."
"I'm sorry honey." Robert sighed in response taking the glass out of her hand and setting it on the small coffee table with his own before pulling her into his arms and kissing her again.
Feeling the tenderness in his kiss, the complete lack of selfishness in the way he gently stroked her back, the sole motive for his closeness being to make her feel better set off a tidal wave of emotion in Sandra that she found impossible to stop. Pulling him closer she laid back on the sofa deepening the kiss as she heard a loan involuntary moan escape from her throat.
"God I've missed you." She whispered moments later as Robert broke their kiss and stared down at her his desperation for her as obvious in his eyes as hers was for him.
"And you've no idea how much I've wanted to do this all week." He replied a tinge of regret in his tone "but do you think it's a good idea, you know with your mother upstairs and everything? I still think after what she said the other day she knows that something is going on between us but should we really risk her first introduction to us as a couple being finding us making love on your sofa?"
"No I suppose not." Sandra groaned staring into his eyes and asking herself for the thousandth time why they didn't just tell people, including her mother, that they were together. In truth she knew the answer; she'd said it to him as often as he had to her, but at moments like this she wished things could be different.
"Look Sandra;" Robert smiled feeling her disappointment as much as she did. "She's going to the rest home in the morning right? Well another 24 hours won't kill us it will make it all the better when we can be alone again. I know you've taken the day off so be ready at 7 I'll take you to dinner then we'll come back here and make up for lost time ok?"
"Is that a promise?" Sandra smiled as they pulled apart and he stood to leave.
"Damn right it is," He laughed as they walked to the door and he briefly pinned her against the wall beside it pressing his body against hers so she could feel his need pressing through the fine fabric of his jeans "Do you know how hard it was for me to say stop just now? I've watched you all week at the office doing your whole don't mess with me DCI thing and it's been driving me nuts, you know how you turn me on when you're in charge. You just try and stop me making the most of every second when we finally get some time to ourselves. I'm going to give you a night you will never forget tomorrow night Sandra Pullman, think about that when you get into bed alone tonight."
"You're an evil man Robert you know that don't you?" Sandra replied kissing him a final time, determined to give him something to think about that night too as he stepped through the door and she closed it quietly behind him. Leaning against she tried to get both her heart rate and her hormones in check.
"He could have stayed you know." Grace said quietly from the top of the stairs making her jump as she stared in shock at her mother. "I'd have pretended I didn't hear anything and been nice to him in the morning."
"Mum!" Sandra replied exasperation obvious in her tone as she tried to sound like nothing had been going on and mounted the stairs. "I thought you were sleeping, he was here about work that's all don't get ahead of yourself."
"If he was here about work then police work has changed a lot in the last four decades Sandra, I don't remember your father kissing any of his superiors the way you just kissed him." Grace laughed allowing herself to be lead back into the bedroom before sitting on the bed and looking up at her daughter scepticism dripping from her gaze. "It's fine Sandra you're a grown woman and I'm not naïve it's a very…..very long time since I thought of you as my innocent, virginal, little girl I…"
"Enough!" Sandra shouted not sure whether she was more embarrassed or shocked by her mother's words. "Sleep! We'll talk about it or better still not talk about it in the morning!"
"Fine." Grace sighed as Sandra watched sleep begin to over- come her again and shook her head sadly. "Just remember I've been in your bedroom Sandra and we will definitely talk about this in the morning!"