A/N The snippetiest of snippets. It came to me in a moment of my own peppermint tea soaked wallowing ladies, ha! x

Inequality of the sexes.

Alex sighs heavily, narrowing her eyes and glowering into her cup of tea, recrossing her legs twice and hissing, spitting inwardly at the ones who step too close to her desk. Her lower abdomen throbs in accompaniment, deep throngs of pain reaching all the way around to the small of her back. She tugs the camomile teabag slowly from her mug by its tab, suspending the saturated sack against the hot china by its string and letting the last few dark drops cascade into her mug before tossing the thing aside. Suddenly the last thing she wants is tea.

'Bolls -'

'What?'

'Woo, calm down woman. Sending these sods home. Drink?'

'Mmm? Fine.'

She can hear the whiskey trickling into the medicinal glass he's given her to hold. Her eyes are shut and she's leaning over his desk, pressing the thing to her forehead as he pours her a generous measure. She gives it a quick swill, marvelling at the way the action leaves a syrupy residue around the tumbler. Systematically, in three short gulps, she drains the contents. Leaves a few seconds between each dose to take a deep breath, push the liquid into every corner of her mouth with her tongue, will the nectar into her bloodstream.

'Got your wish, Bolls.'

'This may come as a shock to you, Guv, but unlike the rest of the Neanderthal population of this department I do not sit at my desk all day fantasizing about an enormous measure of scotch.'

'Not that. Bloody hell, you're a prickly mare today.'

'What, then?'

'To leave. You got your wish to go.'

'What?'

'Promotion. The powers that be want to make you a DCI. Give you your own team. No doubt somewhere with lovely trees by the roads where the murdering bastards drive Bentleys. They think you're me. No, they think you're even better. They even think you're in control of your marbles; more fool them. They think you have panache, nouse, professionalism, level headed, leader, reliable, charismatic, dominating. Not my words, Bolly. In short, they think you're a man. Sorry about that. Congratulations.'

He leans forward to chink his sloshing glass against her empty one, and then there's silence for almost longer than is comfortable.

'Luigi's?'

'I'm not going.'

'You live there.'

'Not that.'

'Oh. Not a man, then?'

'No.'

'Good.'