One Year Ago
A/N: I do not own any of the recognised characters, they belong to The Bill. For the purposes of this story Phil is not leaving, he never went to Special Projects, but he did go to Uniform and Monica never showed up and she isn't going to. This is a new story from me, my ideas to what could have happened if Phil never left. Please review, as to write the flashback below I had to watch a certain horrible scene of TB more than a few times, and to my heart that loves Huxon it was terrible! I hope however that I have done it justice.
Chapter 1 – She Remembers
DI Samantha Nixon signs her name with a flourish at the end of one of her many reports, she quickly also writes the date, November 22nd 2007. Suddenly a thought occurs to her, one that hadn't crossed her mind before, one year ago today, she ended things with Phil, one year ago they had been lovers, the closest that two people could ever be, and today, well she didn't know what they were. She glances down at her watch and notices the time, it is still early, not even 9am yet, but as she has nothing in her life but work, she has already been here for an hour. Leaving her cold and empty bed, before her alarm clock rang this morning, like usual, the same empty bed that she had once shared with Phil. Sam sighs as she leans back in her chair, Neil is out at court this morning and won't arrive until this afternoon and therefore she is alone in their office, not that she minds, because at times even though they have developed some sort of relationship that seems to work, Neil still irritates her, and somehow she is sure that the feeling is mutual. As she leans backwards she closes her eyes and for a moment she finds herself lost in thought, lost in thoughts of the past.
Flashback
"Well that obviously worked saying I love you" he said to her sharply as they met in the foyer
"Look I've only, I've only just squared it with the DI, I was gonna come and find you. I was going to tell you" she tries to explain back
"He says you're going away for a few weeks" he states, wondering why she seems to be running after what he told her
"Yeah, you know what it's been like here recently" she tries to explain once more, hoping that he will understand that she has been through too much lately, too much to just carry on pretending that she is fine
"So you're getting away from me" he asks, perhaps knowing what is to come after a day like today
"No not just you, here, I've been through so much lately Phil" she says, how her failed relationship with Stuart, her lost child, her near death experiences in Romania, and now his shock revelation of love, have confused her so much, so much that now she needs time alone to think
"Sam, if you're calling it a day I would rather you be straight with me" he can sense what she is trying to tell him, he knows her better than anyone else does and she does the same for him
"It's never gonna work" she hears herself say, as if someone else is speaking for her, as her voice begins to break
"Well maybe if you gave it a chance?" he asks her, not wanting the relationship he waited so long for, to end
"I daren't, you might think that you are ready to settle down" her voice beginning to break
"You think I'm gonna chase other women?" he questions her, almost shocked at the thought, thinking doesn't she realise how much he changed to be with her?
"Well with your track record and by then I'd be using the love word and I'd just get left, high and dry" she can't fall in love with Phil and have him hurt her, he is one person that she couldn't stand having her heart broken by, too many times in the past she has been let down, once more by him and she would struggle to recover
"Let's talk about this" he doesn't want to let her leave him
"Just give it a few weeks and it will all be fine, and it would spoil everything, I don't want to lose you as a mate" she says, as she can feel the beginning of tears in her eyes, threatening to fall down her cheeks, she needs his friendship in her life, and even if she can't have a romantic relationship with him she still wants him as her friend, needs him as her friend if she is honest
"Let's go for a drink, let's go and talk" he tries once more, but instead of saying anything, she leans towards him, places one hand on his cheek and kisses him, softly and quickly, then she wraps her arms around him and hugs him tightly, he also responds to her and she feels his head snuggle into her shoulder, then sighing she pushes away from him and breaks away
"See you in a few weeks" she says quietly as she leaves him alone at the top of the stairs and sniffles quietly as she walks down them quickly, not stopping until she is out of sight.
Sam opens her eyes once more, wondering not for the first time if she made the right decision, running from something that she had wanted for such a long time. But Phil telling her that he loved her, really threw her, she didn't know what it meant, if he had even meant it, or if he was just saying it as a reaction to the fact that they had slept together for the first time since Romania. Having someone that he had slept with and never called afterwards, turn up at the station when she was already confused certainly hadn't helped the situation, it had reminded Sam of his track record with women, something that didn't endear himself to her. She remembers stopping at the bottom of the stairs and looking around the corridor to make sure that she was alone before finally allowing the tears that had threatened earlier fall down her cheeks, she remembers telling herself that she had made the right decision, that she was better off alone, and that after she returned from her holiday everything would be back to normal. What she didn't know then was that after trying to pursue a relationship with someone who once was her best friend there is no turning back, either way the friendship is over, you either make a relationship or you break it apart. Things just do not go back to the way that they once were, you can't just go back to unexpected office dinners, with screw top wine and Thai restaurant menus, you can't go back to days of subtle flirting and confessions of secrets in interview rooms. Although she knows that now, all too well, she knows that things have changed dramatically with Phil over the past year, perhaps she knew that on the first day that she returned after her holiday, but now after she has become the DI, given him a lecture about how she could not trust him, watched as he was sent to Uniform for fighting with Stuart without so much as a word to her, or a telephone call to her in complaint and perhaps a request for her to speak to the DCI for him, she now realises all too much that their friendship is gone and she did lose him, one year ago today.
She glances out of the office window as the doors to CID swing open, DC Jo Masters wanders inside, a smile on her face as if she has just been laughing, then someone follows quickly behind her Sam sighs once more as she realises that it is Phil with her, he is the one who has made Jo laugh, perhaps in the same way that he used to make her laugh, before they had tried to make a relationship work and had failed. She watches as Phil smiles at Jo as the two of them sit down, she wonders if he remembers what today is, and even if he cares. It was probably a year ago to this moment that he had leant in towards her and had kissed her softly by the coffee machine, neither of them really knowing that, that would be their second last kiss. She continues to watch as he pulls a piece of paper from a large pile and then several others drop to the floor, she cannot help but smile to herself as she watches him groan to himself loudly, as he climbs off of his seat and bends down to clean the floor. She also cannot help it when she smiles in his direction as he looks up towards her office, she doesn't know if he saw her smiling, but he appears to smile back towards her. Sam looks away, she doesn't know what that means, or even if it means anything, they are not Sam and Phil any longer, the couple that people wondered about, he isn't the one she confides in. For the past year they have just been DI Nixon and DS Hunter, two colleagues, who both seem to have forgotten that they could have been so much more, until perhaps today.
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