Wishful thinking.
He's been cheating on me with another man; several in fact over the last week or so but there's nothing I can do about it. Standing unnoticed at the back of the crowded conference room I watch him now, his loose brown curls falling about his face as he throws his head back and laughs at some funny crack someone's made. I suppose I should be happy that he's moved on and got someone else but I'm not. I want it to be me. We should be out there together, side by side fighting crime as we've always done. It shouldn't be like this. I shouldn't be feeling lonely and excluded but I am. I'm not a part of it anymore and I so desperately want to be.
With the briefing at an end he turns to file from the room almost lost in the gathering but my eyes follow him and I hear his laughter again. He used to laugh like that with me but that hasn't happened for a while now. There's no morning chat in the restroom over a cuppa either, no reading through the early papers, no discussing the headlines. I don't know why I'm here, it just rubs salt into the wound.
He catches sight of me just briefly as he's swept along with the throng of operatives that surge forward in eager anticipation of forthcoming action. He looks surprised to see me as our eyes meet. There was just time for him to purse his lips and give me a sympathetic look with raised eyebrows and then he is gone. But he knows, as I do, that our separation is all my fault; I only have myself to blame for my lonely enforced isolation.
I trail dejectedly behind the last of the men. A few acknowledged my presence as they rushed past but work and plans and tactics are the subjects of their focus and I leave them to pour down the stairs and out into the yard. I want to run down and join them screaming inside with happiness, fueled by adrenaline and feeling the exhilaration of an early morning raid on some unsuspecting villain but I can't. Instead I wander into the restroom and peer out of the window that overlooks the car park. He's with Murphy, Anderson and Wilson and I watch them piling excitedly into his Escort. There's a lot of door slamming and starting of engines and then the fleet of vehicles sweeps out of the yard and onto the street and I'm left behind . There is a sudden deathly hush about the place. He's gone without me, he had no choice but, as I gaze wistfully down at my heavily bandaged slowly healing hand I know with certainty we'll be together again soon. I just have to be patient.