A/N: Just a little fic that popped into my head... Should have several chapters, but I'll warn you all straight from the off - I'm pretty busy at the moment, I haven't started or even planned out any of the other chapters yet and I've actually only got a vague idea where I'm going with the crime! But I will try my best to update soon. :) Please review! L x

I don't own Scott and Bailey. Damn.

Beep beep. Beep beep. Beep BEEP.

"Mmmfmh" Gill mumbled, slamming a hand down on her alarm. It was 6am; about 5 hours since she'd gone to bed. When she stumbled out of bed and opened the curtains, it was to discover that it was chucking it down with rain. Gill merely shrugged, however, and marched off to get ready for work. After an extra strong cup of coffee and looking as impeccably smart as always, she was feeling quite cheerful – she wasn't someone who needed much sleep, which was good, considering she couldn't actually remember the last time she'd had what most would deem 'enough'. Gill grabbed her handbag and files and made for the door, preparing to be in the office before 7. She noticed, as she passed her son's room on the way out of the house, that there was a slightly funny smell lingering around his door and made a mental note to remind him to clean his room when she got in that night.

Outside, Gill discovered that her car was too low on petrol to get her to the office. Of course, Sammy had been the last one to drive it (Janet had given her lifts the previous day because Sammy had requested the car that evening well in advance and she hadn't known how late she might be working) – ignoring the beginnings of annoyance that were stirring, she dashed back into the house to get the key to the garage. You didn't manage to be a single mother and very successful at your job without being well-organised and, as such, she had a jerry can of petrol set aside for just such instances.

By the time she'd filled the car up as much as she could, Gill was bordering on being late (by her standards, anyway) and her perkiness was slipping slightly. She'd got cold and wet sorting out her car in the rain and, what was more, she'd spotted a pile of sick at the end of her drive – obviously some drunkard going past in the night. The rain would wash it way but it didn't exactly improve her mood.

"Dickheads," she muttered, as she took the garage keys back into the house. Pausing, she glanced into the living room. There was a bottle of whiskey in there, and she and Julie may have finished off the bottle she kept in her office last week... Something told her this was going to be one of those days… Making up her mind, she marched into the room to retrieve it and take it to work.

"What the hell?" she said, stopping dead in front of the cabinet on which she kept it. There were only a couple of inches left in the bottle, and it had been at least half full last time she'd used it… She didn't need any detective skills to work out where it had gone; it only took her a second to put two and two together and come up with four.

Sammy.

The funny smell outside his room, the vomit outside, the diminished supply of whiskey…

"SAMMY," Gill yelled, stomping back up the stairs. She was fuming. Admittedly, she had been working late last night when she'd said she probably wouldn't, but it wasn't in her control to do anything about that and that was no excuse for him to be at the bottle. Besides, judging by outside, he hadn't been drinking on his own in the house. Had he driven in that state?

Horrified at the thought, She threw open his bedroom door and spotted her son sprawled on his bed, half-dressed, his hair stuck to his face and his mouth open. There was a basin (thankfully empty) on the floor next to him.

"Uh?" he groaned.

Gill glared at him, not that he noticed.

"What in God's name did you do last night?"

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry… Just let me go back to sleep…" he said, yawning widely and still not bothering to open his eyes.

"I don't want apologies that you don't mean, Samuel, I want an explanation. WHAT made you think it was okay to steal my bloody whiskey on a weeknight when I was out and go out on the lash? Please tell me you didn't drive?"

"Mum…"

"Don't you 'mum…' me. I'm going to work now because I am late because somebody didn't fill the car up and then decided to get pissed and make a mess. We'll talk about this tonight and I want to see that bottle of whiskey replaced, that sick gone from the drive and the jerry can in the garage refilled. I'll leave you the petrol money in the kitchen."

"Mmm"

Gill turned on her heel and left his room, resisting the urge to start screaming at him. She loved Sammy very much and normally he was a good kid, but she couldn't forgive him for this until she knew what had gone on and why. And, she admitted to herself, despite her anger she was worried. He was too young to be drinking that amount on a weeknight; that was the kind of thing done by sad old bints like her and Julie who couldn't think of anything else to do. He couldn't have driven; the car was too unscathed, she reassured herself - but she was still concerned.

Gill tried to put it to the back of her mind as she drove to work, feeling slightly tense as she was now half an hour later than she'd planned to be and trying to ignore the fact that it was only about seven hours since she'd last been in the office. Fortunately, she was always there a good hour before anyone else anyway, so nobody would know, but it did mean that she would have less time to go through her emails and see what was going on.

The syndicate were working on a double murder – a young couple in their twenties who had both been found, apparently strangled, in a forest just outside the city. They'd only received the case the previous afternoon but had made a fairly good start; there had been ID on both of them which identified them as John and Katie Rogers; according to records they'd been married for about five months. He worked for an insurance company, she was a journalist. They'd got a couple of family members due in that morning to identify them officially and she'd already told Rachel, Lee, Mitch and Kevin that they'd be talking to them. The crime scene had been thoroughly gone over, the post mortem was due to take place later that morning and results from all the forensics would be through in a couple of days. There wasn't much her team could do until the families had given them a few clues.

Gill sighed as she pulled up at yet another set of red lights. They were both so young, so recently married. She had become very good at emotionally disconnecting herself from cases, she had to be; they all did. But that didn't make them any more pleasant. She usually managed to suppress these kind of thoughts, but because she wasn't having the best morning it was very easy to give in to negativity. She turned the radio up a bit louder and switched to a different station, hoping for some happy music, but no luck – it was all the news and discussion shows, the kind of thing she usually liked to listen to. But not today.

By the time she arrived at work, Gill was quite stressed. It was nearly quarter to eight, and, of course, Janet was already there – she hadn't been a DS long but she'd already adjusted to the hours. Had her DS still been Andy, Gill would have given him a rushed greeting and holed herself immediately up in her office, shutting the door slightly more loudly than usual in order to demonstrate that she did not wish to be disturbed unless it was important. With Janet, however, it was different. They'd been friends for twenty years. And so, when Gill stomped into her office, she didn't even bother closing the door, because she knew Janet would be following her in imminently.

Gill threw herself into her chair and switched her computer on, staring blankly at the screen as it booted up. She was, admittedly, in a bit of a bad mood but it was nothing a chat with Janet, another cup of coffee and getting stuck into her work couldn't help. Yes, she would be worrying about Sammy until she got home that night and talked to him, but that was no excuse to be moody, and she resolved to have her usual cheerfulness about her by the time the rest of the team turned up.

"Morning," Janet was standing in the doorway, holding two steaming mugs and wearing an expectant expression; clearly waiting to be told what had put Gill in a strop. Gill couldn't help but smile as she reached out for one of the mugs.

"Thanks, cock," she said. Janet settled herself across from her, still with the expression.

"Bad morning?" she asked, sympathy flitting across her face.

"I hate being late," Gill admitted, "but the car had no petrol, traffic was bad, Sammy…"

"The joys of having teenagers," Janet gave her a knowing smile. "What's he done?"

Gill looked briefly down at her coffee before answering, creasing her eyebrows slightly.

"Little bugger's been at my whiskey," she stated, "seems he had a heavy night!"

"On his own?"

"Dunno. I tried to speak to him before I left but he was flat out."

"I wouldn't worry, Gill, he'll have had a friend over or something…"

"Yeah," she said, unwilling to discuss the matter any further. It was unlike Sammy not to ask her before he had anyone over, even Orla. She couldn't help but wonder if Dave had had anything to do with it. "How're the girls?"

"Oh, fine," Janet said matter-of-factly, avoiding Gill's gaze.

Gill didn't answer, merely glanced searchingly at her friend. She got the impression she wasn't the only one hiding things.

At that moment, they were interrupted by everyone except Rachel trooping in, and Gill spluttered slightly into her coffee.

"Shit, we'd better get some work done!"

"Yeah, actually, I need to talk to you about the post-mortem, apparently scary Mary's off somewhere this afternoon and she wants to know if she needs to cram it in late morning or if it can wait 'til tomorrow…"

"It bloody well can't!" Gill raged, already reaching for her phone. "Thanks, Jan, is there anything else?"

"Nothing else to report, when do you want to have the briefing?"

"Half an hour. And call Rachel, tell her if she doesn't get her arse here in time for that meeting then her life won't be worth living."

Ignoring Janet's maddeningly calm, almost indulgent smile, Gill punched in Mary's mobile number and tapped her scarlet nails on the desk impatiently, waiting for her to answer. It was definitely going to be one of those days.

Twelve hours later found a tired syndicate grouped around the table in their meeting room, each accompanied by a mug or two of something caffeinated. Gill stood at the end of the table and surveyed them before clapping her hands together.

"Right!" she called; everyone fell silent and turned towards her.

"I want to hear what you've all been up to," she began, "but first I need to tell you about the post-mortem." She watched as they searched for pens; Rachel was already scribbling away, Gill observed approvingly.

"They were definitely strangled and that was the cause of death. Neither of them had been kicked about, stabbed, shot, sexually assaulted or harmed in any other way. The positioning of the marks and the few signs of a struggle that we have imply that their killer (or, I think we must assume, killers because who could strangle two people at once?) came up behind them. This person… People… didn't kill them for enjoyment, didn't make them suffer any more than necessary. I don't think it was just some aggressive tosser; this was organised."

"So it must be someone they knew?" Rachel interrupted, eyes bright with the excitement of an investigation.

"I think we can safely assume that, yes. There are no traces of DNA but there is a tiny bit of that powder that you get in disposable gloves on John's neck, so we've sent that off to the lab, see if they can tell us anything. So we're looking for somebody with a definite motive and somebody who knew what I'm about to tell you."

She paused, looking around the room. They were all staring at her expectantly.

"Katie was two months pregnant."

There were a couple of head shakes here and there, the odd longer than necessary blink, Gill saw a nauseated look flit across Janet's face and an angry one across Rachel's, but it was all within a second. It was sad and it was shocking, but they were used to that.

"Now," Gill continued, "we need to know who knew that. Did anyone know, did she even know herself? If nobody knew, was there anyone who could have guessed? Did she seem to have morning sickness, had she put on weight, we need to find out if anyone noticed this and did or didn't put two and two together. A jealous ex-lover is the obvious conclusion but then who is this second person, because there must have been two? So, families!" Gill sat down again and put her glasses on before turning to peer over the top of them at Rachel. "Go."

"Well, we spoke to Katie's parents earlier and either they didn't know she was pregnant or they've decided not to mention it. They officially identified her and then Kev and I asked them a few questions, during which they told us, essentially, that she was young, pretty, good at her job, happily married and her life was generally perfect. They couldn't seem to think of any enemies she might have had. Gave us names of all her ex-boyfriends, but they're all from when she was about nineteen because apparently she met John in her third year of university. They've also given us names and numbers of colleagues that she talked about to them and her best friend of God knows how many years."

Gill nodded, frowning slightly, "Right, well, we all know that lives that look perfect from the outside very rarely are," the bitterness in her voice was carefully disguised, it had no place here. "So let's do some more digging into what she was actually like, not what mum and dad saw through their rosy specs. We'll come back to that later, first I want to hear about John – Mitch?"

"I've got pretty much the same story," Mitch said, "same spiel about how they met at university, stayed together but living separately for a couple of years while they got started with their careers, then decided to tie the knot five months ago…"

The meeting continued in this vein for another two hours, during which they learnt that despite the fact they'd spoken to Katie's colleagues and John's group of mates, nobody had mentioned a pregnancy or any enemies and everyone seemed utterly confused by what had happened. Janet told the team that there wasn't any CCTV around the forest but a couple of petrol stations and pubs nearby had sent their stuff over; no suspicious activity to report. Nobody who worked at either of those places could tell them anything, so Gill decided she'd better get in touch with the press and ask for any witnesses to come forward. The house would be searched tomorrow; they'd be looking in particular for a pregnancy test and signs of anyone interacting with the couple that they didn't already know about. The mobile phones were off being examined by experts, and Gill expected the results of that to come in the following morning. In the meantime, they would await lab results and continue talking to friends and relatives.

"Okay, well done everyone," Gill concluded, taking her glasses off and rubbing a hand across her tired eyes, "back in here at 8 sharp tomorrow morning please, and overnight can we have a think about motives, anything we might have overlooked, anything that might make somebody want to kill these two apparently lovely people."

They all nodded, murmuring their goodnights. It was 10 o clock, earlier than Gill would normally finish when she'd got this much on but she really needed to get back to Sammy.

"Pub, Janet?" Gill heard Rachel call across the table. Janet smiled tiredly and replied, "not tonight, Miss Boundless Energy, I'm knackered and I ought to be back before the girls go to bed, it's not fair on mum."

Rachel pulled a face at her friend and turned to Gill, who raised her eyebrows.

"Boss?"

"Love to, Sherlock, but I've gotta get home too," she said, already beginning a text to Sammy to tell him she was on her way.

Rachel looked disappointed and Gill bit back a smirk as Kevin sauntered up, saying, as if it were a chore, "I'll take her for a drink, keep her entertained for a couple of hours."

Rachel pulled another face, but went with him anyway. Janet turned to Gill and they exchanged a look – only a matter of time.

"Alright for these young'uns with their energy and their lack of family commitments!"

Gill smiled. She knew that Janet wouldn't swap for the world.

"Excuse me, lady, we're not that old! Well, some of us aren't…"

"Cheek, you're older than me!"

"Lies!" Gill retorted. It was only a couple of months… "Listen, Jan, I've gotta rush off, I need to talk to the boy. See ya tomorrow."

"Night, hope he's got a decent excuse!"

Gill waved to Janet as she left the room, finishing her text to Sammy on the way down to the car – 'Leaving work now. Home in half an hour max. Need to talk about last night xx'

She plonked herself down in the driver's seat and turned the engine on, buckling her seatbelt as she fiddled with the radio. There wasn't much on at this time of night but she quite liked having it warbling along in the background. It was still raining and Gill put her windscreen wipers on a fast setting, squinting through the rain as she pulled out of the station. Absolutely awful driving conditions, she thought, the traffic cops would be busy tonight.

The roads were fairly quiet and Gill made good time as she headed towards the outskirts of Manchester, back to the more peaceful area that her house was in. She joined the dual carriageway that would take her back home, pressing her accelerator to the floor to get up to speed. Suddenly, through the rain, she saw an outline of a car much too close to her – it was crawling along, doing about 45mph in the 70 limit, and one of the maniac's rear lights was out, which explained why she hadn't seen it through the driving rain. She was doing about 60, slower than the limit because of the weather but still much too fast given how close this car was. Unable to move into the right hand lane because of other cars, she slammed her foot down onto the brake too hard for the conditions – the car wouldn't slow down – it skidded – she felt the back end veering towards the left, eased her foot off the brake and steered into the skid, concentrating with all her might on maintaining control of the car, aiming to move it into the hard shoulder to avoid hitting anyone while the car slowed. For a split second, she thought she'd saved it, but then it was careering towards the crash barrier and there was a wall on the other side - there was nothing else she could do, it was completely out of her control; Gill let out a yelp and took one of her hands off the wheel, trying to cover her head with her arm as the car slammed into the crash barrier, still at 60mph, and was propelled over it and into the wall. A series of bangs, the sickening scream of metal twisting, a blinding pain and everything went black.