I love Taggart, but I've never posted any of my fanfiction because it's based around an OC character called Christina Taylor who (in my little universe) was/is Michael's wife/widow and I've never written a back story for her - she's just always been in my world. But after watching Taggart the other night (poor Jackie and that ginger guy...) I found this on my computer and thought I would just post it anyway. I will post more but thought I would start with this! It's set just after the events of Judgement Day. I hope you enjoy it!

Wanting

"I thought I might find you here."

Matt Burke looked up to see Christina Taylor standing a few feet away, what looked suspiciously like a Gin and Tonic in her hand. He was surprised, despite her not being. It was the last place he had expected to run into her that evening. "Am I that predictable?" he asked, downing the last of his whisky.

"Not exactly," she replied, "mind if I join you?"

"Course not," he said waving her into the empty spot beside him. She sat down heavily, placed her bag on the floor and started to shrug off her jacket. The faintest hint of her perfume reached him. A concoction of coconut and white linen.

She held up her glass as he was about to take a sup of his pint. "Cheers."

He returned the sentiment by clinking her glass. "What brings you here?" he asked finally.

"I…wanted to make sure you were all right," she replied. "It can't have been easy. Listening to Kathy confess I mean." He didn't say anything. "I'm sorry you had to…"

"Yeah well," he interrupted her, "these things happen, don't they?" He took another gulp of alcohol.

"Matt." The way she said his name made her look at her. "You don't have to pretend with me."

"Don't I?" She looked away, a slight blush forming on her cheeks. "I should have known," he continued, "the convenient way she brought up Morgan's problem with Shearer." He shook his head, "No fool like an old fool."

"It wasn't your fault," she tried to reassure him, "You trusted her."

"Why?" he looked at her again, "Why did I trust her? I hadn't seen the woman for twenty-three years. Not since she jilted me. Why would I believe anything she said?" He searched her face for an answer.

"Because you loved her," she replied, "perhaps a part of you still does."

"No," he said quickly, shaking his head, "not any more. She sat with me in that restaurant and apologised and told me she understood and all the time…" he broke off and took another long drink. "She must have seen me coming."

"Don't," she said, "torturing yourself like this doesn't help. Believe me, I know."

He looked over at her and saw the genuine empathy, "You do, don't you?"

She looked down at the table, "After Michael died, I drove myself crazy thinking about all the things we had, or hadn't, said to each other. All the petty arguments about the Innes murder, about you…" she trailed off. "It broke my heart that we had parted on bad terms. That I never got the chance to say goodbye to him. But pain like that only hurts you more in the long run."

He suddenly felt a desperate need to apologise to her. "I'm not sure I ever told you I was sorry."

"Of course you did."

"I maybe said it in the course of things as you do but…" he shook his head, "I'm not sure I ever said it and really meant it." He paused, "I am sorry."

She smiled ruefully, "It was a long time ago now."

"Yeah."

"Seven years."

He was surprised, "That long?"

"Seems like only yesterday sometimes, doesn't it?" She smiled at him, "You certainly weren't my favourite person back then."

"I don't think I was anyone's favourite person back then," he conceded.

"It was a difficult time for you too."

"That's you all over, Chris," he said with a small laugh, "Always thinking of others."

"You make me sound like Mother Theresa," she laughed, "and that's something I'm definitely not." She paused, "Would you have wanted another chance with her?"

"Who, Mother Theresa?"

She made a face, "Kathy."

He looked down into his half-drunk pint, "I don't know. Maybe. Or maybe I was just looking for it to be back the way it was all those years ago, even though it never could be."

"What are we like, eh? Sat in this pub drowning our sorrows while Stuart's out at some…rave party night and Robbie's probably warming the bed of some comely blonde."

"Don't forget Jackie," he reminded her.

"As if I could. She mumbled something earlier about going out but she didn't elaborate."

"Hot date?"

"Maybe. I'd like to see her settled with someone else. I know the divorce hit her hard and then, what with Brian dying…"

"Nobody gets it easy, do they?" he observed.

"No," she agreed, draining her glass, "they don't."

"Fancy another?" he offered, finishing his pint.

She held out her empty glass, "Why not?"

XXXX

"My father's a Chief Superintendent. Was a Chief Superintendent and he ruled our house the same way he ruled his station. With a rod of iron." Christina took another long gulp. "I half expected him to make me and my brother line up for inspection like in The Sound of Music."

Matt laughed, "Did you grow up in Aberdeen?"

"Do I sound like her off River City?" Christina glared jokingly at him, "No, he was at Govan for twenty years. He and Mum only moved to Aberdeen after he retired. He came from up there originally and he wanted to go back and buy this wee cottage he'd always had his eye on as a youngster. That was…nine years ago now."

"And your brother?" Matt downed his latest whisky chaser.

"Area sales manager for some pharmaceutical company that I can never remember the name of," she replied, "Earns good money from it too. Married, three kids, lives in Bearsden."

"Are you close?"

Christina made a face, "He's more of your golf on a Saturday while Valerie hits the shops and the kids go to football, Italian classes and ballet. Andrew's eleven, Katy's nine and Lucy's three."

"Three year old's do ballet?"

"So I'm told. They're nice kids but…" she shook her head, "growing up to be spoilt brats. Mum and Dad dote on them. Christmas is always fun in a kind of 'let's drink as much as possible and pray we get through it' way."

"You and Mike never wanted kids?"

It was the million dollar question. She looked at the table top. "Sure we did. Tried for nearly all of our marriage but it never happened."

"I'm sorry."

"Wasn't meant to be," she waved her hand dismissively, "Anyway, if we'd had kids, I'd have been a widowed mother and my life might not have been able to go on the way it has."

"Working for a wonderful boss like me you mean?" he quipped.

"Exactly." She looked at him again, "What about your son?"

"David? He lives in London with his mother. I don't see him very often."

"What is it with policemen and families?" she asked, "You, Robbie…"

"Well my divorce wasn't exactly amicable," he explained, "I wanted to come back to Glasgow and she refused to even consider it. He wanted to stay with her so…"

"How often do you see him?"

"Couple of times a year, when he can be bothered making the trip. He's seventeen now. I suppose he'd rather go out and get pissed with his mates than come up to see his old dad."

It was her turn to apologise, "Sorry."

"It's just the way it is."

"Funny isn't it," she said, "how not one of us is in a happy relationship."

"You would be, if Michael was still here."

"Yeah," she conceded, "but he isn't, is he?"

He weighed up whether to ask the next question and decided that, with the amount he'd drunk, she could always put it down to the effects of the alcohol if she was displeased. "And there's never been anyone else?"

She met his gaze, "Not anyone that I think I can have."

XXXX

"We should do this more often," she said as they stumbled out of the pub at midnight. "I think it would be good for morale, don't you?"

"What, sitting talking about how terribly shitty our lives are?" he said jokingly.

"Oh, come on!" she pushed him playfully, "If I hadn't pitched up, you would have gone home and sat in front of the box watching some crappy programme and feeling sorry for yourself, wouldn't you?"

"Probably."

"And instead, you've had a fun evening out with a cracking looking bird…"

"Oh aye?"

"A cracking looking bird," she insisted, "and you've not really thought about Kathy for the last few hours. Is that not the truth of it?"

"That's the truth of it," he agreed. "Of course, I was actually intending on being able to drive home…"

She started to laugh, "Me too! Oops!"

"Come on," he said, laughing with her, "I'll get you a cab."

"And have me leave you alone to cope with Glasgow on a Friday night?" she said with mock disdain, "Absolutely not. You don't live far from me. We can share."

"Ok," he agreed, flagging down a passing black cab. Opening the door, he gestured to her, "After you."

She climbed in and flopped down in the seat. He followed suit and gave the driver the addresses. "I'm not sure that last G&T was a good idea," she confessed. "If I didn't know you any better, boss, I'd say you were trying to get me drunk."

He laughed, "At least you're sober enough to remember I outrank you."

"Only by two levels," she pointed out. "Besides, I was thinking about putting in for promotion."

He turned to look at her, "Really?"

"Well I've been a DS for well over ten years. I think I'm good enough to be a DI, don't you?"

"Yes but…"

"But what? If Robbie Ross can do it, so can I." She nodded determinedly.

"You'd make a brilliant DI," he said.

"Well then."

"But…I'd lose you off the team." Suddenly, the thought of her not being there hit him hard. Right through any effects of the alcohol he had drunk.

"I don't see why Maryhill couldn't cope with two DI's," she said, "but I suppose…if I had to go…"

"You want to leave?" he felt slightly hurt at the suggestion.

"No," she reassured him, "but there's nothing else in my life right now, is there? If Michael was still here and we had a family then maybe it wouldn't bother me so much. But this is it. This is it." She pointed to herself. "Nothing else in my life is going to change so maybe I should change this."

"You don't know that nothing else is going to change."

She looked at him, "I'm forty years old, Matt. Forty-one in…three months time."

"So?"

"So, I reckon I'm passed my sell by date when it comes to hot studs looking for romance."

"Don't knock yourself," he said, "you're an attractive woman." Christina turned to look at him again but, before she could say anything, the driver pulled the taxi to a halt. "This is you," he told her.

She kept looking at him, "Do you fancy a coffee?"

"Erm…" he feigned looking at his watch, all the time knowing that he was dying for a coffee.

"Night is young," she cajoled.

"Ok," he said. She started rifling in her bag for her purse. "It's ok, I'll get it."

She grinned, "It's nice to know chivalry is not entirely dead."

XXXX

"Black?" she called from the kitchen.

"With sugar," he replied from where he was standing in the living room surveying the photographs on the wall. He heard the sound of her heels on the laminate flooring and turned to see her coming into the room holding two cups. "You were a beautiful bride," he commented, taking one cup from her and feeling a strange current as their fingers brushed.

"Thank you," she said, coming to stand beside him. "Valerie thought it was morbid of me to move to a new house and then put my wedding photograph on the wall. I think she thinks I should bury every last remnant of Michael and forget he ever existed."

"As if you could do that," he said, "or would want to."

"Exactly." She moved and sat down on one of the sofas, drawing her legs up underneath her, feeling slightly more sober with every passing minute.

"Louise and I got married in a registry office," he confided. "She didn't want a big white wedding."

"You did?"

He shrugged, "I assumed she would so I was a bit taken aback when she said she didn't. In the end, it was probably the best choice we could have made."

"Do you look back fondly or not?"

"Depends on what kind of mood I'm in and how much I've had to drink," he admitted ruefully. "I often think I married her on the rebound. It was only six months after it all fell apart with Kathy that we got married."

"That was fast."

"I suppose it was what you might term a whirlwind romance," he smiled, "maybe that's why it wasn't destined to last. Sex was good though." Christina spluttered into her cup. "Sorry," he laughed, "couldn't resist."

"Too much information," she replied finally. "Way too much." She paused, "And was there never anyone else after your divorce?"

He looked at her, "I suppose I'm a bit like you."

"In what way?"

"Wanting what I can't have."

The air in the room took on the same tension it had in the pub when she had given a similar response to the same question. Why had she really invited him back for coffee? Was it to continue the somewhat jovial conversation they had been having in the pub or was it for some more scandalous purpose? Even as she considered it, she felt her breathing becoming shallower.

He leant forward and put his half drunk cup on the coffee table. "I should go." He got to his feet.

"You don't have to," she said, standing up also, "I mean…you haven't finished your coffee yet."

He looked at her, willing her to understand, "It's late."

She nodded finally, "Ok." Putting her own cup down, she led him out of the living room and back to the front door. Unbolting it and pulling back the chain, she was acutely aware of his presence behind her. She turned to face him. "Thanks for a nice evening."

"Same to you," he replied. Then he moved towards her and she found herself offering her cheek for his proffered kiss. His lips touched her skin briefly before pulling back but he didn't move away from her and she found herself twisting slightly to allow his mouth to meet hers.

After what seemed like an eternity, he pulled back. "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely, "I shouldn't have done that."

"I wasn't exactly fighting you off," she replied softly. "Matt…"

"It's complicated," he said, cutting her off, "maybe too complicated."

"Or maybe we've just been telling ourselves that for all these years."

He looked at her, "All these years?"

She knew he was simply being obstructive. "All these years."

"Christina…"

"Matthew." He stopped and looked at her. "I'm too old for games and so, I suspect, are you."

He licked his lips, "I don't understand."

Christina unbuttoned her blouse and let the sheer material fall down her body to the floor, leaving her standing in front of him in her bra. "If I'm wrong," she said, her voice trembling, "tell me now and we forget this ever happened."

He took a deep, shuddering breath, aching to touch her, feeling the uncomfortable swelling in his trousers. "You're not wrong," he said finally. "But this would be."

"Why? Because you're my boss?"

"Amongst other things."

"What other things?" She was nothing if not persistent.

"Like I said," he replied, "it's complicated."

"Ok," she bent and lifted her blouse and he could see the faint tinge of embarrassment on her cheeks. "Ok, forget it," she buttoned it again.

"It's not that I don't want you," he said, trying desperately to make amends, "it's just…"

"It's fine," she said, opening the door, "I understand. Really I do." She waited.

He wanted to say something more, but couldn't. "Goodnight then," he said finally.

"Goodnight," she said. He stepped out and she closed the door behind him.

Out in the cool night air, Matt tried to bring himself back under control. He dialled for another taxi and walked down the street a little to wait for it. Glancing back, he wondered if he would see Christina watching him, but there was no sign of her at the window. Pacing, he wondered if he had done the right thing. She had been stood there in front of him, the woman he had wanted for so long, offering herself to him and he had turned her down. Was he losing his mind?

"No," he said to himself, "more like keeping hold of it." At that point, the taxi pulled up and he climbed in.