My very first none-Potter fanfiction! I had to write this, Neil and Grace are one of my favourite pairings ever and now they are suspended in time people are forgetting them and the Bill. One of the best fanfictions in any fandom I have ever read were the Reaching Normality stories, (Reaching Normality, the Great Shenanigans of Jakes Eleventh Birthday, Courage to Suffer and the Outtakes), and they are brilliant and cannon and a fangirl's dream. This little one-shot was inspired in part by that, and by the fact that The Bill fanfictions, particularly Grace/Neil, are becoming worryingly thin on the ground. Please Enjoy!

"...and so if you could get that signed and put the paperwork through by the end of the day that would be great-"

DI Neil Manson was cut off by the sound of his phone in his pocket, and with a questioning glance at the PC with whom he had been talking, began to walk up the stairs away from the loud reception of Sunhill toward his office, answering as he walked to one of the very few people he would never ignore a call from.

"Hi Dad!" a cheerful young voice came through the phone as Neil entered CID.

"Alright mate! How are you?" came the reply, accompanied with a rare smile.

Grace glanced up from her desk as he entered and continued to talk, and smiled also at the show of affection she had come to admire he always had for his son. She caught his eye a little longer than she normally would have done, but then again at least Max wasn't there, and he held it and nodded at her unsaid request.

"Gracie says hi," he said as he closed the door, "but from your tone I am guessing that it not what you rang for is it?"

There was silence, and Neil suppressed a chuckle. He never rang him at work unless he had done something wrong or wanted something, and neither ever proved particularly good for Neil.

"Actually," Neil started at the elder female voice that issued through the phone, "I wanted to speak to you about it, but Jake took it upon himself." Neil fancied he heard a slight giggle in the background as he waited to hear what the babysitter wanted to talk to him about.

"One of the other children may be infectious, and I am afraid I have to return the others immediately. There are other options, but most parents aren't content with leaving their children with other child minders, so-"

"It's fine Mrs Smith." The woman sounded harried, and she had been completely invaluable in the past, with her nurse training giving her special license to mind ill children, so he could hardly hold this against her.

He did however have to release the sigh he had been holding when he had got off the phone, promising to go pick him up. There was nowhere else he could go other than here. Phillipa was in Devon with her cousin, and he wouldn't trust another sitter even if he could get one at such short notice.

It was only a couple of hours until the end of his shift, he supposed, and there was no major ongoing case, it was pretty much paperwork day, and he knew his team wouldn't mind, half of them acted Jakes age anyway.

Resigned to lack of choice, he made a quick announcement to the team to tell them what was going to happen, and he was met with more relief at a distraction than anything else, and a beautiful big smile from Grace, which he couldn't help but return.

This did not go unnoticed, and after he had left Grace was surrounded by wolf whistles, and she simply shook her head at their immaturity and feigned continuation of work, really excited by seeing Jake again, and the brilliant mood Neil was in when he was with him when he was well.

"Can I try on a hat?"

"No."

"Can I set off a siren?"

"No!"

The exclamation was intended to be stern, but Neil could not hide the amusement in his voice at his son's enthusiasm as the questions and requests continued right until they actually came to the doors of CID. For the first time he registered a slight nervousness on his son's face.

"I know this isn't ideal mate, but Grace is in there, and I promise you, everyone in there is really nice." Max had the week off.

"I'm okay Dad, I always am." He looked up with a brave and infectious smile, and pushed the doors open, his eyes immediately landing on Grace, who was standing near Terry's desk, her eyes on the door.

"Gracie!"

"Jakey!"

He rushed to hug her round her middle and she responded, ruffling his hair as he pulled away.

Neil glanced away from the exchange which had become usual to him to look at the rest of his team in amusement, as they exchanged glances of confusion about the endearment 'Gracie', and the familiarity which they had. No matter the varying levels of approval or interest, not many had thought that their relationship was that serious.

His smile fell slightly when he realised that the gossips of Sunhill now had exactly what they were looking for: a willing and reliable source of information about their relationship. He caught Grace's eye, and realised she had come to that conclusion long before he had, as usual, but saw the slightly amused resignation in her smile which seemed to say 'it had to happen'.

They were briefly distracted by PC Taylor walking in brandishing a piece of paper.

"Guv, somebody reckons they saw Natalie Shipman on the Tolgate Estate, they made a statement. Not backed up by anything yet, but you said to say if-"

"Yeah thanks Leon." He looked down at the paper at read it sounded promising, and bit his lip in indecision.

"Jake will be okay here, I really think you should go N-Guv." Grace spoke earnestly- he had been heavily involved in that case, and although the subsequent disappearance of the victim was almost certainly run away, he had always been worried.

"Are you okay with that Jake? I don't have to."

"You should," he said honestly, with a quick hug.

"Thanks son."

He turned to leave, but not before he heard Jake call out cheekily,

"Less rules anyway!"

He thought about reprimanding him, but he thought the grin on his face at the happiness and normality of his son might ruin the effect somewhat, so he continued to walk.

As soon as his Dad was gone, Grace sat Jake down at a spare chair at the side of her desk, and without any pretence of continuing to work they were joined in a kind of circle by the rest of the room.

Grace introduced everyone, and within a few minutes Jake had lost any initial inhibitions and was chatting away unaided by Grace. The rest of the team couldn't help but notice the bond between them, and how well she seemed to know him; in the space of a few minutes they learned more about her and their DI than they had in the entire time they had been together, which they didn't even know how long that was.

While talking about his favourite football team, he had revealed that that Grace had come to watch them with him and his Dad, and the next day they had gone to the cinema together but he had fallen asleep. He then went on, oblivious to Grace's awkwardness, to explain how Grace and his Dad went to eat posh food and go to the cinema to see boring grow up films when he was with his mum, and how he sometimes helps pick out the best chocolates for his Dad to buy her.

The reaction to these insights was more surprise than anything else by most: they had never envisaged DI Manson to be in any way romantic, and the picture that was conjured was so strangely normal.

Eventually though, Grace managed to steer the topic away, much to her colleagues disappointment, and Jakes attention was changed when a leading question by Mickey was addressed to 'Grace'.

"I always wanted to ask you Gracie," Jake said, unwittingly gaining the attention of everyone again, "Why do you have so many names?"

She paused, looking slightly confused at him.

"Well I've heard people hear call you Grace, and DC Dasari, but I call you Gracie, and so does Dad, but I've heard him call you all three. Am I calling you the wrong one?"

The glee at the shining new piece of gossip that the DI called Grace 'Gracie' gleamed from Smithy's eyes, and Grace saw that even Banksy was smirking, awaiting her answer.

"Well..." she deliberated, "DC Dasari is my work name for when I have to be official. Grace is what the people in my department and my friends call me, or if I am talking to people who aren't criminals."

"What about Gracie? I asked Dad and he said he didn't know, just that it sounds 'right'." He drew air quotes around the final words, his tone indicating the lack of sufficient explanation this adjective gave.

"I don't know either Jake. You can call me Grace if you want to-"

"I like calling you Gracie. Does anyone else call you Gracie?"

"My parents used to, and my brother does."

"Your family?"

"Yes."

However juicy the gossip was, the rest of the team slowly moved back to their desks, respectful of the evidently private conversation. (It wasn't a big office, they could hear anyway.)

"Oh, I get it. Your family all call you Gracie, and me and Dad are your family, so we call you Gracie." He spoke triumphantly, with an air of simplicity and obviousness about his tone, as if he felt he should have figured it out before.

The widest smile her friends had ever seen on her overtook her face at his words, and despite some of their discomfort, they couldn't help but feel a little touched by the boy and his effect on her.

"Family." She spoke quietly, but Jake heard.

"Of course. I asked Dad, and he says family is someone who you love who loves you too. So you have to be family, because Dad loves you me and you, and you love us, and I love you. So you are our family."

She couldn't find the right words, quite as she had been when Neil had first told her, and resolved to initiate a tight hug with the brilliant brave little boy who loved her, marvelling at her luck. The boy himself knew more than he let on, and knew it meant a lot. He had overheard her a while ago telling Dad she loved both of them, and she had been worried as to what his reaction would be, she didn't want him to feel like he had to call her Mum or anything, he already had that. He liked her so much more when he had heard her say that, and had realised he wanted her to be his family. He knew his Dad was really happy when they were all together.

Grace knew all of the teasing would come, but she didn't care. As long as he called her Gracie, it was worth it.

A few minutes later, Jake's phone rang and with Grace's permission he went into his Dad's office to talk to his Mum alone, thus giving everybody else the opportunity to do what they had wanted to for half an hour: suggestively make comments about chocolates and referring to her as Gracie in every instance, unperturbed by her lack of caring. She even answered some questions good-naturedly, when she had previously refused to even acknowledge them, and laughed along to the more innocent jokes.

Neil came back quicker than they had all thought, and arrived back in the building only minutes after Jake had finished his conversation with his mum.

He almost took the stairs two at a time heading back up to CID. It wasn't that he didn't trust Grace with Jake, far from it, it was just he knew that knowing the limits of his words was not a quality his son had mastered yet, perfectly predictably for an eleven year old, and he knew he was bound to have said something.

He paused on the landing outside the door as he had done with him a short time ago, and steeled himself slightly in preparation for what they, or more importantly Jake, may have said in his absence.

Well there you go! Only short, but I hope you enjoyed. If I get reviews (nudge nudge, wink wink) suggesting it, I would be more than happy to turn this into a multi chapter. Thanks for reading anyway! :D