Divorce

by the stargate time traveller

AU. Instead of Rachel cheating on their marriage, it was Sean.

I don't own Scott & Bailey though I wish I did.

Divorce.

Julie stood by the door watching as her best friend and deputy SIO on the Bevan case sat at her desk, typing on her computer and seemingly immune or uncaring about the lateness of the hour. The case was a very complex one, there seemed to be a new body dug up every hour. She was pleased to be working with her friend for once instead of liaising with her whenever they worked cases with similarities to them though it wasn't often though it was routine at times.

"Gill, its time to go," she said at last, though she knew if any of the officers from her syndicate heard her say that they'd think of her as a hypocrite. Julie Dodson was well known for keeping long hours.

Gill jumped at the voice, and the barriers she'd put up to ward off the passing of time fell away, and Gill felt the fatigue creep in. She stifled a yawn,

"Okay," she said and she logged off her computer. Gill was just getting her coat when her phone went off. Strange, she thought. I'm not expecting a call; Janet's at home, Sammy's staying with Orla because of the case and Dave's fucked off somewhere...So who could it be?

When she checked the ID from the insistent phone, her frown deepened. Why would Rachel be ringing her? She shrugged figuring she wouldn't get any answers just by staring at the phone.

"Hi Rachel, what's wrong? Why're you calling?" Gill asked before she shut up to let Rachel speak. Her face dropped into a scowl, "What do you mean you can't come in tomorrow? We need you here kid, you can't just-what? Say that again," she whispered the last part, the irritation leaving her voice quickly. Her eyes widened in horror as Rachel spoke over the line. She couldn't believe it, and Julie frowned, wondering what was wrong. Her curiosity and puzzlement didn't go away when Gill spoke again, her voice horrified and concerned. "He did all that?! Fucking hell," she ran a hand through her hair; Rachel never seemed to get a break. "Okay, I'm coming round. Oh, shut up you silly cow, I've got few plans for tonight."

Julie made a sound like an angry cough or snort, and Gill waved her into silence. "I'll be there soon, see ya." Gill hung up and then faced Julie. The Detective Superintendent was irritated and put out. "What do you mean you're going round to her, and what do you mean you've got few plans for tonight? I thought I was staying at your place."

"You are," Gill waved her hand as though it was a trivial matter. "Rachel's just found her hubby of 12 months in bed with 3 girls that look distinctly underaged. She's kicked the bastard out," Gill closed and locked her office door before leading the stunned Julie to the door.

"Hey, say that again," Julie called as she jogged to catch up with Gill.

On their way to Rachel's flat, Gill told Julie about Sean who had been, up until now, Rachel's husband, how he'd helped her when she'd been brought up on charges of that Nick Savage mess. Gill had told Julie the marriage had seemed happy, but it clearly wasn't. As they drove Gill couldn't help but curse herself for not being more observant with her officers; why was it every time something happened, she was the last person to know about it.

It was this problem which had led to Andy harassing Janet, and now this mess.

"The good news is this time it's not Rachel's fault," Gill finished, watching Julie out of the corner of her eye to judge how she was feeling

Julie frowned though she had to agree with her friend's news Rachel wasn't completely to blame for this mess, but it could still be called her fault since it was her husband. "Sean McCartney, I wonder if he's the same Sean McCartney who married Karen Miller."

Gill glanced over at her. "Didn't she become a DS?"

Julie nodded. "Yeah. She was married to a PC for a few years and had a son called Hayden. They divorced when Karen discovered the bastard having numerous affairs."

"Rachel's Sean has a boy called Hayden. Too much of a coincidence." Gill replied, thinking the chances of two Seans' with two sons named the same thing to be remote. Julie nodded in agreement as they came to Rachel's flat and both women got out of the car and walked to the door.

"Sorry you both had to come round," Rachel apologised for what seemed like the thirtieth time that hour as she handed them a mug of tea each before picking up her own mug.

Gill took a sip of her sweet tea - milk, two sugars, and smiled at the DC for remembering how she liked her drink, but to also sooth her clearly rattled nerves though she was worried about the slight bruise on her right cheek. "It's okay Rachel, it's not your fault."

Rachel smiled back though she was clearly embarrassed by the circumstances. She'd almost passed out when she'd found not just Gill Murray on her doorstep, but Julie Dodson. Rachel and Julie hadn't had a very...warm relationship since the DSI had arrested her on their first meeting. They'd spoken a bit during the Bevan case, but that was all about work. Nothing personal, until now. Rachel was embarrassed and angry that Julie was in her sitting room, listening once more as her fucked up personal life once again caused problems for her career.

Julie, however, was busy looking around Rachel's flat. The color red was a personal favourite for her, and she felt that Rachel had good taste in decor, and she was good at making a decent cup of tea. And then she saw it. The photo was face down on the coffee table, and Julie picked it up and looked at it. It was a wedding photo of Rachel and a familiar looking man, with people Julie recognised and didn't recognise at the same time; Janet Scott, Gill and the officers in Gill's syndicate.

But it was the man standing next to Rachel that caught her attention. Julie frowned, she recognised him at once, and the boy next to him, clearly his son was clearly Karen Miller's son as well.

Julie put the picture down on the table and sat down next to Gill. "What happened Rachel?"

Rachel took a deep breath as she prepared to recount the story of how she'd caught her soon to be ex husband in bed with underaged girls, but she'd been watching Dodson examining the wedding photo she'd flattened when she'd printed off the photos she'd taken of Sean and the girls in bed.

Gill, seeing her DC trying to gain some composure, placed a quiet understanding hand on the younger womans' arm as reassurance. Rachel smiled at Gill in thanks, and put her own hand ontop of Gill's.

"I'd only just come home," she began. "When I walked through the door I was about to call Sean, let him know I was home when I heard moaning coming through from my bedroom, and the creaking of my bed. I could hear different voices, three of them were women. I was tired from a long day at work, like everyone else," Rachel added looking up at the two women, knowing these two being in charge were under a lot of pressure from the Deputy Chief Con, the press and dealing with the size of the case which went back years; murder, child abuse, and the sexual content of the Bevan case just boggled the mind.

But Gill and Julie waved it off, knowing Rachel didn't mean it the way it sounded. "It's okay Rachel," Gill said. "Go on."

Rachel sighed though she had to admit to herself telling the story made it real though she'd lived it. She ducked her head to think about what happened next; she could barely believe it had happened, Sean had always seemed so keen before they'd gotten married. But he'd changed. She shrugged, she'd get to that bit later.

"I went to my bedroom door, seeing it was half open, so I peered inside. I watched for a few minutes as Sean was in bed with three girls. All of them were younger than him. I watched, tears in my eyes as I went to the living room and I grabbed my camera. All I could think about was getting evidence and to divorce him.

"I took a good number of photos, I've lost count, and I put the camera in the living room before I woke Hayden up. I told him to get dressed and to pack up because I was throwing him out. He didn't understand at first, and I went ballistic. I told him what I'd seen, do you know what the little bastard said to me?" Rachel narrowed her eyes at the two senior police women. "He shrugged and said 'it was about time, you were boring dad.' That was it; I grabbed Hayden and shoved him outside. The sounds of his cries alerted Sean, and I grabbed him and his hussies out of my flat. Sean was surprised to see me, and the girls were shocked to learn he was married and they left soon. One of them even said sorry to me before leaving in a hurry, and I could tell she was sincere. The others were as well, but Sean wouldn't leave. He tried to stop me, but I wouldn't let him. Finally he lashed out, and slapped me across the face. I was just feeling the sting on my cheek when he lost his temper; he called me a boring, useless slut, and he just left like he'd given up," She handed over a few of the pictures to Gill, who took it. Her eyes widened when she saw the three girls; one of them looked around Taisie's age, maybe a year or two younger. She had to focus her aching and fatigued head as Rachel spoke. There were tears trickling down Rachel's cheek but Julie had a feeling the tears weren't about finding her husband in such a compromising position; Julie had a feeling there was much more to this marriage than that.

"Rachel," Julie leaned forwards; she had to fight the fatigue she suddenly felt, resisting the urge to glance at her watch or her phone to check on the time. Besides this was going to be delicate. "This question might seem strange; do you know why Sean did this? I mean, I've heard you two were happy-"

Rachel glanced over at Gill, eyebrow raised. She wasn't stupid; she knew the two women were friends and that Gill would've filled Dodson in about what she'd said over the phone, filling in the gaps.

"So did I," she replied grimly. "But now I look back on it, it all felt so rushed." Rachel looked down at her now cold tea but she swilled it down anyway. "When we met for the first time since we were teenagers, Sean was brilliant. It was no different when we reunited after so long. He'd grown older and he'd changed a lot, but he was wonderful. But he kept pressuring me into marrying him. Nothing weird there; since I became a cop I've had all kinds of proposals but nothing ever came out of them, so I thought Sean was joking. After he kept going on about it I realised he was serious, but he kept dropping revelations on me all the time. I started to feel ambushed."

"Like what?" This was news to Gill.

"He told me about Hayden, about being married before. And he also told me my mother wanted to see me." There was no mistaking the scowl on Rachel's pale face when the subject of her mother was brought up. Something Julie and Gill picked up upon at once. There was more to Rachel than met the eye.

Gill was puzzled. "I saw your mum at the wedding and the reception," she didn't say she'd also seen Rachel's mother and Pete in a compromising position in the car park outside, "I thought the two of you were in touch. I was wrong, wasn't I?"

Rachel nodded. She was surprised that Gill didn't know the gory story behind her upbringing; Janet did, but Rachel knew Janet wouldn't spread anything like that around since it was personal. She'd only told Janet to give her the backstory behind why she'd been torn over meeting Sharon.

"Yeah, you were," she knew it was the wrong thing to say, but she didn't care. She was too tired, too worn, and too hurt to care. Fortunately Gill's face was sympathetic rather than angry. Rachel didn't dare glance at Dodson. "My mother left me, my sister and my brother with our alcoholic father. I was twelve, and my sister had to leave school to take care of us, get a job...," Rachel's face hardened. "We never heard from her; not one birthday present, not a card, nothing. But she still kept in touch with Sean's mother, those two were pals. It never occurred to us our mother still kept in touch with others, we were too busy looking after ourselves and making sure Dom and Dad were okay. Dad...just wasted away, everything Alison earned, and later what I earned when I got myself a part time job when I wasn't at school later found its way into a can or a bottle, and Dom soon began to follow his example.

"When Sean told me about mum, I couldn't believe it, but the way he put it...it was like a joke to him," Both Gill and Julie saw the disbelief on Rachel's face; even after all this time she still felt disbelieving about that little detail. "I just felt angry that my mother would still be in touch with her friends, but not with her kids. But she wanted to meet up, and later on I decided it was time to rebuild bridges. Alison wanted nothing to do with her, but I wanted to hear what she had to say. We met up together, in this pub, and I'd told Sean I would marry him after the way he'd been a rock through...the hell," she looked at Dodson uncertainly before she carried on, "When I spoke to my mother, she seemed to regret everything she'd done. It changed nothing for Alison; she resented Sharon for good reason, and it seems she was right. You saw her at the wedding and the reception, Boss," she turned to Gill, her eyes downcast and disappointed. Bitter. "She hasn't changed a bit; Mum loved to drink more than I do, but I never ran away like she did. I would never run away from a family like she did."

Abruptly Rachel changed the subject. "I can't go into work tomorrow. I've got to sort things out here. I told Sean to come round and pick up his stuff, and I've got to be here. Its late, we're tired, and I want to wake up early in the morning to pack his and Hayden's clothes in binbags, and I have to be here in case he and Hayden think of kicking me out of my own home. I also need to look for someone who can divorce us without hassle."

Gill interrupted there. "I can put you in touch with the people who got me and Dave divorced. I've still got their number, and they're very good."

Rachel smiled at her in thanks. "That's a great help, thanks boss."

But Julie wanted to know something else. "Is there any other reason you want to stay at home, Rachel?"

"Yes, I need to have the locks on this place changed. Sean and Hayden have keys, and I don't want anything to do with them anymore."

Julie frowned though she could see Rachel's point, "Rachel, have you ever heard of Karen Miller?" She wasn't expecting Rachel to reply with an affirmative, so she was surprised when Rachel did reply after a moment of surprise at the change of topic. "Yeah, isn't she Hayden's mother? And isn't she a DS?"

Gill snorted, leave it to Rachel to remember that detail.

Julie merely ignored it. "Yes she is. She and Sean were married for six years. What did he tell you about her?"

Rachel was confused, more than that she was tired. "He said they'd separated, but they were friends. Is there a point to this?"

Gill and Julie glanced at each other, more amused and tired than angry with Rachel's borderline insubordination. "He lied to you, Rachel. Yes, they were married, and quite happily, but their marriage ended badly. I'm going to give you her phone number so you can talk to her tomorrow. Come to work the day after tomorrow, and please don't make a habit of this ever again. You're hurting your career, and I've seen dozens of good cops go that way and I hate to see someone like you do the same. I'm not being cruel, but-"

Rachel immediately interrupted. "No, its okay Ma'am. I don't plan on getting drunk or dating for a while." She looked disgruntled or furious or heartbroken, Gill couldn't say. Maybe it was a mixture of the three. As the two senior officers were getting ready to leave and Julie left to the car, Gill had one more question.

"Did you tell Janet and Alison about what's happened?" she asked curiously.

"No," Rachel replied at once, "I'm definitely going to tell Alison in the morning; she was over the moon when me and Sean got married, she's gonna be let down when she hears."

"And Janet?"

Rachel sighed. "I'm tired of telling her the shit that happens in my life. You'd better go, we're both knackered."

Gill opened her mouth before closing it again, realising Rachel wasn't in the frame of mind to answer anymore questions. Before she left, she gave Rachel a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Rachel hugged her back.

Gill blinked hard as she squinted at the computer screen. She hadn't had much sleep and neither had Julie after they'd met Rachel, their plans hadn't been ruined by the meeting with the DC, though they'd been more tired when they'd gotten to her place. Late in the early morning. Gill looked upwards to take in the desk Julie had been given as SIO; her friend was presently with Scary Mary who was examining some of the remains found at the Bevan house.

Gill sighed as she glanced at Rachel's presently unoccupied desk; it had been a surprise for the others when she hadn't turned up, and Gill was waiting for Janet to come into her office to ask where Rachel was; her friend knew Rachel would never go AWOL without letting her know.

She was right. Janet came to her office to give a report, and when she'd finished she asked where Rachel was.

Gill handed her the photo Rachel had given her silently, letting the picture tell the story for itself. When she saw it, Janet's eyes shot open in shock and horror, and she sat down heavily without a word.

"My god," she whispered, before she looked straight into Gill's eyes. She was as grim as Janet was horrified.

"Rachel took those pictures when she got home," she said to her friend quietly, "they didn't know they were there until she kicked Hayden out. When the girls found out Sean was married," she nodded as Janet gasped at the implications, " they couldn't leave quick enough apparently, one even said sorry to Rachel."

Janet shook her head, "Fuck," she whispered. "But what's she doing? I get that she's hurt, but-" She was hurt herself, why hadn't Rachel told her what was happening?

Gill slipped off her glasses. "When Rachel kicked them out, they left a lot of stuff. She wants to look after her flat and get the locks sorted, and get rid of it all. She also wants to see about a divorce, get it straightened out."

Janet could've kicked herself for her lack of forward thinking. Of course Rachel would've wanted to finish up with Sean; Janet remembered when Rachel and Nick Savage had split, she'd clung onto it out of pride, but she'd almost died. Rachel had learnt her lesson, at least Janet hoped she had.

"When will she be back?"

Gill sighed. "Tomorrow, thank god."

Gill was right, Rachel did come in the next day. By that time, someone - Kevin - had let slip about the picture, and what Sean had done. Fortunately because of the scale of the case they had to work with, no one asked Rachel anything about it. Finally, around lunch, Janet insisted she and Rachel go out for something to eat. Rachel didn't need much convincing as the pair of them went to a restaurant.

She'd been in a funny mood all day, only the concentration of the case made her buckle down.

After they'd ordered their food, Rachel and Janet waited until they were eating so then they could talk. When the food arrived - Janet had ordered a chicken korma, Rachel a tika masala.

"How did it go yesterday?" Janet asked at last.

Rachel had known Janet would find out from Godzilla at some point, she was understandably pissed off her personal business had become office gossip, and she knew Janet herself was hurt by not knowing what had happened.

"I barely got any sleep yesterday; I was up early getting all of Hayden and Sean's stuff into black bags, before that I tried to sleep on the couch, but I must've only slept for a few hours. I texted him to tell him to pick it up. Some of the trash in Hayden's room," she shook her head, "He's so much like his dad its scary. Hayden had a few old Playboy magazines and porn DVDs."

"Jesus," Janet whispered; she'd met Hayden briefly, and she hadn't liked the way he'd looked at her. She'd thought Rachel had been exaggerating when she'd described their meeting, but her friend had been spot on. The boy had stared at her like she was meat on a hook. He'd also flirted with Taisie and Elise, and neither of her daughters had been flattered and pleased even less by his attentions. Unlike his more suave father, Hayden was an amateur, and a clumsy one at that at wooing girls. Taisie had bitched about it for the rest of the night.

"Did you speak to him?"

"No," Rachel replied, knowing who Janet was talking about, " he seemed to have given up. Did the boss tell you about him slapping me?"

Janet nodded, "Yeah, she did. Why didn't you call me?"

Rachel looked down as she studied her pile of meat and rice. "I'm sorry Jan," she replied, "I was just so tired of heaping all my problems on your lap. I don't mean to do it either. I just wanted, I dunno, it came as a shock to find my husband, or rather ex-husband when the divorce goes through, and I needed to tell the boss I couldn't go into work until I'd gone through with the divorce or thrown out their things. I also didn't want you to worry on top of such an important case. One of the dynamic duo had to be at work," Rachel tried to smile, but she couldn't do more than grimace.

"Missed you yesterday," Janet remarked, popping a bit of chicken in her mouth before her friend did the same with a piece of onion bhaji. " Did anything else happen?"

"I'll say. Do you remember when I told you, about Hayden?" Rachel's attention switched unnervingly up at Janet suddenly.

Janet frowned. What was Rachel getting at?

"I met his mother yesterday," Rachel carried on, " Have you heard of DS Karen Miller?"

"Yeah I have, but I didn't know she and Sean were married. What happened?"

"Do you remember when I told you Sean had split up with her, and gained custody of Hayden? He'd told me they were still friends, but let me tell you that Karen tells a different story," the grimace on Rachel's face told Janet this was a story she wasn't going to like, "They'd been married for six years, which gave them enough time to have Hayden. They'd met on a case, went out, and from what Karen told me he'd started to say they should get married, but she'd put him off for a while whilst they'd grown to know each other." Rachel chewed her food thoughtfully. "Karen thought their marriage was happy. When she came home early one night after a surprisingly easy day at work, she opened the door quietly to surprise him, but she found him in the guest bedroom with two girls, both old enough to be his daughter."

"Like you found him," Janet commented. Rachel agreed with a nod, Sean seemed to have a fetish for younger girls. "Go on. What happened then? What did she do?"

If Janet expected Karen to do something like Rachel had, she was disappointed. "At that point nothing if you can believe it. She calmly left the house, went out and got drunk. But she didn't forget what the cheating bastard did; she used her police contacts to get her hands on CCTV and installed it in the guest bedroom. For a whole year, Karen recorded Sean shagging underage girls, and she used that as leverage."

"And she divorced him? After a whole year of ignoring what he'd been doing, of putting up with it? God," For Janet that was the most logical result. She was surprised by the DS's ruthless streak, and she wondered if Rachel would take lessons before she decided Rachel's Machiavellian and slightly manipulative approach to questioning in interviews with suspects was ruthless enough.

But Rachel shook her head to her surprise. "No. Karen wanted to humiliate Sean, make him pay for what he'd done to her before she divorced him. She'd suggested to him that he should take Hayden out on a boys weekend which coincided with a day off she'd arranged. She'd told him she would be working on an important case, and she'd be tied up so she couldn't go, hence the boys weekend. She'd promised to have dinner waiting for them when they'd gotten back, but when they'd gotten back the pair of them were in for a shock because when they arrived, Karen wasn't around and there was no dinner prepared.

"As Sean was busy doing god knows what, Hayden heard something in the bedroom," Rachel watched Janet's face morph into curiosity into horror as her mind conjured the likeliest picture from Rachel's story from what Karen had done, she could just see what happened next. And her horror grew when her mind reminded itself about how long Sean and Karen had been married in the story; they'd been married for six years, so Hayden must've been either five or six years old. Jesus. "Yes, Karen had gone out to find a black guy, and she was riding him like a horse when Hayden poked his head in. I always thought the kid was weird, now I know why," she shook her head like it didn't matter. Janet couldn't believe what she was hearing, she was speechless when Rachel filled in on the horror story.

"Sean was understandably furious, even I was pissed when I heard, and he tried to punch the black guy, who was much larger than him and stronger, but Karen switched on the TV and the DVD player and showed Sean why she'd done it whilst she escorted the black guy out, apparently he was pissed off but Karen didn't say what happened with him. Anyway, she told Sean she'd known what he'd done for a whole year, and she'd gathered evidence. The divorce was as clean as a whistle; Karen sent Sean's mum a few copies of some of the films. Talk about a weird present," Rachel added a joke at the end, unable to resist.

Janet wasn't amused, "Rachel!" she scolded, but she smiled mentally as the gloomy cloud her friend had been under seemed to lift with the joke, bad taste as it was.

Rachel chuckled sheepishly, "Sorry. Couldn't resist. Anyway, Karen didn't try to get custody of Hayden; she'd found the little twat hoarding a few porn magazines, clearly he'd nicked them from Sean. After that she wanted nothing more to do with him, though she had hoped to keep him."

"Clearly," Janet said; she didn't know what else to say. It was one thing for a kid to emulate their mother or father, but it was another for a child, especially one who hadn't even hit their teens, to start hoarding magazines like that. Janet remembered when Elise hit her own teens, though her interest in boys had started a year earlier much to Ade's consternation; even though he'd worked as a teacher and fathered two of them, her ex had never been able to understand the minds of kids.

Girls matured more faster than boys, and Janet thanked Christ for that. It meant men wouldn't be let astray, but sometimes it drove her mad too.

"After she found the magazines he'd been hoarding, Karen carefully poked and prodded at Hayden," Rachel continued after thoughtfully swallowing a bit of curry. "She wanted to see what he was like. Hayden's just a younger version of Sean, and they seem to both be misogynistic."

Janet hadn't expected that description, but she moved on. "What about Alison, how did she react when you told her?" She was hoping Rachel had at least told her sister.

"She's not happy," Rachel replied simply, her tone and the way she stressed the words made it clear to Janet what she'd just said was an understatement of how Alison was taking this. "She was over the moon when me and Sean announced our engagement, and she loved helping us plan the wedding whilst you were busy at work."

Janet flinched; she remembered the loneliness of working at the office, she'd been horrified by Rachel being charged for Nick Savage's murder even if the bastard had deserved it in her opinion for what he'd done and who'd he been involved with.

Like Gill, Janet had watched as Rachel had used Sean as a lifeboat, a rock to keep herself sane. She'd been forever grateful to the PC for that. But Janet had always seen Sean as a swaggering cowboy at heart, but she'd always thought the man had loved Rachel.

Clearly not. At the moment, Rachel had gone back to eating, seemingly oblivious to where Janet's thoughts had wondered.

"How did she react?" Janet asked to get her mind off those thoughts; the past wasn't where Rachel wanted to be.

"She wanted to storm out looking for him and give him a nice smack, believe me it was tempting to let her do it, but I didn't want my own sister charged with assault on a policeman." Rachel had a smile on her face though, she was deeply touched by her sisters protectiveness.

"Has Karen heard from Sean since?" Janet was only asking because her own divorce meant sharing the responsibility of raising the girls with Adrian, similar to how Gill and Dave did it though that relationship was a disaster from hell. Rachel hadn't had time to have the burden or the joy of having a child with Sean, as far as Janet knew. Pregnancies were sometimes unplanned, and with that thought Janet wondered if Rachel was pregnant right now. If she was, what would happen? Would she tell Sean, or would she keep it to herself? She knew Nick Savage had known about the pregnancy before the miscarriage, but would she give Sean the same benefit or not? The subject would have to be broached carefully.

"Not since the divorce, no," Rachel replied with a shake of her head. "After the divorce, Karen found she couldn't stay in that house and I don't blame her, so she rented it out to get a bit more income. I can't do the same with my place though it is a good idea." Rachel went back to eating, and so did Janet. After a couple of minutes silence, Rachel abruptly looked up, "She did mention Sean's mother's lack of interest. Well, she was interested, but she lost it a few moments later."

Janet had just taken a sip of water when Rachel had spoken, she put the glass down and looked Rachel straight in the eye. "So his mother just discounts his infidelity? That she's used to it? She knows about it?" There were so many possibilities; maybe Sean's mother had been confident in the past, but the presence of Sean in her life would've made her like that.

"Sounds like it though she's sympathetic and yet so apathetic about it all to whoever it happens to," Rachel replied. "She certainly seemed to be sympathetic, and yet unsympathetic to me when she spoke to me yesterday."

"You spoke to her, what did she say?"

Rachel gave a mirthless chuckle, "She said she was sorry, and if you'd heard her, Janet, you would've heard the sadness in her voice before it disappeared. It was like hearing two different people using the same voice, one nice and the other damning. When she made the switch, she had the gall to say it was all my fault for not being there for her son."

"How could you?" Surely Sean's marriage with Karen who was an MIT officer herself had taught the woman some occupations in the police meant long hours? That made no sense to Janet. "You work in a department where the hours go into the early mornings, surely if Sean had married Karen years before, he would've known what he was getting himself into."

"My thoughts and words exactly," Rachel agreed. "I tried to tell her that I worked late at night, but she wouldn't listen. She just saw it as excuses."

Janet cocked her head in thought. That made sense, actually. She was on Rachel's side, one hundred percent, but Janet had to be logical. When she and Adrian had been married, before Joshua had died, she'd been upset to find him either asleep or that she wasn't in the mood to have sex with him. The look of disappointment on his face had morphed into surliness as Ade had gotten older after the death of their little boy. Bitterness over the wife who left him and the girls in the morning, and they barely saw her, leaving him to do the leg work; taking care of dinner, period pains, agro from dealing with two petulant teenage girls after having to deal with teens all day at work...No wonder he'd lost it, though her mother and daughters hadn't helped. The wedge that had driven them apart, though Janet often wondered, if Joshua had lived on, if his parents would've stayed faithful to each other - not that Adrian ever shagged someone behind her back. She would never know if he had, it would give him too much satisfaction if he'd kept that secret from her. Not that she'd blame him.

"But do you know what really pisses me off?" Rachel asked cutting through Janet's thoughts. "It's the fact my mother spent more time with them after she'd abandoned us, and we didn't even know she was still in touch with her old friends. That wasn't easy for me to get over, not when I realised what it meant. I just felt so...numb with shock when Sean had told me my mom wanted to meet up with me. The way he said it," Rachel gave her a mirthless laugh, though it sounded more like a key being scraped down a blackboard, "it was like the biggest joke to him, nothing to care about."

Janet nodded, she knew this bit. Finally, she decided to broach the subject she'd been dreading asking, but she couldn't stop herself, " Rachel," she began tentatively, Rachel looked up from her food at the tone in her friend's voice, "Do you think you might be pregnant?" Janet asked in a rush to get it all out. She hated being blunt about it, but it was either that or being awkward.

Rachel blinked in genuine surprise, she hadn't expected that question. In fact she hadn't thought of that possibility, but now it was taking root in her mind.

"Why do you think that?" she asked curiously; what if Janet was right, what if she was pregnant?

Janet bit her lip, she would've shrugged if the gesture wasn't so casual. "I'm not saying you are of course, but you might be." She leant back in her seat, as if bracing herself for Rachel's anger. Their friendship was built on trust, but sometimes the other could lose control.

Rachel, however, wasn't angry with Janet because she was too busy thinking about what Janet had said. The subject of children was a sore point for Rachel because she'd never had them though fate had taunted her with opportunities to have them, unwanted of course. It wasn't generally known to many since Rachel kept it to herself to the point where it was a passing memory, but Rachel had been pregnant twice, and both times she'd lost the baby. The first time she'd been pregnant had been in her late teens after she'd been raped, but the next time had been when she'd been pregnant with Nick Savage's baby. Even Janet didn't know the first time, but Alison did, and her sister knew better than to remind her often wayward sister about it; Alison had done that once, and she'd cowered as Rachel well and truly lost her temper. The memory of the rape and humiliation, coupled with an unwanted pregnancy, had made Rachel cynical about having kids though it hadn't stopped her from wanting to try and keep the baby from her Savage affair. Rachel often wondered how things would've turned out if the baby had reached full term, would she have let Dom back into her life? Would she have put her child first before getting drunk and punching that fucking lamppost? Would her relationship with Sean even exist?

But what if she was pregnant now? Could she honestly carry and nurture a baby from a marriage that had broken down? If she was pregnant, what would happen? Rachel had seen the way motherhood had changed people; look at Kimberly, she'd been a bit like Rachel in her sassiness, but after giving birth to twins she'd become more centered. And what about mothers like Godzilla and Janet? Her boss doted on her son and soon to be daughter in law, and Janet's patience and kindness had been tempered with Elise and Taisie in her life.

But Rachel couldn't help but wonder what kind of mother she could be, if she was pregnant of course. But could she honestly look after a child? She could possibly raise a girl, but what if she was pregnant with a boy? Rachel knew, if she was pregnant, that she would need to make the choice to tell Sean or not.

Rachel idly reached for her glass, and her eyes caught Janet's tense face. "What's wrong?" she asked, fearing something was wrong with Janet.

"You're not going to rip my head off for suggesting you might be pregnant, are you?" Janet asked cautiously; Rachel blinked in surprise, wondering why Janet seemed so nervous. Her eyes widened as the answer entered her mind. How could Janet think she would lash out at her like that?

"No, I'm not, and don't you dare think I'm going to lash out at you. You haven't done anything because I should've asked myself if I was pregnant," Rachel looked down at her almost finished lunch, wondering if her stomach could take anymore food. "You've just raised a good point Janet, what if I am pregnant? Could I honestly be a good mother after what Sean's gone? I don't know, I just don't." She looked wildly left and right for a moment, almost hyperventilating with panic before she reminded herself that though Janet had raised a good point, it didn't mean she was pregnant, but it should be checked out. With that in mind, she looked down at her plate and started eating again.

Rachel had just pushed some rice onto her fork, and she was about to eat it when her insecurities hit home. It was time to be honest with Janet, time to tell her one of her darkest secrets. "I was pregnant once, before I lost the baby with Nick Savage," she whispered, eyes downcast before she locked eyes with Janet's own shocked eyes.

"What?" the blond DC asked with a whisper. This was news to her, why hadn't Rachel said anything to her?

Rachel sagged, somehow looking more older than her years. "It's something I've tried hard to forget, and this was before I joined the police. I was 19, and I was just coming home from a small part time job I'd gotten. The money I earned, half of it went into shouldering the strain Alison was under, and the rest went into a fund I'd arranged for future education. At the time, it was more of if you need it and you don't have it thing, but I saved up anyway whilst giving a slice regularly to Alison. I was thinking about college, something to focus on rather than the dreary home life I led with Dom." Rachel had a faraway look in her eyes as she remembered what happened, "I never saw him Jan, I didn't even know he was following me until it was too late."

Janet moved faster than anyone could picture even with a smartphone, the story unfolding in her mind even as Rachel's eyes watered with telling the story she'd spent years bottling up. The blonde DC could just picture a younger Rachel, idly walking down a street, late at night, only to be attacked, and raped. Ignoring everyone's stares of course, Janet wrapped Rachel in her arms. "I never saw him," she repeated, "and he raped me. When I got home, Alison saw the state I was in, and she called the police in. I watched how they worked, and I realised that was where I wanted to be.

"But I was pregnant," Rachel breathed. "A new life...and I got rid of it because I couldn't stand the thought of something like that inside me. I'd decided if I had a kid, then it would be something I wanted. I locked the memory of it all away in a strongbox and threw away the key. Even Alison doesn't talk about it, though she did once and I flew off the handle."

Janet winced. She'd taken the brunt of Rachel's temper in the past, like Rachel had hers, and it wasn't a nice experience for either of them.

"If I am pregnant, what then?" Rachel whispered like a wayward child, confused. "Do I tell Sean or keep it to myself since he doesn't have a right to know? What, what do I do?"

Janet didn't reply, she just held Rachel tightly to show her friend she was there for her.

Always.

Author's note - I'm going to end it right there. What did you think, I thought it was unfair in the actual TV series for Rachel to LET down Sean. To me, Sean's a guy with wandering eyes who couldn't spell infidelity if his life depended on it.