Beyond The Blinds
Author's Note: Written for the Obscure and British Program multi-fandom comment fest over at LiveJournal. Prompted by Brunhilde-1013: Wine and Gossip. Contains femslash, mostly implied (it's too hard to resist, sorry if that's not your bag…)
"My office, my rules." Gill had stated with glee before shutting the blinds and locking the door. Janet raised an eyebrow in Rachel's direction which was returned with a puzzled shrug. DSI Julie Dodson had already been sitting on Gill's chair, her legs up on the desk crossed at the ankles and her fuchsia pink heels aloft by the computer keyboard.
"Ma'am?" Rachel tentatively asked her boss in the hope that she would explain what was going on. They'd just wrapped up a pretty gruesome case involving children that Rachel and the rest of the syndicate would find difficult to forget for some time to come. A lot of their cases dealt with lowlifes who obviously hadn't cared about the person they'd killed in the first place. For the families left behind it was even more difficult to come to terms with the circumstances surrounding the death of their loved one. However, this case had affected everyone quite deeply due to the nature of the crime and ages of the children involved. The rest of their colleagues had gone home via The Grapes but Gill had kept her favourite duo behind to finish up the paperwork. She'd ushered them both into her office after Julie's arrival and things had become confusing from there.
"We're having a lock-in, just us girls. Unless you've got somewhere else to be?" Gill stated it as though it should have been obvious to Rachel.
"No Ma'am, but I don't understand why we're locked in your office?" Gill looked at her best friend sitting nonchalantly at her desk.
"Do you want to tell them, or shall I?" Julie looked at Gill, grinned and some sort of unspoken message passed between them. She loved how they could communicate like that, it was something natural and unique to them and not anything they had done consciously.
"Oh, I think it'll be much more fun coming from Godzilla." Rachel blushed at the use of her personal nickname for Gill. She had never intended for the woman herself to be privy to it, let alone Dodson too.
"Ma'am…I'm really sorry…"
"Pish! We're off the clock now, call me Gill." She knew that would fluster Rachel much more so than acknowledging her honorary title. She fiddled around in a cupboard at the back of her office and suddenly cried out in triumphant joy.
"Ah ha, got it!" She held aloft a tiny metal key as though she'd just cracked the combination to a safe full of treasures. Rachel could well believe that she had the way she grinned in delight at her find. "Right, this should make things more lively." Gill opened one of the many bog-standard wooden cupboards in her office that housed dozens of box files of paperwork and personnel files. She quickly shut the doors closed again before addressing her two subordinates. "Now, we're off the clock here girls, so anything that happens in this room stays in this room. Got it?" Rachel and Janet nodded fiercely and responded with a synchronised "yes Ma'am." Gill re-opened the cupboard and a string of wine bottles and several plastic glasses were taken out of it.
Rachel and Janet could only look on in amazement. They knew that Gill enjoyed the odd drink with them over the road on certain occasions but they had no idea she had a stash this big in her office. "Now, I'm afraid I only have red because I can't hide a fridge full of white in here as well as this lot so it will have to do."
"Have you got any of that Chilean Merlot?" Julie asked from her comfortable position across the room.
"Of course I have love, several just for you." Gill grinned at her friend and finished pulling out her impressive collection. "There, take your pick, although it's not all for drinking today. Obviously." Gill knew that Rachel liked to drink more than what was good for her on a regular basis and this collection was too good to chuck down someone's throat without it being properly appreciated.
"Where did this all come from? You can't have paid for it yourself, it would have cost you a fortune." Janet surveyed the vast array of pretty decent wines in awe.
"Most of it's donated, gifts from appreciative families or senior colleagues but some of it's my own." Gill and Julie had spent time on the odd wine tasting course or two in their own time and she liked to think that she had developed a nose for a good quality wine.
"Why now? What's all this about?" Rachel asked, ever suspicious of everyone's motives, including those she should really have instinctively learnt to trust by now.
"That was a pretty rough couple of weeks back there and I thought we could all use some downtime. If you've changed your mind, you are free to leave at any time. I'm not keeping you here if you don't want to be." Gill had to admit to a certain level of disappointment that Rachel had not quite embraced her out-of-hours persona. They'd known each other a good couple of years now and despite the need to discipline the younger woman on occasion she had thought they'd developed an understanding, a bond if not a friendship, outside of work.
"Oh no Ma'am…Gill…I'm perfectly happy to be here." Rachel grinned as she eyed up one particular bottle of Shiraz.
Gill sat on the floor of her office with her legs outstretched in front of her, shoes off and placed beside her. Julie sat close by, her legs slung across Gill's lap and her feet still desperately held onto those striking heels. Gill had taken to subconsciously massaging Julie's calves as they conversed with their junior colleagues.
"He didn't…?" Janet squealed in delight at the inside information that was being passed onto her.
"He did!" Julie confirmed that her story was true and took another sip of the wine that always hit the right spot. Gill was an absolute diamond for putting it by for her. Rachel grinned up at Julie from her position also on the floor and propped up by Gill's desk.
"I think he's quite sshhexy…" Three pairs of eyes turned sharply on the brunette in incredulous amazement "…in an immature ickle boy sort of way!" Rachel hastily defended herself.
"You've had too much to drink and I'm not talking about your inexplicable desire for Kevin bloody Lumb!" Gill chastised her DC and Rachel giggled as she drained the rest of her glass.
"Maybe, just a little. That was my last, I promise. Anyway, at least I didn't shag Andy 'the creep from hell' Roper." Janet was momentarily hurt by Rachel bringing it up after all these months.
"Yeah well, it's not like we haven't all made mistakes, Rachel." Touché thought Janet, although she hated to engage in a slanging match with her best friend. Yes, they had both made mistakes and neither of them were whiter than white. Fortunately Rachel thought to have a swift change of focus.
"I bet there's someone in the office that Gill fancies?" Rachel waggled her eyebrows at her boss suggestively and sounded like she was back in school gossipping in the playground with an illicit fag in her mouth and a half bottle of vodka in her satchel.
"Even if there was, I certainly wouldn't be telling you now would I? Very unprofessional." Janet just happened to glance over when she swore Gill's hands had disappeared higher up Julie's leg and round to her backside. She blinked and her boss's hands were back on the DSI's calf. She chanced a look up at Gill and found the older woman looking back at her; a small, tight smile on her face and a challenge in her eyes. Janet gulped and quickly focused her attention back on Rachel.
"That means there is someone, oh go on tell us! 'What happens here, stays here' and all that." Rachel seemed quite excited by the prospect and the chance to find something out about her boss that no one else knew.
"If there was something to tell you I'm sure Sherlock would be able to work it out herself, wouldn't she?" Gill wasn't going to hand it to her on a plate.
"She sure would, a bit like you Ma'am?" Rachel addressed Julie. "I reckon all this poking fun at Kevin is a cover for the fact that you actually fancy the pants off him deep down isn't it?" Julie snorted in a quite unladylike manner. Fortunately she hadn't been mid-sip otherwise her shirt would have been going home with a great big red wine stain on it.
"Hardly!"
"So tell us, who in Syndicate Nine would you go for then?" Julie grinned up at Gill and winked before taking a deep breath.
"Well Rachel, seeing as we're in the habit of telling secrets I think firstly you ought to know how much I admire you professionally…" Julie started off quite seriously before Rachel cut her off with a loud snort.
"Ha bloody ha! Very funny. Anyway, you're straight." It was said so offhandedly Julie felt that she had to respond to the assumption.
"Am I?"
"You're married."
"Was married Rachel, anyway when have I ever said that it was to a man?" Rachel opened and closed her mouth a few times like a fish, unable to think of an appropriate answer due to the pleasant fog of alcohol that had invaded her brain.
Janet took in the conversation around her and glanced back at her boss. Gill met her gaze and she looked at her in that curious way again. The cogs began to whirr and churn in Janet's head and the realisation that she had been missing something began to dawn on her.
"You're winding me up." Rachel slurred.
"Yeah, maybe I am." Julie decided to leave it there and was grateful when Janet started to make a move to go.
"Thanks for the lock-in Gill, just what we needed after the last couple of weeks. I've got to get back to say goodnight to the girls. Rach, perhaps I can drop you home?" Rachel looked disappointed, as though Janet was her mother come to spoil the party but she knew that she'd had enough to drink that evening.
"Yeah, thanks Boss." Rachel called over her shoulder as she was all but dragged out of the room by Janet. But the younger woman made a sudden reappearance at the doorway a few seconds later. "I hope he knows how lucky he is, you deserve to be happy." It was said in all seriousness and Gill smiled at her protégé.
"Thanks Kid." Rachel finally left at another prompting from Janet over the other side of the main office. Gill turned to Julie, smiled and raised her eyebrow before they both burst into laughter.
"You can be an evil cow when you want to be." Julie teased as she took a few steps closer to the smaller woman.
"Yeah, but it was fun though." Gill grinned widely as she waited for Julie to reach her.
"So, 'what happens in this room stays in this room' eh?" Gill nodded at her friend as the taller woman's arms wrapped around her middle. "Well, I can think of a few things…" Julie didn't get a chance to finish her sentence as Gill's lips descended upon hers. The room remained occupied for some time afterwards and the secrets it held were never divulged.