A/N: The lyrics are from 'Somewhere Only We Know' by Keane. I rarely write songfics but this song seemed to match Gerry's emotions pretty well. The phrase in bold is an answer to Beth's challenge. Enjoy! Feedback is very much appreciated xxx

Disclaimer: I don't own New Tricks.

Somewhere Only We Know

"Oh simple thing where have you gone?

I'm getting old and I need something to rely on

So tell me when you're gonna let me in

I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin,

And if you have a minute why don't we go

Talk about it somewhere only we know?

This could be the end of everything

So why don't we go

Somewhere only we know."

It had been so simple at first. Just something to earn him a bit of money to resolve his 'cash flow problems', to get him out of the bookies and back onto the streets. Somewhere he could actually make a difference, or even just pretend he was for a while, until he got back on his feet. Anything was better than whiling away his days in the pub with 'friends' he hadn't spoken to in years, or sat at home with a can and four hours of horse racing, the biggest event in his life being Chelsea winning a game. But look at it now.

He sat back in his chair, gazing around the quiet office. No AFC Wimbledon scarf thrown across the filing cabinet. No rusty old bike propped up in the corner. No office golf set hastily shoved under a desk. Dan's desk was as orderly as Jack had kept his, but he'd bet his bottom dollar that there was no bottle of scotch in the locked lowest drawer, reserved purely for special occasions or days from hell. There was still her though. He turned his attention to her office; the door was closed but the blind was up. That meant 'don't come in unless it's necessary' but what he had to say was necessary, in fact it was the most necessary thing he would ever say. Now was his chance; Dan and Steve were out questioning the sister of a suspected armed robber halfway across London.

He rose from his chair almost silently, crossing the carpeted floor to her office in three quick steps. He hesitated before knocking, but she saved him the bother by catching his eye through the polished pane of glass and nodding slightly. He entered.

"What is it?"

"Do you wanna go out?" he asked, hoping that she would realise his motive. He'd been planning this for a good ten minutes, drawing up a script in his mind. The first conscious decision had been to avoid the famous phrase 'we need to talk' being his opening line.

She stared at him for so long with her intense marine eyes that it became uncomfortable, the perfectly planned script disintegrating into a pile of metaphorical ashes in his mind.

"Where?" she finally asked after what felt like an eternity, yet typically dodging the question.

"I was just thinking…the roof?"

Another ten seconds passed as she gazed at him, but this time it was as though she was steeling herself up for something. That was good; it meant she'd realised that it was time for them to talk.

"Okay." She replied simply, standing up and smoothing her white cotton shirt over her hips. Deliberately leaving her jacket on the stand due to the promise of the warm Spring afternoon's rays radiating through her window, she gestured for him to lead the way.

"So." She opened determinedly, as they found themselves stood side by side on the roof of the Met building five minutes later, each studying the panoramic blue skies before them, following the faint wisps of white cloud being blown along in the breeze. "What do want to talk about?"

He sighed. So she was deliberately playing dumb, then.

"You know, for someone so smart, you can be incredibly stupid at times Sandra. You know full well what I want to talk about, so don't bother acting like you don't."

She blinked, surprised by the bluntness of his tone. "Okay," she replied, unsure of whether to retaliate as she normally would, with equal force, or simply to concede. The sincere look of regret and shame in his pale blue eyes as he took a long drag of his cigarette and exhaled the smoke into the warm air told her that she shouldn't bother persuing it. Instead, she left a space for him to speak, to say whatever he had to say, without any interruptions on her part.

"Where do we go from here?" he eventually asked, yet clearly it was a rhetoric question. "I mean, I'm not getting any younger here, Sandra, and I just can't go on like this, not knowing whether I'm coming or going. If you go, I go, it's as simple as that, but I don't think you know what you want to do either. All I know is that no matter how hard we try, how much we pretend, it's just not the same anymore, is it? Remember the old days, when it was so simple, and we all just…got on. I don't know how we did it, the four of us, I mean on paper we're chalk and cheese but it just…worked, somehow. But now it's like the magic's gone. It feels like we're just doing it for the sake of it until I get too old and you get a promotion, and Steve goes back to Scotland and Dan, I don't know, whatever he does besides work. One of us needs to do something, Sandra, to break us out of this, or I feel like we're going to be stuck like this forever."

They both returned to their tableau as she absorbed the contents of his monologue, her mind telling her that she should argue with him, if only to prolong her remaining time with the team that she had called her family for the past ten years, but something deeper, more instinctual, telling her that he was right. Perfectly, simply, ineloquently right. And it would be her to make the first move, not him, because she was Sandra Pullman, she was the boss and she would be damned if Gerry Standing beat her to the punch. She inhaled sharply, drawing his attention.

"I hate to say it Gerald, but you're right. Just this once, mind."

He smiled, closing his eyes in relief at her familiar humour. If he was honest, he'd half been expecting her to chuck him off the roof for criticising UCOS. After all it was her baby; he wouldn't blame her for not wanting to let it go, not just yet anyway.

"Are you going to go for a promotion then?"

"I don't know, to be honest. I've been thinking of taking it a bit easier, maybe going for a lecturing job at Hendon, but I don't really think the quiet life is for me." She smiled softly, her warm gaze meeting his. "What about you, are you going to retire for good this time?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I think so. Someone needs to coach Gerry Junior footie, that club he's at are useless."

"And you're not?"

"Hey, don't insult a pensioner, it's rude."

"Since when have I cared who I'm insulting? If you get bored you know we could always set up on our own. Private detectives." She joked as they returned to the door that would re-admit them into the confines of the Met building.

"Pullman and Standing Private Detective Agency. It's got a ring to it." He remarked, grinning as he motioned for her to lead the way this time, as she always would from now on.

"Hmm," she mused. "We could recruit Brian."

"Nah."

"Why?"

"Now I may be old, but he is really pushing it. Besides, it'd be just like UCOS, only even more dodgy than it was before!"

"Oi, my team was never dodgy. We did things strictly by the book at all times, I'll have you know." She smiled knowingly.

"Yeah, that's us," he sighed as they reached the doors to the familiar old office. She paused, one hand resting on the door.

"Do you want a tea making?"

"Yep." He thought for a moment, deliberating whether this was a step too far after he had just confessed his deepest thoughts and feelings to his best friend. "Sandra?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to miss this."

She stopped with her back to him, two cups in her hands. She placed them down softly on the worktop in front of her and turned to face him, leaning back against the counter as she smiled that beautiful smile of hers.

"So am I."