A/N: I wrote this after the episode aired and today I rewrote it. I thought the little Gene and Shaz moments were adorable.

Through the glass of his office he watched WPC Sharon Granger. She is pretty enough, but that is not why he is watching her. A girl like her is not the sort of girl he is after, he looked across at Alex head bent over a file, but he supposed he was not really the sort of man any woman would want either.
Shaz is young and fresh out of a relationship. Gene Hunt does not need psychiatry on his side to know she is grieving for the future she could have had with Christopher and that maybe the current case they are dealing with only reinforces her sense of hopeless loneliness.
He guessed the only reason he is shocked that Jim 'Bloody' Keats managed to worm his way in there so quickly is that he had hoped she would come to him first. He did not know why he had thought that, but he had become to believe he had convinced her over the last few weeks of her established place on the team, but it seems surveillance jobs on the side of paper work and making tea had not really done much help.
The instance she had said she was leaving, that she had made her choice and would not be questioned about it, he had felt the very foundation of CID shake and the first tiles on the roof slip free.
Gene knew all he could do was to challenge her. Challenge the part of her that made her want to be a copper all those years ago.
One last case. "All I do ask of you is that you go out in a blaze of glory. You make me proud of you."

~#~

It had never occurred to him that he would end up with her in his arms. He knew there had been a danger putting her undercover with a murderer, but he had been aiming for another conclusion. One that did not end with her being almost branded and worse, having to stab a man to protect her own life.
A life he should have been protecting. It is his job to protect people, but he had allowed himself to be blinded by determination to keep his team together and away from Discipline and Complaints, when he should have been looking at the finer points he had only seen the bigger picture. He was a fool and so was she for running to him, instead of running away from him. She wanted him to look after her and how could he refuse her. How could anyone refuse her with her dark Bambi eyes looking at him as if he was the only safety in this terrifying mess.
The same part of him that had carried little Alex Price away from the wreckage of flames and had held the more womanly Alex Drake in the steaming underground vault, was the same part that reacted to the twist of small hands in his shirt and the wet tears on his chest, he wanted to protect her more in that second then he wanted anything else.
One arm slowly wrapped itself around Shaz to envelop her completely against his broad chest, to soothingly caress her back and to share some of his seemingly unwavering strength. His other reaching over her shoulder to stroke her hair as she shacked fearfully against him like a small injured bird.

~#~

It started bubbling next to the guilt when Drake told him Shaz often walked home alone after having left the station or Luigi's, it was anger. Pure unadulterated anger that his team could sit by and let her leave night after night when they were investigating the kidnaps, the rapes and the murders of young girls so like Shaz by day. Most of the fury he felt was directed at himself, he should have known, he should not have made the same assumptions as they had. What was the point in him being the head honcho if he made the same reckless mistakes as they did.
He spent the evening building up the bravo to offer her a lift home. He was not worried about driving her home, but more the embarrassment if she rejected the offer in front of the team. She did not refuse, even though she was a little surprised, but he did not bother to dress it up with a comment about it being the most testing day of her career or that she had put a few too many of Luigi's finest away to mark the occasion.
It felt odd with her sat in the front passenger when it was so often occupied or reserved for his DI, but some how she managed to command the place like she would one day be sat in a seat very familiar, rolling out the orders and causing as much trouble for her boss as Bolly did for him.
She did not prattle on like the regulars he permitted to grace his 'Mighty' Quattro, she gave directions though. She was good at it to he noticed she gave out clear if slightly slurred directions of the turnings he should take to get her home.

The alcohol seemed to catch up with her somewhere between leaving Luigi's and getting out of the car and he had to hide his smile of amusement as he followed her through the tiny entrance hall to her flat. It would have been nothing short of a miracle for her to have made it home alone in this state, considering the trouble she was now having negotiating one foot in front of the other.
He had chuckled when he had to catch her from stumbling head first into her flat after a few failed attempts at getting the key to met its destination.
"Right, I'll erm... leave you to it" Gene had said scratched the back of his neck, embarrassment tingling his cheeks in the low light and had even turned to leave when sitting on the corner of her bed Shaz had spoken up.
"Please don't go Guv."
He looked back over his shoulder to see Shaz sat with her hands held in her lap, her big dark eyes shiny and wide with fear. At the wobble of Shaz's bottom lip he sat down next to her.
"Sharon what you did today was brave, really brave. I should never 'ave let you go with a man like that, but you proved yourself. Your a good girl and fast becoming a brilliant copper, so shut up, cheer up and get some sleep" he said patting her knee awkwardly as he made to rise. He had hoped that his little speech would help in the silly way that words sometime did, but it was not a pep talk she was after. Words were not much use to a girl seeking warmth and safety.
"No don't leave. Stay here," Shaz spoke quickly grabbing a hold of his coat sleeve, "with me." Gene looked down at the single bed doubtfully while Shaz climbed beneath the covers, fully dressed minus her gloves and shoes. He sat on the edge of the bed and began pull his snake-skin boots off and dropped his coat over the chair at her dressing table, knowing the whole time he should leave. Knowing he was blurring the line of the Guv and Gene, but seeing her look so tiny under her duvet made something in his heart ache with the need to back sure she was okay before he left.
"Just till you full asleep, 'avn't slept in a bed this small since I lived at home and I don't intend to now." "That long!" Shaz's little smirk was followed by a tingle of laughter.
"Oi, ya cheeky cow. Shut up and sleep," Gene chuckled, "come on shove over, the Gene Genie needs more room then that." He grinned at her laughter, and allowed himself to feel like it was his forgiveness as he laid above the covers next to her, watching her slowly roll into sleep.