A/N: This is the second chapter - it's a bit heavier than the first, but things get lighter and funnier from here on out :)

Sarah x


It was half-past seven that night before they got back to UCOS, finding Jack searching some database for a suspect, and Brian obsessively going through the accounts of the victim's grocery business, after finding some rather worrying anomalies in the records.

Gerry sat down at his desk, and Sandra, still in a foul mood, stalked right past them without a word into her office. Jack looked at Gerry and then at the recently slammed door to her office and demanded, "What did you say to her this time?"

This annoyed Gerry to no end. He was always the one who got the finger pointed at him whenever she was in a mood. "Nothing!" he retorted. "It's not always my fault, you know," he reminded him.

"Then what on Earth is wrong with her?" Jack asked, and Gerry knew he was concerned for Sandra. She always was temperamental, but she only ever went in a proper mood when something, or someone, went badly wrong.

"I think that boyfriend of hers turned out to be a wrong 'un," he admitted. "She made me delete his number from her mobile while she was driving. Anyway, never mind that just now," he waved his hand as he changed the subject. "She can sing."

"Get away," Brian said, looking up from the accounts at this news. "Sandra Pullman can sing?" Gerry knew neither one believed him, but he knew what he heard. "How do you know?" asked Brian.

"That new song, the one by Carrie Underwood -" he tried to recall the title but failed. "You know, Why, why you gotta be so blind? Won't you open up your eyes...that one?" he supplied some of the chorus for some help.

"Good Girl," Brian inserted for him.

"Yeah. Caitlin's always playing it," Gerry finally remembered the name, thanks to Brian. "Anyway, it came on the radio and she started singing it," he shrugged. "But she's got an incredible voice!" he exclaimed, trying to emphasise the importance of it. "And she thinks she can't sing."

"Whatever you're thinking of doing, Gerry, don't," warned Jack solemnly. Gerry sighed, and looked at Sandra's office. For her to be like this, something serious must have gone wrong last night. It worried him that she was silent and thoughtful, speaking only when spoken to. He got up and walked up to the door of her office, and heard Jack tell him, "I wouldn't if I was you. We'd be better to leave her to it."

Gerry ignored the caution; he wanted to know what the hell had silenced Sandra Pullman, of all people. She hadn't even threatened him with unemployment or death or castration today – something had to be wrong with her. So he knocked on her office door, hearing a quiet, "Come in," from her.

When he entered the room, she was staring at her computer screen. He shut the door gently behind him. "Are you OK, guv?" he asked her gently.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," she replied with her usual dazzling smile. But Gerry saw the sadness and hurt in her eyes, and knew then that something really had gone drastically wrong with this Mark Howe person. Her boyfriend, whom she'd been with for months now, and the first man she actually let them know about. She was usually very private about such matters.

"You're lying, Sandra," he accused softly, and he knew the unusual care and gentleness in his voice would take her by surprise. When she looked at him, he could tell she was wondering what to say. So she did realise how quiet and reserved she'd been. She removed her hands from the keyboard and her gaze from the screen. "What happened last night?" he said. "You were fine yesterday and then this morning you weren't."

She sighed and ran her fingers through her light blonde hair. He briefly wondered whether she'd bothered with it this morning; he'd just noticed it wasn't quite as tidy as it normally was. Another sign that something bad had happened. Slowly, she lifted the main front section of her hair, and revealed a partially make-up concealed, small, bruise and a cut that looked like it had been stitched only just last night. She must have been to the nearest A&E and got checked over. That's my smart girl, he thought with a wry smile to himself.

The he realised that this arse Mark Howe must have hurt her. "Did he do that to you?" asked Gerry, his temper rising at the thought of someone knocking his Sandra around. She nodded, her eyes glistening with tears she was too stubborn to cry in front of him.

"He started swinging and I started walking," she retorted, her voice slightly cracked. "Don't tell Jack and Brian," she added. "They'll just worry, and I don't want that." Gerry understood why she didn't want them to know, and if that was her wish then he wouldn't breathe a single word to them about this.

"Has he done this before?" he enquired in a soft, delicate tone that he rarely ever used.

"No," Sandra sighed. "You honestly think I'd put up with that crap more than once?" she demanded, looking slightly offended.

He raised his hands in surrender, a silent message that he was aware of her toughness and her intelligence. What it didn't say was that he adored these qualities about her, and he honestly thought that, right now, she needed someone in her life who was just...there. He beckoned her with his hands, opening his arms for her. To his sheer amazement, she rose from her chair and walked straight into his arms.

He admired her for never giving a second chance to a man who was willing to throw a punch at her when she stood up for herself. He admired the fact that she was able to stay strong through anything. He just admired her, just the way she was. He out his arm gently around her neck and pulled her close. He actually had got a scare when he saw the bruise on her head. That someone, a man she trusted, had hit her in the head, frightened him. But he was glad it was the last time. He knew she was never going back to a man capable of that. But he also knew that she would find it hard to trust others for a while.

He was glad that she had the strength to just cut ties. She even got Gerry to delete his number from her phone. "That's my good girl," he whispered in her ear, trying to soothe her a little. He could tell she was still reeling from the shock of being struck like she must have been by a man who wasn't a hardened criminal.

"I'm nobody's good girl," she replied, smacking his side lightly. "Even if we were married, I still wouldn't be your good girl," she added, lightly mocking the term. She didn't realise that the pet name had actually came from a song she didn't know she had sung, and so brilliantly, too.

He smiled. She had, not realising it, put her foot right in it. "You would marry me?" he teased her. He felt her smiling into his shoulder and just knew she was realising what she'd said.

"Maybe," she allowed. She was grinning into his shoulder now and he knew that there was a joke coming, and at his expense. "If there was an 'off' button for your mouth so I wouldn't have to murder you," she smirked. He just placed a tender kiss into her slightly messed-up hair, smiling into the top of her head as he did so.

She was going to be just fine, because, as he told her, she was his good girl.

Now to find a way to force her to see her own ability when it came to singing. It really annoyed him that she could sing anything beautifully, and she thought she couldn't sing at all. He would find a way, and he didn't care if she killed him for it, but he was going to make her see it.


Hope this is OK!

Please feel free to leave a review and tell me what you thought!

Sarah x