Author's Note: Wow, thank you all so much for your reviews! I am honestly touched [and somewhat surprised!]. I hope you all enjoy this little scene which, like the first, has no sequel or prior context. It is in no way connected to the previous one.
Time frame: The time frames of these scenes will be a bit jumbled. As a brief explanation, I sort of envisaged this particular one taking place a good three years or so into the future. In this future, Neil has been attached for some time to a specialist crime unit that sometimes works out of Sun Hill rather than being based at Sun Hill itself. If you keep that in mind while reading, I think that his [and Grace's] ease with the rest of the team makes a lot more sense.
Rating: K, with parental guidance recommended for those readers who don't enjoy fluff. /end lengthy writer's note of doom.
"Anything?" a bored and somewhat desperate sounding Banksy leaned forward to her side of the desk.
"Nothing whatsoever," Grace sighed, lifting a lukewarm cup of tea to her lips. "You?"
"Nothing," Banksy echoed her sigh. "I think this might be a dead end."
Grace opened her mouth to reply, but suddenly found her vision of the world obscured out by a pair of hands pressing down on her face.
"Guess who?" a poorly disguised voice asked. Grace grinned, boredom entirely forgotten as she relaxed back into her chair.
"Fourth violin?" Grace replied.
"You guessed!" having overestimated his skill at disguising his voice, Jake sounded somewhat disappointed. Nonetheless, he threw his arms around Grace's neck. "Hey, Gracie, what's up?"
"Nothing much, apart from being strangled," Grace said with a smile, turning her head slightly to give Jake a kiss on the cheek as he rested his chin on her shoulder. He chuckled and loosened his grip.
"Hey, Jake," Banksy greeted the boy in a friendly fashion. "Sorry, but I have to ask – fourth violin?"
"Our Middle School band," Jake announced proudly. "We've a concert coming up."
"Speaking of which," Grace interrupted. "Rehearsal finish early today? We'd expected to have to pick you up."
"Yeah," Jake nodded. "We got the piece down pat so Mr Collins gave us an early finish. And I ..."
"Left your keys at home?" Grace asked, amused.
"Something like that," Jake admitted sheepishly. "Anyway, whatcha guys doing?"
"Looking over financial reports," Grace replied unenthusiastically.
"Sounds wicked boring."
"It is," Banksy and Grace spoke in tandem.
"Jake," Mickey did a double-take as he walked past, sounding surprised. "What's happened to you?"
"Eh?" Jake frowned in confusion, straightening up.
"Look at you, lad," Mickey grinned, sizing him up. "Ain't seen you for a few months and all of a sudden you've shot up like a weed!"
Jake beamed, flushing a little under the acne that had begun to appear [much to his disgust].
"Yep," he said in delight. "What was it, Grace? Like, a whole 1.5cm in three months!"
"Closer to one, I thought," Neil said, a hint of amusement in his voice as he approached the knot of people. "Hey, Jake, you're early."
"We finished rehearsal early," Jake explained, hugging his father. "And you're just jealous."
"No, that'd be little Stevie," Mickey chuckled, mocking the sergeant who'd trailed in behind Manson. "Hey, Stevie, I reckon Manson Junior's taller'n you, and he's only what, fourteen?"
"Fifteen in December," Jake muttered, going bright red as Stevie stepped out from behind his dad.
"Oh no," she moaned, eyeing the height. "I reckon it's close."
"You're wearing heels," Grace pointed out in amusement.
"Without them on, Jake's clearly won," Banksy concurred.
Stevie sighed, extending her hand to Jake with a friendly smile. "Ah well, just promise me one thing, Jake?"
"Yeah?" curiously scarlet now, Jake returned the handshake awkwardly.
"Get taller than this git here for me," Stevie said solemnly with a jerk of her head in Mickey's direction.
"Okay," Jake's voice cracked in the middle as they shook on it. He dropped her hand as fast as politely possible, and scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Um, Dad, I'm really hungry, I'll go um get something to eat, okay?"
"All right," Neil sounded like he was holding back laughter as Jake immediately raced out the door, tripping slightly as he did.
Grace felt a little guilty for the onslaught of giggles that escaped just as her basically-step-son left the room.
"What's going on?" Stevie looked confused, looking around at the other detectives. Both Manson and Banksy were smirking openly, and Mickey seemed afflicted by the same case of the giggles as Grace.
"Crush, I rather suspect," Banksy said airily, grin broadening. Stevie frowned, shaking her head in surprise.
"On me?" she asked, dumbfounded.
"Well, I suppose he could've picked worse for his first crush," Neil said off-handedly.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, gov," Stevie said wryly. "Goodness, what a way to make me feel ancient, though!"
"He's fourteen and this is his first crush? Bless," Banksy said.
"To be fair, he's had a somewhat more stressful entry into adolescence," Grace pointed out quietly.
"And now he's in the wonderful stage where he's just realised girls exist," Mickey said with fond nostalgia colouring his tone. "Great age."
"Oh yeah, so who was your first crush, then?" Bansky asked with a grin.
"Molly Tompkins," Mickey replied immediately. "We was, eleven, maybe? She lived down the lane. Had two blonde pigtails and wore bright red shoes to the park. Who was yours?"
"Ashleigh. I never knew her last name," Banksy said, almost dreamily. "She was in the form above mine, and she had red hair and freckles. She just seemed so tall and confident to me, but I was only thirteen at the time."
"Well, good to know you'd established your type so early," Stevie laughed.
"Somewhat disturbingly," Banksy began, a slight frown creasing his forehead. "I don't think I've ever dated anyone without at least a reddish tinge to their hair!"
"What about you, gov?" Mickey asked. "We certainly know that Jake didn't inherit your taste in women!"
Both Neil and Grace blushed slightly, but their embarrassment was to be confounded by Stevie's next statement.
"I don't know about that," she said mischievously. "At the very least, he's inherited your taste for older women!"
"Thanks for that, Stevie," Grace said sarcastically as Mickey and Bansky laughed and Neil reddened further.
"Well, go on, guv," Banksy urged. "Mickey and I shared ours."
"It's a good story," Grace said, smirking at her partner.
"How do you know about it?" Neil yelped in surprise.
"You really need a less talkative best friend," Grace said innocently, to which Neil began muttering about ways of dispatching former-best-friends. "Now, according to Rick, you were fourteen –"
"Oh fine," Neil grumped, figuring that he'd rather control the version of the story that got passed around the station. "My first crush was on my 20-something year old Maths teacher."
"Maths teacher?" Mickey asked incredulously before laughing.
"Oh shut up," Neil said half-heartedly. "She was really very nice, and coped admirably with a class of all boys."
"Brunette, gov?" Banksy asked, his own amusement plain.
"What else?" Neil asked with an air of resignation, to more chuckles.
"What else, what?" Jake re-entered, holding a large chocolate bar.
"Oh, just criminals doing stupid things," Neil hastily dismissed his son's question. "Come on, lad, we're working from the briefing room today." He clapped a hand to Jake's shoulder, quickly steering him away from the still-sniggering officers.
