As ever, thank you to the girls for their reviews …

As the door closed behind him, Millie sighed, closed her eyes and gathered herself together in anticipation of Roger's inevitable questioning look. Feeling as ready as she was ever going to be, she turned back towards the half closed sitting room door and calmly walked through as if nothing unusual had just taken place. She was jolted back to the reality of the situation however by the stricken features of Lisa seated on the sofa with a now sleeping baby clinging to her jumper. Lisa was staring blindly at the floor, ignoring Roger who was watching her sympathetically. He glanced at Millie quizzically, but Lisa immediately recaptured his attention.

"I suppose he told you everything" she stated in dull monotone, not even looking up to Millie.

Millie hesitated and realised that Mike hadn't actually told her very much at all. She had inferred more than he had expressed in words and while she felt for him acutely, she could also see that Lisa was hardly unharmed by what had happened. She was just as much a victim as he was. "Only that he believes he isn't Abby's father. Then he said he needed a drink, I tried to stop him but …" Millie trailed off. She guessed that Lisa would know the rest.

Lisa bit her lip and looked out of the window. Millie followed her gaze but couldn't see how that would help. Perhaps it would if the view had been pleasant but there was only graffiti ravaged concrete and greyness. It would be depressing at the best of times, but now it did nothing but emphasise her despair. Millie and Roger could only watch on as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks.

"He's been drinking almost constantly since he got back from Afghanistan. I know some of his mates died out there, some sort of ambush I think, but what can I do, how could I have helped him if he won't talk about it? All he does is drink, sleep and then drink some more. Sometimes he comes home but not always, I don't know where he goes. We haven't had a proper conversation in months." She gave out a sob as a wave of hopelessness overcame her. "If only he hadn't been out drinking that night. If only I hadn't let Dan in, but then I wouldn't have Abby and that's an unbearable thought. I don't know what I'm supposed to think or how I should feel. I just wish Abby was his and none of this had happened." Lisa clutched the sleeping baby tightly and cried, her body heaving with each sob. Roger moved from the armchair to sit next to her on the sofa, putting an arm round her shoulders. She leaned into him and slowly calmed, the sleepy snuffling from her baby bringing her back to the reality she had to face. Millie looked around and started to collect up a few things from the floor placing them on a wonky coffee table if only to clear a path to be able to walk through to Roger's vacated chair.

"Is there anyone you can call to come and stay with you? Help clear up a bit?" Millie mentally kicked herself for assuming that this wasn't how the Sumners normally lived but she was relieved when Lisa appeared to notice the chaos around her for the first time.

"Oh God. What a state" she whispered, looking up to Millie again and slowly shaking her head in bewilderment. "He just went mad, throwing anything he could get his hands on. But what else did I expect? 'Never mind Lisa, let's have a cup of tea and forget about it'?" Millie wished she could give some kind of encouragement to Lisa, to tell her that everything would work itself out, but even in her head the words were nothing more than a trite platitude and Lisa was intelligent enough to realise that.

"Did Mike threaten you or Abby in any way?"

"No. No, he wouldn't do that. At least I don't think he would. But he's changed so much …" Millie felt herself fill with compassion for this broken family, it was clearly fractured before Lisa's revelation but now seemed beyond hope.

"You ought to have someone here with you though" she suggested kindly.

"I can call my Mum, she only lives five minutes away. I guess I'll have to tell her everything as well" Lisa sighed. "She'll say that I'm better off without him. Not that I think I've got a choice anymore."

Millie and Roger stayed with Lisa until she spoke to her mother who agreed to come over immediately. Silently Millie wondered if Lisa was actually starting to come to terms with her new future already. Perhaps she was relieved the burden of carrying such an explosive secret for so long was over, even if it meant the end of the world as she knew it. Millie was beginning to feel that way herself.

*********

"Well, I think we had better get you back to the station to see the FME and find a fresh shirt" announced Roger as they got back into the car.

"I'm fine, it's just a bang and a scratch."

"Millie, you haven't seen yourself. You might like to look as if you've just gone ten rounds with Lennox Lewis, but trust me, I don't think it's appropriate on this estate to walk round bleeding. People will wonder who you've just laid into."

"Really? That bad?" Millie flipped down the sun shield in front of her to take a look in the mirror. "Heavens! I see what you mean." There was a nasty looking gash on her temple where Max had earlier staunched the bleeding, but dried blood was smudged down the side of her face by her ear and spots of crimson stained her shirt collar. She really did look as though she'd been in a brawl.

"So what do you make of all that?" asked Roger as she inspected the damage for herself.

"A mess. She really is paying the price for one mistake isn't she? But then, so is he." Millie snapped the shield back into place and sat back in her seat, turning to Roger, her expression concerned. "I'm worried about him. He's on the edge and I know Lisa doesn't think he'll do anything other than drink, but I'm not so sure."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. Bearing in mind his PTSD, the shock, losing his family, his best friend, his career, he could do anything, to anyone or himself" she paused and closed her eyes. "I should have stopped him leaving."

"You did all you could. All anyone could. I don't think staying in the flat would have done him or Lisa any good. Maybe they'll both be able to think clearly on their own for a while."

"He isn't going to do any thinking Roger, he's going straight to the first pub he finds and won't come out until either he runs out of money or they throw him out."

"You may be right Millie, but what can we do? There's no crime, he hasn't hit her, hasn't threatened her at all from what Lisa said. It's something they are going to have to work out themselves. We can't get involved."

"I know, I know. You're right, but still… I don't have a good feeling about this. I think we should drop in later if we can, and definitely tomorrow. Just to check everything's okay, or as okay as it can be."

"Hmm. Ever thought you might have missed you calling as a social worker?"
"Ugh! No! Fate worse than death" she replied with a laugh relieved at Roger's efforts to lighten the atmosphere.

"Quite a surprise to see Max there" commented Roger lightly on the back of his joke as he started the engine. The statement sounded innocent, but Millie was perfectly aware that she was really being asked a question. She wondered whether she might just be able to sidestep and get away without having to give an explanation for their odd behaviour in the flat.

"Yeah, didn't expect that. He said he was in the block already and came to see what all the noise was about."

"Seemed rather concerned about you."

Millie sighed, no chance then, she thought, but relieved that if anyone had to have witnessed them together, that it was Roger. At least he wouldn't treat the revelation as the best gossip to have hit Sun Hill station in years, or judge her for dubious taste in men, or predict that it wouldn't last, even if he might privately have doubts, or look at her as if to say 'what on earth does he see in you?'

"Yeah. He was." Silence hung between them for a long moment, while Millie pondered how to best go about telling him their story.

"Okay, you don't want to talk about it and I won't press you. Just remember that you can always come to me if you need to. I would hate to see you get hurt." But she wanted to talk, she just hadn't realised it before now. Confiding in someone who only knew him as a colleague, and a difficult one at that, would make her feel less isolated. She needed someone to know about them and Roger was her best option, particularly as he seemed to have concluded from her hesitancy that what ever was going on between her and Max was likely to end in her tears.

"We've been together for nearly two years, on and off" she blurted out suddenly, deciding to just go for it. "Quite a bit of it off, but we've been properly back together now for just over six, no seven, months." She took a deep breath. There, all out in the open, she thought slightly deliriously. Luckily they had just pulled up at a red light otherwise Roger's shock might have catapulted them into a lamp post.

"Millie! Two years? How on earth have you managed to keep quiet about it?" Millie just shrugged.

"It's not been as difficult as you might think. After all, who would have suspected any thing going on between Max Carter and me?"

"So two years?" Millie could almost see the cogs working out dates inside Roger's head. "Didn't Max disappear about a year and a half ago for a few months? Undercover in Poland wasn't it?" Millie frowned slightly at the deeply unhappy memories of a very bad period in her life and looked away.

"Yeah" she nodded out of the window. "That was the 'off' period and for a while afterwards. It was pretty tough, but we're doing really well now."

"So hang on, I'm just thinking this through. Max's disappearance coincided when you really seemed off-colour. I was worried about you, thought you might have depression. Why on earth didn't you talk to me? I could have helped, or at least have propped you up on the bad days."

Millie shook her head. "There was nothing you could do. I felt so stupid about the whole thing. I didn't know where he had gone or why. He just broke up with me one day and the next he was gone, I didn't know anything more until he came back. All I wanted to do was try to forget he'd ever existed, talking wouldn't have helped. Besides, I came to terms with everything and was fine." Roger looked at Millie compassionately, not believing a word she said. "Okay, I wasn't fine, but I was coping, as best I could."

"But when he returned you got back together?" Roger asked gently.

"Yeah, it took a while and we went really slowly for a long time" Millie smiled at how she had held out on Max for months until she was really sure that she was ready to trust him again. "I love him Roger and he loves me. I know how mad that sounds, but I've never been so happy. Despite everything, it just works."

"Well, if you say so. And there I was thinking you were such a great judge of character! Joke. I think."

"You won't say anything will you? I … we don't want to go public yet. We're good as we are and what with him now being Acting DI, it would be awful timing."

Roger looked at her sceptically. "Are you sure that's what you want? You're not just keeping quiet because he wants to?"

"No! Do you think he's embarrassed about being in a relationship with me?" teased Millie and making Roger colour at his inadvertent faux pas.

"No Millie! That's not what I meant. It's just ..." Roger was searching for the right words "it's just Max is quite a dominant personality. I'd hate you think you weren't equal in your relationship."

"Honestly, he's less worried about it getting out than I am, probably because he couldn't care less what anyone else ever thinks of him, except me I hope. Although I suppose I am starting to realise we can't stay under wraps forever. Something's got to change. Just haven't decided what or how yet."

As the lights changed to green, Roger let the ambiguity of her last comment go but he did wonder what she could possibly mean.