A/N: I've decided to squeeze in one more chapter before the epilogue…hope it is alright! Thank you for the reviews x

Flashback

The butterflies in her stomach as she waited for him were nothing to do with the fact that this was their first official date, if you could even call it that. She had waited a week since she had dropped Hermione off at his house, to give him time to adapt to his new situation and to begin the process of rebuilding his relationship with his eldest child. It had also given her time to think, and to give her work her full attention for a while. This detachment from the situation allowed her to assess what had happened over the past few weeks and to figure out what she wanted from the future, something she found to be simple now that she had the space to breathe. She accepted that she had gotten herself entangled in things that she certainly hadn't intended to, but that something good had come from it, and that thing was all she wanted- a relationship with Rob.

This was why she had invited him to an Italian restaurant not too far from her house, a place that she had visited frequently and knew the owners well. It was large enough that you could have a conversation without people listening in, but small enough that it retained a sense of homeliness. She felt comfortable here, and hoped he would too. It was only seven o clock, but the dim lighting made it feel much later in the evening, and she was getting restless. All she wanted was to get this over with and move on with her life, hopefully with Rob as a part of it. She was seated at a table facing the door, and a few minutes later she saw him enter, dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a pale blue shirt. She was still getting used to seeing him dressed casually, but it was a good change. Smiling nervously as he spotted her across the room, he began to make his way over.

"Hi," he opened, taking the high-backed wooden dining chair opposite her. "You look lovely."

"Thanks," she smiled back, taking a sip of the dry white wine she had ordered almost as soon as she had entered the restaurant. She hadn't really made much of an effort with her appearance; she was too consumed by her nerves to do anything more than touch up her make-up, comb her hair and change into a grey wrap dress before leaving the house.

"I think I owe you an explanation," he said quietly.

"Yeah. I think I know what you're going to say but I need to hear it from you, rather than through the grapevine."

He nodded, as aware as she was of the rumours which had been circulating the station over the past week, and which had reached the UCOS basement mainly through Gerry, who thought she had a right to know what people were saying, despite how much Jack and Brian wanted to shield her from it. Rob had taken the past week off work to spend some much-needed time with Hermione, yet he hadn't been entirely cut off from the rumour mill that was the Met.

"Last month I received a call, from Catherine. It was completely out of the blue, I hadn't heard from her in over a year. It was a few days after the Hargreaves murder and she wanted information about the case. In return, she would let me take the kids on holiday, like I'd wanted to. I asked why she wanted the information but she wouldn't say. I knew it sounded dodgy so eventually I persuaded her to tell me. She said she wanted to sell the information to a journalist friend of hers for money, so she could put a deposit on a house in Spain. She may seem like she has money but it's all from credit cards and loans, it won't last. Anyway, I refused to do it, at first. I didn't want to risk losing my job, and I didn't want her to take the children to Spain. But then one evening, she said I could see them. I went to her house and there they were. They weren't exactly thrilled to see me but I couldn't believe how much they'd grown, how much they'd changed, I mean…I left Hermione as a little girl, and then there she was, almost a woman. I know Catherine had planned this, but it just gave me a taste of what I could have, if I just did this one thing. I could reconcile with them, I could prove myself to them. I could have my kids back. So I did it. And…well. Here we are today."

"Here we are," she repeated, gently taking hold of his hand, which rested on the starched white tablecloth. She stared into the depths of his deep blue eyes for a long moment, trying to figure out what she could possibly say to him.

"Are you ready to order?" the voice of a young waitress broke her out of her reverie.

"Could you just give us a few more minutes, please?" she replied, and the young woman nodded, returning to the kitchen. Looking back at Rob, she noticed he was staring fixatedly at the menu that was neatly positioned on the table in front of him, and she increased the firmness of her hold on his hand. His gaze met her eyes once again, and she smiled reassuringly.

"I thought it was going to be something like that, and I'm sorry she made you do it."

"I'm sorry too, for putting you through all this, Sandra. It's what hurts me the most about this, that I've made you go through so much pain. I just didn't want to lie to you anymore than I already had done. You weren't meant to get involved, although I'm glad you did, and I was so surprised when you kissed me that I just reacted on instinct instead of thinking about what effect it would have on you. I didn't want to drag you down with me, so I needed to tell you the truth, to keep you safe."

"It's alright, honestly. There's nothing we can do to change what's happened now. Besides, I think we have something good here, and maybe it was meant to be a struggle at first."

"You don't strike me as a believer in fate," he smirked, being greeted with a chuckle from the woman opposite him.

"I wasn't until all this happened, you must have converted me," she teased, a smile playing on her features before her expression became more serious. "So where do we go from here?"

"Well, there's an inquiry into the leaking of the information but Hermione has made Catherine promise that she will confess to blackmailing me into doing it. She says it's the only way she'll let her back into her life."

"That's fair enough, I suppose. How's she doing?" She was concerned about how Hermione was coping, after the day which had turned her whole world on its head.

"As well as can be expected. It's been a lot for her to take in and she's still finding her feet. So am I, to be honest," he admitted frankly. "But we'll figure it out eventually."

She nodded. "I'm sure you will. If there's anything I can do to help, you know where I am. She reminds me of myself a little bit, when I was a teenager."

"There is something you can do, actually."

"What is it?"

"You can say you'll give me another chance?"

She laughed, properly laughed, for the first time that night, the tension of the situation finally dissipating. "I don't think that's too much to ask."

"So you will?"

She leaned over the table, took his face in her hands and placed a soft kiss on his lips, pulling away only to answer in the affirmative.

There was a small, polite cough from the side of the table, and they turned around to see that the waitress had returned.

"Are you ready to order?"

"Yes." She replied, grinning at Rob. "We're ready."