Bend It Like Becker

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Chapter 10 - CONCLUSIONS CONFIRMED

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"I understand you let Jess sleep in your bed last night."

Becker stared across the canteen table at Abby. He assumed she'd received this information from Jess, which meant she must also know that he himself had slept on the couch. So why was the blonde girl now staring at him so intensely? And why had her tone seemed to suggest something untoward?

Connor must've sensed that implication as well for he instantly dropped his fork and glared at the soldier. "Oi - what? Look here, Becker! This is our Jess we're talking about - not just some pissed girl you picked up in a pub."

The soldier gritted his teeth, trying to control his temper. "I'm well-aware of that, Temple. Which is why I slept on the couch." Of course, technically he hadn't slept anywhere, since he'd never actually fallen asleep, but they didn't need to know that.

But Connor was clearly chagrined. "Oh." He picked up his fork again, mumbling, "Sorry," into his pasta.

Apparently, though, Abby wasn't finished. "And you gave her a toothbrush, yeah?"

The lack of sleep was finally catching up to Becker, putting him in a rotten mood, and this interrogation wasn't helping any. "So what's your point, Abigail?"

She shrugged innocently. "It just seems to me that, at this rate, you'll be giving her a key to your flat before long."

Now it was Becker's turn to drop his fork as he stared in horror at the blonde girl across the table. First Jess, and now Abby - since when did all the female staff become mindreaders? Because seriously, Becker had had that exact same thought last night when they'd arrived at his flat. He'd been so flustered by this passing notion - and the fact that Jess was being so insanely quiet - that he'd ended up dropping his own keys twice before finally getting the door open.

"So what are we discussing today?"

For once, Emily's voice was a welcome diversion.

"Oh, nothing," Abby answered nonchalantly as Emily and Matt took their seats. "Becker was just filling us in on all the fun we missed last night by leaving so early."

Becker was curious as to Abby's motives for the apparent subject change but was nevertheless grateful for the reprieve.

"Yes, you did miss quite a lot," Emily confirmed. "Matt is teaching me to play darts."

"You play darts, mate?" Connor asked Matt excitedly. "We'll have to play sometime - I'm rather brilliant at darts, if I do say so myself."

Abby frantically shook her head behind Connor, clearly disputing his claim, and the others couldn't help but laugh.

As the conversation moved from darts to billiards, Jess arrived and quietly took a seat next to Becker, whispering, "Last night's pub games?"

Becker nodded, his bad mood suddenly returning at the memory of his recent interrogation.

Without thinking, he snapped, "Why'd you have to go and tell Abby everything?"

Jess's eyes opened wide, like a deer in the headlights. "What do you mean?"

"You told her about the toothbrush," he accused.

"I'm sorry." Jess appeared truly contrite. "I didn't know that was meant to be a secret."

"It's not," he said, realising how stupid he'd just sounded. "I mean, it's just toothbrush, yeah? It doesn't mean anything. I just..." Becker gave a frustrated sigh. "Sorry. I'm in a rotten mood today - didn't get much sleep last night."

Instead of smoothing things over, his comment only seemed to intensify Jess's guilt. "Becker, I'm so sorry! I never should've taken the bed. I was just being...I wanted to see...it was stupid. I'm so sorry!"

Now he felt like a top-notch arse. After all, it wasn't her fault that he couldn't stop thinking about her. "Jess, it's okay. Really. I wanted you to have the bed. And the couch wasn't the problem - I doubt I would've slept any better in the bed."

"Don't say that, mate!"

Now it was Connor who was seemingly reading Becker's mind, since the soldier instantly regretted his words the moment they were out of his mouth. Thus he was actually thankful for Connor's outburst, hoping it would distract Jess, because the last thing Becker wanted was for her to have a chance to think about what he'd just said.

It was Emily, apparently, that had caused the outburst for she was now looking across the table confused. "Connor, I was simply observing that-"

"Not again!" Connor jumped in before she could repeat herself. "You'll jinx it for sure."

"Jinx what?' Jess asked, intrigued.

"I was merely commenting that it's been some time since we had an..."

She never finished her sentence because the klaxons suddenly sounded.

"See? You jinxed it!" Connor accused, sounding somewhat vindicated.

But Matt didn't seem interested in laying blame. "Let's go, yeah? I guess we'll eat on the way."

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"What's our ETA, Jess?"

The field coordinator was thankful that she wasn't stuck in the 4x4 with Becker. From his tone over the comms, clearly his mood hadn't been improved by the long drive nor the traffic, not to mention the fact his lunch had been interrupted .

And her answer wasn't liable to help improve things either. "At least another hour, I'm afraid."

Of course, Jess had known the moment they'd run to the detector that they had a long afternoon ahead of them.

"It appears to be up near Birmingham somewhere," Jess had announced as she slid into her seat at the hub. As her fingers flew across the keyboards and the maps zoomed in, she clarified, "It looks like...Droitwich Spa."

"Droid-Witch Spa?" Connor asked before joking, "Is that where Threepio and Hermione go together for a relaxing weekend?"

Jess felt as well as heard Becker's frustrated sigh in her ear, which made it rather difficult to concentrate on the monitors, knowing he was so close.

"That's quite a distance, yeah?" Matt's voice helped return her focus away from Becker's nearness and back to the problem at hand. "We should probably send out two teams, yeah, just in case we need immediate back-up."

Jess nodded. "I'm on it."

But that had been almost two hours ago. And since then, Jess had been sitting at the hub, nearly by herself here in Ops, with nothing to do but obsess. Her thoughts were in such turmoil, it was hard to make much sense of them. She still couldn't even decide whether she should be mad at Abby or merely herself.

This morning, when she first woke up, she thought perhaps that her theory about Becker liking her was rubbish, that it simply wouldn't stand up to scrutiny in the sober light of day. But it had. And surprisingly well. Seriously, how else could one explain his frown of guilt when she'd blurted out that Freudian thing about him keeping her warm when she slept? It was such a relief to know that she hadn't been the only one dreaming of such things.

And she'd been so excited about the results of her study that she had to tell someone. What a relief it was when Abby seemed to confirm her conclusions, agreeing that she wasn't just seeing what she wanted to see.

But perhaps it'd been a bad idea to mention it to Abby. Jess had assumed that her friend would show a little more discretion - what on earth had she been thinking to say something to Becker? Didn't she know better than to poke the bear? Because a bear is just what he'd been all morning - grumpy and short-tempered. Of course it made sense if he hadn't gotten much sleep last night, but that's where the sense ended. Surely his lack of sleep was due to being forced to sleep on the couch, wasn't it? So why had he said he wouldn't have slept any better on the bed? What had he meant by that? What had kept him awake all night?

"So what are we dealing with?"

While Matt's words through the comms seemed to echo Jess's thoughts, she guessed he wasn't inquiring about Becker's insomnia.

"Umm...," Jess mumbled, stalling for time.

"Any creature reports yet?" Abby helpfully prompted.

Ah yes, the creatures. "It's hard to tell. The anomaly itself appears to be in the Coney Meadow Reedbed, but there aren't any CCTV views of the area. However, a jogger did tweet a photo of some kind of lizard he saw along the Droitwich Canal towpath. Not sure if it's anything, but I'll forward the photo to your mobile."

A moment later, Abby confirmed. "Oh, it's so cute!"

"But is it foreign to this time?" Emily asked.

"Yeah, it's an incursion all right. It's a Petrolacosaurus - one of the oldest reptiles."

As Abby continued to give background on the creature to the team, Jess suddenly heard a ping from her own mobile. She glanced at the screen and realised Abby must've used the excuse of checking hers to send Jess a quick text.

saw Look. theory sound. talk 2nite.

Jess couldn't help but smile. If only she'd had a chance to talk to Abby before they'd left for the anomaly. But at least they could talk tonight when she got home.

Home. Jess suddenly realised she hadn't been home in over 55 hours. So why did the prospect of spending the evening with her flatmates suddenly leave her cold?

At least she'd get to see Becker at practice, she reminded herself. And hopefully he'd have completely forgotten about Abby's lunchtime grilling by then.

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to be continued