Authors Note: Happy Valentine's Day! I actually do think after four and a half years I have now written my first non-Robbie/Jackie Taggart fic! I'm totally in love with Matt and Karen, mainly because I've refound my adoration for Siobhan Redmond.

Love

When he asked Jackie why Karen's office was practically empty he was ready for news of her being away for a conference or even something as menial as her having tidied up her room finally; anything but what the conversation ended up revealing.

"She is going to Ireland in the morning."

"For how many days or weeks?"

Jackie could see the confusion in his face and it broke through her promise to Karen which had said to keep silent about the future to Matt.

"You don't understand sir, she's moving there permanently - she has a job waiting for her and everything."

He was unsure how long he stood staring at his team for but his thoughts kept going around in a loop: Jackie and Karen had grown closer so she would have knew of this plan for a while and that he had no idea so he was furious at her. And if she knew the boys almost certainly knew and he couldn't believe none of them, including Stuart had not bothered to inform him that their boss and his ex was moving to another country. And he had only dated her for about four months before he called it quits but she had made him the best he could be and now she was gone.

He attempted to go back to his work after slamming his own office's door but that didn't last long so he walked out of the station, ignoring the call from Robbie and Jackie telling him they had made promises. Ending up in the park on what could have been his fifth circuit of it he snapped out of it and realised it was pointless to be questioning her motives in his brain when he could get it from her lips. Those distracting lips that he had never thought could wound him as deeply as what some of the ideas spinning around his head preempted.

When she opened the door she wasn't quite sure how to feel; he was both the first and last person she needed to see at that moment. She thought she has settled her emotions regarding him after not having laid eyes on him for weeks but it was as though that time had not existed; that they were still together and that she had simply been waiting for him to finish a shift at work.

Then she remembered the plane ticket in the front room and the packed suitcases in her bedroom and her chest constricted suddenly.

"Why did you not tell me Karen?" She finally chose to look him in the eyes, knowing the pain she could see in his face was mirrored exactly in her own as she told him the truth.

"I was scared of how you would react."

"What?! Did you think I would hurt you or something because that's how it sounds standing here?"

"No, of course not! I thought that there was every chance you wouldn't bat an eyelid and the idea of that almost destroyed me, okay, are you happy now? Would you leave now, please?"

"Marry me."

"What?! Is that your way of telling me you want to try again, because your timing is bloody awful?"

"No, it's my way of saying I love you and don't really know what I would do if I wasn't sure we had a future. I should have asked you a ling time ago." It was the last thing he would have planned to do after knocking on her front door but it felt right; she was his future and he wanted her to know it, even if she still left the next day at least he had worked out himself what was important.

"Why didn't you?"

"I thought you would say no, because it would be too complicated or head office shit that says I can't be with the woman I want to spend every minute with!"

She let her eyelids flutter closed as she attempted not to smile at what she was hearing. "Oh god, I don't know what I'm supposed to do now."

"Do what you want to do Karen, not anybody else."

"Yes, okay, this is crazy but yes!" Karen wrapped her and around his neck and kissed him full-force on the mouth, giggling at the absurdity of the impulsive act she had just allowed to happen.

Later, when they were on her sofa sitting next to each other, her legs crossed as his hands met around her shoulders, comfortably pulling her close to him, Matt began to ask her about her plan. "Why Ireland, England I could have guessed but across there, really?"

"It felt like it would be a complete fresh start if I moved to a different island but I don't think that would have helped if I'm honest. I'd probably have woken up one morning in a few months, wanting to just speak to you, nothing else just talking, and you would have been back here and I'm not sure an appropriate excuse to take a day trip back to Glasgow just to see an ex-employee."

"Ex-employee? Wow, your authority is showing through again, I do vaguely remember how attractive you can be when you're in charge. Oh, how our bosses are going to are going to love me because of this."

She turned around more towards him as she took in what he had just said, "Is that why you split up with me, because somebody higher up told you to?"

"A couple of them dropped hints that they could easily damage our careers if we carried on - I wasn't bothered about my own but you've worked so hard to get where you are and I couldn't bear to have you resent me for making you lose that."

"You should have informed me." A piece of her hair fell over her face as she shook her head in disbelief.

"I wasn't going to hurt you like that."

"And breaking my heart was, in your mind, easier than finding a new bloody job?! Believe me dear, I would search for a thousand jobs if it meant keeping you." She placed a palm against his cheek and leaned in to kiss him gently.

"I can't believe you just proposed to me! You cannot take it back by the way, I want a ring and everything."

"Well you can tell your conspirators - who tried to help you escape from right under my nose - all about you getting a wedding out of this!" Matt smirked in the knowledge that she would hate that opportunity.

"No! Robbie will just mock me for ever about how little willpower I have and Jackie will chastise me for giving in just because she doesn't have the courage to do the same with Robbie! No."

"So you want me to do the grovelling to our friends in addition to buying you a fancy ring?"

"Yep, I'm a girl who just got engaged. I thought you liked it when I was the one in control?" She teased as he started to tickle and kiss her, deciding they could leave everything else until a new day began.