Accidents

Sandra walked into the office wishing she was invisible. She had small cuts on the left side of her face, her left shoulder had stitches thankfully hidden by her clothes, but the nice big cut freshly stitched up and newly bandaged on her left hand was quite noticeable. And then there was the large bump on her forehead.

"What the hell happened to you?" Jack bellowed the moment her saw her.

"Accident" was all she would say to him she didn't want to talk about it.

"Did you crash your car?" Gerry cried when he caught sight of her.

"No, household accident, I don't want to talk about it." She informed them in a tone that told them not to push her right now.

"What happened? All your knives attacked you?" Gerry asked ignoring her tone.

"What part of I don't want to talk about it did you not understand. I spent half the night in A&E. I'm tired, please just leave me alone." She yelled storming into her office and slamming the door behind her.

"What do you think happened?" Brian asked just as concerned as the other two men.

"Don't know and she clearly isn't going to tell us" Jack sighed. He knew how private and stubborn Sandra could be but just this once he wished she would answer their questions.

"Whatever happened she isn't happy about it" Gerry observed.

The three men received much the same answers out of her all morning. Sandra was quickly fed up with them and all their questions, all the answers she gave them were short and to the point. She spent most of the morning yelling at them or snapping at them and slamming the door in their faces. The problem was they were coppers and they couldn't let a mystery go unsolved. On top of that they were more than a little worried about her they didn't like to see her hurt and the injuries they could see looked more than just the result of a household accident. Finally by lunch time they had all had enough.

"Sandra come on we're going to the pub for lunch." Gerry called opening her closed door.

"I'm not hungry" she growled.

"I would imagine they gave you some pills for the pain you can't take them on an empty stomach now come with us and eat you'll feel better." Jack tried to reason with her, they were use to her getting upset but this was behavior even they weren't use to.

"No I won't Jack I don't plan on taking the pills and above all I don't want anything to eat. Now leave me alone." She said slamming her door right in their faces once more.

"That's it I'm going to see Strickland." Gerry exclaimed and Jack agreed emphatically, Brian followed.

"You don't think he hurt her do you?" Brian asked.

"No I don't but I expect he had something to do with it, whatever this household accident was." Gerry answered as they rode the elevator up.

"We could have just called him you know" Jack pointed out as they walked quickly towards the man's office.

"Too late now plus I want to see his face when I ask him what the hell happened." Gerry replied as he knocked on the DACs door but he didn't wait for an answer before barging in. The younger man didn't appear to be nearly as hurt as Sandra was, though he had a few small cuts on his hands and face and his bottom lip looked swollen.

"Gerry what the hell? Jack?" Strickland yelled as the three men invaded his office.

"What's wrong with Sandra? What happened? what did you do?" Gerry demanded.

"What did I do? What are you talking about? I didn't do anything." He was slightly confused, he was exhausted, his head hurt and didn't need them yelling at him right now. He thought Sandra would have given the men some explanation as to why she was injured.

"She has cuts and a bruise and she is as angry as a rattle snake, we assume it has something to do with you." Jack informed him with a sharp glare.

"And on top of that she won't talk about it and she won't eat," Gerry added.

"She won't eat oh this is just ridiculous. Fine I'm coming down to talk to her." Strickland said throwing his pen on his desk in frustration. If Sandra didn't want to talk to her co-workers he couldn't make her but he wasn't going to stand by while she tried to starve herself.

"So you do know why she is upset and how she got hurt?" Gerry growled.

"Of course I do I was with her when it happened" he sighed. He wasn't about to share the detains of their night especially if Sandra didn't want them to know but he wish she had told them something.

"Looks like you got hurt too" Jack observed.

"Yes Sandra got it worse I told her to go home and sleep she wouldn't listen, but I didn't think she would actually be stubborn enough to not eat. Not with the drugs she's on." He said with a sigh, when he left her that morning she said she was fine, clearly she hadn't been completely honest with him.

"Said she wouldn't take them" Jack told him flatly.

"Of for crying out loud this is complete foolishness" the younger man exclaimed leaving the room and making a bee line down stairs to the UCOS office. The three older men followed in his wake still very confused as to what had happened. They came for answers but just seemed to find more questions. What had happened to these two and why wouldn't they talk about it.

"Sandra" Strickland called walking into the UCOS office, he saw her door was closed and walked up and knocked on it. "Sandra I'm coining in." Not waiting for a response he pushed opened the door and walked in followed by the three other men.

"Seriously this is what we're doing now?" She hissed looking between the four men "Did you go get him?" She growled turning on the three others.

"Yes" Gerry shot back "we are worried about you."

"This is not something you are going to get in the habit of doing, when you don't like the way I'm acting you go don't running to him because we are together do you understand." She told them all firmly she was not about to lose complete control of her team.

"Sandra you won't tell us what happened we had no other choice but to go to him, you had to know we wouldn't let this go." Jack explained to her.

"He didn't hurt you did he?" Brian asked far behind his colleagues in his understanding of the situation. His ill timed question earning him strange looks from everyone in the room.

"What!" Sandra cried in shock.

"Hurt her no I would never!" Strickland practically yelled.

"Yeah we know" Jack told him glaring at Brian as he said it.

"Then tell us what happened" Gerry asked looking between Sandra and Strickland.

"No you can all get out this is a bloody circus" she shouted at them, why couldn't they let her wallow in peace.

"Not going to happen. Will someone please tell us what happened...sir?" Gerry asked turning his attention to the other man in the room. If Sandra wasn't going to answer them then he was the only other source of information.

"God no Gerry she would kill me right here if I did, Sandra please just tell them. Whatever they are thinking is going to be far worse than what actually happen." He begged her to just put an end to all of this they clearly weren't going to let it go she had to see that.

"It is just so embarrassing, it's bad enough we had to tell the doctor we don't have to see him again but them, I see them every day I couldn't look at them again." She said burying her head in her hands.

"Honestly Sandra you think whatever happened to you is something Gerry hasn't done already?" Jack told her trying to convince her to give up her secret.

"Yeah… Hey wait what?" Gerry said confused at what Jack was saying about him.

"It's true Gerry has literally done it all" Brian chimed in, the man was hardly quiet when it came to his exploits both in bed and in life.

"Well not everything but most things yeah seriously gov'nor I'm sure it can't be that bad." He replied catching what Jack was trying to do, if she felt like they wouldn't judge her she might actually tell them.

"I can't" she moaned looking up at Strickland pleading him to save her.

"And you are going to just sit there and skip lunch. After the doctor told you that you had to eat with the pain meds." He asked her ignoring her pleas and focusing on the reason he came down in the first place.

"I didn't take any more" she told him as she turned away from him angry he wasn't going to help her with the three pensioners.

"Oh I'm sure the pain has made everything so much better." He said sarcastically, she was without a doubt the most stubborn woman he had ever met.

"After what happened last night you honestly expect me to eat." She scoffed fed up with all four of them meddling in her day.

"Christ Sandra that has nothing to do… you are gorgeous perfect in every way, that was not why it broke. It was old, plus I don't think the handcuffs helped the structural integrity." He told her trying to convince her that her assessment of the accident was all wrong. He reached out and took her hand trying to persuade her that what he was telling her was the truth.

"What the bloody hell happened last night?" Jack cried the more they said the more confused he became and he was done with it she would tell him whether she liked it or not.

"I broke the bed okay... while we-" she said exasperated, her confession was cut off by Jack.

"Yeah we get it" he didn't need to hear the rest of her admission he really did not want to know the details of her sex life with her boss.

"Ah now things are beginning to make sense, but still how did you manage all those cuts and that bruise?" Gerry asked still a bit confused.

"The headboard split into a bunch of splinters and the bruise is from his head hitting mine when I flinched away." She told them with a sigh it was all too embarrassing for her to take in.

"Christ you're lucky you didn't get a shard of wood in your eye." Brian exclaimed the image of what happened now in his mind.

"I ducked hence the bruise" she told him pointing to the bump of her forehead.

"Ah yeah sounds like you didn't have a very good bed." Gerry told her much calmer now that he knew what had happened and it was in fact a household accident.

"Thanks Gerry" she hissed through her teeth, she hated them knowing all this.

"See I told you he had already done it." Jack said with a laugh.

"Of course I have more than once." He replied clearly proud of the fact.

"It's embarrassing" she moaned once more it was as though she was stuck in a nightmare that she just couldn't wake from.

"No it isn't it's a badge of honor." Gerry said puffing out his chest quite proud of the three beds he had broken over the years.

"Maybe for you" she whinged.

"Oh I'm sure he thinks so too." Gerry said thumbing in Strickland direction.

"What?... No… I …ah well no leave me out of this." Strickland knew he couldn't possible admit that Gerry was right, Sandra would skin him alive.

"Robert do you feel the same way Gerry does?" She asked giving him a serious glare.

"No I... I don't want to answer the question we already had to spend the night in your spare bed room I don't want to end up sleeping on the sofa."

"Really?" she couldn't believe Gerry was actually right.

"I must say breaking the headboard of the bed is impressive, so which one of you was handcuffed to the bed?" Gerry asked with a giant grin, saving Strickland from having to answer her glare.

"Gerry" Jack cried he had already heard more than he needed to.

"The headboard didn't break Gerry it shattered" she growled at him.

"If the headboard shattered you're lucky you didn't end up with some of it in some vital organs or the jugular vein Sandra" Brian finally said still thinking about the affects the accident could have had.

"That's why she ducked you idiot" Gerry told him.

"Did you get hit anywhere else?" he asked oblivious to the uncomfortable body language Sandra, Strickland, and Jack all had.

"My shoulder needed stitches as well" she said softly she really didn't want to be talking about this.

"Christ Sandra how many stitches did they give you?" Jack cried joining the conversation, he was now concerned again but for different reasons, Brian was right she was very lucky she didn't get hit someplace more life threatening.

"Enough of them Jack" she growled once more none of this was doing anything to improve her mood. In fact rehashing it was making it worse.

"You could have been seriously hurt" he told her in return, he sounded like he was scolding her and that was enough to send her over the edge once more.

"You think I don't know that Jack, it's not like I planned for the bed to break and the headboard to shatter into a million pieces nearly killing us. If the situation was not clear at the time spending the early morning hours watching a doctor remove pieces of wood embedded in my shoulder, hand, arms sure as hell made it clear" she yelled at him.

"Sandra forget the bed please" Strickland said putting a hand on her back, he was trying to calm her down so they could move beyond the whole incident. He was more concerned with her eating habits at the moment.

"The stitches make it hard to forget" she hissed lifting her hand for him to see, not that he needed to, he had watched the doctor stitch her up eight hours ago.

"We will spend the rest of the week at my place and then come the weekend we will go find the best made bed out there so this never happens again okay." He offered hoping her could make her feel better.

"I don't have much choice we can't sleep in the guest room forever" she huffed.

"Now how about lunch?" he asked hoping she was ready to be sensible now that the secret was out.

"That is pushing it" she glared at him, it wasn't easy to forget that they had broken the bed the night before.

"Jack are you three going out to lunch?" Strickland asked ignoring her response.

"We were heading to the pub when she refused to come." Jack told him trying to pretend he didn't see the death glare she was giving them.

"Do me a favor and bring her back a Caesar salad, I will work on improving her self-esteem." He promised them with a smile.

"You know I am sitting right here I can hear you." She told them folding her arms in front of her; she was beginning to feel like she wasn't the one in charge of her own team any more.

"Did you want something other than a salad?" He asked turning towards her.

"No that sounds good," she conceded softly.

"Great see you later lets go I'm starving" Brian said heading for the door.

"You better eat it" Jack told her as he too headed of the door.

"She will" Strickland called out after them.

"Still right here" she reminded him as they watched the three men exit the office but none of them acted as if they heard her.

"Finally alone, now how am I going to make you feel pretty and sexy once more." He said pulling her up and kissing her.

"Breaking my desk doing what you want to do isn't going to accomplish it." She warned him, she was too tired to do anything he was thinking anyway.

"I'm sure we'll think of something. Oh... you remember when you handcuffed me to the bed after you were almost shot?" He asked cautiously.

"Yeah?" she replied she knew she wasn't going to like where he was going with this.

"Well the headboard cracked a little bit then." He told her preparing himself for her enviable outburst.

"And you didn't think to tell me?" she asked with a sigh.

"No" he admitted.

"Christ there really is something wrong with you men."

"And yet you still love me."

"It's true I do. You know what I really want to do right now?" she asked him

"No idea but I am up for just about anything if it will make you feel better."

"I want to take a nice long nap on that sofa out there while the boys are gone." She said with a smile.

"That sounds like a wonderful idea." He replied following her out into the bigger room. At this point sleep was better than just about anything else even sex.

A/N I hope you liked it I know it is a bit different from the other stories. Thank you for reading and reviewing.