Harder We Fall

He sat around moping for a bit, waiting for a text from Sandra to tell him that they'd landed safely. As soon as that came he reached for his first alcoholic drink of that day, the house was too quiet now. Considering the Pullman's had only arrived the morning before he shouldn't have been missing them as much as he was. He'd found himself repeating events from when they were round and found one thing sticking in his mind. The previous evening, well early morning, Sandra had asked him for a favour and then never said anything further about it. for Sandra this was odd, she wasn't a subtle kind of person.

A couple of hours later he found the lack of sleep from the last night catching up on him so decided to take himself off to bed. When he entered his room his eyes were immediately drawn to a cream envelope on his pillow, which stuck out like a sore thumb against his red duvet cover. On closer inspection he found his name scrawled on it in a black pen, which he knew was from the pack of pens that Sandra carried around for special occasions. He fingered the envelope as he tried to figure out what it could be. The first thing he thought of was money for letting them stay, after all she'd have known he wouldn't have accepted any if she'd just given it to him. Once his mind had had enough of torturing him. he opened it.

Dear Gerry,

I bet you're confused right now and it probably matches the confusion you felt when I told you I wanted a favour but never told you what it was.

You know most of the issues from this trip but I need you to understand. Before Dan joined UCOS we were together, I met him through the met though. It stayed a secret because I wasn't sure it'd work and then he applied for UCOS and got the job, which wasn't anything to do with our personal relationship. If people knew after that then we'd have gotten a lot of stick for it, so it was easier to keep things as they were. Anyway a couple of months further down the line, we were arguing a lot as he didn't like the fact that I spent a lot of time with you and we split up. By the way as he got to know you he figured out we were just close friends, so don't go all hard man and fight him. After we broke up I was drunk and on the rebound and well Strickland was there and I'm sure you don't need any more details on him as I know last time we worked together that you hated him. I don't know which one of them is Olivia's father and that's where you come in. When you read this, please keep in mind that you don't have to do any of what I'm about to say, it is my mess after all.

I have left a DNA test form with a little bit of Liv's hair in a small bag in your bedside cabinet (sorry), please can you get Rob and Dan to partake in this? I've specified that I want you to get the results first, but whatever you do don't tell me. Whoever her dad is, can you give them the letter with their name in in blue and whoever isn't the one with their name in red? They're also in the drawer.

I remember once upon a time somebody told me that the harder we fall the harder we try, so this is me trying harder. Again I don't want you to feel any pressure in this.

Thank you for having us and you're welcome here in France anytime.

Sandra xxx

He looked down at the letter and sighed.

"Oh Sandra, you silly old fool!" He said to himself as he opened the drawer only to find everything that Sandra had said he would plus a pack of Ferero Rocher, his favourite chocolates. He slipped his own letter in beside the others and crawled into bed knowing exactly what he had to do tomorrow.