It's not even ten in the morning and already she's eaten four ginger biscuits, washed down with the weakest tea she has ever forced herself to drink. So far, it's helping and even though she's still feeling the same nausea she has been battling all week she hasn't yet had to run in the direction of the loo. The ginger was Dempsey's discovery, courtesy of a run into a chemist and a light grilling of the pharmacist while she was in the bath the previous evening. On the pharmacist's advice, he arrived back via the supermarket with a grin on his face and bags full of ginger biscuits, crackers, lemon tea, and sparkling water. He's handling this so much better than she had expected he might, and a lot better than she is, as reluctant as she is to admit it. She's busy fighting the urge to start on her fifth biscuit when her phone rings and thankfully puts the temptation on hold.

"Hello, Sergeant Makepeace?"

"Good morning, Harriet, it's Dr Morgan. Is this a good time?"

"Ah, hello." She looks up and around the room, relieved to see only Chas and of course Dempsey, currently attempting to decipher some report or other, if the frown on his face is any indication. "Yes, yes, it's fine."

"So, your suspicions were absolutely correct, your test has come back positive." The doctor pauses, presumably expecting a response, but she continues once she realises there's none forthcoming. "You're definitely pregnant, and based on the dates you gave me, I'd say it's likely to be around seven weeks, perhaps a little more, which is usually the time the morning sickness does start to make a real appearance for a lot of women, unfortunately."

"Right, okay, thank you." She isn't sure what to say. It isn't a surprise, not really, she was almost certain this was the news she was going to get, and she actually feels much calmer than she has in days. Perhaps this is what she needed, actual confirmation, before she would allow herself to accept it, to prepare for it, to let herself be tentatively happy about it. "So, do I need to come in again or…"

"I would suggest so, yes," the doctor replies. "Within the next week or so, ideally. Perhaps have a look at your diary and give us a call later today so we can schedule you in."

"I'll do that," she says, looking up and seeing that Dempsey appears oblivious to the fact she's even on the phone, let alone curious about who might be on the end of the line. "Thank you."

"Oh, and if the sickness is a struggle, then bland foods are always a safe bet." The doctor pauses for a second. "Lemon too. And ginger. Ginger works wonders for some people."

"Actually..." She smiles, thinking of Dempsey and his trip to the chemist last night. "That's what's been helping so far today."

"I'm glad to hear that." There's a brief pause before the doctor continues. "Now, I'm very aware that everyone's circumstances vary, which is why I don't automatically offer congratulations when I call with this news, and I know you you mentioned on Tuesday that this wasn't entirely a planned pregnancy, so-"

"Oh no, no, it's…I mean, no, it wasn't, not exactly, but..." She realises only as the words leave her mouth that she's okay with this. More than okay. "It's good news."

"Well, in that case then, congratulations. I'll see you sometime next week, Harriet."

She puts the phone down and takes a mouthful of tea, buying herself a few seconds to allow it to really sink in. She takes her diary out of her drawer and starts to count forward, knowing that she's much better when dealing with concrete information, with certainties rather than possibilities. The date she lands on makes her smile and she's fairly sure it will do the same for Dempsey too. Looking up and across the desk, she watches him scribble something down on one of the reports in his pile, and decides to see if this news can shift the frown from his face. She quickly slides the remainder of the packet of biscuits into her bag and stands up, grabbing her jacket from the back of her chair.

"Chas? We'll be out for a while, if the guv asks. Got a tip from a snitch to follow up on." She looks over at Dempsey who happily pushes his reports aside. "Come on, we're going out."

"No arguments from me, partner." He stands up and follows her out the door. "What's the tip?"

"I'll tell you in the car." She turns to him in the hallway and hands him her keys. "Actually, you can drive."

"Sure thing, princess." She pushes the door open and smiles as she feels his hand move to her lower back as they head for the car. "You doing okay? You seem better today."

"I do feel a little better this morning." She smiles at him as they get into the car, leaning across to squeeze his arm. "In large part due to your little run to the chemist last night, I think."

"Good thing I filled your kitchen with ginger biscuits then, I guess." He squeezes her hand, looking quite proud of himself. "Alrighty, where are we headed?"

"I actually have...absolutely no idea." She turns in the passenger seat to look at him, realising he really is completely in the dark about why she dragged him out of the office.

"So, are we just planning on driving around until we spot your snitch?" He looks baffled, but amused. "That could take a while, babe."

"There's no snitch. Well, there are plenty, obviously, but none we need to see today." She pauses and takes a breath, this time reaching across to take his hand, squeezing tightly enough that his eyebrows raise. "It was actually my doctor on the phone."

"It was…wait, how the hell did I miss that?" He looks so confused she can't help laughing.

"You were busy drowning under the weight of a thousand unfinished reports." She loosens her grip on his hand slightly but doesn't let go. "So, are you sure you're ready for this...Daddy?"

"It was positive?" His eyes widen and she nods. "You're...holy crap, Harry, we're having a baby?"

"We are indeed." She lets out a long and slightly shaky breath as she confirms it out loud. "Which means if you ever leave me I will hunt you down, find you, and kill you with my bare hands."

"I'm going nowhere, honey, you know that. You and the little dude are stuck with me." He grins and leans in closer, kissing her quickly and not entirely sensibly considering they're still sitting right outside the office. "So...how do you feel?"

"About being stuck with you?" She smiles at him and her hand stays squeezed in his. "I'm surprisingly okay with it."

"High praise." He grins again and she wonders if his constant grinning will give their secret away before anything more obvious does. "We should write it into our vows."

"Oh, I'm sure 'I do' is frequently switched with 'I'm surprisingly okay with it'." She leans her head back against the seat, his casual reference to them getting married once again making her smile. "Anyway, the doctor says it looks like I'm probably around seven weeks, maybe eight, so I'm going to save some money on your birthday present this year. I'm just going to hand this baby to you. Maybe I'll stick a bow on him."

"Wrap him in bacon, for all I care." He moves his hand to her face, stroking his thumb across her cheekbone...oh how she loves it when he does that. "Still going to be the best birthday present I ever got."

"You know, we probably need to either go back inside or we need to go..." She pauses, appreciating his soft touch, his thumb tracing gently over her skin. "Somewhere."

"Yeah, you're right." He drops his hand and starts the engine. "I know where we can go."

She doesn't question him, for once happy to sit with her thoughts while he drives. They may not be going to meet a snitch, but they absolutely could be. She also submitted two reports to Spikings before nine o'clock this morning, so she decides not to feel too guilty about disappearing from work for a little while. She wonders if the reports might curry enough favour with their boss to allow them an early escape today so they can head down to see her father this evening rather than tomorrow. She's so lost in her thoughts that she barely notices they've pulled into a parking space and come to a stop until she feels his hand on her thigh and looks around to see where they are.

"Are you...voluntarily going shopping?" She reaches for him and rests her hand on his forehead, moving her fingers to run through his hair. "Have you had a bump to the head?"

"Not since my mom dropped me on it when I was a baby." He smirks and she pulls her hand from his hair so she can smack him on the arm. "Hey, it happens. Didn't do me any damage."

"Mm, so you say." She shakes her head but finds herself smiling, in spite of herself. "If there's only one rule we manage to stick to, I would quite like it to be 'don't drop the baby', okay?"

"Okay." He nods, his smirk still firmly in place. "We need books, Harry. Books."

"Books?" She's lost. Completely lost.

"Yeah, books." He points to the row of shops they're parked outside, as though the fact one of them is indeed a bookshop should suddenly clarify everything. "You know the things. Full of pages, made from paper, you have so many of them on your shelves I'm pretty sure they're actually holding up your house."

"So if my shelves are already so full…" She reaches down for her bag and then turns back to him. "Please do tell me why you think we need more books."

"You'll see." He gets out of the car and before she has time to question him further he's around the car and opening her door.

"Steady on, Dempsey, if you start opening doors for me at work people are definitely going to know something is going on." She climbs out and leans back against the car.

"They're going to know soon enough anyway." He slides a hand down to rest on her abdomen and she bites her lip, knowing he's right but feeling a hint of panic bubbling under the surface at the sudden reality of it.

He takes her hand and leads her into the bookshop, stopping inside and looking around for a few seconds before apparently deciding where they need to look. Again, she feels herself led by the hand and she knows she probably should protest, considering they're technically on work time, but given that all of their rules appear to have gone out of the window this morning she decides there's really no point. They head towards the back of the shop and he stops, pointing at the shelf in front of them.

"Ah…" She stares at the selection of books, amazed and more than a little terrified by the huge choice on pregnancy and childcare. "Now I'm with you."

"That's my girl." He grins at her and his excitement is infectious enough that her terror turns to a smile. "Alright, have at it."

"Have at it?" She looks from him to the books, and back again. "I have no idea where to even begin."

"Should I go and ask someone?" He rubs his head and frowns. She loves how on board he is, how he's trying so hard, and she has to swallow around a sudden lump in her throat, because she most certainly is not going to cry in a bookshop at eleven o'clock on a Friday morning.

"We're not going to be able to ask for help every time this baby cries, Dempsey, so if we can't even manage to choose a couple of books then we really are making a terrible mistake here." She smiles at him before turning her attention back to the shelves. "Why don't we just pick a few each and then narrow it down?"

Fifteen minutes later she has four books on the floor in front of where they've ended up sitting, and he has at least...twelve. She decided to methodically rule books out as she went along, he obviously chose another, as yet unclear method of selection.

"Please tell me you're aware that's far too many." She raises an eyebrow and points at his pile of books.

"Is there really such a thing as too many though?" He smiles and gently nudges her shoulder. "Come on, honey, we need help."

"Help, yes. Enough books to open our own shop? No." She reaches for the top one on his pile briefly flicks through it, and adds it to hers. "We'll have a bloody house full of children before we've managed to get through all of these, by which point I would like to think we may have at least a vague idea what we're doing."

"A house full, huh?" He grins and starts to work through the stack of books in front of him, thankfully starting to put some aside. "How many's that? Five? Six?"

"Calm down, Dempsey, I didn't say it was a big house." She smirks and slides his pile of books closer to her so she can start to look through them, discarding a couple, then weeding a few out from her own pile until she's left with four, which seems much more reasonable. "There, I think we have our final selection."

"I guess we can always come back for more if we need them." He shrugs and picks up the pile, standing up and staring again at the huge amount of choice in front of them.

"We won't need more, Dempsey." She looks at her watch and stands up, smoothing her skirt down and sighing. "What we do need is to get back to work before Spikings gets on the radio and starts screaming for our blood. I want a favour from him so I need us to stay in his good books."

"What's the favour?" They start to walk towards the front of the shop, the final selection of four books feeling much less overwhelming than the huge mountain they originally had to choose from.

"I want to try to drive down to see my father this evening, if Spikings will grant us an early escape." She wonders again if she can use the fact that they (well, she, on behalf of them both…) turned in two reports early this morning and that they both worked three unscheduled late nights last week. "I really don't want to be having to try not to throw up for the entire drive if we go tomorrow morning."

"Ah, good point." He raises his eyebrows and waggles them comically. "Want me to turn my charms on the chief?"

"Well, I really would rather he says yes." She grins at him and squeezes his arm. "So no, you can leave the turning on of the charms to me."

"Alright…" They reach the cash desk and he puts the books down, pushing her arm gently away when she tries to hand over her credit card, replacing it instead with his own. "Just don't say I didn't offer."

She thumbs through the pages of one of the books as he drives them back to the office, trying not to go into a tailspin over the sheer amount of information in front of her. Rationally she knows she doesn't have to know everything, she doubts anybody does, but still, it feels like she knows nothing. For the first time in a while she wishes she had a mother she could pick up the phone to, for just an occasional reminder that everything will be fine, some reassurance here and there that she doesn't have to know it all, not this time. She closes the book as they turn into the car park at work, putting it back into the bag with the others.

"Hmm?" She realises Dempsey has spoken but she has no idea what he just said. "Sorry, I was miles away."

"Don't worry about it." There's a look of concern on his face but she smiles and squeezes his thigh, hoping it's enough to let him know she's okay. "I was just wondering what we're telling Spikings if he asks what we were out chasing this morning?"

"I'll just say it was a tip from a snitch that turned out to be a total waste of time." She shrugs, fully intending to go straight in with her request to leave early today before he has a chance to ask about anything else anyway. "I doubt he'll be surprised, I have plenty of unreliable lunatics on my list of contacts."

"I'm one of them, aren't I?" He opens the door, standing outside the car and grinning at her across the roof when she climbs out.

"Top of the list, Dempsey." She returns his grin as she starts to walk around the car towards him. "Always top of the list."

"I'm flattered, honey." He rests a hand on her back and she leans into his touch, having to resist the urge to reach for his hand.

"You should be." Stepping ahead of him she pushes through the door and turns back to face him. "Now I'm going to charm my way into getting us a few hours off this afternoon. Watch and learn, partner."