The Boyfriend


Summary: Pseudo-canon. Sometime pre-series. Martha has a new boyfriend. No it's not Clive. Yes you should read this whether you're a C&M shipper or not!

Disclaimer: Still don't own Silk.


A.N. Back to a proper big chapter. This is the last one in this not-so-little excerpt of their possible pre-series life, I hope you enjoy it.

Oh and yes there are 3 chapters but I already denoted the story as complete so that you'd know the writing of it was finished and wouldn't be left hanging for months like with Conversations!


It wasn't for a fair few weeks after the event that he noticed she hadn't left the office early in a while, that there was no fresh application of lipstick on an evening. He thought back to the last time she'd arrived flushed and flustered and couldn't pinpoint a recent memory, noticing suddenly that she'd snapped the last time he'd flirted. He couldn't even remember what he'd said now but it had clearly hit a nerve. All these things added up to one conclusion but not one he could voice, not without risking her wrath. Either things were on the outs with Rob or it was already done. Him commenting on it wouldn't do any good. He remembered a series of frustrated phone calls one evening when she'd been late in chambers and realised there had been a few such nights lately.

He came in from court late one afternoon, a few days after he'd drawn the conclusion from his observations. Martha was at her desk looking distinctly uninspired and as tired as he felt.

'Pub?'

Martha stretched and even considering her bored face as she'd poured over the brief, acquiesced quicker than he'd expected.

'Yeah,' she said, dropping her pen on the pile of pages. 'I could well do with a drink.'

They settled themselves in a corner of the George. It was busy but they snagged the last table, Martha fighting her way to the bar while Clive went on the hunt for a spare stool. The search was unsuccessful and they ended up squashed into the booth on one side of the table, much as she had been with Robert that day all those months ago in the Crown, the only time he and Clive had met.

Martha reappeared with a bottle and two glasses and told him she'd opened a tab. Clive smiled. She was always good value when she was properly drinking and it had been a while since they'd really spent any time together outside the four walls of their office.

'Long day?' he queried.

'Long month,' she said, upending a good long slug of red into each of their glasses.

They talked about work until the bottle was two thirds empty and it wasn't until the pub cleared out with the evening exodus and their second bottle was getting low that she even hinted at anything personal.

'You've probably guessed that Robert's gone,' she said suddenly, crossly, as if he'd said something.

'Ah, I did wonder,' he admitted.

'Well I appreciate you not saying anything.'

'What do you mean Marth? You think I would crow over the end of a relationship that clearly mattered to you?'

'You've done it before,' she observed.

'Yeah, well, that was more congratulating your belated good judgement and those guys were jerks,' he said uncomfortably, clearly feeling bad about it but not wholly unjustified. 'Do I have to add him to the list?'

'No, not really. Wasn't his fault, wasn't either of our faults. Just life, this job. It's hard to understand I guess, or I am. Maybe the rest of you don't have this problem. Don't get as invested, don't get as attached.'

'It's part of what makes you great Marth.'

'It's also my biggest weakness. Sometimes it hurts me, in the courtroom, and at home.'

'If he can't understand who you are…'

'You don't need to tell me that. I'm not wrong, for being who I am, the way I am. But I know I'm not the easiest person…'

'Marth, you shouldn't have to change, you know that as well as I do. If he made you question that…'

'He didn't. Not really. But that's still why we broke up. Ugh. It sounds so teenage. He wanted more than I can give and he wasn't wrong, for that. And I…didn't want to give it.'

'And you're not wrong for that either.'

'I know, it's just, it's odd, isn't it? Neither of us in the wrong.'

'It's hard, no matter who you are or what you do, and for us it's even more complicated. It's particularly hard going outside the circle who understand this weird existence we have, jumping from brief to brief, on a case for months on end and then suddenly something new the next day and never knowing where you might end up or how late you'll be. Never necessarily being able to be there when tea's on the table. It's a life choice.'

'I love it though. It's not a choice in that way.'

'I know you do. And it's…' He cleared his throat and tried again. 'How much you love it is a beautiful thing Marth. I mean, it terrifies me sometimes, partly because how can anyone touch you? How can we ever compare? And partly because I worry it's the kind of thing that burns people out.'

'You don't have to worry, Clive, but thank you.'

Clive shrugged.

'Don't do that.'

'What?'

'Dismiss your good advice like it doesn't mean anything. Like your friendship, you being a good friend isn't important. It is important. It means something to me, a lot to me.'

Clive smiled at her over the empty wine bottles. 'Well, yours too Marth.'

There was a comfortable silence, a bubble between them and the rest of the pub.

'Another drink?' he asked after a while even though they really didn't need it.

Martha considered for a moment. 'What I'd really like is fish and chips,' she said suddenly.

'We can do that,' he said. 'Walk along the Embankment.'

'You haven't got anywhere better to be on a Friday night Clive?'

'Not tonight Marth.'

'Alright then.'

'And taking you for fish and chips does prevent you getting completely drunk and crying all over my second favourite suit about the loss of your pet academic.'

'Oh shut up,' she said, batting the nearest shoulder of said suit as she got to her feet. 'For that you can jolly well buy the fish and chips!'

Clive grinned, if it cheered her up, of course he would.

'So what exactly did do for you and Robert in the end?' Clive asked a while later as they wandered by the Thames, eating the last of their battered fish and well salted chips with tiny wooden forks. He didn't want to prod the open wound but Martha was so quiet beside him and he was still curious. While he understood the two of them wanting different things being prohibitive in continuing their relationship, he didn't quite see what had changed. What problem could there be that wasn't obvious at the start of the relationship, or at least sooner than nine or so months in? What had finally made their differences too acute?

'Lots of things. Nothing.'

'Come on Marth.'

'Like I said, we want different things,' she began and he thought that might be it before she sighed and continued. 'But in the end it was, what it always is. Work'

Clive knew where she was coming from. He might make time for a lot more of a social life than she did but it didn't mean this job; the hours, the commitment, the strange moral place you had to inhabit to defend the guilty, had never brought a relationship to a premature ending.

'You know I had that trial, the one before last, the arson and manslaughter?'

'Yeah. Nasty one wasn't it?'

'Yeah it was. Godawful. And it just kept going on and on and…you know me, you know what I'm like. You know I don't, I can't…I can't leave it at the door. Can't leave it behind at the end of a day.'

'Yeah. Once you're in a trial you're in it,' he agreed, gently taking her empty tray and tossing it with his in a nearby bin.

'Yeah. I couldn't…I couldn't not think about it. I had to talk about it just to get it out,' she hesitated, voice thick with suppressed emotion when she spoke again. 'There were kids in that house, Clive.'

'And Rob couldn't hack it?'

'Don't be like that!' she said quickly, almost automatically, as though she had forgotten she didn't have to defend him any more. 'Most people aren't like us, they don't do what we do, don't see the things we see. They don't hear about the things we hear about in trials, they don't see photographs of evidence, of people, dead people. Their lives are different. It's maybe only the police who get it, paramedics, some doctors I suppose, palaeontologists, but even then, a body on a slab is quite different, clean, isn't it? And even crime scene photographs…when you can see what it is, a dead body is just a dead body. And it can be horrific but there's no mystery to it if you can see the stab wounds, but when you're looking at a picture and you can't tell what it is, when you're looking at a picture and you just don't know what it is but you're being told it's a child…' she trailed off, clearly seeing the photographs she could never un-see again in her mind. 'Other people don't deal with that. They don't dwell in those dark places.'

'This is the one where it was the father?'

'Yes. It should have been murder and he should have got life. I've never been glad to lose a trial before.'

Clive knew what that was like but still didn't know quite what to say. Instead he simply walked a little bit closer, letting his shoulder brush against hers. He found the gesture comforting and she didn't shrug or step away which suggested she might feel that way too.

'The whole trial was hard. Hard on me, on Robert, probably on you too. I'm pretty sure I was a bit of a bear the entire time.'

'I'm used to it.'

'Yeah, thank God. Robert though, it was the biggest thing I'd done since we got together, one of the longest too. He didn't…understand.'

'What?'

'Getting up every day and defending that man. How I could.'

'It's your job! What about right to a fair trial and all that?'

'I know. And he understands that on a technical level, theoretically. He's a very bright man but things are black and white to him.'

'But…'

'It had even me questioning myself Clive, so I don't blame him for that.'

'What made you break up then?'

'It was the way I was, during that trial… I didn't go to bed a lot of the time. I couldn't. Partly because I was still working, mostly because I couldn't sleep. I'd just lie there, thinking about those kids, thinking about the 999 call, thinking about those photographs…'

Clive let her talk without interrupting or passing comment, it seemed like something she needed to do, something it seemed she probably hadn't been able to do with Rob.

'The photographs were another thing. I had them all over the kitchen table. He didn't like that. I get it. Who would? But I didn't have much of an appetite anyway. He was worried about that I guess, but I don't, I didn't have time for that kind of…I sound heartless, don't I?'

'No,' Clive said but he wasn't sure if it was just his lawyer's mind that disagreed with her where many others wouldn't.

'I can't function regularly when I'm in a trial, especially one like that. And I certainly can't do normal things, relationship things.'

'I'm amazed he hadn't learnt that by then.'

'Maybe I shielded him from it, maybe we were on our best behaviour for six months, I don't know.'

'Can't really comment on that with any recent data.'

'No I imagine not. Your average is in weeks rather than months isn't it Clive?'

'It is, but it does rather solve all of these problems. No expectations, no hurt feelings.'

'Sounds kind of tempting right about now. I definitely hurt Robert's feelings. But, he wanted me to stay over and what was the point? I wasn't sleeping anyway, I definitely wasn't in any mood for sex! You know I hate staying elsewhere, especially if I've got court.'

'You don't have to explain yourself to me!'

'I know. And I'm not going to change am I? Not now. He shouldn't have to. I shouldn't have to. Not unless we want to and the sad thing is I don't. It's not really anyone's fault, just one of those things.'

'Well you had a good run Marth, I'll give you that.'

'Yeah, I suppose so,' she said softly, sadly, before her tone brightened. 'And how many girlfriends did you have, in the interim?'

'Ahh,' Clive said, slightly disconcerted by the change of topic and stalling while he thought. 'That depends on your definition of girlfriend.'

'Okay, women you had relations with then.'

'Not sure I can remember,' he couched, only half lying.

'You were dating Heather when Robert and I got together.'

'Oh god, yeah, Heather! Think she's having a baby now!'

'With the Bank Wanker?'

Clive chuckled, he'd forgotten Martha's christening of Heather's fiancé-cum-husband after the happy couple's wedding picture appeared in the paper.

'Yeah. Well, I presume it's Bank Wanker's baby. It's not mine anyway, if that's what you're asking!'

'I'm pretty sure you're more careful than that or there would be a host of little Clives running around.'

Clive shuddered. 'That image may well be the finest contraceptive there is.'

'Not hankering after continuing the Reader line?'

'Not any time soon at least. But it doesn't seem to be on your bucket list either so I'm not sure you can comment.'

'No. I guess we give silk the kind of priority other people save for marriage and children.'

'Something people like Rob and Heather can't really appreciate.'

'She was in-house at a corporate after all.'

'Snob,' Clive teased. 'I'm sure she gets fabulous maternity benefits!'

Martha ignored him. 'And after Heather?'

'After Heather…there was someone…Sarah? Sandra? It began with an S anyway.'

'You can't remember?'

'Come on Marth. My girlfriend had just got back with her ex fiancé, cut me a little slack.'

'You get plenty of slack Clive.'

'Erm…then…then it was Helen from McCrory and Co.'

'Oh it was,' Martha said, with evident distaste. 'Everyone seemed to think that was quite a good match if I remember rightly.'

'Haha, yeah, except Billy, convinced I was haemorrhaging chambers' secrets.'

'Well…I wouldn't put it past her to be squeezing you for information.'

'I'd forgotten you didn't like her,' Clive said, rejecting a number of inappropriate remarks about the squeezing that had gone on between him and the other barrister.

'I don't dislike her,' Martha said, too quickly to be considered sincere.

'Mmhmm. She did beat you in that assault trial.'

'And I beat her in that murder. Murder trumps assault right?'

'So competitive,' Clive said, his tone teasing but affectionate.'

'So what did happen with her?'

'Chewed me up and spat me out pretty much. She's a lot like a brunette you actually, but without the redeeming features.'

Martha wasn't sure whether to be offended or not. 'And what exactly are my redeeming features Clive?'

He laughed again, playing for time. 'Ha…fantastic arse, actually caring about your clients, perhaps the fact you're my best friend…'

'Sentimental Clive,' she said, nudging him with her elbow. 'And after Helen?'

'I needed a break frankly.'

'And I'm supposed to believe that?'

'Well, there was the secretary of somewhere after that and someone who worked for the Bank of England that I met at somebody's wedding. And then I was in Birmingham, you know that.'

'Hmm, but you were in Birmingham four months, I was there four weeks.'

'There was one, maybe two, I think only one I actually slept with. Couple of nights outs early on…Birmingham CPS are hardcore when it comes to clubbing!'

'I've heard that.'

'Something about Northerners I've heard,' he said, giving her a sideways glance.

'Birmingham is in no way, shape or form Northern!' she spluttered. 'Your geography leaves a lot to be desired.'

Clive laughed.

'Anyway, I'm supposed to believe there wasn't anyone else in that whole time?'

'You saw me at the end of that trial, I didn't have the energy to have sex with anyone.'

Martha had to agree. They'd only overlapped by two weeks but in that fortnight she'd seen Clive four times and he'd looked shattered. She'd only seen Robert twice. The first and last weekends she'd cried off, stating work, the next he'd come up, the other she'd gone back home. It had been exhausting and she'd thought fondly of the times she could just disappear off on a case and not worry about anyone in London until she got back.

'So that's it?'

'That's it.'

'Six or seven in nine, nearly ten months.'

'Yeah well, that's not bad really Marth. Average it out, six weeks each.'

'If you put it that way.'

'And I have actually been single since.'

'Really?'

'Scout's honour.'

'Somehow I can't imagine you as a scout, Clive. You have no discernible survival skills.'

'You wound me but you're right. I was a Beaver for about a year before I went away to school but that was it.'

'Knew it.'

'The single thing is true though.'

'Run out of attractive women at the Bar?'

'Ones who will sleep with me at least, unless you've changed your position?'

Martha laughed, more to cover her awkwardness than anything. 'I'm not going to rebound with you Clive.'

'I'm going to take that as testament to our friendship rather than an insult.'

'Think what you like,' Martha said cheekily and he was glad to see her smiling.

'You got many plans for the weekend?' he asked, resisting the temptation to flirt shamelessly by changing the subject.

'No, and it feels wonderful. No making brunch, no having to watch TV when I'd rather be working, no stupid Sunday walks by the river!'

'We're walking by the river right now.'

'That's different.'

'Why?' he asked.

'Because it's you,' she said, without thinking, and they were back in one of those split second moments, both utterly aware of everything about the person beside them, their scent, the warmth from where their arms were just about touching, the catch of breath at her words.

'Neither of us are very good at doing the normal stuff with people, are we?'

Clive said, and the word 'other' hung in the air even without being spoken. They managed to do a lot of things together that they didn't come naturally with 'other people'. Casual drinks in the pub, walks by the river, breakfast on the go, comforting, confiding. He wondered, briefly, if that was why he never pursued anything more serious with the women he dated, why things never worked out for her. Perhaps she was right, maybe they were too close. Maybe they were each other's worst enemy even as they were best friends. They had almost everything except the sex and that he regularly found elsewhere and she appeared to do fine without for extended periods. There wasn't any need to do better in their personal lives because they had each other, someone who understood, completely, no strings, no pressure.

Martha considered his question in silence but her thoughts were following the same line as his. 'Maybe we just don't try hard enough.'

'Maybe.'

'Maybe we don't try hard enough because we don't have to try.'

He knew what she meant. Them. Him and her.

'Shouldn't it be like that with someone else though? Why does it have to be any harder than this?'

This was the closest they'd ever got to talking about the nothing and the something that was between them, aside from the time back in their office when they'd first discussed Rob.

'I don't know,' Martha said, shying away from the question and rubbing a tired hand across her face.

Clive recognised the gesture as both a sincere expression of exhaustion and an end to the current conversation. 'How about we find you a cab?' he asked, catching her hand when it came back down and tugging her across the road when she nodded in agreement.

As a tall, striking man in a well cut suit, Clive never had any trouble hailing cabs and she could help but be rather jealous. Somehow, 5'7" Northern blondes weren't quite as good at it. Still, at least tonight she didn't have to wander in the increasingly chilly twilight; Clive had almost immediate success and a black cab rumbled to a stop at the kerb beside them.

'Right,' he said, letting go of the hand she'd almost forgotten he was holding, almost but not quite. 'I'd say don't work too hard over the weekend but I know you.'

She smiled at him, reaching up to straighten his tie which was crooked from where the button had been undone once he got out of court. 'Thank you for tonight Clive.'

Remembering her earlier words he resisted the urge to shrug off the thanks.

'Anytime,' he said instead, ducking forwards to press a kiss to her forehead. 'Night Marth.'

'Goodnight Clive.'

He watched the taxi accelerate away before turning to hail his own and certainly not thinking about the feel of her skin against his lips or the way her cold fingers fit into his. Damn, he really needed to get laid!