I am assuming that I am not alone in wishing that DS Phil Hunter had not moved on... after all, now Sam has no one to drive her crazy and Stuart has no one to carry on the insane competition with.

He'd finally settled into some sort of routine, and it had taken nearly a week. Stuart felt he was actually getting the hang of the surrogate dad thing after almost three weeks. If he was going to keep her, and Social Services had been very grudging about that one, Mai had to go to school. Her lack of English was a bit of a barrier, but not much, and she picked up things quickly. The way she called him "Stuart" in her funny little accent gave him a thrill of pride. She was so smart. He had got used to dropping her off in the mornings, and then child-minder arranged by Social Services picking her up afterwards, collecting her from the child-minder, or sometimes having her brought back to the station, to sit on his desk and wait for him to finish work. He kept a stash of Wagon Wheels in his top drawer, specially for her.

Mai sat on Stuart's desk and swung her legs, nibbling on a Wagon Wheel. She didn't understand why her parents weren't there any more, but Stuart kept her from feeling sad. He was so funny and nice. Some of the others she wasn't quite sure about though.

Max Carter stopped by Stuart's desk to drop some paperwork into his in-tray. He ruffled Mai's hair. She didn't like him much, so she scowled, and when he grinned with amusement, bared her teeth at him.

"Turner, this child is half savage."

Stuart didn't look up from his typing, "well, only pet the tame half then."

Disgruntled, Max moved on. Stuart looked at Mai and winked, she grinned back.

The affectionate exchange was not lost on the ladies in the room. Samantha Nixon suffered a pang of guilt and pain, Stuart would have made a wonderful father, when she'd first been roped into the shopping trip she'd almost been floored by the cruel irony of it. Stuart carrying Mai, like she was his own, her little arms around his neck, the trusting way she'd leaned into him. By the time they'd reached the toy aisle, and Stuart had picked up a little pink teddy bear, just the right size for Mai's little hands to hold, she'd had to excuse herself to powder her nose. Now looking at her sitting there, dressed in a little pink t-shirt and a swirly pink skirt several shades darker, she looked the picture of health and happiness, and so right with Stuart. Regrets, well Sam had more than a few, but then there was someone else to consider.

Phil. Sam looked across at him, at his own desk, head down, shuffling paper. Which would have worked, only she'd seen him take the same piece of paper out of his tray almost half an hour ago. The really painful part of that is that while he was all wrong for her, younger than her, impossibly unreliable, his womanising ways and indiscretions the stuff of legend, he truly held her heart. Now she didn't know what to do. It was out of the question, her need for Phil. And after she had blown him off the last time, she was pretty sure that his own instinct of self preservation would prevent him from becoming involved again.

Jo watched Stuart and Mai. A tiny part of her had been skeptical at first, Stuart was more Latin Lover Boy than good father material. But she'd been surprised, and delighted that she was positively surprised, Stuart was better than even he knew, now all he had to do was drop the wise guy, be-an-arse act that made everyone angry and infuriated with him. He was a talented, intelligent and caring police officer with a lot to give, and when he smiles at you, something funny happens inside... He caught her watching him and smiled. Whatever it was that they had, it was growing between them, and Jo was still wondering what they were going to do about it. The first shift had come when he'd saved her life, from the moment she'd hugged him outside the station, at first out of sheer relief and gratitude, and then when she'd pulled back, and seen the very real distress on his face, and that, whatever he said, and Stuart was very, very good at covering his true feelings, whatever he was saying, you could read his heart in his eyes.

Then there was the needle incident, almost two months ago now, when she'd gone to offer some crumbs of comfort and ended up holding him while he fell apart. That it had felt so right when he was sleeping in her arms, was yet another little thing that Jo was trying to avoid.

Now Mai. Jo smiled again. He'd rescued her, he'd taken her home, and now it appeared that they were well on their way to becoming father and daughter. And something about that tugged very hard at her heartstrings.

Stevie Moss and Kezia Walker exchanged glances and smirked. Stuart as daddy was both amusing and strangely appealing. And Mai was brilliant fun, very perceptive, she was perfectly capable of making her feelings felt as well as known. She'd bitten the social worker twice and Max Carter once because he had had a disagreement with Stuart.

All things considered, life was proceeding in a remarkably quiet and orderly manner. It was too good to last.

It was a Thursday, and Stuart and Stevie were on their way to arrest a local small time dealer and fence known as Jake Jackson, only to find that Phil and Jo had got there first. So Phil and Jo had taken the front and in theory Stuart and Stevie were getting into position around the back.

Unfortunately, they'd been seen, and the man they were after was fleeing.

Stuart ran for the back alley hoping to cut Jackson off, and it all went horribly wrong. The blow from the car sent him flying backwards. The blow wasn't too bad, and the flying backwards was okay, it was the metal fence post which he struck his shoulder on that did the damage. He hit the ground hard. The worst part was that oblivion didn't rise up and claim him. Agonizingly, Stuart was fully conscious. He knew his arm was broken, he'd heard the sickeningly loud crunch as his upper arm connected extremely hard with the post. He could hear his colleagues screaming his name, but all his energies were focused on the agony that was radiating out from his smashed shoulder.

The next three or four hours passed in a blur of doctors, nurses, his colleagues buzzing around like flies, x-rays, the best part of three quarters of an hour spent stablizing the surgical neck fracture of his right humerus, and immobilizing his shoulder; and calming Mai's tears when she'd been brought to St Hugh's by Stevie and Kezia. Stuart sat on the edge of the bed, his good arm around Mai and wondered how he would manage, he was right handed, and his right arm was now in a cast from knuckles to shoulder, sling supported and strapped firmly to his side; but he was determined to go home.

The door opened. Jo put her head in and looked at him. "Well, I suppose since you're determined to be so stubborn, I'm just going to have to take the two of you home."

Stuart's heart skipped a beat and he tried to read what was in her eyes, but Jo ducked out before he could.