She was still curled up on her old, comfortable desk chair when Steve came into the office at bang on twenty five minutes past eight, precisely as he did every single day. Christ, it was almost like having Brian back; the way he worked like clockwork. She didn't really register his entrance until she heard him from her office door;

"D'you want tea?" he asked in his strong Glaswegian accent, and she opened her ice blue eyes to see him stood in the doorway, his tartan scarf muffling his words slightly.

"Yeah. Yeah, please." she responded quietly, getting up barefoot from her chair and padding lightly over to the door, adjusting her black pencil skirt as she went. She could see in his dark eyes that he knew something wasn't right, but he also knew much better than to ask her what it was - he may have been relatively new to the team, but he knew not to intrude on Sandra's personal life. Everyone knew not to intrude on her personal life.

"You smell of smoke." he observed, one eyebrow slightly raised as he awaited his boss' response, the steam from the rickety old kettle making a high pitched noise as the water reached boiling point. They really needed a new one of those, she thought as she formulated her response - it must have been older than the department itself was.

"I was speaking to the, er... Assistant Commissioner outside this morning. He was smoking." she lied, looking at the floor like a schoolgirl sent to the headmistress' office.

Steve hardly looked convinced, but he seemed to accept her excuse as he took the teabags out of the small box by the kettle, Sandra placing her favourite mug down on the small cabinet and going over to put the case up on the board, still barefoot. She didn't truly think she could make it through today - yes, she'd managed for the last seventeen years, but today, she just didn't think she could keep it up for very much longer.

So she took her tea back to her desk, closed the door and pretended to be typing furiously whilst fighting back the tears, biting her tongue whenever she thought she might just cry, which resulted in her tongue throbbing by the time Gerry and Dan were in. Frankly, she couldn't have given less of a shit - she just wanted to curl up and be held as she let the tears that she'd been holding back for the last seventeen years fall.


She'd decided to take a walk around the station to clear her head, as the boys had all gone out to interview various suspects, while she'd claimed a meeting with Strickland as a viable excuse to get out of having to make contact with anyone. It was, of course, complete bullshit, but they didn't have to know that.

She was walking down to the front desk again, past the cold cells; the noise of inmates comforting her in some odd, slightly sick way. Maybe hearing other people's torment eased her own slightly. Perhaps that was part of being a police officer. The cold, clinical corridors sucked the emotion out of her every time she walked down them, the click of her heels echoing behind her as she strode.

There was a scuffle outside the front door between two young PCs and someone they were trying to bring into the station. Sandra couldn't see if it was a man or a woman, but whoever they were, they were putting up rather an impressive fight against the two officers; struggling against them with all their might.

Eventually the three of them effectively fell through the front door of the station; a female voice shouting incomprehensibly as its owner was brought in, protesting loudly and kicking in all directions. From experience, Sandra imagined that it was a woman in her early thirties; the type who'd got very little to do in her life - stuck in a dead end job with nothing but drink for company. It was a shock when she saw what the woman actually looked like.

She was tall, with long, gangly limbs which made her look like Bambi; tripping over her own legs as she stumbled along, dragged by the PCs who'd quite clearly had more than enough of her. Her mid-blonde hair was tangled and matted to the extent whereby it was impossible to imagine it ever having been sleek - the tumbling waves barely reflected the harsh light of the foyer as she was dragged through. What shocked Sandra the most was the girl's face. Young - innocent. She could be no more than eighteen, her round eyes proof of her youth; like glistening orbs in her head as she pleaded silently with anyone she could see. Her eyes seemed to stick as she caught sight of Sandra, the bloodshot whites and the kaleidoscope irises begging her to do something. The girl wore an old, ripped vest top; parts of her bony back peeking through the grey fabric. She had multiple necklaces and bracelets on; copper and silver chains draped over her small body and making the rough scars stand out from her thin, pale skin on her chest and arms.

She cried out with shattering pain as the female PC yanked her arm towards the front desk, stumbling as her knees gave out underneath her feeble body and she fell to the floor, her joints cracking as she slammed down on the cold, hard linoleum.

"Let me take her." Sandra heard Mick say, slightly astounded by his words as he knelt to the lost looking girl splayed on the floor with tears running down her face, choking on her breath as the police officers gave up trying to stand her up and she sat almost lifelessly. The PCs nodded at their superior officer with murmurs of "Sir" as they walked back out of the station without so much as a backward glance, and Mick crouched down next to the handcuffed, sobbing wreck of a girl, murmuring something to her as he held her arm gently with his strong hand.

Sandra realised, as she looked closer from her vantage point at the edge of the foyer, unseen by either person upon whom her attention was focused, that the girl's delicately structured nose was bleeding, and there were splatters of the drying crimson around her mouth, like she'd been coughing up blood for days without noticing. Her skin was pale, and surprisingly even considering that she seemed to have been living on the streets for longer than she cared to imagine, and it made her seem even younger to see the blood dried on her face in contrast. Sandra no longer showed the sympathy trained into all police officers, but the basic, raw human emotion as she realised what a terrible mess the woman had already made of her life.

She watched Mick put one hand around the girl's bony shoulder, and take the chain link of the handcuffs in the other, before pulling the childlike creature to her feet, supporting her as she stumbled over her boot-clad feet, with his strong arms around her trembling shoulders. Sandra had forgotten, somehow, just how caring he was towards everyone and anyone - it was the thing that had caught her eye in the first place, perhaps - and now, all these years later, she could see the same kindness in his eyes, as he took the weak girl to the room which, Sandra realised, the two of them had been in earlier, when they'd reconciled after what had felt like an eternity. She thought to herself that she couldn't wait that long again - she had to be with him; had to have him hold her; kiss her face every morning before they parted.

And it was, with great horror, that she realised - she was in love with him.