AN: So, lovely people. I actually have had a bit of trouble letting this story go, but I suppose it's better that I send it off into the universe than sit here while I pretend it isn't finished.

The chapter title is Boris Johnson's. The characters are Armando's, and I for one am very grateful to him for inventing them in all their brilliance.

I hope you enjoy this chapter. This chapter is quite a long way in the future, but even so I hope they're satisfactorily in character. Thank you to everyone who's read this story, especially those who've reviewed and left kudos. I genuinely appreciate it.

Now I'll let you jolly on with the show.

5.

"My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it."

The first time they kiss in public, it is Nicola's Birthday. Long after the dust of the Goolding fiasco has settled and Malcolm is out of gaol, the Scot takes it upon himself to help organise Nicola's office Birthday do. It's nothing exceptional, just a cake and a bottle of champagne with her staff (a new bunch who actually have some policy credentials and a sense of loyalty). While a loyal staff body once would have made Malcolm's job immeasurably more difficult, now, as someone observing from the sidelines from the perspective of person-who-loves-Nicola-Murray, this suits him far better. On top of that, if any of them ever made the mistake of crossing her, Malcolm would be storming the building with a hurricane of expletives faster than a Japanese bullet train. While he would never tell Nicola this, he has the irritating suspicion that she knows it anyway.

Malcolm spends far too long on the phone to her diary secretary trying to establish when she's free between appointments that day, and eventually he has forty minutes carved out between a meeting at NHS head office and a BBC interview that evening. Much to everyone's surprise, Malcolm is quite particular about the running of the event, and not only in a psychotic micromanager sense, in an 'I genuinely care how this goes' sense. And he does care. Malcolm Tucker, despite his best efforts has come to care deeply about these kinds of trivial, nonsensical events. His own Birthday used to be spent working without the faintest idea of celebrating. The rare occasions when the event was actually acknowledged, Malcolm had always been the least willing participant in events, but after years of four miniature Murrays plus the Queen of All Birthday Celebrations herself, Malcolm has come to respect that they are important, at the very least to his other half. A part of him has even begun to grudgingly enjoy them.

So now, the man who spent his fiftieth Birthday listening to Nicola doing a radio interview and eating cunt cake is faffing about with the placement of an elaborate purple creation on his partner's desk, critically considering its positioning as if the future of the United Kingdom's health system depends on how aesthetically pleasing his cake placement is rather than how astute the policy decisions taken by his Secretary of State for Health partner, her Department, and her horde of advisers are.

After deciding that, yes, in the centre is fine, just as Malcolm first suspected, Nicola sweeps into Richmond House, relaying the finer points of one of the Departmental Secretaries regaling in vivid detail how she was recently vomited on while at a hospital photo shoot, with a full colour description, while Nicola herself had tried to keep from retching at the thought and somehow keep the meeting in hand. Malcolm smirks to himself as he listens to her breezing down the hall, making a beeline for her office, doubtless so she can kick her shoes off and swap into her trainers. He is sitting in her chair with a light smile playing about his lips, trying very hard not to find her more endearing than usual when she is absently thrusting coats at staff, and raging about how "If I'd wanted to spend my life being vomited on I would've been a fucking doctor. Or I would have taken some fucking time off to raise my children and let them vomit on me. I'm the sodding Health Secretary for fu- "

Her eyes fall on Malcolm first, smirking contentedly in her chair with that quietly victorious sparkle in his eye. That little glimmer used to terrify her, used to signify he was going to outwit and ruin her all at once; now it usually just turns her on.

"Hello! I didn't know you were - did we have dinner planned or something?" She is frowning deeply, and Malcolm cannot contain his amusement at the fact that she still hasn't noticed the lavish lavender coloured cake sitting proudly in the middle of her desk.

"No."

"Oh. So you just decided to surprise me at work?" Her tone is dubious, like she thinks he is planning to do something horrible, like she's worried he's going to break bad news. As amusing as it is, Malcolm is also a little worried about how well she's going to survive her interview if she can't even deduce that it's her Birthday.

"Thought I'd pay tribute to the reigning Queen of the NHS."

Nicola's face clouds with a low degree of irritation now. "Alright, what's going on? Gillian? Do you have any idea why my deranged other half is - "

"Wishin' yeh a Happy Birthday?" Malcolm smirks, dropping is gaze to the cake and watching Nicola's face spiral through irritation, confusion and finally gratitude before she glances back up at him.

Malcolm lifts a hand and waves in a cohort of Nicola's staff. Gillian, Mitchell, Chris and Cathy (her main advisers and also her favourites) enter with some degree of trepidation. They have all come into contact with Malcolm at various points in their lives or careers, but this iteration of Malcolm is still foreign and terrifying to them. Gillian is carrying a handful of champagne glasses while Mitch is fumbling to get the foil off the top of the bottle. Malcolm really would like to tell him to hand it the fuck over and let a real man deal with the alcohol, but he refrains for the sake of civility, and in the end Cathy wrenches it from his hand and does the honours herself. Malcolm respects a woman who knows her way around a bottle of champagne.

Liz, her Departmental Press Officer (so much better than Terri and Robyn that Nicola almost wept when they first met) is still on the phone, and holds up her hand and shrugs at her boss apologetically. Andy, her Departmental Liaison is passing notes with Liz and frantically trying to hear the full conversation by pressing his ear to the other side of the phone. He is arguably the only one of Nicola's staff prone to real stress, and this, given Nicola's own propensity for panic, is a very good thing. One staffer who goes to pieces under pressure, that she can handle. A whole office full and she is no longer capable of functioning herself.

"Happy Birthday, Nicola." Gilly says after setting the glasses carefully on the desk, righting herself and embracing her boss tenderly. Malcolm leaves the staff to fuss over her, happy to observe the situation. Her advisers have bought her an expensive engraved pen which reads 'HRH Nicola Murray, Queen of the NHS', and the delight on her face is infectious. Malcolm ponders the importance of staff selection; beyond being competent, they share a level of tactility, of intimacy that Nicola seeks in friendships and obviously appreciates in her staff. Cathy touches her boss' hair, Nicola rubs Chris' shoulder absently. It's almost too much for the Scot to bear, and makes him wonder whether she's been right all along about his desire for conflict in politics. Either way, this office seems far too functional for Malcolm's taste, and it's concerning him.

Once they're done fawning and are contentedly sipping champagne, Malcolm rises from his partner's chair and crosses around her desk.

"Oh my god, what am I like? I forgot my own Birthday." She mumbles. "I love my Birthday."

The Scot laughs through his nose. "I know, pet."

"No, I mean I actually forgot my own - "

"Yeah, but I didn't."

"I've finally trained you to do something that benefits me." She teases prodding him in the chest before lightly fingering his red silk tie.

"Shut up and make a wish." Malcolm instructs, pointing her to the cake, which is now blazing with candles that Cathy has been patiently lighting.

Liz makes it into the office just in time to stay Nicola extinguishing her candles with Andy trotting closely at her heels.

"Shagging." Malcolm mumbles into Nicola's ear upon observing the pair, and the look she shoots him would dehydrate a cactus.

"Sorry, Nicola!" Liz says breathlessly, crushing the brunette in her arms and almost knocking her own glasses off in the process.

"That's fine, darling. Someone needs to be working in here, don't they? Malcolm don't say a word or I will hurt you." The Scot holds up his hands innocently. Andy pecks Nicola's cheek, trying to avoid Liz, whose arm is still draped casually around Nicola's waist. The warmth in the office is foreign to Malcolm. Political staffers are never this selflessly attached to their Ministers, are they? Or was that just part of the culture under his reign as Director of Communications? He doesn't much like the thought that he was a large part of the reason so many of the Ministers had such hostile, suspicious relationships with their staff. Surely that can't be all down to him, can it? He wants to ask her about it one day, but he is afraid of the answer she will give.

"This is very sweet everyone. I'm probably getting a bit old for all the fanfare, but - "

"You're getting a bit old for a lot of things, but you still muddle through them." Malcolm observes. Were they not in public he would have settled his hand firmly on her arse. Were they not in public she probably would have elbowed him in the solar plexus.

"But I appreciate it, is what I was going to say. Now I should probably" a gesture to the cake "before we end up with wax everywhere." She tucks her hair back and blows out her candles, trying to keep the fact that she is so utterly humbled by the affection in the room from showing on her face. After a long time in politics, Nicola had resigned herself to never having truly loyal staff, yet in the period since losing government, winning back government and being returned to Cabinet, Nicola has stumbled upon a glorious group of staff. She still struggles to believe it's real quite often.

"Also, while we're all here, I'd just like to say you are far and away the best staff I've ever had, and I appreciate you all so much. I love working with you."

"Just fer the rec'rd, though, all her other staff have been truly shit. It's not a massive complement."

"Malcolm!" She snaps. "Could you please shut the fuck up and let me say something nice to my staff? I know it's a foreign concept to you but I try to be an actual person. Okay? Good. Thank you." At no point in this speech does she give him the chance to respond. Nicola hesitates for a moment trying to gather her thoughts. "... That was actually all I had. Slightly less positive with the partner related swearing in the middle. So, anyway, thank you all!" She is hugged again by her staff, this time in more of a dog-pile-on-Nicola manner than before, then delegates the cutting of the cake to someone else and turns into Malcolm's arms.

"Happy Birthday, darlin'." He mumbles, brushing long, competent fingers over her cheek and through her hair.

"Thank you." The Scot shrugs, and she tangles her fingers with his. "No really, thank you. I know you're a colossal shit, but I really appreciate this."

"Yeah, well, if I'm not nice to yeh at least once a year you might leave, mightn't yeh?"

"You're quite passable quite often, really." Nicola counters, her smirk only two shades away from taunting. Malcolm's voice drops into its most dangerous tone. "Are you tryin' to ruin my fucking reputation?"

The brunette's eyes sparkle wickedly as she mumbles "I absolutely am" before leaning up and kissing him lingeringly. One of her staff (Chris probably; it's always Chris) wolf whistles at the pair, and Malcolm calmly flips the younger man off. His arm then curls back around Nicola and pulls her body tightly against his. They are a mash of expensive suiting and warm bodies that are inaccessible through said suiting. Nicola is very much looking forward to chasing his black Hugo Boss suit down his arms once she gets him home tonight.

Despite the cold harshness of the words that usually spill from it, Malcolm's mouth is inviting and warm. When not forming words, Malcolm's mouth is pleasing and considerate. However, while his tongue is teasing hers, Nicola detects an entirely foreign flavour and a frown pulls across her face.

"Have you been eating my fucking cake?" She demands, pulling back from him too fast for his liking.

"What are you talking about, woman?"

"You taste like icing. You taste, to be specific, like French vanilla icing with honey in it."

"Hallucinating yer favourite icing flavour is a sign of brain tumour, pet. You migh' want to get that checked out. Presents more in people of a certain age, too, I'd expect."

Nicola casts her eyes towards the cake again and this time notices a heart in the surface that looks suspiciously like it's been drawn by someone's finger.

"You're fucking hopeless." Nicola comments, thumping him in the chest. Even though she's hit him hard, no one could deny that the action was affectionate. Or perhaps more accurately that she still feels affection towards him even when physically abusing him.

"Was one of you lot recordin' that? Because I think the Daily Mail might be interested in that. Headline material, righ' there; 'Senior Cabinet Minister Assaults Former Adviser'."

"Oh fuck off, Malcolm." Nicola smiles, feeling his hand brushing over her waistline as she turns to take the proffered piece of cake.

"Shit, should I be eating this?" Nicola asks around a mouthful of cake. An almost imperceptible noise of sheer bliss had escaped the back of her throat when the cake had first touched her tongue, and Malcolm's only means of concealing his smile had been to fold his arms over his chest and inspect the tips of his shoes. There is no possible way anyone is wrestling that cake off her short of causing her some kind of grievous bodily injury. Beyond that, Malcolm doesn't have the heart to rob her of what seems to be the highlight of her day, and it seems no member of her staff does either.

"I mean, this is probably going to make me claggy, isn't it? What if I split my dress on live television? I mean it's the fucking BBC, no one will be watching anyway, will they?"

"We have this wonderful invention called 'The Internet', Nic'la. Fuck, you in a burstin' dress would have Ben Swain hate-wanking until his hands were bloodied fucking stumps. Just stumps." Malcolm drawls, a sinful sparkle in his blue eyes. Nicola tips her head and glares at her partner. "Just eat yer fucking cake." The brunette doesn't need to be told twice.

While Malcolm is Antoinette-esq in his contention that everyone must let her eat her cake, when Chris leans over with a glass of champagne however, the Scot is quick to intercept. "Hey, Mister Ghost of Birthdays Pissed, what in the name of the sadistic fucking televisual gods d'you think you're doing?" The tips of Malcolm's fingers are pressed into Chris' chest, but his tone remains jocular. It's one of the tones that used to unsettle Ollie the most back in the beginning.

"Um... giving my boss a glass of champagne?" Chris is mildly unsettled, but only mildly so. This is one of the main problems with Nicola's staff having such a clear understanding that he holds no real power over them. Malcolm loathes it.

"Chris, as you're aware I live with this lunatic you call a Minister - "

"Malcolm!" She barks, but her heart isn't really in it.

"- But I have no hesitation in telling you that I've seen her do interviews sober..."

"Right. Right."

"Excuse me, Christian, I'd hate for you to forget who hired you."

"What, y'mean Gilly?"

Nicola wants to rail against him, but she is in the unfortunate position of basically having a great deal of respect and affection for all her staff. "Oh... fuck off. And just for the record, Malcolm, I can do an interview after having a glass of champagne."

Malcolm's gaze becomes pointed. "Earlobes."

"Shit. Shit, right, take it away."

Covertly Malcolm touches a kiss to the back of her head as he scoots around her to retrieve his own glass, muttering "I made sure it was a nice one, too." Nicola cannot summon the will to be angry with him for taunting her so even on her Birthday. What very few people in the world know or realise is that Malcolm Tucker is actually quite an affectionate man with the select few people he's decided he likes. He's actually having quite a hard time keeping from spending far too much time touching her right now. His reputation can't really take the further hit, though. Imagine having the Demon Lord of Westminster spending the entire afternoon with his arms curled casually around the former Leader he destroyed; he would be reduced to the proverbial kitten in everyone's minds before he could issue a verbal enema or any sort.

Nicola, her partner, and her staff spend twenty minutes sitting comfortably around her office sharing stories and laughing. Malcolm's arm sporadically curls around her hips, his fingers tease at the base of the zipper at the side of her dress. It is an entirely pleasant occasion until Nicola checks her little gold watch and mumbles "Shit, I have to go." Setting her fork on her plate and casting her gaze to Gillian. Her adviser takes up Nicola's coat and a hefty folder, waiting for her by the door.

Malcolm stands and trails his other half out of her office, fingers settling on the small of her back as he walks her to her car.

"You know, I could come with yeh." Malcolm observes mildly. The Health Secretary turns to him with a patient and affectionate look on her face.

"Don't take this the wrong way, darling, but if I never have to deal with you in a professional context again as long as I live it will still be too fucking soon."

A light smile touches Malcolm's lips. "Fine. Fuck off to the BBC." He takes her by the hips and pulls her forward until they are flush against his, until she is close enough for him to kiss her. "Just make sure you come home. No running off with Paxman."

"I won't if you make sure there's cake at home."

"Depends if it's eaten itself." The Scot quips, squeezing Nicola's hand briefly before she slides into her mid-range government saloon.

Malcolm Tucker is a man who knows his partner well enough to have purchased two cakes and secreted one in their fridge. Because of this, there is an ample supply of cake awaiting Nicola when she returns, and she is very grateful. It's not that her interview was bad, per se, it's merely that Paxman is 'the daddy', as Malcolm would put it, and she feels like she has been absolutely through the wringer.

The first thing she hears when she enters is a familiar Scottish accent remarking "Gilly said you had a sandwich at the Beeb." She follows the sound of it and finds him reclining on the couch with a laptop on his knee, tapping away at a communications plan for one of his clients. Nicola settles her fingers on his shoulders and begins rubbing little circles at the base of his neck. The pausing of his hands over his keyboard is all Nicola needs to tell her that she has found a very good spot indeed. Her fingers trail lightly through his hair before Nicola drops to her knees behind him, folds her arms over the arm of the couch and peers over his shoulder. She can feel him resisting the urge to mumble "Just four more lines, pet," and frankly she would not stand for it if he did. Their lives are a series of just-four-more-lines, just-checking-this-speech, let-me-memorise-these-stats-quickly, and because of this significant dates are observed under military-style orders. Her intention had been to gauge whose communication strategy was important enough that Malcolm had not snapped his computer shut as soon as he'd heard the door close, but she is distracted by the nearness of him, and turns her head slightly to the left to inhale the illustrious scent of him. His smell is warm and enticing, and sends a familiar stab of longing straight to her abdomen. She is about to kiss his neck in such a way that he will be rendered unable to continue working, but a name catches her attention out of the corner of her eye, and suddenly she is demanding "You are absolutely not fucking writing a communications strategy for Simon Cowell." It's an accusation, a demand of how he could possibly have neglected to tell her such a piece of information.

"I am absolutely fucking not. Ten points to the Minister." He taps out another sentence quickly, and she can see what he's trying to do: delay her until he has completed his task.

"Then you have a thirty page document with the words 'Simon Cowell' in the footer because...?"

"Because he has a net worth of two hundred and fifty million quid and an annual salary of fifty six mill all from being an arrogant monkey-fucking cunt. I mean, he can buy an' sell Clarkson four times over for only a minor increase in cuntery. It's a solid communications model, Nic'la."

Nicola laughs softly to herself and rests her head on his shoulder, letting the tension of her interview ebb away from her and a different tension entirely overtake her.

"Yeh handled yerself with Paxman," Malcolm observes, still typing. Nicola is willing to give him two more minutes before she slams the screen shut on his fingers. Of course she would not, in actuality, do such a thing. Malcolm Tucker's fingers are a vital factor in her overall state of satisfaction in life, and she would damage them at her own peril.

"Oh god, except for the part where he asked whether I'd take my children to any hospital in the country and then started listing the worst performing hospitals and all the diseases - "

"Shut up, yeh daft bint, that was actually one of yer best answers."

"Oh. Did I say something clever to that? I got distracted thinking about Ella getting golden staph and - "

Malcolm presses a button on the remote control; the television awakes from standby and Nicola's face fills the screen. He feels her wince, but smirks to himself as he continues to type.

" - Obviously everyone wants to be able to take their family to the best medical facilities available. Overall, the United Kingdom is a world-leader in health services, but I'm very mindful of the - of the need to ensure that every hospital, every doctors' surgery, every emergency department is up to scratch. Under the previous Government, health funding was absolutely eviscerated - "

"That's a strong word, Minister."

"It was a disgraceful thing to do. So I'm committed to ensuring that every one of our medical facilities is well funded - " Malcolm clicks off the television mid way through her sentence, and only now does she notice his laptop is gone from his lap.

"It was a fucking brilliant answer, actually." He smirks, glasses perched on his nose.

"How did you know I would - ?"

"Because I fucking live with you, Nic'la. Half the time I know what's going on in that shiny little, rainbow-vomiting-unicorn filled mind of yers better than you do."

"Well then I hope you're aware that right now I'm thinking a) how sad I am you've already taken off my favourite tie, and b)" her hand snakes down his chest and her fingers dip between the buttons of his shirt to brush his bare skin, her breath is hot against his ear, "if you don't come upstairs with me right now I can't be held responsible for my actions."

Malcolm does not need to be told twice, and soon his only thoughts are 'fucking side zippers' and 'thank fucking god for stay up stockings'. Any thoughts of Jeremys, be they Paxmans or Clarksons, are long forgotten by Nicola, and she is, as always, very, very glad she has left Malcolm's hands intact.

While Nicola is still attempting to rebuild herself from the shattered mess Malcolm has made her, the Scot has already regained both his composure, and his power of speech. "D'you want cake?" He askes, sweeping his eyes over Nicola's superbly unfurled body, her still trembling fingers. Dark eyes with blown pupils meet his and Malcolm is physically incapable of restraining himself. He leans over and kisses her, pleased to feel the eagerness of her response. He clambers over her to get out of the bed, and she is bemused by the fact that he is older than her but still has a better recovery rate than she does. She catches his hand when he's off the bed and pulls him back to her, sitting up and kissing him hungrily. "Malcolm, that was - I mean - "

"The best Birthday sex ye've ever had. I know." She laughs softly at him being so fucking cocksure; he kisses her nose then her forehead before slipping off to retrieve the cake. Nicola thinks she probably appreciates his arse as much as he does hers.

The bedding is an irreparable mess, so Malcolm ignores the usual mode of bed sharing and slips beneath the covers at the foot of the bed, legs tangled with Nicola's. He sets the sizeable plate of cake on the empty expanse of bed beside them, but is too distracted to eat it when he notices the goosebumps forming over her breasts and arms. He does nothing to stop them, merely requests that she throws him a pillow. Malcolm tucks this behind his back and watches as Nicola takes a sizeable forkful of cake. His hands close around her right foot and begin gently working the kinks out of it. Between the cake and the massage, Nicola is all but purring with pleasure. Each has an impossibly busy day tomorrow but neither can muster the energy to give half a shit.

"This was perfect, Malcolm." Nicola mumbles, running the toes of her free foot against his leg gratefully. She adjusts the blankets over herself, finally acknowledging the cold her body has obviously been feeling.

"Well, it was." Malcolm retorts around a mouthful of cake with a pointed nod to her now covered breasts.

She smiles lazily at him, "No, really. Thank you."

"Well I love you, don't I? Even if yeh are a dozy fucking bint sometimes. And you love yer Birthday. It's just modus ponendo fucking ponens, isn't it?" Again, the brunette laughs, forking another piece of cake into her mouth and shaking her head.

"At this time of night I have no fucking idea what it is other than your usual modus operandi."

"I feel like there should be an extra fuck in there..." Malcolm comments, still massaging idly at her foot.

"Well, if you insist." Nicola smirks, pushing the cake away and crawling onto Malcolm's lap. The Scot drops his head to her throat, sucking at her pulse point and making her moan before pulling away and looking her steadily in the eye.

"If anyone had told me ten years ago I'd fall in love with you I would have called them clinically insane." Nicola observes, tracing his lips with her fingertips. She swallows and her voice drops to a whisper, as if some part of her still fears the rejection she always expected would go hand in hand with loving Malcolm Tucker. "But I love you so much."

"And I utterly fucking adore you," Malcolm growls, before crashing his lips against hers hard enough to bruise.

Nicola doubts she will ever taste caramel mudcake with French vanilla and honey icing without feeling Malcolm's lips on hers again.