It should be pretty obvious whereabouts this is from. This was the first episode I watched and it is possibly still my favourite. Just been re-watching now that I have the DVD and I'm thinking I may have to write another little piece for Janet and Rachel for it. Janet especially just blows me away.

Thank you for reviewing and all that! I hope you like.

'Jan.'

Rachel stopped dead in the middle of the pavement so suddenly that Janet actually continued on a couple of steps before she noticed.

'Now what?'

Rachel jerked her head sideways at a dark, narrow ginnel running between two houses. Her suggestion was writ large on her wide open features.

'No' said Janet.

'But why?' Rachel looked so utterly bemused that Janet had to bite back a laugh.

'Because you're pissed.'

'So?'

'Because I need to get you home, before you do any more damage.' Sensible Janet. Reliable Janet. Always a good friend to have on a night out. Get you home safe. Absolutely not the sort of person to go wandering down dark alleys. Not the sort of person to be snogging down dark alleys either. And definitely not with a very drunk best friend.

Rachel frowned. 'What did I do?' she demanded, crossing her arms a little clumsily.

'Oh, now let me see,' Janet pretended to give the question serious consideration and Rachel wagged a finger at her. 'Well first you insisted on stopping the taxi on some random street corner so that we could walk the rest of the way, a couple of miles like. Then you twatted a lamppost because it reminded you of... well anyway. Oh and then there was nearly breaking your ankle when you fell off that wall, which I think you were walking along to prove that You are the queen of the castle.'

Janet waited for her friend's response. Rachel frowned again, her brain obviously working very hard to follow the lengthy list of her crimes. Her expression turned to confusion after a couple of seconds as she obviously got muddled. Then her face cleared completely and she gave Janet a beatific smile.

'I didn't' she said, innocence all over. Janet couldn't help but laugh this time. Rachel could be so cute when she was like this. Janet's stomach did a little lurch as she remembered the way Rach had twitted her nose a couple of hours earlier in the pub.

'Pleeeeease' she started now, reminding Janet of a big kid.

'Pleeeease.' Rachel tugged at Janet's hand and made a hideous attempt to bat her eyelashes at her.

'Rachel...' Janet tried again, even as she felt herself being pulled across the pavement to the entrance of the alleyway. Her protests were half-hearted, even to her own ears. It's not like she couldn't have guessed how this evening would end up. It's not like her heart hadn't leapt a dozen times during the night. And she didn't want to be hard on Rach, refuse her comfort. That's what this was about, she told herself again. Comfort. You saw it all the time with coppers. Everyone had to have something. Some little secret, some vice or weakness, some warm body to hold onto. A warm body was the best. Especially one you knew you could trust, one who had been there and been through it all with you, whatever it was. You saw it all the time. So many flings between colleagues. And this wasn't even that, really. Harmless.

Janet found herself pressed back against the brick wall of a building on one side of the ginnel, Rachel in front of her, waiting. She was pissed, but she wasn't out of it. She was waiting for Janet to give her the go-ahead. Janet's heart twisted as she realised this. There was so much between them. Rachel looked pale in the yellow light from the nearby street lamp. The expression on her face was uncertain now, a little bit wanting, a little bit wary, a little bit defensive. Nobody else saw Rachel Bailey like this, Janet was sure. It was special.

She looked Rachel deep in the eyes, and smiled a smile so small and intimate that no one else would have been able to read it.

Yes.

Slowly, with the measured care of one who is rather the worse for wear, Rachel placed her hands each side of Janet's head against the brick wall. She leaned over her and traced tiny feathery kisses along her hairline, across her forehead, down the side of her face. Surprised, Janet felt her breath hitch with every individual kiss. This was not what she had expected. Rachel took her time, placing each kiss separately, sucking lightly on the skin, breathing her in, tasting. She was careful not to touch her either, holding her body away from Janet. Rachel was breathing hard, Janet noticed. Perhaps the effort of holding herself up, perhaps a rising excitement that was tangible in the air between them. Janet was curious now. She had expected something fiercer, more needy, sloppier even. Not this measured, delicate control. It was startling to find herself reacting so strongly, to realise that as Rachel's kisses reached her neck, Janet was arching herself towards her.

Rachel kissed her way across Janet's collarbone, slower and slower. She rested her forehead against Janet's sternum. Janet's coat collar brushed against her head as she breathed. What now? She could continue kissing her way back up to Janet's face, re-assert some normality. She could stay here, give up control and wait for Janet to choose the next move. She could lift her hands from the wall, pull Janet to her and press herself close enough to melt into her – although, she considered, there was a strong chance she would fall over if she tried that. She could keep going, kiss her way further down, taste new skin, further shadowed intimacies that she could just glimpse every time Janet's chest rose and fell. She could. She was pretty pissed but she still had her wits about her and she could read Janet, knew what she wanted better than she knew her own self. She could and Janet would let her.

Janet closed her eyes, struggling to hold onto some common sense, some semblance of coherent thought. The weight of Rachel's head leaning on her chest was making her breathing shallow. She could feel the heat of Rachel's skin too and Rachel's breath tickling her own skin, hot. The world seemed to have done something strange around them, disappeared or shrunk or just stopped mattering. Janet wondered what Rachel was going to do now, what she would allow her to do.

Rachel took a deep breath. Tried to gather her thoughts. She was shaking. Not just her arms, but her whole body, shaking from the centre out. She breathed in the warm familiar Janet smell, tried to get a grip of herself. She hadn't meant to do this. All she had wanted was a quick snog. She hadn't meant for things to get this intense. And now what? Having got this far, this heated, what did she want to next? Rachel released the breath she had been holding in a long sigh, right down the front of Janet's shirt.

The hot whoosh of air over her skin made Janet gasp. A shot of desire. Shocking. She wanted Rachel now. Wanted her so fiercely and irrationally that she would forget everything else, would stop thinking altogether... wanted her so badly that if Rachel moved one finger Janet realised she would let her shag her right here, against a wall, down an alley, where the streetlights still caught them, in the middle of some residential area she didn't even know. Janet opened her eyes, gasped for breath, struggled to focus. What was she thinking? What was she doing?

They hadn't even kissed yet. The thought dropped into Rachel's clouded mind as whole and round as a pebble. That's what she wanted, a kiss. That was how this had all started. She had wanted a kiss to make her feel better,to make her feel herself again. Before everything got out of hand and slightly scary. Suddenly, she longed to be kissing Janet already, yearned for the familiarity and warmth and safety of Janet's lips on hers. Rachel raised her head abruptly.

Their eyes locked.

Please. Rachel couldn't speak.

Please Jan. She hoped her eyes were saying it for her, unable to get the words out of her mouth.

Janet took in Rachel's look, her eyes exceptionally huge and dark, her mouth unsteady, her face drained of all colour. And Janet's heart ached for her friend. She couldn't do it. Push her or take anything from her. In this condition. Janet would not, could not, take advantage of her. Sensible Janet may have taken a hike some time ago but Good Friend Janet had luckily stuck around. Her own desperate hot wanting subsided as she took slow breaths, lifted her arms now to hold Rachel close. A kiss. A kiss and then they would go home.

There was a clatter from the darkness of the ginnel. The two women froze, inches still between them. In sync, they turned their heads and stared into blackness. There was a dull sliding sound that ended with a resounding clatter. Rachel grabbed Janet's hand and hauled her away.

Somehow, they made it to the top of the road, staggering and giggling like fools. They stopped on the corner and Rachel clung to her friend, exhaustion hitting her all at once. Janet examined the name of the next street and was relieved to discover that she recognised it, that they were only a couple of streets from Rachel's flat. She smoothed Rachel's hair back with her free hand, the one that wasn't already holding Rachel up. There was a small indentation in the middle of Rach's forehead from where she had leaned against Janet's chest, trapping Janet's necklace between them. Janet thought that she must have a matching one where the pendant had pressed into her. She wondered if they would bruise.

'Come on, let's get you home.'

Rachel took two steps and then stopped again. 'Jan?'

'What?' Janet was wary now.

'Will you tuck me in?