Gavin grinned at Linda as they headed into the staffroom; the centre had been shut again. He wondered what it was that Mr Brittas had a problem with now: perhaps they had been too slow on the last training exercise, or maybe they weren't smiling often enough… It had better not be about keeping the noticeboards neat again.

Carole was sat at the front, her basket with Ben inside on her knee. Gavin gave her a gentle smile as she rocked her whole body.

"Would you like a drink?" He asked, glancing around. Phil nodded his head, as did Danny.

"I boiled the kettle just before." Danny told him. He clicked it back on to reheat as he dropped teabags into three mugs.

"D'ya know what he wants us for?" asked Molly, pushing her long brown hair over her shoulder.

"Maybe he decided we haven't been doing our cleaning duties well enough." Tim grumbled with a roll of his eyes. A few people huffed at the idea. Last week Brittas had closed the centre to ask people to make more of an effort in cleaning. They had all agreed not to tell Mrs Delgado, their cleaning lady; she was a friendly woman and everyone liked her, but she didn't see eye to eye with Mr Brittas.

As he poured the boiling water into the cups, he listened to the different ideas of what Brittas might be unhappy with now. He'd had a job in Sainsbury's before but none of his managers there had been half as picky as Brittas was.

Drinks handed out, Gavin dropped into the uncomfortable chair left beside Tim. He hoped it wasn't anything that would require an evening class or anything, he and Tim had plans for the upcoming evening.

When it turned out to be a problem of a thief, Gavin couldn't help frowning. Surely no one would steal £5 from Carole…. He also rather agreed with Laura that they didn't need to shut the centre for £5. There was a chance they could make that back in one day… possibly two.

Tim smirked at him when Brittas used his missing 'soap on a rope' as another stolen item. The young man found the idea hilarious, all thanks to Bill who had told him men in prison used it to discourage penetrative sex. He tried to deflect the attention; he had since decided someone had probably just borrowed it without asking. It wasn't as though he and Tim were so hard up for money that they couldn't afford another one.

Colin hurried back in, quickly sitting down and thankfully skipping the explanation that nobody wanted to hear. Brittas continued with his list of minor things that were not accounted for, including biscuits. He could feel Tim shifting impatiently beside him, the young man would have lost interest in this as well.

His tea was cool now. He pulled a face and considered passing the cup to Tim, who didn't mind what temperature his liquids were at as Colin brought up the idea of jackdaws… Gavin was very thankful he avoided naming Postman Pat as the programme he had been watching at the time. He had a feeling Tim would not like people to know that sometimes they couldn't be bothered to get up and change the channel.

Colin failed to make his point as he ran back out the room again.

Mr Brittas then managed to upset more people by mentioning criminal records. Danny jumped up as he said no one was supposed to know about it, but Brittas simply said he hadn't meant him. Gavin smiled wryly, he didn't care if Danny had been involved in a bigamous marriage, and the other man had never given anyone a reason not to trust him here. Brittas then upset Mandy by naming her as the one with the criminal record.

"Laura, I want you to hand these out please. I think the best thing we can do is find out where everyone was yesterday afternoon. So, if you'd like to fill it in, in the spaces provided; where you were, what you did, when you left and who you saw there and anyone who might have seen you."

Gavin tried to hide his exasperation as he looked over the form they had; it even asked for the exact minutes, for the seconds if they could recall them… It was ridiculous. Tim didn't look too happy, but they both knew they would have to fill it out.

He tried to remember exactly what they had been doing yesterday. He'd had a Slim Trim class first thing in the morning, then he had had a five minute sit down in the staff room. Afterwards, he had had to patrol blue area to make sure the equipment wasn't getting too rowdy (not that he was bitter about patrolling areas when there were no customers around), had it been lunch after that? Yes. He'd sat in the cafeteria with Tim and they had had sandwiches. Oh, he had passed Linda when he had been in the staffroom earlier.

It wasn't easy to remember… Still, he had hung around for a little bit to chat with Carole and then Laura before heading home; he and Tim still had different afternoons off most of the time.

He handed the form in, then followed Brittas' instructions to go and make a start on cleaning the gymnasium floor. Apparently it needed a polish…

He hated polishing the floor, but at least it was still dirt free after Mrs Delgado had swept and mopped the night before.

"He thinks I'm a thief!" Tim stormed into the gymnasium and dropped down beside Gavin.

"What?" Gavin put his brush down, pulled the gloves off his hands and put his fingers under Tim's chin. There were tears in his eyes.

"He thinks I stole that £5 off Carole!"

"It was from Ben…"

"Gavin!" wailed Tim unhappily.

"He won't have thought it was you."

"He said that the times I wrote down and the times you wrote down don't match up well enough." Gavin got up on his knees and wrapped an arm around Tim, who was hunched up miserably.

"He must think I'm a liar!" snarled Tim, his tears starting to fall.

"Shh…. He's just worried. It's okay."

"I don't know why I'm staying here." Tim pulled away, his face now red as he got more worked up. "I should just go home."

"I'd stick around until Brittas is done with his investigating…" Gavin hesitantly put in. If Tim left early, it could be seen as a guilty conscience.

"Not home, but back to my mum's. As much as we argue, at least she doesn't think I'm a liar and a thief."

"What? No. Tim!" Gavin shifted his grip, pulling Tim more fully into his arms. "Just ignore him. No one else thinks anything like that!"

"I know you don't." The young man whispered, his glistening face now pressed into Gavin's collar. The older man kissed his lover's temple. They sat together, cuddled close. The polishing could wait.

"What is it he has you doing right now, anyway?"

"Cleaning all the lockers out."

"Fun. At least you aren't polishing this floor." Tim pulled back and gave him a weak grin.

"I'd better get back to it. I mean what I said though: I don't like that my boss thinks I'm untrustworthy."

With that, Tim turned and left the gym. Gavin sighed and moved onto testing the shuttlecocks and for the badminton classes. It was only another five minutes before he stuffed his racket back into its case, it would be best to just go and talk to Brittas.

He jogged back through the corridors and up the stairs to their manager's office. Angie wasn't there, so he just knocked on the door, and entered on command.

"Mr Brittas? I- I'd just like to say that Tim is one of the kindest, gentlest people I know and the idea that he'd steal £5 is…" He took a deep breath, he hadn't really thought about what he was going to say. "He wouldn't do a thing like that, not in a million years! Well, not from a baby anyway… That's all I wanted to say really."

Brittas stopped him before he could leave to assure him that he hadn't been accusing Tim. Gavin attempted to explain he must have been because Tim wanted to move back to Cheshire with his mother. He didn't say what he actually thought because he wanted to keep his job.

Brittas confidently explained that he had a plan to catch the thief; Tim had no reason to worry if he wasn't guilty. It was good to know.

He headed back down and hurried over to the changing village. Tim was on the floor, his whole posture screamed his unhappiness.

"Tim?"

"Yeah?" Tim turned around and stood up.

"I… I went to see Mr Brittas." Gavin moved closer, pushing Tim down onto one of the benches then following him.

"And?"

"He said that he has a plan to catch the thief. He said…'If Tim is innocent, then he has nothing to worry about'… or something like that." Tim let out a puff of air.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. Now, come here." Gavin shifted back on the wood and pulled Tim against him, dragging on leg over so the young man was straddling him.

Tim's lips were soft as they met Gavin's. His arms rested heavily on his shoulders as Tim shifted so his legs were wrapped around Gavin's waist. The older man pushed his hands up the back of Tim's shirt straight away, always keen to feel the smooth skin.

His tongue breached his lover's lips and he enjoyed the tightening of the man's limbs. It wasn't often they could do this at work…

A loud coughing interrupted them, and Tim leaned back to smile at Laura.

"I thought we were all meant to be cleaning." She said, her tone amused.

"Break?" Suggested Tim cheekily.

"You have twenty minutes."

Tim nodded and leaned in to bite lightly at Gavin's neck.

After lunch, Gavin played a game of badminton with Linda. Strictly speaking, they were checking all the rackets were still in good condition, but it ended up being several games.

Laura caught him on the way back to the restroom. She warned him to not get changed there because Brittas was hiding in one of the lockers! He could believe it, Mr Brittas was determined to catch the thief, but that he would hide in a locker…

He was glad he knew in advance, he and Tim had a tendency to make out in the staff restroom… He wondered if they would have to find somewhere else to go…

Just outside, Angie was there with new sheets to pin to the notice board. When he told her about Brittas, she was just as disgusted. However, she came up with a brilliant idea…. It involved heading out the see Jack, but his veterinary practice was just around the corner.

Once Brittas came back from where ever he had disappeared to, he tried another tactic for finding the thief, this time involving a dye and a blue light. When Brittas turned out to be the only one with the dye on his hands, Gavin decided the police could sort it out. It would get Brittas out the way and it would cheer Tim up.

Before he got the chance to, Brittas revealed it had been Colin hiding in the locker… The locker they had pressed a chloroform covered rag against and hung up outside…

Oops…

Thankfully, Colin was very understanding when they explained their reasoning as they all waited for the paramedics to arrive. He assured them it wasn't a problem and that he really didn't mind.

It only marginally helped with the guilt, but when Brittas apologised to Tim quietly, Gavin decided he was ok with it really. After all, he would do anything for Timmy.

As Gavin and Tim headed home, the younger man apologised for possibly over reacting. Gavin just grinned and said he was simply glad that Tim wouldn't be going anywhere.