Thanks for reading! Jessie xx

Drunk

"Dry white wine, pint of bitter, mineral water and one of them whiskeys again please," Gerry happily ordered at the bar grinning as he glanced back at the table where his colleagues were still laughing at the joke Steve told five minutes ago.

Everything was right again. OK, so he knew it wasn't, that it could never be, but for that moment when everyone was laughing and nothing else mattered… he was determined to make as many of those moments happen for his mate as he could.

"Gerry?"

He turned to see Sandra calling for him.

"Can you get some crisps, please?"

He nodded and turned back to the pretty red-head who was serving him. "'Ere, can I get two packets of plain, a salt and vinegar, some salted nuts and a pack of them little cheese biscuits an' all please?"

The girl acknowledged his request with a small smile and turned to retrieve the selection. They had been in the pub since leaving work early, the ground work of the case done. There had been talk of going for a meal; but, as so often happened, they had left it too late before the hunger had set in. About four rounds too late.

"Christ, look at the time, will you!" Steve exclaimed as Gerry returned to the table, the drinks and smorgasbord of snacks on a tray.

"What?" Sandra slurred slightly as she ran a hand clumsily to ineffectively tuck her loose hair behind her ear. "Ooh, crisps!"

The boys laughed in unison as she snatched the cheese biscuits as they met the table.

"What?" she asked.

Shaking their heads and looking at each other, Brian took the hit. "They're not even crisps!"

She looked at the packet in vague confusion. "No, I suppose not. Bloody hell, it's only half eight!"

"Exactly!" Steve added to his previous exclamation.

"So?" Brian frowned.

Steve laughed in response. "I don't know!"

Even the sober Brian laughed with Gerry and Sandra as Steve enjoyed an unknown private joke at the expense of time. It was how it should be between them.

"So…"

"What?" Gerry grinned as Sandra apparently lost interest in what she'd been about to say and scoffed several cheese biscuits in one mouthful.

"Hmm?" she hummed with confusion to which resulted in more laughter. "This is nice," she summarised as she finished her mouthful.

"Aye, what would you usually be doing at half eight on a Monday?" Steve asked.

She thought for a moment. "Putting Bella to bed, finding something to watch on telly," she shrugged. Christ, is that what her life had become? In a few short weeks, she had become so accustomed to the life she'd found that being in the pub at half-past eight was almost alien. So many times, she'd still have been working at this time. Now, she left the office and went home; to a home.

"Do you like it?" Brian asked.

She looked at him. Part of her wanted to ask him to expand his question, to be more specific about his enquiry. Another part of her knew exactly what he was asking. And all of her knew the answer. "It's different," she admitted thoughtfully. "But, yeah, I like it."

"Sandra Pullman, settling down?" Gerry asked with a wink as he sipped from his pint, how many were they on now?

Her curious gaze switched to him. He wasn't mocking her, much. She knew it was a strange thing, it was strange for her! How must it seem to everyone who knew her! For so long she had been sure her life would follow the same interminable solitary pattern until she eventually retired. Not that she'd often given even that much thought. Retirement seemed so insignificant and so far away and so pointlessly inevitable to one who spent her life either working or alone, that she supposed she had deliberately avoided thinking about it. She shrugged and picked up her glass, noting as she did that she was half a glass behind the boys. She wrinkled her nose as she caught a whiff of the acidity of her drink while she drank.

"So, are we going for some grub?" Gerry asked realising suddenly that he was starving, it was the sixth round maybe?

"Yeah," Brian agreed. Esther had given him specific instructions when he'd rang her to say they were going out to not ring her for a lift before nine o'clock because she was at her book club meeting. There was no way he could go another half an hour without some promise of food.

"Do they do food here?" Steve asked, looking around for a menu. "I'm not sure I can be bothered to move!"

Sandra smiled and shook her head; the wine was starting to make her go fuzzy as thoughts of how her life had changed danced around her consciousness. "Me neither."

"What about that Chinese?" Gerry exclaimed with an excitement that caused his three colleagues to look up with eyes wide at his sudden enthusiasm.

"Yes," Sandra agreed firmly as though it was the best idea that she'd ever heard, it certainly distracted her from her other thoughts but why was Gerry swaying in his seat?

"I like Chinese," Steve settled back in his seat. "Let's go for Chinese. Brian?"

Brian nodded. Apart from his forgotten reluctance to leave his chair, Steve was hardly showing the signs of seven rounds of drink while Sandra and Gerry were both starting to look decidedly pissed.

"I'm going for a cigarette," Gerry announced.

Sandra glanced up, he was definitely swaying. "I'm going to the loo," she muttered.

Brian and Steve grinned to themselves as the two got up, walked into each other's paths and separated to head to their chosen destinations. Leaving the Northerner and the Scot alone. Steve studied Brian for a moment as the older man took a drink. He had not failed to be impressed by everything he'd learnt about the man since he'd been working at UCOS. When he'd returned to the office after talking to the pathologist who'd worked on their case, he'd known something had been said in his absence. Something that he was sure Brian hadn't wanted to say in front of him. Yet, something that was important.

"So, where were you this morning?" he broached the subject carefully. "It's ok, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

Brian observed the Scot as he contemplated his response. If he was honest, he didn't have much against the man. And Steve would have to be told something eventually. He deserved the truth, or at least some of it.

"I'm retiring," he answered. "This morning I was at the doctors."

"To do with these headaches?" Steve asked.

Brian paused then nodded slowly. He hadn't realised that anyone had noticed.

"They got busy arguing with each other," Steve supplied sympathetically recognising that Brian's silence was a symptom of an unconscious gripe that he was the one who'd realised that Brian had been taking longer breaks between looking at things on the computer screen, was more eager to leave the office if only to get a little fresh air, had been closing his eyes to think a little more than usual.

"It's an aneurism," Brian told him. "I…"

"It's ok," Steve said quickly as he trailed off. "Spend as much time as possible with your Esther, she's a good woman."

"Aye, she is," Brian smiled. "Careful!" he added as Sandra returned to the table and nearly knocking her glass over as she reached for it.

"Sorry!" she giggled. "Are we going for food soon? What are you smiling at? Where's Gerry?"

Brian and Steve looked at each other and laughed. She blinked at them with childishly-drunk eyes. They didn't need to know that her slurred questions were a mask for the fact that she'd just thrown up all the several, was it five? glasses of wine that she'd consumed. The biscuits had been the cause, she was sure.

"Oof," Gerry rejoined the quartet and reached for his pint. "That was needed. Mind you, there's some idiots outside, looks like a stag party's on it's way in."

"On a Monday?" Steve asked in disbelief.

Gerry shrugged.

"Well, we'll finish these and make a move," Sandra said sounding shockingly sober now that most of the alcohol had been ejected from her system. She emitted a small sigh at the sight of how much wine was left in her glass and steadied herself for its assault before hearing the notification tone of her phone. Leaning down and finding the happily flashing article in her bag she read the message that had just come through:

Hope you're having a nice time, x Rob

She smiled and replaced the phone in her bag where it remained until she was drunkenly fumbling with the charger by the bedside table several hours later.

"Damn!" she cursed, then giggled, then sat on the floor cross-legged staring at the little connecting wire. She turned it in her fingers, inspecting it from every possible angle. She was sure it was the right charger for the phone; but after ten minutes of squinting at it and poking it uselessly against the location on the handset where it was supposed to fit, she remembered that she had taken her charger to Rob's flat last week.

"So what are you the charger for?" she murmured at the redundant plug and wire. "And where is whatever it is that you are the charger for?"

If she had been a little less inebriated; she would have realised that it belonged to her previous mobile. If the alcohol in her system wasn't keeping her warm; she would have noted that her house was cold from emptiness. If her senses weren't occupied with keeping her awake long enough to find her bed; she'd have smelt the odd combination of clean and damp that commonly exists in houses that aren't homes. If she hadn't been so drunk and tried that she fell asleep in her shoes; she'd have known that the odd feeling that took hold and lulled her to sleep as a few silent tears slipped from her eyes was that, for the first time in a month (and months with love last longer than those without), there was no warm body beside her as she slept deeply until her alarm disturbed a dream about a giant sandwich at six am.