Hiya, to make up for being away this weekend I present possibly the soppiest line I have ever written. Look out for it! And enjoy! Jessie xx

Interviews and Confessions

"I mean, I don't take no bloody crap from anyone, right?"

Sandra held in a sigh. Interviews were going well. She was just glad they hadn't started with this new unit, no blacks, right? like they had ten years ago. She glanced at Gerry who was clearly wishing there was an ashtray present in the room like there had been all that time ago. We'd rather you didn't actually. They still had one more to go after this. She'd been on auto-pilot since half-way through the first. She didn't know what she was looking for. She didn't know anything.

Gerry thanked the candidate and showed him out. He nodded to the next person waiting and said "Won't be a moment." Then he sank back in his chair and groaned, "Was it this hard last time?"

"Yes," Sandra agreed with her eyes closed. The room was getting stuffy, she'd had a headache all day and now she felt sick. "Only at least then it wasn't to replace anyone. It was just…crap."

When she and Jack had interviewed for the initial UCOS team she had been a different person. She remembered the suits she used to wear; how she'd always have her hair up; how she was always in command. She had been top dog. Until she'd shot one. It's her isn't it? Woof, woof, bang bang! SO19. It felt like a lifetime ago.

To her right, Rob Strickland leant forward and placed a hand on hers; she opened her eyes and looked at him in slight surprise. They weren't opposed to acting like a couple in front of Mia and Bella, but Gerry was in the room. He didn't care about that though, he was worried. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah," she smiled. "Come on, let's have the last one."

"Right," Gerry pulled himself up. He was as concerned as Strickland seemed to be that Sandra had been slowly getting quieter and paler throughout the morning. The man was taking the whole unit out for lunch after this. And he was going for a cigarette after this last one, he thought as he showed the candidate in; introduced everyone and offered them a seat before taking his place for this final charade.

"So, cutting straight to the point, why do you want to come back to work?" Sandra asked after a few initial questions. The feeling in her stomach and head told her that she couldn't stay in the room much longer before she would feel like the walls were actually moving in on her.

"I think there's a lot to be said for keeping active as you get older," the candidate replied with a smile. "And having researched the unit, I think I could be an asset to you."

"Ok, thank you very much, do you have any questions?" Sandra asked, swallowing slightly. She could feel the concerned glances of the two men who knew her best in the world. She didn't want them to be worried. It was bad enough that she could feel the stirrings of fear within the back offices of her own mind. Concentrating on appearing professional in front of their interviewee, she readied herself for any questions they might have.

"Do I have to wear a suit?"

Sandra closed her eyes again as Gerry showed their new recruit out. It wasn't official yet, she would ring them all this afternoon, but she had a feeling that they had found what they were looking for. She'd had to hold in the desire to laugh out loud at the only question that had been posed to them. Jack and Gerry had automatically worn suits, apart from the odd occasion (like when Gerry decided he needed to update his image) from the beginning. Brian had always objected to wearing a suit and it had never been a problem. The question had made her smile, properly, for the first time in the morning.

Rob stood up and stretched. Fairly sure that the decision would be swift and mutual, he walked a small circle around the room to wake his senses back up and opened a window. Perching on the edge of the desk in front of Sandra he softly spoke her name.

She opened her eyes. It was too bright.

"Are you ok?" he reached out and brushed a hair from her cheek. If he was honest, he'd been quietly anxious about her for a few days now. She'd been quiet, distant, away in her own thoughts. He hadn't liked to pry, knowing that she had a lot of things to think about. The physical manifestation of pain that was etched around her eyes as she battled with the headache that he knew had been getting worse since she'd first mentioned it at breakfast.

She shook her head.

"Ok," he said softly. "You go and get some air. Gerry and me will tidy up in here. I'll come find you. The last one?"

She nodded, she leant on the desk to stand and accepted his peck on the cheek. Offering a vaguely reassuring smile to Gerry whose face was as troubled as Rob's, she escaped the room.

There was no-one else in the ladies toilets as she splashed water on her face and looked in the mirror. "Why?" she asked her reflection. She knew what was happening; if she was honest, she knew. Her body was telling her what her brain had already figured out. She smiled sadly at the face looking back at her; she noted every line, every wrinkle and dimple, how forty-eight years of sights and memories kept their shadows behind her blue eyes. She'd always liked her eyes. She was old. Sighing, she knew that Rob would be waiting for her outside.

She made her way up to the roof. There was no-one about. It was their spot. It was where they had first kissed. Where he had told her about Mia and Bella. Where she had fallen in love completely with him. There had always been something, but it had been that morning, that moment, when she had known. She gazed out over the horizon thinking about everything and nothing until he arrived discreetly behind her.

"Penny?"

She turned and fell into his arms. The tears that she would have held back two months ago fell freely onto the lapel of his jacket as she shivered in his grasp. It wasn't cold in his embrace; but she felt as cool as an iceberg as he rubbed his hand slowly over her shoulders.

"Sandra, what's wrong?" he whispered as he rested his chin against the top of her head. "I know it's hard to think about replacing Brian, he's one of your best friends…"

She sniffed as she pulled back slightly. She met his eye as she steadied her breathing and shook her head. "It's not that," her voice was light. She bit her lip. "It's not. Well, it is a bit, I suppose."

She pulled away from him and turned back to the railing; London looked so big, it was so big. The world was so big. She and Rob and UCOS were so small, but they meant more to her than any of the stories on the television or the newspapers that might be heard. "I can't take the Dawson job," she said simply into the breeze. "It's been too long. I'm too out of touch with procedure and systems that don't work. UCOS works because we work together the only way we can, which is by knowing each other and by caring about what we do. I can't work in the mainstream again. It scares me, dealing with relatives who've just lost the ones they love. It's not easier ten, twenty, thirty years down the line; but … I don't know, maybe they don't ask as many questions."

He held back. He knew she wasn't finished yet. There was something so unsophisticated, uncomplicated, naïve and fascinating about her speaking her thoughts that created a charming allure that he would be damned to interrupt.

"It's not that it would be harder work. Or that I think that other coppers don't care. They do, I know they do. Coppers care, otherwise there wouldn't be Gerrys and Jacks and Brians. But in the crowd there's also so many idiots like we met this morning. Like we meet almost every time we re-open a case. There are coppers who are lazy, who are rushed, who don't care. And is that because they run out of time? Because they're being brow-beaten by targets and clear-ups and man-power? Do I want to deal with all that? To run the risk of it being my name on a case file that got left unsolved because I didn't have the resources? To let some poor woman down because I couldn't tell her why her child is dead? I've seen that sort of pressure destroy people, good people. I work with them everyday. It's not that I don't think I could handle it. The only reason I couldn't is because I don't want to. And there's people out there, people who've known me in the past who'll say that I should do it because it's what I should be doing. But why? I'm not that person anymore. I was always going somewhere. What if I'm there? Now?"

The thoughts and emotions spilled out in a mosaic of questions and half-thought through ideas. She didn't even know what she was asking or thinking. She turned to him. "I'm sorry, I can't take the job."

Now was the time. He stepped toward her and placed both hands on her arms. "You don't need to apologise," he assured her.

"I do," she struggled with the next words. "I don't know if I can do this anymore."

"Do what?" he asked. He held her firmly, forcing her to face him and his question.

"Any of it," she tried to shake his hands off but he refused to let go as she grappled with the jagged edges of her life since Jack had left them. "I don't know who I'm meant to be anymore."

She buried her head in his shoulder again as he hugged her tightly.

"Sssh," he breathed. "I'm sorry. I should never have suggested that you go for promotion. I just didn't want UCOS to become a graveyard of memories rather than your office. You are, whoever you want to be. You are Sandra Pullman; the smartest, most beautiful woman I have ever met. You're one of the best coppers I've ever known and I am blessed every day that I have known you."

She sniffed and lifted her head to look at him. He smiled.

"What?" she frowned at his smile.

"You just reminded me of Mia, that's all," he sighed. "It's all been thrown at you rather hasn't it?"

"You shoot one bloody dog," she murmured.

Rob stroked her cheek. "You can spend your whole life looking for the moment when everything changed. Trying to pinpoint the action that changed the signals on the track but …"

"That seems like a bit of a waste," she agreed with his hypothesis.

He nodded and tipped his head forward. Their lips met as they relived one of those very moments that they had experienced together.

"That one wasn't," she said allusively as she settled on the sofa beside him that evening.

"What one wasn't?" he asked, putting his newspaper to one side. Bella was asleep, Mia was out at a friend's birthday party, they had the flat to themselves.

"Those moments when everything changes," she slipped her legs over his lap. "On the roof, that day. When we first kissed. I like thinking about that moment, and I'm not wasting my time when I do it."

"Oh?" he asked as he ran his hand behind her shoulders. "Why not?"

"Because that's the moment when I fell in love with you," her eyes held the sad hint of tears even as she remembered the terrifying fear that had gripped her as she'd been caught between capturing the feeling of he moment and running from it.

There weren't words to describe the emotion that Robert Strickland felt upon hearing her admission. It was something that he'd never felt before. The only thing to pull his thoughts away from the tap-dance they were performing somewhere above cloud nine was her next utterance.

"When do you think you fell in love with me?"

She almost regretted the words as soon as they came out. They sounded so needy, I don't do needy. But there had always been an honesty in their relationship that allowed such blunt questions to be aired. The first night she had been around his flat he'd asked her when she'd let someone hold her. That was why it was an almost regret as she waited for his answer. When it came, she melted. And as they fell asleep on the sleepable sofa after they had relived another of those moments where everything had changed, his reply ran round her mind:

"I fell in love with you yesterday. I fell in love with you this morning, today. I shall fall in love with you tomorrow. And every tomorrow, if you'll let me. I fall in love with you every moment I'm with you."