Thank you for the lovely reviews! Here is another small part…oh yeh, and I haven't forgotten about the thunderstorm…! Jessie xx

New Round

"This is weird," Gerry muttered as he waited to be served. He fiddled in his pocket and drew out a handful of change. Bloody hell, he'd only been wearing these trousers two days – how had he gotten so much shrapnel? What was more galling was that it probably end up back in his pocket having proved insufficient to cover the round.

Steve sighed and resigned himself to the conversation that he'd been waiting for all day. Still, he could be optimistic: "What is?"

"Well… ah, yes, thanks, er, we'll have a pint of bitter, half and half, half a cider? And?"

"A pint of lager," Steve finished for his struggling friend.

"New bloody rounds," Gerry grumbled. He pulled his wallet out of his other pocket and put it on the bar, ready to pick out a note to cover the bill and put the change back in his trousers. It would do for tomorrow, Junior would probably want an ice-cream after football.

"I thought you were getting on alright with the new faces?" Steve decided to go in quick and hard. There was only a limited time before they would be back at the table anyway. He wasn't surprised. Gerry, much as he loved the man, was so set in his ways that at times he wondered if he had concrete in his blood; mixed in with the carbon monoxide and alcohol.

"I hope you haven't paid for those yet?" came a familiar voice behind them. The two men turned to see their DAC standing behind them.

"Alright, guv," Gerry greeted him with a cheery grin. It was either that or resign to leaving his pint to go flat while they went back to work. "Pint, sir?"

"Absolutely," Rob agreed to Gerry's partial delight. "But let me. Hiya, I'll get these, can we have another pint of bitter as well please?"

"To what do we owe the pleasure?" Steve asked, while Gerry transported the first drinks over to the table where Carrie and Nick sat waiting. He could never help but be suspicious of DACs that turned up in the pub and offered to pay for the round. Even if those DACs were married to former governors. Maybe especially if they were. Still, it had interrupted neatly him having to deal with Gerry winging about nothing. Work teams changed; it was the nature of the job. The old copper had clearly gone soft.

"I'll explain in a minute," Rob smiled. "It's nothing bad, I promise! Here…thanks."

Rob and Steve made their way over to the table, drinks in hand. Gerry had requisitioned a couple of stools from a nearby table to accommodate the five of them and replaced them with the menus, table-talkers and other superfluous paraphernalia that commonly appeared these days on pub tables. Nick and Carrie smiled in gratitude as Rob's suspicious arrival did at least stop Gerry from banging on about it.

"Good evening, sir," they said, accidentally in unison, causing them to fall quickly into silence as Gerry went swiftly from put out at being interrupted to desperately trying to hide his amusement.

"Good evening, sorry to crash in," Rob suddenly wondered desperately if he'd done the right thing. Damn it, it always went to same way: he'd go to a department to say something, get … hang on, he'd normally get told to shove off, Gerry offered him a pint. He'd actually been offered a pint. He'd hesitate to say that he and Gerry were friends, but … maybe it was because they were the one link each had to the other, a history; a history that deserved more than the usual disdain he received. Mentally shaking off his debate while the others around the table offered non-committal mumbles and head shakes, he continued: "I just wanted to congratulate you all on your first official case together. I think it's clear that the new dynamics are working well and I really think we can move forward with the unit."

Gerry's eyes were boring into him. Shit, he'd done it again: come off sounding like the prat they all thought he was. Wait, he told himself, this was UCOS. And he'd be damned if he was about to lose the easy relationship with the department he'd always been rather fond of (had that just been Sandra though?).

"But … I know that just sounds like the usual pompus bumpf of upstairs, so officially aside, well done, nice job," he raised his glass slightly off the table as he finished confidently. He heard Gerry's subtle cough as the Cockney once again hid his mirth. Whew, he thought, well he'd gotten away with it, possibly.

"Aye," Steve lifted his glass higher than Rob's and looked around the table. He did quite like the chap after all. "Cheers."

"Cheers," Gerry added his beer to the mix. Ah, he was alright, Ol' Strickers. Besides, he'd bought the beer. No, it was more than that. After all the years he'd spent working under the chap (indirectly) he had come to view him as… tolerable. Hadn't he helped them out? Taken the flack? Looked the other way? He hid a smirk as he recalled the one thing that endeared the man to him: he'd punched a superior. Hell, they had that in common even! So if the bloke had the balls to come into their local and buy them a pint for a job well done, then who was he to argue? Sandra wouldn't want him to act like a grumpy toddler, Jack and Brian would have practically sent him to Coventry for the behaviour. He was almost annoying himself, listening to the moaning thought process that it had all changed. He was still working, wasn't he? Still making a difference; still putting away the bad guys that did bad things to good people. That's what mattered, in the end, that they all worked to the same end; it's what it all came down to: feeling the collars.

"Cheers," Nick and Carrie said at the same time, their glasses meeting the others in the air. The glasses around the table reached their handlers' lips, but no-one could drink for trying not to laugh. "What?" they both asked, looking at each other quickly in shock again before looking around at their colleagues. Was it really only the first case they'd finished together?

"What is wrong with you two?" Gerry opened the flood gates and the laughter roared from their table. Even Rob joined in. Sighing as they settled, Gerry reached for his bitter; it was good.

Steve, who had a full view of the bar, noted silently that the bar staff who'd been serving since he'd moved to London and therefore must have known UCOS through the ages, smiled as they glanced towards the table where three old men sat with their young superior officer and her boss. All change, all chance, but equilibrium reached again.

"Do you know what I heard today?" Carrie opened as a pause grew. "There were two chaps chatting about it in the sandwich shop when I nipped out for the butties; about how many people watch TV on demand or on record, or they watch repeats… and how weird it is when you think that all TV used to have to be live –"

"Aye, well the recording stuff was so expensive you see," Steve added to the conversation which grew and covered as much as any of them knew or could speculate on around the subject before merging into gardeners who become TV stars who become chat show hosts.

Carrie caught Rob's eye and he winked. He knew, he knew she'd been bricking it about seeing these guys out of work on her own – what would they talk about? She hadn't spoken to him about it, he just knew. Because he knew UCOS. He'd carefully selected her. He'd carefully selected Nick. Even Steve, he'd chosen Steve to replace Halford because he'd known that the others wouldn't have been able to. He wasn't daft. He'd left them to it on this case anyway, just asked to be informed. Damn it, had she been duped? Damn it, she looked around the table, did she care?

"Right," Rob picked up his glass. "I'd best push off and leave you all to it."

"Under orders?" Steve winked at Gerry who laughed.

"Sort of," Rob admitted as he finished his drink. "Mia's picking up all her coursework and stuff from college today, she wanted a lift for it. Don't know where we're going to put it all, mind!"

"Still not found a place?" Nick asked politely, much as he liked their DAC (as much as you could like a DAC), and understood the unique … relationship that they as UCOS held with him, he struggled to be more than civil to authority at the best of times.

"Not yet, no," Rob explained. "We're looking at some at the weekend. Couple of nice four beds. Anyway, I'll see you all tomorrow, take care, have a good night."

"Night, sir," they chorused.

"Right then," Steve stood up. "Another round?"