The car was metres away at the bottom of the ramp, still parked where they had left it and yet, it might as well have been miles away. As she ran down the ramp towards it, she felt as though she were running through some sort of fog, unable to think about anything other than the fact that Frank was still in the flat and that she needed to get help. Throwing open the passenger door, she grabbed the radio that lay discarded on the dashboard.

"Sierra Oscar from WDC Lewis, urgent assistance required, Jasmine Allen estate! Number 114 Latimer Way, officer taken hostage, armed backup required!"

The radio crackled before June's voice came back at her. "Sierra Oscar receiving, backup on way. What's the nature of the situation, over?"

"DI Burnside is being held at gunpoint by Johnno Smith, I…" she moved away from the car, looking back up towards the front door of Johnno's flat, wishing fervently that the door would open, and Frank would appear. "I don't know the current situation I…I'm outside, I…"

"Backup on way. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, I…I'm fine…" she swallowed hard and tried to bring the panic in her chest under control. Her head started to swim, and she found herself collapsing down onto the pavement, the world closing in around her until she put her head between her knees and tried to come back to herself. "Come on Chris," she whispered. "Come on, he needs you, come on!"

"Christina? Christina are you there?" Alec's voice came down the line. "WDC Lewis, are you receiving, over?"

"Yes," she replied faintly. "Yes, I'm here."

"Do you need an ambulance on site, over?"

"I…" she looked up at the flat again. "I'm not hurt and…and neither is the DI as far as I know but…I…you should send one anyway."

"On way. Sierra One should be with your shortly. TSG have been notified and all other available units dispatched to your location. Christina? Christina?"

"Received, Sarge, received…" she dropped the radio onto the ground and put her head in her hands, cursing herself at her ineptitude and weakness. For a moment, she thought she might actually faint, but the sudden sound of a siren in the distance made her look up and, seconds later, Sierra One swung around the corner and hurtled towards her. Tony and Viv jumped out, the latter hurrying over to her as she got to her feet.

"Are you ok?" Viv asked. "Chris, are you ok?"

"I'm fine."

"What happened?" Tony asked, coming over to join them. "Is the bloke a nutter or what?"

"I don't know, he…we were about to arrest him, and he just pulled out a gun." A shiver went through her at the memory. "Frank…the DI…persuaded him to let me go."

"What were you nicking him for, the raid this morning?"

She nodded, "He was the source of the information. He confessed to setting us up because he was scared of the gang. He looked scared too, not to mention terrified about possibly going back to jail." She turned as more cars started to approach, Ted, Jim and Tosh in the first one.

"What happened?" Ted demanded, jumping out and making his way over to her. "Chris, what happened?"

"He just…Frank was just asking him about the raid and he…he confessed that he'd set us up because the gang were onto him and…and then we said we were going to nick him and…and he just pulled out the gun…" she ran a hand across her eyes, the story becoming no easier to tell with each request, "and then Frank…he persuaded Johnno to let me go and…"

"Ok, just take it easy, calm down…"

"I…I froze, Ted. I…I didn't know what to do…" she looked at him helplessly. "I was useless."

"I'm sure that's not true," he put his arm around her shoulders. "You're in shock, which is completely understandable."

"But Frank…"

"Frank's a big boy, he knows how to take care of himself. He'll be fine, but I think you should sit down."

"No, I'm all right, really…"

"Just sit down here," he insisted, opening the back door of the car and gently pressing her down into it. "It's never easy looking down the barrel of a gun." Reaching into the front seat, he grabbed a bottle of water and passed it to her. "Here, drink some of this."

Unscrewing the cap, she lifted the bottle to her lips and allowed some of the cold liquid to slip down her throat which, despite the chill in the air, she welcomed. Wiping her mouth, she handed it back to him. "What now? What do we do now?"

"Mr Conway's on his way. No doubt he'll want to try and establish a line of communication with Johnno, try and convince him to let the DI go. He'll need your help with that, and TSG will probably need an idea of the layout of the flat."

"What, so they can go in?" her eyes widened.

"Maybe, but let's hope not, eh? Let's hope the art of conversation is enough."

"Yeah," she whispered to herself as he moved away to talk to Jim. "Let's hope."

XXXX

Johnno turned back from the front window and advanced on Frank again, sat once more as he was on the couch. "The place is crawling with coppers out there!"

"What did you expect?" Frank replied. "You thought WDC Lewis was going to go shopping when you let her out of here?"

"I thought…I didn't think…" he grimaced, "so stupid!"

"Look, you made the right call in letting her go. Like I said, that'll be remembered."

"Why, because she's a woman?"

"It's not about her being a woman; it's about you recognising when a situation's out of control and doing something about it."

"Maybe I should have let you go and kept her here."

Frank shook his head, the very thought making his blood chill. "Then we wouldn't have been able to talk properly, would we? I'm the one who knows you, Johnno, not her. What could she had possibly said to you that would have helped? Nothing. I'm the one you need to be speaking to."

"Maybe I'd have got more out of keeping her here though. Maybe you would have been more willing to help me out!"

"You think I value her life above my own?"

"Don't you?"

Frank met his gaze, the gaze of someone who was clearly losing control of all reason, and yet seemed more perceptive than he would have ever given him credit for. "She's one of my officers. I care about all their lives."

Johnno shook his head and turned away, rubbing his arm across his forehead before dropping down into the armchair opposite. "You got a family?"

"Depends how you define family."

"Wife?" Frank shook his head. "Kids?"

"No."

"I've got a daughter…somewhere. Her mother did a runner a while back and I haven't seen them since. She'd be six now." Johnno shook his head. "I messed up that relationship good and proper."

"Is that why you started taking drugs?"

"Yeah, it helps block it all out, makes me forget. You ever felt like that? As though you just want to forget every part of your miserable, shitty life?"

"Of course, haven't we all?"

"Your life must be pretty great in comparison to mine," Johnno sneered. "You don't have to live from one lot of dole money to the next, wondering if you're going to have your heating cut off or if the council's going to throw you out. You've no idea what life is like for people round here."

"I can accept that," Frank replied. "I don't know what it's like to live like that and I'm grateful. But don't you want to see what a different life could be like, Johnno? One where you stay out of trouble, get a job, maybe see your kid again?"

"No-one wants to employ someone with my record."

"I doubt that's true. I bet you've got a lot of skills that someone would be grateful to have."

"You think I haven't tried? I've applied for jobs, Mr Burnside, and got knocked back for every one. As soon as they see I'm on probation, they're not interested."

"So, it's easier just to keep mixing with the sort of people that get you into trouble like this? Like the gang you informed on?"

"At least people like that understand what it's like."

"But they're not like you, Johnno. You just said that you're on probation and been doing well from what I hear. You've applied for jobs, so you've got something of a work ethic. What have the people who run in that gang got, eh? Nothing. They don't want to better themselves. They just want to carry on terrifying the decent people round here, people like you."

Johnno laughed mirthlessly, "I'm not decent."

"I don't agree. You've just lost your way a bit, that's all. And this…" he gestured to the gun, "this isn't helping."

Johnno lifted the gun up to his face and surveyed it. "I got this off Billy Draper."

"The leader of the gang?" Johnno nodded. "What for, protection?"

"No, he just wanted me to hold onto it. Said he'd be back for it at some point. I reckon it was some sort of test. He wanted to see if I was one of them."

"But I've just told you, you're not."

"Yeah?" Johnno got to his feet and crossed the room towards Frank again, pointing the gun directly at his head. "What would you know?! Nothing! You know nothing! You go home to a nice, decent flat with money to spend on whatever you want or whoever you want! You have no idea, none at all, about the things I've had to do to survive!"

Despite the adrenaline coursing through his body, Frank fought to keep his tone measured and steady, knowing it would do no good for the other man to be aware that he was, ever so slightly, afraid. "You're right Johnno, of course you are. I'm not here to pretend that I know what your life is life, but I do want to help you."

"You can't help me," Johnno shook his head. "No-one can help me."

"I'm Frank Burnside; I can do lots of things and one of those things is helping you. But you need to help me too."

"How do you mean?"

Frank held out his hand, hoping that it wouldn't start to shake, as the phone on the sideboard started to ring. "You need to give me the gun."

XXXX

"Uh…" Christina shook her head, trying to encourage rational thought and finding herself coming up short. It was a simple enough question the TSG commander had asked her, but every time she tried to picture the layout of the flat, all she could see in her mind was Frank facing down a crazed gunman. "You go through the front door and there's…. a room on the right-hand side and then…then you go down a corridor into the living room which faces out the back. I…" she shook her head. "I'm sorry, I didn't take that much notice."

"All right, don't worry," he replied kindly. "We've got officers around the back checking out possible points of entry."

"You mean you're going to go in?"

"We'd rather not of course, but if we have no other option…"

She glanced over to the mobile command post that had appeared ten minutes earlier. It was considered state of the art with, most importantly, a working telephone which Chief Inspector Conway was currently using to try and get through to Johnno. So far, he appeared to be having little luck. "Shouldn't you wait until we've at least established contact?"

The commander smiled at her in that way that suggested she had no clue what she was talking about and he had no time to educate her. "We might not have time. We have to weigh up the situation. Excuse me." He hurried away before she could ask anything further, to be replaced by Jim.

"Any luck?"

"Still no answer."

"Oh God…" she looked back up at the door again, as if thought and prayer alone could make it open. "It's a small space, Jim. If they go in…anything could happen. Frank could get shot!"

"They're experts at this sort of thing, remember, and the DI himself is firearms trained."

"Fat lot of good that is when you're unarmed with a weapon pointed at you!" She put her head in her hands again and pressed her fingers into her eye sockets, trying to dislodge the terrible images that were running through her brain. Frank injured…Frank dead…when she looked up again, Jim was looking at her curiously. "What?"

"Nothing," he replied. "I'm just surprised, that's all."

"Surprised about what?"

"Well, that you care so much."

Misplaced anger flared inside her. "Why shouldn't I care? Am I not allowed to care just because he and I have butted heads in the past? Am I not supposed to care what happens to a person who persuaded a gunman to let me go?! Don't you care?!"

"That's not what I'm saying…"

"So, what are you saying, Jim?"

"I'm not saying anything," he replied in a placating tone, his arm going around her shoulder. "You've had an awful experience today. It's no wonder your head's all over the place."

"I shouldn't have left," she said, guilt swamping her as the armed team assembled in a huddle a few feet away from them. "I should have stayed."

"Well, Burnside was never going to let that happen, was he? He'd always see us all right before himself in that situation. It's one of his few redeeming qualities."

"Yes," she agreed softly, her eyes straying to the door again. "I guess it is."

XXXX

"Come on Johnno, let's put an end to this now," Frank said as the other man paced in front of the ringing phone. "You can pick that up and talk to my superior officer, or we can walk outside right now, the two of us."

"And then what, I end up getting shot?"

"Not if you give me the gun you won't. But if they end up needing to come in here, and they will, then all bets are off."

"Such an idiot…such an idiot…"

"You're not an idiot, Johnno, you just got in over your head, that's all. You trusted some dodgy characters; we've all done that in the past. The important thing is what you do now. Now I know that you know what you need to do here, for both our sakes."

Johnno stopped pacing and looked at him beseechingly. "Will you help me? Will you help make them see that it wasn't my fault, that I was scared?"

"Of course I will. You know I will. I've always been straight with you and I don't intend to change that now." He reached out his hand. "Just give me the gun and we can sort all of this out."

"Maybe…maybe I should keep the gun, just until we get outside."

"I don't think that's a very good idea, Johnno. It might give the armed officers the wrong impression. Far better for me to have the gun and to be able to tell them that you cooperated with me in here."

"I can't think…I can't think!" Johnno raced over to the wall and ripped the phone cord out, causing the device to fall silent. "I can't think…"

Frank took a deep breath and then got to his feet, causing Johnno to start and point the gun at him again. "All you need to think about is getting out of here in one piece. We both do, and the best way of doing that is you giving me the gun. Every minute you hold me in here makes it that little bit worse so, the sooner you hand it over, the better. Come on…. please…" Johnno met his gaze, his whole body trembling, and Frank took the opportunity to move closer to him, step by step, until his hand was over the gun and he was able to prise it away from the other man. "Well done, Johnno. You made the right call. Your daughter would be proud of you." Johnno's face suddenly crumbled, and he started to sob, his body heaving with the effort. Gingerly, Frank reached out and patted him on the shoulder. "It's all right."

"No…" Johnno shook his head. "It isn't. It can't be. It can't ever be." He looked up and met Frank's gaze. "I'm sorry Mr Burnside."

Before Frank could react, Johnno grabbed the gun from his hand and bolted for the front door. From his position in the living room, he could see, almost in terrible slow motion, the other man open the door and raise his arm, pointing the gun out over the balcony and down to the area below. Shouts followed, along with a sickening crack, and Johnno fell to the ground.

He stood, rooted to the spot, as other armed officers swarmed into the flat, checking the remaining rooms and shouting commands to one another. One of them approached him, talking and asking him questions that he didn't understand and couldn't seem to find the words to answer. Then he felt himself being propelled through the flat and out the front door, his feet almost tripping over Johnno's lifeless body as it lay in a pool of expanding blood.

"Frank!" Looking up, he saw Derek hurrying along the balcony towards him. "You all right?"

"I'm fine sir."

"Nasty business."

"Yes sir." He glanced behind him, a terrible feeling of regret washing over him. "They didn't have to shoot him."

"Eh?"

"I said, they didn't have to shoot him."

Derek patted him on the arm, "Yes, they did, Frank. Yes, they did."

XXXX

Darkness had fallen, the last day of the nineteen eighties was drawing to an end and Christina found herself back at the station, climbing the stairs towards the CID office. She had called Stewart and told him that she didn't feel up to attending the party at the Regent Hotel, half expecting him to be furious. On the contrary, he had been perfectly pleasant about the whole thing, enquired as to whether she was all right after her ordeal and asked if she wouldn't mind if he at least made an appearance, promising not to be too late home. In all the circumstances, she had found herself equally relieved and had therefore agreed.

She had had no time to speak with Frank after the siege had ended and Johnno's body had been carted away. The others had all gone, off to their various celebrations, but she had known that she would find him here, so the sight of him sitting alone in his office, his desk lamp providing the only light came as no surprise. When she tapped softly on the door and he looked up to meet her gaze, she realised that he didn't look surprised to see her either.

"Come to check on me?" he asked by way of greeting.

"I suppose so." She sat down in the chair opposite him, thinking over what she had been intending to say and wondering if she should. It all seemed so familiar, so like the night she had sat with him when he had called Tracy's parents in Australia and yet, so different. "I'm sorry about what happened to Johnno."

"Yeah, well…"

"You should have let me stay."

"Where?"

"In the flat."

"Well, that wouldn't have been a very smart move, would it? One of us needed to get out in order to get help and it was me he was pissed off with, not you."

"Still…"

"Still what?"

"I should…I should have stayed. I could have helped you. Maybe…"

"I didn't need your help," he said tightly. "Besides, having you there would only have been a distraction."

"A distraction? Thanks very much."

"You know what I mean."

"No, I don't," she said, slightly indignant. "I admit, I didn't handle things particularly well in the beginning and…and I wouldn't have been able to come up with all that stuff you said to him before he let me go but…"

"But what?"

"Well, I still could have contributed. I still could have done my job. I don't think it's altogether fair to label me as being so pathetic that I would have been some kind of hinderance."

He raised his eyebrows at her, "Did I say that?"

"Not in so many words but…"

"When I said that you would have been a distraction, I meant that, in that moment, I needed to focus solely on Johnno, connect with him, try to understand where he was coming from. If I was worrying about you at the same time, then I wouldn't have been able to do that."

She blinked. "Worrying about me?"

"Yes, worrying about you. You think I liked the fact he was pointing a gun at you?"

"He was pointing it at both of us, if I remember correctly."

"Yeah well, I wasn't really concerned about myself in that moment."

"Meaning what? You were concerned about me?"

"Disadvantage of rank," he replied, "having to worry about those under your command. Needing to protect them in situations like the one in which we found ourselves."

"So, you would have stepped in front of Jim or Tosh or Mike if it had been them there instead of me? Asked Johnno to let one of them go too?"

He didn't say anything for a long moment. "Instinct. You're a woman. Us men are programmed to protect you. It's primordial. Anyway, I'm going to have to get used to it seeing as I'll be getting another one of you on my team soon."

She frowned, "How do you mean?"

"Martella's put in for a secondment and Conway and Brownlow think we should be trying to attract more women into CID, especially as the dawn of the nineteen nineties is upon us. Apparently, the Metropolitan Police can't remain an old boys club forever."

"Oh…"

"You got a problem with that approach?"

"No, of course not…" she looked away, knowing that it would be churlish to admit that part of her enjoyed her status as the only female in CID. Viv was her friend after all, they would work well together, and it would be good having someone else to cop the inevitable and familiar flack that usually came her way but…she couldn't help but feel a stab of regret at how things would change.

"Don't worry, you'll always be my favourite."

It was as though he had read her mind and when she looked up to meet his gaze again, she fancied that she saw something in his eyes that she knew was most likely matched in her own. There was a sudden stillness to the air, as though someone had thrown a blanket over them, cutting off the oxygen supply to the room. In that moment she knew, rightly or wrongly, that the only place she wanted to be was right there.

"You'll always be my favourite too, Guv."

"Glad to hear it." He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of whisky and two glasses. "You once told me if you drank this, you'd be a mess inside ten minutes." He poured two measures and slid a glass across the desk towards her.

She lifted it and swirled the liquid around, watching as it danced up and down the transparent sides. "I suppose I could make an exception for one night."

"Not going to your party then," he said casually.

"No."

"Well," he leaned across the desk towards her, holding his glass out. "Happy New Year."

Mirroring his movement, she clinked her glass gently against his, "Happy New Year, Guv."