"Oi! Shaz! Tea for fifteen, and some of those little pink biscuits around the plate!" Shaz ground her teeth as Ray... as DI Carling evidently saw fit to use her as a glorified receptionist and tea girl again. With both DCI Hunt and DI Drake gone, there seemed very little point staying in CID these days, except sheer stubbornness. She surely wasn't going to get any recognition from Ray, not unless she started dancing in her knickers on the desks. Shooting the DCI's office a furious glare, she got to her feet and headed off towards the canteen.
It wasn't until she was halfway down the hall before she realized the footsteps behind her were actually overtaking, and she caught a whiff of Chris' familiar aftershave.
"So, um. I was thinking of going to see DI Drake, later today." He stammered, awkwardly, as he caught up to her. It caught her by surprise - both because he thought to do something like that, and because he thought to tell her about it.
"She'd like that, I think." She agreed, quietly, filling the tea kettle and setting it on the burner. "The doctors say she could wake up any time."
That was, actually, an optimistic spin on the situation. The doctors seemed a lot more hopeful months ago, right after the shooting, after the bleeding was stopped and they stopped talking about things like cardiovascular collapse and before she refused to wake up and they started talking about potential oxygen starvation.
"A..and, I was thinking, perhaps we could, I dunno, go together... I mean, we could go as soon as I'm done for the day, it's not like you have anything to do, right?"
Shaz saw red, and only the kettle's sharp insistent whistle kept her from snarling in his face. With angry, abrupt movements she poured the hot water into the teapot and set the leaves to steep, and arranged the biscuits.
"I have filing to do. Go by yourself." She snapped, storming out with the much-hated tea, leaving Chris in her wake. Remind her again why she wants this job?
_________________________________________________________________________
Hospitals always smell horrible - sure, they generally smell clean, but it's that sort of clean you know is hiding death and decay. Carefully she kept out of the way of the bustling staff as she made her way to DI Drake's room, a place she could find by memory at this point. She'd been by every couple days since they first started allowing visitors. Some people say that coma patients could hear people talking, understand them. After everything DI Drake did for her, she couldn't just leave her in the hospital alone.
...
Someone left a melon. Someone left a melon, and let it roll off the table, making a horrible sticky mess next to Drake's bed.
"Someone left bits of melon on the floor, mum, you want me t'clean it up?" She asked, smiling (a bit wanly) at the still figure in the bed before crouching to scoop up the sticky bits of fruit with a paper napkin. That done, with the grinding awfulness of the day weighing down on her shoulders, she studied Drake quietly. Sadly.
"It's not fair." She said, suddenly, not really meaning to but the words just spill out on their own. "You made things better an' then you left us. Now I'm back makin' bloody tea an' biscuits. Should have gotten a job at Peek Freans." She huffed, sighed, and offered the silent DI a smile. "If you came back, I know you'd help me get on in this job. You never did let them get you down, just 'cause you weren't one of the blokes."
DI Drake had no advice to offer. Just like she hasn't for the last couple months. Shaz tried to keep the rest of the visit light to make up for the fit of temper, but somehow it just all left a sour taste in her mouth. What was there to be light about? The newly minted DI Carling was making hash out of that kidnapping case, D'n'C was everywhere, and the most productive thing she did today was clean out the kitchenette attached to CID. After a while she ran out of words, and soon after that sheepishly took herself away again.
______________________________________________________________________
Another day, another grinding bout of humiliation. The idea of finding another job, only half-meant when talking to (at) DI Drake started to feel like more of a possibility, left to answering phones and making tea yet again while the team haphazardly made stabs at the kidnapping case.
Then the door burst open, and the not-quite-bustling CID screeches to a halt.
DCI Hunt.
And DI Drake.
Shaz didn't remember standing, barely heard Chris' startled ramble.
"Mum." And damned if giving your superior officer a hug in the middle of CID is frowned upon. DI Drake was back, and she'd make things better.
____________________________________________________________________
Well. Eventually, perhaps. Right now she's still writing reports for other coppers, answering the phone, and fetching the bloody tea and biscuits, but at least now there's hope.
And there's DI Drake talking into the little radio in the kitchenette. Somehow, in the last couple months, she'd forgotten how strange mum could be. The strangeness doesn't get any less when she asked what being unconscious was like, all those months just lying in that bed - she got the weirdest answer. Now things seemed real, but she wasn't awake. Still, there was something... like hearing a melody you haven't heard for years, but you still know the words.
"Well," She said, not entirely sure why she said it, "Halfway there." She went to refill her coffee mug, but before she could the ragged sob of the kidnapped girl's stepmother sounds behind them both, and the moment is forgotten. For the time being.
__________________________________________________________________
Things actually improved markedly within the first day - Chris, suddenly pushed to move, to find things out, turned to her first to help start cracking the code. They played around with other books, but kept coming back to the Bible, like mum said, trying to figure out what that fourth number could mean. The answer was, of course, blindingly simple once they'd gotten it, but the important thing was she had helped, done something important today, not just filing papers and answering phones. Proper sorts of police work. It's short lived, but...
Better than the last couple months. There's still no hope of going out into the field with DI Drake when things start heating up, or going on the bust, but... maybe, someday. Maybe.
__________________________________________________________________
"Shaz." Her temper was thin, and she snapped back without thinking, or recognizing that the Guv's tone wasn't the normal not-quite-angry-but-getting-there shouting she's heard for years.
"I know Guv, tea for fifteen and I'll put the bobbins on a plate." But she's pulled up short moments later.
"A word." It's... she'd never really heard that from him before, so she went quietly, watching him as he shut the door behind himself and turned to face her.
He could have knocked her down with a feather when he offered her a real job, proper work, not filing or answering phones or holding down a desk but surveillance, in what was obviously an important case. Could it be that finally, finally she was making headway?
_________________________________________________________________
It was an hour before there was any movement at all, but she didn't mind. She'd never done this before, not really (that time a year ago with Chris doesn't count, she was kidnapped then), and the novelty of being out of uniform with a radio in hand was enough to make her practically giddy. When offered the choice of chasing him or chasing her, she chose her, on the Guv's orders - and Mrs. Blonde was the decoy. Furious, she hounded the woman, demanding some clue, some scrap of a clue - if the girl died...
Well. She just doesn't think about that, does she?
At least not until after the girl, Dorothy, is found safe, after DI Drake has come and taken the stepmum away and brought home Mr. Blonde and the once lost little girl, until after the ambulance came and sorted everyone out.
If she'd just picked the other Blonde... or put together that Mrs. Blonde was in on it from the beginning... DI Drake did that. Maybe she's not as cut out for this as she hoped.
She just doesn't think about that either.
______________________________________________________________
"What's on your mind, mum?" The boys are holding their alcoholic pow-wow, and Shaz gravitated towards her self-adopted mentor.
"This team. You, Chris... Ray. You're all on my mind." More of DI Drake's confusion almost-sense, and she offers a baffled half-grin.
"I don't understand."
"No... nor do I. Maybe I'm here to help." Her bafflement turns into a smirk, teasing, fueled a bit by the alcohol.
"The Guv too?" There's something there - it's no secret that the Guv fancies Drake just a bit, though he'd never say a word to her, and Shaz suspects quite a bit that it's not a one-sided attraction.
"He's at the center of all of this." Drake answers quickly, and Shaz frowns.
"Well who's going to help you, then?"
But there isn't an answer to that question.
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