Chapter Text
The autumn afternoon was in full bluster; stronger than usual, and Gill was glad for the warmth of her trench coat as she braved the leaf flurries in the park. The days were growing very short now and she knew she had to get a move on if she was going to get to the post office and home again before dusk settled in. Being alone on the darkening streets of Manchester hadn’t used to make her anxious, but ever since the Helen Incident all her abstract fears somehow seemed to be more prominent, feel more imminent. Despite the nature of her work, she’d once managed to label all those fears of rape and assault and kidnapping as irrational nonsense and flick them away. But now that her rational mind had evidence to the contrary – it DID happen to you; it COULD happen again – it was impossible to quash any anxious thoughts once they’d started to bubble up inside her.
One good thing to have come out of the situation was her newfound appreciation for open spaces. After spending so much of her career in an office, and the longest day of her life belted to the driver’s seat of her own vehicle, having bare sky above her and places to run held more comfort than she’d ever thought possible. Much of her retirement so far had been spent in sturdy walking boots, exploring the natural surrounds and green oases of the city. Her new therapist had promised that if she kept at it, the soothing effect of nature would one day replace the soothing effect of alcohol. She’d scoffed at the time, and it was taking considerably longer than she’d hoped, but on good days, she felt that maybe he was right.
This particular park she was cutting through was small and not often occupied. Today though there was a woman at the far end, pushing a pram that housed, if the crying was anything to go by, a very distraught baby. As Gill got closer, the woman’s form grew more familiar. Tall and slim, long brown hair, a fag in her mouth while muttering curse words as she searched her purse for something that clearly wasn’t there.
‘Rachel bloody Bailey, is that you?’
Rachel looked up in surprise, nearly losing her cigarette as her mouth fell open.
‘Boss!’
‘Didn’t expect to run into you today. Is that yours too, then?’ Gill nodded to the screaming infant with a wry smile.
‘Yeah,’ Rachel replied, suddenly very conscious of the racket. She began to move the pram back and forth in what she hoped would be a soothing manner. Really though, her movements were so jerky with desperation that the crying only intensified. ‘It’s all right, mate,’ she muttered.
‘Does he have a name?’
‘Thomas. Tom. Tommy, whatever. I call him Wailer, because he never bloody shuts up.’
As the surprise of the chance encounter wore off, Gill was able to take better stock of her old sergeant. Rachel wasn’t really dressed for the weather. Her jumper was thin and had baby sick on the shoulder. She wore no makeup and her hair looked a bit lank. Actually, when Gill took in the entirety of her demeanour, she looked absolutely buggered. She was avoiding eye contact and Gill got the feeling that if she’d had the energy, Rachel would have apologised for her appearance five times over by now.
‘Can I’ve a look at him?’ Gill asked cautiously.
‘Sure. Take him for a few days if you like,’ Rachel attempted a small grin. Neither of them were sure if she was joking.
Gill bent down over the pram and peered in at the baby. He wriggled and twisted beneath the buckles, and she took him out to get a better look. He was rugged up well, with a dummy clipped onto his jacket. She tried to put it back into his mouth, and for a few seconds, it worked.
‘It won’t stay in,’ Rachel told her in a defeated voice.
Sure enough, the baby spat it out and began to scream again.
‘Is he hungry?’
‘Nope, fed him twenty minutes ago.’
‘Dirty nappy?’
‘Changed him right after the feed.’
‘Tired?’
‘We’re both tired.’
Gill tried to give him a bit of a cuddle, but the kid wasn’t having it, and it was a long time since she’d held an infant. She shifted her grip to return him to his pram, and it was then that she discovered the river of poo lurking just beneath his jacket.
‘Rachel?’
‘Hmm?’ Rachel blew out a heavy puff of smoke.
‘Your boy’s got a shit explosion up his back.’ She held up her soiled hand as evidence.
‘Oh fuck,’ Rachel exclaimed. ‘Wailer, you just shat on Gill Murray! I’m so sorry, Boss.’
She bent down to rummage through all the gear in the bottom of the pram.
‘And of course I forgot to pack the bloody wipes. Shit. Shit!’
‘Don’t worry, Sherlock,’ Gill dug into her coat with a clean hand, producing a package of pocket tissues. ‘I’ve had worse on my hands than a bit of baby shit.’
‘That’s more than a bit,’ Rachel pointed out, throwing her fag on the ground and grinding it out with the toe of her boot.
‘Yes, well…’ Gill hesitated. ‘Are you in the same flat? From before you went to London?’
‘Mmm,’ Rachel murmured assent.
‘That’s at least a forty minute walk, even with your giraffe legs.’
Rachel nodded again, resigned. ‘Thought a walk’d get him to sleep.’
‘I’m just around the corner,’ Gill told her. ‘Come and put him in the shower.’
‘Oh, Boss, I…’
‘Don’t be idiotic,’ Gill put on her DCI voice. ‘He’ll scream the whole way home lying in that muck. Is my hot water not good enough for you?’
‘Of course not. I just don’t want to be-‘
‘An imposition?’ Gill scoffed. ‘I’m retired, Rachel. What are you imposing on? My cake-baking time?
And before Rachel could offer up any more feeble protest, Gill had positioned herself behind the pram and was pushing the miserable Thomas Bailey towards her house. Rachel stuttered, then followed along obediently.
Gill’s house looked much the same as the one other time Rachel had visited, only then it had been filled with people and now it was still and quiet. Everything was clean and orderly, from the blanket folded neatly and positioned just so over the back of the sofa to the vase of fresh flowers arranged perfectly in the centre of the dining table to the kitchen bench wiped spotless ready for dinner prep.
It was such a contrast to the interior of Rachel’s flat, where the laundry hamper was constantly overflowing, the dishwasher was never emptied, the bin was always full of nappies, and there was a decomposing portion of telegraph cucumber still sitting in the bottom of her fridge from weeks ago. She couldn’t remember cleaning her bathroom since Tommy was born, and she wasn’t confident she’d changed her bedsheets, either. To be honest, she felt the whole parenting gig was a complete disaster.
Gill ushered both of them to the ground floor bathroom where there were fluffy towels and expensive guest toiletries waiting for an occasion just like this one. She told Rachel she’d be back in ten minutes to take the baby so Rachel could have a good soak herself.
And then Rachel was standing in Gill Murray’s bathroom with her screaming son. She looked at the spotless tiles, the clean shower glass, the mirror that didn’t have flecks of rogue toothpaste foam spattered across it, and felt tears welling up inside her. She stripped herself and then Tommy, and stepped into the warm jets, hoping the water would have disguised her tears by the time Gill came back.
She didn’t notice her boy had stopped crying until Gill stepped in after a courtesy knock and commented that he must like the water. Wordlessly, she opened the shower door and passed Tommy to Gill, who was ready with a fresh towel against her chest. Rachel didn’t have the energy to care that she was standing stark naked in front of her old boss, with her post-pregnancy belly and still-fading stretch marks, her red eyes, and all the body hair that had gone ungroomed for weeks. She felt she was struggling just to maintain the energy to keep herself upright.
‘Take your time, Rachel,’ Gill told her, and Rachel recognised her tone as the softest version of her DCI Murray voice. It was a friendly order, for her own good.
As Gill disappeared from the bathroom with the baby, now crying again, Rachel slid down the wall of the shower to sit on the floor beneath the jets. The hot water pounded against her skull and she didn’t try to fight the tears that poured from her eyes with vigour.
At least thirty minutes had passed by the time Rachel emerged from the bathroom, back in her jeans and jersey with the baby sick on the shoulder. She found Tommy asleep on a sheepskin rug near Gill’s space heater with a mostly-empty bottle discarded at his side.
‘I found some formula in your pram,’ Gill volunteered. ‘And I had some boiled water left over in my kettle from my last cuppa. I’ve boiled some more and set it aside to cool in case he wakes up and needs another.’
‘Thank you,’ Rachel murmured, sitting down on the edge of Gill’s sofa. ‘How did you get him to sleep?’
‘I read to him,’ Gill nodded to the bookmarked novel on the coffee table. ‘Apparently Victorian romance novels are dead boring.’
Even in her exhausted state, Rachel couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. ‘Gill Murray reads romance?’
‘Gill Murray reads a lot of things,’ she countered. ‘What’d you pigeonhole me for? Crime dramas and National Geographics?’
‘Well…’
‘You’re not the only one full of surprises, Sherlock,’ Gill glanced down at the sleeping baby. ‘I hadn’t pegged you as the mothering type.’
Rachel gave a humourless laugh. ‘I’m not the mothering type. All this…’ she gestured vaguely to Tommy and the pram. ‘It’s not much like I imagined it.’
‘And how did you imagine it?’
Rachel paused, forcing down a big lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat. ‘Better,’ she croaked out. ‘I imagined it’d be better.’
And Gill watched as tears began to pour down Rachel’s face as it twisted in despair and regret and hopelessness. She’d never seen the sergeant so broken, not even when she thought she’d committed murder.
‘Oh, Rach,’ Gill murmured, moving to her side. She pulled Rachel against her chest and held her in a firm embrace, expecting her to resist. But Rachel had no fight left in her, and slumped against Gill like a ragdoll, tears still coming hard and fast.
‘It’s okay, kid,’ Gill promised, speaking softly into Rachel’s ear. ‘It’s always shit at the start. You have a good cry and a good sleep and let me take the lad when he wakes up again, alright?’
Rachel sobbed harder in response to Gill’s kindness, wanting to protest but not having the strength. One of Gill’s hands began to rub soft circles against Rachel’s back and she felt five years old again, but found herself wishing Gill would continue to do this for hours it felt so nice. Gill looked angular, but she was actually soft, and the scent of her perfume brought back long-ago memories of starting on Syndicate 9. If someone had told her then that one day she’d be ruining DCI Murray’s top with her own tears she’d have ordered them a psych evaluation.
She couldn’t tell if it had been five minutes or two hours when she was stirred awake by Gill trying to gently extricate herself from their position on the sofa. ‘Shhh,’ Gill hushed her when she noticed Rachel blinking. ‘Your boy’s still asleep, get some more rest.’
And when Gill covered her with a blanket, she felt the blissful oblivion of sleep clawing hungrily at her, and gratefully gave herself over to the dream realm.