Social hour. (for mattdevlin)

[stleonardsgirl]

Martina was not the kind to really go out and date. Tony went out, and hung out with his friends, and might have actually had a girlfriend. Not that Martina noticed or cared. Or that they talked much about such things. But when she told her young partner that she had dinner plans in London, he was all too happy to accomodate her. She couldn't help

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[mattdevlin]

Matt was maybe running just a little bit late. It served him right for asking Ronnie to drop him off. It probably would have been quicker taking a cab. It had been a hectic day; one of those sorts where they spent the entire time running around chasing dead ends and not really ending up in any better position than when they started the day. The whole current case seemed like that. It was looking less and less like they were going to find their answers, too.

He entered the restaurant and glanced around. It was nice. Not somewhere he had dined before, either, and the atmosphere was a distinct contrast to the chilled, damp weather London was offering outside. He was greeted by the maître d' and Matt shrugged off his coat and scarf, giving Martina's name in hopes that was what she booked the table under. When he was led over to where she was seated, Matt smiled apologetically. "Sorry I'm late," he told her. "Londond traffic is never on our side."

[stleonardsgirl]

"Don't worry about it. I deal with the same stuff in Wales, albeit not as badly," she said with a smile. Martina could actually be a pretty cheerful person if she was in the right company; it was just the work and the outdated attitudes of her colleagues that tended to grate on her nerves. "So how was your day?" she said. Seemed a good place to start the conversation.

[mattdevlin]

Matt draped his coat and scarf over the back of his chair and smiled in thanks up at the maître d' once he was seated and ordered a half pint of lager to drink. It was actually nice to get a seat that wasn't at his desk and he laughed. "Hectic and useless all at the same time. Running around in circles trying to do everything but really succeeding in nothing," he said wryly. "Probably a typical day in our unit. It's actually nice to get away from it for awhile."

[stleonardsgirl]

"I know that feeling." She nodded a little, her lips curling in a grim smile. She and Tony had been working for months trying to investigate the bombing in Cardiff Bay, and then with everything that had happened at Downing Street with the 456...it was all just a clusterfuck trying to pick up the pieces. "I don't think we'll ever know exactly what happened at Cardiff Bay. We've been working for months and we just keep hitting dead end after dead end. I'm not used to failure."

[mattdevlin]

Matt nodded in understanding. He knew the feeling too well. "Second only to working a case for months, nailing the bastard, and then having him or her get off in court on a technicality. I love my job, but some days, the system is just screwed," he said with a small snort. "I know how it is to be stuck on high profile cases, though. I work with the Major Investigations Unit. TV cameras and media seem to be part of the staple diet, and no less pains in the arse. Failure, well... it's never an easy pill to swallow. My partner has helped me realise it's inevitable some days, though."

[stleonardsgirl]

"We've been dealing with this insane mess...a bomb exploded near the Bay. Then there's all these nasty rumors about conspiracies and child abductions and...I can't even begin to explain it to you in a way that makes sense." She laughed. "This is how bad it's gotten, my partner was actually happy for me when I told him I was leaving him with the paperwork so we could go out. He really thinks I need a life."

[mattdevlin]

Matt scratched his head with a laugh. "Aye, so does mine. Monotonously and often irritatingly. He thinks he's beyond it, but I'm not a lost cause yet. It's not that I have a bad track record, it's just finding the time. I mostly seem to have witnesses these days cracking onto me and that is a whole other potential Code of Ethics issue I am happy to keep my nose out of."

[stleonardsgirl]

She snickered at that. "The sad thing is it's not just Tony. My old partner, Mike, he used to say the same thing too. I'm glad that they care but it just makes me feel all the more pathetic that I can't keep a decent man. Hard to meet people let alone give them the attention they deserve when you're working ten or twelve hour days, you know?" she said. "And I'm not getting any younger."

[mattdevlin]

"No," Matt agreed with a shake of his head as his drink arrived. He offered a small thanks to the waiter and took a sip of the lager. "That's the thing. Some days, you wake up and wonder if maybe you should slot some time into the schedule to actually get a life, settle down, get married, have kids. But finding the time to find the time never seems to come off and you just slot it back into the maybe pile. Vicious cycle."

[stleonardsgirl]

She nodded slightly. "I don't know about the kids but I have to admit the rest of it sounds nice," she said. "I find myself jealous of the boy some days. He's always going out with his mates, his girlfriend...and then you have me, getting older still sitting round. I at least, for fuck's sake, need to get laid." A pause as she realized how that sounded. "I swear if I were flirting with you it would be less blunt."

[mattdevlin]

Matt gave a slight shrug as he set his glass down again. "Kids are something that have always sort of been at the back of my mind as one of those 'one day' things. Then all of a sudden you wake up on the morning of your thirtieth birthday and wonder where all the days went. I can't say I have much paternal instinct yet. I mostly just see some of the kids we investigate and wonder why the hell anyone would want to procreate and deal with that."

He laughed and held up his hand. "It's okay. I understand. A good shag can usually keep us going for months. Probably another of those 'one day' things, just shorter term. You don't realise how long you've gone until you actually stop and count back the days. Sex is the easy part, really."

[stleonardsgirl]

"In a sense." She laughed. "I've had a crappy time with relationships. I was madly in love with this guy about 15 years older than me, my parents ended up disowning me when I chose him over them. And of course inevitably it didn't quite work out and...here we are. Now I'm babysitting metaphorically of course."

[mattdevlin]

"Wow," Matt commented quietly. "Disowning you over a relationship, that's harsh. I'm sorry you had to go through that. I've had a few relationships that were mostly average. My work hours just weren't compatible, another one couldn't handle the fact I was coming in contact with corpses for a living and the relationship ended. Another couple of brief flings, and here I am still single. Some days when I go home wrecked or in a bad mood from what I've been dealing with, I have to wonder if it's a blessing to be single sometimes."

[stleonardsgirl]

"Well, in retrospect I can't say as I blame them, I was in high school and he was out of college already." She chuckled. "I don't know, really. On one hand there's less damage to the people around you, on the other it really is nice to have someone who gives a damn and has your back when you need it."