thanks (the bill)

Ok, this is an alternative ending to last Wednesdays episode (Episode 391) – an ending which I think is much more appropriate, especially for all you sam and phil fans!

I hope you all like it, and please tell me what you think!

Phil knocks back another drink, as Sam walks over to where Terry and Ramani are sat.

“I think we’re gonna have to keep an eye on Phil”, she tells them, taking a seat next to Terry.

“Why’s that?” Terry asks.

“He’s on a mission to get absolutely slaughtered”, she replies, frowning concerned, as she watches him knock back yet another drink.

Terry and Ramani just smile, seeing nothing but the usual Phillip Hunter, king to the ladies and master of drink.

But Sam knew better, she knew all about Cindy and Alfie and even Kate. She knew how much pain he had had to endure over the last couple of months and she had a sinking feeling that Phil was more cut up about Cindy’s leaving than he was admitting, even to himself.

I’ll keep my eye on you Phil, she made a silent promise to him, I’ll make sure you’re ok tonight.

(A couple of hours later . . . )

Most of the relief had left the pub much earlier, with the younger members of uniform aiming to hit some club around the corner. While, the more mature members of CID has been invited, they had politely declined, upon deciding it wasn’t really their scene.

“Well, that’s me”, Terry announced a short while afterwards, getting to his feet.

“Me too”, Ramani said, “I’ve got an early start in the morning. She looked to Terry, “Do you want to share a taxi?”

“Sure”, he replied.

Ramani turned to Sam, “You coming Sam?”

Sam looked over to the bar where Phil had returned, after his brother and his mates had left for the club. “No thanks guys, I’m gonna wait with Phil and make sure he gets home ok.”

Ramani followed her gaze, “Yeah, he has had a lot to drink tonight, You’re sure you’ll be ok?”

“Course I will, I’ll see you both tomorrow ok?”

“Ok, see you then,”

They made their way to the entrance, shouting goodbye to Phil as they left.

He raised his arm as way of acknowledgement, before catching the bartender’s attention, and ordering himself another drink.

Sam approached from behind, and on taking a seat on the bar stool next to Phil’s, asked him, “Haven’t you had enough for one night Phil?”

“Nope”, he replied, without even looking at her.

“Come on Phil”,. She tried again, “I’ll call you a cab”.

“Thanks DS Nixon, but I am quite capable of calling myself a cab when and if I want one ok?”

He made to order another drink.

“Phil, stop it”, she told him, “What’s gotten into you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me”, he told her, “You’re the one with the problem. Why can’t you just leave me alone? Go on home to your perfect little life, go on.”

“Is that what you think?” she asked him. ”That my life is perfect?”

“Well, isn’t it?”

“Are you kidding me?” she challenged, truly stunned by his implications, “Whatever Phil, I was just trying to help you”. She jumped down off the bar stool and turned to leave. “And just for the record, my life happens to, on occasion, suck beyond the telling of it and I just thought maybe I would help someone else with their problems, instead of dealing with my own. I just wanted to let you know you had someone to talk to ok? I’m sorry I bothered you.”
“It hurts to talk Sam, ok? It hurts.”

Sam was surprised that , when she turned round, she could see tears in Phil’s eyes.

All her anger seemed to melt away, looking into his eyes, seeing how much pain he was truly in.

“Is it Cindy?”

Phil just looked back down at his drink on the bar.

“Phil, you two were married for a long time, it’s gonna take time for you to adjust, for things to get back to normal. When someone you love leaves you, it leaves a . . . “

“But that’s the thing, I don’t miss her alright, I don’t care.”

“Phil, this is me, you don’t have to pretend . . . “

“No Sam, don’t you understand, I should be devastated, I know that, but I’m just. . . not. I don’t feel anything, except maybe relief. How awful is that? We were together, on and off, since we were 18, and I feel nothing that she’s gone. What kind of man does that make me?”

He slumped over in his stool. Sam had never seen the great Phillip Hunter look so defeated.

“Phil, you shouldn’t feel bad, she left you remember, and you know what they say: you can have too much of a good thing. Everyone has to move on at some point. Maybe it’s better that you split up now, before it was too late.”

He looked up into her eyes, “You mean before we had kids. Oh God, if that IVF treatment had worked and we’d . . . and she was . . . what about . . .”

Sam wasn’t sure what to say, “Come on Phil, lets get you home, I think you need some sleep. You might feel better in the morning.”

“No, Sam, I’m fine, thanks.”

“Phil, I’m not leaving you here on your own. I’m taking you home.”

“But I don’t have a home anymore Sam. Cindy’s there, and there’s a sofa, but I don’t think I can face her and I asked Steve, but it turned out he had better things to do. I’ll be fine, I’ll find a B and B, or something. Just go home Sam, I’m sorry for all this.”

“Phil, you have nothing to apologise for, and come on”, she told him, wrenching the glass from his hand, placing it out of his reach on the bar, and getting up from her stool, “You’re coming home with me for the night.”

“No, Sam, I can’t”, he protested immediately. “I’ve already put you out enough, and there’s Abi and. . .”

“Don’t be stupid, you haven’t put me out at all, and Abi will be fine about it, trust me. I have a perfectly good spare room, which is going to waste.”

Sam silenced him, just as he looked like he was about to protest further, “And no arguments ok?”

Phil gave in, knowing better than to argue with Samantha Nixon, once she had made her mind up about something. “Can we stop by my place first to pick up some things, Cindy won’t be back from work till later”, he told her, looking at his watch to check the time.

“Sure”, Sam replied, linking her arm with his, leading him out of the pub.

As they waited for a taxi, Phil said “Sam?”

“Yea?”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome”, she told him, both smiling at one another.

i think the bill should consider you to finish off all their scripts properly in future as this is ace!!!

This is brill. And I agree, The Bill definitely need to finish their scripts off

This is brilliant. Is it going to be carried on or not. Gd if it is as I like the starting and I wanna know what happens next.

This is great! please carry it on

ok, well, you said you wanted me to carry on so i have!

but i'm not too sure about this chapter, so i was thinking, i'll see what you all think, and if you agree, i'll delete this, and leave it as like, a one shot ending thing

(hope that makes sense)

Sam shot up in bed like she’d just been shot. Something had woken her up: a loud bang.

For several moments, until she was fully awake, she thought she had a burglar. Then she remembered that she had a guest in the house; a guest who, with all he was going through, probably wouldn’t be sleeping all that well.

She climbed out of bed, slipping on her white silk dressing robe and heading for the door, grabbing a rather chunky, heavy torch from her bedside cabinet on her way out.

Not exactly a lethal weapon, she thought to herself, as she made her way across the landing to open the door to the spare room. It was quite clear that the bed had been slept in, but was now very much empty.

She looked down at the torch in her hand, feeling rather silly.

Better to be safe than sorry she concluded.

Placing the torch on the cupboard just outside her room, she made her way down the stairs to find a very groggy looking Phil sitting at her desk, reading, what looked like yesterdays newspaper.

He was sat with her back to her, and not hearing her come down the stairs caused him to jump when she said “Phil?”

Sam had never seen him move so fast, as he lept up out of his chair, turned to face her and backed away a couple of steps.

Sam couldn’t suppress a little giggle, “You’re not scared of me Mr Hunter are you?”

Phil was too wound up to see the funny side, and managed to splutter out, “Sam? What’cha doing? Going round, sneaking up on people. You’ll give someone a heart attack.”

Sam just laughed now, incapable of thinking up a suitable comeback, for funniness of the situation. “Whatever Phil. What the hell are you doing down here in the middle of the night, reading last nights newspaper.”

“Couldn’t sleep”, he replied, shrugging and sitting back down.

“Sorry, I guess that was pretty obvious”, she replied, “You want to talk about it?”

“Nothing to talk about really”, he told her, “I just. . .”, he shrugged again, “I dunno.”

Sam gestured towards the newspaper in front of Phil, trying to change the subject, “Abi’s been collecting articles for her university course.”

“Wondered why some of the pages were missing. I thought maybe someone had gone a little crazy scissor happy.” He looked up at her with a cheeky smile.

“What exactly are you trying to imply Phil?” Sam questioned him with a raised eyebrow,

Phil smiled again, “Me? Nothing.”

They both laughed a little.

“You want a coffee?” Sam asked him.

“Sure, thanks”, Phil replied.

Sam went through to the kitchen to make the drinks.

THE NEXT MORNING, BACK AT SUN HILL CID . . .

Jo was sat on the end of Zain’s desk, chewing the lid of a pen, as they working on a burglary case. She just happened to be looking out of the window, when she saw Sam’s car pull into the car park. She couldn’t believe her eyes when Sam got out of the car with Phil.

“Hey, Zain, look, quick, you’ll never guess who’s come to work with Sam this morning?”

Terry was sat at his own desk, not too far away, “I’ll take a wild guess and say Phil.”

Jo turned to look at him, a look of confusion on her face, “How the hell did you know that?”

“Well”, he replied, “we were in the pub last night, and Phil was pretty drunk. Sam said she’d stay and make sure he got home ok.”

“Well, it doesn’t look like she dropped him off at his own home”, Jo said, with a hint of mischief. “Does this mean Sam and Phil are a couple then?”

“About bloody time, I say”, Terry concluded, just as the newly appointed ‘couple’ walked through the doors.

Sam could feel people staring the minute she walked into the office. She noticed where Jo was sat, and realised that she had probably seen, and then told everyone in the office, that her and Phil had come in together that morning.

Usually, that kind of thing would bother her, but not this morning: she hadn’t done anything wrong.

She walked over to Phil’s desk with him, and once they were out of earshot, asked him “Are you sure you’re ready to be here Phil, I’m sure the DCI would understand.”

Phil touched her arm and smiled, “I know Sam, but I’m fine.”

At her unconvinced expression, he continued, “I need to be here, it’ll help take my mind off things.”

“Ok, but if you need anything you just let me know ok?”

“Thanks Sam.”

A FEW HOURS LATER . . .

Sam was just emerging from an interview room, where she’d successfully forced a confession from a local drug dealer, when Inspector Gina Gold, probably her most valued friend at the station, poked her head out from around her office door and gestured for her to come in.

“What can I do for you Gina?” Sam asked.

Gina sat down, gesturing for Sam to do the same. “Well, actually, it’s more what I can do for you”, she told Sam.

Sam was confused, “Sorry, you’ve lost me.”

“You know what it’s like around here Sam, people gossiping. Lets just say news travels fast.”

Sam couldn’t help but grin, suddenly realising what Gina was talking about. “You saw me and Phil come to work this morning.”

“Well, actually, no, I didn’t, but a lot of your colleagues did, and . . . well, it seems to be a topic of interesting conversation for many at the moment.”

Sam simply shrugged, “Let ‘em talk.”

“Just thought I’d give you a heads up.”

There was a few moments of silence, before curiosity got the better of Gina, “So, is there anything going on that I should know about?”

Sam stifled a giggle, before shaking her head alittle and replying, “No, Gina, it’s really no big deal. Phil was pretty drunk last night, so I offered to take him home, but then he didn’t want to stay at home because of Cindy, so I said he could stay at mine.”

Gina raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“And he slept in the spare room, and it seemed pointless to travel in separate cars this morning, so I offered him a lift. Like I said, it’s really no big deal.”

“Sam you’ve said that so many times in the space of ooo, about 5 minutes, I wonder if you ‘re trying to convince yourself.”

“It was just . . . nice.”

Now Gina raised both eyebrows. “Nice?”

“We talked . . . pretty much all night really. About everything. It’s just like”, she paused, “Never mind.”

“Go on”, Gina probed.

“Well, it’s just like, Phil’s got this different, almost sensitive side to him, but it keeps it so well hidden, he doesn’t like people to see it, to let people think he’s vunerable.”

Gina was about to respond when there was a knock at the door. She turned back to Sam, “We’ll finish this later”, she told her, as she got up and opened the door, revealing PC Roger Valentine standing at the door.

“Come in”, she told him as Sam left to make her way back up to CID.

Love it, I love Phil's sensitive and slightly vulnerable side, makes you just wanna hug him

You keep saying about hugging Phil chicken. Maybe your dreaming about you huggig Phil. :hmm: lol. Love the part of the story, I forbid you to delete it and keep the story as a one shot. Absolutely forbit it. Joke, it's up to you but I'll be sad if you do delete it and don't carry it on.

Yeah definately don't deleate it! Actually, keep going, if its not to much trouble :)

Of course I dream about hugging Phil :D Who doesn't? :P