A/N

Hi all,
This is my first Silk fic, although I have a couple more on the go. It's going to be a multi-chapter, but I'm not sure how long yet.

This starts in Series 3, Episode 1, after Billy leaves Martha and Clive alone working late. There are spoilers for that episode, including the first scene. I have taken some dialogue from the show, and I hope I've copied it correctly. I'm not sure of the actual timeline, so I've made one up for the story. The first day/evening is a Thursday and it continues from there. Clive's Silk party was on the Monday night.

I hope you like what I have written, happy reading!

(Aside - I definitely think there is far too little Martha/Clive fic around, and I ship them massively, so if you're even contemplating writing, go on! Do it! I would love to see a fic following on from the final episode, with Clive apologising to Martha for sleeping with Harriet, and then something happening between them. Harriet and Clive is a big no in my world! So, you can consider that a prompt if you would like to!)

"Like the early days," Billy commented from the doorway, bottle of Scotch in hand "You two up half the night with a bottle of Scotch, couple of street robberies I'd killed myself to clerk you into, remember?".
Clive looked up from his desk, "Higher stakes tomorrow Billy. If only it was just a robbery," he sighed, head resting against one hand.

Martha skipped through some papers, talking through what she was reading aloud, both men watching her.

Billy smiled, he would always watch over them, these two barrister he'd known from the beginning. He'd helped them, mentored them, found them work and been their friend and confidant. He would carry on doing as much as he could for them, as long as he was at Shoe Lane.

"Night Miss," he was unsurprised when Martha didn't raise her head, she was already back in the world of the police notebooks in front of her.
Placing the bottle on Clive's desk, Billy nodded to him, "Night Sir".

The barrister nodded back and Billy slipped out of the door, leaving the two alone again.

The door clicked shut and the noise pulled Martha out of the internal monologue she had been going through, lifting her eyes to glance at Clive across the room. She expected him to speak, say something about the early days Billy had mentioned, but nothing came. He had been right, there had been numerous nights like that. The two of them, lit only by their computer screens and the old fashioned lights on the wall, working like mad so they felt ready enough to face court the following day. Scotch, sometimes port, was often involved, they rarely left early enough to make it to the pub, so in the end they stopped bothering to try and just drank in the office.
Every night like that, Martha remembered, followed the same pattern. Come out of court, back to Shoe Lane and have a quick chat with whoever was around or be handed a new brief by Billy and back to the desk. Some days would feature a quick snack, grabbed on the way back to chambers and eaten while working or chatting, catching up on the days events of the others in Shoe Lane. From there on it was just work - the rustling of papers and the tapping on keyboards as they worked, mostly in silence. It was only when one of them reached a sticking point or needed to fetch something that they spoke, usually a plea for a second set of eyes over some paperwork or a response to an outburst of swear words blurted out in frustration, sometimes an offer to pick up something from another room or the printer. It was only then, when one of them left their desk, that a bottle was opened, glasses were picked up from their table by the door and work paused. A break from work made them chattier, they would talk about their work, help each other out, or beg the other to talk about something completely different. There wasn't always alcohol, sometimes they would brew coffee to keep them awake or warm up, some days it would just be water or nothing at all. A few times (in their very early days) they had ordered food, delivery pizza, usually pepperoni to share. Those evenings were always followed by mornings of people complaining of a stale tangy smell in chambers. They were never found out and never admitted it, but quickly stopped those orders.

It was from that point, the break or that second or even third glass, where the evenings stopped following the same pattern. A glass or two of drink didn't always signal the end of work for the evening, often it was just an interlude and they would continue on after half an hour. More than once, when work had carried on again, one or both of them had fallen asleep at their desk, only woken by the sun invading the dull office, or the cleaners hauling open the heavy main doors upstairs. Other times they would leave, one never stayed with out the other, each falling into a cab to grab as much sleep as possible before the morning appeared and another day started. Occasionally they worked straight through the night, no sleep, no food, and then ploughed straight into another day. And then there were thoseevenings, Martha could recall them clearly, as she could all of them, perhaps moreclearly. Sometimes he started them; he would stand behind her, leaning over her shoulder as she worked until she gave in, tipping her head back so he could whisper in her ear or drop kisses on her neck. Other times she would start it, perching on the edge of his desk, sipping Scotch until he turned his attention away from the computer and took the glass from her hand as she hooked an ankle around his leg and pulled him closer, until she could lean down and kiss him.

Idly, Martha wondered what sort of evening this one would turn out to be. She barely caught herself before her thoughts turned towhichtype of evening she wanted it to be, shaking her head and letting out a huff of air. She could feel a slight flush creeping up her cheeks as she tried to focus back on the work at hand, she was right in the middle of a case, for gods sake! it should be a work late, one drink and home alone night.

Clive had paused in his work, stopped highlighting panels and sentences that would probably come in useful the next day in court. He watched her without her noticing, he could see she had stopped reading, knew her well enough to be able to tell that she wasn't concentrating on the text in front of her. He wondered what had stopped her from working, what thoughts made her eyes cease to flicker across the paper and her hand stop flexing the pen she held. He turned his head away from her, catching sight of the bottle Billy had left as he returned his focus to the computer. The bottle was familiar, a brand they used to drink, in the days Billy had remembered. Clive was fairly sure he could move through the years of their time at Shoe Lane by the alcohol they drank as easily as he could by the people who had worked there. Billy hadn't left a replacement of the nearly empty one in the cabinet, nor one from when they first started. Black Grouse, Clive remembered, had come back with someone from a holiday in America, and out of the people in chambers at the time, himself and Martha were the only ones who didn't mind it. She had found somewhere to buy it in London and it became their late night work drink for some time. His mind drifted back to those earlier years, all the nights they had worked late and drank late and gone home late, sometimes separately, other times together. It had been some time, he mused, that they had even been in this situation - together, late in the office - let alone a different type of end to a day.

His gaze shifted again, from the bottle to her. He caught the end of movement, her hair settling against her head, slightly ruffled, and noticed the blush spreading across her face. She had always blushed easily, he made a game out of seeing how often he could turn her porcelain skin rose-coloured just with a comment or a certain look. As he watched her focus again he realised what had caused it this time - he wasn't the only one reminiscing. Bloody Billy, he thought, although the thought was almost immediately followed by something akin to gratitude. Billy, their clerk for fifteen years, knew them better than they did themselves and really, it shouldn't come as a surprise that he probably knew something about Clive's declaration of love to Martha earlier in the week, even if he hadn't been at the party. Maybe this was his way of trying to push them together, he had always looked out for their happiness after all.

With the realisation swimming in his head, Clive tried to turn his attention back to his work. Their work, really, they were working this one together and he really needed to pull his weight. He reasoned with himself, another hours work and then he could have a drink, see how that played out between them.

Martha groaned, pushed her hand through her already messy hair and grumbled aloud, "Nothing, not one note about why those six coppers went in".

Clive looked up, "What? What are you reading?"

"Copies of the police notebooks, there's nothing about why they went in there, not even from the bronze commander," she explained with a sigh.

He nodded, "What do you reckon happened then?"

Another ruffle of her hair before she spoke, "The saw him taking those embarrassing photos, just went, come on then, lets get him. And that's why there's no record in the notebook".

Clive nodded, "Yeah, maybe," he paused, "Drink?"

He fetched two tumblers from the cabinet and poured a reasonable amount in each. Martha made no attempt to get up from her chair, so he picked up both glasses and carried them to her desk, perching on a section which was clear of paperwork in an unconscious imitation of the way she used to sit on his own desk.
She took the offered glass with a smile and a nod of thanks.