A/N: Set during the episode "Respect, Part Two".

...

"I wanna make a statement."

Mickey looked at Jasmine, sitting huddled in the underpass. The evidence of what those animals had done to her was still visible in the cuts on her face. Her words took him back to that day, sitting in the car with Jack.

"It's been 72 hours."

"Yeah, well I kept the clothes I was wearing."

"Good."

Mickey nodded, then looked down. "It's gonna be hard, Jas." They had the medical evidence, but the defence would probably claim that it was all consensual. The fact that Jasmine had voluntarily got into a car with her attackers the next day wouldn't help.

"I know." Jasmine wiped away another tear. She lifted her head and her voice strengthened. "But I ain't gonna let them get away with it."

If he'd had a daughter, she would probably be like Jasmine. Gobby and utterly fearless. He reached out for her hand and she slipped it into his.

...

"Today was one of the good days. Thank you."

The press conference was over. As the journalists began to depart, the remaining officers started to get back to work or head down the pub. Mickey caught Jack's eye as he headed for the doors and they exchanged a nod. Jack's speech to the press had been unusually emotional. Jasmine's rape and the murder of a young man had got to him too.

Passing through the locker room, he saw Smithy for the first time since they had taken Jasmine's statement together. "You coming down the pub?" Smithy asked.

"I'll catch you up." Mickey told him, heading for the gents.

"Alright, mate."

Once he had returned to CID, Mickey sat at his desk and read through Jasmine's statement again. She still had an ordeal ahead of her, but her strength was palpable just from reading her words. When the other desks had cleared he did something he hadn't done for a while and pulled up Delaney's file on his computer. He stared at the familiar photo, at Delaney's pale face, his empty, innocuous eyes.

He could go days without thinking about Martin now. Days like today, dealing with other victims, obviously brought it all back, but sometimes it re-emerged when Mickey wasn't expecting it, when he was down the pub or washing his hair or working a routine case. Maybe it would always be there, at the back of his mind. Delaney was still serving a life sentence for murder, but Mickey knew all too well what 'life' meant. Delaney would be paroled eventually, maybe in the next few years. He'd have to deal with that when it happened.

The night shift was beginning to arrive just as he was leaving. He could still just about remember his first night at Sun Hill, when he'd thought he was going to conquer the world. If someone had told him then that he would still be a DC in ten years he wouldn't have believed it. Even more amazing was that it didn't bother him. Promotion, power, it was all bollocks. Locking up people like Delaney. Helping people like Jasmine. That was what the job was really about.

Tomorrow, Mickey would be back here, ready for another day's work. Right now, he could do with a drink.