Disclaimer: Anything recognisable belongs to Val McDermid and/or Coastal Productions.
Rescued
The darkness in his flat is unnerving.
She can only just make out the slope of his shoulders in the yellow cast of the streetlights beyond the window.
"Tony?"
"Alex?"
She should've come back straight away. She should never have listened to Kevin, or Tony himself for that matter; she should've come home immediately, then maybe he wouldn't be sitting in the dark.
He looks like he hasn't eaten a decent meal in a week, hasn't shaved or combed his hair either. He looks tired, and impossibly handsome, and she finds herself picking her way through the piles of books and papers and assorted academic accoutrements scattered around, moving toward him in the dark, outstretching her arms.
If he is surprised to find her arms twined around his neck he doesn't show it; he merely smoothes a hand over her hair, turns his face into her cheek and sighs.
She's never hugged him before. He smells of soap and leather and laundry starch and skin and books and parchment; utterly familiar and unexpected at once. His stubbled cheek brushed against hers, sending tremors over her skin.
"Oh, Alex." He murmurs into her neck, twisting his fingers in the rope of her hair. "I've missed you."
She swallows, green eyes flying open and her breath catching in her throat.
"I'm sorry, Tony. I should've come home earlier."
He draws back, holding her at arms' length, his skittish eyes skipping over her face, her crumpled white shirt and flushed cheeks.
"No, Alex, you needed to stay, for your father. And yourself." His hands slip free of her, and he rumples his hair and slumps back into the desk chair, flicking on the lamp.
"Dad's at home with Ben. He's going to stay with us for a while."
"Good, that's good, Alex. You should both be supporting each other."
She sits carefully on the edge of the desk, closer to Tony than she should be, the academic, almost-dusty smell of him surrounding her.
"We'll be fine. How're you?"
He gives her a half-smile, lopsided, a flash of light in his copper-sulfate eyes.
"I'll be fine, Alex. I'm better already, now you're here."
She smiles too, daring to lay her hand on his shoulder.
"Tony... You owe me dinner."
He looks up at her, smiling again, too handsome for words.
"I suppose I do."
"Not tonight, though. Come on."
She stands, tugging her coat a little tighter. Tony stands alongside her, remarkably complacent
"Where are we going?"
"I'm going to make sure you eat a decent meal. Besides, Ben wants to see you."
"Does he?"
He sounds surprised. She can't understand how he can be such a brilliant psychologist and still miss the way her son's eyes follow him around a room, the way she will make any excuse she can to touch him; to brush dust from his shoulder, to tug his collar into place, to squeeze his forearm or reach out a hand to help him up. He doesn't see any of it, he is oblivious to the effect her has on her, on Ben.
"Let's go, Tony." She pulls his jacket from the back of the chair and helps him shrug into it, her fingers lingering longer than necessary, her eyes resting on plane of his back as she follows him to the door.