A/N: Well, after writing for Sherlock, I guess it was only a matter of time until a CP fic appeared; although to tell you the truth, I'm a bit of a radio comedy nut and I had listened to it before I even saw Sherlock… I just didn't think much of it until some friends and my sister persuaded me to give it another try, and then I fell in love, haha. Then when I heard the song 'Christmas Wrapping' by the Waitresses, I felt it could be the perfect summary of poor old Martin's love life. XD And so a bit of Christmas fluff for you all! Each chapter will be a scene with Martin pondering and a flashback, and I have a few written; but I'm not sure how frequent updates will be. I'm hoping to get it done before Christmas, anyway! So, without further ado…

Chapter One- Tea Shop Encounter

It had not been a good year for Martin Crief. Then again, saying that, it hadn't been any worse than the previous few and significantly better than some he could mention; so perhaps it wasn't as bad as he was sometimes tempted to say. After all, he was a captain, living his dream; just without the pay or respect or the money or nice house and food. But, he thought, it could be worse. It could definitely be worse. For one thing, he wasn't at work this Christmas. Secondly, he wasn't at some dreadful family gathering either. Caitlin had invited him of course, but he hated the long drive and the traffic and the ice on the roads, and then the expectation that one had to be energetic and jolly when all you really wanted to do was nap. This year he had surprised himself by being quite assertive and just saying no, he would be perfectly fine on his own. Martin couldn't remember the last time he had just spent a day at home, doing nothing, without a job with either his van or MJN; and all the students had gone home for the holidays, meaning that, just this once, he was going to have a nice, quiet Christmas and spend all day doing nothing- and thoroughly enjoying it.

Even so, this year there had been Caroline; and the string of disasters that had, naturally, accompanied Martin at every encounter with this amazing woman. It had been almost a year now since he had first met her, he supposed, and wondered where the time had gone. Still, he supposed, a year was time enough; it was time to give up and move on. No, it hadn't been a bad year, he just might have wished for a different ending.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

3rd January, Paris

Martin was in the Louvre. More specifically, he was in the tea shop at the Louvre, largely because he had little interest in art. No, interest was the wrong word; had he been on his own, he would have been quite content to spend a little time wandering around between the paintings. The problem was, he didn't have the knowledge and, as usual, Douglas did. In fact, he had probably only suggested this trip during their stop over so he could show off his public school education while exposing Martin's lack thereof. After half an hour of being humiliated over not knowing his Monet from his Van Gough- something Martin held was of no practical use in daily life- he had slunk off and gone to nurse his bruised ego with a coffee, telling the others to join him later.

He had noticed the young woman in front of him, of course. He couldn't fail to notice her, as she was rather cute; wrapped up in an aviator style duffle coat lined with fleece and a heavy striped scarf, her blond hair caught in places in the coils, as if she had thrown it on without much care. Martin wanted to talk to her, but quickly dismissed it as a very bad idea. He couldn't talk to women, especially not attractive ones, especially not in French. He would settle for simply not making a fool of himself, and concentrated on not tripping over his own feet as they shuffled up the queue. She stepped up to the counter.

"Bonjour." She said, her voice very light, without the deep notes that were peculiar to the French accent. "Je voudrais un café au lait et un morceau de gateau, s'il vous plait."

"Qui est onze euros au total."

The woman looked puzzled and looked in her hand, as if the ten euro note in her hand would suddenly increase. "What, really?" She said, almost to herself. "That much? But I only have ten…"

English. Martin realised, his stomach lurching slightly. She was English, and in trouble, and he had fifteen euros in his wallet. He could step in here, and be gallant, and have an excuse to speak to her, and maybe, just maybe- the woman was fumbling in French now, trying to change her order. Now or never. Even though his mouth had gone completely dry, Martin stepped forward, trying to ignore the panicked thoughts that she might think him nosy or weird, and said:

"Here, let me get that for you." And the woman looked at him in surprise, smiled, and accepted the five euro note he was offering to her. Martin took the change and with it bought his own café au lait, following the woman over to a table. She was rather flustered about the incident.

"I'm so sorry!" She cried, agonised. "Thank you so much, I didn't realise it was going to be so expensive! And then she looked so scary when I didn't have the money and I forgot how to speak French so I couldn't amend the order and-"

"Oh no." Martin said, hurriedly. "No, no, don't worry, that's fine, absolutely fine." He couldn't help but think this was all going rather well. It turned out that seeing how flustered she was stopped him from being flustered himself; and here he was, about to have coffee with a beautiful woman, in the romance capital of the world and- as a quick glance around confirmed- Douglas was nowhere to be seen. This year was off to a rather good start. "I'm Martin!" He blurted.

"Caroline." She said. "Nice to meet you, Martin."

"S-so you're English, Caroline?"

"That's right."

"A-and, you live in England?"

"Yes?" She was looking at him now, slightly confused. Martin immediately back pedalled.

"I, I just mean sometimes people live out here, in France, or, or in other places, even though they're English and used to live in England."

"Well, I live in England." She chuckled.

"Whereabouts in England?" Martin asked, then realised this might sound stalkerish rather than the intended friendliness, so quickly amended: "Roughly! I mean, just… whereabouts. I don't need to know where you live or- oh, no, that sounds worse."

"No, it's fine." Caroline was trying not to laugh, he could tell by the way she was hiding her lips behind her coffee cup, sipping at it. "I live in a place called Fitton. You probably won't have heard of it, it's in the Midlands, sort of near Coventry…"

Martin thought his heart had stopped and for a moment, he couldn't speak. His thoughts seemed to be similarly stalled, stuck in a loop: She lives in Fitton. Nobody lives in Fitton. But she does. She lives in Fitton. But nobody lives in Fitton…

"…Martin?"

"W-what did you say it was called again?"

"Hmm? Fitton. Near-ish Coventry."

Martin tried to swallow his excitement. Now he had to go for it. Something like this, he could almost believe to be a sign; a sign that perhaps, finally, his luck was changing. Somehow the thought gave him confidence, and he could converse almost normally, about what a coincidence it was, and what a small world it was, and how it didn't matter what country you were in, museum tea shops always charged an outrageous amount, and they laughed. Martin asked what brought her to Paris and she said she was here with her mother on a weekend break, but had managed to slip away. She had done a degree in Art History and had always wanted to visit the Louvre; Martin pretended to know something about art and she caught him out in less than a minute, and they laughed. She asked if he travelled a lot, and he told her he was a pilot, a captain. She was suitably impressed, and, to Martin's delight, had an uncle who was a pilot and so knew one or two of the technical details; just enough to ask him questions. Martin didn't think it could be going any better, especially as she got a bit giggly when he used flight terms, and if he didn't know any better, he would have thought she found it attractive.

And then, naturally, it turned out the uncle in question was Douglas; and this Caroline was in fact Caroline Richardson, and it was hard to say whether Douglas was more surprised to bump into her in Paris or to find her having coffee with Martin. At any rate, he didn't look terribly pleased, and the whole thing seemed to come crashing down around Martin's ears. After all, Caroline was beautiful, educated, cultured, rich and related to Douglas; in short, off limits to an unpaid pilot whose only income was moving other people's stuff in his dad's van. His confidence ebbed away, and as Caroline and Douglas caught up, Martin got quieter and quieter, sure he was blushing in shame and anticipation of what Douglas was going to say to him when they were back on the plane.

But then, a miracle occurred. He and Douglas were standing to leave, putting their coats back on, intending to go and find Arthur and head back to the hotel, when suddenly Caroline spoke to Martin again.

"Martin!" She blurted. "Um… I…" She was going red, Martin noticed, and avoiding looking at her uncle. "Can I take your number? J-just so I can sort out paying you back…"

"Oh! No, no, you don't need to pay me back, it's really fine…"

"Oh… okay. That's fine. Thank you."

"Um, Martin." Douglas coughed, and Martin suddenly realised what he had done.

"Ah! No! Um, I mean… well, you don't have to pay me back but… but you could have my number. If you like. I mean, it would be great to talk to you again. Oh! Not that I'm saying you want to talk to me-"

"Martin." Douglas said, impatient now. Martin, knowing he was blushing furiously again, wrote his number on the back of the receipt for his coffee, and Caroline took it and folded it carefully into her purse. Carefully. As if she didn't want to lose it.

It was fair to say that, in the end, Martin left the Louvre in a far better mood than he had entered it in.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooo

A/N: So, it transpires I've been hearing the lyrics wrong all this time and it's actually 'ski shop' not 'tea shop', but I thought this worked better for the story and kept it. Still… oops. XD Also, yes, Caroline has a deliberately similar name to Carolyn; it'll come up later ;) Hope you enjoyed!