Author's usual notes and disclaimer: I don't own any of the original characters nor the original Inspector Lynley Mysteries – they belong to Elizabeth George and the BBC. I have borrowed the characters from the TV-Show and solely own the ideas of my stories and the developments I've let them go through.

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Author's note and summary: Winston tells Barbara a secret and gives an advice. What will she make of it? A little something I had to write to get it out of my head. Enjoy...

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Move in with him

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DC Winston Nkata had just returned from DI Lynley's office. He tossed a file onto DS Barbara Havers' desk and moaned in annoyance. She looked up from her task at the computer with a quizzical expression.

"You should move in with him!" Winston said.

Barbara frowned. "What?!"

"You should move in with Lynley."

"You are drunk."

"No, seriously, Barbara, I can't stand it anymore."

"What?"

"Didn't you recognise it?"

"You're talking in riddles, Winnie, what should I have recognised?"

"He's tired. He's edgy. He's unbearable." Winston gave a short laugh. "Well, at least to us common humans, not towards you obviously."

"Constable, when you don't start explaining your crazy suggestion I'm going to report you!"

The Constable sighed. "For weeks he's taking care that you're safe."

"Safe?" Barbara had no clue what Nkata was talking about. It slowly became annoying.

Winston nodded his head. "At home. In your flat."

"Winnie...!" Barbara warned him.

"I can't believe you've recognised nothing." Winston plonked himself down on the additional chair next to Barbara's desk. He groaned and scratched his forehead with thumb and index finger. "It all has started when we've had these three murdered women. At first he only has secretly seconded a uniformed observation team - PC Stratton has revealed it to me, he had owed him a favour. But Lynley couldn't have sent them for longer without any explanations or without making it official. That's why he's started to have an eye on you himself after we've had the fourth woman lying on Lafferty's morgue slab. It all turned even worse when you were attacked by that pimp during the interview-"

"As if that hasn't happened before. From time to time it just-"

"...and your car had been scratch-marked with 'police bitch'-"

"Oh, please, Winnie!" Barbara rolled her eyes. "I've had the sign displayed. It clearly was a police car! And it stood in front of a well-known disreputable dive bar! That's why I had insisted on taking mine when we drove there, and not his-"

"...and then that night when Marco had visited you. And even stayed there over night! Lynley's almost-"

"Marco's gay, Winnie!" Barbara snorted. She knew that the Constable knew that already.

"But Lynley doesn't know! Anyway, Barb, and even if you have a proper explanation why you weren't in any danger at any time - since all that had happened he has spent almost every night in his car in front of your house."

"No!" Barbara slightly blanched. With disbelief she looked at Winston trying to find out if he was mocking her. Recently she had recognised dark bags under small tired eyes in Tommy's face but she could not believe that he has kept watch over her sleep. Winston just nodded. "He hasn't." she whispered.

"Oh, yes, he has." Winston emphasised it with a distinct nod. "And he hasn't slept properly for nearly a month. That naturally has an effect on him. He's tired out. He makes weird decisions, he gives strange orders. He only barks and bellows his orders. You may not have recognised that, he never would do that to you. Of course not. But the mood among us others has reached a very low level under his harsh regime. This has to stop!"

"Why should he do that?" Barbara quietly asked.

"Stopping it?"

"No..." She looked to the ground. "Watching over me."

Now Winston stared at her. He could not believe that she really had asked it. "Are you that blind? Go ask yourself what's going on between you and the DI..." He shook his head.

Nothing! Barbara thought. Unfortunately nothing...

"That's stupid, Winnie. He's surely not parking in front of my house! Yeah, it's true, after work he's brought me home a lot lately. Or picked me up in the morning. We're... good friends." Winston rolled his eyes indicating that he thought there was more to it. "But I've never seen his car parking anywhere near my flat."

"He's taken different cars from the pool." the Constable explained.

Barbara narrowed her eyes. "You've seen too many gangster films, Winnie."

Suddenly the door to Lynley's office went open. "Constable? Could you please come back into my office?" It was a polite sentence but there was no politeness in the DI's voice, Barbara recognised it now that she had listened closely to his tone. In actual fact his question was more an order that left no room for objections. "And quick, please."

Winston secretly groaned and heaved himself up from the chair. "Unbearable..." he muttered under his breath.

Several minutes later he returned from Lynley's office. Barbara, although a bit distracted by Winston's hints from earlier, still was working at her computer. Her colleague had a pile of manila folders in his arms when he walked past her desk. His face was grim and even angrier than before.

Barbara looked up. Winston checked his watch.

"I'll bring that down to the vice squad." He rolled his eyes and made a head shaking gesture towards the now closed office door. Barbara knew it was one of the DI's weird orders. There were other colleagues for these kinds of simple tasks. "He still has to work longer, he's said. I've told him that I'll bring you home safely after work."

Barbara rolled her eyes once more. "You don't have to."

"Fancy a pint then?" Winston already was on his way to bring the files to the office on the other floor.

She smiled. They had not been out together for quite some time now that Winston had a new girlfriend. A pint with him would be nice to catch up on things. "Yah, sure. At the Dragon?"

"No, I'll buy some cans on the way to yours. I'm a bit short of money recently."

After a long day at work they had bought a six-pack of small beer cans and two pizzas at the takeaway shop before they reached her home. It already was dark when Barbara opened her door. There was a quiz show on the telly and Barbara enjoyed the evening with her colleague very much. They guessed with the players on TV and laughed a lot.

"Another one?" Winston raised his empty can.

Barbara nodded. "It's darts, you idiot!" she shouted at the TV. Laughing Winston went to the fridge in the kitchen.

"A silver Peugot." he said when he had returned and handed Barbara the beer.

"Huh?" Barbara almost did not take her eyes off the screen where a young woman in a very short dress and with too much make-up was making a fool of herself. "She knows nothing. I wonder how she had come this far."

Winston grinned but ignored the show. "Tonight it's a silver Peugeot 206 and he parks in front of the untended front garden."

Now he had her full attention. "What?"

"Go and see for yourself." Winston slumped onto the sofa next to her and grinned even more. "You could wave hello to Lynley."

Confused Barbara looked at him. She still could not believe what Winnie had told her about their boss on his secret watch shift and she was tempted to go and have a look but then she decided it would be weird. "I don't believe you." she said shaking her head.

Winston got up again. "Shall we meet him?"

"Don't be stupid! Sit down!"

She commented on what was shown on TV making clear she would not want to talk about it any further. After the show they talked about this and that, the case with the murdered women, Winston's new girlfriend, and finally Barbara's secret passion for their boss, how Winston described it.

"It's eating away at you." he said.

"Bollocks!" she grunted. She was not admitting anything related to her emotions towards Lynley. And she surely had no crush on him. And she surely never would admit towards Winston that there was in fact a bit more that she felt for their boss.

Winston shrugged. "I know what I see. And in my opinion you should just tell him."

"Surely not."

Again Barbara changed the subject. She was not willing to talk about that topic with Winnie any more. She was not even ready to admit to anyone what she really was feeling for Tommy.

Eventually Winston had left for home and Barbara prepared for bed. She brushed her teeth and stared at herself in the mirror above the sink. She put on her funny pyjama and pensively scratched her scars. Everything in her mind was related to Tommy and what Winston had told her about him. In the end she could not keep herself from finally peeping out of the kitchen window to see if there was the silver Peugeot with Lynley inside.

There was the car but she could not see anyone sitting in it. Shaking her head she turned off the kitchen lights and went to bed. Winston surely only had made his fun with her.

But what if not? What if Tommy really was sitting outside making sure that she was safe at home? Was it not a sign that he would not want to lose her? Or was he just being irrationally overprotective?

Barbara tossed and turned in her bed. She should sleep by now because she had to get up for work early in the morning but she still could not help but think about Tommy outside sitting in the car, yearning for sleep. She looked at her alarm-clock. It was shortly after midnight but she still could not sleep so she got up and had a glass of water before she tried it again. She had no such luck. Barbara could not get him out of her mind. When her alarm-clock told her it was one o'clock she pressed her pillow onto her face and loudly groaned her annoyance into it.

Finally she made a decision. She would go and check if Tommy really was in there and then she would ask him what this was all about. Maybe she also would find the courage to ask him into her flat. If he absolutely wanted to watch over her sleep he could as well do that on her sofa and get some rest. At a quarter past one Barbara got up from her bed and went to the kitchen without switching on the lights there. The dim light from her living room shining through the doors was enough to prepare two thermos cups of tea with milk, one with a lot and one with just a bit of sugar, just the way she knew he liked it. Then she got dressed in sweat pants and her coat over her night wear. Barefoot Barbara slipped into her soft boots, picked her keys from the bowl and left her flat.

Trying to appear unsuspicious she walked down the lane on her side of the street towards the untended front garden on the other. In fact there was the silver Peugeot and approaching it she recognised there actually was someone sitting in it.

Barbara crossed the street.

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