Author's notes: 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.
Please let me know if I did something terribly wrong (rating, grammar, spelling...). Thanks!
Please read and review!
When you're in a hurry you'll mess most things up. Most. Not all.
Just a little one. A scene I've had in my mind for a while now.
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She heard a thud, a loud and ugly curse and then something that sounded like a fist banging on a metal locker.
Barbara looked up and into the direction of his Lordship's office door that stood wide open.
Right when she was about to ask DC Nkata who also had lifted his head what this might have been they heard a pained call.
"Havers! Into my office!" He added very desperate "...please!"
Nobody lets DI Lynley wait when he sounded like this. Especially not his Sergeant Barbara Havers who had been with Lynley for about ten years now and got quite used to his oddities. Nobody lets him wait, especially not when he was in a hurry right before a court appearance together with the Chief Superintendent. Barbara rolled her eyes.
When she reached his office she saw him standing at the file cabinet with a very painful expression in his eyes, a single tear rolling down his cheek. With his left hand he pressed his right hand on wich the pointing and the middle finger were stretched and looked like...
"You've bruised your fingers!" Barbara stated.
Lynley nodded and cursed once more.
"Do you have-?" Before he could have finished his sentence Barbara muttered "Wait a second!", was off and on her way to get some help. She quickly returned with a cool pad, an aspirin and some soothing ointment.
"Sit down!" she ordered and Lynley obeyed. Without any objections he plonked in the chair in front of his desk where Barbara had pointed with her chin and held up his bruised hand.
"I'm in a hurry, Barbara."
"Oh, this I know. Now shut up and let me help you." She rolled her eyes. "You can't show up at court with a mushy hand, right? Take this."
She gave him the tablet which he swallowed with a glass of water. Very careful and under wincing curses from Lynley she applied the soothing ointment and then put the cool pad on it.
"That will do for now but you should go to a doctor as soon as possible, you know that. It already had started to turn blue." She shook her head. "How on earth did you manage to bruise you like that?"
Ignoring her question he indignantly asked how he should manage to get to a doctor now.
"I've got an appointment. Now. And I even haven't all files collected."
"So, you've squashed your fingers in the file cabinet?"
He nodded grimly.
Barbara sighed. "What files do you need?"
She collected the files for him and then applied more soothing ointment on his fingers and covered it with the bandage.
"You have to swear your oath with your left hand then, Sir." she chuckled.
"That's not funny, Havers." He got up from the chair and looked at his watch. Then he cursed again. "And I haven't yet put on my tie."
For a while he fumbled with the piece of silk with his left hand without success. The longer it took the more nervous he became and the more nervous...
A doom loop!
"Stop it, Sir!" Barbara interrupted his hectic fiddling. "And come down a bit!" she ordered.
"I have absolutely no time -"
"Sit!"
Uttering an exasperated sigh her DI leaned his hip against the desk and Barbara, standing in front of him, started to tie his tie.
At the same time she rebuked him about his never ending hectical last-minute preparations.
Tommy attentively looked at her. His eyes twinkled. Yes, ma'am! he thought.
"And you really should take this to a doctor. Immediately." She looked at him reproachfully. "Allright, done!"
Barbara finished his tie, turned down the collar of his shirt, soothed the cloth on his shoulders and with closed eyes bent over in a naturally fluent movement to leave a soft kiss on his lips. For a short moment her hands increased the pressure on his shoulders.
Automatically Tommy had closed his eyes too and was holding his breath while his left hand shot up and brushed her hip. In her retrieving motion his head instinctively followed to prolong the sweet contact.
Barbara's eyes went wide open when she realised what she had done. For a second they stared at each other in total disbelieve what had just happened but before Lynley could even start to lift his arms in the attempt to pull her back to him the Chief Superintendent stormed into his office.
"Hurry up, Lynley." he called and waited at the door. He had not seen the kiss and did not notice the sudden tension in the room.
Barbara slumped into a chair with an enormously confused expression. Tommy instead showed up a boyish grin, hurried to the door and right before he was ushered out of the room he turned back to her with a gentle look and whispered
"Hold that thought!"
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