Title: Barbara's language course

Rating: PG

Setting: After Helen's death. Lynley's not back to work just yet.

Disclaimer: Not mine! All mistakes are mine.

Barbara was so disappointed she would just have cried, if she hadn't been facing Sir Hillier. She could tell he hadn't done it on purpose this time, because he seemed generally embarrassed, but she was disappointed nevertheless.

The Met had advertised some language courses, in the Commissioners strive to "educate the police force" and Barbara had wanted to learned some Spanish. She'd been eyeing some brochures "Holidays for singles" and such, and had discovered that the market apparently was wide open for singles at the moment. She'd been kind of amused at first, feeling like she was the only single on the planet, but she'd soon discovered that a lot of people longed for someone to go on holiday with.

She'd gone to one of the agencies advertised in the catalogue arriving in the mail one day, and since then, she'd received calls nearly every day. She could chose from any formula she wanted, shared double, shared connecting rooms with 1 bathroom, single room, single with shared bathroom, ecc ecc in eternity, whatever fit you wallet and style.

Barbara had always wanted to see Spain. What Barbara had been planning, had been a vacation in Spain, a Grand Tour, albeit little one, seeing Barcelona, Madrid...

She'd wanted to learn some words in Spanish for it, and had applied for one of the language courses, Spanish 0, and had hoped she'd be able to start. She'd even bought some cassettes second hand on the net to get started.

Instead, Hillier had forgotten all about it. The most senior officer had to sign off on the deal, and that was him, and he'd forgotten.

"Sergeant, I must admit I forgot completely about you language course." He said, shuffling the papers around in front of him.

Truth be told, since Lynley had been on leave after his wife's unfortunate death, he'd come to appreciate his quirky sergeant more. She was a most singular individual for sure, but he'd come to appreciate her intelligence and her wit, and had learned how to keep her temper checked.

Most of the Inspectors under him would have told him he was too harsh with her, if they had dared to tell him and he'd been interested in asking, that his " though love" approach to controlling Havers was going too far, but Hillier was not a man to ask.

But today, he knew he was on the wrong side of the fence. He'd tried to make it up to her, but her dismay at his suggestions made him realise that he'd probably been better off not doing anything­:

"Sergeant, I must admit I submitted your papers a tad too late for the Spanish course, however, I've secured a place for you in the modern Arab language course!"

That had obviously not been to her liking. AH, well, she'd get used to it! And it was offered on Met time as well! Why the hell was Havers looking so sad? Damn the woman!

"You're dismissed! Hillier barked, "The course stars Monday at 3 p.m., and make sure not to disappoint me!"

She just nodded at him and left. That's when he knew he'd messed up badly... No protests? Not like Havers? She had become the one who'd saved him from some very politically correct faux pas during the last couple of months. He'd just repeated her honest, colourful comments to the press in a more "polished" manner, and it had even earned him some accolades in the Daily Mail.

He sighed. As soon as possible, he'd give her some positive remarks in her file, hitherto filled with negative remarks and worse from him...