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: Recently I've tidied up and found old notes (with some rather strange ideas, so please don't wonder) and I thought it would be a shame just to delete the texts so I've worked them out a bit. Maybe I'll do that with all these old notes.
Life goes on in London. Here's another episode of the Emerald Series. Enjoy...
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Happy Birthday - Meeting with Yazza
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In fact although the topic of marriage was not brought up again it rotated in both their minds from then on. Not knowing that the other felt quite similar both blamed their hangover for the silence on that certain day but his proposal still was there between them somehow - for the rest of this Sunday and the rest of the following week. Even longer.
And then the last days of January and most of February flew by like a Royal Air Force squadron. Their team at the Met worked at three major crimes at the same time and only had solved one by now. On Tuesday evening, two days before Tommy's birthday, Barbara finally had the chance to let something other than work occupy her thoughts: She still had no clue what she could give him as a present. The DI would have a spare weekend from Thursday on but Ardery had put his Sergeant into office to clear up some paperwork. They could not insist on a shared long weekend without revealing their sweet secret so they both had accepted it teeth-gnashing.
To his surprise Barbara told him in the morning that she would not be able to accompany him in the evening because she had a date with her friend Yasemine. The two women needed a night for themselves, she told him.
"I'm going to miss you." Thomas pouted when they met in his office. "When will you come home then?"
"Tonight I'll be sleeping in my flat, Tom. I'm not-"
"No!" He wound his arms around her waist and buried his face in the crook of her neck. "I don't want to be alone tonight." he mumbled.
Barbara enjoyed his closeness and kissed his ear. "Thomas, I'll be back tomorrow." she chuckled. "You will survive one single night without me."
"No... not a single second." As if he was thirsty he searched her face with his lips until he had found hers. Barbara had no objections when he hungrily kissed her until a knock at the office door let them stop.
Thomas jumped to his chair and quickly opened a file while Barbara went to the door straightening her blouse.
"See you tomorrow, Tom." she whispered before she opened the door. "Winston. Hi. He's all yours."
Winking DC Nkata grinned and walked past her, DC Flaherty in tow. The new colleague had no clue about it nor did he recognise the soft flush on DS Havers' face.
Earlier that week Barbara had talked a lot with Yasemine at the phone. She had become more and more desperate to find a nice gift for her lover and today the women would meet at the pub for a proper talk.
"Hello, Babba!" Yasemine called in the doorway already.
"Yazza! Come, sit down. And stop shouting that silly name." They hugged and Barbara's friend went to the bar to place her order. With a pint of apple juice she returned to the table in a niche at the window. "Are you sick?" Barbara joked pointing at the juice. She was sipping at a beer.
"Well, sort of..." Yasemine answered with a smile.
Barbara snorted a laugh. "Don't tell me you're pregnant!"
"Ok."
"No...?! Oh, really!? Congratulations!" There was genuine joy in Barbara's voice.
"Thank you. And when will you-"
"Nonono..." defensively Barbara shook her head. "Definitely too early. If at all..."
She actually had thought about it a lot lately. For years she had not dared to hope it would become an option but with Thomas it finally seemed possible. Of course she still tried to ignore the new hope.
"Mhmm... sure..." Yasemine eyed her friend closely. "Oh, come on... You-"
"It's not on the agenda, okay?!" Barbara defensively grumbled.
"Well, I hope it's not yet on the agenda!"
"Shut up, Yazza, I really have other problems!"
"Okay then... When will the big day be and what do you already have?"
"It's Thursday and-"
"What?" Yasemine exclaimed with shock. "Are you crazy?! That's two days from now!"
Barbara chewed on her lips. "Yah, I know, but believe me, every spare second, and I've had not exactly a lot of them recently, I've racked my brain. From the first of January on. What do you give a man who has everything and if there's something he hasn't it surely is too expensive for me." Regarding how close the date was, Barbara told her friend, it now would be a nice gift voucher anyway. "But for what? A tie? A bow-tie? Cuff links? That's all so boring."
"Yep, I agree. What about yourself?"
"Huh?"
"Just undress and tie a ribbon with a bow-"
"Oh, gosh, Yazza!" Barbara giggled. They clinked their glasses. "But yes, allright. If nothing else comes to our mind, it will be plain sex."
They laughed even harder. Then Barbara told Yasemine how much money she would have. Since Thomas used to pay most of the times when they went grocery shopping, every time of course when they went to a restaurant for dinner and even filled up the petrol tank of her little car one or the other time when she was not quick enough to prevent it, she had been able to put aside a lot more money than she used to. Still it was not enough for the Vespa she had seen at a vintage car seller the other day.
"A Vespa?" Yasemine asked confused.
"Yes. He's once told me that he had wanted to buy one when he was a teenage boy."
"Hahaha, a mod..." Barbara's best friend snorted amused. "Why hadn't he? He should've had enough dosh even when he was pimply."
"Oh, Yazza..." The vision of Thomas having pimples and the pubertal voice break made Barbara chuckle again. Some fluff on his upper lip though was a rather cute image.
"What?" Yasemine only grinned.
"Well, he already had a taste for old stuff when he was young and... pimply. It had to be the Vespa 150 GT, or whatever. A certain model from a certain year."
"Ah, all the earl..."
"You can bet."
"And you've actually found that model?"
"I don't know if it's exactly this one but it is from the Fifties and it looks rather cool." Barbara stopped herself with a wave of her hand. "And it's too expensive. So that's a great idea but not accessible."
"Isn't there an associated garage? Maybe they have old parts. You could engrave a rear mirror of that Vespa or something else with a sweet dedication."
"Actually there is. I could-"
"Oh, wait, wait, wait!" Yazza cut her short and retrieved her notepad and her reading glasses from her bag. "I have a brilliant idea..."
A few wipes later the women adored the nice cars and motorbikes offered on the internet site of that seller. There even were parts for scooters but Barbara seemed not convinced.
"Ah, I'm afraid it will be my body." she mumbled putting her nose into her glass of beer. "It only has to be something very special."
"Don't make it sound as if you would not like that, Babba..." Yasemine did not raise her eyes from the screen. She was deep into reading something and her glasses looked funny while they almost slipped off the tip of her nose. "Ha!"
"Have you found a cheap exhaust pipe?"
"Bollocks!" She shoved the notepad across the table. "Here. You can simply hire one. You could make a nice trip. Just you and him and the scooter. And the stars above..."
Barbara read the conditions and very quickly the image of the two of them driving around in Cornwall having a nice camping weekend already formed on her mind. "Actually it sounds really good..."
"Yes, and you just have to look for a cute postcard or make the voucher on your own. Or you simply buy it there. Here. They offer vouchers online."
Since it was settled the women went shopping. That is Yazza talked Barbara into buying some nice new jeans at a boutique the Sergeant would not at all have entered on her own, and later they spent the rest of the evening at Barbara's flat with ordered food and telly, a lot of chuckling and chatting and the preparation of a sweet voucher card.
His great day could come now.
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