Disclaimer: Blue Murder and all of its characters belong to ITV and Cath Staincliffe. No copyright infringement is intended. I'm just borrowing them for fun.

A/N: Steady Eddie is the episode where, after they witness the fatal shooting of a colleague, Richard goes to Janine's house in the middle of the night and they kiss. If you don't remember it, the kiss scene is available on Yahoo videos – search for Blue Murder Steady Eddie (and if you do remember it, it's still worth another watch :-) )

Please review - this is the first story I've published so I'd like to know what you think!

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Richard walked round to the driver's side of the car and got in, still smiling. As he closed the door, he glanced across at Janine.

She turned to face him, the hint of a smile still on her face too. "Do we need to talk?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. Do we?"

She paused, watching him carefully for a couple of seconds. "No, you're right. Nothing really happened. Came to our senses in time to avoid ruining our friendship."

"Yeah," he said, starting the engine and pulling on his seatbelt.

They both looked out through the windscreen for a moment, before he leant back in his seat and turned towards her again.

"Would it, d'you think?"

"What?"

"Ruin our friendship?"

"Dunno. It'd certainly never be quite the same again."

He nodded. "We might have been finding out this morning. If you hadn't had your flash of inspiration about the case..." His voice drifted off.

She smirked. "I know what you thought I'd said, by the way."

He blushed slightly. "What was I supposed to think?" His tone was a little defensive, and she suddenly felt bad for teasing him. "We were kissing. I wasn't expecting you to be thinking about work."

It was her turn to blush as she nodded in acknowledgement and dropped her eyes away from him. When she looked back up she found him watching her intently, the silence stretching for a few moments as they each held the other's gaze. Then Richard spoke quietly.

"So... are we ok?"

"Yeah." She reached out and put her hand over his where it rested on the gear stick. "We're fine."

He nodded. "And anyway. When we... if we," he corrected himself, and she smiled slightly, "er... ruin our friendship..." Her smile widened as he continued. "I'd want it to be because we'd thought it through, talked about it, knew we wanted to take that step. Not because we were both tired and emotional and it happened in the heat of the moment."

Janine raised her eyebrows. "You've thought about it then?"

Richard laughed, shaking his head as he depressed the clutch and put the car into gear. "Don't pretend you haven't."

She smiled and settled back into her seat as he pulled out into the road.

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