Title: Winning when you lose

Rating: T

Category: Romance, Richard/Camille, Resolved romantic tension

Summary: Camille outsmarts Richard and the price he has to pay is a dance.

A/N: Wrote itself whilst I was out walking the walls of York. Set directly after 2.8 – one of the many people who put their fingers in their ears and hum loudly at mentions of series 3.

Richard would have imagined, because it was his party, that there wouldn't be loud music and dancing – as those were two things he had made it abundantly clear he didn't like. To be fair, there hadn't been at first. Catherine and each member of his team had plied him with plenty of alcohol first, perhaps hoping it would loosen him up. Which it had – he was sitting here putting up with the loud music and (other people) dancing, rather than complaining loudly or heading straight home. Not that Camille seemed to appreciate that.

"You still owe me a dance," she was trying to cajole him now. Previously her desire to dance had just been limited to strong hints. It is difficult to be persuasive when you are having to half shout in somebody's ear. Especially when the closeness required to achieve that also led to Richard losing his train of thought as other, less pertinent ones, barged to the forefront. But body pressed against his shoulder or not, he was not letting her get away with that claim.

"Since when have I owed you a dance?"

"You've owed me one coming up to a year now," she argued back. Richard still had no idea what she was talking about, and this seemed to annoy her. "At Solly's wake, remember? You agreed to dance with me and then backed out!"

Well yes, he didn't remember that. But he didn't see why that meant he owed her a dance now, so that is exactly what he told her. "And besides," he added. "I didn't really want to dance then and I definitely don't want to dance now!"

"Is it the music?" Camille asked. "I can get them to change the music! I'll ask for a slow song." She offered this with enthusiasm, even half rising from the table as if she was going to do it immediately. Richard grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the seat. She raised an eyebrow at him and he let go.

"Even if you change the music, I am still not dancing!"

Camille attempted the same look on him that had worked a year before hand, but he seemed to have become immune to it now. He just rolled his eyes and suggested, "Dwayne will dance with you."

"I know Dwayne will dance with me," she said, sullen.

Richard found this frustrating, "What, you don't enjoy dancing unless it is with somebody you've forced into doing it?"

"No," she said, still in a sulk, and resentful of the accusation.

Somehow the music managed to get louder. Another five people had managed to force themselves into the bar, and the temperature rose appreciably. The small gathering had migrated into the usual Friday night party – but Richard didn't begrudge Catherine the business. Though he would never admit it – he'd found the fact that they had bothered to arrange anything quite touching. Nobody had thrown a party for him since he was a child, excluding the aborted Birthday party the team had attempted. When somebody bumped into the table, nearly spilling beer on to him he decided it was a bit much and needed a break.

"Where are you going?" Camille shouted at him.

"To get some air!" He shouted back. He then began to force himself through the crowd, grimacing every time he was forced to touch somebody, which was pretty much every other second. It was surprisingly quiet out on the patio, and much cooler - though the heat of the day was still hanging around. A sound behind him caused him to turn around, to find that Camille had stalked him out.

"Look, you don't have to hide out here…" she began.

"I'm not hiding," he said with a small sigh. "I really did just need a bit of fresh air. I was cooped up on a plane for 8 hours before this remember."

She gave him a look. "If it is because I was nagging you about dancing I can stop right now…"

"I have trouble believing that," he said with a shake of his head. "Camille, I don't dance. I am never going to dance with you. But I reckon you are still going to keep trying no matter how many times I say it, probably until either I die or am transferred off the island." Despite years of practise of being stoic, he couldn't help but smile a little as he told her this, because he knew deep down it was one of her behaviours he impossibly found both annoying and endearing at the same time. Life on Saint Marie would not be the same if Camille Bordey wasn't trying to convince him to do something he didn't want to – and he was almost certain it would be worse. So occasionally, very occasionally, Richard let her win – so she wouldn't start just giving in.

She returned his smile, looking scarily confident. "Oh Richard," she began, "Never say never."

Frustration shot through him as annoyance overrode endearment, "Fine then. Not never. Perhaps when pigs fly, or hell freezes over!" The instant it was over he regretted his outburst, it seemed a little extreme. But to his surprise Camille was looking triumphant.

She pulled her phone from her pocket and Richard knew what was coming. She'd been driving him nuts using Siri for everything since she upgraded her phone. She'd also amused herself, Fidel and Dwayne by asking it silly questions like "will you marry me?" and insisting it tell her a story. These modern phones annoyed the hell out of him.

"Hey Siri!" she began. "What is the temperature in hell right now?"

Before he could make a sarcastic remark, the voice replied, "The temperature in hell right now is -8 degrees centigrade."

Richard stared at the phone for a moment, then mentally shook himself. "Very funny," he said. "That one of those silly questions programmed in?"

"Nope," she said, smug look still firmly in place. She turned the screen to face him and he saw it displaying temperature information for Hell, Norway. A place Richard had not known existed. "That really is the temperature in hell."

"Oh," was the only reply he could come up with – he filed the existence of Hell away for future reference.

"So I guess you'll be giving me that dance now? Minus eight sounds pretty frozen over to me. Look, it's snowing as well!" She pointed out with glee.

"Oh come on," Richard said dismissively. "Obviously I didn't mean Hell, Norway – I meant Hell, the hot and burny place 99.9% of people mean when they say hell."

"Ah, but you didn't specify that," she shot back. "And details like that are very important, as you have pointed out on many an occasion. So, Hell is frozen over, and you have to dance with me."

He stared at her, and among the annoyance and frustration he discovered there was also a little admiration. This had not been one of the occasions where Richard was intending to give in to her, but she had outsmarted him, and he should admit defeat like a gentleman. For the most part. "Very well," he said. "I shall have to dance with you." She looked ready to drag him back inside immediately, but he held up a hand to stay her. "But Hell was frozen before I said that, and it'll be frozen for a while yet. And if we are talking about specifics, I never specified when during the period in which Hell is frozen I would actually dance with you."

"Oh come on Richard!" Camille cried. "I'm hardly going to forget about it! You might as well get it over and done with."

"No way, not here, not now. You'll just have to be patient." He glanced back at the heaving bar and perhaps a certain level of anxiety showed on his face despite his best efforts, because she conceded with a small nod. He stifled a yawn.

"You must be tired from your flight, and its late, do you want a lift home?" She offered. He gratefully accepted.

Camille looked at him in surprise when, upon pulling up at his place, he asked if she wanted to come in for another beer. "I can't, I'm driving," she pointed out.

"Of course you are!" He said, feeling stupid for not realising that. Perhaps he had had too much beer. He needed to think of his feet, and ended up offering lamely, "Um, cup of tea? Or coffee! I have coffee!"

She raised an eyebrow, and he knew she was going to call him out. "Fine," he huffed. "Come in and I'll give you that bloody dance!"

"Here?"

"Yes, here!" He snapped. For a moment he thought she would refuse, since he was being so obstinate, but then her own curiosity seemed to win out and she climbed out of the car and followed him in. He popped into the bungalow, booting up his laptop, whilst Camille remained on the porch staring out at the ocean – that was until she appeared at his shoulder, startling him.

Camille had intended to give him some privacy. There had been a certain nervousness about him as they walked towards his place, like a teenager boy coming to the end of a first date, and she felt it was only fair she give him some space to breath. But then he seemed to be spending far too long messing about on his computer, and she began to wonder if he was double checking the existence of Hell so headed in to see what he was up too.

"You have Spotify?" She asked, slightly amazed.

"Yes," he confirmed, still looking for the right piece. For some reason he'd forgotten how to sort the music alphabetically, and it was stuck in the order in which he had compiled the playlist.

"I didn't think you would even know what music streaming was, let alone actually subscribe to a service."

He looked a bit indignant at that, "Do you really think that I am that much of a luddite?"

She gave him a look, "Richard, you have the same phone I did ten years ago…"

"That is different!" he protested. "A phone should be for making calls, and I suppose text messages are quite useful. If I want the features you find on your average laptop then I'll use the laptop. And using a streaming service is much more sensible then dragging all my CDs out here from the UK." Camille didn't mention that she was also surprised he was interested enough in music to warrant the subscription, she supposed she should have known that about him. As she had pointed out to him once before, he did have a good ear, and surely that meant he would appreciate music. Just probably not the same music she did.

As if reading her thoughts, some sort of classical piece began to play from the laptops (pretty poor) speakers. "This is what we are going to dance too?" She asked, though she knew the answer.

"Yes," he said. "Nobody said anything about you picking the music," he added firmly, shooing her in the direction of the porch. "Besides, what is wrong with a nice waltz?"

"It's a bit…old fashioned," she commented, trying not to be unkind.

"Yeah, well we all had to learn to at school. So this is what I have chosen."

"I suppose I shouldn't complain, it could waste valuable dancing time, you've probably chosen something that lasts two minutes," she teased him as he held her in the same way he had oh so briefly a year previously.

"Actually," he said sounding aggrieved as they began to actually dance, he with great formality and her somewhat awkwardly. "It is at least 10 minutes long, though I assume you'll get bored before the end of it." Camille proceeded to step on his foot, and he grimaced. "Or you might break my foot forcing it to come to an end."

"Hey!" She protested. "It isn't my fault. I'm not exactly used to this style of dancing. We had discos at my school, not balls."

Richard stopped with a sigh of frustration. "Firstly, we did not have balls at my school. And secondly, maybe it would help if you let me lead instead of trying to do it yourself." He then grabbed her more firmly before beginning to dance again – Camille tried to ignore the fact that it caused her a little thrill of pleasure. It was ridiculous that a man taking control could have that effect on her – anyone would think she was a heroine from a Victorian novel. She had actually thought she was being helpful by trying to take charge – since he was such an unwilling partner, but she had been wrong. So she did let him lead, and pretty soon they were actually dancing. Properly dancing, like something off the old movies she sometimes watched on a Sunday afternoon. Camille realised she quite enjoyed it, even if it wasn't her usual style of dancing…

"You're actually good at this," she complimented him. At the same time she was vaguely starting to formulate plans to make him dance with her again in the future. The only thing she could come up with was something insane like an undercover operation at a black tie fundraiser – not too many of those came up over the course of a year.

"The trick, Camille, is not to sound so surprised." Ouch. She supposed she had rather failed at keeping the astonishment out of her voice.

"Sorry," she apologised. Camille found herself glad it was a long piece of music, and this could carry on a little longer. They carried on in silence for a couple of minutes, but it wasn't the awkward kind. They just both seemed to have their own thoughts – and Camille was desperate to know if his were along the same line as hers. The fact he was holding her a little closer than was strictly necessary, that he had chosen a long piece of music, hell that they were here even dancing at all – it made her hopeful. And that hope made her brave – brave enough to broach a topic they'd been dancing around themselves for some time.

"You know," she began casually. "Your chosen time and place for this dance are quite interesting."

His step faltered slightly and he tensed, but Camille pretended she didn't notice. "How so?" He asked her eventually.

"Well, I can understand how in the bar at that moment you might not have wanted to dance with me." He relaxed marginally, as if he had been expecting her to say something very different and was relieved she hadn't. "So instead you chose your porch, on our own, at night and under the stars. Anyone would think you were trying to be romantic."

This time his step didn't just falter – he came to an abrupt halt and quickly stepped away from her. "Richard…" she began, instantly regretting having said it. Their relationship had been developing quite nicely, albeit at snail's pace – and now she had possibly ruined it by trying to force him into an admission.

"I think that's enough, don't you," he said. "No need to go for the full ten minutes," he added, laughing nervously. "Plus don't want the music to disturb the neighbours. I have neighbours you know!" Yes, she did know, half a mile away and very likely blissfully unaware of anything that was going on at his place at any time.

Richard felt like an idiot. A moron. A fool, chump, egit, or whatever synonym the young people were using these days. He had quickly realised there was no getting out of the dance with Camille. Well, there probably was, but it might have rather ruined the friendship he had started to build with her – a relationship that had been a major player in his getting back on a plane to Saint Marie, despite the fact HR had taken his presence in the UK as a chance to ask if he still wished for a transfer back to The Met. Not that he had told anybody about that – from the way they had spoken before he left and the fact they had thrown him a welcome home party, it was pretty obvious his team had actually wanted him back. Though some rebellious part of his brain still insisted they might have just been being polite. He had returned because Saint Marie had started to feel more like home than London ever had. And there were people here he cared about, people he didn't want to be separated from by a great expanse of ocean and an inconvenient time difference.

He had resolved to get this dance out of the way – somewhere quiet where there would be less people to laugh at him. His place had seemed ideal, and it was hardly unusual for Camille to occasionally pop over on an evening anyway. Richard imagined the dancing might have raised an eyebrow if they had been caught, but unlikely since it was now nearly midnight. He'd actually spent most of the car journey home wracking his brains for an appropriate piece of music. Though he was (as far as he knew) perfectly capable of conventional slow dancing and even though it was Camille who was insisting on the dance, and had even offered to change the music to something slower, he was still uncomfortable with the idea. In recent weeks, Richard had expended a lot of mental energy reminding himself that Camille was a Detective Seargent under his command. It didn't matter how beautiful she was. Or that she was kind to him, laughed at his stupid jokes, listened to him whine (albeit with a certain lack of patience on occasion) and generally did things other men would likely interpret as flirting – he was her boss. And she was way out of his league and his feelings for her were likely the result of some kind of midlife crisis, and very likely to not be reciprocated. Certainly not risking one of the best friendships he had ever had over.

Richard had decided he might as well put all those horrendous boarding school dancing lessons (done in conjunction with a local girls school, thank goodness, they were not forced to dance with each other) to good use. Plus he also had a bit of a fondness for waltz as a style of music, and knew there were several on his Spotify list. Richard kind of enjoyed proving to Camille he wasn't completely out of date, though it had been disheartening she had been so surprised by him embracing modern technology. Even though there were days he felt like he'd been born with an Eighteenth Centaury soul, he had hoped he didn't seem that old fashioned.

Once he had managed to get Camille to let him lead, Richard realised he had been silly to be nervous. He had always actually been quite good at this. His Mum had tried to cheer him up once, and told him the reason the other boys didn't like him was because the girls from the other school always wanted him as a partner in class, and actually it had been true. And like some sly teenage boy, Richard couldn't help holding her a little closer than was strictly necessary – who knew when he might get the chance again? Even though this dance was essentially the result of him losing to Camille, he couldn't help but feel he was winning anyway, dancing away under the stars. God – that was the kind of sentiment that belonged in romantic comedies, not real life, and he was glad it was dark enough to hide his blush.

Then Camille had seemed to read this thoughts, and he knew immediately she was calling him out for being a fool. He stuttered something about not wanting to disturb his neighbours and prayed she would leave, never to mention the incident again. But she held her ground.

"Richard," she said now. "I…please, um, can't we, um." He had never really known her to be inarticulate before, she was probably trying to think of a nice way to turn him down. She took a deep breath and he braced himself, "Please can't we finish this dance?" Ah, she was going for pity, trying to give him one good memory or something. Well, he didn't need it.

"No, no, I think you are right and it isn't appropriate." He told her, waving a hand vaguely before crossing his arms and staring at the deck.

"I never said that," her voice was gentle, gentle enough that he felt able to look at her again.

"Well, not specifically, but with you pointing it out I rather assumed…"

"Not like you to make assumptions," she interrupted him. "Dangerous thing to do, assume something. Now, please can we finish the dance?" She held out her hand, and Richard accepted it.

But, before they could begin to dance again, the music came to an end. Camille gave a small sigh, but she didn't let go and step away from him. Instead she fixed him with a rather intense look that did funny things to his insides. With a small smile she said quietly, "Thank you for my dance."

"It was my pleasure," he said, feeling a little drunk all of a sudden.

There was a moment where they just looked at each other. "Richard," Camille said eventually, her voice so gentle and quiet it drew him in closer. "Richard…is this…"

She hesitated, and he found himself suddenly impatient. "Yes," he prompted her, hoping she was about to be brave enough to say what he couldn't.

"Richard, is this Cyndi Lauper?"

There then followed a stunned silence, in which Richard tried to figure out what Camille was going on about. Was this some kind of slang he was unfamiliar with? Had he perhaps misheard?

"It is Cyndi Lauper!" She cried out. "Time after time. I love this song! I can't believe you like Cyndi Lauper." Ah, now it was clear – Spotify, left to its own devices, had chosen the next song at random from the playlist. And the gods of Spotify had decided to add to his humiliation by picking an eighties pop song that was probably not the most masculine choice on the planet. Richard was now thoroughly convinced the main thing Camille would take away from the evening was not pleasant memories of a romantic dance – but the glee of discovering his was a secret Cyndi Lauper fan.

"Well, I mean, um," he desperately tried to come up with an explanation. "Um, we had school discos too." Oh God, no, that would just remind her of how much older he was then her.

"Richard, you don't have to make any excuses," she told him, grinning. "I love the fact you like Cyndi Lauper."

He frowned, "You do?"

"Yes," she said insistently. "Just like I love the fact you know how to waltz, and that you have Spotify." She paused, then added, "And that you came back. I love the fact that you came back."

"I love the fact that I came back too," he told her in a rush. "Oh, wait, that didn't come out in the way I intended…Why can I never say anything right?"

"Maybe you should try actions?" Camille suggested.

Richard, who was currently filled with a giddy kind of joy that had nothing to do with the alcohol he had consumed that evening and everything to do with Camille agreed with enthusiasm, "Maybe I will!" There was no need to dramatically grab Camille and pull her close – because for some reason they were still standing there as if ready to begin another dance. Thus all he had to do was drop her hand and move his now free hand to the back of her neck when he pressed his lips to hers. Camille smiled against his lips, pressing herself closer to him and responding eagerly.

Ms Lauper was quite forgotten about for the rest of the evening. Though, when asked in the future, Richard would freely admit to bloody loving Cyndi Lauper.

A/N: Yeah. About me saying I wouldn't write random 4000 word fics anymore…