A/N: This takes place after Ep. 2.2 ("Music To Die For"), and primarily comes out of the fact (like much of my fem- and boyslash) that I'd like to have sexy tiems with both Laurence Fox and Tom Goodman-Hill. So I'll make them (or Hathaway and Helm, that is) have sexy tiems together. This first chap is, regrettably, K or T (for smoking?).

Needless to say, I don't own these characters. Please R and R.

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"My inspector says that you're selling it," Hathaway said, indicating the boat docked in the canal with a cigarette pinched between his first two fingers.

Helm looked up, somewhat startled, from his perch next to the ladder. When he recognized the sergeant, he nodded in a curt form of both greeting and confirmation, and then returned his morose gaze to the boat which floated below his dangling feet. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his fleece sport vest.

"Pity."

The professor screwed up his face. When he finally spoke, the clipped bite of his Germanic consonants was more pronounced. "It gives me no pleasure now. I can't take it out. Can't even sit in the damned thing. But it's the water, really. The water terrifies me."

Hathaway took a seat on the edge of the canal at a socially acceptable remove from Helm, who raised his eyebrows in embarrassment at his confessional mood. "I suppose it sounds ridiculous, but I can't help imagining her as a...a condemned water-kelpie, reaching endlessly up to the light, calling me down to her." He straightened his spine as he spoke, then subsided, sighing.

"That's quite romantic," the sergeant commented in his jaunty-serious public school inflection that sent his pitch up at the end of a sentence. He tapped his thumb thoughtfully against the filter end of his cigarette. A man jogged by, trainers crunching on the gravel path. Hathaway and the professor nodded cordially at him.

"She tried to kill me." Helm seemed to be trying out the sound of the words.

The blond man's lips pulled back in what might have been a wince of sympathy or simply a grimace into the sunlight of early evening. "You gave a statement at the inquest today."

"Yes." The professor reached up absently to rub the back of his head where Ann Kriel had attempted to bash in his skull. He glanced at the sergeant's cigarette. "You wouldn't happen to have another of those, would you?"

Hathaway grunted and reached into his jacket to retrieve his packet. He lit the cigarette off his own, then handed it to Helm, who took it awkwardly and inhaled a shallow, shaky drag. The detective crossed right knee over left, exposing lavender socks that echoed the hues of his necktie. The two men smoked in silence for a time.

Suddenly Helm covered his mouth with his forearm and coughed violently. After the fit had passed, he regarded his cigarette with amused distaste. "I haven't smoked one of these in twenty-five years. Not since...well, she was 'Anna' to me, then. We were just stupid kids."

"But you were in love with her," Hathaway clarified, fastidiously brushing ash off his pants-leg.

The ginger man cast a look at his interlocutor which D.S. Hathaway could not quite read. "You could never understand if you weren't there, behind the Curtain. It was...I wanted to die. Anna showed me that there is always beauty in the world, even in the greyest, dankest drudgery. I will always love her for that." He flung the half-finished cigarette into the canal. "She saved my life."

"And then."

"Yes. And then she tried to take it away."

Hathaway squinted up at the late September sun. He uncrossed his legs and re-crossed them in the opposite direction. The breeze along the canal was feeling noticeably cooler. "What will you do now?"

"It's been suggested," Helm replied, planting a palm on each side of his thighs and shifting his weight, "that I take a sabbatical during Hilary term."

"Will you?"

"If my mother will agree to go away. I thought...that if we went on holiday together..." He trailed off. His red hair stirred in the wind as he picked a flake of tobacco off his tongue. "Otherwise I shall stay and work. It's about time I had something new published."

"What do you-"

Hazel eyes hard with something like defiance, Helm turned to the detective, who fell silent. Words tumbled out of the professor in a rush. "You went to Berlin? To the Alexanderplatz?"

Hathaway covered his confusion by lighting a new cigarette off his failing butt. "Yes," he answered at last, when the paper had taken flame. He flicked the dead filter away.

"You saw the file?"

"'Siegfried'." He blew a puff of smoke into the air over the canal. "Yes."

Helm exhaled forcefully and hung his head. "The last words I ever spoke to my father were in anger. Because of her." He choked out a mirthless laugh. "We were arguing about a pair of black market blue jeans."

Hathaway pursed his lips and nodded. "Good name for a rock band, that."

The ginger man stared at him disbelievingly, then snorted. "What? 'Black Market Blue Jeans'?" He shook his head and cut his eyes at Hathaway in a way that took his companion aback. Helm rose to his feet without warning, stretching his stiff legs. "So what do they call you when you're at home, then?"

D.S. Hathaway cocked his head up at the professor, flashing a small, reflexive smile. "James."

Helm put out his hand. "Hello, James. I'm Richard. Although you already know that."

Obligingly, the copper scrambled up to a standing position as gracefully as he could and shook hands. "I've got it in my notebook," he admitted around his cigarette.

Their hands remained clasped.

"Can I buy you a drink, James?"

Hathaway looked down and smirked, blushing slightly. "I should do for you, after the day you've had."

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A/N: Anyone wanna see more of this? It gets slashy, obviously. Lemme know! Also, help with Briticisms always welcome.