"You are the most arrogant, infuriating, condescending ponce I have ever had the displeasure to work with!" Her face was red, her hair was sticking up in twelve different directions, and her eyes were blazing with what could only be called incandescent rage. "I cannot believe how stupid you are!"

"Is that so?" His voice was low, even dangerous. But though his tone was a direct contrast to hers, he was just as furious as she. "Well you, Barbara Havers, are the most stubborn, hardheaded, bitchy cow that I have ever had the displeasure to work with! You are so convinced you must be right you won't listen to reason, even when you are clearly the most foolish woman on two continents! How you cannot see the evidence right before your eyes is beyond me!"

"WELL WHY DON'T YOU JUST QUIT THEN!" she screamed at last, throat raw, and stood there glaring, panting heavily.

She'd said it before - more than once, in fact - as had he. The traditional response was, "Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" - after which they would continue bickering until they came to some sort of compromise.

But today, Thomas Lynley did something for which he would never forgive himself if he lived to be a thousand.

"I do believe I will," he spat venomously, and turned to walk away.

Her muffled sob hit him like a punch to the gut.

"Is that really what you want?" she whispered, and when he turned to look at her he saw that the fury on her face had been replaced with a look of absolute pain. She looked as though someone had just torn her heart out of her chest.

He'd never put that look on her face before, and he hated himself for it.

"No," he said quietly, and all but ran back to her, to grip her shoulder, to whisper and soothe. "No, Barbara. I wouldn't. I couldn't."

The very thought of it left him reeling. Had he really been prepared to leave her? Oh, there were days when he wished her to the far corners of the earth, days he wanted to shake her, days he even wanted to punch her. She turned every compliment into an insult, mocked him and his background every chance she got, refused to back down from anything - and when anyone else dared to insult him, she turned on them with the fury of a wildcat.

She was frustrating, infuriating, hardheaded, and prickly as a hedgehog, and he was never quite sure when he was next going to put a foot wrong and set her off.

She was ferociously loyal, tenacious, brilliant, broken, and unbelievably strong, and the thought of never working with her again left a hole in his heart so gaping he had to gasp for breath. How could he live without her? He could confide in her what he could confide to no one else, and know she'd never shun him. How could he live without having her there to poke holes in his case theory, or back him up while the rest of the world sneered, or steal chips off his plate, or mock the idiots they were often forced to work with? How could he live without the way she smiled at him, as though it was some joke only he could share, as though it was just the two of them against the world?

Leave her? How had he ever thought he could? Sooner could he stop breathing or stop his heart from beating.

"No," he said again, and heard her sniffle. "Never. I couldn't even if I wanted to. Barbara, I am so sorry. That was far, far too low."

"Forgiven," she burbled, teary-eyed, "you arrogant overbearing ponce."

"Thank you," he murmured, squeezing her shoulder tight, "you hardheaded sarcastic cow."

She laughed a little at that, and he pulled her against his chest for a moment. They weren't much for touching, even now, but after this he needed the reassurance, and she leaned against him, clearly needing the same.

There would be more days when he wanted to shake her, or send her to Antarctica. There would even be more days when he thought he hated her.

But he couldn't hate, he knew, if he didn't care to a depth that sometimes staggered him. And he did care about her, more than he had ever believed he could.

They would argue over and over, case after case, heated words and slammed doors and bellowed ultimatums.

But he never threatened to leave her again.