This fic was born from a discussion about favourite adverts...because of which, Million Moments may have an inkling what is coming. It is AU and implausible but I hope you like it anyway. It is set sometime after series 2 but in this Camille is definitely still in denial.
Characters are not mine, but any mistakes are! Please review. :-)
Chapter 1: Heat
It was hot.
Blisteringly hot.
The kind of heat that had the tarmac steaming and caused all but the hardiest of sun worshippers to slip off for a lie down in an air-conditioned room.
The kind of heat that would cause pale, pedantic Englishmen to pray volubly for drizzle and a cold biting wind.
Well, normally.
Camille sighed and swept her slightly damp, abundant curls across an almost bare shoulder, batting ineffectually towards her neck with her hands to cool herself. Looking across to the empty desk in front of her she wondered at what point in time her brain had made the switch from wanting to slowly throttle the man who usually sat behind it, thereby silencing the grunts of dissatisfaction that constantly emerged, to the odd feelings of missing the moaning that she was currently experiencing. After two years of his daily grumbles, the office was far far too quiet.
A creaking chair, followed by a soft snore from the opposite corner of the office drew her attention and she scrunched up a loose piece of paper, aiming and accurately throwing it at her colleague. It hit him squarely on the jaw startling him awake.
"What? Where? ...Oh. Sorry Camille" Dwayne grinned his apology, dropping his feet off his desk and sitting up.
"Well it's not much fun sitting here with only your feet to talk to." She replied good-naturedly.
"Where's Fidel?"
"I sent him home. Rosie isn't coping that well in the heat and with Juliet so heavily pregnant….."
Dwayne nodded. "And the Chief?"
Camille frowned, glancing back at the empty desk and listening to the whirr of the ceiling fan until Dwayne's amused chuckle guided her attention back to him. He was observing her shrewdly.
"I don't know."
….
Time moved ponderously through the afternoon. The heat of the day lay over the station in a thick blanket, and work was not absorbing her.
Fidel had phoned to say he wouldn't be back in that day and Dwayne had gone to talk to passing tourists on the beachfront. They were hoping to find some witnesses to a crime committed two weeks earlier. Posing as healthcare officials doing research into sun cream application, a group of twenty something year olds dressed in smart attire had managed to lift four iPods, five smart phones and a couple of kindles from unsuspecting sunbathers. With little to go on and victims dwindling as they finished their holidays and returned to homes around the world it was unlikely that anyone would be caught unless it happened again. Dwayne's attempt to gather more evidence was a long shot and it was more likely to be the chance of an ocean breeze on his face that had drawn him down there.
Camille had had enough. Mutinously throwing her pen somewhere in the region of her desk, she collected her bag and stalked out of the station. If Richard couldn't be bothered to turn up to work this afternoon, or the previous few, then she'd be dammed if she was going to sit there waiting for him like a schoolgirl.
What was she trying to prove anyway? And why was she so bothered about the absence of his voice when it would have only been heard grousing. The nagging thought tugged at her but she brushed it aside, heading for La Kaz.
...
"Ma Cherie." Catherine's greeting came with a broad smile as she finished delivering bottled beers to a nearby table. She quietly observed her daughter, who was still stood in the doorway, scanning the room with a practiced eye and a growing crease in her forehead and shook her head indulgently. Ah the poor girl. Why the Gods had seen fit to grant her this fate she would never know.
"Can I get you a drink darling?"
"Erm, yes. Yes please Maman." Camille answered distractedly. "Where is Richard?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen him today," Catherine answered carefully, thinking back.
"In fact it's quite a few weeks since he was last here. It's quite odd, knowing how much he loves his tea." She hesitated in her movement back towards the bar then thought better of saying more. "I'll get you a beer."
Camille lowered herself into a chair, thinking through all the likely places Richard might be, and then some of the more unlikely ones. Her mother was half way back across the restaurant, beer on tray when the younger woman pushed the seat back violently, leaping to her feet.
"I think I know where he is," she cried urgently and then was gone.
Catherine sighed and took a sip of the now unwanted drink. She picked up the abandoned shoulder bag and tidied the hastily left chair, questioning when it would be that her beautiful child would wake up to her feelings for her Senior Officer, and what would happen when she did.