Not Any Other Woman

by Nefret24

Disclaimer: Remington Steele, Laura Holt and Mildred Krebs do not belong to me but to MTM Productions and Twentieth Century Fox. This story is not intended as infringement. Not business, but pleasure.

Summary: Steele's POV, set during the end of, and after the events of season three's "Have I Got a Steele for You."

(A refresher: Edward Mulch returns, having gotten involved in a scam involving a unproductive doll manufacturer. Most notably, after Steele is brutally beaten by a loan shark after Mulch, Laura rescinds the Cannes agreement to be "just friends," prompting Steele's memorable line "Beginnings of a thaw?")

Author's Quick Note: I am still working on Steele on the Nile, it's just that my season three dvds are so darn compelling at the moment… Enjoy this in the interim. As always, reviews most welcome!

If it had been any other woman, upon seeing him run into the abandoned factory in a mad dash to her rescue, she would have obligingly swooned slightly with grateful relief. Or maybe she would have just clung to his lapels a bit, when he finally reached her side, her voice a little less firm and clear as she spoke his name. Maybe she'd have that Ingrid Bergman look, the one she had at the end of Casablanca, standing in Rick's embrace, her eyes filled with tears held back only by force of will; fragile, yet enduring in adversity all the same.

But this was Laura Holt, he mused, and she was not any other woman, of flesh or silver screen. It was what he admired about her, even though it rankled every so often. She stood without assistance, eyes critically assessing the scene, the agency's pistol still in her hand, explaining what she had seen transpire with the ease of a professional. She went to the factory to meet Gillespie, who said he had the money. Gillespie flummoxed the lights, the better to play cat and mouse in the dark. Ryan had been called to the meeting too, and had seen Gillespie aim his pistol at an unaware Laura and had shot him dead. The end, for Mr. Gillespie at least.

He was left to recover his breath beside the dead body and Mr. Ryan while she called the police and Mildred from what had been Mulch's office. When she emerged, she walked back to the dramatic tableau of corpse, shaken elder man and him, leaning against a pillar and self-consciously rubbing his bruised ribs as he belatedly realized that his pain killers were wearing off. The click-clack of her heels hit the floor with steady, predictable rhythm; this was her job, she was used to this, he reminded himself. You told her so yourself – Remington Steele is not a plumber. Defying death is his stock in trade. And before you were Remington Steele, she was.

He glanced upwards at her face, turned down slightly, looking at the body on the floor, her hair softly spilling over her shoulders. In quiet moments like these, he remembers why he's infatuated with her, even though she doesn't act the way she's supposed to: because there's something lovely about her and somehow, in the middle of a murder scene, with one turn of a head, she looks like a goddess. Or perhaps more appropriately, considering the late Mr. Gillespie, an angel.

"They'll be here shortly," she said. "Mr. Ryan, you should sit down. You've had a bit of a shock."

She pestered their client into sitting down and thanked him for saving her life. His stomach lurched a bit at that comment, and he considered saying something but didn't. He'll table that argument for later. He was going to be grateful at the moment, and seconded her thanks to Ryan.

The police and the paramedics arrived and procedure ensued: statements taken, and the body removed. Laura said she drove and he went to tell Fred he'd hitch a ride with her.

He offered to drive, in case she was still shaken up. She just smiled slightly and got behind the wheel. "I'm fine, Mr. Steele."

"'Course you are," he replied, more to himself. Laura would never admit to being anything except fine. That other woman, the one whose lower lip might have trembled slightly, betraying that all was not quite so well and who needed a nice manly shoulder to rest on, might have conceded, might have gone home for a lie-down and not the office for more answers.

She was quiet on the way, and as the barrage of questions hit the two of them as they entered the office from an anxious Mildred and Mulch, he found himself answering the majority of them. She perched on Mildred's desk, and he thought for a moment that she looked tired, as if the events of the afternoon finally caught up with her.

When Mildred's ringing phone halted the inquisition, he quietly asked her again if she was okay. She replied that it wasn't shock; she's thinking. Something about Ryan doesn't make sense. He mentally kicked himself; he's been confusing his fantasy and the reality of Laura again. An investigator first, a woman second.

He watched as she solved the case, her eyes lighting up precisely as the pieces of the puzzle fit together in her mind, just as she's solved dozens, hundreds of cases right before him, her voice tinged with excitement as the explanation rolls off her tongue. She figured it out and they were going to see Mr. Ryan and put an end to this case once and for all.

He managed to convince her to take the limo to Ryan's, and was surprised when she conceded. She still doesn't like the look of his bruised forehead, she told him, fingering his bandage lightly in the backseat. Neither does he, he had replied. If it were Felicia, she'd smile saucily up at him and say she'd kiss it all better. If it were Eloise, her tongue would already be in his mouth and his injury completely forgotten.

But it's Laura, and though she was sitting right next to him, her head was miles and minutes away, planning her speech as she would unmask Ryan in front of the wife who loved him. The two of them escorted him to the police station after, and as they're leaving the station, he had to jog Laura's elbow to get her down the station steps.

"He may have been a criminal, but he saved my life this afternoon," she stated, apropos of nothing.

"If he hadn't been a criminal, you life wouldn't have been in danger in the first place," he replied angrily, wondering where this strange sympathy is coming from.

"I suppose you're right. I know you're right." And just like that, the subject dropped, and she walked down the steps planning dinner for that evening at his apartment and he found himself promising to cook. She was all right, as she always was, and he reminded himself of an interview he'd seen of Olivia de Haviland; Maid Marian never wore armor because she came equipped by nature. There is something like that in Laura too, he thinks.

When he saw her again, later that night, she had changed, her clothes less formal, her hair still down. She wore a burgundy blouse that he hadn't seen before; it suited her and made her skin to glow. (Or maybe it was just Laura that was glowing. He had a hard time distinguishing what was artifice and what was not with her, sometimes. It is not a criticism; in fact, it's another one of those things that he adores about her.) Mildred came with Mulch practically on Laura's heels and he didn't manage to get a moment alone to speak to her about the day's events.

Between trips between the living room and the kitchen, he finally managed a couple precious seconds with her, in the dining room setting the plates. He tried his best to hide his torn knuckles from her eyes and finally managed to put to her the question he'd been meaning to ask.

She had the decency to look slightly guilty before she began with her excuses. And then Mulch chimed in, and he found himself having to explain about their little jaunt to the loan shark, the selling of the Porsche, and the satisfying fight and end to Mulch's debts. Her reproach wasn't as robust as it usually was, he'd give her that.

After dinner and after sending Mildred and Mulch on their merry way, Laura began to help with the cleaning up. He had to physically halt her and escort her by hand into the living room.

"We need to talk," he said sitting down on the couch, a bit gingerly, still ever careful of his abused ribs.

"About what?" she asked, sitting next to him.

"Laura, perhaps this was foolish of me, but I assumed that when you gave your little speech yesterday about people going off by themselves, that it at least in part referred to yourself as well."

"Well, no, not specifically--"

"Because otherwise that would be a rather one-sided partnership, and not the brightest of ideas. Similar to you running off to a shoot-out this afternoon."

Indignant, now, she rose and began to pace, gesturing wildly. "I was fine! You were busy with Mulch, apparently stealing a CAR, and I..."

"Laura, my little vehicular indiscretion aside, we both have been nearly killed on this case. I think it proves that we both need some looking out for," he said with a gesture towards his bruised scalp.

Her eyes softened, in the way that they did on rare occasions, and a glimmer of that other woman, the one that Laura Holt held back day after day after bloody day, appeared. "I just don't want to see you get hurt, Mr. Steele," she stated softly.

He took a few crucial steps forward, closing the space between them. "Then you can certainly appreciate my feelings. Because I don't want to see you get hurt either."

"And neither one of us will sit on the sidelines, however we are manipulated," he continued, pointedly.

"Manipulated?"

"Manipulated. Delicately and deliberately shut out of part of a case because of another person's silly idea that they've had too much excitement for one day, or need to rest, or whatever it was you kept telling me to do."

"I notice you never complied," she noted, a half smile resting on her lips.

"Well, no."

"You never do," she said, punctuating her words with a single wagging index finger.

"Neither do you."

She sighed deeply, and put her hands on his shoulders. "I guess we're made for each other, Mr. Steele."

"That's one way of saying it." He kissed her, and she kissed him back, and felt a bit like heaven in his arms. Any minute now the screen could fade to black and life would be perfect, as the evening stretched out before them pregnant with possibilities, because in a major plot twist yesterday, Laura had rescinded their Cannes agreement to be "just business professionals, nothing more."

But she was Laura Holt, and this wasn't a movie. He pulled back slightly.

"What?"

"Nothing. I'm just waiting for the phone to ring or an assassin to lob something through one of my windows."

She smiled and drew a hand behind his neck, pulling him downward. "Mildred's won't be by a phone for a while, she has to drop Mulch off home, remember?"

"Mmm. Not terribly romantic as a sweet nothing, but very reassuring nonetheless."

"Well, try this one then: I have Ben Gay in my bag."

He stopped what he was doing, and looked at her upturned face, marked with a very impish grin. Perhaps maybe just for tonight, things would work out as nature, and cinema, intended.

"The stuff dreams are made of," he whispered back and kissed her once more.

FIN.