Author's notes: I don't own any of the original characters nor the original Inspector Lynley Mysteries – they belong to Elizabeth George and the BBC.
I have borrowed the characters from the TV-Show and solely own the ideas of my stories and the developments I've let them go through.
Please let me know if I did something terribly wrong (rating, grammar, spelling...). Thanks!
Please read and review!
French words: see translation below*.
Barbara had just returned to the office and had to tell Tommy what she had done during her holidays.
Additional notes, because I've already heard a critical comment about that: Some may think Barbara has no single friend and is absolutely alone. I don't think so. They might not appear in the show and she might not talk about them (she seldomly talks about her private life anyway) and perhaps they're not those kind of friends you could share everything with but I believe that one or the other evening when Tommy or Winston or Stuart didn't ask her out for a pint she is not always sitting alone and brooding in her flat. That's why I've let her spend a lovely holiday with two friends.
Another note: I have a black colleague and when I've returned to work after my own holiday he funnily had said exactly what Winston said to Barbara - he must have read my lines ;-)
.
"Hey, Barb! Welcome home!" Winston greeted her cheerily then hesitated and blinked twice. "Wow! You're in competition with me? You're quite sunburnt!"
"Thank you, Winnie." Barbara smiled at the DC and hugged him. She had just returned from nearly three weeks off and the weather during her holiday had been more than sunny.
"I'm so glad you're back, Barbie." Winston was genuinely relieved. He looked around to see that nobody was near then he went on speaking with a low voice. "Friendly speaking, DS Jones is a stupid sod! And after not more than four days of your absence Lynley's mood had been unbearable all the time. You should go straight into his office. He desperately needed you back."
Winston winked and smiled one of his compelling cheeky grins. It was obvious he insinuated he was not meaning that Lynley needed her at work.
"Oh, bollocks..." Barbara blushed and playfully slapped his arm but nonetheless immediately rushed into DI Lynleys office without a knock. A part of her had missed him too and more than once she had wished he could be there with her.
"Barbara! What a pleasure to have you back." Tommy happily beamed at her, throwing his pen carelessly onto his desk, grinning broadly.
"Come sit down. How was your holiday? You seem to have relaxed, you look beautiful." Truth be told, you look sexy with that light green blouse corresponding with your bright emerald eyes and your suntan.
Tommy got up and loked like he was going to hug her.
Instead he filled a cup with her favourite black stuff and handed it to her. "Coffee?"
Their fingers brushed slightly and it was not quite clear if it was accidental or not.
"Thank you, Sir. I'm feeling quite relaxed." Barbara blushed again but smiled and sat down very unceremoniously.
Tommy entrenched behind his desk. "Tell me, where have you been exactly?"
Barbara started to talk about her previous weeks with James and Carl, two brothers and her friends of old days.
The first long weekend from thursday to monday they had spent on a music festival. There mostly was sun, heat and dust, more heat and more dust.
"This made me miss too many bands I've wanted to see. We were just hanging around staying under trees or in any other shadow, even in Carl's car with the air condition turned on, talking nonsense and drinking muscadet."
"Wasn't that too posh for you?" Tommy teased her.
"Ha ha!" Barbara rolled her eyes. "The French don't drink wine like your lot does, Sir. The just drink it. Everywhere and everytime."
"Ah, je comprends.*" Tommy answered in accent-free French.
"Tush! After the weekend we continued the wine-drinking in the Bretagne - otherwise we would have had to drink Belgian beer." Barbara went on.
On monday after the festival they had driven on to a little village where the two brothers, once having made good, recently had bought a stonewalled cottage of the age of approximately 600 years. It once belonged to a cidrerie* and the appletree plantation still was located behind the building.
"It was a cute house with blue shutters on all windows and a huge fireplace in the main room. It wasn't lit of course."
"Of course." Tommy agreed. But I imagine it would be nice spending a winter in front of this with you.
He slightly blushed by his inappropriate thought but fortunately Barbara didn't recognise it.
Instead she told him in flowery words how beautiful the house was with its huge living room, its tiny kitchen, the (slightly too warm) bedrooms on the first floor and the wild garden around it. It still was hot weather and the windows had to stay open all nights if one did not want to asphyxiate.
"Unfortunately all midges chose to pay a visit to my room instead of the boys'. I've counted eighteen bites and they had none. But I believe they both cheated and had their windows closed." Barbara laughed.
Tommy noticed his relief that she had not shared a bedroom with one of the 'boys' and grinned. He had felt strangely angry about the fact that Barbara would be off with two men - this was the only detail she had told him before - and later had found to his surprise that he was jealous. That it obviously had been baseless made him very happy now.
The three had been regularly visited by a neighbour's dog who had been totally frightened first but after being fed with some brioche happily wagged its tail when she came through the garden door.
"She also ate my... whatever it was... some french speciality that tasted nauseously awful... that dog ate it with delight. And so we've become closest friends." Barbara's eyes showed a loving gleam when she thought about that adorable dog they had named Souris, which means mouse.
"You love dogs?" Tommy asked and imagined Barbara with Wellies, a thick coat, a dog lead around her neck and three Golden Retrievers bouncing happily around her in the drizzle. He shook his head to get rid of this imagination.
"Especially when they are so sweet like that one." Barbara raved. "It was hard to leave her behind."
Barbara told him they mostly had been hanging around all days, had started drinking icecold white wine at about eleven in the morning, later doing some halfhearted gardening, going to the port in the evening, having a drink (or rather three to eight) in the local bar named "Madame Untel"* and watching the worldcup matches there.
"You did some gardening?" Tommy asked. "I've always thought you were a city child."
"Oh, it was no real gardening." Barbara played it down. "The grass was cut by a pro and we've just pruned some trees and bushes. We did a botched job, I have to admit. But I've bared three rose bushes. Freed them from the weeds. Hell, when you're centred upon this work you could think intensely about everything and the world-" ...and you... she thought and blinked. "-but I've had quite some pain in my ass sitting for hours on a little wooden stool, bent over the patch."
"Drinking muscadet..."
"Yeah, drinking muscadet!"
"I suppose it wasn't just your lovely bottom that ached but your back as well?" Tommy smiled. It made Barbara blush since she had realised what they were talking of so bluntly.
"Yes." she answered and briefly looked away. Did he really say lovely bottom?
"It's what I remember my mother saying: 'Ah, if only gardening would not be so painful for the backbone...' she always complained."
"I know now how it feels. Luckily most of the days I've spent more time to relax than with work. And the food! You wouldn't believe it." Barbara distracted herself from her thoughts about her musing of Tommy over her garden work when she listed what seafood she ate.
Every day they had something with fish or shrimps or mussles or oysters...
"Oysters? You?!"
"They're quite yummy if you bake them."
"...ever tried them raw?"
"Never! Urgh!" Barbara grimaced. "Eating something salty and fishy raw... that slimy... ah, disgusting! It's like sushi - it's something only you posh people do eat."
Tommy laughed. That was his Barbara. She would never eat those kinds of food that were posh in her opinion. He believed she even would not try to taste it. She'd rather went to bed hungry than eat raw oysters or caviar on eggs or whatever she might think that 'normal' people never would eat. I'll have to start with champagne. She probably would get used to some sparkling alcohol very soon and later we'll try goldcovered vanilla ice. He chuckled once more.
Over his thoughts about what high-class specialities Barbara might like to eat he totally missed her story about the annual moules frites* festival in the harbour of the village. He only was with her story again when he heard her mentioning Honfleur, a little harbour village on the coast of the Normandy where he also had been once long ago.
"Ah, Honfleur... I've been there once, very long ago. I remember too many art galleries. We've had a pupils exchange and arts was not my interest at all back then."
"Those galleries there still aren't mine either but we've just spent the evening there, we didn't go watching errm... colours on canvas. We just had an enormous - guess what - seafood dinner and watched France beating Nigeria." Barbara laughed. "It was a really lovely harbour. As much as I can remember - we were drunken to the bone after the second match that night."
"So it was football and boozing with the French again?" Tommy asked with a broad grin.
She laughed out loud and Tommy watched her throwing her head back. She is so relaxed. She must have had a very nice holiday. he thought, feeling jealousy creeping up his spine once more but observing her sweetly wrinkled nose and the little crow's feet around her eyes he found himself distracted and once more drifting away to the sound of her enthusiastic voice and the sight of her happy and relaxed face.
He did not miss something important. The next evening in Calais simply was spent with a walk at the beach and sitting around in the sun. The next day they had to catch an early ferry across the Channel so there was no long evening with alcohol.
Wednesday morning when they arrived at the check-in point at the ferry they had quite a little shock when the man behind the counter told them that they were a day too late.
"We've realised that we've mixed the dates and we had to pay extra for we've been a day too late." Barbara rolled her eyes.
In Kent they drove around at the coastline because they had quite some time before their check-in at the hotel which was in the heart of the town of Canterbury where they had planned to stay for two nights.
The thought of the pub around the corner of that hotel shot through Barbara's mind. She kept to herself that it was in Love Lane where they had their first Kentish Ale. She could not have spoken about that pub without the street's name in the back of her head. And additionally when she had read that name she immediately had had Tommy's face before her inner eye and had had blushed whereupon both of her friends had started to tickle out of her what exactly had made her blush. The brothers had poked their fun on her the rest of the holidays, not knowing how difficult that topic was for Barbara.
It made her blush now once more. Tommy was well aware of it and stared at her curiously waiting for an explanation but she kept the story to herself.
"We had to visit every single pub on our way to and in Canterbury because James is very keen on Real Ale." Barbara explained and tried to keep calm under Tommy's intense gaze. "That is we've excluded those new and modern ones..."
"You mean those posh bars..." Tommy chuckled.
"Exactly." Barbara made a funny face and both smiled at each other.
"You know, Sir, we've been to those pubs with the hand pumps and the dark beams and leather seats. And with the traditional pub signs and with names like George & Dragon or King's Head or Fox & Hound. Those pubs where the old men meet."
"And you." Tommy added. "And with the choice between fish'n'chips, bangers'n'mash and steak'n'ale pie. Speaking of which, may I ask you to dinner tonight?"
It had not been his intention to go out tonight and he also had some previously planned estate businesses to cancel now but the impulsive invitation was heartfelt and today he simply wanted to spend as much time with Barbara as possible.
For his liking she had been away for far too long now.
"Huh?" Barbara was slightly thrown off the track. "Dinner? Umm, well, yes, sure."
She looked at him quizzically. Pub grub with Lynley? He usually will have a pint and then go eat somewhere else.
"Alright, then I'll pick you up at seven. And it will be a restaurant of my choice so please put on some posh dress." Tommy winked.
"Then I'll spontaneously will have the flu, Sir."
"I'll bring some medicine and you'll just dress yourself as chic as you wish."
"Hm... ok... Deal."
Barbara muttered a "...put on some black sweat pants, that's chic enough..." but Tommy had heard it.
"I honestly do believe that you would look great in black..." he paused for effect. "...sweat... pants..."
Barbara blushed and shook her head. She tried to focus on her holiday story again which would be better than planning a date with Lynley the way they actually did. That won't be a date, Barbara, don't be foolish. It's just an invitation to dinner.
"Where was I?"
"Canterbury, beer, pubs, our date..."
"Ah, yes. Thursday..." Once more Barbara had to look on Tommy's desk to keep her mind on her holidays and not on inappropriate thoughts about a date with her DI.
"On Thursday we've booked a guided boat trip on the Stour, it was very romantic." ...and I'd loved to do it with you.
The picture of the Old Scotland Yard on the wall behind Tommy suddenly seemed to be very interesting. Barbara could not look into those dark eyes on the other side of that desk. He was making it hard for her to tell her story, when all she actually could think of now were those moments of her holiday when she had thought of him. There had been several times she was the victim of the brother's fun, with her gazing into space.
She cleared her throat.
"Well, as romantic as it could be with two mocking friends."
"I can imagine..." Tommy answered. ...how romantic it could have been had I been with you. Oh dear...
"Hardly. Anyway... In the evening after wandering around and after again having visited several pubs, you wouldn't believe it, we dropped by at a pub called Canterbury Tales where some musicians had met spontaneously and played some folkmusic. First we waited outside on a nearby bridge, watching the water while the interval of the theatre on the opposite side of the street would be over. The pub was crowded with theatregoers. It was the Marlowe Theatre. There was -"
"O, thou art fairer than the evening air / clad in the beauty of a thousand stars." Tommy recited with a dreamy smile.
"What?!" Now Barbara had been totally ripped from her talking flow and irritatedly looked at Lynley.
"This was Christopher Marlowe, from his piece Dr. Faustus." Tommy explained while he felt some strange need to adjust the pen to the paper and the paper to the desk pad. And coincidentally those lines in fact were addressed to Helena.
His thoughts drifted away to Helen and that he never felt to speak similar words to her. He mainly missed Barbara's ongoing tale about the long evening with the musicians and too much pints of good beer when he thought about their case in Essex when he sat with her in the little trailer park pub with a simple lager beer. When once before he had listened to Barbara's holiday stories with her family. When his mind had drifted likewise but still differently away. It had been at a time when he and Helen were in some way but also in some way not really together again.
Tommy suddenly realised that the memories of the moments when he feared to lose Barbara in the marshland were carved deeper in his mind than the memories of his renewed relationship with Helen.
Barbara's laughter brought him back from his reverie.
"...the musicians seemed to stop only when the landlord would throw them out."
"Ah, well... musicians..." Tommy tried to pretend that he had listened to her story and not only to her voice.
On friday Barbara and her friends had driven to Deal, drinking good beer again, spending some quid at the family amusement and watching Germany beating France in the World Cup.
"Luckily we haven't been in France anymore." she giggled. "On saturday we drove home again. That is, of course, after we have sobered up at the beach. Bloody hell, we had the best weather one could wish for - all days sunny."
"I can tell from your silky bronze skin." Tommy dared to look wistfully at her throat which made her redden under her suntan.
"Indeed, all days we had sunny weather, the opposite from now and here." Barbara looked out of the window. It was raining constantly.
"...but speaking of me all the time." Barbara stopped her tale. Meanwhile her untouched coffee had become cold. "What was going on in the criminal community of London when I was out of town?"
"Nothing unusual. We've tried to solve a mysterious murder for the past two weeks. It was sheer torture having to work with DS Jones, just ask Winston." Tommy rolled his eyes. "I'll show you the meagre progress later. We've truly not come very far. We've desperately missed your wit, your knowledge, your crazy trains of thought."
Tommy grinned lovingly and stood.
Barbara had gotten up when he had started to walk around his desk, expecting to go out of the office with him and dive into this still unsolved case. She was ready to be briefed with the facts right now.
Instead of walking past her and to the door Tommy stopped in front of her. He stood unusually close and Barbara held her breath. She could not go further back because the chair on which she had plonked herself down a few minutes ago was right behind her in the hollows of her knees.
It was a very odd moment.
She could not read the strange look in his eyes, he had never before looked at her this way.
Tommy felt the urge to show her how he had missed her.
"Sir?" Barbara asked irritated.
"To keep myself out of the presence of this stupid DS..." Tommy started. "...I've spent most of my time alone in my office with thinking and I've come to a result."
He paused and took a deep breath. "The reason why I constantly was in a probably unbearable mood is that I've..."
Tommy made another step forward, now standing so close to her that she could feel his breath in her face. He gently touched her upper arm. Barbara's knees began to buckle.
With amazement she recognised his look. Love was swimming in the depth of his dark brown eyes.
Quickly she tried to wipe that crazy train of thought away. Barb, don't fool yourself and pretend that he...
"...utterly missed you!" he interrupted her thoughts and took advantage of her apparent confusion.
He bent down and sealed her lips with a soft kiss.
Barbara was too puzzled so she did not sit down when her knees were about to surrender but steadied herself by grabbing his waist.
"Welcome home, Barbara." he whispered and then she allowed him to kiss her again.
.
*Translation of the french words:
Ah, je comprends. - Oh, I see.
cidrerie - the place where cidre (french cider) is made
Madame Untel - Mrs. so-and-so
moules frites - mussels with chips (for you Americans: with French fries ;-) )
Author's note: It was just a short idea of Barbara returning from her holidays. It was in my drawer for some time and there still was a huge gap in it ("Barbara told of her journey, Tommy got distracted"). So when I've returned from my own journey I knew how to fill the gap. ;-)