Author's usual notes and disclaimer: 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 write a PM if I did something terribly wrong. Thanks!

Please read and review! More thanks!

Author's note: Balford, Essex. We've been here before, many years ago...

Sometimes the rerun of an episode brings out an idea with its last lines and last pictures. Just a short one.

Enjoy it!

.

Affection On Her Mind

.

"Sometimes people let you down." he hoarsely said, almost unhearable.

"No... you haven't... ever!" she faithfully looked up to him.

...

... many years later ...

...

They were in Balford, DCI Lynley and DI Havers, happy to have something like a few days off in Essex, away from their usual work in London, enjoying the sun and the sea and the soft job they had been called for. Nowadays they had not often been given the opportunity to work together as a team like they once had. Of course they were a strange couple of best friends at New Scotland Yard and if a telephone line would burn with calls it would be the one from her office to his. And they still practise their theory ping-pong from time to time but of course he had other tasks to coordinate and she had her own little team to lead. So if they were offered to actually work together as an investigating team they enjoyed every second of it.

Apart from that they spent far too little time together, now that they don't have the same tasks, the same cases, the same schedule anymore. Pints after work had become less easy to coordinate.

At the moment they were trying to crack a tough nut of a widely spread and difficultly woven case of murder in the Pakistani parish where they had known a few members from a case many years ago. Most of the work of course was done by the local officers but their superiors probably had hoped that the Met Detectives would interact with their own way of thinking and their own ideas. A habit the two were renowned for. Officially Havers and Lynley only were counselling - whatever that would mean.

Tommy and Barbara had been here for three days now and already had had some lazy time on the beach and in the sun. Though it was not easy concerning the case itself these days had been their most relaxing time around a case ever. By chance the Met's office for travel had booked them both into the same B&B they had stayed so many years ago, so apart from the nights they had enjoyed spending each and every moment together.

Today the local police had asked them to observe a shop on the pier because for the majority of the Pakistani parish the two Londoners still were strangers so they would not attract attention. Lynley and Havers had hung around on the pier, wasted a few pounds in the amusement hall, ate two ice-creams - one before and one after lunch at the greasy fish'n'chip shop - and drilled their toes into the sandy beach while sitting on a bench there. They had talked the entire time about everything and the world. How the new manager ran his estate in Cornwall, how she had coped with the loss of her mother, how his mother coped with her new life retired in London, what his brother was concocting at the moment and how well he had recovered from his drug abuse, where Winston, their formerly closest colleague, had gone to, that they both sadly worked too less with each other, when she last had been to the sea, what a brilliant weather they had and why dogs always run to Tommy knowing where they could receive a cuddle.

"You're a dog's magnet, Tommy." she laughed. "You should finally get you one."

His head shot up and he released the dog from his ruffling embrace. Barbara only once had called him Tommy, when she had been promoted for DI and he had offered it (once more) since they had been of equal rank at that time. After the party she had returned to her usual 'Sir'. Now she innocently licked at her ice cream and looked extremely relaxed on that bench with stretched legs and her naked feet crossed at her ankles. Due to the sun she narrowed her eyes and showed the sweetest laugh lines he ever had seen. Traces of the time that had passed.

Time should freeze now. he thought. "And you should finally keep calling me by my name."

"Ah, don't expect too much." Her contented eyes wandered from the closed shop across the beach and to the waves of the sea and she reduced her ice cream two bites before she added a chuckled "Sir."

Nothing remarkable had happened in or around the shop so Tommy only had called the leading DI and they had stopped the observation. Later they had dinner in a nice little restaurant and walked the few yards back to their B&B. Again Barbara had slipped off her sandals and they dangled in her hand while she enjoyed the warmth of the asphalt under her naked feet. Tommy loosely had placed his arm around her shoulders and they still stretched the evening by walking very slow. Back in the pub of the B&B they had two pints of the local ale and still talked about this and that and what a nice day it had been. It turned into a real late evening at the bar. They still sat there with their third beer when the bar tender placed the chairs on the tables and was busy with cleaning up in the already empty and half dimmed taproom. Probably they only were allowed to stay because they also were sleeping guests.

At one point their conversation brushed the time when Barbara had come here and joined the local police and the case at that time. Tommy had just married Helen, he had been on his interrupted honeymoon, and Barbara had had a futile crush on Azhar, her former Pakistani neighbour in London.

Of course they also talked about their memories of that special evening years ago after that horrid trip into the north sea when Barbara was fearing the worst after having saved his life and that of Haddiyah, Azhar's daughter, but shot her former friend, DI Barlow.

"Emily. Yes, I remember." She gave a short bitter laugh.

"You've admitted that you would have liked to kill her."

"Well, I'm glad I haven't. So I got away with a black eye." Barbara lopsidedly grinned and again revealed the laugh lines around her eyes. "Luckily you've saved my career afterwards, Sir."

You haven't let me down. Not you. Ever.

"You've saved my life, Barbara. And not for the last time." Tommy's voice turned low. "There was so much... trust written in your face when you've watched me with your big doelike eyes."

They looked up from their almost empty drinks and at each other.

"Like you do now." he hoarsely added. Hesitantly he went on. "I remember that I've just returned from my... well... honeymoon, disappointed that it had ended so abruptly because of... I can't recall anymore what it had been... you've just saved my life in the north sea risking your entire career... That had been the first moment I... and I had more of those later on but always tried to suppress them, tried to avoid thinking of it... " Tommy gave Barbara a long and pensive look. "I've already started to question my decision to marry Helen because... I suddenly realised that it maybe was the wrong decision, that she maybe was the wrong woman, that maybe I didn't really love her, maybe I didn't really love her... I realised that maybe it wasn't her... that maybe it was..." Suddenly she saw tears in his eyes which she could not explain at all. "It was you... I've wanted to kiss you so badly." Tommy swallowed. His voice had turned into an almost inaudible whisper. "Like I do now."

He needed to look away from her eyes and her face that was reddened not only by the day's sun and wind. Uncertain Tommy raked his hand through the greyed unruly lock of his hair, cleared his throat and shook his head as if to get rid of a stupid idea. "I'm sorry, Havers, I know... it's absolutely not appropriate." His hands nervously played with the glass in front of him. "And I seriously do apologise to even have voiced it. I'm sorry to have embarrassed you. I really understand if-"

He was not able to go on, his lips were sealed.

Barbara had lifted herself up with support of the crossbars of that stool she sat on. She also had tears in her eyes but she had made her own brave decision, placed a hand on his cheek to turn his face back to hers and silenced him with her mouth on his.

It had been intended as a warm and reassuring but brief kiss and then it turned into a soft slow and gentle caress. His eyes stayed closed when her lips lingered on his prolonging the contact. There was no need to hurry at all. Not after this wonderfully lazy day, not after his stammered confession. Barbara's hand crept from his cheek into his nape.

"Oh..." he breathed when they parted ever so slightly only to get some oxygene into their lungs between two long kisses. Keeping her eyes shut she felt his warm hand laying on her waist and his lips smiling onto hers when she granted his tentative tongue access. Barbara knew it would become a long and tender night when she finally stood up and took his hand, silently requesting him to leave the bar now. She whispered into his ear what she had dreamed of for so many years.

"Lay me down, Tommy."

.

.