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 notes and summary: A little bonbon inbetween before I go on with Psycho. First I thought this idea was going to become a Don'tTalk/Talk story but then I started to write and it turned out to be in need of more than 300 words ;-) And then I had thought it could be a suitable sequel to Psycho but that particular story had developed somewhat differently. So now it's a short fic on its own.

Here's what could happen if age is having a closer look at you ;-)

Enjoy...

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New Looks

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She had not seen it coming. Out of the blue the man had hit her with a log and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers got knocked out. Thanks to her boss, DI Tommy Lynley, who had been following her, nothing else had happened to her and fortunately he had arrested that criminal. Later Lyney sternly had asked Barbara why on earth she had not seen it, he himself had been multiple yards further away and had seen the man trying to hide. He almost reproached her for being blind. The next time Barbara appeared to be blind was when she almost had overseen the biker which almost had cost his famous car its door. This time his voice was slightly louder. Watching telly had finally become difficult and when she started to crawl into the monitor at her desk she finally went to an optician.

First Nkata had poked fun at her but after being reminded that he was no stupid schoolboy anymore and she no clumsy 'four-eyes' they talked about it over a pint.

"They sell cheap glasses nowadays which don't look too ugly. I was quite surprised." she praised the eye shop.

"Not too ugly? This thing looks incredibly beautiful!"

"It had cost me a fortune." Barbara admitted. "I suppose I have to cash my overtime..."

"But you look sexy, Barb." Winnie grinned. "He will be pleased."

"I don't think heeee-" She rolled her eyes at that. "...will ever see them. I'm thinking about contact-lenses."

"No, don't! I mean it. You look good with this model."

Barbara took it off so Winnie could inspect it closely. It was a small oval frameless model and only two small rivets attached the hinges and the sidepieces which were made of two thin metal bars only joining shortly behind her temples. The double bars recurred in the nose bridge. Every piece that was not glass was of a matted yellowish silvery metal. It was a very filigree, almost frail spectacle frame but the optician had convinced her that this model was suitable even for ball sports or judo.

"Spectacular spectacles." Winnie grinned.

...

Of course she tried to avoid wearing her new glasses at work. Mostly she kept them hidden in the case and one day she even had an appointment with the optician for getting contact-lenses when she finally got caught by Lynley.

It had been a long day with interviews and visits at the houses of some witnesses. Additionally Barbara had had a night with too less sleep. She had been pondering about the inspector's recent behaviour. She could have sworn that he had become 'physical'. Lately her boss had incidentally touched her one too many times to keep calling it incidental. Somewhere after midnight Barbara had concluded that he was searching her proximity. But then again this could not possibly be true, could it?

But then again his behaviour today had become even more inexplicable. Lynley had held open every door. He had called her nothing but Barbara, never his usual 'Havers' and only once 'Sergeant' when he had addressed her in front of one of the witnesses. He almost constantly had given her small smiles whenever their eyes met and at lunch, when he had invited her, he also had stood up when she had excused herself to the Ladies. And when she had come back. Always the gentleman. The most confusing thing had been when he had gently squeezed her hand after she had told him about the insulting remark of the witness she had visited on her own. Of course he had withdrawn his fingers immediately and - she could not believe it herself - his ears had turned slightly pink. A bit awkwardly he had diverted their conversation to something nicer so in the end they had enjoyed his stories of his mother's new stubborn mare. He had not let her share the bill and on their way to his car he briefly had put his right hand on her right shoulder as if he had been about to put his arm around her. Being the gentleman that he was he even had opened the car door for her. Most of the time during lunch he had not acted as her boss at all. The crowning moment had been straight after lunch when he had asked her out for dinner tonight. Barbara had been too confused to decline.

In the afternoon they had been at the crime scene once more before it was cleared for public. While Barbara had stood there talking with one of the PCs she suddenly had had the impression from the corners of her eyes that he was watching her. She had looked up and he clearly had looked somewhere else as quickly as possible. It was highly irritating. That had been the moment when she knew she had to cancel the dinner tonight. She needed time away from him or she would fall into something that could not possibly be true. She needed to get the impression out of her system that Lynley was trying to deepen their friendship. Or even upgrade it into something different. This impression had to be deleted, she thought.

Now she had spent a long boring hour in front of her computer, typing, reading, getting tired. Eventually she had given in and put on her glasses to relieve her tense eyes. If at all Lynley would not come back soon anyway. Or so she thought.

Actually he came back into the office unnoticed and while Barbara still was highly concentrated on something on her screen he approached her working space reading a paper file which he then tossed onto her desk.

"New developments, Barbara."

Both looked up simultaneously and stopped dead in their tracks.

Meanwhile Barbara got used to seeing him with his reading glasses but he always only had put them on briefly and only for quickly reading that bit he had in front of his nose. He never actually looked at her across the rims because he always had put them off before looking up. Not now. His hand had gone in this direction but only pushed back the silvery streaked unruly lock of hair that constantly fell over his brows. Lynley just looked at her. He inhaled open mouthed as if to say something then closed his lips without a word. Then again. Then he turned on his heels and disappeared in his office.

"Whoa!" Barbara breathed. That look of his dark eyes through the glasses of his equally dark-rimmed glasses would have knocked her off her feet if she would not already have sat on her chair. For a brief second there had been surprise in his face which had made space for a quick flash of desire. Then his entire face had turned into a question mark and then again for one single moment a softness had shimmered across it that had made her knees turn jelly and her heart had flipped seeing something in his eyes that could only be described as... love?! "Oh my goodness!" she whispered.

From the peanut gallery Nkata gave a juicy remark about Barbara apparently looking too sexy for their boss when she was wearing those specs. A remark that shook her out of her stun and which she was about to answer with a sharply flying chocolate bar when the door to the inspector's office went open a crack.

"Havers, a word?! In my office."

...

He had not seen it coming. Out of the blue the look of her big green eyes through those glasses had struck him deep in his heart. Actually a bit deeper and also a bit lower but he never would have admitted it at that moment. But he could not go on working with her when she was wearing those glasses and again would look at him the way she had a few moments ago.

He had been deep in thoughts when he had entered the office and obviously Barbara had been dug deep in the text on her screen when he had tossed the file onto her desk. When she had looked up and straight in his eyes he had felt exposed as if he stood naked before her.

There had been an innocent smile in those green pools when she had looked up. A flashing notice of his reading glasses had turned into a smile of approving affection that had lasted too short but long enough to knock his brain off. She showed a quizzical expression since he had kept silent. Waiting for some words from him, and probably out of shortsighted habit, her eyes had narrowed a bit and had revealed those tiny wrinkles he had admired for some time now. They had smoothed out when her eyes had gone wide open as if she would have had recognised something else in his face. Or realised something else in her heart?

And all the time those new frameless glasses had let her green eyes shine as if they were lit up from inside. Barbara's already beautiful eyes had been accentuatedly beaming at him, making his brain stop thinking and his breath pausing, letting his heart miss a beat and go on pounding like a war drum.

Though Tommy was not quite sure what he was feeling in that moment he knew it when his brain had kicked into gear again in his office and he finally was able to name it. Love. His heart loved her, his mind adored her and his body desired her and those feelings had surfaced only because he had seen her wearing new glasses?

"No." he whispered to himself. This obviously had been just the last straw that had broken the camel's back. The Detective Inspector plonked down onto his chair only to jump up instantly. Had it been a mirrored feeling shining in her eyes? Was it possible that she felt the same?

Without a further thought he opened the door and barked her to him. There was something that needed to be said out loud.

Immediately.

Barbara came into his office with a thick manila folder in her hands and accurately closed the door behind her. Tommy knew she just was playing for time when she also went straight to the file cabinet, waving the folder through the air.

"Johnson case." she said while she opened a drawer. "You've called for me, Sir?"

"Yes, Barbara, I've just..." Tommy still stood in the middle of his not too spacious office and watched her. "Say, umm... those glasses... I can't recall... since when...?"

Successfully he overplayed his nervousness and the real reason why he had called her. In reality it was not as easy as he had thought it over - well, sort of - a few moments ago.

"Well... one week..." Barbara had put away the file and turned to her boss who had closed most of the distance with one big step. He suddenly stood not an armlength away from her. She even had to raise her head to be able to look into his suddenly darkened eyes. Somehow her brain turned into a white wall with one single sentence written on it: You love him! Suddenly all she felt was the desire to feel his lips on hers and she knew she was not able to hide that feeling anymore. The way he looked at her she knew her emotions were displayed on her face.

He cleared his throat. "Barbara, I... you are... making me nervous." he quietly said. Suddenly all he wanted to do was kiss her and he knew somehow that it was impossible and unnecessary to hide it. Tommy reached around Barbara and gave the drawer a small push so it rolled shut. With him following that step she made one backwards until her behind felt the metal of the furniture cooling her skin through the thin material of her blouse. Her eyes stayed glued to his when his hands carefully took off her glasses and put them on top of the cabinet. She could smell his very own warm and heady scent, a hard day's work and the hint of horses and leather and musky aftershave. And his breath on her face.

Her hands searched for something in her back to hold on to steady her. The cold metal of the cabinet calmed her down enough to be able to say something.

"You are making me nervous." Barbara croaked when he had made another half step towards her, looking down with a whole bunch of positive emotions flicker in his eyes. When she added a soft but slightly uncertain "Tommy...?!" those emotions finally centered into the one she had thought she had seen a few moments before at her desk - deep love. Carried away on a huge wave of erupting feelings she had to close her eyes. Expecting everything, even a reprimand was one of the possibilities that rushed through her mind, she automatically held her breath.

"I had not intended to do that, Barbara." he whispered right before his own eyes closed and his lips brushed hers in a tentatively testing way and just because she did not back away, in fact she slightly followed his lips to prolong the contact when he broke it, Tommy suddenly knew what he had been missing for so many years now. He broke the contact only for a very brief moment of joy before his lips sealed hers again with a deep kiss that only intensified when he let all his emotions, all his affection, all the love he felt for Barbara be poured into it and when he felt that everything was reciprocated. Together they softly bumped into the file cabinet. In order to keep him close to her Barbara's arm snaked around his neck and her left thumb caressed his left earlobe while her right hand ruffled the hair in Tommy's nape.

One of Tommy's arms laid on the cabinet and grabbed hold of the edge of it since he needed to support his weight and to hold back the desire to make love to her right here up against that furniture. His other hand was placed softly on her neck, the heel of it pressing against her collarbone and his thumb caressing her jaw-line while they kissed open mouthed. They let their lips brush open mouthed, their teeth collided softly, their tongues tenderly struggled for mastery both gladly ceded. With ragged breath they never stopped kissing while they whispered gentle confessions of their desire, moaned desperate vows of love and breathed desirous endearments.

His groin was gently grinding into hers and he let her feel a bit of his desire for her. Since she had no file cabinet to hold onto he was rewarded with the raw and unfiltered wanton pressure of her hips when she clung to him.

That was the moment when Nkata finally left the room as unnoticed as he had come in. The kissing couple was oblivious of the rest of the world.

...

For a very long while there had been nothing that could be heard from Lynley's office so Nkata had worried for Barbara and only thought a few seconds more if he should have gone and have a look. Also he always loved to interrupt those embarrassing moments between them. Though they always act funny they should solve it someday, he had thought while he had walked with a random file towards the DI's office. Knocking at the door and opening it had been almost one motion and he had stepped into the room before he had registered what actually had been going on in there. For a few moments he just stood there, his hand still on the door handle, mouth agape, a deeply and very much inappropriately kissing couple before his eyes.

Obviously they had started to solve that thing between them. Obviously there actually was not much between them anymore. Or rather something. Something he should not and would not witness any longer so he had sneaked out backwards and for the rest of the time that both were in that room he had made sure that nobody would walk through that door.

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