A/N: At last! Chapter Two. I got distracted trying to finish up my Harry Potter epic and my Inspector Morse story. And then before I got back to this, I somehow spawned a Jarndyce/Esther story from Bleak House.

I'm glad to be back. I've missed my boy, Robbie. Such a sweet face.

/

Lewis was back at the morgue 5 days later. This, combined with the positive things Karen had said about their last meeting, should have thrilled Laura's meddling soul. But the pathologist was feeling pushed. Her day had been ruined by 4 AM. There had been 2 bodies from a bad car wreck already and then Lewis' latest suspicious death showed up.

Before even considering how haggard the inspector looked, Laura briskly informed him she was up to her arm pits in arm pits, and that, no, his tox screen was in no way near done.

Robbie was about to return fire when he thought better of it. With a groan of frustration, he turned for the door.

Karen stole a glance and figured she could tell how long he had been on his feet, just by looking at him.

But she knew the evening's time line, as well. The suspicious death report had come in before midnight. It hadn't been Laura, but the department's other ME who had taken that call. When the car crash happened four hours later, Karen and Laura had been brought in. And oddly, the body from Lewis' crime scene was just arriving then.

It was 5:30 in the morning now, Karen noted with a look at the wall clock. No doubt the inspector had been all over the map in the meantime. He'd been out in the wet from the look of his hair and the ruddy wash across his face. She registered an empathy she couldn't stem as she watched him pinch at his brow and work for the doors.

Impulsively, Karen decided to follow him. She snapped off her gloves and backed away from a microscope in one hurried motion. She grabbed the relevant file as she walked quickly passed her desk.

Once they had both cleared the swinging doors and Laura's domain, Karen called out to him.

"Inspector? Robert," she tried next.

"You can tell Dr. Hobson, I don't need consoling. Or meddling. Or... flirting. Just answers on ..."

"Your suspicious death. I know," the lab manager assured him, firmly.

He stopped then and looked at her.

His face changed in an instant, self-reproach obvious. "I'm sorry, Karen."

"It's alright. You're wet through and tired, I'm sure. That doesn't help anyone's mood. These," she said showing him the file, "are just preliminary results. Observations from the crime scene ME and the initial autopsy."

"Dr. Hobson hates to give me the preliminary copy," he said with a raised eyebrow.

"Because it's often misleading. And likely a waste of your time. But I'm not Laura," Karen told him.

"No, you definitely are not," he replied as he reached for the folder.

"I just put coffee on over here," Karen said ignoring his outstretched hand, and indicating a little nook between offices. "Let me pour you a cup while you look at it?"

"Alright," he conceded, his mood still sounding distracted and sour. For some reason he could not fathom, she smiled at him.

When they got to the counter with the coffee service, she put down the file and then held out her hand to him. "What?" he asked feeling like he'd been caught flat footed.

"That coat. It's soaking. Take it off."

"I'm fine," he ground out.

"Grumpy! I'm not mothering you," she said with a stunning grin. "I just didn't want you to drip all over the report! Have you seen what happens when water hits that old thermal paper that comes out of my machines?"

Silently, then he consented to taking off the coat. He threw it over a chair behind him.

"God, even your suit is wet," she told him now that she had a look at him. She pulled a tea towel out of a drawer under the counter and tried to hand it to him.

"Now, you are mothering me."

"Sorry."

"S'alright. Just so we both know that I have caught you at it," he was trying to sound out of sorts, but his smile left the act unconvincing. He did take the towel then and dry off his hands and mop quickly at his neck. "Better?" he asked a tad impishly.

She froze for a second then, enjoying the way his face had lightened and his eye brows had raised playfully.

"Yes. So," she said, feeling a bit self conscious. "You'll want to know if this death seems related to the other. The markers will take time to run, I'm afraid. But to me what is striking is that there is nothing to make the deaths look different yet. Well, one seems made to look like a suicide and this one might have been made to look like an accident. The only thing we ruled out was alcohol so far. We got..."

"Up to your arm pits in arm pits quite suddenly. Yes, I know."

"It's a coarse business. I'm sorry Laura said ..."

"Don't apologize for her," Lewis insisted, seeming agitated again.

Karen steadfastly avoided his mood and tried a lighter tack, "We'll get even with her. I don't know about you, but I am feeling rather determined, actually. I made a complete fool of myself when I met with you last, and I blame her." She was blathering on now, she knew. But he had smiled encouragingly, so she found she couldn't stop. "I was rather hoping to see you again to plot our revenge." She forced herself to take a sip of her coffee and slow down. "I feel guilty now, though. I didn't mean for the fates to deliver you here like this," she said indicating the wet state of him.

He ducked his head a second, reconsidering the anger he'd felt at the way Laura had handled his appearance. It didn't seem to matter any more really.

"You've been a big help tonight. I really appreciate it," Lewis told her as he looked back up at her. He took some solace in hiding behind his coffee then, as well.

"You look like it's been a rough night," she ventured softly.

"Fairly horrid, yes." Normally he would have stopped there. But something about this woman, about her open expression, and the easy way she listened, compelled him to offer up more. "Frankly, I'm beat. It took forever to get the body extracted from where we found it and get it here." He dragged a hand through his wet hair. "The crime scene is nothing short of a marsh. At the bottom of a ruddy hill. And I have to worry that the same person is responsible for two murders now... and that I don't know who it is."

"You'll figure it out. I hear you are an awfully smart man," she said with a gentle smile.

"Mother, lab manager, and cheer leader, all in one?" he taunted as he drained his coffee.

"And partner in revenge, don't forget." She wondered what to do next... how to actually connect with him beyond these bland, superficial pleasantries. And she wondered where this compulsion to get to know this man suddenly came from. "You can call me, if plotting against Laura would make for a good distraction," she heard herself say. She reached into her scrubs and fumbled with a small notebook. Her nerves were making things difficult suddenly. She wrote out her number for him as neatly as her traitorous hands would allow. "This is not a pick up line. And this isn't an assignment from Laura. I swear. Because I'm gonna tell her to pack in all that advice. I think I'll tell her you broke my heart already. That should throw her." She put the number down on top of the report cover.

He was speechless suddenly. It wasn't that no woman had approached him since Val had died. It was that this did not seem at all like the empty sort of attention the other women had offered up in the hopes of a bit of company.

He wondered what it meant, and he decided to test it. He stood and shook out his coat before putting it on. He tried to make his words sound casual then. "Your phone must be ringing off the hook if you give every sour policeman you meet your number with the offer of talking."

She shrugged a tad uncomfortably. "I don't give it out, really," she said standing now, too.

He nodded in reply, and they both backed away to head in their separate directions.

/ / / / / / /

Once outside, Lewis pulled open the car door and slid in next to Hathaway. He shook the rain off the report cover and then pulled Karen's number out from under his thumb. He carefully tucked it inside his wallet.

"Something you don't want to lose, sir?" the detective sergeant asked as he nodded toward where the older man had stashed the note.

"A lovely woman just gave me her phone number. Perhaps going about wet and looking like hell had to pay off at some point. Some maternal instinct gets triggered."

"An older woman then, sir?"

"No, younger. Well, than me. And lovely."

"You've said 'lovely' twice now," his sergeant reminded him, a tad cheekily.

"Just drive the car, man," Lewis complained.

Hathaway considered the faraway look on his boss' face and then finally put the car into drive. The younger man shook his head. "You managed a telephone number on your way to a morgue? In the middle of the night? It doesn't seem... well, fair."

"What has fair ever had to do with women? Just because you have no luck ..." Robbie said, trying to rise to the conversation. He did his best then to look smug, but he felt more confused than anything else. He pointed at the wind screen. "Back to the station, Sergeant."

/ / /