Sarah sighed impatiently as she hid out in a ladies' room stall. She was very much regretting the fact that she'd insisted on meeting Danny at the social instead of just driving in with him like he'd wanted to do. As usual, Danny was considerably late, and Sarah had been fielding questions about who she was and what the ARC did for the past twenty minutes on her own.

It was her own fault of course. She should have just explained her job away with a boring lie such as "filing mostly" or "just paperwork stuff," but instead she'd used the words "classified" and "top secret" to describe what she did and suddenly it was everyone's mission to get her to spill her secret. After all, it wasn't like there was much else for them to do here. Sure there was a dance floor, but mostly everyone here was strangers or colleagues rather than dating couples, so very few were actually interested in using it.

Sarah pulled her mobile out of her purse and sent Danny a quick text. "Danny, where the hell are you?"

She gave a little sigh of relief when the reply came almost instantly, "Just pulling up now. Sorry!"

Sarah put her mobile back away without answering and left to go find him, sneaking around the room by way of the wall so that she wouldn't be noticed again. She was happy to see him making his way across the parking lot towards her, but quickly hid her grin with full intentions of scolding him for his tardiness.

"You look fantastic!" Danny said as he approached her, and Sarah gave up the façade, not able to hide the pleasure from her face at the compliment. After all, she'd gone out of her way to make sure she looked good. She'd donned a strapless velvet royal blue dress that fell to her knees and was trimmed with silver rhinestones that outlined the slit over her left thigh giving her movement for dancing. She'd also chosen royal blue stilettos and her hair was done up in a loose bun.

"I know I do," she boasted teasingly, "And I'll tell you that you look great yourself in that tux, but before I do that, I need to accuse you of being late and demand an explanation."

Danny chuckled, "I am sorry, Sare. I was looking into something."

Sarah nodded for him to continue, "Looking into what, exactly?"

"Later. I'll tell you at dinner. How's the party so far?"

"Horrid, you owe me big time for being late, I hope you realise that."

"I do, I'll make it up to you. You can order the most expensive thing on the menu tonight."

Sarah rolled her eyes, "Nice try, Danny, but when I say you owe me, I'm not talking about something that will come out of Lester or the Minister's pocketbook."

"Had to try," Danny laughed. "What did you have in mind then?"

"Nothing yet, but I'll think of something," Sarah laughed. "In the meantime, we should get back inside. Let me warn you, Lester was right, don't talk to anyone if you can help it."

"That bad eh? Maybe we could liven the place up."

"Danny…" Sarah warned.

"Just kidding, Sarah," Danny grinned at her. "I won't draw any attention to us. Anyway, don't fret because this party just got a hundred times better for you; I'm here."

"And as humble as ever, I see."

"Hard to be humble when I've got the prettiest date here," Danny replied cheekily, reaching for Sarah's hand and kissing it coyly.

Sarah laughed, "Now you're talking, though I daresay you haven't actually seen the others yet."

Danny shrugged and tugged at her hand to lead her inside, "Don't need to, Sare. It's impossible that anyone could be more gorgeous."

Sarah was sure he was teasing as always, so she silently chastised herself when she inadvertently let her guard down, biting her lip and blushing. She glanced at Danny to see if he'd noticed and saw him quickly mask his expression of curious surprise and replace it with one of amusement. He'd definitely noticed. Just before the silence between them could grow awkward though, Danny grinned at her, "And you're even prettier when you blush," he added, kissing her cheek and giving her a wink.

Sarah pulled her hand from his and swatted at him playfully, "You're too cocky for your own good; you know that?"

"Yep," Danny grinned, "But you like me anyway."

"You sure about that?"

"Positive."

When Sarah and Danny entered the hall, Sarah felt Danny reach immediately for her hand again, and she let him hold it this time. She wanted everyone to know that Danny was taken, even if technically, he wasn't. She had no intentions of sharing him with anyone else tonight at any rate and she had Lester's orders that they stick to themselves to back her up. Not that she needed any help in the matter as Danny seemed uninterested in leaving her side anyway. The first thing he did was drag her over to the open bar and order a martini for each of them.

"Danny," Sarah whispered to him, "Don't drink too much. These people are like piranhas, ready to attack and make you talk the moment your guard is down. They want to know all about the ARC."

"Just the one then," Danny promised, taking a sip of his drink, "And then we'll dance."

Sarah didn't have time to reply before she noticed that they were being approached by one of the more persistent men she'd had to hide from earlier. She groaned and Danny gave her a puzzled look and then turned around, following her gaze behind his stool.

"Hey!" the man greeted him, jumping up onto the barstool on Danny's other side. "Nice to meet you. I'm Gerald from Human Resources."

"Um, hi. Danny." Danny introduced himself, "And this is Sarah."

"Yeah, I met her earlier. Do you two work together?"

Sarah had hoped that Danny would lie and say no so that Gerald wouldn't ask Danny the same questions she'd already answered, but Danny was already nodding before she could get his attention. "We sure do, and I'd probably be going stir crazy at work if we didn't. Everyone else on the job is slightly insane."

"Including you," Sarah laughed.

"Especially me. Actually I don't know how you remain so normal, Sare. Not with us lot around."

"What exactly do you do?" Gerald asked, trying to draw the conversation back to where he wanted it.

"Oh, that's classified," Danny said, making the same mistake Sarah already had, not that it mattered now.

Gerald frowned, "You insult me. I'm not some random person off the street; I'm a high up government official."

Then he changed his tone as he turned around to the bartender and snapped his fingers, "Sir! These two would like a second drink."

Danny saw the trap immediately and shook his head, "Actually, we were just about to hit the dance floor, weren't we Sarah?"

Sarah nodded, quickly finishing off her martini and jumping to her feet, grateful that Danny was behaving for once.

Gerald frowned as he watched them walk off and Sarah saw him go over to talk to a few of the others who'd been bothering her earlier, but she didn't really care now that she was dancing with Danny. She told herself that was just because of her relief that they'd probably be left alone now for a bit, but to be honest, she was realising that the idea of her having feelings for Danny might not be as big a joke as they liked to act out at times. For one thing, her heart was definitely beating a bit faster than usual as he held her close and swayed to the music, and she hoped he couldn't feel it through their joined palms.

After a few moments, Danny leaned closer to her ear and whispered, "Don't worry about them busybodies, Sare. We'll dance for a bit and then get outta here. Lester only said we had to make an appearance. No reason to stay long."

Sarah nodded and when instead of pulling back a bit again, Danny kissed her ear, she let herself smile up at him. They both jumped, startled, when a bright flash suddenly indicated that someone was photographing them. They looked around and found Gerald standing there with a grin and a camera.

"Tell me what you do for a living or I'll send this photo to your boss," he threatened.

Sarah and Danny exchanged a puzzled look. "And why would he care?" Danny voiced the question they were both wondering.

Sarah giggled suddenly, "Maybe Lester'll frame it and hang it on his office wall and tell everyone we're his favourite employees."

"No more alcohol for you," Danny teased before turning back to Gerald. "Let's see the photo."

Gerald held out the camera and Danny and Sarah both moved close to see the picture. It was a rather nice one of them smiling at each other. Danny shrugged and then pulled out a piece of paper from his wallet and wrote something on it. "I'm still not sure," he said, "Why you think you need to know what we do for a living, but here's our boss' email address and I've written my own underneath it. When you send him the picture, I wouldn't mind a copy for myself. It's rather a good one, don't you think Sarah?"

Sarah nodded, but Gerald frowned. "In my experience, the government frowns upon employees dating each other. Surely your boss will be unhappy to see this."

"It's a government funded social. Our boss is paying us to be here," Sarah replied, puzzled.

"So's mine," Gerald replied, "But there's a big difference between showing up as co-workers and showing up as a proper couple."

"We're actually not," Sarah replied, "But I'm sure he wouldn't have an issue with it if we were. Lester doesn't care about that sort of thing, as long as we get our work done."

Gerald's eyes lit up, "Oh, well, if your not dating…" he turned to Sarah, "May I have the next dance?"

"No," Danny answered hurriedly before Sarah could reply. Sarah bit her lip to hide back her grin.

"And why not?" Gerald asked pointedly.

Danny shrugged, knowing that to say their boss ordered them to dance with only each other would cause even more suspicion, so he just said, "Because couple or not, I still like to act out the role of Sarah's possessive boyfriend, don't I, Doll?"

Sarah burst out laughing, "Apparently so, Darling. Sorry Gerald, but I can't make my Danny-Boy jealous. He thinks I'm his."

Gerald hesitated, clearly flummoxed, and Danny took the opportunity to ask, "What's it matter to you anyway? You don't even know us, so why do you care what we do for a living?"

Gerald hesitated and then, seeing as he wasn't getting anywhere with them, went for the truth. "Okay, a few of us have a bet going as to who can get the information out of you first. C'mon guys, I've got money on the line here, you gotta tell me!"

"You won't win any or lose any, because no one is gonna win this one," Danny pointed out.

Gerald sighed but finally moved to leave them alone and Sarah pointed out to Danny that when Gerald told the others he had failed, someone else would surely be along to bother them soon.

"Forget them, Sare," Danny responded, pulling her back into his arms. "Dance with me."

Sarah willingly complied.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but they've not yet left us alone," Sarah whispered after a half hour of non-interrupted dancing.

Danny glanced at her, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

Sarah spoke even softer than before and Danny had to lean quite close to hear her. "The groups with the bet, they keep dancing awfully close to us. I think they're trying to eavesdrop."

"We should just tell them; they wouldn't believe us anyway," Danny chuckled quietly.

"Or," Sarah answered, her eyes sparkling, "We could let them 'overhear' us talking about our fake job."

Danny grinned and spoke a bit louder, just enough to be overheard while still trying to sound like he didn't want to be. "Sare, please can I copy your reports from this morning? Lester wants it in tomorrow morning and I didn't pay any attention in the meeting."

Sarah faked a frown, "Well you should've. You don't think he'll realise he's reading the same report twice?"

"I won't copy it word for word, just the general idea."

Sarah gave an exasperated sigh, trying to hide her smile when she noticed the other dance pairings moving in even closer to them. "I dunno. It's not fair that you make me do the work, you know. Give me one good reason why I should let you copy."

Danny grinned at her, "I can give you two. One, because you know how boring I find Lester's speeches about escaped criminals and two…" he paused, noticing the suddenly intrigued look on the others' faces and lowered his voice again so that just Sarah could hear him, "Because we both know you aren't always joking when you say you love me."

Sarah blushed for the second time that evening and quickly rested her head on Danny's shoulder, facing away from him, so he couldn't tell. "You're full of yourself, you know that," she replied. "I daresay the same applies to you."

She felt proud of herself for not letting on that her accusation had left her feeling a bit flustered and vulnerable, but she couldn't help the audible sigh of relief when she felt him kiss the top of her head and admit seriously, "Of course it does, Sarah."

Sarah smiled and looked back up at him, raising her voice a tiny bit again, "In that case, you can copy as many reports as you like."

Danny grinned and gave her one more kiss, this time on her cheek, "Thank-you, Sarah."

"You're very welcome."

Danny suddenly stopped dancing and pulled back from her a bit, still holding her hand. "C'mon, Sare. We made our appearance. What say you we grab another drink and get outta here?"

Sarah was all too happy to agree with that.

By the time they had a second martini and successfully dodged a few more questions each it was nearly 8:30 anyway and they both felt quite confident that they had stayed for at least as long as necessary. Danny fired off a text to Lester to inform him that they'd had enough of government busybodies and were skipping out early. No reply came, but he hadn't really expected to receive one, he just didn't want to be held accountable if they were missed after all.

Danny pressed his hand gently to the small of Sarah's back as he gently guided her out of the hall and to the front lobby where he checked in and asked which room Lester had booked for them. They received their key and then Danny helped Sarah on with her coat as they headed back to the parking lot to fetch their overnight things from their vehicles.

"You know," Sarah said. "We could have just called a cab and gone home tonight."

"And skip our posh night out? Sarah, that's the reward for going to this thing. Besides, Lester would never have it."

"Why not? Would've been a hell of a lot cheaper for him."

"Defeats the point of the evening though. I'll explain over dinner," Danny said as he heaved his bag from the truck's boot and then looked at Sarah. "Where'd you park?"

Sarah gestured across the underground car lot to her car and then asked as they began walking,. "What do you mean? Not that I'm protesting, I'm all for the posh night out, but I thought the point was to make an appearance at this social and represent the ARC. We've already done that."

"Yeah, well, that's what I was looking into when I was late."

"Which you still owe me for," Sarah interrupted pointedly.

"I know, I know. Like I said, I'll tell you everything over dinner. Let's just say that Lester wasn't one-hundred percent honest with us."

"Oh please don't say there're more government officials for us to entertain at the dinner tonight."

"No, no, nothing like that. Nothing to fret about."

"Then why won't you tell me now?"

"Well I didn't tell you in there, because I didn't want the Nosys to overhear, and now I'm putting it off because I'm hungry."

Sarah chuckled as she unlocked the boot of her vehicle and gestured to three large suitcases. "I couldn't decide what I wanted to wear tomorrow, so I just threw everything into here."

Danny stared at her in disbelief, "Sarah, it's one night!"

"I know. And now if you'll be so kind as to carry my luggage to my room for me…"

Danny started to protest, but Sarah gave him a silencing look and continued, "Remember; you owe me. Consider this the start."

Danny sighed and chucked his one light bag at her. "Fine, but the least you can do is carry the bag then, and maybe open the doors."

Sarah smiled and nodded, wondering what else she could get him to do by night's end. She had every intention of making sure her twenty minute wait at the start of the night was well worth it.

Sarah opened the door to the hotel room for Danny and let him pass with her three bags that he was struggling to keep balanced. He gave a little grunt as he entered the room and tossed them on the bed and Sarah threw his bag into the pile as well before wrapping her jacket a bit tighter around her and opening the door to the balcony. Lester had promised them a lovely view and she wanted to check it out. She wasn't disappointed, the hotel looked across the Thames toward Big Ben and she had timed her investigation perfectly with the last of the sunset. She stood watching for a few minutes while Danny poked about in the hotel room, before rejoining him because of the cold air.

When she'd shut the glass door again, Danny moved to her side and helped her slip her coat from her shoulders, tossing it to the bed with the rest of her stuff.

"Danny, I might need that if we're going out."

"Something I wanna do before we leave," he said calmly.

"What's that?"

"This," Danny replied.

Sarah barely had time to let out a surprised gasp before she found herself pressed up against the wall with Danny's lips on hers. He was kissing her hungrily and passionately and she let herself kiss him back for just a moment, bringing her hands to the back of his head to deepen it for a second before getting a hold of herself and shoving him away again.

"Danny, what the hell?" It wasn't the first time they'd kissed before, but it was the first time they'd kissed when they weren't in front of their co-workers at the ARC trying to tease Lester and the others with their blatant displays of public affection when they weren't even together, and it was certainly the first time their kisses had been anything like that. Normally they were a simple quick peck.

Danny grinned at her, "Don't give me that, Sare; you enjoyed it too. And you should know, that had nothing to do with Lester."

"What?" Sarah shook her head in puzzlement.

"You heard me. I'm telling you now so you don't have to fret about it later."

"Yes, well, I should bloody well hope that it had nothing to do with Lester. What I would like to know is where it came from?"

Danny smiled, "Just tired of playacting all the time, is all. We already admitted that our feelings are at least sometimes real, I figure it doesn't hurt to experiment a bit, yeah?"

"Yeah," Sarah agreed, feeling a bit light headed now that the kiss and his words were sinking in.

Danny leaned forward and pressed his forehead against hers and grabbed her hand, guiding it to rest on his chest. "Feel my heart beating fast like that, Sare? You're the only one that can make it do that. Seems you've staked your claim on my heart and it's only fair you let me do them same with yours, so that'd be my intentions whether you accept the fact yet or not."

Sarah bit her lip and smiled, her eyes resting upon their hands, but not moving away from him. "I suppose I could accept that as long as…"

"As long as what…"

"I can't help but to wonder why you brought him up, so this really better not be about Lester."

Danny burst out laughing and stepped away from her, keeping his hand entwined with hers. "C'mon, I say we go for dinner now, I'm starved, and then I'll tell you what I meant while we await our order."

Sarah reached with her free hand to grab her coat and purse and then let him lead her out the door.

The restaurant was on the first floor, inconveniently close to the hall where the Government Dance & Social was still going on, so Sarah and Danny did their best to sneak around through the back hallways to avoid being caught again. The last thing they wanted was for Gerald and the others to find out they were actually staying at the hotel. When they arrived at the restaurant, they asked for the most private booth possible in which to sit, just in case anyone else came in and recognized them. Their luck was with them though, and no one from the Social did venture inside.

Sarah and Danny slid into the red coloured booth and the waiter handed them their menus and left. Sarah turned to Danny, "Okay, so what did you have to tell me?"

"Shhh… reading here, Sare," Danny winked at her before returning to his menu.

Sarah rolled her eyes but decided not to be reduced to begging for information. She went back to her menu with the intention of not asking again and pretending to be disinterested until he told her what he wanted without her prompts.

When the waiter came back, Sarah ordered herself some veal parmesan and a Caesar salad and Danny asked for the ribs and a bowl of soup. They both sat in silence for a moment, Danny waiting for Sarah to ask her question again and Sarah refusing to do so, until finally Danny gave in.

"Okay," he said with a sigh. "I did a bit of research. You know that hotel that Lester put Abby and Connor up in?"

"Yes?" Sarah asked carefully, wondering where this was leading.

"He lied to them. There were plenty of available rooms."

"Okay," Sarah nodded, thinking that there had to be more to this story.

"And did you know that the ARC wasn't even invited to the Dance & Social tonight? Lester practically had to beg for us to be included because of the top secret nature of our work. The Minister had actually advised against us going."

"What? Why would he do that?"

"To get us here. Sarah, do you really think Lester gives a crap about Connor's Tolkien ramblings? Lester was trying to set us up. He didn't care if we attended the social or not, but he needed an excuse to send us on an evening out!" Danny proclaimed triumphantly, obviously proud of his deduction.

Sarah hesitated, "That doesn't sound like Lester."

"No, you're right, it doesn't, but he had his motives. I confronted him on the matter."

"Seriously? And he admitted it?"

"Not at first, but eventually. He said that we were wasting his time with our Shakespearean playacting and we may as well get our feelings out in the open and be done with it so that we could get back to work. I was still discussing the matter with him just before I left which is why I was late."

"And so you just decided to do what you're told?" Sarah asked, suddenly upset.

"No, Sarah, that's why I told you ahead of time. Me and you, we've nothing to do with Lester, okay? Nothing."

"Right," Sarah nodded, relieved, "And did you tell Lester that you would heed his orders and follow your heart?"

"No, course not. Wasn't about to give him the satisfaction, especially not before I'd talked to you. In fact, I left him pretty concerned I think. I believe the words he yelled at me as I walked out the door were, "This better not have been a waste of my money, Quinn! I expect you two to be a couple when this weekend's done whether you like each other or not!""

Sarah giggled, "Now that sounds like Lester."

"I have to say, though, he did give me the confidence to pursue the matter, Sare. I wasn't going to until he told me that he was sure you liked me back. I wasn't positive he was right, but when I saw you blush, I thought…" he trailed off and they both fell silent for a moment.

"Did you let Abby and Connor know?" Sarah suddenly asked.

"No. Why bother? Those two are bound to end up together anyway."

"Like we were?"

"Exactly. Are we officially together then?"

Sarah stood up and then sat beside Danny on his side of the booth, leaning close to kiss him gently before standing up and returning to her seat. "Does that answer your question?"

"Yep," Danny grinned.

"Still," Sarah replied, "I guess we ought to thank Lester for all this then. I mean, he did really go out of his way for us."

"He did," Danny agreed with a laugh, "And I know exactly how to do so."

A couple of hours later, Sarah grinned at Danny from where she sat on the hotel bed as Danny hung up the phone.

"There," he said, "Mission accomplished. One thank-you card and two tickets to see Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet next weekend will be delivered to Lester's wife tomorrow morning."

"Perfect," Sarah grinned at him, "So perfect."

"Me or the gift?" Danny teased her.

Sarah swatted at him playfully, but when he caught her and kissed her again, she wasn't really sure of the answer herself.