A/N: Not sure if anyone's reading this anymore...thanks to those who've kept up and kindly reviewed. Probably one more chapter of this, even if it's just me reading it! I quite like these two!

xxXXxx

"Della?"

Her eyelids fluttered for a moment and then opened. Bell was standing on the sidewalk leaning into the passenger side of the car as snowflakes gathered in his hair.

"Della?" he repeated in a low voice. "We're here. We're at your flat." His breath came out in frigid puffs. He waited for her to respond, but she looked up at him with unfocused eyes and made a small, muffled sound.

He leaned down into the car and hoisted her out of the car. "Here we go." She murmured something as he eased her out onto the pavement. "I've got you. We're just going to go up to your flat, yeah? You're all right."

He stood with his hands on the small of her back. "Mmmallright," she murmured, eyelids at half mast.

"You're all right? You can stand? I'm letting you go, all right? All right?" She nodded once. He unlaced his hands and took a step away from her. She stood upright for a moment and then swayed before her feet gave out from under her. She reached up and circled her arms around his neck. As he stumbled backwards, a clump of snow dislodged from the back of his coat and slid down his neck.

"Bugger," he whispered gently to himself and then curled his arm back around her waist with a sigh. "Here we go. I've got you."

She had managed to fish her keys out of her bag and pass them to him before they'd made the climb up the steps to her flat. She leaned against him while he tried to hold her up and test each key on the ring in her lock with his one free hand. The old woman from the flat next door came up the stairs with Somerfield's bags looped around her elbows, and she looked at them with a critical eye. He hoisted Della up to keep her from falling, and he smiled weakly at the old woman, looking for all the world like a dirty old man who'd slipped something into the nice young reporter's drink down the pub and was now about to have his wicked way with her.

"She's not well," Bell said in a fumbling explanation, and then added, "It's all right, I'm a police officer." The old woman harumphed and Bell groaned inwardly, knowing that the whole building would now hear that the girl in 3A was so drunk she had to be escorted home by the police.

Bell finally managed to find the right key, leaving the old woman to give them another disapproving look before they disappeared inside Della's flat. He eased her onto the sofa there and stood above her with hands on her shoulder.

"You said in the car you were on some medications. I think you're having some kind of reaction, yeah?" he said slowly and loudly, as if that would help. "What are you taking, Della? Can you tell me? Where do you keep them? Bathroom?"

There was nothing but silence, and he ruffled a frustrated hand through his hair. The bathroom seemed the most likely place. He crossed into the next room, where he paused in front of the sink and blew out an uneasy breath. He didn't relish the idea of rummaging through anyone's bathroom cupboard, least of all a young single woman, this young woman. It seemed an invasion, and he could feel himself redden as he pushed aside a box of tampax and some condoms in search of the pills. Finally his fingers skimmed across a half-empty medicine bottle of pills with a prescription date of a few days before. He turned the bottle on its side to read the warning labels: WARNING! Do not drive or operate heavy machinery while on this medication! WARNING! Do not drink alcoholic beverages while taking this medication! Extreme sleepiness may result!

"Thanks for the warning," he muttered and headed back into the next room with the pills. She was curled up on the sofa, sound asleep, when he re-entered. She had pulled her knees up to her chest and her hands were tucked under her chin. He had a brief moment of panic, remembering something about not going to sleep when you had over-medicated, or was that concussion? He crossed to the sofa and tried to shake her awake.

"Della? You need to stay awake. I don't think you're meant to sleep," he said and pulled her up to sitting. "Shall I call your GP? Della?"

"Mmmno. Juzzzneedsleep. Ssokay." She slumped against him, and he could hear the soft sounds of her even breathing.

He let her sit that way for a moment before he pried her away from him. He loosened his tie and tossed his coat and jacket on the back of a chair with a resigned sigh. He crossed into the kitchen where there was an open bag of Fair Trade coffee on the counter. He heated the water in the kettle and headed back into the next room with a cup. "Here. Drink this up. You'll feel better."

He molded her hands around the mug, and she brought it to her lips. She sipped at it once before making a noise of disgust.

"What's wrong?"

"Don't like thizz coffee."

"Oh. It was in the kitchen."

"Wuzzz Alistair's."

He blinked. Alistair. The ex-boyfriend. "Oh." He set her mug on the end table and quickly rose to his feet. "Well, if you're all right, I'll just go, then. I should...go."

He waited for her to respond, but the colour seemed to have drained from her cheeks, and she was looking at him in panic. "I'm gonna be sick," she managed to choke out before crossing to the bathroom in a wobbly sprint.

He stood in the center of the floor whistling and jangling the change in his pocket to cover the noise from the other room. He should go. This evening was already more than he bargained for. He hadn't expected to wind up here. In her flat. Rummaging through her things. Listening to the sounds of her being sick. He was forty years old. She was what, twenty-five? Twenty-eight? She was young and bright and pretty, and what chance did he have? It wouldn't work. He should go. But he was still there some time later when she came out of the bathroom. Her damp hair had been pulled away from her face, which had been scrubbed free of makeup. She had taken off her black party dress and was now wearing a pair of men's pyjamas, and the sleeves hung past her fingertips.

She was lovely. God help him, she was, and he felt as if all the air had been sucked from his chest. Every time he had seen her in the past, she was wearing one of those shapeless skirts or baggy jumpers not often seen outside a WI meeting. As if she had no idea how impossibly lovely she was. Then he had seen her tonight on the roof in her black dress, and he'd lost all power of speech for a moment. And now this, looking small and fragile in her too-big pyjamas. He had to root himself to the spot to resist the overwhelming urge to kiss her.

There had been no one since his wife had died, not really. In the first months, it was as if the part of him that was capable of feeling for another person had been cut away like dead flesh. Then a crippling sense of guilt had set in. He couldn't betray her memory. He had no right to love anyone again when she was gone.

And then there had been one weekend in September at a police conference in Birmingham when he had ended up in bed with a female DI from Sheffield. It was meaningless, and the next morning they'd had the good sense to feel slightly embarrassed about it. Embarrassed, yes. But not guilty. It had meant nothing. He had acted out of a raw need, a skin hunger.

But this was different. Della was different. For the first time since February, he felt that the small part of his being had not died after all, but was stirring again like the first shoots of spring, tender and fragile.

He swallowed hard before speaking. "Better?"

"Yeah." Her voice was weak and rough. She smiled at him sheepishly and shuffled back over to the sofa where she crumbled back down onto it. "God. I'm so embarrassed."

"No, no. Don't be." He sat down next to her. "It was just the medicine."

"And the wine," she groaned. "Why did I have two glasses of wine? It said not to." She covered her face with her hands for a moment, and they sat side-by-side on the sofa with their knees just touching. "You won't tell anyone at the paper, will you?"

"Course not."

She let a silence pass and then pulled her hands away. Her colour had returned, and there was a pink blush blooming on her cheeks. "Thanks for everything, Bill, but you don't have to stay. I'm fine."

"No, it's just..." he started, but she cut him off.

"Really, I feel terrible." She pressed her hand against her mouth in a yawn. Her eyelids were beginning to droop again. "I've dragged you halfway across London, and you didn't even want to be at the party."

She pulled her feet off the floor and tucked them under herself. Her head lolled against the back of the sofa. His arm was draped there, and after a moment, he let his fingers skim against her shoulder. She didn't move but let out a small hum. He waited before speaking. "That's not quite true."

"Mmm?"

"The only reason I went to that party is because...I was hoping I might run into you."

His heart drummed like a schoolboy's. He waited for a response, but none followed.

"Della?"

There was a long pause. "Mmmhmm?" she murmured drowsily.

"Come on." He pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arm around her. He helped her across the floor. "Bed. Best thing for you."

They crossed the floor together until they reached the edge of her bed, where he stood with both hands on either side of her waist. He turned her one way and then another, shuffling awkwardly on the floor, trying to work out the best way to drop her into bed while extricating her from his arms. It didn't quite work out as he had planned, and he somehow ended up on the bed with her on top of him. He tried to slip out from under her, but her legs were wrapped around his, and she had his left arm pinned underneath her against the bed.

"Della? My arm...can you...?" There was nothing. "Della?"

She made a small, sleepy noise of contentment and burrowed her head against his solid chest.

He sighed, kicked his shoes off, and turned the bedside lamp out with a soft click.

END CHAPTER THREE