She stepped out into the sunshine with her caramel hot chocolate in her hand. She had finished college for the day and was going to the studio to start recording Act 2 of Shakespeare's Troilus & Cressida with Sebastian and his friends.

She was stopped in her tracks when she saw DS Hathaway leaning in a door frame outside the coffee shop.

"Briony, what a coincidence?" He asked, a hint of sarcasm and boredom lacing his words. But the boredom had a hint of fakeness to it. He pushed away from the wall using his shoulders. Briony wiped the hot chocolate from her lips, looking up at his insistent gaze.

"Is it a coincidence?" She said, speculating because of the sarcasm in his tone. He looked away from her and paused until finally admitting the truth.

"No, not really," he said, looking up at her again, "I waited for you to leave your college, then followed." He stated plainly, not missing the way her eyes lit up when she heard that he followed her.

"Oh, so you're stalking me?" She said, attempting to hide the fact that she was secretly pleased by his admittance.

"Well, I'm a policeman, its surveillance, not stalking" He said. He could tell that she wanted him to say that it wasn't for work, but he couldn't admit that, even if he wanted it to be true. He was starting to think that maybe Lewis was right. Was he using the case as an excuse to talk to her?

"Well that doesn't sound very fair." She said teasingly, looking up at him through her full eyelashes. A wave of lust hit him when he noticed again how beautiful she was, and so he looked away for a second before saying,

"Fair if you're a policeman." Good, he'd justified his reason for being there, making sure she knew that it was strictly for the case, and nothing more. The problem was he could see she didn't believe him from the smirk on her beautifully soft lips, and he wasn't sure whether he believed it himself.

Deciding that he was going to work harder to make her believe him, he began to ask questions about the case. "Can I talk to you about Miranda Thornton?" He asked. She sighed, realizing that their flirtatious moment had passed. She began to walk away slowly so that he would walk with her.

"Right." She said disappointedly.

"I want to know why her tape got off 'Heart & Soul' and thought you might be able to point me in the right direction." He stated, looking at her to see her initial reaction. She opened her mouth to reply but was cut off by her name being called.

"Oh, hi Sebastian." She said, not sounding particularly happy about the interruption. A blonde boy walked up to them, staring daggers at Hathaway.

"Who are you?" He asked, not impressed that someone was talking to his girlfriend.

"Detective Sergeant Hathaway. And you?" He replied, annoyed that someone was interrupting his conversation with Briony.

"None of your business." The boy replied, "Why you bothering her?" He had some nerve. In Hathaway's eyes, Sebastian was the one bothering her. He could see out of the corner of his eye that she was uncomfortable with Sebastian talking for her, and was sending Hathaway sorry looks through her eyelashes.

"Why are you so aggressive?" Hathaway countered. Two can play at that game.

"I don't know, maybe because I saw a weird-looking dude chatting up my girlfriend." He looked pointedly at Briony, who dropped her head under his scrutinizing gaze.

"Sebastian," she said, glancing at Hathaway, "It's alright." She smiled at him, trying to reassure him. Hathaway could see that the smile didn't reach her eyes.

"No, it's not alright. We're late for the studio" he argued, turning his head away from Hathaway, trying to get Briony on his side so that she would stop talking to the policeman.

"Okay, well you go and I'll catch you up" Hathaway was pleased that she still wanted to talk to him. When Sebastian hesitated, Briony looked at Hathaway, apologies in her eyes, before turning back to Sebastian with a fake smile. "I mean it." She said pleadingly, trying to convince him to leave her and Hathaway alone.

Sebastian raged an inner war for a few moments before giving up and walking away. Briony looked after him, guilt written all over her face.

She turned back to Hathaway and quickly apologized. "Sorry about that, he's just under a lot of pressure." She said, not being able to meet his eyes because of the embarrassment she felt. Why was she defending him? He had been a overprotective ass hole and treated her like a possession in front of Hathaway.

"Don't worry about it" Hathaway said, looking at Sebastian's retreating form, glad he had gone and Briony had chosen to stay and talk to him. Turning back to her, he asked "Studio? You a singer?" She smiled, wishing she was.

"No, we're recording Shakespeare's plays. All of them." She said, giving Hathaway a pointed look that told him she wasn't happy about it. He lifted an eyebrow at her, questioningly. "Sebastian's idea."

"Wow that is a lot of pressure. Which one are you on?" He was actually curious. Nobody had ever had a real conversation with her. People normally just saw how pretty she was, saw how big her tits were and then pretended to be interested in her in the hopes she'd let them in her pants. But not Hathaway, he was actually looking her in the eye as he asked her actually questions about her life and interests.

"Troilus and Cressida." She started walking again, him falling into step beside her. "I'm Cressida. Faithless Cressida." She said, giving him another pointed look out of the corner of her eye.

He couldn't tell whether she was implying that people often thought she was faithless, or whether she was hinting to him that she wanted to be faithless, with him.

No, that's stupid, why would she like you? Hathaway thought to himself. He didn't say anything, and to his dismay, Briony took that as a rejection. So maybe she does want to be faithless to Sebastian with you?

Thankfully, she started talking again, breaking the awkward silence. "Look, this is all I'm gonna say. Barker is a bit like Wikipedia.

"What? Like the users can edit it?" He enquired. He might actually find something out for the case, which would show Lewis that he was actually working and not just using it as a chance to flirt with Briony.

"Yeah, and get into the operating system. If you pull the video, you might find there's a source code embedded in it." She turned to Hathaway to see if he had understood. He stopped and turned to her as well.

"I'd better get going" She said, turning to walk to the studio. He nodded his understanding, a little disappointed that they hadn't had longer to talk.

As she was walking away, she looked over her shoulder and found that Hathaway was still stood in the middle of the street, watching her as she walked away. She added extra sway to her hips as she walked, knowing that he wasn't looking at her head or back.