Lewis was glad he wasn't assigned an urgent case so he could spend Saturday shopping with Morse who had suggested an Italian dish that sounded good to Lewis's ears. They had trawled through three shops to find all required ingredients.

Back at Lewis's flat, Morse was beginning to find his way around the kitchen, having spent more than one evening of the week in his former Sergeant's company. Lewis had insisted on him getting a mobile phone so he could reach him. As Morse had at first refused, he had simply gone off and bought a prepaid phone for him. "Welcoming gift," he had explained to Morse who had accepted it with an amused shake of his head. But he had soon discovered that being able to agree on meeting times and places on short notice held its advantages. Over the years spent in Italy, he had forgotten about the hassles coming with the irregular working hours of a police detective.

Today, Morse and Lewis would let Dr. Hobson in on their secret and the former DCI still liked the pathologist enough to want to turn it into a pleasant evening among friends; hence the special dish. It had been his favourite recipe out of Carlotta's seemingly unending supply of new dishes.

"You'd better warn her before she sees me," Morse suggested while they were working side by side in the kitchen.

"Oh, she's strong. Wouldn't be surprised if she took it easier than us."

Morse smiled. "You have no idea how much I missed that."

"What?"

"Your... northernisms."

"Oh, yee should hev sez, gadgie! Aa've a git big supply of those. " He grinned.

Morse took his time to sort through these sentences before replying "I am certain you do, but there's no need to overdo it. This is Oxford after all."

"Like one could ever forget that."

"You'd be surprised how much and how easily one can forget, Robbie..."

Lewis glanced at him sideways but Morse didn't elaborate the thought. He didn't ask, didn't really feel he needed to. That was one of the wonderful aspects of having Morse back. He'd been gone for years, he had changed in some ways, but he was still Morse, albeit with a new name and look. Deep down, he was still the man Lewis had known and worked with and slowly come to think of as a friend. It felt good to stand here with him at his side, weirdly familiar though they had never done any of this in the old days. Just being with Morse made it seem familiar. He still hadn't decided what to call him. So far 'you' seemed to work just fine. At least he was slowly shaking off the habit of calling him 'Sir'.

As the afternoon went and evening came, Lewis noticed that Morse seemed nervous. That was new, too. But it made him appear more human than ever. "It'll be fine," he said.

"Yes, I'm sure it will."

"Then why are you nervous?"

"Because I don't know her as well as I do you. Coming to see you was hard enough on me, but her... I was never quite sure where I stood with her."

Lewis placed a hand on Morse's shoulder for a moment until the doorbell rang. "That'll be her."

Morse nodded and Lewis went to the door.

"Hello Laura," he said as he opened the door to let her in. "Thanks for coming."

"Thanks for the invitation – unless you do want to poison me."

"I swear I don't."

"I'll have to take your word for it, I suppose." She waited for him to signal her to go through, but he kept her waiting.

"I... we're not alone this evening."

Her eyes studied his face curiously.

"I want you to meet someone special. A … long lost friend."

"A long lost friend. Yours or mine?"

"Ours, I think."

"You're being incredibly evasive lately, Inspector."

He rolled his eyes at her. "You'll understand, well, maybe not immediately."

"I think I'd better meet this 'long lost friend of ours' before you confuse me even more."

"Yeah. Well, go on through." He wasn't sure how she would react. Would she really be as cool as he had thought? He followed her into the living room. As Morse was sitting with his back to the hallway, she only saw the back of his head until he stood up and turned around.

"Good evening, Doctor."

Laura stood stark and stiff when she heard the voice. She stared at Morse for a while, then turned to look at Lewis. "I hope this is no bad joke."

"It's not, I swear. If it's any help, I had that thought, too, when he showed up here a week ago."

She turned to face Morse again. "Now I know why Robbie doesn't trust my colleagues' reports. Someone very obviously messed up on yours. But I hadn't thought they were that incompetent."

Morse smiled at her. "I am pleased to see you haven't lost your wit, Doctor."

"I am pleased to see you haven't lost your life, Chief Inspector."

"Oh, but he has," Lewis added from behind her.

"What?" She swirled around to look at him. "Don't be ridiculous. If this is no bad joke, he's standing right there in the middle of your living room."

"I think what Robbie meant to say," Morse interjected, "is that Chief Inspector Morse is dead. My name is Edward Masters."

"His name now is Edward Masters," Lewis tried to clarify.

She looked from one of them to the other and back. "You boys are not making a lot of sense this evening."

"How about we sit down for dinner and I'll do my best to explain it to you, Doctor?"

"How about you stop calling me Doctor? If this is a social gathering, Laura will do just fine. Calling me Doctor all the time just makes me want to go and find your death certificate. Or Morse's. Or whatever. All right, you've done it, I am confused."

"Then I shall try to un-confuse you, Laura," Morse said with a smile. "If you'd like to sit down, dinner should be ready any minute now." He headed off towards the kitchen and Laura followed him with her eyes before turning to Lewis.

"Don't tell me he's living here?"

"Nope, lives at a pub for the moment until he can sort something out. But he's done most of the cooking, he's better at it than I am."

"Well, there's some consolation... I might survive this evening after all."

Throughout the evening, Morse and Lewis managed to satisfy Dr. Hobson's need for explanations and they spent the last hour happily chatting and laughing. "Do you need a lift back to your pub? It's pretty much on my way home." Laura checked her watch. "And it's about time I go. I hate Sunday shifts but that doesn't mean I don't have to do them."

"Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll help Robbie clear up. He's been complaining about his kitchen never looking so cluttered with pots and pans before."

"Nah, I can do the washing up tomorrow. You don't have to help. It's nice to have friends over. Doing the washing up is a small price to pay for it."

"Well, if you think so," Morse hesitated.

"I do," Lewis stated firmly.

"In that case I will gladly accept your offer, Laura."

"Good." She reached for her bag and instinctively checked her mobile. She had muted it and therefore hadn't noticed the text she had received from Hathaway. She didn't bother to read it now. But it made her think about her promise to him.

"You know, there's something else. I won't give away your secret, but James has noticed you're acting differently. This evening I saw what he meant. We had both suspected you had met a woman and I was supposed to find out about it. What am I going to tell him?"

Lewis grimaced. "Hathaway. Yeah, he's been trying to sound me out all week, only he's not been very clever at it."

Laura laughed. "I gathered that much from my conversation with him."

He looked at Morse. "Do you think we can let him in on it, too? These two are the only real friends I have, I'd hate having to come up with some cover story for James."

"You trust him?"

"Yeah, I do. I fear he's as loyal to me as I was to you."

Morse had to laugh at that. "In which case I suppose we can entrust him with our secret. But no more, all right?"

"No more," Lewis confirmed.

"What about your kids?" Laura asked, looking at Lewis.

"Live their own lives far away from their old dad."

"And at least one comes for a visit every now and then," she gave back.

Morse decided to intervene before it turned into a heated discussion. "In which case I am sure we can decide on a tactic when it comes to it. For now, only the three of us and Hathaway. From what I heard of him I am actually looking forward to meeting him."

"Oh, you two will get on just fine. You'll be exchanging clever ideas about literature and music and I'll feel left out."

"You'll still have me," Laura said, winking at him before she turned to Morse. "Ready to go?"

"I am." He offered her his arm and she took it.

"And we can decide on what I tell Robbie's cocky Sergeant on the way."

Lewis showed them out and a moment later stood at a window, watching them drive off. His life definitely had made a turn for the better throughout the last week. Now how to deal with Hathaway... he only knew of Morse, so the tactics would have to be different than they had been with Laura. That, and Hathaway deserved a lesson for sticking his nose into things that didn't concern him. He couldn't even talk himself out of this with an excuse of being worried. No, his Sergeant had been plain old nosy.