A/N: The advantage of having a Uni presentation that is scaring you silly, is that you wake up stupidly early in the morning and write things in an attempt to distract yourself. And with that, I give you a new chapter.

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All this James falling asleep on his sofa business has to stop. Mainly because, since Creavecour, Robbie is finding that he almost doesn't have the heart to wake James up when a call comes in.

The lad looks young when he's asleep. His carefully constructed wall of knowledge and dry wit come tumbling down and he becomes that twelve year old boy again.

In sleep, all of James' defences dissolve. His facial expressions are free to dance across his face and Robbie can tell just how badly the latest case has effected him. He suspects that James doesn't know this, he suspects that if he did, the boy would be a lot more careful where he laid his head.

Still, he felt honoured that Hathaway feels safe enough to fall asleep in his presence. Of course, sometimes the younger man is so exhausted that he can't help it. That had been the case after Zoe Kenneth's attempt on his life. James had looked ok outside the hospital, he'd looked fine – but for the cut on his cheek, you'd never have known anything had happened. The story had been different however, once Robbie had driven him back to his flat. The lad had dropped onto his sofa and mumbled something about Lewis helping himself to a cup of tea, 'Or something stronger if you like sir?" Robbie had declined, opting to make tea, he was going to be driving home after all.

Once he'd finished making them a cuppa, he'd headed back into the living room, only to find Hathaway slumped onto the arm of the sofa. The lad's breathing had settled into a steady rhythm and he was clearly fast asleep. The expression on his face however, spoke of anything but sweet dreams. Hathaway's haunted looking face softened a little when Lewis pulled a blanket over him and immediately, James shifted to accommodate the new found comfort. Its been three years since then and here they are again, James asleep on his sofa after a case that he hasn't quite come to terms with.

He contemplates that James looks like a child when he sleeps. One hand curled around the top of the blanket and one balled into a loose fist by his nose, the knuckle of his thumb resting on his bottom lip. His head was tucked in slightly and his knees drawn up to make his gangly body lie in a loose 'z' shape.

It is easy to see the inner child in James Hathaway while he sleeps, and sometimes, Robbie gets an inkling that James doesn't sleep as well in his own flat as he does in Lewis'. Why else would the kid fall asleep so readily on his sofa, and be so reluctant to go home after a tough case?

So when the call comes in to attend another murder, another life lost in a meaningless and probably exceedingly violent way, sometimes Robbie considers leaving the lad asleep on his couch. He considers giving James a couple of hours more of innocence before he has to face the horrors of the job they do every day.

But he always wakes him up. Not only because he knows that James' won't appreciate being treated like a child even when he looks like one, but because he doesn't want to go out to the scene and leave the lad to wake up alone.

He suspects that James Hathaway has woken up alone too many times in his young life. Robbie wonders if any one was there to sooth him after childish nightmares relinquished their grip. He rather thinks not and this makes Lewis both angry and sad. Someone should have been there for the child that James was and still is in many ways. He should never been left to get on with it alone.

Robbie'll be damned if he lets it happen to the lad again.