Set after No Surrender. Took a while to wrangle this into shape. Wrote some of this waiting for my partner to be vaccinated, may have got carried away with medical stuff! Is snook a word? It is now.

Edit: I watched this episode again and agree with the comments that it's almost like a series 1 episode, but I think he reverts to sexism to try to persuade Spikings that she's incapable (when the boss knows otherwise, and I think Dempsey does too), because of his fear. It's almost echoed in the conversation with Dan in Guardian Angel when he can't express that he needs her and how he tells her that she can't bring emotion into a case. Yet he does it all the time. He uses flirting to get answers, tries to play Harry and in No Surrender I think it's a genuine fear that he'll lose her so he acts up in anyway he can. Conversely, it's Harry who is as cool as one can be in the circumstances. I like to think the red rose was him trying to tell her something about his own behaviour.

It can take someone five minutes to work out they are in love. It took James Dempsey a bit longer. 1 year and two months, five days or thereabouts. It could have been less but his refusal to conform meant it's somewhat snook up on him.

He had become used to freedom, unable to contain himself within the boxes he'd been told to fit within. He'd tried to put Simone into the long-term girlfriend box, possibly the wife-shaped one but she'd poured herself out the sides and destroyed his ability to trust.

He thought he could put Sharon into the good time box. Standing as she did by the bar, eyeing him up at the table and taking his money with a sneer, one that made him drop it on the tray and not tuck the note by her tits and cop a feel. She needed taming but he liked her wild. Then she exploded from the box into Makepeace and he had no idea which way was up anymore.

He tried other boxes. Ticked the one marked fuck a serial killer and 'pretend it's your partner, who didn't give a damm' box but then Harry saved his ass and he wondered if she did care a little bit about him.

Partners had come and gone before Joey, but the man had made him distrustful of colleagues. He is wary of Spikings, knows the man doesn't want him here. He's not fitting into any boxes with his boss. Chas is a good man but he knows he and Harry go away back. There was no reason to think that Makepeace was any different, she could screw him over at work or kick him out of bed for someone of her own class. She did neither but she refused to work like a man and toe the line like a good woman. He starts to wonder if he was the wrong shape for everyone and the fear made him think about Simone and the only misshaped relationship he'd known.

He'd been guilt-stricken by Harry. Dumbstruck and then raging as she traded herself to the bank mob. His increasingly angry turmoil at being without her was laid bare for all to see, and he didn't care what anyone thought about it. Did she see herself as an object to be prised from him? Another person to be traded as a commodity? Worse their boss had agreed to it. He's conflicted by the bittersweet irony of his emotions when she was containing her own so perfectly well, only falling apart when he held her close for his own comforts.

He got her off the bus and she wasn't leaving his sight again. When she'd told him to go home, banning him from her bedside, he tried not to feel heartsore but he did, He'd tried a real rose. He'd resorted to desperate measures to break into her room when the staff said she needed rest and, with a tilt of the head, universally told him to go home. The conclusion that he was 'no good to her without sleep' was a viral one he thought. They meant well but they didn't know him.

It's the weekend, and she's all he's got.

"Dempsey!"

He jerks awake to the sound of her voice and it takes him a moment to realise where he is. He's strewn across a line of utility chairs. Harry is dressed in his sweatshirt, last seen in Danny's bag, and some loose workout pants. He winces as his muscles crack when he clambers to his feet.

"Morning Makepeace," He says, sheepishly.

"The nurses said that there was an American outside and if you belonged to me." Harry comments, taking in his crumpled form. He prepares himself for a ticking off, all the while drinking in her pale face, those eyes that command him to stay still. His clothing on her that does stuff to him.

"You'd better take me home," She says finally, not waiting for his reply but handing him her bag. When he offers his arm to her, she accepts but says nothing more.

She is mostly silent for the drive home, only asking questions about the case. He is aware of her eyes glancing across to him, possibly trying to untangle the ordeal or the surprise of his unexpected selflessness. Neither sit well with him. She should have known he'd be there to take her home, not seen it as something out of character.

"Coffee?" She winces as she bends to pick up the milk on the doorstep and he hurries to help her, ignoring her look of irritation at the situation.

"Sure, that'll be nice. The stuff at the hospital was…" He tails off as she walks ahead of him. "You want me to take this bag upstairs?"

"Yes, thank you." She appears with a soft smile and he relaxes a little.

When he walks back into the kitchen, she's clipped up her hair. His sweatshirt is too big for her and it's loose around her neck. He can see the colourful bruises on her back and he wondered how many more decorate her body. He had pictured her naked so many times. With every woman he'd slept with, there was a moment when he'd hoped he'd open his eyes and see her below him. Lately, he's fantasising less about sex and more about worshipping her. She hands him the bottle of painkillers and he opens the lid. It's a rare moment of capitulation that warms him.

He thinks of her, out cold on the pavement and then handing herself over for someone else's benefit, and that sense of stubborn bravery that he both loves and hates in her. Her refusal to be the timid female detective sat doing desk work where he can keep her safe. Her inability to fill any box that he creates for her and how he loves her for that.

"You can't protect me all the time." Harry says, interrrupting his observation. When she looks at him, there's no sign of the broken woman he'd carried off the bus. The woman who had looked at him in shock and then tearfully confessed that she hurt everywhere. The woman whom he'd taken to the emergency room in Spikings' car and watched being dosed up on morphine.

"I know that." He notices another bruise above her clavicle. He does know that but he can't tell her how much he needs her, it's impossible to quantify and too painful. She could die on any day and he almost doesn't want to be here to see it. "I need to know you're okay. Are you?"

"Yes, I think so." She rolls her neck and then pulls up a sleeve and looks at her arms, there's a purple mark on her left one that looks painful to his experienced eyes. He's acquired a few in his time too. A couple of black eyes from Simone on bad days. The memory makes him even more grateful to be standing with Harry in her kitchen. Why he thought he'd get a warm welcome in Mona's bed is lost on him now. Why he even wanted it, is beyond his understanding.

She turns around to get coffee grounds and he can't resist standing a little closer. "I don't have anything else to do if you want me to stay."

He means it, there isn't anything else. Go home, watch the sport on the telly, clean up the flat. Lose himself in crap English lager. Going out to a bar for company seems utterly unimportant to him as it has for weeks.

She turns around and comes into the circle of his body, unexpectedly. Her arms rest around his waist and she leans against him. He gently rests his hands on her hips hoping he's not hurting her. "Thank you for everything."

She looks up and her mouth curves into a heart-warming smile. He sees it so rarely and he wishes he could make her happy more often. Caught up in his thoughts he wonders if he should kiss her. The frantic beat of his heart in his mouth, competes for his attention when his lips brush hers. She grips his shirt and he wonders if he could touch her, but she's too delicate. She pushes forward, letting him in a little more but then gasps. It brings him to his senses.

They seem to pull back by mutual agreement. Her eyes are wide at first and then they drop to the floor as she smooths her hair. He can picture her resistant building, climbing back into her own box, shoving away those emotions. His dick aches in his jeans, and his heart is sore in his chest. He hates himself for overstepping the line again.

"Dempsey.., James.." She puts her arms around herself and hisses with pain, and perhaps that's the moment she might forgive him.

"Harry, I'm so sorry." He interrupts quickly, knowing he was wrong and he can't lose her by being a pig-headed ass again.

"Please, don't be." She blushes.

"I should go, I need to get changed." He picks up his car keys. This isn't the right time and he's not going to push his luck, with her or any substitute. The flush in her cheeks tells him that they may well find a shape to fit them yet.

"Bring dinner." She says suddenly. "I don't have anything here and I don't want to go out. Get some sleep and come back later with food."

There's that smile and he reflects it back to her. He vows to wait as long as it takes, but he'll bring over dinner and half the grocery store in the meantime.

"You got yourself a deal." He pauses at her door and looks back at her in his sweatshirt, "Keep it, suits you better than me."