I do not think I have ever written this much dialogue in a story here before! It's sort of going where I wanted but I'm straying from my original plan in that way the body on the A40 totally derailed 'bath night'
A day in court is a painfully long one. Bad vending machine coffee, stale sandwiches and very angry people, including Dempsey. Usually Chas does this stuff, but with the Down case, they're both needed on account of their arrests and the barrister is bent under the weight of bribery.
Dempsey has an idea that the Chief has picked up on the odd vibe with Harry and hoping they'll work it out on their own time in a place where they have to behave. The frosty weather echoes their relationship; difficult to walk on but not impossible with the right technique. Currently he's waddling like a penguin on a New York sidewalk in February. When they finally escape - one Down brother in jail for five years, the other for three - the North Circular is a six o'clock joke and Dempsey feels his energy fading fast.
"Do you want to get something to eat?" He suggests, wriggling in the driver's seat.
"I'm exhausted," Harry sighs.
"Okay." The car moves forward half a length and he's subdued, feeling the weight of loneliness. He used to piss her off in those early months and tolerate his earned punishment better. He misses her spirit, he hates to think he had a hand in breaking it, or that he once wanted too.
They travel two yards when she says quietly, "I don't mind chips. A big pot of tea."
He breathes out; its progress.
It's four days since Richard left her life and Dempsey gleaned something about what it's like to be a woman in a world that's all about men. He holds open the door for his partner at the cafe; a few levels up from a greasy spoon with tablecloths and cafe curtains. Inside she chooses her food and they order together; he stops himself doing it all or worse sitting back like a lazy neanderthal.
"How are you doing?" Dempsey asks after the food is set down on the table they've chosen at the back, a force of habit perhaps. He has deliberately sat facing her, giving 'them' his full attention.
"You've been around me more than most," she chews on a chip and signs with pleasure. His entire being warms with the sound.
"I meant with the past few days, y'know..." he clarifies awkwardly walking on ice.
"You can say break-up and Richard, it's okay," Harry replies gently. "Only you knew, it's not big news. I suppose, no, I know I'm annoyed and disappointed."
"With me or him?"
"Both," she admits. "But you've brought me here so my irritation with you is diminishing by the second."
He pushes the mushy peas over to her, and she offers them back with a teasing smile, knowing he'll decline. "I hate 'em."
"They contain vitamins, probably." Harry comments as she always does.
"I've been eating vegetables and apples!" Dempsey protests with a wink; it's part of their pre-Richard routine.
"Good, I happen to care about your wellbeing," she says primly with a faint blush; this isn't part of the routine. "I need a return on my risky investment."
He eats a teaspoon of the god-awful peas with an exaggerated grimace that makes her smile.
After a moment and a sip of tea, Harry continues; "What makes me angry is that my suitability is entirely based on my sexual history. I'm an adult woman but Richard's behaviour was like that of a school locker room. It's insulting."
He nods, thinking about his own conduct for a moment and perhaps she does too, trading a look with him as her words linger.
"One rule for men and one for woman, huh?" Dempsey comments, offering an olive branch and more tea.
"Wasn't the worse break-up, it wasn't like we'd had sex, didn't even…well, you know," she blushes as she stirs in the milk.
"I hate to think what the worst one was," Dempsey winces after he speaks. Of course, her marriage. You numbskull. "You don't have to answer that."
"It's okay, it was my marriage," Harry murmurs. "I was fragile from my mother's death and he broke the little spirit I had left. When I asked if I ought to marry him, nobody said I shouldn't."
Dempsey holds his breath; she's never shared this. Perhaps she never trusted him enough with her emotions; and thinks that his honesty that night they were drinking maybe wasn't so bad.
"Tom, my partner before you, was injured so we were called off the pursuit. I got home from the hospital and there they were, in our bed together. My spare room was our bedroom; I can't picture that room in the same way anymore. I have never seen him, or her, again."
He waits as she takes a sip of tea.
"I've never told anyone else this before," she leans her head closer to his, conspiratorially and Dempsey feels like the luckiest guy in the world. "I put itching powder in his suitcase."
Harry gives another gift as she grins at the look of astonishment on his face. "You did that?"
"I heard he had to get tested for everything," Harry laughs with him.
"Remind me never to get on your bad side."
"Too late." Harry quips. There's a smile, but she's right. Before he can express any regrets, she asks; "What about you? You must have all sorts of tales."
"I wasn't the Casanova of NYPD," Dempsey reminds her.
"So who was?" Harry teases.
"Not telling, you might get stolen away." Again.
"Was that an invite to New York?" Harry watches as he steals a chip, astounded she'd even entertain the idea..
"Maybe." What was that phrase? In for a penny, in for a pound. 'You'd take it?"
She nods, and he takes a leap of his own.
"I guess my big break-up was Simone. I got tired of trying to get her the help she wanted with the liquor; I kept getting it thrown back, along with my clothes."
"That can't have been easy after your father?" Harry comments and he can't believe she remembered that detail. He shakes his head.
"When Joey happened..." Dempsey confesses, taking a drink of his tea to swallow the lump in his throat that he wasn't expecting. "I don't think she was sober when I told her about it, it was one less person to say goodbye to. She was the last person I expected to turn up."
He puts down the mug and meets her serious gaze; "I didn't sleep with her."
"I got that impression, not just from the pillows on the sofa." Harry says, "She didn't seem like the sort of woman you'd date."
"I thought about going back to Simone 'cos I'd let you down and myself, over the car keys," he confesses and she's surprised as he is, as the words slip out.
"You're not the same man I first met." Harry comments after a moment.
Dempsey thinks it's a generous observation. He remembers when he said to her then, that they were closer when they were not themselves; this is a long overdue conversation. Maybe that's a benefit of love, he wonders.
"That's what I said; I told Simone that it was different now."
Harry is silent and when he looks up, she's resting her chin on her hands with a gentle smile on her face. "It's changed but so have you. I never realised it before…"
"What?" Dempsey is suddenly self conscious, as if all his secrets are laid on the empty plates.
"You're a romantic." She says, in the way someone might if they recalled they had a magnum of Cristal champange on ice.
"I am?" He is blindsided.
"It's not a bad thing, in fact the very opposite," Harry considers. "You're more romantic than me."
"I thought all woman had these feelings," he comments and freezes.
"What feelings?" Harry traps him very neatly and he finds he doesn't mind.
"Heart fluttering, stomach in knots and wanting to be close to the person who makes them happen. That sorta stuff," Dempsey tries to play it cool but he's simply saying what's going on inside. He takes a step forward. "I guess, never felt them before."
"I had no butterflies with Richard. No matter what I thought or felt, it wasn't right, especially his last words."
"Which were?"
"When Richard rang, and I told him what you'd said. He claimed that you had taken his words and twisted them." Harry meets Dempsey's bewildered gaze.
His heart stutters for a moment. "Did you believe him?"
"No, not for one moment," Her voice is gentle, "His word against yours, he didn't stand a chance."
Harry's faith wraps him up like a warm blanket on a cold day; despite everythingshe seems to believe in him.
"We can always elope," Dempsey chances with a grin that she returns.
Harry falls asleep as they move through the traffic and Dempsey thinks how often she's guided him down these roads, and how long they've spent in cars since they met. Her head is rested against the window, a cheek pillowed by her hand.
She trusts him and that's a weight on him that Dempsey can bear. He's not deserving of her. Fear be dammed. She's nothing like Simone who was careless with his heart and her own. He knew that at the piano bar, when Harry had met his gaze each time; the two women were incomparable.
It's time he was honest.