Disclaimer: C'mon, I'm just a fan, I respect TP. The Discworld and the watch are his…but I guess I betta keep hold of the DeLancey's.  Not that anyone'd want them. You'd be more twisted than me if you did…okay, stopping now.

Rating – PG-13

Setting: Let's say a coupla months after Fifth Elephant

Note on correction made to this chap: LOL. I wrote this late at night which should explain the slip-ups re: elephants and Mrs. Palm J Actually the latter' quite funny cuz I actually remember thinking "I better get the right one, because isn't the other the Head of the Guild of , ahem, Seamstresses? I should really start trying coffee.

They hadn't said a word on the walk home. Instead they'd fallen in to the regular copper's stride, Vimes lost in his own mindless trance as his feet automatically took him home. But as familiar as the route was, and as often as he had crossed the Ankh by this bridge, tonight the shadows cast by the four stone hippos seemed deeper and more menacing. After all his years on the beat, Sam Vimes was getting a severe case of the wiggins.

  The problem was that the demons he feared lurked in the mist weren't just vague possibilities of muggers, maniacs or simply Foul Ole Ron.  Tonight the darkness had a face. It was a laughing, superior face taunting Vimes at having evaded him for all those weeks. It was the face Vimes had beaten into a bloody pulp.

 So tonight, he was glad of the sound of another pair of footsteps at his side.

When he got to the front gate of what he still thought of as Sybil's home, the reality of it all suddenly came crashing back in. He'd have to go in and see his wife now. He wouldn't be able to bring himself to tell her all that happened. She would see his scraped knuckles, and the bruises on his face, and all she would do, would suggest he go have a bath run for him. She would never ask, because she still feared the answers.

 Or rather, nowadays, she feared his not answering. Things had been good for a while; their little holiday had done them good. But as soon as they'd been back, he had become a copper first, and a husband second. As for 'future father', she thought it was mostly still denial there.

 Vimes knew how she was feeling. He saw it in her eyes every time he left for work, or as more often than not, got called out to work in the middle of the night by a pounding on the door, and the sound of Detritus' slow apologies. And he saw it in her face every time he came home late at night and wordlessly got into bed.

 His job was his spark, the one passion in his life.

 After tonight, he didn't know if he had that any more. He didn't know what his actions tonight meant.

All he was certain of was that everything would look better, at least for a little while, looked at through the bottom of a bottle.

He sighed. He couldn't do that of course. He knew where that led. So here he was, a grown man, commander of the watch, with a whole list of titles to add to that – not to mention the tights-  and he was hovering outside his home like a kid who snuck out earlier, got up to no good, and had now realised he was locked out.

 The young blonde standing next to him, appearing just a tad on edge, didn't help with that analogy.

 He turned to her, to thank her, to apologise, to say …something.

But Angua just gave a small smile and a nod, and turned and walked away, leaving him alone.

Of course she would.  She understood him. She was one of his men. Well, obviously she wasn't. Obviously, I mean, it was Angua, you couldn't get any more 'woman' than Ang-

 Vimes stopped his thinking right there and start back-pedalling as fast as he possibly could. Why did he keep doing that lately? He'd never really had a problem before – in the beginning she'd pretty much been 'the werewolf', and then she was just 'Carrot's'. And of course, he was married. He was her CO. And why on disc was he still thinking about this?

He pushed the front gates open, preparing to go in and just sleep.

He resisted the urge to look back down the street and see if she was all right. Of course she was. It was the potential attackers he ought to be worried about.

He sighed again. He was doing too much of that lately.

~ ~ ~

Angua had just got out of bed when she heard the banging far below. She walked to her window, blinking back the morning light as she peered down at the street below to see who was knocking.

  Oh gods.

She was racing down the stairs a second later, hurrying to stop him from waking the whole place up. Mrs Cake, as liberal as she was in regards to the doggy-doors, was quite particular about gentlemen callers. Carrot was bad enough (it was the way he blushed incessantly)but her drunk boss turning up at her lodgings at six am wasn't going to go down well. She'd glare. She might even 'tut'.

 If you didn't think that was anything serious, you hadn't met Mrs Cake.

 She reached the door and yanked it open just as Vimes had raised his fist to knock again.

  Well, he looks like he made at least a couple of hours of sleep.  Angua thought, relieved, seeing his change of clothes. He obviously hadn't been out at a bar all night.

 It dawned on slowly that his fist was still raised, and he was standing there wide-eyed, and more than a little awkward looking.

Oh gods. She thought again. Tell me I put some clothes on before I came down.

Looking down she thankfully saw that she had. Unfortunately, one of Carrot's oversized shirts didn't exactly make for standard uniform. Or in fact, anything suitable to be standing at an open door on the street in. Now, Angua could handle revealing some flesh in front of fellow wolves and dogs. Nakedness was natural to them. But from the way Vimes had gone pale, broken into a cold sweat, and was doing everything in his power to keep his eyes on everything except the Sergeant before him, she couldn't help but share in his embarrassment.

 He'd come to share his epiphany, to share his questions, his gut instinct about DeLancey. It had struck him the minute he'd left the house, and he had to share it with someone straight away. He would reach her lodgings before he would get to the stationhouse. He just hadn't taken into account the time.

 So now he was left here, with just one thought in his head.

Legs. A whole lot of legs.

TBC

R/R