A/N: We know how well it ended but we can have a closer look to the other side. Let's go back in time...


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Through the Eyes of Barbara - The Abduction

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She knew the rest of the bloody paperwork in good hands. Tommy would care for it and she would go to a birthday party. Barbara stood at the kerb, waiting for the cab she had called. She called her friend Mary and told her she would be a bit later than planned. Mary told her what ridiculousness her husband was just planning for Andrew and it made her laugh out loud.

"Okay, I hope the cab will arrive in a bit. I'll ring off. See you later." Barbara ended the call and impatiently looked down the road to see if there was any cab finally coming by. Unfortunately there was none.

Feeling anger rising she kicked some poor twig on the path while she walked the other way for a few strides.

"Bloody traffic." she muttered. By coincidence she let her eyes go up the building of New Scotland Yard to the window where she knew her Inspector's office and there he stood with a mug in his hands and seemed to enjoy the view across the Thames. She smiled. But then she recognised that he looked down to her so her face turned into a broad grin and she could not keep herself from waving up to him.

Her boss raised his mug but also his hand to wave back at her. It looked as if he nodded.

With an overdramatic look at her wrist Barbara indicated that the time was running late and there still was no cab in sight. There was just a long row of common vehicles she cursed to hell. She shrugged and imagined his pitiful facial expression more than she could see it. Over the years she had learned the looks on his face. In recent time she even knew about the more subtle ones, and about the small wrinkles around his eyes, about the tenderness that played in the corners of his lips every now and then. And the special smile he sometimes showed her, and her alone. She could imagine Tommy's face with almost every expression she dared to think of. She had watched him a lot. She had watched him even more lately. At some point she had learned that she loved his face.

But she could not kid herself and knew that she loved the whole man. Although that absolutely was not good for her sanity. On Sunday she had planned to finally find out if she would go mad or if he would be able to heal her.


Deep in thoughts and with her eyes on the man in his office she did not recognise that a vehicle stopped right behind her. She did not even recognise that its back door suddenly slid open and a person jumped out of it, so it was no wonder that she was completely shocked when two strong and confusingly colourful arms encircled her waist, lifted her up and pulled her into the van.

When she shrieked, the door was already closed again.

Barbara fiercely tried to struggle free from this man's arms. He only laughed. She barely recognised a Jamaican with dreadlocks and knitted cap on the driver seat. After all her eyes were that of a trained policewoman. Strange but extraordinarily loud children's songs were blaring from the front speakers.

"Stop wriggling!" the man on whose lap she sat, firmly held by his arms, ordered loudly into her ear. His grip loosened in that moment and Barbara finally was able to turn around and slam her fist into his face with all the strength she could muster.

He was deeply hurt, although she did not knock him out. Her fist had slipped on all the make-up in his face.

"Ouch!" he cried out, grabbed her wrists and tried to stop her. His painted clown face was smeared where she had hit him. "Stop it!"


His face was a strange mixture of a ruined clown's grin and a painful real grin. "Barbs, stop it!" he cried out again. "It's me! Nolan! I'm Nolan! Stop hitting me! Calm down!"

Barbara stopped immediately. Nolan was one of the friends she had been about to meet today. Panic changed into anger in an instant. A real Barbara-would-kill-you-on-the-spot if-it-wasn't-illegal-anger. She lowered her hands and Nolan let go of her wrists. He laid a cooling hand onto his burning right cheek.

"You bloody idiot!" Barbara shouted into Nolan's face. "Do you think this is funny? I could kill you, you bastard!" With that she gave him a really heavy slap onto his other cheek. She did not care that she ruined his make-up or that she would have that stuff on her hands. Nolan literally had abducted her. He had scared the devil out of her with what he obviously had seen as a joke. "I am a policewoman. And you just pulled me into your van right under the eyes of New Scotland Yard."

"Well, I hear no sirens yet." Despite the burning pain on both cheeks, Nolan's real grin turned wider.

"Yeah, and traffic's finally goin' faster." the man in the front seat added laughing. Barbara recognised him as Juma, Nolan's husband. "How convenient!"

"Oh, you numbskulls!" Barbara landed another soft punch into Nolan's ribcage. "Fasten your seatbelt, you stupid sod, or I'll fine you for that."

When she had cooled off, her hands were cleaned with the help of four paper tissues and all finally were seated properly Nolan apologised. He explained that they were on their way to Andrew. "And we've tried to drive down Victoria Embankment because that obviously stoned muppet at the wheel-" He raised his voice with the last words, addressing Juma. "thought there would be less traffic. Anyway. He's at least spotted you at the kerb and so we just wanted to offer you a ride. I mean, we have the same destination, haven't we?" He gave Barbara a disarming grin.

Barbara just groaned in annoyance and rolled her eyes. But in fact she was glad that this ride spared her the horrible costs for a cab towards Andrew.

"And you can have one of the balloons, Barbs." Reaching into the back Nolan picked one of the party balloons and gave it to her. "Just see the positive side: You only had to clean your hands. But I have to rearrange my make-up!"

She already smiled again. "Oh, and for heaven's sake, turn down that stupid music, Juma!" she shouted towards the front seat.


"I hope you don't have to drive home first?" Juma asked fidgeting with the knob at the radio. "Although we're in time to make a little detour."

"Nah, it's okay." Barbara lifted the paper bag with all the glittery stuff overflowing. "I have everything I need."

In that moment her mobile phone rang and she groaned in annoyance. "That's my boss." she said fumbling her phone out of the pocket of her jeans.

"Hence Rule Britannia." Nolan laughed out loud. "But you're not on call, are you?"

"No." was all Barbara could say before Nolan reached over, wiped across the screen of her mobile and cut off the call. "Hey!" she cried out. "Look, he's already called me once. Maybe there's-"

Nolan snatched the phone off from her hands. "You're not on call. And you have an appointment. Gnarr... How can I switch this into flight mode? Geee..."

For a while they playfully fought for her phone until Barbara caught it by tickling Nolan's side. "Switch it off!" he cried with tears of laughter. "Switch it ooooff!"

"Yah, you silly bloke. I will. 't's easy. Look. Like this. And that. And here we go. See?" She leaned over and waved her mobile in front of Nolan's nose.

"Good. You're not his slave, Barbs. It's your spare time." Nolan gave her a serious look. "And don't you dare switch it on secretly later and call him back. For once in his life he should solve all his problems on his own."

This made her blush. "I'm not solving all his problems."

"But you're always there when he calls for you."

"That's what friends are for, Nolan." Barbara looked out of the window.

"And when was he there for you?"

At first she only snorted in reply, but after a while she quietly listed when exactly Tommy had been there for her. It was not an insignificant amount of occasions. "He simply does it in his own special way and I don't tell you everything, Nolan."

"Oh, will I have to ask Mary?"

"She's a keeper of secrets. She won't tell you."

"Whoo - intriguing. Secrets about Tommy. Or secrets with Tommy?"

"Ah, shut up, Noles." Barbara kept staring out of the window for the rest of the drive. The enchanted smile never left her face. Nolan saw it reflected in the window and he saw her red nape but he kept his mouth shut. Empathetically grinning, he only patted her thigh. He knew about the crush she had for her boss and she looked as if there was more to it but she did not want to tell.

Ah, well, at least not for now.


During most of the drive to Andrew's birthday party in the garden of his parents John and Mary Barbara's mind was on Tommy. They had extended their usual pint after work into some sort of dates during the past year and in the recent weeks they had become really close. So close that she had the vague idea that Tommy might mirror her feelings. The increasing accidental touches eventually had turned into definitely intended contacts. Their brief looks had turned into longer gazes. And his arm was around her shoulder more often.

They not only had met after work for a pint or for dinner or sometimes for a Sunday lunch, they also had met on events, in the stadium, on a theatre premiere, or at a museum after they had had to investigate on the premises and thought it would be nice to stroll around there without watching out for suspects. They even had met once for a simple stroll through the park and they had had a nice and very intimate conversation that sort of danced around the elephant.

Later, Barbara finally had admitted to herself that she had fallen in love with Tommy and it had felt as if he mirrored her feelings, at least a few. It just was not easy to go on from that point to work out if she was right. Although she had found a way to tease and flirt with him that was not too dangerous and not too straightforward. Keeping to herself that Andrew was just a boy was one thing she had teased him with.

It was not easy to keep Tommy out of her mind. But it was Andrew's birthday. Andrew, the son of her best friend Mary, turned eight today and he would be the king of the party.


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