Disclaimer: I don't own any of the original characters nor the original Inspector Lynley Mysteries – they belong to Elizabeth George and the BBC. I have borrowed the characters from the TV-Show and only own the ideas of my stories.

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Author's note and summary: A party, a lot of alcohol, a flirt and a few surprises. Just a short story with the usual and a not so usual topic. It's NO part of the Emerald Series, but it had to be written. It derives from a conversation I recently had with a friend. Thank you, Cats. Enjoy...

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An odd Flirt

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They had been out at a pub with quite a jolly round of people. They had had one or the other pint too much and in addition to that several shots over the limit, so the spare weekend was what all of them needed. In fact, on Saturday Barbara had not heard a single word from none of the people who had been there. Except for a text message from Nicky who had cancelled their shopping tour that had been planned for Saturday. Barbara had not been unhappy about that.

On Friday Stuart Lafferty had celebrated his birthday with a lot of alcohol for everyone. It was him of course, and his wife, several friends of his, Barbara did not know, and a few colleagues, among them Winston who had just turned Sergeant and had celebrated just as much as Stuart. Of course Tommy Lynley, their boss, had been there, and a new DC she always forgot the name. Since Nicky, her best friend from childhood days, nowadays living in Greece, had come over for holidays around the days of Easter, Barbara simply had dragged her with her to the party.

Lynley had flirted with her as if there was no tomorrow. It had been odd on so many levels.

On Sunday the first person to give a sign of life was Winston. He texted to Barbara if she had seen the stuffed bear with custodian helmet he got from his new girlfriend for his promotion. Barbara answered that it certainly still sat on the donation ship from the RNLI on the bar at the pub and he should just ring them.

The next text message was from Tommy. Barbara remembered that she had called him Tommy on Friday but she knew that she would never do that in a sober state. In his text message he asked if she had come home alright after the party.

'Yes - already on Saturday morning' . she answered and had to chuckle.

'Fancy dinner with me? Indian, sofa, telly?' .

Her heart skipped a beat. What he suggested was exactly what she needed now.

'What time? I'll drop by at yours' . They had done that a lot recently so it did not appear very strange today.

'7? 8?' .

'7' . Then she sent another message. 'Perfect. CU' .

And then Nicky called her.

"Hey, Barba Trick, how's it going?"

"Nicky! Fine now. Yesterday had been a bit hard."

"Amen to that! I'm glad I wasn't scheduled to meet Mum and Dad yesterday. I'm just in the cab on my way there. Has Tommy already called you?"

"Tommy?"

Barbara heard a laugh. "Lynley. Your boss, remember?"

"Haha. Of course I remember."

"Oh, silly me. How could you ever forget him..."

"Nicky!" Barbara warned but Nicky only laughed. "Why should he call me?"

"Maybe for a lunch date? Or dinner? I've heard the rumours that you do that on a regular basis nowadays."

Barbara did not comment on that. "As far as I remember he was flirting all evening with you, my dear, and not with me. And you seemed to enjoy it quite a lot." Barbara earned loud laughter for that. "What?!"

"Of course I've enjoyed it. Nonetheless I wasn't his target."

"Well, it has looked differently."

"So he finally has reached his aim."

"Explain that. You're unnerving, Nicky!"

"Well, he may have flirted with me, and yes, I've felt flattered because he's quite a handsome man. But I enjoyed it only for a while. Until I've recognised that he's always watched you closely. All the time he only observed your reactions. And when we've danced he's mostly turned us in a way so that he could see you."

"I didn't recognise. And for what purpose should that have been?"

"Oh, Barbara, sometimes you're plain stupid."

"Well, I'm not too stupid to end a phone call..."

"Oh, no, please!" Nicky quickly said. "Barb, he wanted to see if you're becoming jealous when he was flirting with me."

"Jealous?"

"He didn't seem interested in any other woman than you, but you've almost iced him out."

"I didn't... I just... He's my boss!" Barbara weakly objected. She knew Nicky was right.

"Yes, so what? Break down those silly walls around your heart and let him in."

"He's not interest-"

"Oh, he is, believe me. He just doesn't know how you feel. And that will be until the end of time if you won't stop ignoring your feelings eventually. Go, call him and invite him for dinner today. I can recommend Ranjid's Kitchen Take Away. Oh, I'm there. Yes, stop at the kerb over there, perfect. Barb, I have to go. Have a nice evening and give my regards to Tommy when you meet him. Talk to you tomorrow."

Without waiting for an answer, Nicky had ended the call. Barbara was slightly dumbstruck by her words. Bit by bit she recalled some scenes from Friday night, and found that Nicky was right. Tommy really had behaved a bit odd all throughout the evening. He had flirted with Nicky and still always involved Barbara somehow when she stood nearby. And yes, she had felt watched one or the other moment, but she always had dismissed it as being only in her stupid imagination. Of course later in the night, with more than one drink in her head, everything had turned a bit blurry, but had he not given her a smacker on her cheek when she had left about half an hour after Nicky had called her own cab?

"Nah..." Barbara said into the reflection of the window pane. And for the rest of the day she tried to find a reason to manoeuvre herself out of today's date with her boss but then it was half past six and she had to go.

"Hello Barbara, good evening!" Tommy greeted her at his door. He definitely had been waiting behind the curtain until her cab arrived.

"Hello, Sir." Barbara was a bit shocked when he pulled her closer to give her a kiss on the cheek.

"What's with my name?" he pouted when she walked past him. "You've called me Tommy on Friday."

So he could remember. "Yeah, like everybody else I was officially sloshed. I shouldn't..." He cocked his head and looked sad. Usually she never could stand his pleading look, but he never had tried it on her when he asked to be called by his name. Usually it almost was a game between them, but now he used his special look and Barbara was lost. She shrugged and overstepped a line she once had drawn by herself. "Ah, well, yes. Tommy. Hello, Tommy." And she smiled because it was not exactly difficult, and the happy grin in his face was a more than nice reward.

"Better." He ushered her into his living room. The TV already was on but on mute and there only was a news show running. "Shall we call Masala Palace straight away?"

For the time they waited for their food to be delivered they had a glass of exquisite but expensive Italian lemonade and talked about the party. With their food on the coffee table, and another glass of lemonade, they talked less but still quite animated. Strange enough, but the only person they had not really talked about was Nicky, the woman Tommy seemed to be very interested the other night.

After they had brought the empty food containers into the kitchen and took a bottle of white wine with them, Barbara decided to make an attack on that topic.

"You seemed rather interested in Nicky that night." Barbara said while she switched through the channels. She watched him closely out of the corners of her eyes.

"Oh, was I?" Tommy appeared quite amused. "Well, frankly speaking, she's a beautiful woman. And she has the gift of the gab."

"Oh, yes, she has." Although Barbara had in mind what Nicky had told her, she finally felt the sting of jealousy. And if she was honest, she already had felt it on Friday.

"And she's quite an appearance. I have to admit that it also was a bit strange to have a woman on eye level. I mean, physically. I bet she has some difficulties finding a man who's not shorter than her."

"Yah, she has."

"I understand that she's your childhood friend?"

"Mhm. I already knew her when..."

"When what?" he asked innocently curious after Barbara had stopped mid-sentence.

"Umm... never mind."

"Oh, you two share a dark secret." Tommy laughed and squeezed Barbara's shoulders. She recognised that he had skidded closer and stayed close.

"No. It's not dark, and it's not our secret." Barbara bit her lip. She wondered if she should tell it or if it simply should not be said. In fact it was none of other people's business but Nicky's and she was not there to tell it by herself. On the other hand, when that topic came on she usually did not hold back, quite the opposite. Plus she engaged in public awareness activities quite a lot. "Nicky has gone through a lot of difficulties before she became who she is now." Barbara revealed vaguely.

She did not reveal enough for Tommy to understand it clearly. "Well, a lot of people have gone through hard times to become what they are now." The smile he gave her was disarming and told her that he also was talking about her. "You for example. You've been a completely different person when we met."

"Mhm." Barbara nodded. "But I was always a woman." She bit her lower lip again.

"Of that I never had a doubt." Tommy's voice had turned so gentle that Barbara had to look at him. What was there in his eyes? She had never seen such a tenderness in his gaze. It made her nervous.

"But..." Barbara had to clear her throat and forced her eyes back on the TV. "But she had to undergo surgeries to become what she is now."

"Oh. You mean... she-" It sunk in like a stone into water. "Oh." he said. And again "Oh..."

Barbara shot a quick glance over to Tommy. But fortunately there was no disgust but only confusion. "I already knew Nicky when he picked me for his football team and everyone called him Andrew."

Tommy raked a hand through his hair and slightly blushed. "Wow, that is... different."

"Well, she, when she was Andrew, still had the tendencies to dress up, behave like a girl, hang around with the girls more than with the boys, although he did not feel like them. All his life he... she... well, he at that time... always was forced into a wrong role, play football, wear trousers and short hair, be a boy because there was something that made him a boy, although he did not feel like one." Ignoring the still running TV, Barbara explained everything she had learned and witnessed from Andrew's and from Nicky's life, all the fights and all the prejudices, disapproval, hatred even, all the mental and physical pain, all those difficulties that society burdened him with until the stressful change was completed and he finally was able to be she, Nicky, a strong and beautiful woman, on all levels eventually. Maybe slightly too tall for being in the norm, but a woman from head to toe and finally what she always felt she really was. "And she hates her height because of all things she stereotypically loves high heels."

"Oh." Tommy said again. "And... so, she's... I mean... umm... I mean, it's none of my business, but actually I've never met a..." His voice trailed of.

"Oh, don't be so shocked, Sir. Just say it. Transgender is the word you're looking for."

"No, I mean... I'm not shocked. Well, at least not scandalised. More like... surprised. And is transgender the correct word? I just don't want to be rude. Really, I've never met a transgender person, this or the other."

"Well, at least it's what you think. A few moments ago you didn't know it about Nicky. She was just a woman for you. And now she's different and it's changed the way you think about her. That's why people usually don't run around and display their innermost feelings or physical or mental differentness. It would just make other people impose their morality on them, and that's not right."

"I don't impose any morality on her. I'm just a bit confused."

"Good. Because it doesn't harm anyone..."

"And to be precise, it is none of my business, is it?"

"Not at a party or at the first date, no." Barbara agreed with a light smile. "But maybe on a later date?"

"I don't think I'm going to date her." Tommy winked. "With or without knowledge of that secret. It's been just a nice flirt. She did not seem to see any deeper meaning in our flirting either. Or is she...?"

"No, she's completely-" Barbara gestured quotation marks into the air. "- 'normally' interested in men. Just not in you."

"Okay, then at least I didn't hurt her."

"With your dishonest approach? No." Barbara laughed. "In fact she found it rather funny what you did."

Suddenly Barbara realised that their conversation had turned into a strange direction. Talking openly about Nicky's 'secret' was one thing, but now she feared that Tommy would ask her why Nicky found his flirting funny.

"What did I do?" he asked and frowned when Barbara stopped laughing. He saw a blush creeping across her face but she kept silent. "Barbara?"

Barbara cleared her throat again. "Nicky's told me that every time you've flirted with her, she had the vague feeling that you were distracted, that you were observing someone else, as if you were waiting for a reaction."

"Or as if I was trying to make someone else jealous?"

"Yah, something like that." Barbara strictly kept her eyes on the TV screen with a documentary film about the deep blue sea although she did not really see what was on. The room had turned decidedly hot, or so it felt.

"And?"

Barbara pretended to be ignorant. "Hm?"

"Was she jealous?" His fingertips caressed her collarbone. It sent a shiver down her arm.

"No." Barbara answered with a husky voice.

"You're a bad liar." Tommy muttered.

She shrugged. "Sort of."

"Barbara?"

"Hm?"

"Look at me."

She knew that when she looked at him now he would see what she really felt for him. She would not be able to hide it any longer. Not with his arm still around her shoulders, his fingers almost on the skin of her neck and his body so close to hers. He would see the bricks of the wall that had crushed down with just a few words. In the dust behind it there was her heart.

"Look at me." he repeated softer and with a little help from his crooked finger under her chin she turned her head.

She saw honest love in his eyes and was devastated. All her attempts of dissuading herself from believing that the increasing times in which they regularly met out of work were nothing but the deepening of their friendship, became futile with one single look into his eyes.

"There's no need to be jealous." he said in the gentlest way a man ever had spoken to her. "I'm all yours."

"I'm always jealous." Barbara croaked honestly. "Of every woman you look at. Even when it's-"

He never would know which woman had been on her mind because he had bent down to her and closed her lips with his. It was about time to have less conversation.

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