"So...there's something else I've been tasked with." They're sitting on the sofa, his arm around her and her head resting against his shoulder, when she remembers the other photo that was inside the envelope from New York. "Hold on."
She heads back into the kitchen, grabbing the photo to show him before sliding the envelope containing the card and letter into a drawer. He's leaning back against the sofa when she walks back into the living room, his eyes closed, his hands clasped together on his stomach, and a faint smile on his face. She takes a moment to watch him, admiring the lips she finds herself wanting to kiss almost constantly, the chest she has found herself draped across for so much of the last few hours, and the hands that have now explored her body so thoroughly that she flushes as she thinks about it. He opens his eyes as she sits down beside him, smiling as he turns to her.
"This apparently needs to take up residence on your desk." She hands the photo to him, the picture showing him with his mother, the resemblance clear in their matching smiles. "She says it will hopefully be useful in reminding you to call her."
"I do call her!" He protests, shaking his head, clearly not surprised by his mother's request. "I guess not often enough for her liking, right?"
"It wouldn't appear so, no." She leans forward and puts the photo down onto the coffee table. "It's a nice picture, Dempsey. I'll put it in a frame for your desk, and at least we'll be trying."
"I can see why my mom loves you." He grins, shaking his head again and reaching for her hand, softly squeezing her fingers.
"She loves me because I somehow have you eating vegetables on an impressively regular basis." She laughs at the offended expression on his face. "And because I call her more often than you do. Or, I was...I did, for a while."
"What do you mean?" He frowns and she sighs as she realises how little she told him about the time he was undercover, essentially missing for weeks, leaving her not knowing where he was and fearing the worst.
"I never really told you much about the time you were gone, when you were undercover...those weeks when I didn't know where you were or if you were okay, and…" She pauses, taking a deep breath as the raw panic of those weeks unexpectedly returns to wash over her. "In the worst moments when I worried that you were...well, I missed you, and I tried not to think about what might have happened to you, and the more time that passed the more I missed you, and the more I started to fear something terrible had happened. Anyway, your mother called one afternoon and told me she hadn't heard from you in a couple of weeks and I know I really should have told her you were undercover to the point that I hadn't spoken to you either, but she was worried and I didn't have the heart to-"
"You didn't have the heart to make it worse for her." His hand squeezes hers again. "You didn't want her to worry."
"Exactly, but...I lied to her. And then I called her once a week and I continued to lie to her." She feels the guilt all over again as she tells him about it. "I told her you weren't allowed to call her but that you were in regular contact with me and that you were doing okay, or bearing up well enough at least. Wishful thinking on my part, I realise that, but she was missing you and so was I, and it was nice to talk to her and pretend things were alright just for a little while each week. I'm sorry, I know I should have been honest with her, I shouldn't have lied about how you were just because it made me feel better. I shouldn't have dragged her into it, it wasn't fair. I should have-"
"Hey, it's okay, take a breath already." He stops her with a hand on her cheek, his thumb stroking gently along her bottom lip as he smiles. "She's my mom, she was worried and you made her feel better. I love you for that, Harry."
She nods, sighing, still unsure about having lied but feeling relieved that he knows she did it with only good intentions. Squeezing his hand she stands up and walks over to the bookshelf, opening a small storage box and taking a photo out of it.
"It doesn't seem fair of me to tell you to put the photo of you and your mother on your desk when I won't even take mine out of the box it lives in." She sits down again, handing the photo to him and tucking her legs up under her.
"Wow. You look…" He looks at the photo, then into her eyes, and back at the photo. "You look just like her."
"I know." She nods, very aware of exactly how much she looks like her mother, the woman she has no memory of whatsoever. "I was three there. She died about four or five months after that picture was taken."
"It's hard to imagine three year old Harriet. Always figured you showed up as the fully formed Detective Sergeant you are now." He smiles before glancing at the photo again. "I guess you don't really remember her?"
"People usually start with 'oh, you must miss her so much' and then look slightly horrified when I say no, I don't really miss her...but then you're not just people. You know me better than that." She thinks about how many times she's responded to that very statement with what people expect to hear, rather than the truth, which is that it's hard to miss someone you never knew. "My father told me so many stories about her when I was a child that I almost convinced myself for a while that I did remember her, but I don't. I don't remember her at all."
"That has to be tough though." He touches her knee, running his index finger in circles around the bone.
"It's fine, I've never known any different. You know, I'm turning thirty next month…" She pauses, thinking about how she told her friends in no uncertain terms that the elaborate celebration they were hinting at was absolutely not what she wanted. "My mother was twenty nine when she died. I'm going to be older than she ever was, and that does feel somewhat...strange, I suppose. Ridiculous, really. It's just a number, it doesn't mean anything."
"Look, I can't pretend to know how you're feeling, but I'm pretty sure it's okay for it to mean something if you feel like it does." He gives her a half smile, shrugging lightly. "She was your mom."
"You know, had we had this conversation a couple of years ago, you would have been focusing solely on the fact that I'm about to exit my twenties." She smiles as she recognises how much he's changed since they met, how much they both have. "There would have been some joke or other about me being over the hill or about taking up my rightful place on the shelf, and I would have told you to shut the hell up."
"Well then…it's a good thing you didn't turn thirty a couple of years ago." He slides his hand to the back of her neck and his fingers rub gently across her skin. "I could still make a couple of jokes if you feel like you're missing out."
"And I could still tell you to shut the hell up." His fingers continue to massage the nape of her neck and she sighs, relaxing under his touch. "Mm, I always suspected you had magic fingers and I was right. You're so good at that."
"Magic fingers, huh?" He grins at her and his hand slides higher, pushing into her hair.
"I had a feeling, that's all." She moves her hand to his thigh, shifting closer to him. "Have you really never noticed me watching when you clean your gun?"
"When I clean my gun?" He looks confused and it makes her smile.
"Well, I must be much more discreet than I thought." She zones out for a few seconds, thinking again about his hands, his fingers, strong, careful and precise, and currently sending waves of warmth through her as they rub softly across her skin. "As much as I doubt that it's advised protocol to clean your gun at your desk, it really...does...things to me."
"Detective Sergeant Makepeace, you are full of surprises." His eyebrows rise and his gaze locks onto hers, the hand in her hair pulling her in just a little.
"You know me, Lieutenant…I like to keep you on your toes." She closes the gap between them and kisses him, her attention caught as she pulls away by a small mark on his neck. "Oh God, I think I might have left you a little something here."
"You did?" He reaches to touch the faint bruise, smirking at her as she bites her lip sheepishly, suddenly feeling like a teenager.
"Sorry." She smiles at him, not feeling particularly sorry. "At least everyone at work will think you had a great weekend, they'll just assume you went out and picked up a fiery little wild thing."
"What they don't know is that I don't need to go out." His lips move to her neck, his tongue gliding gently across her skin. "I seem to have my own fiery little wild thing right here at home."
"Dempsey...don't you dare do what I think you're about to." She slides a hand into his hair and pulls his head up, not entirely gently. "You do realise how it will look if we both go to work wearing scarves on Monday?"
"Mm, it'll look like you picked up a wild one on the weekend too." He grins and she shakes her head, knowing he's well aware of what people will think. They've already had some curious looks and lightly probing questions lately, most of which they've smoothly deflected, but there's no way they would escape suspicion if they were to show up quite so clearly marked. "Anyway, I'm not sure how it's going to look if I roll up on Monday in Friday's clothes."
"And in the same taxi as me, seeing as neither of us currently appears to have a car." She uncurls her legs out from under her and stretches her feet out into his lap. "I think you should go home for your car, and some clothes, and then get back over here in time for dinner. I also think you should stop on your way back over here and actually pick up some dinner."
"You have it all worked out, don't you?" He runs his finger up her foot and she lets out an involuntary giggle. "And I think I just found your ticklish spot."
"You just found one of my ticklish spots." She pulls her feet back and smiles at him. "I'm a woman of many sensitive spots."
"Oh, I don't doubt it." His hand moves to her leg and his thumb settles on her ankle bone, stroking so softly that he's on the verge of finding a second spot. "It's now my life's mission to find them all."
"Now that could make stakeouts so much more interesting." She sighs as he fingers trail lightly up her shin, wondering again how she could have gone so long without giving in to what she now knows his touch does to her. "Go home, Dempsey. Pick up some clothes, get in your car, bring some dinner, and then you can spend as long as you like doing whatever you want with those glorious fingers."
"I guess the sooner I leave, the sooner I get back here, right?" He lifts her legs out of his lap and she runs her gaze down the length of his body in unashamed admiration as he stands up.
"Well, yes, that's the idea." She stands up too, overtaken by an irresistible urge to press herself against him. She guesses correctly that he won't object and she smiles when his arms slide around her and he drops a kiss to the top of her head.
"Should I bring clothes for work on Monday, or…" She hears the hesitation in his question and she feels 'bring clothes for the rest of your life' move to the tip of her tongue before her brain reins it back in.
"As much as I might enjoy it…" She pulls back to look at him. "I doubt Spikings would approve of you arriving at work in your underwear."
"Right, yeah…" He shrugs and gives her a faint grin. "I just, you know…wouldn't want to overstay my welcome."
"Just bring your bloody clothes." She shakes her head slightly and smiles back at him. "Besides, my car is at work and your car is preferable to the bus on Monday morning."
"Why do I suddenly feel like you only love me for my car?" He smirks and waggles his hand in front of her. "And these magic digits, of course."
"Of course." She steps away and moves over to the small table in the corner of the room, opening a drawer and pulling out her spare set of keys, handing them to him. "Take these with you. I intend to go and soak in a very deep bath for a very long time and climbing out of it to answer the door soaking wet doesn't appeal too hugely. You can keep hold of them, you know, for...well, just keep hold of them.
"Oh, Harry." He sighs dramatically and then grins at her. "The keys to your heart and the keys to your house all in one weekend."
"I reserve the right to change my mind. On both fronts." She kisses him and then pushes him playfully away. "Now go."
"Alright…" He squeezes her hand and reaches for his jacket. "I'm going!"
Watching as he slides his freshly gifted set of keys into his pocket, she wonders how on earth they have any chance of hiding this at work when she can't stop smiling at him and he can't stop touching her. Maybe they can look at it as a challenge, or maybe she should try to take a leaf out of his book and give less of a damn. For now, she's going to make tea and drink it slowly enough that by the time she sinks into her longed for bubble bath, he'll be here to scrub her back. Yet again the thought of him brings a smile to her lips...keys to her heart indeed, damn him.