A/N: Angel, thanks for your review. You may expect that I change the rating into M but I won't. Although I changed it into T - just to be sure.

.

Seriously

.

While Barbara put Paula back into her bed Tommy stood behind her and gave her shoulders a soft massage. She had tucked the girl in as slowly as possible so she could enjoy his hands for a little bit longer just standing there. Then she felt his hands squeezing her upper arms followed by a soft touch of his lips in her nape. Barbara leaned back into his chest and his lips wandered to her earlobe. His hands slid around her waist from behind. She closed her eyes. It was heaven to feel him so close, to hear him breathe, to smell his scent.

"Will we talk now?" he whispered. "You may think, and actually you're right, that I would love to just kiss and caress you but apart from all those little ones in your flat tonight I think there are a few... well, objections to overcome. I have the feeling that you also don't want to talk at all but it looks as if those hesitancies come from you."

That was true. Barbara certainly was a bit afraid of what might follow. She only wanted to turn and go on kissing instead of having a conversation that she knew would show them that despite all their current emotions and sizzling passion a long-term relationship between them won't work at all but Tommy held her close and with kisses in between he went on whispering in her ear and hair.

"You know, you're a beautiful woman and I have to admit that I'm physically attracted to you, Barbara."

"Oh, I can feel that." she mumbled.

"But it's not only physical." He kissed a spot behind her ear and made a silent note to himself to remember that it made her stretch her back like a cat and tilt her head presenting that spot to more caresses. "I've realised I love you rather... well, entirely. Body, mind and soul." Tommy made a pause before he went on. "I know you would say that we shouldn't and we couldn't and that you won't fit into my," He gave a short laugh. "noble family but that isn't true. You'd be a wonderful Countess. Genuine, polite, not so polite when it's necessary... I guess you would be a nice soft and fresh breeze blowing through the fuggy society."

"Bollocks!" Barbara muttered voiceless.

"The truth. And you are the best thing that ever had happened to me. You keep me grounded most of the time. You always give me the time I need to wallow or to unreasonably argue or simply keep onto stupid ideas and then you always know the perfect time when you put an end to whatever bad mood I'm in. Even if you've slammed a few doors before that. You could be grumpy, you could be defensive, I know that. I already know you for some years, Barbara. I know that you use your spiky defensiveness only to protect yourself from deeper harm. You don't need it, Barb. Not anymore. Not with me. I could never hurt you because I love you."

Tommy felt a silent sob shaking Barbara's body so he gave her another kiss on the skin that just showed off from the collar of her shirt.

"At first I couldn't believe it either but when some long time ago, for the sake of my mother, I tried to date women of, like you would say it, my own lot, I realised I was only looking for things I already had with you. You are what I need. Needed then and still need now. You are everything to me, Barbara, and I really want to spend the rest of my life with you."

After another pause he added "Although I have to admit that the introductory question earlier was a bit out of the blue, wasn't it?"

Barbara shyly chuckled again. "Yah, sort of."

"I'm really sorry. That was stupid. Of course you don't have to answer now. Although I am really sure about us I understand that we should at least see how well we both will go on from here. I know it will go on very well. And I promise I'm going to ask again one day. Properly. But then I expect an answer. So you should start judging us now so you can make your choice then."

Leaning back into his deeply breathing chest with a broad smile Barbara thought that she already had made it. Sort of.

For a brief moment they just stood there. Tommy softly rocked her with closed eyes.

"Today was such a wonderful experience. Not only with the kids but with you too. Every time you called me by my name I had wanted to pull you into my arms and tell you how happy it makes me. Shout at the world that I love you. There had been so many moments I just had wanted to kiss you but I was a coward. And every time I had put my arms around your shoulders I had hoped that everyone there would think we were together, would think we were a family. I was proud to be the man next to you and I really want to be the man at your side. I don't care about what my family would say because it seems to me that my mother and Judith already think we are an item. I don't care about what the Met wants to say about us because if they really dare splitting up their best team at work then, or so I hope, we still would be a team at home and I really believe we could be the greatest team since Bonnie and Clyde. Well, inverted. Somehow."

Although Barbara was shaken by a few silent sobs again she had to chuckle too when his little speech was stumbling. "Tommy..." she whispered.

"I've not yet finished, Barbara, there still are things I have to tell you to convince you that I love you and that I think you love me too and that we really-"

"Stop!" Barbara said between a sob and a laugh. "Will you please shut up, Tommy?!"

He finally let her turn in his arms. Tommy had expected her to kiss him to put a merciful end to his stammer but she only cuddled closer and put her forehead onto his chest.

"I do love you." she quietly said sighing. "I really do..."

"But?"

"That's it." Barbara sighed and pushed her face into his shirt. "There is no but." she mumbled muffled by cloth.

His arms pulled her tightly against him.

"There's no 'but' that I could consider as worth saying. I know your family wouldn't be able to talk me out of your stubborn head - or you out of mine, that is - and I know they actually wouldn't want that at all. Lately I've talked with your sister, you know, when I had to answer your phone while you were in that meeting with- you remember? And she prattled away her thoughts about us. She had been quite shocked when I told her that we weren't a couple and she called it a shame and you a stupid coward. That had made me think about us and I've come to the end that I'm a bloody coward too. I'm afraid of... I don't know. Just anxious. It's all so different. You are so different. Well, seriously - you and me are from entirely different ends of the universe. I do not have to go into details, have I? But whichever way I looked at it, I couldn't find serious objections why we shouldn't at least try it. I mean, we-"

Tired of talking, tired of listening, knowing they in fact did not need to have this conversation and finally overwhelmed by emotions that obviously were the same Barbara felt for him Tommy had pushed her away from his chest and had lifted her chin with his finger so he could mute her with a row of kisses that left them both a bit breathless in the end.

"And as to another one of the questions you've asked Paula - I really do want to share breakfast with you," Barbara breathed onto his lips between kisses. "so I would have some help in the kitchen preparing the food bowls for the four monsters in my flat."

Tommy inwardly and openly rejoiced at her confession.

After another long kiss and a dozen whispered vows of love and although she felt not only her desire for him but also his for her Barbara finally could not suppress a heartfelt yawn.

"Tommy, we really should get some sleep now." she whispered a bit shy. "You can use the bathroom. A new toothbrush is in the cabinet. Door top left. I'll fetch you some pyjama bottoms."

"Do I want to know why you have such things?" he mockingly insinuated something juicy.

"They're clean." she sternly informed him.

"I always knew you have a secret life, Barbara." Tommy winked.

"Oh, shut u-" He kissed her again.

When she came back from her bedroom his clothes laid neatly folded on the armchair. When he came back from the bathroom, clad only in his briefs, she already had changed into her own pyjamas. Blushing Barbara scurried past him.

"They're from my father." she mumbled nudging the pyjama bottoms into his naked chest. "I've kept them for snuggling with the rug, lazy evenings on my sofa."

As if it was by accident, and both knew it was not, she let her fingertips glide across his skin.

Tommy still stood at the baby bed when Barbara came out of the bathroom. He looked at Paula with deep affection and then he looked at Barbara with an expression like he wanted to make such a cutie with her right now.

"No." Barbara answered to his unspoken question with another blush she felt creeping across her entire body. "I'm horribly tired and actually need some sleep now."

Tommy laughed. "Was it so obvious?"

"It is." Quickly Barbara climbed into bed and shyly invited him under the covers. Tommy slid next to her and extinguished the standard lamp next to the sofa. "Besides there are two boys in the other room who had a few gallons of lemonade today and I'm pretty sure they will have to use the bathroom tonight. There's only one in this flat, they have to come past here and I won't let them surprise us... at... something..."

Short kisses had cut her sentence.

"Something?" he chuckled. Cautiously her arm went around his waist.

"You know what I mean."

In the kiss he gave her his smile was noticeable.

.

...