Chapter 11

"Do you think they'll really be OK?" Simon chewed his nails anxiously which brought an eye roll from Kim, followed by a pen thrown in his general direction.

"They're adults, they're not going to start pulling each other's hair out," she sighed, "Jesus christ, you've gnawed through at least three fingers since we've been in here."

Simon stopped chewing his fingers as though being caught by his mother and started spinning around in the chair. He tapped his fingers against the arm rests before asking,

"Why are your chairs so much more comfortable than the ones in my office?"

"Because I don't stand on mine, screeching at the top of my lungs thinking a mouse has run over my foot," Kim told him and his face reddened as his expression changed to a glower.

"One time, Kim," he said tightly, "that was one time."

"It wasn't even a real mouse," Kim reminded him, "it was that Halloween wind up thing Bammo had brought in for a laugh."

"I'm well aware of that," Simon said crossly as Kim laughed a little.

"I'm teasing, Simon, relax, would you?" she told him. She gave a sigh and reached for one of her boots. "They're going to be absolutely fine." She had her own reservations about Robin and James talking if she was honest, or at least she had until she'd seen the look on Robin's face as their eyes had met for the first time and he'd realised slowly that James was not the same man he'd known as Jim Keats. She let that moment play back every time she started to feel anxious about it.

"Kim?"

Simon's voice pulled her from her thoughts. She looked across to him as she slipped her foot into her boot and began to yank up the zip.

"Huh?" she asked distractedly.

Simon looked very serious suddenly which made her worry a little.

"What did he say to you?"

Kim pulled on her other boot and began to fasten it up.

"Who, James?" she asked. Simon nodded and leaned forward in his chair to talk to her.

"What did you talk to him about?" he asked, "were things," he felt strange asking this, "civil?"

Kim finished zipping up her boot and moved her chair forward to talk to Simon more directly.

"They were civil," she said seriously, "honestly, you have no need to worry."

"But I do, I can't help it," Simon told her, "knowing what Keats did to you..."

"How many times have you told us James isn't Keats?" Kim pointed out. It was true Simon had used those words so many times he'd considered getting them tattooed by this point. "I could see that. Right from the start, I could see it." she shook her head slightly. "If you'd have asked me yesterday whether I would have been able to talk to him and not think about," she found herself flinching. Even though the memories floating around her head were non-specific there were enough of them to haunt her in the vaguest sense, "about the past," she said quietly, "I'd have told you to fuck right off and never look back. But it turned out even I'm wrong sometimes," she saw Simon smile at her comment. "I still get that twinge of," she reached for the right word, "panic," she decided eventually, "when I see him, just for a second. But as soon as I look at his eyes or hear him talk, that disappears. And I know that will happen for everybody else. It will take time but they'll get there."

Simon exhaled and let himself begin to relax slightly. His shoulders ached and his neck felt bent all out of shape. Good god, how much stress had he been under, worrying about James's first day on the job?

"I hope you're right," he told her.

"Trust me on this."

"I don't know," Simon began, "Even you can be wrong sometimes... Ow!" He cried as a pen struck him right in the nose.

"Oi, less of that!" Kim admonished with a laugh. They both smiled as they looked at one another. It was funny but even with so much water under the bridge and with their lives so different now to the day they first met their friendship was still rock solid. Simon was about to make a comment to the effect of that but the sound of footsteps pulled both their attentions to the doorway and they stared in silence, quite expectantly, until Robin appeared with James a few steps behind. He looked at Kim and the familiarity of her face sent a wave of relief across his expression.

"Hey," he began, "we're done."

Kim and Simon both scrambled tot heir feet as though giving a standing ovation.

"How did it go?" Kim asked, hopping from one foot to the other with nerves. Robin gave her a smile that looked relieved and emotional.

"Fine," he said softly, "It was OK. I think we're," he took a deep breath, "we're OK."

Simon moved past him toward James, placing a hand on Robin's shoulder in a gesture of thanks and praise. He knew that conversation couldn't have been an easy one to have and he wanted Robin to know how proud he was of him.

"Hey," he smiled at James who seemed wrung out emotionally and looked exhausted. Simon hoped the filing hadn't contributed too much to that, "are you doing OK?"

James nodded. OK might have been a bit of a strong word for it but he had survived a conversation he'd not been prepared for and one that was never going to be easy. Maybe OK was the right word after all.

"Just starving," he said, trying to keep the subject away from their conversation. Even though nothing of great importance had come from it, it was still private between them both. He wasn't really ready to delve into his memories yet and he felt as though concentrating any more on his relationship to Robin was going to open a Pandora's box that was never going to close again. "Didn't you mention something about a dangerous canteen woman?"

"Canteen?" Kim's ears perked up at the mention of food and she scrambled up so fast that the chair almost toppled over, "Are you two going to the canteen?" she glanced at Robin, "maybe we could join you?" she silently asked Robin if he was OK with that and he gave a slight nod. He wasn't sure he was altogether happy about spending more time with James, at least not right right away, but it had been hours since his last baked bean break and he was in need of some.

"Sounds good to me," he said, wrapping an arm around Kim's waist just in time to feel her belly give out an enormous groan. "Shit, sounds like we're going to make it just in time," he commented and felt Kim tense up with chronic embarrassment.

"Let's just get going before the colander woman starts mixing sprouts in with your favourite orange food, huh?" she said, her cheeks a bright shade of red.

An unlikely truce led the four of them to lunch together. No one could have expected that by lunchtime James would have found himself at a table of four, and despite knowing he would most probably sit there wordlessly eating his lunch – aside from an occasional 'Ugh' if the food was up to the standard he'd been hearing about, of course – he also knew this was far more than he could ever have expected from his first day on the job.

~xXx~

Marci bounced along the halls of Fenchurch East with a real spring in her step, the camera still slung around her neck. She felt like a new woman. Her freshly printed ID had her new title displayed for everyone to see and she was so damn proud of it, she couldn't wait to push it under Jake's nose and rub it in that she was now his equal. That was going to drive him crazy. She giggled to herself as she reached the doorway of the hi-tech crimes office and peered inside. The office was empty, which seemed strange, Simon should have been there, swearing as he tripped over his files. That was another strange thing: the big piles of paperwork she'd grown accustomed to seeing had shrunk.

"Sir?" she asked experimentally as though Simon was about to pop out from one of the drawers, but no one replied. She had been certain Simon was due back that day.

"Oh well," she gave a shrug and felt her cheeks redden as a naughty thought passed through her head and she quickly closed the door, turned the lock, then pulled the blind over the window to shut out the rest of the world. She realised the little pokey, private office they'd assigned for her public relations duties would probably be a more appropriate place to be doing this, but... well, she wasn't in that office, was she?!

She shimmied off her smart jacket and began unbuttoning her blouse with one hand whilst pulling the camera strap over her head with the other.

If she was going to be in charge of taking publicity shots around the station then she should probably test out the equipment, she decided.

Unfastening the last of her buttons, she shrugged off her crisp, new shirt and reached around to pop open the clasp of her bra. Shaz was going to receive a very spicy lunch invite and a very pleasant surprise.

~X~

"Jake, Jake, I'm sorry!" Marci cried, covering her chest with one hand and holding up the camera in the other, "I truly didn't realise the lock was faulty! I thought I'd locked the door!"

"It's fine! Fine! I saw nothing!" Jake squeaked, rushing out of the office at great speed with a red face and a growing issue in his lower region.

"It's nothing you haven't seen before after clubbing!" Marci tried to make things better but succeeded only in drawing a small crowd who whistled and cheered.

"I assure you, I haven't!" Jake cried behind him as he fled back to his office to bury his head in paperwork and deny all knowledge of what he'd just seen.

"Grrrr," Marci groaned and turned away from the door, closing it and leaving a large proportion of CID disappointed. She propped a chair against it to stop any further unwanted visitors and shook her head. "I still haven't even finished testing the equipment!" she moaned.

That her colleagues had caught her in a half-naked state didn't phase Marci in the slightest. Marci didn't embarrass easily. The fact that it had been Jake gnawed at her a little although she did her best to ignore it. There had been things on her mind recently; things she'd been doing her best to push to the back of her mind. This wasn't the time to let them come back to the fore.

Jake was her very best friend and that's where their relationship needed to stay, end of.

~xXx~

"She's your best friend, you twat," Jake groaned, sinking into his chair and pulling it as far under the desk as he could to hide his burgeoning erection. His head dropped to the desk with a thud and he groaned again. "Go away," he told his loins, "she's off limits. You've never had any interest in her before! Why now?" he mumbled into the shiny surface, "why did she have to be half naked?"

"This sounds like a conversation I'd like to hear more about," Gene's voice interrupted Jake's sulk but thankfully Alex grasped his arm and pulled him away before he could prise any of the juicy details from him.

"Lunch, Gene," she said sternly.

"Spoilsport," Gene huffed.

"And then afterwards I can be the half naked one," Alex promised him which seemed to do the trick. He looked back at Jake whose face was still buried in the table.

"Yer of the hook," he told him and led Alex off to lunch in rather a hurry.

"Ugh," Jake bemoaned his situation to the desk in front of him. He started to scratch a shape into the varnish with his thumb nail which slowly took on the appearance of a heart. Crossly he scrubbed it back out, furious with himself for letting a few errant feelings get so far.

He and Marci were best friends. That was all.

Then why were neither his heard, nor his heart – nor his loins for that matter – listening to him?