"She wanted to come, Robert. It's okay to miss her, but you have to try to stop grieving so," James explained quietly.
"But Morse came?"
"He has been here several times. He's harder to contain than some souls. He says he was always restless and he had to check on his car." James laughed then relayed, "He meant that as a joke."
Robbie glares at the empty chair supposedly occupied by Morse and said firmly, "No he didn't."
"He says it is nice that you miss them. That is reassuring but the deep grief, the sorrow…it hurts them, because there is nothing they can do about it." James adds carefully.
"Why, is he here?" Robbie asked again.
James swallowed, "Because he thought he could help. To stop you from pursuing this case any further. He says it was his mistake to ever involve you and he needed me because you wouldn't listen to him."
Robbie looked over his shoulder at the wall. "Could have left me a note? Evidently."
"Recently acquired skill." James leans over and says with a charming smile, "All my crosswords have suspiciously been filled out too."
"Yeah, I had a little snoop while you were imitating cabbage." Lewis admits. "Found a wee book that I maybe shouldn't have read. At all. I only read a couple pages, but it was enough to make me blush." Robbie handed it to him in more of a flinging way, looked down and sardonically asked, "Should we pick out china?"
James reddens, sits up quickly putting distance between he and Lewis and said, "I didn't mean you to read that, if I was alive. I just didn't want to leave you…with no answers."
Robbie clears his throat and fidgets. "I don't know what to think about some of the things you said there."
James bends his head forward and winces, "Yeah. Wishing it was a brain tumor at the moment."
Robbie slaps him on the arm, "You'd rather die than me to know that I'm… important to you? Flattery always was me weakness." He huffs showing he isn't flattered by this kink in the giant knot of their situation.
"Wait. You only read two pages? There was nothing…about that at the beginning." James accuses.
"I didn't start at the beginning then, did I?" Robbie looked over at him with amusement and disbelief, but no actual hatred or disgust. "Afraid to read any more."
James sighs and quirks his lips in acknowledgement. "I'm so sorry. I didn't lie to you. I just don't have any actual answers."
"Bugger. You said there was a ghost in our office?"
"Truth." Hathaway lets a grin crawl stealthily onto his face like a naughty boy. Robbie is giving him a half-grin and his eyes are sparkling with merriment and adoration.
"Gentlemen, if we could be so kind and focus. Romance each other when I am elsewhere. Are we in agreement that Lewis and his poorly heart are not only going to leave this case alone, but make a doctor's appointment in the very near future?"
"He wants you to leave this case alone. And make a doctor's appointment." James relayed.
Robbie looked over at James. "Oh, the two of you are ones to talk! Chief I'm Fine and DI God's will? Please. Fat chance, that."
"He said you were going into arrhythmia. That means it is a warning, Robert."
"And you are seeing people who are not there but choose not to do a bloody thing about it?"
"Three peas in a pod, then?" James looked at Robbie with shy flirting eyes and Robbie gave him a look saying he clearly thought James was barmy.
"Might I remind you two intellectual dissidents that I am dead? Ignoring things will lead to similar condition ad nauseam . Why don't you offer to get one of those pictures of your head to prove I am not a tumor as incentive to getting him to get his heart and his blood pressure under control before he has a stroke blushing over your quixotic idealization of him. I don't share your level of fascination for him, but I do wish you'd teach him to play a decent game of chess before he joins me," Morse suggested with sullen authority.
"If I go, will you go? To the doctor? Says you can't die whilst you play such a rubbish game of chess." James' voice is tranquil with sentiment.
"Uh-oh." Morse said suddenly, "Don't tell them I was here. I need to be elsewhere about now."
"James, you are embarrassing me," Robbie whispered.
"Morse isn't here. Left. He does that. Said not to tell anyone he was here." James moved closer, his pupils were wide and his movements were exaggerated and slow. "You're not cross about what you read?"
Robbie swallowed, "Not angry, just very confused."
"That isn't a no?" James looked at Robbie's lips. "Just once. May I? Just once. Please?"
Robbie took a deep breath and expelled it as he considered. "I can't imagine why you'd want to, soft lad, but if it would make you happy…Of course. Go ahead."
James smiled in joy as his eyes leaked, "Oh God, Robbie. I'm so sorry, but I do want to so very much."
His hands cupped Robbie's cheeks as if he were James' ideal obsession and he touched his lips to Robbie's with the utmost reverence trying to hide the shudder of pure longing that electrified his every nerve.
Robbie smirked at this painfully shy kiss and pulled James close, "None of that, lad. We will do this proper or not at all. So when you find it again, you will know." Robbie smiled at him with delightful adventure in his eyes and when he controlled the kiss, it was a far thing from the chaste sweetness that James had so bravely offered. Robbie was determined that if it were going to be just the once, he'd give the lad something to remember.
A little TV history: Sir Sean Connery kisses Richard Pasco in a BBC production of Jean Anouilh's playColombe from is the first ever male-to-male kiss aired on television. It would take the BBC another twenty-seven years to show two men kissing on-screen again. (an episode of the soap opera EastEnders) The first man-to-man kiss in a major movie is claimed by Raf Valone in the 1962 feature Vu du Pont. We must appreciate that homosexuality was outlawed in the UK, a criminal offense punishable by prison, until 1967, It was more than hugely controversial to have two grown men kissing on TV and it could have finished the careers of both Connery and Pasco. They would have been seen as "corrupting viewers' morals" Kudos to Sir Sean Connery and Mr Pasco.