A/N: Thanks to princessozmaofoz for the inspiration for this one :) I would also like to state that I am not having a pop at people with the same lifesyle choices as Hathaway, each to their own, live and let live and all that. I just think that Lewis and Hobson would worry about him, and Laura would try and do something about it.

Hathaway leaned back in the chair, pulling his cigarettes from his pocket. He tapped the tip of it on the side of the box, before putting it in his mouth and lighting it smoothly.

Lewis looked up from his pint with a barely suppressed frown, and Laura glared straight at Hathaway. James was oblivious, eyes closed in bliss.

"Its just a relief of withdrawal symptoms you know." Laura was staring at him, and this time, he saw it.

"What?"

"That happy feeling you're getting, its just your body getting a break from the cravings."

"I'm aware of that Doctor. People have been telling me that since I was 15."

"Doesn't it worry you?" Lewis watched the verbal fencing, aware that Laura was fighting a losing battle, he'd told James about smoking enough times, the younger man paid him no heed. Either way, he's not getting involved. He does not want to be facing both of them, if they get angry

"Doesn't what worry me Laura?", James replies, a hint of irritation in his voice.

"What you're doing to yourself. You must know how bad that is for you." She jabs a finger towards the cigarette in his mouth and James sighs.

"Yes I do know. And no. It doesn't worry me. Look at the job I do. Could get shot, stabbed, kidnapped, anything. A ciggie is the last thing I've got to deal with."

"Yes, but you won't be doing this job forever James. One day, you're going to be sixty odd, and retired. If you make it that far. And the way you're going, if you do make it to sixty, you're not going to be able to walk more than ten feet without needing to stop for breath." He starts to interrupt her but she cuts him off.

"That's assuming that you're not stuck in your house, hooked up to an oxygen tank." James' mouth thins and sets in a line.

"Its a chance I'll have to take then isn't it? I have tried to give up before you know Laura. I've tried just going cold turkey, I've tried those self help tapes, hell I've even tried that bloody chewing gum. And I hate chewing gum!"

"James-" Lewis says, in an attempt to defuse the rapidly escalating situation, but he is stopped by James.

"Leave it. Look, I appreciate that you care, really I do. But you're not my bloody mother Laura! I'm big enough to make my own bloody decisions, this is one of them." Hathaway drained his glass and left, leaving Robbie and Laura sat in the beer garden.

"So...that went well", Lewis says carefully.

"Bloody idiot." She shakes her head, "Why didn't you say anything Robbie? He'd listen to you." Robbie snorts incredulously.

"Me? Laura, where have you been? He never bloody listens to me, not about stuff like that. We've had this conversation so many times that I can't count. At the end of the day, he's a grown man." Laura turns to look at him, disapproval on her face.

"Robbie, I've seen an inordinate amount of smokers corpses. I do not want our James going the same way."

"I know, I know. Neither do I, but what can ya do? He's 33 not 15." Laura sighs. Then an idea forms into her head.

"You still working on that suspicious death in Thrupp, or did it get given to Grainger?"

"Nah, still ours to puzzle over. The smoking, gambling, drinking thug. I'd have thought everyone wanted to do him in."

"Right. So I'm showing you the post mortem then?

"Yep, 'Fraid so"

They stay there for a little while, finishing their drinks, and then they leave. Lewis has a feeling that Laura is planning something, but he doesn't know what. He should warn James really, that's what friends are for. But then again, friends save each others lives and maybe, just maybe, they'd manage to save James'.

.

The next day, they are both sat in the office. Conversation hasn't really been flowing. Suddenly James looks up decisively.

"I'm sorry sir, about yesterday." Lewis starts to tell him that its not really Lewis that James should be apologising to, but his phone rings. Laura.

"Hello Doctor."

"Lewis. Got your post mortem ready. I need you down here, quick as."

"Ok, give us twenty minutes". He looks at James.

"We're needed down at the morgue."

Twenty-three minutes later, they are both stood in Laura's lab, staring down at the corpse of Mr Gerald Fisher, late of this parish.

"As you can see gentlemen, he wasn't in the best of health. Drank, smoked and poisoned his body on regular occasions." James is looking slightly sick, and even Lewis is looking less than comfortable. Hobson continues

"He was stabbed, in the liver and stomach around 3 or 4 times, its hard to be sure. That was the cause of death. He bled out internally as well as externally, wouldn't have taken long. The head wound was probably caused by him falling over, due to feeling woozy and light-headed as a result of blood loss." Lewis sighs.

"Doctor, you told us all this at the scene, what is the point of this little excersise." Hobson grins, and its not a happy one. Its a grim, evil grin and suddenly, both Lewis and Hathaway feel uncomfortable.

"The point inspector is organs."

"Organs?" James says, swallowing.

"Organs." Laura pulls a cloth off a nearby trolley and reveals a heart, liver and lungs on the table.

"His heart, funnily enough, wasn't in that bad shape considering his lifestyle, still had a good few years in it." She pokes the liver with the blunt end of her scapel. "Apart from the stab wounds, this was ok, although the drink was taking its toll." Lewis sighed, he knew where this was going now. Laura beckoned to Hathaway.
"Come here sergeant"

"I can see fine from here Doctor." She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Here, now!" James actually looks shocked, Lewis suppresses a grin. But Hathaway does indeed stand next to Laura, trying not to look at the trolley.

"What's that sergeant?" Laura asks, pointing at a lump of black flesh. James gives it a cursory glance, before speaking.

"I dunno, I was never very good at anatomy at school." Laura frowns.

"I do not believe you James, but I will enlighten you nonetheless. That, is a pair of lungs. You will observe that they are black and the edges are frayed slightly." James nods slightly.

"Yes. Don't look all that good."

"That James, is because they aren't. They are the lungs of a smoker." He rolls his eyes, and Robbie can't help but look in horrified fascination.

"Laura-" James starts. She stops him. Laura strips off her gloves, standing away from the trolley. She splays her hand across his chest gently and quietly addresses him.

"Your lungs James, they probably look something like that." He swallows again and looks at the lungs lying on the trolley.

"You only get one pair James, and they can let you down at the drop of a hat. You're on a slippery slope to oxygen dependence, emphysema and lung cancer. I just thought you should know. See it for yourself."

"I appreciate your concern Laura but-"

"James, I'm not doing this because I'm trying to mother you, or harass you. Robbie doesn't nag you about it because he wants to make life difficult."

"Then why?"

"Are you really that stupid James? Smoking kills, slowly and silently and I see this 50% of the time I open up a corpse. We go on at you James, because you are a good friend..." James just stares at her, unused to the gentle, sad voice she's using.

"We don't want to watch you getting more and more ill, finding it harder and harder to breathe. Dammit James! We don't want to lose you." James is speechless and Robbie would find it funny if there wasn't water in his sergeant's eyes. He really didn't think that they would be concerned for his health. Time for Robbie himself to make some sort of contribution.

"Jim, all we're asking, is for you to look at those lungs there, and just...just try again to give up. For us lad, if not for yourself?" James does nothing for a few minutes, except stare at the damaged organs in front of him. Then he nods silently. Laura smiles softly and Lewis pats him on the back.

"Come on kidda, we'll go get some lunch eh? Coming Laura?"

.

Three weeks later and James is doing well, he's only had two cigarettes in those 21 days. He has to admit, albeit grudgingly, that he does feel healthier in himself. His breathing is better, and he hadn't even noticed that it'd got worse.

He's grateful to Laura Hobson for managing to scare him shitless enough to take action. He knows what his life could have ended like, and how much shorter it could have been.

He'll never give her the satisfaction of knowing that though. He knows she'd milk it to the nth degree.