Title: Fruits de Mer

Rating: T

Category: Romance, Fluff, Richard/Camille, Resolved romantic tension, Pinctada imbricata

Summary: In which Richard feels sorry for oysters. And later, incredibly grateful for their existence. Sequel to "The Cuttlefish Conundrum"

A/N: I had to change the original storyline slightly after I discovered it was biologically impossible. It is still a little off biologically, so could we all please just pretend it isn't? I started this as a standalone, then after writing "A Cephalopod crime wave" realised I could link it to that. This follows on from "The Cuttlefish Conundrum"

Chapter One: Sympathising with Oysters

Richard trailed Camille somewhat reluctantly down the beach. Having lost another bet with her, on a topic he should really know more about considering she had only just taken an interest, he was now liable not only for drinks, but dinner as well. Not at her Mother's bar though, oh no, Camille was really rubbing in her win by forcing him to go to some place he had never heard of, and they were walking there the long way around!

At least he knew what they could talk about this evening. If Camille decided to try and probe him for any personal information, as she was warrant to do whenever she had the chance, he could easily deflect her by moving the conversation back to marine biology. Of course quite often he found himself confessing things before his brain had time to stop him – such was the power of her presence on him. He was completely baffled at how she did it and assumed she must employ some psychological techniques he was not familiar with. So far, it had always been fine – she'd never laughed, or disowned him, when she learnt something new about him, something he would normally refrain from sharing. Yet he remained reticent about revealing any more personal stories – he was English after all.

"Come on! Look where we are, perhaps Olympus is still about!" Camille called playfully as she climbed up onto the rocks at the marine reserve lagoon. He scowled at her, his normal response when she was being particularly effervescent and impish and all sorts of adjectives that he would never be. Richard found it nicely hid the emotions he was feeling inside, which was normally a kind of nauseating excitement.

"I've already kept my promise on that account, I don't think there is any need for us to see each other again," he informed her flatly. She pouted and it took mere milliseconds for him to relent and awkwardly clamber up onto the rocks with her.

Camille stared into the water, initially expectant and then disappointed when no octopus appeared. "It doesn't seem there is much of anything down there," she said with a small sigh.

"No, look, between those two rocks. I think that is an Atlantic oyster - Pinctada imbricata if I remember correctly." She squinted, but didn't seem to be able to spot. "There," he said, pointing.

"You mean between these rocks?" She lifted her own arm to point revealing she was looking a bit too far left, and Richard reached out and corrected her. Of course this brought him a lot closer to her than he normally allowed himself to be, and he noticed it had the effect of increasing his pulse rate and making him forget what he was supposed to be showing her. He let go quickly and moved back.

"Oh, yes," she said as she finally spotted it, turning to him and flashing a smile in thanks. "I thought they lived in deeper water than this."

"Um, no, they are, you know, shallow water creatures," much to his dismay her smile had caused him to lose the ability to speak articulately. Richard wondered what the hell was wrong with him this evening. "Though this is unusually shallow, perhaps it got washed in here during that storm we had last week."

"I think I can reach it actually!" Camille declared, before recklessly leaning over the edge of the rock and plunging her whole arm into the lagoon. He managed to resist the urge to grab hold of her in case she fell in - until she huffed in annoyed and shifted so she was perilously balanced all in an effort to retrieve a single oyster. He almost just reached out and grabbed the nearest part of her he could, but his brain did step in and prevent him from doing something that could have very well been constituted as groping and instead he got hold of one of her ankles. Feeling this, Camille sat back up, "Why are you holding on to my ankle?"

"I was worried you'd fall in!"

"I can swim you know," she reminded him. Richard wanted to say he knew that, but he was concerned she might hit her head on a rock on the way down and knock herself unconscious and drown before he got her out, but he was worried he'd seem overly anxious.

"Fine!" He huffed instead. "Next time I won't concern myself with your safety."

Camille ignored him, wriggled even further over the edge causing him to grab hold of her ankles again despite her protests, and then gave a little cry of triumph, "Got it!"

She sat back up, shaking excess water off her arm and splashing Richard. "Whoops, sorry!" Richard doubted that, from the grin he was pretty certain she had done it on purpose. She shuffled back down off the rock and standing up, examined the oyster closely. "It's quite pretty, really, isn't it?" Relieved to get off the rock, Richard joined her and she held out the oyster for him to take.

"You sort of have to feel sorry for oysters really, I mean, there they are minding their own business and then somebody drags them off up the sea floor, cracks them open and kills them – often for nothing because there is no pearl inside." Richard found himself absently stroking the outside of the shell, as if trying to console the oyster for the treatment of its fellows by humans. He felt Camille's gaze on him, and found himself embarrassed by the look she was giving him – one that felt almost affectionate. "What?" He asked, perhaps a little sharpish, but he was suddenly feeling defensive.

"Just…you," she replied, which was no clue at all really. "I just never expected you to care about the feelings of, well, an oyster."

"I don't think the oyster had feelings!" he protested. "That is ridiculous. But harvesting oysters in some areas has had massively detrimental environmental impacts, driving some species to near extinction. There is certainly no need to kill creatures unnecessarily. If you're careful you can even extract a pearl without killing it. Here, if you give me your knife I can show you, plus you can have a quick peak at the inside of an oyster, it's very interesting." He found himself keen to impress her with his knowledge of bivalve anatomy, but instead she was frowning at him.

"Why would you think I have a knife on me?" Camille asked.

Richard took a moment to consider his answer, "I don't know, you just strike me as the sort of woman who is practical enough to carry around a pen knife. Plus your bag is so big it must have useful stuff in it."

"It could just be full of makeup," she pointed out.

"I suppose that could be true," Richard conceded. "Is it?"

After a long pause she gave a small smile and admitted, "No." She then rummaged in her bag until she pulled out a small (and perfectly legal, of course) pen knife.

"Are you sure you aren't going to hurt it," she asked, as he opened the knife.

"You think after my little rant I would do this if I thought that would happen?" He asked, peeved. He slid the knife in and very gently prised the oyster open a little. "Now you just need a plug or something to keep it open this fraction, it's opening the shell all the way that kills them. Um…" Camille passed him, of all things, a foam ear plug from her bag. He began to wonder what else was in there.

He peered inside. "Oh," he said, immediately getting Camille's attention.

"What is it?"

"There actually is a pearl in there," he told her. She immediately crowded him, desperate to have a peak. He found himself better able to cope with her proximity this time, her obvious excitement was infectious. "I really didn't think there would be. Unfortunately I would need some tweezers to remove it with-" He didn't need to finish that sentence, as Camille suddenly shoved a pair under his nose. "So as soon as there is something shiny in the oyster we stop sympathising with it?" He asked, with a small smile – it was just teasing, he was actually quite keen to have a look himself.

"Hey, maybe this oyster has presented you with the pearl as a gift for your defence of its oyster friends!" That was possibly the most ridiculous statement he had ever heard from Camille, and he since he had no words to express how utterly ludicrous he found that idea he just stared at her. She ignored him and waved the tweezers in his face some more.

With a sigh, he took them from her. Richard was actually quite nervous, worried that his hand might shake and give the game away. He took a few calming breaths and tried not to think about how disappointed Camille would be if he failed, because he knew deep down that was why he was so nervous. Gently, very gently, he reached in with the tweezers and took hold of the pearl. It only just fit through the gap in the shell opening and with relief he dropped it into Camille's hand, removed the plug and let the oyster close itself up again.

"Oh, I didn't get a look at the inside!" Camille instantly complained. A complaint Richard found incredible considering she had a rather nice example of a pearl to look at, surely preferably to most women than the inner workings of an oyster?

"I felt the removal of the pearl was traumatic enough," he explained. "I'm quite keen to put it back actually." Camille nodded in agreement, and he dropped it gently back between some rocks.

"Oh it's so lovely!" Camille exclaimed as she passed the pearl to Richard. He didn't actually know that much about pearl quality or valuation, but it did seem like a nice pearl. "Well, you spotted the oyster first and extracted the pearl, so I think that makes it yours! What are you going to do with it?" Camille asked him.

"Oh, no, you have it!" He said, trying to give it back. He hadn't retrieved the bloody thing for himself.

"Why are you giving it to me?" Camille asked, and it wasn't a casual question either – for some reason she had suddenly come over all serious.

"Well I haven't got a use for it, have I? So I might as well give it to a woman who can presumably use it for jewellery or something. And since the number of women I know is pretty much limited to you and our respective mother's, you might as well have it."

It was, evidently, the wrong thing to say. Camille had crossed her arms and looked angry with him, and he had no clue why. "You can't just give it to me because I'm a woman that you know!" She told him. "It's a special thing, a rare thing, and you should save it and give it to somebody special." She then promptly turned and stormed off, still angry for reasons he couldn't fathom.

Richard's problem, he concluded as he watched her slow down and wait for him (apparently not so mad she didn't still want to go to dinner), was that Camille did fit that category of "somebody special". But he was never going to be able to tell her that.