Chapter 10: The One Where Camille Has to Calm Down Richard

A/N: Final chapter, but with a definite sequel planned for the future.

There were many words Camille could use to describe how she felt at this moment. Satisfied, that would be quite high up on the list. A little surprised as well if she was truthful. And happy, very, very happy. Richard's arm was flung over her stomach, but he had fallen asleep quite soon afterwards as men were sometimes warrant to do. Camille didn't take offense though, she'd never actually felt as close to somebody as she had to him when they had been making love. She rolled on her side, examining Richard's sleeping form. He looked probably the most relaxed she'd ever seen him, hair messed up and sweaty, breathing deep and even. Just listening to his breathing was making her feel sleepy as well. She snuggled in closer to him and closed her eyes, but as she did her foot brushed his.

Camille frowned, something didn't feel quite right, lifting up the sheet and peering down she couldn't help but burst into a fit of giggles at what she saw. Though she tried to control them, they were still loud enough to rouse Richard from his slumber.

"Please tell me I said something amusing in my sleep rather than you've just realised it was ridiculous to sleep with me?" He asked sleepily, frowning at her as she continued to giggle.

"No, no, of course not. I'm sorry but you still have your socks on," she calmed herself down enough to say. Richard didn't seem to quite understand why she found it so funny.

"I don't like having cold feet," he offered by way of explanation. He clearly though wearing socks during sex was entirely reasonable.

"I can't believe I didn't notice earlier," she told him, still smiling.

He gave her an intent sort of look that made Camille blush, before saying with a cheeky grin, "I believe I had you suitably distracted earlier. Besides, I will have you know studies in the Netherlands have shown that wearing socks in bed increases the likelihood of climax in women, so clearly cold feet are a big deal." He sounded almost sulky, spouting off that fact. Camille was left marvelling at the fact that he had used the words sex and climax in a sentence without becoming so flustered he was incapable of speech. She could only assume it was some kind of post-coital increase in confidence.

"Well I didn't have any socks on and I didn't have any problems. In fact, I didn't have any problems twice," she figured the boost to his ego was worth it if it kept him this relaxed about the situation.

"Well maybe if you'd had socks on we could have made that three times you didn't have any issues," he teased, before leaning in to kiss her. He pulled back and said, "You know, I do like science experiments."

Camille gave him a look, "There is no way I am getting up from this bed to rummage through my case for socks. Of course the tights I was wearing earlier I can see have been discarded relatively nearby, but I think putting them back on might rather impede proceedings."

"Oh well, you can borrow mine," he said quite seriously. Camille laughed as he rapidly pulled off his socks and almost tenderly placed them on her feet. He then sat back and they both took a moment to admire his handiwork, "What do you think?"

"Oh yes, very sexy," she told him sarcastically.

"Yes, you are." He leaned in again to kiss her, and if the whole sock conversation wasn't clear about his intentions were the way he kissed her was.

But then Camille made a mistake, one that had her cringing almost before she finished saying the word. For some reason she couldn't fathom, when she had intended to say his name her mouth instead supplied the word 'Sir'. He immediately stilled, before pushing away from her, off the bed and proceeded to freak out.

Face in his hands, Camille heard him mutter, "Oh my God what have we done?" Before he seemed to realise he was still quite naked and hurriedly gathered his clothing and started to dress.

"Richard!" She cried, trying to get his attention. He apparently wasn't able to look at her at the moment though, because he continued to resolutely put his clothes on. "Richard, stop!" She had to practically shout, and he finally paused whilst buttoning his shirt. She took a deep breath and adopted a soothing tone, "Look, I know it wasn't the most appropriate thing to say it just slipped out. Probably better ways to be reminded our…working relationship…is something we need to address in the near future but I really think you're overreacting."

"Overreacting!" He spat, finally turning around to face her. "This is entirely inappropriate. I am your superior officer, and we work in an extremely small team. A relationship is going to compromise our work! There is no way the Commissioner would approve of this. And forgetting about all that for a minute, it could also irrevocably damage your career."

"Oh I doubt that very much," she tried to argue back. "You are just thinking about worst case scenarios, assuming the Commissioner won't approve. And I mean really, how could this ruin my career? You're being so dramatic!"

He sat down on the bed again, which Camille thought was a good sign, but he sounded weary when he spoke next, "Camille you are not naïve. I would like to say that we live in a perfect world where everyone is judged on the merits of their work alone but we don't. You are a fine police officer, but you are also a woman, a beautiful one, and there are still people who will look for ways to disparage you and a relationship with your commanding officer would be a great place to start."

"I don't care about what those people think!" Camille protested, and it was true. She knew her own capabilities, and she knew the people whose opinions did matter to her would not think any such thing.

"I care, Camille."

Richard gave her an intent look when he said this, and she knew this was not an argument she was going to win at the moment. Right now, the thing she wanted most in the world was for him to come back to bed and finish what he started, then for her to be able to fall asleep in his arms. If they carried on in this vein, they would spend all night arguing until one of them stormed off – quite possible her even if this was her room. Camille realised she might be able to bring him round in the future, but first she needed to come up with a way to calm him down now. Her brain supplied her with an idea, one that was quite frankly insane but there was a chance it would work, and she was willing to give it a try.

"Ok, listen a second. Right now, we are in Cambridgeshire in England away from all of our colleagues, there is nobody who knows about us right now, right?" She reasoned. He looked unsure of where she was going, but he did nod in agreement. "So none of the things you fear have happened yet. I understand, you're worried about the risks. But, I had these friends right. They were good friends and part of a small group and when they were on holiday, strangely enough in London to go to a wedding, they ended up sleeping together. Now they were worried about ruining their friendship, and also interfering with the dynamics of the group they were in. So they just decided to keep it in London." She paused, looking at him expectantly, but he was still not entirely following her.

"Look, I'm not sure why you telling me this because as far as I can tell you're just agreeing with me that this was a mistake and we should not repeat it." Camille fought to keep the hurt off her face at his description of their evening as a mistake, but he must have caught something in her expression because his features softened and he added. "I don't mean a mistake like that, I only regret it in relation to the harm it could do to you. Being with you was…fantastic." There was a sincerity in his tone that Camille found comforting.

"Well you haven't quite interpreted what I was saying fully." Camille pushed onwards with her plan. "You are preparing to run out of my room immediately and planning to try to ignore this entirely. I am saying that my friends agreed to keep that part of their relationship in London, and that we could do the same – accept more generally England rather than London before you get all pedantic. But Richard, we're still in England."

The frown remained on his face for a few moments, before he gave her a sly look and she noticed a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, "So, you think we could continue to spend time together more, um, intimately whilst here in the UK but on Saint Marie return to being just colleagues and, um, friends?"

He'd said 'friends' almost shyly, as if he was worried it wasn't quite true. Camille gave him a kind smile, shifting closer to him, "Yes, that is what I am saying."

"And this worked for your friends?"

"Uh huh," was all she managed, hoping he wouldn't detect the fact her voice had just shot up several octaves due to the lie.

"That sounds like a plan," he said slowly, brushing hair back from her face and rubbing his thumb against her cheek. She smiled contentedly, certain she'd won a temporary victory. Hoping he'd hurry up and kiss her, she was disappointed when he opened his mouth to speak again, "Who are these friends of yours?"

Camille's brain had already begun to contemplate the activities she was hoping they would be doing in the very near future, so was entirely unable to supply her with a suitable answer fast enough. Thus she was forced to take a risk. He hadn't recognised the scenario after all. "Oh you don't know them, they're called Monica and Chandler."

She had a brief moment of panic when Richard frowned, but much to her relief his only comment was, "I've never heard of the name Chandler before."

She rolled her eyes, and said with no small amount of frustration, "I'm sure you can cope with a small gap in your knowledge. Now, Richard, can we please get back to completing your little experiment involving socks?"

"Well, I suppose we could…"

Sometime later, Camille finally thought she understood the meaning of "to knock someone's socks off."

Sunlight woke her up, a consequence of them never having shut the curtains the night before. Mind just because it was light out did not mean it was sunny, in fact she could see it was raining at that very moment. She felt Richard shifting, turned over to find him stretching.

"Good Morning," she said, moving in to kiss him. When they broke the kiss he just kept looking at her, smiling to himself. She waited for him to say something, eventually getting mildly annoyed and prompting him. "What is it?"

"Did you know that Cambridgeshire is currently suffering from a drought?" Ok, that wasn't exactly what she'd been expecting him to say.

"A drought? Well, I don't think they have to worry too much, it's raining right now."

"Be that as it may, the county will require a lot more rain before it is out of drought," he explained.

She just shook her head, "I really don't understand where you are going with this, if in fact you are going anywhere. This has a point right? You aren't just trying to educate me on British weather patterns?"

"Well, Camille, since the county is in drought I feel we should make an effort to conserve water. For example, by sharing a shower."

Now that was a conservation effort Camille could definitely support.

Camille was pretty sure whoever cleaned the room would wonder what on earth had gone on in the bathroom, but since they were returning to Cambridge this morning there was no need for her to really worry about that. Richard was still in there, using one of the disposable razors she'd brought for her legs to shave because she hadn't been willing to let him go back to his room just yet. There was a knock on the door, which surprised her, it was only 8 and surely too early for the cleaner to be coming around now, check out wasn't until 11.

When she opened to door, it proved to be Ella. "Good Morning," she said to Camille, all smiles. "I wanted a quick word with Richard."

"Is he not in his room?" Camille asked, feigning cluelessness.

Ella smirked, "I didn't both going there because I knew he was here. Funny story, standing out on out the balcony last night Anthony and I hear a woman who sounded very much like you shouting. She threw this notebook out of the window that, upon examination, proves to belong to my dear cousin. You can see why I might conclude he is in fact here rather than his own room, it certainly sounded like he wasn't intending to go anywhere else for some time."

Camille didn't think she'd been this embarrassed since her mother had caught her letting her boyfriend touch her breasts when she was 15. She also knew Richard was not going to react to his family knowing about them well. He had obviously overheard the conversation between herself and Ella, because he opened the bathroom door and leaned against the frame, looking a tad sheepish. Ella just gave her cousin the same smirk she had received.

"Good morning, Ella," Richard began tentatively, probably desperately trying to figure out how to convince his cousin not to tell his whole family about which room he'd spent the night in. Camille got the impression maybe it would be easier if she wasn't there.

"You know what," she said, grabbing her shoes. "I'm quite hungry…"

"Work up an appetite, did you?" Ella interrupted, clearly enjoying making Camille uncomfortable as much as she did Richard.

"Um, maybe I'll go down for breakfast now and see you a bit later."

She didn't bother to wait for a reply.

"Ella," Richard began, with a touch of firmness to his tone. "I don't think the situation is entirely what you think."

"You mean you didn't spend the evening having a lively debate about the merits of the welfare state?" Ella asked, faking a shocked look.

He sighed, his cousin was so very impossible. "I'm sure your actual conclusions of how we spent the night are correct. But this was, it is, a one off thing."

"Richard!" Ella cried, clearly quite shocked at him. He realised he must sound like some sort of cad.

"No, no, I don't mean like a one night stand, Camille agrees with me. To attempt a, um, you know, romantic relationship given our current working relationship would be untenable. She suggested we just leave it in England and return to the status quo once we are back on Saint Marie."

Ella gave him a disbelieving look, "You really think that will work? That you'll just be able to ignore all of your feelings and carry on as you were before?"

"Well I was a bit worried about that," he conceded. "But then she told me she had two friends who when they were in London for a wedding they, um, took their relationship to another level but decided to just leave it in London and carry on as friends when they got back home. So clearly it's possible."

Ella gave him a thoughtful look, "Richard, were Camille's friends called Monica and Chandler by any chance?"

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"Oh my God man!" She said, throwing her arms up. "That is a plot from a television series. How have you never seen an episode of Friends? Oh, Richard!"

"Seriously? It's from a TV show?" Ella nodded mutely. Richard couldn't believe Camille would use it as an example, he felt a little bit manipulated. Mind he had been pretty panicked last night when the full implications of what they had done hit him, he supposed her intention had been to calm him down, and the lie was well meant. "But I mean, it worked on the TV show, right?"

Ella levelled him with a look, and didn't reply. But her face clearly told him that that particular story line had not ended in London.

Oh boy, he was in trouble.

THE END