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"Mine's a pint, Sergeant. You're driving." Lewis tossed his car keys to James. "Orange juice, or what?"
James stared after Lewis, bemused. In the span of three short days it seemed his life had irrevocably changed. How had it happened? Was there a singular moment—a point in time when the universe shifted and things were forever altered? Surely that was too simplistic a view. His interactions with Lewis seemed more an aggregation of random, unrelated incidents into an overwhelming—though as yet incomplete—whole. More like eons of sediment deposits creating the chalk cliffs of Dover or layers of pigment on a canvas revealing a Gainsborough landscape, than a single defining event.
It certainly started innocuously enough—a chance assignment from Chief Superintendent Innocent to serve as courtesy chauffeur from the airport for one of their own returning home after two years attachment in the Caribbean (and just how did one orchestrate such an assignment, he'd wondered?). It was an errand which should, by all accounts, have been assigned to a constable, not a sergeant, but the Chief Super seemed to be going out of her way lately to not be perceived as showing James favouritism. James was junior, he and his DI were between cases at the moment—he was the obvious choice to send, according to Innocent.
Of course, James had heard the tales of Detective Chief Inspector Morse that were bantered about the nick. Hard not to, really. The man had been a formidable presence in the Oxfordshire Police for years and many officers were still active who personally remembered him. Lewis was mentioned as Morse's long-suffering bagman, though generally in passing and with sympathetic looks. Better him than me, poor bugger, was the phrase most oft repeated, as if working for the infamous Morse had been no walk in the park.
None of which prepared James for the man who walked off the airplane, bringing with him a bunch of wild orchids, and whose his first request was to visit his wife's grave. Nor was he prepared for Lewis's air of quiet sadness which only lifted when faced with the prospect of working a crime scene. And he'd been further surprised by the almost fond greeting from the normally acerbic Dr. Hobson, as well as Lewis's unexpected courtesy in carrying her forensic case—something James had never seen another DI offer to do.
That small act of manners was perhaps the first inkling James had that Lewis was his own man—someone who refused to abide by conventions he thought outmoded or ridiculous—but it definitely wasn't the last. Layer after layer of courtesy, concern, and sympathy built up during the case, impressing James as he observed the man at work. Even the moments when Lewis turned prickly were interesting, followed as they invariably were by honest apologies. When was the last time a DI apologized to his sergeant? One thing was certain, it had never happened to James. Before Lewis, that is.
James knew his own reputation well enough. Though he had no close friends on the force, he generally got along well with his colleagues. He'd simply never warmed to any of them, nor they to him, for that matter. His background, education, and reserved manner set him apart, marked him as a favourite of the upper echelon—in particular CS Innocent—and made the other coppers somewhat wary of him. For his part, he kept his head down and tried to go along with the flow, absorbing as much as he could about good policing along the way.
James couldn't quite get a fix on the enigma that was Lewis. It would have been easy to write the man off as a stereotype—embittered working class copper with a chip on his shoulder in regards to the highly educated populace with whom he dealt—but James was far too good a detective to make that mistake and Lewis simply defied being pigeonholed. Innocent clearly wanted to be rid of him, though, and for the first time James found himself in disagreement with her. It was rather a revelation working that first case with Lewis—his quiet tenacity and stubbornness in the face of repeated confrontations with Innocent, his refusal to accept the easy answer when he sensed more going on beneath the surface. In the end even Innocent had had to admit Lewis belonged where he was—investigating crime—and not shunted off to some dead-end teaching post.
Still, James could tell she hadn't expected him to request assignment as Lewis's bagman. Nor was she particularly happy when James insisted it be Lewis's decision. Robbie Lewis was a good cop, but more than that, he was a good man. As much as James desired to work with him, he wouldn't foist himself on Lewis if he wasn't wanted.
His own response when Lewis accepted him was the biggest surprise of all. He'd expected a sense of satisfaction—pride, even—not this heated rush of pleasure through his veins nor the growing warmth in his chest. It was this, more than any of the rest of it, which made James take notice that his relationship with Robbie Lewis boded to be interesting...different.
He blinked and slid the car keys into his pocket. Right. He'd best get cracking and find that table. It wouldn't do to start off this partnership by failing at his first official assignment, now would it?