CSI: Excolo. 2.3 continued.

[valmont-vicomte.livejournal.com]

The same day. Thursday. The Whitechapel, around 6pm.

The bar is about half full, mostly of cops who have just got off work. A couple of trainees are sitting at the bar drinking coffee. A group of older cops are in the back, laughing and playing darts over beers. Valmont is wiping down the bar.

It's a routine sort of evening here in the Whitechapel, the kind that would normally make me feel a little resentful that I wasn't elsewhere doing something more valuable, but at the moment these routine days feel fine to me. I know why it is - from the bar I can look out of the door and across to the station. It's foolish, really, and it reminds me of a song from My Fair Lady. "Are there lilac trees in the heart of town?/Can you hear a lark in any other part of town?" I grin to myself after I realise I was humming. I don't even know if I'll see Hermia this evening, although she tends to drop by and at least say hello most days, but... It's good just knowing she's nearby.

Yes, I do have it bad. The girlfriends I had in my twenties would laugh, seeing me now. I shake my head ruefully and go back to wiping down the bar.

[OPEN]