Anthrapornis actually existed! They should totally have had them on the show.

The prompt was "Last New Year's Eve Jess sat at home in her PJs with a bag of chocolate, a bottle of wine and several romcoms feeling very sorry for herself. Is this year really going to be any different?"

31st December 2011

From the balcony of her flat, Jess got a perfect view of the fireworks.

Her sister said it was crazy; people like her, with property that overlooked the Thames, made a fortune every New Year by renting out their houses to people who wanted to witness them first hand rather than on the telly like the rest of the country.

Jess didn't tell her that her job was stupidly well paid, and she had no need to let a crowd of boozed-up City types trash her flat for a few thousand pounds. Instead she lied and told her that she had plans, and that was the end of that conversation.

It was a lie, of course. She didn't have any plans, unless you thought that staying in with a selection of Ewan McGregor films and a bar of Dairy Milk the size of her head counted as plans. Oh, and the wine, of course. The finest that Tesco Extra had to offer.

She'd hummed her way through Little Voice, gasped in horror at the wig in Emma and had just finished sobbing her heart out to the ending of Moulin Rouge. She usually stopped it when Satine and Christine were hoisted aloft in the arms of Moulin Rouge singers, before Satine dies of consumption and breaks Christian's heart forever, but tonight she was feeling particularly masochistic and let the film play to the bitter, consumptive end.

The noise of the fireworks at midnight made her jump, and she switched off the DVD as the credits rolled to watch them, bundled up in a blanket on her balcony. All around her she could see groups of people on other balconies, in the middle of a party, celebrating the dawning of the New Year raucously. On different balconies, lovers exchanged kisses and huddled together as the fireworks exploded around them.

Tears blurred Jess' eyes, making the bright dancing lights slip and slide around the sky. She had a lot, she knew; she was smart, she had a great job and beautiful home. She was even making friends at work, although just about everybody was about ten years older than her. She had a lot to be thankful for.

She was just tired of being alone.

She woke up alone, she shopped alone, she went to the cinema alone, she slept alone. She cast a look at the now-empty wine bottle and sighed. She even drank alone, and that was never a good sign.

She tried not to be offended that nobody had invited her to any parties at work. After all, it wasn't like an office, where you got drunk and photocopied parts of yourself. The soldiers kept to themselves, the scientists kept to themselves and that left Jess pretty much on her own. There were a few admin staff, but they usually worked on another floor to her and she didn't know them that well.

Lester had probably thought he was doing her a favour by giving her tonight off, but in fact she would have preferred to have taken a shift at the ADD. At least that way there would have been a few people around

Alright, she thought honestly, Becker would have been around. Of all of the ARC staff, he was the one that she would expect to volunteer to stay on duty, despite the fact he had also taken the Christmas Day shift. Although he wasn't the most communicative of men, Jess always felt safer when he was around, quietly moving from station to station in the control room. He'd caught her once, when she was hopping down from the control chair and got the heel of her neon pink stiletto wedged. She'd been tumbling forward, bracing herself for the inevitable plunge to the floor, when all of a sudden she'd stopped and been yanked backwards. Becker's muscled forearm had been like a steel band across her waist, and she'd ended up held firmly against him while he lifted her straight out of her shoes.

He'd set her down gently on the floor, her eyes level with the base of his neck now that she was without her beloved heels. He'd rescued the trapped heel, picked up the other shoe and then handed them to her. He looked faintly embarrassed at holding such feminine shoes, and hadn't said anything as he beat a hasty retreat across the control room and down the corridor to the safer, more masculine environs of the armoury.

It had been, without doubt, the best thing to happen to Jess at work since Lester agreed to upgrade the ARC's computer systems and let her choose the new specs. She had hoped that it would have led to something more between them, conversation perhaps, or coffee in the canteen, but if anything Becker had retreated further from her, barely appearing in the control room for the next few weeks.

A spectacularly garish series of fireworks exploded overhead, and Jess watched gloomily as red and gold sparks drifted down through the clouds of smoke.

2011 had been an adequate year, she decided, but not a great one. 2012 was going to be different. On the 31st December 2012, she vowed, she was going to be standing on her balcony with a man that she loved and that loved her in return. There was no way that the best memory she would have of 2012 would be about being briefly held by Becker.

2nd January 2012

Jess decided not to hedge her bets. She created profiles at eHarmony and Match, emailed her oldest friend to see if she would draft a suitable description for and after a third glass of wine, signed up at UniformDating. After that brush with Becker, she hadn't been able to get him out of her mind. She knew that getting the man himself was going to be next to impossible, but perhaps there were other military men out there that looked as good in their uniforms as he did in his.

27th February 2012

Jess was on duty at the ADD, monitoring the progress of Team Three, a new unit that had been set up to deal with the slightly higher than average number of anomalies that had started to appear. As Team Three was still getting to grips with life in the field, they had been given the easier jobs to do, although, as Jess was discovering, jobs that sounded easy when radioed in often turned out to be anything but.

"You're 200 metres away from the anomaly, Team Three," Jess reported. "I've had the police clear the shopping centre, they think there's a bomb scare."

"Do you have a visual on the anomaly?" asked the team leader. "For God's sake, Ballard, that was a zebra crossing," he went on crossly, clearly addressing the team's driver. "Do try and stop at those."

"I'm just getting into the CCTV system at the shopping centre," Jess said, frowning as she stormed through the paltry online defences and brought up the internal cameras. "Somebody should tell the head of security that "sex69" isn't a very good password," she muttered to herself.

"It's got letters and numbers in it," Becker said from behind her, where he seemed to materialise from nowhere. "That's important, right?"

Jess squealed and jumped, which didn't do much to impress Team Three, who all swore loudly at the high pitched noise.

"Stop sneaking up on me," Jess snapped at Becker. "And your password should be something difficult to guess, not something a horny fourteen year old boy thinks is amusing."

She glanced at the screens and located the anomaly.

"It's in Marks and Spencers, Team Three," she told them. "Upstairs, in the lingerie department."

"How come they get to go to Marks and Spencers and I spent all day yesterday wading around a marsh looking for pre-Cambrian eel monsters?" Becker complained.

"Because you're special," Jess said heavily.

"EMDs ready!" the team leader bellowed over the radio. "Hawkins, get the closing device ready! Ballard, on our rear! Shaw…Shaw, now's not the time for a toilet break!"

"I didn't feel special when I was washing all the mud off me yesterday," Becker said, leaning closer to Jess as he scrutinised the screens in front of him.

Jess tried not to imagine a muddy Becker in the shower, and failed utterly.

"Activity in the anomaly!" Jess warned as the screen flashed in front of her.

"Move, move, move!" the team leader shouted. "NO!" he screamed, almost immediately. "Not that way, Hawkins! That's John Lewis, not Marks and Spencers!"

Jess knew she shouldn't giggle, but it was hard not to. She snuck a look at Becker, who was watching the screens, thin-lipped.

"Something's coming through," he said urgently. "Can you get a better angle, Jess?"

"Hang on," she said, over the sound of heavy army boots clattering up stairs. "I'll try and move some of these cameras around…"

On the screen in front of them a new angle appeared.

"It's the best I can do," Jess said, disappointed.

"Lingerie, not homewares!" roared the team leader over the radio.

On the screen a large, heavy-looking animal slowly appeared through the anomaly.

"What is it?" Becker asked, peering closer at the screen. "Velociraptor? Future predator? Juvenile Allosaurus?"

"Ready weapons!" shrieked the radio. "Attack pattern delta-five!"

"It's a penguin," Jess said in disbelief, staring at the creature on the screen. "A really massive penguin."

"Awk!" said the creature, which obediently waddled closer into the field of view of the repositioned camera.

"It's a bloody huge penguin," Becker confirmed, sounding slightly disappointed..

On screen, Team Three burst into view and opened fire on the giant penguin. Their shots were all off however, because they were distracted by a flood of smaller giant penguins, still with their fluffy feathers, barrelling through the anomaly. Behind them came a flock of concerned parental penguins, all desperate to locate their offspring and honking loudly.

"Open fire!" shouted the team leader.

"No!" both Jess and Becker said into the radio, watching the screen with horror.

"Awk!" bellowed the first exploratory penguin, and that's how the Great Penguin Stampede of 2012 started.

Modern penguins range in size from about a metre in height down to just forty centimetres. These Anthrapornis were about two metres tall and a hundred kilograms in weight, and didn't take kindly to suddenly finding themselves in the middle of the Marks and Spencers underwear department. Modern penguins waddle at about two miles an hour, but Anthrapornis, especially those scared by EMD blasts and protective of their young, could reach quite an impressive top speed, especially when sliding on their stomachs along the highly polished floors of the shopping centre.

"Try and herd them towards the food hall!" they heard one of the team yell at another.

"Why the food hall?"

"Penguins eat fish, right? There's got to be fish in the food hall!"

"Fish in the food hall," muttered Becker. "For God's sake man, set up a defensive perimeter and herd them back towards the anomaly!" he snapped into the radio.

"Yes sir," gasped another team member. "But they've got Lieutenant Riley trapped!"

"Well, get him out!" Becker snapped.

"It's not that easy, sir," one of the team reported. "I think one of the mother penguins thinks he's her chick."

"Oh my God," Becker sighed as Jess called up another camera to show a very embarrassed looked Lieutenant Riley trying to escape the doting clutches of a confused bird.

"Still wish you were there?" Jess asked him, while paging Team Two to help Team Three.

"Suddenly the marsh looks far more attractive," Becker admitted, and smiled at her. Jess grinned back and completely missed the moment when the baby giant penguins broke through the front doors of Marks and Spencers and found the giant fountain in the main concourse.

In the general confusion, Team Three missed the chance to lock the anomaly, and it closed just as Team Two arrived and promptly fell about laughing at their trampled comrades. With the aid of some gentle prods and a large quantity of sushi from the Food Hall, they managed to round up the colony near the fountain, and load them onto vans to bring them back to the menagerie. Abby was in seventh heaven, and managed to convince Lester to extend the menagerie further back into the building, and put in a pool. She wouldn't have been nearly so successful if Lester's favourite film hadn't been iHappy Feet/i, a secret that Jess would take to her grave.

The penguins adapted to their life in the menagerie fairly well, especially once the palaeobotanists managed to cultivate some plant life suitable to the Eocene period and the structural crews rigged up some simulated daylight for them. The penguins began to rival the mammoth as most visited creatures in the menagerie, and Team Three eventually stopped finding stuffed penguins in their lockers and cars.

Eventually.

20th March 2012

"Sorry James," Jess said as she juggled her car keys, her mobile phone, travel mug, handbag and a large gym bag. "I did phone you and tell you I wasn't going to be able to make it."

She sighed as the latest man that her computer told her was a perfect match for her complained about being stood up the previous evening.

"I was called into work unexpectedly," she told him, an edge of frostiness creeping into her voice. "I tried your mobile three times, and left messages for you at the restaurant and the theatre."

She reached the secure check-in station and started to shift her possessions around awkwardly to reach her security card, which was in her handbag.

"Well, I am sorry that I got called in, but it was really out of my hands," she said, gritting her teeth. "If you had just checked your messages, or called me back…"

She stopped as a dextrous hand dipped across her body and reached into her handbag to pluck out her swipe card. Becker smiled at her as he ran her card, then his, through the door panel and then stood back to let her go through the door first.

"I'd love to try again," she told the phone, staring as Becker firmly slipped the heavy gym bag off her shoulder, took control of her handbag and replaced the security card, as well as her car keys. "Call me when you have a spare evening. Bye."

"Date not go well?" Becker asked as they started for the lift to the lower levels of the facility.

Jess raised an eyebrow. This was the first conversation about something not related to work she'd ever had with Becker. One started by him, anyway.

"No," she sighed. "I got called in at the last minute, and despite the fact that I left him messages at his flat, on his mobile, and at the restaurant iand/i the theatre, he didn't seem to get any of them and is a bit annoyed."

"Sorry," Becker said awkwardly. "If that anomaly hadn't opened, you wouldn't have had to come back."

"If I hadn't have come back, you would have been going into that situation blind," Jess said. "I don't mind giving up a date with a boring IT guy if it means I can help you stay safe."

She blushed a little as Becker looked at her and smiled. He still had her gym bag, she noticed, the lurid bright green bag with lavender spots standing out like a beacon against the unrelieved black of his uniform.

"I'm very glad," he said softly. "We would have been in real trouble without you, Jess. As it was, it was lucky that Temple only got a small bite from that Sinosaur."

"That's what the bag's for," Jess said, motioning towards the gym bag. "The doctor says he's going to have to stay off his feet for about a week, so I brought him some old computer parts I had laying about the flat. He promised to do something with them when he was living there, but he forgot to take them with him when he and Abby got their own place."

The lift stopped and deposited them on the right level for the medical section.

"I would have thought that an IT guy would have been good for you," Becker said suddenly. "I mean, not that I think you're boring," he added quickly. Tension lines formed around his eyes and he looked as close to panicked as she'd ever seen him. "Or that I think of you and men," he went on, seemingly unable to stop himself.

"I know what you mean," Jess said, taking pity on him. "That's why I signed up for those dating sites, they're full of techy, geeky people like me. You'd have thought that I'd have found someone by now. But it's been three months, and I haven't found anybody."

She gave a nervous laugh.

"I wasn't really sure about this one," she confided to him. "He came off as a bit arrogant in his emails. But he was taking me to see The Thirty Nine Steps and I really wanted to see it. It's had great reviews. Does that make me a bad person?" she asked him, a question that had been rattling around her mind every since she had said a doubtful yes to James' email.

Becker actually smiled at her again. Three smiles in one morning, she noted, amused. That had to be some kind of record, surely.

"Definitely not," he said firmly. "You were willing to give him a chance, right?"

She nodded.

"Then you're not a bad person," he said decisively.

They stopped outside the entrance to the medical section.

"Tell Temple that I hope he's feeling better," he told her. He handed her back the gym bag. "And that next time I tell him to run, he'd better do as he's told."

"I will," she assured him, and he nodded at her and started off briskly down the corridor.

Connor was happy to see her, but happier to see the gym bag. She sat with him for a while until one of the nurses had to change his dressing, then she took the opportunity to escape. All day long she thought of missed opportunities, but it wasn't James the boring IT guy that kept popping into her mind.

14th May 2012

This wasn't a stupid idea, she kept telling herself as she waited for the restaurant to put together her order. Becker was going to be staking out the flat alone, and he'd be hungry. She was just helping out a colleague, that's all.

Going five miles out of her way, bringing food that she knew he'd like because she'd hacked his Just Eat account to find out his favourite take away, barging in on an operational mission despite having no field training…oh yes, just helping out a colleague. Who was she trying to kid? This was a crush. A crush of monumental proportions.

To the alarm of the woman behind the till, Jess started to slowly bang her head against the wall. James from IT had proved to be as arrogant in person as his emails had suggested, and Jess had gladly said goodbye to him after their disastrous second first date. Neither of the two men that she'd tried to build relationships with after James had worked out. And now here she was trying to get Becker to notice her with a gift of Chinese food that she'd committed electronic crime to procure.

There was no way that this evening was going to go well. And yet, here she was, blithely buying prawn crackers.

How bad could it get? she reasoned, as she got out of her car and approached the silent black ARC truck that was lurking on the opposite side of the road. And then she kicked herself for asking that particular question.

One highly emotionally charged bomb disposal later, she knew.

Not only had she gatecrashed the stakeout, she had hogged the prawn crackers then fallen asleep on Becker's shoulder. Thank God black hid drool patches. Then she'd disobeyed a direct order, picked up a weapon she had no idea how to use, and found herself disarming a particularly nasty bomb

On the plus side, when Becker hugged you, you were well and truly hugged.

It looked like that crush wasn't going anywhere.

30th June 2012

After six months, Jess cancelled the contracts she had with the dating sites. It really wasn't worth the money.

No matter how many men she dated, none of them fit. She'd tried happy, loquacious men and silent, taciturn ones. She'd dated office workers, small business owners and even one or two military personnel. None of them lasted more than two or three dates, and none of them had got past a goodnight kiss. No matter how hard she tried, Jess just couldn't get Becker out of her mind.

Not that he did much to be memorable; he skulked around the control room a little more than he did before, and one lunchtime he sat with her in a companionable silence, but that was it. It was almost as if their bomb disposal evening hadn't happened.

Almost.

Occasionally Jess would turn her head in the control room and find that Becker was looking straight at her, as if he was trying to memorise what she looked like. As soon as she made eye contact he'd give her a small, nervous smile and leave the room, so she tried to unobtrusively watch him in the reflection of her screens.

It wasn't much, but it was enough to make her cancel the dating sites. If she was truly honest with herself, she enjoyed the silent watching far more than any of the dates.

9th September 2012

When Jess came around, shaking and so very, very cold, all she could see were Becker's face staring at her, worry plastered all over it, marring his usual handsome features. Emily's cool hands were smoothing her brow, and she had a crippling headache. She could tell that something was very wrong, and she could remember something about insects and injections, but nothing made much sense and all she wanted to do was sleep for about a thousand years.

She slept for about twelve hours in the medical unit, and when she woke up the doctors explained what had happened – the insect bite, the delay in finding her adrenaline, her lapse into what was almost a coma. Some memories came back with the doctor's gentle voice, including Becker's frantic rummaging through the supply cabinets.

"You may want to make sure you have some epi pens around," Jess said as she signed the papers authorising her release from the unit. "Captain Becker got a bit cross when he couldn't find any."

"Captain Becker…" the doctor started tightly, then cleared his throat and aimed for his previous, gentle tone. "…has made his feelings about the stocking of the supply cabinets known. At length. And volume. In future, there will be epi pens in all first aid boxes in all sections of the facility, including here."

"Thank you for looking after me," Jess told him, trying to undo some of the damage that Becker had inflicted on the man.

"Forty eight hours leave, at the least," he warned her. "The reaction has gone but the side effects haven't. You shouldn't drive home, either."

"But I have to, my car is here," Jess protested.

"No, it isn't, I had one of the uniformed monkeys drive it home for you this morning," Lester said, breezing into the room and ignoring any pesky privacy requirements that were clearly only for lesser mortals to worry about.

"You'll be driven home in my car," Lester went on. "No, don't complain, I'm not listening. Forty eight hours, doctor?"

He peered disparagingly at Jess and shook his head.

"Make it seventy two," he said. "You look appalling. Go home, Jess. One of the monkeys is waiting for you in the garage."

"Thank you, that's very sweet of you," Jess said, correctly interpreting the insults as evidence of his worry for her. She kissed him on the cheek and he visibly flushed.

"Go on, shoo," he said, flicking his hand in the universal motion of "go away, you're embarrassing me".

Lester's car was waiting for her, and if she hadn't had such a pounding headache she would have enjoyed being chauffeured around London in such luxury. She refused the offer of the soldier who was driving her to see her to her door, and sagged quietly against the side of the lift as it climbed to her penthouse flat.

Her flat was blessedly silent, and she gulped down some of the tablets the doctor had given her before starting a long, hot shower. She could practically feel the pain and tension being washed away from her body as she massaged her head with her favourite coconut shampoo, and she got rid of the clinically antiseptic smell of the medical unit with the expensive vanilla bodywash she saved for special occasions. There were puncture marks in her arms where they had inserted IVs to keep her hydrated and medicated, and sticky patches on her chest where they must have put electrodes on her to monitor her heart rate. There was a large, tender bruise on her thigh; she couldn't remember bumping into anything, although large parts of the day were still somewhat hazy in her mind.

"Jess!"

She remembered his arms, though. She remembered being held so close to his chest that she could hear his heartbeat thudding in her ear. She remembered being so cold, then surrounded by his heat. He had kept her alive by sheer force of will, the risked his own life to go into what had been a potentially lethal area in order to get her adrenaline.

"Jess? Are you in there?"

She owed him her life, and all she could offer was a crush of epic proportions. She sighed and shook her head. She must be thinking of him too much, she could swear that she could hear his voice now.

"Jessica Parker, open this door immediately, that is an order!"

She frowned.

Perhaps that faint banging noise wasn't her head after all, but maybe her front door?

She hurried out of the shower enclosure and wrapped a towel around her. The closer she got to the front door, the more clearly she could hear the threats he was bellowing at it.

"If you're lying on the floor in a pool of your own blood then…."

She cut him off by opening the door.

"I'm fine," she blurted.

"You're naked," he said, taking an instinctive step towards her and scanning her body with his expressive eyes.

"I'm in a towel," she pointed out.

"There's a lot of you still showing," he said tightly and without waiting for permission he stepped into her flat and ushered her ahead of him. He kicked the door shut behind him and scanned the large, open space of her home with an impressed look on his face before he turned back to her.

"You left the medical unit," he said, clearly annoyed.

"I was discharged," Jess pointed out. "By a doctor. Who, by the way, seemed to be on the receiving end of one of your disciplinary shouting fits."

"No military doctor would let their unit be so shoddily stocked," he said defensively. "Bloody civilians. You were almost killed, Jess."

His voice broke slightly on 'killed', and Jess threw away the annoyance that had been building up in her at the way he had stormed into her home.

"But I wasn't," she said gently, "You saved me. See? Here I am."

She smiled encouragingly at him, and was then engulfed in another Becker-hug that was desperate and needy and told her everything that apparently he couldn't.

"I'm okay," she said, soothingly, running one hand through his hair and stroking the hard plane of muscle along his back with the other. "I'm here and it's fine and it's all thanks to you."

"If I had listened to Matt," he mumbled into her hair. "If I hadn't shot the queen…"

"You saved my life," she said firmly. "Shut up."

Pretty soon she couldn't tell who was holding who up.

"Have you slept?" she asked him, pulling away slightly to take in the bags under his eyes and his dishevelled appearance.

"Haven't had time," he admitted. "Things to sort out, reports to write…"

"Innocent doctors to terrify," Jess said dryly.

Becker pulled a face and she laughed.

"Come and sleep," she said, taking his hand and tugging him towards the bedroom.

He stopped at the bedroom door and looked at her, his face a mixture of warring emotions.

"Just sleep," Jess stressed. "Nothing else. Come on."

He followed her into the room and sat on the end of the bed to tug off his boots. He stared down at himself, sniffed and pulled a face.

"I need a shower," he said grimly. "Do you mind if…"

"Through there," Jess nodded to the door to her en suite bathroom. "I'll see if I can find you something to sleep in."

He nodded and disappeared through the door. Jess tugged a pair of pyjama shorts from a drawer and pulled on a thin cotton vest, and dug around until she found a pair of men's pyjamas she had bought as a Christmas present for her brother. Deliberately not peeking, she slipped them into the bathroom and then retreated back to the bedroom. She towelled her hair carefully, as she was still nursing a bit of a headache, pulled a comb through it and then collapsed into bed.

Becker appeared five minutes later, wearing the pyjama trousers but nothing else.

"The shirt's too tight," he said apologetically.

"My brother isn't as fit as you are," Jess said sleepily. She wasn't so sleepy that she missed the look of relief flash quickly across his face.

"Your brother," he said, climbing into her bed.

"Yes," Jess replied, scooting over so that the length of her back pressed into his front. A large, warm arm draped possessively over her waist and she sighed with contentment.

"So, there's no owner of these pyjamas that's going to beat me up for cuddling with his girlfriend?" Becker asked, dipping his head to nuzzle her ear.

"No," she sighed.

"Excellent," he said firmly, and tightened his grip.

"You don't have to leave soon, do you?" Jess asked suddenly, the thought of Becker leaving her suddenly a painful one.

"Seventy two hours mandatory leave," Becker yawned. "Lester caught me yelling at the doctor who let you go without me and sent me here."

"He's so nice," Jess said happily.

Becker's answer was a light snore.

31st December 2012

There was chocolate again this year, because Becker prided himself on knowing her favourite brands and surprising her with bars tucked into her handbag and her desk drawers. The Tesco Extra wine had been replaced by champagne so she hadn't complained when he had substituted her Ewan McGregor films for The Bourne Identity. After all, Matt Damon may not be as handsome as Becker, Jess thought fondly, but he wasn't exactly ugly, either.

This year when the fireworks started, she was one of the couples bundled up on the balcony watching the bright colours explode overhead, and she was one of the women kissed so lovingly by their partner.

"Happy?" he asked her, bringing her closer against him.

"Incredibly," she told him, beaming. "This year has been amazing."

"You almost died," he pointed out, frowning. "And we were almost blown up by a bomb. And humanity was almost wiped out. Technically speaking, it hasn't been the best of years."

"Yes, but I kept my New Year's resolution," Jess said happily. "I'm not alone on New Year's Eve."

"Well, as long as you have a boyfriend, who cares about certain death?" Becker said airily and Jess poked him in the side with a sharp finger.

"It took certain death for you to man up and tell me how you felt," she pointed out. "So let's not knock it, shall we?"

"Agreed," he said, laughing. "Any resolutions for 2013?"

"I don't think so," Jess said happily, staring out over the Thames at the firework display. "I'm pretty happy as I am. How about you?"

"I think I'm going to resolve to be a bit braver," Becker said thoughtfully.

Jess laughed.

"You're the bravest man I know," she said fondly. "What do you need to be brave about?"

"Well," he said slowly, pulling a small, square box from his pocket. "There's this, for a start…"