Spoilers for the first episode of series 3. Do not read if you've not seen that episode.

Disclaimer: Death in Paradise and its characters do not belong to me. If it did, Richard Poole would not have left and instead something like this would have happened.

Summary: After Richard is stabbed, he barely manages to survive. Faced with the possibility of losing him Camille begins to realise her true feelings for the stoic Englishman.

Chapter 1.

Beneath her cheek the blanket is scratchy. It irritates her skin like the chopped off hair that gets stuck down her top after a hair cut. Still, she doesn't move, it doesn't cross her mind to. From the position she is in she can see the steady rise and fall of his stomach with every precious breath, can feel the solidity of him beneath her, just about hear the steady thump thump of his heart and she thanks God for every single beat, all too aware of just how close it came to be silenced forever. She closes her eyes against the thought. He's here, Camille, she tells herself, not for the first time. Hold on to that.

Somewhere down the corridor, a door closes and the noise echoes tinnily down to room 17. A couple of nurses are gossiping at the nurses' station about someone called Felicity not turning up for work and outside on the street, someone walks past whistling. Everywhere around her are the sounds of life while she and Richard Poole remain suspended in this place which seems miles away from the hustle and bustle outside. She turns her face and rubs her nose gently across the blanket, hoping to get a whiff of tea and sun block and the underlying scent of his sun-warmed skin. Anything to chase away the universal stink of hospitals, the smell of sickness and creeping death.

The single worst phone call of her life, the one which had knocked away the ground beneath her feet and caused her mind to begin its wild spiral had come at around seven the previous evening. With Fidel's words, 'It's the Inspector,' everything came to a crunching halt. Little by little, inch by agonising inch, her skin was being turned inside out, each overly-sensitive nerve ending exposed to the elements and battered mercilessly. She had been, if not happy then comfortable with the murky lines of their relationship. She'd called him her boss, colleague, friend depending on the day, never straying across that invisible line between them. She could vacillate, by the hour it seemed, between wanting to slap that smug smirk off his face and wanting to wrap her arms around him, between rolling her eyes at the arrogance of the man to being reduced to tears of laughter by a simple comment, a look.

And now and then, those moments which transformed to warm syrup in her stomach, warming her from the inside. When Richard had done his awkward best to encourage Fidel. When he'd thrown Dwayne's statement about the Nadia Selim case straight in the bin without reading it. Him, sitting on the beach with her with not a care for his suit trousers after Aimee died. His quiet strength overshadowing his vulnerability when confronted with the odious Doug Anderson. Him trying lobster at her birthday party because it was her birthday and her favourite restaurant and she'd asked him to just try. He'd subtly disposed of the mouthful into a napkin when he thought she wasn't looking but then he'd caught her eye and smiled when Dwayne had led them in a raucous round of Happy Birthday. In her mind's eye she could still see his lips shaping the words 'dear Camille.' It was embarrassing to admit, even to herself, how many times she'd replayed the words in her mind.

She'd had plenty of time to replay those moments, relive each memory in vivid detail last night as he fought for his life. Around four in the morning, as the sky turned pale grey outside, she had finally succumbed to the tears teetering on her lids as she became aware that she might never hear his voice saying her name again. Already she thought she might be forgetting the sound of it.

At some point the doctor had come in to announce that Richard had responded well to the blood transfusion and was in recovery. Alive.

Now it was the next evening. Fidel and Dwayne had been working all day on trying to find his attacker while she had been impossible to tear from the Detective Inspector's side. At some point in the early hours, it had been Fidel who had tactfully suggested that Richard should have a police presence at his bedside to prevent the attacker returning once he'd realised he'd failed. She'd volunteered without a second thought. She suspects his suggestion was in order to allow her to save face and not let those more oblivious around them from realising her feelings. Whatever the reason, she is more grateful to Fidel than she can say that he'd persuaded the Commissioner and the doctors to allow her to stay.

Those first few hours when the others had gone to the station had been spent staring at the monitors standing like watchmen around his bed, making sure the patterns stayed steady and clutching on to his hand so hard that she'd left fingernail marks in his skin, little half moon crescents of paler flesh on the back of his hand. She had long since lost count of the number of times she'd pressed the alarm button in response to an unusually loud beep on his monitors or a line that had dipped lower than usual. The nurses, to their credit, had come running every time, clustering around Richard and assuring her that all was fine.

In the long hours with just the two of them in the room, after the nauseating panic had subsided and her tunnel vision had widened to encompass more than just the man in the bed beside her, Camille forced herself to confront the extent of her affection for him. As terrifying, and possibly unwise as it was to feel this way for an emotionally repressed Englishman who hated almost everything about the island she adored, she knew she was in love with him.

I love Richard Poole. She tried out the sentence in her mind, bracing herself against the wave of disbelief she felt would surely follow but instead: nothing but relief as her heart sped up when she pictured his face.

Now the afternoon sun beams through the open window and across the bed in a long rectangle. She can feel the heat on her back through her clothes but fortunately the air conditioning is turned to high so Richard's hand feels cool in hers. He hadn't woken up since the night before. The doctors assured her it was normal, he'd been through a lot and they should let him rest. She'd consented, rather reluctantly. But she wanted him to open his eyes, to see that deep green sparkle in the light. She feels like she'd do anything to hear him complain about the heat, the Caribbean food again. It had been less than twenty four hours and already she feels like she is suffocating without the roll of his eyes and the animation which engulfs his frame like a wildfire when a connection forms inside that genius mind of his.

With a deep sigh she closes her eyes and focuses on his soft breaths ruffling her hair. He's here. He's still here with her...

"Cher?" Catherine touches her shoulder gently and Camille jerks awake. "Cherie, you must sit up. Dwayne and Fidel are down the hall. You do not want them to see you this way." Camille runs a distracted hand through her hair, tugging at the knots that have formed in her slumber.

"Maman? What time is it?" She looks around for a clock, eyes brushing the stark white walls but apart from the afternoon sun, hanging low in the sky outside of the window telling her it is early evening, there is no more concrete evidence of the hour.

"A little after six thirty. The nurses told me you were fast asleep when they came to check up on Richard about an hour ago."

Catherine moves past her and looks at Richard intently. Leaning over the bed, she gently brushes his hair back from his forehead and places a whisper of a kiss on his brow. Something has thawed between Catherine and Richard in recent months as Camille has looked on. There is a genuine affection between them and as Catherine begins to talk to Camille, she fusses around Richard like a mother hen, straightening blankets which don't need straightening and pouring a glass of water for him on his bedside table despite the fact that he seems to be sleeping as deeply as ever. Camille thinks her mother would have tried to smuggle her chicken soup in here if she thought she could get it past the nurses.

"How is he?"

"No change, Maman. The doctors this morning said he would be alright but..." Camille breaks off with a shrug and bites her lip. Catherine gazes at her daughter with that soul-piercing stare which had her spilling all her secrets in high school.

"And how are you, my darling?"

Camille's breath leaves her in a rush. "I'm... I don't know how I am, Maman. Worried. He is my... my friend and I was so scared I would lose him." She is shaking so hard that Richard's right hand, still clasped in one of hers, vibrates slightly on the blanket. With a deep breath she gets herself back under control and meets her mother's eye. "I can't believe someone would have done something like this to him. And I know that everyone says that but it's true. He's the kindest, most gentle man I've ever known."

A knowing gleam and the slight upturn of Catherine's lips have Camille shifting in her seat and abruptly she stands up. The chair screeches across the floor in a way that has the hair on her arms standing up and she casts a glance towards Richard's face. Not a flicker. "I should go and talk to the doctors."

"No need child. Dwayne and Fidel stopped to speak to the consultant on the way in. They gave me a lift from the station."

"Oh." Suddenly finding herself on her feet without purpose, Camille strides into the en-suite bathroom attached to Richard's room (she suspects the Commissioner had something to do with Richard's private room) and studies her face in the mirror. Her face is heavy with sleep and her eyes have that crusty granular compound in the corners so she runs the tap and splashes her face in an attempt to hide her recent slumber on her boss' chest and to make herself feel fresher. She smoothes the wrinkles out of her top and leans on either side of the basin, staring at her damp face.

So much has changed in the last twenty four hours, surely she should be able to see it in her reflection. Her flyaway hair clouds around her head, knotted at the ends as a result of not seeing a brush since yesterday morning. Her eyes are drooping despite her recent nap and she becomes aware of just how stressful last night was and how tired she is, right down to her core.

Next door, the door opens and Dwayne's deep rumble greets her mother. Camille looks around. On the back of the door hangs an almost threadbare yellow towel on a hook; she pulls it down and dabs her face dry before exiting the room.

Straight in front of her, Fidel is arranging some flowers, blue and violet orchids, on the bedside table. When she enters, he turns to look at her over his shoulder and moves so she can step up next to him.

"Juliet insisted. Said it would brighten the place up." Self-consciously, he tweaks one of the blooms and Camille gently bumps her shoulder against his, offering him a quirk of her lips which isn't quite a smile but is the best she can do.

"They're beautiful, Fidel. Juliet was right," Camille gazes around at the low, flat bed, the bare walls, the single chair pulled up to the bedside and sighed. "These places are so bleak."

Dwayne is standing with Catherine on the other side of the bed near the door and when he catches her eye he nods towards Richard.

"Hello Camille. So how is the chief?"

"He's been asleep all day. When the doctor came after lunch he said it was normal. He's been through a lot. Lost a lot of blood and the transfusion was a major operation. Seven millimetres to the left and..." She can't finish the sentence. A hand rises to her throat of its own accord as if to strangle the words and the thought which accompanied it. She shakes her head, her hair slapping the sides of her face with the ferocity of the action. "And you? Did you find anything out from his university friends?"

"Four friends at the villa. Angela Birkett, Roger Sadler, James Moore and his wife Sasha. They were all saying it must have been an intruder, they were together at all times, you know, the normal things," Fidel says, finally stopping his fiddling with the flowers.

"And the detective inspector was alone on the terrace," Dwayne interrupts. "All of their stories seemed to corroborate the idea that none of them had the opportunity to kill him." A slow grin spreads across the older man's face. "And then Fidel dropped the bombshell that the chief was still alive. We said that the mystery would be solved soon when he woke up. We thought it would trip up the attacker. Force a mistake."

"And?" Camille looks between her colleagues desperately.

"And James and Sasha Moore arrived at the station about an hour later. Confessed almost instantly hoping for a reduced sentence. They're in the cells at the station. Turns out Sasha Moore is not Sasha Moore but her sister. She had stolen Sasha's identity after a road traffic accident to get her hands on Sasha's money and leave her own past behind. The chief worked it out so she went on to the terrace and stabbed him with the ice pick to try and cover her deception. James helped cover it up."

"But how did Richard know?" Camille asks.

"He was in love with Sasha. The real Sasha. While cosmetic surgery fooled the rest of their friends, Richard knew it wasn't her."

"Oh." So Richard had been in love before. Maybe was still in love; that would explain his almost monastic lifestyle in the two years she had known him. A red hot hand reaches into her stomach, grasps her insides and squeezes. She can't quite hide the gasp that escapes her at the painful blow. Camille cast her mind back, pictured the woman they had thought was Sasha from the villa. Slim, a little on the short side, brunette and clearly a genius to have attended Cambridge. So that was Richard's type. And to have seen her after twenty-five years and to have known that something was off... Sasha Moore had clearly had a big impression on him.

"Hey," Dwayne reaches over and clasps onto her upper arm, jolting her out of her thoughts. "It's over." He peers into her face. "I think you could use some rest. I have to go back to the station to finish off the paperwork. Can I drop you at home?"

Camille pulls back, dislodging his hand and looks towards Richard, mouth opening to voice her objection but Catherine gets there first.

"Do not worry about him. I will stay until visiting hours are over but you need rest Camille. His attackers are behind bars. There is no more need to worry."

Catherine wraps her daughter in her arms, moving the thick dark hair away from Camille's ear to whisper, "I will look after your Richard for you."

Catherine gently pushes her daughter towards the door, which Dwayne opens to let Camille pass out in front of him.

"Are you coming Fidel?" Dwayne asks and the young sergeant shakes his head.

"No, I'm going to spend some time with the chief."

"See," Catherine says with a smile at Camille. "We have a police officer with us, Richard and I will be just fine."

"Okay. Just... Call me, Maman, if anything happens."

"I will."

"I mean it, Maman. Anything."

Back out in the corridor with Dwayne, Camille looks around her. Last night she had been too frantic to take anything in but to her surprise, unlike the dismal place of darkness and despair she'd built up in her mind, the hospital was bright and airy. At either end of the corridor, large windows let sunshine pour through, lighting up the duck egg blue walls and at regular intervals along the hallway stand large floral arrangements of every colour she can think of. But the Our Lady of Grace's Hospital is the most expensive on the island so she supposes Richard's insurance is paying for it and least he is also getting the best medical care.