Carol sighed. Truly a dreadful song. But it was what the orchestra had been playing as she left the ballroom, and it did have a regretful tendency to hang in one's head. Honestly - this was Scotland Yard's biggest fete of the year; one would think they could afford a decent musical ensemble.

She pushed open the door to the Ladies', willing the offending tune from her brain.

"But each day, when she walks to the sea
She looks straight ahead, not at me."

"Bollocks." Shaking her head, she slid into the room. "Oh, no," she whispered, taking in the scene inside.

Normally, Carol scorned emotions, and tears, and all of those things that made people call women 'the weaker sex.' If singing that blasted song hadn't kept her from hearing the woman crying from out in the hall, she would have kept on walking. But now she was here, she couldn't very well slink out - even if the woman sobbing at the sink hadn't noticed her coming in. She wasn't a monster.

As Carol debated the most diplomatic way of approaching the situation, the door snicked shut behind her, and the woman at the sink looked up, eyes wild like a cornered animal's, gaze honing in instantly on Carol, depriving her of options.

"Oh! I'm so sorry. I - ah - I - oh, forget it." The woman at the sink shook her head, and a fresh burst of tears issued forth - she'd obviously decided that whatever breakdown she was having took precedence over any possible embarrassment she was causing Carol.

Looking at her again, Carol thought she recognized this woman, though she was hard to identify, what with the raccoon-eyes and the disheveled blond hair. Tentatively, Carol extracted a tissue from her handbag and extended it towards the woman.

"Thank you," the blonde woman said, dabbing at her eyes. She took a deep breath, which seemed to fortify her. "Men," she informed Carol flatly, "are scum."

Ah, yes. The woman who came with Detective Arlette.

Carol had last seen Detective Arlette leaving the ballroom with Inspector Pippin. Three months ago, at a similar soiree, they had put five minutes between their departures, each heading out through a different door. Tonight, Pippin had crowded up behind Arlette, his hand on Arlette's ass. Arlette hadn't seemed at all interested in stopping him.

"Of course I knew it wasn't a date." The woman sniffled. Her name was right on the tip of Carol's tongue. "I share a flat with Eddie - I'd have to be deaf, blind and stupider than he is not to know what he and Monty get up to." She blew her nose loudly, while Carol tried very hard not to picture what the two men got up to. "And I'm not even interested in - well, not really. But I'm here with--" She waved her hand towards the door, words deserting her for a moment. "A woman doesn't like to be abandoned."

Resigning herself to a long voyage upon the sea of watery emotion, Carol leaned against the other sink. "Does seem a bit callow of him," she agreed.

"I hope they die!" The blonde's eyes flashed. "I hope Monty's prick gets stuck up Eddie's arse and they die like that!"

For a moment of shocked silence, they stared at each other.

The first snigger came from Carol.

By the time they recovered enough to breathe again, the blonde woman's face was streaked with tears again. So was Carol's.

"Oh, God," the woman gasped. "I've gotten them into horrible trouble, haven't I?"

"No, no, that's all right." Carol shook her head. "I'm Carol." No recognition. "Superintendent Johnson's assistant." The woman still looked blank. Carol sighed. "Detective Arlette calls me Miss Moneypenny."

"Oh! Right!" Carol sighed again. The woman nodded and held out her hand. "Fiona Bickerton." Carol shook. Fiona Bickerton's hands were very soft. "You know about Eddie and Monty, then?"

"I imagine three-quarters of Scotland Yard knows about them." Carol fished in her handbag for her compact. That was all she'd come here for, after all.

"Does anyone care?"

Carol shrugged and turned towards the mirror. "Despite Inspector Pippin's idiosyncrasies and Detective Arlette's...Americanness...they do their jobs excellently. They'll likely drive the Superintendent out of his head one day very soon, but until that time, they're free to do as they choose."

"Hmm." Fiona considered this. Then she flushed furiously scarlet. "Superintendent Johnson isn't - that is to say, is he--"

"With them?" She would not admit how many times she'd pictured that very scenario.

"What? No!" Fiona's flush deepened. "That wasn't at all what I - I mean, you don't think - really?"

Shrugging again, Carol clicked her compact shut and returned it to her bag. "I sincerely doubt it. Married to the job, do you see?"

Fiona nodded. "I do." She shoved a hand roughly through her hair, and when she was done, it had reverted to the elaborately styled perfection Carol remembered from earlier in the evening. If they had met under different circumstances, Carol thought, she would likely have hated Fiona Bickerton a great deal. Shaking her head, Fiona looked closely at Carol. "Seems rather unfair, doesn't it?"

Carol shrugged. "If such things matter to you."

"Oh." Fiona bit her lower lip. Carol looked away. "I must sound rather silly to you."

She did, a bit. There was no point denying that. But there was something else about her, too, something sharp and brittle in the ramrod slant of her spine that indicated that normally Fiona didn't give two shakes for this kind of thing. Carol thought maybe she understood.

"Detective Arlette does...get under one's skin."

Nodding in enthusiastic agreement, Fiona said, "Exactly. " She shook her head. "I don't even like him much, and he - well, he's just everywhere, isn't he?"

Carol looked around the room. "He's not here," she said mildly.

Fiona laughed softly. "No, I guess he isn't."

"The question you need to ask yourself," Carol said, feeling almost philosophical as she stared up at the ornate light fixtures, "is how much influence you'll allow him to exert over your life - even when he's not in it."

Fiona sputtered indignantly. "It's not a matter of influence," she insisted, a rather fetching blush rising on her cheeks. "I mean, he and I aren't in any way--" She impatiently huffed a wisp of hair off her forehead. "I am with Nigel, you know."

Carol didn't know. She had no idea who Nigel was and no interest in finding out. "You're not in the Ladies' sobbing over Nigel."

"A woman doesn't like to be abandoned," Fiona repeated stubbornly.

"Well, I have not abandoned you, Fiona," Carol said, straightening her shoulders. She was feeling the slightest bit chivalrous towards Detective Arlette's distressed damsel. "Even though I only came here to see to my make-up, I am not abandoning you."

Fiona smiled softly, reducing something in Carol to a gooey puddle.

"Thank you," she murmured.

Carol tilted her head towards the stall door. "So, do you fancy having a go at it?"

Fiona's eyes bulged to an almost obscene width. "Would - what?"

Carol jerked a finger at the stall. "You, me, a deserted lav - I may be a poor substitute for Detective Arlette--"

Fiona's back stiffened, and Carol forced down a triumphant smile. "All right," Fiona said, striding purposefully across the room. "Let's. But only to prove to you that I don't care about Eddie." She shoved the door open and moved into the stall, her eyes almost daring Carol to follow.

Carol followed.

Well. It had been a long time since she'd done a quickie in a toilet, but she doubted the rules had changed so much. There was just one thing--

Pulling the door shut behind her, Carol tossed her handbag onto the back of the toilet, then reached out, threaded her fingers through that too-perfect curtain of blond hair, and leaned in to nip the lips Fiona had been unconsciously nibbling the entire time they'd talked.

Fiona gasped when Carol's teeth closed on her lower lip, but she recovered quickly, drawing Carol back for a long, searing kiss that rapidly got to involving quite a lot of tongues and not nearly enough oxygen. Carol ground her hips against Fiona's, and Fiona mewled and clawed at Carol's ass, hauling her closer.

Carol pulled out of the kiss, grinning ferally. Fiona's eyes flew open, she was barely able to gasp out a strangled "What?" past her ragged panting. "What are you--" She got the idea when Carol dropped to her knees.

Gauzy skirt up, stockings and panties down, and oh, yes. Carol's grin widened, sharpened. It had been far too long. One hand cupping Fiona's ass, one curved at her hip to steady her, Carol tilted her head and began to taste. Fiona's manicured fingers scrabbled futilely for purchase against the cold marble wall, eventually twisting into Carol's hair with an unexpected ferocity that sent blood surging through Carol's body. Gasping in pleasure and shock, her teeth grazed, drawing a sharp hiss from Fiona. Carol burned to make Fiona really scream, but this was hardly the place. Instead she curved her fingers further, nails drawing across the soft flesh of Fiona's ass, and her tongue picked up its pace. Fiona yelped something incoherent and shuddered once, all over, before slumping back against the wall.

Carol rocked back on her heels and climbed to her feet, letting Fiona return herself to order. She reached out for toilet paper to clean herself up a bit, but Fiona made a low noise, like a warning growl, and Carol turned just in time to be pounced on, shoved against the opposite wall. Fiona licked at Carol's face, sucked at her lips, and Carol groaned, giving in as Fiona's deft fingers worked at the buttons of her blouse. Bending her head, her hair now tickling across Carol's stomach, Fiona bit and sucked at Carol's taut nipples through the sheer fabric of her bra. Carol barely noticed that those clever hands had moved to the buttons of her pants until cold air hit her calves and silk pooled at her feet. Now wearing a predatory smirk of her own, Fiona moved her attention to Carol's other breast and slid her fingers beneath the elastic of Carol's underwear.

Carol was in sensory overload, one hand braced against the wall, the other against Fiona's head. The fingers inside her twisted and teased; the tongue at her breasts swirled in dizzying circles. She arched forward, frozen, as the waves of pleasure crashing over her slammed down hard - blast after giddy blast of it, until she was a single nerve ending, pulsing in satisfaction.

Now it was Carol who slumped against the wall. Humming happily to herself, Fiona righted Carol's clothes, smoothing everything down to make her presentable again. Reaching out a slow hand to catch her, Carol drew Fiona into a wet, languid kiss. Fiona broke the kiss, looking very pleased with herself, and slipped out of the stall.

When Carol trusted her legs enough to follow, she picked up her handbag and left the stall. Fiona was back at the sink, frowning at her reflection as she tucked three rogue hairs back into place and wiped away the mascara that had run while she was crying. As Carol splashed water on her face, Fiona tossed the tissue into the waste basket and leaned back to survey herself critically. A bright smile broke across her face, and Carol clenched her hand around the strap of her evening bag, not knowing why.

"There," Fiona said decisively. "Much better." And, indeed, Fiona looked exactly as she had at the beginning of the night, before the abandoning, and the crying, and the fucking. Carol didn't need to see the mirror to know that she looked like a woman who'd just had sex in a public washroom - and no amount of tucking or powdering was going to fix that. Her other hand clenched into a fist, as well. Looking over at her, Fiona's smile turned suddenly shy. "Much better," she said softly. "Thank you."

Carol's fists uncurled. Something deep in her chest uncurled, too.

The strap slid from her fingers, the bag slipping to the floor. She barely noticed. "You're welcome," she said, smiling at Fiona.

In the strange silence that fell then - not awkward, exactly, but still lying uncomfortably between them - the ticking of the wall clock suddenly jarred. Fiona looked up, startled. "My goodness. Look at the time - I'd no idea we'd been here so long. We should get back, shouldn't we?" Carol regarded her closely; Fiona flushed and looked away. "Not that anyone will miss me," she babbled on, still avoiding Carol's eyes, "but Superintendent Johnson will probably - that is to say, he'll be worried for you, won't he?"

Carol chuckled. "Hardly seems likely." She rolled her shoulders and picked her bag up from the floor. "Still, I suppose it wouldn't do for us to abandon the party altogether. Looks bad for the Yard."

Fiona nodded. They stood uncertainly for a moment, then Carol turned sharply and pulled at the heavy door. Standing aside, she gestured at Fiona. "After you."

Fiona smiled and walked lightly across the room. She looked like she was floating. Carol supposed that was just the way she walked. Just inside the door, she turned, eyes bright, reaching out to touch Carol's shoulder lightly. "Thank you, Carol." A smile slid across Carol's mouth, but she had no answer to make. Fiona slipped out of the room, and Carol followed behind her.

Around the corner from the ballroom, a linen closet door popped open, spilling out a thoroughly rumpled Inspector Pippin. Fiona coiled as if to strike. Looking up, Pippin's eyes widened, and he took half a step forward, stance conciliatory, eyes softening apologetically. "Hello, Fiona," he murmured. She snorted and walked on.

Pippin turned to Carol. She held up her hand to forestall the question she saw forming in his eyes. "Inspector," she said.

He nodded. "Carol."

Detective Arlette tumbled out of the closet, bumping against Pippin. "Whoops. Sorry, Monty," he said, and Carol didn't miss that he used the moment it took to right himself as an opportunity to brush his hands against Pippin's ass. "Thought you'd be..." He waved towards the ballroom. "Up there." Pippin raised an eyebrow that said more than two minutes' rambling from Arlette, inclining his head toward Carol. Turning, Arlette broke into a sunny grin as he spotted her. "Oh, hey, Miss Moneypenny," he greeted her cheerfully. "What's the good word?"

Carol tossed her head casually. Looking him straight in the eye, she said clearly, "Cunnilingus."

He was still standing there, jaw hanging open, staring at the place she'd been standing, when she nodded briefly to Inspector Pippin, reshouldered her evening bag, and went back to the ballroom, softly humming the opening bars of "The Girl from Ipanema."