Doyle lay on the bed, head swimming from the evening's complications. In his wildest dreams, he'd never anticipated the night going this way; first his willingness to let Bodie see the letter, then the shared kiss.
*I can't afford another sleepless night,* he thought. *I'll be useless to anyone if this case breaks tomorrow.* But try as he might, he was assailed by thoughts of what had happened, what would happen. Bodie was right -- he'd been grieving over Gil's death for only a few months, not even that really. It wasn't time enough to come to decisions. Or was it?
Wasn't this what she'd tried to engineer? *I doubt she had a timeline in mind,* Doyle thought wryly. He got up off the bed, turned on a light and went to the bookcase, pulling down the one thing he'd not dared look at since he first received news of her death. It was too distressing to read the dedication, to see over and over the words that described her pain and fear. And that photograph Bodie had taken for the back cover, her face so alive, smiling.
He flipped the pages to the first paragraphs, always uncomfortable for him, remembering the helplessness he felt at not being able to protect her.
"We never count two seconds in our lives, not in the day to day collection of minutes and hours we must pass. But I imagine now all the ways in which a life can be changed by two seconds: the person crossing the street as the light changes to walk, not seeing the car speeding through the signal; the man who walks under darkened clouds, and doesn't see a lightning bolt rocketing through the air to strike him; the bullet that rips from a gun into your chest.
"Two seconds, and a life is changed forever."
Doyle thought of his own two seconds so many years ago, walking into his flat after stupidly forgetting to set the locks, only to hear the sharp whizzing of bullets hitting him in the chest. And of Gil's last two seconds. He flipped to the end of the book.
"I've learned that life is too short. It demands attention, down to the seconds. We can never know what is coming around the corner, whether it's the speeding car, the lightning -- or the bullet. We have to take what it offers us at all times, because two seconds may be really all we have."
Ray lay back down on the bed. She'd been telling him all along, he thought. Don't wait for it to come to you, because you never know. Take it. He saw her smile as though she were in the room with him. Don't wait around for me, she said. You don't know what can happen. Find love now and take whatever comes, but take it now. Life's just too damn short.
Doyle pulled the duvet up over himself and fell into sleep. He woke up at five a.m., sweating, shouting out first Gillian's name, then Bodie's. They were in a car that had exploded in flames as they pounded on the windows, screaming his name, begging him to save them. In the morning he could not remember the dream; but a feeling of extreme unease stayed with him.
Bodie picked Doyle up for the drive into work, full of cheery bonhomie, as though nothing had happened the night before. Ray decided to take his cue from his friend's behavior and fell into a casual discussion with him over the merits of carrot juice for breakfast as opposed to orange juice.
Doyle had always liked it when Bodie was extremely up and full of life. He had a childlike air about him -- childish, was what Doyle always called it -- that contrasted sharply with his own more sensitive, serious nature. Not that there wasn't much give and take between the two agents; ribbing and needling each other, making lewd jokes, playing pranks were as much a part of their relationship as covering each other's backsides in a fight.
But when push came to shove, it was usually Bodie who had the ready laugh for nearly anything, Bodie who had all the other CI5 agents doubled over with laughter merely telling them what had happened in his day, Bodie who could cheerfully crack jokes while trying to dismantle a bomb. Sometimes, Doyle thought, he was like a teenager, bouncing along on the balls of his feet, full of nervous energy, using often-misplaced humor in sticky situations.
The contradictions about his tall, handsome partner beguiled Doyle. As macho and violent as he could be kind, he was also almost courtly; at home in a tuxedo or a track suit, as comfortable at an embassy dinner as playing darts at their local, or as adept at picking a fine wine as stuffing a Swiss roll into his mouth in one bite. Nothing about Bodie fit with people's preconceptions. Doyle himself had learned that the hard way, through years of gently chipping away at the mortar of Bodie's brick wall.
Sometimes, Ray thought, the wall was as much a contradiction of Bodie's real personality as the moronic jokes and silly pranks. No, he thought, the real man is somewhere in between both worlds. He's not completely removed and detached, nor is he just wild and oafish. *And I think I'm the only one who knows that,* Doyle thought with a shock of recognition.
They pulled up at the anonymous office once more, and as he sat musing over the mystery of his partner, the indigo eyes suddenly flashed his way and Bodie smiled, then gave a wink. A brief, safe reminder of yesterday.
Inside, piles of computer reports, police reports, phone messages awaited them. They both wilted. "Well, might as well get started. Got a mad bomber to catch," Bodie said in jaunty tones.
But to their surprise, they had it in hand fairly shortly. A whistle escaped Doyle's lips, and he handed a group of papers to Bodie. "Looks like we have a winner," he said.
Bodie read the copies of letters to two victims, each given to their local police precincts. They were from a group called Parents Against Sexual Predators, and were involved in attempts at changing laws about sexual predators. It seemed they had an uphill battle. One signature in particular appeared on a number of the letters the group had written to newspapers, prosecutors, and judges. Another piece of paper was an angry letter to the chief prosecutor, written by only one man, whose signature appeared on all the others. All signed by the same man, all similarly indicating that soon people would have to wake up and realize what was happening to this world of defenseless children, and that weak-willed legal representatives would be sorry.
"See what you can find on this bloke," Bodie said to Doyle, who called down to computer records. When the information was returned, Doyle looked at Bodie with arched eyebrows and gave him a thumbs-up signal.
Both agents sprinted for Cowley's office. Bodie, always the fairhaired boy in Cowley's world, handed the paper to the older man. "I'd say we don't just have a link here sir. I'd say we have a suspect. And look at this." He handed Cowley another report, a computer sheet. "He's an engineer, electrical engineer. Used to work for Philips, until almost three years ago. When his son disappeared. The kid was found five months later in a stream, sans clothing, molested and strangled. Everything fit the M.O. of one Lester Price, then recently released from Her Majesty's care. Looks like as soon as he got out he did it again."
Cowley looked up at the two. "Aye...I remember that one. A tragic story." He looked over the information.
"And get this," Bodie said. "He's a black powder gun collector. Have a lot of caps with those, you'd think."
"I want you two, McCabe, Lucas, Murphy, up there now. I think you should bring our Mr. Long in for a chat."
They drove outside the city toward Long's suburban home. Doyle could not shake the sense that this was all happening too fast. "I mean, what do we know about him? We haven't looked into anything yet, we're just all heading up there like the bleedin' Seventh Cavalry and he could be a few steps ahead of us already. We know he's pretty clever. I dunno." He shook his head. "I just have a bad feelin' about this."
"Look, Butch Cassidy, we have to at least check this out. What do you want us to do, ring him up and ask him to come down?"
"No, it's just that...I just have a bad feeling, that's all." *Two seconds.* The words sped through his mind for a moment but he shook it aside.
Bodie shrugged and then commented, "I know you like to think you've got the gift of sight, Ray, but we're pretty well armed here, we're fairly clever too, and I think things'll be okay. Don't let's worry, or you'll just get in a muddle." He motioned to the back seat. "I'm hungry, would you hand me one of those chocolate thingies?"
Doyle scrunched his face up and scowled at Bodie. "You'd eat in the middle of the bloody apocalypse, you would."
"Would have to. Got to keep your strength up if you'll be arguin' with God about whether he should let you in or not."
"Charmin'," Doyle countered in aggrieved tones.
They came to the address, a nice country home, surrounded by hedgerows. It kept the house fairly secluded, the only entrance a treelined drive. Doyle did not like the narrow entry. "Looks like someone had money in the family. Wasn't he married, before? Wonder if she's the one with the bread." He peered towards the house. "He could easily see us from here, be watching if he's home."
"We'll know soon enough, eh?" Bodie flipped the concern back to him.
"We're dealing with a bomber here, Bodie. Remember that," Doyle said sharply.
The two cars pulled up, Bodie and Doyle getting out first, slowly surveying the grounds; Murphy, Lucas and McCabe then exited their car. Doyle motioned for them to move around toward the back of the house.
There was a motor in the garage, Doyle noticed. *I bet he's home. I bet he's just watching and waiting to see what we're on about.* As Bodie moved towards the front door, Doyle saw a flicker of light off to the side of the garage. Then an engine started, and as Doyle quickly drew his gun he suddenly thought: *he's making a getaway.*
Why the thought occurred to him, he couldn't pinpoint, even later. But as the car skidded out of the garage onto the gravel drive, he knew they'd walked into a trap. He knew Bodie was in danger -- only he didn't know why, or how.
Immediately, Doyle sprang towards the house, screaming, "Bodie! Get outta there!"
Bodie turned towards him, a hand outstretched towards the door. He saw the panic in Ray's face and stepped a few steps away from the doorway, but it was too late. The entire front of the house abruptly exploded in black fragments, Bodie blown backwards. It was as though the whole thing happened in freeze frame, each terrifying second drawn out for minutes at a time. Doyle could hear nothing, no sound, no blast, just the thudding of blood in his ears.
He could only step slowly, tentatively toward Bodie, lying covered in blood, shards of glass and wood, one arm stretched up and outward, the other pinned helplessly under his back. Not Bodie, not now....
Murphy had now jumped in their car, taking off in pursuit of Long. Lucas screamed at him, "Get an ambulance!" Doyle brushed glass and wood off Bodie's body, wiping blood away from his face. *Oh my God,* Ray thought. *His eyes.* The eyelid was nearly torn off one eye, the other shut and smothered in blood. He felt for a pulse at the neck. Lucas and McCabe bent over Doyle, anxious. "Well?" Lucas barked, startling Doyle with the sudden sound. Bodie's leg was bent back under him.
"He has a pulse." He felt gently along Bodie's chest and legs, searching for fragments that could have pierced him. Hesitant to lift his comrade, he gently turned him so that he could run hands along the body to see if there were anything there. He pulled a twoinch long shard of glass from under Bodie's left shoulder, then kept him in his arms, trying to clutch his motionless body to him. Lucas grabbed at Doyle's arm, shouting at him.
"Put him down, don't move him!" He tried to lower Bodie to the ground but Doyle would not let go. "Doyle! Will you let go of him! You're not doing him any favors like this, he needs to lie still." Again he grabbed but Doyle would not let him. This time McCabe clutched at Doyle's arms, taking him in a shoulder lock, and Lucas took Bodie and lowered him gently to the ground.
Doyle started kicking and fighting with McCabe, until Lucas grabbed him as well. Ray kept trying to pinwheel his arms at them, but they held him until he finally seemed to calm down. "Doyle, get off him! You're only going to make things worse if you keep manhandling him!" Lucas shouted in his face, until Doyle began to realize what they were saying.
He dropped to his knees beside Bodie and stared at the bloody pulp his friend had become. *God, not again.*
Neither aware nor caring that the other CI5 agents were there, Doyle took Bodie's hand and caressed it gently. "Oh Bodie love, you did it this time. Don't you dare die on me! Don't you dare. You just hang on, okay mate? Just hang on." He did not notice the tears spilling off his own cheeks and dropping upon Bodie's face, mingling with the blood.
"It looks very bad," the doctor was saying to Cowley and Doyle. "I feel I must be honest with you. He has massive internal bleeding, lacerations and contusions too numerous to count, his left arm is shattered just above the wrist, his left fibula has a compound fracture and the ACL -- anterior cruciate ligament -- of that knee is torn away, and he has an extremely bad concussion. But there are two things that worry me most." He searched the controller's face for signs of whether he should go on. Cowley nodded gravely.
"His right eye was damaged. We've managed, I think, to safely repair it but what it will do to his vision right now is anyone's guess. Worst of all though is that he has a lacerated liver and his spleen isn't much better. I cannot tell you how dangerous this is. The next forty-eight hours will be crucial to his survival. There isn't a lot you can do for damage to the liver. It's like...a wet tissue. The more you try to repair it, the more it tends to just...shred."
Doyle rolled his head back and forth on his shoulders, like a wounded animal. "Ah God. This just can't be happening." The weariness of a few days without much sleep would have overwhelmed him anyway, but now he looked as though he were near death himself. Eyes were sunk into black sockets, stubble darkened his chin, and his hair flew wildly around his yellowed face.
"Thank you, Doctor," Cowley said in his most diplomatic tones.
The doctor tried a smile on for size. "One thing. Does he have anyone... special or important to him? I think right now it would be a good idea for him to hear friendly voices. He's very much unconscious but... we do believe patients can be helped by hearing their loved ones or friends."
Cowley looked at Doyle with a paternal gaze.
"That would be me," Doyle said. He met Cowley's penetrating stare head on.
"I don't recommend visiting too much," the doctor said, staring at Doyle's blood-soaked shirt and ashen face, "but do go in often, say some positive things to him. I'd say, in about an hour you can go in, if everything's clear." He looked at his watch, nodded, then briskly walked away.
Doyle sat down heavily on the chair behind him. Cowley joined him, leaning his elbows on his knees. Eventually he glanced at the younger man beside him.
"It's not your fault." He had come to know Doyle very well in their years together, and while he felt more paternal toward Bodie, the older man greatly admired Doyle's courage and caring in life. He was a thinker, much like Cowley, but also much more sentimental.
"I know." But Doyle was shaking his head. "But I had such a bad feeling about the whole thing. Why couldn't I have stopped him in time?"
"You couldn't, none of us could. Just thank God we got the lunatic who did this to Bodie."
Ray looked at Cowley. He hadn't even been aware of what happened after the explosion. Cowley nodded. "Murphy chased him down. He wasn't hard to catch, he may be clever with bombs but he's not too smart about anything else. Forensics say the house was like a mini bomb factory. Stuff everywhere, newspaper clippings about such cases, lists of potential targets. It would be nearly impossible not to convict him. The door was rigged to explode with a kitchen timer. I think as soon as he saw you coming he set it for a few minutes and ran, hoping to give himself some time to get away. Whether anyone was there or not wasn't a concern."
Doyle put his face in his hands. Cowley moved a hand up to Doyle's shoulder, squeezed it for a moment.
"I've been spending too much time in this situation." He looked over at Cowley, his green eyes full of tears. "My shooting, then Gil's being hit. Now her death. And what will be the aftermath of this? Am I going to be at another funeral? I don't think I can take this, sir. I really don't know how much more of this I can take." His voice broke on the last word and his chest heaved with a quivering, deep breath.
The older man rested his hand on Doyle's shoulder. He spoke in a voice kinder, softer than any Doyle had ever heard from him.
"Have you ever thought why I consider you my top team? Why I teamed you two together?" Doyle shook his head, but did not look at him. "I have enormous respect for you both, even though I often think you're thick-headed and irresponsible. Which is what sons are like to a father. You're often proud of them one moment, furious with them the next." Doyle looked at him with something approaching shock.
"Oh, aye, I send you on the most dangerous stunts, I bark at you, but it's because I have higher expectations of you than any other agents. Your wife called me out on that, I might point out. 'The sons you never had,' she said, and she was more than a bit right."
The older man looked away down the hall, sighed heavily. "I'm not sure, sometimes, how much more I myself can take. I've lost a fair number of agents in these years since I began CI5. I've grieved over each one. But I confess, none as I've grieved over you two. You frightened me quite a bit once, now it looks like Master Bodie is having his turn." He ran a hand through his sandy hair. "Each time I think, as well, that I can't take any more. I think I do die a little when something like this happens. I've hardened myself to this life because I believe in what I do, but it doesn't make the loss of some young man or woman with a strong future any easier."
The two sat staring at the floor for some time before Doyle spoke. "I can't lose him, not now. I can't lose another one."
"I think Bodie will live. He has a lot to live for." The controller looked at Doyle, a world of knowledge in his eyes. The younger agent looked back at him for some time.
"You think he's living for me?"
"I believe...a great many things are important to Bodie. You, most of all." The complete idea was there on Cowley's face. Doyle read it and acknowledged it.
"This doesn't bother you? It doesn't offend you, or some CI5 rule, that two agents might be..." He trailed off, not sure of the thought himself, what exactly his relationship was with Bodie.
"Och, man, I've told you before. I've spent my life fighting bigotry of one kind or another. Why should Bodie's feelings for you make that any different?"
He felt as though he should be troubled by having this conversation with Cowley, a little like talking about sex with your parents. Yet, the old man seemed to be on friendlier terms with him now than in their entire history. And it didn't surprise him nearly as much as he might have thought, to think Cowley had twigged Bodie's feelings long before he himself had. Not much got past the old man. "But..."
"But. One of the most important men I've ever known in my life, my uncle, died at his own hand because he couldn't fit in with what society expected of him, what the military demanded of him. What matters to me is what's inside the person. Do you think that Bodie would be the only person in CI5 with such...tendencies? Don't be daft."
Doyle stared at him in awe, his jaw dropped slightly.
"And close your mouth, man, you look as though someone hit you on the head."
"Gillian always said you were full of surprises and that someday I'd learn to appreciate you."
"A very astute woman, your wife." He smiled, then, the old devilish Cowley coming back to life.
"I don't know what's going to happen, so maybe it's speculation anyway, sir."
"Right now the important thing is to get Bodie well and on his feet again. Whatever happens after that, it's not important now. I want you to know. You've probably given some thought to what you'd do if you got...too old...for street jobs. Whatever happens to Bodie in his recovery, whatever happens in the next few years in fact, you will always have a place in my organization."
Doyle felt his heart twist in his chest, a knot of emotion tying it tighter and tighter. "Thank you, sir," he said hoarsely.
"And if you ever repeat a word of this conversation to Bodie or anyone else, I'll deny it ever happened," the old man said menacingly, then winked at Doyle. "Go home right now, get cleaned up, before you come back here. Then you'll need some rest. You'll do no one good if you're a mess. If anything happens, the doctor will call us."
Doyle returned to the hospital somewhat cleaner, but more haggard-looking than ever. As he walked into the room, the nurse watching Bodie looked up, then walked silently out of the room. He was glad not to have conversation.
A gasp escaped his lips as he looked at Bodie's face in the now dark room. His head was almost completely covered in bandages, the eyes swathed heavily, the scalp hidden beneath layers of gauze so there was no sign of Bodie's dark hair. The undamaged arm lay above the blanket, and Doyle sat down on the chair, then took Bodie's hand and stroked it gently, keeping away from the IV needle inserted there.
Within a few moments the doctor was standing behind him. Doyle didn't look up.
"Don't be too shocked by the bandages on the eyes. It's better to keep them both closed for now. I'm assuming vision is important in his line of work. This way one eye won't overcompensate for the other as it tries to heal. We'll see how it goes in a few days if he...when he regains consciousness."
Doyle merely nodded silently. "Thanks. If I'm here I'll try to explain that to him when he wakes up. I'm afraid he might panic a little."
The doctor made a noise of agreement. "Your Mr. Cowley is having a chat with the specialists who handled the surgeries. He can probably tell you more tomorrow." Then he went out, and Doyle was left with the bleeping of the machines and the soft, labored breathing of his partner.
A few moments later he was aware of an imposing presence behind him. He turned slightly to see Murphy out of his peripheral vision. "What's the verdict?" he asked in his quiet voice.
"It's a mess, Murph. His eye's all torn up, he has lacerations in his internal organs, for chrissakes, he has a shattered wrist, a broken leg, torn tendon in his knee, concussion. I didn't even think to ask about his ribs or anything else, it seemed like such a laundry list. How can he get through this?" he asked in a weak, far away voice.
"He's the toughest man I know. He'll get through it. After all, he got through all the things that happened in Africa, he can get through this."
Doyle looked at him in puzzlement. "What things in Africa?" Bodie was always vague whenever Doyle asked about his mercenary and gun-running days.
"Got pretty beat up in jail in the Congo. Fairly bad -- more like torture, really. Got shot in Dakar, left for dead in an alley. Has nine lives, I sometimes think. If you get him in the mood, and a little pissed, he'll tell you. Sometimes it's hard to sort out what's real and what's not, but the way he talks about those things, I'd warrant you they're real." Doyle could only smile that there were still things about Bodie he didn't know. More to explore later, he hoped.
"Thanks for getting the bastard who did this, Murph. Thanks for coming by. It means a lot to me."
Murphy squeezed Doyle's shoulder with large, strong fingers. "Check in on you later. He'll be okay. He wouldn't leave you when you were shot; I know he won't leave you now."
He'd better not, Doyle thought. *Don't you dare go on me. I have so much for you to live for.*
In his dream, Bodie was standing in a dark tunnel, no sign of light, wall, even ground, in sight. Everything seemed covered in dark, heavy fog. His body ached everywhere. Where am I? he thought, becoming slightly panicked. What can this be?
He tried to walk forward, his leg almost buckling underneath him. Where's Doyle? I need some help here, might be injured.
Suddenly he heard a voice. "Bodie!" it shouted.
A woman's voice. He tried to find the direction, looking around wildly, but saw nothing. Then a light, far away from him. A figure in the light. But the light was behind it, and he couldn't see a face. It was coming closer. A woman's shape. A hand waved towards him, high, frantically.
"Oh, Bodie! It's you!" Gillian. It had to be.
"Gil?" He tried to step forward again but found himself rooted to...what? There was no ground that he could see or feel. She was coming closer, but he still could not see her face, the light from behind was so bright, outlining her in beams shooting every which way.
She ran towards him now, then abruptly stopped. "Oh Bodie...you're not supposed to be here." She sounded sad, mournful.
"Where is here? What is this place? This doesn't make any sense." He clutched at his arm, now throbbing with pain.
"Bodie love, you have to go back. It's not your time. You're not supposed to be here. I'm sorry. But you have to go back."
"Gil, I don't understand. What's going on? Am I dead?" The pain in his body was increasing hideously. The light behind her was fading.
"Love, trust me. You have to go back. For everyone. For Ray. You can't stay here." Then he felt himself sucked backwards, as though by a riptide in water. He was smothering, trying to call out for her. "Gillian..." But the light was gone, the air was gone, and he was in darkness.
At once he woke and could see. They were in a hospital. She stood at his bedside, a smile on her lips, sunset from the window glinting off raven hair. A finger to her lips, silencing him. "You'll be all right now, you're back where you're supposed to be. Just rest. You've got a ways to go." He felt his eyes growing heavy and the room was darkening quickly. Her voice feathered across his ears. "Just go to sleep. It will be all right." A light touch on his forehead. "I love you." And then sleep.
"I think you underestimate the amount of trouble you're in," Cowley was saying to the unmanageable suspect, sitting at a table in the dark basement of CI5 headquarters. "You see, the police don't even know right now where you are and what you are doing. They think we're still searching for you." His voice was thick with feigned kindness and understanding. "You haven't been cautioned, and you haven't seen a solicitor yet because...they don't know where you are."
Long merely stared at the table. He ignored completely the shadowy figure standing in the doorway.
"But you see, not only have you successfully killed a number of people you deemed...unfit...for existence, but you severely injured one of my best men. I don't take kindly to that, not at all. And neither, I daresay, does his partner." He turned in Doyle's direction and the younger man stepped out from the shadow. "But perhaps I will let him explain that to you. Then, maybe, you'll see fit to tell me who you mailed the last parcel to before we came to your house."
Long neither looked up nor acknowledged Cowley had left the room. But in a blur of movement, he was forced to pay attention as Doyle grabbed him by the throat, slammed him up against the wall, and shouted into his shocked face. "You bastard!" he screamed. "You nearly killed my partner! I don't give a damn about your personal reasons or your vendettas or your grief. D'you think that gives you the right to kill innocent people? Bodie might be blind because of you!"
Long had not paid attention to the man until now, but it took him only seconds to realize this was a more dangerous man than he could have anticipated. He had not expected to get caught. He had expected...what? To leave the country? Now the police were beginning to look safe at this point, he thought.
Doyle slammed the smaller, stockier man repeatedly against the wall. "You'll tell me where that parcel is going or so help me, I'll make you hurt so bad you'll have to die to feel better. I will not let you do this to another person!"
In a moment of lucidity, Long realized his actions recently hadn't always been clear, or seemed sane. But he was a paragon compared to the madman standing half an inch away from him. Choking against the hand around his throat, he nodded, tried to tell the crazed green eyes staring at him that he would talk. It took an eternity for the man to ease his grip. Long collapsed on the floor, gasping for air.
Doyle stood above him and kicked him hard, shoving him into the wall with the flat of his foot. "Now you will tell me everything," he said in slow, measured tones, "and when we're done here, maybe, just maybe, there will still be enough of you left for the police to haul away."
Cowley did not ask how Doyle got the information, he cared only that he had a name and address. He called all available agents and the bomb squad to action, hoping to intercept the parcel before it arrived in its victim's hands.
He peered at Doyle from beneath his thick glasses. "Well? Is there something more?"
"Nothing, sir. Just not sure...not sure I liked myself very much in there. I wanted to kill him with my bare hands." He shook his head.
"Emotional involvement." Cowley did not add anything, merely looked at Doyle with one of his patented all-knowing, all-seeing looks.
"Yes sir. I was thinking of Gillian, too. Not just Bodie. So much violence. Both of them doing something they believed in but...completely destroyed for their trouble. What if Bodie is never the same again? He'd die if he had to live an ordinary life."
"What we do does make a difference. I won't say we're not just as bad sometimes, but I do believe the job we do makes it somewhat better odds for most people that they won't be touched by that violence. Now, don't you have a hospital visit on your schedule?" And he was gone, moving briskly through the corridors.
He woke to stifling darkness, trying to open eyes that would not. A warm hand was gripping his. He began to flail about in the bed, wanting to uncover his eyes. The pain in his head was unreal.
"Shh," someone murmured.
"Who-- " he tried to speak but his words were choked off, his throat dry and cracked.
A hand stroked his cheek. "One who loves you."
He lay back in the bed, suddenly calmed. A few seconds passed, then he whispered frantically, "Ray?"
"Only me, Sunshine. Shh. You need to rest."
Again he jolted, trying to sit upright. Doyle's hands gently pushed back on him. "I can't see! I'm-- "
"You're all right, Bodie. You're not blind. You had some damage to one of your eyes. They're both closed to help the damaged one. Gonna have a sexy scar on that eye but it'll be okay." He hoped the doubt in his own voice wasn't betraying him.
"What happened?" Bodie ran a dry tongue over his cracked, white lips but it didn't help. Every part of his body throbbed with pain.
"I'll tell you everything, love, but you have to promise me that you won't talk or move any more." Bodie squeezed his hand gently to acknowledge his submission.
And Doyle stayed with Bodie, telling what had happened, speaking soothing words, comforting him until Bodie finally drifted back to sleep. At first afraid to go home, he was finally ordered there by Cowley, who extracted a promise that he would at least attempt to sleep for the night. It had been three days, with Doyle catching catnaps on the empty bed or a chair, and now that it looked like Bodie would come through it, Cowley wanted this agent at least partially presentable and fully awake.
Murphy appeared in the doorway as Doyle fussed over leaving Bodie. He leaned casually against the door, a pose that was as much Murphy as his dark Irish good looks. He smiled laconically at Doyle, and jerked a thumb toward the hall. "I'll hang in here with him, if it makes you feel better. Someone to watch over him, and all."
"Thanks, Murph. I guess I should rest. It's just that...well, I feel like I might be the thing that keeps him going. It's been sort of touch and go."
"So I hear. But Bodie's a fighter, I told you that. He won't let go. He's already been through an awful lot, he can fight this. Besides, like you said, he's got a lot to live for."
Doyle looked up at the tall man, puzzled. "What d'you mean?"
"Ray, it's no secret he's absolutely devoted to you. I've teased him quite unmercifully about it lately, before you came back to work. He'd walk to the ends of the earth and back for you. I don't think he's gonna die now."
Doyle did not even have the energy to argue about it, or deny anything. This was becoming all too labyrinthine for him, everyone seeming to know something about someone else, and he the last to figure it out. He patted Murphy's solid shoulder. "Keep an eye on him. I think he's having bad dreams. It's helping that he can't see when he wakes up -- maybe because he can't see how messed up he is, but he shouldn't wake much more tonight. He's pretty well knocked out."
Murphy squeezed his tense shoulder, gently, and Doyle looked up at him again with bleary, bloodshot eyes. "Don't be back soon. You really need to rest." He gave Ray the gentlest, most concerned look Doyle had ever seen from him. Murphy usually distanced himself from others through his humor and casual attitude, which Doyle knew belied an intense personality and a fierce dedication to people he cared about. Not much fazed Murphy, but when he felt something, he felt it strongly.
Bodie drifted in and out of sleep, often waking when the nurse came to adjust some tube or other or poke him with a needle. He was not aware that Murphy was beside him, thinking the presence he felt was Doyle. Could he really have heard what he thought he'd heard? Did Ray really say, "One who loves you"? *Was he really holding my hand, stroking it?*
Through his pain it made the cracked white lips curl in a slight smile, and he could drift back to sleep, thinking of the words he'd waited years to hear and yet never dared hope for.
Doyle paced nervously back and forth across the small room. He'd already put in about half a mile's worth of walking just in that room alone.
A dry, quavering voice came from behind him. "You're pacing again." Ray turned instantly on his heels to see Bodie smiling slightly. Bodie brought a bandaged hand up to his forehead. "Ooohhh. That hurts."
Doyle chuckled slightly. "Well, you're getting better, aren't you?"
Bodie's heart leapt in his chest. "Knew it was you." He reached the hand out into the air, making circles, trying to find Ray's hand. Doyle clasped it and squeezed.
"Right here, Bodie." His voice was gentle, strong. Bodie visibly relaxed in his presence. "How are you doing today? I see they took the oxygen tube away."
"I'm...all right. I hurt a lot, a lot more than I would've thought. This morphine keeps me pretty doped up, though, eh?" He noticed that Doyle was not letting go his hand, and that was just fine with him.
"I'll be here with you as much as I can."
"How many days has it been, anyway? No one seems to want to tell me how long I've been out."
"Only five days, this is the fifth. You're doing great, considering." He smiled but realized, *Bodie can't see that.* His heart sank. He did not want to contribute to Bodie's anxiety but he was terrified that his partner might completely lose the sight in his damaged eye, despite the doctor's encouragement.
"What about Long?" Even in pain and half asleep, Bodie could no more forget about acting the agent than Doyle could.
"Apparently he sent another parcel out before we...before we got him. Cowley was having a little trouble getting him to chat friendly-like until I had a brief conference with the nutter. Got it before it was too late -- barely."
"Must have been some conference." A brief smile played across Bodie's scabbed lips, and his head listed slightly to the side. Doyle remained silent until he could tell by the other man's breathing that he had fallen asleep. Just then a nurse came in; smiling shyly at Doyle, she took Bodie's hand away from him and took his pulse. After checking other things in the room, she gave another shy smile to Doyle, wrote some things on a chart by Bodie's bed, and left the room.
Bodie would wake off and on throughout the rest of the day and night, starting each time, then calming upon finding Ray there. When he would drift off to sleep again, Doyle found his eyes wet with tears each time. "I don't want to lose you, Bodie," he said at one point, thinking Bodie was asleep.
"Don't want to be lost," Bodie had murmured back, squeezing Ray's hand as tight as his damaged body would let him.
Doyle had stroked the soft, slightly bruised skin of Bodie's cheek and let him fall into his healing sleep.
Bodie dreamt of explosions. Body twitching, he kept murmuring something like "No, stay away," although his dry cracked lips seemed stuck together and the sounds were trapped behind his mouth. Ray, exhausted from being up the past few days, slept through the spasming.
"You're sitting up!" Doyle said as he entered the hospital room laden with tapes for a portable cassette player.
"Well, I don't know that I'd call it sitting," Bodie responded. He was getting some color back in his face, what wasn't bandaged at least.
"I'm impressed. Every time I turn my back you make progress."
"The doctor was talking about taking the bandages off the eyes." Bodie's voice sounded weary and full of trepidation.
"You don't sound so sure." Doyle neatly stacked the tapes on the stand next to Bodie's bed.
"Well...it still hurts a lot. I'm not sure it's a good idea, if they still hurt this much."
Doyle recognized that tone. It was Bodie's defensive reflexes in high gear. He had doubts about what would happen when the bandages came off but he was damned if he'd let on he was afraid. It was difficult for Doyle to tread the line between pushing Bodie into one of his black rages or holding back and letting Bodie dive into something he'd regret.
"If the doctors are saying it's time, shouldn't you trust them to know what they're talking about?"
The conversation was interrupted by a visit from Cowley, who stood for awhile chatting amiably with Bodie until he motioned for Doyle to follow him out as he left.
"How is he really doing?" Cowley asked with grave concern.
Doyle shrugged. "As well as can be expected. I think he's afraid right now of getting the bandages off his eyes. It's taking all his energy just to talk, to sit up like this, and I hate seeing him waste more strength worrying about all this. I really think he thinks he's going to be blind, or at least have damaged sight, and then be cashiered right out of the squad."
"Och, well, there's no need for that," Cowley said in his best avuncular tones. "Is that something I should stress to him right now?" The older man looked back into the room. "I agree with you, he needs all his energy to get well. He's still in very bad shape."
Doyle turned his hands palm up and shrugged again. "Well, in any event, he's asleep now. Maybe we can worry about it tomorrow; they weren't going to do anything until then."
Cowley patted Ray's shoulder a few times and then took his glasses off, stuffing them in a pocket of his impeccable suit. "Well, we can discuss it tomorrow then." He gave a sharp, military style nod and was off. Doyle stood outside the door to Bodie's room and stared inside, searching for the strength to help his friend find the courage he would need.
He walked quietly back in and smoothed the pillows under Bodie's back, trying to ease him into a more comfortable sleeping position. It was difficult with the bandages and casts to move him, and Doyle eventually gave up, pulling the chair up next to the bed so he could rest his head on his arms, while he watched Bodie sleep.
Bodie was twitching and breathing heavily. He was dreaming.
Bodie was on a sunny beach and he was walking in the sand. Everything was bright, blurred white as though he were staring into the sun. She was there again, standing on the beach. Her feet were bare, the water washing around them as it ebbed and flowed on the sand. She held her arms across her chest, the loose sweater and the long, flowing flowered skirt she wore floating out behind her in the breeze. He could taste salt air.
"Gil?"
She stared out at the ocean, then slowly turned towards him, smiling gently. She didn't speak this time.
"Is that you? What are you doing here?" Suddenly there was a flash of bright light, then blackness. He grew dizzy before his sight returned to him. He shielded his eyes with his arm, then looked at her.
She was facing him, her hands held out. In them were blood-soaked bandages. He jumped backwards. She smiled at him, then slowly let her hands fall towards the ground, the bandages dropping at her feet, into the water. The tide pulled them away. Bodie watched them go, then looked back to Gillian. She covered her eyes with her hands, then took them away, smiling the whole time. He grew dizzy again and then everything went black.
Doyle jumped almost out of the chair as Bodie came awake, his voice catching in his throat and his body twitching violently. He clutched at the air until Doyle managed to shake the sleep out of his own head and grab at Bodie's violently grasping hand.
"It's okay, Bodie, it's okay. I'm right here." He soothed with soft meaningless sounds until Bodie drifted back into sleep. Doyle did not let go his hand for the rest of the night, even as he himself fell asleep leaning on the bed.
Later, in the earliest hours of the morning, Bodie dreamt the same thing again. This time as she held the bandages toward him, he could hear Doyle's voice behind him. "Time's short, mate." A whispering, but he knew it was Doyle. The bandages grew bloodier still before she dropped them.
He woke, jerking violently, covered in sweat. "Jesus Christ!" he swore, waking Doyle, who clutched at him, trying to hold him down. Bodie flung an arm up and over his eyes, as though fighting a vision. "Jesus!" He finally seemed to be fully awake, as Doyle whispered soothing nonsense words. "What is it Bodie, what are you dreaming?"
Still groggy, Bodie could only shake his head. "Just a bad dream."
"Are you dreaming about the explosion?" He stroked Bodie's head, around the shaved skull, over the bandages. It killed him to see his partner so mangled.
"No...just a bad dream. Have to check with Mr. Jung...find out what it means." He tried to joke, but the pain was intense, he felt queasy with sharp, stabbing pains all round his abdomen. They'd warned him it could be like this, but he still wasn't prepared. Doyle was mopping sweat from his face, neck, and shoulders. One thing about being bandaged up, he couldn't cry, which was what he wanted to do very much right now. *Go away Gillian, go away,* he said to himself, over and over, as though if he made it an incantation it would happen. *Just please go away.* "A very weird dream." He muttered a few times before finally falling asleep again, full of fear about what he'd see this time. He did not want to sleep. He wanted only to stay awake and be comforted by Ray's warm presence, but he couldn't keep awake no matter how much he tried. Here at least there was Ray; in the darkness of sleep it was the voices of the dead and the dying.
In the morning Bodie woke first to feel someone's weight against his good arm. It took him a few moments to realize it wasn't another nurse performing a test of some kind or a doctor poking him. As he moved his arm, he realized it was Ray's head resting against his forearm. Doyle was instantly awake, squeezing Bodie's hand tighter than ever.
" 'S okay. Just me."
"Morning, Sunshine. Stayed here all night?" Doyle brought the cup of water close to Bodie's mouth, helping him find the straw to sip from.
"Yeah. Got a terrible kink in my neck now, though," he said, rubbing his shoulders for show. "How are you feeling today?" He watched for a sign to see if Bodie would acknowledge the terror of his dreams first.
"Oh, it's hard to tell," Bodie said casually, but Doyle could tell there was still tension in his partner's voice. "I was thinking. Maybe I will get those bandages off today. If that's still the plan."
"What changed your mind?"
Bodie paused for a very long time, long enough that Doyle almost thought he wasn't going to answer. "Just thinking that maybe it's time to see what future awaits me. I want to see that lovely face, too."
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Doyle said, patting his good arm. "I'm going to go home, have a shower and shave, then I'll be back and we'll see if they still want to do it." He would not push Bodie to see if the dreams had anything to do with his change of mind. Had Bodie dreamt terrifying things because he couldn't see, and did that make them even more frightening, because he couldn't tell if it was night or day, if he were alone or with a friend? Or was he dreaming about losing his sight?
A few hours later Doyle was back. Bodie could hear Doyle discussing things with the doctors in the hallway. They came in shortly, one on each side of him.
Bodie was exceptionally tired, but he focused all his energy on sitting up and getting through this. He knew that as much as he might want, and as much strength as he needed from it, Doyle would never, in the presence of so many strangers, grasp his hand. He left it lying on top of the bedcovers, nevertheless, and was shocked as the eye surgeon began talking to him, to feel Doyle's familiar elegant, smooth hands take hold of his fingers and curl them through his.
"...and we may find that once the swelling is lessened you should have normal vision. At least, I'm quite hopeful about this, Mr. Bodie."
Bodie realized he hadn't heard a word, so strongly was he enveloped by the warmth pouring from Doyle beside him, like being wrapped up in a warm, cozy blanket.
The nurse brought in a small basin and some implements. Slowly, the doctor began cutting Bodie's bandages away. Doyle gasped in a breath as he saw the extent of the bruising and swelling. He'd seen Bodie banged up and then some throughout their partnership together, but nothing like this. Bodie's forehead and the area around his brows was a pulpy-looking purple and black, with numerous red lines of cuts healing slowly.
"So bad it's breathtaking, eh?" Bodie joked, then squeezed Doyle's hand.
"Sorry, mate," Doyle answered sheepishly as the doctor cut away the last of the bandage. The two doctors stood looking at Bodie's eyes, silently; Bodie kept them shut for fear of what the silence meant. Doyle was queasy with looking at the greasy gel all over the mangled flesh around Bodie's once-beautiful eyes.
"I might suggest you open them, Mr. Bodie," the doctor prodded gently. Bodie heaved a sigh and then prised one, then the other eye open. The damaged one was hideously swollen, and only a tiny slit of deep, dark blue and very bloodshot white showed through the mass of flesh, accented by the stitches of the black thread. The other, slightly bruised, as though Bodie had only been punched in the cheek, followed, and Bodie looked towards Doyle first.
"I can...see Doyle pretty clearly." His voice sounded surprised, but his face remained emotionless. He then looked towards the doctors and nurse, squinting at the brighter lights behind them. "I can see you, but the light makes things...blurry." This lent a note of worry to his voice.
"That's just fine, that's just as it should be for right now. All in all, I'd say you were doing quite well. What I think we'll do now is let things take their natural course and just keep testing your vision throughout the next few days. At least now you can watch the football match on television," the doctor said cheerfully. "We'll check back later this evening, Mr. Bodie."
"Thanks, doctor," Doyle said with heartfelt gratitude. He felt such a load off his shoulders, knowing that Bodie would be okay, that he would not be taken away from Doyle because he could no longer operate as a CI5 agent. Doyle knew he did not want to leave CI5, not just yet, but the idea of staying there without Bodie was a completely foreign idea to him. CI5 simply didn't exist for him without Bodie.
"Looks like you're still stuck with your job, Sunshine," Doyle smirked at him. "Can't get out of it if your eyesight's not shot, eh?"
Bodie turned towards Doyle again as the staff left the room. He was so very tired, and glad now that he could let some of the defenses down in front of one person. "It looks pretty bad, though, dun'it?" His tone was strained, anxious.
"You're a bloody mess, yeah," Doyle said, trying to be jaunty and failing miserably. "Oh, Bodie," he said, still grasping the hand, "it's bad now but it'll get better. They said there's wonders they can do with plastic surgery to minimize the scarring. You'll still be tall, dark and beautiful; it's not that bad."
"And don't forget -- suitably modest." Doyle chimed in with him on the last bit, a habit from long ago. "Can I have a mirror?"
"Don't see one around," Doyle said, scanning the room. "Have to go get one." Bodie nodded at him and Ray left the room in search of a hand-held mirror. When he'd returned, Bodie was asleep. Doyle put the mirror down. In the meantime he wandered back to see the ward sister, asked her about Bodie's condition and how the invisible internal injuries were progressing. She explained about how long Bodie would be weakened from the damage, how long it would be before he could be moved about, when he would be able to put pressure on the broken limbs, and all the other things Doyle had put aside in his concern over Bodie's sight.
After she finished explaining, she cocked her head quizzically and looked hard at the handsome man in front of her. "Your dedication to your friend is amazing, Mr. Doyle." It wasn't a question, but Ray felt there was something else to it.
"We've been through a lot together. He kept me going after I'd been shot a few years ago."
"I know. You probably don't remember me at all, do you?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "I was the critical care nurse assigned to you during the day. I remember you very well. Broke many hearts, you did, when you left here."
Doyle laughed, white teeth flashing, head thrown back. It felt good to laugh like that after so many days.
"I daresay Mr. Bodie will break a few more. Everyone watched him when he stayed by your side during your recovery, and every single girl on this floor was disappointed that he only had eyes for you."
She smiled broadly at him, picked up some charts. "Your friendship is remarkable. I hope your wife realizes how lucky you are to have each other. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must get back to work." She flashed him a very knowing look.
Doyle glanced down at his wedding ring. He'd forgotten completely about it. "My wife...died earlier this year," he said absently, playing with the unusual silver band.
"I'm so sorry," the nurse said, her hand flying up to cover her mouth, as though she could erase the mistaken comment.
"No, it's okay. But yes, she did think we were lucky to have each other. I still do." He smiled back at her, tapped a finger lightly on the side of his nose, and winked at her. She laughed out loud, and was gone down the hall.
*Well,* he thought, *everyone seems to have figured out our feelings except me. Jesus! Am I the only one who didn't see this coming? Or has it just taken all this rubbish in my life to make me want to see it?* He shook his head at the thought of it. Cowley had once called him obtuse. Maybe he really was.
Or maybe he was just lucky. How often does love come along twice in someone's lifetime, love like that anyway? He thought about it as he walked down the corridor to Bodie's room. *Maybe you're right, Gil. Maybe it's all mine for the taking, if I'm open to it.*
"You've been so quiet lately. I'd've thought you'd be happy, being on the mend." Doyle peered cautiously at his partner, who wore a lost expression and stared vacantly out the window.
Bodie turned slowly in his direction. "Hmmm?"
"What's going on, Bodie? You've hardly spoken to me in days." The two were in the sunroom of the hospital, Bodie now able to get away from his bed in a wheelchair for short periods of time. He was still often weak, and tired quite easily, but he enjoyed getting out of the stifling grey room as much as he could. The sun shone down on them warmly, the bright summer day perfect with blues and greens and yellows.
"Whatever it is, you can tell me. You know that by now, don't you?" He leaned close and Bodie could feel the heat of him, smell the unique scent that always identified Ray to him, a warm, fresh smell that sometimes made Bodie's eyes droop closed with longing, head swimming.
Bodie's mouth opened and his shoulders lifted, then sagged again, mouth closing. Then he did it again, and a third time. Doyle watched this little pantomime for a few minutes and said exasperatedly, "Bodie! I promise I won't laugh, or get angry, or mock you, or whatever is stopping you from telling me." He had been watching Bodie slowly shrivel up with quietness for the past few days, and it was killing Doyle. This behavior was too much like the early days of their partnership before Bodie had begun to trust him.
"What is it? Just tell me." Doyle touched Bodie's arm lightly, trying not to make too much of a show here in a public area.
"I had these nightmares. First of Gil. It was like she was really there. I would have sworn I spoke to her." He dropped it like a dead weight, staring at Doyle, daring the other man to scoff at him.
"Really?" was all Doyle said.
Bodie took a deep breath. "It was like she was really there. At the time, it was -- wonderful."
He looked away, waiting for Doyle to hoot with laughter, but none came. Only green eyes gazing intently at him.
"I know this sounds crazy." His voice was rising, it obviously troubled him a lot. "Then she was in a dream, I think. We were on the beach and she told me, without speaking, to take the bandages off my eyes. She held out bloody bandages to me, tried to let me know everything would be all right. It was really spooky, Ray. Am I going barmy?"
*Nah, you already are,* Doyle almost said, then cut himself off. This wasn't the time for banter. Bodie was laying out emotions that he rarely confessed to anyone and Doyle needed to tread carefully.
"It's not so crazy. Sometimes I'd swear I see or hear her. I thought you didn't believe in ghosts?"
"I don't! That's what's so weird about it! I would swear to you, Ray, that I saw her, but I don't believe it's possible."
"Well, she always did like directing the traffic of everyone's life. And she's been doing a pretty good job of directing ours since she left-- " the first reference either had made to the night before the explosion "-- so why shouldn't she be telling you where to go when you're troubled and confused? You just needed a friend."
Bodie laughed quietly, the first time in days. "Yeah, I wouldn't put it past her to lurk around in my subconscious. So you don't think I'm round the twist? I mean, Ray, I'm talking to someone who isn't *there.* I'm having whole conversations with her." He shivered a little.
"No. If anything, I guess I'm jealous. I'd like to have seen her. I never dream of her, I sometimes think I hear her voice or feel like she's a presence near me, but I can't seem to see her face anymore. I envy you that."
"I'm going to try to get better as fast as I can, Ray. You've been through too much lately, you don't need to add taking care of me to that burden." Bodie stared hard at him, the blue steel eyes glinting in the sunlight. Doyle was happy to see the swelling gone so far down, Bodie looking almost normal now, not much worse than if he'd been in a bad fight.
Ray gave him his warmest smile. Bodie always felt like it would be worth paying money just to see that smile. "I like taking care of you. Gives me something to do," Doyle said in a voice smooth and rich as Glenfiddich. "We're on our own, now."
He looked around, noticing that most people had gone and the room was virtually empty now. Reaching into a carrier bag, he pulled out a box and put it on his lap. "Got you a pressie."
Bodie gleefully tore open the wrapping with his good hand to find an oiled wood box of impeccable quality. Doyle always loved the way Bodie responded to gifts, it was like having a kid of your own. Bodie opened the box and gasped in surprise. "Ray..."
He pulled out a large handgun, gleaming in the sunlight with exquisite craftsmanship. It was a Glock 17 9mm automatic, with a clip that fired seventeen rounds. Bodie turned it this way and that, trying not to be too obvious with it in case someone were to come in.
"I can't believe you did this." He looked at his partner with gleaming eyes.
"Well, your other one was, to use Gil's favorite phrase, toast after the accident. I thought this might make you feel better." He flashed Bodie a wild smile.
"But this cost a fortune."
"Don't I know it! But it was worth it, just to see your face. I know you bought the .357 with your own money."
"I don't feel like I can possibly use this beauty on the street."
"Well, there's always the armoury."
Bodie met his eyes with a 'no way, mate' look.
Ray reached over and laced his fingers through Bodie's, briefly, and squeezed. "Anything to see you smile."
And Bodie smiled, putting the gun away, holding onto Ray's hand as long as he could.
The physiotherapist was pushing Bodie to flex his knee just one more time. Bodie was red-faced with exertion, and Doyle was doing his best not to hover, but he kept finding himself moving slightly forward at the waist, as though to spring in to help his partner, then pulling back because he knew she was only forcing Bodie to do what was necessary. Ray had been here before, and now it was Bodie's turn.
Given any chance, Bodie would avoid exercise even when it was something he found pleasurable, such as martial arts. When it was something decidedly unpleasant, such as the leg exercises designed to regain the flexibility of his knee, he was fighting with every ounce of strength he had left. Although prone to weight gain when he didn't exercise, Doyle noticed that Bodie was almost as thin as he was himself.
The bruising of most places on his body had healed considerably. Here and there the pale skin was tinged with a yellowish color, and a few spots of purple still remained, but for the most part he looked relatively unscathed, save for the cast on his arm and the large blue brace strapped along his leg from top of the thigh to ankle.
His face was the only place it was still obvious, after these weeks in hospital, that Bodie had suffered serious injury. Bright red scars laced the area around his eyes, one long wound running from the bottom of his right ear almost to his clavicle, and many smaller ones visible under the short-cropped hair if one truly scrutinized his face. In the future, after things had healed as well as they could, Bodie would have small surgeries to remove or minimize the scarring. The doctor was hopeful that Bodie's famously lovely face would be just as attractive to the ladies, as he put it, as it had been before the explosion.
Soon, he would be free to go home, finally, assuming he would have a caretaker. Still not mobile without assistance -- the inconvenience of having both his left arm and left leg damaged made it impossible for him to get around on crutches -- he would have to get some kind of a minder. Mrs. Mills had agreed to come by during the day if Bodie were to stay at Doyle's house, a point Doyle had already taken care to secure before asking Bodie. Doyle fretted as he waited for his partner to finish. While he was relatively certain Bodie would want to stay there, the events left undone the night before the explosion might have made Bodie change his mind.
Bodie looked over at his friend, sweat trickling down from temple to jawbone. "She's worse than Macklin!" he exclaimed, as he tried to move the knee into a sixty-degree flex. The pain was too much for him and he threw his head back, then collapsed onto the table, cradling his shattered wrist in his good arm. The therapist lowered his leg lightly onto the table.
Doyle fought the urge to rush over to his friend. *So this is how it must have been for Bodie to watch me, day after day, during my long recovery. When I'd get so winded and helpless just from trying to walk down the corridor to the therapy room.* He chewed on his lower lip, squinting hard at the therapist.
"You're doing very well, Mr. Bodie," she said, smiling at Doyle. No matter what all the other women in the hospital said about the two of them, she couldn't take her eyes off the beautiful, green-eyed man who was almost always with Bodie. Especially since she'd heard he was in a vulnerable state after the death of his wife. The right moment would surely come along if she waited long enough.
"I know tomorrow they're going to work on those cuts, but if you have the energy, I think we should still continue these exercises. You're almost up to sixty degrees, we'll get there soon. Don't forget to do your exercises tonight before sleep." She gathered up her materials, wrote some things on a chart, and with one last, very longing look at Doyle, she left. Doyle had promised to wheel Bodie back to his room.
"Not many more days and you'll be out of here, mate." Doyle helped Bodie into the chair.
"Yeah. My prison term is up!"
"You given any thought to where you're going?" Doyle asked casually, as he moved Bodie through the corridors.
"Well, home, I thought..." Bodie suddenly jerked around to face Doyle. "Why? Does Cowley have some idea of putting me in some convalescent facility?"
"No! Nothing like it. I just...I dunno. That flat of yours is on the second floor, and it's going to mean you can't really go out without a lot of trouble. I was thinking, maybe, you could come stay at my place. Mrs. Mills can keep an eye on you, too. I bet she'd love to dote on you for awhile."
Bodie shifted his eyes sideways. "Your place." He didn't say it as a question, merely repeating it for effect.
"Yeah. On the ground, it is, and then I'd be around most of the time to take care of you, when I'm at work she can come in..." He looked down at Bodie's face to see if there was at least a flicker of interest.
They reached his room, and Doyle helped Bodie out of the chair and onto the bed. Bodie slung his good arm around Ray to get a slight lift up, then Doyle hauled him by the waist out and onto the bed. This little routine was beginning to get to Bodie, no matter how hard he tried to concentrate on other things. The fact remained, the merest touch or whiff of Ray made Bodie's heart stall.
He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. "Yeah. Sounds good, I think. Sounds reasonable." He opened his eyes again to see Doyle's own jade ones staring back at him. "You going to scrub my back when I take a bath?" He smirked just a little, hoping not to scare Ray away. They had only danced around the topic of the kiss and confession of the night before the accident. Bodie was continually walking the line, careful not to step over and push Ray into the withdrawal that inevitably occurred when Ray felt embarrassed or anxious.
"If you need it, I might consider it," he said, his wicked smile flashing quickly, followed by his decadent laugh.
Hope surged once again in Bodie's heart. "Don't worry, you're safe. I can't do much to you with all this heavy equipment."
"Can't put a good man down," Doyle said airily, then got up. "Gotta go, old son. Even though I'm on light duty there's still villains to be sorted out, reports to be made..."
"Places to go, people to see..."
"That's the general idea." He let his fingers brush Bodie's close-cropped hair, even closer cut now because it was just beginning to grow back from being shaved for his injuries. "You take care. Be back later tonight, most likely." Bodie closed his eyes, reveling in the touch.
"Yeah, see you soon." He didn't open his eyes, preferring instead to focus all his attention on the fingertips, Doyle's fingertips.
For a few moments he continued to caress Bodie's head, gently, sensuously, as Ray watched Bodie's face soften into utter abandonment. He found the sight unbelievably arousing, something quite unexpected.
Then the hand was gone, and Bodie was alone.
Doyle walked along the corridors, towards his car, thinking about how this had all played out. He himself had been in such a similar situation not many years ago, and it was Bodie who got him through it all. Ray had never told Bodie how it had been the sound of his voice that had pulled Doyle back into consciousness, into life, like a rope pulling him back. A rope back to the living.
Ray had never felt such a connection to another human before that voice saved him, and the only thing since then had been his connection to Gillian. Bodie had, quite simply, kept him alive. What would he do if their jobs led them to another crossroads like this, only with a different ending? What if next time one of them didn't make it?
What good was loving someone if all it took was two seconds for them to be taken away from you? Ever since this whole annoying thought had come into his head, he'd struggled with the idea of giving himself over to someone again. It wasn't that he didn't already love Bodie. He had loved him for years, the best friend he'd ever had. But there were layers to love, different levels that you dug through to reach the top or the bottom. Friendship was one layer. On top of that, another, the things he was realizing he'd felt for Bodie but never had the desire to acknowledge.
Doyle wasn't afraid of the consequences of what it meant to have sex with another man, for surely that would happen if this were truly a different layer in his understanding of love. It was the caring and the giving of oneself so completely to another that created the complications. The job would be compromised, his relationships with others, his own feelings about himself.
But on the other hand...there was Bodie, and the possibility of a life without him. Once Ray had met Gillian, he used to wonder about how he could live without her, and found he simply couldn't imagine it. The world didn't exist that he could live in without her. Yet, here Doyle *was* without her, and still living. Could he get by all right without Bodie?
Again, he found himself drawing a blank. He tooled the car through the city streets, barely noticing the pattern of summer raindrops on the windscreen. Before he'd met Bodie, life had been...well, an empty slate. He ate, he slept, he worked, and he met and discarded girls. He kept himself at a comfortable distance, friendly but self-contained, happy in his removal from the world. But Bodie had changed all that.
Bodie was almost pathologically diffident, and not by comfortable choice. He'd taken that road as a defense mechanism, and thus was never quite satisfied with it. He was hopeful of connecting with people, yet pessimistically convinced that no one could be connected to him, or worth his while, at least. Until, Doyle thought, I broke through the shell. When Bodie loved someone, he loved them passionately, fiercely, exclusively.
Ray had no doubt that if he were to connect with this often enigmatic man in that way, that Bodie would never desert him if he had any control over it. Hell, he'd already shown that. He'd hung on to feelings for Ray for years, even through a marriage. But what if Doyle had no control over it? What if another shot to the heart, or exploding booby trap, or any of the other things they faced daily, took Bodie away from him?
"I dunno, Gil. Is it really worth it to care for someone this way, to let myself go like this again?" he asked, needing to at least hear himself ask the question out loud, if only to convince himself his doubts were unnecessary.
And he heard her voice from a long time ago, before they'd married, whispering to him with laughter, "It really *is* better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Think of all the cool stuff you'd miss." And the whisper was gone again, instantly, and with it his doubts.
They set the passenger seat all the way back in order to get Bodie into Doyle's car, the leg brace making it difficult to maneuver him in any narrow space. With a lot of "ooophing" and "mmmphing" they stuffed him in the car, then Doyle slowly joined traffic as though he were driving on ice.
"I wonder if you could go any slower?" Bodie asked peevishly.
"I don't want to take any chances. You don't want to be in an accident again." Doyle deliberately didn't look at him, he didn't want to get angry. Bodie had been scowling since he'd come to the hospital to pick him up. Thinking Bodie would be happy to leave after all those weeks, Doyle had been shocked to discover the other man's incredibly bad mood.
"The rate you're going, we will get in an accident because we're going sooooooo s-l-o-wwww-llll-yyyyyy."
"Fine." Doyle set his mouth in a hard line, then punched the accelerator, whipping through traffic, changing lanes right and left, cutting off other drivers and tailgating more. The two did not speak again until they got to Doyle's house. He jumped out, and helped Bodie climb out of the car with great difficulty. His partner had refused the wheelchair again, preferring to lean on Doyle as though he were crutches, a fact Doyle didn't exactly enjoy. Even as thin as he'd grown, Bodie was still *heavy.*
"Let's get you inside, Prince Charmin'," Doyle said, yanking on Bodie with each step. He wasn't being as gentle as he had in all those weeks at the hospital. When they finally got Bodie settled on the sofa, Doyle stuck his hand out. "Give me your keys. I'm going over to your place and get some of your clothes and anything else you need that you didn't have at hospital. Is there anything I need to pick up at shops or anything?"
"Make sure you get my other track suits. That's probably all I'm going to be able to wear for awhile."
Doyle moved to the door, then stopped, bowing his head. "D'you mind telling me why you're so stroppy today? I thought you'd be happy to be out."
Bodie looked away. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed, before finally sighing. "I dunno. I guess just coming back here to be taken care of by you. It wasn't exactly my plan."
Doyle knew this wasn't the reason, but he didn't want to fight it. When Bodie decided not to tell you something, pliers couldn't drag it out of him. He turned round to face Bodie. "I'm happy to take care of you, I told you that. Anything to see that you're getting better."
"I know." Bodie still would not look at him. "Look, it's all just water under the bridge anyway. Everything's changed now. I'm knackered. Think I'll just have a liedown."
Doyle closed the door and went on his errands. Bodie knew why he'd been so stroppy, but had difficulty placing the thoughts into a coherent whole. In hospital somehow he had not felt as much fear, the atmosphere had been one of healing, of hoping to get out. Now he was out, in Ray's care, and was feeling the weight of all that had gone before. It was almost too heavy for him to bear.
Thirsty, he decided to try for the kitchen to get some water. Bodie rolled sideways, feeling pain shoot up his leg and into his stomach, but grabbed at the arm of the sofa with his good hand, and hauled himself up. He hobbled to the kitchen, got the water, before realizing he could not carry it back to the lounge because he had to hop too much. So he settled for a bottled orange juice instead.
As he bounced back to the sofa, he noticed a videotape sticking out of the VCR. Curious, he pushed it in and grabbed the remote, then flopped gently down onto the cushions and pressed the play key. A sharp gasp escaped Bodie's mouth as he realized what the tape was. Their holiday in the Bahamas, a few years ago. They had spent the day snorkeling in the waters off Freeport, and after arriving back at the UNEXSO building, famished, Bodie and Gillian had gone off in search of food at the upstairs bar. Ray had stayed behind at the dock, Bodie remembered, to film the dolphins swimming happily in the open pens. He had been driving both of them to distraction with the camera throughout the entire trip.
Bodie rewound the tape a bit and caught the conversation he'd had with Gil while Ray, thinking himself quiet, tried sneaking up on them behind the stairway wall behind their table.
"No really," she was saying, the back of her wet hair shining cobalt in the light from the far window. "It's called Bucksnort. I swear to God."
He saw his own face look back at her with laughing skepticism. "Yeah, right."
"It's true! It's off the highway, not too far out of Nashville. On the freeway to Memphis."
Bodie was paralyzed at watching this play out, holding his juice halfway to mouth, unaware that tears were forming in his eyes. The camera circled a little and part of Gil's face was now visible. She jerked her head minutely in Doyle's direction; Bodie nodded slightly in return.
"We could go there on the way back. Stop in Nashville, rent a car and I'll prove it to you."
Bodie waved his hand at her. "Okay, I believe you."
She smiled back at him, the look saying she knew he did not believe her.
Bodie marveled at seeing her face again as it came into full view of the camera. She was now watching Doyle with a cocked eyebrow and a half smile on her lips. How cruel videotape is, Bodie thought. At least with a snapshot, the person is frozen in time, and you can hold onto that image. Videotape threw in all the other intangibles -- voice, movement, the essence of the person. He realized he was sitting on the edge of the sofa, the fingers of his good hand clenching the bottle so hard he might shatter it, and he put the bottle down.
By now she had risen from the table and was looking at her husband. She pulled an incredibly innocent face, eyes wide, and said "No comment," then put her hand in front of the camera. Bodie quickly pushed the freeze frame button before she obscured her face. He sat back and stared at the image, suddenly feeling empty and afraid. Tears had been streaming from his eyes and he became aware of them now as they trickled down into his collar. He wiped absently at them and stared transfixed.
After a few minutes he turned off the freeze frame and was about to press "stop," when the image on the tape jumped to another setting. Gil was standing at the edge of the water, the tide wrapping around her bare feet. She wore a flowered skirt and loose, short sweater, and everything seemed to flow behind her in the tropical breeze. Bodie choked and sat forward. It was her, from his dream. He had not remembered this being videotaped but must have seen it before. They were getting ready to leave for Miami to catch a plane home, and she looked sad at the prospect.
"Oh God," Bodie said aloud, a hiccuping sob escaping his lips. He realized then that like witchcraft, he had conjured her into his mind as he fought desperation and fear. Just as Ray had said, he had wanted a friend.
Bodie doubled over and sobbed, the gates that had held him in suddenly opened, and a flood of emotions poured out. He fell to the floor, oblivious of the pain rocketing through his leg, and held both arms over his head, curled into a fetal position. He lay like that for some time, crying loudly to himself, for himself, for loneliness and loss and the pain of the past months. He did not hear the door open or Ray throw things on the floor and rush to his side.
Strong arms picked him up and cradled him, careful of the wounds. "Bodie, what is it?" Ray asked, smoothing Bodie's still-spiky hair.
He rocked him gently, but Bodie continued to choke in air, attempting to control the sobbing and failing miserably.
"Is it the explosion? Are you remembering what happened?" He looked down at Bodie's flushed face and felt himself shatter inside, having never seen his partner like this before.
Bodie shook his head no, gradually pulling himself into some kind of control. Then Ray spotted the videotape still playing on the television.
"Oh..." he said, running his hands along Bodie's shoulders. "You shouldn't have done that, Sunshine." He pressed his forehead to Bodie's and smoothed his hands against Bodie's face. "A lot's happened, hasn't it?"
Bodie nodded, swallowing. "I miss her, Ray. She was my best mate."
"Hey! Thought I was your best mate!" He smiled at Bodie, and pulled his face away to look down into the teary indigo eyes.
Bodie wiped at his eyes again and smiled wanly. "No, you're a little more than that."
"When you said you cried I almost didn't believe you. When you cry you really cry, don't you?" he said, chuckling.
"You're right, so much has happened. I know I should be grateful I'm still alive, but I felt so hopeless coming back here. And then to see her, actually see her smiling and talking and laughing..."
"I know, it had the same effect on me." He helped Bodie to the sofa and they sat down. "I'm here for you, Bodie. I will take care of you, don't worry." He pulled Bodie into an embrace and allowed him to fall asleep against him, turning off the television and the tape machine. He felt a strange mixture of privilege and shame, knowing that Bodie had finally let go in front of him, yet had exhibited such a helplessness on the floor. Bodie hated the idea of depending on anyone, Ray knew. He had opened a cloistered part of his heart to Ray, and it was now Ray's obligation to honor that private world with his love.
It had been the hectoring tone in Doyle's voice that started getting up Bodie's nose first; then the wheedling way he prodded Bodie to do the exercises. Each day Doyle would come back from work and check on Bodie; but no matter how surreptitiously he tried to do it, Bodie was more than aware of what Doyle was doing.
First he'd look carefully at Bodie to see if the track suit were mussed -- a sure sign that he'd been moving about -- and then he would look over the house, checking to see if any of the resistance equipment was moved. He would then gently ask Bodie when he wanted to work on his knee -- before or after supper? Bodie wished, once in a while, that Ray would treat him as Macklin treated him. At least that was honest, and realistic.
He felt somehow too fragile, a feeling that was completely alien to him. There was a nagging quality to this gentleness in Ray, an "I know what's best for you" tone, that made Bodie bristle. It had not been a part of their relationship before, at least not while he was on the receiving end of it. And it seemed to grow worse every day.
At times he would lie on the floor, staring up into Doyle's worried face, and think of giving him a swift kick with his good leg. Just to see what would happen. Doyle wore a perpetual frown, brows knit together, as he pushed against Bodie's leg or massaged the muscles as he'd been shown. The anxiety he radiated carried over to Bodie, and by the end of each evening session, they fairly vibrated with annoyance at each other.
Television watching had become a silent affair by that time, and Bodie would feign tiredness in order to have Ray leave for bed early. He knew Ray would stay up for a while in his room reading, he'd seen the light go out sometimes hours after Ray'd gone upstairs. At times during the long nights he played with talking about it; but then he'd see Ray's face the next morning, anxious about leaving him once again, the green eyes traveling over the scars that Bodie knew still showed dark pink on his face.
And it would start again as he looked at Ray's face, the feeling that he was powerless, trapped, needy, and babied.
Mrs. Mills came over each day to tidy up, look in on Bodie, and bring food, which in most cases was going untouched. She enjoyed doting on the young man, but it pained her to see him holding back on something that was bothering him. She stopped Doyle one night before he went into the house, carrying Bodie's favorite Chinese takeaway.
"Mr. Doyle, I'm so worried about Mr. Bodie," she said. "He just seems to lie there, like he doesn't care about a thing in the world."
Doyle ran fingers through his thick hair. "I know. I've got to confront him about it, but I guess I just haven't had the courage. I know what it's like, to be recuperating and wondering what your future holds. But he's not doing himself any favors, is he?"
She shook her head. "Well, I just wanted to tell you that I'm worried about him. He used to laugh so much with Gillian. I wonder if that's what's making him so blue."
"Something like that, love," Doyle said, patting her shoulder. "Something like that. Don't worry, we'll get him sorted out and he'll be right as rain soon. You just keep taking care of him."
In fact, each night Doyle was diligent in making Bodie do his exercises, and each night Bodie was more distant, sometimes sullen. It was important for Doyle to see Bodie get past each obstacle ahead of him, but he also had reports to make to Cowley on a nearly daily basis. Without good, measurable progress, Cowley would be likely to take Bodie out of Doyle's hands and put him in someone else's, a stranger's.
In exasperation, Doyle finally pointed out this unpleasant fact to Bodie.
To his surprise, Bodie didn't say anything at first. "Well...maybe that's the way it should be. Maybe having someone cracking the whip over my head would be more productive."
Doyle gaped at him. "I can't believe you're saying that!" he bellowed. "After all I've done for you. Don't you know all I want is for you to get better? I'm trying to help you and you act like I'm in your way!"
"You worry too much. It's hard to bear all this worry of my own and bear yours, too." Bodie looked away, ashamed to be hurting Ray, yet at the same time relieved to have finally said it.
Doyle opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. For weeks, the two of them had been going through this daily routine of working, exercising, eating, more exercising, watching the box before going to sleep, both of them constantly staring at each other with knit brows and creases forming in their foreheads. Now he was being blamed for the whole thing!
"I have absolutely no bloody idea what you're talking about." He sat back on his heels, wrists resting on knees. Bodie stared at the long, elegant fingers dangling off the jeans-clad knees. He noticed Doyle was not wearing his wedding ring.
Lying back on the floor, closing his eyes, Bodie thought, *Well, now it's time to get it all out.*
"Look. When you were shot, I felt horrible. I wanted to take care of you, treat you like porcelain. I got angry every time that therapist made you wince, every time Macklin pushed you too hard. I couldn't stand to look at your chest, see that scar. The first few days we were back on the streets were murder for me, I wanted to coddle you so. But I knew how very much you'd hate that.
"You had to be pushed because that's the way you do things. Cowley once said he'd hate to be on the receiving end of your wrath, God knows he's warned enough villains about just how bad they could expect things with you on their case. You want it tough, and woe to anyone who tries to take care of you. God forbid anyone should show you some fucking kindness when you're down." He pushed at the short fringe of hair on his forehead, wiping sweat away.
"Hasn't it occurred to you that you're doing the exact thing to me that you hate so much? You don't want me pushed to my limits, not really. Because you're too bloody worried about something bad happening to me. If you lose one more person in your life, if one more bad thing happens...that's what you're thinking. The bad thing already happened, Ray. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. You can push me and make me say 'Ow' because that's what I'm supposed to do. Not this pussyfooting around. You don't want me in physical pain, you don't want to talk about us, as in you and me, for fear of emotional pain, you just want me better in the safest way. Sometimes things have to get bad to get better."
Ray had no answer. He sat down on the floor with a thump, and twisted his hands together. Bodie was right, and he knew it. He had avoided pushing Bodie, worried about making things unpleasant or at worst, physically painful. Worried about losing him.
After some time, Doyle sighed. "Okay. You've got me there. D'you want me to start hurting you now?" He grinned his most wicked grin, the chipped tooth that lent him such a rakish air catching a glint of light from the window.
Bodie lisped at him, "Oh, would you please? Forty lashes."
Doyle collapsed in laughter, falling down on the floor next to Bodie. Finally, wiping a trickle of tear from his eyes and trying to stop laughing, he looked over at Bodie, whose head was already tilted towards the slim man next to him.
"So what's next, then?"
Bodie stared back at him, a look of such exquisite promise and assurance that Ray's heart lurched in his chest. "Start with something easy. Hold me."
Doyle was not sure how things had instantly changed from anxiety to tender intimacy, but he was content to dive into it and let it pull him in.
Shifting closer, Ray rolled onto his side. He put a hand out tentatively and ran it softly up and down Bodie's arm, over the cast and onto the biceps, then over the shoulder. He moved his other arm between Bodie's neck and the floor, snaking around to caress the muscled back. His left arm moved over Bodie's other shoulder, and his face inched over onto Bodie's chest. There was a musky scent about this dark man, warm and strong. Bodie's good arm shakily moved around to drape over Ray's own back. They lay that way for some time, feeling the warmth of each other's breath, the beating of hearts.
The silence was broken by Bodie. "And now, promise me that you'll be as hard on me as you'd expect me to be on you. Because right now this is about as far as I want go with all this stuff on, but I want to get better so this isn't where it all ends."
Doyle sighed softly into his partner's chest, sending hot shivers of desire running through Bodie. Ray pulled his face up to look into Bodie's. "I'm not used to taking care of people. You and Gil never seemed to have much need or tolerance for it. I'm doing my best."
Bodie brushed wayward curls from Doyle's forehead with his plaster-imprisoned fingers. "You just keep going the way you're going. We'll get there." He sighed contentedly. His dream was coming true, and he had all the time in the world.
End Chapters 7 to 9