Chapter Text
The two men lay in bed, late at night, Doyle resting his head against Bodie's shoulder and Bodie tangling his fingers absently in the other man's wavy, unruly hair. He would still find himself catching his breath occasionally, at least a few times each day, realizing that he could touch Ray, steal a quick kiss, hold him, share the night with him, with open freedom now. It was such a new world, to love someone and be loved back. He would sigh then and Doyle would always catch it, asking him, "What's wrong?"
Bodie could never quite answer back the right way, merely shaking his head and saying nothing. How could he explain that he was sighing because everything was right?
Earlier that week Bodie had got the cast off his wrist. He enjoyed moving the now-free fingers through Ray's hair, a decidedly sensuous feeling that never seemed to grow old for him. I'm besotted, he told himself.
"Bodie?" Doyle broke the reverie. His long fingers traced circles on Bodie's chest, teasing his nipples from time to time, then moving down just above Bodie's groin to the thatch of dark hair there before darting back up. It wouldn't take much more to get aroused again, Bodie knew, and whether or not Doyle was tired, if he continued this game there would be more playing that night, no matter what. These days all Ray had to do was look at him sideways and his trousers were too tight.
"Yeah?" He brushed his lips against Ray's forehead, back and forth, absently. He wondered if Ray would finally say it. He knew that words like "I love you" came hard to a man so used to being alone; for Bodie it had only been the years of waiting that allowed him to finally spit it out. But while he waited and wondered, he also knew Doyle would come to it in his own time.
He still wondered if he'd heard Ray really say, "One who loves you" in hospital, had never been able to ask Ray if it were true. But that was also different than blurting out the most important statement you could make to another human being. He'd been hurt, afraid. It was much harder to say the word love when the person was staring you in the face, completely conscious. Bodie had no doubt that Ray did love him. For the first time in his life, he was sure of someone's love for him.
"I was wondering. Why didn't you hate Gillian?"
Bodie waved his hand dismissively and smiled.
"Why should I? You were wonderful together. I'd be happy as long as you were happy." He traced circles around Doyle's earlobe, and Ray shook his head against the fingers, his ticklish reaction beginning. "Now, I don't know if I'd have felt that way if you'd picked some idiotic swot, but I've always liked your taste in girls. I liked Ann, although I didn't think she was completely right for you. But Gil...well, we had a couple of things in common."
Doyle looked up at him suspiciously.
"In case you hadn't noticed, we *were* a bit alike." He smiled warmly at the thought. "We were both loners by choice. Even though she loved her family, she chose to live halfway across the world and travel all the time. She liked it when you'd be gone on duty or stakeouts, just to be alone sometimes. I appreciated those qualities in her. I had people I cared for, but I made the decision to keep my lines clean and straight -- me, myself, and I on one side, and on the other side, everyone else. Until I met you. It was the same for her."
Musing on this, Doyle finally looked up at Bodie. "You said a couple things. What's the second?"
"We both think the sun rises and sets on you."
Doyle's hand moved up to stroke Bodie's face, and he scooted his body up to rest against the other man's. He kissed him longingly, as though he were drinking him in. Eventually their lips parted, and Ray began softly kissing him along his neck, moving down to his chest, flicking his tongue over taut nipples. Bodie gasped, and his hands began moving hungrily over Ray's firm back and shoulders.
The two had experimented to some degree over the past few days, but Bodie had been careful not to push Ray into situations he'd feel uncomfortable in. Now Bodie found himself staring into greedy green eyes as Doyle looked up at him, his mouth poised over Bodie's cock, flicking his tongue tauntingly over it. "Bodie." His voice was thick with want.
The other man swallowed but still couldn't answer.
"I want you in me. I want to know what it feels like." He flicked his tongue lazily over Bodie's cock again, making sure Bodie was as hard as a rock before he brought his body up to lie next to him, face down.
"Are you sure?" Bodie's hands trembled with desire and fear. *I don't want you to go further than you're capable of.*
Ray looked out at Bodie, the sideways cast of his eyes even more sensual than ever. "I want to know you every way possible. I told you that."
"Not everyone likes it that way, Ray. It's one of the big myths." Doyle continued to look at him, hooded eyes sending heated signals.
Bodie could feel his entire body become lighter than air, as though he would suddenly fly away. His heart thudded in his chest. "I won't hurt you."
"I know that," Ray said, taking Bodie's hand and placing it on his firm, smooth body. "That's why I love you."
"It's Long's trial date tomorrow. D'you want to go?" Ray eyed Bodie with a bit of trepidation. At times Bodie was utterly predictable and reliable in his reactions, but there were some subjects where you never knew which way he would go.
"What does the old man expect?" Bodie put the newspaper down and grabbed his crutches. It was still difficult to put weight on the one arm, but by now he'd got to a point of semi-hobbling while using the crutches, anyway. Doyle was just glad he was moving on his own at all.
He would sometimes catch Bodie working with a squeeze ball, trying to regain some strength in the once powerful fingers, or doing half-pushups to work his upper arms, and becoming weak and trembly after just a few attempts. Each time Doyle squashed his natural tendency to assist Bodie, to nurse him. Now that their relationship had taken a different turn, it was even more important that he not be motherly to Bodie, who was used to toughing everything out, as Doyle was.
"I think he wants it to be up to you. But the last thing he'd want is for you to start throwing fits in a courtroom. *You* don't have to give evidence. I do at some point."
Bodie sat pensive, staring at the paper in his hands. Finally he spoke. "Well, I guess I shall go. I'd like to see what happens to the man who may have completely changed my life."
Doyle sat down hard on the chair next to him and looked at him with huge puzzlement. "What d'you mean?" Why was he being so pleasant?
"Well, everything's changed now, hasn't it? Part of why we're together now has to do with the blast."
Doyle looked down at the floor, sighed heavily, his shoulders moving up and down. "The night before you were hurt. After you left here, after you...kissed me. I couldn't sleep. I pulled out Gil's book, and kept looking at that stuff about how your life can change in two seconds. And I thought, it was like she was telling me that time's short, life is short, and not to waste it. Waste it with you. I don't want to waste any more. I want every second to count. Sometimes I think about getting in off the streets, so I don't have to waste this time with you worrying, being afraid of what might happen."
"Ray, we could get hit by a car crossing the street even if we worked in a bank." Bodie looked at him sideways. "I told you, I'm not going anywhere away from you."
"It's not just that, Bodie. We're getting older. You said yourself, what happens if Macklin doesn't certify you back for the squad?"
"Ray, I don't wanna think about what ifs right now. Can't we just concentrate on me getting back on the squad, and worry about what if later?" He looked pleadingly at Doyle and it melted Ray's heart. There was little he could refuse Bodie, ever.
"You want me to take you to court?"
"Yes, let's. Perhaps the sight of me hobblin' down the aisle will be affecting." He grinned and took Doyle's arm, hoisting himself up with a grunt.
Bodie sat stone-faced through most of the trial, which was, Doyle thought, mercifully brief. There was Bodie the expressionless man and then there was Bodie the stone-faced man. Doyle never liked the look of the latter, he knew well enough that it was Bodie hiding his worst feelings. During Doyle's own evidence, his eyes never left Bodie even from as far away as the witness box. He saw Bodie visibly flinch when he described the scenario of the day they'd gone to Long's house, the description of Bodie's near demise. Doyle realized, as he told it, that he and Bodie had never really gone over the events detail by detail. He saw Bodie lower his dark head, chin nearly touching chest, and his hands grip his crutch tightly.
It was difficult for Doyle to talk about the whole affair, Bodie could tell. While it hurt him to hear the description of events he himself could scarcely remember (and all the better for it, the doctor had said: traumatic amnesia usually served extreme trauma victims much better than remembering would), it hurt him more to watch the way Doyle stumbled and hesitated in his descriptions of things. When asked about when Doyle realized there was an ambush, Doyle at first could not remember that the car leaving the garage was a Range Rover, and that the color was brown, stammering through a description. Not like the ex-copper he was, Bodie thought.
Bodie watched from the corner of his eyes as Cowley cringed when Doyle bumbled the statement. The case against Long was so airtight the trial was almost moot, but Cowley obviously didn't enjoy seeing one of his most detail-minded, organized agents fumbling his way through a court case.
When the day was over, they drove home, Bodie quiet in the passenger seat. After some time, Doyle said, "You surprised me. You didn't seem to be all that angry. I thought you'd be angry, more than anything."
"Yeah, well, I guess I feel sort of detached, don't I? In some ways, I can't really connect what happened to him. Not like some fella we picked up off the street or anything. I never really saw the bloke, and then next thing I know..."
"Yeah. I suppose it all does seem a little surreal."
"I'm not condoning what he did, mind you. But at the same time, I can see how he could have snapped. I mean, just looking at him there, he's completely out of touch with reality. I sometimes wondered if he knew where he was, what was happenin'."
"You feel sorry for him?"
"No. Just...doesn't seem like the same person could blow me up and kill a lot of other people. Seems -- pathetic. But at the same time, it infuriates me, what he's done to me, what he did to those others. Their families, all alone now."
Doyle paused for a while, concentrating on the crush of traffic as a light rain fell on the city, slowing everything down. He knew Bodie was thinking of losing his own family. About being a little kid with no mum and dad for comfort. As much as Bodie did not want kids of his own, he had a wonderful rapport with them. As though a part of him were forever locked into the years that he had missed, practicing to be a child. Doyle spoke finally. "Something else though, isn't there?"
Bodie looked at him out of the side of his eye. A slight smile danced across his lips, and he cocked an eyebrow at Ray. "I sleep with you a few times and suddenly you think you can read my mind?"
A throaty laugh escaped Doyle's mouth. "You're in my power now!" He flashed a quick, white smile Bodie's way. "No, really, I get the feeling something's percolating in that tiny mind of yours."
Bodie rolled his head back and forth a few times, trying not to laugh. He looked out the window at the traffic all around them.
"I guess I've been thinking about what you said. About not being able to take all this violence. Its been bad these past few years hasn't it, starting with you being shot? A lot of pain. You, then Murphy getting cut up so bad that one time. Then Gil. Now me. I'm surprised we're not a bunch of gibberin' idiots by now, what we've been through."
"Gil used to say that we chose risky professions for a reason, that they didn't find us, we found them."
Bodie mused on this.
"I knew a lot of journalists in Africa. You'd see them sometimes, following the civil wars. There was this kind of fearlessness about them, they were obsessed with getting a good story, a good photo. Bringing it home to Mr. and Mrs. Normal. Hell, they'd go places even a mercenary wouldn't. You have to wonder what motivates them, people like Gil. Or what motivates us. I mean, I'm starting to wonder what it's all about. What difference does it make whether Mr. and Mrs. Normal see the Sandinistas and the Contras? What difference does it make if we chase down a bloke like Long, or for that matter capture one of the Helmut Myer gang? More of them just creep up. Is all this violence getting us anywhere? Are we just putting ourselves on the line for nothing? Did Gil die for nothing?"
"You said yourself, she could have died crossing the street instead." Doyle looked at Bodie, the red of the stoplight casting a dark shadow across his cat-like face. He took Bodie's hand in his and stroked the fingers with gentle back-and-forth movements. "I'd like to think she died doing what she wanted. That matters. I'd like to think we're doing what we want, what we need to do. That matters."
Bodie looked at him hard, impenetrable blue eyes boring into him. "You matter."
Then they were at the house and Doyle pulled the car into the drive. He reached over, fingers caressing the sides of Bodie's face, then kissed him gently but firmly on the lips. Bodie pulled away instinctively, looking sideways and behind. "Ray! People could see!"
"I don't care. Just want to say I love you." Then he leant back and smiled seriously at the other man. "We'll figure it out," he said, pulling the parking brake.
Bodie looked over at the house next door as he got out of the car. "Oi! What do you think Mrs. Mills would say about what's going on behind our closed doors?" He waved to her in her window as she watered plants. She waved back, then Bodie blew her a kiss. He loved teasing her.
"D'you think we should tell her? If you're going to stay here, well...maybe we should. She was a nurse, I bet there's not much she hasn't seen or heard."
Bodie winked at her as they went in the door. "Well. Maybe we should just leave it. It would probably make her happy to know we were house sharing for economic reasons. You can just say you've taken me in as a lodger. Anything else might put her in an early grave. She's seventy, you know."
Doyle laughed wickedly at that. "Not if you'd heard some of the things about Mr. Mills I've heard her tell Gillian. Right swingers, in their time, they were." He wiggled an eyebrow at Bodie, who burst out laughing in a sputtering howl. "Remind me to tell you the story of how she got the rug burns on her face at the Ritz Hotel in New York."
Bodie stared at him incredulously. "Mrs. Mills? She never!"
Shaking his head and grinning, Doyle said, "You would be very surprised." They both laughed all the way inside.
Sometimes, Bodie thought, life could be very, very good, after all.
It was excruciating for Doyle to watch Macklin mangle Bodie. He was not supposed to be here, and had snuck in a back way, up a dilapidated fire escape and in a broken window, slithering along a high catwalk to a far corner of the disused warehouse.
Doyle always wondered where Mac found these places. It seemed he routinely rerouted them to new disused warehouses each time they were to be taken apart. Was there some directory of disused warehouses in London that only old spies had access to? he thought wryly, as Mac shouted yet more commands at Bodie.
As far away as he was, Doyle could see Bodie's color was drained. He couldn't interfere, but was afraid if he said nothing Macklin would work Bodie until he passed out. He was, after all, only three days off the cane. Disdaining the care that the doctor recommended, Bodie had willingly taken on Macklin's dare to start training to get back on the squad.
"Sloppy, Bodie. I've seen you do one-handeds better than that," Macklin said, leaning over him. Towser, as usual, stood off in the distance, lending his ominous presence to the little adventure.
Bodie collapsed onto the floor face down, covering his head with his hands. "Just take me away," he mumbled into the floor. Macklin squatted down beside him, a look of slight concern on his face.
"We can postpone this to when you're better qualified," he said.
Bodie rolled over onto his back. He was covered in a sheen of sweat, dark hair plastered against his skull. His chest heaved and he shook his head violently. Doyle couldn't stand it any more and quietly sneaked back out the way he'd come in. He got in his car and drove back to headquarters where he ostensibly had work to do, but what it was barely registered in his brain. He had to talk to Cowley.
Macklin continued to hover over Bodie's prone figure. They had been at this for hours. "Bodie..."
"Look, Mac, I know what you're goin' to say, but you don't understand."
"But I do, Bodie, I do. Right now you have to prove to me, to Cowley, to Doyle, and to yourself that you can be certified fit for active duty. This is the most important thing in the world to you, because if it wasn't CI5, what else could you do? Where would you go?" He sat down on the floor and waved his hand around, indicating the room. "But what if I told you there was an alternative to this?"
Face scrunched up in pain and complete bafflement, Bodie could only look at him. "You're the dungeon master. Everyone comes through the Bastille at some point."
"Have you heard about Willis?"
Bodie shook his head, rubbing his knee the whole while. It felt like someone was throwing matches at him, bringing little quick sizzles of pain to his flesh.
"He's out at MI6. As are a few of his top-level henchmen. Clean sweep. They are reorganizing, and the new head just happens to be an old mate of Cowley's, and mine. He wants me in his top spot to help that reorganization along. And I'm taking it."
Bodie had no love lost for Willis, and was concentrating on the fact that the bastard had finally got his due, not really paying attention to the sandy-haired man who was talking to him.
"He's finally gone!" Bodie tried to get up but his body was not obeying his brain's commands. Macklin offered him a hand and hoisted him to his feet. "Bodie, I've nagged you for years about your weight. I never thought I'd see the day you'd weigh as much as that scrawny partner of yours."
"He's not so skinny..." Bodie said distantly, then caught himself. He looked at Mac but the other man seemed to have taken no notice of Bodie's words.
"You just don't get George Cowley, do you?"
"Huh?"
"Neither of you get it at all. To you, he's just an annoying old man, your boss. Someone you respect but not too much. He has no personal life, no personality beyond what you yourselves know of him. Bodie, he's been working for years to get Willis after that episode with Schumann and his wife. And you."
"What's that got to do with this?" Bodie looked as thick as a plank, and Macklin sighed heavily, running a hand over his eyes with exaggerated patience.
"George has had a very interesting history. I owe him everything. When my agency days were up, it was George who secured this job for me. He built CI5 on what he thought I could do with his agents. And it worked. It worked best with you two. He looks at you like the sons he never had." Macklin looked at Bodie with exasperation.
"He was married once, you know. He wasn't always this chronic workaholic you see each day. He met his wife in France, after the war. She died shortly after coming back to Britain with him. Brain cancer -- a very gruesome and sad death. But I daresay you've never bothered to find out anything about him."
Bodie thought about Cowley's reaction to Gil's death, and how unusually quiet he'd been, how gentle. That made sense. But what did that have to do with anything?
"I still don't get what you're trying to tell me." Bodie sat down heavily on the bench along the far wall, reaching for a flask of tea. *Frankly, what I'd like right now is about a pint of Scotch.*
"You and Doyle are complete vexations to him, but he's also proud of you. You're the best agents he's ever had come through his doors. George has been holding certain cards on Willis and his top people for some time, waiting for the right time to play them. Even through that Dawson mess, he waited for just the right time, through all their ups and downs. And it came. He knew your injuries might preclude you from getting certified for the street again. On the chance you couldn't, he wanted to make certain there were...opportunities for you to consider that would keep you within CI5."
Mac crossed his arms and waited for the penny to drop, if ever. Finally Bodie seemed to get it. "But why? George Cowley doesn't do anything just for the sake of being altruistic."
"No. But he believes he owes you. He once believed he owed me for what happened in Hong Kong. And he feels he owes you for your service. I realize it's a lot to swallow, to know that he was expecting you to fail today. But if anyone understands the extent an injury can change a life, it's George. And me."
Bodie let all this news sink in, sipping his tea and massaging the muscle of his leg.
"So Willis is out, Cowley engineers a perfect replacement for him and a new assistant, both of whom just happen to be very CI5-friendly, and now Cowley needs a recruiter and trainer." He smiled wickedly.
"Plural. Recruiters and trainers. It's a hard job, whipping layabouts like you into shape. That's why I took on Towser all those years ago. Can't imagine anyone doing it alone."
"I want to be back in shape." Bodie seemed pouty, resolute.
"You will be. You will be, believe me. But not right now. I'll get you ready to take this over if it's what you want. I will make damn sure you could take on all comers."
"Been a lot of changes in my life recently. Might as well make some more. But I'd like to think about it, all the same." He put a few things into his hold-all.
"Mac..." he began, and Macklin stifled a chuckle. He knew what was coming. "Some things have happened lately, with me and Doyle I mean. It's...well, things are the same, we're still a team, but-- "
As much as Macklin enjoyed watching people squirm, he knew this wasn't the time. "Bodie, I think I know what you're going to say. I think anyone who's ever spent much time around you two together knows that. I remember training you for that Parsali op. The way to get either of you to fight your best was to threaten the other." He smiled, the most paternal smile Bodie had ever seen on him.
"If I'm wrong about what you're trying to say, I apologize. But whatever it is with you and Doyle, if you're up front about it there's nothing much that anyone can do to you, aside from a few people who'll treat you as if you have the plague. You're not a security risk unless you're afraid of what comes out. If information is already out there, you can't be much of a risk. Besides, I hate to disillusion you, but you're rather small fish in a very big pond."
Bodie looked at him, for the first time ever feeling as though they were equals in the scheme of the CI5 universe. "It's never been anyone else. Just Ray, and Ray alone. Strange, huh?" He knew Macklin to have almost as low a tolerance for bigotry of any kind as Cowley, especially because Mac was in an interracial marriage.
Macklin shrugged. "Not so much. Life's full of very complex emotions; I don't know that people have ever truly successfully created tidy boxes to put everything into."
"Thanks, Mac. It's something to think about."
It took some searching to find the old man. Considering his age he moved around tirelessly, slept rarely, and never seemed to relax. Doyle didn't think he himself had that much energy and he was half Cowley's age. He was in the computer room, absently reviewing long sheets of green and white printouts.
"Sir," Doyle began, but Cowley continued to walk away from him, barely noticing his presence. "I'd like to talk to you about Bodie. It's his retraining with Mac."
Cowley paced briskly toward the lift. As the doors opened, he stepped inside and said, suddenly looking at Doyle and taking his glasses off, "Have you heard about Willis?"
Doyle was completely taken aback by this non sequitur. He blinked a few times, his eyes darting to the sides. He knew Cowley was getting to an age where he might start considering retirement, but senility was not something Doyle had ever connected to Cowley as even remotely possible.
He shook his head slightly. "Uh...no sir. What about him?" He had detested Willis since the incident all those years ago when Bodie had nearly been killed, and Marikka *had* been, all so Willis could conveniently tie up his plot to install a friendly East German into power.
"Hmm." Cowley seemed to consider that Doyle was out of this loop. But he wasn't surprised, Doyle spent virtually no off time at the headquarters any more, the way he used to when Bodie was around. "Willis, I'm not sorry to say, is history. It seems his machinations have been once again carried too far, and the Minister has seen fit to have him 'retire early.' Along with a few of his top team."
Watching the craggy face as it split into a sardonic grin took Doyle off guard. "Did you have anything to do with this?" He tried not to smile, but he couldn't help it. Cowley looked insufferably pleased with himself. He thought back to a time many years ago when an assassin's plane had been diverted to a country not too friendly with his 'type,' all because of a convenient heart attack by a passenger. He had asked Cowley then, "Anyone we know?" and Cowley had smiled, but never answered. He dared think it was the same thing all over again.
"Och, I'd say anyone who knows me knows I can carry quite a grudge when I want to. And I've never made it a secret that what he did to Bodie was unacceptable. But I wasn't...directly involved." He drew out these last words slowly, for emphasis. Then he smiled, and they moved off the lift towards his office. He went in and closed the door, completely ignoring Doyle, who stood staring at Betty absently. She also completely ignored him.
Doyle stood this way for some time before finally leaving the office. Cowley was telling him something, he knew, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what.
When Cowley finally heard the fading of Doyle's footsteps, he took the luxury of smiling to himself. No matter how long he'd been in the job, he never tired of seeing his plans fall into place on his complicated machinations.
Ray wandered absently down the hall, bumping into Murphy, who asked him about Bodie's condition. Doyle merely shook his head and stared stupidly at Murphy.
"D'you think Cowley could be becoming senile?" he asked.
"No, he's sharp as a tack. Why?"
"I dunno. I just had the strangest conversation with him. He told me about Willis..."
"Good thing, that, eh? That bastard's deserved it for a long time, especially after what he did to Bodie."
"I guess. It's just that, oh well, never mind. I'll figure it out." He moved off down the hall, walking to the car park and then got in behind the wheel. If Willis were leaving MI6, what did it have to do with them? Why would Cowley so pointedly ignore his request to discuss Bodie to tell him about someone Doyle wouldn't waste the time of day thinking about? There was always a method in Cowley's madness, he knew that, it was just a question of figuring out what the madness was about.
By the time he reached the warehouse where Bodie was being tortured by Macklin he was thoroughly annoyed. He decided to just go in, whether Mac welcomed him or not. And was genuinely surprised to see the two of them chatting amiably, eating biscuits and drinking tea.
He stood staring in the doorway. He'd expected the two of them to be at each other's throats, the usual way Mac and Bodie worked together when training was going on. Bodie's lackadaisical lifestyle drove Mac nearly out of his mind; Macklin's unceasing hectoring to do more, better, faster made Bodie crazy, probably because he already thought he was the best he could ever be.
Had everything just suddenly gone crazy? Had he drunk something funny this morning?
Bodie's face lit up when he saw his partner. He motioned for Doyle to come forward and sit on the bench next to them. Macklin seemed completely at ease, not his usual tense, calculating self.
"Mac doesn't think I can make it back on the squad, not soon anyway," Bodie said cheerfully, pouring tea from the stainless steel flask next to him. He handed Ray the cup and smiled his sexiest, most charming smile.
That tore it. Doyle pounded the cup onto the bench, the liquid sloshing over the rim and spattering Bodie's track suit bottoms.
"What is wrong with everyone today? Are you people all insane?" he bellowed, exasperation creasing his brows.
Macklin cracked one eye open from his position leaning against the wall. He looked at Doyle. "Perhaps he's too tense to take this on, eh, Bodie?"
"Nah. I think he just needs time to absorb it, that's all. He gets this way. Doesn't like change." He nudged Mac in the ribs and they both laughed.
"Please do fill me in," Doyle said in dark tones dripping with sarcasm.
"You can ask him on the way home, Bodie. This has been a long day for me, I think I'm heading home. You should do the same."
Doyle gave Bodie a pleading, annoyed look. "Ask me what?"
Bodie marveled to himself how Doyle could manage to do those looks at the same time. Of course, almost everything Doyle did made Bodie marvel.
Macklin picked up his holdall and went to the door of the warehouse, waved a quick good-bye to the two agents, and threw keys to Bodie. "May be needing these soon," he said, and winked.
Bodie followed, motioning for Doyle to go first. "Thank you, David," Doyle said in his best upper crust accent, a running joke between them from long ago. Bodie locked the padlock on the warehouse door and bounced into the passenger seat of Doyle's car.
He waited eagerly all through the drive home for Doyle to ask him what was going on, but Bodie was disappointed to find Ray stonefaced and silent. He finally couldn't stand it any longer, and turned excitedly to his partner, rubbing his hands together gleefully. "Big changes ahead, my son!"
Doyle sighed heavily. "Would someone please tell me what is happening around here?"
"Willis happened, and Mac."
"Ah. That explains it, then." Doyle closed his eyes and for a brief moment Bodie was afraid he wouldn't open them up again, and he almost grabbed the driving wheel.
"Willis is out over at MI6. The bastard finally got his due. And a certain someone we know, someone with very good spook credentials, has been offered a top-level position in the new CI5-friendly MI6. All thanks to one Mr. George Cowley."
Bodie's wry, dramatic delivery of this news was starting to make Ray laugh, but he tried to keep it in check.
"Mac." Doyle looked over at Bodie, beginning to see where this was going. Bodie's face split into a wicked grin.
"And Cowley, and Macklin, think there are certain individuals who would make excellent recruiters and trainers. Individuals who have expressed a desire to move off the streets into jobs better suited for a couple of old 'uns."
"I thought you wanted to get certified to be back on the squad more than anything?" Doyle asked him, obvious concern showing in the wide green eyes. Bodie looked away, distant at first, a slight frown creasing his lovely face.
Then Bodie shrugged. "It didn't take me long today to realize that I'm months away from that, if ever. I honestly don't know if I could ever pass Mac's physical. The pin in the knee hurts, every time I bend it in the right -- er, wrong -- way. My hand is never going to hold a gun as sharply. And my eye...well, I don't know that I need spectacles but I don't think I'm what I used to be. Mac tried to be as kind about it as he could. He said maybe in a few months -- "
Doyle gave him a look of complete sour disbelief, shaking his head and squinting.
"No, it's true. He was honestly...matey about it."
"Pull the other one, Bodie."
Bodie ignored him and continued. "And most important, I knew he was right. A lot's changed about me, Ray, since the explosion. I used to believe I was Superman, but I know now life is more important than all this runnin' around dodgin' bullets and such. And then he told me about MI6. It all seemed to fit. I didn't even wait for him to ask if I'd like to do his job." He paused for a moment, feeling his eyes grow hot with unwanted tears. "It hurts, Ray. I hate thinking I'm not good enough. But..."
"So this is all set. With you and Cowley?" He sounded mildly peeved, and Bodie realized he hadn't been given any other details.
"No! You and me. We're a package deal, you once told Cowley that, remember? He knows that. No, it's ours for the taking, if we want it. I want it. If you don't, then I won't." He sighed, but Ray could not tell whether it was out of exasperation or weariness. "But right now, I don't think I can make it back on the squad, and that means I can't be your partner."
Doyle thought back to his own recovery, and the weeks of torture at Macklin's hands as he struggled to regain his status. Bodie had told him then that if he couldn't make it back, he would leave CI5 to go wherever Doyle was. Even then, even before their relationship had escalated. And now, was there anything he wouldn't do for Bodie? Not likely, especially not when the opportunity presented itself to do what he believed in, but not to deal with the day-to-day uncertainty of the streets.
He reached his hand over to Bodie's. "I came by today. I sneaked into the warehouse and saw you on the floor; you looked like you wanted to die. I even went to talk with Cowley but all he said was this cryptic nonsense about Willis. I confess, Bodie, that I didn't think you could make it back, at least not now." He ran his fingers along the top of Bodie's hand, tracing each line of small bone.
"Bodie, whatever you want, I want too. I want to be safe, and I want you to be safe." He smiled his widest, whitest flashing grin, the one Bodie had found so heart-stoppingly irresistible for so long. "I'm yours for life."
Bodie squeezed Ray's hand back. "What d'you think we'll be like, as instructors? D'you think we could ever be as awful as Macklin was to us?"
The two men laughed riotously in their car, and other drivers turned to stare at them as they sped past, obviously having the time of their lives.
When they finally pulled up at Doyle's house, Bodie paused outside the door for a moment. "Of course, there's always what the Cow will say when he finds out about us. I've been meaning to ask what we should do about permanent living arrangements. And maybe all this will blow up on us, anyways, when he finds out."
"Oh, didn't I tell you about the conversation we had when you were in hospital?" Doyle asked airily. He unlocked the door.
Bodie followed as he always followed Ray, head bobbing back and forth on his shoulders, mouthing annoyed statements that he never spoke openly, shoulders down wearily, and half smiling all the while.
"I think that's the last of it," Bodie said, as he brought in a box and set it down in the foyer, amongst a dozen other boxes. His clothes littered the room, draped over every available surface. "D'you think I have too many clothes?" he asked Doyle, who snorted in derision. It was early in the morning, very early. Somehow this moving excursion had begun late at night and was ending only just now.
"Wanted to ask you something," Doyle said, and motioned for Bodie to follow him upstairs. He pointed at the wall.
Bodie looked over to the wall opposite the window. Before there'd been a large mirror there, above the chest of drawers, and a few small framed snapshots. Now there were two framed and matted sketches, the one of Gillian, and the one of Bodie.
"Do you think you'd mind them there?"
Bodie's voice caught in his throat. He had not forgotten the night he saw them, the first time he'd kissed Ray. It still awed Bodie that Ray possessed this rare talent, so different from all the other things that made up his character.
"No. Not at all." He looked back at Ray, love so strong in his eyes. Such a deep blue, like water, a river of light, an ocean Doyle could fall into and drown in bliss.
"You don't mind having Gil's picture here? I could move it to the other room."
"No. Leave it here. I like it. Like she's keeping an eye on us. She'd want to do that."
Ray looked at him hard. "Never thought I'd be happy again after she left."
Bodie's heart thumped heavily in his chest. "I can't believe, still sometimes, that I'm the one who's able to make you happy."
"I still feel sad about her, y'know. I think about her all the time, and sometimes, when you're not around, I find myself crying all over again. Especially when it's something mundane, like finding a dry cleaning ticket in the pocket of my jacket -- which is what I did the other day. It's all so clear to me, as if it were yesterday. And it still hurts."
"I wouldn't be very happy myself if you didn't still cry."
Doyle looked at Bodie quizzically. "Why?"
"Well, it hasn't even been a year. If you'd got over someone you loved that much that quickly, I think I'd be a little worried about how fast you'd get over me. I've seen you in action before, remember. I know not a lot of people stay in your life that long. The fact that you still grieve over her, still think of her first thing in the morning and last thing before you sleep, means that you do stick with people."
Smiling to himself, Doyle said, "She's not the *last* thing I think about before I sleep."
Bodie's lips pursed and he made his sardonic face, as he put on his best "aw shucks" look. "Thanks." He looked at the pictures again and sighed. "Life's full of surprises, isn't it?"
"It's good that way. Gil said she had a great ride. That's what I want. To say at the end I had a great ride."
"I think we're well on our way."
Light began to fill the room as the day broke outside, and a new life for both of them dawned inside.