In the Bleak Midwinter

"Another fucking warehouse." Doyle shrugged into his holster and slid his gun in place. "Why is it always a fucking warehouse?" Bodie could see the tension radiating from his partner's frame, could see it in the way he held his shoulders, in the way his jaw was clenched and his hands became fists as soon as his sheepskin jacket was zipped up.

"It'll be okay," Bodie said softly, ignoring Doyle's spoken question and getting to the heart of what was really bothering him. "We do this now, catch Solecki, stop his game, and everything goes back to normal."

"Pull the other one, Bodie." Doyle shot him a look that was equal parts viciousness and misery. "It's got bells on."

"Cowley promised us-"

"The Cow can't always deliver on his promises. You of all people should know that."

"And you of all people should know that he'll always protect us," Bodie snapped back. "When he can," he added reluctantly.

"When he can, Bodie. That's the problem. Can he do it this time?"

"He'll do it." Bodie reached out and pulled Doyle towards him, wrapping his arms firmly around him and holding him as tightly as his strength would allow. "And if he doesn't, then we'll protect each other. Just like we always do."

Bodie could feel the tension ease from Doyle's shoulders, could hear his breathing deepen and feel his fists unclench at Bodie's side. At last, Doyle let his head drop onto Bodie's shoulder, buried his face in the crook of Bodie's neck, and then Bodie knew his partner was over the worst of this rage. For now.

He pulled back enough to give Doyle a kiss that was deep and tender and said all the things he couldn't manage in words. Then he kneaded Doyle's shoulders and gave him a grin that he hoped looked more confident than it felt. "It'll all be over soon."

"I hope so," Doyle said, before he opened the door, pulling it hard enough that it bounced back off the wall. "I damn well fucking hope so."

Doyle had suspected this assignment was going to go pear-shaped from the moment Cowley had approached them with it.

"I have a special assignment for the two of you," Cowley had said as he'd cracked open a bottle of scotch. The good scotch. The very good scotch.

Doyle watched warily as Cowley poured three generous glasses of the amber liquid, and then threw a dog-eared folder onto his desk.

"What do you gentlemen know about Tomasz Solecki?"

"He's one of the bully boys at the Russian embassy, isn't he?" Bodie said.

"He's the bully boy, Bodie." Cowley took a long swallow of scotch before continuing. "Officially, he's a cultural attaché. He's Polish born, but has risen high in the Russian secret service through sheer ruthlessness. Unofficially, we have good reason to believe he's the mastermind behind all the less savoury operations the KGB run in Britain. Blackmail, kidnapping. Assassination. We've been asked to catch him at it so he can be decently tossed out of the country."

"He's been here a few years," Doyle said. "Why go after him now?"

"Because he's going after bigger game." Cowley pulled three more folders, these ones crisp and new, out of a drawer and threw them on his desk. "In the last two months, three high level bureaucrats in the Ministry of Defence have gone missing, along with confidential files on our new fighter jet. All three men have turned up dead. There's no direct link between the men and Solecki, of course, but they were susceptible to blackmail, and we suspect Solecki took advantage of that. This fighter jet purchase is important, but Solecki hasn't got hold of any crucial files yet, and we want to keep it that way."

"Why doesn't the government just deport him?" Doyle asked.

"Because we've no proof, and we don't want to damage relations with our Soviet friends without cause."

"So you want us to find proof." Bodie turned to Doyle and shot him the little self-satisfied grin he used when he was feeling clever, the bastard. Doyle had hated assignments where the Russians were involved ever since he'd been shot in a parking garage by a Russian operative. In a business of dirty players, where even angels' wings got a bit blackened, the Russians were the dirtiest.

"That I do, Bodie."

"And do you have a plan? Or do you want us to go knocking on the embassy door and ask if they've got a murder weapon with Solecki's prints on it lying about?"

"Enough of the sarcasm, Doyle. And yes, I have a plan." Cowley narrowed his eyes. "You two will be seconded to the Ministry of Defence as part of a move to step up their security. You will have access to the plans for the jet. You will then become a blackmail risk. And you're going to do whatever Solecki wants, right up until we nail him."

"Blackmail risk." Doyle's flesh crept all the way down his spine. "You can't mean--"

"You are a homosexual couple in the security service. As such, you are at risk of blackmail."

"No, we're not." Doyle tone was low, but menacing nonetheless. "You know about us. Whitehall knows about us. That was a condition of us moving in together."

"We know, but haven't exactly publicized the fact. That should prove useful to us now."

"Useful!" Doyle leapt to his feet, and began pacing the room. "I'm so pleased our personal life is useful to you."

"Ray." Bodie's voice was a rumbled warning.

"Don't Ray me, Bodie. He's going to throw us to the wolves. Or can't you see that?"

"I'm not going to throw you to anyone, Doyle, wolves or otherwise. I'm merely going to use your situation as a tactical advantage. A means of hitting a difficult target."

"I shall want that in writing," Doyle shot back.

"I'm sure you know that's impossible."

"Is this a full Operation Susie, then?"

"Don't be so dramatic, Doyle. There will be a limited number of people who are aware of the operation, both in CI5 and in the Ministry."

"And when it's all over, will we still have jobs to come back to?"

"You will, Doyle. You have my word on it."

"You'll forgive me if that doesn't inspire the greatest confidence."

"Ray!" Bodie stood, placing himself between Doyle and their boss, his hand firmly on Doyle's chest. "I'm sorry, sir."

"No need to apologize, Bodie. Doyle has cause for suspicion. But I want you both to know that I stand behind you. I won't allow anyone to jeopardize your positions. And I know where enough of the bodies are buried that I can make good on that promise." Cowley sighed, and through his anger, Doyle could see the shadows under the controller's eyes, the marks of excessive worry and inadequate sleep. "Now, are you two willing to take the assignment?"

"We are, sir." Bodie said, answering for them both. Doyle opened his mouth to protest, but Bodie sent him a quelling look that shut him up. "Now, what do you want us to do?"

That had begun two months of cat and mouse games. Of deliberate carelessness on their part, of courting disaster. Kissing, and more, with the curtains open; visits to the less discreet sort of gay bar. All the things they'd deliberately avoided before. And it had paid off.

They'd been contacted by a minor functionary in the Russian embassy, who made vague offers and vaguer threats. The man had been a small catch, not worth the effort, and so they'd laughed in his face and thrown him back.

The next nibble at the bait had been more serious. Bodrov, one of Solecki's more formidable underlings, had accosted them outside a rather unsavoury Soho bar. The offers and threats had been much less vague this time: fabulous wealth if they cooperated; exposure and death if they didn't. Any other time they might have been content with this fish, but they were after the whale, so they acted nervous, but still defiant.

And that had brought out Solecki.

They'd been on their way home after another boring afternoon at the Ministry office, keeping up their cover by inspecting security in the records area. Doyle had been driving when a black BMW with tinted windows had cut him off.

"Christ," Doyle had said under his breath as he'd swerved to avoid the BMW.

"Problem?" Bodie had gone from nearly asleep in the passenger side to sparked up and ready for action.

"Possibly," Doyle said, then swore again as a second BMW appeared from a side street and hemmed them in on the right.

"Do you want to try and outrun them?" Bodie asked, his hand going to his gun.

"No," Doyle said, clenching his jaw. "We're supposed to draw out Solecki. Looks like we've done it."

He let the two BMWs herd him into an isolated alley in Islington and pen the car in, one in front, one behind. Then they waited for their quarry's next move.

After a minute, a door of the rear car opened and Bodrov emerged holding a Makarov loosely in one hand. He approached the Capri and knocked on Doyle's window with his weapon. After a second's hesitation, Doyle rolled down the window.

"My superior would like to talk to you," Bodrov said, sounding less like a thug and more like a Russian history professor, though he spoiled the effect by thumbing back the hammer of his gun. "Now."

"All right, sunshine," Doyle said, moving his hands carefully off the steering wheel. "We'll come quietly."

Bodrov moved back, and Doyle and Bodie got out of their car. They moved toward BMW's open door with their hands held up slightly in front of them, the universal gesture of surrender. Bodrov took their guns and then waved them into the car and closed the door on them.

They found themselves in the back seat of the car with Tomasz Solecki. Solecki was as his photos had shown: a middle-aged man dressed in a stylish suit with a neatly trimmed beard and moustache and an air of casual danger. He held a gun, an impeccably maintained Glock, but had not bothered to aim it at them, as if its mere presence was enough.

"I believe you gentlemen have turned down invitations to talk with me several times," Solecki said, his voice smooth, cultured and menacing. "It's made me even more eager to meet with you."

"We have nothing to say to you."

"I very much doubt that, Mr. Doyle," Solecki said with an easy smile. He turned to the driver and barked an order in Russian. The driver handed him an envelope. "Not after you see the contents of this." He passed the envelope to Doyle, who hesitated before he took it.

Doyle opened the envelope quickly, hoping it would make the pain less, like ripping off a plaster. But even knowing what would be in that package, it still hit him like a blow to the solar plexis when he saw the first picture, a telephoto shot of Bodie kissing him on their own sofa. It only got worse from there, with compromising shots of them in the kitchen, in a club, in their bed, and transcripts of conversations that he knew they'd had in their flat. He forced himself to stay calm even he fought down a wave of revulsion. He had always feared this: the job soiling what was between him and Bodie. And now that it had happened at last, even under Cowley's orders, it was exactly as hard as he'd feared.

He let the envelope and its content fall to his lap. Bodie took it up and flicked through the photos, his face an unreadable mask.

"What do you want?" Bodie asked, and Doyle was glad his partner had taken the lead on this. He didn't think he could trust his own response at the moment.

"I have need of certain plans. Plans I believe you two gentlemen have access to."

"So we give you the plans, you give us the negatives?"

"And the tapes the transcripts are taken from, yes."

"You can go fuck yourself," Doyle blurted out, then felt Bodie place a hand on his wrist.

"Easy, Ray. We don't want to annoy Comrade Solecki."

"So you know who I am."

"We'd be sorry CI5 agents if we didn't," Bodie said, his voice as cool as Doyle's temper was red hot.

Solecki smiled. "That will make this easier."

"We need time. To discuss this." Bodie waved the envelope at Solecki.

"There is little enough to discuss, but I can be generous. You have 24 hours."

"How do we contact you?"

"I will find you."

"Can I take this?" Bodie gestured at the envelope.

"Of course." Solecki rapped on the window with his gun. "I have the originals, after all." Then Bodrov was opening the door. Bodie got out of the car and pulled Doyle with him.

Doyle felt himself dragged back to their car, and pushed into the passenger seat. He sat silently, annoyed at how unhinged he felt as Bodie waited for the BMWs to leave and then pointed them towards their flat.

"You okay, Ray?" Bodie asked quietly when they were within a street of their building.

"Not really." Doyle shook his head. "But I'll survive."

"‘Course you will," Bodie said with a grin that was entirely forced. But Doyle blessed him for trying.

They were silent for the rest of the drive to their flat. Silent while they scoured every inch of the place, looking for the hidden bugs they now knew had to be there. Doyle crushed each one they found beneath his boot heel and dumped them out the back window. They carefully closed every curtain they'd been careless with the last two months, blocking out the spying cameras that had caught their most intimate moments, and only then did they draw together. Bodie wrapped his arms around Doyle, holding him so tightly Doyle almost couldn't breathe, but it was exactly what he needed.

"I hate this," Doyle said when he could finally speak. "I really fucking hate this."

"I know, Ray." Bodie's hand gripped his arm just that little bit more tightly.

"I never wanted the job to touch what we have, Bodie. And now it has."

"No it hasn't. Not if we don't let it. And we won't."

"I hope you're right."

"I'm always right. Didn't you know?" Bodie flashed him one of his annoyingly confident grins, gave him a quick kiss, then let him go. "Now let's call the Cow and let him know this bloody op is nearly over."

It wasn't quite over. Not yet.

On Cowley's advice, they defied Solecki for one further meeting, let him close the trap around them, let him nearly follow through on his threats of death and dishonour. Then when he gave them one last chance, one last way out, they grabbed it like rats taking the last route off a foundering ship. And that had brought them here, to a mouldering warehouse on a mouldering street close to the Thames.

They did not arrive empty-handed. Doyle had a briefcase holding plans that looked very much like the new fighter Solecki was so interested in, but doctored enough to be useless to the Russians.

With Bodie at his side, Doyle examined the warehouse. It was mostly empty, though a pile of dusty crates were jumbled against one far wall. A metal staircase led up seemingly forever to catwalks that crisscrossed the top of the warehouse like a black metal spiderweb.

Doyle snapped the gum in his mouth between his teeth and clenched the hand holding the briefcase.

"Easy, Ray," Bodie said quietly.

"I'm okay," Doyle said, his voice as calm and low as he could make it. "I just want this done."

The words had hardly left his lips when they heard the sound of an engine, of several engines, outside the warehouse. The main door, a great hulking thing on wheels, was rolled open and the two BMWs the Russians had used before drove into the space.

Doyle squared his shoulders and faced the oncoming cars. He heard Bodie shift beside him and knew his partner was as ready for this as he was.

When they were perhaps twenty feet away, the cars stopped, and the doors were opened. Four men emerged from one vehicle, unslung Kalashnikovs from their shoulders, aimed their weapons menacingly at Doyle and his partner, and immediately spread out behind the car. Those men were going to make it very ugly if this op went down as badly as Doyle feared it was going to.

Only once his guards were in place did Solecki emerge from the second car, with Bodrov right behind him. Bodrov carried an envelope in one hand and a gun in the other. Solecki carried nothing but his own arrogance. Doyle itched to shoot them both down, to rid the world of vermin who preyed on others' misery and cowardice. But Cowley wouldn't like that, and neither would the politicians who'd started this bloody op in the first place. Instead he stood as still as he could manage and did his best to look like a man who'd been caught in an impossible trap.

"Gentlemen," Solecki said with a nod. "I believe you have something for me." He gestured in the direction of Doyle's briefcase.

"Only if you've got what you promised us," Doyle said.

"Of course." Solecki snapped his fingers, and Bodrov moved forward holding up the thick envelope in one hand. Doyle curled a lip in distaste as he considered what that envelope contained. He was going to take great satisfaction in burning it.

Doyle began to walk towards Bodrov, flicking his gaze at the guards before locking his attention on Bodrov. That was where the immediate danger lay.

The two of them stopped warily when they were several paces apart.

"Place the briefcase on the ground, Mr. Doyle," Solecki said. Doyle did as he was told. "Now take ten paces back."

"Wait a minute," Doyle protested. "What about your side of the bargain?"

"My side of the bargain is whatever I say it is." The bastard smiled, a smile that was cold and calculating and utterly without humour.

Doyle stamped down hard on a poisonous reply and took exactly ten steps backward. Bodrov waited for him to stop, then threw the envelope at Doyle's feet and retrieved the briefcase before returning to stand beside Solecki.

"It has been a pleasure doing business, gentlemen," Solecki said and gave them a perfunctory bow.

Doyle took a deep breath. This was the most dangerous part of the whole operation. It could go one of two ways. In the best of all possible worlds, Solecki would now leave, Cowley would have his car followed, the plans would be found, Solecki would be detained, debriefed and deported, and all would be right with the world until the next Russian cultural attaché arrived on British soil.

But if this wasn't the best of all worlds—and in Doyle's experience, it seldom was—then Solecki was about to try to have them killed.

Doyle shook his shoulders, kept his eye on the guards and calculated how quickly he could unholster his weapon if they began to fire. Seemingly in slow motion, Solecki turned to one of the guards and gave him a nod. The man raised his weapon slightly and began to pull back the bolt, even as Doyle turned to Bodie and began to move.

But the gunfire, when it came, didn't come from Solecki's guards. It came from above. From Lucas and McCabe, stuck high in the rafters, their insurance in case Solecki decided to kill them instead of honouring his bargain. They were certainly earning their pay packets now.

"Bodie!" Doyle yelled to his partner, gesturing to the crates at the edge of the warehouse, the only cover remotely near them, before pulling his gun.

Doyle pushed Bodie towards the crates and began laying his own covering fire, even as Lucas, or perhaps McCabe, hit one of Solecki's thugs. His clip emptied far too soon, and he reached for a new one just as Bodie reached the safety of the crates. He slapped the clip in as Bodie began to return the favour, providing Doyle with cover.

Maybe they were going to make it out of this after all, Doyle thought as he fired one last shot in Solecki's direction and began to run across the warehouse floor to the crates and Bodie and safety.

But he'd barely taken ten steps when he heard the sound of a car's engine starting up and accelerating behind him. He risked a glance back and saw Solecki's car, aimed in his direction and accelerating rapidly.

More adrenaline kicked into his system and he put every ounce of effort he could into speed. Behind him, he could hear Solecki's remaining guards trading gunfire with Lucas and McCabe. Ahead, he could see the muzzle flashes of Bodie's weapon. He blocked it all out, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other as fast as he could, faster than he'd ever managed before.

He was maybe fifty feet from Bodie when he realized he wasn't going to make it. He could hear the car roaring behind him and knew it was too close. He cast a last look at Bodie's position, taking comfort in the fact that Bodie at least would survive this bloody op, then turned to face the car. He wasn't going to die running away, not from anything.

The BMW was closer even than he'd expected. Doyle moved into proper firing stance and fired his last three bullets into the windscreen. A spiderweb bloomed across the safety glass, but the car didn't slow. A second more, and then metal and glass made contact with flesh and bone.

Doyle struggled to hold a scream inside as he was tossed into the air, but it burst through his clenched teeth, an animal's yowl. The edges of his vision went red, and then the blackness rose up like a fifty-foot wave and crashed down on him, pulling him under to where there was no light and no sound. Pulling him down to where there was nothing but void and panic and pain.

The ambulance hit yet another bump, and Bodie found himself bounced from the narrow bench he was sitting on. He settled himself back on the bench as the attendant put a hand out to support Doyle, to keep him from being jostled further. Doyle didn't even flutter an eyelid in response. He was well and truly out.

Bodie wanted nothing better than to reach out a hand and hold Doyle, to offer what comfort he could, but he was afraid to even touch Ray. Every visible bit of him was bruised, one arm was broken, one leg shattered. And Solecki had somehow broken through the net they'd laid around him and disappeared into the bowels of London.

Christ.

He was never going to forget it, seeing Doyle run down by that car. Not if he and Doyle both lived to be a hundred. He was never going to forget the determination in Doyle's eyes as he tried to outrun two tonnes of careening German metal, or the way Doyle had turned to face the car just before he'd been thrown into the air. He was never going to forget the sound of Doyle hitting the cement floor, or the long seconds it took to get to his side.

Bodie had called in the Priority A-3 as Solecki's car burst through the closed wooden door, then tried to do what pitiful little he could to help Doyle.

There hadn't been much he could do. Doyle had been unconscious, his skin gone grey, his left arm at an odd angle that marked it as broken, his right leg a mangled mess. The knee was wrenched in a direction Bodie would have sworn was impossible, and there was blood and bone visible through a tear in Doyle's jeans. Bodie had suppressed his nausea at Doyle's injuries, covered Doyle with his jacket and placed himself as a human shield between Doyle and the last of the warehouse battle raging around them.

Murphy, Jax and the rest of the backup crew who'd been meant to follow Solecki had burst through the door soon enough, and helped Lucas and McCabe take down the last of Solecki's men. The ambulance seemed to arrive as soon as the bullets stopped flying, and Bodie ceded his place by Doyle to the young men in charge of getting his partner to the hospital. As he'd hovered, they'd put temporary splints on Doyle's arm and leg and a collar on his neck. Then they'd rolled him onto a stretcher and loaded him into the ambulance.

Bodie hadn't given them time to object, he'd just climbed in the ambulance with them. Not that Doyle had known he was there. He hadn't opened his eyes since Bodie found him. But he'd have hated for Doyle to wake up in this metal box without him.

The siren was turned off and the ambulance slowed, then the doors burst open and the nurses and doctors of casualty took charge of Doyle. Not for the first time, Bodie was left standing in a hospital corridor, hoping for the best and fearing the worst.

After a time, he dimly registered the presence of Cowley, browbeating consultants and being his usual forbidding self before he disappeared once again.

Murphy arrived later, and provided cups of hot tea whenever Bodie showed the least sign of thirst.

A nurse appeared at some point, assuring him that Doyle would live, but giving no idea about how badly off he was. The thought of Doyle unable to walk was, well, not as bad as the thought of him dead, but pretty fucking awful just the same.

Some time before dawn, with Murphy curled up in two hard plastic chairs beside him, a middle-aged, dark-haired man in blood-spattered surgical scrubs appeared in the hall, his expression matter of fact and giving nothing away.

"Are you Mr. Bodie?" he asked, his voice deep and confident, the voice of a man who was used to playing god.

"Yeah." Bodie stood quickly and tried to blink away the gritty, tired feeling in his eyes. "Are you Doyle's doctor?"

"Mr MacMillan." The man gave Bodie's hand a brief, firm shake. "I'm the chief orthopaedic consultant here."

"How's Doyle?" Bodie was done with the social niceties.

"I've just finished putting his leg back together." MacMillan had the gall to smile. "It was a bit of a jigsaw, but I think I've managed it. I doubt he'll lose the leg."

"Lose the leg?" Bodie choked out. Somehow that was a possibility he hadn't even considered. Doyle minus a leg. Fucking hell. And the bastard was still smiling.

"It was a nasty compound fracture, and bones have a tendency to get infected. But we've cleaned it all out, and have him on an antibiotic drip. There shouldn't be a problem with gangrene."

"Will he be able to walk?" Bodie asked, not sure he even wanted to know the answer to the question.

"Oh, certainly." MacMillan smiled even wider. "He's not that old--forty, isn't he?--and fitter than most. And you secret service types tend to be determined and obstinate. That will definitely help with his recovery."

"How long? 'Til he can walk?"

"Well, he'll need to wait until the bone starts knitting together before he puts much weight on it. At the moment it's held together with pins and plates. And he'll need to do quite a lot of physiotherapy. Build up the muscle again, train it all to work properly."

"How long?" Bodie tried to inject just enough menace that MacMillan knew he should be taken seriously.

"Hard to say." Apparently MacMillan was immune to menace. "He could be putting weight on it in two weeks. Or it could be two months, or longer, if an infection develops. We just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best."

"Can I see him?"

"Mr. Doyle is still in recovery. And still unconscious. I'll have a nurse come and get you when he's in a room and awake." He looked down at his watch. "And now I must get going. I have rounds in an hour." MacMillan gave Bodie a firm pat on the shoulder and turned to leave. "Say hello to George for me."

And then he was gone, leaving Bodie with even more to worry about than he'd had before. Infection. Gangrene. Amputation. Christ.

Murphy stirred in the chair, and sat up, his hair going in all directions.

"Was that the doctor?" Murphy stared at the figure retreating down the hallway.

"Yeah." Bodie sat down hard and closed his eyes. "He says he put Doyle's leg back together like it was a puzzle, but that he shouldn't lose the leg."

"Charming," Murphy said, but had the sense not to say anything more on the subject. "How about a cuppa?"

"Coffee for me, thanks." He'd had enough of tea this night to last the year, but he wanted a few minutes alone to process what the doctor had told him. If sending Murphy off for the sludge the cafeteria called coffee got him that time alone, so much the better.

Murphy started off, but stopped long enough to grab Bodie's shoulder. "He's going to be fine."

Bodie couldn't say anything to that, so he simply gave Murphy a smile that must have looked as false as it felt and then looked down at the floor. Murphy gave his shoulder a last squeeze, and then was gone, leaving Bodie to face the darkness of his thoughts alone.

It was an hour after the sun came up, when the hospital was beginning to stir around them, that a nurse came to tell Bodie he could see Doyle. She led him through a maze of corridors and into a room with a curtain around the bed.

Bodie entered the room and slowly opened the curtain. Doyle was in the bed, his left arm in a cast nearly to his shoulder, and his right leg looking like it had been put together by a mad ironmonger. There were rods poking out and sticking in to metal hoops surrounding the leg, while more rods kept the whole thing in alignment.

As Bodie watched, Doyle shifted and stirred and finally cracked one eye open.

"‘Ow do I look?" Doyle croaked.

Fucking awful, Bodie thought. But that's not what he said. "Brilliant," was the word that came out of his mouth. And that was true as well.

"Liar." Doyle's voice was harsh, cracked. Without being asked, Bodie raised the glass of water with a straw up for Doyle, and held it until his partner had sucked down his fill. "Now how do I really look?"

"Like a lorry hit you," Bodie admitted. "Which is near enough the truth. But you're fucking alive, Ray."

"I suppose that counts for something." The resignation in Doyle's voice stirred up something hard and angry in Bodie's gut.

"It counts for everything, you stupid berk." He squeezed Doyle's good hand, hard. As if inflicting such an intimate pain could bring Doyle out of the mood he was in. Doyle didn't say anything, but he did squeeze back, giving Bodie as good as he got.

They sat like that for several long minutes, silent with their fingers entwined. Bodie didn't want to let go, but eventually he had to. And eventually, they both had to talk.

"What have they said about my leg?" Doyle asked, biting his lip and keeping his eyes from meeting Bodie's.

"That it'll heal."

"But how much will it heal?"

Bodie didn't answer. He wasn't ready yet to share the consultant's opinions, and he didn't think Doyle was ready to hear about the possibility of gangrene and amputation.

Doyle frowned and licked his lips. "Have you called me mum?"

"Not yet. I thought I'd wait until the sun's up. No need to wake her just to tell her you're in the hospital."

"Could you-" Doyle began, before stopping abruptly and looking embarrassed.

"What, sunshine?"

"I was going to say could you ask Mum to come down." Doyle looked down and chewed at his lip. "But that's not on, is it? A tough CI5 agent asking for his mum?"

"I'll do you one better. I'll go get her myself." Bodie gave Doyle's hand one last, gentler squeeze. "That is, if you think you can spare me today."

"Would you, Bodie?" And the look on Doyle's face, the eagerness and the hope told Bodie it was the right thing to do.

"‘Course, I will. If you promise me you'll rest."

"I don't think I'll be doing much else." Doyle's eyes were already drifting closed, as if he'd used up what little energy he had.

Bodie sat beside him, one hand lightly on Doyle's arm, until he was peacefully asleep. Only then did he rise and leave the room. Murphy was standing outside the door, and talking to Cowley in hushed tones. They both looked up at him.

"Is there any news on Solecki?" Bodie asked.

"No," Cowley said, shaking his head. "I've got all of CI5 and most of the Met on the lookout for the man, but he hasn't been seen. He might have made it back to the embassy already. Or he's hidden away in some bolt hole." Cowley looked grim. "In either case, we'll be hard-pressed to shake him loose."

"How's Doyle?" Murphy asked, his expression one of quiet concern.

"He'll be fine," Bodie said, ignoring the question of how he was just at the moment. A question he didn't want to think about at the moment. "He's sleeping right now." He turned to Cowley. "He's asked me to go fetch his mum from Derby. And I've agreed." He stared down Cowley, daring him turn down this not quite request. Cowley stared at him closely for a good twenty seconds, his mouth a thin line, his eyes narrowed. And they his expression relaxed, ever so slightly, and he nodded.

"Aye, you do that, lad. There's not much you can do here, and I'm sure Mrs. Doyle will appreciate hearing this from you."

"You'll make sure someone is on duty here? It's just, I wouldn't want Doyle left on his own. Not with Solecki still out there."

"Of course." Cowley looked almost affronted that he'd even asked. As well he might. It was Standard Operation Procedure to have a guard on an agent in a case like this, but Bodie wasn't quite in the mood to rely on SOP today. "Should I send someone to Derby with you?" Cowley asked. "You must have been up for over twenty-four hours now."

Bodie was tempted by the offer. He didn't think the little kip he'd managed in the waiting room had done him much good. But he was also all too aware that he wasn't fit company for anyone just at the moment.

"I'll be fine, sir. I just want to go. But if Murph could give me a ride back to my car…"

"Aye. I think I can spare him for that. I'll stay with Doyle for now and call in someone from the A squad for guard duty."

"Thank you, sir," Bodie said, grateful that Cowley was taking this seriously enough to put one of their best on guard duty. "I'll be back by evening."

"God speed," Cowley said. "God speed."

Margaret Doyle had become used to bracing herself for bad news. She'd had enough of it in her life. There'd been the bobbies who'd knocked at the door to tell her Roger had died of a heart attack. And more bobbies who'd turn up on her doorstep at regular intervals when Ray was a teen to warn her about whatever trouble her son had got into this time.

When Ray had joined the Met, he'd deliver the bad news himself, calling tell her when he'd been involved in a particularly bad arrest. Never the details, thank God, but he'd told her enough that she'd known why he needed to talk to his old mum. And then there'd been the time his partner had died. That had been bad. Ray had looked up to Sid like the father he'd been missing since his teens.

CI5 had brought with it the dreaded phone calls from George Cowley.

But none of that, except for Roger's death, could compare to seeing Ray's Bodie at the door, just before noon on this November day. Bodie stared at her silently, his face grim as death, and Margaret felt the strength go out of her.

"He's dead, isn't he?" she said, clutching at his arm as she felt her legs begin to buckle. "Ray's dead."

"No, he isn't, Margaret," Bodie said, even as he caught her around the waist and steered her into the sitting room. "He's alive."

"But-"

"But he's been hurt." He installed her on the sofa and moved to sit across from her in the wing chair he always used on his visits. Needing closer contact than that, she caught his hand and held it.

"How bad is it?"

"He'll survive." He paused for a breath, and held her gaze as if he could give her some of his own strength. "But his arm's broken and his leg--" Bodie cut himself off, as is he couldn't bear to go on. Margaret gripped his hand tighter, wordlessly encouraging even as she wasn't sure she wanted to hear what Bodie had to say. "It's been...shattered." He looked no happier about that than she felt, though she could see him shake off whatever it was he'd seen and try to look chipper for her. "They say he'll recover."

"They say a lot of things," Margaret muttered, hoping this would end better than she feared. Bodie drew his hand gently from her grasp and patted her lightly on the shoulder.

"Can I get you a cuppa?"

"I don't want tea." She took a deep breath and tried to stamp down on the hysteria she could feel welling up inside her. "I want to see my son." Her throat felt tight and her eyes stung. She swallowed and it felt like she was swallowing all her fears, a cold, hard lump that stuck in her chest.

"That's why I've come, Margaret. Ray asked for you. I've come to take you back to London."

"Oh, Bodie." Her hand went to her mouth, and she only just stopped herself from sobbing. Before she could move away, retreat to deal with her grief on her own, Bodie moved onto the sofa and wrapped his arms around her, holding her with a tenderness that might have surprised the men he worked with, but not Margaret Doyle.

"It'll be all right, Margaret." He tightened his arms around her, as if he could protect her from all the hurt of the world. She clung to his strength, struggling to breathe, until she felt the hysteria begin to fade.

She finally pulled slowly away from him, and he let her, though he kept hold of one hand, and when she looked up, he was looking at her as she imagined he might look at a suspect, looking for possible cracks and vulnerabilities.

She took a gulp of breath and patted his hand. "I'm all right, Bodie. Really."

"Are you?" She knew he meant well, but his concern stirred her own pride.

"Of course I am." She nodded her head firmly. No use dwelling on the bad, was there? She needed to focus on the good, and on what she could do. "I need to pack. And call the girls to let them know their brother's been hurt. I was meant to be minding Cath's baby this evening. She and Kevin haven't had a night out since the baby was born. Well, maybe Nancy can take her." She stood, her legs steady again, her voice strong. "You go make yourself a cuppa. And a sandwich. You know where the bread is, and there's some ham in the fridge."

"Yes, ma'am," Bodie said, and Margaret saw a faint glimmer of a smile in his eyes, the first break in the sadness he'd brought with him.

"He'll be fine, Bodie." She didn't know if she believed the words yet, but she needed to say them. Saying them would make them true. "If they haven't killed him, he won't give up. He's tough as old boots."

"He must take after his mum."

"There's some wouldn't take that as a compliment, Bodie," Margaret said, giving him a swat.

"But you do." Bodie caught her hand and held it, his eyes going suspiciously bright. "You're a good woman."

"I'm a mother, Bodie. I just do what I can."

"Not all mothers are like you," Bodie said, then bent down and gave her a peck on the cheek. She grabbed him and gave him a quick hug, needing the connection with this man who loved her son, even as she wondered about what sort of mother Bodie must have had. What sort of woman could abandon a child to a man she knew was a drunk and a bully. She'd have fought for her son if she'd made a bad choice like that. She was sure of it.

She made her way upstairs, concentrating on what she had to do in the next half hour—packing her bag, having some lunch, calling Cath and the girls to let them know about their brother—and trying not to think about her boy, lying in a London hospital bed on his own.

It was the voices that woke him. Two voices, whispering in hushed tones, then raising slightly in passion before quickly dropping down again. A pause, and the pattern would repeat again.

Doyle strained to understand their words.

"—looks so fragile." That was his mum. Bodie had been good as his word and brought her. Not that Doyle had ever doubted him. Doyle fought to overcome the morphine that held him in this half wakeful state.

"He's not, Margaret. You said yourself: he's tough as old boots."

"That was before I saw him." There was a pause, and Doyle could imagine the look of worry on his mum's face. A worry he knew he had to banish. He tried to open his eyes, but his muscles wouldn't obey him. And his mother, unaware that he was awake, or nearly so, continued to talk.

"Do you remember what you said, Bodie? When you were recovering that time?"

"I said a lot of things, Margaret." Bodie sounded defensive, and Doyle wondered what hurt his mum had touched on.

"You said you'd quit when it was time. That the pair of you would get out of CI5 when you couldn't watch each other's backs."

Doyle felt his breathing catch in the back of his throat at his mother's words. Why hadn't she talked about this with him? Why hadn't Bodie?

"I can still watch his back." Bodie's voice was quiet, but even with his eyes closed, Doyle could see the quiet intensity that his partner must have on his face.

"Then why is he in this bed?" His mother's voice began to rise above a whisper, to rise and rise until it was threateningly close to a wail. "Why is he so broken?"

"Because he was watching my back."

He heard his mother gasp, and then there was a long pause. So long that Doyle began to worry for them both. He didn't want them like this, at odds. Not arguing over him. He wasn't broken. He'd prove it. He struggled, and managed a blink, and then opened his eyes properly.

Margaret Doyle was sitting beside the bed on his right side, one hand clutching at the sheet that covered his torso. Bodie stood across from her. They both looked shell shocked, as if they'd been through the wars and no longer knew what to say to each other.

"Mum," Doyle croaked out, his voice weak, but still enough to stir both his visitors to action.

"Ray!" His mother stood suddenly, her face going from misery to relief as he watched. "You're awake!"

"Yeah," he gulped out, then turned to his partner. "Bodie—"

"Right here, mate."

"Don't argue," he said, his own voice far quieter than he'd have liked. "Don't want you two arguing. I'm fine."

"'Course you are," Bodie said, even if his expression said he didn't believe a word of it.

"You'll be fine, Ray," his mum said, patting his good hand lightly. He watched as his mum and Bodie shared a look, shared a confidence he knew he wasn't a part of, and that made him glad, made him sure that they were back to being friends and allies.

"I will," Doyle said, his voice growing stronger as he used it. Family dealt with, he turned to his job. To the reason he was stuck in this bed. "Solecki?" he asked Bodie.

"Still no word." Bodie's mouth became a grim line. "Cowley has every agent and most of the Met out looking for him, but he's disappeared." Bodie nodded at the door. "Anson is out there, keeping guard. He won't let Solecki or any of his thugs past."

"Hope Anson didn't bring his bloody cigars."

"The nursing sisters would have his hide if he did." Doyle was glad to see an almost smile cross Bodie's face, however briefly.

"Good."

"Anything you need, mate?"

"Water," Doyle said, astounded at how thirsty he kept feeling. He drank deeply from the glass Bodie held for him.

"Anything else we can do for you, love?" His mum stroked his hand lightly, as if she were afraid she could break him, and he wished more than anything that he hadn't been the cause of that look in her eyes.

"No." He shook his head. "Just stay with me."

"Of course, Ray." His mum nodded and squeezed his hand, as Bodie nodded grimly.

The last of his energy spent, Doyle lay back and tried to take strength from the presence of the two people he cared about most in this world. He suffered through a nurse's visit, a doctor's prodding, and faded out just as the light outside the window went from indigo to black.

George Cowley heard two low voices in the hospital room as he approached. One he identified easily as Bodie's. The other, female, with a midlands accent, he guessed was Mrs Doyle. He was glad Doyle had family to look after him. Family besides his partner.

He straightened took off his topcoat and straightened his tie, then nodded at Anson standing sentinel at the door.

"Has there been any trouble?"

"No, sir," Anson said. "Everything's been quiet."

"Good. Make sure it stays that way."

Always vigilant whether he was entering a hospital room or a battlefield, Cowley's eyes swept the room as he entered. Bodie stood to one side of the bed. The room's second occupant, Mrs Doyle, sat on the other side clutching her son's hand. Doyle lay between them, his eyes closed, his face relaxed in sleep. Cowley took in the bruises on his face, the cast on his arm, the monstrous metal apparatus holding his leg together and thought that, over all, Doyle was doing rather well. He'd never share the opinion with Doyle's mother or partner, but he was all too aware that he could very easily have been arranging a CI5 funeral instead of making a hospital visit.

"Mrs Doyle," he said, moving forward to shake her hand. "I wish it was better circumstances that brought you to London."

"Thank you, Mr Cowley. So do I."

"How is our patient?" Cowley asked.

"He's been better," Bodie answered, his voice just a bit too flat for Cowley's comfort. 3.7 was going to take some watching after this. "He was awake for a bit. He's just gone back to sleep the last minute."

"Glad to hear it," Cowley said, even as he placed his topcoat on the empty chair beside him. "Mrs Doyle, I was wondering if you'd give me a moment alone with Bodie?"

Margaret Doyle looked at him sharply, before turning to Bodie. Silent communication passed between the two of them—permission asked and given—and then she nodded.

"Of course, Mr Cowley. I'll just pop down to the cafeteria. See if there's any tea to be had. Could I bring you one?"

"Thank you, no. I won't be staying long."

One more sharp look in his direction, and Mrs Doyle left the room. Cowley waited until the sound of her footsteps had faded down the hall before he spoke.

"I wanted to update you on the search for Solecki."

"You wanted to see how I was doing," Bodie corrected. Cowley didn't bother to deny the charge, since it was true.

"A copper on the beat found Solecki's car parked near Limehouse basin. It had been cleaned out and set on fire, but the damage on the front bumper made it obvious it was Solecki's."

"The damage from hitting Doyle and smashing through that door," Bodie said, his voice still a flat shadow of its usual tones. "So he's in Limehouse."

"He was in Limehouse. He could be anywhere now, including back in Moscow."

"I doubt they've managed to smuggle him back to Moscow quite yet, sir."

"You're probably right," Cowley said. "I hope so. I still want to get my hands on the man, even if it's just to deport him myself."

The look on Bodie's face told him he'd like to do more to Solecki than deport him.

"I'll be back at headquarters tomorrow, sir."

"You will not. I'm giving you three days compassionate leave. You can stay here with Doyle. Look after him and his mother."

"Thank you, sir." Bodie didn't quite salute, but he did come to attention, a throwback to his days in the army Cowley had sometimes observed.

"Three days and I'll see you back at headquarters. Then we can track down the bastard that did this to Doyle."

"Yes, sir." And Cowley was glad that he could see a bit of the old fire back in Bodie's response.

"Take care, lad." Cowley patted Bodie on the arm, and then left before either of them could embarrass themselves with an emotional display.

Part Two

Doyle was sitting on the sofa, his bad leg stuck up on the coffee table and a mug of tea in his good hand when Bodie poked his head in the lounge.

"You all right?"

"I'm fine, Bodie."

"You're sure? It's just I'm stuck on this obbo for the next twelve hours and I won't be able to get back if you need-"

"I'm fine," Doyle broke in. "I can hobble around on me cane if I need to. I've got my exercises to do, a book to read, and there's enough food left over from yesterday to feed us for a month. I'll be fine."

"If you're sure…"

"I'm sure." He glanced over at the clock on the wall. "You should leave if you want your bollocks intact. Cowley will have them if you're late again."

"Yeah. Right." Bodie gave him a quick smile that didn't extend to his eyes, and then was out of the lounge and out of the flat.

As soon as he heard the door close, Doyle sighed and threw back his head and wondered what the fuck he was going to do.

He was glad to be home. Home was better than hospital, even if his mum had stayed with him the first week he was stuck in Guy's. And it was much better than Waltham Abbey Convalescent Home, otherwise known as That Fucking Hell Hole to any CI5 agent who'd been unlucky enough to be packed off to it. The days in That Fucking Hell Hole had passed in a slow motion blur of grey walls, bad food, and constant pain. The one bright spot had been Bodie's visits, and even those had been strained.

The stupid bastard had fetched up in his room every day, no matter what time he got off duty, no matter how far he had to drive to see him. He'd show up with grapes, motorcycle magazines, and get well cards from mates and colleagues. Bodie ate the grapes, flipped through the magazines, and mocked the cards mercilessly, but in spite of his forced good humour, there was always an air of suppressed misery about him.

Doyle had thought it would all be okay if only he could get home. So he'd pushed himself. He weaned himself off the pain killers, and worked like a navvy to teach his ruined leg how to support weight, to walk again. He fought to build up strength in muscles that were going to have to compensate for bones and tendons that had been stitched back together like a threadbare jumper.

He pushed himself to get fit enough to be released from That Fucking Hell Hole, and when it was clear the doctors didn't want to let him out in time for Christmas, he'd insisted they let him out anyway. It had meant some arguments and stubbornness and signing waivers, but he'd thought the aggro had been worth it when he'd arrived at their flat two days ago, on a cane, with his arm newly out of a cast, a great, bloody brace on his leg, and pages of exercises he was meant to do every day.

He'd fought so hard to get home, but being here hadn't magically fixed things. He'd hoped that sitting on their couch together, sleeping in their bed together, eating real food and watching the telly together would banish the wrongness he'd felt since he woke up in the hospital room with Bodie looking down on him. But it didn't. Somehow it made it worse.

Because Bodie was still acting in a very un-Bodie-like way. There was no black humour; no off-colour jokes. When he wasn't on duty he trailed around the flat after Doyle, making him tea, making him meals, changing the channel for him, fetching him the book he'd left in the bedroom. Doing everything for Doyle except fluffing the fucking pillows for him. And Doyle suspected there would have been pillow fluffing if Bodie hadn't realized it would get him his head handed back to him on a platter.

Yesterday, they'd spent a quiet Christmas in, eating the contents of a Harrod's food hamper that must have set Bodie back a packet. He'd have thought they would both be happy. They were together, there was plenty of good food, and the BBC had obliged by showing an enjoyably dodgy film on the telly. But Bodie hadn't seemed happy. And Doyle had felt bloody miserable and Bodie had looked on edge.

He knew he it could have been worse. Murph had let it slip that he could have lost his leg, and he hadn't. He could walk, though with a cane at the moment. He could look after himself. But Doyle could only think of the things he wouldn't be able to do: going for a jog in the park with Bodie at his side; tearing up one of Jack Craine's obstacle courses and leaving the younger agents in the dust; backing up Bodie on an op and running to the rescue when he was needed.

Doyle had a vision of the coming months, the coming years, with him stuck behind a desk while Bodie went out on operations without him. He knew it wasn't fair, but he was desperately jealous of Bodie's strong legs and healthy body. He wasn't sure if what they had would survive his change in fortune, just as he wasn't sure if he was strong enough to face the alternative: life without Bodie.

He was jarred out of his glum thoughts when the phone rang.

Swearing, he pushed himself off the sofa, grabbed his cane, and made it to the phone by the tenth ring.

"Hello."

"Doyle?" said a man's voice that he nearly recognized.

"Speaking. Who's this?"

"Jason. From the Telegraph."

"Jason!" He'd been friendly with Jason since he'd been with the Met. It had occasionally been useful for him to know a journalist, and for Jason to know a copper. They'd done each other the odd favour over the years, and their social circles occasionally entwined. "How are you?"

"Still an ink-stained wretch. Listen, something's come up that I think you should know about."

"What is it?" Doyle asked, not liking the sound of this.

"Not over the phone. Can you meet me in the West End?"

"I'm afraid not. I've had a slight accident," Doyle said, and wasn't that an understatement. "I could just about make it to the café at the end of my street. Would that work?"

"That'll have to do."

Doyle gave him the directions, and Jason told him he'd be there in forty-five minutes. Which, Doyle thought, gave him just about enough time to change out of his track suit and into some proper clothes, grab his cane, hobble down the stairs, and shamble down the pavement to the café.

In the end, he was five minutes late. Jason was already there, waiting at the back, a mug of coffee and a small brown envelope on the table in front of him. Jason was a tall, scrawny Mancunian with a seemingly endless ability to go on for hours about whatever topic had caught his fancy at the moment. He was usually cocky and smiling, but he wasn't smiling now. He looked downright worried.

"You look like hell, Doyle," Jason said, looking down at Doyle's crocked leg as Doyle collapsed onto the chair across from him.

"You're not looking your usual cheery self either," Doyle said as he waved the waitress over and ordered a cuppa.

"Yeah, well I've got a lot on my mind." He pushed the envelope over to Doyle's side of the table. "My editor got this in the morning post. You need to see it."

Doyle picked up the envelope with trepidation, and carefully slid it open. It held a single picture and a single piece of paper. The picture was one of the ones Solecki had used to blackmail them. It was of the two of them in their flat, in their bed. His face was clearly visible, but Bodie's, thank Christ was not. The paper had three words scrawled on it: "CI5 Security Breach."

"Fucking hell." Doyle breathed out the words slowly. This wasn't quite so bad as seeing this picture in the back of Solecki's car. Not quite. But bad enough. As his heart sped up, Doyle fought to keep his breathing even. "Is your editor planning on publishing this?"

"No. He's got some standards. But the thing is, Doyle, I've heard rumours that we weren't the only paper to get this."

"How many others?"

"Well…" Jason hesitated.

"How many?" Doyle insisted.

"All of them."

"Christ." Doyle felt as if ice water had been injected directly into his veins.

"Yeah." Jason looked at him speculatively in the silence that stretched out between them. "I never reckoned you went for boyfriends." It wasn't quite a question, but Doyle answered him anyway, happy to think about something other than the mass exposure of his homosexuality in the British press.

"I do. On occasion."

Jason raised an eyebrow. "That looks like it was more than occasional."

Now that comment he ignored, instead deflecting it back to Jason.

"Are you still with that DJ?" he asked, remembering the big, silent bloke that usually shadowed Jason at parties.

"Doug? Yeah." Jason smiled. "We're more than occasional, too."

"Good for you," Doyle said, and meant it. If his life was a bloody misery just at the moment, it was a relief to hear there were people in the world who didn't have to worry about blackmailing Russians and crippling injuries. He pointed at the envelope. "My boss will want to see that. Can I take it?"

"Absolutely."

"Thanks." Doyle put the envelope in his coat pocket, drained his tea with a final slurp, and dropped the change from his pocket on the table to pay for his tea. He pushed himself until he was standing, unsteadily, took his cane in hand, and took a single step. Jason was immediately on his feet, a supporting hand on Doyle's elbow.

"Listen, Doyle, you don't look able to get back to your flat, let alone your office."

"I'm okay," he said through gritted teeth.

"At least let me flag you a cab."

Realizing how close he was to his leg buckling beneath him in spite of the brace that held it together, he nodded and let Jason ease him back down to his seat. Jason had a black cab in a minute, then came and got Doyle. It was bloody humiliating, having to rely on someone to help him into a cab, but Jason was nothing but gracious about it.

"Thanks," Doyle said just before closing the cab door. "I owe you. For everything."

"I just hope you get the bastard behind it."

"So do I." Then Jason closed the door with a slam and the cabbie was speeding off.

He spent the trip to headquarters chewing his lip and worrying over any number of things. How many people must have seen that bloody picture by now; which editor of which paper was contemplating publishing the thing. And most of all, where Solecki was and what he hoped to accomplish with this little piece of domestic terrorism. He closed his eyes, and could see Solecki's car rushing towards him, could feel again the impact of metal and glass against bone and flesh.

The cab came to an abrupt stop, and Doyle opened his eyes to find himself in front of CI5 headquarters. Doyle passed the driver his fare, then slowly pushed himself out of the vehicle and slowly made his way up the stairs to the main entrance, the tapping of his cane sounding monstrously loud to his ears.

Tom was on duty at the main desk, and he started at the sight of Doyle. And no wonder, the shape he was in. He was nearly shattered with the effort of getting even this far.

"Mr Doyle!" Tom rushed to his feet. "Do you need any help?"

"I'm all right," Doyle said. That was a lie, but he bloody well wasn't going to admit to needing help. Not inside this building. Not where other agents might see his weakness. "Please just tell me the lift is still working. I think the stairs might be a bit beyond me today."

"You're in luck. It's been down all week, but they fixed it this morning." Tom pulled back the lift's gate and ushered Doyle inside. "You visiting Bodie? Only he's on an obbo at the moment."

"No, I need to see Cowley."

"Should I warn him you're on the way?"

"Let's surprise him, shall we," Doyle said, wanting to be up on the Old Man for once, however briefly.

Tom nodded and shut the gate, and then Doyle was going up.

George Cowley was filling out the capital requisition forms that the Home Office insisted on every year. Working out how much he thought they might spend on bullets or vehicles was his least favourite part of the job, but it had to be done. But he wasn't sorry for the interruption when he heard the door to his office open.

"Yes?"

Betty stood at the entrance, looking uncharacteristically nonplussed.

"Doyle is here to see you, sir."

"Doyle? Shouldn't he be at home?"

"No, I shouldn't." Doyle pushed past Betty, and in spite of his words, he looked completely done in.

"Sit down before you fall down, man."

"Thank you," Doyle said, before taking a seat in a near sprawl.

"What were you thinking, coming here by yourself? Do you want to damage that leg even more?"

"It's important, sir." Doyle reached into his pocket, pulled out a small brown envelope and threw it on the desk. "I had a call from a friend today. He's a writer for the Telegraph. His editor received that today." Doyle nodded at the envelope. Sensing what was likely to be in it from the sick look on Doyle's face, Cowley picked it up without opening it.

"Do you want to tell me what's in it?"

"One of Solecki's blackmail pictures. I'm recognizable, which is why my mate called me. They've only caught the back of Bodie's head."

"Anything else?"

"There's a note. It just says 'CI5 security breach.'"

"I take it your friend's editor isn't going to publish or he wouldn't have given it to you."

"No, but there's more." Doyle paused and swallowed before continuing. "My friend says the word's got out that the picture has been sent to other papers." He paused again. "To all the other papers."

"I see," Cowley said, and calculated how quickly he could get D notices sent to every paper in London. It could be done. Just. "Thank you, Doyle. I can take this from here."

"That's it? Just 'thank you' and 'bugger off'?"

"What else do you want, Doyle? I'll stop the publication of the pictures, and make it known that any further attempts at blackmailing CI5 agents are to be directed to me personally. That should stop Solecki's pathetic attempts at revenge."

"I think, sir-" Doyle broke off and looked down at the floor. He looked as if he might be going to throw up on the desk, which Cowley very much hoped he wasn't. He was almost as fond of the desk as he was of Doyle.

"What is it?" Cowley rapped out. Fond of Doyle he might be, but he wasn't about to mollycoddle any man in his command.

"I think it might be better for everyone if I was off the squad."

"Nonsense," Cowley snapped.

"Solecki might have more pictures."

"This seems the act of a desperate man. I think he's used whatever he had. You'll need a better excuse than that."

"I'm going to be no use in the field. Not with my leg."

"I had a similar injury, Doyle, in case you've forgotten. It didn't stop my career. There are other uses we can put you to. You've still got a good mind, for all that you seem not to be using it at the moment."

Cowley thought it would end there, that he'd dealt with the last of Doyle's objections. But it seemed he hadn't.

"I just…" Doyle's face twisted as he struggled with whatever it was he wanted to say.

"You just what?"

Doyle finally looked up and held Cowley's gaze with his own. For a brief moment, Cowley felt as if he were looking at a tortured soul from his Calvinist father's version of hell.

"I just think maybe we'd be better off apart," Doyle said quietly. "Me and Bodie," he added, though the explanation hadn't been necessary.

Cowley took a deep breath and let out a sigh. He'd gone through enough soul searching when deciding what to do about Bodie and Doyle's relationship, when they'd requested a flat. He didn't want to be forced into playing the agony aunt to keep them together.

"Don't be melodramatic, Doyle."

"I'm not, sir." At least that showed some of the old Doyle fire. "I'm really not. But we've both been miserable since I've been back. I want out."

"It's only been a few days," Cowley said. "It's bound to get better."

"I don't think so, sir."

"Your contract states-"

"Sod the contract. I'm no use to you, whatever you say. And I'm worse than that, a liability, if Solecki keeps targeting me."

"We could use this to draw him out."

"I'm done with being bait." Doyle shook his head. "I want a clean break. From CI5. From you. From Bodie."

"I think this is a mistake."

"It's not a mistake."

"A mistake," Cowley emphasized. "But I'm willing to give you the time to think it over. Take two weeks. A bit of time to get stronger and you might see things differently."

"I won't."

"You might. I want you to give yourself that chance."

"Fine. But I'd like to do my thinking in Derby. At my mum's."

"Agreed," Cowley said, hoping that distance would give Doyle the perspective he needed to realize he was behaving like an idiot.

"I'd like to leave today. This afternoon."

"You're a presumptuous boy, Doyle. You do know that."

"Yes, sir." It gave Cowley hope to see a glimmer of humour in Doyle's eye at that.

"I suppose you'll need a ride to Derby. You look in no shape to take the train."

"That would be helpful, sir."

"I'll have Murphy take you. He's on standby at the moment."

"About Bodie," Doyle started to say, then stalled, looking sheepish.

"What about Bodie?"

"Could you not tell him about the photos? He doesn't need one more thing to worry about."

"He's an experienced agent, Doyle," Cowley said impatiently. "He doesn't need to be protected from the truth."

"I'd like to make sure he doesn't have an excuse to act like an idiot."

"You'd like to be the only one who has that privilege, is that it?"

"And if you could tell Bodie I've gone?" Doyle asked, ignoring his jibe.

"You don't ask much." Cowley stared down his man. His man for at least the next two weeks, anyway. "I'll tell him. I shouldn't, but I will. Though if you decide not to come back, you'll have to let him know yourself. Is that understood?"

To that, Doyle only nodded.

"Good. Now get out of my office so I can deal with Solecki's mischief."

"Yes, sir," Doyle said quickly, though it took him nearly a minute to actually get out of the office. As soon as the door was shut safely behind him, Cowley called Betty.

"Get Murphy in here now."

It was Boxing Day at Margaret Doyle's house, which meant the house was full of people. There were her children, grandchildren, friends and neighbours, everyone dropping by to wish her the best of the season, to have a cuppa and a piece of cake, and generally have a lovely time.

Margaret had thrown herself into preparing for her Boxing Day feast, more even than usual. It had taken her mind off thinking about the two members of the family that had been missing from Christmas dinner the day before. Bodie had only got the day off, not long enough to make it worth dragging him and Ray up to Derby and back.

She'd talked to them both on the phone, and they'd told her that things were going well, but she couldn't help but think that neither of them was telling her everything. So when the phone rang, and Nancy had picked it up and yelled that it was Ray, Margaret had felt a chill in her bones that shouldn't have greeted the news of a phone call from her only son.

She pushed her way through the lounge, past the vicar and nice Mrs Nelson from next door, and took the phone from Nance with a trepidation she hoped was misplaced.

"Hello."

"Mum."

"Ray, how are you love?"

"I'm fine."

"And Bodie?"

"He's back at work today."

"Not doing anything dangerous, I hope."

"Nah, not unless you consider boredom dangerous."

"And you wouldn't tell me if it was dangerous, would you? I know how it is." There was a pause, as if Ray was trying to decide what to tell her, and Margaret knew with a certainty that her fears were not at all misplaced. "You really aren't all right, are you, love?"

"Can I come home, mum?" In that moment, Ray sounded younger than he had in years. Younger than he'd seemed since the day his dad had died.

"Of course. But what's wrong? Is it your leg? Or Bodie?"

"Nothing's wrong," Ray said, clearly lying through his teeth. "I just need to get away from London. For a while."

"You come up for as long as you need to, Ray." If her boy didn't want to tell her what was wrong, well, he was a man grown and she couldn't force him. He'd tell her in his own time. And in the meantime, she'd give him a safe place to stay. "Your sisters would love to see you, and Cath has been dying to have you spend more time with your niece."

"Does Evie still look like a scrunched-up rat?"

"No, and if you tell your sister her baby looks like that one more time I'll box your ears." She paused for a moment for effect. "And besides, she only looked like that when she was a newborn."

Ray gave a single choked off bark of laughter, not at all like his usual rich chuckle, just one more clue that there was something very wrong.

"When will you be up?"

"A friend is driving me." A friend, she noted. Not Bodie. "I should be there by late afternoon. Early evening at the latest."

"Take care, Ray. I'll see you soon."

Margaret hung up the phone and found Nance and Cath peering at her in concern while the rest of the house enjoyed the festivities of the day, unaware that there was anything amiss.

"Your brother is coming to stay for a while."

"What's wrong?" Nance asked.

"Is Ray okay?" Cath looked as anxious as Margaret felt. "Is Bodie?"

"He says nothing's wrong, but I don't believe him." Margaret sighed. "You know your brother. We'll just have to wait until he's ready to talk."

"Or we can annoy him until he spills everything," said Nance. Cath elbowed her in the ribs.

"Nance! Your brother's been through enough." Margaret shooed her daughters back into the lounge. She'd wait until Ray was ready to tell her what was wrong. Though if he took too long about it, she might just be tempted to turn Nance on him.

Doyle had to admit it, Murphy was nothing but supportive. He drove Doyle back to his flat, waited while he packed and called his mum, and then drove him up to his mum's house in Derby with almost no discussion. The "almost" part being the crucial bit, of course.

"You're not leaving him, are you?" Murphy had asked as they were approaching Leicester on the M1.

"I'm just going to see my mum, Murph. That's it."

"Because it would kill him, you know."

Doyle didn't say a word for the rest of the trip to Derby. Because what could he say to that? Especially when he was quite sure that he was leaving Bodie. Because it was the best thing for both of them, wasn't it? Well, the best thing for Bodie, anyway. Doing right by Bodie was the only thing he cared about.

They reached Derby around tea time. The light had long since faded, and the sparse snow in the yards reflected the streetlights with a pale blue winter light. If Doyle had been in a better mood, he'd have thought it all looked pretty enough. But as it was, all he could think about was how the cold was going right into his injured leg.

Murphy carried his bag as Doyle struggled up the walk of his mum's house. The windows of the house glowed with a golden light, and Doyle could hear the murmur of his mum's guests spill out. He wished he could have waited one more day, waited until there were no guests or family to deal with, until he could have had his mum all to himself. But once he'd realized he needed to get away, he had to do it right away. He needed to get away from London, away from Bodie, immediately.

He rang the doorbell, and heard a flurry of movement in the house. He thought he heard Cath's voice say "It's Ray," and then the door flew open, and his mum and Cath and Nance and Kay were surrounding him. Before he knew it, he and Murphy were both installed on the sofa, cups of tea in their hands, and a plate of cake and biscuits on the table in front of them as friends and family whirled around them.

He looked over at Murphy, and saw on his face the shell-shocked expression that his family often inspired.

"Are you sure you want to stay here?" Murphy asked him after Nance and Kay had finished interrogating him about his job, his marital status, and his friendship with Ray, and Cath's Evie had thrown up all over the jumper that, he confessed afterwards to Doyle, had been a Christmas present from his own mum.

"I know they're a bit overwhelming, but it's not always like this. And I think right now a bit of family chaos just what I need."

"I can see why you joined CI5," Murph said. "After this lot, IRA bombers and rogue gunrunners must seem sedate."

"You've learned my secret." Doyle watched as Nance's Colin kicked a football into the lounge, and then was pulled out by the ear by his mum and given a good talking to by his gran.

A few days of this, his mum's solid presence and the mayhem of his sisters' families, and he'd be strong enough to do what he needed to. He'd be able to quit CI5 and Bodie. To let Bodie get on with his life while he tried to sort out what was left of his own.

He'd be able to do it. He had to.

Bodie was staring at a black door in a brick wall and speculating with Jax about the possibility that someone, anyone, was going to emerge from that door, and counting down the hours and minutes before their shift was over and he could get back to Doyle. He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he started when the R/T hissed and squawked, and the tones of George Cowley emerged from the device.

"Alpha One to 3.7."

"3.7 here."

"I've a message from 4.5."

"He's never got you to tell me we're out of milk?"

"No, he hasn't, 3.7. He has more sense than you." Bodie smiled and winced and took comfort in the fact that the Cow was safely at the other end of an R/T call. "No, he's decided to visit his family in Derby. He left this afternoon."

"Derby?"

"Yes, Derby."

"Did he say for how long?"

"No, he did not. If you want to know, I suggest you call him at his mother's."

"Yes, sir."

"And Bodie?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Unlike your partner, I trust you realize I am not your message service." Cowley broke off the connection in a hiss of static and indignation.

"Doyle likes to live dangerously," Jax said with a smile.

"That's an understatement," Bodie said, struggling not to show the poisonous concoction of hurt and betrayal that was bubbling through his veins.

Jax went still and looked at him more closely. "You didn't know he was going at all, did you?" Well, you didn't get into CI5 without being less than unnaturally observant.

"‘Course I did," Bodie said, pulling on his social armour, hiding all vulnerability and weakness. "I just didn't know he was leaving right away."

"Oh," Jax said, and then blessedly left it at that.

Bodie looked at his watch. Six more hours left on their shift. Six more bloody hours until he could call Derby and find out what was really going on with Margaret Doyle's son. With his partner.

He couldn't help but think of the last time Doyle had disappeared unexpectedly to Derby. When Cowley had sent him off to see Bodie's dying father, . When Bodie had finally had to face the fact that there would be no touching reconciliation between him and his dad because the bastard was cold and dead. When Bodie had had it out with Doyle over keeping secrets from him.

And now Doyle was doing it again.

Not that he wasn't keeping his own secrets.

For a start, he hadn't told Doyle how terrified he'd been in that warehouse. How much seeing Doyle run down by the car had unsettled him. It seemed bad form to mention his own fears when Doyle was fighting the battle to get his leg working properly.

He couldn't stop thinking about Solecki, either. Couldn't stop worrying that the bastard would pop up when they least expected it and make their lives a worse misery than he already had.

And then there was the ridiculous amount he'd been coddling Doyle since the injury. He could tell Doyle knew his behaviour was off, as much as he did himself, but neither of them had said a word about it. It was just one more side of the fear, he supposed, one more thing not to talk about.

Maybe it was best that Doyle was in Derby. Margaret Doyle could fatten him up with her cooking, and Bodie could get over the worst of his fears. By the time Doyle came back to London, he'd be on the road to recovery, Bodie would have stopped acting ridiculously, and they'd be better than ever.

That was what he told himself, anyway. And it's what he'd tell Doyle when he spoke to him.

He looked at his watch again. Five hours and fifty minutes to go. It was going to be a long day.

Doyle's mum's house had emptied of its visitors, and his sisters had cleaned up the clutter and decamped to their own homes. He was sitting with his mum in the lounge, near-drowsing when the phone rang, the sound waking him and sending him scrambling for his cane.

"I'll get it, Ray," his mum said, and then she was out in the hall, leaving him to listen as she picked up the phone.

"Bodie! How are you." Of course it was Bodie. He knew his partner would call as soon as he was able. And he had no idea what he was going to tell him.

"He's done in, love." And that was truer than even his mother knew. "Let me see if he's still awake." He was embarrassed by that, by his mother lying for his sake. Lying to Bodie, of all people. Even if he didn't know what to say, he wouldn't let his mother protect him from this conversation.

His mum poked her head back in the lounge. "It's Bodie." She gave him a look that was equal parts sympathy and hope. "Can you talk to him?"

"Of course," he said, even though they both knew there was no "of course" about it. He pushed himself to his feet and made his way to the hall where his mother held the phone out to him. He took the receiver in one hand, got a better grip on his cane with the other, and gave his mother a weak smile. She patted him on the arm and moved through the house to the kitchen, far enough away to give him privacy, but close enough that she'd be there if needed.

"Bodie," he said, struggling to keep his voice steady.

"Ray." Bodie sounded completely unlike himself. He sounded…tentative. And that was wrong. Bodie was never tentative. Bodie was bold and charming and aggressive, and always completely sure of himself, even when he was completely wrong. Doyle hated himself for what he'd done to Bodie, and for what he was going to do to him. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Another lie. "I just needed to get out of London for a bit. Needed to think things over." At least that was the truth.

"What things?"

"Just things, Bodie." Doyle was disgusted to learn his cowardice apparently knew no bounds. That he hadn't yet found the courage to tell Bodie what he was truly feeling, what he was planning. "I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed. Felt like a week or two at Mum's would be just the ticket."

"Well, if that's all." Bodie sounded not at all convinced. And well he shouldn't be. But he didn't push it. "You give your mum my best. And tell Cath to look after her scrunched-up rat."

"Fair warning: Mum's already threatened to box my ears for calling Evie a scrunched-up rat."

"I'll remember that." Bodie seemed on the verge of saying goodbye, but then he blurted out. "I could come up. In a day or two. Make sure you're okay."

"No need, Bodie," Doyle said, desperately wanting to tell Bodie he couldn't see him, while knowing how wrong that would sound. "I'll be fine."

"I know you will, Ray. Doesn't mean I don't want to see you."

"Take care, Bodie."

"You, too."

There was a click and a dial tone and then Bodie was gone.

Doyle heard a rustling behind him and turned to find his mother, frowning in concern.

"Are things all right? Between you and Bodie?"

"I'm not sure, Mum," Doyle said as he placed the receiver back in the phone's cradle. "I'm not sure at all."

Five days, Bodie held out. Five days of wondering exactly why Doyle had disappeared up to Derby, of what was going through that curly head of his.

He could guess. Either Doyle was feeling guilty for being a burden to Bodie, or he was worried he wouldn't be able to get back to field fitness. Then again, seeing as this was Doyle, it was probably both options at once. It was all nonsense, of course. Doyle would never be a burden to him, and if he wasn't able to get back in the field, what of it? They were both getting older, and working for Cowley in the field was a young man's game. They'd have both had to retire from the A squad eventually. Now was as good a time as any.

But Bodie didn't want to guess. He wanted to know. He wanted Doyle to tell him, wanted the words from his own lips.

So on New Year's Eve he begged two days off from Cowley, promising he'd be back in London the following evening, and made the drive up to Derby. He didn't call to tell Doyle he was on the way, though. He had some romantic notion that Doyle would appreciate the surprise.

The traffic was light, and the snow the radio had been promising all day held off until he reached the outskirts of Derby. As great, lacy flakes of snow fell, he parked across from Margaret Doyle's house, and started up the walk. The day's light hadn't yet faded, and Doyle's mum hadn't yet drawn the curtains, so Bodie could see inside as he made his way up the walk. Cath was there, sitting on the sofa, and Doyle had his bad leg propped up on a footstool, with Evie sitting on his lap. He looked so relaxed, so natural playing peek-a-boo with his niece, that Bodie had a sudden pang. Perhaps what Doyle really needed was to find a good woman and settle down. Buy a nice house, or as nice as he could afford on his pay packet, have a brat or two. Perhaps he didn't need Bodie after all.

Or perhaps he was just being a prat.

He shook off the vision of Doyle as husband and father, and knocked on the door.

Margaret Doyle answered the door.

"Bodie! What a lovely surprise. I didn't know Ray was expecting you."

"He wasn't." Bodie gave Doyle's mum a hug and his warmest smile. "I got two days off unexpectedly and thought I'd surprise you all. Spend New Year's with the invalid."

"I'm sure Ray will be delighted to see you. He's had no company but me and his sisters for days now."

She shooed him into the lounge before she popped back to the kitchen with promises of tea and cake. Doyle looked up from where he sat, Evie still in his arms, and Bodie thought that no, delighted was not what his partner was at all. His words confirmed the impression.

"Bodie, what are you doing here?" His voice was surprised, and not at all welcoming.

"Cowley gave me two days off, so I thought I'd come up and pester your mum."

"Pester me, you mean," Doyle said, and if there was a hint of his old teasing tone, there was also an edge to his words.

"That, too." Bodie tried to keep his own tone light. If he didn't acknowledge the wrongness between them, maybe it would disappear.

"Ray," Cath said sharply. "Be nice to Bodie, won't you?" She took back her daughter, bouncing the toddler on one hip as she waved Bodie to sit on the sofa. "Ignore my brother. He's been a bastard for days."

"Language, Cath. There's a baby present."

"With you for an uncle, I'm sure that's the least of the bad language Evie will be exposed to. Isn't it, sweetie?" She chucked her daughter under her chin, then headed for the back of the house. "I'll just say goodbye to mum. Kevin and I are planning an exciting evening of putting Evie to bed and then struggling to stay awake until midnight." She gave Bodie a peck on the cheek on the way out. "Take care, Bodie. Will I see you tomorrow?"

"I'm not sure. I'll have to leave early to get back to London."

"Well, then I'll see you next time you're up." She swatted her brother on the head on the way out. "I'll see you later, Grumpy Gus."

"Bye, Cath."

With Cath and the baby gone, an awkward silence settled over the room, a mark of just how wrong things were. He and Doyle didn't do awkward silences. They did comfortable silences. Had done nearly since the start. They were never uneasy with each other.

So Bodie started blithering like an idiot to fill the quiet. Told him, in excruciating detail, about the boring obbo he and Jax had got stuck on. Told him every funny story that had happened in the last five days, and a few he made up wholesale. He played the fool, and all for those moments when Doyle's smile would briefly light up his otherwise strained face.

He was ridiculously grateful when Margaret Doyle came back in the room, a tea tray balanced in her hands. He drank tea, and ate biscuits and chatted with Doyle's mum, the whole time aware of how unnaturally quiet Doyle was being. He was quiet as they drank their tea, and quiet through dinner. He was quiet as Margaret Doyle shooed them back in the lounge while she dealt with cleanup. And he just sat there on the sofa, staring at Bodie sitting beside him as though he were a knotty problem to be solved and not the man he'd shared his life with for years now.

"Here, I brought something up to celebrate with," Bodie said. He popped into the hall, and returned with the rather nice bottle of scotch he'd acquired in an off license on the outskirts of Derby. He snagged two good crystal glasses from Margaret's sideboard, and poured them both a generous measure.

Doyle took a deep swallow of the scotch, but still he didn't talk. So Bodie found himself blithering again.

"I could see you all when I arrived. Through the window. You looked quite natural, sitting there with Evie on your lap." In answer, Doyle only took another swallow. "It made me wonder, if you'd ever thought about it. Having a family, a couple of little 'uns of your own." Bodie trailed off, not knowing himself where he was going with this.

Doyle looked at him in what looked like shock for a moment, and then his eyes narrowed.

"I have been thinking about that, you know," Doyle said. It was the first things he'd said since asking Bodie to pass the potatoes at dinner. "About having little 'uns of my own."

"Well don't look at me, mate. It would do in my girlish figure." Bodie knew the joke was ill timed as soon as it left his lips.

"I'm serious mate." Doyle tapped at the side of the brace that was keeping his leg protected. "This bloody thing has made me consider things, Bodie. I'm not making it back to the field. Not this time."

"I didn't reckon you were. But there are other things you can do on the squad."

"Maybe I don't want to be on the squad anymore, Bodie. Maybe I don't want this life anymore. All double and triple think and blackmail and mayhem. Maybe I need a quiet life and a couple of kids to keep me grounded." Bodie watched in horror as Doyle convinced himself of his need for this new life.

"So, where does that leave us then?" He'd never shied away from hard facts before, but Bodie found he couldn't meet Doyle's eyes. He stared at the floor, holding his cut-crystal glass of scotch tightly in his hands and wondering where the fuck that quaver in his voice had come from.

"It's over, Bodie." The words hit Bodie like a fifty-foot, north Atlantic wave slamming down on the upper deck of a ship. His breath caught in his throat, and he felt the need to blink a sudden sting out of his eyes.

"Right," he said, the word coming out Sergeant-Major sharp. Though better that, than like a blubbering idiot. He put his glass down hard on Margaret's coffee table and stood. "That's me off."

"Bodie." Doyle's hand caught suddenly at his, held tight and pulled him back down to the sofa.

"Let. Go."

"No, you idiot. Let me explain."

"You don't need to explain. I'm a bright lad. I can work things out on my own. Over is over. I'll drive back to London tonight. Stay at Murphy's. I'm sure he won't mind. Cowley can find me a new flat before you come back to town." Somewhere in the back of his mind, Bodie knew he was babbling, but he couldn't stop.

"Shut up, won't you?" Doyle's voice raised and his hand tightened on Bodie's until Bodie could feel the bones in his hand grinding together.

"Are you leaving me?"

"It's not that simple."

"Are you leaving me?" Bodie repeated.

Doyle didn't speak, he only looked down at the floor, and that was the only answer Bodie needed.

"It is that simple, Ray." He pulled his hand roughly away from Doyle. "It is exactly that simple. We're together, or we're not."

"Then we're not," Doyle said, his eyes still firmly on the floor.

"Look at me, Ray. Look at me and tell me that."

Doyle looked up and blinked hard, his green eyes taking on a suspicious sheen. "We're not together, Bodie."

Bodie held Doyle's gaze for three beats precisely, long enough to observe and calculate and judge. Doyle had made up his mind and would not be swayed and Bodie's pride would not allow him to argue the point. He'd always taken the end of relationships with as much grace as he could. He'd do no less now, even if no other relationship had ever been as important to him.

His throat tightened, and he knew he couldn't safely say anything. He nodded and turned on his heel, making his way to the hall, throwing on his boots and coat, and leaving the house without a goodbye or a backward glance.

Margaret Doyle had been worried about her son since he arrived in Derby a week ago. Ray had been so quiet, not talking about his injury or his job or even, astoundingly, Bodie. He always talked about Bodie. Had done ever since they were partnered, and even more since they'd partnered up properly. So having him not talk about Bodie told her there was something very wrong.

The wrongness was emphasized when Bodie had shown up this afternoon, as unnaturally chatty as her son was quiet. She'd spent the whole time waiting for the other shoe to drop, afraid of what would happen when it did. She'd turned down Bodie's offer of help in the kitchen and shooed them both into the lounge hoping they'd work out whatever it was troubling them both.

She was drying the dishes, one ear cocked to the low voices coming from the front of the house when the voices suddenly broke off entirely. She put down the plate in her hand and moved towards the kitchen door, suddenly afraid for both her boys, for what they could do to each other.

Then there was a blur of motion in the hall and Bodie was out the door before she could say a word.

She ran down the hall and opened the door, a cold wind bringing a flurry of snow into the house as she strained to see where Bodie had gone. She turned towards the slam of a car door in time to see the wheels of his car spin as he pulled out and away.

She shut the door slowly, wishing she hadn't left them alone, and went into the lounge where her son sat, head bowed and hands clenched together in his lap.

"Oh, Ray," she said, as certain as she'd ever been that Bodie's departure was her son's doing, and equally certain that it was the worst thing in the world for both men. "What have you done?"

Outside the door of his hotel room, there was a shout and cheers and yet another drunken reveller started up yet another rendition of Auld Lang Syne. Bodie pulled his pillow over his head and wondered how the stupid bastards outside would react if he fired a few warning shots over their heads. Cowley would no doubt have his bollocks, though his boss surely wouldn't approve of the way the tone deaf idiots were currently butchering the best known work of Robbie Burns.

After several long minutes, the party goers moved on and Bodie was left alone with the suddenly deafening quiet. The off-tune warbling of Northhampton's New Year's party goers might have been preferable to the black thoughts currently occupying his mind.

He'd planned on driving from Derby straight through to London, but a lethal combination of fatigue and distraction had proved his undoing. After he'd nearly dropped off at the wheel twice, and then accidentally cut off a ramshackle lorry, he'd pulled off at Northampton and into the first hotel he'd found. And now he couldn't sleep.

He'd always claimed to be able to sleep anywhere, anytime--he'd kipped in more than one war zone, for fuck's sake—but in spite of the grit in his eyes, and the heaviness of his limbs, sleep was evading him at the moment.

He sat up and punched the pillow before lying back down again, this time on his back. He would have sworn the ceiling was mocking him as he stared at it in the dark. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about Doyle, which turned out to be as difficult as not thinking about a pink elephant, once you'd started. His mind kept coming up with new images to torment him. Doyle on his first day in CI5, all fierce looks and shocking naiveté. Doyle teasing him with a raised eyebrow and a dirty laugh. A tuxedo-clad Doyle seducing him after his cousin's wedding, or had he seduced Doyle? Doyle on the floor of that fucking warehouse, unconscious and broken.

Doyle sitting in his mother's lounge, gaunt and hollow-eyed, telling him it was over.

Bodie clenched his teeth and tried concentrating only on his breathing. He let the memory of Shusai's voice guide him through his meditation technique, relaxing each muscle in its turn, thinking only of the air passing into his lungs and out again. It took until nearly dawn, but he did finally fall asleep. Only to wake up at 10, feeling even worse than before.

He checked out of the hotel, made the rest of the drive to London in a mental fog, and found himself parked in front of Murphy's block of flats. He'd told Doyle he'd go to Murphy's and really there was no other place for him to go. There was no way he could face their flat now. Or rather what had been their flat.

On autopilot, he walked up the steps and hit the button from Murph's flat. It was a long minute before Murphy answered, and the drawled "What?" told Bodie he'd woken his friend.

"It's me," he said.

"Bodie?" Murphy said, clearly confused. Then, "Christ." The door was buzzed open and Bodie climbed the stairs to Murphy's second floor flat.

Wearing a sensible dressing gown so different from Doyle's purple monstrosity that it made Bodie ache, Murphy was waiting for him. He leaned against the door frame with arms crossed and a concerned look on his face.

"He's done it, hasn't he?" Murphy asked.

"Who's done what?" Bodie asked, in no shape for riddles, even ones he thought he knew the answer to.

"Doyle's left you."

"Me and CI5." Bodie let himself be guided into Murphy's lounge and collapsed on the sofa. "Says he doesn't want to be on the squad anymore." Murphy sat beside him, an expression on his face that was more sympathetic than Bodie could bear. "Says he wants kids." And he nearly started laughing at that, it seemed so ridiculous and so sad.

"He should have stayed with you, then, shouldn't he? You're just a big kid, after all."

Bodie did laugh then, though the joke wasn't all that funny. But it was laugh or break, and he thought if he let himself break now, even a little, he'd never put the pieces together again.

"What's going on out here?" A seriously pissed off woman emerged from the back of the flat. She was tall and pretty and blonde, and wearing nothing but one of Murph's shirts.

"You must be Betty," Bodie said, resurrecting one of Doyle's not so nice jokes as he suppressed a more than hysterical giggle.

"She's Sarah, and you know it," Murphy said firmly, refusing to be baited. "Sarah, this is Bodie. He's a mate. A good mate."

Sarah raised a haughty eyebrow in Bodie's direction before turning back towards the bedroom. "I'm going back to sleep, Alec," she said without looking back. "Wake me in an hour, would you? I'm due at mummy's for tea."

"Mummy?" Bodie mouthed, even as Murphy was swatting him, and following after Sarah to the bedroom. Bodie could hear low murmuring, and then Murphy emerged a few minutes later, his concerned expression firmly in place.

"Sorry mate," Bodie said. "Didn't mean to cause trouble with your bird."

"Don't worry about it. Sarah is a lovely girl, but a bit high maintenance." Murphy looked at him then, examining him with the intensity he usually reserved for a rock face he was planning on climbing. He looked at him for a long minute, and Bodie met his scrutiny, not willing to reveal just how fragile he was feeling just at that point. But when he finally reached the breaking point, when he was going to have to punch Murph or tell him to just fucking say something, his friend finally spoke. "There's just one question you have to answer," Murphy said, his brows drawn together, and his mouth a serious line.

"What's that?" Bodie asked, hoping against hope he wasn't going to ask anything about Doyle. He didn't think he could bear that. Not yet.

"Scotch or tea?"

Not what he'd been expecting, but it was definitely a question he could answer.

"Scotch," Bodie said, even as he wondered if Murphy had enough alcohol in his flat to fill the thirst he felt. "Definitely scotch."

When Cowley's two-week deadline had arrived, Doyle had called CI5, intent on making his final break with his old life. But Betty had told him that Cowley was not available, was in important talks with the Home Secretary and was not to be disturbed. And no, she didn't know when he would be free. Doyle had hung up the phone, debating with himself whether Cowley was honestly busy or if he was just avoiding Doyle until Doyle changed his mind.

Well, he wasn't going to change his mind, that was for bloody sure.

So he'd stayed at his mum's and tried Cowley's line every day for a week, and every day Betty had given him a different story. Mr Cowley was in Whitehall, he was on an op, he was in Norwich, he was in Scotland. It would have been funny if it hadn't left Doyle in a horrendous limbo, unable to end his old life, uncertain what his new life would look like. And missing Bodie like an arm that had been brutally hacked off.

It didn't help that life kept providing reminders of Bodie. His mum would serve pudding after dinner, and he'd think of Bodie and his damnable sweet tooth. He'd turn on the telly to hear a piece on Liverpool's players, and he'd think of watching the Match of the Day with Bodie sprawled beside him, cheering on the Reds against all comers.

But if he could neither end his old life nor start anew, there were things he could do. He did his exercises, strengthening his leg to the point where the doctor who'd been put in charge of him up here had told him he could remove the brace. He went for walks—short ones to the shops, to the park, leaning on his stick the whole way—and visited with his sisters. With Cath, anyway. The others mostly wound him up, which made him wind them up, until there was shouting and his mum inevitably had to break things up like she'd done when they were kids.

A week on, and he was no closer to ending things with CI5. It was after lunch, and he'd already made his daily fruitless call to Betty—Mr Cowley was in Kensington arranging a security detail for some visiting dignitary and could she take a message—Cath had come over with Evie, and his mum was going out to do her marketing.

"I'm just going to Tesco's, and then I've a few errands to run," his mum said, popping her head into the lounge as she pulled on her coat. "I'll be back in time to make tea. You two both know where everything is?"

"We'll be fine, Mum," Cath said, as Evie pulled herself up on the coffee table and took a few toddling steps before falling on her bum with a surprised oof.

"And you look after my granddaughter, both of you. Make sure she doesn't hurt herself."

"Yes, mum," Cath said, before rolling her eyes in Doyle's direction.

They played with Evie, and drank tea and chatted about nothing in particular until Cath finally brought up the one topic of conversation Doyle most wanted to avoid.

"Are you really going to leave Bodie?" The question came after Cath's extended rant about their older sisters' sense of superiority when it came to knowledge of child rearing and Doyle hadn't seen it coming. He sat on the sofa, his tea cup poised halfway to his mouth, struggling to find an answer, while Cath, her opening salvo fired and her enemy apparently silenced, continued with her attack.

"Because if you are, it's a bad idea. It's one of the worst ideas you've had, and you've had some terrible ideas. In the history of bad ideas, I'll bet you've got three in the top ten. Or at least the top twenty. But this one will hit the top of the charts."

Unable to find a way to stop the torrent of words Cath was releasing, Doyle settled for putting his cup down with an awkward rattle. The clatter of china stopped Cath momentarily, and even made Evie look up from the blocks she was playing with.

"Don't, Cath." He stopped and took a breath, working to stop the feeling of panic that was squeezing at his lungs and making his heart pound in his chest. "Please, just don't."

Cath gave him a look that was equal parts sympathy and steel.

"I have to, Ray. I haven't said anything, and it's been eating away at me." She leaned forward. "Because you know what? The last few years, when you've been with Bodie, you've actually been happy. Happier than I've seen you in years. Happier than you've been since we were kids and we didn't know any better. But now? Now you just look miserable. And I don't imagine Bodie's much better."

She settled back on the sofa, looking if not satisfied, then as if she'd got through a job long dreaded but now over with.

"You don't understand," Doyle started, only to be interrupted.

"Then make me understand. Why do you want to leave Bodie?"

"I don't want to." The words burst from Doyle's mouth, making Cath sit up straighter, her eyes gone wide. "I don't want to," he repeated, deliberately pitching his voice lower. "I have to. For Bodie's sake. For my sake. Because the last two months, he just…" He paused and tried to find a way to explain to Cath why this was necessary, why it was right. "We've neither of us been ourselves. Seeing him just makes me remember what I've lost. And he's seemed so concerned with looking after me that what makes him Bodie has disappeared. I don't want him to lose himself. Not for me."

"Oh, Ray," Cath said. "You stupid, stupid boy. Bodie hasn't lost himself; he's been concerned about you. That's what happens when someone you love gets hurt. You get concerned and you do your best to look after them."

"I don't bloody well want him bloody looking after me, do I?" His voice raised until he was shouting. Evie stopped what she was doing, looked at him for a brief second, and then burst into tears.

"Now look what you've done." Cath bustled over and picked up her daughter, hugging her tightly and bouncing on the balls of her feet while her daughter snuffled into her shoulder. When Evie had finally calmed down, Cath looked at her brother over her daughter's head, her eyes narrowed and her lips gone thin. "I know what you think. You think you're being all noble and self-sacrificing and doing what's best for Bodie. But you're not. You're being selfish and stupid and doing what's worst for you both."

"There's no place for me in his world. Not now."

"Has Bodie told you that? Has your Mr Cowley?" Doyle's only answer was silence. "I thought not." Her eyes raked him head to foot. "You know what you are, Ray Doyle? You're a coward."

Doyle tried to marshal a response, to tell Cath she didn't know what she was talking about, but a small traitorous voice in his mind started whispering that perhaps she was right. He clenched his hands together and stared at them in his lap. As they were frozen there, him on the sofa, her standing, there was a sharp knock on the door.

"I'll get it," Cath said, blowing out a sharp breath in annoyance and moving towards the door. "It's probably Mrs Nelson. Mum said she might be bringing over a baking dish she'd borrowed.

Doyle didn't look up as she disappeared into the hall, but he heard her open the door. Heard her say "Who are you?" Heard the slam of the door hitting the wall and Evie's squalling and Cath's frightened scream. He was reaching for his gun, even as he realized he wasn't wearing it. It was upstairs, in a locked box under his bed, kept safe from curious nephews and nieces.

He stood quickly, his leg spasming as he did, and quickly surveyed the room for a likely weapon. He grabbed his stick from where it sat propped up on the sofa beside him, all too aware of how inadequate it was as protection from anyone, let alone the two hard-looking men who were now pushing Cath into the lounge ahead of them.

"Who are you?" he asked as he took in the guns both men had trained on Cath, a couple of well-worn PSMs. Which meant that these two were either KGB, or they'd managed to get hold of KGB weaponry through the black market. Whatever the truth of the matter, Doyle knew they were not men to be trifled with. "What do you want?"

"It's not what they want, Mr Doyle," said a voice from the hall, a voice Doyle was far too certain he recognized. "It's what I want."

Tomasz Solecki stepped into the lounge and trained the Glock Doyle remembered from their first meeting steadily at Cath's head.

"You bastard!" Doyle lunged for Solecki, but his injured leg betrayed him, crumpling underneath him. He tumbled in a heap on the floor while Solecki's thugs pushed Cath roughly further into the room. Clenching his teeth against the pain erupting in his knee, he pushed himself up off the floor, and leaned precariously against his mum's sideboard. "You leave them alone. They've got nothing to do with this."

"On the contrary, they have everything to do with this. You care about them, and therefore they are useful, a means to an end." Solecki looked at him with an expression of smug superiority. At that exact moment, if he'd been capable, Doyle would have killed the bastard with absolutely no qualms.

"Who are you?" Cath said, her expression terrified, crying herself as she tried to calm her equally terrified child.

"You should ask your brother," Solecki said, his cold, dead eyes fixed on Doyle's.

"Ray?" Cath said, tentatively.

"He's a villain, Cath. That's all you need to know. Now you let them go," he said turning to Solecki.

"That is not how this is going to work." Solecki turned to his men and barked a quick command in Russian. The two thugs grabbed Cath, one taking each arm, and started dragging her and Evie out of the lounge. Doyle started to move towards them, violence in his heart at the thought of anyone doing this to his sister, his family. He was stopped by Solecki's gun pointing in his face. "First you will sit down, and then I will explain."

"Tell your thugs not to hurt them," Doyle said as he watched his sister and his niece dragged from the room.

"My men know their business," Solecki said coolly. "Now are you ready to listen?"

Doyle nodded, even as he watched Solecki and waited for an opening. But none was forthcoming. Solecki was too canny to get close enough to Doyle to provide him an opportunity to grab his gun, and Doyle knew that his leg was in no shape for him to launch an attack from where he sat on the sofa.

"You and your partner took much from me, so I plan on taking even more from you. We will hold your sister for three days. At the end of three days I will contact you and you will provide me the plans I asked for originally."

"Three days," Doyle burst out. "That's not-"

"Three days," Solecki repeated, his face calm and implacable. "If you do not have the plans after three days, I will kill your sister and your niece."

"Jesus," Doyle whispered, and he could feel the blood drain from his face.

"In addition, you will not contact the police or your Mr Cowley."

"You can't expect me to do this on my own." Doyle's voice sounded ragged in his own ears. "You might have noticed I'm not in the best of shape." He punched his own leg in frustration. "And I'm all but out of CI5."

"I expect your partner will be willing to help. But if either of you tell anyone else, your sister will die. If you bring anyone else to the handover, they both will. Do you understand?"

Doyle nodded.

"Good." Solecki began to back out of the room, his gun still trained unflinchingly on Doyle. "I will be in touch." Then the man was out of the lounge and out the door, and Doyle could hear Evie's wails getting further and further away.

He swore, and grabbed his stick and rushed out the door, ignoring the pain that shot the whole length of his damaged leg. He made it out the door and to the pavement before his leg buckled on him again, sending him toppling to the ground. He forced himself back up to his feet just as a battered transit van sped away and down the street. He was too far away to see the registration, not that it would have done him any good. Solecki was a professional. The van or the registration or both would have been stolen, and Doyle had no doubt that Solecki would be abandoning the vehicle for a different one within minutes.

He stood there, leaning heavily on his stick, trying not to give in to the panic and despair that seemed to flood every vein in his body.

Cath gone. And Evie. He didn't know what he was going to tell Kevin. Or his mum. He didn't know what he was going to do.

He tried to slow down the insane racing of his thoughts, tried to think things through. Tried to use the mind Cowley kept telling him he had.

He couldn't go to the police, that was certain. Solecki was good, and he'd have bugs or sources to tell him if Doyle called in the local plods or the Met. He couldn't bring in CI5 either. However much he trusted Cowley, he didn't want to place Cath and Evie's lives in the Old Man's hands. He, of all people, knew how Cowley was willing to sacrifice pawns. There was no way he was going to let his sister and niece be two pawns in Cowley's game.

"I expect your partner will be willing to help," Solecki had said, and the fucking thing of it was Doyle knew it was true. Bodie's damnable loyalty had got them into trouble more than once, but it could be depended on. Even after what Doyle had said to him, Bodie would do his bit. Especially for Cath and Evie.

It was just a matter of getting hold of him, all without letting Cowley know what was wrong. Fortunately, they'd both been paranoid enough to solve this particular problem before it happened. There was just the matter of where to call from. He had no doubt Solecki had his mum's phone bugged already, and he didn't want to give the bastard any more warning than he had to. But there was always next door…

He limped to his mother's neighbours, fearful his leg was going to give out for good with each step, and knocked on the door. It was opened by a tall matronly woman his mother's age.

"Mrs Nelson," Doyle said, trying to sound calm and reasonable even as he wanted nothing more than to scream and commit bloody murder. "I was wondering if I could borrow your phone?"

Bodie was alone in the rest room, munching biscuits and sipping a mug of too strong tea, when he heard footsteps at the door. He looked up to find Bennie, leaning against the doorframe, a hesitant expression on his face.

"Where's Murphy?" Bennie asked, his tone reluctant, as though he didn't want to disturb Bodie any more than he had to. Not that Bodie blamed him. He knew he'd been a bastard to be around the last two weeks, ever since he'd woken up on Murph's sofa, stinking of scotch and feeling like someone had been beating his head with a hammer. He'd gone to see Cowley that same day, told him Doyle wasn't coming back and that he needed a new flat and a new partner, in roughly that order. He hadn't got the flat yet, but he'd left the office with Murphy as his new partner. Not that any of them, Cowley, Murphy or Bodie himself, had really been happy with the new situation.

"D'unno. I'm not his bloody keeper, am I?" Bodie said with more venom than was strictly called for. Not that Bodie gave a fuck about that.

"'Course, you're not." Bennie bit his lip and pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. "This is for you, actually. Cowley has me in communications this week, and this message came in. From Doyle."

Bodie's mood progressed from simmering anger to raging fury in absolutely no time whatsoever. Why the fuck was Doyle leaving him a message? And why send it through communications, and Bennie of all people? At least Bennie's lack of enthusiasm was suddenly understandable. Bodie had torn a strip off of more than one agent who'd made the mistake of asking about Doyle. They were all avoiding him these days, and not even the newest agents mentioned Doyle in his presence anymore.

He bounded out of his chair and grabbed the paper from Bennie.

"Remember, I'm only the messenger," Bennie was saying, even as he was backing out of the room. "It's a weird one, but I got it right. I had him repeat it twice." Then he turned on his heel and was gone, not bothering to wait for the thank you that Bodie was far too infuriated to offer.

He stood there for far too long, holding the folded scrap of paper in one shaking hand. It would serve Doyle right if he threw it in the bin. And yet he couldn't do it, couldn't toss away a message from the man he still, somehow, in spite of everything, loved. He'd never given his love easily, and now it seemed he could take it back with no less difficulty, not even when it was no longer wanted.

"C'mon, you stupid bastard," he muttered under his breath. "It's only a piece of paper. Open the damn thing."

He took a deep breath, and then unfolded the slip, reading it quickly.

Jesus.

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting—an apology, recriminations, or a recipe for Doyle's spag bol—but he'd not been expecting this. This was…bad. There was no other word for it.

He crumpled the paper in his trouser pocket grabbed his jacket and all but ran out of the rest room.

"Bodie!" Murphy called from the end of the hall. "Where are you off to? Do we have an assignment?"

"I'm just thought I'd pick up a packet of crisps," he yelled back without stopping. As explanations went, it was as plausible as any. He'd been eating more snacks since he'd got back from Derby, and he knew Murph had noted the fact. "Be back in a bit."

"Don't be gone long," Murph replied. "It'd just be like Cowley to ask for us when you're out."

Bodie gave a wave, but didn't look back. He nodded at the few people he encountered on his way out, kept a steady pace while he was within sight of CI5 headquarters, but as soon as he was around the corner he started running. He ran past the news agent that was his usual stop for crisps and chocolate, past the pub, and all the way to the phone box he'd done a recce on years ago for just this sort of situation. He slammed the door of the box behind him, dumped his change on the shelf in front of him, hoping it would be enough, and looked at the slip of paper one more time.

Thinking of trains it said in Benny's nearly illegible scrawl. Would like your opinion. Those two short sentences were followed by a Derby phone number Bodie didn't recognize.

He'd hoped they'd never have to use this. It had been Doyle who'd insisted on it, setting up a code for when things went completely pear-shaped, for times when they could only trust each other. It had been after that Operation Susie, the one that had ended at the train yards, with a young girl's blood spilled for no good reason. Doyle hadn't trusted Cowley for weeks after that. Months even. So Bodie had given in and they'd agreed on these words, a sign that CI5 was not to be brought into things, a signal that they were to contact each other only through phone boxes and the dead letter drops they'd set up throughout London.

But Doyle was out of CI5, out of the game, so why the fuck was he using the code?

Bodie picked up the receiver, dropped coins into the slot and dialled the number. Doyle picked up on the first ring.

"Bodie?"

"Doyle," he said, evenly, trying not to betray the way his heart was hammering in his chest at just one word from this man. "What the hell-"

"It's Solecki," Doyle said, not giving him a chance to speak further. "Solecki, God damn him. He came to my mum's and demanded I get those fucking plans. And he took Cath, Bodie. Cath and Evie."

"Fucking hell," Bodie said under his breath. They should have seen this coming, should have still had security on Doyle and his family. But when weeks had gone by with no sign of Solecki, they'd all got a bit lax.

"It was bloody awful," Doyle continued. "I keep seeing the look on Cath's face when they took her. She was terrified, Bodie. Absolutely terrified."

"I have to tell Cowley," Bodie said, the one thing he was absolutely sure of in this mess.

"No!" Doyle blurted out the word as if it were poison. "You can't. Solecki told me not to contact the police or CI5."

"I'm fucking CI5, Ray."

"Solecki said you were okay. It's not like I can do this by myself." There was a pause, and Bodie could hear the harsh sound of Doyle's breathing over the line, and knew there was something else Doyle wasn't saying.

"What else aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing."

"There is bloody something, Doyle. I can hear it in your voice." He was anything but gentle. He owed Doyle his help on this, but he didn't owe him gentleness.

"I think I've crocked my leg again, if that's what you mean," Doyle said, then blew out a breath. "I tried running after the bastard and it buckled right under me. I can walk, just, but I won't be going very far."

"You should see your doctor," Bodie said matter-of-factly, trying not to care. It wasn't personal; it was professional. If your partner couldn't walk, he couldn't back you up if needed. Not that Doyle was likely to be backing up anyone at the moment.

"And tell him what?" Doyle's voice broke on the last word. "That I ruined my leg running after the man who kidnapped my sister, but please don't tell the police, it'll all be fine after I violate the official secrets act?"

"Perhaps not that."

"I'm not seeing anyone until we've got Cath back safely. Christ, I've still got to tell my mum."

"She doesn't know?"

"No. She popped out to the shops. I'm calling from the neighbour's, Mrs Nelson. Told her our phone wasn't working and I needed to take a call from my doctor. I didn't want to call from Mum's. Solecki must have been planning this for a while. I'm betting he bugged the phone. It's what I would have done."

"Listen Ray, I'm on duty for two more hours. As soon as I'm off, I'll come up, and we'll figure out what to do."

"Thanks, Bodie." There was another long pause, one that lasted so long Bodie was almost sure they'd been disconnected. But then Doyle finally spoke again. "I know it isn't fair, me calling you. But there's no one else—"

"You're right that it's not fucking fair." Bodie snapped out the words. "I'm doing this for Cath and Evie, not you." Ray may have thrown him away, but the Doyles had always been good to him. Better than his real family had ever been. He heard Doyle breath in sharply, but then there was only silence on the other end. Silence he finally had to break. "I'll be there by nine. Ten at the latest."

"All right," Doyle said. "See you then." There was a click and then the dial tone was back, and Bodie was left standing in the phone box, wondering how the fuck he was going to get through this, and what the fuck would be left for him when it was all over.

"I picked up a nice piece of fish at the market," Margaret Doyle said as she came in the door. She put down her bags of groceries and hung up her coat. "Thought I'd make it up with some of my chips." She pulled off her boots and put them neatly in the tray. "I know you say you don't like fried food, but honestly Ray, you need to put some meat on your bones." She picked up her bags again and popped her head into the lounge.

She hadn't thought it was possible for her son to look worse than he'd done the last two weeks. He was skinnier than ever and he'd been miserable and withdrawn more often than not. Cath was the only one who seemed able to pull him out of himself at all. But now he was sitting on the sofa, his expression even more haunted, his hands clasped together so tightly that his knuckles showed white.

"What's wrong, love?"

"Sit down, Mum," Ray said, his voice cold and dead.

"Where's Cath? Has she gone home already?"

"Please, Mum. Just sit down."

Ray looked directly at her then, his eyes full of despair and regret and, astoundingly, fear. It was the fear that affected her most. Her son was never afraid. Or if he was he never showed it, not to his mum. The bags dropped out of her hands, and she fell into the nearest chair, the same wing chair Bodie had sat in when he'd told her that Ray had been hurt. She leaned closer to her boy, took a deep breath, and then said two words.

"Tell me."

And he told her. Told her of the man who'd shown up on her doorstep, the same man who'd run down her boy in the first place. The man who'd taken her daughter and granddaughter. The man who'd warned them not to contact the police.

Without realizing how she'd started, she found herself weeping, one hand pressed to her mouth to mute her anguish, her body curled in on itself to shield herself from still more pain.

This was bad, it was horrid, it was the worst she'd felt since Roger had died. It was far worse than any of the times Ray had been hurt. A small, impassive part of her mind noted that perhaps she'd always expected Ray to die in blood and tears, what with the job he was in. But not her girls. Not Cath. And certainly not her granddaughter. Evie kidnapped. Jesus wept.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Ray sitting on the arm of the chair, looking down at her, his eyes haunted, his teeth worrying at his bottom lip. However unfair it was, she was struck by an overwhelming urge to slap him, to hurt him for bringing this brutality to her home, to the rest of their family. Instead she just clenched her fists until she felt her nails biting into her palms, hoping the shock of the pain would distract her from this other, greater pain.

She took in several great gasping breaths, trying to stop the sobs long enough to speak.

"Does Kevin know?" she finally managed to ask, wondering what her son-in-law would do, with his wife and child so cruelly taken away.

"No." Ray shook his head. "He was going to come pick them up after work. I'll tell him then."

"I'll tell him," Margaret said, her resolve returning with her voice. "It'll come better from me."

"We'll get them back, Mum."

"We?"

"Bodie's coming. He'll be here by tonight. He'll help."

She thought of the last time she'd seen Bodie, disappearing out her front door, a wraith in black leather fleeing the decision Ray had made for them both.

"He'll do that for you?" Margaret could only imagine how much damage her son had inflicted on Bodie's heart.

"He'll do it for Cath."

Her daughter's name cut deeply, a fresh wound, and she found herself sobbing once again, clutching at her son's hand.

"It'll be okay, Mum." Ray rubbed her back awkwardly, as if he wasn't quite sure how to comfort his mother. "It'll all be okay."

Margaret only wished she could believe him.

Bodie broke all speed limits on the drive up the M1 to Derby. He tried to concentrate on nothing but shifting and steering, letting the miles of the journey wash over and through him, tried not to think about what awaited him at the end of the road.

He pulled up in front of Margaret Doyle's house and found for a long minute that he could not get out of the car. He sat, staring at the house that had been like a second home these last few years, a house that now only held pain for him. For him, and the people within it. That was what made him move, the knowledge that Margaret and Cath and Evie and, yes, Doyle needed his help.

Doyle must have been watching for him, because he opened the door before Bodie could knock even once and waved him inside. As Bodie hung up his jacket and kicked off his boots, he examined Doyle. His former partner seemed to have relapsed in the last two weeks. He'd got even skinnier, and there were more lines of pain on his face than there'd been the last time Bodie had seen him.

"Come into the lounge," Doyle said, and moved in that direction. He was limping badly, leaning so much on his cane that Bodie thought it a wonder that he was still on his feet. He suppressed the instinct to help, letting Doyle and his damnable pride limp across the lounge and collapse on the sofa. Bodie sat across from him, not willing to trust himself too close to Doyle, not when the wounds between them were still so raw.

"Where's your mum?" Bodie asked.

"In the kitchen," Doyle said, nodding his head in that direction. "She's got Kevin back there with her."

"How are they?"

"How do you think, Bodie?" Doyle snapped, his eyes briefly showing the angry spark Bodie knew so well, before his expression once again settled into the grief that had greeted Bodie when Doyle had opened the door. "Kevin's not well pleased with me, for a start. Says it's all my fault."

"It's not—" Bodie started automatically, only to be interrupted.

"It is my fault, Bodie. I should have known Solecki wouldn't give up. Not after-" Doyle stopped himself and as Bodie watched, his expression shut down completely.

"Not after what?" Bodie asked levelly, knowing without a doubt that there were things Doyle was keeping from him.

"It's not important."

"It sounds like it is."

"He sent one of those bloody pictures to the papers. To all of the bloody papers." Doyle's voice raised until he was near yelling. "A friend tipped me off, Cowley slapped D notices on the lot of them and we thought that was it. But it wasn't, was it?" Doyle raked his fingers through his hair, his locks shaggier than Bodie ever remembered seeing them.

"You never told me. About the papers." Bodie was tempted to shout the house down, but he managed to keep his voice even through sheer force of will. "When was this?"

Doyle froze where he sat and stared at Bodie with the look of a guilty thing, and Bodie felt a cold knot forming in his gut.

"Is that why you bolted? Not because you wanted out of CI5, or because you wanted a family, but because of a stupid bloody picture?" Bodie didn't yell, only out of respect for Margaret and Kevin's feelings, but his voice was a low, venomous hiss.

"That wasn't the only thing."

"But it was part of it?" Bodie prodded.

Doyle nodded.

"You stupid fucker," Bodie said. "You of all people should know I don't need protecting. If that's what you thought you were doing."

Doyle clenched his hands and pressed his lips flat together, as if he were struggling to keep in words he knew he'd regret. But this was Doyle, after all, and the words burst out in spite of his best efforts.

"You fucking well do need protecting, Bodie. From yourself, if no one else."

"What the hell are you talking about, Ray?" Bodie felt as if he'd stumbled into a skewed version of his world, one where nothing made sense anymore.

"You've been acting all wrong. Ever since I was hurt, you haven't been acting like you."

"What?" Doyle was speaking English, but he was making no bloody sense whatsoever.

"You were practically fluffing the pillows for me!" Doyle said, his voice harsh and ragged.

"That's what was bothering you? That I was looking after you?" Bodie felt his heart race in his chest, and his breathing come in harsh puffs. Of all the idiotic— "I fucking loved you, you stupid pillock. Of course I was looking after you."

"I didn't want that to be all we had left: you looking after me."

"Jesus Christ." Bodie stood and started pacing the limited confines of Margaret Doyle's lounge. It was that or hit someone, and much as he deserved it, he doubted Doyle was up for taking a punch just at the moment.

"None of this matters right now, Bodie." At those words, those ridiculous, nonsensical words, Bodie stopped cold and stared at Doyle. "Cath matters," Doyle continued. "Evie matters. They're why I called you, not what happened between us. They're who we have to think about."

Bodie took three deep breaths, and tried to get his feelings under control. What had happened between them did matter, was still raw, still hurt. But Doyle was right about one thing: at this moment, he was here for Cath and Evie, to rescue them and keep them safe. He nodded once, sharply, and then took his seat again.

"All right," he said, folding his hands together in his lap. "Tell me what happened."

Doyle reported all the details, like the good copper he used to be. He gave descriptions of Solecki's two men. He reported Solecki's words, and described the transit van they'd disappeared in as well as he could. But in the end, there was only one thing they could do.

"We have to get the plans," Bodie said as calmly as he could when what he was suggesting was treason. "The real ones this time. We won't be able to fool him again."

"I know."

"You said the phones are probably bugged," Bodie said, his gaze darting around the room. "What about the rest of the house?"

"Why the fuck does that matter?" Doyle's expression was confused and angry at this apparent digression.

"It does, Doyle. Is the house bugged?"

"No." Doyle shook his head. "I checked myself, as soon as I got mum calmed down."

"Good," Bodie said. "Because I can't do that alone." Bodie could see the knowledge of what he was about to suggest develop in Doyle's eyes. Could see his hatred of the very idea of it.

"No, Bodie." Doyle shook his head forcefully. "You can't."

"I have to, Ray. If we had longer, I could come up with something, but three days? Cowley's the only one who can help us get those plans in three days."

"No CI5, Solecki said. And that means no Cowley." Doyle's eyes pleaded with him. "He'll have surveillance on us. He'll know."

"We're CI5. We're smarter than the Russians, any day of the week. I can see Cowley without Solecki being the wiser."

"Don't do this, Bodie. Please." Doyle's voice was a scratchy whisper, a damaged version of itself that it nearly broke Bodie's heart to hear, but he remained firm.

"You know it's the only way. You do." Bodie stared Doyle down and willed him to see reason, about this, if not about the wreckage that was their relationship. Doyle held out longer than he hoped, but finally those wide eyes blinked, and his gaze dropped to the floor, and he nodded, a gesture that felt to Bodie more like defeat than victory.

Inside, Bodie was torn by two warring impulses. Part of him wanted to jump over the coffee table that separated them, to take Doyle in his arms and hold him tightly, tell him that it was going to be all right. Part of him wanted to leap that damn coffee table and beat Doyle bloody. But he could do neither, so he simply sat on in his chair and waited for Doyle to finally meet his gaze again.

"We'll save them," Bodie said when green eyes finally met blue. "We'll save them and we'll get Solecki and we'll turn him over to the Cow. And then you don't have to see me again. Ever."

Doyle's eyes went flinty, and his mouth tightened, but he didn't argue, just gave another nod.

"Right," Bodie said, going firmly into operational mode. "Now, assuming your mum's phone is bugged and your Mrs Nelson next door doesn't want us bothering her at all hours, let's figure out how we're going to stay in touch."

Doyle fell right into operational mode with him, both of them taking refuge in the one thing they knew they did well, and could still do together. They set up code words, and chose preferred spots for the handover, and worked out how Bodie was going to keep Solecki in the dark about what they were doing. They worked until Margaret Doyle dragged Cath's husband to the spare bedroom for an unquiet sleep, when Bodie took time to give her a comforting hug and whisper reassuring words to her that he hoped didn't sound as hollow as they felt. Then they worked longer, until the middle of the night. They made all the plans they could, and covered every contingency they could think of, planned for every possible option, even knowing Solecki could overturn all their plans at his whim. When there was nothing left to do, Bodie glanced at his watch.

"It's 0200 now. Even the M1 should be quiet. If I'm not at all fussy about the speed limits, I can be in London in not much more than an hour. Another hour to lose any tail Solecki may have set on me. I can see Cowley well before dawn."

He stood and made for the hall, ready to shrug into his jacket and make the long, solitary drive back to London, where everything would kick off in earnest.

"Bodie." Doyle's voice called him back. Doyle would always be able to call him back, he realized, no matter what rift was between them. When this was over, he knew without a doubt he would need to put an ocean between himself and Ray Doyle.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks." Doyle gave him a half-hearted smile. "I know I don't have any right to ask for this."

"No, Ray, you don't," Bodie said, allowing his face to show no emotion whatsoever, wanting to give no quarter in this battle between them. He turned quickly, not giving Doyle a chance to say any more, and quietly let himself out of Margaret Doyle's front door and into the night.

It must have been the sound that woke him, the soft snick of the back door closing. Not a loud sound, but enough to disturb the sleep of a man who'd spent his adult life working in the shadowy underworld of the British security services.

George Cowley reached smoothly for the Browning that was always under his pillow and slowly sat up. He could hear someone—one man, at a guess—in the kitchen. Standing, he silently moved to the side of his door and waited for his unannounced visitor to appear, but even after five minutes there were no quiet footsteps on the stairs, there was no assassin bursting through his bedroom door. All he could hear was what sounded like someone filling his kettle and turning on a burner.

Judging it unlikely that a hired killer would make a cuppa before shooting him down, Cowley shrugged into his dressing gown and then made his way down the stairs, the pistol in easy reach in his pocket.

The house was dark as he moved through it, but there was a low light coming from the kitchen, where he could hear the kettle beginning to whistle. He pulled his gun out of his pocket, took a calming breath, and took the final step into the neat room. In the kitchen, he found a single light on over the cooker, the kettle whistling merrily on one burner, and Bodie sitting at the table.

"Good evening, sir," Bodie said calmly, as if it wasn't at all odd for him to have broken into his superior's house in the middle of the night and put the kettle on. Calm he might be, but his frame was radiating fury and frustration. It was worse than when he'd appeared in his office two weeks ago to request a new partner. Worse even than when he'd first arrived at CI5, an SAS reclamation project who'd been written off by every British commanding officer he'd had before he'd met George Cowley.

"Good morning is more like it, 3.7," Cowley said. "What the devil are you doing here?"

"Would you sit down, sir?" Bodie nodded at the chair across from him, his voice clipped and brittle, and then got up to turn off the burner and pour the contents of the kettle into the tea pot sitting on the counter. As he sat, Cowley could see Bodie had already taken out the milk, sugar and two tea cups.

"I see you've made yourself at home." Cowley sat down, but didn't put his weapon away. He'd trusted Bodie with his life more than once, but in this mood? "I hope you haven't sold your services to the opposition."

"I'm hurt you'd even ask, sir." And in truth, Bodie did seem honestly wounded at the suggestion that he might be about to betray Queen, country, and George Cowley. He finished pouring the water into the teapot, put all the makings for tea on the table between them, and sat down. "I actually have a favour to ask."

"And this favour couldn't wait until morning? Until I was at the office?"

"No, it couldn't. And when I tell you what it is, you'll see why." Bodie stopped for a moment, giving Cowley a chance to examine his man. Bodie was haggard, with dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep, his face dark with a day's beard. His eyes were hard, the sort of expression he got when he was preparing for a particularly brutal mission.

"And what is this favour?" Cowley asked, eager to get on with this, whatever this was.

"Solecki's back," Bodie said, his eyes searching Cowley's for a response. Not that Cowley was about to supply any reaction to the news. Not yet.

"Is he, now?" Cowley said noncommittally.

"He is. He's been up in Derby. Showed up at Doyle's mother's house."

"And?" There was always an 'and' in these situations. If Cowley had learned anything in his life, it was that.

"And he's demanded Doyle get him the fighter plans he wanted from us originally."

"I take it Doyle told him to go to hell."

"He's taken Doyle's sister and niece hostage." Bodie let that bombshell drop, and then began pouring tea. "Milk and sugar?" He said mildly enough, though Cowley could see his hand shake slightly with anger.

"Black," Cowley said, taking the cup in steady hands. "How much time has he given Doyle?"

"Three days."

"Not much time."

"Not enough. Not unless we have inside help."

"I assume I'm meant to be the inside help," Cowley said mildly, and then took a sip of the tea. The tea wasn't quite steeped long enough for his taste, but it would do.

"I told Doyle we couldn't do it without you. And we can't. I've no reason to be in the Ministry of Defence building now, and I know their security well enough to know that I can't break in. Not by myself. Not in three days."

Cowley put down his tea cup and looked at Bodie. Looked at the fatigue that hung on him like an ill-fitting set of clothes, the determination that marked his jaw, the rage clear in the set of his shoulders and the spark in his eyes. He wondered briefly who that rage was directed at: Solecki, or Doyle or both of them together. Short of throwing the man in a cell for the next three days, he knew he wasn't going to stop him. So he might as well help him.

"Fine. I'll get you into the Ministry. It will be up to you to get the plans. And I expect to be notified when Solecki arranges the hand off. We'll get the man properly this time."

"Thank you, sir. Now about that favour…"

"What?" Cowley barked out the word, torn between humour and affront. "That is the favour, lad."

"No, it's not," Bodie said, his expression firm and unwavering. "That's your job. Catching the villains. Keeping England smelling of roses and lavender, no matter the method it takes to do it. The favour is this: that you don't treat us as pawns in your game. Not me, not Doyle, and especially not Catherine and Evie. They're not to be sacrificed in the name of expediency."

"I wouldn't-" Cowley began to say, the denial automatic and immediate.

"You would, sir," Bodie interrupted, and his voice finally began to lose its cool. Cowley could clearly hear the anger and determination that 3.7 was only just holding back. "You know it and I know it. But I can't have you doing that. Not to Cath and Evie. Not to Doyle. I just can't."

Cowley frowned. Bodie had the truth of it, and they both knew it. He'd made more than a few tactical sacrifices in his career, both of agents and innocents. He had no doubt that he'd be forced to make such difficult choices again. Such choices were always difficult, but he'd never shied away from making them when necessary. But it seemed that this was to be one of those times when expediency was not an option.

"All right, Bodie." Cowley nodded. "You have my word. I'll do my best to make sure Doyle's family come home safely. More than that, I can't promise."

"That's enough," Bodie said, and Cowley could see the muscles in Bodie's jaw relax a fraction with his assurance.

"Right, lad. Now let's see what we can do to get us all out of this mess."

Bodie left Cowley's shortly before dawn. He skulked out the back door, taking care that he wasn't seen by anyone, and made for the car he'd parked three streets away. It was one of his getaway cars, a knackered Vauxhall registered under an alias not even Doyle knew about.

He drove back to the garage where he stored it, recovered his CI5 Capri, and drove to his flat. Their flat, his and Doyle's.

He'd only set foot in this building once since he'd returned from Derby two weeks ago. He'd nipped in to get clothes and his shaving kit on New Year's Day, after he'd woken up in Murph's flat. He hadn't been back. The thought of seeing this place, where he'd spent so much time with Doyle, had been more painful than he could bear. It was still painful, more painful than ever, but he thought pain might be just what he needed, pain and anger. Those hard emotions would inoculate him against the minute hope he still seemed to have that he could somehow reconcile with Doyle. There was no room for hope now, and he needed none. What he needed, what Cath needed, was skill and luck and the ability to get the job done.

So he walked into the flat, straight into the lounge and surveyed his surroundings, letting the memories flow and fester and burn. Here was the sofa where he'd sprawled with Doyle on top of him countless times. There was Doyle's stereo and the expansive, eclectic mess of a record collection he'd loved inflicting on his partner. And there, on the mantle, was a photograph taken at Cath's wedding.

Of all the things in this flat, it was the photo that had the greatest capacity to hurt.

Kevin had snapped it at the reception, far enough along in the evening that he and Doyle were pleasantly pissed. They had their arms around each other, and smiles on their faces that shone as brightly as Cath's had done when she'd said her vows to Kevin. Cath was beside her brother, radiant and happy. Margaret Doyle stood beside Bodie, one arm linked through his, looking proud and content.

Bodie had loved this picture. It was the only photo of the two of them they'd bothered to put up in the flat, and it had been at Bodie's insistence. He and Doyle looked so bloody happy in it, that it used to put a smile on his face even after his worst day. And more than that, it was a reminder of what else he'd gained when he'd taken on Doyle: a family. A real, proper family, that loved you and looked after you and didn't spend every waking hour working making your life an utter misery.

Now the picture was just a souvenir of failure.

He stared at the bloody thing for a good long while, reading the lessons it contained. Don't love, don't care, don't get hurt, don't let anyone in. When the pain peaked and the lessons were learned and there was nothing left of his feelings but cold stone, he reached out and gently turned the picture face down on the mantle.

He spent an hour making the flat habitable—turning on the boiler, throwing out the food that had turned into not very nice science experiments in the fridge—and then he called CI5.

It was part of the plan. Solecki would likely have this phone, this flat bugged again, and he'd also know that Bodie couldn't just not turn up for work and expect Cowley to leave well enough alone. So he called Betty and booked three days off for a family emergency, fobbing off Betty's questions about what he was up to. As a diversionary tactic, it had a pleasing truth to it. After all, Doyle and Cath and the whole mad bunch up in Derby had been closer to him than the family he'd been born into even if they were now lost to him.

Phone call made, he popped down to the shops, bought a bacon butty and tea at the little bakery Doyle had always liked, forced himself to smile stiffly when the lady behind the counter asked him where he'd been and how his friend was doing, and then legged it back to the flat.

And then he waited.

He could do nothing without Cowley, and it would take even the Cow at least a few hours to pull the strings needed to do what was needed.

So he knocked around the flat, putting records on the stereo, and then taking them off before he'd half listened to them, flicking through books of poetry (his) and history (Doyle's), and not understanding a word of what he'd read. When the phone finally rang, he leapt for it, picking up the receiver with the echoes of the first ring still echoing around the flat.

"Yes," he said, his tone short and clipped.

"Mr Bodie?" said the voice on the other end, a tentative, scratchy voice, the voice of a man used to disappointment and rejection, a man old before his time.

"What do you want, Jerry?" Bodie asked impatiently. Jerry was the only person in London who called him Mr Bodie. He was one of Doyle's no-hopers, a grass he'd had since his days in the Met. He didn't call often, and it was always with information more suited to a beat cop than CI5, but Doyle would always buy him a coffee, slip him a fiver and thank him. Bodie had no patience for that sort of charity today.

"I've got a package for you. Bloke said it was important, that you needed it today."

"What sort of package?" Bodie said, even while he wondered what Cowley was playing at, trusting something this important to Jerry of all people.

"It's more of an envelope than a package, really. One of those, whaddaya call 'em, manila--"

"Fine." Bodie said, breaking in before Jerry could gear up for one of the long, rambling explanations he was prone to. "Where do you want to meet?"

"I'm at the Anchor, in Wapping."

"I'll be there as soon as I can." Bodie rang off before Jerry could say any more. He didn't want to give the man time to give away Cowley's involvement to anyone who might be listening.

Jerry was sitting at the bar when Bodie arrived after a reckless drive across London, a small grey man in a stained Mac. He had a pint in front of him, and Bodie doubted it was his first of the day. He sat beside him, ordered Jerry another pint and himself a half. He didn't want to be anything but his best for what was coming next.

"That's kind of you," Jerry said, taking a sip from the fresh glass in front of him.

"Where's this package?" Bodie asked abruptly.

"It's right here." Jerry patted one pocket of his raincoat. "Where's Mr Doyle?"

"He's not here," Bodie said, stating the obvious and hoping Jerry would let it drop.

"I heard someone did his leg in. Heard he's out of the game."

"He'll be all right," Bodie said automatically, not wanting to discuss Doyle's health or anything else about Doyle with this man. With anyone. "The package?"

"You give him my best. Tell him old Jerry'll say a little prayer for him." Jerry reached into his pocket and pulled out a manila envelope. "There you go, safe and sound." He pushed the package down the bar to Bodie.

Bodie picked it up without inspecting it and stuffed it in his breast pocket.

"Thanks, Jerry." He opened his wallet, pulled out a twenty quid note, and pushed it into Jerry's hand. It was more generous by far than he'd ever been with Doyle's grass, and by the astonishment on Jerry's face the little man well knew it. "I'll tell Doyle you're thinking of him. But I want you to do me a favour."

"Anything for a friend of Mr Doyle's," Jerry said as he blinked at the purple note in his hand.

"I want you to forget you've seen me, forget you gave me anything. Got it?"

"Absolutely, Mr Bodie." Jerry stuffed the note hurriedly into a pocket and nodded emphatically.

"Good man," Bodie said, knowing the promise was worth little enough from a cowardly alcoholic, but it was all he could hope for. He clapped Jerry on the shoulder and was out of the pub before the man could say another word.

He retrieved his car, and drove to a deserted street not far away before he even looked at the envelope. Parked in an alley, he tore open the envelope and poured its contents into his lap.

Cowley had outdone himself.

There was the Ministry of Defence security pass Cowley had promised him, but also a map of the office where the plans were now stored, the rota of the security guards for the next three days, and even a copy of the key to the cabinet that held the plans.

He wondered what sort of deal with the devil Cowley had made to get him this. But as long as he kept his word and didn't trade Doyle, his sister or his niece for the greater good, Bodie decided he didn't care.

He put everything carefully back into the envelope, and stuffed it back in his pocket. A bit of planning, and bit of cunning, and he'd have the plans. Then they'd save Cath and Evie, get them back to Derby, and he could have Raymond fucking Doyle out of his life forever.

It had been two days. Two long days since Solecki had burst into his mother's house and destroyed even the small amount of peace he'd managed to carve out for himself. Two days of facing his mother's grief, his brother-in-law's hostility, and his own guilt. Two days of waiting by the phone for Bodie or Solecki to call. Two days of fobbing off his sisters and Kevin's family, keeping this terrible secret to themselves so no one called the police and got Cath and Evie killed.

Two days of fighting his own demons. Two days of wondering about where Bodie was, and how Bodie was managing, and what sort of mad sacrifices Bodie was making for Cath and Evie. For him. Two days of wondering where Bodie would disappear to when this was all over.

And he would disappear, of that Doyle was certain. He'd hoped Bodie might stay in CI5 at least, but he'd known immediately that the Bodie who'd arrived at his mother's door two days ago was poised to run. Doyle prided himself on knowing Bodie better than anyone, but he hadn't reckoned on Bodie's pride, hadn't remembered that Bodie's reaction to pain, to loss, was almost always to run. He'd run away to sea, to Africa, to the army, even to CI5. Doyle had been a bloody fool, not realizing that Bodie would run away from this hurt.

It wasn't just the hurt of a broken romance. Doyle was seeing more and more what he'd taken away from Bodie. A stable home, or at least as stable as you ever got when you were on the squad. An extended family that had all, in their way, and given him more love and care than his own ever had. A job he loved, because as much as he complained about it, Doyle knew that Bodie loved being in CI5 as much as he did. A commanding officer he respected.

Oh, Bodie would survive without him, without CI5, but Doyle feared how he'd manage it. Feared that he'd hide in the most out-of-the-way, violent corner of the world he could find. That thought hurt him almost as much as the possibility of Cath and Evie never coming home. He hated how much he was taking away from Bodie. And he started to think that maybe it didn't have to be that way.

Maybe Cath had been right. Maybe Bodie hadn't been in danger of losing himself by looking after her brother. Maybe Doyle hadn't been making a noble sacrifice. Maybe he could find a new place inside CI5. Maybe he'd been utterly stupid.

Maybe he'd been a complete coward.

Maybe it was time to be brave. Or at least it would be once they got Cath and Evie back. Then he could grab Bodie and tell him he'd been an idiot and hold him and not let him go. If Bodie would listen to him.

He'd fallen asleep only once in those two days, slouched on the sofa just before dawn, the phone in easy reach. One brief, restless nap, and in that short time he'd had a nightmare. Bodie had been walking away from him, getting further and further away. Doyle's leg had crumpled under him as he'd tried to catch up, the pain vivid in the dream. He'd tried to yell for Bodie, to ask him to stop, to wait, to come back, but his voice had disappeared and Bodie kept walking until he'd vanished beyond the horizon and Doyle had woken with his cheeks wet.

He'd used coffee to stay awake after that.

By the time the phone finally did ring, on the afternoon of the second day, Doyle's hands were shaking so badly he fumbled the phone for a moment.

"Yeah," he said, his voice rough. His mum and Kevin appeared in the living room, their expressions anxious, their eyes wide.

"I've got it," Bodie said with absolutely no inflection in his voice.

"Thank Christ," Doyle said, relieved that this one small part of the plan had gone well.

"I don't think he had much to do with it," Bodie said, and for a moment Doyle could feel how easy it would be to fall back into the rhythms of their old life together, the bantering, the joking. The love. Easy, and yet impossible.

"Thank you, Bodie," Doyle said simply.

"Don't thank me yet. Wait until Cath and Evie are home."

"I'll call when I hear anything," Doyle said, then started to hang up.

"Doyle!" Bodie called, making him bring the receiver back to his ear.

"Yeah?"

"Look after your mum," Bodie said, the words swift and curt, and then he hung up himself, leaving Doyle with the dial tone buzzing in his ear, wondering if the taste in his mouth was hope or despair.

"Well?" Kevin asked, looking as sick and white as he'd done when Doyle's mum had first told him what had happened.

"Bodie has the plans."

"What do we do now?" Doyle didn't think he'd ever seen his mum so worried, so worn. Not even after his dad had died.

"We wait."

"More bloody waiting," Kevin snapped out, but there was nothing else for it. The three of them sat in the lounge, the phone sitting on the coffee table between them as Doyle willed it to ring again. It didn't take long, ten minutes, perhaps, proving categorically to Doyle that Solecki had had the phone bugged all along.

Doyle's mum picked up the phone this time, picked it up, and listened, and then passed it immediately to Doyle.

"Mr Doyle," Solecki said. "I understand my package has been recovered."

"It has."

"Excellent. We can conclude our business, then."

"I want to talk to my sister, first."

"Impossible," Solecki said dismissively.

"I want proof she's still alive or you'll never see the plans," Doyle said, trying not to think about the stricken look on his mother's face as the words registered with her.

There was a long pause, and then Solecki said "Very well." Doyle could hear him yell in Russian, and someone reply. There was the sound of doors slamming and then Cath was on the other end.

"Ray? Is that you?" Cath sounded shaky and tentative, but determined for all that.

"Yes, Cath. Are you okay? Is Evie?"

"They're treating us fine, Ray," she said, even if her voice wasn't entirely convincing. "Evie's a bit tetchy, but she's being a brave girl."

"We'll have you home soon, Cath."

"Ray, I-"

Anything his sister might have said further was lost as the phone was pulled from her grasp and Solecki came back on the line.

"Are you satisfied?" Doyle hated the insolent, bored tone the man used when he was talking about his sister.

"I'll be satisfied when she's home."

"That will happen soon enough. Now let me tell you how this will work."

"No, you listen-" Doyle started, trying to gain the upper hand, to get Solecki to use one of the locations that he and Bodie had discussed. But Solecki was having none of it.

"I don't think you understand who has the power here, Mr Doyle. I have your sister. You only have some dry, lifeless papers. My hand is stronger, and the stronger hand dictates the terms. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Doyle said reluctantly.

"Good. I assume your partner will be delivering the plans?"

"I'm in no shape to."

"The hand over will occur tomorrow morning at 1000," Solecki said, ignoring Doyle's snarkiness. "Your partner will approach Trafalgar Square from Charing Cross Road and will wait at the base of Nelson's column for further instructions. I need not tell you that he must come alone. Your sister will be released once I have confirmed the plans are the genuine article."

"But-"

"Goodbye, Mr Doyle," Solecki said, and then he hung up. Doyle replaced the receiver of the phone, and then looked up at his mother and Kevin. They both wore anxious and tired expressions, both in desperate need of some hope.

"Well?" Kevin prompted.

"He's set the hand -off for Trafalgar Square, tomorrow morning. Bodie's to come alone."

"That's good, isn't it?" his mum said. "It is good?"

"Yes, mum. A public place is good," Doyle lied. "If he didn't intend to give back Cath, he wouldn't have picked a public place." He didn't tell them everything else. That Trafalgar Square was almost impossible to secure, that it would be hard to track Solecki there, that it would be harder to track him leaving. That someone as ruthless as Solecki wasn't above firing into a crowd to cover his own escape. That even the perfect set-up could end up with the hostages dead and the operation in shambles.

He picked up the phone to call Bodie. For better or worse, this would all be over tomorrow.

Cowley sat in one corner of the transit van and watched his people work. With a bank of surveillance equipment, five agents, and himself inside the tight space, it was more than cramped, and yet the men and women worked effortlessly together, just as he'd trained them to do. Benny watched the images from the surveillance cameras they'd set up around the square last night, as McCabe monitored the radio channels for any possible traffic from Solecki. Ruth and Susan kept in constant touch with the agents in the square, and Anson delivered updates to the cars of squad members posted around the West End, waiting for the signal to rush to Trafalgar. Cowley himself had a radio connection with Murphy, sitting in a sniper's nest on the top of Canada House.

Cowley could tell they were all itching to be out of this van, to be where the action was, but he'd forbidden any London-based agents from being on the street for this one. There was too great a chance that Solecki might recognize one of them and butcher Doyle's sister and her baby out of hand. No, for this op, Cowley had pulled in the deep cover agents, the ones who hadn't set foot in London for years. The London squad members would be strictly back-up and support on this operation.

He was glad his people were working at peak form, because he didn't like this set-up. Not one bit. It was all too exposed, too open to random chance, to accident. Cowley liked to have every element of an operation under firm control. Here, every careful plan he'd made could be undone by a schoolchild darting into exactly the wrong place, by a member of the Met taking notice of Bodie, or of Solecki, at exactly the wrong moment.

Mind you, having control over the ground hadn't helped him the last time they'd had Solecki in their sights. They'd had days to set up that warehouse, days to plan exactly what their responses would be, and what had happened? He'd ended up with one agent down, one agent an angry, distracted disaster, and an enemy who'd slipped through his fingers.

He owed Tomasz Solecki a great deal. And he intended to pay him in full today.

"Sir," Benny said. "Bodie is entering the square."

On the grainy surveillance screen, Cowley could see 3.7 striding into the square, his grim, purposeful strides at odds with the playfulness of the school groups and the boredom of the office workers who surrounded him.

"All right, people," Cowley said as he leaned in towards the screens. "Let's bring Doyle's family home."

It was a crisp, bright winter's day, with the sun glinting off the skiff of snow that had fallen on the city during the night. It was the sort of day Bodie might have enjoyed at any other time, when he'd had Doyle at his side and nothing worse than IRA bombers or recalcitrant gun runners to face. But on this day, he faced the sun and the laughter of the school groups dotting the square with a grim-faced determination.

He hefted the satchel in his hand, marvelling at how little it weighed, how insubstantial these papers were that would pay for two lives. Stealing them had almost been an anticlimax. He'd planned for over a day, then picked a time when a security guard he was friendly with was on duty, getting into the Ministry of Defence building with Cowley's security documents and an off-colour joke. The plans had been exactly where Cowley's source had said, and Bodie had used his knowledge of the building's security flaws to get the papers out of the building, tossing them through an unsecured window, and then fishing them from the back alley window well where they'd landed, with no one the wiser.

Committing treason had been a doddle. Bodie knew it was a faint hope that the rest of this business would be as easy.

As he passed the steps of the National Gallery, he thought he caught sight of one of Cowley's deep undercover types disappearing behind a column, but it was the only glimpse he had of anyone connected to CI5. Cowley had promised him back-up, and he hoped and trusted that the Old Man had delivered on that promise.

He approached Nelson's column cautiously, keeping a wary eye out for Solecki as he dodged around two teenagers who'd broken away from their group and were kicking a crumpled paper bag around as if it were a football. His attention was only distracted by the boys for an instant, but when he raised his eyes again, he found himself looking straight at Solecki.

"I trust that is my package?" Solecki glanced smoothly down at the satchel in Bodie's hand.

"What? No hello?" Bodie asked, suddenly angry beyond words at this man who had cost him so much. He wanted to hit him, to beat him, to gun him down in the street, but could do no more than irritate him until Cath and Evie were safe. "No handshake? No peck on the cheek?"

"Spare me your English sense of humour," Solecki said with an affected boredom. "I'm immune. I just want what is mine." He held out his hand for the satchel.

"Then I want what is mine," Bodie said firmly as he tightened his grip on the satchel.

"That was not the deal. Or didn't your partner inform you?"

"I'm making a new deal. I want to at least see them."

Solecki stared him down. Bodie could see he was being weighed and evaluated, could see that Solecki was seeing how far he could be pushed. Bodie met the man's stare with equal coldness, and he saw the moment when Solecki's resolve cracked, ever so slightly.

"Oh, very well." Solecki pulled out an R/T and talked into it, softly and in Russian. He waited a moment, and then pointed across the square, towards St Martin-in-the-Fields. "There you are."

It took a moment for him to realize what Solecki was pointing at, but then he noticed a white transit van parked on the edge of the square. The back door opened and two men emerged from the van, pulling out a woman with a baby. Cath, holding Evie.

"You see," Solecki said with a smile. "There they are, alive and well. And they will stay that way as long as you give me the plans."

"Here you are, you bastard." Bodie pushed the satchel at Solecki, who took it eagerly and began to walk away.

"Where do you think you're you going?" Bodie said, grabbing the man's arm.

"To confirm the authenticity of the plans. That was part of the deal."

"You're going to do that here, you bastard. If you think I'm losing sight of you here before I get Cath and the baby, you're not as smart as I think you are." He tightened his grip on Solecki to emphasize the point.

Again he could see Solecki weigh his resolve, and again he relented.

"Very well," Solecki said with a nod. He pulled his arm away from Bodie's grip, snapped open the satchel, and began leafing through the papers. Keeping Solecki in view, Bodie scanned the square, looking for signs of both enemy and ally. He thought he saw another one of Cowley's undercover blokes, and an ugly bastard that he might have seen last month on an obbo near the Russian embassy.

It took a good five minutes, but Solecki was at last satisfied with the papers. He put them back in the satchel and snapped it shut.

"They appear genuine."

"Of course they're genuine. Now you let them go." He pointed to Cath, her arm held tightly by one of Solecki's men.

Solecki blinked, then spoke into his R/T again in bloody Russian.

"My men have their instructions. You are to walk towards them. When you have reached the halfway point, they will release the woman and drive away. You will not follow them. You will not follow me. You will take Mr Doyle's sister and you will forget any of this ever happened."

Bodie nodded, even if he was fucked if he'd ever forget what Solecki had done to him and Doyle. Or forgive him, for that matter.

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you," Solecki said with an entirely smug smile, and then began to walk away.

Bodie didn't watch him go, but the man he'd identified as one of Cowley's passed by him, going in the same direction as Solecki. Bodie hoped Solecki tried to run, and that the CI5 man had to put a bullet in him.

He began walking across the square, keeping his eyes firmly on Cath. As he drew closer, he could make out her expression, could see the fear on her face, could see the way she was trembling in the thin jacket Solecki must have given her. He could see Evie struggling in her arms.

When he reached the half way mark, Solecki's man gave her a push, and Cath began walking towards him, then to run, with Evie cradled safely in her arms. Bodie started to think they'd done it, that there was to be no sting in the tale of Solecki's plans this time. But then he saw one of Solecki's creatures reach into his jacket, his hand emerging with a gun.

Bodie broke into a run himself, judging the distance remaining between himself and Cath, knowing that that he'd never make it to her before that bastard could fire.

"Down!" he yelled, at Cath. Her eyes went wide, but instead of dropping to the ground, to possible safety, she froze in place. Bodie felt a panic rise up in his throat went for his own gun, knowing he was late, far too late.

Then there was the crack of a gunshot across the square, and Bodie flinched. But it wasn't Cath who fell, it was Solecki's thug. The man shuddered as his forehead exploded in a bloom of blood that was red, so red, on the dusting of snow.

Bodie pushed on a last burst of speed, and pulled Cath and Evie to the ground, protecting them with his own body as schoolgirls screamed and business men ran and a dozen CI5 agents emerged from the crowd, surrounding Solecki's remaining man before he could so much as pull out his gun.

More CI5 agents surrounded Bodie and his charges. He felt Cath beneath, but he didn't move, not until Anson appeared at his side and told him the area was cleared. Then, and only then, did he sit up, pulling Cath into his arms as she sobbed into his shoulder and Evie screamed her displeasure.

"You're all right, Cath," he said. "Everything's all right. It'll all be fine now."

"Oh, Bodie," she wailed, digging her fingers into his forearm with a cruel strength. "How can it? How can anything be all right ever again?"

Bodie had no answer for that, so he just held her until she finally stopped shaking and Evie stopped crying and he was able to hustle them both into a car that Sally had waiting nearby.

It had happened so fast, they almost hadn't caught it. One second, they were watching Doyle's sister run toward Bodie, and the next Benny was saying "The target has a gun," and Cowley was shouting into his R/T for Murphy to take the shot.

An instant later, Cowley watched a man die on the grainy black and white screen, the gun dropping from his hand as school kids and tourists scattered around him.

For a moment there was a stunned silence in the surveillance van as everyone watched their colleagues take control of the chaos of the square. But then Ruth was on the R/T with Simpson, the agent who was tailing Solecki, and Susan was coordinating putting agents in place to detain Solecki, and McCabe was listening to the crackle of the frequency they'd caught Solecki using, and Benny was giving a running commentary of what he was seeing on the monitor screens. Which left only Anson with nothing to do, since he'd already made the call to send all the waiting agents to the square.

"Well, don't stand there, gawping," Cowley shouted at Anson. "Get us over there now."

By the time they reached the square, it was awash not only in CI5 agents, but bobbies and fire engines and ambulances and the inevitable gawkers who always seemed to gather around a tragedy. Cowley dealt with one frazzled Met officer bellowing that he wanted to know what was going on, drafting him to have his men clear out the gawkers and make the square secure. And then he went in search of Bodie and his charges.

He found them in the back seat of a car, with Sally in the driver's seat. Doyle's sister was pale with fear and shaking, but was clearly trying to put on a brave face as she calmed down her frightened daughter. Bodie had a comforting arm around Cath and looked as gentle as Cowley had ever seen him.

Cowley slid into the front seat and turned to face them.

"I'm glad you're safe, Ms. Doyle."

"Bennett," the young woman said with a hiccup. "My married name's Bennett."

"Mrs Bennett, then."

"Is that man dead?" Her gaze darted over to the blanket-covered body in the square before returning to her daughter in her lap.

"Yes," Cowley said, his voice firm. "He can't hurt you. Not anymore."

Mrs Bennett--Catherine, Cowley remembered--nodded. She seemed to have her brother's ability to handle hard truths. That would serve her well now.

"I need you to come back to headquarters with us, Catherine. Can I call you Catherine?"

"Everyone calls me Cath."

"Cath, then. Could you come and answer some questions? It won't take long."

"I just want to go home," she said, and the baby picked that time to fuss, adding her voice to her mother's.

"I understand. But we need to talk to you now, while your memory is still fresh." Then he pulled out his trump card, the one he always used on the victims, the men and women and children who just wanted to go home. "It will help us bring the men who did this to justice."

He saw her eyes harden at that, as he'd known they would. Saw her sit up just a bit straighter, saw her resolve toughen.

"I'll do it," she said, nodding. But then she looked up to Bodie, the silent sentinel at her side. "Will you stay with me Bodie?"

Cowley thought Bodie might refuse. He could see the uncertainty in Bodie's posture. And Cowley understood the reason. More contact with Cath meant the possibility of contact with Doyle. And even though he'd willingly taken on the role of her protector, there was still a part of Bodie that needed to protect himself from Doyle.

Stupid boys, Cowley thought. He'd like nothing better than to knock their heads together and lock them in a cell until they worked through the pride and misunderstandings that had driven them apart. Because as things stood, he could see he was likely to lose not only Doyle, but Bodie as well. That would be a damned waste, and Cowley despised waste above all else.

"'Course I'll stay with you, love," Bodie said, his voice kind, even though Cowley could read the reluctance underneath his compassion. "Just try and keep me away."

"That's settled, then," Cowley said, and motioned to Sally to drive.

Things would happen as they would. His people might like to complain that he stage managed every aspect of every operation, but George Cowley was a realist. He knew that there were always things that you couldn't change, people that you couldn't convince, and situations that would remain horrible no matter what you did to fix them. As they pulled away from the square, leaving the rest of CI5 to clear up the mess and take down Solecki once and for all, Cowley hoped that the rift between Bodie and Doyle was one thing that could be fixed in the end.

When he'd agreed to help Doyle rescue his sister, Bodie hadn't thought past getting Cath away from Solecki. He'd been so worried about the possibility of failure, of risking all only to find Cath and Evie dead, that he hadn't considered what would happen if he succeeded. What the consequences would be of finding Cath and Evie alive and well.

But things had ended well, and so Bodie found himself exposed to a whole host of new trials as he shepherded Cath through the halls and interview rooms of CI5.

He'd thought the worst moment had been after they'd arrived at CI5 headquarters, when Cath had asked to call home to Derby. When Bodie had had to listen to Cath tearfully assure her husband and her mother she was fine. When she'd got her brother on the line and looked at him, and Bodie had known she was going to make him talk to Doyle.

He'd done the only thing he could do: mumble something incoherent about needing a cup of tea and disappeared to the rest room until he was sure Cath had finished her phone call.

But that hadn't been the worst moment. The worst moment had been when Cowley finished debriefing Cath and told her she could go home and asked would she like Murphy to take her back to Derby. Cath had turned to Bodie, looking at him with an expression that told him she didn't want to go with Murphy, didn't want to go with a stranger. She wanted to go with someone she knew, someone she trusted. She wanted to go with him.

He reckoned he must be a fucking idiot, because he'd volunteered to take her and Evie home. And that was how he ended up in a car with the two of them, heading towards the one place on the planet he most wanted to run away from.

The first hour passed quietly. Both his passengers were exhausted from their ordeal, and they fell asleep in the back seat, leaving Bodie to concentrate on the traffic and the road signs and the miles slipping by. But then Evie woke up crying and Cath couldn't soothe her and Bodie finally pulled off at a Little Chef so they could all take a break.

If he could have decently sat at a different table, Bodie would have, but he couldn't. His mother may have abandoned him to his monstrous father, but she had instilled some good manners in him before she'd left, and he couldn't justify that kind of rudeness, not even to save his own sanity. So he sat in a booth across from Cath, sipping bitter coffee as she picked at a limp-looking salad and fed Evie a piece of white bread.

Cath concentrated on her daughter, not him, and he thought he might avoid any awkwardness, any pain. But he'd forgotten that whatever else she was, Cath was a Doyle through and through.

"What did my brother say to you?" Cath said to him, when she finally got Evie interested in her bread.

"What?" Bodie said, not knowing quite where she was going.

"Mum told me how you left on New Year's Eve. What did Ray say to make you leave?" Cath had Evie held firmly on her lap, but she was looking at him with a fierce stare that reminded Bodie of her brother. It was the sort of look Doyle got when he was interrogating a suspect, when he knew what he wanted to hear and he wasn't going to be swayed by lies and half-truths. Still, Bodie wasn't going to go down without a fight.

"How do you know it was something Doyle said?" Bodie responded as mildly as he could manage. "Maybe it was my idea."

"I know it had to be his doing," Cath said with a frown. "You're neither of you too bright, but he's the bigger idiot. Besides, he as much as told me it was his idea."

"Then why don't you ask him?"

"Because I'm asking you."

Cath stared at him, her green eyes examining him closely, letting him keep no secrets. So Bodie gave up to the inevitable and told her the truth.

"On New Year's Eve he told me he wanted a family. Kids of his own. That he had to leave me and CI5 to get that."

"At New Year's he said that." Cath's eyes narrowed and Bodie knew he'd slipped up. "When else did you talk to him?"

"I didn't."

"What about after I was kidnapped?" Cath said in a quiet voice that was nonetheless razor sharp. "What did he say to you then?"

"How do you know he said anything then? How do you know I talked to him then?"

"Of course you talked to him then. That's why you're here, isn't it? What else did he say?"

"That's between me and your brother," Bodie said, hoping it would end there. But Cath was Doyle's sister, and used to casually invading his privacy as a matter of course.

"Don't be an idiot, Bodie. You're family, both of you. And as a matter of fact, I think I already know what he told you. I just wanted to hear your side."

"Then why don't you tell me, Cath?"

"He told you it was for your own good, and that he didn't want you to be saddled with him. Or some load of bollocks like that. When he's not being an infuriating idiot, Ray does a nice imitation of an infuriating martyr."

"He's an infuriating something," Bodie said. "I'll give you that."

"He's an idiot," Cath said, this time with more heat behind the words. "And so are you. You should be looking after each other right now, and instead you're pulling apart and hurting each other."

"It's what he wants, Cath."

"It's not what he wants," Cath hissed. "It's not what you want either, is it? But it's the lie you've told yourselves, and each other, and now your pride won't let you think or do anything else."

"Maybe my pride is all I have left, Cath."

"Your pride won't keep you warm on a cold winter evening. It won't look after you. It won't love you."

"Ray doesn't love me," Bodie said, finding the words hurt more than he expected.

"He bloody well does. Same as you love him."

"No," he said, the word so quiet he almost couldn't hear it himself. "I can't talk about this anymore, Cath." He pushed himself awkwardly out of the booth, knocking his coffee cup over in the process and spilling what was left of the cold, brown liquid in a small pool on the table. Patricia Bodie might have taught her William manners, but there was only so much pain he was able to take, even in the name of courtesy. "I'll be in the car," he said, then made for the car park without looking back.

Ten minutes later, a sombre Cath and a much happier Evie returned to the car. Cath was quiet for the rest of the ride to Derby, unnaturally so. The few times Bodie dared to look in the rear view mirror, he found her with Evie cradled in her arms, looking as though she was carrying the troubles of the world, or at least her family, on her shoulders.

As they entered Derby and drew ever closer to Doyle's mother's house, Bodie found himself growing more and more anxious. His stomach clenched in a knot worse than he'd felt the first time he'd gone into battle. It took almost more courage than he possessed to make the turn onto Margaret Doyle's street, and even more to pull to a stop in front of the house where he'd found so much happiness.

When the car was stopped, Cath finally spoke to him one last time.

"Come inside, Bodie." Bodie had never heard Cath plead before. "Talk to Ray."

"I can't," Bodie said, and it was no more than the truth.

"Please, Bodie. For both your sakes."

A movement caught Bodie's eye, and he turned to see Margaret Doyle standing at her front door.

"There's your mum," Bodie said. "You shouldn't keep her waiting."

"Oh, Bodie…" Whatever Cath might have been about to say vanished as she lost her voice in a wave of tears. She leaned forward, and gave him a quick kiss on the top of his head, and then she was out of the car with Evie held tight, running across the road and into the arms of her mother and husband.

Bodie started up the car again and put it in gear. But like Lot's wife, he made the mistake of looking back. His last sight as he pulled away from Margaret Doyle's house, was of Ray standing behind his weeping mother, sister, and brother-in-law, staring at him with an expression entirely bereft of hope and the possibility of joy. Bodie didn't turn to salt, but he knew he was never going to forget that look on Doyle's face, not if he lived for-bloody-ever.

Doyle was in the lounge with his mother and Kevin when they heard a car pull up in front of the house and stop. He sat on the sofa, while his mum got up and peeked out through the curtains.

"It's them!" Margaret Doyle said, her voice excited and happy for the first time since she'd come home from doing the shopping and found that her daughter and granddaughter had been kidnapped. "They're here!" She darted into the hall with Kevin not far behind her, but Doyle couldn't move, couldn't follow them. He sat, frozen in place while Cowley's voice played in his head.

"Your sister and niece are on their way," Cowley had told him over the phone, and then added "Bodie is driving them."

As much as he'd been hoping for exactly that, the news that Bodie would be returning to Derby had knocked the breath out of Doyle for a moment. It would be his last chance, he knew. His last chance to talk to Bodie. His last chance to convince him they had a future together after all.

"Was that on your orders, sir?"

"No. Surprisingly, Bodie volunteered. I think he feels responsible for your sister."

"I'll have to thank Cath for that," Doyle had said.

"You and me both, lad," Cowley had said. "Though I don't see what good it will do you. Not if you still mean to quit." Cowley's voice had sounded more tired than usual, as if he was done fighting Doyle's plans to leave CI5.

"I don't think I do want to quit," Doyle had said, the words surprising him even as he spoke them. Even more surprising to him had been how much he'd meant them. "I want to stay." To stay in CI5, to stay for Cowley. But more than that, to stay for Bodie. Not that he'd share his priorities with Cowley.

"It's about time you came to your senses," Cowley had said, his old fire suddenly back in his voice. "You'll tell Bodie you're staying." And that had been an order, not a question.

"I will."

"Good." There was a pause, and Doyle had imagined the plans and scenarios that Cowley was running over in his head. "I'll be up to talk to you in the next few days, you and that partner of yours." Cowley had rung off before Doyle could point out that Bodie wasn't his partner anymore, wasn't even likely to still be in Derby in a couple of days. But he'd had hope.

And now, sitting on the sofa as he heard his mother open the door, Doyle's hope had faded to fear.

"It's just Bodie, you stupid pillock," he muttered to himself, and then pushed himself to his feet. He leaned on his cane as he made his way to the door, even as he heard Cath run up the walk. As he reached the door, he could see Cath enveloped in her husband's arms and cried over by their mother. But he couldn't see Bodie.

Balancing precariously on his good leg, Doyle looked over his brother-in-law's head and saw Bodie still sitting in the car, staring straight ahead down the road, his hand clutching the steering wheel.

Bodie couldn't be that cruel, Doyle thought. Couldn't be that cowardly. Couldn't come all this way only to leave without even getting out of the fucking car. But it seemed that he could be exactly that cruel and cowardly, because Doyle heard the car start up, saw the car pull away. And that would have been it, except that at the last possible instant Bodie had finally looked back, had met Doyle's gaze. Bodie's expression had been hard, unyielding, and in that moment Doyle knew he had lost him.

Cath must have seen the look on his face, because she caught his hand at that moment.

"He wouldn't come in, Ray. I couldn't make him come in."

"Christ," Doyle said, as he clutched his sister to his side, his joy at Cath and Evie's return gutted by this last rejection by Bodie.

For a minute he let his grief overwhelm him, let it swamp him, let it start to take him under. But then he took a deep breath and took control of the grief, fighting its grip and swimming to the surface of his dark emotions. He'd always been a fighter, from the time he was a kid. Now that he was sure, absolutely sure, what he wanted and what he needed, he wasn't going to let it go. He was going to fight. Fight for Bodie and for himself.

He gave Cath a kiss on the top of her head, and then pulled away from his family. In the lounge he picked up the phone and dialed Cowley's private line. The line he was supposed to use only in a national emergency. Well, this was a personal emergency, and if Cowley didn't like it, he could bloody well lump it.

It wasn't Cowley who answered the phone after an ungodly number of rings, but Betty.

"Mr Cowley is not available," she said, treating him as if he was some annoying civil servant and not one of Cowley's best. "And this line is not to be used except in an emergency."

"This is a bloody emergency," he said, yelling down the line.

"I very much doubt it, Doyle." Doyle liked Betty, he really did, but at that moment he would have cheerfully thrown her under the nearest speeding bus.

"Listen," he said, reining in his cold fury. "I reckon we have one chance and one chance only to keep Bodie in CI5. And if you don't get the Cowley on the phone now, we're going to miss that chance. And then you can tell the Old Man why his blue-eyed boy has pissed off to some bloody African hell hole."

There was a hiss on the other end of the phone, and a long pause, and then George Cowley himself was saying "This had better be important, Doyle."

Cowley was in the most secure interview room CI5 had to offer, ready to start interrogating the current thorn in his side, Tomasz Solecki, when Betty appeared at the door.

"There's a phone call for you, sir." Betty looked harassed and put upon, though no more than Cowley felt being interrupted at this time.

"I'm sure it can wait," Cowley said with a dismissive wave as Solecki stared at him warily.

"It's Doyle, and he's convinced me that no, it can't wait."

"Go," Solecki said with boredom that could only be feigned. "Talk to your pet."

Cowley shot Solecki a warning look, even as he cursed Doyle for his fatally poor timing.

"You're in charge, Murphy," Cowley said as he stood to leave the room. "Make sure no one talks to him, and he doesn't talk to anyone."

He followed Betty down the hall and into his office. By the time he picked up the phone, he was in a foul mood.

"This had better be important, Doyle," Cowley barked down the line. "I was just about to start interrogating Solecki. You do remember Solecki? The man who ran you down and kidnapped your sister?"

"You caught Solecki?"

"We did. Or rather, Simpson did, with help from Ruth."

"I'm glad to hear it, sir."

"I'm sure you didn't call to supply your congratulations, man. Now what is it?"

"It's Bodie, sir."

"What about Bodie?"

"I think he's going to bolt."

That caught Cowley's attention.

"What do you mean, bolt?"

"He's going to leg it. Leave CI5, leave London, and probably leave England. Is that clear enough for you?" Doyle paused from his rant and delivered a perfunctory "Sir."

"I thought you were going to talk to him." Cowley hadn't expected this. He'd thought everything was going to sort itself out. Doyle would talk to Bodie, they'd realize they'd been idiots and he'd have two valued senior agents back in the fold. He should have known that nothing was easy where 3.7 and 4.5 were concerned.

"He didn't give me a chance. He wouldn't even get out of the car. Just let Cath and Evie out and drove off."

It was typically Bodie. He'd worked himself into a state, and he wasn't going to let anyone talk him out of the remarkably stupid plans he'd made. Not even Doyle. Especially not Doyle. But how to salvage the situation? He could see only one alternative, at least in the extremely limited time frame he had to work.

"When did Bodie leave?"

"Minutes ago."

"Then he'll probably be here in two hours." Cowley ran the calculations in his head. Two hours wasn't long, but he could do it. "I think I can stop him from 'legging it,' Doyle. But I'll need your cooperation."

"Anything, sir."

"I need you to promise me you'll come back. That you'll work to get back in shape, and that you'll take whatever assignment I deem you're fit for."

"You have my word," Doyle said quickly.

"I'll need to hold you to that, even if I can't keep Bodie here."

"Yes, sir." Doyle was slightly slower off the mark this time, but Cowley trusted him to keep his word, no matter what it cost him. And Cowley needed that. He wanted to be sure he'd have at least one of them at the end of this mess.

"Very well. I'll be in touch." Cowley started to hang up, but he heard Doyle yell "Wait," at the other end of the line.

"Yes, Doyle."

"You can't leave it at that. You have to tell me what you're planning."

"I don't have to tell you anything, Doyle. And in fact, if I take the time to explain my plans, I may not have enough time to save your partner from himself. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

"As I said, I'll be in touch." He hung up the phone and immediately dialled a number, listening impatiently as the phone rang and rang. After twenty rings, he gave up, slammed down the phone, and dialled the next number.

This wasn't going to be easy.

First, he had to short circuit whatever ridiculous plans Bodie had for escape. And he had no doubt that they were ridiculous. Bodie's planning abilities were notoriously unreliable when he was upset. Then he had to give Bodie a reason to stay. Or make him remember an old reason.

Not easy, none of it, but worth it if he could keep both 3.7 and 4.5 on CI5's payroll.

He waited for thirty rings this time before he hung up and dialled the next number in his mental list, all the while keeping track of how very little time he had before Bodie would be turning up on his doorstep.

It was dark as Bodie took to the roads, and he drove back to London as if all the demons of hell and George Cowley himself were chasing him. There was a quiet voice in the back of his head, a quiet, fatalistic voice, that kept telling him it might be best if he hit a patch of ice and died in a fiery crash. But that was the coward's way out, and he was no coward. Except when it came to facing Doyle, the voice whispered.

By the time he reached London, he was in the foulest of moods. He was sorely tempted to pack a small bag, point his car towards Dover, and hop the first freighter he found at the docks, whatever her destination. But in spite of how badly he wanted to put England and Raymond Doyle behind him, he owed a debt to one other person in this bloody country. So before he stopped at his flat, he headed for CI5 headquarters.

He pulled to a squealing halt in front of the grey, hulking building and ran up the stairs and inside. This wasn't going to be pleasant and he wanted to get it over as quickly as possible.

Tom was manning the security desk, looking less unflappable than usual. Well, it only stood to reason, didn't it? It was past midnight and it had been a frantic day, even by the standards of CI5.

"Cowley's looking for you," Tom shouted at him as Bodie ran by him and up the stairs.

"That's good," he shouted back. "Because I'm looking for him." It would be easier if he didn't have to chase down Cowley to offer his resignation. He was going to resign no matter what the Old Man said, but he'd prefer to do it in person, not to leave an impersonal note.

He headed for Cowley's office, and Betty waved him in without a word, though she did give him the sort of look that she generally reserved for off-colour jokes and odious junior agents. In his inner sanctum, Cowley was sitting at his desk, surrounded by a sea of folders.

"You've arrived," Cowley said without looking up. "Take a seat and I'll be with you in a moment." He had his nose in a file and was scribbling notes in the margins of a page.

Bodie did not sit down.

"I need to talk to you, sir," he said. Now that he was here, he didn't want to drag this out. A clean break was always best.

Cowley looked up at him with a frown that turned into a full out scowl.

"I said. Sit. Down."

George Cowley might be an old man with a limp, but even Bodie knew better than to cross him when he was in this mood. So he sat down, and impatiently waited for Cowley to finish whatever it was he was doing. A minute more of scribbling, and then Cowley closed the file and turned his full attention on Bodie.

"I know you've just finished with this Solecki business, but I've got a fresh situation I need you on," Cowley said. Whatever Bodie had expected Cowley to say to him, that had not been it.

"Excuse me, sir?"

"A very nasty bunch has turned up in Manchester. IRA with a side of Baader-Meinhof. I'd sent two men up to keep an eye on them, but one of them has ended up with a broken arm. It seems the targets suspected him of being MI5 and decided to teach him a lesson. Which is not only insulting, but damned inconvenient."

"I don't see what this-"

"I need to send someone else up North to back up Gilchrist. And I need that person to be from the North. A Mancunian would be best, but it seems I'll have to settle for a Liverpudlian."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm very serious, Bodie. This bunch is dangerous. Very dangerous, and getting more so. I don't want Gilchrist up there by himself."

"You have other agents from the north. Morris-"

"Morris was educated at Sandhurst and couldn't do a working-class accent if his life depended on it. And it will. Whereas you can still sound credibly like a Scouser dock rat if you need to."

"But I'm-"

"There's the file." He pushed the file he'd been working on across the desk to Bodie. "You're to leave first thing in the morning. You'll have a day to get a briefing from Gilchrist and learn your cover, then you'll be in the thick of it."

"I'm not going to be in the thick of anything!" Bodie shouted, volume being the only thing that could stop Cowley when he was in this mood. He took a deep breath on continued on more quietly. "I'm resigning. I've had enough and I'm done."

"You're done when I say you're done, laddie." Cowley's voice was as cold as his eyes.

"I'm not a junior agent," Bodie said, angry and shouting again. "You can't make me do what I don't want to do. And I don't want to do this job anymore."

Cowley stopped fighting him, then. Stopped, and sat looking at him quietly. Bodie felt himself evaluated and analyzed. He suddenly knew how it felt to be a suspect in an interrogation room with George Cowley staring at you across the room. He forced himself not to flinch under that scrutiny, forced himself to sit up straight and meet the Old Man's hard gaze head on, to admit to no weakness.

"You may not want to do this job anymore, Bodie, but I need you to do it. For just a little while longer." Cowley's expression was still hard, but his voice had softened slightly. "One more operation, Bodie. Can you do that for me?"

Bodie blinked hard and looked down at his hands. His fingers were clutching the armrests of his chair so hard that his knuckles had gone white. This was a trap, Bodie knew. His sense of loyalty was always a trap, always got him in trouble. And yet it was a part of himself he could not shed. He would always honour loyalty to friends and compatriots, even those he hadn't seen for years. If he'd stood up for Williams, for Keller, how could do less for George Cowley?

"How long is it likely to take, this operation of yours?" As soon as he asked the question, Bodie knew he was lost.

"A month, maybe two."

"You don't ask for much."

"It's a big job. It won't come together in a day, or even a week."

Bodie chewed his lip as he fought for a way to turn Cowley down. But he couldn't. He could, however, make it easier for himself, make it less likely that someone else could prey upon his loyalty.

"I'll do it," Bodie said. Cowley sat up straighter at his words and Bodie thought he saw the hint of a smile on the Old Man's face. "But as long as I'm doing a favour for you, I need you to do me favour in return."

"Another favour, Bodie?"

"Yes," Bodie said flatly. "You can't tell Doyle where I am." Cowley would make him this promise or he and his "fresh situation" could go hang.

Cowley's eyes narrowed.

"He might find out from someone besides me."

"Not if this assignment is as deep undercover as it sounds to be."

"Point taken," Cowley said, with a slight reluctance that confirmed for Bodie at least part of the game Cowley had been playing.

"And you have to accept my resignation when this is all over. With no argument."

"Agreed." Cowley nodded, though Bodie thought he could see in his expression a slim hope that Bodie might change his mind before this was all over. Not bloody likely. Cowley's eyes sparked with impatience, as he tossed the file into Bodie's lap. "I want you packed up and on the road to Manchester by first light tomorrow."

Bodie picked up the file and left without another word.

A month, he told himself on the drive back to the flat, shifting gears so violently it was a miracle he didn't strip the clutch. Two months at the most. Two months and he'd be free. Free of England, free of CI5, free of George Cowley.

Free to fuck up his own life without the assistance of Raymond fucking Doyle.

Part Three

Doyle had known he was in for it as soon as he showed up at CI5 headquarters walking with a cane and wearing a suit that was more than a step or two above his usual worn jeans, t-shirt and leather jacket. And his colleagues hadn't disappointed him. He'd been back nearly for two weeks, and everyone was still taking the piss every time he walked the halls.

"Well, if it isn't George Junior gracing us with his presence."

"Fuck off, Lucas."

"I don't know if George Junior quite fits. I thought we agreed to call him the Little Cow."

"Fuck off, Anson."

"Cowley would never say that."

"Well, you'd never call Cowley the Cow to his face, would you?"

"Point taken," Anson said as he headed into the rest room. "What's the Old Man got you working on these days, anyway?"

"Need to know, my son," Doyle said, laying a finger against his nose. "Strictly need to know."

Anson gave him a two-fingered salute and disappeared into the rest room. Doyle stood outside in the corridor, listening to everyone discussing current operations, current events, and the current odds that the newest member of the office secretary pool would agree to date any of them, and felt like he'd been barred from his local. He had no doubt that Anson and the rest would welcome him there, but even after two weeks back he was all too aware that he was no longer one of them. Age and injury had pushed him out of the company of those who faced danger themselves, and into the realm of those who thrust other people into danger.

The change had been both easier and more difficult than he'd expected. The easy part had been the job itself. The administrative and strategic side of CI5's work was turning out to be fascinating, and he'd only just started scratching the surface of what George Cowley knew. But he missed the comradeship of working with the rest of the squad, missed the bond that came from facing an enemy's bullets together.

It went without saying that he missed Bodie most of all.

Two months it had taken him to undo the damage he'd done to his leg when Solecki had kidnapped Cath and Evie. Two months to get to the point where he could walk without too much pain, though he still needed the cane. Two months during which he'd heard nothing at all from Bodie or about Bodie. All Cowley would tell him was that his former partner was still on the CI5 payroll and still in England. It wasn't nearly enough.

He'd agreed to come back to CI5 whether Bodie stayed or not, but Doyle knew it had been a devil's bargain. He'd done it for Bodie, and only for Bodie. All the physio, all the pain, it had all been for Bodie. There wasn't a day went past that he didn't think of something he wanted to share with Bodie, whether was a horrible joke his therapist had told him, or the details of a bollocking Cowley had delivered to a junior agent. There wasn't an hour when he thought how much he just wanted to hold Bodie in his arms, to be held by him, to kiss him, to lick him, to fuck him. And none of it was possible, because Bodie just wasn't fucking here.

He wished he at least knew where Bodie was, knew if Cowley had packed him off to Croydon or to Aberdeen. But he didn't know, and that left a Bodie-shaped hole in his life that couldn't be filled by anyone else.

But there was no fixing it, not until Cowley gave up Bodie's location or the man himself appeared in the corridors of CI5.

He'd moved back into the flat he and Bodie had shared not so many months ago, even though it was hard, damned hard, being in that place again. The flat was full of Bodie. The shelf in the lounge held the small collection of battered poetry books Bodie had kept with him since Africa. The dresser in the bedroom held a tarnished Swiss Army knife that Bodie normally took everywhere. The bed held so many memories that they'd crowded Doyle out of the room. He'd taken to sleeping on the sofa so he wasn't constantly reminded of the man he was missing so terribly, though the lounge held its own perils. Chief among them was the picture of them taken at Cath's wedding. Bodie had loved that picture, had been the one to insist it be framed and given pride of place in the lounge, but when Doyle had returned he'd found it placed very deliberately face down on the mantle. In his darker moments he imagined what Bodie must have gone through, here in this flat by himself, what he must have felt, what led him to reach out and turn over that photo that had meant so much to him.

Doyle hadn't had it in him to turn the picture face up again.

With home full of emotional pitfalls, Doyle spent most of his time at work, throwing himself into learning his new role in CI5. He was a damned good field agent, but it turned out he knew fuck all when it came to the behind the scenes pieces of the job. He didn't know how to negotiate with the Whitehall mavens, or how far MI5 could be pushed into cooperating on an op, though at least he knew the Met well enough to be of use as a liaison with them. He'd spent the last two weeks since he'd been back trailing around behind Cowley, learning the job from the master, with Cowley quizzing him on how he'd approach each problem they encountered and pushing him always to think harder, to do better.

Doyle was bloody well exhausted. And he hadn't even started doing the job properly.

Speaking of which, it was time to get started for the day. Reluctantly, he moved away from the rest room and he made his way to Cowley's office, hoping to Christ they weren't going to spend another day prowling the corridors of Whitehall. They'd done nothing but yesterday, and last night Doyle had paid dearly for the amount of standing he'd done. The muscles in his bad leg had cramped unmercifully, and it had taken a hot bath and two of the muscle relaxants that he hated taking to calm the screaming agony.

Betty was at her desk outside Cowley's inner sanctum, and looked up as he entered her realm.

"What's on the agenda for today, Betty? Tea and crumpets with the Queen?"

"I don't think you're quite ready for that, do you?" She didn't even crack a smile.

"I don't know. I've got my grown-up suit on."

"You've still got your ragamuffin hair, though, don't you?"

"You're just jealous of my curls," he said with a wink.

That earned him the ghost of a grin, before she went back to being all business. "To answer your question, you're on your own today. Cowley's been called unexpectedly to Cardiff, and he's left you to carry on for him here."

"Cardiff?" Doyle said, disbelievingly.

"The Welsh can have security emergencies, just like the rest of the country." Betty passed him a file. "There's an undercover operation winding up today. Cowley's asked you to debrief the agent involved."

"I won't be interrogating the suspects?"

"The suspects are locked up in a Manchester cell, and likely to stay there until various jurisdictional problems have been settled. You're just to get the details from our man. You can use interrogation room one. You'll have more room there."

"That wouldn't be hard." For the moment, Doyle's office was an abandoned broom closet that Doyle was convinced had been too small for the brooms. Cowley had promised him a better office as soon as it could be managed, but in the meantime he had just enough space for a small desk and chair, and not much else. "Who's the agent?"

"I think it's Gilchrist, though Mr Cowley has been a bit more tight-lipped than usual on this one. It was a sensitive op." She looked at her watch. "Whoever it is, he's due in the next half hour."

"Cheers, love," Doyle said, and tucked the file under one arm. Gripping his cane with his free hand, he made for the interrogation room.

He spent the next twenty minutes going through the file, shaking his head at the nastiness the IRA had tried to get up to in Manchester, and making note of questions to ask Gilchrist when he finally showed up. He put his pen down when he heard footsteps outside the hall, heard a knock on the door, saw the doorknob turn.

"'Bout time you showed up, Gilchrist," he said, as he rested his head wearily on one hand.

Then the man stepped fully into the room and Doyle froze.

It's nearly over. Nearly done. I'm nearly free. That was what Bodie told himself all the way down from Manchester.

He'd show up at Cowley's door, deliver his report, present the resignation letter he'd scrawled on a piece of Manchester Metropolitan Police letterhead, and leave. And not before time.

One month, Cowley had told him when he'd asked how long this op would take. Maybe two at the outside. But it had been two months, two weeks, and four days, and every one of those days, Bodie had been on edge. It hadn't been the IRA cell he'd infiltrated that had worried him. There'd always been a chance of being rumbled, but he'd dealt with that sort of danger before. No, what had worried him had been the possibility of Doyle turning up in the grotty bedsit he was living in.

He couldn't face Doyle. It had been true two months ago and it was still true now. See Doyle in person and he might be tempted again, might let down his defences, might let himself feel something for the man again. Might end up feeling the fool again, being hurt again. No, better to leave things as they were, to let the rage and regret gradually fade into melancholy and nostalgia until Doyle was another faded memory, one he could pull out without too much pain.

Of course, that would take decades.

Because now when he thought of Doyle all he felt was a fury so deep it seemed twined with his very sinews, encoded in his DNA.

The fury reared again as he pulled in front of CI5 headquarters, as he walked up the stairs, as he gave Tom a cursory nod before running up the stairs.

"The lift's actually working today," Tom called after him.

He didn't respond. He needed to get his blood moving, needed to feel like he was alive before he killed his last connection with Doyle.

He headed for Cowley's office, and found Betty sitting in her usual spot, looking as inscrutable as ever.

"The prodigal returns," she said with a raised eyebrow.

"Not for long," Bodie said. "I need to see Cowley."

"You're expected," Betty said. "Not there," she added when he headed towards Cowley's inner office. "Down the hall. Interrogation room one."

Bodie only nodded in reply, and headed down the hall, relieved that he saw none of his colleagues. It was bad enough that he could hear Murphy and Anson scrapping like kids in the rest room, one last reminder of the life he was about to give up.

He reached the door of the interrogation room and reached for the handle.

A voice from within said "'Bout time you showed up, Gilchrist." That's not Cowley's voice, he thought as he stepped inside to find himself face to face with Ray Doyle.

It had been just over two months since he'd last seen Doyle in Derby, and that time seemed to have aged him years. His face was gaunter, with lines of pain etched more deeply into his features. His hair had gone from a sprinkling of salt and pepper at the temples to actual, outright grey throughout. And the suit he was wearing…the suit was a proper suit, a suit for a serious and sober citizen, a suit that no doubt eyed the rest of the contents of Doyle's wardrobe with extreme suspicion.

But his mouth was the same, the lips still lush. And the eyes, Bodie would never fail to recognize those eyes, not even widened with surprise as they were now. Bodie struggled with all the impulses and reactions Doyle's presence had set off, anger, attraction, and confusion. He fought them all back but the anger.

"You bastard," Bodie choked out, taking a certain satisfaction in the flinch the words drew from Doyle.

"Bodie…I-" Doyle was gape-mouthed, struggling with words that wouldn't come.

"Where the hell is Cowley?"

"Cardiff," Doyle blurted out. "I didn't know, Bodie. He didn't tell me it was you coming. Betty told me you'd be Gilchrist."

"Well, I'm not bloody Gilchrist, am I?" Bodie moved into the room and pulled the paper from his jeans pocket. "That's for Cowley," he said with a snarl. "It's my resignation." He turned.

"What about the debriefing?"

"Let Gilchrist handle the bloody debriefing." Bodie stepped towards the door without looking back.

"Bodie," Doyle said. "Don't."

"Don't what?" Bodie whipped around, as he tried to slow his breathing, tried to remain as calm as he could.

"Don't leave. Not like this."

"Like what?" Bodie snapped out.

"Like it's all my fault."

"It is all your fucking fault," Bodie yelled. "You're the one who hid things from me. You're the one who lied. You're the one who wanted to leave in the first place." He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. "You didn't trust me, Doyle. Not with how you felt. Not with what you wanted. Not with anything. You made all the decisions on your own. And you're still doing that from the looks of things." He raked his eyes down Doyle's fashionably-clad frame. "You told me you wanted out of CI5, but you're back in for good, aren't you?"

Doyle lowered his eyes and nodded.

"You're in, and I'm out. That should suit both of us, down to the ground." He turned, pulled the door open so hard that it partially bounced back, and strode down the hall, ignoring the shouts of Doyle behind him and the curious faces peering out of the rest room ahead.

He headed down the stairs, his pace accelerating more and more until he was in the lobby and hit the doors running.

It's over, he thought. It really is over. And the damnable thing was, for all he'd told himself he wanted this, it felt far more like losing than winning.

Doyle sat in the interrogation room for crucial seconds, trying to get his breathing under control, trying to calm his thoughts. But all he could think was he's gone, he's gone, he's gone.

He clutched the edge of the table in front of him and drew in another gulping breath, then stood. He'd always been a fighter. That's what he had to do now: fight. He forced himself to stand, took one step, then another, and another until he was at the door, through the door, in the corridor.

Anson, Lucas and Murphy stood at the threshold of the rest room, all talking nearly at once.

"Was that Bodie?" Anson asked.

"What's going on?" said Lucas.

"Are you all right?" was Murph's contribution.

Doyle didn't answer any of them, just kept moving, eyes firmly on the top of the stairway he knew Bodie had disappeared down. If he listened over the chatter of Murphy and the others, he could hear the echo of Bodie's steps nearing the bottom of the stairs.

"No," he said quietly under his breath. It was when he tried to run that he realized he'd forgotten his cane. He kept on anyway, ignoring the pain in his leg, the twisted tendons, the still too fragile bone, and pushing himself to move faster. It wasn't too late. It couldn't be too late.

He reached the top of the stairs and started down, gripping the banister as he forced himself to move down the stairs at speed. He was half way down the first flight when it all went horribly wrong.

He caught his foot on a stair, or didn't lift his leg high enough, and suddenly his bad leg was twisting under him. He lost his hold on the banister, and then he was falling. He flailed and tried to catch himself, failed, then curled his hands around his head as he tumbled down one step, and another and another, coming only to a shaking stop when he hit the landing.

Lying there, stunned and hurting, he heard the sound of the great wooden at the entrance pushed open and slamming shut again.

George Cowley sat behind the one-way glass that lined one wall of interrogation room one and watched what was likely one of his more ungainly plans go horribly awry.

It had been hard to do, honouring one promise to Bodie not to tell Doyle where he was, while keeping an implied promise to Doyle to keep Bodie on the squad. His solution had been inelegant—send Bodie away on assignment, then throw him back with Doyle—but it had kept all his promises, after a fashion. An inelegant solution, and a faulty one.

He'd been hoping the time in Manchester would cool Bodie off. It hadn't. Bodie was as furious when he discovered Doyle in the interrogation room as he'd been when Cowley had sent him north. Nor had Doyle been able to calm him. Cowley watched in frustration as Bodie shattered the connection it had taken them years to build. He shook his head as Bodie stormed out of the room.

"Oh, you stupid boy," he said quietly, then watched as Doyle sat there quietly clutching the table in front of him, his face utterly devoid of all expression, but for the thinning of his lips.

Cowley slowly walked towards the door, his hopes that this could all be salvaged fading by the moment, and already calculating what to say to Doyle, what was likely to help him, what was likely to bind him to the service of CI5. But then a flicker of movement in the room made him turn in time to see Doyle rise from the table.

He moved quickly for a man with a crippled leg. But then, Cowley knew how fast you could move if you were motivated, even with a leg that was shattered.

"Quickly, laddie," Cowley urged, as Doyle left the room. Then he counted to twenty before leaving the room himself. If Doyle managed to stop Bodie from leaving, he wanted to give them at least a few seconds alone. And if Bodie left anyway, well, he wanted to be there to offer Doyle what comfort he could. He was afraid that would be little enough.

When he did finally venture into the corridor, he found a gaggle of agents gaping at him from the rest room door, and Doyle disappearing down the stairs.

"Aren't you in Cardiff?" a confused-looking Murphy asked as he passed the rest room. Cowley only glared at him and continued after Doyle. He reached the top of the stairs in time to see it, see Doyle lose his footing and tumble and flail and fall until he came to a sprawled stop on the first landing.

An old man with a dodgy leg he might be, but George Cowley beat every member of the A squad to that landing, and put a gentle hand on 4.5's shoulder.

"Don't move, Doyle," he said, then looked at the troop of agents following him down the stairs. "I hope one of you had the sense to call an ambulance," he barked out. Every agent stopped for a moment, and then Anson dashed back up the stairs. The rest of them just stood where they were, gawping. Cowley sometimes despaired of the young men in his employ.

"I don't need an ambulance, sir." Doyle's voice was low but determined as he turned onto his side and looked up at Cowley.

"Be quiet, man."

But Doyle wasn't quiet. "I have to go after him." He immediately struggled to right himself, to stand, in spite of Cowley's glare. "If I don't go after him now, he'll be gone. Permanently."

"He's already gone, Doyle." Cowley hated admitting defeat, but even the few minutes head start he had on them would be enough for a man like Bodie.

"No, he's not. Not quite. There are a few things at the flat he won't leave behind. But I have to hurry. It won't take him long." Doyle used the banister to slowly pull himself to his feet, gingerly testing both good leg and bad. "Look," he said, sounding surprised. "No bones broken."

"Not through any lack of trying," Cowley muttered.

"I've got to go," Doyle said then turned away and started back down the stairs.

"No, you don't." Cowley grabbed him by the collar and halted his progress in a manner that was both swift and undignified. "You didn't break your neck this time. I'm not giving you a second chance."

Cowley directed his attention to the agents still standing hesitantly on the steps above them.

"Murphy, you get down here and help Doyle down these stairs. Ruth, go get his cane and meet us in the car park. And as for the rest of you, I assume you have some work to do." It took a second, but the motionless crowd finally exploded into a flurry of movement. Murphy came down and took Doyle by the elbow, earning a poisonous glare from Doyle in the process. Ruth disappeared on her errand, and the others travelled in a mob back up the stairs. Cowley doubted he'd get a second's work out of the rest of them for the rest of the day—they'd be gossiping about the last few minutes' events like a pack of bored housewives—but at least they were out of the way.

Ruth was waiting for them in the car park, with Cowley's favourite sedan running and ready to go. She barely waited until the car doors were shut, with Cowley in the front seat and Doyle installed with Murphy in the back, before she hit the accelerator, sending the car hurtling towards Doyle's flat and, so Cowley hoped, Bodie.

Bodie opened the door to the flat, took a step inside, and froze. He hadn't expected it, but he could tell immediately that Doyle had been living here.

The first clue was a wisp of the cologne Doyle liked lingering in the air. Then there was the smell of the spices he liked to cook with. (When he'd been here on his own, the only food the place had ever smelled of was chicken and chips and the occasional sausage roll.) The subtle scent of the flat belonged to Doyle.

Smell was the strongest trigger to memory they said, and it must be true, because Bodie found himself beset by a host of memories clamouring for his attention. There was the memory of Doyle chopping aubergines in the kitchen and promising Bodie he'd like them. (He hadn't.) And the memory of Doyle splashing on his cologne with a flourish in preparation for a night on the town, and then snogging Bodie rotten. He could still hear the earthy way Doyle had laughed when he'd wrinkled his nose at the strength of the cologne. He clamped down ruthlessly on the memories when he came to the time Doyle had pounced on him in the lounge after a brutal, all-night op they'd only just escaped with their lives, knocking him to the floor and getting them both off with their trousers still around their ankles. He nearly left then and there, and the devil take the things he'd come for. But he didn't. He just tightened his jaw and squared his shoulders and got on with it.

He'd been through the whole flat, retrieved his favourite gun from behind the wardrobe, and the battered poetry books he'd had since even before Africa from a shelf in the lounge. He was doing one last quick sweep of the lounge when his eye was caught by a flash of silver on the mantle. He should have ignored it, he knew he should have, but he turned towards it, and reached out without thinking and then there he was, staring at a picture of two idiots in tuxedos, smiling at each other as though there was no one else in the world for them.

Bodie felt a tightness in the back of his throat and he stumbled over to the sofa, sinking heavily onto it, the picture still clutched in his hand. He couldn't stop staring at the bloody thing. It had him hypnotized like a tree cobra he'd once seen in Africa, coiled up and waiting to strike. Leave now, he thought. Get up and leave and never come back. But he sat frozen in one spot, unable to stand, unable to move, unable to leave.

He nearly didn't notice when the door of the flat opened behind him, but then he caught a stronger trace of the cologne he'd smelled when he'd arrived at the flat, and he stiffened.

"Have you come to do your fucking debriefing?" he asked, letting every ounce of the bitterness he felt seep into his words. He didn't look up from the picture.

"Bodie—" Doyle's voice cracked on his name, and Bodie could imagine the look on his face, that desolate, miserable look he got when things were truly fucking awful and he couldn't see a way out of them.

"Or have you come to beg me to stay? Please, Bodie, don't go Bodie. That sort of thing?" Bodie knew he was being cruel, but he honestly didn't care.

"I might if I thought it would do any good," Doyle said, his voice completely devoid of hope. "But it wouldn't, would it?"

"No," Bodie said, as the two men in the picture laughed with each other, laughed at him. "No, it wouldn't."

"I didn't think so."

Bodie heard the creak of the floor under Doyle's feet, the tap of his cane, a shush of fabric, and then Doyle was sitting on the sofa, with a long arm's length between them, an unbridgeable distance. Bodie didn't look up from the picture, but he'd always had good peripheral vision—it had kept him alive in Africa more than once—and he could see Doyle, top coat still on, sitting with his shoulders hunched and his hands clenched together.

"Good picture, that," Doyle said.

"Yeah," Bodie said with no conviction.

"Why'd you knock it over, Bodie?"

"Why do you fucking think?" The words left Bodie's lips with a whip-sharp crack. "Why didn't you turn it up again, if you think it's such a brilliant picture?"

"Because it hurt too much." Bodie knew the truth from Doyle when he heard it, and that was the truth. But it was too bloody little, too bloody late. Still, something in his former partner's voice poked a small hole in the brittle shell he'd built around himself, made him finally put down the picture and turn to fully face Doyle.

Doyle looked at him, his eyes filled with more panic than Bodie had ever seen him reveal, even on their worst assignment.

"Why, Doyle?"

"Why what?" Doyle's misery was pierced by confusion.

"Why the suit? Why the interrogation room? Why go back to CI5 when you seemed so sure you wanted out?"

"You'll never believe me." Doyle let out a short bark that might have been laughter, but there was no humour in his expression.

"Try me."

Bodie knew he had nothing left to lose and little enough to gain, but if Doyle had decided to tell the truth now, he wanted to hear it.

Doyle looked down at his hands, to where one thumb rubbed against an index finger. His lips had thinned down to nothing and Bodie could see the pulse in his neck beating triple time.

"It was the only way to keep you here."

"What?" Bodie's rage had faded, but now he felt it rise up within him again. Every muscle in his body tensed and he heard a roaring in his ears.

Doyle's head turned and his eyes met Bodie's before quickly darting back to his hands.

"You were going to run, after you got Cath back. I knew that. Especially when you wouldn't come in to Mum's house, wouldn't face me. And I didn't want you to go."

"You had a fucking funny way of showing it," Bodie said, interrupting his partner, hoping that he'd stop, that he'd shut up, that he'd stop digging at the wound Bodie had thought was finally beginning to heal.

"I'm sorry, Bodie. You probably don't believe me, and I can only tell you so many times, but I am sorry. I thought I was doing what was best for you, but in the end it wasn't best for either of us." Doyle stopped and took a deep heaving breath, and Bodie almost felt sorry for him. "Anyway, I knew you were going to run, and I couldn't think how to stop you. So I called Cowley."

"And he sent me to Manchester," Bodie filled in.

"In return for me agreeing to come back to CI5." Doyle grimaced. "In whatever capacity George saw fit."

"Christ, Doyle." Of the many things Bodie hated, being manipulated was firmly in the top five. That he'd been manipulated by both the man he'd loved and the boss he'd respected made this worse.

But you didn't really want to leave, a voice whispered in his ear. They did you a favour.

"They tried to tell me I was being an idiot," Doyle said. "Cath and my mum. But I just didn't want us to end up hating each other."

"But I did end up hating you," Bodie said.

"Do you still?"

"I don't know." And Bodie didn't. He really didn't. He was still angry, but the shaking rage of a few minutes ago had already withered and died. He could remember hating Doyle, but he was no longer sure if what he felt was the real emotion or its revenant. He could remember loving Doyle, too, being the pillock in the tuxedo in the picture, the one who thought he was the luckiest bloke on the planet.

"Are you still going to run?" Doyle still didn't look at him.

"Are you going to let me?"

"I won't stop you. Not this time. Not if it's really what you want. But if it's not what you want, or even if you're not sure, then I'll fight for you, Bodie. I swear to God, I will." Doyle drew in a deep breath and finally looked up, finally met Bodie's gaze. "What do you want, Bodie?"

You, whispered the voice in his ear, even as his fear told him this was his way out. Tell Doyle he wanted to leave, and he'd be free. But he couldn't say the words. His voice was stuck in his throat and there was a hollow place in his gut and all he could do was shrug.

Doyle flinched at the gesture, as if he'd been expecting a blow. And that was what finally did it, unstuck Bodie's voice and unfroze his limbs, the thought that Doyle honestly believed he might hit him.

"Ray," he said, even as he shifted down the sofa and put a hand tentatively on Doyle's knee. But he didn't know what else to say. All words seemed inadequate to express what he was feeling when he wasn't even sure what that was. Love and hate, fear and hope all jumbled together in his mind.

"Oh, Bodie." Doyle breathed out the words, taking Bodie's hand in his. Doyle's hand, as always, was warm and strong and comforting. Bodie twined his fingers with Doyle's, letting skin and touch say what his mouth couldn't. Then Doyle pulled him forward, and Bodie found himself encircled by arms that were as strong as he remembered. He turned his face into Doyle's neck and deeply breathed in the scent of his cologne and the wool of his coat and him.

And he wrapped his arms around Doyle as if he never intended to let him go.

Ruth kept the engine running for the first five minutes after Doyle disappeared through the door of his block of flats. "In case we need to make a fast getaway," she said. In case we need to chase after Bodie, Cowley knew she meant.

When neither 3.7 nor 4.5 had made a run for it after five minutes were up, she turned off the engine, but kept her hands firmly on the steering wheel. When there'd been no movement after ten minutes, Murphy started to look more worried than he'd been at any other time during this whole sorry business. Which was saying a lot. When after fifteen minutes they were still sitting in the by now quite chilly car, even Cowley found himself on edge.

"At least neither of them has tried escaping," Murphy offered.

"Bodie might have shot Doyle," Ruth tried. "He might be hiding the body."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Murphy. "Bodie would never hurt Doyle. Though Doyle might have had a go at Bodie. And anyway, we'd have heard the shot."

"There are such a thing as silencers," Ruth returned.

"Which don't usually work worth a damn," Murphy snapped back.

"There are always knives—"

"Be quiet, the pair of you," Cowley finally snapped out as he shot a quelling look at Ruth. "There's been no shooting or silencers or knives or hiding of bodies." He looked back sharply at Murphy. "Or escaping." He began opening his door. "I'm going up and I'll talk to them both and find out what's happened."

"Sir—" Ruth began.

"You two will sit here and wait for me," he said.

"But—" Murphy said, before Cowley cut him off.

"I want no discussion from either of you. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," both of his agents said, though neither sounded happy about it. Which was fine. Cowley didn't need his agents to be happy following his orders, as long as they followed them.

He slammed the car door behind him, and then was inside Doyle's building. He paused for a moment in the lobby, listening. He half expected to hear shouting, might have almost found it comforting, but instead there was just the distant sound of a television set.

The lift took forever to come, and forever and a bit to make it to the second floor. Cowley tried not to anticipate what he'd find waiting for him, tried to be prepared for anything. When he reached the flat he found the door slightly ajar. "Stupid boys," he muttered to himself. He knew they had other concerns than their jobs on their minds at the moment, but he didn't want to find two dead agents because they'd forgotten the most basic security procedures.

He reached out a hand and tentatively pushed the door open, the silence from within the flat making him wonder if the place was empty, if both Bodie and Doyle had both slipped out the back way. He took a slow measured step inside, then two more. The lounge came into view and he could see the sofa and what had become of his two wayward agents.

Bodie had his back towards him, and his face buried in the crook of Doyle's neck. Doyle had his arms wrapped around Bodie, with one hand rubbing his partner's back the same way Cowley had seen a mother comforting her child in the park last week. Doyle's eyes were clenched shut, as if in concentration, and his mouth was a thin line.

It was an intensely private moment, and one he hated to intrude upon, but he needed to know what had happened. Cowley could not honestly say if the scene he saw before him was one of reconciliation or of farewell, if he was getting back both his agents or was about to lose one forever. And he needed to know, needed to plan.

He took one more step forward, though he wasn't at all sure what he could say to these men, and heard a floor board groan slightly under his foot.

Bodie didn't move, but Doyle's eyes shot open immediately. Doyle looked at him in alarm for a brief second, then an expression of recognition crossed his face. He held Cowley's gaze with his own, and Cowley found he couldn't read Doyle at all, couldn't tell if he was annoyed or relieved, content or heartbroken. But then, finally, Doyle let down his protective armour, just for a moment, let a subtle, comfortable smile curl one corner of his mouth, and gave a slight nod that Cowley took as both acknowledgement of his presence and as an affirmation that things had all worked out.

Cowley nodded in return, and then Doyle closed his eyes again, his face less tense this time. Cowley left them there, to deal with this on their own, though he did set the locks and alarms, and close the door on the way out.

"Well, sir?" Ruth asked as soon as he was settled back in the car.

"Well, neither of them has been shot or stabbed, and I think Master Bodie will be staying with us after all."

"Thank Christ for that," Murphy whispered from the back seat. Cowley ignored the blasphemy. Murphy had cause enough, and Cowley could certainly sympathize with the sentiment.

"Yes, Murphy," he said. "Thank Christ indeed."

Doyle jolted awake and sat up, the scattered fragments of a dream of blood and pain and screaming making his heart pound and his breath come in ragged bursts, even as his skin turned to goose bumps in the chill of the bedroom. His bedroom. Their bedroom.

A firm hand grasped his shoulder, and he looked over in the dim light of early morning to see Bodie looking up at him with concern.

"You all right?" Bodie asked.

"Yeah." Doyle nodded for emphasis, even as he struggled to get his breathing under control, to calm his heart rate. "Just a dream."

"You been getting them often?" Bodie's hand moved down and started rubbing his back. "Dreams like that?"

"Often enough," Doyle admitted.

"Want to tell me about it?"

"No." Doyle shook his head for emphasis.

"Doyle…" He could hear a warning in Bodie's tone, and no wonder. Hiding things from Bodie was part of what had got them in trouble, after all. But this wasn't like that.

"I'm not keeping anything from you," Doyle assured him. "I just don't want to talk about them. Not right now." Talking made the dreams more real, made them more solid. If he didn't talk about them they tended to fade in his memory like mist on the Thames.

Bodie looked at him, and he saw understanding in his partner's eyes.

"C'mere." Bodie reached out and pulled Doyle towards him, then covered them both with the blankets. Doyle settled into the warmth comfortably, his back against Bodie's chest, enjoying the feel of skin against skin. Bodie draped an arm over him and held him tightly. Christ, but he'd missed this.

Bodie moved his palm in circles over Doyle's chest. Doyle relaxed and let the sensation drive out the last memory of the dream. Somewhere along the way, though, comfort became something more. He felt his skin tingle, felt an exciting shiver of anticipation in his belly as his cock began to get hard. He turned in Bodie's arms so he was facing his partner, and drew a hand down Bodie's cheek. He squirmed for a moment, struggling to line up his body perfectly with Bodie's, until he could feel Bodie's cock against his own. He gave his hips a slight wiggle, smiling as he heard Bodie give a gasp of arousal.

"Bloody hell, Doyle," Bodie said with a hiss. "Twice in one night? I thought you were meant to be an invalid."

"I'm not an invalid," Doyle said, planting a quick, biting kiss on Bodie's jaw line. "I'm a cripple. Get your bloody terminology straight."

"You're impossible, is what you are." Bodie let his hand drift lightly down Doyle's back, the touch feather light and delicate. Then he reached Doyle's arse and his touch became anything but delicate.

Doyle arched back in satisfaction, exposing his throat. Bodie nipped lightly at the exposed skin, then once again, hard enough to bruise. Doyle hissed, and grabbed what he could of Bodie's hair, even as he ground his hips forward. He wished he could hook his leg around Bodie's, bring them closer together still, but it was his bad leg and he didn't want to risk tearing a tendon or worse. Instead, he gripped Bodie by the shoulders and rolled him onto his back, letting gravity do what his muscles couldn't.

Growling, Doyle captured Bodie's mouth with his own, even as he concentrated on how Bodie felt beneath him, the warmth of his breath, the strength of his arms. He surged against Bodie, letting his hips thrust, finding a rhythm that Bodie quickly matched. He hissed as Bodie dragged his nails down his back, delicate pain a counterpoint to delicious pleasure. He wished he could stay here forever, poised on the crest of this wave of sensation and happiness and desire. But even now the wave was breaking and he was falling, and Bodie was falling with him.

Doyle fell onto his back, his breath coming in great heaving gasps, and a feeling of tremendous well being flooding every cell in his body. Even his bad leg, with its ugly scar and near permanent pain, felt almost healthy.

"Fucking hell, Doyle," Bodie said, turning onto his side and running a finger across Doyle's come-splattered belly. "You're going to turn me into a cripple."

"No stamina, that's your problem," Doyle said with a grin.

"Too bloody much stamina is your problem." Bodie grabbed a towel from the floor where they'd tossed it earlier and began to clean them both up. "Your physio has a lot to answer for."

"You wouldn't have it any other way," Doyle said, then grabbed the towel from Bodie, chucked it away, and threw a possessive arm around Bodie.

They lay together, in silence, for a few minutes. Doyle reacquainted himself with the rhythm of Bodie's heartbeat, the sound of his breathing. He was starting to drift back to sleep when Bodie spoke.

"So," Bodie said with a light tone Doyle knew always hid a serious question. "Are you ever going to leave me again?"

"Nah," Doyle said, matching his tone to Bodie's, even though he was a deadly serious himself. "You're too much of a delicate flower. You'd never survive without me."

"You've got me dead to rights, sunshine," Bodie said with a grin. "Just don't tell Murph or the other blokes. They'll never let me hear the end of it."

"Your secret's safe with me," Doyle said, then kissed Bodie soundly, and nestled back against him. Doyle knew that he wouldn't be troubled by dreams or nightmares again tonight. Not with Bodie's arms around him, not with Bodie's warm breath puffing against his neck. And when they came some other night, those dark, cruel images that troubled his sleep, he knew Bodie would always be near to conquer them.

Smiling, he drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Epilogue

"Are you sure you want to set up the table in the garden, Mum?" Nancy called from outside.

"Absolutely," Margaret Doyle called back. "It's May and it's a beautiful day. Let's make the most of it."

"If you're certain." Nance sounded anything but certain, but then she'd always been the worry wart of the family.

Margaret surveyed the cake she'd just finished icing with satisfaction. The kitchen was filled with cakes and salads and sandwiches, all prepared in honour of Cath's birthday. They didn't usually make a fuss over family birthdays, but in the last twelve months, everything had changed. She'd nearly lost Ray last November, and Cath and Evie in January. She planned on never again taking for granted any of her children or grandchildren. They were all invited today, along with all the aunt and uncles and cousins, every last irritating one of them. Today, the Doyles were going to celebrate in style.

Nance's husband and her brood were the first to arrive, and her Colin was the first little boy to try stealing a taste of the icing. By the time Cath showed up at the door, Evie in her arms and Kevin at her side, the party was well underway.

Evie toddled around the backyard, charming cakes and biscuits from everyone she encountered. Colin nearly tipped over a table and was yelled at by his mum. And her sister Patty consumed too much sherry, as always, and made a nuisance of herself with the younger men in attendance. But there were two last guests who had yet to arrive.

"I don't know, Mum," Ray had said when she'd called to invite him. "I don't think Kevin will want me there."

"Your sister wants you there," she'd said. "And she's the one who counts."

"Kevin blames me for what happened."

"Cath doesn't."

"I blame myself."

"You shouldn't." Margaret said the words confidently, even though she'd struggled with that herself, with blaming her son for her daughter being placed in danger, for her granddaughter being threatened.

"She still gets nightmares, you know," Ray said quietly.

"I know." Margaret knew more than that. Knew Cath had been seeing a counsellor, very quietly of course. But that she was coming along and was over the worst of her ordeal. "But that doesn't matter. You're her brother, Ray. You two have always been thick as thieves. She wants you at her party."

"I'll think about it."

"You do that." Margaret knew better than to push too hard. Ray would do as he liked, and forcing him into something would only mean that he would fight that much harder against it. "You and Bodie."

Margaret was in the kitchen, putting candles on the cake, when she heard the front door open, heard steps in the hall behind her. Licking icing from her fingers, she turned quickly.

"Ray?" she said hopefully.

Two men came down the hall, both dressed in nice top coats and smart suits, one with a limp. For a moment, when they were in shadow, she almost thought the one walking with a hitch in his stride was Ray's Mr Cowley, and her heart sunk as she anticipated bad news. But then they stepped into the kitchen and she realized that it was her Ray and his Bodie, both dressed more stylishly than she'd seen either of them outside of a wedding.

"Hello, Mum."

"Ray!" She threw her arms around her son, and then his partner, not caring that she was getting icing on their coats. "You came."

"I couldn't disappoint Cath, could I?"

"You've done it before," she said with a mock frown. "But I'm so glad you didn't today." She wiped her hands on her apron, then hung it on the back of a chair. Then she smoothed down the lapel of Ray's top coat, impressed by the tailoring. "You didn't have to dress up for the likes of us, Ray."

"We didn't mean to." Ray put his hands in his pockets, looking almost embarrassed. "Cowley had us in meetings at Whitehall this morning. We didn't have time to change."

"My son in Whitehall." Margaret couldn't help but feel proud of her boy. He'd come so far this year, so far since he'd been injured. Him and Bodie, both. "Both my sons," she said, patting Bodie on the shoulder, and smiling when he turned an adorable, self-conscious shade of red.

"It sounds more impressive than it is," Ray insisted.

"It's dead boring, really," Bodie added.

"I'm sure you're just being modest," she said with a smile, before turning back to the cake.

She lit the candles and then passed the cake to Ray and a stack of plates to Bodie before either of them could protest. "Now let's go out and wish your sister a happy birthday," she said as she shooed Bodie in front of them and pushed her son out into the back garden.

The rest of the party went better than Margaret had dared hope. When she saw her brother, Cath's face lit up brighter than it had since Bodie had brought her home. Colin yelled "Uncle Bodie!" as soon as he'd caught sight of the two men, and dragged Bodie off to a back corner of the garden where he was quickly surrounded by all of the younger set. Margaret found him there an hour later, top coat and suit coat abandoned in a heap, sleeves rolled up, helping Colin and his crew make mud pies in an abandoned part of her flower beds.

She even saw Ray having a civil chat with Kevin some time later, as the party was breaking up and the sun was drawing closer to the horizon. They were sitting by themselves at the end of the table, a glass of lager in front of each of them, both looking serious and uneasy. She wasn't the only one observing that little chat. Cath, Evie on her hip, was watching as well, chewing her lip as her brother and her husband talked, and Bodie kept glancing back from where Colin had him playing Peter Pan and Captain Hook.

As the sun was going down and the party goers were gradually drifting home, Margaret felt an arm go around her shoulder and looked up to see her son at her side. Ray gave her shoulders a squeeze and leaned down to kiss her on the forehead.

"Thank you, Mum," he said, a fond smile on his face.

"You're welcome," she said automatically, "though I'm sure I don't know what for."

"For not holding what happened to Cath against me. For making sure we came. For always making Bodie feel welcome. For everything." She might have almost thought her son was taking the mickey, but his expression was dead serious. So she was serious, too.

"You're family, Ray. You and Bodie. Family sticks together, no matter what." She wrapped her arm around her son's waist. "Just make sure you and Bodie remember that."

"I don't think we'll forget it, Mum. Not after, well, everything."

"You see that you don't." She gave him a pat on the back. "Now I think you should go rescue that man of yours. Before Colin completely destroy his good clothes. And you can tell him you're staying over for the night."

"We were planning on going back…" Ray trailed off as she held contact with his eyes. "Apparently we're staying over for the night."

"Family sticks together," she said with a smile.

"Family sticks together," Ray echoed back, and then he went to retrieve Bodie.

Margaret watched in satisfaction as her son pulled his partner to his feet and then they slung their arms around each other. In another corner of the garden, Cath and Kevin were sitting with their foreheads touching, while their daughter tottered over to her Aunt Nancy. She could hear her last two daughters, Jenny and Kay, laughing in the kitchen.

She wished her Roger had lived to see this, their children all grown up and with people they loved, who loved them, but it was her only regret.

Shooing children and grandchildren in front of her, Margaret headed inside.

Notes:

I owe enormous thanks to Callisto for doing the first beta on the story, Draycevixen for several invaluable plot consults and pointing out where the story was going awry, Halo who did a final beta on the (almost) complete story and helped rid it of any unfortunate Canadianisms and dodgy assumptions, and m. butterfly for performing her usual impeccable copyedit. Any remaining mistakes or problems are mine own.
Huge thanks also to Molly, who produced such wonderful art for the story.
And finally, massive appreciation to Draycevixen, SC Fossil, Norfolkdumpling, Saintvic, and Sineala, who cheerfully signed on as co-mods for the Big Bang and made the whole thing possible for another year. A huge hug to all of you! It really wouldn't have happened without you.

Series this work belongs to:

← Previous Work Part 7 of Comfort and Joy

Actions

Kudos

Tui_song, sericas, TheYoko, actingcamplibrarian, galathil, 0tama0, LilyK, Melons11, Spacenight, donato, srBDC, gellmar64, TinTurtle, harshinib, JinkyO, Karen7077, bushido41, Rachel74, FeltRoses, anotheramy, sunray45, Dulcibella, kitikai, AliNasweter, Garonne, kosame, nerdsibling, ebonyfeather, inshadowsandlight, Angelci5, spottydog, JoJo, caroveraline, and moth2fic as well as 41 guests left kudos on this work!

Archive of Our Own

Actions

Work Header