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hagsrus (whose day this really is) and our lovely mod byslantedlight, here is the very late day 17 Christmas stocking offering. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Cabbage Patch doll prompt, but it is the next entry in my seasonal Comfort and Joy series.
Vigil
When the phone rang, I thought it must be Nancy, asking for my fruitcake recipe. She'd been panicking ever since she volunteered to do Christmas luncheon at her place this year. She'd already rung three times in the last twenty-four hours. Once for my shortbread recipe, once to confirm how I roasted the turkey, and once for God knows what because she'd forgotten by the time I picked up the phone.
"What is it now, luv?"
"Mrs Doyle?"
And there it was. The one voice I didn't want to hear. The Scottish accent and very polite tones of Mr George Cowley.
He'd only called twice before, my Raymond's boss. The first time was when Ray was being recruited for that crew, to warn me he'd be sending someone to talk to the family for a security check. A young woman - Miss Pettifer, I think - came by to ask a few questions. She was a bit severe at the start, not that I blamed her. Can't be easy for a woman, having to work with all those lads. But she eventually relaxed and then we had a nice chat.
The second time was when Ray was shot. Called two days after my son nearly died to let me know he was in hospital. Two days! They'd been so busy chasing after the person who'd shot him – a slip of a girl, Bodie told me afterwards – that they'd forgotten to tell Ray's family he'd been hurt. After I got over the shock, I didn't half tell off Mr George Cowley.
It was the second call I was thinking of now, as I gripped the phone cord tightly with my free hand.
"Is it Raymond? Has something happened to him?" I could hear the panic in my voice, but couldn't do a thing to hide it.
"No, Mrs Doyle. Your son is fine."
"Thank God," I said, and released my death grip on the cord. But if it wasn't Raymond… "There is something wrong, though, isn't there?"
"I'm afraid so." Mr Cowley paused, whether for my benefit or his own I wasn't sure. But I've never been one to shun bad news. I'd rather know what the problem is than live in a fool's paradise.
"Well? What is it?"
"It's Bodie."
"Bodie?" I couldn't quite take that in. Bodie had always seemed one of those good-natured, solid lads, the kind who lives a perpetually charmed life. Surely nothing could have happened to him.
"Yes. I'm afraid he was caught in a bomb blast this morning."
"Oh my." I was suddenly at a loss for what to say. But I regained my composure soon enough. "How bad is he?"
"Bad enough. Minor shrapnel wounds, a broken arm, bruising."
"But that's not all." I knew, knew it in my bones, that Mr Cowley was holding something back from me.
"No. There is something else. He received a head wound, rather a bad one. He's in a coma."
"Poor lamb." I couldn't imagine Raymond's big, bluff lad laid up for any reason, let alone in a coma. And I knew my son must be frantic. Which started me wondering about Mr Cowley's decision to ring me. "Did Raymond ask you to call?"
"No." Mr Cowley paused and cleared his throat in a way that suggested he was about to broach a delicate topic, and one he wasn't entirely comfortable with. "Doyle is somewhat distracted, as I'm sure you can imagine. But I thought you should be told. I believe you know about Bodie's … relationship with your son."
If the situation had been less deadly serious, I might have smiled at that pause. I knew enough about George Cowley to understand he was a fair man, and he'd been decent enough to Raymond and Bodie when they'd told him they were involved. He'd even let them move into a flat together this year without too much of a fight. But he was from an older generation, same as me, and it's hard to disregard the values you grew up with, even if they're not your own.
"Bodie's the best thing that's ever happened to Raymond," I said firmly.
"Indeed," Mr Cowley said in a way that made me think he agreed with me, even if he'd never share that opinion with the world.
Bodie was family. I'd known that since Cath's wedding, when he'd confirmed what I already knew about him and Ray. It became even more clear last Christmas, when his dad had died, and I'd helped Ray do everything he could to save him from unnecessary pain. And because he was family, my next words were a foregone conclusion. "Tell Raymond I'll be down on the first train tomorrow."
"I'm sure there's no need, Mrs Doyle. You no doubt have enough to do in Derby at this time of the year."
"Looking after my boys is need enough," I said, hoping it was clear I'd tolerate no opposition in the matter. And Mr Cowley must have remembered enough of our last encounter that he offered none. "Just let me know which hospital he's in and I'll be there as soon as I can." I knew enough about my son to realize it'd be no use going to his flat. If Bodie was in hospital, hospital was where Ray would be.
"I'll do better than that, Mrs Doyle. Let my secretary know which train you'll be on and I'll have an agent pick you up at the station."
A hard man George Cowley might be, but Raymond had told me often enough he was a decent one as well. And he'd just proved it.
Mr Cowley was as good as his word. When I arrived at St Pancras station at 8:30 the next morning, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep and worry, Miss Pettifer was waiting on the platform for me. She was as efficient as I remembered, taking charge of my bag and gently steering me through the throng of commuters and Christmas shoppers to a waiting car. Inside, a nice young man she introduced as Murphy was waiting to drive us to the Royal London Hospital.
Once in the hospital, Miss Pettifer guided me though the maze of corridors to the trauma unit. There, in a private room guarded by another imposing-looking CI5 agent, was Bodie.
He looked so small in the bed, surrounded by an alarming array of machines. Threw me back years earlier, when it had been Ray in a hospital bed with Bodie pacing the room and halls like a caged tiger.
But where Bodie had been hard to miss when Raymond was hurt, my son was quite the opposite. He was sitting in a chair near the window, quiet and still, his attention so focused on the man in the bed that he seemed not to have noticed my arrival. His eyes were shadowed, his brows drawn in a frown, and his face was dark with the beginnings of a beard.
Like his father, Ray was. He'd have a full beard before you knew it if he didn't shave every day. Standing there, I was struck by how much like his father he looked and realized with a start that he was nearing forty, almost the age my Roger had been when he'd died. Roger had had a heart attack when he was forty-five and our son was only fifteen. Ray had taken it hard, much harder than any of the girls. He'd run positively riot for a few years, until I despaired of him surviving past his teens. But then had come art school and the Met, and he seemed to find, if not peace, then purpose.
In CI5 he'd found an even greater purpose: Bodie. The man he was now looking at as if his gaze alone could heal him. I felt a flutter in my chest and moved further into the room, drawn towards my son.
"Raymond," I said softly.
He started, pulled from his contemplation of Bodie.
"Mum?" His voice was distant, tentative. Not like himself at all. "What are you doing here?"
"Your Mr Cowley called. Told me that Bodie was laid up. I took the first train down this morning."
"You didn't have to." The words seemed automatic, something Raymond thought he should say even if he didn't mean them.
"'Course I did." I closed the gap between us. "Needed to look after my boys, didn't I?" Ray stood and I took him in my arms. "Both my boys."
Ray hugged back with a fierce strength, but I didn't complain, and I didn't mention the tears I felt as he leant against my neck. But then, I expect my eyes weren't entirely dry either.
Miss Pettifer had slipped discreetly out of the room, so when I released Ray, we found ourselves alone with Bodie and all the beeping, hissing machines that were keeping him alive. I took a better look. Bodie's face was cut and bruised, there was a cast on his left arm, and a bandage around his head. He looked as if the thing that made him Bodie had got lost, which scared me more than I'd have ever admitted to my son.
"How is he, Ray?" I left one hand on his arm, ready to offer what comfort I could.
"What'd Cowley tell you?"
"That he'd been caught in a bomb blast and he was in a coma." I looked at the still figure lying in the bed, trying to remember him in better times—in a tux at Cath's wedding or playing with the young ones on Bonfire Night—but all I could see was a pale young man clinging uncertainly to his life. "Have they told you anything about his chances? Mr Cowley didn't say."
"No." Ray said the word reluctantly, as if to voice the uncertainty would call down the worst possible fate upon them both. "They've got no idea. But you're too mean to die on me, aren't you Bodie?" He turned to the figure on the bed as if he expected a response. Bodie's only reaction was to draw yet another laboured breath with the help of a dreadful-looking machine.
"Should've been me, you know," Ray said with what seemed a tired resignation.
"Raymond!" I was shocked my son seemed to think so little of his own life, even if I understood why.
"It's true. I was supposed to be the one undercover, but they rumbled me early. Bodie had to go instead. Stupid bastard." He moved closer to Bodie's bed and put a gentle hand on his arm. The way he touched him, it was as if he were afraid Bodie would break.
"I'm sorry that Bodie's been hurt, Ray. You know that. But don't wish that upon yourself." I patted his back, longing for the days when he'd been a small boy and that had been enough to comfort him. "I've seen you in a coma already. I don't want to go through that again."
"Wasn't in a coma when you saw me in hospital."
"You couldn't stay awake for more than ten minutes at a stretch, though."
"I'd give anything for just ten minutes of Bodie awake," Ray said, and I could see his eyes go glassy with tears. That punctured any remaining anger I felt and made me realize the only thing I wanted to do was to console my son as best I could.
I pulled Ray's chair closer to the bed and pushed him down into it, then pulled another chair close by. I spent the rest of the day there, watching over Ray while he watched over Bodie.
We settled into a routine, Bodie and Ray and I.
I'd arrive first thing in the morning and sit with Bodie while Ray grabbed a shower in the staff room and scrounged his breakfast in the café downstairs. When he got back, I'd share stories of the happenings in Derby with them both. I don't know that Ray heard any of them. I kept wanting to throw in a story about his Aunt Gladys being eaten by an Indian tiger to test my theory, but I didn't quite have the heart to tease him. He looked so lost.
I fancied Bodie heard at least some of my stories. He'd twitch every now and then, and I'd like to think he was showing amusement when I told them about Colin's unending list to Father Christmas, or sympathy at a story of how frantically Nancy was preparing for the rapidly approaching Christmas meal.
In the afternoons, I'd chase Ray off to take a nap. He was looking more and more ragged as each day passed, and I'd had no trouble convincing the nurses to let him sleep in the ward's on-call room during the day. Always did inspire sympathy from the ladies, did my Ray.
I only tried to convince him to come home with me at night the one time.
"I can't leave him alone, Mum," he'd said, the anguish audible in his voice. "Not at night. Night's the worst, when they might slip off because they think no one's watching or no one cares. We had a mate last year who was shot, and he died during the night. His partner had gone home and his wife stepped out of the room for a minute—just a minute, mind—and when she got back, he was gone. I won't let that happen to Bodie."
I couldn't argue with that, now, could I? So I just took him in my arms, held him tightly, and promised I'd help make sure Bodie was never left alone. All the while I mourned the fact that my son was so intimately acquainted with death that he knew the ways it could claim a man.
Apart from his twitches, Bodie stayed more or less the same. His doctors came and made pronouncements that even they seemed unsure of. The machines continued to beep and hiss. There were, blessedly, minor improvements. After two days his breathing was declared strong enough to take him off the ventilator, so at least he didn't have that horrid tube down his throat. And three days after that, an x-ray showed the swelling in his brain had eased. Even the chief doctor with the perpetually sour expression cheered up a bit at that news.
So the days passed, and still Bodie slept on.
I'd been in London nearly a week and it was just two days until Christmas. I'd already called Nancy to let her know I'd be in London for Christmas. She'd sounded hysterical when I dropped that bombshell. She wasn't looking forward to hosting the Doyle family Christmas without her mum. I knew she'd do fine, though. We Doyles always do.
One member of the family I was worried about, though, was Ray. He was looking worn to a nub. At least Bodie's doctors seemed a bit more optimistic. Not that Bodie was showing any signs of coming round.
It had been another long day. The agreeable Murphy had been on duty outside Bodie's room all day. I'd brought him a cuppa when I got the feeling Ray needed some time alone with Bodie, and we'd had a bit of a chat. Most of the men and women Bodie and Ray worked with came to the hospital that week. There was always one of them stationed outside Bodie's door, and the others drifted in at odd hours to visit Bodie and check in on Ray. The lads were a bit rough, and the lasses tended towards the severe, but they were a good lot. And they all did their best to take care of Ray's old mum.
The nurses were in the midst of a shift change and the last few visitors were drifting out, making their way back to hearth and home, and reluctantly leaving their loved ones in the care of the hospital staff. I was getting ready to leave myself, packing up my things, making sure Ray had what he needed, when I heard it: shouting and scuffling outside the room. Murphy's voice was raised in the fray, though I couldn't make out what he was saying.
And then I heard a woman's scream.
I froze where I stood, not certain what was going on or what I should do. I looked over at Ray, and it was as if I were seeing not my son, but a man I'd never met before. He was standing by Bodie's bedside, his gun drawn, the muscles in his arms taut, and an unholy glitter in his eyes that didn't half scare me. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't really considered why there was always an armed agent guarding Bodie's hospital room, or why Ray continued to either wear his gun or keep it close to hand.
"Ray," I tried to say, wanting to ask him what was happening, but his name caught in my throat, coming out only as a whimper.
My son pushed me to the furthest corner of the room, as far from the door as possible. "Stay here," he said firmly, then he moved towards the door. His movement had such assurance, such authority, that I caught my breath at the sight of it. This, I realized, was his world. This was the world he and Bodie lived in, the world that had taught him what death was, the world that had tried to take Bodie from him.
The next few moments passed so slowly, and yet seemed to take no time at all.
A man barged into the room. If I'd walked by him on the street, I wouldn't have given him a first look, never mind a second. He wasn't tall or short, young or old, handsome or ugly. He was, in a word, average. But he wasn't on the street; he was in Bodie's hospital room, with a nasty look on his face and an even nastier gun in his hand.
As I watched, Ray put himself between the man and Bodie, raising his own gun. I wanted to yell at Ray, to tell him to be careful, but I couldn't. I felt like I had iron bands wrapped around my chest, and I couldn't draw enough breath to whisper, let alone shout.
Murphy entered the room, but he wasn't moving nearly fast enough and he seemed unsteady on his feet.
"Drop it," Ray said, his voice composed and steady. Somewhere beneath my terror, I found a moment to admire him, his ability to stay calm when a man had a gun aimed at him.
The man didn't drop the gun, didn't say anything. He simply gave a wordless snarl and I knew–knew with an absolute certainty–that he was going to shoot Ray, and then Bodie.
My son never gave him that chance. Ray aimed his own gun and pulled the trigger. In the confines of the hospital room, the sound of the gunshot was thunderous and devastating.
A burst of red appeared in the middle of the man's shirt, but he didn't fall. He grimaced and held his own gun up with visible effort. Ray shot again, and this time he did fall, dropping to the floor and out of my sight behind the bed.
Ray reached down and came back up with the man's gun. As Murphy got his radio, Ray holstered his own gun, then removed the bullets from his attacker's weapon and threw it and its ammunition onto the chair beside him.
As soon as Murphy was off the radio, Ray was on top of him.
"Where the fuck were you, Murph?" Ray voice and face showed a fury I recognized from his teens, a fury that owed as much to grief and fear as to anger. "You were meant to be guarding the room, not letting bloody Roger Connelly get to Bodie."
"He used a nurse as cover, Ray. Then clipped me with the butt of his gun before I could reach my weapon." Now that I looked I could see a thin stream of blood trailing down the side of Murphy's face, and that made the danger we'd all been in more real than even the body lying on the floor. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry? Sorry won't cut it, mate. He could have shot Bodie." Ray looked at the man on the bed, and his eyes caught me where I stood, frozen in the aftermath of violence such as I'd hoped never to see. "Christ, he could have shot my mum, Murph."
I took a swallow and found that my voice had come back, however shaky I felt.
"He didn't shoot me, Ray. Or Bodie, either. And I'm sure Murphy did the best he could."
"Mum…" Ray said. He seemed about to go off on one of his famous rages. I gave birth to the boy and I've known him all his life; I know the signs. But he was stopped by the one thing none of us expected.
"Leave off, Ray, why don't you?" said a voice that was quiet and cracked but still recognizably Bodie's.
We all froze and looked over at the bed. Its occupant was holding his eyes open with difficulty, but he was definitely conscious.
"Bodie," Ray said, and in that word was all the care and affection I'd ever seen between them. "You're awake."
"'Course I'm awake." Bodie gave a weak smile. "No one could've slept through your racket."
"Daft bastard," Ray said, his voice rough with emotion. He blinked hard, and I was sure I could see the glitter of tears forming in his eyes.
"I'll get the nurse," I made my way to the door, hesitating as I had to step over the body on the threshold.
I managed to keep my composure, even though I was shaking inside, snagged Murphy, and pulled him unresisting with me to the nurses' station. After all they'd gone through, I reckoned my boys needed at least a few minutes alone together before all the members of the medical establishment and CI5 descended upon them.
I stayed in London through Christmas and into the New Year, making sure the pair of them were all right. I roasted a nice little chicken and brought it to the hospital on Christmas Day. I wasn't having my boys eat hospital muck on that day of all days.
By Boxing Day it was clear that Bodie was on the mend, and Mr Cowley insisted Ray return to work. I spent my days at the hospital, keeping the patient company. We played cards and chatted. I filled Bodie in on the family gossip he'd only half heard when he'd been struggling to wake up, and Bodie told outrageous stories about his own exploits that I knew must be nonsense, but that kept me and the nurses amused. I'm sure he broke a few hearts amongst the nursing staff, incurable flirt that he was. He would have broken mine, if I were a few years younger and much more foolish.
In the evenings, Ray would arrive at the hospital, full of complaints about how boring it was working in Records and when was Bodie going to stop skiving and rescue him from the tedium. Bodie would let him rant and then give me a wink. If Ray caught him at it, he'd poke Bodie, and Bodie would moan about asking Mr Cowley to partner him with a bloke who didn't abuse him when he was injured.
If you didn't know what they meant to each other, you might have thought they were what they appeared: work partners, mates, but that was all. But I did know, and I could see the affection the teasing hid. And the love. And the concern.
I was concerned myself. After all, they weren't getting any younger, either of them. And the business they were in, there weren't many who got old in it. I'd come close to losing both of them now, and I wasn't keen on my worst fears being realized. Not that I was going to say anything to Ray. He hadn't liked me sticking my oar into his business when he was a kid. He'd give me an earful if I did it now that he was a grown man.
I did bring it up with Bodie, though.
It was New Year's Eve, and Bodie had been out of the hospital for a little more than 24 hours. We were waiting for Ray to get home, and Bodie was sprawled on the sofa in their lounge, an airy comfortable room that bore the marks of both of its inhabitants. Their books sat in a cheery jumble on the shelves, Ray's stereo stood in a corner, quietly playing a Mozart chamber piece I knew belonged to my son, but that Bodie liked listening to when his partner wasn't around.
I'd poured a nice cuppa for us both and was sitting in the armchair beside Bodie. I think it was the ordinariness of it all that suddenly overcame me, made me realize how things could have gone very differently, how I could have come down to London to help organize a funeral rather than stand vigil over a sickbed. And I began to wonder just how they did it, Bodie and my son.
"Have you ever thought of quitting?" I asked.
Bodie looked startled for a moment, as well he might have done. I'd been talking about my rose bushes only a few seconds earlier, and Bodie, God bless 'im, had been feigning polite interest.
"Quitting? What, CI5?"
I nodded.
"Well," Bodie said, then paused, shifted on the sofa, and put down his tea cup, his cast clunking awkwardly on the coffee table in a way that was very un-Bodie-like. "Can't say it hasn't crossed my mind once or twice."
"What about Ray?"
"Yeah, I expect he's thought about it as well."
"Then why don't you? Get out."
"Oh, I reckon we've got a few good years left."
"But you nearly died, Bodie. You've seen Ray nearly die. Why would you want to stay in a job that's so very nearly killed you both?" I hadn't realized how upset I was about what they did and what they continued to do until this all spilled out. I opened my mouth to say more, but I'd run out of words.
Bodie reacted immediately. I suppose that's what they do, the two of them: react to the unexpected. Before I knew it he'd reached across the table and taken hold of my hand with his good one. He gripped it tightly with a pressure that was firm and comforting.
"Look at me, Margaret," he said, and it was only then I realized I was looking down at the table, at our two hands linked.
I looked up and saw a side of Bodie he'd never revealed before. He was serious and compassionate and as far from the Jack-the-lad front he usually put up as I could imagine. I stared into his eyes while I blinked back the tears that had somehow formed behind my eyelids.
"You listen to me, Margaret. I won't let anything happen to your son, and he won't let anything happen to me. That's what we do, watch each other's backs. And if we can't do that any more, we'll pack it in. I'll make sure of that. I've promised to retire with him to a cottage in Cornwall. And I'm going to make sure neither of us breaks that promise."
I laughed at that, the thought of Bodie and Ray, city toughs the pair of them, in some backwater Cornish village.
Bodie grinned, then, and bumped my elbow with the plaster cast. I wiped my eyes with my hanky and that was the end of it. Neither of us brought up my fears again, and I certainly didn't share them with my son.
I felt better though. Because I knew they'd always be there for each other, no matter what happened, no matter what went wrong on the streets.
Just like I'd always be there for them.
Title: Vigil
Author: P.R. Zed
Slash/Gen: Slash
Archive at Proslib/Circuit: Ok
Disclaimer: Not mine
Word count: 4695 words
Notes: Number six in the Comfort and Joy series. Thanks toancastar and callistosh65 for being their usual terrific beta-ing selves. And to justacat, for her usual thorough editing skills.
hagsrus (whose day this really is) and our lovely mod byslantedlight, here is the very late day 17 Christmas stocking offering. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Cabbage Patch doll prompt, but it is the next entry in my seasonal Comfort and Joy series. Vigil
When the phone rang, I thought it must be Nancy, asking for my fruitcake recipe. She'd been panicking ever since she volunteered to do Christmas luncheon at her place this year. She'd already rung three times in the last twenty-four hours. Once for my shortbread recipe, once to confirm how I roasted the turkey, and once for God knows what because she'd forgotten by the time I picked up the phone.
"What is it now, luv?"
"Mrs Doyle?"
And there it was. The one voice I didn't want to hear. The Scottish accent and very polite tones of Mr George Cowley.
He'd only called twice before, my Raymond's boss. The first time was when Ray was being recruited for that crew, to warn me he'd be sending someone to talk to the family for a security check. A young woman - Miss Pettifer, I think - came by to ask a few questions. She was a bit severe at the start, not that I blamed her. Can't be easy for a woman, having to work with all those lads. But she eventually relaxed and then we had a nice chat.
The second time was when Ray was shot. Called two days after my son nearly died to let me know he was in hospital. Two days! They'd been so busy chasing after the person who'd shot him – a slip of a girl, Bodie told me afterwards – that they'd forgotten to tell Ray's family he'd been hurt. After I got over the shock, I didn't half tell off Mr George Cowley.
It was the second call I was thinking of now, as I gripped the phone cord tightly with my free hand.
"Is it Raymond? Has something happened to him?" I could hear the panic in my voice, but couldn't do a thing to hide it.
"No, Mrs Doyle. Your son is fine."
"Thank God," I said, and released my death grip on the cord. But if it wasn't Raymond… "There is something wrong, though, isn't there?"
"I'm afraid so." Mr Cowley paused, whether for my benefit or his own I wasn't sure. But I've never been one to shun bad news. I'd rather know what the problem is than live in a fool's paradise.
"Well? What is it?"
"It's Bodie."
"Bodie?" I couldn't quite take that in. Bodie had always seemed one of those good-natured, solid lads, the kind who lives a perpetually charmed life. Surely nothing could have happened to him.
"Yes. I'm afraid he was caught in a bomb blast this morning."
"Oh my." I was suddenly at a loss for what to say. But I regained my composure soon enough. "How bad is he?"
"Bad enough. Minor shrapnel wounds, a broken arm, bruising."
"But that's not all." I knew, knew it in my bones, that Mr Cowley was holding something back from me.
"No. There is something else. He received a head wound, rather a bad one. He's in a coma."
"Poor lamb." I couldn't imagine Raymond's big, bluff lad laid up for any reason, let alone in a coma. And I knew my son must be frantic. Which started me wondering about Mr Cowley's decision to ring me. "Did Raymond ask you to call?"
"No." Mr Cowley paused and cleared his throat in a way that suggested he was about to broach a delicate topic, and one he wasn't entirely comfortable with. "Doyle is somewhat distracted, as I'm sure you can imagine. But I thought you should be told. I believe you know about Bodie's … relationship with your son."
If the situation had been less deadly serious, I might have smiled at that pause. I knew enough about George Cowley to understand he was a fair man, and he'd been decent enough to Raymond and Bodie when they'd told him they were involved. He'd even let them move into a flat together this year without too much of a fight. But he was from an older generation, same as me, and it's hard to disregard the values you grew up with, even if they're not your own.
"Bodie's the best thing that's ever happened to Raymond," I said firmly.
"Indeed," Mr Cowley said in a way that made me think he agreed with me, even if he'd never share that opinion with the world.
Bodie was family. I'd known that since Cath's wedding, when he'd confirmed what I already knew about him and Ray. It became even more clear last Christmas, when his dad had died, and I'd helped Ray do everything he could to save him from unnecessary pain. And because he was family, my next words were a foregone conclusion. "Tell Raymond I'll be down on the first train tomorrow."
"I'm sure there's no need, Mrs Doyle. You no doubt have enough to do in Derby at this time of the year."
"Looking after my boys is need enough," I said, hoping it was clear I'd tolerate no opposition in the matter. And Mr Cowley must have remembered enough of our last encounter that he offered none. "Just let me know which hospital he's in and I'll be there as soon as I can." I knew enough about my son to realize it'd be no use going to his flat. If Bodie was in hospital, hospital was where Ray would be.
"I'll do better than that, Mrs Doyle. Let my secretary know which train you'll be on and I'll have an agent pick you up at the station."
A hard man George Cowley might be, but Raymond had told me often enough he was a decent one as well. And he'd just proved it.
Mr Cowley was as good as his word. When I arrived at St Pancras station at 8:30 the next morning, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep and worry, Miss Pettifer was waiting on the platform for me. She was as efficient as I remembered, taking charge of my bag and gently steering me through the throng of commuters and Christmas shoppers to a waiting car. Inside, a nice young man she introduced as Murphy was waiting to drive us to the Royal London Hospital.
Once in the hospital, Miss Pettifer guided me though the maze of corridors to the trauma unit. There, in a private room guarded by another imposing-looking CI5 agent, was Bodie.
He looked so small in the bed, surrounded by an alarming array of machines. Threw me back years earlier, when it had been Ray in a hospital bed with Bodie pacing the room and halls like a caged tiger.
But where Bodie had been hard to miss when Raymond was hurt, my son was quite the opposite. He was sitting in a chair near the window, quiet and still, his attention so focused on the man in the bed that he seemed not to have noticed my arrival. His eyes were shadowed, his brows drawn in a frown, and his face was dark with the beginnings of a beard.
Like his father, Ray was. He'd have a full beard before you knew it if he didn't shave every day. Standing there, I was struck by how much like his father he looked and realized with a start that he was nearing forty, almost the age my Roger had been when he'd died. Roger had had a heart attack when he was forty-five and our son was only fifteen. Ray had taken it hard, much harder than any of the girls. He'd run positively riot for a few years, until I despaired of him surviving past his teens. But then had come art school and the Met, and he seemed to find, if not peace, then purpose.
In CI5 he'd found an even greater purpose: Bodie. The man he was now looking at as if his gaze alone could heal him. I felt a flutter in my chest and moved further into the room, drawn towards my son.
"Raymond," I said softly.
He started, pulled from his contemplation of Bodie.
"Mum?" His voice was distant, tentative. Not like himself at all. "What are you doing here?"
"Your Mr Cowley called. Told me that Bodie was laid up. I took the first train down this morning."
"You didn't have to." The words seemed automatic, something Raymond thought he should say even if he didn't mean them.
"'Course I did." I closed the gap between us. "Needed to look after my boys, didn't I?" Ray stood and I took him in my arms. "Both my boys."
Ray hugged back with a fierce strength, but I didn't complain, and I didn't mention the tears I felt as he leant against my neck. But then, I expect my eyes weren't entirely dry either.
Miss Pettifer had slipped discreetly out of the room, so when I released Ray, we found ourselves alone with Bodie and all the beeping, hissing machines that were keeping him alive. I took a better look. Bodie's face was cut and bruised, there was a cast on his left arm, and a bandage around his head. He looked as if the thing that made him Bodie had got lost, which scared me more than I'd have ever admitted to my son.
"How is he, Ray?" I left one hand on his arm, ready to offer what comfort I could.
"What'd Cowley tell you?"
"That he'd been caught in a bomb blast and he was in a coma." I looked at the still figure lying in the bed, trying to remember him in better times—in a tux at Cath's wedding or playing with the young ones on Bonfire Night—but all I could see was a pale young man clinging uncertainly to his life. "Have they told you anything about his chances? Mr Cowley didn't say."
"No." Ray said the word reluctantly, as if to voice the uncertainty would call down the worst possible fate upon them both. "They've got no idea. But you're too mean to die on me, aren't you Bodie?" He turned to the figure on the bed as if he expected a response. Bodie's only reaction was to draw yet another laboured breath with the help of a dreadful-looking machine.
"Should've been me, you know," Ray said with what seemed a tired resignation.
"Raymond!" I was shocked my son seemed to think so little of his own life, even if I understood why.
"It's true. I was supposed to be the one undercover, but they rumbled me early. Bodie had to go instead. Stupid bastard." He moved closer to Bodie's bed and put a gentle hand on his arm. The way he touched him, it was as if he were afraid Bodie would break.
"I'm sorry that Bodie's been hurt, Ray. You know that. But don't wish that upon yourself." I patted his back, longing for the days when he'd been a small boy and that had been enough to comfort him. "I've seen you in a coma already. I don't want to go through that again."
"Wasn't in a coma when you saw me in hospital."
"You couldn't stay awake for more than ten minutes at a stretch, though."
"I'd give anything for just ten minutes of Bodie awake," Ray said, and I could see his eyes go glassy with tears. That punctured any remaining anger I felt and made me realize the only thing I wanted to do was to console my son as best I could.
I pulled Ray's chair closer to the bed and pushed him down into it, then pulled another chair close by. I spent the rest of the day there, watching over Ray while he watched over Bodie.
We settled into a routine, Bodie and Ray and I.
I'd arrive first thing in the morning and sit with Bodie while Ray grabbed a shower in the staff room and scrounged his breakfast in the café downstairs. When he got back, I'd share stories of the happenings in Derby with them both. I don't know that Ray heard any of them. I kept wanting to throw in a story about his Aunt Gladys being eaten by an Indian tiger to test my theory, but I didn't quite have the heart to tease him. He looked so lost.
I fancied Bodie heard at least some of my stories. He'd twitch every now and then, and I'd like to think he was showing amusement when I told them about Colin's unending list to Father Christmas, or sympathy at a story of how frantically Nancy was preparing for the rapidly approaching Christmas meal.
In the afternoons, I'd chase Ray off to take a nap. He was looking more and more ragged as each day passed, and I'd had no trouble convincing the nurses to let him sleep in the ward's on-call room during the day. Always did inspire sympathy from the ladies, did my Ray.
I only tried to convince him to come home with me at night the one time.
"I can't leave him alone, Mum," he'd said, the anguish audible in his voice. "Not at night. Night's the worst, when they might slip off because they think no one's watching or no one cares. We had a mate last year who was shot, and he died during the night. His partner had gone home and his wife stepped out of the room for a minute—just a minute, mind—and when she got back, he was gone. I won't let that happen to Bodie."
I couldn't argue with that, now, could I? So I just took him in my arms, held him tightly, and promised I'd help make sure Bodie was never left alone. All the while I mourned the fact that my son was so intimately acquainted with death that he knew the ways it could claim a man.
Apart from his twitches, Bodie stayed more or less the same. His doctors came and made pronouncements that even they seemed unsure of. The machines continued to beep and hiss. There were, blessedly, minor improvements. After two days his breathing was declared strong enough to take him off the ventilator, so at least he didn't have that horrid tube down his throat. And three days after that, an x-ray showed the swelling in his brain had eased. Even the chief doctor with the perpetually sour expression cheered up a bit at that news.
So the days passed, and still Bodie slept on.
I'd been in London nearly a week and it was just two days until Christmas. I'd already called Nancy to let her know I'd be in London for Christmas. She'd sounded hysterical when I dropped that bombshell. She wasn't looking forward to hosting the Doyle family Christmas without her mum. I knew she'd do fine, though. We Doyles always do.
One member of the family I was worried about, though, was Ray. He was looking worn to a nub. At least Bodie's doctors seemed a bit more optimistic. Not that Bodie was showing any signs of coming round.
It had been another long day. The agreeable Murphy had been on duty outside Bodie's room all day. I'd brought him a cuppa when I got the feeling Ray needed some time alone with Bodie, and we'd had a bit of a chat. Most of the men and women Bodie and Ray worked with came to the hospital that week. There was always one of them stationed outside Bodie's door, and the others drifted in at odd hours to visit Bodie and check in on Ray. The lads were a bit rough, and the lasses tended towards the severe, but they were a good lot. And they all did their best to take care of Ray's old mum.
The nurses were in the midst of a shift change and the last few visitors were drifting out, making their way back to hearth and home, and reluctantly leaving their loved ones in the care of the hospital staff. I was getting ready to leave myself, packing up my things, making sure Ray had what he needed, when I heard it: shouting and scuffling outside the room. Murphy's voice was raised in the fray, though I couldn't make out what he was saying.
And then I heard a woman's scream.
I froze where I stood, not certain what was going on or what I should do. I looked over at Ray, and it was as if I were seeing not my son, but a man I'd never met before. He was standing by Bodie's bedside, his gun drawn, the muscles in his arms taut, and an unholy glitter in his eyes that didn't half scare me. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't really considered why there was always an armed agent guarding Bodie's hospital room, or why Ray continued to either wear his gun or keep it close to hand.
"Ray," I tried to say, wanting to ask him what was happening, but his name caught in my throat, coming out only as a whimper.
My son pushed me to the furthest corner of the room, as far from the door as possible. "Stay here," he said firmly, then he moved towards the door. His movement had such assurance, such authority, that I caught my breath at the sight of it. This, I realized, was his world. This was the world he and Bodie lived in, the world that had taught him what death was, the world that had tried to take Bodie from him.
The next few moments passed so slowly, and yet seemed to take no time at all.
A man barged into the room. If I'd walked by him on the street, I wouldn't have given him a first look, never mind a second. He wasn't tall or short, young or old, handsome or ugly. He was, in a word, average. But he wasn't on the street; he was in Bodie's hospital room, with a nasty look on his face and an even nastier gun in his hand.
As I watched, Ray put himself between the man and Bodie, raising his own gun. I wanted to yell at Ray, to tell him to be careful, but I couldn't. I felt like I had iron bands wrapped around my chest, and I couldn't draw enough breath to whisper, let alone shout.
Murphy entered the room, but he wasn't moving nearly fast enough and he seemed unsteady on his feet.
"Drop it," Ray said, his voice composed and steady. Somewhere beneath my terror, I found a moment to admire him, his ability to stay calm when a man had a gun aimed at him.
The man didn't drop the gun, didn't say anything. He simply gave a wordless snarl and I knew–knew with an absolute certainty–that he was going to shoot Ray, and then Bodie.
My son never gave him that chance. Ray aimed his own gun and pulled the trigger. In the confines of the hospital room, the sound of the gunshot was thunderous and devastating.
A burst of red appeared in the middle of the man's shirt, but he didn't fall. He grimaced and held his own gun up with visible effort. Ray shot again, and this time he did fall, dropping to the floor and out of my sight behind the bed.
Ray reached down and came back up with the man's gun. As Murphy got his radio, Ray holstered his own gun, then removed the bullets from his attacker's weapon and threw it and its ammunition onto the chair beside him.
As soon as Murphy was off the radio, Ray was on top of him.
"Where the fuck were you, Murph?" Ray voice and face showed a fury I recognized from his teens, a fury that owed as much to grief and fear as to anger. "You were meant to be guarding the room, not letting bloody Roger Connelly get to Bodie."
"He used a nurse as cover, Ray. Then clipped me with the butt of his gun before I could reach my weapon." Now that I looked I could see a thin stream of blood trailing down the side of Murphy's face, and that made the danger we'd all been in more real than even the body lying on the floor. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry? Sorry won't cut it, mate. He could have shot Bodie." Ray looked at the man on the bed, and his eyes caught me where I stood, frozen in the aftermath of violence such as I'd hoped never to see. "Christ, he could have shot my mum, Murph."
I took a swallow and found that my voice had come back, however shaky I felt.
"He didn't shoot me, Ray. Or Bodie, either. And I'm sure Murphy did the best he could."
"Mum…" Ray said. He seemed about to go off on one of his famous rages. I gave birth to the boy and I've known him all his life; I know the signs. But he was stopped by the one thing none of us expected.
"Leave off, Ray, why don't you?" said a voice that was quiet and cracked but still recognizably Bodie's.
We all froze and looked over at the bed. Its occupant was holding his eyes open with difficulty, but he was definitely conscious.
"Bodie," Ray said, and in that word was all the care and affection I'd ever seen between them. "You're awake."
"'Course I'm awake." Bodie gave a weak smile. "No one could've slept through your racket."
"Daft bastard," Ray said, his voice rough with emotion. He blinked hard, and I was sure I could see the glitter of tears forming in his eyes.
"I'll get the nurse," I made my way to the door, hesitating as I had to step over the body on the threshold.
I managed to keep my composure, even though I was shaking inside, snagged Murphy, and pulled him unresisting with me to the nurses' station. After all they'd gone through, I reckoned my boys needed at least a few minutes alone together before all the members of the medical establishment and CI5 descended upon them.
I stayed in London through Christmas and into the New Year, making sure the pair of them were all right. I roasted a nice little chicken and brought it to the hospital on Christmas Day. I wasn't having my boys eat hospital muck on that day of all days.
By Boxing Day it was clear that Bodie was on the mend, and Mr Cowley insisted Ray return to work. I spent my days at the hospital, keeping the patient company. We played cards and chatted. I filled Bodie in on the family gossip he'd only half heard when he'd been struggling to wake up, and Bodie told outrageous stories about his own exploits that I knew must be nonsense, but that kept me and the nurses amused. I'm sure he broke a few hearts amongst the nursing staff, incurable flirt that he was. He would have broken mine, if I were a few years younger and much more foolish.
In the evenings, Ray would arrive at the hospital, full of complaints about how boring it was working in Records and when was Bodie going to stop skiving and rescue him from the tedium. Bodie would let him rant and then give me a wink. If Ray caught him at it, he'd poke Bodie, and Bodie would moan about asking Mr Cowley to partner him with a bloke who didn't abuse him when he was injured.
If you didn't know what they meant to each other, you might have thought they were what they appeared: work partners, mates, but that was all. But I did know, and I could see the affection the teasing hid. And the love. And the concern.
I was concerned myself. After all, they weren't getting any younger, either of them. And the business they were in, there weren't many who got old in it. I'd come close to losing both of them now, and I wasn't keen on my worst fears being realized. Not that I was going to say anything to Ray. He hadn't liked me sticking my oar into his business when he was a kid. He'd give me an earful if I did it now that he was a grown man.
I did bring it up with Bodie, though.
It was New Year's Eve, and Bodie had been out of the hospital for a little more than 24 hours. We were waiting for Ray to get home, and Bodie was sprawled on the sofa in their lounge, an airy comfortable room that bore the marks of both of its inhabitants. Their books sat in a cheery jumble on the shelves, Ray's stereo stood in a corner, quietly playing a Mozart chamber piece I knew belonged to my son, but that Bodie liked listening to when his partner wasn't around.
I'd poured a nice cuppa for us both and was sitting in the armchair beside Bodie. I think it was the ordinariness of it all that suddenly overcame me, made me realize how things could have gone very differently, how I could have come down to London to help organize a funeral rather than stand vigil over a sickbed. And I began to wonder just how they did it, Bodie and my son.
"Have you ever thought of quitting?" I asked.
Bodie looked startled for a moment, as well he might have done. I'd been talking about my rose bushes only a few seconds earlier, and Bodie, God bless 'im, had been feigning polite interest.
"Quitting? What, CI5?"
I nodded.
"Well," Bodie said, then paused, shifted on the sofa, and put down his tea cup, his cast clunking awkwardly on the coffee table in a way that was very un-Bodie-like. "Can't say it hasn't crossed my mind once or twice."
"What about Ray?"
"Yeah, I expect he's thought about it as well."
"Then why don't you? Get out."
"Oh, I reckon we've got a few good years left."
"But you nearly died, Bodie. You've seen Ray nearly die. Why would you want to stay in a job that's so very nearly killed you both?" I hadn't realized how upset I was about what they did and what they continued to do until this all spilled out. I opened my mouth to say more, but I'd run out of words.
Bodie reacted immediately. I suppose that's what they do, the two of them: react to the unexpected. Before I knew it he'd reached across the table and taken hold of my hand with his good one. He gripped it tightly with a pressure that was firm and comforting.
"Look at me, Margaret," he said, and it was only then I realized I was looking down at the table, at our two hands linked.
I looked up and saw a side of Bodie he'd never revealed before. He was serious and compassionate and as far from the Jack-the-lad front he usually put up as I could imagine. I stared into his eyes while I blinked back the tears that had somehow formed behind my eyelids.
"You listen to me, Margaret. I won't let anything happen to your son, and he won't let anything happen to me. That's what we do, watch each other's backs. And if we can't do that any more, we'll pack it in. I'll make sure of that. I've promised to retire with him to a cottage in Cornwall. And I'm going to make sure neither of us breaks that promise."
I laughed at that, the thought of Bodie and Ray, city toughs the pair of them, in some backwater Cornish village.
Bodie grinned, then, and bumped my elbow with the plaster cast. I wiped my eyes with my hanky and that was the end of it. Neither of us brought up my fears again, and I certainly didn't share them with my son.
I felt better though. Because I knew they'd always be there for each other, no matter what happened, no matter what went wrong on the streets.
Just like I'd always be there for them.
Title: Vigil
Author: P.R. Zed
Slash/Gen: Slash
Archive at Proslib/Circuit: Ok
Disclaimer: Not mine
Word count: 4695 words
Notes: Number six in the Comfort and Joy series. Thanks to
ancastar and callistosh65 for being their usual terrific beta-ing selves. And to justacat, for her usual thorough editing skills.
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