Discovered in a Fog: A Misty, Moisty Morning

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Doyle knew too much about grief: he knew how it fluctuated; how it swept over him unexpectedly when nothing obviously reminded him; how it kept him awake; how it bobbed up suddenly from a deep, quiet ocean after a long time of calm; how sometimes it seemed entirely physical, as if his heart had been literally injured and that was why he suddenly couldn't catch his breath, where that pain in his torso came from, why his joints felt suddenly weak and his feet suddenly faltered as he ran.

So he understood what Bodie felt and how much he would not want to talk about it. The bruise Doyle had carried across his chest from Bodie's rifle was gone, and Cowley seemed to have forgotten the whole week leading up to Marikka's death, but Bodie was still grieving.

Now, when they were too far out in the country far too early in the day, Doyle stood silently waiting for Bodie to catch up. Meanwhile, he was happy to look ahead and around, admiring the pale, luminous fog and the ditch full of water and the trees, the sunrise glittering on the frost at the ends of the long blades of grass, the lovely reflections. To him it all spoke of peace and light, a promise he knew was only for here and now, but which calmed the fiery impatience he usually felt on this kind of assignment. Out there somewhere, as Cowley was (hopefully) reliably informed, the kidnappers and the ambassador's child they had snatched were fleeing, and with luck were taking refuge in some of this farm's outbuildings, so the child wouldn't be run off her legs.

Cattle moaned in the distance, a low foghorn noise. Bodie, usually so quiet as he moved, was puffing and blowing, rustling through the undergrowth.

“Grampus,” said Doyle quietly as Bodie came up behind his right shoulder and paused.

Bodie grunted in reply.

“Sun's like lemon fluff, innit?”

Bodie shrugged.

Doyle looked back at him. “All right, where are we?”

“I thought you were leading.”

“You had the map. Well, we know where east is, anyway.”

“In January? Almost south-east.”

Now Doyle shrugged. “You know best.”

Bodie grinned for the first time in days. “Say that again.”

“You know best, oh Para hero.” Doyle would have done far more to see that expression again. The tilt of Bodie's eyebrows said he knew it, too. “OK, where's the farmhouse, then?”

Bodie's wave was still vague, but he set off walking decisively enough, and Doyle went after him. Both their steps crunched in the frozen grass. The field opened gradually before them as they passed the trees.

“I should be nervous,” Doyle said. “You don't really know where we're going, do you?”

Without quite looking over his shoulder, Bodie turned his head enough for Doyle to catch a glimpse of his eyelashes on his cheek, the curve at the end of his mouth. And then he almost started, his mouth was hard, the lashes rose, the eyebrow came down.

Doyle stepped faster and put a hand on Bodie's shoulder, making him stop with one foot in the air.

“What?” His voice was harsh. He turned, frowning. “What?”

“I don't know, do I? What you were remembering.” He looked into the fierce, sad glare and waited Bodie out until he covered his eyes with one hand, then wiped down his face, as if to straighten his features and leave no expression behind.

“You saw those pictures,” he said tonelessly. “In the park.” The sun caught the mist leaving his mouth, and turned it the same lemony colour as the fog.

Doyle took a moment to remember them, the woman's body pliant and graceful; Bodie protective and smiling. “You looked happy,” he heard his own voice say, and he shut his mouth again firmly, because that wasn't at all the way he had meant to react.

“I looked like a man about to have his leg over,” Bodie said, with one of those moments of honesty that always took Doyle's breath away. “Regardless that she was married, that she was a terrible security risk ....” His voice just stopped.

Doyle lifted one eyebrow.

“Truth,” Bodie insisted.

“You looked all right,” Doyle told him.

“Yeah, I always do.” Bodie turned back to keep walking, and Doyle noticed how, ahead of them, long dark streaks broke the silver frost.

“Look—” But he'd seen already: Doyle knew by the way he speeded up and altered direction to follow the tracks. They ran, their steps making a constant sound now, more of a rustle, and along with the cows, they could hear a murder of crows jeering to each other in the tops of the trees ahead. They kept going, squinting but still unable to see far into the fog even as the sun burned it off.

But gradually, ahead of them, Doyle spied a faint dark wavering blot, which separated into two strangely shaped dark blips against the frost, and then became clearly two running men, one with a smaller shape over his shoulder. “Stop!” Doyle yelled, and Bodie shouted too, but the men just kept going. As they closed the distance between themselves and the kidnappers, they could see the child's body jouncing and began to hear her cries, like a higher-pitched echo of the crows.

“Stop!” Doyle bellowed again. “CI5!” He heard the report of Bodie's gun.

“Careful! Bodie!” If they hit the child … the thought was too bad to complete.

The vague grey shadows of buildings loomed out of the fog. The kidnappers ran faster. Doyle saw the child bouncing harder and heard her scream. He pulled his own gun and fired a warning shot, high in the air. The man carrying the child stumbled and fell.

“Doyle!”

He was running too hard to reply. The other man didn't so much as flinch, just raced on.

When they reached the fallen man, he had rolled to his side, clutching his ankle, and the child was bent almost in half, vomiting. Not much came out. She sat up and wailed, waving her fists in the air. It was Bodie who picked her up, held her in one arm, regardless of the mess, and talked to her, jollying and coaxing while Doyle cuffed the man in spite of the sprained ankle, which he kept whinging about. Then he went after the other one, catching him as he tried to unlatch the barn door and bringing him back at gunpoint. By this time, Bodie had talked the little girl into smiling, and as they readied their awkward procession to walk back to the car, she put her head on Bodie's shoulder. She was making snuffling noises, the kind Doyle had called “pity-mes” when his sisters had made them, and her forehead was tucked into Bodie's neck. Slowly her hand crept up until her thumb was in her mouth. Bodie was looking relaxed and pleased, brushing ineffectually at the mud and sick on his grey leather jacket.

“Charm the birds at any age, eh, mate?” Doyle hoped the tone of his voice was right; he was surprised at the lump in his throat as he watched his partner soothe the child.

“Of course,” Bodie replied. The little girl sighed, haltingly, and squirmed closer.

So Doyle drove, the two villains secured in the back seat and Bodie holding the child in front. The car smelled sour. She fell asleep long before they reached the city. Doyle kept glancing over at the picture they made, two dark heads, two sets of relaxed breathing. Bodie seemed almost asleep himself, which would have been all to the good since he had greyish smudges under his eyes, and his porcelain skin was paper-white. But he opened his eyes, raised an eyebrow and said, “What?”

“Just admiring the view,” Doyle said. “Sweet.”

“Piss off, Doyle.”

Doyle felt the smile take over his face, stretch wide. “You'd make a good father.”

“No.” Something darker was in Bodie's voice. Doyle let it rest.

When they pulled up to the embassy, right behind Cowley's car, a large man ran down the front staircase, already crying openly. Bodie eased out of the car, and the man grabbed his daughter without, Doyle thought, even noticing the mess she was in. At the door, the vague shape of a woman in a burka waited, but as she stepped over the ledge, she was caught back, probably by embassy security. The ambassador wailed almost as the child had done in the field, clutching her, waking her, and her startled tears joined his as he carried her up the stairs and to the door, where the woman grabbed her and pulled her, it seemed, into the burka's folds of cloth. The door closed behind them.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Bodie said sarcastically.

“Well, I'll thank you,” Cowley unexpectedly said. “Good job, lads. I see you captured both kidnappers alive.”

“Yeah, give Bodie a little girl to hold and he forgets all about shooting up the place,” Doyle said, meaning to joke, but he could hear the tone was still not right. Bodie shot him a glance but said nothing. His hand was back on the stain, as if to cover it.

“Tomorrow at eight,” Cowley told them. “Reports in hand.”

It wasn't noon yet. They looked at each other in surprise.

“Go on!” Cowley waved his hand.

They got, as the kidnappers were pulled out of the Capri by police.

“Want to go down the pub?” Doyle asked.

“Nah, too early for that.” And Bodie was too grubby, his glance downward said.

Still, Doyle explained, “For lunch.”

“I have a taste for Indian today.” .

“OK, let's get takeaway and go to yours.”

Bodie didn't say yes or no, didn't move an inch.

“What?” Doyle asked at last.

After quite a long pause, Bodie said, “You think it's all back to normal, just as usual. Don't you.”

“Aren't we?”

The silence answered him. That, and Bodie's stare.

“All right, now we are definitely getting takeaway and going to yours.” Doyle's eyes had narrowed. He felt his temper pulling on the leash that always felt as if it were frayed and breaking.

After a moment, Bodie nodded once, down and up to stare blankly again.

They got back in the car. Fortunately, the day had warmed, so there was no argument when Doyle said, “Put the window down,” and did the same on the driver's side. A wet, earthy scent came in with the city air, so that by the time they reached the restaurant, the smell of sick had almost gone, and by the time they had the food, tandoori and curry was all that was in Doyle's nose.

Bodie's current flat had a balcony, big enough for two folding chairs and a small round cafe table. Though it was really too chilly for outdoor dining, Doyle didn't object when Bodie led him there, put his sack down, and muttered, “A mo',” before vanishing inside.

Doyle went in himself to fetch two lagers from the fridge, and then settled to eat his mixed grill while he listened to the shower and waited until Bodie appeared, in the black polo and trousers that looked like a kind of armour and made Doyle shake his head. He'd known it wouldn't be easy.

After opening the bottle and taking a long drink, Bodie pulled the sack over and got out his curry and naan. A short time later, he wiped up the last of the sauce, folded the bread end into his mouth, and upended the bottle. “Hit the spot,” he said, rubbing his stomach, but his voice wasn't as amused as usual.

Doyle waited as long as he could, knowing it was not long, and then said, “Let's be having it, then.”

“Thought you were the one with things to say.”

Doyle sighed. “Bodie. Go on, get it out. I know you're browned off."

“All right, then, what the bloody fuck did you mean by following me, taking her to your bloody flat, interrogating her on tape? 'I had to be sure,' what the bloody fucking fuck was that?”

“It was a fit up,” Doyle answered. “You knew it! Willis wanted you dead or arrested or both. If it went to trial and she was on the stand, what the hell would she have said? Did you know? Even Cowley didn't. You think I thought you did it?” He watched Bodie's face as it did not change and said, incredulous, “You think I thought you'd done it.”

Bodie looked away. “You said, 'I had to be sure.'”

“About your alibi!” Doyle surged to his feet, grabbed at the balcony rail as if he meant to vault over it, held on as tightly as he could. He dragged breath in, let it out, three or four times before his temper was controlled enough to turn back and say, “If you heard the tape, you know she would have given you any alibi you needed.”

“Three or four of them,” Bodie agreed.

Doyle gave a bark of laughter. “Yeah.” Poor bint. He couldn't say that. “I'm, 'm really sorry, mate.”

After a few long breaths of his own, Bodie said, “Yeah, I know.”

Grief was too much like fog, Doyle thought. It made truth hard to see, lost people, isolated them. They couldn't just wave their hands, speak a few words, and disperse it. Only sun and time would do that. Doyle couldn't rush it no matter how much he wanted to.

In the clear daylight now, he let go the rail, stepped toward the door, gripped Bodie's shoulder. “I'll—I'll go in, do the reports. See you tomorrow?”

Bodie's hand covered Doyle's for a moment. “Ta, mate.”

Doyle let go. “Don't catch cold,” he said, and walked through the flat, locked up after himself. On the street, he looked up and waved at his partner, still on the balcony; in the car, he rolled the driver's window down again and tapped on the wheel as he drove. After the reports, he decided, he'd go for a run, get rid of this nervous energy.

The twinges at his heart, he'd just have to live with a while longer. How do you do, and how do you do, and how do you do again, he told them, as he drove.




Title: A Misty, Moisty Morning
Artist: jat_sapphire
Slash or Gen: Slash
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: Sure
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the television material or even the picture. No infringement is intended.

Comments

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

I love your story. You have a wonderful way to write a story so that I can see and hear them in the fog. And it is nice to see that Bodie doesn't have a problem with the little girl being sick.

Thank you for this one. :-)

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you could see them.

Originally, the child didn't throw up, but the longer I thought about her being bounced on the guy's shoulder, the more I couldn't believe she would NOT be sick.

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

Beautiful. Captures them perfectly.

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[fiorenza-a.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever seen murder of crows used descriptively before, in my experience it's always deployed with eerie portent - or because the characters are literally playing word games. I also enjoyed the report of Bodie's gun, quite correct, but I can't remember the last time I saw it used.

Despite its being posted to discoveredinalj, where the vibe tends to lean towards Slash, I wasn't sure if it was Gen or Slash right up to the end (I don't habitually read the wrapper). Apart, obviously, for the very end, I think it works well either way (I have a soft spot for Gen), and captures the fogginess without obviously shoehorning in the prompt.

I've often speculated myself how they resolved the hanging threads - this is a beautifully wrought envisioning.

The only discordant note in the while thing for me was: “Sun looks like lemon fluff, innit?”. I think it's because I'm used to the accent in which 'innit' is ubiquitous, so for me, the line read more like a petulant teenager. 'Innit' meaning 'isn't it', the construction is often used in phrases like 'Got a detention, innit' - so my 'ears' were expect some variant of 'doesn't it' from an adult. Just goes to show how much the reader brings to the page.

Lovely read.

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Thank you for commenting! I admit, "innit" is not in my own dialect at all. Around here, one might say "ain't it?" or farther north and west, "ain'a." So I rely on other people to tell me when it doesn't sound right.

[fiorenza-a.livejournal.com]

I can't say it's 'wrong', just a bit too youf speak to my ears. The lads are in their thirties, not their teens - but my reading - as I say - is very much coloured by my own experience.

It's a beautiful rendering of the prompt, and a piquant examination of how the lads deal with the events of the episode.

I very much enjoyed reading it.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Very nice - I could definitely feel the fog between them over Marrika, but the promise of it clearing, too. Thank you!

For what it's worth, I agree with Fiorenza about the use of "innit" though - it did grate on me and stop me in my tracks for a moment.

The lads both use it in the show - it was just lazy-language before it was 2000s youth-speak, so that's not the problem. But if Doyle's using lazy-language he'd probably say "Sun's like lemon fluff, innit" (The sun is like lemon fluff, isn't it?) You wouldn't say "The sun looks like lemon fluff, isn't it?" because "isn't it" (innit) doesn't match the rest of the sentence - that's when the use has changed from lads-period lazy-language, to contemporary youth-speak, who would make the mis-match.

You could alternatively have him say "Sun looks like lemon fluff, dunnit" - The sun looks like lemon fluff, doesn't it? - because that makes sense... *g*

So:
"Sun's like lemon fluff, innit?"
"Sun looks like lemon fluff, dunnit?"

*g*

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'll think it over and edit it.

[miwahni.livejournal.com]

This is lovely, almost lyrical. You have a wonderful way with language. That whole first paragraph packs a wallop - I could feel it inside, it so perfectly captured the way it feels to grieve.

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Sorry if it gave you a flashback. I kept going back and adding things. Thank you for the comment!

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

I thought this was beautiful, beautiful writing and I'm humbled by your ability to create a scene which I can see, immediately - I wish I knew how that effect is achieved. Thank you!

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Wow. I'm not sure how to reply except to say thank you.

I have a mostly visual imagination myself, so I need to imagine the setting in a lot of detail: I rewatch eps and find reference pictures a lot. Also, in fan writing, I'm playing on readers' memories as well as relying on my own. That object on the desk, that gesture of the character's, that facial expression will hopefully connect to a memory the reader may not even consciously think of. If there is a secret, that's probably it.

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, that's very interesting, thank you for that.

I'm playing on readers' memories as well as relying on my own.

Yes! That's exactly right. As I got to know the episodes better and better I came to realise what I thought the author was sometimes thinking of when they wrote a certain scene. I'm trying to think of an example... e.g. I'm sure I read somewhere recently in a story that 'Doyle leant towards Kate Ross' and I immediately thought of the scene from Wild Justice. Anyway, thanks for that!

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Yes! I know the scene you mean.

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

What a nice piece. Definitely the lads together, and yet with that incident still between then. Bodie with his way of often thinking the worst, not trusting even after this long. They'll work it out, I'm sure. Thank you!

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm sure they will.

[cim3745.livejournal.com]

It is really gorgeous - thank you for a nice start in the day.
Only a short look into  LJ and captured by your story  *g*  I couldn't  stop reading.

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

I know that "just a short look" feeling. Thanks for looking, reading and commenting!

[merentha13.livejournal.com]

A beautiful story. Thank you.

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading it and commenting!

[freetraveller15.livejournal.com]

Beautiful story and beautiful writing. Your vivid images and how you've used them to portray the lads' feelings have captured me instantly

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you found the images vivid.

[cyanne]

A difficult read, not because it wasn't well written because it absolutely was, but because it was so well done that it pulls you into the depths of grief. It's good to see them getting through the things that happen to them, even if it is a hard journey sometimes.

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading it! I guess almost every girl-of-the-week episode makes me want to dig into what the real consequences would be. I'm not up to a multi-episode saga like "Fools and Kings" in Professionals, but a challenge like this let me follow up on that darn taped interview, which I've been thinking about on and off since I saw it.

Love it!

[bodie24.livejournal.com]

Great story, nicely written

RE: Love it!

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Thank you!