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discoveredinaljEvery once in a while, I watch an episode that I don't particularly like and challenge myself to write a story. This one came out of The Gun. I dressed it up with holiday spirit and tossed in a bit of kid fic.
Title: Songs that Voices Never Shared
Author: Dawnwind
Genre: Slash
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Songs that Voices never Shared
Ray Doyle had never expected to walk into a hospital with anticipation of joy. After having been admitted so many times for injuries in his line of work, it could be assumed that he would have run from a hospital entrance. Instead, he looked forward to his bimonthly appointments and relished the time he spent there.
“Mr Doyle!” Marjorie Liron, the nurse he saw most often, greeted him. “Welcome back. We’ve got a chair for you set up in the front.”
“Ta,” he said glancing around the tidy lobby.
Frances, who answered phones and ferried orders from the doctors to the nurses, was hanging up a red and green garland. An artificial Christmas tree stood in one corner, ready for ornaments sat in a box on the floor.
“Decorating for the holidays, are you?” Doyle shucked his jacket, hanging it on a small rail, and donned a blue waistcoat with the insignia of the hospital embroidered on the left side.
“Aye.” Marjorie smiled. “It really brightens up the place. Makes the patients so happy.”
“Shame when you have to be in hospital at Christmas,” Doyle agreed heartily, having spent more time than he cared to admit as a patient in the winter. He followed Marjorie into the main room of the unit.
There were twelve beds, six on each wall. Some regular cots for infants, some high tech incubators for sick, premature babies. The entire Intensive Care Nursery awed him. The nurses who worked in the specialized area, caring for all manner of sick newborns, were true angels in his opinion.
Luckily, what he was doing had required only a small amount of training, not the years the nurses got.
“This is Tennsley.” Marjorie pointed to a full term newborn wearing a red and white cap and a striped babygrow. “Her mum’s done a runner, and we haven’t heard from her since day of birth, poor lamb.”
“Mum was on heroin?” Doyle specified, heart clenching slightly. Every time, it hurt. For the mother, for the baby, and brought back memories of his first time encountering this world.
Marjorie nodded, expertly tucking a light blanket around the baby. She shuddered and then began to wail in protest.
“Are you hungry, petal?” Marjorie murmured to Tennsley. “Uncle Ray is right here and he’ll give you your tea. Won’t that be special?”
Transferring the indignant Tennsley into his arms, she raised her voice above the caterwauling. “She’ll be placed into care once she’s completely withdrawn from the heroin, but as you well know, that takes a long time.”
Doyle regarded the loud, angry baby, bouncing her slightly. She was astonishingly beautiful, with pale brown skin and hair like chocolate candy floss. Soothed by the bouncing, Tennsley hiccupped, staring up at him with wide brownish eyes.
When he didn’t immediately place a bottle between her cupid bow lips, Tennsley demonstrated her pique for such injustice with a loud squawk that turned immediately into a prolonged crying jag.
“Petra is her nurse.” Marjorie waggled her fingers, scurrying off to help another nurse on the opposite side.
“Here you are, your majesty!” A sweet faced nurse with red hair twisted into a knot at the back of her head appeared with a warm bottle of baby formula. “Miss Tennsley hasn’t a patient bone in her wee body.”
“Thanks.” Doyle grabbed the bottle and slid the nipple into Tennsley’s open mouth.
The baby accepted her meal with a grunt and gurgle of displeasure for the wait, muttering curses in baby language before settling in to suck greedily from the teat.
There was a sudden silence so profound that Doyle could hear the alarms from machinery across the room. That had been one of the most difficult things to get used to in the ICN. He’d been a natural at holding babies because he’d helped his sisters babysit when he was younger, and been a doting uncle to all their children since. But the amount of noise in the room was astonishing.
Each bedside had IV pumps, heart rate monitors, ventilators to help the babies breathe, and other equipment, all of which alarmed constantly. At first, Ray had cuddled the babies he was there to hold, watching in fear every time an alarm sounded. It was a fear akin to when he and Bodie were in the field, every sense on alert for death or catastrophe.
Except here, whilst the alarms could be signifying a drop in heart rate, a common event for preemies, he’d learned they often were indications that an hour had passed since the nurse checked her IV fluids or that the baby was wiggling. Just as Tennsley was doing, causing a rapid fire bing-bong from the machine on the shelf above them. Took an observant nurse to know which was life-threatening and which was a nuisance.
“I’ve only started a few months ago, just off my training,” Petra said, reaching up to the heart rate monitor to silence the alarm button. “You seem to know exactly what you are doing.”
“Been coming to cuddle the babies for over a year,” Doyle answered, watching the baby for a few moments before looking up at Petra. “But I know two things—how to hold a baby and how to bottle feed. The rest is on you.”
“And a lot it is!” Petra jotted down a few notes on Tennsley’s chart. “I am still petrified every time the alarms go off. Especially over there—” She indicated where Marjorie and another nurse were preparing to do some procedure on an impossibly tiny baby. “At that one’s bedside. Born so early and so sick.”
“The alarms are the worst.” Doyle paused Tennsley’s meal, sitting her up. That set off a tantrum of annoyed wails until quite abruptly she gave an inelegant burp. He tipped the bottle back into her mouth and peace was restored. “What brought you to this unit?”
“Always knew I was meant to work in a nursery,” Petra said, taking out a diaper. “Hadn’t known a place like this existed until I graduated from the nursing program. I think I love it here.” She leaned against the wall for a brief rest, but her eyes were on the heart monitor of the baby next to them. Nary a sound from that machine.
Ray could see an infant wrapped in a blue blanket, an IV line running from a site on the top of his shaved head. Most probably one of Petra’s other patients.
“What about you?” Petra asked, apparently satisfied with the boy baby’s status. “We don’t see many men cuddling the withdrawal babies.”
Tennsley had drained the bottle dry in record time. She shook her head irritably, clearly wanting more. Ray burped her again and she settled more comfortably against his shoulder with a shuddery grizzle.
“I—” He considered how to explain his involvement, patting the baby on her back. Across the way, several alarms erupted in concert but were quickly silenced. “I met a young woman who gave birth whilst she was addicted,” he explained, the shame and self-recrimination of his own actions on a November day three years ago as fresh as they had been then. He didn’t add that he worked for CI5 and had been on the trail of a gun used in multiple crimes at the time. “Until then, I’d never realised that babies could be born addicted.”
The worst part about it was that he should have known. As a copper, he’d arrested young women for possession. Even had to wait until their squalling babies were claimed by the child protective service women. Had always assumed that the babies were neglected or crying incessantly because of the separation from their mums. It had never occurred to him that the heroin a mother injected into her arm would addict the baby.
Until the day he’d insisted that the doctor find a baby, any baby, to soothe Patricia Buchanan’s distress so that he could interrogate her about her dead lover. Of course, the physician had not, even after Doyle cruelly announced that Patricia would not know the difference between her own child and some random stranger’s.
That weighed on his soul, and always would.
He’d gone straight from her room to the nursery and witnessed Baby Boy Buchanan screaming with withdrawals. Had seen the nurse give a dose of morphine into his IV tubing to ameliorate the pains from coming off heroin, and despaired his own inadequacies.
“Horrible, isn’t it?” Petra said softly. “The way the babies suffer, and through no fault of their own except being born to a mother taking drugs. We have to help them.” She graced him with a tired smile. “Thank you ever so for doing your part.” Petra consulted the upside down watch pinned to the bodice of her dark blue uniform. “Tennsley’s next dose of morphine is due at half past four. How long will you be here for?”
“Until six.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. Two hours to hold the precious bundle. He relished the way she’d melted into his body, warm and heavy on his shoulder. “Friend’s coming to fetch me then.”
“Smashing. I’m off to have my tea, and Marjorie’s in the room if you need any help.” Petra checked on the baby boy again. “Alexis here won’t need a blessed thing until his supper at half five.”
“When d’you think Tennsley is to be released?” Doyle asked, a nascent idea forming in his brain. The question was if Bodie would agree to it.
“As I’ve said, only just finished training.” Petra shrugged. “She’s my first withdrawal baby, but I’ve heard it can take nearly two months.”
“She was born the third of December,” Doyle read from the sign posted on the end of her bed. “So possibly late January?” That made her presently almost a week old.
“Just so, I’d expect.” Petra strode out of the ICN, passing a gaggle of doctors.
Listening to the doctors discuss each patient, Ray learned that the medical team hoped to decrease Tennsley’s dose of morphine the next day, to slowly wean her from the worst symptoms of her heroin withdrawal. The doctors scurried over in the direction of alarms in the back corner, leaving Doyle with his armful.
Filled with questions about the little girl’s future, but aware he had no right to ask for any specific medical information, Doyle shifted her lax body, adjusting her position so that he could gaze at her beautiful face.
He’d fallen in love. She was not the perfect Gerber baby, all dimples and gurgling sweetness. Tennsley was a fighter, a mini tiger roaring for her right to exist. That alone had wound her around his heart. She whimpered slightly at the strident alarm from the baby Marjorie was helping with, and Doyle turned her towards his chest.
He felt like he was at a crossroad. He and Bodie had already put in their resignations to CI5, and would be unemployed as of January 1984. Not that he expected that to last long. Their reputation as CI5 operatives could garner them any number of job offers, particularly with their expertise in security, espionage, and solving crime.
Except he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to continue to pursue that line of work. He’d been a copper and an operative for a secretive government agency. Bodie had been with the merchant marines, done mercenary work, and served in the SAS. Maybe this was their opportunity to strike out on a different path.
How could Tennsley fit in? What if her mum resurfaced? What if there was a dire outcome from Tennsley’s congenital addiction?
Too many questions. Too few answers.
The baby stirred, grumbling in her sleep, and farted, settling after that. Doyle pulled the blanket more tightly around her, watching her sleep with a happiness he didn’t know was possible.
He and Bodie had saved up a fair nest egg, not having to pay for their own flats and the motors provided by CI5. The money would make a tidy deposit on a house, but what then? A consulting firm? Opening a book shop that also served tea every afternoon? That sounded comfortable and homely. He could see the two of them, shelving the books together, a baby with a puff of chocolate curls toddling behind, pulling down every book she could reach.
What would Bodie think? He had always been far more action oriented than Doyle. He delighted in the testosterone fueled battles and gripping confrontations. Doyle yearned to right the wrongs, correct the injustices. But ever since he was shot in his own lounge, by a woman who’d had her own unresolved issues, he’d become increasingly weary of violence.
When still in hospital after the shooting, Doyle had been encouraged to walk as much as he could, to regain his strength. He’d prowled the hall of the general surgery floor before exploring other parts of the building. And had come across the nursery.
His interest piqued, he’d returned several times, seen women and one man in blue waistcoats like the one he was wearing now, cuddling babies. On the door by the entrance to the ICN, there had been a recruiting poster, urging lay people to donate their time.
The appeal had stayed with him long after he was discharged and back at work beside Bodie, fighting to keep their corner of England safe. One day, after a particularly rough case involving bombs, he’d used his free day to sign up as a volunteer baby holder.
That had been what he considered the first day of his true recovery. His natural trust in the good nature of others, and his inherent, although slightly cynical, optimism had resurfaced, leading to his acknowledgement that he needed to leave CI5.
He and Bodie, as a couple. They’d been lovers for years, slipping in and out of each other’s beds when the cases were harsh, or there was time in their intense schedules for a lay in. And equally bedded pretty birds on the side, dabbling in sex however they could get it. Until his shooting.
That had been the line in the sand for Bodie. He’d proposed the day Doyle got out of hospital.
They couldn’t get legally married, but that didn’t matter. It was their own truth that they were far, far better together than apart.
Doyle leaned back in his chair, widening his eyes. The one drawback to holding a baby for two hours was how cozy and sleepy he got. That was a dismissible offense, falling asleep with a baby in arms. At least the different tones of the alarms played a kind of weird music that kept him oriented to the nursery.
Shifting Tennsley to his left arm to regain circulation in his right, he focussed on Marjorie and the dark skinned nurse at the incubator, watching them draw red blood from the tiny baby’s miniscule wrist. Once that sample was obtained, Marjorie moved on, talking quietly to each nurse.
A team helping each other, just as he and Bodie had with CI5. It would be so different without Murphy, Jax, and Macklin. Which is why they needed to make their own team, as it were. And he had a feeling Bodie would like a feisty little rabble-rouser like Tennsley.
Petra returned, gave a sleepy Tennsley a small measure of liquid morphine into her mouth and offered a dummy for her to suck on. She wanted none of that if there was no milk forthcoming.
“Can’t feed her for a bit until the morphine is in or she could sick it up,” Petra apologized. “I’ll feed Alexis, shall I?”
“Don’t let me get in your way.” Doyle hoisted Tennsley up so she could look at him. She regarded him suspiciously, as Bodie did when interrogating a suspect, all steely-eyed resolve. “We’re getting to know each other.”
Tennsley grimaced and then, like a rainbow after a rainfall, she grinned.
“Look at you, then, miss.” Doyle laughed, watching her eyebrows raise and lower as if she were trying to discern what he was saying. He was absolutely enchanted by her gummy grin, all the while quite aware how much she could scream when caught in the grips of withdrawal. Unlike Petra, Tennsley was not the first addicted infant he’d cuddled.
“There you are. Knew I’d find you still here.” Bodie’s voice came from behind them. “Breaking hearts again, are you, sunshine?”
“On assignment with a gorgeous bird,” Doyle said, looking up at his lover. Bodie was red cheeked and windblown from the blustery December weather. “This is Tennsley.”
“That’s more than enough name for a lassie your size.” Bodie stroked her puff of dark hair.
Face screwed up in anticipation of an outraged howl, Tennsley caught sight of Bodie and cooed instead. She gazed at him with rapt adoration.
“Oh, that’s how it is, eh?” Doyle pretended rejection. “One look at him and I’m yesterday’s paper.”
“She can’t fight what the heart wants,” Bodie said with a smirk. “Tennsley, would love to stay and chat, but we’ve steaks and jacket potatoes awaiting, and me stomach’s empty.”
“Give her to me, then. She’s surely in need of a dry nappy.” Petra plucked the baby from Doyle.
Tennsley screeched her immediate disapproval of the move. Arms and legs flailing, the blanket dropped to the floor as Petra transferred her to the bed.
“Never fear, my love, I’ll come soon to visit,” Doyle promised, catching one small fist in his hand. She was loud, there was no other word for it, announcing her indignation to one and all, taking on the world.
She would fit in just fine where ever she landed, Doyle was sure of that. He wanted her in his life.
“Good evening, Petra.” Doyle waved to her, taking a last look at Tennsley. Not at her most adorable, but he was still in love with every irascible inch of her. “Hope she’s good for you.”
“Ach, she just wants a wee dram,” Petra drawled in broad Scots, laughing. “She’ll quiet soon enough.”
“A wee dram sounds like just the thing,” Bodie announced, rubbing his belly. “More in favor of Glenfiddich than baby milk.”
Doyle would have liked to kiss him, however, not quite the thing to do in the ICN. He fit his hand against Bodie’s back, palm flat on his woollen jumper, soaking in his partner’s essence. “Bodie, what do you think about babies?”
FIN
Link to Fic: Fic Master Post/ Songs That Voices Never Shared
Title: Songs that Voices Never Shared
Author: Dawnwind
Genre: Slash
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Songs that Voices never Shared
Ray Doyle had never expected to walk into a hospital with anticipation of joy. After having been admitted so many times for injuries in his line of work, it could be assumed that he would have run from a hospital entrance. Instead, he looked forward to his bimonthly appointments and relished the time he spent there.
“Mr Doyle!” Marjorie Liron, the nurse he saw most often, greeted him. “Welcome back. We’ve got a chair for you set up in the front.”
“Ta,” he said glancing around the tidy lobby.
Frances, who answered phones and ferried orders from the doctors to the nurses, was hanging up a red and green garland. An artificial Christmas tree stood in one corner, ready for ornaments sat in a box on the floor.
“Decorating for the holidays, are you?” Doyle shucked his jacket, hanging it on a small rail, and donned a blue waistcoat with the insignia of the hospital embroidered on the left side.
“Aye.” Marjorie smiled. “It really brightens up the place. Makes the patients so happy.”
“Shame when you have to be in hospital at Christmas,” Doyle agreed heartily, having spent more time than he cared to admit as a patient in the winter. He followed Marjorie into the main room of the unit.
There were twelve beds, six on each wall. Some regular cots for infants, some high tech incubators for sick, premature babies. The entire Intensive Care Nursery awed him. The nurses who worked in the specialized area, caring for all manner of sick newborns, were true angels in his opinion.
Luckily, what he was doing had required only a small amount of training, not the years the nurses got.
“This is Tennsley.” Marjorie pointed to a full term newborn wearing a red and white cap and a striped babygrow. “Her mum’s done a runner, and we haven’t heard from her since day of birth, poor lamb.”
“Mum was on heroin?” Doyle specified, heart clenching slightly. Every time, it hurt. For the mother, for the baby, and brought back memories of his first time encountering this world.
Marjorie nodded, expertly tucking a light blanket around the baby. She shuddered and then began to wail in protest.
“Are you hungry, petal?” Marjorie murmured to Tennsley. “Uncle Ray is right here and he’ll give you your tea. Won’t that be special?”
Transferring the indignant Tennsley into his arms, she raised her voice above the caterwauling. “She’ll be placed into care once she’s completely withdrawn from the heroin, but as you well know, that takes a long time.”
Doyle regarded the loud, angry baby, bouncing her slightly. She was astonishingly beautiful, with pale brown skin and hair like chocolate candy floss. Soothed by the bouncing, Tennsley hiccupped, staring up at him with wide brownish eyes.
When he didn’t immediately place a bottle between her cupid bow lips, Tennsley demonstrated her pique for such injustice with a loud squawk that turned immediately into a prolonged crying jag.
“Petra is her nurse.” Marjorie waggled her fingers, scurrying off to help another nurse on the opposite side.
“Here you are, your majesty!” A sweet faced nurse with red hair twisted into a knot at the back of her head appeared with a warm bottle of baby formula. “Miss Tennsley hasn’t a patient bone in her wee body.”
“Thanks.” Doyle grabbed the bottle and slid the nipple into Tennsley’s open mouth.
The baby accepted her meal with a grunt and gurgle of displeasure for the wait, muttering curses in baby language before settling in to suck greedily from the teat.
There was a sudden silence so profound that Doyle could hear the alarms from machinery across the room. That had been one of the most difficult things to get used to in the ICN. He’d been a natural at holding babies because he’d helped his sisters babysit when he was younger, and been a doting uncle to all their children since. But the amount of noise in the room was astonishing.
Each bedside had IV pumps, heart rate monitors, ventilators to help the babies breathe, and other equipment, all of which alarmed constantly. At first, Ray had cuddled the babies he was there to hold, watching in fear every time an alarm sounded. It was a fear akin to when he and Bodie were in the field, every sense on alert for death or catastrophe.
Except here, whilst the alarms could be signifying a drop in heart rate, a common event for preemies, he’d learned they often were indications that an hour had passed since the nurse checked her IV fluids or that the baby was wiggling. Just as Tennsley was doing, causing a rapid fire bing-bong from the machine on the shelf above them. Took an observant nurse to know which was life-threatening and which was a nuisance.
“I’ve only started a few months ago, just off my training,” Petra said, reaching up to the heart rate monitor to silence the alarm button. “You seem to know exactly what you are doing.”
“Been coming to cuddle the babies for over a year,” Doyle answered, watching the baby for a few moments before looking up at Petra. “But I know two things—how to hold a baby and how to bottle feed. The rest is on you.”
“And a lot it is!” Petra jotted down a few notes on Tennsley’s chart. “I am still petrified every time the alarms go off. Especially over there—” She indicated where Marjorie and another nurse were preparing to do some procedure on an impossibly tiny baby. “At that one’s bedside. Born so early and so sick.”
“The alarms are the worst.” Doyle paused Tennsley’s meal, sitting her up. That set off a tantrum of annoyed wails until quite abruptly she gave an inelegant burp. He tipped the bottle back into her mouth and peace was restored. “What brought you to this unit?”
“Always knew I was meant to work in a nursery,” Petra said, taking out a diaper. “Hadn’t known a place like this existed until I graduated from the nursing program. I think I love it here.” She leaned against the wall for a brief rest, but her eyes were on the heart monitor of the baby next to them. Nary a sound from that machine.
Ray could see an infant wrapped in a blue blanket, an IV line running from a site on the top of his shaved head. Most probably one of Petra’s other patients.
“What about you?” Petra asked, apparently satisfied with the boy baby’s status. “We don’t see many men cuddling the withdrawal babies.”
Tennsley had drained the bottle dry in record time. She shook her head irritably, clearly wanting more. Ray burped her again and she settled more comfortably against his shoulder with a shuddery grizzle.
“I—” He considered how to explain his involvement, patting the baby on her back. Across the way, several alarms erupted in concert but were quickly silenced. “I met a young woman who gave birth whilst she was addicted,” he explained, the shame and self-recrimination of his own actions on a November day three years ago as fresh as they had been then. He didn’t add that he worked for CI5 and had been on the trail of a gun used in multiple crimes at the time. “Until then, I’d never realised that babies could be born addicted.”
The worst part about it was that he should have known. As a copper, he’d arrested young women for possession. Even had to wait until their squalling babies were claimed by the child protective service women. Had always assumed that the babies were neglected or crying incessantly because of the separation from their mums. It had never occurred to him that the heroin a mother injected into her arm would addict the baby.
Until the day he’d insisted that the doctor find a baby, any baby, to soothe Patricia Buchanan’s distress so that he could interrogate her about her dead lover. Of course, the physician had not, even after Doyle cruelly announced that Patricia would not know the difference between her own child and some random stranger’s.
That weighed on his soul, and always would.
He’d gone straight from her room to the nursery and witnessed Baby Boy Buchanan screaming with withdrawals. Had seen the nurse give a dose of morphine into his IV tubing to ameliorate the pains from coming off heroin, and despaired his own inadequacies.
“Horrible, isn’t it?” Petra said softly. “The way the babies suffer, and through no fault of their own except being born to a mother taking drugs. We have to help them.” She graced him with a tired smile. “Thank you ever so for doing your part.” Petra consulted the upside down watch pinned to the bodice of her dark blue uniform. “Tennsley’s next dose of morphine is due at half past four. How long will you be here for?”
“Until six.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. Two hours to hold the precious bundle. He relished the way she’d melted into his body, warm and heavy on his shoulder. “Friend’s coming to fetch me then.”
“Smashing. I’m off to have my tea, and Marjorie’s in the room if you need any help.” Petra checked on the baby boy again. “Alexis here won’t need a blessed thing until his supper at half five.”
“When d’you think Tennsley is to be released?” Doyle asked, a nascent idea forming in his brain. The question was if Bodie would agree to it.
“As I’ve said, only just finished training.” Petra shrugged. “She’s my first withdrawal baby, but I’ve heard it can take nearly two months.”
“She was born the third of December,” Doyle read from the sign posted on the end of her bed. “So possibly late January?” That made her presently almost a week old.
“Just so, I’d expect.” Petra strode out of the ICN, passing a gaggle of doctors.
Listening to the doctors discuss each patient, Ray learned that the medical team hoped to decrease Tennsley’s dose of morphine the next day, to slowly wean her from the worst symptoms of her heroin withdrawal. The doctors scurried over in the direction of alarms in the back corner, leaving Doyle with his armful.
Filled with questions about the little girl’s future, but aware he had no right to ask for any specific medical information, Doyle shifted her lax body, adjusting her position so that he could gaze at her beautiful face.
He’d fallen in love. She was not the perfect Gerber baby, all dimples and gurgling sweetness. Tennsley was a fighter, a mini tiger roaring for her right to exist. That alone had wound her around his heart. She whimpered slightly at the strident alarm from the baby Marjorie was helping with, and Doyle turned her towards his chest.
He felt like he was at a crossroad. He and Bodie had already put in their resignations to CI5, and would be unemployed as of January 1984. Not that he expected that to last long. Their reputation as CI5 operatives could garner them any number of job offers, particularly with their expertise in security, espionage, and solving crime.
Except he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to continue to pursue that line of work. He’d been a copper and an operative for a secretive government agency. Bodie had been with the merchant marines, done mercenary work, and served in the SAS. Maybe this was their opportunity to strike out on a different path.
How could Tennsley fit in? What if her mum resurfaced? What if there was a dire outcome from Tennsley’s congenital addiction?
Too many questions. Too few answers.
The baby stirred, grumbling in her sleep, and farted, settling after that. Doyle pulled the blanket more tightly around her, watching her sleep with a happiness he didn’t know was possible.
He and Bodie had saved up a fair nest egg, not having to pay for their own flats and the motors provided by CI5. The money would make a tidy deposit on a house, but what then? A consulting firm? Opening a book shop that also served tea every afternoon? That sounded comfortable and homely. He could see the two of them, shelving the books together, a baby with a puff of chocolate curls toddling behind, pulling down every book she could reach.
What would Bodie think? He had always been far more action oriented than Doyle. He delighted in the testosterone fueled battles and gripping confrontations. Doyle yearned to right the wrongs, correct the injustices. But ever since he was shot in his own lounge, by a woman who’d had her own unresolved issues, he’d become increasingly weary of violence.
When still in hospital after the shooting, Doyle had been encouraged to walk as much as he could, to regain his strength. He’d prowled the hall of the general surgery floor before exploring other parts of the building. And had come across the nursery.
His interest piqued, he’d returned several times, seen women and one man in blue waistcoats like the one he was wearing now, cuddling babies. On the door by the entrance to the ICN, there had been a recruiting poster, urging lay people to donate their time.
The appeal had stayed with him long after he was discharged and back at work beside Bodie, fighting to keep their corner of England safe. One day, after a particularly rough case involving bombs, he’d used his free day to sign up as a volunteer baby holder.
That had been what he considered the first day of his true recovery. His natural trust in the good nature of others, and his inherent, although slightly cynical, optimism had resurfaced, leading to his acknowledgement that he needed to leave CI5.
He and Bodie, as a couple. They’d been lovers for years, slipping in and out of each other’s beds when the cases were harsh, or there was time in their intense schedules for a lay in. And equally bedded pretty birds on the side, dabbling in sex however they could get it. Until his shooting.
That had been the line in the sand for Bodie. He’d proposed the day Doyle got out of hospital.
They couldn’t get legally married, but that didn’t matter. It was their own truth that they were far, far better together than apart.
Doyle leaned back in his chair, widening his eyes. The one drawback to holding a baby for two hours was how cozy and sleepy he got. That was a dismissible offense, falling asleep with a baby in arms. At least the different tones of the alarms played a kind of weird music that kept him oriented to the nursery.
Shifting Tennsley to his left arm to regain circulation in his right, he focussed on Marjorie and the dark skinned nurse at the incubator, watching them draw red blood from the tiny baby’s miniscule wrist. Once that sample was obtained, Marjorie moved on, talking quietly to each nurse.
A team helping each other, just as he and Bodie had with CI5. It would be so different without Murphy, Jax, and Macklin. Which is why they needed to make their own team, as it were. And he had a feeling Bodie would like a feisty little rabble-rouser like Tennsley.
Petra returned, gave a sleepy Tennsley a small measure of liquid morphine into her mouth and offered a dummy for her to suck on. She wanted none of that if there was no milk forthcoming.
“Can’t feed her for a bit until the morphine is in or she could sick it up,” Petra apologized. “I’ll feed Alexis, shall I?”
“Don’t let me get in your way.” Doyle hoisted Tennsley up so she could look at him. She regarded him suspiciously, as Bodie did when interrogating a suspect, all steely-eyed resolve. “We’re getting to know each other.”
Tennsley grimaced and then, like a rainbow after a rainfall, she grinned.
“Look at you, then, miss.” Doyle laughed, watching her eyebrows raise and lower as if she were trying to discern what he was saying. He was absolutely enchanted by her gummy grin, all the while quite aware how much she could scream when caught in the grips of withdrawal. Unlike Petra, Tennsley was not the first addicted infant he’d cuddled.
“There you are. Knew I’d find you still here.” Bodie’s voice came from behind them. “Breaking hearts again, are you, sunshine?”
“On assignment with a gorgeous bird,” Doyle said, looking up at his lover. Bodie was red cheeked and windblown from the blustery December weather. “This is Tennsley.”
“That’s more than enough name for a lassie your size.” Bodie stroked her puff of dark hair.
Face screwed up in anticipation of an outraged howl, Tennsley caught sight of Bodie and cooed instead. She gazed at him with rapt adoration.
“Oh, that’s how it is, eh?” Doyle pretended rejection. “One look at him and I’m yesterday’s paper.”
“She can’t fight what the heart wants,” Bodie said with a smirk. “Tennsley, would love to stay and chat, but we’ve steaks and jacket potatoes awaiting, and me stomach’s empty.”
“Give her to me, then. She’s surely in need of a dry nappy.” Petra plucked the baby from Doyle.
Tennsley screeched her immediate disapproval of the move. Arms and legs flailing, the blanket dropped to the floor as Petra transferred her to the bed.
“Never fear, my love, I’ll come soon to visit,” Doyle promised, catching one small fist in his hand. She was loud, there was no other word for it, announcing her indignation to one and all, taking on the world.
She would fit in just fine where ever she landed, Doyle was sure of that. He wanted her in his life.
“Good evening, Petra.” Doyle waved to her, taking a last look at Tennsley. Not at her most adorable, but he was still in love with every irascible inch of her. “Hope she’s good for you.”
“Ach, she just wants a wee dram,” Petra drawled in broad Scots, laughing. “She’ll quiet soon enough.”
“A wee dram sounds like just the thing,” Bodie announced, rubbing his belly. “More in favor of Glenfiddich than baby milk.”
Doyle would have liked to kiss him, however, not quite the thing to do in the ICN. He fit his hand against Bodie’s back, palm flat on his woollen jumper, soaking in his partner’s essence. “Bodie, what do you think about babies?”
FIN
Link to Fic: Fic Master Post/ Songs That Voices Never Shared
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Date: 2022-12-02 08:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-02 05:04 pm (UTC)Thank you, Doyle! LOL--easy to write this story since I knew the NICU.
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Date: 2022-12-02 11:30 am (UTC)One thing — you couldn't possibly post it here at the comm as well, could you? It makes it less of a community here if people have to go away to comment, and don't have the opportunity to chat with each other in the comments too... We're all so splintered away from each other these days, and Dialj is trying really hard to be a community bringing us all together rather than just a signpost to other archives. Crossing fingers, and thanks! *g*
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Date: 2022-12-02 04:59 pm (UTC)Thanks--It was late at night when I posted and could not remember how to hide the text on LJ. Will try now.
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Date: 2022-12-02 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-02 01:36 pm (UTC)Aww, thank you for this!! ❤️❤️
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Date: 2022-12-02 05:05 pm (UTC)thanks!
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Date: 2022-12-02 02:15 pm (UTC)Wonderful story, Dawn. I can easily see Doyle in this. Thank you.
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Date: 2022-12-02 05:05 pm (UTC)You are always my cheerleader.
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Date: 2022-12-02 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-02 07:04 pm (UTC)Thanks! I like 'seeing' him with a baby, too. Since I work in an NICU, it wasn't hard to create that world.
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Date: 2022-12-02 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-02 11:35 pm (UTC)Ta, sweets. I do know something about feeding withdrawing babies--as well as Doyle and Bodie.
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Date: 2022-12-03 12:56 am (UTC)Inspires holiday feelings!!!! Thanks.
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Date: 2022-12-03 02:30 am (UTC)So happy you think so!
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Date: 2022-12-03 08:10 am (UTC)It' funny. We just had a little Pros meeting and we watched this awful episode — and had a lot of fun with it! :-)
Just look at these 'thugs':
*ggg* — the right one must have used tons of hairspray! :-)
Anyway, you've made something beautiful out of it! :-)
Thank you!
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Date: 2022-12-04 04:42 am (UTC)LOL, rather like the ginger. If there's one thing I know, it's drug addicted babies--so that was an easy hook for a story. Thank you.
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Date: 2022-12-04 05:11 am (UTC)"If there's one thing I know, it's drug addicted babies..."
Do they have a chance to have a 'normal' — a healthy — life when they leave hospital?
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Date: 2022-12-04 05:16 am (UTC)Of course! They go home healthy and do well--but we always get more...In the 80's, it was projected that 'crack' babies (who always come out premature) would be damaged. In fact, many did perfectly fine and went on to college and good careers. The heroin babies are big, hearty looking infants who eat a tonne. Now days, we rarely give morphine any more, but we did in the 80s.
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Date: 2022-12-03 06:39 pm (UTC)This is so sweet and Christmas cuddly. Bodie and Doyle would be just the people for a little handful like Tennsley. Thanks for sharing!
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Date: 2022-12-04 04:41 am (UTC)Thanks, V. Yes, they need a rabble rouser.
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Date: 2022-12-03 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-04 04:40 am (UTC)That makes me so happy.
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Date: 2023-01-01 09:52 pm (UTC)What a wonderful idea. I love Doyle holding Tennsley and falling in love with her. And I'm sure she'll fit into his little family with Bodie. :-)
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Date: 2023-01-02 04:59 am (UTC)Aww, thank you. I could so imagine Doyle angsting over his words once he learned how wrong he had been about drug moms and their babies and wanting to make amends. Then falling in love with a 7 pound young lady with temper.