Fugitive Postscript

by Allie

Doyle brought Bodie some ice wrapped in a towel.

"Ta." Bodie accepted the pack and pressed it against his bruised face, suppressing a grimace.

"Anywhere else you need it?" Doyle leaned against the desk and crossed his arms across his chest, watching Bodie closely. His face was tight, his eyes dark with concern.

"I'll be fine, thanks," mumbled Bodie, his eyes closed.

Doyle hadn't left Bodie's side since ripping the bomb off his chest. After tackling his partner, who was trying to run away from him-so that Doyle wouldn't die when he did. It was too raw. They couldn't talk about this sacrifice each one had offered, not yet—maybe not ever.

Bodie snorted. "I need a good soak, nice week's rest, and I'll be fine."

"You'll be fine when the doctors say you're fine." Doyle thumped Bodie lightly on the shoulder with his fist—very lightly.

"I'm fine, Doyley," said Bodie softly, not looking at him.

"Good." A pause. Then in a stronger voice: "Except your brain, I see. Running away from me!"

Apparently they were going to talk about it, Bodie realized.

Bodie didn't say anything, because there was nothing to say. He still felt too raw and bruised to joke about it. Doyle, in this case, had been right—he could get the bomb off in time: they'd both survived.

But—if he'd been unable to—if the bomb had been detonated just a moment earlier—then they'd both have gone to bits. It hadn't been a real choice. Bodie had felt the need to run—still felt that he'd had no other choice. There was nothing he could say, either to minimize it or to excuse it or to make Doyle feel better. Doyle would already know why he'd run, of course he would.

"Took some years off my life, I'll tell ya," said Doyle's low, gravelly voice. "Next time you do that I'll kill you myself." He pushed off from the table and sauntered away.

Bodie rolled his eyes and pressed gently with the ice pack, wincing even at that light pressure.

Doyle returned, bringing with him another ice pack, nudging Bodie so he startled, eyes opening. He was exhausted past the point of exhausted, utterly in need of rest. Yet there was much to do still.

"C'mon, get you to hospital," said Doyle, and reached out a hand on his arm to help him up.

"I'll be fine," he grumbled. Last thing he wanted was some doctor poking and prodding at him. He'd been hurt before. Ray ought to trust him to know how badly and if he needed medical assistance.

But Ray just gave him a stern look and pulled him to his feet.

Bodie gave Doyle a shove in the side, so that Doyle stumbled and caught himself and started to come back at Bodie—and then hesitated, and didn't.

Bodie gave him a teeth-baring grin, daring him. Even that movement hurt his cheeks with a deep down, bone hurt.

Doyle gave him a narrow-eyed look, then caught his arm and pulled him after him towards the doorway. "C'mon," he growled.

During the ride in the car, Bodie leaned back, his head swimming. The sound of the car's motor was somehow soothing even to his aching head. It was so familiar. Doyle drove at a decent pace, but not a breakneck, unnerving speed and that made it comfortable, like old times. Bodie closed his eyes…

And woke to Doyle gently shaking him. "C'mon, Bodie," said Doyle. He was leaning close, and his face was starkly etched with concern. He drew back when he saw Bodie awake. "Have a little kip?"

Bodie grumbled and cursed at him as he shifted sore and tired bones that felt at least eighty years old. "Think you could've landed any harder on me?"

"Yeah, if you'd run a bit harder," retorted Doyle. He came around and helped Bodie out, no sign that he was concerned now, except a tightening of his face. And his eyes looked like very dark, deep pits.

He helped Bodie into the hospital and didn't leave until the doctor told him to.

"I'll be in the waiting room," Doyle announced to no one in particular, turned on his heel and stalked from the room, head down, hands shoving into his pockets.

Bodie let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, and began to fumble to open his shirt.

The doctor got out a penlight and flashed it into Bodie's eyes.

The doctor said little while he did his examination, though he noted the bruises and cuts that covered most of Bodie's chest, arms, and legs, and the cigarette burns on his arms. He treated the wounds he could, then gave advice for rest and the easing of pain, and a prescription for painkillers from the Dispensary.

"No work for a week. The nurse will get you a sick note if you need one. Nothing strenuous in that time. I'd say a walk to the pub and a quick game of darts is all you'll be up for."

"And maybe some birds," said Bodie, to keep up his image. The doctor gave him a look, not buying it.

"Right. I'm off." Bodie pushed himself off the table, grimacing, a hand going to his side. He was, he thought, lucky not to have any broken ribs. The mistreatment had bruised them badly enough, and Doyle's tackle hadn't helped, either.

"Make sure you take those painkillers," said the doctor. "Don't be a hero."

Bodie laughed.

He thought of the years, the interminable years in the back of that van, the decades that had seemed to pass during his captivity. He wanted the resting week to be over already; he wanted to be strong and healthy and back to work, able to take on anyone.

He emerged into the waiting area to see Doyle pacing like a trapped tiger.

"Oi, mother hen," said Bodie and Doyle whirled, as alert as if he were ready to face a hundred dangers. Doyle saw Bodie's face and relaxed. (Good; Bodie's expression must've matched his words, and not shown pain.)

"Take me home," said Bodie.

"What'd the doctor say? You'll be all right?" He was still looking at Bodie's face as they strode down the hall, a bit less quickly than Bodie normally would have, and Doyle keeping pace with him.

"'Course I'll be all right. Even said I could play darts and go to the pub."

Doyle snorted. "And I'm the bloody Queen of England."

"Oh yeah? Then get me a sandwich, Your Majesty, I'm famished."

Doyle helped him into the car, held the door while Bodie worked his legs in after him. He was so stiff!

After a moment, Doyle asked, "What kind?"

"Eh?" Distracted by the pain, and a head that was beginning to pound in earnest, Bodie glanced up. "What kind of—"

"Sandwich." Worried, guilty, squinting eyes looked down at him out of that bleak face.

Bollocks. They were going to be dealing with this one for awhile, weren't they? More of the famous Doyle guilt trips.

"It wasn't your bloody fault," snapped Bodie, his last nerve too ragged to deal with this right now.

Doyle gave the door a firm push shut, a gesture of finality. "I could've stayed down longer."

The fake gunfight—of course.

Bodie's face stretched into a grin, almost despite himself. "Then bleedin' do it next time. C'mon, Ray. I'm starved!"

Doyle smiled back—a small, reluctant smile, but a real one nonetheless. He strode around to the other side and slid behind the wheel. "I'd buy you a steak if you were up for it. But as it is, you're probably only up to chewing marmalade."

"True, but I'll hold you to it." Who was Bodie to turn down a future meal of steak?

"Do that." Doyle pulled the car into traffic, not looking at Bodie, his moment of seriousness hiding all the things he could not say, the raw, painful, I-almost-lost-a-partner things.

"I will."

Doyle glanced over at him, his brow furrowed, as if hearing something in Bodie's tone that hadn't been in his words, and wanting to see if he'd heard correctly.

"Watch the road, pillock," suggested Bodie.

Doyle smiled, and watched the road.