Title: Ritz To The Rubble
Rating: T (just a few strong words)
Disclaimer: I don't own the show or the characters. I don't even own the idea. I just wrote it for your reading pleasure.
Summary: It starts as it always starts with them - with a row.
A/N: The idea came from a discussion of "The Family Man" between CrazyMaryT and Fe about a scenario from that film happening with Boyd and Grace. I diverted a bit from their idea and this came out. The title comes from an Arctic Monkeys-song. I'm crap with titles. Sorry.
Hope you all enjoy.
Ritz To The Rubble
It starts as it always starts with them - with a row. It's a spectacular one, this time. Visors down, truncheons at the ready, and off they go.
If it were any other person than her, it would end in punches, scratches, bites, and possibly a drawn knife, but she isn't the type for it and he isn't so far gone that he wants to prove her right. Even that isn't entirely true, because he would prove everybody else right and her wrong. If there is still one person left in the world who does not only believe the worst of him, it is Grace, and at times that is Boyd's only lifeline.
Still, their row is spectacular, even though it isn't as bad as it can get: she isn't running out on him.
But they row over one thing or the other, her assessment of the suspect, which he dismisses in a blas manner, or her lecturing, which he ostentatiously ignores.
They aren't over their epic fall-out yet, even less reconciled from the Sarah-incident.
It's still awkward and uneasy and tense, so the smallest thing sets them off.
The rest of the unit tries to avoid the danger zone by disappearing on errands that only superficially cause progress to the case, but offer the opportunity to leave. They roll their eyes and sigh, wondering, not for the first time, whether they will come back and find clothes strewn all over the office and their senior team members passionately entwined while finally resolving the tension in the only way they should have done for years.
The other option is finding clothes strewn, but pools of blood streaming on the office floor after Boyd and Grace have finally managed to kill each other.
If it's up to Spencer, he isn't certain which option he prefers; Eve and Stella vouch firmly for the former. They've suggested to just lock the older two into a room until they've pulled their heads out of their arses and have done the deed.
In the office there are heated words, barbed with accusations (from her) and insults (from him). It rarely is the other way around, because he can't accuse her of anything other than doing her job. He considers it a load of bollocks most of the time and once he's riled up, as he is now, he doesn't have the presence of mind to admit and accept that her contribution to the team is exceedingly valuable. Boyd's also not ready to take on board that Grace's assessment might be correct.
Grace is a lot more refined and self-possessed, which is why she doesn't use insults in her arguments. She thinks them, which is just as bad, especially as he is aware of it. It drives his anger even higher, which completes the circle that is the inevitable structure of their rows.
MacFadyen is not the perpetrator, Grace argues; he is, at worst, an accomplice to the crime. She doesn't yet have a name for the actual offender, but she thinks that finding that name is a detective's job. Boyd disagrees on principle. Partly because all evidence points to MacFadyen, and partially because he simply wants that man to be it.
So, they argue and the exchanges get fiercer and angrier by the moment. It also becomes personal, as Boyd leaves the sphere of arguing and accusing to submerge himself completely in insulting. The only thing he doesn't stoop to is attacking her femininity, but that's only because at that moment it doesn't cross his mind.
Maybe it's also due to the fact that he is intensely aware of her femininity, her perfume - his favourite - wreaking havoc on him in a way he doesn't dare to inspect more closely. It's a direct road to madness and they are close enough as it is.
In the end, Grace snarls, "Oh, grow up, Boyd!" and turns away.
It isn't the absolute end, because in the mood they both are, there's no way, Boyd lets her have the final word. Therefore, he creates it by actually shouting, "Fuck off, Grace!" and slamming the office door on his way out.
It's easy to audibly follow him by the slowly fading sounds of slamming doors.
They don't see each other for a few hours, but that does nothing for the equilibrium of their relations and dealings. She hasn't left, but her posture is defensive to the max. That, in addition to her very frosty expression, is something that - as it always does - causes a wave of remorse to curse through Boyd's mind, heart, gut and body. When she wears that expression and posture, there's always a tiny hint of fear underneath her defiance.
If there's something Peter Boyd really fears, it is Grace being afraid of him, because that means he is beyond reckoning, beyond saving.
They muddle along as the team returns, the atmosphere almost Arctic and as tightly wound as a drum. The younger team members want to be anywhere but there and they all do miserable jobs of hiding it. They report their findings, which are meagre enough, but surprisingly, Boyd merely acknowledges the fact. It is then that they realize just how close they are to a serious and possibly irredeemable eruption of temper.
They all sit around the desks in the bullpen, staring at the plexiglas board, willing some connection to make itself known, some hint they've overlooked so far.
Stella makes an off-hand comment about a picture of the scene and something a colleague of MacFadyen has said.
They sit there for a moment before suddenly all jumping up and racing towards the car park.
Grace lags behind, because of a general lack of fitness (which is not to be discussed further), and Eve as well, who runs to gather a case of basic forensic instruments. It leads to reaching the car park when Spencer and Stella have already gone, glad that they escape the confines of Boyd's car where the atmosphere will be almost unbearable.
Eve doesn't relish it either, but she sees a lot deeper than her colleagues and therefore can work as a buffer. She isn't happy about it and her careful attempts at conversation receive little response, so she lapses into silence at last. The air is thick enough to be cut with a knife, but Eve can easily observe that this time it will be Boyd who will offer the olive branch, however awkward and ill-executed it will be. He's wrong, he's realizing it, if his covert but frequent glances in the rear view mirror say anything and Eve knows the angry waves will calm down sooner or later.
They reach the site of the crime with screeching tyres, Boyd having created a road rage to die for, despite his preoccupation. It leads to them being almost right behind Spencer and Stella.
There are other cars parked in front of the property, indicating that the things they have set in motion with their investigation will come to a head now. There is shouting from the old building that is in the process of being dismantled. The rest of the roof and most beams already shake precariously, making the place far from safe.
There are three men on the premises, one of them MacFadyen. Everybody's attention, however, is drawn to the other two, one of whom points a gun at the man.
Boyd gives a short gesture with his head, ordering Spencer and Stella to move into position. Naturally, they've come without guns, which at this particular point seems a serious miss. It would be easier to resolve the situation with a single, well-aimed shot.
The argument of the three men is at full force and with the wind whipping around the place and the beams groaning under the forces, the team can't understand anything. They aren't heard either, which is an advantage.
It doesn't last long, as one of the men spots the newcomers and simply turns to run. Spencer, being the man for such situations, follows in hot pursuit, leaving Stella and Boyd to dissolve the quarrel at hand. In typical fashion, neither thinks of negotiating the situation or having Grace calm the men down.
She thinks of it and slowly moves into position to be heard, if possible. Against an armed man it is utterly reckless and if Boyd had any time to consider it, they would plummet right into another spectacular row.
As it is, Boyd suddenly lunges at the armed man, while Stella pulls MacFadyen out of the line of fire and then away from the structure. He's in shock and resists, but he is a small, weak man and no match for the young officer who knows exactly what she's doing.
The three women take care of MacFadyen quickly, always with half an eye on the struggle in the structure that isn't over yet. The gun is gone, but their new offender resists his arrest, hits and kicks and claws at Boyd.
The men roll around in the structure, fall against beams, stumble against others, and their grunts and groans mix with the wind and the noise of the beams.
The latter suddenly changes into a continuous, cracking wail, and even though Grace will later see those seconds in slow motion before her inner eyes, it takes only moments for the structure to collapse on top of the fighting men.
A huge cloud of dust explodes around the structure, covering everybody within a 50 yard radius in grey soot. The sound wave of the break down carries on as well, mixing with a high-pitched scream.
"Boyd!"
Eve throws her arms around Grace from behind to keep her from physically reacting beyond that mighty scream, but it is of little use. The profiler acts purely on instinct and adrenaline, there's nothing left of the self control, thoughtfulness and serenity. There is just a woman who sees her world crumbling before her eyes and such a woman does not think.
She acts.
Before either Eve or Stella can respond, Grace is on the small mountain of rubble, repeatedly shouting for Boyd.
There's little chance of hearing a reply, if the DSI is actually still capable of giving one. Grace doesn't take this into account, doesn't think any more. With bare hands she starts pulling shards and pieces of wood away from the top and throws them somewhere. She doesn't stop, doesn't pause, doesn't halt.
Only her voice changes, from anxiety, over anger, to fear, then desperation. There is a good amount of foul language involved in her tirade, which makes her audience smile and blush simultaneously. Words like "idiot," "arsehole," even "wanker" and whatnot comes to the fore and under different circumstances it would be hilariously funny. Yet there are tears beginning to audibly and visibly mix with the curses and that is what worries Eve.
She leaves Stella to take care of MacFadyen, relieved that from afar she can hear the sirens of the fire brigade, uniformed police and ambulances.
Climbing on top of the rubble mountain, her hope for an unharmed DSI sinks considerably, for they will need heavy machinery to pull away the beams. That will be a time consuming process and Boyd might have very little time. There is no telling what injuries he has sustained.
For all it is worth, he could be dead already.
The thought causes her to catch her breath and she forgets everything she might have wanted to do originally and just helps Grace dig. From the side, she can see the older woman's expression and it scares her more than the scene of destruction before them.
There is little of the high-maintenance intellectual left, replaced by pure instinct and obsessive actions caused by naked fear. That's not Grace any more and Eve isn't sure if she'll ever return, should this go wrong.
Firemen and police officers move in, gently but insistently remove the women. It's the real piece de resistance, for Grace resists fiercely, screaming and fighting bodily.
They almost carry her away and it's up to Eve and now Stella, relieved of their witness, to catch her as Grace falls with a wail.
A medic takes one look at the three women and returns with a syringe. Even before the needle can deposit its content, Grace has fallen into apathy, staring unseeingly at the scene before her. She doesn't talk, doesn't react at all.
After a while she begins shaking, almost to the point of a seizure. The medic is back, but shakes his head. "Keep her warm and hold onto her." He doesn't have any better advice and no other treatment.
They wait, Grace sitting on small stool and Eve and Stella literally holding her together with the strength and warmth of their bodies.
Spencer has returned in the meantime, delivering their suspect into custody, but it has little meaning. He's as pale as they've ever seen him, both at the fact that Boyd's beneath that broken down structure and at the lifeless expression on Grace.
He's gone to lend a helping hand, now pulling debris off as well.
And so they sit.
And they wait.
It's endless.
Each minute turns into hours.
New tools have to be brought in. Heavier machinery to operate. As the daylight fades, floodlights are needed, which do nothing to cause a more optimistic mindset.
The medic adds another light dose of sedative into Grace's system, but even the basic treatments don't diminish her state of shock. At some point he whispers questioningly, "Her husband?", which makes both Eve and Stella stare at him as if he'd grown another head. The medic retreats then and leaves them alone.
It's well into the night before anything really happens. The visits by the DAC, then even the AC, do not count as memorable incidents and are mainly ignored. Close to 11pm, there is a sudden shout from the site and if she's been apathetic before, now Grace suddenly jumps into action again.
It takes Stella's full strength to restrain her, keep her from running back to the rubble.
Spencer comes bouncing down, as weary as he is, but there is a sudden elation in him that taps into a well of energy previously hidden.
He pulls Grace into an embrace and swirls her around. Grinning like a madman, he shouts, "He's alive! Alive and conscious!"
That is more than a small miracle. By rights Boyd should have been dead, but he isn't and it even turns out that he gets off relatively unscathed. His injured leg is not even really broken. Some minor treatment and a few weeks on desk duty - which will turn him into a total bear - is all that he takes away from the experience.
If stubbornness is the way prevent death by injury, Boyd has found the perfect survival strategy. As it is, he comes out strangely subdued. There's no cocky grin on his face that needs a few stitches and some TLC in the immediate future. There isn't even a tasteless and dismissive joke on his lips. If anything, his attention is riveted to the waif between Stella and Eve. Grace looks even worse for wear than he does and the team can't help but notice how quickly and thoroughly Boyd assesses that particular situation.
He doesn't say a thing, doesn't need too, but seconds later Grace's hand is clutching his like a lifeline.
Spencer has the best angle to notice that her knuckles turn white under the pressure from his fingers.
They are silent, their spectacular row that morning put aside. Not forgotten, because neither of them is able to forget the lows of their relationship, but this moment of holding onto each other's hand as if it's the only thing in the world and the infinitesimal smiles that don't show on their faces, but connect their eyes, will go a long way to smooth over arguments past, present and future.
He's heard her through the rubble, at least in his imagination he did. It gave him strength and calm to hold on. Later, years later, when they are lying in each other's arms one late night, after she has woken up from a nightmare of this evening, he will hold her tight, soothe her shudders with his hands, and he will tell her about this. How he originally vowed to survive, just to explain to her that her profile was bollocks nonetheless, but that later on, he just wanted to return to her. And to his son.
She'll playfully slap his shoulder for the former comment, their spectacular row truly water under the bridge by then, and she will hold him tight, soothing him for the latter.
This is how they operate.
It always starts with a row, but it will never end with one.
Thank you for reading. Comments would be greatly appreciated.