DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.

Dedication - this one's for all my WtD-minded friends, near and far. :)

Fool's Game

by Joodiff

Refilling his glass, Boyd fights against the compulsion to look at his watch. It doesn't matter what the exact time is, whether it's just before or just after nine – either way it's too damn late. No point in tormenting himself further. He doesn't waste any time taking his first swallow from the replenished glass. The whiskey is smooth, expensive, and though an obstinate sense of pride makes him cling to the polite fiction that he is still stone-cold sober, he ceased to notice its burn a glass or two ago. That doesn't matter, either – there's no-one in the house to disapprove, no-one to judge him and his behaviour. If he drinks himself into unconsciousness and wakes up in the morning still sprawled here on the couch, with only a stiff neck and a blinding headache to remember the evening by, well, who's going to know? Or care. Disgusted by his moment pitiful self-indulgence, Boyd shakes his head and takes another swallow of the potent amber spirit. Getting drunk isn't the answer, but he hopes it will eventually make him forget the question. At least for tonight.

Ironic though it may be, he's a little proud of himself. Proud in the same stoic, stubborn way that's characterised a large part of his life. Tough on those around him, even tougher on himself. No different this time. He wonders if she'll one day realise what he did for her. Probably. Grace Foley is, after all, a very intelligent and perceptive woman, and a psychologist to boot. And he's often suspected that over the years she's come to know him rather better than he knows himself. So, yes, she'll probably come to understand the truth. One day. And if she doesn't, well that's just another thing that doesn't matter a damn.

Don't make assumptions. A basic tenet of Boyd's career for more years than he cares to think about. Never assume anything. He did, though. Not openly, and maybe not even consciously, but he did, and now he's far too painfully aware of it. At some unknown point, somewhere at the back of his mind, somewhere deep in his heart, whether he was truly aware of it, or not, he allowed a quiet assumption to form, to take root, and now he's paying dearly for it.

An undemonstrative sort of man in matters of the heart, the thought strikes him as far too dramatic. He might be wounded, yes, but wounds heal, and what's one more piece of emotional scar tissue more or less to someone who's had such a turbulent and difficult life? Boyd is used to loss, knows from experience that he can bear it. Not easily, not without pain, and not in any way that… she… would approve of, but he can bear it. Will bear it.

Improbably, the heavy tumbler is empty again, and he stares blankly at it, making no attempt to reach for the bottle on the coffee table. Yet.

It's a wonderful opportunity for her. An unparalleled opportunity, one neither of them would ever have predicted. Not now, not… at her age. He feels a little disloyal for thinking the words, but it's the brutal truth. The measure of how just how exceptional the opportunity is showed in her expression from the very the first phone call. Boyd isn't stupid. He knows that was the exact moment his quiet, foolhardy assumptions about the future shattered into a thousand jagged shards, each capable of cutting into him deep and clean, just like fresh scalpel blades.

"Are you mad?" he'd demanded when she'd tentatively raised the possibility of declining the oh-so tempting offer. As brusque and as gruff as he could possibly force himself to be – for her sake, not for his. Something in her eyes had dulled at his harsh response, but that hadn't been as bad as the look he'd seen there when he'd deliberately stressed just how casual their… arrangement… was. Just two old friends muddling along together in the same general direction while it suited them, no strings attached. No big deal if she moved to the States. Life goes on.

It might have hurt Boyd even more than it hurt her, but he's always been much better at concealing his feelings. Much better at deliberate mendacity.

He stretches out a half-hearted hand towards the bottle, and, damn the world to hell, there's his heavy Swiss watch right in front of him, its bold hands telling him that it really is too late now. All things being equal, her flight has left Heathrow. The stark truth is that Grace will be in New York before he wakes up – hungover or not – to face the first day of the rest of his life. The first day for forty-odd years when he won't be subconsciously beholden to anyone or anything. Nothing and no-one to fight for or against, nothing to hold his focus, or to distract him from the restless demons that continue to snap at his heels like a feral pack of hungry dogs.

"I don't think so," she'd said in a cool, brittle tone when he'd cautiously asked if she thought she'd ever return to London. What she hadn't said – that there was nothing left for her to come back to – had haunted him through the days that followed. Still haunts him.

Noble self-sacrifice is a fool's game. That's Boyd's considered opinion now, as he pours out yet another measure of whiskey. Doubly so when there's no-one to appreciate the gesture. Though that's far from a chivalrous thought. It stings a little, though, that he will always be regarded as the villain. As the hard-hearted, indifferent man who didn't care enough to think about asking her to stay. No-one will ever dare say as much to his face, but he knows he'll see it in the expressions of all their mutual friends and former colleagues every single time their paths cross from now on. There will be unkind whispers behind his back, silent accusations to his face. It bothers him more than he'll ever admit.

I loved her, that's what he'll want to shout at them as one by one they pass judgement on him. I loved her enough to do what was best for her. What sort of life would she have had, with a man like me? She deserved better after going through so much…

He'll never say it. Not to them, not to anyone. Not even – except on long lonely evenings like this – to himself.

He needs to find… something else. Not someone, but something. Maybe there will be another someone one day, but if there is, she won't be –

Boyd cuts the thought off before it can take on substance, before it can stake a claim on his memory. Something, that's what he needs. A job, a hobby, whatever; he doesn't really care, just as long as it helps devour all the empty days he can foresee before him in the years ahead. Sometimes he wonders if he really did the right thing, refusing the promotion to Chief Superintendent and the largely administrative post at Hendon offered along with it. He doesn't tend to wonder for long, knows he's temperamentally unsuited to such a job. Better to do what he did and elect for retirement and a full pension.

But.

But he's lost the one thing he had left that still offered him any challenge, and, fuck, does he miss her already.

Friendship, companionship, a long shared history. Important things. Things that are hard to find, and even harder to trust. Someone to whisper gently in his ear in the darkest hours of the night when he wakes sweating from one or other of the terrifying nightmares that have stalked him for years. Someone to laugh at him when he loses his temper over something stupidly insignificant. Someone to look at him and know, just know, what has made him the man he is.

He did it for her. That's all Boyd can hang onto now. Tenure guaranteed by the end of the academic year, and a whole new chapter of her life beginning just when she was on the reluctant verge of making the decision to join him in retirement. He knows her enthusiasm will carry her forward into boundless new adventures long after most women of her age have allowed themselves to become inactive, to become prematurely old and ineffectual. If anything can offer him some much-needed cheer, it's that. He hopes she buys herself some stupidly impractical big American car, and sits up with her post-grad students into the small hours of the morning telling them about all the things she's seen and done in her extraordinary life. Hell, he even hopes – half-heartedly – that she finds someone who finds her infuriating eccentricity and her obstinate self-reliance as endearing as he learnt to.

It'll be a ridiculous tragedy if they both end up alone and lonely.

Things will look better in the morning, Boyd tells himself. Once the monumental hangover heading his way has passed. Tonight… well, maybe tonight he's entitled to be melancholy. Not only is noble self-sacrifice a fool's game, he thinks darkly, but it hurts rather-too-fucking-much for his liking.

Cheers, Grace, he thinks without any irony, raising his almost-empty glass a tiny fraction in salute. Just… be happy. That's all I ask.

-oOo-

In a drunken, hazy sort of way, he dreams of her, of the light, floral scent of her perfume, of her gentle fingers stroking through his hair, of the characteristic touch of wry amusement in her soft voice. It's bittersweet, a blessing and a curse, and as he struggles back to awareness Boyd wonders if she'll always be there, somewhere in his dreams.

"For heaven's sake, Boyd," her voice says, its clarity and proximity unnerving him. "Just how much have you had to drink?"

Enough to imagine you, he thinks, his mind still far too foggy to make sense of anything. The ambient temperature seems to have dropped, and his back and shoulders are stiff and aching. The sour taste of whiskey makes his stomach roil for a moment, and he's rapidly becoming aware of a dull but unforgiving ache behind his eyes.

"Wake up," the phantom from his dream commands, following the order with a sharp, "Peter."

He knows that tone. Far too well. Waspish, impatient, and just a little condescending. And the tetchy use of his first name never, ever bodes well. But, Christ, he loves her.

Pain notwithstanding, Boyd opens his eyes, slitting them against the unwelcome glare of light from the big lamp in the corner of his living room. Grace is perched on the edge of the sofa looking down at him with an expression that can only be described as disgruntled. Still rather drunk, and at least two-thirds asleep, he manages a gruff, "Why… are you here?"

"I'll assume that's not a deep philosophical question, shall I?" she replies. She still sounds irritable, but she reaches out a hand, and he feels her brush back the recalcitrant lock of hair that falls naturally over his forehead given the slightest chance. It's most definitely time he paid his barber a visit. Grace shakes her head. "I really don't envy you the hangover you're going to have in the morning."

A little less befuddled, he frowns and inquires, "Aren't you supposed to be halfway to New York by now?"

"In theory."

The cryptic reply dispels any lingering notion Boyd may have that he is talking to an alcohol-induced hallucination. "What does that mean?"

"In theory, I am; in practice, I'm not."

He groans and closes his eyes again. "Oh God… spare me. Simple, Grace, please. Slow and simple."

There's more than a touch of amusement in her voice as she retorts, "A bit like you when you're in this state, you mean?"

He risks a glare in her direction. The light still hurts his eyes, but on balance, he thinks it's worth it. "Why. Are. You. Here?"

She seems to take pity on him. "I had to spend quite a lot of time just sitting around at the airport. Sitting around thinking. I was about to go through customs when I decided something."

"What?"

She shrugs, imperturbable and unafraid. "I'd rather have a husband in London than a job in Philadelphia."

Helpfully, Boyd's mind replays the words for him not just once, but twice. And then a third time just to make quite sure he's absorbed them properly. He doesn't move a muscle, just gazes at her with what he hopes is the appropriate level of solemnity. "A bloody good job in Philadelphia, Grace."

"You'd better do your best to be a really bloody good husband, then, hadn't you?"

She's worked it out. Well, of course she has. Not only is she very shrewd, but she knows how fond he is of the grand gesture. With due care, Boyd sits up. It makes his head spin, and turns the ache behind his eyes into something akin to medieval torture, but some things are most definitely easier to bear than others.

Fighting against the inevitable is a fool's game, too. She's watching him with the steady composure that he always takes as a direct challenge. Blue eyes, clear and thoughtful, but intense, too. He can turn that blue into a maelstrom with a single kiss, and that's a prize he doubts he'll ever tire of chasing.

"Every damn minute of every damn day, Grace," he promises. And he means it.

- the end -