DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.
A/N: It may seem odd to choose July to upload a fic centred around snow, but this story has been sitting unfinished on my hard-drive for more than four years, much to the infuriation of those who knew about it and wanted to read it. So here it is, finally finished right in the middle of summer.
Many thanks to Got Tea for enthusiastic cheerleading and good-natured backside-kicking. Without her, it would still be unfinished. Sincere thanks also go to all who continue to read, write, and review in this fandom. Enjoy! :)
Blizzard
by Joodiff
ONE – Unforeseen Circumstances
It's been an extremely long day, one that started far too early, and the combination of the car's warmth and the continuous motorway drone is incredibly soporific, but even so Grace isn't really aware that she's dozing in the front passenger seat until she's disturbed by sharp, muttered cursing from her right. She opens her eyes, about to question the muted outburst, but her words die away as she registers the sudden severity of the arctic conditions outside. What were merely a few swirling snowflakes last time she looked has become a heavy blizzard, and although wet black tyre tracks are still visible ahead of them in the arc of the Audi's powerful headlights, the snow is definitely settling. And it's settling fast.
Startled, she asks, "How long has it been this bad?"
Boyd glances in her direction. His expression is grim as he replies, "We ran into it about ten miles back, and it's been getting steadily worse ever since."
Shifting herself into a more upright position, Grace looks for some clue to their approximate location. There's nothing, the snow and the darkness successfully disguising anything that might be at all familiar. Disorientated, she frowns before inquiring, "Where are we?"
The reply is terse. "Not far from Stafford."
She checks her watch – not easy in the gloom. It's well past eight already. They are going to be very, very late getting back to London. If, given that the rapidly falling snow only seems to be increasing in strength and severity, they make it back at all. Boyd is not driving fast, but she can feel the car's traction control struggling to keep a safe grip on the treacherous road surface. The gloomily-prophesied bad weather has arrived early and with a vengeance, but although it's mid-January so much snow falling so suddenly anywhere south of Scotland is highly unusual.
"Do you think we should stop?" she eventually asks.
Boyd shakes his head. The low light level in the car makes his strong, striking profile seem even more hawkish than usual. "If we can make it down as far as Birmingham, we should be all right."
He's probably right, she thinks. The severity of the first real snow of the winter has no doubt caught everyone by surprise – the British are notoriously bad at coping with unexpected extremes of weather – but the chances are that the further south they get, the clearer the roads will be. Still, Grace suddenly isn't holding out much hope of being warmly and safely tucked up in her own bed until at least the early hours of the morning.
For a while neither of them says anything more. They are quiet, but the atmosphere between them is easy enough; it's simply that they've spent far too many hours cooped up in the car together since leaving London painfully early that same morning. And now that their official business is concluded and they are both exhausted, there's really not much left to say as they head doggedly back towards the metropolis. Staring out at the thick snow for a moment before forcing herself to relax, Grace is incredibly glad she's not the one driving. In hindsight, perhaps it would have been more sensible to fly up to Manchester than to drive, but…
"Shit," Boyd's irritable voice declares.
Reluctantly, Grace opens her eyes, only dimly aware that she's been dozing again. They have reached the back of what appears to be a very long queue of near-stationary traffic. Snow-covered and slow-moving cars, vans and lorries are straddled across all three lanes of the motorway. The snow is still falling heavily, and even the Audi's brisk windscreen wipers are barely keeping up with the formidable blizzard.
Grace empathises fully with her companion's tangible annoyance. She grumbles, "Oh, wonderful."
For a moment they are still rolling slowly forwards, but then the brake lights in front of them come on, flaring brightly against the snow, and they come to a gentle but inexorable halt. The only good thing about the whole unwelcome situation is that it is blessedly warm inside the big executive car.
-oOo-
In just over an hour they manage to travel perhaps half a mile. Their agonisingly slow progress has an entirely predictable and detrimental effect on Boyd's temper. He growls and swears, and curses the other road users around them, and more than once he offers the kind of abrupt hand signals that are definitely not listed in any version of the Highway Code that Grace has ever encountered. Her half-hearted attempts to pacify him fall on stubbornly deaf ears, and when a small, sporty silver hatchback suddenly swerves in from the middle lane and very deliberately cuts in front of them, he loses patience altogether, sounding the horn and angrily flashing the car's main beam. A moment later one hand leaves the steering wheel to locate the discreet, aftermarket switch mounted low on the dashboard, and then there are rhythmic flashes of blue bouncing off the snow and the other vehicles in the gridlocked queue.
The unmarked Audi's under-grille strobes firmly announce their presence and status to everyone in the immediate vicinity and the effect is instantaneous and faintly amusing. The standard of driving all around them improves immeasurably, and they are suddenly afforded all the space they could possibly want to manoeuvre in. For a moment Grace thinks Boyd will push forwards, forcing a fourth lane through the bunched traffic, but she's wrong. He pulls the car left, out onto the hard shoulder where the deepening snow lies untouched, and suddenly they are making much better progress.
"Are you allowed to do this?" Grace inquires, not expecting an answer.
"No," Boyd says simply, "but tell me you really want to sit here in traffic all bloody night?"
He has a point. They continue to plough up the hard shoulder, not fast, but their progress is much quicker than the rest of the nearly-stalled queue, and eventually theirs are not the only blue lights visible in the dark and the ever-increasing snowstorm. Boyd slows down as they approach the temporary police roadblock. Two marked traffic cars are parked across the motorway lanes, all lights on. As they approach, a disgruntled-looking uniformed officer in a thick high-visibility coat waves them down.
There's an icy blast of cold air as Boyd lowers the driver's window and holds up his warrant card for inspection. "DSI Boyd, Met."
"Sir," the subordinate officer acknowledges with a curt nod.
"What's happening here?"
"Serious accident about half a mile down," the man supplies with a brief wave of his arm. "Jack-knifed lorry and a couple of cars. Three fatalities at least."
"How bad are the road conditions ahead?"
The officer shakes his head. "Not good, sir. This stretch alone is likely to stay closed until the morning. The snowploughs are struggling to keep up, and the gritters are stuck at Cannock."
"We need to come through."
He doesn't look surprised by Boyd's determination. He nods. "No problem, but you'll need to come off at the next junction – the whole motorway's closed further down, too."
"What about the A-roads?" Grace asks, leaning across to make herself more easily heard.
"Pretty much impassable at the moment, ma'am," the officer tells her, his expression pensive. "If you're trying to get back to London tonight, my advice is to forget it. I doubt you'll make it as far as Birmingham, let alone any further."
Which definitely isn't what either of them wants to hear.
-oOo-
Perhaps it's the sobering sight of the accident site, of the crumpled, crushed metal and the grim cluster of emergency vehicles and their attendant staff, Grace isn't sure, but just as she's trying to think of the most tactful way to phrase her thoughts, Boyd announces, "This is sheer bloody madness, Grace. We're either going to end up stuck, or we're going to have a serious accident. I'm going to have to pull in somewhere."
Grace offers a silent prayer of thanks to the gods of common sense. Her response is prompt. "Next junction?"
He nods. "Yeah. There's one of those cheap travel hotels at the services there, I think. I vote we give up for tonight."
"Seconded," Grace agrees, before Boyd can even think about changing his mind.
He grunts, seems to relax a little. "Give Spence a call. Tell him he's manning the fort until we make it back to civilisation."
Grace does as instructed, and she's amused by their colleague's very distinct and very careful non-reaction to the unexpected news that they are intending to check themselves into a roadside hotel for the night. She's almost certain that Spencer Jordan won't be deliberately calling anyone to broadcast the fact, but come the morning… Oh, yes, the rumour mill will certainly have fun with the information. To put it mildly. Thanks to the appalling weather she loses the signal before she can say goodbye, but it doesn't matter – Spencer is now aware that he's temporarily at the CCU's helm, and she knows that he will make every attempt to contact Boyd if anything important crops up before they make it back to the capital.
It's a relief to finally leave the desolate stretch of empty, closed motorway, but as soon as they reach the massive blocks of parking in the service area, they both realise just how serious the extensive problems being caused by the abnormally bad weather already are. There are cars and vans everywhere, some properly parked, some looking as if they were simply randomly abandoned as the snow got worse. There are a lot of over-excited people milling around in the blizzard conditions, too; many chattering animatedly to people from other vehicles. It's snowing hard, and something unusual and exciting is happening – it's more than enough to fire up the enthusiastic Blitz spirit in the average British citizen.
"Fuck's sake," Boyd grumbles as he has to brake sharply to avoid a couple of rowdy jaywalkers, but thankfully the Audi holds on tenaciously instead of sliding. Still, Grace is more than happy when he finally selects a place to park and reverses the big car neatly into it. He switches off the wipers, and within seconds the windscreen is covered by an impenetrable blanket of snow.
"Climate change," Grace says with a grimace.
"Screw climate change," Boyd growls in response, unfastening his seatbelt. "Sit tight a minute, Grace."
He gets out of the car and there is a brutal inrush of freezing air before he slams the door closed again. Grace shivers and reaches behind her to grab her thick wool coat from the back seat. She can't see what Boyd's doing, but from the slight movement of the car, she suspects he's rummaging in the boot. She isn't surprised. Neither of them came prepared for an overnight stay, but Boyd is so often called out at anti-social hours, and so often fails to return home at night that there's normally an overnight bag somewhere in his car. It's irritating, but he will doubtless have a considerable advantage over her. For once, however, Grace doesn't care – the sudden harsh weather is simply far too bad to consider trying to continue on towards London.
There's a sharp tap on the passenger window and she cracks the door open a fraction, her breath immediately forming dense clouds. Boyd is sheltering under a large black umbrella, and sure enough, he has the well-worn handles of a small leather holdall clutched in his free hand. He asks, "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be," is her morose reply as she prepares to get out of the car.
It's viciously, shockingly cold outside, and even though the umbrella keeps some of the snow at bay, the wind is whipping the heavy flakes wildly in every direction. Grace can feel them hitting her face – each one stinging her skin just for a second before melting away just in time for the next to land.
"It's slippery as hell out here," Boyd informs her, extending a chivalrous arm, "grab hold, and for God's sake don't let go."
Grace doesn't need to be told twice.
-oOo-
"I'm sorry, sir," the fair-haired young man behind the reception desk says with a weary but still glib professional insincerity, "but we simply don't have any rooms available. We've been turning people away for the last hour."
Under any other circumstances, Grace would quickly intervene, would attempt to simultaneously placate both men, but she's cold, tired, and in no mood to go back out into the freezing night. So she doesn't say a single word. Simply stares at the young man and waits for the inevitable explosion of temper from her irritable companion.
"Bollocks," Boyd raps out. There's a loud bang as he slams down his open warrant card. "I know damn well you always keep rooms in reserve. Don't piss me about."
The harried-looking man glances down at the identity card and silver Metropolitan Police badge on clear display. He looks at Grace, then back at Boyd. He makes a tentative throat-clearing noise and says, "Well, given the exceptional weather conditions I might be able to – "
"Get on with it," Boyd barks at him. "If I have to stand around here freezing my balls off for much longer I am not going to be a happy man. In fact I am going to be a very unhappy man. Do I make myself clear?"
"Um…" the young man mumbles, and starts to busily tap away on his computer keyboard. It takes him a minute or two, but eventually he looks up. "I do have one room available, sir, a – "
"Fuck's sake, can't you bloody count? I need two rooms."
Despite the irate tone and the baleful stare, the receptionist's headshake is decisive. His expression, though, is thoroughly miserable. Clearly, he is not having the best night of his life. "I'm sorry, sir. We do have one last twin room available, but that really is all."
"A twin?" Grace queries, deciding that she is both rather sorry for the beleaguered young man, and far too weary to engage in pointless argument. "All right. We'll take it."
Boyd looks at her in a manner that suggests he thinks she's gone completely mad. "Grace – "
Grace knows exactly how to deal with him. She's had years of practice, after all. She cuts him short with, "Just give the man your damn credit card, Boyd."
-oOo-
Continued…