DISCLAIMER: I own nothing

A/N: This fic ignores canon added by the 2018 WtD radio prequel "The Unforgiven". It's set almost immediately after S5 "Black Run".

For Stargate-Lover-Steph... and anyone else brave enough to give some B/F a go. Enjoy! x

Reunion

by Joodiff

ONE

"Thanks, Spence," Frankie Wharton says, as the heavy glazed door's electronic lock surrenders to the swift swipe of his access card. She spares him a brief, tired smile. "I owe you a drink."

"You do," he agrees, pulling the door open for her with one hand and returning his card to his jacket pocket with the other. His expression is solemn, and it doesn't change as he continues, "You absolutely sure about this, Frankie?"

In reality, she's far from sure that her current course of action is a sensible one, but she offers a slight shrug in response. "Guess so. I've come this far."

"He wasn't exactly Mr Happy when I left," Spencer warns her, a frown furrowing his brow. "The DAC hauled him over the coals at the Yard this morning, and Sheryl Palliser's brief is raising merry hell about the circumstances of Vine's death. You sure you don't want to leave it a few days?"

"No," Frankie says, stepping towards the door he's still holding open for her, "but if I spend any more time thinking about it…"

"Okay," he says, emulating her dismissive shrug, "but don't say I didn't warn you."

"I won't," she assures him. "'Night, Spence. Thanks again."

"No problem," he tells her, releasing his hold on the door. He starts to turn away, then hesitates. Sounding uncertain, he says, "Most Fridays we go to the White Hart for a quick pint after work. It's… well, it's quieter than The Bull. Why don't you drop by sometime?"

Frankie thinks she knows what he can't quite bring himself to say. Just a street and a half away, The Bull used to be the team's regular haunt. Doubtless it still is for most of the other officers and staff who work in the large, ugly police-owned building, but not for the Cold Case Unit. Not anymore. Not since… Mel. Too many memories. She nods, acknowledging the invitation even though she has no intention of ever taking him up on it. "Okay. Thanks."

"No problem," he says, gives her a last long, searching look, then adds, "well, see you around sometime, Frankie. Good luck."

"Thanks," she murmurs, and starts along the utilitarian corridor she remembers so well. Opaque windows on one side that allow some natural light to filter in, and the low, interior windows that look down into the CCU's lair on the other. Closed horizontal blinds obscure the view into Boyd's office, but she can see that there is a light on beyond them. Boyd, it seems, is exactly where Spencer said he was – still working alone in his office despite the increasing lateness of the hour. Some things, she supposes, never really change.

Descending the concrete steps, Frankie's aware that her heart has started to pound in her chest in a heavy, disturbing rhythm that's difficult to ignore. So familiar, this place, this route, and yet suddenly so alien, too. She can see straight into the heart of the shadowy squad room now, and so little is different that for a moment she feels as if she has stepped back over a year in time. The central block of desks has been subtly rearranged, she notices, and she can guess why. Looking at Mel's empty chair day after day…

Most of the overhead fluorescent lights are switched off. Grace's office is in complete darkness. The whole area is still and quiet, with none of the background hum of noise that she remembers so well. No footsteps, no phones ringing, no steady murmur of voices. The big Perspex evidence board stands brooding in the deep shadows where it always did, covered this evening with a complicated mosaic of photographs, pictures and writing. Boyd's distinctive sweeping capital letters, Spencer's less exuberant scrawl. Another hand she doesn't recognise, smaller and neater. Stella, she assumes. Stella… Goodman, is it? Yes. Mel's… replacement.

Boyd's office door is ajar, but most of the other internal blinds are also shut against curious eyes. There used to be countless ribald jokes about what he used to get up to in there, sequestered away alone behind his blinds, late at night. Light-footed, Frankie approaches the door with cautious unease. What had seemed like a good idea in the abstract now feels like a ridiculous flight of fantasy, a whim she should never have decided to act upon.

Too late now. She's past the point when she could have allowed herself to retreat without losing face. Closing her right hand into a loose fist, she taps lightly on the open door's glass upper panel.

The response is an immediate, weary, "Yeah?"

Get it done, Frankie, she tells herself, and steps forward. Boyd is seated behind his desk, jacket off, pen in hand, his attention entirely on the paperwork strewn out before him. He doesn't look very different, and again she is struck by a sense that she has stepped back in time. Quiet but determined, she offers, "Hi."

His head snaps up instantly, his expression briefly frozen in a blank look of total surprise. Shock, even. "Frankie."

"Boyd." Her voice sounds calmer and steadier than she expected, and that's… good.

He places his pen down with a controlled precision that tells her just how shocked he is, fumbles off his glasses, and stares across the space between them, the look on his face suggesting that he can't quite believe the evidence of his own eyes. Aside from the healing abrasion to his left temple, he really hasn't changed much, she reflects again, but then it's only been a shade over a year. He clears his throat, the sound loud and rough in the silence. "Um…"

"I saw your picture in the paper," Frankie says by way of explanation. An unexpected shock, it had been, too, as she sat down to enjoy a quick cup of coffee and saw that familiar face on the front page of someone else's paper. The stark headline "Hit and Run Cop", bold and accusing beside a small colour photograph of Boyd with his head well down. Before he can say a word, she holds up a forestalling hand. "It's all right, I got all the gory details from Spencer. I know you didn't do it. Never thought for a minute that you did. Drink driving and then leaving the scene of an accident's just not your style."

"GHB," he says, still staring at her in a mixture of shock and disbelief. "Ga – "

"Gamma-Hydroxybutyrate, one of the so-called date rape drugs," she interrupts, stepping further into his office. "Yeah, I know, he told me."

Boyd blinks, a little like a man waking from a deep sleep. "Frankie."

Another cautious step, and then another. She stops maybe eighteen inches away from the front of his desk. "It's stupid, I know, but I guess… Well, I guess I wanted to see for myself that you were okay."

Belatedly, he gets to his feet, displaying that strange, characteristic mixture of grace and clumsiness she remembers so well. The dark eyes remain fixed on her. "Pride got a bit dented, that's all, really."

Frankie gestures towards his temple. "And the kick in the head?"

He frowns. "Someone really has been telling tales out of school, haven't they?"

"I asked, he told me," she says with a shrug. "It's not every day you find out your ex-boss is up in court for drink-driving."

"No," Boyd says, something in his voice hardening. "No, I suppose not."

She understands. Of course she does. Ex-boss. She wonders how else he might have expected her to describe him. As far as she knows there's no polite, convenient way to say, 'the guy I slept with a few times on a casual basis before something really, really bad happened and everything changed overnight'. She feels herself swallow hard, a completely involuntary action. Hates herself for the suggestion of weakness it might imply. Too abrupt, she says, "Well… as long as you're all right…"

"I am," he agrees, still safe behind his desk. He looks wary, uncertain, and maybe a touch defiant, too.

"Good," Frankie says, too aware of just how inane it must sound. She was right – coming here was a mistake. Seeing him again was a mistake. They didn't part on good enough terms for it to be anything else. She remembers – vividly – how angry he was when she told him she couldn't stay, when she tendered her resignation and walked away from everything that hurt far too much. When she… ran away.

Mel.

He stayed. They all did. She was the only… coward.

It was more than that, though. More than cowardice. Wasn't it?

"Frankie," he says again, then shakes his head.

Being away has given her the time, the courage, to at least attempt to face it. All of it. Her palms are sweaty as she says, "Please don't hate me, Boyd."

"Hate you?" He couldn't look more nonplussed. "I couldn't hate you if I tried."

They'd been on the cusp of something. Something that might have been, or have become, important. Not quite there, perhaps, but close; very close. And then… Mel. Mel, dead on the concrete, blue eyes open, her blood a crimson flower that had bloomed around her. A young life snatched away in a cruel, stupid instant. Alive, then dead. Just like that.

Frankie swallows hard. "I'm sorry."

It's finally enough to goad Boyd into movement, and he circles the desk, each hesitant step a cold stab of fear somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach. He stops just far away enough to underscore how far apart they are, but close enough for her to be forced to look up to maintain eye contact. Always so much taller than her. A big, solid man, tough enough to deal every day with the dead, and yet compassionate enough to care about every terrible story they had to tell. He looks down at her, puzzled and intense, and says, "You didn't have to go."

It's not quite an accusation, but it stings all the same. Defensive, she retorts, "Oh, I did. I really did."

"You ran," he says, and this time it is an accusation, "from Mel's death, from the team. From me."

Please don't run away, Frankie, that's what Grace had said, but instead of listening, instead of accepting the help the older woman was more than qualified to give, she'd done it anyway. Back in the present, the tears she'd sworn to herself not to shed start to brim, stinging her eyes. Quickly Frankie tries to blink them away, not wanting to be so openly, appallingly vulnerable before him, but it's too late. The first tear escapes, sliding down her cheek, betraying her. She tries to turn away, but Boyd is faster. Faster and more impulsive, and against every rule she made for herself about this meeting, as he takes hold of her, she is grateful. Burned by memory and emotion, she buries her face into the dry warmth of his shirt, and she cries.

-oOo-

The slow burn of the whisky reminds her of the not too-distant past, too. Late nights, when it was just him and her left in their part of the building, long after everyone else had gone home. Ridiculous, wandering conversations about nothing that had so often ended in helpless laughter. The bottle of Glenfiddich in his desk drawer and the wry, amused affection in his dark eyes as she'd sat impudently on the edge of his desk, glass in hand, and wondered what would happen if she… if he… if they…

"Better?" he asks in the new world, the one after Mel.

Frankie manages a small, tight nod. "Yeah. Thanks."

Boyd doesn't look convinced. He's sitting next to her, but she can feel the cold, empty space between them. Looking down at the floor, he says, "I'm sorry."

"For…?" she inquires.

He shrugs, the movement briefly pulling his mauve shirt tight across his broad shoulders. "All of it, I suppose. I should have done more… tried harder."

"To make me stay?" Frankie guesses. She mimics his shrug. "It wouldn't have done any good, Boyd. I did what I thought I had to do. You couldn't have stopped me."

"Perhaps not, but maybe I'd feel a bit better about myself now if I knew I'd at least tried."

Guilt, she thinks. He feels guilty, just like Grace had told her he would. For Mel's death, for her departure. For all of it, that stupid, fucked-up mess that tore the heart out of all them in different ways. Her. Boyd. Grace. Spencer. The people left behind. She stares into the depths of her glass, wondering if she's brave enough to pose the painful question she's fretted over for months. Deciding that she is, that she has nothing left to lose, she asks, "Why didn't you go to her funeral?"

The sharp, shallow intake of breath is audible, but it's several long, tense seconds before Boyd replies, "The truth? Just couldn't face it. Couldn't bear to look into her parents' eyes and tell them how sorry I was."

Frankie nods. "Thought it was something like that."

Silence falls between them again, uneasy but not hostile. Aeons pass in the space of a few heartbeats. Out of nowhere he asks, "How did you get into the building?"

"Spence," she says, and finishes the last drain of whisky left in the bottom of her glass.

"Ah."

She dares to look at him then, finds him gazing back at her, his expression unreadable. More to fill the renewed silence than anything else, she announces, "I'm working for Hartmann Pharmaceuticals now, at their lab in Ealing. Moved back to London two months ago."

Boyd frowns. "Last I heard, you were in Edinburgh."

"Grace?"

"Who else?"

Frankie shrugs again. "Turns out the academic life isn't really for me. Research for research's sake is interesting, but…"

"…not terribly exciting?" he suggests.

"Something like that. I was a biochemist originally, long before I got side-tracked into forensics, you know that. Guess going to Hartmann was… returning to my roots. I'm heading up a brand-new development project. Prestigious. Lots of funding."

Boyd studies her with every bit of the shrewd intensity she remembers. "So that's it for police work, is it?"

"I thought it was, but now I don't know," she tells him honestly. "Maybe, maybe not. Why, you offering me a job?"

"Would you take it if I was?" he asks.

Fighting the urge to swallow hard, Frankie shakes her head. "No."

"Thought not," he says, looking away. He sighs, the sound heavy and regretful. There's thin, forced humour in the way he adds, "There's no vacancy anyway. Doctor Gibson has a year-long Home Office contract signed in blood. Mine."

"I know Felicity," she says, nodding. "Well, I know of her, anyway. She's good."

The answer is quick. Too quick, maybe. "She's not you."

For a moment Frankie can see just how close to the surface his pain is. The pain of loss after loss, each fresh hurt compounding the one before. His son, Mel… her. This time she does swallow, forcing down the constricting lump in her throat. She can't hold his gaze, has to look away. There are no words. None.

He stands up so abruptly it startles her, strides back towards his desk. His words are clipped as he says, "I'll call the front desk. Ask someone to come and show you out."

He runs, too. No, that's not quite true. Boyd doesn't run, he simply turns his back on the things he can't deal with. Turns his back and tries to pretend he is inviolable, untouchable. Something, some strong emotion Frankie can't – won't – identify, races through her bringing a flood of adrenaline with it. Fight or flight. She's angry and she's not. Not thinking, she stands and voices a raw, dangerous plea: "Pete…"

His head snaps round and he glares straight at her. "Don't."

Pete. It was usually Pete in the small hours of the morning. Rarely Boyd, and never Peter. An impudent intimacy she'd claimed for herself on the very first night despite his growling displeasure, perhaps in some subconscious attempt to separate the man in her bed from the man she'd spent the better part of four years working for. Refusing to flinch under the accusing weight of his stare, she says, "I'm sorry, too, you know. Hurting you… was unintentional."

"'Unintentional'?" Boyd raps back, hard and fast. "Oh, that's good, Frankie. Even for you, that's good."

"Well, what do you expect me to say?" she demands, her own fury beginning to catch up with his. "That when I was hurting so much that just dragging myself out of bed – let alone coming back to this damned place day after day – was almost bloody impossible, my first thought every morning was about protecting you?"

"Of course not," he bites at her, "but don't pretend you didn't know…"

She raises her eyebrows at the way he lets the sentence trail away to nothing. "Didn't know what, Boyd? That the guy who was intermittently screwing me – when it bloody suited him – would actually give a damn about whatever it was I eventually decided I had to do?"

"Don't," he says again, more wounded than angry. "Don't, Frankie."

"I'm sorry, all right?" she all-but shouts at him. "Oh, what's the bloody point? I knew coming here was a big mistake."

She makes it to the foot of the concrete steps before he stops her. Wild, Frankie fights against his grip, but she's never going to win. He was always physically far, far stronger than her, and it doesn't matter how hard she struggles and swears, Boyd simply imprisons her against the long planes of his body and waits in stubborn, implacable silence for the violent, angry storm to pass.

-oOo-

"Just get in the damn car," he orders, and it's quite clear that the very last threads of his patience, always a rare commodity in strictly limited supply, are drawing very thin indeed. "Frankie."

"Why?" she demands, still burning with resentment. "I'm quite capable of getting on the bloody Tube, you know. I've been managing it perfectly well for years."

"Get. In. The. Car." Boyd is still holding the passenger door open and even Frankie, who's never been easily intimidated by anyone, almost – almost – quails at the sheer force of the irritable scowl being directed at her. She glowers back but finally surrenders without grace to the inevitable and gets into the car. He slams the door with unnecessary force behind her and walks round the front of the bonnet. Another silver Lexus, she reflects. Not the same one, thank God, but a slightly newer model. Close enough to the original to cause a faint sense of nausea to roil in the pit of her stomach. A flash of memory only intensifies the unpleasant sensation. Mel's blood and… brain matter… obscenely splattered across the broken windscreen of Boyd's car.

He gets into the driver's seat next to her. "Well? Where to?"

"Same place," she tells him, adding a grudging, "I rented it out while I was in Scotland. Bloody good thing, too, the way property prices are still rocketing down here."

"Mm," Boyd says, starting the engine. It's clear he's not in a talkative mood, and that's just fine by Frankie. She feels tired, emotionally wrung-out, and not at all in the mood for another bruising exchange of harsh words. Let him give her a lift home if he really must. It won't mean a damn thing in the grand scheme of things.

She stares out of the passenger window at the uninviting, rain-soaked evening, not focusing on anything. When they are forced to stop at the first set of red traffic lights to impede them, Boyd asks, "So… is there someone else?"

It's a reasonable question, Frankie supposes. Under the circumstances. Still gazing out at the night, she says, "No."

"Okay."

It strikes her as an odd response until she really thinks about it. Neither of them was entirely sure where they were with each other then, let alone now. Colleagues that became sort-of-friends, sort-of-friends that became sort-of-lovers. Same dark sense of humour, same… singularity. Two people who have always marched very much to the sound of their own drums. She can't – doesn't want to – deny that there was physical attraction there, too. Attraction and flirtation, carefully contained… until it wasn't. The car starts to move again, and she risks, "You?"

The answering snort is derisive. "What do you think?"

She thinks he's a good-looking, charismatic, occasionally deeply-charming older man who still manages to turn female heads wherever he goes. There's more to him than that, though, and Frankie knows it better than most. For all his apparent unshakable self-assurance, behind the brash façade there's a quieter, shyer side to his nature, and though it's no secret to anyone that he likes women – really likes them – he's more circumspect in his liaisons than the rumours that perpetually dog his heels might suggest. Accordingly, she shifts her gaze to the road ahead and echoes him with, "Okay."

Boyd gives her a sharp sideways look, as if suspecting ridicule, but doesn't say a single thing.

None of it would have happened, she supposes now with the benefit of hindsight, if they hadn't all gone to The Bull on that fateful Friday night to celebrate their liberation from Bulmer and his team. That long, alcohol-fuelled evening had been the catalyst, the eventful night that followed it the turning point. The next morning's head-pounding sobriety had been awkward, to say the least, but they'd crossed a line in the hours preceding it that had drawn them back together the following week, and several times thereafter. The regrets had been few and far-between… then.

And now? Frankie doesn't know. Heaven help her, she really doesn't know.

They've reached Ladbroke Grove now, and Boyd turns the car left into Harrow Road without comment. Kensal Green Cemetery stretches out on their left, and then they turn right and quickly pass the illuminated sign of the Tube station where she would have ordinarily alighted. Moments from home, Frankie says, "If Mel… if none of that had happened… do you think it could have worked? Us, I mean?"

Again, Boyd glances sideways, more contemplative this time. "Who knows? The odds weren't exactly stacked in our favour, were they, Frankie?"

"No," she agrees, rueful now. "No, they weren't. Guess I had a narrow escape. Sleeping with the boss is rarely a good idea."

"I'm not your boss anymore," Boyd points out, his tone hardening. "You took care of that very effectively."

A renewed flicker of anger makes her thrust her hands deeper into the pockets of her quilted jacket and say, "If you expect me to beg you for forgiveness, Boyd, you're going to have a bloody long wait. I'm sorry if I hurt you, but I'm not going to apologise for doing what I thought was the right thing at the time."

One hand briefly leaves the steering wheel to make a quick, placatory gesture. "All right, all right. Point taken."

"The way I see it," Frankie says, as the turning into her street approaches on their left, "we have a choice. We both agree to let go of the past and move on, or we don't. One way we get to stay friends, the other… Well, you know."

"Are we still friends?" he asks, flicking on the indicator.

Frowning, she turns her head to look at him. In the evening shadows his striking profile looks more hawkish than ever. Nodding, she says, "Yeah, I'd like to think so. I know it's been a while, but…"

Boyd makes the turn, cruises past the terraced houses that break at the small scruffy park that forms a strange triangle halfway along the road and brings the car to a smooth stop outside the first of the half dozen four-storey post-war blocks that occupy the north end of the street. Handbrake on, engine off. He says, "'Best let bygones be bygones', that's what my auntie used to say."

"Wise woman, your auntie," Frankie says, remembering some of the things he'd told her about the redoubtable woman who'd brought him up. "How is she, by the way?"

"Still in Provence living it up with her motley collection of elderly gentlemen admirers. There goes my meagre inheritance."

It's a mistake, no question, but she looks at him again and asks, "So… you coming in, then, or what?"

-oOo-

Cont…