DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.
Warning: may contain Viagra. ;)
Not Just Another Working Week
by Joodiff
Monday Night
It's relentless. In the all-encompassing dark, Eve Lockhart closes her eyes tightly and once again buries her head firmly under the bedcovers. She clamps her hands tightly over her ears in a vain attempt to further insulate herself from the terrible truth, but nothing quite stops the insidious nightmare noises from finding her. She tries everything she can think of to distract herself, but the hour is late and the night is still and quiet making it doubly impossible not to unwittingly focus on the sounds that work their way through all her obstinate defences. She is a doctor, a scientist, a dealer in empirical fact, and she has never considered herself particularly imaginative, but tonight her mind is rebelliously working against her, extrapolating all sorts of unwanted data from the continuous sensory input.
Finally forced to surface for air or risk suffocation, Eve relinquishes her tight cocoon, rolls over onto her back and stares miserably up at the barely-visible ceiling. She clenches her teeth, tries to fill her mind with something – anything – that will somehow spirit her away from the on-going trauma. It's a partial success, but halfway through a grimly-determined in-depth review of what she can remember of the periodic table a slow realisation that the volume and tempo of the intrusive sounds have changed begins to assert itself. It's too dark to see the hands of her watch, even if she was to pluck it from the bedside table, and since she has no absolutely intention of switching on the light she is left with only her own rough estimation of the passage of time.
It has to stop soon, surely?
-oOo-
Tuesday
The moment she enters the basement squad room Spencer's assessment is pithy. "God, you look like shit today."
She all-but collapses into a chair. "Thanks, Spence."
"I'll get coffee," Kat says, sounding unusually solicitous, and quickly gets up – presumably to do so.
"Don't tell me," Spencer teases, hands behind his head, "you and Grace sat up all night drinking and reminiscing about your respective student days?"
"Not even close," Eve tells him, wearily rubbing her temples. "By the time I got in, she was already in bed."
Her colleague smirks. "I've warned you before about going out to play on school nights."
She wishes he was right. Fervently. "Ha-bloody-ha. I'm just not sleeping very well. Strange bed and all that."
"Well, at least it won't be for long. And it's a lot cheaper than a hotel."
A hotel. Blissfully anonymous. And sound-proofed. Incredibly tempting.
Close by a door bangs loudly, making her jump. Boyd's impatient voice barks, "Spence, where the fuck is the Hadlow Road file…?"
It might be worth the money. Even at exorbitant London prices.
-oOo-
Tuesday Night
On the other side of the wall there is a row going on. She can't hear the specifics, just the odd word or two here and there when one or other of the angry voices momentarily rises, but the muffled altercation has been going on for at least twenty minutes and it doesn't seem to be showing any signs of abating. How they have the stamina for it is completely beyond her. Eve is twenty years younger – median average – and she's pretty damn sure she couldn't keep pace with either of them. In the argument stakes. Or, actually, in pretty much anything else they seem to spend an inordinate amount of time enthusiastically doing. Which causes a new and horrifying thought to lurch unwanted into her mind. At some point she assumes they will finally call a grudging truce, and when they do… No. She's definitely letting her imagination run away with her. They wouldn't. Would they? Not so late at night?
Oh, God.
Thoroughly convinced she has been condemned to some kind of hideous purgatory Eve adopts a foetal position under the covers and irritably berates herself for forgetting to collect her tiny MP3 player from her desk drawer before she left work for the night. And for somehow failing to make the time to find and book a cheap hotel room for a few nights.
She really needs a drink. And a cigarette. The former requires a trip downstairs, but she thinks the latter could possibly be sneakily achieved by leaning out of the bedroom window like a wayward teenager. And then spraying copious amounts of air freshener filched from the bathroom around the room. Patently ridiculous, given her age. On the other side of the wall the muted disagreement continues, occasionally punctuated by what she thinks is someone pacing heavily up and down. Someone not being Grace, obviously.
Do they really think she can't hear them arguing? Or… doing other things. In fact, do they honestly think she's blissfully unaware that there are always two people in the room next to hers overnight instead of just the one who's actually supposed to be there?
Maybe they do. Or maybe they simply don't care. Most likely, they're just so used to being in their own fiercely-guarded little world that they're completely oblivious to everything and everyone else.
It's no good. If she's going to stand any chance of getting to sleep she desperately needs that drink and that cigarette. Preferably at the same time. But just as she prepares to surface again she realises that the extended disagreement finally appears to have ended. At least, it all seems to have gone suspiciously quiet on the other side of the wall. Perhaps they've simply collapsed from exhaustion and gone to sleep? Or perhaps one of them has finally killed the other?
Eve finds she doesn't really care. All is quiet and peaceful and at last she might be able to close her eyes with some reasonable expectation of drifting off to sleep. Warily, she sticks her head out from under the covers and lies stock-still, listening hard. Nothing. Just the very ordinary quiet background night-noises of any highly urbanised area.
Thank God.
She settles thankfully, drink and cigarette forgotten, and starts to deliberately relax mind and body.
Then the giggling starts.
-oOo-
Wednesday
"I don't think lack of sleep can actually make you homicidal," her sister says doubtfully, though her expression indicates she might not entirely believe her own words.
"It can," Eve contradicts. She stabs an errant piece of fish violently with her fork. "It most definitely can. Tell me again why I can't stay with you?"
"For the hundredth time – because Alan's got clients from Cape Town staying and Rachel's busy studying for her exams."
"It'll only be for a few more nights," Eve wheedles without much hope of success. "C'mon, Deb, I work such long hours you won't even know I'm there."
"No."
"I hate you."
On the other side of the restaurant table her sister pulls a face. "It can't be that bad."
"It is that bad."
"Surely you remember what it was like to be young and in love? Give the poor woman a break. Honestly."
"'Young and in love?'" Eve almost chokes on a mouthful of hollandaise sauce. "She's got to be in her early sixties."
Deborah looks impressed. "Really? Game old girl. And her 'gentleman friend'?"
"Late fifties, I guess."
"Well doubly good for her. Really, Eve, you can be so parochial."
She slouches back in her chair. "Listen, I don't care if they eventually shag each other into a complete state of collapse. I just don't want to have to listen to it night after night." She shakes her head morosely. "I have no idea how they manage it."
"Viagra?"
Not something Eve wants to think about in conjunction with any of her co-workers. Ever. She shudders. "Oh God. Thanks so much for that horrific thought."
"It's one of the greatest pharmaceutical triumphs of our time, you know," Deborah says, deadpan. "There's a whole generation of grateful baby boomers out there who are – "
"Don't. Please. I have to work with the pair of them."
Her sister rolls her eyes. "Oh, lighten up, for heaven's sake. Remember – she's the one doing you a favour while your landlord messes about, not the other way around."
"I know, and I'm incredibly grateful, but…"
"But…?"
"But… I'm so tired I feel like I'm going to die." Eve glares accusingly. "It's not bloody funny, you know."
Deborah is not even attempting to hide her mirth. "Oh, it is. It really is. My little sister being kept awake all night by a pair of geriatric sex fiends? I really can't think of anything funnier."
"Yeah, well you'll be sorry when I'm arrested for double murder."
-oOo-
Wednesday Night
It's very quiet. Of course, it isn't really even that late yet, but Eve is testing a new theory. If she is already asleep when the inevitable disturbance starts, she reasons, it's vaguely possible but actually highly unlikely that it – they – will wake her. So she's made her excuses and left Grace downstairs with the evening news and what's left of the wine and retreated to her temporary accommodation above the front door and the hallway. Currently, she is leaning as far as she safely can out of the window, puffing on a cigarette and occasionally flicking the ash down into the small herbaceous border below. She half-expects to be caught red-handed and reprimanded like a naughty schoolgirl, or at least to find herself on the receiving end of yet another stern lecture on the deleterious effects of smoking, but so far it's just her, the window and the quiet residential street stretching dimly away in both directions. Grace's car is parked on the drive, hers is abandoned out on the street and… somebody else's… is nowhere in sight. Maybe, she thinks idly, he's having an undeniably well-earned night off.
There are a great many sayings on the variation of 'don't tempt fate', and all of them are equally applicable as she suddenly catches sight of the tall figure in the long coat striding down the pavement towards the house. The street lights aren't overly bright and he's too far away for her to make out his features clearly, but that doesn't matter. The broad-shouldered silhouette and the distinctive gait are more than enough to positively identify him. Peter Boyd, large as life and presumably every bit as bad-tempered. It's the first time Eve's actually seen him anywhere in the vicinity of the house and she permits herself a knowing and slightly triumphant smirk. There wasn't, of course, any doubt in her mind about the identity of Grace's habitual nocturnal visitor, but informed supposition is not quite as satisfying as visual proof. Canny old bugger has evidently been parking his car round the corner in Gideon Way for the duration. Well, she's caught him fair and square tonight.
It finally occurs to Eve that she is hanging out of the spare bedroom window in a highly awkward and undignified fashion, the glowing tip of her cigarette a tiny beacon in the night advertising her presence to anyone who might cast a casual glance in her direction. There's no way Boyd will fail to see her once he's past the tall, scrappy hedge that borders the front of the neighbouring garden. She panics, slithers backwards rapidly and manages to drop her cigarette on the inside of the window frame, simultaneously burning her fingers and risking a minor conflagration. Swearing with considerably more vigour than volume, she manages to retrieve the wayward cigarette before too much harm is done, but a quick glance confirms that Boyd has now reached the gate thus preventing quick and easy disposal of the incriminating item. Keeping low, she scuffles in the gloom trying to extinguish the cigarette, locate the recently-liberated can of bathroom air freshener and avoid colliding with the furniture all at the same time. Eventually, she collapses onto the bed. The whole situation is ridiculous and futile and annoying… and incredibly funny, despite her screaming exhaustion.
She never hears either of them ascend the stairs.
-oOo-
Thursday
How can there not be a single vacant hotel room anywhere in one of the biggest and most vibrant cities in the world? Or at least, not a single vacant affordable hotel room anywhere remotely convenient and salubrious? It's genuinely unbelievable. Almost as unbelievable as being woken up at six o'clock in the morning by –
"Eve." The volume and irritable intensity of the voice tells her that it's not the first time that her name has been called.
She looks up to find herself being solemnly regarded by all of her colleagues bar one. The other is simply glaring balefully at her, his impatience quite clear. She blinks. "Sorry, what?"
"I apologise for disturbing you," Boyd says, heavy on the sarcasm, "but if you could pay attention for two minutes and give us the benefit of your professional opinion, I'm sure we'd all be very grateful."
"You woke me up at the crack of dawn, you inconsiderate bastard," is what she wants to say. What she actually says is, "Sorry. Um… Hadlow Road. Yes. The ballistics are still largely inconclusive, I'm afraid."
"'Inconclusive'?" he echoes ominously. "You've been pissing about up in the lab for three days now and the best you can do is tell me that the results are inconclusive?"
She's very tired. Very, very tired. And perhaps just a touch hysterical because of it. "Well, yeah. The test I'm experimenting with is… well, um… it's a bit like…" – inspiration strikes courtesy of her sister – "…like Viagra."
The response is glacial. "Viagra?"
"Viagra," she confirms. The sudden complete silence enveloping the squad room is edged with gleeful expectation. She can feel it quite clearly. She shrugs helplessly. "You know. It either works or it doesn't. If it does, happy days; if it doesn't…"
Someone – Kat – makes a strangulated noise that becomes a very artificial-sounding cough. Eve doesn't dare look in her direction. Besides, she is now being pinioned by a ruthless dark gaze that has all the warmth and charm of an irascible basilisk-stare. And suddenly she knows he knows she knows exactly where he's been spending his nights. When the reply comes it's frighteningly calm and measured. "I really wouldn't know."
Kat's coughing fit appears to be highly contagious.
It's going to be another very long day.
-oOo-
Thursday Night
"Eve?" a quizzical voice says in the darkness. She nearly jumps quite literally out of her skin and then freezes in the kitchen doorway. It's dark and the house has been still and quiet for a considerable time. A light comes on, one of the low-wattage wall-lights that doesn't flood the room with a harsh glare. Grace, leaning against one of the counters, wine glass in hand, surveys her blandly. "Sneaking out into the back garden for a quick fag?"
Caught carrying cigarette packet and lighter, Eve can't do much more than pull a resigned sort of face. "Can I call my solicitor?"
"Rather than be read the Riot Act, you mean? There's an ash tray in that cupboard over there."
"Er…"
"Oh, it's all right," Grace says with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Go ahead. Everyone smoked back in the day, me included. Though not necessarily only tobacco."
"Grace!"
"What? It was the 'sixties. Even Boyd had long hair."
Eve snorts. "That I really can't picture."
"Trust me, I've seen the photographic proof."
She leans herself against the opposite counter. There's an odd air about Grace that Eve can't quite place. A touch of melancholy, perhaps. It's doesn't escape Eve's notice that the older woman is not dressed for bed, despite the late hour. Pieces slowly start to fall into place. She asks carefully, "So, are you going to tell me why you're lurking around down here in the dark on your own?"
"As opposed to…?"
It's time for them both to lay all their cards on the table, she decides. "Come on, Grace. The walls in this house aren't particularly thick."
"So it would seem."
Eve instantly picks up the hollow note in the other woman's quiet voice. Something clenches guiltily in her stomach as realisation starts to dawn. "Oh God – please don't tell me this is a direct result of that stupid conversation this morning?"
Grace does not answer immediately. She sips her wine for a moment and then sighs. "Sometimes the most inconsequential of comments can help people suddenly see the truth very clearly."
"It just sort of… slipped out. I was tired. I didn't mean… you know. I just… Oh, I'm not actually making things any better for myself here, am I?"
"No." Grace smiles slightly, but it's a weary, resigned sort of smile, one that conveys considerably more hurt than humour. "Don't worry; it's not your fault, Eve. The novelty was bound to wear off sooner or later. It was a stupid mistake anyway. Bound to end in disaster. But I suppose it was fun while it lasted."
"Don't talk like that." Eve shakes her head, struggling to comprehend all the potential repercussions of what appears to have happened. "Look, I'll go and pack my stuff, find a hotel. Call him, Grace."
"It's one o'clock in the morning."
"So?"
Grace puts down her glass. "Waking him up in the middle of the night for anything less than a national disaster is always a bad idea, believe me."
"Grace – "
But she is cut short. "Are you going to have that cigarette, or not?"
-oOo-
Friday
Eventually Boyd duly stamps his way into the lab in answer to her curt summons but neither his expression nor his tone of voice are friendly. "Well?"
Professionalism, that's the answer. "Ballistics. Hadlow Road. Victor's gun didn't fire the fatal shot."
He glowers at the results being displayed on the monitor. "Damn. You're sure?"
"I'm sure. It's – "
" – like Viagra; yes, I know. What did you say to Grace last night?"
Eve blinks. "Me? What did I say to Grace?"
Dangerously quiet, he inquires, "Are you having problems with your hearing, Eve?"
Her hackles rise. Not just metaphorically. "No. Only with my ability to comprehend how someone apparently bright enough to command an elite unit like this one can be so bloody stupid when it comes to women and relationships."
Boyd straightens up, presumably only so he can glare down at her. "Meaning?"
He's tall and he's imposing, a big dangerous man with a fearsome reputation, but Eve is angry and she isn't easily intimidated. She glares straight back at him. "All the shit Grace has been through in the last six months and you still think it's okay to mess her about? She adores you – God alone knows why – and she sat up half the night trying to convince herself that she didn't care that you couldn't even be arsed to call to tell her it was all over."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
Even though he looks genuinely bemused, she bites back at him with, "Don't try to bluff your way out of this, Boyd. She deserves better."
"Unequivocally. But I think you're labouring under some kind of serious misapprehension here." There is a palpable touch of bitterness in his voice as he continues, "Thanks to you and your bloody flippancy I was firmly told to keep well away last night. And this morning I was given my marching orders in no uncertain terms."
His words make no sense. "You…? What…?"
Dark eyes glitter at her. Not in a pleasant way. "It seems that after due consideration Doctor Foley has decided that it's not appropriate for a woman of her age to be seen to be… romantically involved… with someone."
There's a cold sense of dread in the pit of Eve's stomach. "You're not serious?"
"Do I look like I'm bloody joking?"
-oOo-
Friday Night
"You heard me," Eve says with rather more conviction than she actually feels. "Go upstairs and pack a bag, Grace. I can't go back to my flat until at least Monday and if you think I'm spending the entire weekend listening to you and Boyd shouting at each other and then doing the whole making-up thing…"
The reply is cold. "I think you'll find that this is my house and I decide who stays and who goes. For a start."
"Yes it is. But fortunately for me someone gets paid far too much for shouting at people and is therefore in a position to book a weekend for two in one of the most expensive hotels in the Home Counties."
"Eve – "
It's best just to take a leaf out of Boyd's book and forge on bullishly regardless, she decides. "You can thank me later."
Grace does not look impressed. Very far from it, in fact. The blue eyes are every bit as frosty as the voice. "And what makes you think any of this has anything to do with you?"
"Nothing at all," Eve admits, holding her ground. "But I'm fairly sure that if you hadn't offered me a bed for a few nights you wouldn't have then had an attack of the vapours and kicked Boyd into touch over some ridiculous notion that people will judge you for actually daring to enjoy yourself."
The frost does not lift. "Again, what the hell's it got to do with you?"
Eve sighs heavily and puts her hands on her hips. "I really don't know which of you is the more infuriating. No wonder you get on so well – you're just as stubborn as each other. Look, Grace, to coin a phrase, please don't screw up a good thing just because you can."
There's a momentary hesitation then, "You just don't understand."
"Why?" she challenges. "Why don't I understand? Because I'm younger than you? Because I haven't had to go through half the things you've had to face up to recently?"
"No," Grace says abruptly. There's real anger in the way she says, "Because you don't know what it's like to have everyone looking at you trying to work out why the hell the man you're with is wasting his time with you when he could quite obviously do so much better."
Sheer incredulity renders Eve momentarily speechless. Then she shakes her head. "Oh, Grace. You're a psychologist for God's sake. Please don't tell me you don't know Boyd better than that? He looks at you and all he's thinking is that he's finally hit the jackpot. He's the one who can't quite believe his luck. It's blindingly obvious that if you let him that man will love you for the rest of his life."
Grace looks faintly unsettled, but she remains intractable. "Oh, and you're suddenly an expert, are you, Eve?"
"On Boyd? On you and Boyd? No. But as a scientist I generally have to eventually believe in what I see for myself." She glances at the clock, uncomfortably aware of the passage of time. "Look, Grace, in about fifteen minutes he's going to be knocking on the door expecting you to be ready and I'm really not keen on having to explain to him why you're not."
There is a long silence. Grace moves to stare out of the window, but she doesn't look as if she's actually seeing very much of the outside world. Quite abruptly she asks, "Which hotel?"
Eve frowns. "What? Oh. The Montague, I think."
"No expense spared, eh? He doesn't do anything by halves, does he?"
"So I've gathered," Eve says dryly, rapidly attempting to banish too-recent memories of disturbed nights.
Another long pause followed by a meaningful, "Why on earth didn't you say something?"
"I wasn't supposed to know he was here, was I?" Eve counters plaintively.
"Point taken."
"Besides, asking someone to keep the noise down in their own home… Please, can we not talk about this?"
For the first time Grace looks faintly amused. "Embarrassed?"
"To put it mildly."
"Yet you're trying to pack us off for a dirty weekend together."
"Not exactly the terminology I would have used."
Grace sighs and turns away from the window. "You know it's all incredibly complicated, don't you? Not to mention challenging, unprofessional and definitely ill-advised."
"Well that's half the fun, isn't it?"
"Perhaps," Grace admits.
Eve's fairly sure she's won. She smiles artlessly. "So, are you going to go and pack your bag…?"
-oOo-
Saturday
It's blissfully quiet. So quiet, in fact, that it's almost ten o'clock before she's awake enough to stumble down the stairs with the intention of making a cup of coffee to take out into the garden with her to accompany the first cigarette of the day. Dozy and bleary-eyed, Eve does not notice the long dark coat hanging in the hall, or the third set of car keys thrown casually on the narrow shelf by the stairs. She doesn't even notice the bottle and glasses on the coffee table that weren't there when she went to bed. No, she remains in a happy state of ignorance right up until the moment she walks into the kitchen and finds a tall, dark-eyed and only partially-clad man reflectively stirring a cup of tea. And at that point she seriously begins to fear for her sanity.
"Why aren't you in Hindhead?" she demands a few bewildered moments later. "Oh, don't tell me – you had a blazing row on the way there?"
"Cynical. Essentially correct."
She eyes him suspiciously. "Where's Grace?"
"In a shallow grave under the patio," Boyd says sardonically. He throws his teaspoon noisily into the sink. "Still in bed, where the hell do you think? Do I look like bloody Bluebeard?"
"You know what," she says decisively, "I give up. If you two ever manage to get your act together properly you'll probably end up blissfully happy for the rest of your lives. And if you don't, well, you'll probably end up together anyway, one way or another. I'm going back to bed. Don't wake me up, Boyd, or I'll make you look like a pussycat in comparison." She turns and heads back towards the stairs.
His voice follows her. "Eve."
She stops and glowers over her shoulder at him. "What?"
"You were right. Viagra's exactly like your fancy new ballistics test. Ridiculously expensive and highly overrated. Or so I've heard."
She can't let him have the last word. She just can't. She waits until he starts to flick idly through the morning paper before saying, "Boyd…?"
He doesn't look up. "Hm?"
Eve smirks. "Purely in the interests of scientific curiosity, I have to know, do you do anything quietly…?"
- the end -