DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.

13th November 2016 - wishing a very happy birthday to Scription Addict! xx

Little Boots

by Joodiff

"Don't do this to me, Grace." Boyd is well-aware that he sounds plaintive as he follows her up the stairs, but desperate times call for desperate measures as they say, and if tugging at her heartstrings is what it takes to avoid the hellish mess he's damn certain he's going to find himself trapped in unless he acts fast, well, so be it. Reaching the landing, he trails his disconsolate way towards the bedroom door in her wake, wondering how what looked set to be a quiet, relaxing autumn Saturday could have become quite so challenging quite so quickly. The answer is downstairs in the living room, of course, but he really doesn't want to dwell on that. Halting in the doorway, watching as she settles in front of the dressing-table mirror and starts to fiddle with jewellery and make-up, he tries, "It's a really, really bad idea – you know it, I know it…"

She looks over her shoulder at him, expression serene, but a very definite glint of amusement evident in her clear blue eyes. "You can try to weasel out of it all you like, Boyd, but it won't do you a blind bit of good. I've told Angela I'll pick her up from St. Mark's, so that's exactly what I'm going to do."

"I could pick her up for you," he offers with some alacrity. Under the circumstances, he's prepared to endure both the faint, mixed scent of incense and marijuana that clings inexorably to the irritating woman's clothes, and her seemingly limitless capacity for senseless, banal gossip. Which says an awful lot about the severity of the predicament he finds himself in.

Another knowing, over-the-shoulder look. "I don't think that's a very good idea, do you? Not after last time."

"I'll be on my best behaviour, I promise," he assures her. "I won't say a word about – "

"No, Peter."

Mutinous thoughts chasing through his head, Boyd lapses into sullen silence for several long, pointed moments. Grace can be every bit as intractable as he can when she wants to be, something he knows very well. Sometimes it amuses him. Not this morning. Still, he's not sure it's worth getting into a full-blooded tooth-and-claw fight over the matter, infuriating though it may very well be. He is, however, rather running out of options, given that both charm and straightforward pleading have singularly failed to get him his own way. Shouting… will have a detrimental effect on the rest of his weekend, he knows, but sulking… Sulking probably won't work, either, but it might make him feel a bit better. Maybe. He says, "Oh, fine. Have it your own bloody way. But don't blame me when it all goes horribly wrong."

Grace meets his gaze in the mirror. "You don't think you can cope?"

She's too damn clever. The innocent-sounding question hits him straight where it's intended to – right in the male ego. He bristles automatically. "It's not a question of being able to cope."

"Oh."

One syllable. One single syllable that says everything. Realising he's grinding his teeth, Boyd takes a slow, deep breath. It doesn't help much. "That child," he says, slowly and clearly, every word perfectly enunciated, "is a monster."

"That child," Grace retorts, her tone on the dangerous side of frosty, "is my grandson."

"One does not preclude the other, Grace."

She turns on her stool, regards him with bleak antipathy. "He's just a little boy, Boyd."

"I've met less manipulative serial killers," he tells her, and he's not altogether joking. "I still can't believe you're doing this to me."

"I'll be half-an-hour," she says, getting to her feet, "forty minutes at the very most."

Stifling a groan, he inquires, "Are we talking half-an-hour in real time, or half-an-hour in Grace Foley time?"

Her answering glare is chilly. "Oh, haha. You're so incredibly witty."

"I'm actually serious," he tells her. "Is this going to be one of those half-hours that's actually much closer to two hours? Because if it is…" He lets the sentence hang in the air, a not very subtle rebuke wrapped in a tacit challenge. It's not in her nature to be deliberately tardy, but if Boyd's learned anything in however many years it's been since they started working together, it's just how easily she loses track of time when she gets engrossed in something, be it work, study, or simply an interesting conversation. The latter being his nagging fear on this particular occasion. He and Angela may have taken against each other from their very first encounter, but she and Grace have been friends – good friends – for more than thirty years, and they never seem to run out of things to say to each other.

"Look," she says, a conciliatory note in her voice, "the moment I've dropped Angela off at Ray's house, I'll head straight back, I promise, and then we'll go to the park and Ollie can run off some excess energy. That'll keep him out of mischief until Louise arrives to collect him. Then we can have a late lunch somewhere, just the two of us."

"Somewhere civilised?" he asks, fearing the worst. Since her illness Grace has become rather too fond of the sort of expensive, health-conscious fare he ordinarily wouldn't deign to spare a second glance, let alone actually consume.

"Pub…?"

Boyd's mood lifts a little. Not much, but a little. "Pub," he agrees, "but just so we're clear on the matter, if Little Boots down there manages to burn the house down while you're out, it's not my damn fault."

Grace sighs. "I really wish you wouldn't call him that, Boyd."

-oOo-

Oliver James Wright. A ferociously bright, pint-sized blue-eyed psychopath masquerading as a sweet, smiling blond cherub. Not too harsh a description in Boyd's opinion, whatever Grace thinks. He doesn't dislike the boy – far from it – but instinct and experience are powerful things, particularly when they are essential everyday tools for continued success and survival, and he hasn't been a police officer for almost all his adult life without learning a thing or two about how to spot trouble a mile off. And even though he is barely six years old, Oliver is most definitely trouble. Boyd's admittedly unpopular opinion is only reinforced when he walks into Grace's formerly tidy living room and finds the entire contents of his expensive Gieves & Hawkes leather briefcase – including at least one highly sensitive casefile that he needs to have read and be able to comment on to DAC Hughes by Monday morning – spread out across a large proportion of the floor. The case itself, open and upended, is being none-too-gently used as a speed ramp for a multi-wheeled, garishly-coloured plastic vehicle that Boyd guesses came from a cheap market stall or the like.

"Oliver," he barks immediately, glaring down at the culprit, "I thought we had an understanding?"

Disconcertingly familiar blue eyes look up and regard him thoughtfully and without any fear. The answer is considered; reflective, even. "Yes, but daddy said you wouldn't really cut my hands off if I ever touched your stuff again."

Damn. So much for male solidarity. Maintaining his menacing glare, Boyd growls, "Oh, he did, did he?"

A brief flicker of uncertainty crosses the boy's face, but is quickly gone. "You're a policeman. Policemen aren't allowed to do that sort of thing. Daddy said so."

"I see." Hands on hips, he glowers at the child. "But did your daddy also tell you what I am allowed to do to people who do bad things?"

"Send them to prison?"

"Exactly." Not for the first time in the last few months, Boyd has a momentary, entrancing vision of what it would be like to lock Oliver safely out of harm's way in one of the CCU's holding cells. Just for the duration. Until one or other of his absentee parents appeared to claim him. Not something he'd ever actually do, of course, and not only because Grace would never, under any circumstance, find it either acceptable or amusing, but a man can dream…

"Uncle Peter…?"

He's not sure quite how, when, or why he acquired the unusual sobriquet – perhaps Grace's daughter and son-in-law simply couldn't think of a better way to describe to a six-year-old the role and position he seems to have assumed in the family – but he supposes there are far worse ways to be addressed. Still deliberately solemn, he says, "Yes?"

An engaging smile precedes a forlorn, "I'm hungry."

Oliver is always hungry. Or so it seems to Boyd. In a way, it's extraordinarily useful, however. A hungry child is easy to bribe. A hungry child who's rarely allowed sweets and other sticky treats, doubly so. With a calculated scowl he nods towards the mess on the floor. "Put all that stuff back in my case – neatly – and I might be persuaded to see if there's something in the kitchen that you'd like."

Fatherhood. With every empty day that passes it feels more and more like a strange, abstract sort of concept. Something that happened in a totally different life. The enjoyable, fun bits, anyway. The responsibility, the fear, and the pain, all those Boyd remembers far too well, but the sunny, happy days, the days of football in the park, and being someone's infallible, all-conquering hero, those were so long ago now that –

He gives himself a sharp mental shake. Oliver is not Luke. Oliver isn't even his own flesh-and-blood. Oliver, for all his rambunctious, rebellious nature, is a borrowed treat. Or an occasional curse, depending on point of view. Watching as his scattered papers are obediently gathered and stacked with methodical precision before being returned to his briefcase, he wonders what the future holds for the boy. His has his mother's – his grandmother's – fierce intelligence, no doubt about that, and the same gritty tenacity, but there's also a much more wild, wayward streak in Oliver's nature that Boyd finds troubling. One that could certainly lead him down some very dark and dangerous roads as he gets older. Grace knows it, too, even if she refuses to openly admit it, and maybe it will be her insight and guidance that will ultimately be Oliver's salvation.

As his briefcase is snapped loudly shut, Boyd holds out his hand to the child. "C'mon, then, Little Boots, let's see what we can find for you to eat."

-oOo-

They'd still been in bed when the house phone had started to shrill early that morning. Curled up together under the covers in a sleepy, untidy tangle of limbs, drifting along somewhere between just-woken-up and awake-enough-to-misbehave, the long, difficult preceding week having taken its toll on both of them. Left undisturbed, there might eventually have been slow sex and a quick breakfast, or perhaps quick sex and a slow breakfast, but either way there would have been very little chance of either of them being showered, dressed, and ready to face the day until well past lunchtime. The unexpected call had changed all that. Grace's son-in-law, Steven, barely fifteen minutes away with both grandchildren, Katie and Oliver, in the car with him, the latter needing to be looked after "just for an hour or two" while Katie was taken to whatever exciting Saturday morning activity awaited her. A quick, and in Boyd's case extremely bad-tempered, scramble to get ready to receive visitors had immediately followed. Not the way either of them had intended to start the weekend. And then, just as the metaphorical dust had started to settle, Angela had also called.

Oliver is guzzling down chocolate cake with the kind of single-minded, greedy concentration that indicates his parents may well have a very taxing afternoon of hyperactivity ahead of them. Good. Serves them bloody well right, as far as Boyd is concerned. Most of his attention on the morning paper, it takes him a few moments to realise that he is being stared at with steady interest from the other side of the kitchen table. Peering over the top of his reading glasses, he demands without preamble, "What?"

"I was just wondering," Oliver says, the turn of phrase and its mode of delivery far, far too adult for a child of his age, "is nanny going to have a baby?"

It's a good thing – a very good thing – that he spoke in the few seconds before Boyd reached out for his half-empty coffee mug. The consequences of any delay might well have proved catastrophic, else. Momentarily reduced to mute astonishment, he sits frozen, staring into earnest blue eyes that watch him with an unsettling, artless curiosity. It takes a huge effort of will to unglue his brain and recover the power of coherent speech. "What?"

"Nanny Grace," Oliver says, as if he thinks it's merely clarification that is required. "Is she going to have a baby?"

For a moment reality goes into a disorientating sideways skid, one that causes Boyd to actually take a second or two to ponder the question seriously instead of instantly dismissing it. He blinks, manages to get a tenuous grip on the situation, and offers a strained, "I don't think so, Ollie, no. Why?"

"Because," Oliver says, squishing cake crumbs together on his plate, as if he can't bear to leave a single morsel untouched, "Katie says that when a man and a lady sleep together they make a baby. And I heard mummy telling daddy that nanny was 'definitely sleeping with the wretched man' – and I'm sure she meant you. So…"

"Oh." Boyd is not often rendered speechless. Or even near-speechless. His mind is working very fast indeed, but his mouth hasn't yet caught up. He eventually hears himself say, "And where did Katie hear that?"

"At school." Dismissive. A thoughtful pause is followed by, "So, I was wondering if nanny was going to have a baby."

Impeccable logic, Boyd has to admit. Putting the newspaper down with exaggerated care, he says, "Your grandmother already has two children, Ollie. I don't think she needs more."

"But Katie said – "

"I think," he interrupts before the situation can escalate further, "that you should be asking your mummy and daddy about what Katie said. Not me."

"Oh." Oliver's tone suggests he's less than satisfied by the response, but that he has more important things to think about. "Can I have another slice of cake, please?"

Kid, Boyd thinks, you can have the whole damn thing if you just shut the hell up about babies and people sleeping together. 'Wretched man' in-bloody-deed. He gets to his feet. "Well, I don't suppose it'll kill you, do you?"

He can feel the eyes that follow him across the kitchen. Exactly the same way he can always feel Grace's eyes when their gaze is boring into the back of his skull. Retrieving what's left of the home-made cake from its tin by the barely-used microwave, he picks up the knife again, contemplating the size of slice required to keep Oliver blissfully quiet for at least five whole minutes. Bribery is an artform when done well. Preparing to cut, he isn't ready for the clear young voice that inquires, "Would you like to have a baby with nanny Grace?"

What happens next has a sort of cosmic inevitability about it, of course. One minute everything's fine, the next there is searing pain and blood. Quite a lot of blood. And Boyd has never been good at restraining his quick, impulsive temper. Into the quiet, domestic setting he roars, "For fuck's sake!"

-oOo-

When he was a child, Boyd entertained a brief but intense passion for all things Roman. Gladiators, centurions, emperors, it didn't matter. He was fascinated by the blood and gore, the treachery, the rich tapestry of wars and barbarians and gods. He read copious books, nagged his bewildered parents into spending many long afternoons at various museums scattered around the capital, and did exceptionally well in history classes at school. The passion faded as he passed into his teens, but the accrued knowledge remained. The day he saw Oliver easily and quite knowingly manipulating his older sister, Katie, into taking the blame for a variety of his misdemeanours, the nick-name popped ready-formed into Boyd's head. Caligula – "Little Boots". Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus, the tyrant.

Rarely has Oliver deserved the nick-name more, Boyd feels, as now, when the reproachful young voice says, "I'm going to tell nanny you said a really bad word."

He doesn't tell the boy that nanny has most definitely heard him say an awful lot worse. Instead, he continues taping up his wounded finger and retorts, "No-one likes a grass, Ollie. Remember that."

There is an edge of glee in the immediate, "But you said – "

"Never mind what I said," Boyd interrupts. "I'm a grown-up, and grown-ups can say what they like."

"Mummy wouldn't like it."

Fair point. Mummy – Louise – is nowhere near as tolerant as her mother. Not only that, but Boyd is pretty damn certain that she ranks him fairly low in the suitable-suitor-for-mother stakes, and Oliver's earlier revelation only seems to confirm his nagging hunch. Generally, he's not much bothered what people think of him. At work he has the kind of formidable reputation that would make a lesser man reconsider a great many things about his approach to life in general and his co-workers in particular, but Boyd isn't interested in popularity, he's interested in success. The success of his unit. At home… well, in his personal life it's true he's a much calmer, quieter creature – but one who still has his detractors. What Louise thinks of him doesn't interest him much, but what Grace thinks of him… that matters. It matters a lot.

He surveys Oliver in bleak, baleful silence for a moment, considering his options. They seem to be limited to the obvious – bribery. He growls, "Attempting to blackmail a policer officer is a very serious offence, Oliver."

The bright blue eyes stare straight back at him. "What does that mean?"

Not for a moment does Boyd think the child doesn't understand. He may be young, but he is Grace Foley's grandson, and he's spent his entire life surrounded by intelligent, well-educated adults. Inspecting his taped-up finger, he asks, "What's it going to cost me for you not to tell your mother what I said?"

Small lips purse in determined consideration. A few calculated seconds pass before Oliver says, "I'm saving up for a scooter. A good one."

"I see." Damn kid's going to be a criminal mastermind long before he's out of his teens, Boyd is sure of it. Extracting his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans, he produces a ten pound note and holds it temptingly just out of reach. "Would this help?"

It seems, however, that he has underestimated his young adversary. "A really good one."

Truth be told, Boyd is torn between the desire to laugh and the instinct to applaud. But for the sake of appearances he scowls as he reluctantly replaces the brown note with a purple one. "One day you're going to push your luck just a little bit too far, Little Boots. Here."

"Thank you, Uncle Peter," the boy says, solemn and polite as he takes the money and spirits it away into a pocket. "And…"

"No," Boyd interjects hurriedly. "There's no 'and'."

"And," Oliver repeats, apparently not at all fazed, "I want to go to the zoo."

"What did I just say about pushing your luck too far, Ollie?"

The boy's gaze is steady and thoughtful. "It was a very, very bad word, though, wasn't it? Daddy said it once when he scratched the car and mummy – "

"All right," Boyd says, holding up a hand in weary surrender. "Twenty quid, and a trip to the zoo. Done."

And he's fairly sure he has been. Well and truly. By a consummate professional.

-oOo-

"I'm sorry," Grace apologises again, as they lean on the tubular steel railing watching Oliver racing round the park's rather forlorn and neglected playground. She still doesn't sound as if she's as penitent as Boyd thinks she damn well should be.

"Two-and-a-half bloody hours, Grace," he complains. "That's got to be a record, even for you. Half-an-hour, you said – forty minutes at the most."

"I know, I know. But Angela was upset, and I couldn't just drop her off and drive away leaving her in tears, now could I?"

"Why not?" Boyd demands, knowing he sounds petulant. "I would have done."

"No you wouldn't," she contradicts, easy and calm, "and you know it. You're far too soft."

"You think?"

She smirks. "I don't think, Peter, I know."

Growling to himself, Boyd watches as Oliver hurls himself towards the big climbing frame that dominates the centre of the playground. He anticipates tantrums and skinned knees before very much more time has passed, but he's not inclined to interfere with the boy's fun. Over-protective parenting was never his style, much to his ex-wife's chagrin. He shakes his head and says, "That little hoodlum is going to bankrupt me, Grace, I swear. Twenty bloody quid – "

" – and a trip to the zoo. I know, you've told me. Repeatedly." She chuckles, clearly entertained by the whole thing. "It's your own fault. Never give in to blackmail."

"Bollocks to that," he retorts. "I'm not having your daughter giving me a bloody earful when I can just – "

"As I said, it's your own fault, then, isn't it?" Grace turns slightly to regard him, blue eyes sparkling with undisguised amusement. Nodding towards Oliver, she continues, "He really likes you, you know. Apparently whenever he sees us he doesn't shut up for days about what Uncle Peter said and did."

Boyd snorts. "I bet Louise loves that."

"Louise," she replies, firmly but without any rancour, "will just have to learn to live with it, won't she?"

She means it, too, Boyd knows. Much as she loves her children – and her grandchildren – Grace is steadfastly in charge of her own destiny. Always has been, always will be. It's an admirable quality. Thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of his long dark coat to warm them, he says, "She really doesn't like me, does she?"

"It's going to take time, Boyd." Her voice is quiet.

Not looking at her, Boyd can't help sniping back, "And you've been saying that for how long, now…?"

Grace doesn't rise to it, merely says, "You're the wicked stepfather, I'm afraid."

It's a terrifying thought. One he hadn't really considered before. "Oh, please."

"Well," she concedes, "as near as damn it, anyway. She misses her father."

He can't help pointing out, "Maybe she wouldn't if you actually told her what a complete waste of fucking space he was."

"Boyd…"

His sigh is deliberately loud and heavy. He's close to overstepping the mark, Boyd knows, but he has no intention of apologising. The best he can manage is a grudging, "All right, all right. It's nothing to do with me. But I wish someone would tell her that I'm really not a bad guy."

"You think I haven't tried?" Grace matches his sigh with one of her own. "Look, we knew this wasn't going to be easy – none of it. Work, family… there are so many complications..."

"So?" he challenges.

She shrugs. "You're the one throwing all his toys out of the pram."

The accusation doesn't irk Boyd as much as he might have expected, and he finds that he has no appetite for arguing. He sighs again, nowhere near as dramatic and deliberate this time. "Oh, I'm not. Not really. It's just… I really don't like being judged by people who barely know me."

Grace looks faintly surprised, but all she says is, "Fact of life, Boyd."

"I know, I know."

"She thinks the same about you, you know."

That makes him frown. "She does? Why?"

Grace nods towards the child swinging between the climbing frame's bars. "Oliver. She knows he's a handful, but she's just like the rest of us – trying to be the best parent she can be without any real idea of what she's doing. She thinks you disapprove of the way she deals with him."

Incredulous, he snorts again. "Christ, I'm in no position to criticise someone else's parenting skills, am I? I did what I thought was right with my kid, and look how well that turned out. My son was barely thirteen the first time he tried to run away from home."

There's a moment of solemn, reflective silence before Grace says, "You see something of Luke in Oliver, don't you?"

Her insight stings. Boyd wants to deny it, but he knows that even if he does, she won't believe it. His reply is gruff and reluctant. "A little, maybe."

"I think it's more than a little," she tells him. "I think you see a lot of him in Oliver. And I think it makes you frightened for him."

"Jesus," he mutters, shaking his head. "That's the trouble with getting involved with a damn psychologist… Everything gets analysed to within an inch of its damn life. Why can't anything just be simple?"

Instead of retaliating to the barb, Grace gives him a nudge with her elbow. When he looks at her, she smirks and inquires, "When did simple ever do it for you, Boyd?"

"Never," he admits, allowing a faint grin. "I swear I'm a bloody masochist, the women I pick. Every single bloody time."

She smiles back for a second before saying, "Oliver's not Luke, and you're not his father – but you are becoming an increasingly important part of his life. You can help keep him on the straight-and-narrow."

Not sure how to respond, he growls, "He's got a father for that, Grace."

It's Grace's turn to snort. "And talking of wastes of space…"

Boyd raises an eyebrow at her, intrigued. "I thought you liked Steven?"

"I do like Steven… but he's really not the sort of man I would have chosen for my daughter."

Boyd chuckles at the irony. "Dear God – you two really are alike, aren't you?"

Grace frowns for a moment, then grimaces as she recognises the truth of his words. "Apparently so."

Watching Oliver still swinging and clambering, enthusiasm unabated, Boyd decides it's time for a change of subject. Nonchalant, he asks, "You coming with us to the zoo, then?"

She smiles at him, fond and amused. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"One thing…" he says. "If the lions – or anything else – start getting amorous, you can do the explaining."

Her smirk couldn't be more mischievous. "Still recovering from 'is nanny going to have a baby', are we?"

Boyd winces. "Trust me, it's going to take me a long time to get over that particular gem. The shock damn nearly killed me."

Deadpan, she says, "There have been occasional cases of women my age having babies, you know."

"Don't go there. Do not go there."

Grace laughs and pats his arm. "Don't worry, it's not going to happen."

"Damn right it's bloody not. Even if I have to take a vow of celibacy."

"Celibacy? You? Oh, now I really have heard everything."

He glowers at her. "Shut up, Grace. I'm still sore about not being able to have my evil way with you this morning."

The look she gives him in return is speculative. "Louise will be here soon to collect Ollie."

"So?" he inquires, more for form's sake than anything else.

"So…" Grace all-but purrs, "we could forgo the pub and have the late lunch at home…"

He enjoys pretending to be obtuse. Or rather, he enjoys her long-suffering exasperation when she's not quite sure if he's pretending or not. "There's no food in the house, I checked."

One elegant eyebrow lifts. "I was actually thinking about a rather different sort of lunch…"

Seems she's serious. Interesting. Much more interesting than steak and chips and a pint or two of real ale. Taking his hands out of his pockets, Boyd asks, "How much do you think it will cost me to bribe Ollie into not telling his mother what I did to you in the park?"

The look Grace gives him is more than enough encouragement to risk finding out, but all she says is, "I think that rather depends on what you want to do to me, don't you?"

Try as he might, Boyd can't prevent a wicked grin from breaking through his studied composure. "Sadly, I've only got fifty quid left in my wallet, Grace, and I really don't think that would cover it…"

- the end -