Dedicated to...
...well I guess the three of you know who you are.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.

A/N: On reflection, I should probably say that this makes a lot more
sense if you've seen S4 "Fugue States". :)

Improbabilities: Father Unknown

By Joodiff

David Silver was a really good man, I don't want you to think otherwise. A very good, very decent man; a man who brought me up with infinite love, patience and kindness. David Silver was my father, and when he died from lung cancer at the stupidly young age of fifty-four I cried myself to sleep for weeks, if not months. I loved him, and he loved me. David wasn't my biological father any more than Rebecca is my biological mother. They adopted me and they gave me the best and happiest start in life that anyone could ever want.

I don't remember ever thinking about my biological parents when I was younger. David and Rebecca never made any secret of the fact that I was adopted, and the whole situation just felt completely natural to me. I didn't really think about the woman who actually gave birth to me, or the man who… impregnated… her. Why would I? I didn't know them, had never known them.

The thing is, though, as the years started to roll past with ever-increasing speed, and as I saw more and more tragedies unfold in front of me, the first seeds of curiosity started to germinate.

I never think of myself as Mary Price. Never think of my mother as Jane Price… or Glover, as she is now. I mean, not in a conscious way.

Going to see Jane that time was painful. I can't honestly say that it was a mistake, though. Finding out that I have at least one half-sister was painful, too. I'm glad, though, that I never told Jane who I was. Who I really was.

Oh, God. I thought I could write this as coherently and unemotionally as I write my reports. Guess I was wrong. But it doesn't matter because no-one but me is ever going to read it.

It was the crime thing that got me thinking, I suppose. My mother – Jane – was… is… interested in true crime stories. I started to wonder if that was as coincidental as it seems. I suppose it must be, really. I doubt it's the sort of thing that's carried in ones genes. I might talk to Frankie about that one day. Maybe.

Father unknown. Hard words for anyone to read.

I don't know where the idea really came from, to be honest. Well, I suppose I do, given that I'm a police officer myself and just about all my friends are either police officers or connected to the police in one way or another. I started to think about that true crime thing. Started to wonder if there was more to it than a casual interest.

Maybe that's when I started to do a little quiet digging. In fact, let's just be honest – that's exactly when I started to do a little quiet digging.

Do I wish I'd never messed around with the past? I really don't know. Fuck, I don't know.

I got the envelope back from Edward in Scientific Services three days ago. I finally opened it yesterday.

Edward's a nice guy. Very quiet, very shy and very, very bright. I'm glad he's such a good friend, not just because I could ask him for such a big favour, but because I know he will keep his mouth shut. Not that Frankie wouldn't have kept her mouth shut, but I didn't want… this stuff… so close to home.

So. My dad is a police officer. In fact, my dad is a serving Met police officer.

Did Jane develop her passion for true crime because she once had an affair with a police officer, or did she have an affair with a police officer because she was interested in anything to do with crime? Who knows. Maybe one day I'll find the courage to go back and ask her.

I don't know why I'm writing this. I suppose because I need to discuss it and I have no idea who I could possibly talk to about it. I'm thinking about trying to talk to Grace. She's so kind, so caring, and she always knows what to say. Grace is sort of what I wish Jane was like. Grace would be a great mum to have. But I can't talk to Grace because… Well, just because.

What a fucking mess.

I asked Frankie about the accuracy of DNA tests to establish paternity today and she looked at me as if I'd gone completely mad. Guess Doctor Wharton can't quite get her head round the idea that someone could question something that she sees as a fundamental law of the universe. Anyway, it got me a twenty minute lecture. Which was pretty interesting, actually, but didn't do a lot to make me feel better.

Bottom line seems to be that if the DNA samples are good (they are) and the tests are done properly (they were), then the outcome is pretty cut and dried.

Edward got me a database hit on familial DNA weeks ago. I should have left it there. Should've just lived with the fact that my hunch was right, and Jane had a thing for police officers. Or maybe just for one police officer in particular, who knows? I mean, she was hardly the most… stable… of people back then, was she?

I wish I didn't imagine her hanging around police stations like some kind of groupie. I'm sure it wasn't like that. But the picture in my head won't quite go away.

Maybe it was a pub thing. I mean, we get people hanging around the King's Head all the time just because they know that most of us who drink there are in the Force. Maybe it was the same for Jane. Hang around on the fringes, wait for the drinks to flow, end up chatting to some fly young copper and…

Christ. I don't want to start thinking like this. Please God, it was something more than a drunken knee-trembler in a back alley somewhere.

Why does it matter? It shouldn't matter, should it? David and Rebecca are my mum and dad.

Jane and… my biological father… are just… Oh, how did Frankie put it? 'Just custodians of DNA'? Something like that.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

This is just so stupidly, improbably bad. And I wish I'd never pressed Edward to chase his initial findings. Wish I'd never asked him to run another database search and then compare the samples it flagged. Seriously, I do.

He told me when he gave me the envelope that I didn't want to know the truth. I really should have listened to him.

So. Now I have a completely ridiculous, implausible secret hanging round my neck like a bloody millstone.

Is my father a quiet, inoffensive desk sergeant somewhere? No. Is he, perhaps, an Inspector with his own squad? No.

Of course he's bloody not. Because life and fate like to have a good laugh at us against all mathematical odds, don't they? And you know exactly where I'm heading with this, don't you? Of course you do.

Daddy is a DSI. Well, how bloody funny is that. Hilarious, right? Because, guess what, I work for a DSI. And, yeah, of course the DSI I work for is my bloody father. The whole world is stark raving mad, after all.

Remember I said about talking to Grace? Well, now you see why I can't. Because everyone's a hundred and twenty percent certain that the lovely Doctor Foley and our estimable DSI are a long, long way past 'just good friends'. In fact, if they're not shagging each other, then my name's not Amelia Silver. Or Mary Price, come to that. Or… Boyd.

Oh bloody fuck.

He's my father. Peter Boyd is my father.

I was sitting staring at him this morning in our normal morning meeting, and he kept looking at me in that slightly baffled, slightly quizzical way that always means he knows something's up, but that he's not about to start asking questions. He's one smart cookie, our DSI. My daddy. Fuck.

But, yeah, I was staring at him, trying to decide if I could see any kind of family resemblance. I kind of think I can, you know? But maybe that's just a flight of fantasy. Wish fulfilment? No, that's not right. Something like that, anyway. Maybe I'm telling myself there's a certain look of him about me when it's just complete bollocks. I don't have his eyes, that's for sure. Or his nose – thank God. But maybe the chin? The mouth? Kind of. I could be imagining it. But according to Frankie DNA doesn't lie. And both me and my dad are on the database for exclusion purposes, so I guess I just have to decide whether I can live with this… thing... or not.

The really stupid thing is that he's always been a bit like a father to me. I can remember going for the interview for the CCU job and stuffing it up so badly. I can remember my mouth running away from me as I got fired up about justice and wanting to make a difference, and I can remember him sitting there quiet and patient as a cat at a mouse hole as I dug myself further and further into a hole that I wasn't getting out of easily. And maybe it was the way he was watching me, so composed, so wry, that made me lose my temper with myself. But I remember just saying fuck it before apologising and getting up to leave. And he shook my hand with a gravity that I now know was just hiding his impulse to throw his head back and laugh.

Bingo. Next day he's on the phone offering me a DC's post. And I practically snapped his hand off. Best career opportunity that was likely to come my way for several years. Goodbye boring CID leg-work, hello Cold Case Unit. And more leg-work, but a hell of a lot more fun, too. And you know what? I liked him. I mean, I do like him. He's hard work sometimes, and he asks for too much, and he can fly into a rage like no-one else, but he's… well, I don't know. Funny, charismatic, dedicated. Generous. Loyal. Bad-tempered, not entirely stable. He's… my dad.

As I see it, I have three choices. I can keep it to myself and carry on as normal. I can ask for a transfer to another unit without telling anyone the real reason… or I can front up to him and tell him. And see where things go from there. Except, if I do tell him, I'll be out of the CCU before my feet can touch the ground. Mind you, that's always a possibility, because if Edward can get a database hit so easily, then it's not beyond the bounds of probability (probability!) that someone else will one day get the same hit completely by accident. Frankie, maybe. Oh, God… not a good thought.

Fuck knows.

I mean, really. Fuck knows.

I could tell him. I mean, I could. Show him the infamous envelope. I can picture that conversation. "Hey Boyd, can I have a minute? Only it seems like you're my father…"

This can't be real. Life just isn't like this. Coincidence is bollocks. And that's a Peter Boyd-ism.

Strange thing is, I sort of think he might be all right with it. If the shock doesn't kill him. But he might be. We all know how cut up he is about his missing son… my half-brother… fuck. Gaining a daughter doesn't make up for losing a son, but he might… Oh, who knows? It's not like I'm actually going to tell him, is it? Am I?

I don't think David would have minded, to be honest. But Rebecca… I think she might be hurt. I mean, David's my father… he brought me up. But David's dead, and it's not like Boyd is a stranger… I know him and he knows me. And he's always looked after me, supported me. I think he'd actually be a great dad to have. But then, why did his son run away? No-one really seems to know.

I can't think about this. I'm so bloody tired and Spence says we have someone coming in to see us tomorrow to discuss a possible big new case. Some psychiatrist, or something. Whatever it is, it'll keep us busy for a while, and maybe that's exactly what I need. Give me a day or two of Boyd shouting and stamping his foot and I might be able to get some perspective on all this.

Least said, soonest mended, that's what they say, isn't it?

So I'm going to stop writing now and just go to bed. Two surviving mothers, one surviving father, and I'm sitting here all on my own. Great.

Peter Boyd is my father. Oh my God. Frankie would love this. Maybe one day.

Off to bed. Work tomorrow.

Fate is a bastard with a bitch of a sense of humour.

I mean, Boyd, for fuck's sake…

Yeah, thanks, Jane. Couldn't have picked any other copper in the bloody Met, could you?

'Night.

– the end –