DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.
WARNING: Tissue warning for sensitive souls.
This is really a (very dark) Christmas fic, but I'm uploading it today, 7th December, in honour of Sue Johnston's birthday – even though it's totally inappropriate for such an occasion! ;)
Happy Christmas 2012!
Broken
by Joodiff
PROLOGUE
It's an abysmal night, the driving sleet falling on already icy roads making them even more treacherous. Grace suspects that conditions aren't as bad in central London where the temperature is a little warmer and the volume of traffic is significantly higher, but on the lesser roads of the north of the capital it's definitely not a night to be driving unnecessarily. They really don't have a choice, however, and it's surely that pressure which is contributing to the antagonistic atmosphere in the car. The bickering is sharp and irritable on both sides, but she definitely feels that she has the moral high ground. Boyd, after all, has been drinking all evening and is therefore in no position to criticise her driving. But he does, complaining incessantly that she is driving too slowly or not slowly enough, that she is braking either too late or too early, that she's being too hesitant or too aggressive for the road conditions. He's a long, long way from drunk, but they both know he's not in any fit state to take the wheel himself. So they continuously snap and snipe at each other as she navigates a complex maze of streets that all look the same in the sleet and the harsh artificial street lighting.
"Fine," she says brusquely, her gaze fixed steadily on the road ahead. "Next time I'll get hammered and you can drive home."
"Yeah, well, it would certainly be a lot safer," he growls back at her. "Fuck's sake; slow down, will you?"
"I think you'll find I'm not even doing thirty, Boyd."
"On black ice. I mean it, Grace, slow down."
Sighing pointedly, she does so. Just a little. She wants to be at home in the warm, preferably curled up comfortably in bed with a glass of wine and a good book. She does not want to be out on the dangerously slippery roads with Boyd growling irritably at her for every perceived mistake she makes. Glancing briefly sideways at him, she wonders if they will still be on speaking terms by the time they reach the big house in Highbury they've been renting for the last six months while they squabble interminably over which – if any – of the numerous houses they've viewed together they will finally buy.
"I bloody hate Christmas parties, anyway," he grumbles abruptly. "And Christmas itself, come to that. Everyone goes completely insane, the shops are packed full of screaming kids and it's always fucking cold and miserable."
"Sometimes you're a real joy to be with, Boyd."
"Listen, if you're going to insist on parading me around like a prize-winning bullock – "
"Interesting analogy."
" – and forcing me into attending an agonising succession of parties held by annoying people I don't know from Adam, you can just grin and bear it."
Grace shakes her head impatiently. "Fine. Stay at home, then. Just don't complain that you've been left on your own while I've been out enjoying myself."
"It's not me who likes to play the martyr, Grace. And will you just slow down, for God's sake."
She glares across at him. "Do you want to drive? No? Well shut up, then."
He does. At least, he lapses into a sullen silence that grates on her nerves. She can see him out of the corner of her eye, staring moodily out of the window, his distinctive profile surprisingly sharp in the gloom. It doesn't mean anything, the bickering, she knows that. It's just the way they are, the way they've always been. They've always brought out the best and worst in each other. Always have, always will.
"What do you want for Christmas anyway?" she asks, more to break the brooding silence than anything else. It's a pointless question; the gifts she's bought for him are already wrapped and carefully hidden away.
Boyd doesn't turn his head, just carries on staring out at the icy night. His tone is still gruff as he says simply, "You."
It's impossible to remain angry with him. It doesn't matter how infuriating he is, how bad-tempered he can be, he always somehow manages to redeem himself. Wry and gentle, Grace says, "You've already got me, Boyd."
His reply is laconic. "That's all right, then."
She looks round to smile at him, and in that stupidly tiny moment of time when her attention is not on the road, everything goes horrifically wrong.
BROKEN
His body is broken. Shattered. The bleak list of his injuries seemingly endless. That's the grim reality Grace eventually faces after several days spent drifting in a concussed, traumatised state where nothing makes sense and even less matters. It is Spencer who finally breaks the news to her, his voice very soft, abnormally calm. She thinks he's trying to be as gentle as he can be, but he doesn't try to give her any false hope and she's absurdly grateful for that. She stares at the bright festive decorations beyond his shoulder as he talks and she wonders just how large and empty the big Highbury house will feel on Christmas Day.
"It wasn't your fault, Grace," Spencer repeats quietly but forcefully, as if he needs to make absolutely sure she understands him. "All the eye-witnesses have confirmed that you were travelling at well under the speed limit when you swerved to avoid the van."
She's still confused and her head and shoulder are still aching savagely despite regular pain relief. Fragmented bits of memory keep chasing through her head, but it doesn't seem to matter how hard she tries to concentrate, Grace simply has no recall of the moment of impact. She thinks she vaguely remembers the windscreen shattering into thousands of tiny glass pebbles, but she definitely remembers vivid blue strobes in the darkness. Remembers the bitter cold and the urgent voices of the paramedics working determinedly next to her. She has no memory of the oncoming vehicle that apparently skidded onto their side of the road, or of desperately attempting to avoid it. No memory of their car completely losing traction on the wet, frozen tarmac.
"And the car?" she asks abruptly, not fully able to process everything she's being told. "Is there much damage to the car? Boyd will be furious..."
"Grace," Spencer says gently, patiently, "I told you, the car's a complete write-off. They had to cut the roof off to get you out."
"I don't remember," she mutters, almost more to herself than to Spencer. She raises her eyes to his face. "And the van driver?"
"DOA. He was drunk, Grace. Lost control on the ice and…"
She watches him shrug. The words don't really mean anything to her. She doesn't remember the van, let alone its driver. Looking at the brash Christmas decorations again, she asks, "What day is it?"
Spencer frowns slightly. "Tuesday. The twentieth."
It doesn't seem possible. "Three days?"
"Three days," he confirms solemnly. "They brought you in late Saturday night."
"We'd been to a party," Grace says absently. She looks at the pristine white sheet covering her, and at the thin, warm hospital blanket over it. Her shoulder throbs resentfully as she shifts position slightly. "We decided to leave early because of the bad weather. Spence, is Boyd… is he going to be okay?"
Spencer looks down for a moment. When he looks up again, she realises for the first time just how haggard he looks. And how quickly all the years are suddenly starting to catch up with him. He holds her gaze steadily. "I'm sorry, Grace. I really don't know."
"I want to see him."
"Grace…"
"Please, Spence. Please…"
For a moment he says nothing, and then he nods slightly. "I'll talk to the doctors; see if they'll let me take you up there in a wheelchair."
-oOo-
It's so much worse than she anticipates, despite all the sombre warnings. The Intensive Care Unit is quiet and several of the beds are empty, but Boyd is lying in a side room on his own, and he is so bruised, battered and festooned with wires and tubes that at first glance Grace barely recognises him. Even though she is prepared for it, the first sight of the tracheostomy tube attached to the ventilator by his bedside terrifies her. More than anything else it forces her to confront the gritty truth of what she's been gently told – Boyd is very seriously injured; so seriously injured, in fact, that absolutely no-one is yet prepared to cautiously talk in terms of his survival.
Behind her, Spencer asks quietly, "All right?"
It's a senseless question, of course, but she nods mechanically in response. "Yes."
A significant pause precedes, "Grace, if anyone can make it, Boyd can. You know how stubborn he is."
He does not look stubborn, stretched out on the hospital bed, electrodes stuck to his bare chest, a plethora of tubes snaking this way and that. He looks alarmingly slight, frail and old, completely stripped of his pugnacious vitality, his unconsciously commanding presence. Grace has known him for more than a decade and for months she has been waking up every morning beside him, yet in all that time she has never once seen him looking so fragile, so incredibly vulnerable.
Spencer pushes her wheelchair a little closer to the bed. Close enough for her to see that there are still traces of dried blood in Boyd's hair and beard. His face is badly bruised and flecked with small cuts; more significantly there's a long angry gash marring his forehead, neatly steri-stripped closed. Grace thinks she remembers his head violently hitting the windscreen – no passenger-side airbag – but perhaps that's just the fanciful remnant of a confused, traumatic dream.
"Doctor Foley?" a pleasant, mature female voice says from behind them. A tall, dark-haired woman somewhere in her late forties steps into view. She smiles momentarily and extends a hand as she says, "I'm Doctor Barlow. I've been looking after Mr Boyd since he was brought to ICU. The nurses told me you were here."
And so it really begins for Grace, the appalling, rigidly-controlled nightmare that cannot possibly be happening so close to their very first Christmas together as a couple.
-oOo-
Selling both houses had been Boyd's idea. Sell both, buy a single house together and use any residual profits to shore up their actually quite comfortable joint finances. A fresh start for them both. After her initial surprise, Grace had found the idea appealing. No restless ghosts, no bad memories lurking in dark corners. Renting was always supposed to be an interim measure while they found somewhere they both liked – no easy task, as it's turned out. Now she is glad. It won't be long before she, at least, is discharged from the hospital, and though they have shared the Highbury house for months, it has never truly been theirs. Boyd hasn't even bothered to unpack a fraction of the boxes of things he deemed worth keeping from his house in Greenwich, and actually, Grace hasn't achieved much more.
She sits at his bedside as much as she can, for as long as the ICU staff and her own doctors allow, blankly watching various fluids passing in and out of him, watching the ventilator steadily breathing for him, watching the thin bright zig-zag line on the monitor that represents his heartbeat. They are keeping him heavily sedated, believing it will give him absolutely the best chance of recovery. They tell her he can probably hear her, can probably feel her holding his hand, but Grace wonders if Boyd is truly aware of anything; wonders if he dreams, wherever he is. She wonders if he actually knows she is with him, whether he misses her when she's not.
Visitors come and go. Boyd's brother and sister-in-law and their grown-up children, a few frightened personal friends and a couple of obscure relatives; even, once, his ex-wife, Mary – a slim, elegant and surprisingly softly-spoken woman expensively dressed in designer clothes and shoes. Former colleagues, too, some of whom Grace knows, some of whom she's never met. No-one stays long; extended visits are thoroughly discouraged by the nursing staff, and what's the point anyway? Boyd appears oblivious, quietly lost in an artificial no-man's land somewhere between life and death. It doesn't take Grace long to guess what everyone's thinking – that this time there is no way back for him. After surviving stabbings, beatings and all manner of other traumas over the long course of his law enforcement career, in retirement Peter Boyd's phenomenal luck has finally run out. She can't let herself believe that they're right. It has to be Spencer who is right – despite the extent of his injuries, Boyd is simply too tough and too damned stubborn to die. He is not a young man and it may take him a considerable amount of time to bounce back, but he will bounce back. He always does.
-oOo-
Eve arrives at the hospital on the Thursday, the day Grace is due to be discharged. Back in London for the festive period, it's evident she's wasted no time coming straight to the hospital. She brings with her the kind of straightforward no-nonsense compassion that Grace desperately needs, only spending a very few minutes in ICU before firmly escorting Grace through the tangle of lifts and corridors to the hospital's large, open-plan coffee shop where staff, patients and visitors intermingle freely in search of sustenance, relaxation or simple reassurance. Grace can read pain and sympathy in the dark eyes that watch her closely as Eve finally says, "I'm so, so sorry, Grace."
So many people have said so many variations of the same thing that she barely registers the words. With only the slightest of nods, she responds with a half-hearted, "Thank you."
"Did you get my messages?"
"Yes. Spence said you'd spoken to him several times."
"Where is Spence?"
Grace shrugs. "At work. The world doesn't stop turning, does it? I expect he'll be in later when his shift's over."
Eve is still studying her quietly. She says, "Grace, you do know that none of this is your fault?"
It's difficult to hold the younger woman's intent gaze. Grace looks down at her coffee cup. "I was the one driving, Eve."
"Yeah, and you swerved to avoid some drunken fuckwit who shouldn't have been behind the wheel."
"I don't remember much about it."
"That's understandable. You were badly concussed."
Grace frowns as she sifts through her disjointed memories. "We were arguing, I remember that… Maybe I was distracted?"
"Rubbish," Eve says brusquely. "Grace, Spence says the roads were absolutely lethal that night. That bloody… idiot… was pissed out of his head. Driving twice over the legal limit on a night like that? There's no way this is your fault."
Grace doesn't answer. Instead she repetitively stirs her coffee with a small white plastic spoon. Around her she can hear odd snatches of different conversations, tiny enigmatic pieces of tragedy and triumph. She looks up, stares directly at her ex-colleague and asks, "Do you think he's going to make it?"
Eve's expression becomes carefully neutral. "He's made it this far, and that's… good."
"Don't patronise me, Eve."
"I'm not," Eve says promptly. "I'm really not, Grace. His injuries are severe, and they're extensive. Broken ribs, punctured lung, ruptured spleen, and that's just the tip of the iceberg… he's damned lucky to have made it through the golden hour. But he did, Grace. He did, and that's what you have to hold onto."
Grace goes back to stirring her coffee. "How can he be so badly hurt when I got away with barely a scratch?"
Eve sighs gently. "It's not uncommon to see such a huge disparity in car accidents, you know that. There are so many different factors involved. Besides, I wouldn't call your injuries 'barely a scratch'."
"Concussion? A dislocated shoulder? A few bumps and bruises? Christ, Boyd's not even breathing for himself."
"He's on a ventilator because he wasn't breathing well, not because he couldn't breathe at all," Eve tells her sternly. "They're giving his body the best possible chance to start healing itself. They'll keep him sedated for a few more days and then they'll try switching the ventilator off for short periods. If that goes well, they'll wean him off it completely, then take out the chest drain and the tracheostomy tube."
"You should've been a doctor, Eve," Grace says wryly after several long moments.
The other woman smiles slightly. "As soon as I qualified I realised I really didn't have the temperament or the bedside manner for it. The dead ones are a lot less worried about that sort of thing than the live ones, believe me."
-oOo-
The house is dark and chilly, and even after just a few days it has a forlorn, unoccupied feel about it that Grace immediately finds oppressive. Not even the cheerfully chaotic living-room, a crazy mix of Boyd's furniture and possessions and hers, feels in any way welcoming. It's the smallest things that hurt the most, she quickly discovers. The book he was reading – a stolid biography of some obscure military commander – left lying casually on the arm of the sofa; a stone-cold half-empty mug of coffee sitting on the mantelpiece; his laptop still open on the coffee table, its blank screen already dusty. All the evidence that bitterly reminds her that he was here and now he's not.
It's even worse upstairs in the big front bedroom they appropriated for themselves the day they moved in. Boyd is not by nature an untidy man, but they left in something of a hurry for the party and his jeans and sweater are still lying on the bed where they were casually thrown before he showered and changed. But again, it's the smaller things that bring the misery welling up inside her. Cuff-links on the bedside table, his wallet – too bulky for the suit he chose to wear that night – abandoned on the top of the big chest of drawers that used to belong to her mother. All his – all their – life laid out before her in the tiny everyday details that usually pass completely unnoticed.
Sitting down on the edge of the bed, her eye is compulsively drawn to the battle-scarred Rickenbacker carelessly propped behind a stool in the far corner of the room. It must be getting on for fifty years old, Grace thinks. It wasn't new when he bought it in the late 'sixties; Boyd told her that himself. Wryly told her how he obsessively saved every single ha'penny, penny, sixpence and shilling that came his way until he could walk into the long-vanished music shop off the Goldhawk Road and claim his prize. She doubts he's played more than a few notes on it in the last twenty or thirty years, but she suspects his absolute refusal to part with it isn't just down to bloody-minded obstinacy. For Boyd, it's a link to something; to the past, to the bright, eager young man he used to be before ambition, marriage and fatherhood took him down a long and difficult path he surely couldn't ever have imagined.
"Play for me," she says again, amused and just a little petulant.
He shakes his head, dark eyes twinkling slightly in the subdued lighting. "Not a bloody chance, Grace."
She prods him with her foot and tries a winsome smile. "Please?"
"No."
Now she pouts deliberately. "Why not?"
"Because if I do, I'll never live it down, obviously."
"You're just no fun, Boyd."
He grins knowingly at her. "Well, that's not strictly true, is it?"
He could die, Grace thinks, staring numbly at the scratched, dusty old guitar. He's seriously injured and he really could die. Could so easily be snatched away from her in the blink of an eye. Not really aware of doing so, she curls up on the bed, her fingers digging into the soft wool of his heavy sweater as she drags it towards her. Boyd could die. The tears are welling up again, and this time she does not blink them furiously away. This time she buries her face in the sweater that still holds his scent and she cries without restraint.
-oOo-
"Oh, God," Frankie's voice says. "Did I wake you? I'm sorry."
"It's fine," Grace responds, too aware of the weary huskiness in her voice. Holding the telephone receiver gently to her ear, she stares up at the bedroom's high white ceiling. The cold December light picks out every tiny imperfection in the plaster. "How are you, Frankie?"
"Never mind how I am," Frankie says impatiently. "How are you? How's Boyd? Christ, Grace, I can't believe…"
Grace can tell the whole sorry story now without even thinking about it. Every word, every fact completely automatic. It doesn't mean anything more to her than any of the poems and pieces of prose she was forced to learn by rote in her childhood. None of the words come anywhere close to explaining the brutal reality of the situation. She finishes with, "I'm sorry Spence didn't manage to contact you sooner."
"Don't be stupid," Frankie says, as abrupt and tactless as ever. "It's my fault. Look, I only got back to Edinburgh last night, but I could probably get a flight down to London this afternoon…"
"This close to Christmas? I doubt it. Frankie, it's fine. Don't worry. There's nothing you could do down here, anyway."
"That's not really the point, is it? Christ, please don't tell me you're on your own there…?"
Grace restrains the impulse to sigh heavily. "I'm all right."
"What about your step-kids? Or your niece?"
"They've all been in contact. Look, I really am all right. Spence has been wonderful and Eve's back in London for a couple of weeks. I'm being well and truly looked after whether I like it or not."
There's a heavy, telling pause before, "And Boyd?"
Grace closes her eyes, forces calm into her voice. "There's nothing you can do for Boyd, Frankie. Trust me, coming down would be a complete waste of your time."
Frankie does not sound convinced. "If you say so."
"I do," Grace says firmly.
-oOo-
"I'm a little worried about his blood pressure," Doctor Barlow admits quietly. "It's been quite stable, but it's dropped significantly overnight. There's no obvious indication of renewed internal bleeding, but we may have to start seriously considering exploratory surgery."
Stoically, Grace asks, "Splenectomy?"
"It's certainly a possibility."
They are sitting in a small, bland room just outside ICU. Grace doesn't doubt that it's been the venue for many, many similar conversations, or that a considerable amount of bad news has been broken to a considerable number of traumatised people within its walls. Studying the doctor for a moment she suspects that there are things that are deliberately not being said. She asks quietly, "But…?"
"As I said, there's no obvious indication of internal bleeding."
"Please don't attempt to humour me, Doctor. What aren't you saying?"
Barlow folds her arms, unconsciously defensive. "We've sent bloods down to the lab to be tested and we've started him on broad-spectrum antibiotics as a precaution."
Bemused, Grace frowns slightly. "Antibiotics? You think he has an infection?"
"I'm not willing to rule it out as a possibility until I've seen the blood test results."
There's something more. Grace knows there is. She asks, "Worst case scenario?"
"Doctor Foley…"
"Just tell me."
"Sepsis," Barlow says calmly. "Which can lead to multiple organ failure, septic shock and ultimately, death."
-oOo-
"It's nearly Christmas, Boyd," she says softly, stroking a stray lock of silver hair back from his forehead. "It's Christmas Eve tomorrow. You'd hate it out there – all the last-minute shoppers pushing and shoving and falling over each other. Spence says the traffic in Oxford Street's already at a standstill."
Grace doesn't expect any kind of response and she doesn't get one. He remains still and pale, the only indications of life the various outputs shown on the monitoring equipment and the steady rise and fall of his chest as the ventilator does its work. There's no doubt his condition is gradually deteriorating and some distant part of her is traitorously beginning to accept the completely unacceptable – Peter Boyd is slowly but inexorably losing the battle for life.
She wishes they would stop the sedation; wishes they would let him come roaring back to consciousness, would let him fight on his own terms. They don't know how stubborn and strong-willed he is, how hard he will fight when his back's against the wall. She thinks that if he woke and saw her watching over him he would start raging and spitting blood and defiance at the dark shadow hanging over him.
A stray snatch of poetry filters into her mind: 'Do not go gentle into that good night… Rage, rage against the dying of the light…'
Dylan Thomas. Lingering memories of schooldays, of dusty books and old-fashioned desks. Children's games in the warm sunshine. Kiss Chase with the boys from the Grammar School at the other end of the street…
Spencer and Even have gone. He kisses her very gently and somehow Grace is not at all surprised. Drawing back, she says, "That's one way to say goodbye, Boyd."
"I'm not saying goodbye. Are you?"
She looks up into his eyes, seeking half-recognised truths. Shakes her head slowly. "No."
He smiles, a wonderful, artless smile that instantly sweeps aside all the boundaries that have ever existed between them. "Good."
They walked along the Embankment together. She remembers it very clearly. Quiet voices by the river on the night when the ending of one era heralded the dawn of another. Everything suddenly so simple and easy. No qualms, no protracted discussions, just the two of them and everything that was suddenly so eminently possible.
This is their time. This is finally their time. But though he's stretched out next to her, he is not with her.
Doctor Barlow appears in the doorway, hands full of paperwork, her expression grim.
And Grace immediately knows.
-oOo-
Voicemail. Again. This time, Grace does not hesitate. Perhaps it's even a little therapeutic for her to say bluntly, "Frankie. Things aren't looking good. If you want to say goodbye you need to get here as fast as you can."
It helps, in a way, to give voice to the agonising the drama. To speak the unspeakable.
At her elbow, Spencer reproaches her with, "Christ, Grace…"
She angrily rounds on him without a thought. "What? What do you expect me to say? He's dying, Spence. Face it."
He shakes his head obstinately. "You heard what Doctor Barlow said – "
"And so did you… They're pumping him full of antibiotics, but there's nothing more they can do. His body's starting to shut down. Goodnight, Vienna."
"Grace – "
"Don't, Spence. Don't."
Spencer glares at her, his fear and frustration quite clear. "You've got to believe he can make it."
"You don't believe me?" Boyd asks, mock-offended. He rolls over onto his back, deliberately rests his head in her lap to gaze up at her. "I'm wounded, Grace."
Winding her fingers gently into his hair, she shakes her head. "An elephant gun wouldn't wound you, Boyd; your hide's so thick."
"That's what you think, is it?"
Ignoring the mild rebuke she sighs pointedly. "We're hardly Romeo and Juliet, for heaven's sake."
"So? Oh, Grace, you're not going to finally admit that you have a conservative side? After all these years?"
He's very good at needling her. She's very good at ignoring it. "Absolutely not."
"Well, then. What's the problem with living in sin?"
"I don't have any problem with 'living in sin' as you so quaintly put it, I just don't think – "
"Ah, ha," Boyd interrupts with an impudent, boyish sort of grin. "I was right. You don't believe me."
Staring at Spencer, Grace shakes her head slowly. "I'm just not afraid to face the truth, even if you are."
"And what do you think Boyd would say if he heard you talking like that? It's not over until it's over, Grace."
"Oh, Spence," she says, her tone a mixture of irritation, sorrow and sympathy. "Surely you're not that naïve? It's an absolute miracle he's made it this far."
"Then we just keep praying for another miracle," Spencer says obstinately.
-oOo-
In the early hours of Christmas Eve, the last of Grace's brittle, forced courage deserts her. She breaks down at Boyd's bedside. Quietly and discreetly, but she breaks down. It's too hard, all of it. The endless hours of inactivity waiting for something – anything – to happen, and the continuous crippling fear that something will. When the worst of the choked sobs have passed, and the handkerchief she is clutching is a crumpled, sodden rag, she reaches out to him, takes his hand in hers. His skin is much cooler than it should be, but Grace ignores the chill and tightens her fingers around his, subconsciously waiting for the answering squeeze that never comes.
"I've never been lucky in love," she says softly. "But you know that. Some people just aren't, are they? Some people spend their whole lives waiting for the right person to come along. Then, I suppose some people wouldn't recognise the right person if they tripped over them in the street."
She still doesn't know if he can hear her or not, but it doesn't really matter anyway. Staring at the tiny dark hairs on the back of his hand, she says, "It's all right, you know. You can let go. You don't have to fight anymore, Peter. It's time to give in and call it quits."
She waits for the miracle. Waits for him to open his eyes. But he remains unresponsive. Broken. Lost.
"Eve and Spence are here," she tells him quietly. "I tried to send them home, but they won't go. I think they need you to shout at them. Always used to do the trick, didn't it? Do you remember last Christmas? Sarah really couldn't believe you made everyone stay at their desks until four o'clock on Christmas Eve. God, it seems so long ago now. Oh, and the Christmas Mel and Spence put a Christmas tree up in the squad room? Do you remember that? You went absolutely spare. We all thought you were going to have a stroke, you got so worked up."
There are so many memories, she realises. Good memories and bad. Years of memories. How can it possibly all be ending like this?
"I lied," she says abruptly. "I lied, Peter. It's not all right. Please don't go. Please don't leave me on my own. I'm so, so sorry. I wish we'd never gone to that stupid party, I wish we'd called a cab. It's all my fault, and I'm sorry. Just please keep on fighting. Please. Who's going to annoy me if you go? Who's going to drive me mad at the weekends when I want to sleep late? Who else is going to give a damn what I'm up to?"
The tears are falling again, but Grace doesn't care.
-oOo-
"Tell me the truth," she says calmly. Grace stares steadily at Eve for several long moments before glancing at Spencer. Looking back, she adds, "Not what the doctors are telling me, or what you think I should hear, but the truth."
It's Christmas Eve. In the hospital coffee shop, carols are being played on a loop, and several of the staff serving behind the long counter have tinsel in their hair. Eve looks down for a moment, then takes a deep breath and looks up again. "All his organs are failing, Grace. Liver, kidneys, lungs… heart. There's nothing they can do for him now."
"How long has he got?" Spencer asks. His tone is as hollow and distant as the empty look in his eyes.
Eve's reply is cool, controlled. "Not long. Hours at the very most. They'll keep on with the analgesia and the sedation to the very end. There won't be any pain or distress."
"Do you really think he can hear us?" Spencer asks after a long pause.
Eve shrugs very slightly. "It's possible, but like they've said all along, we simply don't know what effects the head injury may have had."
Spencer clears his throat roughly. "Brain damage, you mean?"
"Spence, it's irrelevant," Eve says softly. "It's over. I'm sorry, but you have to accept that. Say goodbye to him, or don't, it's up to you; but I'll be surprised if he makes it to midnight. Very surprised."
Grace stands up abruptly, her chair scraping loudly and discordantly on the hard floor. A woman sitting at an adjacent table looks round with a frown but says nothing.
Eve says rapidly, "Grace, I'm sorry…"
"No," she says, her voice stiff with the effort of controlling it. "I asked for the truth and you gave it to me. Thank you."
Spencer is on his feet, too, reaching out a concerned hand. "Grace…"
"I'm going back to ICU," she says flatly. She does not look back as she walks away from her two former colleagues.
-oOo-
I loved you for years, she writes, the hand holding the pen shaking slightly, but I didn't realise I was in love with you until…
Until he was the one calmly and indomitably standing at her side through the hardest, most frightening few months of her life. Until he was the one who simply got on and acted while everyone else just talked. Until he openly showed her what she'd always imagined – the gentleness and kindness of the heart and soul beneath the gruffness and the quick-temper. Angrily, Grace suddenly crumples up the half-written letter. Boyd will never read it. He will never read anything ever again. He'll never see another sunrise, another snowfall, another Christmas.
A hesitant voice says, "Doctor Foley?"
It's the doctor – Barlow – accompanied by a young nurse, and the sight of them makes Grace's stomach lurch. She feels faint and dizzy, and her voice rasps with emotion as she asks, "Is he…?"
"No," Barlow says quickly. "No. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I just thought you should know, Mr Boyd's brother and his wife have just left. Mr Jordan has just gone in, but he says he only wants five minutes. I thought you'd want to know that you can go and sit with him now."
"Thank you. How… how is he doing?"
"I think," the younger woman says quietly, "it would be prudent to start thinking about saying goodbye."
Already knowing the answer, she asks, "There really isn't anything else you can do?"
"To save him? No, I'm afraid not. Believe me, if there was anything…"
"You'd be doing it," Grace finishes for her.
Barlow nods. She hesitates before saying, "There's something else you should know. In cases like this, we really wouldn't consider attempting resuscitation to be in the best interests of the patient."
"I understand," Grace says dully. And she does. What would be the point in bringing him back from the brink just to suffer for a little longer?
"There won't be any more aggressive treatment," Barlow tells her quietly. "We'll keep him comfortable and he'll slip away gently sometime in the next few hours."
"Please," Grace says, getting to her feet. "I really don't want to hear any more. I just want to be with him."
-oOo-
The small windowless side room seems eerily quiet without the continual rhythmic hiss of the ventilator. Boyd is breathing unassisted with little sign of respiratory distress, but it's clear to Grace that nature is relentlessly taking its gloomy and inevitable course. His breathing is regular, but it is slow and shallow, and she can see the first tell-tale signs of cyanosis around his lips. Taking his hand again, she wonders what there can possibly be left to say. It just wasn't ever supposed to end like this. None of it, not just them. The future that looked so promising just a week ago is lying in ruins, and it all hurts so much; so very, very much.
"I love you," she says, kissing the smooth plateau of his chest. "You're the most exasperating man in the world, but I love you."
He stretches lazily in the morning sun. "Thank you. I think."
Grace waits for a moment before nudging him gently in the ribs. "Conventionally, you're supposed to say 'I love you too' – or some variation on the theme."
"I do."
She rolls her eyes at him. "I know you do, but that's not the point."
"Why?"
"Because you're supposed to actually say it, Boyd. Aloud. Honestly, you'd try the patience of a saint…"
How the hell is she supposed to carry on without him? He's been such a huge part of her life for such a long time that she can barely remember not having his maddening, supportive, boisterous presence either at her side or not too far away. Can't remember a time when she couldn't rely on him to incense and amuse her; to tease her, infuriate her and gruffly buoy her up when she needs it.
Grace takes a deep, steadying breath, exhales slowly. Takes another breath. Forces absolute calm before she starts to speak. And once she starts, it's easy. Easy to tell him everything about the nature of him, her and them. The tears that fall as she speaks are gentle, just as her lips are as she kisses him for the very last time.
Eve is right. Boyd doesn't survive until midnight. He dies a little after ten in the evening, his breathing getting slower and slower until it finally stops altogether. Grace is with him, and in the very last moments she feels an extraordinary sense of peace that is both bewildering and reassuring. She stays with him as the nurses and doctors arrive in response to the strident summons of all the monitoring equipment, and she waits and watches as Doctor Barlow quietly and gravely pronounces life extinct. Then, and only then, does she slowly and calmly go to find Spencer and Eve in the small, uninspiring room where she has spent so many hours over the last few days.
They go to see him together before they leave the hospital. The porters will come and they will solemnly wheel him down to the mortuary, but for now he lies in state, all the tubes and wires removed, a clean white sheet covering him to the neck. He looks relaxed. Finally and eternally at peace.
-oOo-
It is Christmas morning and Grace is wandering around the house, pointlessly moving from room to room, her mind and heart both achingly empty. She can't settle, can't concentrate; can't do anything but prowl aimlessly, disjointed thoughts briefly coming and going. Every time the telephone rings, she dutifully answers it and listens blankly to words of condolence and support that mean absolutely nothing. Later, she knows she will have companionship, but for now she is alone in a big echoing house that doesn't belong to her.
Ridiculous things go sporadically through her mind. Who will register Boyd's death, and when? Who will contact his solicitor about his will? Who will organise his funeral? Will she be allowed to play a part in any of it? She is no-one. Just a woman he was living with. An outsider with no rights and no legal status; one who can only hope to rely on the courtesy and goodwill of his family.
The harsh, sharp sound of someone knocking impatiently on the front door startles Grace out of her dark musings. It's far too early for it to be either Spencer or Eve and she is puzzled and irritated as she goes to investigate. She wants – needs – time to herself. Needs space to at least begin the near-impossible task of coming to terms with what has happened. She does not need anyone intruding on her grief and she is quite prepared to bluntly say as much. Unlocking the door, she pulls it wide open, the biting chill of the morning instantly making her shiver. She finds herself looking into a face that is pale and set, into dark eyes that hold a definite glitter of tears. Frankie Wharton.
The mounting belligerence drains away immediately. Her voice is an unnaturally hoarse whisper as she says, "Frankie…"
"I drove down," Frankie informs her tersely. "I couldn't get a flight, so I got in my car and I drove all the way down from Scotland. But I was too late, Grace. You told me coming down would be a complete waste of time, so I sat up there twiddling my thumbs… And – guess what? – I was too damned late."
There is pain in Frankie's voice. Pain and accusation. Grace swallows hard. "Oh, God… Frankie, I'm so sorry…"
"Yeah; so am I, Grace. So am I. They wouldn't even let me see him. Apparently there aren't enough mortuary staff available because it's Christmas bloody Day. So, thank you. Thank you so much."
The angry sting in Frankie's voice hurts. But Grace understands and instead of lashing back, she says quietly, "Come inside. It's freezing out there."
For a moment Frankie seems to hesitate, but as Grace draws back she steps boldly forwards and walks into the house without a word. Closing the front door, Grace silently gestures towards the living room, lets Frankie precede her into the big, cluttered space. Inconsequentially, pointlessly, she says, "Sorry about the mess – we never got round to sorting things out properly."
Frankie's lips curl in a slight sneer. "So I see."
Vaguely waving the younger woman towards a chair, Grace hovers uncertainly for a moment before perching on the very edge of the sofa. She clears her throat, says, "I really am very sorry."
Frankie grunts. "I just wish I didn't have a suspicion you did it on purpose."
Grace blinks in response. Genuinely incredulous, she shakes her head. "Frankie, surely you know I'd never do something like that?"
"Maybe you thought you'd leave it just a little bit too late, is that it? Didn't fancy competition at his bedside?"
"'Competition'?"
"You know what I mean."
"I'm not sure that I do," Grace says frostily, her heart starting to pound indignantly in her chest. "Why don't you spell it out for me?"
Frankie snorts contemptuously. "Come on, Grace; you were always jealous of how well Boyd and I got along."
Through gritted teeth, she retorts, "I'm going to assume that it's the shock talking and you don't know what you're saying."
"You can assume whatever the hell you like," Frankie says, her voice very cold. "Oh, you may have got what you wanted in the end, but it's always got under your skin that I got there first, hasn't it?"
"That's enough," Grace bites out sharply. "You're upset, and I understand that, but you have no right to come into my house and – "
"Your house?" Frankie challenges. "Funny, because the way I heard it, the pair of you were renting this place while you figured out whether or not you could actually bear to live together."
Grace takes a steadying breath. "That's not true."
"No? Well, I guess it doesn't matter anymore, anyway. Thanks to you, Boyd is dead."
The spiteful words seem to echo endlessly around the large room. They stare at each other, both suddenly horrified.
It is Frankie who speaks, Frankie who says desperately, "Christ, Grace… I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I really didn't mean that."
But Grace is already on her feet and heading blindly from the room.
-oOo-
Lying curled on the bed, it's a long time before Grace hears hesitant footsteps on the stairs. Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she tries to will herself a long, long way away from the unrelenting grim reality of everything that's happened in the last week. The sound of a soft footfall on the bedroom floor makes her tremble slightly. Not from fear, but from pent-up grief and stress. She feels the bed dip slightly as Frankie sits down, but she doesn't open her eyes and she doesn't say a word.
When Frankie speaks there is a hitch in her voice. "I loved him, too, Grace. I know you think it was just a stupid crush on a guy I met at work, but I really did love him."
Grace doesn't respond, just draws her arms closer around herself and concentrates on keeping her breathing as slow and steady as possible.
"I know he didn't feel the same way about me," Frankie continues. "I always knew that. Oh, he liked me and we had a few really good times together… but none of it ever meant anything important to him. That's why I left in the end. But I suppose you guessed that."
Still Grace says nothing.
The silence stretches. Frankie sighs. A moment later she says, "He never did get rid of the guitar, then."
Grace opens her eyes. Looks at the battered Rickenbacker in the corner of the room. Her voice not much more than a whisper, she says, "No."
"Did you ever hear him play?"
"No," Grace mutters. Something makes her grudgingly ask, "You?"
"Only once, after I accused him of not being able to," Frankie says. There is a pause. "I was wrong. He could really play."
Grace isn't sure why the information hurts, but it does. Almost unbearably.
Eventually Frankie looks round at her. "He was a very… singular… sort of man, wasn't he?"
Sitting up slowly, Grace nods. "Yes he was."
Frankie hesitates before saying, "Please don't cut me out, Grace. Of the funeral and… stuff."
"I don't think any of it is going to be up to me, Frankie. Edward will take care of it all, I assume."
There is another protracted silence. Finally, Frankie says, "I should go."
"Yes."
"I'm really sorry, Grace. For what I said."
Grace closes her eyes briefly. "Grief makes people do strange things. Say strange things."
Frankie chews her lower lip for a moment. "Spence said it wouldn't have mattered, you know. Whether you hit that oncoming van or not. Once the car started to slide…"
"I didn't hit him," Grace says automatically. "I swerved to avoid him and I hit the railings."
"But Spence told me…" Frankie starts. Her expression suddenly changes. "Oh. Maybe I got what he said mixed up."
Grace can feel her chest tightening. Staring at Frankie, she says, "I hit the van?"
"Grace – "
"Tell me exactly what Spencer told you about the accident, Frankie. Word for word."
"I can't really remember…" Frankie dissembles.
"Frankie."
"He just said… Well, he said that you hit a patch of black ice and lost control of the car… You ended up on the other side of the road, and the guy in the van was too drunk to react fast enough to avoid you."
"I lost control of the car?"
Frankie nods. Then she says wearily, "C'mon, Grace, it could have happened to anyone. Spence said the road conditions were atrocious that night. Maybe you were going a bit too fast, I don't know. Anyway, the police aren't taking any further action, are they? No-one's blaming you."
"No," Grace says distantly. "No-one's blaming me."
-oOo-
It's late now, the last few hours before Boxing Day dwindling away, and through a thick haze of tears and alcohol Grace can just about see Eve shaking her head slowly. There is only compassion in her tone as she says, "Grace, Spence was just trying to protect you, that's all."
"Do you have any idea how sick I am of people trying to protect me? I'm not made of glass for God's sake."
"You've got every right to be angry – with all of us – but don't push Spence out. He needs you just as much, if not more, as you need him. Boyd was like a father to him."
"Don't start re-writing history, Eve," Grace says angrily.
"I'm not. I'm not saying they didn't have their ups and downs, but you know better than anyone how close they were. Boyd was fiercely proud of him, you know that, and Spence was just trying to do what he thought was best. What he thought Boyd would have done."
Grace shakes her head stubbornly. "Boyd wouldn't have lied to me."
"Oh, come on. Boyd lied to you all the time."
"Not about important things. Never about important things."
"So what are you going to do?" Eve demands irritably. "Spend the rest of your life feeling guilty about something that simply wasn't your fault?"
"Except it was my fault, wasn't it? I didn't swerve to avoid a drunk-driver, I lost control of the car because I was going too fast."
"You were well under the speed limit."
"Boyd told me to slow down, did you know that?"
Eve sighs loudly. "Don't do this, Grace. It could have happened to anyone."
"Yes, but it happened to me, didn't it? And the man I love… loved… more than anything in the world is dead because of it."
"It doesn't matter what I say, does it?" Eve asks at length. "You're going to keep on blaming yourself, regardless. And that's what Boyd would have wanted, is it?"
Grace glares at her. "Don't you dare tell me what Boyd would have wanted."
Eve stands up abruptly. "That man adored you, Grace. Do you think there's anyone who doesn't know that? He absolutely adored you. And he respected you, too. Because you've got principles, ideals… and guts. Wallow in self-pity tonight if you want to, after all, he's barely been dead twenty-four hours, but don't forget to ask yourself exactly what he would've had to say about it."
"Go away, Eve."
"All right," Eve says quietly. "But I'll be back tomorrow, and so will Spence; and neither of us are going to let you keep doing this to yourself."
-oOo-
Eve's words stay with her. As Grace roams the house, unable to sleep, Eve's words stay with her. She's still too raw, too shocked and too hurt to analyse them properly, but the words themselves are burning in her mind. She thinks about Spencer, she thinks about Boyd and she thinks about the night of the crash. She thinks about a deep voice as soft as velvet and as harsh as gravel. She thinks about intense dark eyes reflecting the moonlight on warm summer nights by the river. She thinks about muscle and bone under remarkably soft skin. All he ever was, all he ever could have been.
It hurts so damned much.
What is there left for her now?
"Don't do this, Grace…" Eve's voice echoes in her head. The words keep repeating themselves, over and over again until she's sure it's Boyd's voice, not Eve's that she can hear.
"Don't do this, Grace," he says at her shoulder, his voice so clear and so forceful that she quickly looks round. There's no-one there, not even a shadow on the landing wall. But she's sure she can feel his annoyance, his blistering impatience.
Retreating to their bedroom, Grace sits on the bed again. Her thoughts tumble and tangle, their clarity not remotely helped by the amount of wine she's drunk. She finds herself thinking about Spencer again. Eve is right. Spencer is suffering, too. Spencer has lost his friend and his mentor; the man who was the closest thing he had to a substitute father for so many years.
An idea takes hold in her head. Spencer should have something tangible to remember Boyd by. For a moment her eyes rest on the Rickenbacker, but no. No, that isn't what Spencer should have.
Spencer should have his watch. Not the one he was wearing on the night of the accident, the one that smashed when it hit the door pillar as the car barrel-rolled. No, Spencer should have the heavy Rolex with all the complicated little dials that Boyd used to wear at work simply because the outrageous statement it made amused him no end.
Grace shifts position on the bed, turns to face the small bedside cabinet that was his. It doesn't feel wrong to slide the top drawer open, not now. She would never have done so while he was alive, firmly believing that some things should remain private, but she does it now. The contents are largely unexciting. Stray bits and pieces. Nothing of any real value, except, close to the back, the Rolex neatly stored in its box… and something else. A small gift-wrapped package. Christmas wrapping paper.
Her heart lurches.
It's too much. She can't bear it.
Instantly pushing the drawer shut, Grace feels herself start to shiver. Shock, no doubt.
Deep breaths help. It takes her a long time, but eventually she gingerly opens the drawer again. The package is still there. Green paper covered with little red Christmas trees. Absurdly bright and cheerful.
She has to know. Her fingers close around the gift and she draws it out gently. And, yes, of course it's her name written on the small attached tag. Nothing else; no message, no signature, just her name in Boyd's distinctive scrawl. So damn typical of the man.
In the last few minutes of Christmas Day, Grace tentatively teases open the garish wrapping paper, and even before she's finished, she knows exactly what's in the small box in her hand. The future that should have been. The expensive solitaire diamond Boyd always gruffly denied he would ever give her.
And under the weight of it, Grace, like Boyd, is utterly broken.
EPILOGUE
"Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed…"
Unloved. The bitterest lie there ever was or ever will be, because the proof of her long-ago impulsive dishonesty stands all around her. And it's fitting that the sky is a dull, leaden grey, and that the rain is falling in a cold, steady drizzle. There could never be a better day for this task, for the rain hides so very much. Grace thinks Boyd would have wholeheartedly approved of the high melodrama of the freezing rain and the bleak gunmetal sky. Certainly he would have approved of the presence of not one, not two, but three forensic scientists beside the open grave. Oh, yes, that would definitely have appealed to his dark sense of humour; making the custodians of the dead stand patiently in the January rain not for an exhumation but for a burial.
"…We therefore commit his body to the ground…"
The coffin is simple. The family have made a good choice. Oak and brass. It will endure in the cold, wet earth, holding him in a quiet embrace while nature takes its inevitable course. Sometimes too much knowledge is a bad thing. Grace does not want to think about the realities of decomposition. Doesn't want to think about all the cruel facets of death and decay that in the past she has so often seen laid bare under bright artificial lights.
"…Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust…"
The peaked cap with its silver braid is still on the coffin lid. She can't recall ever seeing him wearing it, but maybe it's important to his family that it goes into the ground with him. Maybe it's a gesture; to him, or to the world in general. Maybe they just want to make it clear to everyone that warrant card or not, at heart Peter Boyd remained a police officer until the day he died. Maybe it's just a way to express their intense pride as well as their deep sorrow, and Grace can perfectly understand that.
"…In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ…"
It's very traditional, this burial. And she thinks that might have amused him, too, for despite what people thought in many ways Boyd was never very traditional himself. Always a contrary mix of opposites and wild extremes. A man always in conflict; a man who always had to be fighting for or against something. Or someone. A man never content to simply be. A very ordinary man, and a very extraordinary one.
"…Who shall change our vile body…"
Spencer is standing with his head well down. Grace thinks he is doing everything he can to hide his tears. From her, from the family, from all the friends and ex-colleagues who are clustered closely together in the bitter cold.
"…That it may be like to his glorious body…"
Eve, though, is staring straight ahead, her expression completely unreadable. No sign of tears, just a grim pallor that may actually say more about how she really feels than simple tears ever could.
"…According to the mighty working…"
And then there is Frankie. Now in her early forties, she looks almost more gamine than ever. Her eyes are unnaturally bright and the rain has plastered a long lock of dark hair to the side of her face.
"…Whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself."
This is not how it was supposed to end. None of them were supposed to be standing broken under the ominous winter sky just days after all the Christmas and New Year festivities.
They all solemnly echo the clergyman. "Amen."
Grace looks up at the sky. The rain is still falling and there is absolutely no sign that the sun will break through the dark clouds.
Ever again.
- the end -
"Life was such a precious thing, easily broken." - Shaun Jeffrey