DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.

As a Valentine's Day fic, this is a few days late. Sorry. :)

Serendipity

by Joodiff

A parent wouldn't be at all surprised by just how fast two small children have managed to turn a formerly quiet and orderly workplace into a frenzied maelstrom of noise and chaotic activity, but Eve is not a parent and therefore she finds the phenomenon both startling and a little mesmerising. The same cannot be said for her scowling companion. His reaction is not one of surprise, but of marked displeasure.

"Look," she protests, matching his baleful glare with one of her own, "I didn't have a choice, okay? In case you'd forgotten, Boyd, it's Saturday. The weekend? And I'd already promised to look after them when you called me."

"Fuck's sake," he grumbles back, the volume of his annoyance seemingly only moderated due to the low age of their potential audience. He shakes his head again and growls, "Well, you can't take them in there with you."

She frowns at him. "Why not? They'll behave themselves."

Boyd gives her look that is both incredulous and appalled. "Oh, just think about it, will you? For a start, what's left of O'Donnell is still laid out on the slab."

She shrugs, glancing towards her restless nephew and niece who are now waiting by the lab's outer door. At least they've temporarily stopped shrieking and chasing each other up and down the gloomy corridor. "So? Kids love that sort of thing."

"You're genuinely scaring me now."

He doesn't seem to be joking. In a grudging offer of compromise, she holds up her hands and says, "Oh, all right, all right. I'll tell them not to look."

"You're useless at the whole 'responsible adult guardian' thing, you know that, don't you, Eve? Completely fucking useless."

She glowers. Glacial, she inquires, "Do you want me to take a look at Moore's ballistics report before Monday, or not?"

"No," Boyd says, his heavy sarcasm very pointed. "I just decided to completely change my own plans and call you in on double-bloody-time for the sheer hell of it. Of course I want you to take a look – you just can't take kids into the lab."

Putting her hands on her hips in an unconscious gesture of grim defiance, Eve demands, "So what do you expect me to do with them? Lock them in a holding cell for the duration?"

Boyd glares at her again, and she suspects he's seriously considering her suggestion. It's several long seconds before he mutters, "Fine. They can stay with me."

Surprised by his unexpected solution, she blurts out, "With you?"

He looks offended by her clear scepticism. "Why the hell not? For God's sake, my parenting skills may not be the greatest on the damned planet, but at least I've got enough bloody sense to keep them well away from rotting cadavers."

"I told you, Boyd – kids love blood and gore. Well, I did at that age, anyway."

"Jesus. You're so fucking weird, Eve. I've always thought so."

Choosing to take his disapproval as a compliment, she grins at him. "Kind of goes with the job. Well? Do you even know which one's which?"

Boyd's reply is scathing. "Well, gender stereotypes aside, I'm guessing that Laura's the little one in the pink coat and Toby's the hyperactive one waving the plastic sword around."

"Congratulations, Detective Superintendent," she says, "you've got the job. Happy babysitting."

-oOo-

It takes Eve longer than she expects to check and double-check the findings of the complicated and highly-detailed ballistics report that has finally reached them, but once she's satisfied she leaves the lab promptly. It's not that she doesn't trust Boyd, more that she doesn't trust her brother's young children not to easily run rings round him. He may very well be a gruff, tough police officer with more than thirty years' service in the Met to his name, and formerly a father himself, but Laura, for one, is every bit as determined as she is ruthless, and at just four years old she already possesses an enviable ability to manipulate the male of the species into doing exactly what she wants. The potential for amusement is very high, but Eve's not sure she wants to endure the inevitable payback. Though, on the other hand, it might be worth it, if only for the sheer joy of regaling her other colleagues with the story on Monday. She can clearly picture the look on Kat's face, and as for Grace… Actually, she's not so sure about Grace's reaction. Amused, no doubt, but probably with a tangible edge of censure regarding the suitability of the CCU's headquarters as any sort of kindergarten.

The squad room seems very quiet as she approaches it. Unnervingly so. Several thoughts chase through Eve's mind in quick succession. First, that her nephew and niece have fled the building altogether, terrified by Boyd at his most irascible, and second, that he has further contemplated the relative merits of her earlier sarcastic suggestion and has, indeed, locked the pair of them away in one of the unit's small bare holding cells. Thirdly and finally, it occurs to her that some worrying scenario involving the use of handcuffs has unfolded during her absence. Though she's not sure if she's more concerned by the idea that Boyd has thus restrained her brother's much-loved if rather ill-disciplined children, or by the unlikelier but considerably more alarming notion that they could be the perpetrators rather than the victims.

The big, shadowy room, she discovers on entry, is deserted. Even Grace's cosy corner that is still her designated 'temporary workspace' is unoccupied, and that alarms Eve because it's exactly where she thought she'd find the unlikely trio. A few steps further, and her anxiety abates a fraction – through the internal office windows she can clearly see a casually-attired Boyd seated at his desk, head down in concentration. He does not appear to be handcuffed, maimed, or on the verge of tears. One worry duly set aside, she can return to being concerned for the welfare of Toby and Laura. They may be loud, over-energetic, and given to getting into all sorts of unpredictable mischief, but she's very fond of them. As is her twin brother, who won't be at all happy if he ever finds out precisely where they've spent at least some of their afternoon.

It's Saturday, she's uncharacteristically anxious, and there's something about Boyd not appearing anything like as intimidating dressed in jeans and a threadbare old polo shirt as he does wearing a sharply-tailored business suit that makes her barge straight into his office without bothering to knock. Her tone is heading towards strident as she demands, "Where are…? Oh."

Toby and Laura are sitting side-by-side on the uncomfortable low couch that's been a feature of Boyd's office for at least as long as she's been part of the CCU. Not only are they perfectly still, but they are absolutely silent, both of them staring transfixed at the man sitting behind the desk. It's… uncanny. To say the least.

Boyd looks up at her, his expression impassive. Though she's sure she detects just the faintest trace of triumphant smugness lurking in the deepest depths of his intense brown eyes. "Ah," he says, placing his pen down with a studied amount of care and precision, "Doctor Lockhart."

Something's going on. In fact, Something Is Going On, each and every word beginning with big bold capital letters. She's certain of it. Not sure how best to approach the situation, she gestures towards the squad room behind her and says, "Ballistics…? Do you want to…?"

"Of course," he replies. She notices the unusual way he gets to his feet, every movement smooth and controlled. So much so that he seems to simply flow upwards to his full height rather than to just stand up. It seems to hypnotise the children, and they watch him with round, expectant eyes as he addresses them in a tone that is stern but not at all unkind. "Remember – first one to make a single sound…"

Leading the way out into the squad room and perching on the edge of Spencer's desk while Boyd follows and closes his office door behind him, she says, "All right. I'm impressed. What on earth have you done to them?"

He treats her to the startling grin that is every bit as rare as it is mischievous. It makes him look a lot younger, that wicked grin, and gives her an unforeseen insight into at least some of what it is that Grace seems to see in him. A thorny and infinitely perplexing question that Eve's puzzled over for a long, long time. He says, "A touch of coercion, and the judicious use of the oldest trick in the parenting book, Eve – bribery."

"Oh, God. What have you promised them?" She's already envisioning enduring all sorts of unwelcome tantrums for the rest of the afternoon. "Boyd, my sister-in-law's going to kill me if I take them back demanding – "

"Relax," he says in an easy tone, putting his hands in his pockets and nonchalantly leaning himself against the partition wall. "All you've got to do is buy them each the very latest – "

It's Eve's turn to interrupt. "You're kidding?"

"Maybe," he admits, the grin returning, but at much lower wattage. It fades away after a moment and he inquires, "Ballistics?"

"Short version?"

"Obviously."

"Slater's Beretta didn't fire the bullets I recovered from O'Donnell's body."

Boyd's dark brows draw down into a sharp frown. "Shit."

"Quite."

"What's the margin for error?" he asks after a brief hesitation, his thought processes a long way from hidden.

Eve shrugs, knowing he won't like the answer. "Infinitesimal, according to Moore. Of course, that doesn't mean that Slater isn't our killer…"

"…just that I can't go and kick his door in tonight."

"Sorry."

He continues to scowl for a few seconds more, muttering sotto voce imprecations to himself, and then gives a loud, dismissive snort. "Fine. Okay. Well, that's that, then. For now."

"Cheer up," she offers, unable to resist, "at least you won't be in the doghouse tonight because you're here interviewing him."

"In the doghouse…?" He looks bewildered – genuinely so. But surely…?

"Wait," Eve says, the single word delivered quiet and careful into the near-silence, "you do realise what today is?"

"Saturday," is his impatient retort. "As you've already reminded me. Repeatedly."

He's an idiot. Well, of course he is. He's a man, after all.

"February the fourteenth…?" she prompts, searching for signs of recognition in his expression and finding none. None at all. "Valentine's Day…?"

She's not sure she's ever seen the old cliché about blood draining from someone's face demonstrated quite so well. It dispels any hint of uncertainty that might have been starting to appear in the back of her mind about the accuracy of her suppositions regarding his relationship status. A single man with no romantic ties would have no reason, after all, to look anything like as ashen as Boyd now does. For a moment – a very brief moment – she almost feels sorry for him. It doesn't last.

"You'd completely forgotten, hadn't you?" she accuses, both amused and annoyed – the latter most certainly for vicarious reasons.

If she's ever wondered what someone supposedly resembling a rabbit caught in car headlights looks like, she's unexpectedly got her answer. It's not at all difficult to interpret the flow of his thoughts – shock, denial, guilt, and finally something that looks a lot like defensive antagonism mixed with controlled panic. Give him his due, though, he attempts to rally with a disparaging, "Nothing but over-priced commercial hype, Eve."

"Yes," she says, deadpan, "and I'm quite sure that… the lady in your life… will see it that way, too."

The look that settles over his features is priceless, and if she wasn't fighting so hard against the urge to laugh, she'd notch it up as a significant victory, because she reads everything she needs to know – and so much more – in his conflicted expression. She's right in all her unconfirmed assumptions, no doubt about it, and she sees the exact moment when Boyd realises that she knows, and more – that she knows he knows she knows… and so forth.

His surrender is abrupt and unconditional. "I'm a dead man."

"You are," she agrees, deciding it would be heartless to openly revel in his unfortunate predicament. "How on earth did you fail to realise, Boyd? There are advertisements everywhere, and every damn shop in London is – "

"Yes, thank you," he snaps at her, starting to pace round the squad room in a very familiar manner. Passing the photograph-covered evidence board, he pauses. "It doesn't really matter, though, does it? I mean, all the hearts and flowers crap… isn't that just for teenagers and people desperate to get laid?"

"If you like," she says, folding her arms and idly starting to swing one leg. "Though I might add 'people desperate to continue getting laid' to the list, myself."

If looks could kill, as the old saying goes…

Boyd starts to pace again. "She won't really mind, though, will she? I mean, we've been flat out on this case and…"

"'She'?" Eve queries as his half-hearted optimism seems to trail away with his words. She hopes her innocent expression matches her ingenuous tone.

"She," he says, glancing at his watch, "who is due back from Manchester in less than two-and-a-half hours."

The effort required not to laugh is becoming unbearable. So much so that Eve almost misses the opportunity to gloat over the unequivocal confirmation of all her suspicions. Almost, but not quite. "I must remember that it's going to be a bit frosty around here on Monday morning."

Again, the look he directs at her is worth a thousand words. "Not helping, Eve. Really not bloody helping."

She's about to give in and laugh when she realises just how tired and despondent he suddenly looks, for all his attempts at bluster and bravado. It's her second insight of the afternoon into what it could be that really underpins Grace's enduring affection for him. A real hint of the man he is away from the rank and responsibility of work. A quieter, much more vulnerable man. Maybe. Watching his agitated prowling, she asks, "You really had no idea?"

"Do I look like a man who's been planning a romantic Valentine's Day tryst for bloody weeks? Fuck." Succinct and heartfelt. "Fuck, fuck,fuck."

"It could be worse," she offers.

"How?" is his explosive retort. "How could it be fucking worse? The dog-eared last remaining card in the shop and whatever wilted third-rate flowers there are still left to buy anywhere in London aren't going to cut it, are they?"

"Probably not," she acknowledges. Definitely not, in fact, but kicking him when he's down seems unfair. Suddenly the situation doesn't seem anything like as funny. Not when she remembers what the two of them have been through in the last couple of years. Not when she thinks about how withdrawn he was for months after his son's death, or how pale and frightened Grace looked in unguarded moments during the necessarily unpleasant treatment to destroy the pernicious disease threatening her life. All amusement gone, she says, "Look, I just might be able to help you."

Boyd throws her a sceptical look. "Oh? And why would you do that?"

"Because," she counters, "you might be a complete pain in the arse most of the time, but maybe you deserve a break. And besides, Grace is my friend."

He eyes her with what she can only describe as deep suspicion. But only for a moment. "Go on."

"So gracious," she snipes, easing herself off Spencer's desk. "Carnival in Islington. Heard of it?"

Boyd shakes his head. "No."

"Too far north of the river?" she suggests. "It's one of those ultra-modern fusion restaurants, with a bit of a traditional twist."

"Isn't that rather a contradiction in terms?"

"Do you want my help, or not?" she asks, the frost in her tone deliberate. When he offers no further challenge, she continues, "Just recently it's become one of the places to go. People are booking tables up to six weeks in advance."

Boyd's shoulders visibly slump. "I thought you were supposed to be helping me?"

"I am helping you. I'm assuming that since you haven't heard of Carnival, you also haven't heard of Adam Lockhart?"

"Lockhart…"

"He's a chef," she supplies. "A very fine chef, as it happens, and – "

"Adam… and Eve?"

She ignores his sudden glee. " – he's my brother. My twin brother."

Despite his woes, Boyd is grinning. "Seriously…? Your parents actually named you 'Adam and Eve'?"

She narrows her eyes at him. "Go on, enjoy it all you want, Valentine Boy. It's not as if I haven't heard all the jokes a million times before. But while you're laughing your bloody head off, don't forget who's got the power to make or break your evening with one single phone call."

"Adam and Eve, though…"

"It was the 'sixties, Boyd."

"Even so."

She holds up her hands. "Fine. I'll just collect the kids and I'll be off."

He moves faster than she expects, placing himself neatly between her and his office door. There's a calculated degree of charm in the way he says, "Sorry. Sorry. Both perfectly good names. Very… um… traditional."

"You need to try harder than that."

"I'll do you a deal," he says, gazing down at her. He hasn't shaved, she notices, the encroaching rough stubble shorter and much coarser-looking than his goatee beard. "You get me a table at this Carnival place for tonight – which obviously I personally booked weeks ago – and I'll take the little monsters off your hands for an hour or so while you go and do whatever it was you were moaning earlier about not being able to do because you'd been landed with them for the afternoon."

"Done," she replies, not giving common-sense a chance to assert itself. She's not sure why she adds, "I'll even see if I can pick up a card for you, if you like."

"As long as it's not nauseatingly sentimental."

"It won't be."

"And doesn't feature rats, skulls, or mummified corpses," he adds, perhaps cautioned by her tone.

"Oh, I can't promise that." Eve holds out her hand. "Deal?"

Boyd shakes the proffered hand with due gravitas. "Deal."

-oOo-

As a scientist, Eve believes in serendipity, but doesn't ever rely on it. In her experience, the very existence of serendipity, like it's distant cousin synchronicity, can't be meaningfully proved or disproved, but nonetheless seems to occur from time to time, with or without any solid empirical evidence to substantiate it. Which is exactly why she's walking towards a very familiar figure waiting for her by the edge of Holland Park. Shivering in her comfortable but relatively thin leather jacket, she envies the presumed warmth of the thick scarf and wool coat that the other woman is wearing. Still, she's made of stern stuff, and she smiles a bright greeting as she closes the gap between them. "Grace. How was Manchester?"

"Even colder than here," her colleague says as they share a brief embrace, "but the trip was well worth all the time and trouble."

"I still don't know how you managed it," Eve admits, releasing her hold. "Persuading him to let you go to a symposium, right in the middle of a case? That takes some doing."

"I have my ways."

Trying not to smirk, Eve nods. "I'm sure you do."

A slight, enigmatic smile is Grace's only response. The sort of smile that could mean everything… or nothing. Changing the subject, she gestures at the park and comments, "Interesting choice of venue."

"I'm with child. As it were. Children, actually."

One elegant eyebrow lifts a quizzical fraction. "You are?"

Eve nods. "Hypothetically. Adam's kids. I've got to collect them from the adventure playground."

"Ah."

"But the café here is very good. So I'm told." As they start to walk, she prompts, "So…?"

"'So'?"

She can't help sighing. "Come on, Grace, I wasn't born yesterday. It's Valentine's Day and you've only just got back, yet you seem much more interested in meeting me for coffee than doing… whatever it is you were hoping to be doing on Valentine's Day."

Grace's eyes, a very clear and icy blue in the winter sunshine, regard her with intelligent curiosity, as if she's trying to gauge how much Eve really knows, and how much is pure guesswork. There's no obvious undertone in her voice as she says, "He called you in to work, didn't he?"

"Moore's ballistics report finally showed up," she confirms, not questioning how the older woman knows where she's spent at least part of the day. Grace's ability to possess just the right piece of information at just the right moment in time is… spooky. There's probably a much more scientific word for it, but spooky suits Eve just fine.

"Not good news, I take it?"

"Not for us, anyway." Eve tucks her hands into her jacket pockets, trying to warm them at least a fraction. She's not sure how much information to volunteer, so she settles for patient silence.

"He's forgotten, hasn't he?" A blunt declaration that isn't really a question at all.

Wincing to herself, she shrugs. "How am I supposed to answer that?"

"Honestly, I suppose," Grace replies. They carry on walking, their breath forming dense clouds which swirl in the cold air around them before disappearing. "Come on, Eve – you're not stupid, and neither am I. Shall we just assume that we both know where we are with each other?"

"In regards to Boyd?"

"In regards to Boyd."

"In regards to you and Boyd?"

"Eve…" It's a more of a gentle reproach than a warning.

The sudden urge to defend him is a complete surprise. To say the least. "Don't be too hard on him, Grace."

The reply is quiet. "I wasn't intending to be. There are far more important things to worry about than Valentine's Day when you get to our age. But since he seems to have done a disappearing act…"

Serendipity. It's a marvellous thing. "Ah, about that."

"Yes?"

Eve nods towards the playground they are approaching. The very playground, in fact, in which a tall, bearded, silver-haired figure dressed in a long black coat seems to be overseeing the energetic activities of two small but very rowdy children. "Turns out he's really good with little kids. Who'd have thought it, eh?"

Grace doesn't take her eyes off the trio as she voices a reproachful, "Oh, Eve… you didn't…?"

Given the scene before them, it's obviously a rhetorical question.

-oOo-

"You promised," Toby persists with a tenacity that Eve would find admirable if she wasn't struggling for patience. He looks sullen, mutinous, and exactly like his father did at the same age.

She didn't. She knows she didn't. She thinks she didn't. Watching her two colleagues and their young companion as they move towards the swings that are the very last barrier to leaving the playground without any further tantrums, she can't help thinking that they're having a much better time than she is. Valentine's Day notwithstanding. Then, there's something about Grace's bright smile and Boyd's uncharacteristically easy, open expression as they converse over the top of Laura's head that suggests a major diplomatic incident has been narrowly averted, and the new entente is pretty damn cordiale.

Bloody good luck to them, that's all she can say. If they've settled all their differences and found some mutually acceptable compromises that allow them to enjoy some measure of happiness with each other, then –

"Evie," her six year-old nephew implores, tugging at her arm to get her attention. "I want to go and see some bones like you promised. It'sboring here."

How someone so young can manage to project so much disdain into one word is beyond her. Still watching Boyd, Grace, and Laura, she says, "I don't think there's time now, Tobe."

"But you promised."

They would have made such good parents, she thinks. If they'd met when they were younger and so many things had been different. The best of each brought to the fore, and the worst gently tempered. A ridiculously romantic notion, though. Not the sort of line of thought she usually falls prey to. Maybe it's better the way it is, rather than the way it could have been in some imaginary fantasy world that never existed, and never will. They are who they are, each one a tough, iron-willed survivor in their own individual way, and it feels wrong, somehow, to project her own idle thoughts and speculations onto them.

A shrill, cross voice beside her screeches, "Evie…!"

"Not today," she tells him, and then, to stem the righteous tide of outrage she senses is coming, she shamelessly adds, "but I bet I can get you a lift home in a police car."

Toby has Lockhart genes, all right. He pounces on the important crux of the matter without hesitation. "With really loud sirens?"

"And flashing blue lights." Boyd does, after all, owe her for all the pleading she had to do to get him a damn table at her brother's increasingly popular restaurant.

"Oh, okay." Just a tiny bit sullen. "But we can go and see some bones next time? Real ones? All muddy and – "

Really, she doesn't know where he gets it from. Adam's such a gentle, creative type, after all.

Still, it's possible they could make really, really good surrogate grandparents, she muses, patting Toby's shoulder. A thought for the future, perhaps. But that's far too sentimental, too, and –

"Yuck," Toby declares with the incredible amount of vehemence only a small boy can muster in the face of such things.

Laura is swinging happily, ignoring everything and everyone around her. What Boyd and Grace are up to, however… Well, Eve's fairly sure from the look of things that against the odds their Valentine's Day is going to be celebrated in the most ardent and traditional of ways. Later. Preferably much later.

On balance, seeing what's left of O'Donnell lying in the CCU's lab might have been less traumatic. For Toby, at least.

"Come on," Eve says, getting to her feet, "let's see what we can do about that police car…"

- the end -