10 - Confrontation

"I'm fine, Spence," Grace repeats, beginning to sound querulous again. "For heaven's sake, stop fussing. You're beginning to make him – " an indicative nod " – look like an absolute paradigm of calm patience."

Positioned by the window again, Boyd doesn't comment. Nor does he meet the bleak look Spencer shoots in his direction. No point in aggravating an already volatile situation, not with Grace in the state she's in. Though she sounds less breathless, and her voice is stronger than it was. She seems more alert, too, as if the last effects of the sedation are beginning to wear off, and although that's a very good thing, it makes it far more likely that she will pick up on the cool undercurrent of hostility in the room.

"I'm just worried about you, Grace," Spencer replies. "We all are."

"I know, and I'm grateful, but there's absolutely no need. I'll be out of here in a day or two, and back at work before you know it."

Boyd can't let that assumption go unchallenged. "We'll have to see about that."

Grace turns her head, subjects him to a steady blue gaze that would doubtless quash a lesser man's objections instantly. He shrugs in response. "I'm not getting myself even deeper in the shit by ignoring whatever medical advice you're given regarding convalescence."

"Convalescence," she echoes, making the word sound like a particularly unpleasant swearword. "Well, I can convalesce sitting at my desk just as well as I can sitting on my sofa at home, bored out of my mind."

"Why do you always have to be so difficult?" he asks.

"Difficult? Me? That's rich, coming from you, Boyd."

"He's right," Spencer cuts in. "You need time to recover and get your strength back. Trust me, I know."

"Do you want to form a club?" she inquires, more than a touch waspish.

"The CCU's very own 'shot-while-on-duty' club? Yeah, why not?"

Boyd knows a deliberate jibe when he hears one, but manages not to rise to it. He makes an ostentatious show of looking at his watch instead. "It's getting late…"

"Someone waiting for you?" Spencer asks, another pointed dig.

"No." Boyd stares straight at him, a direct challenge, a battle of wills. It takes several long, intimidating moments, but in the end Spencer looks away first. Dominance asserted, he continues, "She needs to rest."

"She," Grace snipes, "has a name, and is still here, thank you very much."

"Grace needs to rest," he amends, still staring at the top of Spencer's head.

The younger man looks up. "Sending me packing, are you?"

"No, he's not," Grace interjects. "Honestly, what's wrong with you two today? You're acting like a pair overgrown schoolboys."

It's Spencer who says, "Ask him."

"It's nothing," Boyd adds as the intent blue gaze focuses on him again. "We're all just a bit… on edge."

"If you say so."

She doesn't believe him for a moment, Boyd knows. Her dry, sceptical tone makes that perfectly clear. But in deference to… something… she's not challenging him over it while Spencer's still with them. Doesn't mean that the matter is forgotten. Far from it. He looks at his subordinate again. "Well?"

The silence stretches for several seconds before Spencer announces, "Right. I'll be off, then. You take care, okay, Grace?"

"I will," she promises. "Thanks for coming, Spence."

He gets to his feet, dragging the chair loudly on the floor. "No worries."

"I'll walk out with you," Boyd says.

Spencer shakes his head. "There's no need."

Boyd eyes him with tightly-controlled enmity. "It's not a problem."

-oOo-

They make their way out of the building in tense silence, barely exchanging a single unnecessary grunt. What Spencer's thinking, Boyd doesn't know, but his own thoughts are centred around rather more than just the events of the last couple of days. They're both hard-headed, competitive men, and they've clashed often enough before over the tiniest, stupidest things, neither of them able to easily back down. In some ways, maybe, they're just too alike. Stubborn, unable to admit when they're in the wrong. Mostly, it's not a problem that Boyd bothers to worry too much about. They are both, after all, bound to a lesser or greater degree by rank and professional etiquette, and that's usually enough to keep the peace.

Not this time, he suspects, but if he can avoid a direct clashing of aggressive male egos, he will.

He waits until they reach the small, overcrowded parking area at the rear of the hospital, and then he asks, "How long have we worked together now?"

Spencer gives him a quick, sideways look. "Dunno. Eleven, twelve years?"

"Must be," Boyd agrees, knowing that it's almost exactly twelve. "A transfer neither of us requested, eh?"

"Sir." A sullen, disinterested response.

"Cut the crap, Spence. We're both off duty." He slows his pace, waits for the other man to automatically adjust to the new speed. It's a subtle demonstration of control, of seniority. "You were sent to me in a last ditch attempt to save your career from hitting the buffers, we both know that. You came with a long and difficult history of insubordination and confrontation. Surly black copper with a massive chip on his shoulder."

Spencer doesn't look at him. "If you say so."

"I do. Know why I didn't send you on your way immediately, with a size ten up your arse for good measure?"

"No-one else would work for you?"

Despite himself, Boyd chuckles at the sheer audacity of the reply. "Oh, very good. I like that. I do."

"Well?" A pause. "Why didn't you?"

Boyd thinks he's going to win this battle without bloodshed. It's a minor skirmish in the grand scale of things, true, but still, a victory is a victory. "It's very simple, although I expect Grace could make it incredibly complicated if she tried. I saw a lot of myself in you. Still do. You're cussed, Spence; bloody-minded. You'd rather take on the whole world single-handed than let anyone tell you what to do and how to do it."

"Maybe."

"I grew up in Bermondsey, just a stone's throw from the river," Boyd says then, in reply to the grudging near-assent. He comes to a halt, puts his hands in his trouser pockets and surveys the younger man for a few moments. "It wasn't all luxury flats and multi-million riverside developments back then. Blitzed houses and empty buildings everywhere you looked until they started rebuilding in the 'sixties. My father was from Kilmarnock, but he settled down here after the war. Worked on the docks all his life after that, until he fell ill. Hard man, but a fair one. Mostly. When I decided to join the Met, he didn't speak to me for nearly two years."

Spencer doesn't look interested or impressed. "I've had this speech before."

"Well, maybe it's time for you to have it again," Boyd growls, allowing some of his increasing irritation to show. "Life's tough, Spence, and the world doesn't owe you a damn thing. You're not the only one who's had to fight every step of the bloody way to get anywhere. Tell me what you thought you saw."

A heavy frown accompanies, "What?"

"Drop the attitude and just tell me."

This time the reply is both immediate and bitter. "You, trying to pull some nurse while you were supposed to be in there looking after Grace."

"She's a doctor, not a nurse," Boyd tells him, "and I 'pulled' her, as you so delicately put it, years a-fucking-go. She's my wife, Spence. Soon to be ex-wife."

That catches Spencer's attention. His expression somewhere between surprise and disbelief, he retorts, "Yeah, right."

"You want me to call her?" Boyd offers, though it's the very last thing he intends to do. "I'm sure she'd be delighted to explain things to you."

A hesitation, then, "Well, even if she is, you should have been with Grace, not… you know."

"I was with Grace," he replies. "We left the room so we didn't disturb her. We were arguing, for fuck's sake, not… doing whatever it is you think we were doing."

"It was pretty obvious what you were doing."

"Really?" Boyd demands. "You heard me telling her to piss off and leave me alone, then?"

Spencer glowers at him. "You can dress it up all you like, but…"

"'But'?" he challenges.

"Grace deserves better."

"What's that supposed to mean?" It's a superfluous question – he knows exactly what Spencer's implying.

"You know what it means. I'm not spelling it out for you, sir."

Frustrated, Boyd resists the urge to sigh heavily. Instead, he says, "You're hard fucking work, Spencer, you know that? You need to give some serious thought to your position, because I need a DI I can rely on not to fight me every inch of the way. We're supposed to be on the same bloody side, for God's sake."

"Well, maybe if you didn't…" Spencer breaks off, as if aware that he's about to step over one line too many.

Removing his hands from his pockets, Boyd faces him square on. "If I didn't… what?"

Spencer glances up at the sky, as if seeking inspiration from somewhere. "Maybe if you didn't treat us like your private army, if you didn't always expect us to just blindly follow orders…"

"So this is really all about what happened to Grace yesterday, is it?"

"You shouldn't have taken her up there."

"No, I shouldn't," Boyd agrees. "And I wouldn't have had to, if you'd been where you were supposed to be."

"Jackson was talking," Spencer defends himself. "He was finally fucking talking."

"You still don't get to arbitrarily ignore a direct order from a superior officer, Detective Inspector," Boyd barks at him. "I made a bad call, and Grace got hurt because of it. But you put me in that position. You did. Do you understand that?"

"Sir."

He takes a deep, calming breath. "I'm going to give you a chance, Spencer. One. One chance, one free shot. You go right ahead and say what you want to say, and you go ahead and do whatever you want to do, but you do it here and you do it now. Otherwise you keep your bloody mouth shut, and you do as you're told without so much as a mutter or a single sideways look. Clear?" When there's no immediate reply, he adds for good measure, "But I warn you, if you're even vaguely thinking about punching me, you'd better make damn sure you put me down, because if you don't…"

Several seconds tick past before Spencer speaks. When he does, his voice is level, controlled, but hard. "You and Grace. I don't want to know. I've never wanted to know. It's none of my business. But if what everyone says is true, then you'd better start doing a better bloody job of looking after her."

Boyd holds his accusing gaze without flinching. "Grace can look after herself."

A derisive snort is followed by, "She's in fucking hospital because of you."

"Because of us, Spencer. Because of us." It's an important correction, one he's determined to make. "Neither of us is blameless. Luckily for you, however, it's my neck on the block, not yours."

"I've never asked you to take the fall for me. Not once."

"It's my job," Boyd tells him, short and sharp. "I'm the poor bastard stuck in the middle who gets it from above and from below. It wouldn't hurt you to remember that occasionally."

"Sir."

"Don't start that again. Well? Is that it? That's all you've got to say?"

"Yes."

"All right." He hesitates for a moment before holding his hand out in an awkward but necessary gesture of comradeship, apology and acceptance. Their resulting handshake is brief, but it's enough to allow him to say, "Go home, Spence. Have a drink, give one of your girlfriends a call – whatever. Just make sure that by the time you show up for work tomorrow you've remembered that we're a team. All of us."

Spencer doesn't say a word, but he nods. It's enough. For now.

-oOo-

cont...