A one shot, how does Boyd deal with his grief after seeing Luke's body at the mortuary, first bit is as per the episode, so spoilers for series 7 episode Pieta. This works on the principal that Grace never married or had children and that Boyd's son was called Luke not Joe.

Boyd/Grace - Freindship/romance

Disclaimer - I don't own waking the dead, it belongs to the bbc, no copyright infringement intended, also verse at the bottom comes from poem Footprints, author unknown.

Rating - M - nothing bad, just to be on the safe side, bad language, slight sexual content etc.

It was then that I carried you

"Also Luke, the mortuary have been on to me about someone going to claim the body" Eve said

"I'm dealing with it" Boyd replied

o0o

"You haven't been in touch about Luke yet...no" Eve again asked

"No" he replied

o0o

Grace looked up from what she was doing as she heard the knock on her office door, looking up she saw Eve walking in

"Grace" she began "I'll come straight to the point"

"I'm between a rock and a hard place with regards to Boyd, and I don't want the responsibility"

"What responsibility?"

"Luke's death"

"Oh my god, Luke's dead"

"Yeah...Luke's dead, I assumed...I'm sorry, I"

"Oh my god, how?"

"Drugs"

"Does Boyd know?"

"Yeah, I had to tell him, mortuary's been onto me several times, he won't claim him, it's as if he won't accept it, I don't know what to do"

"Oh, would you like me to deal with it?"

"Oh yes please"

"Okay"

"Thank you, thank you"

o0o

Through the window to Boyd's office she could see him, standing by the bookshelf, deep in thought, a million miles away from the rest of the world, his face etched with a sadness that she couldn't even begin to understand, a man so used to being in charge, in control, and now he was grief stricken, and he had no idea how to deal with it. The door to his office opened quietly, and she walked in slowly.

"I've just heard"

"I'll be fine, Spence will be fine"

"I don't mean about Spencer, I'm on about Luke, I am so sorry...I'm so sorry you couldn't talk to me about it...you know you're going to have to claim the body don't you...well when the time comes and when you need help, promise not to exclude me"

"I promise" he said quietly

o0o

Boyd walked alone into the mortuary, into that quiet still place that smelled of death. He followed the mortuary assistant through to the area that the bodies were kept in.

"There you go...do you know him?"

"He's my son"he replied, the emotion in his voice clearly evident, he kissed him tenderly, and lifted his head off the cold metal trolley and into his arms, he held him and cried, he was so close yet so far from getting him back, in reality he may as well have been a million miles a way.

o0o

It was around 8.30pm when Grace's phone began ringing

"Hello"

"Hi, Grace it's Eve"

"Hi Eve"

"Umm, this maybe none of my business, but the mortuary have phoned me, Boyd's been to claim Luke's body, and they were concerned for his state of mind when he left"

"In what way?"

"They said he went alone, they said he broke down when he saw Luke's body and had to be prised away from him, they wouldn't normally get involved but they knew that he was a colleague of mine, and just wanted to give me a heads up really"

"Okay, thanks Eve, I'll go round to see him"

"Thanks Grace, if you need anything give me a call"

"Will do, bye"

"Bye"

o0o

Grace stepped out of the taxi and looked around, she could see Boyd's car on his drive way, so knew he was probably in, she walked up to the door, and knocked. It didn't take long for her to hear movement inside, the sound of Boyd opening his front door.

He stood and looked at her for a moment before speaking, he was still in his work suit and his eyes looked a little red "Grace, what are you doing here"

"You going to invite me in?"

He stood back and motioned for her to come in, she hung her coat in his hallway, before walking through to his lounge

"Staying then, are you?" he said sarcastically

"I thought I'd come and see how you were" she replied, ignoring his sarcastic remark, and noticing an untouched bottle of whiskey and a clean glass on the table in front of her.

"Why?"

"Because you've just lost your son"

"I lost my son years ago Grace"

"Maybe, but before there was always a chance you could find him again, this time he's gone for good"

"Thanks for reminding me"

"I don't think you need me to remind you of that, I was just stating a fact. Have you been to claim the body"

"God I hate the way people say that, claim him, like he's just a piece of lost property, it makes me so fucking angry" he had a look of real anger on his face

"It's okay to be angry Boyd"

"Is it? is it really? Well that's good, because I am angry, I'm angry that my son chose to pump shit into his body until it killed him, I'm angry that drug dealers and pushers profit from causing misery to so many people, I'm angry that he chose to sell him self to fund his habit, and I'm angry that he hated his life so much that he cut himself to ribbons, yet he couldn't get out of it, is that enough angry for you Grace"

"I didn't know"

"Which bit didn't you know, that he was working as a rent boy, giving ten pound blow jobs to buy his drugs, or that he hated what he was doing that much, that he self harmed"

"Any of it, how did you know"

"I caught him performing oral sex on another man, you didn't have to be a genius to work out it was a cash transaction, not an act of love, I got so angry I nearly threw the other guy out of the window. Then later when he'd overdosed, he phoned me and told me he'd taken too much, I got him to hospital and it was there that they told me he'd been self harming, he had scars and cuts on his arms, they offered him help, but they wanted me to section him, so I did, but he begged me to let him leave, he said I couldn't lock him up again, so I let them release him, I tried to get him into a residential place but he wouldn't agree"

"I didn't know you had that much contact with him"

"I didn't really, most of it was voicemail messages, half the time he didn't even respond to them"

"It must have been difficult for you, to see him like that"

"No, what was difficult was not being able to reach him, no matter what I did, it was all too late. I wouldn't have cared if he'd told me he was gay, or bisexual, it wouldn't have bothered me at all, but to see him knelt in front of a stranger doing that for money, god I've never felt anger like it in my life, I really do think if Luke hadn't called out, I'd have killed him"

"I think something would have stopped you"

"I was holding him out of a window Grace"

Grace rubbed his arm affectionately, "Have you eaten"

"No, I'm not hungry"

"You should eat something"

"I don't want food Grace, I want a second chance, I want to go back to when I had a son, I want to say fuck work I'm going home to my wife and kid, I want to hold him, to tell him I love him, to play football with him, to pick him up from school so he doesn't get involved with the scum that introduced him to that world"

"We all make mistakes as parents Boyd, but ultimately the decisions Luke made were his, not yours"

"Oh really, what mistakes did you make as a parent Grace" his words sounded bitter, and cut her to the bone

"What you don't think I made mistakes, you don't think aborting my baby because I found out the father was a liar and cheat was a mistake, getting rid of it because I couldn't face life as a single parent, I couldn't get pregnant again, and I regretted that decision all my life"

"Grace I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that" he looked at her, tears falling from his already red and puffy eyes

Grace raised her hand to his face and rested it on his cheek, "It's okay, I know you didn't, you're just hurting" she moved closer to him and pulled him into her arms as he began to sob again, his arms moving around her waist and holding onto her, his head buried into her shoulder

"I want to stop feeling like this, I want to feel something other than pain, I don't even care what it is, at the moment all I can think of is my little boy on that cold metal slab, he's too young to be there, it should be me, not him, I drove him to that life"

Grace drew back from him, and placed her hands on his face, "Listen to me Boyd, you didn't drive him to this, he made those decisions, not you, okay so you were an absent father, who didn't have a lot of time for his son, but you didn't abuse or mistreat him, he was well cared for, he had a Mum and Dad who loved him, but he chose to take the path he did"

Boyd couldn't speak he just cried, and Grace again put her arms around him, holding him as he wept, she'd never seen him like this before, so consumed with grief and sadness, she could understand why the mortuary assistant had been concerned for his welfare, she too was worried about what he'd do if he were left alone. She could feel his sobs slowing down, he was calming a little, he pulled back from her, and used his sleeve to wipe his eyes. Grace reached into her bag and pulled out a fresh tissue

"Here, use this" she said dabbing his eyes with the tissue, "Okay"

"Not really, I don't think I'll ever feel okay again"

"It will get easier, grief passes, we learn to accept what's happened and remember the good times"

"What if there were no good times"

"I'm sure Luke would remember some"

"I'm sorry Grace, you didn't come here for all this shit"

"I came here to make sure that someone I care a great deal about, was okay, to offer a shoulder to cry on if that's what he needed, so I guess I did come her for this" she said smiling at him, he managed a small smile in return, he gently leant his head forward and pressed his lips to hers. But Grace pulled away, "I don't think that's a good idea"

"Why not" he replied resting his forehead against hers

"Because you're grieving for your son Boyd"

"I just want to feel something other than pain Grace, I want to make love to you" he again leant forward and kissed her, more persistently this time, hungrily devouring her mouth, and then moving his lips to her neck, "Tell me you don't want to and I'll stop" he whispered into her ear

"We shouldn't do this"

"That's not saying no though is it" he replied still kissing her neck, and starting to undo her top, within minutes Grace started to return his kisses, her hands roaming over his body, helping him out of the suit jacket that he was still wearing, and then starting to undo the buttons on his shirt, within ten minutes they were both naked on his sofa, franticly making love, his movements fast and hard, Grace trying desperately not to moan out loud each time he thrust into her, but failing miserably, he bit down a little to hard on her shoulder causing her to cry out even louder, he managed to apologise through breathless kisses.

Twenty minutes later it was all over, they had not only exceeded the boundaries that they normally kept in place, not touching each other, never comforting one another, now they'd smashed the boundaries to bits, they'd broken every rule in the book of what not to do with work colleagues, the fine line between colleague and friend was now invisible, now it was colleague, friend and lover, all in one, if it never happened again, it wouldn't matter, it had happened, and neither of them put up much of a fight to stop it from happening.

Grace's guilt shone like a beacon, she hid her face against his chest so he couldn't see her, but he put his finger under her chin and lifted her face up.

"What's wrong?" he asked

"This was wrong Boyd, I shouldn't have let this happen, you're hurt and looking for comfort, this isn't about comfort and I should have stopped you"

"No Grace, no regrets, I needed this okay, I needed you, I needed to feel close to someone to..."

She cut him off before he could finish, "Exactly, close to someone, anyone, it's just that I happened to be here"

"No Grace, let me finish, I wanted to be close to you, no one else. Yes I wanted comfort, I wanted you to hold me, not anyone, you Grace, I wanted to be close to you, and it doesn't get any closer than what just happened"

"But with everything you're going through, this is just going to confuse your feelings, and eventually you'll realise it was a mistake, and I'll end up feeling used and hurt, you couldn't even talk to me about Luke's death, I had to come to you"

"No I couldn't bring myself to talk to you about Luke's death, but that was because I couldn't accept it, I was trying to hide my head in the sand, truth be told I wanted you to come to the mortuary with me today, but I couldn't bring myself to ask you. And for the record I don't think this was a mistake, yes the timing's not great, and I'm grieving and hurting and angry, but through all that shit, when I see you I see something calming, something good, and beautiful, this isn't a mistake and I think it was meant to happen, if the one good thing that comes out of all this shit, is that we get together, then maybe there is hope"

"Get together?"

"Yes Grace get together, as in you and me"

"You really think that's what you want"

"It's what I've wanted for a long time, I just never had the balls to say anything"

"Well you definitely have the balls, I can vouch for that" she replied whilst cupping his in her hand

"Ah, careful with them, I might want to use them again at some point" he replied, causing her to raise her eyebrows, and then kiss him "Does that mean you're interested then?"

"Yes I'm interested, but only after we have laid Luke to rest"

"We"

"Yes Boyd we!"

During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints,

it was then that I carried you

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