TWO – Anger Management

The first days were never going to be easy for either of them, Boyd understands that. There's a jumpiness about her that he doesn't like, though, one that doesn't seem to go away as one day becomes two, then three and four. He senses it in her all the time, no matter where they are, no matter what they're doing. Grace defers to him constantly in a way that she never has, and it doesn't take long for it to grate on his nerves. He's used to her standing up to him, used to her fighting tooth and nail to hold ground against him, and he likes her that way. He finds her uncharacteristic compliance frustrating, the way she tiptoes around him both wearisome and unsettling. If he growls at her, Grace backs down instantly, and even their well-practised banter lacks the bite he remembers. It doesn't take him long to decide that he really doesn't like the new status quo – not at all.

He's considering the matter as he surveys his reflection in the bathroom mirror. The face that looks back at him is perfectly familiar – dark eyes exactly the same shade as his mother's were; square chin, uncompromising mouth. That damned nose, of course, and the deep scar that's going to be there until the day he dies. He's seen that face every day, is barely aware of any changes, but in a moment of insight, Boyd wonders if what Grace sees when she looks at him is making the situation worse. Nothing he can do about the scar, nothing he can do about the lines that have become so deeply etched into his skin, but his reflective gaze is drawn to his beard. A brief foray into the bathroom cabinet turns up the razor that's apparently been there since before his arrest and after a further moment of contemplation he works up a good lather in the sink and sets to. The end result – full beard remorselessly trimmed back to neat goatee – doesn't mean much to him, but it just might to Grace. Might help her remember exactly who he is behind the prison-pale skin and the ridiculously over-dramatic scar.

Boyd ambles about, enjoying the unaccustomed luxury of taking his time getting dressed, and he briefly thinks about the weeks and months ahead before finally descending the stairs in search of her. It's a small house and she's not difficult to find. It doesn't surprise him that she's in the kitchen, but it does faintly surprise him that she appears to be preparing vegetables. It's far too early in the morning for such domestic trivia as far as Boyd is concerned and he asks abruptly, "What on earth are you doing?"

Grace jumps. Quite plainly not because she's unaware of his presence, but quite simply because she's so on edge. Almost in slow motion he sees the inevitable consequence. She startles, she slips with the knife and she gashes her hand. He doesn't know how bad the cut is, but there's suddenly a lot of blood and Grace is simply staring blankly at the injury. Boyd reacts instinctively, falls back on all the first aid training he's had over the long course of his former career. He doesn't flinch, doesn't question, he just plucks a clean cloth from the hook near the sink and takes hold of her wrist so that he can apply pressure to the wound. She looks up at him, expression now slightly bewildered, and she says, "You've had a shave."

"Well done," he says mildly, lifting her wrist to elevate the injury. "Ten out of ten for observation. All those years working side-by-side with us poor bloody detectives weren't entirely wasted then."

"You look different."

"Obviously. Do you think you could stop trying to wave your arm around, Grace? The general idea is to stop the bleeding, not make it worse."

She blinks in confusion, but obeys immediately. He's not sure if he's grateful or not for her acquiescence. Keeping his fingers clamped over the cloth, Boyd says, "Talk to me. What's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"Come on," he says wearily. "You're jumpier than the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof."

She doesn't meet his eye. "Sorry."

He hates it. Hates her compliance, her refusal to challenge, let alone argue. It's not her, doesn't suit her; doesn't suit him. He's never known her so quiet, so passive. His frustration mounting, Boyd says, "Fuck's sake… Will you please just talk to me? There's obviously a problem, so let's just get it sorted out…"

Grace finally looks up at him, her blue eyes clearly searching his face for something. Biting back to urge to keep pushing, Boyd waits impatiently and is finally rewarded by a quiet, "I think we just need some time, Boyd. To get used to being around each other again. Does that make sense?"

It does, but he can't help reading rejection into her words. It hurts. Hurts more than he likes to acknowledge, even to himself. Striving to keep his voice calm and level, he says, "What do you want me to do, Grace? I can't move out – the terms of my license are that I live here, at this address."

"I know. But maybe we're… getting under each other's feet a bit, hmm?"

"You don't want me here?" Boyd asks her, not knowing why he feels the need to ask such a brutally frank question. A question that he really isn't sure he wants the answer to.

Grace shakes her head. "It's not that. Really, it's not. But we've been living complete separate lives for the last three years… neither of us is used to… this."

Boyd doesn't want to process the possible implications. Instead, he carefully peels the bloodied cloth back and inspects the gash to her hand. He says, "This is going to need stitches."

-oOo-

Ironically, the extended wrangling over the trip to Accident and Emergency improves Boyd's mood considerably. For the first time he sees some of her rebelliousness, some of her fighting spirit. She doesn't want to go to the hospital and she makes the fact quite clear to him before, during and after he forces her into the car and takes position behind the wheel. Grace complains, she bickers and she sulks, and Boyd finds himself incapable of doing much more than grinning in response as he navigates his way through the morning traffic. She accuses him of making too much fuss over a tiny cut, and he feels vindicated when – as predicted – she ends up with three stitches and an impressively large bandage. She's still grumbling when he takes her elbow and deftly steers her back out into the carpark.

"If you don't shut up," he tells her mildly, "I'm going to be forced to take certain steps."

The look she gives him is thorny – and it makes him absurdly happy. She says, "I'm not talking to you. I've just decided."

"Jolly good. I won't have to listen to you moaning then, will I?"

"I didn't say I wasn't going to moan, I just said I wasn't talking to you."

"You're so cussed."

"And you love it," Grace says promptly.

He stops by her car and uses the hand he still has on her arm as leverage to pull her against him. She feels so tiny in his arms, yet so warm, so vibrantly, wonderfully real. He looks down at her, says simply, "You know I do."

Again, she gives him a long, searching look. She says, "Are we going to be all right, Peter?"

The way she asks is so solemn and so earnest that he knows – without question – that an honest affirmative is all it will take to guarantee that she will fight, and keep fighting, to make things work between them. He says, "I think so, Grace. I think so."

Stubborn as a child, she says, "Promise me."

"Grace – "

"Promise me you'll try. That means doing your best to leave the demons behind, Peter. All of them."

Boyd knows what she's saying. He nods briefly. "I promise."

-oOo-

For Boyd, the early hours of the morning are always the worst. He doesn't have too much trouble drifting off to sleep, but he invariably wakes at some point between one and two, often as a result of nightmares that leave him quite literally in a cold sweat, and though her sleeping presence next to him is comforting, he obstinately refuses to wake her to share the dark lonely hours with him. Awake, he frets, asleep, he dreams. Sometimes he's entirely lost in an odd limbo between the two states, a nebulous, terrifying place where memories, dreams and fears all collide, and he eventually finds himself sweating and shaking and praying for the night to end. Boyd despises himself for what he perceives as weakness, but he knows if he could make the attempt to talk to Grace about what's happening to him she would be more able than most to steer him out of the morass. He can't find the words, can't break through whatever barrier it is that prevents him from sharing the nightmares with her.

That particular night Boyd wakes just before two and he's immediately aware of the slickness of his back and his chest, the unwelcome chill as the sweat starts to cool. He groans almost inaudibly and squeezes his eyes tightly shut again. It doesn't help. There's a dull, thudding ache in his head, and keeping his eyes so tightly closed pulls on the scar. It doesn't hurt, it's just faintly irritating – makes him too aware of the disfigurement. Awareness brings unwelcome memories. Not just memories, but visceral flashbacks, and he fancies he can once again feel the burning white heat of the blade scything downwards from eyebrow to cheekbone and beyond. His stomach muscles knot violently, and his throat constricts. He thinks he can taste the blood again; feel it, smell it. Primal fear.

He thinks he feels rough hands on him again, thinks he can hear the shouting and the wail of the alarm. Can feel himself staggering blindly, stupidly. Blood in his eyes, his nose, his mouth –

"Boyd?"

Her voice.

"Peter? Peter, relax. Come on, you're fine. Everything's all right."

Boyd doesn't know how long Grace keeps up the steady mantra, but her voice is quiet and reassuring and slowly but surely he starts to come back to himself. But not quite far enough back to himself, it seems. He feels her stroking her fingers through his hair, and that's all right, it's tolerable, but when those fingers move down onto his face and brush against his scarred cheekbone, something inside him simply snaps. It's not a conscious thing, his reaction, not a thing he has any control over. It's just pure fear, the innate human fight or flight reflex triggering. He lashes out with a fist, hard and fast, and he feels the blow connect at the same moment as he hears her pained, terrified cry.

That's the same moment that Boyd learns to hate and despise himself more than he ever thought possible.

-oOo-

"Don't you dare," Grace snaps at him, her voice raw with pain and emotion. "Don't you bloody dare hide behind self-indulgent bullshit. You want to prove you're not an animal? Then face things like a man, or I swear – "

"Grace," he tries, but the way she flinches back rips into him, compounds his abject misery.

"No, Boyd," she says curtly, keeping her distance. "You don't do this – you don't do the whole self-loathing thing. You're a grown man, not a child. There's a problem here, a serious problem, and if you don't – "

He interrupts again. "I'm sorry, for fuck's sake. Christ, Grace, you have no idea how sorry I am."

"Oh, I know you're sorry," she says, her tone still sharp and hard. "If I didn't know you were sorry we wouldn't even be having this conversation."

The whole left side of her face seems to be swelling, and Boyd is certain what started just as a red mark is already darkening into a deep, ugly bruise. The sight makes him feel quite literally nauseous, and he drops his head, not able to look anymore. He says, "I wouldn't… Grace, you know I wouldn't…"

"But you did," she says harshly. "How many times have I warned you about that temper of yours?"

Boyd looks up, startled. "Temper? This has nothing to do with whether or not I have a temper."

"Good," Grace says, her tone suddenly very flat. "At least you're prepared to admit that."

Hardly aware of doing so, he narrows his eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you have a problem, Boyd. One that you have to face."

"It won't happen again."

"Oh, and you can absolutely guarantee that, can you?"

Boyd opens his mouth to retort, then abruptly closes it again. It's far from a pleasant thought, but he realises that he can't guarantee any such thing. He takes a deep, steadying breath and then he says, "You know what I think of the sort of scum who raise their hands to their partners. You know how I feel about domestic violence of any sort. And you know damn well I'm not that sort of man – never have been, never will be. God's sake, Grace, my own bloody wife used to lash out at me every chance she got – but did I ever once hit her back? No. Because I wouldn't. I couldn't."

Something in her expression softens momentarily. "I know. But there's still a problem, and we both know it."

"I just need…" Boyd starts, but his words trail away as he realises he simply doesn't know what he needs.

"You need help," Grace tells him, her voice gentle but completely inflexible. "Proper, professional help."

He fights the impulse to groan aloud. "Grace…"

"It's your choice," she says simply, raising her hand and wincing as her fingertips start to explore the swelling on her face. "But you did this, Peter. No-one else. You."

There's no bitterness in her tone, but her words burn like acid nonetheless.

-oOo-

Stubbornly, Boyd spends the rest of the night in the small armchair tucked in the corner of the bedroom. He certainly spends more time awake than asleep, but he does doze on and off, and eventually when he opens his eyes, the terrifying darkness has been replaced by thin grey morning light. Just about everything aches, but the pain in his back is so bad he clenches his teeth against the moan of agony that nearly breaks from him. From the direction of the bed, a sleepy voice says irritably, "For heaven's sake, Boyd, will you stop being a martyr and just come back to bed?"

He's too tired and in too much pain to resist. Pathetically grateful, he eases himself up and stumbles the few feet to the bed. Grace holds the covers back for him and he virtually collapses next to her, face-down on the mattress. Blissful warmth and a least a temporary respite from the grinding pain. He almost yelps when she puts a hand on his back and starts to rub gently but firmly. She knows exactly where it hurts, and her touch is as deft as it is soothing. He wants to moan, wants to sigh; wants to cry. He settles on a mutter of, "I'm so, so sorry…"

He feels her lips gently brush against his shoulder. The tender caress is followed by a quiet, "Are you prepared to listen to me? As a psychologist, I mean?"

Boyd doesn't think there's much else he can do. Keeping his head firmly burrowed into the pillows, he says, "Go on."

"What you're experiencing… the symptoms you're exhibiting… they're all classic signs of PTSD. You're traumatised, Peter. Severely traumatised. Nightmares, flashbacks, irritability… I could give you chapter and verse on the diagnostic criteria…" she pauses, as if to give him a chance to process her words, then continues, "I know how you feel about talking therapies, but – "

"C'mon, Grace," he mutters, not quite able to prevent himself from interrupting.

"You do realise that if I'd called the police last night you'd be back in prison already?"

Not a thought Boyd is keen to dwell on. Slowly, carefully, he rolls on his side to look at her. Blue eyes regard him calmly, fearlessly, but all his attention is on the dark bruising that shows far, far too clearly. Loathing and self-recrimination churn inside him, and for a single, stupid moment he's almost tempted to make the call himself. Striving for composure, he says quietly, "Just tell me what you want me to do, Grace."

"I know someone who specialises in treating patients with PTSD – "

He sighs heavily. "Yeah, somehow I thought you might."

"Peter."

Boyd subsides. "Go on."

"She's very good, very experienced. She's successfully treated people who've been through all sorts of things. Nothing you could tell her would shock her. She can help you, Boyd."

The instinct to resist is impossibly strong – but the sight of that spreading bruise on her face…

He asks wearily, "She'd see me as a private patient?"

"I'm sure she would."

"I don't want to do this, Grace."

"I know."

Her gaze is steady, and Boyd sees something in it that seals his fate – faith.

It's a big thing. A huge, frightening thing. He nods slowly. "All right."

-oOo-

Boyd has no patience for the fiddly things, for the things that take time and concentration, but the big things, the things that simply require muscle and obstinacy, he's happy enough to tackle. The weather's good, and he likes being outside, away from walls and closed doors. He's beginning to think he's developing a bit of an obsession with the surprisingly long stretch of lawn – it's a long, long way from being a bowling green, but he's getting there. The mowing, the digging, the hard physical work, he's happy with all of it. Sadly, he has no interest in the plants, the aesthetics – he just likes the challenge of battling stubbornly against years of neglect. Grace Foley is no gardener, either.

He leans on his spade and idly rubs his beard as he surveys the tangled wilderness he has yet to tackle at the far end of the garden. He wonders vaguely whether the young professional couple who bought his house while he was incarcerated have improved on the bland expanse of grass that was about all he had time to bother with. Probably. He hears the kitchen door open, hears her quick, light footsteps across the paved area by the house, but he doesn't look round. Thoughtfully, he asks, "How do you feel about a pond? Plenty of room for it."

Grace stops at his shoulder and gives him a look that's a touch incredulous. "I'm really starting to worry about this new enthusiasm of yours for gardening, Boyd."

"This isn't gardening," he tells her gravely. "This is landscaping."

"Really? There's a difference?"

Flexing his aching shoulders, he nods solemnly. "Yeah. One requires patience and commitment, the other's just a question of brute force and ignorance."

Grace chuckles quietly. "Ah. Landscaping it is, then."

She seems so calm. Boyd doesn't know how she manages it. Every time he sees the dark bruise on her face he's consumed by shame and regret. It twists inside him like a creature with claws, a living, raging thing that's trying to tear its way out of him as bloodily as possible. The self-hatred is a fathomless black well in the pit of his stomach, and his instinct, his deep, animal instinct, is to run as far away from Grace as possible. She turns slightly, surveying the garden, and she's close enough for him to catch a gentle waft of her perfume as she moves. It steadies him a little, puts some of the steel back into his spine.

Grace says, "I just spoke to Ellen."

He barely manages to refrain from grimacing. "And?"

"She can see you tomorrow."

Unenthusiastically, he says, "Jolly good."

"An initial consultation," Grace says calmly. "That's all it is. Get a feel for each other."

Despite everything, Boyd can't help grinning. "Yeah?"

"You're so childish," Grace admonishes, but she smiles slightly. "Trust me, you're not her type."

"Too handsome?"

"Too old."

He gives her a mock-glare. "Ouch, Grace."

"She lives with a thirty-five year-old Jamaican barrister called Rory."

"And she is…?"

"Fifty-six."

Boyd whistles softly and then grins at her. "She's got you firmly trumped in the younger man stakes, then."

Grace sighs. "It's a source of continual disappointment to me."

"Never mind," he tells her nonchalantly. "He's just a barrister. I'm an ex-con. Much more exciting."

"You think?"

Boyd looks at her for a moment, the temptation to march her back into the house and straight up the stairs apparently springing from nowhere. It startles him, the effect she still has on him sometimes. It's the most inappropriate moment he could possibly choose, he's sure, given the events of the previous night. In self-defence he feigns annoyance, growls, "Go away."

Grace smiles at him again, and just for a few fleeting seconds everything in his world is all right.

-oOo-

She's curled comfortably in the big armchair, her attention apparently equally divided between a battered paperback and possibly the most sentimental and poorly-produced romantic film it has ever been Boyd's misfortune to encounter. He's done the loud, ostentatious rustling of the evening paper, he's done the pointed, heavy-footed backwards and forwards to the kitchen and he's done the yawning, scratching and sighing. None of it has made any difference – Grace is still watching the hateful thing. It's not the genre he objects to – though he's assuredly not a fan – it's more a question of just how diabolically bad the film is. Yet, there's something pleasant enough about the banality of the evening that keeps him from the final disgruntled retreat from the room. Maybe, Boyd thinks, this is how other people really do live their lives. He's certain it's not for him… yet in a strange way the ordinariness of it intrigues him.

He is, however, bored. Just to be annoying, he finally nods at the television screen and queries, "Didn't he run off with the other bloke's wife about half-an-hour ago?"

Grace gives him a withering look. "Why don't you go upstairs and have a bath, or something?"

"Come and wash my back?" Boyd suggests.

"No."

"Then I'm quite happy right here, thanks," he tells her. They are playing a careful but ultimately dangerous game, he realises in an unusual moment of insight. Deliberately ignoring all the things that are wrong in favour of maintaining a fragile and very superficial veneer of domesticity. They are ignoring the bandage on her hand, the bruise on her face – ignoring the dark things in him that are directly or indirectly responsible for both injuries. The moment of comprehension shocks him, shakes him. Boyd gazes at her as her attention moves seamlessly between book and film and he is again appalled by what he sees. The gentlest, kindest and most compassionate of women quietly and stoically nursing wounds he's responsible for. The woman who's stood by him through the hardest and darkest of times with her eye blackened and her cheekbone bruised because he won't face the shadows that haunt his days and torment his nights.

Abruptly, Boyd sits forward on the sofa, fingers of both hands laced together, forearms resting on his knees. Head down, he says, "This post-traumatic thing – "

"PTSD," Grace says promptly.

He doesn't look at her. "Yeah, that. You really think seeing a shrink is the answer?"

"She's not a shrink, Boyd. She's a trained psychotherapist. A very experienced trained psychotherapist."

"Whatever. My point is whether or not your whatsit therapy – "

"Talking therapy."

" – could really make any bloody difference. We all go through all kinds of shit in our lives, and surely we just learn to deal with it the best way we can."

Grace says, "But you're not dealing with it, are you? You're locking it away somewhere and trying to ignore it – but it's too big for you. Too powerful."

Boyd looks up and frowns. "That's rubbish."

"Evidently not, since you're suffering from continual nightmares and flashbacks. Tell me something – did you have nightmares after you were stabbed by Dickson all those years ago?"

He considers the question carefully, casts his mind back more than a decade and eventually nods. "Yeah, for a while. That's only natural, isn't it?"

"Of course it is," Grace confirms. "But when – "

"Ellis. His name was Ellis. David Ellis. Serial sex offender who thought he could make his life inside a bit easier by shanking an ex-copper."

" – when Ellis attacked you, the nightmares didn't go away, did they? You still have them – and it's a fairly safe bet that they're as vivid and terrifying now as they were in the immediate aftermath. You're locked into the trauma, Boyd. What happens, how you feel – they're not just going to go away with time, trust me."

Boyd sighs. "You really want me to see this Cooper woman of yours, don't you?"

"I can't force you to go."

"That wasn't what I asked."

Grace nods slowly. "Yes, I want you to see her. You can't run from this, Peter. Can't hide from it. You can't lock it away in a box and pretend it's not there. Not if you want to stay out of prison."

He drops his head again, more in resignation than anything else. Not looking at her, he asks, "Do you want me to sleep in the spare room? Until…?"

The pause is longer than he cares for. By far. Grace says unconvincingly, "Don't be stupid."

"This is one of those moments, isn't it?" Boyd asks in a pained, grim effort at humour. "One of those moments when a woman says one thing and means something completely different…?"

-oOo-

Ellen Cooper is not what Boyd expects. Tall – almost as tall as he is – and… large. Buxom, to use an old-fashioned word. Extremely attractive. Pale skin, dark hair and eyes, and when she smiles at him he completely understands what a man over twenty years her junior sees in her. Completely understands. He's fairly sure that if Grace were present he would already have received a sharp kick to the ankle or a warning glare; possibly both. In his defence, he can't imagine any red-blooded male not fixating at least briefly on the ample amount of cleavage on display. It's very… distracting.

She breaks him out of his happy reverie with, "How long were you in prison for, Peter?"

He doesn't need to think about the answer. "Just over three years, including time spent on remand."

"And you're on license now?"

Boyd nods and automatically tunes out of the discussion. It's a technique he perfected a long time ago, one that never fails to infuriate Grace, on whom, it has to be said, he relentlessly honed the skill. Enough of his mind concentrates to give appropriate, accurate answers, the rest simply wanders, contemplating the room, the décor, the cleavage.

Ellen says, "Have you ever done anything like this before?"

"Anger management," he admits, forcing himself to concentrate again.

"Did it work?"

"In theory."

"In theory?"

He grunts and admits, "I'm not too good at the practice."

"Do you think this is what you need?"

"Aren't you supposed to tell me what I need?" Boyd counters.

Ellen looks at him for a long moment, and he doesn't miss how shrewd, how intelligent her gaze is. She says, "What you're experiencing is a reaction not just to being attacked in prison; it's the result of accumulated stress over an extended period. PTSD was originally known as 'battle fatigue' for a reason, you know."

"Shell shock," he says.

"If you like."

"So?" Boyd prompts impatiently.

Again, she gives him a long, considering look. "I can only help you if you want to be helped, and that's something only you can decide."

-oOo-

Continued…