Looking in the Mirror (continued)

Perhaps because this time he tries so hard to listen, Grace says far more than she intends, thoughts and regrets and insecurities all flowing together into a single focused stream. As she continues to speak, an oddly detached part of her is amazed at how unusually patient he manages to be, but the same part of her easily recognises the way his expression takes on a darker, more brooding edge. But it's too late to stop. She keeps talking, navigating her way slowly and painfully through the labyrinth, knowing that she must reach the end before she can find any hope of equilibrium.

Boyd is not a psychologist – that's her job – but he has the natural instincts of a born investigator, and he's very used to distilling hundreds of words into a few solid facts. And eventually he simply says, "This is all just so much bollocks, Grace."

She isn't sure whether to laugh or cry, whether to hit him or hug him. And maybe he sees the dilemma written on her face, because he continues, "This is all to do with one simple thing – your own perception."

"That's very profound, Boyd," Grace says dryly, and she isn't sure if she's angry or not.

His gaze is unnaturally intense, and it makes her uncomfortable. She realises she has absolutely no idea what's going through his mind. It's true his thought-processes are often obscure and convoluted, but usually she's able to make some kind of educated guess about what he's thinking. Not this time. He's utterly unreadable.

It startles her when he stands up abruptly, and it astonishes her when he steps towards her and extends a hand. Grace has no idea what he's intending and she hesitates. Quietly, he says, "Trust me."

She does. Implicitly. Sometimes she doesn't approve of him or his methods, and sometimes he frustrates her beyond any normal level of endurance, but she trusts him. Still, there is anxiety in her, in the way she takes his hand so very, very tentatively. Boyd's fingers close around hers, and his grip is perfectly calculated – strong enough to prevent her from breaking away, gentle enough not to cause any hint of discomfort. What really frightens Grace, though, is the tiny shockwave the sudden, unanticipated contact sends up her arm. Silently, she rebukes herself. There are some things… some emotions… that she simply can't bring herself to confront.

Effortlessly, he raises her to her feet, and for one crazy – and completely mistaken – moment, she thinks perhaps he's going to pull her into an embrace. He doesn't. Boyd doesn't loosen his grip, but where their hands aren't joined there's a lot of distance between them. Grace realises she's witnessed this, or something very like it, before. It's the same quiet, steady compassion he, in his role as a police officer, is quite capable of showing towards the distressed and the traumatised. Enough to offer reassurance and support, not enough to trespass on any boundaries. And she reacts the way she's seen others react before her, unconsciously drawing on his strength, on whatever it is in him that speaks silently of a tough, no-nonsense dependability. Maybe it's the first time she is able to comprehend on a purely instinctive level why those who have been thoroughly brutalised and victimised are usually willing to eventually put their trust in him.

Gently enough, he leads her back into the hallway, increasing her confusion. He stops and releases her hand, immediately putting both of his on her shoulders, turning her away from him. Turning her to face her biggest critic. The woman in the mirror stares back at her, expression bewildered. Boyd's tall enough to stand right behind her and still gaze into the glass himself, and just for a moment their eyes lock unerringly in the mirror – clear blue eyes, dark brown eyes, one single, steady gaze.

His voice is remarkably soft, pitched somewhere in the lower registers, "Look at yourself, Grace. What do you see?"

She looks, but she already knows what she sees. A woman whose best years are behind her. A woman who knows that men no longer notice her. A woman who feels she is in mortal danger of becoming completely invisible. A woman who seems to be growing older and more careworn by the day. The mirror is merciless, she knows that. She sees every line, every imperfection, however small. And she wonders what happened to the feisty young woman who used to look back at her.

Grace can't answer his question. How can she? Not only is he younger than her, but he is, after all, a man. And every passing year just seems to make him more ruggedly good-looking, just as every grey hair seems to make him look even more distinguished. And Boyd, she is quite sure, does not remotely feel his age. He still seems to have boundless energy and drive, still seems just as capable of boisterousness and unpredictability as he ever was. The years don't seem to be crushing him the way they are slowly threatening to crush Grace. There is nothing she can say, and it's only his grip, gentle but firm, that keeps her from turning away from the painful truth.

"Tell me what you see," Boyd persists.

He will push until she answers him, Grace knows, and his tenacity piques her. Sharply, she says, "I see what you see, Boyd. A lonely, pathetic old woman who lives for her work and her research because there's nothing else anymore."

His grip on her shoulders tightens almost imperceptibly. He says, "That's not what I see."

She stares at him in the mirror, trying to fathom the unfathomable in the depths of his eyes, and he looks back at her, utterly calm and self-possessed. Grace is still unable to even guess at his thoughts, but she thinks she understands his motivations. He does not want to lose a good profiler. It's that simple. The CCU is Boyd's, has always been Boyd's, and he guards it and its staff with all the territorial ferocity of a true alpha male. She knows he will stop at very little to get his own way. What Peter Boyd wants, Peter Boyd generally gets, one way or another. And he wants her back in her office, back behind her desk. Where she will quietly grow older and more shadowy until there is nothing left of her at all.

He lowers his head, speaks softly into her ear, "Do you want to know what I see?"

"No," she tells him quickly with all the force she can muster. She doesn't want to suffer the cruelty of his lies, nor does she want to face the things in herself that she doesn't want to see. She tenses, subtly testing her strength against his grip, but he doesn't release her.

Boyd ignores her, says, "I see you, Grace. Everything you are, everything you can be. Intelligent, courageous, compassionate – "

Grace interrupts him quickly, harshly, "This is pointless. Worse, it's cruel. I'm not – "

"Cruel?" Boyd says, and his tone is quizzical, but it becomes more impatient with, "For God's sake. Do you have any idea how ridiculous all this 'old woman' crap is? Look in the damned mirror, will you?"

Despite herself, Grace does. And she finds she can only stare at him, not at herself. Boyd's head is still low, and he's watching her intently; and the moment he sees her focus on him, he leans in closer. It's very slow and very deliberate, the way he runs his jaw up her neck and there's absolutely no mistaking the movement for what it is. It's blatant, it's erotic and it's completely devastating. Grace sees it in the mirror, feels it against her skin. She thinks it should feel harsh, that contact, like the rasp of morning stubble, but it doesn't. Not at all. His beard is soft and his skin is warm, and the look in his eyes tells her he knows exactly what he's doing.

It's wonderful, it's terrifying, and it lasts just a couple of heartbeats, but against her will she has the scent of him, a mix of underlying soap, a trace of something sharper and more expensive, and a dangerous hint of something much more natural, much more primal. Much more… male… in fact. Her stomach tenses into a hard, anxious knot, and instinct alone forces her to make a determined bid for freedom, and this time he releases her and she rounds on him angrily, "What the hell do you think you're doing, Boyd?"

The only answer he gives her is a slow smile that's as amused as it is wicked, but it's the clear devilment in his eyes that causes her to lash out in a moment of completely uncharacteristic rage. And Grace Foley, who has never hit anyone in her entire life, slaps him with enough force to snap his head back on his shoulders. It's a single moment of insanity, driven by all the fear and rage and frustration twisting inside her.

Boyd rides the blow easily enough, makes absolutely no attempt to retaliate. He turns his head back slowly, looks straight at her, and the deliberate provocation is gone from his eyes. But the smile remains, and if anything it's even more amused. Softly, he says, "Catharsis, Doctor?"

Mortified by her action, Grace says, "Boyd – "

Perhaps his reaction is entirely predictable. Perhaps not. Grace isn't really sure. All she really knows is that suddenly she's being very thoroughly kissed and that it only takes her a split-second to break every self-imposed rule she's ever made and respond with equal fervour and enthusiasm. There might be a distant part of her mind strenuously trying to remind her of the identity of the man she's kissing so fiercely and without a single inhibition, but if there is, she's absolutely not listening to it. He's just a man, after all. Who – or more correctly, what – he is doesn't matter, not at that moment.

She isn't ready for Boyd to break away from her, but he does, and he takes her shoulders again, not quite as gently as before, and turns her back towards the mirror. He says, "Now what do you see…?"

Grace sees fire. She sees passion and want and need. She sees things in herself that she hasn't seen for a long, long time. She sees all things she's refused to acknowledge, things she's sublimated for a long, long time. She sees the truth of how much she wants him reflected clearly in her eyes, in the wide dilation of her pupils. The things she sees shock her. The woman in the mirror is carrying a fair number of years, true, but there's something… vibrant… about her, something that's –

"Beautiful," Boyd says, and it's as if he has stolen from her the word she could never, ever bear to apply to herself. And there is nothing feigned about the sudden huskiness in his voice. "Christ, just look at yourself, Grace. You've got it all – beauty, brains… Don't give me this 'too old and tired' crap. You're coming back to work tomorrow if I have to drag you there myself."

Work. Of course. For an instant Grace inwardly curses herself for her moment of complete naivety. For forgetting, just for a split-second or two, that Peter Boyd is shamelessly Machiavellian when it comes to getting his own way. Forcibly, she pulls away from him, putting a good distance between them, and she can't – doesn't want to – suppress the anger in her voice as she says, "Get out. Get out of my house. Now!"

With anyone else it might, just might, have worked. Not with Boyd. He's simply too fiery, too hot-blooded not to react in kind, and as his temper rises so does the volume of his voice, "Like fuck I will…"

In the future, and with the benefit of hindsight, Grace may recognise this as the moment when everything between them changes forever. But that time is yet to come, and it's entirely possible that they're both currently too lost in the moment and too angry and frustrated to see the inevitability of what is happening.

There will never be a time when one of them will be able to definitively blame the other. They move rapidly and simultaneously, both of them wildly angry, both of them utterly fearless, and it isn't altogether clear which of them is the more ferocious as they seize hold of each other. Boyd has the advantage of brute strength, but Grace is a far more subtle creature and she easily turns his physical superiority against him, exulting in it instead of cowering away from it. Who's got the upper hand is irrelevant, as irrelevant as who's kissing who more fiercely, as irrelevant as whose hand is where and who's doing what to whom. Fleetingly, Grace recognises she's got one hand tangled in his hair, and the other – inexplicably – under his shirt, but that particular moment of clarity doesn't last more than a heartbeat.

Maybe there should be some kind of discussion between them, but there isn't. Perhaps there isn't a question in the world that wouldn't be completely immaterial in such circumstances.

Grace doesn't think they'll make it to the bedroom, and they don't. It's only by chance that they make it as far as the living room. And it's very far from a fairytale, that first reckless encounter, because there's the inevitable awkwardness of first-time lovers, and there's age, impetuosity and imperfection. But it's all good because there's also heat and sweat, and passion. It's good because it's hungry, unrehearsed and real, and when Boyd, chest and shoulders gleaming in the half-light, instinctively throws his head back as he fights desperately for control, Grace doesn't think she's ever seen anything quite so glorious.

He breaks, she breaks, and the last vestige of any line between them breaks. And for those few moments everything between them is the way it should always have been.

-oOo-

"Do you have to look quite so smug?" Grace asks him in fond, gentle amusement, much later.

Boyd stretches, reminding her forcibly of a great, lazy cat. Fortunately for them both, the gentle lighting from the twin table lamps is extremely flattering, and when he flexes the shadows that catch him conspire to cast him in strong, muscular lines. Maybe it's mostly a trick of the light, given his age, but Grace doesn't actually care. When the answer comes, it comes as a languid and faintly self-satisfied, "Actually, yes. Yes, I do."

Grace laughs softly. She shifts position just a little, settles more comfortably against the padded arm of the sofa. A slight, suspicious twinge of pain suggests that attempting to make it up the stairs and into the bedroom might have been a little more sensible, after all. If not for the first round of engagement, then definitely for the second. And that thought makes her feel just a little bit smug herself. Clearly, she thinks with an inward smile, Boyd is right. There is life in the old girl yet. Somehow she's ended up wearing his shirt, so she can't really attempt to tell herself that it's a stray draught in the room that causes a momentary shiver up and down her spine.

The man himself is sitting on the floor, bare legs extended, head tipped back to rest against her thigh. His eyes are closed, his breathing steady. Somehow it doesn't really surprise Grace that she has yet to see any hint of self-consciousness in Boyd, despite his current, conspicuous absence of clothing. She's had the shirt off his back, quite literally. And she's certainly not complaining about the subsequent view. Not at all.

"Look at the state of my living room," she says, hurriedly trying to redirect her thoughts. She eyes the discarded clothing, the scattered cushions and the empty glasses. "How do you manage to create such chaos wherever you go?"

"Years of practice."

"Boyd… Peter…" she says, and chuckles uneasily at her own momentary discomfiture, "God, I don't even know what I'm supposed to call you at a time like this."

"Whatever works for you," he says, eyes still firmly closed. "I'm not going to be precious about it."

"Hm. Well… All I was going to say was, do you think this was a mistake?"

Boyd raises his head, shifts himself round slightly to gaze at her, "No. And you don't either. You're just suffering from… oh, I don't know. You're the bloody psychologist, Grace, you work it out. You enjoyed it, didn't you?"

Dryly, Grace says, "You were there – I think you know the answer to that."

"Well, then," he says simply. Then he sighs and pulls himself up to perch on the edge of the sofa next to her. "I knew you'd do this."

She gives him a quizzical look, "Do what?"

Boyd runs his fingers through his hair, smoothing it back into some kind of order, "Hold a damned post mortem. How many years have we known each other? This wasn't a drunken fumble at the office party that you regret the minute you wake up the next morning."

"Wow. For a moment that was very nearly going to be a profound speech, P… Boyd. Whatever."

"Grace," Boyd says, his tone mild and uncharacteristically tolerant. "Can I point out that one of us seems to be relying on humour to disguise the fact that they're feeling just a little insecure? Whilst the other is simply happy and tired, and yes, just a tiny bit smug."

Grace opens her mouth to protest, then closes it again, realising that he's right. She sighs, "So what happens now?"

He seems to take the question at face value, and he rubs his beard absently as he says, "Well, if you want me to behave like a caveman, I ignore what my back's desperately trying to tell me and I carry you up to bed, where I might make an extremely half-hearted attempt at having my wicked way with you again – "

Grace can't resist it. It's too easy a target. She raises her eyebrows, runs a speculative finger down his long, smooth back and says, "Again? I'm truly impressed, Boyd."

" – but if you want a more metrosexual approach – "

"Is that word even in your dictionary?" Grace asks. He favours her with a look that can only be described as long-suffering. "Sorry. All right, you're right. I'm feeling insecure. It's just – "

"I'm not having this conversation tonight," Boyd says abruptly. He glances at the clock on the wall, "It's past one and I'm too tired not to say something stupid. You want to know what happens now, Grace? Well, unless you're really hard-hearted enough to kick me out in the middle of the night, we're going to go to bed. And tomorrow morning we'll both feel just a bit sheepish until something pisses me off and I start shouting. And at that point we'll both realise that the world hasn't fallen off its axis just because we've finally got round to fu – "

"Boyd," Grace chides him, more for form's sake than anything else.

"See?" Boyd tells her, sounding triumphant. "Everything's back to normal already."

-oOo-

Grace is used to waking calmly and gradually. She's not used to being jerked awake by the sound of impatient, angry swearing. Reluctantly, she opens her eyes, "Do you really have to make so much noise?"

The reply is curt, "Yes."

"Boyd, what on earth are you doing? It's…" Grace sits up and looks at the clock, "…not even six o'clock."

Boyd seems to have been on a foraging expedition downstairs, because he's fully dressed, even if most of the buttons on his reclaimed shirt are still undone. He also looks far more awake than Grace feels. Gruffly, he says, "And I have a meeting at Scotland Yard at nine-thirty, for which I need to be suited and booted and not looking like I've been sleeping rough under Vauxhall Bridge for a week. Have you seen my keys? Where the fuck are my car keys?"

Despite the rude awakening, despite the cruelty of the hour, Grace starts to laugh. Boyd glares at her, brows drawn together. "What? What's so bloody funny?"

"Nothing," she says, still chuckling. "Nothing at all. Stop. Calm down. I'll find your keys for you."

He starts to bristle, saying, "You're laughing at me. Why are you laughing at me? Christ, am I a comedian now?"

"Calm down," Grace says again, getting out of bed. "I'm not laughing at you, Boyd. I'm laughing because you were right. 'Tomorrow we'll feel just a bit sheepish until something pisses me off'…?"

He relaxes slightly, his shoulders dropping, "Oh. Look, I really do have to go, Grace, but I'm not running out on you. Just tell me that when I get back to the office you're going to be there."

Grace nods slowly, says, "I'll be there. But we need to talk."

Boyd looks less than delighted, "Oh, God. Do we really have to?"

"We do," she tells him.

Sounding hopeful, he says, "Can't you just send me a memo, or something?"

Straight-faced, she says, "Well… I suppose I could. Hm, actually that would give me a lot of time to have a long gossip with Stella and Felix. And then maybe I could give Frankie a ring, too…"

There's nothing at all contrived about Boyd's answering grimace. Morosely, he says, "All right, all right. I get the picture. We'll talk. Now for God's sake, woman, I have to go."

With Boyd, it's just a question of knowing which buttons to press.

Grace smiles sweetly at him, "Don't slam the front door on your way out. The neighbours won't like it."

She doesn't miss the quick, amused glint in his eyes. He knows when he's beaten. Without warning, though, he leans in and kisses her, hard and swift. Smugly, "Keys?"

"Keys," Grace says, just a touch flustered. "Downstairs in what used to be my living room…?"

-oOo-

Continued…