A/N: Hello everybody, hope you enjoyed your Christmas and are now ready for a little more story. This is another experiment, not connected to the previous vignette. Many thanks go to Shadowsamurai83 for the beta.

Enjoy!

The Road - Ideal

"Tell me, Grace, was Jack your ideal man?"

They'd been sitting in her office for hours. The bottle of wine was empty, but they both knew there was another hidden in the room. Halfway through this bottle she had joined him on the sofa and was glad about it for several reasons.

Buzzed and thus unsteady on her feet, the sofa was much more comfortable than her chair and it had the added bonus of Boyd sitting next to her. It made her feel warm and comfortable to have him so close, and at the same time it was intimate and thrilling to feel him touching her, even if it was coincidental.

If it was.

The only thing disturbing her contentment was his question. Luckily from his position he couldn't see her face, couldn't see if she lied. Would she? Really?

What had Jack been to her? Her rock, her safe haven, that he had been. It was the furthest thing imaginable from her ideal of a man.

She hadn't chosen Jack from his breathtaking good looks or his sparkling personality, or because he simply swept her off her feet. Jack had been and done none of this. The truth was much more mundane and there were times when Grace was ashamed of it. Still. After so many years.

Jack was nothing like Harry, that's why she had chosen him. And...

"Grace?"

"He was nothing like you, Boyd."

Boyd stared. He had turned slightly to see what took Grace so long to answer, but he still couldn't see her face. This was unexpected. His question had been half in jest, due to the late hour and the alcohol that was pleasantly whirling in his blood. He had wanted to keep the banter going. That was all. And now her answer was there like the elephant in the room and it threw him for several reasons.

Was Jack Foley being nothing like him good or bad? And following from this, did he really want to know?

In all honesty, he had never shown too much of an interest in Grace's family - too touchy-feely in his mind. Alright, downright egoistical. But she had never volunteered the information and he had just assumed... Frankly, he had never considered whether she kept the information to herself because there was nothing to tell, or because she was this considerate.

She had been in life-threatening situations, had had birthdays and Christmasses, and yet... Jack Foley was dead, but her children...

With the uncertainty about his son's fate, Boyd wasn't very receptive to other people's family plights, but Joe was dead, Mel too, Frankie and Felix disappeared to God knows where, and that left him only with Spence for personal connections.

And Grace. Always. Always Grace.

Wasn't it time he paid a little attention?

Turning slightly, he noticed her hands clenched in her lap and gently picked them up. Grace startled, but didn't pull away. Her hands were ice cold compared to his and it made Boyd smile. He'd never understand this particular aspect of female biology.

"You're cold," he whispered and pulled her closer. A purely platonic gesture of friendship, he claimed to himself. It was anything but, and they both knew it. Grace was as stiff as a board before almost melting against his body. She trembled and he couldn't - in any way, shape or form - justify his wildly pounding blood with a platonic hug.

"Nothing like me, eh?" he returned to their earlier topic. "You really got lucky then." He choked the words out, inexplicably hurt by the dismissive way she had said it. It only dawned on him now that she had sounded somewhat callous and to his own surprise it did hurt. Of course her marriage must have been a happy one and his was a prime example for starting badly and deteriorating from there. Why should she even consider him comparable to her perfect husband?

As much as he tried to mask it, there was a roughness to his voice that surprised her. What was he trying not to say? That he hoped she'd contradict him immediately? That she'd...?

Snuggling deeper against him, Grace smiled unconsciously. The wine was doing a number on her and she could always blame everything on it and her exhaustion after a long day. Anything she said or did could be labeled as such.

"It's a loaded question," she finally ventured, one arm landing around his middle.

"Just one friend asking another."

Yeah, right. His question had been about as innocently friendly as it got. Boyd knew that. Grace too, for she chuckled, lightly pinching his side. He jumped, making her laugh even more.

"Does that mean I get to ask about your ideal woman too?"

The words hung in the air, dangling tauntingly before their very eyes. There was the elephant in the room again. As always, the proverbial door was wide open, but where would it lead to? If he answered truthfully and she did as well, where would they go from there?

Boyd swallowed. His ideal woman? Tall, curvy, self-assured, feisty, lively, funny...all those things came to mind and almost every woman in his past fit the description to a point, so that must be his ideal. However, if he was perfectly honest, which he usually wasn't, this description...

"Takes you a long time," came the gentle ribbing from his side, accompanied by a soft dig in the ribs. "Must be a long list."

Grace was anxious to not let the pause grow too long. She wasn't delusional about herself - it had always been more brains than beauty - but knowing it in your mind didn't quite compare to being told that you didn't fulfill the requirements. Though it was a huge effort to face him now, she turned and stopped short, finding Boyd staring back at her just as intensely.

"If you think any harder, there'll be steam coming out of your ears," she teased, more to divert his attention from his intense perusal of her than really meaning it.

He rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything. Didn't alter their position either.

"She probably doesn't exist," he replied and even to his own ears it sounded lame.

"Don't tell me, you still dream of Jeannie."

He shook his head, half in exasperation, half in amusement. It was just like Grace to throw in a cheap joke at a moment like this.

"No, just a real woman," he answered seriously. There was a pause as they both listened to the slowly receding words. "It's a fantasy anyway."

"Why?"

"It just is," he explained. Not very convincing, though.

"That's not an answer, Boyd."

"Just take it as it is, okay, Grace?" His patience was running thin, but he knew that she wouldn't stop now.

"Maybe it wouldn't be a fantasy if you talked about it. Make it more real." Grace was genuinely concerned. She was also burning with curiosity, but that was beside the point. At least to her.

"Just leave it. It's useless!"

"Why?" Their back and forth had changed in intensity with each of her questions and each of his rebuffs. She might have sounded a little more forceful than necessary and he a little more reticent than he really was, but that was how they were. It was a part of their routine of discussing and fighting over things, a base of their relationship.

Annoyed, he pushed off the sofa, leaving her almost slumped on it as he began to pace agitatedly. "Because I can't have her!" Exploding first then reduced to a whisper, he marched to the other side of the office and stayed there, his back turned towards his companion. "I doubt she'd even consider me."

Grace was grateful for his turned back, the fact that he couldn't see her face. Intellectual awareness didn't really protect you from emotional hurt, even if it was expected - and dreaded. "Maybe you should tell her anyway," she said after a while, surprised that her voice didn't betray her feelings. Mentally, she went through the list of possibilities and each of them soured her mood. Taller, fitter, prettier, younger - and those were just the physical aspects. Damn, but self-awareness was a bitch sometimes.

"I can't," he finally ventured and neither of them knew how long the silence had lasted. His voice sounded thin in it. "She wouldn't want to hear it."

"I doubt that. Every woman likes to hear it, even if she doesn't feel the same."

Looking over his shoulder, he gave her a tentative smile. "What's the sense in telling her then?"

She chuckled lightly and gave him a knowing look. "Getting it off your chest?"

"And leaving myself wide open for rejection and humiliation. Not very appealing, Grace."

"It's part of it," she replied, her smile widening. And the reason why she kept hers to herself.

Boyd turned fully towards her and slowly closed the distance to the sofa again. "Not very convincing."

"But true."

He flopped back down and almost immediately, and somewhat unconsciously, the returned to their former position.

"Did you tell Jack often?"

There it was again - the question, the tension, and the elephant in the room. Grace swallowed the tears that were threatening. Most of the time she could avoid thinking of it, wondering at the hows and whys and the what-ifs, avoiding the pain. But Boyd never gave up once he sensed something and so she was in for it now.

"I...I didn't tell him."

"Why not?" Boyd was truly surprised. Of course, he didn't know much about the Foleys' marriage, just as he knew little about the family altogether, but he wouldn't have taken Grace for somebody to keep it to herself. Why had she never told her late husband? Hadn't she just said that it was an important thing to share?

"Jack was wonderful." There was a quivery smile in her voice as she spoke. "He was what I needed at the time."

"But...?"

"He wasn't my ideal."

He didn't want to let the pause grow too long, yet he didn't want to appear rash in the face of so momentous a confession. As it was, he felt sympathy for the man. He'd never looked at a picture of his consciously, didn't even really know how the man had looked, and Grace wouldn't have chosen...

"Did he know?" he blurted out despite his good intentions.

"I think so." The pain in her voice was audible and Boyd's heart went out to her too. He knew a thing or two about guilt and Grace's voice conveyed just so much of it.

"But you loved him," Boyd stated with conviction, as he pulled her tighter against him. She nodded. "I'm sure he knew that."

"Yeah."

She sounded thin and not really convinced, but it was a start. Feeling hopeful, he continued in a lighter tone. "Makes the idea of an ideal quite useless, doesn't it?"

Grace nodded again, but kept silent. They stayed like this for a moment, before she looked up at him again, now half amused and half earnest. "You should tell her nonetheless. You might be surprised how receptive she is to your offer."

This time Boyd didn't answer, but after a few minutes got up to retrieve the other bottle of wine. With the way their conversation had gone, he figured they needed and deserved another drink. From her place, which she seemingly hadn't left for hours, Grace watched him, wondering what went on in his mind. They had gone on a rollercoaster ride of topics and emotion tonight and Boyd was still strangely mellow about all this touchy feely stuff. It unsettled him, she could see it, but more than that she seemed to have hit a nerve.

As he held out the bottle to her, she gratefully held up her glass for a refill. Slowly, he sank back down next to her and gave her a crooked smile, before staring straight ahead. "If a man told you that you are his idea woman, how would you react?"

He said it earnestly, contemplative, but it was just a hypothetical question, wasn't it? "Unlikely to happen, don't you think?" she deadpanned, aware that it might sound a bit rude.

Unexpectedly, he took it in stride, even though he didn't look at her either. "How would you react?"

Grace looked at him for a long time, blood rushing wildly and building up to a burning knot in her stomach. "Are you asking?"

Boyd didn't reply, unable to make up a clear answer. Was he asking?

Was he really asking?

Thank you for reading. Comments would be greatly appreciated.