DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.

Happy Birthday to Never Stop Believing in Love, December 2013. xx

Thirty-six Thousand Feet

by Joodiff

Disorientated as he wakes abruptly from a light doze, it takes Boyd a few seconds to realise that Grace's head is unaccountably resting heavily on his shoulder, and a moment or two longer to establish that she's apparently very soundly asleep. There's an irritatingly flamboyant sneeze from the seats immediately behind them, and then another. In response he grimaces in a mixture of annoyance and distaste and wonders if the unpleasantly loud disturbance is connected to why he's suddenly wide awake instead of still quietly snoozing away both the hours and the miles. The intrusive presence of other passengers is only one reason why he genuinely dislikes flying and routinely avoids it whenever he can. It's an unavoidable necessity at times, naturally, but he won't be at all sorry to disembark when they eventually land at Heathrow. Next time there's a law enforcement conference on the other side of the world that they are compelled to attend, he grimly tells himself, they'll fly business class regardless of curt edicts from on high about budget cuts and economising. Privilege of rank and seniority.

He flexes slightly in his seat, trying to ease the numb stiffness in his back and legs and the faint movement immediately causes Grace to sigh and mumble softly. Boyd eyes her quizzically for a moment, but there's no further sign of impending consciousness. She seems to be blissfully settled and he's damn sure she's a lot more comfortable than he is. She certainly looks it. Grudgingly, he gloomily decides he's just far too tall and far too old to be uncomfortably wedged into such a comparatively small space for so many long hours. Height-wise, at least, Grace definitely has the advantage over him. There's a heavy dull ache in his shoulder now, doubtless caused and then further compounded by her weight nestling against him. And nestling is exactly the right word, Boyd concludes as he regards her with placid exasperation. It's unfamiliar, unexpected and a little disconcerting, but despite the aching shoulder situation, on balance it's not altogether unpleasant.

She looks tired, he realises glumly. Not just tired in an ordinary Chicago-and-back-in-less-than-four-days sort of way, but tired in a pale washed-out way that immediately gives him real cause for concern. She might think she's made of iron, but he knows she's not. The spirit probably is, but the body… the body is all-too human and all-too frail. Nowadays Boyd frets about that more than he thinks she'd ever believe, despite her repeated long-suffering assurances that she'll see him out purely on principle. She might, too, just to spite him, even though he's younger by enough of a margin to deliberately needle her about whenever the mood takes him.

Damn shoulder is really hurting now. He subtly attempts to rotate it but although there's not much of her, Grace is a dead weight against him. He really wouldn't put it past her to start snoring in a distinctly unladylike fashion just to annoy him even further, either. He glowers at the top of her head, mutters irritably, "God's sake, Grace…"

She mumbles again, and the hand that has been limply resting on his forearm suddenly grasps him in a ridiculously powerful death-grip. Suspicious, Boyd flexes again. The hold duly tightens further, but she still doesn't show any sign of actually waking. He is effectively firmly trapped in his seat by a tiny woman in her early sixties. The dark thought amuses him no end. It wouldn't cost him any physical effort to break himself free, of course, but it's something else altogether that holds him firmly pinioned. He may be distinctly uncomfortable, but conversely Grace is obviously comfortable and therefore he will stoically remain in grinding discomfort for as long as proves necessary. It's a very simple equation, really.

He doesn't even really know when it happened, the subtle but complete establishment of the unspoken power she wields over him. There's no moment Boyd can point to with conviction as the moment. It just… happened. Slowly and steadily evolved until it was far too late to mount a spirited defence. He's fairly sure she knows it, too. Which is annoying. To say the least.

"Are you comfortable?" he asks her sardonically, the rhetorical question no more than a soft murmur. "Good. I'm glad. At least one of us is."

It's the little moments that matter, he thinks. Moments like this. Not the great grand gestures, the moments of towering – and thoroughly stupid – nobility which come with ridiculously heroic words like 'Take my life for Grace's life'. Any blind fool with nerves of steel can play the big dangerous games, but maybe Boyd is learning that it takes a different sort of bravery to endure so very much for so very long and still have the courage to let a woman curl up against him because to her he inexplicably represents love and safety. He wonders if she knows that, too. She probably does. Her ability to see straight into the heart of him has always been uncanny. And often incredibly inconvenient.

It's coming. The day of reckoning. The day when the last barriers fall, honesty wins out and they finally decide either to take the same path together or to let all the obvious objections mount up until they have no choice but to agree to go their separate ways. He's not the smartest man in the world where women and relationships are concerned, but even Peter Boyd knows it's impossible to spend an entire decade accidentally falling in love and not have to face up to the truth eventually. Yes, the day's coming. It's not today and it won't be tomorrow, but he thinks it will be soon. He expects it to ambush him when he's least prepared to deal with it, but maybe that's okay. It would almost be disappointing if the moment came to them in any conventional way.

Perhaps they'll confound everyone and retire together; perhaps they'll move out of London to some godforsaken stretch of muddy countryside and spend the rest of their days quietly driving each other mad. Madder. He's not convinced that after so many years of doing the relentless job that they do that either of them are quite as sane as they should be. Grace has just as many quirks and foibles as he does. Boyd likes that.

He is watching her with almost zenlike concentration when a shadow falls across his lap. He looks up. A stewardess – or flight attendant, or whatever they're called nowadays – is smiling down at him. Young. Very pretty. Her voice is quiet, gentle and sweet as honey. "Would you like a blanket for your wife, sir?"

"She's not my – " Boyd starts to say and stops abruptly. The absurdity of the automatic denial almost makes him laugh. He doesn't. He merely smiles back a little reticently. "Yeah, please."

Well, what the hell is she if she isn't his damned wife? In more-or-less everything but name? Maybe they don't reside under the same roof, maybe they don't share the same bed, but to Boyd such things suddenly seem to be mere technicalities. Trifling details to be duly sorted out without much fuss at some unspecified point in the future.

"I'll fetch one for you," the stewardess-or-flight-attendant says obligingly and retreats down the aisle.

"Bloody wife," he mutters, deliberately bad-tempered. He surveys the head still firmly tucked into his shoulder. "Hear that, did you? Well, you better really be a-bloody-sleep and not shamming, that's all I can say."

Grace doesn't even wake up when he clumsily attempts one-handedly to tuck the promised blanket around her. She just smiles slightly and settles even more comfortably against him. Being a pragmatic sort of man, eventually Boyd simply closes his eyes and allows himself to drift in the calming warmth and scent of her until he is once again dozing peacefully. There is something to be said for the enforced proximity of economy class travel, after all.

- the end -