In Denial
By
Rapunzle1980
Boyd opened the envelope that had come to the CCU Headquarters addressed to Detective Sergeant Mel Silver and took out the necklace as he walked over to his chair.
"All I`m trying to say is that maybe she was on a case," Grace said, watching him.
"I think it was personal. Mel was Jewish. I think she was using the Wiesenthal Centre to trace her ancestry or something," he said, dismissing Grace`s statement altogether. "Why would she be working on a case? If she was working on a case, she would have told me."
"Oh, would she?" Her tone told him she was not convinced that was the case.
"Yeah."
"You really think that, do you? Couldn't she have just been off pursuing a good idea that she…" She interrupted herself. "Oh, no, sorry, you`re the only person round here who has a good idea."
"Oh, come on, get out of here. I got work to do."
She didn't move, not a bit frightened of him. "See, you`re doing it again."
Boyd rose from his chair and started pacing. "Doing what?"
"Not listening. Treating everybody`s opinion as if they don't matter. As if the people around you don't matter," she said, her tone irritable.
Boyd`s voice was impatient when he answered her. "What have I done to deserve this now? This is a little unfair." He stopped pacing, seated himself in his chair again, his dark eyes regarding her.
"That`s how you make people feel," Grace explained him.
"Oh, people. Who? The general public or the team? I think we`re talking about you and me, isn't that right? It`s you and me, yeah?" It was clear to them both that he was starting to wind himself up. "Let me tell you something, Doctor Foley, you are a grownup, right? And a psychologist. So, handle it!
"Well, that`s just the point. I`m sick of handling it. It`s exhausting." She knew her voice was louder than usually, but she didn't care anymore. She was just so sick and tired of it all, of him and the bickering that almost every conversation they had seemed to result in.
Using his quietest tone, the one everyone on the team knew to watch out for, he said, "I`ll tell you what`s exhausting. I`ll tell you what`s completely debilitating." By now his voice was rising again, making Spence and Stella look towards his office. "And that is the fact that you, with your training and your learning, and your ideas and your books and everything, you never come up with anything that`s actually…"
"What?"
"Concrete or real. You`re all up here. Hocus pocus. You`re like a clairvoyant, you need a fricking crystal ball!"
"You`d like me to be real, would you?" Grace challenged him even though she knew better. Challenging Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd was usually not a good idea.
"God, I`d love it to be real, what`s stopping you?" his voice became dangerously dark as he challenged her back.
"You know what I mean when I say transference?"
"There you go again, you see? Yeah, long word. Why can't you just get to the point, Grace?"
"The point," she echoed.
"The point!"
"All right, well, the point is that you are ill," she told him.
"I`m ill now, am I? Good. Great."
"Yes. You are ill. You didn't even go to Mel`s funeral, did you?"
"No, I did not," he confirmed.
"You have totally failed to deal with your grief and your guilt. And you know that I am not just talking about Mel." Grace paused, giving him time to think, to answer her, waiting for his reaction. When none of that happened, she continued, her voice rising as well. "It`s making you ill. You`re repressed, depressed, and in denial. Everybody who comes in contact with you has to deal with that. That`s why you`re alone, Boyd. You are isolated and unloved. How does that feel?"
Boyd didn't respond, just looked at a fixed point on his desk. Grace wanted to say something more as she realised what she had just said to him but thought better of it. Quietly she got up, left his office, and walked into her own to find her handbag before returning to the squad room to face Spence and Stella.
As she fought back unwanted tears, she addressed the two in a weak voice. "Sorry about that," she told them. "I can't do this anymore. I`ll be in touch. Okay?"
Boyd hadn't moved an inch in his chair, still looking at his desk, apparently lost in thought as she quietly left the CCU basement.
B~G~B
Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd sat in his chair, in his office, still frozen by the verbal attack launched on him by Doctor Grace Foley. His mind registered that she left the basement, and probably also the building, without saying goodbye. He hadn't expected her to, either. Not after the way she had just spoken to him. She had, however, said something to Spence and Stella. Not that he knew what that was.
Repressed.
Depressed.
In denial.
Isolated.
Unloved.
Her words echoed in his office. He feared they would remain there for a long, long time. And even though he would not admit it to her, he knew deep down that she was probably right. About everything.
Grace knew him all too well. Had known him for more years than he cared to think about right now. Had seen his ups and downs. Still, she had agreed to join the team when he had asked her over dinner seven years ago. And those first few years had been good. The flirtation…
Boyd leaned back in his chair, placed his glasses on the desk before closing his eyes, his thoughts moved back to that terrible day when Mel died. The guilt had been a steady companion ever since. Following everything that had happened since then, he could now see that things had changed. He had changed. The anger in him had grown. Out of control, he knew that. And he knew where he had started to push that anger: towards the only person who knew him, and who had always been there for him. And now, he had pushed too hard.
"Fuck!"
He rose and walked out of his office, throwing a "I`m going out!" to Spence and Stella before leaving the basement.
The next couple of hours he drove around the city, his mind preoccupied. Eventually, he found himself in Grace`s street, his car coming to a stop behind hers by the kerb outside her house. Still, he didn't leave the car. He wasn't sure he would be welcome. But he just needed to know she had arrived home all right. She had seemed so… so lost and beaten down when she'd left his office.
A few minutes later he saw movement through her living room windows and his dark eyes watched as she turned on a few lights as the darkness grew outside. He sighed heavily before he pulled the car out onto the road again, heading back to the CCU and the case. They were going to solve this without Grace, he decided. He… They didn't need Grace to solve a bloody cold case, he told himself.
Of course they didn't need Grace.
B~G~B
"Grace, are you alright?"
It was the next evening when Grace sat back on her couch hearing Eve`s voice on the other end of the phone. "I`m fine," she told the younger woman, not really in the mood for a conversation with the very perspective Doctor Eve Lockhart.
"Boyd said you're just taking a break?"
"He said that, did he?" she answered, her voice dripping with annoyance. "I haven't made any plans just yet, but I`m not sure I`m coming back, Eve. I`m just exhausted. I can`t keep coming into work only to have everything I say being ignored by him. He refuses to even listen to what I tell him. I can`t work like that anymore.
Eve picked up on how Grace excluded saying Boyd`s name. She had not been with the team for long, but she had picked up on the friction between Boyd and Grace. During the first case she had been sure there was more going on between them than first met the eye. But then she had realised that even though the feelings were there it didn't seem as if either of them had acted on those feelings. It seemed more that they covered them up if they got too close to the surface.
Of course, Boyd was Grace`s boss, even though the Home Office was paying her salary, and the way Boyd flirted with almost every beautiful woman that crossed his path probably didn't make it easy for Grace either.
Still, Eve was one hundred percent sure that Grace had deeper feelings for the man. But she hadn't told him. And she was also sure that Boyd had feelings for Grace as well, but he probably hadn't even dared to acknowledge it, even to himself.
"I found Boyd in your office earlier today," she informed Grace. "He was looking through some of your books. And then he asked me about people being repressed, and about denial. Do you know what he was on about?"
Grace took a sharp breath, the sound telling Eve that whatever caused Boyd to ask her about it had something to do with Grace and her so-called 'break'.
"Who knows what he's ever on about, Eve?" Grace said, her voice still annoyed. "Is there something I can do for you? Because if there isn't, I really have to go."
"I just wanted to make sure you were alright, Grace," Eve said quietly, just a little surprised by Grace's shortness towards her. "And to let you know that Boyd is struggling to work things out, in his own way."
"Thank you for that, Eve, and I'm perfectly fine," Grace answered. "I`ll let you know what my plans are as soon as I know, all right?"
Eve didn't want to push anymore. She could hear the trembling in Grace`s voice, knew the older woman was struggling just as much as Boyd. She quickly said her goodbyes and hung up, hoping the older couple would soon work things out between them.
B~G~B
Boyd sat in his office, talking to Doctor Caroline Ritter about Mark, the young boy sitting in the interview room, when he noticed the door to the CCU squad room opening, and Grace walking in. She barely glanced his way as she followed Stella towards the interview room.
So, Stella had taken it upon herself to get Grace to come in, he thought as he excused himself to Doctor Ritter before heading towards the interview room as well. He needed to see Grace, needed to hear her voice.
Spencer looked up at him as he entered the viewing area, acknowledged that he was there, but said nothing. Boyd walked over to the one-way mirror, watched as Grace started to talk to Mark. Her voice was soft, caring. How she spoke of them, the team, of how they worked made him smile. At that precise moment he felt so proud of her.
"And do you know what, Mark? We're bloody good at it."
Boyd knew he was grinning widely by that statement from Grace. But he couldn't help himself. She was perfectly controlling the conversation, like she'd always done from before he got to know her. Grace could walk into any room and talk to any person there. Any person but him, it seemed now.
The conversation was interrupted when Stella came into the interview room with tea and biscuits. When she joined Boyd and Spence in the viewing area, Boyd asked her about it. The French girl smiled, her eyes huge as she told him, "He`ll feel more at ease."
Then Grace started to talk again, making Boyd turn his head back towards her. She was sitting with her back towards him.
"Do you know, I always think that people think that to do this job we must be mad, you know? Sick, gone in the head." Boyd could hear the smile in her voice before she took a sip of her tea. "But then, everyone has dark thoughts, don't they? It`s just that some people bury it or deny they exist. But that doesn't stop them being there, always, for everyone." Grace took another sip of tea as he started to wonder if what she had just told the boy was something she experienced herself. He really wanted to ask her if that was the case. "I always think it`s far healthier to have that dialogue with the other side of yourself."
Grace watched Mark, then taking another sip of tea before she asked the boy, "What do you think?"
And that was exactly the right moment. Boyd knew that she had once again proved beyond any reasonable doubt that this was why she was the best at her job.
Mark looked up at her, seemed a little surprised by her question, but eventually he begun to talk.
"Where was this place, Grace? Was it… was it Larkhill?" Boyd asked over the intercom in a subdued voice, not wanting to frighten her if she didn't expect him to be there. But somehow it didn't seem like she reacted to his voice at all. Until she asked for what he wanted to know. Then he knew that she had known he was there, watching her, listening to her during the entire interview.
A little later after Boyd had returned to his office, Grace came out to get Mark`s mother. As the mother was in Grace`s office with her son, Grace came back to the squad room, nodding at Spencer to go to the boy's waiting father.
Boyd walked to his doorway, looking towards Grace. "Is he going to be okay?"
Grace looked straight at him. "Yes. Yeah, he`s going to be fine. I`ve set him up on a programme."
"Thanks," he said with a small smile, waiting until the door closed behind Spence before adding mildly, "So, you`re back now, yeah?"
Grace`s face turned grave as she shook her head. "No. No, I`m not."
Boyd looked at her, tried to understand that what he had hoped for was not the case. "Okay."
He gave her one last glance before heading back into his office, not seeing the small smiles Grace and Stella shared before Grace returned to her office to get Mark and his mother.
As they were leaving, Grace`s eyes were drawn towards Boyd`s office. He looked up, taking his glasses off, meeting her eyes. She smiled at him, a smile that also included her eyes, and he noticed, making him smile back at her, a feeling of hope suddenly washing over him.
B~G~B
Three days.
It took three days before she heard the knocker on her front door late in the evening. By then Stella had already been in contact with her several times to get help with the case. Grace had gladly steered the young woman in the right direction.
Then Stella had called her one last time, asked her to come in and talk with the boy, Mark. Grace had reluctantly agreed, a strange feeling of fear had coming over her at the thought of meeting Boyd again after the way they had parted. But the urge to help had been stronger.
That had been earlier today. And she had known that he would show up at her door eventually. Especially after the smile they had shared just before she had left the basement.
She walked slowly toward the front door, left the safety chain fastened before she opened the door slightly, her blue eyes taking in the tall, silver-haired man standing outside. His dark eyes looked at her anxiously. He was obviously prepared to be told off, to be sent away before he could even begin to tell her what he was there to say.
"Boyd," she said quietly.
He tried one of his boyish smiles. "Hi, Grace."
"What do you want?" she asked, not even bothering to disguise the annoyance in her voice.
"Surprisingly, I want to talk with you," he said. "Please?"
Against her better judgment, Grace unfastened the safety chain and let him into the house. He walked past her, then stopped while she closed the door. "Living room?" she asked, her brows raised in question.
"Living room is just fine," he agreed as she walked ahead of him.
Grace seated herself in her favourite chair, watched as Boyd perched on the edge of the couch. She was both anxious and curious as to what he wanted to say.
"You`ve written a lot of books," he started, studying her. When she just watched him back, not saying a single word, he continued. "I`ve… borrowed your office these past few days. Read some of them, and some of the other ones you have there.
Grace gave him an acknowledging nod of her head.
"Lots of big words in them," he smiled at her.
Another nod of her head.
"Ehm… Your office couch is better to sleep on than mine," he suddenly admitted, his eyes still on her, watching her, studying her. "How long have we known each other, Grace?" he asked her abruptly.
"Twelve to fifteen years," she answered him with a small frown. "Why do you ask?"
"Would you say that you know me?" he enquired.
Grace swallowed hard, knew the answer to that question but didn't know if she wanted to admit it. Yet, those dark eyes compelled her to find the words that seemed lost. "Yes, I`d say I`ve got to know you over those years."
Boyd nodded as he seemed to be in thoughts. "Would you say that you know me best as Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd, or…" His stare intensified. "Or just as Peter?"
Oh, no! Not now! Grace avoided his eyes, looked down on her hands that she had folded in her lap. "Boyd…," she begun, but he cut her off.
"Because I think it is important that you know the other side of me as well, you know," he told her. "I`ve used these last three days thinking, reading, being surrounded by all of your things in your office." He felt her eyes on him, met the questions in them with: "Yes, I`ve kidnapped your office while you were… on a break. Ask Spence or Stella, or even Eve!"
"But…?"
"After Mel died, I didn't know what to do," he began, the seriousness of his tone telling Grace not to interrupt him this time, to let him have his time to think and talk. "The guilt I`ve been carrying since Luke ran away became even more difficult to push aside since it grew with the guilt I felt after Mel`s death. And we both know how good I am at dealing with that kind of shit." He smiled without humour.
She wanted to reach out, to touch him, hold his hand. But she couldn't. She could not allow herself to touch him. So, she just watched him, listened as he continued.
"Over the years my guilt grew, making me even angrier than I was when I had to take those damned anger management-sessions. And it didn't help to recite Shakespeare or any other famous writer either."
He rose from the couch, leaving behind his suit jacket before he started to pace. He was silent for a long time as he walked about her living room, taking in all her knick-knacks. The room was very Grace. Just like her office. He'd felt close to her while he had been in her office during the past three days. Had felt her presence even though she hadn't been there with him.
"I don't have many people who are close to me," he admitted as he absentmindedly picked up a picture from one of her shelves. "I think I can count on one hand the people I consider close friends."
Grace sat still in her chair, still not talking, just watching him walk about her living room in his shirtsleeves. He`d been in her house more times than she could count, but he had never taken the time to walk about like he did now. Probably hadn't needed to. She knew Boyd saw what he needed to see without making a huge thing out of it.
"I think…" he said in a low voice as he stopped and turned towards her. "…that the reason I act like I do around you, letting out so much of my anger and turning it towards you, is because…" He swallowed, his hazel eyes sharp as they watched her intently. "Because you are the closest friend I have, and I know that I can push you more than I can anyone else." His eyes became sad. "Three days ago, I pushed too hard, I know. And you have no idea how truly sorry I am, Grace.
"Sorry you pushed, or sorry for what happened after you pushed?" she heard herself asking as she stood up as well. "Sorry for making me leave so that you had to deal with the case and figure things out for yourself? Sorry that Stella was the one who understood when to call me and ask for help? Sorry for…" She interrupted herself as she heard how her voice started to rise. "I think I'll make some tea," she said as she quickly turned and walked out of the living room and towards her kitchen.
"Grace?"
"I`ll be just a minute," she called back to him from the kitchen, hoping he would stay where he was. She needed space to think while she waited for the water to boil, finding two cups and placing the teabags in them.
She had known that leaving the CCU basement and not coming back would force Boyd to react one way or the other. This time he had done almost the unthinkable, at least based on what most people thought of him. He had taken the time to ponder, to look at himself and his reaction to their argument.
Stella had told Grace that he had lived in her office since she left three days ago. He was there when they left at night, and still there when they came back in the morning. He went home just to have a shower and a change of clothes. He had also seemed to listen to each team-member more, using her books when he was stuck.
She was happy that he seemed to have learned something from her absence, but she knew that he was prone to go back to how he used to be. Three days was not enough to change into a completely new person.
The water boiled.
Seconds later she picked up the cups, noticed how her hands started to shake, making the hot tea splash onto her hands. The cups slipped out of her hands, smashing, breaking loud against the kitchen floor.
"Grace, is everything alright?"
She looked from the broken cups on the floor to the kitchen doorway, half expecting him to stand there, watching her. "Just fine!" she called back. "Just a little… accident with the cups," she added as her gaze went back to the floor before her.
Was this a sign? Were the broken teacups a metaphorical picture of their relationship? Broken beyond repair?
A sob forced its way out, then another and another until she was crying forcefully, broken teacups scattered around her feet, and the tall, broad-shouldered, silver-haired man she had hated and loved for close to fifteen years waiting for her to return to the living room.
Grace closed her eyes, placing her hands over them, her entire body shaking as she cried. The emotional ride she had been on for God knows how long finally breaking her completely. Even though she knew he would eventually come looking for her, she couldn't stop the tears or the shaking of her body.
She opened her eyes again, looked around her kitchen, a rush of anger being forced to the surface along with the tears. In a state of complete fury, she lashed out, making whatever she could get a hold on fly through the air. She didn't even care where it landed, if it got broken. She just needed… something to make her stop thinking about what she had said to Boyd three days ago. She just needed to stop feeling altogether.
"Grace!"
She ignored him, didn't even look at him, her furious mind blocking out everything but the pain she felt inside. The pain that had grown into a huge knot inside of her ever since Mel`s death.
Suddenly strong arms were placed around her from behind, forcing her arms down and close to her sides, making it impossible to move.
"Grace, stop it!" His voice was soft, close to her ear as he pulled her close to his chest. "Stop this right now."
"Let me go, Boyd!"
"Can`t do that," he told her. "Not until I know you won`t smash half your kitchen to bits."
Grace forced herself to breathe slowly, her eyes taking in the state of the room. The sight before her forced a new sob to the surface, making her entire body to go limp in his arms.
Boyd cursed under his breath as he picked her up and carried her out of the kitchen, striding over the mess on the floor. He went back to the living room, sitting down on her couch, Grace in his lap.
"Talk to me, Grace," he said sternly as he kept his arms around her. "What the hell happened in there?"
Repressed.
Depressed.
In denial.
Isolated.
Unloved.
She had thrown them all at him three days ago, in frustration and in pain and exhaustion. But even though they were meant for him, they applied to her as well. Grace knew she was repressing her own feelings, had probably done so for years. This had led to her becoming depressed. Usually, she managed to control her depression, hide it from the people around her, working herself out of it before it got a strong hold on her. But the last few weeks, even months, had been hard.
In denial.
She had never denied that she had feelings for the infuriating man now holding her in his arms. Not to herself, anyway. But she had not faced them either. She hadn't dared to. She knew what pain and sorrow awaited her if she did. At least… she thought she did.
Isolated.
Grace had many people in her life, people she considered good friends and whom she liked to spend time with. Still, through most of her free time she did feel isolated, somehow living in some kind of parallel universe to the rest of her friends. They had their jobs, their own family and friends, a life that consisted of much more than just work. She knew Boyd at the worst of times lived out of his office. Those were the times she did too. All the time they had known each other she had always kept her eyes on him, watched him, looked after him even though he never showed that he noticed her effort.
Her personal life consisted of knowing where Boyd was on his bad days, and trying to cope with her own feelings as best as she could. Alone.
Love – being loved – unloved.
Grace shuddered, felt how Boyd pulled his arms even more securely around her, waiting with an unnatural amount of patience for her to answer him. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt loved. Boyd sometimes pointed out the gentleman friends in her life, but that was as far as it went. Friendship. Her heart was already taken. Had been for several years now.
Unrequited love. She could have written a book on that topic. The one person she wanted to show her love was completely oblivious to her as a woman.
"Grace?"
"I think you should leave, Boyd," she whispered as she tried to escape and get to her feet. "I can`t do this right now."
Boyd didn't let her go, his arms still holding her close to him. "I believe that maybe we have to do this right now," he said slowly, lifting one hand to force her to look at him. Gently he stroked away the remaining tears on her cheeks, studied her face, taking in the fear that was in her eyes. "I think that whatever happened in the kitchen just now started three days ago. Maybe even earlier?"
The fear in her eyes grew. His heart sped up as he realized that somehow, he was the one placing the fear there. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile as he loosened the hold his arms had on her, letting her know she could get up if she wanted to.
"Are you frightened of me?" he whispered; the thought felt like a heavy rock in his gut.
Grace finally got to her feet, felt cold as she moved away from him. The words that had always been her friends, that had always come so easily to her, escaped her now making her feel uncomfortable and uneasy.
"Grace, you know I would never, ever do anything to hurt you, right?" His deep voice was insistent, the need to convince her so strong in him.
"Not consciously," she whispered with her back towards him.
Boyd sighed as he stood up, suddenly aware of the pain in his left arm. He looked down, noticed the bloodstain on his shirt arm, remembering ducking as Grace threw something towards him in the kitchen, feeling the pain when it had hit his arm. Cleary it had left a cut in his shirt and grazed his forearm, drawing blood.
He removed the cufflink on his left arm, placed it on her coffee table before he rolled the shirt sleeve up to his elbow. It was a minor cut, he assessed. Wouldn't need any stiches. Maybe a band-aid, but for now it was not something he needed to attend to.
He walked slowly towards Grace, stopped next to her rather than behind her. Wanted her to feel like he was not locking her in somehow. "What happened? Would you please tell me?"
"I`m sorry," she whispered back.
"What for?" He tried to figure out what she had to be sorry about but could think of nothing in the past weeks or months that she had done or said that she had to be sorry about. Everything she had said to him three days ago had been valid. He knew that now. He had pushed too hard, forcing her to tell him the truth.
Hearing her say those words, knowing deep down it was the truth, had hurt. But when she left without a word, he had known that that would hurt even more. Maybe, just maybe, she was hurting as well?
"I`m not angry at you for telling me a few words of truth, Grace," he told her quietly, watching her, waiting for her to look at him, hoping she would give him that smile that he had received before she left the basement earlier today. "I`m pretty sure they were long overdue, in fact."
Her breath hiccupped in and out, new tears starting to roll down her pale cheeks. "I`m sorry," she repeated. "I shouldn't have said it. I should have left before it… it got out of hand."
"I forced you to," Boyd admitted, remembered the feeling of utter frustration as he told her to be real with him. At the same time, he remembered how it had been between them in the beginning. How easy it had always been to talk to her about anything. They had lost that when they lost Mel. He had pulled away from her, had refused to talk about anything concerning Mel`s death. Maybe it was time to take that step.
"I felt guilty, you know. After Mel`s death," he begun, placing his hands deep in the pockets of his trousers. "I still do. Oh, I know I had nothing to do with her death, but she was still my responsibility. Every one of you are. Anything happens to anyone of you, and it is me they come after."
"Mel forgetting her phone that day, or her death, is not on you, Boyd," she said quietly.
"I know, Grace. But the guilt is still there. It's followed me ever since." He moved a little closer to her. "I was already feeling guilty regarding Luke, and up until that day our little CCU family was doing perfectly fine. And suddenly, everything changed."
"Family," she echoed as she closed her eyes, seeing Mel`s beautiful smile, hearing Frankie`s laughter. Then the images changed into the terrible pictures of Mel`s dead body on the ground. Grace had to force herself to breathe as the memories washed over her, the pain from that day not yet fully processed, tears once more forcing out a sob from her.
Strong arms pulled her close to a warm chest again, his chin being placed atop her head. The hug she had needed from him that day and every day since was finally given to her. Slowly she placed her arms around his waist, unsure if she was permitted to. Finally, she allowed herself to relax against him.
"I miss her," Boyd whispered above her head. "I miss them both!"
She could hear the trembling in his voice, her arms holding a little tighter around him.
For a long time, they stood in the middle of her living room, holding on to each other as if their lives depended on it. After a while, when her tears had stopped, Grace pulled away, still not looking up at him. Then, as Boyd let his arms fell against his sides, she noticed the blood on his arm.
"What happened?!"
Boyd followed her gaze, then smirked a little as he looked at her face. "Remind me to never get on your bad side, Grace," he told her. "And you sure have a hell of a throwing arm. Ever thought about taking on cricket or baseball?"
"I did that?!" Her voice barely audible as her eyes showed regret as well as something he couldn't interpret. "Oh, God! I`m so sorry, Peter! I didn't mean to…"
"Grace, it`s fine."
"I was just so angry, and frustrated and…"
"Grace, really."
"… I never meant to hurt you, Peter. I love you."
"Grace!"
Those three little words slipped out of her before she could stop them just as he said her name loud enough in order to stop her talking. But it was already too late. The words were out there, echoing between the walls in her living room.
Boyd watched her face, noticed how the colour that had just returned to her face a few minutes ago drained from it, leaving her white as a ghost, her blue eyes large and fearful. They flickered, like she tried to figure out what to do next. Her entire body tensed, getting ready for flight.
He couldn't let her. He knew that she had not meant to say those three words. Not now, maybe never. But they were still echoing in his ears, his heart taking them for exactly what they were. A declaration not planned but still so very much true.
Just as she turned around, ready to run – where he didn't know – he managed to fling his arms around her, pulling her close to him again before she could move forward, her back against his chest.
"No, Grace!"
He felt her fast breathing, her heart racing in her chest. He knew that if he let her, she would manage to talk herself out of this. Probably be able to convince him that it wasn't true. That the words meant nothing. But he knew better. Had seen it on her face, in her eyes.
Doctor Grace Foley was in love with him, Peter Boyd. She loved him.
She tried to fight her way out of his arms, but Boyd refused to play this game anymore. He managed to turn her around in his arms, putting them face to face. Her eyes were dark blue and wild, fear still in them. But he could also see stubbornness there, as if she was challenging him to make fun of her.
"Don`t," she whispered.
"I never listen, do I?" he whispered back at her before he claimed her lips with his.
He had expected her to try and pull away, to fight against him, but she surprised him when she answered him forcefully, her tongue demanding entrance to his mouth, her hands that just seconds ago had tried to fight their way out of his arms moving fast all over his upper body. One hand tried to pull his shirt up from his trousers giving her access to warm skin, her other hand already pulling at his hair.
Boyd`s own hands moved as well as soon as his mind registered that she was not running, and it would be safe to let go of his hold on her. He found layers on layers of clothes, moaning as he finally touched the soft skin underneath.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a voice tried to tell him to slow down, to think about what they were on the threshold of doing, but he shut the voice down quickly. Seven years of bloody flirtation and then denial. It stopped here, now. Whatever boundaries they had silently agreed on back in the early years of the CCU had crumbled to dust the minute his lips had met hers.
Boyd wondered if they would manage to get to her bedroom before crossing that final line but realized as he felt Grace`s hands on his belt buckle that he didn't care. He just wanted her, needed her.
Here.
Now.
B~G~B
Dark hazel eyes were watching her attentively as she slowly woke up the next morning. Sometime during the late evening, after that first encounter on her couch, they had moved upstairs to her bed. Few words had been uttered in between that first kiss and her letting him into her bed.
"Good morning," he greeted her with that boyish smile of his that did incredible things to her equilibrium. His silvery hair was standing up in all directions, his beard more… stubbly, she registered in her still sleepy mind. But his eyes… Oh, how she loved those eyes of his.
"Good morning?" It came out sounding more like a question than an actual greeting.
"Not sure it's a good morning?" he laughed at her as he gently stroked her hair out of her eyes. "`Cause I can`t think of a better morning than this right now."
"Boyd…"
"Peter, remember?" His smile grew wider as he noticed how embarrassed she seemed to be. "You`ve kept secrets from me, haven't you?"
Grace closed her eyes, figured this had to be one of those vivid dreams she sometimes had. If she just waited a few minutes before opening her eyes again, he would be gone. And she could go back to her life again. Her normal, boring life where she was alone.
"Grace, I can`t believe I`m saying this, but please, talk to me," he said quietly as his hand touched her cheek gently.
"Shouldn't you be at work?" she whispered, not opening her eyes.
"Yes, but evidently I`m not," he answered as he placed an arm around her waist and pulled her against him, her back against his front. "Don't do this, Grace," he begged her, placing a soft kiss on her neck. "This was no mistake."
"How did we end up like this?" she asked weakly as she opened her eyes. "Three days ago, we couldn't be in the same room without biting each other`s head off. And now…"
"Now we have found another outlet." Boyd smiled against the soft skin on her shoulder. "A very pleasurable outlet at that, too."
Anger flushed through Grace at his words, making her get out of bed in a hurry, dragging the bedcover with her to cover her naked body. "This is just another big joke to you, isn't it, Boyd?" Angry tears sprang to her eyes, but she forced them back. "I don't appreciate being made a fool of, you know!"
Stark naked, laying on her bed, his uneasy, hazel eyes looked up at her. "I`m not making fun of you, Grace."
Suddenly she didn't know what to think anymore. Everything had happened so fast. From the moment she had uttered those three words everything had changed. And she had no idea what to do right now.
Did he think that just because she had told him she loved him everything between them had miraculously fixed itself? That just because they had slept together, she was automatically coming back to work? And it had just been sex, right?
Grace backed away from the bed, the wall stopped her eventually, making her slide slowly down until she was sitting on the floor, the bedcover still around her. "Everything I said to you that day…"
"Grace…," he started, but Grace quickly interrupted him.
"I need to say this, so please, don't interrupt me," she whispered, not looking at him. "The words I threw at you that day, they apply to me as well. I`m just as repressed, depressed and in denial as I accused you of being. And… isolated and unloved. Maybe more by choice than anything else. I fear that I just transferred my own feelings onto you. I was just so… so…"
"Exhausted?" he suggested.
"Hm," she nodded.
Boyd remembered the conversation she had had with Mark the other day, remembered what she had said about dark thoughts. "Grace, do you have dark thoughts sometimes?" he asked her gently.
"Sometimes," she acknowledged.
"Do you have dark thoughts now?"
Biting her lower lip, she nodded. "Yes."
Boyd got out the bed, walked over to her and sat down next to her, no thought to the fact that he was naked or that she was just as naked under the bedcover she had dragged with her. He placed his arms around her, pulled her closed to him. "Everything you told me was very accurate," he told her. "And I stand by what I told you last night. I don't want you to feel bad about that. All right?"
She nodded, placing her head against his shoulder.
"I find it difficult to associate those words with you, though," he mumbled against her hair. "Certainly, the word unloved. God, Grace! Nothing could be further from the truth! I love you!"
Grace froze next to him.
"Yeah, it surprised me too." His voice held no humour at his words. "Remember how we used to flirt those first few years? How we used to spend the late evenings talking? Sharing a bottle of wine?"
Grace felt a small smile appear on her face, remembering those years, the good feeling between them. Those were the years where she had slowly fallen in love with him.
"We both know that reading women isn't one of my best abilities, but sometime along the years I did fall in love with you. When you left the basement the other day, with no prospect of ever coming back, I felt completely lost. You are my compass, Grace, my conscience."
Grace shivered next to him. He looked down at her as she looked up at him. Her blue eyes huge in her beautiful face. "This is real, right?" she asked him.
"I can pinch you, if you like?" he smirked down at her.
Grace pulled up and kissed him quickly. "I`m still a little uncertain about this, Boyd."
"Peter," he told her. "And I know you are. You wouldn't be Grace Foley if you weren't."
She closed her eyes, a strange feeling starting to bubble inside her as she realized that she was in her own bedroom, sitting on the floor next to a very naked Peter Boyd. They had finally crossed the line and the world hadn't stopped.
"Peter."
"You're getting cold," he murmured as he stood up, holding out his hand to help her stand. "Shower and breakfast?"
"Oh, God! My kitchen!" She looked at his forearm. "And your arm!"
Boyd chuckled as he dragged her with him towards her bathroom. "I knew you were stubborn, Grace," he smirked. "But that temper of yours…"
"Oh, shut up, you!"
"Come on, woman," he said as he quickly removed the bedcover that she had kept around her on the way to the bathroom. "No point in being shy. I`ve already seen what you have to offer. Now, get in that shower, warm up, and I will try and salvage what I can from your kitchen. Then you can make me breakfast while I shower."
B~G~B
Having showered and dressed, Grace walked downstairs, heading towards her kitchen. She felt how her cheeks burned of embarrassment. Her behaviour last evening in her kitchen was so far away from how she usually behaved. If anything, it would have been, could have been a more typical Boyd thing to do than a Grace thing to do.
She had taken the time to think while showering. Tried to sort out everything that had happened during the past twenty-four hours. Her biggest fear at the moment was that Boyd was toying with her, that even though he said he loved her in the end it wouldn't be enough. That she had been so close to getting what she had dreamt of for years only to see it being taken from her. If that happened, she knew she would have to leave the CCU for good. The CCU, Spencer, Stella, Eve and… Peter.
Would she manage that? Would she even survive that?
She stopped in the doorway to her kitchen, watched as Boyd picked up what looked like to be the last remaining pieces of last evening`s shattered teacups. The rest of her kitchen had already been tidied up. He had obviously been in the living room first, because he was wearing his dark grey boxers, but nothing else.
He looked up as he heard her sigh quietly. "Feeling better?" he asked her as he tidied up the shattered pieces before moving towards her. "Have you had the time you needed to analyse the 'situation'?"
Grace swallowed as she realized how well he seemed to know her, bending her head backwards to meet his eyes as he stopped close to her, their bodies almost touching. The scent of him, mixed with what she knew was her and sex, surrounded her.
"You knew I would," she accused him with a slight smile.
"Of course I did," he smiled down at her, his hands taking hold of hers. "It is what you do, Grace. Something happens, and you can`t help but analyse it." He pulled her arms around his waist, making her stand against his front as he bent his head down slowly, his eyes on her lips. "So, what's your conclusion? What have you figured out about me? What has that head of yours convinced you to do about us?"
Grace had her eyes on his lips as well, for once in her life she didn't think before speaking. "I`m going to make us some breakfast while you are having a shower. And then…" she stood on tiptoes to kiss him. "And then I think I want to get to know 'just' Peter a little better."
"Just a little better?" he whispered as he stroked his hands down her back, pulling her against him, letting her feel just how much he would like to get to know her again.
"Down, boy," she giggled. "Shower, breakfast and then work."
"I called in sick while you were showering," he mumbled as he managed to get his hands under her top, kissing his way down her neck towards her shoulders.
"You lied?! Bad boy!"
"What are you going to do about that?" There was a challenge in his eyes as he looked down on her, a wicked smile played on his lips as he gently pushed her backwards out into the hall again. "Come to think about it, you were a really naughty girl last night, trashing your kitchen like that."
Grace felt her cheeks burn again, which only made his eyes twinkle brighter as his smile grew wider. "That was not me," she tried to explain. "That was…"
Boyd stopped her with a kiss. "Sexy as hell, afterwards. God, Grace! You really have no idea, do you?"
Grace knew the confusion was evident on her face as she looked up at him. His hazel eyes were dark with lust, drinking her in as she stood before him in her casual clothes, black tights and a dark blue cardigan. "Peter?"
Boyd stopped at the bottom of the stairs, cupped her face, forced her to keep looking at him as he spoke. "I know what you have been thinking while you had your shower. You don't believe this can be real. That any minute now – or in the near future – I will leave you."
"Peter…"
"I can`t promise you that I will never leave, Grace. That's not possible, considering what kind of work I do. You know that. What I can promise is that I will do whatever it takes to avoid that from ever happening."
"What I most fear, Peter," she whispered, "is that whatever change that has happened with you and us over the past three days, is just temporary. That in a few weeks or maybe months, we will eventually go back to how it was between us. The arguing…" She closed her eyes and shook her head, forcing him to let her go. His hands did, however, move to her shoulders instead. "I don't think I will be able to cope with that when we have now crossed that line that has always been drawn between us."
Boyd studied her, his hands moving down her arms, taking hold of her hands, squeezing them reassuring. "Grace?"
"Yes?"
"I do love you, you know," he assured her, pulling her against him. "I don't doubt that we will argue and bicker like before. What I do know is that we will be able to work on that, together! And," he smirked at her, his eyes told her he was up to no good. "And… the making up will be a hell of a lot more fun, too!"
Before she knew what was happening, Boyd had flipped her over his shoulder, producing a small yelp out of her, carrying her upstairs. There he dropped her on the bed before he started to work on getting her tights and knickers off her. "Peter!"
"Don't worry, Grace," he informed her as he pinned her down while removing her cardigan. "By the time I've finished with you, you won`t even remember your own name," he promised her.
"Breakfast…"
"Will have to wait until later," he cut her off. "Much later."
Their eyes met, locked. "I love you, Peter," she whispered, her voice hoarse with lust.
"I know you do," Boyd smiled at her before he kissed her. "And I`m about to show you just how much I love you," he growled against her throat. "In case you still don't believe me!"
Grace laughter quickly turned into a moan as he did just that.
The End