THE PROFESSIONALS: The Best

[fajrdrako_fic]

Title: The Best
Author: fajrdrako
Fandom: The Professionals
Characters: Bodie/Doyle
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, no claims. Property of ITV and Brian Clemens.


The Best
The 31st of December, 1996
London, CI5 Headquarters, Whitehall
8 p.m.

Since the new Controller had taken charge of CI5, New Year's Eve had become a major event. All personnel who could be spared from their work attended, in a mood to forget their troubles, to enjoy themselves and to celebrate the season. It was, as Henson sourly growled to his partner Ikegami, a bloody zoo.

But even Henson attended. Oh, it was wasn't compulsory, not like the gruelling training and the physical tests that had the agents hopping at random times of the year, not like the orders the came from on top like the decrees of God on stone tablets, and which, if questioned, received the inevitable reply: "Because I say so." Mr. Bodie had a way of making everyone believe he was always right, and if he was not, he always had a knack of twisting affairs to the benefit of CI5 and the benefit of England.

It was said that this talent for success (not to mention his autocratic ways) was the legacy of the redoubtable Mr. Cowley. Perhaps so: Cowley's picture hung in the hallway and in the Controller's office. The Controller was seldom heard to mention him, but it was said, when it was optimistically believed he was not listening, that the Old Man was just like him, right down to the gimpy leg. Wrong accent, right attitude, was the Controller's reply, on the only occasion he said anything on the subject.

Not that the late Cowley would have encouraged parties in the normally sober halls of CI5. But every year since Mr. Bodie had started this tradition, he had closed down his own office at eight p.m. on the thirty-first of December, whether his work was done or not. His cadre of secretaries were released from their workload and by nine p.m., the partying began.

This year, Jenkins was bold enough to raise the question when she delivered her report on the counterfeiting operations. "Sir? Permission to ask you something?"

"Eh?" Bodie looked up from her neatly printed pages; he was a fast reader, remembered for years details of reports that the writers had forgotten in minutes. "What is it?"

"Is it true that you started the custom of CI5 parties on New Year's Eve"

Bodie smiled slightly. He was in an unusually mellow mood, which was normal for him on this day. At other times, when things were tense, sometimes his agents forgot he could smile. The biting tongue kept them on their toes, while they did their best to imitate Bodie's tireless and unrelenting energy.

But occasionally they also saw glimpses of his charm; the diplomacy that kept ministers in his pocket, the personality that made his agents willing to go to the ends of the earth for him, rather than for the unimpressive salary he paid. (Someone once learned what a CIA man got, which even when they counted in exchange rates, was enough to generate a proposal to go on strike.)

The hard edge was mitigated with another side, seldom seen, always valued.

"Oh, we always had parties," he said. "We were grand party-goers. Any excuse. But I made it official. I thought it important."

"Why?" she asked, intrigued. This streak of hedonism in their workaholic Controller was a surprise.

"We all need downtime," he said, and grinned. Though they seldom saw it in full force, his smile could be infectious, and Jenkins couldn't help smiling back, reflecting a memory of CI5 as it once had been, when Cowley ruled and the world was young.

Bodie glanced at one of the photographs on the wall, the one between Cowley and the Queen, where a sharp-nosed man glared at the camera under mops of auburn hair.

"Who is that?" asked Jenkins, following his gaze. Their business seemed to have concluded, and her first question had been answered in such friendly fashion. One might almost think the Old Bode was human.

"An agent," said the Controller. "The best CI5 ever had. His name was Ray Doyle."

* * *

The 31st of December, 1982
Hampstead

"Ray," he had said, that year it snowed on New Year’s Eve, while they were finishing up that appalling job in Hampstead that left four dead and three wounded and a bullet in Susan's arm.
Snowflakes were clinging to Doyle's unruly hair as he glanced up from the gun he was checking. It had misfired during the gunfight, a moment that might have been a crisis. Once again, he had survived against the odds. Once again.

In the drifting snowfall, his face was almost as pale as the snow. He looked ashen.

They'd had precious little sleep. Doyle was worn out, tense and tightly wound. Bodie himself felt a combination of weariness and elation, every muscle aching. The op was over, it was a success, they were alive. The dead deserved their fate, and worse. Suze didn't deserve her messed arm, but they said she'd be fine after surgery and stitch-work. They had reason to be satisfied.

So had Cowley. It was a measure of his satisfaction that he had snapped at them, "Reports on my desk at noon sharp." It took them a tired moment to realize that this was a full twelve hours more than he usually gave them, and that he was for once allowing them time to sleep and perhaps to celebrate the occasion.

So why was Ray glaring at him like an angry tiger?

"Ray?" he said.

"Yeah?" Doyle's gaze was uncommonly direct. Huge green eyes hypnotized, if you let them. Eyebrows were knit, eyes inimical.

"Stil up to the party after?"

"What party?"

"It's New Year's Eve. You forget?"

Ray blinked, ran his hand through his hair. "Bloody hell. Is it still?" He hesitated. "You want to go?"

Simple words. But as he said them, he looked again at Bodie, and Bodie realized that the tiger wasn't angry. The tiger was hungry.

Doyle scowled at him with a voracious stare that devoured him and melted his bones, made his soul ache, made his mind focus into trembling awareness.

Bodie had cultivated his own self-control in all things, but he had no defences against Ray Doyle.

No defences either against this kind of desire, that wiped away all other needs, all other thoughts, all knowledge except the physical presence of his partner, standing in that brown leather jacket with the lamb's-wool collar and the matching boots and the tight jeans with the defective gun crooked in his arm and the compact body which radiated sex, making Bodie quiver in response even while he stood there unmoving in the drifting, dangerous snow.

"No," said Bodie roughly. Doyle let the syllable go unchallenged. Bodie cleared his throat. He was unable to speak or move, wanted nothing to break the spell. He'd never felt like this, never seen Doyle like this. Or had he been blind and senseless?

"Why?" asked Doyle. His voice was harsh too, but he didn't clear his throat. Though he stood a good four feet away, with snow falling between them, the current of heat between them seared the skin. Heavy jackets didn't protect them. It was like being naked, linked, torn open and revealed.

Bodie couldn't speak for a moment. The need to touch was too great. Couldn't do it here, with the coppers all around, and Cowley, and the Mob, and the bloody reporters had turned up, and someone's lawyer was arguing with the Inspector, and one of the wounded men was screaming until they shut him up with a shot of something, and in all the noise and chaos time had ground to a silent, stunning halt, in which he was voiceless.

Consumed by Ray's being. Consumed by Ray's need.

He swallowed. "Why not?" he said, and his voice sounded normal, light, cheerful. Not even Cowley could have guessed that he was exploding and imploding both at once, under the impact of Doyle's fierce eyes.

Doyle said, "My place," as if another question had been asked and answered.

Then Doyle turned away casually you’d think nothing had happened, and tossed his defective gun into Pembroke's car. Pembroke was in charge of checking supplies and ordnance that month. "Bloody thing jammed," he said. "Fix it, or someone'll be dead next time."

He stalked away without waiting for an answer from Pembroke. Bodie watched him go. Watched the footsteps in the snow behind him as he went. Watched the movement of the legs in the tight jeans, the motion of the arse glimpsed under the short jacket, the defiant set of the shoulders, his hands jammed into his pockets.

Bodie could not keep his thoughts from showing. The master of self-control had to look away, look down, breathe deeply to get his bearings. Christ! Trust Doyle to knock him for a loop.
This time, Doyle had thrown him off a cliff without a rope.

But Doyle had jumped first.

So he went to his car, and opened the door. Doyle was on the other side of it, having miraculously reappeared after a brief exchange with Murphy and the Cow. He got into the passenger seat as Bodie got into the driver's seat and took off, with a bit of a skid on the icy wet ground.

"Told 'em Happy New Year," said Doyle. "Told 'em we'd have to miss the party. I lied and said we were too knackered."

"They'll think we're ill."

"They wouldn't be too far wrong." Doyle gazed out the left-hand window, at lights and snow and city streets he didn't notice.

"No."

Bodie glanced at him. As chance would have it, Doyle looked his way at the same moment, and the current ran between them, harder, hotter, more electrifying still. The car skidded onto the pavement and Bodie fought to control it. "Jesus!" he said, and got back onto the road, the car under control, himself less so.

Doyle was smirking. "Always knew your licence was a fake. Nobody ever taught you to drive."
"Yeah, I got it in a box of cereal. Knew it'd come in useful."

Doyle sank deeper into his seat. His fingers fidgeted on his knee. Bodie could sense his arousal even without looking at him. Or maybe he was confusing that with his own.

Doyle said softly, "Bodie, what's happened to us?"

"Dunno."


"D'you mind?"

The car came to a screeching stop at Doyle's flat. Not one of the neighbours would object: it was eleven p.m. on New Year's Eve.

Bodie let himself look at Doyle, let the green eyes consume him again, though shadowed now by the dark lashes and the shadow of wet snow through the windscreen and the light from the lamppost that played on it.

"Mind?" said Bodie. "Never wanted anything so much. Ever."

He reached out as if to touch Doyle, but made his hand stop in mid-air because if he touched Doyle now he couldn't stop and they'd be arrested for doing it in the street.

Doyle's expression changed. The glower became a laugh of sensuous delight, guttural and crystalline. With a quick motion (and those reflexes so admired by Cowley and Macklin) he was out of the car and running up to the doorstep, sliding on the slick pavement like a boy.

Bodie set the brake and ran after. Doyle fumbled, dropped his keys, swore, laughed, and fumbled again. You'd think he'd been drinking, but this was something far stronger than alcohol.

They went up the stairs with the lightning speed of trained agents breaking into an unknown house. Doyle didn't fumble with the key to the flat; he probably set speed records opening it. Bodie turned on a lamp and shed his wet jacket while Doyle kicked the door shut and locked it behind him.

Doyle turned away from the door. His face was full of need and longing and love, and something fierce and hard that had never been let loose before.

Bodie reached for him at last.

* * *

The 31st of December, 1996
London, CI5 Headquarters, Whitehall
10 p.m.

As the party at CI5 got under way, Bodie went to his club. He had a tradition of sharing a drink with the Minister every year. They would chat briefly about whatever was happening, and toast the new year, and silently share satisfaction that they were a crack team doing a bang-up job of the hardest task in England. Not good enough, never good enough, but better than anyone else was doing, by God.

Then the Minister would go back to whatever it was he went back to -- a loving wife, a caring mistress, or a raucous Parliamentary do -- while Bodie went to the CI5 party.

At these parties, the Controller of CI5 was relaxed and friendly. He showed he could drink everyone else under the table, even O'Connor, though the first year a few bets on O'Connor had made it clear that even the Controller might have to work to keep his official title of the hardest drinker and the clearest head in CI5. O'Connor had been unconscious for ten hours, while Bodie was at his desk at nine the next morning. Some speculated that he was not human; others, that he had sold his soul to the devil. Some said this was true, and that the devil had been old Cowley himself.

Bodie always invited people they seldom saw, like Major Crane and old Charlie, who'd been the cleaner in the old building. And Dr. Ross, whose son Andrew was already on back-up staff and was hoping to be picked for the A-squad as soon as possible, as soon as Old Bode gave the word. No concessions were made for blood relationships, though everyone knew Kate Ross and the Controller were great friends; unsubstantiated rumour claimed they'd once been more.

Not that women didn't still like Mr. Bodie. Everyone knew he'd been quite a womanizer, once upon a time. Not much of that now, but it wasn't that he wasn't able. He was certainly attractive enough. Some thought he was faithful to a long-dead love. There was even some story of a hopeless and tragic passion for an East German spy who'd been shot before his eyes. With anyone else, you'd know it couldn't be true. With Mr. Bodie.... One glance at those deep blue eyes and you'd know that anything could be true, anything at all. Even the stories about the African jungle.

Anyone who dared to ask him about such things got a withering verbal attack, a shameless joke, or an unrevealing shrug, depending on his mood.

He still had the kind of looks that earned him not only second glances, but outright stares. His hairline had receded maybe an inch, and there was grey in the dark hair, but the it was thick still and it still curled in damp weather. He had the physique he had always had, though not the reflexes of his youth. Didn't need them any more. And of course the leg held him back. Otherwise he'd be as fit as his own agents, even now.

Partying, Mr. Bodie's charming smile was much in evidence, so that the women warmed and basked in it, occasionally slipping away to refresh make-up or hair. Even the more hard-bitten male agents would find themselves confiding things they would normally not confide to Old Bode on pain of thumbscrews. No harm seemed to come of it.

Even Benny Kerr, generally thought to be one step from the psycho ward and God knew why Old Bode kept him on, turned up for a morose drink and was seen to nod his head respectfully at the Controller in something that might have been goodwill in a sane man.

In these days of tight budgets and decaying order, CI5 had ended up high in Parliament's priorities. No one was listening much to the civil-rights-for-crooks brigade these days. Geraldine Mather had retired recently, with more honour than success in her career, and George Cowley had been handed an O.B.E. before he died. Times had changed.

As he did every year, Mr. Bodie proposed a toast to George Cowley at eleven-thirty. He always used the same words: "To the Cow, who did it all."

They drank, in a chorus of "Hear, hear!" and "The Cow!" and "May the old bugger rest in peace." Some of them had worked under Cowley, but they were the senior agents now. Only a few on the Alpha Team even remembered him. He was a legend still. Some younger agents, you could tell, didn't believe the stories.

Bodie, who remembered it all, found something at these parties he had found nowhere else. This was his accomplishment: CI5. Cowley had created it, designed it, shaped it, made it effective. Bodie had come after him and had done what Cowley's ambition had foreseen: made it the best, most effective law-enforcement agency in Europe.

* * *

31st of December, 1983
London

It was a dry cold, the kind of cold that makes you aware of the wind and the stillness when the wind stops. They were crouched on a roof.

Doyle was wearing his vest, the one Bodie had given him for Christmas, with the Black Watch tartan scarf. They hadn't actually celebrated Christmas yet; they wouldn't have a chance till this job was over, and the way it was going, Murphy said philosophically, they'd be lucky to celebrate Easter.

It was almost midnight. Bodie adjusted the scope of his rifle. "Soon be eighty-four," he said.
"Yeah." Doyle scowled at the lane below them, looking for terrorists who weren't there, but who should be, who would be soon. "Think we'll get a rise this year?"

"It's due."

"I don't think so either."

They grinned at each other, the joke old but not stale. "Made any resolutions?"

"A few," admitted Doyle. "You?"

"Of course."

"Well, what?"

"More sex."

"My god." Doyle stared at him. "We wear out beds too fast already. You trying to set a record?"

"Wearing you out, am I?"

Doyle shrugged. "I can handle it. Bribe me."

"What with?"

"More sex."

They both started to laugh.

Then Bodie said, "No, seriously, what's your resolution?"

"I thought it was like wishes. If you tell, they don't come true. If you tell, you can't keep the resolution."

"I never heard that."

"Lots of things you don't know."

"It's our anniversary tonight."

"Know that."

"Can't celebrate much here."

"Celebrate all year."

"Nice year."

"Best ever."

They grinned at each other.

The r/t buzzed. Bodie got it first, smirked in triumph at Doyle (who was too slow this time) and said crisply, "Three-seven."

"Alpha Charlie here. The party is approaching from six houses to the east, in the street out front."

The street out front, not the lane they were watching. "Right," said Bodie, resigned to climbing over to the other side of the roof once again. "We'll be there. Three-seven out."

"Shit," said Doyle.

"Yeah. Get a move on, mate, they might be quick."

"We're quicker," said Doyle, grabbing his gun and dashing upwards, pulling on the rope they'd attached to the chimney for support, making a race of it. Always ready for a challenge -- especially from Doyle -- Bodie chased him, rolled over the top, and landed in the eaves beside him. Doyle was staring down at the road with infrared binoculars.

"See anything?"

"Cat on the prowl.... Oh, it's you." Bodie gave him a friendly push and Doyle, laughing wickedly, pushed back. Then he looked through the binoculars again. "Don't see the bleeding terrorists. They ought to be in sight by now."

"Jungle training," suggested Bodie. "They keep to the shadows of the trees."

“What trees? What jungles? The bloody jungles of County Belfast?"

"Gotta get training somewhere."

"You sod. Okay, I'll tell you."

"What?"

"My new year's resolution."

"Never to lose your temper?"

"Dream on."

"Get up the nerve to ask Cowley for a rise?"

"That's your job."

"What, then?"

"More sex."

Bodie laughed. Despite the laugh he heard the sound behind him. He swung around as fast as Doyle did, gun shooting already at the terrorists who had come over the peak of the roof, men with balaclavas and high-powered small arms and, oh God, grenades.

Bodie was sure he'd taken them down within three seconds of their appearance, but not before they'd thrown a grenade.

Afterwards, he remembered the flash of light, the noise of the explosion, the sudden heat of the winter air, and the fall, and the darkness.

* * *

The 31st of December, 1996/The first of January, 1997
London, CI5 Headquarters, Whitehall

The old year was drawing to a close. It had been a strange one, internationally and on home ground. CI5 had been handed some of its biggest challenges yet, and had met them.

As always, the Controller called for silence so he could say a few words to the agents at the party. His speeches were short and witty, and sometimes so enigmatic that no one understood them but old Charlie, who never explained.

The clock struck twelve.

They cheered. They hugged and kissed whoever was near, and champagne popped noisily, and they sang Auld Lang Syne with a gusto that would have made even Cowley smile.
Bodie closed his eyes for a moment, celebrating his New Year in the way that meant most to him, a silent communion.

Macklin put his hand on Bodie's shoulder. Bodie opened his eyes, greeting Macklin with an unshadowed smile. Macklin was a friend, one of the few people Bodie openly respected. "Old times," Macklin said. "Old friends." He raised his glass.

Bodie repeated the words with genuine warmth. They clicked glasses and drank. Macklin no longer taught full-time; it was rumoured he was training for the British Olympic team in grievous bodily harm with intent to maim.

"Remembering?" asked Macklin.

"Couldn't not remember, could I?"

Macklin nodded. "He was the best. I told him that, once, and he argued with me. Said I was wrong."

"Idiot."

"He thought you were the best."

There was an awkward pause. "We were the best," said Bodie. "We were."

Macklin dropped his eyes, afraid to see too much. "The best CI5 ever had," he confirmed.

* * *

The 31st of December, 1983/The 1st of January, 1984
London

If Bodie blacked out, it was only for seconds. He awoke on the ground, on the street, in pain. Before his eyesight had returned he checked his leg with his hand, discovered it was still there, despite the cold and searing pain.

His vision cleared, and he was looked straight at Doyle's grey face, with blood on the forehead.
Doyle opened his eyes. Relief flooded through Bodie that Doyle was still alive seconds before the chilling realization that no body so badly torn could survive, or would want to. He reached towards Doyle, but he was too far away to touch him.

He tried to move. The damned leg held him back. He used his arms to drag himself on the ground, covering those few hellish feet between them in an eternity of minutes.

Doyle watched him come towards him. He said lightly, "Been good, hasn't it?"

He hadn't quite reached him yet. He couldn’t go any further. He was going to black out. He couldn’t do that. He stopped.

"The best," said Bodie. If he stretched his arm, he could touch Doyle's hand. The fingers were wet, warm. He curled his own fingers around them. The touch was for him, not Doyle, who could mercifully feel nothing.

"Because o' you," said Doyle, and closed his eyes.

"Ray!"

"Sorry," he whispered.

Which was nonsense, Doyle never said that. Bodie said, "You berk. Don't apologize. Take me with you."

Doyle's eyes flickered open. "Can't. Just the love."

"Always," said Bodie. But the eyes were shut and so were the ears, and the fingers in his were cold, the wetness on them was turning to dry red stickiness. Somewhere else there was gunfire and shouts, and, later, sirens and many people, all very busy and with things to do.

A while afterwards they tried to pry Bodie's hand from around the hand of the corpse, but they couldn't do it. So they had to ask him to let go, and he did, after a bit. He was able to describe for Cowley quite clearly what happened, his voice normal and strong. The paramedics told him they thought they'd be able to save his damaged leg. He shrugged at the news, not really caring. Someone else later told him that the anti-terrorist op was a success. It wasn’t Cowley. Cowley wasn't such a fool, it was one of the coppers, who didn't know anything. Bodie didn't answer.

Cowley looked down for a while at the shroud -- the cloth, rather -- that had been thrown over the corpse, grieving in his own way. He touched Bodie's arm as he turned back to the car. The paramedics thankfully and at last put his stretcher into the ambulance while they'd still be able to do something to save the leg.

Bodie was grateful for Cowley's silence, which was all he had left to cling to. That, and a voice, and a presence, and a touch, that no one alive would know again.

Always.

* * *

The 1st of January, 1997
London, CI5 Headquarters, Whitehall
3 a.m.

When the partying was over, Bodie went to his office, as he often did. It was more his home than the small, elegant house in Mayfair they seemed to think befit his position. He liked the house just fine, but he was more comfortable here, where his life had purpose.

The Controller of CI5 did not have the privilege of getting himself blind stinking drunk, not if he wanted to keep his position, or if he wanted to ensure that CI5 remained the best law-enforcement agency in Europe. So Bodie, neither drunk nor hung over, sat in the chair at his desk, and looked at its top, bare since he had cleared up all the work during the day, in order to make a clean start in the New Year.

They thought he did it all for Cowley’s sake, or for England. They were wrong, all of them. He did it for himself, and for the part of himself that had died that night thirteen years ago, torn apart by a grenade blast and a fall from a roof on a cold night that had been their anniversary.

It was only fitting that CI5 should celebrate their anniversary.

Always.

- End -

4,432 words
December 31, 1996