The Professionals Circuit Archive - Can't Really Be Gone	 Can't
Really Be Gone

 

by Dana Austin Marsh

  
 He had no business being here. Nevertheless, Doyle turned the key in the
lock and opened the door just far enough to slip inside. Bodie's present
opinion of him had been amply demonstrated by the thrust of the FN rifle
to his chest. It was for that reason as much as any expectation of finding
Bodie here that Doyle had come. He could not be with Bodie right now as he
wanted to be, so he would have to content himself with being in Bodie's
home.

The first thing he noticed when he had dealt with the locks and turned on
the light was Bodie's boots. Expensive leather, they were the only
footwear Bodie would wear with jeans the occasional time he condescended
to don such attire. Doyle bent and straightened the tumbled boots into
military tidiness, letting his touch linger for just a moment on the cool,
smooth leather before leaving them standing as if waiting patiently for
their owner's return. And, of course, Bodie would be back. He would never
leave those boots behind.

Feeling ever so slightly reassured, Doyle moved on to the lounge. He
looked around, feeling Bodie's presence in the sheer lack of personal
accoutrements. A book sitting on the coffee table caught his attention and
he moved across the room to pick it up. He sat down on the sofa and
studied the lurid cover of the latest tawdry Harold Robbins bestseller
indulgently. You just never could tell what Bodie might read next. The man
could quote the classic poets one minute, and the next fill his mind with
trash that did not even possess the saving grace of being grammatically
correct.

Opening the book to where it was marked, Doyle once again smiled as he
realised that the marker itself was an evidence receipt. Dozy sod, he
thought affectionately. Bodie knew these receipts were supposed to be
filed appropriately and here he was using it as a tatty old bookmark.

Chapter twenty-one. Doyle let his fingers rifle the edges of the few pages
remaining to the end of the book. He wondered if Bodie had read it at all
since Marikka had reappeared so unexpectedly in his life. Doyle didn't
think so, but he knew Bodie would remember that he had not finished it
yet. Never started something he didn't finish, did Bodie.

Doyle laid the book back down, lining its edges up precisely with the
edges of the table. He would have to remember to ask Bodie if he could
borrow it when Bodie came home.

He wondered how long Bodie would go to ground. Be off in one of his bolt
holes licking his wounds for a bit, Doyle knew. Be mad at the world and
feeling betrayed. But the ex-merc didn't lack for grey matter as much as
Doyle liked to tease him otherwise. Might take him a few days, but Bodie
would think it all through. Then he'd come home.

And when he did, Doyle thought, heaving himself up off the sofa and
heading for the kitchen, it would be nice if he didn't have to face sour
milk and other assorted nastiness. Swinging the refrigerator door open,
Doyle couldn't suppress a small laugh as he beheld the sight of half a
chocolate cake sitting there in solitary splendour. Doyle drew the platter
out. How like Bodie this was. Not a speck of decent food in the flat, but
this monstrosity of cholesterol and sugar sat awaiting the glutton's
return. No way would Bodie leave this behind.

Carefully, Doyle covered the cake in tinfoil and returned it to the
refrigerator. He bet Bodie would devour it just as soon as he returned.
Probably eat it right off the platter.

Doyle returned to the lounge. He should leave, but he really couldn't. Not
yet. He'd just take a turn around the rest of the flat. Who knew, maybe
Willis' boys had done more than sit outside. Wouldn't do for Bodie to
return and find he was the victim of an MI5 B.

Doyle made his way to the bedroom, stopping in his tracks as he found the
switch, and light flooded the room. He couldn't believe Bodie would leave
his bed in such a state. Be mortified, he would, if anyone else saw it.
Doyle reached out, intending to neaten the disordered linens, but found
himself instead sinking down onto the firm surface, his hands clutching at
the rumpled sheets. A miasma of scents surrounded him - faded cologne,
soap, shampoo. Beneath those aromas, woven amongst and amid the esoteric
that could change with the whim of their user dwelt the one constant, the
rich, male Bodie-scent he knew so well.

How could he have been such a fool, Doyle chided himself. He, who spent so
much time thinking, analysing, categorizing. How could he have come to
this self knowledge so late? Too late? He gripped the sheets fiercely at
the thought. Surely not too late. Bodie would return. Bodie would forgive
and then Doyle would... his grip eased and he gently smoothed the material
between his fingers as he completed the promise... and then he would tell
his friend of the discoveries he had made today.

No, Bodie couldn't really be gone. He had to come back so Doyle could tell
him that he was loved. 

Doyle tidied the bed then, leaving it smooth and undisturbed for Bodie to
find on his return. Telling himself that in a few days Bodie would no
longer be gone and everything would be fine, Doyle let himself out of the
flat.

-- THE END --

*Originally published in *Motet Opus 4 in B and D*, Keynote Press,
November 2000*

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