It is good to see a Bodie who feels more familiar, I agree!
I think my first blink was when he took back his words to Doyle at the very start - he does his super-Bodie-obviously thing at first, saying "Yeah, I saw you ages ago" but when Doyle then ignores him and just takes off on his own business, Bodie backtracks and is the one to try and make it up between them. He actually apologises! He confesses that he only just got there! He even asks Doyle for his opinion. It looks like he's being friendly again, and Doyle isn't believing it this time. But then the author shows us how frustrated Bodie is at suddenly being on his own - he's not got Cowley and Murphy backing him up now, he's been thrown into "the other", and now he's having to deal with it. Maybe this is what's pushing him outside his normal behaviour. He knows it too, because "He more than halfway means it, too".
Doyle's copped on though - he reckons that Bodie might well mean it right now, but then regret it later and slam his shields back up. So I don't reckon that deep damage is gone at all - but the author's showing us that actually he does have reasons for letting himself change.
He does go a bit back-and-forth like this in the chapter too - he decides to build the fire, realises that he wanted it for himself rather than Doyle anyway - but then he also realises that he's abandoned Doyle to do it anyway, so no matter who it was for he wasn't properly thinking about Doyle. So we do see him working his way to being more considerate. I reckon the hospital thing is an extension of that - he abandoned Doyle to make the fire, when he might have got worse, and he had the realisation that he could have spared five minutes to make sure McCabe was alright the session before, so he hangs around the hospital to make sure that Doyle's okay too.
I also like the odd bit that the author throws in, like "There is something about Doyle which makes him question why he is currently behaving like - what had Murph said? A dinosaur with piles..." I think he's realising there's more to Doyle than he'd originally thought - Doyle can run faster than him, and seems to have beaten him to the clearing (or at least got there at the same time), and doesn't give up like McCabe did, and so on. I don't think the damage has gone away, but we're maybe getting through it a bit...
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2019-04-17 09:59 pm (UTC)I think my first blink was when he took back his words to Doyle at the very start - he does his super-Bodie-obviously thing at first, saying "Yeah, I saw you ages ago" but when Doyle then ignores him and just takes off on his own business, Bodie backtracks and is the one to try and make it up between them. He actually apologises! He confesses that he only just got there! He even asks Doyle for his opinion. It looks like he's being friendly again, and Doyle isn't believing it this time. But then the author shows us how frustrated Bodie is at suddenly being on his own - he's not got Cowley and Murphy backing him up now, he's been thrown into "the other", and now he's having to deal with it. Maybe this is what's pushing him outside his normal behaviour. He knows it too, because "He more than halfway means it, too".
Doyle's copped on though - he reckons that Bodie might well mean it right now, but then regret it later and slam his shields back up. So I don't reckon that deep damage is gone at all - but the author's showing us that actually he does have reasons for letting himself change.
He does go a bit back-and-forth like this in the chapter too - he decides to build the fire, realises that he wanted it for himself rather than Doyle anyway - but then he also realises that he's abandoned Doyle to do it anyway, so no matter who it was for he wasn't properly thinking about Doyle. So we do see him working his way to being more considerate. I reckon the hospital thing is an extension of that - he abandoned Doyle to make the fire, when he might have got worse, and he had the realisation that he could have spared five minutes to make sure McCabe was alright the session before, so he hangs around the hospital to make sure that Doyle's okay too.
I also like the odd bit that the author throws in, like "There is something about Doyle which makes him question why he is currently behaving like - what had Murph said? A dinosaur with piles..." I think he's realising there's more to Doyle than he'd originally thought - Doyle can run faster than him, and seems to have beaten him to the clearing (or at least got there at the same time), and doesn't give up like McCabe did, and so on. I don't think the damage has gone away, but we're maybe getting through it a bit...