Pros Novel Read-Along - Painted Angels by Angelfish - Chapter Three

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Apologies - I'd hoped to post this morning, but I've had a migraine all day, which is only just fading, and I couldn't bear the screen... (If anyone would like to volunteer to help with the introductions sometimes, then that would be great!) But here we are at last!

Painted Angels by Angelfish.
Cover art by firlefanzine

Chapter Three

Chapter Three
The lads are off on another test, this one apparently to find their way from Point A to Point B in the wilderness, and this time they're working alone. Doyle has reached the end, but instead of the comforting light and warmth and human companionship he's been looking forward to, the clearing is empty - except, he eventually realises, for Bodie peering around in a similar way.

Bodie makes himself known, and seems to be trying to be friendly - but Doyle is wise to this now, and determined not to open himself up to betrayal again. When he heads off to get some water from the river, though, Bodie follows him, and they end up trying to work things out together.

Sure enough, there are further instructions hidden for them in the clearing, and they set off together to find what they hope really is the final end-point. All does not, however, go wrong. Doyle is determined to prove to Bodie that he's equally as capable - which he's already doing with ease - to the point that when Bodie tries to hand him over a rocky outcrop, Doyle refuses his help. Unfortunately Bodie didn't explain why he was trying to give it, and so Doyle lands on a brittle ledge, and plunges them both down the steep hillside into the river below.

Bodie is knocked out by the fall, but Doyle is alert enough to be able to pull him from the river and administer CPR. Bodie revives, Doyle it turns out has four broken ribs and has lost his jacket, and they both limp on as far as they can go - which isn't all the way.

Doyle is becoming dangerously hypothermic, and so Bodie stops them and makes a shelter and a fire so that they can see out the night. They cuddle up close to share body warmth, and Doyle falls asleep. He dreams - and calls out to Gabe, and in his dream they're obviously very close, because Bodie finds himself the subject of sleepy sexuality. Knowing that any response on his part would not be a good idea, Bodie's just about to move them apart when Doyle falls silent and his dream takes a completely different turn - then finally he relaxes into sleep again.

With light comes a searching helicopter, and they hike out a final mile to meet it. Bodie makes the mistake of asking Doyle about Gabe, and Doyle immedately attacks - "Don't you ever... ever even fucking think of saying that name to me again." The lads are rescued - sure they've failed out of CI5 this time - and they're taken back to civilisation. Doyle is hospitalised for a week, although Bodie is passed fit even after his near-escape. Cowley is surprised to find Bodie staying close to the hospital, and in fact to Doyle's bedside. The lads are even more surprised, when Cowley speaks to them, to find that not only have they passed CI5 recruitment - but that it is on the condition that they work together as partners.

So - what do you reckon?! Does this read as our Bodie and Doyle? Is it realistic? What do we think of Bodie's apparent change of heart after the revelation of the last chapter - "Thinks he's made a friend. Spare me." Are you believing in the story?

Comments

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

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...