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

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Thank you jat_sapphire who reminded me to post today! Well, today if I get it done in the next eight minutes...

Painted Angels by Angelfish.
Cover art by firlefanzine

Chapter Twelve
Doyle is visiting Bodie in hospital. He slips past everyone else waiting outside Bodie's room (including a dusty Cowley), and goes in. The staff have been trying to get Bodie to lie down and sleep, but "even if we dope him, unless he's anaesthetised, he never seems to shut his eyes..."

Bodie's sitting up in bed, unable to relax his guard. Doyle brings him more pillows, cups the back of Bodie's head. Bodie apologises to Ray for "bein such a big nance. Nearly getting you killed." Doyle "lets his... hold... become an embrace" and Bodie hugs him back. They swap war wounds, and Doyle tells Bodie that he'll stick with CI5 if Cowley will have him back. He wants Bodie to relax, and he wants him to explain "what the fuck made you think no one was going to come back for you today".

It turns out that Bodie was abandoned by his unit in hostile terriory when he was with the SAS, and even worse, when he finally made it back to safety after a month or so, he was accused of having been left behind because he'd been hiding - "I was like a ghost... and not a welcome one."

The confession is cathartic and Bodie is finally able to cry over what happened - the betrayal, when he had been trying to save his unit, that they hadn't returned his loyalty - while Doyle watches. At last Doyle gets onto the bed with him, and holds him - and Bodie finally falls asleep, properly asleep. Doyle smiles, and when someone tries to come into the room he warns them away - "First bastard to wake him up dies".

So there's the penultimate chapter - what do you reckon?!