Title: More Than A Thousand Words

Disclaimer: Nothing owned in this. Too bad, really.

Rating: K+ (no more than a little swearing, if that)

Summary: When Boyd asked Grace to help him sort out his things, he didn't pay attention to what she found. This small oversight might turn out to be a mistake. A big, embarrassing mistake.

A/N: Sitting in a non-descript but very nice Nero-Café in London, Teddy78 and I were talking about "Shoestring" to which I kept referring as "Baby!Boyd" - Teddy78 laughed and said: "I dare you to write that" and so I did. Naturally, I twisted and turned with it and this is the result. Hope you enjoy! many, many thanks go to ShadowSamurai83 for the beta - and to the entire OHT - you know what for.

More Than A Thousand Words

Boyd hated situations like this, hated them with a passion. He didn't like having fun poked at him on the best of days, but feeling that he was the butt of an office-wide joke darkened his mood to explosive levels.

On a scale from nil to 10 in terms of deteriorating mood and rising Boyd-temper, this Monday ranked at a nine.

Snickering team members, Grace having undergone a personality transplant for the worse over night and being absolutely clueless as to why all this had happened... it pretty much resembled a red rag before a bull to Boyd.

Which was an incredibly apt description. Even though there wasn't any red involved. Not literally at least.

He couldn't explain anything about it, and if he went back over the last two weeks he could make out the exact point when this had started, but neither how nor why.

In retrospect, it might have been a truly bad idea, but back then...

He didn't want to do it on his own, didn't want to do it at all. But not doing it meant to have and see the reminders continuously, and that was worse. Grace, spouting some psycho babble, that actually made sense, had told him that he needed to find closure - another one of those unbearable words - and in the end even insinuated that he worked so much, because he couldn't face going home and seeing all this.

At the time, he had shouted, moaned and groaned and complained, puffed out big amounts of hot air. Unfortunately, Grace had this unbelievable talent to burst his bubble and simply, but directly told him: "Do it, Peter. Do it this weekend."

So he had, but after the first few minutes of restless and unenthusiastic pushing things around, he had just dialled her number and asked Grace to come over and help. Objectively spoken, this was a bad idea to begin with, because under normal circumstances, Grace was a lot less tidy than Boyd. Liking her clutter and acquiring knickknacks from God knows where all the time - he suspected that incessant scouting on less respectable flea markets accounted for most of it - Grace did not possess one empty surface or shelf in the office or her house.

How she was supposed to be of help to get rid of his junk was a mystery for Boyd.

Still, he had asked her over, for entirely unrelated and very emotional reasons. He had lost Luke and would finally pack up all his remaining possessions. Just thinking about it, even now, made his heart burn. But he had also almost lost Grace, first to Linda Cummings, then to cancer, and if there was any opportunity to have her around, then he took it.

Seeing her sitting cross-legged in the big chair, sorting through music collections, books and pictures, his heart had warmed, the iron grip of anxiety slowly loosening. She looked comfortable there and at home and Boyd actually felt, for the first in a long time, that his house had something homely. Actually, it always felt a little warmer and a little more comfortable when Grace was there.

Due to this, he had let her do her thing, only answered questions when she asked them, but mostly left her on her own. He had lifted heavy stuff, he had finally dismantled furniture that hadn't been used for almost 15 years, and all the while the only thing that had kept him from going mad was the knowledge that he wasn't alone in the house, that somebody frequently called for him, talked to him, smiled at him.

If for nothing else than this, Boyd knew he'd give Grace the world should she ask for it.

Instead she had just smiled, hugged him when he needed it, something she sensed with unerring precision, soothed his jagged emotions with words of reassurance and incredible warmth in incredibly blue eyes.

Boyd wasn't sure, but there was something about this woman, something he couldn't describe. What he knew, though, was that they were moving for something that transcended collegiality and friendship by far. They were, without ever saying it and without even acting romantically like it, becoming exclusive - unapproachable for any other possibly interested party. The strange thing was that they both could see it happen, had so that Saturday night.

They had gone out for dinner. Nothing fancy, but good food and good wine had been a requirement. Grace in sneakers, jeans and a tight top, though...those floaty, multi-layered outfits hid a lot more than they showed, Boyd had realized, and quite a few other male customers as well. Only Grace, so typically herself, had been completely oblivious to the attention bestowed on her. This, naturally, had led to a certain possessive edginess in him, his hand finding hers on the table as they waited for the food to be brought.

Of course, this could easily be explained away by mutual emotional support, but that didn't explain the shivers rushing over her skin or the blood pumping in his ears when their eyes connected. All he could see then was just how blue and deep her eyes were, just how many secrets he would and wanted to find in her. He couldn't have looked away, if he had wanted to.

So, he hadn't. And he hadn't stopped holding her hand while they ate - a feat when you tried to handle spaghetti the Italian style - and he hadn't stopped when they finished their bottle of wine, or when he had driven her home afterwards.

In all honesty, he wouldn't have stopped at all, certainly not after the peck good night, which was very far from what one would call a peck. He could still taste her lips, the slight acid from the wine in her mouth, the prickling touch. Her small hand against his chest as she steadied herself. All there, all strangely good.

His dreams that night had been filled with those images, not the nightmares over his failings as a father.

The Sunday had played out in exactly the same manner, Grace in tight jeans and a shirt, sitting barefoot on the sofa, sifting through odds and ends that he had accumulated over the years. And he had left her to it, already anticipating other aspects of the day.

His mind had been busy imagining the good night kiss, which wasn't altogether seemly for a man of his age and position, but he didn't like to be conventional and Grace was even less of a conformist than he was. It felt good, so it was good, right?

Boyd hadn't bothered to check too closely what exactly Grace found in his things, didn't bother asking what had her in stitches several times that day. It didn't matter, did it? As long as she was well and happy, who cared about the reason, right?

Well, maybe he should have.

Maybe he should have asked when he found her stuffing some paper into her oversized handbag.

In fact, he really should have.

He didn't.

What Boyd did instead was to take Grace Foley out to dinner, wining and dining her and then when he took her home, the innocent goodbye turned into a snogging session against her front door. Only some impertinent whistling from the street prevented them from going further, and only the knowledge that they weren't heading for some quick fumble, but permanence and commitment prevented her from asking him inside and him not even thinking about refusing.

He could be a gentleman and they both knew that the anticipation would be...well worth it.

Though...in hindsight...

They were like the two forces that influenced the barometer. Opposite, but interdependent. Her good mood provoked his, but would visibly diminish if his turned sour. Her bad mood would drag down everybody else. Hence all the team members did their utmost to keep Grace happy.

A happy Grace accounted for rising fortunes on the general mood barometer.

Out of this reason, and this reason alone, Boyd cast no more than an indulgent smile in her direction when she broke out into seemingly unaccountable fits of giggles. Certainly, it was disconcerting that it always seemed to happen when she was looking at him, but - though he'd never admit that to anyone - she was, for the lack of a better word, cute when she giggled.

Certainly no reason for such hilarity could be found in their current case and the gruesome evidence they were dealing with. Not exactly something you took picture postcards of and sent home, though this was what their offender was doing. The mounting number of severed limbs and mutilated bodies could cause even hardened professionals bouts of nausea. Therefore Grace brightening the atmosphere was a good thing.

To a point.

Fits of giggles in his direction, the constant smirk that seemed to twitch around the corners of her mouth, the extensive coughing which was not a bad sign of returning illnesses but barely suppressed laughter ... being in the mellow mood Boyd was, he took that all with a smile. The last weekend was very strong in his memory, especially the final moments of each.

If Grace was a little silly...

But then Eve started as well. Nothing overt, the scientist was, after all, always a little on the cool side, though not in an unkind way. Seeing the two women with their heads together, laughing and snickering, normally warmed Boyd's heart. It still did, though he found it highly disconcerting to see how they seemed to look at him and then lose their composure again.

Normally not a self-conscious man, Boyd didn't give much about this at first. At least on a personal level. It was odd, no doubt.

The looks, the snorts, the pointing, the laughter. The most disconcerting were the whispers between the two women, since neither of them was prone to those. Both scientists were normally straight-forward, Grace's preference for long, complicated words notwithstanding.

They would get over it, Boyd decided, and focussed on the case at hand.

Only three days later, they were still at it.

And then condition expanded to Spence.

Naturally, the DI reacted in a different manner than the two women. In fact, his reaction was very Spence. Spence-who-had-heard/seen-something-he-didn't-want-to. The younger detective had a distinct expression for this situation - part nauseous, part amused. It didn't mix well on his face and on its first occurrence caused Boyd to bite down his own smirk.

The second time, only half an hour later, Boyd actually asked his second in command. Didn't receive a reply, but from then on, Spence smirked himself. Continuously.

He didn't even take pains to contain it while they were in a team talk about further details they had found on the case.

Having your colleagues smirk while you were explaining about the composition of murder sites and the deformation of tortured bodies couldn't remain unregistered by anybody, even Boyd's very healthy ego.

Nobody said a word, of course, but they kept smirking. All three of them.

By Friday it was pretty much everybody in the office. There was some sort of nervous excitement in the air, as if they were all anticipating something that hadn't happened in years. Some cosmic event. Some lottery win. A royal pregnancy. Anything that would provide even the remotest chance to party.

It wasn't the most reassuring thought, but considering the previous weekend and the firmed up plans for Friday night, Boyd didn't question the situation too deeply. If it got worse, he'd grill Grace for as long as it took, would even turn to...special...forces to interrogate her.

Boyd had plans for the weekend.

And the weekend went well. Very well.

So well, in fact, that on Monday morning the unheard happened. Not only the unheard, but the unimaginable, in fact.

Peter Boyd overslept.

He really did.

To the disappointment of overzealous romantic souls in the office, he did so alone.

On the account of having overslept and the ensuing annoyance with all those Sunday drivers who blocked his way, Boyd wasn't in the best of moods by the time he finally reached the office. Upon entering however, he stopped, the strange vibes cutting right through his own cocoon of temper. The atmosphere in the bullpen was as thick as fudge, just as opaque, but a lot less sweet.

In fact, most of the junior support workers more or less walked on tiptoes in their attempt to be assimilated be the walls and overseen. Even the more brash ones huddled around their desks, faces down in seemingly extensive business.

Eve was nowhere to be seen, which was generally not unusual, but given the atmosphere, it was to be assumed that her disappearance was deliberate and of some duration.

Spencer, on the other hand, had no place to hide in, with his desk bang in the middle of the bullpen. Oddly enough, though, his back was to the entrance this time, his front firmly settled with sight on Grace's office. He didn't look there, busily typing or reading, but somehow Boyd believed that the younger man kept a constant half an eye on the profiler's office.

There was no further need to elaborate. Within seconds of entering, Boyd could feel that the origin of the current tense atmosphere was firmly settled in that office. Even at this distance and without getting a precise look at her expression, he knew, just how majorly pissed off Grace was.

Alarm bells went off.

The barometer analogy came back into mind. The signs were on storm. A big one at that.

Grace's posture as she sat at her desk radiated tension. Worse, though, it spread like sound waves all over the office. A situation like that was not to be endured for long, because, no matter how much he ripped into her himself at times, Boyd would not stand for anyone upsetting Grace like this - and for her to be this badly off, somebody had pretty much signed his own death warrant.

The doors clicked back into their slots as Boyd stepped further into the room, glowering at the assembled team members in question.

If he had expected that the strange behaviour from the previous week had receded over the weekend, Boyd quickly realized that it had, in fact, not. Spencer, who looked up briefly, still looked torn between nausea and hilarity, though the fearsome aspect of his nausea shone through more clearly now. As much as he loved her, Spence was scared shitless of Grace being on the war path.

The other team members, terrified as they obviously were, did not suffer as badly. Looking at him...well, they smirked. And then they chortled. And then they turned away coughing madly, though the flu hardly seemed to be the reason.

Inwardly shaking his head, Boyd proceeded further, but the chortles did not disappear until another door opened and the temperature of the room dropped a few degrees.

Grace didn't say a word, didn't even look pointedly at anybody specifically, the effect of her appearance was magnificent enough. Immediately, ten people scurried around in a desperate attempt to look busy.

"Morning," Boyd said quietly, and very impressed.

"Morning, ...erm...Boyd."

Before he could say another word, and there were a few that came to his mind, Grace had turned around with a grimace and quickly disappeared back into her office. It might have been a figment of his imagination, but she had also been blushing.

Strangely in tune with the lower 'lives' in the unit, she also now ostensibly tried to look busy. That, of course, didn't fool anyone, certainly not Boyd. Intrigued, he followed her and stuck his head in.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Fine. Busy." Quick, high-pitched and not able to look at him. Atypically Grace. Very typical for something being afoot.

"Alright. If you say so."

"I do."

She still didn't look at him, thus confirming that something was definitely going on. Something he, Boyd, solely didn't know about.

"If you're sure..."

"Yeah."

Disappointment settling in his gut, Boyd turned and left to make for his own office. As much as he searched his memory, he couldn't make out what had changed since the night before. This was a different woman from the one who had barely kept enough sensibility for the both of them to peel herself out of his arms and actually get into the cab waiting for her outside. This wasn't the same woman who had...well...she sure as hell wasn't that woman right now.

Improvement was not to be seen as the day wore on.

The team in general still broke into quick and brief bursts of hilarity, but instantly ducked and sobered under the death glare of one Grace Foley, who in turn seemed to do her utmost to avoid Boyd on any terms. No eye contact, no words, no silly chats over the office extensions, and certainly no quick moments of frisky promise in dark corners of the building.

Thus, in Boyd frustration grew. Quietly, steadily, heralding a truly epic explosion of temper, once those frustrations mounted.

And the mood barometer dropped.

Considerably.

Except for those previously mentioned bouts of hilarity, which somehow seemed to ensue when any member of the team looked at their leader.

All in all, an average day deteriorated until it was home time and everybody in the bullpen and the lab rushed off to escape the atmosphere. Until it was only - not altogether unusually - just Boyd and Grace left in the office.

Drawing on the events of the previous weekend, this would have been the perfect opportunity to open a bottle of office red, relax on the sofa and decide hours later which bed would be more comfortable for the few remaining hours of the night.

With the situation as it was, however...

When the clock on his computer showed past 7, Boyd finally gave up. All day he had waited for an explanation, yet none had been forthcoming. Hell, he would have even done without the explanation if it had been just some acknowledgement. Anything.

It sounded desperate in his mind, the great Peter Boyd reduced to being happy with just crumbs of attention. Which either spoke for Grace being more important than any previous woman - a frightening thought in and of itself - or that he was really going mental.

Neither was reassuring.

But now it was late and he had had enough.

Her office door wasn't completely closed, which somehow cut out a dramatic entrance on which he'd be able to base his strategy of just steamrolling Grace into an admission. His voice, however, still carried, and he knew that his physical presence served him well. Especially if the way Grace's eyes raked over him was anything to go by.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

She gave him a confused look, perfectly executed, but a sham nonetheless. "Nothing. Why do you ask?"

This was a mistake, they both knew it. This was the opening Boyd needed. "Because you haven't been able to look at me today."

"So?"

He grinned. "Last night you did a lot more than look at me."

"Did you expect me to continue in plain sight of the team today?" She smiled for the first time today, a hint of mischief hidden in there somewhere and Boyd marginally relaxed.

"I didn't expect you to bite their head off either."

"I didn't." The edge in her voice was back, but so was the uncertainty he had seen in her all day. It drove him into action, brought him to her desk against which he leaned, deliberately crowding her.

"Grace, they were shaking in their boots in case you even look at them. And at the same time,..." He leaned further down, cupped her far cheek with his palm and slowly turned her to face him. His voice was as low as it was possible, a little hoarse even. She had such soft skin, so warm in his hand. "...At the same time you are too embarrassed to look at me."

She wanted to deny it on principle and instinct, but Boyd only shook his head and closed the distance between them. Her eyes were wide, a little bit deer caught in the headlights, but also quite a lot of sparks of interest.

"Don't say there's nothing. We both know better. So what is it?"

"Boyd...," she almost begged.

"Grace. What is it?"

She's so close and he wanted her. She knew that.

But she wanted him too. And he knew that.

It would be quite easy, but before he succumbed, he wanted answers. And they knew that too.

Grace gave up, her posture all but collapsing. In fact, there was a definite amount of unease, close to fear, in her countenance. She heaved a deep sigh of resignation as she slowly turned towards the other side, to her purse.

"Look," she explained exasperatedly. "It all went out of hand and I don't even know how. I didn't let it out of my hands, so I really don't know how they got a hold of it."

Boyd's intrigued and at the same time a little wary. The hilarity of the last days, which seemed to be connected to him, now appeared to have been at his expense, and if there's one thing Peter Boyd didn't accept, it's being the butt of people's jokes.

His expression tightened, his mouth turning into a thin line.

"What happened?"

Grace cringed visibly, expecting an explosion of temper, expecting to be directly hit with it.

"This." She held out the computer printout of a photograph, torn in parts already, crumpled in others - a sign of the quick and angry removal from its previous place.

It was a colour printout, the prominent earthy colours being brown and beige. And somehow, somewhere, even before he identified the picture properly, a memory stirred. Oddly enough, first were the white socks.

The memory came into sharp focus and with it some definite embarrassment. Colour coordination gone desperately wrong. Brown shoes, trousers and tie, beige jacket, white shirt and socks...and that Goddamn porn star moustache.

He didn't have to look closely to know.

"I found it the weekend before last. In your photographs..." Grace trailed off. "When I saw what they've written on it..."

Indeed there were words on the paper. Some exceptionally funny soul had written "Baby Boyd" on the picture.

Insult was added to injury.

Boyd groaned.

There were certain parts of his past, definitely of his time as a Detective Constable, when he was just allowed into plain clothes... Good God!

"The colour scheme is coming back into style, you know," Grace ventured carefully.

"I'll shoot myself before I wear that again!"

She chuckled. "The moustache seems a little...much."

He glared at her, but now that it was obvious he wouldn't cut her head off, Grace just smirked.

"That's what had you in fits all the time last week, right?"

She shrugged and gave him a winning smile.

"Payback's gonna be a bitch, you know."

"I've never tried the bopper or the prep-school look."

"Bloody hippie."

Grace laughed. "And proud of it. There are no such pictures of me."

"Hmm." It was at this point where Boyd became speculative. "No pictures of you going truly hippie and shunning all encumbering equipment?"

"None with my boobs hanging out, sorry. I burned them when I tried to be respectable."

"Shame, really." He grinned, though his eyes were instinctively drawn...well, he is a man's man and snogged they may have, groped they may have, but there's still something to discover and to...feel.

"Boyd, you know, my eyes aren't down there."

His reply was unapologetic and her blush very becoming.

Grace gave the picture another look. "You look so young here," she said with a fond smile.

"Baby Boyd!" he comments sardonically.

She gave him a long, appraising look. "Age suits you better."

"Oh yeah, cracking joints, bad back..."

"I like the silver, and the lines." There was suggestion in her voice and huskiness. "Makes you distinguished and..."

"Yes...?"

"I like the man better than the boy," Grace declared and rose at the same time, bringing her almost flush against him in the confines of her desk and chair.

Boyd rose with her, to give her room, little as there is. She was also pretty much pressed against him and as they've both found out these last two weekends, he liked that a damn lot. So did she.

Her eyes are wide again, her cheeks flushed. His blood is pumping loudly in his ears and coursing hotly through his veins.

"Care to prove that?" he whispered as he leant down to kiss her.

Thank you for reading. Comments would be greatly appreciated (Especially, whether you think, the very first part might be worth to be explored further. Thank you.)