Raymond Doyle stood looking out at the river beneath him. The Thames took on an almost mystical glow at night, as though the river was not made of mere water--but of light mixed with the quicksilver mystery of mercury. Ray distantly recalled that he had once found the view mesmerising. His realisation that he could only remember all that beauty instead of being able to see it for himself made his decision that much easier. The painful resentment of life's burdens that had driven him from his warm flat into the icy embrace of a Christmas Eve's night crystallised into simple clarity and understanding: all the beauty and joy had gone out of his life to be replaced by endless guilt and pain.

And he had had enough. More than enough.

Ignoring the cold, Ray removed his gloves and started climbing over the protective railing.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

The smooth, confident voice caught him off guard and he started, numb fingers nearly losing their grip on the cold metal cable. He turned as much as he was able, adding inattentiveness to the list of faults that would soon be remedied. He could have sworn that he was alone on the bridge, not another person in sight even on the shadowed banks. "Just bugger...." He caught his breath as he caught a glimpse of the interfering stranger.

The speaker wasn't a man. Or rather it was a man, but more than a man. It was an angel. Maybe....

Ray shook his head, closed his eyes and counted to six. Please, he begged, just let me hold myself together long enough to finish this. He slowly opened his eyes. The angel was still there. Before he could close his eyes and try again, a less than heavenly hand took him by the shoulder and heaved him back to the safe side of the railing.

"What do you think you're doing, Raymond?"

The angel's wings were electric blue and seemed to have little universes of light moving through them. Ray watched as a fountain of angry sparks ignited through the centre of one, leaving swirling trails flowing to the tip.

A rough shake broke his contemplation of the amazing event and he was dragged further from the railings to the questionable shelter of a pillar. "I asked you what you thought you were doing!"

In the yellow light of the safety beacon Ray was able to see the angel's face.

"Bodie?"

A deep, exasperated sigh was followed by an even more exasperated: "Of course I'm not Bodie. Or not fully Bodie anyway." The angel pouted a moment then added, "The easiest way for you to think about it is that I borrowed some of Bodie."

Ignoring the impossibility of the entire situation, Ray searched the familiar dark blue eyes. "Bodie's in there with you?"

"Most of him." The angel seemed resigned to let himself be side-tracked. "I had to leave some of him with his body."

Ray let out a long shuddering breath. "He's not...he's not dead then?"

The angel shook his head slowly. "No, he's as he has been. Not dead, not alive. Waiting."

Ray sunk to the cold concrete of the walkway. He could feel warm tears running down his cheeks to become icy on his neck. All he had wanted was to rest, to forget. That wasn't too much to ask, was it?

"Why are you doing this to me?" he asked, between sniffs. "Why can't you just let me be?" He didn't want to think anymore about Bodie silent and unmoving. It hurt too much....

The angel lowered himself to the ground, carefully tucking his wings to the side. "Bodie asked me to come. He's worried about you."

Ray laughed. "The stupid sod is two steps from dead and he's wasting his worry on me?" He wiped his nose on his sleeve. "Figures though. Bodie never did have any sense."

A hard poke in the side reminded him that the Bodie he knew was somewhere lurking in the angel's form. And the simple childish gesture reminded him of just why he missed his Bodie so much. No one else would be daft enough to treat him like a schoolboy. No one else would bother. The tears started again. Two leather clad arms pulled him close and he found himself tucked against the angel's chest. "I'm getting you all wet."

"I'll dry," the angel muttered in a familiar voice.

"Why? Why do you look like Bodie?" Ray asked between sniffs. He rubbed his face against the familiar hard muscles.

The angel ruffled Ray's curls. "It's always safest to approach the people we're sent to help as someone they know and trust. Saves trying to bring them out of shock after they've seen the golden glow of perfection."

Ray gave a small smile and his sobs finally slowed. "I don't suppose you'll be surprised to know that I don't believe a moment of this. How long until you're going to disappear and leave me to it?"

The angel pulled back and looked into Doyle's puffy and less than attractive eyes. "All too soon, Raymond. What we have to do must be done before dawn on Christmas day."

The entire thing was ridiculous. Ray tried to remember if he had decided to kill himself with a lethal mixture of pills and alcohol. That was probably it and the entire jumping off the bridge scenario was just a stupid hallucination whilst he waited for his heart to stop.

"Please, Ray."

The voice was so much like Bodie's that Ray felt his heart break. He could never deny his partner anything and even if this Bodie-angel was a hallucination, he didn't think he could start now. But first he was going to try to get this hallucination on track. "What sort of an angel are you, anyway?" He gave the leather-clad body a thorough inspection. Bodie always did look good in black leather.

The angel stood and held a hand out. "I'm a dark angel, of course. You did have one of the usual angels assigned to you. You know the type, a bit prissy and filled with love and understanding, but I'm afraid he just couldn't handle it." The angel laughed. "You play a little rough for most of that lot."

"But not for you, eh?" Ray was starting to feel somewhat normal despite the circumstances and he couldn't help but treat the angel that looked so much like Bodie with a lack of respect usually reserved for someone he had known for years.

For a moment the angel froze and a strange, dangerous look passed over his face. "Oh, you really have no idea how petty your games are compared to a war in Heaven."

A deep shiver that had nothing to do with cold passed through Ray's body. What little he remembered of his church lessons was enough to remind him that Satan himself had once been a beautiful angel. A beautiful fallen angel. With some concern he allowed himself to be pulled upright.

Of course, the angel sensed his mood and released him quickly. "Don't be concerned, Raymond. If I had wanted to hurt you I would have pushed you off the bridge rather than haul you back over the rail, wouldn't I?"

Ray rolled his eyes, his emotions rollercoastering yet again. "Why am I worrying about this? You're not real anyway." He moved close, almost touching. Flirting the way he did so often with Bodie. "What do we do next?" He traced a fingertip down the unshaven jaw, remembering the last time Bodie had used that mouth on him.

"Nothing like that, Raymond." The angel pushed the hand away. "We're going to do the more usual things."

"This is my hallucination!" Ray argued.

The angel gave the same superior look that always made Ray want to hit Bodie. "Actually it isn't and there's only one thing that we're going to do. I'm going to run you around and show you what life would have been like if you had never been born."

"What! Just like that old movie?"

A few sparks shot off the electric blue wings. "No, not like that stupid movie! As if I'd have to earn my wings! Bells indeed! It's really rather insulting."

Despite everything, Ray found himself wanting to laugh. The angel smiled a beautiful Bodie-smile and the next thing he knew they were off the bridge and smack-dab at CI5 Headquarters.

Only it wasn't CI5, was it? Ray struggled to make sense of the posters in every language but English. "Where are we?"

The angel didn't bother answering, but instead led him down a familiar hallway toward what he recognised as Cowley's office. Sure enough, sitting at her usual spot was Betty. A little older, hair a little shorter, but definitely Betty.

"Betty!" Ray called out, inordinately glad to find someone familiar in the topsy turvey dream.

The woman raised her head at hearing her name but frowned at Ray's unfamiliar appearance. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"She doesn't you know," the angel whispered. Despite's the angel's definitely not human appearance, Betty didn't seem to notice anything amiss about the man, indeed, she didn't seem to notice him at all.

"You've forgotten me, I'm sure. We were once introduced by George Cowley," Ray covered quickly.

Betty's face fell. "You were a friend of George's?"

"Yes. Well," Ray faltered, "not exactly friends. We worked together at times."

Betty didn't seem to notice Ray's confusion. "It's hard to believe he's been gone nearly three years." She looked around at the definitely not-CI5 furnishings. "He wouldn't recognise the place now. Or approve," she added in a lower voice.

"Things have changed." Quite the understatement. "Still, you're here."

"I was lucky. After the Ministry decided to disband CI5 I applied to the Asylum Project and was taken on." She shook her head sadly. "I've heard that Kirstie and Charlie are still out of work."

A harsh buzz sounded and Betty immediately grabbed a pen and notepad. "I've got to run." She rose and smiled at him. "Take care, Mr...?"

"Doyle. Ray Doyle."

The buzzer sounded again. Betty gave a quick angry look at the closed door. "I always knew Mr. Cowley was a wonderful man to work for, but I didn't know how lucky I was. Still, at least I'm alive."

Before Ray could try and figure out what it all meant, Betty disappeared into what had once been Cowley's office.

The angel didn't wait for questions. "Cowley, Susan, Murphy, Jax, Anson and all the rest of your friends are dead. Killed by a mad woman named Wakeman. Without anyone much left alive, it was decided that it was too much trouble to rebuild CI5."

"All dead?" Ray was stunned. "How can they all be dead just because I wasn't on the squad?"

"That's the way the universe works, Raymond. Like falling dominoes, one mistake and the entire pile goes if there's nothing to stop it. There wasn't anything to stop it this time because you never joined CI5."

A horrible thought entered Ray's head. "Bodie? Was Bodie killed too?"

The angel gave him a look that was pure angel with nothing of Bodie but the stern drawn lips. "No, Bodie didn't die along with the rest. That was one fate he was spared." Despite the wings, the angel managed to sit on the edge of Betty's desk and immediately opened the topmost drawer.

Ray slammed the drawer shut, nearly catching a heavenly digit. "Keep out of there!"

"Nothing to see anyway." The angel narrowed his eyes. "Lunch suit you now?"

Suddenly Ray found himself ravenous.

The angel stood. "I think we should make a trip to your favourite restaurant, don't you?"

"The Happy Pig," Ray murmured, remembering a delicious roasted vegetable sandwich.

Instead of the inaptly named vegan paradise Ray was anticipating, he found himself standing instead in the middle of an urban wasteland. A cold, dark wind blew something wicked through the thick weave of his coat and Ray shivered with atavistic terror.

"Where are we?"

"Right where you wanted to go." The angel stretched an arm out and motioned sweepingly. "Of course, things have changed a bit since you last enjoyed a visit."

Something that he should remember niggled at the back of his mind but refused to come closer. "Wha...what happened here?"

"Don't you remember, Ray? It wasn't so very long ago. Or so very far."

The memory fell into place. "The bomb." Ray stared out toward where the bowling alley had once been. "The atom bomb."

"That's right." The angel sneered patronisingly. "But without you, Bodie didn't make the Swallows connection and the bomb was never found."

"And it exploded," Ray finished.

A mirthless laugh and shower of sparks were the only response. For a while the two stood contemplating the bulldozed city blocks. Ray having long since forgotten his belief that none of it was real.

"How many died?"

"Thousands." The angel gave a grim look. "But some things are worse than death, aren't they?"

---

It was some sort of hospital. Ray recognised the industrial smell, the NHS paint and the familiar feeling of dread that seemed to come over him when visiting hospitals. He wondered when he had stopped thinking of hospitals as places to heal and started thinking of them as places to die. What day was it when loss and killing had become all there was to his life? When had he lost his faith in everything except the knowledge that tomorrow would be worse than today? The angel could probably tell him down to the minute, but if he were honest he knew already.

Knowing that he didn't want to see whatever the angel had brought them there to see, Ray refused to follow the angel as he set off down the long corridor. "You've made your point. Without me, things would have been worse. Alright, enough."

"No it's not enough." The angel turned. "What makes you think you've done enough? What makes you think that there's some point in life when you can stand back and decide 'That's it, I'm done'?"

He pushed Ray against the wall hard, anger barely in check. "I didn't do all this so that you'd die happy knowing that you'd done your bit." He eased his grip a little. "I did all this, Raymond, so that you'd be so frightened of what might happen if you give up, if you quit. If you aren't there again."

"It's too late." Ray hit the angel's arm, trying to drive it away. "Don't you see? Even if I stopped Cowley from being killed, stopped the bomb, saved all of bloody London, I couldn't save Bodie!"

The sapphire eyes were filled with a gentle understanding. "You must come with me, Ray. Dawn will be here soon."

Defeated, Ray silently followed the angel down the long corridor until he stopped in front of a single room. As he had somehow known, a lone figure lay propped up on some pillows. The room was dark, almost beyond seeing, but it didn't seem to bother the man busy with something Ray couldn't quite make out. Behind them, the door opened and a nursing sister came in, switching on a light as she passed.

"How are you doing then, Mr. Bodie?"

Oh yes, it was Bodie. But a Bodie that Ray hadn't seen even in his worst nightmares. The face that he had secretly believed to be beautiful, the one that he loved to watch in all its moods was now barely recognisable. And perhaps in what was a kindness, he was blind as well. Ray let out a small whimper and moved toward the door but a strong hand held him firm. "She can't see us either. Watch."

Bodie held up a box of tangled ribbon. "This is a real mess, but I think I'm making sense of it. Once I get it sorted I'll start on the bows."

"Oh, very good. You don't know what a help this is to us." She started on clearing up bits of ribbon from the smooth blanket covering the man. "Shall we have a trip to the toilet and then go on to lunch before you start on the rest of the box?"

She rolled a wheelchair to the side of the bed and helped the frail man into it. "You're doing very well today. Perhaps you'd enjoy some time out in the garden, there's a bit of sun today."

"No, not today. It will be too crowded what with holiday visitors and all."

A look of sadness crossed her face. "I'd forgotten, I'm sorry."

For all that his body was ravaged; his mind must have been clear for Bodie picked up on the tone of her voice. "Don't waste your pity on me, Cheryl. The greatest gift I could give to everyone I knew was to let them think of me as dead. Last thing I'd ever want was for someone to have to come here and pretend they were happy to see me."

Tears had filled Cheryl's eyes, but she said nothing, only squeezing Bodie's shoulder lightly.

They left the room and for a few moments nothing could be heard but the retreating sound of the wheelchair wheels and Ray's anguished sobs.

"He was too close to the blast. Like so many others." The angel walked to the side of the now empty bed and pulled a satiny green ribbon from the box. "Nice of Cheryl to keep him busy, make him feel useful in the little time he has left."

Ray wiped his nose on his sleeve, uncaring of social niceties. The idea of Bodie finding a make-work task of sorting ribbon fulfilling was more horrible than even the loss of the pale-skinned beauty or sight. "You didn't have to bring me here! I didn't need to see this!"

Once again he found himself held against black leather. With gentle fingertips, the angel reached and wiped a tear away. "This reality is nothing more than what might have been, Raymond. Once we leave, this world will cease to exist. But everyday humanity stands at the edge of similar disasters; the only thing that prevents them is the intervention of good men. Good men like you, Raymond. You can't give up. Humanity needs you. Bodie needs you."

---

They were back on the bridge, away from the awful might-have-been reality. A slight glow was starting in the eastern sky. "Will Bodie--my Bodie--be alright?"

The angel looked grave. "I don't know. There are some things that even we can't see."

So much wasted time. Ray took the angel by the shoulders and looked deep into the dark blue eyes. "I know he's in there, please let me have a minute with him." His voice broke. "It might be our only chance...."

The angel nodded and before Ray was ready for it Bodie was there before him.

"Ray?"

"Yes, it's me. Don't worry about how right now."

Ray took his partner into his arms and buried his face against the smooth skin. "I've missed you so much, Bodie."

"I've missed you, Ray." Bodie wrapped his arms around Ray, holding him close. "I don't really remember where I've been, but I do know that I've been missing you horribly."

Ray didn't want to stop holding Bodie but he knew he had to say the words before it was too late. He pushed back and looked into Bodie's questioning eyes. "I'm sorry, Bodie."

"What are you...."

"Shhh. I need to say this Bodie." Ray smoothed his hand across Bodie's forehead and hair. "I'm sorry I was so selfish, Bodie. I'm sorry I didn't know how much you meant to me. I'm sorry I never knew how much I loved you until it was too late." He looked away, ashamed. "And I do love you. Love you more than I ever thought I'd love anyone. My life is nothing without you."

Relieved that he had managed to say it, Ray finally allowed himself the pleasure of Bodie's lips. Bodie returned the kiss, hands clutching Ray to him as if in desperation, as if knowing that they were fated to be ripped apart again. Ray kissed Bodie again and again, using his lips and fingertips to tell the other man how much he was loved and cherished.

The first church bell struck and Ray felt the warmth in his arms shift and fade. He opened his eyes and he was alone on the bridge.

The faint glow to the east turned into a full grey morning . Ray looked down into the river, but this time his attention was not held by the rushing water. By the increasing light he could see the stairs that made their way to the water's edge and remembered another morning. A morning when he and Bodie had gone in search of a woman in trouble and found a corpse beyond help or hope. Throughout the years, Bodie had always been with him, helping him and supporting him. And when Bodie had been unable to do that, Ray had crumbled, too weak to stand on his own after so many years of relying on someone he had always thought would be there.

"I'm sorry, Bodie." Ray whispered to the wind. It had all been some sort of a dream. A Bodie-angel! It was really too bad Bodie wasn't expected to come out of his coma because he'd get a real laugh when Ray told him that story. But even if it was only a dream, something had changed within him. He no longer felt as if his only option was to escape life's burdens. Bodie deserved to have his best friend beside him and even if watching Bodie slowly wither and die would destroy him, that was what he would do.

The wind picked up, an icy gust that cut right through his coat and made him long for his missing hat and gloves. He started down the walkway toward home, thrusting his hands as deeply into his pockets as possible. His fingers tangled with something unknown and he quickly pulled it from his pocket.

A green satin ribbon.

For a moment he stood there staring at it in silence of a Christmas morning and then he started to shake. He fell to his knees in gutter full of dirty half-melted snow, tears rolling down his face as the fact that the horrors that he had seen had not been fantasy but an all too possible outcome of the unthinking choices he had made. "Please, don't let Bodie suffer," he prayed. "I see how selfish it was thinking of jumping off the bridge. Please give me another chance to make things right for Bodie."

He wasn't sure how long he knelt in the gutter, perhaps only a few minutes, but it seemed unimportant as he held the tear-sodden ribbon and wept.

"Ray Doyle?"

Ray looked up to see a familiar face, "Sister Noel?"

The women serenely smiled at him just as if he had not been kneeling in a gutter of slushy snow. "Ray, are you alright?"

He seemed not to have heard the question. "Do you believe in miracles?"

"Of course I do. I've just been to church after all."

Ray smiled and rose from the gutter. "I've had a miracle tonight. A real angel came and spoke to me and now I have to get to Bodie and help him come back."

Sister Noel showed no surprise at these pronouncements. "This is certainly the day for miracles. But before you do that perhaps you should come back with me and have a cup of tea and warm up. You won't do anyone any good if you freeze to death."

Ray shivered as his wet jeans were subjected to the icy winds. "Yes, alright. I am a bit cold."

"You come along with me. I'm staying with friends and it isn't far." Sister Noel collected her bag and took Ray by the arm.

Before Ray knew it he was sitting in someone else's warm dressing gown in front of a fire drinking hot tea.

Sister Noel took a seat next to him and without asking took his hand. "You've had some rough days, haven't you? And something still troubles your heart, but you must believe that all will be well."

Ray fought the urge to cry again. How could he tell this woman of all people about his feelings for Bodie? Deciding that telling half the truth was enough he said, "My partner, Bodie, was shot last month. The doctors messed something up and he didn't get enough oxygen during the surgery." Ray sniffed. "He's been in a coma since and now the doctors say he won't be coming out of it. Brain damage or something."

"And you miss him very much, don't you?" Sister Noel squeezed his hand lightly.

"Yes. I never knew how important he was to me until he was gone." Ray closed his eyes as he felt the tears starting again. "He was always there, always waiting for me and I...." Used him, Ray added to himself, words too damning to share: I took what I wanted when I didn't have anything better on offer and ignored him when I did.

"Oh, I'm sure he knew you cared for him."

"Not enough." Ray yanked his hand back and clenched his fists. "I was always the most important person in the world to him and he was never that for me."

"But now he is?"

Ray nodded, unable to speak for the lump in his throat.

Sister Noel stood and examined Ray's jeans that were drying before the fire. "These are nearly dry enough to wear." She turned away from the fire. "I don't claim to know much about God, but I do know that there are reasons for things. If what you say is true and an angel did come to you this evening, there was a reason for it. It's never too late for miracles, Ray. You must believe."

"It's so hard," Ray said in a voice so full of pain that Sister Noel came and knelt beside him.

"Of course it is." She put a gentle hand on his knee. "Miracles, true miracles, only happen when nothing else can help you."

Ray handed Sister Noel the green ribbon. "Please, will you keep this for me?" The Bodie who suffered so terribly from the bomb blast may not have been real, but Ray couldn't bear to keep the ribbon that would remind him of that pathetic figure. Likewise he could never simply discard it as unimportant. "It's something the angel gave me."

She didn't question him, taking the ribbon solemnly before leaving the room to allow him to dress.

---

Ray entered Bodie's hospital room with something like hope. Sister Noel was right, what was the point of an angelic visitation if nothing much could be changed? No, Bodie would wake up. All he had to do was to convince Bodie that he was loved and everything would be fine.

He gently stroked the arm that wasn't currently being used for IVs. Bodie was so pale and so very still. Ray felt tears starting as the reality of Bodie's condition faced him. "I need you, Bodie. Need you so very, very much." Ray wept onto the chest of the comatose man.

And then the angel's words came to him. Life was more than just getting by and seeking your own pleasures. Life was also about helping others and doing what needed to be done to stop the evil that was just waiting to happen. He might need Bodie, but everyone in London needed Bodie more. "Bodie, listen it's important. You need to wake up now, Cowley needs you, CI5 needs you. We need to get back to work."

For a moment nothing happened and then Ray felt a change in Bodie's breathing pattern. Shocked, he pulled back and watched the sleeping man. Bodie took in a single long gasping breath then opened his eyes.

"Bodie!" Ray flung himself down, taking his partner in his arms. "Bodie, you're awake!"

"Ray?" Bodie managed through dry lips.

"Shhh, don't try and talk. Everything will be alright now."

Bodie looked around, obviously trying to figure out where he was. "How'd we get off the bridge, Ray?"

Ray stroked Bodie's cheek with a shaking hand. "We were given a second chance for Christmas, Bodie, and this time we'll do it right. Everything's going to be fine, I promise."

Bodie closed his eyes and smiled. "Love you, Ray."

And Ray wondered why he had ever thought that he needed anything besides Bodie's love. "Love you too, angel."

-- THE END -

December 2003