Rainy Day
Disclaimer: These characters from The Professionals are (c) Mark-1 Productions Ltd. I don't own them, I only wish I did. I'm borrowing them for a short while only, and promise to put them back when I've finished playing.

Big thanks, again, to Brenda for the beta.

Rainy Day

The shrill, insistent ringing of the alarm cut across the still of the morning, banishing sleep.

After a while, a hand slowly emerged from beneath the covers, and groped blindly across the cluttered surface of the bedside cabinet in search of the elusive switch that would bring blessed silence. A stray finger caught the edge of the clock, toppling it onto the floor. It continued to ring.

Bodie buried his head into the pillow, willing the ringing in his ears, and his head, to go away. Perfect start to the day.

"My tea's gone cold," Bodie complained. Turning away from the window, he flopped into a rickety chair at the small wooden table with a huge sigh. "Dunno why I got out of bed at all."

Doyle glanced up from the newspaper he was reading, but other than that gave no sign that he was listening to his partner's rant.

Unable to sit still for more than a minute, Bodie moved back to the window again, scowling out at the morning rain. "Can't even see anything," he moaned. "Not that there's anything to see,"

"Give it a rest, would you?" Doyle said, half-chuckling, as he turned a page. "You've been fidgeting around all morning."

Still scowling, Bodie crossed the rest room in a couple of strides and emptied his cold tea down the sink. Doyle followed the movement with his eyes. "Should've drank it before it went cold," he pointed out to his partner, mildly.

Bodie turned his glare on Doyle for a moment. "This is driving me mad."

"Didn't have far to go, did you?" Doyle answered, returning to his paper.

"What?" Caught up in his own thoughts, Bodie was barely listening, and so Doyle got away with that one.

Doyle eyed Bodie over the top of the newspaper. "Drank too much last night?" He enquired. "You were late in this morning."

"Dunno why I bothered," Bodie slumped morosely back into his chair. "Not exactly run off our feet, are we?"

"Don't knock it!" Doyle put his paper down and rose to reboil the kettle. "We spent the whole of last week running around getting shot at and the whole of this week getting the paperwork straight. You should be glad for a quiet day. I am."

"Yeah, well," Bodie paused and sighed. "If all we're gonna do is sit around here drinking tea all day I might as well have stayed in bed with my hangover."

"Ah." Doyle brought two steaming mugs back to the table and put one down in front of the other man before returning to his own seat. "I knew it. So what happened to the big night you had planned? Karen, wasn't it?"

Bodie rolled his eyes, tried a sip of his tea, grimaced, and added more sugar before replying. "Went off with another fella," he admitted, reluctantly.

"And you stayed to drown your sorrows," Doyle was still laughing as a head appeared around the door. "Oh there you are," the newcomer remarked. "The Cow's screaming for you two."

The pair caught each other's eyes as the messenger vanished again. "Looks like we're on," said Doyle, draining his mug as he rose to his feet in one fluid movement.

"Better not keep him waiting," Bodie agreed, the scowl replaced by his most charming smile as he caught the door and held it for his partner to duck beneath his arm and precede him to their boss's office.

The rain continued to fall steadily from the grey, heavily overcast November sky.

Crouching beside a stack of bricks at the building site where they had caught up with their target, Bodie wiped a hand across his forehead in a vain attempt to keep the drips out of his eyes. The target was armed, dangerous, and hiding somewhere. Probably, Bodie mused, somewhere under cover. Like Doyle, who he could just make out braced in a doorway, nice and dry and out of the rain. Typical.

A barrage of gunfire cut across his thoughts, jerking him back to business. He dived sideways to avoid the shots that came from one side of him, narrowly missing his head. The target thus giving away his position, Doyle was able to lean out of his doorway and settle the issue with a couple of well-placed bullets.

Bodie spat out a mouthful of mud, shook his head slightly to clear his eyes of the rainwater still dripping into them, and looked up from the puddle he'd landed in. His partner was sauntering towards him with a big grin plastered over his face. "You all right there, sunshine?"

Bodie ignored the question as he pulled himself back to his feet, trying vainly to wipe some of the mud off his once pristine outfit. At least the rain seemed to have stopped at last. He looked over to see Doyle checking the body and reporting in, requesting a clean-up team. Doyle then turned back to his partner, one eyebrow raised enquiringly. Bodie gave in with a sigh and rueful smile. "Thanks, mate. Knew I should've stayed in bed this morning!"

Reassured that he really was all right, Doyle chuckled. "Aw, c'mon. It's not that bad."

"Yeah, great," Bodie countered with a roll of his eyes. "Best day of my life this, couldn't be better." Dumped, hungover, cold, wet and miserable, he could have added, but thought better of it. Sympathy was clearly out of the question.

"You mean you aren't having fun?" Doyle was all innocence. "I thought you couldn't wait to get out of the office and back to some real work."

Bodie just looked at him for a moment, expressionless. Then he tried a different tactic. "Come on Doyle, let's get out of here. I could murder a pint."

"You don't seriously think I'm going to be seen in public with you looking like that, do you?"

"You little...."

(c) Jo - September 2002
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