Emerging from the Smoke

Fanfiction
Title:	Emerging from the Smoke
Author(s):	HG
Date(s):
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	The Professionals
Relationship(s):
External Links:	on the ProsLib CD
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Emerging from the Smoke is a Professionals 29-page story by HG.

It is a sequel to Leap in the Dark by Chris Power.

It is an alternative sequel to The Janus.

Author's Comments

HG was asked in 1988: "Is there any story of yours that you really hate and wish you had never written?"

Her reply: "Again, hate is too strong a term. There are plenty I'm dissatisfied with when I go back to them but I suppose that's inevitable. "Emerging from the Smoke" got lost somewhere along the way. I still like parts of it, but it shouldn't have gone out when it did."

Reactions and Reviews

1988

"Emerging From The Smoke" is an emotionally charged resolution to "Leap in the Dark", and the two scenes where Bodie realizes it was he who attempted to throttle Doyle, and where Doyle provokes his partner into realizing his true feelings never fail to move me and engender a riot of sympathy for Bodie, even after four or five times reading it; the characterization is outstanding in this one.

2004

Bodie has been injured in a car accident and, while he is still under the affect of drugs, his confused psyche sees Doyle as an enemy and betrayer and he tries to strangle his partner.

"The crazy, tender melting Bodie could inspire in him when he was least expecting it no longer disconcerted Doyle. He had long since accepted that where Bodie was concerned he had few defenses against the uncharacteristic marshmallow softness that sat so oddly in his otherwise detached persona. Sometimes the ache to risk losing the effortless rapport he and Bodie shared and blurt out the truth was almost irresistible. But how did you explain that Ray Doyle, well-known lover of ladies and all round stud had fallen in love with his partner? Prepared to launch into speech he would catch that ironical gaze and his nerve would fail him."

"Maybe one day, he thought, resigned to his own ineptitude."

I'm not sure I buy the psychological reactions of either Bodie or Doyle - but then, I'm not sure they wouldn't react that way either . Either way, it's a very interesting take based on an extreme situation - and I enjoyed the story thoroughly.