The Return (Professionals story)
| The Professionals Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Return |
| Author(s): | Ellis Ward |
| Date(s): | paper circuit library before May 1993; posted online Dec 2003 |
| Length: | 219k |
| Genre: | |
| Fandom: | The Professionals |
| External Links: | online at AO3 online at the Circuit Archive, Archived version |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Return is a 68-page Professionals slash story written by Ellis Ward.
The story sometimes appears on fans' Desert Island lists.[1]
Summaries
"Ray Doyle quit CI5 after his partner was kidnapped and believed dead. Until one day Cowley appears on his doorstep, bringing wonderful news and an utterly exhausted visitor. But what has happened to Bodie?"[2]
"Bodie is dead and Doyle is working as a construction worker when Cowley calls in on him unexpectedly after work one night."[3]
Author's Comments
Conversely, any [stories of yours] you cringe about now with hindsight?
Not so much cringe as squirm. Bits of "The Return," the first slash B&D I attempted can make me wriggle like a worm. [4]
Reactions and Reviews
Unknown Date
I really love this story - I think it's because I like the emotional intensity that comes from Doyle's reactions to Bodie's death and subsequent events.[5]
1993
... a revenge story that *I* really like. It's Coogan again that's the perpetrator, but he kidnaps Bodie, yet makes it look as though he's been murdered -- substituting someone else's burned-beyond-recognition body. Doyle, grief-stricken, quits CI5 and becomes a labourer. Several months later, Bodie escapes his captors and comes back. It turns out that Coogan had kidnapped Bodie in order to program him to fall in love with Doyle, and thusly ruin the partnership.
I don't think these villains who want revenge would be as insensitive as has been suggested. If their whole life revolves around avenging themselves on someone, they're going to invest a *lot* of time investigating/researching that person: what he does and when and who with, etc. They're really going to get genned up on who to target in order to cause the maximum amount of pain in the revengee.[6]
Why would Coogan (I still think he was nothing but an underworld thug, not a cultured James Bondish villain) think ruining the partnership would be a revenge on Doyle for killing his brother? As slash fans, we see THE PARTNERSHIP as a prequel to THE RELATIONSHIP. But, to everyone else, including those who populate the universe of aired CI5, it is A partnership. Partnerships are SOP in CI5. Why would Coogan think Bodie and Doyle's was any more special that McCabe and Lucas?
Even if you accepted the idea that Coogan would think ruining the partnership would be a suitable revenge, why (unless he's a closet slash fan) would he think making Bodie fall in love with his partner ruin the partnership? Programming him to kill/rape/cripple Doyle would be a possibility (emerging from the smoke) but this "falling in love" is something only a fan would come up with.
EVEN IF you accepted the first two ideas, how is Coogan going to gather the resources he needs to "program" Bodie to "fall in love". If he had this type of power what's he doing selling drugs and pimping when he could be charging astronomical sums of money to kidnap Hillary Clinton and program her to be a conservative, thus thus terminally confusing her husband.
When you have Bodie and Doyle alone, having a crisis (Siren, Bound to the Mast, etc. Beggars Banquet) it can be THE PARTNERSHIP. Even within CI5, to some extent, you can have perceptive people pick up on the fact there is something special about 3/7-4/5's rapport, but when you push it much farther than that you're turning credible villains into Miguelito Loveless from the Wild Wild West -- unlimited resources, time, energy etc. expended for revenge.
Give the plotline of The Return the Dragnet test -- substitute Joe Friday and Frank Gannon for Bodie and Doyle. X badguy wants to get revenge on Joe Friday for shooting his brother, so he kidnaps Frank Gannon, programs him to fall in love with Joe Friday...
[snipped]
Many people really liked this story because of the angst and suffering. There was internal logic to the story, but not external logic to the outside world. .e. why would thug believe that breaking up the partnership would be suitable revenge. In the thug's experience, ALL cops have partners. WE see it as a revenge lever because we see THE partnership of B&D and have invested a lot in it.[7]
2000
Ray Doyle quit CI5 after his partner was kidnapped and believed dead. Until one day Cowley appears on his doorstep, bringing wonderful news and an utterly exhausted visitor. But what has happened to Bodie?
This is certainly the Pros slash story I've re-read the most often. Its sweetness leaves me speechless every time. Doyle's agony over loosing Bodie, the miracle of his return, and the events that transpire afterwards - they're all depicted so tangibly that it feels like the reader experiences Bodie and Doyle's emotions with them. Ellis' Bodie has been turned inside out, is vulnerable and heartbreaking beautiful in his trust, and Doyle has also been shattered wide open by the perceived loss of his partner. Unparalleled.[2]
2004
I'm starting my rec month off the same way I intend to finish it - with a story that concerns itself with the inner workings of Bodie's mind. Ellis Ward writes romantic, satisfying tales that never disappoint, sometimes wrapped around uncomfortably violent circumstances. However, this isn't one of them - what little violence there is remains off screen. So what truly sets this story apart is how deceptively simple it is, as it begins under the saddest of conditions - the presumed death of a partner and the subtle yet inexorable decline of the one left behind. Of course, not all is as it seems and soon the Lads are separated from everything they've ever known and left only with each other - which turns out to be exactly what they'd both longed for and needed for a very long time. Yet all through the story, there's a question that haunts them - how authentic is the connection and how deeply does it go? As always with this author, the prose is so pure and delicious you could eat it with a spoon; the love scenes are well-placed and sexy as hell. Ellis Ward's Bodie and Doyle are engaging, genuine and appropriately snarky, giving the reader a memorable experience of profound trust and intimacy.[8]
2007
This one's pretty much [on my Desert Island list] for nostalgia value. It's old-style slash, but still an enjoyable read."[9]
2010
A beautifully done psychological thriller, in which a kidnapped Bodie is returned, and everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop. I think this is my favourite and most re-read Pros fic; the balance point of Bodie's psyche is so perfectly done.[10]
References
- ^ Close Quarters Desert Island Episode/Zine/Fic dated July 18, 2009
- ^ a b Favorite Pros Recs by allaire dated May 23, 2000; reference link.
- ^ Madrigal's FanFiction Recs.
- ^ from Be Gentle With Us Interview: Ellis Ward (1993)
- ^ Madrigal's FanFiction Recs.
- ^ comments on Virgule-L, quoted anonymously (May 8, 1993)
- ^ comments on Virgule-L, quoted anonymously (May 8, 1993)
- ^ review at the crack-van dated April 3, 2004; reference link.
- ^ Desert Island Fanfics and Songvids dated April 5, 2007
- ^ Bodie/Doyle thematic rec post, Archived version by cupidsbow, dated August 1, 2010.