A/N – Getting in some Ros POV practice and also I needed to address that episode in series five where she and Malcolm are on that Saudi op together and blatantly are going to be BFFs afterwards.
Despite what many people seemed to believe, Ros Myers had never gone out of her way to be overly hateful to the analysts and backroom techies she had worked with over the years. It wasn't her fault that they ran like scared bunnies before her, flinching at every show of her face and slight rise of her voice.
It was their problem, not hers.
So she put it out of her mind, happy to let them think they needed to be afraid. It kept them at arm's length.
That was until Malcolm, though. There was something about him that made her think twice.
Perhaps it was guilt. No, it was definitely guilt. Of all the people on her hastily adopted new team, he was the one with the most reason to hate her. He had clearly been very close to this Colin, the techie who had been murdered to prove the very laboured point that her father and his friends were serious men. Ros disapproved of the decision and had made that disapproval known, but Malcolm wasn't to know that. He should have hated her.
Instead, the infuriating man let it go. He was still mourning, that much was clear, but he forgave her for her involvement in the murder. It made Ros step back and think again. She had been prepared to treat him with icy respect, an icy respect that would have been appropriate if he had only done the decent thing and reacted like he was supposed to. It was almost rude, really. More than once, she considered telling him that, just to try and get a rise out of him. Surely something would get a rise out of him.
It was strange really, because of all the desk officers she had worked with, Malcolm was probably the shyest, the most nervous, the most awkward, but somehow he was the only one that she could not intimidate. Perhaps it was working for so long with Harry; Malcolm had developed his own coping strategy and perfected it. Deep down though, Ros knew that couldn't be it; Harry liked to talk big but when it came to his oldest colleague, he was a soft touch, a much softer touch than she would allow herself to be. Malcolm would just nod his head when she snapped, when she was as bitingly sarcastic as she could be, and he would do as she asked and he would give her the answer with a little twitch of his lips that she soon learned was the Malcolm equivalent of a smile.
"Malcolm smiles at you a lot," Zaf said curiously, after one such encounter, "He hardly ever smiles, you know."
"Really?" Ros feigned disinterest, her natural curiosity fighting to rise to the bait, "He must be charmed by my stunning personality."
Zaf laughed and the moment passed, forgotten for him at least. Ros ignored it, until the end of the day, when she allowed herself a few moments to surreptitiously watch Malcolm at his desk, and wonder what was happening inside that big brain of his. A sudden absurd thought crossed her mind that he might be crushing on her, teenage boy style. He was a good ten years older than her but that meant nothing in this place – you just had to look at Harry and Ruth to know that. It would explain a lot of things if he was. She had no time for such things…unless as a source of amusement, of course.
She decided to test him. When she got put on the Saudi op with him, she put her plan into action. She played the helpless damsel when he went to inject her chip, pretended she was scared of something as stupid as needles. He remained calm and collected and didn't touch her any more than was necessary. She sat a little bit closer to him that was necessary in the van, made sure he got a good look at her cleavage. Aside from giving her a little look of confusion from the corner of his eye, his body language didn't change. She kept up a constant and uncharacteristic chatter in his ear, making a few overtly suggestive comments and his voice didn't change when he replied. If anything, the only thing that changed was that Ros found she was enjoying his company. He was a very steady man. She was grateful for that steadiness when the target started fitting and by the time she was forced to bare all for the sake of the cover, she wasn't even thinking of messing with him. Sure, he got a good eyeful, but then any man with hot blood couldn't avert his eyes when that was offered to him. It meant nothing. She even found herself relieved that it was only Malcolm who had seen, that Harry or Zaf or Adam hadn't been there too.
It was only Malcolm. She could trust Malcolm.
As soon as that thought crossed her mind, she knew that she was screwed. Ros didn't really like to have friends; they caused mess and they got in the way and she never had the time for them that they often deserved. It was the strangest irony that Malcolm was, therefore, the first person on her new team that she might have considered bestowing the title of 'friend' upon. Perhaps it was because he was lonely too, having lost Colin, but it still didn't quite add up. By all accounts, Ros was no Colin. Then again, it wasn't like she was particularly functioning socially, so perhaps they were more similar than first appearances might suggest.
Malcolm would bring her cups of coffee at the end of the long days and, soon enough, she would bring him tea to return the favour. He was delighted when he found that she was almost as good a cryptic crossword partner as Colin and Ruth had been and he never minded how grudgingly she volunteered an answer. Once or twice she even ripped something out of The Sunday Times for him, because it would interest him and she knew he read The Guardian. Ros didn't have friends, but in as much of a capacity as she did, Malcolm was a real friend.
She got used to his voice being in her ear when she was on an op and became irritable if someone else replaced him, even just for an hour so he could have a break. He got used to her snapping and pushing people away and knew that she never really meant it. When he went charging, all guns blazing, into a hostage situation that could quite easily have killed him, she was furious at him. Playing the hero wasn't Malcolm, not in the slightest, and when he retired almost immediately afterwards she was even more angry. He had become a fixture, like Harry and Jo, in her life and now he was leaving it.
She was furious at him.
She admired his strength in being able to walk away.
She missed him.
It was stupid but she did. Tariq was efficient but he was too damn young and too damn excitable and he wasn't steady. Not like Malcolm had been.
In the last minutes of her life, dragging the Home Secretary down the corridors of a hotel and knowing she was doomed to die here, Ros had a few seconds when she was grateful for the first time that Malcolm had retired because at least he didn't have to see this. He would have already hacked into the hotel CCTV by now and be watching her, powerless to help or even to reassure her. It didn't do to be sentimental, not in this job, but Malcolm had watched enough people he cared for die and now, at the end of her life, she could afford to be glad that she didn't have to be another one.
She was glad to spare him the pain and that, she thought, was really all that friendship was really about.