The sequel to my fic 'In the Long Ago'. This picks up directly where that one ends.

I've taken some liberties with one plot aspect of SGA episode 'Coup d'Etat' in this.

Colby/Lorne slash. It's explicit in places, hence the rating.

Strong as death

Colby was pretty sure this guy wasn't a hallucination, however unexpected his sudden appearance might be. He hadn't been hallucinating, so far as he could tell, for some hours now and he also had no idea why he would hallucinate some middle-aged guy in a suit standing next to his hospital bed and introducing himself as Edward Armitage. Then again, the talking St Bernard had also been a bit of a surprise, though Megan – who swore blind she wasn't a hallucination – had assured him it wasn't really there. Just as she'd sworn that Evan hadn't been there either, that he hadn't turned away from Colby and walked out of his room without speaking to him. Colby hoped she was right.

He blinked and pushed himself up on his pillow.

"Mind if I sit down, Agent Granger?" Edward Armitage asked.

"Uh, sure," he said.

"I understand you're being discharged tomorrow morning."

"Right." That was the first Colby had heard of it. Or at least, it was the first he could remember hearing of it. He seemed to have missed a lot over the two days he'd been here. That's how long they'd told him it had been anyway; he'd lost all grasp on time for – well, he didn't know how long for.

"There'll be a driver here at 1100hrs to take you to your debrief," Armitage continued.

That was who this man reminded him of, then – Kirkland. Respectable and eminently forgettable. Speaking of whom…

"Is Kirkland really dead?" he asked.

"Yes."

Colby wasn't surprised. He'd believed the guy with the glasses but, somehow, he'd still hoped.

"So, am I…?" He didn't quite know how to finish that one. 'In the clear' made it sound like he'd actually done something wrong but with Kirkland dead nobody else would know he'd been acting under orders.

"You'll be debriefed in full tomorrow," Armitage said, standing up and passing Colby a business card. A business card that he found was completely free of anything except a cell number. "Should you need anything in the meantime, call this number."

And he was about to walk out the room leaving Colby none the wiser about a single thing, not even knowing if he'd be going back to prison after the debrief.

"Am I still under arrest?" he blurted out. There were no restraints holding him down now, but earlier he'd been tied to the bed. Megan had assured him it was simply for protection, both his own and that of the nursing staff, but who knew if Megan had really been there at all?

Armitage turned in the doorway to Colby's room and looked at him for a moment. There wasn't even the slightest hint in his face to give Colby a clue about his thoughts as he spoke. "You've been completely exonerated, and all those originally notified of your arrest have been advised accordingly. You're now at liberty to divulge unclassified aspects, should you judge it appropriate to do so." But we'd really rather you didn't, seemed to be the unspoken addendum.

The relief that swamped Colby as Armitage walked away left him feeling suddenly weak. He knew it wasn't over yet. He'd done some things he really wished he hadn't had to do – and at that point his mind flinched away from thinking about it because he still didn't know how he was going to tell Evan – and there was the small fact that he'd been reporting back on his own team ever since joining them. But he was cleared. Free. And, against all his expectations, alive.

He'd been surprised to wake up in a hospital bed, unhurt except for the deep ache in his chest and the soreness of muscles that had spent hours in spasm, the need to move almost unbearable and always unattainable. He remembered - or thought he did – a final needle that had supposedly contained potassium chloride, but then he also thought he remembered the FBI arriving and that had seemed just a bit too good to have been true. He should have asked Megan about it, but by the time he'd been able to think about anything other than dodging the damn needles that kept coming at him, and trying to work out what was and wasn't real, she'd been gone.

He didn't know what had happened, but perhaps it didn't even matter all that much. What mattered was that he was, at last, free of it all.

For the first time in too many years he could breathe again.

Her lungs were burning as she ran as fast as she could, away from the gunfire and toward the gate. Adrenaline might lend her feet swiftness but it didn't stop her lungs craving air and she sobbed as she ran, promising herself that if only they all got out of this she would spend so much longer in the gym every single day. She didn't remember the gate being this far from the village on their way this morning. Major Lorne's easy conversation as they'd walked had made it seem no distance at all, and had been so different from the whip crack of an order he'd given over her earpiece just minutes ago for her to fall back to the gate now and call for back-up.

It was like those dreams where you were trying to run but couldn't move. No matter how fast she ran, it wouldn't be quickly enough. She put everything she had into covering those last yards to the DHD and dialling Atlantis, giving her IDC.

"Dr Lindsay," she got out, panting wildly. "We need back up now. Major Lorne's team, under fire." And then her legs started trembling and the only thing holding her up was the DHD as she hoped against hope she hadn't been too slow, that the help that was now coming wouldn't be too late.

Colby hoped they'd be able to tell him at the upcoming debrief what had happened. He had no idea how he'd gotten off the freighter, what had happened to the guy with the glasses, nor what had happened to Dwayne.

He was thinking back through it all when he realised that the only clothes he had with him were prison issue. There was no damn way he was going to walk out of the hospital in those stinking things. He wondered who there was he could call who might be willing to do something for him and came up absolutely blank. The team was out of the question. Evan too, for different reasons. He decided in the end that Edward Armitage could earn the money the government paid him and called the number on the card.

The man who answered wasn't Armitage but he knew who Colby was. When Colby asked if somebody could go to his apartment and get some clothes and shoes for him for the next day, he wasn't in the least surprised that the man on the other end didn't ask where his apartment was, nor where to bring the clothes to.

Instead, another instantly forgettable, if considerably younger, man appeared in his hospital room just as he'd finished trying to choke down something that was rather optimistically called fish pie. The guy had a suit bag over his shoulder – and Colby knew damn well he didn't own a suit bag – which he hung up, plus another bag that he put down by the side of the bed.

So far, so good, but then the man opened the soft leather attaché case he'd also been carrying and instead of some sort of official-looking paperwork, he pulled out a furniture catalogue. Colby's head started to ache at the return of the hallucinations. The St Bernard had at least been cuter, if somewhat disturbingly insistent about going home with him.

"You might want to choose a new couch and mattress," the guy said, and the catalogue felt heavy and unexpectedly solid in Colby's hands. "Call the number on the front and we'll arrange for them to be delivered tomorrow morning."

Colby stared at him. "You're trying to tell me you're a furniture salesman? In thatsuit?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that, Agent Granger," he said primly. The hint of a laugh in his eyes reminded Colby of Evan, the way he'd seem to be buttoned-down and dutiful but with that subversive streak of humour that came through at the most inappropriate times.

"Is the Bureau paying?" First things first. Prioritisation was one of his strengths, or so Evan told him, usually when he'd put off doing something else in order to do Evan.

"There'll be no need for you to file an administrative claim," Evan-lite said.

That was the best news he'd had all day. Not that that was saying all that much.

Once he was alone again he started flicking through the catalogue. He'd been involved in enough searches of suspects' property to know just why he'd need new stuff. It hadn't been something he'd thought of in relation to himself, though.

Choosing a mattress was easy – another king-size, pocket sprung, good quality one that would last years even with his and Evan's best efforts – and he decided in a rush of rebellion not just to replace his couch with something similar and inexpensive but to go all out and get the monstrously-sized leather couch the catalogue featured on its front cover. It looked big enough for him and Evan to make out on without cramping their style one little bit, and he might just have a slight hankering to hold Evan down on the purportedly butter-soft leather while he fucked him. Or to have Evan pin him down and fuck into him, with that same smooth leather against his skin. He wasn't fussy which way it went. He just knew that leather and Evan seemed like a good combination.

He phoned his choices through. Then he lay back against the pillow, watching the minutes tick by and trying not to think too hard. What was done was done. He'd never wanted to do it, but he couldn't undo it, either. He just hoped that when it came to it, Evan, David, Don – all of them – would understand. Remembering David's furious contempt and the look on Don's face, he wasn't sure it was going to be possible to find a way back.

And that wasn't counting Evan. He didn't know if Evan would know anything about any of this – wherever he was posted, they seemed not to get too much in the way of domestic newsfeeds – but Colby had disappeared off the face of the earth for five and a half weeks, which Evan was definitely going to have noticed. Even if by some stroke of luck he hadn't, Colby would have to tell him everything. He wasn't looking forward to it.

Sheppard had a really bad feeling about this. He knew that, if he'd been able to, Lorne would have sent one of his men back to stay with Dr Lindsay. The fact he hadn't was not a good sign. Lindsay had been waiting helplessly on her own by the gate, not even close to any cover, practically wringing her hands when they'd stepped through.

They'd double-timed it to the village despite the lack of daylight, Lindsay proving to be a willing but pretty damn useless source of information. Turning off the main street where she indicated, they found that the building where she'd left Lorne and his team was now a burned-out ruin, tendrils of smoke still rising from its remains.

Leaving her with Rodney, John led Teyla and Ronon into the dark shell of the house to do something he'd hoped he'd never have to do again in this lifetime - search through charred ruins while hoping desperately that he wouldn't find what he was looking for.

The car dropped Colby outside his apartment building and, on letting himself in through the door, using the key Evan-lite had left in his bag, he was greeted by a smell of new paint, a series of packing boxes stacked in the middle of the floor, a huge dark brown couch that dominated the living room, and a feeling of relief as the lock engaged behind him. He leaned back against the door to be extra sure he was both safe and alone. He was still dazed by what he'd learned at his debrief: that Dwayne was dead because of him, that Don and the others hadbelieved in him and come for him, despite everything – and reading between the lines, Don was now in a pile of shit for all the protocols he'd broken – and that David, who'd shown the most hatred towards him for what he'd done, had been the one to bring him back, refusing to give up on CPR even when it had seemed like a lost cause.

There'd been some nice words for Colby at the end, things about duty and service and sacrifice, but while those things had been important to Colby once, all he wanted now was for things to go back to how they had been. And not to think about Michael Kirkland, tortured until his body gave out, or Dwayne, dying to save Colby. One final act that ensured Colby would never be free of him.

It seemed like the world was off its axis and he couldn't get his balance. He might be back in his apartment with his name cleared and his reputation restored, but things had changed and nothing would ever be quite the same again. He needed to talk to Evan, or at least email him, the nearest they could get to talking on Evan's current posting.

Looking to the corner of the living room where his PC lived he found that it was, of course, gone. That was when the significance of the packing boxes hit him, and he searched them till he found the one containing his PC. In a smaller box that had been left on the table, he found his essential bits and pieces – his cell phone, wallet, keys, even the RF detector he'd used to sweep his apartment for bugs. He shouldn't be needing that any more, but it wouldn't hurt to check one last time before ditching it.

Saving the rest of the unpacking for later, he put his computer together, made himself a black coffee – he really would need to go out and get some groceries before much longer – and sat down to write the hardest email of his life. He'd thought about what to say to Evan when it was all over. He'd spent probably way too long thinking of exactly that when he was in prison. But the difference between what he wanted to say and what he couldsay, knowing that everything would go through the military censors, was even harder than he'd anticipated. It was almost an hour before he was finally happy with the few lines he'd managed to put together. His words were faint echoes of what he meant, but Evan would know that. They were old hands at this, after all. Before he could second-guess it yet again, he hit 'send'.

He got his stuff together to go down the beach, but in between he kept checking his inbox. There were usually a few days between sending anything and hearing back but there was no harm in looking.

No answer had arrived by the time he left the apartment. He needed to be out in the fresh air. Thinking about being out there on the water had been one of the visualisation techniques he'd used during those long days in the cell. At least his counter-interrogation training had come in useful for something, though he didn't think another of his visualisation techniques would have met with his instructors' unqualified approval, involving as it did Evan spread out on Colby's bed, wearing nothing except his dog tags.

/

It was after dark when Colby got back to his apartment, a sack of groceries in one hand and his board under his arm. It hadn't been quite the catharsis he'd been looking for - his muscles had been weak and his balance off. Maybe his body was still unhappy with what that Lancer guy had done to it. He'd ended up getting dumped a hell of a lot more than usual, and even when it had gone right, it hadn't stopped that feeling that was gnawing away at his gut, that would carry on doing so until he heard back from Evan.

The first thing he'd done on getting out of the water was check his email on his cell. There'd been nothing from Evan but he'd picked up a voice message from the office of the Assistant Director In Charge, telling him to report at 11.30 the following morning.

Sleep evaded him that night, and he spent most of it refreshing his inbox and writing another email which he sent to Evan.

John stood on the gate room balcony and watched the recovery team bringing Lorne and his men back through the gate. Pitiful remains on stretchers, placed in body bags out of respect to the dead.

He'd known, deep in his gut, as they'd gone in, before they'd found anything. Finding that burned body, with the just recognisable remains of an Atlantis uniform fused to it, had left no room for doubt even before he saw the dog tags. And God help him, but as he'd lifted them up to read them, even in his anger and grief at the loss of one of his men, he'd found himself hoping it was one of the others, one of the team members he didn't know, not Lorne.

Of course he'd been wrong. Lorne wouldn't have been the man he'd been if he'd left one of his team to die. Of course he'd have been there in the middle of it all, fighting to the end.

After Ford, John hadn't wanted another 2IC, let alone one that SGC foisted on him. It had felt like giving up on Ford. There wasn't anything wrong with Lorne, it was just that he wasn't Ford.

And then John had gotten to know Lorne better and, while he wasn't Ford, he was bizarrely well-suited to John's style of command, seeming to adjust with no problem and a perpetually amused expression in his eyes to the unique challenges of life in Pegasus, while never losing his sense of military structure. He'd been the perfect XO. And John had ended up liking the smart-mouthed duty-obsessed major, to the point of almost worrying about how withdrawn he'd become since finding out about that Granger guy a month ago. That Granger guy who'd so obviously been more than just a buddy and who'd let Lorne down so badly. Almost as badly as John had let him down.

He kept his eyes on the stretchers as they were carried through the gate room, with Rodney beside him, his usually mobile mouth pressed into a tight line. They stood there together in silence, giving Lorne, Shelby, Garcia and Harrison the recognition and respect they deserved on their final return to the city.

Colby tried not to fidget. It was tough going, though; this was the first time he'd worn a tie for about six weeks and his best suit was more uncomfortable than he remembered. The assessing gaze of the ADIC's Executive Assistant, a lady in her fifties who reminded him uncomfortably of Mrs Clark from 21B with her penetrating gaze, self-possessed air, and immaculate dress sense, wasn't helping his nerves as he sat and waited to be called in. He didn't know what sort of reception he was going to get after he'd spied on the FBI, even if in the end it had turned out that they weren't the ones with the rotten apple, and he really wanted to stay with the Bureau and do the job he'd signed on to do in the first place.

"You may go in, Agent Granger," Mrs Clark Jr said, and what the hell? How did she do that? There'd been no signal from the office that he'd noticed, and he was a trained agent.

He pushed the door open and found the Assistant Director was on his feet, moving round from behind his desk with his hand outstretched, the smile on his face completely belied by the steeliness of his eyes.

"Agent Granger," he said. "Good to see you back on your feet."

"Thank you, sir."

He sat down at the AD's urging and as he took in the sheer amount of chrome, glass and leather on display in this top floor office he felt any faint pangs of guilt about his choice of couch wither and die.

"I understand you're cleared medically for return to duty."

"Yes, sir." It had taken a little persuasion but the docs had finally relented.

"Good. Ah, thank you, Miranda." Colby tried not to jump as a china cup of coffee suddenly appeared in front of the AD and then another one was placed in front of him. He nodded his thanks to Miranda, who closed the door behind her with a discreet click.

"A number of people have spoken highly of your actions," the AD said, though the tone of his voice seemed to indicate he hadn't been among them. Fair enough – Colby had been undercover in his office without his knowledge.

"In fact, I'm very pleased to be able to inform you that you are going to be awarded the FBI Medal for Meritorious Conduct for your extraordinary and exceptional service."

Colby thought for a minute he couldn't be hearing this right, but then pulled himself together as he realised the AD was very obviously awaiting a response from him. Preferably a gushing one, he gathered.

"Uh, thank you," he fumbled, and totally failed to say whatever more was expected of him.

The AD was silent just long enough to underline his deficiency before continuing, "Evidently your exemplary actions provide us with an ideal opportunity to inform the public about the work the FBI is doing on their behalf from the LA Office. This was cleared for release this morning."

'This' was a piece of paper, topped with the words 'Press release' and Colby's Bureau picture which he hated because it made him look like a skeevy seventies porn star. That's what Evan said, anyway, and Colby couldn't actually argue with him on that one.

He read through the text while drinking his coffee, and it didn't take long for Colby to realise just why the AD was so keen on promoting his 'exemplary actions' when he was just as evidently pissed as hell that Colby had been spying on his agents. Along with embarrassingly effusive claims about what Colby had done, there were several references to the LA Office and its Assistant Director In Charge, Walter Merrick, and most of the first and final paragraphs consisted of soundbite-friendly quotes from the very same ADIC.

Colby shrugged mentally; it wasn't as if any of this really meant much anyway. What was more important to him right now was how the team downstairs would receive him.

And that was suddenly a very pressing concern as the AD, with a practised ease, indicated that the interview was terminated, bidding him to sit tight downstairs while he waited for his next posting to be communicated to him.

"If you have any queries from the press as a result of any of this, you have no comment to make and will put them through to this office," he said as Colby's hand was already on the door handle.

"Yes, sir," Colby agreed, and then found himself on the other side of the door where Miranda had another victim squirming under her scrutiny.

He ducked into the men's bathroom before heading down to Violent Crimes, needing to make sure his tie was still straight before he made his appearance there. He had the feeling that the worst part of the day was still to come.

/

He'd been right in that, he decided when he finally arrived back at his apartment that evening and gratefully opened a beer. Despite Megan's quiet welcome and acceptance it had been a spectacularly crappy day. The stares and the whispers had been expected but he hadn't realised just how guarded Don would be with him, calculation and suspicion evident in his eyes the few times he spoke to Colby. David had only spoken to him when Colby had physically cornered him and forced him to.

Colby knew he had to go back into the office again tomorrow and every day thereafter, but right now it felt like the last thing he wanted to do. The hostility and suspicion was bad enough; the knowledge of what he'd had and the fact that he was the one responsible for its loss, was worse.

And there was still nothing from Evan, despite Colby checking his personal email account with increasing frequency through the day. He'd give anything right now for Evan to walk through the door and tell Colby he'd been given unexpected leave. Even if he was mad as hell at Colby for what he'd done, Colby just wanted to see him. For Evan to be there, grounding him, somehow making sense of the confused mess that his life had become.

It was far from the first time he'd had to do this. It wasn't even the worst time he'd had to do this. But John Sheppard, Lt Col USAF, didn't want to do this. He didn't want to take those dog tags that meant he'd failed his people and send them home to Earth, to more grieving families, without being able to give any explanation or justification because of Atlantis's secrets. And while he knew - God, he knew – that having a reason for their loss didn't make it hurt any the less, it did at least help to make some sort of sense of that sudden gaping absence.

But he couldn't give that to Lorne's family, nor to the families of any of Lorne's team. They could never know the way they'd stood, the last line of defence, between Earth and the Wraith that wanted to destroy them all.

He spent longer in his office than he had for a long time – since Lorne had come to Atlantis, he realised. It said everything that Rodney left him alone for this. They were about as good as one another when it came to talking about anything, but the fact he'd been here for hours and Rodney wasn't bugging him showed that he knew what it cost John each time he had to write one of these letters. Letters which were so hollow compared to the reality, but so desperately important to the person receiving them, the last part of the person they'd loved.

He screwed up the piece of paper in front of him, pulled a fresh sheet close, and tried yet again.

Dear Mr and Mrs Lorne,

I had the honour of serving with your son….

Colby was at his desk early the next morning. It wasn't as if he had anything much to do there right now but if he were to have any chance of patching things up, it seemed like a good idea to at least show up on time.

The press release that had been shoved in his face appeared to have been made public, because the mail he got at the office that day included some weird stuff. There were letters from people he'd never heard of who wanted to thank him for his service, which was odd but nice, but there were also letters from people who seemed to want to thank him up close and personal. It almost made him worry about opening his mailbox back at the apartment in case any of the crazies wanting to do all that stuff to him had found his home address. He didn't know what to do with the letters but, after talking to the Bureau's PR office, he sent them on to be answered. Or in some cases, he hoped, burned.

Sighing, he checked his email. And maybe, possibly, sent another one. Just in case the others hadn't gotten through.

That afternoon he managed to persuade Liz to take him out to a crime scene, and it felt good to get back out there, to do what he knew he was good at. Liz was pretty cool, considering; she even seemed to think that David might come around in the end. He hoped so. God, he hoped so. David had been his best friend, the first person he'd ever trusted enough to tell about Evan. He'd just have to be patient and hang on in there, and hope.

It would be easier to stay optimistic if Evan would answer him, though.

When he got back to his apartment building that evening, he was relieved to find his mailbox didn't seem to have anything out of the ordinary in it, just bills and junk mail, which he snagged to look through upstairs. Checking his cell as he walked down the corridor, he was so focused on the inbox on his screen, still empty, that he stopped paying attention to his surroundings. That turned out to be a serious mistake.

"Colby Granger!"

He froze before turning slowly round to find Mrs Clark from 21B bearing down on him. Galleons in full sail crossed his mind. Running away also crossed his mind, but he had the feeling that running away from a lady in her mid-eighties might mean he'd have to forfeit his new medal before he even got it.

"Mrs Clark." He greeted her nervously, wondering what he'd done wrong this time.

"Oh, I amglad you're back," she said surprisingly, grasping his forearm tightly. "It's been such a worry, not knowing what was going on and all those people in and out of your apartment as if they owned the building. They were extremely rude, you know. But your friend said it was simply a mix-up. As soon as I saw the sand in the hallway this morning, I just knew you were back."

"Sorry," he said, more out of habit than anything else.

She looked him over carefully. "Well, I suppose you can be let off this once," she said at last, "because we have missed you, you know. But you must make sure you clean your board properly in future before you come into the building."

"Yes, ma'am." He fought the urge to salute, even as he was still working through everything she'd said. "A mix-up?" he asked, wondering what cover story had been put out there.

"That's what your friend said when he was here last month. Nobody else would tell us anything. They were terribly rude, you know."

"My friend?" For an instant he was worried that another operative had been there, maybe putting her and others in danger. But as she looked at him as if he was slightly mentally deficient – the way she usually looked at him, for that matter – he figured she could more than hold her own against any mere spy.

"The nice young man with the blue eyes," she said. "He's a military boy, like you. Strong arms," she added, and dear God, was that a wistful look on her face?

"Evan?"

She looked a little offended as she released her grip on his forearm. "I didn't ask his name. I don't interfere in other people's business, you know."

"No, ma'am." He ducked his head, chastened by the reprimand.

"He had brown hair, if that helps," she said.

"About so high?" Colby held his hand at Evan height.

She nodded. "That's him. He was taking out your trash. It smelled horrible."

Evan had been here. Evan knew.

He pulled himself together enough to bid Mrs Clark good evening and assure her he would take better care with his surfboard in the future before fumbling with his keys and letting himself in to his apartment. Evan had known about his arrest, weeks before the truth had come out.

Colby dropped numbly down on the couch and buried his face in his hands. What must he have thought? A mix-up, he'd apparently called it. But if he'd spoken to the FBI, there was no way Evan could have continued to believe that. Colby – and others – had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to make sure nobody viewing the evidence could doubt his guilt. Even if he'd gotten Colby's email by now, he'd spent at least a month thinking Colby had lied to him. Which, technically, he had, but at least not in so bad a way as Evan must have ended up believing.

He pulled out his cell just in case, but his inbox was still empty. There'd been times he'd gone longer than this before hearing back from Evan, but he was beginning to get a really bad feeling about this.

Don sighed, something he seemed to have been doing a lot of lately, as he looked round the bullpen. Megan was out, another personal day. She'd taken a lot of those since her DOJ secondment. Then there was David, who hadn't been the same since the whole Colby mess started. Even finding out it was a double bluff hadn't calmed him down and Don was keeping a close eye and a tight rein on him, not wanting him to blow a promising career over something that nobody had seen coming. Which left Colby, who'd been in early again this morning, looking like he hadn't had much sleep. He now had his head down, working hard at any and every breadcrumb he'd been able to pick up, as if trying to prove himself to the team before he was reassigned.

Don found himself shaking his head, yet again. It seemed from how Colby was acting now that he was the same guy they'd thought they'd gotten to know over the previous two years, but who the hell could really tell? Either he'd been an ordinary guy caught in an impossible situation or he'd been a damn skilful operative. Despite having watched Lancer's recording of Colby's interrogation, Don still didn't know which it was.

He watched as Colby worked his way through the stack of mail he'd had delivered, most of which seemed to be handwritten letters or cards. That was celebrity for you. Maybe that was what Colby wanted. It would be best for him to move on as soon as possible to whatever posting the Director's Office had in mind, and then the rest of them could get back to being a functional goddamn team again.

Don made his way over to the break room. He needed more caffeine. He was just pouring himself a cup of coffee when the door opened and Colby came in.

"You want one?" Don asked, gesturing with the pot in his hand.

"Thanks," Colby said, looking nervous. And that was when Don got it. Shit. He'd seen Colby corner David earlier and try to talk to him. He'd seen from the body language that it hadn't gone well. So now it was his turn. Maybe he should have taken a page from Megan's book and skipped today; he didn't know what more Colby wanted from him, but he wasn't feeling all that well-disposed toward the guy who'd caused all this. Not least because he was still smarting from the latest bawling-out he'd received over the number of rules he'd broken. The only reason he wasn't in deep disciplinary-action kind of shit over this was the way it had all turned out.

"Look, Don," Colby started, taking the cup that Don held out to him, "I wanted to say thanks for what you did. You risked a lot on me."

Don shrugged. "If I hadn't, you'd be dead." And that hadn't come out quite how he'd meant it, but he just wanted Colby to stop talking.

"I'm sorry I had to lie to you," Colby ploughed on determinedly.

There wasn't anything Don could say to that because he was sorry too. He got the whole spy thing, he thought; he wasn't happy about it but he could get it. The fact Colby had been reporting on them, on Don's team, was another matter entirely.

"You did what you had to," he said, and made to walk past Colby, out of this goddamn awful conversation.

"Don." Colby's hesitant voice stopped him, and when he looked at Colby he thought he'd seen happier-looking kicked puppies. But this particular puppy had gone and bitten Don's hand, so he couldn't expect to have his belly rubbed like nothing had happened. And maybe that analogy had gotten away from Don just a little bit.

"What?"

"One of my neighbours said Evan was at my apartment. Evan Lorne. Did he – I mean, was he – "

Despite everything, Don found himself taking pity on Colby's discomfort, the way his eyes looked vulnerable all of a sudden, and he answered the question Colby seemed to be having so much trouble asking.

"He came to see me when he heard what had happened," he said, taking a step back and leaning against the counter. "He was determined it was all some sort of mistake, that you were innocent."

"Guess you put him straight on that," Colby said, his voice strained.

"I told him what we knew." Don stirred his coffee again, because he was not going to feel defensive over what he'd done, what he'd believed. "Said we didn't want to believe it either, but that it was what the evidence told us." He looked up suddenly and met Colby's eyes. "That it was what youtold us."

Colby couldn't hold his gaze and studied the floor in front of him.

"He still wanted to see you, even after I told him that," Don said. "He's a good guy."

Colby nodded, still staring at the floor. Don pushed the stirrer between his lips to stop himself saying anything further, and left the room.

It took Colby ten minutes to follow him out of there. Not that Don was watching him. And Don most definitely wasn't remembering some parts of that recording and thinking that maybe Colby had been through enough and somebody should find it in themselves to say something kind to him, in spite of everything. He hoped Megan would be back tomorrow.

Colby got back to his apartment from the call-out to the crime scene with just two hours left before his alarm was due to go off. That was a good feeling, because before he'd got the call from Liz, the night had stretched ahead of him, empty and just begging to be filled with thoughts.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to sleep for those two hours, he took himself into the office early and spent some time down the gym. He needed to get his fitness level back to where it had been before all this.

That energetic start to his day seemed to have gotten things moving. He paired up again with Liz out at the house where the first murder had occurred and they were at last making progress on the investigation. The hug and the honest welcome he received later that day from both Charlie and Alan eased the weight in his chest for a while too. The weight that seemed to increase every time he checked his email and found there was still nothing from Evan.

He understood if Evan was so mad at his lies that he didn't want anything more to do with him. He did. Or at least that's what he told himself. But he would have expected some sort of reply by now, even if telling him that, not just this continuing silence.

When he emptied his mailbox that evening, this time keeping a careful lookout for Mrs Clark, he found that along with a catalogue of gardening equipment, so very useful for someone who didn't have a yard, there was an envelope with Evan's handwriting on. He took it up to his apartment and then sat there, looking at it. The fact that Evan had found a way to get real mail to him, the first time he'd managed it from this posting, had to mean it was uncensored. That meant it was something private that Evan hadn't been able to wait to say – and Colby just didn't know if that was going to be a good thing or a bad thing.

He turned the envelope over and over in his hands, reluctant to open it. He thought Evan would understand everything if he could just have the chance to explain, but if Evan was so pissed, or so hurt – and that made Colby feel guilty as hell, thinking he might have done that to Evan – that he couldn't give Colby that chance, then… There wasno 'then', in that case. Everything would be over.

It took him a good fifteen minutes to summon the courage to open the envelope before extracting the hand-written letter it contained.

He read the first sentence, and then he slammed his eyes shut. He refused to read any further. If he didn't read it, it wouldn't be true. He wouldn't be sitting here holding this letter. One of those letters, the ones they'd all had to write before combat deployment. It wouldn't be true. It wasn't true. It wasn't – it, oh jesus fucking god, Evan.

It ripped through him and he folded in half, arms wrapping round himself as the letter – Evan's last words, the last things he'd say to Colby ever – fluttered to the floor.

Breathing hurt. Everything hurt. And he couldn't stop shaking.

Somehow he ended up on his knees on the floor, holding the letter while he smoothed the paper out, over and over, until there almost no sign left of the way he'd mangled it so badly when his fingers had closed on it. He shouldn't have damaged it. It was from Evan.

It was only when he was satisfied it was almost perfect again – though not quite; it would never recover completely from what he'd done - that he held it in hands that were still trembling, and started to read. It was dated from when Evan had first taken this posting, but the things it said were timeless. And pure Evan. Although the words kept blurring on the page in front of him, Colby found himself giving a choked laugh at one point. And then he got to the end, the simple Love you. Evan.

And that was it. That was all. Nothing more, ever.

Everything blurred round Colby, smearing into a mess of tears and sickness and regret, so much fucking regret that he didn't know what to do with himself. Not that it mattered any more. Evan was gone.