This is an au s9 fic that tries to aim for an ensemble cast feel. I hope you enjoy :)
1.
He'd first seen her on the boat. Purple stockings, pale shirt, clinking jewellery, the works. Well he hadn't guessed what she was up to then but Ros had always said he was terrible at reading women. (She had also told him he had terrible taste too. It didn't hurt when Ros said it. It was probably true but Lucas had stopped caring. He felt he deserved something after prison.)
He supposed that was why he had found the girl so damned irritating. She was so infuriatingly right when it came to reading the situation; spoke multiple languages and could shoot a gun and hit the target and read his moods like a children's book.
She reminded him a little of Ros. Nowhere near as secure, as self assured, as professional, as icily beautiful, as his former colleague but the casual arrogance was shared. Maybe that was what annoyed him too.
He didn't care that he was being a bastard when he gave her the 50 (the going price for prostitutes on a ship and what he had said he would pay for a go. It was a lie of course. She wasn't as appealing as all that.)
He had given her the 50 at her raised eyebrow, amused grin. She had reminded him of Ros and Ros was dead. For all that girl's smug self satisfaction, Ros was twenty times the person Beth Bailey would ever be.
2.
Tariq was clueless about the girl who had known all of the correct protocols. He hadn't even noticed what she looked like. That was Tariq for you. If they weren't male he wasn't interested. Lucas wondered if Dimitri had even noticed the stares yet.
And it had been Beth sitting there, prim. What a surprise. And how he hated it when informers he disliked had important information.
He was startled into a moment of respect. "You must have gone through hundreds of photographs."
She smiled, getting his measure. "12 000 actually. There weren't any good movies on the plane. Besides, it was time well spent because I got to see you again."
He didn't bother to roll his eyes. He was a spy. He knew this game.
"What is it that you want?"
"I want to speak to Harry Pearce."
3.
Beth was feeling distinctly relieved. She had only known Lucas briefly, and most of that time had been spent trying to save themselves from certain death but she thought that she had read him right. She'd banked on the needling hitting a short fuse alongside the realisation that he would have been nowhere without her. Chivalry, male vanity and squashed pride. A potent combination.
Beth had never been one for hesitating. You had to seize the moment. Ok, so she'd fucked up when she was 22. She'd gotten involved with a South American cartel. Shit happens. You move on. You build a new bridge.
Harry was playfully messing with her. "Some felt that you were overly self interested and potentially arrogant."
She was a profiteer. She did and said whatever it took to get her foot in the door, the next slice of bread on the table. It was a calculated risk but she was sure she had read Harry right. He looked tired and whenever the lady with dark hair, blue clothing, walked past she could almost see the poor man's heart going through the wringer.
Cards on the table. It was now or never. "I want to get clean." After all, a good word from Harry Pearce meant rather a lot.
4.
"Get yourself in. Make yourself invaluable. They don't have to like you, they don't have to trust you, but they do need to know you've got what it takes to get the job done properly."She hadn't been lying when she'd told Lucas her company had thirty years experience in the business. The advice manual really had been excellent.
Lucas was a team player, not a leader. He needed someone to assess the bigger picture for him and then he would do what was necessary without the qualms. It was why he missed the girl, why he didn't check upstairs at her parents obvious confusion, didn't understand how Talwah worked, didn't point the gun at the parents instead of at the teenager herself. He needed somebody else for that and Beth had been there. No doubt he wouldn't be happy about it later. Beth had noticed how he looked to Harry for approval, saw how Harry was too caught up in self pity to notice. Harry was retiring or so he said. Beth knew that wouldn't last long.
She did wonder about Lucas though. For all that she was enjoying letting him know his inadequacies, she wondered about the black tattoos on his arms, the hardness in the blue eyes, the uncaring coldness that belied somebody grieving under the machine. She wondered what the state of Section D was. It seemed that something serious must have happened. She had been the only one to notice Lucas, the only one to see the signs of failure, of a man on his way out.
5.
Lucas knew he was being foolish. When Ruth asked him, he tried not to feel like a spoilt child when he said he didn't trust Beth, when he said he was checking out her background. Maybe if the image of the painted crimson nails lighting that cigarette, delicately balancing on the ships edge would get out of his mind, maybe if the red lipstick on full lips, the big eyes would get out of his mind, he would feel less like he needed confirmation of her authenticity.
He was sure it was what Ros would have told him to do. Especially after Sarah Caulfield. Lucas knew he was too soft where women were concerned; ever since Elizabeta and a painful goodbye it had been so. What would Ros do? It was a kind of mantra. "Keep your friends close, but your enemies even closer."
He smoothly lied to Ruth about Beth having no place to stay. "She can stay in your flat can't she?"
He didn't leave room for protests. What problems did Ruth have to be so preoccupied about anyway?
6.
Lucas was settling back into a kind of rhythm. When he'd ran towards that building, uncaring if there was a bomb inside, if he lived or died, nothing had mattered but getting Ros out. He'd focussed on putting one foot in front of the other, a fast, steady stride, thrown out of alignment with the explosion as his arms windmilled back and he lost control.
He did not shed tears. Not even when they found the body and pulled her out. Harry and Ruth stood together. Lucas was apart, standing steady. He had no right to grieve. They had never known, never really understood just how deep his and Ros' bond had been. It was more than friendship; not an acknowledged romance, that would have ruined things, but rather a subtle undercurrent, an acceptance of mutual ground, tantalisingly left unexplored. She had been his anchor. He hers. It was why she had found Sarah so hard to bear.
Harry and Ruth would never ever know about the nights he went over to her house, knocked on the door, was let in. Harry and Ruth would never ever know about how they would sit next to each other watching late night TV in companionable silence, about how they never touched, never tried to physically comfort. Understanding they were not alone, that had been enough.
Ruth said she would read out the poem she had chosen for Ros and Lucas said nothing even then. There were no words to express to the few who would be there at the funeral what Ros had meant to him, no words to explain their relationship, no words to explain how he would have done anything, anything at all to have gone back to the night they had fought over Sarah and they had each left the other, both equally betrayed and betrayers. Ruth would never ever know, not now and not ever. Besides, Ruth got to the root of things, even if she never noticed it. Alexander Pope had been very appropriate.
After the funeral, and in the safety of his room he remembered what it had been like coming back to the grid after eight years, remembered how the soft bed felt strange and unforgiving, how the doughnuts tasted like a gourmet meal. That night he slept on the floor, completing an imagined penance and for a long while he was transported back into prison, back with the Russian language and water torture and endless, endless listing of names, endless demanding. Then he had thrown his pillow against the wall, remembering how Ros had told him about her own stint with water torture back when YALTA had had a go at recruiting her, remembering how she never presumed to know too much, never wanted explanations, never let him wallow in self pity.
His mouth had opened as if to scream but no sound came out. He couldn't even cry for Ros. The lump in his throat ached and he wrapped his arms around his body, rocked back and forth, forming her name with his parched lips.
There was no point that night and there was no point now. She wasn't coming back. Lucas buried it underneath everything else and tried to pretend he wasn't affected, that he was stronger than the rest of them. He had fooled everyone. That kind of facade was exhausting and Beth Bailey was the only one who could pull it away from under him.
He supposed that was why he was afraid of her.
7.
"You wanted to be alone didn't you? I have money you know. I can find a place to stay. It doesn't have to be permanent."
Ruth was staring moodily at her wine glass and the television. "It's fine, Beth."
"It's not. I'm not fooled by Lucas. He didn't ask you to do this to be nice. He doesn't trust me."
"Why should he? Why should we trust what anyone tells us? We're spies. We lie everyday to people we know, people we don't know, even sometimes people we love."
Beth shrugged. "I guess I deserved that. I asked a stupid question."
"I'll keep out of your way. You keep out of mine, Beth."
Beth raised an eyebrow provocatively. It was her signature reaction. "Ouch."
"What did you expect me to say?"
Beth's phone began to ring. She wasn't surprised. "It's Lucas. He asked me how I was settling in."
"Nice of him."
"Not really." Beth kept the sardonic, smug expression on like a mask. Perhaps it was.
For the first time Ruth smiled. "So he's keeping tabs."
"You could say that." Beth paused as she brought her own glass to her lips. "And Ruth, I am exactly who and what I say I am. Sure, I have a past, but we all have those."
"Yes. Indeed."
Beth laughed. "I'm glad I'm not a double agent. You're the kind of smart bitch who'd have me figured out in no time."
"Do you always call your colleagues bitches?"
"Only the ones I really like."
Ruth managed a small smile.
8.
"So you deleted the photographs from the file and lied to us all. It's nice to know your suspicions have been vindicated."
Lucas' expression told Beth there was something more bugging him. She'd rifled through his desk to try and get the dirt on him before he got it all on her. She'd found a small, passport sized photo of a severe looking blonde in a desk drawer. The back was marked with biro; Lucas' neat writing. In Russian. "Wait for me in Barbodos. Bolivia is filled with commies in ponchos." She wondered if Lucas had a girlfriend. This lady was the cause of whatever was hurting Lucas. She'd bet on it.
"I did what I had to do to get my foot back in the door, Lucas. Surely you can understand that."
"I understood that I didn't like you from the start Beth, and now I have a reason for it."
"Don't be so juvenile. Ever heard of second chances?"
"Second chances? In this job? You've got to be kidding yourself."
She smirked. "It doesn't matter anyway Lucas. You're stuck with me now. Part of a team. We have to find ways to work together."
He was glaring at her because she was unfortunately right. "I'm Section Chief now, Beth. One more mistake and you're through. Have I made that clear enough for you?"
"Crystal."
Lordy. Lucas North as section chief. Beth had been here for less than a month and she had already figured out Lucas wouldn't stand up to the rigorous leadership testing required to lead ops. Harry Pearce seemed to be very blind about his colleagues these days. Much more than he'd ever been, and all thanks to making doe eyes at Ruth.
9.
"Did Lucas ever have a girlfriend?"
Ruth put down her magazine and stared at Beth. "You're the last person I would have guessed would have had a crush on Lucas North."
"I don't. But something's not quite right about him and I want to know why."
"I was told he had a Russian wife, now ex. He waited for her for eight years in prison. She got tired of the suspense."
"I suppose it could be her then."
"Then there was his fling with a CIA agent last year. Turned out she was working for a group that didn't have Britain's best interests at heart."
"Poor Lucas."
"You know Beth, I think Lucas might have loved her. We didn't think so at first. Ros put him on to her for information mining. We didn't think anything serious would ever come of it."
"And she sold him out."
"Not quite. I think at least a part of her was in love with him too." Ruth's eyes flickered away from Beth for a second as she talked into the furniture. "I've often wondered if that means anything."
Not for the first time Beth wondered what kind of team Harry was collecting. They all seemed affected by past traumas, never properly dealt with, seething dangerously beneath the cool surface.
One night she had walked in on Ruth, to find her legs neatly against thighs on the carpet, head bobbing backwards and forwards as she held a small picture to her breast. Beth saw a glimpse of it before Ruth cast it back into a cupboard box. It was a small boy with piercing eyes. Ruth had dared Beth to question the tears, the silver necklace clutched tight between her fingers. Beth hadn't been game enough to take Ruth up on that one.
She'd gone to bed. Never mentioned it again.
10.
Lucas might be obtuse, but he wasn't a complete bastard. He'd figured out that Beth had more of a stomach for guns than poor Dimitri did (Bomb squad? Was he crazy?) and that she was useful to have around. He supposed that somewhere between thrusting that money at her and confronting her about South America he'd learnt to forgive. Oh, his conscience still nagged. Should he trust her? He'd trusted Sarah. Had it been worth it? He didn't know.
But then she'd had all of the trouble over her asset; a skittish ex Chinese citizen whose brother had been killed. Beth had done everything she could to try and save the guy from his death wish. He'd walked straight into the Chinese embassy anyway.
"He said to me Lucas, I risk everything, while you risk nothing at all.I know we put our lives at risk everyday. I don't need you to tell me that, but it still hurt."
She had been affected. It happened.
"I need this bit of control. Just for today."
Lucas didn't blame Beth. She'd had no choice. It was about human dignity. About agency. He had been in prison for eight years. He understood.
He'd put a hand on her arm. "You were brilliant today Beth, brilliant. You did your job. You saved a woman's life. But it's ok to breakdown sometimes. Just don't let anyone else ever see."
She'd swallowed, smiled, her whole face lighting up. "Ruth's a bit of a wet blanket. Do you think I could hang out with you sometimes? Just... when it gets difficult... when we need some space?"
"I thought that you and Dimitri..."
She rolled her eyes. "Men!"
11.
"Ruth why did you say it?"
"Why did I shoot down your pretty little ideals? Yes Beth, I know that you have them there still. I envy you that. I didn't want to hurt you, but it was the truth. I just said it."
"In this job, every time you make it back in one piece it's a little kind of victory.Did you really mean that?" Beth was narrowing her eyes, hoping this time Ruth would crack and open up to Beth a bit. Wishful thinking.
"We're the secret service. It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out basic maths."
"What happened to you Ruth?"
"I grew up."
"That's the harsh, automated response. It's not the real you. You wanted to reassure me."
"Have you ever stopped to consider Beth that I could be more than one kind of person at once? You're so young."
"Naive you mean?"
Ruth winced.
Beth wondered why as she got up to get her coat and head out the door. A part of her had stopped caring, stopped worrying about her colleagues mysterious past. What was the point of trying to get to know someone if they never allowed you more than arms length from their true thoughts and feelings. Beth had stopped trying to figure out how Ruth got to be so good at the job. She rather thought she wouldn't relish the answer.
12.
In the pub she tried not to cry on the third pint. Kai. I tried Kai. I really did.
A voice startled her and it wasn't the barman. 'Oii Beth. Up late?"
Dimitri was wearing his favourite checked shirt, grinning cheerily; probably the only person on the Grid who never let it get to him, always was alright, and didn't have any real secrets or fears beyond the mundane living of regular day to day existence.
That was why Beth liked being with Dimitri. They bounced off each other, made silly jokes, antagonised and needled, speculated about Harry and Ruth and how many more years it would take for them to just get into bed together already, worried about Lucas' lack of any real sense of anyone around him, laughed at Tariq: the boy genius.
It would never come to anything. Dimitri and Tariq saw each other after hours, but that didn't stop Beth from having a good friend.
"Tough day huh?"
"You could say that. Let's not talk about it. It's behind me now."
"It's the best way to deal with this job. Put it behind you, move on, don't let it get to you, don't lose perspective. Crack out a smile."
She clinked her beer glass with his. "Cheers."
13.
They met in the garden and the pergola where he'd once met Sarah Caulfield. At first they sat in silence and then it got quieter, there were less people around.
"Things aren't working out with you and Ruth are they?"
"It was never going to Lucas. We're two very different people. Ruth internalises everything, keeps it all bottled up. Me? I feel things, but I don't let it fester forever. Besides, you'd get tired of talking to a brick wall too after awhile."
"I'm sorry. You could move out."
"No. It would hurt Ruth's feelings I think. It would be like I was telling her she wasn't good enough. It would just be one more thing for her to rage about inside."
"Did she ever tell you about him?"
"Harry?"
"George."
"No."
"Maybe you're better off not knowing. Spies and secrets. It must be part of the job description."
"Let's not talk about Ruth anymore. I came here to get away from her."
Lucas smiled weakly. "You remind me a bit of someone."
"The woman in the photograph."
"You went through my desk... what? Beth!"
She shrugged. "You were going to get to me before I could get to you. I wanted some backup."
"Nice." He was furious.
"Look Lucas- I know you now. I trust you. You've been a good friend to me over Kai. I won't ever sell you out."
"Why should I ever believe you?"
"Because I'm asking."
He shook her arm off his and strode away.
14.
"Lucas, please. Let me in."
"Beth! It's 2am in the morning!"
"A good enough reason to let me in! Hurry up! It's freezing out here!"
He opened up his door, just a little, his blue eyes bewildered and still sleep ridden. He shook his head and let her in.
"What happened?"
"Ruth."
"What exactly is going on with her? It's next to impossible to make her smile these days..."
"The woman's a walking time bomb of grief. One day she'll snap. You told me she saw George die. I think she's still feeling the after affects."
"Maybe I should try and talk to her."
"Don't. She'll never forgive me. At night I hear the muffled sobs and sometimes the screams. She dreams about it still."
There were shadows on Lucas' face, like perhaps he understood. "Trauma, grief. You have to bury it, put it behind you. You can't do your job unless you do that." He unconsciously patted a tattooed arm.
"Those tattoos," Beth said after awhile, "on anyone else they'd be a symbol of power, of masculinity. Yours look like they tell a story."
"They do. One I'm not going to tell you about."
He escorted her to the couch and they sat down next to each other, his lips close to her ear, almost as though by accident.
She smiled, wickedly; some of the old Beth humour of the mercenary days still alive and kicking. "Tell me about the blonde lady then. Who was she to you Lucas?"
She felt his breath against her neck, felt him stiffen. "It's not just sheer curiosity. I want to understand Lucas."
"Her name was Ros and she was the best friend I ever had."
"Come on Lucas. You don't need to know any more about Connie. Let her go. She might have been telling the truth to you, she might not have been, but there's no point in staying up trying to look it up on old files and records. The information is gone. She doesn't define you. Not unless you let her."
"Help me Ros."
She was sitting next to him, perched on the edge of the desk, her expression set like stone.
"Come away Lucas. I'll drive you home."
He did as she said. He always did as Ros said.
Beth's hand was playing with Lucas' dark hair, but she was interested, glued to every word, concentrating.
"She was killed in the course of duty trying to save a politician of all people." Beth could feel the disdain and the bitterness radiating outwards. It was like a kind of violent furnace. That kind of bitterness. It radiated out from Ruth too.
"Lucas, get him out."
"I'm not leaving without you!"
"And I'm not leaving without him."
He'd seen the determination, had experienced it before. He did as he was told and took the order. He got out and left her behind to die.
He didn't say, "Ros my girl- you were my rock," he didn't tell her, "Ros, I think a part of me is in love with you," or "Ros- you're the best friend a guy like me has ever had," or simply "Ros- thank you for everything."
"On the back of the photograph you mentioned Barbados. Were you going to go there together?"
"No," he said shortly. "She was needling me about a big mistake. Ros was like that. It was her way of letting you know she cared."
"You wrote that on the back of the card then?"
He nodded and they lapsed back into silence.
Ruth was going through Ros' stuff. Harry didn't have the stomach for it. Nor did Lucas but he felt like it was his duty. He was there alongside the racks of clothing and the small row of books. He could smell her scent lingering still. It was as if she would walk in the door at any minute, smiling cooly, acerbically, "surprise."
She never did.
Ruth was looking at the photo albums. "I suppose we should pass everything on neatly in cupboard boxes to the parents?"
Lucas was looking at the photo to Ruth's right. It was Ros, taken not all that long ago, makeup and hair perfect, stare soft as she looked somewhere else, away from the camera. He carefully pulled it out.
"I'll hold onto this one Ruth."
She raised one eyebrow.
"I spent eight years in prison Ruth. I had nothing but the clothes I was wearing on my back and what they deigned to give me. I've grown to love mementos."
She nodded, turned away. He wondered if she were crying. But there had been no love lost between Ruth and Ros.
That night he had turned the photo over carefully. He felt foolish for wearing gloves. He wrote in his neatest writing.
He wanted to remember Barbados, Bolivia and commies in ponchos. That had been their planned retirement.
15.
"So. You got something in your life you want to share?"
"You know it all. A cartel, attempts to join MI5 and subsequent rejection, mercenary and then I washed up back here."
"There's always something else." The words haunted.
The desire rose up, as she wanted to trace her fingers down his back, put her head against his. She didn't. It would be manipulation of someone who was still hurting. It wouldn't be fair.
"Beth. If I told you I wanted to leave, would you try and stop me?" She could see the effort it took him to get the words out.
She slowly shook her head. "Sometimes the bravest thing a man or woman can accept, is recognising when you need to get out. You've done enough."
"But they need me." He sounded petulant, whiny.
"Oh don't kid yourself Lucas."
That was when he'd told her about a fellow Spook named Tom Quinn. Tom had silently imploded as the rest of the team were complicit, embarrassed, too involved. When the heart shows on the sleeve, the ticking clock has run out.
Lucas would find his own way out. He wasn't Tom. He'd get out still glued together.
Beth approved.
Six months later...
Dimitri was sitting next to Beth at the bar, unabashedly checking out her mini and her legs beneath the skirt. She swatted at him playfully. "Get out of it!"
"Someone's had a bad day."
"Lucas is gone. The Grid feels different without him."
"I never thought there was all that much love lost between you both."
Beth's smile was annoyingly secretive. "You'd be surprised."
"Harry wasn't impressed."
"Well he wouldn't be would he? He has to get in a newbie now to be head of section. An unknown quantity."
"I wonder what kind of place Lucas would wind up in? Retiring? He took a leaf out of Malcolm's book then?"
"You're hopelessly unsubtle, Dimitri," Beth laughed. "Besides, I promised Lucas I wouldn't tell."
He stood at the grave for a very long time before he finally fell to his knees. His grief spilled out, watered the grass, welled up from raw depths that he never even knew he possessed. He put down the simple bouquet of flowers he had bought, accidentally squashing them forcefully in his strong grip.
"Goodbye Ros. Watch over them for me."
He stood up. Stared down at the headstone. "Sacred to the memory of Ros Myers," and then the dates. There was nothing more to see or read.
"I loved Sarah, but never in the same way that we loved each other Ros. Friendship. Thanks for that."
He dusted the dirt off his jeans, tried to wipe some of the tears away.
He was going somewhere where it was always bright, always sunny.
He'd spelt it out for Harry once. "Home isn't where you live. It's where people understand you." His home hadn't been the Immortal he had believed. She had died.
Trust. Would he ever find that kind of trust again? You had to try. Beth had said that. You had to try.
He owed it to Ros to try.
There's no one in town I know
You gave us some place to go.
I never said thank you for that.
I thought I might get one more chance.
May angels lead you in.
Hear you me my friends.
On sleepless roads the sleepless go.
May angels lead you in.
And if you were with me tonight,
I'd sing to you just one more time.
A song for a heart so big,
God couldn't let it live.
- May Angels Lead you In, Jimmy Eat World