Three days after burying their closest friend under a false name, Sebastian and Danielle return to base. Well, it's not exactly base anymore. Those days are over. And it's more that Danielle returns and pulls Sebastian along behind her. "I don't want to be here," he says. Quietly, hoping she won't even hear over the sound of their shoes on the gravel drive. He just wants it said, committed to posterity, a statement of fact, he does not want to be here.

"You think I do?" she bites. "We're not doing this to make a point, Seb. It needs done, simple as."

"No, I understand. Really. It's just… It's not easy. Baker Street's just lying as was."

"Well, shame on John Watson. But he's got that luxury. We don't. If we don't clear this place down, MI5 will. We've left it far too long already." And yes, she's aware of that fussy, mothering tone in her voice, but she stopped, hours ago, trying to do anything about it. There's a prescription tube in her bag, half-full, Dani's little helpers, in case things get any more difficult. She's avoiding that. Saving them, if she's honest, for Sebastian.

"How do we know they haven't been already? We could be walking right into them. I don't like it, love."

"Remember the camera they put up, when they took him in that time, for… questioning?" The word 'torture' is a little too much, under the circumstances. "It's still there. I patched into the feed after the funeral."

"You were already back here?" There's no sensation of betrayal, but that's how it comes out. Whiny. Irritable.

"Ten minutes. Just to pick up the cat. The camera was an afterthought."

Sebastian, trying to bring it back after snapping at her, "It was a good thought."

They're going to murder each other. Before the day is out, if things keep going how they're going, they're going to murder each other. They come bloody close to it on the front step, when Sebastian, one last stupid gambit, pats down his pockets and announces he can't find his key. Danielle breathes very deeply before she produces hers and puts it silently into the lock. Then, because she doesn't want to see him just now, points upstairs even as she steps into the hall. "Go and strip the records in the strong room. Don't waste time picking and choosing, just destroy everything." Sebastian lingers. Back and forth, on the balls of his feet, he sways close to her. "I'll be right here. I'm going to loop that camera before the spooks see us and then deal with the phone and the emails. Shout if you need me."

But for God's sake, she thinks, don't need me. Wishes he'd just go about it. When Jim gave an order it was like telling a dog to fetch. That's all she was trying to do. Simple tasks, that same soldierly security he's always responded to. Go here, do this, shoot him. Shred some bloody paper and stop just looking at me.

Sebastian sees her cursing him, though she refuses to do it out loud. Watches her grappling with some other way to tell him what she wants. Hates himself for making this harder than it has to be. But then he stretches out and tries to hold her, only to feel her arms curl up to her chest. She pushes him back, very gently. "Don't. I'm sorry but…" But she had to stop crying to come here and he'll set her off again. Why she can't just say that out loud and put him at ease, she doesn't know. But she doesn't and he walks off upstairs without another word.

They'll murder each other. For too long now, there's been three of them. Before that, they got along alright together. And in between, on those occasions they found themselves alone, that was still alright. But now that they're only two, and now that they won't be three again… They'll murder each other. Just being here together, it's killing them.

Danielle waits for him to disappear, for the sound of the strong room door closing. Then sits down heavily against the wall right there in the hallway and covers her mouth until she knows there's no danger of making a sound. Waits for everything to level out, to find the strength and calm she had for Sebastian. But it's not there anymore. Her hands are shaking when she pulls the netbook from her bag and boots up. Doesn't matter. Just get the job done. She records four seconds from the camera in the living room, runs it on a loop so it'll look like nothing's happening. A loop of perfect stillness. Never changing.

It's twisted, but Danielle gets the broad, sickening drawl of Eliza Doolittle stuck in her head, Oh wouldn't it be lovely…

Could scream. But she doesn't. Instead she gets up from the floor, shakes herself and goes through to the office.

The sun, through wide old windows, has made the room welcoming and familiar. Warmed the fine old walnut of the desk, brought scent up from the leather blotter. She always preferred this place, the big old house out in Richmond, to the more central flat. The flat was cold, minimal. Classic London loft. Of course, Jim, for all that it was his décor, never thought anything of it. Old house gets old furniture. Nothing to do with style or class. Nothing to do with personal taste, even. Not for the first time, Danielle finds herself doubting whether her late employer even had such a thing as personal tastes. He knew what he liked, yes, most certainly knew what he didn't like. But did aesthetics ever enter into it?

Simply because of where the phone and computer are, she has to ease the chair out from behind the desk and sit down. A week ago, this was fine. Provided Jim was standing there telling her not to sit in his chair, this was fine. She does it because it would be ridiculous not to.

On a similar instinct, when Danielle takes a cigarette from the pack in her pocket, she only chews the end of it for the first while. Not allowed to smoke in here.

Out loud, sighing, "Not allowed by who? Daft bitch..." Swiftly, defiantly, she lights it. This lasts less than twenty seconds. Then she opens a window. Twenty seconds later, three drags in, she stubs it out on the window ledge.

And just then, when she needs a distraction most, the call comes down from upstairs, "Dani!"

Murmuring to herself, "Oh, Sebastian, bless you…" Then she flees back to the relative calm of the hall and hangs on the banister post, "What is it?"

"What's the combinations for the safe?" Which is, at the very least, a sensible question from him. So Danielle makes the effort. Thinks, working through textbooks worth of numbers held in her head, looking for something filed as 'Strong room, Jim's house.' But she comes up blank.

Starting up the stairs behind him, she calls, "Where are you?"

"Strong room, like you said." He's waiting when she reaches the landing, hanging out of the right doorway. Sees the look on her face and responds, "What's the matter?"

"There's no safe in the strong room." No, because he's making it up just to annoy her. He's deliberately wasting their time, isn't he? This is precisely the attitude he could do without today. Bad enough she phoned up this morning and sprung this on him. Danielle could be doing her bit to ease things and she simply isn't. He's not impressed. But Sebastian watches her come down the hall, gaining speed. Something about this worries her. She swings past him. The safe is near the floor, and was formerly hidden behind a mahogany wall panel. Even then, staring straight at it, Danielle shakes her head, "There's no safe in the strong room." She feels Sebastian roll his eyes before he even says anything and cuts him off. "You don't understand; I cased this place. Before he ever bought it, Jim had me check it out. For security purposes, see how easy it would be to protect, what could be kept here."

Sebastian shrugs, "So he had it installed." This does not need to be a major production number. He's trying to help keep her head on straight before it turns into one. Tries fobbing it all off, "So you don't know combinations then?"

"You're not thinking," she bites at him. This is important and he's not even looking at it. "'If anything happens, make sure and empty the strong room'. Wasn't that always the directive?"

Sighing, "Yes."

"So why do this and not tell us about it? It doesn't make sense. This is Tannhauser. I'd have to spend a bit more time with it to know model numbers, but we're talking state of the art here." She kneels to it, with overwhelmed professional interest. "The dial is no problem. Muffled tumblers probably, but still, not more than three or four hours' work. The keypad, though, that's… There's no cheating that, I don't think…"

There's a rule, really just common sense, which every thief may safely live by; the better the safe, the bigger the score.

Sebastian stands over her, looking away and out the window. She can feel him there. "Please," she says softly, "tell me I'm not going mad. Tell me this is weird."

And yes, in light of the quality of the safe, the fact that it was hidden, that they were told this was the most important room in the event of any cataclysm, fine, he'll admit, "It's weird. But I don't see what we can do about it now." Even as he speaks, he knows she's not going to leave it. Already, the tips of her fingers are testing the dial, roving the surface as she feels for the movement and the best place to listen. Quite apart from all the facts he's just agreed to, it is a safe and it is here and she theoretically can't open it. Danielle's not going anywhere. "Do you really think it's this important?"

No emphasis, no expletive. Very simply, "Yes."

"Right. Then is it better if I go down to the office and deal with that and you-?"

"Yes."

He mutters under his breath, "Well, I'm glad you've found yourself a puzzle to solve." This time she hears nothing, already utterly absorbed. In something close to disgust, he leaves her with the safe she caresses like a lover and heads back downstairs.

From the door of the office he spots her crushed cigarette on the sill. Doesn't blame her, not at all, for trying. As he sits down, with much the same reservations, he leaves it there. Partly, it's testimony to willpower, that it was ever lit. Partly, it's a reminder that nobody's going to come and ask what in the name of God he thinks he's doing in this chair, so he can be comfortable. More than he'd like to admit, it's the faint smell of it, still coming in on the breeze, that helps him do what he has to.

It's not difficult work. No, well… to be specific, it is not taxing work. Everything was waiting on the computer, a step by step, every contact to contact, every message to leave, everybody who needs to be called rather than anonymously messaged, everybody who needs a personalized response. The network was designed, custom-built, to continue without central leadership. Almost any arm of the organization is totally capable of operating independently. But all that independent thought needs to be triggered. Who would bother thinking for themselves until they know for a fact no one else is going to do it for them? It's not taxing, it's just time-consuming. And every so often, when the menial nature of it can't hold the rest at bay, he realizes just what he's taking apart, and it becomes momentarily heart-breaking.

Only when he's finished does he realize it's full summer dark outside, and that he's stiff and starving from sitting still so long.

Only then does he realize he hasn't seen or even heard Danielle in all that time.

He climbs quietly back upstairs, expecting to find her either crying or asleep. Hoping that, whichever it is, he can leave her there unnoticed.

But it's neither. She's sitting back against the side of the desk, glowing in the joint light of her netbook, mobile and MP3 player. She's awake, he can see as much. Her hair must have been getting in the way of her work and she's tied it back. Sitting hugging her knees, staring over at the safe. Sebastian creeps up and hooks out one of her headphones, just to snap her out of it. She jumps and he tries to smile. "Couldn't get it?"

"Heard the dial snap hours ago. But the keypad… Five digits, and that's as much as anyone can tell me. Five digit code… You know what he's like- was like, it'll be completely random…"

"You need to eat. And sleep. And get away from this safe."

"There has to be a way," she says, like she never heard a word. "He wouldn't leave it if there wasn't a way."

"Danielle, come on. I'll bring you home. We'll come back and finish tomorrow."

"Just let me have a think, Seb."

So he waits. In the interests of keeping things civil, of not killing each other, Sebastian sits up on the edge of the desk and waits. But after twenty minutes he starts to get the feeling she's doing more staring than real thinking. He stands up and decides to try force. He lifts her by the shoulders to her feet, and would physically take her with him, except that the look her face is not anger or sadness but disdain. He drops her. Stands and waits for whatever it is she feels like she has to say.

"I can't believe you don't think this is a problem."

"What do you think you're going to find? A note says 'Gotcha' and where to find him?"

"Oh, piss off… Seriously, Sebastian, go home. I can't deal with you right now."

She turns away from him and, as she does, drops back to her knees in front of that stupid bleeding safe. He wishes he'd never mentioned it. Just put the panel back over it and ignored it and go on with shredding and burning like the good soldier he normally is. But as things stand, he can't deal with her either. He gets as far as the door wordlessly. Then, with a scrap of regret, "If you need me or you need a lift-"

"I'll be fine."

"-I'll be at Tom's."

"Yeah, that's it, love. Go and bury your head." Muttering, "In someone else's lap…"

No. Wrong. Not on. No. "Well, where have you been for the last three days?"

That gets a reaction. Her head whips round and she breathes out, hurt, "Not where you seem to think."

"I'll call."

"Don't bother." After that, she doesn't even know if he goes or stays. Couldn't care less. Puts her headphones back in and resumes careful study of the keypad. It seems untouched. Later when the house is still again she goes looking for a magnifier and something to dust with. Comes back with paprika and no magnifier. She found a pair of reading glasses in one of the office drawers, but she'd never seen them before and they disturbed her, so she left them there. It hardly matters anyway; the paprika does nothing but make her sneeze. There's nothing to pick up on. Not a single trace.

She has already called everyone she knows who might have helped. She's called people who make a business of safes alone and been laughed at as soon as she told them the model.

But there has to be a way.

Somewhere in the early hours she sleeps, or maybe passes out, still knowing that there has to be a way. And down in that dark she has a dream that Jim comes back and tells her derisively he thought they'd have had all this done days ago. "I know," she says. "Sorry. We took it hard." She knows it's a dream because when she says that he reaches down and pushes back her hair where it's sliding out of the ponytail. Then, because she's aware that it's wrong, the dream corrects itself, and has him go and wash his hands before he comes back to taunt her. He opens the safe, yes, but his body blocks her view of the numbers he presses. Hateful bloody dream. Even in her sleep, she's being picked on and teased. Danielle curls up away from it all, hiding her face to find a deeper rest. And stays that way until the sunlight makes its way round to the back of the house and falls over her.

Things come back to her slowly. Safe. Sebastian. Bloody horrible dream. Unconsciously, she pulls her hair down and ties it again. Then stretches across the floor, crackling all over from sleeping on the hard wood boards.

She glances at the safe, and at the screens all around her, gone dull as batteries died and systems shut down. Like her own. She wants a coffee, before she does anything. There must still be coffee somewhere in this house.

Danielle pads downstairs, feeling more at home now that she's slept here. Makes coffee like she would have any other morning, if she'd stayed too late poring over blueprints until they swam, or if she'd just had a vodka too many to drive. A lot of nights, actually. A lot of mornings, a lot of coffees. Totally comfortable, totally at home.

What does she need to do today?, she thinks, while the kettle is boiling. Call Sebastian, say sorry, that's number one. Then call somebody to have the safe removed. Take it away from here. A couple of days with a diamond-tipped bit and a brazing torch, it'll tell her all it has to tell. Then she'll have to actually strip down the strong room, like she came here for, no less than twenty hours since…

But yeah, that's all.

She climbs the stairs again. She'll drink her coffee, collect her belongings and go. Maybe walk into town, clear her head.

So she won't get caught staring again, she sits down side by side with the safe, where it's out of her eye line. Says aloud, "You're a bitch, y'know." It seems almost to ask her which of them she's talking to. She shrugs. "Don't know." Sets the coffee down by her side. Leans forward to drag her bag to her; the lighter's in it. This time she's going to smoke. Too bloody right she's going to smoke. Smoke the rest of the pack, if she so chooses. Who's going to tell her off? Bloody right she's going to smoke…

Except that her head turns as she pulling it back. Entirely by accident, she catches sight of the safe again. And something is different.

Traces. There were no traces, not a single one. There were no traces and now… She must be imagining it. But she gets closer to check.

It's the steam from the surface of her coffee. It's catching on something on the keys. She lifts it up and the traces get clearer. Faint, but present. Heavy on 8, light on 2. A pale, translucent mark. She takes the coffee away; the smell of it is too strong, and it's drowning something else out.

Soap. Faint traces of soap.

[This was inspired by the excellent, and very flattering, art of butteronmycuffs at deviantart. (I told you she looked bloody irritated with that safe). Please, please, please check it out, because it rocks, and not just because some of it features my beloved Seb and Dani.]