This au fic assumes s8 was mi5 doing mi5 things and not playing at mi6 with the whole Nightingale plot. Ros Meyers still died however. Also, I want you to all know it killed me to write this. In my defence, I've just watched Casino Royale.
The Present (Alice, the Rabbit Hole and a Catch 22)
1.
It was Tariq who found out of course. He was young and clever and he wasn't silent, cautious like Malcolm. Tariq was too smugly young to be wise. It was his downfall.
He'd stayed back late on The Grid. "Ruth. I've been checking some files. The coding around Lucas' recent activities are all wrong. Listen- I think we were wrong about him working for the Chinese. Somebody else has set the guy up."
She raised an eyebrow, nonchalant. "Who?"
"It has to be someone on The Grid. One of us. They had to have the access codes themselves, and be fairly high up too. Oh- and clever; very, very clever." His arms were up casually around the back of his head, ever so sure of himself. "Not clever enough for me though."
"No?" She was almost alongside him now, like they usually were when they worked together; he seated at his desk in front of the computer, she looking over his shoulder, analysing his latest intel as fast as he could pull it up. He was so confident, so full of his own self importance. And yet she cared for him, cared for all of them. She would never be callous and Connie.
His eyes widened slowly. He'd finally put two and two together.
"No... it can't be..."
"And yet is is," she whispered, smashing the paperweight she had quietly picked up against his skull, again and again and again, till there was blood all over the files on the desk, bits of white oozing out from the side of his head. She stowed the paperweight in her handbag, pulled out the silencer and shot him in the head just to be sure, multiple times, eyes closed tight, each shot reverberating through her whole body, each shot a flinch.
Then she waited.
2.
It was her turn to be on the receiving end; days on end of flickering lights or total darkness, erratic food and water, hands smashing on the table, "why did you do it Ruth? You could have run away. Yu could have had the head start. You could have killed him quickly, painlessly, and run away."
"I had to do it Harry." Her eyes were begging him to understand. I wanted to be caught.
His eyes were cold. "Why? Just tell me why."
Yet she was telling him nothing because a part of her knew he would never understand. She was weary. Nothing mattered anymore. Nico was safe. Her chance at love and happiness sacrificed for her metaphorical child. What was the point in more words?
Then he'd tried wheedling it out of her. "For the sake of all that we once had Ruth, help me to understand."
The days stretched out, never ending and the less she said the more The Grid judged. She had said she was dead inside. It was a lie. She was in this mess because she felt too much. She had compassion and a chequered past.
Harry had been an idiot to rehire her knowing that.
The Past (Through the Looking Glass)
3.
"I can't." She was nearly hysterical.
The man's thick hands rubbed her back gently, mockingly. "You can. You will. Remember George."
She managed to pull herself together to reply. "I'd do anything to forget George."
"But not Harry?" Her captor smiled.
She bit her tongue and refused to engage.
"So," he whispered, "fear for Harry doesn't move you..."
"He knew what his job entailed. He's brave and clever. He'll find a way out."
"A trained officer and head of D might... but would a child?"
Her eyes gave her away as he laughed. "Ah yes. Women! All the same aren't you... the moment we appeal to your compassion. It is your downfall every time." His fingers stroked her chin. "I think... that you are very afraid... very, very afraid. But not for yourself, never for yourself."
There were goosebumps on her arms. "Where is he?" She tried to make it sound like she wasn't imploring.
His fingers moved down to rest around her shoulders and he whispered in her ear, making her shiver, making her wonder what else he was going to do to her. "I've made it simple for you... a set up just like last time."
One of his men had wheeled a TV into the room. She hadn't noticed.
"Were you brave about George Ruth? I don't think so. I heard that you screamed and screamed and screamed... but I wonder how much more you would scream for a child's sake... for Nico's sake..."
The remote switched the tv to on and Nico was in an unsafe 'safe' house. It was history repeating itself.
She wanted to bring her hands up over her face to shield herself from the terror but that was cowardice and besides, she was paralysed by her own horror. When it came to families and Cyprus there was never a real choice.
Nico was closing his beautiful brown eyes, squeezing them tight as the Russian with a gun held against the back of the boy's head began to tell Nico Malcolm's story about the dog. The bastards must have been listening in and taking notes the first time round.
Ruth was shaking, shaking all over. She knew it was about psychology, a breaking tactic.
"Do it and we let the boy go," the mystery man whispered. "Do it, and you and him will both be safe. I promise."
"N-n-no," she shook her head over and over.
"Wrong answer." He slapped her hard across the face and blood poured out of her nose and mouth. When she opened her mouth to scream the blood filled her mouth and she couldn't breathe.
"Tell me," the bastard went on, "is it really all just maths to you Ruth? The boy for Section D and its secrets. That's all we ask of you." His hand traced down her neckline, "we are not unreasonable."
She said nothing, silent.
He got up, angry; kicked her chair back and she felt her head crack against the hard ground. She saw Nico; his eyes now open, afraid on the screen and then she blacked out.
When she came to, in complete darkness, his voice was there with her. "You have an hour to make your choice. Then the boy dies."
"It is no choice at all," she replied bitterly.
His breath was disgusting, hot on her face. "I know Ruth that you will make the right choice. We learnt from Connie- even the best agents have a breaking point and don't delude yourself on your considerable abilities my dear; you're one of the best."
He didn't see the silent tears roll down her cheeks. He wouldn't have cared if he had.
4.
Harry ran in to the now empty room, saw her sitting hunched in the corner first. He was signalling the medics over, sliding down next to her, pulling her face into his shoulder as she sobbed with what he assumed was relief.
"Nico- he's alright," he said. "We got to him first."
She shook her head slowly, as though dazed.
"It's ok, Ruth. You're safe now." She was still looking at him with that glazed expression, communicating a message that he didn't understand.
Afterwards, in the hospital, he didn't move from her bedside. "I'll give you as much time as you need Ruth."
"Time," she said firmly, "why would I need that?"
"You were held hostage and threatened Ruth. It's alright to take time off, to take a break you know."
She looked at him, spoke firmly. "I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you. Once I take the time off I doubt I'd ever manage to come back again. You know that."
Harry knew that his emotions were shaping his decisions about Ruth but the threat hung there, filling him with a deep terror. Ruth never coming back. He'd do anything and everything, anything at all, to keep her by his side.
He knew she needed some time out and he didn't care. He smiled instead, trying to let her know just how much he cared. "Alright. I'll see you back in the office soon then."
"Tomorrow."
His eye brows shot up in surprise.
"I'll be fine by tomorrow," she repeated.
Her expression was one he could never ever bring himself to argue with. He knew he should at least do a proper debrief before he let her back on the grid, that he should at least question her about what happened, what her captors looked like, what they had said. He loved her, and he didn't want to hurt her, and the cold, clear blue eyes were too much for him and he was defeated.
5.
She met the Russian bastard, as she liked to call him, by a designated tree in Kensington Gardens. It had to be far enough away that she wouldn't run into Harry, but close enough that it didn't look suspicious.
"The Russians and the Chinese, both after superior weapons again. I should have known. The Cold War ended in 1989 you know."
"You're good at history Ruth and you're smart enough to know that this isn't about ideology anymore. It's about super powers and legitimacy and bucking the dying trend. Iraq, Afghanistan, famines and failed peacekeeping missions... even the economy isn't as stable any more as the West likes to think. One day the Washington Consensus will fail and then where will we all be. Beijing is where it's at and if your country doesn't want to be for us, it's against us. A big mistake."
"You chose me because of the Chinese languages didn't you? I'm the only one in D who speaks Mandarin."
He clapped his hands together slowly. "Very good, Ruth. You won't be dealing with me anymore. It will be with our Chinese contact."
The contacts name was Xian Wu. He actually seemed like a rather nice, soft spoken man. It made it slightly easier to talk that way, she supposed.
6.
She didn't sell much at first, or at least they never asked for much.
They let her speak with Nico once a week, just to reassure her that he was still alive and that they still had him somewhere where only they could get at him.
So much for Harry's protection of the boy. There must have been another insider connected into the system via Connie. She had managed to compromise all of their safe houses after all.
Sometimes she wondered if she should have tried telling Harry what was going on, but then she would grow frightened and tell herself she'd rather see Nico safe. Besides, since George she had stopped caring so much for the entire concept of the secret service. She cared about people's lives more than state machinations. Or at least that's how she justified her silence to herself.
At least she'd never sold anyone out to their deaths... yet. Jo had died because of a terrorist cell and Ros and Ros herself had died on a private mission involving the former Home Secretary. Nothing to do with Ruth at all.
She was relieved Ros was gone in a way. She saw right through people. And had been a traitor herself. It took one to know one.
Still, Ros was gone now where she couldn't get to Ruth or anyone else. She found Lucas and his broodings irritating. He was the one Harry trusted least, and the easiest person on the Grid for Ruth to set up.
She hated herself every second that she was framing someone else, giving someone else the blame. They had gotten too close. It had become obvious to everyone secrets were being leaked somewhere. It had been her and Nico or Lucas.
Ultimately, Ruth discovered she was a selfish person.
The Present (Time sifts, runs out for the white rabbit)
7.
"It doesn't matter that I loved you. You killed a loyal member of my Team. You sold state secrets. You betrayed us all, which in and of itself is unforgiveable. But the worst thing, the worst thing of all is that you used my trust in you, used my love for you and twisted it around into an ugly thing. I'll never forgive you for that Ruth."
"I never asked for your forgiveness. Or even your understanding."
His eyes were like flint, and she felt his hurt, his unhappiness as a physical pain. She still loved Harry. The problem was she had loved someone else's child more.
"Why didn't you come to me," Harry was shouting now. "Why didn't you let me help you? We could have caught them out at their own game, fed them false information."
"Can't you see that I was frightened? I was half hoping, half begging when you first found me in that abandoned bunker that you would suspend me from service, take the impossible choice away from me. You didn't."
"So now it's my fault? My fault you sold out Queen and country!"
From somewhere deep within she found the strength to answer him with the honest answer that he deserved. "It ceased to be about state and overall good for me the second that they had Nico. The Service can do its best to train us in how not to feel, how not to react, how to resist torture and shut up like clams and say nothing in the face of terrifying adversity, but they cannot create soulless robots and they cannot suppress basic human instinct. I love Nico, I love him as though he were my own child. I had to protect him and I thought that this choice I made was the only way."
"A pretty speech and perhaps true in some ways, but it doesn't change what you've done."
"What will you do?"
His head was in his gloved hands. "I don't know what to do."
"You're the Section Head. It's your choice and yours alone."
"Don't lecture me," he snapped. "Betrayal is a cancer. Let it eat your soul, not mine."
"You can't leave me here forever. Besides, I've told you all that I know. You'll have to send me for a proper trial, send me to gaol, or kill me. You can't let me walk free. I killed a man."
"Don't..." There were tears on his cheeks.
"I did love you Harry, even throughout all of this, even when I became someone I despised I still loved you."
He didn't look up. "Nico's dead. They killed him as soon as we caught you. It was all for nothing. Everything you did was for nothing"
The lump in her throat grew bigger.
"Let me go Harry. I am sorry Harry. Sorry for everything really."
He pulled the gun out of his pocket, aimed it at her head. "Me too."
And now I feel like a terrible person for making Ruth bad. *Clings to Ruth and Harry* I love them both really!