Disclaimer: Sadly, Spooks belongs to Kudos, not me. "Skinny love" lyrics copyright by Bon Iver/Justin Vernon.

I told you to be patient/ and I told you to be fine

Bon Iver "skinny love"

******

Her wide mouth had been strained as she said "Hello, Lucas."

She had felt ill, knowing she was going to see him again. One day he had been there; one day he had not. She had given two years to mourning, truly believing that part of her was gone. She had given a year to putting Lucas and everything that their life together had been in a box, like some family heirloom, hardly ever to see the light of day; their life together tucked fast away in an emotional redoubt. She had given a year to getting her own life back together. She had given a year to falling in love with a different man. She had given a year to being a newlywed again. She had assumed the banalities of a life, simply lived, would distract her from the past. It had worked, fairly well. She appreciated her husband; loved her son. When she felt the need to cry for Lucas, she did so quietly, shut in her closet or toilet, doing her best to keep the tears to a minimum. What did eight years mean? Her life had moved on; she had remarried, had a son, re-decorated their house, and took a different job.

Looking at him had been painful. Lucas had spent eight years in a Russian prison. For all his handsome features and broad shoulders, he was gaunt and exhausted and looked shell-shocked. His face was more hawkish then ever, all planes and angles, a mathematician's dream come true. His eyes, even in his confusion, had been cold and biting.

Later as he sat on the bench, his hands had been trembling. Elizabeta had felt both reviled and relieved. He was here, relatively whole, shaking at her words of deceit.

She steeled herself; she knew she had to seem completely sincere. This lie, after all, was the price of his life.

******

And if all your love is wasted/ then who the hell was I?

She had the same somber, limpid eyes, the same thick, dark hair. The mole under her chin had been there still, a speck of brown on the expanse of the pale skin of her neck. The dark coat hid her body, but Lucas remembered perfectly what she looked like. For all her thinness, there had been a spot of softness on her hip. It was there that Lucas would rest his hand at night, keeping a connection to Elizabeta even in sleep, however tangential. She would curl on her side, with her back to him and Lucas would know the moment she slipped into sleep, her breathing deepening to low sighs.

There was no softness in her today. There was no smile for him. She had relayed instructions to his shaken ears.

Later, he had asked her, because he had needed to know. He couldn't let it be; he had wanted some confirmation of the pain, like some fool worrying a sore tooth with his tongue.

"What if it had been five years? Four years? Two? What conversation would we be having now? "

"This one."

Lucas' breath had hitched then. He wished momentarily – just briefly – for the darkness of his cell in Moscow. It seemed, at that moment, preferable to the knowledge her deceit.