Chapter One.
Wound Up Tight.
They had held him down that first time, his arms pinned to his sides and the weight of the other man crushing his legs. At first he had thought it was the end; a knife in his ribs and a slow death. But the stinging pain in his lower back had been unexpected.
'Keep still.' His attacker had said through gritted teeth, and Lucas complied.
It took him only a few seconds to realise what was happening. The needle scratched against his skin and the ink stung like hell, but Lucas kept his teeth clenched and said nothing.
Eventually his arms were released and the pressure on his legs lifted and he rolled painfully off his front, the skin on his back searing.
'One year in hell,' said the rough voice of his tattooist, motioning at the rows of scratches on the wall next to Lucas' bunk. 'You've lasted longer than we thought.'
Lucas didn't make eye contact. Kept his gaze fixed on a point on the floor and said nothing. Peitr was tall and wiry, his hair a rusty straw colour and his eyes dark and piercing, but Lucas didn't let his eyes wonder, and after a while, Peitr sat down on the hard bunk next to him.
'You don't have them, you're a dead man. And dead men aren't much company.' Peitr clamped his hand on Lucas' shoulder a little too hard to be friendly and then got up. 'Tell me when you want to last till Tuesday and I'll make up some more ink.'
Lucas swallowed and shut his eyes, he wasn't sure he wanted to last till Tuesday, because to today was Friday and Friday meant the torture of Katchimov's gentle taunting.
'Vyeta,' he murmured quietly to himself. 'Vyeta, Vyeta.'
Libraries were a haven to his younger self, but as Lucas enters through the automatic doors and into the cool open space of the foyer, he wonders if they'll be anything like the mysterious buildings of his childhood.
There's a woman behind the main desk, and she looks fleetingly up at him before returning to the computer screen on the work-top. He stops in the middle of the foyer, scanning to left and right, but as far as he can see there's no-one else to help him, so he approaches the desk, a knot of anxiety twisting in his gut, unsure quite what he's uncomfortable with. He asks for a library card, and waits while she rummages around in a draw, before placing the paper on the table and explaining it to him as if he's never filled out a form before.
Her hair's greying slightly, and she keeps casting him flickering glances which Lucas tries to ignore. He's used to the scrutiny, but the flirtatious smiles confuse him, and he keeps his gaze low.
She shoots Lucas a curious look as he begins to write it out in Russian, and it takes him a moment to realise his mistake, before he crosses his name hastily out and starts again in English. A hot flush of embarrassment makes him avoid her searching gaze. He passes the form over and stares up at the clock on the wall as she enters his details into the computer.
Eventually she slides a new card across the desk towards him, a manicured fingernail pointing to where he should sign his name, and he picks up the pen again, his signature feeling strangely unfamiliar as he loops it hurriedly into the space.
'Thank you,' he says once he's handed the pen back, and slips the card into his pocket, not sparing her another glance.
Her eyes are still on his back as he moves away into the bookshelves, the small jolt of anticipation making him walk a little faster, an echo of his childhood joy. But the smell is different. Not the musk of paper and binding; but a modern smell. Paint and plastic.
After half an hour Lucas has surprised himself. Ian Banks, Sebastian Faulks, Rushdie, DS. Lawrence. He has trailed his fingers along their spines, having missed the feel of pages under his fingertips for eight long years, the smell of the paper and the glue. He stops by the poetry section, and finds himself wondering what has happened to his copies of Blake. The anthology his father had given him before he left for university, treasured in his student room and then placed carefully on the bookshelf he and Elizabeta had picked after they had married. He supposed she had kept it. It had been his. But then he frowns, and looks down. She had been his. His wife. Harry had been brief when he had talked about her and the reality had been all the more sickening when he had spoken to her himself.
Lucas wasn't even sure he'd wanted to see her. He had changed. She had too. He knew he wouldn't be able to accept it. The change in himself had been his own, but he hadn't known if he could look her in the face and see the lines of the years marking her mouth, the crease of sorrow in her forehead. Because her change had been palpable, he had looked her in the face and seen the eight years he hadn't been there. Eight years of someone else.
But she had missed him. Hadn't she? She had cared, cared enough that when Katchimov showed her the photos of him she had offered to help, to make it easier for him.
But she found someone else. Jealousy stabs at his gut and Lucas' jaw clenches as he thinks of her with a nameless man, leaving him forgotten; just someone who brings a pang of guilt when she remembers him fleetingly on a late October evening and the chill has returned to the air.
Were you always this cold, under the skin? Was that man I knew just a lie?
Lucas closes his eyes, the memory flickering round his head. Just a lie. He thinks viciously. All lies.
A sudden impulse makes him stretch for Blake, a longing for the symbolism, the rhythm of the words.
Another hand has reached for the book, and he retracts his own quickly, looking up.
Ice blue meets leaf green.
'Sorry, here…' Lucas pulls the book off the shelf, and holds it out to her.
'No, its ok.'
He put his head slightly on one side. 'Really, I-'
But she rolls her eyes and he finds it refreshing somehow, and reminiscent of an irritated Ros.
'Its, ok.' She grins, revealing small teeth. 'Your arms are longer than mine anyway, you would have got there before me.' She takes the book out of his hands and places it on the top of the pile. 'Thats quite a varied selection.'
He glances down at it and then back up at her, unable for a second to form the words he knows he needs. 'I've been out of the country for a time…' The words come slowly, he's unsure what to reveal. Knowing he doesn't need to be guarded. But after eight years its hard to break the habit. 'I've not been in a library for a while.'
She nods, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. 'Life gets in the way, I know.'
He wonders if she does.
'Was this what you came in for?' he asks suddenly, nodding at the book in his arms, eyebrows raising slightly.
She grins again and shakes her head. 'I'm sure I'll find something else. Enjoy the Blake.'
Lucas watches her move away, her swathe of dark hair reminding him of his ex-wife. But he can see the red in hers, caught by the late autumn sunlight lancing through the windows.
A smile tugs his lips. A connection. A start.
He finds himself outside the office later that day, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, and as he stares up at the windows all he can see the explosion reflected in the glass. The indestructible Adam Carter, destroyed by the people he swore he would fight to the finish. He paid with his life.
Adam's funeral had been yesterday, and it had taken both Harry and Malcolm to persuade him to attend. He had barely known him. Felt uncomfortable being unable to share their grief. Adam had been a good man, but he had whipped in and out of Lucas' life so fast it was as if he had never been there.
He felt the bitterness of loss directed at him as he sat near the back in the church, and Lucas knew that in a way he would replace him. He saw it in their faces, the hostile glances. Glimpsed it in Jo's eyes, and in the curt nod Ros gave him as she passed him in the church. He was not yet one of them. Damaged goods. He knew thats what they thought. They were waiting for him to crack, to show some sign of the eight years of hell he had endured. The proud part of Lucas thought he wouldn't give them that satisfaction. They wouldn't see him crack. The other part wondered how long he was really going to last.
It had been a small service and Lucas had thought fleetingly how his own funeral would have looked if he had not returned from Russia. Who would have been there to remember him? But he kept his head bowed and smiled sad smiles at those filling the church. He would not show them the cracks, even if he could.
His phone beeps in his coat pocket and Lucas reaches automatically for it, still staring up at Thames House.
It's a text message from Ros.
We have a problem - get here now.
He slides his phone shut and takes a breath in. Just another working day.
My first attempt at a Spooks fanfic, and to be honest i'm a bit nervous. The main plot will be coming into play in the next chapter. This was just really to set the scene.
Lucas is struggling to get over his confusion about Elizabeta, and at the same time is trying to fit back in with the team and prove his worth. Please drop a review and tell me what you think. Next Chappie up soon.
