A little something that jumped out on me at work. Set just before the events of 8.4. I'm supposed to be concentrating on another Spooks fic at the moment, but this one kept jumping up and down inside my head.
The night was blustery. A cold wind had been battering the city since daybreak and was showing no sign of letting up. It had been accompanied by intervals of squalling rain that caught unwary pedestrians and battered them with a freezing downpour.
The rain had for the present moment let up, but the wind could be heard howling around the houses and gusting through the trees that lined the long quiet West London road.
Ruth sat behind the wheel of her car and turned up the collar of her coat; seeking to sink further down in the driver's seat in an attempt to get warmer. The heater in the car had failed, but she didn't have the energy to complain about it. It wasn't as though she envisaged using the car much. It was just the evenings; at times like this when she got behind the wheel and drove.
A sudden gust of wind buffeted against the stationary car and she felt the vehicle rock gently. There were, she realised, better ways to spend an evening – but this was something that she felt she had to do. A place that she had to visit.
Shivering, despite the thickness of her coat, she glanced at the luminous green characters on the small digital clock on the dashboard. It was nearly ten. It was time she should be making a move back to her flat, but for reasons that she couldn't adequately explain she couldn't bring herself to turn the key in the ignition and bring the car spluttering back into life.
She leant forward in the worn seat and rested both hands on the steering wheel, looking out of the grimy windscreen at the building in front of her.
Although the curtains covering the downstairs windows of the property were drawn; light spilled out around the edges and onto the front garden illuminating the carefully planted flower beds. A cat darted across between the beds and padded silently down the side of the house in search of a cat flap and an escape from the unforgiving weather.
There were three cars parked in the driveway - and judging by the visitor passes that were placed in half a dozen cars on the road – there was obviously some sort of party taking place within the walls. An event that she hadn't been invited to attend.
She felt her emotions building and immediately sought to quell them. She'd not come here to sit at the wheel of the car and cry like some lovelorn teenager. She mentally chastised herself for being so stupid. There was no reason to imagine that she would be invited to the gathering; no reason at all.
Her head snapped to the left as a cold blast of air filled the interior of the car. Her heart-rate shooting up as she realised that someone had opened the passenger door and was now bending down to look in.
"It's only me," a voice she recognised only too well told her. "Do you mind if I take a seat, only it is rather on the chilly side out here!"
"Malcolm!" Ruth struggled to comprehend what her former colleague was doing in the neighbourhood. "What on Earth are you doing here?" she demanded to know.
"I was looking for you," he told her matter-of-factly as he climbed into the small car; folding his tall frame into the most comfortable position he could manage. "I tried your phone several times but only ever seemed to make it as far as the voicemail."
Ruth looked down guiltily at the phone that was sitting in the recess of the driver's door; its darkened screen indicating its current status.
"Sorry," she apologised. She'd made a conscious decision not to leave the phone on when she was out of work. Away from the grid she just didn't want to be bothered by the outside world; just didn't want to talk to anyone. She'd been feeling like that a lot recently. The messages had been building up on her phone and she knew that she'd have to tackle the problem sooner or later. At the present moment, later was looking like a much more attractive option. She knew that there were still messages on her phone from Jo. She'd picked one up the previous evening by accident; hitting the accept button on the call from the voicemail service, and before she realised it, had been listening to Jo's gently persuasive tones, telling her that they had to meet up again. For that one moment; that brief fraction of a second before reality reminded her of the truth, she believed that her colleague was still alive. The realisation had hit her hard and she'd thrown the phone to one side; not wanting to be reminded of yet another loss – yet another senseless death.
She turned to regard Malcolm, a look of suspicion on her face. "So, how did you know where to find me?"
"I didn't. I waited for you to reply to my messages, and when I realised that that wasn't going to happen .... I went to your flat. When I saw that there were no lights on; I guessed that you'd be here... eventually" He finished his sentence with a small smile; hoping that she wouldn't think that he had over-stepped the mark.
Ruth let out a long sigh and turned to glance back up at the house across the street.
"It's stupid really ... I know it is ... I just ... I don't know .... I just needed to see the place," she tailed off and stared down at her hands, not certain how to continue.
"It was your home Ruth," Malcolm sought to reassure her. "I think it's perfectly natural to want to come and see it again."
She shrugged her shoulders. "But it belongs to this part of my life that I left behind... A part that I'm not sure I'm ever going to be able to get back again." She glanced quickly in Malcolm's direction before continuing. "I mean ... I know I'm here, but... but somehow it's not the same, and it seems to be getting more unfamiliar at every turn."
Malcolm sat in silence in the passenger seat and waited for Ruth to continue.
He watched as her fingers danced nervously upon the steering wheel for a few moments until she managed to organise her thoughts, and then they stopped.
"I have a passport now ... " she broke off and let out a short exclamation of a laugh. "Harry called me into his office and presented me with it as though it was some sort of Sunday School prize. I half-expected to have to make a little speech!" She fell silent and the light tone dropped from her voice. "It doesn't all change just because I'm officially a citizen of this country again ... it doesn't all slot magically into place because I'm now back on the books, and paying National Insurance..." She gazed blindly out of the window. "I'd become someone else ... and I was happy with that ... I never thought I'd have to try and pick up the pieces of this version of me again."
"And you're not sure if you want to?" Malcolm's tone broke the silence that had descended upon the car.
Ruth didn't reply, and the only sound to be heard was the wind as it howled around them; collecting the leaves on the pavement and sending them skittering and whirling along the ground in tight twisting patterns.
"Everything this end has been done with a sort of ruthless efficiency. I was sorted out with a flat ... I was sorted out with a car ... No-one yet has thought to stop and ask me what I might want; what I might need. The flat is the worst ... God; it's like coming back every night to some sort of estate agent's ideal show home. Everything is so blandly inoffensive from the furniture to the paintings on the wall. It's as though they're scared of upsetting me further; petrified that I might jump out of a window or something..." Ruth finally petered out, her fingers now wrapped tightly around the steering wheel.
"And that's why you're sat here, in your car, in the dark, thinking about how things used to be?"
"That's why." Ruth shrugged her shoulders. "Pretty stupid really."
"I have something for you." Malcolm shifted in his seat as he reached into his inside jacket pocket and removed his wallet. "I wasn't sure exactly what to do with this ... I wasn't even certain that you'd want to know... but it seems like the right time."
He opened up his wallet and removed a slender credit card sized cardkey.
"After you'd gone ... your mother ... well she just wanted to sell the house as quickly as possible. She just wanted to be rid of it."
Ruth nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She'd been back for a while now and yet that was still one thing that she'd not been able to come to terms with. She had no idea how to broach the subject of her Lazarus-like reappearance from the grave with her mother. Harry had offered to help, but she had quickly pushed the offer away. There was a part of her that thought her mother would be better off not knowing about her return. She would have grieved; she would have dealt with the situation and she would now be getting on with her life. Ruth wasn't certain that she had the right to waltz back into her mother's life and upset it all over again.
She forced her attention back to Malcolm and tried to focus on what he was saying. She was aware that he had been explaining something to her, but his words had ghosted over her. She shot him what she hoped was an apologetic smile.
He caught the look and let his sentence peter out. He held out the cardkey. "When you're ready, just go to the address on the back. It's all paid up, no need to worry about that. Just take whatever you want and let me know what you want done with the rest of it."
She took the card from him uncomprehendingly and turned it over in her hand; trying to use the pale light from the street lamp above to read the printed address.
Malcolm took her silence as a sign that he'd overstepped some sort of unspoken boundary. "I'm sorry," he apologised. "It was just that I couldn't stand the idea that all your belongings would be picked over like so many cheap bargains in a jumble sale..."
"What?" Ruth forced her attention back onto Malcolm.
"When your mother sold the house she wanted it cleared out ...I'm afraid she didn't take the revelations concerning you very well ... I took the liberty of putting together a removal team. Almost everything was transferred to storage ... aside from a few items that I returned to the property store."
He watched as Ruth's eyes filled with tears; understanding finally breaking through.
"Malcolm ..." she struggled to find the words, but broke off immediately.
"I just reasoned that you'd be back at some point and that you'd want access to things again."
Ruth turned the card over and over in her hands. If only it were that simple. If only it were possible to unlock the door and step straight back into the world she had left behind. Life however, wasn't like that. It moved on at a bewildering pace. People moving in and out of places; some disappearing from the world forever without the opportunity of being able to say goodbye to them... and some ... she tried to force the thought from her head. So much time had passed; so many things had happened to her. She had no way of knowing what had happened to others in her absence. A part of her was too scared to ask; to ask and to find out something that she'd rather not hear.
"I hoped it would help to make your transition back to your old life that little bit easier," Malcolm struggled on, still trying to explain himself; hoping to break the uncomfortable silence that had fallen between them.
"You couldn't have known that I'd be coming back," she wiped at her eyes, bringing her thoughts back to the present. "How long were you going to keep all this for?"
Malcolm shrugged his shoulders. "I always assumed you would be coming back," he told her honestly.
Ruth shook her head. "I thought that I'd never see London again. I think I'd even begun to allow myself to forget all about coming back."
"But now you're here..."
Ruth stared down at the card in her hand. "... I'm not really certain that I want to be."
When Malcolm didn't reply, she raised her head to meet his gaze. "I can't just walk back into my life and pretend that nothing has happened. I walk into work and it's as though nothing is the same. It's not my place anymore... there have been so many changes ...I'm trying to fit back in again ... I'm just not certain at the moment that I can do it. I'm going through the motions; making all the right noises, but I'm still not certain that it's the right thing to do. I don't want to stay just because I'm scared of what else is out there. As long as I'm at work, I don't have to think about myself, about the mess that everything's in. I can bury myself with the work and push everything else to one side."
"Take your time," Malcolm tried to persuade her. "Don't make any hasty decisions."
Ruth raised an eyebrow. "Like you did?"
Malcolm smiled. "It was my time to go. It was the right thing for me to do. There's one good thing about the line of work we're in ... no-one tries to give you a leaving party!"
Ruth shifted in her seat to face him. "The grid isn't the same without you. What are you filling your days with now?"
"A little of this; a little of that. Just enjoying being a gentleman of leisure..."
"... Whilst building something impossible in the garden shed?"
Malcolm's smile grew. "Something like that. Remember; if you ever need anything ..."
"I haven't said that I'm staying," Ruth countered.
The smile dropped from Malcolm's face. "You won't leave though ... will you? You're needed...by everyone."
Ruth regarded Malcolm for a few moments and then let out an exclamation of frustration. "Oh for heaven's sake; don't say that that's what all this is really about."
Malcolm looked at her earnestly. "He needs people around him Ruth. I can't be ... not anymore." He held up a hand as he saw her about to protest. "I'm not asking you to pretend that nothing's happened; I'm just asking that you don't walk out on him as well. Give it some time."
"Malcolm..."
"I know, I know; it's none of my business ... and I promise that after tonight I'll never broach the subject again ... it's just that he's lost a lot while you've been away..."
"... And I haven't!"
Malcolm winced. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean it to sound like that; it's just that I'm worried that he'll be left with no one to turn to ... no one to talk to. You were always his umbrella when it rained Ruth. He missed you ... we all did."
Ruth sat back in her seat and stared out through the windscreen, watching the leaves as they danced and weaved in the gusting wind.
"Why does everything have to be this complicated; this messy?"
"Because without complications, life would be a much duller place," Malcolm replied simply.
"I could live with dull right now," Ruth sighed. "I just want the world to stop and let me catch my breath."
"Stay," Malcolm urged. "Stay and I'll help you move in ... properly."
She turned and smiled at him. "I missed you Malcolm."
"You know where I am if you need me," he reached over and took one of her hands within his. "I'm so glad to see you back Ruth."
He smiled and released her hand, reaching back for the door handle. "Promise me you won't make any hasty decisions?" he told her as he opened the door, letting the freezing night air invade the still of the car.
"I promise," Ruth replied solemnly.
She sat and watched as Malcolm headed off down the road, following his progress until he turned the corner and disappeared.
She knew that she had to make a decision. To stay where she was in some perpetual state of limbo, or to move on and to face whatever it was that lay ahead. She glanced again at the building in front of her; it had been a part of her life for so long, but now it was time to let it go, and to settle into somewhere new.
She turned the key in the ignition and the car spluttered into life. She'd go to the estate agents in the morning; look for something that suited her. After all; she was home again.