Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed this story, your feedback means a lot. I own none of this. Thanks again for reading, and reviews would be most welcome.

Chapter Two: The Girl from Fifteen Years Ago

"The laughs from the late night lock in are fading away when he gets in,

And the girl from fifteen years ago, has left and gone away."

(The Levellers – "Fifteen Years")

Sleepless and alone in the sitting room, Lucas closed his blinds against the oncoming dawn. The television was off and the silence was almost absolute, but for the occasional passing car outside. He double checked the locks on the doors, making sure that the chain was in place at the front. Then the windows are unlocked and locked again, just to be sure. Satisfied that he was secure, he returned once more to the sitting room, where the suitcase sat unopened on the table. He pulled it towards him, his hands poised over the steel clasps and froze again.

His mobile had chimed into life from where it lay on a nearby sideboard. He knew it was Ros, wondering where he'd got to the night before. But he hadn't answered all those other times she called, and he couldn't bring himself to do it now. He waited until it fell silent again and switched it off. The clock on the mantelpiece read seven am; he'd been home since midnight and not yet slept. He couldn't. The suitcase was a monkey on his back, scratching at him to the point of utter distraction.

He took a deep breath and snapped the clasps open. The smell from inside was musty, like it had been left in the damp; dirt adhered to the hinges and made them stiff. From first glance, he could see that there were several items inside. Old casino chips. A VHS video tape, the likes of which no one had owned since 1999. Mostly, it was old photographs. He picked some up at random, turning them over to see properly. All the while, he felt numb and bewildered as faces from the past revealed themselves, invoking memories he thought were long dead and buried. Eight of the fifteen years since these pictures were taken had been spent festering in a Russian prison cell, and those memories had almost rendered these ones obsolete. As though he'd got an upgrade in hell.

One image stood out vividly, despite being partially obscured by two others. He reached for it and studied the young girl's face. A photo taken at a house party while they were both at Leeds University, the memory rearing up from the depths of history. He traced his index finger gently over Maya Lahan's image, letting the long buried past stir inside him; a lingering affection for the girl in the picture reigniting. They had loved each other, once. They swore they would spend the rest of their lives together. Then, Dakar…

A sudden knock at the door startled him into dropping Maya's picture. He turned sharply towards the door just as the knocking came again, more forceful the second time. His heartbeat raced, hammering painfully against his ribs. Lucas slowly, silently pushed back his chair and got to his feet as he edged over to the sitting room door, just as a metallic flap of the letter box being pushed open sounded from the empty hallway. If Vaughan had followed him home-

"Lucas!"

It was Ros. He breathed a sigh of relief, but made no move to answer her call. She would be angry and snappy over his failure to turn up at her flat last night, and he couldn't deal with her attitude now. Not with everything else going on. He couldn't think what to tell her and needed time to clear his head.

"Lucas, are you in there? Answer me!"

Silence followed. Then, a minute later her heels clicked against the paving stones that led round to the back of the house. She tried the door handle first and, finding it locked, went further round the back to look through the windows. He eased himself down behind the sofa, just in case he hadn't shut the back blinds properly. He listened to her footsteps proceeding to the front windows before giving up altogether. Seconds later and something dropped through his letterbox before he heard her car engine revving in the distance.

The note on the doormat simply read: "Where are you?" A question he could no longer answer in all honesty.

Ruth batted Harry's hand away as it snaked up the hem of her skirt just as the telephone on her desk rang. It was almost eight thirty and the others would be arriving at any minute. He looked gratifyingly pained as she pressed the receiver to her ear. To ward off any further possible advances, she stood up as she addressed the caller. A mistake, as it happened. Harry got up too and grabbed her from behind in a tight clinch.

"Is that you, Ruth?"

Ruth frowned reprovingly as she gave Harry a sharp jab in the ribs with her elbow, making him snort with laughter.

"Hi, Lucas," she replied, trying to keep her tone straight. "Everything alright?"

"Actually, no, it isn't," he replied, just as Harry planted a firm kiss on Ruth's neck. "I've been puking up all night. I think it might be food poisoning."

"Oh, you poor thing," she replied, shooting Harry a severe frown before swatting playfully at his leg. "You'll not be in today, then?"

"No. Sorry to have let you down," he replied.

"Oh, not at all," replied Ruth, giving in to Harry as he squeezed her round the middle. "As long as that's all it is."

There was a brief silence at the other end.

"What do you mean?" he asked, sounding snappy.

"It's just, the last time I called in sick it was actually because I was tied and trussed up in this guy's hallway with a gun to my head," Ruth explained hurriedly, starting to worry in case she had inadvertently sounded like she was doubting him. "God knows what would have happened if Danny Hunter hadn't put two and two together."

"Honestly Ruth, I'm just sick," he laughed. "I'll be back tomorrow, in one piece."

They bid each other farewell and Ruth replaced the receiver before turning to Harry, wagging an admonitory finger. He flushed with the effort of stifling his laughter. "You're a very bad man, Harry Pearce," she scolded, grinning from ear to ear all the same. "That was Lucas, by the way. He's been vomiting all night."

"Excuses, excuses!" Harry sighed, lowering himself back into Ruth's seat. "We have a perfectly serviceable toilet here-"

"Harry!" she cut him off and landed another swat on his thigh. "Food poisoning is serious … in fact…" her words broke off as her expression set in determination. "Yes, I have an idea."

Harry was looking back at her, growing increasingly worried. "Oh no, Ruth," he began. "Not the chicken soup. A bad stomach is one thing; salmonella is quite another."

"Oi!" she retorted, aghast at his slight on her cooking. Then she composed herself as she went through the practicalities. "I haven't time to make it myself, anyway. But what does it matter if I just heat up a tub of Marks and Sparks finest and stick it in a flask? It's as good as homemade. Ros can take it round later."

Now it was Harry's turn to look disapproving. "I'm seeing a whole new side to you, Ruth," he said, still trying not to laugh. "Such duplicity!"

They had a few more minutes alone before the rest of the team would begin to arrive. A few more minutes in which to pull themselves together and prepare themselves for the daily battle ahead. Harry straightened his tie while letting his gaze rest, for a moment, on the engagement ring that glittered suggestively on Ruth's finger. It still felt like a dream for them both. A dream that took substance as Jo arrived on the Grid and, with the eyesight of a hawk espying its prey, spotted it straightaway to an immediate squeal of delight. Finally, it began to feel real: the wedding is on.

Ros cursed under her breath as she realised her attempts to rouse Lucas had made her late for work. But, he hadn't showed up at her flat the night before, as arranged, and he hadn't answered any of her calls. The last time she tried phoning him, he had switched off his mobile, so he must have known she was trying to reach him. Something wasn't right and the only thing soothing her worries was the small prospect that Lucas hadn't responded this morning because he was already on the Grid. Anything could happen in their job, and it usually did.

As soon as she passed through the pods she scanned the room for any sign of Lucas. Tariq was there; Jo and Beth Bailey were sitting either side of Ruth, chatting animatedly about something and Harry was alone in his office. A few other agents she knew only by sight were milling about, lost in papers or obscured by computer screens with no sign of Lucas anywhere.

"Ruth, can you come with me a minute?" asked Ros as she strode past her colleagues.

She tried not to look at Beth Bailey and, in the effort, blanked Jo as collateral damage. However, Ruth was following her as she led the way out of the back of the Grid and into the passageway that led to the paper archive, affording them both some privacy.

"What time did you get home last night?"

Ros didn't mean to round on Ruth in such a way, but her worries for Lucas were blossoming now that she knew he wasn't at work. For a moment, Ruth just looked back at her as she whirled through the calculations – like all Analysts, she was being annoyingly precise about it all.

"It must have been coming on for midnight," she finally answered. "Certainly no later."

"And was Beth there when you got home?"

Ruth's brow knotted into a frown. "Yes, she was in her night things and just going up to bed when I came through the door," she answered.

Ros relaxed, breathing a sigh of relief as let the tension in her shoulders drain away. She had been foolish to even think that Lucas had blown her out for the flirtatious Beth Bailey. If he was going to cheat, he'd a damn site more subtle than that, anyway. But with harmless explanations for his absence ruled out, it still left her on edge.

"Oh, I was wondering if you could bring some soup round to Lucas' later," Ruth said, casually. "That is if you'll be going to see him."

"What?" asked Ros, "have you spoken to him?"

"He called in about twenty minutes ago," explained Ruth. "Food poisoning. Up all night being sick."

With that revelation, Ros had the urge to kick herself. She raised a rather timorous smile and nodded. "Thanks, Ruth, I think Lucas would appreciate it," she replied, not quite sure of the truth of that.

If he'd been throwing up so much that he couldn't reply to just one of her calls, then she reasoned that his situation must be beyond the chicken soup stage. She let the subject drop and allowed Ruth get back to her day. However, she smiled as she remembered hers and Harry's roadrunner act, the night before.

"In a hurry last night, were we?" she asked.

At least Ruth had the decency to blush. However, when she held up her hand it all became clear. "Harry needed to ask me something," she replied. "He didn't mean to be rude."

Although the sight of the ring made her feel inexplicably despondent, Ros still managed a small smile. "You took your bloody time," she remarked drily, before returning to the hubbub of the Grid.

Lucas hadn't meant to do it. He hadn't meant to log in to the Grid's virtual network and type the name 'Maya Lahan' into the database search engine. Now her face, almost unchanged by the ravages of time, looked out at him from the screen and his heartbeat began to race. Her workplace was given as the Royal Bloomsbury Hospital, central London. Threat potential: none. Marital status: single.

There were no goodbyes between them. He didn't even realise he was leaving her until he was already long gone and, since that day, she was the unfinished business that slept at the back of his mind. She was the loose thread, left hanging in his life. Dakar had destroyed everything between them. He looked again at the address of her workplace and committed it to memory, before slapping down the lid of his laptop. His hands were trembling; heart rate still going through the roof and he knew he wasn't thinking straight.

Suddenly restless, he got up and paced the length of his sitting room. Snatching his keys up from where they lay in a fruit bowl, he made for the front door to get some air. He needed the space to breathe and think, away from the walls that seemed to be slowly closing in on him. Once outside, he breathed deeply at the cool air, sucking in the petrol fumes and the odour of uncollected rubbish from the nearby bins. Closing his eyes, he leaned back against the solid wood door, catching his breath before deciding on his next move.

"Have you opened that suitcase?"

Lucas snapped back at attention, gulping against a wave of nausea. Despite the desperate hope that he'd simply imagined the voice of Vaughan Edwards, when he opened his eyes, the man was leaning against his gate post, as casual as he liked.

"How did you know where I live?" Lucas demanded, furtively glancing up and down the street in case anyone saw them. "What are you doing here?"

Unsurprisingly, Vaughan made no attempt to answer the question. Uninvited, he walked the short length of the garden path, to where Lucas still leaned against the door. Lucas had to tilt his head back to keep Vaughan in focus as he drew level with him.

"Why so hostile, John?" he asked, one corner of his mouth twitching into a smirk. "I only came to see how you were."

Vaughan was shabbily dressed again, but still smelled of expensive cologne. It hit the back of Lucas' throat whenever he caught a whiff of it on the breeze, adding to the burning in his stomach this meeting had already afforded him. To put some distance between himself and his old 'friend', Lucas turned to unlock the door, getting them both inside before anyone could see them loitering on the doorstep.

Once back inside, Lucas paused at the bottom of the stairs, unwilling to allow Vaughan any unnecessary access to his inner sanctum.

"I said, what do you want from me?" Lucas repeated, his brow clenched in a tight frown.

Reacting against Lucas' disgust, Vaughn hunched his shoulders, back stooped as he came to rest just beyond the door. "All I want," he replied. "Is to get out of your life, for good. But I need your help, John."

The use of his old name made Lucas' flesh crawl. To avoid having to look at Vaughn, Lucas began walking the length of the hall, into the kitchen round the back of the house.

"And I already told you," Lucas hissed back at him. "Whatever you want, I'm not helping you to get it."

Vaughn followed him into the kitchen, always one step behind him. "You do this for me, you'll never see me again. I promise."

Lucas ran an agitated hand through his hair, trying to keep Vaughan out of his line of vision as though that alone would make him disappear. But among the swirling thoughts that crowded his mind, an internal debate broke out. Just one thing to make Vaughan disappear again couldn't be so hard? But if he did it, there would be nothing to stop Vaughan rolling back into his life the minute things got rough again. One argument wrestled the other until the doorbell rang, making both Lucas and Vaughan whirl round to face the door down the narrow hallway. They both fell silent as the doorbell buzzed, quickly followed by a sharp rap against the door.

"Lucas!"

It was Ros again. Vaughan turned to Lucas, the lopsided grin back in place, making Lucas' stomach lurch.

"Is this the blonde I saw you with last night?" he whispered. "Does she know yet? Does she know who you are and what you did? I could bring her inside and tell her all about you!"

"Shut the fuck up!" Lucas hissed, ready to reach for a knife. "Just shut up."

He managed to shut the kitchen door just as Ros flipped open the letterbox. All the while, Vaughan fixed him in a hard stare, silently daring him to let Ros in while he was there.

"Lucas, I know you're in there," Ros called through the letterbox. "Ruth sent some soup round. Come and get it."

"Oh, now that sounds nice," Vaughan remarked. "You're not going to leave a lady hanging around the doorstep, are you?" Let's bring her in."

He made for the door, but Lucas reached out and blocked his exit. "You leave her out of this," he warned, keeping his voice low.

Vaughan's eyes glittered as he came right up to Lucas, reaching around him so one hand was on the handle of the kitchen door. "You help me with this, and I'll leave her out of this," he bargained. "I might even leave Maya out of it, so long as you play ball, John."

Ros was knocking again, making Lucas' heart palpitate with every beat on the door. "If I do this thing for you," he whispered. "You walk away and I never see you again."

"You have my word," Vaughan answered.

Lucas bit back a nervous laugh. "Like that counts for anything!"

Outside, Ros finally gave up on him. However, as her footsteps receded down the path his mobile chirruped from inside his pocket. Vaughan had snatched it out of there with a dexterity that left Lucas speechless as he tried to wrest it back, unsuccessfully.

"Ros, is it?" he asked, showing the caller display to Lucas. "Is that the blonde at the door?"

Unable to contain his anger, Lucas grabbed on to Vaughan's wrist, squeezing as hard as he could until the phone fell silent at their feet. Vaughan's countenance barely flickered, and Lucas knew that was because he was now precisely where the bastard wanted him to be. Lucas loosened his grip slowly, catching his breath. "Don't push me," Lucas warned, raising his voice now that Ros had left.

"Albany," said Vaughan. "I need Albany. Get that to me, I'll leave you forever. We'll never see each other again."

Albany meant nothing to Lucas; he'd honestly never heard of it. However, he gave a small nod of assent. Whatever it was, it would be a small price to pay for getting Vaughan off his back, once and for all.