Disclaimer: BBC, Kudos; they own it all.
Warnings: *Spoilers for 9.8
A/N: Whoa, guys, thanks for all the reviews! Glad to see everyone enjoying this. Had initially conceived this as a collection of single-chapter shorts, and while there's still an element of that that would be going on, I can't look away now from this AU. You can thank your responses for that. :) So this chapter, originally written as a standalone and can be read as one, will be a continuation of the previous - and will probably spawn about one or two more chapters before I move on to the next story. Meanwhile: enjoy!
She watches him enter the room, limping, his usual long strides hampered by still-aching limbs.
"Are you all right?" Is her first question, and there is unashamed forthrightness in her tone.
He smiles at her. "Hello Ruth."
It is that lopsided grin again, quirked higher on the left, showing off teeth and laying down cool charm. She turns away to pretend to ignore the display of nonchalance; converts it into a stoop down to reach into her bag and pulls out an envelope.
"From Harry."
Lucas maintains his smile as he takes the postcard. "You will send him my thanks."
The orange sleeves shift as he props his elbows on the table, revealing most of his forearms, and she cannot help but stare at the chafe marks raw on the skin of his wrists where cold metal must usually encircle.
"How are they treating you?" She looks back up at him when she asks, but he had noticed all the same.
"Not badly."
She nods. They still hadn't come forward with the charges against him, despite having already kept him for ten days in the detention wing. She supposes that the recent media storm, however, had at least ensured that the staff here now employed more humane methods.
Handcuffs, though, are still standard procedure.
"You should get that seen to."
Lucas laughs drily. The sound is disconcerting enough to make his guards start.
"It's nothing, really. They're just - " he grimaces, floundering for a moment.
"Too tight?"
She could easily have been asking him about a new pair of shoes. He shakes his head and looks away, his gaze searching.
"Too… familiar."
Ruth nods again; this time, tries to convey her sympathy. She would have gone for "understanding", but is acutely aware that she has no idea what the cuffs, what the incarceration, means to him. To find a freedom once thought lost, and then to lose it again.
She remembers the files. The pictures. The one line blurb where they had glossed over his attempted suicide. Missing pages from his medical notes and blacked-out names of Russian interrogators and FSB doctors. Records bearing the letterheads of Lefortovo, Luschenka, Selekamsk – she knows enough to comfort herself that Belmarsh was nothing compared to them. That if she really wants to, she can convince herself that Lucas, having survived them, could survive this.
"Ruth?"
His voice startles her, and she flushes with the sudden realisation of her preceding silence.
"Sorry."
"It's okay."
"How's the..." She gestures at her own shoulder.
"Stiff." He rotates his right arm to show its reduced range. The other breaks had healed relatively well, but the damage to his right shoulder had been extensive, and had required several repairs and long painful weeks of rehab. "Though it means I get to sit out of basketball. Everyone expects me to be good at it, my height and everything. Hate it."
"Tariq's just joined the amateur league."
She smiles at the warm sound of his laugh. "Has he now? Good on him."
"Never hears the end of it from Dmitri."
A shadow falls across the table.
"Miss Harrington." The guard indicates toward the clock: half-past five.
"Right, yes." The screech of her chair is loud in the small room. "I've to got to drop by Tesco's on the way home. My turn to cook tonight."
Lucas remains seated and smiles up at her. "Worked out well in the end, did it?"
She huffs in fleeting amusement. "No thanks to you."
"You can return the favour someday."
"Someday." The word sits heavy in her chest. "Take care, Lucas."
"Goodbye, Ruth."