"Hey now, all you sinners
Put your lights on, put your lights on
Hey now, all you lovers
Put your lights on, put your lights on
Hey now, all you killers
Put your lights on, put your lights on
Hey now, all you children
Leave your lights on, you better leave your lights on
Cause there's a monster living under my bed
Whispering in my ear
There's an angel, with a hand on my head
She say I've got nothing to fear
There's a darkness deep in my soul
I still got a purpose to serve
So let your light shine, into my hole
God, don't let me lose my nerve"
*Santana, Put Your Lights On*
"Jesus is risen, it's no surprise
Even he would martyr his mama to ride to hell between those thighs
The pressure is building at the base of my spine
If I gotta sin to see her again then I'm gonna lie, lie, lie"
*Pucifier, Rev 22:20*
"Whatever trepidation you may feel
In your heart, you know it's not real
In a moment of clarity
Summon an act of charity
You gotta pull me out of this mud
Sweet baby, I need fresh blood"
*The Eels, Fresh Blood*
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Fiona's death was devastating, not least as it came at the hands of a sleeping ghost from whom she hadn't known she needed to guard herself, believing she knew her enemy, discovering, too late, he wore a different, yet familiar, face. She had requested the op involving the Syrians, I want this, she had said, the countdown initiated, her past revealing to claim her, time folding over time, its chronic inevitability, a merciless insomniac, its need to reassert, revisit, reclaim, propelling the past into the present, an individual specter for the foolish amongst us who believe the lies, melodic to the ears, the past is gone. But, the past waits, clenched and hidden, patient, to expose your soul, reveal your perversions, demand your self examination, ticking down indifferently as you swallow yourself whole. The past, a momentary measurement of time, an hourglass once turned, would turn again, and again, an exercise in redundancy. He was not unfamiliar, he was not a foolish man, the ghosts of his past habitually dance about him, taunting, restless, peeling his skin back, allowing access to crawl inside, tearing themselves through him, needing entertainment, never sated. Fiona had been asked to dance, given her hand, and the past bled her on an abandoned tarmac, spent, and he wondered if she felt some sense of relief in the moment, that acute relief born of weariness and struggle's end, when you know, know in your bones, the inevitable has arrived, your wait extinguished as a flame, your portion of sand exhausted, had she welcomed it as one would an absent lover newly returned to be held again? It was, from time to time, the very nightmare that interrupted his waking hours, the seeping anxiety forming the core of his sleepless nights, their frequency had become, over the years, perpetual, commensurate with each additional ghost, their numbers ever climbing.
Adam, riddled with grief yet incapable of expressing it, expunging it from his heart, began a flat spin he worried he would not have the strength to recover from. He had, as necessity demanded, sidelined Adam to surveillance of Hugo Ross, recently released communist of the old cloth, a cold war comrade deemed harmless, but only just so. Restless, prowling the periphery, Adam had made his dissatisfaction known, vehemently, denying he was off balance, suffering, streaking fast as the shadows pursued him, enclosed around him as he constructed lies for himself to eat. The sustenance of death, the stages of courses served, unpalatable, spoiled, the detritus of emotions. He'd ordered him to TRING, decommissioning him briefly, denying him any choice, leaving him little option. He knew Adam considered his decision a betrayal, and it wasn't that he didn't understand his pain, but that he understood it far too well, reticent to watch him dance along the precipice, refusing to remain a spectator while he methodically imploded from loss, and grief, and rage. In exiling Adam, he had removed the warning Fiona's death foretold, the persistent reminder floating about the corners for those who dare to share their lives with the security services, a marriage made of serial monogamy, her expectations unwilling to suffer another placed before her, unwilling to wear the stain of mistress, lethal, inevitable, a warning, and pledge, of pain. Clive had died, alone, pouring out his bitterness page by page, and the service that was his marriage, his union, continued forward, without a backward glance at the man who was once devoted, a forgotten carcass to join those who had fallen before him, and he thinks it quite possible the service simply mirrors the soullessness of its breathing components, the consequences delivered indiscriminately and without mercy.
Fiona's death had shaken him, reawakened fears he hadn't felt since his children were born, igniting a paternal instinct best left inert, the self absorbed instinct of solitude, the single, deeply engrained survival technique, a required skill, learned as you drop to your knees and observe the carnage, time's passage marked by names of people lost rather than year, an obscene birthday to mourn. Danny, Clive, and Fiona all ether, all courting the inevitable, all provoking their conclusions, each an individual omen beseeching he distance himself, keep himself to the solitude, the shadows, forbidding the indulgence of a mistress, a mate, of Ruth. Human kind, the most exquisite example of dust, but equally insubstantial, ephemeral in the end, returning to the dirt that first bore us, each hourglass finally at rest.His expanding list of enemies is long, littering his past, significantly more flushed, ripe and bursting than had Fiona, yet she is gone, and he remained, waiting, his hourglass not yet diminished, but ever turning on itself, replenished even as it drains away.
He knew he was courting, exactly as they had, provoking his dance, his demon suitors hidden in the great hall of his life, his eyes on Ruth, his heart screaming yes, his conscience battling to reaffirm self restraint, self control, his soul reaching for his twin, his inherent malignancies metastasizing, polluting, willing him to take her into the dance with him, courting her death with every movement closer to her, the eyes surrounding them ever watchful, his craving for her acute, palpable, his determination to deny fallible, a weakness identified and recorded, his vulnerable Achilles heal had a name, God help him.
They see her.
Harry, I need you to trust me, there is something wrong, she had pled, and he had trusted her, not without conditions, threats of her immediate return to GCHQ, but enough to learn not to question her intuitions again. His were empty threats, made all the more hollow as he remembered how she had flinched as the fatal shot took Danny, her intuitions pinging again for Fiona, knowing in her bones something was wrong without ability to identify, and he reluctant to hear her, trust her, submit to her higher intuitions, concede control. She had, perhaps with malice towards him, though he preferred to think not, covertly defied him, leaked information to Adam, vital intelligence he had deliberately denied him in his banishment, meeting with him, clandestine, her empathy, her instinctual urge to soothe driving her to breach protocol, risk exposure, her loyalties a multifaceted betrayer within her. She had judged correctly, he had to admit, that Adam needed to be in the action, distracted despite his grief, or maybe because of it, the rush of an operation so engrained, so fundamental that to deny him further would be a slow suffocation, a life force dimming, a deliberate impediment to his ability to heal and carry on. The caveat, her winning card delivered without ostentation, We need to think about Wes...What's best for him, Harry, and he could not offer a rebuttal, weary at the continued effort, collapsing in the face of her argument. She was right, an occurrence more frequent than not, Adam's resiliency, his ability to see the hidden skills in another, and to act on them, which brought a jeopardized Korsakov operation to a successful conclusion, if one could qualify additional taxes leveed successful, or a once keen mind snuffed out, never to be returned, agreeable. That she was fast becoming the voice in his head, appealing to his conscience, was a daily foregone conclusion, providing a welcome respite from the constant recriminations, the gift of hindsight which allowed prevention rather than triage.
It was during an impromptu meeting with Juliet, the kind in which you evaluate the consequences of what you have done, realizing, despite your efforts, you have succeeded in trading the devil you don't know, for the one that you do, that he had allowed his thoughts to wander to Ruth, no doubt prompted by Juliet's not so subtle hints that she would welcome his return to her bed. He remembered being struck by the feeling of revulsion, literally, his skin as she caressed it shrank away from her touch, cold and venomous. He had not rebuked her in the past, his marriage, his wife, his children posing no encumbrance to the satisfaction found between her willing thighs, and he pondered what it meant that he had been repulsed then, unmarried, lonely, as absolutely available on paper, as unavailable in his mind, and heart, his hourglass at the exact moment of time marked as equidistance, turn back or face forward, the choice entirely his.
He could have, within a few short moments, delved deep into the past and chose Juliet, vicious, heartless, a viper of the first order, and, truth told, a fantastic fuck, or move into the future towards Ruth, towards something he'd dared not hope to possess, but feared he'd be granted the opportunity, knowing it was unearned, purloined from the mists, not rightfully his to grasp and enjoy, his demons observing from the shadows as they danced. He had, he realized, experienced what should have occurred in Paris, in Berlin, an unwillingness to betray Ruth with another, his vow to abstain, though silent, his unspoken secret to keep alone, both powerful and stupefying, the guilt of having misled Jane so casually burning through him, the truth that she never stood a chance, sharp as it had sliced violently through his conscience.
Is this what so many have sought to describe on paper, reams of parchment dedicated to the detailed dissection of emotions, the swirling confusion and despair, the craving and obsession that occurs with another, for another, the overwhelming urge to crawl inside another, nestle in their warmth, deep, a heartbeat pulsing rhythmic verse into your ear, familiar, tasting it in your mouth, breathing it into the deepest depths of your lungs, consuming you even as you yearn to be devoured? Love, love, careless, love. He'd had no idea the magnitude, that damaged and destructive boy, no possible way to conceive the potency, weight, the dominion demanding you relinquish mastery. He'd no idea, then, the extent to which he would find himself willing to submit, begging the right, yearning to bleed. But he knew now, after the Khurvin fiasco with the cousins, after Juliet suspended him, after her forced absence from his daily routine became debilitating, clamorous as a church bell thundering ceaselessly between his ears.
"You're out, Harry." Simple, succinct, Juliet had suspended him, assuming his mantle simultaneously, one fell swoop, disposing of him as one would spoiled milk, swirling the drain, thinning as it disappeared, foul smell fading, never was. He spoke not a single word as he was escorted from the grid, humiliated, his eyes resting on his team, his surrogate family, each in turn, a silent audience his witness, finally landing on Ruth, searching for reassurance as much as wanting to bestow the same. A fickle cupid, Death would not, as had been customary, bring them together, trade their fledgling life together for others lost, mark another moment in his memory as fated, destined, another tentative step into the dark void. Two dead agents, Khurvin done a runner at large, the cousins the festering ooze within the wound of his cataclysmic and hasty miscalculation of risk all down, if he were honest, to his vanity, his overreaching sense of territory egregiously invaded, his frustration at having to sit and roll over, the proper domesticated pet born of their burgeoning special relationship, their political willingness to subjugate themselves to the enlightenment of those military pea-tree dishes across the pond. Ironic that the operation with which Juliet had attempted to blackmail him drew its genetic inception from those very same think tanks, and it is not lost on him that his residual distaste and hidden shame compromised his decision, an irritated ulcer, acidic, corrosive, never dissipating, but inflamed with every extradition of British citizen.
There was an Alex Roscoe then, and an Alex Roscoe now, same interchangeable faced zealot, a closet xenophobe seeing terrorist in every face which doesn't resemble his own, creating wars based on fear, misinformation, and the overreaching power of the American Military Industrial Complex. War, its inception or prevention, was, and is, big business, and we the little sister waiting for our allowance for completing our portion of chores, just as we waited then to be invited to join the grown up table. Not for the first time does he consider he has become obsolete, incapable of accurately identifying the enemy from without, or within, the edges greying to become indistinguishable, motivations having morphed into vague and obtuse ideologies whose boundaries continue to realign, fostered onto an unsuspecting and passive mass of humanity ready to eat their share, and ask for more. These are the bitter thoughts, the redundant and self depreciating inner dialogue which formed the hallmark of his suspension, his exile to the periphery, and he thinks he understood how Adam felt, shuffled to the periphery after Fiona's death, his home no longer a home, his playground shuttered for his own good by those who thought they understood, but overreached in the assumption. But Ruth understood, had known Adam needed the hunt to heal, the focus of an operation to salve his pain, allow him to grieve as was necessary, as he determined for himself, for Wes. Autonomy tempered with human connection, a delicate balance, and Ruth alone had known it, pled in his absence, argued her opinion, quietly relentless, demanded he reexamine his position, cajoled him to give way, her loyalties divided, yet impenetrable. And he had succumbed, had seen the wisdom found within the chaos.
Through back channels, Adam had, within hours of his forced departure, sought to keep him firmly in the loop, not contented to watch him become an malcontented spectator in his own professional destruction, a decision he, in his arrogance, had not likewise allowed Adam, were it not for Ruth, and he experienced a realization so deeply humbling that he thinks, not for the last time, his innate insolence is a weakness so debilitating he does not deserve the loyalty he has engendered in those that serve with him, for him, having taken it for granted, his lack of appreciation staggering. Two months worth of intelligence missing from the Khurvin file, Fist of Islam associations, CIA suddenly keen to provide information after the fact, all resplendent with the stench of manufactured intelligence reminiscent of operations past, and despite his understanding of his own fecund conceit, he remained, as always with Americans, suspect of their motivations, disdainful of their assurances, seeing his own prolific hubris mirrored with every clandestine communication with Adam.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"She's worried about you..."
"Sweet," chuckling, a meager attempt to hide how much her concern affected him, comforting, thrilling, fearsome and terrible, his heart thundering in response to the mention of her. She had provided all that he needed, and then some, an autobiography of George S. Patton, sandwiched between kibble and a fresh bottle of scotch, and it took him the better part of an hour to decipher the message she had hidden within its voluminous pages, Sustenance in my temporary absence as safe harbor, the socks are a failsafe. The front lines miss you, xxR.
"The food she sent was more than enough." He had deliberately concentrated on the racing form, judging by a calculated, furtive glance Adam had gleaned enough from the exchange to put rest any doubt that the undercurrent between he and Ruth was not imagined, loathe to provide any additional confirmation, he focused, instead, on concealing his smile, an effort he was not surprised required a torturous amount of effort. He had, despite his internal vow to avoid such, grown to regard Adam as a friend, his concern for his emotional welfare beyond that of an indifferent supervisor, his instinct telling him the hollow, vacant look in his eyes spoke volumes, the depths of his turmoil, his loss, his existence rudderless, lacking tether and some substantial measure of balance, terror redefined within, the ocean riotous and eroding, the end once attached to Fiona, severed, trailing behind him, the ripples thus formed blending with an ocean made of regrets and should haves.
"It feels as though something is broken that can never be fixed." The pain etched on his face, the raw vulnerability, his effort to conceal it clumsy and half hearted, an action obvious in its predictability, those that mourn determined to relieve well wishers, doctoring the spectators, even as they bleed internally, comforting those who haven't felt the depth of loss as a participant, uncomfortable with the emotional expressions both felt and received. He remembers, then, Ben, and his mother before him, the pain, an internal, flowing river, churning the silt of memories and guilt, rage and helpless frustration, and he so young, abandoned to mourn without appearing so, the mortar just beginning to form his protective shell, the layers of isolation only beginning to construct, seams fusing, refolding, reshaping the form and foundations of his soul and heart, pulsing with purpose and horrific efficiency, the makings of an effortless future spy.
"And the grid?" Walking towards the stables, the distance between them and his assigned handlers a brief respite from the listening devices, his fleeting moment to engage in conversation forbidden, the details forming a verbal contraband, unauthorized, an act of treason in the offing, the addictive adrenaline coursing within him, waking the slumbering agent inside, Mr. Shadow swaggering center stage, body humming with anticipation.
"Tense, as you might expect. Juliet is...Her style is...She's been behind a desk for too long, obsolete, in a word," pausing, narrowing his eyes as he watched to dogs streak past. "Jo is finding it...difficult to...reconcile...she's...," searching for the word, walking a minefield.
"Young. Very young." He had supplied after a time, after Adam had failed to continue, his eyes staring into the middle distance, an unseeing, blank gaze indicative of guilt to his trained eye, shared by him, if he were honest, acknowledging his part, her current profession at odds with the altruistic motivations of journalists, observers all, inferring meaning, alluding to truths, a few noble ones out there to be certain, she likely to have joined the ever diminishing ranks were it not for Adam, manipulating, suggesting MI5 was essentially the same, but a better playground, appealing to her instinct, her desire to uncover truths and protect those that need protection from those lurking in the shadows amongst us, unseen.
"It is one thing to play at observant bystander, toss a phone into a criminal's car...Quite another to witness two fellow agents cut down moments after you've spoken. The things she's seen only proves it the rule, sadly, not the exception." He had wanted to add she'll toughen up, but refrained down to the shared shame of it, he and Adam, the reality that something innocent and fresh should be churned, reformed, made harder, the forced extraction of vitality the service demands, the burning spark that once identified her as one of the masses, anonymous, replaced by someone who looks a little like her, but wears her bitterness and cynicism as a shield, desperate to protect the soft underbelly, the need to retain such paramount, a crucial necessity to remaining human, remaining true to the cause, monstrous and horrifying in its frequency of occurrence.
Malcolm had been right, it seems, that his need for her, his Ruth, will lead, inexorably, to her death, her unsuspecting soul, her exquisite spark, her burning vitality the trifecta of sacrifice, the empty and pitiless hull left remaining a shadow of her once brilliant promise, curled into herself, beyond reach, protective of what is left of her empathy, her humanity, his Ruth, his twilight touchstone, beyond grasp or rescue. Vicious his heart, as it battered against conscience, his vehement silent vows to protect her, his furious desperation to deny the inevitability of past sins becoming prologue, the nature of his willingness to swallow the lies he'd constructed, embellished, treasured, fierce in their voracity, flagrant in their alignment with the void, serenading him, rotten, corrupting, he must release her, he must have her.
"She's butted heads with Ruth." Adam had turned to look at him, gauging his reaction, like Sam before him, quick and efficient, and he realized after a moment he had continued on the topic of Juliet. "Colin, too. She no longer understands the nature of the beast. Seems to possess an uncanny ability to alienate those most likely to help her, a little too friendly with the cousins...A perfect politician, getting in the way, obfuscating, manipulating, self important..." His handlers had turned the corner, within listening distance, and he smiled as he imagined Juliet's face as she read the worthless transcripts, as she attempted to reprimand Adam for nothing beyond a conversation between friends, attempted to establish domination over those who refused to submit entirely, as he blew the whistle and the dogs began to play their part, bit actors of instinct, background cacophony used to obfuscate and disrupt, old school trade craft, that.
"I need the entire file we have on Khurvin."
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She was on the top floor, reading, and as he approached the seat behind her, he was astonished that he could still be stunned by his physical reaction, the thrumming pulse, the flush spreading across his chest, the satisfaction, the instant sense of calm her proximity drew from him, his body responding as in sickness responding to cure, his affection an unwanted and deleterious illness, reaching, and he without words, immobile, gazing at his weakness, touching her with his eyes, the gaping maw of the void opening wider to accommodate them both, her hair blowing softly, unaware. It struck him, then, the darker consequences of his misjudgment, the gratuitous refrain of becoming obsolete in the new terror age paling to the unfathomable measure of her daily absence, a correlating necessity he was, had, attempted to resign himself to with his decision to resign after Shining Dawn. He sent a silent, earnest, thank you to Adam, for choosing Ruth as the means by which to pass the Khurvin file, even as he damned them both for dragging her ever deeper into the muck and grime of treason for the greater good, for Queen and Country, the maw salivating, smelling fresh blood, appetite triggered and insatiable, his heart, nevertheless, engorged with affection, mutated, requiring she become sullied, infected, and he her single remaining cure, helpless in his inability to rein himself, his nature alive, the rush all consuming, the antithesis of rationality, control, restraint.
"Nice night out..." Breathy, rushed, hesitant, his chest constricting as the words were formed and quietly spoken.
"I thought you were some weirdo." Turning her head, her profile, resuming the page, Mona Lisa smile playing about her lips, the just visible corner provoking his natural instinct to pounce, claim, tear apart and consume whole.
"I may not be your boss anymore, Ruth, but there's no need to be insulting." Delighted, she's making it easy, deliciously teasing in her presence, undermining the danger of this moment, smirking in the face of it, eyes still on the page, though no longer understanding the words, her movements reciprocal with his, the need to extend time or freeze it, the sand dropping granules, becoming the past even in the brief moments comprising their present, slipping, indifferently, both grasping to hold on, to extend, to fortify.
"How did you know I would be here?" Attuned, knowing she can't overtly acknowledge him, the chance of being observed stirring something deep and primal within him, the lurid details of voyeurism, tantalizing and seductive, and he very nearly eases forward, closer, his affinity for taboo coloring his wants and needs, desiring to see her face, her eyes, to see himself reflected there as worthy of this risk, to bathe in her forgiveness for all that he has asked for, all he has yet to require, yearning to breathe her scent, watch the pulse as it quickens at her neck, matching his own, ever closer to undone as he imagined placing his lips on her, again, forbidden in the extreme, the tether weaving around them, serpentine, deadly.
"A couple of months ago I passed you standing at the bus stop in the pouring rain, shortly after EERE. I was being driven home, and to my eternal shame...and now regret...I didn't stop." Lightheaded, his words of confession driven by a source unknown to him, beyond his ability to stop, the feeling of peace enveloping, demanding he divulge more, demanding he confess it all, flayed open, the specter of Death reemerging, a poisonous Cyrano, demanding he recollect the first moment he thought to take advantage of her, playing at Apocalyptic destruction, the moments subsequent flush with the taste of fatalities, his tether to her flourishing despite the morbid and decomposing corpses littering their dance floor, the void needing more, and more, and yet still more. And still she smiles, serene, tranquil, as the granules drop, the hourglass marking time overlapping, the past is present, the present is past, all irretrievably slipping away.
"That's fine. I like the bus. Save your regrets and shame for another day, another time, you've...You've already made it up to me, you've shown me what I needed to know, what I already knew." Closing her book, her profile reflecting the passing lights, alighting and playful on the smooth surface of her skin.
"You asked me once, after Danny, to stay...with you. I felt you, then. I felt you surround me, safe, allowing me to breathe, the breadth of your generosity, your goodness, it warmed me. Until then, I...I felt...adrift, in my whole life...until you reached inside, pulled me back where I needed to be...where I wanted to be...with you, alive after so long, waiting. I thought...thought I would never...that it wasn't meant for me, not me...But, I see you, Harry, all that you try to hide and protect from the rest, always have done. It can't be undone...you...You and me." Unfolding herself, feline in calculated movement, cautious, sublime, the breeze unveiling the back of her neck as she moved, his eyes then drawn to each exposed nub of bone, displayed, vulnerable, so easily snapped by callous and careless hands, delicate as a bird's, the hair at her nape caressing, lifting, settling back, the ethereal down of her body, goading him unmercifully, her words tunneling their way into his subconscious, I see you, Harry.
She will see you, and make you bleed.
"I have something for you..."
So it began, the bloodletting, her words tearing at him, drawing blood, pooling as he clenched his fists, willing himself not to act, not to destroy her with a conscious step forward. Better to be unconscious, better to lay down, allow death to take him gently into its arms, lulling him with whispered words of comfort and solitude, his life's blood draining, his infection spilling from him, and she untainted, denied entrance, barred from advancing further, for her own good, breathing his last, a terrible kindness she cannot fathom, the shadow she will become obscene, yet to be evaded, waiting, as she waited, the gift he offers, meant for her even as it will rot her from within.
He watched as she had extended her arm along the back of her seat, her hand curled protectively around the contraband drive, slow motion to his eye, her movements fluid, sounds from the open window, the life pulsing around them diminished to his ear, his focus entirely concentrated on her hand, an invitation to touch her under the guise of trade craft, an intellectual exchange through deliberate physical connection, and he had reached towards her without restraint, disregarding his inner alarm bells, his urge to place his hands on her intense and powerful, vital. The feeling was like that of mistakenly touching an exposed, live wire, the jolt beginning in his fingertips was dangerously pleasurable, instantaneous, the intensity abating only slightly as it wound its way up his arm, the warmth created carried with it, his fingertips caressed the inside of her hand, the curve formed, her fingers instinctively flexing briefly, enclosed around his again, after the exchange, her thumb and forefinger grasped him tighter as he drew his hand away, staring at the purloined drive, flipping it around, stunned that he had not dropped it, his hand numb, cold, and he was forced to flex it, reestablish dominance and control as he slipped it into his coat pocket to rest securely against his heart.
"Thanks," he had whispered, as he seemed to watch himself teeter on the precipice, the void calling, his nature demanding, his conscience warring valiantly against the powerful onslaught, unable to look at her further, her profile only slightly less affecting than were she to turn full and face him, a precarious act both fearsome and desired, he continued to look down, feeling her anticipation as she awaited his next move, the weight of her words heavy between them.
"Keep an eye on Adam for me. He's-" And it was done, in an instant, the connection severed, her arm drawn back, enfolding into herself, her face shuttered in seconds, her smile vanished, replaced by indifference, deadening to him, her eyes hurt, her movements suddenly wooden, foreign and unfamiliar. It had to be done, he told himself, using Adam as a wedge, that immovable object thrust effortlessly between them, whose mention was calculated, designed to jar them both back into a state of imbalance, curiously controllable, whereas the previous fluid and natural exchange was perilously uncontrollable, fraught with hazards, his unspoken lusts and wants, her spoken admissions and invitations, land-mines each waiting for them to submit, stumble, explosions once triggered, cannot be undone, she and I, skirting ever closer.
I see you, Harry.
It can't be undone...You and me.
He knows now, as he knew then, she was correct, her intuitive understanding of them, of things unseen, a unit formed without premeditation, a union consummated time and again in his darkest fantasies, forged on a foundation of traumas and secrets, yearning and recognition, each granule of sand providing fortification, each stolen, clandestine moment between them consolidating one into the other, forming the buttress against which they both breathe together, in time, the syncopation of utterly devastating devotion, it could not be undone. He had watched her then, as she turned herself from him, physically closing inward before his eyes, and experienced a crippling fear, yet found, intertwined within, an emotion he could only identify as rapture, deliciously languid and tender, the urge to strike out tempered by the primal urge to touch, caress, to draw from her contentment, to thrust her into a state of ecstasy, the euphoria and despair of reverence, his will prostrate, she unwilling in her deification. She had, he understood, become necessary to him in much the same way religion salved the masses, dutifully attending, genuflecting, regurgitating verse, pledging fealty to an entity who wears numerous names, unseen, unknown, attempting to explain the unexplainable, to make sense of the senseless, the overriding need to belong to something, someone, that longing to be whole. Is it at all surprising, then, that spies often feel godlike, embrued with gifts of knowledge, sight into the unrevealed depths of human existence, omniscient, omnipotent, wearing their legends, deciding who lives, who dies, allowed opportunity better left to the Gods, indifferently balancing the scales, humankind an infantile plaything, genocidal and benevolent in equal measure.
"Thank you...," leaning into her ear, her hair ticking his nose, he'd rushed to make his exit without delay, his hands thrust deeply into his pockets to prevent him from grasping her shoulders, shaking her, denying that their was an us, forcing her to look him in the eye as he refused to play her other, deliberately twisting her confession to suit his needs, crushing her to save her, you are not safe with me, the goodness you see is a lie, a carefully constructed fallacy, decoration hiding a multitude of sins and perversions, you do not see me. The physical absence of her, the nothingness that remained, was nothing like he'd ever experienced, that imaginary phantom limb that aches though severed from the body, a dulling reminder of what once was, what was supposed to have been, invisible, yet excruciatingly present.
He had never felt this way with Jane, never with Juliet, nor Elena, his absence or presence within their lives indiscriminate, illicit, but never physically debilitating as with Ruth. He had loved, in a fashion, all three, but it was with the heart of a feckless, philandering, foolish boy with no understanding of consequences, no ability to grasp that he couldn't manipulate indefinitely, all the warnings rushing, one behind the other, through his mind then, as he stood alone, the words from those who were no longer present demanding acknowledgement, you will regret, you will understand what you cannot now, you will not always be who you are, and what you will become will regret who you have been, the ghosts do not sleep, and the past will rise to meet you, eye to eye, demanding accountability, insomnia your curse and penance.
But he understood now, in full measure, the depth of his unspoken commitment to her as he watched the lights of the bus that carried her away from him fade in the distance. He relished the warmth as it swelled within him, his acceptance that it was beyond infatuation, adoration, his attachments of the past forming a sophomoric picture of selfish desires, childish and lacking in depth by comparison. It was love, this overwhelming drive to be with her, a part of her, a primal thirst unquenched, her physical absence from his eyes and body a torture unlike any he had known, the delicate dance they had embarked on unexpected, uncontrollable, yet the steps familiar, reciprocated by each in turn, mirrors both, drawn inexorably into the arms and heart of the other, thrumming together, reunited over time, the granules remain the same, again, again, and again.
Had he not recognized her from the first? Felt the previous absence of her, keen, exacting, in the midst of her interview, even as he delayed its conclusion for want of remaining near her? Had something inside him not reached for her before he'd had time to consciously examine his urges, his will instinctively acquiescing without considering the consequence? Had he not known her instantly, every moment thereafter revealing what was already present, waiting, as she had waited, for the gradual unveiling? Had the universe not conspired to join their paths by any means necessary, a destined alliance, a formidable and fated union, each powerless to prevent it?
The mists had gathered around him, blanketing him in late evening dew characteristic of London, each inanimate object glowing about him, the natural halos of light soft and welcoming, and he embraced the beauty he found anew, his eyes capturing what he had so often overlooked, his ability as a boy diminishing as he hardened into a man, the simplicity and truth, allowing himself to see and be seen, the barricades, years of deliberate, erected fortifications surrounding his soul, crumbling, the slow erosion of sand against an ocean of time. Several minutes had passed as he had walked casually, one of the nameless masses for a time, reflecting on the turmoil, the seductive conundrum he stood in the midst of, his stomach a mass of fluttering wings, his instinct to run full tilt at the forefront, his soul urging him to breathe evenly in the face of it, and the hair at the back of his neck rising to attention, his innate skill locating within him that eternal well of experience that spoke to being observed, shed of defenses, perceiving in the shadowy reaches of his consciousness his carelessness, thrust violently into the present, the prickling surface of his skin acknowledging unidentified spooks spying on the master, himself, the maverick, his natural habitat compromised for want of a woman, his thoughts belaying his considerable skills of subterfuge, leaving him raw and exposed.
A single cursory glance was all it took to identify the men Juliet had assigned to his watch, young pups tailing an old, cold war dog, self confidence evident even in the dim and hazy light, their youthful arrogance worn about them, singling them out as would a beacon cutting a path through the fog, it was nothing to evade them, though something altogether different to convince himself they were unaware of the treasonous intelligence exchange with Ruth. Catching her unawares on a bus, in the midst of London, was a foolish, indulgent stroke, leaving her exposed. Better to have hidden within her home, surrounded by her familiar comforts, coiled and waiting as would a snake, but for the niggling certainty that he discover himself loathe to leave her, his necessary return to his own home an amputation he would have abhorred deeply. The lesser of two evils chosen, the immediacy of resolution and reinstatement became paramount, the intelligence gleaned, purloined, examined, we are missing something.
Two days hence, all was revealed, the CIA satisfyingly put in their proper place, for the moment, one of their own fettered out, exposed and squirming under Juliet's merciless gaze, and he reinstated, as eager to return to the grid, reclaim his territory as much as reestablish dominion, godlike, omniscient, the old dog whose bite remains lethal to those who assume otherwise. He stepped through the pods, the early morning hour irrelevant to him, his purpose fundamental to his makeup, he and the grid having become one in the same with the passage of time, his tenure outlasting those before him, an intricate combination of cold war stealth and new terrorism technology proving formidable, perhaps his greatest achievement, and, yet, his habitual state of solitude, loneliness, was the first that struck him, reflected by the dimmed lights, the absence of people at that hour.
The shadows more pronounced, the silence ever more deafening, the questions forming, is this worth the cost, have those sacrificed become a meaningless, burning effigy, or do they maintain some measure of substance in their sudden, combined absence? Where once service to one's country was enough, despicable acts and deeds committed in the name of Queen and realm, easily justified to those whose morality was ambiguous, at best, manipulated by ideology at worst, and where did he presently fall, did it remain enough?
Enough, a word lacking definable boundaries, individual as a fingerprint, the ingredients an ever changing combination of needs, wants, desires, and lusts, once attained, discarded in search of more of the same, believing once conquered, only peace remained, a word he could not define for his ex-wife, for himself, his children, lovers, a word whose power over him was as immeasurable as unfulfilled. Indeed, he had enjoyed his opportunity to play at field agent, tapping into skills left dormant and buried, superfluous behind a desk, the rush of adrenaline familiar, comforting, the chase and evasions, clandestine meetings, the unveiling of intelligence, the intricate steps of living the life of an active spy retraced, for a fleeting week, all fading as his eyes discovered her, his blood coursing with adrenaline of another sort. And the answer resolving, forming on his lips, whispered to himself, No, it was no longer enough. His hourglass at equidistance, marking the middle of this present revolution, and he, almost without conscience, chooses the future, even as his past gains ground, specters floating, yearning for corporeal venue, demanding their moments of vengeance. No, not enough. Never enough, yet more than he deserved.
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"It's good to have you back." Her smile was bright, welcoming, soothing as a fire provides heat, thawing what was once frozen solid.
"It's good to be back." A difficult admission, albeit entirely true, not least as he had long since come to accept the grid as his home, his place in the world defined, secure, balanced scales reestablished, the loneliness of having no alternative heavy in his heart and mind. His secrets and regrets, the weight, his alone, his doing, painstakingly constructed, his self imposed crucible in which to simmer, unattended. No, not nearly enough.
"I better get up to speed. Lots of files to read. Wouldn't want to miss anything." Speaking without thinking, by rote and routine, distancing himself, avoiding her eyes which tugged at his conscience, questioning, are we all right, did we share something, in what direction are we to move, forward, back, not at all?
Do we still see each other?
"Don't work too late." Turning from her, the questions remained unanswered, adrift between them, his wont to reclaim control primary, his need for the discipline of oft traveled paths, his familiar desk, the accouterments of false bravado and self control contained within the scarlet walls of his office, his chosen sanctuary from a myriad of storms.
"I'll get the last bus..." It had stopped his progression cold, rifling through him, her last olive branch offered, and he the intended recipient, the light of her desk lamp illuminating her, the offhand comment, the subtle shrug of her thin shoulder belying the vulnerability clear on her face, touching the surface of something shared between them, confessions spoken and heard, regret and shame, his smile bestowed, the grimace beneath barely hidden.
Feeling the office breathe around him, drawing strength as he reacclimatized, moved items about his desk, distracted himself from her, feeling her eyes on him, longing for her to join him, dreading his actions should she chose to do so, despite his cold reception of her attentions, his uncontrollable need to maintain distance undermined at every opportunity by his baser nature, lusts and wants, and this hollow emptiness within him, gorging itself on his continued denial, once comfortable, the calm of conditions expected and mundane, forced into upheaval, requiring, without effort or restraint, closer examination, introspection, acknowledgment, God help him, no, none of it would never be enough again, but a lie, within a series of lies, he could no longer feast upon.
He had watched her, then, as he loved her, in secret, in the dark, nestled her to his heart, the direction fathomed, their dance the initial steps, the last ingredient of enough.
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"I'm off out, then." He sees her breath catch, her hesitation to leave clear though she has not yet breached the threshold of his office, hovering at the entrance, her eyes clear, bearing just a hint of an earlier proffered invitation, her hand coming to rest on the doorframe, and his mind relives what it felt like to caress the inside of her palm, the warmth and softness barely measured by his fingertips.
"I should thank you for the care package...It was very...thoughtful...," leaning back as he turned his chair towards her. She glanced down, her innocuous hummm, muffled, the slight shrug of her narrow shoulders, the curl at the corner of her mouth brief, disappearing before they were truly present.
"I worried you wouldn't eat, that you would forget...Miss...But you look no worse for wear, really. You look...you look good."
"Truth told, I rather enjoyed myself. Took our Wes to the dog track. He's a real knack for picking a winner..."
"Bloody hell, Harry..." Her look of shock, her mouth dropping open, and he sat there, enjoying his ability to provoke her.
"What? Adam was there, rubbish at it, but there, just the same..." All said while adopting a look of innocence, the cornerstone of any child caught red handed in the proverbial cookie jar, his heightened eyebrows in return failing to disguise his amusement, though he hadn't really tried.
"Well, I'll leave you to it then..." Shaking her head, her shocked expression morphing into a resigned grin, maternal, forgiving.
"I missed you...all...All of you, here..." He'd almost confessed it, allowed it to float between them, seconds passing without a word, before adding the last, a clarification providing a weakened safety net against a fatal fall, emphasis should she prove unyielding, unresponsive as she moved to leave.
"Did you?" Pausing, leaning against the door frame, her hand drawn to her charms, fingering them methodically, a physical distraction for them both, though the nature of her thoughts remained elusive.
"Learned a couple things, news to me, anyway..."
"Am I left to guess?" Her eyes direct, probing, hinting amused interest at the creased corners, flashing as she looked down, toed an imaginary spot before her, arms crossed around her waist.
"Let's see...I'm grateful I haven't the stomach for daytime television, tuna and crisps do not a well rounded diet make, Scarlett prefers her afternoons of solitude, seems my momentary retirement impeded her natural routine. Mmmmm...Adam is a cat man," her eyebrows raising in response, head tilting just so.
"I thought you might appreciate that..." Winking, twirling his pen between his fingers, a distraction like her charms, certainly, buying time to decide on exactly how far he should go, how much to confess, just how long could he delay her.
"Ahhh, my deciphering skills, while a tad bit rusty, served me well fettering a clever message hidden throughout an autobiography about an...American. Interesting choice, there," narrowing his eyes, unable to resist looking her up and down as she pursed her mouth, wrinkled her nose, and did a fair impression of him by narrowing her eyes in return.
"Oh, and there was, well...I've rather developed a fancy for...late night public transit." And if delayed long enough, would she remain, with him, contentedly reading a novel as he sorted the detritus of his desk, his opportunity to gaze at her unobstructed, there for the asking and taking, perhaps an offer to drive her to hers, an invitation inside, a bottle of...
"Any particular kind?" She had chosen to play along, and to his keen eye for such things, she was doing her best to control her breathing, her chin quivering, almost imperceptibly, her hands shaking as they began to fidget with the hem of her shirt.
"I'll confess I haven't much experience, but thinly populated busses have captured my interest...Very attracted to them, truth told." He had allowed his voice to drop, delivering the words softly, infusing them with deliberate innuendo, decorated with seductively honeyed pitch.
"Speaking of which, I'm about to miss mine..." Visibly frightened, he'd moved too quickly, miscalculated her ability and skill at play, at innuendo, his experience of such far superior, and he retreated quickly, frustrated at her inability to continue, celebrating her lack of guile, his cruel heart and nature angry at having been so resoundingly denied.
"I'm entertaining an irrational thought of dismissing my driver altogether..." What? Bloody hell, for God's sake just stop, have the grace to allow her to leave you selfish, preening, arse.
"Drivers have their uses, one shouldn't underestimate the convenience..." Moving quickly now, her words half mumbled, her comportment wooden, abrupt, resplendent with the desire to vacate, escape, to anyone observing her, incapable of hiding her innate honesty, this fledgling spy not yet entirely corrupted.
"No, quite true. And with mine being so discreet, the father of two..."
"Are you trying to cause me to miss the last bus..." Stamping one foot, her tone elevated, accusatory and anxious, as though without his leave she was not free to go, and he watching, coaxing, finding her adorable, his desire for her to remain, indeed miss her last venue of escape, enhanced with every uncomfortable shuffle, every frustrated sigh forced haphazardly from her mouth.
"...And available to provide you a lift just as easily should you find yourself otherwise engaged, even...pleasantly distracted?" Please, Ruth, just breathe, just breathe with me, in this moment, and he wondered if he shouldn't risk approaching her then, touching her as he had after Danny, in the pub, drawing her back.She had released her bags, the sound they made as they hit the floor an unnecessary, audible exclamation point signifying her state of anxiousness, and he remained seated, reading her tells, knowing it was not the time for physical connection though his baser nature all but blinded him with its caustic din demanding the contrary.
"Yes...You...This is a pleasant distraction, Harry," blowing her bangs from her eyes, "But I'm left to run, now, or I really will miss it..."
"You'll not stay?" His own olive branch of a sort, bearing the message Breathe, Ruth, breathe with me.
"No" Shifting purposefully from foot to foot, the precursor to flight, a frightened, threatened animal before him, his Ruth.
"You're certain?" Honeyed tone, soft, caressing, willing to accept any outcome if only to smooth the furrows forming on her forehead, his desire to place his hand against them, as she had done to him, difficult to resist, a simple kindness offered, yet certain to be misinterpreted in her current state. Or not, his motives having been corrupted regarding Ruth a desperate fact he'd no ability, or will, to alter.
"No" Biting her bottom lip, exquisite his yearning to hold her, suck that lip into his mouth, love her until her anxieties and worries melted into the ether, she limp, draped and available, in his arms.
"I see. Bit of a mixed message there, Ruth." Tell me what you want, you've only to tell me, Ruth. I've been waiting, just as you have, to divine the direction.
"I...I missed you. I did...do. I'd no idea...how...no idea at all, it was...Umm, what I said...on the, the bus, about us? I wasn't thinking clearly, Harry, you must...You were so close, and I couldn't think clearly so I just...just blurted out, without thinking the position it would put you in, the consequences. It's just...just you...you affect...and it was all so very secret and thrilling, really, and I got wrapped up, is all, lost the thread, allowed my personal...it won't happen again, I promise, really, and, oh bugger, I'm going to have to sprint to make it..."
She was going to leave, he had read it without difficulty in her face, as she stuttered across words, answering his silent question as if having read his mind, pinpointing the exact statement which would befuddle him, allowing her the few precious seconds needed to save herself, nothing to be done or said, he'd leapt too far, begged too much.
"Ruth..." he had begun, moving to stand, all for nought, as he had known it would be.
She was gone, a streaking bundle of cloth and oversized bags, through the pods, using the stairs, there and gone, frightened animal to proper little spy in a split second.
"I missed you, too." Whispered to no one but those observing from the void, celebrating his success as their own, understanding her admission both on the bus and that most recently spoken in the threshold of his office, roiling as the crest of the wave they all rode gained strength and height, the power to crush and destroy as easily as afford smooth conveyance to safe shores present in equal measure, its own equidistant choice, enfold and protect, crumble and decimate, the decision, a direction yet to be fathomed.
He wasn't imagining it, he knew, coloring beyond the lines, embellishing on memory, moments of words spoken, revelations of soul and heart, not, as he had come to believe, hell, needed to believe, the fanciful daydreams of an old and weary man, lonely having sold his soul some years ago, his right to peace of mind forfeit in the trade. Irretrievably altered, now, their mutual attraction and need for the other present, if not confessed entirely, no less intense and cumbersome for lack of verbal affirmation, their physical connections, while chaste, foretelling an intensity beyond previously imagined, past experience detailing nothing so much as folly, laughingly hollow, devoid of substance underestimated and infantile in the face of it. It was a bloodletting of sorts, while curiously healing, dangerous if taken too far, torturous with longing if withdrawn too soon, equidistant, each drop suspended, rounding, stretching its limits before releasing, as with human connections, invisible tethers stretching their limits, springing back to rejoin, consummating the union, crashing together, each end rejoined as one.
I see you, Harry.
It won't happen again, I promise.
But it will, Ruth, again, and again, and still again, eroding everything presuming to stand in its way, and he welcomed it, the suffocating crush of it, the seductive torture, writhing in its grasp, climactic and devastating in one.
Oh, yes, Ruth, it will happen again, it will have its way.
We cannot be undone, You and me.
Love, love, careless love, and he, sat there, silent and foolish in his certainty, denying his past, the lesson of one misstep lost to him in the present, the consequences having inexplicably faded from recent memory, riding the crest, content and unknowingly unprepared.
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"I do hope you've managed to come up with something relevant though, given the number of times he's managed to evade you in the last week, you'll understand if I still have my doubts..." Tapping the pen impatiently, irritated at the interruption.
"There's an additional player, possibly...Met her on a bus, out of listening range, but we believe that is where the intelligence exchange occurred. He disembarked, she continued on. House registered to an R. Evershed." Just a hint of excitement, guarded for having been burned by words in the past, failures unacceptable.
"She's not a new player, far from it. Works for him, senior analyst, counter terrorism. Not unusual she would conduct the exchange, really. Its what I would have done, desk spook, innocuous, least likely to draw attention, or to be followed, monitored..." Bored, these details easily available, nothing new, surprising, useful.
"Hummm. Right. Okay." Hesitant, averse to punishment, understanding it coiled to strike, nevertheless.
"Is that the extent?"
"Yes. Well, no. There is...something. ..."
"Which is it, Yes or no?" Christ, out with it would you please.
"He watched the bus, is all. Until it was out of sight. Right there in the open, knowing he was being tailed. It was careless of him, made me curious, so I maneuvered closer, thinking maybe I missed something, and, well, it were his face, it twigged something."
"Go on." Now, this is something.
"The look, it reminded me of how my dad used to look at me mam before she passed. Devoted, if I had to choose, but with something...a bit of wonder...Yeah, I'd guess wonderment, like he just couldn't believe his luck, right? And devoted, every spare moment he spent with me mam. Just couldn't get enough, I guess. Devastated when she passed. Never fully recovered, truth told. Not to this very day, just a shell. Its been nigh on about four years now."
"Interesting." Very. So, not a wholly useless exercise after all then.
"Yeah, but, like you said, if she works for him, then...its probably nothing. Maybe he wasn't even watching the bus, yeah? He's tricky, Pearce is. Enjoyed running us around. He even-"
"Is that all? Good. And, ahh, let's leave further musings on your parents to the romantic novelists, shall we? Not a word of any of this, do you understand? Best also not to alert anyone to your penchant for intuitions, no? A bit too feminine..."
"Yes. Understood. Thank you." Scurrying, as would a rat, back into the corners, thankful to have been granted leave, eager to escape scrutiny of one so unapologetically unnerving.
Oh my, Harry, to be so uncharacteristically careless.
I had hoped this more a challenge.
So be it.
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A/N: Quite a bit happening in this chapter, and while I'm not entirely happy with it, I'm am content to lay blame at having been on vacation as the root cause for not publishing something with, IMHO, a more satisfactory flow to my own ears. Regardless, I hope that you enjoy, reviews, as always, are embraced and treasured.
