Chapter 9
Summary:
Well, about time.
Notes:
Next chapter's done, just needs to address the notes from the always sagacious Sol. And then an epilogue and dear lord, this one's done. Curse you pneumonia for your delaying tactics.
Chapter Text
She led him out to the park that formed the bulk of the Creighton-Ward estate. Rumours of design by Capability Brown turned out to be precisely that, but whoever did establish the layout of it, they'd obviously learned from the master. It was an artful landscape that welcomed them, a long meadow interspersed with small stands of old oaks and beech that managed to seem spontaneous even as they marshalled the eye towards the ornamental lake at the end of it. It meant a perfectly lovely space for a canter, and the horses knew it as well as she did.
Beyond the lake stood a fence that separated the manor grounds from Barton Hills National Nature Reserve, and that was her goal today. In its thick forest the micro-drone would struggle to track them, and that brought the possibility of the need for whoever was spying on them to actually physically follow them into tits trails. Which also brought the possibility of a confrontation and frankly, the thought of that brought a quick acknowledgement that a violent showdown with evil henchmen was exactly what she needed right now.
As well-behaved as the horses were, she knew she'd been neglecting them, and they were both pulled sideways to check their desire for an immediate gallop into the wide open space before them. A freshening breeze called them on. Gordon, looking ridiculous in duster and wig, nonetheless seemed brighter for being out in the sunshine and sitting comfortably atop a horse attempting to impersonate a circus pony in the way she was arching her neck and picking up her hooves, almost springing on the turf. Penelope kept Ashgar in hand until they'd reached the first stand of trees, letting both horses warm up before the run.
The three hundred year old beeches and oaks were covered in the soft green of spring.
New growth. New hope.
Damn, she thought. Bloody spring can be so ridiculously metaphorical.
In a sudden burst of irritation, whether at Gordon or at the situation or even at herself she wasn't sure, she released the tight hold she had on the reins and urged Ashgar into a canter. Deliberately she didn't look behind her to check on how well or if Gordon coped until she had gone several hundred metres over the meadow.
Then she turned to look and - this.
This was it.
The expression on Gordon's face of utter child-like delight. All the groomed young men she knew, so sure of themselves in their cynical ambition, and yet it was Gordon's joi de vivre that called to a wild gladness in her own heart, something that had survived a dutiful childhood, a diligent adolescence and a disciplined adulthood. She saw his joy and it sparked her own, and no one else did that for her.
He was, she also had to admit, coping rather well with the canter, although Nisa had such a smooth gait that it wasn't surprising. And Gordon, after all, was supremely fit and flexible. The thigh muscles so clearly defined in the riding breeches were gripping the mare's sides as securely as if he rode each day, and as she slowed down and he drew alongside her where the path narrowed again into the forest, his mouth was wide in an easy smile.
"This is great. I wish we could have horses on the island," he said.
"Mm. Not really the terrain for it."
"Yeah." He twisted back in the saddle to look at how far they'd come, then faced her again. "Maybe Brains could crossbreed horses and monkeys in his mad scientist's lair."
"Or you could just saddle up mountain goats."
"Now you're thinking." He drew in a deep breath, gathered the reins and grinned at her again.
His gift for happiness caught her heart. Every time.
She took the surveillance detector unit out of her pocket and discreetly checked the area behind them.
"I suspect we've outpaced the drone." Micro-drones were almost impossible to see in flight, so the electronic checking was necessary.
They rode more sedately through the forest, following well and ill-defined paths through to where the row of small hills, little more than ambitious bumps, flanked a grassy pass. Penelope brought her horse to a halt with a word, and then dismounted, leaving the rein trailing. Her horses were well-trained and well-behaved, no tying up necessary.
"Fancy a climb?"
Gordon looked up at the rounded hill before him.
"Sure." And as quickly as it had come, the happiness was banked again, beaten down into dutiful waiting.
Is this strategy? Performative penance? Does he think he's giving me what I want? Penelope wondered. Does he think I need misery in order to forgive?
Last night, and their meeting, and words wielded like a flaying knife came clear into her mind.
Why wouldn't he think that?
"Come on, Gordon. I'll race you."
That earned a crooked eyebrow. "Really? I think even you would – hey!"
Penelope hadn't waited. She began running up the hill's smooth sides, as Gordon cried out in frustration and dismounted behind her.
"Cheating! So cheating!"
She had no breath for a response or time to look back, powering her way toward the summit, resorting to grabbing at grass as it grew steeper before it rounded finally at the top under an old, tall oak.
As could be expected, the bright sunshine of first light was now moderated by a small army of individual clouds skating along on the breeze that could safely be termed wind. From up here on top of the hill it meant that the view between them was a constantly shifting parade of light and dark.
Gordon scrambled to stand beside her. She glanced at him as his eyes scanned the view, so different to the tropical beauty of Tracy Island. A patchwork landscape in one direction, thick green canopy in the other, and a bite to the air that never intruded in his home. He looked out at it briefly, saying nothing, then dropped to sit at the foot of the tree. For a moment they stayed like that, him below, she above, until at last he cleared his throat.
"So what now?"
She came back to sit against the tree, beside him. It was the kind of peace that is to be found amongst rubble.
"I'm still detecting electronic surveillance."
"Hmm?" Gordon shifted slightly. "What kind?"
"Oh, no doubt some of those miniature drones. Wasp size things."
"So – we wait here until they come and check us out?"
Penelope gave the smallest of shrugs. "I rather hope so. With any sort of luck, half will follow Parker, half will follow us. I want them looking a long way away from where their surveillance could actually be doing them any good."
"And what do we do when they come?"
"Gordon. This is a national reserve. They're perfectly welcome to enjoy some of our lovely English countryside."
A little huff of air beside her.
They sat without talking. The only sound was the occasional tearing of grass by the horses as they grazed, fifty feet below them. It wasn't a particularly tense silence. Last night's rain and this morning's dew had burned off to leave the ground only slightly damp, and there was a sense of comfortable isolation on top of the hill, so that time and hostilities felt suspended without any pressing need for resolution.
They, and the hill, simply were.
Long moments passed, drifting down into something more calm and quiet than she could have imagined yesterday. They watched together as a flock of starlings wheeled and broke and combined once more into a wave on the wing.
"Murmuration." She nodded towards them. "It's called a murmuration of starlings."
"Cute. Mom used to call us a terror of Tracys. When we were kids, you know, running around the place." Another huff of air, the ghost of his laugh. "I think she included Dad in that."
"I can imagine."
Well, not really. Her own childhood had been as carefully curated as a museum exhibit, with safety ropes and security guards and an expectation of quiet and civility. The mayhem of the Tracy boys en-masse was something outside of her experience, and the thought of it horrified and fascinated her in equal measure.
The time of grace passed. She was waiting, she realised, and the insistence of it rose within her.
Perhaps he sensed it.
"Pen?"
He looked sideways at her, through his eyelashes, and the effect was ridiculously endearing. Is that deliberate? she wondered. Misery, compliance, charm. She used to think she could read him, she could plumb his depths and chart his course. But this morning he was obscure to her, and it stirred another burst of irritation when she was hoping for composure.
"I think I have to talk to you."
"Oh? Have to?" It was acidic, and it burned.
"Yeah. Have to. I got four brothers, one sister, one grandma, a genius and probably a robot ready to kick my ass if I don't."
She couldn't help it.
"Not to mention Parker."
"Parker! Pen, I swear, that guy…"
She lifted her chin, facing out to the west where a soft blue smudged the horizon. "Gave you the rounds of the kitchen, did he?"
Even though she wasn't looking at him, she heard him blink.
"I – don't know what that means? But if it means a hard time, yeah. Yeah, he did, and he was right to, and I'm sorry, Pen, truly."
Her breath caught a little, and she cursed herself, because this was a moment for complete control.
"Are going to tell me why you were so awful to me in Edinburgh?"
A mistake. She knew the second the words left her. As a manoeuvre in their tentative détente it lacked all subtlety. It told him far more than he'd shown her. He now knew that it had hurt, and that he had that power over her.
She'd just handed him a sword to skewer her with, if he wished to wield it.
There was no response from Gordon, and that surprised her. She dared a glance and saw he was shaking his head slightly, frowning as he looked out at their shared horizon.
She waited. And as each second passed, she realised a terrible truth; she wanted him to do this well. She wanted that very badly indeed.
And it seemed as though he was about to fail her once more.
But then she looked again, and she saw what she'd missed in her first, furtive glance; his mouth was bunched upwards not in consideration, not in annoyance, but in an effort to steady lips that threatened to tremble. He dropped his head, still shaking it. It took another minute, as long as any Penelope had ever known, before he spoke.
"I'm not – on Rona, I – "
The hand closest to her grasped a clump of grass and she thought he was going to tear it out. Instead his fingers closed around it, gripping it as if to keep him anchored there.
"I killed people. Two of them. And I mean, things were kinda full on. Kinda desperate. I had to stop them. And I would have done anything to keep them from going up top, from getting to Virgil. So I did, I did what I was trained to do and it was what I needed to do. If I hadn't done that, hadn't killed them, the consequences would have been so bad, not just for Virgil but big picture, everyone. I don't need to justify it. It's all about as rationalised and argued as I can make it. And Scott, and Virgil, hell, even Grandma, though she doesn't know all of what – she doesn't know the half of it."
It was a long speech for Gordon. People thought he talked a lot, but mostly it was hit and run conversation. Outside of core IR business it was one liners and sassy comebacks. Nonsense, filling the airwaves. But this? This had all the steady deliberation of a condemned man mounting the gallows.
Another silence, and somehow even as a terrible sadness began to consume her one part of her brain noted just how much he left out.
She had to clear her tight throat to speak.
"Gordon. You were cleared of wrong doing. The commission recognised, as does any fair minded person, that you acted in self-defence. It was an awful thing to go through. I can't imagine how hard that's been for you. But you said yourself, it's – "
Abruptly he stood up, pulling the ridiculous wig from his head.
"Yeah, this is stupid. I know. I know. Stupid."
She was beside him at once, both standing for the truth because it was coming at them like an enemy.
"Not stupid. It was traumatising."
He grinned at that.
And she almost took a step back.
Never, she had never seen that look on her Gordon. His lips pulled back as if they wanted to snarl; his eyes so dark their blueness was lost in black. One hand reached towards him, involuntarily, and she saw him pull away from her. It might have been petulance, it might have been disgust at her touch, but with the sudden insight that both blessed and haunted her, Penelope recognised something else completely.
It was the move of a leper, saving another from the consequence of their own compassion.
Her voice, always so sure, so controlled, shook slightly.
"Gordon, of course it was. How could anyone not be traumatised? You were both alone against a superior force of numbers, and Virgil's life was at stake. Not to mention the fate of Europe, possibly the world. You did what you had to do, and I'm pro –"
"Don't."
Quick and hard, a verbal slap.
So still, so tense, he who was never either, and she understood something else.
She realised that he wasn't the one who needed to do this well.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to look away from the stranger at her side, out at the peaceful morning that still sparkled where the sun discovered hidden dew. She clasped her hands together, an old trick learned from her first governess, years and many trials ago. Hands corralled were hands that could not betray their owner's distress.
"I don't understand."
"No."
"I want to."
No response to that, and she knew she was failing the biggest test of her life. Here, on a beautiful morning in spring, on her favourite hill, with the man she - with someone who deserved far better.
"Are you – are you seeing someone? A professional, I mean. I know a very good therapist in Harley Street, clichéd I know, but my father swore by him."
Another long pause, and the voice that finally came matched the grin.
"Why would I? Everyone's so proud."
The way he said proud was the way he might say rancid, or infested, or rotten.
"I don't understand," she said again, helplessly.
And suddenly she did understand something quite shocking.
So accomplished, so extensive an education. So many meetings where her diplomacy had saved the day, so many social affairs tactfully navigated and conquered. So many school friends counselled or combated, so many heads of government charmed. At ease with criminals and courtiers, with bankers and brigadiers. Through it all, such assuredness, the kind of self-belief that hundreds of years of power bestowed on the fortunate children of a society's overlords.
And now, the realisation that all of it was so very, very narrow.
This? This was a pain so deep it was destroying a kind and courageous man, and nothing in her experience had exposed her to anything like it.
Finally, something beyond stillness and silence; a soft sound that might almost be an embryonic laugh.
"Virgil really will kick my butt." At last, he sent her a sideways glance. "We've thrashed this out. Beaten the thing to death. On a beach."
She swallowed hard, and for once, kept quiet.
"But I guess… I'm still figuring things out. It was more than just the - what I did."
The starlings swerved towards them, following insects in the air invisible to the humans. She heard the fluttering of their wings and thought of a hundred tiny heartbeats working as one, as her own thudded in her hollow chest.
"In Edinburgh, I hated myself so much I didn't want to – I didn't want – not you. Pen, not you."
She never knew that incoherency could bring with it such a blinding light of comprehension.
"Gordon," she said, so softly, and at the sound he made a noise as if something inside him had just torn away.
"I saw a part of myself that really scared the hell out of me. Everything I thought about who I was just got kinda swept away. It was all – raw, I guess, and everything seemed so bad, and there you were, so perfect, I thought I was in heaven because you were there." He looked at her then, his eyes brown again but sad in a way that raked her heart so sharply she had to bite her lips to stop the sound of its hurt escaping.
Her hands unclasped of their own accord and reached for Gordon's, and he grasped it as he grabbed a lifeline, sure and strong, but his shaking voice betrayed that strength.
"I'm so sorry. I'm such an idiot. I never meant to hurt you, I meant to…"
Of course he wouldn't. She knew that as fundamentally as she'd ever known anything in her life. Later she could wonder at how she had forgotten who he was, in her bewildered hurt, in her battered pride.
What did he need, now? What could she give him?
"Rescue me? From your perfidious self?"
"Or maybe I was just protecting myself," he said, a gloomy kind of rawness in his voice. "Maybe I figured the minute you saw that side of me you'd be gone and it'd kill me. I mean, I could say it was for you, but maybe I pushed you away because I couldn't push myself away."
There was insight here, unpolished in its expression but profound in its honesty.
"But Pen, I swear, I will never do that to you again."
"As if I would ever let you."
A second after she said the words, she realised their ambiguity, brought home to her by the way he closed his eyes at perceived defeat. She blundered on.
"No. What I meant was – Gordon, if we… Gordon, you and I, if we try for something, then we have to have very strict ground rules."
His head came up at that, his face still. Watching.
"We have to be honest. I don't need protecting from you. If you think for one moment that I don't have my own…" She paused, wondering what she could say here. How much she should say. "I'm not perfect."
He made a small, helpless gesture.
"Yeah, you kinda are. To me."
She shook her head. Not impatient. Careful.
"I have an awful mean streak. I do. And something else." Now it was she who could not look at him, who turned for succour to the horizon's blurred mauves and blues for refuge.
"I don't talk about my job, because that's the whole point of it, it's not the kind of thing one can ever just chat about. But – I have made decisions and done things that would horrify every – every single person I know. Except Parker." She shook her head slightly. "He's there in the mire with me. And it makes all the difference, because I really don't know how I would have survived without having that friend beside me in the very worst places."
Now he was slowly shaking his head, but he was listening.
"Gordon, I don't need worship. No one can sustain that. I need someone who can look at the very worst in me and not turn away." Penelope drew in a breath that betrayed itself with the shakiness of it. "Don't you want that too?"
His head down again, but the grip on her hand shifted a little, as one thumb began to stroke up to the tender flesh and nerves at her wrist. At last, he shivered.
Wherever his thoughts had taken him, the water was obviously cold and dark.
"I don't know. I don't think I'm that brave."
This was surer ground.
"If you're not brave enough, then I don't know who on earth is." She shrugged. "Darling, every time anyone embarks on this kind of nonsense they need all the courage they can get. We're nothing special."
He looked at her then, quizzical, and the gentle sun caught his hair and eyes and made something overwhelming of both.
"Romance is dead, huh?"
There was no point in pretending any longer.
"Romance is wonderful. But if we're brave enough – we might have something more."
He closed his eyes again, and that was a shame, because Penelope realised she could stay here lost in his eyes, forever, and call it a life well-spent.
Another silence, and this was so unlike him that she understood that seeing this Gordon, this still and sombre and quiet Gordon, was sharing a truth and a vulnerability beyond words, beyond touches. The leaves above their heads, new and pale, rustled as a breeze lifted them, lifted a stray hair into her face. She didn't move to restrain it.
"So I guess I have to slay you a dragon or something. Several dragons."
She couldn't help it. She burst out laughing, a fragile sound, but it galvanised the tormented man beside her. Hope, like instant fireworks in the dark amber of his eyes. It really was quite astonishing, how quickly life could come back to those depths, how purely resilient he was. How much he wanted this.
"I think perhaps the dragons could stay unmolested for a day or two. If we – "
The detector in her pocket gave a subtle buzz against her thigh. She pulled it out.
"Ah. I'm afraid we have those tiresome drones as company again."
But Gordon had dropped her hand (she felt the loss of his warmth at once) and taken a step away from her, towards the edge of the hill.
"Looks like your decoy plan worked."
She followed where he pointed and saw for herself as a sleek, grey car edged through the narrow path beneath the trees and came out into the clearer space below.
