Busman's Holiday
Chapter Ten: Comfort and Conflict

"JOSIE!" LUCAS SHOUTS, and before he knows what he is doing, he is crouched beside her, supporting her and rubbing her back.

"I'm ok," she pants. "Just back spasms. Felt them sneaking up on me."

"That's why you were stretching," Lucas realizes, and feels like a right arse for being so annoyed by it earlier. When he sees a worried Alexei kneeling beside her on the other side, he translates.

"Come on, sit," he urges.

"No!" she yelps as he tries to guide her back into her chair. "Ohhh, no, no, no. I'm not moving. Not yet."

"Then what can we do to help?" he demands anxiously.

"Ummm, something to lean on would be great," she gasps. "As much as it hurts to move, hunching over like this is killing me, too."

"Get a chair from the dining room," Lucas instructs Alexei. "She needs something to lean on."

Alexei nods and hurries off.

"Alexei is getting you something," he says. "What else?"

"I keep a heating pad stuffed down behind the couch on the side next to the stereo," she tells him in a shaky voice. "If you could maybe get that and plug it in over here?"

He moves to do as she asks, and she begins to yelp, "Oh, oh, oh! Not yet!"

Realizing that she needs the support he is giving her, he stays there until Alexei arrives. Then, while he helps her position the chair so she can fold her arms across the back of it and rest her head on them, he has Alexei get the heating pad.

"What else?"

"Medicine cabinet in the downstairs bathroom," she gasps. "There's a tube of muscle rub. I hate to ask, but…"

"Don't worry about it," Lucas says. "After what you did for me last night, I'm happy to help."

Making sure she is stable leaning against the chair, Lucas rushes to the loo and back. In the living room, he gently slides her top up and sees an ugly scar nearly eight inches long running down her spine.

"My God! What happened to you?"

"Accident, about eight years ago," she says, her voice taking on a distinct whine. "I had a nasty fall that required emergency surgery to stabilize three fractured vertebrae. Ninety percent of the time I'm fine, now, but ten days of standing on the concrete floor in the concession stand didn't do me any favours."

"Where do you want me to put this stuff?" Lucas asks as he takes the cap off the liniment. It has a sharp, wintergreen smell that is not entirely unpleasant.

"From the waistband of my undies up to the bottom of my bra on both sides of my spine all the way round to my sides, if you don't mind."

Lucas doesn't mind at all. He meant what he said about being happy to help, but he also quite likes touching her skin. Despite the surgical scar and several other marks that he assumes are from the same fall, it's soft and smooth and warm, and he can see the muscles rippling under her skin as she breathes. Then he sees one particular spot bunch up and hears her agonized moan.

"Sorry!" he yelps and pulls his hand away afraid that he has somehow hurt her. "Oh, God, I'm sorry!"

She gives a wry chuckle. "Don't be. It wasn't you."

"Would it help if I massaged the muscles?" he offers.

"No!" she barks, then, more calmly, "No, it's too tense right now. A massage would only hurt worse. What you were doing was perfect."

Alexei is standing beside her, looking worried and uncertain.

"May I explain to Alexei what is happening?" Lucas asks.

"Suuuurrrre," she agrees, stretching the word into a moan as Lucas passes his hand over the knotted up muscles again. He's pretty certain it's a sound of relief rather than pain. "Why would you even think you needed to ask?"

"Just, well, it's medical history, is all," he said. "Some people like to keep that private."

"Mmmmmmmm," she hums, and he can see the tension starting to release under his hands. "It's fine," she says. "If I had a history of STDs or drug abuse or something else that carries a stigma, maybe, but this was just a fall."

As he talks with Alexei, he can feel Josie relaxing under his touch and hear her regular sighs and moans of relief. He can't help but think those sounds would be even more delightful, and just a bit dirty, in another situation, but he quickly shies away from the idea that's lurking round the edges of his mind. Now is not the proper time and place, and given the current circumstances, there probably never will be a proper time and place for those thoughts. Gradually Josie's breathing slows and deepens, and finally, very carefully and with a loud groan, she straightens up.

"Could you move the chair and put the heating pad down on the floor in front of me?" she requests.

Lucas tells Alexei to take the chair back to the dining room while he takes care of the heating pad. Then, following Josie's directions, he helps her get down on the floor and position herself flat on her back on the heating pad with her knees up. She's lying there, eyes closed and breathing deeply when Alexei returns, and when he asks a question, Lucas translates.

"What would you have done if we hadn't been here to help you?"

She gives a soft laugh and says, "If you hadn't been here, this very likely would not have happened. When I felt the first twinges, I'd have lain down and done these stretches or got into a hot bath and likely avoided the spasms altogether."

"Is there anything more we can do for her?" Alexei asks after Lucas has translated her answer.

"I seriously doubt it," Lucas replies. "It looks like she's been through this before and knows exactly what to do. I'm sure she'll tell us if she needs anything."

Josie has gone from deep breathing to a series of weird-looking undulating stretches that make Lucas think of an earthworm because of the way they seem to lengthen and shorten her spine. The fact that earthworms don't have spines doesn't seem relevant.

"Perhaps you should ask her anyway, just to be sure," Alexei says. "I feel terrible that she is in such pain because she was kind enough to help us, and she may not wish to impose."

"I feel the same way, mate," Lucas admits, "but when does helping become intruding?"

"It cannot hurt simply to ask," Alexei insists.

Just as Lucas is about to translate Alexei's inquiry, Josie opens her eyes.

"Hey!" she barks, sounding stern almost to the point of being angry. "You two do not get to feel guilty about this. It was my own pig-headed stubbornness that did this to me. I wanted to win my argument with you, Lucas."

Lucas can't help dipping his head in embarrassment.

"Oh, for God's sake," she grumbles. "Lucas, look at me."

He does as he's told. He doesn't want to upset her and cause her more pain.

"I could have walked away, done some stretches, had a hot bath, and come back," she says. "But sometimes, I am like a dog with a bone. I just can't let go, and, let's be honest, I did win," she finishes with a smirk.

Lucas smirks back. "I rather think we reached a consensus."

"I got what I wanted," Josie told him. "That means I won."

She has moved into an exercise that looks a bit like an abdominal crunch.

"So, really, what would you have done if you'd been alone when this happened?" Lucas asks, deliberately changing the subject. She seems so fiercely independent he can't help but wonder how she manages on her own when an attack hits.

"I'd get past my fear of the pain and just do what I had to do to deal with it," she says. "It would depend on what I felt would work best at the time. I'd get into a hot shower or use the muscle rub or I have some prescription muscle relaxants I could take. Eventually, I'd end up right here doing this."

"So, it can't be fixed?" Lucas asks.

"I've had three separate surgeries on my back," she says. "The first one was an emergency procedure and couldn't be avoided, the other two were supposed to fix degenerating discs, but at best, they did nothing, at worst, they did more harm than good. The only thing I have found that really helps prevent it is these exercises and a long, restful soak in a hot bath when my body tells me it's had enough.

"Now, if the two of you would help me up, I think I'll go upstairs for that bath now," she says.

"DO YOU NEED HELP GETTING INTO THE BATH?" Lucas asks when he and Alexei get Josie to her room, which happens to be opposite Lucas's at the top of the stairs.

"No, thank you," she replies. "I'm good from here."

The two men watch her creep painfully into the en suite bathroom to start running her bath.

"You should stay," Alexei tells him as they turn to leave.

"I asked her if she needed help," Lucas says. "She said she was fine."

"Which, obviously, she is not," Alexei observes.

Lucas can't disagree. Out in the hallway now, he says, "We should respect her wishes."

"She likes you, my friend," Alexei grins. "I can't even speak the language and I can tell that she wishes you to stay."

"Then why did she tell me to go?" Lucas demands.

Alexei shrugs. "She is a woman. If I knew the answer to your question, I would write a book and live a wealthy man," he jokes. "Perhaps she just wants to know if you like her enough to defy her wishes to do what is best for her."

"What makes you so sure she likes me?" Lucas asks.

Alexei shrugs again. "Because last night, she ignored your wishes to do what was right for you. Besides, even a blind man can see the attraction between you."

Lucas scowls. It annoys him that he is so transparent to the Russian, and after the debacle with Sarah Caulfield, it worries him that he might just be setting himself up for another painful fall.

"We're only going to be here a few days," he mutters.

"So, enjoy it while it lasts," Alexei encourages him. "She is no child. She understands. She still wants you as much as you want her."

"You realize, she is our only help now that things have gone wrong," Lucas reminds him. "If I piss her off…"

"On my head be it," Alexei interrupts with a grin.

"All right then," Lucas finally surrenders. "And you get to explain to my boss if she decides to report us to the local authorities."

Alexei just laughs. "I would wish you luck, but I do not think you will need it."

WHEN LUCAS WALKS INTO THE BEDROOM, he can see Josie through the half-open bathroom door. She is gingerly trying to get her blouse off, so clearly intent on removing it with as little pain as possible that she doesn't even seem to hear him enter.

"Let me help," he says taking hold of the collar of her blouse to help her out of it.

She startles slightly, and the small jump makes her cringe in pain. Lucas winces in sympathy.

"Sorry, I should have knocked," he says. "May I?"

"Please," she gasps.

Very carefully, he peels the pink cotton blouse off her and lets it slide down her arms. For a moment, he looks around, unsure what to do with it, and then she tells him, "There are hooks on the back of the door."

He closes the door and hangs up the blouse, then he turns toward her again. He is standing behind her, both of them facing the mirror above the sink, and he notices a dozen or so small scars randomly located on her back. He traces his finger over one of them and then another, fascinated by them. He notices her shiver and stops.

"What did you land on?" he asks. "When you fell?"

"Shrubbery," she tells him with a faint chuckle. "A colleague was having a rare, hallucinogenic reaction to a fairly ordinary antibiotic his doctor had prescribed for a minor skin infection. He thought I was a suicide bomber wearing a vest full of C-4 about to blow up him and a number of other people he imagined to be in the room with him. He stopped me with a flying tackle that sent us both through a second-storey window to the bushes below.

"At least, that's how it appears on the security tape," she continues. "I don't really remember anything between my second cup of coffee that morning and waking up in the hospital two days after the fact."

"You didn't remember the incident that broke your back, so you watched video of it?" Lucas asks, wanting to clarify.

"Yeah."

"Why on earth would you do something like that?" He catches her eye in the mirror. Something about her attitude intrigues him. He thinks if it were him, he'd just as soon not know.

She shrugs, winces, grimaces sheepishly at him in the mirror. "Morbid curiosity, I suppose."

The grimace warps into a smirk and Lucas can't resist responding with a lopsided grin of his own.

"You are bloody mad, you know that?"

She chuckles. "I've been called worse. Really, I was missing two days and I was badly injured," she explains. "I needed to understand to make it real and not some kind of Kafkaesque nightmare."

He holds her gaze in the mirror for a moment and she reveals to him a sorrow he hasn't seen in her before. He rather suspects the emotional trauma was worse and longer-lasting than the physical injuries. Emotional trauma is something he can understand. He gives her a nod to let her know he gets it, and she smiles back at him.

"Could you, uh, unhook my bra?" she asks.

Lucas feels almost too big and very clumsy as he fumbles with the tiny hooks and delicate fabric in the centre of her back. After several moments he notices her starting to tremble.

"Cold?" he asks.

"No," she answers in a choked little voice.

"Well, what's the matter, then?"

"Nothing," she says.

He looks at her reflection in the mirror and can tell that she is trying very hard to control her expression. Then he catches her eye and she breaks into a grin and begins to giggle.

"What's so funny?" he asks, grinning himself because he's relieved to know he is not causing her further pain.

"I just would have thought a man like you would have had ample opportunity to practice removing ladies' undergarments," she says.

Lucas scowls when he feels the warmth of a blush heat his cheeks. He is already looking forward to getting her out of the infernal thing far more than might be appropriate for someone trying to care for an injured woman, and her comment makes him feel positively lecherous.

"Actually, I've always been a bit too shy to see much in the way of that kind of opportunity," he says, which is true for the most part.

She sighs, "More's the pity," and chuckles again.

Lucas finally manages to unfasten the bra and slides the straps down over her shoulders. Her breasts are round and full with rosy nipples, and he has to remind himself not to touch them. Then, in the reflection in the mirror, he sees another silvery-pink scar on her ribcage, and before he can think about being shy or polite, he strokes his index finger lightly over it.

"Sorry," he apologizes when she shivers at his touch, but when he tries to draw his hand away, she catches it and holds it against her skin with both hands. Lucas goes very still. He's happy to give her whatever she wants, but he doesn't want to do anything inappropriate under the circumstances.

"It's ok," she tells him in a husky voice. "I broke a couple of ribs in the fall. They caused some internal bleeding, which led to a haemothorax. The doctors had to insert a tube up into my chest to drain the blood so my lungs could expand."

"Ouch," Lucas mutters in sympathy.-

"Oh, I didn't feel it, at least not that I remember," she says, interlacing the fingers of her left hand with his right so that he is halfway hugging her. "It was weird waking up and having it there, though, and having it removed was not pleasant; but it never really hurt."

"What happened to the guy who assaulted you?" Lucas asks.

"He walked away with a few scratches on his face from the shrubbery and started trying to evacuate the area as soon as he realized that my suicide vest never exploded," she chuckles.

"You're not the least bit angry or bitter about it, are you?" he asks, amazed that someone could be so relaxed about such a life-changing event.

"What's to be angry about?" she asks, leaning back into his embrace and resting her head against his shoulder. "There was no malice or criminal intent, no negligence or medical malpractice. It was just one of those days when shit happened, and I was in its way."

"Not even the tiniest bit of resentment for the guy who walked away unscathed?" Lucas pushes. He can't accept that she just took it all in stride.

"No," she says with a shake of her head. "As a matter of fact, I'm sort of proud of him."

"Proud of him?" Lucas can't hide his disbelief. "Really?"

"Yeah. Being wrong about the threat doesn't make his actions any less courageous," she explains. "He thought he was leaping to a certain death in order to save a group of innocents. If he had been right, he'd have died a hero."

"Mad as a March hare," Lucas tuts, shaking his head.

When she leans her head back against him and smiles up at him, he can't resist dropping a quick kiss on her forehead.

"I am still alive and still walking," Josie tells him patiently. "I may take a little more Tylenol than most people my age, but as long as I pay attention to the warning signs my body sends me, I don't have too much pain. My biggest regret about what happened to me is that I lost a friend because of it, not because I am angry with him, but because he feels so guilty over it that he finds it hard to be around me. If I could change it and make it so it never happened, yes, I would, but I can't, so I'm not going to waste my energy brooding about something that was nobody's fault and can't be undone."

She has been encouraging physical contact all along, and emboldened, Lucas reaches up and caresses the her cheek with the back of his hand.

"You know, that's a very British attitude," he says.

"Stiff upper lip and soldier on, you mean?" She takes his hand and pulls it down to her waist so he has both arms around her now.

"Something like that," he agrees.

"Well, I'm glad you approve," she smirks. "At least one person out there in the world at large will know that not all Americans are soft and lazy."

Then she guides his hands to the button on her jeans. "Much as I am enjoying the conversation, I really do need to soak in the tub or I will be too stiff and sore to bend over and tie my own shoes come morning."

"Right," Lucas agrees, consciously having to avoid a sigh, and he crouches down to remove her shoes and socks first.

JOSIE SPENDS ONLY ABOUT HALF AN HOUR IN THE BATH. Unlike Lucas the previous evening, she is in no danger of nodding off, so he has no excuse to sit with her. Instead, he waits for her in the bedroom, which is the twin to his except that it is done in greens and golds, the books on the shelf are different, and there is a lady's dressing table instead of a chest of drawers. He's just getting into The Master of Ballantrae when Josie calls out for him to come help her out of the tub.

He holds open a fluffy yellow robe for her, and when she wraps it around herself and belts it at her waist, it swallows her up. Then he takes her out to the bedroom and has her sit on the bed while he dries her feet and legs and applies lotion for her. Her feet, he notices, are baby soft and her legs are tanned, slim, and athletic. He helps her into her jeans, socks and shoes, and then leaves her to finish dressing in private.

Down in the living room, Alexei greets him with a smug grin. "And so I was right," he teases. "She did wish you to stay."

"Shut up," Lucas snarls.

"Oh, do not be disheartened," Alexei continues taunting. "I am sure her back will feel better before we must leave."

Lucas scowls at him but does not otherwise respond. He knows he is being sullen, and he doesn't care. For the first time since he was returned to the UK, he wishes he was just a bloke who could do what he wanted with whom he wanted, when and where and for as long as he wanted without having to worry about defending the realm or not breaking the neck of a bloody cheeky Russian. He likes Josie, a lot, and he wishes he could have the opportunity to just see what developed between them. For a fleeting moment, he wonders what would happen if he took Alexei to the extraction point and just put him on the helicopter by himself.

Then he shakes his head. It will never happen. He knows himself too well.

He has brought The Master of Ballantrae downstairs with him, so he just slumps into an armchair, puts his feet up on the matching stool, and resumes reading.

JOSIE FINALLY COMES DOWN THE STAIRS about half an hour before they are due to call harry. She seems cheerful enough, but she is moving with obvious care. Lucas is glad to see her. He needs to talk to her. Before she can say or do anything, he is guiding her off into the hall.

"Where is my laptop?" he asks.

She eyes him warily. "Safe. Why?"

"You need to get it."

"Again, I ask, why?" She turns from him and walks toward the kitchen.

"That coded message I gave you for Harry, See you when we see you, means a video chat," Lucas explains as he follows her down the hall.

"Well, then, he's going to be disappointed, isn't he?" Josie replies frostily, and Lucas knows he has pissed her off.

"And so will we if you try to contact him any other way," Lucas says. "It's a safeguard. Because I told him it would be a video chat, he won't accept any other form of communication from us."

"Now, I know that's bullshit," she snaps, getting an apple out of the fridge and a knife out of the drawer. "You must have an emergency line."

"Yeah, we do," Lucas says, "but the moment that starts ringing, we start tracking."

"Like they wouldn't be tracking a video chat, you mean?" she sneers.

"Alexei is a computer genius," Lucas reminds her. "Get him to route the call so it looks like it is coming from somewhere else."

She stops paring her apple for a moment to think.

"I'll have him rig my computer," she says.

"Won't work," he says. "You need special software. We don't use bloody Yahoo! Messenger, you know."

"No, but you're happy to use a computer that may have been compromised," she observes.

"Can't be," he says. "I haven't used it since our technician gave it to me almost a fortnight ago, so there's no chance that I picked up any malware."

"Which only means that if there is a problem, it came with you from your office," she says. "Or are you so confident in your colleagues' loyalty that you won't even entertain the possibility that one of them may have put a tracker on you?"

"Anyone can be turned," Lucas tells her, speaking with the voice of experience. "You just have to catch them when they're vulnerable and apply the right kind of pressure, but no one on my team is in that kind of position right now."

"Are you sure you'd know if they were?" she asks.

"It's my job to know," he says. "My life depends on it. Once burned, twice shy. I didn't spend eight years in a Russian prison because I was sloppy; I was betrayed. I won't let that happen again."

"And what kind of pressure did they apply to you?" she asks, sounding honestly curious.

"Every kind but the right kind, I guess," Lucas tells her.

It's only half a lie. Oleg broke him, but he was cold, hungry, and alone at the time and hanged himself rather than offering information for comfort and company. If Oleg had only questioned him the moment he cut him down, Lucas would have told him everything he knew. But then, that was the other half of turning a spy, catching them when they were vulnerable.

"You sit right there," Josie commands, snapping him back to the present and pointing him into one of the stools at the breakfast bar with her paring knife. "Put your hands on the countertop. Don't move, don't speak. I will rely on the phone app to translate for me."

Lucas does as he's told and tries to conceal how angry he is. He's angry with himself for lying to Josie last night even though he felt at the time that he needed to hold something back in case she proved to be untrustworthy. He's angry with her for mistrusting him now, even though he lied to her. He's angry with Alexei for encouraging him to pursue his interest in her because he'd dared to get his hopes up only to have them crushed by his own deceit, and he's angry with himself for listening to Alexei in the first place.

"Alexei!" Josie calls. "Phone!"

In the few seconds it takes for the Russian to join them in the kitchen, she goes to a drawer in the table underneath the house telephone and takes out a set of keys. It is clear from Alexei's expression the moment he enters the room that he can sense the tension between them.

"You moron," he says to Lucas in disgust. "How did you ruin things so fast?"

Remembering Josie's admonition not to speak, Lucas just scowls at him and then looks away.

"Alexei, Lucas has made a mess of things. I need you to help me sort it," Josie says slowly for the phone to translate. She hands him the keys and says, "Lucas's backpack is in the trunk of my car. Bring it in, please."

Alexei frowns at the phone and shows the translation to Lucas. "I don't understand," he says.

Lucas reads the display, smirks at Josie, and says smugly, "I told you before, it's called the boot."

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