"We are all plunging straight towards our own decline

Without noticing

We slide down, deeper down

The shadow grows without ever slowing down

We are heading straight

Into the fade out line

Deeper down"

Phoebe Killdeer, "Fade Out Lines"

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11 November 2005; 5:15 AM:

Harry...

His eyes open suddenly, the sound of her voice fading in the darkness, and he squints despite himself, gaging the shadows of his room, attempting to find her, sitting upright, watching. He can almost smell where she had been, though he knows it an impossibility, the physical manifestation of yearning tied maliciously to that keen sense of something unseen near him, malevolent and panting. It was customary now that his day's beginnings were marked with thoughts of her, just as those moments initiated before his eyes fell shut and he began his chase for unencumbered sleep. Over time, he had begun to smell her in those close moments, his senses drawn, needing the comfort, his mind dulled with drink, and she acted as a tonic of sorts, a curious balm which soothed his way into the nightmares that awaited him, as though she were holding his hand, and he need only to look down to believe he was no longer alone, walking the darkened halls of his memory in solitude.

In those first cautious moments when waking, his eyes swollen and heavy, his first deep inhale full with the scent of her, his cock responding to the vision of her in his head, still hearing the imagined conversations they had engaged in as they passed each of his ghosts in his dreams, whispered to him, as though real, as though he could reach out and place his hand on her, feel her hand held in his, touch her quickening pulse, feel her breathing next to him by his fingertips, and the acute feeling of despondency was as painful as the throbbing of his hardened cock, as the room began to take shape, and his absolute solitude reestablished dominance.

She had become an ache within him, and he found himself relishing both the pain and the horrible pleasure she released within him with every coming morning, anticipating her imagined presence with every nightfall, the kisses they shared, the moments he was given to fondle and explore her, his semi erect cock frequently marking his interactions with her while in her actual presence. In those moments, as the sun crept beyond the drawn shades, he understood Tom Quinn, knew the map that led to his undoing, recognizing it as the same held within his own hands, his undoing, his fall, his need for Ruth erasing all logic and custom. In those moments he both envied and forgave Tom all, such was the power she had over him, and the realization chilled him to the core.

So too had it become customary, a feeling upon waking, her skin still warming his fingertips, the niggling, indefinable tug of being watched. It felt notably different from the Khurvin circumstance, Juliet's handlers having exposed themselves, surprisingly overt, their lack of covert skill, clumsy, easily evaded, children dog paddling the deep end where the sharks sleeplessly glide beneath.

This game was peculiar, the characteristics distinctly familiar, reflective of a well trained, well organized and precise virtuoso adept and dedicated to the craft, and he was beginning to tire of the deep sense of being hunted, his awareness of having become prey acute, the surface of his skin painfully attuned, tingling, sensitive to the most subtle changes in his immediate atmosphere. Most immediately frustrating was the belief that it was right in front of him, the puzzle, pieces scattered, but nevertheless available if he could only pinpoint the exact pattern, discern either the catalyst or the finale, working backwards, forwards, positioning each piece to form the picture, methodical.

He knew the time for methodical had passed, though, and as he stood under the stream of water, motionless, his mind wandering with thoughts of her as her scent evaporated into steam, waiting for the heat to thaw the knots in his neck, soothe the anxiousness frozen at the base of his spine, he physically felt his hourglass depleting, the sense of foreboding, of time running out, its constancy never waining.

He had, perhaps foolishly he imagines now, chosen not to share his suspicions. In his generous moments, sat at his desk within the secure stronghold of the grid, he rationalized it away as not wanting to cause unnecessary alarm; In his callous moments, as he sat absently petting Scarlet, more than half a bottle in, justified by act of self preservation, that lie disguised as self restraint, that need to believe he hadn't turned some final corner, preserve the idea, if not simply the image, he wasn't past it. But he could be, past it, that is.

Pausing as he reaches for the towel, he considers that he might be past it, concentrating on the emotions the idea rustles awake, sorrow, fear, that curious mixture combined with just a taste of sudden irrelevancy. Perhaps he had begun seeing ghosts where there were none, suspicious with no provocation, the spook whose mind had started the long slide of turning in on itself, initiating the feast of his counterfeit soul, his future one of complete abandonment, cynicism, and disillusion. Hadn't he known the day would come? Hadn't his nights been filled with one ghost after another, both friend and foe, telling him to prepare for what one foolishly believed can be prepared for?

Staring at his reflection, he understands the need for so many before him to have pushed too far, tempt fate for one dance too many, finding it easy, then, to believe that those names scarring the wall were the lucky ones, the sacrificial lambs, though absent amongst us, held safe from the indignity of becoming obsolete, irrelevant...nothing. Theirs are the names spoken in admiration and sorrow, but who among us weeps for Clive, left to pasture and resentment, whiling the hours with furiously vengeful words until death wandered up the path to mercifully claim him? And himself, who will weep for him as he moves through the steps of his final dance, beyond reach, beyond saving, the dance too seductive too resist, his past trysts marked and scaring his body, his faceless partner understanding better than he it had all come to an end when he had first elected to accept the offered hand?

Irrationally, he thinks I'd like it to be the tango. Has to be, really. He was always good with a tango.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

11 November 2005; 6:45 AM:

He knew it the moment he stepped onto the grid, glancing, as was habit, immediately to where Ruth sat, a whispered Harry sounding in his ear. Something was indescribably different, the tango he'd fantasized in which she figured quite prominently during his drive in evaporated instantly, replaced by a flutter within his stomach sounding beware, the tingle along his spine fueling a heightened sense of being alert, eyes focused, trained to see more than the obvious surface, ears attuned to the bustle occurring underneath.

The feeling gradually deepened, as she failed to deliver the myriad of reports, threat assessments, and overnight progress reports detailed succinctly for his early morning review. But it was her failure to acknowledge him in any degree that stung the most, a personal wound which festered throughout the day as she denied contact, her eyes falling everywhere but on him, her work delivered through intermediaries, delighted to assist her, unaware of the twisting knife.

She had, he knew, made several forays into Registry, reams of archived intelligence once reviewed, redeposited within their plastic sheathes, and returned promptly, but for two. Those, remaining on her desk, were the sticking point, he knew, readdressed frequently as early morning made its inevitable evolution towards afternoon, comparisons made, theories forming in that enviable and unique Ruth way. He didn't need to be told that the subject on which she was so furiously obsessed linked, somehow, to him. As such, the only conclusion left to him lay in the aesthetic interpretation of it; Whatever her lithe mind had uncovered, it was resoundingly damaging to him, and thus, by association, to them.

And there it is, the voice whispered quietly. Because, despite all his hypocritical efforts, despite the hours given to self restraint, meditations on control, despite the numerous bottles imbibed, and the deliberate distance he'd desperately attempted to fortify, despite it all and more, to him they, she and him, had become a them, no distinction, little individuality, they were a unit, hand in hand, his midnight frolics encroaching on his reality. He found himself privately terrified that he would not find the strength to separate what he had unconsciously combined into one when the demand came, well and truly lunatic despite himself. I should have listened Tom, I should have sent her away. I should of...but to have not experienced her, even the fleeting moments to date, a small series of deaths he'd no strength to fight, and he thinks she may very well be his last dance, that risky tango become fatal, limbs intertwined, his name carved deep on the wall, his hourglass still.

He had spent a more than advisable portion of his day attempting to pinpoint exactly what she had uncovered, very nearly asking that Malcolm look into it, though he had managed to gain control of himself as he approached the tech suite, and veer off into the kitchen under the auspices of needing tea. Still, his mind had continued to simmer, his inherent, and, yes, selfish need to know set at an uncomfortable slow boil, meditating, and, if he were honest, feeding his heart's resentments towards her, and by association Tom, by the spoonful. His abilities at precognition, to ascertain with absolute certainty, that longed for Yes, this here, this is the thing moment failing him magnificently, he was left to wait her out, pouting and sullen, holed up in his office, maintaining what he hoped appeared to the whole as being otherwise occupied.

It wan't surprising his inability ferret the cause, regardless the condition of his psychic flow. No, infinitely easier, given the breadth of his career, to identify the operational mandate wherein he did not act in a manner for which he should be ashamed. And how could it not? The breadth of operational mandates accorded to him, off the books or sanctioned, would choke a bloody horse. This was a situation quite literally defined by an overabundance of choices, rather than a tremulous few, and god damn her for looking, and worse, finding. And god damn him for knowing she would, knowing that it would be too seductive not to, knowing that she was, every day, surpassing the minimal expectations of a desk agent, knowing that within her beat the heart of a born spook, his vanity, his absolute pride in the knowledge, seeing her, distracting him from the inevitable that lay before him, the trap bated with the face he had grown to need with abandon.

His proactive ability to head off confrontations with a well placed, perfectly suited rationalization thus rendered impotent as a tactic, he had resigned himself in the early evening hours to the inevitable reveal, that moment chosen by her, reasons unfathomable to him, to broach the offense, crossing the divide recently formed for it's existence, understanding his ability to thrust and parry without foreknowledge paramount to reaching an amicable resolution.

While his bruised vanity, his instinctual callousness demanded he strike back, slight for slight, he nevertheless reminded himself she was not Jane, she of the sharp tongue and well delivered insult, but Ruth, silently percolating over time, mulling the details until each fissure of intelligence was devoid of fruitful reward. Her innate thoroughness was a merciless weapon, but one wielded with a compassionate heart, and as such, far more potentially devastating than outright loathing, as with Jane, cruel words designed to cut and shred the recipient, familiar ground, as his heart demanded, as his heart preferred.

Simultaneous to the moment he had consciously relinquished control of the inevitable, she had looked directly at him, captured him in the act of observing her, conversation continuing with Adam, though her eyes held his across the grid, and he read within their depths, apprehension, resignation, fear, in turns, each merging into, and from the other. His eyes, unwilling to look away, he braced himself, attempted to clear his mind of needless fancies, suit his face to give nothing away, moments away, this unexpected test, and judgement not long, thereafter, the precariousness of her, ever present and pulsing within the room.

He had watched, then, as her face changed horribly, registering something close to a grimace of pain, discomfort, her eyes quickly dancing elsewhere from his. Slowly rising from her seat, her hands appearing to support her, alarm and foreboding vying for supremacy, her mouth dropped open slightly, breath coming in quick, short gasps, and he rose quickly from his chair, certain she was moments from either hyperventilating or fainting, perhaps both.

Adam, likewise concerned, had moved closer to her, closing the gap faster than he emerging from his office, and once unencumbered by walls, several things happened in rapid succession, his senses unaccountably accelerating before he'd chance to fully evaluate the innate instinct, the unidentified reason.

Entering onto the grid proper, he'd observed, first, Juliet, then, catching a hint of Jo's perfume as she headed, he'd assumed, to the tech suite, Ruth had fallen deathly pale, her characteristic flush of nerves appearing as dark smudges of blood decorating her cheeks, accentuating her pallor; And finally, most disturbing, before him stood Angela Wells, a ghost from the past, his instinct for caution clamoring in his head as Juliet excused her beach of protocol while simultaneously depositing a semiretired fortress of considerable skills in his lap.

The curiousness of the present circumstances struck him as immediately suspect. A forgotten, decommissioned spook emerging unannounced from the mists, smuggled on the arm of a periodic adversary, a reclaimed member of the anonymous masses allowed access to the pulse point of counter terrorism. Juliet, what are you playing at, now? Incredulous, he watched, adopting a passive attitude despite the egregious breach in protocol, and quietly wondered the circumstances, the curious set of events which would require him to suspend his considerable disbelief in coincidence, and swallow the suggestion they had simply happened upon one another, as though a perfectly reasonable alternative scenario could not be fathomed.

Watching as those present began to enthusiastically stroke the vanity of an admittedly once brilliant agent, silently observing as she feigned humility and self deprecations, he felt as though he was a spectator, set apart while watching a well rehearsed play. It was the blatant incongruity, blindingly dubious to his eyes, eyes which were, in that simultaneous moment, ferreting the unsuspected movement behind the curtain backdrop, his mind whispering, There it is, do you see? And he did, smelling the snare without seeing its location, its origins, he knew it for an act of subtle premeditation, its fortifications gathering strength elsewhere, a trap, foremost in nature, designed to ensnare or propel, he could not conclude.

Moving aside, allowing Malcolm his moment to genuflect before one whom he had long idolized, he registered the glances, the whispered words passing between Adam and Ruth, he scenting something unseen, she twisting in her shrugged denials, gathering articles strewn about her desk, her movements belying her alarm.

Suspicious of her presence, intuitively understanding Angela as the reason behind Ruth's sudden and erratic behavior, he moved to resolve the silent conflict, mitigate the damage already done, inviting Angela to join him in his office, the guise of reminiscence proving fortunate, an opportunity to examine the trap before sprung, their progress halted almost before the invite had passed his lips.

"No. Get her out. Get her out of here, NOW!" Taken aback, struck by the vehemence of the demand, shockingly ferocious and compelling, only Adam willing to openly take her side, and he, left on the back foot, attempting to piece together a puzzle whose components remained, to the naked eye, hidden, yet to his intuition, attainable would that he be allowed the time to examine, the opportunity just within reach, unexpectedly retracted with her explosive outburst.

"Oh, I don't think I'm going to leave this early, do you Ruth?"

Christ.

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11 November 2005; 5:15PM:

"...Contingent Events Committee."

He hadn't heard what had transpired before the words were spoken; Or, alternatively, what had been spoken evaporated from memory the moment they were uttered. He needn't have bothered. He saw the path clearly having the whole of the story now firmly within his grasp, the direction this incursion would take already divined and decided. In truth, he didn't care, it all fell away as those three words filled his head, so too any rationalization he'd left to absolve himself, placed as he was firmly between glass and slide.

He knew what the report stipulated. He knew, too, the truth of why the Committee had been convened. Still, examined under a specific light, he wasn't so deluded as to not recognize what it could suggest, how it could be interpreted, in fact, the conclusion collectively feared, each obscured participant scrambling blindly, hastening to erase trace evidence, the incriminating bread trail, after her death. At a guess, he understood the fault lay in some secreted copy of a NO EYES document, a contingency intended to absolve and protect the bearer alone, and his mind automatically began listing those present, silently claiming their seat at the table, evaluating which as the candidate most likely. Though not frequently common, this was not the first, nor he guessed, the last time he would be faced with incriminating documents thought destroyed. He was, like his professional counterparts, in possession of similar contraband detailing a myriad of clandestine meetings, some in which he was an active participant, more wherein he was not, but for surveillance obtained and secreted.

Casting his eyes to Ruth, he finds he's not surprised she should have believed it, that he could act thus, though no less deeply saddening to him presently. He wondered idly when she had been provided the details, the manner in which they had come into her possession, concluding handily that Angela figured prominently, intuitively recognizing that even with her considerable skills, she was simply the most obvious rube distracting from the greater unidentified mechanism driving events forward. So obvious, then, as the venue used began to distinguish itself from hypotheses to undeniable fact as he watched; A hollowed tooth, designed specifically to secret documents across lines, and he experiences a momentary start of rage as he remembers Northern Ireland, Bill; Angela, golden and perfectly suited, the lessons learned with the INLA useful instruments in her manipulation of Ruth, providing just enough evidence that she would come to believe him capable, allow those moments where he had cautiously exposed himself to her, allowing her the rarest glimpse of him, establish this tether with him, to fall away, paling against the breadth of what he still held from her, the believability of his reputation surmounting despite what he had cavalierly hoped she knew in her heart.

It was a technique drilled into them from the start, this manipulation raised to art form, leaving little opportunity but to act exactly as the manipulator intended. How many times had he allowed an asset to draw their own conclusions, giving them just enough to hang themselves with their own imagined narrative of truths? A more consistently effective way to convince someone of something than allowing them to illustrate the visions themselves has never, in his considerable experience, been invented. Sean Murphy, the voice whispers, and he feels his right eye twitch in recognition, eyes shifting slowly back to Angela.

Sean Murphy, second son to a man whose generations littered the streets of Northern Ireland, a man for whom bomb fabrication came second nature, a hereditary imprint staining his DNA. Angela had expertly manipulated him, allowed Sean Murphy to illustrate his own torture, watched as her quiet suggestion his beloved Michelle was fucking his father took hold, the worm twisting in to root deep behind his eyes, the lovers trysts forming, dissolving, and forming again. She had spoken of numerous infidelities, detailed the shame of an unfaithful slut for a wife, held him as he sobbed against her shoulder, What manner of loyalty did he owe, whispered into his ear, her eyes sharp and cold, Something should be done, shouldn't it?

The exiled memories begin to shake the slumber holding them deep within his mind's shadows, taking color and life, breathing anew, his mouth twitching, the taste both vivid and foul, the images beginning to slice at him because Sean Murphy, as it happened, had done something. Three days later Sean Murphy had, quietly, casual as a Sunday stroll along a sedate pond, taken the path which wound towards his father's, and upon finding him, bent over, unguarded, vulnerable as he worked his land, walked up behind him, and blew his brains across a pasture covered in clover with a contraband 12 gauge. Which, as he recalls now, his throat tightening, mouth dry, was the desired outcome. The father, Michael, a gifted bomb maker, clever and exacting, his immediate removal was deemed necessary, the task given to Angela, the direction conceived by him. The end was...exceptionally executed, perfectly orchestrated, and as predictable as pedestrian.

What happened next, as Michael Murphy lay in pieces cooling, the mist his fatal wound created winding above the clover, curling around itself and dissipating into ether, was not planned, or expected, or...as easily forgotten in his memory. Sean Murphy had placed the end of that same 12 gauge, still warm and stinking of his father's ruined, burnt flesh, against his beloved Michelle's head and pulled the trigger, splattering her brain across three walls in his father's kitchen, slicing his own throat open when done, bleeding out as he held his dead wife in his arms, curled around her on the floor.

He remembers the smell of baking bread, the yeasty warmth filling his senses then, and the incongruity of the blood spattered room, the bits of ofall decorating the room against the yearning deep within him to concentrate on the comfort afforded by that delicious smell, she had been baking bread, is all, the struggle within him became so clamorous in that moment he'd had to escape outside, breathing deeply, his eyes nevertheless straying to the fallen form of the father lifeless in the distance. To this day, he avoids all manner of bake shops in the early morning, the flour and sugar and pastries browning effortlessly as the sun barely peeks above the horizon, a delicate sweet to others, a habitual torture to him.

The skin tightens around his eyes, pulling along his scalp, as he remembers Angela's face when he relayed the subsequent events, watching as she registered nothing, her face the picture of quiet acceptance. His guilt at knowing Michelle Murphy had never strayed; Knowing that Michelle Murphy had loved her husband to distraction, seeing the bits of her glistening on the walls in his minds eye...Angela had betrayed nothing, and he had become secretly unnerved at the smile that played briefly upon her lips, her eyes never losing their frigid gleam.

He's momentarily troubled by the thought that his history is littered with similar events, the ends superficially justifying the means, the unintended fatalities categorized handily as acceptable losses. And yet, he finds more often than not, they float within him, dancing endlessly in the corridors of his personal memories and nightmares, becoming neither nameless nor the dehumanized faceless chaff homogenized for better palatability. No, they stare back at him, en masse, standing side by side, the legion named, accusing and restless, feeding his need for self-control, self restraint, the two pillars for which he has come to depend.

He remembers taking a full bottle into the shower that night, the shattered skull of Michelle Murphy following closely behind, shaking until his knees gave way, drawing directly from the neck, desperate to silence his conscience, desperate to forget Angela's laughter as the team celebrated a goal achieved.

He'd fucked her for the first time that night, an impetuous impulse designed to both gage her awful perfection and dull the voices whispering of his monstrous complicity, frenzied and violent. Their couplings throughout that night into early morning were fueled by his rage and her blatant indifference to what they had, as a team, wrought, and continued for a short time after, though he had often found himself surprised his cock remained intact so deep was the frost within her, and in his mind he had begun to regard her as vampiric, lifeless, cold, and viciously single-minded...the perfect, unimpeachable killer.

In that moment, as the memory of Angela's queer adaptability still occupied his thoughts, he dared to turn and capture Ruth's eyes, and found he rather envied her ease of ability, erecting an unscalable fortress around herself instantly, covetous of her good fortune at having been alerted some time previous, apparently the only one among them. She knows, his mind whispered. Somehow, some way, she had ferreted the proof, God help him, and he was uncomfortably reminded of a time not so distant that he had entertained the idea of allowing Ruth to turn her sights on Juliet, watch with no small amount of amusement as she methodically set about destroying her. The irony of being on the receiving end of what he had foolishly regarded as a personal weapon, his within a limitless arsenal against others, now inexorably focused on him, was not lost on him, nor was the feeling of dread settling against his spine, the kind which spoke You're blown.

It was the fact that no matter how many times he attempted to catch her eye, to silently reassure her that all would be fine, an ill-fated communication offered repeatedly between them, she turned away, and he was loathe, even in this moment of more immediate catastrophe, to see himself reflected in her eyes. Irrationally, that inability to look him in the eyes was the sum total of his foremost concerns, and he felt his face suffusing pink with equal parts shame and frustration, that even now, in the darkened halls of a forced lock down, she remained that obsession with which he could not shake himself free.

He felt the sting, as though she had slapped him clean across the face, that she had done all of this, the gathering of intelligence, the numerous trips to Registry, all of it, right under his nose, his only indication that something was amiss her deliberate avoidance of him. Not casual, he knows by observed nature of her movements over the years, Mr Shadow, watching, watching, but deliberate and the thought, ludicrous even to himself, fills him with elation, hope that he could still find his way; And then, just as quickly, resentment, an oily, dark mass burgeoning thick and suffocatingly heavy across his chest, urging him to lash back, demanding he bite so that he may breathe again. God, how he wanted to hurt her, the thirst for it filing his dry mouth with bile, his lips forming a thin line, and he knew in his heart his better angels could be in that God Damned bag for all he was inclined listen to them, revolving as he was in the heat of anger, misapprehension and perceived judgements.

The tether joining them twanged again, violently, causing his breath to catch, his mind chanting, fucking bitch, you fucking traitorous bitch that you could think this of me, dismissive of facts, contemptuous of his own admitted attempts to hide from what he knew, they all knew, would form the resounding interpretation if discovered, and his roiling hatred for her joined his furious desire, combining together, forcing his eyes shut, the tightrope bouncing precariously as he attempted to navigate, gain control, right himself. God Damn you, why must you look, why must you see me and yet fail so spectacularly to know me now?

His eyes closed, then, needing to breathe, needing to plot the course, needing to see the steps required to right himself, to confront and destroy, small scale decimation to prevent a larger tragedy by rote, and in that moment of quiet, as he silently begs the orchestration to begin, he recognizes naught but the solitary specter wearing the shattered face of Michelle Murphy, her ruined smile taunting from the distance, the gold ring on her pale left hand glinting ominously.

And as though offered in greeting, his heart whispered,

You're blown, and on your own, mate.

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A/N: 4.10 is proving to be a bugger, so I'll be taking it in several chapters as there is a tremendous amount I want to do with this backdrop in particular. A better than fair portion of these chapters going forward will rest firmly in AU territory, so I do thank those of you who continue to buy a ticket, and take the ride. Also, many thank yous to those who have taken the time to review, it is most appreciated, and my interest in hearing the various interpretations through your eyes is unabashedly keen. Special thanks to Sherlock1921 as without your kind words and direction I would have no doubt acted on an impulse better left alone. I do so enjoy our correspondence and think of you as my own library for all things UK related-Gordon Bennett, and romance is planned, so watch this space? Did I get that right? :)