A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed last, I'd thought to have lost a fair portion of you, so I find myself pleased that you've opted to continue a bit further on this ride! This follows directly from the last, and just a quick reminder that AU is very much in play.
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"When I'm sad, she comes to me,
With a thousand smiles she gives to me free.
It's alright, she says it's alright,
Take anything you want from me,
Anything.
Fly on little wing."
-Jimmy Hendrix, "Little Wing"
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11 November 2005: 8:35 PM:
How had it come to this? Casting his eyes, he took in the furious activity on the darkened grid; Zaf, his extensive research, disturbingly factual, scribbled against a transparent plexiglass littered with photographs, arrows, the flowchart detailing events his committee had accurately predicted years ago, in truth, they had gone to great expense and effort to rend untraceable. The conclusions he was drawing, as he observed, closer to the truth than fantasy, though entirely counterfeit.
Absurdly he was both proud and chaffed with Zaf despite himself as each additional detail mapped became, as he watched helplessly, another level of uncomfortable vulnerability experienced, each conclusion, skillfully drawn, another corrosive agent applied, rending him exposed and seeping, exiled to the cell that had been his office.
He understood, without need of verbal embellishments, that Adam had taken Ruth's side, an alliance which fortified his acute sense of banishment, and though he was not exactly surprised by the decision, he was not so removed as to not experience a moment of jealousy for the conspiracy they made, against him, and no small amount of frustration that she had chosen to confide in someone other than himself, whispering together, investigating, despite him, those truths best left hidden. Oh, Ruth...
Superficially, he'd long since reconciled their immediate opponent was Angela Wells, yet with the shifting sands of coalitions fusing between everyone present, he'd regretfully acknowledged he faced numerous opponents, each member of his team, and not simply the agent become Judas currently fondling a detonator. Nor, it would seem, those still remaining behind the veil, Oliver, Jools, Juliet, figuring prominently in his imaginings, their collective machinations designed to achieve a goal he was loathe to consider even now.
Ironically, he found himself experiencing a fair portion of animosity towards those that would hold themselves apart from him, believing, if only as a fleeting thought, he were capable of what was so clearly believable as Zaf continued to metaphorically flay him. His irritation, growing bitterness, and deep seated cynicism proved more powerful than the dulling favors customarily afforded him through drink, and, as if to prove the exception, his copious consumption thus far had done little but enforce those unpleasant and habitual emotions characteristic to his solitude. So many years, deliberate in maintaining distance, and yet the wound they left remained despite him, weeping and raw.
He was angry, irrationally so, and his rage began to eat at him, consuming in short order both his ability to exercise restraint and emotional control, leaving him uncharacteristically floundering, fueling his considerable frustration, a snake eating its own tail. He nearly laughed aloud at the image, the desperate appropriateness striking him both viciously humorous and predictable that he should be the one called to answer, held accountable and identified as Chairman, the bureaucratic trail never entirely erased, labyrinthine, casting shadows which engulf and suffocate once discovered.
Hadn't he, in his moments of solitude, moments when the ghosts came to greet him, anticipated at some point a moment for which he should righteously be called to account for his past, the numerous actions within which he'd willingly engaged littering his memory, befitting the call? As he sits within the confines of his office, its customary scarlet hue extinguished in compliance of protocol, the forced lock down rendering shadows where he had not thought to look, he cannot deny to himself he had always known the day would come, though he had lauded himself frequently that he would find himself better prepared for its arrival.
The psychological assessment of Angela had fallen to him, colleagues whose rumored familiarity and past associations had determined that he, amongst them, was uniquely suited to the task. They had, individually, participated in countless undercover operations in defense of the Realm, and each were, he acknowledged to himself, equal in the requisite skills characteristic to the psychological warfare made necessary with this incursion.
The specter of Michelle Murphy appears again, briefly floating in the shadows, and he considers for the moment, mirroring his early morning insecurities, he might not be up to the task, dismissing the idea that Angela is likewise tortured by past innocents, and thus, not hampered by a vulnerability they do not share. He'd like to credit it to some small measure of humanity remaining within his broken soul, but stops just short of believing it a factual reality, whether to retain some minuscule standard of distance or to fuel his need to believe himself unworthy of the absolution such humanity would provide he couldn't, wouldn't guess at presently.
Adding to his growing discomfort, the absence of scarlet hue habitually illuminating his office, and he was not altogether surprised to discover the diffusing comfort, once extinguished, had become a mundane simplicity on which he had unconsciously grown to depend. In the bleak lighting remaining to him, he needn't have wondered why it was that he seemed to have a habit of dismissing the simple, banal comforts afforded him, the scant few he could readily identify, only to mourn them once taken away? He mourned Ben, Jane, his children, his mother never once holding himself to the fire of accountability, of knowing his part had been played, his choice made to take it all for granted, only deigning to notice their importance once removed.
And so it was, fingers tapping the rim of his glass, awash in shadows, mourning his scarlet comforts, he concluded he had spent roughly fifteen plus years taking the circuitous route, only to arrive at the same emotionally stunted 'X' mark in the sand. He was no more self actualized than he was at the start, he'd simply gravitated towards a profession which elevated manipulation to an art form, embraced one's ability to lie, rationalize, justify numerous and sundry selfishly pursued goals serving to welcome and propel them through the ranks, never undermining, unless one where foolish enough to retain the faintest leanings of conscience.
Fair is foul,
and foul is fair,
and we shall meet when the hurly-burly's done,
and the battle's lost and won.
He could not imagine a line of work, a profession as a whole, more alined in nature to the weird sisters three plucked from the Bard's head and provided as a cautionary tale, a roadmap to the secrets held in the hearts of men. Not for the first time does he understand that, like the works of Conrad, prescient and forewarning, one cannot possibly fathom the depths of truths therein until one had been seasoned, and broken, betrayed and flayed, old and jaded, life having fed and discarded one as so much gristle.
He smirks quickly, Shakespeare, Conrad, and Neil Young, their wisdom is wasted on the young and old alike, raising his glass in obligatory toast before placing it against his lips and drawing deeply.
He had denied it, of course, when they had come to him, the printed minutes of that long ago clandestine meeting in her hand. He had watched her face, his insides churning with equal parts resentment, anger, and sympathy, her eyes telegraphing her desire to believe him even as he saw the flicker that spoke she could not, would not. He had seen that look in his own eyes on too many occasions himself, staring back from the mirror, wanting to believe, knowing it for a lie regardless. Adam had prevented her from continuing, and though his back had been turned, he'd seen it in her hands as she'd made little attempt to hide its acquisition, knew it for his diary, its reveal impeded as Adam had taken it from her fidgeting hands, the moment, mere seconds in total, marking his absolute exile from them, that minuscule passage of time wherein they became, instantly, both a unit and enemy.
He wonders now if he had, inadvertently, initiated a series of mind games the moment he had turned his back deliberately away from them, his denial still hanging between them, his request for the origins of said minutes handily sidelined? Or, alternatively, had the mind game he offered been hers alone to claim, an effort to discern how deeply she believed him capable measured by single proffered chance to confess all to him, a juncture in which to save herself, while his eyes were turned away, his heart yearning for her to come clean, his need for her to understand and confess a perversity both appealing and repellent to him? His displeasure in her willingness to deny him her confession paled in comparison to the outright malice unfolding within him as she made her choice.
Irrationally, his mind game began turning in on itself, denying the justifiable reasons for her choice, ignoring that Adam was running the op and thus the appropriate recipient of information gathered. She had confessed, in part, though likely not the whole of it, of that he was certain; And in that confession she had chosen Adam. Not him, Adam. The choice, while perfectly legitimate on its face, had wounded him deeply, nevertheless. Wounded him in a way he'd not thought himself vulnerable, a revelation which he found wounded him still deeper.
Reexamining his motives then, fissures of rage still simmering just below his surface calm, he could not deny that he had turned from them, from her, as a punishment, knowing the truth they had yet to discover, anticipating the moment all would be revealed, his innocence established, another victim of an aberrant bureaucracy unleashed. Using the knowledge of things unknown, the end predetermined by undeniable fact from the outset, he allowed the betrayal he felt to fuel his growing malice, using it as combustable accelerant, fortifying the walls insulating his weaknesses, allowing him the distance found in objectivity, logic, and duty.
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11 November 2005; 9:56PM
In the grey light remaining, the details afforded him within the official records gathered before him were as austere as illuminating. His task assigned, he had immediately procured both Angela and Peter Haigh's official records, deciding to appropriate Ruth's almost as an afterthought. Of the three, only Ruth's remained unaddressed before him, and as his fingers caressed the folder itself, contents within still unknown to him, he deliberately ignored the tug of conscience, the slight niggling of guilt that danced the periphery, understanding that reading her file was an invasion of sorts, an assault which his heart knew to be wrong, but which his roiling malice demanded as duty, whispering his entitlements as his conscience fought him.
It became a challenge, perversely tantalizing, the file set before him, to see exactly how long he could refrain, the yardstick by which to measure the depth of his self control and restraint, his desire to consume the contents whole pulsing despite his resentments, despite his being cast from them. The picture proved his undoing, and if he were honest, he would not describe it as flattering to her as it was. Perhaps it had been the blunt nature of it, dead center, absent of smile or any notable emotion that had been the trigger? In the simplest terms, the nakedness, the bare honesty had tugged at his heart, the paradoxical nature of her, the living breathing her he had come to know, inconsistent with the photo sat before him.
He believed himself, then, capable of having seen her, beyond the surface, his belief in such a furiously vacillating state of mind, and yet he understood that she had shown him the merest secrets within her, revealing to him all that would, and could, be withheld from others, so infinitely precious that she would withhold evidence of their certain presence even in something so innocuous as a security photograph. It had warmed him as much as hurt him, the idea that she had revealed herself in part to him, the feeling of isolation from them all keen, and, like so much mist, dissolved beneath his touch as his past thundered into the present.
He had succumbed, to his considerable shame, rather easily then, his desire to know more, see more, feeling the opportunity slipping from him, time growing short, and he ate himself full. Brushing the feelings better suited to invasion easily aside in defense of the realm, his eyes caressed the words, tasting them without opportunity to taste her, his imagination providing words not before him, coloring where only black and white details lived. Her distance from him remained tantalizing, the tug of their imaginary tether vibrating with strain throughout, and he found himself again both bemused and stunned that even in the midst immediate peril, he was incapable of relinquishing that desire to have her, find himself clean in her eyes, to wash himself bare with her absolutions and generosity.
Even now, as he watches her whispering with Adam, she is more alive than her picture would allude to, watching as Zaf enunciates with exact precision the conclusions of his fabricated flowchart, his eyes trace the line of her thigh as it rests against the desk, the fabric pulled tightly against the muscles hidden within, the gleam of her neck, exposed, the pale skin of her chest luminescent in the artificial light above her, the shadows catching the curve of her breast, the soft swell highlighted for his personal pleasure and torture.
Isn't that your preferred remit, his heart whispered, quietly, his pulse thudding in time? Hadn't it always come to this, in the end? His libido shifting into overdrive, hardwired and intertwined with moments of tension and risk resulting in his need to feel something, drown in something warm and wet and welcoming, that connection which would keep him grounded, as primal as ill timed, an all encompassing, predetermined urge demanding he act, requiring satisfaction?
How many women had borne of his furious lusts, believing themselves to be needed beyond what their body could momentarily provide, and he selfishly allowing it, whispering all manner of words, lies, so that their legs would part, teasing them until they begged him to fuck them? Many, their names littering his own file, gratuitously excessive, the S24s, forms granting 'permission to fuck,' and countless those that simply writhed beneath him once, half asleep as he rose from them to disappear like smoke. Not a single one had captured him as she had, though the thought did little to absolve him his past, neither did it lessen or eliminate his primal need to fuck her.
Face flinching with distaste, his stomach churns a bit with this last thought, though not derived of desire, but rather in disgust that he would regard her along side all the others; An object to crave, to fuck, to use as a selfish means of release, her body a receptacle for his demons and nightmares, her innate kindness a meager weapon of defense for this measure of warfare with which he found himself all too devastatingly familiar.
The other women were, despite their association with him, be it brief or one-off, safe when all was concluded, and it was largely this particularly frequent rationalization which afforded him some paltry sense of redemption in action. He did not care about them, who they were, what they thought beyond that which had attracted him to begin with. They were startlingly homogenous as a whole, their only distinctions being the manner and means by which they met, and the scent of their individually inflamed arousal. They remained, mercifully he'd believed, untainted by his poisons, not having been important enough to roust the tendrils of pestilence, not present for long enough for those tendrils to entwine and root. If he'd been asked to name a single one of them, he'd likely manage but a few names, and those due in large part to their vague resemblance to either Jane or Rebecca, that long ago first love who had grown to love another. They wanted, in their time together, nothing from him but his cock, and he'd wanted nothing but a warm place in which to lay himself, mutually beneficial, the harshly clinical mechanics more a benefit than obstruction.
He wanted Ruth, contrarily, in a wholly encompassing fashion, having glimpsed her, having spent hours merely observing her rather than touching and caressing, and the exchange of action, while entirely at variance with his natural instincts, left him loathe to aline her with those before her, the requisite S24 becoming detrimentally more obscene were her name to suddenly appear amidst the meaningless chaff held within his own file.
She had aroused the tendrils, and they reached for her still, wanting to wrap themselves around her, feeding on her, rooting within her even as he wished to do the same, her body wrapped in his, heartbeat slowly synchronizing as they breathe into one another. A curious conundrum, he found; Wanting her, refusing to distain her with an S24, needing to protect her by keeping her in proximity, desperate to ensure the same through distance. A more appropriate nightmare befitting a known philanderer, a consummate lier and Mr. Shadow, he could not have imagined, and he chuckled softly to himself at life, its merciless sense of humor which appeared to relish a thorough, deep cut.
Forcing himself from these thoughts, he sets her picture aside, opening her file, beginning to read only after he pours another two fingers, the glass resting deliberately on the face on Peter Haigh's security photograph, features morphing fluidly as the glass fills with amber liquid. Within moments, he is struck by the subtle intuition she had used her acquired skills to alter her file in no small measure. As it lay before him, her file would not have passed examination and afford her a position with GCHQ, let alone MI5. Where Angela's chronicled what appeared to be every moment of her existence from birth to the point of superfluous pandering, Ruth's allowed singularly superficial basics which conveyed nothing overtly illuminating, while entire years seemed to have been overlooked entirely within her background check.
Haigh's was as likewise detailed as Angela's, though considerably less impressive, culminating in his dismissal from Royal Protection, the excessively ample 'deceased' stamp, vividly red, holding pride of place amidst the bland facts meticulously detailed. It did conspicuously little to clarify the relationship between the three, the particulars provided falling exclusively within the area of superficiality, the minutiae of previously established facts. The backstory, the meat and blood comprising the tumor shared between them, would be found elsewhere, if he were lucky, and to that extent he believed he'd likely extinguished that well some time ago, returning to peer over the rim regardless, beggars bucket in hand.
Sifting again through the minimal pages within her file, pausing in frustration, his gaze stilled on her photograph, gazing into her eyes, his mind a constant refrain, hiding secrets, secrets, what have you hidden, Ruth? She had, intuition forming into fact quite effortlessly, altered her bloody file, maintaining her strict adherence to privacy, the act a significant breach in protocol, and he found himself both subtly aroused and intrigued by the thought, the brash insolence so undeniably mirroring his own, the effect on him was vaguely erotic, yet powerful as an aphrodisiac, provoking and destructive. Clever girl.
She had successfully orchestrated a significant breach in the midst of security understood to be the finest available. The audacity of her actions left him momentarily dumbstruck while simultaneously experiencing a jolt of lust so twisting and deep at being outmaneuvered he'd had to close his eyes and concentrate on his breathing to regain the smallest measure of control.
While the awakened, unforeseen level of lust twisted deeper within him, feeding his imagination, he pondered the idea that he didn't know the first thing about her, which then lent itself quite naturally to the conclusion that if he didn't know her, then his imagined embellishments to the exact nature of her character could be as easily wonton as prudish. Which, given the nature of his preference, unlocked a Pandora's box of vivid fantasies within him he'd bitten the inside of his mouth to force the visions back into the shadows.
Human nature to keep secrets, he supposed, his tongue tasting the blood, probing his inner cheek, the lure to reveal them equally potent, and in the greater business of espionage, that nature formed the foundation on which they all worked to save themselves, and others, the Realm. Having dutifully performed for so long his role, his cumulative breadth of secrets hidden were legion, fiercely guarded, the initial voracity of application marking his beginnings evolving to something close to unconscious ability, requiring little concentration or deliberate effort on his part to maintain them at present. Still, he was quite incapable of stopping himself from looking under the table, behind the curtain, where others were concerned, the inherent hypocrisy, his unwillingness to suffer the withheld secrets entitled to others proving a persuasive ally. The fact that Ruth had effectively prevented him from doing so, had quietly secured the upper hand, and he left none the wiser, was as shocking as if she had struck him clean across the face.
But it was the nature of her secrets that aroused him, her attempt to hide which provoked him, and he did not laud himself presently that it meant anything more meaningful, genuine and pure, otherwise. He knew himself too well, and that lie could not be eaten. Leafing through the sparse documents contained in her file, he understood the truth of his affections lay firmly within the revolving secrets she held, the inner workings of her mind and heart a provocation which called to him, stimulating him both mentally and physically, his need to reveal her, layer by layer, pulsing.
She had secrets, secrets she wanted to remain hidden, whole years worth of secrets, and the image of a wonton Ruth forming in his consciousness, laying back invitingly, her smile hiding those secrets nearly drove him mad. Because it was mad, his inner voice railed; It was most seriously mad, insane, completely irrational that he wanted to choke every last secret out of her, thrust so deep inside her that the words fell from her lips in order to accommodate the breadth of his cock, consuming whole the years she would keep hidden from him, plunging into her until she was so wide open he could do nothing but lay within her, engorged and drunk with her secrets, and she clinging to the last of them until only he remained.
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11 November 2005; 11:37PM:
Peter Haigh. One man, two women, easily interpreted, the most obvious situation, a triangle whose established affections, liaisons, sexual antics demanded conflict, each participant reacting with bland historical predictability. His mind conjured a picture of him, one illustrated by those contained in his discarded file; Handsome, bordering on rugged, tall, broad shouldered, a solid mass of muscle befitting one who was tasked to protect members of the Royal Family. He was in physical presence very similar in appearance to Fortescue, and as much as his mind strained to deny, his heart told him that there had been something between them, Haigh and Ruth, her preferred type undeniable to him now in the glaring comparison.
Despite himself, the need to decipher the connection between the three remained overwhelming, fueling his peculiar, habitually self destructive desire for risk. And just as he did when her interest in Fortescue became unnerving to him, he resolved to undermine her again, determined to deny her even this secreted measure of affection, privacy, because its existence did not originate from him, angry that she could, in his imaginings, reciprocate with others what she would continue to deny him.
Peter Haigh. He said the name out loud, softly, let it roll from his lips as his fingers punched out the name, hen picking his way across the keyboard, drawing more documents from the grey void named 'elsewhere,' searching for the thing that was hidden, the thing that she had failed to wipe, the inconsistency which would prove the spark.
It was with an almost childish delight that he'd discovered her furtive ministrations had not extended to include the documented library, the posthumous archived narrative which had once belonged to Haigh, still accessible despite her. He followed the trace hints remaining, available where she had removed them from her own, each element of interest noted in his indecipherable longhand, the characteristic scribbles filling half a page.
He was both struck by her failure to be thorough, and elated that she had not thought to be more thorough, likely down to having been interrupted, or perhaps, a nod at her own hubris in believing she had wiped all there was worth erasing? Wasn't that exactly the snare for which we spies dared to hope? Those tragically forgotten bits of extraneous intel that, when compiled, shook the house of cards, the gust of wind blowing each, adrift and unconnected, before falling together, the Rorschach patterns a story waiting only to be deciphered, interpreted.
His fingers clicked rapidly at the mouse in his hand, the photographs of Haigh printing to his right, moments secured in time, as he had expected, yet he found himself surprised that several included the face of one he'd now become painfully familiar with; Ruth holding a cup of tea, bright yellow Wellies adorning her feet, walking side by side with him, the backdrop of Oxford recognizable to him having walked the same path years before them. Ruth, laughing, Haigh grinning happily down at her, the city bus a blur behind them. There were more recent shots capturing Haigh with Angela, also present in her extensive file, though likely that inclusion was due, if one were to believe the rumors, as proof she had disregarded all council and reprimands for her continued association with him. There were no photographs in Ruth's file apart from the unadorned example staring at him from his desktop. The number included within the other two simply highlighted, to his experienced eye, their egregious absence, taken by him as an unspoken dare he'd found too seductive to ignore, the backstory vibrating along his consciousness, shimmering with longing to be allowed opportunity to speak.
He sipped absently at his scotch as each printed, then he quickly set about placing them in some order he thought closest to chronological, manner of dress, background ephemera his guide. It was there, once they had been laid that he began to recognize the details, began to distill the story down into the pinpointed moment that had led from then to now.
There was a humming sound penetrating his thoughts, as his eyes lifted from the photographs, searching the room to root the origin, what fresh hell, astonished to find it living within his head. Perhaps it were his better angels, their wings blinding with rapid movement, the din created meant to distract him from his course. No, just as quickly, those creatures are just as your left them, abandoned to confines of an explosive handbag. The hum of inherent hardwiring, then? Yes, the reply, lets go with that.
Easier, that rationalization, infinitely so, all the better for allowing him to believe himself faultless in the trade, the act instinctual, intrinsic to his person, and one can hardly blame the scorpion for its sting once provoked. Had she provoked him? Had she really? Or, rather, had she not acted in a manner so like himself he was forced to twist events into acts of provocation better suited to his needs, both personal and immediate?
His head bent to reexamine the collection of photographs, he saw there had been affection, though nothing which would suggest anything untoward between them. A cursory glance provided evidence of sibling familiarity, one he recognized from pictures taken of his own children, pictures of himself and Ben all those years ago, What is he missing?
The humming within his head increasing in volume, silken wings beating wildly in desperate caution, he's reminded of years ago, a training course, one which became a requirement eventually, but remained then, during the early years marking his active service, new aged enough to be considered experimental. At the time, he'd filed 'experimental' right along side the file coded 'bullshit,' but his attendance was required, and so off he went. And, admittedly, being a rather cocky sort, he was content to appear as though he were listening, while his mind drifted off on all manner of alternative subjects, and though he couldn't remember now, if he had been told those thoughts revolved around a firm pair of thighs, he would not have possessed the decency to either blush or be surprised. Frustrated, pouring another measure, he drummed his fingers amongst the files wondering why in the bloody hell he'd thought to remember that?
Squinting into the middle space, that area wherein the world's totality of secrets lay, it came to him, his head tilting just to the left, the humming becoming almost violent in pitch, as he correctly identified it now, the cacophony inside him, the tuning fork by which to fix his direction, harmonizing as he passed closer. The course instructor, what was his name? Never-mind, doesn't matter. He had long hair, he remembered that; Long hair, some new age, EST guru; He had placed a picture on a screen, an over head screen, Jesus, time fucking flies, a face appearing on the wall, covering it in total behind him.
He was thinking about a woman, he remembers now, Diane...Dana...fuck, what was her name? Why, fancy you'll call her, do you? Have another go, came the sarcastic, controlled reply from within. And then he remembers that she did have a spectacular set of legs, dancer, yes, a dancer, and...yes, all thoughts of...of...shit, whats-her-name with the legs evaporated as the sensitive, ponytailed guru placed a piece of paper over one side of the screen, blocking one half of the man's face from view, announcing you can read a face, the motivations of a person, by looking at both sides of their face separately.
Mind firing, rapid, straining to keep up, he's not surprised to find himself standing now, leaning over his desk, rifling the pictures he'd thought to print, and his feeling of euphoria, that itch that always started in his groin when he was close, on the scent and close enough to grab, was ticking reassuringly. Oh no, my boy, you are so not past it, far from it, mate. He hears himself say it, echoing off the walls of his office, and finds he, at that moment, barely able to contain his urge to throw his arms up in victory.
It takes a minute before the enormity of what he has uncovered hits him full force, so enamored of his ability to out think her, to fetter out what she had wanted kept hidden, to prove to himself, if not her, that he still had it, whatever it was, the entire fucking collection of its available in the known universe, he had all of them in spades, and don't ever question it.
Shit.
Oh, Ruth.
He could place it, now, that memory which began scratching its way to the surface when his name had first been spoken hours ago unfolding within him, the details becoming sharper, the story's illustration becoming flush, knew then the unspoken hows and whys of its crystalizing relevance to their immediate peril. Her mother, Elizabeth had remarried, that was it. The memory, floating, developing, the surface hazy; Christ, so long ago. Brows furrowed with effort, his eyes unfocused as he follows the trail, the bread crumbs filed in memory.
He had been active then, the past's equivalent to Adam, or Tom, so long ago. Yes, it was shortly after Jane had begun divorce proceedings, and he was forever being cautioned to slow down, measure risk; But he'd needed the rush, was drawn to it, incautious, heedless, needing to feel something other than shame, failure.
His mouth drops open, imperceptibly, as his memories rapidly launch forward, interconnected images filling the grey spaces with vibrant colors beyond his will to control. Ruth. He had known Ruth. Well, not known her; No, not exactly. Not in the sense of having been introduced formally to someone, she had been a child, someone's child; But he had known of her, by association, a stretch, but still more true than false. Her father, her father, and now he sees himself in his mind's eye, vibrantly young, magnetic, dangerously seductive, sitting within the darkness of a long forgotten grid from years ago, another lifetime, trolling the available information, the death notice, the funeral services; He remembers investigating her father's death, and his face floats to the surface, his blue eyes, so like hers. His bird, his little bird, he'd called her.
He had spoken of her often, this bird named Ruth, and he thinks it simple presently to believe then they had been introduced in a way, so long ago, his blood staining the wooden crates as her father worked to save him. He spoke affectionately, openly, the kinds of details you offer up to distract someone suffering under the knife with little, if any, anesthetic. The kinds of things his mind was perfectly suited to record and file, studiously adept, though he is stunned at the sudden realization he had bothered at all.
Cancer, it was, a particularly pernicious strain, if he remembers correctly. He had liked him, that gifted doctor with the soft voice and gentle hands, and he looks to Ruth now as he recognizes the kinship of his keen intellect reflected in her. He had not liked many of those entrusted with the task of saving agents from fatal injury, but he had grown to like, even trust, Daniel Evershed. After his passing, he had, in some exercise of misplaced absolution he'd guess now, checked in on her progress, periodically as time and events had allowed, though he'd no way to predict then she would eventually become tied to him as she had now.
No, that wasn't entirely true. Not really, was it? Not when you brush the cobwebs away and stand inches from the mirror. The grainy photographic images of her, captured as her face broke into a smile, the sun full on her face. He had only searched her out once; Well, twice, he chastises inwardly, since we're all being honest now. It was the second occurrence that shook him, the one where he almost didn't spot her because she had inexplicably cut off all of her hair. He recalled the first time he'd sought her out, finding then, her hair a glossy dark cascade falling to her waist, soft waves catching the sunlight. It was the type of mane that beckoned, one couldn't help but yearn to curl amidst the softness, inhaling the trace fragrance of shampoo, laying it across your pillow so that it caressed your face as you slept.
He had sat there, at a distance years ago, it felt like ages to him now, hearing the words his mother had spoken again, as clear to him then as if he should look up and find her serene smile in the review mirror; Once, when I was young, I lost something I loved very much. I'd little means to express that grief, but for me, it was enough to start by cutting off all of my hair. Watch for it, love, for it is the surest admission of grief I can describe for you. His eye traced the line of Ruth's exposed neck, her newly shorn hair uneven, asymmetrical, self inflicted he had guessed, breath catching in his throat as she turned her face in the direction he was hidden. Rushing, caught unawares, his thoughts suddenly, unaccountably, had turned to Jane, his conscience reaching for something he'd desired to keep buried.
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12 November 2005; 1:12AM:
Jane.
Her hair had been what had first drawn him to Jane, luminescent and thick, he had nestled contentedly within those silken strands, threading it between his fingers more times than he could count. Even after their marriage went pear shaped, she would not deny him his custom of sleeping against the length of it fanning behind her. But she took even that away, came the whisper, didn't she? He remembered finding Jane sat on the floor of their en suite, alone, her eyes swollen, filled with tears, the luminous blonde cascade falling past her shoulders gone, the golden blanket it formed covering the floor, scissors gleaming in her limp, right hand; And he, stinking of some woman whose name he hadn't bothered to remember thirty minutes absent her naked form, angry at her for slicing away what he had desperately treasured. She had, in sheering it clean away, taken that pleasure from him, that feeling of contentment, calm serenity, worse still, she knew how he cherished it, how much he needed that comfort, and he to his shame could not find it within himself to forgive her, then, and to some extent, now.
His mother had not elaborated on what she did subsequent, though neither did he ask, too young to understand the hideousness which subsequent suggested, unaware that his own future would chose to illustrate what his adolescent mind was ill prepared to comprehend. Still, he saw it then, with Jane, the scissors trembling as she sobbed, and later with Ruth, sitting alone, isolated from the crowds that surrounded her, what his mother had quietly counseled him to look for, and wondered who had wounded her so deeply that she would deliberately destroy something so effortlessly beautiful as her hair.
He needn't have bothered to wonder with Jane, the answer writ bold across his conscience. He was her wound, he was her pain, he was the poison that drove her to self destruction. He had watched as subsequent began to define itself, the distinct real time illustrations, horrifyingly feral, watched as his vivacious young wife, mother of his children, began to slowly self destruct, bouts of depression so immobilizing she had begun cutting herself, bleeding herself repeatedly in an effort to feel, and he came to realize the blanketed floor had marked the beginning of the slide, the ride, the subsequent, punctuated by extremes of artificial, brittle happiness and demoralizing catatonic misery. And he had done nothing, incapable in his vanity, in his self absorption, unwilling to shoulder the blame openly, internally his failures fueled his anger, his resentment towards her, driving him further into recklessness, his presence within their home merely a stop gap between the adrenaline and excitement he craved.
It was the last time he had sought Ruth out, though not the last time he had thought of her, his desire to know who had hurt her waring with the necessity of maintaining distance. In truth, he loathed the idea of watching as she descended the same rabbit hole that had taken Jane. How had he forgotten this? How had he forgotten her? Her face unsmiling from within her security file, and his eyes had widened in recognition, her name, one in a number of applicants selected by Tom for possible secondment, her file detailed then as he examined its contents, curious about the passage of time between, and yet still, still he had been able to lie to himself, had been able to convince himself he'd nothing but objective intentions.
Oh, yes, he had elected to interview her for a secondment to Five, deliberately sidelining Tom in the exercise; Orchestrating, or he would lead himself to believe, without conscious thought, and he had found himself well and truly charmed by her from the start, her physical presence a balm of sorts, confusing and disquieting him, just the same. Funny that he had not thought of it until this moment, the parallel nature of them, but blown was blown, no sense in fabricating fictions now. No sense is continuing to fuel those he had already tried to hide from himself. Isn't that exactly what this entire charade was about? One cannot hide, and your sins will out in the end, and you the fool thinking you knew better.
Untimely, that. Of all the nows littering his life, that it would be this now, here, today, that he would find himself faced with the truth hidden behind recollected lies told to himself so many years ago, those self manufactured fallacies he had buried so deep that he'd thought to have forgotten they had been real, the hubris of fabrications thought genuine.
If he was honest, he could not deny he had intended to recruit her; Had, in those moments of opiate induced interactions with her father, already been charmed by her, or rather, the idea of her, the reality as presented by a devoted father, foreign to him, yet one he paled against in the comparison. My little bird, she is, and in his opiate laden state the shame for having never thought to gift Catherine with a name, a term of endearment special only to them, a moniker which said you are of me, and I love you with everything I am ate at him, bleeding in time with his physical wounds. Daniel Evershed had become, in some fantastically odd sense not subject to frequency of interaction, the barometer by which to measure his own failings as a father, as though he were in need of additional measurements and comparisons in which his shortcomings were egregiously magnified.
His stomach turning slightly sour, realization a sudden gut punch, tasting the implication he had envied the man to such a degree that he co-opted his only daughter years later, paling then in magnitude, a heartbeat later, to the genuine conclusion he had desired to seduce her, as well. Yet in his heart he knew himself to be capable of such a vile act, knew that somewhere in the recesses of memory, there was a moment in time, a pinprick hidden, where he had decided that she was the reward he selfishly yearned for, all else designed specifically to achieve that goal, and she less a person in the equation than a trophy to be displayed, to meditate on when the insecurities came knocking, demanding entrance.
Which, he thinks to himself, turning it around in his mind, would have been acceptable on its face, or at least, conducive to who he understood himself to be, manipulative, selfish, charismatic to a fault, dangerous to those unaware. And were she to have accepted him as thus, he imagines he wouldn't be wasting what precious little time Angela afforded them with useless and melancholic delving of circumstance, both past and present, leading them to this moment. He would have had her, and discarded her, were it not for those circumstances that told him he knew her, saw her as she saw him, glimpses shinning to each from beneath their facades, her touch familiar, her eyes a touchstone.
He stared at the picture in front of him, her visage hidden under his scrap paper, his scratched notes covering the lines, and much the same way as in that course years before, he saw the other half, the story that Haigh told, silently, all these years later. He had been in love with her, the evidence was plain and present in the way he looked at her, and when he placed each photograph before him, delicately covering Ruth's smiling face, it served only to detail and make flush that love. He could hardly have blamed him, envious of the moments they had obviously shared.
He knew what he had to do, had no choice, or so he told himself. He found the resentment he felt for Jane transcending the boundaries of his past, delicate tendrils reaching from that dark place within him, and wrapping, as would a lover, the vision of Ruth in his heart, and knew it as necessity. He could hear the ghosts within him begin to rustle, called awake with every heartbeat, every word he fashioned to himself as must do, no choice, sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, and the void smiled for knowing him better than he knew himself.
He'd registered almost immediately she did not look at him when he'd hidden Haigh's face beneath the paper. In truth, there wasn't one photograph among them in which she had been captured looking towards him at all. He counted, in total, four wherein she was looking into the distance, two which captured her gazing at the path in front of her, eyes cast downwards, and lastly, one in which her eyes closed against the laugh that shook her body, her grin cast towards the sun. All of them, however, captured Haigh as he beheld her.
The effect, the technique he'd thought to be a waste of time, ah hubris, had revealed her story, her half which she had secreted away. While her feelings on the matter remained, even subject to his considerable inspection, ambiguous, what was in little doubt was Haigh's continued adoration of her. He had been in love with her, and while she clearly cared for him, her visage lacked the similar outright adoration present in his. All of his, in truth. He thinks that she has always had a skittish nature. Or perhaps, this something that formed the meat of their tumor merely accentuated what had always been.
Loathe as he was to peel back this skin, to manipulate her into reliving, by association, this period of her life she had expertly attempted to hide, he knew he had, at hand, no other equally viable option. Fortunate, that, and maybe his reservoir of luck hadn't yet been extinguished, the details he'd spent the past many hours searching for, forced from her lips, the secret he'd followed, only partially revealed, her resultant task in duty already determined, holding the promise of those details left hidden, his need to know at rest. Discomforting his thought that it wasn't solely his sense of duty, but also his duplicitous nature which demanded he manipulate Ruth to suit his ends, fashion her a uniquely suited weapon, his curiosity's satisfaction becoming equal to the safety of the greater whole, all innocents and unaware of the perilousness of their safety.
Collecting the documents spread about his desktop, he made every attempt to avoid ruminating on what he had found, but like that curious cat, he failed in every attempt to blind himself against what he had seen, strike himself ignorant to what he now knew, and he felt his dream of her die ever so slightly inside him, his ever present duty dictating the terms of fatality. He would sacrifice her. He knew it, and the knowing it, the conceiving of it was only slightly less a death, than the death he knew awaited him the moment he required she act, ordered her, if needs be, for the greater good.
This was not some mercenary's daughter, innocently used as a pawn to ensure a favorable end, though, on balance, not so very different a situation, either. She could forgive that, indeed, he knew she had forgiven it, her reason allowing her to see the truth of necessity, though he did not imagine it extended to forgetting. She could forgive Tom, Zoe, and Danny, even Sam, never once using the memory of them, his haphazardly admitted affection for them all confessed to her alone, as she could have, to manipulate him, to confound him and place him in the midst of cross purposes.
In effect, there wasn't a single situation imaginable to him in which he would anticipate she would chose to, so willingly as himself, sacrifice anything or anyone to achieve her ends; That she would even conceive of such a path rather than be forced onto it, pushed from behind, stumbling and reluctant, was ridiculous in the extreme, and in the wake of this thought he understood her need to keep secrets perhaps might not simply be an attempt to protect herself, but a courageous risk undertaken to protect another as well. But she will not forgive him this, neither will she forget.
As he drains the last of the contents of his glass, readying himself for another, he pauses, the bottle tilted, it's contents kissing the rim, and he can feel the anger starting to burn deep in his abdomen, clenching his jaws, his hand tightening its grip on the bottle, his breathing becoming shallow, audible in the silence. He allows it to grow, because this, this, is familiar, he knows what this is, embracing its odd comfort as a lifeline. This is the moment when he rationalizes his actions before he's moved to act, knowing what he will do. And the anger, burning and stoking itself into a fury within him is necessary, as necessary as oxygen is to flame, the moment illustrating his eternity of appropriate solitude, searing him should he dare otherwise. This is what he did when he caressed a proffered breast not belonging to his wife, justifying it by telling himself she knew what he was, he'd tried to hide it, tried not to hurt her, and she just had to know, didn't she? Just had to keep looking until that cat was well and truly dead. Her fault, he told himself. If she had left well enough alone...
Taking the contents in one go, he concentrates on the burn as the liquid slides its way along his throat, burning where he had bitten down, deliberately avoiding all thoughts alined with the very real truth that whispered quietly, Ruth had not looked, and Ruth had left well enough alone, the red soaked wing lifting once, a whisper against a roar, and no matter how much he justified and rationalized to himself, that fact remained unalterable, static in this current chaotic circumstance.
She had not courted this, and neither had Jane, in truth, because she hadn't really had cause to. He had not made much of an effort to hide the philanderer he had become. You couldn't possibly understand, a rash impulse, screamed to push Jane further away, as though there was some acceptable explanation for being who and what he was, his anger at her for glimpsing behind the curtain of secrets he held fueling the ever growing distance forming between them. And it was with no small amount of frustration now that he realized his thoughts of Ruth were often accompanied by thoughts of Jane, and the frequency of such an occurrence left him reaching, again, for another belt from the half empty bottle before him.
Obscene that. His subconscious intertwining the two, their faces merging, and separating, merging again, reflecting both his hopes and failures, his very person the poison that kills everything thrush and beautiful, their proximity, both past and present, destined for pain, and he having bled them dry. And just like that the anger rose again, suffusing him in a hot rush, pushing the guilt and the ever present self recriminations to the periphery, replaced by the demons that taunted and teased the corners of his mind, disrupted his sleep, drove his cravings for peace and solitude to the breaking point, too far from reach as to rend the effort to fight a waste.
She had tried to hide it, her affection for Haigh, hadn't she? She had tried to hide it, secret it away, stealthy and clever, his Ruth, but he had sounded her out, had rustled the stalks and found the serpent hiding within its fronds, and it was easy, then, to blame her. Effortless now to convince himself, as he had with Jane, that Ruth knew what he was, and you can't fault a scorpion for its sting. Egregiously simplistic, in fact, while his anger curls forward, cresting the peak, nourishing the impending tumult, accelerating, thunderous this beautiful annihilation hardwired within him; No, she can't fault him for acting as designed from the moment of conception, the intricacies of Mr. Shadow present even then, safe and warm in his mother's womb, his venomous tail nestled against his fetal chest.
It was the stealth, the deliberate elimination of history, that he used now to convince himself that she was not what he had believed. He had not seen her, nor had he been seen, despite the whisper reverberating, lies, lies, a frail, blood tipped wing still, and he tossed back another two fingers, reveling in the submission it bought, the whisper quieting to a low thrum, easily ignored. Lies, lies, so many lies and all for a good cause, all for the greater good, all hollow and false, and yet he knew, knew in his soul, he would sacrifice her because he had been asked to, and all else fell to fantasy and whim and foolish musings of an overactive imagination draped in solitude and loneliness.
The resultant sense of desperation made his skin crawl. He still needed her, that was the thing. And he would need her even after he offered her up as sacrifice. More troublesome the certainty he would need to see himself, the man underneath spy in her eyes and that, that is what will be lost. He thinks it very like the moments Haigh had been captured gazing at her, and wonders if she had ever needed to see herself in his eyes, needed to see herself reflected in adoration, deciding it rather the reason she hadn't been caught, deciding that her decision to hide within the sanctuary she had formed, an internal playground, had been many years in the making, its design continuing even now. Not so different then to his younger self, his vision of himself through her eyes failing to prove seductive enough to disregard the obscenity he would soon force upon her. Him. Mr. Shadow, undefined, alone, skirting the periphery, waiting to strike.
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12 November 2005; 3:23 AM:
"There is something you could tell her...isn't there, Ruth?"
"No."
Her face had dissolved from cautious relief, the curve of her mouth, the barest tickle of a smile, vanishing completely behind a stone visage, impenetrable as a finely carved statue, shock and betrayal emanating from her widened eyes, her refusal, spoken with an edge sharp enough to slice a strand of hair, the only obvious indication of her internal struggle.
As he watched her face, eyes locked together in silent defiance of one another, he'd wondered, briefly, if she'd ever considered, for a single second, that a man who could be thought capable of designing and executing the assassination of a Royal figure, how then, could she be shocked that he would likely not balk at throwing her on the pyre just as recklessly to save himself? True, they had tragically predicted the ways and means of Diana's death, it was also equally true not a single member had played an actionable part beyond theoretical, which did little to mitigate his ready ability to set her as sacrificial lamb.
But she had believed, hadn't she? In part, in some measure, the relief decorating her face briefly had sworn it as fact, his heart breaking and demanding the pyre simultaneously, a just punishment for an excruciatingly unavoidable betrayal.
He had schooled his face for betrayal, impassivity hiding his inner conflicts; Had softened his tone to that of a caressing purr, a stark contrast to the clipped tones when voicing Haigh's name, his confession of investigating psychiatric evaluations less a confession in spoken word, than verbal weapon. He watched her flinch from him, and counted it both a victory and failure, his duplicitous heart demanding both.
"Ruth-"
He rather resented Adam's presence in that moment, one wherein he chose the path well worn, manipulating her, playing her while gathering the wood, his attempts to protect her with alternatives valiant, highlighting nothing so much as his own willingness to tie her to the deadened trunk and await the lick of flame. He resented most supremely the fact that Adam could bear witness, if he were asked, undoubted, his presence allowing him the details of the rope, and the width of the trunk she was girded to, of her precious unwillingness and his indifference as he tied her hands while looking her straight in the eye.
It was no small thing that Adam wouldn't look him in the eye, after he broke her, instead meditating on some spot lain before him, his breathing measured and cautious. No small thing at all. Yet, neither did he wish to be seen, nor did he wish to look into his eyes, a lighter shade of blue than hers, yet close enough to fortify his collusion with Ruth against him, grasping as he was any straw which would justify his choice, though weak and laughably metaphysical. You're blown, mate.
Perhaps he would, when this was all over, attempt to explain his course, detail the hows and whys, gage the depth of how badly he had broken them, the three of them, professionally and individually. Though Adam had not looked at him, he understood there had been a judgement decided, regardless. They, Adam and he, had nurtured her latent abilities, had believed her more innately skilled, had tested their theory carefully, probing the boundaries and limits, but, in all, they had endeavored mutually, as a unit. The two had then become three almost before either of them had thought to consider it a probable, likely outcome, though he himself could claim harbored hopes to that effect. They had, through loss, conflict, pain and successes over time, become a trio.
And now? Now. Irretrievably different, distinctive between now and that moment marking a single heartbeat ago, as he, without any consultation, lacking all outward palpable regard, had effectively, callously cradled her to him before throwing her to the wolf that waited just beyond, teeth bared, leaving her to scrape from within herself their collective salvation. He had, with Adam bearing broken witness, ordered her to cut from within herself the catalyst, the festering tumor they shared, and feed it to another, and he could not, in all his years which still lay before him, imagine any probability where their eyes would not shy away, as he sought them, as he stared, so rich and obvious was his latent pestilence.
She'd not spoken another word to him, her eyes becoming, as he watched, distant, seeing the far away and not him still sat before her. She drew in two deep breaths, closing her eyes with the second, and he'd thought, sadly, that she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever laid his eyes on, the thought erupting unbidden, forcing him to look first down, then away. She had turned from him, and though he did not witness it, he rather felt Adam shifting quickly to glance at her, heard the telltale movements of someone reaching to touch another as she passed from them, his desire to protect her telegraphed with the connection, maybe, his face preemptively taking the shine of regret and resignation as he turned again to meet his eye, a certainty.
"Jesus, Harry-"
With those two words, simple in their efficient accusation, he allowed himself to feel the breadth of his exhaustion, laying waste to the anticipation, the excitement hidden in the twist of a mind game's penultimate denouement, that moment when his innocence was established by undeniable fact, an elaborate wind up begun infinite hours ago, or so it seemed in his current fatigue, and knew it for nothing more than a juvenile nod to vanity, melting away, carrying his questionable state of innocence beyond his reach.
It was only later, as he placed the printed copy of her smile in the sunlight for safe keeping within his office safe, that he'd noticed the humming which had thrummed habitually throughout the ordeal had gone silent, and in his mind he pictured ephemeral wings, soft as velvet, imagined what they would feel like against his cheek, his vision becoming more tactile than fantasy, the supple texture catching the early morning beard of his face, pulling it away to examine it as it lay stationary in his palm.
He was not surprised to see their delicate surface spotted with red.