A week later the two siblings left hospital, they had both been given counselling appointments with a doctor highly regarded in her field of helping patients who had suffered severe traumatic difficulties. Unbeknown to Lucas and his sister it had all been arranged by Harry, at first the doctor had insisted that she would see them individually but the brother and sister told her in no uncertain terms that they had suffered the trauma together and they would deal with the aftermath together.

The day after being discharged Lucas took his sister to meet his boss; waiting in the conference room of section D the pair sat in silence waiting for Harry to arrive back from a meeting.

Lucas knew Harry would be annoyed to see him so soon as he was under strict instructions to rest until further notice but Lucas had come to an important decision and he needed to tell his boss quickly of the choice he had made.

Sometime later the door finally opened and Harry walked in, standing at the head of the table he directed his first words to his section chief.

"Lucas…I'm surprised to see you so soon….I thought the doctor …."

"I'm fine Harry." Lucas interrupted. "I just needed to speak with you."

Ignoring Lucas' answer Harry turned to the beautiful dark haired woman who had remained seated during the exchange of words, offering her his hand he said,

"Miss North…Harry Pearce….A pleasure to meet you."

Standing up and shaking his hand she replied,

"Mr Pearce…It's very nice to meet you too."

"Harry please." he said gesturing for her to sit down again.

"Harry." it was Lucas who was now speaking "I'm not coming back…not yet anyway….I've decided to take a year off….the doctor who is treating us has said it will take at least six months to a year to work through our recent stay in Russia and I want to spend some time getting to know my sister too."

"A wise decision Lucas, given the facts of recent events." Harry nodded his affirmation.

The two men looked at each other both unwilling to go into further detail, Lucas out of fear that if he spoke any more it would open the floodgates to the trauma he was still trying to bury and Harry out of fear of upsetting the man before him who was so obviously deeply troubled by his second stay in a Russian prison.

Indicating to his sister that he was ready to leave, she got up and stood beside her brother.

"Goodbye Harry." Lucas shook the older man's hand.

"Goodbye Lucas…you take care of yourself."

Lucas smiled at his boss and took hold of his sister's hand, opened the door and walked over and out through the pods without looking back.

Standing outside Thames House Lucas turned to his sibling smiling.

"You ok?"

"I'm fine Lucas…Are you alright?" Flashing his quirky smile he replied,

"I'm ok."

Taking a deep breath he said,

"Come on then….lets go get something to eat…I'm starving."

"Me too….I could eat enough for two." she laughed as they walked off in the direction of the embankment. But her foolish words would soon come back to haunt her for unbeknown to her or Lucas, the violating act that had been inflicted on her in the motherland had now resulted in Amelia carrying the unborn child of her Russian attacker.

TO BE CONTINUED…