Chapter Twenty Five

Malcolm leaned against the wall and let out his breath slowly. His eyes focused on the ground, unable to meet Susannah's gaze. It wasn't that he didn't believe her or thought she was misleading him in any way, it was just that he couldn't understand for one moment how it could be true.

"You saw him die," he whispered, "I mean… he's got a gravestone…" he shook his head. "Are you sure it wasn't just someone with a similar name?"

"It was him, Mal, I'd recognise his voice anywhere," Susannah shuddered. She may not have understood the power Keats had or the danger he posed but she'd had her own encounter with the darkness he brought to the world ten years earlier.

"What did he say, exactly?" Malcolm asked.

"Just his name," Susnanah whispered, "I wasn't hanging around for light conversation." She pulled her jacket around her, shivering from head to toe. To the outsiders she looked like a young lady with a thin coat on a cold night, but her shivers were caused by fear, not by the October weather. "Hearing his voice… it brought it all back. I hadn't thought about that in years, but it brought it right back to me."

Malcolm finally looked her in the eye. He saw her expression full of anxiety and sadness as a grim memory returned to her.

"I wasn't there with you all outside when it happened" he said, "I don't really remember much about how he died."

"It was after we'd rescued DCI Drake," she said quietly, "she went back with the Guv to find him. By the time I got there the room was on fire. DCI Keats ran out of the building and straight into a car heading in his direction. I ran to him… I saw a good opportunity to practice…"

"…Your first aid," Malcolm rolled his eyes, "yes, I know."

"I thought he was dead at first," Susannah's trembling grew stronger, "but when I got to him and tried to check if he was still breathing he grabbed me. He grabbed me hard around my face - oh God, the pain was awful..."

Malcolm flinched as a memory of the bruises and the marks from Keats's fingernails around Susannah's pretty face came back to him. It had taken weeks for some of them to fully heal.

"Oh, Susannah."

"He went crazy, Mal," she slid to the ground, her legs growing too weak to keep her upright, "he was jabbering about taking my place." She closed her eyes, flinching as she realised how ridiculous her words sounded. "He insinuated he was going to swap places with me, so that he would… take my life… and I would be dread."

"Totally insane," breathed Malcolm.

"But," Susannah choked on the words. She prepared to reveal something she'd kept hidden inside her for all that time; for a decade of her life. "It went beyond being the words of a madman. I could feel it, Malcom. I could feel my life ebbing away. The weaker I grew, the stronger he gripped me. He was taking my life force somehow, he was doing what he threatened."

Malcolm stared at her, unsure what he was supposed to say.

"You understand how… crazy that sounds… he began, "right?"

Susannah felt tears springing to her eyes.

"No crazier than hearing voices and laughter in the air," she whispered, "no crazier than someone's paperwork transferring them from eight years in the future."

Malcolm looked away a little guiltily. He was a fine one to talk.

"No crazier than a tiny dog morphing into a huge monstrosity," he said quietly. He was aware of Susannah's gaze falling upon him curiously. "This morning," he whispered, "when I came in to the office. You asked me what was wrong."

Susannah slowly reached for his hand.

"I knew there was something else," she whispered.

"Outside, I saw a dog," Malcolm began, "It was only a tiny thing. I've never had a problem with dogs."

"Right."

"But then…" he shook his head, "I don't understand how, Susie, but I was seeing the dog as this… giant, vicious beast. Like a massive, angry dog, barking at me… biting me. I was terrified. I could feel the pain, I could feel it sink its teeth into me - then it all stopped and went back to normal. It was just this… tiny little dog again. I didn't understand it and I still don't." He looked down. "I'm crazy too, right?"

Susannah took a deep breath.

"No," she whispered, "you're not crazy. And neither am I." She rubbed her forehead and said, ""I buried it all that time, Mal. Ten years. I didn't even think about it for such a long time. I never even thought about what Keats did in that way. I just thought of him as a madman, I was too grateful to get away with my life intact to think about it too much." She threw her hands in the air. "Hunt shot him! He shot him in the head to save my life, and the bullet wound disappeared! How did I bury that? What's been wrong with me all this time? For ten years? How could I have buried all this?"

"We've both be burying a lot of questions," Malcolm said quietly.

Susannah stared at the sky, her mind racing.

"As soon as I heard his voice, I realised that whatever unfolds changes everything," she whispered, "he's the second dead man to come back in a matter of days. I didn't buy the fake-death excuse with Simon and I'm not buying it with Keats if anyone tries to sell us that line again."

Malcolm stared at her.

"And Kim," he whispered, "what was she doing calling him?"

Susannah shook her head slowly.

"Whatever the reason, it's not going to be good," she whispered.

Malcolm tapped his fingers nervously against the frame of his glasses.

"She's always going on about wanting to go home," he began, "and she said in her phone call that she thinks someone else here can help her home instead. She's undercover. Got to be."

"What makes you think that?" Susannah asked quietly.

"The two IDs," said Malcolm.

"One of which was from two thousand and three," Susannah reminded him.

"That's got to be a mistake though," said Malcolm, "Look at the evidence - Simon suddenly comes back from the dead and DCI Hunt says he's been undercover. Now DCI Keats is also back from the dead. Kim wants to go home, wants to come out of her undercover case, Keats says he can get her out of it but strings her long, she finds out Simon's been undercover and thinks he will be able to help her instead. That's got to be it."

Susannah shared at him. She was silent for a long time. It made a kind of sense, it really did, and she so wanted it t be true. Slowly, she ran her tongue across her lips and bagan quietly,

"And the laughter and the voices in Hunt's office… they were there because Kim was secretly playing a tape of background noise, right? And Webber and Tariq and Nicole and Paul and all the others who suddenly vanished with no word and no trace… they all went undercover too, didn't they? And the little dog that turned into a great slobbering beast? Well, that must be Keats's family pet. And the starlight…" her voice began to waver slightly, "the stars… the ones that appear and fill the space where walls or ceilings should be… I'm the only one that sees that, right? Because I must be going undercover too. I'm just so deeply undercover that I don't even know it yet," she paused, "Right?"

Malcolm licked his lips very slowly. He looked at her with glassy eyes.

"I thought I was imagining the stars," he whispered.

Susannah looked down. Her heart was thumping and her mouth was as dry as the dusty desert. She tried to keep her voice level and calm but it was becoming incredibly difficult.

"Do you ever dream, Malcolm?"

"What do you mean?"

"At night? Do you dream when you go to sleep?"

"Well, of course," Malcolm gave a laugh of nervous confusion, "doesn't everyone?"

Susannah took a deep breath.

"Do you ever know you're in a dream… while you're actually dreaming?"

Malcolm thought for a moment, then shook his head slowly.

"No, never," he said quietly.

"It's possible," Susannah told him, "it's called lucid dreaming… but it's not that common. Me? Maybe three… four times in my life." she paused. "If we were dreaming right now, how would we know?"

Malcolm frowned.

"You think we're in a dream?" he asked.

Susannah stared at the ground.

"Kim, Simon, Paul… they've all gone on about some kind of accident," she whispered, "claiming they're in a coma or their life is at risk and need to get home. Some of the others said similar things too, and on their own I never thought anything much about it. Now looking at all the pieces together…"

Malcolm rubbed his temples.

"The picture becomes clearer the more of the jigsaw you put together," he whispered.

"What if we're all in some kind of dream?" Susannah asked, "what if we're dying and none of us know it? What if this isn't real? I don't remember anything from before I started work at Fenchurch, Mal. I just spent the afternoon trying and I can't remember a thing."

Malcolm felt like his brain was about to explode.

"So what do we do?" he asked, "where can we go from here?"

"We need to find out what Kim's deal with Keats is for a start," she said, "it sounded like she was working for him, and I don't like the idea of that. Who knows what he could have asked her to do."

"Do we go to Hunt?"

"With what? A phone call to a dead man? Mention Keats and he goes all…. flappy and angry at the best of times. Can you imagine what he'd do if we tried to tell him he is still alive?"

Malcolm nodded slowly.

"You've got a point,"

"And besides," Susannah whispered, "I'm not sure how much I trust him either. He had those files, remember? And Drake and Shoebury are a part of his side, whether that's good or bad."

Malcolm looked at her seriously.

"So it's just you and I," he said.

Susannah nodded.

"Looks that way," she whispered.

Malcolm took her hands and held them as he had so many times in the last tem years. It was his way of making her feel safe. He didn't think it would have much effect in their current situation but it was worth trying nonetheless, just to show her he was there.

"Tomorrow, we find Keats," he said decisively, "and we speak to Kim. We'll take it from there. But anything we do, we do together."

"Right," whispered Susannah.

They stared at one another for several moments in silence, listening to each other's breathing, watching each other's eyes blink involuntarily, watching the blowing of their hair and the trembling of their hands; each of those motions speaking of how real they and their lives were. Yet inside, both of them began to realise that something was fundamentally wrong with their world, with their lives, with their existence.

"We're not who we think we are," Susannah whispered, "are we?"

Malcolm didn't reply. There was no need. She could already see his answer written all over his face.

They folded into each other's arms and lay back against the side of a building, lost to the night air. They didn't want to talk any more. They didn't even want to think. They just wanted to feel each other beside them and live for that moment, for that feeling. Up above them, the sky opened up and the clouds disappeared. In their place, bold starlight shone upon them. They held each other in spite of its taunting light. With each other's strength to draw upon they would find the answers they needed, starlight or no.

~~xxXxx~~

A/N: for more background on the events Susannah explains in this chapter, if you've not read Out of the Window the scene is found in Chapter 26!