"Jo."
The voice startled her out of her reverie, and she turned towards the safe familiarity she associated with it's owner.
"You'll catch your death out here, it's freezing," Ruth scolded.
"I like it out here. I come here to think about things," Jo replied, her eyes flickering back to watch the glow of the lights scattered across the skyline.
"Any update on Alice?" Ruth asked anxiously.
"Yes," Jo replied, her smile widening. "Lucas has her. He found her in Brighton, safe and well."
"He must be pleased. And so must you. Come inside," she added, moving to usher Jo inside.
Jo smiled. She'd forgotten how Ruth had a habit of becoming suddenly protective or her or Harry and would then start fussing very much like a mother hen.
"I do like Alice," she replied, nodding. "And I'm so pleased she'll be with Lucas now. She's a lovely girl and Louise would have ruined her, turned her into something she's not."
"He is good with her," Ruth replied, recalling how he had been with her on the day she came in to work. "She's lucky to have him. And you," she added.
"No, not me," Jo replied softly, shaking her head. "I expect I'll be moving out soon. Lucas was kind to offer me a room but it was only ever a temporary arrangement. I couldn't impose on him like that."
"It doesn't seem like Lucas thinks you're imposing to me," Ruth replied, thinking of the evening two days ago when she had entered the Grid to find Lucas sitting alone at his desk, absently holding the photograph taken of the team taken after Harry had returned safely from Russia, and stroking his thumb over Jo's image. "Quite the opposite in fact. I think he'd miss you."
And who wouldn't miss Jo once they'd had her around. She was such a sweet, thoughtful girl, kind hearted by nature, yet possessed of a rather delightful sense of humour. And Jo wasn't the type of personality that was likely to irritate after you'd been spent a while in her company, for she was never intrusive, her sensitivity making her quickly adapt her moods to those of others.
Since she'd left the Grid they'd been more than one occasion when Ruth had sat at her desk, smarting from one of Ros' acerbic comment's or Harry's displays of temper and longed for the quiet comfort of Jo's gentle smile or sympathetic ear.
Jo shook her head silently. "No. I don't think that's true."
Ruth watched her for a minute, then decided it was better not to press the issue. Whatever was going on there, and she was fairly certain there was something going on, was between the two of them. And forcing Jo into sharing her secrets might even encourage Jo to start on the topic of her and Harry, God forbid.
"You're in early," Jo started, sitting down as she changed the subject.
Ruth grimaced, "Have you seen my desk?" she questioned, pointing at the pile of files stacked on her desk. "Funny how everyone becomes a security threat when one of our American Friend's visit."
Jo watched her for a moment, not certain who she was referring to.
Ruth smiled, feeling foolish at her gaffe. Of course Jo wouldn't be aware that the US President would be visiting next month, given that this was still classified information. And what was more she shouldn't have said anything as Jo didn't even work for MI5 anymore.
She changed the topic promptly. "You must be tired. Did you stay up all night?," she asked sympathetically.
Jo nodded silently.
"Why don't you go home?" Ruth asked. "I can look after things here."
"I can't," Jo replied, shaking her head, "Lucas might call and need me to do things. And Louise is in the meeting room too. She was the one who arranged for Alice to be taken."
"Aahh," Ruth breathed, as the pieces of the story of Alice's abduction began to fall into place. "Is she locked inside?"
"Yes," Jo replied. "She's quite...," Jo paused while she sought the right word, "devious."
"Listen if Lucas calls I can do whatever needs to be done and I'll keep an eye on Louise as well," Ruth volunteered. "You can go and have a lie down."
"But you might need me to –" Jo began.
"We won't," Ruth interrupted, not waiting to hear whatever it was that they might need her for. "I'll handle it, you go and have a rest. Go on" she added, guiding her towards the little room at the far side of the grid which had a bed inside which the ever busy staff of MI5 could occasionally make use of to snatch a few hours sleep during those long nights on duty.
...
Jo didn't know what time it was when she awoke, only that it was daytime, for the sun streamed through the window of the side room she occupied. She stretched out her hand towards the light, smiling to herself as she shifted so that the warmth of the sun hit her face. She hadn't seen the sun for days and perhaps, just perhaps, this was a sign that the dark days of winter would soon be over and spring was on its way.
"Good Afternoon."
She looked up, startled to see Lucas' tall figure filling the doorway, as he lazed against the wooden frame.
"No," she replied, trying to collect her thoughts, "it can't be afternoon, surely?" she protested.
"12.21," he observed, checking his watch.
"Ohh," Jo replied, "that's bad," she added, feeling annoyed with herself for sleeping in so long.
She struggled to sit upright, "What did the Russians tell you?"
"That Louise paid them to take Alice. That they tried to make things a little more interesting by adding in their own money making scheme along the way by attempting to extract 50,000 pounds from me. That I was a devious bastard for listening to their conversation and not revealing I spoke Russian until an hour into the interrogation," he paused and grinned.
That was Lucas all right, Jo thought.
"And I've just spent the past hour with Louise too. I'm satisfied we have enough evidence to pass her over to the Police on charges of kidnapping. She should be spending several years locked up enjoying the minimal comforts of her majesty's prison system. Which is a good thing. I never could stand that woman," he added, his mouth pursued with distaste.
"You couldn't?," Jo repeated, sounding surprised. "I thought you liked her. I thought that you - you were in love with her," she added, sounding confused.
"What a ridiculous statement," Lucas exclaimed, sounding irritated by the very idea. "Louise is the last woman I would ever fall in love with. What on earth gave you that idea?"
Jo clutched the blanket to her defensively, feeling suddenly very foolish, "it was just something I saw, I thought I saw – oh never mind," she amended, trying to correct her mistake, "I must have been wrong."
"You were wrong," Lucas replied, as he finally gave up lazing against the door, and moved over to the bed, looking down over her, "and I don't think you'd thought that through properly because I couldn't very well be in love with two women at the same time," he added casually.
Jo looked up at him, startled, "you're in love?" she questioned. Her voice came out strange and shaky.
"Of course," Lucas replied. "And you're not going to tell me you don't know who with, surely Jo?," he added, smiling at her as he leaned down to take her hands in his.
She watched him for a moment, uncertain. "Me," she replied, hesitantly, "I think it's me. Maybe."
His lips brushed against hers, and the intimacy of his kiss made her blush. He came up for breath and whispered, "Of course it's you, darling. Who else would it be?"
...
Over the next few weeks, Jo found that she was happier than she could ever recall. Lucas could occasionally be dark and moody, but he was usually kind, and thoughtful and endlessly entertaining with his dry sense of humour. And she was hopelessly in love with him.
Her novel progressed. Slowly. It was true that she had nearly reached the end, but in her haste to write it she had skipped a number of scenes which weren't terribly interesting but necessary for the plot so had to go back to fill those in. And then as she was re-reading it she found herself rewriting a number of passages she found she wasn't entirely satisfied with.
But now she was truly at the end. There were only a few pages to go and, as she lay in bed one spring evening, she was anxious to make some progress and perhaps even finish it that night or the next day. But the last scenes were proving challenging.
She looked up to see Lucas enter the bedroom, casting off his robe and throwing back the sheets to climb in beside her.
"What are you doing?" he questioned casually, as he wrestled with her dressing gown which she had carelessly discarded on the bed and which had now somehow become entangled with the sheets.
She frowned and stared down at her notebook, "Writing a sex scene. Or should I say trying to write a sex scene,"
She could see his ears prick up at her comment and he grinned deviously, "I have some practical experience at that that might come in useful."
"Lucas – what are you -," she started, protesting, as his hands slipped under the covers to slither down her body. "That's very distracting."
"That is precisely the point," he replied, looking pleased with himself. "And you can't say I'm not making myself useful, I'm helping you write your scene," he replied innocently, and his hand moved to pull down the straps of her chemise. "I think it should start like this..."
...
The next morning Jo woke early and looked at Lucas' sleeping profile. He always had such a determined look about him, she thought to herself, even when he slept.
It had only just passed 7 and within an hour she expected that Alice would be tapping at the door in her pyjamas, wanting to be allowed in to share the cosyness of the bed with them. On Sunday mornings she liked to snuggle against Jo, and Lucas in a rare lazy mood, that usually resulted from making love to Jo, would tell Alice stories that Jo could see clearly defied plausibility but were apparently highly successful at entrancing four year old girls.
But this morning the house was uncharacteristically quiet and everybody slept. Jo leant over to the cabinet beside the bed, finding her pen lying on the top and then pulled open the drawer to extract her precious notebook, thumbing through the pages of notes until she came to one that was only half full.
She tapped the message into the machine, her fingers flying. Her nerves were on edge and she jumped at the slightest sound. Suddenly a tall figure loomed out of the mist and appeared at her side.
"Marcus," she gasped, refusing to be distracted from her task as she concentrated on completing the transmission.
He stood by her side as her fingers moved frantically. After a few minutes she paused, and looked up at him helplessly. "I can't remember the name of the twelfth bay. Oh God, I can't remember the last place," she repeated, her voice sharp with desperation.
Marcus didn't hesitate but reeled off the list of locations in rapid fire order until she interrupted with a cry of "Yes. That's it. Tybakio."
She kept going, blind to anything but the need to complete her task and send the message.
Marianna could hear nothing but her fingers tapping as she translated the words in her head into code and the sound of her heart thumping against her chest. But in the distance Marcus could make out a noise. A sound which was so quiet it was almost imperceptible at first, but them became more familiar as it became audible. The rumble of a vehicle.
Marianna looked up at him, pausing for a brief moment, as she strained to listen without distraction. "The Germans are coming. Marcus they're coming," she whispered, her eyes wide with fear.
She was right. The Germans had commandeered all of the vehicles on the island so it could only be one of theirs. He hoped, he prayed that it was just an ordinary truck that it wasn't equipped with a device which could pick up radio transmission. "Keep going, we have to pass the message on," he instructed. "It's probably just a standard army vehicle out on nighttime operations."
He wasn't convinced that was the case, but he desperately hoped it was true.
Marianna's pulse raced and her fingers started to shake as she completed the last line of her transmission. Marcus had found the case and helped her as she hastily shoved the wireless back inside and then he shut it, pausing to fasten only one of the locks. She tried to ignore the noise as it grew louder.
Marcus had moved and was running towards the log and placed it in the hole, then shifted the log so that it sat on top, disguising the wireless underneath. As far as he knew there were only three wireless on the island, scattered some forty kilometres apart. If they lost the wireless they couldn't continue to pass information to the Allies and if the Germans found it they would scour the area looking for anyone who may have used it, and then turn their attention on the nearest village and begin interrogating its people.
He took her hand and started to run, dragging her along with him until they were deep in the forest, and far away from the location of the wireless.
"What do we do now?" she asked once they'd stopped, her voice ragged from the exertion.
"We sit and wait. If the Germans do come we can't go out into the open where they have flashlights and machine guns. This is the best place for us."
She didn't speak. She could still hear the rumbling and it was definitely getting louder. She was afraid. Terribly afraid. All of the stories she had heard about what the Germans did to those they captured kept running through her head.
He reached out and took her hands. Her fingers were icy and he warmed them between his hands.
Eventually she spoke, "you should go Marcus. If they find me, they'll see that I'm English and they'll never believe I'm innocent. But you – you're a Hungarian Officer as far as they know. You have the uniform and the accent and they might not suspect you."
He should go, he had to go. He had a chance to get out, but somehow she couldn't seem to find the courage to let go of his hand.
"I can't risk being taken in," Marcus replied, shaking his head, his face taking on a determined set. "Even with this uniform they could very likely interrogate me and I could reveal things under torture that could lead to the deaths of dozens of innocent lives."
"But they might not Marcus," she argued. She tried again, "Marcus please. Go."
"No," he said sharply, "its no good. This is the way it has to be. There's no place to go in any case."
To the south of the trees lay an impossibly sheer cliff which they could never hope to make an escape down and the land outside the trees was flat, open country with no camouflage of any sort. The sort of country that would make them easy fodder for German machine guns.
She fell silent for a moment, then said softly, "If the Germans do take us, I want to know what it would be like if things had been different. I want to know what – what it would be like if I had a future with you."
He looked at her strangely for a moment and then she saw that he understood what she meant.
"You want me to –" he stopped and his hand trailed down her side to pull her closer to him, "you want us to be together?"
"I think if I closed my eyes and you would kiss me then I could pretend that we're somewhere else, that things aren't going to end like I think they are. Then I might be happy for a little while."
She tried to think about that and to block out any thoughts of what might come next, not to think about the fact that she wanted it to be Marcus and not another German who did that to her.
She could still hear the noise and now in the distance she could make out two lights beside each other, creeping gradually closer. Headlights.
"Cyanide. Marcus – do you have cyanide with you?," she asked suddenly as the thought crossed her mind.
He nodded. "Two pills."
She nodded, relief written all over her face, and placed her hand on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and they fell to the ground.
He ran his hand down the front of her dress, his fingers catching at her buttons while his other hand slid up her thigh to push her skirt to her hips. This would have to be done faster than he would have liked. His hand pushed aside the silk of her underwear, and he ran his thumb over the peak of her nipple, his fingers hot against her skin - a sharp contrast to the bitter chill of the night. Her breath hung heavy in the misty air of twilight and she watched him, thinking how strange it was that she should realise only now, only at this moment, that she loved him when it was almost too late for them.
Then he was undoing his trousers and he pulled her to him, the hardness against her stomach making her cheeks turn pink. She ran her hand through his inky hair and wrapped her legs around his hips and his hand slid underneath her waist, tightening as he shifted his angle.
It was then that he heard the sound he had dreaded. Dogs, a distant sound as yet, carried far in the stillness of the evening air, but they would get closer.
It if had just been soldiers and guns if they stayed where they were here in the trees there was a chance they could have avoided detection. But if the Germans had dogs they would hunt them down. He had seen it done before, dozens of times, and watched helplessly, unable to break his cover. The dogs never failed to find their objective. There was no point in running for the dogs were faster than they could ever move and there was no where to run to except into the open where the machine guns would stare them down.
What would be would be, but let them at least have this moment together. He looked down at the girl underneath him and his arm moved to rest by her head as his thumb stroked her hair. After a moment his hips moved against hers and he pressed inside her, harder and deeper than she had anticipated.
His lips sought out hers and caught hers on the intake of breath. He could feel the tension in her body, the way her fingernails dug into his back.
His eyes looked up for a moment and he registered the lights were closer now. A mile and a half perhaps, two at the most.
He began to move, at first slowly, carefully then with an increasing urgency.
This time it didn't hurt and the sensation was like nothing she'd ever felt before which built inside of her with every stroke. When she was with the Kommandant she'd had hated it but her sister who was newly married had said it was nice and she had been right after all. She closed her eyes. So this was what it was like– a sort of wishing, wanting desire for him to take her somewhere, anywhere that this could reach a natural conclusion. A burning inside of her which left her breathless, quickening her already racing pulse and drowning out everything but him.
He could hear that the engines had stopped now and the barking was becoming louder. He calculated the distance to the lights. 500 metres perhaps.
It took all his self control to remain silent and when she began to make little noises as he kept moving. He silenced her with a kiss, his lips on hers until his body stopped its frantic movements and her breathing finally slowed.
It was done. He belonged to her now and she belonged to him and no one could take that away from her, not even the Germans.
He looked up for a moment, monitoring the distance. 400 metres he calculated.
His pulse began to beat faster as he straightened her dress, and refastened the buttons down her front, his fingers working quickly, his movements precise. He wanted her to look dignified, peaceful.
She could see the lights coming closer, the dog barking becoming increasingly frenzied and was starting to babble, "You won't let them hurt me, Marcus will you? Promise me you won't let them hurt me-"
"Sshh," he replied, his body sheltering hers from the cold and his hands on her shoulders, "I won't let them hurt you. You'll be gone before they get to you, I promise."
His eyes gauged the distance of the lights as they came closer still. 300 metres now he thought.
"Give me my pill now."
He removed two round white little pills from their metallic packaging. He held out one in the palm of his hand then placed it on her tongue. She bit down sharply, the aftertaste bitter in her mouth. She could see his hand move to his mouth and then her vision began to blur but she could feel Marcus' arms around her holding her tight, whispering that he loved her, that she would be safe now.
When the Germans came for them, chasing after their hounds, they found them sleeping peacefully, her head resting against his chest and his arms circled around her.
Within the hour, the Germans had rounded up the men from the village and interrogated them. Those who didn't know anything suffered, some even died for their ignorance. Eventually one man, who did know what was planned, gave in to the intolerable pain and talked.
Later that night the Germans were waiting for the fishing boats as they pulled into the harbour. They waited until the families were wading into the water to open fire with their machine guns, and kept firing until there was no longer any sign of life. When dawn broke the next morning the shore was still stained red with blood.
Of the twelve boats that visited Crete that night, eleven were captured by the Germans. But one boat, which had berthed just underneath a particularly rugged cliff did succeed in picking up a little huddle of fourteen brave souls as they waited by the shore and slipped out to sea that evening under cover of darkness and set sail for a new island of where the locals took pity of the them and gave them refuge. From there they made their way to neutral Turkey and safety from persecution.
Afterwards, when the war was over and Crete was liberated from German occupation the names of those who had sacrificed their lives were added to the shrines of the whitewashed Orthodox churches, the town squares and the monuments which were placed amongst the olive groves which overlooked the shores of the Mediterranean.
It is there, even to this day, that you will find the names of Marcus Smythe and Marianna Porter along with the names of the people of Crete, both Jewish and Orthodox, who lost their lives during those dark years.
And, if you look closely enough, you will see the words added by the few remaining members of the Jewish community who returned to the island, written in Hebrew and translated into Greek and finally English -
"Whoever saves one life saves the world entire."
Lucas looked up from his newspaper as she put down her pen.
"Why are you crying?," he asked her, his voice puzzled, as his thumb ran down her cheek, following the tears and wiping them away gently.
"Because Marianna is dead and Marcus is dead and the Germans killed the Jews, well all except for one boatload."
"Well, why did you give them that ending if it makes you unhappy, sweetheart?," he asked, as his fingers stroked her cheek.
He was right. It was her doing that she had managed to make herself so unhappy.
Her words came out in a rush. "Because in the real world things don't always end perfectly. You know that. In our job things people don't always get what they want, even good people."
She thought of all the colleagues they had lost. All of the people for whom there would be no happy ending. Adam. Zaf. Ben. Connie. Fiona. She couldn't pretend that everything would be sunshine and roses. Perhaps she could have before she joined the service but not now. Not anymore.
And somehow, somewhere along the way she gotten mixed up with Marianna so that it felt like she was actually part of her, that perhaps part of her had died that day so long ago in Crete.
She sniffed, and then added, "and besides the books I read said the spys in Nazi occupied territory didn't survive very long. A year or two was the average life span. I didn't want my novel to be improbable."
She said the last word with a peculiar emphasis which suggested that she couldn't conceive of anything worse that writing an improbable novel and Lucas smiled to himself at the thought. His voice was teasing as he leant over to kiss her, "Well I might not be as dashing as Kaptain Alexander Jakob aka Marcus Smythe –" he began.
"You are," Jo protested as she ran her hands through his hair.
He paused then continued, " but you will be pleased to know that I will in future be a much better proposition for life insurance than he was."
That was true, for Lucas had announced last week that now that he had Alice to think of and had better start playing it safe he had applied for and been appointed to a vacant senior position in Section B, which dealt with a much safer, though equally interesting area of operations.
Jo clung to his arm, reminding herself that she wasn't Marianna and he wasn't Marcus. Lucas was real. He was here with her. She hadn't lost him, though her smile was still shaky from the glimpse her novel had given her of what that might feel like.
Lucas looked over at her and began, "And now that my Marianna has given up being a super spy and is now fully fledged lady novelist I think that I will keep her safe with me for bedding and wedding and happily ever aftering if that would be satisfactory with her?"
Jo giggled and nodded, "that would be satisfactory with her." He reached out to stroke her hair and she wriggled over to rest against him, threading her hand through his as she their eyes met.
His finges grasped the golden pendant that hung around her neck and he turned it over, thoughtfully.
It had been a surprise for her birthday. "I liked how you kissed me when you gave that to me," Jo said softly, smiling.
"Did you indeed?" he questioned, raising his brow.
She nodded. "Yes. You're a good kisser." Her expression indicated that she was clearly about to start flirting shamelessly with him and he knew he wouldn't be able to resist that.
He had been right. She lowered her voice and fluttered her eyelashes, and added. "I think you should kiss me like that now."
He smiled at the expression on her face. It was clearly an order.
"Well, I'm not generally given to following instructions but I think I might make an exception –" he bent over to her, only to find himself pressed aside rather unexpectedly. "Oh no!" Jo exclaimed, hastily reaching for her pen. "There's something I forgot to add," she picked up her notebook which had been rather carelessly discarded, "this part is important otherwise no one will know if I'm really done,"
"THE END," she finished with a flourish and sighed happily as Lucas' leant in towards her.
So, as with every good fairytale this story ends with a kiss.