3 September 2010

An uneasy silence settled over Nick and Jen on the ride back to their safehouse. They sat together in the back of a spook taxi, neither of them speaking, Jen looking out the window and refusing to meet his gaze, while Nick couldn't seem to keep his eyes off her. Christ, everything had gone to shit. He'd damn near kissed her that morning, in full view of the bloody spooks, only to be caught up in a madcap scheme designed to help them both focus on the job at hand. To focus on what they were meant to be doing, and not on each other, not on the strange, swirling sensation of need that had been growing between them from the moment they'd been plunged back into this world.

Get your head in the game, Nick told himself. McAllister might have been a prick but he was right about one thing; Nick and Jen weren't acting like spooks. He was too involved with her now, with her, with Jen and not with Trish, and he was finding it all but impossible to slide back into the legend. It had been easier when he didn't know her name; he couldn't call the wrong name by mistake, when the only name he knew was Trish. Now, though, when the spooks had come barreling into their home with guns drawn, Jen was the name that left his lips, her own voice crying out raggedly for Nick. That was a good way to get themselves killed, forgetting who they were in the heat of the moment. He could agree with SIS's motives, if not their tactics.

The taxi dropped them off at home and they made their way up the drive together; Jen marched through the door and Nick followed behind her, rubbing at his temples. He could feel a headache coming on.

"Sweetheart," he said, softly, because he couldn't quite bring himself to call her Trish, but he knew she couldn't be Jen anymore, not under this roof.

"Assholes," she grumbled under her breath, rummaging through the kitchen cabinets in search of the tea things.

"They're just doing their jobs. We need to do ours."

Jen looked at him sharply, an accusation in her gaze, and Nick held his hands up in a gesture of defeat. He knew what she was admonishing him for; he'd been the one who followed her that morning, chased her when she left their bed in search of a moment's privacy, whispered to her of his feelings. He had instigated that almost-clinch by the window, that almost-declaration of their fondness for one another, a fondness that the spooks thought made them both a liability. I'll have both your jobs, and see that you do time in prison, McAllister had told them; if they didn't toe the line there would be hell to pay, but Nick had gone and pole-vaulted them both over that line on their first morning in the house.

"The rest of it can keep, yeah?" he said, very quietly, making his way across the kitchen to stand beside her at the sink, watching while the dusty kettle heated up.

Jen sighed, but he felt her knuckles brush against the back of his hand, and he took comfort from that touch. Surely, he thought, if she didn't want to revisit what had almost happened between them in the morning she wouldn't have touched him now.

"Yeah," she agreed.

That was all the reassurance he needed. She wasn't going to forget it, the words he'd spoken to her that morning, the way she'd reached for his face, the way they'd almost...she wasn't going to forget it, and neither would he. God only knew how long they'd be stuck in this house, playing at happy families again, but when it was over they would return to their own lives, together. She wouldn't vanish; she'd be there when he woke up in a world that made sense, and they'd have a chance, then. A chance to say everything that needed saying, to reach for each other without doubt or fear. The wait would be hell, but he'd been waiting for her for years; he could wait a little longer.


"He knows," Jen murmured into the silence left by Hartono's departure.

"Maybe not," Nick answered, but his heart wasn't in it.

It had chilled him to the bone, seeing Hartono again. Those dead eyes, that deceptively calm voice, asking his questions so full of suspicion, brought to mind too many bad memories. If he really had been Wesley Claybourne, an ambitious man with his sights sets on making money and little else, he wouldn't have gone near Hartono with a ten foot pole, not after all these years, and he couldn't blame Hartono for being mistrusting Wesley and his word now. The whole thing stank. He'd done his best to sell it, and Jen had played her part beautifully as always, but they were working with a shoddy script, and they both knew it.

"You get the feeling there's something else going on here?" Jen asked him quietly.

They were still sitting at the kitchen table, the newspapers strewn about in front of them. It wouldn't do to speak too plainly to her here; he had his reservations about the spooks' motives, but those same spooks were listening to their every word.

"There's always something else going on," he said. He reached out to cover her hand with his, to try to offer some reassurance, but as he did there came another knock on the door.

He and Jen were both on their feet in a moment, but he stepped in front of her, went to open the door himself. Another visitor so soon after Hartono's departure could only spell bad news. Mr. Prakoso had been killed in a raid years before, but no doubt Hartono had found a new associate to do his dirty work. It would have been the simplest solution, sending someone round to dispatch the Claybournes discreetly before they caused too much trouble for him. If Hartono had seen through their ruse, this might be the end of everything for them.

With his heart in his throat Nick slowly opened the door, trying to shield Jen from whatever waited on the other side, but it was just Ratcliffe, with a six pack of beer and more bad news.


Ratcliffe had given them an hour, and their time was almost up. He'd stuck around, drank their tea and tried to shoot the shit, but Jen saw straight through him. She knew what he was doing; the spooks didn't want to give Nick and Jen a chance to plot on their own, didn't want to give Jen a chance to talk Nick out of this madcap scheme. Going to see Hartono now, so soon after making contact with him, when he had not arranged a meeting nor invited Wesley to do the same, was tantamount to suicide. A man like Hartono didn't indulge people who buzzed around his head like gadflies; he smacked them down. Nick and Jen had learned that lesson long before, even if SIS hadn't. But the spooks had been adamant, and so had Nick; he was insisting on going it alone. It didn't take a genius to see why; he was protecting her, and the thought of it made Jen sick to her stomach. It wasn't fair, she thought, that Nick should have to fall on his sword just to keep her safe. It wasn't fair that they'd been put in this position, where every choice SIS made pushed them closer to calamity, risking everything that mattered to Jen, her heart, her future, her best friend in the world, in the process.

"It's all so rushed. We never moved this fast before," she said. Ostensibly she was making the bed, but that was just an excuse for the cameras, just a bit of theater to keep her in the same room with Nick while he readied himself to leave.

"Different people running things," Nick answered.

"Yeah. McAllister." She didn't have to say more than that; Nick knew why that name tasted like poison in her mouth.

"It's like we're working for him personally," Nick said, but Jen was hardly listening. There was a radio at the bedside and she turned it up, loud, and rushed across the room, reaching up to fuss with Nick's collar. The music gave her cover, and faffing with his clothes gave her an excuse to stand close enough to him to whisper. It was strange, how quickly the old tricks came back to her now.

"Something's wrong," she said, her voice tight and tense. Rushing the job, the attitude they were getting from the spooks, Ratcliffe babysitting them; it was starting to feel to Jen as if this operation was more of a rush than the last one, as if the spooks were less interested in results and more interested in timing. They'd been told that Hartono was planning something big, but the spooks had said they didn't know when. Jen wasn't so sure about that anymore. It was starting to feel like whatever it was, it was happening now, and Nick was about to walk right into it.

"I'll meet Hartono," Nick said, his voice hardly more than a whisper. "I'll give him the message, and then I'll come back. End of story." He was standing with his forehead nearly touching hers, his hands brushing against her sides as he swore his promise to her. He meant it, she knew. After everything they'd been through, everything they'd become to one another, he wouldn't let anything keep him from her, not if he could help it. But it might not be within his power to save himself; the pieces were already in play, and he was just a pawn, caught up in someone else's game. Jen couldn't bear the thought of letting him go, especially not now. Not when she'd still not had the chance to kiss him, to tell him how much he meant to her, when they'd not had the chance to find out what they could really be together. The past year and more they'd spent getting to know one another had been the most beautiful gift, but she couldn't help feeling as if she'd wasted it, somehow. If only she'd opened her heart to him the moment he walked back into her life maybe everything would have been different; maybe they would be safe, now, and not stuck in this hell. She'd never know what could have been, and now she feared she'd never know what sort of future they could have had, either.

Before Jen could answer him Ratcliffe was interrupting, standing in the doorway and calling time on their last chance to be together.

"I'll see you soon," Nick said, and his voice was low and earnest. He meant it, she knew. He meant to come back to her. She could only pray he would.

He started to walk away from her, and something deep within Jen's chest seemed to snap. He had found his courage, that morning, had found a way to tell her how he cared for her, how much she meant to him, but she had been denied the chance to do the same. Now that he was leaving, off to meet an uncertain fate without Jen there to protect him, she could not let him go without making certain he knew that she felt as he did. That she loved him, and always had done, and always would do, whatever happened next.

"Wait," she said, and he stopped in the doorway, turned back to look at her.

She couldn't say it outright, not with the spooks watching and Ratcliffe lingering in the corridor, but she and Nick had never needed words before, and they didn't need them now. One look was all it would take, all it had ever taken, and she knew it. In the doorway Nick looked at her, and she saw the understanding dawning in his eyes, saw the way his jaw tightened, his hands clenched as if he longed more than anything to reach out for her, but managed to hold himself back.

"I know," he said, and then he was gone.

Weak in the knees, the radio still blaring mindlessly in the corner, Jen sat herself down on the edge of the bed, and buried her face in her hands. They both knew, now. She knew he loved her, he knew she loved him, and this revelation had come too late to save them both, for they had just been torn apart by SIS. Those might very well be the last words he ever spoke to her, and as that thought occurred to her she began to weep, too terrified and overcome to hold the tears at bay a second longer.