Helena spends her 27th birthday in a Guatemalan prison, desperately trying to patch a call through to the Russian embassy, because an 'anomaly' with her Moscow issued work visa arises and she's inadvertently broken several immigration laws.

After another two days spent in a squalid cell, eating watery rice and bathing over a communal latrine, she swallows her pride and calls Richard. She doesn't know how he does it, she doesn't ask, but another twenty-four hours later and she's free, the British embassy also arranging her a flight out of the Latin American country.

'You should've married me,' Richard tells her when she calls him from the airport to thank him. 'This wouldn't be an issue if only you'd marry me.'

'But it would not be the right thing to do,' she says, somewhat impatiently, because how many times now have they had this conversation? 'I do not want to get married, Richard. Not to anyone.'

It's the truth too. For once, Helena thought she might marry someone. But that someone is now taken and off-limits to her entirely, and she refuses to settle for anyone else.

Richard is quiet for a moment. 'I love you, for what it's worth. I know it never seems to mean anything to you, but I want you to know.'

Helena moves the phone from her ear for a moment, taking a deep breath. She doesn't love Richard, and she knows that her lack of love for him hurts him terribly. She isn't proud of herself for this. But she does like him, and it's easier to drift with him by her side than to drift alone.

'I know,' she finally says, pressing the phone back to her ear. 'But I do not love you, Richard.'

'You don't have to love me, Helena. I'd marry you anyway,' he replies, and her heart breaks a little for him again. 'If only to get you a British passport, I'd marry you.'

It's tempting. It's so very tempting.

But she refuses to sell her body and her love and her heart. Not for anything, or anyone.

'That would not be right, and you know it, Richard,' she says, more firmly now, and she hears Richard sigh. 'Why can we not just go on as we are?'

He doesn't reply to that, and she feels a dart of worry.

'Was it the same man again? The same officer?' He eventually asks, his voice cooler, and she pauses.

'Yes,' she confesses. 'Yes. It was Volkov again.'

Volkov... even just the name makes Helena's temper rise. For the past two years, he's dogged her movements. Everywhere Helena turns, there he is, tall, thin and beady-eyed, watching her every step, noting her every word. From that first meeting at Sheremetyevo, he's been on her tail. She's been arrested four times now on his orders, in countries where Russia still holds sway and no one thinks twice about throwing a pretty blonde to the wolves.

'This is getting dangerous,' Richard tells her, as though she hadn't already figured that out for herself. 'Come home. Stay awhile. The world doesn't need you to tell them how corrupt the Russian government is. We don't need you to hack into systems you shouldn't for information you could be killed for knowing. You don't need to do keep doing this, you know.'

She knows. But she's going to keep doing it anyway.

And he knows that too.

'Richard...'

Abruptly, his voice breaks. 'I don't think I can do this anymore,' he blurts out, sounding tired and defeated.

'Do what?' Helena asks.

'This... this relationship I have with you.'

'It is a good relationship. We enjoy each other's company,' she automatically replies, and she hears Richard sigh. 'I thought that was enough.'

'I thought that too,' he says. 'But it's not. I want more from you, Helena. And it's hard for me to acknowledge that it's never going to happen while remaining in a detached physical relationship with you.'

Helena is tired. She's dirty. She's dejected and thin and only wants a hot shower and then her bed. She doesn't have the energy for placating Richard right now. She's not sure she'll have the energy for that ever again.

And she's not even sure she wants to.

'Fine. That's fine.'

'Helena-'

'My flight has just been called,' she says simply. Goodbye, Richard. Thank you again.'

Helena's 28th birthday is spent on the Finnish border, where she is pointedly refused entry to Russia. She stands by her rental car and calls Mishka, grinding her boots into the snow and shrugging further into her coat.

'Well?' Mishka asks nervously, and Helena bites her lip.

'I'm at the border,' she explains, trying to keep a positive note to her voice. 'But they won't admit me into Russia and-'

Mishka sighs. 'I knew this plan of yours wouldn't work, Linka. If they wouldn't admit you at Sheremetyevo or Pulkovo there was never any way they were going to admit you at the Finnish border.'

Helena kicks at the snow again. 'I don't know how else to get home,' she admits. 'I don't know how else to see you and Tanya and the boys again.'

Mishka is quiet for a moment. 'In all honesty, Linka, I don't want you to come.'

Helena freezes, her boot hovering over the ice at her feet. The snow is white-brown, tinged with dirt, and slush in places. Her eye locks onto an exposed patch of grass by the side of the road, the blades reaching up to catch the weak rays of sun, and she clutches the phone in her hand.

'Mishka... you're all I have left,' she says, her voice imploring.

'Tanya and I have talked about it,' Mishka replies bluntly. 'It's not safe for us to see you anymore. We have the boys to think of, Linka. They come first.'

'But Mishka-'

'Linka, we love you. But your work-'

'What of it?' Helena asks hotly. 'I'm an academic professor at the University of Cambridge. I'm an expert on evolutionary ornithology. What of my work, Mishka?'

She hears him exhale, long and pointed. 'Not that work, Linka. You know what work I'm talking of. Cambridge let you use your research for them as a thin veil to cover your political activism, but it is a thin veil, and Putin's people have seen through it. It was always going to come to this, Linka.'

Helena takes a deep breath of cold Finnish air. 'If I could just obtain a false passport, I might be able to slip through the border undetected,' she tries again. 'Kwame knows someone in France who sells fraudulent passports to the asylum seekers at Calais. I could find him and-'

'It wouldn't matter. You are no longer welcome in my home, Linka,' Mishka interrupts, with such an air of finality to his words that tears sting Helena's eyes.

'No, Mishka,' she breathes. 'You are my older brother, the only family I have left in the world. You cannot do this to me... you can't cut me off... you can't-'

'Volkov was here, Linka,' Mishka says sharply. 'He came to my home, Linka. Spoke to my wife. Spoke to my children. His threats were as thinly veiled as your political stance... if I keep in contact with you, I may lose my job. My home. My family.'

'Mishka...'

'You must understand, Linka. I've worked too hard to risk everything. Not even for you, little sister.'

Helena stares at the grass again, using her free hand to wipe at the tears that run down her cheeks.

'Will you keep in contact with me? May I call you? Speak to the boys?'

'No,' Mishka answers, and she can hear the regret in his voice. 'No. It's too dangerous. I want you to delete my details from your phone. No emails, no messages, no visits. My boys come first, Linka. Volkov is a serious threat to you, and by default, to my family. This is the end for us, Linka.'

'But it's my birthday,' she whispers pathetically, her throat tight.

Mishka sighs. 'I know. I love you, Linka. I really do. And Tanya loves you. The boys love you. But we just can't do this anymore.'

He hangs up, the silence both abrupt and deafening, and Helena looks at her phone in disbelief.

She's alone.

Again.

Cambridge send Helena to New York on her 29th birthday. There's an old sketch by Darwin in a library at NYU that is being loaned to them, and Helena- the poster girl for their ornithology and evolutionary sciences department- is sent to shake hands and pose for pictures.

She doesn't want to go, and stares glumly out of the window while Kwame drives her to Heathrow.

'Go out when you get there,' Kwame suggests. 'Celebrate a little.'

'There is nothing to celebrate,' Helena replies blankly. 'It is only another day.'

Kwame shrugs. He's older now, his face a little more lined. He and Sam adopted a Syrian orphan- a one-year-old named Haya- the year before and the little girl both exhilarates and exhausts them. Sometimes, when Helena looks at Kwame, with his family and his home and his job and the sheer happiness that he cannot help in his eyes, she thinks of Gi.

She wonders if Gi is just as happy. They haven't heard from her in nearly five years now, and occasionally, when Helena allows herself to think of her, she feels both grief and hope. She hopes Gi is happy. She hopes Gi is well.

She hopes Gi has forgiven herself.

Abruptly, Helena reaches over and takes Kwame's hand. She squeezes his fingers, before releasing them. He glances at her, half-amused and half-concerned.

'When I come back from New York,' she says, 'I will come to Calais and visit with you and Sam. Spend some time with my little niece. We can celebrate my birthday then.'

Kwame smiles, a rare gift that invariably fills Helena with pleasure.

'I would like that,' he says, before looking back to the road.

'I admire you, Kwame,' Helena carries on, watching the British motorway fly past her window, one monotonous road sign after the other coming and then fading from view. 'You are so determined to be happy.'

Kwame nods. 'Just as you are determined to be worthy, old friend.'

'Do you think Gi and Wheeler try as hard as we do?' Helena asks, and when she turns to Kwame, she can see that his face has hardened, while his hands grip at the steering wheel.

'I don't know,' he eventually replies. 'I just don't know.'

'I hope they are happy,' Helena whispers tiredly, resting her forehead on the cool glass of the window. 'I hope they are well.'

'Wheeler called me,' Kwame suddenly blurts out, and Helena stares at him, open-mouthed.

'When?' She asks in disbelief, when she is certain she can speak clearly, when she is certain her voice will be more than a broken husk.

'About six months ago,' Kwame confesses. 'He was... he was drunk.'

Helena feels a dart of pain. 'What did he want?'

Kwame visibly swallows. 'At first, he wanted to reminisce. But after a few minutes, it became clear that he wanted to know about you. He asked...' Kwame pauses, uncertain. 'He asked some leading questions.'

'What did you tell him?' Helena asks.

'Nothing he could not have discovered for himself. I told him about your work at the University. I told him about your trip to the Galapagos. I told him that you were well. I told him that you were happy,' he looks at her suddenly, his face questioning. 'You are happy, aren't you, old friend?'

Helena shrugs. 'As happy as I can be, under the circumstances.'

Kwame sighs. 'You still have not heard from Mishka?'

Helena bit her lip. 'No. I respect his decision.'

Abruptly she laughs, bringing a hand to her face and trying to muffle the sound.

'What amuses you?' Kwame asks.

'Nothing, really,' she explains. 'But there is something funny in that whenever a man decides to cut me from their life, I respect their decision. Greg... Richard... Mishka... even Wheeler. They all decided to cut me off, that I was detrimental to their well-being, and I had no choice but to respect their decision. Even Russia has cut me off now,' Helena laughs again, but the noise is bitter and hard. 'Russia has cut me off, and I must respect that decision.'

'Wheeler told me that you were the one who cut him off,' Kwame announces, and the laughter dies on Helena's lips.

'What?'

A sign for Heathrow Terminal 5 appears ahead, and Kwame pulls into the left lane. He shrugs, clearly hesitant.

'Wheeler told me he tried to call you. After we left Hope Island. He said he tried to call you everyday for a month. He said you would not answer his calls. He said you cut him off.'

Helena stares out of the window, watching a 747 in the distance take off into the cloudy sky.

'Linka?' Kwame presses.

'It is true,' she says, her voice quiet. 'He did try and call me. Many times.'

'You should have answered him,' Kwame lectures gently. 'He was worried about you.'

'He was not worried about me,' Helena corrects him. 'He was feeling guilty. He wanted Linka the friend back. He wanted Linka the colleague. He wanted to pretend that nothing had happened, that nothing had changed.' She shook her head, trying in a way to also shake off the past. 'But everything had changed.'

Kwame nods. 'We couldn't go back from that final mission. We all knew that. For some of us, it just took a little longer to accept.' He sighs, turning the car into drop-off lane and coming to a stop. 'Wheeler was as lost as any of us after that mission. Don't hate him for the choices he made.'

She turns in her seat to look at Kwame, her face still, her body shaking with the effort to control her movements. 'Kwame,' she breathes. 'Kwame, I have never hated him.'

Kwame hears her unspoken words, and reaches over to pull her into his arms, embracing her closely.

'Don't hate yourself for still loving him then,' he whispers into her ear. 'Loving someone is not a weakness.'

Helena feels her eyes sting with unshed tears. Unclipping her seatbelt, she drew in a shuddering breath as she gave Kwame a small smile.

'It feels like a weakness,' she admitted bitterly. 'When they all leave, in the end, it feels like the worst weakness of all.'

Later, a kindly flight attendant, seeing the birthdate on her passport, brings her a small glass of wine once the plane is cruising at 43,000 feet.

'Happy birthday,' she says excitedly. 'Have you someone in New York waiting for you? Are you going out to celebrate?'

'No,' Helena answers, staring at the wine. 'I am here to work.'

'Oh,' the attendant leans briefly on her armrest. 'Well, New York is quite the city to have a birthday in. You never know... you might just have the best birthday of your life here.'

But Helena looks up, her eyes glassy and void of emotion.

'No,' she disagrees. 'No. That's not possible.'

Because she already had the best birthday of her life.

Ten years ago.

The more time they spend together the more careless they become. That first night quickly becomes every night, with one of them waiting up to sneak into the other's hut once everybody else is in bed.

She's never known gratification quite like it. Wheeler, with an enthusiasm and a determination that occasionally makes her blush, becomes determined to eke every ounce of pleasure from her. He learns the lines of her figure with his mouth, the hidden curves of her body with his tongue. She'll regularly fall apart in his arms, the rising sun painting her room pink and orange, while she clings to him and begs to him in Russian. He'll smile at her pleasure and encourage her further, whispering into her ear and licking at her skin.

'You aren't finished yet, Babe,' he'll assure her gently. 'And I'm sure as hell nowhere near finished with you.'

There's a new dynamic to their relationship during the day. There's a warmth there now, an openness, and it doesn't take long for the other Planeteers to notice.

'You've both grown-up,' Kwame remarks pleasedly. 'Life is easier when the two of you aren't at each other's throats half the time.'

And there's a truth there, because they aren't at each other's throats now. Instead, they've replaced hard words with frantic kisses. They've merged sexual tension into sexual gratification. They've taken frustration and moulded it into pleasure and happiness.

Occasionally, Linka thinks Gaia and Ma-Ti might know. Once or twice they'll be standing in the Crystal Chamber, taking notes on an eco-emergency, when Wheeler will stroke his hand along her lower back, sending jolts up her spine. Gaia, always the indulgent mother, merely smiles, ignoring the blossoming relationship between her children. Another time, while Linka's cooking in the kitchen, Wheeler lets his pinky brush ever-so-slightly against hers and she burns the soup she's making. Ma-Ti glances up, his eyes curious, but he says nothing.

In fact, he leaves the kitchen entirely, allowing Wheeler to lift her onto the countertop and make love to her feverishly, the borscht a forgotten purple mess beside her.

And so they grow more careless still.

She's swimming in the ocean one day, the water cool on her skin and the sun warm on her back, when Wheeler suddenly appears next to her, his eyes hot and searching. He pulls her into his arms, her back flush to his chest, before easing down her bikini and making her come, hard and fast in the water. When she can think again, when she can feel the blood pumping around her body once more, she wraps her legs around his waist. It's then that she sees Gi, waving to them from the shoreline.

'Bohze Moi,' she exhales. 'Has she been there the whole time?'

Wheeler merely shrugs, planting a kiss on her shoulder, happy to let the water disguise the movements of their bodies.

'She can't see anything,' he reassures her.

And so they grow more careless still.

They're on a mission in Mexico, the sun hot and unrelenting, when they have a close call- too close- with Nukem and his cronies. They're too tired to fly home when it's finished, checking into a seaside town where the food is cheap and the tequila even cheaper, and Wheeler doesn't even attempt to make it look like he's going to his own room. Instead, they lie in hers, rubbing salve into each other's burnt skin and battered wounds. Wheeler runs a hand through her hair and she tenderly cups his cheek, while they look deep into each other's eyes, quiet and thankful. They fall asleep like that, wrapped around each other, too exhausted to make love but also too exhausted to pretend they want to be anywhere else.

The next morning, Gi stumbles into Linka's room, stopping dead to see Wheeler asleep in the wind planeteer's arms.

'I just wanted to borrow some shampoo,' she whispers, desperately awkward, while Linka presses a finger to her lips.

'Do not wake him,' she says. 'He is so tired. We are all so tired.'

Gi doesn't mention it again, and neither does Linka.

If Gi knows, then she keeps her own counsel.

And it only occasionally bothers Linka that they are all so good at keeping secrets.

Yet, she grows more careless still.

The Planeteers take her to Paris for her twentieth birthday. She's always wanted to go, and she drinks red wine by the Seine while Gi giggles and braids her hair. Wheeler watches, and she knows he's waiting for the others to go to sleep. He has that look in his eyes she's come to know and adore so well... that look of love, of possession, of fierce desire. And she wants nothing more than to give herself to him entirely. In four short months she's become addicted to his mouth and lips and hands and body, and she can hardly breathe for thinking about them sometimes. But more than that, she's become addicted to him, and she knows, just like that, that this is love, real and proper.

There will never be another man for her, she decides.

It was always going to be him.

It's always going to be him.

Later that night, he strips the clothes from her body and pulls her so that she is astride him.

'Make love to me in Russian,' he orders, and she's only too happy to comply, moving her body over his until he's a pulsing mess beneath her, his moans loud and exhilarating to her ear.

'Ya lyublyu tebya,' she cries out at one point, and she feels his hands dig into her hips almost painfully as he empties himself inside her.

'What did that mean?' He asks later, gathering her to him.

'Learn Russian and find out, Yankee,' she laughs.

He smiles into her neck. 'Good birthday?'

'The best,' she grins. 'I will never have a better one. I am filled with... what do you call it? Measurement?'

'Merriment,' he corrects her. 'Merriment, Babe.'

Suddenly, he flops onto his front, reaching across her to pull something up from the floor. His weight is deliciously heavy against her, and she squirms underneath him.

'Yankee-'

'Happy birthday, Babe,' he announces, shifting his weight and dropping a small, wrapped parcel into her hands.

She stares at it. 'You bought me a gift?'

'Nah,' he shakes his head. 'Better than that. I had one made for you.'

He nudges her, encouraging her to open the small present.

It's a bracelet, made of four strands of rope, held together by a small silver clasp.

She kisses him. 'I love it,' she tells him, and he smiles as he puts it on her wrist.

'This is the same rope that Greedly used to tie us together,' he says, kissing the pulse point of her wrist. 'Do you remember? That mission in...'

'Kenya,' she finishes for him. 'Yes, I remember.'

'I'd only known you a few weeks,' Wheeler reminisced. 'But as I watched Greedly wrap that rope around our wrists... it just felt right. And I told myself, then and there, that one day I would wrap that rope around our hands again, but under better circumstances. When it was our choice, and nobody else's.'

He grins, showing her a second rope bracelet, larger this time. One for him, and one for her, she realises. Momentarily, she's without words.

'Wheeler...'

'Ya tohze tebya lyublyu,' he then whispers, kissing her softly.

For the second time that night, he's rendered her speechless. He laughs at her surprise.

'Yeah... I kinda started learning Russian the day I met you. I'm not fluent or anything, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a few choice phrases in my 'win Linka's heart' arsenal,' he shrugs.

'Say it again,' she asks, and he grins.

'Ya tohze tebya lyublyu.'

'Again?' She requests, biting her lip, but this time, recognising the look in her eyes, he shakes his head. His own eyes darken with desire.

'No. This time I'll say it without words.'

And for the third time that night, he steals her breath away.

Helena's voice is sharp and her hands clenched. 'This is illegal,' she says tightly. 'You cannot just render a person stateless.'

The office in which she sits, a tired, grey and depressing nook of JFK, is filled with kindly faces. Understanding faces. Strange faces. The two immigration officers assigned to her case look at her with both pity and puzzlement, and she can't bear to see either.

'Look, Dr. Orlova... the Russian government revoked your passport and citizenship two days ago,' one drawls at her. 'You don't have the right to travel. Trust me, if it were up to us, we'd have you on that plane and back to the U.K. We don't want to have to deal with this either.'

'Then let me get on the plane,' she begs, but he shakes his head.

'You don't have a passport or the right to travel,' he says firmly. 'All we can do now is put you in touch with the British embassy. You're ordinarily resident there. They might be happy to issue you with some sort of travel document. Lucky for you, U.S immigration are happy to let you stay for thirty days until you've sorted something.'

'How kind,' Helena snaps. 'What do I do until Monday morning when the consulate opens? The Russians have put a stop on all my bank accounts. I have no money, no passport, and nowhere to go.'

'Normally we'd have to imprison you,' the other man offers reluctantly. 'But, in your case, given the circumstances and your history, we're happy to find another way. So, if there is someone you know in New York, someone of good character, we'd be happy to sign you over to them until Monday.'

She takes a deep breath. 'I do not know anyone in New York.'

'Oh. That's too bad, honey,' he gives her a regretful look. 'I really didn't want to have to arrest you.'

She closes her eyes.

She doesn't think she can bear another night in jail. She's tired. So tired of everything.

When she opens her eyes, she nods at them both, taking a deep breath.

'There is... there is one person I suppose I could try.'

The officer brightens. 'Okay. Is he of good character?'

She gives a rueful smile. 'Yes. The best.'