Chapter 6

I had a stilted, pretending day

By the time Novo-Ogaryovo has been cleared by an elite squad of Special Ops and the gaggle of world leaders has been reunited with their respective staff and security personnel, Nicola is wound so tightly she is at very real risk of collapsing, and she is infinitely relieved when she is sat down in an ambulance and thoroughly examined by medical professionals who speak English weighed by pleasant Russian tones.

"Prime Minister, you probably need a full cast on this. We'd need to take you to hospital to apply it, and you won't be able to fly for forty eight hou- "

"No." Nicola's tone is panicked, the thought of delaying her return home is almost more than she can bear. "No, I... Is there another option?"

"Well, I wouldn't advise this, Prime Minister, but we could use what's known as a - Nina, how do you call it in English?"

"Back-slab."

"Yes, a back-slab. That would require you not to fly for twenty-four hours."

"I'd really rather..." Nicola reaches to her eyes with her free hand and presses her fingers into her eyes. Gilly, who has been trying to find her boss since she was cleared by paramedics six minutes ago, appears as if by magic and, reading Nicola's telltale sign of impending-tears says "Whatever we can do to get the PM home would be excellent, thanks. Ideally I'd like her on Cam Force One within the hour."

Nicola removes her hand from her face and shoots Gilly a watery smile. She has never been so glad to see her Chief of Staff in her life. "Do we really have to call it that?"

"I think it's funny. Poor guy deserves to leave some legacy."

Nicola stares levelly at the younger woman. "In addition to almost destroying the NHS."

The Russian paramedics stare at each other, bemused; Nicola clocks this first.

"Sorry. So, are there any options that get me home tonight?"

"We could use a splint and brace? A little more... sturdy than what your guards used. This would hold it in place for the flight, but you would need to have a full cast done once you return to London."

"Okay. Okay, that seems like a reasonable option."

"The flight won't be comfortable, I'm afraid." The second medic, Nina, informs Nicola.

"As long as it's taking me home I don't care how uncomfortable the flight is. Honestly." Gilly does not comment on how utterly uncharacteristic this response is from her aeroplane-hating boss. Gilly tucks it into her back pocket as evidence of how badly Nicola wants to get home, and decides she will do anything possible to expedite this.

"Okay, Mrs Murray." The first paramedic says, and sets about removing the bandage and splint applied by her Protection Command. She is soon bound in a fresh compression bandage, with a rigid fibreglass cradle supporting her wrist and forearm. Once another layer of bandage is wound tightly over the top, Nicola is handed a fist full of painkillers and cleared to fly. Cam Force One is cleared for takeoff once Air Force One is safely in the air. Notoriously claustrophobic Nicola Murray has never been so glad to be trapped in a giant metal tube in the sky.

When Nicola slides into her official Jaguar XJ Sentinel beside Malcolm, she is shaky. Malcolm is, of course, willing to give her any space she may need, but his overwhelming urge is to take her in his arms and crush her to him until she can no longer breathe; hold her so hard that the imprint of her body leaves a Nicola-shaped bruise against him.

Malcolm lays a hand on her shoulder and finds her body rock hard with tension that is unlikely to unfurl at any point in the near future. Her eyes remain fixed on the centre of the headrest in front of her, and Malcolm wonders if she has even clocked his presence in the car. He runs his hand down her arm, and for the first time he finds the hard plastic splint on her wrist.

"Jesus, pet..." Malcolm mumbles, taking her head and pulling it close enough for him to press urgent kisses to her temple, her hair. His lips coming into contact with her skin seems to break some kind of spell, and she curls into him, clinging onto his shirt so hard she breaks a fingernail. It takes Malcolm a moment to realise that she has begun to silently cry against him. "I know, darlin'." Malcolm mumbles against her thick brown hair. "I know." Malcolm winds his arms around his wife and holds her against him with more strength than he knew he possessed. She barely speaks two words to him during the drive.

Nicola does a brief doorstop outside Number 10 after composing herself in the car, and promises the press a longer interview in coming days. Communications Director Malcolm is solidly in favour of this plan. Nicola Murray's Husband Malcolm would rather she spent all of the next forty-eight hours safely ensconced in the residence and away from the unnecessary danger zone that is the British press.

The problem with her return is that Malcolm's temptation is to never let her go - in a physical sense. His hands are on her at virtually every moment, and Nicola, usually the more tactile of the two of them, is left feeling a little claustrophobic. He hovers over the nurse who applies her cast as if he could offer any constructive feedback on the process, and when the nurse eventually snaps at him to please sit down, he takes a seat beside his wife and twines his fingers with hers. Nicola can't work out why she finds the weight of his arm against her own irritating when usually she would find it grounding.

The one moment she is relying on finding his wiry arms tightly wound around her, when she wakes in bed in the middle of the night, he is nowhere to be found. Nicola's body tenses at the absence of him, and she mumbles his name almost incoherently. Her eyes haven't adjusted to the darkness yet, and suddenly she panics - where is she? She sits bolt upright so quickly she thinks she's pulled a muscle in her back. "Malcolm!" She barks at the seemingly empty air.

She hears the sound of a cup and saucer being set down on a cushion, of someone rising from the window seat. "I'm righ' here, pet." Malcolm slides into the bed beside her and pulls her into his arms, hard. Nicola frowns - why can she feel denim against her exposed calf? Why is he dressed at this hour? Malcolm feels her go limp in his arms and guides them down until she is lying on his chest, her leg slung over his. "Yeh're alrigh', darlin'." Her hand worms out from the cuff of her oversized grey windcheater and she closes her fingers around his fleece. "Why are you dressed at this hour?" She mumbles.

"It's four in th' afternoon, darlin'..." The Scot responds. He had been watching her contemplatively over the rim of a cup of tea when she began to stir. He has been there since he ordered her into pyjamas at around 8am that morning, with food being quietly delivered to the door. He has left the room only to greet the children once they were deposited at the official residence after flying in from Florida.

"Is it?" Malcolm nods against the top of her head. His usually ceaselessly wittering wife is subsisting on single syllable words, and as much as a previous version of Malcolm would find this delightful, present day Malcolm finds it unnerving.

"Yeh've hardly said two words since yeh landed, Nic'la. D'you want t'talk about it?"

"Erica died because of me." She says flatly and without preamble.

"Erica died because some fucking miscreant with smaller balls than a ferret attempted to blow up eight of the most powerful people in the world - including my fucking wife."

Ordinarily she would smile softly at the protective side of Malcolm emerging, but today he feels no movement of her face against his chest.

"Erica died." She falls silent for half a minute. "That's the most important part I would have thought." Malcolm buries his hand in her hair and lifts his head to kiss the crown of head. The part of him he isn't proud of is merely glad that Nicola isn't on the day's list of fatalities.

"Yeh're righ'. I'm sorry, pet."

"I know." She replies, because it's the least inflammatory thing she can bring to mind. Malcolm wants to tell her that she's almost certainly experiencing survivors' guilt, that the therapist he will all but force her to speak to after such an encounter will help her, that he's sorry she's hurting. But he doesn't think she'll take kindly to him managing her, so he holds his tongue for the moment.

"I think I should go and meet her family. Just quietly."

"I think that's a really good idea." They fall back into silence, Malcolm massages the back of Nicola's neck absently, feeling knots begin to loosen. "You know wha' else I think is a truly, genuinely phenomenal idea?" His tone is leading, the kind he uses when there's the possibility of winning the treasured prize of her laughter.

"Enlighten me..." She says, little energy in her tone, although she has tried to summon it for him.

"I fully intend to phone fucking POTUS' office, find out which of her impotent fucking jockstrap Special Services agents pushed the fucking Prime Minister of Great Britain andNorthern Ireland down the fucking stairs, and then fly to DC and feed them sandwiches made out of their own scrotums. I think it would be an excellent way to spend an afternoon - and remind the other half of our 'special relationship' that our Prime Minister is a very fucking valuable commodity and I don't take lightly to having her wrists broken."

Nicola slides a little higher on his chest, nuzzling against Malcolm's neck. "I love it when you're chivalrous, Malcolm." He can feel her lips curl into a gentle smile. This, at least, is a modicum of progress.

"You know me, I always aim t' please." With the mood lightened somewhat, Malcolm takes the risk of not giving her enough time to sleep, he says "The kids are here if you want to get up. I'm sure they'll keep for a while if yeh want to wait."

"Could we hold off for a few more minutes?" She asks softly, and Malcolm knows the lurch of guilt making the request will have caused her.

"Course we can, pet." Whispers the famously unfeeling Scot.

Nicola dozes for fifteen more minutes before pushing off her husband's chest and padding out into the informal lounge to find her squad of children.

"Hello darlings!" She trills with significantly less energy than she usually has when greeting them.

Ella breaks the silence, shouting "Mum!" and hurtling herself into Nicola's arms. Nicola crushes her daughter to her and buries her nose in Ella's untamed brown hair. At the familiar smell of her youngest daughter's hair, Nicola begins to cry. Katie has gravitated towards the scene and has wrapped herself around her mother and sister. Josh elbows his way in insistently, the way only a youngest child used to being the apple of his mother's eye can.

"I wish you were still small enough to pick up." Nicola grumbles into Josh's chest. At fifteen he was taller than Malcolm - irritatingly resembling James in almost every way, including his rugby player stature. Now, at seventeen, her baby is almost too grown up for Nicola to comprehend.

"I'd have better luck picking you up, Mum." He smiles tentatively against her shoulder, which he has stooped to rest his head on. Malcolm sweeps his eyes across the room for Ben, who is hanging back awkwardly. At twenty one, Malcolm thinks Ben should probably be past whatever teenage angst he's had with the woman who raised him, even though more often than not she could objectively be assessed as inept, whether politics or parenting is the topic of the day. Malcolm has long been aware that Ben fell on James' side of the divorce, but he would've thought the near death of his mother would shake the lad to some kind of epiphany about the fact that his mother is not actually the source of all evil.

Nicola shifts and the children peel off her slightly. Nicola's hand continues to comb Ella's hair absently. "How about pizza?" The children, Ben included, nod agreeably.

Malcolm nods and, squeezing his wife's shoulder tenderly on the way past, mumbles "I'll grab a menu."

Katie is about to tell Malcolm that there are approximately fifteen apps for ordering pizza these days, but lets him set off for the menu drawer, sensing his need to be occupied.

Hours later, full of pizza, exhausted from the events of the last days and the bubbling accounts of Florida offered by her children, Nicola falls asleep against Malcolm's shoulder at about eight thirty in the evening. She has been leaning against him for a sold half hour, so it takes Malcolm ten minutes to discover that his wife has drifted off against him. The Scot twists his torso, hooking his arm under her and pulling her so she's lying more comfortably against him. He leaves his arm draped protectively around her. Katie observes the little manoeuvre and feels a familiar little gush of relief. She spent the first two years of her mother and Malcolm's relationship waiting for him to put a foot wrong, waiting for him to break Nicola's heart as he had already done professionally. Katie Murray has spent the last six years extremely glad to be proven wrong.

"She's going to be alright, isn't she Malc?" Josh asks timidly, his voice wavering a little.

"Course she will, mate. Fucken' Teflon coated, this one." He smiles, running his hand down her arm as he says it, only pausing when he hits the bulk of her cast. He is sure for her children's sake, but privately he holds concern for how much skin she might have lost from the whole encounter. Nicola is already skittish, professionally, and he cannot imagine she'll be unaffected by her near destruction. Malcolm brings one of his hands to her hair, turns, and kisses her forehead softly. He would once have described himself as internally impervious to such near-catastrophe, regardless of how much he ran about and screamed during the course of it, but this time he can't shake the feeling of unease that's knotted his stomach at the near-loss of the woman he loves.

"Why don't we put on a movie?" Katie suggests, squeezing Josh on the shoulder. Malcolm hadn't noticed her stand up.

Katie puts on a Will Ferrell movie that Malcolm tunes out of entirely, lost in his thoughts. He imagines the kids are too, or avoiding thinking, but they give less indication that he does. Malcolm trails his fingers over Nicola's shoulder absently, only pausing when he notices she has stirred from her slumber three quarters of the way through the film.

"I think you should get to bed, pet." He mumbles against her temple.

"Yes, because I've only slept for eighteen hours today." She retorts.

"Yeah, well, yeh deserve it." He says, leaving no room for argument. "Alrigh' gang, campaign bus is movin' on." He says to the kids. They pay relatively little attention to the mother they very nearly lost today. The movie is, apparently, at a critical stage.

"I'll see you lot in the morning." Nicola says, waving wearily at the kids, to varying levels of response. Malcolm trails behind her, half hustling her out of the room.

Once she's back in bed, Malcolm curls around her back loosely, an arm draped over her. Nicola can feel that he's not putting the weight of it over her waist, that he's holding it.

"Stop touching me so fucking delicately, Malcolm. It's nerve-wracking."

"Well wha' would you rather I do?" He retorts. His tone is edgy and so is he.

"Just, touch me. Like I'm. Normal. Like you're not worried I'm about to snap in half. It makes me worry that I will, too."

The room fills, weighed by what she's said. "Sorry, pet." He mumbles, and pulls her into his chest, crushing her to him in his reedy arms as he normally does. The bridge of his nose digs into the back of her neck.

"I think I'll go see them tomorrow." She says once they've settled, once the weight has lifted from the room.

"D'you think it migh' be a bit soon?" Malcolm probes her gently, trying to emphasise without verbalising that perhaps two days after their daughter's death Mr and Mrs Patterson might not want to be lumped with the pressure of putting on tea and biscuits for the Prime Minister. She considers for a moment.

"I'll call them first."

"Nic'la..." He nudges her neck with his nose, his tone ever so slightly chiding. He's right. She can't very well phone these people and expect them to turn her down, even if they might want to.

"I'll... get one of my staff to phone them."

He dusts his lips against the curve of her shoulder, and she is so tightly wound the little action makes her shiver.

"How would yeh feel abou' me comin' on all of yer trips from now on?" Malcolm queries, only half teasing. Nicola threads her fingers through his and squeezes them, knowing he is about to let go of something he has been holding very tightly for the past sixty-odd hours.

His voice cracks as he mumbles, "I have never been that fucking scared in my whole life."

Nicola exhales deliberately as tears begin to slide down her cheeks. She can feel Malcolm's own on her neck. "Neither have I."

A/N: Special shout out to my beloved Cara for her expert medical advice.