"Is he here?"

"Bloody better be fucking 'ere or I'll snap his arms off at the elbow and melt them down into Scottish bullions."

"I doubt that qualifies as a plan," Sam muttered into the folder she was perusing. "He's not worth much as dead weight unless there's a bounty out on him that I don't know about. Which is unlikely," she added, "because I have a list."

"Ah now that depends on who ask," Malcolm pointed out. "There's a queue salivating shit at the prospect. Jamie has ruined nearly as many lives as me."

"Are you two keeping score? Oh god..." Sam rolled her eyes so hard she nearly dropped the folder. "It's not some kind of pseudo-sexual game that you two get off on, is it? No actually, don't answer that – no – don't even suggest an answer with your eyebrows. I'm not looking at you."

"One has to pass the time..."

Sam exhaled sharply with something that ghosted close to disapproval. She didn't quite understand the relationship those two had but she presumed it shared aspects with the devil and his demons. "Careful with that one, Malcolm. If you create a nightmare it might come looking for you one day."

"Nah..." He brushed her off. Jamie was tame with a good, thick leash. Malcolm frowned. That sounded wrong even in his head.

He returned his attention to Sam. Their pleasant banter was a decoy – a deliberate way to avoid the pressing issue – namely the approach of Tucker's house through the car window. He was watching the streets as they passed by, nervousness rising in his blood forming bubbles until he feared he'd end up with the fucking bends. Sam didn't look much better. She became intensely focused when she was nervous and at present she was staring at the page so fiercely her eyes were about to wear it out.

Then the inevitable. The car pulled to a stop and the driver nodded his head. They were here. No escape now.

"Shall we, then?" Malcolm asked.

Sam closed her folder and slipped it into her bag. "Your move..."

And so it was.

Tucked exited the car first and then turned around, holding the door open for Sam who had shuffled across the seat to exist from Tucker's side of the car. She offered up a shy smile at his gentlemanly behaviour and he closed the door behind her in an unusual display of chivalry. The car drove off, leaving them all alone amid the softly falling snow. They didn't say anything but Tucker did exactly what they had discussed and placed his hand gently on her back while they made their way toward the house.

"Are you sure he's out there?" Sam whispered, when they neared the door. "I didn't see him."

"You won't see him," Malcolm assured her. "He's a fucking pro."

All of a sudden they'd run out of path and they were at the door. Malcolm fumbled for keys, missing the lock on the first attempt. Sam would have laughed if the whole situation wasn't built on such dire foundations. It certainly wasn't what she'd envisioned, if she'd ever admit to envisioning anything.

The door opened. Malcolm hadn't stepped in as he normally would. Oh. He was waiting for… Right. This was her bit.

"Jesus Christ the Dead Sea dries up faster than this! I might as well extract my organs and put them in Canopic jars." Jamie hissed under his breath, propping the camera up on the branch of the partially frozen hedge he was hiding behind. Was there no end to this cringe-fest of a fucking nightmare that he was being forced to endure? Honest to fuck he'd never felt sympathetic nervous dyspepsia before but he had it now, right in the back of his fucking throat every time he tried to swallow back his utter disgust. Worse if he didn't get a few half-convincing photos out of it to flog off to the local rag he'd end up in an unmarked grave somewhere in Russia.

Oh – here they went. Jamie had them lined up at the door. All he could think was thank-fuck this wasn't video. Photos lied. That's why the press were so fucking fond of them. A few frames here – a bit of careful clipping and you could turn Hiroshima into a BBQ at the local polling booth.

"Give us a smile. Come on lass… I know he's a terrifying ghoul but I'm going to need-" He trailed off as Sam actually levelled a dashing grin up at Malcolm (who'd forgotten how locks worked).

Flash. Flash.

"Gonna 'ave to be more than that..." He muttered, re-aligning his camera. They weren't going for here-say like the Mail. Nah. Malcolm had been very fucking specific with him over the phone. Ironclad. Irrefutable. Fucking SOLID.

Fuck.

Jamie's finger pressed the trigger on the camera before his brain caught up. Tucker, with one hand on the door to keep his body from toppling, had leaned down, tilted his head carefully at the last moment and brushed his lips against Sam's in a near perfectly framed picture. Like something out of one of those fucking rom-coms he pretended not to buy.

Flash. Flash. Flash. Flash. Flash.

Jamie had it frame by frame. He felt like a wildlife photographer discovering a previously extinct creature. A moment later it had ended. The pair of them vanished into Malcolm's house and Jamie was left there, perched behind the bush with a frosted camera and several thousand dollars worth of snaps. "Fucking balls..."

Tucker certainly had them.

"You sad bastard..." Jamie added, as he pried himself from the ground. He knew very well that that Malcolm wouldn't touch her after that. This was for show. He cared – far too much – to let Sam fall off the deep end with him. That had always been Tucker's problem. Caring. It was a double edged sword and he was in danger of cutting himself on it. A sane man would have shagged her from one end of the house to the other. Hell, Jamie would do it himself if it wasn't for the slight complication that Malcolm would cut his cock off and use it as a pencil to fill in DoSAC forms if he ever found out.

It was all over so quickly that neither of them acknowledged the kiss after the door closed. Malcolm's house was as she remembered except with less open bottles of alcohol. Indeed, he'd cleaned the place within an inch of its life. He must have done that on his own after the last time they'd made a nest out of it. Either that, or he was entertaining flocks of press in his living room again. It was a terrible habit of his.

"Nice and warm," Sam pointed out, removing her jacket.

"Finally fixed the fucking heater," he replied, wandering through the house, turning lights on. "First time it's worked since I bought it in the fourteen-hundreds."

"You should have gone for the old Roman villas. Their central heating worked a treat."

"Run on the corpses of Gauls."

Sam slipped her shoes off as well and left them by the door. She was here all night, after all. "Are Ollie, Julius and Glen joining us this time?"

Malcolm came back into the living room without his jacket wearing a lopsided look of ill-amusement instead. "I'm still not entirely sure how that happened the first time." He admitted. "I'm going to put fucking GPS collars on those three if they make a habit of appearing at my house unannounced."

Sam was amused by his displeasure. "I thought we had a policy of barcoding all staff?"

"Trust me, sweetie, you don't want to know what I do to the staff..."

She merely lofted her eyebrow. The problem with Malcolm was that he was a gentle soul at heart and once you knew that it was difficult to take his threats seriously. "So – this grand tour..."

He was still avoiding that. "Right. Of the house."

"You're pacing…" Sam reached out, catching hold of his arm. "I'm not here to tear your life apart," she added, softly this time. "A quick run through is all I need so that I can recite a few details if I'm ever asked. I'm not going to peel the paint off your bedroom walls and go looking in your wardrobe for bits of ex-Prime Ministers. It's me, Malcolm." Sam reminded him. "I keep all your secrets. This will be no different." Not to mention that he spent half his time kipping on her couch these days.

Malcolm was looking at the hand on his arm. "I – I know that..." He assured her. "It's only – well… No one's been past this living room for a long time."

Sam's head took on an immediate tilt. This was not about her. It was about his entire history of betrayal. God only knows how many people – probably hacks – slept with him to get at his secrets. No wonder that rumour started about five star hotels (though part of Sam imagined that the stationery closest was probably closer to the truth). "Oh don't give me that. Jamie was in there last week making coffee in your kitchen."

Malcolm cracked into laughter. "You're right. He was. Terrible coffee it was too."

"Not one of his skills."

He slipped from her hold and led the way through the first level of his house. "Said kitchen..." It was narrow but well stocked, with Sam found surprising. "And – wine. If you want any of that." Malcolm wasn't a packet of noodles and cup of tea sort of man. It was evident that when he was safely away from prying eyes he actually cooked. There were full sets of glasses and plates behind glass cupboard doors suggesting that he also entertained. Those rumours about the Press hanging around were no doubt true.

"Back garden," he continued, waving absently at the patch of frozen grass with a sad looking tree sticking out of it.

Then it was up the stairs. Like all houses in the area, it was relatively small. There were only two rooms the first of which was his office – which overlooked the road and had a rather pleasant aspect with large windows where the snow tapped softly on the glass. The room was lined with books and political journals. There were neatly organised piles of newspapers and a few front pages that he'd had framed and put on the wall. These were all old with the paper yellowed and faded.

"Trophies?" Sam asked, wandering over to one of them.

"Of sorts..." He admitted. "Back in the early days it was still a novelty. It was a phase that I got over."

And good thing too. Sam knew that he'd never hear the end of it from Ollie and Glen if they knew that he kept evidence of his kills mounted on the walls.

"What are you doing?" He asked, as Sam crossed over to the desk and settled herself down in his chair. Anybody else and they'd have lost a limb by now. "It is just a chair."

"A lovely chair," she replied, before running her hands over the surface of the table. Ah… The rumoured master-diary lay pride of the desk. The place where he kept all his meetings with their real attendees. The version on his phone was basically written in code but this – this was the real McCoy. "I wasn't even sure that this was real." She whispered, but made no move to open it. "It has become and item of fiction – a thing of legend. You should burn it..." And she was not even joking with him.

"With that book you could destroy me life..." Malcolm agreed quietly. "No one has ever seen it. Not even Jamie. Aren't you going to look?"

"No." Although she was tempted. "It is yours. I am sure that you keep it private for a reason."

"It is my insurance." He replied. "Sometimes – not often – but every now and then I need to prove that a certain conversation took place. This is my true and honest record of events. It contains information about meetings that never officially happened."

"I'm surprised that you frequently let the hacks into your house with this lying around."

"This room is normally locked."

Which meant that he had unlocked it for her. Sam pushed away from the table slowly, feeling like she was prying into a corner of his life where she had no right. "I see."

It was not that he minded her being in this room – it was that he didn't mind and that had Malcolm all the more confused with himself.

"There's one other room that's also normally locked," he added.

She followed him down the hall without a word. He was struggling, she could tell. As they approached the final door, Sam scooted ahead and blocked his path. Her hand rested on the handle of the door.

"Malcolm we don't..."

"As you said, Sam – it is just a room." And if he said it with enough conviction he might even believe that.

Their eyes locked until she submitted and stepped aside. Malcolm opened the door and led her into his bedroom.

It was ordinary. Sam was not sure what she had expected – perhaps a coffin propped up against the wall? A few medieval rafters for him to hang from of an evening – definitely a bit of Gothic décor… Instead she was presented with something out of a real estate magazine. He was beyond neat except for his coat which he left oddly thrown over a chair in the corner, exactly as he did at work. Sam fought back a reflex reaction to go over and rescue it.

"Disappointed?" He asked, with a slight grin. "I know you were after the Brides of Dracula."

"Despite a few unkind things that Jamie has printed about you in the past, you are not a vampire, Malcolm." She inched in further, circling the bed with a wide birth on her way to the window. "You are not going to get into trouble over this lie, are you?" She asked, suddenly serious.

"There is no official protocol surrounding such liaisons." He assured her. "No repercussions. It is taboo only because most of our ministers are married. I am an oddity."

"Were you married?"

Malcolm nearly toppled over. Sometimes he forgot that Sam was not privy to any of his personal details beyond what it said in his official file. He wasn't much above a 2D cut out to the world and that's how he liked it. "Once." He admitted. "A long time ago now."

"And you still wear the ring..."

Of course. What an idiot he was. He did wear the ring. She must have assumed… God. What did everyone else assume? Probably that he was Bluebeard or something with a tower. That'd fit with his modus operandus. "I never got around to taking it off."

"What happened?"

"She died." He fussed with the ring, turning it around on his finger – which explained why it looked as though it was polished regular. It was a nervous habit. "Car accident. Collision. Must use official vocab these days or they put your head on a spike and hang it from the bridge." His analogy came off bitter. His colourful language of 'Tucker' lost its humour when edged in truth. "We were in the press office together. After I – well I didn't fancy writing any more garbage about other people's tragedies. I decided to orchestrate news instead of reporting on it."

There were cracks appearing in Malcolm's facade and Sam wasn't sure she liked watching them tear at the exterior. He was the strong one but underneath she could tell that he was a mess. An absolute fucking mess held together with mirth. If they put him in a prison cell, it wouldn't be the walls that killed him – it would be the dark shit coming out of his soul. Is this what he found in the bottom of a glass? The reflection of death? Ah… Now she understood Jamie. He must have been there.

"Is this her?" Sam asked, nodding at a picture sitting on the table beside his bed. Of course it was her. There was an infant in the woman's arms but Sam did not dare to ask after the child's fate. She had a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach that Malcolm lost more than a wife in that accident.

"Leaving?" Malcolm asked, as she moved back toward the door.

"I've seen enough to answer any inappropriate questions," she assured him. "We were here all night. You cooked. I mostly drank your wine."

"Oh – you're not cooking?" Sam was puzzled as Malcolm hung up the phone, fresh from ordering in.

"I want the receipts for our little lie," he explained.

As she couldn't fault his logic, Sam swept her glass of wine off the table and padded over to the TV. They had it on silent – Miller was still dominating the screen but the coverage was starting to break apart – like a thawing lake. Fragments of sport nudged in followed by new bulletins. At this rate, they wouldn't make front page by Monday. The press – they were so fickle. Toss them a travesty and they'll flog it into a bore.

Sam lingered, tapping the curve of her glass with the tip of her finger.

"The answer isn't going to come out of any of those crazy-eyed fucks." Malcolm pointed out simply, joining her. "I know..." he added, to Sam's silent question. "It doesn't make any fucking sense. Maybe Miller is simply a victim of his own insufferable face."

"We need to find out what Weir is thinking. Don't you have a vicious little hound you can release?"

"I can rustle up something..."

"Absolutely not!" Ollie reeled at the demands shouted down the phone at him. It was late. He was busy sanitising the new minister's office before Monday – removing all evidence of Malcolm's previous threats.

"I'm not MI5 I'm a – a low-level public slave with – bad coffee and a – poorly lit office." Ollie's speech was interrupted as he ducked around the office picking up files. "No – no I expressly don't want my entrails mailed to the queen. I doubt my girlfriend would care if you did that to my balls. She's lost interest in them lately after you conscripted me to romance party information out of her. Casanova was a shit – women hate him. Gawd what is this?" Ollie muttered to himself, as he found a leaflet for Miller's book he'd been threatening to write. The most boring autobiography in the history of politics – and that was really saying something.

He'd momentarily tuned out to Tucker's furious diatribe and checked back in on the tail of 'if you don't do this I'll vivisect the dust from your incinerated corpse and perform some very unholy-fucking rituals that begin and end with the lenses from your fucked up eyes.'

"Really Malcolm, you could try asking nicely. You might be surprised."

Sam watched Malcolm ball his free hand into a fist, using all of his self control not to hurl his phone into the fireplace.

"Please," The word had to be scratched out of Tucker's throat like a fucking ore extraction. "Ollie you fucking petri dish of failure, will you do what I fucking ask?" He hung the phone up as aggressively as possible and glared into the flames.

"Feel better?"

"Much..." It was no secret that a bit of light verbal abuse did Malcolm the world of good. "Did you know that Miller was writing a book?"

"Of course. Everyone knew that. He kept circulating samples. I believe it was customary to set fire to them upon receipt."

A vein in Malcolm's temple throbbed. He pressed his palm against it, trying to hold his toxic blood in. "See if you can rustle up a copy."

Sam lofted her eyebrow and settled down on his couch. She reached across, dragging her laptop over. Malcolm left her there and vanished upstairs where he sat in front of his diary and flipped it nearly to the beginning. He was after names. Places. Any detail that the could wretch from pre-history.

At some point, Sam had drifted off on the couch – laptop balanced on her chest – now blissfully in sleep mode. She woke gently to find the room lit only but the blue glow of the muted TV. Malcolm sat on the couch directly opposite, staring into nowhere with his open diary laid across his knees. She wondered how long he had been sitting there, waiting for her to wake. A while. She could smell the takeaway that must have arrived and gone cold.

"Malcolm?" She whispered, rising from sleep.

The way she murmured his name sent a shiver through his body that he did his best to ignore. "I've been through everything. Nothing. I've found nothing." And if the fire hadn't died away during the night he might have thrown his diary into its depths. "This is – was my safety net and it didn't catch me." Tucker was in free fall and he knew it.

"You don't need it," she assured him, "you have me."

Malcolm latched his eyes onto her in reply, holding their gaze until Sam felt herself shake. She wondered what he had been like before this lifetime of politics. Every now and then Sam imagined that she caught glimpses of that life in his eyes if she looked long enough.

"This is only for show," he reminded her. His words were so cold that they were uttered for himself to heed. "People who drift too close to me are destroyed, Sam."

She shifted. It was as good as an admission that he'd considered being closer. "It's not your job to protect me, Malcolm."

"It is exactly my job." He insisted. "If you think I'm going to let you walk into the fire with me – leave now..."

Her response was patience. He was reeling over what had happened. He was stuck with his neck in the noose and all his enemies had crawled out of the woodwork in search of his blood. Malcolm was terrified even if he was too stubborn to admit it. "Malcolm," she replied sternly, "you have to stop protecting me. This is real. You're going to end up in jail and for what – for me? I won't let you do it."

Malcolm's face contorted into a very serious frown. "I won't let you not let me."

"Malcolm..."

"I asked you to acquire that information in the first place. This is my fault."

"Actually you didn't." Sam corrected his imagined memories. "You lofted your eyebrow in my direction while discussing a desire to have those records. At no point did you ask me. I did it on my own. It was my choice. I did it for you and I shouldn't have but regardless, I'll stand by that mistake."

That prompted Tucker to rise from his couch and cross over to hers, sitting himself down beside her. Despite the obvious danger, Sam had never felt more alive. There was something about him, staring at her in the strange hues of light. He was fierce but also fragile – as though he'd break at the touch of a leaf and bore through crystal nose-first. "Sam," he started, as his weight made the couch dip. "One of us has to go to jail and it's not going to be you. End of discussion."

"You can't stop me."

"Of course I can." He assured her, in no uncertain terms. Malcolm took her hands in his – a very uncharacteristic gesture for a man renowned for his aversion to touch. "Sam, do not make me watch you behind bars because I would. I'd visit you every fucking day and what would be the use in that – in both of us being in hell? You have you whole life ahead of you. Mine's fucking done. Don't go wasting five fucking years on me."

She wanted to look away but his eyes had her fixed. Sam felt the tears only after they fell across her cheeks. Warm. Oddly removed from her.

"Oh, don't do that." He begged. "Don't fucking do that. I'm no good when you do that."

Sam hadn't made a sound yet. Despite this last-gasp effort to save themselves she can could quite clearly that Malcolm's not convinced it will work. He's done the math. Engaged his paranoia. The prognosis is grim. "What if -" she started, shifting her hands under his, turning them over so that they laced together. "What if we just – just go."

Malcolm's eyebrows went up in soft surprise then bent at awkward angles as the fleeting hope lingered. "Elope to a beach in that geometric-cock-up where the planes drop out of the sky and the ships sink? Drink cocktails all day with those stupid fucking lurid umbrellas?"

His swearing was a comfort. "Something like that."

It was a fantasy that barely lived a breath before his face fell. "And your life – your family – everything you have here?"

He really was a stupid bugger, Sam realised. He had on idea. "It's just you, you idiot. You're the only thing I have."

Malcolm went to pull his hands away from her but she held him tight. He wasn't running from this and although she might thorough-fucking-ly regret it they were running out of road and the 'STOP' signs were on a lean and just beyond the last corner the edge lingered, clear and final. "Sam?" It was a warning and a question. He was not sure he wanted to travel this road with her.

"Shut the fuck up, for once."

Tucker nearly swallowed his fucking tongue along with his shock. "O-kay..."

"I've followed you into this shit-storm, what makes you think I wouldn't fall off the cliff? You are such a blind, thick, moronic, self-righteous, reckless, sanctimonious martyr!"

"That was more than one adjective for stupid." Tucker immediately regretted that rebuttal and Sam wasn't finished with him.

"You spend all your time pretending that you don't give a fuck about anyone on this Earth but from what I can tell your downfall is caring too much. You care about this party – about the public they represent and the principles that every other sorry excuse for a minister has forgotten in the raging, never-ending battle for the leadership. They're all noise to you it's no wonder you treat them like confetti."

Tucker was absolutely floored by her clarity. How long had she thought this way?

"You care so intensely," Sam continued, "that you do dangerous things in its honour. Here we are – inches from falling on your sword and no one will thank you for it because they're too busy shitting themselves for coming so close to the flames. Without you, this country is a storm of fists at a bloodthirsty fight club. Now, you listen to me..." She inched in closer, making sure that he was paying attention. "Either we leave this house tomorrow on the same page or we vanish, together."

She was so ardently on his side, so completely with him that he was honestly bewildered by the revelation. He wasn't a complete idiot. Malcolm realised that she was devoted to her job, that she must harbour at least some affection for his carcass (fuck knows why) and that perhaps she extended that to friendship – as close as that could be defined with the distance he maintained but never did he dare to assume that it was more than that.

"Sam – Sam I could kiss you."

Her lip curled into an affectionate smile. She'd had to take a sledge hammer to his reason but the message appeared to be getting through. "Please do."