Hi everyone! New readers and old :) It's so great to see how many new people have picked up this story in the last two weeks. Thank you for the follows and comments! Sorry to the original readers who were getting story update several times a week. I've slowed down to about once a week as I'm also trying to finish writing a novel. And a special shout-out to all the regular commenters. I love hearing from you!

On with the story!

...

'No. I won't do it.'

Daryl wanted to punch Rick right in his stony face. It had been nearly a week since Rick had told him to sit tight and Beth was still in prison. 'You ain't gotta do anything but get me the plans for Hohenschönhausen,' Daryl growled. 'Just like you did for the U-bahn. I'll do the rest.'

Rick leaned over the bar table and said in a harsh whisper, 'I risked my neck for you to get the U-bahn schematics because that plan's got legs. Breaking into the Stasi jail is goddamn suicide.'

Daryl clenched his fists. 'You don't know that. There might be a weakness I can spot.'

Rick slammed his tumbler of whiskey on the table. 'Listen to me. There is no weakness. The Russians built that place at the end of the war. You think they were going to risk Nazis gettin' out? No one and nothing gets in or out of that place that the Stasi don't want to. You're clever but you ain't a goddamn sorcerer.'

Daryl sat back, glaring around the bar. Why couldn't it have been him? It should be him in there facing Blake, not Beth. She hadn't even been arrested for a good fuckin' reason. It made his blood boil.

Rick took a deep breath and said, 'We all knew this was a risk when we got involved. Beth too. She wouldn't want you risking your life and everyone else in the group just for her. If you get taken in, we all go down. You'll tell. They'll make you tell.'

Over clenched teeth Daryl said, 'This has nothin' to do with the group's activities. Blake made this, not Beth.'

'You try to break in and it will be about the group. Blake'll figure out that you ain't just an angry boyfriend. Sometimes bad shit happens and you can't do anything about it.'

Daryl couldn't believe he was being fed such a stupid platitude. 'Yeah? Is that what you tell yourself when you think about Blake screwin' Lori? If it was her in there –'

Rick held up a hand. 'If it was Lori in there we would have all been arrested by now. Beth's strong. She's holdin' out against Blake. You just gotta wait.'

Daryl got up quickly, sending his chair shooting out behind him. 'I ain't waiting any longer. I'll do this with or without your help.'

Rick stood, staring at Daryl with a cold blue gaze. 'Then you and I are over.'

…

Blake held the pen out to a swaying Beth, forcing a small smile on his face. Inside he was bitter – the interrogation had not been a success. He didn't know whether that was his fault or whether Beth really had nothing to hide. He'd known from the first that she could lie more smoothly than most, but was she still lying? Her story hadn't changed over the course of a ten-day interrogation.

It was possible that Walsh had mistaken her for someone else and it hadn't been Beth kissing another man at all. Walsh'd only met her properly the once. Also, it was possible that her parents had never exhibited any traitorous tendencies in front of her. And yet … had he missed something? He had a nagging feeling that he had.

Maybe he hadn't been objective in his questions. There was a history between he and Beth, albeit a short one, and emotions too. Strong ones. Beth made him angry, nostalgic and resentful all at once. He'd tried to view her as any other political prisoner. To dehumanise her, punish her, break her. She looked awful: waxy skin, knotted hair, dark shadows under her eyes. They were bloodshot from crying, too, but she'd never cried in front of him. He wished she had. Then he could despise her for her weakness.

The oath he was asking her to sign was a sop for his vanity. He'd crafted it to make her think he'd won. By signing it she denounced her precious parents as traitors. If her mother came back to this side of the Wall she would be arrested immediately and this document would be used as evidence against her in court. It wasn't much but he would have at least this morsel of revenge.

Then he never wanted to see Beth again.

''S'Isabella next?'

Beth's words were so slurred that he wasn't sure he'd heard them right. 'Isabella?'

'Y'know. Is'bella and Gunter.'

Blake narrowed his eye at her. Isabella and Gunter. They were the codenames for Lori Grimes and Comrade Walsh. But how did Beth know that?

Of course. She'd gone through his things and seen the surveillance report. But did she know who Isabella and Gunter were?

'Isabella woon't like … here.' Beth plucked at her jumpsuit. 'No stockings.'

Blake swore under his breath. She did know. Comrade Walsh was still under surveillance and the reports had yielded nothing. If it got out that he'd had a Party member watched without good reason and without yielding any results it could be his job. The people were to be spied on and suspected, not the Party. The Party was meant to be unimpeachable.

Beth reached for his pen but he pulled it out of her grasp, thinking. Had she been sitting on this piece of leverage for ten days and said nothing about it? She could have said she knew on the first day and he would have let her go, on the condition that she said nothing to 'Isabella' about the surveillance.

But was more effective to mention it now, wasn't it, after she'd shown him she was practically a paragon of GDR virtue.

Blake ground his teeth together so hard they squeaked. He wasn't even going to have even this satisfaction. He yanked the oath out of Beth's loose grasp and tore it up.

Blake opened his mouth to congratulate Beth, but she'd fallen asleep. He looked up at the guard, who was raising his rifle to clout Beth with it, but he shook his head.

'Take her to a recovery cell,' he bit out.

…

Beth opened her eyes and felt … different. Her mind was clearer and her eyelids felt lighter. She looked around and the world was formed of hard lines and blessed, beautiful silence. She'd slept. She'd slept. She'd resigned herself to death or madness, but now those spectres had melted away over the dreamless hours. Her face crumpled and she cried, the first tears she'd shed in a long time that were from relief, not despair.

When she'd cried out her thanks to whatever circumstances had led her to this bed, she sat up and reached for the plastic water jug and cup on a little table. They hadn't given her much to eat or drink over the course of the interrogation. She drank until the jug was empty, and then fell back into sleep.

…

The wardens had to carry her from her cell, one arm looped over each of their shoulders, her legs shuffling near-useless between them. Sleep had brought relief from her most frightening symptoms, but her battered body had stiffened to almost rigor mortis proportions.

They dressed her roughly in the clothes she'd been wearing when she'd been arrested. She noticed the blood on the cuffs of her sleeves. The commandant's blood.

The fresh air of the prison courtyard brought tears to her eyes again and she hobbled faster with the guards' support, needing to get outside the gates. She felt like she was underwater, rushing to the surface.

And then she was outside. A large, black car was blocking her way, engine purring lightly in the cold morning air. She looked up and down the deserted street, hoping that Maggie would be there to meet her. Together they could stumble to a street with more traffic, find a cab –

But the wardens didn't left go of her. They steered her toward the black car. 'Wait – what's going on?' she protested, but they ignored her. The passenger door opened and she was pushed inside. The door slammed closed.

'Fräulein.'

Blake was in the driver's seat, inscrutable in his peaked cap, black gloved hands on the wheel.

No. Not him. Beth fumbled for the door handle but Blake pressed the accelerator with a booted foot and they shot forward.

'How did you sleep?' he asked, his tone conversational as he drove.

Beth crumpled in the seat, her hopes crushed. Of course it wouldn't be as easy as that. Free to go, Maggie waiting at the gates. She didn't know what had made Blake tear that oath up but it had seemed like a miracle at the time and it clearly it was. She might be free of Hohenschönhausen but she wasn't free of Blake. Would she ever be free of Blake?

He spoke as they drove, his tone conversational, telling her the date, the time, the current events, as if she were a jetlagged émigré from a faraway land. She didn't bother to watch where they were going. Another prison? His apartment? What official or unofficial ways was he going to find to make her talk? There wasn't much strength left in her. She could already taste Maggie's and Daryl's names in her mouth. It wouldn't take much more for him to get them out of her.

So it was a surprise when the car pulled up outside her apartment block. Beth stared at the building, unable to believe it was the same one she lived in. She turned and looked at Blake. His face was inscrutable.

Beth reached for the door handle and the door opened. She struggled to get out but she every movement was painful. A few minutes later she'd only got one leg out, and then Blake was out of the car and coming round to her side.

'I can manage, just give me a moment to -'

He ignored her protest and put one arm under her shoulders and another arm under her knees and lifted her bodily out.

'Put your arm around my neck or I'll drop you,' he said into her ear as he pushed the car door closed with his foot.

Beth hooked one hand on his shoulder, not liking to embrace him but holding on just the same. He carried her to the front entrance like she was nothing, but didn't leave her there. Pushing through the front door he took her right up to the door of her flat. He didn't even have to ask which one it was.

He deposited her on the doorstep, took her bag from her and fished out her latch key. She watched as he unlocked the door and pushed it open.

There was something absurd about the situation, like he was bringing home a date or his bride, not depositing a prisoner he'd spent ten days interrogating. What was he trying to prove, she wondered? His face still revealed nothing, and she held her tongue.

Blake looked into her apartment and across to the window opposite. A section of the Wall and a guard tower were just visible across the rooftops.

He nodded to the Wall and passed the key back to her. 'You're a prisoner still,' he said, looking at her with his one good eye. 'One way or another.'

Beth crumpled against the door jam, and watched his uniformed back retreat down the corridor.

...

This is the last Blake chapter for a little while. I feel like Blake has driven up to my desk in his tank and demanded 'You shall put more of me in the story! MORE!' Jeez, Blake, this is Bethyl's story, not yours. Chill your commie boots. (It also might be because I no-so-secretly adore his villainous ass. If you do, too, you might be interested to know that after They Seek Him Here is finished I'll be working on a Bethernor Walking Dead/Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde mash-up called Doctor Blake and Mr Hyde. What do you think? Let me know if you're excited for it!)

And let me know what you thought of today's chapter! I love hearing from you all.

Finally, if you're in the UK today is Deutschland 83 day! I adored the first episode. They really brought the East/West Germany divide alive. Can't wait to see what happens next! Are you watching it?