Spoilers:Everything up to the end, except for Ros's death because I needed her alive for this.
Pairing: Hints of Adam/Ros and Ruth/Harry but nothing major.
A/N:First fic for Spooks ever, I doubt it's any good - Spooks isn't my main fandom and I'm a bit new at this - but I'd just finished rewatching series 6 and had to get this out of my head. God, this show was so brilliant, I really miss it. Anyways, love it or hate it, please, tell me what you think.
Last general warning: I'm French and my beta doesn't watch Spooks so there might be some English language fails, nothing major I hope.
Of Children and Ghosts
She has few memories of her childhood.
Her parents were never the kind of people who'd want to fill that gap, tell her stories about herself toddling around the house or pulling other people's hair in the soccer field. She doesn't mind – not really – because the few she has aren't images she likes to look at or dwell on.
She remembers the nights her father couldn't sleep, the way he would always turn on the radio and listen dutifully as the soft, slow voices rose and spread like smoke above the house. She learnt to do the same thing as she grew older, fill the restless hours with pointless occupations, like doing the dishes and listening to the news. One night however, as she fumbles with the buttons in the dark, all she can hear is a loud, short buzz, a crack and seconds later, the silence is back. She tries to switch plugs but nothing seems to help and on her way to the Grid the next morning, she has to take the device to tech, have it checked for bugs.
"Should I tell Harry?" the new girl says. Her name's soft, something foreign, like Camille or Carla maybe.
Ros shakes her head, "Not yet."
The next day, she's almost disappointed when she's told the player is clean, although she can't really say why. "I can't even repair it, companies make sure you'll have to buy another one when they break now. I guess the new ones are much better though," Camille seems to sympathise but it's fine - really - and Ros doesn't care. She doesn't care but sometimes, she has to admit she wishes she did. Wishes she'd mind if her home collapsed or burned. So instead of asking the tech girl to order a new set for her, she waits until she has time to go buy it, to talk to people, to choose something she likes.
Wandering around the shelves and the devices on display, she even finds one her father had dreamt about, a coffee machine that can also play music and news broadcasts for you, depending on what you tune it on. She pauses a bit as she hears children laugh at the back of the store and the sales assistant immediately closes in on her. "Can I help you with something?" A cheery, young voice asks and when she turns around, she sees a ghost.
Well, not really a ghost, a much younger version of a ghost. His body is a bit thinner, his skin a bit darker and his jaw sets slightly differently but the hair is the same, the smile is the same, the eyes are the same. She must have noticed him when she entered the store and yet she's here, standing, glued to the ground, looking surprised.
Wes doesn't recognize her. Of course he doesn't, she tells herself, the last time he's caught a glimpse of her, it was nine years ago. And yet, instead of doing what she should do, get out, forget him, she listens to his voice for half an hour while he praises the virtues of the most expensive radio player they have in store. She doesn't say much and nods when appropriate but he talks and talks and talks and jokes and after a while she's sure even his voice resembles Adam's. She hears words about sound capacities and waves and he's trying to prove a point when he asks her what kind of music she listens to. She has no idea what to answer. Harry listens to Mozart and Beethoven but she recalls Adam listening to old, 70s, rock like that of the Stones and she feels conflicted until the word escapes her "classical," she says, and holds his gaze.
"Oh, really? I play the cello," his voice is enthusiastic, and he sounds eager to talk, more open than Adam had ever been. She surprises herself when she asks "Oh, for how long?"
"Nine years," The answer comes fast enough for her to feel she's pressing issues he doesn't want to address and since there's not much chance he gets asked that question thirty times a day, she understands he's not counting years from the moment he got his hands on a music instrument but from the last time he saw his father alive. "I study music at uni, actually," he adds and she smiles, looks impressed, noting how quick he was to change the subject.
"So you're looking to play professionally, then?"
He sighs, shifts, glances away. "I - I hope so," he finally admits, more to himself than to her. It seems as if he's had that conversation with someone, presumably Harry, a thousand times already, about the risks of having a career and being recognized for who his parents were. You'll be exposed, Wes.
"I reckon that's why you're so good with sound, isn't it?" Ros smiles and goes on, "I think I'll take this one," she points. It's not the most expensive (she doesn't want him to think he's caught her that easily) but it does a lot more things than her old radio player did, a lot more things than she needs.
Wes takes care of her until she pays, manages to make small talk with the little information about herself she's willing to provide, he must be employee of the month, she muses. "If you just have two more minutes, we have a customer satisfaction survey here," he hands her a small yellow piece of paper, "we'd love to know what you thought of our service." She has to admit she's getting a bit sick of his killer smile that looks more and more forced by the minute but she checks the boxes anyway and when she reaches the last question ("what employee assisted you and what did you think of them?") she fills in his name and says he was great. She guesses it's what Adam would have wanted.
She gives Wes the form back and turns to grab the bag her new device at the foot of the counter when his voice turns cold. "How do you know my name?"
"It's on your tag- " she answers automatically but he's staring at her with that intense gaze of his and when she looks up, she understands she's failed the mission, her cover's blown and she better think fast to find a plausible explanation because the only thing that's written on his name tag is 'Wes' and she knows she added his surname in the form. She doesn't panic, she never panics, she's a snake, a cold-blooded creature and she knows nothing in her behaviour can betray her but she also knows that her lack of anxiety is what will give her away because Wes knows spies, knows what they're like, knows their fearlessness is as much of a tell-tale as the existence of their personal files. Before she can even open her mouth again his hand has already reached for his phone which she guesses speed dials to Harry's. This must have been the exact example he gave the kid, she smiles. Wes, if anything odd happens, anything at all, someone who knows your name when you haven't told them, you call me, okay?
"Don't," she mutters, raising her eyes to meet his. They're blue, cobalt blue and when her fingers brush against his tense wrist, she wishes for something she hasn't thought about in a very long while, she dreams she could just close her eyes and pretend it's him. "Don't worry Wes, I'm leaving," Ros swears and walks away, carrying her heavy plastic bag with her to the nearest exit. She's surprised to hear him run after her through the store and out in the street and is even more surprised when she looks at him and the look of fear he earlier had in his eyes is gone, replaced by something else. Longing.
"Wait!" He catches her forearm and she's startled by his strength, wonders if he still plays rugby. "You – you seemed familiar," his other hand goes to his mouth, his brows furrowing, "you were at Dad's funeral, weren't you?"
He doesn't shout but talks with enough assurance for her to understand he isn't expecting an answer. "You shouldn't be out here, Wes, you're going to get sacked," she says but he doesn't seem to care, instead stands still before her, preventing her to move. She could take him down in an instant, true, but she can't find a single person she knows who wouldn't hate her for it. So she lets him bug her a bit more.
"You were there and you seemed… shocked," he says. Shocked, she likes that word, better than broken or devastated. "You –" he goes on with an edge to his voice he's blatantly trying to supress, "you're not one of bad guys, you're MI5…" He lets go off her wrist, surprised by his own words, his eyes lost somewhere between the pavement and the cars that pass them. And Ros does what she's always done best, she vanishes out of his sight into the busy streets of London leaving him there, lost, all by himself, as usual.
She doesn't sleep that night – too many dreams or nightmares, she's never really sure – but when Harry calls her in his office at the end of the next day, she can tell from the look on his face that he knows about her encounter with Wes, that it's already too late to deny the obvious. "Take a seat, Ros," he instructs and she obeys like a four-year-old because she can't think of a single reason not to. He offers her a glass and an inch of single malt and lies back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose between his right thumb and forefinger. Harry hasn't been quite the same since Ruth.
The smallest details give him away. The way he acts when they drink together, the way he seems not to appreciate the taste of the burning liquid sliding down his throat like he used to. She wonders if it's just Ruth he can't forget or if he's just had too much in general. But he'll let himself die in his old office chair before he retires, especially because of what happened to her, to Ruth, because every time he saves someone else, he feels like he's getting closer to her. Every op he works on is now timed like clockwork and he digs his short fingernails so deep in his palms that she thinks one day, his hands will melt under the pressure. She explains it by the amount of people he's seen alive and dead in the last fifteen years, by the amount she has, and supposes becoming obsessed about timing and numbers you understand thanks to the excellence of your grammar school education is a side effect of watching people die. There was never enough time for Lucas and Maya, Harry and Ruth, Adam and her. And if she thinks about it long enough, she can add everyone to that list. There was never enough time for Fiona, Zaf, Jo, Tariq and the others to be saved either.
"I randomly bumped into him, Harry," she tries to justify which tells him what he needs to know, that she feels like she's made a mistake, although in truth, there's not much he could reproach her.
"I know," he pauses, "still, you shouldn't have talked to him."
She sees the ghost of a smile form at the corner of his lips and thinks she's seen enough ghosts for a decade. "He looks so much like him he seems fake," she whispers to herself and hears his low laugh bump against the walls of his office.
"He does, doesn't he?"
It's what he tells Wes all the time to fill in the blanks he can't explain, like the reason why it feels like his Dad knew he was going to die and didn't fight it. Uncle Harry, the boy calls him, and sometimes Harry feels like he means more to that kid that he means to his own children. Guilt is a very powerful motivation to care for someone, he imagines. "But he's got a bit of Fiona, too," he tells Ros, "and quite a bit of himself, I can assure you. That music thing that he has, he could have done anything you know, he was good at History, French, Biology, Sports, obviously, but he just -" He takes a deep breath, searches for her eyes, "I went to some of his concerts, he's really good, also plays the piano, the guitar, drums, he's going to be a musician, doesn't listen to my warnings…"
"With all due respect, Harry, that sounds more like Adam."
Harry smirks, and falls silent. She doesn't know what he's thinking - not really - but she knows that look, she's seen it in her mirror more than once and she doesn't fancy being in Harry's mind right now, because ghosts and the passing of time are all he can see. She drinks quietly with a discreet purse of her lips and waits. "Ros," the call comes from the other side of the desk after a while, "just don't talk to him again, okay? He's a good kid."
She nods, blinks, and walks out of Harry's office, burying the memories with those of her father, Jo, Zaf and Adam. The next time she has to move out of her flat, she leaves everything except for the radio set, her clothes and her toothbrush.