Chapter 7

Through the Looking Staff

Sofia attempted a few more hours of broken sleep before Lucas decided that she was doing more harm than good, continually waking, screaming in terror and in the end he suggested that they make an early start.

He himself had not returned to bed and could feel himself slipping into one of his regular bouts of insomnia and knew that he would be becoming intimately reacquainted with the unyielding cold stone floor of his apartment for the foreseeable future.

They stopped off at a Starbucks on the way to pick up coffee as, for one reason or another, both of them were running on adrenaline. Lucas tried, and failed, to force her to eat anything, while barely being able to stomach his coffee, after a plethora of threats and promises, all of which were ignored, he gave up and they left the cramped cafe, something Sofia couldn't have been more relieved about.

They wandered onto the deserted Grid and settled themselves at their desks. It was not yet six o'clock in the morning and neither of them had expected anyone other than themselves to be populating The Grid this early, as a result they both jumped as Harry floated from his office towards them.

"Morning." Sofia said calmly, recovering first.

"Sofia." Harry said curtly, a part of him was surprised to see her, another part of him was becoming rapidly desensitised to shocks concerning her.

Deciding to wait and allow her to settle a little before discussing her unhealthy dedication to her work, he turned to Lucas, the younger man had not acknowledged his presence and Harry knew that this was fully justified, nevertheless, it had to be done,

"Lucas, a word?"

He silently rose from his desk and entered Harry's office the latter following and closing the door behind them.

"How is she?" Harry asked, taking a seat behind the desk and watching as Lucas pointedly balanced on the cabinet on the other side of the room.

"Alive." Lucas said shortly, before adding without thought, "Don't pretend that you care Harry."

"Of course I care, she's a member of this team I-"

"Don't bullshit me Harry. She's about as much a member of this team as I am right now, the sooner you accept what everyone else has the better. You wouldn't have treated Ros in that way and don't even get me started on Ruth."

Harry was slightly taken aback. It was out of character for the usually composed and well-spoken younger man to interrupt him and be as disrespectful, mitigating circumstances or not. It had always made an impression on him that Lucas could be the quietest contributor to a conversation but when he spoke he was listened to, without exception and without question. The hypnotic quality to his voice was invaluable in this line of work, but at that moment Harry hated it.

"If you're implying that I had something to do with this-"he began again.

"Of course you did." Lucas said, dismissively, "You all but booked them a hotel."

"I don't think my personal feelings towards this made any difference, she made her thoughts on my input into her life perfectly clear."

Lucas considered this, he was probably right, Sofia had made her decision the second she had seen the rose on the screen and grasped its meaning, however he was loathe to let Harry off scot free, what he had said to her had been completely inappropriate, serious or not, and whether or not it had affected her decision, it had affected her in some way.

"What are your personal feelings on this?" Lucas asked, softly.

Harry paused, knowing that what he said would have far reaching consequences, "It doesn't matter anymore, what's done is done." He replied, evasively.

"It matters. " Lucas said, shortly, forcing the other to make eye contact with him.

"Yes, but not to you." Harry said, coldly, meaning to close down their conversation.

"It does matter to me Harry." Lucas said, standing, he knew full well that Harry was not going to give him a straight answer but he could guess his feelings and would play on them all the same, "You stole eight years of my life, hers too. This just makes me wonder where you draw the line, when we stop being pieces on a chessboard to you."

Lucas knew this was cruel, and unfair, knew that Harry still felt guilty about his involvement in Lucas' imprisonment, and that no amount of time could make him stop going over the deaths of his officers and allow himself to sleep at night, but that was the reason he had said it.

Lucas left before Harry could respond. Another thing he often forgot about the younger man was the quiet precision with which he could read people. Once he had, accurately, identified their deepest fears and knew what caused them the most pain in this world, he could choose to manipulate them in any way he saw fit. He was just as capable of talking someone down from the roof as he was at making them jump. In the eight years he had stolen from him he had developed this skill into an art.

While Lucas and Harry had been ensconced in the latter's office talking morals and philosophy, Ros had returned to The Grid to prepare for talking politics and frustration. She had a meeting with the Home Secretary that was looming over her like a sugar coated poison. She had been slightly alarmed to find Sofia calmly sitting at her desk sipping coffee when she had entered the room.

"Morning." Ros said, as naturally as she could, meaning that she came across about as natural as a winged dinosaur flapping past Thames House.

"Morning." Sofia replied, with far more success.

"Where are Harry and Lucas?" Ros asked to stop herself from asking the more pressing and relevant question of 'why the fuck are you here?'

"Harry's office, discussing 'War and Peace' and everything in between." Sofia replied, reading the question dancing tantalizingly on the tip of Ros' tongue.

"Any coffee left?" Ros asked, awkwardly, God how she hated small talk.

"Yeah, there's a Starbucks down the road." Sofia replied with a smirk, sharing her senior officer's sentiments on small talk.

"Are you OK?" Ros asked, bluntly, dropping the act.

"If I wasn't I wouldn't be here." Sofia said, calmly.

"Right." Ros snorted before adding more gently, "Listen, if you need some time to rest, get your head together-"

"No." She replied, shortly before feeling obliged to add, "My head will fall apart if I don't have something to do...Something other than watching paint dry, which is preferable to current daytime television."

Ros nodded, understanding. She sensed that she was pushing it, but her empathy with the younger woman and therefore her irritating, but irrepressible instinct to help her won out over her reason, "Look, I know how you feel, the same thing happened to me a few years ago...Lucas and Harry, can never understand, not really, what we go through, if you ever need to talk..." she trailed off, being forcibly reminded of a conversation she had had with Jo and fearing that she was going soft, however the similarities ended there as Sofia replied, coldly,

" That's wonderful Ros, thank you for telling me, but at the moment what I really need is for you to stop patronizing me and remember that this is not the first time in my life I've dealt with this. Don't try and tell me you know what I'm going through." She caught herself then, knowing that it would have been difficult for Ros to discuss, even obliquely, something that had been so personal to her, her comments had also suggested that she thought whatever Ros had been through was insignificant compared to what she had endured, no matter how violent and how often it was repeated, rape was a horrific ordeal and she had not meant to belittle the other woman's horror. She had turned her back on the other woman as she deposited a few files on Ruth's desk, but did not need to look at her to know the expression on her colleague's face, "I'm sorry that was uncalled for." She said, turning back to face her.

"No, no not at all, I apologise too, I didn't mean to patronize you." She said, thinking how she must have come across, I had sex with someone I wasn't too comfortable with once a few years ago while you were relentlessly and violently assaulted in a Russian prison, well done Myers, that's exactly the same thing...

"It's alright." Sofia murmured, get a grip on yourself, she's your senior officer.

Both women had reached an understanding based on what they had said to one another and, more importantly, on what they had not. They both knew that they could move on without treading on eggshells around each other for the next three days.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, "You're a little early for your meeting, the Home Secretary won't even have finished his Rice Crispies yet."

Ros snorted and replied, I'm preparing for said meeting, I didn't have the patience to go over everything last night." She explained before raising her eyebrows, "And I could ask you the same question."

"Couldn't sleep." Sofia said matter-of-factly, as Ros froze, mortified by her own lack of judgment she added, smirking, "And I needed rid of Lucas."

The last, flippant comment diffused the momentary tension that had flared up between them.

"Limpet?" Ros suggested, smiling slightly.

Sofia nodded, "Don't get me wrong, I love the man and I'm grateful for his support but...you know." She said, throwing a small smirk in Ros' direction as she emphasised the word 'you'.

"What do you mean by that?" Ros asked, sharply, before kicking herself and realising from Sofia's fleeting smirk, that she had fallen into her trap.

"Well I can only imagine how over-protective he became after the hotel explosion..." she grinned,

"God..."Ros breathed, recovering.

Sofia laughed slightly and said, "When are you meeting the Home Secretary?"

"About an hour, care to join me? I don't think you've been introduced yet."

"Need someone to hold your hand?" she teased.

"No, but someone may be required to hold his in the ambulance if he starts." She replied, instantly.

Sofia laughed but slowly shook her head. Ros shrugged and began packing up her files in preparation for leaving, keeping to herself the feeling of how much the younger woman had unnerved her. She was so cold, and cut off from what had happened that Ros was almost beginning to think it had not, only the thin, inflamed red scars on her wrists, mostly concealed beneath a watch and some light jewellery, were the only things that betrayed the horror their owner had been put through.

Sofia had had her meltdown, her moment of vulnerability and weakness in the confines of her apartment with only Lucas ever being privy to it. Now the defences had kicked in and the shutters had come down. Not being able to deal with sudden, violent rape in prison was a weakness, and was likely to get you killed if you couldn't cope with it. One short burst of intense emotions and then nothing...It was the only way she knew how to survive.

However as Lucas left Harry's office and Ruth simultaneously entered the room with a look that would have been appropriate on a drugged goldfish, she allowed a moment of weakness to show through the many cracks of her damaged exterior and said, "I might take you up on that, God help the Home Secretary if he has to go to hospital with only you for company."

In truth she could not stand the thought of her colleagues goggling her like a traumatised fish in a bowl all morning. She was sure that Ros knew this too but she knew better than to comment and simply threw her the car keys and her coat with a fleeting smile.

A/N: I think after the last chapter I needed something to take the edge off and I enjoyed playing about with the various character interactions. There will be a bit more of that in the next chapter but also some more plot, I haven't forgotten about the big picture, I'm just taking my sweet time in revealing it all. Thank you all for your reviews once again :)