Many thanks to all who are reading and particularly those who are reviewing. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

3. November 2012.

The revelation was as unexpected as it was stunning. So stunning that it took a few seconds for the comment to sink in through Harry's despair. When it did, he blinked in disbelief and denial and finally turned to look at her, eyes wide and aware of a creeping shame. It felt like someone had knocked the breath out of him as he finally processed that she had, in fact, been exactly where he was now. That must have been what she meant with the coin analogy. Shocked out of his semi-permanent fugue, he didn't know what to say – Christ, he hadn't even known she had ever been married – but, still staring at the wall and without giving him a chance to comment, she went on, sombre but oddly calm.

"We were both working for ASIS when we met and it was love at first sight, really, both of us in our mid-thirties and having spent years in the field, with not much chance to have a real life – I'd been in China under the cover of being a cultural attache for over a decade, he had been in various hot-spots throughout South-East Asia for the three years since he had left the SAS – then we met and bang!" She gave a quick, bleak smile, "Instantly smitten. Six months later we were engaged; six months after that, married. And four months after that he went back to East Timor on another black op, was caught by the Indonesian military and executed. He was not far short of his thirty-ninth birthday."

The horror implicit in her story was something of a wake-up call for Harry. He had been so locked in his own grief and despair for so long now that, despite having the evidence in front of him during almost his every waking hour, he had forgotten that every day, somewhere, someone else was experiencing exactly the same thing, in their own way and for them it was every bit as bad, as guilt inducing, as unendurable, as the loss of Ruth was for him. About the only other person whose presence could jolt him into a similar frame of mind was Ilya Gavrik, that complicated, self-contained former enemy with whom he now shared so much at so many levels and who was having the same battle to go on with living something approaching a normal life but was doing so as much for Sasha as for himself. Now here, standing next to him, was another example, but one which had been endured for – he didn't know how long, exactly, but it had to have been more than a decade. Exactly how, though, he couldn't begin to fathom.

Hope wasn't really seeing the glass wall of names in front of her but was staring through it, into the darkness of the past, the usual dim, semi-imagined images of dank, tropical scrub, torture and lonely death flickering faintly through her mind as she spoke and continuing afterwards, in the sharp, subsequent silence. For that moment she was alone again, as she had been that day so long ago when she had first felt a ripple of wrongness vibrate through her psyche, warning her that her world had changed, permanently. She had, in a way, forgotten the man standing next to her until she felt him take her hand in his and came back to the present, vaguely aware of a tremor in his touch but not turning to see the anguish in his face. She didn't need to: it was there in his voice when he finally spoke with an unexpected question.

"What was his name?"

That was sweet of him, she thought. He obviously knew, for the worst of reasons now, how important it was that names were both remembered and acknowledged; thought about but also, crucially, spoken. That way, the lost still existed at some level. Finally fully returning to the here and now she turned her eyes to his, noting in them an almost inchoate distress that mirrored what her own had been.

"Wynne. Wynne Sharrug."

An unusual name – rather old English, he registered absently but the thought was overwhelmed by another, more urgent need. One he knew was pointless but perhaps her answer would be different. They gazed at each other for another long moment before he asked, desperate, almost pleading, but without hope, voice low and a little harsh,

"Does it ever get any better?"

Ah, that question. All too easily answered with a glib platitude that hindered more than it helped. Squeezing his hand she shook her head, slowly. She wouldn't offer him the platitude – lie to him about being able to survive unscathed the violent loss of a deep love – she liked him too much and he was worthy of more than that. He must know the truth anyway but perhaps he needed to hear it from someone else.

"No, not really. You never get over it. You just get used to it. Then you absorb it and it becomes part of your soul. And you go on, because there is no real, worth-while, alternative." She turned her eyes back to the endlessly, silently suppurating wall while her voice, soft and supple as the water, continued on with words that she had rarely spoken before. "I thought about walking away from everything but that would have achieved nothing for me and it certainly wouldn't have brought him back. So I did what you're doing: returned to the thick of it and continued carrying on the fight, in his memory and that of all the rest of them as well as trying to prevent any more pointless bloody deaths. That's why I took the chance to transfer over to ASIO for those years, before Ilian took over, and why I'm still here, doing my part, even though I'm no longer in the front line because that I couldn't take any more." The words of the song which had arrived from her subconscious earlier came back to her, strangely prescient about the events that had happened to both of them.

It shouldn't have happened but you let it.

Now you're down on the ground screaming 'medic';

the only thing that comes is the post-traumatic stresses.

Shields, body armours and vests don't properly work,

that's why you're in a locker full of hurt.

The enemy within and all the fire's from your friends.

The best medicine's to probably just let it win.

I wish I couldn't feel, I wish I couldn't love.

I wish that I could stop 'cause it hurts so much...

I wish you weren't the best, the best I ever had.

I wish that the good outweighed the bad 'cause it'll never be over...

Unaware of the tune chasing itself through her mind, Harry's only thought once she stopped speaking was a staggered Jesus Christ. Although still struggling to comprehend her revelation it was, nonetheless, an explanation of something he had felt, although never articulated, from that first greeting on the floor of the Grid. No wonder they had recognised something in each other that day back in September... Unable to think of anything to say that wouldn't sound trite, infinitely grateful for her honesty and thankful for her blunt delivery of some perspective, he merely gave the smallest of nods before, like Hope, returning his attention to the terrible beauty of the monument. Still holding hands, they continued to stand, silent, before that glassy vale of tears until sheer exhaustion sent them back to write the most succinct of reports and then head to their respective homes.

In the weeks that remained of her visit they became closer. Coffee breaks were more valued and more frequent; even when coffee wasn't involved, Harry would find himself perched on her desk or pulling a chair over to join her as they talked about nothing much or Hope would drift into his office (always politely knocking first), again to talk about nothing much or, as often, to just sit in comfortable silence, away fom the noise out on the main floor, while he worked and she cogitated on what her own findings and recommendations would be. The roof became an impromtu meeting point as well, usually unplanned: one or the other would head up for fresh air and quiet and almost inevitably find the other one was already there so they would end up leaning on the balcony and taking in the view either in silence or, at best, desultory conversation.

Lunches were a more regular occurrence and even spilled over into the weekends when she would arrive and haul him away from his desk for the afternoon. Occasionally, they would walk afterwards, hand in hand or arm in arm, as friends. When he was in the mood she would encourage him to talk, in the unthreatening surroundings of those perambulations, initially about Jim and then Ruth – those two, the one amongst his oldest friends and representing his past and the other whom he had loved so long and had represented his future, their deaths separated by all of twenty six hours and from the same root cause, would be forever inextricably linked in Harry's mind – and what had happened. He had forgotten that she had met Jim in Berlin; when she gently reminded him all the gut-wrenching despair of that loss bubbled up for the first time since he had died and they had both wept, quietly, for the loss of another good man. Later, gradually, she expanded the subject to include the others he had lost over the years – quietly chilled at how very many there had been in the years since 9/11 – guessing correctly that he had never had much of a chance to do that, either, with someone he knew not only wouldn't judge but actually understood it all. When Harry wasn't in the mood she would leave him alone: she seemed to have an almost psychic ability to know when he didn't need to either talk or have company at all and acted accordingly.

He returned the favour to her without knowing it, listening intently on the occasions she spoke about some of her own shadows, although she kept the details of Wynne's demise to herself for the moment. Having by now heard about what had happened to his friend in Ireland along with something of the almost unimaginable dreadfulness associated with the deaths of two of his officers – a young woman called Helen and an experienced ex-Six operative named Zafar – she thought the events in East Timor might be too close to home right now and risk tipping him off the tentative balance that he was slowly regaining.

As the days turned to weeks a couple of simple outward signs of his slow, sputtering recovery that she noticed and quietly gave thanks for were that grey ties became more common than black ones and that his smiles were, occasionally, touching his eyes. On top of that, even more rarely, they braved venturing with some vigour into the extremely dangerous waters of discussing international cricket and rugby matches between their respective countries, another indication that he was starting to regain some interest in every-day life. There was even, once or twice towards the end, the sound of gales of laughter coming from his office as her subversive sense of humour eventually re-awakened his own. Erin, Dimitri and Calum were incredulous the first time they heard that while Waleed was slightly shocked – he didn't think he had ever heard Harry genuinely laughing, uproariously, as opposed to the polite version - and all breathed a fervent prayer that he might, finally, be coming back to them.

Sooner rather than later the day of Hope's departure finally dawned. For want of anything else to do and because Erin and Waleed had asked her to she came into the Grid to bid everyone goodbye and fill in the last few hours before her flight. Harry wasn't there when she first arrived, being at a meeting at the Home Office, but returned in time for the morning tea was laid on and, before she knew it, it was time to go. Despite her strenuous objections to wasting his time on something so frivolous Harry insisted on taking her to Heathrow but, once there, she wouldn't let him come in – there wasn't any point as she was going to have to go almost straight through – so instead they parked outside Departures and spent a few minutes talking. One of the traffic wardens made the mistake of knocking on the driver's window after a couple of minutes, telling them to move; Harry waved his ID at the man and told him to go away. The ID and the tone of voice did the trick and the man backed off but it was only a couple of minutes more before they got out anyway and retrieved her bag from the back. Heart sinking to his boots for reasons he couldn't – perhaps wouldn't – recognise he surprised her with an extended hug and a light kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you, Hope. For everything. Stay in touch."

She looked at him steadily, something of a sense of unease settling on her. Despite all those good signs she was well aware that he was still so bloody fragile...

"I will." She hugged him back and returned the kiss. "I'll be back for the ultra hush-hush talk-fest in February anyway so we can catch up then." She suddenly scowled at him in mock censure, waving her finger at him in the hope that a little mild humour might deflect him frow what she feared was the start of another downward trajectory. "In the meantime, don't forget to send me some wedding photos!"

He nodded and smiled, albeit slightly desperately; cupping his face in her hands she said, very quietly and much more seriously,

"Things will improve, Harry. It doesn't feel like it now but it will. Believe me."

At least she hadn't said that things would get better, only that they would improve. The thought was barely formulated when, with another hug, she was gone, the touch of her hands on his face cooling too rapidly. And he had nothing left but to return to the office, alone. Again.

Must go on.

'Battle Scars'. Written and performed by Guy Sebastian and Lupe Fiasco.