A/N: I was going to leave it longer before posting again, but because of the fantastic response I got from everybody, I thought, 'screw it'. Next chapter for you, folks.

Thanks for the reviews. =D

Chapter Two

Thursday, January 7th. 21:32

Adam wondered what his son was dreaming about.

"And there you were thinking that he'd have trouble settling in," smiled Lucy, entering the room from behind him.

Adam laughed softly. "Lucky kid," he whispered. "Doesn't matter where he is. He's out like a light in seconds."

They both watched Wes sleep for a moment, then Adam spoke again.

"You will look after him, won't you?"

He winced as soon as the words had left his mouth. Of course Lucy would look after Wes. He turned to face her and apologise, but she was still smiling at him.

"Adam, you don't have to worry. You and Richard might have spent your whole life trying to 'protect' me, but despite your best efforts, I've picked up a few things. Wes and me'll be fine. Just concentrate on what you have to do."

Adam nodded, and gently kissed her cheek. "Thanks Luce'."

--

The cold bit at his face as Adam headed towards his car. Sliding into it, he took a few moments to breathe on his hands, desperately trying to warm them up. Once he had regained some of the feeling in his fingers, he reached into his coat and pulled out the folded up piece of paper his contact at six had passed him just over an hour ago.

As he let his eyes wander over the page, taking in each of his friend's faces as they stared back at him, he remembered his contact's words.

"Adam, just for once. Trust us to do our job."

"But I don't get why this is six's job. How do you even know about it?"

"It came up during one of our ops, and seeing as how we couldn't really pass it over to you guys, we thought we'd stray out of our jurisdiction for once."

"For once?"

"Oh, so that's gratitude, is it? Yeah thanks mate." A beat. "But seriously, the best thing section D can do right now is get their heads down, and keep them down. Let us take care of things."

Adam sighed, refolding the crumpled sheet. He hoped he'd made the right decision.

* * *

Friday, January 8th. 00:08 (HIDE AND SEEK – DAY 1)

Ruth entered the bed-sit briskly, testing a couple of light switches.

"No electricity," she noted aloud over her shoulder.

In reply, Harry whipped out a book of matches from his pocket, and lit a dusty candle stump on the windowsill.

"Always be prepared," he said grimly, as the late-night black window reflected a dim glow over the room.

Ruth grinned, her tired eyes flashing in the darkness. "Do all scouts go on to become spies?" she asked.

Harry adopted a mock-guilty expression. "Only the ones who had a tendency to set the scout leader's tent on fire."

"Are you joking?" gasped Ruth.

Harry shook his head with a smile. "As much as it pains to admit it – no."

Ruth rolled her eyes, and fished about in her bag for some mystery item. Whilst she searched, Harry looked about them. There wasn't much to see. The safe-house, as it was rather optimistically called, was actually a tiny, damp bed-sit. It comprised of a cramped sitting room stroke kitchen, and what he presumed to be a bathroom, hidden behind a door in the far corner of the room. Their furniture amounted to one single mattress, and a rather distressed looking beanbag.

And that was pretty much it.

Harry's observations were interrupted by a sudden gasp of triumph from Ruth, and he turned to see her pull a torch, approximately the same length and width as a cigar, from her handbag.

"And I thought I was prepared," he noted.

Ruth scowled good-naturedly at him, and shone the torch around the room, taking stock. He waited for her judgment.

"It's…basic," she offered finally.

Harry laughed. "Ruth, it's a bloody stone age cave."

"Mmm." It proved the extent of her real feelings that she did not even try to argue with him, and put an optimistic spin on things. "I seem to remember," she continued after a moment, "That when I asked if you wanted me to compile a list of possible safe-houses for Hide and Seek, you said that you would take care of it."

She was reminding him who it was that had brought them there.

"I chose it because it was out of the way," he explained defensively. It was true – stuck in the middle of nowhere, no maintenance bills for at least a decade, the bed-sit was as close to crawling under a rock that they could manage.

Ruth took one final glance around, before clapping her hands together, and saying in a cheery voice, "Well, it's certainly that. We'll be perfectly safe here." She passed him the candle. "You do a reccy in the bathroom, and I'll check the cupboards."

Harry nodded, happy to let her be in charge, and headed towards the bathroom. Meanwhile, Ruth took her torch, and started searching through the kitchen cupboards.

It wasn't bad really – plenty of tinned food, a big box of candles and tea lights, and numerous bottles of drinking water, among other things. The second cupboard, she noted was much shallower than the first. Placing her torch carefully on the floor, she reached into the cupboard, and ran her fingers around the crease in the wood. The false back came away easily in her hands, and revealed two guns and a few rounds of ammunition nestled in a carrier bag.

She slipped the wood back into place, and turned to see Harry re-entering the room.

"Well?" he asked.

She nodded. "Everything we need to stay alive," she replied. "What about in there?"

Harry made a noncommittal gesture.

"Running water," he said eventually. It left Ruth in little doubt as to the rather less than luxurious state of the bathroom. Still, as long as they could wash themselves.

"Toothbrushes, soap?" she asked.

Harry nodded. "All the basics are in the cabinet." He threw her a significant yet gentlemanly look, and she nodded again, this time to show that she understood. She was grateful for his tact, not that the news really affected her.

Harry looked around them once more. "It's freezing," he pointed out, "And without electricity, that thing," he gestured to the heater in the corner of the room, "Isn't going to be any use."

"There are some blankets in here," said Ruth, reaching into one of the cupboards and extracting said items.

"Well," he said after a short silence. "I can't see that there's much else to do other than try and get some sleep. After all, it is," he checked his watch, "Ten past twelve."

Ruth closed the cupboard and stood up. "I suppose you're right," she replied.

Simultaneously, their eyes fell on the small mattress.

* * *

Ros forced the warped wooden door open and stepped into the kitchen.

"Well, it smells alright," she noted, walking forward a few paces to allow Malcolm to enter the house. "So it's passed the first test."

Malcolm looked about him, and let out a breath.

The farmhouse was small, there was no heat or light, and not a stick of furniture to be seen from where they stood, but it was clean, and dry, and, all-in-all, could have been much, much worse.

Ros began to rifle through the larder, occasionally emitting an approving murmur. Malcolm left her, and wandered out of the kitchen to explore the rest of the house.

His first impression had been right; there was no furniture anywhere, but there was a large fireplace in the sitting room, with, he could see through the darkness, plenty of logs, coal, firelighters, and kindling piled up beside it.

"Ros," he called, "I think we should sleep in here. There's a fireplace."

Ros stepped into the room. "Fine."

She threw something at him, and he unfurled it to see that it was a thickly quilted sleeping bag. She had another under her arm.

"Found them in the larder," she explained.

Malcolm made a grateful 'ah'ing noise. The sight of the hard wooden floorboards had worried him slightly.

"And there's plenty of food?" he asked.

Ros nodded. "Food, water, torches. Everything we need to survive for the next five days." She threw her sleeping bag and luggage to the ground. "We'll just have to hope we don't go mad and murder each other," she said, with a hint of a twisted grin about her lips.

Malcolm gulped.

"Fancy getting our heads down then?" he suggested.

Ros shook her head. "There's something else I've got to do first," she said. "Follow me, Malcolm; I might need to make use of your raw muscular power."

Malcolm frowned, but he followed her up the stairs nonetheless.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

Ros turned into what looked like it might be the master bedroom. "Here," she replied.

Malcolm looked nonplussed.

"Well, I haven't brought you in here to find a novel way to pass the time, have I?" said Ros, rolling her eyes.

She strode purposefully across the room, until she reached the furthest corner, and one of the floorboards creaked beneath her.

"I need your help," she explained. And with that, she began stamping on the end of the board as hard as she could.

Malcolm joined her, though he had absolutely no idea why, and after a few seconds, the board gave one final loud moan, before falling in on itself. Ros reached into the gap, and pulled out a black bin liner.

"Here." She threw one of the guns to Malcolm. "Just in case you change your mind about murdering me," she said, with another dry smile.

Malcolm looked down at the gun in his hands, and part of him wished he lived closer to one of the others.

* * *

Jo looked unenthusiastically around the abandoned-corner-shop-turned-safe-house.

"It's going to be fine," Zaf assured her, dumping his rucksack on one of the camp beds.

Jo regarded him disbelievingly.

"Aside from the fact that it's not exactly the Hilton, you realise that we can't go out for the next five days? This is it. You and me, here, for five days."

"It'll be fine, Jo," repeated Zaf. "Like that time we both had the flu', and Harry made us take a week off work."

"And we were cooped up in the flat together all week?"

"Yeah."

"Mmm. That week that you declared that you hated all women and wished I'd never moved in, and I told you that you were an ignorant, chauvinistic pig? That week, you mean?"

Zaf's smile shrank slightly.

"Ye-eah. But it'll work out this time…"