Come home

Part of this scene was inspired by two lines in the show, one in episode 3.9, the other mid season 4. Any idea which two lines?

I probably won't post now until after Christmas, as the next chapter is long, so merry Christmas.

27/9/98

"Legends!" Sam shouted, slamming a pile of files down on the table in the briefing room. "For the party being thrown by Mr Ivanhoff tomorrow. Adam, Marcus Fletcher. Fiona, Esmerelda Fletcher. Money made in stocks, Esmerelda's a trophy wife, bit dim."

"People will say anything to an idiot?" Fiona asked.

"Exactly."

"She's out of field work, Sam." Adam protested, opening his own file; LBS alumni, Oxford born and educated, rides in the somewhere-he'd-never-heard-of hunt.

"Pretending to be a dippy girl at a party barely counts. And no one will try to get her drunk."

"It's OK Adam." Fiona said distantly, skimming her own file. She wouldn't protest if it weren't. "Politically right wing and a good friend of two senior executives of the Guardian?" Adam sniggered. "I'm not sure that particular detail it."

"And who made me a huntsman?" Adam asked. "It's a clique with its own language. If there's a genuine one there, I'm in trouble."

"You're always in trouble." Sam replied. "Jack, Percy Sykes. Marketing consultant."

"Percy." Jack repeated. "I have never seen or heard of anyone called Percy who was either black or living in this half of the twentieth century, let alone both."

"It's all in the delivery, you'll be fine. We've pulled off dodgy covers before." Adam sighed. Sam would never ask for a cover to be changed. He'd sooner try to pull off Atsushi Chang as an alias. "Tash, you're staff, name badge says Fay."

"Why am I always a bloody waitress?"

"Let's face it, you struggle with being classy." Tash shrugged and glanced at Fiona.

"She gets to be a trophy wife."

"Ask specifically next time, you might get lucky. Zaffar, you're Hamish Maccubbin, and I'm Edward Klee, owns and accounting firm."

"Yours is alright." Jack said.

"Hamish, come on!" Zaffar protested. "Who the hell is going to believe that?"

"As I said to Jack, it's all in the delivery." Sam repeated. "Or should I say `it's all in the delivery`." He added, with a Scottish accent this time.

"Thank you Sam." Zaffar replied sarcastically. "Thank you so very much."

"You've pulled off English pseudonyms loads of times. I don't see what the problem is."

"English, Sam. Not Scottish. You don't get many middle eastern immigrants to Scotland. Most stay south."

"You'll cope." There was a silence of maybe a minute before Tash spoke.

"Zaffar,"

"Yes?"

"Do you ever wonder, like, if you're like..." Tash hesitated. "Do you ever wonder if you're British or Asian?" Zaffar looked at her for a moment, face showing pure incomprehension.

"Sorry?"

"I mean, like, you live in Britain, you work for MI6, you sound English when you talk, but you speak, like, Urdu and stuff, you're- I'm trying not to be racist- you're not white," Adam caught Sam's eye, then Fiona's. All of them were suppressing sniggers. "and I think it said on your file that you're Muslim, so..." She shrugged. Zaffar faltered.

"I... I don't know. Do you ever wonder if you're Norse, Celtic, Gaelic, Norman or..?"

"What?"

"Some of the ethnic groups in `white British`." Sam provided, keeping himself from laughing with a fairly obvious effort.

"Apparently not." Zaffar said. "So..."

"But they're all, like, really similar, so it doesn't really matter."

"I think she's trying to ask you if you've got an identity crisis." Sam put in, then resumed biting his lip to keep himself from laughing at Zaffar's facial expression. Fiona was leaning her head in one hand to conceal her face, under the pretence of reading her legend. Adam thought this was as good a time as any to practice keeping a straight face, so kept his eyes on Zaffar, who still looked very thrown at the question.

"No. It... It really doesn't bother me."

"But you're not all British, you're not all Asian, what do you think you are?" Zaffar sighed.

"To all intents and purposes, I'm British. I was educated here, I've lived here all my life, I risk my life for Britain on a regular basis. Anything else is just useful for pretending to be someone else, but not really a Scotsman."

Jack snorted. Fiona smiled, then went still, with a look on her face that usually meant she was remembering something a long time ago. She flicked her eyes up to his, then reached for his hand. He offered it to her, thinking she'd hold it, not sure why. But she didn't. She guided his hand to her abdomen, there was no hiding the fact she was pregnant now, and laid it flat against her. Movement. It felt like the wings of a moth beating under his fingers, their child, their son. He looked up at her. She met his eye and smiled, that, rare, disarmingly genuine, beautiful smile.

Then they noticed that everyone else was looking at them.

"Should we all just go?" Sam asked.

"Shut up Sam." Tash mock-slapped his wrist. "They're allowed to have a moment. What was it?" Eternally nosy. Fiona looked at the table, still smiling to herself.

"He moved."

"He?" Tash asked. Fiona nodded.

"Scan confirmed." Her voice, her face, everything about her was radiating that barely-controlled joy he knew she felt whenever she thought about their son. She wanted to be a mother, really wanted to, had done for a long time.

"Aw!" Tash cried.

"You're going `aw` at something you need ultrasound to see?" Sam asked. "You can go `aw` at it when it's born, and not before."

"I wasn't going `aw` at the baby. I was going `aw` at them."

"You're going `aw` at the Carters?" Sam returned. "That's even stranger. You're going `aw` at one of the best liars I've ever met and the man who's survived more torture than the rest of us together and never broken, yells once when shot, then shuts up and is the most effective assassin I've ever commanded. Now, are you going `aw` or learning your legend?"