A/N: Bit of a delay for which I am sorry, and have little excuse. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed. AU reminder remains firmly in place, and as always, I hope you enjoy.
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"Once they tried to steal my heart,
Beat it right outta my head.
But baby they didn't know that I was born dead
I am the iceman,
Fightin' for the right to live."
-Iceman, Bruce Springsteen
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"Ruth? I need to tell you something. About your father."
It took a moment, little more than a split second in length, before she understood what he had said aloud. It wasn't any particular movement or sound which gave her away, but rather a combination of both. That, and a subtle stiffening of her body in his arms, and though he yearned to believe he had imagined it, he felt the heat leave her, the parts of their bodies still connected chilled as she separated from him by centimeters, and his skin reached along his body by instinct to reclaim her.
She leaned up, resting on her elbow, the length of her body pulling from him, and the damp spots she'd left on his soiled shirt caught the early morning breeze, haphazard spots stuck to the surface of his skin, their collective chill seeping deeper into him, forming around and enveloping his pounding heart.
"You...About my father? I...Harry, I don't understand-"
"No. Of course, you wouldn't. That would be more than I could justifiably hope for. Your understanding."
"Harry?"
She had sat up next to him, and he felt her knees against his side, his mind concentrating on the feeling, the reestablished physical contact which would either fuel him his confession, or undermine him entirely. Turning his head to regard her, he saw in her face a mixture of worry and apprehension. Yet, there, just underneath, his expertise far surpassing hers at a game she had learned as a child only just revealed to him, lay the quiet evidence of curiosity and interest she was, even as he watched, trying to hide.
Just as her father could not hide beneath, neither could she from him, and he was left resisting the urge to again gather her to him, coax her from the distance, an exercise repeated throughout her own confessional, and he left believing it futile in the face of what he had yet to reveal. He drew himself into a sitting position, leaning his back against the ridge behind them, and felt the absence of her knees, the physical comfort her touch afforded him, evaporate in the space left between them, gaping.
His mind, with her confession, had fashioned a box for her, one in which he placed the memory of a stained carpet and a heinous request for a time later in which he would examine the details, turning each in his mind, wondering the damage wrought, the terrible betrayal by a mother of a daughter, the depth of scars left behind. In that moment, he found himself yearning to confront Elizabeth, detail for her the damage her actions had left on this partial replica of herself, demanding to know it an act of outright selfishness, or simply one self hate and loathing. Perhaps both, his conscious answered, And who are you to judge?
The thought, traveling the distance within him, was both genuine and undermining at once. A revelation of sorts, intrinsically selfish, and he was left understanding his need to confront Elizabeth was as much about himself, his own failures of his children, the scars his own betrayals have wrought in them, as any delusional effort to ignore and deny responsibility for his deliberate choices. Were he to act as his shadow demanded, he imagined her denials would mirror his own, very likely voiced exactly as would his own, including much the same verbiage he himself would choose, proving a mirror image of self hate and loathing, both predictable and hollow.
And yet, he recognized she had never judged her mother. Neither Elizabeth or himself, and he wondered if the difference in temperament was the legacy passed from Daniel Evershed? Was it his kindness and devotion to words and language which informed her, proved that nurtured internal impediment fortifying her ability to avoid indulging baser needs, denying any opportunity to allow blame and vindictiveness to rule her and flourish? It seemed, to him, as he held her in his eyes, that had either Jane or himself bothered to consider anything beyond their own immediate furies, perhaps their own children would have evolved less jaded, hard and distant, and she appeared even more a miracle to him in the comparison.
He studiously ignored the alinement his mind had allowed in placing Ruth, his sudden and cherished lover, along side a place inside him next to his estranged children, the image forming both disturbing and unsettling to him for reasons he'd quite prefer to meditate in the quiet solitude of his home, and not as he sat now, resisting the burning need to touch her, if only with the barest tips of his fingertips. Still the urge to touch her was, in likewise aspects, the same as that he habitually felt for his children, the need to communicate that despite his compromised actions, they were a part of him he would not relinquish or sacrifice, regardless the distance.
"There's so much...I...Am required to keep secrets, Ruth. And, much as I may want to reveal everything, I'm charged with carrying those burdens until I'm quite dead and buried. There are certain...aspects to my specific responsibilities that, quite honestly, I hope never are revealed, not while I still breathe. I've kept them all a number of years. So many years, Ruth, you've know idea the things still alive, breathing in my head. It was my inability to share anything of what I did with Jane that did us in. The marriage. Ultimately. I'm certain you've heard the gossip, and while some has been fantastically exaggerated, for the most part, there's more truth to the bulk than fabrication. My...ummm, constant philandering was a symptom, really. The roots of us were poisoned long before I first stepped out. And then, well it had been easy, I'm ashamed to admit, but it had been. And once that line had been crossed, I guess I just kept looking for the next to try to contain me. And, then, I stepped over that, too."
She had taken his left hand in hers, turning it over and tracing patterns on his palm, holding it in her lap, and it was as though, inside him, she was pulling threads, releasing knots within him which would otherwise prevent him from speaking, but gradually loosened, the ends falling away, triggering something inside him, and he wanted to cut himself open and pour all of it from him, experience the forgiveness she bestowed on even those who had harmed her deeply.
"They warned me. At GCHQ. When word got around that I was rumored to be seconded to Five. It was nothing at first. But then, the stories came more frequent. You're regarded as quite the prolific cocksmith, Harry. There wasn't a female there who didn't envy...have something to add to established lore. I ignored what was said. Well, most of it, anyway. I had chosen to relegate it to gossip. Intriguing gossip, I have to admit, but hardly representative of reality. There was one...story, something about the daughter of an Italian Diplomat, and her, well, there were several theories, but the most popular was female bodyguard? I'll confess, that particular bit of lore did peak my interest. You were terribly limber at one time, weren't you? You smile, but that story, no matter how many times I heard it, seemed more accurate simply because the details offered, rarely, if ever, altered from the original telling."
"I think its important to point out that I was in my early thirties at the time. A good deal has changed in the intervening years, including my, as I mentioned earlier, ability to be limber. I was...that particular circumstance involved an op we'd really no business being involved in from the outset. My...actions with the...two women was...a poor attempt to illustrate why."
"You engaged in sexual congress with a diplomat's daughter and her bodyguard to make a statement of dissatisfaction in the workplace? That's what you're telling me? With a straight face, your expecting me to buy that?"
Clearly she wasn't anymore inclined to accept his rationalization presently anymore than his Section Chief at the time, though the gradual smirk evolving on her face lent itself to the idea he was not entirely bound for the dog house. His response, true to form, was to grin sheepishly and shrug his shoulders as if to communicate something similar to, Can I help it if women find me irresistible? While that response had worked in the past, he knew that her single raised eyebrow suggested she was not as easily swayed. Which left him the solitary option of admitting the truth, and then finessing his way back into her graces by any means available to him.
"If I'm honest, Ruth, I'd prefer to not remember it at all. But as you ask, it does seem a bit more geared towards self interest than an example of hostile workplace. See? I've grown since then. Does it help at all that I'm willing to admit you're right to be skeptical?"
"Not in the least, though I do appreciate your pointing it out in case I might of missed it."
"I was a boy, Ruth. Nothing but a boy playing at grown man. And, I might have had a bit of an impulse control problem. I'll admit that much. Still, it did peak your interest. You said. A, what was it, cocksmith? Yes, an intriguing cocksmith. Your words."
"Yes, very intriguing, Harry. So, at the first opportunity, I...read your file. It was...enlightening, and it didn't take me long before I found the reprimand, and I thought, well we hadn't met, and then you came to interview me, and I was...I walked in, and there you were, sitting there calm as you please. Nobody had warned me you were doing the interview, and I couldn't stop looking at your eyes. You must have noticed. I thought it obvious I was practically shaking with nervousness, and my mind was running the images associated with everything I had heard about you...It was...There was a pull, even then, Harry. Potent as any cocktail or drug. You were, God, you were electric to me, taking up the entire room, and your voice just melted over me."
"Chalk it up to weakness for bad boys, the dark side, and, yes...maybe a bit of intriguing cocksmithery, but I knew, even then, there was something. Mostly, I wanted to know you, even though on some unexplainable level I felt as though I already did. Honestly, I was sorry when the interview ended, like when you go on a really fantastic date, and then, before you know it, its time to part? I thought I had blown it. You had this smile, but not a smile. Also, not really a smirk, per say. It was...secret in some way, like you knew something I didn't, and I remember thinking, 'He thinks I'm just a silly girl,' and it just destroyed me."
"I couldn't know then that smile is what you do when you've already considered your options and made your choice. You do, you know. Very sexy, that smile, intensely masculine, almost wickedly, but still appealing. Even as early as then, inside me, there was something triggered that reached towards you, and I was...I was easy pickings for Amanda Roke. It's not an excuse, or justification by any means, but I wanted to be near you, and so I agreed to anything they wanted."
"I had already chosen, Ruth. And...well, I can tell you now, I had sidelined Tom for that interview. I never interview potential candidates, never have done, so you can imagine his reaction. Fortunate for me he was dating, at that time I think, the doctor, Vickie something, and was only half a mind to pay too much attention to my motivations in that regard. I shudder to think what the masses would say if they knew how much a distraction our personal urges can become, charged as we are to ensure they continue to blissfully muck up their own personal lives without risk of terrorist death and destruction city wide. It had been longer than I cared to think about that my own personal life infringed on my professional, but there it is, the unvarnished truth."
With his free hand, he brushed the hair that had fallen behind her ear, drawing his fingers along her jaw line, capturing her chin and forcing her to look him in the eye. Adopting his most effective smolder from his coterie, he determined it vital she leave the image of his youthful self bent on sexual satisfaction, and replace it with the vision of the man sat before her, the man who knew her taste, and wanted to know more.
"Honestly, Ruth, I never thought you a silly girl. I would have preferred it to have been a possibility, if you really must know. It would have been infinitely easier had you been an intelligently gifted, but predominately frivolous girl biding her time until Mr. Right came along. I would have found it a simplicity to dismiss you as such. Inside of five minutes, I knew that would never be the case, that you, your mind and intellect, were meant for MI5, and about ten minutes following that revelation, I realized, however ridiculous it seemed, that you, the woman, were meant...You were meant for me."
"So, that wicked smile you saw was me, first, knowing I would second you at the first opportunity to Five, and, second, a reflection of my trying to wrap my head around the fact that I wanted you, but in a way I had not wanted another human being in a very long, torturous time. Even then. I did. It was powerful, and I'll tell you now, I had to pull in a few favors to keep you from Oliver Mace. You were slated for Six, Ruth. Mace had already staked claim with the Home Office and DG. You didn't know that? Amanda Roke, and her agenda, fit quite nicely with that bit of subterfuge."
"You...You knew? All along?"
"Yes, I knew, from the start. But I thought I could talk you on side, just the same. I manipulated Amanda Roke, at a distance of course, and she manipulated you. I was rather disheartened at how long it took Tom to twig to that circumstance, but more so because it reflected how at cross purposes he was, his attention, you'll remember, had strayed dangerously off piste. It was fortunate that Ms. Roke was in over her head, playing with the sharks. Short of your misstep, I would have had to fabricate some other circumstance where your...betrayal would be discovered. What?"
"Its...I'm just...I shouldn't be, of course, but your level of contentment with duplicity is more than slightly unnerving. Your conscience is quite a terrifyingly malleable substance, Harry."
"Ruth, I...That's true enough. I hesitate to say, but its what makes me good at what I do...professionally. And maybe I allowed myself to carry it a bit too far where you were concerned because...because my personal motivations had begun to override my professional concerns. You had the potential to excel in the services, so it became easy to tell myself it was in the interests of Queen and Country that I manipulate...I don't regret it, just so you know. Not for a second."
She didn't reply, and the subtle shifting of her body let him know he had triggered something within her he had hoped to avoid, leaving her on guard, and him with no ready means to soothe her but for a confession which would likely bring his entire house of cards down around his ears, rather than draw her closer to him. He was reminded again of Jane, and her accusations of being manipulated by half truths, falling from his lips effortlessly then, second nature becoming primary the more he spoke, the truth proving more an insurmountable obstacle he'd no desire to overcome. The impression was one of Ruth pulling from him mirroring Jane's, but to an alarmingly increased degree of discomfort, and his intuition began to flutter deep in his abdomen a message of caution and impending loss.
"I need to...there's something...Make me a promise, Yes? I need to tell you something, and I need you to hear all of it before you say anything. I know you will need to examine it, turn it around, and I'm hoping that when you're done...distilling it...you'll see my side, the reasons. Will you make me that promise, Ruth?"
"Yes...I'll listen, without a word. But, I...I'll make no promises beyond that, Harry. Please don't ask that of me. Agreed?"
"Agreed."
He stopped her fingers playing at his palm, enclosing his hand around hers, placing them on his upper thigh, his thumb gently brushing the top of her hand, a gesture intended to quiet and soothe her as much as capture that strength needed and afforded by physical contact.
"This was quite a while ago, Ruth. I was...well, I was young, active in the field, and I imagine it coincided to my being regarded the maverick initially. Oh, I've heard. I know more than anyone thinks regarding my reputation. I was reckless, dangerous to fellow agents and assets in equal measure. I thought myself untouchable, and to a certain extent, the belief was validated by those around me, those numerous occasions where I cheated certain death, being blown with little avenue for escape. I've been stabbed, shot, beaten, tortured, burned, and each incident breathes within me still, the details acutely clear in memory, the marks on my body a daily reminder should I ever be foolish enough to forget."
"I'm not a...good man. You would be well advised to find another, someone honorable and kind, more like you. You deserve more. I've killed people, Ruth. I've taken lives with my bare hands in the field, and by directive as Section Head. Numerous lives, Ruth. I've watched as the life bled from their eyes, the spark extinguished, and called it duty, justifiable. Years later, this was before you came, there was something Tom once said during an interrogation that cut me to the core, and it planted itself in me. Fertile ground for a festering seed, that, and I'll never forget it. He said the taking of life to save lives was about the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. It had upset Danny, as well. It took me some time to reconcile it, and even in that I couldn't count myself successful, even now."
"I'm more than half persuaded Danny never managed to either. Because, when you strip away all the pretty words, the rationalizations and justifications, the lies you swallow to sleep or continue forward, what he said encapsulated the basic construct we've operated under since the security services were conceived. We kill so as not to kill, and the paradox lives with us every day. You can't reconcile a paradox, can you? You can only lie and fabricate...I shouldn't wonder the skill each of us has in that regard."
"There was a splinter group, Irish combatants, wreaking havoc, and Angela and I were dispatched to infiltrate, she the main faction of INLA, and me closer to home. I, well both of us, really, as a means to maintain cover were forced to stand by and watch as the destruction mounted, agents we knew were killed, murdered, tortured. It...can become self destructive, cause doubts, make you question the wisdom of your remit, vulnerable on the front line, every moment an opportunity to be discovered as much as able to identify the targeted Intel. You operate in ways you'd never imagined yourself capable, and once you can conceive of it, like the shame you had talked about, you'll never regard yourself clean again, no matter what you tell yourself lying in the dark. The heightened state of anxiety, that extreme level of apprehension, unexpressed, can work on you, your mind turning in on itself, and it becomes enough that you can remember the remit after while, the light you fixate on internally as a means of survival."
"When I told you my greatest fear was that one of you would not return, I wasn't exaggerating. I have lost agents, and they are a collective wound that will never heal. I imagine your belief that I am made of love, my gift, is what makes it infinitely harder for me to turn away, brush it off in the same way Mace and Siviter have proven capable time and again. I'm certain its why I take greater risks, or did, then."
"There was an agent, before Tom. His name was...is Lucas North. The best I've ever seen, would have had my position if things had been...He was taken, in the field. Russia, Cold War, a time when the enemy was identifiable and certain. He's alive. That's the worst of it. He remains alive, and I'm left waiting for an agreeable trade. Its an insidious card game we play, awaiting the ace high, the bluffs measured as a life hangs in the balance. You can't imagine the level of futility, knowing even before I offer a trade it will be refused, and Lucas will continue to reside in whatever Hell they've relegated him to. It's indescribable...the weight of it, the responsibility."
"My point is that once you've been in the field, once you've looked into Conrad's darkness, you don't come back entirely. And frequency simply enhances the feeling of separation, the idea that normalcy is a fabrication your eyes can see past, and everything becomes rather dulled and disingenuous in the aftermath. So fearing that one of you won't come back is as bad as finding that you have, but altered in a way that can't be undone. Paradoxes inside paradoxes."
"It was that level of knowledge, of operating beneath the surface for so many years, that changed me. Gradual as it was, that change began to eat at my marriage to Jane. The result, of course, was an oddly discomforted feeling of disregard when I found myself at home. My family had become that thing which I was charged to protect, but not something I felt either a part of, or understood to any reliable extent. They had, the three of them, created a life in my absence, and the feeling of being an outsider was excruciating present. So, I was drawn ever more frequently by operations which would ensure my continued absence. It was in those environments I felt alive, a part of something I understood, knew where I fit is the best way to describe it, I guess."
"I had been charged to...get close to the wife of our presumed target. We had determined she was appropriately pliable, and so they sent me in to...infiltrate the group...and seduce her by any means necessary. Her name was Anna. I only tell you because I don't want you to...It was an op, but I still remember her name, is all. She wasn't chaff to me. I mean, no, its true, I didn't love her, but she wasn't just a nameless victim either. I'm not explaining it well, but ultimately, I didn't want to cause her any more harm than necessary, she was important enough for at least that measure of kindness."
"On its face, it was, the op, an elaborate honey trap, and it was successful. I was successful in pulling it off. That's what we all thought, at the time. We got word too late that Angela had been forced to give up a name, and it was mine. I knew that she had been forced to divulge the Intel, she was deeper than I, and her positioning was the greater prize in the overall operation. It secured her infiltration, and was necessary, in the end. And I knew the risks going in, knew that of the two, I was the one deemed more dispensable. If I'm honest, I'm more than certain that was the appeal. I'll not give you the details of what happened next. Suffice to say I was tortured within an inch of my life before they found me. Anna was executed. Its what I remember most clearly about the torture inflicted. They shot her in the head before they ever lay a finger on me, and of all the physical scars I wear from those three days, that execution is the most powerful of mementos I carry."
"They didn't think I'd make it. They told me that afterwards, and it became yet another instance where I cheated a justly deserved death. I was becoming a legend in that regard, had heard the gossip, the stories bandied about. I was vain, and it was appealing in all the ways most self serving. It validated my place, secured me a Queen's man, rather than my wife's, in any event."
"So, as I said, they'd considered me a dead man walking, and I remember a warehouse with crates, a hastily secured safe house. There wasn't a part of my body that wasn't either broken or bleeding, and I was roiling in so much pain the thought of dying became something I found myself courting internally, a pleasant alternative in a field of bad options. He was brought in. I don't know where they found him, or who managed it, but he saved my life, Ruth. Your father. He saved my life that day."
He felt the jerk of her hand, the pull which wanted to separate hers from his, and he tightened his grip, knowing this was when her continued touch was necessary, as much to make her understand as force the words from his lips.
"No. There's more, so I'll remind you of your promise, now, and ask that you keep it. He was very gentle, your father. To say I was a mess would be kind, but he identified each injury, evaluating primary from secondary, efficient as you please, and set to work. There was no anesthesia or the like, and I remember through the pain he quietly talked to me, told me each step, each action, his voice was...lulling, calming, and despite myself I trusted him almost instantly. He didn't hide was the first thing that struck me, and I remember being rather surprised that, under the sudden circumstances he found himself in, he remained completely calm, in control, without any need of outward artifice or mask. I was left to conclude this wasn't his first rodeo, so you can imagine my shock to find that, in fact, it had been. The first of many interactions."
"There were several more occasions subsequent where I found myself being tended to by your father, the injuries varied in extremes, but his temperament remained true to the first, and I found myself believing that if he were there, I would survive whatever damage had been inflicted. I found out later that my superiors would communicate with him a vague level of on call status when I was placed into the field. I guess you could say they had gleaned my level of confidence in the man, so, while obviously manipulative, they used him to keep me entering the fray willingly. We're all just pawns to be shuffled around in the end."
"We developed a rapport, a conversation of sorts, where he would tell me about his life, his normal, enviable life, and I would concentrate on breathing through the pain listening to him. His voice was almost melodic, and the subjects varied, but I remember them all. It was where I first heard about you, Ruth. He called you his bird, his little bird, and I can imagine that page in his journal reflects exactly what he told me about your broken arm. It got so I referred to you as the little bird, asking that he tell me of your latest adventure."
"You should know that even through the haze of whatever drug he'd administered, his absolute delight in you was palpable to me, to anyone standing there. He was very proud of you, Ruth. You need to know that. It seems to me not such a stretch to guess your Tell Me game originated with him, as I found myself requesting he tell me all manner of things regarding you, and your mother, your lives together, and the means by which he navigated both worlds when I had failed so miserably to manage the same. It always came to that, me asking and he teaching, so your suggestion that he considered imparting knowledge vital was not exactly a surprise to me."
"He concluded it a measure of freedom denied those of us in the services. A tragedy to him, but he seemed to understand the necessity, and his position as rather an after the fact man. That's what he called himself, and he confessed it a benefit not afforded everyone. He had a true sense of duty, it emanated from him, and yet he balanced it with a level of kindness and compassion I coveted over time."
"I think the first time I really believed I would die coincided with the first time another doctor appeared in Daniel's place. I'll confess I went rather cold, and I was insufferable to the poor bloke that stitched me up. I never knew he had come down sick, your father. They had chosen to keep it from me. I can't tell you which circumstance angered me more, the fact that they kept it from me, or the fact that they'd assumed it so debilitating they'd little option beyond not telling me."
"I didn't know when he died, Ruth. They had kept that from me, as well. But I found out soon enough. I trolled the Intel available, read the notice; Survived by Elizabeth Margaret Evershed, spouse, and Ruth Elizabeth Evershed, daughter. I can still see it. I was reminded of Gollum, you know, from Tolkien? I felt like I had become him, as I read the names, your name, that precious I wanted to know more about, that tricksy precious little bird. It was then I realized how much you had sunk into my consciousness. Well, not you, you, but the idea of you and your father representing all manner of things I had failed with my own children, that ease of affection that he displayed had become something I envied, that familiarity with who you were, the mechanics of bonding with someone who is a physical part of you? I'm ashamed now, but it was a ring I wanted, a precious I wanted for myself."
Predicting her reaction, he placed his free hand underneath hers, joining his fingers together around her hand, pulling them closer, every instinct within him prepared to spring and tighten as she no doubt would fight to separate from him completely with his impending words.
"I began to keep tabs on you. It was infrequent enough in the beginning. But...over time, it wasn't enough to just troll Intel. Eventually I...best just to say it...I found myself in Oxford. It was only twice, Ruth, I swear it. But, even that...I...there's very little I can-"
"You surveilled me? At Uni? YOU WATCHED ME!"
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A/N: The Scorpion's Venom II coming in short order…;)