Sorry it's taken a while to update, I've not been too well. Hope you're still enjoying this.

2015

She got back to the flat on the dot of six o'clock that evening. Heaving her bag of marking onto the table she sat down, without bothering to make herself a cup of tea first. She suspected that some point since she had last made love and then down a day's work, her stamina had declined alarmingly. Still, though, a smile flickered across her face. Then, she saw a note left for her at the other side of the table. It was odd, she was so used to coming back to the empty flat that she had returned and failed to register his absence. It made her feel uncomfortable, and a little guilty, and she told herself that that would soon change when he had been here a little longer.

The note was definitely in his handwriting, though, which she recognised immediately.

Gone in to see Charles. Back in the evening. Love J.

And then, beneath that, as if another thought had occurred to him before he had left the note completely:

I think we need to talk.

"Shit."

So he knew, then, that she was not working for the service any more. She should have told him last night, she shouldn't have let herself get carried away with their old comfortable silence when there were things that had to be damn well said. If he hadn't known when he'd left the flat, then he certainly would now, after speaking to Charles. After not going to where they had both worked and not bloody seeing her there. Shit.

Digging hastily into her bag, she pulled out her phone, dialling the one number from the old days that she had kept in her speed dial, for moments like this and similar nightmares.

Usually you were supposed to reserve making calls to analysts at MI5's anti-terrorism division for topics such as knowing about a bomb in public places, but Phyllis was going to bend this rule just this once.

"Elsie."

"Phil?" came the familiar voice on the other end, "Are you alright?"

"Yes-… No-… Kind of. Listen, did Joe come in today?"

"Yes," Elsie replied carefully, letting Phyllis knew that Elsie definitely knew she already suspected as much.

Phyllis let out a sigh.

"Did he ask to come in or did Charles send for him?" she asked.

"Charles didn't ask him to," Elsie told her, "He was quite surprised, actually, when Joe called to say he was coming in."

"Crap," Phyllis said softly, looking off into the corner of the room, as if expecting to find an answer about what the hell to do written there on the wall or something. She did not say anything else, and Elsie continued:

"I haven't seen Charles since, actually. Joe's only just left. I don't know what they talked about."

Still, Phyllis was quiet.

"What is this, Phil?" Elsie asked her softly, not unkindly, "Or did you and your husband just wake up this morning and decide to make mysterious phone calls to me and my husband."

"No," Phyllis told her with a sigh, "Els, I didn't tell Joe last night that I'm not with the Service anymore."

"Oh, Phil, you didn't, did you? Why not?"

"I know I should have done," she replied hastily, "I should have told him straight away. But it was just so good having him back, last night, and he didn't seem to want to talk, and then I started to cry, and then he put me to bed-…" she realised she was babbling, and sounding ridiculous.

"What about this morning?" Elsie asked calmly, halting the flow of increasing mindless narrative.

"This morning we-…"

"Oh, Phil, that's-… well, that's something at least. But I thought you'd stopped taking the pill?"

Dear God, this woman had mind like a steal trap when it came to remembering details!

"I did," Phyllis replied quietly.

There was silence from the other end of the phone for a moment.

"For God's sake, Phyllis," Elsie told her seriously, "You need to be careful. Remember what happened the last time!"

"Of course I remember," Phyllis replied quickly, snapping a little, she was hardly likely to forget it in a hurry, "This is completely different, that was nine years ago! I don't even know if I can still-…!"

She heard the sound of the front door going.

"He's back," she told Elsie quickly, "I have to go."

"Alright, Phil, my love," Elsie told her soft, "Will you call me tomorrow? Just to let me know everything is ok?"

"Alright," Phyllis replied, and put the phone down.

Joseph was standing in the doorway by the time she had turned around. She smiled at him a little nervously.

"Hello."

"Hello," he replied, moving into the room and taking the chair at the head of the table, next to her. He lifted her bag of files onto the floor so that the table between them was bare. She sat a little anxiously in her chair.

"How was Charles?" she asked him.

"Much the same," he replied, "I've never known someone so unchanged by a decade."

She smiled because it was perfectly true, the assessment was exactly accurate. He was watching her closely.

"Phil," he asked her softly, a moment later, "Why didn't you tell me you'd left?"

He asked her more gently than she had expected; questioning, curious, rather than accusing. Still, she swallowed hard.

"Did you know before Charles told you?" she asked him.

"I'm a spy," he replied swiftly, "Did you think I wouldn't notice all of the work books and assessments files? I saw them when I was eating my breakfast."

She let out a sigh, looking at her hands rather than at him.

"Are you angry with me?" she asked.

"No," he said softly, in his unmistakably truthful way, "I just want to know why you didn't tell me last night?"

"I wanted to," she replied, "Really, I did. But I got caught up in you being here, and I didn't want to spoil it. I didn't know how you'd feel about going back to work if I wasn't there-…"

"I admit," he told her, "The prospect of going back to work is very… different without you. It was a bit of a shock."

"I'm sorry," she whispered softly, raising her head, looking at him imploringly, her eyes swimming with tears. Something about him being back seemed to have knocked the lid off the hurt she had kept so carefully suppressed all these years.

His eyes widened in surprise as he saw her face and he reached out his hand for hers, covering her fingers, stroking her knuckles with his thumb.

"It's alright," he told her, "Phil, I'm not angry with you, I promise. Lissy," he told her steadily, as he saw her wiping her eyes, "Look at me."

She sniffed, meeting his eyes as best she could. He gave her a smile that she tried weakly to return.

"Charles told me, you know," he explained to her.

Her heart nearly fell out of her chest.

"What did he tell you?" she asked sharply, in a terrified whisper.

The strangeness of her tone registered with him, but he did not address it just now.

"About the operation you went on," he told her, "Just after I'd-… gone."

"Oh," Phyllis replied, her racing heart-rate settling down to normal, "Right. Yes."

It had been horrible. Charles had offered her time off, and she hadn't taken it. She should have taken it, but instead she went on another operation. It wasn't intended to be a honeytrap; Charles had better strategic awareness and, to be frank, better taste that to attempt such a thing at that time. But it had rapidly turned that way. The man they were observing under the premise of business negotiations was utterly corrupt- and a hardened womaniser. It took little more than the feeling of his hand on Phyllis knee before she fell apart, and the next thing she remembered clearly was sitting in Elsie's office at Thames House, a black eye, a blanket wrapped around her and Isobel from HR being sent for. It had been horrible, and she forced herself out of her recollections as a wave of nausea began to sweep over her.

"I don't like to think about it," she said simply.

"Of course not," he replied curtly.

There was something in his voice that she could not quite place, and then she realised that it was a hint of hostility, just a very slight one, but it was there nonetheless.

"I know what happened then was nothing compared to what happened to you, but it upset me so much because that man tried to seduce me," she told him plainly, "And for half a second it made me think of you. And it made me feel sick that I could think of you and him as like one another in any way, because you weren't. It was disgusting, it wasn't like how we were at all. I felt like I'd-… polluted a memory of you. And you didn't deserve that."

"I know," he told her gently, "You don't have to explain yourself to me."

For a second, though, it really felt that she had had to. She felt she needed to justify herself to him, because of his suffering.

"What did you think he'd told me?" he asked a moment later.

"When?" she asked, feigning confusing. She knew what he meant.

"Just now," he replied, "When I said that Charles had told me."

"What?" Phyllis replied, "I don't know. I can't remember."

She knew she had not convinced him, but he decided not to press the issue, for which she was very grateful. He seemed to exhale deeply, his eyes falling to her hands, examining the pale skin, smoothing over it again. He raised her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles, and her worries were momentarily assuaged. She gave him a careful smile.

"What did you talk to Charles about?" she asked him.

"What you'd expect, really," he answered, "Where he and Elsie are going over the summer and how the cricket's been these nine years."

She could not help but laugh a little, but it could not evade her that he was not ready to talk yet. He had known what she was really asking him; she had thought that maybe if he could tell Charles what had happened he could open up to her too.

"I just thought-…" she told him a little awkwardly, "If you had talked to Charles about it, maybe you might be ready to-…"

"Phil," he said gently, as gently as he could, she suspected, "I told you last night, you've got to give me some time. I will talk, I will tell you, but it will have to be after a little while. I can talk to Charles in a very clinical way about it all, in a way that I can't talk to you. You're different. Do you understand?"

She nodded haltingly, squeezing his hand. They were silent for a few long moments.

"So," he asked her gently, "You're a teacher?"

"Yes," she replied quietly, "It's funny, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is rather," he replied, only a little hollowly, "What age group?"

"Five year olds," she replied, adding unnecessarily, "They're only little. But it's a very good school," she told him, "Very nice area, very middle class. It's-… comparatively easy. Which is something I keep to myself in the staff room."

He grinned.

"That doesn't sound like you," he teased her gently, and then, "That sounds about as different as you can get from spying."

"Yes," she replied, "It's what I needed, I think. Everything was different without you."

The irony of what she had just said was not lost on her, and she felt a wave of guid wash over her again. It was her who had wanted to do this in the first place, her who had plaintively, naively invited him into this with her, her who had created this hell for him. No wonder he didn't want to talk to her about it. For another moment she could hardly look at him, she was so frightened of seeing disappointment in his eyes, or the same disgust that she felt at herself.

"Lissy," he asked her softly, a moment later when she did not come back to him, "Lissy, are you alright?"

She nodded.

"Do you just want to go to bed?" he asked her, "You look like you're quite tired."

Oh god, she did, she just wanted to go to bed as they had done last night and hold onto the front of his T shirt as she slept.

She shook her head.

"I've got marking to do," she replied.

"Do five year olds do work that needs marking?" he asked, looking appalled.

She smiled.

"I'm also teaching French to year six," she told him.

He smiled.

"What are you smiling at?" she asked him

"You were cut out for more," he said softly, "I knew it when we were at Oxford, Phil, you could change the world. You did."

She could only half-smile at his praise of her, which she felt wholly unworthy of.

"I still do," she told him, "But in smaller ways. And if I ever did, then you did too. You were always cut out for more."

"Yeah, well," he gave a low sigh, "I may have to come and be your classroom assistant for a while."

"Why?" she asked him, "Charles told me he was going to let you come back."

"He is," he replied, "Not straight away."

She could tell from his face that this arrangement made him deeply unhappy.

"Perhaps that's for the best," she suggested tentatively, "Maybe some rest will help."

It struck her that it was difficult for her to say this with any force or conviction when she was not sure what, precisely, it would help with. He too looked unconvinced.

"I want to work," he replied, "I always did."

She sighed quietly, because it was true. There was very little she could do but give him a look of sympathy.

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