'What was it you wanted to talk to me about?'

I'd already forgotten by the time we were out in the hallway; I'd been way too busy thinking about all the things that could go wrong now that Becker had been discharged from our care.

'Hmm? Oh…'

And I wasn't exactly good at this sort of thing. I'd never been anyone's boss before. The only people I was good at telling off were Connor, and Danny sometimes, but I definitely knew them both well enough to say anything I wanted out right without worrying how they'd take it. And without really thinking about it I instinctively just got straight to the point. 'Where do you disappear off to?' I asked, 'when you're not in the chair?'

'Oh,' he returned like he was surprised someone could have noticed that. 'I… um… I have a dad in a care home nearby,' he explained, as we rounded the corner of the corridor that led down to Ops. 'He's had a terminal diagnosis.'

'Okay,' I returned with a nod. Because I didn't want to say "I'm sorry" or "oh, Matt…" because I'd heard that enough in my own life that I knew the pity was just as destroying. The Rolling Stones got it wrong. Sympathy was the devil.

My phone started ringing for a third time. I pulled it out of my pocket again and once more looked at the unknown number on my caller I.D.

'Do you want to answer?' Matt asked.

'What?' I realised I was zoning out. 'Oh.' I declined the call. 'No. What is it?'

'The doctors aren't sure,' he answered calmly. 'All we know is he's getting worse. He's got months, at the most.'

'You can take time off you know,' I said, because I wished I had– not that I'd ever been able to because I didn't function like that.

'I'm the only Field–Co we've got,' he replied.

'Yeah,' I agreed, 'and you did a really good job today. But we have more than enough people to cover for you for a little while. I'll stick Connor in the chair, he'll love it.'

Matt let out a laugh. 'You think so?'

'That detector is a serious upgrade,' I explained, 'from what we had. We built the old one with bits we had lying around, and some of the components were from my Nana's old slower cooker. Every few months the machine used to overheat and the whole A.R.C started smelling like Caribbean pulled pork.'

'No, that still happens,' he replied. 'It's the same machine underneath it's just had a bit of a face lift.'

'Oh.' And on cue we came round the corner and into Ops to face it. I'd never taken a moment before to consider how lucky we were to have it. Connor and Danny were already there, standing around my desk waiting for me as we crossed the landing. 'Oh,' I repeated as I made my way down the steps, 'hello people who don't work here.'

'Hi!' Connor responded with an eager grin. 'Can we go home now?'

I cocked my head. 'You guys can go you know, you don't have to wait for me.' They both started chuckling sarcastically, and my eyes just rolled in reflex. 'Okay, one minute then. Matt? You got those files for me?'

He was already in his chair behind the detector. He lifted a folder by way of explanation so I went to collect it. 'There's no rush, by the way,' he explained as he handed it over.

'Okay, thanks,' I returned, 'and listen… that time off…'

'I'll get back to you,' he said.

I nodded. 'Alright.' And I waved again as I went back towards the others. By now, Danny had become distracted and was messing with the things stacked up in the clear cupboard beside my desk; the Walkman detector, the coin from William, an original palm–held detector with its H–shaped aerial –because the new A.R.C had even updated these much to my dismay.

And as soon as he saw me coming back towards him, he stopped fiddling and shut the case.

'How's soldier boy doing?' he questioned as he turned and leant back against the edge of my desk.

'He's gonna be just fine,' I returned reassuringly, 'he's already on his way home to get some rest.'

'Good, that's good,' he echoed in response, 'oh, and your issue from earlier with…'

Danny didn't much like Philip either– something I found rather comforting because Danny Quinn was an excellent judge of character, and if he didn't like you there was usually a very good reason for that. And given how we'd met, I was rather glad we'd managed to bring him round to our side.

I sighed. 'Philip wanted to put down all the animals in the menagerie.'

Connors eyes widened. 'What?' he demanded.

'He changed his mind,' I continued in clarification.

Connor bumbled in relief for a second or two, like his brain couldn't process the idea that his own personal hero had it in his to do something so heinous. 'Of course he did!'

I made an uncertain sort of noise. 'I got the feeling he wasn't very happy about it,' I said. Even though in reality I knew he wasn't happy about it, but I wasn't going to breakdown his illusion if he was happy, as long as Philip didn't consider doing anything like this again in the future. 'You know what, it's sorted, let's just go home.'

My phone started ringing again. This time the sigh tore straight out of me and it was loud and sort of uncontrolled.

'Oh for god's sake, what?' I pulled my phone out and flipped it open. The line connected. 'Yes?'

'Hello there, is that Anna Havisham?'

'Yes,' I repeated, somewhat confused– because surely they should know that if they were the one ringing me whoever they were.

'I'm craving pizza,' Danny announced.

Connor gasped. 'I'm craving pizza,' he agreed. 'it's a sign. We're getting pizza.'

'Should we get –'

'stuffed crust?' they suggested together.

Connor caught my eye. 'A. Stuffed crust, yes or no?' I flapped a hand at him. He sighed. 'Who is it?' he asked.

But I couldn't hear because he was talking over the voice on the other end. I held up a finger. 'Sorry- hang on a sec-' I lowered the phone for a second to say to the guys 'I'll be right back' before I walked up the steps and rounded the corner to a quiet hallway. 'Right, say that again.'

The words on the other end were repeated.

The shock slowed my processing speed. My eyebrows rose in surprise. 'What?'

Connor and Danny hadn't moved when I came back to my desk a few minutes later. Connor was the first one to notice me again. I walked straight towards them, brow still furrowed in confusion as I stopped, then looked back over my shoulder towards the corridor where I'd just been standing like I was dubious of the whole experience.

'Are you okay?' Connor asked.

My mouth opened but nothing came out straight away. I looked back down at my open phone in my hand and lifted it. 'I just had the strangest conversation…' I said.

Connor frowned. 'What? Who was it?'

'M.I.6.' There was another moment of quiet where the guys looked at each other and then back at me.

'You what?' Danny asked.

'They offered me a job,' I said. It didn't make any sense.

'Are you gonna accept it?' Connor questioned.

'Of course I'm not,' I answered. My head turned again, looking around at an almost empty room. 'I think some one's trying to get rid of me.' One guess who.

'You don't know that,' Connor countered.

'Ace, you're brilliant, of course the S.I.S wants you.' I think one secret government organisation might have been enough for me. 'You're not even going to consider it?'

Of course I wasn't. I wasn't going anywhere. I wasn't going to abandon my work and I wasn't going to leave my family and even if I had wanted to it wasn't anywhere near that simple. I would have to sign over my rights to my work for a start if I wanted to leave.

I wasn't going to let Philip get his hands on any of it.

And I couldn't leave Connor, and I couldn't leave Danny. I paused. Beckers words from earlier suddenly echoed through my head. And as though Connor could sense mental drifting, he nudged me with his foot. 'A,' he prompted, 'talk about an opportunity. We should talk about it over one large pepperoni and one large meat feast with stuffed crust, yeah?'

That was exactly what I'd been thinking about having for dinner.

My eyes narrowed suspiciously. 'Do you think we're all a bit co–dependant.' But as soon as the words were out my mouth I'd started to think better of it. That sounded ridiculous. My eyes rolled. 'No–' My attention snapped up to both the guys.

Danny looked back at me in amusement. 'Did you just answer your own question?'

'At the same time we did?' Connor finished.

I sighed. 'I mean… maybe…' and now I couldn't tell if we were or we weren't. 'We're all fine, right?' I clarified.

The silence was suspicious.

I eyed them both in turn, like I was aware we were now all thinking the same thing.

'I'm thinking of a number–'

'27,' Connor interrupted.

'We need to spend some time away from each other,' I concluded, and I turned quickly to walk back to the staircase. Even just a minute away from them would probably do me some good.

I took my car and left a message with the guard in the car park to tell Danny and Connor to take a truck back to Connors when they left.

It was dark by the time reached the house. And when I cut the engine and pulled the keys from the ignition, I had to just sit there in the silence for a minute or two.

The walk up the front path from the gate to the door felt completely surreal.

The key felt stiff when I pushed it into the lock, but the lock was frozen from disuse and I had to wiggle it a few times before I could get it to turn. Then I finally pushed the front door open to reveal a dark but familiar hallway.

I clicked on the light. The hallway lit up, illuminating the pictures on the wall and the books stacked up on the shelves of the sideboard.

I stepped over the mound of post on the mat and shut the door behind me.

It still smelt exactly the same, like Nick's cologne combined with a mixture of my perfume, old books and leather. It was like no time had passed at all. It felt like only yesterday that we'd stumbled home, always talking or laughing about something, heading straight up the stairs to bed.

It felt like yesterday that I'd last fallen asleep with his arms around me.

The reality was much longer. I hadn't been ready before; I hadn't been able to bring myself to come back here; the grief had been suffocating. Now I was desperately clinging onto any reminder I had of him when everything else around me seemed desperate to forget.

Nick's jacket was still on the sofa in the lounge, just draped across the arm. There were still a thousand piles of books and papers and boxes just stacked up in random places throughout the room. I couldn't remember the last time I'd looked through any of them.

Who knew what sort of scientific break throughs could be found in there. Right now I didn't give a fuck.

I headed upstairs, pushed the bedroom door open and stepped inside.

The bed was nothing but a dark, ominous shape, barely indistinguishable in the beams of the streetlight cutting through the slits in the blinds.

And the room was obviously exactly how we'd left it. Couple of pairs of shoes scattered across the carpet, wardrobe doors ajar, towel thrown over the door.

And the last time we'd been here was that morning before the anomaly in the hospital, I'd only been half dressed when I started shouting for him and he'd come running out the bathroom without a shirt, hair wet and pushed back, tripping through the doorway.

I'd only just put on a shirt over my underwear when I was sure I'd felt the baby move. I grabbed his hand, sliding it up my shirt to cover the bump just as the baby moved again.

I would never forget the look on his face at that moment. He'd never held such childish excitement in his eyes.

He'd tackled me back onto the bed, unbuttoned my shirt, and laid between my legs to rest his head on the bump.

I threw the file onto the bed and crawled up after it, dragging the duvet up over me and laying my head on his pillow.

There was a pen on his bedside among other things: a stack of books, an empty glass, a set of crumpled receipts along with some loose change out his pocket.

A picture in a frame stood behind it. And I looked really beautiful in it– I never thought that about myself but there, standing in the garden in a beautiful dress, leaning back against Nick and smiling like I'd never felt a scrap of emotion that wasn't happiness, I looked ethereal. I'm sure it was the way I felt in that moment that made me look that way.

I reached out to grab the photo to study Nicks face a little closer.

His eyes were so bright, so blue and brilliant that for a moment it really felt he was there looking back at me.

And I could feel myself smiling just from the memory of him, because somehow, now, I could feel how happy I'd been in that moment and it started bleeding back into me.

I felt my eyes welling up, but I wiped them quickly and laughed to myself as I laid the picture back on the side table and picked up the pen. Then, half curled up under the bedding with one arm beneath the pillow and the other sliding the file from atop the covers towards me, I started flicking through, adding my signature to the bottom of scientific lab requests and random reports and security assessments.

I was asleep long before I could finish.