Fic post!
Fic! Actual fic!
I KNOW. WTF.
Spooks, post s9 AU.
Title: Reaching Out
Summary: “I wasn’t expecting you.”
Notes: Post-series 9 AU. This came about indirectly because delgaserasca and I were discussing an AU were everyone was evil (by the time we started writing stuff it ended up really quite different). Admittedly this fic is little more than a scene from what would be a long series-parallel AU fic where various people - in this case Lucas, Ruth, Ros, Zaf etc - were traitors within MI5 (like Nightingale but not). Sadly I don’t think I’ll write it (which doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll never write an everyone-is-evil AU, hahaha). Unbeta’d.
Title from a Nero song, chosen at the very last minute.
--
Ruth got to the hospital mid-afternoon, letting the flow of people carry her along and trying to look like she knew where she was going. She didn’t want to ask for directions and risk someone remembering that, so she’d checked out the hospital online for a general idea of the layout.
She was only here because Harry had let slip he didn’t have a guard on John. He’d seen - correctly - that the urge to fight or run had gone right out of him. John was in a confessional mood now, and Harry had got so caught up in what he knew that he hadn’t considered whether Vaughn Edwards might not have been the only person to want John out of the way.
She liked Harry, but he could be remarkably short-sighted. Still, at least this time was to her benefit.
She glanced in doors, considering whether she should have added a white coat to her outfit today. She wasn’t standing out right now by any means, but you could get away with a lot in the right clothes.
She hoped John would be conscious and lucid when she found him. She needed to find out his status now, and more pertinently, how much of their cover was blown.
She found him in a private room on the third floor (organised by Harry, no doubt). He had his eyes closed but opened them as she walked in to the room.
“Hi,” he said quietly, “I wasn’t expecting you.”
I’m sure you weren’t, Ruth thought bitterly, but she didn’t let that show.
“I wanted to see how you were.”
“Which explains the wig and the contacts, obviously.”
“After what you did, I couldn’t think of a reason why Ruth Evershed would want to visit John Bateman.”
John nodded, looking like he understood.
“I’m sorry. For the kidnap. I didn’t want -“
“You didn’t know what you wanted,” Ruth interrupts.
“True,” he admitted, “I let everything get away from me. All the names, all the identities, all the things we’ve done. I forgot who I was supposed to be.”
“What did you tell Harry?”
“I told him I used to be John Bateman. I told him about Vaughn. I told him about becoming Lucas North. I didn’t tell him anything else.”
“You didn’t tell him about me?” Ruth asked, wanting it confirmed.
“No. No, I wouldn’t do that.”
“And you didn’t tell him about the others?”
“No.”
“Good. So my cover’s not blown.”
John shakes his head, and Ruth thinks it over. It’s a better result than she was expecting, in all honesty. He’s made himself look like a lone madman. If only he could have found some overarching purpose to all this, it would have been excellent work.
“That’s good,” Ruth says, “I was worried you might have told Harry everything.”
“I wouldn’t put you in danger like that,” he says, and this is why he’s always been so frustrating. He never seems to understand that trying to kill someone - someone on your own team - is putting them in as much danger as blowing their cover.
Russia broke John in a lot of interesting and horrifying ways, and Ruth has never been quite convinced that he should have come back at all.
“So what are you going to do next?”
“Go back to prison, probably,” he admits, “I don’t think I’m getting out of this one.”
Murder, attempted murder, treason - and that’s only the last week. They’ll lock him up and throw away the key. He sounds so despondent about it that it makes up her mind.
“I’m sorry for all the trouble,” he says, and Ruth wants to laugh. Trouble. That’s one way of putting it.
She shrugs, “I’ve survived worse.”
He laughs, but it quickly turns in to a cough, and as he hunches forward, Ruth takes her chance.
“Here, let me help you.”
She reaches over to shift his pillows and takes one of them, and when he lies back she puts it over his face as quickly as she can and holds it there.
John struggles - of course - but she holds on, and he gives up faster than a man his size should. That, she thinks, is not entirely surprising. She waits, still pushing the pillow down, until she’s sure he’s suffocated. She searches for a pulse, and it’s a relief when she can’t find one. She rearranges the pillows carefully, and leaves him looking like he’s sleeping.
It’s just her now. She doubts anyone would have expected her to be the last one standing back when she was recruited. She certainly didn’t expect it, not with the company she kept.
Ruth has no idea where she goes from here. She’s got some reach and influence, but guidance on what to with that has been thin on the ground lately. She suspects that the recent losses have damaged her by association, and they’re hoping she’ll just keep her head down and maintain her cover indefinitely.
They’re going to get a nasty shock. This entry was originally posted at http://hestia8.dreamwidth.org/34436.html.
I KNOW. WTF.
Spooks, post s9 AU.
Title: Reaching Out
Summary: “I wasn’t expecting you.”
Notes: Post-series 9 AU. This came about indirectly because delgaserasca and I were discussing an AU were everyone was evil (by the time we started writing stuff it ended up really quite different). Admittedly this fic is little more than a scene from what would be a long series-parallel AU fic where various people - in this case Lucas, Ruth, Ros, Zaf etc - were traitors within MI5 (like Nightingale but not). Sadly I don’t think I’ll write it (which doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll never write an everyone-is-evil AU, hahaha). Unbeta’d.
Title from a Nero song, chosen at the very last minute.
--
Ruth got to the hospital mid-afternoon, letting the flow of people carry her along and trying to look like she knew where she was going. She didn’t want to ask for directions and risk someone remembering that, so she’d checked out the hospital online for a general idea of the layout.
She was only here because Harry had let slip he didn’t have a guard on John. He’d seen - correctly - that the urge to fight or run had gone right out of him. John was in a confessional mood now, and Harry had got so caught up in what he knew that he hadn’t considered whether Vaughn Edwards might not have been the only person to want John out of the way.
She liked Harry, but he could be remarkably short-sighted. Still, at least this time was to her benefit.
She glanced in doors, considering whether she should have added a white coat to her outfit today. She wasn’t standing out right now by any means, but you could get away with a lot in the right clothes.
She hoped John would be conscious and lucid when she found him. She needed to find out his status now, and more pertinently, how much of their cover was blown.
She found him in a private room on the third floor (organised by Harry, no doubt). He had his eyes closed but opened them as she walked in to the room.
“Hi,” he said quietly, “I wasn’t expecting you.”
I’m sure you weren’t, Ruth thought bitterly, but she didn’t let that show.
“I wanted to see how you were.”
“Which explains the wig and the contacts, obviously.”
“After what you did, I couldn’t think of a reason why Ruth Evershed would want to visit John Bateman.”
John nodded, looking like he understood.
“I’m sorry. For the kidnap. I didn’t want -“
“You didn’t know what you wanted,” Ruth interrupts.
“True,” he admitted, “I let everything get away from me. All the names, all the identities, all the things we’ve done. I forgot who I was supposed to be.”
“What did you tell Harry?”
“I told him I used to be John Bateman. I told him about Vaughn. I told him about becoming Lucas North. I didn’t tell him anything else.”
“You didn’t tell him about me?” Ruth asked, wanting it confirmed.
“No. No, I wouldn’t do that.”
“And you didn’t tell him about the others?”
“No.”
“Good. So my cover’s not blown.”
John shakes his head, and Ruth thinks it over. It’s a better result than she was expecting, in all honesty. He’s made himself look like a lone madman. If only he could have found some overarching purpose to all this, it would have been excellent work.
“That’s good,” Ruth says, “I was worried you might have told Harry everything.”
“I wouldn’t put you in danger like that,” he says, and this is why he’s always been so frustrating. He never seems to understand that trying to kill someone - someone on your own team - is putting them in as much danger as blowing their cover.
Russia broke John in a lot of interesting and horrifying ways, and Ruth has never been quite convinced that he should have come back at all.
“So what are you going to do next?”
“Go back to prison, probably,” he admits, “I don’t think I’m getting out of this one.”
Murder, attempted murder, treason - and that’s only the last week. They’ll lock him up and throw away the key. He sounds so despondent about it that it makes up her mind.
“I’m sorry for all the trouble,” he says, and Ruth wants to laugh. Trouble. That’s one way of putting it.
She shrugs, “I’ve survived worse.”
He laughs, but it quickly turns in to a cough, and as he hunches forward, Ruth takes her chance.
“Here, let me help you.”
She reaches over to shift his pillows and takes one of them, and when he lies back she puts it over his face as quickly as she can and holds it there.
John struggles - of course - but she holds on, and he gives up faster than a man his size should. That, she thinks, is not entirely surprising. She waits, still pushing the pillow down, until she’s sure he’s suffocated. She searches for a pulse, and it’s a relief when she can’t find one. She rearranges the pillows carefully, and leaves him looking like he’s sleeping.
It’s just her now. She doubts anyone would have expected her to be the last one standing back when she was recruited. She certainly didn’t expect it, not with the company she kept.
Ruth has no idea where she goes from here. She’s got some reach and influence, but guidance on what to with that has been thin on the ground lately. She suspects that the recent losses have damaged her by association, and they’re hoping she’ll just keep her head down and maintain her cover indefinitely.
They’re going to get a nasty shock. This entry was originally posted at http://hestia8.dreamwidth.org/34436.html.