From Russia with Love (Lucas/Vyeta- Drama/Romance- PG13) Chapter II

[lillianschild]

TITLE: From Russia with Love

SUMMARY: Lucas arrives home from Russia intent on getting his life back, including the love of a woman whose memory's kept him alive.

AUTHOR: Lexie aka lillianschild

RATING: PG-15/R

FANDOM: Spooks

PAIRING: Lucas/Vyeta

GENRE: Drama/romance

Disclaimer: all recognisable characters belong to BBC and Kudos Productions; I'm just playing with them for a little while without making a profit. No infringement's intended.

A/N: I’m going to use some events from the beginning of Series 7 and put my own spin on them to suit my needs. In other words, the plot’s going to be largely AU after Lucas’ introduction.

I can't stand Sarah Caulfield, and Maya's a reminder of the way TPTB destroyed Lucas' journey and Richard's painstaking work building the character, so neither of them was an option as a romantic couple for this fic.

I could have come up with an OC, I suppose. However, I loved most of the scenes Lucas was in with Vyeta and all the potential of their storyline, which was thrown down the drain pretty fast. I'm sorry, but never in a million years would they convince me Maya was the love of his life and the woman he'd never been able to forget after watching the way he was around his ex-wife in Series 7.

In short, I'm going to explore what could have been if the writers had done their work properly.

A/N 2:Here's one of my Lucas/Vyeta all-time favourite videos made by the wonderful Spikesbint. Not only does it share the same title, it goes perfectly with the plot of this tale.

Click to view

READ THE BEGINNING HERE.

CHAPTER II

Tuesday November 4th, 2008

Lucas buries his nose in his wife’s soft, perfumed hair and revels in the feel of her petite frame pressed close to him.

He reads hope, denial, love and guilt when she lets herself be wrapped in his arms. It’s too soon to start analysis and dissecting all the emotions which are transpiring between them; he wants to savour this reunion after being denied for so long.

“I know you must be asking yourself lots of questions,” he says quietly, swallowing the big lump in his throat before tucking a wisp of her hair behind her ear and wiping two tears off her cheeks with his thumbs. “My visit to Russia turned out to be a lot longer than I’d expected,” he smiles wryly, gripping her hand more tightly as if he were afraid she’d fly away.

“I never gave up hoping even when everybody said...”

“It was time to move on,” he completes her thought, looking at the engagement ring he'd seen sparkle in the park, before releasing her hand and stretching out an arm to grab one of the gilded frames lying on the baby piano. “May I?” he asks, seeing the fleeting look of angst in her eyes.

“Of course,” she murmurs shakily after a brief pause.

“People say having a child changes one’s outlook on life,” he says softly, tracing the infant’s features with loving fingers.

“It does...” she replies emotionally. “Lucas...”

“I saw you yesterday... in the park. He’s a beautiful child...” he interrupts her, setting the frame down to pick up the photo of the boy as a toddler.

“He’s my world. I don’t know what I would have done without him...”

“What’s his name?”

“Ioann.”

John. God is gracious.

“He has your dimples when he smiles.”

“That’s what papa says.”

“How’s Anatoly these days?”

“He’s been good to us...”

“You’re his daughter and Ioann’s a Starkov. I wouldn’t have expected any different.”

“Lucas... there’s something I have to tell you.”

“I’ve missed and lost many things since I boarded that plane bound for Russia, but my powers of observation aren’t amongst them, Vyeta.”

“Papa wanted him to be baptised as a Starkov alone... but it wouldn’t have been right.”

“I’ve heard Tom’s his godfather.”

Lucas had introduced her to Tom Quinn early in their marriage, and the former spy was the first person she went to when Arkady Kachimov turned up at her doorstep with news of her husband. She’d always trusted Lucas’ old friend, and he ended up being instrumental in her learning about Lucas’ real identity and job. To this day, she thanks God for putting both Tom and his American wife, former CIA agent Christine Dale, in her way. They were the only two people in the world who could understand what she was going through; the only ones she could talk to without having to resort to lies or subterfuge.

“He’s been a fabulous friend. “

“Has he?” he cocks a questioning eyebrow.

“He and his wife, Christine,” she adds quickly. “You’ll like her. They make a great couple.”

Tom Quinn. His best friend since university. The man who pushed him to apply for a job with MI5. The agent who got the promotion Lucas had been first in line for, the coveted promotion which undermined Lucas’ life with Vyeta and almost cost him his life.

Lucas feels a sudden envy towards Tom, wishes he’d had the courage to do what his friend did before losing it all. Harry still appears to begrudge his former Section chief and yet Lucas can’t help but admire the integrity shown by his son’s godfather.

The fact that Vyeta’s cultivated Tom’s friendship makes Lucas wonder how much of the truth she’s aware of and if his best friend felt the need to come clean with her. In any case, Lucas isn’t naïve enough to believe Kachimov’s approached her out of interest in Art. It also makes him wonder if Harry's suspicions are right.

She must already know the real reason behind her husband’s late nights at the office, the unexplained cuts and bruises in his body and an absence of eight years that can’t be explained as a business trip gone wrong.

“Vyeta...” he begins as she busies herself with the picture frames on top of the piano.

“Would you like to see him?” she cuts him off, unwilling to start dragging up the past the first night. “He’s gone to bed earlier than usual today. This afternoon’s football game wore him out,” she adds quietly.

“I’d love to,” he replies a few heartbeats later, struggling to ignore the sparkling diamond that adorns her ring finger.

Nothing, neither Anatoly Starkov nor a divorce or a man named Nicholas Sark is going to stop him from fighting to keep his family together now that he’s back home at last.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Friday November 7th, 2008

Three days later Lucas turns up at his father-in-law’s home in Belgravia; this time announced.

Although Vyeta has already talked with Anatoly to prepare the ground for their meeting, Lucas knows it won’t be an easy reunion, especially when the older man’s got his hopes pinned on her marriage to an affluent lawyer. Unlike Lucas, who's the son of a simple Methodist minister with no connections, Nicholas has the right background to be considered worthy of Anatoly’s only daughter.

Stella opens the door to him with a warm smile and a “Good evening, Mr North. It's good to have you back home.” before showing him to the drawing room.

On hearing the front door bell ring, Vyeta rushes through her grooming and curses her superior at the gallery for having detained her on her way out. She should have been ready for her outing sooner to cushion Lucas from her father's predictable animosity. Even though Anatoly grudgingly promised to her, after a full-blown argument, that he's going to be civil to his son-in-law for his grandson's sake and hers, she knows the longer both men are left alone in a room the more risks there are of an explosion of tempers. Lucas used to be the one who lasted longer in control of himself, but that was before; this man who's gone to hell and back she's yet to get reacquainted with.

“I've been back home several times in these past years. I still have good friends there. They offered my family help to track you down. You were nowhere to be found. It was clear to me then you were either dead or didn't want to be located. Seeing you standing here has finally provided me with the answer I've been looking for,” she hears her father say coldly as she approaches the drawing room.

“This might be hard to believe or understand, Anatoly, but if I'd been able to call or contact Vyeta, I would have done it. However, it was physically impossible.”

“Physically impossible? “

Vyeta comes to a stop a few steps away from the door standing ajar, curious to find out what argument Lucas is going to use to justify his absence to her father.

She hasn't given Anatoly any explanations, despite his insistent prodding, because she knows what it's like to feel one's no longer in control of one's life. Her husband's owed this moment; he should have the choice of deciding the way he wants to come back after having been stripped off the power to chart his own life for eight long years.

“Soon after my arrival in Moscow I was assaulted as I was leaving a business meeting. They beat me up, stole everything I had on me and left me for dead on the side of a deserted road. A couple of farmers found me in a ditch and took me in.”

“That was seven and a half years ago, Lucas. What kept you from coming back when you'd pulled through?” asks the older man with barely disguise ire in his voice. “Do you have any idea what hell you put my daughter through? Not only did she have to handle your abandonment she had to deal with a difficult pregnancy on her own. If I hadn't decided it was time to leave France and had the foresight of taking that taxi to your flat after hearing Vyeta's voice on the phone, you would have had neither a wife nor a son to come back to.”

“Papa, that's enough,” snaps Vyeta tensely, barging into the room and looking at her father with clear censure in her eyes.

Lucas can sense Anatoly's simmering rage crackling in the air and an equally powerful feeling of impotence and self-loath bubbling within himself for having put his career and his duty to his country first when his wife and his marriage needed him the most. Not for the first time he wishes he'd known Vyeta was with child, perhaps he'd have acted differently, perhaps he'd have told her the truth then... and perhaps he'd have ended up losing both of them for good.

It's no use pondering on what ifs. He needs to focus on the here and now if he's ever to get the chance of knowing and hugging the son whose journey into this world he missed, if he's ever to shed the ghosts he's brought with him from Russia and dispel the doubts Harry's chat has planted in his mind.

“It's all right, Vyeta. I too would begrudge my son-in-law if I were in your father's shoes,” he says in a calm voice. “You see, Anatoly, I was held back against my will... “

“What? You were kidnapped? Imprisoned?” frowns his father-in-law.

“I've been imprisoned in my mind for a very long time... Amnesia,” replies Lucas, looking at Vyeta out of the corner of his eye to gauge her reaction.

“Amnesia?” echoes Anatoly, studying Lucas with a speculative eye. “Did you know this, doch’ka?”

Vyeta looks down at her feet before raising her eyes to meet Lucas' and nods slowly.

“Why did you keep it from me? Why did you let me...?” starts her father.

“Would it have made any difference? “ she cuts him off. “I've let you take the reins of my life for far too long. I thank you for being there when I needed you, Papa, but it's time Ioann and I moved out.”

“Vyeta, doch’ka....”

“Stella's already helping us pack. I'm sorry, Papa. I won't change my mind.“

“You turn up after eight years, having miraculously regained your memories and in less than three days you've got her wrapped round your little finger once again. What have you told her this time to have her turn her back on her family?” he glares at the younger man.

“Please, Lucas, don't,” she stays her ex-husband, placing a hand on the sleeve of his jacket. “I don't want to fight with you over this, Papa. When are you going to understand it's never been a competition to see which of you would get me? I'll always be your daughter, but you have no right to ask me to choose between you or to dictate what I should do with my life.”

“Are you moving in... with him?” asks Anatoly gruffly, ignoring his son-in-law's grim expression.

“With all due respect, sir. I don't think your daughter has made up her mind about anything yet. And, in any case, it's a question that concerns only she and I. Now, if you'll excuse us, we've got a dinner reservation,” replies Lucas in a no-nonsense tone which puts an end to the unsavoury confrontation.

“I'm sorry about that,” says Vyeta quietly when Lucas puts the key in the ignition of his car. “I should have known better. I could have taken a taxi to the restaurant or agree to meet elsewhere.”

“Our paths had to cross sooner or later. And this was bound to happen no matter how much you might have wished to put it off. Your father's never made a secret of his dislike for me, and I don't see how that would have changed after my eight-year-long inexplicable absence. I expected this, Vyeta, and to a great extent I deserved it.”

“That's not true... You had no say in the decision to stay away for so long. You said so yourself. ”

“I volunteered for the job; it was my choice, my responsibility. If I'd known that you were pregnant... At the airport... did you know? When you told me you wanted a divorce... were you already aware you were with child?”

“No,” she replies quietly.

“You know I had no amnesia, don't you, Vyeta?”

A sudden silence descends over them, one pregnant with questions he doesn't dare to ask and whose answers she wishes she could put off for as long as she can.

“Vyeta?” he prods gently.

“I just... just wish to pretend for one night that...” she swallows, making a desperate effort to keep the tears at bay. “Could we... please, Lucas?”

He wishes he had the strength left in him to say no, to demand an answer from her and put an end to this agonising wait but one look at her convinces him they both need this respite, a refuge from the wounds and the cruel hand of fate.

All of a sudden he feels the need to go back to innocent times when he still felt having a normal life separate from work- a loving wife and a family to come to at the end of the day- was possible; his little cocoon of safety and quietude amidst the chaos and craziness of the real world.

“I don’t feel like dining in a stuffy French restaurant after all. Do you? How about some fish and chips?” he suggests, seeing her smile and start to relax.

“I’d like that a lot,” she replies, fastening her seat belt.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Monday November 10th, 2008

It's three o'clock in the morning and the moon bathes the king-sized bed where only one body lies asleep.

A slight sheen of perspiration gleams on her brow and neck as the fingers of her right hand grip the headboard and a soft moan escapes through her lips. She's dreaming about a pair of blue-grey eyes charged with passion and tenderness and broad shoulders that block the moonshine when he covers her with his lean and shapely body.

“Lucas...” she moans, yearning for the moment their bodies become one and she can feel whole again. But that moment doesn't arrive, and the mouth that has been hovering over her lips taunting her with a kiss she's been denied for eight long years makes a detour and whispers a word in her ear which feels like a dagger in her heart- “Traitor.”

Her own uncontrollably loud sobs wake her up all of a sudden, and she sits up in bed, breathless and disoriented. Through the veil of tears she looks around the bedroom and realises she's no longer in the room that has been hers since she was born but in the bed she's occupied since she got married; only this time she's woken up alone and there's not even a head dent or a trace of vanilla on the pillow next to hers.

A dream. It was only a dream.

She wraps he arms around her bended knees, rocking to and fro, trying to get her breath back.

Lucas isn't a dream any more. He's alive and she saw him, talked to him and touched him two nights ago. And alone in the bed where he gave her their child she yearns for the caresses of his hands and the feel of his lips on her mouth and her skin.

She misses him more now than ever before and can barely control the urge to pick up the phone and call him, to give in to what she's read in his eyes. She knows that he's probably lying awake haunted my memories of his imprisonment and that a simple call would have him ringing at her door in fifteen minutes; that's how long it'd take him to drive to their home. But it'd be a mistake.

Fresh tears well up in her eyes, tears of relief because he's alive and back home. And she can't remember ever feeling this happy, not since their son's birth when she believed Ioann was the only piece of her husband she'd ever be allowed to have and hold in the years to come.

And yet, the experience is bittersweet. She remembers what it felt like to be held in Lucas' arms once more, to look into the blue-grey eyes she'd missed so much and knows she loves him still. And that realisation fills her with unbearable anguish because she knows what this means. Lucas might want to pick things up where they left them before he took that fateful flight; however, Vyeta doubts she'll ever have the strength necessary to survive loving him the way he needs to be loved, especially now after the hell he's gone through.

GO TO CHAPTER III