QT:UK - Chapters 10 & 11 (Patreon)

Here's the final(ish) versions of Chapters 10 & 11 bar any mistakes I find before it ends up public elsewhere. Thanks for the support and patience. Enjoy!

Chapter 10 - 25th October 2020

“Anas, what the fuck are you doing!”

A woman’s voice shouted from somewhere very nearby, fraught and demanding, but Aoife couldn’t see where from. Instead, from where she lay, wet in the mud, her attention was very much on the dulled metal of the shotgun barrels pointed down towards her. The firearm was a dated, functional thing at best, the sort that she could only imagine must have sat half-used in a farmer’s shed for years, but the middle eastern looking man holding it certainly didn’t seem like the sort to spend much time in the country shooting at pheasants. The thin coat, high street gloves and dirt smeared jeans he wore definitely didn’t scream that he was someone in his element. Nor did the inexpert way he cradled the gun with one hand as he attempted to readjust a poorly fitting dust mask around his dark face. No, instead the tall awkwardness screamed that he was someone who felt very out of his depth, and Aoife couldn’t tell if that made him more or less dangerous.

“You get your kicks from roughing up girls half your size, that it Big Man?”

The reaction to the indignity of finding herself on the ground came out of Aoife like a reflex. She was pretty sure antagonising him wasn’t the smartest thing in the world, but her mouth worked before her brain could; as if it was doing its best, along with the glare on her face, to keep her from noticing how fucking scared she was.

The man, who she presumed was called Anas, looked back over his shoulder, nerves obvious as he protested to his companion. His voice surprised Aoife with how young it was, laced with a posh southern accent that suggested whatever his roots were he was at least 2nd or 3rd generation. “‘If you think she’s going to leave, sort her out,’ you said.”

“I didn’t mean like that!”

“What was I meant to think that you meant?!”

Although the gun remained pointed far too much in her direction for even Aoife to feel bold or stupid enough to try something, the man was distracted for long enough for her to push herself up onto her elbows and reorient herself. Making her way over from behind the same crest of rocks that Anas must have emerged from, was a woman not much taller than herself, although she was clearly more at home out here than either Aoife or her assailant. Her coat and boots actually appeared suitable for the hillside for a start, the sort of thing she could imagine belonging on a farm, and she half expected a sheep dog to appear alongside the woman. Unlike Anas however, she was mask free, with a drawn-up scarf the only attempt at covering a young face that was all tired angles and sallow lines.

Aoife’s beanie had fallen away as she’d gone to ground, leaving the frayed ends of her hair to spill loose about her face, while her own Palisade issued respirator had been pushed down slightly towards her chin. Fresh, hillside air tickled at her nose through the broken seal, and although for a moment her instinct was to grab her hat before anything else, feeling naked without it, she had enough presence of mind to attempt to fix the askew mask first. As she sat up to do so however, the other woman picked up her pace, closing the distance to them while shouting at Anas.

“Now she’s on the ground don’t just let her sit up,” the woman said, her own voice carrying a  Yorkshire demanding twang.

He looked back at her, spreading his arms slightly in consternation. He was also younger than Aoife realised at first, still somewhere in his twenties and it was evident he had no small amount of agitation for the situation he found himself in. And as he spoke that anxiety swelled up, argumentative. If this was something they’d planned for he was doing a terrible job. “Why do you think I know what it is I’m expected to be doing? It’s not as if I’ve done this before.”

There wasn’t an immediate answer however, as the other woman ignored him for a moment. Instead, she opted to cover the final few steps towards Aoife, and harshly shoved the Scottish girl back flat into the mud with a boot on her shoulder.

“Hey! Get the fuck off me you fucking head case!” Again, the words spilled out of Aoife long before her head had a chance to decide if they were a good idea or not. “I don’t know what your problem is.”

The other woman glared at her from beneath a tangle of long blonde hair, daring her to keep talking, then looked at Anas and realised whatever confused decisiveness had led to him charging Aoife had stalled entirely. His feet were beyond cold and his body language screamed equivocation while the shotgun fell lower, losing intent as he spoke. “At least let her fix her mask.”

“You’re joking right,” came the curt reply.

“I don’t know?” The Arabic man responded,  “I told you this was a terrible idea.”

“Well, you’re also the one who said that the world wasn’t leaving us with good ones.” Her tone was harsh, as if she felt Anas needed to grow some backbone but at the same time wasn’t surprised to find that he wasn’t. Her attention caught the indecision with which he held the shotgun, and with an exasperated noise, reached to take it from him even as she moved him aside brusquely with her shoulder. Somewhere, at the back of her mind, Aoife found herself with an unwanted twinge of sympathy for Anas as he shifted uncomfortably in the face of his more overbearing friend. He felt more awkward with every moment, with too many soft edges for this sort of hard faced work.

If she’d let that thin crack of understanding remain for more than a moment she might have wondered just what path led someone like him to being here like this. But with the woman now standing over, framed by steel grey sky and with her silhouette made broader and more imposing by the thick coat she was wearing, the feeling didn’t last long enough. Instead, Aoife reached out and clung to the petulant anger that was the only thing keeping her own nerves from leaving her to sink into the mud.

“You’re taking that out of context,” he mumbled, half apologetically.

“And you’re forgetting what they’re all doing down there.” There was a tip of the woman’s head back down the hill in the direction of the Hall, small in the near distance. But her hands remained fixed on the gun, held towards Aoife with all the purpose Anas had lacked. “If you want answers from them, they aren’t just going to give them to you.”

Anas turned to glance back towards Taymont as the wind picked up, pulling green strands of Aoife’s hair across her face. The pause was long enough for the engineer to realise just how cold she was starting to get and she found herself pushed to speak again, almost reasoning that no matter how much it annoyed the other woman it was better than freezing to death in a puddle.

“Look, I don’t want to interrupt whatever this is between you two but I’d quite like to get up off the fucking ground now, if it’s fine with you.”

“You really need to stop talking unless you’re being spoken to.” The woman was impassive, before jabbing the end of the shotgun into the bottom of Aoife’s ribs.  “Give me your ID.”

Aoife found herself glaring back rather than moving, only for the words to be repeated slower and more firmly, as if she was too stupid to have understood the first time.

“Give me your ID.”

Carefully, the green haired engineer reached into her jeans pocket, reaching for the NEBC lanyard she’d stopped actually wearing weeks ago, after anyone had stopped caring enough to check. Reluctantly, she offered it upwards with an outstretched hand, only for the petty side of her nature to win out as the other woman’s fingertips brushed the plastic. With a defiant flick of her wrist, Aoife tossed the badge aside, throwing it several feet away to land with a soft slap in the mud. Pointless, yes. Stupid, very. But even so, seeing the displeased exasperation creeping out from behind the woman’s pulled up scarf made her feel just a little better. The world was leaving her needing small victories, no matter how childish they were, even before she’d been waylaid.

“Oops.”

The frustrated sigh from the other woman was audible, even though it was only a small ask for Anas to fetch it from the nearby ground and bring it to her expectantly waiting hand so she could read it. “Aoife Ryan…you don’t look like much of a head engineer.”

“Aye, well it’s not like I was anyone’s first choice.” She only noticed the melancholy in her own voice after the words had already passed her lips. And for the first time since she’d noticed something was wrong up there on the hill, her thoughts failed to keep the terrible shape of what she’d learnt from the harddrive at arms reach. The memory of it came at her with a jolt, and she tried to do her best to shove it away again. Luckily, she had plenty of practice at burying feelings she told herself she didn’t have the luxury of being able to deal with.

Besides, if Ethan said it was going to be ok…

Fuck. Ethan. Would he worry if something happened to her up here? Would he come looking for her?

It was a couple of seconds before Aoife realised the blonde with the gun hadn’t immediately replied to her, and she looked up to see genuine agitation from her for the first time. “What do you mean you’re not…” Apparently she had caught some implication in what Aoife had just said that had bothered her. “Shit, they’re just as desperate as the rest of us.”

The rest of them? Had she thought that the NEBC was part of something that was keeping itself above what was going on with the rest of the world? That there was some greater context to all this bullshit she might be able to find here? If so, Aoife could see how knowing that they were also relying on people like her just to keep going would disarm the other woman. If you were imaging villains, it must be scary to realise they were down in the muck with you.

Anas was the next to speak, his tone sounding as if he was trying to bargain with the situation as much as he was with his companion. “This was definitely a bad idea. Maybe she’s just as out of her depth as we are.”

That, at least, was hard for Aoife not to see the humour in. “Mate, no-one’s as out of their depth as you are.”

He did his best to ignore her, but allowed a brief flicker of hurt show regardless before continuing. “Hayley, She might not even know - “

“No! It doesn’t matter.” The reaction from the woman Aoife finally had a name for was laced with a swell of anger, hot, wounded and emphatic. And for the first time since taking the gun, Hayley looked away from Aoife and gave a sharp gesture in the direction of the hall. “They’re still lying to us down there! You know they’re lying to us. She is still part of that. People deserve to know whatever’s going on.”

Aoife knew she wasn’t as astute at reading people as Ethan was, but even she could pick up on the subtext to what Hayley was saying. ‘I deserve to know what’s going on’. There was too much emotion sitting ragged on the surface of what she was saying to escape that some sort of pain had brought her this far. The worst part however was the unpleasant feeling that Hayley was right. Aoife knew now just how much was being kept from the public about DuoHalo and just how ruinous it was, and like it or not she had been a part of that for months. They had been lying to people. An unimaginably huge and cruel lie that she had no sense of what it must have been like to actually be living through.

What’s the sane way to react to a conspiracy theory when those lies are real anyway?

She had always poked fun at the trope of how the bad guys in movies had minions willing to do their dirty work for them, but wondered if she’d somehow stumbled into being one in someone else’s story. Standard issue, with her Palisade Services coat and boots making for a comically unflattering uniform. But then, Ethan knew; and for whatever reason she wasn’t ready to accept the idea that he would allow something like that without a purpose. If he had, then the idea of him she had in her head didn’t exist and the only thing keeping her going would burn away with it.

With the gun pointed with less intent as Hayley looked away, Aoife tried to sit up again as her own guilt pushed her to attempt to defuse things. “Lady, I don’t know what you think I-” she started, only for the words to be replaced by a cry as Hayley returned her boot to Aoife’s chest, misreading the green haired girl's intent. The gesture was even rougher than before, jarring Aoife’s head back against the ground. Her vision swam, and the taste of blood filled her mouth as she bit her tongue.

“Do not fucking test me.”

It might have been a misunderstanding brought on by Hayley’s own emotions fraying, but Aoife still felt her desire to cooperate gutter away. Instead she simply locked eyes with the blonde woman, as if they were competing to be the one who was most pissed off at the world around them. It was a contest that only ended as Hayley’s chest shook with a heavy rattling cough, forcing her to turn away. Anas stepped towards her with concern, but she pushed him back with her free hand.

“I don’t care how bad the world is.” She spoke insistently, as if she needed to prove her resolve not just to Aoife and Anas, but herself too. “I’m not just letting it end around me without a fight. There has to be some sort of meaning we can still give to things.”

Again, Aoife’s anger spoke for her. “Even if I did know something, which I don’t, I sure as fuck wouldn’t be telling some mental bitch up a hill.”

“She doesn’t exactly look in the mood to talk,” Anas said, trying to play peacemaker.

Hayley gave another cough, less intense, but enough to spend the last of her patience. “Then we get her in the car.” The statement was simple enough, but Anas immediately blanched. “Don’t look at me like that. Don’t pretend that you didn’t know what ‘finding someone to get answers from’ meant.”

“I didn’t think we meant kidnapping her.”

“No, you damn well knew that’s what it might mean.”

The way Anas looked away, unable to maintain his gaze towards either of them came as its own admission. For a moment, the sensation of hearing two people looming above her, talking about her impending abduction, threatened to be unreal enough to detach Aoife from her indignation. But Hayley spoke, and it was enough to ground her back in her distaste for the other woman.

“Are you going to talk?”

She knew she should. The rational part of her tried to reason that she had no reason not to, let alone when her own safety was on the line. And yet her mouth failed to move, unwilling to feel like she was yielding to the treatment she was receiving. She was too fucking tired. Had put up with too much over the last few months. She didn’t care how stupid it made her. If the world was going to push her, sometimes she just needed to push back. And even if she did talk, what guarantee did she have that they were going to just let her go. They all felt far too committed to choices they’d blundered themselves into.

Hayley waited for her reply, and sighed when it failed to come. “No? I didn’t think so. Get her up”

Dutifully, Anas stepped forward, stooping down to help Aoife, obviously placing himself between the stricken engineer and the barrels pointed at her. Briefly, Aoife considered taking her chance to try and make a break for it, but even her stupidity had limits, and even if Hayley’s shotgun posturing was a bluff, she knew there was no way she could make it all the way back to the Hall without one of them catching up to her. Instead she simply watched him as he reached over, trying to offer her what care he could manage by adjusting her slipped respirator back around her face. Making eye contact was still more than he could muster however, even as he helped her to her feet.

“I’m sorry about this, really,” Aoife heard him mumble. But the apology was clearly as much for himself as it was for her.

“Yeah. I’m sure you are.”

*****

The low conversation from the McNamara sisters quietened fully in the back of the car as it pulled up the final approach towards Taymont Hall, stilled by their uncertain anticipation. Ethan had insisted on driving Nia’s EV, given how exhausted she’d allowed herself to become, although any surprise at how easily she’d relented into letting him do so was short lived, as she’d quickly found herself snoozing in the passenger seat next to him. It turned out even she had her limits. What caught him more off guard however, as the ivy covered walls crept into view, was how glad he was to be back.

It had been mid afternoon before they’d be able to return up the motorway, after waiting for Alex to wake following her imprinting. And even after she had stirred Ethan had been keen not to pressure her. It was the last thing he thought she needed after the night before, and he wanted to make sure she had as much patience as anyone could offer her. And so even with the desire to see Aoife tugging, insistent, at the back of his mind, he had given Alex and Jess some space together, lingering in the spare bedroom as the redheads talked.

Ethan had tried practising what he thought he might say to Alex, trying to pick the exact right tone of easy reassurance. Not that he was able to put the effort to use. Instead, when Alex did come to find him on her own, almost an hour later, it was fresh from the shower. The sight of her dropping her towel at the bedroom door was enough to make any sentiment he had prepared catch in his throat for long enough for the redhead to close in on him, and cut him off with a long, grateful kiss.

Her first words to him were a heartfelt, “thank you,” before following them up softly as she leant against him. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not right now. I just…want to feel wanted…Like I’m not just a mistake you’re stuck with.”

It would have been easy to promise her she wasn’t. But the intent expression that looked back at him made it obvious that doing so was going to hurt her. She knew this wasn’t something any of them had planned for and her trust wasn’t going to be built on hollow guarantees. He couldn’t be sure how Alex would fit with Nia or the others, or tell her with any certainty things would be a fairytale. This was one leap of faith that hadn’t even had the pale comfort of the algorithm. But he could do what she asked.

They’d fucked again, this time with Alex on top, as she rode him through the post-imprint high that Gemivax has left each of his partners with; yearning curves strained. And when they’d come it had been together, arriving there naturally without the vaccine’s help. Although Ethan was pretty sure that without it he wouldn’t have managed to climax with quite as much force as he did, given it was for the fourth time since pairing with Jess the evening before.

Then, as the drive back had gone on, Ethan had begun to realise that what he’d mistaken for Alex remaining reserved after her ordeal, was actually much closer to her personality than he’d first thought. She didn’t say much, certainly not compared to the awkward energy of Jess, but what she did was almost without exception wry and sarcastic. Something she confirmed with a dry aside as he began to draw the car up towards the front of the hall.

“Well living here’s going to be utter torture.”

Beside her, Jess’ nervous chattering had hushed as she took in the grandeur of the hall, but her sister’s sarcasm drew her attention back with a chuckle.

“It did start to lose some of its charm after being stuck here for months,” Ethan replied.

“And that is your first red flag” Alex’s tone was flawlessly deadpan as she turned to her sister. “He’s saying he gets bored of too much of a good thing.”  

Jess laughed again as Ethan drew them to a halt on the hall’s gravelled car park. And as he did, he gave a glance into the rear-view mirror and found the green of Alex’s eyes looking back at him. He offered her a smile, and found that the one she gave in return didn’t seem half as forced as he expected.

On the other side of a small, unkempt flower bed from the car park stretched one of Taymont’s few lawns that hadn’t been claimed by the sprawl of NEBC gear, with green stretching out towards where the smudge of muddy hills rose to meet the sky. It was there that Ethan spied Farah, the former cricketer still oblivious to their arrival as she bowled a ball across the turf before jogging after it. She had mentioned to him, briefly before he left, that the shoulder injury that had ended that career seemed easier in the aftermath of her own vaccination. But even with the segments they’d filmed for their own broadcast he didn’t get the sense she had quite let herself believe in the data from the US that showed the serum was known to trigger tissue regeneration in some recipients. Which made his satisfaction at seeing how freely she was wheeling the joint with experimental ease even greater. He took a moment to watch her, even as the sound of the McNamara’s climbing out the car caused Nia to stir in the passenger seat beside him, and he only stopped as he heard Jess shout out.

“Shit! Moxie!”

They’d fetched Jess’ jack russell to bring with them, but what patience the dog had been able to show to that point, travelling in the rear of Nia’s car, evaporated at the sight of open grass to run into. All it had taken was the boot door to be opened and Mox had taken off past her owner, bolting in the direction of Farah as if the cricket ball she was throwing was an invitation. Jess rushed after her, and watching the artist as he also stepped out the car, it was Ethan’s turn to laugh. There was something endearingly normal about the sight of Jess struggling to keep up with her pet, and the looming embarrassment of whatever first impression she was about to make on Farah. And it was almost enough to allow himself to think that things might-

“This is the part where you say how you feel like things might all work out somehow.”

Alex stood next to him, having collected her bag from the boot, and the wry note in her voice remained as she spoke and cut through his thought before he could finish it. Somehow she’d  managed to vocalise exactly what he was thinking, and seeing his surprise offered him a small smirk.

“You get this look about you every so often,” she explained, “like you’re caught up in your own thoughts. Seemed a safe guess that Jess would be causing good ones.”

Nia appeared to his other side, producing a cigarette and lighter from the pocket of a well tailored jacket. “Is he doing that thing where he gets the thoughtful little wrinkle between his eyes?”

“He was. It’s more of a frown now.”

There was the feeling of soft lips pressed against his cheek as Nia leaned in to reassure him. “Evie loves it when you do that, you know? You’re cute when you’re being introspective.”

It was hard to muster much in the way of earnest protest and he resisted the urge to find some sort of playful quip back. Instead he opted to simply let Alex have her moment with Nia and set to unloading the rest of their bags. And by the time he was done, carefully carrying Jess’ drawing tablet to sit with the small pile of luggage next to the Hall’s entrance, Farah was striding across the lawn, cradling Mox in one arm. Jess trailed behind her, attempting to offer apologetic explanations of how her dog was normally better behaved, only for them to be brushed aside as unneeded by Farah. They’d spent several minutes attempting to chase Moxie down, something that the athlete had apparently loved every second of, and she beamed as the animal strained up to lick at her face.

“I did wonder who was going to kiss me first when you got back. I’m not sure this is the answer I was expecting.”

“Sorry. Moxie’s enthusiastic and…” Jess started a characteristically awkward reply but was silenced by Farah.

“I swear if you apologise one more time I’m going to leave you out.”

The short redhead blushed, seemingly not having realised that she was on Farah’s list of people to be kissed. The pair had interacted a little during Jess’ brief, remote courtship with the group, but hadn’t quite expected the other woman to be as forward with her interest as she was. Ethan considered sparing Jess’ blushes from his least inhibited partner but, before he could, he found Mox being pressed into his arms by the cricketer instead.

“Here, hold the dog for a second.”

As Moxie wriggled, Ethan watched as Farah turned and stooped to feather the barest, tenderest of kisses on the younger woman’s lips. Jess gave a sigh-like exhale as they parted, a contented look on her face even as her cheeks flushed further.

“I know your night didn’t go how anyone wanted it to, but you’re part of the team now. And that means I’ve got your back, understand?” Farah was predictably sincere with her tone, and Ethan didn’t doubt she meant every bit of it, even as she turned to Jess’ sister. “Alex, right? That goes for you too.”

For a moment, Alex seemed a little uncomfortable at the attention, as if the idea of being paired with Ethan enough to deal with that she hadn’t even found the emotional bandwidth to consider the rest of the team. Less than 24 hours ago she’d been screaming on a bathroom floor as the world closed in around her, and even as she forced her body language to relax, Ethan still wondered how much was going to be too much too soon for her. And he realised he wasn’t even sure if her Delphi questionnaire said she was interested in other women.

“Farah…” he interjected, only for Alex to speak for herself, doing her best to steady herself behind dry humour.

“It’s fine. As long as it’s not too awkward if I say no to the kiss? I wouldn’t want you to enjoy it too much and upstage Jess.”

“Of course, that’s the last thing I’d want,” Farah said, finally picking up on the guarded discomfort Alex was carrying with her and gracious enough to play along with the refusal. “I’ll settle for a hug instead?”

Alex nodded, eventually, and quickly found powerful arms slung around her shoulders as Farah drew her reassuringly close, holding the embrace just long enough for the redhead to allow herself to ease into the contact. And when Farah spoke next her words were simple, soft and earnest.

“Welcome to the team.”

From her expression, it was possible to see how the sharpest edges of Alex’s anxiety were smoothed by the contact, and Ethan had to resist parroting her words about believing things might be ok back at her. Farah’s tone however turned more serious as she turned to Ethan.

“Evie wanted to know when you were back. She didn’t say why but it seemed more important than just being desperate to jump you.”

Something about the way she spoke brought back the familiar sensation of being torn in two directions for Ethan. He could tell she was doing her best to understate things, but there was a hint to her voice that betrayed a weight to the statement and just how badly Evie needed to see him. And at any other time, his instinct to go straight to her would have kicked in, but in the moment, the larger part of him couldn’t ignore Aoife any longer. The part of him that had been demanding he go and find the green haired girl, louder with every moment since he’d passed back through the hall’s gates. He’d forced himself to take the extra few minutes to not leave Jess and Alex feeling abandoned on the doorstep, but even that had limits while he knew she needed him.

“I’ve something I need to take care of first,” he heard himself saying, as he passed Moxie to Jess. “If you see her, tell her I’ll catch up with her as soon as I can.”

“She really did make it sound like…”

Ethan caught Farah’s lips before she could say anything to make his priorities feel any more split; a long deep press that drew a pleased moan from her before it ended and reminded his body just how much it had missed the feel of her.

“I believe you,” he said. “If Evie says it’s important then that’s all I need to hear. But this really can’t wait any more than I’ve already made it. I’ll make it up to her.” Whether it was the conviction he said things with, or simply the sway of his kiss leaving Farah’s mind weak, but she relented. “Just promise me you’ll make this one get some rest,” he added, lightly pushing Nia into Farah’s arms to cover his own exit.

He left them, with the sounds of Nia’s protests to Farah that she was fine and had work to do following after him. Knowing Aoife he suspected she was going to be found in her workshop, buried away in the Hall’s basement, but it wasn’t there that he headed first. He’d received a text from the newly re-nationalised Royal Mail while he was away and had asked Evie to leave the delivery it had announced to wait for him out of the way in his old room. The Pokemon plush he’d ordered for her had originally been meant as an apology when he still thought she was mad at him and although the sentiment had changed a little, the fact that he wanted something thoughtful for her hadn’t. He didn’t really know what a ‘Turtwig’ was, other than the soft turtle creature that looked up at him with wide eyes as he opened the package, he just knew she liked the cute green ones, and he hoped it was endearing enough to make her smile even with everything that was going on.

It was as he turned to leave the room, however, ready to make his way to the old service elevator that led down to Aoife’s basement, that Evie appeared at his doorway.  The sight of her alone was enough to briefly ease the tight knot of anticipation that had collected at the pit of his stomach, but the relief was short lived as he caught her expression. There was concern there, measuredly written across her normally serene demeanour alongside a sad tug of her lips. It was the sympathy behind the brown of her eyes that really caught him however, as he realised whatever she was about to say was going to come with gentle consolation.

He searched her face for answers, and spoke only when he couldn’t find them.

“What’s happened?”

“We’re still working that out. This morning…” Evie started to speak, but as she did so Ethan glanced downwards, his notice happening to fall upon the fact that his partner was holding something. There, held between painted fingernails and caked in dirt, was a starkly familiar beanie. One he wasn’t used to seeing without green hair poking out from beneath it. He tried to find insight in Evie’s expression again, but his mind slipped on implications like a tyre spinning in mud and he found himself taking an involuntary step backwards.

“According to one of the other engineers, Aoife went to run repairs on one of the dishes…”

Evie kept talking, but her words sounded as if they were coming from behind glass. Dimly he heard her mention how they’d found her toolbag, and phone when no-one had heard from her. Or how they already had people looking for her. But most of it bounced off him, lost as soon as he’d heard one sentence that kept ringing through his head as the world closed around him.

“We don’t know what’s happened, but right now, Aoife’s missing.”

***

From the window of the honeymoon suite, Ethan watched another police car draw up onto Taymont’s lawn, joining the clutch of marked and unmarked vehicles that had been growing there as events lurched around him. In the handful of hours since they’d returned, it didn’t really feel as if the ground had been allowed to settle under his feet. Nor had he been able to work out if the speed at which the response had escalated was reassuring or concerning. With enough evidence to already suggest there was a serious security incident around the NEBC and DuoHalo, matters had very quickly been taken out of the hands of Pallisade’s in house security, with Ethan being left to understand that several of the dark cars that had arrived belonged to the Special Branch of Yorkshire police. Seeing so many people descend on the hall after months of being a closed bubble felt unsettling enough, the sense of seclusion well and truly shattered. But it was the way phrases like ‘official secrets act,’ ‘national security,’ and ‘intelligence services’ were being thrown around that really serves to only feed the disquieted energy building inside him. The part of himself that said he should be out there, turning over every rock on his own until he found her.

That he wasn’t doing just that was due at least in part to Evie being the one to have broken the news to him, leaving her able to soothe some sense into him. But he hadn’t found the answer to exactly what he was meant to be doing instead, left to feel helpless with worry.

Behind him Nia was talking, but for a brief moment his attention wandered as he looked through glass, eyes straying from the Hall’s grounds, towards the hills, and the curved profile of the satellite dish. Until the sound of her cursing dragged him back.

“Jesus Fucking Christ. Ethan, how the fuck did she even get access to those files.”

While he was more than used to hearing Nia swear when they had sex, Ethan wasn’t sure he could remember her ever losing enough of her composure to do so at any other time. And, as a result, the words landed with a heft that made it clear he was far from the only one struggling to hold things together.

He’d wrestled with telling someone what he knew about Aoife accessing the classified drive, worried about holding back something, anything, that might lead to her being found quicker, but hadn’t been able to bring himself to. It felt like too much of a betrayal. But he should have known Nia would get there on her own as quickly as she did. His partner’s instincts were always to make sure she was ahead of things, to not be caught out of control of the narrative wherever she could help it. And she had realised immediately the potential for the likes of Special Branch to become involved, along with the implications. That the moment they arrived they would start combing through Aoife’s life at the hall while they worked out just how significant any of this was, whether she was a target or a conspirator.

Nia had been right to make sure she got there first. She’d understood that if there was anything waiting to become an even bigger problem for it, it was going to be found in Aoife’s room or workshop, and so that’s where she’d quietly gone looking. And she was vindicated through finding the cracked copy of the drive from the Scotland team. Ethan just hated the thought that she must have been asking herself exactly the same questions about Aoife that the police were.

“Do you understand how they’re going to react if they knew she had this without authorisation? How damning this looks for her? Especially when she’s immediately just upped and disappeared.”

The word ‘disappeared’ stung, no matter how many times he heard people using it, and the way that Nia’s face immediately softened suggested she could see how much it hurt him.

“She wouldn’t do that,” Ethan heard himself insisting. “I spoke to her, she was hurting, Nia. She’s headstrong and principled, and god, she can do stupid shit, but she said she was waiting for me to get back. I told her I was going to make this make sense for her. She wouldn’t have just…” His words faltered in the face of the smallest spark of doubt. What if he was wrong, could he deal with knowing she hadn’t trusted him enough to wait?

“First Delphi and now this," Nia mumbled. He watched her close her eyes and slowly exhale, doing her best to reign in her own simmering frustrations. “I know you’re just thinking about her,” she said, doing her best to sound sympathetic. “But stupid is an understatement. This is going to be treated as the data breach to end all data breaches. If what she knows now becomes public knowledge before it’s meant to, the consequences are going to be…”

It was Nia’s turn to trail off, trying to spare him her anger, but Ethan finished the thought for her. “Fucked. We’ll be fucked. You don’t need to tell me that.”

“She’s not exactly here to reassure anyone.”

“You don’t need to tell me that either.”

“And you’ve still not told me how she got access.”

Ethan sighed, knowing he couldn’t stonewall Nia now things were forced into the open. “She didn’t say, not exactly. Just implied she was able to copy the drive and then hacked it open somehow. She didn’t know about the vaccine, that was part of what I needed to tell her still.” The look of displeasure on Nia’s face was unmistakable, but she didn’t speak immediately either, prompting Ethan to continue. “I guess this is the part where you curse her out and tell me you knew she was trouble.”

For a moment she continued not to say anything, keeping her thoughts her own, before managing to offer him a strained smile. Her words were measured, but it was clear she was trying for him. “This is hard enough for you already without needing me to say what I think right now. And it’s not going to help me fix anything.”

That was just like her, the casual manner in which she put the burden squarely upon her own shoulders without a second thought.

“You don’t need to be the one to fix every little thing.”

“Yes, I do. If it’s you I do.” Nia insisted, her words quiet, but disarming Ethan with just how much conviction there was behind them. Sympathy didn’t come easy to Nia, but as their eyes met, he found her offering him resolve instead. “Do you trust her?”

The question came out of nowhere, catching his feelings further off guard. “Nia..I…”

“I need to hear you say it to me, even with everything that’s at risk. Do you trust her?” Her hand found his cheek with a gentle familiarity as she asked, leaving him resting under her gaze.

Ethan found his certainty. “I do. Maybe more than anyone.”

The smile that tugged at the corners of Nia’s lips this time was bittersweet.

“Then that’s all I need,” she said. Turning from him and talking as she moved to fetch a tablet from her side of the bed before purposefully tapping away. “One thing at a time then. We need to protect her from official scrutiny until we can make sure she’s back, safe at the Hall. I can retroactively add her to Project Upstart, and say she’d been given clearance while she was in the process of being assigned to one of the teams. That should be enough to stop any immediate consequences from her stunt with the drive. I’ll just have to go back and confirm what her Delphi scores with Lukas and Rhys were.”

That was a suggestion that caught Ethan in the gut with a shocking amount of force. Rhys had made his way back from Nottingham with Armstrong ahead of them, and while he had to admit that the journalist’s indignation since then seemed to be as much about Alex and flaws with Delphi as it did his ego, the idea of Aoife being matched into Team Barclay left him utterly cold. What surprised him more was the subsequent realisation that he didn’t like the idea of her being with Lukas much better. He knew that she would be a good fit for his team, that even with the age gap between them Lukas would respect her as much as anyone. And yet…

Nia hmm’d. “It’s not the best, but she would have a 73% compatibility with Team Barclay, which is just enough to feel plausible. Given the circumstances-”

“No.”

It wasn’t until Nia turned to look at him that Ethan appreciated he’d said that out loud, or that he’d done so with quite as much force as it had ended up coming out with.

“No Nia. I know you’re trying to help just…not Rhys.”

She lowered the tablet as she looked at him. And again, he watched the effort she was putting into picking her words and pushing her own feelings aside for him. “I’m not saying she definitely has to pair with him, we can revisit that once she’s safe and we have time. Even put her back through the algorithm. But right now, if I don’t have something I can show Special Branch when they come asking why she had those files, I don’t know what that’s going to mean for her.”

“I get that. But not with Rhys.”

“Ethan,” Nia’s voice turned assertive. “This isn’t a choice.”

***

It was only once the blue light from the laptop began to sting his eyes that Ethan brought himself to push it away. He closed them, leaning back in his seat, rubbing his hands with his face. And as he did, he felt them begin to water, although he couldn’t honestly tell if they were from the strain of the screen, or the sheer, powerless frustration.

Earlier that morning he thought he’d been able to see the waiting relief. That every body blow he made himself take trying to be the person they all needed him to be might actually have a payoff.

But this was too much. He’d be scraped too thin, left clinging onto his emotions by brittle fingers. Threadbare.

He couldn’t face the idea of losing her.

But even now he was still trying to struggle forward to do what little he could, worried that letting go and allowing the emotions out might somehow stop him from doing what he could to find her. While he knew that driving up and down the country roads outside Taymont was fruitless, Evie had called in some favours from a contact in the Department of Transport for him. She’d managed to get him limited access to the remote feeds that had been set up for the pandemic, for monitoring the government traffic and CCTV cameras. He was only allowed to view the ones within 25 miles of Taymont, but that was still dozens of cameras and hundreds of hours of footage.

Somewhere, on one of the feeds, was a car with Aoife in it. That had felt like it should have been simple enough but he soon realised there were no cameras directly on any of the approach roads to the hills around the hall. Instead, he’d got a notepad and started writing down the licence plates of the vehicles that would have been in the area at the team, reasoning he could track their movements across multiple cameras. But he’d underestimated just how much of a task that was and as it approached the early hours of the morning a breakthrough was no closer to coming than it had been when he started, initial optimism totally overwhelmed.

Ethan couldn’t bring himself to move for several long moments, holding his face in his hands as he chided himself for wanting to cry. He had found himself retreating to the privacy of Taymont’s bar earlier in the evening, perhaps on some level understanding the cracks were about to show, while feeling too responsible to the others not to let them see. It wasn’t a conscious choice. He’d reasoned to himself he just needed space to work. But if pushed he’d have admitted the last thing he wanted was to feel like his feelings were making things unfair on Jess and Alex, or harder for Nia. And it meant that, as he sat in the same booth he and Evie had drank together in the night before their vaccination, he wasn’t expecting to have anyone else’s voice interrupt him.

“You look like shit.”

Ethan startled slightly, shifting his hands from his face in embarrassment as he looked in the direction of the gruff, Polish accented words that had come from the doorway. Lukas appeared impassive, the other producer never one for pandering or pretence, studying Ethan briefly before giving a nonchalant shrug.

“But then you always look like shit.”

Ethan’s laugh was short. “Thanks.” He considered a joke about how Lukas and his perpetual 5 o’clock shadow never looked much better, but his mind took too long to find the words that might have otherwise come easily, and by the time it had, the moment had passed.

“No-one was sure where you were and were starting to get worried.” The older man’s words softened just enough to betray his own concern as he crossed the short distance across the hardwood floor, to join Ethan at the booth.

“I’m fine,” he replied, failing to come close to convincing even himself. He continued to lean back in his seat, eyes straying upward towards the ceiling rather than letting himself look towards the other man and having to confront how weak his insistence was. “There’s too much riding on things to not be, not that that’s much different to normal.”

The grunt that came from Lukas in response was predictably sceptical. “Normal doesn’t usually involve people we’re close to being missing like this. You are allowed to feel the strain you know.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that’s exactly what normal has been lately,” Ethan said, although he quickly regretted it. Pointing out how many of their colleagues had left the Hall with what had to be DuoHalo, only to never come back, only made the anxiety around Aoife bite harder. He had an entire list of people he knew he wouldn’t be seeing again that he hadn’t processed yet, and he had no idea how he would manage if he had to add her to it. “And at least with Aoife there’s something I can try and do about it. Unless you’re here to chew me out for leaving you with all the work again?”

He could feel Lukas’ eyes on him as the older man remained non-committal. “Hmm? No. It is what it is. Unless you asked for everything to go to shit around you?”

“Right. You know me, can’t get enough of the melodrama.”

Finally, Ethan sat forward again, reaching out to click forward from the frame he’d left things frozen on. jumping to the next camera feed on his list as he attempted to follow a white SUV that had been in the area. Briefly, Lukas watched, before nodding towards the screen.

“Any luck?”

“...no” Ethan said, hesitating before picking up a pen to add the licence number to his list with the other. “Not yet. That doesn’t mean I can just stop looking, what else am I going to do?”

“I don’t know, it seems like there’s enough police out there looking for her, you could-”

Any lack of certainty to Ethan’s replies vanished as he cut Lukas off before he could suggest he stop and simply leave it to the police. Instead his speech was firm, almost resentful. “They all want to find Aoife, they don’t actually care about her. There’s a difference.”

The police presence had gradually continued to grow throughout the afternoon the more things had progressed. It transpired that Pallisade’s security hadn’t disclosed any of the previous damage done to the satellite, along with several instances where people had been seen acting suspiciously around the grounds, opting to ‘remain vigilant’ on their own. It had meant that as soon as actual members of the security services had arrived on site, however, that there was enough of a pattern to suspect whatever had happened with Aoife was the culmination of a real risk to national security. And apparently there were still some things that weren’t simply being left to the lowest bidder and the friends of ministers.

In truth, it had been surprising to Ethan just how emphatic the response had been, especially given how bare bones most other services seemed to be, including the NEBC itself. A sizable contingent of uniformed officers had set about investigating the hall and sweeping the hillside, but it was the half dozen plain clothed police that had joined them that felt more disquieting. They were the ones obviously in charge and who, when pressed, had announced themselves to be from the Yorkshire Police’s Special Branch ‘DuoHalo Unit.’ They were the ones conducting interviews and who clearly had security clearance far in excess of what Ethan knew.

But then, on reflection, he reasoned that the existence of units like that was likely inevitable. It wasn’t just enough for the NEBC and it’s sister broadcasters to be telling people what they were meant to hear. There had to be someone out there making sure that the information that wasn’t deemed safe for the public to know wasn’t being spread. Ethan suspected it was going to be another thing he needed to get his conscience around later.

“If they get her back, what difference does it make,” Lukas asked.

Another question the younger producer didn’t have a good answer to. He just knew that it did. That he needed to know that someone who really cared about her was looking for her. Not just those who saw her as an expendable piece of a picture too large for anyone to see the whole of. He realised he’d gone too long again without his brain being able to put quite what he wanted to say into words, and instead gave a shrug without looking far from the screen.

Again, Ethan could tell Lukas was giving him a hard look before speaking again. “I was a little worried they might think she’d done something dumb. But Nia said she was being worked up to be matched with Rhys.”

Ethan paused, the Polish man’s statement landing somewhere close to an accusation. Even knowing that the match wasn’t quite real, hearing someone else voice something he wanted to forget about felt more than Ethan could take. As if the more people said it the closer it came to being willed into being. He couldn’t bring himself to reply, leaving Lukas to keep going once the silence became awkward.

“I don’t know what was going on between you two, but you always lit up when you talked about her in a way you never did with anyone else.”

The paper thin layer Ethan was managing to keep on top of his emotions faltered. He could feel the cracks. Aoife’s face strayed into his mind’s eye, and he did his best not to picture where she might be right now. He knew that he couldn’t hold up the veneer if it kept being pushed. And he wanted Lukas to stop talking. But the other man didn’t.

“I was just surprised you didn’t have more to say about it…Especially with how hard you’re taking all this now.”

Of course he was taking it hard. How couldn’t he be? It felt a ridiculous thing for someone to say, and yet he was the one fighting back against acknowledging it. Of course it didn’t help that Aoife was the one who normally helped him feel better about things. Ethan wavered, doing his best to try and remain in control while he struggled against the rising tide. “Yeah, well, right now all that matters is trying to find her,” he said eventually, straining to keep his voice flat. “Besides? What was there to be said?”

“Ethan-”

It all became too much, and he snapped back before Lukas could talk further, frustration prickled hot across his skin as the words tore out.

“Look, I know you think you’re trying to help, but what the fuck do you want from me Lukas!? I am trying so fucking hard right now to be what so many different people need or expect me to be and I don’t fucking know anymore. I thought I did but apparently all I’ve done is fuck it up badly enough that Aoife is gone and doesn’t even know that I can’t deal with the idea of not getting her back. And that’s before we even get to the world ending plague we’re all expected to be dealing with.

“So by all means, tell me how the fuck I’m meant to handle realising that, actually, I’m pretty sure I’m in love with her, right after I’ve pharmaceutically bonded myself to 5 other women. Ones who don’t get a choice in being stuck with my bullshit now.

“Because I can’t even start to see what the right answer is anymore. And I am sick of feeling like I’m a prick who’s doing nothing but failing everyone because of it.”

For a second, Ethan’s anger ebbed, and he was left considering whether to chase back after it, clutching onto the catharsis. He breathed, chest tight, and finally let himself get enough air for his thoughts to catch up with his feelings.

Lukas blew out his cheeks, and his face suddenly resolved, from something to be shouted at, into something Ethan was actually looking at, wearing consolidation surprisingly well on his normally stony features. The Pole spoke, but did so simply, not trying to talk over the way Ethan’s emotions were still settling.

“Well, damn.”

“Sorry…Lukas…I…”

“No. Don’t be…you love her, huh?”

It sounded simple enough to almost be foolish the way Lukas said it, and Ethan found himself simply nodding.

A firm hand clapped him on the shoulder, offering reassurance as Lukas rose from his seat. He paced towards the bar, and the shelves of drinks sat behind, speaking behind him as he went. “Got any more you need to get out?”

Ethan did. About Aoife and Nia, DuoHalo and Alex. But as he reached out for it he found it hard to find the shape of anything specific. Nothing he had words for. It had felt good while he was speaking, to finally just rage against it all, but the more seconds he let pass the more it just felt like all he had done was open up more space he didn’t know what to do with.

Without an answer, Lukas spoke again as he browsed the dust peppered bottles. “You know, my dad was full of shit, nasty drunk, temper like you wouldn’t believe. But he did give me one good piece of advice I kept with me.”

“Did they have many situations like this in Soviet era Poland?” Ethan was surprised to hear himself joking, even if there was a heavy bitter note to the humour.

Lukas graced him with a small chuckle, and a theatrically wide shrug before continuing.  “He said there’s no such thing as a right decision.

“We don’t ever get to go back and see how the other choices we could have made might have played out. He’d never find out if his life might have meant something if he’d drunk less. I’ll never find out if I would have become President of the World if I’d never left Poland to film people kicking a ball around. And we’ll never get to know what it would be like if we hadn’t done things the same way with our Teams and Delphi.

“Maybe things could have been better if you’d done something different. Maybe they could have been worse. You’re never going to find out, just like any other decision you make from here. And you’ll never know if anyone’s going to thank you for doing any different.

“So don’t ask yourself which are the right choices, ask yourself which are the ones you’re going to be able live with and fucking live with them.”

The final sentiment sat heavy enough that Ethan struggled to tell if he was being reproached or not. Even if he had expected Lukas’ words to have some magic to them that would fix things for him, that wasn’t what he was given. Just an oddly reassuring clarity, teased at his fingertips if he wanted to reach for it instead of the impossibility of ideal. And while maybe it soothed some of the guilt, it wasn’t much help for grief or worry.

“And if I don’t get that chance with her?”

Lukas selected a bottle of spirits, turning back towards the table, a single tumbler in his other hand. “I don’t know, can you live with the decisions you made to get here?” Ethan honestly didn’t know, but the Pole continued anyway. “I told you, he was an angry old drunk. Better, worse, maybe his advice was just as shit as everything else about him. But you know what else I think?”

It was as Lukas stepped back towards him that Ethan saw which bottle the older man had picked out, the half drunk whisky belonging to his old boss Tom. The one he’d opened with Evie the last time he was here. He didn’t know if Evie had mentioned it to Lukas, or if the Pole had found some other significance to it, or if it was just coincidence, but something about the choice stood out regardless. Even if it was just imagined.

“What else do you think, Lukas,” he asked, noticing how raw he still felt.

“That it’s past midnight and you’re an idiot if you keep going like this thinking you’re going to be helping anyone bottling things up like this. Least of all yourself.” The cork popped from the bottle. “When was the last time you even cried?”

Ethan tried to recall, failing. Not since well before the pandemic started. He certainly hadn’t taken the time to grieve, either for the people he’d lost or the world he knew none of them were going back to. Let alone even started to deal with what he was feeling now. worried if he came undone he might not fit back together.

 “I…not since - “

“Exactly. And we’re only built to take so much.” Lukas set down the tumbler purposefully in front of Ethan, pouring him a neat double measure. “Now be a fucking adult and cry like you need to.”

There was a sensation of something inside Ethan letting go, as if he’d been waiting for permission. And before he’d even reached for the glass the first of months worth of stockpiled hurt were showing on his cheeks. He shuddered, and exhaled.

Chapter 11

The tears themselves didn’t last long, less time than it would have taken Lukas to nurse a drink of his own as he sat with a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. But even that was enough to relieve enough of the pressure to allow the younger man to look his feelings in the face and, if not deal with them, at least admit they were there. He needed the admission, even if it wasn’t going to help find Aoife.

Neither of them said much after, Lukas being content to let Ethan sit with his whisky and his thoughts, but without needing to be alone as he did it. It was after a little more than half an hour however that the Pole would briefly check his phone, tapping out a quick message, the recipient of which was revealed to Ethan minutes later, when Evie appeared at the poor, serene in a short narrow skirt.

Ethan cast a questioning glance in Lukas’ direction before straightening his posture, wiping at red eyes. His immediate instinct was to try and gather up his composure in front of Evie, but a friendly slap on his back from the other man quickly made the impulse feel foolish.

“As much as I’m happy to do this,” Lukas said, “you really shouldn’t be crying on the shoulder of an ugly old bastard like me when a girl like this wants to be the one to do it instead.”

The Pole stood, only giving Ethan the chance to speak once he was already halfway towards the door, turning back for a final careful look at him.

“Thanks Lukas.”

The reply came with a crooked grin. “It is what it is. Just don’t make a habit of it.”

Ethan didn’t plan to. Not because he wasn’t going to find things hard again, but because he realised now how stupid it was to try and push through it for so long when he did. He gave Lukas a nod, letting him go, and watched him disappear out the door. Left with Evie, for a moment things were quiet, and Ethan took a beat to second guess how awkward the situation might feel with her. It only lasted until she spoke.

“You look like shit,” she teased.

Ethan choked out a laugh, not expecting her to be quite so blunt as she cut away any tension. After all, he couldn’t really fault her, he was sure he looked a mess.

“Sorry,” she continued, smiling. “Lukas said I should tell you that, when he messaged me.”

In spite of everything he felt himself able to smile back.

Just as she had the last time she joined him in the bar, Evie headed to fetch a tumbler for herself. “We’re finishing off Tom’s Macallen then?”

“Seems that way.” Ethan’s own glass had the last few sips of his double measure remaining and he sank the rest of the smokey gold liquid, letting the burn fill the space he’d just hollowed out. “I just drank what Lukas put in front of me. It doesn’t feel like the celebration Tom wanted, but I don’t think he’d mind.”

Evie slipped up alongside him, body pressed much closer this time, as she topped up both their glasses. Without thinking, Ethan leaned back against her, and she took it as a signal to stoop in for a soft, blueberry tinged, kiss. He lingered, savouring it, letting everything feel complicated and uncomplicated all at once.

If he had to make choices he could live with, he wasn’t sure there were many that wouldn’t somehow involve Evie Kimura.

They broke the kiss, with Evie drawing back just far enough to meet his eyes. “They are going to find her, you know.”

The statement however caused Ethan to ease away, as if the words were just uncomfortable enough to leave him needing room to breathe. “I know, that’s what I keep telling myself rather than thinking about the alternative.”

“Did they interview you yet?”

Two of the officers from the DuoHalo unit had been circulating among the staff at the Hall during the evening. An older man, who’s name he forgot, and younger woman called Collingwood, who’s body language left Ethan unable to quite work out if they were partnered or not. They presented themselves as pleasant enough, business-like and eager to establish what had gone on. But there was something about their sharp eyed enquiry which left him mistrustful. As if they were simply waiting to catch someone in a trap they had been allowed to lay for themselves.

Ethan shook his head. “Not really, no, just some preliminary questions. Just asking if I knew anything that would help them.” He paused. “I don’t think they realised how close we were yet.”

Evie looked at him, and he knew his face was showing feelings that he wasn’t meant to be hiding anymore, but still felt like he should. And in return she gave a small, sympathetic frown.

“If you’d wanted to talk to me about her, I’d have listened.”

“How would that have been fair to you?”

Evie laughed gently. “Is any of this fair?”

“Ok, fair point.” Next to him, Evie pulled her feet up onto the seat alongside herself, an arm resting against the back of the seat, while her eyes encouraged him to go on. Which he only did after a wistful sigh. “She’s opinionated, funny without trying, way smarter than anyone realises. And she's never let me get caught up in my own over-thought bullshit, without it ever feeling judgemental. Doesn’t matter what I’m doing or what’s going on in my head, she just calls me a ‘stupid ballbag’ or something and everything just feels a little less…big, you know?”

“I need to bring more casual mockery to the table then, got it.”

This time he was the one who chuckled, the sound not quite as muted as it might have been. “You might not have the accent to pull it off.”

“So how come you two never got together?”

Ethan had asked himself that question enough times over the last few days, struggling to come up with a good answer whenever he did. “I think I just assumed the signals she was giving me were her being her, it’s sort of hard to know when she’s being serious. And things always felt hard enough for her without me adding drama to it. But I suppose the answer was mostly me being an idiot. In my defence, she sometimes needs someone to make her be honest with herself too.”

He started to wonder how any of this would have played out if he had taken his shot earlier, whether there was some way for him to have ended up with Aoife and still found himself on Project Upstart, free of complications. But Evie’s hand strayed into his, catching him just before he got lost in his thoughts.

“Nia went nuclear earlier, you know,” she said. “Tore into the Pallisade representative, right there in front of the police, for letting this happen to Aoife.”

The statement disarmed Ethan, unsure which surprised him more, the idea of Nia openly losing her composure or that Aoife was the person she’d be doing it for. “Wait? Nia? Seriously?”

“I think even Special Branch are a little intimidated by her now. She didn’t take many prisoners.”

He took a moment to take things in and picture even specialist law enforcement being cowed by Nia’s presence. But whatever he felt her having to do so was evidently conflicted enough for Evie to read it on his face.

“She’s trying. You’re not the only one who blames themselves for any of this not quite being perfect.”

That Nia was trying went without saying, and if this was the strain Ethan had been feeling, he hated to think what it felt like for her right now.

“Of course I know that,” he replied, eventually. “I don’t think I’ve met anyone who tries harder at anything. And I love her for it.” Ethan only realised how easily he’d let the L word slip out about Nia when he caught the smile that curled at the corner of Evie’s lips. He paused, considering whether he should backtrack, or find some caveat to justify it, but didn’t want to. The word fit. Of course it did. It wouldn’t feel this complicated if it didn’t.  “But it doesn’t make it easier to feel like I’m letting her down somehow. I want to make this easier for her, rather than my bullshit just adding to her problems.”

“You aren’t letting her down,” Evie insisted, softly.

“Oh, there’s a rational part of me that keeps trying to say that. But I don’t know if I believe it. Besides, I’m not sure how rational any of this feels. I promised myself I’d do whatever it took to make sure this worked out, for all of you. For you, Alex, Nia…Aoife.”

The throaty chuckle Evie gave into her glass made Ethan’s heart skip slightly. “Right. And just how’s that working out for you?”

He tried to find a response that didn’t sound too petulant or self-serious and instead, simply opted to raise his own drink before pointedly downing the contents in one. However, the gesture was spoiled somewhat by the face he found himself pulling, less prepared for that much of the single malt in one go than he might have hoped.

Evie smiled from behind a much more careful swig of her own. “Smooth. You know you didn’t have to choke on it just to make a point.” Setting her glass down, she moved to lean her head against him. “And we didn’t sign up for rational.”

“If we did, I wouldn't still be thinking about how I’m going to keep my promise.” Ethan knew what Lukas had said, what it had really helped him realise was that the one thing he couldn’t live with was not trying to live up to that.

Eager lips brushed against his own as Evie leaned up to kiss him again. The press was soft at first, a simple gesture of care and reassurance. But seconds passed without her bringing herself to move away, and Ethan found her pushing towards him with her hand upon his chest, her touch warm and wanting as she got carried away. When she did pull back it was with an apologetic blush across her cheeks.

“Sorry. I promised myself I wasn’t going to do that. I don’t know if it’s what you really want right now.”

Another question he wasn’t quite sure of the answer to. He glanced at the laptop that sat on the table next to them, CCTV feed static since Lukas was there, and then back to Evie. “I don’t know. It’s not not what I want.”

She shifted, giving the barest rub of her thighs together. And it was only then that he picked up on the hint of need that crept around the edges of her body language and tinged her gaze. Had that been there the whole time they were talking?

“The serum’s kicking in?”

Evie nodded. “A tiny bit. It's ok.”

“It’s not even been 3 days,” Ethan observed, trying to summon up the details they’d included in their broadcasts about Gemivax, and the euphemistic need for women to have frequent ‘contact’ with their partners. The initial studies from the US taken from their version of the serum had been optimistic on that front, with most real world numbers they had for the UK suggesting Gemivax ran much hotter on most measures. The efficacy of the immunisations were 5-10% higher than the other side of the Atlantic, but then the intensity and frequency of the ‘additional effects’ were stronger too, with the latest  circulation from the Health Department suggesting that the median recommended time between doses was around 4.8 days. And that was before outliers.

“I know, I’m fine, really. It was just when I kissed you I had this weird little surge, as if my body wanted to take over and do what it could to make sure you weren’t hurting.”

Hesitation hung between them as Evie leant in again to rest her forehead against his, close enough for Ethan to feel her breath on his cheek. There was a tenderness to the gesture, but at the same time left her mouth on offer, waiting for him to reclaim her lips if he desired to. A small voice at the back of his mind asked if he should feel guilty, somehow; but when he reached for the emotion the serum bent his thoughts and left him unable to find it. Instead he closed his eyes and held himself there against her, until he felt the brush of her hand between his thighs.

“I can stop. If you want me to,” she murmured, her voice pressured.

He did, but not as much as he didn’t. He was bonded to Evie, and he couldn’t leave her struggling, or push back against how much better he felt right now from having her near. Ethan shook his head, before slipping his own hands beneath her backside to lift her into his lap, straddling him. They kissed again, slow and deep and heavy, as Evie’s hand continued to work.

“What about Farah,” Ethan said, as the last few of his overactive thoughts strayed. If the serum was doing this to Evie, had it been affecting her too?

The woman on top of him stopped, and looked down at him with amusement. “You, need to stop worrying about everyone else,” she replied, punctuating it with another brush of her lips. “I don’t think it’s hitting her as quickly as it’s got to me. She realised how rough things might be, so wanted to make sure someone was looking after Jess and Alex.

With a small adjustment to her position Evie’s hand left Ethan’s crotch. She was the sort to make sure her skirt was the right mix of stylish and professional to include pockets, and she fished into one, retrieving her phone and turning it to Ethan after a couple of swipes.

The group message from Farah was of the bedroom she’d been given to cope with the increased team size, with a very nude Jess laying across the sheets. Pink coloured the petite redhead’s cheeks, half covered shyly by a tattooed arm, while the state of her crotch left little doubt as to what the pair had spent the evening doing.

F - Making herself at home already <3

Ethan’s eyebrows raised.

“I think Jess quietly had her heart set on all of this being a bit of a sexual awakening, from what she’d said in some of our conversations before. Apparently Farah didn’t want her to feel like her desires were a problem.”

“I wasn’t expecting them to move quite that fast,” Ethan said, his cock hardening further than it had already been to Evie’s touch. His attention strayed back to the picture, only to be surprised further, as he noticed, sitting just below, that Alex had reacted to it with a small heart emoji. He hadn’t got as far as wondering how they were going to negotiate a group chat with Alex and Jess where explicit content was being shared quite so freely, but that issue was out of his hands too now by the looks of it.

“I suppose this is all an easier adjustment for some of us than others,” Evie noted, a flicker of mischief in her eyes, placing a black painted finger tip on his lips before he could speak. “Stop overthinking things.” Setting aside the phone, her hand found his and guided it onto her leg, letting the hem of her skirt ride up. And as his hand wandered further up, any argument left him as he discovered the lack of panties she was wearing underneath, left to palm at the taut flesh of her arse unencumbered.

“Fuck, Evie…why aren’t you…”

“For the same reason I’ve not locked the door. I don’t know if I really mind what anyone thinks, if they see me right now. What point is there being shy about it?”

Ethan groaned slightly as she worked away his belt enough to slide her hand down the front of his pants. He’d heard almost identical sentiments before, on most of the interview footage they’d compiled from various celebrities and public figures for their planned broadcast. The idea that gradually, after receiving Gemivax, being embarrassed by sex and sexuality felt increasingly silly. Ethan had quickly discarded as unusable early footage from a Premier League footballer who’d spoken a little too honestly about just which toys his new, domineering partner, enjoyed using on him in the bedroom, only to find him editing around the candour of everyone from politicians to pop stars. He’d assumed to this point that it was simply a social thing, an overeagerness for their interviewees to share, mixed up with the enjoyment of their new living situations. And the Health Department updates had agreed, and insisted that any trend in possible disinhibition that emerged over the first few weeks was ‘anecdotal’ only. But hearing the way Evie spoke, he suddenly wasn’t so sure.

And more than that, as he checked his own thoughts, Ethan didn’t know how much his own mind disagreed with her.

“Everyone’s already going to know I’m yours,” she whispered, pressed in tight enough to feel the soft curve of her chest, rising against his. “What difference does it make if they see it?”

He eased his hips up to lower his trousers, allowing her to successfully free his cock, leaving the effect her words were having unescapable.

“You like that? Everyone knowing I’m yours? Every fucking inch of me.”

Ethan nodded, as she began to stroke, cares and worries dimming as his attention narrowed onto the beautiful woman, grinding on top of him. He loved it, and he throbbed beneath her touch.

“No-one else’s. Yours. Forever.”

It wasn’t clear if the words were for him, to try and distract him and soothe his hurt, or if she was just getting off on them herself, and Ethan was forced to accept it was probably both, as Evie’s breath began to hitch. Her hips rolled slowly, her pussy exposed beneath her skirt, leaving him unable to escape the sensation of how hot and wet and ready for him the dark haired woman was.

As Ethan’s hand lingered on Evie’s rear, his finger tips brushed against the unexpected sensation of something firm and plastic, nestled between her cheeks. He knew from their group chat that the asian woman had taken to wearing plugs, vocal in her desire to experience him back there, but he’d not quite prepared himself from the flare of gratification he got from her being on top of him with one in. None of his previous relationships had been close to this charged, and the thought of being able to act out that particular fantasy with someone as incredible as she was still seemed unreal.

“Fuck…Evie…”

He pulled at it, just enough for a slutty little whine to fill his ears, before she reached out to ease his arm away.

“No. Leave it in.”

“But I thought you wanted me to…” Any attempt to talk was cut short by the feeling of Evie positioning herself over his shaft and slowly lowering herself. The feeling of her slick lips parting for him caused them both to inhale, before sighing outward in unison. Her slide downwards was gradual, making him savour her an inch at a time, squeezing hot and tight as she went. Briefly, his eyes rolled closed, but even as they did his hands wandered to her hips, helping to guide her down until she reached his hilt.

“I do. just not tonight,” she said, giving a testing little rock of her hips, before stealing another kiss, the need she felt naked in the gesture. “I want my first time doing something like that to be special. And right now this is about what you need.”

Based on the dreamy look on Evie’s face, Ethan suspected it was more than a little about what she needed too. But then she started to move and he stopped caring about who it was for. The feeling of the plug from inside her was a new one for him, an extra, little press against his cock, pleasingly firm with every thrust as his lover began to ride him. Her muscles tensed beneath his palms, and his breathing quickened.

“Oh fuck yes. Ethan, I feel so full…”

She began to paw at his shirt, her hands eager to feel his chest, and he responded in kind, plucking at the buttons of her blouse between languid bucks and dancing tongues. Neither of them was in a rush, content to lose themselves each squeeze, every touch. But that only did so much to lessen the intensity, and as Ethan moved to finally pull her top from her shoulders, he did so with enough of a yank to cause her to lose her balance and shift backwards. Evie reached out a hand to stop herself, and it thudded against the tabletop besides them, causing what remained of the whisky bottle and their half empty glasses to jump. Ethan waited to hear the bottle smash, but it simply clattered without falling over, leaving Evie to give a relieved laugh. Regardless, the noise provided enough of an interruption to encourage him to change his position.

Without pulling out of her, Ethan scooped the asian woman up, teasing her gently as he did so. “If you can’t behave yourself up there maybe I’ll have to be on top.”

Gripping her by the perfect swell of her taut arse, he moved quickly to spin her around, lowering her as best he could back onto the cushioned booth. The motion was clumsier than he intended however, proving to be more awkward to manoeuvre them both than he’d thought. But the main result of his inelegance was simply that Evie hit the cushion and stopped moving before he expected, causing him to half push and half fall on top of her, driving deep as he did so. The surprised noise she made in response fell between a laugh, a yelp and a moan, all at once. The exclamation was loud enough to cause Ethan to glance down at the girl, laid out on the seat beneath him, instinctively checking she was ok. Any worries he had were quickly put aside however as she looked back up at him, and their eyes met. For several seconds neither moved, losing themselves in each other’s gaze, even as his cock remained set inside the warmth of her cunt.  

Evie’s lips quivered, beginning to gesture towards speaking before opting against it. She settled for the softest of smiles instead. Ethan knew what she wanted to say; but he didn’t blame her for second guessing letting that be the first time she said it.

“You know you can say it, if you want to.”

“I know.” Evie replied, as he reached down to brush hair from where it had fallen across her face. “But not tonight…let me save that too.”

A shapely leg snaked its way around behind Ethan. Easing him forward, it encouraged him to move again, and he was happy enough to relent to her, with several long, tender strokes.

“At least let me see all of you then,” he said, reaching out to lightly tug at the strap of the white coloured bra she was wearing. She propped herself up on her elbows for just long enough to oblige him, letting the garment drop to the floor as she brought the pertness of her tits into view. Almost idly, he reached out and brushed at the firm brown nub of one of her nipples, tweaking it between finger and thumb, and delighted in the over-sensitised gasp of pleasure that came with it.

Another time he’d have been content to draw things out, to toy with her chest and clit and to appreciate every serum drunk little moan and clench he could pull from her, but right then, each of them wanted simple. Evie’s legs gripped him harder and Ethan fucked her from above. His thrusts came slow at first, pressing deep past the swell of the plug, but his composure slipped with every clench and whimper. His own thoughts clouded, lost behind a veil of white heat, and his pace picked up with every roll of his hips into her. Evie splayed out beneath him, and her cunt drooled; the wet smatter of her pleasure across the cushions unnoticed by either of them.  

They were both reaching their peak when the sound of a door closing heavily elsewhere in the building, broke Ethan’s focus. It was close, a few rooms down the corridor perhaps, and he was reminded that they weren’t alone in the building, and that the door to the bar had been left ajar by Evie as she arrived. Instinctively, he hesitated, looking towards the doorway as he briefly heard footsteps, before realising they were heading in the opposite direction.

Evie’s hand found his face, turning him back to her, managing a quiet laugh even through the heavy breaths of her arousal.

“I told you. I don’t think I have it in me to care if anyone sees us.”

She dragged him into a hungry kiss, her other hand gripping at Ethan’s own ass, pulling him back towards her even as she did her best to buck up against him. And his body responded to her efforts almost before his mind caught up, easing back into the motions. He asked himself if he cared either and discovered he was unsure. What he did know was that in the moment any embarrassment felt oddly distant compared to the mix of other emotions he was still trying to get a handle on.

If anything Evie’s own enthusiasm seemed spurred on by the idea of her own shamelessness, and she arched her back, hands on her own tits, either for him or some imagined audience.

“I don’t care.” She gasped, as Ethan drove her back to the edge. “If the world knows. How much I need this.”

As he felt her peak approaching, Ethan reached down to work her clit, circling the bud beneath his fingers without letting up the steady rhythm he was pushing into her with. Neither of them had been particularly loud to that point, all throaty moans and panted words, but Evie’s restraint faltered as she came. The girl shuddered, arms around his back as she held him close, and keened hard enough that Ethan heard the sound reverberate down the hall. The noise would have calmed quickly enough, had his own climax not come rapidly after. He was in the process of learning that there was little that set him off quite as hard as the feeling of Evie’s pussy fluttering its way through an orgasm around him, and before she was finished with her first his cum flooding her sent her tumbling into a second. And the initial cry she’d given barely had the time to be punctuated by a single sharp gasp before she let out another.

There was just enough room on the seat for Ethan to slump down next to her as they both caught their breath and he lay there watching her, her eyes closed, chest heaving. Neither moved for what felt like an age, except for the small shift it took for him to slip his arms around her. For a few moments, he thought she’d drifted off to sleep as he held her. It was just long enough for his mind to begin to drift again however.

“Sorry. I needed that more than I thought.”

The murmur of her voice was enough to draw his attention to her again, along with the realisation it had wandered half way back towards the laptop screen. The device remained where he’d left it, sitting on the nearby table, still stuck on its last image of traffic on a nearby country lane. An itch that wasn’t likely to be satisfied quite so easily.

“Yeah, so did I,” he sighed, even as Evie opened her eyes and caught the direction of his gaze. Her brow creased into a sympathetic frown and, carefully, she sat up,  easing the lid down.

“We should get to bed,” she soothed. “It’ll still be there in the morning.”

Even with how fatigued he felt, it was still hard to let go, but the glow of how Evie made him feel at least made it possible. Ethan sat himself, and finished what remained of his whisky. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s like I keep trying to tell Nia, right?” 

He agreed with her, even as he realised that the one thing Nia probably wanted was for those problems to not feel like they were going to still need her whenever she woke up.

***

Somewhere, downstairs, the child started wailing again. The blonde woman, Hayley, remained impassive on the other side of the open doorway, from which she’d been watching, before allowing herself a scowl as it became obvious the noise wasn’t about to stop on its own. From where he sat inside the small bedroom, Anas, momentarily glanced sheepishly back in her direction, turning his attention from Aoife and wordlessly asked her to handle it. Hayley’s response was to give a long, hard look back at the captive engineer, as if daring her to try something while she was gone.

“Don’t look at me. It’s not like I want you here playing good cop, psycho cop,” Aoife retorted, dismissively to the silent challenge, unafraid to show how much the other woman continued to aggravate her.

Hayley began to move away, in the direction of the stairs, but as she did so she gave a heavy, breathless cough, left spluttering after several seconds into the scarf that remained wrapped around her face.

One of the last things Aoife had expected to find hours earlier, as she’d been shepherded away from the satellite and towards a rusting green 4x4, had been a baby, sleeping peacefully in a carrier on the front seat. But that’s what was there waiting for her when Hayley had roughly ordered her into the vehicle. She wasn’t sure how old it was, 6 months? 12? She wasn’t sure how the hell anyone was meant to tell the age of kids that size. What she did know was that the sight of the infant had enough to give her a sudden, uneasy pause. If she’d had any impression of any sort of professionalism to her would-be captors left it had evaporated in that moment, along with some of the edge to her petulance. She’d asked them what the fuck it was doing there, but was given little more of an answer than she was offering to their own questions, just a vague sense of resignation to circumstance from Anas. And the result of her own surprising sense of discomfort at the idea of intentionally waking it up was a tense silence that she shared with Hayley as they rode on worn leather seats in the back of the car; the mood more bizarrely balanced than she really knew what to do with.

Anas had driven them for around 30 minutes, mostly sticking to the hedgerow-flanked back lanes that hatched across the hillsides between moorlands and crag marked sheep fields before reaching their eventual destination. The old converted farmhouse stood perched in grey stone at the side of a road barely large enough to be worth naming, with a valley falling away before it. A pretty cottage garden filled what would once have been a work yard, although the lawn was beginning to look badly overgrown and the fallen leaves had gone unswept, turning to wet mulch at the side of the path in the Yorkshire rain.

Hayley had ‘shown’ her inside while her partner in crime had stashed their car away in a small barn that waited for it at the end of the drive. As the other woman escorted her upstairs, what she’d glimpsed of the interior looked as if it was in the process of a renovation that had been half-abandoned somewhere along the way. The walls of the hallway were recently painted, but the floorboards were bare, clearly waiting for a carpet that had never quite arrived, while unused tools and building supplies sat forlorn in a corner. And as Aoife had been escorted upstairs it was hard for her to shake the notion that the place reeked of hopes put on hold.

What had caught her notice most however were the pictures someone had still found the time to carefully mount on the walls. The Hayley that appeared in them was hard to reconcile with the woman who’d taken her captive at gunpoint. Happy. But it wasn’t Anas that appeared alongside her. Rather it was another man with a striking family resemblance to him, repeated alongside the blonde woman in photos from graduations to vacations until the final one showed them at their wedding day, Hayley smiling brightly from a white dress.

Aoife had only wondered for a second where the other man was in all this, before grimly realising she already knew the likely answer.

She’d lost track of exactly how many hours ago that was now. It had long since got dark outside, while the small sparsely furnished spare bedroom she’d been taken to at the back of the house lacked anything much more than a bed, let alone a clock. And she hadn’t seen her phone since she’d arrived, with Hayley taking it after Aoife had refused to unlock it. In that time she’d stuck by her promise to herself that she wasn’t going to do anything other than sit on the bed and answer only the most basic questions. She just hadn’t expected to find being that stubborn for quite so long to be as challenging as it was. Hayley’s confrontational presence made it easier, but as she headed downstairs, Aoife’s resolve cracked.

“The guy in the pictures out there, in the hall, he was your brother, right?”

Anas sat just across the room, in an office chair fetched from elsewhere in the house, and looked up as she spoke. Even behind his respirator he still wore, it wasn’t hard to register his surprise that Aoife had chosen to engage. The chair was where he’d spent most of the time since they’d arrived, either attempting to make small talk or trying to cajole information about what was going on at Taymont out of her. Unlike Hayley, who’d constantly remained just outside the room, all threats and interrogations from a distance, he’d been the picture of decency with her. Or at least, as much as it was possible to do so while holding her hostage. At no point had he really emerged as someone who was really any more at ease with the situation than he had done up on the hill, but rather had revealed a sad sort of desperation to his desire to find out what Aoife knew. LIke a man on death row bargaining for a reprieve.

Part of Aoife couldn’t help but pity him. Sat on the bed with her back leant against the wall, it was the same part of her that knew all too well the feeling of being exhausted and overwhelmed. Broken past the point of good sense. And it was that part that let her armour slip.

“Rizwan, yeah,” the reply was bittersweet, honest but careful. As if he was aware that he could say something that would fuck things up and leave Aoife to go back to silence.

“And Hayley was his wife, which means the kid downstairs was his. Right?”

Anas met her gaze as he nodded.

“How long ago did it happen,” she asked. The sense of unresolved loss that hung over Anas and Hayley had been harder to miss the longer she’d spent in their company, and the pain in the man’s eyes just confirmed things for her.

“About 3 weeks, a little after I got here. The funeral director was meant to have a date for us by now but…” Anas spread his arms for a moment in a broad shrug.

Aoife had been doing her best not to let her imagination stray to the videos she’d seen on the cracked drive, of people with what they were calling DuoHalo, but in that moment they pushed through, intrusive. A hand strayed to her head, looking to give a fidgeting tug at the beanie she normally wore, only to remember it had gotten left behind in the mud near Taymont, and she settled for running a hand through her green hair instead. She knew that letting herself feel for Anas by putting those pictures to his loss was going to get her in trouble, but what else was she meant to do?

“I’m sorry.” The words felt meagre, but she said them anyway, mostly sure she meant them. 

He studied her for a moment, then forced a smile. Not for the first time, his posh, polished accent came out strained. “Thanks. I am too, for whatever that’s worth.” He’d said that enough times already, but this time she wasn’t sure how much of it was for her. “Just don’t let Hayley hear you saying it, she’s not going to believe you.”

Aoife’s first instinct was to say ‘fuck her,’ but for whatever reason she didn’t. “Was she always such a bitch? Or is that a world gone to shite thing she’s picked up?”

Downstairs, the sound of the crying child picked up briefly, before dropping to more of a hushed whine, obvious that Hayley was trying to placate it. “She’s taken losing Riz hard, they were everything to each other. That and I honestly think she’s just terrified without any answers about what’s even going on.” He quickly realised how obvious the appeal to Aoife for those answers was, but didn’t manage to look apologetic for it.

“And this is the part where you tell me how you are too, I guess? Pull at my heart strings a little more?”

There was a moment where he seemed to consider denying it, but seemed to decide he was too tired for subtlety.  “As long as you can put up with me being that obvious? I quit my job and ran away to stay with in-laws in the country. What do you think?”

“This is the hospital job you ran away from,” Aoife asked, the words coming out more cutting than she intended. She already knew half the details of his story, told in selective snippets to be pieced together over the last few hours. Details like how he’d been a pharmacist at a large hospital in Southampton until a month ago. Or how he’d known Hayley from university before she’d become a vet, something that at least went some way to explaining why she was so much more at home in the country than he was.  “I don’t know. How scared do you have to be to leave people who need helping like that?”

“I wasn’t helping.” For the first time, he surprised Aoife by speaking with something even remotely approaching anger. “Believe me, I wasn’t.”

“Right, because no-one needs drugs in the middle of a pandemic?”

That was unfair, and she knew it.

Anas appeared wounded by the implied accusation, and suddenly seemed just as concerned with explaining himself as he did trying to win her over. His volume rose, and he spoke just carefully enough to avoid tripping over his own words. “And how do you think I knew that something didn’t match with what the official line was saying? They stopped me going to the wards in late April, made me check orders and drug histories remotely from the pharmacy instead. But since then I’ve seen almost nothing but anticipatory medications being dispensed. Not antivirals or steroids, but end of life drugs. Patient after patient receiving palliative care. I had it there in black and white in front of me that entire wards of people were passing away and you were saying nothing about it.”

It was Anas’ turn to be unintentionally barbed, with just enough emphasis on the word ‘you’ to make the blame hard to miss. The argumentative side of Aoife pushed forward, trying to demand she argue back but he continued before she could. And as he did he gave the distinct impression he’d already given plenty of time trying to justify his actions to himself.

“I didn’t stop when I saw the names of doctors and nurses I was treating appearing on the request forms, while all the media seemed to care about was showing people clapping on their doorsteps. But you didn’t say anything when we started to run out of drugs to give people either.”

Anas paused for a second, just long enough for Aoife to appreciate that the baby had stopped crying, and that there wasn’t much left to stop his words hanging heavy in the small room. Again, she found herself thinking back to the reports she’d seen on the drive.

“You ran out,” she asked, quiet with disbelief. Anas seemed distressed enough at the recollection that Aoife couldn’t really bring herself to believe that he was saying things as some sort of ploy, despite wanting to.

“It was bad enough when it just felt like there was never enough PPE to go around, but we started to have to make substitutes around the Morphine shortages at the start of August. By the end of that month it was Haloperidol too. We kept being promised more benzodiazepines but I don’t think I’d actually seen any for weeks before I left. After a point I had begun to feel like I’d stopped actually making any sort of difference and was just risking myself to help paper over everything…So I just walked out one day and didn’t go back. I Isolated for a few days and then came here, decided I might as well at least be with my family.” 

“Your work didn’t tell you anything,” Aoife replied through an inward frown, her defiance left feeling small. “Why are you assuming I’m any different?”

The scrutiny from him she felt after asking the question immediately left her feeling uncomfortable enough to regret posing it, wishing she’d simply fallen back on immature silence.

Anas shrugged again. “It could be that this has gone so far that I can’t let myself think that, but I don’t know if I believe that you couldn’t have noticed that something was going on, even if you weren’t involved. And I don’t think anything you’ve said or done so has given me much reason to think you’re totally ignorant. We deserve to know what’s going on just as much as you do.” 

He’d said that last line to her more than once before, and each time she’d succeeded in brushing it off. But Aoife had let something change, and this time she actually asked herself the question. Why wasn’t she telling him what she knew? Taymont had been lying to them, to everyone, whether she’d let herself notice it or not. And the thought of people suffering and grieving while the establishment deceived them made her feel greasy with shame. Somewhere along the line, she’d lost the thread of her own arguments and she didn’t know which side she was meant to be on. She couldn’t even find a good justification for why people shouldn’t know that didn’t end in corruption and conspiracy.

But then Ethan knew. He was caught up in all this and he wasn’t telling the world either. It was a thought that came with the uncomfortable realisation. That if it was wrong not to say anything, and he wasn’t, then maybe he wasn’t the person she thought he was, and she’d bundled up all her feelings on someone who was just as much of a lie as the ones the NEBC was telling.

Fuck.

Everything soured. The idea was something she refused to dwell on, so instead she slipped back into herself, running from the guilt. Pulling her legs up in front of herself on the bed, her answer turned petulant again.

“And any of that gives you the right to go kidnapping people?”

Anas had obviously thought he might have been getting somewhere, and the sudden force of Aoife’s push back caused his face to fall. “That’s…not how this started,” he insisted, back on the defensive. “After Rizwan passed, we, Hayley and I, needed to do something that felt like making a difference. We couldn’t just sit anymore feeling like the world was gaslighting us without pushing back. We decided if we could do something like damage your equipment then maybe…” He trailed off, realising how weak his protest sounded.

“Aye, so what the fuck changed then?”

The sound of Hayley returning stopped him before he could answer. She looked tired, as if the stairs alone had been an effort for her. And as she attempted to return to her post on the other side of the doorway, she coughed again. Aoife waited for her to stop, but it took her several seconds to manage it, only doing so after her splutters had descended into something closer to choking. The blonde woman turned her head, lowering the scarf that covered her mouth, and gasped for breath.

Anas rose from his seat, ignoring Hayley’s protests and attempts to wave him away as he went to help her. He glanced back at Aoife, and this time she didn’t have to ask if he was afraid, she could see it.