QT UK - Chapter 12 (Patreon)

October 2nd 2020 (3 weeks earlier)

‘Light, is all over us.

‘Like it always was…’

The synth-pop intro of the latest track that Aoife was sharing from her Spotify built in the background of the video call; a Scottish woman’s vocals, trilled and melodic over reverbed bass. But the sound caused Ethan’s face to crease in feigned displeasure in the corner of her second monitor, before his voice chimed in over her headphones.

“Again? Come on Aoife, you’re killing me.”

The engineer responded by simply kicking up the volume, before giving a troll-like smirk to her own webcam. “What’s wrong with Chvrches? They’re better than most of the pish you listen to.”

“Sure, if you insist,” came the sarcastic response. “But this is still like the 3rd time you’ve played this one tonight though. And it takes forever to get to the drop.”

She leaned back in her chair in front of the two screens, brought from home along with her PC, that she’d just about managed to perch on the hotel room desk. Ethan had pretty similar tastes in music to her most of the time, but she considered his knee-jerk dislike of anything he considered too ‘pop’ to be a moral failing, and she had to admit she kept going back to the same track once he’d complained mostly for the fun of aggravating him.

“You,” she said, finishing what was left in her bright, cartoon-covered can of IPA, before tossing it in the direction of the bin that sat in the corner, “have no appreciation of delayed gratification.”

The can bounced off the rim with a ding and rolled away under the bed. Normally it was something she’d have picked up immediately, but tonight it would need to wait rather, knowing she wasn’t about to get up. She was aware of Ethan replying, but for a moment her attention strayed back to the window open on her main monitor, with the questions that sat there in front of her feeling just as deliriously unreal as they had been when she first saw them.

“Sorry, you say something?”

“I said, when this is all over we’re heading into Manchester one night, so I can show you what actual music sounds like.” The statement hung there for a moment, waiting to see if either of them noticed the half-intended implication to Ethan’s invitation. If Aoife had caught it, she’d have jumped at the hinted promise of a night out with him, but she was too swept along in the weird, awkward energy of the questionnaire they both hand open, and ended up brushing it off instead.

“Ok, no offence Ballbag, but I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing thinking about music while we have this in front of us?”

Something unreadable passed over Ethan’s face, and she missed that too before it flickered away. “...fair point.”

They had both definitely had less bizarre Friday nights.

The email from Pallisade’s management had arrived that morning with the highest priority, along with fresh login information for a system called Delphi, and a warning that failure to complete the survey which employees would find there within 48 hours risked having their contracts terminated. Her initial impulse had been that it was some sort of weird phishing attempt, but several enquiries confirmed that it was, in fact, real. And as much as she hated Pallisade’s bullshit, she hated the idea of not being paid more, leaving her little choice but to grudgingly oblige. Fortunately she’d decided she wasn’t going to do so alone, or entirely sober.

The first four of the five sections on the sleek, corporate, web portal for the Delphi system would have slowly sapped her will to live if she hadn’t had Ethan there on a video call with her, as she filled in page after page of information under the headings Demographics, Health Declarations, Personality Assessment and Professional Competencies. But wanting someone to talk to had at least been another excuse to spend time with him after their movie night a couple of evenings earlier. Even if they didn’t have a Hammer Horror like The Devil Rides Out to talk over, she was long past the point where his company meant more to her than whatever they were doing.

It was the fifth section however, titled cryptically as ‘Compatibility Survey,’ that had utterly upended whatever expectations they might have had. Even after the disclaimer they were asked to agree to, warning them that Delphi accepted no responsibility for the consequences if they failed to accurately answer questions of a personal nature. As Aoife had clicked confirm row after row of numberless sliders had come into view, asking her to adjust them to indicate how much she agreed with each of the hundreds of accompanying statements. It was the questions themselves however that had left both of them checking to see just how much they’d had to drink.   

‘I prefer sexual/romantic partners older than myself’

‘I enjoy or fantasise about being choked or asphyxiated in sexual situations’

‘I have pictured myself in sexual situations with multiple partners’

Direct, personal, often explicit, Aoife’s initial impulse was to simply close the window. But somehow the pair of them had encouraged each other into answering as their awkward, morbid curiosity had turned into banter, the sheer absurdity of what they were doing defying any attempt to take it too seriously. The order of the questions was randomised for both of them, presumably to try and stop any patterns to their answers, leaving them each to comment whenever they reached one they found particularly amusing, daring each other to be as honest as possible.

Of course there was plenty that she wasn’t ready to be entirely honest with herself about, let alone Ethan or some faceless dataset. And one statement in particular so far had left her hand hovering over the mouse when it appeared on screen.

‘I am sexually/romantically attracted to people of the same sex’  

Yeah, fuck that.

There were some sorts of honesty Aoife really wasn’t made for. No matter what her search history might suggest or any disclaimers warned her about. And the denial she’d given with a click was particularly emphatic before she’d quickly moved on, practically running away down the page until she found something else to distract her.

“Hah! You are so fucked when you get to this one,” she laughed, before putting on the mockingly over-officious voice she’d adopted for reading them in. “‘I would say I masturbate frequently during an average week.’”

There was a wry smile from the video feed of Ethan. “And you’re wondering why I keep trying to talk about music? You’re sure we can’t go back to how terrible your taste is?”

Aoife reached down next to her desk and fetched the final beer from the box she had stashed there. The can cracked open with a hiss, and she looked over her shoulder in the direction of her hastily made bed, and the Bulbasaur plush that resided by her pillow. She’d taken to saluting the stuffed toy with each new drink over the last few days, as if she could convince herself she was sharing her company with it rather than simply drinking alone. And as she did so, it was hard not to notice the electric pink vibrator that had ended up lying on the bed alongside it. She was hardly in a position to give Ethan a hard time. Sipping her beer, she turned back to the question, and quietly moved the slider most of the way towards the end of the line.

“I find the idea of my romantic partners having intimate body piercings, ie. nipples and genitals, to be sexually gratifying,” Ethan read his next question with more than a little incredulity. “Who the hell chose how they were going to word these? It’s like they’re trying to be polite and just making it weirder.”

The question was enough for Aoife to suddenly become over-aware of her own nipple rings, sensitive beneath her clothes. She’d got them done after breaking up with her last boyfriend, a final confidence boosting act of defiance, knowing how much he’d have liked to see them and that he never would.

“So, what’s the answer,” she asked, knowing any sudden hesitation on her part would only risk drawing more attention to herself on that particular point.

Ethan tried to play things cool, but failed entirely to hide his embarrassment as he made his own bid for understatement. “Well…I mean, I guess…it depends who’s wearing them.”

He couldn’t have been much more obvious with his answer if he’d come outright and stated his appreciation, but what Aoife hadn’t expected was the warm kick of her own arousal as a result. She cursed inwardly, realising she was playing with fire, and did her best not to let her thoughts daydream about what he’d think of hers. For a second she considered teasing him with the knowledge of her own, wondering if he’d ask for proof or if he’d be English and awkward about it. But she quickly chickened out and hid behind a swig of her beer, deciding she could take her cowardice out on her vibrator later.

“Riiiiight. You know if you want to try again and see if you can hide that better, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you the first time.”

“Can I just pass instead?”

“The questionnaire said no skips, so no, you absolutely cannot.”

A middle finger appeared in the centre of Ethan’s cam feed, causing Aoife to laugh, deciding to let him off the hook and simply take the win. Instead she went back to looking for questions of her own to share. Before she could find any however, he spoke again, although his voice was more thoughtful this time.

“You said you put ‘single,’ back where it was asking for your personal details, right?”

Aoife hesitated, trying to puzzle out the direction he was about to take things. “Yeah? Why?” If there was one thing she hated talking about with him it was relationship statuses, sure in her own knowledge that her interest wasn’t going to be reciprocated, and that any conversation was just going to shine a spotlight on unwanted feelings.

“I dunno. I can’t shake that I’m missing the point of all this and why it’s called a ‘Compatibility Survey.’ Like, compatible with what?”

Mentally, Aoife cursed at him and the unease that had suddenly appeared. Why did he always have to be an asshole and make so much sense? They weren’t being given a huge choice on cooperating with things, so why couldn’t he have left the weirdness feeling fun rather than uncomfortable? Her frustration built, and she tried to convince herself that she wasn’t feeling over-exposed. “You’re over thinking things. Like you said, it’s probably just some shady research project Palisade are getting kickbacks for being involved with.”

The suspicion still felt the most plausible, the only reason she could think of for any of this was some social sciences bullshit with them as the guinea pigs, and her opinion of Palisade certainly wasn’t high enough not to put it past them.

“Yeah but-”

He started again, but she cut him off. “Besides, if you’re not single, then who would you put down?”

Instantly, Aoife regretted the question. Was there someone he wanted to put there? There was a pause that went on just slightly too long, and she filled it with her anxiety, waiting to hear how he must have been messaging with the woman from the government, Evie. Or that there was someone back home he had feelings for. Not that she could blame him if it was the former, she’d go weak at the knees for someone like that too. Evie was everything Aoife thought she wasn’t, and it was just a matter of hearing Ethan say her name.

Eventually Ethan frowned. “...yeah, you’re right, never mind. I am overthinking this.”

It went quiet, the song the only sound still coming through her headphones, the energy of the synth beats suddenly feeling off kilter as it built to the belated drop Ethan had complained about.

‘Will you meet me more than halfway up?’

She could just be honest and say how she felt. But that was another sort of honesty Aoife wasn’t made for. Instead, she simply fought the urge to sulk, and skipped forward to the next track.

*****

26th October 2020

Aoife woke to find Hayley watching her, the other woman back in position in the hallway outside the bedroom door. It was light now at least, meaning the jump scare she got came less hard than it would have done otherwise, but not so soft that it didn’t cause the green haired engineer to swear loudly in surprise. 

She had been allowed to sleep, fitfully, eventually, with the door being locked when neither Anas nor his sister-in-law had been able to stay up to watch her any longer. She’d been far too cold, with the renovations of the house not yet extending to the central heating in the back bedroom, leaving her breath clouding the air even as she pulled the blankets she’d been given around her. But that wasn’t the main reason she’d slept like shit. Nor was the fact she couldn’t leave to use the bathroom like she needed. Rather the weird mixture of fear, sadness and guilt was more than enough to keep her from settling and she’d instead ended up getting up several times in the night to test the window, despite knowing that the recently reglazed glass wasn’t suddenly going to yield to her efforts any more than it had done previously. But that wasn’t the point. She just needed a way to try and shift the feelings that sat tangibly on her chest; like some b-movie monster, looming in the dark.

As she stirred, Hayley didn't move. The previous day, the blonde woman had mostly stood outside the room, arms folded, but now she was sitting on the exposed floorboards, back leant against the hallway’s wallpaper. She looked terrible, her breathing shallow and laboured, a faint sheen of perspiration visible on sallow skin, but that’s not what Aoife noticed about her first. Instead, it was the look on her face, and how intense her eyes were, even with the obvious fatigue they were struggling against.

Aoife had never seen anyone look as angry at the world as Hayley did, cold and quiet as iron. Hard enough that you could forge an edge into it.

For once, finding some snarky comment to snap back with didn’t come easy to Aoife and she stumbled, half awake, over her own discomfort. The last thing she wanted to do was pity the bitch who’d dragged her out here. But it was almost impossible not to, even if it sat alongside her own fear and resentment, and she heard herself simply mumbling with what little derision she could muster.

“Morning.”

The scarf was back, wrapped around Hayley’s face, and there was no acknowledgement of Aoife’s ‘greeting’ as the blonde coughed into the faded wool. The attempt to clear her chest was weak however, little more than a wheeze that rasped and rattled through what energy she seemed to have. It took her several seconds more before she recovered enough to be able to speak. 

“I shouldn’t have let Anas take charge of asking you questions…waste of damned time…”

That felt hard to argue with. They both knew Hayley only had so much of it left. One of them knew it from the broadcast she’d seen at Taymont, and the other from painful personal experience she barely had a name or context for. Just the understanding that what she’d watched happen to her husband was happening to her too. It was one of the things that Aoife had laid there with overnight, trying to remember just how long the footage had implied Hayley would have left if she had DuoHalo. Hours? A day or two at most? She’d never seen anyone actually die. The idea of being there for it terrified her. And she hated that that was the weird, selfish little issue that she kept going back to, the thought demanding she keep vividly picking at it.

“Yeah, well,” she replied, “who says you’d have done any better?”

Hayley picked up on the resentment that was still obvious in Aoife’s voice, and responded flatly. “You want me to give you an apology for bringing you here?”

Continuing to rouse fully, Aoife shifted to sit up. She was still dressed in her clothes from the day before, having slept in everything but her coat to keep away the chill, but everything felt grubby and unpleasant now. Her stomach growled, and she realised someone had left a banana for her next to the bed, but she wasn’t exactly in the mood to eat either.

“Well it’s not like I’m going to get one, is it?”

Hayley gave as much of a shake of her head as her energy allowed. “I don’t want to be doing this to you. But I’m not going to just go quietly. I promised my husband I’d do whatever I could to keep Layla safe.” Layla. At least Aoife finally had a name to put to the hungry crying that kept coming from elsewhere in the house, even if knowing it just made things harder. “And I’m going to rage against whatever this is. Until I can’t anymore. Because if it’s her or you? I pick her every time.”

Aoife couldn’t work out how much Hayley was trying to reiterate that to herself. It hadn’t escaped her notice that, from the moment they’d arrived, Hayley had refused to step into the same room as her and had done her best to keep using her scarf as some feeble substitute for a mask. At least some part of the other woman’s conscience felt the need to tell herself that she was doing what she could to minimise any harm she was causing. But then that obviously only went so far. And even as the rest of her words faltered the conviction in the blonde woman’s voice for that final statement was unmistakable.

Not that it really mattered at this point. Aoife had seen on the report just how transmissible DuoHalo was and she knew any damage had already been done. She’d had enough time the night before to reason out that she was almost certainly infected now too, no matter what value Hayley put on it. And no matter how well she felt or how abstract the idea remained, sitting just out of reach of what she could bring herself to grasp at. She just worried about how and when the thought of it would come crashing down into her.

It was real enough for her to remain bitter at Hayley, however, and she tried to force herself to be dismissive. “Yeah, save the speeches. You sound like a shitty super villain.”

Hayley made a face, and left Aoife feeling guiltier than she expected. She hated that. She wanted to stay angry, not feel ashamed. It’s not like she asked for any of this to happen to the other woman, so why was she being made to feel responsible?

“Besides, why do you keep thinking I know whatever it is you’re looking for?”

A weak shudder went through Hayley’s body, and Aoife couldn’t tell if it was a cough or a chuckle. “What choice do I have? I don’t have time on my side anymore. If I don’t let myself believe you do then that’s it. I’d rather let myself think there’s at least something I can still do. You’ve all taken everything else from me.”

The worst part of the answer was that, unlike the day before, it was unguarded enough that Aoife didn’t think Hayley was trying to pick her words to cajole her into opening up. It did at least give her confirmation of what she’d already half puzzled out, as to why the pair of them had switched from damaging Taymont’s satellite dish to their current actions. And she could respect the logic, unable to exactly deny that she was above kidding herself like that either, if it let her cling onto what she needed to keep her going.

“Besides,” Hayley continued. “I am right. Aren’t I?”

Aoife didn’t bother to make the denial, choosing to glance out through the curtains rather than look at the other woman, in the direction of where the wind was stripping the final browning leaves from the trees in the valley. Hayley chose not to push her further, leaving her to grapple with her own thoughts for several minutes instead, accompanied only by the sound of a broken gutter, trickling, clock-like, onto the window ledge outside. When Aoife looked back to her, the blonde sat with her head hung down, eyes closed, so frighteningly still that it was impossible to tell if she was still breathing or not.

It was only when Layla started crying, elsewhere in the house, that Hayley moved again, looking up in the direction of the noise. She looked like she was considering trying to move, only to remain where she was when she heard Anas’ footsteps heading to comfort his niece.

“Do I not deserve to know what it’s going to take to keep her safe,” she asked, exhaustedly, with a look back at Aoife that was as biting as the cold. “What gives any of you the right to do this?”

“I…”

Aoife hesitated, and Hayley continued, quietly. “Is whatever it is so god damned important? That you have to take that from me too?”

“I don’t know.”

The protest Aoife gave was strained. She didn’t have a good answer to any of this, or how she was meant to start finding one. But Hayley took the words as another denial that she knew anything about what was going on, and it caused her anger to show. “Is it just not enough to let people like me die? But you’ve got to make sure we do it blind and scared? Is that it?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Aoife didn’t mean to raise her voice, but the accusations made her feel pushed into a corner and she shoved back. Her frustration spilt over, and her words blurred together the way they always did when she was worked up. “I don’t know why I can’t tell you. Or what I’m even meant to be fucking doing anymore, ok?”

She wanted to hate Hayley, something in no small part she was succeeding at, but she was long past the point where tired pettiness felt particularly good. She’d never been one to let authority tell her what she should do rather than what she thought was right, so why was she holding onto this so tightly?

Probably because she was so scared by everything going on around her that it was natural to simply plant her feet and refuse to move, stubborn in the face of anything resembling sense? Or because she was still second guessing what Ethan would want, and worrying about what it would mean for her imagined sense of him? The first one certainly sounded enough like her to be a large part of the reason. But the second?

She was forgetting that that line of thinking ran more than one way. If he could honestly look her in the eyes and tell her that she needed to let Hayley go through this, was that really the man she wanted him to be either? That she needed to be someone she wasn’t for him. Everything had turned around her so much that she didn’t know. And for every answer she could come up with, it felt like she could find another, just as convincing, that argued the opposite.

“I just…Ethan said…he was going to…”

As Aoife wavered, Hayley’s expression turned incredulous, as if for the first time she was allowing herself to see just how many conflicted thoughts the engineer had beneath her refusal to talk. And realising just how much of a mess she was pinning her expectations upon. Ethan’s name in particular seemed to make her face curl in disapproval, betraying some sense of how inane she thought Aoife’s reasons must be compared to her own.

“Jesus christ, you can’t seriously be…” she started, aggravation and disbelief barely contained. “What do you mean you don’t know why?”

She prepared to berate Aoife further, but before she could the pair of them were interrupted by Layla’s cries growing louder. The noise pulled Hayley’s attention away and caused her to pause, seemingly left trying to decide if she had the will to continue wasting what energy she had left.  Her daughter won out, and she began to labour to her feet, hands needing to find the doorframe to help lift herself. But even as she did so, her gaze remained judgemental, not willing to leave without a parting shot once she’d caught her breath again.

“You better work out pretty quickly what you do know. Or you’re going to have to live with the choices you’re making.”

Aoife realised that, as she’d been watching the other woman struggle, she’d been picturing how easy it would have been to push past Hayley in her current state and simply make a run for it. She could take the chance that Anas was too busy with the baby to react quickly enough. She could find her phone, or the car keys or any number of the possible escapes that she’d been running through her head. It wasn’t like her not to find some way to act and impose herself on a situation, and she definitely wasn’t about to let herself be some damsel in distress. But it was only as Hayley had spoken that she realised what was stopping her.

Maybe she did need to stop overthinking things and just act already. But she also knew how wrong walking away would feel. If she was conflicted, it was only because she was fighting back against what her gut was telling her was right. Elsewhere in the house, Layla was still crying, and while she knew the kid was probably just hungry, she could almost start to convince herself there was some sort of dramatic irony to the sound she was missing.

The door began to swing closed, ready to shut Aoife away again if she let it. But she rose from the bed instead, quickly making her way to catch it. Hayley already had the key halfway to the lock, and for a moment, as Aoife’s hand tried to press it open, the blonde weakly pushed back.

“Wait…I’ll talk.”

Hayley stepped away, and the door swung open.

*****

27th October 2020

“Do you want some of this?”

Farah slid a hand between her legs, scooping some of Ethan’s cum out from between her folds. With a smirk, she held it up to show Alex, offering her coated fingers to the other woman. The redhead blushed, still laying nude, propped up on the pillow alongside Ethan. She hadn’t managed to cum yet herself, having only watched, strumming herself, as Farah had ridden their shared partner, and her arousal continued to get the better of her embarrassment for long enough for her to give a small nod of her head in response.

Ethan watched Farah crawl back down the bed towards her, carefully offering her hand to Alex and chuckling as the other woman lapped up the seed with her tongue. Alex’s back arched, and she plucked at a pink nipple, kneading her chest as the vaccine-induced climax shook through her. The redhead had continued to remain outwardly confident in her own heterosexuality since Ethan had met her, and had avoided the subtle invitations to experiment with Farah and Evie she’d been given by the pair. However that apparently didn’t extend to licking orgasms second hand off another girl's fingers, no more than it did to masturbating as she watched Ethan’s cock thrusting into them.

For a second, as Alex came down and her eyes fluttered back open, it looked as if Farah might attempt to steal a kiss from her, but the cricketer hesitated just long enough for her self awareness to return. Instead, she opted for giving Alex a knowing smile, before slipping from the bed.

“Do you mind if I use your shower,” she asked Ethan casually, already beginning to make her way in the direction of the en-suite. “I’ve already interrupted enough of your morning together.”

Even though he’d just come, it was hard not to be distracted by the sight of Farah’s ass as she walked away. “It’s not interrupting if you need me you know?”

Farah paused at the doorway to the bathroom, stretching her freshly healing arm. “I’m pretty sure it still is. But thank you.” There was a brief smirk as she caught Alex looking at her too, and drew out the motion, lingering in the attention she was receiving, before blowing the redhead a kiss. “And thank you for the audience.”

Realising how intently she’d been looking, Alex blushed again, failing to find a sarcastic quip like she normally would before Farah disappeared.

Ethan had spent the night back in his old, standard, hotel room rather than the honeymoon suite he’d been sharing with his partners. Still not even 48 hours since Aoife had last been seen on site, he’d quietly decided he needed some time to himself. But he should have realised that with his team growing, space to think was something which was going to quickly start coming at a premium.

As it was, he was glad that it was Alex that had been the first one to come looking for him. She’d barely had any time to get her head around what had happened to her either, and the imposition of another crisis on top of things had robbed her of some of the care she was badly due. She hadn’t wanted to talk, not really, but she hadn’t wanted to be alone in the room that had been allocated to her, near to Rhys’ team, either. And so they’d ended up simply sleeping next to each other, with Alex using a borrowed t-shirt as nightwear, each oddly soothed by the other’s presence. Something that lasted until Farah’s interjection the next morning.

Farah had lasted longer than Evie, but it still hadn’t even been five full days before the serum had started to itch its way through her libido, unable to be entirely relieved by the sapphic hook ups with her new teammates. The knock at Ethan’s door had come at exactly 8am, implying Farah had forced herself to wait until a time that wasn’t inconveniently early, apologetic as she’d mumbled her way through an embarrassed explanation, of the way she was passing the point of distraction with how much her body was starting to crave him. Evie had at some point made a suggestion that Gemivax would run ‘hottest’ in the first few weeks after administration before gradually easing up, but she hadn’t sounded particularly emphatic either. Not that Ethan had been able to muster much in the way of reluctance with Farah in front of him. And it was as if his own arousal had responded in kind to her, a brief shroud that left other concerns just hazy enough to exist alongside his urge to make her feel better.

They’d ended up fucking with Farah on top, with it unclear exactly how much the disinhibition from the vaccine was playing into her desire to show herself off as she rode him, and how much was simply just her natural exhibitionist streak. What did seem more certain was that without the serum’s help it was unlikely that Alex would have been quite so open to staying to watch in the way she did. She hadn’t felt comfortable enough to participate directly, but her clothing hadn’t lasted long either, fucking herself with her fingers as Farah had leant back to give the best possible view of the way Ethan slid inside her with each roll of her hips.

However, as the moment passed, and the sounds of the shower drifted with steam through the half-open bathroom door, he felt the stress and worry creeping back through him. No matter how much Farah’s energy might be able to pick him (and the others) up, for Ethan it was only ever going to be a temporary reprieve until he knew Aoife was ok. Something that left him feeling stuck in limbo, phantom like, fighting to affect the course of things around him in a tangible way rather than watching it all pass right through him.

Special Branch were still swarming around the place, their tones accusatory and questions pointed, suffocating the Hall under a blanket of enforced reassurance. He’d spent much of the previous day answering the questions of one of the female detectives, a brunette called Collingwood, who while not outright saying that they’d put special attention on his interactions with Aoife, did little to stop him feeling like any word he said might be used against him. She at least hadn’t openly judged the way he was also obsessively filling his spare moments by continuing to assess the CCTV footage he’d been given access to. Instead, she’d simply asked him to provide her with anything he thought was relevant, even seeming impressed when he’d produced a small list of licence plates that he’d identified as being in the area so far.

“Pity she’s so shy,” Alex said, her voice husky as she rolled onto her side to face him. The affectionate sarcasm came just in time to stop him from slipping into introspection, and he wondered if she had been able to tell he was at risk of getting caught up in his own head.

“Farah? Yeah, she’s a total introvert.” He still wasn’t quite sure how intimate Alex wanted him to be with her, another thing to second guess, but as he chanced reaching over and caressing her face, she smiled and let him. “Sorry if that was an awkward position to put you in.”

Alex responded by leaning in and kissing him, gently, although he was pretty sure it was at least partly to shut him up.

“I’m a big girl. I can tell you when I’m uncomfortable.”

“Ok. Fair.” He knew she was right, and that he was worrying too much. If the circumstances were different he might have found it easier not to.  “Got any plans for after breakfast?”

It was Alex’s turn to suddenly seem thoughtful. She’d been brought onto Project Upstart as a programmer and web engineer to help build an online platform for Gemivax and Averna to go alongside the public rollout, but had quickly been insistent that Nia’s plans weren’t ambitious enough for the timeframe she was being given. It was odd for anyone to say Nia lacked vision, but Alex had been insistent that if they just wanted her to build a website with a handful of videos and corporate talking points on, they might as well just use Squarespace.

“I’ve been trying to do some digging into how Delphi’s user credentials are set up. The IDs are all highly anonymised but have some really basic information available with an API so the government can track demographic uptake, including whether an ID is vaccinated or not. If I can get their engineers to play nice then it would be fairly trivial to use those IDs on a less privileged site and set up a web portal with content for people who’ve been vaccinated. Set it up with things like reporting for adverse reactions or give support information. And give us somewhere to keep putting out media that isn’t being used for the initial release. You could make all those hours of interviews you’ve got exclusive for people who’ve been vaccinated for instance.”

It was still an adjustment for Ethan whenever he was made to stop and appreciate just how dynamic and talented the women he was paired with were. And Alex spoke with a casual enthusiasm it was hard not to believe in, or smile along with. But it wasn’t the details of what she was proposing that caught his attention first.

“I get the feeling there’s an ulterior motive for wanting to poke at Delphi’s systems here.”

Alex’s response was the driest he’d heard from her yet. “No, what could possibly have given you that idea?”

Nia had been given a lot of promises so far, by Delphi’s contractor, her fellow board members at Averna, and the various relevant arms of the government about what was going to be done. But while there were investigations being conducted, forensic IT specialists apparently brought in to check out what they were euphemistically calling Alex’s ‘misplacement,’ no one had been able to offer her anything concrete. He didn’t blame her for wanting to take things into her own hands with everything that was going on, but he also worried about her putting herself back in a position where she could get hurt or obsessive.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to listen to me telling you to be careful?”

Alex made a theatrical show of considering it, tapping a finger to her chin. “Listen, maybe? But I’m still going to do it. Not least because it’s a good idea.”

He gave her another small kiss, wanting to let her know she had his support despite the note of caution. “Hard to argue with that. What’s Nia said?”

“I’ve not told her yet. I thought maybe once things feel less tense you could help me with a pitch for her. We could package up some content that wouldn’t get used otherwise and let me show her what I’m picturing.”

Things being less tense still felt very far away to Ethan, still feeling like he was trying to keep putting one foot in front of another on a path it was hard to see. And Lukas was still taking a lot of the slack of his existing workload as he did so. But he wasn’t about to turn down Alex either and he summoned up some optimism for her, even if the weak smile he gave her probably betrayed his misgivings. “Sure…when things are less insane, I promise. Just, give me a few days for all this stuff with Aoife to work itself out.”

Alex’s hand brushed reassuringly against his arm. “It’s ok. I get it.” He could feel the blue of her eyes resting on him softly for a moment before she smiled. “You’re doing that cute little frown again”

He gave a short laugh, not quite sure if he really did pull a face when he was thinking too much, or if his partners had just taken to teasing him. “That’s not a thing.”

“It’s definitely a thing.” The redhead grinned at him, before forcing herself to sit up, trying not to allow herself to get caught up in how easy it would have felt to stay lying there on the bed together. The movement caused what little of the sheets were still covering her to fall aside, the full heft of her chest left on show along with the sheen that remained between her thighs. “What about you,” she asked. “Plans for the day?”

Ethan sighed. He knew she was trying to help keep his head on things he could control, but it just drew him further back towards reality.

“I’m meant to be having a meeting with producers from CBS and ARD that I set up last week,” he replied, name checking the equivalent US and German broadcasters. “We’re trying to get an understanding set up to share news and footage directly, since governments are naturally twitchy and a lot of the news agencies like Reuters are really struggling to give anyone much at the moment. I wanted to make sure we’re including segments on what the rest of the world’s doing to make it seem like a real international pushback against the virus.”

The meeting had been arranged days earlier, back when it was expected that things with Jess and Alex would be problem free and everyone would be able to give it the attention it demanded. What  tentative contacts Ethan had had with the other broadcasters had been cagey so far at best, filtered through intelligence agencies and layers of government approvals, with the scheduled conference call meant to be the first real opportunity they’d have to actually start sharing. Like the UK, he knew the Germans had their own serum, and the impression he got was that they had to be ahead of the game in their rollout, based on how much less willing they were to allow the US authorities to dictate terms to them.

He’d also had tentative interest from NHK in Japan and RAI in Italy among others, but the biggest omission so far in wanting to be involved were the French. He’d learnt from Nia that they had their own vaccine programme, a joint venture with the Swiss and the corporation Novartis, tapping into the large pharma sector that existed in Zurich. But the whispers she’d heard off the record were that their efforts had been beset by significant side effects, and Evie was convinced that the French government had begun approaching other countries to attempt to purchase doses to make up the shortfall.

The other main subject of rumours was the supposed collaboration between several of the Nordic and Baltic countries, who were said to be pushing ahead with distribution of their vaccine despite the side effects. The stories he’d heard talked about increased territorialism from women towards anyone not in their team, along with gains in height and muscle mass that went beyond the simple regenerations other countries were experiencing. Normally he would have decided any so-called ‘Valkyrie Vaccine’ was just people getting deliberately over-imaginative; but then was it really that much more unbelievable than what he was already living?

“I’d rather not be doing it today honestly,” Ethan continued, already weary at the idea of having to give it focus he’d much rather was elsewhere. “But it can’t be rescheduled and if I step back then it means letting Rhys handle it.” 

At the mention of his name, Alex immediately made a face.

“Yeah, exactly. He could do it, but that doesn’t mean I want him to.”

Rhys had, in fairness, been a strong voice in favour of getting the meeting organised. It was hard not to see his argument that they should be framing Gemivax as a British success story given the UK was one of the only countries to have its own working vaccine programme. The slight nationalistic slant wasn’t something Ethan could say he was entirely comfortable with, but Rhys was also probably right in arguing that it would help uptake in certain demographics. The issue however was with how difficult it was to deal with the other man since getting back from Nottingham, his pride and principles both wounded enough that he’d settled for sniping and posturing to try and reassert his ego. He’d been outwardly consolatory to Ethan, probably due to wanting to maintain his own self image as someone decent, but the petty bullshit was more than the younger man really wanted to handle. And that was before even touching on things with Aoife.

Nia had taken pains to assure him that telling Special Branch they were preparing Aoife to join Team Barclay was just a necessary story to avoid too much scrutiny, one they’d revise when she was safe, but it made even being in the same room as Rhys an uncomfortable reminder and pushed him closer to doing or saying something rash.

“Besides,” Ethan added, not wanting to get stuck thinking about Rhys. “It would be nice to compare notes on how the different vaccines work, see if what they’re saying about them all having different quirks is true.”

That caught Alex’s curiosity. “Such as?”

“Such as the US version having slightly higher rates of regenerations, or how Gemivax supposedly lowers inhibitions far more than the others.” He looked towards the bathroom, and the sound of Farah humming to herself as she showered. “She’s about a week away from openly getting herself off in the studio at her current rate,” he joked. “And Evie’s not much better. It’d be nice to know if that’s something everyone’s dealing with or if it’s just us.”

She looked thoughtful, as if weighing up how much of an impact it was already having on her, and her gaze also wandered in Farah’s direction.

“Plus I want to ask if anyone knows if the rumours about the Nordics are true.”

Alex laughed, “so that’s what does it for you? Got it.”

“No. But if Evie’s going to tell me I should be glad I’m not there, whenever I talk about side effects here, I want to at least get it corroborated.”

She climbed off the bed while Ethan spoke, nakedly making her way over to where her phone sat on the hotel room’s desk, next to a pile of her neatly folded clothes from the day before, and Ethan’s open laptop. He’d woken early, well before Farah had arrived, and not wanting to disturb the then sleeping Alex, had sat at the desk to pour over more grainy footage of cars driving past nearby fields and hedgerows. As Alex reached for her phone, ready to check her own messages, she stopped, regarding the laptop screen and the folder full of CCTV files displayed there.

“So, what you’re actually planning to do today is to torture yourself with this for as long as you can, then show up stressed and unprepared to the meeting, isn’t it?” For a moment Ethan couldn’t tell if it was an accusation, before realising her body language and tone were nothing but sympathetic. “Am I warm?”

“That…probably sounds about right, honestly,” he confessed, feeling like she probably should be judging him for it, even if she wasn’t.

“Have you worked out how to tell Nia you want her on the team yet?”

Alex’s question was blunt enough that Ethan wasn’t sure how to respond, left trying to deny that it was something he’d lain awake picturing, trying to visualise how this might all work out.

“I’m not going to…” he started to respond, but she saw through his bullshit, dryly stopping him from finishing.

“Riiiight, of course you’re not.” Alex circled back across the room towards him. “Because she’s really that stupid. I’ve never even met the legendary Aoife Ryan and even I can tell how you feel. Nia’s going to be waiting for you to say something when they find her you know?”

Ethan wanted to protest, not least at the fact that any of that hinged on the idea that she was out there, safe. But it was something he wasn’t willing to voice due to how sick it made his stomach to even consider otherwise. Alex, however, already seemed to have an uncanny ability to tell what he was thinking by looking at him.

“When they find her,” she repeated, with emphasis. She paused at the bedside, looking at him before bending to place her lips on his forehead. “There’s the frown again.”

Knuckles rapped, firmly, on the door to the bedroom, interrupting them both, before being followed by the broad Yorkshire accent of Det. Cons. Beth Collingwood.

“Ethan? Do you have a moment for me please.”

The detective’s tone was as brusque as always, with a flattened affect that did its best to draw you into filling the silences for her. It didn’t hint at what she wanted, and he felt his heart flip at all the possible outcomes that might be waiting with her on the other side. He grabbed one of the Taymont monogrammed dressing gowns, and hurried to answer, doing his best to only crack the door and preserve Alex’s modesty.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, tying the belt to his robe, “I’ve got company.”

Collingwood glanced past him only for a moment, before fixing him with her attention. “It’s fine, I'd be more surprised if you weren’t with one of your Team.” She was a little older than Ethan, with an appearance that screamed unassuming professionalism. From the unfussy cut of her shoulder length hair to the drab grey of her coat, hung open over a singular pop of colour from a rust coloured jumper, hands firmly out of view in the pockets.

She stood there sternly studying him, as if there was something to see that he wasn’t aware of, before speaking again. “I’ve had some officers asking for any footage from private cameras nearby and looking to see if they could spot any of the vehicles from your list on them.”

Not for the first time in his dealings with Collingwood she gave a pause, just long enough for him to be unsure as to whether she was expecting him to reply, before she pulled a freshly printed photo from her pocket, passing it to him.

“They came up with this overnight, from the petrol station in Taymont Village two days ago. It’s the best frame they could find, but the 4x4 there is one of the ones from the list you gave me.”

The fuzzy security camera shot mostly took in the forecourt of a petrol station which Ethan knew vaguely was just outside the nearby village, with only a thin strip of the passing road visible at the top of the image. The shape of an ageing Land Rover, already grainy from magnification and with its edges blurry from motion could still just be made out as it half-disappeared from the frame. What immediately jumped out at Ethan however, was the definite flash of long green hair that could be seen through the rear window, belonging to someone on the back seat.

“I wasn’t expecting anything to come from what you gave me, but I’ve been wrong before. Does that look like it could be her?”

The picture trembled in front of him, and Ethan realised his hand was shaking, knowing in his gut that it was Aoife he was looking at. Carefully, he passed the photo back to Collingwood, doing his best to try and grab hold of the anarchic mess of emotions that had just burst out in different directions.

“Yeah, I think it might be…”

*****

Hayley died in the night.

Aoife woke to find the door to her room unlocked and a cold quiet hanging over the house. It was the first time since the hillside that she’d been unconfined or unattended, something which immediately unsettled her without knowing why; her mind summoning up tension to stalk ghostlike in the negative space left by the threats and rage that had been there before. She almost had to dare herself to head downstairs, understanding that being able to do so was going to mean consequences without knowing if they were for her or someone else. If they’d already happened, or if she was about to provoke them.

She’d told the blonde woman almost everything she’d learnt about DuoHalo, but If it had helped it hadn’t been enough. Sure, there’d been the consolation that her daughter was going to be ok, but with that came the confirmation that Hayley wasn’t going to be there to see it. And worse than the lack of any hope was the way that Aoife couldn’t offer any sort of context or purpose to any of it. There was probably nothing that would have meant Hayley was going to suddenly find peace and just let go, but she definitely couldn’t accept the sheer, enormous pointlessness of what she was being told. She struggled against being overlooked, forgotten and impotent, arguing with herself that Aoife had to still be holding back on something, even as her energy had faded and she’d been forced to shut her away again.

When no-one had come to demand more answers and the hours had crept on, Aoife knew what it likely meant. It was obvious how little Hayley had left to fight with, hollowed out and grey by the end of their last encounter, but part of her still hoped she was going to find the blonde’s anger waiting for her at the bottom of the staircase. Instead, all she found was Anas sitting alone at the kitchen table.

He didn’t seem to notice her as she entered, but it was clear enough from the moment she saw him that his sister-in-law was dead. Aoife didn’t think she’d seen a man look more broken than the figure etched out in the pale glow coming through the still drawn curtains. Still wearing the same clothes he had been the day before, there was something about the vacant way he cradled his face in his hands that wrenched at her, and she felt guilt coil noose-like around her despite knowing it wasn’t her fault. No matter how much it felt like it was somehow. She moved less carefully, hoping to let her footsteps announce herself to Anas gently, but only succeeded in startling him out of whatever place his thoughts had wandered to. Red-rimmed eyes looked back at her as he lifted his head, but there was less grief in his expression than she expected. Instead he just looked too afraid and overwhelmed for anything else to have really caught up to him yet, and she couldn’t tell if that was better or worse.

“...I’m sorry,” Aoife said, mumbling the words over the cloying stillness that lingered about the kitchen. The words were hard to say, but she was surprised that it was because she meant it, and she wished she was better equipped to offer something that felt less pitiful. Equally surprising to her was the fact that she wasn’t just leaving. She could turn and see the front door from where she stood, if she wanted, and the sane parts of her head said she should already be on the other side of it. The only thing stopping her was her conscience, nagging at her in the place where she wanted her bitterness to still be.

Anas only nodded in reply.

Moving towards the table, to sit with the man who was still technically her captor, Aoife looked for something to fill the silence. She started, but quickly tailed off, grappling hard enough with the way her own emotions were knotted up in her throat that anything she could think to say felt like bullshit or needlessly hurtful. “She was…”

Anas’ voice strained. It was the first time she’d seen him without his mask on, the pretence that they were going to help them now far from either of their minds, and his entire face being visible only made it harder to hide how tired and drawn he appeared. “She was a good person. Before all of this started. They both were.”

Aoife could believe that. Hayley had been a bitch to her, but she didn’t think anyone really felt entirely like the people they were six months ago. Some of who she was had certainly got lost somewhere along the way. And it was easier to be sad rather than angry at the blonde now she wasn’t here.

“I just don’t think she knew how to do helpless. And I’m sorry that it meant you had to…” It was his turn to fail at finishing a thought, as if he didn’t really want to confront what he’d been part of putting Aoife through. “...yeah.”

Would she have been much better in Hayley’s position, Aoife wondered? She still found it hard, on some level, not to hate the version of the woman she’d known, but she could hardly claim that she’d been above doing something stupid. She’d been enough of an impulsive asshole to access the drive after all. And she wasn’t half as desperate or hurt as Hayley must have been. How would she react if she knew she was going to die like that?

But then, that’s exactly what was going to happen to her, wasn’t it?

The thought that she’d been doing her best to keep at arm’s length, as it had crawled across the back of her mind for the last two days, caught up to her, and for once she wasn’t able to push it aside. Hayley had died from DuoHalo. Anas almost definitely had it, and there was no way she didn’t too. She’d seen the reports that were on the drive from Scotland and the attempts they’d made to mask up and keep their distance were next to meaningless. They’d been too close for too long and it seemed blindly unrealistic to pretend otherwise.

She was infected. And what chances did that give her? A coin flip at best? When did she ever get that lucky? If she had it, she knew she was fucked.

Something cold ran through her, and she had to force herself not to think of the body that was still lying somewhere upstairs, instead thinking of how quickly they’d find someone to replace her at work and all the movies she’d probably never get to watch.

It was only then that she noticed the stubby, half-empty glass vial that sat on the kitchen counter, next to a box large enough to contain several more, with Anesketin 100mg/ml printed in matter of fact letters on the side. The outline of a horse was also daubed across the crisp white cardboard, and while most of the pharmaceutical fine print was too small for her to read at a distance, the bold letters of one phrase was clear enough to see. ‘Ketamine. For veterinary use only.’

New questions ran through her mind. It was obviously from Hayley’s work, but her thoughts had turned morbid enough that she was second guessing who it was for, suddenly worrying if Anas was the sort to consider ending his own life rather than go through the death he’d seen his family members experience.

“It was for her, last night,” he explained, after gathering himself, the memory obviously still open and raw. “I told you how most of the hospitals ran out of the usual pain killers, so I made sure Hayley kept some of hers back. It’s not ideal, but she was in too much pain not to give her something.”

As glad as she was that Anas wasn’t about to do anything rash, the answer didn’t exactly come as much of a comfort. No-one deserved to go out like that, even someone she was as conflicted over as Hayley.

“It was that bad, yeah?” She asked, almost without thinking, her own need to know just slightly larger than her fear.

Again, Anas just nodded. And again, Aoife found herself without the ability to work out how she was meant to feel, or the words to do anything but apologise.

“Sorry.”

“It is what it is,” he sighed, looking up at the ceiling and going quiet for a long moment. There was something oddly thoughtful about him that reminded her of Ethan, and more so than Hayley, she wished she’d managed to know him under better circumstances. “I just wish I could have made sure she was at peace by the end. But I don’t know if I think anything could really have done that.”

She wanted, badly, to tell him that it was a pity the pair of them couldn’t have worked that out before they stuck a gun in her face, but there was something pathetic to his grief that stopped her. Aoife didn’t have it in her to be that cutting with someone in as much pain as he was.

“So what now?”

“I don’t know? I’ll probably do a terrible job of digging another grave next to where Rizwan is at some point. I’d ring an ambulance to take care of her, but I don’t know if anyone would even come. And Hayley would have hated the idea of lying in some makeshift morgue waiting to be handled with dozens of others.”

Anas looked like he wanted to cry, but had already done too much of it to be anything other than empty. It made Aoife realise that she hadn’t either, even with everything that she’d learnt or had happened to her over the last few days, and she wondered what that said about her.

“After that? I’m trying to work out how I’m going to tell Hayley’s parents, and how I’m going to take Layla to them without risking them catching something. But first,” he did his best to look at her and smile. “I need to take you back to Taymont Hall. I can’t keep you here any longer. And maybe that Ethan person you kept talking about really does know something that can help you?”

It didn’t sound like he believed it, but like he wanted to try for her sake. Ethan’s name had come up a few times as Aoife had done her best to explain things to Hayley, even if her insistence that he had to know something they didn’t had only managed to aggravate the blonde woman, presumably leaving her to assume that Aoife was still holding back. She didn’t think she’d given as much away as she obviously had, but the way Anas said his name made it clear he’d picked up on some of the emotional significance there.

“Maybe,” Aoife replied, weakly, and the lack of conviction in her response clearly surprised him

“You don’t think so?”

“I don’t know? I…” In truth, the longer this went on, the more she was beginning to question things herself. Every thought of Ethan left her on unsteady ground, and it hurt to try and reconcile the idea that whatever he knew he’d be ok with letting any of this happen to Anas and his family. “Right now I just want to see him again.”

“Does he know how you feel about him?”

The question was enough of a surprise that her response came out unguarded, before she could stop and second guess herself, or bite back at Anas’ sudden concern for her feelings. “Fuck no. Do I look smart enough to have said something already?”

“Better late than never?”

She was about to protest that she was exactly the sort of moron who’d manage to die with that sort of thing left unsaid, when the now familiar sound of Layla crying interrupted them. Anas didn’t move immediately. He closed his eyes, as if it was one thing too many for him to deal with and he was hoping that after a second she might stop on her own. She didn’t, but it was Aoife who moved first.

“Let me. If she just needs changing then I used to do that all the time for my niece when she was small.” The engineer did her best not to dwell on the note of guilt that came with thinking of her sister again, for the first time in weeks, the frosty relationship they’d had since an argument a few years earlier meaning that said niece was someone she only saw briefly at family Christmases now. Being her own worst enemy when it came to people close to her wasn’t a new thing for the pandemic.

Anas let her go, gratefully, and as she turned to head back upstairs towards Layla’s nursery, quietened the part of her that still insisted she should be walking straight out the front door instead. If he was going to take her back, there was nothing to gain from it other than petulance for petulance’s sake; something she wasn’t always above but was just too worn for now. The sight of Hayley’s closed bedroom door as she reached the top however gave her much more pause. It was stupid of her, but just being that close to it scared her, the eerie, imagined nothingness wearing Hayley’s shape more terrifying than any horror movie had ever been to her.

She hurried to Layla’s room, for once thankful for the noise the child was making to keep her imagination from wandering too far. The nursery was only small, a little box of space perched at the front of the house, overlooking the valley, but it was more complete than any other in the old farm conversion. Layla’s parents had obviously poured their love into getting things perfect before the baby had arrived, with every fixture and piece of furniture clean and new, overlooked by farm animals painted freehand on the walls. Layla herself lay small and pink and screaming in a handmade cot, and it was hard for Aoife not to trick herself into thinking how angry her cries seemed, as if she’d inherited her mother’s rage at how unfair everything was. And while it quickly became apparent that the noise was due to a filled nappy rather than anything grander, Aoife still prayed that the kid would grow up with at least a little of that anger intact.

“I know,” she soothed, as she worked, speaking more to reassure herself that the kid would be ok than anything else. “The world deserves you being pissed off at it. I’d be screaming and shitting to show it who's boss if I was you too.” It didn’t work entirely though, and the longer she spent with the kid’s crying the more Aoife’s heart wanted to join her. She did manage to give herself one, fleeting smile at least; when she finished the change and found a small knitted hat with Layla’s things to help keep her warm, in a cute pastel green. The infant calmed almost as soon as it was slipped over her fuzz of dark hair, and Aoife couldn’t help but mentally congratulate the kid on her good taste.

With Layla settling again, she was about to fetch one of the stuffed animals down from a nearby shelf to sit with her in the cot, when the sound of vehicles drawing up on the road outside drew her attention, followed by the dull thud of doors being closed. She strayed to the window, and felt her heart jump as she was met with the sight of a dark sedan parked between two police cars, with several officers climbing out to join a woman in a long grey coat as she approached the front door.

At a stroke all her adrenaline came surging back. She should have been comforted, but her stunt with the drive had done just enough to leave her uncertain and paranoid, and her mind raced with thoughts of how things might be about to play out. Something that wasn’t helped when the woman glanced up towards her window, her features hidden by one of the N95 masks they were all wearing, and their eyes met for a moment. She said something to the officer beside her, giving a point in Aoife’s direction, her body language closed, and the policeman nodded before leaning into the radio on his chest, his words lost on the other side of the double glazed window.

Aoife collected the small, handmade teddy bear she had been reaching for, and placed alongside Layla, taking a moment to fuss her, even as she heard the knock being made at the door.

“You stay here while I check what they want,” she said, gently. “No causing trouble while I’m gone, ok?”

She’d heard the little girl far more than she’d seen her, but feeling nervous for her was less uncomfortable than worrying about herself, and it was hard not to wonder what was about to happen to her, how many others had been left without anyone, or how easily it might be her niece next. It was only once she was sure that Layla was settled that she headed, tentatively, back to the top of the stairs.

Anas had already answered the door by the time she got there, doing his shellshocked best to comply with a pair of the uniformed policemen who were asking if he had any weapons in the house, even as they guided him back into the kitchen with gloved hands. He stammered responses, mumbling about Hayley’s shotgun, and Aoife couldn’t tell if this was how he’d have reacted to the arrival of the authorities at any point, or if by this point it had all become too much for him. 

As he left, the woman moved into the hallway, looking up at Aoife, her hands firmly placed within the pockets on her coat. There was a presence to her, but the green haired woman couldn’t tell if it was attempting to radiate composure or judgement, putting Aoife in mind of how some of her more withering teachers had looked at her at school. She hated the feeling immediately, and when the woman spoke, it didn’t give enough away to reassure her.

“Aoife Ryan?”

“That’s me, who’s asking?” Aoife’s instinct to the new discomfort was to immediately become defensive, trying to bury the shitshow of her emotions. But she failed, and came across more like a surly teenager trying not to break down.

“Detective Beth Collingwood of Yorkshire Police’s Special Branch. You’ve had a lot of people working very hard to find you.” She studied Aoife for a moment longer, then as if arriving at some conclusion, her stance softened. She extended one arm, holding it out as if for Aoife to step into, and moved back to show her towards the door. “You look like you’ve been through a lot. Why don’t we get you somewhere safe?”

“That…yeah, that sounds good.” Aoife nodded and, realising her legs were about to start shaking, picked her way down the stairs one careful step at a time. Collingwood’s hand found the small of her back when she reached her, giving her a gently reassuring push towards the door, but she paused in response to it.

“There’s a baby upstairs. And, in the main bedroom there’s…” she couldn’t quite bring herself to say how there was a dead woman waiting for whichever officer went up there to check, but the detective seemed to understand and gave a small nod that left her feeling guilty without knowing why.

“It’s ok, we’re here to deal with things now. Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, and stepped out into the cold, grey autumn, the fresh air suddenly leaving the previous two days feeling slightly unreal. She tried to process things, but her mind just felt numb, hung up like a broken piece of machinery in need of a percussive reset to jolt it out of its uselessness. It was all Aoife could do to force herself to take a deep breath, but before she could exhale, the sound of another car door being closed prompted her to look up; and when she did, the air left her chest with a woosh.

Moving from the sedan, rushing up the garden path towards her was Ethan. He must have been accompanying the police, but she wasn’t able to stop and try and reason that out. Nor was she able to take in how tired he looked, the little details left out of focus by the punch of emotion that connected firmly in her gut, warm and confused and intense. For a moment, she didn’t know what she felt, didn’t know where she was meant to even start, but as he got closer, her attention picked up on something that left everything else replaced by panic.

He wasn’t wearing a mask, and she had DuoHalo.

“Ethan, stop! I’m…”

Aoife’s voice cracked, but Ethan didn’t stop, reaching her before she could try and tell him to keep his distance. His arms pressed around her, and she tried to push him away.

“I’m infected! Ethan! No, I’m infected. I’m infected!”

Her fingers splayed against his chest as she shoved against him, but he didn’t care. The more she struggled, the harder he held her. For a moment, Aoife’s mind screamed, and the anxiety at what he was doing stopped her from realising that he was talking to her, until his hand reached the back of her head, and eased it against his shoulder. Unable to go anywhere, she found herself surrendering to the embrace, drowning beneath her feelings and the sense of his body tight and reassuring around her.

It took her a second or two, but when she calmed, she realised he was repeating the same phrase as he tried to soothe her.

“It’s alright. It’s alright. Aoife, it’s alright.”

And that was enough. She didn’t know why, she just knew it was. She’d dreamt for weeks of him being there for her, hugging her and making everything seem less broken. Less relentlessly, world endingly shit. And suddenly there he was, doing just that, and it was everything she needed.

Aoife realised she was crying. The tears she’d failed to find for days now had begun to run down her cheeks, although she didn’t know if they were from stress or relief, fear or happiness.

She just buried herself against him and sobbed.