Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of Kudos and BBC. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.

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From Knightsbridge, Ros and Jo turned south towards the direction of Trevor Square. They could see Alexa's street straight ahead and as they parked the car, they saw the people gathered outside Alexa's front steps. A man lay on the sidewalk, dead from two shots to the chest.

As they flashed their badges, people begun talking to them at the same time, telling them about the blonde monster who had thrown a woman into the trunk of the car, the description of the car, and the name of the man who lay dead on the street. He had been Alexa's next door neighbor.

Ros ran up the steps and stopped just before the shattered door. Every sense in her body was on high alert. She could sense the adrenaline still lingering in the space around her. She smelled the scent of blood in the air, the flat deathly silent. Somewhere in the living room towards her right, Ros could hear the tick-tock of a clock.

She pushed the door open with her foot, her eyes gathering information as the scene unfolded before her. The floor was covered in blood, the mark of bare feet upon the rug, its imprint sending a chill up and down Ros' spine. On the floor, she saw shattered pieces of wood from the bannister that now hung precariously from the top, its bottom portion torn apart, broken pieces of glass and more blood.

Lots of blood.

With her gun still in front of her, Ros secured the first floor. Then she walked upstairs, avoiding the tracks of blood that seemed to be everywhere. Alexa had put up a hell of a fight, she thought to herself and as she reached the top landing, she saw the battered door lying on the bedroom floor. Beyond it was Alexa's unmade bed.

Something told her that she wasn't going to find anyone, but she'd been trained to secure an area first, then ask questions later, and Ros was doing just that. She walked towards the other doors, kicking them open one at a time. The first door led her to the bathroom and the second, as soon as she kicked it open, gave Ros pause. As she stepped into the room, she felt her chest tighten.

Ros had always known that Alexa returned from Moscow pregnant with some unknown man's child, but she'd never been interested in learning anything more than that. After all, it was none of her business.  But as she stared at the room before her, it was a reality that Ros knew she herself could never go through had it been her in Alexa's place.

I would never have had the child.

A rugby ball lay by the bed, along with the usual playthings of little boys that ranged from teddy bears to Lego blocks and books. On the wall were photographs of the little boy, his dark hair highlighting the deep blue of his eyes. If it had been just some random person, Ros would not have bothered to linger inside the room. She'd be out of that room within seconds of securing it and moving back downstairs to wait for backup or go after their target.

But this wasn’t just a random person.  Though it wasn’t something known to everyone at the Grid, Ros and Adam knew Alexa’s relationship to Harry.  She was like a daughter to her, and her son, a grandchild.  

Behind her, Lucas took the stairs two at a time towards the bedroom but froze as he caught sight of what he saw beyond the door where Ros stood. His heart caught in his throat, his mind registering the toys on the floor, the drawings on the wall interspersed with photographs of Alexa and a young boy, some together, and some just of him, with his impish grin and mischievous eyes.

He’d walked past this door this morning, he thought to himself as he took a step through the door.  Something in the way the boy gazed past them in the photographs looked familiar to Lucas, something that reminded him of home.  Above the photographs were wooden letter blocks in blues, greens and yellows, spelling the child’s name:  Liam.

A chill passed through Lucas’ body as Ros turned to look at him, her eyes wide at first at realizing he was behind her, then narrowing as she finally took in his presence. She turned to look at the photographs again and without a word, she walked past him to meet Harry who had just walked into the flat downstairs.

Left alone in the room, the boy seemed to look straight at Lucas, his smile wide upon his face. Fair of skin, with dark hair, he seemed the epitome of so much life, so much promise. And next to him, Alexa's face beamed, absolutely glowing. Lucas stared at the boy's face again, riveted.  He looked to be about seven or eight years old, Lucas thought, the skin on the back of his neck beginning to tingle.

She never told me.  

Downstairs, the hallway began to fill up with authorized personnel, people assigned to measure blood spatters and measure trajectories and whatnot. Lucas didn't care for them. He couldn't. Not right now.

Lucas tore his eyes away from the boy's smile, forcing himself to walk towards Alexa's bedroom, the heaviness in his chest growing more oppressive with each step as the hallway threatened to close in on him. He felt as if he were sleep-walking, able to walk purely by sheer willpower alone.

The trail of blood had originated from the bedroom, where the door lay on the floor right next to the unmade bed where just a less than two hours earlier, Lucas had lain with her. To tear down a door like that, Mikhael Lubienko must have had the strength of a giant.

He had seen the scene downstairs, imagining how Alexa must have fought for her life. The blood on the floor attested to that, the marks of her bare feet imprinted in blood upon the carpet floor as she struggled to make her way towards the door. The four walls of the room rushed towards him, the sound of the wind deafening him as a wave of emotions came over him, forcing him to his knees.

He could have been here with her, Lucas thought again and again. He could have protected her.

But he hadn't.

>>><<<

Downstairs, Harry’s mind was going through a rush of emotions as he fought to remain as calm and controlled as he could.  He’d seen Ros’ face as she had come downstairs just a few minutes earlier, seen her shake her head as she walked over towards him, confirming his fears even before she said anything.  

Harry could not forgive himself for not having foreseen this.  It all made sense.  It would not have been difficult to find the link between Lucas and Mikhael Lubienko, if one knew where to look.  The chance of anyone ever linking both men together had been so slim that even Harry would have never thought of it, unless someone talked.

Harry had always believed that Mikhael never knew who Dimitri, the man who had found Alexa in his club, really was.  And even if he had, it would have been impossible to guess his real name.  

Unless you were FSB.

His phone rang and Harry saw that it was Malcolm.  “Yes, Malcolm,” he said, stepping outside the door, wanting only fresh air.

“You asked me to look into Alexa George’s files, sir,” Malcolm was saying.  “So I went as far back as when she first returned to England with you.”

“And?”

“I couldn’t find anything other than the transcripts of the debriefing -”

“Did you find anything out of the ordinary, Malcolm?” Harry asked impatiently.  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I tapped into the her old hospital files, which led me to her current one on the hospital records computer system,” Malcolm said.  

“And?”  Harry noticed that the news film crew had spotted him and were heading towards him.  He shook his head at them and walked back into Alexa’s flat, the cameras busy clicking behind him.  He could hear the sound of keys tapping on Malcolm’s end as he walked upstairs where it was quieter.  

“I’m not the only one who’s interested in Alexa George’s files, sir.”

Harry slipped into Liam’s room, shutting the door behind him.  “What do you mean?”

“Three weeks ago, someone hacked into the hospital computer system,” Malcolm continued.  “I’m still running the program to find the source of the break, but whoever it was, they wanted only specific patient records.”

Harry felt his throat go dry.  “They didn’t even bother to conceal their purpose.  What were they looking for?”

“Alexa George and a Liam Nathaniel George,” Malcolm replied.  “Isn’t that Alexa’s father, the ambassador?  They were able to access all his files, including immunization records, blood tests, and --”

Without waiting for Malcolm to finish, Harry thanked him and hung up.  A chill went through Harry’s heart.  They weren’t accessing Alexa’s father’s files, he told himself.  They were after Liam’s files.    

Harry found Ros by the stairs with Jo right behind her.  “Ros, I want you and Jo to go to St. Barnabas as fast as you can,” he said.  “Bring Liam back to the Grid with you.”

>>><<<

Minutes seemed to last much longer as Lucas sat on the floor, his back against the wall.  

Dark visions had taken over him, the sights and sounds and smells of the years he had spent in prison rushing towards him, like waves upon the shore. The smell of blood brought back the taste of it, its coppery smell filling his mouth and nose, offering him no respite from the visions that followed.

And with the smell came the sound of his screams as they tortured him. Lucas brought his hands to his ears to stifle the sounds but it was useless. They lived inside him now, companions that refused to leave and to his horror, Lucas found how dependent he had become of them during his time in solitary confinement. He had craved their voices, the sounds of their demands, the pain that accompanied their presence, and finally, the sound of his own screams.

But now Lucas could hear Alexa's voice screaming inside his head. He could only imagine the pain she had gone through all alone, fighting for her life, in this very room. 

Suddenly the the taste of bile rose up his throat and Lucas almost gagged, tears clouding his eyes. Eventually the moment of nausea passed and Lucas caught his breath, its acid taste still in his mouth as Harry quietly pulled up a chair and sat in front of him.

Below them, on the first floor, the flurry of activity continued, cameras clicking and people asking and answering questions. Outside the flat, Lucas heard the faint sound of flashbulbs as the news vans made their presence known, the number of witnesses more than enough to give them a big story for the day.

But in the silence of the second floor, inside Alexa's bedroom, it was only the sound of the two of them breathing.

For a few minutes, Lucas could only look at the older man's shoes as he fought hard to return to the present, the echoes of his own screams fading in the distance as he struggled to regain himself. Lucas' breathing, which had been rapid and shallow, became softer and calmer. Finally the only thing Lucas heard was silence.

“Lucas,” Harry said, finally breaking the silence.  “Tell me everything you know about Lubienko.”

“Everything I know about Lubienko is in that report I wrote nine years ago, Harry,” Lucas replied.  “You should ask Kachimov about him.”

“Kachimov is dead, Lucas.” 

Lucas looked up at Harry, his eyes searching for the truth of what Harry just said in his face.  As if a heavy weight that had been placed upon Lucas’ chest had just been lifted, Lucas breathed a long sigh of relief, his emotions a mix of sadness and elation for the man.

“He was a bad man, Harry.  And if all this,” Lucas looked around him, his eyes settling on the spots of blood on the floor.  “If all this is his doing, all because I betrayed his trust, I can only imagine how far his plans go.”  

Lucas frowned as a thought came to him. “Elizabeta,” he said.  “Is she safe?”

Harry nodded.  “I’ve put our best men on to watch her & family.”  Harry watched as Lucas’ shoulders sank, and the young man leaned his head back against the wall again, his face pale.

“Kachimov never said anything about Alexa to you then?” Harry asked.  “All those years, he never said anything or mentioned her name?”

Lucas shook his head, his brow creasing as he tried hard to remember.  “Never. I never even realized that he knew about her or Lubienko.”

“I don’t understand why anyone would come after her now, after so long,” Harry said to himself.  “There’s something here we’re not seeing, Lucas.  Your release, Kachimov, and now Lubienko.  It all ties into what happened nine years ago.”

Lucas slowly pulled himself up from the floor.  He was focused now, the nightmares finally receding.  As he stared at Harry, his gaze hardened, something behind his eyes turning back on.  He'd succeeded in pushing back the demons into the darkness of his memories, wanting only to be focused on the present, on what needed to be done.  He could no longer let any of his fears or weaknesses to get the best of him.  Not anymore.

The old Lucas he knew was finally back, but first he wanted answers.

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