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.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  This chapter is very dark and may be disturbing to some readers.  For those familiar with Spooks/MI5 (I understand some readers haven't seen the series), there is a scene that takes place as a recollection in Season 8, episode 4.

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From the corner of the room, Lucas heard the constant dripping of water, a leaky faucet somewhere in the darkness.  He was alone.  And as he struggled to wake up, his body screaming from pain, he realized that he was bound to a chair, his shoulders held back tightly.  He grimaced, the sound of his groans slicing through the silence only broken by the water drops onto the floor.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness, a feeling slowly coming to him.  Something so familiar.  His skin prickled.  The hair on the back of his neck stood on end.  

He swallowed, aware that his mouth was dry.  Slowly, the shallow breaths came as panic slowly crept through his very being.  He knew this place, he thought, though physically he’d never been here before.  But he knew of the sense of the place.  For he’d been there many times before, too many to count now.

The memories shattered through the barriers of his consciousness, fragments that splintered before his mind’s eye.  As Lucas struggled to regain a sense of himself, some form of control, the first thing he saw then was the memory of the white Range Rover barreling into the car.

He remembered reaching his arm out as if to protect Alexa beside him, knowing it was useless to do so.  The Lexus careened out of control and Lucas fought to regain hold of the steering wheel, gripping it as tightly as he could even as he felt the car skid across the narrow street and slam against something hard.  The sound of twisting metal, its horrible crunching noises filled his ears, and suddenly everything turned white.  

The air bags, he thought.  They had deployed.  

And then silence.

But another sound came to his ears, and this time Lucas bolted upright on the chair, searching the darkness for its source.  Mummy, it said.  A child’s voice.  Mummy, wake up.

Every muscle in his body tensed.  Alexa and Liam were in another room.  He waited for another voice to answer, praying that she would say something as Liam’s voice, faint through the walls, returned.

“Mummy, wake up.”

But there was silence.  

Lucas began to breathe rapidly again, puffs of steam coming from his mouth as he fought hard to control himself from slipping into his past again, telling himself he was alright.  He could not return there, he thought.  He could not allow himself to be back there, not now when he needed to be present.  Not now.

But the memory returned anyway, too fast for Lucas to stop it.  It was as vivid as the day it had happened.  And within seconds, he was back there.

 ~~~

It was another world, another hell, where he wanted nothing more than to die but even death did not want him at all.

His screams reverberated throughout the room, its white tiles now darkened with grime and age.  The flashes of light inside his head brought about by the pain, the burning that begun deep within as the electricity coursed through his body made him cry out for death again and again, sobbing like a child.  

How many times a day he had to go through this, Lucas could no longer remember.

What he did remember was that on the days when he wasn’t dragged from his cell, he found himself craving it, yes, even the pain.  For it made him feel alive, that even after all those years of being forgotten by the ones he believed in, he still had a purpose.  

But today was different.  Today, his mind said no more.  His soul cried out, no more.

For the first time in the eight years he’d spent at Lushanka prison, set amidst miles and miles of marshland as far as the eye could see, Lucas only wanted to go home.  He wanted nothing more than to set his foot back in England, his home, and be free again.  

After all, wasn’t that what this particular interrogation was all about?  The men sitting behind the spotlights trained at him were asking him if he wanted to be set free, that it was possible.  This time, there were no questions about Sugarhorse at all.  Though sometimes they tortured him just to do it.

This particular interrogation was different from anything else he’d gone through in the past.  Did he want to go home?  The men behind the spotlight only wanted to hear him say yes, and nothing more.  And as the latest surge of electricity snaked through his body like a thousand threads, burning paths that sent him over the edge, Lucas knew that this time they would get the answer they wanted.

He could not take anymore of the pain, the torture and the humiliation.  

Ice cold water was suddenly poured over him and Lucas felt the hands that had held him upright on the chair let go just as the next surge of electricity traveled through his body and he screamed as he always did.  

But this time, he said something.  This time he told them what they wanted to hear.

“What did you say?” His interrogator asked after his sobbing subsided.

He’d held off for so long, too proud, too loyal to his country.  But this time, he would do it, Lucas told them in Russian, though in his heart, he knew all wanted was to return home.  

Suddenly the interrogator walked away from Lucas.  He disappeared in the darkness behind the spotlight that had been trained on him the entire time since the interrogation session had begun almost an hour earlier.

As Lucas sat naked and bound on the chair, shivering, he heard the whispers behind the spotlight.  Hot tears spilled down his face as Lucas realized the magnitude of what he was about to do.  Eight years he’d held off.  But it had been eight years too long.

“Are you sure of this, Lucas?” Asked Arkady from behind the light as he walked towards Lucas, bending down to look at the broken man shivering on the chair.  “Is this what you really want to do?  Because there is no turning back from this decision.”

Lucas nodded, water droplets clinging to his greasy hair, his skin shaking from the chill in the air or the burning deep inside his body from the electrical shocks he could not tell anymore.  “Yes,” he replied.

Arkady sighed, smiling faintly.  “I’ve been waiting for that answer a very long time, Lucas.  You know how much I hate doing this to you.”  Arkady ran a hand across Lucas’ greasy hair, like a father placating a child.

Lucas said nothing.  

His interrogator had stepped aside now, gathering all his implements and returning them into the cart that he had brought in with him.  With a slight nod towards Lucas, like an old friend bidding him good-bye, he turned and walked out of the room.  There was a sense of disappointment about his countenance as he looked back at Lucas just before the door shut behind him.

Someone else moved from behind the spotlight and Lucas looked up, straining his eyes to see who it was.   A man stepped from the light and pulled up a chair, setting it in front of Lucas and sat down.  He was dressed in a dark suit that was immaculately tailored, his thick white hair combed neatly on his head.  Lucas thought he looked familiar but he wondered if this was part of a hallucination, brought about by the pain.  

“I want to get this clear, Lucas,” said the unidentified man in front of him.  “What is it that you finally agree to do for us?”

“I’ll do it,” Lucas gasped.  “I’ll spy for you, for Russia.”

“You finally see the light, Lucas,” Arkady said, pulling up a chair and sitting on the other side of him.  “Seeing you suffer for people who have forgotten you hurts me so.  In many ways, I am glad you finally see that they never cared for you.”  

Arkady pulled out a handkerchief and gently wiped away the sweat that had gathered on Lucas’ brow, wiping the moisture from his face.  Lucas closed his eyes, realizing it had been a very long time since he’d felt any kind of tenderness, even if it came from an interrogator like Arkady.

He nodded, hanging his head as he avoided Arkady’s gaze, the man’s gentle strokes along his face making Lucas more ashamed for his weakness.  But Arkady was right.  It had been too long since he’d waited for someone to come and get him.  And no one had.

“Yes,” he whispered.  “I’ll spy for you.”

Arkady folded the damp handkerchief and put it aside.  “This is Sergei, Lucas,” he said, gesturing towards the other man in the immaculate suit.  There was something regal in the man’s bearing that made him stand out, Lucas thought.  “You must do a few things for him, as part of your release.  It shall serve as one of the conditions of your, shall we say, freedom.  And I advise you to listen carefully, yes?”

“Your parents are Marcus and Jane North from Cumbria, yes?” Sergei began immediately.  “Just nod, Lucas.  You don’t need to say anything just yet.  Just listen and nod your head when you understand what I’m saying.”

Lucas nodded.

Sergei continued.  “We have been keeping a close eye on your parents, Lucas.  Your father is quite a popular minister, though I hear he’s close to retiring, maybe in a year or two.  They are our insurance policy to ensure us that you’ll do what you’re supposed to do once you’re free.”

Lucas said nothing.  He looked down at his bare feet, thinking how his nails needed a trim.  He didn’t want to think about his parents.  They didn’t even know that he worked for MI5.  

“But of course, after you do what I specifically want you to do, I guarantee you that I will leave them alone,” Sergei said.  “It’s a promise I intend to keep, and Mr. Kachimov knows that and he will honor it.”

Arkady nodded his head in agreement and took over.  “Upon your return to London, you will live like you always have - with one difference.  You will live as if your friends are your enemies and your enemies are your friends.  That will be the life for you from now on, Lucas.” 

Lucas nodded.   

“Nine years ago,” Arkady continued. “We lost something quite valuable to us.  I’m sure you have heard about it.  Valuable information was stolen by a double agent called Oskar Millivic.  Oskar the Ferret, as he was called.  In fact, I believe you were in Moscow at the same time, on a mission set up by Section D.”

Lucas did remember.  Harry had sent him to Moscow in search of Alexa George, then eighteen years old, a British national, but most of all a daughter of a former ambassador and Harry’s own godchild.  He was there unofficially, which meant Lucas had to be very careful.  There would be no one to vouch for him should anything go wrong.  

At the same time, something huge had gone wrong for the Russians, for Lucas and every non-Russian operative in Moscow were suddenly grounded, unable to move throughout the city.  Lucas remembered the body count of suspected operatives rising.  Four, to be exact, with Oskar the Ferret being one of them.  Then after the bodies surfaced, every one of them assassinations, everything in Moscow returned to normal.

Three weeks later, Lucas would find Alexa based on a tip, a note left for him at the front desk of his hotel.

“We have finally learned that the information we lost nine years earlier is in London, and you are going to get it for us.”  Arkady smiled.  “The timing couldn’t be any more perfect than this, Lucas.  You should be home just in time for - what is that celebration called in your country - yes, Remembrance Day.”

This time, the man named Sergei began to speak again.  “The information we need is contained in a thumb drive.  You need to retrieve it from Alexa George, someone you already know, I believe.”

At the mention of her name, Lucas looked up, startled.  For a moment he struggled to remember her face and slowly, she appeared to him.  Her eyes, Lucas thought, were the color of emeralds, a deep green with dark depths that seemed to stare right through him.  He remembered her hands around his neck, holding onto him and his face grew warm at the memory of what had happened between them.

“Yes, you remember her, don’t you, Lucas?” Asked Sergei, his voice turning cold.  “You need to collect that thumb drive from her.  Wine her, dine her, do whatever you need to do to get it back to us.  Keep her alive until we tell you otherwise.  Do you understand?”

Lucas nodded.  

Arkady and Sergei got up and walked towards the door.  The conversation was over.

“Remember what I said, Lucas,” Sergei said.  “You will be watched very carefully when you return to London and we will contact you about the girl with further instructions once you collect what we need.”

Someone finally cut the ropes that bound Lucas to the chair and he pitched forward towards the cold tile floor, his body too weak to stop himself from falling.

Lucas closed his eyes as he heard the door slam shut.  The guard that had remained behind with Lucas moved the two chairs back to the area behind the spotlight and after seeing that Lucas was not about to get up off the floor anytime soon, stepped out, leaving him alone in the cold and dank room, the chair from which he was sitting on still where it was.  

Lucas could smell his own fear lingering in the air.  He felt the shame creep through his body again as he realized what he had done.  After eight years of keeping his faith as intact as he could, his belief that one day Harry Pearce would come for him, Lucas had finally given up.  His body could take no more of the beatings and the interrogations, the humiliation and the shame.

In the stillness of the room, Lucas’ eyes rested on the white sheet that had been folded neatly on the desk.  He recognized it immediately, his body stiffening.  

Oleg Darshavin, his interrogator for the last four years, and the same man who had subjected him to the electrical shocks earlier, always brought a sheet with him into the room, ready to unfold it and lay it over Lucas’ trembling shoulders when the electric shocks subsided, pressing it against his skin to blot off the perspiration, giving him that momentary sense of comfort.  

But before the trembling of his body finished its course, Oleg would strip it off him and lay it on the metal bed frame on the far corner of the room where he’d order Lucas to kneel.

Suddenly Lucas felt the rage replace the shame he had felt just minutes earlier, his entire body shaking as he struggled to lift himself off the floor.  Oleg had not been able to finish his interrogation this day, Lucas thought, and as he looked towards the door, hearing faint voices speaking outside, his body began to tremble again, the rage suddenly replaced by fear.  

Oleg would return and this time, he would not need the tray with all his implements.  This time, Oleg used his hands and his body on Lucas.  Nothing would ever change.

“No,” Lucas whispered.  “Not anymore.”

Trembling, he got to his feet.  Taking the sheet, Lucas began to tear it into strips, aware of the weakness in his limbs, his hands shaking as he tied the strips together, pulling them taut so they would not come undone when it was all over.

He looked up, seeing the exposed pipes just above the ceiling tiles that should have been there, but weren’t.  This was after all, just the interrogation room.  There was no need to spruce things up or do repairs when it wasn’t necessary.

Lucas climbed over the chair and looped the long strips over the thickest pipe, tying it in one of the sailor knots his father had taught him when he was just a boy, walking along the Thames estuary watching the birds fly overhead.  

He tugged at it once, twice and to be sure, a third time. It held.  Lucas made a loop on the other end, just wide enough for his head to slip through.  He glanced towards the door again, his legs suddenly weak, his knees threatening to give way beneath him.  A moment of indecision crossed his mind.  

But it had to be done, Lucas thought.  He would not be remembered as a traitor.  He could not allow it.

Lucas slipped his head through the loop, aware that the voices outside the door had faded, knowing that any minute now, Oleg would come in and do what he always did after sessions like this.  But Lucas shut his eyes, wanting nothing more of the perversions that haunted Oleg Darshavin, head FSB interrogator.  

His whole body shook at what he was about to do, his toes gripping the edge of the chair below him, ready to step beyond its edge.  God, forgive me, he whispered to no one in particular.  Please understand why I have to do this.

Lucas stepped off the chair just as the door opened and Oleg yelled his name.  Lucas suddenly felt the man’s arms around his waist as Oleg held him up just as the chair clattered onto its side.  

All strength left him then.  He was too weak to fight Oleg and the other guards who streamed inside the room, one of them pulling the chair upright so that Oleg could sit him down, his arms still holding Lucas tightly.  

“No, Lucas,” Oleg whispered in his ear.  “Not like this.  You cannot end it like this.  Not when you will soon be free.”  

But Lucas knew he would never be free.  He would never be free of the hell that now lived within him.  For now he was a traitor as well, and just as Arkady said to him earlier, this was going to be the life he would live from now on.  

It was the life of someone already dead.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:   I know this was a tough chapter, and thank you for reading through it.  If you like this chapter, please consider giving it a vote.