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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Nephthys, according to Egyptian mythology, was the goddess of night and sleep. She was also a friend and protector of the dead. This as much Ros knew and as she walked into the Grid that morning, having just left Alexa at the hospital, she wondered if she'd done the right thing.

The girl had just lost her father and had been close to losing her own son as well. For a brief moment, Ros felt a pang of regret for how callous she had been to Alexa just an hour earlier, but as she spotted Harry's face through the glass wall that separated his office from the rest of the Grid, she knew she'd done the right thing.

After leaving the Gordon Refinery the other night, Ros had dropped off the grief-stricken Harry at his home. But instead of heading straight to her flat, Ros returned to Thames House and there, as she sat alone before her desk, she replayed a few things that had happened the last two days.

Jools Siviter's visit at the hospital and at the Grid had bothered her. Ros had worked for MI6 before transferring over to Five just a few years earlier, and she knew all about Jools and his incompetence as head of Six. That's why he'd been sent away to Washington shortly before she was recruited.

He was a disgrace, that was all there was to it. He never followed protocol, and was a firm believer of doing whatever it took to get what he wanted, whether it was information or simply to manipulate people. It wasn't any different from most heads of the various major offices, she assumed, but he'd also been responsible for many failed operations. But because the man was so well connected - among them his wife being a powerful QC herself - many of his failures had been swept under the rug and short of stripping him of his position, he was simply shuffled to some other office after another abroad.

Yet here he was, back in the same position he'd been removed from years earlier, conveniently installed as the interim head of Six again while the current head was supposedly going through heart bypass surgery.

And wouldn't you know it, thought Ros, Arkady Kachimov had also been installed as chief London resident of the FSB a week or two before Jools' reinstatement. And of course, there was Nathaniel George AKA Sergei Fenix, whose reappearance in London had been preempted by an order of execution by Arkady to Anatoly Rubiev, the international hit man she killed at the ferry terminal.

Or so they all thought. The assassination order had been for Mikhael Lubienko, and probably Alexa as well.

So many coincidences, Ros had found herself mulling over as she sat before her desk, staring at the computer screen before her. Was it pure coincidence then that the defection to Russia by Nathaniel eight years earlier, a man well versed in nuclear energy, had been masterminded by both Jools and Arkady?

It was a puzzle that was simply begging to be solved, and Ros could feel just how close she was in doing so. There was a connection somewhere but she could not yet see it.

Suddenly Ros remembered the envelope that Harry carried with him to the hospital. Ros remembered how Harry clutched it against his chest tightly, as if it contained secrets never meant to be seen by anyone else. He'd brought it to the hospital to show to Mikhael, Ros thought. But why? What was in it?

He'd left it behind in the car when Ros dropped him off at his home, and Ros had brought it in with her, and as she got up and walked into Harry's office to leave the envelope on his desk, she paused. She looked around her. The two junior operatives at the far end of the Grid were concentrating on some phone conversations playing in their ear phones and were copiously writing down notes.

Ros drew a deep breath and walked out of Harry's office, still holding the envelope he had left in the car. She sat down at her desk and opened it.

The photographs that stared back at her as she sat at her desk to peruse its contents took Ros by surprise, but she regained her composure and flipped through them, her mind barely comprehending how an eighteen-year old girl had managed to survive the torture that she'd been subjected to, if the photographs before her could be believed.

And they were to be believed, Ros thought. She'd seen her share of torture, both while in training and out on the field.

Ros swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She stared at the photographs, unable to stare away from them. Who would want to keep such horrible photographs around, she wondered.

Arkady had had his name carved on Alexa's back. He'd also been in the room when someone pulled two of her teeth out and subjected her to electric shock. They'd raped her, too - this, and other sessions documented in black and white photographs. Ros felt the bile rise from her stomach and she quickly took a sip of water, forcing herself to flip through the photographs and forcing all emotion from her mind.

She had to remain objective, she told herself. Someone had to.

When she got to the most recent photographs, two of them in color which featured both Alexa and Lucas together, she pulled them out and returned the rest into the envelope. She wished she could simply burn them all, as if seeing them reduced to ashes would do the same for the memories that Alexa must live with.

The first color photograph featured Lucas and Alexa at the foyer of her flat. Lucas had just closed the door behind him but his eyes firmly fixed on Alexa, her back to the camera. There was a softness to Lucas' gaze at the woman before him, his mouth half open as if he'd been about to say something.

The second photograph had been taken from above the bed inside Alexa's bedroom, Ros thought, judging from the position of the camera. Lucas was sitting on the bed, still clothed, while Alexa stood before him, naked, her back to the camera. It was an intimate moment and Ros felt her chest tighten, her gaze noting Lucas' hand pushing away a lock of hair from behind Alexa's ear.

Ros began to return the photographs into the envelope but stopped. She stared at the tattoo on Alexa's back. It was of a woman wearing a necklace of eight skulls and at her feet were more skulls. Why would someone want something so morbid tattooed permanently on their body, Ros thought.

"It's the goddess Kali," Jo suddenly said from behind Ros, startling her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that," Jo said as she shrugged off her coat. "I couldn't sleep and I wanted to come in and do some research for Ben before he starts his undercover work with Nadif."

Ros looked at the clock, slipping the rest of the photographs depicting torture back into the envelope, away from Jo's sight. It was seven in the morning and already the Grid was filling up with people though Ros had hardly noticed them.

Despite everything that had cropped up since Lucas returned from Russia, there were still fires to be put out and the next operation on the table had to do with getting one of their junior operatives into a dangerous undercover operation involving a Muslim sect suspected of cultivating suicide bombers.

"It's alright, Jo," Ros said with a small smile. "I would never known who it was anyway. I would have only thought of it as some distasteful tattoo that I would never get for myself, or anyone else."

"She's a Hindu goddess of death, and a protector of children," Jo said as she removed the scarf from around her neck and draped it across the back of her chair. "I did an article on Hindu dieties for the newspaper a few years ago and one can never forget the goddess Kali."

"And she wears skulls for jewelry? How nice," Ros said wryly.

"They're the skulls of her enemies," Jo replied as she peered at the photograph from behind Ros' shoulder. Jo's brow furrowed as she stared at the photograph. "That's interesting. There seems to be something that looks like a letter on each of the skulls."

Jo pointed to something - a shadow more likely - across each of the skull's frontal bone. She frowned, staring at the photograph intently.

From afar, the shadows on the skulls were all different from one another but as Jo allowed her gaze to soften at the image before her, they resembled letters. Jo opened the drawer from her desk and returned with a magnifying glass.

"Ros, look at this," she said as she magnified the first skull on the left of the tattoo. "Each skull has a different shadow on its frontal bone. But it's really a letter. See?"

As Jo magnified the first skull, and then the second, Ros saw what she meant. If they were only shadows meant to give the tattoo dimensionality, the artists failed miserably when it came to the consistency of the lighting source. Instead, the shadows seemed erratic and as Ros stared, she began to see it.

There was something about the tattoo that now seemed beautiful to Ros for it told her more than she had ever expected to know about the woman she'd always thought as completely helpless and clueless.

The eight skulls the goddess Kali wore as a long necklace around her neck spelled a word - a name.

Nephthys.

>>><<<

The coroner's phone call jerked Harry from a deep reverie as he sat before his desk. He should be working, he thought, considering he'd arrived at the Grid earlier than usual, but he found himself having difficulty concentrating.

First, there had been Sugar Horse. It had been compromised but if Alexa and Jools were to be believed, his assets were all safe.

But now this - an old friend had just been shot in front of him, just before he was about to kill his only daughter. Only he wasn't about to kill her.

Harry had just found out that the gun Nathaniel had held against his daughter's temple had no bullets in the magazine nor the chamber. CO19 found the bullets a few meters away, behind one of the pillars in the same direction that father and daughter emerged from. They'd been purposefully removed from the gun.

Harry was perplexed. Did Nathaniel just commit what the Americans would call 'suicide by cop'? Did Alexa know that the gun was not loaded?

The phone rang again and this time, Harry dragged himself back to the present and picked up the receiver. It was the medical examiner, Dr. Percy Lee-Smith.

Harry could always trust Percy, who had worked closely with MI5 for the last twenty years. He was due to retire but it had been news of Nathaniel's death that had prompted the man to take on the grim task of overseeing the post-mortem instead of assigning it to one of the younger doctors.

"Harry, Nathaniel had a brain tumor," Percy said in a tired voice. "He wouldn't have had long to live."

"Are you sure about this?" Harry asked as he leaned forward, his brow furrowing.

"The tumor was in his frontal lobe. I've sent the tissues out for the official test - but malignant or not, the tumor was growing fast," Percy sighed. "He must have been in a lot of pain, judging from the size of it. But I wouldn't be surprised if it altered his judgment and even his memory."

"Are you sure about this?"

"Yes," Percy answered. "But you can always consult with a neurologist to make sure, Harry. I wasn't his primary physician but from a forensic standpoint, any tumor pushing against one's frontal lobe is bound to alter what that lobe controls - and that would be decision making, planning, reasoning, memory, among others."

Harry sighed. "I trust your judgment, Percy. I know you stick to the facts in everything. This was done as a favor, remember, so I appreciate your honest opinion, even if it's not the official opinion that'll go into the report."

"He was my friend, too, Harry," Percy said. "But before I go, a friend of yours came here the other night to view the body. It wasn't even cold yet."

"Who?"

"Jools Siviter," Percy replied.

Harry thanked Percy for his report and hung up the phone. Was Jools covering up for what he'd done eight years earlier? Making sure that Nathaniel was definitely dead this time?

But something else was bothering Harry. What if everything Nathaniel had said during those final moments - about a nuclear bomb the size of a suitcase and most of all, that Alexa was Harry's daughter - what if they were simply delusions caused by his tumor?

Harry was exhausted and emotionally drained.

Yesterday he had gone straight to see Alexa at the hospital only to find her too sedated to even acknowledge his presence, her eyes too distant as she drifted back to sleep. The doctor has told Harry that it had been necessary to sedate her as her body had gone into shock the moment the ambulance had arrived at the hospital the night before, and sleep was the best thing for her - for now.

"And after that?" Harry remembered asking the doctor then.

"She should be released tomorrow," he replied. "As long as the scans we took of her torso come back negative for internal trauma --"

"What do you mean?"

"She has some bruising along her torso from the car accident," the doctor said, flipping through the pages on the chart he held before him. "We just want to make sure she's free of any internal injuries, Mr. Pearce. Besides, this is the safest place for her right now. We will be monitoring her for the next twenty four hours, maybe more if needed."

By the time Harry had left to return to the Grid, Alexa was completely asleep, her face looking as relaxed as he'd ever seen her. He found himself staring at her face, hoping to see a mirror of himself in her features, but Harry could find nothing. Instead, he saw Minerva's face before him.

She can't be my daughter, he had thought to himself then as he reached towards her to touch her hand gently. Even though Harry treated her just like his own daughter, he found the thought impossible. He'd ended his relationship with Minerva long before she married Nathaniel.

Someone must have fed Nathaniel that lie, Harry thought.

It was then that Harry heard the sound of Lucas' voice outside the door and when Liam ran inside the room, Harry found himself enveloping the little boy in his arms for a few moments before pleading to be excused so he could return to the Grid, Lucas right behind the boy, smiling sheepishly.

"Are you sure you don't need me, Harry?" Lucas had asked him then and Harry shook his head.

Lucas needed the time with his son, Harry thought. He needed to spend time with Alexa, too - both of them strangers to each other still. And as he left, Harry had stolen one last look at the three of them, Alexa asleep on the bed while Liam crawled next to her as Lucas moved the intravenous lines aside to accommodate the little boy's form. A knot caught in Harry's throat.

A part of Harry wished for a happy ending for Lucas and Alexa, even when everything else that he knew about life as spook told him otherwise.

>>><<<

The guard by the door swore no one had passed him by since Ros Myers had left - except for a nurse in a white uniform. She'd emerged from the room at around five twenty, though he couldn't remember what time he'd seen her enter the room.

But upon entering the room, they found the real nurse lying on the bed with a mild concussion. By the time Harry received the call at the Grid, Alexa was long gone. Malcolm found CCTV footage of her emerging from the hospital lobby wearing the nurse's uniform beneath an oversized dark coat and a baseball cap which hid her blonde hair, freezing the frame for Harry who arrived at the Grid shortly after.

"Can we still find her?" Harry asked, suddenly nervous. He had assumed she'd still be too weak to venture out of the hospital. He hated having underestimated her but he could not deny a tiny sense of pride surging through him as he watched her slender form disappear in the crowd.

"I'll try," Malcolm said but frowned. "Harry, there was a thirty minute gap between the time she left the room and the time she left the hospital. It doesn't take that long to take the elevator to the lobby."

Harry frowned, deep in thought. Suddenly he looked up. "Where is Mikhael Lubienko?"

"We switched the identities of the two security agents who went into surgery the other night, and Mikhael's now known as Eddie Bellamy, just as you ordered. He's in ICU."

Harry nodded. The real Eddie Bellamy had died from a gunshot wound to the chest during the attack on Mikhael two nights ago, but Harry had ordered the records switched as a precaution. From here on, based on hospital records, Mikhael Lubienko had died on the operating table while Eddie Bellamy was recovering in a guarded room.

It helped that Eddie had no immediate family members, and so no one would be shocked to see how much he would have changed in the looks department had they gone to visit him.

Malcolm began tapping a few more keys, the video cameras on the hospital's fifth floor switching to different views on his computer screen.

Finding what he wanted, Malcolm clicked on one of the hospital camera views.

"I found her," Malcolm said as Harry leaned forward to look at the screen. "She went straight to the fifth floor, Harry."

They watched as Alexa, wearing hospital scrubs, walked towards the guard sitting by the door to Eddie Bellamy's room in the ICU.

She smiled, said something that made that guard laugh and he opened the door to let her in. Harry watched as the guard's hand drifted for a moment along Alexa's backside, his face coloring and his mouth setting into a scowl.

Damn it, Alexa, Harry thought. What the hell are you doing?