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**Nia M** · 24-08-2010, 12:17 AM

Set during S8, so spoilers up to and including 8.08

'They can run around with all the Violet Franklins of the world, or flirt with back-channels all afternoon, but the ties that bind them together will remain unbroken.'

Ros/Lucas, but with mentions of Lucas/SC and Ros/AL. Hope you enjoy!

-----

Before the recent revelations, these names could have been anyone. Perhaps a cellmate, or guard, or an interrogator; a friend or a foe.

But now, when he begs and pleads in the depths of his dreams, she understands as she holds him tight and strokes the hair from his forehead like a mother would to for her child. She knows who 'Oleg' is, and why Lucas cannot escape his nightmares. Ros knows better than almost anyone the strength that the past can hold.

-----

She knows she shouldn't, that she has no right to given how little they admit and how much they deny of their relationship. Indeed, were it not for the lack of dark circles under both their eyes, she might be able to dismiss what they have – or don't have, officially – as just a dream. But the tranquillity of both their slumbers once they have overcome their torments each night speaks otherwise.

And the feeling in the pit of her stomach tells her – no matter how much she tries to ignore it – that she is jealous of Sarah Caulfield.

-----

It is another unspoken acknowledgment between them when she agrees to see the new Homes Secretary. He has Sarah, she will have Andrew Lawrence. It doesn't matter though, because they still both have each other. Treacherous CIA liaison officers, and potentially treacherous politicians aside, it is still each others' arms that they refuse to admit they find themselves in each morning. They can lie to themselves all they like, they can run around with all the Violet Franklins of the world, or flirt with back-channels all afternoon, but the ties that bind them together will remain unbroken.

-----

Ironically, it takes her nearly dying for either of them to stop ignoring the fact that they are most alive when they are together. She knows what it costs him to convince himself to believe she will follow when she tells him to get the Pakistani Prime Minister out. He knows before she says it that she is stronger that he is.

But he else knows she is only speaking of physical strength here. Mentally, they are just as broken as each other.

-----

He feels the burning heat of the explosion tearing him up into the air long after the flames have passed. The ringing in his ears only begins to dissipate when he sneaks into the wreckage with the search and rescue team, and forces his way onto the fifth floor of the building, which is incredibly still standing, in spite of the gaping hole it bears at the end of the corridor. Good old British workmanship, he can imagine Malcolm saying.

He hears the sharp cry of one of the rescue team who has stumbled across the two figures in the rubble, and the pain in his side from when he fell to the ground is completely forgotten as he helps haul the debris off them. Ros is lying on top of Lawrence, her arm still flung protectively over him, doing her duty even now. But Lucas scarcely registers this – or the faint, weak groans of the barely conscious Home Secretary – when a paramedic makes the staggering statement that she is still breathing.

Lucas makes damn sure he is one of the two to carry her stretcher back down to the ground.

-----

She has remained unconscious for days now. Perhaps weeks even, but the cycle has been so constant that all the days have merged into an incomprehensible blur. Go to work, be the first to leave, come straight to the hospital. Site here undisturbed until Ruth and Harry arrive, the formed always bearing a sandwich for him. He puts it aside, tells her he will eat it later, and then resumes his silent vigil at Ros' bedside, with only the steady noise of her monitors to accompany him until it is morning again and he must leave for work. Sometimes – not often – he falls asleep, and when he wakes he find a rough hospital blanket thrown over him for warmth. Most of the time he has already shrugged it off by the time he wakes, his hand still entwined in hers.

The sandwich remains untouched. Always.

-----

Today is different though. He does not have to go into work today. He doesn't ask why, only hurries straight back to the hospital. But he is not the only one to reach for the handle of the door to Ros' room this time. He looks up sharply.

"Home Secretary."

"Lucas."

He doesn't try to his the animosity in his voice; this is the man without whom Ros would not be on the other side of this door, after all. (He doesn't listen to the voice which tells him that Ros chooses to do this job – that she is here of her own volition.)

He is unsure which of them opened the door, but they have both crossed the threshold now. They are standing on either side of the room, with the bed in between them. Lucas thinks it must have been Lawrence who had made the move, wanting to put distance – and, oddly enough, Ros – between them.

"I brought these," Andrew said, gesturing to the flowers he held in one hand. "I wasn't sure if she'd appreciate them, but I don't think she's up to a bottle of wine just yet."

His attempt at lightening the atmosphere falls flat against Lucas' silent passiveness. Ros hates lilies. They remind her too much of Jo, who's favourite flowers they had been.

He'd been there for Ros then too. He'd been the one who held her in his arms that afternoon, still kneeling on the floor she had sank to. Where had Andrew Lawrence been then?

Before either man can say another word, their attentions are both captured by the sudden change of pitch of Ros' heart monitor. Transfixed by the sight of her finally beginning to stir, neither one of them calls for the nurse like they know they ought to. They move closer to her, still on either side of the bed, watching her movements with bated breath. It is a fine balancing act between them, as they vie for her silently, the politician and the spy. Much as they hate to be so reliant, they are sitting in the palms of her hands, hanging on her decisions.

It takes one word among the incoherent mumbling to tip the scales to one end.

"Lucas."

Andrew knows when to admit defeat. He does not even stay to watch her open her eyes, because he already knows that it will not be his face that Ros Myers seeks out.