Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

~

In London, a city of millions, a capital city of capital cities, it is easy to disappear into the crowd. Lives crisscross, weaving in and out of the bright fabric of city life, with fates that intertwine and untwine with every step and breath. Some meetings are meant to open chapters; others to close a story forever. Amongst the thousands of tales of star-crossed lovers playing out in the theatre called Life, the tea girl and the pottery boy weren't fated to find happiness together. She died; he lived. That was the end of their story.

Except sometimes, Fate has other plans. Sometimes, what seems to be 'The End' means instead 'The End (for now)' and not forever. Sometimes, Fate intervenes at the most wildly inappropriate time in the most unlikely of places, when a museum curator and a government accountant meet their future in the back rows of a tea store.

Well, perhaps the more accurate verb is "stumble."

~

"I'm sorry, I didn't —"

~

She walks out of the store with everything she needs, and nothing she wants, tucked away in the carrier bag on her shoulder.

“Wait!”

Her ever-present partner Morris Bradstreet steps forward, opens the car door for her, and tilts his head to the left. (Problem?) She signals him to let it go. There’s no need to make a public scene. After all, she is Ms Helen Chen, the junior personal assistant of a minor official in the British government. No one knows who she is, or what she does, or where she lives. Most importantly, she has no enemies. That is the way it should be.

The woman she resembles, Soo Lin Yao, is five years dead and gone, consigned to ashes and dust with prayers and rituals that do not give her peace. Underneath a cold gravestone in a grey cemetery, where sandalwood incense burns twice a year, that woman, that ghost, has no relatives left to her name, only a friend who never knew her at all. Yet his hands still tend to her grave, leave her offerings, and brew a cup of tea to share alone. He goes to tell the passersby that whilst she died far from home and family, she is not forgotten by those who saw her. (清明時節雨紛紛, 路上行人欲斷魂 …)

She blinks. How much does she owe him, this faithful friend who keeps the memory of a stranger alive, who chases after her now in hopes of...? (In hopes of what, she doesn't know, but does that really matter when he is here, still following her despite all these years, all these lies that he believes are truth?) How much does she owe him for his unwavering loyalty when she never asked for it?

Nothing at all.

“I can’t,” she says, lingering at the kerb with her hand on the door frame. He stops behind her, close enough to reach out and touch her. She knows he must be staring, waiting. He was always so good at waiting.

 ("I--I was wondering...")

She wonders if he still is, waiting for her to walk back into his life as if nothing has changed, as if he has known, all along, that nothing is what it seems, that she was not whom she seemed to be. She wonders if she hopes he is, or isn't. (Is it fair to hope that she is remembered with fondness? Is it better to hope that he has moved on? What does it say about her that she still hopes he thinks of her from time to time?) Then again, he doesn't know to wait for her--for Soo Lin--because she is dead. He doesn’t know to wait for Helen, either, because he doesn’t even know she exists.

Morris hovers, waits for her to slip into the car; he is her driver, her partner, and nothing more. The young man is not her bodyguard. She needs no protection. Not as a personal assistant, and even if she was a hunted woman in another life, she needs no defence from the British Museum's youngest assistant curator, with all his bumbling words and earnest shyness. She owes him nothing.

 (“You wouldn’t like me all that much.”

“Can I maybe decide that for myself?”)

She owes him enough.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him without looking back. She slides into the backseat of the car and catches a glimpse of his devastated expression. It takes no effort at all to keep her sorrow hidden from the world. She belongs to the dead with their secrets and old griefs; he belongs to the living with their dreams and shared joys. That is the way it should be. That is the only way it can be.

Walk away, and forget you ever knew me.

“Please,” she says firmly, “stop asking.”

The door slams shut and the car pulls away. The pedestrians swallow him into the nameless, faceless masses. If only her memories could be so easily erased. Silence reigns as Morris steers them through the chaos of midday traffic.

“We’ll need to stop at Tesco,” she tells her partner in a steady voice, as if nothing has happened at all. (What if—) Her life has not changed in any way that matters. She still has twenty minutes left to finish her errands and return to the office. She still has dossiers to review and risk assessments to write. Tonight, she still has a message to intercept and a courier to detain and question. Her life still continues, regardless of how much her world has been spun off its axis. (None at all, and yet...) Morris acknowledges her words and lets her ignore the concerned glance he sends her way. He has learned not to pry into her solitude.

Helen, of all people, knows that you can never truly outrun your past. You can only become strong enough to accept what you’ve survived and to put the past where it belongs, in the past. Some things, some people, you have to leave behind.

As the car merges into mid-morning traffic, the woman once named Soo Lin Yao briefly wishes that her life doesn’t have to be this way, but she knows that only fools believe Life listens to dreams.

~

He walks into the British Museum’s back entrance with a half-finished shopping list, three canisters of Twinning’s tea in his carrier bag and the faint notion that perhaps he has gone round the bend. After all, sane people don't bump into long-dead colleagues in the middle of a random London tea shop. They most certainly don't pursue said ghost out into the street before it disappears into the back of a dark, unmarked car. He would have thought he hallucinated the entire encounter except that the people around him also saw her, acknowledged her existence, touched her physical form. If he is mad, than perhaps the world has gone mad with him.

Of course, given the current state of the East Asian Collection, he might not be the only crazy person on his staff. The normally serene corridors of his department would be a whirling beehive of activity...if not for their collective terror of The Wrath of Mr Ander if he found out they’d endangered the Museum's precious artefacts in any way (and he would find out). That aside, the air hums with frantic energy as people brush past each other at brisk walks, giving wide berths to anyone carrying anything that looks remotely heavy, fragile, or expensive. Given that they work in the British Museum, those rules apply to practically everyone and everything. It would be hysterically funny if they weren’t all at the end of their rope. Right now, it’s just simply hysterical.

“Andy!” one intern babbles as she whisks his canvas shopping bag away in exchange for an armful of papers. “Please marry me! Ruben, we have tea!”

At her call, he watches the current crop of undergraduate and graduate interns stampede for the kitchenette, desperate for a whiskey-fortified cuppa (or three). He doesn't blame them for the rapid exit. Instead, he heads for the cluttered oasis of his small office. His minions know not to bother him unless there is a major emergency (and the coffee pot running empty does not count).

He knows everyone interprets his disquiet for anxiety as the evening of the East Asian Collection Gala looms far too close for comfort, and preparations have only just hit full stride. Three new exhibits with a dozen showcase pieces and not a one of them ready for presentation to deep, wealthy pockets. The interns are frantic, and the employees are not far behind them. In no particular order of priority, everyone is in desperate need of caffeine and comfort as they panic toward the deadline. No one questions why he went out for Oriental tea samples from that new store on the Strand and returned with solid English tea from Twinning’s instead. All they care about is the fact that they have new provisions of TEA!!! If anyone did, though, he wouldn't know what to say to them, not without sounding like he needs to be sectioned.

When he opens his office door, he finds Ms Ansah — call me Janice; we've worked together for too long for anything else! — waiting for him, the gala catering contracts and exhibition security plans spread across his desk. The solitude he so desires will not be found, not whilst he has tasks to accomplish and people to supervise. Janice looks up at his entrance, misinterprets his resignation as mild distaste and gives him a wry smile.

"I told you," she says with a hint of amusement. "This job is more about paperwork these days than anything else."

"Now," she hands him a sheaf of papers, "we'll need to issue security passes to all these people, once Security goes over them again. Also, the revised menu has come in from the caterers. What do you think of these options for the gala's main course?"

Andy pushes all thoughts of ghosts and insanity to the back of his mind as he glances at the menu and comments, "Where are the vegetarian options?"

~

With a strong hand at her elbow, Anthea pulls her away from the questioning glances of the other Kores. None of the junior assistants know what has happened, only that something has happened because their supervisor rarely manhandles them as if they are fresh-faced trainees who can’t tell the difference between a stapler and a gun. The older woman leads her into the cloakroom and draws the separation curtain, blocking out the curious stares.

“Helen, what happened?”

The younger woman deliberately misunderstands the question. This is what they did in her training: take her into strange meetings and open spaces, leave her to watch, and then afterwards, interrogate her on her observation skills. This was how she learnt to take the nervous fidgeting of one man, pair it with the smudges on his coat, match it with the rhythm of his words, and say that he does not act in good faith. This was how she honed the senses, the instincts, and the mind that have saved her from two former lives and make her valuable in this one. “The attachés—”

“That’s not what I mean,” interrupts Anthea with an uncharacteristic lack of patience. “Morris said someone disrupted your errand today. Who was it?”

She knows she should be furious at her partner's betrayal, but all she feels is resignation. It has always been clear that their loyalty is first to the man who employs them and secondarily to each other. She knows Morris cares for her well-being, just as she does for his, but it is the cordial concern of colleagues, not soldiers-in-arms. They would not burn down the world for each other, much less keep each other’s secrets.

(Is it truly betrayal, she wonders,
when Morris only wants to make sure his partner as safe as she can be?
Does the intention matter as much as the consequences?
This conversation, she knows, will end with neither blade nor bullet.
Death doesn’t frighten her as much as it should.)

She knows that she should be terrified — for herself, for him — but she knows it won't matter. She answers to a man who is the British Government, with far more influence in a stroke of his pen than she will ever achieve in her entire life. She knows that she may plead, argue, even beg, but her desires are nothing against the needs of an entire nation. What will be, will be, whether or not she agrees.

The power is not in her hands. It has never been in her hands to choose her own fate.

 Lie.
She escaped for five years; she made the choice to run.

She knows she should be honest, but the words won’t come.

“It was nobody,” she says after too long of a pause. Silence itself is an answer. She learnt that lesson the hard way: silence is always guilt. (Lesson: No one is ever innocent. No woman deserves to be.)

"Really?"

She knows how to lie, how to do it convincingly enough to fool the best, and Andy—

"Yes. I didn't know him. He must have mistaken me for someone else."

—he deserves the protection of a lie, no matter how futile the defiance may be.

"If I review the CCTV footage, is your answer going to change?"

"No," she says, face impassive and mind calm. This is all she can offer him, owe him. She can't go back to that life; she won’t. With control earned from long practice, she smothers her dreams. Soo Lin couldn't have friends, even if she wanted them; Helen... Helen is still figuring out if she wants companionship and all the complications that would come with it in her life. She holds secrets, even now, ones that may kill her, and may still kill others. She leads a safer life now, where she still looks over her shoulder, but does so out of caution and not terror. It is still a life that demands sacrifice.

She has lived for duty for so long now that she can’t remember if she has ever lived for happiness. If she has, it was in another life in another world completely and so long ago that she has utterly forgotten.

Dying more than once will do that to a person.

At her cool denial, her mentor (and perhaps, friend) frowns. "Helen—"

"My answer won't change," she says firmly. "He was no one — is no one, to me."

It is a lie. It is a declaration. It is a truth.

Without pausing to take in Anthea's reaction, Helen sweeps aside the curtain and goes back to work. If she believes in it hard enough, the lie will become her truth. Her past needs to stay where it belongs, in her past.

~

Janice is brisk as she reviews his layout proposal from the morning, pointing out museum security or crowd control considerations that need to be addressed. Andy tries to focus, he truly does, but he finds his attention wandering away from the blueprints and printouts on his desk, and back to the days when he didn't have an office, just a workstation across from a pretty, quiet, long-haired slip of a woman. His inattention doesn't go unnoticed.

“Andy,” says Janice with concern, putting a hand on his arm. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he says, because what else is there to say? Remember Soo Lin, who died five years ago and is part of the reason I am who I am and where I am today? Yeah, her? I think I just tripped over her twin, or perhaps her ghost. The Gala night may drive him towards a panic attack, but he’ll be damned before he lets a major fundraising event herd him towards a mental breakdown. "I'm...I'm just a little rattled today, that's all."

“I know it seems impossible right now,” she reassures him, “but we’ll pull this together in time. We always do. We’ve survived this before, and we’ll survive it again.”

He gives Janice a tight smile, shoves all his confused turmoil into a tight box, and nods once. It doesn’t matter right now why he is where he is; what matters is that he has work to do and less than thirty-six hours to the caterers’ arrival.

“I know,” he tells her, lying through his teeth. “I know.”

~

Helen doesn’t go home that night.

~

That night, Andy goes home at far too late an hour. He walks past his normal Tube station, choosing to go a little further on the darkened London streets, hoping to work off his agitation and anxiety, and knowing that it’s fruitless. It’s not simply the last minute hiccups in the catering menu, or the still-fluid guest list, or even the three crying, overwhelmed interns he had to coax out of the loo. This is not the first time he has been part of the collective insanity that is the Evening Gala, nor will it be the last. It’s...

He knows his world is not falling apart, that the reappearance of a woman he thought was dead does not, should not, herald any calamity in his life. The real world doesn’t work that way. His life doesn’t work that way. He is an ordinary man with an ordinary job, living an ordinary life. He is merely another curator in a long line of curators, an insignificant footnote in the history books. Nothing strange or extraordinary is supposed to happen to him. He is no one, in the grand scheme of the world and universe. He is one of the faceless thousands who live in London, and of all the people whose paths he had a chance to cross today, he had to cross hers. Is he going insane?

It’s not that she meant anything to him, beyond a co-worker, and maybe a casual friend. There was nothing tragic about their relationship because there was no relationship in the first place. He didn’t even know her that well, not that she had given him a chance. She was a stranger, a close stranger, who died without rhyme or reason (except... there were the men from Scotland Yard who came in their suits and ties, with well-polished shoes and sharp eyes, who asked questions and gave no answers before they swept away her life like discarded ceramic shards on the pottery floor). She should have meant nothing to him, someone whose life has already been touched by death, but she did.

There was nothing tragic about her life except that she died young and alone, murdered without cause, that no one knew her well enough to say anything of significance about her beyond her work at the Museum and the softness she cloaked herself in. She appeared like a ghost, lived like one, and went to her grave as one. What sort of life was that?

He never meant to make her an obsession or a reason in his life; he simply wanted to give her name a legacy, a memory that a woman named Soo Lin Yao lived for however brief a time, and that she was not completely forgotten by the people she encountered. So he tucked her ghost close to his heart as he began earthenware studies, traced wet calligraphy across a fragile page, and learnt a second language that still sounds clumsy on his tongue. He acknowledges to himself, if no one else, that his meteoric rise to assistant curator has been driven by three parts curiosity, two parts determination, and one part remembrance. It might not be the healthiest of ways to cope with a co-worker’s violent death in the workplace, but he’s heard of worse.

The issue, Andy supposes, is that he doesn’t know what to do next. Society has always had a set of general expectations about how a person’s life ought to go: grow up, get a job, get married, buy a house or flat, have children, retire, and die of old age. That’s the proper “Good Life.” That’s the normal, ordinary, unremarkable life that hundreds and thousands and millions of Londoners will live (and die), and until today, Andy had fully expected to be counted amongst their number. Now…

There are precious few, if any, resources for someone in his situation. Does he seek her out with what little he knows? Does he pretend that he never saw her in the first place? This isn’t something he can write about to the advice column in the local newspaper, or bring up with his sister, or ask any random stranger on the street. Just… what does he do now?

In real life, dead people stay dead.

~

As always, Helen’s world falls apart without warning.

Radiating disappointment, Anthea tosses a thin dossier on the younger woman’s desk. The papers land with a crisp thud on the highly polished wood. Her words are cool and flat, with none of her usual hidden fondness.

“You know better than to lie to me.”

Although nothing visibly changes, everyone else in the common office becomes selectively deaf. They know better than to eavesdrop on a conversation like this one. None of them were recruited in anything approaching normal circumstances, and they all know that one day, but for the grace of God and a powerful man’s magnanimity, they might be the one whose darkest secrets are dragged out into the unforgiving light of day. Mr Holmes might be a cold-hearted bastard when it comes to life-or-death decisions, but he doesn’t tolerate ridicule amongst his staff. Throwing stones in this office is a very dangerous gamble.

Anthea is no Mr Holmes, but she’s dangerous enough to be terrifying. Faced with her direct superior’s anger, Helen’s only outward reaction is an averted gaze. She has been trained too well to betray any other expression. She braces herself for more, for the exposure of her shabby past and close escape, of the lies she told and the betrayals she committed for the chance to choose her own path, make her own choices, and face her own consequences. She has learnt that there is little mercy in the world, and sees no reason why her saviours should be any more generous to her than they already have been.

“This assessment will be finished by tomorrow morning, 0800 hours. Is that clear?”

It is already late afternoon and she has yet to finish all of her daily tasks. Helen murmurs her understanding of the command and keeps silent on its unspoken implications. She will stay the night at her desk, catching what restless sleep she can on the cots in the cloakroom. He will be at the British Museum’s Evening Gala, bright in the spotlight as the heir apparent when the current Head Curator retires two decades from now. She has been with this office long enough to know that they are being deliberately kept apart and restricted within known locations. It makes them easier to contain, to watch, to control.

If anything should happen to her, to Andy, it will happen tonight.

~

"Do you think it prudent to test him so early on?"

The woman known as Anthea by her subordinates doesn’t even bother to look up at the gently-barbed question from her supervisor. They have worked far too long together to bother with the social nicety of maintaining eye contact whilst they run the British Government for Her Majesty and the Prime Minister.

"Helen needs people in her life who won't run and abandon her at the slightest upset,” Anthea tells her Blackberry sternly as she taps away at its keys. “She's had enough of that in her life. If he can't stay for her, then he needs to leave her alone now rather than later and leave us to pick up all the pieces."

Mycroft Holmes sets his teacup down on its bone china saucer as he remarks mildly, "It sounds like you're almost fond of her."

"Sir." She pauses in her work long enough to give him a Look, because both of them are, in fact, quite fond of their subordinates. Most of them, anyway, when they aren't being difficult to manage. Helen, for all her docile willingness to do as she’s told, poses an entirely different type of problem from their usual sort of insubordinate underlings. If that fosters a greater degree of unprofessional concern for Helen’s health, happiness and safety than is entirely proper, Anthea is hardly alone in her indulgence in sentiment.

Whatever he reads in her expression is enough for him to nod to himself and turn another page of the intelligence brief he is reviewing as a favour to Sir Henry. After a moment, he asks with a hint of curiosity, "What are you thinking of, my dear, to test his mettle?"

She smiles and says lightly, "My family has always been patrons of the arts."

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him mirror the expression, approval clear in his voice. "Yes, they have. I suppose you’ll have the night off?"

“Not the entire night,” she says as she adds her name to an exclusive guest list, “perhaps just an hour or so after dinner.” An amused smirk tugs at the edge of her lips. “You know how I detest boredom.”

“A security detail will accompany you?” Although it is framed as a question, it is neither that nor a request.

This is how they talk with each other, a hard-won compromise that no one else quite understands. She has long ago accepted that his overprotective nature expresses itself as a haughty, bossy personality. He knows she can take care of herself; she has demonstrated to him more than once that she can fully look after both of them when everything has gone straight to hell. He simply worries. When it’s not annoyingly frustrating, she finds it a bit adorable that he thinks (feels) she merits some degree of the enormous protection he could offer her.

Besides, the coalescing plan in her mind could always use a physically intimidating man, or five. She nods to herself decisively before she says, “Graham’s team does deserve a night out on the town, don’t they?”

~

“Andy,” says Janice in a swirl of gold chiffon when she intercepts him between conversations, “one of the attendees wants to talk to you, a Ms Weber.”

“Me?” asks Andy blankly, though he knows that it doesn’t truly matter if he knows Ms Weber from a stranger on the street. Tonight, as with all gala nights, it is his duty to make small talk and perform the role of the grateful host with the right mix of flattery, charm and sincerity amongst the wealthiest of the haute ton.

“She asked for you by name,” confides his mentor as a black-tied waiter sweeps their empty champagne flutes away with silent efficiency. He follows her discreet head tilt to catch a glimpse of his next conversation partner.

Andy is absolutely certain he has never seen her before because any man (and quite a few women) would remember the stunning knockout in sapphire. “Did she say why?”

Janice gives him a Look and he knows she’s right. dulce et decorum est… This is a part of his job that he hates, but the Museum needs sizable donations more than ever this year as the Arts Fund reduces its budget, and consequently, their grants.

“No, she simply asked for a moment of your time.”

“As you wish,” he replies, ignoring Janice’s exasperated amusement before she moves to intervene in another conversation. Alone in the crowded ballroom, he plunks a full glass from a passing waiter and resists the urge to down some liquid courage. Instead, he moves through the gala with a charming smile, pausing here and there for short conversations whilst keeping an eye on Ms. Weber’s location and planning on how to engage her.

Under Janice’s tutelage, Andy has learnt to read the ways the haute ton express displeasure or favour with any of its exclusive members, and Ms Weber, he can tell, is well-known and respected by her peers and elders. She keeps company with the seasoned set — people of established influence — rather than the newly moneyed of society. Despite being without a constant escort, the brunette easily navigates and rearranges the flow of people who wish to speak to her. What Andy can’t tell is if any of her conversational partners realize that they are being trailed by Ms Weber’s discreet security detail.

It’s clear to him that she is a woman of significant wealth and influence, someone who is savvy enough to understand that power always attracts its share of enemies. Ms Weber won’t fall for flattery or pretences, so honesty and knowing his place it is. Andy takes one last fortifying sip before he steps into the arena, carefully timing his entrance into her sphere of attention.

“Ms Weber?” he asks graciously, holding out a hand. “A moment of your time?”

“Mr Galbraith,” she replies warmly. Impulsively, he bows over her hand, though he refrains from any other outdated gestures of gallantry. When he straightens, he catches a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. “The pleasure is mine. I was hoping you would indulge me in a spot of curiosity.”

“I would be happy to assist,” he replies, stepping back from her personal space as he releases her hand. She wordlessly beckons him to follow her as she weaves through the crowds, leaving him to stay a half-step behind her, until they come to a stop in front of a Ming dynasty vase tucked away in a corner of the ballroom. It’s a classic example of the era’s porcelain wares — hand-painted blue underglaze on a white background — and one of the oldest pieces in the showcase. There is nothing unique to recommend its inclusion in the gala display; the only reason for its presence is its complimentary palette to the modern interpretation of Asian porcelain work two stands to the left.

“I was hoping you would be able to tell me about this vase.”

Andy has no idea why she wants to discuss an item that was placed into the British Museum’s vaults long before either one of them was born, but again, it is not his place to question, only answer.

“Well,” he begins, “this is an example of Ming dynasty porcelain work, circa sixteenth century—”

“I can read the placard,” she interrupts, more amused than offended. “What I would like to know is how this piece was obtained. Its…provenance is what interests me.”

Andy doesn’t bother to tell her that whilst paintings have the concept of provenance firmly attached to them in the art world, the antiques market is far more complicated than can be solved with a simple set of paperwork. There is a reason Acquisitions has in-house liaisons from New Scotland Yard, Interpol, and Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs. However, most of the haute ton at these events could care less about the legal and moral tangles that frequently surround artefacts; they simply want to know enough about what they’re staring at to flaunt their knowledge to their friends over brunch the next day.

“I assure you that we have a very strict policy that requires us to acquire all our pieces through reputable sources in accordance with UNESCO guidelines.”

“And I would like to know how the British Museum executes and implements that policy.” She swirls her flute of champagne with a flick of her wrist. “I always find it prudent to know how my donations will be used.”

“Most, if not all, of the funds raised here tonight will go to support local art programmes or promising young artists abroad.”

“Again, that’s lovely information to know, but I would like the details of how the funding will run.”

“I would be happy to give the broad general outlines,” he deflects carefully, “but it sounds like you would prefer to know details. It is not entirely our policy to share the exact funding structure — the numerical figures, the names of private donors and so on — with the public, but I can inquire if an exception could be made in your case. We would set up an appointment with members of our finance team, and possibly Acquisitions, to answer your questions, within the boundaries of public disclosure, of course.”

Oddly enough, Ms Weber doesn’t appear at all offended by the evasion. Instead, the corner of her lips curl in a slight smirk before she drains her champagne and sets the flute glass on a table. She gives him what could only be described as a coy glance.

“Perhaps we should continue this conversation elsewhere,” she says, already turning away from him and slipping into the restricted access corridor behind the ballroom.

Without thinking, he follows her because, moneyed she may be, there are still places off-limits to the gala guests. This area is a particularly sensitive one since it is — through a quirk of poor design — a straight shot from the loading docks to the Museum’s most precious and valuable collections. After the entire senior staff of the department had thrown a collective fit, the Museum’s Board of Directors had agreed that a two-man guard would be stationed at the main access point to ensure that no guest, caterer, or frankly anyone, would gain entry into the back corridors of the Museum. Andy knows that if he doesn’t stop her, then Blake and Ericson will keep her at bay until he gets there. They are experienced guards who have faced more than their share of irritated Museum visitors; Ms Weber won’t be able to charm her way past them.

“I don’t think—” begins Andy before he realizes that he has been flanked by her security detail. In another heartbeat, he realizes that the hallway is disturbingly empty. This is the service corridor, reserved exclusively for use by the caterer staff. Where is everyone else? Moreover, where is Museum security? Blake and Ericson aren’t at their posts, and Andy knows that neither man is the type to be easily distracted from his responsibilities. Where are they?

“A little privacy would not go amiss in our conversation,” she says calmly, sliding a plain white key card through the card reader mounted on the double doors. If he yells, will anyone hear him? The walls are not soundproof and most of the museum layout is open space without doors. Her men loom over his slight stature and whilst he does his best to stand his ground, his lizard hindbrain says that this is a confrontation that cannot end well. “I suggest you come along quietly.”

“You’re not—” His voice trails off into a strangled croak when the security keypad beeps once and the locked doors click open. A top-of-the-line security system, cracked just like that. Andy is too shocked to resist when the men grab his elbows and drag him forward. He finds himself frog-marched into his own office. Once he has been shoved across the threshold, the suited bodyguards vanish, leaving him alone with the woman.

Ms Weber studies the cluttered bookcase behind his disorganized desk, facing away from him. It would be easy, teasingly so, for him to lunge for his desk, grab his phone, and call Museum Security without her intervention. He watches her studied nonchalance and meets her pleased reflection in a polished miniature replica of the Rosetta stone when he stays where he stands.

She reaches up to the fourth shelf and tips a book into her hand.

Repairing Pottery and Porcelain has been in his collection of reference titles for nearly six years now, inherited from its previous owner, who bought it from a retiring colleague in Edinburgh. It’s a treasured volume that, in any other field, would probably be considered an outdated collectible, but in his line of work, sometimes the simplest techniques are the best ones. No one had said a word when it had disappeared from her workstation and reappeared a few months later on his, and Andy wonders if anything will be said now.

“Andrew Edwin Galbraith, 35 years old, graduated from Greenshaw, Durham, and earned your PhD from Cambridge,” says Ms Weber — if that is her real name — as she flips idly through the volume. “Your mother died under questionable circumstances, and was only the first in your life to do so.”

Soo Lin, he thinks and then wrenches himself away from that line of thought. It cannot be a coincidence that days after he bumped into her living doppelgänger, a mysterious woman kidnaps him to talk about his murdered colleague. He might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he is not an easy fool. Anyone who says the antiquities field isn’t cutthroat has never seen the darker side of the trade; Andy has.

Janice is going to furious if no one takes this office after me, he grumbles to himself because he is fairly certain they are not as alone as they appear to be in this room. And if I end up as a ghost haunting this place, I’m going to be furious.

Ms Weber closes the book and sets it carefully on his desk. “You saw someone this past week, a young woman in my employ.”

“I see a lot of people,” he replies levelly, even though he knows he has no poker face. “I work for the British Museum.”

“Of course you do,” replies the woman who claims to be Soo Lin-or-whatever-her-real-name-is’ boss with an indulgent smile. “You led three tours this week when Mr Ahmed was ill, and then, ran an errand to a tea shop out near the Law Courts.”

“Get to the point,” he snaps and wonders when he lost both his sanity and his self-preservation instincts. There are men built like rugby players just outside the door, probably armed in some way, though they wouldn’t really need weapons when they could just lift him up and snap him in half like a stick. Then there is Ms Weber, who is known by the rich and powerful, and who knows about his life in such detail that is, frankly, terrifying. Whatever Soo Lin was tangled up in, before and after her... death… this isn’t some child’s game. This is very likely a conversation of life and death, his life and death, and yet, here he is, taunting a predator with a sharpened stick.

“It’s been five years,” she says, not unkindly, “and whilst you haven’t quite gotten past her death, you need to move on and forget about her. I’m sure your sister has expressed her concerns about this as well.”

A chill goes down his spine as his stomach turns. Audrey, and if they know about her, they know about his brother-in-law and his niece and nephew, all tucked away in the quiet English countryside where people still forget, sometimes, to lock their doors. Obviously, whomever Soo Lin works for has access to the public records of his life, if not more. There are only a handful of organizations with that kind of reach and power, and Andy prays that the word ‘government watch list’ is involved and not something more sinister. His voice, unfortunately, is nowhere near level when he squeaks, “What do you want?”

“Nothing,” is the placid answer. “This is just…a friendly reminder. You have a very bright future ahead of you, Mr Galbraith. It would be a pity for you to throw that away by chasing shadows.”

“I don’t appreciate being threatened.”

“You’re not meant to appreciate it.” The steel slides over her words.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but whatever it is, I’m not interested.” Defiance and terror makes him shake with fine tremors as he meets her gaze. He might be a terrible liar, but he does know how to play stupid and maybe that will be enough to get him out of this conversation alive.

“You know, you’re not a very accomplished liar,” she comments, moving around his desk to lean against it. “A fairly decent poker face, I’ll grant, probably enough to get you through the monthly departmental card games, but not much else.”

“What exactly is it that you’re accusing me of?” he asks, sharper than he intended to be.

She gives him an innocent expression. “I’m not accusing you of anything. It’s not necessarily a moral failing to be honest, curious, and a tad stubborn. In this case, I’m simply reminding you that your... curiosity may have consequences.”

“So far, you’ve come in and threatened me with dire consequences,” he replies, feeling impulsively bold, “but you haven’t told me what I’ve done or haven’t done to merit those consequences, or what those consequences actually are if I don’t follow your demands. It’s not very effective of you.”

The retort seems to impress rather than infuriate her. “How far are you willing to go for a stranger?”

“I don’t know,” he replies, letting his anger seep into his words like overbrewed tea. “It depends on the person.”

“And if they’re a friend?”

“Then pretty damn far,” he glares at her. “I don’t abandon people.”

As if that is the magic phrase, her mood shifts and she smiles approvingly at him, like a cat who has not only snagged the canary, but also the cream. She straightens and brushes past him on her way to the door.

“Good,” she states calmly, an unsettling edge in her tone. “Then we understand each other.”

The door clicks shut behind her.

~

Somewhere around suppertime, Helen gives up on coffee and makes herself a fortifying cup of Earl Gray. Hiding in the tiny kitchenette, there is no one else around to see her wrinkle her nose at the bitter taste before she gets back to work. Her analyses won’t write themselves.

It is edging past twilight and into the evening hours when she has gathered both time and courage to look at her assigned dossier. She is, uncharacteristically, alone in the office. The night staff is away, handling situations of various delicacies, leaving her out in the cold, alone. The loaded Browning hidden under a false bottom in her desk drawer offers no comfort. There is a chill in the air, a reminder that her continued safety is conditional upon her behaviour. All security is an illusion. She knows this better than most people will ever realize in their comfortable, ignorant lives.

She opens the manila folder and forces herself not to panic.

It’s his file, with everything from the type of tea he drinks to his daily routine, from his bruised childhood to his increasing visibility in the curators’ world — all the raw secrets of his life dragged out from the dark and laid in black font onto pristine pages. It’s all the information anyone would ever need to tear his life apart and lay waste to his entire world. It’s the type of research done on people who have attracted Mr. Holmes’ personal attention, and not in the best of ways.

 (Not that there is a ‘best way’ to attract his personal attention, as she understands it, not without some sort of devastating catastrophe erupting in someone’s life.
All of his staff has been personally selected, and all of them came to his attention because of some traumatic event or other.)

What has her former colleague done to merit the attention of powerful (dangerous) men? Nothing, nothing at all....except for the misfortune to have known her and not to have forgotten her when all prudence and doubt would counsel him to do so. She knows all too well how loyalty is a double-edged sword, and she fears the consequences for all of them. If he will not let her go, she cannot protect him.

What will be the consequences if he cannot let her go? Helen knows the standard protocol — what incentives will be dangled in front of him, what measures will persuade him to act in his self-interest, what might happen to her as a result — but she can’t bring herself to envision it happening to them. This is not a game Andy ever intended to play, with rules that he was never taught: how can any of this be fair?

She scoffs at the child’s voice in her head that whines about fairness and justice, as if the world cares for her wishes and dreams. Nothing in life is fair; she knows that better than most. She works for a man who is cold, but even-handed in his frost as he counsels on the fates of governments and men; Mr Holmes may be the closest she will ever see to fairness in the world. Still, she fears, because she does not know him well enough to guess what he might choose to do to her, to them, for disobedience to his will.

Even as the air comes thin into her lungs, her hands are steady as she reads through the file. Her mind races with possibilities discarded as soon as they are touched upon because she knows that all her plans are useless. How could she possibly outsmart one of the smartest and calculating men she has ever known to protect someone else? Helen has a hostage to fortune, and no way to warn her to flee.

What is this meant to say to her? What message is meant by all of this? There is no doubt in Helen’s mind that there is a message in all of these theatrics, a lesson she is meant to learn, because Anthea never does anything without a reason. Lowly the other woman may pretend to be when any of them are outside of the office in the company of Mr Holmes, but Helen knows well that her supervisor is a woman of power and influence. If Anthea wanted to have a situation quietly resolved, it would be child’s play to keep Helen from knowing that anything had happened until it was fait accompli.

This is about as subtle as leading a herd of rampaging bulls into a china shop. By asking Helen to write the risk assessment (because no matter what her task is called tonight, she is judging a young man’s potential to become a Problem), Anthea is signalling that there is more afoot than at first glance.

Helen glances at the closed door of Mr Holmes’ darkened office, fear curling in her stomach; he never does anything without a reason. They don’t make mistakes. They are not allowed to make mistakes; none of them have that luxury, and to have Anthea hand this file directly to her....

Mind games were a terrifying constant in her youth, where the wrong word (or worse, the incorrect facial expression) was enough to earn a slap or a caning. There was always enough blame, enough anger and punishment to go around, no matter how slight the mistake, no matter whether there even was a mistake. She grew up in a world of cutthroat politics and polished liars. Her life now, no matter how different, is still not that far removed from her childhood.

Rationally, she knows that Anthea will never strike her for being human, and that Mr Holmes will honour his promise to keep her sister safe, but she has yet to fully shake the years of indoctrination that defying any authority in her life can, and will, result in painful consequences. She has few bruises or scars to show for it, but her memories keep her bound to her past. What does it mean to have choices when all previous experience has shown that decisions lead to nothing but misery and death?

Someone else, she knows, must have already written a risk assessment on him: harmless, monitor, contain, eliminate. This is a test, and if there is anything she has learned from this life, it is that there are no right answers. Sometimes, there aren’t even better ones. Just bad and worse ones.

Helen does her job, and doesn’t sleep a wink that night.

~

Weeks pass without any retribution.

~

He doesn’t look for her.

It’s not for lack of desire, but simply: where does he start searching for a ghost?

~

Late at night, staring up at the smooth plane of her ceiling, she mulls over the string of letters and numbers in her head until she could probably recite it in her sleep.

She could go to him, or she could forget about him.

The ball is, as they say, in her court.

~

It’s enough, he decides, to know that she’s out there, somewhere, alive. It’s good enough for him, even if he never sees her again.

(If he lies to himself hard enough, it will be enough to convince him that everything is fine.)

~

Just once, she promises herself, wrapping herself in a dark coat and winter hat. Just once to know that he’s all right and that he understands why they’ll never see each other again.

She owes him that much.

 ~

Chapter Text

~

The silence is deafening.

They sit in his flat, a chasm between them, sipping at fragrant tea that warms their hands. He can’t help but stare at her, memorizing the planes of her face, the curve of her neck, the presence that is her alive and breathing. She stares at the delicate ceramic cradled in her palm and studies the fine grain of the oak table.

She shouldn’t be here. He can’t believe she is here.

“I should go.”

The three words break the heavy silence between them.

“Is this goodbye?”

“It should be,” she murmurs, hinting at an unspoken desire he nearly runs over in his panic to keep this second chance from slipping away from him.

“Because I’d understand if you don’t—wait, should?”

She shrugs. “I’m not who you think I am.”

“I think I figured that out about the time your boss, or whomever, kidnapped me in plain sight in front of hundreds of people and warned me to leave you alone.” He laughs nervously. “Also, can I say your boss is very pretty and utterly terrifying?”

She smiles at him, a small twitch of her lips. “She’s not that scary.”

He thinks back to his brightly-lit office, the seductive glance, and the stark warning made all the more chilling by the warm friendliness with which it was delivered.

"Yeah, actually, she is."

"She's...protective."

"I see,” he says for lack of anything better to say, because there’s a fine line between being protective of your employees and being dictatorial of their personal lives.

They lapse back into silence.

“I’m glad you’re alive.”

“Thanks.”

The quiet is uneasy, with both of them awkwardly catching each other’s eyes and quickly averting their gaze.

Is this what they’ve been reduced to? Is this all they ever were? Yet if they are truly the strangers that they are, why can they not walk away from each other? Her existence is already a deep secret, one that he can never speak of, and he brings to mind only painful memories, so honestly, why are they here, sitting at this table, staring wordlessly at each other? What is their common point, the draw that pulls them together and keeps them here?

Or, perhaps, that is the draw, that they never had a chance to explore what lingered tantalisingly out of reach for both of them before it was snatched cruelly away. Maybe they will meet up for drinks once or twice before she walks out of his life (again) or he decides that the spark isn’t truly there, but neither one of them will know unless they try, right?

“I…” he falters, but she smiles wryly and fills in his hesitation.

“You want to know why I’m here.”

He nods, because, well… he had hoped she would find him, but… This is all much too surreal for him to handle coherently. He has never been good with social niceties, but no one has ever written a primer on what to do in a situation like this.

“I thought…” she runs a finger along the edge of her cup. “I thought you deserved an explanation for…everything.”

He studies her quiet expression. “Are you allowed to give me one?”

“Not really, no.” If he asked, though, she might break the rules for him. There is not much to her story, the explanation that he needs to hear, to understand why staying in contact with her is a dangerous proposition. There are dangerous people looking for me, and they might hurt you to get to me; I can’t let you get hurt. The story itself says that she is responsible for her actions and their consequences; however, the story’s implications are more complicated.

“Then don’t.”

“Don’t?” Her surprise is clearly written across her face.

He shrugs. “I don’t want to get you into trouble with your boss.” That’s not the entire truth, but it’s close enough. Right now, he isn’t sure he could handle the entire truth, even if she could tell it to him.

“That’s not very fair to you.”

“Well,” he fidgets, because there’s fair, and then there’s fair, “what happened to you doesn’t seem very fair either.” She looks healthy and fine, but he has an inkling that she is fully capable of pretending that all is well when the world is collapsing around her.

“Life isn’t fair.”

“No, it isn’t.” His agreement is sharp and raw, vulnerable in a way he didn’t mean to share, but her eyes soften in understanding and she reaches out to brush her fingers over the back of his hand.

“Sorry,” he says quietly.

She shrugs, “We all carry our own pasts.”

He wants to ask her if that’s what happened, that her past caught up with her in a nearly fatal fashion, but he wants more to know: “Are you safe?”

“Yes,” she replies without hesitation, to his relief. “I am. My employers are good to me.”

“And you’re happy?” he asks, because his feelings for her have always been a complicated mess, but that has always been a part of what he wanted for her: for her to be happy, because he remembers the sad curve of her lips when she worked across from him, the way she hunched inward as if always braced for another blow, and the way she never looked anyone in the eye for very long as if the world had taught her to be meek and be silent.

“Enough,” she answers, and he can almost see the mask falling over her expression. There were always lines with her that could never be crossed, boundaries she drew strict around her in a way that reminded him of his childhood. No one deserved to be so lonely.

“I’m glad,” he tells her, even as he wonders if he is accidentally lying to both of them.

“And you?” she returns the question. “I hear that belated congratulations are in order for you, Mr Assistant Curator.”

He ducks his head with a blush. “Thank you. I — I enjoy it, most days.” He quirks a smile. “The socializing bit is still beyond me, but I’m learning from Janice.”

“Who else is still there?” she asks wistfully.

“Not many,” he replies, turning his tea mug anti-clockwise. “Most of us are scattered off to other places; there’s limited funding nowadays.” He launches into a narrative on where their department cohort is currently located, from prestigious institutions to unstable dig sites, all of them working to preserve cultural history throughout the globe. She asks quiet questions about their projects and exhibitions, smiling softly at his enthusiasm. The midnight chime of the kitchen clock startles them out of their little cocoon. They stare at each other, not wishing to be the first to speak.

“It’s late,” she says reluctantly, “and we both have work tomorrow.”

“Right,” he replies, standing up slowly and taking her cup from her. Their fingers brush and he jolts a little at the unexpected contact. So does she. It’s only now that the past four hours strike him as reality and not a hallucination. She is here, she is alive, and whilst he is seized with the sudden urge to hug her — they were never on such good terms that a hug would pass unremarked upon — he keeps his distance. Now he knows that her life is still a minefield of secrets, he is content to wait until she feels comfortable enough with him to share a tidbit or two. Just like an excavation, people keep their own secrets on their own time; there is no use in rushing anything so fragile and priceless.

With their mugs soaking in the sink, it's only a matter of time before she gathers her coat and handbag from the sofa. He follows a half step behind her, drawn after her like a kite tethered on the end of a string. As she slips her shoes back on, he reaches over her shoulder to undo the deadbolt. He misses her flinch, and takes her aborted move to throw him over her shoulder at face value: an unexpected caress on his arm.

She returns his tentative smile with one of her own. It's enough to prompt him to say, "I'd like to see you again. If — if you want to, I mean, nothing —"

"Yes, I would like that."

For a moment, everything is blindingly normal. She is the shy, blushing young woman. He is the bumbling, shy young man. For anyone who walked in on this scene, it would appear merely the end of a lovely date where she wishes to linger and he is reluctant to say goodnight. There is no wistful music, no dramatic tears, just two people, standing in a doorway, waiting for the other to make the first move.

"So," he hovers just outside what he thinks is her personal zone of comfort, hands in his pockets, "I'll call you?"

She smiles at him, quiet amusement lighting her eyes. "I'll call you."

He smiles crookedly back at her, remembering that he knows nothing about her. He doesn't even know her name.

"It's Helen, now," she tells him, as if she can read his mind. Of course, he is probably telegraphing every thought to her; he has always been easy to read.

"It's...it's pretty."

There's no amusement in her eyes. "Thank you."

Unbidden, he wonders if she chose it for herself, or if someone chose for her. There is something about the way she reacts to the name that says “Helen” is devoid of meaning, as if she had to force herself to accept the identity. He wonders, again, just how much he knew of her then, and how much he knows of her now. Nothing really, and he doesn’t know if that’s terrifying, pathetic, or disturbing.

“It was good to see you,” she says, breaking the moment. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

He opens the door for her, and she slips out into the night. It doesn’t strike him until she’s disappeared from sight in the gathering fog that he never gave her his mobile number.

Then again, he smiles ruefully to himself (and the CCTV camera trained on his front door), she knows where I live.

~

They start slow — a cup of coffee here, a stroll there.

Sometimes, he struggles not to call her Soo Lin over a cup of tea. Other times, Helen comes easier to him when they're stealing each other's fish and chips. Most of the time, though, he isn't sure what to call her. She's not quite the girl — woman — he remembers, but then she'll say something, move in a certain way, and for just a split second, it's like she's never left. But that is always a glimpse. If he thought Soo Lin was impossible to know, Helen is nearly as difficult. She can tell him about her life, but there's always an air of mystery around her, an invisible cloud of "Don't Ask Questions I Can't Answer" that surrounds her like a moat. Her past — their past — is empathetically forbidden, and her work is only spoken of in vague terms. There's a coiled tension, still, in her shoulders, but carried differently as if the burden is not longer a crushing fear, but a heavy mantle that keeps her quiet and keeps her safe.

They exchange mobile numbers — his listed under “BM-A” and hers listed under “RS-H”— with the understanding that neither of them will tell the entire truth if asked by their friends, family, or employers. He’s just another contact; she’s just another accountant. It’s all entirely plausible — she has more contacts than she does friends; he has a better head for aesthetics than he does for numbers. No one would pick him out with any more prejudice on her phone if... well, if they meant to use her, or use him as leverage against someone else.

They both debate the merits of dedicated phone lines, to keep each other safe, but discard that precaution as too dangerous (too obvious; nothing screams ‘I have secrets to hide’ as unusual caution). So “BM-A” stays on her Blackberry, and “RS-H” stays on his mobile

~

“Jiejie, a penny for your thoughts?”

Sitting in the sun-draped breakfast nook, Helen blinks at the soft question before she shakes her head. “It’s nothing.”

“You’re distracted today.” Across the small table from her, Susan Yao gives her a sceptical glance as she refills their coffee. “It’s never nothing when you have that look on your face.”

Helen is not surprised that the young barrister-in-training has picked up on her unease. After all, the two share the same childhood and education. Some lessons are impossible to forget. The path they were placed on has led Helen into the shadowy world of intelligence and espionage, whilst it has allowed Susan to flourish in spotlight of a barrister’s life.

This is their tradition: once a month, time permitting, the Yao sisters will meet for an early brunch and let themselves relax in the presence of the one other person in the world who knows their deepest secrets. For Helen, it is the knowledge that she is still alive. For Susan, it is the knowledge that — like Helen — she has a history hidden away on another continent in what seems like an entirely different life. Even though they are sisters in every sense but blood, the lies and betrayals they have committed in order to make their own decisions is enough to bind them together.

“It’s not work,” promises Helen as she mixes in a teaspoon of sugar into her coffee. Then she clarifies delicately, “Not exactly.”

The younger woman replies calmly, “You only need to tell me as much as I need to know.”

They were raised to trust no one, yet Susan has a breathtaking, unshakable faith that Helen will protect them both from the world. She believes in Helen’s judgement without question, and accepts that Helen will have secrets, but Susan herself keeps none of her own secrets from her elder sister. Helen frequently has wondered if that is wise, but Susan shakes her head every time the discussion comes up and points out that of all the people she could trust in the world, who else would know her darkest stories and look at her no differently in the light of day?

“It’s not anything classified,” replies Helen, because whilst she doesn’t exactly keep that part of her life secret, she knows that Susan is deeply aware that Helen has made a Devil’s Deal to keep them safe. She has no regret in keeping the bargain, but she does her best not to remind the younger woman of it. At least, unlike the men of their childhoods, the sisters can trust Mycroft Holmes to be a man of his word, and he has promised them their security. Susan just isn’t sure what the price will be; Helen believes that she is already paying their debt.

“There is a...young man.” Helen tries to find the right words to explain, because she doesn’t know exactly what she has with Andy, only that neither of them has spoken about it with anyone else. They recognize that their relationship, whilst not entirely illicit, harbours a dangerous undertow that could pull them both under, professionally and personally, for entirely different reasons.

Susan waits her out patiently, the cutlery clinking gently against the china plates as they eat. Helen nudges a slice of bacon with her fork before she confesses, “I think he’s my friend.”

It’s strange that such a simple declaration is an unfamiliar one to her. Most of the people in Helen’s life have been either ally or enemy — with the exception of Susan, who is the only person left called ‘family’ — and even her allies, she doesn’t call them ‘friends.’ She trusts them to watch her back in the field and to not leave her dead in a back alley, but she can’t imagine being in their company for any reason other than work. With him, it’s...different.

“I would ask you what he’s like,” says Susan lightly, “but I’m guessing there’s something else, isn’t there?”

“I knew him.” She can’t bring herself to look directly at her sister’s inquisitive expression, so she focuses on the half-empty plates and gestures with her fork. “We worked together.”

The only sign of Susan’s surprise is a particularly emphatic clatter of her teacup against the saucer. With control born from long practice, she asks mildly, “From before...?”

Helen confirms with a nod, “Before my current position.”

“So he’s low risk.”

“Not...not exactly,” she replies, “but...M knows about him. I had to…I had to write a risk assessment on him a few months ago.”

Her little sister asks cautiously, “Before or after you starting seeing him?”

Helen points out, almost sharply, “We’re not dating.”

Susan shakes her head. “I’m not saying that you are. You deserve to have friends, outside of work, and outside of M’s little circle. But the risk assessment, M gave it to you before or after?”

She knows they think alike because their Jiejie taught them how to think, how to analyse. A part of Helen will always wonder what her future might have been if she’d had choices, if she’d had Jiejie’s training and none of the older woman’s debt, but she has also taught herself not to long for what cannot be. Her life is not one that allows for dreams.

“Before,” she looks down at her strip of bacon, “I think… I don’t know.” She hates that, not knowing what M had meant all those months ago when Anthea had dropped the dossier on her desk. Clearly, they have to know — it isn’t like she has kept her meetings with Andy clandestine, just…incredibly private and personal — but neither one of them have said anything about it to her.

“We can’t keep living in the shadows forever,” points out Susan, fiddling with her knife. The engagement ring on her hand catches the weak sunlight at just the right angle to throw a small prism of colour across the table. “Jiejie didn’t — We didn’t do what we did to spend the rest of our lives afraid.”

“I...” Helen shakes her head. “I don’t know what I’m doing with him. I don’t know if…”

There’s sympathy in her little sister’s eyes because she knows, just a little bit, the crippling insecurity and fear that hobbles both of them. They were raised without choices, only expectations, and the knowledge that failure to meet those expectations was a fate worse than death. Susan came out of their shadowy childhood with far fewer scars than Helen, but even still, it’s taken the better part of a decade for her fiancé to comfort and reassure her that it’s safe to love and cherish, to build a relationship that is a partnership rather than a tether.

“So he knows you’re alive,” says the younger woman quietly, “and he hasn’t blabbed about it to anyone, and M knows and doesn’t seem to care: what are you worrying about?” Susan continues without giving Helen time to answer. “No one knows how friendships happen; they just do. If you’re happy and so is he, then…I would just enjoy it.” She reaches out and covers Helen’s hand lightly. “You trust him, don’t you?”

“Yes,” is the soft reply as Helen looks down at her half-finished plate, “God help me, I do.”

Susan says comfortingly, “Then that’s all that matters.” She squeezes her sister’s hand once before she changes topic. “Now, are you available this Thursday night? Thomas and I are supposed to meet with a wedding planner after work.”

~

When spring comes, they stroll through the gardens and parks as if they are playing at friends playing as lovers. They walk side-by-side, and eventually hand-in-hand, content to soak up the silence and sunshine when their professions keep them away from nature on a daily basis. They learn to talk, to share morsels of their lives that stay safely away from each other’s minefields. She tells nameless stories of work and numbers and ridiculous office antics. He does the same, with names and details and the sort of insanity that only occurs in the museum and antiquities world, especially when tourists are involved in the mix.

They speak of newspaper headlines and academic gossip, of jointly-viewed movies and separately-read books. They talk of plans to relax for one evening — to stay in at his flat or to soak up the West End lights — or to travel beyond the city’s motorways on a stolen weekend away in the countryside or on the Continent, or anywhere but in London. They build bridges between the chasm of their worlds, carefully searching out common ground between an ‘accountant’ and a museum curator.

~

As they nurture their friendship, Andy knows that she keeps secrets in her careful silences and selective vagueness, but he finds he doesn’t mind only knowing the unimportant parts of her life. What he has, what she has chosen to share with him, is far more precious than any state secret. He finds that he adores the sound of her soft laughter and enjoys her sharp wit as they playfully debate the aesthetics of Matisse and Monet. It lightens his day to brighten hers with an anecdote to chase away the sad shadows in her eyes and the bitter curve of her mouth. He feels a frisson of pride when he makes her laugh so hard she nearly loses her balance and leans hard into him, her weight and warmth reassuring against his arm. He makes her happy, and she chooses to come back to him, and share a small part of her life with him. He is grateful that he is allowed to see the woman behind her armour, and he knows he will never abuse the privilege.

He doesn’t know the moment he realizes that whatever her government job is, she is not merely an “accountant.” He just knows that one day, it is blindingly clear to him that her secrets are state secrets and not entirely personal ones. Maybe it’s the way she speaks of work, with chosen omissions and delicate elusiveness, or how sometimes, he feels that she discusses the headline news in a way that feels slightly flat and bland. He doesn’t think that anyone who doesn’t know her well would notice it, and even if they do know her well, he doubts that many would pick up on it. It isn’t that he is particularly ‘in tune’ with her or that he is her ‘special someone’ who can read her like an open book — most days, he is at a complete loss as to what she is thinking — but there is something about her expression that shifts, a practiced casualness that reminds him of her before she was Helen and the way she hid away from the world, hoping to go unnoticed and undisturbed. In those moments, he catches himself almost saying her forbidden name instead of her chosen one.

Regardless, the first time he knows that she doesn’t have a desk-bound career is during one of their postponed walks along the Serpentine. It is a bank holiday weekend, and naturally, the park is jammed with tourists both local and foreign; no one pays them any particular attention as they stroll on the winding paths. Most days, they walk as lovers would with elbows linked and heads leaning together. Some days, though, she wants her space and he respects the request. Today is one of those days.

He is still keeps close, using his slightly taller stature to encourage the tourists not to carelessly elbow their way through the masses. Stepping out of the way of a herd of German children playing tag, he taps against her shoulder. She winces in pain. It’s subtle — a tightening in her jaw, a fast blink of her eyes — but he catches it, and a protective rage wells up from out of nowhere. He knows that she has been local for the past few weeks — they stole away for a quick lunch just three days before, arranged via text and email — and she was moving fine then. From his childhood, he knows the way these situations work and play out in people’s lives and he has had enough. He isn’t a helpless child anymore, and he won’t be a bystander.

Andy follows when she ducks into a grove of trees, off the gravel path, and waits till they are away from prying ears and eyes to demand, “Don’t tell me you just bumped into a door.”

She smiles with dark satisfaction. “He bumped into me.”

“Who was it?” In the indirect sunlight, he can see the faintest outlines of a bruise on her cheekbone, expertly concealed with cosmetics that match and blend into her skin tone. He can’t help but flick through his memories, searching for thick sweaters and warm scarves and all the other little tricks people learn to hide the tattletale signs.

“No one you know.” Her reply is calm, collected, as if this was just another conversation about the weather, and not a conversation about her physical, psychological and emotional safety.

“What happened?”

“It’s nothing that hasn’t already been taken care of.” There is a finality in her statement that warns he is treading very close to a line she will not cross with him.

“Helen,” he says fiercely, mindful of the public space and keeping his voice low, “no matter how powerful she or he is —”

Surprise flitters across her face before she replies, “M-my boss would never harm me like that.”

Andy notes that it is not a declaration of faith that her superiors would never harm her and he doesn’t know whether to find that comforting or depressing. He doesn’t think she is covering up anything in this case, but he is never sure if he knows her well enough to truly know when she is lying because she feels like she has to protect him.

“I’m fine,” she tells him, soothingly, gently. “Really.”

He notices the casual way she holds herself, elbows tucked tight against her sides with a stiff spine. It reminds him of the way his mother moved once the cast had been removed from her broken arm. He considers and discards several questions before he asks, “Where’s your sling?”

“Not outside the office,” she replies softly. He knows her well enough to hear what she hasn’t said, that her position requires her to project a certain impression and any vulnerabilities are either carefully cultivated or completely concealed. “I’m supposed to be on desk-duty for the next few weeks.”

At whatever expression is on his face, she adds reassuringly, “The doctors are sure I’ll make a full recovery and I’ll have plenty of people watching out for me. The boss takes our welfare very seriously.”

“If you ever need...” He trusts her; he has to. If she says that her injuries are not from her work, then... he has to trust that she knows where the line is. It is not that he believes she can’t or won’t be able to protect herself if a situation ever demands it, but he knows how comforting it is to hear someone else openly declare their staunch support and faith, especially if push comes to shove. He might not be able to do much for her, but he can do this.

“I know,” she tells him, with a grateful quirk of her lips, “and I appreciate it.”

~

As the days slowly turn toward summer, Helen finds herself looking forward to these semi-weekly meetings, to their meandering conversations, and simply put, to his companionship. She knows it’s dangerous — having any kind of set routine, especially with an uncleared civilian, goes against every aspect of her training — but she can’t imagine not meeting him at one of London’s many parks on a weekend morning any more than she can envision never seeing Susan again. For better or worse, he is a part of her life.

Helen...doesn’t know what that means, if he’s now firmly a friend, merely a friend, or ...not just a friend. She shies away from the thought and takes another sip of her coffee as she sits by the Boating Lake. A safe of disappointed ducks waddle away in search of someone who is willing to share breadcrumbs. Behind her, a gardening crew is stripping out the withering irises and turning over the rich soil in the flower beds. The weather is unusually nice this season, with both tourists and locals flocking to the many green spaces amidst London’s winding streets to soak up the sun’s rays. Sometimes, she still feels like she is playing at normalcy, acting out a role she hasn’t yet mastered. Then there are days like today, when ‘civilian life’ makes perfect sense to her.

She has to acknowledge that they are, at the very least, friends; two people do not meet on a semi-regular basis without a good reason and they have seen each other nearly every week for the past two months or so. There is nothing special about their outings, but when she sees him after a hard day, she walks away with an ease in her breath, and when it has merely been a long day, he steadies her in a way that makes her feel human and not simply another pawn in Her Majesty’s arsenal. Helen is aware, slightly uncomfortably so, that her relationship with him may be the healthiest one in her life, and considering the few relationships she does have can counted on one hand...

Andy is comfortable and comforting, occupying a position that no other male figure in her life has ever taken. Even Mr Holmes, for all that he has protected her, never puts her entirely at ease. He is her superior — in position, influence, and intellect — and he is also the man who holds all the cards (and Susan’s safety) in his hands; she is not supposed to feel comfortable with him. But Andy... with Andy, she can see herself introducing him to Susan and Thomas, the four of them gathered around the brunch table in the breakfast nook on a lazy Sunday morning. She can see him slotting somehow into her life where she —

She knows the sound of his laughter like she knows the pitch of Susan’s giggles, and she turns to see him accosted by a beagle puppy, happily off the leash and wide eyes fixated on the warm pastries in Andy’s hands. The puppy weaves around his feet, tail wagging as the youngster sniffs and paws at his knees. The owner, breathless and barely into adulthood, runs into the scene with hurried apologies as she tries to call off her pet. There is little success for her efforts until the beagle spots a passing magpie and the race is off. Helen watches this scene play out before and she smiles into her coffee, enjoying the bubbling amusement settling in her chest. The weather promises to be beautiful and she is off duty rotation till nightfall; she has nowhere pressing she needs to be and nothing urgent that needs to be done. Today can be a quiet day, taken for her own pleasure and at her own pace.

This, she thinks as Andy approaches with their brunch in hand, might be happiness.

~

Their first kiss is tentative, awkward.

It starts as an accidental brush of their lips, if such a gesture can usually be called accidental. They have been standing too close together, much too close to be anything but a couple, and when he leans in over her shoulder just as she turns to glance at him —

For a moment, they stand frozen in shock.

Then he backpedals, stepping away from her with stammered apologies, but not very far because her hand is tight on his coat lapel. He stills, watching her for his next cue. It’s terrifying, she finds, to have that much power over someone else’s actions, more so when the choice is given over deliberately, willingly, without hesitation. Yet while her mind mulls and muses, her body moves of its own accord and tugs gently at his coat.

She sees the moment he musters up the courage for a second kiss, and she smiles as his lips catch hers. She has never been properly kissed, but this — all earnest, shy fumbling — is better than any first kiss she could have dreamed of.

She doesn’t pull away.

~

Chapter Text

~

The kiss changes...

The kiss changes everything and nothing. It shifts the centre of their relationship, throwing another pebble into an already rippled lake.

They still wander London’s parks, museums, and markets on slow weekend mornings, but now they take the fruits (and vegetables) of their outings back to his flat and cook together. They experiment with recipes familiar and new from around the world, laughing and teasing as they make a mess of the kitchen. During the week, she is more often than not at his flat in the evenings to share takeaway or a home-cooked meal of English comfort food. They fall into the habit of lingering at the table with a cup of tea or curling up on the sofa to watch mindless telly together. It feels...ridiculously domestic and normal.

Helen has a key to his flat, passed over during one of their first evening dinners together, and Andy has all her contact information to reach her, night or day, as he discovers when an entire contact card appears on his mobile. They don’t text or call each other incessantly like smitten teenagers, but once in a while during the day, a random comment will ping between them and the receiver will smile at the promise of a ridiculous anecdote at the next dinner.

After a handful of late nights that edge into early morning, he clears out a drawer and part of his closet for a change of her clothes. The next time the clock ticks towards midnight, he asks her to stay the night and to his pleasant surprise, she says yes. In a few days, she merges her cookware into his collection and starts contributing little surprises to his larder. An extra duvet is added to the linen closet, but is rarely used once she informs him that she has absolutely no problem with sharing a bed with him and she sees no point in his self-banishment to the sofa while she takes the bed. He concedes after a long argument, and after the first few self-conscious nights, neither one of them stirs when the other slips into bed long after nightfall.

They know their lives are slowly blending together, intertwining in ways that neither one of them can quite predict. It’s their shared book collection and travel mementos displayed on a little bookcase. It’s the daily newspapers and academic journals they read over breakfast and brunch. It’s the growing recipe scrapbook in the kitchen, filled with his and her handwriting in the margins. It’s the deep wok stored next to the iron skillet and her curry powder next to his sesame oil. It’s the way they’re learning to read each other’s silences, knowing when to push and when to say nothing at all. And yet..., despite all of this, they’re still circling around each other, still trying to figure out how they work together, if they work together.

~

On nights when she comes to his flat with a pinched expression or when he’s had a crap day at the Museum, they brew jasmine tea in the clay teapot and cover the coffee table with an assortment of ‘Fun and Games’ from various newspapers around the city. Then they curl up on the couch in wordless agreement to pretend that the world outside doesn’t exist as they wager against each other for the fastest completion time or most cryptic crossword answer. The first time they do this, he is not surprised that she leaves him in the dust on regular Sudoku, though he barely manages to hold his own on the Independent’s crossword. On the next crossword, they both are stuck on one particularly baffling clue and have to resort to some…creative Googling to find the answer. (Then she may or may not have gone into the kitchen with her mobile phone in hand to “find biscuits” for them. He decides never to ask her why it takes her the better part of ten minutes when she knows his cupboards like the back of her hand.)

He finds something soothing in the act of solving a puzzle, unravelling a minor conundrum with a neat solution when life so rarely provides any kind of pat explanation to its mysteries. It’s part of what led him into the curation and restoration field in the first place: the thrill of uncovering and discovering what was once known, and the pleasure of sharing that knowledge with others. For all that he dislikes the political pandering aspects, Andy loves his job when it comes to public outreach. During the endless budget meetings and fundraising events, he lives for the small moments when a child’s face lights up in wonder at the whole new (ancient) world of Athenian Greece or a tourist stands in awe of a silk painting that has survived centuries of war, famine, and destruction. He lives for the excited hush when the final piece of a shattered ceramic dish is fitted back into place or when the final knot has been tied on a restored tapestry, and they are looking at an object as it might have been when it was first made decades, centuries, or even a millennium ago. Even when he’s buried deep in research, frustrated by the lack of documentation or leads or information that makes a bloody ounce of sense — it’s been a decade and no one at the Museum has managed to untangle the goddamn provenance mess that is the Hunter shard — there is an overarching sense of contentment to his life’s work.

Andy acknowledges the uncomfortable truth that part of what draws him to Helen is that she is a puzzle to him, an enigma of secrets and sadness that he longs to solve, if only to make her world a little brighter. He is also aware that he is in a unique situation to know this because he has seen the comparison between Before and Now. It keeps him up at night, sometimes, wondering if he is with her for all the wrong reasons, but then when she laughs because of something he says or smiles because of something he does, he has to wonder if he is overthinking the entire situation. After all, all human interactions are a give and take, and he does not intend to keep her locked up in a gilded cage. He hopes that if the time comes that she chooses to walk away from him, she will say goodbye first and he will find the strength to let her go, because he knows he will never solve the mystery that is her, and he is fine with that.

Until that day, he will stay by her side, and inadvertently, reassemble the jigsaw puzzle that is her life and her past. He doesn’t mean to put the little clues and hints together, and he certainly doesn’t obsess over it. It’s just that over the years, he has unknowingly gathered bits and pieces of her story that contradict and complement each other. For all that Helen has erased Soo Lin from her life, he knows that not everything he knew about his former colleague was an elaborate act. She still hates pineapples with a passion — a preference she had confessed with unnecessary guilt before Lunar New Year’s — and has a weakness for clementines. Classical music might set her on edge, but oolong teas still soothe her in ways that any other blends will never achieve. She won’t reach for anything that might remind her of China — food, clothes, rituals — but she seems grateful when he brings it up instead. There are still days when she pulls her cloak of aloof silence tight around her, her mouth a thin line of discontent as she stares out the window without a word. Soo Lin might have been a cover identity, but the woman he had known wasn’t a complete fabrication.

Helen, the woman who shares his kitchen, his flat, and his life, is far more open about her personality. She might maintain a strict silence on her government job, but she lets down her guard around him about her personal life. He has seen the way her shoulders relax over the course of an evening as they chat about classical literature or the latest E.U. legislature. He has heard her bemoan popular literature and indulge in fantasy romances. He has laughed with her through recipes-gone-wrong and savoured successful dinner courses. He knows the harmless little details of her character, her likes and dislikes, and one major secret: he knows that he is not the only person in her personal life. She has never given him any names, but there are conversations when, instead of saying she “has to” or “must” meet with someone, she will use a softer word that is a statement of fact rather than an imperative. He wonders who this person is to her, to have earned such a veil of protective silence around them, and how he has managed to earn enough of her trust to even know of this person’s existence, however obliquely. There are secrets she still keeps from him, but he knows that she trusts him to let her share her confidences in her own time.

Then there are the rare moments when a chill runs down his spine and he remembers that her government job is far more than merely red tape. Yes, she can sympathize with him when all he wants to do after an entire day of budget meetings is rant about pointless bureaucracy, but she never lets him touch her handbag, no matter how heavy it may be, and he has learned never to approach her from the back without first announcing his presence. There are scars and bruises and injuries she won’t (can’t) explain, and all he can do is worry. Then there is that one night in late summer, when he leaves work at quarter past ten and two men emerge out of the shadows.

Andy doesn’t even have time to react before he is deposited into the back of an unmarked car, bracketed by two muscular men in bespoke suits. When he lunges for the car door, one of them grabs him by the back of his jacket and pins him back into his seat. The other one takes out a capped syringe and holds Andy’s wrist in an iron grip. All three of them stare at each other in a tense tableau. The choice is clear: either he behaves, or he can take a little nap. Hysteria bubbles in his throat, but Andy manages a stiff nod of understanding. They let go and he stumps in his seat, unresisting when they buckle him in for the ride.

As the car heads towards the city’s outskirts, all Andy can think of is her, waiting for him to come home. He had texted her that he would be home before midnight. Would she raise the alarm? Could he hold out until she came for him? He watches the familiar neighbourhoods roll past until the car finally pulls into an underground car park that is still under construction. There, the men escort him firmly out of the vehicle and leave him alone to stand on wobbly legs before they retreat from sight.

Standing there, waiting for his fate to befall him, he wonders if it would be smart to bolt. Surely there must be more than one exit from this place? He looks around and sees nothing but wooden pallets and plastic sheeting around him.

“You are not a wise man.”

Andy flinches at the proof he is not alone in this deserted underground car park. A wall, he thinks half-hysterically, would be wonderful right about now. He feels exposed and terribly vulnerable in the cavernous space, and having someone sneak up behind him is most certainly not his definition of ‘okay’ right now. He turns to face the speaker, and knows instantly that he has been kidnapped by either a rich mafia kingpin or someone incredibly powerful and influential. Either way, Andy is in deep, deep hot water.

“I never claimed to be wise.” As a child, he never could stand his ground. As an adult, he has taught himself how to look another person in the eye with an unwavering refusal. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a voice screaming at the back of his mind: This is going to end badly.

“No, you never have,” the other man agrees mildly, swinging his umbrella idly as he approaches, “Mr. Andrew Galbraith, 36 years old, assistant curator at the British Museum with a focus in East Asian antiques, specifically pottery.”

A little bell rings at the back of Andy’s mind, because… he has had this conversation before, with nearly that exact same phrasing. It takes a moment before he remembers that while Helen has never shared names, he knows that the stunning, terrifying Ms Weber on Gala Night is her direct supervisor while her departmental superior is a man. If he is lucky, he is facing down Helen’s boss; after all, this man is clearly Anglo-Saxon and sounds completely and utterly English to his bones. If he isn’t… Andy doesn’t really want to think about it.

“There is a young lady you’re acquainted with,” the taller man continues, leaning against his brolly in a pose that is terribly reminiscent of Mr Steed’s iconic stance, “a Ms. Helen Chen of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” says Andy as defiantly as he can. His voice shakes and he can only imagine that his expression is somewhere along the lines of a terrified mice staring down a hungry cat. It’s a horrible attempt at lying, but he figures that he can be excused for being a piss-poor actor because he’s been kidnapped.

The older man, whom Andy is fairly certain is Helen’s boss (and good God, she never mentioned that he was a law-breaking prick), clicks disapprovingly. “Now, now, we could play this game for the rest of the night, but considering I have photographs of you and her dining together at Pogacha this past weekend and La Croix the weekend before, must we keep up the charade?”

Andy can feel the blood drain from his face, but he stays on his feet. “What do you want?”

“I want you to stay away from her.” The man’s eyes are sharp as a hawk’s. “You are putting her in danger, associating with her.”

The smug condescension and outright demand is enough fuel to make Andy blurt out, “Because she’s still supposed to be dead.” Shut up shut up shut up! He rails against himself, but his mouth has other ideas because he has never been any good at shutting up when it is the smart choice of action. “Because I’m that last connection that whoever tried to kill her might be watching. Because I can make her a target, expose her to whomever wanted her dead in the first place, because they sure as hell don’t know she’s still alive until someone gives away the game. And you think I’m her weak link.”

That earns him a surprised, mocking arched eyebrow from the man, and Andy isn’t sure how much of the reaction is fabricated or honest. Again, he doesn’t know much about Helen’s work, but he knows enough to know that he shouldn’t ask questions and he doesn’t want to know more than she can tell him. “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care, but you don’t get to dictate how she lives. Neither of us do.”

“And who do you think I am?”

“Her boss,” he replies, swallowing down the rest of her secrets. He won’t betray her trust for the sake of confirming a few flimsy suspicions. There aren’t many kosher ways for a person to show up with a completely new identity and career after being murdered. Either she is government or part of a criminal network, and he has seen her official ID badge when she forgets to take off her lanyard in the evenings. “She’s not just an accountant, I’ve figured that much out.”

“Then what is she?” the man asks casually, but Andy knows a dangerous question when he hears one and while he might never be wise, he isn’t foolish enough to fall into this trap.

He shakes his head. “I’m not stupid. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. She belongs to you, whether you want her or not, but that’s during the day, that’s during when she works. When it’s night, she’s her own person and if she wants to spend her personal time with me, then I’m not going to turn her away, especially on your say-so.”

“Very clever of you, Mr Galbraith.”

“Not really,” he babbles nervously, because hell, if even half the things he suspects Helen’s employer of being capable of doing are true, he is truly fucked.

“She trusts you.” The older man tilts his head, as if studying a particularly perplexing oddity, and muses, “Is that wise?”

Andy can’t help but bristle. “If you’re going to accuse me of something, spit it out or sod off.”

“What keeps you with her? Longing? Lust? Love?” The sneer is audible.

The young curator bites back his instinctive response because this man is doing his best to rile Andy’s temper and… it’s a bit too deliberate. Andy is willing to believe many things, but he can’t really see Helen working for an arse of this degree and still have the kind of respect she does when she refers to her boss in passing. “I care about her, and anything else is frankly none of your business.”

“She isn’t someone to be possessed.”

“No, and I don’t claim to own her. Not like you.”

“I take great care with the safety of those who work for me,” is the mildly offended reply. “All of my employees are volunteers.”

“Not her,” he snaps back, “she feels obligated to you, whether you want her to be or not.”

“And the same to you.”

“Maybe, but I’m not the one who —” Andy freezes, because this is Helen’s employer, with a reach and scope that she has never specified, but surely, he has enough influence to make her life hell if Andy infuriates him tonight.

“Who what?” he prompts delicately. Again, alarm bells ring in Andy’s mind for him to slow down and think about what he says before he says it. Once said, words can’t be taken back.

“Look, you and I both know that if you say ‘Jump,’ her reply is ‘How high?’ and I’m not going to tell her that she can’t make her own decisions.” Andy swallows thickly. “But I’m guessing that you got her out of a bad spot, and I know she feels like she owes you everything. With me, I don’t know why she stays, but I’m not going to question it.”

“You tether her to her past. You remind her of what-could-have-beens.”

“What I remind her of is none of our business,” repeats Andy, because maybe repetition will get it through the other man’s head that he is not interested in spilling any of her secrets. “It’s hers. It has, and always will be, her choice whether or not we stay together.”

“What of your own desires?”

“I don’t want what she isn’t willing to give. End of story.”

The man sneers in disbelief, “A woman like her, with a man like you?”

“What our relationship is and isn’t is absolutely none of your business.” At this point, the adrenaline is draining away and all Andy can muster up is a deep annoyance, but at least he no longer wants to punch Helen’s employer in the face for being a douchebag.

The man reaches into his bespoke jacket and withdraws a smartphone, unlocking it with a flick of his fingers. He offers it to Andy. “Would you read this?”

“No, I don’t know what game you’re playing at, but I have absolutely no interest in what you’re offering.”

There is a moment of silence before he puts the smartphone away and says flatly, “You’re incredibly faithful to a woman you don’t know.”

“I know everything about her that matters.”

There is something like approval in the other man’s eyes before he nods once, sharply. Andy doesn’t have the time to look over his shoulder before there’s an iron grip around his chest and a sharp bite of a needle at his wrist. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what has happened when his knees give out from under him and he slumps into someone’s arms. As the world tunnels down into darkness, he lets off a string of profanities.

The last thing he hears is a very amused, “I think you’ll do” from her employer before the world winks out.

Surprisingly, Andy wakes up to the quiet sounds of someone unlocking and locking a door. It takes him a moment to recognize that he is in his flat, specifically, on his living room sofa. It takes another heartbeat before he realizes that someone has thoughtfully tucked a throw pillow under his head and tossed an afghan over his torso. He pushes down his panic as he identifies the familiar sounds of her nightly routine when she comes home. Just as he gets his breathing under control, she pads into the living room and smiles warmly at him.

“You didn’t have to wait up for me,” Helen tells him softly, dropping a kiss on his forehead as she perches on the edge of the sofa. He could almost believe that everything he remembers about his conversation with her employer is just a product of his vivid imagination, but he can already feel the bruises forming on the inside of his forearm and across his chest. He will have to be careful for a few days until the marks fade.

Andy smiles up at her and resolves to never let her know what happened tonight.

~

A week later, Andy finds a typed note on his desk when he returns from a lunch meeting with Janice.

This could be your life. If you want to walk away, do it now.

He grits his jaw and tosses the crumpled note into the rubbish. Like hell. A moment later, he fishes it out of the rubbish bin and goes to borrow a lighter from Maurice. Andy watches the flames turn the paper to ashes in the designated smokers’ spot behind the Museum.

This is his life now: better safe than sorry.

~

Neither one of them realize — or to be more precise, acknowledges — that they are more than simply friends until the day that Andy runs home briefly because of a coffee-and-pastry stained shirt. The monthly departmental meeting is that afternoon, and whilst their closed-door sessions are fairly casual, people will talk if he shows up looking like a culinary disaster, so a mad dash home and a quick change of clothes it is.

If it had been any other week, Andy wouldn’t have paid more than a moment’s thought to the uniformed repairman who brushes past him in the hallway. Except, once he fits his key into the lock, he remembers that the Fletchers down the hall are away on holiday and elderly Mrs Downing has gone to see her daughters up in York and the flat across is empty because term hasn’t started at UCL. There shouldn’t be any repairmen on this floor because there is no one here to supervise any kind of repairs.

With shaking hands, he pulls his key from the lock and steps cautiously away from his front door. He doesn’t relax when nothing explodes or implodes. Instead, he heads towards their café on the corner, where the staff knows his regular order and there is a good mix of locals and tourists to keep it a very public space.

She doesn’t pick up her phone, and he leaves as calm a voicemail as he can when all he wants to do is bolt for the nearest police station. Paranoia is… well, as the American Joseph Heller pointed out, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you, and Andy knows that he is her weak spot. He knows that the people who murdered Soo Lin won’t hesitate to come after Helen if they find out she’s still alive and well. They haven’t talked about this, except in the vaguest of terms, and couched in the style of hypothetical situations and reactions or discussions about the latest episode of MI-5 or whatever cutting-edge thriller show is on the telly from across the pond, but he knows what to do.

Keeping his ringer on its loudest volume, he texts Janice that he won’t be in this afternoon (personal emergency) and orders a regular decaf. It earns him a confused look from the new cashier, but she rings up his order with a cheerful “and will that be all?” He smiles, hands over his credit card, grabs his drink and settles into the table at the corner of the room to wait.

Nearly an hour later, Helen meets him in the café, spots of colour high on her cheeks. She greets him with a kiss and a calming hand on his as he rises anxiously to meet her. She cuts off any anxious greeting with a stern shake of her head.

“Come with me,” she says quietly, leading him to a black sedan idling by the kerb. As soon as they’re in, the car pulls into mid-afternoon traffic. He watches her cautiously, because he has seen her upset before, impassioned and outraged before, but he doesn’t think he has ever seen her genuinely angry. While she hides the tremors well, she won’t look at him and her mouth is a thin line of disapproval. Andy is… fairly certain that she’s not angry with him. He hopes.

He distracts himself with an idle thought, namely, that they are travelling in an unmarked black sedan. Given that Helen issued clipped instructions to the driver by the man’s first name, Andy feels safe in assuming that the driver is one of Helen’s colleagues or subordinates, which means that this is a company car. As far as he knows, it is the rare government employee who has access to a company car, and he doesn’t believe junior accountants are anywhere on that list. He doesn’t know if all these little clues and hints are on purpose, or if merely accidents of circumstances that he is supposed to ignore and forget. He also doesn’t know if he is, at some point, supposed to ask her to clarify what exactly he has tangled himself up in.

They arrive at his building, and he helps her out of the car. The driver gives her a respectful two-fingered salute before leaving them both standing on the pavement. There is a tension in her posture that warns him not to ask questions or make comments as they go up to his flat. He tries, anyway.

“Helen—”

“No,” she says tightly. “Not here. We’ll talk about this inside.”

When they reach his floor, so quiet and unchanged despite the sinking sense of dread that lurks in his gut, Andy reaches out to her as she takes out her keys from her handbag. She pulls away from him and he flinches back.

“I promise we’ll talk inside.”

“Helen,” he says carefully, resisting the urge to grab her and run as she pushes the door open. “I…”

“Inside,” she repeats firmly, a sharp edge to her tone and a stern glint in her eyes. “Now.”

He obeys.

She shuts and locks the door before she leans back against it, her head leaning against the door with a soft thunk.

“I have to apologize to you for the gross invasion of privacy that happened today.”

“…What?” Andy thinks he follows, but at this point, he is not sure that he hasn’t fallen down the rabbit hole and imbibed an entire teapot of the Mad Hatter’s brew.

“Remember how I said that my employer is protective?”

Andy remembers quite well that conversation, and the two separate in-person conversations with her actual supervisors that bookended that night. “… Yes. I take it …?”

Helen smacks her head lightly against the door. Before she can do it again, he steps forward, grasps both of her hands and tugs her gently away. She looks at him with fondness, but the exasperation and buried anger in her voice is sharp. “He decided to give our relationship his stamp of approval.”

“So…” ventures Andy cautiously, “his idea of the shovel talk is to sweep my flat for bugs? Put bugs in?”

“To install a security system,” she replies with frustration, “one that is a passive, low-level system and is barely adequate for my situation.”

He gets the distinct impression that she is quoting verbatim and he wonders how rattled she is to have gone up against her boss in her impulsive fury. Over the past several months, he has learned that she is not a woman of temper, and definitely not one who openly defies her employers for any reason. Without consciously realizing it, Andy runs his hands down her arms, watching her for any signs of pain or injury. Helen might believe that her boss will never physically punish her, but he doesn’t share that confidence, not after everything he knows about them from first-hand experience.

“I’m fine,” she tells him, meeting his eyes briefly before darting away to look at the living room’s coffee table, “just upset. I told him….” Helen sighs and looks back at him. “I’m sorry. This wasn’t supposed to happen. If I’d known he was going to do this, I would have—”

“Hey,” he says, interrupting her apologies with a gentle squeeze of her hand. “Look, it’s — it’s not fine, obviously, because I could have done without the heart attack today, and Jesus Christ, does your boss have a habit of breaking and entering without prior permission?

“I’m upset about this, more than slightly freaked out, but I’m not angry with you. If this new security system is going to keep us both safer, and my landlord never finds out about it, I’m good.” He leans forward with his best innocent, puppy eyes expression, “and the latter is optional, to be honest.”

She laughs weakly. “You’re taking this surprisingly well.”

He shrugs. “What other choice do I have? It’s not like I can have the system removed without professional help and then that’d probably raise all sorts of questions that I can’t answer. And, well,” he winces, “your boss.”

“I yelled at him,” confesses Helen, looking like she is on the verge of tears.

“I figured.” He tugs her close. “Come here.”

They fall into each other’s embrace, shaking as the adrenaline rush fades from their bloodstreams, and soak in the warmth of the London sun as the kitchen clock measures out the minutes. When she takes a step back, her hands bracketing his hips, he rests his hands at the small of her back.

“Tea?” she asks, not entirely a question as she wipes at her tear-stained cheeks with the back of her hand.

He drops a quick kiss on her forehead because yes, they need to have a conversation. “Yeah, and then you’ll show me how the system works, right?”

She gives him a watery smile. “Yes.”

~

In the five months they’ve been…whatever the hell it is they are, they haven’t slept slept together. They have slept together in the strictly platonic sense of sharing a bed. They haven’t gone beyond that. They haven’t talked about, but it’s obvious that she isn’t ready for it. He isn’t either. Maybe that’s a first in any of his relationships, but … none of his previous girlfriends ever came back from the grave. It is strange, how normal the situation feels to him, how it is becoming second nature to carve his life around not-sharing and open-secrets. For some reason, he does not fear the death knell of this relationship.

They have secrets from each other, more than they could ever share and hold in common. She still doesn’t talk about herself much, especially about her work that keeps her out at all hours. She might be an accountant; she might not. He knows better than to ask. He knows better than to worry. There is nothing he can do for her except to cradle her when she seeks him out, to speak of mundane worries at the end of long days, and to hold cold compresses against bruises and stitches he pretends to never see.

He doesn’t talk much about the Museum, not in the detail he once dreamed of, with her. It’s all right to talk about Ming vases in general or ask about preservation techniques with the earthen wares. It’s not all right to say, “We just got a shipment of Tang-era jade pieces,” and then realize there is a miscarried question that will never be spoken. She will never set foot in the place again because she is a ghost.

On nights when only the silvery moon keeps him company in his flat, he wonders: is this relationship doomed from the beginning? Every single relationship he has been in has floundered when one (or both) of them kept secrets from each other. Then he always replies that it doesn’t matter. He has their second (first) chance, but nothing ever promised a happy ending for them. They have the now, and that must be enough.

Sometimes, she slips into bed in the early hours of the morning. He has become a light sleeper, ever since her return. He thinks it has something to do with his fear that she will vanish once again, slip away from his life like smoke on the wind. When those thoughts creep into his mind, he stirs and wraps an arm around her waist, keeping her close until dawn comes again. Sometimes, he wakes to find her clinging to him, arms wrapped tight around him as if she is afraid she might lose him in the darkness.

On some nights, she lies awake whilst he fakes slumber. If he waits long enough, and she is restless enough, the barely-there whisper of her voice will float on the air, painting familiar characters that bleed into people and places he has only seen in pictures and will never see with her. Whilst she might begin in her second language, she always slips back into the rhythms of her youth like a stream into the river of memories.

Sometimes, she will whisper stories about her childhood in another world entirely, filled with menacing monsters and beautiful butterflies. She will talk about her family, the parents she barely remembers, an older brother she lost, an older sister she treasured, and a younger sister she found. No names, only titles; no time, only facts. In those early morning hours, when the world seems endless, her words unmoor them both from the boundaries of time and reality. In her first language, she reveals herself to him.

He listens. He hears her longing and her sorrow for joy that can never be touched again. He learns that her world has been shattered, burnt to ashes, broken, and each time, she has risen from the destruction as a phoenix reborn. He realizes that he never knew her at all, the secrets she carried deep within her, when she called herself Soo Lin Yao. He sees that she has learned how to fly, and will obey no master, no matter how kind. He accepts that he will never know her, not completely. He knows that he doesn’t deserve her.

He doesn’t know if she knows he understands her. He doesn’t know if he should tell her that he hears her secrets and keep them cradled close to his heart. He hesitates to say that after her death, he coped by learning a new language, a new culture, a new history, as if that would be enough to keep her memory alive. He does know that he doesn’t want her to stop. There is so little middle ground between them that he searches for all that he can share with her and defends it fiercely against all comers.

He doesn’t want to be a stranger, an outsider looking into her world. He cannot become her white knight or Prince Charming, but he can be her Niulang or Meng Huo. He cannot save her or fight her battles for her, but he can be her constant and her shelter when the world outside is too much to bear. He wants to know her, the woman who has shed so many names to become stronger and real, as much as she will permit him to know her past and who she is. He knows that, for all that she has shared with him, there is still so much more she has kept close to her heart, but he also knows that he will never pressure her to share. They are reaching a crossroads soon, and whilst he hopes she will make the same decision as he will, Andy knows that he will always give her the final say.

One day, he comes home to find her crying at the kitchen table, seated in front of a tea set with tea that has long gone cold. Uncharacteristically, Her coat and scarf are flung over the sofa, and her handbag dropped by her shoes.

He reaches for the kettle and makes piping hot tea for the both of them. When he reaches for her hands, he finds them chilled to the bone.

No matter how hard he tries, she won’t tell him why she’s upset.

The hot tea tastes like bitter tears.

 ~

She disappears a week later.

He isn't really surprised -- upset, frightened, yes, but not surprised.

~

Chapter Text

~

She returns to the land that borne and shaped her to flee its shores.

With another name, another identity, another life to learn once again, she wonders how many times she can remake herself before she loses her reflection in the mirror. Then she chides herself to remember that this mission is not about, and has never been, about her.

This is the culmination of over a decade of surveillance, espionage, and agents’ lives at risk or sacrificed. She has weighed the risks and deemed it acceptable. There are debts that cannot be repaid, except in blood. She knows that there is no obligation upon her to accept, and yet, because Mr Holmes is a man of honour, she has accepted this assignment: duration unknown.

Whether or not she survives this, she knows her sister will be cared for in her absence. Mr Holmes is a man of many faces, but Helen knows that it costs him nothing to be her sister’s keeper…or at least, she knows that will be the justification he will tell himself and conspire with Anthea to believe at all costs. Even her death, she knows, will be her greatest triumph, ensuring that someone will feel obligation to reward loyalty and life given by choice, not by force. Helen has a debt to repay and a debt to secure. If the price is her life, so be it.

As Chek Lap Kok appears out of the muddy waters of the Pacific, she lets her conscience twist one last time before she puts it away in the recesses of her mind. The knowledge of how she has left Andy without a word, without any warning, really, brings with it a pang of regret. She can tell herself all she wants that the choice to leave him wasn’t hers, and that she owes him no obligations, except a debt of blessings that she can never repay. It will be better for both of them, she has told herself, if she goes before what they have overwhelms them (because nothing this sweet, this comforting, this secure is meant to last. It is better save from both from the inevitable heartbreak) — and she knows that she is lying to herself. Poorly. She knows she is running from what they have, pushing away a kind, gentle man, because she doesn’t know what to do with a steady, faithful presence in her life. And yet.

Some choices must take priority over others. This is not about her and him. It is about a quiet war and the best soldiers to fight in it. She is not naïve enough to think that she will win this engagement, or that any of them will wipe the Black Lotus from the gaze of the Heavenly Emperor. That is a fool’s dream and Mr Holmes is no fool, nor does he train and deploy fools. At best, they will fight to a stalemate that sees the Triads’ wealth and influence thrown into disarray in this war of attrition.

For her, the goal is not quite revenge (for her parents, for Jiejie, for the little boy her brother was) and not quite freedom (from fear, from memories, from her past) as it is — what? What love does she have for the old empire? What more might they ask of her to prove her loyalty to a place that is not quite home, but refuge just the same?

She quiets her thoughts as the plane’s landing gear kisses the tarmac, stills her doubts into silence. The answer is simple (yet much too complicated): she owes a debt and two lives. That is enough for Mr Holmes to send her when and where he pleases. For all that she has done for family and country, she counts herself as a woman of honour and duty. That is reason enough. And maybe, maybe she can find some peace here and leave behind the restless contentment that has haunted her for years.

~

News of her departure comes to him, not as the knock of a police officer bearing grave news, but as the appearance of a well-coiffed (not) stranger in his (their) home. Ms Weber is waiting for him in the small entryway, her attention seemingly focused on the Blackberry in her hands as she waits for him to lock the door behind him and disarm the alarm system.

Andy takes a slow breath, preparing himself for the worst, before he asks in a fairly steady voice, “Where is she?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

There is a hint of regret in her words, but he makes a noise of frustration before he demands irritably, “Then what can you tell me?”

“She will be away for an indeterminate period of time.”

“And…?”

Ms Weber, or whatever her real name is, stops typing and tucks her PDA back into her handbag. “That’s all I’m authorized to tell you.”

“Is she all right?” The question hangs unanswered for several moments before Andy loses his patience. “So you’re just here to, what, make sure I don’t call the police?”

Andy crosses his arms as he blocks the doorway. He is not going to let her leave without getting some kind of concrete answers. There are limits to what he can tolerate, and this, this disappearing act without information, is way over the line.

“More or less,” she replies with a shrug, unfazed by his hostility, “and to speak with you honestly.”

“I didn’t think honesty was something you did in your line of work.”

“You’ve proven to be an exception to our expectations, Mr. Galbraith, and,” she holds up a hand to forestall his scathing comment, “that is meant as a compliment.” She gives him a weary curve of her lips. “There were early concerns that your relationship with her would be a destabilizing influence. You’ve proven all of those concerns wrong.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

“We know,” the older woman replies. “You did it for her, and you’ve done admirably well. Now it’s your turn.”

“Excuse me?”

“No one would blame you if you wanted to walk away,” she says kindly, “least of all her.”

Andy doesn’t even have to think about his answer. “No.” He glares at Helen’s employer. “Absolutely not.”

“There’s no reason for you to put your life on hold waiting for her.” She might not make it back, goes unspoken between them.

He shakes his head in denial. “I’m not going to put my life on hold, but I’m not abandoning her when she’s not here to tell me what she wants. In person,” he adds sharply.

Ms Weber shakes her head slightly before she reaches into her dark suit jacket and takes out a slip of paper. The arched eyebrow is a clear request for him to take it.

Instead, Andy asks, “What is this?”

She waits until he steps forward to take it from her hand before she says, “Something useful.”

He looks at the email address. “Is it hers?”

“It’ll reach her.”

His breath catches at the implications hit. It takes him a moment to remember not to crumple the precious address. He is knocked off-kilter enough that he doesn’t react when Ms Weber brushes past him in the narrow entryway.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks as she prepares to leave. The older woman pauses with her hand on the doorknob.

“Because you didn’t leave her when you had the chance, and you have had plenty of them,” she replies quietly. “You haven’t given up on her, when no one would blame you if you did, least of all, her.”

“She’s left me,” he points out. Andy bites back the childish urge to whine “Again” because only a fool would say that about second chances. He can almost hear his childhood epitaph “you ungrateful brat” as he stares at her unnamed boss. Ms Weber quirks her lips in a mirthless smile.

“Did she?”

They both know the answer is in the negative. Helen may have left him again, but it has never truly been of her own free will. She has said it herself: “We all have Masters, and we must obey.” It’s a disturbing outlook on life, but from what Andy knows of her childhood, it could be so much worse.

“The point is,” continues Ms Weber, “you’re giving her someone to come back for, and it seems cruel, after all of this, to deny her your support, if you’re willing to give it.”

“Always,” he says staunchly.

“Thank you, then, for your service. We’ll be in touch.”

The door clicks shut behind her.

~

The first time Andy receives her email, he's too relieved to properly appreciate why the letter (because it's more of an old-fashioned letter like his Grandda penned to his Grandmum all the way through the War than a proper email) sets off alarms in the back of his mind. He hasn't seen Helen compose in English in years, so he can't tell if he's just being a fussy grammar prat, or if... or if there's something amiss as she chatters on about settling into her life as a Hong Kong barrister-in-training. There's just something off about the way her phrases flow, a little too public school or popular turns-of-phrases she has never used before in her life.

It takes the ninth letter before he realizes it, and when he does, he is filled with both fury and self-loathing, because honestly, how could he be so thick? It's blindingly obvious that their letters have been censored from the start, because who gave him the email address to begin with? Idiot. The rational part of his brain understands the why, but he rages that he could have lived with the censors' black marker, cutting away what he couldn't know, instead of being deceived that he is reading her words, and not some altered reflection of her life.

When he calms down, and no longer wishes to storm Whitehall, demanding to speak to the "minor government official" Anthea Weber or her supervisor, Mycroft Holmes, Andy has to admit that the translations are good. When he looks, truly looks for the gaps in her letters, he only finds them because he already knows the entire story from start to finish. Whomever this agent is on Helen’s employers' payroll is very, very good at concealing the holes in her narrative, filling them in with sleight of hand half-truths that are plausible, but not real. Then Andy wonders if she knows, and this is her way of telling him.

After all, this is the story of their first date--when she texted him with a date, time and location, and they had met at a chippie shop in Seven Dials before he walked her down the Embankment, working out if they could be friends--though she recasts the characters for the sake of her 'dear brother' studying and working abroad. If she knows, and she probably does, because she's no mere accountant... He sits down at his laptop, pulls up an empty draft and starts recounting his own attempt to rebuild a friendship over a steaming cup of tea (not English) and how he doesn't regret a moment of it.

He hits send, and hopes that enough of the story will make it through, unharmed.

(It does.)

~

This should be home.

Here, surrounded by her heritage, where she attracts no attention if she wished for it, she should be reassured by the knowledge that she is no stranger, no objet de vertu to be gawked at in the streets. Here, she is simply another well-dressed graduate student or secretary from a wealthy family, whittling away her hours in a bustling family cafe as she reads from her books, a discreet engagement ring weighing down her hand. Here, she is an oblivious civilian who knows and cares for nothing about the family-run shop across the street. Here, she is invisible in ways she has never been in her life.

Yet she has never felt quite so cold, so alone in these winding streets. She does not belong here, and she feels it, the alienation and distance of a stranger in her native land. It is the catch in her throat and the unease down her spine. Of all the places she should not be an outcast, she is the disinherited daughter, cast out for sins not (entirely) of her own making.

She did make the choice to run.

The hot, fragrant tea is a comforting reminder that she is not entirely lost at sea in this unfamiliar ocean of strangers. She has her wits and her training, the easy heft of her tea cup in the palm of her hand and the reassuring weight of her satchel against her knee. She has been spoiled, gone soft in her life, but old habits do not take long to return.

She has forgotten what it means to present and pretend in every waking moment, to constantly renew the illusion of calm disinterest under ruthless scrutiny. There were many reasons she was chosen for this mission, and more for why she accepted her orders without protest: this is one of them. To be is a familiar trick from her childhood, and soon after she pulls the cloak tight around herself — be calm, be still, be inconspicuous — it fits like an old friend.

She is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and no matter how much she loves what she has left behind here, this place is no longer her home. She has other loyalties now.

~

Once a term, Andy drives out into the English countryside to see his sister and her family. It’s his own version of a mini-holiday, especially when London closes in around him with its packed landscape. For all that he loves the city, he still loves the open silence of the pastures and fields he grew up around; where Audrey lives, there is plenty of that, as well as rowdy students and swarming tourists, but nowhere is perfect.

On one such visit, with Thomas out of the house for a late evening lecture, Andy finds himself in his niece Theresa’s bedroom, reading Paddington Saves the Day for the fifth time before she falls asleep. He carefully tiptoes out to find his sister in the nursery, humming a mindless lullaby under her breath.

“Andy,” his sister says quietly as she rocks her toddler son to sleep, “is there anything you want to tell me?”

He stares at her blankly because anything he could tell her, he can’t, and there’s not much besides that that he wants to tell her. A statistician by training, Audrey doesn’t have an ear for understanding the antiquities world and she has little patience for office politics. They could talk about the latest developments in carbon dating, but Andy doesn’t really want to get into the topic when he has fled to the countryside to get away from latest uproar in the curation world.

“I just—I just worry about you, burying yourself in your job—” she begins, because it’s her sisterly duty to worry and fuss and wonder when her brother will know marital bliss like she does.

He protests, “I go out to the pubs with my mates.” This is true. Granted, most of the time, he is actually supervising the latest crop of interns and assistants to make sure they don’t overdo it the night before an important event, but still, he does socialize with other people.

“My point exactly,” she says, undeterred by his assertion. “Do you have anything you want to tell me?”

Audrey gives him a pointed stare. He looks at her, baffled, before it dawns on him and he splutters, “No, I—er, I met someone a while back.”

“Oh?” The scepticism stings, but he understands it. They are not close, but they are close enough for Audrey to have notice that he has been quiet these past few years about his social life, nearly withdrawn from the world from all appearances. He doesn’t want to explain to her why it is very difficult to have a social life when he is dating someone all his colleagues believe to be deceased; for one thing, he doesn’t want to end up sectioned.

Andy scrambles to both tell the truth and to lie through his teeth. “Yeah, in China.”

Oops, that was a mistake, he realizes as his sister frowns and asks, “How come you’ve never mentioned her before?”

He shrugs, attempting to brush off the question. “We’re both really busy.”

“Oh, Andy,” his sister sighs with resignation, “she’s not one of those girls, is she?”

He stares at Audrey blankly for a moment, before he realizes what she means. “What? No!” he scrambles for an answer. “She’s a British expat, working there for a while.”

“Oh.” Audrey looks vaguely guilty for her assumption. “Well, what’s her name?”

“Harriet,” he blurts out, snagging the first “H” name that is not hers that comes to mind. “She’s nice, has an interest in Asian history.”

“Good. That’s good. Well,” his sister says after a thoughtful pause. “I’d like to meet her, if she’s ever in town.”

“Yeah, I’ll let her know that. I...I think you’ll like her.” With a nervous shrug, he offers, “I’ll go make us some tea, shall I? Right, tea.”

Before Audrey can react, Andy makes his escape.

~

It is disturbingly easy to fall back into old habits — how to dress, how to act, how to think — except she is no longer Meihua briefing her Jiejie or Helen reporting to Anthea, but Shilin gossiping with her school friends back in London and reassuring her barrister brother that all is well in her life.

Shilin Fa is Hong Kong born but not bred; she is wealthy and free-spirited and entirely too unobservant for her own good. She has an overseas family that frets and an overbearing aunt she tosses out of her flat on a regular basis. The Ministry of State Security have marked her as a non-interest, especially in light of her employment as a receptionist at an ad agency. The Black Lotus, naturally, have no idea she is here, walking in their territory and watching them for every single weakness.

To thrive undercover, she knows, is to be the cover, to take Shilin’s naïve, if slightly bubbly, personality as her own. With the risk of being discovered without any exit plan, she has to live and breathe Shilin’s thoughts and lifestyle twenty-four/seven, and it wears on her. If she could afford to be honest (and she can’t), there are morning when she wakes up and sees Shilin in the mirror, and goes for hours before she remembers that it’s just a cover identity and not her own personality. She forgets that Shilin is a ghost, a legend made up of lies that she has bought to life and will discard when necessary. She forgets that she has a sister at home and someone else waiting for her, and that is terrifying.

She is dancing recklessly on a tightrope, and she knows it is only a matter of time before she falls.

~

"Come with me," says Anthea, and Andy is already rising from his seat before she finishes her sentence. He knows. It's ridiculous, because it sounds like every bloody overused clichés in the book, but he knows something has gone wrong. There has always been a pattern: one email once a week, and maybe an extra one on the weekend, if her handlers are feeling generous. But she's been silent for ten days now. Silent, when she promised to tell him more about 端午節 and the dragons on the water, and the crazy work schedule she's been under. She has broken her pattern, and he's not enough of an idiot to not put two and two together and not come up with four. Helen has broken the pattern, and now her boss has too, and Andy finds himself praying to a God he hasn't spoken to since one misguided attempt in primary school:

Please, please, please let them find her in time. Please

It’s Saturday, so no one pays any mind to his abrupt departure from the Museum and disappearance into another dark sedan. Anthea refuses to say anything of importance until they reach Whitehall and she ushers him past heavy security and curious glances into a small, windowless room that is plainly furnished with a desk and two chairs.

“This is all her correspondence with us,” she says briskly, handing him a slim computer, “including you. Her last message to us was three days ago. She sent you a message this morning, but we can’t tell if it’s a distress call or something else.”

“Do I need to sign anything before…?” he asks, clutching the tablet to his chest. Anthea shakes her head.

“We can deal with that later,” she says, almost dismissively. “Right now, I’d like to find my employee and I’d wager you’d like to find your girlfriend.”

Andy nods once in agreement and sits down at the desk, tapping on the touchscreen and diving into Helen’s letters. He soaks in her words, grateful for the years of painstaking study he has given (for her memory, for her sake, and ultimately, for himself), and looks for the secrets she has hidden from everyone but him. As he reads, frantic for her safety, wondering if he will be of help, (and if so, will he be enough?), a part of him marvels at the assuredness of the young woman writing these characters. Firm, loving, confident of herself, even whilst she battles loneliness, and he knows, fears. The ghosts of her past have never truly left her alone, and he wonders, not for the first time, what hidden war she wages against her childhood foes.

"Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons do not exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed." Apt, perhaps, for a culture that rejoices in the triumph of St. George over the dragon, but that is not her heritage. She is the honourable daughter of dragons and phoenixes, who frames the world as cylindrical in time and history and believes that virtue triumphs over tyranny in the end, always in the end (because Tianming (天命) only rewards the just and fair). The dragon can be slain and the phoenix immolated, but they are eternal. They will rise again from the ashes. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes; per ardia as astra. Humanity has always clung to hope in the star-lit night.

Let us, he thinks as he skims over the paragraphs of her most recent letter and the accompanying translation, let me be her guardian dragon.

Then he catches it, the stumble in her Chinese. Just like pottery, translation is an art, a craft learned over time and experience. As a skilled craftsman learns to move her hand here and just so to make a perfect circle on the wheel, an interpreter must capture not only the word itself, but the nuance, the meaning behind the term. Because languages change over time, and meanings change, and sometimes vocabulary shifts to take on other definitions. Sometimes a Prime Minister's name in one language is transliterated into another and the speakers of a third language laugh at the thought of a dessert signing an arms reduction treaty. Sometimes a simple act of walking a dog in one language, directly translated word for word, constitutes high treason in another. Sometimes an apology for being caught in traffic in one culture becomes a vulgar insult in another. A translator has to know, and the ones employed by Mr Holmes in this case, made a correction they shouldn't have.

Andy swallows down his panic enough to say, "She's in trouble. Real trouble. The kind that she thinks might, will, get her —" he chokes and forces himself to say it, "killed."

They're past the deception, the kind lie that she's just an accountant, because accountants usually don't get themselves into situations where safety plans, dead drops, and coded messages are required. They just don't.

Anthea’s eyes are sharp as she studies him. “And…?”

“I don’t know,” he says, gesturing at the computer screen in frustration. “That’s it.” Andy wants to shout, What more do you want from me?, but he is not the intelligence agent in the room. She is.

“When she told you her distress word, what did she tell you do?”

“Find her sister, then find you,” he answers, thinking back to that blustery day when she had surprised him with the unexpected information and request. Anthea frowns slightly – in disapproval or in thought, Andy doesn’t know her well enough to tell.

There is a knock on the door and another brunette woman enters with a sheaf of papers. Like Anthea, she is in business formal, which makes Andy feel distinctly underdressed in his shirt and jeans.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she says briskly, handing over the thick folder of printouts. “As you requested.”

“Thank you Juliet,” replies Anthea with a small smile. “Please let Mr Holmes know I will brief him in five minutes and send in Olivia to oversee Mr Galbraith’s paperwork.”

Juliet nods at her orders before she disappears back out the door. Anthea holds out a hand for the tablet. “Is there anything else?”

Andy shakes his head as he surrenders the computer. “No. But… you’ll tell me when you find her?”

Sadness flickers across her expression before she replies, “I can’t make promises. You know that.”

He does, and at some level, he appreciates that Helen’s employer won’t give him false platitudes on this, but that doesn’t mean he is pleased with the answer. Anthea considers him for a moment before she hands over the small pile of paperwork.

“Read these,” she tells him before she leaves him with Olivia, “think about them before you sign them, and then we’ll talk.”

~

So close, so close.

She should have double-checked the owner’s day planner before she burglarized the Black Lotus-affiliated massage parlour, but bad luck and foul weather have also compounded her amateur mistake. On the other hand, she has the information she needs and is fairly sure that none of her pursuers actually caught a good look at her when they sounded the alarm.

She presses her hand harder against her side, stemming the bleeding as best she can. It’s not deep, thankfully, just messy. In umbra, igitur, pugnabimus rings in time to her heartbeat, the silenced language echoing through her thoughts. It is not the language of her birth and it is not the language of her people, but...it may be the language of her dreams and hopes and her loyalty.

Just a little while longer, she tells herself, listening to her pursuers search the cluttered warehouse and bracing her weapon against her makeshift barricade. Just a little while longer.

~

It is another Saturday morning, and he is yet again ushered unceremoniously into another dark sedan at the kerb. There goes his plans for the Borough Market and organic chicken vindaloo.

Ms Weber greets him with, "Your sister has recovered from her mishap, I hope?"

Andy stares at her with wide-eyes, panic-stricken because last he heard, Audrey is doing perfectly fine , even with George being underfoot and utterly spoiling the brats and generally pampering the hell out of his wife and mother of his two children as usual, so not much to complain about at all and what about you? And then it clicks again, and he remembers to nod and say, "Yes, she's doing much better, thank you very much for asking" when all he wants to do is melt into a puddle of relief.

She's alive, and safe, and recovering, and ... why are they stopping at St. Pancreas?

"Wait, are we —?"

A sympathetic smile is thrown his way. "No. This is for other business."

"Other business?" he echoes blankly as the driver gets out of the car, and unloads the boot. Two packed suitcases — including one that most definitely came from his closet, it's-official-Helen's-employers-are-creepers — are set on the pavement before another suited man and an overly perky personal assistant — "Hi, I'm Vera. I'll be your travelling companion today!" — join them.

He is quickly shepherded through the ticket gates and Customs — his passport magically appears from Anthea's handbag, and now he has a healthy appreciation for what kind of stunned shock Helen might have gone through when she first met Mr Holmes and his staff — and onto a Eurostar train bound for Brussels before his brain comes back online.

"Wait, where are we going, and why?" he hisses at Vera, mindful of the half-full cabin of First Class (where had his ticket come from?!) passengers around them. Anthea is two rows ahead of them, surrounded by neatly dressed men and women who can't really be anything other than a security detail, (not that any civilians, besides him, in the cabin has probably noticed. And he admits, it freaks him out a bit that Helen's direct superior is important enough to merit a security detail when she travels by herself. She's a personal assistant to a minor British official. Now Andy's starting to wonder just where the understatement is in that title...) and splitting her attention between her Blackberry and one of her own assistants. Andy searches his memory, because he think he's seen that brunette before. J, something...Jenna? Joanna? Julia? No, wait, Juliet.

"To Brussels, of course!" says Vera, much too cheerfully at 10 in the morning, and he wonders if it's the coffee that makes her that way. "And because you've been requested." She takes the aisle seat, effectively cornering him into the window seat.

"Requested?" Andy says and holds back the part of him that wants to blurt out, "What does that even mean?" but he has a sinking feeling that Mr Holmes is behind this ("Obviously," a part of his mind scoffs, which sounds quite a bit like his best-female-friend-just-not-in-that-way Melanie when she's on her second pint and feeling snarky.) and that asking questions of a happy PA who is on Mr Holmes' payroll is going to lead to nowhere but small talk and frustration.

"Yes, requested," she confirms before she pulls out a Blackberry. He sighs and sits back in his seat. The next two hours are going to be fun.

~

He is wrong. The rest of his weekend is the sort of whirlwind fun that leaves Andy speechless and more than a little stunned and confused. First locked in the backrooms of a museum, the resultant consultation takes nearly an entire day and determines that the so-called Sui Dynasty vase is a high-quality fake. Then he is taken to dinner at an exclusive restaurant where Mr Holmes proceeds to dump a vast amount of legal documents on him and a consultant position with the Her Majesty’s government.

Seized by momentary insanity, Andy says yes. He knows he is being manipulated, but he can’t quite figure out to what end, not unless Helen’s employers truly do want to keep him in the loop, and that’s a bit laughable, isn’t it, to think that they would care? ... Right? Andy decides that he isn’t going to ponder this without a pint or three in him first. Either way, it’s a moot point; he’s already signed those papers.

This is the start of a series of sporadic ‘government consultations’ that take him all over Europe, authenticating antiques and artefacts that claim an Asian origin. Most of the time, he is on a team of experts. None of them ever exchange anything beyond first names, though several of them are prominent leaders in their fields and are, therefore, easily identifiable, but Andy assumes that all of them are bound by the same extensive, iron-clad non-disclosure agreement to keep their silence. And, they’re all working for Mycroft Holmes who is terrifying enough in his own right without having the backing of the British government behind him.

Other times, it is a quick after-hours conversation at the Museum as he cradles shards of porcelain vase or fragments of bamboo paper in his gloved hands. He tells the courier what he can, but he always adds the caveat that while he might be assistant curator for the East Asia collection, he is by no means the foremost expert the Museum has on staff. The disclaimer is always met with an amused smirk.

It is through these encounters — sometimes with Anthea present, once or twice with Mr Holmes — that Andy slowly comes to understand the way Helen sees her work and her employers. He glimpses the sheer debt she owes to Mr Holmes and Anthea, the burden of saving and protecting her that Helen feels she can never repay. They own her, as much as they wish to own her.

It makes him wonder that if staying with Mr Holmes is an obligation to her, then what is his position in her life? Does she see him as a debt to be repaid? Yet, he barely knew her Before and he has never pushed her to stay; what could he have possibly done to chain her loyalty to him? There are so many questions he wants to ask her — even knowing and accepting that he might never receive answers — but until she comes back to London, all he can do is hope that one day, she’ll walk back into his life to hear them.

~

Shilin watches the entire broadcast on her lunch hour, riveted to the television as the rest of her co-workers are by the latest development in the nationwide anti-corruption investigations. When her strictly-regulated break is over, she goes back to the front desk, mentally crossing off the last Father on her list. It’s done (for now).

With this latest arrest, all the men Helen had feared in her youth have been dragged out of their underworld thrones and into the daylight. They may bribe their way out of punishment and prison, but they will forever be watched by the public, branded with suspicion that will never fade away. She doesn’t know what this will mean for the Black Lotus, not in the long run, but she does know that this means she is one step closer to finishing her mission. The Triad is already threatening to fall into another civil war, and she knows exactly how to tip them over that edge with a simple rumour and a smile. The Black Lotus will burn.

The thought doesn’t bring her the degree of satisfaction she had always assumed it would. For years, she thought that breaking the Family would bring her a measure of peace and contentment, would break their hold over her life, but right now, the knowledge that she has almost accomplished her mission brings with it nothing but professional relief and pride. When she thinks about it on long, lonely nights of surveillance, she finds that while the bruises have faded and cuts have long scabbed over, the scars they gave her are still there, still bleeding, still making her choices for her. In the back of her mind, she is still the scared little girl they pulled out of the gutter, still the terrified Meihua praying to survive, still the paranoid Soo Lin hoping never to be found, and she is so tired of being scared.

She has tried to be Helen, to be Western in thought and act, to jettison her former names and focus only on what and who she is now. She has denied herself the few happy reminders from her childhood because it was dangerous or a security risk, when in truth, it was simply her, playing too hard at being the complete opposite of Soo Lin. She never wants to be anyone’s prized companion again. Yet she cannot cut her past out of her life, any more than she can erase her own reflection or eliminate contour from her speech pattern. This is where she comes from. This is who she is, but it is not all of her identity. She knows now that bringing down the Black Lotus will not make her free, will not erase her childhood, and will not wash her hands of guilt. She has to make the choice to make her peace with her past.

She has to stop running.

 ~

Chapter Text

~

There's a pattern to their relationship, Andy's noticed, namely that she has a tendency reappear in his life as suddenly and quietly as she leaves it. He could do without the heart attacks.

It’s late, and he is deputy curator now — de facto curator with Janice out sick. One moment, he is alone in his cluttered office. The next, he looks up to find himself with company — welcome, but totally unexpected company. He spills tea all over the latest museum catalogue draft and has to scramble to save both mug and papers.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, mopping up the mess. Without a word, she clears the desk and hands him extra paper towels before she moves the rubbish bin to a more convenient location. He tosses the sodden towels before he looks at her again, half in disbelief that she’s even here.

“How — How...?” he splutters, collapsing into his chair. It’s not that he’s not glad to see her, mind, but she hasn’t set foot in the place where she died for nearly a decade. She quirks a corner of her mouth.

“I survived here for a week, undetected. What are a few cameras to me?”

“Please tell me that you haven’t just gotten back from your trip, and if you have, you could have just waited for me at home.”

She gives him an amused smile, but there is a tight look in her eyes. “I could tell you that.” but it would be a lie. goes unspoken.

He nods once, sharply, as he accepts her answer, as he has always accepted what she has offered to him.

“Have you talked to...?” he trails off, because as much as he has missed her these past two years, knowing how close the sisters are, he can only imagine what it has been like for Susan to wait for word that her jiejie is safe and sound.

“Yes,” she says with a nod and a small smile. “They know I’m back. I’ll see them again tomorrow night.”

“Good, and...how are you?” he asks, carefully and fully aware that her reply will be a partial truth at best. Whilst he might wager that Museum security is the best it has been in decades, he would never gamble with her safety. If there are prying eyes and listening ears, he won’t be her downfall.

She smiles again, cool and professional. “I am well, a little jetlagged. You?”

“I’m doing better now.”

If this was a romance novel, this would be the moment the music would swell and the long-parted lovers, at last reunited, would fall into each other’s embrace before a quick fade-to-black. However, Life is not a romance novel, so the moment passes in silence, counted out by the quiet ticking of the antique clock on his desk. They are waiting, but he doesn’t know for what.

“How is work?”

“Good,” he replies, “Janice is out sick, but she’ll be back by next week.” He gestures at his desk. “Hopefully, by then, I’ll have some items straightened out for her. It’s been a busy season, but once the auditors are finished with the budget, things ought to settle down.” He laughs once. “I’ll have a personal life again.”

“You haven’t been dating.” Her observation is casual, but he knows better than to take her words at face value. She’s waiting, for him to make a decision. It’s a strange feeling to be on the other side, for once.

He shrugs, careful to match her tone. “My girlfriend’s been busy.”

“You shouldn’t keep waiting.”

He gives her a sharp glance, dropping all pretence in a moment of frustration. “Did waiting help? Knowing that someone out there was waiting, did that help?”

She parts her lips to answer before she thinks better of it. Instead, she nods once.

“Then I’ll keep waiting for her, as long as it takes.” He intends for it to be a matter-of-fact statement, a reminder that he’s not going to give up on her, on them, unless she wants him to walk out of her life. Instead, it comes out as a declaration about everything they haven’t talked about in the past three years of their lives.

For all that they have waited for each other, waited for their stars to align once again, they still don’t know each other as well as they wish.

“We should talk,” she says quietly, studying his paper-strewn desk. She reaches out and traces the tea-soaked edge of the catalogue draft.

“Yes,” he agrees softly. He stands up and grabs his jacket from the back of his chair. “Let’s go home.”

~

When they walk out of the staff entrance into the soft evening rain, there is a dark sedan parked at the kerb. Five years ago, he would have never dreamed of getting into a Government Car willingly, but his life has been turned upside down enough times now that he recognizes the assigned bodyguard-chauffer waiting for them to appear. None of them say anything to each other on the drive back to the flat — Mr. Holmes’ staff are not known for being chatty and there is an expectant hush between him and her, an unspoken agreement that whatever disagreement they might have in the next hour or so can wait until they are safely in the privacy of the flat to have out.

After a quiet word of ‘goodnight’ to the chauffer, they slip into their familiar routine without even a glance at each other. He goes to fetch the mail whilst she checks the main door. They walk up the narrow flights of stairs, arms brushing as they climb but taking care not to hold hands in any obvious gesture of affection. Contentment, rather than surprise, bubbles through him when she withdraws the flat key from her handbag; she has held onto it for all these years. He locks the door behind them both and leans against the reinforced wood to watch her. She steps out of her heels and removes her scarf. Her coat hook is still hers, waiting for her coat, scarf and hat like it always has. She has seeped so deeply into his life that he leaves space for her without thought, yet…

He is hit with the sudden urge to yank her out of her coat. She should be dressed in flowing qipao and tailored blouses, not hidden away in sharply-cut suits and bulky coats, but. He stops himself. That’s not what he means. Even after all this time, he has never been allowed to know her. He wants her to stop hiding who she is, shielding herself from the world with china-doll clothes and professional suits because that’s what everyone expects from her, not because she wants to wear them. He wants to see what she would choose to wear on a lazy day, when work is the last thought on her mind. He wants her to trust him enough to stop pretending that all is well when it is most certainly is not in her life. He wants… he wants so many things for her, and he knows he has absolutely no right at all to demand any of it from her.

He says nothing as he shreds his own damp outerwear and joins her in the living room where she leans against the wall and stares out the window. Silence has always defined their relationship, and while this quiet moment is not easy, it is also not unbearable to wait.

"Why have you waited for me?" she asks him, watching the passerby on the pavement underneath their shared flat. It's still theirs even though she hasn't set foot over the threshold for two years. He wonders if that would be considered a bit creepy, or just unhealthy. He knows why she's asking again, because his first answer... isn't a real answer. It's not what she's looking for, and if he's honest with himself, it's not the entire reason. Because let's face it, Anthea was right: no one would have blamed him, least of all Helen, if he had left at any point over the past five years. Relationships have shattered over less than what they have been through. The fact that he's still here speaks to either obsession or devotion, and the difference between the two is an incredibly thin line.

"Because—" He studies her, the tenseness in her shoulders, and he knows. He knows that what he says next will change their relationship forever, will keep her or release her, and he will not be her jailer. "Because when I'm with you, I feel free. Like all those sappy movies are true, that — that I'm happy as a bird, or as light as a cloud whenever I see you. Because you make me happy, just by being you."

"I am not what you think I am,” she tells him softly, as if she is afraid of disappointing them, but finding the courage to say it anyway. “I can’t be the princess in your fairy tale."

"I don't want a princess. I don't want a fairy tale. I don’t want to rescue you. I want the ups and downs of us, the crazy life that's ours. I want to see you happy, no matter if that's with me or not. I hope it's with me. Because — because when I'm with you, you make me feel...like I belong. Like I'm not crazy for wanting to spend my life's work with artefacts and mysteries and ceramics and dusty museum collections. That there's nothing wrong with me wanting to be a curator for the rest of my life, and being happy with that choice.

“When you look at me, you see me. You don't see the messed-up kid from...from a screwed up home, who figured out that the best way not to disappoint people is to not really let them in, but you slipped in, somehow. Somehow between being my colleague, and being my friend, you slipped in, and I know, I know what people would say if they knew, that I didn't know, I've never known you, that I've built you up into this ideal that you've never been and that I'll be disappointed someday, just you wait, but they're wrong.

“They're wrong, Helen, because I've seen you. I've seen who you are, and I know you're not who you think you are, that you're far stronger than I can ever guess. I don’t want to rescue you because I know you’ve already rescued yourself. I know you have secrets, ones that you'll never share with me, and that's fine. That's fine. I'll take whatever you're willing to give me, what stories you'll tell me because I can't pretend to understand what you’ve been though, but when I'm with you — I'm home.

"I'm home."

The words linger silently, hanging in the air. The sounds of the heavy rain and his ragged breathing fills the flat. He can't tell if she's crying, or if there's merely a trick of the streetlights through the windows.

"I don't deserve you." Her voice is tight, coiled with all she isn't ready to say. He hears it anyway.

"Who says I deserve you?" he replies, keeping his physical distance, even when all he wants to do is throw his arms around her, crush her against his chest, and know she's not some kind of hallucination. He wants to feel her under his hands, the flutter of her pulse under his fingers, the weight of her against his bones, but he knows that he can't ask for that. He will never be her jailer. He will never stop her from walking away. The door is open, has always been open, even if she has never realized it.

"Do you want tea?"

He startles at her soft question, but he nods. When he makes a move towards the kitchen, she makes a gesture telling him to stay, to let her. He follows her and sits at the kitchen table, hands folded as he watches her pull a tiny canister from her handbag, sets the kettle to boil, open and close the cabinets, and arrange the tray. This could be an evening from two years ago, when they were still figuring out their friendship, so little (and yet, so much) has changed. As the tea brews, he starts talking, telling her everything he left out of their emails because he was afraid of breaking her cover. It isn’t until he sees her shoulders relax and she turns around from the counter to bring the tea tray to the kitchen table, though, that he relaxes. When she smiles slightly and comments on the recent intern prank war, he knows that she is truly, fully back from wherever she has been for these long years.

When they run of words to say to each other, they sit in a comfortable silence, breathing in the light fragrance and listening to the sound of each other’s breathing. He knows that her return and the next step of whatever their relationship is will not be easy, but right now, he wants to bask in the comforting knowledge that she is alive and unharmed.

“I’ve put in for a transfer,” she tells him, breaking him out of his reverie. “I mean, I’ll be in London for a while, but I’d...I’d like to stay here for a little bit longer.”

It’s not a request for his permission, or even approval.

“I still can’t tell you...”

“And this is me,” he tells her, reaching out and covering her hand with his, “still not asking.”

She gives him a weak, grateful smile in response and squeezes his hand. “I know, but I wish I could.”

He gives her a little grin. “Talk to Anthea, maybe? She’s been kidnapping me for a while now.”

“Oh?” is her mild reaction, though her hand tightens on his.

He shrugs, “I signed a lot of paperwork while you were gone.”

She huffs a breath to herself, lost in her own thoughts. He looks at the kitchen clock, still happily marking off the hours till morning, and does a few time zone calculations in his head. As if she has come to the same conclusion on her jetlag, she untangles her hand and picks up her cup. He takes the tea tray from the table before she can.

“I’ll wash up,” he says, placing the set on the kitchen counter. “You’re probably horribly jetlagged right now. There’s towels in the—” He blushes when he realizes what he’s done, but she just smiles.

“I’ll find them.”

He nods and watches her disappear into the back of his flat before he turns his attention to washing up. When he sets the last cup to dry, he looks up to find her, hair damp and skin pink, leaning against the kitchen wall and watching him.

“Come to bed?” she asks carefully, holding out a hand.

He comes to her, and follows her to sleep.

~

It’s not that they fall back into their old patterns — he still wakes up in the morning with relief that she is safe and sleeping by his side; she curls around him in the evenings, so grateful that he is still here for her — but the transition is easier this time around. They know each other’s little quirks and charms, the boundaries they have set for each other and themselves about their pasts — shared and separate. It’s like old friends, meeting again for the first time in a long time, some things have changed, but the friendship underneath is still solid.

She’s different in ways he can’t express — more sure of herself, more comfortable in her own skin. The guilt that used to drift across her face has been replaced with a different kind of regret. Whatever ghosts have haunted her, she is slowly laying them to rest and leaving them behind her. She is growing confident and vocal about her decisions, bringing back bright colours and little hints of her ancestry into her life. Underneath his hands, she feels more solid than she has ever been in the past decade of their acquaintance.

He has a confidence about him that can only come from travel and being thrown into unexpected situations and told to sink or swim. He is more willing to take risks, to try something new for the sake of doing something out of the norm. He throws himself with enthusiasm into her proposal for ‘doing something crazy’ at least once a month, going with her to a dance club and taking her to a football match. He is not exactly fearless — she still sees the kind, shy man he is more often than not — but he no longer sees himself as bumbling or horrible at everything. He knows he is good at his job, but it seems now is when he is also realizing that he is a good man.

~

After one of her debriefings on her overseas assignment, Mr Holmes dismisses everyone from the office except her. When the door closes behind her last colleague, he returns to sit down, not at his desk, but in the accompanying visitor’s chair next to her. Her employer studies her for a long moment before he leans forward, hands clasped in front of him.

"Soo Lin—"

She freezes.

No one, not even Andy, has dared to breathe her old name in years.

"—if you've ever owed me anything, you have repaid that debt more than twice over." Mr Holmes says cautiously, as if he is afraid of her reaction. "It's time for Meihua to make her own choices."

She stares at him, as a terrified rabbit might watch a coyote approach because there are only two people alive who know her real name, her birth name, here in the United Kingdom. The rest are back in China and Hong Kong, deeply embedded within the silken embrace of the Black Lotus. For Mr Holmes to know... to have known all along — How long has she been watched, and watched over?

At her stunned lack of reaction, he continues, "It wasn't entirely by chance that you came to my attention when you arrived in London."

She doesn't quite hold her breath as the most dangerous man in the world, for lack of a better verb, confesses to the circumstances surrounding her recruitment, but she doesn’t quite breathe properly either. As he tells her the entire story as he knows it, Meihua — Soo Lin — Helen's world implodes once more, dust at her feet.

When she leaves his office, it is with the knowledge that she has the power to stay or to leave.

~

She chooses to stay.

~

On a Sunday morning, Andy meets Helen’s only surviving family over a typical English brunch spread. He has never quite been so nervous about meeting the family, in this case, a younger sister named Susan of no particular last name, and her fiancé Thomas.

He has known about Susan for some time now, but has never met her. When Helen had first told him about her, he was startled to realize that he was only partially surprised that she had been hiding a younger sibling from him. To him, it made perfect sense that Helen would do her best to minimize the danger to her little sister, nearly a decade her junior and a barrister out of Lincoln’s Inn, by pretending that there was no connection between them. He never felt the urge to ask to meet Susan. A part of him, Andy supposes, has always expected that this meeting would happen eventually, but he is gratified (and terrified) all the same that Helen trusts him enough to acknowledge openly that she has family left in the world and she wants to introduce him to them.

The three of them meet and take a table at the back of the bistro, away from the street and the windows. Through unspoken consensus, Helen takes the seat with her back to the wall and the best lines of sight to the entire restaurant. Susan tells them that Thomas will be a little late — he goes to Services with his mother every Sunday — and they have a little time to get to know each other. Helen nods and asks after her sister’s studies. The younger woman laughs before she replies that all is well, and at that, Helen relaxes into her seat. Andy takes her hand, asking a silent question. She squeezes back reassuringly: all is well. This is their lives, that they speak in coded phrases to assure each other that all is well, with no monsters lurking in the shadows, no danger in the night. Andy can only imagine what it must have been like, growing up with that kind of fear, and even now, still living with the paranoia of looking over your shoulder at every turn.

They plunge into the delicate dance of introductions. To his surprise, it’s much less awkward than he expected. There is no polite reserve in Susan’s smiles, no understandable wariness at the new man in her sister’s secret-filled life. The barrister is open, trusting — a softer, less reserved version of Helen’s restrained personality. It takes him a while to realize that Susan trusts her sister’s judgement unconditionally. Love and loyalty are indistinguishable concepts in these women’s lives, and by falling love with one of them, he has earned the trust of the other. These sisters by choice orbit a best-forgotten world; those they bring into their lives must understand, and accept, that there will always be secrets.

Thomas joins the group just as they finish their coffee and brunch is quickly ordered in due course. Over an English breakfast with fruits on the side, it is clear that Thomas is an affable, easy-going man, a fellow barrister who clearly adores Susan and dotes on her in small ways. He doesn’t patronize in the legal debate that breaks out over copyright laws and he seems to take pride in the way Susan counters all his points; it’s a playful conversation that is accompanied by the two lovebirds unconsciously stealing food from each other’s plate and sometimes forgetting whose coffee cup they’re drinking from. It’s clear that he respects Helen, even when he doesn’t agree with her, because she is family. Andy isn’t sure, but he thinks that Thomas has little inkling that his bride is not all whom she appears to be, much less so that her sister belongs to an agency with the reputed license to kill.

After the detour into copyright laws and Internet neutrality, the conversation quickly turns to the upcoming wedding. They are all looking forward to the long-postponed nuptials, and Susan doesn’t even hesitate to invite Andy as her sister’s plus one. Helen gives him a look, turning the decision over to him. He consults his mental calendar, does a little bit of shuffling (because weekends are sacred, no matter what the auditors say) and accepts the invitation. Thomas gives him a companionable grin at the resultant teasing that breaks out between the sisters. Andy returns it.

~

“So what exactly does she do again?”

There is a little burst of static over the phone. Andy flips frantically through what he has told Audrey previously and what he and Helen have agreed upon to tell his family about their relationship.

“She’s an accountant.”

“Oh?” He doesn’t need to see Audrey’s face to know she has arched a sceptical eyebrow. “I thought you met her on a museum staff in China.”

“No,” he corrects, cringing at the memory of his first foray into lying to his sister, “that was Harriet. This is Helen. We met at the Museum.” It’s not entirely a lie.

“You met an accountant…At the British Museum?” The disbelief drips from her question.

“I wasn’t working with her, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he says patiently, standing in front of the meat display at Sainsbury’s and debating if they want to marinate steaks this week. “She was a visitor.”

“And how, might I ask, did my brother manage to meet an accountant at the British Museum when you tell me you spend way too much of your time chained to your desk or the back rooms?”

“Because sometimes, oh dear sister of mine,” he retorts mildly, picking through the steak cuts, “I run away from my desk and go mingle with the public before I set anything on fire.” He flashes a quick ‘I am harmless, I swear’ smile to the startled woman standing next to him. He might be better at small talk and fundraising chit-chat nowadays, but he still does know how to throw people straight out of their comfort zones. “Look, she had a question about a painting and, uh, well, we went from there.”

“Oh,” Audrey’s voice is overly sweet and verging into baby-talk, “did my little brother fall in love with a woman who adores Chinese pots and vases as much as he does?”

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying and appreciating master craftsmanship,” he retorts without much bite, because she is teasing rather than being serious. “Just like some people will melt over datasets.”

“Oy! It was a beautiful presentation of a dataset,” she replies with exasperation, “and it was almost fifteen years ago. Can you let me live it down at some point?”

“Never,” he replies cheerfully, moving onto the fruit and vegetable section.

“I hate you sometimes,” she says because that’s what siblings do and this is how they’ve learned to mock fight with each other.

He laughs. “I love you too.” It’s a statement they both need to hear in their lives, and while he doesn’t begrudge its lack in his relationship with Helen, he still needs to say it to and hear it from his sister.

“Right back at you.” Audrey clears her throat. “So, when are you bringing her up here?”

“You’re that anxious to meet her?”

“I just want to be sure she’s good enough for you.”

Andy smiles and says fondly, “In your world, no one is good enough for your little brother.”

She laughs. “True, but still, I’d like to meet her. I’ve never met any of the others.”

“Please don’t scare her away.”

The crutch of gravel stops on the other end of the line and Audrey is serious when she tells him, “I know. That’s why I want to meet her.”

“I’ll see what our schedules look like and I’ll email you, all right?”

“All right,” agrees Audrey, “I’ll see you soon, then.”

Andy laughs and agrees with the order before he makes his goodbyes and ends the call. Now, bell peppers or cucumbers... or both?

~

Curled up against his side, bed sheets twisted around them in a rumpled mess, Helen traces the outline of his heart as he sleeps. She has learned to be strong. She has been forced to be weak. She has never learned to be vulnerable by choice. She has learned to express affection, love, by act, but she knows now that gestures are not always enough.

She's not ready to say the words, and she's not sure she'll ever be. She doesn’t know how to say those words, not to anyone, not in any language. There's a vulnerability to acknowledging the truth aloud, and a safety in silence. What is spoken can be heard, and she has learned as both victim and perpetrator that what can be heard can always be used against its owner. Even with Susan, the young woman she has adopted and sacrificed everything for (nearly, but not quite), she hasn't been able to say it.

She knows, however, that Susan knows, and understands what isn't said between them, because words are sometimes worthless and actions speak more loudly than any breath of sound. Helen found Susan in nothing, and not only gave her everything, but set her free to be her own Master. There are debts that can never be repaid in full, but can be forgiven as gifts, and whilst the young barrister may count her freedom as a debt, Helen hopes that Susan will one day see it as a choice.

Their Jiejie, the one who gave them the chance to run by standing her ground, never said she loved them or cared for them, but Helen and Susan both know, and for them, these makeshift sisters, that is enough. But that was in another life, another world, with different rules and expectations. This life, the one they have each built for themselves — with gentle, strong men; with safety and softness; with whispers and laughter — out of the ashes and dust, is framed by different boundaries. Helen wants more than she needs, and for once, she is being asked for less than she could give.

She wants to say those three words to him, one day, someday. She just isn’t sure how.

~

Chapter Text

~

One of these days, Andy thinks as they wait at a traffic light, he is going to be used to being escorted into dark sedans and taken to deserted locations. And on that day, because that is the way his luck goes, he will be kidnapped by actual kidnappers as opposed to Mr Holmes, who is a very, very strange man and doesn’t do what normal people do, like pick up a phone and make a phone call. Or better yet, make an appointment. Sometimes Andy wonders uncharitably if the man was raised by wolves, because while Helen has the very understandable and legitimate background of a fucked-up childhood, Mr Holmes seems upper-class, educated, the epitome of posh, and yet he cannot seem to make it through a conversation without being unnervingly unsettling in some way or manner.

Today’s meeting location is a gated townhouse on a modest estate. Andy doesn’t even want to speculate on the market value of the location, much less how Mr Holmes might have obtained access to the property. He will probably sleep soundly tonight not knowing either piece of information. The more he leans about Helen’s employer, the more his inner voice chimes in that ‘Ignorance is bliss’ is a very accurate statement.

To his surprise, Mr Holmes greets him at the door with shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows and takes him into a study. Andy doesn’t know much about how the upper half of society lives, but this sort of behaviour doesn’t seem to be the norm. Shouldn’t there be a butler, a housekeeper at least? And from his vague memories of schooling and Kevin’s excited babble over Skype, isn’t the study considered to be one of the most private areas of a household? Andy doesn’t quite edge towards the door to bolt, but he’s considering it.

Mr Holmes must notice his unease because he pours two glasses from the sidebar and hands Andy one of the heavy tumblers. “It’s a fruit wine I’m fond of,” he says in explanation, “and I promise you, perfectly safe.”

Andy smiles as charmingly as he can and cradles the glass in his hands, making no move to sip. The defiance seems to amuse the other man as he gestures for both of them to sit in facing armchairs.

“I apologize for the disruption to your plans today,” he begins, placing his glass on the small table next to the chair, “but I felt that there is some information you ...deserve to know about Helen.”

“I told—”

“I know what you’ve told me,” he says commandingly, “and I admire your stance to protect someone you care for.” He pauses contemplatively for a moment before he continues, “You might have noticed that Helen has been slightly distant lately.”

Andy doesn’t say anything because for all the years he has known him, Mr Holmes has yet to prove himself to be a man capable of artless conversation. Everything he does, as far as Andy can tell, is always in service of more than one objective. It means that every encounter turns into a strange chess match with Helen as the unspoken, yet acknowledged, third player. Andy will trust Mr Holmes to watch out for Helen, but only in his best interest, not hers.

“She came into possession of some information recently about her childhood. It’s… rattled her a bit.” He pauses to sip at his drink. “You’ve been a very patient man and it’s only fair that you’re told a bit more about her situation.” He chuckles at Andy’s wariness. “Nothing that has anything to do with the non-disclosures you’ve signed, just… what she probably has assumed you’ve put together and hasn’t gotten around to confirming with you yet. You and I both know she doesn’t trust easily, our Helen, and you and I both know why.”

Mr Holmes sighs weary. “Money laundering is not furtive men speaking on shady streets or lurking on dark corners, Mr. Galbraith. It takes place in plain sight, by sleight of hand or trickery. Your colleague, the one who died nine years ago...”

“Soo Lin,” he murmurs quietly, knowing it’s a forbidden name. The older man’s eyes crinkle in amused approval.

“She was working with us then, to find these pieces and trace them back to their source. Unfortunately, the masterminds caught onto her involvement and came after her, necessitating—” He gives an eloquent shrug.

Andy knows it’s the closest thing to the straight truth that he’ll ever get about Helen’s recruitment into Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs or whatever department she claims to work for. It’s the official story, after all the disassembling and misdirection has been stripped away. It sounds real enough, believable, solid. Simple.

A curious, honest young woman who was in over her head with Bad People. A government that came in to save her like a white knight on a trusty steed. Cheers all around as the foe is vanquished and the story ends.

It’s not the honest truth. He knows the official story is woven from convenient lies, told on paper until they take on the perception of reality. Because the real story of who Soo Lin truly was is not that simple. He knows because he has held her in the night as she cries silently for a brother, a sister that she never dares to remember with names; heard her stories, spoken in another language, that he was never meant to understand

(except, except he thinks that it says something about her trust in him, and her need to know that he truly is hers and will never leave her, that she whispers her tales about a little girl, trapped in a fairy tale, in a tongue that she must suspect, at the least, he knows and understands)

He has seen the scars and the faded ink. He has understood her stories and silence. She worked for the Family long before this man (who is not truly Civil Service) even knew her name. Mr. Holmes saved her from the Family’s revenge, and that is a debt Helen feels she can never repay. Andy doesn’t know if this man has the heart and will to let her go, to discharge that debt and render the account paid in full. He hopes for her sake, for their sake, that Mr. Holmes can, and will.

Yao Soo Lin was born out of desperation and hope, a ticket out of hell for two young women who fled with their wits and a forbidden prayer up to half-forgotten deities and ancestors. She was an insubstantial image held up to a mirror, created by someone trying to escape her past. She was discovered and murdered for what she wanted: a life of her own and the freedom to make her own decisions.

Helen Chen is still being shaped by the wind and earth to be whomever she wants to be, being shaped by her own hands and her own choices. She is not a woman who will exist again at the mercy of others.The woman he loves is a woman he has never known, a ghost, and a beating heart. With each passing day, she becomes more certain of who she is; with each passing day, he falls in love with her more.

~

As the miles roll past and the English countryside spreads out around them, the tension builds between them. For all his years of practise, Andy still doesn’t know how to lie to his sister, especially about a relationship that is so important to him. Helen just wants Audrey to like her, to not make Andy’s life more difficult than it already is with everything she can’t (won’t) tell him. She doesn’t want to force him to choose between his family and her; despite everything, Helen doesn’t think she would win, and even if she did, it would still be a loss. They have rehearsed their stories down to the finest details. All they can do now is smile and lie through their teeth.

Just before he turns onto the winding lane that will take them to his sister’s house, Andy looks at Helen and asks, “Ready?”

She smiles with bravado and tells him, “It’s going to be fine.”

Then the light turns green and the moment is over with Audrey and the kids tumbling out the front door as soon as the car is within sight of the house. Introductions are made quickly as they are hustled into the house and given a single guest bedroom to settle in for the weekend. Andy resolutely ignores the curious glances Audrey gives him when Helen’s back is turned. This is going to be an interesting weekend.

The real interrogation doesn’t start until dinner, when everyone is gathered round the table and there’s nowhere to run. Freshly back from a late-running tutorial, George starts with, “Andy hasn’t told us much about you beyond that you work in finance.”

Andy resists the urge to drown himself in his soup. His brother-in-law is a man of many talents, but subtle he is not. Helen smiles warmly before she corrects, “Accounting, specifically in assurance. It’s a sub-speciality of the field.”

“That’s a demanding career,” says George with a degree of admiration.

She nods, “The hours are long, but the pay is decent and the work is engaging. I’m never bored at least.” Helen passes the breadbasket to Andy before he asks for it.

George laughs. “I can imagine. I mean, I am teaching the best and brightest, but sometimes I sit there and think that my grading might be best done after a pint or three.”

“Everyone has those types of days.”

“So what type of clients do you work with?” Audrey has been quiet up until now, content to let George take the lead while she observes. Andy isn’t worried, necessarily, but… he’s a little bit afraid that his sister will put the pieces together and, based on her instinct, call bullshit on their story. Out of the two of them, Audrey has always been far more likely to act on her gut instinct without fearing the consequences.

Helen gives an apologetic shrug. “I can’t be very specific, I’m afraid, non-disclosure agreement and all. But I suppose you could say that my clients are major players in their fields and leave it at that. So George, what do you teach here?”

The rest of the meal goes smoothly, with George and Helen steering the conversation deftly to stay fairly light without being frivolous. Audrey’s attention is split between keeping up with the chitchat and making sure that Theresa finishes her plate and Patrick doesn’t spit up his food. Andy tries to help as best he can and works on keeping his nerves out of his expression. After a relaxed after-dinner discussion, only marred by an awkward question from his niece and yet gracefully handled by Helen, everyone retires for the night. Andy gives his sister one last unamused death glare while she just throws her hands up in innocent exasperation because it’s not her fault that Theresa is going through a Disney Princess stage at the moment. Thankfully, both George and Helen seem more amused by the silent sibling argument than upset.

“Well, do I pass muster?” asks Helen as they climb into bed together.

“You’ve gotten Theresa’s stamp of approval.” Andy fluffs his pillow into submission.

“And your sister’s and brother-in-law’s?”

“Audrey will come around,” he says, desperately hoping that he is right. It’s not that his sister seems to not like Helen, but it’s not like she seems to like her either. It makes him nervous, having the two principle women in his life meet each other and not knowing if they’ll come out wanting to be best friends or mortal enemies at the end of it.

Helen chuckles and kisses his cheek. “Don’t worry about it. She just wants you to be happy.”

“I am happy,” he protests a little sullenly.

That seems to amuse her more and she gives him another kiss before she ruffles his hair. “She just wants to be extra sure.”

He asks in exasperation and slightly rhetorically, “Is this what you were like with Thomas?”

Helen grins cheekily and doesn’t respond. Andy realizes his mistake and says with faint horror, “Oh my God, you were worse.”

“I wouldn’t say worse…,” she says, sounding overly innocent on purpose, “maybe a bit more indirect than your sister, but same general principle….”

“Oh my God,” he repeats weakly and decides that he never going to think about this again. Ever. Except maybe the next time he sees Thomas, he’s going to buy Susan’s fiancé a pint in admiration. Possibly commiseration.

Oh God.

Helen starts laughing uncontrollably at the look on his face before she whaps his shoulder with her pillow. Andy doesn’t hesitate to respond in kind. The resultant pillow fight is short, but sweet. Well, sweet enough that Andy is very, very glad that the guest bedroom is isolated at one end of the house and not anywhere near the master or children’s bedrooms.

~

The next afternoon, Helen’s mobile rings as they step through the porter’s gate, and she promptly excuses herself to take the call. Immediately, Andy calculates that it will take them ten minutes at most to pack and they can be back on the road to London within the hour. George glances at her with a degree of confusion and concern before he gives Andy a questioning look. Andy just shrugs, because he can guess, but he’s not going to confirm.

The conversation is brief, with Helen giving brief answers as she glances at her watch. When she hangs up, she tucks her mobile back into her jean pocket and re-joins the men with an apologetic, “Sorry, emergency at work.”

George asks, “Everything okay?” Andy knows it’s not.

“I’m so sorry to do this,” she says, intertwining her fingers with Andy’s, “but I’m afraid I need to cut my visit short.”

“Work?” George asks with visible surprise.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

He frowns, “They work you pretty hard then.”

“It is what it is,” she says with a rueful shrug. “It’s what I’m paid for.”

“I’ll come back with you,” says Andy, because he wants to keep her in sight for as long as possible and partially because he doesn’t fancy weathering his sister’s well-intentioned quizzing alone.

She gives him a practiced smile. “No, it’s fine. I’ll call a taxi for the train station. You stay here and see your family.” She adds, “I’ll be fine.”

“At least let me drive you to the station. It’ll be faster and cheaper.”

“Uh,” George interrupts awkwardly with a little cough. There is little point in the tour now since Andy has seen the college grounds before and George sees all of it on a daily basis. “We can all back to the house…”

“I know you have a special tutorial in a bit,” Andy offers, “we can just go back ourselves and let you prep for that.”

“Thanks,” says his brother-in-law, “Are you—”

“I’m sure we can find our way back.” He bumps Helen’s shoulder lightly with his own. “Plus, she has a better sense of direction than me. If we get lost, we’ll holler.”

“All right, then.” George shakes Helen’s hand and kisses the air next to her cheek. “It was really nice to meet you Helen. I hope next time you come, you can stay the entire time.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“Cheers!” and they part ways.

Andy and Helen walk back to the house in silence that is only broken by the occasional historical or random commentary. She holds tight to his hand and soaks in the sound of his voice and the solitude of his presence. The next few days are going to be fast-paced and demanding; she tucks these moments away as sandbags against the impending chaos. He holds her close, and relishes the feeling of her presence next to him against the coming days; emergency calls from Mr Holmes are never minor matters, especially when he knows she made it very clear that this weekend she is on holiday and nothing short of a national emergency was going to call her back to London.

Naturally, Audrey takes the news with dismay, and then promptly copes by throwing together a small basket of food for them, complete with apologetic tea in a Thermos. Andy has no idea where his sister inherited the habit of comfort cooking, but at least it is a delicious and edible coping mechanism (except when she bakes, then it can get a little scary). As soon as they are packed and out of sight of the house, Helen pulls out her Blackberry and starts rapidly texting.

Andy keeps his eyes on the road and ignores everything in his peripheral version from the passenger seat. Between one electronic chime and the next, Helen says, “You should stay.”

“Are you sure?”

“You don’t get to see them that often, and I don’t want to cut short your time with them.” She glances up from her phone. “You’ll do fine.”

That’s when he knows for certain that she is not heading back to London today, at least, not as her final destination. Her handbag was heavy when he handed it to her in the guest room, and she has stayed hovering in his space when they’ve been alone. All signs point to an unexpected crisis and an extended absence. He can’t say that practice has made this any easier to bear.

“You can drop me off here,” she says, when they are a street away from the station. He pretends not to notice the dark sedan idling at the kerb. There isn’t a legal space for him to park, but he parallel parks anyway, long enough to help her grab her rolling suitcase from the boot and gather her coat from the backseat.

“I’ll call you when I arrive,” she promises, kissing him goodbye.

“I love you,” he tells her because she already knows to be safe and he knows that he may never know when it could be the last time he sees her. She smiles at him, and kisses him again, because she’s still not sure how to say those three words to him in a way that shows she means it and isn’t just imitating what she’s seen other couples do.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” From her, it’s a promise she has no intention of breaking and that is more than enough for him.

Andy steals one last kiss and then lets her go. He gets back in the car and pulls away before the patrolling parking enforcement arrives and before he can see her leave. This is what his life revolves around: plausible deniability.

~

As they prepare for take-off to Eastern Europe and between signing off on one set of orders and drafting the next briefing, she takes a moment to text him:

See you in London.

There isn’t enough time for her to hear the confirmation chime before she plunges back into her work.

~

Late that night, when George is with the children and the Galbraith siblings are alone in the living room with a nightcap espresso, Audrey asks him, “Does this happen often?”

“Not really,” which isn’t entirely a lie. Andy has never asked for Helen’s full schedule and she has never volunteered which of her absences are planned or impromptu. He can hazard guesses, but as usual, he can claim factual ignorance of her work.

“It seems a bit extreme to call her in on a weekend.”

“Her firm is a regional one,” he replies, “but it’s small enough that if there’s any issues at all with a client, it can easily escalate to all hands on deck. It happens. You know how it is, she’s not a junior associate anymore, but when the boss says ‘Jump…’”

“Her response is ‘How high?’”

He nods. “Exactly.”

“She’s a nice girl.” It’s a bland, neutral statement and Andy frowns, because while he’s not expecting Audrey to be Helen’s best friend after their first meeting, he doesn’t know why his sister is being so reserved about this. She knows that Helen has been his…girlfriend for months (years). He gives her an inquiring look.

“I’m not sure she’s right for you.”

“What?” That is not what he expected her to say. “Look, all I’m asking is that you give her a chance.”

“I am” Audrey looks him straight in the eye. “I am. I just—”

“Just what?” He can’t quite keep the defensive notes out of his voice.

Audrey sighs and rubs her forehead. “She seems very nice and sweet and quiet, and I wonder if she’s right for you.”

“Maybe I—”

“Let me finish,” she asserts a little annoyed. “I know she makes you happy, but every time I ask you about her, it’s like pulling teeth out of you. I just wonder if you know her as well as you think you do.”

“Yes,” says Andy firmly. “I do. She just… she’s a really private person, okay? Trust issues and, all that.”

Audrey shakes her head. “I’m not expecting her to tell me all her secrets, but I wonder if she’s keeping any from you.”

His sister’s concerns don’t quite leave him alone for the rest of the visit. A mere year ago, he would have said no, he didn’t know who Helen Chen truly was. How could he when Helen wasn’t entirely certain herself where she belonged? But the woman who disappeared from his life and the woman who came back to him are not entirely different people. Helen has settled into her skin now, comfortable with herself in ways she hadn’t previously been. Maybe he is wrong, but… he has to believe it means something that she chose to come back to him, that from the very beginning she has sought him out, when it would have been so easy to never see him again. She could have vanished at the end of her last mission and he would have never known what had happened to her.

In the wee hours of the morning, his mobile chimes an incoming text alert and he opens it to see her brief message. Andy smiles and types a brief reply back. She’ll answer him when she has time to spare, keeping in touch in what ways she can to prevent him from worrying, even though he will always worry. Maybe he doesn’t know Helen as well as he think he does, but he’s trying and so is she; they’re both trying and surely, that has to count for something.

~

Over a half-sliced watermelon, he asks her, “Is it hard?” being with me, being here goes unspoken because it’s a stupid question, an unfair one in so many ways. He’s being insecure, that’s what he is, but he is also only human.

“No,” she tells him unflinchingly, putting down the knife on the cutting board. “It’s easier.” Than work, than my past goes unsaid.

“Is it hard?” she asks quietly, turning the question back at him.

He thinks for a moment – of all the silences he has learned to fill; all the parts of her he still doesn’t know, may never know; all secrets that weight them down — and before she can shy away from him, gathers her in his arms.

“It’s getting easier,” he tells her honestly. “I don’t regret this.”

She kisses him chastely. “I don’t either.

He answers her in kind.

~

He is here as "Andy, friend of the bride" at this reception, not quite “Andy, boyfriend/significant other/whatever relation of the bride’s adopted sister,” but also certainly not “Andrew, random guest.” It doesn’t really matter what his acclaimed title is; the mere fact that he is present at this celebration is enough. Plus, there is enough champagne to keep his fellow partygoers from venturing beyond the most perfunctory questions and enough unusual architecture to keep him from being bored out of his mind. His speciality has always been in Asia, meaning his knowledge of European (including British) architecture and crafts is sadly limited to what he can dredge up from his university days. That is, when his train of thought isn’t being derailed by his date.

Andy catches a flash of sapphire out of the corner of his eye. Even when standing next to the beaming bride who is resplendent in her ivory gown and then crimson qipao for the reception, Helen is stunning. The tailoring of the rich fabric is Western, with little hints of Oriental flair. It fits her—not quite West nor quite East. It looks natural. It looks good. She catches him staring and flashes a smile at him, a real one that makes his heart bubble with joy and has nothing to do with the half-full glass of bubbly in his hand.

“I hope you’re enjoying yourself,” the bride tells him, appearing out of the crowd of well-wishers to stand at his side.

He beams at her. “It’s a lovely reception and congratulations to you and Thomas. I know you’ve been waiting for a very long time for today.”

“Thank you,” she laughs. “I know that today is just one day out of all the days I’ll be with him, but it’s nice that today has gone off without a hitch. And I’m really glad you’re here.”

He doesn’t expect the young woman to turn around and hug him like he is a life-sized Paddington Bear, but she does and, after a momentary hesitation, he returns the embrace. After all, they are almost family in a way and today is her wedding day. She can be slightly tipsy and as happy as she wants to be.

“Thank you,” says Susan in his ear, and he gets the feeling it’s not for the brand new espresso coffeemaker or the full tea set that await the newlywed couple in their flat. “You make her so happy.”

She pulls back and he smiles. “She makes me happy too.”

“Hi there, Beautiful.” Thomas hugs his bride from behind, wrapping his arms around her waist and nuzzling her next. Susan laughs and steals a kiss from him. “Hi Andy.”

“Hi Thomas,” he replies, amused by the tipsy lovebirds. “As I was saying to Susan, congratulations to the both of you and,” he adds, feeling mischievous, “may your bedsprings never squeak.”

Susan laughs. “Oh, we’ll be doing plenty of that!”

Having drifted over to their little group in time to overhear the last part of the conversation, Helen aims a stern, mock glare at her sister and brother-in-law before settling her disapproval on Andy. “Don’t you dare give her any ideas!”

“But don’t you want to be an auntie?”

“Not yet!”

Thomas makes nervous spluttering noises; he may be calm and unflappable in court, but it’s clear he remains in half-awe, half-terror of his wife’s sister. Andy grins at her cheekily before she releases a sigh of fake exasperation and draws her sister away for a final word. The two men stare at their women.

“You take care of her,” says Andy, even though he doesn’t really have a right to that protective claim. Thomas nods anyway, his eyes full of a love and reverence that Andy never saw his father ever give to his mother.

“I will” is the quiet answer, and Andy trusts that Helen knows sixteen ways to make Thomas regret it if he ever breaks that promise.

~

Andy knocks at the half-open front door, half-expecting to see Mr Holmes waiting for him with a tea set or some other random object.

“Come in,” she says and he smiles at the sound of her half-distracted tone.

“What’s this?” he asks, stepping into the airy, sunlit flat. “Are you thinking about moving?”

She turns to look at him. “Yes.” Helen fidgets before she continues, “Actually, I was wondering if you’d like to move with me, I mean, move in with me, together. Living together, I mean, officially.”

He stares at her for a moment because yes, they have been living together unofficially for years, but this is the first time she has brought up the possibility of the two of them signing a lease together. Out of all the potential topics he expected her to bring up, he wasn’t expecting this.

“I know it’s a lot to ask,” she says when he doesn’t make his brain engage quickly enough, “but since your lease is ending soon, I thought—”

“I’d love to,” he blurts out. “I mean, I don’t make anything near where you’re making, but I’d like to move in with you.”

She laughs. “I’m a government employee, no one special.”

“You’re special to me.”

Her smile is amused and confident. “Does that actually work?”

“I don’t know,” he confides as he pulls her close, resting their foreheads together. “I’ve never really had to use it on anyone. In fact, I’ve only used it on this one lady.”

“Well,” she kisses him, “I can’t speak for every single woman out there, but I would have to say, it’s fairly effective. Ish. But I wouldn’t recommend trying it out on anyone else.”

“I have absolutely no plans to,” he replies, stealing another kiss from her.

“Good,” she grins at him, smoothing down his lapels, “because I do not share.”

“I don’t either,” he says, a wide grin stretched across his own face. She draws another kiss from him before he repeats his earlier concern, “I’d love to move in with you, but we should probably figure out our budget first before we look at flats?”

“Do you like this one?” she asks, a trifle nervously. He glances around at the frankly spacious interior of the main living area and the cosy rooms that are tucked away in the back down a hallway off the kitchen.

“Yes,” he says, because it’s the perfect size for two people and he already knows the location is right between his work and hers. The neighbourhood is quiet and mostly safe, even at night. This flat would be a wonderful place to settle down with her, but he doesn’t want to think about the rent.

As if reading his thoughts, she looks vaguely guilty as she informs him, “We can afford it.”

Andy gives her a rueful smile in reply. “He looked, didn’t he?” Because that is the kind of gesture that Mr Holmes would do for a favoured employee. Andy has come to the conclusion that perhaps in addition to being raised by wolves, Mr Holmes is also a guardian angel that is very good with the guarding and protecting aspects of the job, but not so good with the socialization and human interaction components.

She shrugs, which is as good as an actual answer. Still, all concerns about invasions of privacy aside, it’s good to know that this flat has been chosen with both of them in mind. This will be their home.

A few weeks later, they co-sign the lease on the flat and turn over their security deposit and first month’s rent. The moving goes fairly well, all things considered, with only a handful of shouting matches over silly things and that are all quickly resolved with celebratory ‘we’ve moved in together!’ activities.

Slowly, ever so carefully, they build their life together.

~

It is a warm summer afternoon.

They are out on a country estate, far from prying ears or listening ears. It’s a vacation, she tells him, even though he knows that he is officially here as her cover for a series of covert government meetings that he knows absolutely nothing about it. She has been insanely busy for the past several months, to the point that whilst they share a flat together, he has barely seen her at all. He supposes that this fortnight is an apology of sorts, for all that Mr Holmes’ claims not to be the sentimental type. It’s more than slightly insane, but still, this is their life, and he would not walk away from it for the world.

Today, though, is a rest day as all the involved parties have gone their own ways to mull over whatever treaty or agreement is being hammered out behind closed doors. Mr. Holmes is back in London, but most of his staffers and a handful of security guards are still here, taking a moment to breathe before they are called back to duty.

She sprawls in his lap, her body cradled between his legs, his arms wrapped around her in a lover’s embrace.

“There is a story I want to tell you,” she says in English, putting her hands on his as they lie in the shade of the towering oak tree, “about a little girl from China....”

“Helen…” he whispers, “you don’t have to—”

“Shhh,” she tells him, turning around and silencing him with a gentle touch of her fingers on his lips. “I want to tell you, so we can tell our daughters.”

He stares at her with wide eyes as she continues, “Her name was Liu Meihua, and she was a very pretty little girl…”

~

Somewhere in the heart of metropolitan London, there is a cosy little flat that belongs to an accountant and a curator. They are a charming, if quiet, couple who come and go at all hours of the night and day, but can generally be relied upon for a neighbourly chat and a kind word in the lift. Their neighbours know little about the pair’s personal lives, but it’s clear to see that they are a couple deeply, steadily in love.

For the accountant and curator, their home is an oasis of serenity from their fast-paced lives. He continues to work at the British Museum as head curator of their East Asia Collection; sometimes, the British Government calls upon his expertise for one small matter or another. She continues to work as an auditor for Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs Service, though with the impending birth of their children, she hopes to transfer to a less travel-intensive position within the department.

They have built a home together, one with canisters of tea from all over the world sitting side by side in the cupboards, replicas of ancient art hanging comfortably next to modern pieces on the walls, and books on all sorts of subjects stacked on the tables. There are throw pillows and crochet afghans in the living room, a short parade of small elephant figurines on the windowsill, and a glass vase from Italy in the kitchen. The coatrack is labelled his and hers, with space for their hats and umbrellas. The mail on the little entryway table is addressed to him, to her, and to both of them. This is a world of their own, patched together from so many different lives.

She doesn’t know what the future holds, neither does he, but as they share a cup of tea in the life they have carved out of their shared pasts, they know this:

Their story does not stop at The End.