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

>>> <<<

"I'm afraid I can't explain myself, sir. Because I am not myself, you see?"
Lewis Caroll

She could not go home. Not anymore.

Alexa parked the truck in a busy intersection, tossing Larry's keys on the seat and slipping an old checkered shirt over her bloodied tank top. The temperatures had dropped and she shivered, her bare feet barely visible beneath the hem of her jeans. Larry's shirt smelled of Marlboros but she didn't mind. She'd found an opened pack of his choice of cigarettes in the glove compartment and snagged it, slipping it into the pocket of his shirt.

Alexa looked around her, her eyes trying to spot Lucas in the crowd, but she did not see him. She slipped through the growing crowd of pedestrians, keeping her head low. She had a few blocks to walk but she didn't mind. She couldn't risk parking the truck too close to where she needed to go now, the one place that she could call her own.

Ever since she'd returned from Russia, everyone treated her like a porcelain doll that had fallen one too many times. Everyone thought she was too fragile, afraid that one more slip and she'd descend into some kind of madness.

Even her father, Nathaniel George, had decided it best that in the event of his death, to turn all Alexa's affairs over to a living trust attorney, till she turned 35. Most of his assets were also passed on to Liam, bypassing Alexa and entrusting her primarily with an allowance that was quite generous to begin with. But it made her feel invisible, as if Nathaniel did not want a trace of her anywhere, at least on paper.

But Alexa knew that to some, it was a privileged life to live, with no need for a job to pay her bills or her rent. Everything she spent was accounted for, though often questioned. At twenty-eight, she was old enough to manage her finances, but her father's arrangements prevented that. She was forever a child in his eyes, even in death.

When Alexa formed Found Hope a year earlier, she'd set aside her own salary for later use - not that she had needed a salary to begin with. And when she stepped down months earlier, passing on the bulk of the foundation to the management of a Board of Directors, they'd given her an early retirement package of sorts. Along with the salary, it was enough to live on modestly for a many years.

It was also enough to buy a place she could call her own. But Alexa could not and would not use her own name to purchase anything bigger than a car, much less a flat. She knew that Harry would have had her followed like he usually did to her new home, and probably even ask why she wanted to purchase anything like it if she already had a place of her own with Trevor Square, and her father's rental properties as well.

And the last thing Alexa wanted was to lose the only remnant of independence she had left, something that no one at MI5 knew about. She did not want to lose the home she'd secretly called her own for the last month, since she closed escrow on it and had it decorated.

To her neighbors, she was a wife whose husband was constantly out of the country, whose name was marked outside on the tenant directory board. It was a name she had acquired through weeks of hard work, aided by a resourceful private investigator who, as a result of his inquiries, had lost his license and was forced to leave the country. But Alexa had compensated him well for his work and the last she heard from him, he'd settled comfortably in Los Angeles.

Alexa stopped to look over her shoulder.  She was only two blocks away from the “Brownstone,” as she called her flat, not finding any other word to describe it other than how it looked like from the front, its brick facade brown with age, yet fitting appropriately within the neighboring buildings that flanked it in Spitalfields.  She ran past the outdoor market, now closed for the day as the night was quickly descending, the cold wrapping around her exposed neck.

She scanned the faces around her and found no one suspicious, their attention on other things in their lives - carrying groceries for the evening’s supper or rushing home from work, oblivious of anything else but what was going on in the mundane lives they led.  Alexa ducked behind an alley between the bagel shop and a used bookstore, her bare feet stepping onto a puddle of muddy water and she cursed beneath her breath.

Alexa's thoughts returned to Harry, knowing that her godfather meant well by having men follow her now and then. She often wondered what prompted the surveillance, but she'd long given up wondering. Alexa knew that Harry didn't trust her, thinking that she was still a child, just as her father had always thought.

But as Alexa made her way behind the buildings, still looking over her shoulder as she skirted along the narrow alleys, she knew that though Harry may not trust her, he was someone she needed to trust, especially now. She wanted nothing more than to go straight away to Thames House and tell Harry everything she knew, but she still had one more thing to do.

She still had to retrieve the one thing that Arkady wanted her dead for. She did not need any further proof beyond the bombs inside the cargo ship cabin and the shooter on the dock.

Mikhael was right about two things.

The pretense was over. And too many people wanted her dead.

>>><<<

Lucas was fortunate that Larry was a reasonable man. The man was about to attack Lucas with a tire iron, and had been close to being shot at by Lucas as he tried to protect himself. Instead, Lucas flashed Larry his identification and the man threw the tire iron down on the ground immediately, turning around to see Alexa drive off with his pick up truck.

Lucas turned back and ran towards the black car that Ros and Jo had driven into the dock with. Jo was with a young woman sitting at the back of an ambulance and Lucas recognized her as the woman who had been tied to the chair inside the warehouse. Nadia Ravin, the woman who had been with Liam that morning.

"I'm going after Alexa," Lucas said and Jo tossed him the keys to the car just as Ros hurried towards him.

"Lucas, stay on comms," Ros said but Lucas didn't hear her. He started the engine and sped away, leaving Ros and Jo shaking their heads after him.

Although Alexa had a few minutes head start before Lucas, it wasn't difficult to track down the pick up truck driving on the M25 as soon as Lucas informed the Grid what had happened.

"She just called me," Harry had said, a sense of growing panic in his voice. "Lucas, what the hell happened? Where is Alexa?"

"She ran. Something Mikhael said set her off," Lucas said. "Harry, I need you to check into this saying, 'because they wished to see too far before them, backward they look, and backward make their way.'"

"What the hell is that?" Harry asked.

"I don't know, but whatever it is, it set Alexa off," Lucas lowered his voice as he started the engine. "I also need Malcolm to track a pick up truck for me."

"She stole a truck?" Harry asked, his voice incredulous.

"Yes, Harry, she stole a truck, and she managed to convince a man in five seconds that I was up to no good and if he weren't reasonable, he nearly would have killed me," Lucas replied as he sped out of the dock. Or get shot, Lucas wanted to add. "There's more to your little princess than you thought."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Harry, she's a sleeper."

Harry was silent for a few seconds, his thoughts racing over what Lucas had just said. "Are you sure?"

"I'm pretty sure she is, Harry. But she's also in trouble. Someone wants her dead. First the bomb, then the shooter on the dock. It was never me, Harry."

"Then be careful, Lucas," Harry said. "Call me as soon as you find her."

Malcolm managed to spot the truck on the M25 through the traffic cameras just before Alexa exited the highway, allowing Lucas enough time to catch up with her. He followed her all the way back to London, where she parked the truck in a busy shopping area, emerging from the cab wearing an oversized man's work coat.

Lucas followed her for almost half a mile, through retail sections and residential streets, before seeing her disappear in an alley behind the six-story building. If she had wanted to make sure that no one would be able to find her, she was doing a good job of it. For a moment, Lucas thought he had lost her but the blood against the door frame told him that he hadn't.

He took a few steps back to look up at the building she just entered. Though outside it bore a brownstone-like facade, the interior was thoroughly modern. He tried the door that Alexa had just gone through but it was locked. Lucas went around to the front of the building and looked at the directory by the side of the glass doors.

He had to find a way to get in, he thought, as he scanned the names in front of him.

The building housed over twenty five units. Lucas searched for Alexa's name but no George was listed, or anything close to it. He began searching from the top of the directory, trying to see if he'd find something that looked familiar.

"Visiting someone?" A elderly woman with a toy poodle asked him as she searched through her pockets for her key.

Lucas shook his head. "Actually I was just parking the car and I've just locked myself out."

The woman laughed. "Oh, don't worry. Parking is terrible here," she unlocked the door and Lucas held it open for her till she pulled her poodle inside. "Just come on in and don't lock yourself out again," she said as she walked towards the elevators while Lucas meandered in the lobby, pretending to check the mailboxes.

As the elevator doors shut behind her, Lucas walked towards the larger tenant directory just opposite the elevator. He ran through the names, starting from the top. He'd scanned all the way to the last name when his eyes returned to the top again, to a name that looked familiar.

Lucas swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. He stared at the name and the number next to it. It couldn't be, he thought. It was probably just a coincidence. But as he stared at the name next to the unit number 1312, something told Lucas that he'd find Alexa there.

>>><<<

The feel of the water pounding against her skin was heaven. The smell of sea, metal and smoke had surrounded her for the last two hours and Alexa wanted nothing more than to wash all its traces off her skin and hair. She had tried to eat at first but her body rebelled, not yet ready to allow herself to take in any nourishment, no matter how hungry she felt.

It was the adrenaline, she thought. Her body and mind were still primed on running away from danger.

So she showered, allowing the warm water to cleanse her. The memories of the day returned as she stood beneath the water spray and Alexa felt her heart begin to race as the fear returned along with the memories. She saw Mikhael bursting through the door of her Trevor Square flat, the rage that she saw in his eyes chilling her.

Something had set him off, she thought and as she she closed her eyes, leaning her hands against the shower wall, she realized then what it was. He'd seen Lucas leave her flat. Of course he would be in a rage, she thought. Lucas was a traitor.

She'd seen it with her own eyes. The photographs of Lucas and Arkady together just the day before, walking like old friends into the Russian embassy. Some of the photographs had been taken with a long-range lens, as well as a few others from the embassy camera, taken at short range. They had been together, walking and talking.

Even Alexa couldn't believe it. How could she have been so blind? An operative for MI5 openly walking into the Russian embassy next to someone who was Harry Pearce's equal in the FSB wasn't merely saying hello to an old friend. He was reporting to a boss. Arkady.

What reason would Lucas have to be in the same room with Arkady now that he was back in English soil, away from the man who'd made his life hell in Russia? The last thing Alexa would ever want in the world was to be in the same room with Arkady himself, even though Arkady had found ways to let his presence be known to her, to let her know that he knew the game she was playing.

Alexa closed her eyes. Arkady.

She had tried so hard to forget him, even when he dared come into her office a few months earlier, pretending to be a donor. Even when he approached her at the foundation gala, Alexa's pretense had almost crumbled for she knew then that he knew.

Alexa felt herself stiffen at the thought of the older man, with his smiling eyes and friendly smile. Yet beneath the sweet facade lay a deadly man, one enjoyed watching people suffer.

Arkady was a chess player, Mikhael had told her, and Alexa believed him. Nine years ago, when Alexa had first met him shortly after Mikhael abducted her, Arkady had been playing chess at Mikhael's club. He was an ambitious FSB operative, skilled in the politics of espionage and impossibly patient where it counted. And he was quickly moving up the ranks.

He was one of Mikhael's regulars at the club, and after he discovered Alexa, she became one of his favorites, a position she discovered later, wasn't for the the weak hearted. Arkady liked inflicting pain and though he knew that many of the girls used drugs to do their work and deal with the pain he subjected them to, he insisted that Alexa stay sober while she was with him.

He liked seeing pure unadulterated torment in her eyes, not the dull pain usually laced with drugs that most girls exhibited when he played with them. He wanted to see the pain in Nathaniel George's daughter's eyes for himself, allowing himself to gloat over his prize.

"Maybe I should take photographs of you and send them to your father, yes?" He'd say casually as Alexa felt tears falling down her cheeks, her humiliation in Arkady's hands complete. No meeting left her without marks on her body, wounds that Mikhael treated in the privacy of his room, where her dignity felt stripped once more as she allowed the man who had kidnapped her to treat her wounds, allowing him to touch her and comfort her, yet never once allow her escape back to England.  

But Arkady's scars weren't just physical. No tattoo could ever conceal the fear that she lived with for years, the nightmares that visited her each night, leaving her gasping for breath as Arkady's ghost always managed to come and visit her night after night till one day, she simply stopped dreaming altogether.

For four months during Alexa's captivity in Russia, Arkady had tormented her. Then one day, he stopped coming to the club. Mikhael heard that Arkady had been promoted within the ranks of the FSB, and that his new position often required him to leave Moscow for long periods of time. But even that had been no consolation, for whenever he returned, Arkady was always ready for more. One day, Arkady even brought a man named Oleg Darshavin with him.

And after two hours with Darshavin, Alexa learned how prisoners were tortured at Lubyanka prison.

And now Lucas was working with Arkady. And maybe that was why Lucas had sought her out at the hotel bar that night after she saw him along Regent street. Alexa knew it hadn't been some chance meeting. She felt it in the way he had looked around for someone as he entered the bar, his eyes scanning the room till he found her.

Arkady had probably sent Lucas to seek out what she was supposed to have stolen nine years ago, something that was probably still as valuable now as it had been then.

Alexa gritted her teeth. She could not believe how, just less than twenty four hours earlier, she had fancied herself in love with Lucas North.

Suddenly Alexa looked up. Something caught her attention, a sound so faint, she knew then that she was no longer alone. Turning off the water, she moved towards the wall, her hand reaching for something just outside the shower curtain. She slipped the terry bathrobe over her shoulders and moved her hand just outside the curtain.

Alexa had left Mikhael's gun by the sink just outside the shower stall and as her fingers touched the cool metal, she exhaled, relieved. Her fingers curled around the grip of the gun and she stepped out of the shower.

Outside, the rest of the flat was cloaked in darkness and Alexa walked as quietly as she could towards the open door of the bathroom. She listened. From the living room, she could hear the faint ticking of the clock on the wall, and nothing else. For what seemed like an eternity as she waited, she took a deep breath and stepped forward, hoping that she was just being a paranoid, hoping that she was alone.

But she wasn't.

Something struck her outstretched arm and Alexa cursed as the gun clattered to the floor and she lunged for it, just as arms grabbed her from behind, only to slip as she squirmed from his grasp and picked up her gun.

Lucas stepped into the light and Alexa took a step backward, the gun still held in front of her. He looked menacing, with his face half-lit up by the bathroom light. He looked at her, his eyes boring into her.

"Are you really going to shoot me, Alexa?"

Outside, the sudden clap of thunder made her jump, the sound forcing Alexa back to a place where her world turned white from the pain of a bullet grazing her skull, sending her hurtling through an abyss filled with demons like Arkady to torment her as she struggled to make her way back to the living.

He was a traitor, she told herself again and again, as if reciting a mantra inside her head for fear that other thoughts would coax the fear out of her, replacing it with a growing desire for him as he stood in front of her. What is wrong with me?

"Would you really shoot me?" Lucas asked again, his voice rising this time as his own anger began to build.

Alexa pointed the gun to his chest, no longer caring whether Lucas was the father of her son or not. She only saw a traitor before her, a man who worked for the one man she feared the most, the same man who'd stripped her of everything she was nine years earlier.

"Yes," Alexa whispered as she pulled the trigger.

_______________________

AUTHOR'S NOTE:   If you like this chapter, please consider giving it a vote.