With grateful thanks to Trish and Jay for the beta. It has been tinkered with since, so all mistakes and errors are mine and mine alone, so please do not steal them! ;)

Ros Myers stood outside the derelict warehouse, located in the arse-end of London, with her arms lifted away from her sides in a show of submissive acceptance. The barrel of a gun was pushed painfully into the back of her head. She could do nothing but watch as her colleague, Lucas North, fought two men only mere metres in front of her.

It was meant to be a simple enough assignment. The warehouse had come up on some chatter related to arms dealing. and the location needed to be checked out. It was so low down on the priority list that it could have been something that the police or junior officers could have dealt with. Ros and Lucas had had the misfortune of being in the area when Harry suggested they "pop in" and check it out. Ros had seen through the ruse easily; it was an attempt by Harry to keep a restless Lucas from prowling the corridors of Thames House like a caged bear. It happened on occasion; too much time stuck in the Grid made Lucas restless, hemmed in, and with a fairly recent hospital stay under his belt, Lucas was very much on edge and needed time out in the fresh air.

Lucas had the advantage of height, weight and training over his two opponents who, by Ros' estimate, were barely out of their teens, but Lucas had been blind-sided by a two by four to the side of his head before he was able to wrestle the makeshift weapon away. The blow had unbalanced him, allowing the other two to finally make use of the fact that they outnumbered him.

Ros stood silently as Lucas lost ground, taking too many blows, too quickly to recover from. She kept her stance loose, giving the impression of a frightened, cowed woman, waiting for the man behind to make the move that would prove his undoing.

She gritted her teeth to keep from yelling out as one of the men hit Lucas hard. The blow was to his right side, just above his hip, the location of a still-healing bullet wound. The hit caused Lucas to stumbled back. Another jab followed the first, and with a cry of pain Lucas fell to his knees. The two men fell on him like hyenas, landing blow after blow as Lucas could nothing but curl up to try and protect himself from serious harm.

Not yet, not now, Ros told herself. The gun was still pressed to her head, she had no room to manoeuvre; she would be dead and no use to Lucas at all if she moved too soon.

The two men hauled Lucas to his feet, each of them brutally twisting an arm behind his back as they shoved him towards an old oil drum, placed under broken guttering long ago and now filled with water. A thin layer of ice covered the top, testament to the plunging temperatures that had finally hit London, marking the end of an endless autumn and the sudden arrival of winter.

Ros struggled to keep her breathing even, her posture relaxed, as with a strangled "no" Lucas was pushed head first into the freezing water, and held there.

The man behind Ros roared with laughter and yelled encouragement at his two companions; he had also just made a fatal error, as the gun moved from the back of Ros' head. She didn't hesitate, and struck with lethal force. As she swung round, she brought her left arm up, pushing the gunman's arm clear of her body and struck hard with her right into the man's exposed solar plexus. It was a blow designed to disable, even kill if she managed to rupture the abdomen wall. He fell to his knees with a choked cry, Ros grabbed his head with both hands and slammed it into her raised right knee, he was unconscious before he hit the ground.

Ros grabbed the gun and spun round, to find the two men holding Lucas had loosened their hold on him as they watched in horror at her swift attack on their friend. It had given Lucas all the leeway he needed.

Lucas reared up from the water drum with a roar of outrage, pulling his arms free from the lax hold. A punch to the head made one of the men stagger back as Lucas rounded on his companion. With quick, precise movements and a ruthlessness that worried Ros, Lucas had the man in a headlock, and with a savage twist broke his neck. Lucas tossed him aside and advanced on the second man. Ros raised the gun as the thug fumbled at his back and pulled out a gun; he didn't even get a chance to raise it before Lucas reached him and repaid him for every punch and kick he had suffered ten-fold.

"Lucas?" Ros called out as the beating continued. "Lucas, that's enough," she commanded softly. As she took a step forward, she kept the gun lowered but held it in two hands ready to bring it to bear if necessary. The Lucas before her was a stranger.

Lucas grabbed at the second gun as he rolled away from the body, smoothly gaining his feet as he pointed the weapon at Ros.

"Stay back," he growled in Russian, to Ros' utter horror.

"Lucas, it's Ros," she took a step forward. Lucas took one backwards.

"Stay back," he ordered again in Russian. "I don't want to hurt you."

Ros could see no recognition in Lucas' eyes.

"Lucas, it's Ros," she repeated. "We're in London," she added for good measure, because she wasn't all that sure where Lucas thought he was. She wasn't naive enough to think that Lucas had not been damaged by eight years in a Russian prison, half of them being relentlessly tortured, even if he did try very hard to show he was well balanced and well adjusted. Ros knew a thing or two about flashbacks herself.

She took another step forward, Lucas stayed where he was.

"Ros?" He said, his voice hesitant. He gave a quick glance around him with a bewildered frown.

She nodded as she moved forward again, reaching out to gently push the gun Lucas held aside. With a choked sob, he let his arm fall to his side and Ros could see the madness drain from him as his shoulders slumped.

"Come on, we'd better make ourselves scarce. We'll let Harry explain this to the police." Ros reached out and took the gun from Lucas' unresisting grip.

"Let's go," Ros urged. They made their way from behind the dilapidated warehouse and across the overgrown forecourt to the car.

A mile down the road she pulled into the carpark of a Tesco superstore. They sat in silence for a moment, the only sound coming from the cooling car engine. From the corner of her eye, Ros saw Lucas lift his hand and cover his mouth. It was a telling habit of his. He only ever did it when his emotions threatened to overwhelm him and he need to get them back under control.

"Talk to me, Lucas," Ros said quietly.

Lucas didn't pretend to misunderstand her. He pushed a trembling hand through his still dripping wet hair as he glanced across at her.

"I... sometimes ..." he started off haltingly. "It's … of all the things they did to me." He gave a huff of self-deprecating laughter. "Sometimes after they had t...tortured me, they would put me in with the general population instead of into solitary, and they would…"He shook his head. "Christ, this is so pathetic." He rubbed a hand across his forehand in agitation. Ros reached across squeezing his right hand that he had clenched in a fist on his thigh.

"I was too weak, too exhausted, I was fair game. They would drag me into the toilets and push my head into the bowl and flush, again and again. I couldn't fight them, I had no strength. They did it every day." Lucas unclenched his fist and clasped Ros' hand instead. She could feel the tremor that ran through him. She could also imagine that Lucas didn't get dunked face first into a freshly scrubbed toilet bowl. The image it conjured up sickened her.

"When I got strong enough to fight them off, I was hauled back to solitary and more…" Lucas left the sentence unfinished.

"Shit," Ros heard him whisper out as he rubbed at his eyes, wiping away the tears that he'd failed to hold back. She pretended not to notice, pulling her phone out from her jacket pocket instead.

"Ros," Harry greeted after the first ring.

"Harry, we ran into some trouble at the location," she said. "Best let the police know, and the paramedics."

"Trouble?"

"Three white males, late teens to early twenties, attacked us."

"Are they alive?"

"Probably not," Roz replied uncaringly. "They were carrying Glock 19s, Harry. They could have something to do with arms dealing, probably gang related. I expect they were already known to the boys in blue."

"I'll brief the commissioner," Harry replied. "Are you and Lucas all right?"

"They did a number on Lucas."

Lucas turned to look at her with a frown. Ros pointed to her face, then to Lucas's, who pulled down the sun visor and peered at himself in the tiny mirror on the back of it and let out a sigh as he got a look at his bruised face.

"How is he?" Harry questioned, his tone tinged with worry.

"He'll be fine," Ros assured. "Put the kettle on, Harry, we'll be back home soon," she added with a smile and discounted the call.

"Wait here," she instructed Lucas, who was gingerly exploring the edge of the cut his run in with the two by four had graced him with. "I'm just popping into the shop."

She was back in less than ten minutes, carrying a plastic shopping bag. She pulled out two hideous lime green hand towels and passed one to Lucas.

"They were on sale," she defended at Lucas' look.

"Thank you," he said. He took the towel, and using the sun visor mirror, dried his face and rubbed at the encrusted blood from beneath his nose. Ros noted that he had taken off his jacket, but his jumper was still soaked down the front and along the shoulders.

"Here," she said, as she unfolded the second towel. "Lean forward."

With his towel held under his nose to stem the fresh bleeding his ministrations had brought on, he leaned toward Ros and lowered his head. Ros firmly, but gently rubbed his hair dry.

"There, done," she announced, smiling as Lucas' hair stuck up at all angles.

"Thanks," he replied as he automatically ran a hand through his significantly drier hair.

"Here, I bought these." She pulled a plain white t-shirt and a grey and black striped jumper from the bag.

Lucas' looked at the jumper with a perplexed expression.

Ros shrugged. "It was in the sale too."

Lucas smiled. Ros leaned forward and took the towel Lucas still held under his nose from him.

"Looks like it's stopped now," she said, as she gently dabbed some of the drying blood away. "Put these on." She handed the t-shirt and jumper over.

With a quick look round to make sure no one was watching, Lucas pulled off his sodden jumper and the shirt he wore underneath it, screwing them both up into a ball and throwing them into the back seat.

"Lucas!" Ros exclaimed, her fingers ghosting over the inflamed pink skin of his healing gunshot wound. Lucas pulled the t-shirt over his head and covered his torso.

"It's just sore," he assured. Roz gave him an unbelieving look. "It's just bruised," he said sincerely, as he pulled on the jumper. Ros nodded.

"Better get back and report," she said, starting the car. "Harry should have made the tea by now," she added with a smile.

"Do you think he'll let us have one of his chocolate digestives to dunk?" Lucas asked, smiling back.

"Very doubtful," she replied, "but I came prepared." She handed the bag that was still on her lap to Lucas.

He pulled out a pack of chocolate hob-nobs. "My favourites," he said with a laugh.

Ros glanced at Lucas as she put the car into gear and pulled away from the parking space, relieved to see the lingering shadows of darkness had disappeared from his eyes, for now, at least.