Author's Note: I still do not own anyone or anything in the Spooks world. They are the property of Kudos and the BBC. This is a multi-chaptered fic set post series 5. I will try to update as regularly and as quickly as possible - but I cannot make any promises.

Debriefing Protocols: Read, enjoy, review.

Spooks

Tabula Rasa

By

Laurie

He never felt so exposed, or so open to the world.

You could see in his face something resembling terror,

but in fact it was love, for which he would die.

-Stephen Dunn

Chapter One: The Lion and the Unicorn

She took the glass from him, her hand brushing against his. 'Thank you.' She was certainly alluring. The sort of woman that men noticed. Nothing flashy, nothing flaunting - but noticeable and unmistakeable. Her skin was honeyed, toned and gleaming. She looked expensive. The dress hugged her body, hinting at the curves of her breasts while revealing nothing, showing off her legs. Blood red nails stark against the black fabric as she pulled the hem primly to cover her knees.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning back, slanted green eyes watching him. She had a taste for the baroque - lush furnishings, thick carpets and heavy furniture.

'Don't you ever get tired of hotel rooms?' Harry asked her.

'I like them. I find the anonymity very liberating. You really can be whoever you want to be. Do what you want to do.' She ran her fingers around the rim of her glass lazily. 'Why don't we get down to business, Harry?'

'By all means.'

'I do normally prefer payment upfront. But seeing as it's you...'

'Sweet of you.' He tried to keep the impatience out of his voice.

She laughed. Husky. 'It would help if you told me exactly what it is you want me to do.'

He hesitated for a moment. 'I want you to find someone, Mia. And no-one can know that you're looking.'

'Obviously. If you wanted the world to know you wouldn't be asking me.'

'There are caveats.'

'Of course. It wouldn't be you if there weren't.'

He gave her a look.

'Whom do you wish me to find?'

'Her name was Ruth Evershed.' He pronounced it carefully. It used to be a name that rolled off his tongue. Carelessly. Such carelessness now was dangerous. And after so long saying it out loud was no longer familiar.

'Was?'

'According to all official records, Ruth Evershed is dead. She isn't. But unless you are very careful, she could be. And you with her.'

Mia had propped herself up on one elbow. 'Have you ever seen Vertigo?'

'What?'

'Vertigo,' she repeated. 'A Hitchcock masterpiece. James Stewart, Kim Novak, 1958. It's all about a man who becomes obsessed with a dead woman. Finds her doppelgänger and makes her over in his lover's image. You might want to take a look.'

'Mia...'

There was a slight smile playing around her lips in response to his long-suffering tone; her face sobered. 'All right. I'll be serious.'

The change was in her eyes more than anywhere else. A hardening. No emotion. He had rarely known anyone as able to control their face as her. And telling Mia the whole miserable story was easy. Her eyes never left his face, even when his own dropped to the floor, and there was never a flicker. It made it a little easier that she should pretend not to see the aching wound now so clearly exposed.

When it was over she said simply, 'She loved you.'

'Unfortunately.'

'I doubt that she sees it like that, Harry.'

'Still haven't lost the knack of getting inside people's heads, I see,' he retorted.

Mia was very still. 'If I had, you wouldn't be here.'

It was the thing he needed from her. The thing that had always made her so good at her job. That had nearly destroyed her.

'You have a file?'

It was convenient to carry so much information so easily - and it always seemed wrong that a life could be reduced to such a small thing. A chip, a few bits of metal and plastic and wire. Mia stood, crossing the room to take the flash drive from him. One moment when both the laughter and the detachment were gone from her face. Her fingers touched his again and she smiled.

She turned, plugging the drive into her laptop, the skin across her back clearly visible above the collar of her dress. He remembered a time when that skin was smooth and unblemished. The smell of burnt flesh, the sounds of her screams were something he would never forget. She was facing him again. 'Stop it.'

'What?'

'Guilt. If it hadn't been for you I probably wouldn't have any skin left on my entire body, Harry.'

A moment.

'What d'you think of the new grafts, anyway?' Mia showed him her back again, smiling over her shoulder.

'They look good. When did you have it done?'

'About eighteen months ago.' Coy, fluttering her eyelashes, her deranged supermodel impression. 'About as good as it will get and for that may I be truly thankful.'

An image flickered on the screen. At this angle her face was drained of colour, the contours ill-defined. But he could still see the clearness of her limpid eyes. Mia examined the picture for some moments and then resumed her place on the edge of the bed.

'Tell me about her.'

This was the part he had dreaded. 'You have the file.'

'Which - while helpful - won't tell me everything I need to know. You can.'

Harry breathed heavily down his nose. The questions that followed were innocuous enough but he still kept his answers brief. What clothes did she wear; what books did she like, music, food; how did she wear her hair... Until,

'I haven't a bloody clue what perfume she wore!'

'Well, what was it like?'

He paused. 'Nice.'

'Oh for God's sake, Harry!'

'I never had occasion to ask,' he said stiffly.

'Okay. What did it smell of? And if you say "perfume", I swear to God..."

Harry shrugged helplessly. Mia crossed to him, held her wrist out. 'Sniff.'

He muttered, obliged and looked up at her.

'Warmer than that? Cooler?'

Warmer, he decided. And lighter. Something that had seemed to come from her instead of being added on. He remembered how he could always catch the scent of it on the air after she had been in his office; how it was stronger when he would lean over her shoulder; how it had still been there, clinging to her hair, behind the scent of rain on the top deck of a bus... Yes, he remembered the scent of her. And the taste of her. And for a moment he knew that this swirl of memory and regret was what the beginning of madness was like.

'I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it was important, Harry.' Mia's voice was gentle and he wished it weren't. Harshness seemed easier to deal with.

'I know.' It took a moment. And the moments took longer lately. 'I know that, Mia.' She had withdrawn from him, across the room. The laptop was closed. 'I should go. And, Mia-'

'Discretion. I know.'

'And speed, if possible.'

'Right.' Mia watched him. 'I'll be in touch.'

She opened the door for him, not quite moving out of his way and Harry remembered something he had meant to tell her earlier. 'It's good to see you again, Mia.'

A smile, from the old days. They had been formidable. 'You too.' She leant against the door-frame, head tilted back, green eyes filled with cynical amusement. 'You know, Harry, it would be a pity to let this room go to waste on just one person.'

'Mia.'

She held up her hands. 'Okay, okay. You can't blame me for trying. It's those broad shoulders, Harry - they put all sorts of ideas into a girl's head.'

He leant closer to her. 'Good night, Mia.'

Her laughter followed him down the hall; he shook his head, smiling.

ooOoo

The hall light had been left on - presumably to make his homecoming a little more welcoming. One of the cats, as was its habit, twined itself through his ankles as he attempted to close the door. Having completed the ritual, it stalked towards the kitchen. The dog took a little more time to placate but eventually calmed down and snuffled along at his feet.

A note - in a particularly screaming shade of pink - pinned to the fridge informed him that food was in the oven. This was courtesy of Livia, the black-eyed daughter of a one-time bomb maker from Naples, who obliged him by looking after the house and the animals in his absence. Harry tried to remember the last time he had actually seen Livia in person. Except for the notes left on assorted surfaces and the fact that the house was cleaned and the kitchen stocked, it would be possible to think that Livia was simply a figment of his imagination. Judging by the fluffy appearance and sour expressions of his housemates, she had obviously also washed them - something above and beyond the call of duty. He clearly wasn't paying her enough. Harry opened the oven and discovered a dish of pasta 'ncasciata big enough to live off for a week. Livia's inability to cook for fewer than six people was probably something that would endear her to any future partner she may acquire.

He didn't bother to take his coat off, nor did he put on any lights as he wandered through the house.

There was another cat sitting at the top of the stairs, tail wrapped neatly around its feet, its clear eyes watching him dispassionately. Harry skirted it; he had come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with his two new occupants was to respect their privacy. They could go their way and he could go his; so far it was a system that had worked. His restless pacing ended in the room that passed for the study. He flicked the desk-light on, unlocked the top drawer, retrieved the envelope.

Heavy, cream-coloured, matching paper inside. No stamp or postmark. Someone had taken care to deliver it by hand very early in the morning.

He had toyed with the idea of tracking her. Making her come back, whatever the consequences for himself. It would be an act of supreme selfishness and he knew it. Ripping her life apart all over again. But there had been the promise he had made to himself, to her, to any deity listening, that one day he would set the record straight. And he had been willing to wait until the time was right, until it was safe.

But then there had been this, the thing that had started it all up again, the thing that had told him that the time he thought he had was rapidly running out.

Spiky writing in dense black ink.

"The evidence was faked. I wonder what else was?

Innocent women don't kill themselves."

TBC