Disclaimer: BBC, Kudos; they own it all.

Warnings: *Spoilers for 9.8

Summary: It's taken Beth seven years to come to this.

A/N: Thanks everyone, for the reviews and your patience with the extremely slow updates. Last chapter for this thread - and have decided to leave the resolution open-ended as to whether Lucas is eventually released (but I'm personally quite decided on how it ends, at least in my head). :) Enjoy.

She had watched the guards escort him into the room from across a plexiglass pane as she fielded the governor's questions and smiled at his witticisms. Harry Pearce has finally passed the buck, the governor had asked, and she had nodded, and coaxed forth another smile, and had no intentions of telling him otherwise.

Sitting here now, across from a man she hadn't seen in years, she allows herself a brief flash of doubt at the wisdom of her request, and Harry's own acquiescence to letting her visit him (in all honesty, she's not entirely sure why she had wanted to see him in the first place.)

She becomes aware that he is watching her watch him; noticing her notice the changes in amongst his still-recognizability.

"Mr Ruzhnov," she says, flicking a look at the two men by the door, and sees him curl his lip slightly at that. "Joanne Olson. Supreme Court."

"Miss Olson. To what do I owe this pleasure?" The Russian accent is unsurprisingly smooth, the rumbling burr she remembers from long ago still present, only now altered to fit foreign cadences.

"I have come about your appeal," she says.

As his brow furrows, she sees a new scar at his left temple that sliced vertically upwards to disappear into his greying hairline.

"My appeal." His features smoothen out, but she knows he is stalling for time, inquiring.

"I know James normally handles your case," she sees his eyebrow twitch at the use of Harry's middle name, "but in light of my recent promotion, he has assigned me to take over some of his clients from him."

His smile, when he attempts it, looks odd, unused.

"Can't imagine why you would," he says, with that familiar head tilt of his, though she has remind herself that it isn't Lucas – it probably isn't even John, anymore, sitting in front of her.

"Have you come with good news or bad news?" He continues.

"We have been able to move things along," she maneuvers, working through her spiel as she would with any asset. "There have been delays, but we are confident that you'll be cleared of the charges against you. Things just need a little more time."

His head drops at that, shoulders hunching, elongating a line of stress down his neck, and she watches him struggle to regain his equilibrium.

"семь леты." His words are muffled in his chest, but she still catches them, and remembers just in time to feign ignorance of the language. When he looks up again, his eyes are sharp.

"Seven years," he repeats, and his voice drops a wrong inflection through clenched teeth, but it is subtle, and the guards are bored enough to most likely have missed it. Still, his slip has the hair on the back of her neck bristling.

"I know we promised - " she gestures meaninglessly, because she isn't quite sure what exactly had been promised, "but I wanted to notify you. Of our progress."

She leans forward, determined that he catches her emphasis when she tells him: "We are making progress."

He scrubs tiredly at his face. The cuffs clink noisily against the metal top as he drops his hands back down; she thinks he looks ready to fall apart, but he accommodates, with what little he has left, as he'd been doing all these years, and returns his gaze to look at her straight on.

"You know, I thought they had forgotten about me."

That there is hardly a trace of bitterness in his words only increases her discomfort. It had taken her seven years to reconcile herself with his betrayal – of his country, of his people, of them – and where she had in the beginning vacillated between sorrow and revulsion, now, she thinks she is approaching something akin to sympathy.

As if she hadn't made bad choices as Section Chief. And as if she herself hadn't been given a second chance to make things right (everyone deserves a second chance – she has learned that well now.)

"No one's left here," he murmurs as he pulls at the metal around his wrists, "I was wondering why..."

His meaning is all too clear. The last Russian spy had been deported in a swap almost a year ago.

She feels suddenly, inexplicably, angry.

"We're doing our best," she manages, feeling a flush creep up behind her ears. "James sends his apologies as well."

That elicits a genuine smirk of amusement; for that alone, she justifies having made it up.

"Tell him, it'll be a while before I see him in New Zealand."

"You can tell him yourself when you get there."

She gathers her folders, rustling the forged documents within. He watches her intently, and the weight of unasked questions is thick in the air between them.

"I shall see you again?" He folds his hands in front of him, and his knuckles clench white under the skin.

She smiles, and hopes it looks reassuring. "You shall."

He looks almost relieved. "And you will thank your colleagues for me?"

And send them my greetings, and tell them that I'm still here, she almost hears him say, that I'm still alive.

"I will."

She grasps his hand as she bids him farewell. Holds on for what must be suspiciously long, but she needs this to convince herself that he's going to be all right, that in the end, he can still emerge intact from under years of wearing another's skin.

"Pleasure to meet you, Mr Ruzhnov."

He is first to release the grip.

"Till next time, Ms Olson."

Fin.