*SPOILERS for 5.01, 5.02, 5.03, 5.05, 7.01, 7.07, 8.01 and 8.03*

Disclaimer: I own no part of Spooks, its characters, or its plots. Not do I make any claims to the title of this fic – it's from the song 'Your Guardian Angel' by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. (Thanks to everyone who helped me pick which title to go for =P)

Summary: Ros/Lucas, set at some point in Series 8 after 8.03. Angsty, hurt/comfort fic.

Breaks Through My Soul

The first time it had been an accident. He wasn't supposed to have seen her like this, of that he was sure. No-one was. But they were on an operation together, posing as a couple, and lying next to her that night he saw for the first time the dreams that twisted her nights into terror.

A light sleeper already, and not helped by the adrenaline of the operation, he awoke at the first jolt of the bed as she thrashed wildly around in torment. It took him a moment to realise that there was no physical assailant, but this didn't reassure him; he knew better than most the power of memories in torturing the mind.

He moved closer to her, breaking the invisible, unconfirmed barrier down the middle of the bed, to catch her flailing arms and bring her under control, before she could do herself – or him – any damage. Whatever – or whoever – it was she was afraid of in this nightmare, it had to be something exceptionally forbidding to force Ros Myers into submission; this was the woman who had walked away from her own funeral, for heaven's sake! The woman who had been tortured by the very group that 'turned' her to being a traitor, the woman who had found herself staring down the barrel of a gun more times that even he had. And to top it all, despite any assurances to the contrary, she was still unofficially a wanted woman by the Americans for her part in Yalta's operations.

Despite his firm grip on her hand, still her struggles did not subside, and he had to twist around so he could press his own weight against her in order to restrain her against her deceptive strength, pinioning her legs with his knee and holding her arms at his sides, shaking her gently as he leaned over her in the attempt to rouse her from her nightmare.

Her eyes snapped open and darted around the room wildly, chest heaving as she drew heavy, stilted breaths, until she finally sought the anchor of his gaze. She could feel his warm breath on her skin, her unusually errant hair tickling her bare shoulder slightly as he exhaled.

He felt her hand move under his so she could brush the lock aside, and he made as if to sit back on his heels to free her. Almost immediately, he felt her hand on his shoulder, keeping him where he was. She held his gaze, and her hand slid round to the nape of his neck, drawing him back towards her, and further still.

As she pulled herself up to meet his lips, he understood.

It was not fear that lurked in the tears at the edges of her eyes.

It was guilt.

They never spoke of it at work – there they had a job to do, and what did their own lives matter when there were millions of others at stake? – but once they left for the anonymity of the outside world, things changed.

It became a routine. No matter how they tried to convince themselves otherwise, no matter how hard she resisted the pull, it became an unspoken fact that each night she would find herself at his door. He would open it, and she would fall against him. The door would be kicked shut as they tore into each other in fury, mouths clashing and hands clawing in a duel to forget anything but the here and now. They stumbled backwards through the flat, shedding clothes without a thought, and tumbled onto the bed without letting go of each other.

Behind eyes, the fires burned fierce and strong, igniting the emotion that was kept smothered. For a short while, they could let themselves feel pain. Weakness. And in a few hours the façade would be back and the nightmares buried again.

They both knew respite was only temporary. The nightmares would return, and the cycle would begin once more.

It didn't take long for Lucas to find out the source of Ros' anguish. When she was at the pinnacle of the dreams he would catch murmurs from her. They were mostly incoherent, but sometimes they came with a saddening clarity.

"Jo."

One whisper was all he needed to comprehend the damaged figure in front of him. He had seen the tapes of what had happened – they all had – but he couldn't bear to watch the scene's climax. Even thinking about it, he closed his eyes to avoid the terrible image, the sound of the gunshot that rang out almost too much to bear. Until now he could only have imagined what Ros must have felt like.

He thought she might have taken solace from Jo's inclination of her head, in acceptance of what they both knew Ros had to do. But here was the evidence that she took no such comfort from the gesture, lying beaten and broken next to him in the wake of her dreams.

He stroked her hair soothingly.

The revelations came hard and fast after that. Jo, Zaf, Colin, Ruth, George, her own father – any person whose death or destruction she had played a part in, the guilt haunted her every night until she surrendered to it, engulfed by nightmares of the faces she had destroyed.

It was one face that tormented her most of all.

"Adam."

Lucas had met him only briefly, but he understood that there had been something between Ros and her predecessor as Section Chief. He had been the one to tell her the news of Adam's death, after all, a death which she felt wholly responsible for. She didn't listen to his assertions that if was not her fault; she knew that the ten seconds her selfish words, her need to see him, to speak to him after all this time, had cost him his life. She had killed him as much as the bomb that sent him up into the sky had.

That had been the first glimpse Lucas had had past the icy exterior and the cold, ruthless, emotionless barriers she constructed.

Now that glimpse had become a gaping hole in her defences, exposing her darkest depths to him.

It wasn't that she needed him as such – neither of them would ever admit to it being that. It was a distraction technique, and he was convenient. Perhaps he might have felt used, but he was just as much to blame as she was, and the guilt he felt every time he let himself give in to her, every time he let her kiss him, and let himself forget his concerns as he tried to soothe hers, all put paid to that thought immediately.

She would turn away from him immediately afterwards, on her side to face the wall, her back to him, so that he wouldn't see her cry. But she gave herself away to him too easily.

In the slivers of moonlight that seeped in through the blinds of the un-curtained windows, he could see her tremble as she fought to regain control over herself. As she edged closer, whispering her name in questioning reassurance, he would catch a glimpse of the dampness on the pillow, the glistening or the trail that ran down her face. He kissed the salty moisture once at its source in the corner of her eye, and then kissed her again, this time on the smooth silver illuminated flesh of her neck, arm draped over her waist as he spooned up behind her.

She didn't move and inch at his touch now, but stared straight ahead unblinkingly at the wall, still as a statue.

She would be gone before he woke up again. And the next time he saw her, the night before had never happened.

"I don't do emotional incontinence."

He barely noticed the first time she responded to his embrace after they collapsed against each other, hearts pounding. He was just at the point of drifting off, at the stage where any thoughts became an unintelligible tangle of ropes, impossible to discern where one began and another ended, when he thought he felt the feather-soft touch of her hand on his. He was asleep before the thought could fully register, and when he woke up, as ever, she had fled.

The next time was more lucid, but he still didn't trust himself to believe he hadn't imagined it. It wasn't until he was awake enough to check with his eyes that his mind wasn't deceiving him that he didn't dismiss the thought.

She was still curled up into her customary protective ball, but her hands weren't clenched into fists at her chest. Instead, one palm was tucked under her head, a supplementary pillow, while the other lay on top of his, her arm resting on his as it encircled her waist. When he was sure she was asleep, her quiet, steady breathing faintly perceptible, he turned his hand in hers so he could catch the long, slender fingers, and stroked the back of her hand gently with his thumb, and they slept with their hands entwined, the first time of many.

If anyone had any reason to notice the shift between the two of them, nothing was said. And why should it be? God knows it was hard to find any comfort in what they did, so if their consolation happened to lie with each other, why should anyone contest it?

There were no external displays of affection, no public declaration, but if you looked close enough, you might just be able to make out the edges of something. The dark circles under her eyes were fading now, lack of sleep becoming increasingly less of a problem for Ros, and the few and rare errant strands of hair that hadn't quite made it into the usually immaculate arrangement were firmly back in place. The steady streams of flowers that found their way anonymously onto the graves of fallen companions had resumed – poppies, honeysuckle and rosemary for Adam, lilacs and daisies for Jo – and the unofficial Section D Christmas photo from four years ago had found its way back into her desk drawer.

Lucas had changed too. Although his own memories still lingered, they no longer found their way to the front of his mind, and he was released from the regular, yet thus-so-far futile, service counselling he had been forced into.

As a pair they were formidable, the envy of the other Sections in their efficiency and ruthless success. They still had their regular spats and differences of opinion, but they were the better for it. They still each had their own private turmoil, but it didn't control them anymore, and compartmentalising was an art form they were starting to re-master. Neither of them was as impervious as they appeared to be outwardly though, but slowly they were getting there.

They were two damaged souls, but perhaps together they were beginning to pick up the pieces.

Please let me know what you think.

xxx

Nia

P.S I gave in on the formatting front. This site does not seem to like underlining words...