Disclaimer: BBC, Kudos; they own it all.

Warnings: *Spoilers? for S7, S8

Summary: "Someone once said, when two people are in love, they create a third being." Set pre-S7. A strange little prison fic.

A/N: For 2010's summer ficathon, for the poem prompt "Unaccompanied" by Gillian Sze. Cross-posted to LJ, but here trying for some more fic consolidating.

"She is an offprint of me,

separate yet close enough to cry for,

with the same face,

a shared expectation

we shadow on ourselves."

(Unaccompanied, Gillian Sze)

The first time he sees her, he doesn't see her. Not really. Not with the blood crusting along his lashes and the throbbing ache that swells behind his eyes.

The cell is starkly lit, bone-white and piercing, and it hurts almost too much to try to stay awake. The chair is stiff and unyielding as he dips his head down onto his chest, chasing sleep with his arms wrenched behind him.

They'll be back, a voice whispers. They've only just started.

There is movement in the air around him, and his body jerks with a half-hearted effort as he starts awake.

The figure stands silent in the space between his chair and the door.

He closes his eyes as the light overwhelms him. She's not there when he opens them again.

Seventeen days, his guard tells him, his tone almost admiring before he walks away.

He curls further into the corner and concentrates on living.

Breathe.

He remembers the word from when they tipped him onto his side, thumping his back as he chokes up water through his nose and mouth.

Breathe.

His body screamed at him, but he couldn't, they wouldn't let him, and there were only so many times one could bring a man back into life.

The air stutters out of him and he pants sharply, remembering the stifling wet of the cloth wrapped around his face, the band strapped across his chest, the ash in the smoke and the cold on his skin, and that voice, sinuous and persistent, asking over and over -

A small arm curls around his chest.

Lucas, breathe.

The pressure on his back, familiar in its curves and angles. The tickle of breath on his shoulder. The voice in his ear, Russian cadences heavy and warm.

He takes a deep breath and his body calms.

The arm tightens around him, and he feels her smile against the nape of his neck.

He doesn't open his eyes.

The buzz in his head dies away when the shaver is turned off, but the pain lingers, hot and deep.

Congratulations. The man smiles with his gums. Your first year.

The skin pulls uncomfortably as he twists the handheld mirror to get a better look. The mark is ugly, its contents uglier, but he welcomes what is needed to buy him cover and their special form of acceptance.

Back in his cell, the men are silent but approving, and Ivan taps him on the wrist before pulling up his own sleeve to reveal an inking of a band and chain. Now, you are one of us.

The words are wrong, somehow.

He feels her watching him, as he lies awake that night, her small form shrouded in the dark of the cell. He catches her gaze, and searches the shadowed face for a response.

Tell me what to do.

But she is silent tonight.

He eventually falls asleep to the feel of light fingers tracing the raw outline of the onion dome.

She is not there when Darshavin takes him, hard and brutal as he screams into the floor, and she is not there when he secures the strap of cloth around his neck and rocks the chair under his feet with frightened determination.

He is glad. She should not have to witness any of this.

He feels her by him, in the weight and warmth of her hip pressed against his. Her thumb skims lightly at the bruised skin around his right eye, and he breathes out a sigh.

Vyeta.

I'm here.

No. His mouth twists. No, you're not. You never were.

She shushes him, brushing away the tears, and gently kisses the corner of his mouth.

Sleep. I'm here.

I'm giving you a chance to go home, Lucas, Arkady had said. Back home, to England. To your wife.

He looks down at his hands, noting the black dots on the inside of his left wrist. The symbol, stark against pale skin, a reminder: I will never forget prison.

Eight years.

She catches his hand as he scratches at the dots, digging deep to gouge out the ink. He clenches a fist around hers.

You'll be home. That's all that matters.

But he knows she won't be, home, his Vyeta, the real Vyeta. She would have moved on, he is sure of it, and she will not have him back. Eight years was too much to ask, and there were too many secrets between them. Too many lies.

Kachimov arrives with two guards who loosely shackle his wrists and ankles – just a precautionary measure, Lucas, everything's fine.

He glances behind him. Sees her seated still on the edge of his bunk, a gentle smile playing on her lips. She nods a wordless encouragement. Go home.

The black cloth is pulled over his head, and he lets them lead him out.

-Fin-