Us Against The World

Doubts

Looking at the calendar on my desk, I saw the large red circle on tomorrows date – Chloe's twenty week scan. I was going to get to see my baby again and I couldn't wait, I remember seeing the scan of Aeryn at this stage and it looked like she was waving at me. Such a beautiful thing, and seeing her heart beating nearly caused my own heart to stop. Tomorrow though, I would get to see baby Bean again, I looked at the little scan in my wallet more than a dozen times a day every day.

Harry came up behind me, and saw me looking at the pictures in my hands… I carried photos of Chloe, Aeryn and now baby Bean with me everywhere I went. When my day was going bad, I could look at them and remember why I did what I did.

"Look at what you have now Lucas, your whole life has changed for the better and I for one am delighted to see you happy and settled. You're a good man, you may not know it sometimes with the work we have to do, the lies and the deceit to achieve something for the good of all. It's easy to become lost by it all but you have something there to get you through it all. You're not the man I knew all those years ago, mainly down to you, but also down to that wonderful woman you're making your wife.

Hang onto it all, people spend their entire lives looking for the love you two have for one another."

I had expected Harry to come over to tell me about the information Tariq had pulled off a flash drive I'd taken off one of our Iranian counterparts who had decided it was better to play on our side. All I'd known was I had to meet the guy in this greasy spoon down at Camden Market – nice and easy for me, grabbed lunch there – got the flash drive and was back within the hour.

I certainly hadn't expected the impromptu conversation about my personal life from my boss, but then again he adored Chloe – he'd visited her numerous times when she'd been in hospital and had even offered to sort out a nurse for her at home whilst she recovered which Chloe had 'gracefully' declined on the grounds that she'd kill the nurse. I nodded to Harry, waiting for an update which didn't seem to come…

"Harry, did you get anything off that flash drive I got this morning? Still don't understand why I had to be the person who went but there you go – and yes thank you, I know how lucky I am… my life is certainly not what I would have imagined it would be. Mind you, thinking back, I didn't even think I would be alive now. Yet here I am, and judging by the look Beth is sending our way, there is work to be done."

Beth was heading our way her face etched with concern, several pieces of paper in her hands, I got the feeling this was going to be one of those days and more than likely, one of those nights. The last place I wanted to spend my night was here with Beth, D, Harry and whoever else made it through the door, I wanted to be home with Chloe and be there to bath Aeryn – something I had a feeling was not going to be happening. As much as I loved my job, there were times I longed for the standard nine to five ones the vast majority of the population had. Though the reality of working a 'normal' job after all these years would probably drive me to tears of boredom.

"Harry, the information we retrieved from the flash drive? It was blue prints of most of the London Underground as of yet, it's unclear as to what they were planning on doing with these but I'm sure we'll know more by the end of today."

Was it wrong of me to really hope I could get out of here? I was still technically off work to care for Chloe but I was intrigued, if there was a plan to target London and cause serious damage to the city's infrastructure this was the way to do it, thousands of people used the underground for their daily commute and it of course ran under the vast majority of the city.

I knew I had no choice and called Chloe to say I wouldn't be coming home until late, if at all to say she wasn't happy was putting mildly – I knew she wouldn't sleep tonight if I wasn't there. The one and only side effect she really couldn't handle still was the fear she had of being alone, Chloe said she was fine until Aeryn went down at night and then she felt truly afraid. I knew that I would find Sarah asleep in my bed with Chloe when I made it home, it had happened a few times now, I thanked God we had such good, trusted friends. Mind you, what Chloe didn't know was that after the attack I had run a background check on both Sarah and Alex… and she didn't need to know.

Ruth, Beth, Dimitri, Harry, Tariq and I worked late into the night – intelligence from the US had been forthcoming and very useful, it appeared we were dealing with a small terrorist group who were trying sadly, to play with the big boys. There was a good side to all of this from what we could see, these people were careless – to have had the information they had gathered together so easily snatched away for one and then Tariq delivered the icing on the cake. He'd traced back information left with the blue prints and found out where these reprobates of society where currently living.

This is why I found myself standing in a council estate in Hammersmith at three in the bloody morning, waiting for CO19 to give the all clear. I just wanted to go get these people and then hopefully go home to sleep, my arms wrapped around my pregnant fiancée. The door of the flat went through and we were greeted with about four or five men no more than twenty five in age and judging by the smell and smoke in the air, were high as kites. Bloody great, just what we needed high junky idiots playing at being terrorists.

I shook my head in despair at the situation, my thoughts drawn back once again as to why I carried on doing this job – was it really enough for me anymore? Did I really want to carry on doing a job that meant that I was in constant danger but more importantly than that, my family was in danger by me doing what I did? Could I face another Erik in our life, there was always a chance it could happen again…