(06-10-2010 07:39 PM)penfold Wrote:  Endgame
By Handymelon.

Death was coming, and it was almost a relief.

He’d been living a half-life since his resignation – walks, listening to music, cooking elaborate meals which he ate alone. After the dizzying rush of living as a double agent at the heart of politics had come isolation and the tedium of domesticity. He’d felt like he was suffocating.

When he’d opened the door to Harry Pearce and his bottle of malt he had known this was an ending. “We’ll clear your name,” Harry had told him on the day he left office. Was his cover deep enough? He’d hoped so, but he hadn’t been sure. The next few minutes would reveal all, one way or the other.

“How are you, Harry? I mean, really?” And he had meant it. At another time, in another place, they would have been friends.

“I’ll be all the better for this.” There was never any reading Harry’s face. Too many years of subterfuge, too many layers driven deep.

He had raised his glass in a toast: “To Ros.” And when even that provoked no reaction the tiniest maggot of doubt had begun to squirm in his mind.

As they sat to sip the whisky the flickering firelight had warmed the side of his face and cast shadows in the corners of the room. “I wanted to ask – was there anything I could do for Ros? Some recognition I could procure for all the work she did?” Anything I could do to make amends, he meant, but didn’t say. “Well, come on, man – make yourself at home. You’ve still got your gloves on…” So there won’t be any fingerprints… and then he knew. Slowly, he lowered the glass. Not deep enough, then. It was over.

Harry had sat watching him drink. He set the glass down with infinite care. His pulse was racing; his hand shook infinitesimally as adrenaline roared through him. And he welcomed it. “Don’t suppose it’s any good me calling for help, making myself sick, anything like that.”

A black-gloved hand covering his eyes, looking like the carved angel on a Victorian tombstone, Harry shook his head.

He leaned forward. “How did you find out?”

“Ruth.”

“That dogged, brilliant bitch.” The only one he hadn’t been able to charm. “Will it hurt, Harry?” It shouldn’t matter, but it did. He would like to keep his dignity, not be reduced to some gibbering caricature of himself.

“Not for long.”

“My family?”

“It’ll look like a heart attack. There’ll be no disgrace.”

Clean, elegant, clinical. He should have expected nothing else from Harry. “Thank you.” And again, he had meant it. Harry played by the rules, and whatever else lay between them they had learned to respect one another. He was glad he’d kept some of that respect. “I’m truly sorry about Ros.” More than even you could ever know. “Even if the plan had worked, I would have regretted her sacrifice. And…” …and to have her wasted in that stupid, futile fashion made him want to crack open the walls of the house and howl like a dog at the uncaring skies.

He had drawn a breath. “You know, I always liked you, Harry. I envied you, actually.” Harry had stared at him through the fingers of the glove and he’d almost laughed. That made you look at me. “Your sure moral sense,” he’d elaborated. “The thing is, though… that kind of certainty limits a man. Keeps him small.” (Why was he explaining himself? Why did he need Harry to understand, even now?) “That’s why you’ll never have what I had with Nightingale. The chance, even for just one moment, to change everything.” That feeling of absolute control, of ultimate power… “You’ll never know what that’s like.”

And now, death was coming. Dust in his nostrils. Burning on his lips. On his knees before Harry Pearce… what a way to go… groping blindly forward, feeling something hard and unyielding under his fingers, feeling it slip away, feeling eternity slide sideways.

Ros, I’m so sorry…

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'Fessing up here - the above fanfic "Endgame" is by Handymelon and can also be found on http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6376336/1/Endgame.

It's not my work [oh how I wish it was] but she's not a member on here and I thought it was far too good not to share with you guys.