Ros woke up. Her head hurt, as though she’d been drinking heavily the night before and her abdomen felt heavy. She reached down to touch her waist and ran her fingers across her rounded stomach.

 “Pregnant?!” she whispered. Since when had she been eight months pregnant?! As far as she remembered, she hadn’t even been alive. The room was dark and the bed sheets seemed to offer little protection from the chilly air in the room. Her eyes opened slowly but nothing around her seemed right. It wasn’t her bed, and wasn’t even her room. She tried to move but something was stopping her. A hefty body, pressed up against the back of hers had fixed her into position and it took all her strength to shift enough to turn her head around. With a sigh of relief she discovered Beckett was the one laying beside her. “Nick?” she whispered, “Nick, wake up.” Beckett groaned and muttered a few words under his breath but otherwise made no attempt to wake. “Nick? Nick?!”

 Ros gave him a shove with her elbow and he woke with a grunt.

 “What d’you do that for, stupid bitch?!” he snapped crossly.

 His angry words took her aback for a few moments. Beckett had never spoken to her like that. Never. Not even when they argued.

 “I’m.... I’m sorry,” she whispered. She paused and wondered what else to say. “Uh... Nick? Do you think you could... move..... a little? I’m not comfortable.”
 “And you think your bloody bump is comfortable for me to sleep with every night?” muttered Beckett, “just go to sleep, Henderson.”
 “Henderson?!” whispered Ros. Beckett didn’t make any attempt to reply so Ros stayed silent for as long as she could bare but eventually she had far too many questions to keep inside. “How long have I been pregnant?” she asked.

 Beckett finally turned his head to face her.

 “Feels like seventy-seven years,” he snapped, “but ‘cording to you it’s been eight months.”
 “What do you mean according to me?” whispered Ros.
 “Well if you don’t drop in four weeks time then we’ll know that was a lie and this kid is Channing’s won’t we?”
 “Channing’s?!”
 “I thought it was all a bit suspicious, the way you suddenly came back to me. Then you delivered your little surprise announcement.”
 
 Ros looked at him, dumbfounded.
 
 “But I’d never... you know I’d never....”
 “Always leaving me, you are,” snapped Beckett, “don’t know why I bother taking you back.”
 “Nick!”
 “If this kid turns out to be mine, it’ll be a bloody miracle.”
 “I’d never leave you,” Ros protested, “you know that.”
 “So those three weeks you spent with Channing were purely innocent, were they?”
 “I didn’t spend three weeks with Channing!”
 “Try telling Channing’s bollocks that,” Beckett spat, “from what I hear you caused so much wear and tear he had to spend a week in hospital!”

 Ros could feel herself beginning to tremble. Nothing was making sense. Beckett had moved enough now for her to pull herself upright and take in the surroundings. The room was practically bare, just the bed, a tiny makeshift wardrobe and a dirty brown maternity dress draped over the back of a plastic chair.

 “Beckett, I don’t know what’s going on,” she whispered.
 “Neither do I,” snapped Beckett, “pregnant women should be seen and not heard, though I’d prefer not to do either.”
 “What is wrong with you?” cried Ros, “why are you speaking to me like this?”
 “Why are you latching on to me, more like.”
 “What?!”
 “Any sucker you want would fall for the old ‘pregnant woman’ bit,” Beckett scowled, “but you have to pick me, don’t you?”
 “I love you!”
 “That’s probably what you said to Channing, too.”

 Ros’ blood boiled at Beckett’s rudeness.
 
 “I’ve had about as much of this as I can take,” she snapped, pulling her legs out the bed and lowering them to the floor, “I’m going until you start making more sense.”

 Beckett sat bolt upright.

 “Oh no you don’t.”
 “Don’t what?”
 “Go out.”
 “And why not?”
 “Because,” Beckett began, “you know what happens to pregnant women.”

 Ros looked at him crossly.
 
 “No,” she said, “actually, I don’t. Do tell me, Nick.”
 “They get the Rip-out,” said Beckett.

 Ros had no idea what was going on, but whatever it was she certainly didn’t like it.

 “Beckett, what is the Rip-out?” she whispered.
 “The gangs,” said Beckett, “the street corner mobs.”
 “What do they do?”
 “Wait for women like you to go by,” said Beckett.
 “Then...?”
 “What do you think? Grab you, cut you open and rip the kid out.”

 Suddenly Ros began to feel nauseous. She was on the verge of retching as she gasped in horror.

 “Why?!” she cried.
 “Huh? Something wrong with your memory?”
 “Answer me!”

 Beckett scratched his unshaven chin and looked at her incredulously.

 “Because one woman in a thousand is fertile and everyone wants to keep their tribe going.”

 Ros looked at him with wide eyes.

 “I don’t feel well, Nick,” she whispered.
 “Then for heaven’s sake, get back to bed woman and we can all get some kip,” snapped Beckett.

 Ros shook from head to toe as she slipped back into bed. Perhaps Beckett was right. Perhaps if she went back to sleep she would wake up again and find this was just a bad dream.
 
Maybe.
 

*       *       *       *       *
 

 She woke up again just over an hour later. The room felt even colder and her stomach still bulged with a pregnancy she had no memory of but there was an empty space beside her in the dirty bed and no sign of Beckett now. Nothing made any kind of sense to Ros at all.

 Swinging her legs out the bed she blinked and tried to focus in the darkness. The room was lit by one small, primitive lamp and there were no windows and no other light sources, casting her a dark image of the world. Slowly she pulled her nightdress over her head and reached for the brown maternity dress instead, which drowned her body in unflattering material and echoed the gloominess of her surroundings. She could feel a strong kicking inside her but it all seemed terribly unreal.

 It was with caution that she peered out the room and along a dark corridor. Where was this place? Not Gizmos, that was for sure. Some kind of underground bunker? It was certainly dark enough. There was an expanding puddle on the floor where water dripped through from the ceiling above and Ros narrowly avoided stepping in it with her dirty, worn shoes. To Ros, the corridor seemed to go on for ever when in reality it was just fifty meters or so.

 On reaching the end, she found a multi-purpose room, full of shelves stocked up with all the supplies they’d need to keep them going for a year and stacks of boxes full of rubbish. Beckett sat in the center of the room, greedily eating sludgy porridge as though he hadn’t so much as seen food for the best part of a fortnight. He looked up darkly at Ros as she stepped toward him.

 “Should have known you’d wake at the smell of food,” he mumbled with his mouth full.

 Ros frowned. She hadn’t even smelt food. All she could smell was urine and rotting trash.

 “Nick, I don’t know where I am,” she whispered.
 “Kitchen,” said Beckett.
 “No.... I don’t know where this whole building is.”
 “Welcome to hell,” Beckett said crossly.
 
 Ros laid her hand against her stomach as the rough kicks began to hurt.

 “Hell?” she said weakly, “am I dead?”
 “No, more’s the pity,” snapped Beckett. He loaded his mouth up with more porridge and sprayed her as he spoke, “what’s got into you, anyway? Lost your memory?”

 Ros sank into a chair and felt like weeping.
 “I think I very probably might,” she whispered.

 For the briefest moment, Beckett’s expression seemed to verge on concern.

 “You alright?”
 “No,” whispered Ros, “I don’t know what’s going on.”
 “That’ll be the pregnancy,” Beckett shrugged, “shrinks your brain, doesn’t it?”
 “Not this much, no,” Ros mumbled.

 Beckett frowned and his voice raised an octave in a questioning manor.

 “Do you really not know where you are?” he asked and watched her slowly shake her head. “Underground,” he explained, “home.”
 “This isn’t home,” Ros said sadly.
 “’Course it is.”
 “I live in a big house. In an office.”

 Beckett sniggered.

 “Don’t talk crap,” he said, “buildings are for working in, not living in. Too dangerous.”
 “Dangerous?!”
 “Anyone can get you on the surface,” said Beckett, “’specially with the kid in you.”
 “Everyone lives underground?”
 “Except the gangs.”
 
 Ros looked away. The more she found out about her surroundings, the less sense they made.

 “I don’t think I’m well,” she whispered.
 
 Beckett wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve and pushed his half finished bowl of porridge in front of Ros.

 “Here,” he said, “stuff your face with this. Soon feel better.”

 Ros lifted the spoon and let the porridge drip back into the bowl. She’d never seen anything look so revolting in her life.
 
 “I’m going to be sick,” she whispered.
 “Do it in the porridge,” said Beckett, “you won’t notice any difference.” He stood up and grabbed a ripped coat from the back of his chair. “I’m going to work.”
 “Work?” Ros repeated, “the Bureau?”

 Beckett laughed loudly.
 “You are so thick today, Henderson,” he said, “how can I go to the Bureau when everyone’s dead?!”

 Ros’s stomach lurched.

 “Who’s dead?!” she whispered.
 “Ed,” shrugged Beckett, “Alex.”
 “What happened?!”
 “What do you mean what happened?!”
 “Beckett, I don’t know how they died!”

 Beckett sighed crossly.

 “You’re brain-dead, right?” he said.

 Ros narrowed her eyes at him.

 “Just tell me, Nick,” she whispered, “what happened to them?”

 Beckett rolled his eyes.

 “Alex got killed by a gang in a rip-out. We murdered Ed for turning her into the gang. Surely you can’t forget something like that?!”
 
 Ros was beginning to think Beckett had been right the first time - this was hell.

 “So where is work?” she whispered.
 “The AEC,” shrugged Beckett.
 “The what?”
 “Anti-Establishment Center,” sighed Beckett.
 “Do I work there too?” whispered Ros.

 Beckett spluttered into laughter again.

 “Don’t be thick,” he said, “you can’t even go on the surface.”
 “Where do I work then?”
 “You don’t. You’re pregnant.”
 “Before I was pregnant.”
 “You make a living out of being pregnant.”

 Ros frowned.

 “I beg your pardon?!”
 “Sold our last kid to that bastard Jean Daniel.”
 “Jean Daniel?! How dare you?!”
 “Needed the money. We didn’t have a job.”
 
 Ros wished with all her heart that this was a nightmare, about to end.

 “So what work do you do now?” she whispered, almost wishing he wouldn’t answer.
 “Getting rid of the fascist dictators in power,” said Beckett.
 “What dictators?!”
 “The ones running the country,” sighed Beckett, “the ones controlling everything we see, everything we hear, everything we do.... even when we go to the loo.”

 Ros’ mouth fell open in horror.

 “What are they? Nazis?”
 “Worse,” said Beckett, “they’re BBC schedulers.”

 Ros closed her eyes and gasped in horror.

 “Just what kind of a world is this we’re living in?!” she wept.

 Beckett laid his fingers on the door handle.

 “Darkworld,” he said.
 “Darkworld,” Ros repeated in a whisper.
 
 He opened the door and looked back at her as he left.
 
 “And don’t you dare leave this place,” he said, “I don’t want to come home and find you with a hole in your stomach.”
 

 Those were his parting words as he left the room and Ros laid her head in her hands on the table. This wasn’t her life. This was some dark, dank hole where humanity should never venture. She cried her eyes out as feet shifted inside her and knocked her insides even further out of place. Her existence was an underground tunnel, her precious Nick was an abusive bastard, her friends were dead and the country was run by the most hated group of people in the world.

Where was the life she loved? Her Beckett? The Bureau and the work she loved? Darkworld or otherwise, Ros knew she didn’t belong there and had to get out - what ever it took.
 
 

   Jan sat at her desk in the AEC building, her dyed-black hair slicked back severely and her leather trousers holding her legs so firmly that cellulite wouldn’t stand a chance in ever forming. She could hear a wild storm raging outside but the windows had been blacked out long ago and she had no way of seeing how bad the rain was getting. Her office was as dark as an underground home and had very little furniture, although the head of a BBC scheduler was mounted on the wall in much the same way as a hunter might display a moose.

 ‘Responsible for postponing Bugs,’ the plaque underneath it read.
 

 The door opened and Beckett stepped inside, his coat even tattier and dripping wet. His hair was soaked and droplets or rain dripped from his nose.

 “I’m late, I know,” he said, “sorry, babe. Henderson was giving me trouble.”

 Jan raised her eyebrow.

 “Peed her pants?” she asked.
 “Lost her memory,” said Beckett.

 Jan stood up and walked slowly across to him.

 “That’s what you get for shacking up with a pregnant woman,” she said.
 “I know, I know,” sighed Beckett, “but if the kid is mine - what can I do?!”
 “And if it’s not?”
 “Henderson goes down the garbage shoot where she belongs,” said Beckett.
 
 Jan closed the door and slipped the bolt across.

 “No trouble on the way over?”
 “Not really,” said Beckett, “just a bunch of Due South campaigners trying to get people to sign up. Oh, and the Digital Revolutionaries were chucking stones at aerials but nothing out of the ordinary.”
 “Well, I had those Eldorado junkies on the phone again,” said Jan, “they want to join forces but it’s not going to work so I told them to stick their proposition.” She sat on the edge of the desk and hooked her foot behind his leg. “Come here,” she whispered.

 Beckett stepped closer.

 “Something I can do for you?”

 Jan slipped her foot between his legs and gently rubbed him with her dirty boot.

 “Depends what you’ve got to offer,” she whispered.
 “Give me a chance and I’ll show you.”
 “Oh, I don’t know,” said Jan, “living with a pregnant woman - you might be out of practice.”
 
 Beckett shuddered at the sensations Jan was inflicting on him.

 “You’ll have to let me practice on you, then,” he whispered.

 Jan hooked him closer and grasped his body in her fists.
 “I’ll make a deal,” she whispered, “you get inside these trousers and I’m all yours.”

 Quickly, he gripped the fastening on Jan’s trousers and fumbled it undone. Removing her trousers was like breaking the seal on an air-tight package.

 “So you’re all mine then?” he whispered.

 Jan twitched with excitement as he gave a final tug and took off her boots and trousers, then ripped her knickers from her in one quick movement.

 “Looks that way,” she whispered, pulling his face close, “doesn’t it?”
 
 He pressed his lips eagerly to hers and sucked at them while she locked her legs around his torso.

 “I think I’d like to practice this with you more often,” he murmured.
 

*       *       *       *       *
 

 Ros had been crying for a good twenty minutes when the door opened. She looked up quickly and found a skinny, disheveled young woman there with a dirt-smeared face and matted, blonde hair.

 “Made it!” she grinned.
 
 It took several moments for Ros to register the face.

 “Alex?!” she whispered.
 
Alex hurried across to Ros and threw her arms around her, then planted an excitable kiss on her cheek.

 “I’ve missed you so much!” she cried.
 
 Ros had to admit that seeing a friendly face for the first time since she’d found herself in this terrible place was fantastic.

 “I’ve... missed you, too,” she said, “....from what Beckett said, I thought you were dead.”

Alex froze.

 “What’s he been saying about me?”
 “Well, nothing. I... I must have misunderstood what he said.”
 “He doesn’t know about us, does he?” Alex asked nervously.

 It was Ros’ turn to freeze.

 “'Us’?!”
 “Yeah.”

 If Ros wasn’t feeling disturbed enough to begin with, now she felt a hundred times worse.

 “I.... don’t think so,” she said quietly.

Alex breathed a sigh of relief.

 “Thank goodness,” she whispered, laying her fingers against Ros’s cheek. She smiled tenderly and whispered, “soon we can stop all this pretending. As soon as you have the baby I’ll get you out this violent place and the three of us can be safe.”
 “We can?” Ros whispered, her voice trembling with confusion.
 “If it wasn’t for your safety, I’d get you out tomorrow, but you know what it’s like on the surface for women like you.”
 “Where are we.... going to go?” Ros asked quietly.
 “That doctor says she’s fixed us up with an old underground station,” said Alex, "Huh - some doctor!" She slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out a little container, “still - she came through with the pills though.”
 “What pills?” frowned Ros.
 “Your tranquilizers,” said Alex, pressing the container into Ros’s palm, “to block out the things Beckett says until we get away together.”

 Ros stared at the pills in her hand as she felt the baby shifting inside her again.

 “Are they safe to take?” she whispered, “you know, with the baby?”
 “Ros, who cares? If they get you through the day, that’s all that matters,” Alex told her gently. She cupped Ros’s face in her hands and looked at her seriously. “We’re going to be fine. All three of us.” Before Ros knew what was happening Alex lent forward and kissed her tenderly. It took Ros a good few seconds to react, pulling away in shock and disgust and leaving Alex confused. “Ros, what’s wrong?!”
 “What’s wrong?!” cried Ros, “Alex, I’m not.....”

Alex frowned as Ros seemed to come to a standstill with her words.

 “Not what?”
 “Not.... feeling well,” Ros whispered. It was the best excuse she could think of and the last thing she wanted to do was to put the only friendly face in this dark world offside. What had happened to her in this place?! She licked her lips as her mouth suddenly became dry. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Alex touched her shoulder.

 “Are you OK?” she asked gently.
 “The baby’s giving me a bit of trouble,” whispered Ros, “that’s all.”
 “You’re looking frail,” Alex said, “maybe you should go to bed for a while.”
 “I don’t know,” whispered Ros, “I don’t know what’s happening to me any more.”
 
 Alex looked at her sadly.

 “Being in this place is destroying you, isn’t it?” she whispered.
 Ros nodded slowly.
 “Yes.”

 Alex bit her lip nervously.
 “Has Beckett hit you again?”

 Ros looked at her in horror.

 “No!” she cried.
 “Are you sure?”

 As much as it pained Ros to admit it, she couldn’t be sure of anything any more - not even that.
 “Alex, I don’t know,” she whispered, “I’m not feeling right today. I can’t.... remember things.”

 Alex cupped her face again.

“The sooner you’re out this place, the better,” she whispered. She gently kissed Ros’s forehead then ran her hand across her bump just as another round of kicks hurt Ros from the inside. “I’d better go before I’m discovered here, but I promise I’ll be back soon. I’ll try and see you again before the birth.”

 Ros watched numbly as Alex stood up and blew her a kiss, then left the miserable room. She found herself trembling, chilled to the bone by each new revelation of herself in the dark world. She still had no idea where she was or how she got there in the first place - and worse than that she had no idea how to get out of it.

Just whose life was it anyway?
 
 

 Jan injected herself with pure Howard’s Way, the most fashionable drug of the modern Darkworld, and turned to Beckett who was laying on the desk in post-passion, Jan-induced euphoria.

 “So you weren’t so out of practice after all,” she smiled.
 “I’ve got to say - you were good,” Beckett grinned.

 Jan offered him a tablet of Wizbit Ecstasy and looked around for her clothes.

 “You can help me back into the trousers if you like,” she said.
 “Why d’you have to put them back on yet?” asked Beckett.
 “Why? Once not enough?”
 
 Beckett grabbed her body and pressed himself against it.

 “Jan, sex with Ros is like a snack. You’re a feast in comparison, and I’ve been on a diet for far too long.”
 “Whatever would Henderson say if she caught you talking like this?” smirked Jan.
 
 Beckett sniggered.
 
 “Who’s going to tell her?!”
 

*       *       *       *       *
 

 Ros searched desperately for a toilet in her underground hell as her bladder reached bursting point, but as far as she could tell a foul-smelling hole in the ground was the only toilet they had. She was so desperate that she didn’t even care and relieved herself, then realized she’d become lost in the maze of underground tunnels which were apparently her home.

 “I should have left a trail of bread crumbs,” she mumbled. It wasn’t until she’d mentioned food that she realized how hungry she was. Where was the kitchen?! Surely it wasn’t that hard to navigate her way back to it - she’d only come from it a few minutes before - but her sense of direction was completely screwed to pieces and she found herself going round in circles, getting nowhere.

 By her third lap of honour, she was beginning to feel distressed and her body ached all over. She was sick to death of the smelly, dark corridors, tired of her echoing footsteps being the only sound she could hear and bothered by the movements in her belly.

 “Oh, stop it,” she hissed, rubbing her bump, but if anything the kicking only increased, just to spite her.

 She’d been walking for another ten minutes when she tried a different turning and found herself at the bottom of a precarious-looking lift shaft. At a loss of any other plan, she pressed the button to summon the lift and it began its creaky journey down to her. It seemed to take forever to reach the bottom and even longer for the doors to decide to open and let her in.

 Ros panicked silently that the lift wouldn’t hold her weight and it was with great trepidation that she stepped inside. It seemed a little more sturdy than she’d originally thought. She pressed the ‘up’ button and gripped the side of the lift as the doors closed and it began its ascent. There were no stops on the way - just plenty of soil to pass as she found herself being taken to the surface.

 The lift stopped with a jolt and the doors opened out onto total and utter chaos. Huge television screens lined the pavements, each showing a different programme the BBC would prefer it if you watched. Casualty, Holby City and Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, gardening programmes, cookery shows, fly-on-the-wall documentaries and the biography of Charlie Dimmock. Between the TV screens were manic fans of axed programmes, fighting like factions in a war. Had the public really become so reliant on television that they lived their whole lives by it?!

 She remembered the warnings she’d been given about pregnant women never going to the surface but her curiosity for the truth behind the dark world was too strong to resist and she stepped out the lift into some form of freedom, for what it was worth.

 Her eyes darted around like she was visiting a strange country for the first time. Unfamiliar sounds and sights disorientated her. She wrapped her arms around her waist and hurried through a marching group of Dr. Who fans which were throwing flaming Daleks at the Crime Traveller brigade, all dressed up as either Holly or Slade and chanting their slogans about time travel. This didn’t seem like any kind of reality. This was surely a nightmare.

 The nightmare worsened in an instant as a rough pair of arms grabbed her from behind. She screamed in terror, remembering Beckett’s tales of street gangs, and found herself being spun around. She came face to face with someone in a long, grey coat, his face half masked by a hood.

 “Ros?” he cried.

 As he removed his hood, recognition struck Ros almost instantly.

 “Channing?!” she cried, “what the hell are you doing?!”
 “Ros, I’m sorry,” whispered Channing, “if I’d known it was you.... well, I’d never have grabbed you. Are you OK?”
 
 Ros breathed deeply as she tried to come to terms with the evil world around her.

 “I think so,” she whispered.
 “What are you doing on the streets?” He hissed, “and who’s got you like that?!”
 “Like what?”
 “Gang-bait.”
 “Pardon?”
 “Pregnant.”

 Ros hung her head.

 “I don’t know,” she whispered, “I don’t know what’s going on any more.”
 “Well you mustn’t roam the streets for a start,” said Channing. He put his arm around her shoulders and slowly walked away with her. “Why aren’t you underground?”
 “I couldn’t find my way around,” Ros said tiredly, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Channing.”
 “I thought we all agreed Beckett would look after you."
 “Who all agreed?”
 “Me, him," Channing began, “Roland, Rockridge.”
 “What the hell were you all doing planning my life for me?!” Ros cried.
 “Well when you’d been leading us all on for that long we thought we had the right,” frowned Channing, “don’t you remember?!”
 “No!” cried Ros, “I don’t remember anything!”
 “I think I’d better get you back to Beckett,” sighed Channing, “where is he?”
 “The AEC, wherever that is,” Ros mumbled under her breath.
 “Fine. Well, I’ll take you there then,” said Channing. He slipped his arm around her waist and glanced from one side to the other. “Now, keep your head down and your bulge covered.”

 Ros did as she was told and prayed that she could trust Channing - this version of Channing - to take her where she needed to go.

 “If I wasn’t me,” she began quietly, “.....were you going to do a.... a rip-out?”
 “’Course I was,” said Channing, “that’s my trade, isn’t it?”
 “Is it?”
 
 Channing quickened his pace a little and laughed at her naivety.

 “You’re a sweet girl, Ros,” he said, “don’t know why I let Beckett take responsibility for you.”
 “Neither do I,” mumbled Ros.
 

*       *       *       *       *
 

 Beckett and Jan made love for the second time amongst the dirt and grime on the floor. They didn’t bother using protection - everyone in this world was so diseased already that one more wouldn’t make any difference. To Jan, safe sex was making love with the door locked.

 “Do you love her?” she asked quietly.
 
 Beckett looked at her and frowned.

 “Who?”
 “Ros,” said Jan, “because if you do then you should get dressed and go home. But if not then you should stay here with me.”
 
 Beckett turned and faced her.
 “I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
 
 Jan laughed gently to herself.

 “Why on earth are you sticking with her, Nick?” she asked.
 “I told you already,” said Beckett, “I need a kid to carry my name.”
 “Then why don’t you just do a rip-out and come with me instead?”
 “I couldn’t.”
 “Why not?”
 “I don’t have the guts.”

 Jan looked at him seriously.

 “I could help.”
 “You never would.”
 “I would.”
 “Then do it, but leave me out of it,” said Beckett, “I can’t stand blood.”

 Jan stood up and unbolted the door.

 “Shall I do it now?”
 “Not naked, no,” frowned Beckett.
 “Then would you like me to put my clothes back on?” asked Jan.

 Beckett got to his feet and put his arms around her.

 “Not really,” he said.
 “Then what would you like me to do?”

 Beckett grinned.

 “If you get back on the table, I’ll give you a clue,” he said.
 

*       *       *       *       *
 

 “Here,” Channing said quietly, “this is the place.”

 A far cry from the glorious Bureau Ros was used to working in, the AEC building was old and dirty, just like everything else in this world. Two entire floors had been blown off the top of it and all the windows had been painted over in black.

 “This is it?!” whispered Ros.
 “What were you expecting - gold trimmed walls?”
 “No - just something a little less.... mutilated,” said Ros.

 Channing removed his arm from around her and took a few steps back.

 “You’re on your own now,” he said, “good luck.”
 
 Ros glanced from the building to Channing’s disappearing figure.

 “Thanks,” she whispered. She hung her head and walked quickly to the doorway which seemed to be without any actual doors and peered inside. She found a decimated reception area from a ‘Changing Rooms’ riot some six months previously and a dodgy looking staircase leading up to goodness knows where. She knew she had no choice but to venture up in the hope of finding Beckett - or some answers - and embarked on a long, weary climb.

 
 She had no idea what to look for. As far as she could make out, there was no one around. Each floor seemed to be grimier and smellier than the last and the staircase became more and more creaky. Finally she discovered a tiny sign above the entrance to one of the floors.

 “AEC HQ - Office 6b”

 “Six b,” Ros whispered, leaving the staircase to tiptoe along the corridor.

 Her feet took her to a doorway from which she could hear human noises coming from the other side. She considered knocking but decided to be cautious in case someone nasty lurked behind the door and opened it slowly instead.

 The sight of Beckett gripping Jan’s buttocks and pushing himself inside her greeted her eyes.

 It was in sheer horror that she gasped and turned to flee the filthy love-nest. Beckett looked up at the sound of the opening door in time to see her running away and realized in horror that they’d been sprung.

 “Shit,” he cursed, “Jan, that was Ros.”
 Jan gave a cry of frustration.
 “Oh, Miss Henderson kills your libido!” she complained.

 Beckett pulled out of Jan and as far away as possible.

 “What the hell’s she doing on the surface?” he cried, grabbing his trousers and pulling them on.
 “Getting in the way,” frowned Jan.
 “I’ve got to go after her,” Beckett said quickly.
 “What for?!!”
 “Before someone else gets their hands on her,” Beckett said crossly.

 He gave chase in just his trousers as Ros slipped out the building and round the corner, her eyes streaming with tears.
 

 She ran as fast as her legs would carry her, battling against increasing pain in her abdomen to get as far away from Beckett and his fancy woman as possible. She knew he was giving chase for what it was worth but speaking to him was the last thing she wanted. After all, from what Alex had said he was hardly the gentlest of all creatures. Her weak muscles slowed her down and she could hear footsteps encroaching upon her, so in desperation she slipped into an alleyway and hid unnoticed round a corner until she saw Beckett run straight past her and cautiously emerged from her cover, breathing quickly to replace the oxygen her body screamed for.

 As she backed out of the alley she thought she heard leaves rustling and spun around quickly but there was nothing there. Cursing her nerves, she closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath but before her sense of security could last for very long two pairs of arms grabbed her roughly and this time neither of them were Channing. They dragged her down to the floor, kicking and screaming, and to her horror nobody came to her rescue. No one even batted an eyelid. While one of her attackers held her down, the other reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife and a needle.

 “Hold her still,” he instructed and thrust the needle into her arm.
 “No,” she screamed.

 Mists began to cloud over her vision but she held her eyes open long enough to see a flashing blade being held above her while her dress was brought up over her head. A snatch of pure agony burst through her abdomen and suddenly she felt herself falling.

 Falling back.
 Falling down.
 Falling somewhere.

 She wasn’t sure if her body was falling or whether it was just her mind.

 Or something else.