14

As always, thanks to the QT writers room and editors, and especially CorruptingPower for the encouragement, feedback and permission to play in his sandbox.

Relevant Cast List:

Team Knight

- Ethan Knight: A junior producer at the North England Broadcast Corporation and member of Project Upstart

- Nia Clarke-Mills: VP of Marketing at Averna Pharma, responsible for the PR of the Gemivax rollout

- Evie Kimura: Civil servant from the Department for Culture Media and Sport, permanently attached to support the NEBC and Project Upstart

- Farah Hassan: Former England Women's cricketer turned media personality, headhunted to be the face of Gemivax for Project Upstart

- Jessica (Jess) McNamara: An online artist and designer hired to help produce graphics and animations

- Alex McNamara: a programmer and coder who was falsely matched with Team Barclay and paired with Ethan following an adverse reaction

Team Barclay

- Rhys Barclay: A former editor of a tabloid paper brought on to Project Upstart despite his dubious personality

- Dr Eleanor (Nell) Armstrong: A public health doctor working as a consultant with the NEBC, now assisting Project Upstart with the Gemivax rollout

Team Kaminski

- Lukas Kaminski: The most senior producer working on Project Upstart

- Laura Cooper: Evie's boss, civil servant attached to the NEBC

Unaffiliated

- Aoife Ryan: the long suffering and increasingly burnt out head broadcast/studio engineer for the NEBC

- Beth Collingwood: an inspector with Yorkshire police's special branch investigating things at Taymont

- Hayley: one of Aoife's assailants, a widowed former vet

- Anas: Aoife's other assailant, Hayley's brother in law, a former pharmacist

***

Chapter 13

27th October 2020

Aoife's eyes might have been tear stained, the brushes of her hands against his too brief, the curl of her smile far too strained - but right then, for Ethan, it was enough.

"You had me scared we'd lost you."

Ethan eased his arm around Aoife in the back seat of Collingwood's car, and let her press back against him. The sheer relief when he'd seen her had been overwhelming and he wasn't ready to let the feeling go, needing even the gentlest of contact to reassure himself that she was definitely there, tangible enough to hold the way he'd been desperate to. But more than that, the touch was for her.

He knew Aoife well enough to know to worry about her when she was quiet, and as she leant her head against him, she'd barely said a word. He couldn't have been more grateful that the worst of the scenarios he'd played out in his head hadn't come to pass, but it was still obvious that whatever had happened to her over the last few days had left her hurting. And even the snark she tried to respond with came out tellingly muted.

"Yeah, well, you're not lucky enough to get rid of me that easily"

"No, I guess I'm not," he chuckled, before, almost without thinking, running a comforting hand through her hair. For an instant, Aoife briefly tensed beneath the unexpected touch, and he cursed himself for the overly intimate gesture, only for her to give a contented little sigh. She had seemed convinced that whatever had happened to her meant she was infected, and he understood that even with the vaccine his protection wasn't bulletproof, but no amount of risk was going to stop him from finally being able to hold her. Continuing with another stroke, he realised how fast his heart was still beating, and wondered if she was close enough to feel it.

The sight of Collingwood approaching the car almost felt cruel. He knew the moment he was getting with Aoife wasn't going to be allowed to last, there were still too many complications to be fixed for that, but the ever-stern look on the officer's face was a harsher reminder of just how easily things might still come apart. She had admittedly allowed him to come along, after realising he wasn't about to accept otherwise, but it was still hard to guess just how much scrutiny she was now going to place Aoife under for the files she'd had access to, or how much she'd bought into Nia's explanations. Collingwood was too hard to read, and the thought of consequences biting them now must have caused him to tense just enough for Aoife to notice, as she shifted to look up at him.

"If they ask where you got the drive from, tell them I gave it to you," he said, softly, leaning in to hide his words behind the closeness between them.

Before Aoife could respond, the driver's door opened, and Collingwood slipped into the seat, watching them for a moment as she did so and leaving Ethan unsure if the look was out of concern or suspicion. In response, Aoife shuffled away from him, her discomfort at the officer's attention understated but obvious, and left his feelings to protest the reaffirmed space between them. Collingwood examined them in the rear view mirror for a pregnant moment and looked as if she was about to speak, leaving Ethan to do his best to get there ahead of her.

"Oh, right," he said, reaching into the pocket of his jacket. "I had to argue with them to let me bring this for you."

He'd known Aoife had two beanies that she'd taken to wearing on rotation rather than stressing about her hair, something that he'd become so used to that it felt odd to see her without one. And while the one she had been wearing when she'd gone missing remained as evidence for now, Special Branch had eventually relented to his requests to take the second from her room. The Scottish girl's expression brightened, briefly, as he handed it to her, and she let out a small laugh, although he could have sworn her eyes moistened slightly as she did so.

"Screw you if you're giving me a hint about how bad my hair looks right now."

Truth be told, the washed out mess of green was looking in as much need of a little care as the rest of her, but Ethan gave a small shake of his head. "No comment. I just know you feel more comfortable if you have one."

He wasn't expecting the gesture to be something that would cause her to falter, but it took Aoife a moment, her teeth grazing her lip, before she reached out and took the hat, sweeping it onto her head. He was surprised how much of a difference something so minor made to her seeming herself, and, even if her thoughts still obviously weighed heavy, the smile she offered him felt much less forced.

"Thanks..."

Ethan waited for her to glance away, but she didn't. Instead her blue eyes fixed on his as something passed across her face that he couldn't quite read. For a second, he thought she was about to start crying again, but instead she leant forward.

Aoife's offered lips only got halfway towards him before the sudden sound of the car's ignition stopped her.

She drew away, fast and self-conscious, the interruption enough to rob her of the moment, with both of them swiftly reminded of the scrutiny from the rear-view mirror. Aoife wasn't one to shrink, but instead he watched her try and play off the almost-moment, searching for something outside the window as she did her best to hide the honesty of her feelings back away. Ethan considered pulling her back towards him anyway, but hesitated long enough over whether she would want that in front of Collingwood, or if he'd misjudged her intent, that it felt far too awkward to try. But after everything, all the searching and worry, he wasn't willing to just let her go either.

Reaching out, he found her hand, and gave it a knowing squeeze.

Aoife gave the smallest of starts at the contact, and said nothing, but after a second, she squeezed back.

They left the rest of the Special Branch officers behind to resolve whatever Aoife had been dealing with at the farmhouse, making the journey back in near silence and an atmosphere that never quite managed to settle between tension and relief. If anything, Aoife seemed to progressively withdraw back into herself the closer they got to Taymont, her looks becoming furtive and her hand remaining tightly wrapped around his as they pulled up the oak lined drive.

Armstrong was there to meet them when they arrived, the blonde doctor considerate, as she took blood work from Aoife, and fitted her with a new respirator and PPE before she was allowed to step out of the car. Only a small portion of the staff at the hall were, to Ethan's knowledge, vaccinated at this point and although Nia seemed to think that was gradually due to change over the next couple of weeks, in the meantime there was only so much of a risk anyone seemed willing to take. Ethan had almost expected her not to be allowed back to Taymont at all. In the early days on site, several trailers had sat apart from the rest of the complex, allowing any new arrivals to quarantine for up to two weeks, but Palisade had scaled these back as 'non-essential' as the staffing numbers had stabilised. Instead they'd insisted that anyone else would be able to isolate off site before arrival and he kept waiting for someone to try and tell him she was being taken away again, whisked off to another hotel or police facility somewhere. He'd mentally prepared how he was going to refuse to let it happen, only to find he didn't have to as the decision had been made to let her lock down in her own room, shepherded there up the fire escape at the rear of the building in heavy duty PPE, with the corridors cleaned down behind her. And while it was the best option they could really have hoped for, even that felt like another unfair indignity to impose on her.

The next surprise came with how little time Collingwood immediately wanted with her. It had been easy for Ethan to picture police procedurals, with little tapes and good-cop bad-cop routines (Collingwood was definitely the bad cop) and imagine that Aoife would be questioned at length. As it was however, Ethan was simply asked to wait outside her room for less than ten minutes, before the policewoman emerged, seemingly content to let Aoife have space and a chance to process what had happened.

Entering after Collingwood had left, Ethan realised that as familiar as Aoife's room had become as a backdrop to their video calls, he'd never actually been inside. The closest he had was stopping by her doorway to drop something off, or to say goodnight after drinking at the bar, but even those were just glimpses that made the current reality feel even more unexpected. In his head, Aoife was exacting, and everything he'd seen of her room before reinforced that. She was the sort of person whose bed was always carefully made and who had ordered actual frames to display the b-movie posters on her wall, who got stressed if she knew something was out of place. But being there in person, and seeing the same scatter of laundry and untended trash that shamelessly decorated his room, he realised just how much she must have been coming apart, just out of shot.

The green haired woman sat on the bed, too spent to look like she cared, and before he could think he was crossing the space to hug her again.

"Ready to talk? Not that we have to if you don't want to."

He still had no idea what had actually happened to her, but if he was worried that she was going to continue to carry it alone he didn't need to be. Aoife's chest gave a short, inward heave, and the words fell out of her.

"They were just scared, Ethan. One of them knew she had the virus and she was terrified of what was going to happen to her baby. She'd lost her husband and -"

Even by Aoife's standards, her speech was a blur, and Ethan had to resist the urge to ask her to slow down no matter how hard her accent became to follow or how many questions he ended up with. It was more important to let her get things out, to let her know he was listening, and he had just enough experience of hearing her when she was worked up to be able to puzzle out most of the details; about Hayley and Anas, Layla and Rizwan. What was harder was seeing how hard she was struggling to make sense of things. None of this was her fault, but the sense of guilt she obviously had was palpable, leaving her fingers wringing at the bedsheets as she spoke. He did his best to reassure her for as long as she wanted to talk, sitting with his arm around her and offering encouragement, although the more she tried to touch on how she felt the more she seemed to falter.

"It was wrong," she said eventually, after a long, definitive pause. "What they had to go through. It was unfair and fucked up and I kept telling myself there had to be a reason for what was happening."

His instinct was to draw her closer, but she pushed away from him so she could look at him as she spoke, as if she needed him to see her face and believe what she was saying.

"And I tried not to say anything. I really fucking tried. But the longer it went on the more confused everything felt. And the harder it became to tell myself it was right to just let Hayley die without telling her. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't."

"Aoife, it's ok."

"But it's not ok, is it," she said, becoming more insistent. "Because I had to keep telling myself whatever it was I didn't understand, whatever it was you had to tell me, it had to be something to make this make sense. That should have been enough to keep me going. I wanted you to be enough. And I couldn't do it."

Ethan suddenly saw how much she'd built up her hopes on him, tall and fragile, leaving him terrified he was about to knock them down. "Aoife, I..."

"You told me there was a vaccine, right? That's why you're here without a mask and no-one's losing their shit about it."

She noticed his equivocation, and the beat of confusion it caused threatened to run into something worse before he rushed to reassure her. "There is. We've got a vaccine"

"Yeah? Then why are we leaving people like Hayley and Anas to be ignorant and scared like that?"

"Because we can't make it without the American's help." Ethan picked his words carefully, but even then he still felt the atmosphere shift with a simple furrow of her brow. "And they don't want things to be public until they're ready. You saw what was on the drive, governments are worried about how much extra damage might happen if people panic."

Aoife was still in his arms, but only barely, inching out of them as she straightened her posture. He knew that she was the last person he should be making an appeal to authority with, but he didn't know how else to frame what he was still only just able to believe or justify himself.

"But you said there was a vaccine. If you can give people that bit of hope..."

"The vaccine's not that simple. We're involved because the government wants us to have the messaging ready for people once the US is ready next month."

"What do you mean it's not that simple. I'm not being dense, am I? You stick a great big needle in someone's arm and they don't get sick anymore, that's what a vaccine is, right?"

"Right. But this one is lethal if it's given to men directly."

Her brow creased further and she gave him a look as if to note that he was sitting there, mask free and seemingly healthy, waiting for him to get to the point even he felt like he was avoiding. Project Upstart had several meetings about just this, draft scripts to explain the absurdity of how Gemivax worked, but all the carefully considered words eluded him in the moment.

"It's based around a serum the American's developed. I don't really understand all the details, something to do with DNA, but it can still be given to women, and that protection can be passed on to a man. Through sex."

There was a nervous laugh from Aoife, followed by a second when she realised he wasn't laughing with her. "Fuck you, that's not funny."

"Aoife."

She stood up from the bed, moving away from him entirely with a step backwards. It was obvious she was hurt, upset already obvious on her face, but he wasn't sure if even she had settled on exactly why yet, and was still waiting for some sort of punchline at her expense.

"Don't be an arsehole. Please Ethan. I can't deal with being messed around with right now."

"I'm not, I wouldn't do that to you. Trust me, I know how insane it sounds."

"Of course it sounds insane. That's not how the world works. You can't expect me to just accept..." Aoife's voice rose as tried to continue protesting, but she must have seen something in his face that made her tail off. It was clear she believed his candour, even if she couldn't quite bring herself to believe what he was saying and for a moment, she seemed to relax and weigh up whether something so incredulous was a reasonable price for a bit of hope. However, her downcast eyes soon wandered back towards him. She studied him, and even with everything she'd been through, was still sharp enough to realise that he wasn't done. "There's more, isn't there?"

"It's going to be easier if I can show you some of..."

"Just

tell me.

"

Trust Aoife to be the one to be smart enough and indignant enough to demand answers. Part of him wished he had someone like Farah there to help him give a bit of context to the rest of the serum's effects. There was a reason she was the face of the project, not him. But he also knew that right now anything other than him simply coming out and telling Aoife straight was just going to agitate her.

More falteringly than he'd have liked, and probably failing at being as reassuring as she needed, he pushed himself to tell her the rest, from women being paired permanently, to the algorithm and the need for multiple partners. And the longer he went on the more he waited for something he said to be the thing that finally caused a reaction, but she simply stood and listened.

When Aoife stayed quiet was when he knew to worry about her.

Instead, as he finished, she simply shut her eyes and balled her fists, taking a moment where it was unclear if she was doing her best to let all of the implications sink in, or if she was fighting to keep them out. "So if you're protected then that means..."

There was something newly wounded to her that hadn't been there before as she failed to finish another thought, and although Ethan nodded back, she wasn't looking.

"This is bullshit."

Aoife's words were mumbled, but still somehow had enough pained intensity behind them to fill the room and leave Ethan wishing she'd just shouted.

"It's a lot to take in, I know. It doesn't get less weird but it does get easier."

"The fuck do you mean it gets easier?" His response had stirred something in her, and although her voice remained low, the words came out agitated and insistent. "Are you mental? If this is real it shouldn't get easy."

"I didn't say easy, just easier."

She fixed him with a disbelieving look. He was doing his best to remain a point of calm for her to try and claw her way back to, but her expression was enough to make him second guess whether that was just making things worse.

"This is some bad dystopian shite. I don't get how you can be ok with this."

"I don't know either. Believe me, it feels like for the last two weeks almost all I've done is make decisions I didn't know how to make."

"That's the fucking point though isn't it," she snapped back, harder than anything she'd said so far. "Why do you get to make those decisions? Even if I wanted to believe that some sex cult miracle cure was the only way that still doesn't make any of this right."

Guilt choked around Ethan as Aoife began to pace, doing her best to keep her anger in check and only barely succeeding by turning away from him.

"I've just watched a woman die terrified of what was going to happen to her. Why? Because someone just decided she wasn't allowed to know what was happening to her? So people could sit here and chat paternalistic shite about the choices they're making for her? How many other people are dying like her and having their right to have any fucking say at all taken away from them? It's

wrong

Ethan."