Challenge: Anywhere but here
Title: Isolated
Fandom: Spooks (MI5)
Rating: PG
Length: 546
Summary: AU after S7E1, Lucas has been sent to be debriefed, and is hating the arrangements.

Lucas North looked around the room he’d been assigned: a simple bed, utilitarian furniture, television.  Everything was clean, white bedding, magnolia walls, pine cupboards.  Even the curtains were a pale brown stripe.  He shuddered.

“Make yourself at home,” they’d said.  “Someone will be along later to talk you through the process for the next week.  Relax!”

But it was too quiet.  After years of living on top of other prisoners, squashed into the spaces no-one else wanted, he missed the constant hum of noise.  Even the last time he’d been put into solitary confinement (he couldn’t remember what the particular misdemeanour had been), the solitary had been in name only; too many prisoners causing too much trouble so three of them had been in solitary together.

He investigated the bathroom – all clean and white again, almost sterile.  He could run a hot bath and luxuriate in being able to spend an hour soaking, rather than two minutes in a freezing shower before being pushed out so others could wash.  But he couldn’t cope with being alone in the water.

They’d told him that Adam was okay.  Somehow he’d survived the blast, although he’d suffered burns and a number of broken bones.  Lucas presumed he’d be taken off to recuperate somewhere.  He almost envied him; anywhere had to be better than this nondescript room in a nondescript building.  With people who believed that eight years of Russian imprisonment could be deleted by a week of processing.

Lucas sat on the floor and pulled the duvet around him, taking pleasure in disrupting the clinical state of the bed in the process.  Then he stood up again and started unpacking the contents of the bag he had brought with him, throwing them around the room in a haphazard way.  Anything to stop them putting him into a neat little box.

There was a knock on the door and he was tempted to ignore it, exerting what little power he had over those who seemed to think they knew what would be best for him.  But he didn’t have the energy to resist.  He opened the door to find Adam, sitting in a wheelchair, smiling at him.

“Can I come in?” Adam asked.

Lucas smiled back and stood to one side to let him, “Of course.”

Adam waved the arm that was in a sling.  “I’m afraid you’ll have to help me.”

Lucas pushed the wheelchair into the middle of the room, avoiding the clothing he had thrown on the floor.

Adam put his good hand on Lucas’ arm.  “I’ve got rooms in one of the older buildings on the site.  They’ve said we can share them, if you’d like.”  He looked around at Lucas’ belongings.  “But I see you’ve already made yourself at home.”

Lucas had started to smile at the suggestion, but with the final sentence his expression changed to one of utter misery and he tried to step away from Adam.

Adam rapidly put his arm around the other man and pulled him close.  “I’m not serious,” he said.  “How quickly can you pack?”

“Two minutes?”

“Excellent!  And then you can push me back there.”  Adam pulled Lucas into a one-armed hug and bent over to kiss the top of his head.  “I’ve missed you so much.”