There weren't many places where Georgie felt completely safe, but her home was one of them. Since moving in she'd gone to extra effort to make the flat feel as cosy as she could. As soon as Nellie could talk she'd given her complete creative control of her bedroom, which ended up painted green with pictures of all her favourite characters pinned to the walls. The living room was cosy too, they rarely ever put the big lights on, using the warm lamps scattered around the room as they curled up under blankets on the green velvet sofa.

She was relieved when she heard Alex letting himself into the flat about an hour ago, hoping that if Nellie were to ask any awkward questions about the man they bumped into in London that Alex would be on hand to help answer them. He took one look at his sister and knew that something wasn't right, he insisted that she tell him, until she finally did, doing her very best to suppress any tears as Nellie had been sitting on the carpet with Alex's childhood train set.

Alex decided to take action to comfort his sister, ordering a Chinese takeaway and putting her favourite film from when they were younger on the TV. She'd done her best to pay attention, but she found herself becoming easily distracted by her phone, punishing herself as she scrolled through photos of River that she'd never been brave enough to delete, scrolling until she hit the photos from Nellie's pregnancy, a lump forming in her throat as she noticed River's absence.

She wasn't sure if it was guilt that she felt, but the way she saw it she had robbed them of knowing each other. River would adore Nellie, there was no doubt about it, and Nellie would idolise him and have him wrapped around her little finger with ease. As she watched Nellie cuddled up beside Alex, she wondered if that would've been River in his place had she just told him the truth about Nellie, maybe he would've stayed, if not for Georgie, then for Nellie.

Georgie's phone began to buzz, snapping her out of her haze of regret, she glanced down to see Lamb's contact on the screen.

"I'll be back in a minute," Georgie whispered to Alex before tiptoeing out of the living room and into her bedroom before answering the phone, "Hello?"

"Knightly, when did you last speak to Cartwright?" Lamb asked over the phone.

"A few hours ago," Georgie sighed as she sat on the edge of her bed, "He knows...about Nellie."

"Yeah, I got that," Lamb exhaled, "He went awol from the office about two hours ago, he's probably doing something stupid, I'm pretty sure Sid's tailing him."

"So why are you calling me?" Georgie asked.

"Why do you think?" Lamb scoffed.

"You want me to find him and talk to him," Georgie sighed, unsure whether that would end in anything except disaster.

"Top marks to you, Knightly," Lamb chuckled under his breath, "Call Sid, see what she can tell you."

Before Georgie could say anything else the line went dead, suggesting that Lamb had ended the call. She decided to take his advice, calling Sid and hoping she might be able to shed some light on River's whereabouts. If Georgie was honest, it did worry her, and it riddled her with guilt to think that he might do something stupid as a consequence of her keeping Nellie from him.

"Georgie?" Sid's hushed voice promptly answered the phone.

"Sid, I've fucked up," Georgie replied, her voice wobbling slightly.

"What's the matter?" Sid asked.

"River knows about Nellie, and I don't know where he is," Georgie rambled, "Lamb called me and said he left Slough House about two hours ago, and apparently you left soon after, so I wanted to find out if maybe you'd seen-"

"I've been tailing him," Sid admitted, "He told me he knows about Nellie and then he said he was going to do something that could get him kicked out for good."

"So where is he now?" Georgie asked, tapping her foot against the floorboards.

"He tailed Hobden home, he's parked out in his car," Sid told her, "I've got a feeling he might do something stupid."

"What can we do?" Georgie asked.

"I think it'll be a case of what can you do," Sid told her, "You've always been the one he responds best to, you could always talk him down when we were younger."

"Yeah, when we were twenty and I hadn't kept his daughter from him for six years," Georgie sighed, "Surely it's best to let him cool off before he sees me again."

"Or you could make the most of being away from the office to talk about everything you've both been avoiding for six years," Sid suggested, appealing to Georgie's better nature, "It can't hurt anymore than what you've already been through."

"You're sure about that?"

"We've not got much else, have we?" Sid sighed.

"Okay, send me your location, I'll get there as soon as I can," Georgie replied before ending the call.

She shoved her phone into the pocket of her jeans, scraping her hair back into a loose bun, her fringe falling loose and framing her face. She grabbed her khaki green bomber jacket from the hook on the back of the bedroom door and made her way back into the living room, retrieving her chunky black boots from the shoe rack on her way.

"Where are you off to?" Alex asked, Nellie curled up into his side as her eyes remained on the TV.

"Something's happened," Georgie answered as she sat on the sofa, slipping her shoes on and lacing them up, "I'm going to talk to River about everything before he does something insanely stupid."

"More or less stupid than Stansted?" Alex remarked.

"That depends whether I get there in time," Georgie answered as she slipped her jacket on, "Do you mind putting Nells to bed and staying here until I'm back?"

"Of course not," Alex sighed, "Just be careful, alright?"

"I'm always careful," Georgie quipped as she made her way around the back of the sofa and kissed the top of Nellie's head, "Be good for your Uncle Alex, okay?"

"When will you be back, Mummy?" Nellie asked.

"Soon, poppet, soon."

"Where is he?" Georgie asked as she approached Sid, who was seated at a bus stop on the road that was adjacent to Hobden's, protecting herself from the torrential rain.

"In his car down there," Sid replied as she handed her two coffee cups, "I got you a mocha and him a flat white, thought it might help you soften the blow, and he didn't have any in the cafe."

"I get the feeling it'll take more than a watered down coffee to soften that blow," Georgie sighed nervously, "I kept his daughter from him."

"He also abandoned you on your wedding day," Sid reminded her, "You've both done things you're not proud of, but you're also both adults with the capacity to talk it through and put it behind you."

"If you say so," Georgie hummed, "I should probably just get this over and done with, right?"

"You'll be fine," Sid nodded with a smile, which dropped as her phone buzzed, pulling it out of her pocket, the contact displayed as 'Aunt Zadie.'

"You don't have an aunt called Zadie," Georgie frowned at the phone screen.

"I know," Sid sighed as she returned her phone to her pocket, "I put that in so if anyone got into my phone they wouldn't know who I'd been talking to."

"Who are you talking to, The Park?" Georgie joked, watching how Sid kept her gaze on the pavement below her feet, "Fuck, it is The Park."

The phone rang again and this time Sid did answer it, "Hello? I can't talk at the moment...no, I'm watching him right now...I will, but I have to go...okay."

"So who is it then?" Georgie asked as Sid returned the phone to her pocket, "Someone who knows you're watching Robert Hobden?"

"That's not what I said," Sid sighed regretfully, because she hated lying to Georgie.

"Yeah, you said 'I'm watching him now,'" Georgie reminded her.

"There's a reason I didn't tell you I'm in Slough House," Sid replied, "I didn't just follow River here today, that was Taverner, and I wasn't telling her I was watching Hobden, I was telling her I was watching River."

"Are you being serious?" Georgie muttered in disbelief, "You're watching him for Taverner?"

"Look, I don't know why, just that it's the reason I've been sent to Slough House," Sid sighed, "And if you want to tell him, I won't stop you."

"I've already kept enough from him, Sid," Georgie replied, "I'm not sure I can keep this from him too."

Georgie made her way down the street until she spotted River's silver car, she could've turned around and walked straight home, but she needed to face him eventually, she had to be honest with him and herself. They were working together again which meant there was no room for either of them to bury their heads in the sand.

She reached River's car, knocking on the passenger door window, watching as he turned to face her and frowned before opening the car door. She quickly climbed into the passenger seat before she could change her mind, handing River his coffee before closing the door and shutting out the rain.

"What the hell are you doing here?" River asked, maintaining his frown.

"I could ask you the same thing...thought you might want a coffee," Georgie told him, handing him the coffee cup, "Sid said you didn't have any in the cafe."

"Sid's been following me?" River retorted with a frown.

"I'd hope not if I were you," Georgie sighed, Sid's revelation weighing on her mind, "Because that'd mean she tracked you all the way across London without you noticing."

"Jesus Christ," River exhaled in disbelief, "So why are you in my car and not her?"

"She called me because she thought you might do something stupid," Georgie replied, tapping her fingers against the lid of her coffee cup, "Because of what I told you...or rather, what I didn't tell you."

"Georgie, it's quite clear you don't want to tell me," River muttered as he kept his eyes on Hobden's house, "So we don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

"I think we do have to talk about it, River," Georgie sighed as she tentatively placed her hand on top of his, his hand flinching at the unexpected yet familiar contact, "I owe you an explanation."

"I'm not sure you owe me anything," River replied, because he was quite sure that the six years of emotional pain he'd caused her outweighed the sudden ache she'd inflicted on his heart.

"River, just stop the self pity thing and let me explain," Georgie told him firmly, which seemed to get his attention as he turned to face her, "I know that keeping Nellie from you was selfish, and when the hurt was still fresh there was a small part of me that saw it as a way of punishing you, knowing that I got to love her while you were none the wiser."

"But then she started asking questions, asking why she was the only child in her class who didn't have a dad," Georgie continued, "And there was a moment where I considered telling her that her dad was some great hero who'd died in a tragic accident, but I couldn't."

"Probably would've been easier for you, why didn't you just do that?" River asked.

"Because I always hoped you'd come back," Georgie whispered honestly.

"So what did you tell her?" River replied.

"That her dad had to go away for work, that he loves her very much but his work is too important not to do," Georgie explained, "Which I suppose is close enough to the truth."

"What made you want to keep her?" River asked without much hesitation, "Sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"Because she was a little part of you," Georgie answered honestly, "And as selfish as it sounds, if I couldn't have you completely, having just a little bit of you in my life was worth keeping."

"I would've come back to you if you'd told me, Georgie," River whispered, turning to face her.

"Exactly," Georgie replied, "You would've come back because you felt like you had to."

"I would've wanted to, Georgie," River insisted, and he meant it, his reasons for leaving would've been far outweighed by his reasons to stay if he'd known he was going to be a father, he would've fought for Georgie and that baby regardless of the consequences.

"River," Georgie stopped him bluntly, "You had your reasons to leave."

"And you could've given me another reason to stay," River muttered.

"The last thing I wanted to do was to beg for you to stay, not to mention using our child to help you make your mind up."

"I'm sorry," River replied, "For all of it."

"I'm sorry, for not letting you know our daughter," Georgie sighed with a heavy heart.

"Do you think maybe I could get to know her?" River asked, and he knew there was every chance that Georgie might say no, that she'd shut down his request and ask to keep things as professional as possible, but there was just the tiniest speck of hope that enough of the Georgie who remembered his heart and his gentleness remained.

"You could come with me tomorrow to pick her up after school," Georgie decided to offer him a lifeline, it was a huge lifeline, but she supposed it was her way of making up for keeping the pair apart, "But you can't tell her who you really are, she's just a kid and it'll mess with her head."

"Okay," River nodded with the slightest of smiles because it was progress, and a chance to get to know his daughter.

"In the meantime," Georgie sighed, pulling her wallet from her pocket before taking out one of the two small photos she had slotted in the clear plastic window, "You can have this."

River looked down at the photo in his hand, it was Nellie when she must've been about two, grinning at the camera as she sat on a sandy beach with tufts of hair similar in colour to his own that had evidently darkened as she'd got older.

"Thank you," River smiled as he secured the photo in his own wallet, "That means a lot."

"You don't have to thank me," Georgie muttered with her gaze fixed on Hobden's house.

"I do," River nodded, keeping his eyes on Georgie.

"I thought you were meant to be good at this stuff, the tailing people thing, or is that story about you tailing Taverner just a myth?" Georgie replied, fearing how close to a sincere conversation they were getting, recalling the story that someone on her desk had told her before Slough House, before River crashed Stansted.

"That...no, not a myth actually, that really did happen," River sighed, "I was assigned to follow the Shadow Minister for Education as an exercise, but then he had a heart attack the night before, so I followed Taverner instead...I watched her do everything, gym, breakfast, office, gym again at lunch...I got within ten feet and she never knew, well not until I showed her the photographs the next day."

"And that bit about her applauding you?" Georgie raised her eyebrows in intrigue.

"People have made more of that than it warranted, it was just three claps," River assured her.

"I bet Spider hated that," Georgie smirked, "You being in Taverner's good books."

"Oh he despised it," River exhaled.

"So, what did you find that put you in spy mode?" Georgie asked, folding her arms across her chest.

"Ho predicted that Hobden would've made something called a thermite pot, which is basically a geek way for the clinically paranoid to burn the computer to ash," River explained, "And I found some steel wool and rusting coffee filters in his rubbish, he'd been making iron oxide, it's one of the ingredients for thermite."

"So he's got something on his hard drive that he doesn't want anyone else to find?" Georgie replied as River took a sip of his coffee, his face instantly scrunching up in disgust as he opened the car door and spat the drink onto the road.

"That is disgusting," River remarked as he closed the car door.

"That'd be the arsenic Sid put in there," Georgie quipped with a smile, "How'd you get Ho to help?"

"I promised I'd tell him why he's in Slough House," River answered.

"You know?"

"I do, yeah, do you?" River replied as Georgie nodded, "Well, anyway, he couldn't do what I asked him, which was to hack into Hobden's email, so I didn't have to tell him."

"Would you have told him?" Georgie asked.

"Yeah, he wants to know," River nodded.

"How would you have told him?" Georgie frowned.

"I don't know, with words," River replied.

"Okay, pretend I'm Roddy Ho, and you tell me the reason I've been shipped to Slough House is because I'm an insufferable prick," Georgie raised her eyebrows at him.

"I'd sugarcoat it."

"...I got moved from every department I worked in at MI5 and Slough House was the only place left," Georgie replied.

"But if he'd got me into Hobden's emails, can we agree that would've been useful?" River asked, turning to face her again.

"River, he once put someone on the sex offenders register because they nicked his seat on a bus," Georgie reminded him, "So imagine what he'd do to you."

"Well I didn't have to tell him, so why are we arguing about this?" River replied.

"It's what we do isn't it?" Georgie answered honestly, "Me and you, we used to argue because we cared, now we argue because..."

River kept his eyes on her as voice trailed off, watching as she picked at her nail varnish the way she always had when she was nervous, "Georgie."

"I don't think either of us are the same people that we were six years ago," Georgie muttered.

River looked down at his own hands and then back up at Georgie, he wasn't sure when he'd find a better time to have the conversation he was dreading, he wanted and needed to be completely honest with her, regardless of the choices he'd made, "I need to tell you why I left, I need to explain-"

"Shit," Georgie hissed as she watched a person dressed in all black, wearing a hood scale the garden wall of Hobden's house, she quickly scrambled out of the car, waving down Sid, "There's a fucking intruder."

"What?"

"We need to get to Hobden before they do," Georgie told River and Sid as the three of them rushed towards the house.

"I'll cover the front," Sid replied, hurrying towards the front of the house.

"Georgie, with me," River added, gesturing for her to join him as he jumped and hauled himself up onto the wall, reaching a hand out to Georgie and hauling her up beside him, "You good?"

"Never better," Georgie sighed before the pair jumped down into the garden, landing on damp grass as River made it up to his feet first, holding out his hand which she clung to and pulled herself off of the floor.

"Back door's open," River nodded towards the door that the hooded assailant must have gone through to get inside.

"I'm glad to see your observational skills have improved in the last six years," Georgie replied as the pair made their way up the steps and into the house.

They entered a cluttered kitchen, which looked about forty years outdated and in desperate need of a clean. River grabbed a frying pan from the stove as Georgie found a rolling pin, gripping it with both of her hands like a baseball bat as River led the way through the kitchen.

"Stop it, please, please!" A muffled voice came from the front room as River and Georgie stepped nearer.

River peered around the door, Georgie doing the same, both silently acknowledging the thermite pot on top of Hobden's laptop before noticing the assailant with his arm around Hobden's neck and a gun to his head.

"Get him off me! Get him off me!" Hobden panicked as he attempted to wriggle free from the masked man's grip.

"Listen to me," River took a step forward, covering Georgie as he stepped in front of her, leaving her with a view of his back, "Let him go and put the gun down, armed response are two minutes out, if they see you with a gun, they're just going to kill you."

"Did you hear him?" Georgie asked, confused as to why the masked man remained silent.

"What do you want?" Hobden pleaded with the assailant.

"Put the gun down-"

The thermite pot caught light, large flames fanned up, startling the assailant as Hobden managed to escape his grasp. River swung the frying pan at the masked man as Hobden fled out the back of the house.

Georgie attempted to restrain the man but he was too quick, almost professional, uppercutting River's chin and knocking him to the floor as he winced in pain, while the assailant made his escape.

"George, leave it!" River called out, fearing for her safety as he rolled onto his back, catching sight of her as she scrambled after the armed man.

Fuelled by adrenaline, Georgie ran after him, grabbing at the back of his collar as Sid kicked the door open, knocking the masked man back into Georgie who managed to maintain her grip on him as Sid attempted to pry the gun from his hands.

The three of them fell onto the wet stairs of the house as any memory of disarmament training Sid and Georgie possessed dissipated in their attempt to free the gun from his clutches, the sound of two gunshots in quick succession startled River into action.

He hauled himself off of the floor, scrambling towards the open door, met with a despairing sight as he glanced between Georgie and Sid sprawled over the steps.

"George, Georgie," He knelt beside her, his heart racing as she lay unconscious, "George, look at me, it's River."

He gently tapped the side of her face before pulling her close to his chest, he glanced down as he cradled her, blood stained his skin as he clung to her, and upon quick assessment it became clear that she'd been shot in the arm.

"River?" Her eyes opened slowly as she gazed up at him, "River, where's Sid?"

"She's here," River answered, feeling riddled with guilt for prioritising Georgie before even checking Sid.

"River, she's not right," Georgie muttered as she sat up, wincing as she leant on her weak arms, hauling herself up the stairs, leaning in a pool of blood as she held onto her friend, "River, she's been fucking shot in the head."

"Shit," River hissed as he crouched beside Georgie, tearing off the hem of the t-shirt under his shirt, tying it around Georgie's upper arm.

"What are you doing?" Georgie quipped, still evidently fuelled by adrenaline that masked the pain, "We need to call her an ambulance!"

"You've been shot too, George," River replied as he secured his makeshift tourniquet on Georgie's arm.

Georgie glanced down at her arm and then at Sid before resting a hand under Sid's head, protecting her bleeding skull from the damp concrete. She fumbled in her pockets for her phone, pulling it out and handing it over to River, "Call an ambulance, River, please," She held the phone against his chest as he took it from her, squeezing her hand before she returned her attention to one of her closest friends.

"Sid, it's going to be okay," Georgie whispered, stroking her hair out of her face as River dialled for an ambulance, "You'll be alright."

"I need an ambulance...NW1, Maythorpe Road," She heard River say as she clung to her bleeding arm, her skin warm from the fire that burned inside the house, "Yeah, gunshot wound to the head...yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll see us."

"River, tell them to hurry," Georgie winced as Sid remained unresponsive.

"Just hurry up!"

author's note: ah the chaos!
the healing between these two is slow but worth it (although it might seem like river forgave georgie quickly for keeping nellie from him, he is holding onto the big secret of why he didn't marry her)