Started this nearly two years ago when I'd just seen 3.7. Came across it last night and it just looked at me and demanded to be finished. I always felt as though the episode needed a different sort of ending. Danny escorting Ruth to the ambulance should not be the end of it. So here's the first part of what I expect to be a two part short
Harry's pace slowed as he approached his destination. He fleetingly wondered if he should have stopped at the over-priced shop in the atrium and picked up grapes, or chocolate, or flowers at the very least. There was, after all, an accepted protocol to be observed when visiting someone in hospital. It just wasn't the done thing to arrive empty-handed and he had to confess that he felt decidedly under-prepared.
He dismissed the thought; he was well aware that he was only coming up with excuses to delay the visit that lay ahead of him. He'd never been that comfortable visiting colleagues in hospital; over the years it had been a journey he'd had to make with frightening regularity, often with an ultimately unhappy outcome. This visit at least, there wouldn't be the added minefield of having to make polite conversation with family, of blithely reassuring a wife or husband that their partner would be fine, whilst trying not to think of the fact that it was his decision making that led to their presence in the hospital in the first place.
He pulled at his cufflinks as he neared the door; it wasn't that he didn't want to see Ruth, it was more the fact that he was feeling guilty about the way that he had casually accepted Sam's story about her sending a text to explain her absence from work.
Danny had been spot on; a text message really wasn't Ruth's style. He should have picked up on it, should have realised that someone with Ruth's terrier like attitude to a problem would not walk away from a situation without seeing it through to its conclusion.
Had they noticed her absence and acted on it earlier, they could perhaps have spared Ruth her 18 hour ordeal, and perhaps found a way to take Forrestal alive.
Danny had rung in to report that the diamonds had been recovered and that Ruth was fine but, on hearing the news, Harry felt that he owed it to her to check that out for himself.
He cleared his throat and raised a hand to knock on the door. As he did so the door opened and he found himself face to face with Ruth, hoping that his face wasn't registering the same expression of surprise that hers was.
Recovering quickly from the initial shock of seeing her standing there – the dark rings beneath her eyes betraying the fact that she'd not slept for over twenty four hours - Harry quickly took in the fact that she had her coat around her shoulders and looked as though she was preparing to leave.
"I thought the Doctor wanted to keep you in overnight for observation?" he asked accusingly.
Ruth pulled a face. "There's no need...I'm fine...really."
Harry gestured towards the room. "Don't you think that perhaps the Doctors are best placed to determine that? After all they are the ones with the degrees in medicine!"
"They said I could leave," Ruth explained simply.
"Oh." Harry turned his head back towards the nurse's station. "The nurse told me that..." he trailed off as he saw the flash of anger on Ruth's face.
"What business did they have telling you anything?" she demanded to know.
Harry shrugged his shoulders, "I may have... misled the nurse a little as to the nature of our relationship."
He noticed the way that Ruth coloured slightly at the comment, but nevertheless she relented and took a pace back into the room, standing to one side; indicating that he could enter.
Feeling the absence of a gift even more acutely now, Harry made his way into the room.
"I'd rather you stayed here for a night," he told her sincerely as he turned to face her. "Just to be sure..."
"I'm fine," she insisted.
The tone in her voice was a little too strained for Harry's liking. He was about to press the issue further when she spoke again.
"I just want to go home," she told him. "I just want to wake up tomorrow... in my own bed, surrounded by familiar things."
He looked at her searchingly, as though trying to determine whether or not she was telling him the whole truth.
"Harry I'm fine. He didn't do anything."
"Besides leaving you tied up for over 18 hours."
She turned away and rubbed at her forehead with the base of her palm. "Can we just leave that for now...I'm tired Harry, I'm bordering on cranky and I want to go home."
"What's the rush? One night here and..."
"I want to go home," Ruth insisted, impatience plain in her voice.
Harry looked at her levelly. "If it's about your cat, I'll arrange for someone to pop round and feed him."
"It's not about my cat!" she told him sharply, turning on her heel and heading across to the other side of the room. "Not that I'd trust anyone on the Grid to feed him."
The corners of Harry's mouth twitched with the hint of a smile.
"Pardon me for saying so Ruth, but we ensure the safety of heads of state on a regular basis, I'm sure we are more than capable of attending to the needs of one cat!"
Ruth turned to face him and her expression showed that she wasn't entirely convinced. "And just how often do these very same people need reminding that they have to eat? He might end up the most well protected cat in the country but I've no guarantee that anyone would actually remember to feed him!"
The smile on Harry's face widened. "You have me there," he acquiesced.
"So," she looked at him, her eyes wide. "Will you take me home?"
The journey across town was completed in near silence. Every attempt by Harry to draw Ruth on what had happened to her for the past 18 hours was met with a frosty silence. She folded her arms and turned her head to stare out of the window; content to watch the bright lights of the city as they made their way through the evening traffic.
Harry glanced at her out of the corner of his eye as the car idled at a set of traffic lights. She was shutting him out... the events of the day were catching up with her and she was struggling to deal with them. She needed to talk to someone. He made a mental note to call someone about it first thing in the morning. The service was awash with specialists. This was the first time he'd actually been grateful for that.
"It's green!"
Ruth's voice pulled him back to reality, and he became aware of the blare of a car horn from behind. Ruth was right – as usual - the lights had now changed in his favour and he was causing something of a tailback. Letting off the handbrake, and ignoring the blare of the horns from the drivers behind, he eased the car forward, looking for the turning that would take him to the street where Ruth lived.
"It's just up on the left," she answered the question before he had the chance to ask it, and he dutifully pushed down on the indicator, the steady ticking filling the silence that had once again descended upon the car's interior.
The street he turned onto was tree-lined and filled with Large Victorian houses, all set back from the street and hidden from prying eyes behind well-tended trees and shrubs. Harry allowed himself a small smile. The setting was very Ruth; although he couldn't imagine how she managed to afford to live in such an affluent area on the salary that the service paid.
He pulled the car slowly to a stop as he reached the correct house number and watched as Ruth immediately fumbled with the door catch, eager to be out of the car.
Harry killed the engine and waited patiently for her to finally win her personal battle with the door.
"Would you like me to come in?" he offered. "Make you some tea?"
Ruth shook her head. "I'm fine...Thank you."
"You're sure?"
She forced a smile onto her face. "Sure... I'm fine from here... really."
"Humour me," he told her, opening the driver's door and stepping out onto the cold night air. "I'm not going anywhere until I know that you're safely back in your house,"
"And you can't do that from the car?"
He shot her a withering glance. "The faster you do this, the faster I will be out of your hair."
Seemingly resigned to the fact that he was going nowhere until she'd complied with his request, Ruth climbed from the car and stepped onto her driveway. She opened her bag and delved into it, searching for her house keys.
Harry was locking the door of the car when he heard a rustling from amongst the bushes on the pathway. Moments later a grey tabby cat emerged from the midst of the greenery and made its way swiftly over to Ruth's side, winding its way around her ankles.
"Looks like someone's pleased to see you home," he remarked as he joined Ruth in the driveway.
"Looks more like someone realises that the person who can get the top off the cat food is home," she grumbled as she searched the bag again, trying to locate the errant keys.
Fidget, undaunted by the slight on his character continued to demonstrate that he really was pleased to see his owner home, winding his way around her ankles and purring loudly.
"I'm sorry, would you mind?" Without waiting for an answer Ruth pushed her bag into Harry's hands and indicated that he should hold it open, before she tucked her hair behind her ears and resumed the hunt for the keys.
"I could just pick the lock," Harry told her matter of factly.
The scrabbling immediately stopped and Ruth's eyes rose to meet his. "Don't tell me things like that. I'd like to believe that my house is my own little sanctuary, immune to the intrusions of the outside world." Her eyes dropped to the bag again. "I don't understand it; I know that I put my keys in here."
Harry coughed slightly as a thought hit him. "Ahh."
Ruth's eyes snapped up to meet his again, suspicion plain on her face. "What do you mean by 'ahh'?" she paused and looked intently at him. "Tell me that you don't mean what I think you mean by 'ahh'."
Harry's expression told Ruth all she needed to know and she snatched her bag back out of Harry's hands, clutching it to her chest protectively.
A guilty expression on his face, Harry dipped his hand into his overcoat pocket and withdrew a set of keys, holding them between two fingers, letting them swing from the fluffy key ring they were attached to.
Ruth snatched them from his hand, making it clear that she wasn't pleased at the thought that he had been looking through her things. He thought about mentioning the fact that on any given morning he could call up the results of the security scan she went through and find out exactly what she was carrying, but decided that perhaps it wasn't the most prudent thing to mention.
He took in the accusing expression on her face and smiled in what he hoped was an apologetic manner.
"Would it be any consolation if I were to tell you that I had them because I was going to stop by to feed your cat?"
Ruth shook her head and set about selecting the front door key.
"What if I was to say that I asked Sam to find them for me?"
"Then I'd think you were a liar as well as a nosy parker," she called back over her shoulder as she slid the key into the lock and opened the door.
Hearing the heavy sigh, she turned and glared at him. "And I don't want to hear one word about my security measures or lack thereof."
Harry held up his hands. "Reflex action; although if you want to maintain your splendid isolation from the rest of the world, I'd suggest that you let Malcolm and Colin sort out your home security."
"And end up with a home that's so secure that I can't get into it?" she shuddered. "No thanks."
She turned, realising that Harry was now standing on her doorstep. "See," she told him. "I'm safely home. You can consider your duty done."
Harry looked at her searchingly. "Now I'm here, aren't you going to invite me in?"