A/N - Part of a multichapter that I scrapped a couple of weeks ago. Thought I'd break it out as a oneshot. =) Apologies for any mistakes that escaped my quick edit. Feel free to drop me a message and point them out, if you find them. Hope you enjoy. -Silver.
.
Stress Management
.
It was four o' clock in the morning and still stiflingly hot, in the upstairs bedroom of the London townhouse. Summer had finally hit the British Isles, after three months of dithering over the matter. For the last two days, the sun had been making up for weeks of absenteeism. Shining un-obscured by clouds, it had brought London the hottest day of the year so far. It had baked the concrete streets until they were scorching, scorched the grass until it was dry underfoot, caused the over-city smog to sparkle in the mornings. It had coaxed locals and tourists alike out, in their droves, t-shirts and shorts donned and pallid British skin exposed. They bathed in fountains and flip-flopped through the streets in sandals, with a sort of camaraderie that the city never saw unless it was hot.
It was as if the weather had gathered itself and pulled its thumb out, just in time for the biggest event of the summer, and Ruth could not help but enter the spirit of it all and be glad. They had enough to worry about, concerning the Games without rain dragging the occasion down. Besides, she loved the heat. Hot summers reminded her of youth and long holidays spent in the south of France, with her parents. It reminded her of chasing her cousins along the beach and of afternoons spent flirting with the local winemaker's boy, at the back of the vineyard. She loved heat, even the heavy, humid heat of the night. She basked in it. It made her happy.
It affected her partner slightly differently. Or, perhaps, that was just the stress of the job. Either way, he was snippy and grumpier than usual. Ruth could not remember the last time he had worked less than a fifteen hour day and it was becoming ridiculous. His stress levels were soaring and it was starting to seep into her, too, as if by osmosis. She was worried because he was worried. She wasn't sleeping because he wasn't. And when she did manage to drift off, it was only to be woken halfway through the night by his tossing and turning. Such as now.
Stirred from slumber, Ruth rolled onto her side to face the man lying beside her. Face down, he was half wrapped in their tangled sheets, spread across the majority of the bed, looking purposefully uncomfortable.
"Harry? What's the matter?" she asked, blearily, rubbing sleep from her eyes and squinting through the half darkness to see him.
Her companion said nothing, just fixed her with a mildly distressed stare.
"Can't sleep?" she tried again.
A non-committal grunt was his only response.
Ruth felt her patience tauten a little. She could deal with being woken up in the middle of the night night but being woken up in the middle of the night, not apologised to and then sulked at was pushing the boundaries of any new relationship. She lay, watching her companion for ten seconds, through narrowed eyes, silently contemplating whether or not it was possible to suffocate a fully grown man with nothing but a pillow. Just when she thought it was not worth pursuing the conversation, however – just when she was about to give up, flop over and fall back asleep – he heaved a sigh and replied.
"I had that dream again."
Groaning softly, Ruth leant back into her pillows.
"I had a dream too," she told him, with an enormous yawn. "It consisted of me falling asleep then sleeping right through until morning without anyone waking me up. It was sublime."
"There were Algerians," Harry continued, not paying the slightest bit of attention to her sarcastic response. "And a Russian conspiracy and something to do with an anti-tank gun which they had managed to get through customs on an Irish ferry and..." he paused, to frown. "Did the Home Secretary ever call back that man? Benson... something-or-other... you know, the one from Border Control?"
Heaving a sigh, Ruth nodded. It wasn't worth saying anything. The questions had started. There was no stopping him, now.
"Did you send Erin's recommendations over?"
Ruth nodded again.
"And that thing I sent her over to talk to you about, the SIS thing?"
Closing her eyes, Ruth nodded a third time. "All taken care of."
"Good... good..."
Harry fell silent for a moment and Ruth felt the brief hope of a decent night's sleep kindling inside of her. It was not to be, however. No sooner had her body begun to relax back into the bed when her partner propped himself up on his elbows and switched the bedside lamp on. It bathed the room in sudden orange light, showing up their discarded clothing where it had been tossed, thoughtlessly, the previous night. They had been exhausted when they had returned at half past eleven, fresh from dealing with the first day of security threats around the Olympic Games. Ruth was still exhausted, in fact.
Squinting in the new brightness, her frown grew more than a little severe.
"What is it?" she asked, with just an edge of danger to her tone.
"I left Calum running an inter-agency check on three suspects who were living in a flat in Maida Vale," Harry mused, almost as if to himself. "Twenty-something graduates, two of Irani origin, one with a press pass to the Olympic stadium."
Good god. They'd been over this one twice already earlier that evening. Heaving a sigh, Ruth pulled herself more upright, shifting against her pillows. There was no way they were going to get a full night's rest, now. The moment was gone. The delicate balance of comfort and light and silence was broken. Harry had dragged work into bed with them. Again.
"Harry..."
"I've just remembered something I need to add to the parameters. It's just that I don't think I had his associate's names as keywords."
"You can do it tomorrow."
"It's just one call."
Just one call, thought Ruth, with a soft noise of disbelief. One call and then he would remember something else that he could just as easily do tomorrow. He would get up, to check some detail on his laptop and then, within ten minutes, he'd have retreated through to his office – on the phone to work, to request a secure connect to the system – and that would be him until morning. There would be no sleeping. If he did come back to bed, he would wake her up all over again and toss and turn and sigh to himself. She could kick him out to sleep on the couch, she supposed, but that didn't seem fair. This was his bed, after all.
"I'll be done in just a sec-," Harry said, reaching towards the phone.
"Harry!" Ruth exclaimed, causing him to pause, mid-way.
He withdrew his hand slightly.
"It won't take a moment."
"Then just leave it until tomorrow," Ruth insisted. "One moment then is as good as one moment now. There are a thousand and one things to be getting on with but you need to rest, too. Calum and Erin are holding the fort at Thames House, tonight. For now, everything is under control." Everything that was possible to protect was being protected. Every security plan had been reviewed until the personnel involved knew it back to front. The G4S situation was under control and even their contingency plans had contingency plans. "Harry," Ruth sighed, "we have survived the opening ceremony and the first twenty-four hours. You need to stop, for a moment, to breathe," she added, necessarily. "To be honest, even the Home Secretary is overawed by your enthusiasm on this one – and he, rather perversely, enjoys your enthusiasm."
"It makes his job easier," Harry muttered dully, "that's why."
"Leave the search parameters until morning," Ruth told him, ignoring his comment about her current employer. "The next few days are going to be hectic. Get some sleep while you can."
A moment passed.
Harry looked at the phone then back over to her. Eventually, he seemed to reach some sort of decision.
"You're right," he conceded, nodding his head. "I need to sleep."
"Thank god," Ruth muttered, flopping back down against the bed.
Another moment, then;
"I just need to make one little phone call and-,"
That did it.
Reaching swiftly over, Ruth snatched the phone out of his hand as he lifted it from the cradle, and pulled it back to her side of the bed. At her action, Harry gave a little 'hey' of distress, trying to grab it back. He failed dismally, however, ending up sprawled across the sheets on front of her. Frowning up, his expression was a strange mix of indignant surprise and mild excitement.
"Ruth?"
He held out his hand, asking for it back, but Ruth just shook her head in refusal. Halting his complaints with a short frown, she pulled herself up into a kneeling position and shuffled around to place the phone back into its cradle, on the bedside table. He made a second feeble attempt to get the phone back as she leant over him but it was easily overcome by Ruth placing her hand flat against him and forcing him back flat. Straddling his lower back, she reached over and clicked the phone back into place. A small light came on to show that it had connected.
"I would have only taken seconds..." Harry complained, half-heartedly.
"You are insane," she muttered, darkly, drawing herself back across his body.
Of course, it was the same insanity which had driven him for years and he was surviving well thus far. It was probably the same insanity which had drawn them together, in the first place, Ruth added inside her mind. Harry's drive and dedication was one of the most admirable aspects of his character. She shouldn't be so hard on him. It only was one phone call, after all, but she was just so tired and she just wanted to make him see that he was not alone, in this. He had backup. He had a team and several other agencies who were all working towards the same goal, (albeit cooperating and communicating rather poorly). He didn't have to dictate search parameters at this time in the morning because the man he was performing a search on was being watched by about seven people, around the clock.
Giving a sigh, she placed her palms flat against his back and forced him down flat against the bed. "You need to sleep," she told him, pressing her fingers down into the soft muscle beneath his shoulder blades.
Harry gave a soft noise of protest, but he squirmed for all of two seconds before relenting to her touch.
"Calum has more than enough information to work with," Ruth reassured, pressing down into his soft flesh.
She pressed up, between his shoulders, then down again. Slowly. Firmly. They had not been together for long, really, but they had known each other for the best part of a decade and that sort of knowing each other lent itself well to learning preferences and weak spots. Harry's, Ruth discovered, was that he liked to be touched. He loved it, in fact. It seemed to reveal a completely different aspect to his personality. He turned into the softest most placid person Ruth had ever met, when she massaged him in just the right way.
"Erin has the Home Office's revised requests, from the security meeting last week," she murmured, pressing her thumbs into either side of his spine, making small circles. "They will have everything under control."
Harry's hands, which had been lying stiffly, beside his head, loosened at her words, fingers falling into soft curves. Watching him relax beneath her, Ruth's irritation about being woken began to slip away. Her beautiful, slightly paranoid lover. He meant well, really. The stress was due, primarily, to this being the last big event before his retirement, in a few months time. Everything had gone so well so far, he had confessed to her the other day, that he was expecting something terrible to happen at any moment. It must be hard, Ruth thought, to have the end so close to being within his grasp. If he made it through this, with his honour and life intact, he said it would be his crowning achievement.
Ruth begged to differ, of course. In her mind, it was the unsung moments which counted. The days he stood beside his officers as they grieved a colleague's loss; the days he sacrificed a little more of himself to ensure a little more safety for his countrymen; the days he dragged himself back into the fray when a lesser man would have turned away; that was what counted. That was what made Harry who he was and it was what he would be remembered for. Not the manner in which he left.
Fingers gliding over his skin, Ruth watched as her companion's muscles tensed and relaxed rhythmically. However much he wanted this event to turn out perfectly, he still needed to sleep. He had to realise that he had done all that was humanely possible for him to do, for now, and that the world did not rest solely on his shoulders. Sliding up to his neck, Ruth rubbed around the edge of his hairline and then headed back down again. Around, making little circles down his spine. As she descended, her fingers traced over one smooth scar and then another, finally coming to rest in the dip of his back. She could rub a little harder, down there, so she did so – a smile rising to her lips, again, as Harry sighed and stretched against her.
"I spoke to William about commandeering some of Section C, for running Tariq's new CCTV recognition software," she told him, after a minute or so had passed and his breathing had slowed and evened.
"Good. We need more people. More system," Harry added, voice slightly muffled against the pillows.
"And I sent that request for the defence missile timings, over to Whitehall, with the Home Secretary's signature."
"Thank you."
"As for your suspects in the flat in Maida Vale," Ruth added, softly, "I can tell you a little more."
Stilling beneath her hands, Harry turned his head and opened one eye, to watch her.
"More?"
"Your young journalist with the press pass is Reza Salehi," Ruth explained. "He has a cousin who is a person of interest, abroad – a young Iranian man involved in stirring up anti-American feeling locally, some of which turned to violence. There is no evidence that Reza has ever met his cousin, though."
"That we know..."
Ruth turned her attentions to the sides of his ribs, moving in long, slow strokes.
"Well, I have some more information, from Six," she admitted.
Harry gave a wry 'huff' of laughter.
"Of course you do. You know, I think I liked you better when you worked for me." A sigh. "Go on, then."
Ruth took a steadying breath.
"Six's intelligence suggests that Reza Salehi's political sympathies lie with his English mother," she began. "He has voted Lib Dem since he turned eighteen, although he changed to a local independent party in the last local." Pressing her entire weight down across Harry's back, she rolled her knuckles across him, eliciting a heavy exhale. A noise of enjoyment, she knew. "They have detailed records of his travel documents and cross-matching them to his terrorist cousin shows that they have never been within three hundred miles of one another. They also have provided me with a huge amount of internet usage data which supports him simply being a journalist. Of course, despite my complete and utter trust of our sister Intelligence service," she continued, "I had GCHQ pull every bit of information they could on him, too. We have every call, email and text message he has sent in the last few years and it seems to confirm what they've gathered. I would be willing to vouch for his un-involvement in any plots – terrorising or otherwise."
"I expect you've vouched such to our great master?"
"I advised the Home Secretary to continue surveillance on Salehi but deemed that no further action was necessary."
"Ah. You're the reason he wouldn't let me bring him in."
"I am." Ruth nodded, rubbing her hands in slow circles, methodically following the lines of his body.
"And how do Six know so much about Reza Salehi?"
"I am afraid I cannot divulge that bit, as it pertains to a current operation."
Harry gave a little growl of annoyance, below her. The sound vibrated up, through his back and along her legs.
"If they have active operations on my soil they are bound, by protocol, to tell me," he griped, quietly.
Ruth smiled.
His soil.
He talked like this, sometimes, as if all of London was his to protect and to defend. She used to think it was a subconscious thing, because it felt like the weight of the world lay on his shoulders. Now, she had realised it was showboating, so that those around him understood how big he was and how much weight he could throw around. His soil, his London, his rules. It made sense, probably, when you played the game that Harry played. Ruth could not fully understand the game, herself. As a technical analyst and then a politician's Security Advisor, she had only ever had influence without power. She had never had to look big, to do her job. In fact, the opposite was more useful. It was her role to be invisible, to listen and whisper in the right ears. Their roles were more complimentary than contradicting, she thought. Her and Harry made a good team. They worked well together. On his soil. In his London.
"They haven't started anything, yet," Ruth assured him, softly. "I think the Home Secretary is chairing a meeting between the DG and the SIS Chief next week, about it all. You'll be brought in soon."
Harry murmured something incoherent. Clearly still a little peeved.
"It's not very exciting," Ruth added, despite knowing it wouldn't help matters.
A moment passed.
Then two.
Then;
"You're enjoying this immensely, aren't you?"
"It's nice to know things you don't, now and then," Ruth conceded.
Harry nudged back up into her.
"You are a horrid spy."
"And you are a paranoid insomniac."
A little laugh.
"Touché."
Dropping her hands to his back again, Ruth deepened her touches, whispering in his ear. They ran over security plans they had discussed together, at meetings at the Home office – backup plans for their original security plans and backup plans for those backup plans – talking through the variables involved. Lists of times, people, numbers and places. They deliberated over Harry's recommendations to the Home Secretary and what the Home Secretary had agreed to and then argued about what Harry had done anyway, without his express permission – (Ruth agreeing to plead ignorance to the latter part of the conversation, if her new boss ever asked. It was nothing illegal or immoral and she knew where her allegiances lay).
She rubbed circles into Harry's back, kneading his skin until he was completely relaxed beneath her and he was barely responding to her steady monologue of what they needed to bring to the Home Secretary's table, tomorrow. At some point, Harry mumbled up that this was almost equivalent to intelligence erotica and they had both laughed softly into one another, for a while. They did not stop, however. Ruth continued to talk, quietly, against his skin. Harry continued to relax under her. Deep touches slowly became gentler ones, lazy touches which eventually petered out into her tracing scars across Harry's back. She had plenty to choose from. Some big, some small, all carrying their own little secrets – their own stories of what he had given to this job and to his country.
Beautiful.
He always was always beautiful, to her, though. As they walked down halls at work, as they just glimpsed each other across a crowded room, as they greeted each other eagerly at the end of the day (or, sometimes, the beginning) as they made love in the silent comfort of his empty London town house - they were always beautiful. Harry was always beautiful. And almost asleep, beneath her.
He was holding onto something, however, not quite able to let go. Ruth could see his eyelids, just parted, flutter open and close. Open and close. Exhausted. Distracted. Holding on because, despite knowing that he should sleep and despite knowing that he couldn't put it off for much longer, he was a perfectionist. Once he had something in mind that he wanted, he very rarely did not move to seize it. Running her fingers one last time up the back of his neck and through his hair, Ruth decided to admit defeat, on this one count. She knew Harry, and what was bothering him, and she knew he wouldn't rest until it was sorted. So, giving a soft sigh, she reached over to the phone.
Lifting it from the cradle, she typed in Calum Reid's Thames House extension, giving clearance codes along the way. She greeted her ex-colleague cheerfully, taking a moment to reassure him that her calling, at such a strange time of morning, was not borne of something sinister.
"Harry just wanted to change the search parameters on your cross-check for the three in Maida Vale," she told him. "Yes, Salehi," she confirmed. "Filter down to the last four years and add the surnames of his flatmates to the list of search terms. Try a second search, too, removing his first name but adding the keyword 'nightrush'."
Nightrush was something Harry would find out sooner or later, but Ruth could not see the harm in letting it err on the 'sooner' side. Why not give Section D a little head start on what Six were planning? she thought, with a smile. It was inevitably going to involve them, anyway.
"Also," she told Calum, "if you can get hold of some of Salehi's professors from University, please have them confirm his identity. Transcripts of the exact courses he was enlisted on would also be useful. We are fairly confident you won't find anything, but Harry wants this to be comprehensive."
"Any reason Harry's not asking for this, himself?" Calum asked, down the line.
Ruth glanced down at her companion, taking in the steady throb of his pulse in the crook of his neck.
"He's busy," she excused, softly.
Sleeping. Finally.
Taking care not to disturb him, she quietly bid her ex-colleague goodnight and clicked the phone back into the cradle. Then, slipping sideways off of Harry's back, she rolled onto her side and dragged the sheets a little further up the bed so that they were covered. She settled in a position she found comfortable and stayed there, letting her companion rearrange himself around her, only half conscious. One leg over to hers, one foot pressed up against her calf muscle. One arm slipped up between them, fingertips brushing against her navel. They fit together nicely, far enough away not to grow to warm but close enough to be constantly reassured of one another's presence.
As her companion stopped shifting, Ruth closed her eyes, letting the exhaustion creep back through her body. They had to be up and out to work within the next three hours but, for now, that didn't matter. Now was a moment of sanctuary from the storm.
At her side, Harry momentarily stirred, his fingers sliding up to curl around her thumb.
"Thank you," he murmured, squeezing her gently.
Ruth squeezed back, glad not have to say anything in reply. That was not how Harry and Ruth worked, after all. They did not keep score or hold things over one another. They had far too much in their history, for any of that. They existed, now, on a strictly present basis. It was all either of them were capable of, at this moment in time. They were so damaged, by their pasts, that they could not envision a future beyond a few weeks time. That was not to say they did not want it, or dream of it. Of course they did – at least, Ruth did. It was only a dream, however. For now, both were too terrified of voicing anything aloud, for fear that their present would fall apart. It felt like jinxing them.
Maybe that would change on day, thought Ruth, as she let her body relax into the mattress. Maybe once Harry had left the Service they would find a bit of security in their lives, a little bit of stability and comfort. It would be nice, she thought, being able to leave him in the morning, without worrying that he would not make it through the day. It would be nice to plan for a future with both of them in it. It would be nice to know he was no longer in a job where death lurked around every corner and where any operation could be your last. Ruth could not stand the idea of ever losing him again and perhaps knowing he was safe was the only way they could move forwards. They had too much else to carry, in regards to their past, without having to fear for each other's lives. Perhaps once he was retired, she would agree to his request for her to move in, to live with him, to marry him – that was, if he ever plucked up the courage to ask again.
He was being very patient about it all, really, she thought with a little smile. For someone who was a control freak in every other corner of his life, Harry had left most of the decisions and steps in their relationship up to her. He had not flinched when she had told him she was not ready to get rid of her house and share his. He had bravely shouldered his disappointment when she had turned down another proposal and asked for more time.
Third time lucky, she told herself, as she stroked his hand beneath their sheets. She would be ready for that, soon. Things were looking up for them. They were leaving the service, together. They were going to have a home and a life, and there would be no more chasing shadows in the darkness – no more terror, no more pain. Perhaps Harry would sleep better once they were both away from here. Ruth certainly hoped so. If he was no longer an officer of Her Majesty's Security Services, the Official Secrets Act would make dirty spy talk very difficult. She would have to come up with an alternative form of stress management.
A smile quirked her mouth. She supposed she'd think of something.
As the clock on the bedside table ticked ever closer to half past four, Ruth let herself be swallowed up by the dark folds of sleep. Her mind drifted in and out of wakefulness, her reality becoming a strange blurred world between thought and sensation. Harry's fingers stayed curled loosely around her thumb, their soft pads pressing into her palm warmly. Next time he asked her to marry him, she thought dimly, she would just say yes. No matter how ready she was, she would just say yes. There were worse things in the world than not being prepared, after all, and they could help each other through. They were both patient where the other's weaknesses were concerned. Ruth did not (really) mind being woken up at god-knows-what hour of the morning to talk him through his neuroses and Harry did not mind taking baby steps towards her as she constantly backed away. They worked well together, she thought, giving his fingers one last little squeeze.
Outside, the first stirrings of London morning were still an hour or so away. For now, all was quiet. The air remained quiet and warm, despite the darkness. A balmy breeze drifted in through the window, carrying with it a strange mix of scents. London air, grass, the faint smell of paint from next door's fence. Ruth was barely aware of any of it. Her body was so relaxed and her mind so blissfully empty that Harry's steady breathing was all it had taken to lull her off to sleep. Within two minutes, she was dead to the world. Within five, she was lost to her dreams. Her lover's fingers remained entwined with hers.
.