A bit of fluff to start your day (or whenever you read it!) ... based on the first verse of the song 'Daily Bread' by Nerina Pallot.

This is my first published Spooks fic, and thank you so, so much to Kate and Flick (Happy Birthday!), who beta-ed this piece for me

Enjoy!

And then there was Harry
By Grachie

"Get out of bed."

"No."

"I'm warning you…"

"You've warned me every day!"

Ruth watched the small boy turn over and settle again. She wished he wasn't so bloody facetious. She rolled her eyes and walked out of his bedroom, proceeding to the kitchen. She looked at the clock; 6am. It was like this every single day of the week: up at 6am, get her son up, and take him to school. Her life had settled into a steady routine, something which it didn't have ten years before. She still couldn't believe that it had turned out like this either.

This was the way life was now. Years before, Ruth was happy with the job she had, the people she knew and the cat that would curl up in her lap when she returned in the evening. Her job wasn't exactly stress-free, but that was the way she liked it: she liked it to be challenging.

She also liked - no, more than liked - Harry; not that she'd admit it.

Ten years before…

Ruth had been sitting at her desk, looking through old files, making sure they were up-to-date. She liked to be thorough; there was no point in cutting corners when it felt so much better to do things properly. She looked up to find his eyes watching her. She smiled slightly and was about to look down again, when he signalled to her to come over.

"Ruth."

"Harry."

They both grinned slightly.

"I just wondered if… if you'd…" He stopped.

"If I..?"

"If you'd…"

"Oh Harry, I've already said that I can't handle people laughing at me."

"What makes you think I was going to ask that?"

Oh, she thought. If he wasn't going to ask that, then I've just made a total fool of myself.

"Oh, I just… I, umm…"

"It's alright, Ruth." He handed her some more files. "I see you're being meticulous with the other files, I hoped you wouldn't mind looking at these as well."

"Of course not, Harry. I'll get them to you as soon as possible."

"Take your time."

She looked down, smiled slightly and rushed out of the room.

Moments like that happened frequently. He wondered when she would finally relentrepent and she wondered when she would too.

"Harry." Ruth found herself at the entrance of Harry's office, uninvited.

"Ah, Ruth."

She walked in and closed the door behind herself. Harry watched as she stood in front of his desk, wringing her hands nervously in front of her.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

"Yes to what?"

"Dinner."

Harry leaned forward in his chair, surprised. "Did I hear you correctly?"

"Yes, you did."

"What time do you want me to pick you up then?"

That wasn't the last date. They kept seeing more and more of each other – at work and besides. The relationship flourished and the moment that she had expected, yet not expected, occurred.

She could remember the moment he proposed to her in intricate detail. They had been walking along the Embankment side-by-side; not for fear of accidental contact but out of habit. It was a cold October evening, leading up to Harry's birthday and she was trying to figure what to buy him; not the easiest task. The autumn season had begun to take a hold on the capital – the dead leaves, in an array of golds and bronzes, crunched beneath their feet and the sky was a muted pink, bringing the promise of good weather the following day. Ruth lowered her eyes from the sky and stood beside Harry, who had stopped to look out over the river. It was fairly noisy – the London rush hour traffic showed no signs of easing up. She sighed with that thought and turned towards Harry, who was gazing at her, something she hadn't noticed before. She smiled and stepped closer to him, linking her arm through his and resting her head against his arm. She looked across the water also, darting her eyes around the scenery.

"Marry me."

She didn't look up – she showed no signs of having heard his words, but she had. She shut her eyes tightly and smiled to herself. It wasn't even a question, it was a command, but one she was willing to succumb to.

"Ruth? Did you hear me?"

It was then that she looked up. She didn't want to say it, so she simply nodded.

In time, Ruth found herself pregnant and on maternity leave, something she was averse to at first but, due to Harry's insistence that she look after herself, she gave in. She had a boy, James - named after both Ruth and Harry's fathers - and as expected, it wasn't quite the same.

It had come to this. She had given up her job temporarily but didn't return. She had meant to – in fact, throughout her whole pregnancy, the one thing she was eager to do was return to work. When James was placed in her arms, it was as if her priorities had changed.

Now he was six. She'd spent most of those years bringing him up and wishing she could go back to her old life – just with the addition of her husband and son.

She looked up to find him in the kitchen doorway.

"Finally up then?"

"Yes mummy." His eyes swept across the room. "Can I have cereal?"

Ruth rolled her eyes and nodded, standing up to sort his breakfast.

"I hope you'll be ready in five minutes!"

"Yep!"

"What are the odds that he won't be?"

"It's 100 certain." Harry smiled, taking Ruth into his arms and kissing her forehead.

"Shouldn't you be getting to work?"

"Yes, but I don't think they'll miss me if I'm just five minutes late."

"Just five minutes, eh? You know what traffic is like at this time of morning."

"Then that's what I'll say: 'The traffic was terrible.'"

"Ah. Well… good luck."

"Thank you. I'll see you tonight." He kissed her lips. "Please think about what we talked about last night."

Harry had sat opposite her, taken her hands and suggested that she come back to work. He told her of the many members of temporary staff that had attempted to 'take her place,' though no-one had ever come close; in either his affections or her brilliance. She was tempted to say yes outright and return the next day, but she didn't have just herself to think about anymore. She could only say that she would consider it.

"I will!"

"Promise me?"

"Yes, I promise you."

"Good. Bye James."

"Bye Daddy!"

Ruth watched as he walked out of the door. She used to follow him out, they used to get into the same car and they used to arrive at the same place, together.

"Ready."

"Good. Now, come on."

"Okaaay." James ran down the stairs and into his mother's arms.

James ran down the stairs and into his mother's arms.

"Now, have you got everything?"

"Yep!"

"Are you sure?"

He paused to think. "Yep!"

"Let's check." She put him down, thenand then opened his bag to make sure that he really did have everything he needed.

"James, where's your lunch?"

"In the fridge?" He smiled cheekily and she realised that was the sort of smile that Zaf would wear when he wanted something done by someone else, even if he should do it himself. She found herself missing the small details that she had got so used to over the years – Zaf's jokes, Jo's offers of what she referred to as 'lozzies' whenever she had a sore throat, Adam's smug grins when he'd defied someone worth defying, Malcolm's in-depth explanations of every gadget he came across and of course, Harry. She missed Harry's presence in every way.

"Oh, you said you had everything!" She looked down at James – who had inherited many of his father's facial features – and sighed, smiling at him. "Let me get it."

She had memorised the route to James' school. After two years of going back and forth, it was second nature – she could probably drive there with her eyes closed. On some days, it was a rather nice feeling to drive along, listening to James singing along with the radio. On other days, it was a mystery. She wasn't really Ruth Evershed-Pearce – she was undercover, playing the role of another woman with a life more normal than hers. It was on those days that she sometimes found herself taking a left-turn instead of a right-turn and heading in the direction of Whitehall, not the school. It was usually when James started complaining that she was 'going in the wrong direction' that she realised and headed back.

She hadn't ever thought that her life would end up like this. She had thought, ten years previously, that she was going to end up living alone with her cat, with her job as the main focus in her life – and she was happy with that. Then there was Harry – and a different side of life emerged.

As she waved James off to school, Ruth reached into her pocket, tapped in a number and drew her phone up to her ear.

"Pearce."

"Harry." She took a deep breath. "So, when do you want me back on the Grid?"

The End

Six o'clock, so you feed the kids and you take them off to school,

Take a drive through your secret life; it's a mystery to you.

It's not the way you thought that it would be…

And love is the one thing we rely on…