A/N – Very different from the other piece I posted tonight. Not sure if it makes sense, as it was typed up in a bit of a hurry, but thought I'd stick it up anyway. H/R... sort of.
-Silver.
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Ghosts of Millennium Bridge
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He sees them most often while he is crossing Millennium Bridge. All the people he has lost, their faces appearing like spectres amongst the crowd. He walked with all of them there, at one point; his latest loss most often. They walked here and along the embankment, gazing at the trees and the water as they talked of everything and nothing, things that had seemed so important at the time. It was work, always work, thinks Harry. They never had time to talk about anything else. Zaf, Adam, Ros, Jo, Ruth; none of them had ever had the time. They had never had any future besides the one that they lived now – nameless ghosts, remembered by a solitary figure, on a lonely bridge.
Harry gives a sigh, palming the railing beneath his hand.
London spring is turning slowly into summer. The air is warm, the evening young and the mist off the water somewhat finer than usual, blurring the oncoming evening so that the pinks and oranges almost hide the pollution in the air above. Harry stares though it, out down the river. He feels the stirring in the air behind him, as people sweep past, across the bridge, but he does not turn to look at them. What he fears most is spotting a woman with shoulder-length dark hair, in a long coat, and thinking he has seen her face, amongst them. The hope rising in his chest is too much to bear.
It used to happen often, in the early days, when he was still resolving himself to the idea of never seeing her face again. In those early days, he would go out and wander through the city, half-hoping to catch sight of her on the Tube or on a bus, reading a book, perhaps, on a park bench. He never did, of course, and, eventually, the crushing disappointment became too much to bear and he stopped wandering.
She is not in the city, he tells himself, again. She is not on the bridge. She is not anywhere. She is dead and gone and he is alone.
The river, with its cold, dark depths, calls out to him, momentarily. Its movement is so slow, today – low due to the lack of rain. As it flows gently below, it looks soothingly silent. Harry can almost imagine it being pleasant, to slip beneath its all-consuming waters.
The river calls out to him, the darkness inviting him in, but he turns away. He walks back across the bridge, back the way he has come, following his years-old route into work. Three streets, three turns and he is there, Thames House stretching out like a great stone mausoleum before him. It should be strange, he thinks, to walk back in through those great doors, after his world had been so changed. It isn't however. Not anymore.
It was the first day. The first day was horrific, in fact. He kept expecting to see her, moving about the place as she would. Midway through a briefing, or during a report, he would turn to his side, to ask a question, and there would be only an empty seat to answer him. The others must have noticed – they couldn't have failed to notice, whenever it happened, he faltered, freezing momentarily on the spot – but they never said a thing.
Over time, it became more bearable. He stored the pain away a little deeper, learned to cope with the emptiness of her desk and the irrational anger he felt towards her replacement, when it was filled. He was always going to lose her, from the office, he had to remind himself, often. She had left him, to work for the Home Secretary so the new analyst he thinks of as a replacement is, technically, not really a replacement. Still, he can not quite bring himself to be friendly with the new girl. The other members of the team must have explained the situation to her, because she is always very polite about it – keeping professional, keeping her distance.
Walking in through Thames House's great doors does not feel strange anymore, but Harry almost wishes it did. Every day he walks in and it feels a bit more normal, he feels guilty. Every time he remembers Ruth is not there before he moves to ask her a question, he feels like he has betrayed her. Stepping inside the glass security doors, his eyes snap over to where her desk used to be and he feels a pang of longing. The Grid has been rearranged, now – some business with plastic explosive and an overenthusiastic junior officer – but his eyes know the spot where she had sat well. He had stared at her there for years, after all.
He stands in the entrance to the Grid for a good half-minute before moving on.
The office is quite empty, being a Sunday evening. Most of the officers had gone home for the night. At one end of the room, Harry can see a couple of junior officers, arguing over paperwork and the new analyst – the one he cannot bring himself to refer to, by name, as it means admitting that Ruth is not coming back. Dimitri's coat still hangs on the back of his chair, but the man himself is nowhere in sight. Harry is glad to note that Erin has gone home for the night. His Section Chief has taken it upon herself to make sure Harry leaves before or at the same time as she does. Though she means well, her interest in his sleeping habits is fast becoming irritating. His walk down to the river, tonight, had been to fool her into thinking he had retired for the evening. A plan that had worked, it seemed.
Harry wanders slowly through to his office, flicking on the light and closing the door behind him. The clock on his wall reads half past seven, but it could be any time – day or night – in here. It is impossible to tell, deep inside the MI5 headquarters, how much time had passed. The artificial blue light has a way of disguising it. This, Harry knows this better than most. He has lost years of his life, within these walls. Some days, he wonders whether he should leave, but the thought is always a fleeting one.
What would he leave it for? He has nothing else. His life, outside these walls, is completely devoid of human connection. This is all he does, all he knows. In Ruth's memory, he tries to do it well, but some days... some days are like this one, and he cannot help but wish to sink into calm, soothing darkness and just sleep for a thousand years. He is done with feeling alive. It brings no joy to him, anymore.
Sitting down at his desk, in the chair which is still not quite right after Erin's temporary inhabitancy, Harry tries to turn his attention to the piles of paperwork waiting for him. As horrendous as requisition forms and personnel files may be, they easily beat returning to his cold, empty house.
As he works, minutes dribble by into hours. The evening ticks away into night proper and Harry focuses in, entirely. Outside, the Grid slowly drains of staff, until only one of the junior officers remains – his head lowered so far onto his paperwork that Harry half suspects he has fallen asleep. Fighting the growing weariness in his body and the drying of his eyes, beneath their lids, Harry works on.
He cannot be sure when he becomes aware that he is no longer alone in the room, or what alerts him to her presence. Perhaps it is the soft sound of her breathing, either that or some small movement in his peripheral vision. Lifting his head, he looks first over to the door, from where he thought he saw the movement, but finds nobody standing there. Next, his eyes move over towards the windows of his office, but they are shut over, with blinds. A figure stands to the windows' right side, however. A familiar figure.
His blood seems to drop away from his head, a burning sensation rising in his throat. If hearts truly can skip a beat, then his surely does now. His heart skips and his breathing falters. Her name leaves his lips before he can stop himself.
"Ruth..."
Everything is strangely silent around him.
It can't be, he knows it can't be, but there she is – standing before him. Is she a ghost, a hallucination, a dream? The last is probably right, he thinks, as he stares open-mouthedly over at her. This has to be a dream, yet it is the most vivid dream he has ever experienced. Every detail of her is exactly as it was in life – the dip in her cheek as she half-smiled at him, the way a few strands of her hair forever sat on the wrong side of the parting.
"Ruth," he repeats again, almost standing up, before she shakes her head.
A dream which moves ahead of him, surprises him, Harry muses – what new devilry is this?
"Am I asleep?" he asks, to the silent room, the strangely realistic spectre standing on front of him. He feels sluggish, like his body is deep in slumber, but his mind and eyes feel gloriously awake and basking in the sight of her – alive and moving on front of him. Every blink, every breath she takes, is like salve on the wound of the last few months. "Is this a dream?" he asks.
"Almost."
He had given up hope of hearing her voice again and it causes a thrill of joy to shoot through him – nausea and pleasure at once. This can't be real, but he has been dying to hear her voice. If he had to give up the voice or the sight of her, he cannot decide which he would rather have. Both make him feel more alive than he had felt in weeks, months, since that terrible air ambulance ride to hospital – grasping her cold, lifeless hand in his own. Blood everywhere.
"Are you real?" he asks, barely able to for the words. If she is a dream, it does not matter, he thinks, if he can form the words. He could think them and she would be able to hear. If this is a dream, the almost-Ruth would just know.
"Almost." she replies again and, dream or not, it is definitely her voice.
"You can't be," he whispers, eyes trailing over her, a whimper of longing forming at the end of his sentence.
How could she be a dream if she was more than he could ever imagine. There were details there that he had completely forgotten. She got a tiny line, just at the corner of her eye, when she smiled. He had forgotten that. She had a birthmark on the side of her neck, just by her shoulder; a slightly darker patch of skin that most of her clothes covered. She was wearing a grey dress, he noticed, one he recognised from her wardrobe but not the one she was wearing the day she died.
"You died," he tells her, in a half sob. The tightness in his throat is never far away, these days. He does not cry, but he spends hours sitting in silence, his throat tight and his chest almost in pain from the loss of her. "Can I," he begins and then falters, before plucking up the courage to finish his question. His fingers move, slightly towards her, across the surface of his desk. "Can I touch?" he asks.
The almost-Ruth's smile becomes decidedly sad.
"Real does not necessarily mean corporeal, Harry,"
God, he has missed how she said his name. Soft, almost like a breath. Nobody else says it that way, nobody else makes it sound like a benediction. It has always destroyed him, to hear it fall from her lips, right up until that last time on the windswept fens. To hear it now, when he had almost prepared himself for never hearing it again, fills him with indescribable hunger. Why did you have to leave me, he wonders at the almost-Ruth, why did I let you go?
"What are you?" he asks, softly. He does not want to break whatever spell he is under – or shatter the illusion his tired mind has created – but he has to know. He has to reaffirm that this is a dream because the alternative is that he is losing his mind. Speaking to your own madness cannot be allowed, no matter how good it feels. "Am I losing my mind, is this a hallucination?" he asks her.
Almost-Ruth shakes her head. "You were closer with the dream."
"But I can hear you and... I think," he frowns, "I am awake."
"Almost," the almost-Ruth reminds him.
"You keep saying that," he bursts out with, and his words are almost a plea. Frustrated longing is building up within him, an almost uncontrollable urge to leap up from his seat and throw his arms around her. At the back of his mind, however, he knows that if he did that, she would vanish before his eyes. So, he manages, barely, to hold himself back.
As if in reward for his temperance, the almost-Ruth steps closer. A hint of her scent reaches his nostrils. Sandalwood and Rose, he thinks, inhaling deeply. His breath brings her together with the scent of the office around them – a familiar combination and one he used to dream about.
"I can smell you,"
"And see and hear," the almost-Ruth nodded, stepping closer still, "but not touch. Not like you want to, anyway,"
He almost feels like blushing, because she has a look in her eye which tells him she knows exactly how he wants to touch her, hold her, wrap his arms around her body until they are pressed as close as two separate beings can get. It is a desperate urge, to hold onto something, when you know it is about to be taken away, but he cannot quell it.
"Why not," he asks, instead of rising from his chair and moving towards her, "why can't I touch you?"
"We don't have the memories of touching, like that, to do it now."
Painfully, Harry begins to piece the situation together.
"So you are a memory, then?" he asks, flatly. She opens her mouth, but Harry speaks first, halting the word before it reaches her lips. "Don't tell me 'almost'. Please don't say that again, I need to know."
She inclines her head, beautiful eyes catching the light of his lamp as they have always done, when she stood there. "In a way," she nods, "I suppose. I don't think there is a word for what I am, but a memory is closest."
Harry sits, watching, breaking for a moment longer. Then he cannot help but blurt out, "how can you talk to me?" Other questions follow, a rush of questions, some of which he already knows she cannot answer. "How are you here? Why haven't you come before? If I'm not imagining this then... just how?"
She does not answer, right away.
Harry watches her, with desperate eyes. Everything he knows is standing on its head, mocking him. The ghost of a memory of the only woman he had ever truly loved was standing just inches away; gone but simultaneously here. He is breaking, aching inside, full of so much joy and pain that he is shaking. Fear courses through him, too, because he has no idea what is happening – is still not sure that he has not completely lost his mind. Most of all, he desires to reach out and touch her, to make her real.
"Why did you leave me alone for so long?" he asks, in a small voice.
At that, her face falls and Harry is surprised by the intense display of emotion there. How could a memory he had fashioned surprise him so? This was unlike any dream he had ever had ('almost' or not). Gritting his teeth, he forces himself to remain seated, not to reach out for her as she whispers his name again.
"Harry..."
He cannot help but let out a longing sigh, however. As she moves to stand opposite him, facing him across the desk, a piece of paper flutters free from the file he is working on and falls to the floor. Harry watches it, his heart beating hard within his chest. Had she done that? Was she really here? Was that even possible? She couldn't be, he knows that, but still...
He considers blinking, hard, to try and wake himself, but finds he does not dare.
"I never wanted to leave you," her soft voice is telling him, soothing him, ridden with guilt and a thousand other emotions. "I never wanted you to be alone, or hurt, you have to believe that, Harry."
"Then why didn't you come before?" he feels silly saying it. It is his mind that has brought her here.
She isn't real, she isn't real, don't let yourself fall into this trap again, he tells himself. It will hurt a thousand times that of mistaking her on the street when you wake and she vanishes before your eyes. Still, the more he watches her, the less confident he is becoming that this is not happening. Stupid man, he reprimands himself, stop even thinking it. Stop being so weak, so pathetic. Ruth cannot be here, Ruth is dead. He is simply losing his mind.
"We don't get to chose, Harry," the almost-Ruth is saying. "It's not like that."
"Well what is it like?" he asks. "Where are you, when you're not with me – if you're real, at all?"
He knows she is not real, but he has to ask. If nothing else, it will reaffirm his suspicions, that she is just his exhausted subconscious, playing tricks on his eyes. She does not answer immediately, however, a cautious expression playing over her face. She pauses for a good half-minute or so, before answering.
"I'm somewhere unlike anything you know or could know," she watches him steadily, for a moment, before continuing. Her voice grows gentler, as she does, quieter and more delicate. "I meant it, when I said I did not chose to leave you. I would have come before, if I could have."
"How can you now, then?" he asks, surprising himself with the vehemence of his question. Why is he angry? She isn't even real and, even if she was, she never left him. Ruth would never leave him. It was his fault, for letting her get snatched away.
The almost-Ruth, the memory/dream, pauses for a long few seconds before answering him.
"I'm here because of what happened, on the bridge."
Shame creeps in, mingling unpleasantly with the loss and longing and frustration.
"I wouldn't have," he tells her, quietly; suddenly aware that it no longer feels he is arguing with his own imagination.
"It's the first time you really considered it," she says, carefully.
Anger boils up within him, staring into her calm so-familiar eyes. She is not real, what does she know about pain? All the resentments – however small, however hidden – that he feels towards her bubble to the surface. The anger that she disobeyed him and stepped between him and Sascha, the irrational anger that she had tried to take the blame for something he had condoned, the even more irrational anger, that she had let her body succumb to being human and bled out there, on the grass. All the anger rises in a seething mass.
"You have no right judge me," he hissed, voice dark as he had heard it in weeks, "you're not the one who was left behind!"
He halted in his rebuke almost immediately, the flicker of hurt that crosses her face too much to bear.
"I'm not judging you," she says quietly, after both of them have held silence for a few seconds. "Don't ask me to explain, because I can't, but its the reason I can be here, now." As she says it, she lowers her eyes in such a Ruth-like way that Harry feels his throat tighten.
He has not cried since that day and tells himself solidly that he will not cry now, not sitting alone in his office, half-madly raving at a half-real memory of his dead lover. No – he corrects himself – almost-lover. 'Almost' seems to epitomise Ruth and him. They were almost-there, almost-something almost-not-too-late. Just 'almost', never quite real.
"I miss you," he whispers harshly, voice losing its steadiness, cracking slightly under the pressure. "So much, sometimes." He swallows, hard, forcing himself to continue – despite the fact that she might not be there, might not be real, might just be him. Surely he can admit this to himself, or to the nothingness. "Some days I just want to lie down and fade away."
There is quiet after his words, a shift in the angry emotion filling the room. It seems to drain away a little more with each breath, the pressure on Harry's chest slipping away with it. The almost-Ruth, or memory-dream, or ghost – whatever she is – pauses for thought. She tilts her head, fixing him with a thoughtful frown. Her eyes are soft.
"You don't die here, Harry, not now and certainly not like that."
He gives an abrupt and slightly harsh laugh. "So you know when I die, do you?"
The almost-Ruth shrugs. "Would it be harder to believe I am here if I did?"
Probably not, Harry thinks. He doesn't quite believe her now, what is one more supernatural element to contend with?
"How then?" he asks, fixing her with an intense stare. "Tell me."
Her eyes flash dangerously. She sets her jaw.
"Not now, not like that," she repeats, "You don't lie down and fade away, Harry. That was never going to be your fate."
They stare at each other for a good long time. Harry thinks of all the thousands of things he would have believed happening to him, this evening, rather than this. The anger rises a little again. How can she tempt him with a little information, like that, and then draw back. It isn't fair. None of this is fair...
After a minute passes, she breathes out, heavily and lowers her eyes. Resignation.
"You die in a field, on a Sunday afternoon. Two to the chest, one to the head, execution-style at close range. It hurts like hell, but you save eleven lives. You die a hero," she tells him, straightening up, lifting her chin. "Just as you lived." Is it pride in her eyes, mixed with the pain? The almost-Ruth pauses, for a moment, then swallows and continues, doggedly. "Thirty-eight people attend your funeral. Your daughter reads a poem, your grandson cries."
"I don't-," he begins, but she interrupts him.
"You should call your son," she tells him, quietly. "He needs you, right now. He's scared but he wants to do the right thing and he needs a father right now. Use this chance, Harry."
His hand is shaking, slightly. He meets the almost-Ruth's eye.
"I can't believe you...How could you possibly know..?"
"We watch," she explains, simply.
"And step in, when one of us looks like offing ourselves?" Harry asks, in a half-strangled voice.
"Don't be crass," she admonishes, softly, but there is only love in her eyes. "It's not all of us that watch. Like what we do in life, it's a choice, and it's personal. I feel the flicker in people, when the darkness reaches out. Not everyone does, but I do, so I watch."
"You stand on the wall," he finishes, for her. Still the guardian, still the protector of the unknowing masses. How Ruth.
"Sometimes, just being there makes someone feel a little less alone. Sometimes, I get to save a life."
"So that is what you do... wander the afterlife, saving people?" he asks, not quite able to believe he is repeating the words.
"Almost," she replies and both of them smile, despite the situation – despite the fact that Harry is still not entirely sure that she is there and he is not suffering from some dreadful neurological episode.
It is so Ruth. What else would she do, with an eternity? She was always the quiet watcher, the silent unappreciated hero. Ruth standing on the wall, forever – he can almost imagine it. Ruth standing on the wall, forever, alone – he doesn't quite want to imagine it. It fills him with a pang of hurt.
"I won't believe it," he tells her. "I would hate to think of you alone."
She shakes her head, eyes soft.
"I'm not."
There is something about the way she says it that tells him there is more to it than that, but he knows she will not tell him, so he does not ask. Stupid man, he tells himself, you already know everything she knows. She is just a part of your imagination – or a hallucination brought on by lack of sleep – nothing more. As she reaches towards him, sliding her fingers across the desk, his words still catch in his throat, however. Only a few inches away, he swears he can feel the warmth of her skin, radiating against his.
"I miss you," he whispers, again.
"We're together, sort of, you'll see."
"I'm so sorry," It has been weeks since he cried himself to sleep, the memory of her blood on his hands still imprinted upon his mind. He has been numb for so long, now, that the tears almost catch him by surprise. Spilling down his cheeks, he does not realise they have fallen until he tastes their salt. "I'm sorry for everything."
"I'm not,"
Blue eyes, deep blue beautiful eyes, focussed on him. They were clear of tears, unlike his, filled only with sincerity and love.
"Apart from one thing," she gives a tiny half-smile, sort of embarrassed and very Ruth. "You should have said it. I know we both know, but we should have said it anyway."
He wipes one cheek, watching her. "Said what?"
He knows.
She knows that he knows, too, but she just gives another half-smile.
"That you love me."
They knew, always had done, but he says it anyway.
"I love you."
She beams.
"Don't fade away, Harry," she murmurs, softly, eyes dancing across his face. "You're meant for more than that. Miss me, hurt for a while, then pick yourself up and live. Even if I'm just a figment of your imagination, you know what I'm saying is right. You know that."
There is something of finality to her words and a strange rising sadness fills him. She had to go, she had to leave him again...
"Will I see you again?" he asks, dreading the answer.
"You might not even be seeing me now," she reminds him.
"You're more than a hallucination, or a dream, though... aren't you?" he asks, so tentatively.
Her eyes twinkle, with a gentle 'I told you so'. They sit watching each other for a moment or two longer then the almost-Ruth walks around the desk, to his side, leaning down so her face is just inches from his. Her lips part.
"You know that I love you, Harry."
He nods.
He can smell her. He can definitely smell her. The creases around his eyes are wet with tears, now. He can taste them on his lips. The almost-Ruth is inches away, telling him that she loves him and she was real. No, not real, but maybe... No she couldn't be... but she is... Harry wants, so desperately, to touch.
"If you touch me, I have to go," she warns him, as he makes an infinitesimal move forwards.
He stills, eyes closing then reopening slowly. She is still there.
"I kissed you before, remember?" he asks, softly. "You said, earlier, that I need memories so that I can touch you."
Her lips curl upwards and Harry hears her soft exhale of breath.
"Does it not work like that?" he asks her, earnestly.
"It works exactly like that," she gives a tiny laugh, that sounds far closer to a sob. "But you didn't kiss me. I kissed you."
"Goodbye," he remembers, aloud. "You kissed me goodbye."
What circular paths they tread.
He never got to say goodbye, he thinks suddenly, like he never got to tell her that he loved her. Lying on the grass, on the fens, he had begged her to stay with him, to stay alive, and she had offered him what comfort she could. She had given him a lie to cling to, told him that they were not meant for that sort of happiness. He had always thought it was a lie, anyways. Looking back, perhaps it was more of a statement of fact. Perhaps, in the moment, she had realised that they were never meant to be anything more. But then, what more could there be? They could have made a life together, of course – held each other, made a home and maybe even a family – but he could never love her more than he already does.
"We never had enough time," he whispers.
"We have all the time in the world, now," she tells him back.
His breathing is growing harsher. Will he cry, break down and weep and beg her to stay? Would she let him kiss her, or vanish before their lips even meet? It would be a somewhat fitting metaphor, for their Earthly existence. Part of Harry is still rebuking himself, for getting caught up in the fantasy but the other part pushes the first aside, with the power of emotion. Perhaps it all was a fantasy, but it was the most pleasant fantasy he has had in a long time and he is more than happy to persist in it.
The first sign of madness, he thinks, with a bitter smile – accepting your ghosts are part of you.
"Close your eyes," she whispers.
"Why?"
"Because you don't remember what this looks like," she murmurs, softly.
Harry does as he is bid.
The brush of her hands comes quite unexpectedly, up against his cheek and neck. Harry gives a soft groan, dying to open his eyes, lift his hands up to hold onto her, but something tells him to hold back. Breath, warm and definitely there against his lips – definitely real and corporeal – her lips press forwards against his. This was Ruth, his Ruth. All their moments of contact flash maddeningly before his mind.
His hand against hers, arms brushing, fingers scraping, palms, a brush of his skin against her cheek, hand on back, face-to-face, lips caressing. Kiss. That day on the pier, on the embankment, anger, passion, repression, lust, love, longing. Everything.
Her hand slides down his face, thumb rubbing along his cheekbone exactly as it had, all those years ago. Her remembers this, remembers it well. The soft wetness of her lips on his. The moment lasts just briefly. Then, she pulls away, leaving Harry with the lingering semi-sweetness of her mouth. Every ounce of his wants to open his eyes, to find hers staring back at him, but he resists.
"Harry," she whispers, stroking one more time down his face.
He remembers this. Too well. Her first goodbye.
"Don't go," he begs her, quietly.
"I don't get to make that choice," she whispers back.
Harry's mind is tearing as his heart breaks open, inside his chest. He needs to know, now, if this is a memory or a dream or something else. His body still feels sluggish, almost asleep, but he can definitely feel her there. He can feel the electricity of her, just millimetres away. If he reached out, he is almost sure he could touch her.
"Ruth," It is the first time he has called her by name, apart from his exclamation of surprise, when she first appeared in his office. He hears her exhale, softly, in response. "When I open my eyes, all this ends, doesn't it?"
"Yes," she sounds sad, but not unduly so. Her fingers seek out his face again, lighting trails of love across it. "But you still have to open your eyes."
"I know this is happening inside my head, but I want it to be real."
Her lips touch his, just a brush, and he feels her whisper against them.
"Whatever makes you think that what happens inside your head is not real, Harry?" she brushes against him again and he can feel her smile. "This is as real as anything you've ever felt." And she presses her lips into his.
One sweet second expands into eternities. This is not the chaste kiss Harry remembers, from the pier. It is not just a touch. Mouth opening a little in surprise, he feels her tongue brush his. Their kiss deepens. Her fingers curl around the side of his neck, possessively. So good. She feels so good, so real. One last press into him and she tilts her head slightly, forehead resting against his, hot breath against his cheek. It is that moment that breaks him.
They have never touched like that and yet it is her forehead pressed against his. That is her skin, warm against his own. Completely unable to stop himself, Harry feels his eye spring open, to seek out her gaze.
They find nothing, just the blind-clad glass wall of his office.
.
He cannot remember how long he sat there, staring into space, but, eventually, the weariness got the better of him. Laying his head down on his folded arms, he let the tears and the harsh rise and fall of his ribs lull him into sleep. And never had sleep been so welcome. It folded around him like a warm blanket, enfolding him in deep layers of darkness. And, for once, he did not dream – or if he did, it vanishes from his memory before the sound of knuckles, rap on his office door and wake him to the world, the next morning.
Sitting up straight, Harry lifts one hand to his cheek, brushing the dry dust of tear salt from his skin. He had cried for longer than he thought, he realises – rubbing it free from around his eyes, blinking hard to separate the crystals from his lashes – longer than he has cried in months. As he tries to make himself presentable, he realises, with a start, that he feels absurdly rested. His muscles do not ache, as if he had spent the night running. His head does not pound with the guilt of unsaid goodbyes, of missed opportunities.
As he looks around, towards the door, he feels a rush of pain when his eyes fall across the spot where the almost-Ruth had stood. It is a bearable sort of pain, however, and he manages to swallow it back to respond to his visitor on their second knock.
"Come in," he calls, and Erin pulls the door open immediately.
Her face appears around the frame, fresh enough for Harry to guess, without looking at the clock, that he has slept through the night and it is now morning.
"Harry," his Section Chief's forehead lines, briefly. "How long have you been in?" it is softly accusing. She wants to know if he has spent the night, as he looks like he has.
Still in the same clothes as yesterday, Harry decides it would be an insult to her intelligence to try and lie to her.
"I couldn't sleep. Came back in, last night." He tries and fails to stifle an enormous yawn, feeling his ears pop.
A glance at the clock tells him he has been asleep for nearly ten hours – more hours than he has found in the last week, put together. It is half past six in the morning. People will be starting to arrive for work. Harry is suddenly grateful that he remembered to close the blinds on his office window and that it was Erin who had woken him. It wouldn't do to let his more junior officers catch him sleeping on the job. Especially Dimitri. The poor boy had been the one restraining Sascha Gavrik, that day on the Fens, and carried a lot of guilt for what had happened that day. The young officer spent a lot of time checking up on Harry, surreptitiously making sure he was eating, sleeping, getting home at the right time. It was like having a fanatically devoted body guard. They mean well, Harry reminds himself, as he takes in Erin's worried glance and the way her lips part, to form a rebuke.
She decides not to, in the end, settling instead on giving him a brief overview of what she wanted to clear off the Grid for the day. As she runs through a couple of operations which Harry is not involved with, and a couple more that he wishes he was not involved with, Harry stands and stretches and wonders what she would say, if he told her what had happened last night. What would Erin say to him, if he admitted to speaking to an almost-Ruth, not a foot from where she stood, now. A tiny smile stretches his lips. They would probably cart him off to TRING, indefinitely. He would, in their position.
"Briefing room, then?" he asks Erin, nonchalantly.
The Section Chief nods. "I've red-flashed the team in, on the Cyron-1 operation and we have security moving to help us with the extra requests for the hotel in Hertfordshire." She checks her watch. "It should be half an hour, or so, before I'm ready to present so I'll have the new analyst look over the transport details and have them ready for you-,"
"-Becca," Harry tells her, softly. It is about time the team are comfortable enough to use the poor girl's name, after all. Their new analyst has been patient and polite enough. She deserves better, from Harry and his fiercely loyal team. "Her name is Becca Morris," he tells Erin, who looks briefly surprised, but nods.
"I'll have Becca sort out the transport details."
Harry gives her a taut smile, not quite there yet but giving it a good try anyway. It seems to placate his Section Chief. After standing in the doorway for a moment longer, she nods again and heads off on her way, heels clicking loudly against the hard floor.
Harry turns back to his desk, deliberating whether or not to try calling Jane, to get a number for his son. In the end, he pulls all his courage together and calls his daughter, instead. They were on speaking terms before Ruth died and, though he had become rather un-contactable since, Harry knows she is still in contact with her brother. He dials the number in thrice and hangs up before it rings then gets brave on the fourth try.
It rings through to the answering machine, which causes him a strange rush of disappointment, but he leaves a message anyway, asking her to meet sometime, apologising for not being in touch.
"I lost someone, recently, a woman I cared about very much," he tells her, slowly. It still hurts to say it out loud, but at least he can say it, now. "She made me see some things a little more clearly," he continues, doggedly. It is hard to tell Catherine this, to show emotion, even to an empty telephone line. As his eyes drift around the room, they come to rest on the slip of paper, lying next to his chair – the same spot it had fluttered to, the previous night, at the almost-Ruth's hand. "I'm sorry I've not been around for a while," he pushes himself to continue, "but we were doing so well, before. I'd like to talk again, if that's okay with you. It would be nice to meet, face-to-face, now that you're back in London." Harry takes a deep breath. "I miss you."
Heaving one last sigh, he lowers the phone back down to the cradle. He almost reaches it, before he hears the click of the line opening on the other end.
"Dad?"
"Catherine," never has he been so glad to hear her voice, or for her to call her 'dad'. Moving back to his chair, he sits down heavily upon it, laying his head in one hand, eyes closed, drinking in the sound of his daughter's voice.
"Are you okay?" she asks, genuine concern for him shining through her greeting. "You don't usually call this early and I've not heard from you in some time."
The last time he left a message like this one, Harry thinks, it was the day he was driving to meet Lucas North on that rooftop. He had explained what had happened to Catherine, when they next talked and the truth had scared her a little. She is worried for him again, now, Harry can tell.
"I'm fine," he tells her, quietly. "I'd quite like to see you, if that's suitable, I mean. If you're not too busy."
It is a mark of how bad he must sound that Catherine agrees almost instantly.
"I have a meeting this morning, but I can do lunch at half-eleven."
For some reason, the thought of his daughter at a meeting makes him feel like crying all over again, but he manages to contain himself. This is a happier sort of loss. There should be no tears for his daughter growing up.
"Lunch would be fantastic," he tells her, instead.
"Dad?" her voice catches him, just as he is thinking about bidding her farewell.
"Yes?"
"I'm never too busy, you know. If you need me, I can cancel the meeting."
She will be ten times the parent he ever was, Harry thinks, and a hundred times the human being. Swallowing hard, he holds back a shaking breath.
"I mean it," Catherine continues, softly. "If you ever need to chat or, God, I suppose we could even push for a hug now, we've been talking for a while and I am your daughter..." she clears her throat in a way which reminds him, fondly, of her mother. "I'm here, okay?"
Harry nods, though she cannot see him. Truthfully, a hug would be great. To hold his child again, in his arms, to feel her grown and alive would be fantastic. There are so few things he has left, in this world, to love. He wants to pull them all in and hold them close, protect them – though he knows he can't, not really. He resists the urge to ask her to come, however, and tells her he is fine again. She has her own life to lead, her own dreams to follow.
"Just get off to your meeting," he tells her, then adds, as an afterthought. "I love you."
Always remember to say it. Always say it, no matter how scared it makes you feel.
His daughter waits a while, without saying anything and Harry wonders if he has gone too far. They had both been so careful, after getting back into contact, not to ruin their good terms by saying too much, by delving too deep into their emotions. Harry holds his breath but does not really need to. When she eventually speaks, it is not with unease.
"I'll see you at half eleven. I can send you the address of the office, if you'd like – as if you don't already know where I work," she adds, with only the slightest trace of annoyance that her father keeps tabs on her. "You can pick me up?"
"I'd like that."
"Good. Settled."
He smiles. She sounds very like her mother, in the young days, before Jane and Harry became distant and disengaged with one another. Catherine and Graham were the only good that came of them, Harry thinks, but he is incredibly glad, in the moment, to have them. All of a sudden, he does not feel so alone.
"See you at eleven," he tells his daughter.
"Dad?" she catches him again, before he sets down the phone. "I love you too." It is muttered quickly, as if she is trying not to lose her nerve, but it fills him with pleasure. "Bye," she adds, then she hangs up.
Standing, Harry walks over to the glass front of his office and draws the blinds from across it. The movements on the Grid beyond are busy, as is normal for this time on a Monday morning, but not feverish. If the briefing goes well and nothing untoward happens, Harry thinks he might even manage to make his lunch date with Catherine. Keep your fingers crossed, old boy, he mutters to himself, and avoid Russians, men muttering in Arabic and thermobaric bombs. A little voice tells him that he has no need to. He does not die on a Monday, after all.
Heaving a sigh, he seeks out Erin's figure among the others and waits until she meets his eye, nodding towards the briefing room. He nods back.
Time to go.
Turning away from the window, he walks back towards the door, pausing as he catches sight, once more, of the small piece of paper that had fallen from his desk the night before. Walking back over, he leans down and picks it up. It is a post-it note, one he recognises as being stuck between the pages of an asset file he had been reading, before he fell asleep. As he turns it over in his hand, he recognises Ruth's handwriting, with a jolt.
It is just some quote or another – a proverb which had been quoted by the asset, under questioning. Clearly thinking it was relevant in some way, Ruth had scribbled it on the post-it note and stuck it in the file but it seemed to have come to nothing. Harry cannot remember it being mentioned in the synopsis of the report. She must have left it there by mistake, he thinks, thumbing over the worn and yellowing paper; an annotation forgotten in the chaos she waded through, daily.
On the last line of the quotation, she has underscored the word 'love' lightly.
Harry swallows, hard.
Whatever happened last night, it has not changed the reality of his situation. Ruth is still gone and he knows there is nothing he can do to bring her back. He is not a religious man. He does not believe in heavens or an afterlife. He is not a superstitious man, either. He does not believe in ghosts. But he has never been too much of a cynic to think that there is not more, to the world, than is dreamt of in his philosophy. He has lived fifty-five years on this planet and never once has he seen a piece of paper dance free of a desk, in a room without wind or movement. Harry does not believe in coincidence, so he decides, just this once, to leave what has happened as unexplained, unanalysed.
Perhaps, in a few weeks, he will be diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour, or some rare form of hallucinogenic madness, but at least he has seen her face one last time. At least he has had the chance to say goodbye and, though his heart still feels like it is being ripped from his chest every time he thinks of her, his shoulders feel a little bit lighter.
Folding the note carefully, he placed it in his pocket as a talisman, to get him through the day – or, at least, until lunch with Catherine.
"Goodbye Ruth," he whispers, to the empty room.
She isn't here anymore, (if she ever had been), not in this room anyway. Harry knows that. She is off somewhere, walking the wall, in her own way. She is somewhere he cannot understand or see, but she is not alone. He wonders whether time exists, there, and if he is with her. Is that what she had meant by they were together, sort of? Maybe. It gives him a strange sort of hope, for a man who does not believe in afterlives or ghosts. Though he cannot understand any of it, he feels a little happier, because it means she might be able to hear him.
"I miss you."
Giving himself a little shake and muttering about being a mad old fool, he heads out, through the sliding door and back onto the Grid.
Erin joins him as they head for the meeting room.
"So, what fresh hell?" he asks, voice calm; Harry Pearce, one still point.
"Two Asian males fitting the suspect profile spotted boarding a train, this morning. GCHQ have chatter about a semtex sale going down in Clapham and Six want all those files they sent last week back yesterday, with your assessment."
"Briefing room?"
"The team are waiting."
Harry nods.
Grieve then live, Ruth had told him. The underlined 'love' felt a little heavier in his pocket, just momentarily.
"Okay. Lets go."
.