H/R mid to late S8, awash with sexual tension...what else!
She stood close. So close he could breathe her in. He didn't want her to move.
He controlled his breathing, he quashed his desires, he restrained himself …again.
Always.
"Harry? What do want?"
Therein lay the question.
He didn't dare an answer.
He wanted to reach forward, just those few inches, reach across the void, eliminate the space, and feel her soft lips under his. He wanted to hold her, touch her, feel her. He wanted to lose himself in her.
"Harry?"
"What do I want, Ruth?"
The words had escaped him.
She nodded. Still so close. Eyes so large, so intense, so very Ruth.
"You," he said softly.
Her gaze did not falter.
Her breath did not stop.
Her heartbeat did not hesitate.
...Seemingly.
"To speak to Washington and find out what they know, Ruth."
A moment passed.
"Fine," she said and turned away.
His hand flexed, desperate to hold her back, before clenching into a fist and burying itself in his pocket.
"Ruth," he called.
She paused by the door.
And he knew in that moment that things had to change.
"Yes?" she waited, watching the stillness of his face and wondering what thoughts were running through his mind.
"You don't know me," he said.
Her face clouded.
"I'm sorry?"
"You think you know me well, but you don't know me."
She hesitated. Lost.
His nerve deserted him as the silence hung heavy in the air and he watched the uncomfortable expression settle upon her face. As she opened her mouth to speak, he simply cut her off.
"That'll be all, Ruth."
It was a dismissal.
She slid the door closed behind her.
He stood on one side wondering what the hell had come over him.
She stood on the other wondering what the hell he was trying to say.
Ruth could not settle, even at home. Nothing felt quite right. Her tea tasted wet, her dinner hot but neither seemed to be very real, neither seemed to be right. She, who could untangle all problems, other than the personal, was troubled by the words which hung in her mind, distracting her.
"Idiot" said Harry out loud.
Scarlett looked up.
"Not you," he muttered and abstractedly patted her head.
The bus was particularly full this morning. Not that it was busier than usual, more that she was later than usual.
Restless sleep and unsatisfied dreams.
The woman next to her sat reading a book. Ruth's lay unopened before her, unable even to concentrate on that. She gazed out of the window at the falling rain and the patterns it made running down the glass.
Harry's words were there again, running through her mind. Knowing him. Not knowing him.
"You think you know me well, but you don't know me."
She could hear him saying it with that strange, intense look upon his face.
She could hear him. She could hear the words.
….. She really could hear the words.
She turned to the woman, peering at the earphones fixed in her ears. She could hear the words.
The woman tried hard to ignore the fact that she was being unashamedly stared at. But then a hand touched her arm and stayed there. Even on a London bus it was a little too much to ignore. She unplugged one ear.
"I'm sorry, but that music, please may I listen to it for a moment?" said Ruth urgently.
The woman nodded slowly, it would seem rude to refuse.
"It's Van Morrison," she said handing over the headphones.
She watched the younger woman out of the corner of her eye. Watched the music wash over her. Watched the clarity spark in her eyes. Watched her face soften and then saw the heat rise in her cheeks.
Ruth was not looking at her fellow traveller. She was not looking at the rain. Nor the patterns on the window. The only thing she could see were the words of the song. The song she realised she knew. The words she knew.
You give your hand to me and then you say hello and I can hardly speak my heart is beating so and anyone can tell you think you know me well, but you don't know me.
No, you don't know the one who longs for you each night, and longs to kiss your lips and longs to hold you tight.
You know I'm just a friend, that's all I've ever been.
You don't know me…..
Afraid and shy I let my chance go by, the chance that you might have loved me too.
"Where's Harry?'
"Whitehall," Lucas answered.
Ruth took her seat.
"Keeping tabs on him, Ruth?" Ros smiled.
Sometimes she reminded Ruth of a shark.
This was one of those times.
"No, I just had some intel he wanted."
Ros got up. "That's not all he wants," she muttered, passing Lucas. Lucas smiled.
Ruth was aware she'd missed something but quite frankly she didn't want to know.
Harry had been finding ways to stay off the grid.
He was weighed down, weighed down by a pressure that never left him. A pressure to tell her the truth.
A need, a desire to stop pretending, to stop capping what he felt. He had had enough self restraint to last him a lifetime.
He wanted, where Ruth was concerned, to be unrestrained.
Very unrestrained.
And today, he concluded, today was the day.
Sod it. Why not!