A/N: I'm definitely repeating myself in this 2-shot, but I still thought it worth writing.

I may have messed with the time line a bit in order to make everything fit where I wanted it to. Characters belong to Kudos.

"That address rings a bell," Tariq says aloud, but to himself.

Ruth is two desks away, and so she has no idea what address he's talking about, but if he wants to share the information with her, she knows he will. She is speed reading the day's terror threats ... the usual smorgasbord of mayhem and madness. It is her job to create ordered threat assessments, which would normally be passed on to Erin – the interim Section Head.

Erin is one of the reasons Ruth will be relieved when Harry returns - if he returns - but to think too hard about the possibility Harry may never return to the Grid is to invite dark thoughts about what a Harryless life might be like.

Easter Sunday night is a graveyard shift, and Ruth almost always volunteers, along with Good Friday, Easter Saturday, and Easter Monday. What else is she to do? With everyone under the age of forty taking the four days off to spend with friends and family – other than Tariq, who appears to have no life outside MI-5 – that leaves Ruth holding the fort. Last year, Ruth had only worked Good Friday, since Easter had fallen soon after Ros' funeral, and Harry's strange, and desperate proposal, and she'd not fancied being cloistered with him – almost alone – during the four day weekend. This year, he is on suspension for committing treason - for handing over a genetic weapon (although not a real one, but that hardly seems to matter). Ruth considers her working the four days of the Easter break to be her own particular penance for Harry's temporary madness. After all, he'd given away Albany because he loves her, so in her estimation, that must mean she's partly responsible.

"Number 61 Clifton Street -"

"What?"

"Number 61 -"

"I heard you the first time, Tariq."

"So -"

"That's Harry's house. What is it? Gas leak? Break in?"

"I've only just noticed it."

"If it was flagged, it should have come up straight away."

"It did, but all it says is …..."

"What?" Ruth almost shouts, and Tariq's eyebrows move together as he frowns, leaving his eyes like large brown dinner plates.

"All it says is that the security system is down."

Ruth grabs her desk phone, and punches in Harry's mobile number. There's a possibility his electricity is off, and so his cordless home phone may not be working. His mobile phone goes straight to voicemail.

"Harry," she says abruptly, "ring me to let me know you're alright."

"He may have turned it off himself," Tariq offers, watching Ruth warily.

"And why would he do that?"

Tariq shrugs, and it is then that Ruth understands Harry's hatred of the shrug, and his demanding it should never be used as a method of communication between colleagues in the workplace. At that moment, when Ruth is experiencing more than a mild level of concern for Harry's safety, she has to breathe deeply in order to not raise her voice when speaking to Tariq.

"When did the security system go down?" she asks, as calmly as she can manage.

"8.27 pm."

"8.27? That's almost two hours ago. What took you so long?"

"I was prioritising, and Ruth …... although the address was flagged, I hadn't known it was Harry's place. A security system going down at a flagged address is not top priority." Not until now, apparently.

"Ring downstairs, and get me a car, Tariq."

"I already have. There are none available, but door security has rung for a taxi."

Ruth had been so distracted by this occurrence at Harry's house that she hadn't noticed Tariq acting on the information.

"Perhaps I should call Internal Affairs," he adds.

"Why?"

"They have people watching Harry's house."

"Not after 10 pm."

"You don't know that."

"Actually, I do." Ruth shuffles around in her desk drawers for a couple of items she'd planned to take to Harry next time she happened to drop in with some soup or a casserole. Tonight there will be no meal for him, so she drops the two items into her bag, and then grabs her coat, and heads towards the door. She is just about to leave the Grid, eerily darkened by the lights being off in Harry's office, when she turns. "Oh, and Tariq ..."

"Yes?"

"Thanks for running those searches."

"It's my job, Ruth. It's part of what I do."

"I know, but …..." She manages a brief smile - a little forced, but still a smile. "Don't stay here too late."

"I thought I might sleep here tonight," he says, his face serious. "You never know what else I might find." Tariq hesitates for a moment, watching Ruth carefully. "Easter is not cause for celebration for Muslims, so ….. I may as well be here, and …... it could be a time when Islamic extremists choose to strike. You know, when no-one's paying attention."

"I know, Tariq. That's why I'm …..."

"Panicking?"

"Concerned. Thank you, Tariq, for all you do. I'll …... call you …... when I know what's going on. It's just that I have to know if …..."

"I know you do. He's …... we all miss Harry, Ruth."

Ruth nods, and turns back to the doors, surprised by the tears which have sprung to her eyes.

Tariq turns back to his monitor. He has been told (on more than one occasion) that relationship-wise, he is not a sensitive man, but even he can detect the tension between his boss and their senior analyst. He just wishes they'd deal with whatever-it-is sits between them, so that life on the Grid could go back to normal.

Sitting in the back of the taxi, Ruth is tense and nervous. She thinks the taxi driver is taking his time, even though she'd asked him to drive as fast as he could, but within the constraints of the law.

"The law don't limit me none, madam," he'd said, and that had been the end of their interaction.

Ruth decides to stare out the side window, because from that angle, she can imagine the taxi to be travelling very fast indeed. She'd asked the driver to drop her off just around the corner from Harry's house, so that she could enter his property through the back. She'd done it every time she'd visited him with food.

The first time she'd knocked at his back door carrying a container of soup, had been towards the end of his first week of suspension. He and she were not meant to communicate during his time away from the Grid, but she'd decided that if one was determined enough, ways would be found, and no-one need know. Harry had been surprised to see her, and she could also read in his eyes his pleasure that she had thought to visit him, and bring him some home-cooked food.

"I can cook, you know, Ruth," he'd said, as she'd asked him where he kept the saucepans, so that she could heat the soup.

"I just thought it might be nice if …..."

He'd nodded and smiled, and she'd served their soup in bowls, and he'd toasted bread, and buttered it.

"Had I known you were bringing soup, I would have bought some crusty rolls," he'd said, smiling across the table at her.

Ruth had gone home soon after they'd finished eating, not wanting to over-stay her welcome. Harry had asked her to stay for a drink, and had looked rather lost when she'd used having to work next day as her excuse for not staying with him longer. She had visited him perhaps five or six more times since that evening, and each time had left soon after the meal.

As she squeezes between the small gap between Harry's back fence, and the neighbours' side fence, she remembers how each time she had gone home early, Harry had progressively begun to shut down. Each time she'd turned up with food for him, she had eaten with him – usually at his insistence – but when she'd refused to stay on and enjoy whatever hospitality he was offering her, his face had become a mask which hid his true feelings. Harry was very good at hiding what he felt, but Ruth could read the other signs, the signs that he was feeling helpless and rejected. He had a way of standing with his shoulders slumped, and his head down, his hands fiddling with whatever was close to him. He'd pretend to be occupied, but she knew he had no idea what to say to convince her to stay.

As she waits for him to answer the knock on his back door, Ruth hopes she is not too late to change the way she acts around him. It is clear to her how it is he feels about her. When she's being honest with herself, she admits that she feels the same way. It's just that she's been afraid – of what, she's not certain. She has never been terribly good at closely examining her fears. As Ruth sees it, looking too closely at what it is frightening her is like staring into the abyss.

Ruth places her face close to the kitchen window, and seeing nothing inside – no lights on, no movement of any kind – she does what any good spy would do. She picks the lock. She enters the house quickly and quietly, but before she has a chance to close and lock the door behind her, a sudden gust of wind catches it, and blows it shut with a bang.

"Shit," she says aloud, and then locks the door. If there's anyone in the house who shouldn't be there (apart form her, of course) then she's locked herself inside with them. She stands beside the kitchen sink for a moment, hoping to hear the sound of Harry moving around, turning on some lights, but there is nothing. Maybe he is out, and doesn't yet know about his security system being off.

Ruth places her bag on the kitchen table, and it is only as she is creeping down the hallway towards the living room door that she considers she should have at least taken her phone from her bag. A woman alone in a darkened house with a (possibly) unknown assailant is an easy target. She doesn't berate herself too much …... after all, she's not a field spy. She has just crept past the bottom of the stairs, when she hears a noise from above her. The creaking of floorboards under a man's weight in a silent house registers as loudly as a scream.

Ruth stands statue still, and slowly looks up towards the first landing, where she sees a figure wearing what looks like a flowing, dark red cloak. He is standing equally as still as she, holding a pistol, which is pointed directly at her head.

A/N: Final chapter up some time this weekend.