Special thanks to r4ven3 for giving this first chapter a read-through, and for your continued friendship and support. This is the first of what will likely be eight chapters, updated as time and Something Wonderful will allow. I know that many other fics have explored Harry and Ruth post-Albany, and I hope you all will forgive me the self-indulgence of revisiting that time once more.
One foot in and one foot back
But it don't pay to live like that
So I cut the ties and I jumped the tracks
For never to return
-"I and Love and You"/The Avett Brothers
Ruth Evershed didn't go to pieces, any more. When tragedy struck, she didn't scream, or rend her hair, or drown herself in wine. She didn't sit, catatonic, staring into space. Ruth Evershed had gone to pieces one too many times, and she'd never really been put back together. So after Albany, after Lucas, after Harry, she didn't collapse on the floor, weighed down by all her grief and rage and fear and guilt. There wasn't enough of her heart left to break, any more.
After Albany, she went home, and she slept. She slept for sixteen hours straight, the sedative slowly working its way out of her body, her cells gradually learning how to live again. She woke up, went to the loo, and then crawled back under the duvet. Her mobile lay forgotten by the bed, its battery dead. No one was likely to call her today, anyway, she supposed.
Beth poked her head around the bedroom door for a moment, around supper time; though they weren't quite friends, living together for the last year had brought them close in a way, and Ruth knew her flatmate was worried about her. Perhaps Tariq had told Beth how she had cried, when she thought Harry was dead. Perhaps Dimitri had taken Beth aside, and told her what he knew of the long, twisted, tragic history between the boss spook and his star analyst. Perhaps Beth had taken the initiative, and pulled their personnel files. Then again, it might just have been simple human compassion that compelled her to check in to make sure Ruth was still breathing. Funny, after all these years, Ruth couldn't quite remember what passed for normal any more.
As she lay beneath the duvet, she tried to decide if it was worth the effort to get out of bed or if she should just lie there until she rotted, until her skin and bones were dead and putrefied to match the blackness that had taken up residence where her heart used to be. A half-forgotten conversation from another lifetime drifted through her mind, and she smiled to remember that girl she had been, before.
Before she died.
There in the gathering dark she thought about that girl, and the ghost who had come back from her Grecian grave to haunt the halls of Thames House. She thought about the little charm necklace she had taken off the night she went on her first date with George, and wondered where it had gone. She'd always meant to tuck it in her go-bag, so it would always be with her, a little something to remember that poor, naïve, dead girl by, but the necklace was lost.
The necklace was lost, and George was lost, and Ruth was lost, but as she mused on what used to be, what could never be, she began to formulate a plan.
She'd always been good at plans. Little bullet-pointed lists, little boxes to check. Do this thing, and then this, and then this, and you'll be done, and everything will make sense again. Give her a pen and paper and she could right every wrong, with a well thought out plan.
It was her plan that galvanized her into action that got her out of bed and into the shower. For two years now she had dreamt of leaving, of starting over, of burying Ruth Evershed again, this time for good. She had dreamt of a big city, a city where the lights never went out and no one knew her name and no one cared where she went or who she loved. And now, finally, she knew it was time to go. There was just one thing she had to do first.
There was no awkward shuffling, no last-minute onset of crippling doubt, no self-conscious primping; Ruth walked right up to the door, and rang the bell, and stood still as a statue, waiting for him to appear. The girl she'd been before would have cringed to see her now, standing there bold as brass on his front step, but that girl had known nothing of the true meaning of fear. That girl had been frightened of whispers; the woman who had taken her place knew there were greater terrors in this world. Now she knew how it felt to have the beating heart ripped from her chest, how it felt to look a man in the face and shoot him down while he choked on his own blood, and now she did not fear something as meaningless as whispered words.
And oh, there would be whispers, after this. There was an obbo van parked not thirty meters from the spot where she stood, and she knew their eyes and ears were trained on her. Long ago she'd known a young man with an easy smile and a tempting charm who would have loved to have been given such infallible confirmation of his suspicions; he would have called everyone he knew, and closed his book. But he was gone, and his book with him; lost in the most horrific, unthinkable fashion. Poor Zaf. She thought. Poor Jo. Poor Adam. Poor Fiona. Poor Colin. Poor Ros. Poor Danny. Oh, Danny….
The door opened then, just as her thoughts drifted to Danny and the clammy feel of his cold, dead face in her hands.
Harry didn't seem surprised to see her. His hair, what little of it remained, was rumpled and untidy. His shirt was untucked, his tie nowhere to be found, his feet bare on the hardwood floor. Eight years ago, her heart would have skipped a beat, to see his muscular forearms bare where he'd rolled up his sleeves, to see the deep V of skin exposed at his throat where he'd undone a few buttons. Eight years ago she would have melted, and stammered, and blushed. Now, she simply thought he looks as broken as I feel.
Neither of them said a word. Harry's eyes flicked to the obbo van, and then back to her face, and she read the question in his gaze. Are you sure you want to do this? Oh, how well she knew this man, this terrible, honorable, gorgeous, hopeless man. If only that poor dead girl could see them now, she thought. The girl she had been had longed to know him, to read his face like her favorite book, to look into his eyes and see his soul. Well, now she could. Now she could, and she hated what she saw.
Ruth gave no answer to his question, save to take a step towards him. He stepped back, like a dancer, leading her into his home for the first time since she'd come back from Cyprus.
Inside, the lights were dim, and music was coming softly from somewhere. Coltrane, she realized with a tired little smile. Harry had been sitting in the dark, drinking and listening to jazz music; how very apropos.
As she followed him to the kitchen she wondered what he'd been thinking about, there in the chill darkness of this house that was much too big for one person. Had he been asking himself if it was worth it, in the end, to throw away his career and millions of lives to save one woman, a woman who thanked him by saying only it was unfair of you to love me? Had he been weighing his options, taking note of what dirt he had on whom, and whether the secrets he kept were dangerous enough to ensure his freedom? Had he been thinking of her?
No answer was forthcoming, at least, not from him. Harry pulled a half-empty bottle from his liquor cabinet, poured a healthy measure into a glass. He gave a little roll of his shoulders as he turned to face her; do your shoulders ache, Harry? She wondered. Do you wish there was someone here waiting for you when you came home at the end of the day, to rub your shoulders and cook your supper and listen to you whinge on about how terrible the world is?
Such thoughts were unkind, she knew. Harry would never ask that of her, would never dream that she would be that sort of wife. The ill-timed, ill-fated, ill-treated proposal at Ros' graveside hadn't been about Harry needing a woman to look after him; it had been about Harry needing Ruth, needing to hold on to her, to cherish her, to love her in the darkness when their world became too much. And Ruth had thrown his love back in his face.
He handed her the glass and she took it, and still they did not speak. Their footsteps took them back to the sitting room, where the strains of While my Lady Sleeps oozed, scratchy and earnest, from a battered record player in the corner. He folded himself into his favorite chair and lifted the glass that waited for him on the side table; she slipped into a corner of the sofa, just opposite him, shucking off her shoes and tucking her feet up underneath her like she belonged there.
You could have had this every night, she told herself as she watched him, watching her. You could sit on this sofa and read your book and he could sit in his chair and listen to his music, and when you were both too exhausted to stand, you could stumble up the stairs and fall asleep together.
It was a pleasant fantasy, this could-have-been life.
Be brave. Be selfish for once. The words echoed in her mind.
How strange that was, to receive the best advice of her entire life from the sort of man who could look her in the eye and tell her he would shoot her in the head without reservation. The sort of man who could shove a needle in her arm and try to soothe her as she slipped into oblivion.
Ruth had never really trusted Lucas North. From the moment they first met on the Grid on that horrible, horrible day when she'd returned to London, she had never felt comfortable around him. And as her suspicions grew, so did Harry's faith in the man. Harry kept giving Lucas more and more leniency, his trust the rope with which Lucas had hung himself.
As she looked at him now the temptation to say I told you so was almost overwhelming, but she held her tongue. She hadn't come here to wound his pride, to discuss his faults ad nauseam. There was an old Jackson Browne song; how did it go?
Don't confront me with my failures, I have not forgotten them.
If that were ever true of anyone, it was Harry.
"I looked for you, after," Harry said quietly, staring at her no longer but considering his drink instead. "I went to the roof. Thought I'd find you there."
If Ruth thought she knew him well, thought she knew his heart and his hopes, it was nothing compared to his understanding of her. Every fiber of her being had screamed at her to wait for him on the Grid, to stand on the roof, where he was sure to go, and meet him after. But she had left, the taste of her own words still bitter in her mouth.
"I couldn't bear to be there another moment longer," she told him.
Since the day her father died, Ruth had never really felt at home anywhere, until she came to Thames House. Her mother had moved house half a dozen times, and all the while Ruth was trapped at boarding school, coming back each summer to a different room, a different furniture arrangement, another desperate attempt at starting fresh. There had been countless little flats, after university, in Cheltenham, then London. After her frantic flight came more temporary reprieves, in Paris and Italy and Athens. There had been a neat little cottage in Cyprus, and then a house bought with George. A few small, ratty safe houses back in London, and then there was the flat she shared with Beth. None of those places had been anything more than a room to rest her head in. Thames House had been home, the sterile, artificial lights of the Grid more familiar, more welcoming than anywhere else she'd ever lived. There were memories in that place, etched into every well-known stone; she knew who she was there. She was happy there.
But that night, after Albany, after everything, the weight of the past had borne down on her. Everywhere she looked beloved faces swirled through the darkness at her, each of them seeming to whisper, it was your turn, Ruth, until she couldn't take it any more, and fled from their recrimination.
"I think this is the end of the road, Ruth," Harry said, sighing heavily.
She couldn't help but wonder what he meant by that. The end of the road for his career? For his life? For them?
"Well, if it is, you picked a spectacular way to go, Harry," she answered, deciding to pretend he was talking about work, and not the heavy, awful, emptiness that was their non-relationship.
He was watching her again, those brown eyes she loved so well shining softly in the glow of the lamp between them. The needle was skipping on the record; it, too, had reached the end of the road.
"You should flip it over," she told him gently, wondering if their salvation lay on the other side of the record.
There was another long silence between them, as Harry heaved himself out of his chair and made his way over to the record player. As she watched him, Ruth took a sip from her drink, hating the burn and the way the taste of it reminded her of him. The record began to play again, the soft, smooth sound of the saxophone invading her senses, worming its way under her skin, mixing with the alcohol in her blood and turning her attention fully on the man across from her. The man now leaning up against a bookshelf and staring at her warily, as if she were a wild animal, poised to run.
And what a man he was.
For people who didn't know him, she supposed he wasn't that remarkable. The wrong side of fifty, heavy with the weight of muscle gone to seed, hair thinning, face lined. But hear his voice, learn of his past, and suddenly he was a god; those hands had killed and created, that mouth had love and lied, those eyes had wept and bled. He spoke, and the mountains trembled. He spoke, and, for a moment, Ruth Evershed could feel again.
"Why are you here?"
Oh, Harry.
With steady hands she placed her glass on the table by the sofa, and rose to stand in bare feet, the continual thump thump thump of her heart in her chest keeping steady pace with the music pouring out of the record player.
"I wanted to see you."
She took a step towards him. He stayed still, watching.
"Why?"
Oh, Harry.
She didn't realize she'd spoken his name aloud until she saw him flinch. Why, indeed.
The words were on the tip of her tongue; I'm leaving, Harry. I'm leaving you, I'm leaving the service, I'm leaving London, I'm leaving Ruth Evershed far behind, never to be seen or heard from again. I'm leaving, because in my heart I'm already gone. But how could she say that? After everything he'd sacrificed, everything they'd done, she was giving up. In the moment, her words failed her. As she struggled to come up with some other explanation, her feet kept moving her forward, until she was close enough to touch him.
Her hands weren't steady, any more.
Her hands trembled as she reached out, and gently stroked his cheek, feeling the day's growth of stubble, prickly beneath her fingertips, staring into his eyes, wondering if she had it in her to deliver the final blow. She never got the chance.
Perhaps the memories had overwhelmed him, too. Perhaps, as he stood there with her hands on his face he couldn't help but recall the last time she'd touched him this way, and the need to feel her lips beneath his own again had drowned out every other thought. Perhaps he'd sensed what she was about to say, and couldn't bear to hear it.
Whatever his reason, Harry reached out and caught her hips in his hands, drawing her flush against him as his lips crashed down on hers and every admonition, every accusation, every confession disappeared from her mind until all that remained was Harry.
How many times, in the years since she'd left him on the docks, had she dreamed of his kiss? How many nights had the thought of his lips on hers sustained her, kept her going, kept her from breaking down completely?
God, but this man knew how to kiss. His lips were soft and warm and insistent, pressed against her own. His hands were warm and strong, gripping her hips, holding her as close to him as possible, tense with longing. Longing for her, she knew. As sweet as it was, to finally be held by him, to finally feel the warmth and wet of his mouth, she needed more. The girl she had been would have waited, meekly, for him to move things along, but that girl was dead. Ruth needed more, and she was damned if she was waiting another moment.
Eager hands slid into his hair, and her tongue snaked out from between her lips to brush against him, telling him in no uncertain terms what she wanted. Harry seemed more than happy to oblige. He opened his mouth to hers as one of his hands drifted away from her hips, running over the swell of her ass, giving it an appreciative little squeeze as his tongue forced its way past her own. She arched her back, desperate to feel the solid heat of him against her. They fell together, the bookshelf at his back holding them up as hands wandered and the fire between them grew.
"Ruth," he breathed against her mouth, his lips moving down her jaw toward her neck, blazing a trail across her skin. He found her pulse point, sucked the sensitive skin there between his teeth until she was moaning, wanton and boneless in his arms. If she had the wherewithal to think she might have been embarrassed by the way she was grinding herself against him, shamelessly pressing the softness of her breasts against his chest, cradling his head against her skin despite the fact that she knew he was leaving a mark. As it was she urged him on, consequences and obbo vans be damned. She needed this. Self-control, self-denial; for too long that had been her mantra. If this was to be her last night as Ruth Evershed, she was determined to make it such a night that wherever she went, whoever she became, she would never forget it.
She caught his head in her hands, brought his face back up to hers so she could drink the whiskey from his lips once more.
"Take me to bed, Harry," she told him, and without another word he grabbed her by the hand, and led her up the stairs.
It wasn't fair, she knew, to do this to him. It wasn't right to deny him an explanation, to go from it was unfair of you to love me to take me to bed, Harry without any sort of rationale. She could only imagine what he was thinking now, but the feel of his hands on her skin distracted her from the injustice of her actions.
They stumbled through his doorway in a frenzy of kisses and a haze of lust. Ruth's rational mind had shut down; though she had come here fully intending to talk to him, she balked at the prospect of breaking his heart one final time. This felt much better, losing herself in him, forgetting for a moment all the hideous things they'd done. She let go, and for the first time in a long time, she allowed herself to feel.
Allowed herself to feel Harry's hands, broad and strong and tender, where they traced patterns on the skin of her back beneath her shirt. To feel Harry's tongue, unrelenting as he filled her mouth, searched her out, tasted her. To feel the hardness of his cock, straining for her through his trousers. To feel the staccato beat of his heart beneath her hand, resting on his chest.
Everything was moving too quickly, and somehow, not fast enough. Ruth felt herself spiraling, falling into a sea of madness; she was leaving, she was leaving, but Christ, she needed him first.
Harry was trying to slow things down between them; she'd always imagined he'd be a considerate lover, should she ever find the courage to drag him to bed, and he was thus far exceeding her expectations. Though his kisses were no less demanding, he didn't throw her back against the duvet and ravish her (though she wouldn't have minded if he had); there was a sweetness to his touch, to the way he kept right on kissing her, as if he could do it all night, and never ask for more. He didn't grind himself against her, didn't groan or clutch at her; he held her, cradled her almost, sheltered her in his arms. Even now, in this moment of complete abandon, he was protecting her, and she couldn't stand it.
With a surety of purpose that shocked even her, she took a step back, only to capture his eyes with her own as she reached down, and pulled her blouse up and over her head. She took in his gaze, dark with yearning for her, and willed him not to look away as she reached behind her, and slid down the zip of her skirt, the fabric sliding off her hips and down her legs to pool around her ankles.
The girl she'd been before would have been mortified, to find herself standing in Harry's bedroom in nothing but a bra and knickers, staring at him so boldly as he struggled to keep his breathing even, that same hungry, desperate expression on his face he'd worn that fateful night at Havensworth. There was so much history between them, so many monumental events, each carefully filed away, identified with a single word in her mind, each heavy with meaning. Danny. Angela. Havensworth. Cotterdam. Mani. Ros. Albany. Each name a snapshot of emotion, to be dragged out and poured over of a night, when sleep wouldn't come and the ghosts wouldn't be silenced. She didn't want to think about those things now. She'd been so close to forgetting, so close-
In two slow, measured steps Harry closed the gap between them, and drew her back into his embrace with his hands on her hips. He couldn't seem to keep his hands off her skin, and that was just fine with Ruth. Make me forget, she begged him silently as she kissed him and started unfastening his shirt buttons. Make me feel.
With his buttons now all undone, Ruth slid her hands up the smooth expanse of his chest from the waistband of his trousers to his shoulders, marveling at the hard reality of him beneath her fingertips. She eased the shirt off him, and he reluctantly withdrew his hands from their exploration of her ass to help her. There was a part of her that longed to study him, to learn the topography of his skin with lips and tongue and fingertips until she knew every bump, every crevice, every scar and every freckle, but she didn't dare give into that temptation. If she slowed down, even for a moment, she'd have to face what she was doing, what she had done, what he had done, and she couldn't bear the thought. So she pressed herself against him, her hips insistent, nudging him back towards the bed, a desperate heat building up inside her with each passing second.
They shuffled backwards together, her hands fumbling with his belt and his hands flicking open the clasp of her bra with much more finesse. Harry turned them effortlessly, his right hand pressed against the small of her back, supporting her as he gently eased her down and onto the bed. She went willingly, releasing his now unbuckled belt and shuffling back until her head rested against the pillows. She watched him, one lip caught between her teeth, as he pulled off his trousers and revealed the simple black trunks he wore beneath, and the generous swell of his cock, tenting the fabric where it rose up to meet her. He was marvelous, really; warm and present and so very Harry; there was something comforting in the thought of finally seeking shelter in the body of a man whose mind she knew so well.
Harry kissed his way up her body, starting with her ankles; his lips brushed, light and teasing, up the length of her calf to her knee, then her thigh, then the sharp protrusion of her hip bone, clearly evident when she was flat on her back like this, across her stomach. He paused for a moment when he reached her breasts, sucking one tender nipple between his teeth. The heat of his mouth on her in such an intimate place sent her reeling; she curled her fingers in his short, sparse hair and held him against her chest, whimpering as he overwhelmed her. She bent her knees, cradling his body between her thighs, wondering if he could feel how wet she was already through the thin cotton of her pants.
It should have been odd, how they'd fallen into this without speaking; from the moment his lips first touched hers downstairs in the sitting room the only word he had spoken was her name, falling from his lips in a ragged sigh. Truth was, their relationship had always revolved around the things they didn't say, and now that they were finally in bed together, it seemed that wasn't about to change. He didn't tell her she was beautiful; his tongue tracing patterns around her breast did that for him. She didn't tell him how badly she desired him; her hips bucking up towards him did that for her.
Still the pressure swirling inside her mounted, trapped there beneath the weight of him. Didn't he know, couldn't he see that she was breaking in half for need of him? Her heart hammered in her chest, pounding out a rhythm not just of lust but of fear, too, fear of his expectations, fear of what must surely come when this moment of selfish longing passed and reality returned. She couldn't face him, couldn't face his dreams for them, couldn't face her dreams of a life without him, and so she pushed them on, desperate for release and desperate to run.
Holding him there between her legs, it was easy enough for her to shift their positions, to flip him over onto his back and take control. Before she died, Ruth had never really liked it on top; she'd been a quiet, flat-on-her-back sort of lover. George had taught her confidence, and his death had taught her the cost of hesitation.
Ruth rose up above him on her knees, shifting her weight from one leg to the other as she slipped off her knickers so she was completely, gloriously naked above him. She bent her head to drop suckling kisses across his collarbone as she ground down shamelessly against him, feeling his hardness brushing against her clit and moaning at the sensation. His hands smoothed up and down her back, goosebumps rising in their wake.
It was too much; her need of him, her fear of him, her anger with him, her doubt of herself, it all roiled around and around inside her, making it hard to breathe, hard to think. When this all started, she had been so relieved to feel anything, but now she felt so much she was like to burst from the strain of keeping it all inside.
With insistent hands she tugged on his trunks until he gave a little chuckle and kissed her forehead, lifting up his hips beneath her to wiggle free from his last remaining garment. That chuckle was almost enough to send her running from the room; what was he thinking? Ordinarily she knew the answer to that question, but in this moment, she was so lost inside herself she couldn't begin to fathom the truth of him. Was he happy, to have her here with him? Was he relieved, thinking she had forgiven him? Was he just keen to bury his cock inside the nearest warm, wet place? She didn't know, she didn't want to know; she wanted to come, and then she wanted to go.
Ruth didn't waste any time; she reached beneath her, wrapping her hand around him, taking a moment to marvel at the sheer size of him before she situated herself above him. For one brief moment she brushed the tip of his cock against her folds, back and forth, reveling in the surge of power she felt at the way his eyes closed and his lips parted, his breaths harsh and needy. Needy for her. Only a moment, though; she had a plan, and she would not be deterred. Balancing on her knees with one hand on his chest for support and the other still wrapped around him, she lowered herself, faster than she probably should have, relishing in the hint of pain as he stretched her. It had been two years since she'd last had sex, two years spent in morning and penitence for a man who deserved better than the broken bits of herself she'd offered him. Maybe she had earned this bit of pain with her pleasure, this reminder that nothing came without a price.
She began to move, frantic almost, rising and falling above him, moaning louder than she ever had before. For his part Harry clutched her hips, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise as he tried to abate her pace, but Ruth moved on, heedless. Already she was close, so close to tipping over the edge, and she was certain that as soon as she did, he would follow suit, and then she could retreat back into her own private darkness.
"Ruth," Harry groaned beneath her; vaguely she was aware that it wasn't a happy sound, but still she did not stop. Could not stop. She impaled herself on him, again and again, faster and faster, tumbling closer and closer until-
Until with a strength she had not known he possessed Harry lifted her bodily off him, and pushed her back facedown against the mattress, pinning her there with his weight.
She cried out then, in surprise and grief at the loss of him, in frustration at having been pulled back when she was so near the brink of oblivion. Her whole body was shaking, but Harry was having none of it. He kissed her shoulder, running gentle hands along the length of her sides, his cock nestled against her ass, just out of reach of her searching hips.
"Slow down," he murmured, his lips brushing the curve of her ear. "It's all right. You're all right." He spoke to her softly, as if she were a startled horse he needed to calm.
"Harry," she choked out, mortified to realize she was actually crying. Her tears soaked the pillow beneath her head, and every nerve in her body trembled and shrieked for release.
He seemed to recognize her distress, though whether he truly understood the cause of it she would never know. He touched her with a reverence that shocked her, his fingertips gliding down her sweat-slicked back and down between her legs, where she ached to feel him most.
"No need to rush," he breathed, pressing another kiss against her shoulder as he slid two fingers inside her and she moaned, feeling him thrusting firmly against that spot that always sent her reeling. It should have surprised her, how quickly he'd learned the shape of her, but this man had been a part of her for so long that in a way she felt he'd always been there, beneath her skin. It didn't take much for him to push her over the edge; just those two fingers, curling hard and fast inside her, just his lips, pressing soft kisses against the nape of her neck, just his thumb, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing against her clit until she clenched around him and bit the pillow to keep from screaming as she came. All thought left her as she arched beneath him, no longer wondering what he was thinking or what he was doing or why.
But then he was pulling her back, his fingers moving inside her again, not giving her a moment to rest or come down from her high as he built her up again, fueling the fires of her desire until she was thrusting back against his hand and whimpering. The sounds he was ripping out of her with just his hands would have embarrassed her, if she had enough sense left to realize what was happening, but as it was she had given herself completely over to him, and the endless press of his fingers inside her. With an ease borne of practice he built her up again, pushing her to ride the waves of her first orgasm until she tumbled over into the second, his body warm and solid and steady on top of hers.
She drifted, boneless and finally, finally, relieved, her face buried in a pillow that smelled like him. As she came back to herself she gradually became aware of him, whispering nonsense words into her hair, his knees planted either side of her hips, his chest pressed flat against the plane of her back. With an almost superhuman effort she turned her head to look at him, wanting to say something, anything, to explain her desperation and her fear and her grief, but he never gave her the chance. Perhaps he did know why she'd come after all, and perhaps he was as determined to prevent her departure as she was determined to go.
His lips found hers again, soft and sweet as they brushed together. This kiss was almost chaste, and she very nearly laughed aloud at the absurdity of it, that he should kiss her so gently while his fingers were firmly clenched within her still-spasming sex. He withdrew his hand, and she groaned, and he laughed, his fingers wet with her come and tracing patterns on the bare skin of her ass. She raised her hips subconsciously to follow him, some baser part of her still eager for him. He kissed her one last time, his tongue teasing hers for just a moment, before he shifted his weight back, away from her.
This was a dance she knew well, and she moved to meet him, rallying what little strength she had left after shattering twice beneath his hands. It was strange, to know that he was there, sat back on his heels and staring unobstructed at the most intimate part of her, raised up and waiting for him. Strange to think they'd found themselves in this position, after all their years of steadfast retreat from any sort of physical affection. Strange to think this want (she could not call it love, could not give voice to that something wonderful that was never said, could not believe that it was still wonderful, after all this time) had survived through all their grief and rage and loss.
He snaked one hand beneath her, searching through the narrow space between her skin and the mattress until he was cupping her breast, the warmth of his hand a reassurance, an anchor she could cling to. He kneaded her flesh lightly, careful the way he always was with her, and then she felt him, the head of his cock brushing between her folds once, twice, three times.
"Harry, please," she whimpered, intending her words as encouragement, but hearing them more like a prayer. He loomed over her, and slid inside her just a little, moving slow and steady, easing himself into her. Where before she had been taking from him, now he was giving of himself, and it nearly broke her heart to feel his tender regard for her. In and out, in and out, he moved, setting his own rhythm, his free hand holding her hips steady so he could set the pace, stretching her that bit more with each thrust until he was finally, finally, fully sheathed deep inside her. In this position, him behind her, her hips raised up to meet him, she felt as if he could reach straight through her, felt as though the hand wrapped around her breast was clutching her heart instead.
And then he began to move in earnest, and she drowned in a sea of him.
If she had thought she'd felt reckless abandon at the touch of his fingers, it was nothing compared to this, the heart-wrenching glory of him moving inside her. Harder and faster he moved, his thrusts pushing her back against the mattress, the hand holding her hip sliding around to search through her damp curls until he found her clit again, and between his hand and his cock he broke down the last remaining vestiges of her resolve. No man before had ever made her feel this way, had ever set her on fire like this, had ever broken her apart only to heal her hurts. She curled her fingers in the sheets and let him lead her, their bodies slick and overheated from exertion, slapping together as he groaned, and she moaned, and they raced toward their final release.
She came first; she was right, about his being a considerate lover. He waited her out, slowing his own movements until she stopped shaking before resuming his pace, his breath hot by her ear until finally he spilled himself inside her and they were both completely, mercifully still. He had purged her of her horror, of her grief, of her doubt, and left her full of himself instead, and she was grateful to him for it.
With one last little nudge against her he pulled away, and flopped beside her on his back, his chest heaving from his exertions. Ruth remained where she was, lying on her stomach with her arms folded beneath her head, and said nothing. She watched his face, his eyes closed, the corners of his full lips turned up with the ghost of a self-satisfied smile. She reached out, and traced the outline of those lips with shaking fingers.
Harry caught her hand in his, and pressed a kiss against her palm before laying her hand flat against his chest, so she could feel the steady thump thump thump of his heart. She wanted to speak, but he had stolen the words from her, and what fleeting thoughts she had were of him, only of him, of the way he felt, the way he made her feel.
The uncomfortable wetness of their joining pooling between her thighs brought her back to herself, though she could not say how much time had passed. Beside her Harry had fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep, the lines of his face smoothed for once as he rested. Idly she wondered if he'd slept at all since Albany.
Albany.
It all came crashing in on her then, and she rolled away from him, curling herself into a tight little ball as she tried to will the tears away. She hadn't come here for this, to find herself in his bed, to lose herself in his love.
He always did this to her. She would begin to move away, to find some piece of life for herself, and he would pull her back. Was she destined to spend the rest of her like this, trapped in this dance of progress and retreat?
No, she told herself, no. We've reached the end of the road.
Carefully she eased herself out of the bed, picking up her ruined knickers and the pile of clothes she'd left on the floor before walking out of the room on silent feet. She eased the door closed behind her, and dressed in the hallway, so the rustling sound of her clothes wouldn't disturb his slumber. He needed to sleep, and she needed to let him.
Ruth left his house without a word, without an explanation, without a glance back over her shoulder. He hadn't set the alarm when he let her in what seemed like a lifetime ago, and she didn't know the code to set it now, but her eyes fell on the obbo van across the street as she closed the door behind her. He was under round the clock surveillance; surely he'd be safe enough for one night.
She walked back to her car, her steps heavy but certain. She was leaving. He would find out about it soon enough, and if he was angry that she'd left without saying goodbye, her only defense would be this; I said goodbye to you a hundred times that night, but you weren't listening.
