A/N: Here's another offering to add to my (obvious) HR obsession. I hope you like it. It's 2 chapters long.

It is written (almost) totally from Harry's point of view, and is set some time mid-series 8. Chiefly AU.

Viewed from up here, the world made sense to him, his life made sense. The cityscape remained static, familiar, while the sun rose and set, the clouds built, burst, then disappeared after the rain, the wind whipped his skin, then died down, leaving him chilled to the bone. He hears the door to the roof opening, and then she is beside him, almost touching, so close the hairs on his skin rise to the electricity in the air.

"You did the right thing, Harry," she says after some time. "Had we not gone in, more people would have died. There were children in there, and most of them will be tucked up in their own beds tonight, thanks to you. I know it must sound like I'm -"

"It's alright, Ruth. I hear what you're saying." His voice is clipped, and he resists a powerful urge to look at her. She can't know that he's not here on the roof because of the day's operation. She can't know that his musings are personal, and that they, as always, centre around her.

"It's just that -" She tries again, her hand on his arm, grasping him through the sleeve of his coat.

It is only then that he turns to face her. "The debriefing is behind us, Ruth. I've resigned myself to the operation being less than perfect. Now, can we just drop it?"

She nods and drops her hand. She wants to give comfort, but it appears to be unwelcome. Despite everything, she stays, standing beside him, a little more distance between them than before. Minutes pass, until Harry sighs and begins speaking.

"There is something. I've wanted to talk to you ever since you came back …... from …... from Cyprus. Since …..." His voice tails off. Neither wish to be reminded of Mani, George's death, and Nico. He knows she still grieves for her lost family. "There are some things I need to ask you."

He turns to look at her, and sees her profile, her jutting chin, her jaw set hard as she stares out across London. She doesn't welcome questions about her life in Cyprus, but he wants to know. He needs to know. They had been something to one another, he and she. More than just `something'. Their kiss on the dock had spoken of all the words left unsaid. Surely what they had been to one another then had not simply dissolved into the ethers to disappear forever. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed …... the law of conservation of energy. Love is the most powerful energy force of all, and if it was once there, then it remains …... somewhere.

"Of course, you are free to not answer."

"Of course."

"Did you love George?"

"You've asked me that before."

"I know I have." He waits, but she is silent. "Alright, if that one's too hard, here's another. How come you so easily fell into his bed after …... after only a few months, weeks, when, despite what we were to one another, you held me at arm's length?"

Suddenly, without a word, Ruth turns and leaves the rooftop. By the time he turns around to watch her leave, the door is already closing behind her. Harry turns once again to the view of the city, and sighs heavily.

He left the Grid earlier than usual. He had sent everyone home after the debriefing. By the time he'd come inside from the rooftop, Ruth had gone. Why did he continually botch things so royally with her? What had George had that he didn't? Stupid question, really. George had been young and handsome, and he had given her a house, and a normal life. He, on the other hand, would never be young again, had never been conventionally handsome, and while he worked for MI5, he could never give her any kind of `normal' life.

He suddenly gathered his keys and his phone, and left the Grid for the day, deciding to walk home. It was cold, but hadn't rained since the morning, and he wanted to clear the cobwebs. Walking helped the thinking process, and he needed to do some serious thinking. He could not solve the riddle that was Ruth at all. Then again, he had little idea why it was he shut her out whenever she offered help or friendship. She had sought him out on the roof to offer comfort and support, and what did he do? He turned the conversation around to George, a subject she'd been keen to avoid. Pearce, you're a bloody idiot!

The early evening air was crisp and cold, and he tucked his hands into the pockets of his coat as he walked, head down, through the London streets. He was heading for home, but in a random, meandering fashion. His head was filled with thoughts of Ruth, and how it was clear to him that she no longer had feelings for him. He turned to cross a pedestrian crossing, and too late saw a car heading towards him. The driver braked hard, but not before the car had hit him, and he rolled up the bonnet until his shoulder and the right side of his face smacked against the windscreen, then he rolled off the bonnet and on to the road. It all seemed to happen in an instant. He lay there, assessing his injuries, while the driver of the car got out and and ran to him.

"I didn't see, you, mate. Are you alright?" The driver, in his forties, knelt beside Harry, but appeared unsure of what to do. His hands hovered over Harry, not touching him.

Harry tried to sit up, but his right arm was in severe pain, and both his hips, one thigh and one knee hurt. His face was numb. He lay back down again, thinking that lying there on the road, his body aching, he may just curl up and try to sleep, shutting out the world around him, cocooned within his own pain. "I think I may have broken my arm," he said quietly at last.

"Do you want me to call an ambulance?"

"God no," Harry replied. "Just get me to hospital, and I'll overlook the fact that you drove through a pedestrian crossing after I'd stepped on to it."

"Sure, sure. St Bede's is only a couple of blocks away." He called to a group of curious onlookers. "Can a couple of you help me get this man on to his feet and into my car?"

Harry left the hospital under his own steam. He wore a plaster cast on his right forearm, having fractured his right ulna, close to the wrist, and his arm was in a sling. It had to be my right arm too, he thought with irritation. He had abrasions on the heels of both hands, torn trousers where he'd hit the road, a badly scraped knee, a badly bruised thigh, and his hips hurt where he'd rolled his body to take the brunt of the fall on to the road. The right side of his face ached, as this had been what had hit the top of the windscreen as he'd rolled into it. No doubt his face would soon show bruising. The doctor had insisted on putting butterfly tapes across the cut above his right eye. He was sure he looked at least as bad as he felt. He had declined the offer of painkillers. Harry had enough painkillers in his cupboard at home to render him comatose for a month. The doctor had assured him that had he not allowed his body to match the momentum of the car, as well as the direction it was travelling, his injuries would have been much worse. He hailed a cab outside the hospital, and headed for home.

As soon as he'd closed his front door behind him, then keyed in his security code, he knew something in his house was different, out of place. His dog hadn't run to meet him, and the kitchen light was on. The light being on immediately discounted burglars or terrorists - that is, unless they were stupid burglars or terrorists. He dropped his keys on to the hallway table, slipped his shoes off his feet, shrugged off his coat and hung it on a hook, and crept to the kitchen. Nothing. Other than the light being on, a used coffee mug sat on the table. He would never have left that there.

Not bothering any more with creeping, he walked to the living room, and there, fast asleep on his sofa was Ruth, and curled up against her legs was a sleeping Scarlet.

"Some guard dog you are," Harry grumbled, as Scarlet opened her eyes and sat up, tail wagging. If dogs were capable of guilt, then Scarlet's face was a portrait of guilt.

Harry stood watching as Ruth opened her eyes and tried to achieve focus, taking in her surroundings, before her eyes settled upon him.

"Christ, Harry," she said, sitting up. "What happened to you?"

"A car hit me," he said, almost as an aside. "And more to the point, what are you doing in my house?"

Her eyes met his, her guilt matching that of Scarlet's. "It had seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Oh," was all he said, and then, "I need some painkillers." He moved to the sideboard and poured himself a generous measure of single malt. "Want one?" he asked Ruth.

"Thanks, just a small one."

Harry sat in the chair opposite the sofa while he sipped his drink.

"Tell me about the car hitting you," she said.

So he did, although he left out the bit about his mind being so full of her at the time of impact that he hadn't felt a thing until his body had come to a thudding, painful halt on the road. When he finished his drink he poured himself another, but put it on the coffee table after having only taken one sip.

"Your suit's ruined," she observed, to which he nodded.

"I need a hot bath," he said, as he turned to leave the room. "If you're planning on staying, you can make yourself useful and order some dinner. The takeaway menus are in the drawer beside the cooker. Pay for it out of this," he added, tossing his wallet on to the table.

"Do you have any preferences?" Ruth called after him.

"Just so long as it's hot and edible."

Getting undressed and into the bath was relatively easy. The real test would be getting himself out of it. He lay back in the far-too-hot water, laying his head on the edge of the bath, his right forearm resting along the side of the bath. He had little idea why he had intimated Ruth should stay and share a meal with him. He was aware he sometimes enjoyed the torture of having her near, even when she so patently felt little for him. At least he was feeling something, which was better than the numbness which had been his constant companion while she'd been in exile. His love for her had become something bittersweet, often anguished, but mostly unrequited. He closed his eyes and emptied his mind of all thoughts of her. He was in enough pain without adding his love for her into the mix.

"Harry, are you alright in there?" Ruth's voice through the door brought him out of his reverie. He had no idea how long he'd been there, but the bath water was now tepid.

"Give me a moment," he called back.

He only had a hand-rail set in the tiles above the bath to grasp with his left hand and lift himself up. If he couldn't manage, then he'd have to ask Ruth for help. He leaned forward to lift the plug to drain the water, and once he felt purchase with his feet on the bottom of the bath, he grasped the rail with his left hand and pulled himself up. Easy. He stepped out of the bath, took a towel from the towel rail, and clumsily wrapped it around himself. Christ, how was he going to dry himself? He could either stand there until he dried, or ask for help from Ruth. And the latter option was out of the question, because if she came anywhere near him in his current state of nakedness, his body would give away everything he felt for her.

"I'm fine," he called to her. "Thanks, I can manage."

What was wrong with him? What he really wanted was for her to come into the bathroom and help him dry himself. Somewhere, in all the confusion and embarrassment, they would laugh about the situation, then the towel would somehow fall to the floor, she'd kiss him, he'd kiss her back, they'd stumble to the bedroom, fall on the bed, then make love. Cue music.

You're soft in the head, Pearce. Why would she want a battered old wreck like you?

Well, she wouldn't, would she?

So why was she still here, in his house?