A/N: I recognise that my post-Ruth's death stories are becoming cliched, but ... my muse hasn't yet finished with this time in the story. I hope you enjoy.

It began when Towers had hauled him into his office on the pretext of catching up with the latest operation, a clandestine one in which Dimitri had had to go dark, so there was nothing Harry could tell him. Nothing at all. Over a 26 year old bottle of Bowmore, Towers had convinced him to take home a kitten from a litter his sister's cat had had. Harry's first thought was why hadn't Towers' sister had her cat fixed. As a responsible pet owner, that should have been her first priority.

A kitten! How was he supposed to look after a kitten when he worked all the hours he wasn't sleeping?

"Cut down your hours," had been Towers' answer, so Harry had taken home the kitten, not really wanting it, despite it being very cute, peering out at him with large yellow eyes, almost hidden within its long grey fur.

On the kitten's first night in Harry's house, Harry had woken during the night to hear a loud purring close to his ear. When he became fully awake, he turned his head to see the kitten, its body curved into a ball of grey fur, asleep on the pillow close to his face. He moved his feet a little, and felt an obstruction at the foot of his bed.

"Scarlet? Not you too."

That was when he named the kitten William – rotund, grey and fluffy, after its namesake. He knew that having named the kitten, he would have to keep it. Besides, Scarlet had taken to the kitten - no doubt out of jealousy – and wherever the kitten went, Scarlet followed. When he and Scarlet took a walk late at night, after he arrived home from his day on the Grid, William (the kitten, not the Home Secretary) would be just behind the front door as he opened it on their return, and Scarlet would nuzzle the cat with her nose, pushing it out of the way. As Harry saw it, Scarlet believed she was in charge of William, while William definitely had Scarlet right where he wanted her.

When, two months later, Towers called Harry into his office again on the pretext of discussing the future of Harry's role in Section D, Harry made excuses, but Towers dug in his heels.

"How's the kitten?" Towers asked, to break the ice.

"The kitten is …... the kitten is growing fast, and has managed to intimidate my dog."

"Good, good. You need something to care about, Harry. I thought the kitten might fill that gap for you."

Harry didn't reply. The kitten wasn't Ruth.

"You've not taken any significant time off since Ruth's death," Towers said bluntly, pouring them each a generous measure of Laphroaig.

Harry remained silent, not wishing to open the door on that subject. His emotions were still close to the surface, and he'd been unable to speak her name to anyone other than Malcolm and Catherine, both of whom had been more patient and understanding than he deserved.

"I'm fine, Home Secretary," he said at last.

"You're not, Harry. You're overworking, and headed for a breakdown. Erin Watts has expressed concern for your health."

Harry said nothing, but he already had a sense where this was headed. Time for a break, closely followed by enforced retirement. He was being reduced to mere debris, to be swept away by a new broom.

"My sister has a house – a cottage really – in Somerset. It's not terribly flash, but it does the job, and it's …... it's very private, and I think it might suit you as a place to reclaim yourself. My sister and her husband are both barristers, and they needed to go somewhere quiet to unwind. They rarely use it these days, now their children are both in university. They tend to go to the continent for their holidays. I've stayed there a few times, but with my high profile, I need to leave the country during my annual leave."

"Home Secretary -"

"Harry, please hear me out. I know that you want to keep busy, to keep working, but you have to have time away from work, and from London. I'm ordering you to get away. My suggestion is that you pack up your dog and the new kitten …... what have you named it, by the way?"

"William."

"William?"

"Yes, William."

"Not after me, surely."

"No. I just like the name. It suits him."

"Of course. Take yourself and your animals to this address."

And in the next few minutes it was all arranged. Harry left Towers' office clutching an envelope inside which were a drivers license and credit cards in the name of Henry Tremaine, a set of keys, an address, and the name of the estate agent who, from her office in Glastonbury, handled short-term rentals. By the time he entered his office on the Grid, he was resigned to the fact that this may be his last time in Section D. He had mixed feelings about that, of course, but he knew that both Erin and Towers were right; he was on the cusp of some kind of breakdown, and he needed to get away, even if only for a few weeks.

There were times when he arrived home after work feeling completely numb. Those were his better days. The worst of days were those when he saw Ruth everywhere, in dark corners on the Grid, and in his peripheral vision during a briefing. He'd see her sitting next to him, but when he'd turn to look at her, there'd be no-one there. The sheer disappointment would put him on edge for the remainder of the day, and at the end of days such as these, he'd drink from the time he arrived home, to when he'd fall asleep drunk in his chair, only to wake at 5 am with a thumping head and a dry mouth. Yes, he was slowly coming apart at the seams, unravelling like a home-made jumper with a loose thread.

The cottage was just that – a cottage. It was two stories of corridors, add-ons, secret rooms, and cupboard spaces. Situated at the end of a long lane, and hidden from view by trees, it was the perfect place for him to hide away for a while. Harry took the animals inside, and set up their feeding bowls and William's litter tray under a low shelf in the laundry.

He then carried his suitcases upstairs, where he found three bedrooms – the largest with an ensuite bathroom – and a family-sized bathroom. There was another smaller room, too small for a bedroom, which held a large desk and a swivel chair. This had obviously been used as an office. Harry leaned against the door frame and looked around the small room, imagining another office in another cottage, on the other side of the country. He felt the tears forming, and so he quickly turned, and went to the larger bedroom to unpack his things.

It was when he opened the cabinet above the hand basin in the ensuite bathroom that he began to wonder whether someone else might be living in the cottage, and perhaps Towers hadn't known. There were lotions, liquid soap, and two small boxes of paracetamol. In a drawer underneath the hand basin – where he'd intended storing his own shaving things – he found several packets of tampons, and one of them had been opened, and it looked to him as though two tampons had been used.

He hurried back into the bedroom and opened the other door to the large wardrobe, the one he'd not needed to open when he'd hung his own clothes. There were many hangers on the rail, but most of them were empty. Hanging to one side, out of the way, were several summer dresses, and some blouses, or shirts, of whatever women called them. While he had never before seen these clothes, there was something familiar about them, something which he couldn't place. He felt like he should know the owner of these clothes, but of course, he didn't. He supposed they belonged to either a recent tenant, or Towers' sister. Then again, he knew Towers' sister was several years older than her brother, which put her in her mid-fifties, and so unlikely to be wearing clothes such as this, and also unlikely to be in need of tampons.

After an early dinner, Harry took both animals for a walk. He relished the opportunity for William the cat to frolic outside, and Scarlet was in doggie paradise chasing all manner of smells. By the time they'd finished their walk, all three were tired and ready for bed.

Harry lay under the thick duvet in the bed in the largest bedroom. Sleep eluded him. He thought of Ruth, imagining them staying in this cottage together, having a week away from work. What would they do for a week? Well, Harry could think of at least one thing Ruth and he could have done, and they could have done it over and over, until they were exhausted. It was something he'd never been brave enough to push for them to do. But they'd been on the cusp of deepening their connection when she'd been so cruelly taken from him. He buried his face in the pillow, closed his eyes, and tried to think of nothing. He emptied his mind, but all this meant was that images of her were free to walk in. He fell asleep with her voice in his ear, and images swimming in front of him - her pale face, eyes closed as she lay dying.

Three days later, just on dinner time, the owner of the clothes in the other half of Harry's wardrobe in his bedroom in the cottage in Somerset received a call from the letting agent in Glastonbury, telling her to get back to the cottage as quickly as she could. She ended the call, wondering why the estate agent couldn't handle the plumbing problem herself. She'd said something vague about her possessions still in the house requiring her attention. With nothing more requiring her to remain in Salisbury, Eve Tremaine gathered her personal belongings from the flat, and began the ninety minute drive to the cottage in the woods.

What surprised Harry the most was how much he was enjoying himself. He was beginning to feel a revival of his interest in life, when for the five months since Ruth had died, he'd had little interest in anything outside his job. He was beginning to see that there was life outside MI-5, and what had shocked him the most was that he could see that he could survive quite well away from his job.

As he sat in front of the open fire in the sitting room of the cottage, his dog curled up at his feet, and his kitten (now almost a cat) curled on his lap, he wished so much that he had bought the cottage Ruth had wanted them to retire to together. He could have been sitting in front of the open fire with his dog and cat in the cottage Ruth had planned to buy for them, and that would have brought him closer to her, even after her death.

Harry had nodded off in front of the fire, having taken Scarlet for a long walk just before dinner. He understood how easily he could fall asleep with the fire drawing the oxygen out of the air. He awoke suddenly, unsure of where he was, and unaware of what had woken him. One look at the animals told him that they had heard something. Scarlet sat up and looked towards the front door, while he felt William suddenly sink his claws into his thigh. Harry picked up the kitten, and stood up, placing William on the floor.

"Shh," he said to Scarlet, holding up his hand to her, hoping that after all this time she understood some human sign language.

She didn't. Scarlet took off in front of Harry, and skittered through the door, down the passageway, and around the corner towards the front door. Harry saw Scarlet stop in her tracks and growl at a figure standing just inside the front door …... a woman who was busily putting her keys in the bowl on the hall table, and her umbrella in the umbrella stand.

Harry stood behind Scarlet, and stared, until the woman looked up at him and said, "Harry."