A/N: This fic begins in canon, with dialogue from script, but then veers off into AU. I always felt that Ruth having shot a man – and being a desk spook, that is hardly her job – was left hanging, never dealt with. This fic is my exploration of an alternative outcome from the events at the end of S9.07.
I have also kept Ros alive after the hotel bombing, because I consider her to be the best character to provide Harry with some much-needed perspective and balance, which he is in need of as this story progresses.
1. Unravelling
"You think I haven't forgiven you for George .. that I still grieve for him, for Nico's loss .. for the life I left behind." Harry drops his eyes to the floor, not wanting to hear what is coming. "The truth is much worse."
"What is the truth?"
"That I'm ready to go back to work – that's what's worse. That I killed a man last night .. and I'm fine."
Harry couldn't stop the wave of sadness which rippled through him. He'd hoped they could recover from the aftermath of her return to the UK, but perhaps that was a hope too far, even for them. Then there were the events of the previous evening; Ruth, his gentle, sensitive Ruth had shot a man, while another had been left broken, unable to speak. He slowly moved to stand between Ruth and the doorway. "I can't let you go back to work, Ruth."
"Well, I'm not staying here."
He reached out to take her bag from her, but she clutched it, pulling it way from him. "I'll drive you home."
They stood eyeing one another, two people who had once cared deeply for one another, having been shattered by yet another violent and ultimately tragic event. Harry wished he had been the one to shoot the assassin; after all, he had killed before. He knew what to expect; he knew what Ruth had yet to endure. She would be brave, and strong, and cold, and then she would withdraw. She would find a safe place inside herself and she would stay there … until some totally unrelated event would cause her to crack, and then break. He had cracked so many times that each morning as he awoke he was surprised to find his battered body still in once piece. He didn't want this for her. He had never wanted this for her.
Suddenly all the fight left her. "All right," she said, and she released her bag so that it dropped to the floor, and then she moved robot-like towards the door. Harry picked up her bag and quickly followed her from the room. Her acquiescence was not yet a victory.
On the drive to Ruth's flat few words were exchanged. Ruth sat silent, staring morosely through the passenger side window, while Harry concentrated on the traffic. Inside her flat Ruth hurried upstairs with her bag while Harry remained in the living room, unsure of how to best tell her that a condition of her return to work was an assessment by the section psychologist. He did what Ruth would do were their roles reversed, and headed to the kitchen to make a pot of tea.
Later that day:
Harry looked up as Ros limped into his office. He believed she would have benefited from another month of sick leave, but he was happy she was back. She still needed the assistance of a walking stick for balance, and heaven help anyone who drew attention to it. He lifted his eyes to meet hers, but couldn't quite manage a smile. His right hand automatically reached for the glass of whisky, which he had poured, but not yet tasted. He took a quick sip, the liquid warming his throat and then suffusing his chest. For just a second or two he closed his eyes to savour the brief sensation of comfort.
"I notice Ruth isn't here yet," Ros said, dropping into the chair across the desk from him.
He contemplated several different replies – sarcasm being one of them – but discarded all in favour of the truth. "No, she isn't. She's at home."
"Your home?" Ros lifted one eyebrow and the corner of her mouth, but he was in no mood for banter.
"Her own," he said.
"So she's done with hospital."
"Yes, although Keith Deery is still there. He's unlikely to leave any time soon," and Harry stopped, dropping his eyes to his whisky glass. When Ros swore quietly but audibly, he glanced up at her. "He's suffered a complete breakdown."
"Who is Ruth seeing?" Ros' eyes were icy.
"Seeing?"
"For psychological support - bleeding heart stuff."
"She's .. resisting it. She declares she's fine and doesn't need help."
"Adam said the same thing, and look what happened to him."
Harry sighed heavily. "I know."
"Does she know it's mandatory?"
Again Harry nodded. More than anything he needed to sleep. He'd slept little overnight, worried as he'd been about Ruth, and how she'd require a friend to help guide her through her recovery from this event. He'd have liked to offer his support, but he'd not been sure she'd accept it. "I have a favour to ask of you," he said, and judging by her reaction, Ros already knew what that favour would be.
"You know that where she is concerned you're a coward," she stated bluntly, pre-empting his request.
Harry's eyes darted up to meet hers, this woman he has grown to trust, even to love - more daughter than contemporary, more friend than employee. He lifted his glass and gulped his drink, dropping his eyes when her gaze became intense, invasive. "Immediately would be fine," he said, and Ros knew what he meant; after all, she had already navigated the road upon which Ruth was about to travel.
It was a little later when Ros Myers rang Ruth's doorbell. She was left waiting for several minutes before the door was opened, revealing a weary-looking Ruth, who turned from the door, and headed back down the hallway, leaving the door open for Ros to enter. She had expected a frosty welcome, but a lethargic one was probably more Ruth's style. Her own response in the long weeks of recovery following the hotel bombing had been biting sarcasm, laced with outbursts of irrational anger. She had smashed at least four coffee mugs when she'd thrown them at the wall across from her sofa, where she had set up a temporary bed. Her petulance had surprised even her.
"I'll have a coffee," she said as she limped into the small eating area, where Ruth was just about to take a seat, but headed back into the cramped kitchen to pour coffee for them both from the pot on the stove.
"Why isn't Harry here?" Ruth asked as Ros accepted her mug of coffee with a nod. She held the mug between her palms while she decided how best to answer.
"He's busy saving the world."
"And what's the real reason?"
No flies on Ruth. Ros again waited before answering, her eyes downcast. "I think he's afraid he'll .. mess things up between the two of you," she said at last.
Ruth's immediate response was to laugh, but it was not Ruth's usual gentle laughter. This laugh was hard, with edges sharp enough to cut glass. "As if there is anything between us," she said after a time.
"You might have to put him right."
"I thought I already had."
"My mission is to take you to the psych."
"So, he sent you to do his dirty work," Ruth said, her voice edgy and angled, and rough as gravel.
"It looks like it." Both women gave their full attention to their drinks. They were not yet friends, and perhaps never will be, but they were slowly learning to work together with a measurable level of unspoken respect. "How did you sleep?" Ros added, lifting her eyes to Ruth, who evaded her gaze.
"Do you really want to know?"
"Not especially, but you need to know that nights of little or no sleep are normal for .. what you've been through." Ruth appeared to ignore her, and for a moment Ros was tempted to get up and leave. She'd rather Harry were in her place; surely he'd stand a better chance of cracking open this woman's stony shell. "Harry's orders are for me to drive you to your appointment with Felicity Ingram."
Ruth's eyes snapped back to Ros. "And then can I return to work?"
"I'm not the one who'll be making that decision. I'll take you there, and see you inside. Harry has a meeting at 1.30, and Lucas is still AWOL, so I'm needed at work."
"And I'm not." It was a statement, rather than a question.
"We all you need you back, Ruth, but first you have some hoop-jumping to do."
In the end Ruth complied, making no fuss at all, as though she was operating on automatic pilot. Had Ros letters after her name giving her the right to make such an assessment, she would have labelled Ruth depressed and shut down.
Once Ros arrived back on the Grid Harry left for his meeting. He spoke to no-one. What followed was several hours of quiet, the only interruption being Dimitri returning from a four-hour stint in the surveillance van. "Vans are not made for blokes my size," he complained to no-one in particular as he pulled out his chair and sat at his desk.
Ros chose to ignore him. By comparison, his five hours sitting in a cramped space with two other men, neither of whom were exactly loquacious, was a doddle compared with her five months spent in painful recovery after the hotel went sky high. He should be so lucky.
By the time Harry returned to the Grid it was almost 4 o'clock, and only Ros, Tariq and Dimitri were still working at their desks. He slid into his chair, and woke his monitor. Most prominent among his incoming emails was one from Felicity Ingram, the private psychologist on contract to Mi5. Harry read it and then, after fuming silently for a moment, he left his office to confront Ros. "I thought I told you to take Ruth to Felicity Ingram's office."
Ros lifted her face to him, her expression one of quiet calm. "I did. I even walked her inside."
"Did you stay with her?"
"Of course not. I'm not a baby sitter, and Ruth doesn't require mollycoddling."
"Felicity Ingram has sent an email informing me that Ruth didn't make it to her appointment."
"Shit!" Ros got to her feet clumsily, and in her haste her walking stick clattered to the floor. Harry reached down to pick it up, but she batted his hand away, and with one hand holding the edge of her desk, she bent to pick it up. "I'm not the invalid here," she snapped.
Harry turned from her, but before he left he leaned closer, chiefly to keep his words from being heard by Tariq or Dimitri, or especially the people in admin, any of whom were capable of spreading the news of Ruth's disappearance in less time than it takes to boil a kettle. "You stay here, just in case she tries turning up here."
"Where are you off to?"
"To find her."
Harry was about to leave when Ros added, "Have you tried ringing her?"
So as he hurried to his office, Harry took his mobile phone from his jacket pocket and pressed Ruth's number. He waited until the call was diverted to voice mail, and then he turned and shook his head at Ros. His first port of call would have to be her flat.
He tried everywhere he expected her to be, and a few – like the tube station – where she probably wouldn't be, not if she was aiming to remain out of sight. He'd even broken into her flat, calling out her name as he hurried from room to room. Two used coffee cups sat on the kitchen table, no doubt still there from when Ros had visited earlier. There was no sign of her in the flat, and her coat was missing from the hook just inside the front door.
When his phone rang he was sitting in his car, having run out of ideas. "Ruth?" he answered hopefully.
"No, it's me," Ros said. "Any sign yet?"
"None. I rang Felicity Ingram, and her last consultation ends at 8.30 this evening. She's prepared to see Ruth after that, but I have to find her first, and she's not answering her phone, and even worse, it's just begun to rain."
"Have you tried the embankment?"
"No. Why would she be there?"
"Isn't that where the two of you .. you know .. hang out?"
Harry sighed heavily. "Why would she want to be somewhere she and I .. spend time?"
"Why not? Isn't that where you go when you need to solve all the problems of the known universe?"
For the first time that day Harry found himself smiling. He was not so much smiling at Ros' words as he was to the memory of him and Ruth sitting together, a safe distance between them, while they talked, and just as often sat together saying nothing at all. It had always been where they went to just be. "Thanks," he said quickly, "it can't hurt to check it out. How's everything your end?"
"Oh, just hunky dory, but don't you worry about the Grid. We need Ruth back here, firing on all cylinders."
Harry thanked her again before he ended the call. Somehow he knew it would be some time before Ruth would be operating on all cylinders.
Harry parked his car in the Thames house basement car park, and shrugged on his coat, stuffing his gloves into one pocket. The rain had stopped, but the roads and pathways were wet, and there was an early evening chill in the air. His first thought as he crossed the road and headed towards the embankment was that at least Ruth had her coat with her. He hoped she had also thought to take her gloves. It might be early autumn, but the air at that time of day could still be like a slap against cold, bare skin. As he walked towards the river his eyes scanned left, right and ahead. There was no sign of her on the bridge, and as he turned onto the embankment beside the river, there were many people walking and even some brave souls sitting, but Ruth was not among them.
Harry was beginning to despair when he saw her. He stopped walking, and remained still, silently observing her. She stood against the parapet, overlooking the river. She was so still, a statue in a black coat, her hands stuffed into her coat pockets, her gaze staring out to where the surface of the river glistened in the light of early evening. Her hair was bedraggled, as though she had been standing in the rain. As he watched her she began to lean over the wall. He knew that were she considering throwing herself into the river, she was not in the best spot to be doing that.
For several minutes more he watched her unseen, and then she placed her hands on the wall. He was about to move towards her when he noticed her shoulders shaking. The noise of traffic and the crowd of people all around them drowned out all ambient sounds, and were he to call out, in all probability she'd not hear him. There she stood, the woman he had loved for more years than he could remember, and she was clearly upset, with him having little idea what he should do to help ease her distress. His own method almost always involved removing himself from the company of others, accompanied by copious amounts of alcohol, neither of which was terribly healthy, and nor had it provided anything more than temporary reprieve.
His heart ached for her, and he could no longer just stand by and watch, so he slowly moved closer, and when he was a few metres from her he could hear her sobbing, while her shoulders tightened as she attempted to staunch her crying, one hand covering her mouth.
He could remain silent no longer. "Ruth," was all he said, and at the sound of his voice she turned.
He hadn't really considered what her reaction would be to him finding her. He had hoped she'd be happy to see him. Happy was hardly the right word; horrified came closer.
She began shaking her head, slowly at first, and then more vigorously. "I can't, Harry," was all she said before she darted off, and was soon lost among the crowd of people moving along the embankment.
Harry knew that it was best he not attempt to follow her, so he remained where he stood. He sighed heavily, lifting his shoulders and then allowing them to slump. What now?