As always a first chapter that I know not where it goes, but go somewhere it probably will.
Set Series 10, mid Elena issues. Scenario, setting and various words courtesy of Kudos.
They were pigeons, not doves. They flew in unison. The ripple from their combined wings feathered the air around the couple sat on the bench. But they barely noticed.
"The Home Secretary has offered me a job," she ventured.
"I know. You should take it."
"You know?"
"He asked me if I would be willing to let you go?"
She sat silently. Finally, quietly, she spoke.
"You said, yes?"
"I've been selfish, Ruth. I've held you back for too long. You deserve so much more."
"You said yes."
Deeply he inhaled, his hand rubbing roughly across his chin, but he did not answer.
He sensed her hurt, but he didn't want to disabuse her: he didn't want her support because her support was destructive, destructive and damaging to her; and she was the one person he didn't want to be destroyed by all this, as he knew he himself would be.
"You love her?" she asked, eyes fixed on the place where the pigeons had been but were no more.
"I did."
"You trust her?"
"I need to make things right with her."
"By turning the rest of us away?"
"Ruth …."
"She is not what you think she is, Harry."
He shook his head imperceptibly.
"I owe her … and the boy."
"There is something not right."
"The only thing not right is what I did, Ruth. The fault is mine, not Elena's."
"Do you trust me?" she asked, quickly.
"Of course I do."
"When I told you about Lucas, you didn't. I'm telling you about Elena now …. and you still don't."
"You don't know her, Ruth."
"And you do? And you still have feelings for her. That's why you won't listen."
He hesitated. And in the hesitation she felt all the proof of his feelings, all the confirmations she never wanted to hear, but thoroughly expected to.
"I lied to her. I made promises and assurances that I failed to keep and yes, the guilt of that has stayed with me. But it is just guilt, Ruth. You of all people know me …. And you know where my feelings lie."
"I'm beginning to think that I don't know anything anymore, Harry. I'm beginning to think I don't know you anymore"
"Guilt can look an awful lot like love," he breathed softly, his eyes seeking an imagined place and time on the horizon. "I look at Elena and I feel guilt..."
Now his eyes sought hers, "But when I look at you …."
The wind whispered through the trees around them. It whispered the truth.
"Then don't ask me to leave."
"I'm poison, Ruth. Right now that's all I am."
He kissed her briefly on the cheek, stood suddenly and strode away.