Set towards the end of Ep 10.04, when Harry & Ruth have a conversation on a park bench. This is a variation of that conversation. Some of the dialogue is lifted directly from the episode, so belongs to Kudos.
The motivation for this piece comes from Ruth getting all huffy about Harry's `secrets'. Errr, he's a spy, Ruth, and spies have secrets. Were he an athlete would you be upset about the state of his thigh muscles? I think not.
A gentle offering. (Probably only the one chapter)
oOo
She was sitting on a bench, alone this time. In St James Park, the pigeons strutted around her, pecking the ground in time to some inner pulse only they could hear. She watched them for a moment, envying their predictable lives, and wishing her own life were that simple.
Either she was early, or he was late.
She watched him from the corner of her eye, as he approached the bench, and then sat down close to her, but not so close as to be touching. The circumstances which could potentially drive a wedge between them were building daily. They'd had a complex and sometimes tragic history, their lives and their relationship continually interwoven with events often out of their hands. With the appearance in London of Ilya and Elena Gavrik and their son Sasha, that history had just become murky and almost unnavigable.
"Elena, Sasha...would I have ever found out about them if they hadn't come back in your life?" Ruth began.
Harry shifted uncomfortably, sighed heavily, and looked at the ground. He had not yet looked Ruth in the eye.
"Do you know what it's like," Ruth continued, "to feel something for someone, and then one day realise you don't even know them?"
Her words hit him like an slap.
"You do know me," he replied, turning to look at her, imploring her. "You know all the important things."
"Stupid man! People don't love each other on a need to know basis, Harry."
"I'm not sure that's always true."
Ruth continued. "I think to myself maybe this is his final thing, his last secret, but then I look at you and I realise there are so many more." She closely scrutinised his face, watching him squirming uncomfortably on the bench next to her. "Aren't there?"
"Yes," was all he said, almost inaudibly.
They each sighed, their present and their past colliding dissonantly all around them as they sat, still not touching.
"You know," Harry began tentatively, "I do know what you mean, Ruth -"
"Do you?" Her words held an accusatory tone.
"Yes, that's what I'm trying to say. I know it must seem like my past is some kind of Tardis, where the more you know the more there is to know."
Ruth laughed what could only be termed a hollow laugh. With each word he spoke it appeared she moved even further from him.
"Ruth, I'm trying here. I'm...trying to repair this...this...thing which continually tears us apart."
"All it needed was for you to tell me these things. You'd never mentioned Elena Gavrik to me, and now here she is, and not only is she here, but so is her son – who just happens to be your son as well. Were you ever going to tell me about them?"
"It just didn't seem relevant...to us."
Ruth let out another haughty laugh.
"If I told you every single thing I'd done, every woman I'd been with or used, every lie I'd told, every person whose death I'd facilitated – either directly or indirectly, you'd never have anything to do with me again."
"Harry, I'm not that shallow. I know what your work entails, and I know you...or I used to think I did. I thought I knew what sort of man you are."
"You do know me, Ruth. You know who I am. What I'm saying is that most people do get to know one another on a need to know basis. What would be the point of telling you I snore until the possibility of us sleeping together became a reality?"
"Elena Gavrik is a bigger issue altogether than mere snoring, Harry."
"The cold war was still on. It was what happened. After we'd parted I never expected to see her again."
"And me? Will you simply compartmentalise me and send me off somewhere when I'm no longer useful to you?"
"You're different, Ruth. I didn't love Elena."
"What are you saying, Harry?"
He shifted uncomfortably on the bench, all the time looking at the pigeons, the rhythm of their pecking having an hypnotic effect upon him. He could feel Ruth's eyes on him, like lasers forever digging beneath his skin.
"You know what I'm saying."
"Perhaps I don't Harry. Perhaps you need to be more forthright with me. I have a very wild imagination, you know."
Harry turned on the seat so that he looked directly at her. He took his hands from his coat pockets and rested them on his knees.
"What I'm saying is that I have no intention of leaving you, or discarding you. I could never do that – to you or to myself. I love you. I've loved you for years. I thought you knew that."
Ruth's face softened, and she smiled. "Yes, Harry, I did know that, but one of us had to say it eventually. We can't possibly conduct a relationship based upon assumptions."
She reached her hand across the short distance between them, and he lifted his left hand from his knee and grasped the hand she offered. With their hands linked in this way, their eyes locked, and it was as though all the struggles and misunderstandings of the past 5 years since Ruth had so dramatically returned from Cyprus, simply drained from them and into the grass beneath their feet. Harry slid closer to her until their knees touched, and then leaned towards her, and carefully and very gently touched her lips with his own. She did not pull away or resist, so he intensified the kiss, but only marginally. Ruth lifted her other hand to cup the side of his face, so locking them together. It was a chaste kiss, but a beautifully long one, and by the end of it they were each smiling. The kiss really meant something.
The day suddenly seemed warmer to them both.
They pulled apart reluctantly, but still held hands. Harry was aware they were probably being watched, but he was no longer prepared to allow that prospect to limit him. He looked at her with loving eyes, relieved at no longer having to hide his feelings.
"So -," he said, "there was something you had to tell me?"
"Oh, you mean about quite liking you?"
He smiled into her eyes.
"You know I love you Harry. I find it impossible to hide the feelings I have for you. I'm surprised everyone who works with us doesn't know also."
"I think you'll find they all knew long before we did." Harry hesitated, not sure whether he should play this cautiously and slowly, or simply go with his gut and to hell with the consequences. "Will you come around later for dinner? I can cook, you know. I can do amazing things with pasta. I hope you like pasta. Almost everyone does."
Ruth hesitated, not sure if this was all going too fast.
"Just dinner, Ruth," Harry added, "all I'm offering is dinner."
oOo
Not sure if I should just leave it there, and let us all use our imaginations...not wanting to be voyeuristic or anything