Post 9.4. Disclaimers and all that.
"Why did it bloody well have to be here!" She thought.
Things had been awkward enough between them recently without a rerun in both their heads of what, or more importantly, could, have happened here.
Another conference, this time world affairs, climate change, power supplies and China and Russia holding court. The faces changed but the politics stayed the same and their baby sitting duties were again requested. G8 it wasn't, but not far off.
Harry's driver turned up the incredibly long and beautiful driveway to the Havensworth estate. "Why did it bloody well have to be here", he muttered to himself, grumpily.
The team were embedded in their makeshift operations room. Tariq had woven his magic and everything was as he would have it on the grid. There was nowhere he could not see, had he wished to.
Ruth sat, knowing Harry would arrive shortly and wondering quite which Harry it would be. Would it be the emotionally charged Harry of Ros's funeral; or the hard, cold, Harry that wanted to put her in her place and punish her for saying no; or, even the slightly repentant, trying too hard Harry of recent days?
"Morning. All as it should be?" This to Lucas as he walked in, barely a glance at her. So be it, the cold shouldered Harry. Well, that probably made it easier not to re live that moment in the corridor, that edge of the precipice moment she should not be thinking about but was.
The day passed quickly. There was much to do and the members of the delegations were arriving constantly. Ruth had suggested, actually insisted, that she cover the evening shift. She had work and she wanted to avoid Harry. Beth would be in and out, but relatively speaking it would hopefully be quiet. She settled to absorb a file before her.
Lucas came in on the phone and headed to one of the terminals handing Ruth a file. " Do me a favour and give this to Harry, he needs it straight away. Room 23."
"Of course." How calm she sounded, even to her own ears. In her head her response was a little less Cheltenham and a little more football terrace. So much for trying to avoid him.
She headed down the corridor. She passed her room. Walked on, not far enough, it felt and looked at the door of room 23. 'Why the bloody hell did his room have to be here?"
She was dreading the look on his face as he opened the door. She dreaded the look of hope that might come, or the hardened, angry look, or worst of all, the ambivalent look.
"Ruth". It was a look of surprise, it was fleeting and then the clouds moved across his face and the sun went in.
"Lucas said you needed this." She offered up the file, keen he should not think this visit was about anything more. She looked him only briefly in the eye, hurt by the effect she was having on him and slightly distracted by his loosely fastened shirt where her gaze then settled. He said nothing.
She glanced up, intending to just nod and go but the look caught her. His face, the same face, the same intensity, that same look that had held her in the corridor late at night half a world ago and yet made her flee the scene, such was the need for her in that look. This time is was him that recognised it in himself and him that ran from the moment.
"Thanks" he turned and closed the door.
"What's wrong with you." He chastised himself. "Let it go. Let her go".
The phone rang and he pulled himself away from thoughts of her and back to his reality.
"Harry, it's Lucas. Could you do something for me?"
Ruth lingered only for a moment on the other side of the door but for long enough to admit to herself that every feeling she had had back then she still had now. She turned and headed to the Ops room.
It was around 10pm that she looked up at the monitor and saw him enter the bar. This time she did not lift the phone to ring him. Late night conversations were not a good idea, he'd said as much. She tried not to watch him and think about how solitary he looked, how attractive he looked in his black tie outfit from the evening's reception. He glanced around and she could see him sigh as he pulled at his collar and the black tie fell loose. She turned back to her work.
Ten minutes had passed, ten minutes in which she'd stared anywhere but at him, it was a kind of challenge to herself, not to look. She failed. He was still there but not alone.
She was with the Italian delegation, very attractive, with a carefree smile and bright expressive eyes. In that sense she reminded him of Ruth, well she reminded him of the old Ruth, not the one that had returned to him and who's light he had extinguished as she watched George die, as she'd called him 'a heartless bastard'.
"Can I get you a drink?" "Thank you, yes, vodka tonic" She smiled.
Ruth had no audio. She didn't need it. They were now deep in conversation. She was very tactile, she stood quite close to Harry and threw her head back when she laughed. She had a long slender neck.
What was it he'd said? "We have to move on from this."
Ruth knew what it was like to feel tension and dread, it was part of life on the grid, part of her life around Harry, but most of that tension usually came with a surge of adrenaline. Tonight there was no adrenaline. Tonight she saw a smiling, charming Harry. Tonight she saw him moving on.
It was eleven thirty. Beth came in to take over for the night. "Anything?"
"No, all quiet" replied Ruth. The monitors showed the delegates still around various dining tables and in the bar there were three members of the Russian contingent starting their work on a bottle of vodka. No Harry.
"Oh, Ruth before you go could you just look at this for me?"
"No problem."
Ruth stood outside the Ops door. She did not know what to do. She did not know where to go. She had read and analysed Beth's information and now what, to go to bed?
She made it to her bedroom door, hesitated and looked down the corridor. Room 23. She felt sick.
It had been relatively easy to turn him down. It had been such the wrong moment, it had been so unexpected, such a big leap in their relationship that, let's face it, wasn't even a relationship. It had come from a sense of fear, of loneliness, of mortality. She didn't want that. She wanted to live. Now here she stood, embedded in the same old nonlife, whilst Harry 'moved on'. And that was what gripped her most, what ate at her. She had never for a moment thought of him ever been with anyone else. He was ever there, ever hers and he always would be, that's what she had thought, that's what she had expected of him.
Beth was bored. She flicked through the monitors, entertained only mildly and briefly by some drunken fumblings on a bench outside the hotel. "Bloody hell, they're brave, it's freezing out there." She thought.
Flicking on, she stopped again, there was Ruth, what was she doing? She was seemingly frozen in her room doorway, neither in, nor out. Her attention was elsewhere down the corridor, but there was nothing and nobody there. Beth watched on.
Ruth had decided. She needed to talk to him. She needed to do more than that, they'd talked enough. She needed to look him in the eye and tell him that she didn't want to marry him but she did have an overwhelming desire to kiss him. Easy. Just say it. Blurt it out, without thinking, without over analysing it, without falling over her words or garbling on in some inane manner.
She reached the door of room 23, took a steadying breath and reached her hand up to knock.
Beth smiled but only for a moment. There was something wrong.
Ruth hurried back down the corridor and fled into the safety of her room. She sat heavily on the bed. Her eyes found and fixed upon on a pattern on the wallpaper, they did not move, they did not blink. The pattern became more and more blurred. When had she last cried like this? She felt like she was looking down on herself, rationally watching someone's heart breaking.
If Five were like a puppet master, dictating the moves of those around them, then she wondered who was controlling her. Who was pulling her strings? Who would be vindictive enough to put her back in this place, to make her recognise that she and Harry could be 'more together', that she needed them to be 'more together'. Who would do that and then, in the moment she had built the courage that had been missing for what, years, would let her stand, hand poised to knock and then hear the soft moans coming through the door?
She could not block out the woman's voice, the pleasure in the voice, the lust in the voice and she certainly couldn't block out the deep moan of release from the man in the room.
Harry was tired. He looked across the hall at Ruth's door. All seemed dark and quiet. He turned away. His room was tidy, the bed turned down and the small case had been left standing at the foot of the bed. The room was smaller than the other but if Lucas felt it more secure then fine, it didn't matter, nothing actually seemed to matter anymore.
There is more to come, when I have time.