A/N: This is a slight departure from Hook, Line, and Sinker… it's a fragment that's been lying around in the files for ages, and I finally decided to dust it off and post it.
H/R fans, this one's for you – enjoy! Reviews, as always, are most welcome.
Thou art so swift, yet easy curbed; so gentle, yet so free;
And yet, if haply, when thou'rt gone, my lonely heart should yearn-
Can the hand which casts thee from it now command thee to return?
He has had enough. This time, she is not going to slip out of his reach, twisting away yet again to a safe remove at the last second. Reaching her flight distance, he thinks despondently, and as so often when he contemplates his relationship with Ruth, he is reminded of the horses he grew up with. Harry loves horses, and he is good with them, his hands sensitive on the reins; for a man such as himself, he is uncharacteristically patient with these beautiful flight animals, and they love him for it. Fight or flight, the two great instinctual responses to danger...every creature on the planet is born with either one or the other as their default response to life or death situations. He knows he's a fighter, and has the scars to prove it; but Ruth is the ultimate flight animal, forever shying away, then taking tentative steps back towards the object of her fear and fascination, eyes wary, ears pricked…ready to flee at his slightest movement. It is an exhausting yet compelling game they play, each bound to the other by a thousand invisible ties, neither able to break free of the spell that draws them together.
As his gaze falls on the small, stylised, bronze statuette of a horse that he keeps in his office (he had found it, decades ago, in a random souk somewhere in Turkey, or Kabul, or…or somewhere…), Harry recalls the chestnut thoroughbred filly his father had brought home when he was sixteen; she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, but so highly strung she couldn't bear the slightest touch. She would instantly flinch away if he tried to approach her, quivering all over and rolling her eyes in fear. His father had once spent an hour leaning on the gate of the high field, watching Harry try to catch the filly. He had stalked her all over the hillside, swearing in exasperation as she slipped out of his reach at the last moment, flinging her head high so Harry couldn't seize her halter, frisking away downhill, tail streaming behind like a banner. Once Harry was exhausted and thoroughly fed up, his father spoke, in his soft, old Yorkshire countryman's way. "Stand still, lad. Just stand still. She'll come to thee, if thee stands still. Nay, don't look round for her, just stand still." And Harry had stood, shivering, in the middle of the field for what seemed like an eternity, with a bitter North wind whipping across the top of the hill (A thin wind, his father called it), under an iron grey sky, until he felt the velvet of her muzzle just brushing the back of his neck, delicate nostrils flared to catch his scent.
He was as still as a statue as she stepped delicately around him, feeling her tension gradually ebbing away as she became accustomed to his scent, then to the sight of him, his shape no longer a cause for alarm. When she finally gave him a gentle nudge in the small of his back, he had squinted, one-eyed, over his shoulder, and saw the filly standing not four feet away. He turned around with infinite slowness, carefully stretching one hand towards her halter; although she wickered nervously and one ear flicked back, then forwards towards him again, she allowed him to take hold of it and clip on the lead rope. He extended his hand further, until it just rested on the crest of her neck, then he stroked lightly down towards the withers, again and again, familiarising her with his touch. Finally, when he could see that she was relaxed and confident in his presence, he had led her slowly out of the field, his father's nod and quiet "Well done, lad" exhilarating praise in his sixteen-year-old ears. It had been an object lesson in patience which had stood him in good stead, until now. Until Ruth.
God knows, he has been patient: they had played a long game for years, and then he'd thought that he had lost her forever, and that had been bad enough, only for her to be dragged back into his life, under the most unimaginable circumstances. No, this time he's going to go after her, and he puts all other thoughts out of his mind: her terrible anger over George's death (he knows she lays the blame squarely on his wide shoulders, and like a dumb beast of burden, he has bowed meekly to this bitter yoke) and the loss of her idyllic, elegant life in the Mediterranean, rudely jolted out of her beautiful dream because of him; the cold hostility she has been meting out to him as punishment ever since, and which he has humbly accepted as his due, unable to give her one good excuse for why George had to die; she already knows why, and what's worse, she understands, and this only makes it all the harder to look her in the eye. If he thinks of any of this now, he will once more feel the slow creep of fear and indecision paralysing his reason, and the moment will slip away. Harry gets slowly to his feet with a groan as too-tense muscles protest at the movement. On days like this, he feels every one of his years, and each one of his old injuries aches just enough to remind him that he is still alive.
She has only just left his office, discreetly sliding the door shut, her face crumpling as the news of Jo's shocking death started to sink in. She couldn't have gone far, he thinks, and sets out to look for her. He doesn't have to search very hard; just around the corner, in the stark concrete corridor that leads to his door, Ruth is leaning, forehead pressed to the wall, arms wrapped tightly around her body in an attempt to control the terrible, silent sobs that convulse her slight frame as she weeps for Jo. Her protégé, her friend, her confidante…Harry's heart clenches painfully at the sight of her, so alone, so vulnerable, so unlike her usual tightly controlled self. Tentatively, he reaches out to touch her back, and at the same time he says her name softly, not wishing to startle her. There is too much sadness between them now, too many unspoken accusations; he hopes for nothing more than to offer her whatever crude comfort he can, the warmth of his body, the reassurance of being held by someone who loves her, has never stopped loving her. Animals, too, seek out the comfort of each other's companionship, after all… Touch, it's a universal language, an intuitive need...a human being can die from lack of touch...I believe that, now. I really do...
The uncontrollable shaking that wracks her body (Shock, the clinical part of Harry's brain observes, she's in shock) increases as she blindly turns away from the wall and (at last, oh, at last!) into his arms. Her tears soak his shirt front as she holds onto him like a woman drowning. And so she is, he realises, as for once he lets his instincts lead the way, one hand moving in small, soothing circles on her back, while the other holds her closely, drawing her into his warmth and strength. She's drowning in grief, in the hideous reality of the ultimate sacrifice demanded in our line of work. She's reliving the loss of everyone she has ever cared about... He knows this, because in this moment, he is drowning too, pulled under by the sound of her heartbreak. They cling to each other. This is all that matters in the end, he thinks, clinging to the wreckage, surviving no matter what. That, and having someone to share it with, the good and the bad days. He tightens his embrace and holds onto her for dear life.
Eventually, the sobbing subsides, and she starts to draw deep, shuddery breaths, her breasts pushing against his chest tantalisingly. He remembers comforting Catherine as a tiny girl, after she had tripped on the hem of her new, too-long nightie, and took a nasty tumble on the stairs; he had taken her into his lap, sitting on the bottom step but one, and cuddled her until she was calm enough to carry upstairs to bed. Jane had not been at home, that night… A corner of his mouth quirks up: unbidden, an image of himself carrying Ruth to bed flashes through his mind. I could still do it, too, he thinks, gauging her weight by the feel of her in his arms, even though his dicky knee would probably protest, and there's not a proper bed within a bull's roar of the Grid. A camp cot isn't quite what he has in mind, and then he chides himself for indulging in this line of thinking at all, what with Ruth grieving and Jo dead and a dozen more emerging terrorist threats to deal with (but when aren't there?). For now, for this singular moment, he lets it all wash over and around him, content simply to hold her. My brilliant, broken, beautiful, Ruth…
He wonders if she has any idea how it feels, for him, after years of self-denial and self-restraint, to actually touch her like this. The sensations rushing through him are extraordinary, threatening to overwhelm his sense and reason. With the discipline born of long practice, he schools himself to be the man Ruth needs right now, ignoring the insistent demands of his own body as he cradles hers tenderly, stroking her hair and saying her name in his gentlest, lowest voice, over and over, like a mantra, or a benediction. Her grief gives way to exhaustion after a time, and finally she is spent, her cheek pressed against his damp shirt front, her body limp. Into the silence, Harry says her name once more, enquiringly, and she stirs slightly against his chest. "Let me take you home," he offers, and she gives a tiny nod of acquiescence, or exhaustion; at this point, he doesn't much care which. She said Yes! he exults privately, even though his outward demeanour is calm and careful. Don't look around too soon, lad. No sudden moves…or she'll be out of reach in an instant…
They separate and, each in their own haze, they collect their coats, meeting back at the Pods as if they go home together every night. Harry cups one hand under Ruth's elbow as he walks next to her, sensing her lassitude as deep tiredness washes over them both. Thank God I drove in today, he tells himself, as he hands her into his old Range Rover (in British Racing Green, what else?). Harry just wants to be alone with her, to soak up her presence, with no staff driver to glance at them in the rear-view mirror, or chatty London cabby to have to give directions to. He swings into the driver's seat and starts the engine, glancing across at her to see if she is buckled up; a smile flickers briefly across his face, despite everything, as he sees that she is asleep already, curled into the plush pale leather upholstery, coat draped demurely across her lap, her dark hair falling across her tear-stained face, which is turned towards him. He pilots the tall, boxy vehicle out of the garage and sets course for home. Harry has carefully avoided specifying whose home he is driving towards; his initial thought had been that he does not want to leave her alone tonight, but he is self-aware enough to acknowledge that he doesn't want to spend another night with his solitary grief and a bottle of whisky, either. Not with Jo dead and Ros responsible for her death, even though he knows (God help her, and me, and all of us in the days and weeks to come) that it was the only way. Tonight, he thinks, we need each other, more than either of us will ever admit. Tonight, we belong together.
A/N: This chapter opens with some lines from a lovely old poem, The Arab's Farewell to His Horse, by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton, and I think it captures the emotional atmosphere of this time perfectly. Oh, and 'Haply' means 'What if' – it's not a typo for 'happily'! Far from it.