This is for Gazelle1...sorry it's the same thing again !
He stood on the roof and gazed at the skyline and sighed.
Was this all it was about? A life in one hand, death in the other and at the end of it all more problems, more threats, more revelations and somewhere along the line no thanks and more death.
"Harry…."
He had not heard her.
He did not know if he could take more accusations, more indignation from her. The last time in his office had been enough. He had not seen her since. Too much to do. And now this, the inquiry.
"Hi," he said softly but did not move his gaze from the city.
"You should have told me."
She leant beside him.
"About what?"
"Albany."
He glanced at her.
"It doesn't work does it?"
He didn't ask her how she knew, she was Ruth, she knew things.
He shook his head.
"Would you still have done…what you did, if it had worked?"
She had to know. All the rest could wait.
He stood before her now, facing her, though his eyes sought the ground.
"No."
She nodded her acknowledgment to his admission.
"At that moment was it so wrong to love you?" he asked.
Her fingers reached out and brushed the cold leather of his gloves.
"No, Harry, it wasn't wrong. But it did inform your decision."
"Everything we do informs our decisions, one way or another, Ruth."
Neither spoke, just stood, as the cool night air whipped around them.
"I thought you were dead," she finally whispered, "and I, I felt…."
"Fine?" he said, repeating her own words back to her, "fine and ready to go back to work?"
She gazed at him.
"No. Stupid. I felt really stupid."
"Good to see, my demise made such an impact," he said, though any humour was far from his voice.
"Your supposed demise made me see, Harry. See you. See me. See how stupid all this is."
"All what?"
"This. Us."
"I'll never think it stupid," he said softly and turned away from her.
She reached out and grabbed his arm, stopping him.
"It is stupid. I'm stupid. All I do is fight against it. And when I'm not doing that I crave it but when it's there, when it's reachable I turn away, cold and hollow and unfeeling. But I do feel, Harry. And I do want."
He turned slowly to face her.
"That's probably the longest time it's ever taken you to analyse something," he said, his heart filled with hope but his head shielding it from the next sentence and the invariable explanation of why things would never be.
"I know."
They stood, not touching, glancing towards each other and away in the dance that was solely theirs.
"I don't want to fight anymore," she whispered.
He sighed.
"I don't want to fight you or how I feel. It's all too hard."
"What do you want, Ruth?" he still didn't know.
"I want….I want.."
"What? For god's sake what do you want?"
"I want you to kiss me," she breathed quietly.
Harry froze. It was not the answer he was expecting.
"Kiss you?'
"I want you to kiss me and not stop and if I run away, which I don't think I will, but you never know with me, then I want you to come after me and kiss me again and tell me everything will be fine and remind me how stupid I am."
She breathed suddenly having forgotten to.
Harry was still looking at her, his face still and surprised.
"That's if you still want to," she hesitated, alarmed that he hadn't moved, "I just assumed you would, what with Albany and everything, but if you don't then that's okay, I'll understand and I'm sorry if I…."
He moved.
He kissed her.
She stopped talking.
"Will that do?" he whispered eventually, his lips still a hairsbreath from hers.
She nodded. Suddenly she couldn't find any more words.
"Ruth, there's going to be an investigation into me and my career."
Her eyes widened but he continued.
"Some of the things you hear, you won't like. I'm not sure you'll like me very much. But if you want I will always come back to you and I will always want to kiss you again but I'll never tell you you're stupid. Never."
She still did not know what to say.
"Is that okay?" he asked tentatively.
She nodded.
He was still unsure.
"Say something, Ruth. Anything."
"Please, kiss me again."
He smiled and met her lips and took her breath and made her feel utterly, wonderfully senseless and incredibly and marvellously stupid.
And for once all the death and threat and destruction did not matter.
Not right here and not right now.