The more H & R fic I write, the more I find myself identifying with Harry. Writing this story almost entirely from Harry's POV was not intentional at the outset, but it just turned out that way. I think this comes from the difficulty I have in understanding a lot of Ruth's behaviour towards him. Thus, I feel sorry for the guy.

oOo

Harry didn't think he had the will or the energy to face dealing with yet another new analyst. This was to be his third since …... well, since Ruth. None could replace her, so in his mind, none should even try. The very idea that another person would be attempting the job she'd done so brilliantly was nothing short of sacrilegious.

He'd already had two young intelligence analysts try, and both had failed. The first one he'd terrified with his temper, so that she'd left early one day, never to return. The second, even younger than the first, had been so frustratingly incompetent that he'd asked her to never again darken the Grid with her presence. He had immediately forgotten the names of both.

.

A condition of his returning to work had been a weekly session with a psychologist, something he'd begun to dread. He knew that she was reporting their sessions directly to Towers, and so if he was to avoid immediate suspension, he needed to at least make an attempt at co-operating with her.

"Tell me about your difficulties in finding an analyst," Stephanie Symes-Dixon had said at the beginning of the session.

"You make it sound like it's my fault," Harry pouted. "If I was sent someone with even an ounce of natural ability, plus the qualities of persistence, humility, and some genuine intelligence, well …..."

"I take it you've just described Ruth," Symes-Dixon said quietly.

"That barely begins to describe her." Harry could barely breathe. He had not meant to be so transparent.

"So perhaps you could tell me what does."

Fighting a very strong urge to keep his precious memories of Ruth private, Harry sighed, realising he'd been cornered. "Ruth ….. was ….." See, there was the problem right there. For him, Ruth still is. There is no was. He holds her inside himself, and she lives and breathes with every breath he takes. She wakes when he wakes, rests when he rests, and keeps him warm during the cold mornings. "She's smart, quick, humble, funny …... she gets along with the other members of Section D, and they all look up to her and respect her. She's …..." He could not say any more about her. Not without crying, and he didn't want that. Were he to start, he was afraid he'd never stop.

"Thank you for telling me that, Harry. I know you're holding a lot back, and I know why it is you need to do that."

Harry closed his eyes, hoping to block out her kindness. He didn't want her kindness. He wanted to work. He wanted to be left alone. He wanted a decent analyst to work with. He wanted Ruth back. But not in that order. If he could have Ruth back, none of his other wants would apply.

Stephanie Symes-Dixon had noticed his use of present tense in his describing Ruth. This was common in those who had lost a loved one and were having difficulty in letting them go. For Harry Pearce, his difficulties in finding an analyst who suited his needs was little more than an extension of his own grief and pain. Each analyst who failed at the starting post further brought home to him the permanence which was likely to be Ruth's absence from his life. Soon after the session ended, she phoned through her report to Towers.

"So, how's our patient?" William Towers asked, once Symes-Dixon had identified herself.

"It's heavy going, Home Secretary. He refuses again and again to open up to me, and I doubt he ever will, even if we keep these sessions going for another six months."

"It's only been – what is it – ten weeks?"

"It's almost ten weeks since Ruth died, but only seven weeks since he began coming to me. It feels longer. He's holding in a lot of grief, and guilt also. I have a recommendation, Home Secretary. I hope that you can accommodate this."

"Fire away. I'll see what I can do."

"He's currently focussing on the dilemma he has in getting an appropriately qualified analyst to work in Section D."

"God, aren't we all? The bloody man's traumatised two of our young hopefuls, one of whom has been off on stress leave ever since."

"In Harry's defence, Home Secretary, incompetence among his staff is one of his pet hates. He doesn't tolerate it in himself, and nor will he tolerate it in those who work for him. I see that as a positive, especially given it would be all too easy for him to let his usually high standards slip, now that the woman he loves is gone. I've taken the liberty of interviewing two of his field operatives …... er …. Erin Watts and Alec White. Both have agreed with Sir Harry's assessment of the analysts he was sent to replace Ruth Evershed. My suggestion, for what it's worth, is that the problem is in the word, young. Harry Pearce requires someone competent, and that suggests maturity, rather than youth."

"Very well, I'll see what I can do. I seem to have exhausted all the youthful possibilities anyhow, so I'll see what GCHQ can offer me in the line of more mature analysts."

"I'm sensing that Harry simply needs someone whom he can trust. I think that as much as he loved Ruth, it is his trust in her and her decision-making which he most misses in Section D. He worked with Ruth Evershed on and off over a period of almost nine years, and that level of trust will be hard to replace."

"Leave it with me, Steph. I'll do a little digging, see if I can't draw in a few favours."

.

Since Ruth had died, Harry almost never leaves the Grid before midnight. He is aware of the irony in his staying late in his workplace being for the exact opposite reason for him having stayed late in the past. Before Ruth had left working in Section D to work in the Home Office, he had stayed late at work to be near her. He suspected, also, that she stayed late on the Grid in order to remain near him. There had been an intimacy in their working alone – but together – late at night. The emptiness of the space which was the Grid, the blanket of darkness which hovered outside the perimeter of their respective desk lamps, all served to create a focus on their togetherness as a couple. They had always been unofficial as a couple, and yet they each took for granted some of the small acts which marked their exclusivity, the very thing which kept potential suitors – of both sexes – from entering their personal space. For instance, they sat together at meetings and official functions, such as at funerals. When travelling as a group in cars, Harry and Ruth had always travelled in the same car, and almost always sat side by side, as couples do. On that fateful day, the day Ruth had died, Harry had asked her to be with him, and she had agreed without question. It was their closeness – their exclusivity – which had in the end had led to her death.

So, Towers was sending over another analyst, and here in front of him was her file. Harry pondered briefly as to why there was such a surfeit of female analysts. He understood why it was women chose intelligence analysis as a career. For smart women, it was a far safer option than being in the field. Reluctantly, Harry opened the folder which contained the information about his newest analyst. Felicity Sharma …... the name rang a bell, but he could not quite remember why. Some small detail gnawed away at him, but remained elusive. Her photograph showed her to be attractive, her wavy, reddish-blond hair framing her long face, green eyes stared uncompromisingly at the camera. Her date of birth made her older than most of the analysts who had been recommended. She was a few months short of turning 45. And then Harry found the information on her which his memory had been trying to retrieve. How very clever of Towers to have sent this woman Harry's way.

.

Next morning, Felicity Sharma strode on to the Grid only twenty minutes after Harry had arrived. She wore a green cape over black pants and knee-high black boots – Harry thought all she'd need would be a black mask, and she could be a female Batman. Seeing Harry sitting in his office, she made a beeline for his doorway, knocked twice, and then entered.

"Felicity Sharma," she said, holding out her hand for Harry to shake.

Harry stood and met her half-way. "Harry Pearce," he replied, shaking her hand.

"So," Felicity continued, "what should I call you? Sir Harry, Harry …...?"

"My staff all call me Harry. And I'll call you Felicity, if that suits you."

"Thank you. It does."

Like Ruth, this woman spoke in a lower register than most women, her words were carefully enunciated, her eye contact steady. He had no reason to dislike her.

"If it's alright with you," she continued, "I'd like to begin here by taking a look at the encryption systems in use in Section D. That's my area of expertise, so I'd like to see what you use. I take it Calum Reid is the person I need to see about this."

"Yes," Harry replied. "he should be in within the next hour."

With that, Felicity Sharma turned and left Harry's office, and he hadn't even shown her to her computer terminal.

.

The next ten days passed by without Harry feeling anxious, angry or despairing. He missed Ruth as much as ever, but he was relieved that her role was at last being adequately filled by someone with intelligence and competence. At the end of Felicity Sharma's second week in Section D, Harry left his office and crossed the Grid with a bottle of Scotch and two glasses.

"Will you join me for a quick one?" he said as he grabbed the chair from behind Calum's desk, sitting himself across from Felicity. "You've earned this."

Felicity sat back in her chair and stretched, nodding at him. "Don't mind if I do," she replied.

Over their first glass they discussed the mini-dramas of the past two weeks – traces of uranium found under the seats of a Manchester-bound passenger train; a bomb threat called in by four different sources; the sudden death of an asset of Dimitri's; public outcry over the ostracising of a Moslem man by his community. There had been threats and worse, but none had amounted to anything, which had made it a successful two weeks.

Harry hesitated before he again spoke. "So, you're Anthony Sharma's widow," he said, more a statement than a question.

"Yes I am. And you're the man Ruth Evershed left behind." Seeing the shock on Harry's face, she added, "I'm sorry, that was out of order."

"If you were out of order, then so was I," Harry growled. "I had no right to bring up your husband's death in that way. But his death was made very public."

They each concentrated on the amber liquid at the bottom of their respective glasses until the awkwardness dissipated. Felicity chose to speak first.

"Anthony was only three days away from coming home to me," she began. "It was his choice to go out that night. He was a career soldier in charge of a platoon of new recruits. He couldn't have just played it safe. His truck took the brunt of the blast. He and his sergeant were killed instantly. There were eight more of his men in the back who lost limbs, parts of limbs, one man lost an eye. Anthony always told me about how beautiful the Afghan people were, and how kind. It was the Taliban he was after."

"That was eighteen months ago?"

"Yes," she replied, swirling her drink around in the glass to avoid eye contact. "Eighteen months, four days, and ….. er …... around twenty-two hours."

Harry smiled, since he recognised the need to count the weeks, hours and minutes since an event of this magnitude took place. "Does it get any easier?" he asked.

Felicity shook her head. "It never gets easier. But it is easier to accept that it happened. To do otherwise is to invite insanity. Anthony was strong. He'd hate it were I to go to pieces just because he's no longer with me. But there will never be anyone else for me. He was my one real chance at happiness. He was the real deal."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Harry recognised that she was giving him the space to talk about Ruth, and as much as he'd resisted this, he knew he had to talk about her to someone, otherwise madness lay ahead.

"I was with Ruth when she was stabbed," he said quietly, almost to himself. "I held her as she died. We talked to one another while she took her last breaths. We were planning to leave the service together, and so we discussed our plans. And then she died. The man who killed her meant to stab me. She stood in front of me to protect me." Suddenly Harry could talk no more. Tears spilled from his eyes and trickled down his cheeks.

Felicity reached across and put her hand on his arm while his tears flowed unchecked down his face. "I guess this is the real reason I'm here," she said quietly. "How long has it been, Harry?"

He lifted his head and wiped his hand across his eyes. "Twelve weeks, one day and," after looking at his watch, "around nine hours, give or take." He reached into his coat pocket and took a perfectly folded handkerchief, and wiped his eyes and then his cheeks. "And like you," he continued, "there will never be anyone else. She was my heart and soul. And I miss her every moment of every day."

Harry could have shared with Felicity how he sometimes hears her voice talking to him. He'd be ready to leave the Grid for the day, and he'd imagine he could hear his office door roll open, followed by Ruth's voice saying, "Harry, could you take a look at this." Sometimes all he hears is her voice saying his name. He is sure Felicity would understand, but at the same time, such confidences are too personal for sharing with someone he has known for only two weeks.

Felicity bent down to take her wallet out of her bag. Opening her wallet, she removed a photograph and handed it to Harry.

"This is the last photograph we had taken together. It was around eight months before he died, just before he went back to Afghanistan."

Harry took it from her. In it he saw a tall and very handsome Asian man standing beside Felicity, his arm around her shoulders, and both are smiling at the camera. "He was very striking," Harry commented. Sensing a moment where confidences were being shared, he added, "Do you want to see a picture of Ruth?" Felicity nodded.

Harry walked back into his office, and took from the left bottom drawer of his desk his box of photographs of Ruth, many of which had been given to him over the past several weeks by his staff members. He chose his favourite two to show to Felicity. One was of Ruth on her own. He had no idea who had taken the photo, but they'd caught her off guard as she turned from her desk to look right at the camera. The other is of the two of them taken at the office Christmas party two years previously. They are leaning together and smiling at the camera. Their heads are touching, and they look like any normal couple in love.

"She looks lovely, Harry," Felicity commented. "And this one – of you together – well, you can see how happy you are in this. I never met her, although I now wish I had. She left to work here just before I began at GCHQ."

Harry took back the photos and tucked them into the inside pocket of his jacket. He sensed that the evening's confidences were reaching a natural conclusion.

"Harry," Felicity began, "I do have a favour to ask of you."

"Ask away," he said.

"This is a bit complicated, but I'll try to summarise. In the past six months I've been working on some new encryption. I was doing this on GCHQ's time, with the proviso that when it was ready, all employees at GCHQ would have access to the algorithms, and thus the encryption. This cannot happen until a series of steps have been passed. Until then, the encryption belongs solely to me. Before I left GCHQ two weeks ago, I became suspicious that my encryption is being used by someone else, but I couldn't even begin to run traces using the terminals there. This is one of the reasons I accepted this job. If I could have your permission to run traces using the system here, then I could find out once and for all who is responsible."

"I'm happy for you to do that, so long as it doesn't interfere with your normal work as an analyst."

"Thank you, Harry. I'll make sure that it doesn't."

Harry stood up and took the bottle and the glasses. "Time I went home, I think." He was just about to walk away when he stopped and turned. "Thank you for tonight," he said. "You've no idea how good it felt to talk about Ruth. I'd been …..."

"It was the least I could do."

"Goodnight," he said, as he walked across the Grid to his office.