A/N – Oneshot set at the end of 10.4, meant as an alternative to the bench scene where Ruth tells Harry about her job offer, from the Home Secretary. AU, but I don't think it is beyond the realms of possibility for the characters. Thanks for reading –Silver.
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Satellites
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They are not entirely cohesive as a pair – not like she had expected them to be. There is always something missing, something slightly broken about them that they cannot get over. Though they lie together against the cold and darkness, curled into the soft down of his duvet cover, she cannot entirely relax. Though he kisses her naked skin and whispers all the right words against her, there is something in her heart which tells her this is not forever.
They are and have always been a temporary arrangement, put together by chance and circumstance; two people who could not have fallen in love in any other world. They were always spooks first and individuals later. Neither of them can remember a point at which they ever took priority in a situation. He has been at it longer and his repression, his self-denial, is greater than hers. She still feels longing for more, some days. She still feels hope that she can leave this life behind, eventually, get a job beyond the Security Service, let someone else stand on the wall for a while and guard the country. She still feels there might be an out. She doesn't think he does anymore. She thinks he might be bound to the job irrecoverably. Unto death.
Impermanence aside, their temporary arrangement is pleasurable. They find respite in the fact that they can share the frustrations of work at home. She feels relief to finally be able to talk about the bad days. (She has never had that with anyone else she has been with, since joining MI5, and she doubts he has either). They find pleasure in each other's bodies, when they make love, breaths short and faces close. They squeeze every last centimetre of contact out of the situation that they can, because they feel good together and it is pure bliss not being alone. They have waited a long time for any form of intimacy and so they savour it, now, dragging each interaction out, taking their time to explore one another. They feel good, when they are together. But there is always the impermanence there, hovering in her peripheral vision. The impermanence and the weight of the past, dragging them back into their shadowy world and away from each other.
When she first finds out about Elena and Sasha, she feels sick. She feels hurt and betrayed and used and worthless. She feels confused that he could not have told her at least part of the story. Is it that he thought she would look into it and draw attention, she wonders? Does he not trust her to be discrete? She understands that names and dates had to be kept secret, but the fact that he had a son by another woman that she did not know about... it was a staggering detail of a life to miss out. She is angry. She ignores him when he calls her that evening. She returns to the brooding distance she had kept for so many months. There is too much between them, she thinks, they are too broken and have seen too much. Done too much.
She holds onto the resentment for a good long while. They grow more distant at work than before. They don't talk anymore. She hears an offer from the Home Secretary about a job in the Home Office and decides, before she has even considered it really, that it is time for her to go. She can't stand it anymore, the lies and the secrets. It weighs too heavily on her soul. She decides to keep her decision to herself, however, until this whole Gavrik mess is over. She pushes herself hurriedly back into her work. She assists him as he tries to catch Jim Coaver, setting Elena and Gavrik up as bait. She tries to find the mysterious woman shooter. She tries to stay away from him and be professional.
But, like that first night when she had gone to him, in the emptiness after Albany – that night she had turned up at his door, in the pouring rain, unable to take the distance and the self-denial any more – she relents eventually. It is too lonely out there, in the great dark world. It is too horrifically cold and she misses the human contact. So, like that first night, she turns up at his door and asks to come inside.
And, like that first night, he lets her in without reproach for her previous distance.
Inside his house, they drink tea and a whiskey in almost-silence, sitting on a couch in his living room. The television drones on in the background and Ruth relents to her baser needs. She lays her head into the crook of his neck and lets him wrap one arm around her, to stroke her side. They sit in silence, breathing each other in, because their position is too tentative and any words could break them apart again. They sit in silence until they get used to it and the proximity, and then she moves them on, turning her face to his and kissing his cheek, raising a hand to brush her thumb across his lips. He hesitates, for a moment, but only for a moment and then they fall together.
He kisses her on the couch then helps her to her feet and leads her upstairs, to bed. Upstairs, they spoon themselves together amongst his sheets and thrust into each other until endorphins and adrenaline break through the gloom of their collective mood and she smiles again, panting into his are good at the physical. The emotional is more delicate, more alien to them, but they are very good at the physical. They are so good that she climaxes twice in quick succession before his movements start to grow more frenzied against her and she whispers for him to let go against the side of his arm.
He groans and shudders still inside her, his forehead pressed into the back of her neck, and affection floods through her body, warm as the fruit of their labours between her legs. She slips a hand over his, squeezing his fingers. "I love you, Harry," she whispers, feeling him inhale sharply as he hears her. "I really do, you know. I'm sorry if I've done anything, these past few weeks, which has implied otherwise."
He says nothing in response but he rolls his hand over, to let them hold properly.
They lie together for a moment, breaths slowing. Ruth closes her eyes, nestling herself a little further back against his chest. He is still inside of her, soft belly against her lower back, his thigh pressed up against the underside of hers. They feel wonderful together, but she knows that she needs to speak. She needs to shatter this beautiful illusion of aloneness and togetherness. There is a world beyond these walls – beyond this quiet, safe, warm bedroom – and they are part of it. They cannot hide here forever. Not from their pasts. Not from their future.
Breathing out, then, she arches her back, sliding them apart then rolling her body gently over to face him.
"There is something I need tell you," she whispers softly.
He watches her as she tells him about the job offer, from the Home Secretary, as she explains what she would be and murmurs through the list of reasons why it would be best to take the position. A brief flash of hurt crosses his eyes, when she tells him that she thinks she wants to leave, but he buries it quickly and tells her that it is a good offer. A brief flash of hurt passes through her, when he does not fight harder to keep her – despite the fact that she knows he wants to and the fact that she does agree with his assessment, that it is a good offer.
"I'll wait," she assures him, reaching her hand out and placing the heel of her palm against his chest, pressing her fingertips into the fair hair there. "My transfer is all drawn up but I'll wait to sign it until after all this business with the Russians is done. I don't want to leave you an analyst short."
"No, you should go," he whispers back, shaking his head. "As soon as you can. I don't want you involved in what's coming."
In what is coming... And what might that be, she wonders, watching Harry's eyes in the half darkness of the room. A storm? She thinks that might be the truth of it. A storm is coming and none of them can stop it. She feels as if events are running away from them, with them stumbling behind. She feels as if they are being led somewhere, along a dark and grimy path towards an even darker and grimier future. A secret. A darkness. Something from Harry's past that had come back with teeth to bite him. Elena and her son, Ilya Gavrik and his peace deal, Jim Coaver and his interest; there is something going on. When he met with Ruth, the American had looked as if he knew more than he was letting on and something in her felt that the knowledge was not being withheld simply to injure Harry's progress. It had felt like the sort of reticence Harry showed William Towers, when he had a lead that was not solid enough to make official. It had felt like someone trying to figure things out – just as they were.
Even though they linked him to the woman who tried to shoot Elena, Ruth cannot help but think that there is something bigger at play than some anti-alliance campaign, from a single CIA operative. There is something dangerous and dark about this whole situation and she does not want to leave Harry alone in it. She does not want to leave the team alone in it. They have already lost Tariq – young, sweet Tariq, too sweet for their world. She does not want to see the others die. Dimitri, who chats away to her in Greek and makes gentle jokes. Calum Reid, who is far kinder than he thought himself and would see that in time. Erin Watts, who is trying so hard to be everything and everyone while keeping her family and her team and country safe. And Harry... and Harry and Harry and Harry...
She does not want to see her team die. She cannot see him die. She would rather burn in hell or float through inexistence, for all of eternity, than watch him die before her. She loves him. She loves him unreservedly. Still, they are broken, she thinks, a wave of melancholy running through her. There is something flawed and distant in them. She feels it every time they are close, pulling them apart. They are bound to something that takes precedence over themselves. They revolve like satellites around an idea, a Service, an all-consuming force in their lives which drives them to lengths and depths that no other people would sink to. They are owned by it. They are driven apart by it. They are driven mad by it.
Reaching out, she traces the underside of his lip, a movement of intimacy that they rarely take part in after their foreplay and sex is through. Neither of them are particularly touchy people. They have drifted alone in the world for far too long. But she needs to touch him, now. She needs to see that they are more than just satellites around each other.
Her body is still singing softly with the joy he had pulsed through her but her heart feels strangely bereft.
She loves him, she tells herself, so why does she feel so empty?
"Harry..." She whispers his name, as if he might answer her question, tracing her thumb across his lip again and then down to his chin – into the dip in the flesh there, into the skin which is slightly rough with the day's stubble growth. She has never seen him any other way than cleanly shaven, she thinks, lowering her hand from his face. She has never seen him soft and pink from the shower. She has never seen him wake in the morning. She has never stayed the night with him before and let their bodies rest against one another. She has never felt safe enough because she knows that it will be ripped away.
Sex she allowed because she needed him so badly. Her body had ached and her soul had needed distraction, that night she had first come to him. And, after that first time, she could not let go of the sanctuary she had found. Sex is just physical and they are good at the physical but, beyond sex, beyond their heart-wrenching love and their years of knowing one another, they do not really know one another. She does not really know him, anyways, not properly. He is a stranger to her, in all but the most basic ways. He is a stranger who she would willingly lay down her life to protect.
The thought causes a momentary chill to run up her spine and she retracts her hand from where it had been lying between them. Rolling over on her back, she faces the ceiling and bites at her lower lip. She suddenly wants to get up and leave. She wants to run.
"Ruth?"
He has noticed her sudden change in demeanour. He is looking at her with such confusion in his eyes. Ruth stumbles over her instincts. She does not want to see him confused or hurt, but it is a toss-up, right now, between seeing that and letting him see her cry and she cannot let him see that. She does not know why, but she cannot let him see her cry. She can let him kiss her back and her neck. She can let him fold himself inside of her and she can drive both of their bodies to ecstasy. She can die for him – she would die for him – but she cannot let him see her cry.
Closing her eyes, momentarily, she feels that she can no longer stop it. Panic thrills through her and she sits up in bed, pulling the sheet that they were lying under free from the duvet and wrapping it around herself. "I'm sorry," she whispers, before padding quickly off to the bathroom.
Harry calls out her name again as she leaves the room but she does not answer. She disappears into the bathroom and locks the door behind her, walking several shaky circles around the place before settling to lean against the sink. Her head is dizzy. She feels almost physically sick. She stands there for some time, feeling her heart thump in her belly and neck and her ears ringing. Then, slowly, it begins to fade. Down. Down it goes and she is carried with it. From panic into irrepressible sadness. And she lets the tears come.
She stands for some time, crying softly to herself, listening to Harry move on the other side of the door – listening to him softly call her name and knock, a few more times, before falling silent. She cries and lets the confusion and fear run through her in waves, until she feels ready to open her eyes again. Then she just stands, looking into the mirror, feeling a little more alone than before.
The face staring back at her is one which feels less like hers, each and every day. She is old. Only forty-one, but she feels each and every year. She can pick out the lines of her younger face, if she tries, but the fineness of it is blurred now. There are soft lines around the corners of her eyes, shadows of lines across her forehead and between her lip and her mouth. Her skin has lost some of its shine, some of its life. Her hair is the same slightly unkempt way it always has been and her neck still has shape, she thinks, picking out the way it sloped gently to her shoulders, but she has lost weight, these past few months. Her collarbones jar out awkwardly from under her skin. It would look fine had she compensated for it with muscle, but there is no muscle. Just empty shadow.
On impulse, she lowers the sheet, opening it to view all of herself. She is old... she feels so old... Her skin is not as smooth as it used to be. Her breasts have never been so far south and her hips seem to hold onto the weight that she has kept, over her last few months of high-stress. She has faint stretch marks across the sides of her belly and cellulite on her thighs and she has always hated her knees, anyway, but now they are just...
She swallows, pulling the sheet back closed and wrapping her arms around herself.
She is not so very ugly. Not really. She is exacerbating her imperfections in her mind because of how she is feeling. She is not so very ugly, at all, in reality – but she does feel old and overcome by everything. She isn't who she used to be, that much is certain. Life is not how it used to feel. She is so sad. So very, very sad.
Wrenching her eyes away from the mirror, she moves to sit down, placing her back to the wall beside the door. A few more tears slip out from between her closed lids, falling into the crevice beneath her eye and trickling down. She is so tired. So old and tired and sick of all of this. And she has no idea who Harry is anymore and she has no idea if she has ever known him and that terrifies her, because she loves him so much. But how can she really love him if she does not know him... she does not know him... she does not know...
Next to her, he knocks gently on the door again.
One soft tap, then a slightly louder one, then a soft one again. Two soft taps then a louder one. One loud tap. Four soft.
She opens her eyes, giving a soft sniff. It is a strange way of knocking. Something tickles the back of her mind but it is not until Harry repeats the movements that it hits home.
One soft tap, one loud, one soft – R.
Two soft, one loud – U.
One loud – T.
Four soft - H.
A breath escapes her and she closes her eyes again. Tears flood back, rocking her body as Harry falls silent on his side of the door, audibly leaning back against the wall. Morse code. How very Harry. How very, very Harry. Her body is trembling with adrenaline withdrawal, now that the thrill of sex has faded. She is scared of what comes next – so scared of what comes next. The world feels huge and unfair and dangerous and wrong. And she is scared that she has made a mistake in loving Harry, which scares the hell out of her because she knows there is no way to stop loving him, now. She is scared because she does not know him, she tells herself, she is so sure they do not know each other. Yet... here he is, tapping soft Morse code into the door for her.
He knows her.
Taking a shaky sigh, she slowly lifts the back of her hand and taps his name uneasily back.
Four soft. One soft, one loud. One soft, one loud, one soft. One soft, one loud, one soft. One loud, one soft, three loud.
Harry.
Then, slowly, she reaches up and slides the bolt free.
There is utter silence for a few seconds. Everything holds still. Then, the squeak of the door handle sounds and the door swings inwards.
Ruth looks over to find Harry sitting by the side of the doorway, wearing pyjama trousers and a t-shirt. He must have pulled them on while she had been standing, staring at herself on front of the mirror, she thinks. It should feel odd, their inequality of dress, but now that her tears have washed away, she doesn't seem to care anymore. She is what she is. Harry has seen it before. And he knows her well enough to tap her name in Morse code to get her attention. She might be terrified of the future, she might not think she knows him, but he does know her. Well enough, at least, to know that it was the perfect way of establishing contact...
Pulling her sheet tighter around her, she watches him watch her. He looks just about as confused as he did earlier, she thinks, but calmer. Reaching down, he picks up and offers her a t-shirt – one of his, one which will look grossly oversized on her, but thoughtful nonetheless. He does not say anything as she takes it and lays it on her sheet-clad legs, just continues to sit and watch her and wait. She is the one who has to begin talking. She knows it. He knows it. So, eventually, she plucks up the courage. Feeling the words form in her brain and begin to trickle down to her lips and tongue, she clears her throat.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, to him. "I just needed a moment. It was all too much."
A flash of fear whips across Harry's face.
"What was?" he asks her, clearly fully expecting her to answer 'us'.
"Everything." Ruth answers instead, raising her hand to give her cheeks another rub, wiping away the last traces of tears. "Elena and Sasha, Jim Coaver, the Russian alliance, MI5, your temporary reinstatement, my job offer, us, my sad, sorry existence..."
"Ruth..."
"You asked," she mutters, defensively.
His hand moves as if he wants to reach out to her but he resists, lifting it to his forehead instead and smoothing his hair. He looks suddenly and uncharacteristically vulnerable, as if he were twenty years younger and not the hardened spook that he is now. It is doubt, she realises, watching him. He is torn. Confused. Pulled in so many directions. Never before has Ruth seen him doubt himself so intrinsically. That she is the cause of it brings a fresh new wave of tears to her eyes and she tips her head back against the wall, closing her lids. Hot, wet, salty drops slide down her cheeks and into the corner of her mouth. She swallows.
When she gathers herself enough to look back over at Harry – not bothering to wipe away the tears (he has seen them anyway, what is the point?) – she finds him having moved closer, to sit with his head leaning against the doorframe.
"I'm sorry," she murmurs again, lamely. "I hate crying."
"Really? I miss it."
Ruth sniffs and frowns, fairly sure she has misheard. "Pardon?"
"Crying," Harry repeats. "I haven't cried in years. I just don't seem to be able to, anymore. My throat gets tight, it gets hot, it aches – I ache, I hurt – but I can't cry and I miss the relief it brings, afterwards. Perhaps its something I should talk to the in-house psychologist about..."
Ruth stares at him for a moment and then the absurdity of the image kicks in and – imagining the great Sir Harry Pearce lying back on a couch, telling their overworked (and impossibly young) in-house psychologist all about his lack of tears – she gives a short, strained laugh.
"Bloody hell, Harry, she'd run a mile," she tells him, raising her hand to her mouth and covering it, feeling the moisture that still clings in imperfections of her skin. "Bloody hell..." she whispers, as she thinks of Harry and his tight throat, his aching body and his aching soul. He feels like she does, she realises. He feels like she does. He is old and tired and sick of it too. And he knows her. They are in this together. She is not alone. "You know, I feel like this all the time," she murmurs, unable to stop herself from sharing, after that thought. "Underneath, I feel like this every single bloody day. I wear this mask and walk through the paces of my life, trying to be calm and professional but, inside, I feel like I am suffocating... I feel like I am being buried alive but that nobody can hear me screaming." It is more than she had intended to share and she feels a dizzying spell of panic threaten again. It fades as she closes her eyes, however, and takes a slow breath.
Harry says nothing for a while, then speaks so softly that she has to open her eyes and check his lips were actually moving.
"Drowning," he tells her, shyly. "I feel like I'm drowning."
She blinks and watches on.
"I was held by an IRA branch, in seventy eight," Harry tells her, staring down at the tiles between them. "They wrapped me in wire and sent electric shocks through it. They shocked me until I passed out. I woke up with my head underwater and my lungs filling up. That's what I feel like every single day, now," he tells her, with a little nod. "That waking-up moment – gasping for breath and getting only water."
Horror floods through Ruth, as he recounts his tale. Her tears stop, out of shock.
"They drowned you."
"And resuscitated me. And then repeated the entire procedure."
"The electricity..." she murmurs, softly. "Is that where the scars came from?" Her eyes lower to the sides of his chest, currently covered by the t-shirt.
Harry watches her, for a moment, then picks himself up and shuffles into the bathroom. Sitting down between her and the bath, he pulls his t-shirt up over his head and drops it to the floor.
Ruth stares.
They have never been naked on front of each other in full light, before. The first time they fell into bed together, they had kept the lights off. Both knew that each other were experienced enough to handle the technicalities and neither wanted to worsen their own insecurities by being fully on view. The next time had been the same and the times after that, where they kept the lamp on the bedside table on, the glow had been too soft to make out much more than the outline and texture of the scars. Under the stark white overhead lights of the bathroom, however, Ruth can see them in all of their glory. And they are shocking.
A thin network of lines runs along either side of his chest, the marks on the right extending further around than the ones on the left, wrapping up to his nipple where white obliterates a part of the pink. Scar tissue, Ruth thinks. It is deep, white scar tissue. She had not known what had caused it, before, assuming it to be repeated attacks with a thin knife, or something of that nature – but being wrapped in wire, until the electricity burnt through his flesh, makes sense. They look like paper-thin burns. Heart in her mouth, she lets her eyes travel over them, not daring to imagine how much pain he had been in.
"It was the single most terrifying experience of my life," Harry murmurs, reaching one hand down, to touch the side of it. "I just lay there, after coming around from them shocking me, the second time. I was on the floor of this derelict factory building and the man in charge of the terrorists had this sawn-off shotgun," he makes a soft shape with his hand, the shape that would cradle the butt of one of these guns, no doubt, thinks Ruth, (who knows nothing of these things). "He was standing over me, loading the cartridges and just watching me as I lay in my own piss and blood. I honestly thought I was going to die."
"But they beat you instead."
"And half-drowned me again. And then Bill Crombie burst in and saved my life." He gets a strangely distant look. "He died just four days later."
Ruth watches, for a few heartbeats, then sits up off the wall and reaches over, fingers touching his knee.
"Can you come closer?" she asks him, softly.
He nods and moves a few inches closer, allowing her to touch the white scars down his side.
"I can't feel that," he murmurs, as she traces around the interrupted pink of his nipple. "It's strange. I don't think about it when its just myself, but when you touch and I can't feel it, it feels strange." He looks up at her, eyes soft and sad. He watches her for quite some time, as she traces her fingers over his body. Then he sighs. "Ruth..." It is just her name, just a sigh of confusion and frustration and longing, but it carries on it so much latent love that she stills her fingers and looked up to meet his eyes.
"I didn't mean to run," she admits, to him. "I was just..." she doesn't know how to continue and takes a break, looking down at her hands as she traces across his skin. Up one side and down again, following a stretched thin mark across towards his belly, tracing a narrow surgical mark up under one of his ribs, brushing over the gunshot mark from Tom Quinn's bullet, back in 2003. "I love you," she whispers, the words tumbling out of her mouth on sudden impulse. "I love you and I can't stop. I keep trying to," she tells him, "but I can't and that scares the living hell out of me because I barely know you, really."
Harry's chest moves, air rushing into his lungs and then quickly out again.
"That's not true," he tells her, voice quiet and quick. "Ruth, you do know me... you know all of the important things."
"People aren't supposed to love each other on a need to know basis, Harry," she tells him, with a sigh, drawing her fingers back from his body and folding them in her lap. "That is not how it works."
Her words only seem to firm Harry's resolve, however.
"I think it is," he replies, eyes shaded by a soft frown. "You can never know another person fully, Ruth. You can live with someone for ten years and they can be a stranger to you. Conversely, however, you can love someone for a distance for five years and them be the single closest person in your world." (She feels a tiny shudder of pleasure at that, but says nothing, just keeps watching him speak, his eyes sincere and softly brown in the darkness). "There are always secrets between people," Harry continues, softly. "Small ones, big ones, dark ones..."
"More with you than most, though," Ruth points out.
There is silence for a moment, then Harry sighs and nods. "Yes. More with me than most."
There is a very long pause.
They consider one another, carefully.
"I have a week or so to decide," Ruth eventually says, continuing with their earlier conversation – the one she had run away from. "About the job."
Harry's eyes dance over her face.
"Do you want to go?" he asks her, softly.
"Yes," she murmurs, then the lie tastes too bitter in her mouth and she adds. "...no, I don't know... maybe..." She looks up at him. "I don't want to put you out," she tries.
He shakes his head, however. "No," he tells her, his voice sad. "You leaving is always going to put me out. You're my best analyst, my most trusted employee, and you're clever enough to know that. That's not what is holding you back from making a decision." He paused, looking slightly uncomfortable, then forced himself on. "You want me to tell you to stay."
A flush of indignant surprise leaps up within Ruth's belly. Of bloody course she wants him to tell her to stay. What woman in her right mind would not want to be told she was invaluable? God, was it so very unreasonable, to want a little validation? Was it so very selfish, to want to hear him say that he needed her? She can see in his eyes that he does not want her to go – he hasn't bothered much to hide it – so why will he not just admit it to her?
"I just want to know what you really feel," she states, testily.
Harry gives a sigh of frustration. "Ruth," he starts slowly, shaking his head, "I can't tell you that. I've held you back for so many years. I can't tell you to stay, now, when these next few weeks might well incriminate the lot of us. I can't hold you back anymore. It's not fair. I'd hate myself for it. You'd eventually come to hate me for it – and that would hurt even more."
"So you do think we are better apart, then?"
"Ruth..." He drops his head forwards, slightly, and runs both of his hands over it. The movement shifts his body, creasing his belly across the navel. The soft round indentation of his navel becomes a slit. His hair looks suddenly blonder, under the light; his shoulders smaller, somehow, without the shirt and the tailored suit. He looks frightened, frustrated, lost.
Ruth feels a twinge in her stomach and the desire to reach out to him again. She resists.
"Sometimes I think that all that is left of us is the idea," she admits to him, softly. "That we push each other away because, deep down, we know the reality won't work."
"I don't think that," he murmurs, into his hands. "I've never thought that."
"But you push me away. You won't let me in. There are things that you would never have told me, had they not come to light by other means."
"Is this about Elena again?"
"No, you stupid man," she sighs exasperatedly, "it's about everything..." Her heart rate jumps upwards a few notches. "I'm tired of all of this and I want to escape but I can't leave because I know the moment I'm not in your work life then you'll fall away from me entirely and I can't face that – even if I know we're broken and ridiculous and twisted and wrong! I love you and I can't face the idea of leaving you alone to all of this. This whole situation scares me, Harry. There is something wrong. I can see it. Jim Coaver can see it. You can't, however, because you are too close. You are emotionally compromised and you won't admit it. You won't admit that Sasha looks nothing like you and everything like Ilya. You won't admit that every logical ounce of you is telling you to trust Jim rather than your long-lost asset. You won't listen to reason because you're thinking with your guilt. You feel so guilty, so sorry for everything, but you need to stop feeling sorry and do something, Harry, because there is a storm coming and we cannot face it alone! I want to stay because I'm scared that I'm going to lose you if I go. In a thousand different ways."
Her tirade punctuates the silent room harshly. In its wake, Harry just sits and stares at the floor. Ruth just sits and breathes. Cries well up inside her again but there are no tears left so all her body does is convulse a few times, her hands rising to stifle her dry sobs.
Everything is silent for almost a minute.
Then, Harry straightens up and picks up the t-shirt that is still draped across her knee.
"Here," he tells her, arranging it so that she can slip it easily over her head.
Though she knows she would feel as exposed and vulnerable having this conversation fully clothed as naked – though she would feel the same having it in the middle of a crowded room, on a park bench, by the seaside, or in the briefing room at Thames House – she accepts his offer and slips inside of the old t-shirt, breathing in Harry's scent of the fabric as his warm fingers helping her. He pulls it down, sliding the sheet free underneath and pausing, just minutely, to stroke the side of her belly with his thumb. He reaches back up and frees her hair from the collar, brushing it back around her ear. He runs his hand down the sleeve, unfolding it from where it had been rolled. Arranging her, softly, tenderly.
"There," he tells her, softly, retracting his hand again.
"Thank you," she murmurs, softly.
A moment passes, then he stands opposite and offers out his hand. A little hesitant, still, a little overwhelmed from the words which had poured from her own mouth, she takes it and lest him pull her to her feet. They stand facing one another for a few seconds, then he reached over and brushes her hair back behind her ear again.
"You are beautiful," he whispers, reaching forwards and – pausing for a moment to check if he was allowed – kisses her forehead, gently.
Ruth's eyes flutter closed at the touch.
"I'm can't be," she whispers back. "I feel awful."
"You are beautiful to me," he replies, words more sincere than Ruth has ever heard them. "And I'm sorry that I've caused you so much pain."
A moment passes. He breathes, slowly. She feels it in his closeness. They are standing just centimetres away. His belly brushes hers. Her fingertips touch his hip every now and then when her breaths bring her forwards. It is nice to feel him, despite the confusions still thrumming through her heart. It is nice to feel him there, despite the angry words she had thrown in his direction. It was nice to feel him, warm and solid and real, telling her that she is beautiful. She wonders, briefly, why she had slipped away from his side, from his bed. Then she reminds herself that they could never have had this conversation in such loaded territory. Bed was for sex and love. Doorways and hallways were for arguments.
"I know there is something wrong," he tells her, eventually, and Ruth feels a surge of relief to realise that her shouting had actually got though – that it had made sense, even through her frustration. "I know there is something that doesn't add up with this whole anti-alliance scenario. I don't know if its Coaver, or an unknown Russian element, or Gavrik himself, or something else entirely. And as for Elena, I do feel guilty, as you said. But I need you to know that anything else we had together faded a long time ago – if it ever existed at all. She is a stranger to me, Ruth," he tells her, softly, "but you are not. You are everything and you are right, we do need to hold together, to figure out what is happening here. We do need to bring in Coaver and find out how he is involved."
"Don't bring him in," Ruth advises, her analytical mind kicking in on reflex. "Talk to him as an old friend, rather than an enemy. You might find out more that way."
There is a long pause.
"You don't think he's behind this, do you?" Harry asks.
"I have my doubts."
Another long pause, then he sighs.
"Yes, so do I."
She can tell that its taken him a great deal of introspection to reach that point.
He stands, with her, in silence for another few moments, before clearing his throat and adding, "I'll ask him to come to me, then, at one of my own safehouses."
"Home ground."
"Indeed."
"Perhaps it would be better if you were present, too, rather than Erin and the rest. It might put him more at east. You've spoken before."
"I'll be there," she assures him, softly.
They stand together, Harry reaching his hand out to touch her side and Ruth letting her fingers fall over his forearm, feeling the tendons and muscles beneath the skin, playing over the soft skin underneath his wrist and the tougher skin above, brushed with fair hair. He was fair all over, was Harry, she muses. Fair hair over his head, going slightly to grey. Fair hair along his chest, darkening as it reached the midline and trailed down his belly and on, below. She likes his body. It is laced with scars. Some of them are slightly frightening, under the bright light, but they are part of him. And she loves him. She is terrified of that love, but it does not detract from its potency.
Reaching out, she slips her hands around his middle and steps that last inch closer, pressing them up against one another.
He folds her in, strong arms cradling her back.
"I'm sorry," he whispers again, "I'm sorry that I've caused you so much pain."
"As am I," she murmurs softly, pressing her face into his chest. He smells of Harry. Things feel a little better suddenly. "I didn't want to argue. I didn't come here, tonight, to argue. I just wanted to be near you, even if it does make everything so much more confusing..."
They stand that way for a long time, just wrapped in each other. Holding.
"Do you want to leave?" he asks her, eventually.
She looks up and ascertains that he does not mean now, in the immediate. It is not a request for aloneness, rather an inquiry about her future. With MI5. With him.
"I think so," she eventually answers. "I'm not sure, though, and it bothers me. I've always been able to make logical choices, concerning my career, before."
He nods, thoughtfully, and there is a pause again. Then he pushes forwards. "Do you want the job itself," he asks again, "or do you think its just a means of escape? Do you just want out of the Service?"
She closes her eyes again, sighing softly. She does not know. She does not know what she wants. What she had said to William Towers, the other night at dinner, was the truth. She was sick of the secrets and lies of MI5. She wanted there to be an option of having a life of her own, beyond work. She wanted to have time to herself, again, to pursue other interests. She did not want to look at bloodshed and depravity on a daily basis. On the other hand, however, she knows that she does not want a life without Harry. She does not want to leave him alone to face all of the horror – though she knows, fine well, that he can take care of himself. She does not want to walk away because it would be one strain too many on their already fractured relationship. They would fall apart.
In slow, faltering words, she tries to explain this to him, keeping her eyes closed because it is somehow easier than meeting his gaze. To his credit, Harry does not try to interrupt her rambling and faltering explanation. He just stands and listens patiently until she is done. Then, he leans forwards and presses a kiss into her forehead.
"I'm not going anywhere," he whispers against her. "Whether or not you stay with the Service, you've got me. I know things are difficult, right now," he adds, brushing a hand softly through her hair, "I know I've not made it easy, but once this is all over, we'll sit down and talk everything through. We'll take some time off and work it all out, yes?"
She gives a sad smile against his chest. She doesn't think they ever will work it all out, not really. They will always be broken and have secrets. Maybe, one day, they will reach a point where the positives outweigh the negatives and they will learn to live with it all. Maybe not. Until then, she will persevere. She loves him.
She can survive without him, she knows; living some half-life where they only see each other in passing. Working for the Home Office and attending the same meetings. Being satellites to the same people, but exchanging nothing more than a polite smile or a word or two whenever she passes him by. They can still do that. They can manage. The fact that they can both still walk away is what makes them so much more precious, she thinks, pressing a kiss over Harry's heart. She can survive without him, if she chooses to. But... she does not want to. She does not want to live a half-life, or just survive. She wants to be with him. She wants a life with him.
For now, she supposes, being with him will have to be enough. They are too busy to spend more time talking things through or formulating a plan for a workable life together. They both need to be up in six hours for work. At least Harry has listened to her about Jim Coaver, Ruth thinks, her mind playing over what she has gained from their conversation tonight. Even if she is no clearer where she stands with him – and no more decided on her job with Towers – they have made some immediate progress on that front. Perhaps if he and Coaver met and talked like friends, she thinks, the American would share whatever it was he was holding back. Maybe it would lead them somewhere and maybe they could uncover what was going on with the Gavriks once and for all. Maybe they would get the intelligence sharing deal signed (or not) and things would move on. Maybe the tribunal would leave him in a place where he could retire with dignity and the respect and commendation he deserved. Maybe after that happened and she had decided where her future lay, there was some hope for them.
She murmurs she loves him against his chest.
He presses a kiss against the crown of her head, then gently takes her hand, leading her back towards his bedroom.
"Stay here, tonight?" he asks her, as they enter and their eyes fall down to their scattered clothes across the floor, mementos of how they entered it an hour or so previous.
Ruth takes a moment, then nods, slowly.
"Okay."
Nervously, she lets him lead back to his large oak-framed bed and they curl up a little awkwardly under the remaining sheets. They have never spent a night beside one another before. Neither of them knows entirely what distance is acceptable but, after a couple of minutes of painful shuffling around and apologising and re-adjusting themselves, Harry heaves a sigh and – clearly throwing caution to the wind – reaches out and rolls her back against him. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he gives her a squeeze and kissed her cheek softly, before loosening his grip and nestling in. Belly to back. Spooned.
Ruth stays very still for a few moments, feeling him slowly relax, feeling all of his muscles loosen against her as sleep takes over. It is incredible, the feeling of closeness. She has not slept beside someone for so long that she had almost forgotten. And this is not just someone, she reminds herself, this is Harry. Who she loves. Who she knows... mostly... sometimes...
Whatever her knowledge of him, anyway, it is glorious. She feels his body give itself over to sleep one part at a time. First, his fingers, which had been softly stroking her belly, began to slow and then stop. Then, the muscles in his bicep stop twitching and his calf muscles, slid under her ankle, fall soft. The remaining tension in his chest and shoulders flees as his heart rate drops away and he is left soft and sleepy, gently curled around her in a somewhat protective posture. He feels so peaceful – content in a manner which Ruth has never seen him, awake. His breaths began to deepen and slow, and then she hears him begin to snore very softly – barely a snore, really, just a tiny low noise in the back of his throat.
A smile tickles her lips. That is something she had not known, the day before. That is one of the secret things about him, like the story behind the scars across his side, that she is now privy to. Harry snores. Harry likes to sleep spooned together and he snores when he is comfortable. Maybe the rest of the secrets would slide away over time, she thinks, starting to relax back against him, revelling in the way his breaths pushed his soft belly against her lower back. Maybe she would learn the things that were important, just as she had learned him at work. Over the years. Over time. With patience and a lot of understanding. And no pre-judgements, she tells herself. Maybe they would be okay after all.
Closing her eyes she tries not to think about tomorrow and the decisions it brings. Life is complicated right now and she is not altogether happy. This moment, however, this is a happy one. She will live here for the time being, she decides. Until they have dealt with the Gavriks and she has decided about her job with the Home Office. They will bring the Russian intelligence-sharing deal to fruition and then she will sort out all of the rest. No, they will sort out all of the rest, she corrects herself, feeling Harry's hand tighten softly against her side in sleep. They will work together and fix this. And then, maybe, they will fix themselves. They – until they could no longer be – had to remain a possibility, she thinks. She loves him. There is really no other option.
Letting her body relax into his, she drift away into sleep.
.