8

Returns.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE CHARACTERS. BBC AND KUDOS DO.

1.

'There will always be something else, Ruth.' He says it quietly, leaving her in no uncertainty as to what he means. She does not look at him. 'We should get back to work', she says finally, turned away from him.

He gets up, slowly, trying not to let his frustration show. You've got no right to expect anything from her, he tells himself. Her partner died, she lost her step-son, and all of this because of you, the service…just be content that she is here, that you can see her every day…

And yet, he can't be content. To have her back in his life, so unexpectedly, after three long years…nothing could have prepared him for this, for that moment when he would see her again….

She has changed. She's no longer the young, naïve woman he once knew – yes, she was naïve back then, in an endearing way. She no longer looks up to him the way she used to – 'coker spaniel', Juliet once said. Cruel, but with a grain of truth. These days, she looks at him, and he can no longer read her. She says that she is not angry with him for what happened. He does not believe her. How could he? He would have let the child die had it come to that. He knows it, and so does she. How could she ever forgive him?

He shakes himself. Come on, Harry. One day at a time. For now, enjoy seeing her every day, talking to her, watching her…. Her wide blue eyes….she is not beautiful, not in a conventional, Sarah-Crawley kind of way. And yet, he wants her more than he has wanted anyone in his life. He loves the way her smile lights up her face, he loves….

The day goes on, a blur of activity as usual. Lucas' fragility, Ros' decisiveness. Tariq showing his mettle. He fobs Ruth off for her theories about Malcolm's contact, feels annoyed at himself for it, makes up for it later….and all the time, thinking that he would give anything for getting her alone, away from the office, to try, one last time, to get through to her.

But she has left the office, for her new, bland, rented, anonymous flat, curtesy of the service, and it's too late. For yet another day, it's too late.

And then, suddenly, he's got an idea. How did I not think of it earlier, he asks himself…

2.

She is walking like an automaton, oblivious to the cold autumn rain lashing her face and seeping into her clothes. The emotional battle which she has been fighting since her return, and her grief at the loss of her partner and step-son is leaving her exhausted and drained of all energy. She never imagined, in Cyprus, that she would ever be back in London. That she would see him again. Until she was dragged into that room, laying eyes on him – looking older, more tired than she remembered, the years of hard work and burdensome secrets etched on his face….finding herself unable to say 'yes' to the question he threw at her, like a gauntlet: 'did you love him?'

I'm glad I did not betray George in that way, she tells herself, by talking about us, our relationship, to Harry. Harry, whom I still love, who makes me so angry, who so obviously wants to talk about us….I don't want to talk about us, I don't want ever to feel vulnerable, to open up to someone, to him, only to lose him ….

And yet…she cannot deny – for she is a basically honest, and decent, person – the thrill she feels, every day, at the idea of seeing him. Of working close to him. Of being told that only she, and no one else, is in his confidence. She feels the thrill, and hates herself for it.

She closes her eyes, and rests her forehead wearily on the cold glass window as the bus slowly truddges along Picadilly. Another long, lonely, difficult evening, filled with grief, trying and failing to get through Nico, missing him more than she would have thought possible. I love him like a son, she tells herself, and now I will never have a child, it's too late…

She gets off the bus, it's darker still, she has to make herself put one foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other, Ruth, she tells herself bleakly. That's how it has got to be. One foot in front of the other.

She is about to insert her key in her front door, when a shadow looms next to her, holding something in their hand. She starts. She stammers, 'What…what are you doing here?'

3.

'Your cats', he says simply.

She doesn't understand. 'What?'

'Your cats…when you left. Three years ago. You asked me to look after them.'

Three years ago. A lifetime ago. Before she can say anything, he adds, hurriedly, 'you've never asked since you got back….other things on your mind obviously.' He trails off. Of all the stupid things to say, he tells himself furiously. 'Well, I thought you might like to have them back.'

She looks down, and realises that he is holding a cat carrier. And she hears the shuffling, the tentative meowing. She knows she should say something, anything, but she can't, her mind is utterly blank. 'Ruth'. Softly, this time, very gently. ' Do you want them back? Because if you don't that's fine, I can keep them, but I thought….'

'I've got no food for them', she says, inanely.'Or a tray or…'

He allows himself the tiniest of smiles. 'It's OK. I had my driver pick up some stuff on the way.'

'Your driver. Ah yes. Yes.' Of course. He is Sir Harry, and she is plain dowdy Ruth Evershed, just returned from the dead, with not much in her life really but a drab, uninviting place, the job which has cost her so many friends, and an ever loosening grip on a little boy whom she loves and who, she knows, will soon forget her.

And it occurrs to her that she really ought to let him in, the cats are meowing furiously now, the rain is falling more heavily. She opens the door, busies herself switching the lights on, shedding her coat, showing him in, half ashamed of what the flat says about her. 'It's very nice of you', she says lamely as she opens the carrier. The cats emerge, tentatively, their fur is shiny, they have put on some weight. He's obviously looked after them well. His housekeeper, rather, she can't help thinking, unfairly.

She watches him from the corner of her eyes, as she makes some tea. He is taking in his surroundings, the non descript decor, the soullessness of the layout, the standard framed photos of London…

There is another reason why he is here tonight. A new development, after a long phone conversation he had with the Home Secretary. 'Ruth'.

She looks up, and back down on the teapot quiclly. 'Yes?'

'I didn't come only for the cats. But also to tell you that….' His words desert him. Is she going to get angry with him again for his attempts at helping her? He takes a deep breath. 'The Home Secretary asked me to tell you that the Government will compensate you for everything.' Color rises up her cheeks, but he pre-empts her outburst. 'Not everything. I did not mean that. I know that losing George, and Nico…'

He pulls out an envelope from his breast pocket. 'Harry….' Her tone is anything but friendly or grateful.

'It's nothing to do with what has happened since….it's Cotterdam. You were wrongfully accused, wrongfully imprisoned. These are details for a Swiss bank account in your name. One million pounds. It's yours, and you can do whatever you want to do with it. It' s standard compensation.' He is lying. The amount of money he got out of the HS is not standard – not by any means. But when the HS pointed out to him that really a million was too much, he lost his temper. He will not tell a living soul, til the day he died, what he told the man who, strictly speaking, is his boss. Or what the HS said. But he got what he wanted, what was fair, and Ruth need never know.

' A million pounds?' she struggles to get the words out.

He gestures at the flat. 'You might want to get your own home or…' He shrugs helplessly. 'Whatever you want, Ruth.'

She could rant, and shout, and tell him that they can keep their money and….but suddenly, the fight goes out of her. She no longer has the strength and energy to be angry with him - at least not tonight, not now. 'Thank you', she whispers, stroking the cats and enjoying the comforting sound of their purring. 'Thank you. And for the cats too….it was very thoughtful of you.'

They fall silent, sipping their tea.

'About this morning', he says, not looking at her.

'Don't', she says. 'Please, Harry, don't.'

'I just wanted to say that it won't….'

'George gave me companionship', she cuts in. 'Simple, undemanding companionship. We got on very well. In every way', she adds, looking straight at him, and meaning it. He flinches, and the pain on his face is more than she can bear. Still, out of loyalty for the man who shared her life unquestioningly for two years and who died for it, she continues, 'what we had was good, and decent, and solid. It gave me a family. Something which I had never had before, and will never have again.' He is about to say something, but she won't let him. 'And that is all I will ever say to you about it', she states, with a tone that admits of no argument.

She does not say anything about them, her feelings for him, his feelings for her, what they shared on that jetty so long ago. It's over, he tells himself. Jo was the only reason she came back. Not me, not what could have been….he sets his mug on the worktop, ever so carefully, ever so slowly. 'I'd better go. It's getting late.'

She does not protest and walks him back to the door. 'Bye Harry', she says softly as he disappears into the rain, towards his car.

She shuts the door before he even gets in, and sinks down onto the floor.

Crying.

4.

Half a million pounds does get you a nice mews house in London which you can at last call your home – even if you have decided to get rid of all your furniture from your previous life. The other half gives you peace of mind, and the knowledge that she can leave the service whenever she wants to without having to worry about money. It gets you a car, nice food, the books you love, the music you need to listen to in order to feel truly connected to your soul.

It gives you all of that. But it does not give you the boy whom you still think of as your step-son, and who refuses to come to the phone to talk to you. And it does not give you your husband back.

You miss your husband so much that it is like an ache that never goes away. You miss his easy companionship, his laughter, his strong accent. You miss the sex and the intimacy, the long shared meals on the terrace talking about everything and nothing. You did not think you would miss him so much, and you know that your feelings are laced with guilt at his meaningless death. Still, despite the fact that you were not in love with him, that you did not feel passionately about him, he was your friend, and your lover, and your companion, and you still cannot believe, you cannot accept that you will never see him again - that his son will never see him again.

And every day, you go to work, and analyze information, and go your bit for Queen and country. You strike up a friendship with Tariq, whose youthful enthusiasm for his job takes you back to how you used to feel, and whose slightly nerdish behaviour is in tune with your own idiosyncracies. His parents died when he was young, he spent some time in care, and you feel protective of him as if you were his older sister.

And so, day after day, you support the head of section D in his very important job. You see him come out of meetings with the home secretary with deeper lines etched on his face. He tells you, as he does all the other members of the team, things which would keep us, ordinary citizens, awake at night. And if he is a bit off, at times, with Tariq, a bit more reserved than usual, it's clearly because Tariq has not been truly tested yet.

He no longer shares things with you only. He no longer gives you all those little signals which told you that you had a special place in his life, in his heart. He is utterly polite, utterly ruthless too when the job demands it, and basically utterly nice.

And it is driving you crazy.

5.

He takes enormous care not to touch her, even accidentally, when he walks past her in the corridors. He does not unburden himself to her as he used to. He treats her exactly as he treats the other members of the team.

Yet, when she is so utterly focused on her work as to be oblivous to her surroundings, he watches her from behind the glass panels of his office. He wants to know how she is coping, whether she has managed to gain access to her step-son, how she is finding it, being back here, after all that has happened.

But the walls she has put up around her are so high, so thick, that he know he cannot get through to her. She has made it perfectly clear to him that she does not wish to talk about the past, about what they used to feel for each other…correction, about what she used to feel, because his feelings are as strong as they were, burn as brightly as they did all those years ago.

There has been no one since she left, and he used to tell himself that it was because of the job. He knows now that it's because of her, that if he cannot be with her, then he will remain alone. And he would give so much, so, so much, to have her smile at him as widely, as generously, as tenderly as she used to – as she smiles at Tariq, in fact.

Though he does his best to hide it, he does not like him. Rather, he does not like the way Ruth is around him. Relaxed, jokey, humourous…she is twelve years older than he is, he tells himself savagely, surely she cannot….oh, but you are fifteen years older than she is, so why not? She is brilliant, beautiful in her understated way so why would Tariq, why would anyone not want to be with her? And why would she not want to be with him, handsome Tariq with his dark liquid eyes, his long lithe frame, his waist not yet thickened by too many rich lunches in unsavoury company and lack of exercise…

He's never experienced jealousy before. He's always prided himself on being able to maintain a very tight leash on his emotions. Not anymore. Not where Ruth is concerned.

Ch2.

1.

It's been three months since her return, and slowly, almost reluctantly, she has begun to learn to love her job again. The sheer intellectual stimulation, the adrenaline coursing through her veins when she gets hold of the crucial bit of information which solves a case, the sense of doing something important, something valuable….all that she had taught herself to forget while she was in Cyprus has come back. The difference, this time, is that she is not trying to pretend to herself that her life is wholly fine. For now she knows what real intimacy, if not overriding passion, is like, and what it is like to experience the daily pleasures of sharing your life with someone else, of being part of a family, of fitting in that particular niche. And so when she comes home, every evening – the home she has also learnt to cherish as her refuge from the demands of her job – she notices how noisy silence can be, and how much she craves a shoulder to lean on and the feeling of a loving human touch.

She reflects on this, one long, late Friday afternoon, trying to find something else to do at her desk in order not to have to face her solitude, knowing that she absolutely must resist the temptation to become what she used to be – married to her job, with no life outside it. Without her realising it, all the others have left. Even Harry, which is odd, because he is usually the last one to go home. But he was called out in the middle of the morning, obviously on urgent business because he left in a hurry, without saying why.

Yet, he appears on the threshold of the large open plan office, and makes his way to his office, seemingly oblivious to her presence, to the glowing light on her desk, the flickering glimmer of her computer screen.

She was sick yesterday and hasn't seen him properly in a couple of days. She ought to check in with him, update him on what she has done with the Pakistan trail they have been exploring in connection with the Basel group. But since they failed to go for drinks the other night, at her invitation, he has not mentioned it again, and she dares not ask again. Still, his footsteps were heavy, his shoulders slumped, and her heart constricts at the sight of him. So, hesitantly, she gets up and, this time, for once, knocks on his door.

'Yes? What is it?' – his tone impatient and abrupt.

She slowly lets her hand fall at her side. Maybe it is not such a good idea after all…She is about to pull away when he opens his door, brusquely. He still has his coat on, and a bunch of mail, which he was obviously skimming quickly, in his hand.

'Oh. Ruth. You're still here', flatly, with very little emotion in his voice or on his face.

'Hi…sorry, it might not be a good time, but I need to give you an update on…'

'Ah, yes, the Pakistan connection….look, can this wait until Monday? I've had a lot on today and I need to get home pretty much now….' She stares at him. Never, in all the years she has known him, has he refused to listen to her tell him something important about the job. Never, except on one or two occasions when the pressure of finding a terrorist on the loose in London was crushing him, or when his concerns about one of his agents out in the field, has he brushed her off – has he brushed anyone off, in fact, in such a way. And Monday? When most of them, he in particular, always come on a Saturday.

'It's fine', she says. 'It can wait until Monday. Look, if there's anything…'

'It's OK, Ruth. Go home. It's getting late….have a nice weekend.'

And that's her properly and nicely, but firmly, dismissed. And so she closes the door, every so slightly, ever so gently, her head turned away so that he cannot see how bright, how moist her eyes suddenly are with unshed tears.