Title: Rendezvous
Fandom: Spooks
Rating: K
Warnings: None
Summary: Dimitri has a meet with a very important contact. My contribution to the raft of post 10x6 fics.
A/N: Hi there. Welcome to my first Spooks fanfic. Let me start by saying I'm not the most clued-up or loyal fan. I was into it at the beginning and then watched on and off until the end of the last series when I got back into it properly again. So please forgive any mistakes or characterisation errors in this.
The ending to Spooks completely broke my heart. Even though I was expecting them to do something like they did, I was hoping and praying that they wouldn't. That they'd break the mould and let Harry and Ruth live happily ever after.
This fic is what I like to think really happened. It's based on a dream I had the Monday night a week after the finale aired. It felt so real and I was gutted when I woke up and realised it wasn't. Apologies for the crap title and summary. Also I wanted to get this out as quickly as possible, so its unbeta'd.
Late February 2014...
Dimitri Levendis stood on the lakeside path of a non-descript London park. He looked at his watch for what must have been the tenth time. He never normally got this anxious about a meet, but this was different.
"Will you calm down," came Erin's voice through his earpiece. Dimitri looked over to her position further down the path.
"Sorry," he whispered back, so as not to draw attention to himself. "It's just..."
"I know," she replied sympathetically, understanding what he was going through.
It had been nearly two and a half years since that fateful day at the abandoned MI5 base; the day that had changed the course of all their lives forever.
"He's late," Callum injected from back at the grid.
"Only by a couple of minutes," Erin reminded.
"Yeh, but when was he ever late. Especially to a meet."
"You think he's not coming?" she questioned. "That he would go to all the trouble of setting this up then not turn up?"
"Something could have happened."
"I see him," Dimitri announced, silencing their discussion. He turned around to lean forwards on the railings as the older gentleman approached him.
"You got my message then?" he asked rhetorically as he stood next to him. "I see you didn't keep it to yourself as requested." Dimitri feigned a look of confusion. The older gentleman smiled to himself, "I spotted Erin as I walked over here, and would I be right in assuming Callum's around somewhere too?"
"He's at the Grid but he can hear every word."
"Well, I suppose they'd have to know eventually anyway."
"What's this about Harry? You leave without a word and then we don't hear from you in over two years? I understand that what happened was hard but-"
"You don't really know what happened," Harry told him in a whisper. Dimitri looked at him questioningly and his eyes widened as he realised what Harry meant.
"Shall we take a walk?" he suggested. Harry nodded and slid into step next to Dimitri.
As they walked Harry filled the younger man in on what had really taken place over the days that followed the horrific events two years previously.
"The day I returned to The Grid I got a cryptic telephone call telling me to go to St Bart's hospital and look for a patient called Georgia Samuels. I didn't know the identity of the caller, I still don't; they used a voice scrambler, but whoever it was said it was imperative that I go. So I did. When I arrived and was taken to Miss Samuels' room, I couldn't believe my eyes; it was Ruth. Alive."
Dimitri heard Erin and Cal's gasps mingle with his own as he tried to take in what his ex-boss was telling him.
"Towers was there too. He was shocked to see me to say the least. Turns out that Ruth had still been alive, barely, when the air ambulance took her and when the Government found out they ordered a cover-up. Something to do with securing a prosecution against Sacha whilst still keeping the deal with Russia intact. The Russians would have fought the prosecution tooth and nail had it been for anything less than murder.
The cover story was the one that was fed to us; that Ruth had died. She had been told that I'd agreed to the plan; that I'd chosen my country over her...again, and sent her away."
"I don't believe it," exclaimed Callum over the comms to Dimitri and Erin.
"I threatened to expose him and his lies, but Towers had planned for that eventuality too. He told me that saving me from my little spat with the American's would become the lowest priority for the Government. In other words, I would have been sacrificed; extradited to the US and prosecuted for the death of Jim Coaver. It was Ruth who suggested that we went along with it; but that I left with her. That we both disappeared. Together." A small blush rose in Harry's cheeks as he spoke of their relationship for the first time to Dimitri, possibly to anyone. "I wasn't prepared to lose her again. I'd been planning to leave the service anyway; to try to build some sort of a life with her. This way simply meant we did it with the financial help of the Home Office."
"And leaving your family? Your friends?"
"In the grand scheme of things, it was a sacrifice worth making."
The two men walk in silence for a few moments while the information sinks in. They've reached the other side of the lake, near the children's play area, before Dimitri asks,
"So, you've been living with false identities all this time?"
"Yes. The man standing in front of you now is Peter Bond, 50, part time security agent for a trans-Atlantic security firm."
"And Ruth?"
"Nicola Bond, nee Parker, 43, consulting interpreter and housewife."
"Housewife?" Dimitri asked, visibly shocked. Harry understands his reaction; before, Ruth would hardly have been satisfied to be at home all day, every day.
"People change Mr Levendis," Harry commented as he looked fondly over the playground. Dimitri followed his eyes to a woman with dark hair, pushing a baby in the swings. She must have sensed she was been watched, as she looked up, and Dimitri found himself staring at eyes he never though he would see again. She was a little wary but smiled and gave a slight wave. Erin, who had followed the men at a distance, watched the whole thing unfold.
"Ruth!" she gasped. She had believed Harry's story of course, but actually seeing the person you thought was dead, living and breathing was a completely different matter entirely.
"She's there?" Callum asked, wishing he wasn't stuck back at base.
"Hidden in plain sight, pushing a baby in the swings."
"A baby?
"Yes Callum, y'know, small human being, cries a lot."
"I know what a baby is, thank you. Is it...hers?"
"I...I'm not sure. Di?" Erin checked. Dimitri heard the question in her voice, it was the same one running through his head, but he wasn't quite sure how to approach the subject but Harry seemed to sense his discomfort.
"Her name is Rebecca, she's 13 months old. And yes, she's ours. She was a bit of a surprise, especially at my age but we wouldn't be without her. She's taken years off me."
"I...I don't know what to say!"
"You don't need to say anything. But I would like you to do something for me." Dimitri looked back at Harry; preparing himself for the real reason he had contacted them. "Can you find out if we're clear to come out of hiding?" he asked the younger man. "We don't want Rebecca growing up like this, if at all possible. She has a family; a grandmother, a brother, a sister who don't even know she exists. Now that Towers has been disgraced and the Russians in the dog house, would it cause too many ripples if we were to just slip back into our old lives unnoticed? I'm not talking about returning to the service of course but just resuming contact with people, using our real names. Would there be any risk; any dissident KGB groups out to get us for destroying their greatest asset and her family?"
"We'll look into it," Erin told him approaching them. For a moment it looked like Harry was going to chastise her for breaking the rules of the meet, but he let it drop. He was no longer her boss and he supposed he had been a little over-cautious when planning this, but some things never change.
"How can we contact you?" Dimitri asked. Harry fished a mobile phone out of his coat pocket.
"There's a number programmed in there. The number for a similar mobile that is in my possession." As he handed it to Dimitri, he noticed the shiny gold band on his wedding finger. He glanced at Erin's left hand and found a matching ring and rather nice diamond solitaire on her fourth digit. Ruth had been right it would seem; she was always better at reading people's relationships better than he.
"We'll be in touch," Dimitri advised, holding out his hand. Harry shook it firmly. He watched for a few moments as the two agents walked away, Dimitri's hand resting protectively on the small of Erin's back, before turning around to join his family by the swings.
Two weeks had passed without contact from either Dimitri or Erin, and Harry was getting impatient.
"Give them time," Ruth told him on several occasions. "They'll be making 110% sure it's safe." She understood what they were doing and she knew Harry did too; there was just more on the line for him. Whilst her relationship with her mother had disintegrated somewhat after her first exile, Harry's relationship with his children had been improving when he'd disappeared. He'd managed to get a message to Catherine but there hadn't been time to wait for a response, so he didn't know how she'd reacted and Ruth knew he was worrying about what her reaction would be to Rebecca's arrival. The longer they left it the more difficult the situation could become.
Ruth had just placed the last of the vegetables in the pan and turned it down to simmer when an unfamiliar ringing drifted from the small cupboard underneath the stairs. Opening the door, she realised it was the pay as you go mobile that Harry had purchased before his meet with Dimitri. She grabbed the phone from his coat pocket and rushed upstairs to the bathroom. Harry was knelt on the floor, gently bathing Rebecca who sat in her bath seat giggling with delight as she splashed about, soaking her father in the process.
Wordlessly she held out the ringing phone to Harry and took his place by the bath, supervising and playing with her daughter. Harry stepped out of Ruth's earshot to take the call, wanting her to hear the news from him rather than from eavesdropping one half of the conversation. When he returned minutes later he stood in the doorway wearing an unreadable expression.
"Harry?" she asked, nervously.
"They've finished their investigation and concluded that the risk is minimal," he informed her, a slight smile creeping onto his face. Checking that Rebecca was secure in her seat, Ruth stood up as Harry walked over to her.
"So we can go home?"
"Yes sweetheart, we can." Ruth let out a little squeal, wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close. She regretted her actions however, pulling away seconds later.
"You're soaked!" she exclaimed.
"That's your daughter's fault," he reminded her.
"My daughter?" she queried. Harry just laughed bending down to the bath. Covertly he scooped up some water and launched it at Ruth, who screamed as it dampened the back of her top. She rushed to the sink, turning the taps on fully before splashing Harry as retaliation.
"Hey! That's cold!" he screeched playfully as a mini water fight began to emerge, their daughter watching them intently, joining in with the squealing and laughter.
Later, sat on the bed in their room, Rebecca snuggled between them with a bottle and her dog-eared copy of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar', lying open on the quilt, Harry leant over to Ruth.
"Marry me?" he whispered. She stopped stroking her daughter's hair and looked up at him.
"We're already married," she pointed out.
"No, Peter and Nicola Bond are married. Harry Pearce and Ruth Evershed are not."
"Oh," was Ruth's reply.
"So, what do you think?" Harry continued. "I mean, you've had sort of a trial run now; think you can put up with me for the rest of our lives?" His voice held a tone of joviality, but Ruth could see the nervousness in his eyes.
"Oh, I think I could just about cope with it," she smiled, stretching over their now sleeping daughter to kiss Harry.
"I love you Ruth Evershed."
"And I love you Harry Pearce."