A/N: I could attempt to justify this completely pointless one-shot by adding that it provides an alternative ending to S.10 …... which it does ….. but that is not the reason I wrote it. NatesDate – and a few others – know why. Thanks to NatesDate for the pic from which I created the avatar.

Rather than being Christmassy – which it's not – this fic is my gift to you all. I hope you enjoy it.

Now she's inside his house, perched primly on the edge of the sofa in the sitting room, she's not sure why she's here.

Curiosity? Definitely.

Concern? Of course.

Love? Probably, although she doesn't wish to think about that.

Her calls to his mobile had gone straight to voicemail. On her first call, she'd left a message, but to repeat the message: `Harry, ring me', or even more pointlessly, 'Harry, put your phone on the bloody charger,' is akin to whistling into the wind.

She's worried about him, and she's checking that he's alright.

And he is alright, so ….. why is she still here?

If she's being honest with herself, it's the way he's dressed. As she'd slid past him into his hallway, she'd noticed him desperately re-tying the belt of his bathrobe, underneath which she is sure she caught a glimpse of his trunks – just a glimpse – and she is almost certain they are purple. Ruth suddenly feels she is on shaky ground. The Harry she knows – and, well …. loves – would most surely be a black, or navy-blue trunks man.

Ruth fears she may not know Harry at all. Perhaps he has a woman in his life – a woman other than her. Perhaps it may already be too late for her to be crying over the colour of Harry's underwear. After all, she has no intimate knowledge of that part of his body.

She's been without a man in her life – other than Harry, and he's not exactly in her life ….. at least, not biblically – for well over a year now. Who knows what fashion trends men may be following, and if it's underwear, she'd never have a way of being in the know.

Just lately, Harry has seemed very pre-occupied, but he's been that way since the Gavriks arrived, and she doesn't know what to do about it. Chiefly, she hasn't known how to handle Harry's strange emotional response to Elena Gavrik …... the woman who just this day has died, killed by her own husband.

"I brought wine," Harry says, quietly entering the room, and carefully placing a tray on the coffee table. "Just in case you'd like some."

"With the tea."

"Yes. I didn't exactly ask you what you wanted, Ruth."

"No, you didn't. You just assumed."

"Maybe I wasn't thinking straight. My injury …..."

Ruth gets up from the sofa, and begins pouring tea for them both. Milk and two sugars for her, and a dash of milk, and three - no, this time four – sugars for him. She hands him his cup of tea, having stirred it three times in each direction, just as she knows he does for himself.

"And how is your injury?" she asks, sipping her tea, and glancing across her cup to where he sits, staring at the cup in his hands. She grants herself a gaze at the rest of him. He is wearing nothing on his feet, and his burgundy-coloured bathrobe has opened enough for her to catch a glimpse of strong calf muscles.

"It's …... it's," and Harry grimaces, sliding his hand inside the opening of the bathrobe, to where there is – she's been told – a small stab wound. Sasha Gavrik just managed to sink a shard of glass into Harry's skin before Harry had dropped the little sod with a well-aimed elbow into the younger man's throat. Ruth hadn't been there. Dimitri had rung her at work and told her the whole ugly, messy story. At least, there's one less Gavrik on the planet, which can only be a good thing.

"Just thought you'd want to know, Ruth," Dimitri had said, "after all, you and he are …... were …..." and Dimitri's voice had faded. She'd not known what to say in reply, other than knowing that the minute her working day ended, she'd be leaving the Home Office in search of Harry.

We are each a beacon to the other. And where has it ever got us?

"It looks like it hurts, Harry," she says quietly, watching his face twist in pain. "Perhaps you should be in bed."

"I'm not a bloody invalid, Ruth. It's just a flesh wound."

"Which needed six stitches."

"I've had worse."

"I know you have." Ruth places her cup – still only half-drunk – on the coffee table. "I think I'll have some wine now." Harry moves forward as if to grab the wine bottle, but she beats him to it. "I'll pour it," she says, reaching for the bottle, and pouring a glass for herself.

"I think I need one, too," he replies.

Ruth lifts her eyes to his, hoping her look is suitably withering.

"Painkillers are for pussies. I need stronger medicine."

"Why don't you go the whole hog, and pour yourself a whiskey. A large one while you're at it."

Her tone is sarcastic, but he ignores her, and carefully lifts himself from his chair, and steps to the drinks cabinet, where he pours himself a rather substantial single malt. He takes a healthy swallow before he turns to look across the room at Ruth, his free hand held out in front of him, palm down. "See? Steady as a rock. `Whiskey is liquid sunshine' …... George Bernard Shaw. He should know."

"If you fall over unconscious, I'll just step over you, and head off home."

Harry has sat back in his chair, and he seems much happier for having a glass of whiskey in his hand. They each sit in silence for some minutes – he with his whiskey, and she, now on her second glass of wine. Ruth is aware that the situation has the potential to deteriorate quite quickly. She could drink the whole bottle of merlot on her own, and/or he could get completely blitzed on whiskey and painkillers. Either way, she may have to stay the night.

Sounds like a plan.

"Don't you want to see it?" he asks after a silence of at least five minutes.

"See it?" Ruth's voice comes out in a squeak. "See what?"

Harry's face creases in a (very rare) wide grin. "My wound. What did you think I meant?"

Impossible man. "Isn't it bandaged?"

"You are talking about my stab wound, aren't you, Ruth?"

"Of course I am. I suppose I should see it then, since you seem so keen to …..."

"... be showing it to you?" Harry stands, and begins to pull back one side of his bathrobe. "You have to come closer, Ruth. It's rather small, and you won't see it from over there."

Ruth puts down her glass, and keeping her head down, she negotiates the coffee table – without knocking anything over – and stands in front of him. There is still an arm's length between them.

"Closer, Ruth. It looks bigger once you're closer."

Ruth takes a small step closer, wondering when it was they'd begun channelling the script from a Carry On movie. She is now close enough to see what it is he's showing her. Between his left nipple and his underarm, she sees a patch of red skin, and this skin is held tightly by six very neat stitches.

"Jesus, Harry. You said it was too small to see. That looks …... awful."

"Ah, there it is, you see. Most women react like that when I undress in front of them."

"Like what?"

"With that same look of horror I see on your face."

"I'm not horrified by you, Harry. It's just that small piece of skin."

"That's what they all say."

She looks up at him then. He's smiling …... sending her up, pushing the boundaries.

"You're making fun of me," she says, not sure how she feels about that. Is she stimulated, amused, hurt? All three?

"Only mildly, Ruth. You must admit that the situation is ripe for it."

Without realising what she is doing, Ruth has stepped closer to Harry – close enough to smell the whiskey on his breath, and the cologne he must have used after his shower. She has reached her hand to his wound, and very gently, she is running her fingers in a wide circle around the patch of reddened skin. The cut itself is jagged, requiring more stitches than normal, and creating a largish area of inflamed skin. Unconsciously, her other hand is resting, palm down, over the middle of his chest.

She has been so mesmerised by Harry's wound that she has almost forgotten about the man himself. He has dropped both his hands from where he has been holding open his bathrobe, and very, very slowly and carefully, he places his hands on her hips. In his hurry to take advantage of the moment, he has forgotten to re-tie his bathrobe, and unknown to them both, it is about to fall open.

Ruth reaches forward and places a soft kiss on the skin just beside Harry's stab wound. Under the hand which is resting on the middle of his bare chest, she can feel his heart beating rapidly. Her eyes are drawn to further down Harry's body, where his open bathrobe exposes his only article of clothing – purple trunks, which are covered with images of …... yellow bananas!

The bananas are in every state of dress and undress – bananas turned up, bananas turned down, partly peeled ones, and ones which have not yet been peeled.

That's bold. How many men advertise their assets by wearing trunks to match what is beneath the fabric?

Ruth is staring. She is prepared to accept that Harry may have tastes which for the past eight years he has managed to keep from her. After all, he'd kept quiet about that Gavrik woman. Nary a word about her in all the time they'd known one another.

She can't help but stare, and then she notices movement. Oh, God, what's a woman to do? Harry is nudging sixty. He's not meant to be able to `move' quite that quickly …... and she's not even touching him. What would happen were she to suddenly put her hand on him? Her mind is filled with images of fireworks, and waves breaking on the shore, and champagne corks popping, releasing a veritable geyser of champagne.

"They're not mine," he says, and Ruth struggles to understand his words. Does he mean that he has a prosthesis?

"The trunks. They're not mine. They're Calum's."

That explains everything, then, doesn't it?

"What are you doing in Calum's trunks? Is he wearing yours?"

"Before I was stabbed, I fell in the water. Long story. Calum had some spare trunks at work. For emergencies, he said." Harry is smiling down at her, apparently unaware of how strange this situation is becoming, and maybe also unaware of how much she really wants to touch him through his trunks …... purely for scientific purposes, of course.

"But they have bananas on them."

"These are the mild ones. He also had a black pair with …... and Ruth, I can only apologise for what I'm about to say …... a purple rooster at the front, right over -"

"A cock?" Mouth engaging without brain again, Ruth?

"Yes, well, the positioning of the ….. bird …. was hardly subtle. He had a third pair – I think they were red – and there was a slogan written on them that I thought …... inappropriate for a man of my age."

"I'm guessing at least one of the words of the slogan was `stud'."

"Sadly, no. The verb was `lick'. You can probably guess the rest. So, you see …... banana trunks are rather mild by comparison."

"And rather more appropriate, too," she adds, her brain taking a holiday, somewhere in the vicinity of Margate.

Harry has stepped away a little, and is closing his bathrobe, and tying the tie rather tightly and firmly. A quick glance downwards shows her that he is still a little …... stimulated.

"I was thinking," Ruth says, aware that two glasses of merlot on an empty stomach has been just enough to dissolve her normally steely reserve.

Harry steps back, his eyes showing eagerness, while lower down, he still appears …... interested. Perhaps banana underwear is absolutely perfect for Harry.

"I was thinking that maybe you …... should have someone to stay with you …... overnight. You've had a traumatic injury -"

"And I was stabbed, too."

Ruth looks into the eyes she loves most in the world, and smiles. "You're open to me staying?"

"I would have thought that was obvious."

"There's one condition, though," she adds, gently touching his arm with her fingers. "You have to wear those trunks to bed."

"You like them?'"

"I think I do. You haven't even asked me whether I'll sleep with you."

Showing more daring than he has in years, Harry steps close to her, again places his hands gently on her hips, and reaches down to kiss her – a soft, and very slow and tender kiss. Ruth is just about to wind her arms around his neck when he ends the kiss.

"I know you will," he says, his voice little more than a whisper.

"Will what?"

"Sleep in my bed with me. I told myself that if I kiss you and you don't pull away, the signs are good."

"The signs are good," she replies, grasping his hand, and turning towards the doorway.

"Are you hungry, Ruth? I forgot to ask." They are about to climb the stairs – to Harry's bedroom – and Ruth stops on the first step.

"I …... I have this sudden yen – craving, if you like – for bananas."

"You'd like bananas to eat?"

"Mmm."

"Bananas are rather nice with custard," he says, stepping close to her on the first stair, so that he can look down into her eyes. "I can probably come up with the custard."

"Jesus, Harry, there's no need to go overboard."

"Just trying to accommodate your wishes, Ruth."

"That's good,"she says, as she leads him up the stairs, his hand tightly grasped in her own.

Some time later – Harry's bedroom:

"What's wrong, Ruth? You seem …... perplexed."

"Harry, I'm in your bed – naked – and you're still wearing your banana trunks."

"But you told me that a condition of you joining me in my bed was that I wear them."

"Not all the time."

"No?"

"No. It's going to be difficult for us to ….."

"Get better acquainted?"

"Yes. At some time, before too long, you'll need to remove them."

"So …... the conditions of this venture have changed."

"Only marginally, Harry."

"But you're still interested in bananas?"

"Only of a particular kind."

"And what would that kind be?"

"Take off your trunks -"

"Calum's trunks."

"Alright. Remove the trunks of Calum's which you're wearing, and then …..."

"And then?"

"I'll demonstrate what it is interests me."

"Done."

"Done? Already?"

"Are you interested?"

"Oh, yes, Harry. I'm very interested."

Fin