A multi-chapter fic (it could be two chapters, it could be more) which was triggered after thinking about Ruth's personality change in s9 and what happened between her and Harry to get them back to being on speaking terms. This won't fit into the canon timeline of the show so much, as I'm kind of disregarding s10, but is an attempt to try and make sense of what happened and how they got past the whole Albany issue and Ruth's 'dead inside' feeling. I do hope you enjoy and any comments are always welcome...

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Harry shut the front door behind him wearily and sank back against it. He was alone for what seemed like the first time in hours, the first time since Lucas... no make that John Bateman, had elected to do a swan dive off the top of the Enver Tower. He'd had some bad days in the past, some absolutely colossally horrific days in the past if he was being honest with himself, but today had been up there with the very worst. He slid to the floor slowly, his back still resting against the door, his elbows on his knees and his hands covering his face as he relived the day in snapshot after snapshot, Lucas going rogue, the death of an innocent youth who'd probably jumped at the chance to make a quick fifty quid 'playing a prank', Ruth being taken, handing over Albany and then losing it completely, Ruth telling him he shouldn't have bothered and then to top it all off, really, truly believing he was about to die and instead witnessing the death of a man he'd obviously never really known but had spent much of the past 9 years feeling guilty about.

It was at times like this he missed Ros and Adam terribly, both of them would have stepped up and helped, been someone to confide in, get support from. The team he had at the moment was green at best and his one confidant, the one person he'd trusted over all others, seemed to have become a different person over the last few months. After the difficulties over Ruth's initial return, they'd fallen back into the same habits as before without realising it was happening. They'd even managed to spend a few evenings together as friends outside of work enjoying each others company, yet after his poorly timed proposal, which Harry had to admit to himself, wasn't his finest moment, it was if a switch had been flicked inside her. The warm hearted, caring person he'd known had suddenly erected barriers around herself that he just couldn't fathom and despite him not handling her rejection particularly well initially, she had chosen to keep shutting him out, culminating in her telling him earlier today that it was unfair of him to love her.

He was interrupted from his maudlin thoughts by Scarlett attempting to climb onto his lap and lick his face; she'd come to investigate why he hadn't come straight into the kitchen to see her as he normally did. She was growing old now and had long since given up rushing to meet him as soon as she heard his key in the door, but her warm tongue and the squirming brought him out of thoughts. "Hello old girl," he murmured as he scratched her ears, "at least I know there's always someone glad to see me." He sighed softly as he uttered, "and you're possibly the only one left who is," quietly to himself more than Scarlett. He shook his head furiously at himself, trying to drag himself out of his dark mind-set as he slowly got to his feet and made his way through to the kitchen. He pottered round the kitchen slowly, letting Scarlett out into the garden quickly before getting food and water for her. His head was pounding from the strike he'd taken on the forehead earlier, it had now fortunately stopped bleeding which justified his earlier decision not to take up Towers' offer of getting a nurse in quickly to 'stitch him up'. It wouldn't have been the only stich up he thought darkly, it seemed his actions today hadn't been well received in the upper echelons, as he'd known would be the case and Towers had barely been able to contain his anger with him.

Closing and locking the door behind Scarlett as she re-entered the kitchen after finishing her evening ablutions, he made his way slowly into the living room. He supposed he should really think about food given he hadn't had anything since the almond croissant he'd bought on his way into work that morning, but despite his stomach feeling decidedly hollow, he continued towards his chosen destination. Taking the lid off the decanter, he poured himself a very generous measure of a very good single malt and knocked it back in one go. Whoever said drinking didn't help, he thought darkly, obviously hasn't been in my shoes, it might not actually solve any of the many problems he was facing, but it would help alleviate the crushing sense of failure and despondency he was feeling, even if only temporarily.

Pouring himself another three fingers he took his glass and sank down into his favourite armchair. It had been here, he recalled, that he'd been sitting when he realised Connie had set him up and CO19 had burst through the windows. He smiled to himself wryly as he took another large mouthful of the amber drink and felt the burn as it made its way down his throat and hit his empty stomach; he thought he'd been in his worst ever position then as Section Head, that he'd hit rock bottom, but that didn't even come close to this. Then he'd been suspected of treason... now he'd actually committed it and whatever justifications he used to himself, he couldn't get past that and what was worse, was knowing, that despite everything, if he was put in the same position again, he'd make exactly the same choices.

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Ruth pulled up outside his house in her car and was relieved to see the downstairs lights still on. Her nerves battled against each other and there was a persistent voice in her head, telling her to turn around, go home and go to bed. Still she knew deep within herself, that if she did that then there was no hope, Harry had put himself through hell for her today and was now paying the price. The very least she owed him was to let him know that he wasn't alone in this, that despite his actions, which she wouldn't... couldn't ever condone, that she understood why he'd done it, because when the shoe had been on the other foot and she'd been faced with the choice of saving George and Nico's lives or giving up classified information on the location of the Uranium, there had been no choice to make in her mind.

Earlier that evening

She'd waited for him at the Grid after the reports came through that the bomb scare had been falsified and that Lucas had jumped to his death. She hadn't known what she was going to say to him, but she needed to say something and to see him with her own two eyes to make sure he really hadn't been killed... except he hadn't returned.

Long after the others had all left, and despite Beth nearly pleading with her to come home with her, she'd stayed on the Grid waiting for his return. Her earlier tears and breakdown had brought her a clarity of thought that she'd been missing for a long time. It was this that had eventually led her to realise that by 8.30pm, there was a strong chance he wouldn't be coming back that night, if ever. Dismissing the idea of phoning him, as she was quite sure that she was one of the last people he'd want to be speaking to, she'd instead placed a couple of discreet calls into Whitehall and had driven over to his house. Finding it in darkness and with no one answering the door, she'd settled down to wait and with the heating on and still feeling the after-effects from the drugs that had earlier been used to knock her out, she drifted off into a doze.

Her patience had been rewarded 45 minutes later when a Government car had pulled up, the glare of its headlights and the sound of a car door slamming waking her and she'd watched as Harry had slowly made his way up to the front door and into the house, wearily carrying a briefcase and looking like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. She glanced quickly at her watch, it was 10.15pm and if she knew anything about Harry, and despite their lack of communication over the last few months, she believed she still knew him better than most, then the first thing he'd have done would have been to head over to the whisky bottle to likely top up on any he'd had earlier that evening at the Home Office. With that in mind, confident that he wouldn't be leaving the house again that night, she turned the keys in the ignition, put the car into gear and drove off.