[Short, probably quite OOC drabble set after Spooks: The Greater Good. Based on a line that I'm pretty sure was in there near the end, but might not have been. I wasn't really paying too much attention. Enjoy!]

At first, he'd taken to writing letters.

They'd been delivered via various different people at various different intervals, so no one could find a pattern. After all, there hadn't been one to find.

He had poured his heart out onto the paper as much as possible, but it didn't feel right. He found himself constantly crossing out, changing his words, unsure of what to write and how to write it. Clearly, she'd rubbed off on him – he analysed everything from his sentence structure and choice of punctuation to his handwriting. In the end, each letter went through several drafts before delivery, and he didn't say half of the things he wished he could.

The ability to change his words had proved to be the problem. That had never been how it had worked between them. Once he'd told her something, it stuck. And, oh, how many things he had told her. It had never struck him before just how much he'd told her, yet just how little. How many secrets he'd relayed to her without a second thought. When people had said 'don't tell anyone', she was not included, not to him. Never to him.

So, after a little while, he discarded the idea of sending letters.

His next port of call had been email.

He knew her account was still open and as secure as his own – she was a spook, after all. Of course, he ran into the same problem as he had with letters – the ability to change his words made it near impossible to say anything meaningful. But he tried. It made her feel more detached and far away than she already did, which he hadn't been aware was possible.

After that, he'd tried multiple other avenues. He'd left her voicemail messages. Eventually that grew stale too. Their interactions had always been face to face, voice to voice. The only part of her face he had were pictures; the only part of her voice faint memories and the voicemail recording that played every time he called.

Then, he'd tried simply talking to her, as if she was still there. She never talked back. He wasn't sure if he wanted her to or not. He'd never be able to if it was really her, or if his head was just making it up. Pretending she was still there made it hard to let go, but he knew, deep down, buried beneath the whiskey and takeaways, that he didn't want to.

Nothing quite felt right. It never quite felt right.

In the end, he gave up trying. In the end, he stopped trying to find ways to talk to her. He knew he'd probably never find one.

There was only one thing that he hadn't tried. One way that he may be able to talk to her, one last time.

Harry Pearce sat by Ruth Evershed's grave and, for the first time since her death all those months before, realised he didn't need to say anything at all.