This story follows on where "Love In Ruins" left off. It can stand alone, but may be better if you read "Love In Ruins" first. Set in the first half of S10, not following the scripted plot. There is a context, a story behind this, but that is secondary to the main story. The driving force, is H & R. Not sure yet how many chapters.

oOo

Ruth had barely had time for her feet to touch the ground. Since she and Harry had been led out of the ruined kitchen of the Russian embassy three days ago, life on the Grid had been both frantic and exhausting. Ruth's intel had led she and Harry to entering the Russian Embassy, along with Dimitri and an armed squad from CO19. Looking back to that day, Ruth is now not sure why it was she saw it necessary for she and Harry to be there at all. Dimitri certainly, CO19 definitely, but she and Harry? The situation was about as under control as it could have been, given the absence of adequate warning. Harry's intention had been to personally inform the Gavricks of probable danger, but he had been too late. The bomb had detonated before they had had a chance to get anywhere near the Gavicks. Although their bodies had not yet been found, it had been assumed that Ilya, Elena and Sasha Gavrick had all perished in the blast, the cleanup of the site still being in progress. British-Russian relations were tenuous at best, but the deaths of the Gavriks was bound to blow apart any possibility of an agreement with Russia in the foreseeable future. As much as Ruth had been dreading further contact with the Gavrick family, she would not have wished their deaths upon them. The Home Secretary was fuming, his plan for an Anglo-Russian agreement having been foiled before it had even begun.

Ruth feels partially responsible, but also considers that she acted appropriately on the intelligence which came her way. She is reluctant to go back over it, fearful she'll find some minor detail she'd overlooked. The days since have been spent in gathering more information – chiefly through tracking bank account and encrypted email activity – and the closer she gets to the source, the closer she gets to the likelihood of US funding of Serbian mercenaries and Chechan terrorists hell bent on destroying any links Russia may forge with the Western world. It is a convoluted mess which she'd rather not know about, although she has kept Harry informed every step of the way. They are both in work mode, the events immediately following the bombing having been put aside for now. There will be time for that later.

3 days earlier:

Harry and Ruth followed their rescue worker out of the ruins of the embassy kitchen. Apart from a little muscle stiffness from being in their cramped position, they were both remarkably unharmed, although their clothes were dusty, and Harry's suit jacket was torn in several places. They were still in post-coital mode, and had their coupling been in any way normal, they would still have been lying together in one another's arms, basking in the euphoria of what they had managed to do without having talked themselves out of it. They each felt raw and exposed, like the whole world would be able to read from their faces how they'd spent their time after the bomb had detonated and the building collapsed around them. Side by side, and close but not touching, they walked towards the street where a crowd of journalists, photographers, TV crews and curious onlookers gathered. There was a reluctance in their walk, and suddenly their hands brushed, and Harry grasped her hand in his. They momentarily stopped and turned to look at one another, knowing that the spell they'd created together was about to break, and they were about to be thrust headlong into the world, a pair of newborns squalling at the unfamiliarity of the light, sounds and smells. With her free hand Ruth brushed a fragment of plaster from his hair. He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back, the look which passed between them saying: Do not forget what we did today. There will be a second time, there must be a second time.

"Harry! Ruth!" Dimitri's voice had drawn their attention from each other to him, relieved that they could legitimately avoid the journalists with their hand-held microphones, hungry for any snippet of news from inside the embassy. "My car's here. I'll drive you," Dimitri added. And with that, they were whisked away.

Harry and Ruth had sat together in the back seat of Dimitri's car. They still held hands, unashamed to be seen doing so, reluctant to break the connection they had only so recently made. Dimitri, checking them in the rear view mirror, noticed their silence and the invisible cloak of privacy which they had drawn around themselves. He concluded that they were both still in shock. Not once did he consider that while they were waiting to be rescued, not only had they made love, but it had been their first time. Dimitri had always assumed they'd been doing it for years.

"Take us back to Thames House," Harry said, his voice cutting through the silence inside the car.

"Sorry, Harry," Dimitri said, his eyes meeting Harry's in the mirror. "I have orders to take each of you home, and neither of you are to come in to work until tomorrow - at the earliest. Towers wants you each to see the section doctor in the morning ... as a precaution. You know ... shock and all that."

"But Dimitri -" Ruth began.

"No buts, Ruth. My arse is on the line if I fail to get you each home pronto. It's a direct order from Towers. He's seriously pissed off that you were even there in the first place."

They reached Ruth's house first. As Dimitri got out of the car to open Ruth's door, Harry leaned across and met her lips with his, a soft kiss to confirm to them both that what had happened that afternoon had not been a shared fantasy, but something real and raw and remembered. In a way it was all they had, the true horror that was the destruction of the Russian embassy still not having found its way into their conscious minds.

"You'll be OK at home alone?" he whispered, his lips still close to her own.

"Yes," she whispered back. "I'll need time to …... sort everything out."

"Ring me if you need anything. Anything at all."

She nodded, aware that her door was open, and that Dimitri would be politely looking anywhere but at them in an attempt to give them some privacy. Ruth briefly touched Harry's lips with her own before sliding across the seat and stepping out of the car.

Alone in the back seat of Dimitri's car, Harry felt like part if himself had been ripped away. He sank back into the upholstery and closed his eyes. In his mind's eye all he can see is her.

Once she was home, Ruth rang Tariq, chiefly to check up on him.

"I just wanted to tell you what I was working on, so you can follow the lead I had in connecting the Chechans to the CIA slush fund."

"All in order, Ruth. Harry's already rung me and chewed me out. I can handle this. You're meant to be resting."

Ruth knew that she should shower, and perhaps try to sleep, but she couldn't settle, and she was reluctant to shower. She could still smell Harry on her skin, and she could still feel him inside her. She didn't want to wash that away, or to cover the scent of him with soaps and lotions. She stood in her kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil, her eyes closed, remembering how Harry's hands had travelled over her skin, a drowning man searching for his salvation.

Several miles away, in his own home, Harry was experiencing a similar dilemma. He ought to ring Towers, but that would have to wait. He'd rung Tariq and then Calum, then he lay on his back on his bed, and let his mind wander. He wondered what she was doing at this moment, and whether her thoughts were of him. It seemed bewildering to him that their turbulent personal relationship had led to what happened today. They both knew that if they were ever to sort things out between them – their past, their misunderstandings – they needed to talk. Only then would a proper and full relationship seem possible. And then today had happened, and as spontaneous and quick as it was, it had seemed so right. He could still feel her body close to his, her breath on his bare chest, her hands as they moved over his body, her soft, warm centre in spasm around him as she came. Then he noticed that he had slipped his hand into his pocket, so that his fingers were stroking the material of her knickers, the ones he had torn off her in his hurry to be inside her. He quickly took his hand out of the pocket, suddenly ashamed of his drives, his longing for her. At the time he'd taken her underwear from her and put it in his pocket, he'd told himself that he was clearing the site of evidence. Ruth had known differently, and so had he. Who was he kidding?

His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his mobile.

"Pearce."

"Harry, have you watched the news?" It was her. He felt his heart rate increase, and his lower abdomen spasm.

"No, not yet."

"Turn it on. News24."

They made small talk while he went downstairs to the living room. The words they exchanged were the predictable kind – the how-are-you's, and the have-you-managed-to-sleep-yet's - none of which is what they really want to be talking about. The words they each long to say to the other may remain forever unspoken. Harry grabbed the remote from the coffee table, and switched on his TV.

"Mute the sound," she said, "and just watch it."

He did. The embassy bombing was the top news story, and images of the destroyed building, and rescue workers climbing over the rubble filled the screen. Then he sees himself and Ruth being led from what is left of the building. They are in the distance, and he only recognises them from the clothes they were wearing. In the next shot they are closer, then there is a cut to the reporter, before the camera captures the moment when he took her hand in his, and they looked into one another's eyes, their heads each inclined slightly towards the other. Then Ruth lifts her had to brush something from his hair. Even through the lens of the camera, it is clear that they are exchanging something fragile and intensely personal, some secret only they share. Harry is certain that anyone who sees this footage will know they are more than just colleagues, even more than friends. He breathes out heavily.

"Harry?" She's still at the other end of the phone. "I just thought you needed to see that. There... may be ... repercussions."

"What we do together is no-one's business but ours, Ruth."

"I agree with you in principle, but we need to be prepared, all the same. I'm thinking that Towers may have something to say about it."

"Mmm." He considers his next words to her, aware that in the following days there will be few opportunities for personal conversations between them. "Do you regret what happened today?"

"Do you mean the bomb detonating, or the sex?" she said.

"I think we both know what I mean, Ruth. The bombing was a tragedy, and regrettable, but the sex ... I have no regrets at all about that. I was just wondering about you."

The silence which followed sent him into a temporary state of panic. Had she had no regrets, she would have said so immediately, surely. Which must mean …...

"I have no regrets at all, Harry," she said quietly. "I'm surprised you had to ask."

"It was something of a heat-of-the-moment thing. I was afraid you'd thought me...too forward... that I should have exercised some self-control."

"You see, this is a fundamental problem between the sexes. It was clear to me that you were aroused. It would have been impossible to miss it, but what you couldn't tell was that I was just as aroused as you. I was the one who made the first move, or have you forgotten?"

"No...I haven't forgotten. I haven't forgotten anything." And after a very charged silence of almost a minute, during which they each remembered what they hadn't forgotten, "But a man with an erection is hardly subtle, is it?"

Ruth laughed softly into the phone. "No, not terribly. But it was rather flattering, all the same."

Harry breathed into the phone, and he could hear her on the other end, breathing back. "Have you showered?" The words were out of his mouth before he'd had a chance to hold them back. He really wanted to know, though. She would either answer honestly, or she would shut down, her way of running away, which was his also. They were a pair, alright.

"No," she replied. "I can't. I mean, I don't want to. Not yet."

"Me neither. I've changed my clothes because my suit was a wreck, but I haven't wanted to..."

"Wash it all away?"

"Yes." Harry whispered. He could feel himself harden. No other woman has ever affected him in the way she does. In some ways this frightens him. This gives her power over him, and he is a man who likes to be in control.

"But I'll have to shower some time tonight. I can't go in to work tomorrow with dust in my hair." Or the smell of your semen on my inner thighs, she thought.

"Likewise," he replied. It was as though, having reached this level of disclosure and intimacy, they were free to get on with their separate evenings. Rome hadn't been built in a day, and nor would their relationship. They had made significant inroads that day, and that would have to be enough for now. "I'd better go," he said. "I can feel the vibes from Towers. Any minute now he'll be ringing me to give me a bollocking."

"Yes, I know." And after another long silence, neither wanting to be the first to hang up, "Harry, we will do it again. We can ….. change things between us. We can't just go back to being the way we've always been. Not now."

"I know, Ruth. We'll have to have a plan next time. No bombings. It will be special."

"Today was rather special, though, don't you think?"

"That's something of an understatement." As much as Harry wanted the conversation to go on for the rest of his life, he had to begin getting his head into work-mode, as did she. "Goodnight, Ruth. Sweet dreams."

"Goodnight Harry." And then she hung up.

He sat on the sofa, the TV still on, the images from the ruins of the Russian Embassy still sending light flickering across his face and the walls of his darkened living room. He passed his phone from one hand to the other and back again. How had this happened so quickly? What was it that had allowed them to each – on the same day and at the same time – let down their walls to allow the other in? They had not planned it - it had simply happened. Harry viewed it as a miracle, one which was still delicate and new, but had given birth to itself in the most stressful and extraordinary of circumstances. They'd run to that kitchen fearing they were about to die, when without knowing it, they'd been about to begin living.

Suddenly Harry's phone rang, and he answered it in his usual way.

"Harry," said Towers, his voice smooth and only very slightly slimy. "What the fuck is going on?"