A/N: It's technically still Harry's birthday here in the states, and so I present this little fic, the gift I think Harry would most like to have received.

And If I weren't leaving

Would I catch you dreaming

And If I weren't gonna be gone now

Could I take you home

And if I told you I love you

Would it change what you see

And if I was staying

Would you stay with me

-November Blue/The Avett Brothers

"Ruth, may I speak to you for a moment?"

Towers was, as ever, perfectly genial, smiling his usual charming, little-boy smile. Ruth had learned long ago just how deceptive that smile was; though he often played the lackey, pretending to know less and possess less power than he really did, William Towers was, in his heart, a deeply cunning man. To have survived this long he had to be, given what had become of his predecessors. Despite herself Ruth had come to rather like this man, and, generally speaking, she approved of the way he handled his business. Charm and disarm, that was his strategy, and Ruth much preferred that approach to the more rough-and-tumble tendencies of her previous employer.

Oh, Harry.

"Of course, sir," she answered mildly, smoothing down her skirt and following along after him on quiet feet.

"I've asked you before, Ruth; please, call me William," Towers said as he led her into his office, and gestured for her to take a seat across from his desk.

Ruth smiled at him sadly. "And I have said before, sir, that I will not. You hold one of the great offices of state-"

Towers cut her off, waving his hand in a slightly irritated sort of way. "Harry warned me you'd be like this," he muttered wryly.

That comment brought Ruth up short. She hadn't really considered it before, but now that he'd brought it to her attention she realized that of course Harry had spoken to Towers about her. The offer of a position on the Home Secretary's staff had quite surprised her, but it had been fortuitously timed, and there were all sorts of niceties involved, when transferring personnel from one office to another within the government.

"Like what, sir?" she asked. She couldn't help herself; now that she was thinking about it, she was desperately curious as to how Harry had described her, what he might have said about her. That curiosity was only partially tempered by guilt, as the reality of the mess he'd got himself in threatened to overwhelm her once again. She'd been away from the Grid for barely a fortnight, and in that time Harry had managed to burn every bridge between himself and the rest of the intelligence community, and Jim Coaver had died in the process. Now the wolves were baying for his blood, and there was nothing Ruth could do to save him. Stupid man.

"I believe his exact words were 'she's a stubborn old mule'," Towers explained, still smiling at her.

Ruth drew in a sharp breath at that, tears pricking the corners of her eyes; she could not break down, could not lose herself in grief and fear over Harry's fate, not now, not with Towers watching. He had no way of knowing how much those words meant to her, to them.

"How well do you know Sir Harry, Ruth?" Towers asked at length, as the silence that had fallen in the wake of his last comments grew tense and sharp.

As if you don't already know, Ruth thought angrily. Towers had read her file, and she knew it; every answer he sought was contained in those pages. Well enough to die for him, well enough to lose my husband for him, well enough to lose my head completely.

It wouldn't do to snap at the HS just now, she knew. He was fishing around for something, though she couldn't be sure of what, and she did not wish to overplay her hand, nor did she wish to lie to him. The HS could smell a lie a mile away.

"We worked together for a long time," she told him in a soft voice. "We've been through a great deal together. You can learn a lot about a person, working under such circumstances." You can think you know him, heart, mind, and soul, and wake up one day to find he's a total stranger.

"The Americans are calling for his head on a pike, and the PM is inclined to give it to them," Towers said.

Ruth nodded; it was no more than she already knew. "When?" she asked.

Christ but I'm so tired of this. She wascompletely exhausted, tired of the bloody games, tired of the endless parade of loss, tired of feeling helpless, tired of watching as Harry dug his own grave. Only the day before, Ruth had put in an offer on a little house in Suffolk. It was a lovely house, old but sturdy, charming in a dilapidated sort of way. As she'd wandered the halls a dream had swelled within her, a dream of living there, in that house, with Harry by her side, of walking along the shore, barefoot and holding his hand, of curling up on a worn old sofa before a blazing fire, warm and safe in his embrace. It was madness, she knew, to hope for such a thing, when all that they had built had turned to ash and ruins, but hope was all that she had left. Now it seemed that the service was about to take even that paltry blessing from her.

"They want to take him tonight."

The words took her like a punch to the gut. Tonight? How could they? How could they dare to do such a thing, to snatch him from his bed as if he were no more than a common criminal, deny him the chance to say good-bye to his family, to put his affairs in order as befitted an officer of his rank? It was a slap in the face, and the sheer wrongness of it threw her off balance.

"They can't!" She didn't shout, exactly, but those were certainly the loudest words she'd ever spoken to the HS. She'd overstepped, and she knew it. Towers was watching her shrewdly, leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped together over his generous stomach.

"Ruth-"

"It's his birthday today, did you know that?" she asked him. To her own ears her voice sounded small, almost childish in her fear and her pain.

Towers shook his head. "I didn't, actually. At any rate, I'm inclined to request that they wait until morning. To do so, though, I would need to give assurances that Sir Harry won't take off in the night. The CIA has already placed an observation team outside his home, but you and I both know that means nothing to a man like Harry Pearce."

Ruth nodded dumbly. They can't do this, not now, not tonight, not before I've had a chance to see him.

"Ruth, I need you to tell me the truth. You know Sir Harry, you've worked with him longer than anyone. Is he the sort of man who would run, given the opportunity?"

And finally, the reason for this little after-hours chat became abundantly clear. Towers wanted to help Harry, she could see that in his face, but he also didn't want to be in a position to assume any responsibility, should Harry cut and run. Ruth considered his question for a long time before she responded. Would Harry leave? Surely he knew his time was coming to an end; would he disappear into the ether, or would he face the punishment for his perceived crimes?

"Harry is a truly honorable man, sir," she said finally. "He feels personally responsible for what happened to Jim Coaver, though that man's death was not his doing. He will not run. He will want to…pay penance, for his sins."

Towers cleared his throat uncomfortably in the wake of that deeply personal pronouncement. Ruth could not feel any pity for the man; her own heart was torn and bleeding, and she could not spare a thought for the feelings of a politician. "That's a touch dramatic, don't you think?" Towers asked her.

She smiled sadly. "That's Harry," she told him.

Harry stood in his garden, sleeves rolled up despite the chill. There was enough heat coming off the burn barrel in front of him to keep him warm. The documents he'd gathered made a merry blaze indeed, burning bright on this dreary night, his demons dancing in the flames. Every misstep, misdeed, misadventure of the last thirty years of his life swam before his eyes, and not a soul to see save him. He stood alone beneath a sky so cloudy as to be utterly devoid of stars, and brooded in silence and solitude.

It was inevitable, really, his impending extradition. It hadn't been confirmed, not yet; they wouldn't tell him until they were ready to take him, lest he turn tail and run, but he felt it coming, felt it in his very bones, and he had no doubt that this was to be his last night as a free man. He had felt as if a dark cloud had haunted his steps from the moment he first learned he was to be reinstated after Albany, and every day since he had been watching and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Ruth abandoned him, Jim Coaver died, Elena lied, and Harry was about to find himself on a plane bound for America, never to be seen or heard from again. He had no illusions about what was to come; he highly doubted he'd survive long enough to see a trial. Maybe they'd chuck him out of the plane before they ever even landed in the States, or maybe they'd take their time with him, wanting to show him what happened to those who dared cross Uncle Sam.

In a perverse sort of way he was almost looking forward to it. He'd done wrong, and the time had come for him to atone. To do his penance, not just for Jim, but for every injustice he'd ever served to his team, to his country. To Ruth.

She was on his mind tonight, as she had been most nights for the last eight years. Eight years; a bloody long time to love someone, and never tell them.

It wasn't for lack of trying, though. He'd tried to tell her, obliquely, the night he first took her out to dinner. He'd tried to tell her straight out, the morning she left him by the riverside. He'd tried to show her, the day he sacrificed his career in exchange for her life. In a thousand little ways on a hundred different days throughout the course of their relationship he had tried, and he had failed.

I am trying. With all my limitations, which you know better than anyone.

Yeah, well, thanks for that. Thanks for trying.

What had his love brought her, in the end, except for ruin and damnation? Her friends, dead; her husband, dead; her stepson, ripped away from her; her mother died while she was in exile believing Ruth to be dead herself; her professional reputation in tatters. All for him, for his sake and for the sake of his damning love. He had broken her, he knew. He saw it every time he looked at her now, saw the little lines around her mouth from the smiles that had died on her lips, saw the sparkle that had once shone in her glorious eyes, extinguished forever, saw the way a bright, naïve girl had grown into a shadowy, sorrowful woman. He had done that. He had brought her into his world, and now he was leaving her there, alone.

In a way he was glad that she hadn't come to him tonight. Earlier in the evening, as he'd watched the sun set over the rim of his whiskey glass, he'd wondered if she would. Would she remember that it was his birthday? Would she want to see him again, to say good-bye properly, to warn him of his impending doom? It was after midnight now, and he'd had not so much as a text from her. She hadn't come to him after Albany, why should he expect such favor from her now?

Stay as far away from me as you can, Ruth, he thought, staring into the flames. Stay away from me, and maybe you'll learn to smile again.

He missed those smiles. He missed the way her whole face used to light up, missed the way she used to tease him.

A memory came back to him then, sharp and clear. Ruth's first day back on the Grid, she'd walked up behind him on silent feet and said with a smile in her voice, you're all flustered. If he had been flustered before her arrival it was nothing compared to how he'd felt upon seeing her on the Grid once more, smiling at him after everything he'd put her through. In that moment, he had dared to hope that they might overcome the darkness surrounding her return from Cyprus. In that moment, he had been happy.

And before the day was over Jo had died, and any happiness they might have felt had turned to ashes in their mouths.

He had sent Jo to her, in the days between their rescue from the warehouse and her return to the Grid, knowing how fond she was of the girl, knowing that reestablishing the bond between the two of them was the surest way to bring Ruth back into Thames House, and back into his life. He had encouraged their friendship, and then Jo had died, had been ripped away from Ruth, on his orders. Was it any wonder, then, that Ruth had refused to revisit their could-have-been romance?

You've done this to yourself, a little voice whispered in his ear.

"It's bad for your eyes, staring into the fire like that," another voice whispered in the darkness.

Harry nearly jumped out of his skin, convinced he'd become delirious at last. He hadn't heard her approach and he couldn't see her; everything beyond the perimeter of the barrel was shadows and darkness. For a moment he rubbed his eyes, and when he looked again there she stood, the lines of her face thrown into sharp relief beyond the dancing flames.

"They're going bad, anyway," he told her.

She did not smile at his feeble attempt at humor, and she did not move to step any closer to him. In the darkness she stood on the other side of the fire, as unreachable as the stars themselves hiding behind their veil of clouds.

"You're to be extradited, first thing in the morning," she told him, crossing her arms so tightly over her chest he feared they might break.

"It's no more than I expected."

He watched the change of her expression in the dancing light of the fire, watched as anger flared in the depths of her luminous eyes.

"Well, since you clearly don't need me, I'll just be going then," she snapped.

Sometimes Harry felt as if his foot lived in his mouth, as if he couldn't win for losing where she was concerned. How could it be that something as simple as a conversation could go so horribly, horribly wrong?

"I do need you, Ruth," he told her quietly. She'd turned away from him, so he could not see her face, but even over the crackling of the flames he could hear her sharp intake of breath. It had only taken him eight years, but he'd finally decided that, if this was to be his last night as a free man, then he was damned if he was going to let it pass without telling her exactly what she meant to him. "I have always needed you," he added in a soft voice.

He couldn't be sure, in the flickering light of the fire, but when she turned to face him, for a moment he thought he saw her smile.

"I have something for you," she told him softly.

She hadn't been surprised, when she'd slipped through the fence surrounding his back garden and found him feeding that merry blaze. As she watched the smoke drifting through the air, the ashes settling haphazardly all around them, she fancied she could hear the sound of a thousand secrets dying, a thousand untold horrors roasting on a Viking funeral pyre. In her heart, this pleased her. We're saying good-bye tonight, she thought. To everyone we knew, everyone we loved, everything we ever were.

"A bottle of Scotch?" he asked her. She couldn't be sure, but she thought he might have been smiling.

"I can't say," she told him. "It's a gift, you'll have to open it."

"A gift?" he repeated, clearly confused.

"Surely you haven't forgotten, Harry. It's your birthday today."

Harry grunted, and ran his fingers through his short hair, grumbling. "Christ," he muttered.

So you did forget, she thought fondly. Stupid man.

It was his 58th birthday today, and even if he'd forgotten, Ruth knew she never could. Birthdays had always been special for them, ever since the first one she'd celebrated on the Grid, when she'd opened her desk drawer to find a present from him ferreted away inside. That gift had warmed her through, had set her heart to racing, and when his birthday rolled around the next November, Ruth had been ready. It was early days between them then, but she had just begun to feel…something, whenever he drew near, and these little exchanges, done in secret with no one else on the Grid any the wiser, had served to bring them together. Just another link in the chain that bound her to him.

"Can we go inside, Harry?" she asked him. Though the fire warmed her face and hands, the cold had begun to sink into her bones. These days, Ruth always felt cold. Cold, and lonely, and terribly afraid, but Harry was with her now. She could not say for how long, or to what end, but just being near him again brought her more comfort than she could say.

She didn't want to be comforted by him. Ruth wanted to be angry; angry that he had kept his son a secret from her, angry over the way he handled Elena, angry that he had let her go, angry that his pride and his impetuous nature had brought him to the very brink of disaster. And yet, try though she might, tonight she could not muster the energy to be angry with loved him, and tonight she simply wanted to be near him, for as long as she could. God forgive me, she thought, watching the flames flicker across his weathered face. But I love him.

Harry led the way into his house, shrugging off his coat as he stepped through the door. He reached out all unthinking to take Ruth's coat, but as he did she turned, and his hand came into contact with her shoulder. Ruth drew in a sharp breath, but she did not turn away. How long, he wondered, had they sustained themselves this way, with nothing but the slightest of touches, the briefest moments of contact before they resumed their usual neutral posture? How could it be, he wondered, that he had loved this woman for so long, and never felt her bare skin beneath his hands?

Self-control, self-denial, he thought. I am a martyr of my own making.

"Tea?" he asked, his hand still lingering on her shoulder.

His words seemed to snap her back into the moment; she gave a little shake of her head, as though clearing away the remnants of a dream (a dream of what, he would never know), and began to remove her coat.

"Tea would be lovely, thank you," she answered.

And so Harry set about making them tea, as Ruth draped her coat over one of his kitchen chairs, and settled herself at the table. He watched her from the corner of his eye; watched the smooth, graceful way she crossed her legs, watched her eyes, soft and thoughtful as they took in this space for the first time, watched the way the dim light caught her dark hair and made it shine.

Harry knew very well how Ruth liked her tea, just as she knew his preferences in that department, and so there was no need to speak as he prepared their drinks. There wasn't anything he could think to say, anyway; it was his birthday, and Ruth was here, in his home, and tomorrow he would be extradited to the U.S., likely to never see her again. He had longed for years now to have her here with him, and now that his wish was granted, he could feel her slipping away from him. Such was the nature of dreams, in his experience; dreams kept a man alive, kept him striving for more, and in the end, dreams abandoned him, cold and alone.

"I don't want you to go," Ruth said in a small voice. Harry nearly dropped the teacup he was holding; at some point during his musing she had moved, and now she was standing just behind his shoulder, close enough for him to reach out and touch her, if he wished.

And oh, how he wished.

She was rapturous in sadness; for a fleeting moment Harry thought that this was the expression she wore best, for it was the one that made him most want to wrap her in his arms and kiss her until she smiled.

"I don't think we have much say in the matter, Ruth," he told her gently.

She nodded, looked away, the way she always did. It seemed to him that since the day they first met, she had always been looking away, pulling herself back from him every time they drew too close. Harry had grown tired of this dance, and he had half a mind to tell her so. What did he stand to lose, anyway? Tomorrow was the end of the road for him; there would be no going back from this.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she brought him up short, the way she always did. In that moment, as he looked at her, her shoulders trembled, and she covered her mouth with her hand. A single, heart-wrenching sob escaped her.

And because she had appeared to him like a vision, the subject of his musing made flesh, and because he had yearned to hold her again ever since that day she'd left him on the docks, he reached out and gently pulled her into his arms.

She fit him as if they were made for one another, her hands between them, covering her face as she began to cry, her head just below his chin, at just the right height for him to smell the scent of her hair, which was neither fruity nor sweet but simply Ruth, and simply perfect.

"Shhh," he told her softly, tightening his hold on her as he felt her small frame begin to shake with her tears. "I'm here. It's ok." It wasn't ok, and he knew it.

What have I done? He thought bitterly as he held her. What had it all been for, in the end? Harry knew that, in hindsight, this was a disaster of his own making. If only he had trusted her, if only he had done as she'd asked, if only he'd been more willing to open himself up, perhaps things might have different. Not just for he and Ruth, but for everyone. Perhaps, if he'd only been willing to trust someone, Jim Coaver wouldn't be dead. Perhaps, if he had fought a little harder against his own demons, if he had kept Ruth by his side where she belonged, they could wake up tomorrow to face a beautiful November morning, together.

"I'm sorry," she whispered as her tears began to subside.

He gave into his own desires, just this once, and kissed her temple gently. "Don't be."

She leaned back in his arms, not pulling away, but simply trying to look into his eyes, the difference in their height suddenly so much more noticeable, now that she was so close.

"I can't bear it, Harry," she told him. "I can't bear to lose you."

Each word she spoke struck his heart like a hammer, a multitude of tiny fractures spreading out from the center in a spider web of grief.

Harry didn't think; he knew he couldn't, for if he did he would let her go now, and he would never know what it felt like to be hers, even for just one night.

He kissed her.

The only other time they'd done this, she'd been crying, holding his face in her hands while a grumpy barge captain shouted at them from the deck of his vessel. Harry hadn't had the chance to really kiss her then, to taste her, to feel her tongue wrangling with his own, and he was not about to let this opportunity pass him by. Ruth responded to his urging with equal fervor, dragging the pair of them back against the counter, pressing her lips against his own with almost bruising intensity, and moaning softly when his tongue forced its way into the warmth and wet of her mouth.

It was surreal, in a way, to think that this was really happening, that this was Ruth, soft and receptive in his arms, moaning under the touch of his hands. This was Ruth, and it was Ruth's warm skin he felt when he snaked his hand beneath her blouse and rested his palm against the small of her back. Despite what he had done, despite the sorrow he had wrought, she was here, and he never, ever wanted to let her go.

The need to breathe overcame him, and he drew his mouth away from hers, dropping gentle kisses at her temple, the crinkles around her eyes, the corner of her lips. He could taste the salty sweetness of her tears, and he hated himself for just a moment, cursed himself for making her weep.

He feathered kisses along her jaw, and she moved her head down to catch his mouth with her own. He pushed his tongue past her lips and she melted around him, moving her hands out from between them to wrap around his shoulders.

Was this why she had come here tonight? He wondered. Had she felt called to him, as he was to her? Had she decided that she could not let him leave without loving him first? Did she love him, or was she just so overcome by fear that she could not stop herself from seizing whatever lifeline he chose to throw at her? He felt the need in her tongue tangling with his, the desire in her kiss. No, he decided. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her. He moved his hands down towards her waist and she moaned into his mouth, her hips pushing against him. There could be no doubt. He would have her. She would be his, as he had always wanted her to be.

He regained coherent thought just long enough to decide that if he were going to make love to her it would be in his bed, not in his sitting room on the sofa like teenagers, or against the kitchen wall in an act of desperation. He ran his hands down her arms until he found her hands, and finally broke the kiss.

Her lips were attractively swollen and her face flushed, her eyes questioning.

"Not here," he breathed, and she nodded, kissing him again before taking a step back and allowing him to lead her up the stairs.

Her heart pounded in her chest as she followed Harry down the hallway towards his bedroom. This had not been part of her plan, when she first arrived here tonight, but as she'd watched him making her tea, knowing just how she liked it without being told, she'd come to a realization. She knew this man, knew his foibles and strengths, knew his favorite composer and how he liked his tea and the way the set of his mouth changed, ever so slightly, when he was lying. Whatever else he was, in his heart, he was Harry, and she wanted him. Now, before it was too late.

They had barely crossed the threshold before he gave into temptation and put his hands on her again, this time sure of his purpose. Holding her by the hips he kissed her again, and when she sighed and melted against him he took hold of the hem of her shirt, not releasing her lips until he tugged the thin fabric up and over her head.

He took in the sight of her for a moment; the perfect shape of her, the ragged quality of her breathing, the confidence in her grace as she watched him, watching her. What had he done, that such a woman would choose a man like him? He didn't dwell on this thought; he caught her by the hips and brought her to him, his fingers toying with the waistband of her skirt as his lips found hers again. He could kiss her every moment of every day for the rest of his life if God would let him.

His hands moved up her back in search of the clasp of her bra as her own snaked between them, deftly undoing the buttons of his shirt. She took her hands off him just long enough for him to ease the straps of her bra down her arms before her fingers returned to him, and his lips left the safe haven of her mouth to begin laying kisses across her chin, down the line of her neck, over her collarbone. He lingered there, learning the shape of her with lips and teeth and tongue. Ruth hummed softly and ground her hips against him, and he groaned, feeling himself growing harder with every movement of her body against his own.

She eased his shirt off his shoulders and began to map the muscles of his back with her hands, but then his lips continued their journey southward and finally, finally crested one of her breasts, and she lost control. He felt it, felt her let go of her fear, of her grief, and she grasped his shoulders, pulling him closer, and he continued to kiss her, moving across her skin until his lips slipped over her nipple and she moaned softly. While his mouth was occupied with her breasts his hands traced the curve of her waist to her hips, searching for the zip of her skirt. She hummed her approval as he found it, carefully easing it down, smiling against her skin as the fabric slid to the floor.

For a moment he simply stared at her, struck down by the gravity of the moment. This was Ruth, bare and glorious before him. She had the most beautiful legs he had ever seen, and he couldn't stop himself; he slipped down her body, pulling her knickers with him, leaving kisses on her thighs, behind her knees, along her perfect calves, at her delicate ankles as he freed her feet and threw her knickers in the general direction of his discarded shirt.

He sat back on his heels for a moment, looking up at her, clad only in a smile and her own personal radiance. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. She smiled softly at him, a look that told him she'd seen the depth of his feeling for her written all over his face.

She couldn't have stopped if she wanted to; Harry had stripped her bare, and she was grateful for it, grateful for this chance, this one shining moment, to stand before him more honestly, more bravely than she ever had done before. This is me, Harry, she wanted to tell him. This is who I am, and every part of me loves every piece of you.

It was impossible to tell what Ruth was thinking, as she tangled her fingers in his short curls and tugged him gently to his feet, pulling him in for another kiss. In all his imaginings, he had never done her justice; she was beautiful, and real, and kissing him as if her life depended on it. She grasped the waistband of his trousers and pulled him impossibly closer, breaking their kiss long enough to murmur, "These need to go," against his lips before she began undoing his belt. His hands found their way to her breasts, feeling her skin, the softness of her curves, the hard bumps of her nipples, and for a moment she fumbled with his belt and a part of him felt absurdly proud that he had distracted her from so easy a task. He took advantage of her momentary distraction to walk her backwards toward the bed, never taking his lips away from hers.

In that moment she was caught off guard, and when the backs of her knees hit the edge of the bed she fell back on it, somehow managing to make even such an undignified motion graceful and bewitching. She slid backwards on the bed, propping herself up on her elbows, watching him as he took off his trousers and boxers himself. If he wasn't lost before, the look on her face sealed the deal, and he was on her in an instant.

"Christ, Harry," she moaned, shocked by how rough her own voice sounded. She had wondered, so many times, what it might be like to be held by him, to be loved by him, but she had never imagined it could be anything like this. Like Harry's mouth, warm and insistent and wrapped around her nipple, like Harry's fingers, tracing the shape of her folds, drawing such noises of pleasure from her, the likes of which she'd never heard herself make before. Involuntarily she bucked her hips towards him, shivering with want and need of him.

"I love you, Ruth," he whispered against the curve of her breast, even as he slipped one of his fingers into her welcoming heat. She felt herself clench and flutter around him, her breath coming in shallow gasps as his thumb began to rub rhythmically against her clit. "I always have, and I always will."

"Damn you," she breathed, moaning again, and arching her back as Harry thrust a second finger inside her, the tempo of his movements gaining speed until with a strangled cry she toppled over the edge, her legs clamped down hard around his hand and her head thrown back against the pillows.

"Damn you," she repeated, struggling to breathe. He raised himself above her, a question in his eyes, but she was barely coping as it was. For several long moments they lay thus entwined, Harry's fingers clutched tight within her still-spasming sex, his other hand resting just beside her, supporting his weight as he leaned over her, his cock rock-hard and throbbing, pressed against her thigh. When she regained some control of her faculties, she turned her head and kissed his forearm, the only part of him she could reach.

"Damn you for saying that," she explained. "Damn you for saying it then, and not giving me the chance."

"The chance to what, Ruth?" he asked, leaning over her just that little bit more, dropping a kiss against her sweat-slicked brow.

"The chance to say it first," she answered with a grin.

Harry laughed, and slowly withdrew his hand from her, leaving her shivering in its absence as his sex-drenched fingers traced patterns across her stomach.

"To say what, Ruth?" he asked, capturing her lips with his own for a moment before pulling back to look at her.

"That I love you, Harry Pearce," she told him. With those words, a flood of emotions spilled out from behind the tatter remains of the walls that had kept her heart isolated for so long, and she was once more fighting the urge to weep. "I always have, and I always will."

There was nothing else for it then. He loved her, needed her, wanted her desperately, and she was post-orgasmic and transcendent beneath him, telling him she loved him, too.

His tongue delved into her mouth, and she shifted in his arms, spreading her legs that much further, cradling him within the soft, warm cocoon of her flesh, and for the first time in a very long time, Harry Pearce was a happy man.

They moved together in the dark and quiet of his bedroom, arms shifting, hands lifting and accommodating, and almost before he realized what was happening, he felt the tip of his cock brush against the warmth and wet of her opening.

He pushed himself up on his arms, looking down at her, determined to watch her face as he finally, finally slid inside her, but her eyes were focused on his hardness, inching ever nearer to her. As slowly as he could manage Harry pushed himself inside her, reveling in the way she stretched to accommodate his not inconsiderable length, and still he pressed forward, reaching further, deeper, until he was fully seated inside her and she was whimpering beneath him.

"Please," she moaned, her eyes still locked on the place where their bodies joined.

He only grunted; Harry wasn't sure he was capable of speech in that moment.

He began to move in earnest, then, and she was lost. Christ, but she had never, ever felt this way before. No one had ever known her, had ever filled her, had ever claimed her the way he did, and she watched, fascinated and more aroused than she had ever been in her life, as he plunged into her harder, and faster, again, and again, his lips dropping kisses across her breast, the fingers of one hand rubbing insistently against her clit. Her entire body had become one unified erogenous zone, and everywhere Harry touched her she burned for him, a blaze that he stoked higher and higher with every powerful thrust of his hips until finally she could take no more and with a shriek she broke around him.

There was nothing in this world so magnificent as the look of rapture on Ruth's face when she came. He pulled out of her completely, watching her tremble and shake in her abandon, willing himself to hold on, not to come just now. He wasn't finished with her yet; if he was only to have one blessed, blissful night with her in his arms he was determined that it was to be such a night that he could carry it with him in his heart for all the rest of his days.

"Harry, please…please, don't…" She was very nearly crying beneath him, still shaking from the force of her orgasm, and it seemed that for once, words had failed her. Harry kissed her softly, reveling in the taste of her, before he caught her hips in his hands, and gently turned her over beneath him. He ran his hand down the smooth plane of her back, following it with gentle kisses, feeling the goosebumps he'd left in his wake. His hand continued its journey, running over the generous swell of her bottom; how had he never noticed before how perfectly it was formed, how very much he wanted to sink his teeth into the soft flesh there and hear her moan? It was the skirts, he decided; all those skirts, and all the many layers of clothing she'd used to hide herself away from the world had done their job, and kept her secrets. He knew those secrets now, though, knew just how lovely she was, and his heart broke all over again at the thought that come morning he would have to leave her.

Don't do this now, he told himself, leaning forward to kiss her shoulder gently. Be thankful for what you have.

He sank himself inside her once again, and once again, she was moaning, roiling beneath him like the sea in a storm, and he lost all self-restraint.

Again and again Harry thrust into her, pulling desperate, needy whimpers from her lips with every move of his body against her own. In this position he could reach so much deeper, could fill her so fully, and with each stroke of his hardness inside her he hit that spot, over and over. If she could have thought, she would have named this feeling reckless abandon, a concept so foreign to a woman like Ruth, a woman who thought every action through twice.

She couldn't think; she could only feel, and what she felt was Harry, driving into her, making her his, and the endless swirling tide of desire mounting higher and higher inside her. Ruth wasn't sure that she had it in her, to come a third time, but Harry seemed to know her body even better than she did herself. He knew how to touch her, and when, and where, and when she came at last, she felt him follow her, felt his groan reverberate through her body, felt him shooting hot and wet deep inside her, before he collapsed.

At last, there was peace.

"I really did you get a present," Ruth told him, smiling softly as she drew nonsense patterns across the smooth skin of his chest. She was lying draped across him, their legs intertwined beneath the duvet.

"All right, then," Harry answered, his voice a low, rumbling growl beneath her cheek. "Where is it?"

Ruth's heart had begun to race. She couldn't believe she was even contemplating doing this, but after everything they'd shared tonight, she knew there was no going back. She would give him his gift, and he would decide what to do with it; it was all up to him.

"Downstairs, in my coat," she told him. Ruth propped herself up on her elbows, kissed him once, just because she could, and then slipped out of bed. She bypassed her own clothes in favor of Harry's wrinkled shirt, pulling it on while he watched her appreciatively. I could get used to that, she thought sadly. Once she was at least partially covered, Ruth made her way down the stairs and into the kitchen, removing the thick envelope from the inside pocket of her coat.

It was madness, what she was about to do. Yet, after everything they had been through together, everything they had seen, after feeling him moving inside her and seeing the love he felt for her radiating from his soft, dark eyes, she knew she had no other choice. The die is cast, she thought, and all my hopes hang in the balance.

Back in Harry's room, she slid beneath the duvet, and he reached out to wrap his arm around her once more, pulling her close. It was strange, really, how easily this sort of intimacy had come to them; or perhaps not so strange, she thought as she handed him the envelope. For the last eight years Harry Pearce had been the center of her world, and now that she had finally admitted how desperately she need him, how desperately she loved him, sharing herself with him was becoming easier by the second.

"You can't be serious," Harry said softly, sitting up a little straighter in bed, pulling his arm back so that he could dig through the contents of the envelope with both hands.

"I'm completely serious," she told him, willing her voice not to shake. "Come away with me, Harry. Now. Tonight."

In his hands Harry held two passports.

There was a roaring in his mind, drowning out any attempt at coherent thought.

Come away with me, Harry.

Could it really be so simple? He wondered. Could they really just up and run, and leave the past, and all his mistakes, far behind them? The spook in him was trying to work through it, trying to determine how they could possibly escape the country without attracting notice; the train stations and airports were bound to be under surveillance, and they would only be able to drive so far, before Uncle Sam caught up to them. It was reckless, he knew. There was no way out.

"Tom Quinn is waiting for us at a private airfield outside the city. I've got a hire car parked two streets away, registered under a false name. We can be in the air in less than an hour, and no one the wiser." Ruth said this all very quickly, in her best on the Grid voice, but Harry could sense her anxiety, her fear.

In his heart, Harry was reeling. There was nothing more he wanted in this world than to run away with Ruth, and never look back. But could he? Could he stand to do that to her, to force her to walk away from her life again?

"There's nothing here for me, Harry," she told him. Bloody woman, he thought fondly. He had long ago stopped trying to figure out how Ruth had learned to read his mind. It had simply become a fact of his existence. "My family is gone, my friends are dead. Without you, I have nothing. I am nothing. Please don't leave me here alone."

"I can't ask you to do this, Ruth," he choked out. "To give up your name-"

"A name is just a name, Harry. I don't care about my name, I don't care about my job, and I don't care about the bloody Home Secretary. Bugger the lot of them, I say. I love you, Harry Pearce, no matter what your name is. Come with me. Let me love you in a place where the sun is shining, and our past can't touch us."

As she spoke her eyes shone at him, passionate and sure and more alive than he had seen them since the day she came back from Cyprus. This was it, he realized. He could seize this chance, could take her hand and run like hell, or he could doom them both to a life of sorrow, alone and lonely and scared to the end of their days.

"Tom Quinn, you said?" he asked.

Ruth smiled. "You aren't the only one with connections, Harry." She leaned over and kissed him once, a long lingering kiss, her tongue just barely brushing against his own before she rolled away. With an easy grace she unbuttoned his shirt, dropped it on his chest, and slid out of bed. He watched, bemused, as she began to dress.

"Are you coming?" she asked him.

Harry smiled.

"Show yourselves out, please," Towers grunted. The CIA agents threw him murderous looks, but they did as they were bid, shuffling from the room and muttering about a conspiracy.

William Towers waited until the door closed behind them, and then he began to laugh.

Harry had done a runner in the night, and Ruth had not turned up for work today. Towers wasn't holding his breath waiting for her resignation letter; in light of Harry's miraculous disappearance, it didn't take a genius to work out what had befall her.

"Good girl," Towers muttered, leaning back in his chair. It wasn't every day he got what he wanted in this job, but it seemed that just this once things had gone his way. Harry Pearce was free, and Towers hoped that, wherever they were, Ruth Evershed was smiling again.