Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be. They belong to the wonderful people over at Kudos and the BBC.
A/N: This is my first fanfic, so any reviews/concrit welcomed. It is Ruth/ Harry, and exists in that happy alternate universe where 5.05 never happened.
Ruth had always known that it was never going to be simple. She knew that provided they had each other, most problems would be easier to deal with than when they had gone home alone. There had once been a time when, after a hard operation, she would rather stay working late at night on the Grid just to hear the reassuring hum and buzz of the many computers on standby than return to her house and the lonely comfort of her cat and books. It had been far better to linger there, she had told herself, trying vainly to ignore the fact that it was always the nights that Harry worked late that she stayed.
Now it was different.
Now, if there was a time that one of them felt particularly depressed, they would curl up together in front of the TV and talk, quietly.
Peacefully.
Peace was a state of mind that people in their profession rarely obtained, a luxury that spooks learned to value.
So, sometimes, they had to work at their relationship and be patient with one another. It didn't always work, of course. They were only human. Most of the time, however, despite the many pressures of their job, they were happy. The dinners that were too often cut short by his mobile and her pager were outweighed by far by the dinners that weren't and the nights where they simply stayed at home, undisturbed.
One night, lying in his bed, curled up in his arms, Ruth stared out of the window at the plane trees and the moonlight slanting through the grey clouds and seeping, pervasive, through the leaves of the trees and lighting the room. It was not the light that Ruth watched, however, but the shadows. Deep pools of indigo beneath the window ledge and to one side of the bed and chest of drawers. The lighter, somehow multi-layered fragments of grey and black that shifted with the movement of unseen objects outside, constantly changing.
Change.
Change was something that Ruth had always feared when young because it was something over which she had no control. Change when her father died, when Peter joined the army. Then, slowly, she became more receptive to it. After all, many changes in the past few years had resulted in happiness. Being seconded to MI5 Section D after what had felt like a lifetime over with the mathematicians at GCHQ. Accepting Harry's second offer of a second date that had led to her current harmony with life.
The room was thrown momentarily into shadow as a cloud flitted over the moon, interrupting Ruth's reverie.
Shadows.
The shadows of the occasional whispers and hints of rumours that occasionally lingered in corners of the Grid and by that fountain of gossip, the water cooler. There were no shadows without light and the light was worth all the shadows, rendering them wholly insignificant.
Thank you for reading!