Oneshot - set before the end of S8
"I need an eight day week," Harry wearily dropped himself into his chair, "Or someone to invent a thirty six hour day."
"Too much to do, too little time?" smiled Ruth.
He glanced at her briefly.
"And I can't even say real life gets in the way."
"If you can't fit work in, Harry, where would be the room for real life?"
He smiled sadly, well aware that the two had never gone hand in hand and his past attempts at merging them had been nothing shy of disastrous.
She sat gently opposite him.
"When I started on the grid I used to dream of having both. Saving the country during the day, going out to the ballet in the evening and then going home to someone at night."
He looked at her, his face a mask revealing nothing.
"It was only in Cyprus that I learned what real life was. And how the simplicity of it was satisfying in itself."
She paused for a moment, her eyes drifting away.
That life was lost.
Harry felt the guilt settle heavily upon him.
"And now I'm back to saving the world," she said eventually, with a smile that he knew was bathed in sadness.
"One or the other, hey Ruth? That's the way it will always be for us."
"I wish it wasn't," she said quietly.
His hand reached up rubbing wearily across his face. "So do I."
"Do you?" she sounded surprised.
Hand falling away, his eyes found hers.
"No one wants to be lonely, Ruth. Even me."
"And is that how you feel?" she ventured.
He nodded slowly.
"An empty house. A cold bed."
A smile ghosted across her face.
"What?" he asked warily, exposed and open.
"I was wondering if you were describing your life, or mine?"
He too smiled now and it dawned on her how much she adored that smile. For a long moment they simply sat, lost in the face opposite them. The all important face. The only one that had ever really mattered.
"Is it impossible to have everything?" she asked quietly.
"Not impossible, no. Just difficult."
"Everything we do here is difficult, Harry. The easy part should be going home."
"To a warm bed?" His voice was low, his eyes intense as he asked the question.
He watched the blush flower on her cheek but she did not look away and he knew this Ruth, this slightly older, slightly wiser, certainly more world worn Ruth, was even more marvellous than the Ruth he had once fallen in love with.
The office door flew open and Ros stood, temporarily silenced by the two figures who seemed locked in a moment from which she was excluded. She cleared her throat and the sound echoed across into their plane of existence. They turned to her as one.
"We've got the carrier. They're on the move. Now's the time, Harry," Ros stated quickly.
He nodded and stood as Ruth rose from her chair. Ros turning away back to the chaos of the grid. Side by side they strode after her.
"I can get tickets to the ballet," Harry breathed quietly, "if you'd like?"
"I'd like," she whispered back.
Tariq turned, ready to brief them on the latest development.
Harry smiled, "And in the meantime, Ruth, we'll save the world."