Title: revelations
Disclaimer: I got some lovely things for Christmas, but Spooks characters, etc, were not among them. Colour me surprised.
Summary: This was never a part of his master plan. H/R. Set sometime after series 8.
Notes: Sometimes I'm confronted by a rather scary urge to write cliché fics. I am almost always successful at suppressing this urge but alas, this time the plot bunny simply refused to be ignored until I wrote it. Non-linear timeline. Because sometimes that's fun.
Finally: yes, it's clearly not cool to post on a Saturday night. But I'm moving house tomorrow (finally! Woohoo!) and am likely to be without internet access for the near future. Not sure how I'm going to cope...
Anyway, hope you enjoy! Reviews are always appreciated
XxX
It's late on a Friday evening and Harry sits in his office finishing up paperwork from the operation they've just completed.
It's the last place he wants to be, and this thought amuses him because until recently this was the only place he really wanted to be.
He looks out from his glass enclosure on to the grid, sees his officers still at work, writing reports, dotting the 'i's, crossing the 't's. But she's not there. She's not been there for over a week now, and already he misses her presence on the grid.
She sent him a text message twenty minutes ago; she's bored at home and waiting for him to return. And since then, that's all he's been able to concentrate on.
XxX
It's a Wednesday when she tells him. The day isn't important, but it's what he will remember. They've been seeing each other for nearly four months. Earlier she'd left work while he'd been in a meeting, ostensibly for a doctor's appointment; a regular check up, nothing to worry about, she'd told him. He doesn't give it another thought until he arrives home and finds her in the living room.
"Harry, I think you should sit down," Ruth says. He follows her suggestion. "We appear to, ah," she gives a brief nervous half-smile, "we appear to have a problem."
His mind races through a thousand irrational problems as she considers her next words.
"I'm pregnant." Words said evenly, carefully. She holds her breath as she tries to gauge his reaction.
He's preoccupied and thus only half-aware of the meaning of the words. "Pregnant?" he repeats, dumbly. It's much less of a problem than 'I have a life-threatening disease', 'I'm leaving you', or 'terrorists have planted a nuclear bomb in the centre of London and we only have five minutes to locate and defuse it,' he thinks. But then her words slowly start to penetrate his thoughts. "How...?"
She accepts this question for what it is; a question of when rather than how.
"My birthday. We celebrated it with a lot of wine and then we, uh, celebrated it in the kitchen." She tries to suppress a smile.
"You were trying to do the washing up," he recalls. He starts to grin at the recollection.
"Yes," she gives a genuine smile of amusement; unable to suppress it. But she brings herself back to the moment and her features return to their look of seriousness.
And finally her words start to dawn on him; really dawn on him. "Pregnant," he repeats again. The idea brings with it mixed emotions of surprise, apprehension, and, unexpectedly, more than a small amount of delight. They should have been more careful, he thinks; he's old enough to know better; he's too old for this; it's too soon. But still, the idea that in a moment of careless love they've created this tiny, probably perfect being.... He tries to shake his head of the thought; he knows better than to indulge in fantasy.
He looks at her. She doesn't appear to be entirely at ease with the knowledge. But there's something more to her expression, an underlying current of joy that she's maybe not even aware of herself. He tries to read her thoughts and finds that he can't. "What are you thinking, Ruth?" His words are gentle; they give away nothing of his own reaction. But it's not an entirely insensible question.
She raises her eyebrows, shakes her head, her confusion and indecision apparent. "I don't know." She looks at him. "I mean, us, Harry. You and me. A baby? Now?" she sighs. "It's not the best idea."
He's not entirely sure if she's more concerned about the timing or the idea of them procreating. She doesn't patronise him by spelling out all the ways that this isn't the best idea; he's acutely aware. Their jobs and workaholic tendencies, his age, his tenuous relationship with his two existing children, the short time they've had together, the little time they have outside of MI5, his position, his enemies: so many reasons and those are only a small number.
But still. There's something there, a feeling deep down that he cannot shake. A fleeting thought that maybe they can do this. That maybe, despite all the apparent negatives, they should at least take this into consideration. His love for this woman, and the vague, irrational, sensation of joy at the thought of sharing this experience with her. He's not a man generally given to sentimentality, or irrational emotion, but she has brought him to this. Unintentionally, his gaze lowers to her stomach and he thinks about the beginnings of the child, their child, within.
Her brow is still furrowed, her grey eyes betraying a host of conflicting emotions. And beneath it all he sees flickers of emotions that mirror his own. Without this, his next impulse would be vanquished immediately.
Instead, he moves to sit next to her on the sofa, takes her hand.
"Is there any way this could be considered a good thing?" he asks.
She looks at him, her head tilted to one side. "Harry, if you're saying what I think you're saying..."
"I'm saying I love you and perhaps we should at least consider it," he suggests.
There are a thousand logical reasons why they shouldn't be doing this and only a handful of selfish ones why they should. But as he sees a fleeting look of joy cross her features at the prospect of at least considering the possibility, he begins to think that maybe they really can do this.
XxX
She never really considered the possibility of having children until she was in her late twenties. Before then, it had been a vague occasional consideration of 'maybe one day'. It was only when her friends from university and colleagues started to have children, and she started to spend time with them, that seeds of thought started to plant themselves that maybe it wouldn't be all that bad.
But her work was still too important to her and she still hadn't met anyone she'd even consider having children with. So, instead, she worked towards other work-related goals. And was successful.
And then, without even realising that time was passing, she was in MI5 and very much single and very much committed to her job and the possibility of children seemed out of her grasp.
Then Cyprus happened, and George and Nico, and being part of this ready-made family. And she had to admit, she'd loved it. It stirred a maternal instinct in her and she began to think that maybe this idea of putting family before work wasn't the worst thing in the world. Even if it wasn't quite perfect and it wasn't quite all hers and there still seemed to be something missing in this compromised life.
Now, as she waits for Harry to return home, she looks down at her ever-expanding stomach, places one hand on it, feels the movement of the being within. Somehow she's managed to gain everything she never really thought she wanted, and it makes her smile when she realises how much she did.
XxX
They don't tell anyone about their relationship. Not that they hide it, but they don't publicly declare it, either. Initially she has fleeting flashbacks of a time when she worried about what people would say. But this time her motivations are different. It's none of their business, and she likes to keep her private life private.
She idly thinks that if Jo was still around, she'd have been more willing to share the news.
But she's never had the closest of relationships with Ros, and Lucas has his own problems and Tariq is lovely, but she's yet, if ever, to develop the sort of bond with him that would induce her to share gossip and secrets.
Given that neither she nor Harry are much given to being publicly overly demonstrative of their affection for each other, save a few lingering touches which were apparent even before they started seeing each other, she doesn't know whether anyone is any the wiser that she's been seeing Harry for the last five months.
She supposes not; unlike those days with Zaf and Adam and Jo and Malcolm, none of their colleagues seem overtly interested in anything that doesn't affect them, let alone gossip around the grid and burgeoning relationships between intelligence analysts and heads of section.
So in some ways it's a surprise that Ros even asks if she's okay after she starts losing the struggle against nausea and vomiting in the morning briefing and has to make a hasty exit for the ladies'.
Once the vomiting and nausea have passed, she finally makes it out of the cubicle. Ros waits for her, leaning against a sink, her arms folded.
"I didn't hear you come in," Ruth says as she moves towards an adjacent sink.
"I'm stealthy," Ros replies sardonically. "Here," she says, handing Ruth a bottle of water.
She accepts it gratefully.
"Are you okay?" Ros asks. They're not exactly words laced with concern, but considering it's Ros, they're as close to concern as she's going to get.
"I'll be fine, thanks," she replies. "Must be something I ate." She busies herself with washing her hands then drinks the water, rinses out her mouth.
Ros gives a look of amusement. "Well, as long as you're okay, I'll get back to the briefing."
Ruth smiles briefly in response. "I'll be there in a minute."
Ros starts to leave the bathroom then stops momentarily, the door ajar.
"Oh, tell Harry congratulations for me, would you? I'd suggest Rosalind as a name, but I didn't have the best time growing up with it myself," Ros comments, with more than a hint of amusement.
She exits the bathroom, leaving Ruth speechless and at least vaguely amused. They clearly haven't been fooling anyone.
XxX
It's her fortieth birthday. He's had the evening planned for some time, somehow managing to find the time to go shopping and to select a birthday cake (with candles), all without her knowing. He spends some amount of time preparing the meal while she is under the illusion that he has an evening meeting with the JIC and might not make it back until late.
By the time she arrives home from work, everything is ready. She is appropriately surprised.
"Harry, you shouldn't have!" she declares, touched and more than a little embarrassed. She'd almost hoped to have eluded this particular birthday without notice.
But he's bought her presents and a card and has prepared a meal with champagne and the conversation is good, too, and she thinks that maybe turning forty isn't so bad after all.
By the time he's brought the cake out, singing 'Happy Birthday', much to her mortification and amusement, they've finished the bottle of champagne and started on a bottle of wine.
It's the most perfect evening, she muses, partly under the influence of the wine.
Later, she enters the kitchen to top up her glass and notices the dirty dishes and pans on the counter. Instinctively, she turns on the hot water, squirts some washing up liquid in, fills up the sink, grabs a dirty plate and starts cleaning it.
She doesn't hear him entering the kitchen, and so practically jumps when he places his hand on her arm, asks her what she's doing.
"I'm washing up," she tells him. He moves closer to her and she leans into his embrace.
"It's your birthday," he informs her. "You only turn forty once and you most certainly do not do the washing up on your fortieth birthday." He kisses her neck, once, twice, moving down towards the place between her neck and shoulder.
"So if I was thirty-nine, or forty-one...?" she starts, teasing. She moves her head to one side to give him better access, moaning slightly as he gets to his favourite spot.
"Maybe if you were forty-one," he says between kisses. He turns her round, and she drops the plate into the sink full of water as he does.
He moves back her up neck, then kisses her lips full on. The washing up forgotten, she leans against the sink as she returns his kisses enthusiastically, her mouth opening to give him better access.
Their tongues duel, kisses increasing in passion. His hands start lifting her top, and she reciprocates by unbuttoning his shirt.
He moves her further round the kitchen, lifts her to sit on the counter top.
Without thought, gripped in a haze of passion, they make love there.
Afterwards, she has a fleeting thought that they didn't consider contraception, but then he returns to her, tops up her glass of wine and they sit on the sofa content, embracing, in love.
XxX
It's seven o'clock at night on a Friday, much earlier than he'd usually consider leaving work, but his mind is consumed with thoughts of home and her.
He could be home by seven thirty if he left now, he thinks.
This newfound urge amuses him. If you'd have told him a year ago that this would be his future, that he'd be desperate to leave work to get home to his girlfriend – his heavily pregnant girlfriend at that – he'd have laughed out loud.
This was never a part of his master plan, but neither was falling in love with her. The idea of having a baby – at his age, at this place in his life – would have been preposterous. But somehow, it's become part of this plan, and is no longer such an absurd idea; rather, becoming a father again is something he looks forward to. Whether it's a good idea, the right thing, or how they're even going to do this, he doesn't know. He suspects that she feels the same. But somehow it feels right, and that's all that matters.
And suddenly, he decides he's had enough of paperwork. He hurriedly reads through the last few lines, not really paying too much attention to their content, and signs. God knows what he's just signed off.
And then he drops it in the out tray, quickly types out a reply to her text, gathers his things and heads for the pods.
He ignores the looks of amusement from his colleagues; they know where he's headed and his reasons for leaving before any of the rest of them. He doesn't care.
He only cares about getting home and what awaits him there.
XxX
Fin