As Harry pulls into his driveway, Ruth stirs and opens her eyes; momentarily disoriented, she focuses first on his face, then looks through the windscreen at the unfamiliar surroundings. "Where are we?" she murmurs, voice softer and hoarser than usual from crying, and then answers her own question in the next breath. "This is your house? Harry, weren't you taking me home?" He turns to face her, nervously aware that his next words could bring them closer, or tear them apart. And God knows, Harry tells himself, I've had more than enough of being apart. "I…I didn't like to leave you by yourself, tonight. I thought you might be glad of some company, but I can drive you home, if you'd rather?" he says, and holds his breath as he waits for her reply. Ruth closes her eyes and rests for a moment, then a moment more, so that he begins to wonder if she has fallen asleep again. When she finally speaks, it is with her eyes still closed, and her voice is so small he has to lean towards her to catch her words.
"I'm so tired, Harry, so tired of all of this. I just want to sleep forever, and forget everything that's happened since...since George." And there it is, the elephant – no, make that a bloody great woolly mammoth – in the room with us, Harry thinks, as she opens her eyes and looks straight at him. His mouth goes dry at the sight of them, huge and haunted with loss and sadness, and something else too, something darker, hidden behind the pupils that almost obscure her pale aquamarine irises in the dim interior light of the Range Rover. She says again, "I'm so tired." Harry reaches across to take her hand, holding it between his own as if she is made of the finest spun glass; she allows him, but her skin is clammy and her small hand lies limp and unresponsive in his large, warm ones. Finally, he finds voice enough to speak past the painful knot that has formed in his throat. "Ruth, I'm done in too. I'd really rather not drive back halfway across London, but if you need me to, then I will. Just tell me what you want, Ruth. I'll do whatever you say." He tries to speak as gently as he can, but the truth is that he is bone tired and fading fast; the adrenalin surge fuelled first by the stressful hostage situation in which Ros and Jo were trapped, and later reignited by his embrace with Ruth on the Grid, has drained away completely now, and he is feeling very, very old. For himself, he wants nothing more now than to fall into bed and sleep the clock round, after consuming a very large quantity of whisky. Ruth's fingers twitch, seemingly involuntarily, within his, but she says in a small voice, her eyes still closed, "I don't care…I'm too tired to care." The passivity and resignation he hears strikes a chill into his soul. This is more than shock at Jo's sudden death, this is deep, consuming grief, he thinks; and like the coward that he feels himself to be in all matters involving Ruth, his heart shrinks from contemplating the cause.
Harry sits upright again, feeling every one of his years in the dull aching of his back, but Ruth seems to have drifted off; no more words come. His exhausted brain decides it's time either to get out of the car or stay there forever, so he carefully disengages himself from her cold little hand and opens his door, welcoming the crisp night air on his face. He leaves her there for the moment while he lets himself into his home, turning on lights and disarming the security system. The house is pleasantly warm, the central heating still on, and he notes that for once his weekly cleaning lady has actually done her job. There are even clean sheets on his bed. He walks back out to the Range Rover's passenger side and carefully opens the door. Ruth is still there, seemingly asleep. He watches her for a moment, still not quite able to believe that she is back in his life, far less that she is actually here, in his driveway; she stirs, and he puts up a protective hand in case she starts awake; it won't do for her to fall out of the Land Rover if she suddenly starts and wakes, but neither does he want to stand here indefinitely, slowly turning back into stone. Harry the rock, the strong foundation upon which Section D is built…my given name really should have been Peter, although I don't fancy his ending…still, nothing's guaranteed in this line of work, and I may well end up being crucified, and upside down, too, for defending what I believe in and hold dear…none more so than this stubborn mule of a woman whom I have loved for so long now, I almost can't remember what it was like not to love her… Dad always said that a mule was a horse with brains, and that a man had to keep his wits about him, if he was working with mules, for they were neither easily bid nor easily led, but had to want to work; and then they were unbeatable. How right he was… but I'm woolgathering now, and it's cold, and late, and I am very tired…dead on my feet, Dad would say...
"Ruth," he says, almost apologetically, and she opens her eyes, looking straight ahead. "Why are we really here, Harry?" Her voice is cool and distant, and she shows no signs of getting out. Why, indeed. What's your pretext this time, Pearce? he asks himself, and then thoroughly frightens himself with the answer: There is none. There are no pretexts, no legends. Just the truth that both of them have long avoided acknowledging; and then there is Jo. Ruth would not have returned to Section D without her friend's persuasion, this Harry knows as surely as he knows that the young woman's death was unavoidable in the circumstances. Ruth is looking at him now, waiting for his reply. "I…I didn't think you would want to go back to your flat tonight," – a dingy bedsit in Acton had been found and leased for her by someone from HR, attempting to be helpful in the aftermath of George's death and Nico's departure back to Cyprus, surrounded by grieving and openly hostile relatives. Ruth had accepted the ugly little flat with as much disinterest as if they had been offering her coffee instead of tea – "and so, I brought us here. Was I wrong, in assuming that you might prefer not to be alone?"
She blinks once, slowly, and his heart stills within him at her gelid gaze; he has only ever seen her look like this once before, the day that Danny died, and she had stood next to his bloody body and spoken to him as if he was still there with her. Witnessing that had chilled him to the core, but this is far, far worse; she has retreated from her initial outpouring of sorrow, of sobbing against his shirt-front, and now she is treating him as if there is a very great distance between them. Harry has a sudden image of the chestnut filly who first taught him patience, more than forty years ago, galloping to the other end of the field to stand, ears back, disdainfully watching his clumsy approach…
Finally, Ruth speaks, her voice measured and utterly devoid of inflection, like an automaton's. "I wasn't alone, a few weeks ago. I had friends and colleagues and a man who loved me…I had the sun and the sea…I had a lovely, simple life, and then it was all blown to pieces…oh, it's not your fault, I'm not saying that; but nonetheless, what happened, happened because of you. If I had never known you, never worked for Five, what might my life have been like? It would have been a far simpler, much happier one, don't you think? A normal life…yes, I think I should have liked that."
Each quiet word cuts him to the quick, but even so, Harry knows she is standing on a slippery slope; that great mountain made of What Ifs and If Onlys that every officer of the Service, past or present, has at one time or another climbed, heartsore and despairing, to balance at the brink of the abyss, and look into the depths. Some are drawn closer by degrees, unable to resist questioning each operational decision made, the price of each life lost or saved on their watch – Tom Quinn was one such, in the end; some jump, hoping to escape a life that has become unbearable or untenable, and here Harry is reminded of Peter Salter – a tragic loss, but one of many he has endured during his tenure at Five; others gaze too long, and in doing so, find that the abyss has also gazed into them, and Connie and Tessa come to mind, with varying degrees of regret and sadness. Only Malcolm, his great-hearted former technical wizard, and friend for more than half his career, had somehow remained untouched, his moral integrity intact, and his character unblemished and unimpeachable in spite of all they had done together in the name of the realm; but even he had finally reached the mountain's peak, and having looked into the darkness beyond, had chosen to turn his back on the life that Harry feels is his fate to endure. Harry envies him that choice, more than he cares to admit; there are even moments when he allows himself to dream…but he cannot think about that now, not in the present situation, with Ruth once more laying his deeds at his door, as righteous as an avenging angel, and ten times as untouchable, in her cold rage against him, the world, life itself… Harry looks down at his feet, then back up at Ruth, forcing himself to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry, Ruth. I feel as if I could spend the rest of my life saying those words, and it will never be enough. I can never restore what you've lost, and you have no idea what that does to me. There's no going back, for either of us, but I would give the world to change what happened."
Ruth holds up a hand to stop him, and again she asks, "Why are we here?" Harry sighs, defeated, and then inspiration strikes; Better still, he thinks wryly, for once it's the truth. "For Jo's sake; she wouldn't want you to be alone tonight, and so I thought…" he raises and then drops his shoulders, out of words, running low on hope, and with a great lethargy seeping into every pore of his being. Ruth flinches at Jo's name, and Harry's heart lurches as a tear traces its way along her nose and trembles from the tip, unnoticed. "Jo," she repeats softly, her voice full of infinite sorrow and loss, and another tear rolls down her cheek. That does it: his heart breaks for the second time in nearly as many months, cracking along old and familiar fault-lines. "Ruth, please, come inside. It's warm there, and we can talk." She wipes the tears away, but he can see that she is wavering. "What about?" she wants to know, and he says, "Anything. Anything you like, or nothing at all...please, won't you come inside?" After what feels like an age, she nods once, imperceptibly, and accepts his steadying hand as she climbs stiffly out of the passenger seat and slowly walks towards the front door, pulling the edges of her coat together with one hand, as if the buttons are beyond her. Harry shuts the passenger door of the Range Rover, feeling as exhausted as if he has just successfully negotiated a live minefield, sets the vehicle's alarm, and follows her inside, into the warmth.
A/N: Harry is referring, of course, to St Peter, the 'rock' upon which Christ founded his Church, and who was finally martyred for his faith; Peter requested that his cross be inverted, so as not to imitate his God.
