A/N - Just a quick thank you to everyone who has already reviewed this little fic. I appreciate all the kind words and feedback. A more lighthearted chapter for you, this time - excuse the length it just kind of ran away with itself. Set late season 4, between episodes 8 and 9. Enjoy! -Silver
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Chapter 2
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Harry was right. There were moments in the chaos which made it all worthwhile. As the weeks passed, Ruth took more time to notice them. She laughed at Zaf's jokes and remembered Danny with Fiona. She grieved with Adam when Fiona, too, was taken from them. She welcomed a new colleague to the Grid and made time in her busy work week to meet Malcolm and Colin for coffee.
They were a good lot, her team - and they really did feel like her team, now. No longer did Ruth feel like the outsider, the analyst who couldn't understand the field agents' sacrifice. She had been in the field, now, too – often enough to remember why she would rather stay behind a desk. It felt sort of like she had passed an initiation. She survived her term as the new girl. Joanna Portman held that role, now, of course. Ruth was one of the old guard. Coming in, every morning, the security guards knew her by name. They said hello as she flashed her badge across security and said goodbye to her when she retired for the night. She was usually the last off the Grid, every evening. Second to Harry, of course.
Her boss remained blissfully unaware of her growing affections. He was far too busy to notice, Ruth reasoned, thinking back over the month he had suffered through. Fiona's death, Adam's breakdown, the loss of Hugo Ross, the almost-loss of the National Health Service, Adam's slow return from denial – not to mention a dozen other cases which they had worked in between said events. It had been a terrible month and Harry had shouldered the largest proportion of the blame, for what had happened. He had been very busy. Long hours. Early mornings. Late nights.
He was busy this morning, when Ruth arrived to an almost abandoned Grid. His office was empty but his coat was hung over the back of his chair. Upstairs, perhaps, she mused, or somewhere else in the building, harassing bureaucrats on behalf of Section D's interests. He was often out of the office, nowadays. Ruth did not have to deal with the political side of their work. She sat at her desk, analysing data. Interpreting data. Relaying data. Though it had not been where she had originally wanted to take her career, Ruth had come to love that part of her job. It made sense.
Unlike the situation now, she thought, taking in the strangely empty Grid. This made absolutely no sense.
Standing on front of the pods, Ruth scanned around herself, frowning as she failed to spot the familiar faces of the team. Admittedly, she had run a bit late this morning – forgetting her keycard and having to return to her house, therefore missing her usual bus – but usually, by this time on a weekday morning, Jo and Zaf would be certainly in, as would Malcolm. Adam was occasionally absent, if he was off at a meeting with Harry or suffering some crisis with Wes and a missing PE kit, but, for the most part, they would all be on site and going about their business. Their absence immediately sent alarm bells ringing in Ruth's head. Had something terrible happened and she hadn't heard about it? Was someone injured? Or worse?
Scanning the room again, she found some of their belongings lying around. So they had been in, then, she reasoned, determining that Malcolm's coat was a different one than he had worn the day before and that a coffee mug on Jo's desk was still steaming with heat. And they hadn't left long ago. Seizing hold of two junior analysts, Ruth asked them where her team members were. Neither of them knew, though both assured their nervous colleague that nothing terrible had happened, to their knowledge. Ruth was just about to let it drop and start going about her work when, from the corner of her eye, she saw Adam's blonde head disappearing through a doorway on the opposite side of the room.
Her brow furrowed.
Getting up from her chair, Ruth made her way over and eyed the doorway to what she realised was a usually-locked stationary cupboard. Her frown deepened as she noticed that the door was slightly ajar and the lock was turned ninety degrees from its usual position. Leaning a bit closer, she could hear that there was movement coming from inside. And whispering.
Slowly, she pushed the door inwards.
"Hello?" she asked, tentatively.
A bark of 'bugger it' greeted her, followed by a flurry of commotion from all five of the people gathered in the small room. Looking down, Ruth saw Zaf crouched over a large cardboard box, holding the flaps together protectively. Jo was crouching next to him while Colin, Malcolm and Adam stood over, the latter inexplicably holding a carton of milk in one hand and what looked like an empty one of Harry's glass whiskey tumblers in the other. Ruth looked to each of her colleague's faces in turn.
"What on earth are you all doing in here?" she asked.
As a few seconds passed, their expressions began to shift from guilt to unilateral relief. Jo blew out a heavy breath, Adam's shoulders relaxed and Malcolm rolled his eyes. Zaf, on the other hand, gave the box a pat and shook his head at her.
"God, Ruth," he admonished her, softly, "we thought you were Harry!"
Ruth feigned offence.
"Well thank you very much," she huffed, softly, before her eyes relocated to the box at Zaf's feet. Her brows knit a little closer together. If she was not mistaken, she had just seen it move. "Um, Zaf," she nodded to the box, "what is that?" The team's eyes flickered down to the box and Zaf looked suddenly very guilty again. Adam and Malcolm, more experienced spooks altogether, managed to keep straight faces. It was Jo, however, who was the most telling. She cringed, cheeks blushing. Ruth decided to focus her inquiry towards her youngest colleague. "What's in the box Jo?" she asked lightly, changing her tact to one of amiable innocence.
Adam wasn't fooled.
"No!" he warned Jo, as the young officer's mouth began to open. "Absolutely not. We can't risk another breach in Security. We've already let one person too many in on this already," he chided, motioning towards Malcolm.
Malcolm rolled his eyes again.
"Personally, I would rather you hadn't," he commented, wearily. "I said I wanted nothing to do with any of this."
"What is it?" Ruth asked again.
Jo, Colin, Zaf and Adam all exchanged rather serious looks.
"Come on, we can tell Ruth," Jo insisted.
"I don't know..." Zaf trailed off.
"She won't tell," Colin seconded Jo's assessment.
"I suppose not," Adam agreed, looking thoughtful. "After all, she did hold her own rather nicely on Harry's birthday surprise, last month."
"I did," Ruth confirmed. "I was brilliant. I didn't say anything. Hang on," she paused, re-evaluating their statement. "Is this something to do with Harry?"
Zaf pulled a face.
"Not exactly. We just need him... not to know about the box, for the rest of the day."
What on earth was in the box? Ruth's eyes lowered to it again. Zaf still had his hand placed over the flaps, but something was rustling inside. Some form of mechanical device, perhaps? Something they had picked up on a raid? It could not have been too bad, she reasoned, otherwise the pods would have sealed it in. Unless it was something new, she reasoned, that the pods had not been programmed to recognise. But then, why would the team bring something dangerous onto the Grid?
"What's in there?" she asked again, focussing on Adam this time as he was clearly the ring leader of their little gang.
They all exchanged a look again and Malcolm, seemingly done with all the secrecy, excused himself quietly from the closet. After shooting them all a slightly apologetic look, Colin followed.
"Okay," Adam relented, eventually, and Zaf and Jo looked pleased.
"You have to promise not to tell Harry," the younger man told Ruth, fixing her with very serious eyes.
Ruth frowned. "I won't," she faltered, turning from one expectant face to another, "barring national security, of course."
"Of course," Adam and Jo chorused.
"Rightly so," Zaf concurred.
Ruth frowned.
"So, what's in the box?"
Zaf leaned back down, over the box, and Ruth saw him fiddling with the tabs he had slid into place to stop the cardboard flaps coming loose. For a moment, she glimpsed newspaper and shredded paper towels. Then, it was all obscured by Zaf's back as he leant over, reaching inside. After a few seconds, he straightened up again, pulling himself to his knees, holding whatever was in the box carefully across his front. Slowly, he turned. And Ruth let out a slightly involuntary and completely unintentional noise of delight. Cradled in his arms was a small black puppy, tiny pink tongue curled in a tiny pink yawn.
Ruth could dimly remember her biology teacher telling her that there was something about infant animals which aroused protective instincts in adults, even across species barriers. This was certainly the case now. Though she knew, logically, that this was a very bad idea and that she should get out before she was forced to play any further part in it, she could not help but accept when Zaf handed the puppy over to her. It was sleepy and warm, all paws and soft, warm belly. As it paddled for purchase against her jumper and eventually settled into a comfortable position, it gave a tiny satisfied noise and all her logic completely drained away.
"Oh my god..."
"Cute, isn't she?" Zaf said triumphantly.
"Zaf..." Ruth breathed, reluctantly lifting her eyes off her charge and onto her colleague's again. "You can't have it here. Harry will flip if he finds out!"
"Harry doesn't have to know," he pointed out.
"Where did you even find it?" Ruth asked.
"My stairwell, this morning. And she's not an 'it', she's a 'she'," Zaf corrected, seriously, reaching over to tickle the puppy's ears. "We're going to call her Juliet, after another dark-haired bitch we know and love."
Ruth felt her expression shift as the conversation slid into dangerous territory.
"Zaf..."
Adam thankfully cut in at that moment, saving her from having to form a reprimand.
"Look," the Section Chief began, patiently, "we've already checked around with the police and the local shelters and she's not microchipped, or tagged, and nobody's looking for her. Zaf took her to a vet this morning and he checked her out. He said she was healthy but probably a stray whose mother died. Looks like she needs a home."
"You can't keep her here!" Ruth exclaimed, missing the point.
Jo giggled.
"No, Ruth, Fiona's parents have agreed to take her," Adam explained, with a little smile. "Wes always wanted a dog. I don't have the time, or the inclination, but his grandparents have a place out in the country. Lots of land, plenty of place for Juliet and Wes can go and visit her, whenever he likes. It works out well for everybody. They're coming to pick her up at five."
Ruth looked around them all, not quite believing that she had managed to find herself in this situation – in a stationary cupboard, in MI5 headquarters, with three spooks and an infant dog. In her arms, the pup wriggled around and settled on chewing on of the buttons on her jumper, little milk teeth rasping over the plastic. Ruth repositioned it, without much success. Once Juliet found a tooth-hold, she was reticent to release – much like her namesake.
"And how do you think you can possibly keep her a secret until five o' clock?" she asked, incredulously.
Adam looked to Zaf, who began to explain, his tone absurdly like that he used in the briefing room.
"We're going to take shifts," he told them, "checking on her, throughout the day. If everything keeps quiet, nobody should miss us, one at a time. Jo has found some newspapers and some things to clean up after her and I'm working out a plan to get her out, when Adam's in-laws get here."
Bloody great. This was sounding more and more like an operation, thought Ruth.
"And what if she won't be quiet?"
"She'll be quiet," Zaf assured her. "She's a quiet little thing, aren't you Juliet?" he asked, scratching the pup's chin.
It abandoned Ruth's jumper for Zaf's fingers, nipping happily, but remaining – as he had said – almost completely silent.
Ruth stood, shifting on the spot, letting her fingers dig into the soft fur of the infant dog in her arms. Next to her, Jo was looking worried, Adam faintly hopeful and Zaf just more intensely 'Zaf' than usual. His cheeky face was almost glowing with the thought of their illicit dog-boarding. Spies liked secret missions, she mused, looking from one face to another. And it seemed harmless enough. Even Malcolm had signed off on the operation – albeit in a more hands-free capacity than she found herself in. Maybe she should just say she would turn a blind eye, but to keep her out of it. Yes, she decided, giving the puppy's head one last stroke, that's what she would do.
Heaving a sigh of resignation, she nodded her head.
"Okay," she told Jo, heavily.
"See, Adam," the young officer grinned, "told you she would be cool."
Ruth, who had never been called 'cool' in her life, flushed a little, and muttered something about it not meaning she would in any way assist them in their illegal activities.
"Just keep me out of it," she warned them, handing the wriggling puppy back to Zaf, who received it happily. "I don't want to have to try and explain this at my next pay review."
"No problem," Jo chirped happily.
Zaf seconded her and the pair of them went back to cooing over the pup, Jo telling Zaf that, by all appearances, it was probably a Labrador and that she had given it a wash and brush in the ladies' bathrooms that morning, when the Grid was empty.
Trying not to think about what Harry's face would look like, if he ever found out about such an act, Ruth turned to Adam.
"I hope you know what you're doing," she warned him. "If they catch wind of this, you'll be back to TRING – no matter how well you're doing."
He got a strange little smile – the sad kind of smile that he wore now that Fiona was gone – and Ruth felt momentarily sorry for bringing up the matter of his brief stay at the psychiatric facility. She knew Adam was a warm-hearted sort, who wouldn't want to avoid the subject, but it might have been a little callous. Her worries were soon allayed, however, when he shook his head.
"Don't worry about us, Ruth," he assured her, "we know what we're doing. Harry won't suspect a thing."
Ruth huffed something about certainly hoping so and, gazing one last time over at the puppy, (who Zaf was holding like a baby and Jo was fussing over), turned and slunk back out of the stationary closet. Thanking whatever luck she had left that Harry was not in his office, to see her exit, she stepped quickly back across the Grid and situated herself behind her desk, logging onto her system, and got started on the day's task workload. It was not a particularly heavy one – mostly paperwork and re-routing chatter to different team members and departments. She tapped away for the next five minutes, keeping an eye on the stationary cupboard out of the corner of her eye. Eventually, the other three emerged, clearly leaving Juliet to her own devices, in her box. Crossing her fingers the pup would not start yelping, Ruth turned her eyes fully to the screen and got back to work.
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Somehow, and Ruth would never know quite how they managed it, the team managed to keep the dog a secret until half past four. It helped that it was a quiet day. Their time was mostly spent finishing off reports and supervising surveillance operations for another team. Ruth did her bit, in between her tasks and running errands for Harry – who seemed to have conveniently forgotten, once again, that she was not his secretary.
Eventually, however, four-thirty came ticking around and she realised that they had a finite window for getting the dog out of the building and to Adam's in-laws, who were picking her up outside. She knew Adam had been hoping that Harry would chose to attend a monthly budgetary meeting, with the DG and several other Section Heads, up on the fifth floor. Unfortunately, however, Harry's enthusiasm for budgets was akin to his enthusiasm for politics, and he remained resolutely in his office, trudging through a pile of paperwork.
As the minutes passed and nobody seemed to be making any progress on their problem, Ruth decided to take matters into her own hands. She was not having the damned dog hanging around for another day, after all. It was cute, but the nervous tension in her body had almost reached breaking point. Reaching over her files and assorted pens, she picked up her phone and keyed in Adam's internal extension.
He picked up on the third ring.
"Hello,"
"Adam, it's Ruth."
Adam glanced up, on the other side of the room, briefly meeting her eyes. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"How do you want to do this?" she asked, then clarified, "Juliet, I mean."
Adam's smile quirked. Possibly as she had just asked him how he intended to 'do Juliet'. Men would be men.
"Zaf has a plan," he assured her. "I'll get him on, give me just a second." Frowning, he keyed in another number and Ruth heard the line click as Zaf's line was patched through. A few desks down, his phone rang, then the younger officer picked up.
"I hope this is a social call," he chirped in greeting – assumedly already knowing it was them by the extension number.
"Adam says you have an exit strategy," she stated, bluntly.
"Ah." Over at his station, Zaf nudged Jo and she wheeled her chair over, leaning in as if to look at his computer screen with him. "Right. Can I brief them, Adam?"
"Go ahead."
"Right," Zaf started, sincere as if this had been a real government-sanctioned operation. "Operation 'Get Juliet'..."
They really enjoyed this, Ruth marvelled; the excitement, the thrill, the clandestine nature of it all, spies playing at being spies.
"I have arranged for Michael Shipley, from Security, to be on at the ground level rear exit, between five and five-thirty. He has agreed to get Juliet's box through security, marked as a vetted parcel, if we can get her to him before ten to five." It was remarkable what you could sneak out of Thames House, thought Ruth, with Adam's security clearance and the right friends. On the other end of the line, Zaf continued, sounding rather pleased with himself. "All we need is to get her out of here without Harry figuring out what's going on."
"And how do you propose to do that?"
"A distraction."
Ruth glanced up at Harry, who was still absorbed in his report, not showing the slightest interest in why half of his staff were talking on the phone – to each other.
"What sort of distraction?" she asked, cautiously.
Too often, distraction became her job. A call to the police to distract attention the other way, while an operation played out; a spilled drink in a restaurant, while Adam slipped their target some tranquilizer in his wine; feigning being lost and asking for directions to get a voice match, on a suspect; it was always her. She was always the officer leftover, the one available, the one implicated by her inability to refuse her colleague's requests. It did not help that she was a naturally clumsy and unassuming sort of person. She made perfect distraction material.
But still... Harry? She could not possibly distract Harry's attention. Harry was not a layman in the street, or a drunken suspect at a restaurant. He was a professional and a good professional at that. He was one of the best in their business and he had the advantage of having known her for quite some time. She would blush and stumble over her words and he would know, instantly, something was up. Harry was boss spook. What on earth did it take, to distract a man like Harry? In a voice barely more than a hiss, she asked Zaf.
"Well, I'll leave that up to your imagination," the cheeky officer replied, turning Ruth's cheeks red and earning him a slap on the shoulder from Jo who was sitting next to him.
"But what am I supposed to say?" the analyst insisted. "He will see straight through some question about work."
"Make it personal," Adam chipped in. "Talk about time off, or a possible clash for your working hours, next month."
"I don't think I can do this..." Ruth began, but Adam's phone chose that moment to buzz and they all paused as he read the text message.
"Fi's parents are five minutes out," Adam informed them, glancing up to meet Ruth's eyes across the room. "Ruth, are you in?"
She dithered.
"I can't..."
"You have to, Ruth," Zaf wheedled. "Adam has to be waiting on the other side of security and I'm carrying Juliet's box down to Michael Shipley. Jo's stuck on this surveillance detail, with Colin," he added, as Jo pointed to the headset she was wearing, presumably to demonstrate that Zaf was telling the truth, "so she can't help. You're the only one left."
"Can't you get Malcolm?" Ruth tried, lamely.
"According to Colin, he cunningly left early, for a dentist appointment," Adam explained, hurriedly. "Ruth, we need to know if you're in, otherwise we'll have to change the plan."
She bit at her lip. She drummed her fingers against the table. She looked up to where Harry was sitting, in his office, a few more times than were strictly necessary. It was not that she did not want to help – apart from not wanting to get caught of course – the problem was, she was wholeheartedly sure that she could not do this. Harry saw through people like her every day of the week. He was the boss spook. She could not possibly hope to hold up to his scrutiny. Still, it was for a good cause. Wes had always wanted a puppy and Harry looked exhausted. If she was ever going to fool him, it was now. Taking in a deep breath, she nodded, turning her eyes to Adam's, across the Grid.
"Okay," she said, conceding defeat, "how long do you need?"
"One minute to cross the Grid, four more to cover us while we're downstairs. You can bail out, after six or so, but hold on if you can. The longer he is occupied, the less suspicious he will be that we've all vanished from sight."
Ruth glanced over at Harry's office again and nodded. She doubted he would really notice they were gone, to be honest, but Adam was right to cover their backs. If he emerged from his office at the exact moment they were carrying a box full of puppy across the Grid, there would be hell to pay.
"Well, I'll do my best," she told him, lamely.
Zaf drummed his fingers fast across the desk and leant back in his chair. "Then operation 'Get Juliet' is go!"
"Ruth," Adam told her, "you've made Wes a very happy boy."
She scowled.
"I said I'd do it, Adam, I don't need any further emotional blackmail."
Adam chuckled. "Okay. When I walk by your desk, you are good to go, then. Zaf, you know your role, I assume?"
"Got it, boss," the younger officer replied.
"And tell Jo to keep her head down and call me if Harry thinks something's afoot."
"On it."
Adam hung up.
Zaf turned to Ruth, throwing her a wink across the Grid. "Just flutter your eyelashes, Ruth," he told her, "Harry's a sucker for a pretty face." Then he hung up to, leaving Ruth to stare at her screen, blushing violently.
She sat that way for a good ten seconds, or so, with the phone to her ear – to allay suspicion if anyone was watching the three of them end their phone calls near simultaneously. Then, tapping something into her computer, she set the phone back down in its cradle, with a click. Taking slow breaths and trying to rectify what they were doing with her logical desire not to be in her boss's bad books, she sat and waited for Adam to signal for her to go in.
All the while, her mind was scrambling for possible topics, to keep Harry's attention. Work was the obvious forerunner, but she hadn't any problems that needed solving. Adam's suggestion about holiday time wasn't that bad but she didn't know when she wanted to take her holiday time, this year, and it wouldn't be very good if she arranged it all now and then had to go back and change it when she actually had plans – if she actually had plans, that was. (Ruth was not exactly a social butterfly. Her last holiday had been spent curled up on her sofa, watching old films and sleeping at inappropriate times of the day). She had just come around to considering asking for another analyst to help with her workload, when Adam stood up at his desk and began to make his way over. He passed in front of her station, handing her off an empty file and giving her a meaningful look.
"Clocks on, Ruth," he told her, then turned on his heel and headed out, towards the pods.
With a surge of anxiety, Ruth stood and prepared to head over to Harry's office. She waited until Adam had disappeared from sight and Zaf had passed, heading towards the stationary cupboard, before making her play. Then, slowly, she began to walk forwards.
This was stupid, she told herself, smoothing down her skirt and trying to stop her legs from shaking. What was she doing, here? Why had she got herself involved? The whole scenario was very unlikely to get her fired, but it was more than likely to get her put in the doghouse (pardoning the pun) for the foreseeable future. Harry bore grudges and he did not like his employees being less than truthful with him. Though their infringement on his trust was a rather mild one, he would still be angry – and at Ruth as much as he was with Adam and Zaf, who had roped her in. Blame would be proportioned equally, not just to who had come up with the idea.
Ruth bit at the inside of her lip. This was very stupid. Over the last few months, she and Harry had started to talk more than they had done. Perhaps he realised that she was lonely, since Danny's death. Or, perhaps, it was just how things had worked out – their timetables being so that they were on the Grid at the same time almost every day. Either way, they had started to form what Ruth would tentatively term as a working friendship. They would say hello to each other, every morning. They would go slightly out of their way, during the day, to stop by each others' office/desk to see how they were getting along. Occasionally, during one of those evenings where they were the last two left on the Grid, Harry would stop and chat to her for a while. Occasionally, he even brought her tea when he was making some himself.
Things were nice between them. Comfortable, after a year or so of not quite being sure how to treat one another. Harry, it seemed, was a hard man to earn trust from but, once you had it, you had it unreservedly. Ruth had earned her trust. And she liked having it. She liked their gentle conversations over the weather and how Adam and Wes were doing. She liked being the only one who he really chatted to, apart from about work. She liked being the one to hear his half-hearted complaints about Juliet and management. She liked Harry and she liked him liking her back. So why was she doing this, exactly?
Because she was a soft touch and Zafar Younis was surprisingly persuasive.
Damn that man.
Swallowing to steady herself, she made her way down the narrow hallway to Harry's door, running through what she was going to talk about again in her head. A quick question that she did not really need to ask, about the case they were working. That would be followed by a smooth segue into talk about her holiday dates and whether he was going to look for cover. From there, they could talk about the more permanent transfer of analysts to their department – a subject which Ruth was quite sure she could carry on for at least five minutes as she felt quite strongly on the matter. Loathe as Harry was at vetting potential candidates, they did need another analyst. It was a good plan, for a conversation, but Ruth knew, once she stepped in that door, all plans would be thrown to the wind. Harry Pearce was not a man easily fooled, even when he was tired, at the end of the day. This was a stupid idea.
Her feet carried her to his office door almost automatically. On a good day, her job took her there once or twice, at least. Ruth was almost always the bearer of bad news. To his credit, Harry never took it personally. Whatever his rage, when she dumped another pile of inter-agency request forms onto his desk, it was never directed at her. He was a good boss, she thought, with a twinge of guilt. He did not deserve people to sneak dogs onto his Grid. Taking a steadying breath, she lifted her hand and rapped twice on the doorframe.
Her boss responded more or less immediately.
"Yes?" He answered, voice muffled by the door. Ruth was just reaching for the door handle, when it suddenly began to slide open of its own accord. She jumped, slightly, as Harry appeared in the gap. "Oh, hello," he greeted her, then looked back down at the report he was holding. "Could whatever it is wait, just a moment? I need to ask Adam about this. It won't take a second-,"
Ruth panicked. Adam was downstairs. Off site. Unexplained. And Zaf was probably preparing to carry Juliet across the Grid, as they spoke.
"Adam's not here," she blurted.
Harry froze, eyebrows raising slightly at the ferocity of her reply.
"Oh," he said, brow lowering into a frown. "Any idea where he might have gone?"
"Meeting Fiona's parents," Ruth stuttered, forcing herself to keep going despite the discomfort in her chest. The best lies were built on truth. She had to make this convincing. "I think its something about Wes," she explained, praying that Harry did not ask what, as she had absolutely no further information planned out.
"Oh," Harry looked genuinely concerned, for a moment. "Nothing the matter, I hope?"
"He looked more vexed than worried," Ruth blustered. "I'm sure it's nothing."
"I'm sure." Harry nodded.
They stood for a moment, regarding each other carefully. Ruth felt very aware of the throb of her rapid heartbeat in her neck and the ever-quickening rise and fall of her chest. Harry's attention was focussed intently on her face. There was an expression in his eyes which looked very faintly like suspicion. Anxious to quell it, Ruth cleared her throat and forced herself to speak again – to break the tension, if nothing else.
"Can I help?" she asked.
"Oh," her boss looked down at his file, frowning. "I don't know. Were you involved in writing up that business in Hackney, two weeks ago?"
Ruth felt a flash of offense.
"Yes," she answered, just a little shortly. She had personally written the report he was carrying. Well, she corrected herself, all the legible parts of the report – apart from Adam's scrawled debriefing, at the back. It was typical, however, that Harry did not know that. He seemed to think reports formed themselves from thin air, in the aftermath of crises. Still, it was not his fault, Ruth reasoned with herself. He read ten or twenty of these per day. He could not remember who had written all of them. "What are you having a problem with?" she asked, softening her tone.
Harry turned the file around, pointing to a section near the bottom.
"We have three references to Adam's source, but it's not mentioned previously in the report. I was just wondering how he supposed to justify a six-man surveillance team on a single eye witness report?"
Ruth glanced up at him. "You signed off on it," she pointed out.
Harry frowned a little more.
"Yes, I was wondering why. I have to explain it to the DG tomorrow - some waste of time to do with justifying our budget for the quarter."
Ruth paused. "Well... I'm not entirely sure," she began, hesitantly, stalling for time. "You didn't share your thoughts, on the matter."
A hint of a smile appeared around his lips.
"Shame," he commented, softly, eyes dancing over hers. "I'm sure my life would be more organised, if you kept track of my thoughts."
They hovered across from each other, not quite talking, for another few seconds, then Ruth held out her hand, offering to take the report and have a look through it. Harry accepted her offer, handing it over and stepping further back inside his office.
Glad to have moved him out of the corridor and into a Juliet-free zone, Ruth followed, flicking through the report. She knew it off by heart, of course, (and had already formed an idea on why Harry had signed off on Adam's intel), but she needed to stall for as much time as possible. Flicking through to the front of the report, she scanned through the paragraphs, trying to find one she could use in her ruse. She apologised to Harry as she went, for taking so long.
All the time her heart was thundering in her chest. Standing just inside his office, they were no more than a few feet apart and Ruth could not help but notice his eyes. He had beautiful eyes, she mused, as thought and words abandoned her, mindless adoration rushing in to fill its place. The rest of him might not be conventionally handsome – though Ruth liked it well enough – but Harry really did have beautiful eyes.
Oh, this was going to be the end of her, Ruth thought with a sigh. She couldn't fall in love with Harry Pearce (because this was falling in love, not just a run-of-the-mill workplace crush). Harry Pearce was a completely inappropriate person to fall in love with. She had not expected it to happen. Ruth knew she had a habit of mixing respect and trust with affection and that was what she had always taken her attraction to Harry to be. She had respected him from the outset. She had trusted him since she had seen how much he sacrificed, for his team and his country. She had thought he was wonderful since some indefinable point last year. And, now, she was falling in love with him.
Damn and blast. Why had she let this happen?
"Ruth?" he asked her name, softly.
Startled, Ruth looked quickly up, "yes?"
Harry nodded down at the file, pointedly raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, right, yes," looking down, she pointed to the last line on the page, realising she could not really stall any more on this one. "The information came from our Brixton asset," she told Harry, "which Adam corroborated with surveillance from our team on Bahir's cell."
"Brixton. The one we were keeping in safehouse k-five?"
"Yes," Ruth nodded. "He's been reliable, so far."
"Right. Well, that clears that up."
"I think you read the interview transcripts," she blustered on, stalling for more time.
"I probably did."
"We signed him over to six, last week, for one of their operations, if you need to get back in contact." Ruth added, then ran flat out of things to say. "That's all I really have, here," she mumbled, not able to tear her eyes away from Harry's.
Harry continued to watch her, his gaze unyielding. Interested, but not in work. He was reading her.
Ruth's stomach dropped away, inside of her.
He knew.
She had no idea how he knew, but he knew. She supposed it made sense. He was Harry Pearce, for god's sake. This was his department, his Section. He had been here since she had been flouncing around at University, studying ancient literature. She should never have been stupid enough to believe that they could fool him on his own ground. This was his territory, his place. He knew everything that happened here. He had probably known since this morning. God knows why he had decided to let it play out. Maybe it had all been a test, to see which of them would come and tell him first? God, what if she had failed?
"I should, um... paperwork, you know," Ruth began to stammer, but Harry cut in.
"What are they up to?" he asked, pleasantly.
"Who?" Ruth tried, in vain, to feign innocence.
"Zaf and Adam," Harry nodded behind her, to the Grid, "and perhaps Joanna Portman. I'm not sure, quite yet, but I know they're up to something."
"I'm sure they wouldn't, I mean," Ruth stuttered, "they aren't... and I wouldn't know what, even if they were..."
Harry stepped just half a foot forwards, the movement bringing them into quite close proximity. In response, the hairs along the back of Ruth's neck stood up and her heart shuddered faster in her chest. It was almost enough for Ruth to break down, there and then, and tell him everything. The only thing which stopped her was the thought of the bollocking Zaf and Adam would receive – and the possibility that seven year old Wes might not get his puppy. They stood in silence for a very long ten seconds then, finally, her boss sighed and spoke.
"I trust its nothing dangerous?" he asked her, his tone soft.
Ruth realised it was a kind of Harry-style forgiveness and hastened to seize it. Shaking her head, she assured her boss that their secret was, indeed, nothing dangerous. In fact, she told him, it wasn't even anything to do with work, or MI5.
"It's stupid, really," she explained, apologetically, "just something Adam and Zaf are doing, for Wes. It was nothing personal, keeping you in the dark, they just didn't want to..." she paused, searching for the appropriate word.
"Infringe on my plausible deniability?" Harry suggested.
Nodding again, Ruth felt relief tickle the sharp edges off her panic. "Yes," she told him, sincerely.
"So I won't be getting an interesting phone call, from the DG, tomorrow morning?"
"No. They'll have it all covered up in ten minutes or so. Nobody will know what happened."
Harry gave a slightly weary sigh.
"I suppose security are in on this?"
"Yes. Well, one of them," Ruth admitted. "One of Zaf's friends."
"...how comforting."
A moment or two passed then Ruth tried, again, to justify her colleagues' actions, hoping to bring back the edge of softness that had been lurking in her boss's eyes before she mentioned security. "They thought if you didn't know, then you couldn't be implicated if it all went wrong," she explained, meeting Harry's gaze shyly. "They meant well."
"And I suppose you got dragged into all of this against your will?" he asked, just a little sarcastically.
Ruth's blush deepened.
"Well, no," she admitted, "but Adam was rather adamant that they needed me, to distract you."
A slightly strange expression flitted across Harry's face.
"Was he, now?"
Ruth gave a nod.
The strange expression slid away again, as soon as it had come. It was only in its absence that Ruth realised what it had been. Vulnerability. Vulnerability and a little bit of worry. Oddly enough, vulnerability from Harry did not serve to make her feel any more sure of herself. In fact, it did quite the opposite. Her heart skipped faster, inside her chest.
"I didn't make a very good job at it," she admitted to him, softly, trying to break the sudden tension in the room. "I was never very good at distractions."
Harry cracked a small smile. "You did not badly," he told her. "If I hadn't already known, you would have had me wonderfully distracted." As his smile twitched a little wider, it threw up fine lines in the shadow of one eye. "A word of advice, for next time, however. When you come to my office, don't knock. It drew my suspicion immediately." He paused, momentarily, eyes sparkling. "You never knock."
Ruth's breath caught slightly, her heart thumping suddenly faster, blood rushing past her ears. She felt slightly giddy. And, to make matters worse, the reaction was not entirely un-reciprocated.
Across from her, Harry's gaze had grown deep and slightly dark. She had glimpsed that look before and, even if it was only briefly, she knew what it meant. Harry was just a man, underneath all of the self-control and all of his responsibilities. He knew that she had feelings for him and, Ruth knew, that sort of attraction made a woman attractive. Even if he would have never considered her before learning that she liked him, he had considered her since. Ruth had picked up on the glances he occasionally threw her way – on the smiles and the way he chatted with her lightly, when they were the last two on the Grid. He had considered what they would feel like, together. She could tell. However, he had never really let it stray out into the open before. Not like this. This was tantamount to flirting.
"Sorry," she breathed, not quite able to tear her gaze away from his.
"Quite all right." Harry's eyes darted about her face, revelling perhaps in catching her off-guard. "At least you're consistent. Besides," he added, in slightly honeyed tones, "if I were doing anything truly sinister in here, I'd lock the door."
If it was possible to die from embarrassment, Ruth thought, she would be well on her way to the afterlife by now. Her throat was suddenly tight, her skin quickly colouring a shade of beet , of course, said nothing about it, just continued to smile at her, sliding his hands into his pockets, the very picture of innocence. He was definitely teasing, thought Ruth, swallowing hard. The problem was, however, she had no way of stopping him. She was too flustered and embarrassed to come up with a coherent retort and she was too guilty to act self-righteous. She could not run because she was holding his file in her hands and he had his hands in his pockets. She could not hand it over and she could hardly just throw it to the floor and run. God no, he might follow her out onto the Grid, if she did that.
"I should really go and finish my paperwork," she whispered, her voice strained within her tight throat, hoping against hope that Harry would just take the file and let her go – preferably suffering from some sort of memory lapse, immediately afterwards, so that he could not remember any of this ever happening.
"Leave now and they'll know your distraction failed," he pointed out.
"Why bother with the pretence?" Ruth asked, a little breathlessly, her cheeks still burning. "You already know something's going on."
"Being assured it is nothing dangerous, I'd quite like to maintain my plausible deniability, should whatever it is they are transporting be discovered."
Ruth got the feeling that he knew exactly what they were transporting – that he knew everything.
"What do you want me to do, then?" she asked, with more bravado than she really felt. "Just stand here?"
"Well," Harry regarded her, with dark, dark eyes, "...you could distract me."
Ruth's heart leapt into her throat, her belly dropping away inside of her. She could distract him. Gods, how she would like to distract him. She would distract him here and now, with all of the Grid watching, if he asked her to, she thought. Well, maybe not quite with the entire Grid watching on, but right now, in the moment, it certainly felt like it. It had been years since she had wanted anything as much as she wanted this. The tension was so great that it even overcame her natural social cowardice. Suddenly bold, her lips parted and words fell from them before she had fully realised.
"...how?" she asked, wanting so desperately to know if what she felt was reciprocated, desperate for some sign that he might want her, desperate for him.
Harry leant slightly forwards, dipping his head towards her, and her heart rate trebled. His pupils were huge and black. The slivers of iris around them were almost gold in the office light. As his lips parted, she almost stopped breathing. God, she wanted so much to kiss him.
"I like coffee," he told her, softly.
Ruth blinked. Mind stilling.
"Coffee?" she asked aloud.
He liked... coffee?
"Milk, one sugar," Harry added, straightening up and giving her a pleasant smile. "And as hot as that machine can manage."
Her eyes narrowed.
Ass.
He was a complete ass.
The breath Ruth had not even realised she was holding flooded free from her chest. She stared up at her boss, caught somewhere between crippling embarrassment and a healthy dose of wanting to slap him across the face. He had done that on purpose – he had blatantly done that on purpose! He had used her feelings to his advantage, to teach her a lesson for sneaking around behind his back. Though a tiny part of Ruth knew that she deserved it, but most of her was seething over what a manipulative, smug bastard he could be. And to think she had spent the best part of the afternoon considering how it would be to marry him and make a houseful of babies.
"Fine," she stuttered, trying to pull herself together. "Okay. Milk and one sugar?"
"Milk and one sugar," Harry nodded, eyes victorious.
"Right."
Turning, Ruth tried to leave, then remembered she still had his file in her hand and turned hastily back towards him. While she had been turned, however, he must have realised she was walking off with his file as well, because he had taken a step forwards – perhaps intending to follow her out to get it. Ruth's turning, therefore, suddenly brought them very close to one another.
She breathed in sharply as his outstretched fingers, slipped across the file, coming to rest against hers.
Harry gave just a tiny start as well, some of the surety sliding away from his gaze.
"Your file," Ruth managed to force out, after a few tortured seconds had passed, not quite meeting his eyes.
"Yes, I forgot to take it back," Harry murmured back, a little less cocksure confidence in his voice now that they were touching.
"Here." Ruth pushed it a little further into his hand.
"Thanks."
For a few moments, they continued to stand, watching each other out of their peripheral vision, breathing in each other's scent. They were taking more time handing over the file than both knew was strictly necessary, but they had never really touched before and both were clearly interested in the reaction it caused the other. Finally, however, when they could pretend to be assisting each other no longer, their fingers disentangled and Ruth released her hold on the file, Harry tightening his. Their eyes flickered up to each others' faces, then both pulled back.
Turning on her heel, Ruth headed out into the corridor and across the Grid, through to the coffee room. She was still there, stirring milk into the mug, when Jo, Adam and Zaf appeared back on the Grid. Sidling up, they informed her that operation 'Get Juliet' had been a success and Adam's in-laws were heading off with the dog as they spoke. Turning to Ruth, Jo gave a wide smile and asked how distracting Harry had gone.
Shooting Zaf a glare as he chuckled, Ruth informed the younger officer that it was not something she would be repeating any time soon.
"Next time you want a distraction," she told them tightly, "Zaf can go streaking across the Grid. I'm out."
Turning her back on them, Ruth heard his muffled reply as she stormed off to give her boss his coffee.
"Well, I wouldn't want to scare anyone," the young officer quipped, then turned and asked their youngest colleague. "Who do you reckon rubbed her up the wrong way?"
Jo just shook her head warningly, in reply.
.
Ruth made the coffee and delivered it, thanking god that Harry was on the phone, because it spared them the awkward moment of encountering each other after their almost-moment in his doorway just minutes before. Handing over the cup, she was careful not to let their fingers touch, or even brush. She was too annoyed for contact.
As her boss accepted the coffee and mouthed 'thanks', however, the animosity she had been harbouring gently began to seep away. Yes, he could be an ass, sometimes... yes, he knew what she felt, for him and had used it to his advantage, to teach her a lesson... but it hadn't been done maliciously. Besides, he was a spook, she reminded herself. He played people for a living. Should any of this really have been such a surprise?
She was just a silly girl, she told herself, for getting herself into the situation in the first place. Forcing her feet to turn away from Harry's desk, she turned to head back out, to the Grid. She was a silly girl because she had no business falling in love with men like Harry Pearce. It could only ever end in disaster. She should stop it now, she scolded herself, before it went too far (though, in her heart, she knew it had already passed 'too far'. She was in love with him). She should stop giving herself opportunity to fall further.
As she reached the door, however, Harry's voice caught her and she could not help but turn back, to meet his eyes across the room. They were friendly.
"Thanks for the coffee," he told her, as close to an apology as Ruth thought she was ever like to get.
"It's nothing," she blustered back, fidgeting on the spot.
"Heading home?" he asked, clearly on hold. As he held the telephone half away from his ear, Ruth could hear the music playing in the background. GCHQ hold music, she recognised. He was talking to one of her old bosses, no doubt. Hopefully not about sending her back, or anything severe.
"I thought I'd hang around, finish some bits and pieces up," she blustered, trying to make a good impression – just in case this call was about sending her back to Cheltenham.
Harry gave a tiny smile.
"Go home," he nodded. "Or go wherever they're going, to celebrate," he added, nodding to Zaf, Adam and Jo who had just stood up and were heading to the pods, en-masse. "Today was a good day," he pointed out.
Ruth felt a little warmth creep up within her.
"And I should enjoy it, I know." She gave a little smile, not quite able to stop herself. "Find redemption where I can," she quoted him.
He looked a little pleased that she had remembered his advice.
"Exactly," he nodded, with a tiny smile.
They held each other's gaze for a moment longer and anything that was left of her previous annoyance fled from Ruth's heart. So Harry had played her a little, just because he could. No one had been harmed. Embarrassment had never killed anyone, after all. And it didn't make Harry a bad person. It made just him... Harry. And she was falling in love with Harry. Harry was good and brave and, stubborn ass or not, he protected them. He did his best by his team and by his country.
"What did they call it, by the way?" he asked, catching her just as she was about to bid him goodbye.
Ruth frowned. "It?"
"The thing I do not know about."
"Oh," she laughed, slightly. Of course he knew. He was Harry. "Juliet," she admitted, forgetting for a split second that Harry and Juliet had history and perhaps she should have held her tongue.
She needn't have worried about backlash, however. At her answer, a rich, warm laugh bubbled up, from Harry's throat.
"A worthy choice." His eyes flickered over her face again. "I'll see you tomorrow, Ruth."
"I'll be in early tomorrow, to collate our information coming in from the Iranian asset."
He gave a tiny smile. "Sounds like a plan."
Ruth took a steadying breath.
"Goodnight, Harry."
He never got to wish her goodnight, because whomever he was talking to, on the phone, came back on the line at that exact moment. Sending her a little roll of the eyes, at the ill-timed nature of it, Ruth's boss gave her a small smile and turned back to his desk, leaving Ruth standing in his doorway. After watching him for just a second longer, she slipped out and made her way back down the corridor, fiddling with her sleeves as she headed back to the Grid.
Arriving at her desk, she grabbed her coat and her bag and, though she wanted nothing more than to sit at her desk and finish up her work – and, occasionally, catch a glimpse of Harry doing the same across the room – she forced herself to turn off her system and head out, through the pods. Today was a good day. She would go and catch the others. She would celebrate because she didn't know how much longer any of them had. Remember Danny, she told herself, as the glass pods swished closed behind her. They had to seize every moment while they could.
As she slipped out of sight, she did not catch Harry's furtive glance after her, which was probably a good thing. It would have consumed her thoughts all evening.
.
