A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews for Chapter 1. They were kind and encouraging, and I feel a little more confident about this story as a result. In some ways, writing this has taken me out of my comfort zone, which can only be a good thing!
~ Fiona ~
(4.07)
"Jo, it's not your fault. There's nothing you could have done. Men like Farook Sukkarieh get what they want." Ruth wasn't sure that she was right about Fiona's first husband. Adam had killed him in the end, but Jo needed reassurance.
"I'm not sure this is the right job for me."
"Jo …... you're good, you're a natural. Adam said so himself."
"And perhaps had I acted like an MI-5 officer, then Fiona Carter might still be alive."
"I doubt anything would have stopped Farook, Jo. Not even you."
Ruth looked up to see Harry watching her from his office. A slight tip of his head summoned her to his sanctum.
"Harry?" Ruth said, as she drew level with his desk.
"Shut the door, Ruth."
As she stepped back to the door, and slid it closed, Harry stood up from behind his desk, and poured two glasses of whiskey, and then he sat on the sofa against the wall. Ruth again approached his desk, unsure where she was expected to sit. Hesitation and embarrassment passed quickly across her face.
"I won't bite, Ruth. There's room for us both on this sofa." Harry patted the leather seat next to him, and so Ruth sat beside him, but with a distance between them, so that when they turned to face one another, their knees did not touch. He offered her the glass of whiskey, and she took it, cradling it in both her hands.
"Morale is low on the Grid," she said quietly. "Fiona's death has come too soon after ….."
"After Danny's, I know. How are you, Ruth?"
Ruth smiled down at her hands, still cradling the drink, still untouched. "You know, I was wondering, Harry …... does anyone ever ask you how you are?"
She looked up at him then, her eyes on his. He held his glass only a few inches from his lips, about a take a sip, and then he stopped, his eyes registering the audacity of Ruth's question. Those who dared ask how he was never received a straight answer. His glass continued its journey to his lips, and he took a large gulp.
"Not if they value their life," he said, after he'd swallowed the liquid.
Oh, so that's the way it would be this time, she thought. All bluster and macho bullshit. Soft Harry, real Harry had left the building. Ruth sighed, and took a small sip. After all, it had only just gone midday. She could do with something to take the edge off, to help her forget that another one of them had died only the day before.
"I don't think Adam's told Fiona's parents …... or Wes."
"I heard the same thing," he said quietly, putting his empty glass on the small table beside the sofa. "You haven't answered my question, Ruth."
"I must be hardening," she replied quickly. "I feel …... very little, aside from anger."
"Anger is normal enough."
Ruth smiled down at her glass. Harry the counsellor. Physician heal thyself. Tom Quinn had hit the nail squarely on the head the day he'd said that to Harry.
"I'm angry with Fiona," Ruth said.
"Why?"
Harry leaned forward and took the glass from Ruth's hands, afraid that she'd spill the contents on to the carpet. She barely noticed that it was no longer in her hands. She picked at her sleeve with her fingers. Harry watched her busy fingers, as active as her mind.
"It was always a risk that she'd come to a sticky end, given her love for field work," he said. "She was good at it, too. I suppose you're thinking of Wes."
Ruth sat up straight, and looked Harry in the eye.
"There's that, of course, but I wasn't thinking of Wes and Adam." Ruth picked at an imaginary spot on her skirt. "I'm thinking about Danny. Danny gave up his life so that Fiona could live, so that she could be with Adam, and that together they could bring up their son."
Harry nodded. He understood her, of course. He'd thought the same thing, but would never be so crass as to say the words aloud. Danny Hunter gave his life so that Fiona Carter could live hers – with her family. And then she threw it away. It was too late to be thinking like that. It was too late to be judging the decisions made by a woman now dead.
"Danny only had his mother and his grandmother, and a few uncles and aunts. He hadn't a family like Fiona had Adam and Wes." Ruth could feel her anger rising. "Fiona going into that …... that hornet's nest was …... it was disrespectful to Danny, Harry."
"I believe that she went back into that hornet's nest, as you call it, with the full intention of killing Farook, so that she and Adam and Wes would be safe, and so that they could live their lives without always having to look behind them."
"Well, she went about it the wrong way. She took too many risks. It was doomed from the start."
"Ruth …... Fiona needed to be free to do it her way. It could just as easily turned in her favour. She almost made it, too. She had no need to thank Danny for her life. That was his decision, and what she then did with her life had nothing to do with Danny."
Harry reached out and put his hand on her arm. It was as though he had touched her with an electric cattle prod.
"Don't patronise me, Harry! I know how this works. I've heard you say it before. We have no friends in the service – just colleagues we'd die for. Well, that is total bullshit! We become friends through our proximity to one another, and through shared struggles and experiences, and such friendships mean something. Everyone here -" and Ruth swept her hand around her to take in all the Grid personnel "- is a friend …... and that includes you, Harry. I class you as a friend …... a good friend, a close friend."
"But we never socialise, Ruth. We're only friends inside these walls. That's what colleagues are."
Ruth knew what to expect from Harry for the remainder of this encounter. This was right-Harry, Boss-Harry, implacable-Harry, according-to-the-book-Harry. This was not the man she considered her friend. This was not the same man who had travelled with her in the back of a car to Danny's funeral, and sat beside her in the church, keeping an eye on her, caring for her, being her friend ... rapidly becoming her closest friend.
Ruth stood, and was about to leave. She had work to do.
"Sit down, Ruth. You're upset."
"You're damned right I'm upset. When do you get to lose it, Harry? When do you get angry? Do you ever express outrage over anything other than long-winded politicians, corporate greed, and the blatant arrogance of the US administration? Do you ever ask why it is young women with children put themselves in mortal danger?"
"Yes," he said quietly, his eyes again on hers, but this time they were velvet-soft and sad.
Ruth sat down, but this time she sat ever-so-slightly closer to Harry.
"You're not to breathe a word of this to anyone, Ruth. What we say to one another in here is strictly between you and me."
Ruth nodded. "I'd quite like my drink back, please."
She detected a small smile on his lips as he reached for her glass, and handed it back to her. "Don't drink it all at once," he said.
Ruth took a decent swig this time, and then let the alcohol slide slowly down her throat. She had an idea of why Harry relied on it so much. It soothed and it warmed, it comforted, but most of all it anaesthetised.
"I grieve for everyone who dies on my watch, Ruth, but I have to do that in private. I do get angry, and I …. grieve normally, just like anyone else."
"I know."
"What do you mean?"
"The day Danny died and you took me home. When you left, I saw you while you waited for your car to arrive. I saw you through my front window. You were crying for Danny."
"So you see …... contrary to popular belief, I am not made of stone."
"No, you're not. If you prick us, do we not bleed?"
"I hope you don't see me as Shylock, Ruth."
"Not all the time." Ruth dared a small smile as she looked up at him.
She took another sip of her drink. She was enjoying it. She was enjoying being in the office with Harry. At last, she felt safe and just right in his presence. The impasse had been negotiated. They had made it past another roadblock.
"I'd better get back to work," she said, handing him her empty glass.
He rose with her, and nodded, watching her as she walked to the door, and out of his office. He sighed heavily as the door closed behind her, leaving the air a little colder in the space where only seconds ago she had been.
A/N: Shylock's quote is from `The Merchant Of Venice', by Wm. Shakespeare.
