A/N: 2nd and final chapter. Thanks to all readers, and also reviewers. Thank you for your interest and your predictions about what is going on. I hope you approve of where I take it, and why.

"Jesus, Ruth," Harry says, making no attempt to hide his irritation, "I could have taken your head off." Harry drops the arm which holds the pistol, and activates the safety catch. "Isn't it a bit late for dinner?"

"I ….. I …... didn't …..."

Ruth is still shaking, but there is an added distraction. Harry is dressed for bed – track pants and a t-shirt – his burgundy-coloured bathrobe hanging open. As she has been standing there, waiting for the shot to be fired, her eyes have become accustomed to the dark, and it is only now she can detect the outline and shape of Harry's body beneath his clothing. Of course, she knew the figure on the landing had been Harry, but she'd had to wait until he recognised her. That's what she is telling herself while she turns from his scrutiny of her, his face thunderous, and heads back towards the kitchen.

When Harry finds her, after having quickly tied his bathrobe, she is sitting at the kitchen table in the dark. This time, when he speaks, his voice is much softer.

"Ruth …..." he says, watching her as he slowly approaches the cooker, "I could have shot you and killed you. Why didn't you ring?"

"I did. Your phone went straight to voicemail." Ruth's voice is shaking, and she takes her hands and places them on her lap, under the table, where Harry can't see their trembling.

Harry reaches the cooker, and turns on the light above the cooker. The light is just bright enough for them to see around the room, and not so bright that it hurts their eyes. He then places the gun on the bench beside the cooker, and reaches into the pocket of his robe, and brings out his phone. He opens it, and tries waking it up.

"The battery seems to be dead. Sorry, Ruth. I haven't exactly been looking to be in touch with anyone these past few weeks."

He places the phone on the end of the table before again turning towards the bench, and turning on the kettle.

"I think a cup of tea is in order," he says.

"Have you …... anything stronger?" Ruth asks, looking up at him.

Harry turns to look into Ruth's eyes, and for the first time, sees her fear.

"What do you think?" he asks. "Is whiskey okay?"

Ruth nods, and so Harry quickly leaves the room to get a bottle and two glasses from the living room. Once Harry has poured them each a drink, they sit in silence for a few minutes, sipping their whiskey. Ruth finishes hers before Harry.

"Another?" she asks, and so he pours more amber liquid into her glass. "I'm not trying to get drunk," she explains. "I just need to settle my nerves."

"I'm sorry you were so shaken up, Ruth. Had I know it was you, I would have left the gun in the drawer upstairs. You still haven't said why you're here."

Ruth looks up suddenly, as if remembering something. "It's your security system. On Tariq's nightly scan, it showed up as deactivated."

Suddenly she grabs her bag from the end of the table, and digs around in it with her hand. Harry is watching all her movements, looking for signs that she is not as recovered as she wants him to believe.

"I have to ring Tariq," she says, struggling with her phone's lock screen.

Harry reaches across the table, and gently takes her phone from her hands. "I'll ring him, Ruth," he says. "I'll let him know that everything's alright. I turned it off myself …... just before Downton Abbey started, so it must have been at around 8.30."

Harry gets through to Tariq after two rings, and while he explains the situation to the techie, Ruth holds Harry's eyes with her own, and mouths, `Downton Abbey?' Harry's phone conversation is over quickly, so he closes Ruth's phone, and places it back on the table between them.

"I never watch it, Ruth. I turn off the TV just before it begins."

Likely story, Ruth thinks. He probably drools over Lady Mary Crawley ….. all that smouldering haughtiness. "Why did you turn off your security system?" she asks.

"It seems to have developed a fault. The alarm goes off for no reason, even when the front door hasn't been opened. I plan getting someone in to look at it tomorrow. I'd only just gone to bed when I heard the back door bang."

"I'm sorry about that. I knocked, but …..."

Harry nods, and then he concentrates on his whiskey glass, which he slowly turns around between his fingers.

Meanwhile, Ruth finishes off her second whiskey, and then licks her lips. Good quality whiskey tastes so much better.

"I think I could do with a tea now, Harry."

They sit over their cups of tea, saying little. Harry is too afraid to speak, for fear she'll suddenly get up and go home, and Ruth wants to talk to Harry, but doesn't know where to begin.

Then she remembers the two items she'd put in her bag, just before she left the Grid.

"I brought a couple of things to give you," she says, reaching for her bag, and shuffling around inside it, feeling her way around the bottom of the bag. Smiling, she lifts out of her bag a foil-wrapped Easter egg, and a flash drive. "One of these is a gift from me to you, and the other has something on it I want you to look at for me. I need the opinion of …... someone I trust."

Harry takes both articles from her fingers, and looks across the table at her, his face relaxed at last in a smile.

"Thank you, Ruth, but I didn't get you anything."

"I didn't expect anything, Harry."

"That makes me feel even worse."

"I'm giving you the Easter egg because I want to, and I imagine no-one else would have given you one."

"There's no need to feel sorry for me, Ruth."

"I don't."

Harry sits in his chair, holding the chocolate egg in one hand, and the flash drive in the other. He uses all his self restraint to not stand up, walk around the table, and kiss her. He turns the egg around in his fingers.

Suddenly, he feels a knot of emotion crawling up from the pit of his stomach and into the back of his throat. It seems like years since anyone has thought to give him an Easter egg, and the simplicity of Ruth's gesture moves him in a way which surprises him. He gently places both items on the table, and then he stands up, and steps away from the table, turning to grab the teapot, which he'd left beside the cooker. He takes a deep breath …... and then another ….. and another.

"Harry, are you alright?"

Ruth is standing right behind him. He hadn't heard her move from her chair. He places both palms on the counter top, and takes another deep breath, letting it out slowly, and as he does, he feels Ruth's hand on his back, as she very softly massages her fingertips over the muscles of his back.

"Ruth, we could both lose our jobs if we get caught exchanging sensitive information while I'm on suspension."

"There is no coded message in the wrapper of the Easter egg, Harry."

He turns then, and faces her, his emotion having dissipated when she'd made the wry comment about the egg wrapper. He smiles into her eyes, happy that Ruth hasn't removed her hand, and that it is now resting on his waist. He leans forward, and very carefully slides his arms around her. He expects her to object – if not verbally, then with a sudden movement away from him. He holds her very gently, their bodies apart, while he waits for her to react.

"Besides, if you don't tell, then nor will I," Ruth says quietly. "I miss you at work, and I miss …. your expertise."

"I'm sorry I've made so little time for …... us, for …... this. The job just …... it consumes me."

"I know that, Harry. You have time now, though …... for this." Ruth moves just a fraction away from him, so that she can watch him. "I wasn't …... bringing you food because I thought you were in danger of starving."

He frowns slightly in confusion.

"The food was an excuse, Harry …... an excuse for me to see you. I've been …... wrong ….. to push you away like I have. I know that now."

He nods slightly, and his face relaxes, but he considers it is not yet time for celebration.

"Ruth …... I need you to know that ... every day I don't see you is an empty day."

They are awkward, he and she, and they struggle to say the simplest things …... but Harry has never in the eight years he has known Ruth declared his feelings for her as clearly as had right then. Even when he had (rather foolishly, it seems) asked her to marry him, he had not declared how he felt about her. He likes to imagine that he would have given away Albany to save any member of his team, and so that was perhaps not the grand gesture Ruth has believed it to be. He recognises the risk he has just taken, and with not a small degree of trepidation, he pulls back so that he can look at Ruth. She is gazing at him, her pupils dark, her lips slightly apart. If that isn't an invitation for him to kiss her, he doesn't know what is, but he waits.

"All I could think while I was on my way over here," she begins, still watching him with those large eyes, "was that you'd either been abducted, or murdered in your own house. I had to find out, Harry. I had to see if you were alright. What else could I have done?"

"Ruth," he says quietly, "tonight I could have killed you. I just …... can't get past that. I almost lost you before …..."

"Before what, Harry?"

He looks away from her for a moment, and sighs. "Before …..." He looks back at her, and her face is still an open invitation for a kiss, and perhaps more. "Before we were able to get past …... what it is has always kept us apart."

There. He'd said it. Almost. And he hopes Ruth understands his clumsy declaration of his intention, because if she doesn't …... if she doesn't understand what he is saying …...

As if in slow motion, Ruth steps closer to him so that she is pressing herself against him. He briefly closes his eyes, so that he can commit the moment to memory. Then he feels her hands find their way under his bathrobe, as she encircles his waist with her arms. He joins in the hug when he wraps his arms around her, and pulls her to him. He really wants to kiss her, but this is just as nice. They fit together. Their bodies curve and wind against one another – her breasts resting just above his belly, her face tucked into his neck.

They stand there, in his kitchen, with only the cooker light casting shadows, which slant across the table, and then climb a jagged path half way up the wall opposite. For the first time in years, Harry is happy. Again, he closes his eyes, and lays his cheek against Ruth's hair. She smells like the Grid …... and her shampoo …... and the air outside.

Inevitably, after a few minutes holding one another, their bodies close, Harry feels his own body respond, as he begins to swell against her stomach. He opens his eyes, and very slowly begins to pull away from her, hopefully before she feels what he is trying to hide. As he tries to pull away, her fingers press into the muscles either side of his spine, as Ruth holds him against her.

"Don't, Harry," she says against his neck.

"But -"

"You're a man and I'm a woman. It's healthy, and …..."

"And what?"

"And ..." Ruth pulls her face away from him, and looks up into his eyes, a small smile on her lips. "I'm glad. I'd been wondering ….."

"What had you been wondering, Ruth?"

"Whether you still could..." She smiles into his eyes as he lifts one eyebrow, and purses his lips. "... and if you could, whether you want me like that."

Harry can do no more than stare at her. Want her? If only she knew how much he wants her.

"I don't want you to go home tonight, Ruth." There. It's out in the open. Now it's up to her.

She gazes up at him, her eyes sparkling. "And I don't want to go home."

Harry tidies the kitchen while Ruth has a shower, so that by the time he enters his bedroom, she is under the duvet on the far side of the bed. They are about to spend the night together, and yet the last time they had kissed was more than five and a half years ago. Her eyes follow him as he unties his bathrobe, and then tosses it over a chair. He climbs into bed beside her, and lies on his side, his head on his pillow. It is well after midnight, and they have agreed to do no more than sleep together. Further intimacy will have to wait.

By unspoken agreement, they kiss gently, with just the barest hint of passion, before Harry pulls away, his eyes still on her face.

"I'd like to hold you while we sleep," Harry says.

Ruth nods, and turns on her side away from him, so that he can tuck his arm around her waist, curving his body around her.

"When we wake up, you know I'll be …... hard, Ruth. I need you to know that."

"If you're not, I'll be suing you for breach of promise."

He breathes out in a half laugh, relieved that Ruth is not prudish about how his body reacts to being this close to her.

When Ruth wakes, it is still dark, but she can feel Harry's erection pressing against her lower back, and she can tell from his breathing that he is awake. She gently pushes back with her buttocks, and he responds by burying his face in her neck, and kissing her skin again and again. When Ruth turns over to face him, she knows – they both know – that they are ready to take the next step.

Harry pulls away from her a little so that he can look at her. "That t-shirt looks better on you than it could possibly look on me," he says, before he kisses her.

It is a proper kiss, and as he feels Ruth's fingers touch the highly sensitive skin of his lower abdomen, where his t-shirt has ridden up from his track pants, he relaxes, enjoying the sensation of her fingertips lightly gliding over his skin, and then down his stomach towards the waistband of his pants. He smiles against her mouth. He can't help himself.

"I thought you'd changed your mind about coming into work today," Tariq says, watching Ruth as she settles herself at her desk. Tariq is busy at his work station. For all Ruth knows, he may have spent the night working.

"I had a late night and slept in," she says, sitting down at her desk, giving Tariq only a brief glance.

"How was Harry?"

"He was fine once he got over the shock of almost shooting me."

"And this morning? How was he then?"

Oh, Tariq, you clever lad!

"How should I know?"

Ruth may be lying doggo, but she doesn't fool Tariq. His last girlfriend had declared him useless at relationships. `You just don't read the signals,' she'd wailed, as she grabbed her clothes out of his closet, and stomped out of his life forever.

Okay, so he may be rubbish in his own relationships, but he can read the signals loud and clear in others', and he knows – and would bet his house on it, if he had one – that Ruth had spent the night with Harry. It's the far-away look she gets when she thinks he's not looking, followed by the little smile which lifts the corners of her mouth. And it's just as well he's not a snitch. Besides, he likes Ruth, and he won't breathe what he knows to another soul.

It is his secret …... his and Ruth's and Harry's.

Fin