Thank you very much for the reviews and the welcome back! Unfortunately I couldn't resist posting the first chapter when I finished it rather than writing the whole thing first, so there will be a bit of a delay between each upload. Sorry. And sorry, too, for the choice language here and elsewhere. On we go…

Darkness was falling. Harry and Scarlet were seated on the bench at the far end of the garden. As Graham approached, Scarlet raised her head, her tail thumping softly against the wood. In the gloom Harry's expression was unreadable.

'Hey Dad. Fancy a top up?'

Harry raised the tumbler; his whisky was almost untouched. 'I'm fine thanks, son. Have a seat. Ruth off to bed?'

Graham sat down beside him. 'No, she's reading her baby names book. Aaron?'

'Over my dead body.'

'Thought you'd say that. Have you any favourites, then?'

'James and Ava.'

'Huh. One of each?'

'Ruth's very organised. À la Margaret Thatcher.'

'Don't tell Ruth that though, eh?'

His father chuckled.

'So she doesn't like them? The names, I mean?'

Harry stretched his legs out across the grass, wincing as his knee protested. 'I think they're on the list of possibles. To be honest, I don't think we'll decide until they're born. They may not look like James or Ava. Or Aaron, or anything else we've considered.'

'Um, talking of upsetting Ruth, she mentioned this morning.'

Harry took a slug of Ardbeg. 'That damn beach ball.'

'What? No, the proposal.'

'It wasn't so much a proposal as a setting of the date. And my timing was a little off, as usual.'

'I think she realises her reaction was a bit…hasty.'

Harry raised a sceptical eyebrow.

'If you tried again, maybe with the hearts and flowers bit…'

'We're a bit old for hearts and flowers.' Harry's gaze returned to the amber liquid swirling in his tumbler. 'Thank you for your concern Graham, but this is between me and Ruth. I don't need…'

'You do need! You absolutely do need! Honestly, for a couple who are so obviously made for each other you two are making a cracking job of royally fucking it up.'

'Graham.' Harry's voice was dangerously quiet, but if his son picked up on this he was past caring.

'Look, I know Ruth can be a bit…mercurial, and I'm not sure I know her well enough to know….'

'You don't.'

'…whether it's the pregnancy and her hormones and all that, or whether it's just who she is, but you have to concede you're bloody difficult to live with, Dad, and if she's put up with you all this time I think she's earned the right to throw a strop once in a while.'

'Throw a strop?!' Harry thought. 'Jesus, you don't know the half of it.'

"I'm sure she has,' he replied, stiffly.

'So don't blow it, yeah? Talk to her, Dad…'

'Graham, for the last time - in the unlikely event that I ever want relationship advice from you I shall ask for it. Clear?' And with that Harry stood and limped back across the garden with as much dignity as he could muster.

'…don't just walk away like you're doing right now when the going gets tough!'

Harry may no longer have had the razor sharp faculties of his youth, but he was fairly certain that Graham followed this last riposte with a muttered 'Just grow a pair, why don't you?' He felt his fist clench, his pace slow, and he bit back the retort that came all too easily to his lips. He knew all too well that if he started, he wouldn't stop, and he had no wish to shatter the fragile détente that had built up between them over the past few months. Breathing hard he continued back towards the house.

Ruth was standing, pan in hand, in front of the open cupboard, considering the logistics of managing to return it to the bottom of the stack, when Graham's voice rang out across the garden.

'AND BLOODY LISTEN FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE!'

At that moment Harry appeared in the doorway wearing an expression that had turned many a confident and capable underling into a quivering, inarticulate wreck.

With a sigh she shut the cupboard door and laid the pan back in the draining rack. 'What have you done now?'

Harry, studying the calendar pinned to the wall, didn't answer.

'Harry?'

'Thursday.'

'What?'

'Thursday's free.'

Moving over to him she glanced up at the page. 'Yes, so….?'

He turned, and cupping her face in his hands he kissed her.

He was dimly aware of Graham coming in from the garden, the muttered 'Oh, for god's sake, get a room', and moments later the louder, pointed, 'I'll take the dog for her bedtime walk then, shall I?' but it was a well-aimed kick from a tiny foot that finally broke the kiss.

'Oof. That was a bit close for comfort.'

'You should try having it going on in stereo inside you , 24/7. So, Thursday?'

He took a deep breath. 'We're getting married.'

She stared at him, disbelieving. 'What? Harry, didn't you listen to a word I said this morning?'

'Do you love me?'

'You know I do.'

'And what you said about us hanging by a thread, that was just said in the heat of the moment, yes?'

'Well, sort of, but…'

'This is just a bad patch, nothing more, nothing less, and entirely understandable given what we've been through in the past few months. But we need to put the past behind us, Ruth. We need to move on.'

She still looked far too mutinous for his liking. 'We're good together, aren't we?' he continued, taking her hands in his. 'This morning, considering all our respective impairments...'

'Impairments?'

'My impairments. Our babies. Considering…tell me it wasn't bloody fantastic?'

'It was pretty good,' she conceded.

'Damned by faint praise. Ruth, you deserve to be happy. Let me make you happy. Please.'

'It's not your responsibility to make me happy, Harry. Nobody else can make you happy. Only yourself.'

'Then let yourself be happy. We can be good together. We can make this work.'

All too often in the wee small hours Ruth had lain awake and wondered if in fact they brought out the worst in each other, but as she looked up into his eyes she knew that she owed him, owed them, owed all of them, a chance.

'There's only one thing I have to say.'

'Oh please god,' thought Harry. 'Please. I don't think I could stand….' He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

'If you think I'm waiting 18 years for a proper honeymoon you can think again.'