AN: Final chapter. Thanks for all your lovely reviews. Hope you enjoy...

"You've hardly got anything in your cupboards, Harry," she scolded, after a search of the kitchen had yielded nothing more than half a block of Cheddar and a loaf of bread. "How ever have you been managing?" Harry didn't reply for a moment. He was seated at the table in his chair, staring out of the misty windows. Gently, Ruth touched his hand and repeated her question. "There's a lady in the village shop who brings me up a few things when I remember to ask..." he explained distractedly.

Ruth raised her eyebrows. "And when was the last time you did that?" she asked wryly.

He shrugged. She sighed. "Well, cheese on toast will have to do."

They sat at the wooden table, scrubbed vigorously by Ruth while their lunch was grilling, and ate, Ruth trying to ignore how ravenously Harry was devouring the food she had made. "How are you, Harry?" she asked. "Really, I mean." Harry swallowed his bite of cheese on toast and took a swig from his glass of water – Ruth had sternly poured the remainder of the bottle of the whisky down the sink – before replying. "Tired. Old. Helpless. Frustrated." The list of adjectives almost brought tears to her eyes.

"Why did you come out here in the first place?" she whispered, the barest hint of a rebuke in her voice. "If you'd stayed in London, I could have... I mean, the Service could have found someone to help you..." She hadn't missed the blanket and pillow in the living room that Harry had quickly shoved out of sight behind the sofa, and had realised he'd been sleeping in the chair rather than face getting himself into a proper bed. "I couldn't have borne the humiliation, Ruth. You know that," he reminded her, his voice rough.

"Stubborn man," she joked weakly. He smiled, the first smile he'd smiled in months, and gave a one-sided shrug of the shoulders. "Perhaps," he acknowledged. "What would I have wanted with some Service nurse? The only person I wanted was..." He paused, biting his lip, and Ruth wondered what he was planning to say next. The word he settled on was, "Unattainable." She ducked her head, her cheeks flushing faintly, and for a while the only sounds that could be heard were those of eating and drinking. Finally, swallowing down her sudden and irrational shyness, she informed him, "I... I'm here now."

Harry patted her hand kindly. "For today," he nodded. "Tomorrow, you'll be back in London, on the Grid." She gritted her teeth and shook her hair back from her face.

"No, I won't," she retorted smugly. "You see, Harry, before I left, I... I resigned." His face paled rapidly and his eyes widened in shock. Ruth could have sworn that his breathing had sped up too, from the way that his nostrils were dilating rapidly. "What?" he forced himself to ask, trying to keep his voice level. She shrugged at him, a faint, helpless grin forming across her pretty face. "I resigned," she repeated. "Things haven't been the same since you left. I haven't wanted to be there, so I resigned." Her voice grew stronger. "I'm here now, and I'm not going anywhere."

They looked at each other, Harry stunned, Ruth defiant. "That was a very presumptuous thing to have done, Miss Evershed," he croaked at last. Her mouth twisted dryly.

"Perhaps," she acknowledged with a graceful incline of her head. Harry shook his own, tightly. "You can't do this, Ruth," he told her insistently.

"Do what?" she inquired lightly, feigning ignorance. He flashed her 'the look' – a glare that would have frozen any of his other former subordinates in their tracks. Not Ruth. He sighed. "Give up your life, your career, to the care of a crippled old wreck," he elaborated with a gesture of his large hand. "It wouldn't be right to let you – " Ruth's dark eyebrows shot up and her next words were pronounced in accents of extreme indignation.

"Let me? I'm a free person, Harry Pearce, and I make my own choices! And I'm choosing to be here, with you." He scowled and his mouth tightened sharply. "Ruth, you don't understand!" he snapped, frustrated. She rose from the table and removed their now-empty plates, beginning to run washing up water. "Then explain!" she ordered, exasperated. "If you don't want me, if you've changed your mind – " He wheeled himself over to her side and rested a hesitant hand on her elbow. "There's nothing I want more, my darling," he murmured sincerely, "but it would be cruel and selfish. If you stayed, if we married..." He grimaced and ran a hand through his hair. Ruth could not be allowed to throw herself away on him without at least knowing all the facts, even if her departure would probably finish him off for good. "There's no chance of an ordinary relationship," he stated baldly. "Sex is unlikely, children even more so. That isn't the life I want for you."

She shrugged out of his hold irritably. "I'm an analyst, Harry – don't you think I would have worked all that out for myself? And I'm still here." He bowed his head quietly, but his resolve was not shaken. "It's a sacrifice I can't ask you to make, Ruth."

She was cleaning the plates now, up to her elbows in soapy water, but her voice was determined and entirely focused when she quoted, "To be privileged to put my arms round what I value – to press my lips to what I love – to repose on what I trust: is that to make a sacrifice?" He couldn't help but smile. Trust Ruth...

"Jane Eyre," he voiced, amused. She turned to face him, and he was surprised to see that a tear was tracing a faint line of moisture down her cheek. "But it's true for me, too, Harry," she cried.

"You really want me?" he asked, disbelieving. "Even with..." His voice trailed off, unable to form words emphatic enough of his inadequacy. Mr Rochesters only got their Jane Eyres in novels, after all. She sat down so that they were on a level and took his hands, leaning forwards earnestly. "Even with the wheelchair, and your bad moods, and your habit of drinking whisky far too early in the day, and your vanity and pride – " He cut her off with an indignant chuckle.

"Vanity and pride?" he reiterated, voice breathy with laughter. "Well, I could say the same about your stubbornness and bloody-minded attitude to absolutely everything – " Ruth silenced him with a kiss, swift and hard. Tears mingled, and hands intertwined. Forever.

AN: Maybe an epilogue... I'm not sure yet.