In the end he neither laughed nor cried.

He sat on the step up to the porch, his head resting on his hands, until he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. So I'm not seeing things, he thought. I haven't completely lost my mind. It is Ruth, and she's here, with me.

"Come inside, Harry," she said. "It's so cold outside, and I built up the fire for you."

It was only when Scarlet began jumping up and licking his face that he turned to look at her. His Ruth. The woman he had dreamed about for over four years. Four years, six months, eight days, and seventeen hours.

"You're here," was all he could say. After all the romantic speeches he'd prepared during his private moments, after all the lines from poems he'd been prepared to quote when he again saw her,`you're here' was all he could say. He stood up and followed her back into the house, and as he went he turned on a couple of lamps.

Turning to face Ruth, he noticed that her hair was a little longer than she'd worn it before, and it was quite wavy, even curly in parts. He liked her hair that way, and longed to run his fingers through it. He lifted his hand to do so, and then let it drop by his side. Standing only an arm's length apart, they each carefully scrutinised the other. He noticed her eyes wandering over his whole body. She saved her most intense scrutiny for his face, her eyes taking in every line, every scar, and from there she took in his neck, shoulders, arms, hands, chest, stomach, groin, legs, even his feet. He was relieved that he'd dressed well for the dinner party, and he was happy to have lost some weight due to the long walks with Scarlet.

He thought she looked thinner, although that could be the skinny jeans she was wearing, and the tight-fitting thigh-length jumper she wore, which clung to her body, and showed her curves, but with a roll neck collar, he had no view of her neck. He wanted to pull aside the collar of her jumper and gaze at her neck. He wanted to then bury his face in her neck, and kiss her until she begged him to take her upstairs.

"Would you like a tea, Ruth?" he asked, in an effort to bring himself back to reality.

"I'd love one, thank you."

So they sat at the large wooden table in the kitchen area, and sipped their tea and nibbled on digestive biscuits. Awkwardness sat between them like a third person, until Harry decided to deal with the practical issues first.

"There's another decent sized bedroom upstairs that you can use for your bedroom. I believe Malcolm intends using the third bedroom for storage."

"I know. My things are already up there. I saw you took the biggest room."

"I hadn't known you were coming, and anyway, I'm bigger than you, so I need the bigger room." He smiled weakly at her.

"You've lost weight, Harry."

"A little, I think. The walking helps." And after another long pause during which neither spoke. "How long are you staying?"

"I haven't thought about it. Malcolm told me you were here, so I thought we could decide that together."

"You're welcome to stay here for as long as you like, Ruth. You know how …..."

"Yes, I do. Malcolm told me you'd retired, and travelled through Europe looking for me. That's very …..."

"Foolish?"

"I was going to say that's very romantic. No-one has ever done anything like that for me before."

"I met George."

"Yes. Malcolm told me."

"Is there anything Malcolm hasn't told you?"

"I'm sure there's a lot he didn't tell me. How was George?"

Harry held his breath, hoping Ruth didn't care too much how George was. "He was angry, I think," he said at last. "Firstly because you left him, and secondly because the man you'd loved and left back in England was such a disappointment to him."

"He said that?"

"As good as. He called me old, overweight, balding and washed up."

"Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry. George can be nasty when he wants to be. It's just verbal sparring to him. It's his favourite game, but he can be cruel. He loves it. He's very clever with words. In the end, I couldn't take it any more."

"Is that why you left?"

"In part. We had a massive argument one evening after Nico had gone to bed, but it wasn't even just that."

"Nico?"

"George's son. He was almost eleven when I left. I loved him like my own child, and I miss him terribly. The argument began when he noticed I was …... in a thoughtful mood. I began to miss England, to miss you, to miss the weather. I never thought I'd miss English weather." She lifted her head to smile at Harry. "It was the familiar things that I missed. He noticed I was lost inside my thoughts, and he said something sarcastic like, `I see you're thinking about that Englishman again.' It was so childish, his jealousy. In my mind, my relationship with him was entirely separate from what you and I had once been to one another. We ended up having a massive argument in which I told him you were ten times the man he'd ever be. Next morning I apologised, but he told me to leave. So I did. I felt such relief once that plane took off from Paphos."

"Was he ever …... violent towards you?" Harry could feel a core of rage towards the petulant George building inside him.

"Only verbally, never physically. Although there were a few times I submitted to his demands …... sexually …... just to keep the peace."

Harry was shocked. "But Ruth, that's rape," he said quietly, holding in his rage.

"I know, Harry, I know." She sighed heavily, pouring herself another cup from the pot. "We were very happy for the first year or so, but after that, it all began to go downhill."

Harry had sworn to himself he would not ask her this question, but it was out of his mouth before he could stop it. "Did you love him?"

She smiled at him, a tired and washed out smile. "I was wondering how soon it would be before you asked me that."

"I'm sorry, Ruth. I shouldn't have. I take it back."

"It's said, and I'll answer it. After talking to Malcolm, I told myself I'd be honest with you. You deserve that. When I met George, he was very charming and polite – the perfect boyfriend. I moved in with him when the lease ran out on my little house, and the owner wanted to sell it. Moving in with him seemed like the next natural step. I loved him like I'd loved all my boyfriends in the past. He fitted a template. He was charming, employed, good-looking, treated me like a princess, made promises which mostly he kept. He was never you, Harry, but I hadn't expected to find anyone to replace you. No-one ever could, and no-one ever will. George was there, and he was the right person for where I was and how I was feeling at the time. Did I love him? Yes, in a way, I did. By the time I left, I was a little afraid of him. He was showing sides to his personality that I couldn't handle, and he frightened Nico with his tantrums. By the time I was ready to leave Madrid, I was well and truly over him, but I still miss Nico."

"Do you have contact with the boy?"

"No, and I may never see him again. George will never let me see him. He'll want to punish me, and that is the only way he knows how."

Harry sat back in his chair, thinking of his brief encounter with George. He couldn't get his head past George having forced Ruth into having sex with him. Had he known that before he'd met him, he would have killed him when he'd visited Polis. There was still a possibility he could have him killed. There were a couple of people in Malta who owed him favours.

Ruth stifled a yawn.

"You should go to bed, Ruth. It's almost one o'clock."

"What about you?"

"I'll clean up here first, then I'll turn in."

"Harry," she said as she reached the foot of the stairs, "I don't mind if you come to bed with me. I'd quite like the company."

There had been no contact between them, other than a touch of her hand on his shoulder, and his fingers on her arm. He felt they had a long way to go before such intimacy was possible. "Thank you, Ruth. I think I need a more enthusiastic invitation than you quite liking my company."

She held his gaze for a moment. "Are you put off by what I told you about George?"

"Maybe a little, but it's not that. It's …... it's just that I have some kind of romantic notion about us, Ruth. I want to be more to you than just company." I want you to crave me, he thought, to long for me as I have longed for you. In the meantime, he could wait.

She nodded before she turned to the stairs.

"Goodnight Ruth," Harry said.

"Goodnight," she said from the third step.

Once he heard her bedroom door close, Harry collapsed in a chair and held his head in his hands. It was all too much, and so much was happening so quickly. He wanted to join her in her room more than anything, but they had only just spent a rather uncomfortable two hours together, and a quick comfort shag would not help them to reconnect. He waited another half hour until he was sure she was asleep, and then he climbed the stairs to his own room, stopping briefly outside her door to listen, making sure she was alright. She was under the roof with him, and this time he was determined to protect her.

Their days passed quickly. Ruth had Mondays and Wednesdays working at University of Dundee, a forty-five minute drive away.

"I began working there when I came back to the UK," she told Harry on their walk next morning.

"Which was when?"

"In January of this year."

Harry stopped and turned to look at her. Scarlet, on the end of a lead, pulled up short and whimpered. "You've been back for over nine months?"

"Yes."

"So when I was racing around Europe looking for you, you were back here."

"Harry, it wasn't like that. From Madrid I took a train to Amsterdam, where I knew this guy who could make me a new passport. I didn't want Malcolm to be able to trace me."

"Why not?"

"Because I was tired from running, from living in a bubble, from having no roots. That's one of the reasons I moved in with George. He had a house and a child. He was an instant family. I had a place to be. I belonged."

"But Ruth, you've always belonged -"

"Don't say it Harry. Don't tell me I belonged with you. That couldn't have happened back then, and you know why."

Harry turned again towards the path, and began walking. "I should have gone with you," he said. "It would have solved a lot of problems. We could have settled on the east coast of the US."
"You in the US? You'd hate it. Surrounded by Americans? You would have been constantly picking fights with our neighbours."

Harry chuckled, knowing there was an element of truth in what she said.

"What's your official name now, then?" he asked.

"Eleanor Everett. My colleagues call me Ellie. Everett is another version of Evershed. My contact in Amsterdam thought it appropriate. I have two mobile phones now. The Nokia is for Ellie, and the Samsung is for Ruth. They have different ringtones. I'm now quite comfortable with my two identities. Malcolm says that the inquiry into Cotterdam will begin in a couple of weeks. It's only a formality now that Oliver Mace is in gaol."

They'd reached a lookout that Harry walked to regularly. From the elevated position it was possible to see the land rolling away in all directions, the patchwork of the farms and fields in different stages of growth and cultivation, and away to the east the slate grey of the North Sea, cold and uninviting. Harry waited until Ruth had sat down on the bench provided before he sat next to her. He left a space of around a foot between them. They sat for some time in silence before either of them spoke.

"I'm sorry I didn't manage the aftermath of Cotterdam better, Ruth. I didn't protect you as I should have."

"Harry, what's done is done, and the past can't be re-lived."

"For a long time after you were gone I was in a state of shock. At the time I couldn't see any other solution than the one we settled upon. I should have gone with you, and to hell with the dangers. I hated thinking of you alone in the world without any of your normal support systems. What I'm trying to say is I'm sorry, Ruth. The solution we chose wasn't a terribly good one."

"Harry, let's not rehash this, okay? I wish I'd never met Mik Maudsley, but I did, and the rest is history. It's history, Harry. Let's leave it there."

Ruth put out her hand and laid it on Harry's thigh. He understood that Ruth was calling a truce, an end to recriminations about the past. He stared at her hand like it was something he'd never seen before, an object of alien origin. He couldn't take his eyes from Ruth's hand resting on his thigh. Very slowly he placed one of his own hands on her hand, lacing his fingers through her own. It was the closest and most intimate act between them in four and a half years. Harry felt the tears spring into his eyes. He couldn't stop them. They rolled down his cheeks in rivulets, symbols of his suppressed pain, his fear that when and if Ruth ever came home, she'd hate him for how she'd thrown her life away to save him.

"Harry," Ruth said, concern in her voice, "what is it? Was it something I said?"

"In a way, yes," he said, the tears still tumbling down his cheeks, and splashing on to his corduroy jacket. "I feel as though I don't deserve your forgiveness."

"There's nothing to forgive, Harry," she said, squeezing the hand she held. "The last four and a half years have been as hard for you as they were for me. I can see that."

Suddenly, Ruth turned her body towards him on the seat, and with her free hand, she brushed her thumb across his cheeks, gathering the tears, and pushing them away. He watched her closely. Then she reached to him and placed her lips on his cheek. Her kiss was soft and gentle, so much so that he almost began weeping all over again.

"Why won't you sleep with me, Harry?" she asked after a time. They were still holding hands, their hands resting on Harry's leg.

He took a big breath and sighed, watching Scarlet as she ran back to join them, her nose close to the ground. "I want to, Ruth, you know that. I've always wanted that." He turned his head to look at her. Ruth noticed the sadness in his eyes, like he'd lost something which he knew he'd never find again. "I want it to happen in the right way, Ruth. Not just because we can, because we need comfort from one another, but because of what we are to one another. I want it to be an act of love, not just an act of release."

Ruth looked away from him and shook her head. "I think you prefer to love me chastely, Harry. I think that you're afraid to have sex with me in case you discover that I'm a normal sexual being, just like other women. I'm not a virgin, Harry. I've been with other men."

"I know that, Ruth." Again he sighed heavily. "I don't even know why it is I'm reluctant. I'm afraid it won't be right, or perhaps you won't enjoy it. I want it to be …..."

"Perfect?"

"Perhaps. I want the timing to be perfect. We'll know when the timing is right for us."

Ruth rose from the seat, her hand still holding Harry's, and together they walked back down the walking path, Scarlet running at their heels.