A/N: Thanks to everyone who is reading, enjoying, and reviewing this story. I have changed the rating, for language in this chapter, and because who knows where Harry's head might take us next…

It seems to him, when the phone starts to shrill in the middle of the night, that it would be a very good idea to let his wife pick it up. At this time, it's more likely to be for her, anyway, he reasons, squinting at the digital bedside clock, as she slips out of bed and carries the sleek black handset into the hallway, shrugging on her cream silk dressing gown as she goes. She shuts their bedroom door, and when he pulls the duvet up around his ears, he can hardly hear her low voice at all; and in a few minutes, he is asleep again. When she rushes back into the room, one slender hand over her mouth and her eyes wide with shock, she knows better than to shake him awake; instead, she stands at the foot of the bed, softly calling his name, until he rolls over, dishevelled and sleep-ridden and still, she thinks, heart-stoppingly gorgeous.

He cracks open one intensely blue eye, and as soon as he sees her face, he heaves himself upright, asking "What's wrong?" in that rich, deep voice, the one that still gives her chills whenever he speaks her name… her real name, that is. "Darling, it's Ruth. Harry's Ruth… she's been killed on an op. And Jim Coaver… it's something to do with Russia… it's all so awful, I can hardly believe it! " He stares at her in confused incredulity, the bleary remnants of sleep still clouding his brain. "No. It can't be true, not Ruth… how?" And in that moment, Christine Dale Quinn knows that the world they have tried so hard to leave behind has not yet finished with them.

oooooo

It seems to him that he has been kneeling on the cold tiles of this hallway forever; perhaps, Malcolm thinks hazily, this is what Purgatory is like; not a fiendishly hot antechamber to the eternal flames, but this bitter chill, ceaselessly seeping into one's soul… Harry had gone down like a felled ox, crumpling into himself as he collapsed onto the bottom step. Malcolm has tried everything he can think of, and still Harry will not move, or speak, or even look at him; he is hunched protectively around Ruth's cardigan, still clenched in one hand, and her phone, now clutched in the other, while the tears roll silently down his cheeks. Dear God, help me… what am I going to do with him? He tries one final time, his knees beginning to scream their protest at his mistreatment of them; you're not as young as you once were, they remind him, as they begin to throb painfully. Anything, he thinks, would be better than this frightening silence, this stillness… it's as if his spirit has vacated his body, and left it slumped here on the stairs…"Harry. I'm sorry to keep asking, but everything you told me last night, about you, and Ruth, and the house she was going to buy… did her mother know? It's only that Five has procedures, and…"

"Fuck Five." The voice is cracked, but it is undoubtedly Harry's; with a sudden heave, he lurches into a more upright, more defiant position, and his bloodshot eyes challenge the man still kneeling like a penitent on the tiles before him. "Fuck them," he mutters again; Malcolm winces, as he gets up slowly, eyeing Harry all the while. "She didn't know, did she? Ruth's mother, that is." Harry looks down at his hands. "She wanted to wait until she was certain about the house. I thought she might tell her mother sooner, but you know how stubborn she is…"

Malcolm nods, relieved beyond words that Harry seems to be behaving in a more familiar manner. "How about that shower? It would do you the world of good, you know." Harry shakes his head. "I can't." Malcolm decides to risk it; he sits down on the step next to his friend, and asks gently, "Why not?" Harry looks at him directly, then, and in his eyes, no longer the fierce amber of a hawk's, but the colour of dulled copper instead, Malcolm reads the answer: because she's up there. She's in every breath of air perfumed with her scent, in the fluffy slippers in the bathroom, in the intimacy of her stockings, shaped by her body, still hanging on the radiator. The sudden realisation hits Malcolm so hard, he gasps. "I'll be right back," he tells Harry, climbing awkwardly to his feet.

oooooo

It seems to her that he could at least try to answer her emails within a week of receiving them; she knows that he's a very busy man, but seriously, how hard would it be for him to write a quick reply, on his way from one meeting to another, or when he's not actually engaged in saving the world? Talk about the cobbler's children having no shoes, she thinks, as she stares at her Hotmail inbox, sitting in the only working internet café in Gaza, and signals to the waiter that she would like another coffee and a piece of kanafeh. Granted, I'm only his daughter, after all, not the whole sodding United Kingdom, but still...

The young woman with the unnervingly clear gaze minimises the browser on her battered laptop and pulls up a Word document: the runsheet for tomorrow's filming, if all goes to plan. I should know better than to rely on him…he was never there when I needed him, so what else is new? It's just that he sounded…apprehensive, somehow, the last time I heard from him. He said he had something to tell me, and then the bloody signal had dropped out…I hope he's all right. I hope he wasn't about to tell me he has cancer, or something equally hideous…not that I'd be surprised, living the way he does, too much whisky and then all those rich dinners at the club, not to mention all the stress he's under…oh, Dad. Please be all right…maybe I'll try and call again tonight. With this thought, the young woman with hair as fair as her father's finishes her coffee. Twitching her hijab into place with a practiced movement, she steps into the hot, crowded street.

oooooo

It seems to him that she is still here, perhaps just in the next room, even though Malcolm has done his best to air the top floor, flinging open all the windows and filling the little house with crisp, cold autumn air; even though Malcolm has removed everything of hers from the bathroom (along with his own razor and the contents of the medicine cabinet, Harry notes wryly) and found a fresh towel to hang on the hook she had left hers on just the other day… undressed and unheeding, he stands in the middle of the bathroom floor, staring at the radiator where she had left her stockings to dry…

'Be careful! I haven't got another pair… here, let me. Oh, you men are so clumsy…' Once more he sees Ruth, daintily lifting one foot onto the rim of the bathtub, rolling her eyes to let him know she's only teasing; and then she teases him properly, slowly slipping off first one stocking, then the other, the sheer nylon whispering against her skin and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up… and then, and then… and then it had just been the two of them, and all the time in the world, at last. At last, my love has come along…isn't that how that old torch number had gone? ...my lonely days are over, and life is like a song…

Afterwards, she had gotten out of bed, despite a determined effort on his part to prevent her from ever leaving his side again, gathered up the trail of discarded garments, and tossed his things into the overstuffed laundry hamper… she had quickly rinsed out her own smalls, hung her rumpled dress to get the worst of the wrinkles out, and then come back to join him, curling beneath the duvet as if she had always belonged there, on that side of the bed. 'Towers will wonder why I'm wearing the same dress two days running,' she had fretted, and Harry had said, 'Towers will know why, if he's even half as observant as I think he is. You'll have to start leaving a few things here, if… if this is going to be a regular occurrence?' She had looked at him solemnly for a long moment, and then replied, 'I suppose it would be the most sensible thing…' Harry had rolled her on her back then, laughing, and… and…No. She can't be gone, not when I can still feel the all the different shapes of her in my hands, my fingertips tingling with the excitement of each new discovery, and the warmth of her against my skin… Ruth, my Ruth, tell me, why the hell did we deny ourselves for so long? All those dreary, lonely years apart, for such a short season of bliss…and even the few weeks we had together were poisoned by that fucking Russian bitch… Damn it, think of something else, Pearce, and quick.

A few nights later, she had turned up on his doorstep with an oversized Sainsbury's carrier bag, and from it had produced a chipped blue mug, a new packet of HobNobs, a pair of fluffy pink slippers, half a dozen books, and a couple of changes of clothing. 'All moved in?' he had asked drily, watching her hang her clothes – all dark, sombre things now, nothing like the rather Bohemian styles she had worn, at the beginning, all those years ago. He preferred her in the others, if he was being honest, the unusual jackets and colourful skirts, the pretty blouses… the Ruth who had worn those was long gone, though, and a very different woman stood before him now. 'I've learnt to travel light,' she had smiled back at him, those remarkable eyes of hers shining softly, and then… and then… RAT-A-TAT-TAT! RAT-A-TAT-TAT! RAT-A-TAT-TAT!

"Harry? Are you all right in there?" What? Who's that… oh yes, Malcolm: he must be hanging around on the landing like a faithful retriever, worried lest I might be doing myself in… Harry sighs, and finally turning on the water, he climbs stiffly into the tub, and stands beneath the soothing stream. If only…