Last chapter. Need to get back to the other fic! Hope you enjoy..

Harry eyed the glass of water. 'Bit weak, is it not?'

'Harry, I'm not spending my evening playing Florence Nightingale and then killing you off with a cocktail of booze and pills!'

At that point the doorbell rang, forestalling any argument. He eased his wallet out of his back pocket and handed it to her. 'That's probably the food. D'you mind?' As Ruth went out to the hall he downed a couple of Solpadol and tentatively massaged his knee, as if expecting an instant improvement. He heard the front door close once more and Ruth return to the kitchen, muttering darkly about his having ordered enough to feed the whole of Five, Six, and half of Whitehall.

Rather than the tray laden with plates of food that he was expecting, she re-appeared with a knotted, balled up tea towel. At his look of puzzlement she opened it up, revealing icecubes in a sandwich bag. 'No peas,' she explained. 'Okay, you'll need to take your trousers off.' Pause. 'Do you...do you need a hand?'

For a brief moment Harry wondered what on earth the pills were that Ruth had given him, and could he get them on repeat prescription, then he glanced up at her and concluded that if it were a hallucination, she probably wouldn't look so mortified. He considered his underwear. Boxers would have been okay, but his trunks left nothing to the imagination and the last thing he wanted was for Ruth to take one look at him and bolt, leaving him holding a tea towel of melting ice cubes while his second dinner of the evening tantalised him from the distant reaches of the kitchen.

His fingers suddenly clumsy, he undid his trousers and, grimacing, edged them down over his hips. 'Perhaps you could pull now?' he suggested. He'd meant for her to take the bottom of the legs but she reached for the waistband, and he hardly dared breathe as her fingers brushed his thighs. Mistaking his tensing for pain, Ruth slowed right down, as if she were guiding a wire loop round a serpentine length of wire that would buzz at the slightest contact. As she eased the trousers over his feet he exhaled a lungful of air. Her eyes flicked up to his. 'Sorry. Shall...shall I get you a towel or something? So you're a bit less...'

'Yes, if you like, Ruth.' Leaning forward he inspected his knee. It was red and swollen, promising spectacular bruising. 'Are you sure it's not broken?'

Ruth, busy wondering if it was so terrible if she didn't bother about the towel, took a moment to reply. 'Um, yes, it'll be fine. Here.' She handed him the bundle of ice, which he gingerly laid in place. 'I'll just...I'll just dish up. A bit of everything, is it?'

Harry grinned.

Both ravenous, they ate in silence, Ruth rather impressed by Harry's dexterity with chopsticks. As she passed him the tub of rice, something made her ask, 'The photo...above your bed. Is that you?'

He blinked. 'Er, yes.' He glanced down at his still-exposed chest. 'Difficult to believe, I know. Archie took that, Archie Hollingshead, an old colleague at Five. Catherine was just a couple of days old.'

The name meant nothing to Ruth. 'Well, he was wasted at Five. He should've been a photographer. It's beautiful.'

For the second time that evening they were interrupted by the doorbell. This time, Harry offered no explanation, and so Ruth looked rather more astonished than Alec when she found him standing on the doorstep clutching a pair of crutches.

'What on earth...?'

'Express delivery for Sir Harry. And you can tell him the other matter is...dealt with.'

'How...when...what other matter?'

'Do you need a hand at all? Getting him upstairs or anything?'

'No, if he can't manage with these he can bloody well bumshuffle. Alec, what other matter?'

He winked. 'Night, toots. See you tomorrow.'

'Harry?'

'Mm?'

She held up the crutches.

'Oh, great. I just hope he didn't mug someone for them.'

'How..?'

'I phoned him while you were upstairs checking out my taste in bubble bath.'

'Right. I wouldn't say Dead Sea Salts really counts as bubble bath. Harry, he said that the other matter is dealt with. What other matter?'

'Oh. Let's just say that half an hour of surveillance footage from earlier this evening no longer exists.'

'Oh god. I completely forgot about them...poor Dolby, I bet he'd've loved to have seen photos of you running half naked through central London.'

'And getting a piggy back ride from some strapping rasta. Mmm. Oh, Ruth, stop laughing, it's not funny. It's not...bloody funny.' All he could do was watch, entranced, bemused, and not a little sad, as he realised that this was the first time he had ever seen Ruth Evershed laugh til she cried.

The combination of the crutches and the painkillers made him slightly more mobile, and he unsteadily got to his feet. The sight of him upright and wincing as he put weight on his cut foot sobered her up. Palming the tears off her cheeks she moved towards him. 'Harry, you should keep off your feet unless you really have to. You don't want to...'

'Stay.'

The blue eyes widened.

'I don't mean sleep with me, although I want that, you know I do...'

'Harry...'

'It's just that it's late and the spare room's all done up. I don't know if you inspected it or not...'

'Harry...'

'But it's quite nice, well, I think so, for what that's worth. And I'm told the bed's comfy, though don't worry, even with these things I don't think I'll be in any fit state to creep along the landing to test out that hypothesis...'

'Harry, will you...'

'...let alone re-enact the Kama Sutra. I promise if you say yes I won't read anything into it, it's just that...well, I know it sounds daft but I just don't want to be the only living, breathing being in this house tonight, Ruth. I want...'

He was stopped, mid-sentence, by her index finger resting lightly on his lips. 'Wh..?'

And she smiled that dimply smile that could make him promise her the moon, the stars, and every galaxy from here to infinity.

'Yes.'

FIN