Sorry for the delay: some crazy stuff popped up at work, so I've not exactly been in a frame of mind to write.
4:
"Mary and Hope are being evicted," Catherine said Sunday morning during breakfast. "I hope you don't mind, dad, but I offered them our extra rooms to stay in till they can find somewhere else."
Harry glanced up from his waffle covered in rhubarb and ginger preserves and raised an eyebrow. "I don't mind, but… they are practically strangers," he said, controlling his voice to remain even and calm, even though his heartbeat was racing with adrenaline and panic.
Catherine rolled her eyes. "Dad…"
"Do you at least know if either of them have food allergies or anything we should be aware of before we begin sharing a living space?" he challenged.
"Hope's 'lergic to shwimps," Lucy spoke up.
"Well, then I'll have to stop cooking shrimp," Harry said, chucking Lucy on the chin. "Catherine, did you really think I would be cross about you offering a home to your friend? Am I really that bad of a man?"
"No, but you do tend to overreact just a little," Catherine sighed. "Always leaping to worst case scenario, that kind of thing."
"Has she given you an answer yet?" he asked, willing his fingers to stop clenching his fork so tightly – alas, they weren't listening to him at all, and his knuckles were practically white.
"She said she wants to talk to you first, make sure it's okay and that kind of a thing – she's coming by later," Catherine said. "And you'd better not be a pillock about it. You will treat her with respect, if nothing else."
"I will treat her with the utmost respect," Harry agreed.
"Good – Lucy and I will go out while you two are talking, and then I can finish marking papers this afternoon, if you can keep Lucy occupied," Catherine said decisively. "I think you'll like Mary. I really do. Maybe not as much as your precious Ruth, but… she's good, steady, dependable."
"Are you suggesting that I might be inclined to take advantage of your colleague in my own home?" Harry asked, feigning horror. "Absolutely not." He had the feeling that Ruth would be pushing him away anyhow; she'd been very good at putting distance between them, both literally and figuratively, for a damn long time.
"I'm just saying – look, she met Hope's dad as a one-night stand when she was running from the bastard that did her face in. She's been living in a hopeless fantasy that he was the best thing she was ever going to have in her life, and she's never given anyone a chance. So, if she decides to give you a chance… maybe I'm just saying that you shouldn't necessarily stop it. You deserve to feel something for someone else, too, dad – someone who's alive."
He exhaled heavily. "You just… mind your own love life," Harry warned softly. He glanced over at Lucy, who was watching him raptly, having just finished her waffle. "Hey, now, are you finished, sweetheart? Shall we go get you cleaned up so you can play?"
"Pwease, granpa," Lucy said.
Harry took her to the bathroom and got her cleaned up. Once she was settled with a movie and her dolls in the living room, he went back to finish his breakfast in a couple of quick mouthfuls. Catherine was doing the dishes when the doorbell rang. "That'll be her!" Catherine called. "I'll be there in a minute, or –"
"No, I've got it, I've got it," Harry said, punching the intercom. "Hello, I'll be down in a minute," he said into the speaker.
"Oh, all right – I'll… I'll just wait here, then."
He hid a smile and took the stairs slowly. When he opened the door, she was standing on the stoop, windblown, rosy-cheeked, and absolutely gorgeous. She bit her lip, and he smiled. "Welcome," he said softly. "I hope this means –"
"I have conditions," Ruth said, "but yes."
"Conditions."
"The first of which being that you personally have to guarantee our safety."
His smile grew. "You've made me the happiest man –"
"The second is that we can't have that kind of relationship anymore."
His smile vanished, his heart sinking into the floor. "But –"
"I can't, Harry."
He exhaled and closed his eyes for a moment. "Won't you come in, Mary?" he asked, trying to regain his equilibrium. "Please? I'm sure there are a couple of waffles left, if you're hungry."
"It's not that I don't love you – because I do, god, I do," she whispered. "It's… everything. Harry, it's everything. We can't just pick up where we left off – it's impossible."
"I'll tell you what's impossible: finding you in a city of millions of people purely by chance," he said softly, reaching out to caress her scarred cheek. "Nothing else is impossible, Ruth. Nothing."
"You can't call me that."
"Why not? They're in the process of restoring your identity even as we speak. You will be a free woman again," he promised. A sour thought hit him between the eyes. "But what you'd want with an old washed-up spook like me, I don't know." Obviously, she was trying to let him down easy.
She was shaking with the cold; he pulled her inside and helped her take her coat off and hang it up. When he turned back toward her, she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him soundly, surprising him. "Everything, Harry – I want everything with you," Ruth breathed, then pulled away.
"Miss Smif, Miss Smif, hiya!" Lucy cried, thundering down the stairs. "Mommy an me gonna go shoppin'. Granpa, be nice to Miss Smif – I love her."
Catherine was standing at the top of the stairs, watching with great interest as Harry helped Lucy into her coat and snowboots. "Hello, Mary," she greeted with a smile. "I hope my dad wasn't being too rude."
"Not at all," Ruth murmured. "He's been a gentleman."
"Good," Catherine said, coming down the stairs and grabbing her coat. "We'll just be out getting little miss some new shoes, if you need us."
Harry nodded and closed the door behind them. It was almost too much, the sudden strain of pretending to be two people again – the spook, hiding everything behind a stoic mask, and the man, bursting with excitement that his lover was back within reach. "Ruth, I… I'm glad you're going to stay here for now," he said softly.
"Hope wants… she wants to get to know you. She can't do that if we're running away."
"Ruth, I –"
"I haven't been Ruth for a very long time."
"Mary," he began, but the word was foreign and wrong on his tongue. "I want to know our daughter better – of course, I do – but I cannot help but feel that you're using her as a reason to not reopen our relationship."
"Our relationship is complicated."
"Our relationship is simple: I love you, you love me. We have a child together. The rest of it doesn't matter anymore. Our history is just that – history. We bumbled and stumbled and finally made something of it – and if Cotterdam hadn't happened, we would have raised that girl together. I would have married you and left the service to protect you and my daughter. Do you doubt for a moment that I could love you that much?"
"Words, words, words," she said, looking pained at his confession. "Harry, I – you don't know, you have no idea –"
"Then tell me, Ruth."
"I don't know where to start."
"Let's go up to the kitchen and I'll make some tea," he said softly. "And then you can start at the beginning."
But which beginning? She wondered bitterly as he puttered about, making tea for them both. The beginning as in Cotterdam? Or the beginning of her exile? Or… the day she found out that she was pregnant – and then was caught by Six in an immigration sting.
It sounded so much worse in hindsight.
He set a mug of tea down in front of her. "No sugar, splash of milk," he said. She looked up at him in surprise, and his smile turned smug. "Of course I remember how the woman I love takes her tea."
"You still love me after… after all this time? After this?" she gestured vaguely at her face. It disgusted her every time she looked in the mirror, the physical representation of her pain and suffering, and she didn't understand why he didn't hate her for it.
"They're just scars, Ruth," he said softly. "You've seen mine before."
"You can hide yours," she pointed out sadly.
"Tell me what happened," he whispered, reaching over the table to stroke her cheek. "Please."
"I was in Italy – Florence," she sighed. "I just… got sick one day, sicker than I've ever been in my life before or since. I couldn't keep food down for a week, could barely drink water… it got so bad that my neighbor took me to hospital when I fainted on the stairs." She looked down into her cup of tea and frowned. "Turns out, I was four months pregnant – and had a really bad case of food poisoning from some tainted seafood." She drummed her fingers on the mug and bit her lip. "Of course, I had no insurance details and something in my papers twigged and… I was extracted from hospital by a team from Six."
"Shit," Harry spat.
"I was with them almost a week before I got away, but it was long enough for Oliver Mace to show up and redecorate my face," she mumbled. "I'm not safe from him, Harry – no matter how much you want to believe –"
"He's dead," Harry said quietly. "You are safe, Ruth. Oliver Mace cannot hurt you again."
"I don't believe you."
He took her hand and held it. "I was there when he died, Ruth. The man is dead. I promise you that."
She looked up at him for a long moment, then away again. "After I got out of Florence, I realized I needed to get away from Europe – so I… I did something stupid. I contacted Zoe. Yes, I know, don't look at me like that – I needed somewhere safe to stay till the baby was born. I went to Chile and stayed with Zoe and Will until Hope was about six months old, then there were officers on the street and I was terrified they were going to find me again. They got a passport for Hope – I don't know how – and we left for Los Angeles. My face was still a mangled mess, but… we were safe for a while."
"And you've been in the United States ever since?"
She nodded. "The scars are distinctive. I was scared to go back to Europe. I figured… maybe CIA cover was my best option. They're very fierce when needs must."
Harry nodded. "Shall I tell you about Mace?"
"Is he really dead?"
"Yes," Harry said softly. "From time to time, I'm recalled to London to assist with a case. Last year, Oliver Mace was stirring the pot and got himself implicated in a plot to overthrow the government – which good old Section D managed to foil, thank god – and I was tasked with the most difficult job of them all."
She looked up at him, then took a swig of tea. "You killed him."
"Poison," he confirmed. "I watched him die, and then I went back to Thames House and told Malcolm to start looking for you."
"You shouldn't be telling me any of this."
"I don't care – I lost you because of the service and I'll be damned if I sit back and just let it happen again," he said decisively.
She licked her lips, then whispered, "He told me… when he cut my face, Mace told me that he was going to make it so you'd never want me again."
"Stupid man," Harry muttered. "His mistake was in thinking that he could ever touch my affection for you. It's locked in a little box in my heart and it doesn't bloody just change because he cut your face. Do you understand me, Ruth? Do you understand?"
She nodded and smiled slightly. "I do. I keep you locked in my head, always telling me that I'm a born spook and I'm so good – and that you love me." Something wonderful that was never said… But now, the words were so loud and so strong as to nearly knock them both down.
"I love you, and it costs me nothing to say it," he said firmly. "A few years ago, it would have cost my soul and my sanity – but now…" He paused and thought for a moment. "What have you told Hope about me?"
She looked away again and took a deep breath. "I told her that her father was a good, kind man who loved her very much – but we couldn't be with him because it wasn't safe."
His face fell, and she felt guilty to the core. "I'm sorry, Ruth – I'm so sorry you had to go through all of this alone."
"Oh, Harry… I was never alone," she whispered. "I always had Hope."
"It should have been me out there –"
"Harry, no," she said. "No, we can't play the regrets game now – I would bury you in a heartbeat. Let's just… let's just thank our lucky stars that the universe decided to let us have a little reprieve." She reached over and took his hand, holding it tightly.
"We'll have to tell Catherine. She's not going to be happy."
"No, she isn't," Ruth murmured. "Especially if she thinks I'm going to take you away from her – and Lucy. Which is not my intention, at all."
"I never thought for a moment that it was," he said, rubbing his thumb on the back of her hand in idle circles. "Do you know that my heart nearly stopped the other night when I saw you? My heart nearly stopped beating, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think – everything just shorted out, and I thought I was hallucinating. Or dreaming. Because there you were and – god, do you even know how beautiful you are, Ruth?"
"Only when you tell me," she breathed.
He shifted his chair, never breaking contact with her hand, until he could lean in and kiss her. It was a tame kiss, almost chaste, but it was so pure and sweet that tears began to trickle down her cheeks. She opened her lips slightly, inviting more from him, and soon they were kissing with all of the passion they'd saved up over the years.
She finally pulled out of the fevered kisses and whispered, "Harry… they'll be home soon and I need to go –"
His breathing was heavy, slow, almost painful to hear, and she knew he was struggling to maintain control. "Will you begin moving tomorrow? I can have beds bought and delivered –"
"Beds? We've got a futon already –"
"Leave it," he instructed. "Leave anything behind that doesn't bring you happiness, Ruth. It's time you begin to live for yourself."
She shook her head, leaning into his warm embrace. "I have to think about Hope –"
"Darling, we have to think about Hope," he corrected gently. "It's not just you out on that wall now, sweetheart."
She had never in her life loved him any more than she did in that moment.