Notes: This section takes place between the end of 8x04 and the first ten minutes of 8x05. It does include one visible scene from 8x05, with a few extra lines, and my usual attempts at showing Ruth's thoughts throughout the conversation. I also wanted to explore Harry and Ros, after she works out that Ruth has known all along about the conspiracy, when she and Lucas were left in the dark by Harry.

Disclaimer: Accordingly, once again I have to say that I do not own any of the Spooks characters, or any lines you may recognise - they belong to Kudos/BBC.

Rating: I'm upping this to T, because of Ros's language...

A/N: Thanks once more to my lovely reviewers - you know who you are! I'm very glad to know that you're enjoying this! :)

Tuesday night.

Setting her wine glass on the coffee table, she eases herself into the corner of the soft sofa, kicking off her shoes and curling her feet up under her. The clock reads 11pm. It has been a long day. Considering they had saved the Square Mile from being raised to the ground at half past nine that morning, it couldn't be anything but. Organising the resulting chaos had taken the better part of the day - from the bomb squad, to Boris Gulyanov and his team, to the Home Secretary... The paperwork had taken forever, and there would be more to do tomorrow.

Then there was the personal fallout; Lucas clearly suffering from having handed Darshavin over to the Russians; Ros from having stared down a bomb capable of eviscerating thousands, to the last second; these made Harry's resultant mood from dealing with the Home Secretary quite mundane. She had watched as he had ordered Lucas home, given Ros the lightest duties she would accept, and then poured himself a stiff scotch. He was still bent over paperwork when she'd finally left, at ten; unwilling to leave him alone on the Grid, but unable to persuade him of the benefits of going home himself. Just half an hour more, he had said.

Her mobile rings, the muted sound breaking her reverie. Unable to see the phone immediately, she fumbles round the sofa, hands searching under the cushions, until her fingers grasp the cold plastic. The screen bears the legend 'Harry Mob', and in the moment that it takes to answer it, she wonders what the hell has gone wrong now.

"Yes Harry?"

"Walker's dead."

"Who? What?" Her voice is bleary as she tries to process his greeting, through her already tired mind.

"Did I wake you?" He has the grace to sound a little contrite. "I thought you'd still be up."

"No...no... My, I was just getting my head out of work, that's all. Walker. You mean Samuel Walker? CIA? What happened?"

"His body was found on the ground floor of the CIA's obbo post in Hammersmith. It would appear he threw himself over one of the mezzanine balconies..." She recognises the trail in his voice.

"...But you don't think that's the case?"

"I don't know enough to be sure about anything right now, Ruth. The cousins are already spinning something about him having cancer, which I don't buy for a minute. But Samuel Walker didn't strike me as the type to commit suicide, illness or no." She can't help wondering why he felt the need to ring her at gone eleven to tell her this, when she'll be back on the Grid in eight hours time, and perhaps he picks up on that, as he continues; "I'm sorry, you've had a long hard day, I know. I just nee..wanted to hear someone else's reaction, to check my reactions weren't out of proportion."

"Yes. I mean, no. Err, yes. Yes, I understand. I don't think your reaction is out of proportion. We'll look into it. Tomorrow." She hears him sigh, at the other end of the line. "Harry, you're still there, aren't you? Go home. Get some rest." Advice he often gives, but seldom takes.

"Thank you Ruth, I think I will. Apologies for disturbing you."

"You didn't..." but he's already rung off, and the words echo against the silence.

Friday, early afternoon.

But Wednesday and Thursday pass with very little time for debating the officially unsuspicious death of the American agent. Harry is called to numerous meetings outside of Thames House, only some of which she knows the details of. The team are chasing their tails on paperwork, and Ruth herself is busy catching up on the weekly security reports, and deciphering intel on a potential homegrown threat resulting from recently leaked army documents. Lucas mentions the suicide once or twice; apparently Sarah is quite thrown by it. Ros comments that she can't be as thrown as Walker, which is a pity. She flashes a rare smile just before an argument breaks out. Ruth has to admit that she's with Ros on this one. She cannot comprehend what Lucas sees in Sarah. And so it goes. The late night phone call is neither mentioned nor repeated.

It is lunch time on Friday before Walker's name passes directly between them. Lucas has gone out to the memorial service, primarily for Sarah's sake. Ros rolls her eyes at this, and acerbically comments to thin air that since one of them should be actually doing some spying, she will be meeting an asset. Tariq has headed out to a nearby deli, with orders for the three of them, when Ruth hears the blare of the BBC news from Harry's office. Now might be the moment for the promised discussion. She walks through, not bothering to knock, and finds him staring at the screen, his countenance inscrutable. He nods briefly at her, and turns the screen so she can see. A large photo of Walker is emblazoned across the screen, and the reporter is summing up his achievements in life. There is, of course, no mention of the fact that he is a spy.

"Such tasteful language they use. Diplomat." There is a mixture of scorn and amusement as she says it, in the full knowledge that if it were a British agent, the term would be civil servant. He looks up at her, a twinkle in his eye.

"The world we live in, eh Ruth?" The smile is quickly replaced by a frown, though, as he glances back at the screen, to the blonde newsreader commenting on Walker's 'newly diagnosed cancer'. "Forty minutes before Samuel Walker was found, he phoned me to arrange to meet. Needless to say, he never made it."

"Coincidence?"

"Hardly." His hand reaches across his face, and as he turns back to her, he rests his chin on his knuckles, before looking up, brows furrowed. "No suicidal person makes an arrangement like that, not more than half an hour before killing themselves. No. Someone knew he had information, and he was murdered as a result."

"Harry, you had to share that intel with him. It was the right thing to do. Especially now we know how far this conspiracy is willing to go." He looks directly at her for a moment, hazel eyes keenly piercing, and she feels certain he picked up her unspoken admonishment that he is not to blame, however obscurely, for Walker's death. For a normally sensible, logical man, he has a great ability at taking the blame for the deaths of others, most especially when they are little to do with him. Breaking the silence that has erupted, she continues, "did Walker say what he wanted?"

"Just that it was about Basle and went to the heart of the intelligence services. Less than an hour later he was dead." It is weighing on him, no matter what she says. Looking down at his head, it strikes her that there are more white and grey hairs there than the she remembers. There are more lines around his temples, his forehead. The piercing eyes of a moment ago look up a her again, almost pathetic in their melancholia. "Somebody wanted him silenced, Ruth."

She can only meet his gaze for a moment before the urge to touch him wells up in her chest, and she has to look away. Deep down, she knows, that one day, some day, probably soon, he will surprise her with a moment just like this; her self control will not be as swift and her fingers will touch his. She is just not sure she dares to consider what will happen as a result.

The hiss of the pods announces Tariq returning with their lunch, and the discussion is placed in abeyance again. However, it is not long before Lucas is back, abruptly full of the intelligence from Caulfield about the reason for Walker's death. She watches Harry's face carefully as the younger agent holds forth on what the American has said. He doesn't say as much, but Ruth has a feeling he is still not totally convinced by the explanation. He certainly doesn't look it, and she cannot admit to being persuaded herself. But when Lucas winds up, glancing at their boss, the older man's face is open and even innocent - a look she sincerely mistrusts - and he shrugs his shoulders, as if to say 'it's not our business.'

Saturday morning.

It has not been a good morning, Harry thinks, as he turns to the clearly irate blonde Section Chief. It was never going to be, really, with a visit from the Home Secretary first thing. He always knows things are bad if Nicholas deigns to appear in his office - and on a weekend morning, too. The man is perturbed, that much is clear, and his worry is beginning to pervade Harry's own mood. That, followed by the uncomfortable conversation with his two senior field agents, where he had to admit to having kept them in the dark, meant that this day was already shaping up to be problematic. Now Ros has figured out, as he should have known she would, that his blustered excuse of not briefing her because he had nothing solid is complete whitewash. In retrospect, he should have included Ruth in the earlier briefing - she played having no prior knowledge of the conspiracy very well, but Ros is too experienced to fool. Particularly when it comes to Ruth.

"You told her before the rest of the team." The tone is accusatory, her blue eyes are icy. "This is bullshit Harry. It's bad enough that you didn't brief us earlier, but then you categorically lied when I asked you why I wasn't told. You said you had nothing substantive, that it was rumour. That you were waiting for something concrete. Why tell her and not us?"

"So I was. I asked Ruth to look into it because she is our analyst. It's her job." He tries his best to stay calm. He knows that the stress of the previous weeks is affecting her; hell, it's only a dozen days since Jo's death. Really, he should be enforcing leave on her, not bringing her into an investigation of a world conspiracy.

"You still should have told me." She is mutinous, her temper bubbling just below the surface. He is conscious that the briefing room walls are not soundproof, and although the team are pretty good about not eavesdropping, he doesn't want to give them no other option.

"You're quite right Ros. I should have told you." He pauses, speaks quietly. "In my defense, I only told Ruth during the Bendorf fiasco because she walked in just as the situation was kicking off, and I didn't know if this conspiracy had anything to do with that. I needed someone to look into it, she was available." Before the words are fully out, he realises the mistake he has made,

"The Bendorf situation... You knew. You knew about this then, you suspected them, and you sent me in blind." Now she is furious. Like a brittle flame, she is about to explode, something which has only happened a very few times in the years he has known her. It is time to act swiftly.

"Yes Ros, I sent you in blind. As your boss, that is my prerogative. Had that meeting been let go ahead, as we all expected it to be, we would have either had intel, or not. Once we had something substantial, I was prepared to share that with the team. Until that point, it wasn't necessary. Now we do have something substantive, I need the entire team's focus, yours included. There is just a touch of asperity in his tone, enough to reach her ears, and she pauses.

"Alright. But I still think you should have trusted me, especially after what happened." She turns towards the sliding doors, and it is only as her fingers touch the handle that he says softly.

"I do trust you Ros. And after what happened, I rather thought you had enough on your plate." His head drops at this, but not before they have made eye contact, and she has nodded, briefly, her acceptance. He hears the door pull shut, sighs, and rests his head in his hands. Now is not the moment for trust to break down on the team, especially when there are potential rogue agents flying around, trying to recreate the world. That said, he thinks he managed to deflect Ros from her anger regarding his trust of Ruth, which is no bad thing. Especially as he knows he was bending the truth when he told her that he 'only' told Ruth because of the situation at hand. From somewhere deep inside him comes the knowledge that he would have told her no matter what, for she is the one upon whom he has built an absolute trust.