Set season 8 between episodes 5 and 6
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Chapter 7
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Ruth didn't know she had it in her, to hold onto anger for so long, but it seemed she did. For a whole month, nothing changed between her and Harry. Their working relationship remained stilted and awkward and their personal relationship, nonexistent. Torn in two by confusion and guilt, she kept their interactions to a minimum as they soldiered on, beginning to pick apart the sinister 'nightingale' conspiracy. She did her best to ignore her boss's attempts at reconciliation as they chased details of Sam Walker's death and the days grew longer, leading into autumn again. She tried to remain impartial as Tariq found his feet and to look at home on the Grid and as Lucas drifted a little further away from all of them, in the wake of what they discovered about Sarah Caulfield. She held on as the team nearly lost Ros to the burnt out Jack Colville. She held her anger close because, at the time, it seemed like the only sensible thing to do. It seemed like the only thing she could hold onto, with any certainty. And then, one day, it suddenly felt superfluous.
It was quarter to twelve and Ruth was still sitting at her desk, staring down an endless list of possible links to Basel, trying in vain to make some connection through their databases. She had known she would fail when she assigned herself the task, earlier that evening, but she persisted anyway. It was something to fill the time and, honestly, she just did not want to go home. Her mind was still thrilling with the events of the day – of Ros's near death escape and what she had said to her afterwards.
They had been standing over near the door to the briefing room and, in an uncharacteristically close moment – something that the two women very rarely shared, never having seen eye to eye on a matter of subjects. Ruth had asked Ros if she was okay, really okay, after what had happened. Ros had nodded and muttered something dark and stereotypically Ros. They had stood for a moment, then Ruth had foolishly tried to analyse the situation.
"I suppose he couldn't get past it," she told Ros, referring to Colville, perhaps trying to excuse what he had done.
Ros had given a soft noise of derision.
"People are fools," she had murmured, smooth as silk and ten times as cold. "They spend their lives trapped by their past, hanging on to it like to a life-vest in a storm – too scared to move on, to let go." She gave a twisted little smile. "What they don't realise is that the storm doesn't end until the show is over. If you don't swim, you are out at sea and all you have left is your regret."
Whether it was the sentiment or the words themselves, Ruth had been struck with a strange sort of clarity. Watching Ros, she had realised that the Section Chief's statement more than applied to herself.
"He was hurt," she murmured, trying to justify her earlier words. "He was grieving."
"Jack..." Ros drifted off, looking distraught for just a moment, then quickly righting herself again. "Jack was a fool. He should have at least tried to reach out to those around him. To live. The storm is going to go on. Whether we like it or not." Then, pulling a slightly irritated face, she walked away.
Her own words seemed to have disturbed her, thought Ruth, watching as her colleague crossed the room and gathered up her things. They probably held too much truth about her own life, to be altogether comfortable. With their debriefing over, Ruth knew exactly where Ros would be heading. To a hotel which Harry had arranged for her, her home address now being compromised. She would do her usual day off routine; wine at the bar, isolation amongst the crowd, dark rooms with strangers. Vetted strangers, of course – that was how Ruth knew – but strangers all the same.
Ruth supposed there was an attraction in it. Alcohol to numb the pain. Physical comfort to soothe the toil inside. She could also not help but think it was just another life vest to grab onto, however, and that Ros was not swimming for land but rather riding the waves further into the sea. To Ruth, it looked like submission to her fate, like self destruction. Still, at least Ros was making a concerted effort to do something with what time she had left. At least Ros did not go home to her empty house every night and cry herself to sleep, too scared to take a drink because she feared she wouldn't be able to stop – too scared to pick up the phone and reach out to anyone because she knew who she wanted to call. That would just be pathetic.
Closing her eyes, at her desk, Ruth exhaled heavily. She was just pathetic. She had spent the last two months seething in anger – angry at the world, at herself, at Harry. As life had gone on around her, the anger had dwindled, slightly, and all that she had left now was the confusion over what to do next. Did she continue as she had planned to and emotionally cut herself off from everyone in her life? That idea had its merits. It could not possibly hurt as much when it was all ripped away again. Still, it was doing exactly as Ros had said. Wasting away the rest of her scant time here waiting... dwelling. Ruth knew she wasn't a fool, so why would she want to do that?
But what was the alternative?
Forgive Harry? She was pretty sure she already had.
Forgive herself? She couldn't do that – not completely, not yet – but she supposed she could start to try and move on from here. Maybe self-forgiveness came with time.
Lifting her eyes off her desk, Ruth considered her situation from as dispassionate a viewpoint as she could manage. She was grieving for a lost husband and son. She was guilty over her part in their loss and the complicated way it had come about. She was ashamed that she was still in love with Harry, despite it all. Her anger came from grief and guilt, not from any solid basis. Any sane woman would take this information and turn it into a reason to let go. Grief was a process, as Harry had told her years ago. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. She had rushed through denial and straight onto depression. Then, after the numbness had faded, anger had hit her like a freight train. It had continued on, mixing in with the other two stages and forming a potent mix of animosity towards the world around her. Ruth had wallowed in it. She set herself up a life of compromise, forcing herself into contact with Harry both as punishment and comfort for what she perceived to be her crimes.
It had been an incredibly indulgent way to behave, she thought, in retrospect. In the past, she had always put other people first. Her own grief, her own feelings, would be set behind theirs. This, she supposed, had all been akin to a nervous breakdown for her. But now, suddenly, it was over and the difference was startling. Physically, Ruth felt as if all of her muscles, which had been bunched up and tense for the past few months had finally relaxed. She felt somehow more whole. Better. Human again. The pit of her stomach was no longer tight and constantly aching. She no longer felt her heart beating in her throat. She could smell and taste the air again. Relief. It felt like relief. She was not dying of grief and guilt. She was still human, after it all.
And Harry was still here.
Her eyes hovered over the form of him, leaning over his desk, as she sat at hers. He had been so good. So clipped and professional during their working hours but trying, every now and then, to seek forgiveness in private. After she had snapped at him a few times, he had stopped trying to have a personal conversation, but he persisted in seeking her out in the early and late hours on the Grid. He persisted in asking stupid questions about her reports, just to drag out their interactions for longer than was necessary. Though he clearly held himself back from saying anything, his feelings were still there and very obvious in his eyes. In private, that was. During work hours, he was every bit the spook he had always been. Self denying. Self controlling.
Exhaling heavily, Ruth watched Harry scribble something down then tap against his keyboard. He looked weary and isolated. A little frown and rub of his forehead, was enough incentive for Ruth to want to fix that last part. She had been hurting him for the past few months and it was more than time to start making amends. Standing up, she brushed her skirt down, grabbing a file in her hand and, repeating the internal mantra that he deserved some sort of apology after the way she had treated him, proceeded towards Harry's office.
The Grid was busier than it was normally at this time of night, even considering the aftermath of today's case, but nobody bothered her on her way. Whether sensing the purpose in her walk or simply as a concession to the lateness of the hour, nobody threw her any enquiries about the current case, or requests for information.
Ros's desk was empty. Lucas was still at his but, after only the most cursory of glances her way, he looked back down at the old file he was flicking through. His body language told Ruth that he was either up to something personal or knew she was. As she passed Tariq's darkened lair, the techie's eyes also remained averted, something Ruth was particularly grateful for. Tariq had a habit of innocently asking the wrong question. Twice already they had struggled through uncomfortable conversations that had skirted far too close to her and Harry's personal history. Stepping past his seat, then, she slid Harry's door open, knocking the side of it once to announce her intention to enter.
"Yes?" Harry answered, from his desk, without looking up.
"Hello,"
Ruth stepped into the room and slid the door closed behind her – a movement which caused Harry to look up properly from the file he was poring over. There was mild surprise on his face, when he did so. Ruth knew why. Shutting the door meant she was staying a while. It also meant she did not want their conversation to be overheard. This clearly added up, in his spook mind, to being either very important or very personal. Or both.
"Ruth?" he asked, as she made her way over and stood opposite him. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," she played with the file absently for a few seconds then noticed Harry's eyes were darting towards it. "Oh, this is just an empty file," she gave a little shake of her head. "I needed a prop."
Harry's eyebrows raised, ever so slightly.
"A prop?"
"Something to do with my hands."
Ruth swallowed.
The urge to run away was tickling at the back of her psyche. Over the last few months, she had efficiently conditioned herself to avoid any situation which might result in emotional response, between her and Harry. Now, here she was seeking such a situation out. This was insane, she told herself. She was not ready for this. Still, she could not bear the thought of drowning in her regret any longer. She was moving on from the angry stage of her grief and, suddenly, the idea of punishing herself for the rest of her life did not feel like such a smart or necessary thing to do. It felt juvenile and stupid and – as Ros had intimated – downright foolish. Ruth knew she was not a stupid person. In fact, in the great scheme of things, she was actually rather intelligent. And she was not a cruel person either. That meant, logically, that she should probably stop punishing herself and certainly stop punishing Harry.
Logically, Ruth told herself firmly, she needed to make amends and move on. It did not mean betraying George's memory. She just didn't want to fight any longer. She did not want bad feeling between them.
"I want to talk," she managed, eventually.
Harry stared, expression caught halfway between the one he wore when presenting a case before the team and another which Ruth had only seen him use once or twice – something that was just for her. Despite the situation, it made her heart skip a little faster inside her chest, just to see it.
"...I want to talk about us," Ruth rephrased, swallowing after her words.
Harry's eyes darted towards the door, then to her face again, perhaps trying to determine whether this was some cunning ploy to draw him closer then make a stab at his heart. Ruth knew she should not be surprised. She had been quite cruel to him, over the last few weeks. Every now and then, she would grow weak and let them slip back into their old ways, then she would realise what they were doing and jump away from him again, tearing any semblance of reconciliation he had been starting to stitch between them. He had grown cautious through experience.
"I've been..." she began, then paused, searching for a word.
Harry leant forwards slightly, however, filling in her silence for her.
"Ruth, you don't have to do this," setting the pen he had been writing with down and closing the file he had been perusing.
Ruth half frowned, catching him in her gaze.
"I do," she told him. Then, forcing herself to continue, nodded "I'm sorry."
There was a very long and potent silence, during which Harry did not move his eyes once from hers, but started to nervously tap his thumb against the file on top of his desk and swallowed twice. Nervous tics. Ruth knew them every bit as well as she knew his face – the way his forehead creased with worry, the curl of a lip, the dip of his brows. As he watched her now, she saw all the little things that had changed, too; more fine lines around his eyes, a little less weight in his cheeks, a little more grey in his hair. He was still fair. There was still a sheen of gold beyond the grey, more obvious now because he wore it slightly longer. She decided she liked it that way. Not that she had resolved it was altogether okay to like anything about him yet, she reminded herself. This was meant to be an apology, not an opportunity to stare at him.
Gathering herself, she pressed onwards.
"I have been taking how I'm feeling out on you and I would like to apologise for that. I didn't mean for this to affect our working relationship."
"Our working relationship is fine," Harry pointed out, a little quietly. His eyes said that was not what he wanted them to be talking about.
"I know," Ruth blustered. "I meant..." A flutter of discomfort rushed through her. This was more difficult than she had expected it to be. "You've been trying to make this easier, to bridge the gap, and I've been..." Ignoring him, treating him like a criminal, acting like a first-class-,
"-you've been grieving," Harry finished, tilting his head forwards. "I understand."
"Harry, I've been really horrible to you," she blurted out, inching a little closer to his desk.
She was suddenly worried that, though the doors were closed and the walls thick, that people would sense the wretchedness of her apology in the air and judge her for it. Funnily enough, however, there was no judgement in Harry's face as he looked up at her. In fact, her words seemed to have prompted a tiny smile from his lips and genuine warmth to his eyes.
"I'll survive."
"Well, I want to apologise anyway."
"Consider it accepted." He leant back in his chair, a strange look on his face – relief and something else mixed in. "Now, am I allowed to apologise for my part in all of this too, or will that set us back another few months?"
Ruth gave a slightly reproachful look.
He countered it with a raised eyebrow and not even a twitch of concession.
Blushing, Ruth cleared her throat and looked down.
Sometimes she forgot how they used to be – that, before all of this side-stepping around each other, they had worked so beautifully. Harry had known exactly when to play hard and when to tread softly. They had chatted and joked and laughed and argued well. They had been playful and tender, exactly when they needed to be. They had been an incredible fit. It had been a truly awful twist of fate, what had happened to them.
"You don't have to apologise," she eventually muttered, knowing it was going to earn her a reprimand, but feeling obliged to voice her opinion on the matter. "Honestly, I think we both understand that what happened, with Mani and the uranium, had to happen the way it did."
Harry regarded her with an expression of slight longing, for a moment, then he nodded and turned his attention down to pick at the end of one of his nails.
"That is the way I see it too," he admitted. "I am very sorry, though – not that I am deluded in thinking it makes the slightest bit of difference."
Ruth heaved a sigh.
"Of course it makes a difference, Harry. It means you're human. It means you care." He looked a little pacified by that comment and they sat and stood in silence, for a moment longer, before Ruth spoke up quietly. "I understand that you had to make that choice."
"We were caught up by events," Harry agreed. "What happened happened. It was unfortunate."
"Do you regret it?"
It was only as the words left her mouth that Ruth realised they were rather inflammatory. She was about to attempt to snatch them back, or explain them with further explanation, when Harry replied calmly.
"I regret all of it," he answered, simply, "but, looking back, I would not have acted differently."
Ruth felt a flash of anger, which quickly dwindled away into a curious mix of love and exasperation. She had known this, of course. She had known that Harry believed wholeheartedly in what he did. He always had done. It was part of why she had fallen in love with him, all those years ago. Still, it was hard to hear from his lips that he would see George die again, if he had to. She understood why – she knew it was right and she respected and admired him for it – but it was not easy to hear. Should he have been put in the same situation again, he would make the same choice. And what if it was her, she wondered, would he still let them pull the trigger? She wanted so badly to ask but she knew she couldn't. It was not fair.
"I know you had to," she reiterated, instead, her voice quiet.
Harry watched her intently and then wheeled his chair backwards, slightly. For a moment, Ruth thought he was going to stand and walk around to her and she almost panicked and backed up, but then he ducked down, sliding something out from underneath the farthest corner of his desk. She frowned, watching him intently until he reappeared, grasping a large black duffel bag. Standing, he pulled it up and set it on the table, carefully. It made a gentle clunk against the wood.
"What's that?" Ruth asked, staring down at it.
"When we faked your death, all of your things were initially seized by the Service for inspection," Harry told her. "Afterwards, they were supposed to be passed on to family or destroyed, according to your wishes. Yours were to be destroyed but I had a moment of weakness and liberated some before they were." He threw a slightly sheepish glance her way as he pulled back the zip on top of the bag. "I hope you don't mind. I saved some things I thought you'd want, just in case. I put them in storage after two years but I could never quite bring myself to throw them out. It felt too final."
Pulling the bag open, he pushed it across the table towards her.
Ruth accepted.
"I was going to give them to you weeks ago," he said quietly, as she stepped closer and reached inside, withdrawing the topmost item. It was a well-thumbed book that she had left on her bedside table – a book he had given her, years ago. Her heart fluttered. Harry cleared his throat. "But things were so... tense."
Eyes flicking back up to his, Ruth wondered if there was anyone in the world more adept at a well-employed euphemism than Harry Pearce. Tense indeed. Watching her back, her boss cleared his throat and looked uneasy.
"How did you choose what to keep?" she asked, setting the book down and picking up an old photo album, the memory of its contents brining a smile to her face.
"I know what I would have wanted." He shrugged. "I ran with the assumption that our wants would be similar."
Ruth's smile turned into a wry one.
Their wants coinciding; it was an assumption which had led to their downfall before. Never once had they been at the same place at the same time. At first, she had been crushing on him when he had been completely oblivious. Then she had been falling in love with him while he had been starting to lust after her. Then he was in love with her and she was too scared to let him in. After that, there was the grief and circumstance to add to the list of complications. But, Ruth supposed, those were all just complications. What Harry had wanted and what she had wanted had not been so perilously different. She had wanted someone. He had wanted someone. They had both wanted more than what they had in their lonely lives. They had wanted each other – for whatever reasons and to whatever extent. Perhaps it was not such a silly assumption.
Running her finger over the cover of the photo album, she placed it on top of the book and dug around, finding a few old trinkets she had kept in a box under her bed, things that a non-spook would not have deemed worthy of keeping but Harry – in his infinite wisdom of hidden places and secret spaces – had known were important. She smiled as she dug deeper, finding a hair pin.
"This was my favourite."
"I know."
She glanced up at him. Of course he knew. She wore it often enough and, as clueless as he was about some things, Harry was an excellent spy and excellent spies noticed the details. He probably knew what her favourite clothes, foods and colours were. Despite never having been anywhere near intimate or open with one another, he probably knew far more about her than any one of her partners in the past. He saw the little pieces of her that most people would miss. He had seen the worst and the best of her, and the everyday. He knew her perhaps more completely than anyone ever had or would again.
"There was a stone on the mantelpiece. Did you keep that?" she asked, digging through the bag.
Harry shook his head.
"No, I don't think so."
"Oh," Ruth tried to hide her disappointment with a shrug. So it seemed they were not telepathically linked after all. "It's okay. It was a bit of a long shot. I know it didn't look very important."
Harry watched her closely.
"What was it?"
"The stone?" Ruth gave another little shrug. "My father dragged me up some infernal hill when I was ten. I didn't want to go but he forced me out of my bed, at five in the morning, and we walked for hours. The stone is from the top, where we watched the sun come up."
Harry watched, brow furrowed very slightly.
"It was the last thing we did together, before he passed away," she explained, feeling a rush of blood to her cheeks.
This, again, was the sort of emotional thing that one did not share with one's boss. It was a strictly close friends and lovers sort of story and she was not sure why putting things right, between her and Harry, suddenly meant it was okay to get close to him again. It shouldn't. That was not what she had intended, by going to apologise to him tonight. She had meant for it to provide her a way to move on. She had not meant for it to be a possibility for them... They couldn't...
"It's just a stone," she dismissed again.
"I'm sorry I missed it." Harry told her, sincerely.
She gave a short, slightly nervous laugh. "Harry, it's a stone. I would have had to have been worried if you had taken it."
They watched each other for a moment, then he yielded to her comment and let out a tiny smile.
"I suppose so."
"What else did you..." she was about to continue but her fingers closed around the smooth edge of a glass bottle and she frowned.
Pulling it out, Ruth realised almost immediately it was not something which had come from her house. She had, admittedly, had a few bottles kicking about when she left, but this was not a name she immediately recognised. A quick turn over and scan of the back, however, told her what it was. White burgundy.
Taking a moment to gather herself, Ruth raised her eyes back to Harry's. He was watching her with a completely impassive expression. Guilt, she read, between the absence of lines on his forehead. He could only look so completely impassive when he was feeling guilty. This was his addition, then, to the bag. And not too recently, she noted, eyes dropping again to the vintage on the wine. This was nearly six years old. Taking into account the fact that the vineyard would not have sold it until it was at least two, she was forced to deduce that he had bought it around the time of her departure.
"This isn't mine," she pointed out, a little unnecessarily.
Harry shook his head.
"No, I bought it years ago."
"Then why is it in here?"
"It was going to be a gift for you. After you left, I didn't want to keep it," he explained, just a hint of emotion coming through in his eyes, now.
"A gift for what?" Ruth asked, frowning slightly.
Harry lowered his eyes.
"The answer to that is an emotional one and, while I am very glad that you and I are finally talking, I don't think you would be entirely ready or willing to hear it."
Ruth blinked. It was so very thoughtful and so very 'Harry' of him to preface an emotional answer with a disclaimer, but she couldn't not know now. True, what Harry had to say would probably be something which would send her into paroxysms of panic. Sure, it would probably send them scuttling back into the vicious circle of grief and anger which they had been chasing for the last few months. But he couldn't just say something like that and then leave her hanging. She wanted to know. She needed to know.
"I'm willing to hear it," she said, very softly, "if you're willing to tell me."
Harry continued to pick at the end of a file, lining it up parallel to the bottom of his desk, perhaps ignoring her.
"Harry, I won't stop talking to you again," she tried, to reassure him.
Harry frowned, not looking particularly convinced.
"Please?" Ruth tried eventually.
His expression flickered, resolve faltering. Ruth felt inwardly guilty that she had stooped to the level of pleading – knowing that Harry had never refused her when she had prefaced it with that word – but her need to know the story kept her staring forwards and her eyes on his.
Eventually, Harry relented. "I bought it because it was the wine we drank, when we went to dinner," he told her, with a little sigh.
"White burgundy," Ruth nodded, feeling a little touched that he had remembered. "I generally like white, you generally like red, so we compromised."
"It is not just the same type of wine," Harry explained, slowly. "It is the exact wine we drank."
Ruth frowned.
"The same brand?"
"Same brand, same vendor, same vineyard, same batch, same barrel." He looked back down at his desk again and tapped his fingers against the file again, as he quickly fired of the next sentence. "I bought it from the restaurant the morning after we went. I thought it might be nice to have... for the future." Only once he was finished did he glance up, presumably to check that she was still in the room.
Ruth, who very much was still in the room, just stared. Inwardly, she was trying to reign in the sudden urge to walk around the desk, close the two feet or so between them and wrap her arms around his neck. She knew that he cared. She knew that he had imagined them together in the longer term, but to have done something like that on their first date... Had he really thought they would last, that early?
Outwardly, she could not help but let her face fall into an expression of surprise. Harry, being sweet. Harry, being hopeful. It was something she had not seen in him for a very long time. For the past few months, it had been all hardness towards the outside world and hurt longing towards her. Even in their gentler moments, he had been very guarded. This, this was opening up again. And she could not run, not this time – that would be incredibly unfair after promising she would be able to handle this.
Looking back down at the bottle, she ran her thumb over the neck of it.
"Thank you," she said, in a small voice. "That was incredibly thoughtful."
Harry shrugged and cleared his throat, clearly quite glad they weren't about to go into any more depth on the matter.
"I was trying to show off," he told her, dismissively.
Ruth's lips curved into a smile, despite the awkward, heart-fluttering nature of the situation.
"Well, you would have succeeded," she admitted to him.
"Good to know."
She raised her eyes.
He was smiling, just a little – smiling in that sad way he sometimes did on the rare occasions where he had talked about his children, or other good things which had come to an end. They were over, she realised, with a strange jerking feeling deep in her stomach. He was going to try and move past this and move on. It was as if the last few minutes of conversation had told him that that was what she wanted; that her anger, before, had not been an interlude to them healing as a couple. The expectation was gone from his gaze. The love was still there – though he hid it well, Ruth knew him and could see it plain as day – but the expectation that this his feelings were going to lead somewhere had all but vanished.
She shouldn't feel sorry, Ruth reminded herself, placing the bottle back in the bag alongside the other trinkets she had removed, and zipping it back together. (She would look through the rest when she was home). She had wanted this. She had wanted them to be on speaking terms again, without letting them get too close. Too close meant guilt and anger and shame. Too close meant risk and danger. They were good at a distance, they had always worked well as professional and professionally friendly. This was what she had wanted. So why did she feel like a small part of her was being ripped away, when the expectation had left his eyes?
It was only sensible he was giving up. She had hardly given him any reason to hope for more. Not a mention of how she still felt, not a hint at a future together, not a single request for dinner, or coffee, or a drink. If she did, Ruth thought, everything would tumble back into possibility again. Maybe in a couple of years she would be able to have a drink with him and for it not to be mistaken as a move towards something more than friendship, but she could not make that offer now – not without knowing what came with it. If she asked him out for a drink, now, that meant she was interested. That meant she wanted to rekindle things.
Giving her boss a tight smile, Ruth gathered the straps of the bag together and ran them through her fingers.
"I'll bring the bag back in tomorrow," she told him.
"No rush. It's my old gym bag." He gave a little wince. "As you might be able to tell, it doesn't get an awful lot of use."
Another helpless smile crawled onto Ruth's lips. Whatever else lay between them, he still made her laugh. He still made her feel good.
"Thank you," she told him, softly.
He nodded.
"You are most welcome."
They stood watching each other for a moment, then Ruth nodded firmly and turned back to the door. Tugging the bag onto her shoulder, she clicked off through to the Grid and settled back down at her desk. It was now just past twelve in the morning. For the first time in a long time, however, Ruth felt no desire to run home to escape the pressures of work. For the first time in a long time, she did not want to run because of the possibility of bumping into Harry. It was only a little step, but it was a step forwards. Things were getting better.
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