9. Ruth's flat. 19:30 hours.

It had taken Ruth much longer than she had thought it would to get away from the driver's anxious family. He himself, groggy on pain-killers and about to go into surgery, had tried to apologise for his slow reactions and unthinking behaviour that had put he and Towers in danger but she had assured him that everything was fine and he needed to concentrate on getting well. Then the man's wife and three young children arrived and chaos descended until the medical staff had bundled him off to surgery, after which the young mother – she appeared to be well under 30, leaving Ruth feeling suddenly, unaccountably old – had collapsed in a quivering mess, causing the children to panic in turn. That had needed all of the older woman's people skills to bring back under control.

Now it was gone seven o'clock and she was finally dragging herself up the stairs to her small flat. It was the same one she had moved into after she had returned from Cyprus and George had – died. The same one she had briefly shared with Beth Bailey. And it was still as impersonal as it had been the day she had arrived. Supplied fully furnished by her employer it was neat and comfortable enough but had never felt like home and, for some reason, she had never tried to make it home, either. She had bought little with her on her return and everything that had been sent to her by George's family after their house had been sold had remained either in storage or been dispensed with. This evening, looking around as she dropped her bag in the tiny entry, kicked her shoes off and headed, like Harry, for the kitchen, she saw its impersonal presentation, felt its emptiness – and smiled to herself, thinking of an almost-as-tiny but full of character cottage almost within sight of the sea in Suffolk. The cottage she had put an offer on last weekend. The cottage that would be perfect to share with someone very particular.

Opening the fridge, she pulled out the remains of a bottle of pinot gris, poured the contents into a glass and flopped onto one of the seats at the dining table while she considered the day. First, still feeling slightly dislocated in her new job and surroundings, there had been that sinking feeling of realising Harry was acting out at least part of whatever it was that he hadn't wanted her involved in. And then had come the discovery of exactly what it was. She re-lived the phone call to him and cringed at what she had said, particularly in relation to Elena Gavrik, and how it had probably come across to him. His former subordinate now trying to pull rank on him and using a personal accusation to do it. No wonder he had been so short with her.

She buried her face in her hands for a moment, wondering where it had all gone wrong, how she had ended up so bitter and twisted on a personal level that it had affected her work, how she had been unable to disengage her feelings and remain professional. It all went back to Cyprus, of course, and she ticked off the causes in her mind:

the anger at the events that had landed her there, in a new identity and new life, in the first place;

the desperation and loneliness that had seen her grab the first half-way decent man who had come along and take the opportunity he had offered to try to resurrect some facsimile of the happy family she had enjoyed as a child, complete with the man sharing the same profession as her father;

the creeping sense of guilt that she had begun to feel as the man and boy got more serious about her than she was about them and she realised she was going to have increasing difficulty in lying to them, for the rest of her life, about her past and that it might be better for everyone if she slipped away before it was too late;

and then the denouement, of course. All three ripped out of their Mediterranean idyll when the ink was barely dry on the ownership of their cottage, angry and on the run, two of the trio with absolutely no idea of what was happening; kidnapped, held at gun-point, the shock of seeing Harry again, bound and beaten, her terrified babbling of what she knew and its failure to save George's life, the momentary terror when Lucas and Ros had come bursting in behind a hail of bullets, Nico's mix of fear and loathing towards her before he, now an orphan, had been shipped back to the remains of his family, and her massive, soul-destroying guilt over the whole thing. Dragging them in, in the first place, as she floundered about, looking for an external life-raft for her own ruined life; then keeping them there because she didn't have the nerve to do the right thing, or to come to terms with the necessity of a permanent lie; finally dragging them to their destruction while she survived.

She lifted her face and stared at her glass as she did something she rarely allowed herself: remember those days in Cyprus. George had been a good man and he had loved her. He was funny and kind and thoughtful , not much older than she was and equally lonely so, thinking she would never return to London, she had been flattered by his attention and allowed herself to fall into the relationship for all that she liked him more than loved him. They had been comfortable and happy enough, until he started to get serious and she started to get guilty because of the permanent lie about her history and her perception that it was unfair of her to not match his intensity of feeling. She had actually been wondering what, if anything, to do about it all that day, while setting out lunch in the hot, dappled, lemon-scented sunlight and with Nico splashing about in the pool, when Mani's crew had arrived and made the decision for her.

And then there was Harry. In her grief and guilt, she had, without admitting it, blamed him for the end of her previous life and compounded it by blaming him for the even earlier act of keeping her on when her duplicity for GCHQ had been discovered (she shook her head: it had been Tom Quinn's decision, she later found out. Harry had left the decision on what to do with her to him) followed by blaming him for telling her about the uranium in the first place and then, sensibly, moving it again once she was gone to her new life; and the final, completely unfair, blame, the one she had put on him since the events of her return, the one that made him solely responsible for what had happened that day as well as for making her love him all those years ago and for making her realise she still loved him, regardless; the one that had seen her punish him, relentlessly, for her own culpability and guilt.

Tears slid down her cheeks, silently, helplessly, for all of it. All the guilt, all the anger, all the missed and mis-communication, all the pain, of the past half-decade. And for how it had all come roaring back in full force a few weeks ago with the appearance of Clan Gavrik. After the mess that was the unmasking of John Bateman and Albany and the shock it had engendered, she had made a conscious decision to put the past where it belonged, accept responsibility for what was hers and make a genuine attempt to move forward into a worthwhile future. One that included her erstwhile boss, if he would forgive her. Miraculously, he had seemed inclined to and, during the course of his euphemistically named 'gardening leave', they had begun to talk, properly, working through their self-imposed walls and cautiously feeling their way to a new understanding. For a few weeks it had been wonderful, full of promise. Then Ilya Gavrik had turned up, with his unpleasant family, the past had reared its ugly head again…and she had found it easier to return to the old thought patterns of anger and blame. Returning to the personal instead of using their tentative new openness and her much-vaunted analytical skills to consider other alternatives, including the one where what he was saying might actually be true. It had been a honey-trap gone wrong and his prickly response to her reaction to the news about Sasha should have told her that any genuine love he felt had been towards the boy he thought was his, not the woman who was the mother.

Well, after this afternoon, she understood the miscalculation she had made and had seen the truth in both the devastation on his face when he had been presented with reality and then the icy, controlled fury as he had been released of any obligation towards either Elena or Sasha: she could almost hear it when his mind had changed gear. She had seen, and felt shamed. Still felt ashamed. Wiping the tears from her face, she swallowed a slug of the wine and forced herself to move on, considering the rest of the day's events.

She had still been infuriated with him at the start of the meeting with the Americans. By the end, she was chastened so when the opportunity arose later to take part in the fishing expedition to hook Sasha she had been happy to take it, at least in part as reparation for her recent reactions. Her initial angry reaction to that had been genuine and was out of her mouth before she had a chance to think so she was then profoundly glad that Towers had intervened and given her an opportunity to back-pedal before she had completely destroyed her own resolution. She had maintained her reluctance as a show for both men because she didn't want the truth to come out too quickly: that she was already missing the adrenaline rush of the Grid and had felt largely side-lined during the meeting at Grosvenor Square, something she found she didn't like. Once she had squashed her habitual reaction and 'allowed' herself to be talked into it, the sense of excitement had started to build. She was getting one last chance to go out and be a field spook and she was determined to make it a success.

It had been strange, working inside the CIA, if only momentarily, but then that was over and she was approaching the car, terror building after Tallulah's murmured information on Sasha's whereabouts. It had been funny, though: once Sasha had sprung his attack she had calmed down and actually enjoyed taking control and achieving the desired outcome safely and efficiently. The sound of the bomb had rattled her again – she hadn't expected it to be close enough to hear – but at least it had given her the chance to get rid of Gavrik Junior. She had just been congratulating herself when the message came through and had initially barely glanced at it before the words 'injured' and 'hospital' had registered, followed almost instantly by Calum's whisper in her ear that the bombing hadn't quite gone to plan.

That had set off another adrenaline rush as she made for the hospital, ringing Harry on the way and using a tone that she realised later was a little peremptory to question him about what had gone wrong. They hadn't had any opportunity to talk at the hospital and he had been long gone by the time she had finished with the distraught young wife and children so now here she was, sitting alone in her kitchen and wondering what was going to happen next. She would have liked to have talked to Harry and considered, briefly, ringing him but didn't: she hoped he had understood that most of her comments during the afternoon had been aimed at Sasha but, with their history, didn't want to guarantee it. Lifting her glass she realised it was empty so splashed the last little bit of wine into it and sighed, wondering what he was doing right now. Probably the same as her but out of a differently shaped bottle. For a moment she allowed herself to indulge in wondering what it would be like if they were winding down together, in that light, sunny little room looking out over an overgrown garden in a small cottage near the sea with a front door featuring peeling green paint. And the wondering was good. So good that she knew she had to make it come true and understood that it was within her power. He had said as much, on that park bench, but she, mis-hearing and mis-interpreting as usual, had ignored it, choosing to focus on working out what he might have meant instead of accepting it for the blunt statement that it undoubtedly was. And he had followed it up this afternoon with that gentle joke against himself.

There was still hope, then, especially after the little retirement bombshell he had dropped in the car earlier: that comment had most definitely not been for Sasha's benefit. It had been for hers. That brought her back to the cottage, which she was expecting to hear back about any day. The first half-opportunity that came up, she was going to do her damnedest to bring the two together. Looked at dispassionately, after everything that had been thrown at him during his life, it was a wonder the man was still standing at all, let alone still sane. She would pile no more angst on him, on them; instead, she would build them a new future, a peaceful, happier future, together.