New mantra to self - do not write whilst hormonal - it's all far too emotional!
"What are you really going to tell me that I don't already know, Malcolm? That he loves me enough to give away a weapon that can kill millions?"
"You think he's selfish, that what he felt for you over rode what was right?"
"Yes, I do."
"Do you want him to love you, Ruth, or do the right thing? Which?"
"To do the right thing."
"Does that include protecting his officers?"
"To a point."
"And what if he decided to save one of them by giving away a bluff, a weapon that never worked? What about that, Ruth?"
"But it wasn't a bluff," she says.
"Wasn't it?"
"Malcolm…"
"Believe me, Ruth, it doesn't work. He sacrificed no lives for you."
Ruth sits and even though the hearse is arriving she does not move, she does not care about Lucas, she cares that Harry has not heaped the guilt of more death upon her.
"He's worn his heart on his sleeve for you for as long as I can remember. And he's always done the right thing. Do you know how difficult that's been for him?"
"He didn't lose his family, Malcolm," she says defensively.
"Didn't he?"
Malcolm looks at her challengingly. She glances away.
"You were his family, Ruth, you alone were the closest thing he had and he gave you up…" he glances as the undertakers lift the coffin from the car, "…twice."
It is not lost on her. Of course he never intended it to be.
"Malcolm?"
"He found out where you were."
Her eyes widen and demand more.
"By accident, a few months after you'd gone. Someone at 6 saw you in Polis."
"And told Harry?"
Malcolm nods.
They sit in silence for a few minutes.
"And he did nothing?" she says eventually, quietly, head bowed.
"He persuaded them they were mistaken, that he'd identified your body himself."
But Malcolm has misunderstood her meaning.
"He didn't come for me," she says and suddenly he is looking at the Ruth of years before, the girl, not the damaged woman he now knows.
"I wished he would. Spent so long imaging he would. Just… be there. Just appear and tell me it was all worked out, that I could home…with him."
Her eyes are filled with tears but she blinks them away.
"Naïve!" she states roughly, shaking her head and the Ruth of now is back.
"He watched you," says Malcolm.
'Watched me?'
"Booked the satellite feed. Until he found you."
Ruth gazes at him, waiting for more.
"It was a bad time, Ruth. He was in the middle of bad decisions, pulled in all directions and none of us, however willing, were the one he needed to talk to. I think it helped him, somehow, to see you."
"When was this, Malcolm?"
"About six months after you had gone."
A look of horror passes over her face.
"Is that how they knew where I was, Mani and the others, because of Harry?"
"No. No. It was Hillier who found out through the same man at 6."
Ruth nods slowly and then another heavy thought overtakes her and this one is worse.
"How long, Malcolm, how long did he watch me?'
"Not long," he knows she has guessed.
"Why did he stop?'
Malcolm takes a deep breath.
"He stopped because what was helping him get through the days began to tear him apart."
"…George," Ruth breathes.
"…George," echoes Malcolm.
"And still he didn't come," she says.
"He wanted to, he wanted nothing more, I think. But he couldn't put you in danger, he didn't want to drag you back into our world. He wanted you to live and be happy, Ruth. He saw you could be happy. He did what was right."
"And he could live with that?' she says a hint of bitterness in her voice.
Malcolm sighs.
"Has he ever told you about Davie King?'
Ruth shakes her head.
"He shot Harry."
She looks up.
"He was wearing a vest. It was a risk but in all probability it would be a body shot. That's what he told us. Until Jo found out that almost all King's kills were headshots. Harry knew they were."
She sits motionless.
"He gave you up twice, Ruth and always because he had to do the right thing regardless of how he felt. And he felt. Now, do you still think him selfish?"
Ruth didn't answer this time, instead her head fell onto Malcolm's chest and she let the tears come, the ones she'd learnt to blink away.
Conversation with the man himself, I think next.