I do hope this isn't too drawn out but I did my best!

Ruth was curled up on her sofa in pyjamas covered with a blanket, staring into space and mulling over what a disaster her life had become. It had been three days since Ilya had been shot dead, or at least that was the way she thought of it. Rather than three days since she last saw Harry. Dimitri had told her that once Mark had identified Ilya Gavrik, he hadn't been too hard to track down. By all accounts Mark had been absolutely terrified over what he'd done and hadn't argued when Callum had asked for his help. Within the past few days she had left the house once, to file her divorce papers, which miraculously had been found still intact.

Her doorbell rang but she ignored it. Her front door was unlocked anyway, so if they really wanted to talk to her they'd just come in. The doorbell rang a second time and Ruth heard Erin's voice resonate through her house. "Come on Ruth, I know you're in there. At least let me in so I can talk to you."

"Its unlocked," she called back. She heard the door handle turning and Erin's footsteps along the hallway. The younger woman came into the living room and looked at Ruth sadly. "Shouldn't you be at work?" Ruth said.

"Yes," Erin replied. "You look terrible," she added honestly.

"I look how I feel," Ruth replied.

"Have you been to see him?"

"No," she said quickly.

"Ruth, he has a cracked rib and has just been discharged from hospital this morning and you haven't even been to visit him?"

"No I haven't because he doesn't want to see me," Ruth said surely. "If I were him, I wouldn't want to see me either. I can't blame him, its entirely my fault."

"What happened in that room?" Erin asked quietly. "Neither you nor Harry are saying a word about it but you both look devastated. What happened?" Ruth paused. She didn't know if she wanted to talk about it but she knew Erin wasn't going anywhere so she decided to talk.

"Ilya Gavrik said he wanted to kill us because of what Harry had done in the past. He didn't want anything else except us dead, so we had nothing to bargain with. I tried to find an alternative," Ruth said thinking it through out loud for the first time since they'd been freed. "Ilya wanted to break Harry, and he told us what he was going to do. He said he was going to kill me while Harry watched, and then murder Harry too. I did the only thing I could think of to buy us time. I tried to make Gavrik believe that our relationship was negligible. Insignificant… I said the most awful things about our relationship. That I didn't care about him, that I'd never loved him and worse which I'm not going to repeat. It worked, in so far as Gavrik believed what I was saying. But so did Harry. I thought he'd know that I was saying this to buy us time, I wasn't saying these things because they were true but the look on his face… I will never forget how completely betrayed he looked when I said those horrible things. He will never forgive me and he won't be able to trust me ever again either."

"I'm sorry," Erin said sincerely. "I didn't know. But he knows you. He knows the way you look at him on the grid, even I see that. Are you sure…"

"Yes, I'm sure," she said glumly. "I wish there was even the slightest space for doubt but there isn't."

"You should be explaining this to him, not to me," Erin said.

"I can't bring myself to face him," she replied honestly.

"Yes, but every second you waste is another second he is spending thinking those things are true," Erin said. Ruth shook her head sadly. "What's the worst that could happen? You can't possibly leave his house in a worse situation than you're in right now." Ruth contemplated her words and saw the logic in them. "Get up, get dressed and go and see him. What have you got to lose?"

Ruth knocked on Harry's door and waited, her heart thumping uncomfortably hard in her chest. She heard heavy footsteps and braced herself for whatever he might say. The door opened and neither said a word as they stared into each others eyes. He backed away from the door and let her in, still without a word. She followed him through to his kitchen and saw him pour himself a whisky. A whisky which was far too large for this early in the day, but she said nothing.

"Getting lonely were you?" Harry asked lowly, taking a sip.

Ruth closed her eyes as she felt the guilt swamp her. "Everything I said to Ilya, you have to know I didn't mean it."

"You were very convincing," he said and she hated the fact that he still wasn't looking at her as he sat down.

"Of course I was convincing," Ruth said sitting opposite him on the other side of the table. "I had to be. I was trying to buy us time. I didn't want to die, and I didn't want you to either."

"Ruth…"

"I mean it," she said. "I hated having to say it but I couldn't think of anything else that would stop him from killing or torturing me in front of you. Which was something I was trying to avoid."

"Answer me something then," Harry said, his eyes locking with hers for the first time in days. She hated the cold ice she saw there. A gaze she rarely saw from his eyes, and never before directed at her. "You were right. You said no when I asked you to marry me. Why?"

"Because it was impulsive," Ruth said immediately. "You asked me out of the blue. It was a complete surprise, and as much as I wanted to say yes, I couldn't because the last time I'd been impulsive in love, it was a complete disaster, and I didn't want that with you."

"But you also said that you hadn't bothered looking for Mark to get a divorce. Everything you said to Ilya was true. That's what made it so incredibly believable Ruth. And that is why it hurt so much."

"If you had proposed to me again, I would have got his signature. I'd already started looking for him on the quiet at the grid. Check my terminal history if you don't believe me."

"Oh God," he said to himself. "I don't know Ruth, I don't know what to believe anymore. You said…" She smiled to herself, knowing what he was thinking but didn't have the courage to say.

"I said that you were bad in bed? I actually thought that would be the screaming giveaway to you that I was lying through my teeth. I only said that as a tell, to try and let you know I was lying. You looked so hurt, and that just made it worse which wasn't my intention. You know how much I enjoy it when you make love to me. You do know that." Silence spread out between them and he finished his whisky. "I love you Harry," she said simply. "I owed you an explanation and I wanted you to know the truth. I don't regret what I did because we're both alive and I didn't know how long it would take Erin to find us. I would do it again if the result was that you stayed alive because of it. But I know that you will never be able to trust me again, or forgive me for the horrible lies I said that morning. So I'm going to leave you to it and go."

She stood up but felt his fingertips on the back of her hand which was resting on the kitchen table. She froze, not wanting to say or do anything that would make the touch end.

"Wait," he whispered. "Just… stay. For a little bit."

"Okay," she replied quietly. Slowly she sat back down, making sure their hands always stayed touching. She turned her hand over and held his lightly, their eyes connecting.

"I do forgive you," he said after a minute of silence. "I'd forgive you even if you had meant it because I… I just can't do otherwise. I loved you for years from a distance, and I loved you more in the past two months than I thought possible."

She ran a thumb across his scraped knuckles while she thought of something and her eyes filled with tears, much to his surprise. "You're saying "loved," Harry. Past tense. I don't want it to be past tense for us ever, but especially over things I said that were lies."

"I don't mean it that way Ruth," he said honestly. "I do love you. It was hard to hear my own insecurities thrown back at me by the woman I love. But I know why you did it and I know that the reason has nothing to do with me."

"That sums it up pretty nicely actually," she said with a small smile. "What insecurities?"

"That I'm older than you," he said quietly. "That you won't trust me because of the affairs I've had in the past. Insecurities like those."

"I can't believe after all this you're worried that I won't trust you. I thought it would be the other way around. I do trust you," she said. "But I do want to know why you never told me about your son."

"Because I'm a lousy father," Harry said honestly. "I am a bad father to the son I acknowledge, and to be bluntly honest I didn't think about Sasha more than in passing. He doesn't know me and he never needed me. His mother… I did… love Elena once, it wasn't just sex. But I checked up on her son from time to time and I knew that he never went without. Ilya treated him well. I don't often think about him, and recently you've been occupying my thoughts in my spare time rather than anything or anyone else. Which might make me a terrible man as well as a bad father but it's honest."

"We all make mistakes," Ruth said quietly. "I do think you should keep an eye on him though. As both of his parents are now dead."

"I will," he said. Harry seemed a little tense and she guessed why.

"Your age doesn't matter to me," she said quietly. "If that's what's worrying you. It doesn't mean anything at all."

"Are you sure?" he asked looking so hurt, vulnerable and fragile. Something no one ever saw from Harry Pearce. She let go of his hand but only so she could go around the other side of the table. She leaned over him and kissed him, lips melding against each other as her hands caressed his face. When the kiss ended their faces were only a few millimetres apart, breath whispering over each others lips. She stayed perfectly still, waiting for him to either push him away or kiss her again. She felt her heart leap as his lips met hers for a second time in a soft, gentle and heartbreakingly wonderful kiss.

However about a minute later her heart sank to the floor as he pushed her away. "No, its not you," he said breathlessly. "Just my rib," he said. "You were leaning against it."

"Oh God, sorry," she said sincerely, backing away. He smiled slightly. A well remembered Harry smile. She pressed a light kiss on his cheek before sitting back down. And she soon found that she was smiling too.

What do you think? There will probably be an M rated piece along with this but otherwise I think thats the end! I'd love a last review and thanks for reading.